Ben Mann Monthly 2020.06: Wifi, naan, jackfruit, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, reading about race
Purpose
An index for my memory
A menu of topics for my next conversation with you
A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it
A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable
Experiments and experiences
Enterprise-grade wifi upgrade
Our house now has ~100 devices on the network. Our old Google Wifi was not designed for this scale, so we bought all-new Ubiquiti gear. It's been awesome! We have total control and introspection over our network now, down to AP transmit power, which devices are allowed to use which channels, "smart queue" to prevent some devices from eating too much bandwidth, etc. PS if you want Google Wifi we're looking for a buyer.Naan
Basic idea: take no-knead bread recipe and cook it in a pan. Preheat a skillet to medium, then scoop some dough, use a lot of flour, stretch it into a circle, and then brush both sides with melted salted butter while it's in the pan. Putting a lid on the pan seems to help it rise a better. We did a side by side comparison with Pakwan and ours was preferred.Slack alternatives
My house uses Slack heavily, but the 10k message limit means we rapidly lose our history. I didn't consider Teams (bad UX) or Google Chat (requires G Suite plan). I looked into free alternatives including Riot, RocketChat, Zulip, and Discord. Of these, only Zulip and Discord were mature enough to really try. Zulip's threading model is ugly and clunky, but we could probably get used to it. Discord has no threading, so I'd be worried about a big deluge of messages. Discord is likely to be the best balance of free and nice to use. I doubt message history is a big enough draw for anyone to switch over though.MTG booster draft
Went for blue/green control + mana pump. Won half the games, got beaten with my own deck when I swapped with the tournament winner.Jackfruit
Processed a whole jackfruit for the first time. The strong smell and flavor were divisive. I liked it, but I found it made my mouth slightly itchy. It has a latex-y coating between the meat that's very sticky and difficult to clean. Luckily it's fat soluble, so while soap does not work, coconut oil does. The smell stuck to my hands for over a day in spite of washing many times. Theorizing the allergenic component was protein-based, I tried frying it in a pan with some oil and sugar until it started browning, then ground it into a milkshake with soymilk and ice. 💯
Life updates
Starting reading The Bluest Eye and So You Want To Talk About Race
Took a few days off to read and rest
Triathlon training continues with 47 mile bike ride and 3 mile run
Made this troll-y father's day experiment with my siblings
Started learning Korean using Pimsleur
Watched housemate break world record for crawling 1 mile
Content
5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone 4/5
A therapist discusses her own experiences both as therapist and client.
Some great character archetypes that I've found useful in thinking about others' problems and behaviors. You never know what kind of trauma people have had!
Internal mantra: "always compassion"
Rules: don't search for your therapist on social media; if you see them in normal life say hi but don't discuss therapy
THE VISION OF VILAZODONE AND VORTIOXETINE 4/5
We tried to make new SSRIs that work faster than the ones we discovered decades ago. Because drug companies need to make $$, they didn't just smush together the two compounds that would've worked nicely together into one pill, and instead tried to find one compound that did both things. They found one, but it didn't work and cost $$$. This is why we can't have nice things?
Modeling the Human Trajectory 4/5
Taking inspiration from population and GWP modeling author uses a few different methods to forecast human progress
"if the patterns of history continue, then some sort of economic explosion will take place"
"The projections of explosion should be taken as indicators of the long-run tendency of the human system to diverge"
Better make sure AGI goes well!!
A Sociologist Examines the “White Fragility” That Prevents White Americans from Confronting Racism
White people create tension around discussing race to redirect the conversation and reinforce white power structures
There's no such thing as being "race blind". If you think you are, you're not giving these real issues the attention they deserve.
White people think they know statistics on crime etc, but they are often wrong
NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog 4/5
NYT caused my favorite blogger to delete his blog. Tragedy! Please sign the petition
Enantiomeric MDMA and Neurotoxicity 3/5
Promising early results for a new MDMA variant that could significantly reduce the risk profile
One Punch Man S1 3/5
A dude trains a little bit for 3 years and gains ultimate power: defeating any enemy with a single punch
Satire of the usual genre
Still, barely anything happens each episode and the tropes that were funny and refreshing early on start to feel stale in later episodes
A+ animation style and character design
Original webcomic moves much faster, highly recommend!
Hamilton 3/5
Alexander Hamilton was a complicated genius who tried to do a lot, but then forfeited a duel like his son
While the show was very well made, I had trouble connecting with the characters. Maybe seeing theatre on TV made the acting look overwrought, since if I were watching in person I'd hardly be able to see faces.