I know the feeling

Compared to some people, I suppose I have pretty small exposure to social media, given that Twitter (and now Bluesky) was my only real social media app (if you don't count blogs with active threads - now a rarity - or YouTube).   And one of the problems of Bluesky now being pretty good is that I am finding it too easy to just keep...on...scrolling...scrolling (and often avoiding reading the in depth articles sometimes linked.)

There was this doomster column today in The Guardian about the loss of attention span:

Earl Miller, an MIT neuroscientist and world expert on divided attention, warned in 2022 that we are now living in “a perfect storm of cognitive degradation”. Dr Gloria Mark, professor of informatics at the University of California and author of Attention Span, has found evidence of how drastically our ability to focus is waning. In 2004, her team of researchers found the average attention span on any screen to be two and a half minutes. In 2012, it was 75 seconds. Six years ago, it was down to 47 seconds. This “is something that I think we should be very concerned about as a society”, she told a podcast in 2023.

But we’re not entirely to blame if technology is making us less intelligent. After all, it was designed to captivate us totally. Silicon Valley’s dirtiest design feature – which is everywhere once you spot it – is the infinite scroll, likened to the “bottomless soup bowl” experiment, in which participants will keep mindlessly eating from a soup bowl if it keeps refilling. An online feed that constantly “refills” manipulates the brain’s dopaminergic reward system in a similar way. These powerful dopamine-driven loops of endless “seeking” can become addictive.

What will happen if we don’t get a handle on our declining cognitive health? The former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris told US Congress in 2019 that billions of people – “a psychological footprint about the size of Christianity” – now receive their information from platforms whose business model “links their profit to how much attention they capture, creating a ‘race to the bottom of the brain stem’ to extract attention by hacking lower into our lizard brains – into dopamine, fear, outrage – to win”.

His warnings are about as stark as they come. “Persuasive technology is a massively underestimated and powerful force shaping the world,” he said. “It has taken control of the pen of human history, and will drive us to catastrophe if we don’t take it back.”

The worst thing about it (internet brain rot) is likely the loss of book reading amongst everyone, especially the young.

I have been meaning to say for some time, but as I get older, I am surprised that I am still drawing connections between my life experience and some incidents in novels that have stuck in my head from what I might have read 30 or 40 (or more!) years ago.  What I mean is - I have just recognised the truth or insight in the writing that long after reading it.   It's quite surprising, and I just can't see people who have grown up in social media (with ruined attention spans for reading novels) being able to have the same experience, and it does feel like a real loss, but they won't realise it....

Albedo worry

In Science magazine, this abstract:

In 2023, the global mean temperature soared to almost 1.5K above the pre-industrial level, surpassing the previous record by about 0.17K. Previous best-guess estimates of known drivers including anthropogenic warming and the El Niño onset fall short by about 0.2K in explaining the temperature rise. Utilizing satellite and reanalysis data, we identify a record-low planetary albedo as the primary factor bridging this gap. The decline is apparently caused largely by a reduced low-cloud cover in the northern mid-latitudes and tropics, in continuation of a multi-annual trend. Further exploring the low-cloud trend and understanding how much of it is due to internal variability, reduced aerosol concentrations, or a possibly emerging low-cloud feedback will be crucial for assessing the current and expected future warming.

Of course, how to work out the net effect of clouds has been one of the main bugbears of climate modelling.  The skeptic hope was that higher temperatures would mean more cloud and more albedo to keep the earth from getting too hot.  (I thought that was how the late Richard Lindzen's iris effect idea worked, but now that I double check, it was more that cirrus clouds would reduce and allow more IR to escape - so I'm not sure if an increase of lower, brighter clouds was actually part of that theory or not.)  

Anyhow - it remains a major worry that it is unclear whether the modelling has got the cloud effects underestimated, so that global temperature increases could be more rapid than expected.

Gavin Schmidt at Real Climate has a brief commentary on the paper here.  There is quite a bit of talk in the comments following about whether to credit reduced sulphur emissions from shipping as causing the albedo decrease, too.  

Drones over New Jersey

The story over the last week or so about people claiming there is a lot of unusual large drone activity in the night skies of New Jersey is pretty intriguing.

It made the New York Times on the weekend, but then there is a somewhat skeptical take at this website.

I get the feeling that there is something to it - some of the descriptions of a line of drones one after the other seem unusual.   But - if it is a company trying out some new tech, it's hard to imagine why they (or the authorities wouldn't be open to it.   That's why it's intriguing.  

I have mentioned once before though - it does seem at times that the airspace over parts of the US is not as well monitored as one might assume.   Maybe too many things going on to keep track of all of it?

Please, come over to Bluesky

I see that the Bluesky user counter shows a considerable slowdown in the rate of sign ups since it hit 24 million.  It will take quite a while at this rate to hit 25 million.

That's a pity, because it really has already become a good Twitter replacement.   The only thing I kind of miss is a "trending" list - but half the time those was false alarms anyway.   "Why is this person suddenly trending - has he/she died?"

I would also like to see more local accounts so that I could search for comments on breaking local news. 

But I really recommend people look at it.

Ronny's on a roll

 Speaking of comedians, Ronny Chieng has been on a roll hosting the Daily Show this week.  This day's clip was particularly good I think - every joke seemed to hit:

 

Never really understood talent agents

This has always felt sort of mysterious to me - what agents for actors and comedians actually do on a day to day basis.   

I'm talking about this because of this news:

The Junkyard, managers of Australian comedians like Aaron Chen and Sam Campbell, goes into administration

 Let it be known that, of the younger Australian comedy set, I've always enjoyed Aaron Chen's comedy persona.   That Sam Campbell - well I first saw him recently on an episode of Would I Lie to You (english version) and it was a few years old, but he seemed amusing in a similar eccentric persona to Chen.   But then I think I watched some other clip of him on Youtube and didn't like it, so I dunno.

Anyway, back to the point:   about the only fictional portrayal of a talent agent I can remember is from that Matt Berry series - Toast of London.  And it fitted in with what is probably a widely shared assumption that actor's agents sit around doing nothing much all day other than reading the occasional casting call news and ringing up people on their list and saying "why don't you try this, I think it suits you".   It seems like such a flaky way to make a living - even if, in the case of top Hollywood agencies, it's a very lucrative one.  

But is it really like that?   Does no one do a realistic portrayal of this line of work because it's hard to make "networking" interesting?

Update:   Maybe there was an agent or two featured to a little extent in Bill Hader's dramedy Barry. But I think that shows attack was more against the incredible flakiness of cable television executives.  In fact, I found it kind of amazing that the executives at (I think) HBO let such a damning portrayal of their job be part of the story!  I presume they thought - it's not our network's execs he's attacking - it's the one down the road.

Bigger companies needed when it comes to new, green technology

Gee, this has become a pretty familiar story - a small start up company manufacturing a clean, green energy product that just doesn't stack up in quality and reliability, then goes broke and tarnishes the reputation of clean energy overall:

Redflow was the great hope of Australian manufacturing. Its collapse left customers with broken batteries 

A similar story happened in 2009 with some Stirling engine solar power plant that might have looked cool, but never worked well.   (I see now that even the webpages for the long defunct American Stirling engine solar power company Infinia are gone!   I always liked the look of their dishes.  There's a photo on one of my posts from 2008.)

Not to mention failure to develop geothermal power in Australia:  see this story, and this one.  

[Oh, and I nearly forgot - the failure of various wave energy schemes.  Frankly, this idea has always seemed to me to be extremely dubious - my gut feeling was always that there is too little movement in any single device riding waves to generate significant enough power to be worth the expense and maintenance.] 

The common theme seems to be that they are not crank schemes per se (in that they are systems obviously capable of making energy) - but they need a lot of finesse to make them reliable and economical.   Small companies grab the idea but don't have the resources to make it work like it should - and unfortunately, can start to sell the systems before they are proven.

Seems to me that what it all lacks is big companies with the resources to build and test properly the systems before selling them. 

A drainage issue

Following last weekend's flash flooding around parts of Brisbane, the ABC has this article up:

More wild weather forecast for Queensland raises questions about how Brisbane drains handle intense rainfall

with one guy saying:

"With the bureau forecasting more frequent events, the storm drains across the city simply aren't designed to take in flows of run-off and intense rain," Mr Winders said.

Rather than being flood-resilient, Mr Winders suggests residents need to become "storm-resilient".

"The local council can't do anything about the network, the drains are already in place and there's too much existing development," he said.

"All these things impede the ability of the council to provide any relief from local flooding."

And I suspect he's right.

One thing that isn't mentioned in the article, and that I'm pretty sure would be true, is that Brisbane's drainage system does seems to often handle much higher total rainfall events without flooding, compared to cities such as Melbourne, and probably Sydney too?

I mean, over the years, I have seen many news reports of flash flooding from storms in other cities, and the rainfall totals that caused it often seem to be well under the rainfall we hear about in Brisbane storms or rain events.

So I have always suspected that our drainage system has been engineered to expect higher surges than those of drier cities.   (Melbourne in particular seems to get most of its rain in far less intense events than Brisbane - it's just spread out over drizzly days rather than in 10 or 15 minute bursts like here!)

 But I have never heard an expert confirm that.    

Some quick thoughts (and a regret)

*  A month or so ago, I posted about whether or not I should go see a performance of Beethoven's 9th (for the first time.)   I was encouraged to do so, but delayed buying tickets.  I checked about 9 days ago if seats were available, and some were, but I still didn't book.  Then, on Sunday, I thought I should check again - then thought "whoops - it's December!".   I had become so busy with one work matter that I had completely forgotten the concerts were on last Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  :(   

Maybe I didn't miss much?   Actually, seems I did:  

When the seated choir (Brisbane Chamber Choir Collective) rose to their feet, we were in for a surprise. Unexpectedly, around the concert hall – in the stalls and side balconies – other choir members also stood with opened books. Undercover, plain-clothes, choral operatives had been inserted into the midst of the unsuspecting audience.

As the instrumental and vocal volume swells, Clerici is conducting a 360-degree enterprise. The sound is heavenly, harmonious. Beethoven has played his trump card. The pitch rises as the beautiful voice of the soprano soloist soars above the music and the choir.

The performance earns the orchestra and conductor a standing ovation. Orchestral sections are individually applauded. Clerici shakes hands warmly with the concertmaster, Natsuko Yoshimoto. As the soloists exit, Umberto bows graciously to the two women before giving the baritone a hearty high-five. A tremendous performance by our state orchestra and a triumphant conclusion to the 2024 season.

 Ugh...

*   There was flash flooding yet again in Brisbane last Sunday, yet oddly enough, in my corner of the city, it got dark and a bit thundery, but virtually no rain at all.  Only 15 km down the road, people went to a well know pub car park, only to get their cars inundated:

 

This spring and early summer in Brisbane, and the south east generally, has been so wet that it is making me worried that Brisbane is in for yet another flood this summer. I checked the SEQ Water dam levels, and virtually all are full or overflowing, except for Somerset and Wivenhoe (the ones that protect the Brisbane River from flooding) and they are at 80%.    (The last time I checked, about 3 or 4 weeks ago, they were 80% then, too.  I'm guessing water is being released enough to keep it there.)

But, gee, I don't know.   Seems to me it wouldn't take too much more torrential rain in the right spot to cause another major flood.

*  So, Biden pardoned his son.  I can't get too excited about it, especially with the absolute nutjobs who Trump wants to appoint who seemingly want to spend another 4 years of wasted effort on trying to pin corruption on him.  Jon Stewart isn't happy - but his takes are only right about 75% of the time, it seems...

Your engineering fix for the month

I saw a video on the "Megabuild" channel on the weekend about how Singapore is massively expanding its port facilities, from the seabed up.   It's - kind of amazing:

 

But - if you don't have time to watch that, you can view instead a good multimedia graphics explanation that appeared a couple of years ago at the Straits Times website here.

It also explains something I was curious about - wouldn't the steel reinforcement that is throughout the giant concrete caisson corrode quickly when its in seawater?  Would the whole box be a crumbling mess in 20 years?   

Apparently, it's solved by spraying a sealant on the sea exposed parts.  Huh.

Still here, just busy...

 See above.

Low birthrate

Here's something I didn't know:

Presumably, it's pretty good?

 I have now seen 3 Youtube reviews of the movie version of Wicked, all by male reviewers who are not the most "bro" reviewers around, but still feel like their tastes skew towards the Rightwing-ish views on "woke" as a cultural issue.  And they all enjoyed the movie quite a lot - saying they went in with no or low expectations, and two I think said they had never seen the stage play (nor have I), so they were surprised about how good they found it.

I think this is particularly surprising given that (as the Critical Drinker said in a video about the lead actress going a bit nuts about changes to the movie poster), the musical could be said to have started something of a "woke-ish" cycle of movies about a misunderstood villain (often female) who we would have some sympathy for if only we understood the backstory and her perspective.

So, maybe I should see it...

Talk about your sourdough

I quite enjoyed this article, which I found via Bluesky:

Why "manifesting" is far more irrational than using a medieval service magician

In the medieval past, people would routinely employ "cunning folk" or "service magicians" to help them. They were much more effective, rational, and ethical than many spiritual practices today.

This part, about love magic, I found pretty amusing:

Before there was Tinder, there was seduction magic. It was deemed so powerful that a thirteenth century Christian theologian named William de Montibus felt it necessary to warn his fellow believers about the perils of consuming food prepared with a love spell, infused with the essence of a courting woman in, well, rather unique ways.

The first worry was that one might consume a loaf of bread kneaded not by hand, but by buttocks. Bread, a staple of a medieval diet also used in religious rites, could be a vector for an irresistibly magical feminine essence embedded in the dough, particularly if the cunning woman had sat on it and wriggled around in her natural state to prepare the loaf.

Is the New Age kinda back?

Martha Gill (who I am unfamiliar with) writing at The Guardian talks a bit about Jordan Peterson's new book, and notes more broadly that his approach sort of fits in with a general renewed popularity of New Age-ish ideas amongst the younger set:

With mainstream religion in the west in long-term decline, something else is emerging. Not quite religion, not quite self-help – but a tantalising mix of the two. Where self-improvement sections of bookshops once contained straightforward advice on dating, dieting or getting rich quick, now they ask you to buy into a whole canon of spiritual beliefs. Call it mystical self-help.

You see it, for example, in the astonishing popularity of astrology among young people. For my generation, for whom reading your horoscope is an embarrassing secret, this can be jarring. At a recent party, I was surprised to stumble into an earnest astrology conversation between people in their late 20s, bonding over the fact that two of them were Capricorns, and analysing their moon signs in great detail.

Really, of course, it was a jumping off point to open up about their lives, relate to each other, and explore how they tended to deal with problems. No wonder generation Z seems to find it therapeutic. The global market for astrology was valued at $12.8bn in 2021 and was projected to nearly double in the following decade.

Then there is tarot, which is also on the rise, driven mostly by TikTok. More young people are turning to spiritual readings “as an alternative to therapy”. Meditation techniques used to be advocated as a method for calming down; now they are sold, via semi-Buddhist beliefs, as a route to complete personal transformation. See, for example, the huge success of The Power of Now, a book that asks the reader to believe in a system of universal energy flow. Wellness has meanwhile fused with a set of anti-science beliefs, including the idea – dangerously championed by Elle Macpherson – that you can think yourself better, via your “inner sense” of what will cure you.

This sits alongside a cabal of celebrities on the right – Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, Andrew Tate, Peterson – who are tapping into the self-improvement market among young men and advocating religion as a route to the answer. The market is growing: the largest segment of buyers of self-help books is now men aged 25 to 34. They are sold a rebranded and cherry-picked system of faith, drawn from various religions and packaged to fit their needs.

The bit about astrology is interesting.  I thought it was long dead and buried; or at least, now a very fringe interest with much less popular following than in what seems to have been its heyday from the 1960's to the 1980's.  But then again, I was surprised recently to see the most generic type of astrological weekly forecast pap being put up near the end of one of the commercial TV news services on (I think) a Sunday.

And, of course, as I don't use TikTok, I have no idea what things are gaining popularity there with the youth.

Anyway, Gill ends with a bit of overreach, I think:

Mystic self-help may largely be harmless but we should ask what its popularity says about us and where we are going. After all, we owe nearly all modern progress to the fight against religion, allowing rational deductions to hold sway over tribally mediated beliefs. Are we now seeing the dawn of a post-information age?

Still, it's a topic that always interests me - how people find meaning and how much religion or other metaphysical beliefs really have to do with it.