grumpy-de-sre

As an aussie kid I bought into the whole sunscreen hype, but after more than half a dozen failures/partial failures. I've pretty much given up on the stuff (excluding areas that are difficult to protect fully with coverings, neck/face/etc).

Long sleeve thick cotton shirts, long pants, and a good wide brimmed hat are easily ten times more effective in practice. My old hard as a tack, shearer grandfather used to swear by black picnic umbrellas (great option if you are spending time working in a fixed location).

Of course you can't swim that well in long sleeved clothes hence the popularity of sunscreen. I'm totally against Aussie beaches at this point though, yes they are nice and all but the radiation dose is just nuts.

Would love to see something like the Apple Watch include UV dosimeter functionality.

Everything leaks hydraulic fluid, it's just an inherent property of any system with dynamic seals.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d3ruv-IsGMo

Got to say the pictures of the hydraulic drum (and pump) in the DoD report are very confidence uninspiring.

Yeh the sanity check involved researching the milspecs listed and the connection to the F35 program.

Quoting ChatGPT (and after a quick sanity check),

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter uses a specialized hydraulic fluid that’s based on a synthetic ester formulation, not a petroleum-based fluid.

Specifically, it uses phosphate ester–based fire-resistant hydraulic fluid (commonly in the MIL-PRF-83282 or newer MIL-PRF-87257 class).

Apparently the older phosphate-ester based hydraulic fluids were hygroscopic but I'm not sure if the newer variants are.

Likely contamination of ground handling equipment [1]. Unfortunately can happen. I wonder if the hydraulic fluid is hygroscopic or something?

1. https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....

Honestly the long-term consequences of Baumol's disease scare me more than some AI driven job disruption dystopia.

If we want to continue on the path of increased human development we desperately need to lift the productivity of a whole bunch of labor intensive sectors.

We're going to need to seriously think about how to redistribute the gains, but that's an issue regardless of AI (things like effective tax policy).

Yeh I think this is less of a story about Chinese exceptionalism and more a story of structural issues in the west (I will always admire the Chinese technocrats but lets not get ahead of ourselves).

Fossil fuel barons and vested interests have sabotaged the energy transition at every opportunity possible. They've spent billions on it, just look at today's UN conference on plastic waste falling apart.

And then there is the NIMBYs who are seemingly allergic to electricity pylons. These folks don't deserve one tenth of the attention that they receive. Treating housing as an investment/retirement fund was a mistake.

Hopefully this grows into a wake up call, I'm looking forward to watching the terminal decline of the oil industry in the 2030s.

For an even closer example, the US interstate system was a monumental long term focused project.

Shifting waking time forwards is straightforward but getting into bed early enough can be tough.

As for the phase shift, I've always had what I thought was maintenance insomnia but at some point I realized I always waking at exactly 4:30am. Going to bed early resolves the maintenance insomnia (also travelling eastward more than a few hours or so). My father and brother are the same.

I'd love to get a DLMO done to confirm. Thinking about experimenting with tracking core body temperature monitoring soon.

FWIW a 24h ambulatory blood pressure study actually showed a phase advanced nocturnal dip.

I wonder if a similar technique could be used for Melatonin in saliva so that noninvasive circadian phase testing could be performed outside of the lab.

I'm convinced that if we actually looked at the circadian phase of the general population more closely we'd find A LOT of people with wonky clocks [1][2].

I've come to realize in recent months that I'm rocking a ~3h phase advance. Not terrible but it can sometimes make getting enough total sleep time challenging (bright light therapy in evenings really helps).

1. https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2025/07/16/depre...

2. Circadian Genes, Rhythms, and the Biology of Bipolar Disorder - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSL5hC8bzcU

I suffered from an eating disorder a very long time ago that shared a lot of the same mechanisms (thankfully my starvation survival instinct was stronger).

A healthy relationship with exercise does not look like this and I hate seeing this stuff promoted.

If a treadmill was my only option. I straight up wouldn't run.

If you hate running and you've only tried it on a treadmill, highly recommend giving it another try somewhere nice outside.

I've been running five miles roughly every other day for fifteen years. If I've got a flu or not feeling great I'll take a few days off, no loss. Not sure how one would objectively determine "stamina", but my resting HR is in the bottom 3% for my age.

Obsessively run streaking one mile every day sounds completely bizarre to me and a complete PITA.

Almost as bizarre as those poor bastards that I see doing laps around tiny parks / basketball courts (the monotony would drive me crazy).

I always liked the bit where they often compensate folks not directly financially but rather with a generous share in what they are building. Eg. the building containing your one bedroom apartment gets torn down by developers and as compensation they offer you a three bedroom apartment in the new building.

Definitely plays an interesting role in combating/moderating NIMBYism.

I couldn't be assed to do the math, not just chromosome size but also number of genes etc, get's tricky to quantify.

Fascinating to think about the variability introduced by having only a single copy of the X chromosome. Lot's of interesting genes in there, MAOA/MAOB (primary neurotransmitter breakdown pathways), AR (androgen receptor), OPN1LW/OPN1MW (red green color blindness), G6PD, etc.

Whats interesting to me is that along with the autosomes (chr1-22) the sperm contributes either an X or Y sex chromosome. The X chromosome is large and carries a lot of important genes. The Y chromosome on the other-hand is much smaller and carries very few functional genes (primarily just SRY).

So If you think about it girls get ~5% more genetic material from their father than boys.

I doubt chemotherapy drugs have a favorable risk/benefit ratio. The original article notes that somatic DNA changes might be involved, so perhaps immunotherapy might be useful. Interestingly this is being studied [1].

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10150018/

Honestly it's probably just because the condition responds well to hormonal therapy. If you've got a cheap and effective treatment available for a condition it's hard to justify spending research dollars on digging deeper into it (particularly something as strange as Endometriosis, eg. where do you even start looking).

The strong genetic component also makes it somewhat unlikely that it's something we'll be able to ever eliminate completely but perhaps there will one day be targeted drugs that can stop disease progression. It's good to see more research dollars being made available in recent years.

There's a lot of other conditions that receive a similar lack of attention, for a common male analogue "chronic pelvic pain syndrome".

Unlike SMR's the efficiency/economics of solar are not as dependent on scale. Even small solar installs can be productive.

NGL that resonates with me a lot more than the parent post.

Because they were built over centuries, like natural selection, only the best/most practical survived the test of time. Lot's of rubbish was built as-well, it's just not standing anymore.

Also car centric urban design is IMO inherently ugly (limited options for greenery etc).

Looks like London is on track to deploy similar technology. They did a trial in Croydon recently that was considered a huge success. From what I understand they actually ended up with pretty decent buy in from the locals as it had a noticeably positive effect on the community.

We'll probably eventually see it in more western cities as time progresses. Unsure what to make of it tbh.

Axle weight is a really good point tbh, if you don't have to pay labor costs for the driver it'd make a ton of sense to downsize. Ideally this would be accomplished with taxes on gross vehicle weight. Would make smaller vehicles inherently more economical.

I'm not sure the cheaper argument actually works out in other areas though. If due to peak capacity requirements you have to buy and operate two minibuses vs one full sized bus then that one full sized bus is going to be cheaper to maintain/clean/etc.

However if it's a low utilization route then for sure a minibus is a no brainer. Seems we see that model deployed in a lot of locations referenced above (excluding dollar vans etc, which I see more as a failure of the state tbh).

Ideology:

GDR: Socialist, collective responsibility for families | FRG: Conservative, traditional nuclear family model

Women's Role:

GDR: Encouraged to work and have children | FRG: Expected to choose between work and motherhood

Maternity Leave:

GDR: Up to 26 weeks paid leave + 1-year partially paid "baby year" (from 1976) | FRG: Shorter leave (14 weeks), limited benefits and job protection

Childcare Availability:

GDR: Universal, heavily subsidized childcare from 3 months old | FRG: Scarce childcare, especially for kids under 3; long waiting lists

Financial Support:

GDR: Birth grants, scaled child allowances, housing priority for families | FRG: Modest child benefits (Kindergeld), no housing incentives

Career Impact:

GDR: Mothers retained jobs and career paths with little penalty | FRG: Mothers faced career setbacks; part-time work common

Contraception & Abortion:

GDR: Free contraception; abortion legalized in 1972 | FRG: More restrictive laws; abortion controversial

Cultural Messaging:

GDR: Motherhood seen as patriotic duty; state actively promoted it | FRG: Emphasis on family values, but less direct messaging on fertility

I always find the comparison between the former West and East Germany super interesting. Great randomized trial where you take the same group of people, expose them to different conditions and can easily measure the results.

East Germany was also interesting in that it wasn't some patriarchal, ultra conservative society.

GDR = German Democratic Republic (East Germany), FRG = Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), Numbers indicate total fertility rate (TFR).

1950s–60s | GDR: 2.3 | FRG: 2.4 | Similar postwar boom

1970s | GDR: decline to 1.5 by mid-70s, then rise to 1.85 | FRG: 1.55 | East introduced pro-natalist policies (childcare, housing, maternity leave)

1980s | GDR: 1.85 | FRG: 1.35 | East stabilized; West kept declining

1990s (post-reunification) | GDR: 0.8 | FRG: 1.3 | Economic/social upheaval hit East hard

2000s–present | GDR: gradual recovery | FRG: slight rise | Gap narrows but regional differences linger

Very interesting talk about some of the challenges facing Singapore [1].

Does feel like the Singaporean economic miracle is under a lot of pressure. Demographics and retirement savings I guess being a big part of it.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTHDkLqmoVg

From some googling it appears a major reason for the community shuttles is that they are allowed to operate on narrower, suburban streets than full sized busses and have lower fuel consumption per mile.

I'll concede geography limits are a valid reason for smaller vehicles.

So the public transport authority stops running their own vehicles, and instead places tenders for individual routes? And anyone can bid on operating the route? I mean they already do that with subcontractors for contingencies etc.

Overwhelmingly however it's cheaper to vertically integrate, and private operators have no interest in taking low profitability routes (which can often be very important due to second order effects).

I will contend that automated busses might change things here a bit though.

I'm not really aware of many rich countries that operate minibusses in urban areas. The bulk of the cost of operating public transport is labor so there's a strong incentive to scale.

Now if we get Waymo style self driving minibusses, that'd be great. But if the running costs for full size electric busses aren't too dissimilar it might just make sense to standardize on larger automated busses for increased surge capacity.