Links 17 February 2023

Ma Yuan, Immortal Riding a Dragon, early 13th century (detail)

AI Chatbots as romantic partners.

Striking images of ground displacement during Turkey's earthquake.

In Ethiopia, church leaders in the Oromia region are trying to secede from the Ethiopian Church and have named their own Patriarch. This is actually an ancient theme; Ethiopia is an old kingdom, but its boundaries have grown and shrunk over the centuries, and for much of its history it was highly decentralized, with some regions nearly independent. The recent conflicts we have seen over movements for independence or autonomy in Tigray and now Oromia repeat similar struggles going back a thousand years.

The strange history of Mazdak, a heretical Zoroastrian priest who may also have been a social revolutionary – if he even existed, which is disputed – and Mazdakism, which some people think had a very long-term impact on the religious landscape of Persia.

I won't even attempt to summarize the experience that Vincent Lloyd, a black professor of black studies and author of books like Black Dignity, went through when he tried to lead a summer seminar in anti-racist studies. The title of his essay is "A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell."

One of the founders of the modern chicken industry was Cecile Steele of Ocean View, Delaware, who was shipped 500 chicks by mistake and decided to expand her operation to raise all of them.

Toxic train derailment in an Ohio town where some residents recently appeared as extras in a movie about a toxic train derailment. Lots of freaky stories about animal deaths and so on, but remember that there are always stories like that and most of them turn out not to be true.

Busy woodpeckers fill a wall with 700 pounds of acorns.

Obituary of Solomon Perel, a Jew who survived the Holocaust by claiming to be German and becoming a member of the Hitler Youth. His story was told in the film Europa, Europa.

A trove of coded letters Mary Queen of Scotts sent from prison, long thought to be lost, have been rediscovered and deciphered. (News story, original article)

Short video titled the "Thingamajig Convention."

Who knew that Bolivia had a big skateboarding scene, and a lot of youg women with serious skater attitude?

Vox reviews the 115-year history of fighting over whether gas stoves are safe. Pushes for regulation are not new and have little to do with climate change.

The staggering cost of peer review.

Long, interesting interview with art critic Jed Perl, good on the relationship between art and politics. Trotsky has a lot to answer for here, as the most famous proponent of the view that "artistic freedom" means the freedom of artists to criticize society and thus serve the Revolution.

Ukraine Links

Short video that seems to show the Zatoka Bridge near Odessa being hit by a Russian naval drone.

The Wagner-associated Grey Zone telegram goes hard after the Russian commanders who ordered the failed assault on Vuhledar, implies that at least one officer was killed by his men during that operation. And here Grey Zone says the attack was only launched so the army would have a success to compete with Wagner's taking Soledar.

Some Russian moblinks make a video protesting the way they were used, sent to attack a very strong position with no support and few weapons.

Watch an entire formation of Russian armored vehicles all run over mines, one after another.

Modern tanks are engineered to hold their gun barrels steady so they can fire on the move, hence the beer on the barrel challenge.

Ukraine is badgering its allies so hard to supply more tanks, IFVs, and artillery because they have expanded their combat force from 27 to 103 combat brigades and now have 500,000 under arms.

Ukrainian MOD claims that the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade was "destroyed" in their attack on Vuhledar, losing their command staff, 36 tanks, and 94 other vehicles and artillery pieces.

Good long interview with the commander of a Ukrainian reserve artillery brigade. When the war started his unit had only a cadre of 52 men and was staffed up to more than a thousand with volunteers, who were fighting in two weeks.

The criminals recruited to fight with Wagner in Ukraine include three notorious crime bosses.