Link Roundup: November 2026

My link roundup skipped last month.  In the last two months, the ace journal club talked about asexual literary theory, and sexual pain in Christian women.  I also wrote a review of Portalmania, a short story collection.

Has the Navier Stokes equation been solved? | Stand-up Maths (video, 23min) – AI has been used to solve the Navier-Stokes Millennium Problem.  The Navier-Stokes equation is basically the equation of motion for classical incompressible fluids.  But after learning some of the details, I’m a bit disappointed.  Solving the Millennium Problem is not the same as solving the equation.  Instead, they proved that there isn’t always a solution.  Some initial conditions will result in a singularity. Of course in the real world, no singularity would occur, because the fluid would stop being classical and incompressible before reaching that point.

So the Navier-Stokes Millenium Problem is, deceptively, kind of a pure math problem without any immediate application.  If you want to actually predict the behavior of a fluid, there are already numerical methods available, and the Millenium Problem won’t help you.  Some mathematicians are pointing out that for pure math problems, the journey is more important than the destination, because that’s where we may learn new techniques.  That seems fair enough to me.

Why I am not an Effective Altruist | Tell me why the world is weird – Perfect Number discusses her disagreements with the EA approach to global poverty (to say nothing of animal welfare or ex-risk).  In short, she wants to give to causes that she has a personal connection with, even if they’re not necessarily the most optimal charities from the “objective” perspective.  e.g. a woman who benefits from women’s rights might want to donate to causes that fight for women’s rights.  Seems sensible to me.  Although I would say, global poverty is not exactly disconnected from us, we beneficiaries of centuries of colonialism.

I donate ~10% of my income, mostly to GiveWell, plus maxing out my political campaign contributions.  For all my misgivings about EA, Givewell seems pretty respectable and 10% a reasonable standard.  But I don’t feel much connection to any particular cause, and I generally find the prospect of choosing between charities to be stressful.

Spooktober 2026 | Life’s a Gas – Bébé Mélange has this series where they share an idea for a spooky novel every day.  I think these are neat.

Wealth Inequality in America | politizane (video, 11 min) – An video-infographic, with commentary.  If you follow the links, there are more about income inequality.

Voting is dissatisfying

Voting is dissatisfying. We spend however many days of the year being mad at the other side, and what does it come to? One vote. It’s not proportionate.

My thesis can be summarized in this graph.

plot of the dissatisfaction of voting

Plot showing political views vs political sway. The political sway that we want increases as our political views get stronger. But the power of the vote is a binary choice. So there’s a gap between what we want and the power of a vote.

The dissatisfaction is strongest for people who are most passionate, or who are on the far side of the spectrum. So it is you have leftists complaining that though Democrats “won” the 2026 election, now we have to deal with all the shit Democrats. There is a gap between what they desire (true leftist candidates) and what they can achieve (Democrats).

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Punishment of sexual violence

My politics tend towards anti-punitive. That is, I tend to favor smaller and shorter punishments for criminals. No particular reasons for it, no commitment to any philosophy or political movement. It’s moral intuition. When I imagine the appropriate punishment for a criminal, and I compare to what’s actually done, I find actual punishments sound too harsh to me.

This has long put me at odds with certain kinds of advocacy against sexual violence. I am in favor of holding perpetrators accountable, acknowledging and caring for victims, and pushing back against the culture that teaches men to become perpetrators. I am not and have never been in favor of harsher punishments for perpetrators.

Let me clarify. Many perpetrators face virtually no punishment. Victims are subject to ostracization and retaliation, and thus deterred from making any accusations. When accusations are made, the friends and community of the perpetrator close ranks and defend them. Police do virtually nothing. For the perpetrators who face no punishment, or are even socially rewarded, yes I favor a punishment that is harsher than zero. But for those perpetrators who are successfully held accountable, I do not advocate harsher and harsher punishments.

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Origami: Western Pond Turtle

Western Pond Turtle

Western Pond Turtle, designed by Robert Lang

This is one of the designs in Origami Design Secrets, in a chapter on pattern grafting.  The hexagonal pattern on the turtle’s pack is folded first, then you fold the rest of the turtle around it.  You can also fold the turtle without the hexagonal pattern.

It’s a different style from the other turtle I’ve shared.

We’re back

FTB was down for about a week.  Bluehost seems to have issues getting its database in order, and every so often convinces itself that FTB’s true owner is the late Ed Brayton.  Let’s all thank PZ Myers for sorting it out.

In the mean time, I got word that Pillowfort is going down.  They weren’t able to make the money work.  I have a Pillowfort sideblog, and before that I had a Tumblr sideblog since 2012.  But I suppose moving forward, I won’t have that.

The advantage of a sideblog, is that I can host more casual conversation, and writing of more limited interest.  That’s where I host my book reviews, my game diary, and all the hottest gossip.  But maybe I don’t need that.  Maybe that stuff should either appear on the main blog, or not at all.  The game diary won’t make the cut, so I guess that’s done with.  It’s fine, I’m fine with it.  I am an appreciator of finitude, of endings.

I’ve said this before, but if FTB ever suddenly disappears, you can find me on my old blog, A Trivial Knot on WordPress.

California 2026 election

In contrast to the clown show of politics, actually filling out a ballot is very tedious. I believe in filling out the entire ballot, but I also believe in being informed about what I vote for, so that means taking time out of my day to at least try to do some research, though I may moan and groan about it.

So here’s my walkthrough of the 2026 California ballot.
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Narrative analysis of The Remake of The End of The Greatest RPG of All Time

The Remake of The End of The Greatest RPG of All Time isn’t really a remake, nor an RPG. It’s a puzzle game with a metafictional narrative.

capsule from The Remake of The End of The Greatest RPG of All Time

Source: Steam

You get plopped down into the final dungeon of an RPG. You can’t make any progress because the combat relies entirely on creating combos from specific sequences of moves. The characters allude to events that already happened, but it’s difficult to tell what’s going on. The game contains many unpolished elements, such as missing textures or collision boxes and awkward block-pushing mechanics. The way to progress through the game is by finding pages from the instruction booklet.  Essentially it’s a game of finding the passcode, skinned as if it were an RPG.

The puzzles are decent enough, but I’m more interested in discussing the game’s narrative. Through audio logs, FMV sequences, and secrets, you learn about who made this remake and why? And what exactly is a remake of? The narrative touched on many of my interests, about the motivations for art, its commercialization, and misinterpretation. (This analysis will include a few spoilers, but not many, only as needed.)

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