🌸🌹2ck 🌱🐇 @2ck@social.cleverlibre.org

watching these little buds unfold day by day is pretty magnificent #plants #spring #nature #naturephotography

https://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/small-steps-giant-leaps-episode-79-engineering-best-practices-part-2
That phrase, "normalization of deviance", resonates with me. I've seen cases where we're falling short in our organization, but where we don't necessarily take action to correct. I think some of it is cultural in our case, but some of it is likely to do with time management and priorities: we don't really praise those who find out inefficiencies, but we really should.

I just found out there's an #opensource RollerCoaster Tycoon reimplementation: https://openrct2.org/

It was never my game, but it's cool it exists.

transcript from the session https://stream-media.loc.gov/webcasts/captions/2022/220222cop0900.txt
#copyright #technicalmeasures #usa

https://video.kera.org/video/augmented-cinitc/
Pretty amazing stuff in this episode. I hadn't known that the science and engineering had got to that level already. When you think about it, there's not really a reason why you shouldn't be able to exercise fine motor control in a prosthesis, assuming there's no intervening nerve damage, so in a way it's a also surprising, that it's only in recent decades that things have gotten to this point.
The difficulty with the electrodes was fascinating. The difficulty I've always seen with prosthesis with real neural control is with any kind of implantation or penetration that persistently passes through skin, there's a high risk of infection and scaring, so I would have expected skin contact electrodes to be what they ultimately went with, but I think there's a middle way? We can, and do, implant devices in the body long-term: maybe there's utility in embedded devices that do signal transduction from nerves. These devices could be networked and given a standard interface, so then you have a platform for development of diverse prostheses without the need for custom fitting, and possibly with simplified (but still powerful) abstractions over the full range of limb movements so you don't have to be versed in the biomechanics to make something useful and intuitive.

(side note: I was a bit impatient for the science and engineering to start in this one, but ultimately, I appreciated the emotional tie in since it pays off at the end.)
#science #engineering #prosthesis #medicine #nova #documentary

the article on #supersymmetry from Nova is pretty good. I didn't really understand the appeal before
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/why-is-the-higgs-so-light/
#physics #particlephysics #science

I'm still reading this book, albeit slowly.

there are some rather poorly constructed arguments in here. like, in chapter 3 there's this claim that Facebook's news feed was a "highway system" to the web in an effort to explain "context collapse" and the dissolution of online communities through a "flood of newcomers". Facebook's platform is irrelevant to how open source software development evolved though. Even as an analogy to GitHub, it doesn't work because GitHub isn't like Facebook when it comes to how's communities use them.

#WorkingInPublicBook

People seem to have this idea about evolution that it makes sense to think about a population of platonic "random organisms" that are acted on by "selection pressures" over their lifespans where the organisms essentially just receive *the environment* rather than also affecting the other types of organisms around them, co-evolving and mutually creating their environments, and/or changing their environs through movement such that choices of other conspecifics (let alone other species) generations earlier can change developmental conditions, and thus the relative importance of gene products, even beyond the point at which the earlier migratory behavior is conserved. That sort of "world held constant" simplification only possibly makes sense in Petri dishes, but it's outlined in that fashion when describing how real life complex organisms came to be thanks to evolution, making it a wonder there aren't more intelligent design proponents.

Now, to be clear, I'm not an intelligent design proponent: my point is that the theory outlined in popular communication about evolution that I routinely see is so woefully lacking in explanatory power, that it's a wonder anyone is satisfied by it. (And I mean in popular television, movies, and panels sat by smart people who should know better: there are some books targeted at the general public that begin to dig into the complexity and do pretty well.) Also, I know that there are a lot of good scientists, some whose work I've read, and some of whom I know, that *know* about these complexities and have discussed them at length, but I wish their ideas permeated more into the broader culture. If they did, I think we could be having much more interesting conversations about the world we live in and how we could make it better.

#evolution #developmentalbiology #biology #developmentalsystems #science #sciencecommunication

I've really gone off swiffer mops. like they just change my floor from dirty to wet, somewhat less dirty, and flowery-smelling.

If you haven't heard of it, Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast is worth a listen: engaging discussions about wide-ranging topics, but typically focusing on science and/or in conversation with scientists.

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/

#science #podcast #physics #chemistry #space

Not really a "life pro tip", but I've found that not eating right when I get home does help me get things done after work. Something about sitting down and eating just feels like the day winding down, so it's harder for me to get up and take care of stuff.
#productivity

I'm watching several episodes actually. "Hated in the Nation", the part where they make the fatal mistake of plugging in the abandoned drive and getting hacked. Just seems like an obviously bad idea for anyone technical.

so I've decided to give "The Expanse" series of books a go. I think it would have been cheaper to buy them all at once, but maybe I want to hold open the possibility that I get so mad at one character that I hold off reading the next book for years, and don't want them around it in the interim

I just re-watched the "San Junipero" episode of #blackmirror. I still don't get why Kelly ultimately decided to join Yorkie. I figured that she was ultimately just like "screw this getting old and dying stuff", but Kelly was pretty angry before she left Yorkie that last time.