--- title: March 2020 News description: March 2020 Gwern.net newsletter with links on pandemics, politics, DL; one anime review. created: 2019-12-26 status: finished previous: /newsletter/2020/02 next: /newsletter/2020/04 confidence: log cssExtension: dropcaps-de-zs backlink: False ... March 2020's [Gwern.net](/newsletter/2020/03 "'March 2020 News', Branwen 2019") [newsletter](https://gwern.substack.com/ "'Gwern.net newsletter (Substack subscription page)', Branwen 2013") is now out; previous, [February 2020](/newsletter/2020/02 "'February 2020 News', Branwen 2019") ([archives](/doc/newsletter/index)). This is a collation of links and summary of major changes, overlapping with my [Changelog](/changelog); brought to you by my donors on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/gwern). # Writings - [Order Statistics: The Probability of a Double Maximum](/order-statistic#probability-of-bivariate-maximum "What is the probability of the best (out of _n_ competitors) at one thing being the best at another related thing? Should we expect the best basketball player to also be the tallest? No. In fact, the probability of a 'double maximum' asymptotically goes to 1/n, surprisingly.") - **Gwern.net**: [dark mode theme switcher](/static/js/dark-mode.js "darkmode.js: Javascript library for controlling page appearance, toggling between regular white and 'dark mode'"); relocated from S3 to Nginx, please report any server bugs like inaccessible pages # Media ## Links **Genetics**: - [Everything Is Heritable]{.smallcaps}: - ["The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex"](/doc/iq/2020-grasby.pdf), Grasby et al 2020 - [Engineering]{.smallcaps}: - ["Genetic Architecture of Complex Traits and Disease Risk Predictors"](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.946608.full), Yong et al 2020 (joint optimization of human traits is easy because the genetic correlations cooperate & in high-dimensional space there's always an alternative) **AI**: - ["Agent57: Outperforming the Atari Human Benchmark"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.13350#deepmind), Badia et al 2020 ([blog](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/agent57-outperforming-the-human-atari-benchmark/ "'Agent57: Outperforming the human Atari benchmark', Puigdomènech et al 2020"); Agent57 reaches the median human level across ALE---including _Pitfall!_/_Montezuma's Revenge_. It is impressive but still sample-inefficient & uncomfortably baroque in combining what seems like every DM model-free DRL technique in one place: DDQN, Impala, R2D2, Memory Networks, Transformers, Neural Episodic Control, RND, [NGU](https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.06038#deepmind "'Never Give Up: Learning Directed Exploration Strategies', Badia et al 2020"), PBT, MABs... Is model-free DRL a dead end if *this* is what it takes? I would have preferred to see ALE solved by better exploration in the enormously simpler [MuZero](https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.08265#deepmind "'MuZero: Mastering Atari, Go, Chess and Shogi by Planning with a Learned Model', Schrittwieser et al 2019").) - ["AutoML-Zero: Evolving Machine Learning Algorithms From Scratch"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03384#google), Real et al 2020 ([Github](https://github.com/google-research/google-research/tree/master/automl_zero "'AutoML-Zero: Open source code for the paper: "AutoML-Zero: Evolving Machine Learning Algorithms From Scratch"', Real et al 2020"); [blog](https://blog.research.google/2020/07/automl-zero-evolving-code-that-learns.html "'AutoML-Zero: Evolving Code that Learns', Real & Liang 2020"); using evolutionary search to bootstrap SGD/regularization; presumably the evolved SGD can be used to meta-learn, and so on---it's [optimizers all the way up](/backstop "'Evolution as Backstop for Reinforcement Learning', Branwen 2018")) - [15.ai](https://fifteen.ai/): NN TTS service for generating natural high-quality voices of characters with minimal data (especially _MLP:FiM_ voices; demos: [0](/doc/ai/music/2020-04-01-fifteenai-twilightsparkle-telephonecall.mp3)/[1](/doc/ai/music/2020-03-28-fifteenai-ensemble-hellofellowhumans.mp3)/[2](/doc/ai/music/2020-03-30-fifteenai-twilightsparkle-sel-presentdaypresenttime.mp3)/[3](/doc/ai/music/2020-03-06-fifteenai-fluttershy-sithcode.mp3)/[4](/doc/ai/music/2020-03-06-fifteenai-twilightsparkle-sithcode.mp3); [EQ:D contest results](https://www.equestriadaily.com/2020/03/pony-voice-event-what-people-forced.html "Pony Voice Event - What People Forced Ponies to Say!")) - [Matters Of Scale]{.smallcaps}: ["Train Large, Then Compress: Rethinking Model Size for Efficient Training and Inference of Transformers"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.11794), Li et al 2020 (previously: [Kaplan et al 2020](https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08361#openai "Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models")); ["Rethinking Parameter Counting in Deep Models: Effective Dimensionality Revisited"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.02139), Maddox et al 2020; ["Bayesian Deep Learning and a Probabilistic Perspective of Generalization"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.08791), Wilson & Izmailov 2020; ["On Linear Identifiability of Learned Representations"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.00810#google), Roeder et al 2020 (why do NNs work so well, don't overfit, and train both faster & better the *more* you overparameterize? Perhaps bigger = better because you're searching over more classes of models which all have a bias towards simplicity, so you have a better chance of finding a simple sub-network which performs well.) **Statistics/Meta-Science**: - ["A controlled trial for reproducibility: For three years, part of DARPA has funded two teams for each project: one for research and one for reproducibility. The investment is paying off"](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00672-7), Raphael et al 2020 (the difficulties of creating reproducible biology research; the projects: [1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5394931/ "'Altering the threshold of an excitable signal transduction network changes cell migratory modes', Miao et al 2017")/[2](/doc/biology/2019-ng-2.pdf "'Modular and tunable biological feedback control using a de novo protein switch', Ng et al 2019")/[3](/doc/biology/2019-langan.pdf "'De novo design of bioactive protein switches', Langan et al 2019")/[4](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6789134/ "'Bacterial variability in the mammalian gut captured by a single-cell synthetic oscillator', Riglar et al 2019")/[5](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7018847/ "'Cassiosomes are stinging-cell structures in the mucus of the upside-down jellyfish _Cassiopea xamachana_', Ames et al 2020"); see also [Lithgow et al 2017](https://www.nature.com/articles/548387a "A long journey to reproducible results: Replicating our work took four years and 100,000 worms but brought surprising discoveries")/[Lucanic et al 2017](https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14256 "Impact of genetic background and experimental reproducibility on identifying chemical compounds with robust longevity effects")) - ["The Ph.D. Grind: A Ph.D. Student Memoir"](http://pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir.htm "'The Ph.D. Grind: A Ph.D. Student Memoir', Guo 2015"), Philip J. Guo 2012/2015 (on the grim reality of grad school/academia; cf. ["What Does Any of This Have To Do with Physics?"](https://nautil.us/what-does-any-of-this-have-to-do-with-physics-236309/ "'What Does Any of This Have To Do with Physics? Einstein and Feynman ushered me into grad school, reality ushered me out', Henderson 2016")) **Politics/religion**: - ["The most predictable disaster in the history of the human race: This is what Bill Gates is afraid of"](https://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8660249/bill-gates-spanish-flu-pandemic), Vox 2015; ["'It's Just Everywhere Already': How Delays in Testing Set Back the U.S. Coronavirus Response"](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html "'‘It’s Just Everywhere Already’: How Delays in Testing Set Back the U.S. Coronavirus Response: A series of missed chances by the federal government to ensure more widespread testing came during the early days of the outbreak, when containment would have been easier', Fink & Baker 2020") (the [Noble Lie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_lie) & [Tragedy Of The Anticommons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_anticommons): how regulators, paperwork, IRBs, privacy, and bioethics controlled, censored, and shut down US & global pandemic prevention efforts---_extra Ecclesiam nulla salus_) - [SSC Book Review](https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/17/book-review-hoover/ "'Book Review: Hoover [review of Whyte’s Hoover: An Extraordinary Life In Extraordinary Times]', Alexander 2020"): [_Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times_](https://www.amazon.com/Hoover-Extraordinary-Life-Times/dp/030774387X), Whyte 2018 (how [Herbert Hoover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover) became one of history's greatest philanthropists, then one of the most hated presidents---'Quakers (and Ashkenazi Jews) are the skeleton key to history' etc; apropos of recent events, "Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again"?) - ["Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy"](https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=econ_fac#pdf), Healy & Malhotra 2009; ["How Near-Miss Events Amplify or Attenuate Risky Decision Making"](/doc/statistics/bias/2012-tinsley.pdf), Tinsley et al 2012 - ["Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet: How do we fix life online without limiting free speech?"](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-the-struggle-to-detoxify-the-internet) (chilling account of how Reddit employees actually moderate) - ["Inside the Soviet Union’s secret pornography collection: Off limits to the public but enjoyed by Soviet-era leaders, the Lenin Library collection grew out of erotica confiscated from aristocrats after the revolution"](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/pornography-soviet-union-secret-collection); ["Russia's House of Shadows: My apartment building was made to house the first generation of Soviet élite. Instead, it was where the revolution went to die"](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/16/russias-house-of-shadows) ("rank hath its privileges", but "_La révolution, comme Saturne, dévore ses propres enfants_"...) - ["In the 1980s, a Far-Left, Female-Led Domestic Terrorism Group Bombed the U.S. Capitol"](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1980s-far-left-female-led-domestic-terrorism-group-bombed-us-capitol-180973904/ "'In the 1980s, a Far-Left, Female-Led Domestic Terrorism Group Bombed the U.S. Capitol: Historian William Rosenau investigates the May 19th Communist Organization in a new book about the little-known militant group', Thulin 2020") ([WP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_19th_Communist_Organization)) - [The Burned House Horizon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_house_horizon) - ["Radical Solutions: French mathematician Évariste Galois lived a full life. When he wasn’t trying to overthrow the government, he was reinventing algebra"](https://www.damninteresting.com/radical-solutions/) (the short & unlucky life of [a genius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois)) **Psychology/biology**: - ["Going Critical"](https://meltingasphalt.com/interactive/going-critical/), Kevin Simler (An [explorable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorable_explanation) interactive discussion of how stuff spreads in networks) - ["Public health interventions and epidemic intensity during the 1918 influenza pandemic"](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0610941104), Hatchett et al 2007 (the key finding: "cities with ≤3 nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)...experienced a median *total* excess death rate of 551/100,000, compared with a median rate of 405/100,000 in cities with four or more NPIs (_p_ = 0.03)"; [media](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/health/17flu.html "How (and How Not) to Battle Flu: A Tale of 23 Cities")) - ["Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over? Long-Term Effects of _In Utero_ Influenza Exposure in the Post-1940 U.S. Population"](/doc/biology/2006-almond.pdf "'Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over? Long-Term Effects of In Utero Influenza Exposure in the Post-1940 U.S. Population', Almond 2006"), Almond 2006 ([MR](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/the-lasting-effects-of-the-1918-influenza-pandemic.html "'The Lasting Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic', Alex Tabarrok")) - ["Why do dozens of diseases wax and wane with the seasons---and will COVID-19?"](https://www.science.org/content/article/why-do-dozens-diseases-wax-and-wane-seasons-and-will-covid-19) (on [Martinez 2018](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6224126/ "The calendar of epidemics: Seasonal cycles of infectious diseases") & [Price et al 2019](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37481-y "Association between viral seasonality and meteorological factors")) - ["Tripping on nothing: placebo psychedelics and contextual factors"](/doc/psychedelic/lsd/2020-olson-2.pdf), Olson et al 2020 ("12% were certain that they had taken a psychedelic...Before leaving, she...asked where she could get the placebo drug again") - ["Beliefs About Human Intelligence in a Sample of Teachers and Nonteachers"](/doc/iq/2020-warne.pdf), Warne & Burton 2020 (radical overestimation of the power of IQ-boosting interventions---even made-up ones) - ["Orangutans, Resistance and the Zoo"](https://www.counterpunch.org/2008/12/16/orangutans-resistance-and-the-zoo/) ([orangutans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan) like [Ken "the hairy Houdini" Allen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Allen) are brilliant escape artists) **Technology**: - ["The History of the URL"](https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-history-of-the-url/), Zack Bloom (the winding path that gave us the confusing modern DNS/URL system; similar to [Eevee's history of CSS](https://eev.ee/blog/2020/02/01/old-css-new-css/ "'Old CSS, New CSS', Eevee 2020")) - ["Zip Files: History, Explanation and Implementation"](https://www.hanshq.net/zip.html), Hans Wennborg 2020 (compression/decompression accounts for [5% of Google computer cycles](/doc/cs/hardware/2010-ren.pdf#google "'Google-Wide Profiling: A Continuous Profiling Infrastructure for Data Centers', Ren et al 2010")) - ["Seeing the World in a Bag of Chips"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.04642), Park et al 2020 ([media](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-see-the-worlds-reflection-from-a-bag-of-chips/ "How to See the World's Reflection From a Bag of Chips: Computer scientists reconstructed the image of a whole room using the reflection from a snack package. It's useful for AR/VR research---and possibly spying")) **Economics**: - ["How Cameo Turned D-List Celebs Into a Monetization Machine"](/doc/economics/2020-sauer-howcameoturneddlistcelebsintoamonetizationmachine.html "'How Cameo Turned D-List Celebs Into a Monetization Machine: Inside the surreal and lucrative two-sided marketplace of mediocre famous people', Sauer 2020") ([WP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameo_\(website\)); see also ["How Cameo Blew Up During Quarantine"](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-cameo-blew-up-during-quarantine) & ["Status as a Service"](https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service)) - [The unsolved Chicago Tylenol murders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders) **Fiction**: - ["The Master of the Curators"](/doc/fiction/science-fiction/1980-wolfe-tbotns-theshadowofthetorturer-ch6-themasterofthecurators.pdf "'The Shadow Of The Torturer: The Master of the Curators', Wolfe 1980"), _[The Book Of The New Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun): [The Shadow of the Torturer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Torturer)_, [Wolfe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe) 1980 (homage to [Jorge Luis Borges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges)) ## Film/TV **Animated**: - [_Golden Kamuy_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Kamuy) ([review](/review/anime#golden-kamuy){.include-replace-container})