Transmission #64: Building Planes, Drone Efficiency, Kissing Cultures, and the Muppets in Everything.
Design, ideas and other flotsam.
Hello and welcome.
This is Transmissions by me, Marty Brown. It’s a fortnightly newsletter that collates some of the more interesting stories, links, and other curios that float my way.
A short one this week as I’ve been busy reading Hannah Richie’s Not the End of the World. A highly recommended rational optimist take on the state of affairs, from the Lead Researcher at Our World in Data.
Enjoy the links!
x
Marty
Design
A Cycle of Misery: The Business of Building Commercial Aircraft
Brian Potter • Construction Physics • Link
Or why we still fly in aeroplanes that are mostly rehashed versions of 50 year old ideas. It’s not because it’s impossible to design a better plane, it’s just heinously expensive and risky.
The boundary of technological possibility is defined not just by mastery of the universe, but by the limits of the economy and the organizations that operate within it. If products are sufficiently complex, and demand is for such small quantities that there's a limited business case for them, we won’t get them, even if they’re physically possible to build.
Ideas
Automation Does Not Lead to Leaner Land Forces
Jack Watling • War On the Rocks • Link
A senior research fellow in land warfare pokes holes in the argument that drones reduce the amount of people required to fight a war. Nope. The drones might be deadly and sophisticated, but the additional complexity just moves people from soldiers to support crew. There are some words of relief for those convinced we are headed towards a terminator-style battle against the robots:
I have watched them do all manner of stupid things, from continuing to shoot killed targets to becoming stuck by such simple obstacles as a farm gate.
This article echoes some thoughts about automation in general, where the core task gets more efficient through automation, but the surrounding infrastructure requires such complexity and continual upkeep that the whole thing becomes a zero sum in terms of efficiency gains. Automated checkouts for instance don’t necessarily reduce costs, they just move those costs around.
Every Best Picture Winner Ranked by How Good a Muppets Version Would Be
Matt Fresh • Hard Drive • Link
Glorious silliness, unreasonably long. This author goes through all 95 best picture winners and tries to imagine how they would be if they were a Muppets movie. The Muppets in Amadeus, for example:
A historical film based on a thin, unverifiable rumor, The Muppets doing Amadeus would be spectacular. Seeing them in those ridiculous wigs would be worth the price of admission alone. But the real meat would be the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri portrayed by Kermit and Fozzy. Imagine watching as Fozzy spirals into madness from his jealousy of Kermit’s success and genius.
Chart of the week
Diagram of the week
Other
📚 The kids maybe … aren’t alright? An experience university professor bemoaning the current generation of youngsters, and their seeming inability to read and comprehend long-form texts. Link
💋 Kissing. It’s a weird thing to do, but we do it anyway. But around the world, not all cultures kiss. What’s going on? Link
Thanks for reading! See you in a fortnight.