2023-10-14
Readings
On how old hyperfragile scrolls can be read without being unrolled:
Dolphins have some human-like social behaviour, building social bonds through shared feasts: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-dolphin-friendships-fishy-feast.amp
Quantum algorithms for video segmentation (interesting to see people finding ways to make quantum computers useful; right now they’re a bit too much like games that need 3d goggles): https://techxplore.com/news/2023-10-quantum-algorithm-segmentation-grayscale-videos.html
Enzymes in a variety of organisms that act like a natural CRISPR: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-thousands-programmable-dna-cutters-algae-snails.html
Efforts to lessen immune rejection for cross-species transplants (unclear whether this or growing organs from one’s own stem cells or reverse-specialised other cells will arrive first): https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10-monkey-survives-years-genetically-pig.html
CERN is trying to formalise science tourism of its facilities with a Science Gateway center (I’d love to see this someday): https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/cern-opens-science-gateway
Thoughts
Would it be possible to break people by using generative ML to show them fake recent footage of themselves, gaslighting them? It’s not hard to demonstrate to people (without lying) that their memory is faulty and limited. With lying “substantiated” by generative ML, I wonder how disconnected people could be made from their memories, and how horrible the result would be
Idran Ofer recently quit the executive board of Harvard’s school of Government because he wanted it to more publicly take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In my view his stance is deeply misguided - it is generally a mistake for a business or most kinds of public org to take sides on current events or politics. Expecting or pressuring them to do so hurts society, making things worse for employees who don’t agree with those stances. Likewise, Stanford and Harvard recently saw some controversial efforts to put a spotlight on students who signed a pro-Palestinian petition; so long as this spotlight doesn’t suggest violence or retribution, that’s fine, although we’ve seen some businesses expressing an interest in not hiring people who signed such petitions, and that’s not healthy; there should be a wide gap between the politics people express in their personal life and their career prospects. Whatever the issue.
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with Russia making a play for the mostly-abandoned eastern city of Avdivka. Diplomatic efforts to transfer frozen Russian economic assets to Ukraine are underway in the G7, while the Russian Olympic committee’s attempts to legitimise its occupation led the IOC to suspend the Russian body.
The Israel-Palestine conflict remains hot, with Israel sieging Gaza and settler movements seeing the war as an excuse to step up their abuses in the West Bank. Hamas continues with (generally greater) abuses of its own. Political/social responses to the war in western countries face enormous pressure to be entirely pro-Israel (in my view unjustly so; the opposite would also be in error)
NASA launched a mission called Psyche to visit a metallic body in the Asteroid Belt.
https://psyche.asu.edu/
Australia rejected a referendum on aboriginal rights that would’ve created a nondemocratic body of advisors meant to represent aboriginal tribes; in my view its rejection is fortunate, because as a general principle giving special representation to certain ethnicities goes against principles of equality
New Zealand had a general election, with a gigantic power shift from incumbent (centre-left) Labour to the (centre-right) National Party (which will need to form a coalition government)
Polls
I am disappointed but not surprised to see polls substantiate ( https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/13/most-jewish-americans-have-long-standing-connections-to-israel/ ) that many Jewish-Americans see a strong tie to Israel as important; in my view it’s better for people of whatever ethnicity to discard ties to ancestral homelands (and in general for such places to give up on ethnonationalism). A full commitment to civic nationalism isn’t compatible with a belief in homelands (whatever the specifics).
Interesting poll on friendship in the US ( https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/12/what-does-friendship-look-like-in-america/ ) - I’ve struggled to manage friendships over the last decade, but I had hoped that my difficulties (presumably partly genetic, partly due to some childhood trauma) were relatively rare. The poll suggests 8% of people say they have no close friends. That’s a lot.
Policy Focus
A California court has ruled that Facebook’s targeted advertisements violate antidiscrimination provisions (a mid-40s woman sued over not being shown ads for life insurance policies). I think this is bad policy for several reasons, but the idea that someone might want to see ads and be feel a loss that they’re excluded from seeing particular ones is probably the most amusing part of it all. It’s not hard to do product research on this kind of thing, and doing so will produce better results than being hypnotised by the nonsense marketers shove in one’s face. Targeted ads don’t benefit consumers. She claims that the ads are tied to time-limited deals, but even these are part of an engine of harm that marketing and sales together compose. I don’t want this decided on free speech grounds (I don’t think it’s healthy to treat corporations as if they have free speech), but I also don’t want her complaint to be seen as if it has any merit.
It’s good to see California experiment with hard paternalism to address its homelessness issues; I suspect getting the policies right will take a lot of iteration, but I think it will eventually yield results: https://apnews.com/article/california-newsom-mental-health-conservatorship-baef68d08e1f8fd57869f40db2f2adce
I think there’s a good policy argument to the idea that public figures should be less able to sue for libel, because public commentary is societally healthy. Whether such argument should come about through court reasoning is an interesting question (although I tend to be pretty deferential to decisions like this knowing that congress could alter such decisions, provided the reasoning isn’t said to be implied by the Constitution itself (a higher bar is needed there): https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/10/politics/new-york-times-sullivan-libel-defamation-law-supreme-court-case/index.html
Reviewlets
Bayonetta (video game) - Unfortunately the default mapping for a gamepad (on PC) is bad, and there’s no in-game way to remap it. I like the style of the game, but gave up very early on when I noticed this (the UI also really, really feels like it’s 20 years old). I hope eventually Sega and Sony decide to remake this and release the rest of the series for PC
Sparklite (video game) - Cute and semi-casual game reminiscent of Zelda 1 or Zelda 3, with a bit more of a focus on saving up to buy things.
Red Dead Redemption 2 (video game) - I’m not fond of the main character, and the game’s realistic enough that I’m weirded out by what he does. Good game engine though, and lots of style. I’ve heard this described as a redemption story, so maybe if I stick with it, if, then it’ll get better; I’m still fairly early into it.
Google Nexus 8 Pro (cellphone) - Got this as a replacement for my Nexus 6 Pro; the ML-based features that use the accelerated hardware are kind of neat, but there’s nothing remarkably better and Google’s Android defaults continue to get worse (most things are fiable with some quality time in various preferences; not everything though and Google’s awful efforts to make it easier for advertising to be part of the user experience infuriates me.
Amusements
Perhaps topical, perhaps not: old Onion joke about “Bring Your Daughter to War Day”:
I don’t watch a lot of TV, and generally don’t see adverts. Recently I came across this bit for the recent-ish Super Mario Brothers movie, styled strongly after the theme to the old Super Mario Brothers Super Show (with Lou Albano the wrestler as Mario). I’m all in.
It’s likely a bit fanciful, but this attempts to cover a regional US dialect from the founding of the country to modern times:
Tiny apartments continue to amuse:
I recently stumbled across the name of this old DOS game I remember from my childhood; we had the disk labelled “Jumpman” but that was probably a mislabel.
Recent Music
Back to Clejani - Taraf De Haidouks - I’m trying to figure out why I can almost immediately tell that it’s not Klezmer music (it’s Romani), despite having a lot of similar elements
Armageddon - Sagisu/Mali - A strange and hard-to-find rap cover of Pachelbel’s Canon, I think written for the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion (which had a surprising set of emotionally charged music associated with it - see also the song “Komm Susser Tod”, set to the same song)
It Roars - Mean Girls Musical Soundtrack - It’s a very simple song, about as unsophisticated as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s stuff, distinguished only by an interesting set of instruments. Still enjoyable, and I find the theme of trying to break into a pack (and the sung resistance to that and Cady deciding to plow on ahead) to be fun.