This is the February 2015 edition of the Gwern.net newsletter; previous, January 2015.
This is a collation of links and summary of major changes, overlapping with Changelog. This broadcast has been brought to you by Royal Kooparillo and my donors on Gratipay.
Writings
- Darknet markets arrests: split out of Silk Road page & began bringing up-to-date with all known incidents across all markets
- electric vs stove kettle boiling-time analysis: collected some simple data on my kettles & demonstrated some statistics tools on the dataset like a Bayesian measurement-error model
Media
Links
Genetics:
-
Everything Is Heritable:
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Recent Evolution:
- “Comparative analysis of the domestic cat genome reveals genetic signatures underlying feline biology and domestication”, et al 2014 ( commentary; complex behavioral traits can be modified by relatively small shifts in many genes)
Politics/religion:
- “What Politicians Believe About Their Constituents: Asymmetric Misperceptions and Prospects for Constituency Control”, 2013
- “The Deflationist: How Paul Krugman found politics”/“Paul Krugman Is Brilliant, but Is He Meta-Rational?”
- “Father, Son and the Double Helix” (Gender politics of maternity/paternity DNA testing in India.)
- ‘Wittgenstein’s “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough”’
- “North Korean border guards prefer married women?” (commentary)
Statistics/AI/meta-science:
- “50 Years of Deep Learning and Beyond: an Interview with Jürgen Schmidhuber”
- “Interpreting observational studies: why empirical calibration is needed to correct p-values”, et al 2012
- “Large-Scale Simultaneous Hypothesis Testing: The Choice of a Null Hypothesis”, 2004
Psychology/biology:
- “The Trip Treatment: Research into psychedelics, shut down for decades, is now yielding exciting results”
- “Intelligence: Is it the epidemiologists’ elusive ‘fundamental cause’ of social class inequalities in health?”, 2004
- “Low-dose paroxetine exposure causes lifetime declines in male mouse body weight, reproduction and competitive ability as measured by the novel organismal performance assay”, et al 2015
- “There is Only Awe” (on Jaynes’s Bicameral Mind Theory)
- “A Novel BHLHE41 Variant is Associated with Short Sleep and Resistance to Sleep Deprivation in Humans”, et al 2014
- “Refugees of the Modern World: The ‘electrosensitive’ are moving to a cellphone-free town. But is their disease real?”
- “How fast does the Grim Reaper walk? Receiver operating characteristics curve analysis in healthy men aged 70 and over”, et al 2011
Technology:
- “If the NSA has been hacking everything, how has nobody seen them coming?”
- “Freedom Zero” (“In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end.”)
- “The Well Deserved Fortune of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin creator, Visionary and Genius”
- Project Iceworm
- “The Postmodern Ponzi Scheme: Empirical Analysis of High-Yield Investment Programs”, 2012
- Reed Richards Is Useless
Economics:
- “Automation and Employment”, Richard Posner
- “Does Affirmative Action Do What It Should?”
- “Brickyard Blues: Numbed by cold, pelted by rain, enduring smashed fingers and toes, poorly paid brick salvagers keep coming back for more”
- “How the recession turned middle-class jobs into low-wage jobs”
Philosophy:
- “What is Wrong with Our Thoughts? A Neo-Positivist Credo”, 1991
- “Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke”
Misc:
Books
Nonfiction:
- Life in Our Phage World (review)
- Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities (website; review)
- Peopleware
- Japanese Love Hotels: A Cultural History (review)
- Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
- Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t, Slone (review)
- Japan Edge: The Insider’s Guide to Japanese Pop Subculture
Fiction:
- Palimpsests, Scholz & Harcourt
Film/TV
Live-action:
Anime:
Music
Misc:
- “Lufthan” (Magyar Posse; We Will Carry You Over The Mountains) [postrock]
- “Sobe(Original Mix)” (Jordan F) [electronic]
Doujin:re
- “秋桜の終わりの季節によせる抒情詩〜ピアノとオーケストラのために〜” (masaki kawasaki; AD:PIANOⅢ {C87}) [electronic/instrumental]
- “Too much for a nightcap” (Casket; Musicatlas P. II {M3-34}) [Celtic]
- “Home” (Kaname Shigeyoshi; AD:PIANOⅢ {C87}) [instrumental]
- “Sicureada” (ジャージと愉快な仲間たち; Musicatlas P. II {M3-34}) [folk]
- “満たされた時” (もふ@ feat. In The Blue; merrow -in the blue Vocal Collection- {M3-34}) [vocal]
Touhou:
- “Wanna be free” (Rei Shimizu; Cafe de Touhou 6 {C87}) [jazz]
- “Brilliant Girls” (Okawa Tomoya; Cafe de Touhou 6 {C87}) [jazz]
- “地獄でお茶を” (sisimai-3go; Cafe de Touhou 6 {C87}) [jazz]
- “The Eternal Steam Engine” (あきやまうに; Thermonuclear Titan Hisoutensoku ~ Touhou Hisoutensoku ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK {C77}) [orchestral]
- “The Eternal Steam Engine” (Kou Ogata; 東方Project ごちゃまぜアイリッシュ風プレ版楽曲CD {R10}) [folk]
- “Temperature Difference” (deitarabotchi feat. senya; The time my thoughts turned into history {C87}) [electronic]
- “Viva Evolution Introduction” (sumijun feat. 長尾ちえみ; Viva Evolution {C87}) [Jpop/electronic]
- “Don’t let you down” (sumijun feat. 長尾ちえみ; Viva Evolution {C87}) [Jpop/electronic]