AI

• “Goodhart’s Law in Reinforcement Learning”⁠, Karwoskiet al2023

Matters Of⁠ ⁠Scale⁠:

• ⁠Reward is enough⁠: why AIs don’t need animal-style drives like ‘play’ or ‘sleep’

• ⁠The Approximator’s Counter⁠: what is the criterion for LLM criteria?

Genetics

Everything Is Heritable:

Recent Evolution:

Engineering:

• “Some deaf children in China can hear after gene treatment”⁠ (Shanghai Refreshgene Therapeutics success in editing otoferlin⁠)

Statistics/Meta-Science

• ⁠“How Newton Discovered the Law of Gravitation”⁠, Miller1951

Politics/Religion

• “Take the Q train: Value capture of public infrastructure projects”⁠, Guptaet al2022

• Large organizations are ⁠both extremely competent & incompetent⁠

Psychology/Biology

• “Tirzepatide after intensive lifestyle intervention in adults with overweight or obesity: the SURMOUNT-3 phase 3 trial”⁠, Waddenet al2023

• “A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of Money Priming”⁠, Lodderet al2019 (small effect in unpublished studies, zero in pre-registered⁠ studies); “Limited evidence for the effect of red color on cognitive performance: A meta-analysis”⁠, Gnambs2020 (more priming⁠ effects driven by bias)

• “Understanding a Mutually Destructive Relationship Between Individuals With Borderline Personality Disorder and Their ‘Favorite Person’”⁠, Jeonget al2022

• ⁠“Book Review: Going Infinite”, Zvi Mowshowitz⁠

• “The Sound and Taste of Materials”⁠, Laughlin & Howes2014 (should you get gold-plated spoons for ice cream? maybe)

• ⁠A simple ‘wrist mobilization’ exercise⁠ for wrist pain under compression (eg. pushups/bench press/yoga—I was surprised how much this helped my bench press. I was limited by my wrists more than I realized.)

• “The characteristic response of domestic cats to plant iridoids allows them to gain chemical defense against mosquitoes”⁠, Uenoyamaet al2021

• Commentary on the Trump classified papers scandal: they are ‘narcissistic trophies’ for ‘narcissist supply’⁠

Technology

• “Maintenance of pig brain function under extracorporeal pulsatile circulatory control (EPCC)”⁠, Shariffet al2023; ⁠“William and Mary”, Roald Dahl1960

• “Scrollbars are becoming a problem” by pervasive creation of illusion of completeness⁠ (in 2021, I almost skipped COVID vaccination because every time I checked the official government mobile app, the morning slots were full and there were no others; actually, there were plenty of slots—except the scrollbar was invisible! I hope they fixed it after I emailed them, but I wonder how many elderly people were boxed out…)

• “The Pattern of Streets”⁠, Alexander1966

Economics

• “Effectiveness of an Over-the-Counter Self-fitting Hearing Aid Compared With an Audiologist-Fitted Hearing Aid: A Randomized Clinical Trial”⁠, De Sousaet al2023

• “The stock market speaks: How Dr. Alchian learned to build the bomb”⁠, Newhard2014

• “Catṡlechta and other medieval legal material relating to cats”⁠, Murray2007 (cf. ⁠Berry2010 on damages in American law)

Philosophy

• “My Left Kidney”⁠, ⁠Scott Alexander⁠ (on donating his kidney to a stranger)

Fiction

• Studio Ghibli sold to Nippon TV⁠

Miscellaneous