--- title: December 2013 News created: 2014-01-01 modified: 2019-03-29 status: finished previous: /note/note next: /newsletter/2014/01 confidence: log cssExtension: dropcaps-de-zs backlink: False ... This is the inaugural December 2013 issue of the Gwern.net mailing list; you probably signed up through a link there. If you do not want to receive further monthly emails, there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom. The purpose of this mailing list is to be a more meaningful and summarized version of the RSS feed (which lists every patch, no matter how small) overlapping with my [Changelog page](/changelog "'Changelog', Branwen 2013"), but in a push/notification medium rather than pull. While I was at it, I thought I would include some other material like the links I share on Google+. Since this is the first time, I don't know if people are interested in this or if I omitted anything that people expected; feel free to email me with suggestions or feedback (I *believe* the reply-to should be set to my address, `gwern@gwern.net`, but I am not sure). Without further ado: # Writings Darknet markets: - compiled an updated [table of all known darknet markets with lifetimes](/dnm-survival "'Darknet Market mortality risks', Branwen 2013") - wrote up [an essay](/blackmail "'Blackmail fail', Branwen 2013") on 3 attempts to blackmail/extort/scam **Statistical**: - [analyzed a self-experiment](/lllt "'2013 LLLT self-experiment', Branwen 2013") about [low level laser therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-level_laser_therapy) improving reaction time - [power simulation](/ab-test#covariate-impact-on-power "'A/B testing long-form readability on Gwern.net § Covariate impact on power', Branwen 2012") of the penalty from omitting key covariates in A/B testing - [critique of Chinese moxibustion study](/note/statistic#moxibustion-mouse-study) _Radiance_: - transcribed [novella "Radiance"](/doc/radiance/2002-scholz-radiance#radiance-1 "'Radiance: A Novel § “Radiance”', Scholz et al 2013") - transcribed & annotated the autobiographical essay ["Old Legends"](/doc/radiance/2002-scholz-radiance#old-legends "'Radiance: A Novel § “Old Legends”', Scholz et al 2013") by Gregory Benford on his physics career, SF & science, the "Star Wars" program, Edward Teller, etc - tracked down and scanned a copy of ["The _Astounding_ Investigation: The Manhattan Project's Confrontation with Science Fiction"](/doc/radiance/1984-berger.pdf "'The Astounding Investigation: The Manhattan Project's Confrontation With Science Fiction, published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact', Berger 1984") (Berger 1984, _Analog_ ) **Personal**: - [reviewed _Umineko_](/review/umineko "'Umineko: The Hopium Of The Magics', Branwen 2018") **Site**: - signed up for MailChimp & started a [monthly mailing list for Gwern.net updates](https://gwern.substack.com/ "'Gwern.net newsletter (Substack subscription page)', Branwen 2013") - my Gratipay is up to \$7.35 a week. I thank all donators. # Media ## Links **Technology**: - ["Welcome to the Jungle"](https://herbsutter.com/welcome-to-the-jungle/) (CPU design and Moore’s law---[your computer *can* be faster](/note/faster "'Computer Optimization: Your Computer Is Faster Than You Think', Branwen 2021")) - [Debian bug report #217243: "`wget`: Possibility to really reject files on recursive downloads"](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=217243) (serious gotcha everyone needs to know about if they are trying to spider with `wget` a site requiring cookies/login, like, for example, a DNM forum) - ["Computational Complexity of Air Travel Planning"](http://www.ai.mit.edu/courses/6.034f/psets/ps1/airtravel.pdf) - ["RSA Key Extraction via Low-Bandwidth Acoustic Cryptanalysis"](https://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tromer/acoustic/) - ["You advocate a \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ approach to calendar reform"](https://qntm.org/calendar) (I always sigh when I have to deal with any date-time programming.) - ["Does Copyright Affect Creative Reuse? Evidence from the Digitization of _Baseball Digest_"](/doc/economics/copyright/2017-nagaraj.pdf "'Does Copyright Affect Reuse? Evidence from Google Books and Wikipedia', Nagaraj 2017"), Nagaraj 2017 (large [deadweight losses](/doc/economics/copyright/index)) - [Baal](/doc/darknet-market/2011-08-25-baal-operationachilles.html) (Impressive. A ring of child pornographers communicating securely via PGP & `alt.anonymous` maildrops, rotating keys regularly, where the bust only happened because a member was busted for non-ring-related problems and the only busted members were violating the Hushmail lesson by using a third-party service.) - ["How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation?"](https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/) **Science/medicine/statistics**: - ["The Intelligent Plant: Scientists debate a new way of understanding flora"](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant) (also worth reading: ["If a Lion Could Talk: Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of Consciousness"](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/budiansky-lion.html)) - ["Embryo Selection for Cognitive Enhancement: Curiosity or Game-changer?"](/doc/iq/2014-shulman.pdf), Shulman & Bostrom 2013 - ["Were James Bond's drinks shaken because of alcohol induced tremor?"](https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f7255), Johnson et al 2013 - ["So depression is an inflammatory disease, but where does the inflammation come from?"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3846682/), Berk et al 2013 - ["Change in Against Malaria Foundation recommendation status (room-for-more-funding-related)"](https://blog.givewell.org/2013/11/26/change-in-against-malaria-foundation-recommendation-status-room-for-more-funding-related/) - [Replication backlash](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2013/12/17/replication-backlash/) - ["When Mice Mislead"](/doc/statistics/meta-analysis/2013-couzinfrankel.pdf "‘When Mice Mislead: Tackling a long-standing disconnect between animal and human studies, some charge that animal researchers need stricter safeguards and better statistics to ensure their science is solid’, Couzin-Frankel 2013") (["Of Mice (Studies) and Men"](https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/mice-studies-and-men)) - ["The dangers of zero and one"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9peaSLgk92RJrGfBP/the-dangers-of-zero-and-one) (Fun example from genetics research of how even extremely weak priors are useful) - ["Do Certain Countries Produce Only Positive Results? A Systematic Review of Controlled Trials"](/doc/statistics/bias/publication/1998-vickers.pdf), Vickers et al 1998 - ["China's academic scandal: call toll-free hotlines to get your name published"](https://web.archive.org/web/20131203150612//https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-12/02/china-academic-scandal) **Writing**: - ["Roomlore is the lore anent heavenly bodies such as stars, wanderers, moons, star clouds, star clusters, and starswirls, their bodily workings, and their gathering..."](https://anglish.fandom.com/wiki/Heavenlore) (written in [Anglish](https://anglish.fandom.com/wiki/What_is_Anglish%3F); an [older computer jargon attempt](https://www.u.arizona.edu/~ctb/wordhord.html)) - ["Deadline" (science fiction story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadline_%28science_fiction_story%29) - [Excerpt from _The Third Policeman_ by Flann O'Brien](https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-in-time/flann-obrien-splits-the-atom.php?page=all) (Atomic theory proves that bicycles are plotting against us.) - ["Lady Yodo-Dono"](/doc/fiction/poetry/2012-03-10-sebastianmarshall-ladyyododono.html) (poem) **Politics**: - ['Review of "The Rise of China vs. The Logic of Strategy" by Edward Luttwak'](https://handleshaus.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/review-of-the-rise-of-china-vs-the-logic-of-strategy-by-edward-luttwak/) - ["David Walsh's wisdom beats the odds"](https://www.afr.com/opinion/david-walsh-s-wisdom-beats-the-odds-20131214-ij8gn) - ["Snowden: Hero"](https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/snowden-herohtml) - ["Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013"](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Year-in-Review-2013) (Bill Gates reviews global health & poverty progress) **General**: - ["Like I Was Jesus: How to bring a nine-year-old to Christ"](https://harpers.org/archive/2009/08/like-i-was-jesus/?single=1) - ["We Are All MsScribe"](https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/23/we-are-all-msscribe/) (sockpuppeting, fandom wars) - [Preference falsification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification) - ["An opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance"](/doc/psychology/willpower/2013-kurzban.pdf), Kurzban et al 2013 (willpower; [discussion](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HWvqNAc7aeeeWngEh/kurzban-et-al-on-opportunity-cost-models-of-mental-fatigue)) - ["Making a kangling for chöd"](https://buddhism-for-vampires.com/kangling-chod) (An unexpectedly practical discussion by David Chapman of femur-flutes.) - ["100 Years Later, the Crossword Is Still the King of Puzzles"](https://www.wired.com/2013/12/crossword-puzzles-100-years/) **Philosophy**: - ["Discussions for information"](https://meteuphoric.com/2013/12/25/discussions-for-information-processing/) (These are some of the reasons I've soured on discussion as a way of exchanging information and evaluating new stuff.) - ["Scott Aaronson interview on Philosophical Progress"](https://intelligence.org/2013/12/13/aaronson/) ## Film/TV - _Aku no Hana_: dropped after a few episodes, couldn't stand the rotoscoping - _A Christmas Story_/_National Lampoon: Christmas Vacation_: watched with family. The former was pretty good. The latter, though, had some good jokes but was generally mediocre and strained, and a product of its time. ## Books ### Nonfiction I reread [_Discovery of France_](https://www.amazon.com/The-Discovery-France-Historical-Geography/dp/0393333647/) because I liked it so much the first time ([review](/review/book#the-discovery-of-france-robb-2007)). ### Fiction Descending order of enjoyment: - I finished _Umineko_ back in September, finished writing a review - [_New Legends_](https://www.amazon.com/New-Legends-Greg-Bear/dp/0312862016/) (SF anthology; [review](/review/book#new-legends-bear-1996)) ## Music Giants (recommended if you like [Explosions in the Sky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosions_in_the_Sky) or [El Ten Eleven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ten_Eleven); I particularly liked "While the Ages Steal"):
- ["A Near-life Experience"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBTRTeBldFk) (_Demo_) [post-rock] - ["The Sleep of a Laboring Man"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOruOIArs88) (_Demo_) - ["Berlin Rooftop"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnaHth_aIyw) (_Demo_) - ["Under The New Sun"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI5ieKXOzBM?t=1s) (_They, The Undeserving_) - ["Steps In Static Progression"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI5ieKXOzBM?t=4m20s) (_They, The Undeserving_) - ["The Palace Stands In Its Proper Place"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRWJNR0wGHs) (_They, The Undeserving_) - ["Withered Life- Communal Rhythm"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ira71Nmkc) (_They, The Undeserving_) - ["While The Ages Steal"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLTDiS5kuyk) (_Old Stories_) - ["At Last, Ashore"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ODjsCpMAsw) (_Old Stories_) - ["O' Tide"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjrIDxp1EDI) (_Old Stories_)
**Misc**: - _Raiders of the Lost Ark_, ["End Credits"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3GeSI1R7Ic) (John Williams) [orchestral] - ["I Saw Three Ships"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXtBm5B2y2E), (King's College Cambridge) [Christmas carol] **Touhou**: - ["流体、ライフサイクル instrumental (Fluid, Life Cycle)"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kqEauEArwc) (_o ben to box_; miskyworks {C82}) [instrumental] - ["パンザマスト (instrumental)"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3oileh-Mhk) (_o ben to box_; miskyworks {C82}) [instrumental] **Vocaloid**: - ["echoes\_teha"](https://aino.bandcamp.com/track/echoes-teha) (_声になる_; HKGrecords) [trance/vocal] - ["vanishing_しじみ"](https://aino.bandcamp.com/track/vanishing) (_声になる_; HKGrecords) [electronic/vocal] - ["小規模な世界の私\_ぴすた"](https://aino.bandcamp.com/track/--2) (_声になる_; HKGrecords) [Jpop]