2023-09-30
Readings
Cory Doctorow writes on parts-pairing, a harmful practice that’s usually part of lock-in that vendors do to shut out independent repairs: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/
Meditations on friendship https://www.startrek.com/news/guide-to-making-friends-obrien-bashir
A kind of Maxwell’s Demon-like membrane technique to separate molecules: https://phys.org/news/2023-09-molecules-requires-lot-energy-nanoporous.html
Towards low-maintenance low-investment desalination: https://news.mit.edu/2023/desalination-system-could-produce-freshwater-cheaper-0927
Using mice to investigate the hygiene hypothesis: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-allergy-dirty-mice-hygiene-hypothesis.html
Towards an RNA-editing equivalent of CRISPR: https://phys.org/news/2023-09-enzyme-rna-virus-genomes.html
A fun point about Kowloon Walled City - people build their own (probably) differing maps based on need; this actually maps well to neuroscience, just with less sharability:
Thoughts
I am weirded out at the willingness of some parents to want their photos to be attractive lies rather than accurate records we have to live with ( https://www.androidpolice.com/google-pixel-8-face-swap-dream/ ), here particularly about a Google phone feature offering to change facial expressions of people using ML. There’s a small benefit that it will get people more used to the idea that photos can be easily manipulated, but having the actual intent to do it feels revisionist and weird. I can’t be too hardline about this, given how my parents often insisted that I and my three siblings pose for unnatural and solemn photos, but at least the effort to get those left a memory of that posing; it represented reality at that time, as forced as it was.
Weird scifi daydream: people in an office suddenly find the elevators won’t take them to the ground floor, and the stairs have a blank wall there; an announcement to employees: your minds have been digitised and you’ll continue to do the same work, but we’ve adjusted them so you no longer need to rest, no longer hunger, no longer age, no longer need the outside world. Your need for a future shouldn’t really matter anymore - you’re now just part of a device that will produce the same output the biological entities your minds were copied from would have done. And .. the workers mostly don’t panic, for it is for most of them true.
Current Events
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, with Ukraine striking at Russian naval bases while Russia attempts to do PR to sell its genocide to the west. Ukraine is increasingly using drones to attack Russian military targets as well as infrastructure near the Ukraine border, while it also breaks through Russian lines and strikes at bases in occupied Crimea
NASA successfuly (probably wastefully) brought some asteroid samples to earth with its OSIRIX-REx spacecraft
China’s attempt to annex waters, in violation of international norms and agreements around economic zones, has brought it into conflict with the Philippines, in a continuation of the recent tensions over China’s attempts to push neighbours to accept its expansive claims
Azerbaijan’s formerly Russia-backed separatist district has given up on separatism, leading to a number of ethnic Armenians fleeing the region
Burkina Faso’s illegitimate government reported that a countercoup against it by portions of its military have failed
Serbia has been building its military presence at its border with Kosovo, possibly seeking to invade/reclaims it (I do not take a stance on Kosovo’s relatively recent claims of independence from Serbia)
The president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, has expressed his interest in continuing his illegitimate leadership into another term
Polls
A Pew Poll on how Americans view women in top-level political leadership roles ( https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/09/27/women-and-political-leadership-ahead-of-the-2024-election/ ) - while I think there are statistical differences between women and men as populations on a lot of behaviour (I remain noncommittal on to what degree this is cultural versus biological in some fashion), the world has known national leaders of both genders, with some of the female leaders having been real hardasses (Thatcher and Merkel being examples). Consequently, I don’t see gender as being particularly relevant to qualification for national leadership. My views on whether it’s actually important to see a woman POTUS are in the mainstream in the poll - I have no particular interest in the demographics of the role at this point, preferring to focus on qualifications, policy alignment, and character.
A Gallup Poll on how Americans self-classify on level/type of religiosity ( https://news.gallup.com/poll/511133/identify-religious-spiritual.aspx ) - interesting to see my group (neither religious nor spiritual) increase over the last 20-something years, albeit mildly. I tend to get along better with people who call themselves religious than those who call themselves spiritual, but I’m not hostile to either the religious or the spiritual exactly (although I’m potentially dismissive of their beliefs)
Policy Focus
NYC is set to experiment with sound detectors paired with cameras, mostly to cite drivers who have modified their cars to make them louder who drive through residential neighbourhoods (for lolz, or for street racing). I understand that mass surveillance can feel oppressive, but I think we’re also in an era when private distributed mass surveillance is possible (probably easy), so that ship has sailed. In the meantime, there’s a concrete social harm this might deal with (and one I find particularly irritating, my street commonly having very late night intentionally-loud drivers going by). https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-council-plans-to-fight-loud-streets-with-noise-cameras
The US possibly flirting once again with a government shutdown (and the usual stupidity that that’s even possible, much less a regular opportunity for policy-blackmail), it’s good to see some official recognition that this is not good for the US, and some possible attempts to permanently remove this feature of American politics: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/22/bipartisan-group-stop-government-shutdowns-00117679
Reviewlets
Authority (urban fantasy novel, second in a series) - Jeff Vandermeer - I like the boldness of the author in the second work; it builds on the story but not the tone of the first novel (so far), and continues to feed backstory at a measured rate. An interesting main character with only a few things in common with that of the first novel is another point for it
Elden Ring Official Art Book (volume 2) - I often like artbooks of games with deep lore and good art; this one opened strong, with some great character sketches (although they don’t go too deep, with characters generally having one or two). It moves on to weapons and armour, which were also beautifully depicted. There’s a forgivable-if-annoying weak ending where they tossed in some icons that are copies from the game itself, no embellishments or anything, but by that time I was already pretty satisfied with what I had seen so it wasn’t that bad and not too many pages were wasted on it. Overall glad I bought it.
Dr Catch humane mousetraps - somehow, despite living in a 5th floor walkup, I’ve been seeing mice inside my apartment, so I ordered these to humanely catch them. They work surprisingly well, and I’m surprised the smell of the previous stressed mouse doesn’t persist enough to keep the next mouse from hopping in; the device is sensitive enough that an almost weightless mouse triggers it, it’s clear with air holes, and at my leisure I can grab the device, take it outside, and release the (very cute) mouse a ways away from my building without feelings of guilt. Hoping this will eventually be enough to remove all of them.
Amusements
A cool and weird passion project caled Strandbeest, where large and beautiful mechanical “beasts” are powered by wind and seem to walk:
Corruption happens at small scales too, although it’s good to let people learn lessons from very local events and maybe this will help students reason about these things (in amusements because I find it very funny): https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/28/texas-am-student-president-impeached/
The NYC Department of Buildings continues to make dadjoke educational videos proudly, and it is glorious:
Recent Music
Bomba - Amsterdam Klezmer Band - Like a tour of an eccentric small town
Philo’s Groove - Chelsea Baratz - Really chill jazz; not quite chill enough for sleep, maybe a little too distracting for reading, but enough to relax
Gates of Duat - Nemuer - More neopagan, atmospheric pieces with chanting and strong beats.