Why ghosts wear clothes or white sheets instead of appearing in the nude

Why aren’t ghosts naked? This was a key philosophical question for Cruikshank and many others in Victorian Britain. Indeed, stories of naked or clothesless ghosts, especially outside folklore, are exceedingly rare. Sceptics and ghost-seers alike have delighted in thinking about how exactly ghosts could have form and force in the material world. Just what kind of stuff could they be made of that allows them to share our plane of existence, in all its mundanity?

Alexander the Great’s Sacred Purple Tunic Found in a 2,400-year-old Macedonian Tomb? – Arkeonews

Geen foto’s van de tuniek zelf, helaas, ook niet in het artikel dat gelinkt wordt.

Maar wel spannend als het waar zou zijn!

Without chaos theory, social science will never understand the world | Aeon Essays

Our history has been an endless but futile struggle to impose order, certainty and rationality onto a Universe defined by disorder, chance and chaos. And, in the 21st century, this tendency seems to be only increasing as calamities in the social world become more unpredictable. From 9/11 to the financial crisis, the Arab Spring to the rise of populism, and from a global pandemic to devastating wars, our modern world feels more prone to disastrous ‘shocks’ than ever before. Though we’ve got mountains of data and sophisticated models, we haven’t gotten much better at figuring out what looms around the corner. Social science has utterly failed to anticipate these bolts from the blue. In fact, most rigorous attempts to understand the social world simply ignore its chaotic quality – writing it off as ‘noise’ – so we can cram our complex reality into neater, tidier models. But when you peer closer at the underlying nature of causality, it becomes impossible to ignore the role of flukes and chance events. Shouldn’t our social models take chaos more seriously?

The Yale Review | Chris Ware on Richard Scarry and the Art of…

Ik was, zoals denk ik iedereen van mijn generatie, zot van de boeken van Richard Scarry.

Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

There’s a common narrative that Microsoft was moribund under Steve Ballmer and then later saved by the miraculous leadership of Satya Nadella. This is the dominant narrative in every online discussion about the topic I’ve seen and it’s a commonly expressed belief “in real life” as well. While I don’t have anything negative to say about Nadella’s leadership in this post, this narrative underrates Ballmer’s role in Microsoft’s success. Not only did Microsoft’s financials, revenue and profit, look great under Ballmer, Microsoft under Ballmer made deep, long-term bets that set up Microsoft for success in the decades after his reign. At the time, the bets were widely panned, indicating that they weren’t necessarily obvious, but we can see in retrospect that the company made very strong bets despite the criticism at the time.

In addition to overseeing deep investments in areas that people would later credit Nadella for, Ballmer set Nadella up for success by clearing out political barriers for any successor. Much like Gary Bernhardt’s talk, which was panned because he made the problem statement and solution so obvious that people didn’t realize they’d learned something non-trivial, Ballmer set up Microsoft for future success so effectively that it’s easy to criticize him for being a bum because his successor is so successful.

How I animate 3Blue1Brown | A Manim demo with Ben Sparks – YouTube

Voor al wie zich afvroeg hoe precies de 3Blue1Brown-animaties in mekaar gestoken worden.

The Most Prolific Cheater in Civ 6 History – YouTube

Is er iémand lager bij de grond dan een persoon die valsspeelt in Civilization? Ik dacht het niet.

Why Slight Failed: A Slight Post-Mortem

My best guesses as to why our early stage data startup failed. This isn’t a retrospective, but something closer to advice for past me. Or maybe just exorcism.

(De meeste postmortems vind ik gruwelijk om te lezen wegens arrogante founders met een half idee waar veel te veel geld in gepompt. Dit is iets dat ik eigenlijk wel zelf zou willen gebruikt hebben. Denk ik.)

(Maar ook iets waar ik geen geld voor zou betalen wegens als ik zelf zoiets nodig zou hebben voor mezelf, ik het zelf voor mezelf zou in mekaar boksen.)

Interessant artikel, wel.

The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology | Quanta Magazine

For years, biologists have wondered whether bees have another grand sense that we lack. The static electricity they accumulate by flying — similar to the charge generated when you shuffle across carpet in thick socks — could be potent enough for them to sense and influence surrounding objects through the air. Aquatic animals such as eels, sharks and dolphins are known to sense electricity in water, which is an excellent conductor of charge. By contrast, air is a poor conductor. But it may relay enough to influence living things and their evolution.

A very deep history of Halloween – by Benjamin Breen

The days of the calendar differ. But it intrigues me that there is a wide swathe of the world which celebrates a holiday marked by sweets, blurred boundaries between the living and the dead, votive candles or bonfires, and costumes.

GPS tracking reveals stunning insights into the patterns of migratory birds | Aeon Videos

In recent decades, GPS tracking initiatives have helped scientists to better understand the patterns and behaviours of migratory birds. This includes new insights into how populations have adapted and struggled to adapt to the intertwined threats of human development and the climate crisis. This documentary from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York captures one such effort to track the species Numenius phaeopus, or the common whimbrel, which migrates between Southern Canada and South America each year. The project resulted in a stunning discovery: half of the whimbrel’s Atlantic Flyway population, or some 20,000 birds, made one small, unique island in South Carolina a roosting site on their annual journey north. Featuring visualisations born of GPS tracking data and cinematic imagery from the island, the short makes for an enlightening look at the resilience of these birds, as well as the precarious realities they face due to human development.

Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone | SSOReady

Timezones are weird. But only finitely so. Here’s the exact conceptual model you should have of them.

Classic 3D videogame shadow techniques

When it comes to 3D videogames, shadows are something else. It’s easy to paint dark blob under some character’s feet and assume everything else is lit. Perhaps Hirayama was recalling the blob shadow in Metal Gear Solid that does become darker when it overlaps with others?

In the real world, shadows simply exist but in games they are both engineered and designed. They must run well but also look good. I find this relationship fascinating and I’m going to show you why.