skybrian's recent activity
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
skybrian Link ParentThe whole "evil or not" framing seems problematic. Even if it's not binary, it's still putting all the things someone did on a one-dimensional scale, and to do that, you have to decide whether the...The whole "evil or not" framing seems problematic. Even if it's not binary, it's still putting all the things someone did on a one-dimensional scale, and to do that, you have to decide whether the good things and bad things somehow cancel out. Did they do more good than bad or more bad than good? How do you even weigh that? There are a few cases where it's obvious, but usually it's a mix.
I don't think people's deeds cancel out. Bill Gates's charity doesn't cancel the bad things he's done. And also, the bad things he's done don't cancel the lives saved through his charity. They both happened, and you usually can't give each deed a number and add them up. They're incomparable.
For someone writing a biography, it all goes in. It seems pretty common for powerful people have plenty of good and bad stuff in their biography. Having power means they had more opportunity than most of us to do both.
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Comment on The air is full of DNA — here’s what scientists are using it for in ~science
skybrian Linkhttps://archive.is/hW6rT From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...]From the article:
Although eDNA is already collected routinely from water, snow and soil, to gather information about biodiversity or to track contaminants or viruses, scientists have not typically monitored sources of DNA in air other than pollen and spores — robust packages designed to travel on the breeze.
But, in the early 2010s, various ecologists began to wonder whether air might contain useful DNA traces beyond those wrapped in such windborne bundles. In 2013, biologists Matt Clark at the Natural History Museum in London and Richard Leggett at the Earlham Institute in Norwich, UK, took air samples in a greenhouse and outside it.
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But it was the discovery of tiger DNA near Cambridge, UK, that alerted the wider community to airborne DNA’s potential. Elizabeth Clare at York University in Toronto, Canada, and Joanne Littlefair at University College London wanted to know whether they could find animal DNA in the air. They collected samples at a small zoo in Cambridgeshire, UK, reasoning that they would know the origin of any DNA they found, because the exotic animals were confined to the park.
In the laboratory, the researchers extracted the DNA from the samples, and amplified and sequenced it. They found that they could sniff out tigers 200 metres away from their enclosure, as well as many of the zoo’s other animals, their food — including chicken, horse and pig — and wildlife such as hedgehogs, bats and squirrels. In total, the samples contained DNA from 25 species of mammal and bird, including 17 kept at the zoo. Another study near Copenhagen Zoo, published at the same time, had similar findings.
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But it was a physicist who found a way to scale the method up. James Allerton, at the National Physical Laboratory in London, suggested that Clare examine samples taken by the UK Heavy Metals monitoring network, which has 25 air pumps, located in cities, in the countryside and at industrial sites.
The researchers studied samples from 15 of the network’s sites and, last year, published what they say is the world’s first national survey of terrestrial biodiversity using airborne eDNA. They found common UK animals, as well as exotic pets such as parrots and an invasive fish species, the silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), that had not previously been reported in the region. From vertebrates to single-celled protists, they picked up 1,100 taxa.
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Ecologists are doing just that, documenting weekly, seasonal and cyclic fluctuations in the abundance of many species and matching these to climate variations. They have uncovered long-term community changes — the rise and fall in the abundance of pine trees because of changing forestry management, and a concomitant decline in other trees, mosses, lichens and fungi. They have tracked over time well-known co-variations between several species, such as those between flies and some bacteria, and found new ones.
Europe is dotted with radionuclide-detection stations, which could provide “an unprecedented opportunity to reconstruct ecological history and detect ongoing changes”, say Stenberg and his co-authors.
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But the idea of continuously collecting airborne DNA in public spaces troubles some scientists, who raise concerns similar to those about the sampling of DNA in waste water.
Breathe out on an evening walk and your DNA could waft into a discreetly placed urban sampler. Shotgun sequencing, using rapidly emerging, cheap, portable techniques that can generate the type of read-out that helps to identify individuals6, could produce results in the field, in near real time, says Duffy.
His team has shown this to be possible by sampling the air and unwashed windowpanes in Dublin and in Florida, from which they could distinguish between individuals of the same animal species. For ethical reasons, they did not try this type of sequencing for the human DNA that wound up in their samples, which is known as human genomic by-catch. But short-read analysis revealed human ancestries and some genetic diseases.
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The air is full of DNA — here’s what scientists are using it for
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
skybrian (edited )Link ParentI think "even the weather felt expensive" shows his hand. It's Santa Barbara, so of course the weather is usually good. What does that even mean? He's entitled to his opinions, but my point is...I think "even the weather felt expensive" shows his hand. It's Santa Barbara, so of course the weather is usually good. What does that even mean?
He's entitled to his opinions, but my point is that there is very little in the article that's based on learning anything new or interesting about billionaires. They're just run-of-the-mill opinions that you can get anywhere, from someone who doesn't actually know more than the rest of us.
But it's certainly true that rich people, or rich companies, can make extravagant gestures. I was quite impressed when Google flew the entire staff to Disneyland in 2008. That was a major operation with a lot of chartered flights between San Jose to LA. They even closed the park to normal visitors one evening for the event, which I guess is a thing a company can buy?
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
skybrian Link ParentThat's what I'm getting at. Many, many people have posted their opinions about billionaires and here is another one. It's not actually based on better reporting than the rest. The author doesn't...That's what I'm getting at. Many, many people have posted their opinions about billionaires and here is another one. It's not actually based on better reporting than the rest. The author doesn't seem to know more about them than the rest of us. So if you wanted to learn more about billionaires, this isn't the place to look.
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
skybrian Link ParentHere's more of the timeline for context: August 2013 Jeff Bezos agrees to buys the Post October 2013 deal closes October 2024 Bezos forces no endorsement over the protests of editorial staff....Here's more of the timeline for context:
- August 2013 Jeff Bezos agrees to buys the Post
- October 2013 deal closes
- October 2024 Bezos forces no endorsement over the protests of editorial staff.
- Feburary 2025 The Post announces major changes to the opinion section.
- Feburary 2026 The Post announces layoffs.
Bezo's interference in October 2024 is well-documented by the Post itself. But for the previous two elections, apparently he hadn't started interfering yet?
So I don't think it's likely that he bought the Post to control the content back in 2013. If that was the reason, why wait a decade? It seems more likely to be a shift in strategy.
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
skybrian Link ParentIf he met any other billionaires, they're not named or described in any detail. It sounds like he met some celebrities, though?If he met any other billionaires, they're not named or described in any detail. It sounds like he met some celebrities, though?
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
skybrian LinkWhat did he learn eight years ago in Santa Barabara? ... ... ... And that's about it as far as reporting goes. The rest of it doesn't seem to be about Bezos? To pad it out, there's a bit about...What did he learn eight years ago in Santa Barabara?
It turns out there is a circuit of idea festivals. Many tech billionaires host one, and if you find yourself on the right list, you can spend much of the year traveling the world, eating Wagyu, and discussing how to make the world a better place [...]
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Bezos was everywhere that weekend—in a tight T-shirt, laughing too loudly, arms thrown around his teenage sons.
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Though we didn’t know it at the time, Bezos’s first marriage would be over a few weeks later. My defining impression of his wife that weekend was sadness, even though Bezos made a big show of performing the role of family man.
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[W]hen I told him [that his wife had broken her wrist], Bezos looked horrified. He did not say “I’m so sorry.” He did not say “Do you need anything?” Instead, he made a face, and in an instant, an aide came and whisked him away.
And that's about it as far as reporting goes. The rest of it doesn't seem to be about Bezos?
To pad it out, there's a bit about There Will Be Blood, a Trump quote, a Peter Thiel quote, and some pontificating based on that.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 20 in ~society
skybrian Link ParentI think point 6 is pretty concerning: Apparently everyone should be a cog in the military machine. The connection from there to Congress doing something about unnecessary wars seems pretty indirect.I think point 6 is pretty concerning:
- National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
Apparently everyone should be a cog in the military machine. The connection from there to Congress doing something about unnecessary wars seems pretty indirect.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 20 in ~society
skybrian Link ParentI think that’s a reference to Google, which provides free email and pulled out of Project Maven after employee protests. They want to pretend that they are somehow superior for working on Project...I think that’s a reference to Google, which provides free email and pulled out of Project Maven after employee protests.
They want to pretend that they are somehow superior for working on Project Maven.
And I don’t see why that market can’t be left to defense contractors. No company has to do everything, not even big tech companies.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 20 in ~society
skybrian Link ParentYes, it does seem like overheated ideological nonsense, but it seems like that quote is ambiguous on who the “ruling class” is. Also, who will do the forgiving and what do they mean by...Yes, it does seem like overheated ideological nonsense, but it seems like that quote is ambiguous on who the “ruling class” is. Also, who will do the forgiving and what do they mean by “decadence?” It seems like it was written to sound impressive rather than to be clear, but it’s basically a defense of being a defense contractor.
Lockheed is a defense contractor too and they don’t seem to have any need to publish overheated manifestos? They just keep building weapons. If someone goes to work for them, they know what they’re signing up for.
But assuming a defense of being a defense contractor is necessary, it’s not hard to justify. Most countries have a military. They’re going to have defense contractors, because someone has to make the weapons.
A defense contractor making artillery shells or missiles doesn’t get a say in whether they get shipped to Ukraine or are used in some more dubious cause. I wouldn’t want to work on that, but I also don’t want Ukraine to run short on artillery shells, because I don’t want the Russians to win. So I guess I’m happy that there are military contractors?
The upshot is that if you work for a military contractor, you end up as a cog in the military-industrial complex and someone else gives the orders. That’s why a lot of people don’t want to work for defense contractors and that should be okay too.
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Comment on Only law can prevent extinction - Eliezer Yudkowsky in ~society
skybrian LinkFor people who heard something about Yudkowsky calling for airstrikes on datacenters, this article seems like a useful clarification: … …For people who heard something about Yudkowsky calling for airstrikes on datacenters, this article seems like a useful clarification:
If an ASI ban is to accomplish anything at all, it has to be effective everywhere.
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ASI is a product that kills people standing on the other side of the planet. Driving an AI company out of just your own city will not protect your family from death. It won't even protect your city from job losses, earlier in the timeline.
And similarly: To impede one executive, one researcher, or one company, does not change where AI is heading.
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Even if you're desperate, an outburst of violence usually will not actually solve your problems!
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Comment on Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on? in ~society
skybrian Link ParentIts not obvious to me. It’s easy to imagine likely scenarios, but that doesn’t solve the mystery and we shouldn’t pretend that it does. It’s no substitute for an investigation that figures out who...Its not obvious to me. It’s easy to imagine likely scenarios, but that doesn’t solve the mystery and we shouldn’t pretend that it does. It’s no substitute for an investigation that figures out who is doing it and how.
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Comment on Why Japan has such good railways in ~transport
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]From the article:
Between 1907 and World War II, Japan saw a boom in new private electric railways, coinciding with rapid urbanization. Technologically, most of these private railways were similar to the famous interurbans in the United States: they were basically electric trams, but running between cities as well as within them. The American network eventually withered, and almost nothing of it survives today. In Japan, however, the network consolidated, and the light tramlines gradually evolved into heavy-rail intercity connections.
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This means that Japan has ended up with six railway companies that trace their descent to the nationalized railways, the sixteen big legacy companies that have always been private, and a host of minor legacy railways, as well as numerous underground metros (some private, some municipally owned), monorails, and tram systems. This institutional diversity is striking enough. But equally striking is the consistent business model that has evolved amidst this pluralism: the railway that builds a city.
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This model was pioneered in the 1950s by what became Hankyu Railways. Hankyu’s network connects central Osaka to its northern suburbs, as well as Kyoto and Kobe. Its innovative founder Kobayashi Ichizo first built suburban housing, then a department store at the terminal station; he then created a hot spring resort, a zoo, and his own distinctive brand of all-women musical theater, the Takarazuka Revue. He also began to run bus services to and from his stations. Other companies emulated Hankyu’s example: Tokyo Disneyland is a collaboration between Disney and the Keisei Railway, while Hanshin in Osaka owns the Hanshin Tigers baseball team.
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Core rail operations are profitable for every Japanese private railway company, but they usually only account for a plurality or a small majority of revenue. The rest is contributed by their portfolio of side businesses. There is a natural financial synergy between the reliable but unremarkable cash flow of train fares and the profitable but riskier real estate and commercial side of the business. Railway companies’ side businesses also attract people to live and work on their rail corridor, reinforcing the customer base for the railway services themselves.
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What makes Japan’s cities particularly suited to rail is thus not their residential districts, but their huge and hyperdense centers. These really are special: the cores of Tokyo or Osaka are unlike anything that exists in Europe or North America. Many of their features are famous worldwide: the vertical street zakkyo buildings, underground streets, shopping streets under rail tracks, covered arcades, elevated station squares, and vertical cities. Getting millions of commuters and shoppers into these downtowns is where rail excels because its extreme spatial efficiency means that infrastructure with a relatively modest footprint can transport vast numbers of people into a small area.
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Instead, this variety and adaptability around railways is possible because of the way Japanese urban planning works. Since 1919, Japan has had a standardized national zoning system, but it is much more liberal than development control systems in Western countries. The Japanese authorities did not intend or even desire dense urban centers, but they did not prevent them, rather like nineteenth-century governments in the West.
This liberal zoning system is reinforced by private access to city planning powers. Thirty percent of Japan’s urban land has been subject to land readjustment, where agreement among two thirds of residents and landowners in an area is enough to allow its replanning, including compulsorily taking and demolishing land for amenities and infrastructure. Initially land readjustment was used only to assemble rural land for urbanization, but over time it was increasingly used to redevelop already urbanized areas, and new variants were created to build the skyscrapers that surround the major stations of central Tokyo.
The history of the private railway companies could be written as a story of land readjustment projects: the initial building of the lines in the interwar years proceeded through one land readjustment project after another. Postwar improvements such as double-tracking, platform lengthening, and constant redevelopment of stations and their immediate thresholds were only possible because the railways could secure land takings cooperatively with local businesses and landowners.
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Since parking on public land is banned, municipalities are not worried about overspill parking from developments with inadequate private parking. They therefore have no reason to impose parking minimums on developments: the market is left to decide whether parking is the most valuable use of private land. Where land is abundant, as in rural areas, suburbs, or small towns, private parking is plentiful. But in city centers, it is outcompeted by other land uses. According to the late Donald Shoup, central Tokyo has 23 parking spaces per hectare and 0.04 parking spaces per job, compared with 263 and 0.52 for Los Angeles. Even Manhattan, the densest urban area in North America with the lowest levels of car ownership, has about 60 parking spaces per hectare.
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Why Japan has such good railways
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Comment on Ilhan Omar says she isn’t a multimillionaire, blames accounting error in ~society
skybrian Link ParentMaybe her husband's business has a lot of debt but the previous accountant didn't include it for some reason? It does seem fishy.Maybe her husband's business has a lot of debt but the previous accountant didn't include it for some reason? It does seem fishy.
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Comment on Have you played with bubbles recently? in ~talk
skybrian Link ParentGuar gum is the special ingredient I remember. There are various recipes online but I don't remember which one we followed.Guar gum is the special ingredient I remember. There are various recipes online but I don't remember which one we followed.
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Comment on Have you played with bubbles recently? in ~talk
skybrian LinkAfter seeing someone else do it at the beach, we made our own bubble mix for creating giant bubbles, from an online recipe. This was to entertain our niece, but of course we had to try it out...After seeing someone else do it at the beach, we made our own bubble mix for creating giant bubbles, from an online recipe. This was to entertain our niece, but of course we had to try it out ourselves first.
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Comment on How two San Francisco Chronicle reporters broke the Eric Swalwell story in ~society
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]From the article:
The Chronicle’s work had actually begun in early March. Bollag had heard from women outside the hothouse of the California gubernatorial campaign that Swalwell carried an “open secret.” But her initial interviews unearthed only rumors and second-hand accounts of the kind we don’t print.
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Then Arielle Fodor, a popular online content creator known as Mrs. Frazzled, began publicizing allegations against Swalwell. Fodor had in December posted a positive message about Swalwell, only to receive replies warning of his behavior. One alleged he’d slept with an intern.
Unverified claims of this kind against a public figure are challenging. They may be true, but we don’t publish them until we corroborate the details. We not only seek firsthand accounts from victims, but ask them about contemporaneous conversations they had and messages they sent that were consistent with their stories. We gather public records: police reports, 911 calls, lawsuits. We look for witnesses. We also look for facts that might counter or disprove an accusation.
The influencers’ posts lent urgency to our efforts. Which brings us to the cold calls. When Koseff rang Jane Doe, he hoped to gut-check whether the rumors were legitimate. She responded that she had firsthand knowledge they were, but didn’t feel comfortable elaborating.
She had her own question: Had someone leaked information about her to the Chronicle — perhaps a rival in the governor’s race? Koseff, who assured her there was no such leak, left that first call with the sense something had happened to her. The next morning, she asked to keep talking.
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The woman told Koseff that she’d been contacted days earlier by a CNN reporter. Though she had chosen not to speak to the network, the call prompted her to get in touch with Swalwell’s campaign to see what was going on — to find out whether her name had surfaced among rumored victims.
She said a staffer asked her whether Swalwell had ever been inappropriate with her, and then, when she hesitated to answer, said, “Actually, I don’t want to know.” When this person told her that Swalwell was not afraid of the rumors because he’d done nothing wrong, the woman said something broke in her. She wasn’t quite ready to share her experience, she said, but wanted the truth to come out.
On March 31, another online influencer, Cheyenne Hunt, posted a video airing more allegations against Swalwell. Koseff called Hunt, still trying to get in contact with potential victims of the congressman.
As he spoke to other sources and learned of Swalwell’s alleged pattern of reaching out to young women on the disappearing messages app Snapchat, he shared that information with Jane Doe. She was struck by the parallel to her experience. But she also worried that coverage of these allegations would not reflect the severity of what happened to her.
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Even as she continued to speak with the Chronicle, she learned that CNN, our competitor, was working on a story that would include multiple women. She contacted CNN and decided to speak with the network as well in solidarity with these women. Ultimately, she recorded an on-camera interview in which only her silhouette was visible.
Jane Doe also agreed to sit down with Koseff. She did so on April 8, the day after Swalwell, at a town hall in Sacramento, denied abusing or sleeping with female staffers during his seven terms in Congress.
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She walked him through her experience with Swalwell for two hours, saying he had begun pursuing her within weeks after hiring her at age 21 to work in his district office in Castro Valley. He was 17 years older. She said he sexually assaulted her twice — in 2019 after a dinner in the Bay Area and in 2024 following a gala in New York City — when she was too intoxicated to consent.
These were serious accusations, and Koseff and Bollag had more painstaking work to do. They confirmed through social media posts, videos, photos and documents that Jane Doe had been with Swalwell on the days in question. They reviewed texts she sent to a friend three days after the New York incident, stating she had been “sexually assaulted” by Swalwell. She wrote she had “blacked out” but “woke up once during it and even told him to stop at one point.”
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Koseff spoke with the friend and the woman’s then-boyfriend, whom she told about the alleged 2024 assault when she got home the next day. Both described her as still disoriented that morning. She said she did not file a police report, but agreed to allow us to review medical records showing she obtained pregnancy and STD tests a week after the incident.
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Jane Doe initially thought CNN’s reporting would publish before the Chronicle’s, which made her more comfortable because the network had located additional accusers and she preferred not to step out alone. The Chronicle agreed to hold off on publishing until multiple women came forward, either to us or through CNN.
Koseff and Bollag worked quickly to prepare a story that would be ready to go as soon as Jane Doe was comfortable. Bollag contacted Swalwell and his representatives Thursday afternoon, laying out our reporting.
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Swalwell’s team got busy. During the night, an attorney representing him sent Jane Doe a cease-and-desist letter, ordering her to retract her accusations. Her former boss was not only calling her a liar but saying she had a perverse motive: to wound his candidacy.
Koseff spoke to her Friday morning. Absorbing the fevered online chatter and the congressman’s threats, she feared Swalwell’s alleged misconduct would become “tabloid fodder” and that she might lose the ability to tell her own story. She told the Chronicle she was ready to move forward, even though hers would be the only accusation.
Political editor Sara Libby published our story just before 1:15 p.m. Friday. A couple of hours later, CNN published its story, which included three additional accusers. The articles complemented and strengthened each other precisely because we had worked in competition, not collaboration — another foundational argument for why strong journalistic institutions benefit readers.
Yes, I agree. (There are lots of mediocre op-ed articles out there!)