Wrapping Up 2022

It’s the end of the year, time to look back. 

This year marked the ninth year of daily blogging!  That’s crazy, not to mention pointless.  Literally no one asked for it. : – (

But you got it anyway.

Coverage continues about the same.  Dinosaurs and Robots.  Cryptocurrency and Quantum Computing.  Bugs (i.e., software bugs). 

And weekly book reviews.

In other news…

I’ll note that this year I shutdown my never really used twitter account—I was a trend leader in not using twitter!

I also shutdown and cleaned out all of my NFTs and crypto stuff.  These were basically experiments, intended to see how stuff works.  Again, I’m leading the trend, walking away from NFTs and crypto. Be smart. Walk away now.

And, after wanting to do it all my life, I installed solar panels!  Hey, look at me!  I’m a power company!  There is an app, natch, which tells me that I have generated 1.3MWhr of pure, clean, yummy solar electricity since June 21.  A-a-a-h!  Refreshing!

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Best Robot of the Year

I haven’t really been rating robots, but I realized that mostly I blog about robots that capture my childish sense of wonder.  Cool robots.  Weird robots.  Outstanding robots.

So, looking over the posts this year, what is the best robot of 2022 in this blog?

Obviously, the Ingenuity Mars Copter is in a category of its own! 

I mean it’s (a) real and (b) flying on Mars!!!!  Flying! On Mars!  This is what robots are supposed to be!

Down here on Earth, there are lots and lots and lots of robots and robot projects.  I’ll call attention to a few that stand out by not following the herd:

• Ibex – I want a robot I can ride.  With horns!
• Wheelbot – how does this even work?  It’s magical.
• Volodrone – one of the winners in the “that’s not big enough!” department!

But I’m going to tip my hat to the prohibitive favorite: The land of Real Gundam.

As my post indicated:  the purpose of this device is to BE AWESOME.  Why did we build it?  BECAUSE WE COULD.

Now THAT’S what I call a robot!

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Dave Barry Tribute Band Names

As always, I noted ideas for band names, taken from real science and technology articles.

Let me pick a couple of favorites:

Trilobite Eyes
Fluidic innervation

Most of this years list:

Ankylosaur’s Tail-Club
Ankylosaur’s Hair Club
Leidenfrost effect
Structured Thermal Armour
Embayment
Foehn wind 
Fluidic innervation
Sensorize
Ultrafast
Energy exchange
Two single Rydbergs
A jumping reaction wheel unicycle
Non-holonomic
Under-actuated dynamics
Two unstable degrees of freedom
Self-erection
Disturbance rejection
While balancing
Entanglement purification
Doubling architecture
Quantum memories
Entanglement fidelities
Brain slosh reductions (This should be a cocktail)
Contactless Fabrication
Full Acoustic Trapping
Elongated Parts
Speculative Side-channel Attack
A Forward Speculative Interference Attack
Reorder Buffer Contention
Speculation-invariant instructions
Delay-on-miss
Trilobite Eyes
Metalens
Extreme Depth of Field
Boasts Huge

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Books

As always, I read continuously and posted weekly book reviews.  This year I reviewed 22 non-fiction and 55 fiction.

Some Best Books

This year I read most of new fav Mick Herron’s Slough House, as well as recurring favs Stross, Aaronovitch, etc.

Special mention for The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi– because it’s such a pro-nerd fantasy.  There are plenty of stories by nerds and for nerds, but not so many about nerds.  Heroic nerds! 

Non-fiction of note:  Legacy of Violence by Caroline Elkins. As I wrote, “Hit ‘em again, Elkins!”, I say. “Let me hold your coat while you put the boot in!” 

Special mention for: Math Without Numbers – super great math book, and remarkably easy to understand. I gave this as gift.

All the reviews in loose chronological order.

Q1

Fiction

Anthem by Noah Hawley
Quantum of Nightmares by Charles Stross
Escape From Yokai Landby Charles Stross
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide
Persephone Station by Stina Leicht
Mermaid Confidential by Tim Dorsey
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
D (A Tale of Two Worlds) by Michel Faber
Creative Types by Tom Bissell
White on White by Ayşegül Savaş
Harrow by Joy Williams
Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner
Constance Verity Destroys the Universe by A. Lee Martinez
The Kaiju Preservation Societyby John Scalzi

Non-Fiction

Treasured by Christina Riggs
Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies by Barry Meier
The Modern Detective by Tyler Maroney
The 1619 Project ed. by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein
Math Without Numbers by Milo Beckman
Otherlands by Thomas Halliday

Q2

Fiction

Glitterati by Oliver K. Langmead
Razzmatazz by Christopher Moore
Bad Actors by Mick Herron
Slough House by Mick Herron
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
Book of the Night by Holly Black
Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks
The Impossible Us by Sarah Lotz
Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
Out There by Kate Folk
Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore
The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart
The Left-handed Twin by Thomas Perry

Non Fiction

How to Take Over the World by Ryan North
The Method by Isaac Butler
Origin by Jennifer Raff
Legacy of Violence by Caroline Elkins
Seven Games by Oliver Roeder
Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes
Ways and Means by Roger Lowenstein
What the Ermine Saw by Eden Collinsworth
The Pope at War by David I. Kertzer

Q3

Fiction

Total by Rebecca Miller
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah
NSFW by Isabel Kaplan
The Pink Hotel by Liska Jacobs
The Longcut by Emily Hall
An Honest Living by Dwyer Murphy
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
Bone Silence by Alastair Reynolds
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
The Absolute by Daniel Duebel
The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry
Slow Horses by Mick Herron
Spook Street by Mick Herron
Real Tigers by Mick Herron
Dead Lions by Mick Herron

Non-Fiction

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black
Bad Mexicans by Kelly Lytle Hernández
A Quantum Life by Hakeem Oluseyi
The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt

Q4

Fiction

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske
The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin
The Oracle of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch
Melancholy of Mechagirl by Catherynne M. Valente      
Astro-Nuts by Logan J. Hunder
The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik
August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White
Joe Country by Mick Herron
London Rules by Mick Herron
Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell
Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man by Emily S. Edwards
Secret Music at Tordesillas by Marjorie Sandor

Non fiction

Survival of the Richest by Douglas Rushkoff
Indigenous Continent by Pekka Hämäläinen
Magnificent Rebels by Andrea Wulf

Book Review: “Legacy of Violence” by Caroline Elkins

Legacy of Violence by Caroline Elkins

Historians strive to tell history with a certain balance, giving fair hearing to actions and ideas even ones they themselves do not like or agree with.

But if you deliberately destroy archives in an attempt to erase the historical record,  you will acquire a fierce and tenacious enemy who will dog you until the end of time.

Professor Elkins received a Pulitzer Prize for her first book on the end of British rule in Kenya, which documented not only the state sponsored violence of the colonial government but also the deliberate destruction and disappearance of government archives for the period.  Subsequently, a lawsuit against the UK government brought to light hundreds of boxes of archival materials, “discovered” in secret archives—proving her claims beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Those unmitigated bastards.

It is fair to say that Professor Elkins has a bad attitude about the British Empire.  And her current book goes broad and deep, documenting the consistent pattern of legalized violence and official lies that characterized the British Empire throughout its history.

And let’s be very clear here.  Part of my family hails from Ireland.  I have precisely zero sympathy for the British Empire, and I am pre-sold on the story Elkins is purveying. “Hit ‘em again, Elkins!”, I say. “Let me hold your coat while you put the boot in!” 

I’m proud that Ireland was the first successful National Liberation movement of the twentieth century, however messy the process and results.  But, of course, it wasn’t just Ireland, the same thing happened everywhere.  Egypt.  India.  Palestine (where Britain brilliantly managed to get in a war with both the Arabs and the Jews). Malaya. Kenya. Jamaica.  Everywhere. (And, sadly, back to Ireland again in the seventies.)

These revolutions were definitely aware of each other.  Ireland inspired Indians. Indians inspired Egyptians.  And with each Imperial loss, success bred success. I like that part.

Elkins takes great pains to document how the experience and practices of suppression and legalized violence spread and were copied by the British authorities across their empire. Repressive regulations were copied from one colony to another.  Violent men moved across the Empire, bringing lessons learned and attitudes with them.  (In one telling example, after the stunning defeat of Britain’s paramilitaries in Ireland, authorities in Palestine recruited a force of Black and Tans to suppress the Arab revolt.  And following the catastrophe in Palestine, a block of these “Palestinians” were dispatched to Malaya. Sigh.)

Elkins characterizes the ideology of the British Empire as “liberal Imperialism”, a mix of capitalism, racism, and state sanctioned violence; dressed up in paternalistic, “white man’s burden” and nonsense about “rule of law”.  British imperialists imagined that the empire represented the progressive values of British society, democracy, dignity, prosperity.  Even today, many people still seem to believe that the British Empire was overall good for everyone.

Rubbish.

Non-white subjects had no rights at all, did not own the resources of their land, and were considered “not ready yet” for full human rights and self-determination.  “Some day” the colonies will be fully English, but not soon.  Meanwhile, they should be good little children, shut up, and work harder to make money for their white masters.

Contemporary apologists for Britain, and racism deniers in general will not like this book.  But nevertheless, here it is, if you want the truth.  With footnotes.  Lots and lots of footnotes!

Of course, my own country doesn’t come off all that well.  While FDR leaned toward dismantling empires–at least other country’s empires–war time diplomacy forced the US to support the reoccupation of British colonies, and then defending the British empire became part of the global cold war.  Who do you think paid a big part of the cost for that? 

Still, the Americans were always less than totally sympathetic to British imperial savagery, and for that reason a lot of British PR was aimed at the US as much as anyone.  During the Malay war, there was even a special classification for documents that designated “do not let the Americans see this, ever”.  Well, we know about it now.

It looks to me like British propaganda and misinformation was at least partly responsible for American confidence in the counterinsurgency adopted in Viet Nam.  Had we had a fuller picture of what happened in Malaya, would we have done something different in Viet Nam?

For an American, the only bright spot in this grim story is the relief that it isn’t just us. Where do you think we got white supremacy, slavery, violence, and denialism from originally? From England.  Not that we didn’t make it our own, to the point of shocking even the mother country at times.  And our own version of “liberal imperialism” is, if anything, even more conflicted and confused than England’s. And, of course, we copied many of their methods in our own dirty wars.

For the world, the bright spot in this long tale of disaster is that the British empire is no more, and never will be reconstituted.  Good riddance.

Oh, and by the way, thanks to Elkin, I now grok what George Orwell was talking about in 1984.  He was talking about the violence and double think that underpinned the British Empire.

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1. Caroline Elkins, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2022.

Sunday Book Reviews