2023-09-09
(there is a chance I will miss next weekend’s entry due to planned travel to a jazz festival)
Readings
Study of existing samples and modelling suggests Mars has less mineral composition variety than Terra: https://phys.org/news/2023-09-mars-minerals-earth.amp
Using machine learning to predict optimal conditions for certain chemical reactions: https://phys.org/news/2023-09-machine-tool-widely-reactions-pharmaceutical.amp
Claims of a form of glial cell that can release neurotransmitters that can influence nearby neurons: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-discovery-kind-cell-neuroscience.amp
I recently heard about the graveyard orbit, where satellites and debris are parked indefinitely when they’re no longer useful but it’s not desirable to have them present in a useful orbit; interesting that we’re developing these conventions, and hopefully we’re getting the decisions right: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_orbit
Towards swarm motion in active matter: https://phys.org/news/2023-09-physicists-mysteries-microtubule-movers.amp
Radar probes of Luna from India’s rover: https://phys.org/news/2023-08-penetrating-radar-aboard-change-rover.amp
Neptune’s weather loss and its origin in Sol: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/hubble-neptunes-disappearing-clouds-linked-to-the-solar-cycle
Also Neptune, a dark spot detected on it: https://phys.org/news/2023-08-mysterious-neptune-dark-earth.amp
Thoughts
I was recently bothered to see that Bumble revised its terms to try to be a more inclusive community, and the new terms are pretty vague and aim to also cover behaviour that’s not online. I suspect a lot of the hard discussions of what people want in a partner don’t and cannot fit well within the context of “we are a validating community” kind of thing that Bumble’s new terms suggest - if someone’s not into fat people, or wants people who are not of a certain faith, or they want to exclude asexuals, or something like that, they’re not going to be sure if they can express that on a dating profile (or on a date) because of the wording and vibes (leading to interpretation). And that’s unfortunate; generally being inclusive is overrated (being tolerated is great, but going beyond is not), but in the realm of dating (or even friends) it’s unreasonable on its face. (yes, I’m on some dating sites)
One of the first realities of being in a competitive political system (which I generally support) is that pols need to take stances and be responsible for them, and that any of these stances will potentially alienate voters. And that voters need to be reasonable about this and not treat too many stances as absolute disqualifiers because they rarely get to design their own candidate from scratch. Ideally politically active people should also take such stances in their personal lives and argue for them (but not to an obsessive level, and maintaining social ties with people of varying views). I find it really irritating when people, particularly pols but also just people, can’t handle the tradeoffs of meaning and alienation and hide their stances - politicians who don’t publish a platform (or who have nothing substantial on it) are useless. We send politicians to office to have stances and to negotiate their inclusion into a broader consensus (alongside the technical, managerial, and social competence to do the other parts of the job which are often even more important).
This week I went to see a show by a comic I like, Taylor Tomlinson. I admire the bravery it takes to get up in front of an audience and perform, knowing that a serious slip-up or brain-freeze could really mess things up. I’ve given talks and taught, but generally they’re low risk because I take every precaution. I don’t think that works with comedy or music. In high school, I did that music thing - after some time as a disappointing violinist, I switched to being a decent String Bass player, and eventually I and the other lead Bassist in my school’s orchestra got bored at the usual support roles that instrument always gets, so in one of the regular competitions our Orchestra went to, we entered ourselves in a made-up category of Bass Duet, and the judges rolled with it. We did BWV1043 (Concerto for two violins), with our high school conductor searching and eventually finding sheet music for it transposed down into Bass Clef. And it worked. It was damned hard, and way more nervous than what we normally did, but I’m glad we did it. I have no idea if we were any good (we were the only people in our made-up category). I don’t know if I’ve generally taken risks like that since - probably not often, and none of that form come to mind.
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with Russia stepping up attempts to get external military aid from unusual sources including Cuba and North Korea. Elon Musk continues to be an erratic and stupid actor in the conflict, deciding to make Starlink unavailable for operations against Russia’s invsion fleet, to “avoid escalation”. Russia is holding sham elections in occupied areas.
An earthquake in Morocco killed over two thousand people, injuring thousands more and destroying homes and infrastructure.
Japan launched a lunar mission named “Moon Sniper”
Polls
International Poll on India’s Favourability and leadership ( https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/08/29/views-of-india-lean-positive-across-23-countries/ ) - I generally have favourable but complex views of India, appreciating its culture and food, seeing it as a country that’s still developing in rule of law, and seeing Modi as being a terrible leader for the country who highlights its worst impulses (like hindutva). I hope its future leadership will be more like Congress and less like BJP; with too long under BJP the country will lose most of what makes it special.
International poll on the United Nations ( https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/31/people-across-24-countries-continue-to-view-un-favorably/ ) - I generally see the main purpose of the UN as important and positive if difficult, while noting that a number of other goals have gotten tacked onto the side that probably don’t belong there and noting that the structure is both misstructured and possibly hard to structure correctly (that two members of the security council either are invading or plan to invade another nation is not something anticipated). I additionally am amused and a little delighted at Israeli discomfort with the UN; the focus may be unfair, but ethnonations are something that don’t belong in the modern world.
Policy Focus
Recently there has been debate in the US about using part of the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from running for office again, based on a bar on anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion" after taking an oath of office to defend the Constitution. In my view, this reveals a weakness in the drafting of that Constitutional Amendment - while Trump’s efforts to hamper and then ignore the election in the waning bits of his Presidency are very serious and ideally should bar him from office (and have many of his coconspirators, false electors included, in jail for a long time), the 14th Amendment doesn’t include a mechanism for who makes the call, on what criteria exactly it is made, or how the effect works. It fits the flavour of early American law, and something ideally we never would’ve had need to dig into.
It’s interesting to see Europe working to regulate tech powerhouses that are cultural gatekeepers under new European legislation; some of their past regulation has in my view been a mistake in intent, some in implementation, and some only partly so in either. I’m open to seeing some kinds of regulations put on companies and the criterion existing. Wondering how the specifics will work out: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/6/23859570/european-union-commission-digital-markets-act-gatekeepers-apple-google-meta-microsoft
Reviewlets
Soonish (comedic science entertainment book) - Reasonably funny, with a few metaphors that don’t actually help with understanding (most notably, why adding neutrons to hydrogen makes fusion easier). It’s just okay, or maybe I’m just not excitable right now.
Rhapsody II and Rhapsody III (video games) - Both from Nippon Ichi (which makes some series I really love), both disappointing in opposite ways. R2 is just a PC port with no effort to update it at all (or at least nothing I can easily see). Fonts look awful on modern screens, the game engine is creaky as hell, and apart form the graphics the combat is just weird and bad. R3 is a far better game and a better remake, really cute, and promises depth, until you find out that it’s a bunch of disconnected stories with everything discarded between them. It’s a pity they put in the effort to give R3, a game that probably should’ve just been forgotten, a really nice port when its core design prevents it from being a good game.
Lost Sphear (video game) - A 2018 Square Enix game, this has a few interesting ideas, a meh colour pallet, and seems mostly just okay so far. I’m not exactly uninterested, but not exactly hooked either. After having given it about an hour, I’m cool with setting it down until I finish some other games in the queue.
Amusements
A weather presenter makes a joyous discovery on-air:
Open source developers make an unpopular (and stupid) decision and need to close off comments on it: https://github.com/hotwired/turbo/pull/971
Creepy and fascinating first issue of a fashion magazine with entirely “AI” generated human models: https://www.businessinsider.in/retail/news/an-ad-consultant-used-ai-to-create-a-fashion-magazine-but-found-it-nearly-impossible-to-avoid-too-perfect-images/amp_articleshow/103440514.cms