Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Eileen Harvala publishes a report on a new game under development in a University of Minnesota College of Science & Engineering  bulletin:

Metal-organic frameworks are a new class of nano-materials that are useful for a variety of safety, filtering, and manufacturing tasks. They are porous crystalline materials made by inorganic and organic units linked together by strong bonds. Because they have high levels of thermal and chemical stability, MOFs have important applications such as gas storage, catalysis of organic reactions, activation of small molecules, gas adsorption and separation (air purification), biomedical imaging, and proton, electron and ion conduction.

In phase one, the building phase of the game, each player is tasked with designing MOFs that block or adsorb as much harmful gas—carbon dioxide (CO₂)—as possible, while allowing harmless or even helpful gases—nitrogen (N₂)—to pass through as freely as possible. Each player is given a canvas of 3 by 3 unit cells, and can use the game’s building block library and available budget to buy different building blocks to create structures that will form an important defense matrix for the action phase of the game. Once the player feels that the defense matrix is ready, preliminary chemical calculations are performed to prepare some of the parameters for the action phase of the game.

During the action phase of the game, a wave of asteroids (CO₂ molecules) and supplies (N₂ molecules) drops from the sky and hits the defense matrix. While the objects are in the matrix, a real-time simulation of the underlying     chemical structures is used to determine whether the supplies and asteroids are destroyed or pass through the defense matrix. The asteroids and supplies that pass through land on the player’s world unless destroyed by the player’s-controlled laser cannon. Each asteroid (CO₂ molecule) that lands decreases the player’s health and each successful supply drop (N₂ molecule) increases it. The player must remain healthy and save his or her world. The higher the player’s score, the better the chemical properties and filtering aspect of the created MOF. If successful, the player moves on to the next wave.

Sounds interesting, and an interesting way to gather up optimization strategies. Unfortunately, it appears that the game is only currently in release for Win64 platforms – I have a VirtualBox running Win32, so that won’t work, and I cannot provide a review of the game. Perhaps my Arts Editor’s laptop is Win64, I’ll have to check. For readers interested but too shy to click the above link, here’s the link in the article. And here’s the how-to video.

It can always be problematic jumping on horses in the international arena, so the Saudis’ embrace of the Trump Administration should prove interesting. But is their excitement a matter of content, or simply of the pressure of events? Bruce Riedel explores that topic in AL Monitor:

The enthusiasm for the new US team is a reflection of the deep disappointment with the Obama administration. It’s more than a bit ironic since Obama courted the Saudis avidly his whole term in office. Riyadh was his first destination in the Arab world and he traveled to Saudi Arabia more than any other country in the Middle East, including Israel. He sold more than $110 billion in military equipment to the kingdom, far more than any of his predecessors.

But Obama also flirted with backing the Arab Spring. He hailed the departure from power of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. He encouraged the Bahraini royal family to compromise with the Shiite majority for political reforms on the island. His first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, pressed for gender equality around the world. For the Saudis, the US support for political and social change and reform, however half-hearted, was an unprecedented departure from traditional US support for the status quo and authoritarian leaders in the region.

But they’re smart:

Last week, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud completed a three-week trip to Asia with a stop in China where the Saudis signed $65 billion in new trade agreements. The Asia trip and especially the China visit have been trumpeted as strategic moves by the kingdom. The Saudis are especially interested in military cooperation with Beijing.

And something I’d forgotten:

The other irritant is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows the kingdom to be sued for its alleged role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump supports the bill that Obama vetoed only to be overridden. Now hundreds of family members of victims of the 9/11 attack have filed a lawsuit against the Saudis for allegedly funding al-Qaeda before 2001 and for allegedly providing assistance to the hijackers. Saudi diplomats in the United States and Germany allegedly were involved in the plot.

There are fundamental problems with friendly relations between autocratic and democratic countries because of the differing assumptions about how society should be organized. Of course, an autocrat like Trump should help spackle over those differences during his time in office, but the complicating factor is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, mentioned above, which leaves Saudi Arabia open to the blot of the word terrorism on its honor.

I wonder, though, if Obama should have filed suit against it in the Supreme Court, claiming Congress was overstepping its authority and infringing on the right of the President to conduct foreign policy.

Tumpline:

A tumpline (/tump-lyne/) is a strap attached at both ends to a sack, backpack, or other luggage and used to carry the object by placing the strap over the top of the head. This utilizes the spine rather than the shoulders as standard backpack straps do. Tumplines are not intended to be worn over the forehead, but rather the top of the head just back from the hairline, pulling straight down in alignment with the spine. The bearer then leans forward, allowing the back to help support the load. [Wikipedia]

Seen in “Reexcavating The Collections,” Wayne Curtis, American Archaeology (spring 2017), mostly offline only. Too bad, it was a lovely picture of a tumpline rediscovered in a museum basement collection. Textiles such as those are extremely rare given their unstable nature, but the date of collection is in the 1890s, so they’ve been preserved for more than a century.

It’s a long movie, but it’s a darn good movie: The Missiles of October (1974) gives a history of the move / counter-move of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Make no mistake – this is not the Star Wars (1977) of the Cold War, full of explosions and frankly evil characters. This is a movie overwhelmingly about meetings – meetings which decide the fate of the world.

The genius of this movie is its implicit invitation to the viewer to test their decisions against that of the President and his advisors. So you’re a cowboy and would have taken out the missile sites as soon as they were identified, stuck your chest out and taken the return fire with aplomb, would you? In a scene in which Congressional leadership is informed of the situation, one Senator says just that, and is rewarded by a harsh riposte from President Kennedy – “Within the first 30 seconds your entire constituency would be killed, Senator!” Because we discover that our military refuses to guarantee a kill ratio of 100% of those missile sites, implying a return fire of several nuclear warheads. And the movie invites many more such tests of the opinionated man’s decisions – and why they are so often wrong when taken from without. For the sober viewer, it’s a lesson in incomplete information, and in more ways than one, as we watch JFK fret over his information, always requesting better information.

There is a stark historicity to this movie, driven by top-flight performances by the actors, as well as its lack of musical accompaniment. This lack of a clue forces the audience to pay attention to the dialog, the hints at motivation, the suggestions that neither side is without fault in this confrontation, as the Bay of Pigs debacle bears passing reference (I wish there’d been more on this incident), while Soviet dissembling regarding the nature and purpose of the missiles is also brought up.

And during this we also see the Administration frantically covering up for tactical reasons – not out of embarrassment, although there’s a fair amount of that, but in order to surprise the Soviets at their own game. International relations are not always a public game, a lesson most of America still does not understand.

As an added bonus, it’s difficult not to compare and contrast with the Trump Administration. It truly makes me ill comparing the painstaking search for the best alternative to all out war by JFK, vs Trump probably waving it all off after half an hour and commanding a general to just shoot the crap out of Havana.

And then blaming it on reading a newspaper.

And I don’t write that out of gratuitous bitterness, but because this script doesn’t scant on the real frustrations and conflicts the characters run into. JFK loathes the idea of being the next war-chief Tojo, who planned the Japanese entry into World War II, which he mentions enough that Dean Acheson, who has a profoundly differing opinion on response, finally brings up as he knows JFK worries about it, to which JFK replies, I know you know. There is a depth to the political passions that is only hinted at, a theory of mind which gives much depth to this movie.

There’s also the unsettling reminder that the inhabitants of Congress are often simple creatures. JFK angrily quips, You get them together and they follow the one with the biggest bomb. (Possibly a paraphrase.) It’s a ghastly allusion to the problems of having a leadership made of amateurs who often have no training, with little conception of the nuances of international relations. As that’s an accurate description of the current occupant of the White House, this movie brings some real insight into what sort of damage we may be suffering silently while he fiddle faddles around. Given his predilection for watching Fox News, perhaps they should show this movie for his edification.

ALL that said, there is of course the lingering question of accuracy. The meetings portrayed were secretly recorded, as noted here; were the recordings available to the playwright/screenwriter, Stanley R. Greenberg? I haven’t found any material on the topic, although social scientists note there seems to be a lack of “groupthink” – and this was definitely a group that often conflicted with each other. The source for the material used to portray the Soviet meetings is even less clear.

Nor was my Arts Editor pleased at the lack of substantive female characters.

In sum, if you can get your jollies from seeing how the end of the world can be averted through meetings, diplomacy, and some very finely applied power, then this is for you. It was certainly for me – the edge of my seat was a little worn.

Strongly Recommended.

Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com notes a proposal for a circular runway:

Airports take up a lot of room that could be used for other productive purposes, and often their runways do not align with the wind direction, making landings difficult. But Designboom shows us what might be the answer to the problem: make the runways into a big circle. Designboom notes that ” that making runways ring-shaped can have a positive environmental impact. since planes will not have to compete with strong cross winds, they will burn less fuel in the area around the airfield. ” They are also much smaller.

The idea, from Henk Hesselink of the Netherlands Aerospace Centre, is in the news thanks to a recent BBC video.

A link to the video is on Treehugger.

Lloyd is not entirely happy with the Internet, though, because a bunch of pilots forgot to read up on the proposal before taking a poo on it:

But this episode is particularly strange; people are writing long dissertations about why it cannot work, without a single reference back to the original research, with one expert at NYC Aviation actually starting a long essay by saying “I must concede that they may have answers and solutions to my below issues that were not provided in the short BBC report” and then goes on for pages.

If there is one thing I have learned as a blogger, the first rule is that you click through to the source, even if your finger gets tired.

Which reminds me of one of the three laws of Arthur C. Clarke:

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong. [BrainyQuote]

If the calculations check out, then someone is just going to have to try it and see.

While reading Lawfare‘s summation of the problem of Russia and Representative Nunes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who appears is less interested in investigation and more in keeping Trump up to date with regards to how the investigation is going, it occurred to me that once again we’re seeing the problem of power politics, particularly in its core aspect: loyalty.

Nunes served on Trump’s transition team, and while this should not automatically disqualify him from leading an investigation into Trump’s campaign in search of serious illegalities, he should be aware that there should be a certain distancing between himself and Trump. In fact, this distancing is always necessary when it comes to governmental entities tasked with investigating other entities.

But, given the tight bonds of loyalty exhibited by the GOP voters, and now by a sitting investigative chairman, I think we can see there is a limit to the bonds of loyalty, and they need to be considered carefully by those who sit in those seats. Just as blind straight ticket voting is potentially damaging to the nation, so is the application of the core loyalty once a Congressional seat has been obtained. This is an issue which should be discussed nationally, not just in the context of Representative Nunes’ disgraceful behaviors (it’s rather like a child, running to the bully who’s subverted him), but in the greater context of the incompetency demonstrated by Trump in his nominees and conduct.

Excessive loyalty is damaging. Competency and wisdom are far more important.

And the failure of Congress to make any substantive noises about impeaching him.

And, in case you’re new to the blog, I’m not a Democrat. I’m an Independent. I’ve been disgusted with Trump since he first began running, and it’s only gotten worse.

PETA has sent me a survey, and stamped on it prominently:

You have been selected to participate in an important survey of Minnesota residents …

I live for the day I’m selected for an unimportant survey.

Andrew Sullivan and other bloggers started talking about the GOP “echo chamber” years ago, and, having been away for a couple of days with illness, it really struck me that the GOP may be disconnected from most of the United States these days. The obvious example is the ACA replacement bill. Kevin Drum provides a lovely graphic illustrating the problem:

And yet Speaker Ryan seems bent on jamming it through the House. This is a bill basically held hostage by the far-right Freedom Caucus, a group of 40 Representatives who, by voting en bloc, seem to be able to remove at will all the important elements of a health bill, such as pre-existing conditions, hospitalization, or anything else you can name.

But this is a new issue, relatively speaking, and perhaps the public will grow to like it, as unlikely as it seems. So let’s take a look at something that would be more shocking. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price was formerly Representative Price of Georgia’s 6th district, a “deep red” (heavily GOP leaning) district, meaning that his 2016 victory, winning with 61.6% of the electorate, was actually his worst showing – he even once ran with no opposition from the Democrats. His move to Secretary of HHS means a special election will be held to replace him.

A triviality, right? But the GOP can read polls and apparently they’re more than a little worried. From National Journal:

Re­cog­niz­ing the high stakes in an up­com­ing spe­cial House elec­tion in sub­urb­an At­lanta, the GOP-aligned su­per PAC Con­gres­sion­al Lead­er­ship Fund is spend­ing an ad­di­tion­al $1.1 mil­lion in tele­vi­sion ads against the Demo­crat­ic front-run­ner, Jon Os­soff. After its first spot showed foot­age of a col­lege-aged Os­soff dressed up as Han Solo to poke at his im­ma­tur­ity, the new ad cam­paign is tread­ing on more fa­mil­i­ar ground, con­nect­ing the 30-year-old Demo­crat to un­pop­u­lar House Minor­ity Lead­er Nancy Pelosi.

This on top of another buy – major dollars for a district so safe that sometimes Democrats can’t even scare up a challenger. Why? Heavy presents the case:

A new poll released March 20 shows progressive Democrat Jon Ossoff increasing his lead in a special election to replace Tom Price in Georgia’s 6th congressional district.

The “exclusive” poll, performed by conservative-leaning zpolitics and Clout Research, shows Ossoff ahead of the 18-candidate field with 41 percent of the support of those polled.

Especially this:

The survey ran from March 15-16 and found that Ossoff, a first-time candidate with a business and national security background, has built on his lead in the race in comparison of a poll that was released in February. In that poll, Ossoff received 32 percent of support while Handel was at 25 percent and Gray was third with 11 percent.

A 9 point jump in support? He’s still not free and clear, but the 6th district has abruptly become a drain on GOP resources – no doubt a real shock to the system.

The intense discussion of the health bill, not to mention the mental stability of President Trump, may be serving notice to the public to pay more attention to politics and elections – and that, in turn, may cause the GOP’s tendency to talk to itself to become more emphasized.

Working against this thesis? Control of Congress. But that may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. As a RINO-enforced collection of nominees and bills are passed, making clear the extremism elected to Congress, it may be a self-destructive victory for the GOP.

A glimpse into insanity, the classic silent film Phantom of the Opera (1925) is a powerful story of the consequences of a society too obsessed with beauty and grace, where one man suffers a terrible accident, leaving him hideous, and is outcast from Paris. Now in hiding in the Paris Opera House, his mysterious presence a symbol of titillating terror, the abyss separating him from human society erodes his basic respect for humanity, leaving only one bitter peak of his former life:

His love of beauty.

For he is a voice teacher, coaching a lovely up and comer, Christine, from the shadows in which he moves, never revealing his shattered visage to her. She is now the understudy, and he demands, through written correspondence, that the owners of the Opera House make her the prima donna over the current prima. But, the mother of the current demurs, and the next time the current prima donna performs, a chandelier suddenly falls into the audience, precipitating panic.

Investigations intensify, from a spurned lover as well as the police; the Phantom finds an Opera House employee has discovered one of his secrets and ends his life. And Christine soon vanishes, drawn into the shadows of the Phantom, where the sensitive nerves of the Phantom are once again plunged into a salt bath. Her rejection of his ruined face plunges him into infernal madness.

Frantic searches ensue, the Opera House employees snatch up torches, and after one more fruitless ploy, the Phantom is plunged into the river.

There are irritating facets to this movie: “The Strangler” appears to be a deus ex machina, although later it appears it’s simply the Phantom. Christine is, in my Arts Editor’s words, “a wench”. But the innovative use of symbolism, lighting, and the inventive story keeps this movie moving right along, its message perhaps more applicable now than ever.

Recommended.

Petrichor:

14. Cherrapunji also holds a long-standing record for highest rainfall in a 12-month period: 86 feet, 10 inches, set back in 1860-1861.

15. The folks in Cherrapunji might be tired of it, but many people enjoy petrichor, the scent that often follows rainfall. Two Australian researchers coined the term back in the 1960s.

16.A U.S.-based team working at about the same time identified geosmin, a byproduct of soil bacteria, as the source of earthy notes in the distinctive smell.

[“20 Things You Didn’t Know About … Rain,” Gemma Tarlach, Discover (April 2017, paywall)

Ever get that gassy feeling?

On top of Strange Invaders (1983) comes Invisible Invaders (1959)! A terribly, terribly earnest movie concerning a nuclear scientist who has just quit a commission on nuclear weapons in disgust, and is faced with the corpse of another scientist who delivers an ultimatum that the Earth must surrender to the invisible (and asthmatic) invaders from outer space who have conquered the rest of the Universe.  This was probably conceived as a high tension thriller, with the scientist, his daughter, another scientist, and an Air Force representative ensconced in a bunker while they listen to the world falling apart around them, where they become the world’s only hope to roll back the invaders.

Sadly for them, they are beset by a veritable host of zombies, logic errors and aesthetic errors, including “If they can inhabit dead bodies by literally slipping into them, why can’t they just walk through walls?”, and, “Isn’t that a bit gross?”, and, “If you’ve taken over the Universe, then why do you want us to surrender? Why don’t you kick our asses and be done with it?”

Surely an MST3K candidate of high standing, we laughed our way through most of it, although the consistently adequate-to-good acting was certainly soberly appreciated. As I’ve just acquired the second head cold of the season, this was more appreciated than it might have been otherwise. If you watch, make sure you do it with friends or family who have an aesthetic appreciation of snark.

Back in 2010 NASA discovered one of the sources of trajectory errors: bumps in the gravity field of the Moon. From 2010, here’s a map:

Source: NASA

NewScientist (11 March 2017) is now reporting that those mascons are old impact craters:

Jay Melosh at Purdue University in Indiana and his colleagues were searching data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission for traces of underground lava tubes when they came across two large buried craters.

These had been hinted at last year, when Alex Evans at the University of Arizona and colleagues used GRAIL maps to find evidence of more than 100 craters buried beneath seas of basalt formed by ancient volcanic eruptions.

One of the new craters, called Earhart, is about 200 kilometres across and is almost completely masked by a later impact and subsequent lava flooding. Another discovery is a buried crater 160 kilometres in diameter, which has been called the Ashoka Anomaly (Icarus, doi.org/b2j9).

From the GRAIL mission page:

On a map of the moon’s gravity field, a mascon appears in a target pattern. The bulls-eye has a gravity surplus. It is surrounded by a ring with a gravity deficit. A ring with a gravity surplus surrounds the bulls-eye and the inner ring. This pattern arises as a natural consequence of crater excavation, collapse and cooling following an impact. The increase in density and gravitational pull at a mascon’s bulls-eye is caused by lunar material melted from the heat of a long-ago asteroid impact.

“Knowing about mascons means we finally are beginning to understand the geologic consequences of large impacts,” Melosh said. “Our planet suffered similar impacts in its distant past, and understanding mascons may teach us more about the ancient Earth, perhaps about how plate tectonics got started and what created the first ore deposits.”

And knowing what created the ore deposits might help guide us when searching for new deposits – here or on other planets.

Conspecific:

Finally, many animals maintain specific territories, within which they are intolerant to the presence of conspecifics (i.e., members of the same species). According to Polis, crowding increases the frequency with which individuals violate the space of others. By reducing overcrowded conditions, cannibalism can serve to decrease the frequency of territory violations. [“The Case for Cannibalism,” Bill Schutt, Discover (April 2017, paywall)]

The tide continues to go out on the coal mining industry, as CBS Moneywatch notes:

Electricity company Dayton Power & Light said on Monday it would shut down two coal-fired power plants in southern Ohio next year for economic reasons, a setback for the ailing coal industry but a victory for environmental activists.

Republican President Donald Trump promised in his election campaign to restore U.S. coal jobs that he said had been destroyed by environmental regulations put into effect by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.

Dayton Power & Light, a subsidiary of AES Corp. (AES), said in an emailed statement that it planned to close the J.M. Stuart and Killen plants by June 2018 because they would not be “economically viable beyond mid-2018.”

Sadly, the plants employ a lot of people:

“They are by far our largest employer and it will absolutely be devastating to our community here in Ohio,” Michael Pell, president of First State Bank in Winchester, Ohio, said in a phone interview. Pell, one of several local community leaders who have lobbied to keep the plants going, has become a spokesman for Adams County on the issue. …

The plants sit at the heart of a region Trump vowed to revitalize with more jobs and greater economic security during his 2016 campaign. As part of his pledge to reinvigorate the area, Trump also said he would “bring back coal.”

It’s unfair to blame this entirely on the free market economics – part of the straw that broke these camels’ backs were environmental requirements, making it too expensive to upgrade the plants. But it’s entirely fair to shut down coal since a clean environment is essential to human health and overall prosperity. Since Trump’s campaign promises included bringing coal back to this part of Ohio, I wonder if he’ll compensate through retraining programs or some other approach.

Or if he’ll just toss them into the ocean, so to speak.

On our way out of the Guillermo del Toro exhibit at the Minneapolis Art Institute, we stumbled across this installation.  It’s a project by local artist Alison Hiltner, in which she cultivates bags of spirolina algae.

The Minneapolis StarTribune describes the presentation:

“A total of 56 teardrop-shaped sacs, heavy with a multihued soup of green, are suspended in groups of four from a canopy of metal racks. Each sac is warmed by a utility lamp and connected to black tubing, tangled overhead like sinister vines. The tubes connect to a hydroponic pump that serves to aerate the algae. But this does not occur unless gallerygoers breathe into a CO² sensor, which triggers an Arduino microcontroller to actuate a series of power switches that run the pump.”

Kind of a cool concept.  The room gurgles, bubbles and wheezes as the algae breathes in CO₂ and breaths out O₂.  It’s a stark contrast to the spectacular detail and polish of the del Toro exhibit, but no less impressive in its way.

If you’re a Guillermo del Toro fan and weren’t aware that the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts was hosting an exhibition concerning his film work, make yourself aware – and it closes May 28, 2017. We visited this afternoon, and, after having forked over our $20/ticket, we had a leisurely stroll through an exhibit that illustrates his obsessions, motivations, and working process. Included in this are his work journals, which left my Arts Editor virtually speechless at his restless imagination.

Pictures are encouraged, but I decided not to distract myself with excess photography. This was striking enough to photograph, though:

So go and enjoy!

Carl Engelking on D-brief discusses the latest odd finding – matching names to faces:

A name might also affect the face we see in the mirror.

In a battery of studies involving hundreds of participants, researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem showed that people can correctly match a name to a face better than random chance. That’s because over time, according to researchers, we develop a look that reflects the associations people commonly have with our given name. …

[Yonat] Zwebner designed 8 different experiments; six that measured how well hundreds of individuals from France and Israel could match a name to a face, and two that tested a computer’s ability to do the same thing. Participants saw a headshot, and were required to choose the correct name from a list of four. In every experiment, participants’ accuracy exceeded random chance, or 25 percent. Their computer learning algorithm, trained on 94,000 faces, correctly matched names to faces with 54 to 64 percent accuracy.

But here’s where it gets interesting: In one experiment, French participants correctly matched French names and faces 40 percent of the time, but when French participants were asked to match Israeli names and faces, their accuracy dropped to 26 percent—just about chance. Similarly, Israeli participants were better at matching Hebrew names and Israeli faces than French names to French faces. This disparity, researchers say, is evidence that culture-specific stereotypes influence the characteristics we associate with a name.

Going further, researchers say these stereotypes ultimately affect a person’s facial appearance. But how?

And … no real answer. The presented one – that we internalize expectations and “… cultivate a look that reaffirms those expectations.” Rather chicken and egg, if you ask me.

Of course, I wonder what happens to folks who change their names. Do their faces follow suit? Or are we merely talking about facial hair and eyebrow shaping?

And what about those of us with rare names? Neither Hue nor my given name of Hewitt are burdened with the barnacles of expectations – does this mean I’m freer than most?

Concerning the American military’s response to climate change, a reader writes:

Now you got me wondering how much of the hubbub in the South China Sea is related to a desire to control access to ocean life as it migrates north from equatorial waters. Pretty much every form of life capable of migrating to temperate climates will as global warming increases. We definitely need to be focusing on food sources during that shift and the smart money will be anticipating. The U.S. isn’t even reacting.

I wonder how many GOPers are depending on the private sector to take care of it, without understanding that the governments of other nations are going to provide their food sectors with all the extra muscle they can – and that our private sector will be at a disadvantage.

On Slate, Mark Joseph Stern reports on a tragedy:

Andrew Scott and his girlfriend were playing video games in their Florida apartment late at night when they heard a loud banging at the front door. Scott, who was understandably disturbed, retrieved the handgun that he lawfully owned, then opened the door with the gun pointed safely down. Outside, he saw a shadowy figure holding a pistol. He began to retreat inside and close the door when the figure fired six shots without warning, three of which hit Scott, killing him. Scott hadn’t fired a single bullet or even lifted his firearm.

The figure outside was Deputy Richard Sylvester. He failed to identify himself as a law enforcement officer at any point. He had no warrant and no reason to suspect that Scott or his girlfriend had committed a crime. He did not attempt to engage with Scott at all after he opened the door; he simply shot him dead. And on Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit held that Scott’s parents and girlfriend cannot sue Sylvester because the officer’s conduct was not “clearly” illegal.

I think it might be more helpful to focus on the larger issues, rather than get tied up in the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, which is the legal reasoning used by at least two courts now to find the deputy non-culpable. There have been many calls, and many efforts, to build trust between law enforcement and the communities it polices. For example, following the Castile shooting, the Falcon Heights City Hall issued an email to residents which states, in part,

Our goals are to unify our community around a plan to address the concerns we have heard since this tragic incident, and to work to restore trust between law enforcement officers, and the residents and city visitors whom they serve.

We should start from ground level and work our way up, and that means collaboratively constructing¹ a definition of the word trust. I don’t want to thrust forward a full, detailed definition, but rather I simply want to bring out a facet of the word which I think should be emphasized, and it is this.

Trust must imply vulnerability.

Trust is about partnership, not about a hierarchical relation in which the superior is granting favors out of the goodness of their heart – or fear of pitchforks and torches. Trust is about opening oneself up to the possible fatal wound of another – and trusting they won’t do it.

The application of qualified immunity automatically puts law enforcement personnel in a superior position, and while I recognize they are doing a tough job, if they want that job to be a little bit easier, they must be willing to show that trust by being vulnerable. By discarding this doctrine and saying, yeah, he didn’t point a gun at me, and, no, I didn’t identify myself properly, and now I have to face a penalty.

Another situation – approaching a vehicle with your guns drawn. Without additional information that the occupants are dangerous, that gun should be in the holster. Does that raise the danger level for the cop?

Sure does. No doubt it’ll get a few killed through ambush.

But by approaching so many cars with innocent citizens with guns drawn, those very citizens who are supposed to be safeguarded are, instead, endangered. Accidents do happen. After a while, law enforcement personnel burn out and have suboptimal responses. And then innocents die and a little bit more trust withers

And our society becomes a little less special.

¹I avoid the word “asking” as it implies an unwarranted hierarchical structure to society. I also avoid the word “defining” as that may lead people to think the dictionary is the best authority for this process.

Wait, Captain, these farmers like their isolation!

We see Strange Invaders (1983), and we find a strange mixture of elements: good acting by actors faced with odd material; oddly well done special effects which take advantage of shadows and clouds to gesture at the aliens waiting at our door, without wearying us with poorly done details; believable, ordinary characters dealing with an extraordinary world as best they can.

On the other hand, the editing and continuity are a wretched mess; the reactions of the bigger institutions dubious; and a happy ending is tacked on to what could have been a very effective movie if they had, instead, gone with a good noir ending. Thematically, we’re left with a standard Persistence pays off theme; I’m not sure, absent the happy ending, that a rational, appealing theme could be pulled from the debris – but that hypothetical dark ending might have made you cry.

But you do feel like these are characters that were lived in, that had other things to do until Centerville, IL, became a petri dish, and you do find yourself watching, almost despite yourself, as the movie hops erratically along towards a climax less about heroic actions, and more about heroic resolve.

You may enjoy this with mood enhancers, though.

Chalazae:

Ever noticed those little springy white cords attached to egg yolks? Have a look next time you crack an egg. They’re the chalazae and they hold the yolk suspended mid-egg, so that it floats in an incubation bath with a constant temperature. They also ensure the developing chick is not damaged when its mother turns the egg. Egg-turning only evolved in modern birds. Opposite birds buried their eggs, so it is possible their eggs didn’t have those stringy bits. [“Flipping the birds,” sidebar, Jeff Hecht, NewScientist (4 March 2017, paywall)]

NewScientist (11 March 2017) reports on the latest theory for OCD:

THE thoughts and urges that are characteristic of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) may be caused by an inability to distinguish between safe and risky situations.

People with OCD feel they have to carry out certain actions, such as washing their hands again and again, or repeatedly checking the oven has been turned off. Those worst affected may spend hours every day on these compulsive “rituals”.

To find out more about why this happens, Naomi Fineberg of the Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust in the UK and her team trained 78 people to fear a picture of an angry face. They did this by sometimes giving the volunteers an electric shock when they saw the picture. About half the group had OCD.

The team then tried to “detrain” the volunteers, by showing them the same picture many times, but without any shocks. Judging by how much the volunteers sweated when they saw the picture, the team found that people without OCD soon learned to stop associating the face with the shock, but people with the condition remained scared.

Brain scans revealed that the people with OCD had less activity in their ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a brain area involved in signalling safety and predicting rewards (PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1609194114).

Suggesting an organic problem susceptible to medical treatment. It has the virtue of being believable.

Feel the G-forces, lady?

It may have Bogart in it, but he’s a very young Bogart, with just hints of what he’ll become. Love Affair (1932) is a stilted affair, and the version we saw had a hissing audio which served to underline the problems in this film: characters who didn’t ring true, dialog with no imagination, delivered after uncertain pauses, and a story that didn’t drag us into its clutches.

I don’t wish to suggest it’s entirely without virtue, as the opening scene is quite engaging as Bogart, a pilot, takes a pretty young socialite up in his biplane for some stunt flying. It’s fun and the two develop a fair bit of chemistry, between doing loopedy loops and holding down the vomit. But then we veer off into random social torture, the vicissitudes of the Great Depression and the lusts, however politely held in check, of older men, and, oh, I’ll tell you that this had twists and turns – and I didn’t care. This is Bogart still learning his craft, his face uncarved, merely a pretty boy.

And while there are some nice parts, you have to tramp through too much to get to it.

Benjamin Wittes on Lawfare gives his learned opinion on how to read FBI Director Comey’s testimony today regarding the Russia investigation:

But free as I am from the shackles of any actual knowledge, let me offer readers the following user’s guide to Comey’s testimony, which can be summed up in one simple sentence: Comey’s communicativeness with the committee—and through it with the public—will almost certainly be inversely proportional to the seriousness of the Russia investigation.
That is, if Comey says a lot, makes a lot of news on Russia matters, and cheers a lot of anti-Trump hearts by maximally embarassing the President for his outrageous comments on Obama’s alleged wiretapping of Trump Tower, that will very likely be a sign that Comey has relatively little to protect in terms of investigative equities in the Russia matter and is thus free to vent. Conversely, a quiet, reserved Comey—one whose contrast with the relatively loquatious FBI director who talked at length about the Clinton email matters will infuriate a lot of liberals and frustrate those who want to know what’s going on with Russia—may well spell trouble for the President.

Why? Stipulate that there’s very big news concerning Russia and the Trump campaign:

 Comey, in other words, has significant investigative equities to protect and he believes that he needs to be there in order to protect them—in other words, that he has a responsibility to not get himself fired because of his anger about the Trump tweets (or anything else) because he has to make sure the investigation can proceed unimpeded. In this situation, I would expect him to be minimally verbal. He may have to answer yes or no questions in certain instances, including about the truth of the wiretapping allegations, but he will refuse to answer a lot of questions. He will make as little news as humanly possible. He will be exceptionally spare with his opinions. He will make a point of not antagonizing the President. Lots of people will leave disappointed.

So I was at work all day. How did the testimony go? NBC News reports:

Sitting beside the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael Rogers, Comey began the hearing by revealing in his opening statement that the FBI was in the midst of a counterintelligence investigation into the Russian campaign to hack, leak and promote bogus news stories. Part of that investigation, he said, would examine whether the Trump campaign coordinated with that effort.

Comey said he could not disclose any details about the probe. Normally, he said, the FBI doesn’t confirm or deny investigations, but it can make exceptions in cases of major public interest.

This ride could get very interesting.