In 1800 almost nobody in France thought of themselves as French. By 1900 they all did. Unlike farming, industry needs steel, coal and other resources which are not uniformly distributed, so many micro-states were no longer viable. Meanwhile, empires became unwieldy as they industrialized and needed more actual governing. So in 19th-century Europe, micro-states fused and empires split.
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Wave Hill
nice bike ride up to Wave Hill but the google maps biking directions were hilariously inaccurate: it took 150, not 90 min.
Solid light
Researchers at Princeton University are transforming light into crystal. “It’s something that we have never seen before. This is a new behavior for light.” In the future, they hope to observe exotic phases of light such as superfluids and insulators.
LA is the real hellhole
some school districts in LA have so many dumb parents with “belief exceptions” that their immunization rates are like Chad and South Sudan. i wonder when immunization rates will start to be factored into real estate. do you want your kids to grow up next to these savages?
Evolutionary fitness is predictable
A massive statistical study suggests that the final evolutionary outcome — fitness — is predictable.
Love, Grampa and Grandmaster Flash
Grandmas accidentally tagging Grandmaster Flash plus things your grandmother would share on Facebook
College admissions are broken
Harvard and other elite universities are wasting their resources on athletes and musicians, and should select students by standardized test scores.
Evolution of marriage advice
this is interesting, from a better angels of our nature perspective. things do get better eventually.
The early ‘Can This Marriage Be Saved?’ columns have an unpleasant chiding tone. Popenoe, along with his organisation’s marriage counsellors, thought of female clients as unrealistic babies: immature, and expecting too much glitz from their marriages. There was a strong element of intergenerational critique in their counsel – a sense that young women were seduced by popular culture, and hopelessly unable to ‘keep house’ and make sacrifices. ‘Don’t expect too much romance’.
Vanderbilt Estate
not too shabby. in centerport, ny.
Cryogenic Metallic Alloy
very unusual. it even gets tougher as it cools.
A new concept in metallic alloy design – called “high‐entropy alloys” – has yielded a multiple-element material that not only tests out as one of the toughest on record, but, unlike most materials, the toughness as well as the strength and ductility of this alloy actually improves at cryogenic temperatures.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 