2024-02-03
Readings
Proposal to have a telescope facility on Luna, which would not suffer atmospheric interference but would face supply and maintenance costs: https://phys.org/news/2024-01-nasa-massive-telescope-moon.amp
Approval for a space-based observatory for gravitational waves: https://phys.org/news/2024-01-space-based-gravitational-observatory-lisa.amp
A good essay on why a particular videgame that critiqued war games was significant:
High resolution 3D scan of The Girl with the Pearl Earring: https://petapixel.com/2023/11/21/108-gigapixel-3d-microscope-scan-of-vermeer-masterpiece-is-largest-ever/
How the original author of Clockwork Orange related to public perception over the book and later Kubrick’s film: https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-01-29/i-should-not-have-written-a-clockwork-orange-how-anthony-burgess-came-to-disown-his-own-novel.html?outputType=amp
Towards a recycling means for LDPE, a common plastic material (still would be better if we used these materials less): https://phys.org/news/2024-01-scientists-loop-recycling-widely-plastics.amp
The history of musical conducting:
Thoughts
I find this to be an interesting stab at the polyamory trend, which I’ve never taken part in but which I’ve known through friends over a few parts of my life; mostly college kids who eventually grew out of it but occasionally older polywebs that had persistent annoying drama; it never seemed healthy to me, but a lot of monogamous relationships also had their failings - my gut feel that polyamory isn’t something humans are generally suited to may be based on prejudice or too little data. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/polyamory-ruling-class-fad-monogamy/677312/
I haven’t signed on to a number of shifts in public acceptability on social issues from what I was raised with; I think some of these shifts impart meanings to things that were not there (e.g. trying to avoid the term “master” in source repos, which I think is just dumb because the term has substantial use in levels of a profession), and others are simply harmless (many of these were pushed by SJWs and ultimately rolled back as the mainstream wasn’t interested in changing their terms). I don’t generally believe in changing language for the sake of inclusion, particularly when people are drawing on thin associations that neither the speaker nor the mainstream thinks about anymore. Even things like blackface just don’t bug me at all, despite the early history of such. I’m annoyed that the film Forbidden Zone, a weird 1982 film that long predates a lot of these 2010-era new sensitivities, is now hard to find in non-censored forms, and that several other films I remember fondly either have content disclaimers or censorship; I neither want it to be hard for me to find things as I remember them nor do I want to feed these new sensitivities; most of these things they mark as harmful I don’t see as harmful at all (even when in some cases I’ve even internalised some of the hesitations - I don’t want future generations to carry these sensitivities forward).
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with new air defense systems from the west arriving and Ukraine General Zaluzhny likely out. Ukraine likely also sunk a Russian warship near Crimea. The EU finally bypassed Hungarian foot-dragging and passed another military aid package for Ukraine, as efforts to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine begin to move
The Israeli war on Gaza has spilled outwards, with the US attacking targets in Iraq and Syria with ties to Iran, which the US blames for the attacks on a US base in Jordan; in Israel-Palestine, Israel has won a PR coup by painting UNRWA, a UN agency supporting Palestinian civilians in Palestinian enclaves in Israel-Palestine, as complicit in Hamas’s attacks, leading to some western countries suspending funding. Attempts at a ceasefire and hostage trade are currently stalled over whether it should be permanent
Thailand’s courts seem unfortunately committed to the country’s backwards lese majeste law, not even allowing political efforts to reform or remove it: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/31/thai-court-rules-campaign-to-end-royal-insults-law-violates-constitution
I don’t take a stance on whether the Hindutva Watch org is reasonable, but it’s unfortunate to see India blocking access to it ahead of an election: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/31/hate-crime-tracker-hindutva-watch-blocked-in-india-ahead-of-national-vote
Polls
Pew is continuing to explore the theme of feelings of National Identity ( https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/01/18/language-and-traditions-are-considered-central-to-national-identity/ ) and my views are, again, fairly mainstream for a left-leaning-but-not-progressive American. I think the idea of national identity can be thought of separately from being a, by law, national of the US, and I’m not bothered by the bluntness of saying that particular people don’t really have our national identity even if they are a national. That’s fine, it’s important to be able to state the blunt bits of one’s world-outlook even if people don’t like it. Onto specifics, I again think it’s important to be able to speak English to share the American identity, but not necessarily at a first-language level. Sharing our more secular traditions/customs isn’t that important to me - not as important as a commitment to our values. Having been born or raised in the country is a fussy one for me; it puts someone in one classification or another and I think of people a little differently on both sides. I find being a member of the predominant religion as being entirely unimportant though. Although I suppose my not being a member of the predominant religion may have strongly implied that. Interesting to see that Pew also got the divide between left-leaning and right-leaning Americans on this and spotted a general trend among right-leaning responders to see all surveyed factors as being more significant to the national identity; I wonder if most people on the left either don’t distinguish being a national and sharing the national identity, or alternatively if most people on the left don’t have much of a concept of national identity at all.
Marist looks into generational differences on some topics in the US ( https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/big-generational-differences-on-legal-weed-climate-change-and-health-care/ ), noting that younger generations are more concerned on climate change, marginally more skeptical of marijuana use while bring for its legalisation anyway, and see healthcare as a government responsibility; I believe I’m classified as Generation X (I was born in 1978) and I am very concerned about climate change, I don’t think marijuana is addictive and I feel it should be legal (I’ve only tried it once and got no effect), and I would like to see nationally funded healthcare
Policy Focus
Some US States, in theory for various reasons but in my view mostly for political signalling, are attempting to legally define antisemitism ( https://2017-2021.state.gov/anti-semitism-conference-2020/ihra-working-definition-of-anti-semitism/ ), either using the (deeply flawed, because it touches on Israel) IHRA definition or some other specifics. In theory this could aid in US law in distinguishing hate crimes from other crimes, but I don’t think that’s actually necessary; the problems of having such a definition are much larger than those it might solve; bigotry (even when the term is well-used) doesn’t need precise legal definitions, and it’s unlikely that these efforts will produce an acceptable definition.
I don’t know whether the courts made the right call in this particular case of liability for the death of Robert Dotson when police visited the wrong house, saw him answer the door with a gun, and killed him, but in my view it’s worth making significant adjustments to liability and police procedure to make this kind of thing far less likely. Not knowing specifics, I think the “shoot first if the other person has a gun” standard for police seems dangerous. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68169406
I often side with NYC’s mayor on a variety of issues over our often annoyingly progressive local leaders, but in the conflict over the “How Many Stops” legislation that would require police to document interactions with the general public, I think the effort required to document is small enough that the benefits that could come out of it outweigh it; just like with police bodycam requirements, I think it’s important for accountability (even if some particular kinds of accountability may be ill-advised)
Australia has a policy problem with not having defined universities well enough for its immigration policy, in a reminder how important it is to get accreditation and related policies right:
The Wall of Shame
Yet again some protesters are trying to raise the profile of their (in this case environmental) cause by attacking unrelated artwork; in this case Riposte Alimentaire threw soup at the Mona Lisa, which was protected by safety glass due to earlier vandals.
In New York City, the American Museum of National History has removed a lot of material from its Amerindian exhibits, continuing a trend to both send materials to tribes (supporting an unfortunate idea that tribes own their humans and artefacts) and to carefully craft displays to serve as PR for the tribes, removing (accurate) depictions of some of them having done things that break modern taboos (like having kept slaves or eaten dogs)
Environmentalists in Mexico attempting to stop toxic forms of resource extraction have been hampered by ill-written trade laws that override local government and give bad actors, like Odyssey Marine Exploration (a company with little exploration in mining, led by shady former shipwreck looters) a potential route to be able to do dangerous mining; a shame on the company and on Greg Stemm
Some scientific fields are rife with second-rate universities colluding to inflate citation numbers: https://www.science.org/content/article/citation-cartels-help-some-mathematicians-and-their-universities-climb-rankings
Reviewlets
Over the last several months I’ve been switching over to Firefox as my main browser, and generally this has been a plus; I did it for security and ad-blocking reasons, but I appreciate most of the feature changes; I’ve been frustrated with one major functionality loss - the built-in PDF viewer in Firefox is awful. With many documents, fonts don’t render, and there is no easy zoom functionality. It needs a lot of work.
Palworld (video game) - I haven’t played much of this yet, but it’s a solid premise - a mix of several genres of game. The comparisons to Pokemon are overstated, and initially it looks like Zelda:BOTW and plays like Valheim. The issue I have with this (and Cult of the Lamb) is the risk of getting too high a population and struggling to feed them all; I’m hoping as I progress there will be better ways to handle that. The game is in early access so there’s plenty of time for them to keep changing it, but it’s promising
Amusements
Tommy Wiseau’s 1Password Ad:
Lively very old and very large tortoises:
Recent Music
Winter Road - Paul Aubry - Pretty, and has a kind of tame liveliness - the complexity of the piece is tied together in safe ways like challah
Pin-Eye - Jhariah - A flashy, showy piece that’s a bit hammy (think Fall Out Boy, but not so angsty)
Radiant - Gathering - The wordpiece of this song is weirdly the weakest part of it; everything else in it is solid 2000s-era comfort-industrial
Ode to the Mets - The Strokes - Feels very 70s even though it was written decades later