2024-04-20
Readings
A better understanding of friction in water droplets moving over hydrophobic surfaces (I don’t know what the application might be, this just strikes me as really cool): https://phys.org/news/2024-04-physicists-unknown-droplets-superhydrophobic-surfaces.amp
The origins of a likely ocean on Mimas, a moon of Saturn: https://phys.org/news/2024-04-orbital-eccentricity-young-underground-ocean.amp
Worrying that our models of what will survive atmospheric reentry may have been wrong, leading to some ISS junk raining on someone’s house: https://www.space.com/object-crash-florida-home-iss-space-junk-nasa-confirms
Probably of interest only to few, interesting to see how a technical decision gets made in the PostgreSQL project (which I care about, and I like the decision): https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/968300/c3a1c8bb070076c8/
Interesting and useful work in prisons to train service dogs; I like the idea of this program because it stresses relations that may help people when they’re released: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/canine-companions-san-quentin/
Studying jars to learn things about Roman wine processes: https://phys.org/news/2024-04-roman-wine-previously-thought.amp
Possible confirmation of particles that are bound nucleon-antinucleon (nucleons are protons or neutrons) pairs: https://phys.org/news/2024-04-evidence-subatomic-particle.amp
A Microsoft Research article (
https://crescendo-the-multiturn-jailbreak.github.io/
) on an attack that can break the sanitation controls on LLMs; while I disagree with the premise that LLMs should take care to avoid such content, I respect the research
The Serpent, a now obscure european musical instrument:
Thoughts
It's an "in theory" intuition, but in cases where people make synthetic datasets to train LLMs, if you can grow datasets programmatically, presumably you could better train your network on the sources you're using to build your synthetic dataset instead, because the sources have more information than the synthetic dataset? (in practice networks are usually architected where matching their inputs figures into the optimization function)
I’ve noticed some cognitive faults I engage in when I play videogames and have been trying to remove them; this (
) is an interesting video on some of those faults, but it proposes what I think is a wrong approach to them - rather than fixing the fault, changing the norms for video games so as not to invoke the fault. I would rather have games make the fault a stronger disadvantage than it already is, to push people out of the fault. This is part of a broader dislike of certain kinds of accommodation; if people backtrack endlessly in games because they worry they missed something, make some exploring exclusive with others, or add benefits to finishing faster, or make time-dependent events. If people hoard consumables, figure out ways to get them to stop, not by replenishing things right away though. Limit their inventory, or find another way.
I sometimes approve of and sometimes don’t the EU’s efforts to regulate tech; I think this particular effort, to tell Facebook that it can’t offer users a choice to either give up on some privacy or pay for the service, is misguided. Largely because running the service is not a charity; offering it for free to users comes with the need to monetise it somehow. https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2024/04/18/eu_meta_subscription_privacy/
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with new Russian missile strikes on civilians in Chernihiv and a new Russian interest in collapsing the Ukraine power grid. Ukraine had some successes wiping out some Russian anti-air units in occupied Crimea. French authorities continue to mull sending military forces to aid Ukraine and have confiscated some property from Russian oligarchs while the US (still) struggles to continue funding Ukraine’s defense.
Israel’s invasion of Gaza is currently in a holding pattern, with expansion into Rafah still planned but likely delayed due to the ongoing back-and-forth with Iran that started with Israel’s strike on an Iranian consulate; Israel, like Ukraine and Taiwan, is set to receive some military funding from the US
After Iran’s (in my view escalatory and worthy of condemnation) missile attacks on Israel in response to Israel’s despicable attacks on its ambassadorial premises in Syria, Israel launched a missile and drone attack as a calculated limited response. On this topic, I consider both sides to be deeply in the wrong (in different ways). It remains to be seen if there will be more cycles of hot retaliation in the near future; I hope things will calm down again
Croatia held a parliamentary election, with very little change to representation
Solomon Islands held an election, but because of poor connectivity between different parts of the country, results are not in yet. As the country is one of the few to have historically officially recognised the Republic of Taiwan, with the most recent leader revoking that recognition and seeking closer ties with China and the most prominent challenger looking to reverse that decision, the election has some additional interesting meaning (I favour the United States officially recognising both the Republic of Taiwan and the PRC)
India begins its national parliamentary elections, to last until the beginning of June. Polling suggests that right-populist leader and current PM Narenda Modi is likely to retain power and continue his projects to turn India from a multireligious and multiethnic nation into a backwards Hindu-nationalist one.
Content
I contributed to Biden’s campaign to be reelected POTUS, and wrote about why I support him: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G86TlaXl4-hjsAUQZ8MpeFd7PwKIyMU1Paj8m8PEbAE/
Policy Focus
The Biden Administration has announced, like many presidential administrations before it, its guidance on Title IX; I am not a fan of the suggested interpretations because I think they lessen due process for people accused of misbehaviour and they use too broad a notion of sexual harassment. I would also prefer rules that permit (or even require) that if a sport is sex segregated, it use genetic notions of sex, although I doubt that’s going to happen from the current coalition on the Left (because of Cultural Progressives)
Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill allowing schools to permit, under some circumstances, unpaid chaplains to have a role in Florida schools; I don’t appreciate these attempts to fully explore what’s permitted under Church-State separation to give churches a role in schools; this kind of thing can happen elsewhere during non-school hours.
The Wall of Shame
David Chang, an American restauranteur, filed a trademark for the name of a traditional food from Oceania, Chile Crunch, and started sending cease-and-desists to restaurants using it: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/4/19/us-chefs-bid-to-own-chili-crunch-name-raises-ire-in-indonesia-malaysia
Many parts of the world suffer from cult leaders with dumb ideas, whether those cults are a strange form of a mainstream religion or something smaller. Chris Oyakhilome, of Nigeria, is one such cult leader pushing ideas about medicine, from things like AIDS to vaccines, that have led his followers to a lot of suffering that should be easily treatable.
I’m amused that some young workers are so naive as to not understand (and complain about) the near-certainty that if they do direct-action activism in the workplace, they’ll get fired. It’s fine to take stances, and often-but-not-always fine to keep pushing one’s employer to change its practices to comply with one’s values, but interfering with the workplace of one’s employer is clearly sticking one’s neck out; pro-Palestinian protestors at Google should not have been surprised at the result (and should not expect carte blanche to let their views give them permission to do things they couldn’t otherwise do at work, no matter the cause): https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/04/19/npr-google-worker-fired-israel-project-nimbus-cloud-protestor
Reviewlets
Unregular Pizza (Manhattan Pizza place) - Surprisingly good. I only found out about this place because they catered an event I attended; they’re now one of two pizza places I know of that mix heavy marketing and good food.
Uncharted (video game, PC port) - A video game with a cool idea, but gameplay that’s a mix of inadequate combat and very linear parkour. Not for me. The port has some performance issues, and if the game ever gets interesting it takes too long a slog through linear parkour and then somebody’s daily life and some family drama and then more of the boring gameplay. Not worth your time.
Worshippers and the Way (Hugh Cook Chronicles of Age of Darkness book 9) - In this, the hinted-at sci-fi past of his fantasy world is revealed and the book turns into a clash between something a bit like Ender’s Game and late-medieval Europe. It’s messy and interesting, but I’m unhappy knowing the end of the series is approaching and the Author didn’t get to really finish it (and is dead). Sad to hit the end of it soon (even though the 10th book looks to be the thickest by far). It adds nicely to the analysis of power that’s present in a lot of the series, with an interesting longshot gambit at the end.
Tchia (video game) - Very cute game with a bit of a “represent our culture explicitly” message that’s just barely shy of too much and too clean. The game has a lot of mechanics, they’re fun. It reminds me a bit of goat simulator so far, enginewise. I didn’t expect to like the play-music sections as much as I did, and the soundtrack is solid (marred slightly by sound issues in-game). The game isn’t particularly long if you’re not feeling completionist.
Amusements
I have the feeling I’ve seen work by this artist before; it’s just an animated cartoon about cats (well done though):
Fun to catalogue the personality faults that are being showcased in this VDL skit about a really bad DM:
I’m a sucker for watching other animals come to enjoy humans playing music for them:
Tablet games to give pet parrots mental stimulation: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/04/11/world/parrots-tablet-enrichment-study-scn
Amazon’s giant truck for customer data migrations is retiring: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/04/17/aws-stops-selling-snowmobile-truck-for-cloud-migrations.html
Recent Music
OMG - Arash and Snoop Dogg - Overuse of a sexual clip shouldn’t disqualify either the song or the music video from being considered awesome; I’m getting more into Snoop Dog because of his voice
Back from the Dead - House of Pain - For me this is comfort food; interesting rhythm (there’s a 4-beat rhythm there, but the voice mostly follows the off-kilter 2-measure rhythm started by the trumpet instead
Muppet Show Theme - Even more comfort in our comfort food, this is musically a lot less complex, and I probably was exposed to it before I was really forming memories (I think my parents enjoyed watching it)