Kickoff For June 2, 2025
It's a holiday Monday here at the bottom of the world, and after last week I'm grateful to have had a three-day weekend. If only there could be more of them more regularly ...
With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:
On David Lynch's Revenge of the Jedi — Wherein Adam Golasky attempts to untangle the contradictory stories about how the surrealist director almost became involved in the making of what was the final movie in the original Star Wars trilogy.
From the article:
There’s nothing surreal about a film producer generating a list of available directors, and that list getting narrowed down to one or two. Nor was it surreal to consider Lynch. He was a respected director, he’d made a film for a Hollywood studio (Brooksfilms) that was a commercial success, and he was available. It’s only strange (let’s not use the word “surreal”) in retrospect. In 1981, Lynch was not yet the “Czar of Bizarre.”
The Samurai’s Legacy in Japanese Corporate Culture — Wherein we learn about the parallels between the structure, hierarchy, and overall culture of modern Japanese corporations and that of the samurai.
From the article:
[D]uring the Edo period, samurai eventually became a bureaucratic class, performing administrative duties within castle walls. The jobs of present white-collar workers have much in common with the samurai duties at the time. Both groups working long hours to demonstrate faithfulness to their superiors and their team.
An Uneasy Propaganda Alliance — Wherein we learn about an unlikely, and downright strange, mix of East and West that resulted from an attempt by the governments of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany to produce propaganda films that showed the strength of the alliance between the two countries.
From the article:
The Axis nations showed almost absolute faith in the power of film, exemplified by the many propaganda films they produced. For a joint Japanese-German propaganda film to work, however, it must be made first. By showing their inability to cooperate, Fanck and Itami unwittingly mirrored the alliance between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and demonstrated the impossibility of creating a transnational fascist culture.
When I lost my intuition — Wherein Ronald W Dworkin recounts how a key aspect of his professional mindset left him, explores why intuition is important in a number of fields, and discusses the consequences of losing that intuition.
From the article:
Yet, it is when professionals lose their intuition that its mystical value shines through. For, in tough cases, when facts are lacking and the path forward is unclear, intuition arrives like a revelation. Intuition is an article of faith we assent to when reason has reached its limits.
A Defense of Weird Research — Wherein Deena Mousa and Laura Gilbert look at government-funded research that seems pointless (and, to many, a waste of money) but which actually has practical applications. And that happens more often than we realize.
From the article:
[T]his perspective misunderstands how scientific progress happens. Scientific research broadly falls into two categories. Basic research seeks to understand fundamental principles about how our world works. Applied research develops specific technologies or treatments using that existing knowledge. Basic research often appears strange to outside observers precisely because it isn't tied to immediate applications.
Steam networks — Wherein we go beneath the streets of Manhattan to explore and learn about a system that helps heat homes and businesses, and why such a seemingly old school technology continues to be used.
From the article:
A large part of the engineering challenge in maintaining the network is managing how the pressure changes as steam moves throughout the system, being drained into buildings as it goes. Engineers can control the inbound pressure for any given customer very accurately using valves on either side of the service valve and monitor usage across the system with sensors. When the pressure gets too high, valves open and vent the steam through a grate, delighting tourists and enraging taxi drivers.