November 2014 News
This is the November 201412ya edition of the Gwern.net newsletter; previously, October.
This is a collation of links and summary of major changes, overlapping with Changelog. Thanks to my donors on Gratipay.
Writings
A/B indentation test: no real result, defaulted to 2em
Media
Links
Genetics:
Everything Is Heritable:
“The contribution of de novo coding mutations to autism spectrum disorder”, Iossifov et al 201412ya (media: 1, 2; discussion)
Engineering:
Politics/religion:
“Whither the Blank Slate? A Report on the Reception of Evolutionary Biological Ideas among Sociological Theorists”, Horowitz et al 201412ya (media)
“Transcript of secret meeting between Julian Assange and Google CEO Eric Schmidt”
“The Micro-sociology of Violent Confrontations”, Collins 2009
“Aum Shinrikyo and a Panic About Manga and Anime”, Gardner 2008
“A Few Bad Men: Why America doesn’t really have a terrorism problem”
“Bottom of the Barrel: Today’s terrorists aren’t ‘sophisticated’. They’re stupider than ever.”
Statistics/AI/meta-science:
“What’s to know about the credibility of empirical economics?”, Ioannidis & Doucouliagos 2013
“The Ironic Effect of Significant Results on the Credibility of Multiple-Study Articles”, Schimmack 2012
“Bayesian data analysis”, Kruschke 2010
“What Teachers Should Know about the Bootstrap: Resampling in the Undergraduate Statistics Curriculum”, Hesterberg 201412ya (nice comprehensible discussion of various kinds of bootstraps and resampling which helps put together everything I’d learned piecemeal)
“The harm done by tests of significance”, Hauer 200422ya (how p-values increase traffic fatalities)
“Tiny Data, Approximate Bayesian Computation and the Unpaired Socks of Karl Broman” (demonstration of ABC)
Psychology/biology:
“Suppressing Intelligence Research: Hurting Those We Intend to Help”, Gottfredson 2005
“Who Rises to the Top? Early Indicators”, Kell et al 201313ya (does IQ cease to matter past 130? No.)
“Life Paths and Accomplishments of Mathematically Precocious Males and Females Four Decades Later”, Lubinski et al 201412ya (graphs)
“Don’t Know? Or Don’t Care?: Predicting Educational Attainment Using Survey Item Response Rates and Coding Speed Tests as Measures of Conscientiousness”, Hitt & Trivitt 2013
“Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science”, Duarte et al 201511ya (liberal ideological homogeneity in social sciences causing problems)
Technology:
“Anatomy of a hack: How crackers ransack passwords like
qeadzcwrsfxv1331; For Ars, three crackers have at 16,000+ hashed passcodes—with 90% success” (computers are much faster than you think, when used right, unfortunately)“How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 ‘moon rocket’ engine back to life”
Economics:
disability, immigration, globalization, and technological unemployment:
“Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America”
Murray’s Coming Apart
“Untangling Trade and Technology: Evidence from Local Labor Markets”
“The Effect of Intelligence on Job Performance is Intuitive”
“Immigration and the American Worker: A Review of the Academic Literature”, Borjas 2013
Philosophy:
“Bayesian Informal Logic and Fallacy”, Korb 200323ya; “Fallacies as weak Bayesian evidence”
“Be Specific” (if you make an abstract claim, can you give at least 3 specific examples? if not, maybe you need to think about it more)
“Taking Charity Seriously: Toby Ord talk on charity effectiveness”
Misc:
“Try To Praise The Mutilated World”, Adam Zagajewski
“Morning Song of Senlin”, Conrad Aiken
“When Dickens met Dostoevsky” (literary hoaxes; followup)
Books
Nonfiction:
Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide? (review)
The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett, Bryne (review)
Ketamine: Dreams and Realities, Jansen (review)
The Art of Unix Usability, ESR (review)
Fiction:
A Clockwork Orange, Burgess
Lud-in-the-Mist, Mirrlees
The Far Side Gallery 3 (I think I liked them better as a kid; re-reading, I realize Larson really only had a few jokes & characters which he permuted endlessly. It doesn’t grow up with you as much as some others like Calvin & Hobbes do.)
Film/TV
Live-action:
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (201313ya remake); pretty decent, albeit very little like story, and a rather shoehorned in quest/Blue Bird of Happiness which undermines original short story’s protagonist by implying he was a failure before & the core dreaming was escapism
Music
Touhou:
“千年幻想郷 ~ History of the Moon” (Liverne (ゆう), Yu- (Phoenix Project), Tokunan; Touhou Gensou Shiten 2 “Canon” {C71}) [metal]
“チルノ /おてんば恋娘” (Yoshiki Ara; Charisma Lash Type-M {C86}) [orchestral]
“ソリテス・パラドックス” (Ryuuha Mikaido; ティマイオス ~風の詩~ {C86}) [orchestral]
“オッカムの剃刀” (Ryuuha Mikaido; ティマイオス ~風の詩~ {C86}) [orchestral]
“Even if they say nothing in the night” (Machikado-Mapoze; Dancing Phantasmagoria {C86}) [waltz]
“Library Rag” (Machikado-Mapoze; Dancing Phantasmagoria {C86}) [ragtime]
“巫女みこ茶々々” (Machikado-Mapoze; Dancing Phantasmagoria {C86}) [Cha-cha-chá]
“佐々木喜善はかく語りき ~ 願わくはこれを語りて平地人を戦慄せしめよ” (ジャム; DAYDREAM TUNES {C86}) [classical]
“天空の花の都” (埼玉最終兵器; Cradle Re:BOOT -東方幻樂祀典- {C86}) [metal]
“An Enlarging Story” (RD-Sounds; Slaughter {C86}) [orchestral]
“Way to go Shinmyoumaru ~Battle with Titans~” (RD-Sounds; Slaughter {C86}) [orchestral]
“Could She Know The Summer?” (setsugen; DAYDREAM TUNES {C86}) [classical]
Doujin:
“Summer Dayz” (村瀬悠太; AD:HOUSE 3 {C86}) [instrumental]
“またあした” (bacon8 feat. nijimine kakoi; luminous flux {C85}) [acoustic]
“パラミシアの狼” (O-kei feat. ヤマイ; SONORA {201412ya}) [Jpop]
“Call My Cell” (Hige Driver feat. ΦKushiΦ; Hige Dance {C86}) [electronic]
Vocaloid:
“Back to You” (Luka; Planty; Planet Planty {201412ya}) [trance]
“In Adversae” (Luka, Kaito; Planty; Planet Planty {201412ya}) [trance]
“It was ten days ago.” (Miku; Toku-P; The Universe {200917ya}) [vocal]
“魁!パンツメン☆ミ” (Miku; KASANE; sync-loid:05 {201412ya}) [Jpop]
“Boku mo Kuzu Dakara” (Miku; PinnochioP; Yusei Masshirake {VM27}) [Jpop]