pallas's recent activity
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Comment on All the Eurovision songs are out. Let's talk about them! in ~music
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Comment on Reuters reveals Banksy's identity in a long investigation in ~arts
pallas Link ParentI also initially thought it might be that, but the statements suggest otherwise. They directly refer to records, include what appear to be searches over long timescales (eg, there was no record of...I'm also sure that if you're a reporter working locally it's totally plausible to have a conversation like "Hey, Anton, your cousin works at the border post, right? Can you ask him if he saw [notable celebrity] a few weeks ago? I got a tip that he might've visited...".
I also initially thought it might be that, but the statements suggest otherwise. They directly refer to records, include what appear to be searches over long timescales (eg, there was no record of someone with a particular name ever entering the country), and include records of passport information based on name searches.
- "Much pointed to Del Naja and reinforced our theory that Banksy was Del Naja, who immigration sources told us was in Ukraine when the murals appeared."
- "Sources told us there was no record that Gunningham ever entered Ukraine. "
- "Sources confirmed there was no evidence that Gunningham had entered Ukraine."
- "On October 28, 2022, the day Duley and Del Naja entered Ukraine, a “David Jones” also crossed the border at the same location, according to a source familiar with immigration procedures. The source also told us the date of birth listed on Jones’ passport. It was the same as Robin Gunningham’s birthday."
- "According to the source, records also indicate Jones left Ukraine on November 2, 2022, the same day Del Naja departed."
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Comment on Reuters reveals Banksy's identity in a long investigation in ~arts
pallas LinkPerhaps I’m just not “familiar with Ukrainian immigration procedures”, but are Ukrainian immigration records public data? Or is this term a euphemism for Reuters bribing Ukrainian immigration...Perhaps I’m just not “familiar with Ukrainian immigration procedures”, but are Ukrainian immigration records public data? Or is this term a euphemism for Reuters bribing Ukrainian immigration officials to illegally reveal data?
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Comment on open_slate: private and powerful 2-in-1 tablet in ~tech
pallas LinkI haven't heard of the company/person behind this before, and tend to be skeptical of indiegogo/kickstarter projects. Doing a forum-focused search for them, there was a strong contingent...I haven't heard of the company/person behind this before, and tend to be skeptical of indiegogo/kickstarter projects. Doing a forum-focused search for them, there was a strong contingent throughout almost every discussion of people either outright calling them scammers, or describing the products as terrible. They appear to have made a number of phones previously. There were accusations of GPL violations, bad and overpromised hardware, ages-outdated Android versions, major security failures and fundamental architectural problems, and so on.
Does anyone here have any experience with them?
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Comment on Meet the UK's Eurovision entrant: 'The BBC is taking a risk on me' in ~music
pallas (edited )Link ParentThe feeling of the contest has changed to the extent that I'm surprised to see it mentioned on Tildes at all. In an environment where they were forced to make some political decisions, the...A few countries dropped out and it just felt like a lot of the heart went, it became a more bitter, conflicted thing
The feeling of the contest has changed to the extent that I'm surprised to see it mentioned on Tildes at all. In an environment where they were forced to make some political decisions, the organizers chose to firmly support one side of a disagreement, and in doing so, seem to have put themselves at odds with a significant portion of the European public, and certainly with creative and intellectual circles.
In a few years Eurovision has gone from something that came up frequently in social conversation for me around that time of year to something that most social circles I'm in seem to see as completely inappropriate to discuss, watch, or support. All of the fans I knew have stopped watching in the last two years, or at least would not socially admit to watching it. The casual mentions of it at my university are gone. Some people I know with strong views on the matter would likely say that any artist still participating is expressing their support for genocide; one of those people was an ardent Eurovision fan until two years ago.
I've watched in previous years, but the lack of any social conversation around it makes it far less enjoyable, and watching it now does feel morally wrong.
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Comment on UK supermarket chain Iceland has abandoned its decade-long trademark battle with Iceland and instead promised a “rapprochement discount” for shoppers in the country in ~finance
pallas Link ParentIt isn't even that it is 'preferred', as far as I understand, but that 'Czech Republic' is the official 'long name' and 'Czechia' is the official 'short name', matching the long and short name...Czech Republic is still out because it's still a official name of Czechia, just not the preferred name anymore.
It isn't even that it is 'preferred', as far as I understand, but that 'Czech Republic' is the official 'long name' and 'Czechia' is the official 'short name', matching the long and short name distinction in Czech.
And whenever I've been there, for example, for an academic conference hosted by a Czech university last year, absolutely no one referred to the country in English as Czechia; everyone referred to it as the Czech Republic.
I have to wonder whether it is like some other government attempts at cultural change for whatever reasons that are widely ignored by people (eg, Erdogan's insistence that English speakers should be forced to use non-English characters and sounds, Trump's numerous renamings, Japan's attempt to stop people from walking on escalators); at least Czechia (and Česko in Czech) seems motivated by Czech Republic being awkward as the only way to refer to the country: other countries with similar names are referred to by unofficial names or acronyms (US, UK, USSR), or have had their names become single combined words (Netherlands). It just has problems with no name being without political connotations, eg, that Česko arguably ends up excluding parts of the country, a bit like a less extreme version of if the UK decided that its official short name was 'England'.
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Comment on Is higher education still valuable? in ~life
pallas (edited )Link ParentFor the purpose of 'going to' or 'being at', college and university are somewhat interchangeable terms in the US referring to being at a university-level institition, though university tends to be...For the purpose of 'going to' or 'being at', college and university are somewhat interchangeable terms in the US referring to being at a university-level institition, though university tends to be used for larger institutions and college tends to be for smaller ones. Being 'in/at college' is probably more common than 'in/at university' colloquially in general however, even when referring to students at places called universities. There are some specific cases where one term is preferred, for example, universities following the 'liberal arts college model' of small size, small classes, and a focus on discussion and liberal arts are more consistently referred to as colleges.
Within US academia, 'college' tends to have similar varied uses to what it has in traditional UK academia, which is also not what college means generally in UK outside of academia: colleges are constituent parts of universities, in some cases specifically between university and department level in a hierarchy (where other universities might use 'school' or 'faculty'), in some cases simply different parts with different requirements/traditions/membership/etc (eg, like Oxford or Cambridge). And then of course there are the universities that simply refer to themselves as colleges, even internally, either for the liberal arts model or historical or technical reasons, though in UK academia this is more often the historical/technical side of things, usually institutions that were or are constituent parts of a university, but a university that was either a rather loose association (for UCL, for example) or simply only had one college that mattered or was formed (UCD, TCD), and with the notable exception of TCD, I think essentially always have "University College" in their name now to make the distinction clear.
I did my undergraduate at a university in the US with the different-parts definition, and so went to a college that was at a university, but in practice no one outside of academia in the US would understand or care about the college in that situation.
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Comment on ‘Andor’ creator Tony Gilroy gives the interview he couldn’t during its release in ~tv
pallas (edited )Link ParentI might add: as someone who doesn't generally like Star Wars, I enjoyed Andor. If anything, it made me like the rest of Star Wars less. Andor is a realistic political/intrigue story in a...It is, hands down, my favorite piece from the Star Wars universe,
I might add: as someone who doesn't generally like Star Wars, I enjoyed Andor. If anything, it made me like the rest of Star Wars less. Andor is a realistic political/intrigue story in a particular science fiction setting, the way an opera or a Shakespeare production might choose to change the setting. Star Wars is much more an action-adventure fantasy, and always has been, before the contemporary trend of forcing every science fiction story to be that (Star Trek, Foundation!, ...); while I have nothing against the genre, I just don't particularly enjoy it.
To compare it to the view that you could take the original Star Wars and put it in a sword-and-sorcerer setting without too many changes, I expect you could take Andor's script and put it in the common 'unnamed European country' setting (at least, 1930s onward) by just changing some setting-specific words. Yet I don't think you could put Andor in a sword-and-sorceror setting: the way the Empire works, the way politics and insurgency work, in Andor are fundamentally modern in a way that would seem anachronistic in a setting that felt like it was meant to be 'before' the 1930s.
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Comment on Joy of sharing a creation replaced by a longing sadness in ~talk
pallas Link ParentAs someone who uses a Hurricane Electric tunnel for ipv6 in some places, not necessarily. Some sites provide degraded content, hassles or bans based on whether they think the ip range is...As someone who uses a Hurricane Electric tunnel for ipv6 in some places, not necessarily. Some sites provide degraded content, hassles or bans based on whether they think the ip range is residential. Through that tunnel, which is not intended as a normal vpn and isn’t from a vpn provider, I can’t watch YouTube videos without signing in, and any site with recaptcha is a nuisance; cloudflare seems alright, however, and the obnoxious anime fan system is the same.
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Comment on The malignant degradation of trust in scientific work in ~science
pallas (edited )Link ParentIf I recall correctly, there was at least the appearance of dishonesty in how that was presented in the US, not from a scientific perspective, but from a public policy and outreach one. The...Some of the anti masking beliefs I’ve heard recently relate to messaging telling us to wear fabric masks and then later that we need n95 masks. “They lied to us!”
If I recall correctly, there was at least the appearance of dishonesty in how that was presented in the US, not from a scientific perspective, but from a public policy and outreach one.
The scientific community was crazy at the time (turnaround times at journals were orders of magnitude faster, everyone was thinking about it, etc), and everything was unclear and new. Papers about masks were flying around; there were models, experiments, and so on; doing any practical studies would of course take time, especially given the incubation period and other potential transmission mechanisms that weren't yet well characterized (eg, surfaces).
But (again, as I remember it), the early US government statements to the public suggested that fabric masks were better for the public, and that it was understood that N95 masks would not provide better protection, or would provide worse protection (with the argument that N95s were easier to wear incorrectly or have fitted poorly). These statements were misleading at best, and I think knowingly so. It was certainly not known that N95s would not provide better protection, it was just something where there wasn't enough data yet. Reasonable speculation, along with the lack of data and understanding, would have suggested that they would be better if some ideas around mechanism were correct, and the same to slightly better otherwise. The suggestion that fabric masks would be better seems very hard to justify as anything but a lie or an extremely naive take on how much the public could mess up wearing fabric masks too.
The later justification for these statements was that, given the limited supplies of particulate masks, the government wanted to prioritize getting them to medical staff and essential workers most at risk of exposure; and that goal does make sense. But rather than be honest about that, there was some attempt to give the facade of a scientific reason at an individual level. I'd note these justifications were not given outside the US.
And I think that early dishonesty did real damage to mask wearing in the US. One one side, it gave an unfortunate sense of legitimacy to some claims of anti-maskers. On the other, it may be a reason why the combination of vastly increased production and better scientific understanding that lead to particulate masks being considered much more effective didn't seem to have nearly as much of an effect on mask wearing in the US. Going between the EU and US frequently during the pandemic, the difference was quite striking to me: at a point when no one in the EU wore cloth masks, and several countries had outright banned them from being acceptable in indoor spaces, it seemed like a significant majority of people in the US wore them, by choice. Today that seems to be even more the case: almost everyone in the US I now see wearing a mask wears a cloth mask, and I'm left wondering whether they are wearing them as political statements or whether they continue to believe they are the best option (I don't mean people who are wearing them because they are ill).
Like using a vaccination program in Pakistan to assist in spying for the assassination of Osama bin Laden, it feels like this was a really short-sighted attempt to do something useful while doing long-term damage to scientific/medical trust.
(I should note I'm in no way anti-mask; rather, I wore FFP2/3 and N95 masks and respirators through much of the pandemic, and still wear them in some circumstances today.)
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Comment on A brief history of men's underwear in ~life.style
pallas Link ParentThere’s the context here that this is the V&A, writing what seems to be rather clearly implicitly meant to be a history from a British or perhaps even primarily English perspective. At some point...The article doesn't spend much time on how thoroughly the existence and requirement for undergarments depends on temperate climates.
There’s the context here that this is the V&A, writing what seems to be rather clearly implicitly meant to be a history from a British or perhaps even primarily English perspective. At some point they even point out an innovation (from a British context) that was essentially just taking a French fashion.
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Comment on A brief history of men's underwear in ~life.style
pallas (edited )Link ParentThey all have different advantages and disadvantages. Boxer-briefs are a versatile compromise of properties. Boxers do not need to be made of a stretch fabric, with the exception of the waistband,...They all have different advantages and disadvantages. Boxer-briefs are a versatile compromise of properties.
Boxers do not need to be made of a stretch fabric, with the exception of the waistband, and more traditional makers sell them in pure cotton and linen. They can be more breathable and last longer. I’ve worn out considerably more boxer briefs and briefs than boxers; in the same time that the fabric of some boxer briefs might completely wear out, boxers from the same maker can still look largely new (the comparison here is mostly with Sunspel, which makes both traditional and more modern underwear, but across different makers Mazarin (only traditional) and Hanro (only stretch) I've had the same experience; none of these are fast fashion / cheaply made, and they are all comparable price points.). They can also be more comfortable, in not really pushing on anything at all except the waistband. For me, in many circumstances, since my shirt tails are already in a similar area and my trouser fabric is thick or stiff enough, there is no little benefit to the cleaner lines allowed by boxer briefs.
In cases where visible lines could be a problem, briefs can work better than boxer briefs, as they move the edges of the fabric more toward areas that are unlikely to make visible impressions through clothes.
In the winter when in colder regions, I tend to wear full length wool underwear, which to me is the easiest way of adapting clothes to colder weather. These have obvious and completely different advantages. Modern ones with some stretch also, with the exception of the added bulk, have very little effect on trousers.
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Comment on Why America needs fewer bus stops in ~transport
pallas Link ParentI'd add that bad experiences on buses are not unique to the US. Buses in Ireland are often plagued by aggressively anti-social groups of teenagers doing things like blaring music, harassing...At worst, you're dealing with delays, bumpy jerky rides, litter, people blasting music, crowds, some suspicious dark brown stain on your bus' fabric seat that hasn't been cleaned in years, and/or some homeless guy sitting next to you with soiled pants.
I'd add that bad experiences on buses are not unique to the US. Buses in Ireland are often plagued by aggressively anti-social groups of teenagers doing things like blaring music, harassing passengers, taking up seats, and so on. It is made very clear that asking them to stop would result in violence, and there is never any enforcement against them; in fact, I've never seen any security on buses, unlike trains. There also seem to be problems with drug use, there is usually even more litter than in the US, and there can be similarly unpleasant riders (though usually without the mental health problems of the US). Traffic is often bad, even with bus lanes, rides are bumpy, and scheduling can be messy, with the potential for buses leaving late and early, and real-time information that is often wrong (in the worst case I dealt with, I missed a once-per-half-hour bus because I arrived at the first stop fifteen minutes ahead of schedule and it had already left). Buses sometimes just don't go to stops they are listed as going to.
But beyond these: honestly, buses in many countries aren't great in my experience. They are usually the least pleasant option for public transport, and when alternatives are available, I usually prefer them, even if taking them is more difficult: on one route I take regularly, I prefer walking 15 minutes to a train station rather than 3-4 minutes to a bus stop. Likewise, most of my relatives in Southern Europe take metros and trams regularly, but would walk, drive, or take a taxi before taking a public bus.
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Comment on Let's talk orchestrated objective reduction! in ~science
pallas (edited )Link ParentI am a physicist, with rather interdisciplinary research, but with some connections to areas that Orch-OR seeks to cover (more on the biology and computation side, less on the quantum side and...I am a physicist, with rather interdisciplinary research, but with some connections to areas that Orch-OR seeks to cover (more on the biology and computation side, less on the quantum side and nothing on the philosophy or spirituality side). I would echo your points here, which are perhaps put more sensitively than I would have written them.
I think there is a tendency in the scientific community to be respectfully quiet to the general public, when the situation isn't too egregious, about flawed research of aging prominent researchers. There is a human fear and sadness for declining faculties, made perhaps more terrifying by being a community where those faculties are everything. Within the community, I have heard nothing but skepticism, at best, for Orch-OR; a professor in a related field once expressed his view to me privately along the lines of I don't have a deep knowledge of many of the topics involved, but for the areas I do, the work seems so heavily flawed in even their basic ways of thinking about those areas that I'm very skeptical of all of it. I have also heard the suggestion that the Penrose-Hameroff relationship could be seen as that of a crackpot preying on an older, prominent scholar's wandering to push his own ideas: unlike Penrose, it should be pointed out that he has no background in physics or even science generally (he was a medical professor), and has involvement in areas of clear pseudoscientic quantum mysticism, for example, being in What the Bleep Do We Know!?; he is apparently now working on a feature-length animated film to promote his theories. I should add to all of this: I have a great respect for much of Penrose's work, and I think that many people who see Orch-OR as nonsense do too.
There is the distinct feeling that the project, potentially for both of them, comes out of a certain desire to show something 'special', or perhaps more aptly, 'sacred' about the human mind that distinguishes it from something seen as 'mundane', then searching to find anything that, through enough leaps, might suggest something sacred. That view is disappointingly dismissive of both 'mere classical computation', and of the many fascinating ways that computation can take place in biological systems.
I'd also note: with physics in particular, there seems to be a tendency for the field to capture the imagination of the general public, but in ways that are often very misleading as to what research in the field entails, what current research and questions are, and the prominence and establishment of theories and topics. We can see that throughout this thread. Physics as presented to the general public can often end up being more about vague philosophizing, and attempts at analogies to explain theories that are actually hard math, where the analogies end up being seen by some in the public as having meaning in themselves. It tends to heavily focus on philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics (not really a major research question, as you point out), cosmology, high-energy particle theory, and string theory (usually without clarifying that string theory's position and reputation in physics is arguably very dubious).
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Comment on Is it possible to live without WhatsApp? in ~tech
pallas (edited )Link ParentI think many Americans in particular, affluent parts of the country don't understand the extent to which other countries culturally or practically enforce the use of US tech company products. It...I think many Americans in particular, affluent parts of the country don't understand the extent to which other countries culturally or practically enforce the use of US tech company products.
It isn't a matter of alternatives being less convenient. You could, as you point out, find yourself unable to effectively communicate with government agencies (WhatsApp). You could be unable to know whether there have been train incidents and delays, because the official updates are essentially only on Twitter (Ireland; yes, there are supposedly alternatives, but take a look at how many updates are actually posted there). You could be completely unable to attend university in some countries, or participate in EU research projects (Microsoft 365's complete dominance). WhatsApp could well be the only way to get OTPs for some services, and you could be expected to use it for work. "Public" outreach, with public funding, could well be done only via LinkedIn.
The stories about EU-sovereign developments and pushes, frankly, seem like completely duplicitous nonsense when compared to daily experience and the aggressive enforcement of US tech stacks by EU institutions. You can certainly use other messaging apps, for example, but you can't just not use WhatsApp.
Even in the US, WhatsApp is not a requirement, but unless you're in particular areas, you can't necessarily avoid using other systems. We have a house in the US where the electric company only gives information on outages via Facebook. There is no other electrical company; if you don't want to use Facebook, you are welcome to move, or be entirely off grid.
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Comment on What private companies are you happy doing business with? in ~talk
pallas Link ParentIt's also worth noting that Dodge v. Ford was a somewhat extreme case, where there was a reasonable argument that Ford's plans and statements were intended to act against the interest of specific...Worth noting that the duty is to manage in the shareholders interests - that leaves a surprisingly large open door to debate what that actually means: short term profit, long term profit, regulatory risks and fines, reinvestment, asset growth, etc. etc.
It's also worth noting that Dodge v. Ford was a somewhat extreme case, where there was a reasonable argument that Ford's plans and statements were intended to act against the interest of specific minority shareholders he saw (correctly) as potential competitors, and manipulate the company's dividends and stock price to harm them.
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Comment on Leaving Apple behind after eighteen years in ~tech
pallas (edited )LinkAs it appears that the author is quite concerned with what they see as the political alignments of the manufacturers they purchase from, to the extent that they would rule out purchasing from...As it appears that the author is quite concerned with what they see as the political alignments of the manufacturers they purchase from, to the extent that they would rule out purchasing from Framework over their donations, it is rather confusing that they seem to have no similar qualms about ASUS and, in particular, Hewlett-Packard. It's not clear why someone would boycott a company over small donations to DHH-affiliated groups and instead choose to support a company that publicly donated to Trump's inauguration.
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Comment on The tools bookmakers use to block data-savvy gamblers, and how to get round them in ~life
pallas LinkNone of this matters for betting exchanges, and if people want to gamble on sports, it confuses me why they'd want to make bets with a bookmaker rather than an exchange. From a regulation...None of this matters for betting exchanges, and if people want to gamble on sports, it confuses me why they'd want to make bets with a bookmaker rather than an exchange. From a regulation standpoint, it also seems like it would be safer to enforce the separation of interests that come from an exchange model. With an exchange, ideally, there is no incentive for the exchange to have anyone win or lose, they are just incentivized to have people make more bets. With a bookmaker, they are directly incentivized to have everyone lose.
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Comment on Leave the phone, take a camera in ~tech
pallas (edited )Link ParentThere are options for digital cameras with WLFs, but unfortunately they tend to be absurdly expensive. A Hasselblad 500 with a digital back, for example, can work, but the film camera itself is in...There are options for digital cameras with WLFs, but unfortunately they tend to be absurdly expensive. A Hasselblad 500 with a digital back, for example, can work, but the film camera itself is in the ~$1,000 range for one in good condition, and some of the digital backs are both in the five-figure range and very poorly reviewed; the Hasselblad one is "only" around $7k, but has utterly baffling design decisions, like being not enormously larger than 35mm film, and being fixed in landscape orientation on a camera completely designed around the 6x6 square format. Phase One apparently makes a WLF for their cameras, but just the finder is around $800, and the cameras are in the mid five figures.
this is probably one of those things where someone will sell a 3D printed holder for a phone with some mirrors to get the relative form factor and it’ll crank out boring photos…
I actually do wonder a bit about taking an older digital camera of mine, 3d printing a new body, and configuring the screen to be a WLF. But without clever rotating design, it runs into the same problem that any non-square-format with a WLF has: portrait orientation requires a very awkward finder position.
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Comment on Leave the phone, take a camera in ~tech
pallas Link ParentThere was a time when this was true, but I think I'd tend to disagree here now. I have a flagship phone, older m4/3 mirrorless, and relatively new full-frame mirrorless. It is the case that the...Flagship phones will take better pictures than basically any camera unless you invest a lot of time into learning what you're doing, and even then, it will still take pretty damn good pictures.
There was a time when this was true, but I think I'd tend to disagree here now. I have a flagship phone, older m4/3 mirrorless, and relatively new full-frame mirrorless. It is the case that the older m4/3 is more finicky, and requires more knowledge and skill, than the phone. Focus can go wrong, particularly in choosing entirely the wrong focus point, it can make poor choices of aperture and shutter speed in automatic, and sensitivity needs to be handled with care. The phone, on the other hand, will generally at least seem to make reasonable choices. But the Nikon just works, so long as it is set to something sufficiently automatic.
Both actual cameras will take what I would describe as cleaner photos than the phone, and for given conditions, are more likely to take more consistent photos. Noise and detail is likely to be consistent across a photo; it might be significant, for example, with the m4/3 at higher ISO, but it will not be the patchwork that the heavy processing of the phone camera. This is especially noticeable if you want to crop at all: I've generally found that phone camera images just don't crop well.
In large part, this is because the cameras have fundamental optical advantages over the phone. They have larger, simpler lenses, larger sensors, collect more light, and so on; in the case of the full-frame, those advantages are enormous. Since the phone is a top-end Pixel, I can run non-Google cameras on it without the heavy processing, and the comparison of those images to the cameras is illustrative of its disadvantages.
I do have a fair amount of knowledge of cameras, though I would not call myself serious about photography, and I'm basing the above more off giving my cameras to other people to take photos in auto (for example, photos of me). The full-frame, with someone with little experience taking the photo, will take better photos (apart from composition, but that is unrelated to the cameras) than I could take with the phone.
It is also significantly more expensive than the phone, but I think our philosophies may differ on that point. I'd much rather not sacrifice the quality of something lasting – for example, photographs – just to save an amount of money that does not seem significant over the lifetimes of the photographs themselves.
The real question I think, is why Russia is banned, Ukraine has been allowed to have overtly political songs, performances, and videos (recall that they had a video that was clips of idealized Ukrainian soldiers in war zones), audience support for Ukrainian political choices has not been censored, and performers have not been punished for criticizing Russia. These choices seem completely hypocritical.
I'm not saying that Russia should be allowed, but rather that the completely different treatment of Russia and Israel has been quite dismaying. Either allow both, taking the stance that being apolitical is more important than opposing genocide, or ban both.
(Yes, Russia nominally can't participate now because they are no longer active EBU members, but they suspended their EBU memberships after being banned from Eurovision 2022. The statement arguably makes the current situation even worse, in that it establishes that the EBU will ban countries whose participation "would bring the competition into disrepute". That would seem to suggest that the EBU feels Israel's participation does not.)