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Worthwhile Reading and Watching

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Rearming warships at sea. In an intensive conflict, missiles can be expended very quickly. And reloading presently requires a trip back to a base, requiring weeks or months.  Reload-at-sea is challenging but development is being pursued.

It could make a major difference in ship/fleet effectiveness..it’s good that this is now being pursued, but…couldn’t this work have been started 10 years ago and now be operationally deployed or at least ready to go?

The electric air taxi company Joby Aviation has received FAA approval for a flight school to train pilots for its own aircraft and those of other companies.  See also plans for air taxi service in the UAE.

Why the symbolic professions tend to be highly unrepresentative of the societies that they purportedly serve.

David Brooks asserts that Ivy League admissions broke America. Here’s a transcript.  He doesn’t seem to even consider the possibility that elite-schools-as-a-gateway to key positions in a society is a really bad idea, as Peter Drucker argued 50+ years ago.

Alexander Hamilton tried to warn us about people like Obama, out of office and ‘wandering among the people like discontented ghosts.’

Real science:  Hacksawing your hypothesis.

There’s a report that OpenAI’s new model reacted to the threat of being shut down and replaced by a new model by copying itself into the new model.  Reminded me of the story Burning Bright in the collection of SF stories that I reviewed here.

Interesting comments at the X link for the story..not totally clear to what extent the model’s actions are reflective of truly emergent behavior versus ‘nudging’ in that direction.

Nice views of the restored Notre Dame cathedral, featuring the stained glass windows.

Worthwhile Reading & Viewing

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Artificial Intelligence and the limits of language.   Is it possible to truly understand statements represented in language without knowing something about the world outside of language?

The abolition of school discipline…basically, the public school equivalent of shutting down police departments.   The article at the link discusses the consequences.

How did Amazon Web Services become so successful?   The track record of companies that developed information technology for their own use and then decided to market it to other users has not been very good:   AWS is a major exception.

Can capitalism save Hollywood?

The nature of America’s university administrators, as observed by Stephen Hsu.   More here.

The mother of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a major figure in the German anti-Nazi resistance, refused to send her children to public schools:

She was openly distrustful of the German public schools and their Prussian educational methods. She subscribed to the maxim that Germans had their backs broken twice, once at school and once in the military, she wasn’t about to entrust her children to the care of others less sensitive than she during their earliest years.

Analysis of trends in scientific publications suggests that truly disruptive research is becoming less common.   The article at the link argues that ideological capture of institutions has been a major cause of reduced innovation.   See also this related article.

Joseph Flaherty reacts to a small carving of a water bird, created 33000 years ago:   “Imagine your greatest of grandparents, pursued by frost and ravenous megafauna through an endless German winter, huddled in a lean-to lit and warmed by an open fire, deciding to carve this bird to make their child smile, to impress their mate, or simply for the joy of creation.”


Worthwhile Reading & Viewing

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Our friend Bookworm has great photos from her trip to the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan.

Speaking of photographs,   Nikon’s Small World has an extensive collection of images captured by the light microscope.

A mosaic depicting the Trojan War has been found in Syria.

The most precious resource is agency.   Excerpt:

Seizing opportunity requires opportunity to exist at all. And I suspect the downplaying of agency in childhood not only creates fewer opportunities for great people, it must also create more marginal people. Ushering everyone into an endless default script is disastrous when underlying conditions or assumptions change. Even when they don’t, some people exit academia almost terrified to leave (to interact with the “real world”), a kind of Stockholm syndrome. How could we celebrate a higher learning that creates something so pathetic, the opposite of a readiness for life?

What is going on in the world’s art museums?

Organizational cultures and product failures. (at Twitter)

A very interesting analysis of the embedded energy associated with various products.

This natural resources investment firm suggests that the reductions in the cost of wind and solar technologies has been driven not primarily by a Moore’s-law-like learning curve, but rather by reductions in energy and capital costs.

The energy transition of the last 700 years: trends in the share of economies consumed by acquiring food and fuel.

A rapacious and greedy Technocracy

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Obama health care plan online. (Relax. It’s a joke. Or, is it?)

The image is by editorial cartoonist Winsor McCay and I came across the image at the wonderful art blog linesandcolors.

Update: In the comments, Michael Kennedy adds: “CBO says there are not enough details to score the new “bill.” What else is new?”

Yes. What else is new? Also, this via Drudge: “An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision….This was my heart, my choice and my health,” Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.”

Be aware: If the health care plans don’t work as smoothly as gamed by the white paper crowd, the connected will exempt themselves from the worst of it. They always do. Do Senators tend to fly coach?

“One of Irina’s grandsons, nicknamed Riri, was sent to her at Christmas.”

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“One of Irina’s grandsons, nicknamed Riri, was sent to her at Christmas. His mother was going into hospital, but nobody told him that. The real cause of his visit was that since Irina had become a widow her children worried about her being alone. The children, as Irina would call them forever, were married and in their thirties and forties. They did not think they were like other people, because their father had been a powerful old man. He was a Swiss writer, Richard Notte. They carried his reputation and the memory of his puritan equity like an immense jar filled with water of which they had been told not to spill a drop.” – from the short story Irina, by Mavis Gallant (Paris Stories collection)

Paris Stories is a beautiful collection. The short story Irina has the most vivid sense of place – it’s all a feeling of hushed, chilled, snowy air outside, and the quiet of an apartment unused to children inside:

“At half past four, when the windows were as black as the sky in the painting of tulips and began to reflect the lamps in a disturbing sort of way, they drew the curtains and had tea around the table. They pushed Riri’s books and belongings to one side and spread a cross-stitched tablecloth. Riri had hot chocolate, a croissant left from breakfast and warmed in the oven….”

And now, Urban Sketchers:

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The above drawing – by Cathy Gatland – is from the website, Urban Sketchers. Urban Sketchers is one of the most interesting sites I have encountered this year. It’s a group blog for people who draw, and they draw, charmingly, what they see: The city life around them! It’s dizzying, the talent on display.