imperialismus's recent activity
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Comment on No, the King doesn't own all the swans in Britain in ~humanities
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Comment on Ding Liren wins 2023 FIDE World Championship in rapid tiebreak in ~games.tabletop
imperialismus Link ParentI think Nepo seeming so aloof is just a kind of coping mechanism. The guy was literally shaking right before he resigned, then he stormed off to the back room looking like he wanted to punch...I think Nepo seeming so aloof is just a kind of coping mechanism. The guy was literally shaking right before he resigned, then he stormed off to the back room looking like he wanted to punch something and spent 15 minutes composing himself in private before facing the press. It's just such a contrast because Ding wears his heart on his sleeve.
It is interesting, though. Nepo actually beat Magnus for a youth world championship when they were like 12. He was on the trajectory to becoming a top 10 player, but then he kind of stagnated. He was very good, but not quite world elite. He was in his mid twenties and seemed destined to be a kind of also-ran, maybe top 40 in the world, but not world championship contender quality. And then he himself realized he wasn't working hard enough. And I think that attitude change is the reason he's been so successful in the recent past.
He just hasn't been able to get it across the line. Someone on reddit pointed out this is the fourth world championship final he's lost: 2021 world championship against Magnus, 2021 world rapid championship playoffs against Abdusattorov, 2022 Fischer random world championship final against Nakamura, 2023 world championship against Ding.
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Comment on Ding Liren wins 2023 FIDE World Championship in rapid tiebreak in ~games.tabletop
imperialismus LinkJust for some context on how many unlikely events had to line up for Ding to win the title (which is totally deserved, he grabbed the opportunity when he got it, I just think it's a great story):...Just for some context on how many unlikely events had to line up for Ding to win the title (which is totally deserved, he grabbed the opportunity when he got it, I just think it's a great story):
- Ding was not originally qualified for the Candidates tournament, the winner of which was scheduled to play Magnus Carlsen for the title.
- Russia invades Ukraine. Sergey Karjakin, who is a total Putin bootlicker, makes a series of inappropriate pro war comments that get him disqualified from his spot in the Candidates. This opens up a spot for the highest rated player who is not otherwise qualified.
- Ding is still not eligible for the ratings spot, because he has to have played 30 games in the past 12 months. Being unable to travel outside China due to covid, he has not played more than 4 games.
- The Chinese chess federation schedules a series of last minute tournaments against Chinese grandmasters in which Ding plays 26 games in a little more than a month, and earns the ratings spot after Karjakin's appeal is rejected.
- Ding has a bad start to the Candidates tournament, sitting at a negative Win-Loss score, while Nepomniachtchi and Fabiana Caruana are clear front runners. But Caruana's play collapses in the second half of the tournament, and Ding is able to make a comeback and ends up in second place. This is still not enough to qualify, however.
- Magnus Carlsen officially withdraws from the world championship match, meaning the second-place finisher in the Candidates, Ding, gets to play against Nepomniachtchi.
- During the match, Ding was at no point in the lead. He was trailing behind three times and managed to level the score each time, bringing the match to tiebreaks.
- In the fourth of four rapid games, when it seems like the players are headed for a draw and subsequent blitz games, Ding suddenly spots an opportunity to go for the win. With both players low on time, he takes the lead at the last moment and wins the match.
It's incredible deserved, but also an incredibly unlikely series of events had to line up for it to even be possible. I was slightly rooting for Ding to win, but I'm also gutted for Ian that he lost at the final hurdle. In the moment when Ian realized it was all lost, you could see his hand shaking and he accidentally knocked pieces that were sitting on the side of the board after being captured onto the floor. Heartbreaking. After losing the previous match to the seemingly unbeatable Magnus Carlsen, he got another opportunity to play for the championship without facing Carlsen. He was the one who had the most chances to seal the win throughout the match. To lose it all at the end... Must be incredibly painful.
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Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food
imperialismus (edited )LinkI recently made my first batch of homebrewed beer. I've been wanting to try it for years, but I'd always get overwhelmed by the price, size and complexity of recommended beginner equipment. But...I recently made my first batch of homebrewed beer. I've been wanting to try it for years, but I'd always get overwhelmed by the price, size and complexity of recommended beginner equipment. But then I got a beginner's kit from Brooklyn Brewshop for Christmas. You only need a cookpot and a regular stove, although that does make it trickier to keep the temperature in the right range.
Thankfully, it was a success! I actually got drinkable beer that's quite tasty. The biggest beginner mistake I made was accidentally overdoing the carbonation. The recipe called for honey dissolved in water to be added during bottling for CO2, but apparently I put in way too much, because the first bottle I opened practically exploded in a geyser of foam. Some of the other bottles were only moderately over-carbonated.
The upside and downside of the Brooklyn Brewshop kit is that it's designed for brewing in small apartments. It only gives a gallon of beer. My apartment is small, but not cupboard sized. I'm planning to brew my next batch together with my father, and we both figured 3-4 pints each of finished product for a process that takes 4 weeks was a bit too modest of a yield. So I'm trying to figure out what I need to brew a slightly larger batch without breaking the bank.
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Comment on World's Strongest Man vs. wood chopping champion (Basque rural sports) in ~sports
imperialismus Link ParentIt's worth checking out the Levantadores documentary that was mentioned in passing somewhere in this video. Rogue Fitness did a series of three documentaries about traditional strength sports...They're both more like proper documentaries on the Basque Rural Sports and Basque culture than the titles make them sound like.
It's worth checking out the Levantadores documentary that was mentioned in passing somewhere in this video. Rogue Fitness did a series of three documentaries about traditional strength sports around the world, which includes the aforementioned doc about Basque sports, as well as ones about Scottish and Icelandic stone lifting.
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Comment on World Chess Championship 2023 thread - Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Ding Liren in ~games.tabletop
imperialismus LinkI'm not going to update this thread after every game, especially not when there isn't much (or any) discussion. But I just wanted to say that since this thread was created, we had one rest day,...I'm not going to update this thread after every game, especially not when there isn't much (or any) discussion. But I just wanted to say that since this thread was created, we had one rest day, then another pair of decisive games! Now we're at 6 games, 3-3 scoreline, and only two draws. This is turning into the most exciting and unpredictable world championship match in a long time.
Tomorrow is another rest day, then we'll have game 7 and officially reach the halfway point of the match.
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Comment on Glaze is a tool to help artists prevent their artistic styles from being learned and mimicked by AI-art models in ~arts
imperialismus Link ParentThat's... not very promising. They claim the alterations are barely visible to the human eye, but here there's a very visible and (at least to my eyes) visually unappealing layer of noise on the...That's... not very promising. They claim the alterations are barely visible to the human eye, but here there's a very visible and (at least to my eyes) visually unappealing layer of noise on the image, even at low settings. At the higher settings it no longer looks like noise but rather like a deliberate artistic decision, except one that was not in accordance with the original artist's intention at all.
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Comment on Infrastructure that looks like science fiction (photos) in ~design
imperialismus LinkThese are cool, but there's a distinct lack of space communist architecture. The Ukrainian Institute of Scientific and Technological Research and Development looks like a concrete UFO landed on...These are cool, but there's a distinct lack of space communist architecture. The Ukrainian Institute of Scientific and Technological Research and Development looks like a concrete UFO landed on top of a building. The photographer Frederic Chaubin has a series of photographs of many of these buildings, which were mostly built between the 1970s and the fall of the Soviet Union.
I don't know what it is about totalitarian regimes that inspires them to build such scifi-looking statement buildings. You see some of the same stuff in North Korea's still-unfinished Ryugyong Hotel or Kazakhstan's Astana Expo Center.
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Comment on World Chess Championship 2023 thread - Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Ding Liren in ~games.tabletop
imperialismus LinkTo start the discussion with today's result: I'm really happy to see Ding bounce back. I'm fairly neutral, unlike when Carlsen was playing, but I slightly favor Ding just because I'm charmed by...To start the discussion with today's result: I'm really happy to see Ding bounce back. I'm fairly neutral, unlike when Carlsen was playing, but I slightly favor Ding just because I'm charmed by his very humble and reserved nature (also his style of chess and opening choices are closer to mine than Nepo's is). Ding was very candid about how he was struggling to handle the nerves in the first few games, but he remarked after game 3 that he was finally spending more time at the board than hiding in his private resting area at the back. And today he struck back to level the score with a brilliant victory due to a single, massive blunder by Nepo.
Now the whole dynamic of the match turns on its head. At the beginning, it seemed like Nepo had a clear edge in the mental game due to his experience playing the WCC before. Now, you have to wonder if he'll collapse like he did against Carlsen, or if he'll take the loss on the chin and we'll continue with a close match.
Also, I have to say it's refreshing to see two decisive results in the first four games! The previous few WCCs haven't been boring, but they have been draw-fests.
As to the question of whether Carlsen's non-participation devalues the championship, I think the answer is yes, a little bit. But it's still a world championship, it's still a match between two of the three strongest players in the world, and it's not the first nor will it be the last time the best player in the world is not simultaneously world champion. I'm still excited about it because it's match play at the highest level of chess, which is very rare these days. And since Carlsen had every opportunity to play and chose not to, I see no reason to put an asterisk next to the name of the winner in the annals of chess world champions. You can only beat the guy who shows up at the board!
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World Chess Championship 2023 thread - Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Ding Liren
Anyone else following the world chess championship? Background info (feel free to skip if you're already familiar with this): After reigning champion and world #1 Magnus Carlsen declined to defend...
Anyone else following the world chess championship?
Background info (feel free to skip if you're already familiar with this):
After reigning champion and world #1 Magnus Carlsen declined to defend his title, the winner of the Candidates tournament 2022, Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi (world #2), faces the second place finisher in the Candidates, China's Ding Liren (world #3). The championship match takes place over 14 games from April 9-April 30 in Astana, Kazakhstan. As of today, April 13, the score is even at 2-2 after 4 games.
Ian Nepomniachtchi (aka "Nepo") won the Candidates tournament in 2020-21, which was split in two due to covid. He proceeded to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the title in late 2021. Both players performed with computer-like precision for the first five games. Game six became the turning point, when Nepo made a serious blunder which allowed Carlsen to eventually convert the game to a win in what would turn out to be the longest game in world championship history, lasting more than 7 hours and 136 moves. After this grueling loss, Nepo's play seemingly collapsed, allowing Carlsen to take a comfortable win with games to spare.
However, Nepomniachtchi would bounce back to win his second Candidates tournament in a row in 2022. When it became clear that Carlsen would not defend his title, the runner-up of that tournament, Ding Liren, became the second player to compete for the title.
Ding has been a top 5 player for years, with 2018-2019 being his best period yet, when he reached world #2 with well over 2800 Elo, and was undefeated for 100 games of classical chess. This is his first appearance in a world championship final, and also a first for China as a nation.
Russia, of course, has a long history of world champions, dominating the chess world for most of the 20th century. Nepomniachtchi, who is a critic of the invasion of Ukraine, competes under a neutral FIDE flag in this match.
This is only the third time the reigning champion has not defended his title since the first world championship in 1886. Bobby Fischer famously disagreed with the match regulations proposed by FIDE, chess' international governing body, and refused to defend his title in 1975. He subsequently retired from competitive chess and didn't re-emerge until the 1990s. The other instance was Alekhine in 1948 -- he had died two years earlier. (There was also a time in the 1990s when the reigning champion, Garry Kasparov, broke with FIDE and organized his own world championship, but I won't get into that complicated story here.) This is the first time a world champion has continued to play competitive chess while refusing to defend their title.
Nepomniachtchi comes into the match ranked as the world #2 (2795 Elo) while Ding is #3 (2788). The abdicated king of chess, Magnus Carlsen, remains #1 (2853).
How to watch
If you want to watch live, the time zone is a bit unfavorable to European and American viewers, as the games start at 3PM Astana time (11 AM Central European summer time, 2 AM Pacific). You can follow the games without commentary here: lichess chess24 chess.com. There's several streams with grandmaster commentary available. FIDE has an official broadcast, but my favorite is chess.com's coverage, which features commentary by GMs Anish Giri, Daniel Naroditsky and David Howell.
For live computer analysis that's stronger than what you can (likely) get from running a local instance of Stockfish on your own computer, check out Sesse (which is just Stockfish running on a decently beefy server setup).
If you want shorter after-the-fact recaps, there are several Youtube channels catering to differing levels of chess skill, including:
- Powerplaychess (GM Daniel King)
- FIDE (GM Daniil Dubov)
- Gothamchess (IM Levy Rozman)
- Agadmator
- Chessnetwork
And probably at least a half-dozen more.
Who's your favorite to win it all? Does the fact that the clearly best player in the world refused to compete make the whole thing uninteresting to you? Will Nepo crumble again like he did against Carlsen, or will Ding's inexperience with world championship matches be his undoing?
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Comment on Super-rich abandoning Norway at record rate as wealth tax rises slightly – flood moving abroad has come as a shock and is costing tens of millions in lost tax receipts in ~finance
imperialismus Link ParentIt's not that simple. You have to live at least 3 years abroad for Norwegian taxes to no longer apply. Living there implies more than a short hop on a private jet. You can't be in Norway more than...Why is a Norwegian billionaire avoiding taxes on the wealth they extracted from Norway simply by taking a plane to some other country?
It's not that simple. You have to live at least 3 years abroad for Norwegian taxes to no longer apply. Living there implies more than a short hop on a private jet. You can't be in Norway more than 61 days each year or the 3-year count gets reset. You, your spouse or children can't own or have the legal right to use any livable property in Norway. You also have to pay an "exit tax" if you realize capital gains made in Norway less than 5 years after moving (this is a hole in the tax code that the government is looking to close, making it harder to avoid the exit tax by just waiting a few years before realizing gains).
However, to further complicate matters, Norway has bilateral agreements with a number of countries that modify the general tax rules. Switzerland is popular because not only is it a tax haven, but Norway has an agreement whereby wealth taxes (but not necessarily other taxes) are immediately transferred from Norwegian to Swiss jurisdiction the day you move, not three years later. I'm actually unsure what exactly Norway gains from this agreement. Wouldn't surprise me if the deal involves a quid pro quo where Norway gains something else in a completely different area of jurisdiction. I'm not a lawyer.
However, the general idea is probably something like this: Norway wants to be able to tax foreign nationals who live in Norway. In order to gain that right, while avoiding double taxation which would strongly discourage wealthy foreigners from ever moving to Norway, we have to give up the right to tax people who emigrate.
The US is so powerful that it can get away with a lot more than a tiny country like Norway. It's in a much stronger position to negotiate bilateral agreements.
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Comment on Kurzgesagt: Billionaire propaganda, stories, and trusting science in ~humanities
imperialismus Link ParentYou can do a lot with a little time, if you trust your audience to keep up. One of my favorite YouTube channels is PBS Space Time, which has some of the densest and most technical popular science...I prefer longer and longer YouTube videos these days anyway (within reason), so that alone is reason enough for me to skip their videos, which are generally around 10-20 minutes.
You can do a lot with a little time, if you trust your audience to keep up. One of my favorite YouTube channels is PBS Space Time, which has some of the densest and most technical popular science content on the platform (they actually work through equations sometimes, gasp!). Their runtime is also around 15 minutes on average. But they frequently have callbacks to previous episodes. Kurzgesagt seems to aim at "this is everything you need to know in 10 minutes, zero background necessary" which is quite different (and nearly impossible).
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Comment on We asked the Olympics why their official esports are so weird in ~games
imperialismus Link ParentEsports is thriving. The more popular ones are still growing their audience, while it is true that plenty of esports titles have come and gone. Personally I've followed Counter-Strike for a...Esports is thriving. The more popular ones are still growing their audience, while it is true that plenty of esports titles have come and gone. Personally I've followed Counter-Strike for a decade. It's one of the oldest esports and hasn't changed the fundamental gameplay in more than 20 years.
The problem is that it's all built on a shaky economic foundation. I'm not an industry insider, but from what I've heard from people who are in various interviews, most teams and tournament organizers operate at a loss. They run on VC money and shady sponsorships like crypto and online gambling sites. Some of the biggest names in CS are on the verge of bankruptcy. Players are still safe, as they receive sizable salaries as well as large cuts of prize money. If one organization folds, the best players can easily be picked up by another. But I'm worried the whole industry is going to collapse like a house of cards if they don't figure out the whole making money thing, which is kind of essential in business.
I think the issues faced by esports are less to do with the games themselves than with the economics of it all. Big teams in traditional sports can sell out stadiums every week, they make significant money on merchandising, plus their TV rights are sold for billions to deep-pocketed traditional broadcasters, who in turn pass the bill to consumers. If I want to legally watch the Premier League, I have to pay like $80 per month. What do I pay for esports? Nothing. There's also only a few stadium events each year, which are spread across the globe so even a dedicated fan is unlikely to go to more than one or two per year. The stadium events are struggling to be profitable, and those are not run by the teams, so it doesn't help them either. Especially as there's a norm of players taking the lion's share of prize money, a holdover from the days when an esports "team" was five friends who brought along their own computers in a van. Not like today, when teams are like sports clubs that provide salaries, equipment, training facilities, in-game coaches, mental coaches or sports psychologists, etc.
Brands are also struggling with brand loyalty. There are some brands that do have strong fanbases, but even some of them (e.g. FaZe and Astralis) are also struggling economically. But in esports, unlike traditional sports, it's not unusual for an entire team's roster to move to a different club, taking their fans with them. So a lot of fans aren't fans of clubs, they're fans of players or player rosters, and move on when the players move on. That's another issue that teams are facing.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
imperialismus LinkI'm way behind the curve on this one, but I recently bought Factorio. I haven't put that many hours into it yet and haven't gotten beyond red and green science packs. It's fun, if a little...I'm way behind the curve on this one, but I recently bought Factorio. I haven't put that many hours into it yet and haven't gotten beyond red and green science packs. It's fun, if a little cognitively exhausting. I'm in absolute awe at the complexity of experienced players' factories. It's the sort of game where it feels like the tutorial -- not the actual in-game one, but the experience of learning the game -- is easily hundreds of hours. Reminds me a bit of Paradox games in that regard, although that's about the extent of the similarity.
I'm not sure if I have it in me to spend enough time on the game that it starts to not feel overwhelming. That's sort of the issue with complex sandbox type games. They provide thousands of hours worth of replayability, but you have to get to the point where you want to replay it endlessly for it to pay off. And that usually entails many hours of constantly feeling like you have no idea what's going on.
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Comment on Does your flag fail? CGP Grey grades the state flags of the USA! in ~design
imperialismus LinkThis sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole reading about heraldry. Norway doesn't have states, but its highest subnational administrative division is the county, and each of those has an official...This sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole reading about heraldry. Norway doesn't have states, but its highest subnational administrative division is the county, and each of those has an official coat of arms. Turns out most of them were designed by a guy named Hallvard Trætteberg, who was the country's foremost expert on medieval heraldry for like 60 years. He had some very strict ideas about what a proper heraldic mark should look like (for instance, it should only have two colors, one for the figure and one for the background, one of which should be "metal", i.e. gold or silver, represented as yellow and white).
It did result in some cool designs. My home county has a traditional sailboat from the region. The most badass one though has to be the one for the former county of Telemark, which features a peasant's battle axe (yes, it's supposed to curve like that, that design was used IRL by 17th century peasant militias).
These coats of arms are always presented in the form of a shield. I've never seen them presented in the form of a flag, but the laws that specify the coats of arms also provide a description of a flag form of the CoA, although I couldn't find a single example on the internet nor have I seen one IRL. So I fired up Photoshop and made one. This is quite possibly the first flag of Nordland county ever made, even though its description was passed into law in 1965. (The law is extremely vague, stating only "on a yellow field a black boat with mast and square rig". No mention of proportions, so I copied the proportions of the national flag, no details about the design of the boat, so I just copied the official visual design of the CoA which adorns many public buildings and websites, and no mention of the size of the boat in relation to the flag or its position on the flag, so I just winged it. It is, nevertheless, completely faithful to the description passed into law by royal resolution in 1965. If only by virtue of that description being extremely open to interpretation.)
When I woke up this morning, I didn't see picture myself becoming a flag designer by day's end, all because of a funny YouTube video.
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Comment on Residents of Greenland have switched to daylight saving time this weekend for the very last time in ~life
imperialismus Link ParentNot sure what you mean by losing daylight time. You're just shifting it around. It depends on when you want that daylight. Personally I'm not a morning person, and anyway, most people I know work...Not sure what you mean by losing daylight time. You're just shifting it around. It depends on when you want that daylight. Personally I'm not a morning person, and anyway, most people I know work indoors in the mornings anyway. So it's more valuable to get some daylight in the evening, when you're free to enjoy it, which is why I'd prefer permanent DST.
For the record, I live at 66 degrees north, one degree south of the Arctic circle. In the winter, there's very little daylight no matter which way you slice it. In the summer, it's basically permanent daylight (technically the Sun dips below the horizon even at the height of summer, but not enough for it to get truly dark).
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
imperialismus LinkI'm making a photographic advent calendar. I did this a couple of years ago, and decided to try it again this year. The rules are simple: I have to take a photo every day from December 1 through...I'm making a photographic advent calendar. I did this a couple of years ago, and decided to try it again this year. The rules are simple:
- I have to take a photo every day from December 1 through Christmas Eve.
- Each photo must have a unique subject. I can photograph similar subjects, e.g. Christmas light decorations, but they have to be different Christmas lights.
That's it. The photos don't have to be Christmas or advent themed, although by the nature of the time of year, a lot of them will be. It's a challenge because there's very little light this time of year, with only about four hours of decent-ish daylight, and lugging around a tripod in freezing temperatures in the darkness is not very fun. Sometimes you just don't feel like it. But it's nice to have this ritual that forces you to be curious, to get out of the house even when you'd rather hole up with Netflix and a blanket, and to actually do something productive every day for (nearly) a month, even on days when I have nothing that I need to do that particular day.
I'm doing this as a personal project, only sharing the pictures with a couple of people I know IRL. I have no intention of ever putting it on the internet. That said, I thought I'd share today's picture, because it's not of a personal nature and it has a story to go along with it.
This scene was a serendipitious find. I was on a road trip for reasons unrelated to photography when I spotted this frozen-over lake. The temperature was -11C and I had to walk through foot-deep snow in sneakers, but the spot was kind of magical. The ice was hard as concrete, and it sang. There was the usual sound of cracking, but also a kind of tinkling that reminded me of cattle bells, which I've never heard natural ice make before, although you might be able to replicate it by the careful swirling of ice cubes in a glass. It was so like the livestock bells I'm familiar with that I was almost convinced that must be it, but the only likely culprits would be reindeer and I didn't see any around, so I concluded it must be the ice itself.
From a technical standpoint, I'm waiting for a sensor cleaning kit to arrive, and until that time, there are noticeable dust spots that show up in the sky anytime the aperture closes beyond f/4.0 or so (this was shot at f/5.6). I'm getting real tired of the spot healing tool, and the general madness of staring at the same spot of indistinct sky pixels over and over trying to get the healing to work without looking unnatural. But I think it was worth it. Both the cold wet feet (thank goodness for footwell heating) and the maddening spot removal.
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Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food
imperialismus Link ParentWhat's the difference between nutritional yeast and regular yeast?What's the difference between nutritional yeast and regular yeast?
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Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food
imperialismus LinkThis weekend I went to a kind of extended family pre-Christmas party (since people live quite far apart and celebrate Christmas separately, they decided a couple years ago it would be nice to meet...This weekend I went to a kind of extended family pre-Christmas party (since people live quite far apart and celebrate Christmas separately, they decided a couple years ago it would be nice to meet up before Christmas). On Friday, we had lutefisk, which, honestly, I've only had a couple of times, and it's... Okay-ish? I've heard it said that it's the kind of dish that you either hate or love, but for me, it's neither. Not something I would personally choose to serve for a feast, but not absolutely awful either. Also, it comes with a lot of sides that, I have it on good authority, are the main part of the meal for a decent amount of people who eat it.
Since people were traveling, it was a two-day event, and on Saturday, the table was divided in two: various forms of pickled herring on one side and a kind of tapas with cold cuts of meat and cheeses on the other. Not being overly fond of cured fish, you can probably guess where I chose to sit. My favorite is fenalår; you can buy it in small packages pre-sliced, which is what we did this time, but for actual Christmas we're getting a whole leg, from which you can cut your own, thick slices.
Overall, it was a nice weekend. Even if not all the food was amazing, the company was, and that's the most important thing.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
imperialismus LinkI'm currently reading The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack. It's a pop-sci book about different scenarios for the end of the universe according to modern physics. I find...I'm currently reading The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack. It's a pop-sci book about different scenarios for the end of the universe according to modern physics.
I find the subject matter incredibly interesting. Not sure I'm quite sold on the writing style, though. It's very casual, which is fine, but at times it can get a little too cute. As in, self-consciously calling attention to how casual it is given the heaviness of the subject. I prefer the prose to fade more into the background in nonfiction. The author is a genuine expert on the subject matter though, so at least the science is sound. Well, as sound as it can get in a book about physics that has practically zero math in it.
This was interesting, but it was much less of a "gotcha" than I expected from the title. I expected the twist to be "no, there isn't a law about the crown owning swans", not "actually the law is real, it's just a bit more complicated, and the remnants of two medieval guilds also have the right to own marked swans."
I found another blog post written by a law professor that has a lot more primary sources regarding the whole swan thing, and related royal privileges.