Nonpolitical news of Jan 2021
Wind machines
This is a promotional video for a Patagonia jacket. I can’t speak for the jacket, but check out the job! It gives you a good feeling for the scale of these new machines; especially the last shot (at 1:07 – it only lasts a second or two). Maybe when I retire from AI I’ll take up wind machine repair.
https://youtu.be/54qVtHJYeGY
A rap song about the Treasury Secretary
Kai Ryssdal, host of NPR’s Marketplace, is friends with a woman rapper named Dessa, and he commissioned her to write a rap song about the new Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen. It’s very entertaining – the lyrics are wild. The first “Listen now” link has the segment of the show about the song. The conversation between Kai and Dessa (especially after the song) is funny and well worth hearing. The link lower down on the page has the song by itself.
https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/21/yellen-hamilton-musical-biden-dessa/
A review of bike-sharing programs
Bike-sharing programs have been tried at scale, and some worked while others didn’t. It turns out that government regulation is one of the ingredients of successful programs. To me, that’s an interesting finding since the current attitude towards most things economic is that government is simply a hindrance to business.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210112-the-vast-bicycle-graveyards-of-china
The John Birch society
The John Birch society of the 1960s was a lot like the far right today, and in fact peddled some of the same conspiracy theories (like fluoride being a Communist plot). But the Republicans of the day outlawed them and it effectively ended their interference in politics. I find the contrast with the last four years interesting, because it shows how much control society’s mainstream actually has over its fringes. There are several examples in history including the Rwanda genocide, Naziism, and the Serbian/Bosnian conflict where hate speech from the fringes went mainstream and created situations that went horribly off the rails. It suggests that the mere condoning of pro-violence speech is much more dangerous than we think it is.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch-society-qanon-reagan-republicans-goldwater/
Border walls
A nice response to the border wall – to any border wall, for that matter.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55718478
Google flexing its muscles
Google is locked in an argument with Australian lawmakers about whether Google must share some of the money it makes with the news industry. What exactly happens in this particular case may not matter much, but it’s instructive that Google has already threatened to turn off Google Search to the continent of Australia. Google didn’t even bother to add Gmail and Google Maps to the threat, because they know that the question “How many Australians rely on Gmail?” will occur to the lawmakers. As the song goes, “You don’t miss your water ‘til the well runs dry.” These tech companies have the world by the nose.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55760673
Honesty on a menu (humor)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/montreal-chinese-restaurant-canada-customers-aunt-dai
The Middle East is headed for worse
This is a serious and unhappy article (warning!) but it gives you quite a visceral feel for the problems percolating in the Middle East that will probably boil over again soon. Population growth is out of control; young people have no prospects; and a bunch of savage old bastards are hanging onto power by force. It’s not a recipe for success.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/arab-spring-10-year-anniversary-lost-decade/
Lagos
I consider Lagos a nightmare that encapsulates every kind of bad Juju there is. 24 million people live there (3 times as many as New York). Nigeria one of the most corrupt countries in the world and inequality is huge, so poor people have it really rough. And now, to top it off, flooding from global warming is looming.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210121-lagos-nigeria-how-africas-largest-city-is-staying-afloat
The plastic cycle
A serious suggestion that the quantities of plastic in the world are so great that scientists should study the plastic cycle like they study other geochemical cycles. I think he’s right but it grosses me out.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.609243/full
Band of one
A bored young guy sent Facebook friend requests to people who shared his name; the result is funny.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/01/19/paul-osullivan-band-name-facebook/
Maybe it’s time to move to Iceland
I just liked the thought of being somewhere remote. “For months on end, the farm is blanketed by snow, and sounds are muted — except the sound of the surrounding sea. In winter, the crushing waves become progressively wilder, the wind ever stronger, the weather conditions less predictable.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/travel/remote-weather-station-iceland.html