Do you know the saying Only Nixon could go to China? I didn't 'til just now. It refers to the 1972 visit and as a metaphor means that somebody (or an organization) that has a reputation to strongly lean one way, has much more leeway to act in the opposite direction than someone else.

A few examples that come to mind immediately:

• If a (European) Green Party were to turn pro-nuclear for climate-change reasons, after decades of opposition, they would immediately have more credibility than the parties that always have been for nuclear power.
• It took the social-democrats to dismantle the western European welfare states. Similar attempts from the right would have been fodder for the next election.
• Super-rich people that want higher taxes.
• Were the Swedish Moderates, who opened up schools to the private market in the 90s, to admit that this was a bad idea, the perpetual stories about horrendous consequences might actually have something done about them.

Interestingly, politicians usually don't want to be "caught" changing their mind on some issue, which might not be the optimal strategy in light of the above.

And it should be very effective for someone with an agenda to try joining the other side and change their stance from within; the low chances of success might be outweighed by the larger impact in that case. The episode of The West Wing about a gay Republican (in the early 2000s) fits that idea.

I think Nixon in China is one of those mental models that is worth keeping in the back of one's mind for a while and see how many more examples show up.

Two of the podcasts I listen to just covered a similar topic: How societies handle disaster, why we usually are unprepared, and how we could do better. Both are above the usual crop and thus highly recommended!

Sean Carroll talks to Niall Ferguson about a large variety of things. Too many bits of wisdom to even try picking a quote from the transcript.

Sam Harris brings on Rob Reid who delivers a riveting monologue, broken up by discussion, that vividly outlines why synthetic biology can pose a real threat, and what can be done to put countermeasures into place early enough. Four hours well spent!

A patch of fertile land in the vast surrounding forest.

A colleague recommended this video the other day, and it is indeed very worthwhile 80 minutes of your time, if you do any kind of scholarly writing, or are at least somewhat interested in writing at all.

Just a few take-aways:

Nobody cares about the inside of your head. Unless they are paid to do so.

Don't explain to show you've understood something.

Oftentimes we write because it helps us think. This is fine but orthogonal to how it gets read, thus rewrite for specific target reader.

Writing success is to make it valuable to the reader.

What you write is not for eternity, it is to bring the conversation forward.

The performance of the speaker felt over the top at times, I was reminded of how faith healers talk:

"Forget everything you think you knew! Even the things that I tell you you thought, even though you did not think you did. Because here comes the revelation!!1!

But it became clear that he is much self-aware of this and manages to keep an undertone of irony and self-deprecation throughout. At the end he apologizes for being theatrical. Here's the link once more.

One thing I very much like about my current role at work, is that I do not have to write grant proposals and journal articles any more. I was never comfortable with that and therefore not good at it either. Would this video have helped, had I seen it during my time as a student? Maybe. But is quite possible that past me would not have understood it.

Eugenics is apparently making a comeback, for example with some Chinese Feminists (via). Maybe surprisingly, this is nothing new.

This is of course a very thorny issue. On the one hand it is an uncomfortable and seldom spoken about thruth, that women partially choose their parters for the expected quality of their offspring, that is for their genes. Quality can mean different things in different contexts and I see nothing morally wrong with this being a factor for someone, consciously or not. Who would want to deny the freedom of mate choice?

On the other hand, eugenics has a bad reputation, and righfully so with regard to forced sterilizations and the Nazi killings. If however, and that is a strong if, the benefits from selection could be achieved without actually harming anybody in the process, then the matter becomes quite different, I think. Embryos are already selected to some extent in IVF. And the potential upside is huge, especially with multiple iterations of selection. Once it becomes possible and cheaper, there will be strong incentives for parents to get smarter kids. And societies will probably benefit from it, if the ethical concerns can be solved.

If I remember correctly, this is also a topic in Blueprint by Robert Plomin, a book that I enjoyed last year and apprently forgot to write about.

This made me laugh:

If your track coach tells you to run faster, and you answer with something about e=mc^2 and the light speed barrier, you're making a pretty strong claim about your current abilities.

It's from today's ACX piece which argues that we can and should think better, and that "everyone is biased" is a bad argument against trying.

This is close to what I think is the reason I don't like relativism or postmodernism. Pointing out that someone or some argument is not perfectly right is very much not the same as saying it is as bad as something else. There are gradations and they matter.

Another picture of pennywort flowers, I know. But they are very photogenic and make good subjects for macro photography. So let me tell you how this picture was taken.

This is my gear, the same that I had for the last 15 years, from the time when digital photography was all the hype and everyone wanted to be a photographer.

The Nikon D300, 105mm macro lens and the external flash would cost you around 350€ used today (disregard the 18-200m zoom lens). They work great together and can give very sharp and beautiful results.

There are however a few things to do before pressing the shutter release.

• I use the internal flash in master mode to control the external flash. This makes lighting very flexible. I often hand-hold the flash 90-180 degrees from the sun because the goal is making the light less harsh by filling in the shadows.
• The camera is set to shutter mode with the shortest flash-sync time dialed in, 1/250s in this case. This is because the flash needs to compete with the bright sunlight and the short shutter time lets less of that in.
• Exposure compensation at -1/2 stops, flash -1 or -3/2 stops. The violet and highlights easily get saturated at default exposure. And we want the flash to be less bright than the sun, again just evening out the light somewhat but not completely flattening the scene.
• The two previous points have a welcome side-effect: The camera needs to choose the largest aperture it can in the current light condition, thereby rendering the background very much out of focus.
• Then I compose the image and focus, first auto-focus to get close, then I hold focus and put it at the right spot by moving the camera ever so slightly.
• I take several pictures before moving on. Not all will be a success with this quick method, not using a tripod, and I rigorously throw away all but the best one in a series.

This way I usually get the picture that I had in mind with quite little effort.

Wanna watch me chopping wood for ten minutes? Here you go!

Nothing to see here today. Please move on.

I am serious, there will not be the slightest morcel of information here today. It is better you stop reading this very moment.

Well go on! Shush! I promise I'll do nothing but ramble on for a bit and you will not miss anything noteworthy.

Or I might not even do that.

Good night.

An updated plot of push-up statistics:

I had some problems with my wrists last week, so I had to take a bit of a break. But this has resolved itself and slow progress is being made again. Doing 25 push-ups in a row is already more than I was ever able to, I think.

The thing with the wrists is kinda funny. Whenever I start a new exercise, something unexpected, other than the training goal itself, becomes the limiting factor for a while. This was very clear when I started running; at some point it was the shins, then the calves, or the knee, once even the bones in the foot's arch. My way of handling it is always the same: take it easy, don't push through it. Try to improve form, that is try to figure out if you're doing it wrong. After a while the body adapts and the next thing becomes the limit. Repeat.