The Rundown for July 25, 2021
Happy Independence Day, superhero-style!: “A common leftist critique of superhero comics is that they are inherently anti-collectivist, being about small groups of individuals who hold all the power, and the wisdom to wield that power. But it’s a sterile reading. It examines superhero comics as a cold text, and ignores something that I believe in fundamental, especially to superhero storytelling: the way people engage with text. Not what it says, but how it is read. The average comic reader doesn’t fantasize about being a civilian in a world of superheroes, they fantasize about being a superhero. One could charitably chalk this up to a lust for power, except for one fact…The fantasy is almost always the act of helping people. Helping the vulnerable, with no reward promised in return. “
Dangers Posed by Evidentiary Software—and What to Do About It: “The software engineers proposed a three-part test. First, the court should have access to the “Known Error Log,” which should be part of any professionally developed software project. Next the court should consider whether the evidence being presented could be materially affected by a software error. Ladkin and his co-authors noted that a chain of emails back and forth are unlikely to have such an error, but the time that a software tool logs when an application was used could easily be incorrect. Finally, the reliability experts recommended seeing whether the code adheres to an industry standard used in an non-computerized version of the task (e.g., bookkeepers always record every transaction, and thus so should bookkeeping software).“
Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work.
MIT’s Shigeru Miyagawa on Digitally Enhanced Education - “In remote teaching, we have often found ourselves in the students’ own living quarters, have seen and heard the challenges they are coping with. Many students do not have a quiet space for studying, forcing faculty members to vie with their family and even pets for their attention.”
Scientists discover spiders are eating snakes all over the world. Yeesh.