Agent of Chaos

I am beyond disappointed. Angry. Scared. But not surprised. It seems like the world is moving in the direction of authoritarianism and the US is just the latest country to fall to this madness. 

Most of all, I am sad. Sad for my family members in the US; sad for any Americans who are not CIS, white, and male; sad for Ukraine and other countries struggling for freedom; sad for the planet because there will be no chance of mitigating global warming. 

The next four years (at least) are going to be chaotic. I am not looking forward to them. 

Featured Links - November 4, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The future if Trump wins

• Guns. Knives. Bats. Hammers. Hatchets. Spears. "As incidents of road rage escalate across the country, aggressive drivers in Texas try to understand what triggers anger." A good article about something that is all too common. 
• Kingdom Uncovered. "New documentary reveals that 21,000 laborers have died working on Saudi Vision 2030, which includes NEOM, since construction began."
• See a giant ‘ghost particle’ detector and more — October’s best science images. "The month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team."
• Reinventing the world’s favorite building material (archive link). "Concrete, the second-most-used material on Earth, generates about four times more CO2 emissions than planes." And one of the solutions might be slag; I hope someone at Algoma Steel reads this article. 
• The 2024 Grateful Dead Almanac. The year in the world of the Grateful Dead.
• The Strongman Fantasy. "And Dictatorship in Real Life". An historian on life under a dictator. 
• A fearful nation. "Jeremy Dauber's American Scary argues that America's horror genre are intrinsically linked to our horrific pasts–and present."
• Thousands Turn Out For Nonexistent Halloween Parade Promoted By AI Listing. The perils spreading disinformation created and enhanced by AI. 
• How The New York Times is using generative AI as a reporting tool. "LLMs help reporters transcribe and sort through hundreds of hours of leaked audio." AI can be useful, if it's handled responsibly and with understanding of its limitations.
• Why Are Liberals Infuriated with the Media? "From sanewashing to false equivalence, many readers have had it with their favorite news publications. Editors would do well to listen."

Photo of the Week - November 3, 2024

This week's photo is of the fall colours on the other side of Frenchman's Bay, taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

Fall colours on the bat

 

Saturday Sounds - The Allman Brothers - Final Concert 10-28-14

It's been ten years since The Allman Brothers played their final concert. I watched it on a webcast and it made me even sadder that I never managed to catch them playing live. They were definitely one of the great live bands. So this week's music treat is that last concert, recorded at the Beacon Theater in New York and featuring most of their classic tunes. Enjoy.

Movie and TV Reviews - October 2024

Movies and TV shows that Nancy and I watched in October. I do these posts mainly so I can keep track of what we've been watching, so the reviews are cursory. 

Movies

• The Instigators: An entertaining heist flick that we enjoyed more than the somewhat similar Wolfs. (Apple TV+)
• Alien: Romulus. The latest in the long-running Alien franchise. It's probably closest to the first movie in plot and tropes but a bit over the top for my taste. After a while it just got tedious. 
• Bruce Spingsteen: Road Diaries. A documentary about Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street band preparing for their current tour. The rehearsal sequences are fascinating; the concert performances exciting. I'm very much looking forward to seeing him in Toronto next week. (Disney+)

TV Shows

• Bad Monkey: A twisted comedic drama about an ex-cop now working in the Florida keys, not very successfully as a PI, who gets a job to investigate a human arm found by a tourist fisher. We enjoyed it. (Apple TV+)
• Slow Horses (season 4): The best spy drama in years is even better in its fourth season. (Apple TV+)
• Time Bandits: This is a reboot in series form of Terry Gilliam's wonderful movie. It has high production values and a similar plot to the movie with a lot of silliness but without Gilliam's satirical bite. (Apple TV+)
• Only Murders in the Building (season 4): The podcast crew become the subjects of a movie and of course someone has to die. I didn't like this one as much the previous seasons though it's still fun. (Disney+)
• The Long Shadow: Another top-flight British police procedural about the hunt for a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper in the 1970s. These shows often tend to sanitize the police, if not idolize them, but this series doesn't pull any punches and clearly shows both how the police bungled the search for the killer and the consequences of that mishandled investigation. Highly recommended. (Acorn TV)
• Antiques Road Trip (season 4): We continue working our way though the old episodes. (PBS)
• The Terminal List: A series about a Navy SEAL who is targetted after a mission he leads goes terribly wrong. Nothing special here; if you like this sort of thing walch Reacher. (Amazon Prime)

Some Tips on How to Spot Falsehoods

It's getting harder to spot falsehoods and disinformation online. That's not just true for election news but in culture war areas like climate change or vaccine safety.

I've been following a few people who write often on this topic; one of them is Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist, who publishes a newsletter called Your Local Epidemiologist. I highly recommend it; she covers a wide range of medical topics, often interviewing other experts in the field.

Today's newsletter is titled "9 ways to spot falsehoods" and is well worth the time to read. Here are the first three tips.

1. Basic sniff test. If vaccines are causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, wouldn’t we have overwhelmed morgues? If election workers were unloading trash cans full of ballots they forged at an election center, would they dump them out in front of a security camera? More often than not, these allegations don’t pass a basic sniff test. Pause and think before you share.
2. Follow the money. Most people don’t just spread lies for fun. They are doing it for one of two reasons: 1) political motivation, or 2) making a profit. If someone has created a movie that “proves” election fraud happened, but you have to pay $19 to view it, red flags should be going up everywhere. If a podcast talks about the benefits of supplements but then sells those same supplements thereafter, you should consider whether those two things are linked.
3. Ask follow-up questions. If someone makes a bold claim online, ask them to explain it. They’ll often respond with statements like “Democrats are stealing the 2024 election. We all know it.” Or “hydroxychloroquine obviously stops Covid-19 infections.” Ask them how they know it. Once you do, you’ll have evidence to analyze.

Featured Links - October 28, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A burning bush in full flame

•  ‘Fandom has toxified the world’: Watchmen author Alan Moore on superheroes, Comicsgate and Trump. "Enthusiasm can be a productive force for good, but our culture has rapidly become a fan-based landscape that the rest of us are merely living in."
  
• Political Polarization and Health. "In addition to social determinants of health, such as economic resources, education, access to care and various environmental factors, there is growing evidence that political polarization poses a substantial risk to individual and collective well-being."
• Inside the Bungled Bird Flu Response, Where Profits Collide With Public Health. "When dairy cows in Texas began falling ill with H5N1, alarmed veterinarians expected a fierce response to contain an outbreak with pandemic-sparking potential. Then politics—and, critics say, a key agency’s mandate to protect dairy-industry revenues—intervened."
• Posse Comitatus and the Insurrection Act. "The limitations on Trump deploying the military in terrifying ways are almost non-existent."
• A Priceless Business Leadership Lesson From The Grateful Dead. "Phil Lesh, the Grateful Dead’s singularly iconic and beloved bassist, died last week at age 84. He was a beautiful musician, a wonderful man, a sweet soul. He also – through his identifiably unique approach to his instrument and how it becomes so integral to the band’s creative development – exemplified more than just music. And the lessons we learned from him – and the boys – are more applicable to business than ever before. "
• How a conspiracy-fueled group got a foothold in this hurricane-battered town. "Over the course of 11 days, a supermarket parking lot became a snapshot of the chaos that can unfold in some corners of post-disaster America." I hope this isn't a preview of coming chaos, but I am afraid it might be.
• How Google is Killing Bloggers and Small Publishers – And Why. "A couple of weeks ago, in a moment of caffeinated inspiration/despair, I sat down and wrote a long Facebook post as to why we were ditching Google and switching to DuckDuckGo. Today I want to dive even deeper into this topic, and give you a first-hand account of how Google is killing hundreds of thousands of blogs and small publishers. And maybe give you some insight as to why they are doing so."
• Math Is Still Catching Up to the Mysterious Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan. "Born poor in colonial India and dead at 32, Ramanujan had fantastical, out-of-nowhere visions that continue to shape the field today."