THIS BUG hAAS A CUTE FACE

It’s been a good month for Georgism. Vox comes out in favor of a Land Value Tax; cameo by friend of the blog Lars Doucet. Also, a great essay on why Georgism is so attractive in our current situation (Basically, it cuts against ideologies and encourages pragmatic harmony. Havel would be proud.). 

Interesting take on how to get “the news” in our modern ecosystem. Briefly, the proposed solution is “use twitter not at all in the way it was intended to be used”. 

“These biosensors function as permanent colorimetric pigments. Instead of tattoo ink, researchers injected the pigments into the thin dermis layer of tissue that hosts nerves, blood vessels, and interstitial fluid (ISF). Sensors vary in color as they come into contact with biomolecules. Placed appropriately, a diagnostic tattoo can reveal biomarker changes faster than conventional testing and the appearance of symptoms.” (But why did they call it Dermal Abyss???) If tattoos are too much of a commitment, they’re also working on diagnostic stickers that work more or less the same way.

Ben Kuhn on lognormal distributions and outliers. In our experience, understanding lognormal distributions is pretty easy and opens up all kinds of low-hanging fruit. This is a good intro to the concept and why it comes in handy.

Slate: Russians are racing to download Wikipedia before it gets banned. Takeaways: Wikipedia is smaller than you might expect, small enough to fit on a flash drive. The Russian-language Wikipedia is only 29 GB, and: “The entirety of English Wikipedia, from ‘List of Informally Named Dinosaurs’ to ‘Floor’ to ‘Skunks as Pets’ and everything in between, is 87 GB with pictures or 47 GB without.”

When a high voltage is applied to pure water filling 2 beakers kept close to each other, a connection forms spontaneously, giving the impression of a floating water bridge.

If you’re familiar with Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, then you know about “the label”. (If not, a sample: “In all we do, let us be fair, generous, and loving to Spaceship Earth and all its inhabitants. For we’re All-One or None! All-One!”) It turns out that the story of how the label was born is even more interesting than you might think.

Sumerian dog joke good; scholarly discussion of what it means great. 

Article from 2007. On a phone call, the author offhandedly mentions that his wife is good at Game Boy Tetris — “She can get 500 or 600 lines, no problem.” — and learns that the current world record for Game Boy Tetris is 327 lines. They go to New Hampshire and she becomes the new world record holder with a total of 841 lines.

In Japan, crows have learned to attack solar power plants with stones. No one knows why: “It is unknown why crows bombard solar panels, possibly it is a game. The stones seldom directly crack panels, but the crows are experts at placing stones or other garbage just so that they stay on top of the panel, soon causing overheating and destruction or permanent damage.” The only way to keep crows away is to use falcons. “One trained falcon making 60 attack sorties a day can protect 100,000 solar panels from vengeful crows.”

Yet another example of a potato-only diet, complete with a book. Amazon reviews are anecdotal, of course, but they’re very positive. Not affiliated with us, in fact predates our work by a couple of years, looks like this got started in 2015 or 2016.

uhhhh wat