Biden announces that the US has finished destroying its chemical weapons stockpile and is now in compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.
How Maria Vargas Llosa came to abandon socialism and turn toward liberal capitalism; Fidel Castro's arrests of his critics and general turn toward authoritarianism was a key event.
The history of titanium, which remained a research curiosity until 1951 when the US government got heavily involved. Useful link to have on hand next time some libertarian tells you governments never create anything.
Young people are fleeing Bhutan for Australia; at last count 1.4% of Bhutan's already tiny population had emigrated, almost all of them young adults.
Not sure that this is real, but it seems when you play trolley problem with ChatGPT4 it will save Elon Musk over the rest of humanity.
Hoard of Civil War-era gold coins found in Kentucky, possibly hidden to protect it from Confederate raiders.
A group of authors sues OpenAI and Meta, saying that their books were used to train those companies' AIs without their consent. (NY Times, ungated news story, plantiffs' web site) Which raises an interesting question, since I don't know how AI companies could turn their software loose to learn from the Internet without perusing some copyrighted content.
In Switzerland they call the warm wind that sweeps down from the mountains the Foehn, and some people say it leads to illness, anxiety, restlessness, and depression, as well as increased crime. It is just hysterical suggestion, or something else? Why is there worldwide folklore about the bad effects of certain winds?
The sea otter who harasses surfers and steals their boards, which it then rides: "that otter was shredding." (NY Times, NPR, Unofficial Networks) This otter was raised in captivity in a way aquarium biologists hoped would avoid acculturating it to humans, but it seems their methods still need some work.
Is silence a sound? These scientists showed that auditory illusions work just as well with silence as with sound, which they say suggests that your brain processes silence as a sound, not just an absence. (NY Times, original article)
The Astrolabium of Leonhard Thurneisser a 16th-century book that used rotating wheels to make astrological predictions. (This is Colossal; more at the Library of Congress)
Kevin Drum discusses a study that finds headlines have gotten much more negative over time.
Good photoset of rock art in the Amazon, but please ignore the text.
Short summary of a Nature article on the use of lidar to reveal small pyramid complexes in the Bolivian Amazon.
A claim that the Kushan script of central Asia, known mainly from rock inscriptions, has been deciphered, thanks in part to a short bilingual inscription.
Previous generations or Republicans tended to be respectful of the Pentagon and avoid imperiling the defence budgets over other issues, but the current wave of culture warriors doesn't seem to care. They have loaded this year's bill with provisions like a ban on military personnel taking time off for an abortion that will make it very difficult to pass. (NY Times; Politico)
Tyler Cowen explains Singapore's uncompetitive democracy, in which one party always wins the elections.
Modernism in a nutshell: bird-shaped house looks cool from the air, but the inside is just bland white surfaces, and despite the huge footprint it has only three bedrooms.
Dutch crows and magpies have been building nests out of anti-bird spikes.
100-second drone video of Iceland's newest volcano; the coolest part starts at the 1-minute mark.
Ukraine Links
Summary of a new Russian manual on countering Ukrainian combined arms attacks, very interesting both as to how Ukraine has been attacking and how Russia might respond. And from the same manual on minefields.
The US is supplying cluster munitions (in artillery shell form) to Ukraine. These have been very controversial because they scatter thousands of little bombs everywhere and the old ones had a dud rate of around 30%, leaving lots of trouble for later. The decisions seems to have been made because 1) the US has new versions with a claimed dud rate of less than 3%, and 2) the US doesn't have any other 155mm artillery shells to send and Ukraine desperately needs them.
Bloomberg published some calculations showing that Ukraine now has more tanks in the war than Russia. This claim was based partly on the Oryx data for visually confirmed losses, but one of the guys in Oryx rejects the conclusion and explains why here. There is a lot of utter nonsense on Twitter but I have been impressed by the quality of data and discourse presented by the best analysts.
"This appears to be a pretty accurate estimate of Russian KIA in Ukraine. Between 40,000-55,000 Russian soldiers KIA at the end of May 2023. If we add DPR - LPR KIA to their work, we are probably closing in on 65,000-70,000 total KIA." Twitter; Mediazona web site.
Awesome 90-second video from Ukraine's Intelligence Directorate, "Time of Retribution."
Another failed Russian assault near Avdiivka, where the front line has not moved more than a few hundred meters since 2014. Video here.
Overhead video of a Ukrainian assault with around a dozen armored vehicles.
More drone warfare lessons: "Quadcopter pilots are a key target priority nowadays. When you launch drones in the field, you eventually make (foot)paths to your location, back and forth across the field, that eventually converge at one point. The enemy will see this and will definitely strike that location. And if you are so stupid that you sit right exactly where the paths lead, you will die."
Amazing rant from Major General Ivan Popov, call sign Spartak, who says he was dismissed by the high command for trying to tell them how badly the soldiers at the front need help: "with the authorities, one had either to be cowardly or say what things are. . . . I drew attention to the most important tragedy of the current war, the absence of counter-battery fire." (Audio with subtitles.) (And a CNN story with more professional translation)
Popov's removal has unleashed a stream of nervous complaints from Russian milbloggers, who say Popov was right and Ukraine's tactics are working.
The ISW daily summary for July 13 is mostly about Popov's actions and what they imply about the conditions at the front, seems intelligent.
The count of Russian officers killed in Ukraine, as confirmed by funeral announcements and the like, has exceeded 2,500.
2 comments:
Is silence a sound? These scientists showed that auditory illusions work just as well with silence as with sound, which they say suggests that your brain processes silence as a sound, not just an absence.
Well that seems quite intuitive.
We perceive black as a color, not as an absence of color? We experience the sensation(s) of being cold, rather than simply not experiencing the presence of warmth. We speak of "fresh air" rather than of air that is lacking in other (usually bad, but not always) scents or odors.
So why wouldn't we do the same thing with silence? We even conceive of "stillness" rather than an absence of movement or vibration, when we're detecting it more through our body than our eardrums.
Modernism in a nutshell: bird-shaped house looks cool from the air, but the inside is just bland white surfaces, and despite the huge footprint it has only three bedrooms.
You forgot to mention that it's also built entirely to cater to the fanciful whims of the ultra-wealthy, with zero consideration for the life and reality of a normal person.
...well, for "modern" Modernism, anyway. ("Contemporary" Modernism?) Early on, the minimalism was part and parcel with a focus on public housing, government buildings, etc.
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