Interesting essay on fairness in The Atlantic by one of my favorite contemporary intellectuals, Kwame Anthony Appiah. Appiah argues that although neutrality and fairness are illusions, they are very important illusions, and that pretending to be fair can in fact make us fairer. Also this: "It’s a childish illusion to think that what happens backstage is the truth and what happens onstage is a lie."
New York state passes law banning natural gas from new residential buildings.
More city maps by Jazzberry Blue.
The price of an F-35 is down to $62 million, at least when you order 126 at once.
Tomb of a Roman surgeon found in Hungary, with several instruments.
A round-up of oral traditions that seem to preserve memories of events like volanic eruptions from as much as 9,000 years ago.
AI companies behind the big chatbots are trying to figure out how to stop their programs from making stuff up, because that flaw means they just can't be reliable for things like medical diagnosis. The problem is, they have no idea how their programs work at all. (NY Times)
Nationalism is useless: in Korea, the forced prostitution of thousands of "comfort women" for the Japanese military is a famous source of national outrage. But nobody mentions that the practice was revived for US soldiers in the 1950s by Korean pimps, with the connivance of the South Korean government. (NY Times)
Israeli researchers develop an AI system that can translate ancient Akkadian texts.
US commander thinks our military must do more to combat small drones. This seems to me like a problem that a western nation could solve pretty quickly by marrying the right kind of radar and infrared sensors to a small-caliber autocannon. Modern drones are very small, yes, but they move slowly and whirring blades have a distinctive radar signature.
A history of the swing.
In his annual reader survey, Scott Siskind polled his readers on whether they had any of the usual psychological disorders, and also whether they had "long Covid." People with depression were twice as likely to say they had long Covid, people with anxiety 1.5 times as likely. As he says, this is strong evidence that some "long Covid" is psychosomatic, because all psychological conditions are known to cluster together.
This week's random past post from this blog: Reindeer and Mushrooms (2010), which might have been titled, "evolution doesn't care if you're happy."
Ukraine Links
Russian invasion of Ukraine revolutionizes NATO military strategy; casting aside "hibernation and self doubt", the alliance is now focused on defending every square kilometer, so more forces are being deployed to the borders. (NY Times)
German blogger Tendar thinks events in Bakhmut point toward a serious power struggle in Russia, maybe even civil war.
Ukrainian drones hit a major fuel storage facility in Sevastapol that burned the whole night of April 28 to 29. Incidentally Igor Girkin responded to this event by tweeting Deep Purple lyrics in English.
Detailed maps, drawings and diagrams of Russian entrenchments.
Estimates by some US military officers suggest very high Russian casualties over the winter. Discussion in this thread and here.
And Mediazona has confirmed, from funeral announcements and so on, 19,688 Russian military deaths since the invasion began.
Short video clip of the road into Bakhmut, apocalyptic.
The bizarre drone attack on the Kremlin.
Good Guardian article on the fighting in the Dnipro delta.
A Russian dark web entity is offering to remove names from the military call-up database for around $6,500 and up.
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