Posts in: rss

An article from Matt Maldre about skipping to the popular parts of a YouTube video caught my eye:

Take this two-hour animation of a candy corn ablaze in a fireplace. This cute video is a simple loop that goes over and over. Certainly, in two hours, there’s got to be sort of Easter egg that happens, right? Maybe Santa comes down the chimney.

Roll over the Engagement Graph, and you’ll see some spikes.

I checked out the spikes. Nothing different happens. It’s the same loop. It’s just people clicking the same spikes that other people did because other people clicked it.

Because humans are humans and nature is nature. Now how many fields of science are made of people analyzing, explaining, narrating and writing millions upon millions of words about an equivalent of these spikes? Microbiome for sure. Much of genetics as currently practiced. Anything that relies on principle component analysis. What else?

Man-made things don’t get better on their own, and without care and attention will in fact get worse. A post from Patrick Collison on X about important historical novels is a good example, not just because of the topic (19th century novels had more complex language, more intricate themes and had more respect for the characters than their modern counterparts) but also, well, just look at the teXt itself: a supposedly text-oriented platform has no formatting, no links, and is an insult to the eyes. Enshittification in action.

Nate Silver, who so vehemently defended Daylight Saving Time, does not in fact know what DST means. No, I will not call him a clown — though he has made himself appear to act like one — because he may actually be on our side!

A one-two punch on clinical trials from Ruxandra Teslo and Willy Chertman today: first their on-point agenda for clinical trial abundance as a guest post in Slow Boring, then Ruxandra’s longer essay which has been so thoroughly research that even yours truly gets a name-check. As I noted elsewhere, every US institution has made one bade tradeoff after another in how it conducts clinical trials to the point that it’s impossible to conduct a RECOVERY trial equivalent over here. That needs to change.

Never was a fan of Daylight Saving Time, but knowing that Nate Silver is a proponent gives me additional conviction.

The six intrinsic benefits of sports, per Ted Gioia

The article is titled I Say Forbidden Things About Sports, and he does! Here are the six actual benefits:

  1. To promote physical fitness and healthy living
  2. To celebrate the values of sportsmanship and fair play—because these will make athletes better human beings, better citizens, and better participants in their communities.
  3. To teach the benefits of unselfish teamwork and counter the intense promotion of selfish individual behavior in society.
  4. To show youngsters how to deal with defeat and setbacks (as well as winning)—because they will face these again and again in life.
  5. To bond together a community—both among fans and between opponents by the goodwill created via fair competitions.
  6. To instill valuable life habits of discipline, hard work, courage, and persistence.

Instead, notes Gioia, the young athletes are taught that:

  • Winning is more important than anything.
  • There’s no value in losing. Losers get the ridicule and mockery they deserve.
  • Maybe you need to play on a team, but rewards will depend on your success and fame as an individual—so always look out for your own selfish interests.
  • Healthy living is okay, but don’t let it keep you from clubbing and late-night partying—because those are the perks of the athlete’s life.
  • Cheating will enhance all these beneifts (sic!) — just don’t get caught.

How very true. To take NBA, an American sport with which I am the most familiar, you can see it in the large swings in score when the losing team snaps and realizes they can’t win the game and therefore they don’t even try.

Do read the whole thing.

For some light weekend reading, may I suggest this Chris Arnade quartet:

The inconsistencies in capitalization are entirely Arnade’s.

Quote of the day is from The Hinternet:

This, then, is the real transformation, of which Jones’s addiction diagnosis is merely a symptom: that absorption, which used to represent a secret inner life, has been sneakily transfigured into a siphon by which our native curiosity is sucked away and sold. Where once we were rapt, now we are gift-wrapped. The text is reading us.

Including this one, if you are reading it on anything other than an RSS client.

Some weekend links, old and new:

Whether it’s on micro.blog, mastodon, bluesky, threads or in your favorite RSS client, thank you for reading!