January 2015 Media Thread

Technology:

• "Human Performance", 2008 JASON (excerpts)
• Spreadsheet mistakes
• "Scholarly Context Not Found: One in Five Articles Suffers from Reference Rot", Klein et al 2014
• "The Hundred-Year Language"
• M50 Ontos
• Photoacoustic spectroscopy
• "Turing Drawings": flowing sand
• The NSA copes with a volcano
• Project Iceworm
• "The Well Deserved Fortune of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin creator, Visionary and Genius"

Economics:

• College major salary premiums
• "What Are Foundations For?" (principal-agent conflicts; against perpetuities)
• "A lucky little fish turns out to be the solution to iron deficiency among women in Cambodia, a problem solved by a University of Guelph researcher."
• "Should Psychological Neuroscience Research Be Funded?" (discussion)
• Kids for cash scandal
• "Smart companies try to commoditize their products' complements."
• "The Coase Theorem is false: contracts depend on tort law"
• "One Kind of Lawlessness: Estimating the Welfare Cost of Somali Piracy"

Philosophy:

• "Bayesian Adjustment Does Not Defeat Existential Risk Charity"
• "Transhumanist Fables"
• "Study: Wolf Attacks Still Leading Cause Of Death In U.S."
• "Even More Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays from Vectors 3.0", James Richardson

Misc:

• "Limits", Jorge Luis Borges
• Great mistakes in history: the scuttling of the German navy
• Hollywood Archaeology: The Super Mario Bros. Movie; Unearthing a major disaster to learn the lessons held within
• "On Pins and Needles: Stylist Turns Ancient Hairdo Debate on Its Head"

Everything is heritable:

• "Genome-wide meta-analysis identifies six novel loci associated with habitual coffee consumption", The Coffee and Caffeine Genetics Consortium et al 2014 (excerpts)
• "Results of a 'GWAS Plus': General Cognitive Ability Is Substantially Heritable and Massively Polygenic", Kirkpatrick et al 2014
• "Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?", Johnson 2010 (excerpts)
• "The impact of neighbourhood deprivation on adolescent violent criminality and substance misuse: A longitudinal, quasi-experimental study of the total Swedish population ", Sariaslan et al 2013 (excerpts)
• "Rabbit genome analysis reveals a polygenic basis for phenotypic change during domestication", Carneiro et al 2014 (the power of selection - complex behaviors influenced by many small changes; excerpts)

Politics/religion:

• "Why the World Is Not Falling Apart: Never mind the headlines. We’ve never lived in such peaceful times.", Pinker & Mack; "Good News You May Have Missed in 2014", Gates
• "Race and Justice: Much More Than You Wanted To Know"
• "The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side"
• "Police, Paramilitaries, Nationalists and Gangsters: The Processes of State Building in Korea", Porteux 2013 (excerpts)
• "Hitler's Declaration of War Against the US"
• Sacculina parasite
• "Truncated transcript from today's SCOTUS argument" (parody)
• "Question 94. The relations of the saints towards the damned: Whether the blessed in heaven will see the sufferings of the damned?"

Statistics/AI/meta-science:

• "Contradicted and Initially Stronger Effects in Highly Cited Clinical Research", Ioannidis 2005 (excerpts)
• "A 'Sham Procedure' Leads to Disappointing Multiple Scelerosis News"
• The power of placebos: when water feels like LSD.
• "What Went Wrong? Reflections on Science by Observation and The Bell Curve", Glymour 1998 (correlation & causation)
• "Full publication of results initially presented in abstracts (Review)", Scherer et al 2008 (publication bias & incorrect papers; excerpts)
• "Prisons Are Built With Bricks Of Law And Brothels With Bricks Of Religion, But That Doesn't Prove A Causal Relationship"
• "Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomised controlled trial", Leibovici 2001 (Norvig comments)
• "What effect size would you expect?"
• "On the distribution of time-to-proof of mathematical conjectures", Hisano & Sornette 2012
• "Bayes' rule in Haskell, or why drug tests don't work"
• "Kalkalash! Pinpointing the Moments The Simpsons became less Cromulent"
• "Bayes Academy: Development report 1"

Psychology/biology:

• "Thank you for doing something ambiguously between smoking and not smoking"
• "CBD in Colorado: Seeking a marijuana miracle [for children with severe epilepsy]" ("The question is not whether it is ethical to run a randomized trial, but whether it is ethical to not run a randomized trial", I found myself thinking again and again in this sad and pitiable story of being fooled by randomness.)
• "Morningness-eveningness and educational outcomes: The lark has an advantage over the owl at high school", Preckel et al 2013
• "What Do You Desire?" (on the porn company Kink.com)
• "Suicide: An Economic Approach", Becker & Posner 2004 (excerpts)
• "The Graying of Academia: Will It Reduce Scientific Productivity?", Stroebe 2010 (excerpts)
• "Can Behavioral Tools Improve Online Student Outcomes? Experimental Evidence from a Massive Open Online Course", Patterson 2014 (excerpts)
• "Direct Effect of Sunshine on Suicide", Vyssoki et al 2014
• "The future of teratology research is in vitro", Bailey et al 2005
• "Spaced Repetition and Mnemonics Enable Recall of Multiple Strong Passwords", Blocki et al 2014 (excerpts)
• "Subu Must Die: How a nation of junkies went cold turkey"
• Golden Gate Bridge suicides
• "Refugees of the Modern World: The "electrosensitive" are moving to a cellphone-free town. But is their disease real?"
• "Secrets of the Magus: Ricky Jay does closeup magic that flouts reality"
• "How fast does the Grim Reaper walk? Receiver operating characteristics curve analysis in healthy men aged 70 and over"
• "The drugs do work: my life on brain enhancers"

http://www.wsj.com/articles/confirmation-bias-is-a-basic-human-frailty-1420045281

Alcor's CEO Max More on "How to sustain an organization for over a century:"

Part 1 of 2: http://youtu.be/SEZoaNiMsho

Part 2 of 2: http://youtu.be/po91pP2VT4Y

It's pony time, I'm afraid.

My Little Economy: Economics is Science and its sequelae.

"It's the NGDP Targeting Festival in Ponyville," Twilight said. "I'll have a miserable time trying to explain monetary theory to a bunch of hicks and then come home. What's the worst that could happen?"'

Really good - perhaps the best compromise between the needs of characterisation, parable, and comedy I've ever seen. Seems like it should be accessible to people who haven't seen MLP.

ETA: The author seems to have randomly deleted all hir blog posts, made the stories inaccessible, and then returned them to semi-accessibility (possibly due to pleading in comments). This seems a funny response to people liking one's work, but eh, humans. The important thing is that I've downloaded them all as ePUBs. PM me for them if the source vanishes again. (I'm a bit upset about the demise of the blog posts, mainly because they referred approvingly to Scott Alexander as a "friendship blogger", which is just the best description of him, ever)

The Best of All Possible Worlds

Assuming he survived the next five seconds, Voltaire congratulated himself on finding the one topic liable to drive Princess Celestia into a homicidal rage, a very useful lever to have against your monarch and employer.

Epic Voltaire/Celestia friendshipping set against the backdrop of a Griffin reenactment of the French Wars of Religion. Extremely long, but worth it.

Mandatory Fun

It was six against an army, and even I knew the odds favored the half-dozen.

Cheese Sandwich conquers Equestria. Short and amusing.

• Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, Lowe (review)
• Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose, Thomas & Turner (review; online guide)

Waylander book 1, a fantasy series. Readable, but meh. The world is a pretty standard fantasy setting, the sudden character development from selfish to self-sacrificing is not at all believable, the fantastic elements are run-of-the-mill. Relying on deux-ex-machina and coincidences doesn't help. Still, a way to pass the time without getting too bored.

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman: a disappointment. No idea how it won the Nebula in 2004. A mundane shape-shifter story, with no emotion, no reason for the protagonist to do what he does, and an idiotic ending.

Currently reading: The Blade Itself, Pretty amazing so far. Great characters, great dialogue, a quality world. The author does an admirable job of self-consistently and believably describing the inner dialogue of the major characters, which are all multidimensional and interesting, not just good or evil. Reminds me of the Song of Ice and Fire, only a PG version. The trilogy has not won any awards, so I am afraid that the quality will drop off.

The Peripheral; very readable, very Gibson. Felt if anything like a reworking of Pattern Recognition into a more explicitly sci-fi story; the same style, the same kind of arc, but with an explicit premise that requires a bit more suspension of disbelief. I liked it for being a vision of the post-scarcity future that at least took a few stabs at telling us what ordinary people do all day (in contrast to e.g. the Culture novels, where I never had any sense for what non-special-circumstances people did with themselves). Though part of that is probably just being set in London.

• Ra, Sam Hughes (hard SF web serial; Goodreads)
• Un Lun Dun, China Miéville (review)
• Reject Hero, Farmerbob1 (About; superhero web serial, set in a Worm-like universe; somewhat unusual conservative middle-aged perspective as he negotiates his way into the deeper magical universe, culminating in a fun twist Jurassic Park ending with a sting; good fic but not great, and probably goes on too long)
• Perseverance island: or, The Robinson Crusoe of the nineteenth century, by Douglas Frazer (review)
• CVN73 USS George Washington (manga; review)

Just watched the film version of Macross Frontier with some friends (i.e. The False Songstress and The Wings of Goodbye), and really enjoyed it. Not something I'd defend as particularly intelligent or rational, but really beautifully animated, ridiculous amounts of visual detail (particularly the concerts), and certainly doesn't have the slow pacing problem of the series. If anything it's too fast; not enough breathing room around some events, and what different parties are doing doesn't always quite connect up. But good Macross fun, singing and robot fights.

On visiting family I was reminded again how good The Legend of Korra is (haven't seen all of it yet). I love seeing a world that's changing, evolving, noticeably different from that of the previous series. And the central conflict has taken a very interesting turn, putting those who were the unambiguous heroes of the first show into a different light; it's shaping up to make a case for either noblesse oblige or nonintervention, either of which would be interesting. By creating a world where some people really are better than others, it's going where few media would dare - think X-men, but rather than having cool powers and being oppressed by society, our protagonists have cool powers and wealth and power as a result. The big villain gets some slightly unsubtle presentation, but his cause is still one we can be sympathetic to.

And at the same time as all these big issues, the show's having human drama, but hitting the balance where it doesn't take over. Where Aang was an enlightened monk at age ten, Korra comes off as a real teenager - with all the cringe-inducing things that sometimes means. I'm constantly afraid that the romance or sports sides will derail the main plot, but so far it's walked the tightrope beautifully, managing to be interesting on every level, without anything trivializing anything else.

Touhou:

• "Sixth Movement Dawn of East End" (MORRIGAN feat. 三澤秋; Symphonic Tarantella "Lily" -Illusionary Waltz: Belladonna Lily- {M3-27}) [orchestral]
• "Fifth Movement 9th moon / Pale Indigo Dream" (MORRIGAN feat. 三澤秋; Symphonic Tarantella "Lily" -Illusionary Waltz: Belladonna Lily- {M3-27}) [orchestral]
• "The Black Eyes" (Swing Holic Band; SWING HOLIC VOL.9 {R9}) [jazz]
• "NEMESIS" (Sanokan; SWING HOLIC VOL.9 {R9}) [brass]
• "ON FIRE" (Maurits"禅"Cornelis feat. Vivienne; DANCE with WOLVES {C86}) [house]
• "Fantasia Nightbug" (激戦の人 feat. 迷犬; Summer Festival {C86}) [Rock]
• "Eternal Steam Engine" (Suzumu feat.Sae Tsukiyama; Summer Festival {C86}) [vocal]
• "To the Limit" (あとぐる feat. Mai Kotoge; 悠啼 YU-NARI {C78}) [rock]

Doujin:

• "Prelude (Instrumental)" (Treow; KOLLECTION+OI {2012}) [electronica]
• "A Longing" (yuxuki waga; Evergreen {VM23}) [ambient]

Kantai Collection:

• "ThroBBing (母港BGM)" (W*M; Splash! {C85}) [instrumental]

Vocaloid:

• "Sunrise" (Miku; akayaka; KARENT presents Skylight Theater {Trans city}) [ambient]
• "トウキョウトガリ" (Miku; Kobayashi Onyx; LOG {2010}) [electronic]
• "サイハテ(ver,LOG)" (Miku; Kobayashi Onyx; LOG {2010}) [electronic]
• "Moon Walker" (Gumi & Piko; KTG; FREEZE {2011}) [electronic]
• "Welcome to the Future" (Miku; 青屋夏生; Welcome to the Future {2014}) [Jpop/trance]
• "Light Falls" (Miku; yuxuki waga {2011}) [Jpop]
• "ヒトリの誕生日" (Miku; ため; 7 Kilometer {VM28}) [Jpop]
• "ルッキング・フォー・ザ・ヘヴン" (Yukari; カミウラ, カミウラレコーズ; Lavender and White Rose {2013}) [vocal]

Best songs of 2014.

Rock:

• Shellac - Riding Bikes. The bassline is catchy and the lyrics are fun. Steve Albini is consistently awesome.
• Foxy Shazam - Don't Give In. A change from Foxy's last few albums (also awesome). The newest album is much simpler. Foxy was suffering from production creep as they got more popular, so it's a welcome change.
• Swans - A Little God In My Hands. I wasn't a fan of some of the other songs on the album, but some of them were excellent.
• Niel Cicierega - Wndrwll.
• Niel Cicierega - Modest Mouth.

Pop:

• Ariel Pink - Put Your Number In My Phone. Eclectic as ever. If anyone figures out what's going on in the video, I'd like to know.
• Sia - Chandelier. Don't need to say much, probably everyone already knows this one.
• Taylor Swift - Shake It Off. I definitely don't need to say anything about this one. Good show.
• Liars - Mess on a Mission. Catchy song, nice music video.

Post-rock:

• Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra - What We Loved Was Not Enough. Moving.
• Mogwai - Remurdered. Didn't like this album as much as the last, but a few of the songs were good.
• This Will Destroy You - Another Language. The whole album is good.

Metal:

• Behemoth - Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer. Song starts at 0:57.
• Behemoth - O Father O Satan O Sun.
• Agalloch - Birth and Death of the Pillars of Creation. The album wasn't spectacular like their last few, but several songs were great.
• Thou - Free Will. Good album.
• Sabaton - To Hell And Back. Guilty pleasure.

Music for Programming - Several downloadable mixes of electronica meant to be background music while you're doing something that requires attention.

After reading a biography of Hugh Everett, I checked out his son's music and was pleasntly surprised. I especially liked this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYvj7oeIMCc

I've been playing Endless Legend and enjoying it a lot. It's a Civilization-style/4X PC game in a fantasy/post-post-apocalypse setting, but with some nice changes that elegantly improve on Civ in some ways. Also has good art, pretty decent world-building, and 8 unusually varied factions to choose from. On the downside it still doesn't solve all the late-game issues with Civ and the tactical combat is not very compelling (but can be skipped). Like any game in this genre, be warned that it can consume a lot of time.