Links 13 October 2023

Raphael, 1504

Wonderful paintings in a newly discovered Roman tomb near Naples, including an amazing Cerberus.

AI in education: using oral exams to get around students cheating with AI, but then using AI to grade their results.

MIT scientists publish details of a system they say could make desalinated seawater cheaper than tap water.

Vox on corporate mindfulness. My former employers were into that for a while and of all the dumb and insulting fads my bosses have pushed over the years I thought workplace mindfulness was the dumbest and most insulting.

Study finds that domesticated animals are not stupider than their wild relatives.

Fifteen-foot-tall pilotable robots for sale. But are they robots of mech suits? My sons, veterans of innumerable such online debates, are firmly on the side of mech suits.

Evidence of numerous large objects orbiting the sun, out beyond the Kuiper Belt.

NY Times piece on scientific uncertainty, claims there is no real data saying that flossing is good for your teeth, or that sunscreen prevents skin cancer. As a regular sufferer of ear infections I once looked into data on antibiotic treatments, and found that there is next to none, which is why some doctors prescribe a high dose for three days and others a lower dose for ten days; one small study I did find said antibiotic treatment reduced the average duration of ear infection-induced misery by 12 hours, from 5 days to  4 1/2. 

Story at The New Yorker about academic data fraudsters Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino. We should bring back some old punishement for people like this, say, tarring and feathering, or riding them out of academia on a rail. I don't want to put them in jail, just humiliate them and make the point that faking data is a dangerous way to climb the ladder.

The US Army is updating its doctrine in response to lessons from Ukraine, starting with artillery but including changes in brigade headquarters and other matters.

Remarkable Roman shipwreck from the late 200s AD found in shallow water off Sicily. (article, 3-minute video)

Lots of angst in the press, especially the conservative press, about mass shoplifting, but Kevin Drum reports that shoplifting remains a minor nuisance for retailers and has gone up only a little. But that's nationwide, and it does seem that retailers have reacted by closing some stores in places where the problem is worst, like San Francisco.

This week's best headline: "National Emergency Alert Test Outs Amish Men as Smartphone Owners, Gets Them Shunned."

Vox piece on the legal issues surrounding homeless camps, which many states and cities want the Supreme Court to reconsider. (Can anybody explain to me why the useless word "encampment" is spreading at the expense of its exact synonym, "camp"?)

Using CRISPR to make chickens more resistant to bird flu. (NY Times, Science)

Interesting NY Times article about Native Americans and the solar eclipse, because in most native traditions an eclipse is a spiritually dangerous event that one must protect against with the proper rituals. Navajo are "strongly urged" to spend the eclipse in a hogan; one Amazon Indian says, "our rituals are like vaccines that protect us."

The prize for the first person to read a word inside one of the scrolls from Herculaneum that can't be unrolled has been awarded to a guy who found "porphyras" (purple), working from the 3D scan of a scroll made in 2019 using a particle accelerator.

Via Tyler Cowen, an econometric analysis of state-level marijuana legalization: "Post-legalization, average state income grew by 3 percent, house prices by 6 percent, and population by 2 percent. However, substance use disorders, chronic homelessness, and arrests increased by 17, 35, and 13 percent, respectively. Although some of our estimates are noisy, our findings suggest that the economic benefits of legalization are broadly distributed, while the social costs may be more concentrated among individuals who use marijuana heavily."

Pretty good article at Vox on Hammas and what they hope to achieve: basically, to keep Arab countries from normalizing relations with Israel, halt what they see as a slide toward accepting the status quo, put the Palestine/Israel conflict back in the center of Arab thinking, and remind Israel that they can have no peace or security until the Palestinians are satisfied. And Zack Beauchamp, more critical of Israel; and Tom Friedman at the NY Times, who is not anti-Israel but is very much anti-Netanyahu. Also at the Times, David Brooks finds himself meditating on the time in 1999 to 2000 when it seemed like a peace deal was within reach. 

An intelligent response to X accounts with trans flags cheering on Hamas. Understanding that Hamas is a pathology spawned by a long chain of atrocities and errors from many parties is not a reason to applaud horrific acts of terrorism by fundamentalist fanatics.

Ukraine Links

Ukrainian reserve officer Tatarigami says there is no sign that Russia is running out of troops, so claims that Russia is "out of reserves" and that therefore Ukraine might soon break through are false: "The enemy remains formidable and capable."

Tatarigami noted earlier this month that Russia is actively expanding their training grounds for infantry and tank crews. 

Delivering drones to Ukraine in lots of 5,000.

Data site that graphs equipment losses over time, with various permutations, based on Oryx data. The documented rate of Russian losses has been significantly slower in 2023 than in 2022.

Long doompost from Igor Girkin's wife, apparently based on a letter he sent from prison in September. He says Putin has decided not to order any major mobilization until after the presidential election next spring, which means Russia cannot make any progress. On the other hand Ukraine is being deliberately starved of weapons by NATO because they want to stretch out the war in the hope that it will eventually cause the collapse of Russia, which Girkin thinks is a real danger. So he foresees no dramatic changes over the next six months, only ongoing "positional battles" and attacks on infrastructure, each side hoping to wear the other down.

Tatarigami again on the new Russian offensive near Avdiivka, a major assault using at least a hundred armored vehicles. So far they have made limited progress with high losses, including at least 36 armored vehicles wrecked. Videos of this attack here, here, here, here. Summary from the Institute for the Study of War, which calls this a "major offensive." And from another Ukrainian source: "Certainly it is hell for the Ukrainians at Avdiivka but they have destroyed a very large amount of hardware. I am very curious to see how long the Russian offensive will last."

Oryx count of Russian losses for October 11, many from Avdiivka: 16 tanks, 26 armored vehicles, 3 towed artillery, 5 self-propelled artillery, 1 MLRS, 1 SAM, 10 others.