

5hNobody collects data on gang strength or drug profits. No one tracks when gangs provide local security, or asks citizens whether they find the gangs as legitimate as the state. As a result, too many make the terrible trade-off ignorant of the consequences.
↩︎ Chris Blattman
5hMr Modi wants to restore Indian greatness. For him, that seems to involve not only bolstering Hindu pride at the expense of minorities, but also building a large, integrated, high-tech economy. So far the two ambitions have gone together, but that may not always be so.
↩︎ The Economist


An interesting article at The Verge about a visit to robotics company Engineered Arts, where they're trying to create androids with a human body's dexterity.
(The video shows one of their most advanced machines responding when someone tries to touch its nose.)
As you get used to treating human-like automata as automata, you may slowly find yourself treating humans the same. It’s similar to the dilemma parents have with young children and Alexa. Should they be polite to the AI assistant because it encourages them to be polite to humans? Or is that the wrong way to treat a piece of software coded and controlled by a huge multinational corporation?
As I ponder this, Jackson and I walk past a desk laden with mechanical widgets undergoing stress tests. Pistons have been nailed to a wooden plank while, on a stand, tiny pulleys lift and lower a cup full of screws. And, true to Singler’s suggestion that humans will ascribe a bit of soul to just about anything that moves, I feel passing sympathy even for these tortured components.
Via The Browser
For your weekly soothe, "Joshua Tree, for orchestra," by Georg Friedrich Haas, from its Switzerland premier in 2020.
The watcher of the night sky inevitably looks at groups of stars, and these create pictures in the viewer’s imagination. However, when looking at the same area through a telescope, the sheer number of light spots makes it impossible to recognize structures. Everything revolves around density and imperceptible motion. That’s the phenomenon which I wanted to implement in music.
