Links 30 January 2026

Chukchi Hide Painting Showing their World, and Detail of Whaling

Still uploading chapters of The Voice from the Darkness at Royal Road.

The threat posed to democracy by "malicious AI swarms." (Twitter/x, article, ungated preprint)

The bizarre story of Ira Glass and his adopted pit bull. (Twitter/X, news article) More proof that you should never learn about the private lives of people whose work you enjoy.

Conversation between Tyler Cower and Francis Fukuyama, much about the current state of the US government, very interesting. 

Richard Feynman on energy, 18-minute video. Energy does not "flow" and has nothing to do with electrons moving through wires; it mainly shifts around through fields in whatever way insures that the overall number never changes. "Energy is the shadow of nature's consistency over time." [I think these are made by using an AI-generated Feynman voice to read Feynman's texts.]

Review of Margaret Atwood's memoir finds it "packed with minute day-to-day detail—but is strangely quiet on a few big subjects," one of which is her friendship with the other famous female Canadian writer, Alice Munro.

Are Federal agents and attorneys opposed to Trump's policies right to resign?

Ocean art photography contest.

The strange history of the tonka bean.

Jerusalem Demsas argues that many Americans have been willing to tolerate Trump's lawlessnes so long as the markets were protected. But, "The market order will not survive if the rule of law doesn't."

Diagrams of weaving and spinning machinery from 1748, very impressive.

Revana Sharfuddin: we should recognize when our political opponents propose good policies and support them.

The academic publishing system hates it when somebody tries to point out that a major paper is just wrong, and will do almost anything to avoid admitting error.

The 50-year history of increasingly militarized law enforcement that led up to ICE shootings.

Some suggested constitutional amendments to prevent future presidential power grabs. (Twitter/X)

About those National Guard deployments: "CBO estimates that National Guard deployments to six U.S. cities cost $496 million through end of 2025." If reducing crime is the goal we should spend that money expanding court systems so we can try more criminals.

Weird drawings from Michael McGrath that hint at unknown stories.

An argument that, so far as we can tell, the ease of access to contraception has little impact on fertility. (Twitter/X)

All you need to know about architects is that a bunch of the top firms have already published renderings for Trump's proposed new terminal at Reagan National Airport. Architects love grandiose dictators.

Eli Stark-Elster: "The modern education system is probably the single biggest threat to the mental health of children." Notes that during Covid when the schools were closed the teenage suicide rate fell.

Installing the Met's recently acquired Tiffany Garden Landscape Window, 14-minute video.

Perun on the politics and economics of the Ukraine war in 2026, excellent one-hour video. Summary: both sides can afford to keep the war going for at least another year.

Jakub Janovsky of Oryx runs the numbers on Russian armored vehicles. Finds that 1) the Russian armored vehicle force is about the same size as it was when the war started, even though the army is more than 40% larger, and 2) the Soviet vehicle stockpile is largely exhausted. (Twitter/X)

A Ukrainian ground drone with a machine gun captures three Russian soldiers.