Friday LInks!
Leading off this week, a beautifully written piece: A Reckoning in Springfield: A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become.
Yes, the bill is absolute bullshit, to no one's surprise: An Antitrust Expert Makes The Comprehensive Case Against The Protect College Sports Act.
This continues to be a great mystery: A medieval manuscript has confounded scholars for centuries. Have they been reading it wrong all this time?
Fascinating: ‘Hitler was a lazy criminal who slept in until noon’: why most of what we think we know about the rise of the Nazis is wrong.
This is quite astonishing: Spontaneous problem-solving in bumble bees.
Tremendous and worthy research: Controlling the brain with light earns a physiology Nobel.
Kudzu is a curse: The “Vine That Ate the South” Is the Feral Hog of Invasive Plants. And It’s Nibbling at Texas.
From Wally, and Cory is generally thoughtful and fair: Digital life doesn’t have to be this way: Writer, activist Cory Doctorow wants you to be mad about tech monopoly — but not blindly terrified of AI. So, so strange: World of WearableArt’s ‘GLO!’ Is a Celebration of Culture, Nature, and Whimsy. An increasingly difficult task: Detecting deepfakes, in a world where even reality is suspect. Book banning is for losers: ‘Yes, everyone should read Fahrenheit 451’.
GrimKeep
I planned on writing about other things today, but damn, this is one of the best demos I've played in a long time.
Basically, think Darkest Dungeon 2 art, sound, and mission structure (ladder, branching), but it's dice-based, and you're gaining attack points by the quality of your hand, along with multipliers and other bonuses based on the items you've equipped.
It's absolutely phenomenal. I can't think of a single thing I'd change.
It's also a masterclass in how to put out a demo. I can't wait for the full release in November.
Here's a link: GrimKeep.
Hopeful
It's a big day today, I hope.
I'm seeing a non-surgical orthopedist--I've been waiting eight weeks for the appointment--to obtain a specific diagnosis on what's wrong with my shoulder.
The physical therapist I'm seeing believes it's inflammation causing an impingement, but I'm not sure it's that simple. Still, I'm hoping for an injection to lessen the inflammation, at a minimum.
With a specific diagnosis, I can set up a physical therapy plan that's specifically targeted at the problem instead of taking the (current) generalist approach.
It's screwing up my swimming, which is a major mental health contributor in my life. So I hope this is a step in the right direction.
The Humble Hour
I started wondering a few days ago why our time--in Western culture, at least--is organized around the hour.
When I was in junior high and high school, all of classes were based on an hour--55 minute classes, 5 minutes to get to the next class. Television is based on the hour, too.
Other things. Openings and closing of businesses. The vast majority of them open and close on the hour.
Child sport practices, too. Almost every introductory level to a sport has hour-long sessions.
I could keep going, but you see what I mean. And why is an hour sixty minutes long?
I started poking around and found this: The ancient, brilliant reason we divide days into 60-minute hours and 60-second minutes. It's fascinating, and here are a few short hits:
--originally, a day was divided into 24 segments by the ancient "Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks). However, these segments were NOT of uniform length.
--Greek astronomers in the Hellinistic period first proposed fixed length hours to assist in their calculations.
--hours of fixed length only started commonly appearing in the 14th century "after mechanical clocks first appeared in Europe."
I did not find a clear answer as to why so much of what we do is organized by the hour. Still hunting around for a good explanation.
The Sprinter
Eli 25.2 ran with the track team last week for the first time.
He said he was in the puppy group, not the dogs. But he wasn't the slowest.
He talked to the sprint coach afterwards and she said if he trained with her for a year he'd be running in the 49s. "At least," she said.
It's five weeks after he ran the 53.5. He said if he ran a timed 400 now it would be below 52. And his form is still terrible. It's all horsepower.
I refuse to be surprised anymore.
I keep telling him his ideal distance is going to be the mile (if he runs in the 49s for the 400 he could theoretically--with the proper training--break four minutes in the mile, and he could do it on the same track where Roger Bannister did it for the first time). He laughs and says not to threaten him (because the mile requires much more training and suffering).
We'll see.
Friday Links Draft Kings link fixed
Sorry. It should work now.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rain Rain Rain
It's rained all day for the last three days. All day.
It's clearly gotten to me because last night I dreamed I woke up and it was sunny outside.
I did wake up. It was not.
It's still raining.
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.
