Long Links

“Wow, Tim, didn’t you do a Long Links just last month? Been spending too much time doomscrolling, have we?” Maybe. There sure are a lot of tabs jostling each other along the top of that browser. Many are hosting works that are both long and good. So here they are; you probably don’t have time for all of ’em but my hope is that one or two might reward your visit.

Let’s start with a really important subject: Population growth oh actually these days it’s population shrinkage. For a short-sharp-shock-flavored introduction I recommend South Korea Is Over which explains the brick wall societies with fertility rates way below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman per lifetime are hurtling toward. South Korea, of course, being the canonical example. But also Japan and Taiwan and Italy and Spain and so on.

And, of course, the USA, where the numbers aren’t that much higher: U.S. Fertility Rate (1950-2025). Even so, the population still grows (because of immigration), albeit at less than 1% per annum: U.S. Population Growth Rate. If the MAGAs get their way and eventually stop all non-white immigration, the US will be in South Korea territory within a generation or two.

A reasonable person might ask why. It’s not really complicated, as you can read here: A Bold Idea to Raise the Birthrate: Make Parenting Less Torturous. From which I quote: “To date, no government policies have significantly improved their nation’s birthrates for a sustained period.” The essay argues convincingly that it’s down to two problems: Capitalism and sexism. Neither of which offers an easy fix.

Speaking of the travails of late capitalism, here’s how bad it’s getting: America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness.

For a refreshingly different take on the business world, here’s Avery Pennarun, CEO of Tailscale: The evasive evitability of enshittification. Not sure I buy what he’s saying, but still worth reading.

Most people who visit these pages are geeks or geek-adjacent. If you’re one of those, and especially if you enjoy the small but vibrant genre of Comical Tech War Stories, I recommend Lock-Free Rust: How to Build a Rollercoaster While It’s on Fire

And here’s write-up on an AWS product which has one of the best explanations I’ve ever read of the different flavors modern databases come in: Introduction to the Fundamentals of Amazon Redshift

Of course, the geek conversation these days is much taken up with the the impact of genAI as in “vibe coding”. To summarize the conversation: A few people, not obviously fools, are saying “This stuff seems to help me” and many others, also apparently sensible, are shouting back “You’re lying to yourself, it can’t be helping!” Here is some of the testimony: Kellan on Vibe coding for teams, thoughts to date, Armin Ronacher on Agentic Coding Recommendations, Harper on Basic Claude Code, and Klabnik on A tale of two Claudes

I lean to believing narratives of personal experience, but on the other hand the skeptics make good points. Another random piece of evidence: Because I’m lazy, I tend to resist adopting technologies that have steep learning curves, which genAI currently does. On many occasions, this has worked out well because those technologies have turned out not to pay off very well. Am I a canary in the coal mine?

*cough* · Since I introduced myself into the narrative, I’ll note that today is my 70th birthday. I am told that this means that my wisdom has now been maximized, so you’re safe in believing whatever you read in this space. I don’t have anything special to say to commemorate the occasion, so here’s a picture of my neighborhood’s network infrastructure, which outlines the form of a cathedral’s nave. I’m sure there’s a powerful metaphor lurking in there.

Oh, and here’s a photography Long Link: What is HDR, anyway? It’s actually a pitch for a nice-looking mobile camera app, but it offers real value on things that can affect the quality of your pictures.

Regular readers will know that I’m fascinated by the many unsolved issues and open questions in cosmology, which are by definition the largest problems facing human consciousness. The ΛCDM-vs-MOND controversy, i.e. “Is there really dark matter or does gravity get weird starting at the outer edges of galaxies?”, offers great entertainment value. And, there is news!

First of all, here’s a nice overview on the controversy: Modified Newtonian Dynamics: Observational Successes and Failures.

Which points out that the behavior of “wide binary” star systems ought to help resolve the issue, but that people who study it keep coming up with contradictory findings. Here’s the latest, from Korean researchers: Press release New method of measuring gravity with 3D velocities of wide binary stars is developed and confirms modified gravity and peer-reviewed paper: Low-acceleration Gravitational Anomaly from Bayesian 3D Modeling of Wide Binary Orbits: Methodology and Results with Gaia Data Release 3. Spoiler: They think the gravity gets weird. I have a math degree but cosmology math is generally way over my head. Having said that, I think those South Koreans may be a bit out over their skis; I generally distrust heroic statistical methods. We’ll see.

Let’s do politics. It turns out that the barbaric junta which oppresses the people of China does not limit its barbarism to its own geography: Followed, threatened and smeared — attacks by China against its critics in Canada are on the rise.

More politics: The MAGAs are always railing against “elites”. Here are two discussions of what they mean: What the Comfort Class Doesn’t Get and When They Say Elites, They Mean Us.

The world’s biggest political issue should be the onrushing climate crisis. When Trump and his toadies are justly condemned and ridiculed by future historians, it is their malevolent cluelessness on this subject that may burn the hottest. Who knows, maybe they’ll pay attention to this: Insurers Want Businesses to Wake Up to Costs of Extreme Heat.

The list of Long Links is too long · So I’ll try to end cheerfully.

A graceful essay about an old camera and a dreamy picture: A Bridge Across Time: For Sebastião Salgado

Latin Wikipedia has 140,000 articles; consider the delightful discussion of Equus asinus.

Here’s a lovely little song from TORRES and Julien Baker: The Only Marble I’ve Got Left.

Finally, a clear-eyed if lengthy essay on why and how to think: Should You Question Everything?

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