December 2015 Media Thread
This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you’ve found that you enjoy. Post what you’re reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.
Rules:
Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don’t personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person’s recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the “Other Media” thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn’t fit under any of the established categories.
Use the “Meta” thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.
- 12 Dec 2015 14:25 UTC; 5 points) 's comment on Open thread, December 7-13, 2015 by (
Short Online Texts Thread
Everything is heritable:
“Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians”, Mathieson et al 2015 (media)
pervasive cross-correlations of polygenic scores for various traits: particularly Krapohl et al 2015
“Genome-wide analysis of over 106,000 individuals identifies 9 neuroticism-associated loci”, Smith et al 2015
“Signaling and Productivity in the Private Financial Returns to Schooling”, Bingley et al 2015 (highly unusual design)
“Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating”, Golden 2012
Politics/religion:
“The American Robber Barons Who Stole Medieval Europe”
“Book Review: Empire of the Summer Moon”
“Little to Show for Cash Flood by Big Donors”
“Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate”
on mood affiliation
Proper procedures for stoning an adulterer
Statistics/AI/meta-science:
converting all-cause mortality reductions to life-expectancy increases
“How to visualize data with cartoonish faces a la Chernoff” (on Chernoff faces)
Psychology/biology:
The girl who feels no pain
“Insecticide Resistance and Malaria Control”
“Cochrane findings that will help you”
Rubber duck debugging
“Species-characteristic Responses to Catnip by Undomesticated Felids” , Hill et al 1976
“Meditation and Its Regulatory Role on Sleep”, Nagendra et al 2012
Technology:
“Carnegie Mellon Denies FBI Paid for Tor-Breaking Research” (If the FBI is harvesting any de-anonymizing data security researchers collect using subpoenas, this seems like a serious attack on academic freedom and research integrity.)
“DagCoin: a cryptocurrency without blocks”; in an entirely different direction, Bitcoin-NG splits blocks from mining (Bitcoin is just the first, not necessarily the universally ideal. We’re in a Cambrian explosion of financial cryptography and should be open to new approaches.)
“Air Force cadet sentenced to 3 years after buying modafinil, molly, & LSD on Silk Road 2”
‘man sort’: ‘—random-sort’ misleading (use
shuf
if you need random sorts on the CLI)Economics:
“As Coasts Rebuild and U.S. Pays, Repeatedly, the Critics Ask Why”/”Should the Northeast Bury its Power Lines to Prevent Outages?”/”Having your cake and eating it too: The maturity structure of US debt”
“Ricardo’s Difficult Idea”/”The Real Winners and Losers of Globalization: Globalization has radically changed global income dynamics. So who has won and who has lost?”
“Cosmic Commodities: How much is a new planet worth?”
“The Goethe Auction”
Philosophy:
“When Do Extraordinary Claims Give Extraordinary Evidence?”, Hanson 2007
Philosophy of humor
“Fog-like sensations”
A Softer World, #891
Esotericism as a form of communication
the Plausibility of Dragons
Rationalist fiction in the sense of having a lot of respect for deduction from evidence. Also a pleasant enough story.
Extreme Self-Tracking
Man has himself MRIed twice a week for a year and a half, plus tracking a lot about his life. The data mining is still going on, but at least it’s been shown that (probably) people’s connectomes change pretty rapidly.
I’m also posting this to the open thread because I’m not sure where it’s more likely to be seen.
If you only have time for one link. Check out STOP POINT RAIN (mindfulness techniques)
Radicalisation
Can the complex nature and determinants of radicalisation be reduced to four simple psychosocial antecedents?
Addiction
100 day no sweet challenge
No chocolate challenge
Mindfulness of emotions
Rational thinking and anxiety
Complex PTSD
Beat procrastination now!
SOBER
Evidence-based education
Propose a new subject
Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
Political marketing
Science
Social skills, Reddit
Cross examination fo expert witnessess 1 2 3 and 4
Visibility on Wikipedia Political candidates positioning
Political Candidates Positioning Based on Inter-Object Associative Affinity Index
Genetic psychiatry
AA genotype reporting in—Genetic effect modification of abuse or this
Silver lining gene
Chad and the Gene-Env psychiatry centre
Everybody has a brain
Cryptocurrency development
name check;
coinvertise on fb;
Mining with AWS
Can it be outsourced?
Cold calling
Budget
Remote staff and staff and upwork
Grow my team
YBF events
Mailouts
Grant writing
fiddy cent domains
Rationalists on a startup team. Good opportunity?
Development
crisis communication
Volunteer with Indigenous people
stand-alone smart watches
Tensor flow machine learning, portable digitalisers for smart watches?
Blocks
Omata
positive psychology
Positive psychology checklist Culture and positive psychology
Online Videos Thread
Fanfiction Thread
Nonfiction Books Thread
I wrote a review of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. It’s also of an essay about the nature of the halo effect on how ideas are perceived.
I can’t say I agree with your reasoning behind why Hanson’s ideas are in the book. I think the book’s content is written with accuracy in mind first and foremost, and I think Hanson’s ideas are there because Bostrom thinks they’re genuinely a plausible direction the future could go, especially in the circumstances where recursive self improving AI of the kinds traditionally envisioned turns out to be unlikely or difficult or impossible for whatever reasons. I don’t think those ideas are there in an effort to mine the Halo effect.
And really, the book’s main thrust is in the title. Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Even if these outcomes are not necessarily mutually exclusive (inc. the possibility of singletons forming out of initially multi-polar outcomes as discussed in p.176 onwards), talking about potential pathways is very obviously relevant, I would have thought.
I think that we are both right.
Hypothetically, if there were some famous university professor who had written at length about the possibility of, I dunno, simulated superintelligent ant hives, then I think that Bostrom might have felt compelled to include a discussion of the “superintelligent ant hive hypothesis” in his book. He’s striving for completeness, at least in terms of his coverage of high-level aspects of the A.I. Risk landscape. It would also be a huge slight to the theory’s originator if he left out any reference to the “superintelligent ant hive hypothesis”. And finally, Bostrom probably doesn’t want to place himself in the position of arbiter of which ideas get to be taken seriously, when lots of people probably think of lots of parts of A.I. Risk as loony already.
So, I don’t think Bostrom was sitting in his office plotting how to make his book a weaponized credulity meme. But I also felt, from my own perspective, that the inclusion of the Hanson stuff was just a bit forced.
Yeah, I pretty much agree, but the important point to make is that any superintelligent ant hive hypotheses would have to be at least as plausible and relevant to the topic of the book as Hanson’s ems to make it in. Note Bostrom dismisses brain-computer interfaces as a superintelligence pathway fairly quickly.
Do No Harm, Marsh (elegantly written and moving neurosurgeon memoir on the theme of iatrogenics; I did disagree with his comments on the cost-benefit of operating in one case, though)
Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money, Popper (review)
The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers, MacGregor
Drop Dead Healthy, Jacob (review)
M. Atwater, The avalanche hunters. Philadelphia, Macrea Smith Co., 1968. (Russian translation: М. Отуотер, Охотники за лавинами. Изд. 2-е. - М., “Мир”. − 1980). A wonderful memoir, reminds a bit (in spirit, not style) Kipling’s The Head of the District and The Bridge-Builders. Contains examples of real-life problems—risking many lives to save one—with a consequentialist moral.
Fiction Books Thread
A Perfect Vacuum, Lem (review)
Lem is truly one of the most underrated SF authors.
I have read half of Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series. The protagonist reminds me of myself as a child/young adult, and I really admire the depth of Pratchett’s female characters. He actually writes femininity the way I experience it: not an obstacle to doing anything, but present and possibly important. Sometimes.
The Department of Useless Things by Yuri Dombrovski (a novel in two parts). Alma-Ata, just before WWII… I’d say it combines a detective story (a bit), a love story (a smaller bit), and a story. Also, try his Three novellas about Shakespeare.
TV and Movies (Animation) Thread
TV and Movies (Live Action) Thread
Music Thread
Here nice loner song, feels like the audio version of Me, Earl and the Dying Girl
Black skin head primal pump up music
I still get through the day really positive, empathetic, gentle rap
Nostic the poet
Touhou:
“Night Sakura of Dead Spirits” (彩音 〜xi-on〜; Quartet -カルテット- {C88}) [classical]
“Desire Drive” (あかみ/彩音 〜xi-on〜; Quartet -カルテット- {C88}) [classical]
“敢闘 -little bravery-” (漉餡; 水古譚 -suikotan- {C88}) [orchestral]
“蒼月夜 (Instrumental ver)” (漉餡; 水古譚 -suikotan- {C88}) [orchestral]
“夕暮れ色のカップ” (夕暮れ色のカップ; 喫茶白玉楼 {C88}) [classical]
Doujin:
“City Cycle” (tigerlily; AD:PIANO VIVACE {C88}) [classical/instrumental]
“‘Love’” (en;Dolphin Records; 夏と原稿用紙 {C88}) [acoustic]
“You again my love” (CYO Style feat. henohenomoheji; CY {2013}) [pop]
“Shoulda Known Better” (DJ Noriken; HARDCORE SYNDROME 9 {C88}) [hardcore]
Vocaloid:
“NEW YEARS[Long Version]” (Miku; ATOLS; ATOLS/MIKU 0 {VM28}) [trance]
“YUMEGIWA LAST BOY” (Ia; FLARE; VOCALO COVERS {2013}) [electronica/Jpop]
Podcasts Thread
Talking Machines
Human conversations about machine learning on a beautifully designed ultra-minimalist website
Do you think it could raise statistical literacy and interest?
Some nice quotes:
-Claudia Perlich
-Claudia Perlich
Where else are you going to here that kind of stuff?!
Take head graduate students trying to decide what kind of research question to choose. Naive, descriptive analytics can be really dumb!
Take head prospective Kaggle competition hosters. You’re engineering publication bias!
https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedzach/videos/1532007597123301/?fref=nf
Unsexy guy gets coaching from very conventionally sexy guy on how to make a good video for OKCupid. It works.
Other Media Thread
Meta Thread