Aneesh Sathe

I’m taking part in the Contraptions Book Club where we are reading City of Fortune which is about Venice. I was struck by the character of Doge Dandolo. Dude was 80+ when we saw a trade opportunity in the 4th Crusades. In the book, the author, Roger Crowley describes a brief moment when Dandolo makes a heroic rush on the banks of Constantinople’s Golden Horn during the Sack of Constantinople.

I found both the Doge and the imagery interesting so went looking for art depicting the art, there’s supposed to be lots. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any and nothing in the public domain. So I asked AI to generate something.

There are other paintings like the one below, but not the one I was looking for.

Came across a heartwarming fan-made comic of a collaborative story told on tumblr. A farmer makes a temple to see who shows up and it’s a self-doubting god of transient beauty. This immediately brought back the Small Gods from Discworld, but also the poem Worm by Gail Mcconnell.

The comic and the story are beautiful. Perhaps there is some sense to shrines…

The God of Arepo- PDF available

via metafilter

Trying something different for a few days. Instead of spamming all the social media accounts with daily links, I will post links only on the blog everyday. Maybe even multiple times a day.

Still thinking about doing a weekly digest or something. Let’s see.

Table Turpentine #

Came across the gt package for better tables in R. Might sound silly but it’s one of those cheap turpentine things.

Who made the train? #

via ChiPa

Yunus Emre-The Watermill #

via harvard blogs

Translation

Why do you groan, O Watermill; For I’ve troubles, I groan
I fell in love with the Lord; For It do I groan
They found me on a mountain; My arms and wings they plucked
Saw me fit for a watermill; For I’ve troubles, I groan
From the mountain they cut my wood; My disparate order they ruined
But an unwearied poet I am; For I’ve troubles, I groan
I am The Troubled Watermill; My water flows, roaring and rumbling
Thus has God commanded; For I’ve troubles, I groan
I am but a mountain’s tree; Neither am I bitter, nor sweet
I am but a pleader to the Lord; For I’ve troubles, I groan
Yunus, whoever comes here will find no joy, will not reach his desire
Nobody stays in this fleeting abode; For I’ve troubles, I groan

Hardbreak: Hardware Hacking Wiki #

This was a cool little find. I’ve always played with software in one form or another, but besides building PCs actual hardware hacking felt out of reach. Maybe I can start with some simple things like radio hacking.

The beauty of understanding #

My love for science seems to always involve some sort of rube goldberg machine: you set things up just so and discoveries magically flow out. Sure, designing pretty experiments is difficult and there is a lot of literal and metaphorical heartbreak along the way but to finally discover the way is all frisson.

Bridget Ritz and Brandon Vaidyanathan conducted a study about that feeling. From the study website:

From the easier to digest Aeon article by the same authors, How the search for beauty drives scientific-enquiry:

At the deepest level, what motivates scientists to pursue and persist in their work is the aesthetic experience of understanding itself. Centring the beauty of understanding presents an image of science more recognisable to scientists themselves and with greater appeal for future scientists.

Do you hate it when scientists unbraid a moonbeam? Well, there’s three types of happiness scientists feel, apparently:

1. Sensory beauty - what is visually or aurally striking
2. Useful beauty - involves treating aesthetic properties such as simplicity, symmetry, aptness or elegance as heuristics or guides to truth.
3. Beauty of understanding - grasping the hidden order, inner logic or causal mechanisms of natural phenomena.

Perhaps Edward Tufte knew a thing or two when he named his book Beautiful Evidence.