Trendlist: Althouse

Friday, April 16, 2021

Althouse

6:14 a.m.
"It's a bobcat, attacking my wife!"
"Madison residents sue over college financial aid program limited to certain students of color."
"For the first time, scientists have mapped out the molecular and genetic processes by which temperature determines sex..."
"With all the new money flooding the metaverse... the kinds of conflicts between neighbors we’re familiar with from the real world have followed."
"Gucci sneakers usually retail for well over $500, but this week the luxury fashion giant has started selling a pair for $17.99... digital only."
Dreams dreamed, now the trick is to make it all happen — black nebula carrots and all.
Let me give you some snippets of comments added to posts from the last 2 days.

6:14 a.m.

Posted: 16 Apr 2021 12:27 PM PDT

"It's a bobcat, attacking my wife!"

Posted: 16 Apr 2021 11:35 AM PDT

This was a wild 46 seconds pic.twitter.com/jIHQg0G4qU
— Sada (@Evi3Zamora) April 15, 2021

FROM THE EMAIL: Nathan writes:

This seems worthy of a "men in shorts" tag, and you may even consider adding a "men in shorts wearing boots" tag.

And this is another reason for men not to wear shorts. What is some man/beast confrontation suddenly befalls you? Something with teeth and claws? This man did all right, but if you knew something like that would happen, you'd put pants on.

AND: I'm getting a lot of email saying that's not a bobcat, but a regular house cat, but I can't believe this man would put up the video if it were because he grabs the beast and hurls it hard into the ground. If you'd done that to a house cat, you'd know not to expose yourself to the world. People would cry out about cruelty to animals. I presume he's getting criticized for throwing a bobcat, even though he was acting in self-defense. It's possible that it's not his doorbell camera, and it wasn't his decision to put this video out there, but it looks like it is.

"Madison residents sue over college financial aid program limited to certain students of color."

Posted: 16 Apr 2021 06:06 AM PDT

The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

A law firm representing conservative interests, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, filed the action against the Higher Educational Aids Board in Jefferson County Circuit Court.... The board administers the Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant program, which provides students of color with up to $2,500 per year to offset the cost of college.... State law restricts program eligibility to African American, American Indian, Hispanic and some Southeast Asian students.

WILL argues the program criteria amounts to racial discrimination — which is prohibited by the state constitution — because students who are Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, North African, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, or white don't qualify....

The program has been around since the 1980s.

WILL has taken a recent interest in reviewing laws and programs through a lens of racial equality.... Those include minority business grants or preferences, loan forgiveness programs and a racial quota for the city of Madison's Police Civilian Oversight Board....

You might think that these programs would all have been challenged when they were first adopted and that there should already be a judicial answer to the question — which is glaringly obvious — whether this is illegal race discrimination. I think the only new item on that list is the racial quota for the city of Madison's Police Civilian Oversight Board.

I note that the law suit was filed in state court and the claim is based on state constitutional law.

(To comment, you can email me here.)

"For the first time, scientists have mapped out the molecular and genetic processes by which temperature determines sex..."

Posted: 16 Apr 2021 08:38 AM PDT

"...in bearded dragons, a species of lizard native to Australia.... At cooler temperatures, chromosomes prevail, turning on one sequence of genes to make a female dragon; at warmer temperatures, a completely different series of genes can override partial male development and produce a female.... Why would a temperature-dependent pathway to one sex or another evolve? In reptiles... the ability to change sex in response to environmental cues has been retained across diverse species, from sea turtles to crocodiles, indicating both that it arose early in their evolution and that it confers an adaptive benefit.... For reptiles living in [arid] environments, being born closer to the end of the breeding season, when temperatures are beginning to drop, it could be more advantageous to be male. That's because males can grow to a size where they can mate with females within that timeframe.... Females born late in the season could have to wait until the next breeding season, when temperatures are warmer, to successfully mate and produce offspring...."

From "In a Warming World, Heat Interferes With Sex Determination in These Australian Lizards/Scientists have discovered how hot temperatures override chromosomes in bearded dragons" (Smithsonian).

"With all the new money flooding the metaverse... the kinds of conflicts between neighbors we’re familiar with from the real world have followed."

Posted: 16 Apr 2021 08:38 AM PDT

"Take the monastery and the ranch house next door. Both were built by Ogar, an in-demand meta-architect in the metaverse. His real name is Alexandre Vlerick, and he lives in the real-life Lille, France.... Right after he finished the monastery for a German client, he got another request: an American client asking for a ranch house alongside it, on land where he could raise virtual chickens, horses, and a goat. Once the client moved in, he got a red barn, a tractor, and bales of hay. The owner of the monastery wasn't pleased with the clashing aesthetics, and a familiar homeowners'-association-style conflict erupted. 'The first client was like, "Man, can't you do it in another place? I'll swap parcels with you so you have a bigger space far from my place,"' Ogar said. 'But he said no.'... Many early users came to the space because they were excited to hang out virtually with like-minded people who believe in blockchain technology; others were digital artists excited about new platforms.... But for newcomers paying upwards of $100,000 worth of crypto for a parcel, participation in the metaverse might be less about the liberatory potential of blockchain and more about speculating with crypto on digital assets. There is a clear tension between the idea that the metaverse is a utopian blank canvas, socially and visually, and the fact these spaces are based on money-backed property rights.... [T]here is already a kind of nostalgia setting in among longtime users of these platforms... 'The big money is moving in....'"

From "Does the Metaverse Need a Zoning Board? As new crypto investments flood online worlds, conflicts between virtual neighbors are on the rise" (NY Magazine).

It's a replication of the problem of gentrification. First come the young creatives. They make the place cool and alive. Then come the people who just buy their way in. But what are they buying? They don't really live there... or do they spend time there in some way. Is it art or is it investment?

In any case, Ogar has a nice job for himself. Speaking of jobs, there must be lawyers. There must be government. Or maybe not. It's a game, isn't it? I don't understand it, but I got to thinking about the board game Risk.

There's never a point in Risk where government emerges. You just play to the death, every time. Sometimes you feel real emotio

FROM THE EMAIL: Steve writes:

It's funny that the article didn't mention Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel, Snowcrash (at least, I didn't catch a mention if it was there). In his novel, Stephenson predicted a virtual world called the Metaverse. He also described the cacophony of style arising from the lack of physical limitations and diversity of taste and personalities of the inhabitants. He even discussed some of the rules used (like zoning laws) by the creators and early adopters of the Metaverse to manage all the weirdness. It's an awesome book, but it feels like the kind of thing you wouldn't enjoy, for some reason. Also, I know you don't like mixed metaphors, but I think "cacophony of style" is a keeper.

"Gucci sneakers usually retail for well over $500, but this week the luxury fashion giant has started selling a pair for $17.99... digital only."

Posted: 16 Apr 2021 06:06 AM PDT

"The Virtual 25 sneaker is a chunky slime green, bubble-gum pink and sky blue shoe that... can only be 'worn' via augmented and virtual reality," The Guardian reports.

An impressive idea for a product. People spend a lot of money on clothes to impress other people, and if they are doing their efforts to impress in virtual spaces, then why not buy these things? It's the next step.

It's funny, though, to buy sneakers, shoes built around the concept of comfort and physical performance. These are precisely the factors that don't matter when you are in virtual space. Why not wear wild, weird shoes in virtual space, the kind that would be impractical and painful if you had them on your flesh-and-blood feet?

I'll just guess that in virtual spaces, you want to look like you could run away. My second guess, though, is that the importance of sneakers — the fascination with luxury branded, high-priced sneakers — is firmly established within the set of people who do augmented and virtual reality, so that's the kind of fake shoes they want.

I thought of the analogy to virtual sex: Do people want their nonexistent sexual partners to have qualities unrelated to sexual experience but that they'd want in a real-life partner? I mean seem to have — the equivalent of the comfort and practicality of virtual sneakers. I'm thinking of — for a woman — a virtual partner who seems to have an impressive job and a prestigious family. For a man — a virtual woman with a modestly successful artistic job and a family that lives far away. You know? Sexual sneakers! Or would you like someone more challenging, the virtual sex equivalent of highly impractical shoes?

I did not think I would end up there! I'm only writing about Gucci's virtual shoes — the article is from last month — because it popped up after a new article that caught my eye: "'Short, fat, ugly': Gucci family lashes out at cast appearance in new film/Ridley Scott biopic tells story of Patrizia Reggiani's doomed marriage to Maurizio Gucci."

Ha ha. The ugly people are Adam Driver, Lady Gaga, Al Pacino, and — in a baldness cap — Jared Leto. Uglier than the actors — the actual story of the Gucci family: "The film, which is now in production and directed by Sir Ridley Scott, tells the story of Patrizia Reggiani and her doomed marriage to Maurizio Gucci. Reggiani was convicted of his assassination in 1998 after hiring a hitman to kill him.... When a reporter asked Reggiani why she had not shot her ex-husband herself, she said: 'My eyesight is not so good. I didn't want to miss.'"

(To comment, email me here.)

Dreams dreamed, now the trick is to make it all happen — black nebula carrots and all.

Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:29 PM PDT

FROM THE EMAIL: Sarah from VA writes:

Is it OK to try and do a cafe-type post via e-mail? Well, I'm going to try!

I'm excited for your garden! I'm weirdly interested in the fact that you're planting wheat and barley. Are they going to be primarily ornamental grasses or are you actually planning on harvesting? Does Meade have grand plans for baking a loaf of bread Little-Red-Hen-style?

I spent hours and hours this week putting in some raised beds in our yard. You'd think my kids had no toys or any kind of other entertainment, so great was the draw of the garden beds. A big pile of dirt, a shovel, a garden rake -- what else do you need? Of course I'm sure the interest will evaporate when it's time to start weeding.

Everything is ornamental, but the things that are edible, we plan to eat. Meade says, "It will be gruel on the bacon," which meant "It will be icing on the cake."

Let me give you some snippets of comments added to posts from the last 2 days.

Posted: 15 Apr 2021 04:11 PM PDT

These are taken out of context, possibly to amuse you as is, but really to give me something to put a link on, so you can click back and read.

1. "He strikes me as a recognisable type: the 19th century equivalent of a trust fund socialist."

2. "For every 100 people who fly, 100 could die in an airplane crash."

3. "That's like promising to put a mouse turd into a double batch of oatmeal cookies."

4. "Of course for the media more riots would be beneficial, more clicks, more exciting footage of burning and looting."

5. "In our country's current woke status, viewers at home who publicly tolerate homosexuality may be turned off by it in privacy."

6. "Having lived my entire 62 years in New York, I have been waiting patiently for my turn to be insulted over my ethnicity, and now I finally have gotten my chance. Thank you!"

7. "If you tell people they can't smoke and, on top of that, decrease the acceptable level of alcohol to a point that if they have more than a beer or two they risk a DUI, they stay home."

8. "I think having comments resulted in your being more interested in starting a conversation and less likely to give an opinion, and it's that opinion I prefer to read."

9. "I remember one piece that had Maria Callas appearing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand with the in-studio teen audience obliviously boogying to Callas's aria."