Regressions

 There are two major regressions in civilization I'm most afraid of. 

1. That we stop using vaccines due to antivaxers hysteria.

2. All music going to be back on vinyl.

What does it mean to be a good person

What attributes make a good person:

1. Empathy: Good people are capable of comprehending and sharing another person's emotions and experiences.

2. Honesty: They prioritize truth, avoid deceit and uphold integrity.

3. Respect: They recognize and appreciate the inherent dignity of all individuals.

4. Altruism: Good individuals often prioritize others' needs and well-being, even at a cost to themselves.

5. Kindness: They are friendly, generous, and considerate.

6. Responsibility: They take ownership of their actions and their consequences.

7. Fairness: A good person treats everyone equally, without prejudice or favoritism.

8. Patience: Good people understand that everyone has their own pace and processes, offering their time and patience to others.

These qualities, though simple, require consistent effort to maintain. Being good also means continually striving to better oneself, learning from personal mistakes, and aspiring to contribute positively to the world.

Middle east war

It seems that a lot of people find it impossible to express opinion about the war in Israel without writing long paragraphs of text. Or giving up completely and blindly falling for one another side. These are definite signs of cognitive dissonance.

Maybe I can help. 

The problem here is because it's not a single dichotomy - Palestine vs Israel.

It is 2 different dichotomies. 

1. Military: Israel vs Hamas

2. Civil: Palestinian vs Israeli

If you put this way it feel a lot easier to settle your position. 

As for me, on number 1, I support Israel. I don't think I need to clarify why I'm not on Hamas side. At the same time, on number 2, I want to help Palestinians, because they suffer the most in this war. I'm not that worried for Israeli people. I know they can take care of themselves and they seems to be doing fine.  

The Tragedy of Russian Boomers

The last year events in Ukraine made everyone guess about what happens in the heads of those who currently rule Russia. This is a fruitless task, you can never know. However we can talk about generational trauma experienced by Putin and those around him. This is indeed a tragedy of the last soviet generation of Russians. Many could get a glimpse of that tragedy when Putin was sincerely mourning the collapse of The Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe.

Who are they, Putin and the generation of my parents, born around early 50s to mid 60s. Their childhood comes on the 1970s, arguably the most prosperous years in the soviet history. Those were the golden years of the USSR, The Brezhnev's era dubbed Real Socialism. 

To understand the essence of the tragedy try to imagine the environment for Putin and children like him growing up in 1970s? First they know about themselves they are elites. They live in Moscow or Leningrad, in a well off or middle class families. Their parents involved in the party work, KGB or holding a middle to high position at some factory. They are not simple proletariat. They get a better slice of everything. Better schools, which sometimes can arrange a trip abroad for the best students.  Summer in the best Socialist Youth resorts in Crimea. Their life is good even by the western standards of middle class families at the time. But the critical point is that they are isolated from the other Russia, they see very little of it, if see it at all. For them that's the norm, everyone they know have life like that. 

Their education, especially history and social sciences were heavily soaked with propaganda myths. They were told the glorious stories of their ancestors who fought the great war and build a new country from the ground up. Industrialization of the most agrarian country in 10 years, the great leap forward, first man in space, the list goes on. They were taught that they live in the greatest country in the world and their parents and grandparents gave them all that prosperity.

Here is the tragic part comes. Imagine growing up in these conditions, being regular teenager or young adult doing foolish things as you should. First you get constant nagging  from older generation about your life choices and that you take everything for granted. They would say: We fought for you in the great war or were breaking our backs in the factory to give you all that, and what are you doing with your life now. You are not grateful enough for all that good life you get so easy.  Thanks to that our last soviet generation coming to adulthood with a sense that they did nothing worthy in their lives compared to those who came before them. 

In the 1980s they bring that guilt and insecurity to adulthood, trying to prove themselves capable to continue the work of their fathers. Which is normal, but then the worst happens, the country collapses. So their predecessors gave them the great country, ready to use and advance into even greater future. But they not just didn't achieve anything great themselves, they've lost everything that their fathers entrusted them with. 

Important remarks before we move forward. Of course the problem here is in our boomer's predecessors, who were utterly incompetent, who ruined the country and lied to their children about how great everything was. That is why you should keep in mind that when people talk about Soviet Union, even today, many have two opposite images peacefully leaving together in their heads. One is the image of the great country, basically everything from school books and movies. Second is Sovok, a derogatory term soviet people come up with to describe the system inside the country that directly governed their day-to-day life. So back in late 1980s, early 1990s everyone loved or at least respected the first image and everyone hated or wanted to reform the second. In the modern day Russia people who like to talk about how great the Soviet Union was either too young to know or completely forgot about what it was like to live inside Sovok. 

Now back to our boomers. Bearing the guilt and in a partial denial about the USSR collapse, they embraced a new democratic Russia. Because honestly everyone was tired of soviet system from the inside (aka sovok), even those in KGB. At least it was true in early 1990s. They were trying to embrace the west and western political elites. It goes well at first, but later they discover that western world is not the way they imagined it and democratic political systems are not going easy even on those who literally just crawled from under the rock. Political reality hits them hard, because in the past they were protected by the shield of Soviet Union, where their fathers drew for them a completely distorted picture of the world. Now they have to face the world all by themselves without any idea how everything works. Consequently many of them fail and get disappointed in "the western ideals and values" and prefer to crawl back into the world they understand. The curse of being the elite hunts them here, they see that everyone who close to them have the same issues, so they assume it's true for the majority. They can't accept the fact that it's only them who cannot accept the outside world. They can't see that younger generations of Russians see themselves as part of a modern world. Luckily in 2000s oil and gas prices went up and our boomers had tons of money to mask for their discordances with the world.

Here they are now. Putin, Patrushev and other members of The Security council. Former KGBs who were in charge of the state security and in whose hands the state collapsed. For them outside world is alien and difficult to understand. They tried facing it but got bruised  by political arrogance of foreign democracies and their own feeling of self-entitlement.

P.S.

One lesson from that: Don't over do it with teaching about greatness of the past. No need to create insecurity in your future generations.

Staying still

Even going through forth decade of my life I never thought I will discover something new about myself.

In general I consider myself a stable and very conservative about my life and surroundings. Order and predictably makes me calm and relaxed. I always imagined that this is what I was longing for. Direction that defines my life, making it more orderly but at the same time boring and uneventful. But looking back at my life I can’t say it was stale. All major life choices I made does not look like choices of a person who’s unwilling to take a risk.

Looking closer at all major events that turn my life around I think I made an unexpected discovery. They all seems to be driven by one nagging thought in my head. That thought growing bigger and bigger with time screams: “Nothing lasts forever!”. The more stable things are and more comfortable I feel the bigger it grows. 

That makes me do preemptive strikes on my life’s order. Radically deconstruct my life and move forward. From one point you might think it’s good. I’m going away from stagnation and degradation. Always growing into something new. 

However, the reflection I made is that this is a feeling, an instinct not a rational thought. It’s based on my fear of loosing predictability and order in my life.  It’s a fear and I don’t I have control over it. It’s not rational.

It’s beyond my control because even for the most stable and reliable parts of my life, the things I would never consciously change, even if I resist the change wholeheartedly, that fear takes the control and does things I would never consciously do.

Another new thing I understood is that order and predictability is not when something is stagnant. For me order and predictability is when things are growing and developing. When there’s a direction. When they stop to develop fear starts to grow and takes control. Because when something stops growing the only thing left for it is to die. But you never know when. And that is when unpredictability triggers the fear. Basically every time I look at stale parts of my life another nagging thought keeps popping up “Is it dead yet?”.

I destroy things as a way to create more order. That fear of loosing predictability makes me create chaos and that fear is totally defined my life.

One of those days

There are lots of tragic and not so much events happen around you every day. But only some days they get somewhat close and you feel like something is changing. Something is about to unfold.

Today I found out my friend died from cancer. We weren't close but we made some good memories together. He was that kind of a nice person who leave unfairly early but remembered by everyone they've met. Even for a brief moment.   

Yesterday a woman fell out of the window in our building. I didn't notice anything until I came out on the balcony and saw the police and medics. I saw one medic trying to resuscitate her and another checking his wrist watch. The moment you know, it is over. The first time I witnessed someone actually die right in front of me. 

Also today my boss said he's going to leave the company. He's basically a founder of our team and many other things in the company I still have no idea about. It's a critical moment when the founder leaves everything to his successor. 

All that makes me feel like I'm at some important moment, a turning point for others but not for me. A reflection moment. A reminder not to stay stale, move forward and treasure every second. 

Historical record

 Оставляю тут для истории. Вангую.

1. Приемником Путина и соответственно следующим президентом будет Собянин.

2. Путин как отэц нации и почетный кормчий пойдет в Госсовет.

English. This is me trying to be an oracle. 

1. Putin's successor and future Russian president going to be Sergey Sobyanin (currently Moscow mayor).

2. Putin himself will "retire" as a head of State Council (just recently created).

I'm going to repost this (or fb will remind me) in around 2024 presidential elections (or whenever they going to happen).

Chaucer by Bill Bailey

This is just amazing!

Three fellowes wenten into a pubbe,

And gleefullye their handes did rubbe,

In expectatione of revelrie,

For 'twas the houre that is happye.

Greate botelles of wine did they quaffe,

And hadde a reallye good laffe.

'Til drunkennesse held fulle dominione,

For 'twas two for the price of one.

Yet after wine and meade and sac,

Man must have a massive snacke,

Great pasties from Cornwalle!

Scottishe eggs round like a balle!

Great hammes, quaile, ducke and geese!

They suck'd the bones and drank the grease!

(One fellowe stood all pale and wanne,

For he was vegetarianne)

Yet man knoweth that gluttonie,

Stoketh the fyre of lecherie,

Upon three young wenches rounde and slye,

The fellowes cast a wanton eye.

One did approach, with drunkenne winke:

"'Ello darlin', you fancy a drink?",

Soon they caught them on their knee,

'Twas like some grislye puppettrie!

Such was the lewdness and debaucherie -

'Twas like a sketche by Dick Emery!

(Except that Dick Emery is not yet borne -

So such comparisonne may not be drawne).

But then the fellowes began to pale,

For quaile are not the friende of ale!

And in their bellyes much confusione!

From their throats vile extrusione!

Stinking foule corruptionne!

Came spewinge forth from droolinge lippes,

The fetide stenche did fille the pubbe,

'Twas the very arse of Beelzebubbe!

Thrown they were, from the Horne And Trumpette,

In the street, no coyne, no strumpette.

Homeward bounde, must quicklie go,

To that ende - a donkey stole!

Their handes all with vomit greased,

The donkey was not pleased,

And threw them into a ditche of shite!

They all agreed: "What a brillant night!"

From here The Chaucer Pubbe Gagge - Bill Bailey

The rally

Expectation:

1. Some teens on TikTok come up with an idea to buy all tickets to Trump rally with intention not to go there.

2. News reported how few people came to the rally, while Trump said millions bought tickets.

3. Public sends thanks to our bright gen Z kids.

Reality:

1. People who hate Trump willingly donated to his campaign.

2. The same people made their act so viral that it gave an extra free coverage of the Trump rally on major media sources.

3. We all deserve another 4 years of Trump.

SARS-CoV-2 App

Corona virus plot proved to be informative, so I put a little more effort and made a Shiny app.

It's available here app.anabelov.info/covid19/
Options include:
- Day/Week: dot on the plot represents cases recorded in one day or average per week.
- Confirmed cases / Deaths
- Of course it is Canada centric,  so you can see what's happening on provincial level.

Remarks on the countries list:
- You can select no more than 9 countries at once. Because 3x3 plot looks good.
- I decided to put limited list of countries because full list would be too balky.
- Selection is based on my perception of what countries my friends might be interested in.
- Special feature: Hong Kong and Macau listed separate from China.

Political pole

I encountered a video of one Bernie supporter. There was a picture showing that Sanders is actually a centrist, but not a socialist as everyone labelled him.

I don't know if I ever seen clearer representation of what Steven Pinker called political/ideological pole. In that case Left Pole. The terms takes analogy with geographical poles. Basically if you staying at the north pole any direction from you will be south. So, Left Pole means that you are so far left that anybody who has different views from you would automatically be labelled as right-wing.

That image was obviously made by people who strongly lean towards left. For them Sanders and Warren are in the centre or on The Pole. So, every other American politician ends up as right-wing authoritarian. Where Trump is the most hardcore authoritarian , together with Boris #eyeroll #facepalm

Notice that Auth-Left and Lib-Right areas are almost empty. Plus I think people who made this give Trump too much credit. I don't even think it is reasonable to assess his ideological stances at all. Like what's the point? He can barely utter a coherent sentence...

Future

Lot's of sci-fi movies in 90s depicted people wearing facemasks on the streets of future cities.
I was always sceptical about it, because, as I was reasoning, those simple facemasks won't help from air pollution.
And just like that, this year sci-fi becomes reality.

Getting old

Recently I had a rather sad reflection concerning age. Maybe it's depressing February, I don't know.

The perception of time changes as you grow older.  Time is fast when you 21, you can be different person within few months. Reflecting 10 years back is looking over half of your life. You can easily say that everything you know about the world happened within those 10 years. At the same time future is so slow. You can't wait to grow older to do this and that.

When you 70 and you look back, ten years it's nothing. After you counted seven decades you realise how fast time passes. The horrifying thought is that you left to live 10-15 years. Which will fly so fast you won't notice. On the bright side, when you old present usually is very slow. So, that is I guess a compensation for fast approaching end.

When you young present is fast, past was taking forever and future is an illusive utopia. When you old present is very slow, past went so fast you can't say if it really happened and future feels so real like an enormous wall about crush over your head.

Relativity

There was a young lady named Bright
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.

Clubs

I don't post motivational stuff usually. I just found this interesting and I want to share it, not only because I fell victim of that fallacy myself many times, but also I see it in a lot in people around.
That being said, the worst part is when you actually get what you want, but don't use it because, well, you "don't have time" ("rich people" problems, lol). It makes you even more miserable, because before you at least had some hope. Now it's just you, the device and excuses.
These days when I get an idea of doing something new, to avoid all that misery and not to insult myself with silly excuses, I've learned to think about planning, rather than tools. When I'm going to do that, how many times a week? How hard it's going to be? How it affect my performance at work or keeping up with household shores. So, basically if you buy siomething, plan to use it well. In short,  "If you got the clubs, you got to club".

Culture wars

I tend to go with philosophers from Voltaire to Mill to Popper who say the only solution is to let everybody have their say and then try to figure it out in the marketplace of ideas.
But none of those luminaries had to deal with online comment sections.

RIP Culture Wars

But once you remove all those things [...trolls, bots, etc...], you’re left with people honestly and civilly arguing for their opinions. And that’s the scariest thing of all.

Some people think society should tolerate pedophilia, are obsessed with this, and can rattle off a laundry list of studies that they say justify their opinion. Some people think police officers are enforcers of oppression and this makes them valid targets for violence. Some people think immigrants are destroying the cultural cohesion necessary for a free and prosperous country. Some people think transwomen are a tool of the patriarchy trying to appropriate female spaces. Some people think Charles Murray and The Bell Curve were right about everything. Some people think Islam represents an existential threat to the West. Some people think women are biologically less likely to be good at or interested in technology. Some people think men are biologically more violent and dangerous to children. Some people just really worry a lot about the Freemasons.

Each of these views has adherents who are, no offense, smarter than you are. [...] I disagree with most of them but don’t want to be too harsh on any of them. Reasoning correctly about these things is excruciatingly hard, trusting consensus opinion would have led you horrifyingly wrong throughout most of the past, and other options, if they exist, are obscure and full of pitfalls. I tend to go with philosophers from Voltaire to Mill to Popper who say the only solution is to let everybody have their say and then try to figure it out in the marketplace of ideas.

But none of those luminaries had to deal with online comment sections.

Soviet Sci-Fi

Culture Trip made a good selection of soviet sci-fi movies. Here, I just want to keep it for reference and give a little bit of my insight.

First group are movies I haven't seen and definitely want to see. Here we have Inquest of Pilot Pirx (1978) and Dead Man’s Letters (1986).
Pilot Pirx is base on Stanislav Lem's novel which is a good recommendation on its own. Second just seems appealing in terms of story setting.

In second group are movies I've seen and would strongly recommend. They are the products of late Soviet era, the time when censorship weakened.  Kin-Dza-Dza! (1986) is surrealistic and post-apocalyptic style movie with marvelous actors and well written story. Zero City (1988) is better known to western movie lovers. Surrealistic story was a harsh satire on dim reality of late Soviet Union. These kind of movies you don't want to change anything in them and they don't need a "refreshing" modern remake. They good as they are.

Third group is light weight Sci-Fi made in 1970s. Here goes Moscow-Kassiopeia & Teens in the Universe and Per Aspera ad Astra (1981). They are not really interesting to watch today. The cultural reference and communist propaganda is too far to understand and appreciate even for modern generation of Russians. But, both have really interesting ideas and were technically very well done for it's time. Especially, Moscow-Kassiopeia can be turned into good young-adult movie or tv show.

Forth group movies I didn't see and most likely won't. In my case here are most of the Tarkovsky movies. I know people on the west value his work as a film director, but hear me out. When it comes to Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979) I cannot accept his interpretation. Both stories are written by S. Lem and author himself wasn't happy how Tarkovsky interpreted his work. He almost completely destroyed original message turning it into cinematically pleasing Hollywood-style drama. I value Lem more than Tarkovsky.

Caddisflies

These are adult forms of Zebra caddisflies (Macrostemum zebratum). They barely eat and live only couple of weeks. Only thing they do is fuck, as much and as fast as they can. Life is short, you must try everything.
Before becoming adults they spend most of their lives as larvae crawling on the river bottom eating garbage and building houses out of junk. Once again we can see how creative mother nature is. How much we can learn from it. Even if you hit rock bottom it's not a reason to stop being creative.

Google images "caddisfly larvae case" you'll be amazed how extremely beautiful they are.

Fail of democracy?

This guy definitely has a point. Democracies are not very effective way of governance. One the main issues Moyo points he calls short-termism. Politicians tend to concentrate on short term solutions, because time in office is short. They need to bring results within 4-5 years to win another elections, as a result politicians leave out long term goals, like infrastructure development.

But, where he misses the point is to develop any stable, effective culture of government takes time. And continuation of culture is most important virtue of effective society.
So, Moyo argument is valid only for countries which experienced interruptions in their cultural continuity. Basically developing countries. The brightest examples here are Asian "developmental dictatorships" (China, Singapore, etc).

In developing countries everything is broken and dilemma is simple: you get a dictator everything is done withing say 25 years or you can establish democracy and wait for 50 years. So, paradoxically enough "developmental dictatorships" appear as a result of the same short-termism Moyo blames makes democracies ineffective.
If we to get rid of short-termism the only known so far viable way to sustain society long term is to develop some form of democratic government. It especially seems to be true if we look at those "developmental dictatorships" today.

Also, bringing US in discussion uncovers weakness of Moyo argument. Because the whole philosophy of American democracy is ineffective, weak federal government. Tern things other way, according to Americans, is going to be dictatorship. As a result US deals with long term issues mostly in state to state level. So, my point is that US is too much of an outlier in that kind of analysis.

Pan-genome of three genera

Here is another example of using Circos diagrams to visualize biological data. This time it is the concept of bacterial pan-genome.

These days sequencing become very cheap and data on bacterial genomes accumulates particularly fast. As of today GeneBank contains information on 131801 bacterial genomes, but thousands more are sequenced every day without being published. Faced with such load of information in their hands researches were able to look deeper in intra-species genome organisation. Having so many genomes allows you to ask questions like, what part of genome common for particular species? What composition of those common features makes a species?

Compared to animals, bacterial genomes are more dynamic as a result of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) between individual cells. Often HGT appears between different strains of same species, but sometimes can go even further, passing genes to other taxonomic groups (families and classes).

 If we take, for example, a genus of bacteria (doesn't matter which) and compare all genomes we have on the global scale there will be three areas. Some areas of genomes are unique, because they usually found only in a few species of the genus. These unique areas often are result of HTG and might find more similarity with species from other genera or even family. Other areas, called variable, are common for almost all species in the genus, but prone to mutation. Finally the third group of regions are specific to particular taxonomic group. These areas called core genome. Both variable and core genome regions make a pan-genome. Pan-genome regions create a signature, typical genome for particular species or genus. Genome that is shared among all members of particular taxon.

In the outer circle green shows core areas in pan-genomes of three genera. Those genes that are shared among more than 90% of all strains used in the analysis.

Second circle is called GC% content. Which basically means what percentage GC bases in particular gene. This matters because genomes that make up a genus usually have similar GC%. In this case for example, Arcobacter usually has 27%, similar to Campylobacter. In the diagram threshold is set to 28% GC and everything over it highlighted red (in light blue area). You can see that Helicobacter has different GC% from other two. It doesn't it somthing wrong, it's just different.

Another important point of GC% graph it allow to see foreign elements. If some genes or genome regions have GC% content significantly different from rest of the genome, it most likely appeared there recently through HGT. If you look at Helicobacter diagram you can easily see that some regions of GC% are not colored red. More interestingly if you look at pan-genome diagram above, you wont find green or grey stripes. These are most likely candidates for Unique regions.


How virulence factors related to pan-genome.

Figure caption: Connection and distribution of virulence factors between pan-genomes of three genera based on all available complete genome sequences. Outer circle 1 showing region similarity ranging 90-100% (indicated in dark green bars) to 80-90% and 70-80% (indicated in light green and gray bars).  Circle 2 shows GC content where upper (indicated in light blue) and lower (light red) boundaries set to 40% and 20%, respectively.  Circle 3 shows histogram of the distribution frequency of variable and core genes where Red bars indicate genes shared by number of strains to each particular cluster, whereas Blue bars represent heterogeneity of number of strains to that cluster. Circle 4 shows virulence, antibiotic resistance and toxin genes identified in pan-genomes of each genus. GenBank identifiers (GIs) from virulence factor database (VFDB) (black), Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD) (green) and Toxin-antitoxin database (TADB) (blue). IDs shown in Red are connected by lines (in the center) where connecting lines in the center link to the IDs found in pan-genomes of three genera showing homologous virulence factor (blue), antibiotic resistance (green) and toxin (purple) genes.