Microposts

Interesting guest column by Reg Whitaker in Wesley Wark’s National Security and Intelligence Newsletter

The leading physicists mobilized in the Manhattan Project were on the one hand applying intelligence in the sense of the same pure quest for knowledge that had driven the discoveries of scientists from Galileo to Einstein. On the other hand as a military scheme, the Manhattan Project was an intelligence problem in the sense of secrets that had to be protected from enemy eyes, or indeed from any eyes, friendly or unfriendly, from outside the charmed circle of the initiated and security-cleared.

Not a great start to Season 2 of Invasion. The ease with which Mitsuki easily dispatches a half dozen invaders doesn’t suggest much jeapordy.

I really liked the initial mystery and slow build of the first half of Season 1. So, will stick with Season 2 for now 📺

The only perk of returning home from a cottage vacation is that I got to watch the season finale of Strange New Worlds. Great show! 🖖

I’ve been making an effort to listen to the Moments in Waking Up when the randomly timed notifications come in. This one resonated with me today: “We too have problems that cannot be solved by more thinking”

Finished reading: I really enjoyed Hands of Time by Rebecca Struthers. Although notionally about mechanical watches, there’s also interesting ideas about time, building things by hand, and focusing on what really matters.

The book also resurrected an internal debate about the Apple Watch vs mechanical watches. For now, I’m going to take this as inspiration to reconsider my watch faces 📚

Finished reading: Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson finishes the remarkable trilogy. Robinson’s meticulous detail (though occasionally overwhelming) really brings Mars to life, along with compelling characters and ideas. Although I sympathize with the “reds”, I think the series ended appropriately 📚