Scott Siskind, Against The Omnipresent Advantage Argument For Trans Sports.
Hilarious Guardian piece on English Christmas wonderlands gone horribly wrong: "Nana, have we been bad?"
Interesting isolated human population identified in stone age southern Africa, extreme genetic outliers. (News piece, article in Nature)
Article on the Romantasy genre, with statistics and some good observations about the style.
Japanese parliament debates a tax increase to fund more defense spending.
And more Japanese news, protests shut down a developer's plan to build condominiums for foreigners.
New research explores how the bacterial toxin colibactin modifies human DNA, leading to cancer. (Science News, technical article)
One of my minor obsessions is the Battle of Pygmies and Cranes, a very ancient and mysterious bit of Eurasian lore. I just discovered that there is a modern mock epic poem about it by some other enthusiast: "The pygmy-people, and the feather'd train, Mingling in mortal combat on the plain, I sing."
Cartis Yarvin says he was inspired to become a political philosopher by watching YouTube clips that contrasted Nazis in uniform with western "decadence" and "filth." (Twitter/X) Finally, we understand.
Lots in the news about a major study of trait heritability that seems to find that most traits are less heritable than many thought; Scott Siskind goes through it in detail and finds it doesn't convincingly show anything.
The building that houses the Wayback Machine.
A bunch of recent studies have not found that economic inequality has much effect on people's lives: no effect on crime, little effect on subjective well being, etc. (Twitter/X)
Noah Smith: "LatinoIslamophobia vs Islamoleftism is the future of American political discourse."
British film about hedgelaying from 1942, 9 minutes. Why was this made in 1942? To get women to do agricultural work? And did you know that in Britain, hedgelaying is a competitive sport?
A short history of zoning. (Twitter/X, Substack)
Very interesting conversation between conservative Catholic Ross Douthat and trans activist Chase Strangio, who has litigated trans cases before the Supreme Court. (NY Times)
Free article from The Atlantic on how many college students are now considered to have "disabilities" that get them perks like special low-distraction testing sites, and extra time.
And another Atlantic "gift article", Jonathan Chait on The Intellectual Vacuity of the National Conservatives.
Nature retracts a study that predicted huge economic impacts from climate change. (NY Times, Retraction Watch, Nature) Ideology and science do not mix well.
From old line conservative George Will, a piece titled A Sickening Moral Swamp of an Administration. With this: "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement."
Do western nations owe African nations reparations because of the slave trade? I got this via John McWhorter.
Is this little video about a Chinese guy with a fleet of sword-shaped drones real?
Via Tyler Cowen, advice for men on how to get laid. You're going to see more of this as old fuddy-duddies get increasingly worried that young people aren't having enough sex.
Why did the US Navy cancel its Constellation frigate program? (20-minute video, Newsweeek, Defense News) Many American naval officers are in a state of perpetual rage about the mess in our shipbuilding program.
European militaries are throwing together new anti-drone systems from off-the-shelf components to provide a bridge until projected new high-tech systems become available.
3 comments:
One of my minor obsessions is the Battle of Pygmies and Cranes, a very ancient and mysterious bit of Eurasian lore. I just discovered that there is a modern mock epic poem about it by some other enthusiast: "The pygmy-people, and the feather'd train, Mingling in mortal combat on the plain, I sing."
I had not come across your prior post before, nor this particular theme in stories. I find myself intrigued.
I do wonder, though... I couldn't help but compare the idea to the fairly prevalent theme of monkeys and cranes in Asian myth, folklore, art, etc. Pliny remarks about the "pygmies" being less than three span, or twenty seven inches, tall - which is pretty close to the heights of many of the species of Old World Monkeys.
Monkeys and cranes crop up together in many different contexts in Asia, and are particularly prevalent in Buddhist materials. I'm not immediately familiar with a particular story or depiction where they are literally at war with each other, but they are often diametrically opposed - cranes have divine or celestial connotations, while monkeys suggest more earthly or primal qualities; cranes often represent wisdom and thought, while monkeys represent cunning and emotion; cranes sometimes represent individuals and solitude, where monkeys represent families and communities; etc.
I note, also, that the Greeks enjoyed their stories about two opposed groups of beings each representing contrasting aspects of human nature - see, for example, the storytelling traditions surrounding satyrs and nymphs. I wonder if the pygmies and the cranes served a similar purpose; and I wonder if it might have drawn from Greek connections to eastern lands, which are not insignificant, even rather far back in time.
Is this little video about a Chinese guy with a fleet of sword-shaped drones real?
I'm no expert, of course, but it gives a very strong appearance of being real. Nothing shown in the video is too terribly outlandish from a physics standpoint - not even the oversized drone being tentatively "ridden".
You could certainly fake this, but if you were going to do so, I think the temptation would be to make it all look more "impressive" and slick.
There are little details that suggest mundane reality. Such as how if you pay attention you can make out the rough frame construction of the small "swords" - if it was just CGI, it would be a lot easier and take a lot less work to make them look smoother and more perfect. There's also discrete variation in parts colors and construction, when CGI would normally just use all perfectly identical 3D models. Similarly, the motion is believably natural - the drones aren't all in perfect sync, and don't all carry out their commands identically, but some are clearly making adjustments based on their own individual flight conditions at a given moment, or receiving their command signals just slightly out of step with other drones, etc.
The construction of the drones itself also makes sense for the way they move, etc. The way the drones turn and rotate in the air looks correct for the apparent centers of mass and thrust based on the fan placement. When they accelerate "forward" (toward the tip of the blade) from a stationary hover, they exhibit a proper slightly downward pitch due to inertia. Et cetera.
That's a lot of small, naturalistic details to get extremely right, and to do so would take a lot of work, time, and difficulty - far more than I would imagine it would take to just do everything for real.
The one area I'm iffy on the is oversized drone, because the shots of it are short, few, and not great, and honestly that would be the hardest aspect to do in reality as well. There's a lot of aspects about it that suggest that it, in particular, could be CGI, and the more I rewatch, the more I suspect is probably is - there are too many little coincidental aspects lining up, and purely on the limited footage shown, there are too many ways you could fake the oversized sword quite easily, so I doubt it for that.
From old line conservative George Will, a piece titled A Sickening Moral Swamp of an Administration. With this: "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement."
The single best summation I have heard on the effect of these attacks is this:
The "Five Eyes" intelligence sharing alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand has been in place since World War II. For over 80 years, these countries have been cooperating and sharing covert intelligence for mutual benefit.
In the wake of these attacks, Britain has opted to no longer share intelligence with America, because they can no longer trust that information they divulge will not be used to engage in international crimes, and they cannot afford to be found either culpable or liable for American crimes made possible by the sharing of their intelligence.
When the British, of all people, feel like you've gone too far in clandestinely killing citizens of Third World countries, that's extraordinarily damning.
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