Georeactor Blog

I was reading bits of different books, and then decided to start The Malay Archipelago over Thanksgiving break (currently 270 pages in). That's all I have for November reading.

Updates to Previous Reads

• Just hours after my October reads post, I found a podcast episode from WBEZ about Chicago lacking statues of women. https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/womens-statues/

• Genocide researcher from Sarajevo speaking out on Palestine and international law: https://twitter.com/Rrrrnessa/status/1718221720090272233 ; has been critical of ICTY, and discourse in Bosnia around violence which was not specifically called out by ICTY.

• On the Disaster Girls podcast, a guest on Doomsday (2008) pointed out that it and 28 Days Later (2002) can be seen as the UK film industry's response to mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease. Did prions cause the revival of the zombie genre?

• Amazon Prime has Escape from Mogadishu, a Korean historic adaptation of when North and South Korean ambassadors cooperated to flee Somalia during its civil war. I recommended it to an international law friend. Big caveat that the second half drops the sympathetic light on Somali people and goes full Apocalypto.

• Someone mentioning "hella" got me to look up that movement to add it to scientific prefixes. Last year the prefixes after yotta- were agreed to be ronna- and quetta- =(

• Report that Covid was officially coded in French and Spanish as feminine (based on la enfermedad) but settled by popular usage as masculine / el covid https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17knn22/comment/k79mluu/

• After a decade getting the same facts rehashed from one DamnInteresting post, this was a great interview-supported explanation of the 10,000 year nuclear waste / "this is not a place of honor" study https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/signs-for-the-future/id1527094379?i=1000632525870

• HN discussion on Yugo-nostalgia and the discontinued YU ccTLD https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38034435

• Onion futures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act

• Airspace / airplane-tracker nerds note that US diplomats / military use Cyprus as a fake destination when traveling between Israel and Jordan. https://twitter.com/avischarf/status/1721147404496330832

• The ecosystem is full of CRISPR alternatives https://news.mit.edu/2023/thousands-programmable-dna-cutters-found-algae-snails-other-organisms-1013

• Somehow I missed this, but in January 2019 the French commune of Oiron (origin of my family name) was merged with other villages into "Plaine-et-Vallées"

• Atlas Obscura did an article / podcast about removing a supposed "Moose Boulder" from maps and travel guides https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/moose-boulder-debunked

• I wrote about taking bikes on Metra, from Chicago north to Wisconsin. The South Shore line (which has a different operator) has very limited bike boarding even before current construction =( https://mysouthshoreline.com/plan-your-trip/bikes-on-trains/

• 23andMe subreddit is uncertain what a Bosnian ought to expect in the 23andMe UI (i.e. is being 'Greek' part of being Bosnian) https://www.reddit.com/r/23andme/comments/17u8a61/100_bosnian_bosnian_muslim_at_least_i_thought_pic/

• In August I linked to a Reddit conversation about right-wing and genocide denial people taking over Croatian and Bosnian language Wikipedias. A new research paper compares "governance capture" of the Croatian version to ones which they claim are not so consumed (Serbian and Bosnian). I met one of the authors 10+ years ago in Boston, so AFAIK the group is familiar with Wiki and free software politics. From browsing, they're saying the Croatian admins became insular and communicated on other chat apps, and Serbian admins communicated in the open and encouraged participation by new members. They interviewed many people, and discuss interventions from 2021 on the Croatian and Chinese wikis which I hadn't heard about.

• This was a really good read about how wording and sourcing on Wikipedia can tell different stories with the same facts https://getpocket.com/explore/item/one-woman-s-mission-to-rewrite-nazi-history-on-wikipedia

• Another wiki issue: based on a fringe belief that Indian calendars were misread by the British, someone is moving dates in articles 600 years back in time: https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/17wwy8h/weird_date_discrepancies_for_indian_history/