A Tale of Two Telescopes: WFIRST and Hubble
How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially? by Max Roser
“Adjusted for the purchasing power in each country, 85% of the world population live on less than $30 per day.
China overtakes the US in scientific research output: Between 2018 and 2020 China published 23.4% of the world’s scientific papers, eclipsing the US.
“The Japanese NISTP report also found that Chinese research comprised 27.2% of the world’s top 1% most frequently cited papers.”
U.S. aims to hobble China’s chip industry with sweeping new export rules.
A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism by Suisheng Zhao
Memo to Democrats: Inflation Only Beats You If You Don’t Talk About It by Mike Lux
Ukraine war expert links:
Kamil Galeev
2022 Ukraine Crisis: Reporters, diplomats, heads of state and analysts tweeting on the Ukraine crisis
Running doesn’t wreck your knees. It strengthens them. Contrary to popular opinion, distance running rarely causes knee problems in runners, and often leaves joints sturdier and less damaged, link, link2
Why I’m Not Writing About This Year’s Nobel by Chad Orzel
“the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics was announced as going to John Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger, “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.””
Pluralistic: 20 Oct 2022 It was all downhill after the Cuecat by Cory Doctorow
The Highest-Rated Beer in Every State (2022)
Too many high ABV stouts!
How a Strange Grid Reveals Hidden Connections Between Simple Numbers. Erdős–Szemerédi theorem in arithmetic combinatorics
Ancient genomes and West Eurasian history. Storytelling with ancient DNA reveals challenges and potential for writing new histories. by Benjamin S. Arbuckle and Zoe Schwandt
The Periodic Table of Endangered Elements by David Cole-Hamilton
Explanation of cracking a Master combo lock in 8 attempts or less!
Plastic-Eating Enzymes Chomp into the Future. An innovative alternative to a non-degradable plastic.
Stanhopes, novelties with a tiny hidden image.
Twitter texts reveal rich have no ideas
Modeling COVID-19 Mortality Across 44 Countries: Face Covering May Reduce Deaths
What qualities will make an AI a person?
-General intelligence, not just a special ability to solve a particular class of problems.
-General ability to learn from interacting with the environment.
-Can communicate with people.
-The AI needs a sense of self, needs to see itself as a person.
-General ability to reason abstractly, reason about problems in general.
The various types of machine learning that exist today can and likely will be a part of a human-level AI, but as a module or subcomponent that gets applied to learning tasks. Another level of AI will need to exist on top of that, applying general knowledge storage, modeling / conceptualizing problems, dealing with overarching direction and goals.
How far a train will take you in 5 hrs in Europe
Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. Documentary
Impact of Lifting School Masking Requirements on Incidence of COVID-19 among Staff and Students in Greater-Boston Area School Districts: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis. “We estimate that lifting of school masking requirements was associated with an additional 44.9 (95% CI: 32.6, 57.1) COVID-19 cases per 1,000 students and staff over the 15 weeks since the lifting of the statewide school masking requirement, representing nearly 30% of all cases observed in schools during that time. “
You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack, cartoons by Tom Gauld
Kiln camera
Endless rake
Kiln design
EDM controller test
Piezo motor design / tests
Spot welder controller
Kiln ESP32 v2 (current sensing, direct ramp control, 2nd temp probe, bug fix)
ESP32 security camera, wall powered
CNC glass cutting w/ heat gun
Chicago River. “Bubbly Creek: An Environmental Quagmire for Federal Agencies and Local Activists“
An Environmental Disaster Brought to You by Meat: Chicago’s Bubbly Creek
The Republican Attack on Citizenship: From Rhetoric to Reality by John Ganz
The Bactra Review: book reviews by Cosma Shalizi of What Is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect by James R. Flynn
The Bactra Review: book reviews by Cosma Shalizi of What Is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect by James R. Flynn
100 Prisoners Riddle
Pioneer Panzer Brigade, the East German Boy Scout Tank Unit
WebbCompare Deep_Field
2022 Audubon photography award
Compounded: the Peer Reviewed Edition! is a game about scientists grappling for recognition on the edge of known chemistry, and getting credit for their discoveries, all while competing for limited resources and striking deals with the competition to ensure their work gets done.
IU’s silence regarding Dr. Caitlin Bernard hasn’t gone unnoticed by Jeffrey C. Isaac. IU leadership silent on attacks on OB/GYN professor.
Tirzepatide gives 20% weight loss! Once Weekly for the Treatment of Obesity
Laser spot size tradeoffs, link
Amateur ruling engine for making diffraction gratings made by Brian Manning TJIIRRS: Number 13,
Diffraction gratings, buy
Handy Techniques and Devices for making stuff by Jon Singer
More Guns, More Unintended Consequences: The Effects of Right-to-Carry on Criminal Behavior and Policing in US Cities. John J. Donohue, Samuel V. Cai, Matthew V. Bondy & Philip J. Cook.
Solar Panel Tilt Angle Calculator
Your optimal year-round tilt angle:
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1 of 9’x 100′ Housewrap, $129
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JELD-WEN 36 in. x 80 in. 6-Panel Primed Steel Prehung Left-Hand Inswing Front Door w/Brickmould, $270
shims, $2
liquid nails, caulk
DEWALT 2-3/8″ x 0.113″ Ring Shank Galvanized Metal Framing Nails 2000 per Box, $60
Nail gun, rental, DEWALT 20V Framing Nailer, 21-degree, battery
Pavers for water barrel
garden hose nozzle
Finish boards
Currently, gun regulation is politically impossible. The Republican party has worked with the gun manufacturer’s lobby (the NRA) to make gun ownership a totem, an obsession among conservatives. Republicans won’t vote for even minor gun regulation of the sort large majorities of Americans favor.
To pass federal gun regulation, the Democrats need to control the Presidency, the House, and have 54+ votes in the Senate, enough to overcome the members of the party who vote with Republicans on close bills. And even that would not be enough. The Supreme Court has been packed with Republican extremists. In 2008, the Court invented a personal write to own military weapons, and the Court now has more Republican extremists–any significant law passed by Democrats faces a likely veto by the Court. With the Court vetoing all the state gun control measures, they certainly would throw out a Democratic federal gun regulation bill.
So what *can* be done? I would look to the last time Republican favored gun regulation. In 1967, when Reagan was governor of California, he signed a ban on carrying loaded guns without a permit. Why? Because the Black Panthers were encouraging blacks to carry guns.
Is the US still racist enough for this to work? Certainly. So if group, say Arm African Americans (AAA), were to very publicly encourage blacks and other minorities to walk around strapped, that would quickly change the politics of gun regulation. Encourage 18-year old gang members to carry guns at all times–a lot of these kids don’t have criminal records, so they can. This will get cops behind gun regulation.
Start minority gun clubs. Hold gun parades and gun events in public spaces. Encourage people at marches to publicly carry guns, and minorities to carry guns in public. The Republican press may applaud this at first, but they will soon start fear-mongering like they do. Urban areas will be even more ‘dangerous’ to conservatives, and they will encounter armed minorities in public all over. I can’t see the Democratic party pushing for this, but other democratic-minded groups could start this. Is this a little crazy? Yes, but there is no sensible path to gun regulation in the US.
Within a few years, Republicans will start voting for gun control and the Supreme Court will *discover* new legal theories making the laws enforceable.
