2024-03-16
Readings
A talk by Professor Talia Moore on biomimicry in robotics (and what I’d call “tactics of movement”):
A better understanding of the traits of dolphin swimming motions (this summary is annoyingly short, but there’s a journal link with enough of the paper readable without login to be interesting): https://phys.org/news/2024-03-dolphin-maximizes.amp
Better vaccines for dengue in Brasil: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-03-brazilian-dose-dengue-vaccine-tide.html
Low-activity deep sea vents can be centres for life as well: https://phys.org/news/2024-03-inactive-deep-sea-smokers-densely.html
Snakes as a possible future food source: https://phys.org/news/2024-03-snakes-high-protein-superfood.html
Good to see a video exploring one of the key uncomfortable tradeoffs in public transit: how many stops a system has versus how quickly they can run (read the comments):
Kate Klonick on the failures of real-world analogies to understand the Internet: https://substack.com/home/post/p-142068027
A hittite tablet found describing the foreign invasion of four cities (likely foreign intervention during a civil war): https://arkeonews.net/a-3300-year-old-tablet-found-at-buklukale-from-hittite-empire-describes-catastrophic-invasion-of-four-cities/
Nearby black hole spaghettifying a star: https://www.space.com/black-hole-star-spaghettification-nearest-evidence
Dami Lee on how architectire and the perception of time relate (demonstrating the intellectual depth of architecture):
Thoughts
I recently encountered an inconsistency in my views and am working through how to resolve it. At least, I think it’s an inconsistency - the specifics differ. The first example is an old provision in the Irish constitution that suggest women’s role is in the kitchen - not something I or most modern people believe, but I’m not ordinarily in a hurry to remove old symbolism - a recent attempt to amend it failed. The second is a recent legal assertion in Israel that declares Israel to be a homeland of the Jewish people - more symbolic language, reprehensible (ethnonationalism is intrinsically racist), recent, and something that I think must be changed unless Israel really wants to be regarded as a backwards racist state. Are symbolic measures a problem or not? It’s tempting to regard the Irish question as being irrelevant for just being old, and that specific bears a certain amount of weight, but not all of it; I think explicit legal declarations are a topic where I should have a more consistent view. I doubt I’ll ever care about nonexplicit declarations - things named after “problematic” people a long time ago just don’t matter and I don’t think I’ll ever think we should care about it. But things like this? I should probably be more open to the idea that declarations of this sort are worth an update.
This is gaming-related, but I think wargaming the “how would I steer society” is a good way to get started in maturing one’s political thought; in the past I’ve thought about this exact question (along with the other Fallout societies) and while my answers were not all the same, I like the state of mind these thought suggest:
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with Russia having held a rigged election with low turnout (and compulsory participation in occupied parts of Ukraine). Russia has tested new weapons against Ukranian civilians, while Europe is discussing sending troops to directly aid Ukraine (finally)
Israel’s plans to occupy the remainder of Gaza are finalized, while US and Europe are applying stronger pressure on it to end the slaughter. Another instance of the IDF firing on and killing/wounding civilians retrieving donated aid has been documented.
Haiti’s PM, facing general insurrection and a gang-backed criminal takeover of the country, has resigned with several gang leaders squabbling to divvy up power afterwards
Portugal held elections, with the (ruling) Socialist party having lost 42 seats, and the right-wing Chega party picking up the majority of those seats. A new coalition government will be necessary with no party coming near a simple majority.
India has begun to enforce a religious preference for Hindus in immigration passed in 2019 by far-right leader Modi’s hindutva movement, continuing the nation’s backslide. Governments across the world have publicly criticised Modi’s government for the stance
Polls
A Pew Poll on the effects of the decline of Unions ( https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/12/majorities-of-adults-see-decline-of-union-membership-as-bad-for-the-us-and-working-people/ ) - While I think unions can produce some pretty stupid results because their incentives are wrong (example: I think Unions should protect good working conditions but not not numbers of jobs beyond keeping people from being overworked), they can still as a whole make the world better than one without them where employers are the only ones setting policy with no pushback possible. I support the existence of unions (although if I were running a company I’d hope to run it in a way where employees wouldn’t see the point in unionising)
Gallup finds self-identification into sexually/identity diverse categories at a high of 7.6%. While I reject the LGBTQ+ grouping (I’m bisexual but only feel solidarity with Lesbians, other bisexuals, and male gays), there are a lot of us. I don’t place a lot of importance in the numbers and I worry about overactivism on policies, with some groupings in the alphabet soup being groups I’m a bit fed up with over what they want or think they should get no recognition or policy friendliness.
Policy Focus
Bernie Sanders (who I neither love nor hate; I think he’s in just the right place in our political system in that he has a podium and the ability to introduce ideas, without the worst of his ideas taking root) recently introduced a bill to reduce the standard US work-week to 32 hours, over a series of years. I doubt it will go anywhere, but that’s a distinct question from whether it should; I am open to the idea of moving towards a 4 day workweek as a country, as some parts of the world have experimented with. I don’t know if we should commit to it on a national scale yet, but it’s had me thinking about it since I read about it: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna143354
Apparently we’re doing this again (but it’s a good thing) - A US senator is renewing a push to stop the transition on/off daylight savings time; I support this effort (and will support it as long as it takes) because the transition is rough, unnecessary, and introduces complexity into how we track time that intrudes on our daily lives. https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/10/republican-senator-daylight-savings-permanent-james-lankford-sunshine-act
The Wall of Shame
A surprise entry for Pope Bergoglio who suggested Ukraine should negotiate a surrender to Russia (having already lost Crimea, there’s no reason to believe Russia will stop; they obviously will need to be stopped)
Douglas Crockford (software engineer, JSON inventor) gets a lifetime achievement award for both intentionally not including comments in JSON and for possibly-introducing that activist-do-not-be-evil clause into a variant of an open license; both of these left the world worse off
A former forensic scientist, Dr Friday, was found to have systemically manipulated DNA evidence in a crime lab, possibly affecting over 650 cases: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/09/us/colorado-bureau-of-investigation-data-scientist-manipulation-case/index.html
Reviewlets
Wan Waan (Thai Restaurant, Chelsea Manhattan) - The red curry tofu is a type I don’t normally like but they did such a good job on it that I enjoyed it immensely anyhow. Their key lime pie was a little weird texturewise but had great taste. Price was moderate - not a place I’ll be going to every week, but not a place I consider so expensive that it’ll be a twice-a-year thing either; looking forward to adding this to my rotation of places to eat.
Prey 2017 (video game) - I dusted this off and played back through it; had a great time. It holds up, significantly because they did a solid job with the progression system, the worldbuilding, and good gameplay. Music was pretty meh, and the game suffers from overuse of quest markers (in general I think games are best entirely avoiding them), but it was still a good experience and none of the downsides were enough to diminish that.
Child of Light (video game) - Also dusting this off; it’s a perfect Steam Deck game and I’m again charmed by the writing, the music, and the game in general. I cherish it as much as I do Hat in Time, which is high praise.
New York City’s Hellenic Classical Charter School is manipulating ownership and finances to scam (my words, not the legal term) NYC’s laws that fund charter schools (itself probably bad policy): https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2024/03/06/nyc-sues-state-education-department-charter-rental-dispute/
Amusements
I find this more beautiful than amusing, but this is Ken Mogi (Japanese science populariser with a few nonscientific views) visiting a Shinto shrine in Japan to see the first calligraphy of the year:
Systems for robots and humans cooking together: https://techxplore.com/news/2024-03-home-robots-cook-collaboration-humans.html
Recent Music
Developers - Digital Droo - An old meme song that sampled one of Steve Ballmer’s weirder moments and turned it into a hypnotic song; worth a laugh but not a bad tune either
Oldie - Nadeah - Jazz-pop performed with a lot of enthusiasm, worth a few listens to find all the fine details
Crazy Swing - Deladap - Fast-paced swing with a bit of a Klezmer sound in there. The lead singer in this (I think Melinda Stoika) has a really solid voice