Going Rogue

The "Pirates of the Caribean: the curse of the black pearl" was a wonderful episode.

 

"99% invisible" - "100 objects #2 - 60-degree screw"

New York traffic lights history - green meant stop!

“Thousands of people who travel in the subways or on the suburban railroads know that green means go, orange means caution and red means stop.  Notwithstanding this fact, our signal system provides an orange signal for go, a green signal really for stop, for it is only flashed in the direction of the traffic which is moving and not in the direction of the traffic that is moving in right angles, and a red signal which may mean stop, but is actually taken as a ‘getaway’ signal.

https://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2012/06/27/old-new-york-in-photos-19/  

Amazing documentary about Disco Elysium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH6mUTHZ5C4 

 

explaining not just how the game came to be, but its context and background

amazing stuff

 

Rollerball

Watched after listening to its Rewatchables podcast.

Still good.

Financial Times - Hot Money (Agents of Chaos)

Interesting podcast about wirecard's COO and how he seems to be a Russian spy.

Design Psychocologist - Sample size

Scientists need to decide what question to ask; sometimes the question needs to be more narrow

It also depends on how strong they want their claims to be.

* effect size: something that has a small effect (traffic light impact on commute) will require more samples than something that has a large effect (car accident)

* statistically larger effect sizes produce bigger differences in outcomes, which are visible even with smaller samples

* smaller effect (small button changing conversion 0.5%) - this will need more participants to detect reliably

* how much variability exists

* how certain you want to be

* the more variable your data, the more samples you need; you need enough data points to statistically say this will be repeatable

For UI/UX, "can someone complete this form without getting stuck" does not necessarily need hundreds of people

pixel art - the greatest game

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcJ1Jvtef0 

https://octavinavarro.com/scene-51-bubbles

8bit - "it's small enough that you can think about controlling the environment"

All found via the Greatest Game podcast

Broomgate

Fun little podcast about a scandal (...!) in the world of curling, regarding ... brooms.

Science of Coffee

 

fines (the really small particles) and how they help slow the water down

shells --> limestone --> chalk while boiling coffee

too "clean" water doesn't have buffer capacity ; doesn't take nice flavours either

Adriaan van Dis interviewt Sonja Barend in Zomergasten

de podcast.  Nog altijd zo goed!

Casefile 60 - Jonestown massacre

Listened to this years ago, must be the one because of the Australian accent.

Blood-curling description of the Jonestown massacre.

Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History: Twilight of the Aesir"

So good.  I need to find the earlier versions.

Martyr Made (Darryl Cooper) - "#22 Whose America? ep 1 : Rough Extraction" and "#23 Whose America? ep 2"

Amazing story about the miners in West Virginia.

Part two is quite different, about the racial tension and fights in New York, LA, and others from 1950 on.

Six hours, ending with Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Reid McCaster, Edward Smith - "Bullet Points" podcast

listened to only one full episode (Spec Ops:The Line) so far, but enjoyable.

Martyrmade - "Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem"

Amazing podcast.

How partially fear of a global dark power was intentionally instigated to pressure countries in creating a new state.

Weissman (?) who brokered the deal for Israel in the UK government.

The Arabs fighting in WW 2, sometimes against each other, as proxy wars.

How "laws" in the bible, such as a man can just pay the family of a woman he has assaulted as she'll become his wife, were necessary at the time to prevent escalating bloodfeuts between tribes or families: there was no policy, there was no system to judge.

All you had was your honour and your word. When someone was chosen as arbiter, they were chosen because of how people perceived their honour. Still reflected in current day's courts where the judge is called "your honour".

Darryl Cooper ("the Martyrmade podcast") & Daniele Bolelli ("History on Fire") - #10 - Anything That Moves - the My Lai Massacre

Not dissimilar from Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History"

Good stuff.

Lex Fridman interviews John Carmack

good stuff, although I'm not a fan of Fridman's interview style (and the number of times he said "you're the greatest programmer in the world" became silly at some point)

Huberman Lab podcast #56 - stress

Stress is manifold, complex; it is bad (stressing people out) yet sometimes good as it helps your body build up and release healthy nutricients and hormones.

Drug vs placebo effect is confusing. Placebo effect has been proving, but the effect of the actual drug is the combined effect of the chemical drug PLUS the placebo effect.

You only stress about things you care about; own the stress, understand why you care.

Thinking you eat healthy while you eat something "average" nutricious is counter productive; your body will think it is still hungry; and ghrelin, the hunger hormone, will not go down as fast. It's better to believe you're eating something delicious and unhealthy when you *are* eating unhealthy, because your mindset will help spur your body into thinking it had enough.

Dan Carlin - "Hardcore History: supernova in the East"

About Japan in wartime.

14-15th Century were the top of samurai *warfare*

Then, the country got united (the Edo period) from the 16th century to 1862 (?) and during that period, samurai, no longer allowed to fight, were converted into the bureaucracy. Strangely enough, this made them even more rigid and military in life and mindset.

Note that "you better do seppuku when captured" was a mindset Japanese farmers would find just as strange. "typically a Samurai thing"

Japan successfully fought and conquered China in 1985. Successfully attacked and sank the Russian navy in 1905. Got Taiwan as colony. Looked at other countries in the world to see what they did well and copied that. 

After conquering China, the three most powerful nations - France, Germany, Russia - prevented Japan from taking large concessions from China because they feared too much influence.

Japanese soldiers were trained on live people at times.

The Week In Virology (twiv)

Some boring meanderings (starts with a twenty minute discusssion of local weather) but interesting dissection of scientific papers on covid.

Learned that there's a "mouse strain" (model?) called 129, or rather 129S2

And there's a difference between attenuation and infection? Attenuated vaccines, wikipedia tells me, are the ones that make a virulent agent less harmful while keeping it alive.

"You know what a camel is, right?  A horse designed by a committee."