links

Fantasy flow charts, one female-biased: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/879zov/intro_to_femaleauthored_fantasy_flowchart/

Statistical tests for cause and effect. https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/cause-and-effect-the-revolutionary-new-statistical-test-that-can-tease-them-apart-ed84a988e
I'm told _Causality_ by Judea Pearl is also relevant.

Ancient walled cities, to crude scale. https://alexander.co.tz/experiments/walledcityscale/
And Kowloon. http://mapfrappe.com/?show=52710

From last year: how zoning laws cripple the US economy. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/opinion/housing-regulations-us-economy.html

Urbanists react to the Wakanda of Black Panther: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/the-real-life-possibilities-of-black-panthers-wakanda-according-to-urbanists-and-city-planners

RPGs: fantasy localism or microclimates: https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2017/11/localism-adventure-as-microclimate.html

Aladdin's mother was Chinese in old pantomimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widow_Twankey

Guns and "self-defense": police are trained to run from attackers with knives within 21-30 feet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill
https://www.policeone.com/edged-weapons/articles/102828-Edged-Weapon-Defense-Is-or-was-the-21-foot-rule-valid-Part-1/

2015 article on early fountains. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/science/electricity-free-fountains.html

Rise and fall of the American SRO https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-american-sro/553946/

Mental alarm and filters

I set my workday alarm for 9:30 am. Usually I've been waking up way earlier than that and not getting back to sleep, part of my general insomnia. The past two days though, I've woken up at about 9:25. *hmmm* It's not the first time my brain has shown an awareness of when I wanted to get up and anticipated the alarm.

If only it were so good about staying asleep when I want to.

Relatedly, I noticed years ago, on a day when it didn't matter if I slept through the alarm, that even the faint beeping of a wristwatch was sufficient to rouse me. The much louder sound of a garbage truck right outside my window did not wake me, assuming I was still asleep. So there must be a filter: "this faint noise has intention, respond; that loud noise is just environment, ignore."

If only I could activate that filter while awake. Chance of *getting* to sleep while the garbage truck was active, if I was already awake, was zero.

Also relatedly, I've noticed that if I feel tired in the afternoon -- food coma or something -- and lie down for a nap, not too concerned with whether I sleep or not, I'm pretty tolerant of light and noises, and often do fall asleep for a bit. But "going to bed" at night, I'm much more sensitive to little noises and vibrations, and use ear plugs all the time, and often a white noise generation (because, again, MY loud hummy noise is okay, THEIR faint hum or whispering or beat will drive me up the wall.)