Monday Links from the Bench vol. DCXVII

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Monday Links from the Bench vol. DCXVII

Covid booster last week, flu jab this afternoon. While I get treated like a human pincushion, you get to read this lot instead

The 15 Year Layover - The original article on which the film The Terminal (2004) was based: ”He is a man without a country, a family and a home. For more than a decade, Merhan Nasseri has been living in terminal one at Charles de Gaulle airport, waiting. For what, he doesn't know anymore.”
This Simple Experiment Could Challenge Standard Quantum Theory - ”A deceptively simple experiment that involves making precise measurements of the time it takes for a particle to go from point A to point B could spark a breakthrough in quantum physics. The findings could focus attention on an alternative to standard quantum theory called Bohmian mechanics, which posits an underworld of unseen waves that guide particles from place to place.” Any chance they could find an alternative that isn't as utterly weird? No? Oh.
School’s out… - ”The literature on not attending school is full of negative outcomes; Jason Schoeneberger’s 2012 review suggests that dropping out of school is associated with incarceration, unemployment, lower lifetime earnings, even premature death. The UK government is unequivocal on their website, stating ‘Going to school regularly is important for your child’s future’. Yet school is not the only way to get an education…” Interesting paper by a clinical psychologist on self-directed learning.
‘I Don’t Know That I Would Even Call It Meth Anymore’ - ”Different chemically than it was a decade ago, the drug is creating a wave of severe mental illness and worsening America’s homelessness problem.” Heisenberg lives
Alexander Conca Machinist and Maintenance Shop - ”The Alexander Conca Machine Shop in Bristol, PA, was (perhaps not shockingly) owned by a man named Alexander Conca… There is little information to be found on him or his business. In 1966 his shop was listed as making and repairing machinery parts and employing two. His obituary lists that he lived in Bristol his whole life, that he will be missed by his surviving family members, and that he passed away in January of 2014. I was able to photograph the shop a little over six months later, shortly before the machinery was cleared out and either sold or scrapped.” A proper old-school workshop
My Father, the Hitman - ”Doc Dolan was connected to the JFK assassination and some of Benny Binion’s bloodier work. When I was a kid, he pulled a con on me that I’m still struggling to understand.” James Dolan on his decades-long search for an understanding of his father.
Abuse, exploitation, and a mummified leader: Inside the bizarre cult Love Has Won - ”At nearly midnight on April 28, Cpl. Steven Hansen executed a search warrant on a house in Moffat, Colorado… When Hansen arrived, he found the mummified remains of a woman. The police report said she was wrapped in a string of Christmas lights, and that glitter was smeared around her eye sockets. Her eyes seemed to be missing. A shrine was set up around the corpse.” There's some strange people out there
Neuron Bursts Can Mimic Famous AI Learning Strategy - ”A new model of learning centers on bursts of neural activity that act as teaching signals — approximating backpropagation, the algorithm behind learning in AI.” Maybe this will help AI work out what traffic lights look like for itself rather than expecting me to do all the work
If you ever wanted to help find new planets, now’s your chance - ”If you've ever wanted to search for distant worlds, your time has come. The team behind a planet-hunting telescope array called the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is looking for help with the large volume of data the instrument has produced. The NGTS scans large areas of the sky with a collection of small, robotic telescopes to detect dips in stars' light that are caused by a planet passing between the stars and Earth.” You can sign up here: Planet Hunters NGTS — Zooniverse
Необычные посты ДПС, где больше никто не получит взятку (15 фото) - Or, Unusual traffic police posts where no one else will receive a bribe - ”Stationary traffic police posts are being eliminated in Russia. According to employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the effectiveness of such points is minimal, but the formation of criminal groups in uniform is a frequent occurrence. Let's take a look at the places where we were stopped, and we will be glad that they will no longer take a bribe at these points!”