Interesting Links for 17-03-2022

[andrewducker]

Why comments are usually terrible, and how to make them better

(tags:comments web )

I can see 29 distinct colours. How about you?

(tags:colour eyes genetics )

The happiness of love turns to sadness when unspent.

(tags:love dogs death sadness grief )

Disney employees are staging walkouts over company's response to the 'Don't Say Gay' bill

(tags:Disney LGBT )

Ukraine-Russia peace talks make significant progress as 15-point plan to end war drawn up by officials

(tags:Ukraine Russia war )

Americans overestimate how big minorities are (I'd be very surprised if Brits didn't think the same)

(tags:USA minorities polls demographics viaJennieRigg )

His software sang the words of God. Then it went silent.

(tags:Jews singing religion computers death lgbt )

UK sets out action plan to tackle inequality based on recommendations from a commission that concluded there was no systemic racism in Britain.

(tags:UK racism )

Why Russians Support Putin's War Against Ukrainians

(tags:Russia Ukraine war polls )

France ends gas heaters subsidies, boosts heat pumps in bid to cut Russia reliance

(tags:France heating electricity Russia )

Russian war in Ukraine 'largely stalled on all fronts', UK claims

(tags:russia ukraine )

In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

(tags:surgery airplanes )

Comments

Colours

[channelpenguin]

I can see 35. On my phone. Wonder about on a properly calibrated screen. Guess I have 4 cone types (not the least bit surprised). I vastly prefer blue/purple colours and some flowers of those shades seem to glow.

Re: Colours

[lsanderson]

I see quite a few too, although I might hafta blame that on my monitor and chromatic aberration.

Re: Colours

[melchar]

I saw 35 colours too - on my computer monitor. I was amused to see the comment that yellow annoyed me - because it does. I have nothing yellow in my wardrobe. ^_^

[nancylebov]

Americans make comparable overestimates of the proportion of Jews and the proportion of people in NYC. Maybe they think the whole country is like NYC, though that doesn't explain the wilder over estimate of the number of Muslims.

[andrewducker]

Well, they keep *hearing* about those dang muslims, so there must be a load of them out there!

[rmc28]

I got 35 on my laptop screen. I don't especially dislike yellow, but yeah, I don't wear it (except in rainbows). I do love blue/purple much more though.

[starwatcher]

Also laptop, 36 colors, and I like yellow. But when I consider my wardrobe, I have only one shirt (and one tatty old sleeveless top that's only suitable for work in the garden) in the yellow range... but then I realize that I rarely see clothing for sale that's even close to yellow. I wonder if manufacturers picked up on a substantial "anti-yellow" subset in potential shoppers and just quit making clothing in the yellow shades? Or maybe it's too hard to get yellow without it sliding into orange. Hmm... research needed!

[bearshorty]

I see 36. I seem to be strongest in blues and terrible in greens but still a lot overall. I do have a preference for blues and purples. But also red. Don't really like yellow, that's true.

[splodgenoodles]

I see 37 or 38 and yes, I do like bees. How ever could you have predicted that?

I really like yellow though. Don't wear it except in small doses because it looks terrible on me, but I've got favourite soft furnishings in yellow. Other than that I love rich greens and jewel colours.

Used to wear a lot of black, still do, but that's the law when you live in Melbourne. Don't know why, it just is.

[cmcmck]

I can see 32. Seem to lose the greens a bit.

[bens_dad]

I see more colours in your image than the one on Diana Derval's LinkedIn page.

I fail some of the Ishihara tests and have "weak red cones" but have had high score on some other colour discrimination tests and have been known to "carry a colour" - judge which of two similar colours in front of me is closest to one I saw half an hour ago in a different place - better than some other people.

I scored high thirties on your image but not more than thirty two on Derval's original.
I may be interpolating a smooth variation and seeing the steps because they don't match that curve, rather than because I can actually distinguish between colours of the blocks.

[andrewducker]

To be honest, I doubt that an image that's been copied from site to site, of unknown provenance, on an uncalibrated monitor is probably not going to be great for really telling what your eyes are up to. It is fun though :-)

Fascinating how good your colour memory is - I'm largely aphantastic, and so I don't think I could carry it more than about ten seconds!

[channelpenguin]

If I recall correctly what "aphantasic" means (don't see mental images?), then you might be suprised. I almost totally do not see mental images (I'd say totally, but I might be wrong) .... but I'm AWESOME at that colour carry / match over time thing.

[andrewducker]

I'll see if I can find a test!

[channelpenguin]

Oooh. I can colour match over time too. Never tested how long. If it's a thing I know well, then days probably. Thank you for letting me know that I'm not the only one who noticed this ability! It never seems to get mentioned.

[ninetydegrees]

I see 36 I think. The transition from blue to green is kinda blurry for me, pretty much as in real life (I often see blue where others see green and vice versa). I do get tricked by background light, and yellow in certain shades is my favorite color :) Tetrachromat I may not be!

"France ends gas heaters subsidies, boosts heat pumps in bid to cut Russia reliance"

Lots of sudden announcements and promises right before presidential election day. Hm...

Trope Trainer

[cellio]

That's fascinating. I had no idea it was one programmer and not a conventional company.

I used Trope Trainer for years. I did listen to the digital voice early on, and I ran through samples of the 24 different traditions my copy knew about just to hear them, but I learned the musical system (from actual sheet music :-) ) and then mainly used Trope Trainer as a resource -- most especially to print nice large-print copies I could practice from. I never upgraded that older Mac to Catalina (too many things would stop working), so the program continued to run. One day it started hanging on launch, and eventually I figured out it was trying to contact a web site that was no longer there, and eventually I learned how to use a firewall to prevent the outbound call so I could run the software. Then, six months ago, I got a new Mac that can't run the software, so my only access to it now is on that older machine, for as long as it's runnable. Before migrating to the new machine I saved PDF copies of each week's portion, so that when I need those nice large-print copies in the future I can print from that. It's imperfect (I can't customize exactly what part of each portion I want, just print, e.g., pages 7 through 10 with some extra text on either end), but it's better than nothing.

I'm sorry to learn that it wasn't the usual path of companies killing products or things killing companies, but something much more personal.

Re: Trope Trainer

[andrewducker]

Such a shame it wasn't open source - there are clearly many people who would love to have it.

Re: Trope Trainer

[bens_dad]

I am not to hot on macs, but I imagine that "you" could make a virtual machine image of the old machine.
At the least can you make a copy of the old machine's hard drive, perhaps on a dvd ?

Re: Trope Trainer

[bens_dad]

Actually, if you still have the Trope Trainer installation media, "you" should be able to install it inside a generic MacOS virtual machine that is old enough. Apple UK have old MacOS install images at https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211683.

... but if it was trying to phone home, it might have installed updates that aren't on the original install media :-( so keep (the disk from) your old machine.

If your new machine has the new "Apple Silicon" ARM M1 CPU, running the old system in a virtual machine might be more complex.

Re: Trope Trainer

[cellio]

I have the original installer somewhere, but there's a license key that it won't be able to validate so I don't know if I can reinstall it now. I should figure out how to make a VM image of that old machine; thanks for the suggestion. (My new Mac does have the M1 CPU. I don't know anything about running VMs yet, but the first step is to capture an image in any case.)

[starwatcher]

I see 36 and... I like yellow. Wish they'd explained why folks with more types of cones might have a problem with it.

(As a matter of fact, my page -- in both LJ and DW -- is green-and-yellow. Of course, many people may not that if they read in their "own style", as I do, but it's here.)

[darkoshi]

I can see 38 colors, especially in the image on the Derval site. But that's only because of the noticeable transition between each block of colors. If the colors were separated out from each other with a common color between them, I'd have a much harder time distinguishing which ones were different or not.

Yellow isn't my favorite, but I don't dislike it and do have some yellow clothes. It looks better together with black. I remember one time at work, when we were given handouts on neon-yellow paper. I like bright colors and was surprised when some people said the color was ghastly.

[aldabra]

Oh! I always thought people who design municipal roundabouts must have different colour vision from me, because they insist on filling them with yellow and orange and pink. I would go for blue and white and purple.

36 going on 39 depending on monitor. But sometimes only because they're directly adjacent.

Snopes on the tetrachromat "test"

[bens_dad]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/people-4th-retinal-cone/

Re: Snopes on the tetrachromat "test"

[andrewducker]

Thank you!

skeptical-scienceRe: Snopes on the tetrachromat "test"

[bens_dad]

https://www.skeptical-science.com/science/can-see-nobody-else-can-see-tetrachromat/

[danieldwilliam]

I think a lot of the talk about peace talks is a Russian attempt to shape the West's perception tha the war is nearly over and that they don't have to send weapons to Ukraine any more.

[andrewducker]

I would, if I was Ukraine, be very tempted to hold off on ending peace talks for the moment. Certainly on giving up any parts of Ukraine.

Maybe time to ask for Crimea back :-)

[danieldwilliam]

It's a tricky one for them.

Ukraine doesn't have much offensive capability. They have tanks, artillery and fighter-bombers but probably not enough to push the Russians out of positions they are determined to defend. If they try and fail to push them out they risk giving the Russians a much needed morale boost and ruining the only army the Ukrainians currently have in the field. So difficult and risky for them to ask for something they possibly can't take by force.

They have enough defensive capabilty to slow down the Russians and probably hold them more or less where they are and to do so in a way that is very costly and painful for the Russians (as well as for Ukraine.)

So the questions become how long is Ukraine prepared to accept a hostile but static enemy army in its country, how long is the West prepared to sanction Russia and how effectively can Russia fill in the economic gaps left by the sanctions. Who runs out of means and will first?

If the West is prepared to sanction Russia for the long haul and able to demonstrate that this is true (and probably also be willing to soft sanction other nations who actively help Russia so as to keep the Chinese neutral) then I think the Ukrainians should ask for Crimea back. If not, then they might need to settle for less.

[andrewducker]

Oh, I don't think they can get Crimea back just now. And I think that would be overextending themselves significantly.

But I wouldn't sign up to lose any more bits. And I'd backstab Russia over any kind of "No NATO" as fast as I safely could.

[danieldwilliam]

I don't think "as fast as I safely could" exists so long as Russia is able to negotiate Ukraine not joining NATO.

If Russia can insist today on Ukraine not joining Russia then they then still have great power status and we have lost the one chance we will have to remove it from them.

If they are left with any bargaining positioning (other than the threat of the use of nuclear weapons) at the end of this conflict they are going to remove the ability of the West to hurt them through sanctions and then try again for Ukraine, and the probably the Baltics states.

The best way to get an organisation to change is to give it an existential scare but then leave it intact to reform itself.

[andrewducker]

Yup. Russia wouldn't be bargaining if it thought it could actually win this. And if we give it to them then I think that would be a mistake.

But promising that you'll do something while the enemy are shelling your cities doesn't feel like something that should be binding.

I'm not actively convinced that they *can* remove the ability of the West to harm them through sanctions. I think that doing so would mean they were a much poorer state, and that this is further than they are willing to go in the long term. (A few months, sure, but permanently moving to that?)