Dubious Quality

Friday Links Draft Kings link fixed

Sorry. It should work now.

posted by Bill Harris @ 1:24 PM

Friday Links!

Leading off this week, a story of absolute predation: https://www.propublica.org/article/draftkings-sports-gambling-problem-vip-fanduel.

This is terrific: What butterfly wings have in common with barbershop poles.

This is a fascinating read: Fixer, financier, spymaster: how the UAE’s Sheikh Tahnoon is setting his sights on AI dominance. 

A strange and tragic story: What Killed the Bear Lady? For 28 years, Kay Grayson lived side-by-side with wild black bears in North Carolina's swampy coastal forests, hand-feeding them, defending them against poachers, and letting them in her home. When she went missing last year, the only thing the investigators could find were her clean-picked bones. And that's just the start of the mystery.

A fantastic read: The Bizarre, Murky History of Soviet-Born Tetris. 

From 2019, but riveting: A Paranoid Tech Bro, a Homemade Nuclear Bunker, and a Shocking Death: In the tunnels beneath a placid suburban home, an angel investor turned into an angel of doom.

From Wally, and this is an interesting turn: Choose Your Own Adventure Publisher Launches Adult Imprint. I've noticed these: Uncanny and unappetizing: appetites spoil as AI images take over food menus. Not my favorite genre: 10 Greatest Historical Fiction Books of All Time. An absolutely excellent read: Misunderstanding the Genius of Jules Verne — And Why It Matters to Science Fiction: Our cultural obsession with Verne's predictive abilities ignores the real critical nuance and power of his writing, to everyone's detriment.

posted by Bill Harris @ 10:03 PM

Surmise

DQ Reader Zack has created a word game, and it's quite good. Most new word games are knockoffs on existing ones, but this is unique and makes you think.

It's called Surmise, and the objective is to uncover the rule guiding the puzzle. Some words are "in," others are "out," and it's up to you to discover why. Actually, I don't even need to explain it because he made an excellent, short trailer: Surmise video.

You just go to a website for the daily puzzle. No app and nothing to install. It has plenty of features already, including practice puzzles, the ability to share puzzles with friends, and stat tracking.

If you decide to play, you can enter the code SURMISEBETA to gain full supporter access through the middle of October. 

posted by Bill Harris @ 8:20 AM

The Wayback Machine

I've written before about being willing to boycott some companies (rot in hell, Hobby Lobby), but not Chic-Fil-A.

I did, for about ten years. Then Eli 10.0 had friends take him for lunch and he loved it because who wouldn't? So I started taking him and the boycott was over and hasn't yet returned.

I had a few spare minutes waiting for the subway today and went into the wayback machine.

The magical mall we went to in Corpus Christi was called Padre-Staples Mall. It opened on July 29, 1969, so I would have been a few months past eight then. The mall was a magical place for a kid who came from a town of 7,302 people. I don't remember the first time we went, but it was always a highlight of my weekend when we did. And it was half an hour away, so it felt like a journey.

I remember eating Chic-Fil-A for the first time and being stunned that anything could taste so perfect. What I didn't know was that when the Chic-Fil-A opened in Corpus Christi--the day the mall opened--it was only the eighth Chic-Fil-A location in the entire country, and the first in Texas.

How Corpus Christi was chosen is entirely baffling, as there were at least four other, far better cities (Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas). Corpus Christi only had about 200,000 people, which made it huge to me but quite small compared to the big four. 

I remember the quality being a bit uneven (unlike today). Most of the time, though, it was spectacular, and I've never forgotten those memories. They still hit whenever I walk into one today. 

posted by Bill Harris @ 12:20 PM

ASU Update

There's an update: Arizona State men's hockey players ask school to place coach Greg Powers on leave.

Most of what the coaches and university claimed in their "investigative" report is disputed by the players, which makes sense, because much of what was claimed by the university was total gibberish. 

This will inevitably drag on. No actual charges will be filed, even though someone died through utter negligence. The coach will be dismissed but admit no wrongdoing. The Navy Seal will move on to put someone else's life in jeopardy. The parents will file a lawsuit and receive a large settlement that will never make up for any of what happened. 

This old-school coach mentality bullshit where sports are equated with war has to stop. It gets people killed.

posted by Bill Harris @ 12:41 PM

Rain Rain Rain

posted by Bill Harris @ 10:19 AM

Friday Links!

The intricacies of cartography are fascinating: ‘A map is never neutral’: meet the cartographers who took on centuries of western bias. 

This seems conclusive: Researchers Say They’ve Found the Truth About Thomas Jefferson: A secret 15-year effort has produced genetic evidence that one of the nation’s Founders fathered children with a woman he enslaved.

Life can be strange in a great way sometimes: How Neil Diamond and a bag of weed turned a pair of struggling young guitarists into global stars: “We smoked a lot of pot together, so that was really helpful”.

This is not a story from the past, not really: ‘The damage was much worse than I had imagined’: the shocking inside story of Salman Rushdie’s survival. 

This is an incredible, bizarre story: Worst Roommate Ever.

Cold? Not any more: T. rex teeth indicate it ran as warm as an elephant.

Stunning photographs: ‘He was making history, not copying it’: the greatest Gordon Parks photographs.

From Meg McReynolds, it's Fat Bear Week! 

From Wally, and now I want to see all of them: 10 great sci-fi B-movies. This entire story is bizarre: Man banned from Oz Comic-Con after biting incident in Brisbane. No surprise: Unsealed Files Show Open AI/Microsoft Knew Copying Was Illegal and Could Hurt Authors.

posted by Bill Harris @ 10:03 PM

I Respect the Thorough Nature of Your Inquiry, Sir

Here's what I received a while back:
Hi Bill,

In About What You'd Expect (October 2016) you ran two online reaction tests and noted that one was "probably more accurate" - .21-.23 on one, .25-.27 on the other. That gap is mostly the input path, and almost every one of these tests hides it behind a single number.

I built a new benchmark tool around that problem. Results are ranked separately by device class - mouse, trackpad, touchscreen - and the per-device offsets are labelled as extrapolation rather than measurement, because they are. The baseline itself is fitted from Human Benchmark's published statistics (n=81,000,000), which pools every input device into one figure; splitting it is my extrapolation, and the page says so. There is also an audio mode, with the caveat that Bluetooth output adds its own delay.

Not asking you to edit a ten-year-old post. But if you ever revisit reaction time, or test Eli again, this is a fairer instrument than the ones that print one number and stop.

No account, no ads, nothing to buy.
https://benchself.com/

Both the test and the website around it are excellent. The email was also a masterclass in explaining why this tool is different and providing comprehensive information.

If you were ever interested originally, it's a good time to revisit. My best 5-test run (average) was 184ms. Reaction time is still strong, even with my "advanced" age. It makes me wonder what it was like when I was young.

posted by Bill Harris @ 2:17 PM

Damn It

Due to ineptitude and indifference, an Arizona St. hockey player, Matthew Mayich, is in a coma and will not recover: Arizona State hockey workout review assigns no blame. Lawyer calls it 'mind-blogging'.

That "review" was performed by Arizona St. itself. 

Here are a few excerpts from the story:
Carey said exertional heat stroke caused a lack of oxygen to his brain and there is no chance for a full recovery [by Mayich].

The workout was horrific in both its intensity and scope (the details are in the article). It was run by an ex-Navy Seal and was 100% in the "alpha male bullshit this will prove how tough you are" category. Safeguards were in place, they were totally ignored, and tragedy was the result.

The Seal has already lawyered up, of course. This is from a another article (Rake is the Seal's attorney):
The workout that Tim did was discussed with the coaches beforehand and with the training staff, and it was a mid-level, or what I would call a low-level, high school football workout

Yes. That is why you bring in an ex-Navy Seal to conduct a workout. So he can lead a low-level high school workout. That totally makes sense.

I remember when Eli 25.1 was playing AAA in 16U, which is the premiere junior age group. His time was in the top 15 nationally--and didn't have a trainer. The degree of disposability in athletes is astonishing. They're just pulp for the machine that pays coaches, and while there are exceptions, I would argue that in both football and hockey they're the rare exceptions.

To be clear, these kinds of bullshit workouts don't help you get in better shape. Any time you overload beyond capacity to that degree, absolutely nothing is achieved. Conditioning-wise, it's a waste of time. It's just peacocking for macho male moron culture, which continues to curse this country at every conceivable level.

I'm angry, in case you can't tell. 

posted by Bill Harris @ 2:35 PM

Yuck, For a While

I've been grinding along the last few days because I've been sick.

This time, though, I've been lucky. Only three days for a respiratory virus, and I was even able to walk several miles today. Not quite back to normal, but not feeling terrible, either.

There are common sense precautions to take when you live here and that I stopped during the summer, like wearing a mask when you're on mass transit. This has been a good reminder to start doing it again. I'm not crazy about wearing a mask because it can affect the fit of my glasses, but it's far better than being sick. 

posted by Bill Harris @ 1:20 PM

Cup (Oct. 5, 2019--September 21, 2026)

It didn't look like this when it was new:

The tiny bit of black was an entire football-related pattern I've long since forgotten that wore away over the years.

It probably shocks you that I do the same things each morning, even down to using the same cup, as part of a habit train to get me into my study and writing. The cup was part of it, as I had my glass of tea (Gold Peak Zero Sugar Sweet Tea, nothing else) in it every morning. 

Over the years, little flakes of black peeled away. It was an image, at first, and then it became hundreds of different images over time, less and less recognizable.

I kept it because it was the weekend Gloria and I went to Ann Arbor for Parent's Weekend when Eli 25.1 was just a freshman. Part of the weekend was attending a football game, and I saved the stadium cup. Hers, too, because I like cups that size for drinking water.

Our marriage was failing, but we were still together for Parent's Weekend, and no matter our troubles, we always united over Eli. It was the one thing we could always agree on.

I realized this morning that I don't have many things from when we were together. I don't have any jewelry because I don't wear any. Maybe a shirt or two, though I've long forgotten their provenance. Maybe a journal or two she gave me. Again, though, the provenance is fuzzy.

I still have the second yellow cup. But everything else is gone, and she is, too. 

posted by Bill Harris @ 6:07 AM

Friday Links!

Leading off this week, an insufferable prick (but an incredible read): She Made Me Do It: A prominent dressage trainer shot a belligerent student—and now maintains that he’s the real victim.

Bouncy castles? Now nothing is safe: Bouncy castle launches horrifying MRSA outbreak, striking 48 kids in Ireland. 

A fascinating article: Trump and the Second Crisis in IR Theory.

Fantastically silly and wildly entertaining: King of the hill race in Hudson speedway , the goal is to park on running trailer. 

A terrific read: Random rewards enrich classic game-theory insights. 

Excellent: A pizza-sized ocean predator and a tribe are trying to protect each other. Here's how. 

From Wally, and it's a link from bizarro world: Google Mapped A Fruit Fly Brain, So Engineers Taught It To Play Doom. Next, some amazing art: John Carter Original Art. I disagree with almost every choice, but it's interesting; 10 Greatest Books of the Last 20 Years, Ranked. 

From D.G.F., another article following up on an earlier link about brutal injustice (please note: this is difficult reading): The framing of Chris Duncan: Part Two.

posted by Bill Harris @ 10:04 PM

He Built This City

This is from the Museum of the City of New York website:

He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model celebrates the extraordinary vision and dedication behind one of the most ambitious handmade representations of New York City ever created. For the first time in New York—Macken’s muse—the artist’s monumental model will be presented to the public at the Museum of the City of New York.

Queens-born artist Joe Macken began the project in 2004. Over the next 21 years, working first in Middle Village, Queens and later in Clifton Park, New York, he devoted himself to crafting a vast architectural portrait of the city he calls home. Built entirely by hand using everyday materials—including balsa wood, cardboard, and glue—the model spans 50 by 27 feet and comprises over 340 individual sections. It renders the city’s skyline, neighborhoods, and landmarks with remarkable precision, character, and imagination. Macken started with the Comcast Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, infusing its familiar form with details that signal his personal artistic vision.

He wasn't an artist when he started, just a guy. Here's an article about him: A Truck Driver Spent 20 Years Building a Miniature Model of New York City. Then, It Went Viral.

We went today (along with seeing Museo de Barrio, which was fantastic) and I took some pictures. You'll have to zoom in because the scope is so massive it's difficult to photograph.

The second image was taken zoomed in with my camera. Our neighborhood is actually in there, and I was even able to find our street. Incredible.

Around the first image you can see small information pages, and on one of them he explained that he only wanted to do one building at first (the Rockefeller Center, I think, though it was called the RCA Center then). When it was done, he decided to do one more. Then he just kept working, day after day. "It's just consistency," he said. 

posted by Bill Harris @ 3:42 PM