The Weekly Weird - 2019-09-27

Skorgu

I know the path there is fraught but man, I wish I were a tenured biologist so I could get paid to give octopuses drugs, watch them sleep, make up words like kleptogenesis, and phrases like "DIY gene therapy" (!!!!!).
Quantum physics is really weird.
perf is so powerful it's tempting to think we already have all the tools we need to make programs faster but any social scientist will tell you that imitating a longitudinal study with a cross-sectional one is ... hard. Social scientists will also tell you that getting IRB approval for sedating most of a rowing team to see who's not pulling their weight is even harder. One day there will be ethics on doing the same to computer programs but until then, let's enjoy causal profiling. Yes, you can (sort of) use it on rust code.
From the unevenly-distributed-future department: I recall at least two far-future scifi stories where being unable to call for help because of accidental unconsciousness were major plot points and now we've gone ahead and just blown that whole genre out of the water.
I miss screensavers. I do not miss any of the reasons we needed screensavers of course.