Random Bits

* Today, I learned that there is a genre called "HFY" which means "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!", that flips the trope of advanced and superior aliens to portray humans an exceptional and lauds our species' positive traits against the space opera foil of other more established interstellar aliens types who lack those traits. I'd read stories in this genre many times before but never realized that it was a genre.

* A psychology tiktok discussed how the easier learning stays the less it sticks in the long run. It recommends focusing on testing yourself, closed book, on what you can recall, spacing study sessions weeks apart, intertwining concepts and types of problems rather than studying them in blocks of the same thing, restating concepts you've studied in your own words, and focusing on connecting new facts to existing frameworks and related concept. It cites:

Bjork, R.A. — "Desirable difficulties" framework Bjork, R.A. & Bjork, E.L. (1992) — New theory of disuse Roediger, H.L. & Karpicke, J.D. (2006) — Testing effect study Karpicke, J.D. & Roediger, H.L. (2008), Science — Retrieval practice study Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008) — Learning styles literature review Rohrer, D. et al. — Interleaved vs. blocked practice studies Chase, W.G. & Simon, H.A. (1973) — Chess expertise study

* In the not new, but still true department:

* One of the truly striking things about the 2026 election is how high the quality of the Democratic candidates is and how low the quality of the Republican candidates is. The Democratic candidates are moderately better than average. The Republican candidates are truly pathetic.

* The U.S. Supreme Court has really, really failed us in these last couple off years. They were the part of the system that was supposed to prevent so many of the abuses of Trump 2.0. And, the lower trial and intermediate appellate courts, on balance, did much better.

* What would a society where inheritance and nepotism in business and wealth succession were largely gone, in analogy to ending monarchy and aristocracy, look like?