This is the October 2015 edition of the Gwern.net newsletter; previous, September 2015. This is a collation of links and summary of major changes, overlapping with Changelog; brought to you by my donors on Patreon.
Writings
Media
Links
Genetics:
-
Everything Is Heritable:
- “Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence”, et al 2015 (DeFries-Fulker regression indicates no difference in genes driving heritability of top decile intelligence vs rest ie no rare variants w/large benefits)
- “Political Attitudes Develop Independently of Personality Traits”, 2015
Politics/religion:
- “‘Ethics’ is advertising”, “The Strange Case of Anna Stubblefield”; “A Daughter’s Quest to Free Her Father’s Killer: Katie Kitchen wanted to live up to her progressive ideals. Her own family tragedy presented a chance.”; “The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge: A Harvard Law professor who teaches a class on judgment wouldn’t seem like an obvious mark, would he?”; “A Bestselling Author Became Obsessed With Freeing a Man From Prison. It Nearly Ruined Her Life.” (“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees…”, “organisms are adaptation-executers, not fitness-maximizers”)
- “The Cost of Crime to Society: New Crime-Specific Estimates for Policy and Program Evaluation”, et al 2010
Statistics/AI/meta-science:
- “A New, Life-or-Death Approach to Funding Heart Research”
- “Magnesium l-threonate/Magtein: publication bias in its human trials”
- Click-o-Tron: “Auto-Generating Clickbait With Recurrent Neural Networks”
- “Page Weight Matters” (Simpson’s paradox: when a better treatment—faster YouTube page loads—makes aggregate numbers worse (average latency goes up) because new users arrive due to the improvement)
Psychology/biology:
- “Reconstruction and Simulation of Neocortical Microcircuitry”, et al 2015 ( media)
- “Synchronizing education to adolescent biology: ‘let teens sleep, start school later’”, et al 2014
- “Evolution of the human brain: when bigger is better”, 2014
- “When Evolution Is Infectious”
- Charles Bonnet syndrome (10–40% of blind people can experience vivid complex visual hallucinations; they just don’t ever talk about it.)
- “The Dubious Quick Kill, part 1: Sword wounds and the circulatory system”
- Dealing with a mercury spill
Technology:
Economics:
Philosophy:
Fiction:
- Friendship is Optimal
- “It Was You Who Made My Eyes Blue”
- “Tryfon Tolides: an almost pure empty poetry”
Books
Fiction:
- The Wind-up Girl (review)
- The Great Gatsby (review)
Nonfiction:
- Bias in Mental Testing, 1980 (review)
- Drug Interdiction Partnerships, Legal Principles, and Investigative Methodologies for Law Enforcement (review)
- The Master Algorithm (review)
Film/TV
Live-action:
- The Martian (a faithful but very Hollywood depiction of the novel; it is exactly what one would expect upon hearing that The Martian was being turned into a big-budget film starring Matt Damon & Sigourney Weaver, glossy special effects and overwrought soundtrack and all. What is cut from the novel was of no importance.)
- The Great Gatsby (review)
- Back to the Future II
Anime:
- Monogatari Second Season (review)
- A Letter To Momo (review)
Music
Touhou:
- “Fairy Dance” (Pine Tree feat. Mii; Shinsoku {C86}) [rock]
- “Shanghai Teahouse ~ Chinese Tea” (Ex-calibur; Knights of Round {C73}) [instrumental rock]
Kantai Collection:
- “昼戦・砲雷撃戦、初め! -ピアノ協奏曲-” (TAM; KanColle Piano Concerto {C88}) [orchestral]
Doujin:
- “homephone TE” (Asahi feat.emaru; homephone TE {2014}) [electronica]
- “yume” (Asahi feat.emaru; homephone TE {2014}) [electronica]
- “tsuiraku” (Asahi feat.emaru; homephone TE {2014}) [electronica]
- “sinwave” (Asahi feat.emaru; homephone TE {2014}) [electronica]
- “handmade” (宮沢もよよ; PLAY {C85}) [electronica]
- “IVY” (Fullkawa-P feat. Utau Kitchen; Girlfriend from Kyoto {2012}) [Jpop]
- “Purl” (ITM; Bayside Dreamer {C88}) [house]
- “Fresh Air” (Lumina; Bayside Dreamer {C88}) [house]
Vocaloid:
- “Crawlers” (Miku; Croissant Chicago, Morning Act {2015}) [Jpop]
- “Osmium” (Avanna; Omega+, Transgalactic Flight {2015}) [trance/electronic]
- “Parades (monaca:factory Hadal Zone Remix)” (Miku; whoo & monaca:factory, VRUSH UP! #05 -whoo Tribute- {2013}) [trance]
- “ice (Guitar/Michael Lueckner Fire+Ice Remix)” (Miku; whoo & Michael Lueckner, VRUSH UP! #05 -whoo Tribute- {2013}) [trance]