Blogaround

The frequency at which I publish these blogarounds has gotten ridiculous. Things just keep happening.

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Links not related to that felon:

1. Most Men Don't Want to Be Heroes (and That's Okay) (March 17) "I’ve also provided support to people in less dramatic, more long-term, more female-coded ways. For instance, assisting a loved one through a disability. Or being, with my family, a carer for a close relative with Alzheimer's. There is absolutely no doubt the latter have given more meaning to me, developed my character more, and have strengthened my relationships with others in a way more traditional ‘heroics’ couldn’t."

2. Beast Games: An Autopsy (March 16) 1-hour-31-minute video from Big Joel, analyzing all the games on "Beast Games." Wow, it's incredible how badly designed these games are. It's like they tried to make some interesting game-theory mechanics, make the contestants strategize and deceive each other, but it totally fails because the game rules are just so badly designed. Were these games even tested at all??? 

3. We Read the Book That Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Want You to Read. We Can See Why. (March 19)

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Links related to that felon:

1. Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal (March 26)

And also: Duckworth: Pete Hegseth Needs to Resign in Disgrace (March 26) "Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar."

2. Staring at the Wall (March 24) "And you’re right: They couldn’t do it legally. But what if your name wound up on a list either by mistake or because you have an enemy somewhere inside the Trump administration or because some ICE officer was too enthusiastic about rounding people up? What if you were put on that plane without a hearing, the way the supposed gang members were? When would you have had a chance to offer evidence that you are an American citizen?"

3. Trump revokes legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (March 21, via) "Friday’s action is 'going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country', said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit at the end of February. She called it 'reckless, cruel and counterproductive'." This is ridiculous. These people are in the US legally, they followed all the rules, and now suddenly that felon is changing the rules and they have to leave the US within 1 month or get deported. 

I'm so mad. But! Don't just be mad! Do something! Look for the helpers, and join them. Protest. Donate to groups that help immigrants.

4. Commerce Sec Says Only “Fraudsters” Would Miss Delayed Social Security Check (March 24) What on earth.

5. Tufts international graduate student taken into ICE custody (March 26) "Everyone should be alarmed by what’s shown in the video of Ms. Ozturk being handcuffed and taken away by agents. The government must immediately release her to her friends and community in Massachusetts."

6. 'Felt like a kidnapping': Wrong turn leads to 5-day detention ordeal (March 26) This is terrifying. Her kids are about the same ages as my kids. Being detained somewhere, without diapers or baby food, this is horrible. 

All of these news stories are sort of making me realize this: The MAGAs in the government are coming at this from a perspective of "if they're here illegally, they don't have any rights." (Note, though, that legal immigrants and US citizens are getting caught up in this too.) And, naively, this sounds like it makes sense- if someone is in the US illegally, then the way to solve the problem is to deport them- how absurd to think that they have rights we have to respect, when their entire physical presence is illegal. But I'm hoping Americans will see that the situation is much more complicated than that- and that no one should be treated the way ICE is treating people. (And also, another way to solve the problem would be to give them the right documents to be legal immigrants. Wouldn't that be much easier?)

7. Federal judge issues temporary restraining order stopping federal agents from detaining Columbia University student (March 25) "'She’s a college junior doing what generations of students before her have done, which is speak up and protest, and for that, the Trump administration is seeking to detain her and deport her,' said attorney Ramzi Kassem outside court Tuesday, adding that his client has done nothing criminal."

8. What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced (March 21, via)

And: Human rights groups rebuke Kristi Noem’s visit to El Salvador prison: ‘political theater’ (March 27) 

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. UN Report: Israel’s Gender-Based Violence in Gaza Amounts to “Genocidal Acts” (March 14, via)

Also: Palestinian deaths in Gaza rise above 50,000 as Israel expands its military campaign (March 23)

2. Tesla Falls for 'Wile E. Coyote-Style' Fake Road Wall (March 17) Oh I am really interested in this test, because working with lidar and camera data used to be my actual job. (I recommend watching the whole video from that link- really cool stuff about sensor data!)

Here's the important thing about sensors for robotics (including self-driving cars): Every sensor has its weaknesses- some situations where it won't give you reliable data. Rain, darkness, objects of a certain color, too far away, etc. So you have to know what the weaknesses of your sensors are, and combine data from different sensors, to make up for those weaknesses. And probably calculate some kind of confidence value to indicate how much you should trust your data. You could see in the test with lidar and the jets of water, the lidar wasn't able to really make out whether there were any objects among the jets of water- so it stops the car there. You have to stop the car, because you can't have any confidence about whether there are any obstacles in there or not. But, the problem is false positives when you take that approach. 

Still, though, if you literally can't be sure there's not an object there, the car absolutely should not be driving there. If this gives you too many false positives, you need a different sensor setup- the sensors you're using aren't right for the application you're trying to use them for. Honestly I don't know that there are any sensors (including the human eye!) that can reliably identify whether there are any actual obstacles among sheets of heavy rain- maybe that's a sign you shouldn't be driving at all.

3. George Foreman dies at 76: Heavyweight boxing legend, famous entrepreneur leaves 'big' legacy (March 21)

4. Big Bear Bald Eagle Live Nest - Cam 1 (via) Wow this is great! It's a live webcam looking at a bald eagle nest with little baby chicks.

5. Skin bleaching is terribly popular — and takes a terrible toll (March 25) "Within a few years, she moved on to a stronger product called Dermovate — at the time, the in-vogue skin whitening body lotion, recommended by her friends at high school. They knew most boys in her school were more interested in lighter skinned girls."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Columbia University agrees to Trump demands in effort to restore federal funding (March 22) "On Thursday, 41 of the roughly 100 members of the university's history department warned the university against allowing the administration to interfere in its policy. They compared the administration's actions to attempts by "authoritarian regimes" to seek control over independent academic institutions."

2. Why trying to understand what the Trump admin did in response to the TRO matters (March 17) "It is essential that everyone in the structure of government is forced to be accountable for their role in supporting or allowing — or in seeking to stop — illegal and unconstitutional actions."

And also related to that: Judge won’t lift block on Trump use of Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans (March 24) It's scary that this is already happening. People are getting arrested and put in immigration detention- sometimes even deported- without any kind of due process.

3. The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans (March 24) Holy crap. This is WILD. These people are so incompetent.

Political cartoon showing two Greek soldiers looking at the Trojan horse. One of them says, "Then, after we unwittingly roll it in, they leap out & attack us, according to this groupchat I'm in with Pete Hegseth." Image source.

Image text: "'I Messed Up At Work Again,' Crestfallen Michael Waltz Texts Wife, National Geographic Editorial Staff" (from the Onion). Image source.