June 2016 Media Thread

Everything is heritable:

• "Genome-wide association study identifies 74 [162] loci associated with educational attainment", Okbay et al 2016 (excerpts)

• Human evolution:

  • "Detection of human adaptation during the past 2,000 years", Field et al 2016 (commentary)
  • "Population structure of UK Biobank and ancient Eurasians reveals adaptation at genes influencing blood pressure", Galinsky et al 2016 (Biobank - the gift that keeps on giving. The genetic revolution continues.)
  • "Quantitative Genetics in the Postmodern Family of the Donor Sibling Registry", Lee 2013 (maternal selection of sperm donors for height increases offspring height as much as predicted by heritability estimates+breeder's equation)
  • "Genetic evidence for natural selection in humans in the contemporary United States", Beauchamp 2016
  • "Gene Flow by Selective Emigration as a Possible Cause for Personality Differences Between Small Islands and Mainland Populations", Ciani & Cialuppi 2011 (excerpts)

• pleiotropy:

  • "Genetic link between family socioeconomic status and children's educational achievement estimated from genome-wide SNPs", Krapohl & Plomin 2016 (excerpts)
  • "LD Hub: a centralized database and web interface to perform LD score regression that maximizes the potential of summary level GWAS data for SNP heritability and genetic correlation analysis", Zheng et al 2016 (Web interface to scores of GWAS results, allowing combined inference over them all: LD Hub. Gets around privacy & scaling problems by using, not GCTA, but LD regression which only needs summary statistics. LD score regression is definitely the wave of the future. GCTA was king for a few years, but the inability to use summary data is killing it; in the modern context of a thousand different funding sources, 'medical ethics', & empire building driving countless genetic silos, a method must be able to work on just summary statistics if it's to have any real uptake and get n into the hundreds of thousands.)
  • "Detection and interpretation of shared genetic influences on 40 human traits", Pickrell et al 2015
  • "An Atlas of Genetic Correlations across Human Diseases and Traits", Bulik-Sullivan et al 2015
  • "Genetic contributions to self-reported tiredness", Deary et al 2016 (GCTA estimate is not too impressive, but the pleiotropy is interesting. What do you get when you sum a lot of weakly correlated variables? A giant difference.) c- "Schizophrenia and subsequent neighborhood deprivation: revisiting the social drift hypothesis using population, twin and molecular genetic data", Sariaslan et al 2016 (good use of polygenic scores for confirmation)
• "The phenotypic legacy of admixture between modern humans and Neandertals", Simonti et al 2016
• "The MC1R Gene and Youthful Looks", Liu et al 2016
• "Molecular genetic contributions to self-rated health", Harris et al 2016 (I love how you can ask people something as super-vague as 'do you think you're in good health' and you still get noticeable heritabilities and disease-related hits with a big enough dataset like Biobank.)

Politics/religion:

• "Gods and Gamma" on "'God has sent me to you': Right temporal epilepsy, left prefrontal psychosis", Arzy & Schurr 2016 (an EEG recording of a messianic religious conversion experience!)
• "At Tampa Bay farm-to-table restaurants, you're being fed fiction" (Qui vult decipi decipiatur.)

AI:

• "One-shot Learning with Memory-Augmented Neural Networks", Santoro et al 2016
• "Programming with a Differentiable Forth Interpreter", Riedel et al 2016
• "FractalNet: Ultra-Deep Neural Networks without Residuals", Larsson 2016
• "Artistic style transfer for videos", Ruder et al 2016 (video demonstration; I particularly like the inkwash-style footage at the end)
• "Deep Reinforcement Learning: Pong from Pixels"
• SSC book review: Robin Hanson's Age of Em

Statistics/meta-science:

• "What should we learn from past AI forecasts?"
• "Jeffreys' Substitution Posterior for the Median: A Nice Trick to Non-parametrically Estimate the Median"

Psychology/biology:

• "When Lightning Strikes Twice: Profoundly Gifted, Profoundly Accomplished", Makel et al 2016 (Intelligence increases success as high as it can be measured; diminishing returns!=zero returns... This replicates the SMPY results in a separate TIP sample.)
• "Dogs Test Drug [rapamycin] Aimed at Humans' Biggest Killer: Age"
• "Effect of Calorie Restriction on Mood, Quality of Life, Sleep, and Sexual Function in Healthy Nonobese Adults: The CALERIE 2 Randomized Clinical Trial", Martin et al 2016
• "Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor?", Jonas & Kording 2016 (Very amusing followup to "Can a biologist fix a radio?")
• "Continuous evolution of Bacillus thuringiensis toxins overcomes insect resistance", Badran et al 2016
• "Physical Activity, Sleep, and Nutrition Do Not Predict Cognitive Performance in Young and Middle-Aged Adults", Gijselaers et al 2016
• "A Second Year of Spaced Repetition Software in the Classroom"

Technology:

• "Beaver: A Decentralized Anonymous Marketplace with Secure Reputation", Soska et al 2016 (discussion)
• "The Mastermind" (In depth series about international criminal mastermind Paul Le Roux who ran his group online while ordering hits on employees using mercenaries and smuggling drug until he is captured and becomes a USG asset to entrap his employees and assist who knows what covert operations. Oh, and he created TrueCrypt. His story is even wilder than Ross Ulbricht's.)
• "How Harry Brearley's Stubborn Insistence Gave Us Knives That Don't Rust" (see also multiple discovery)
• "Have I Been Pwned?" (service for looking up whether email addresses are linked to past hacks, and subscribing to alerts)

Economics:

• "Going for the Gold: The Economics of the Olympics", Baade & Matheson 2016 (The case against the Olympics. Too late for Brazil, though, but others can learn from that debacle.)
• "Results of an international drug testing service for cryptomarket users", Caudevilla et al 2016 (excerpts)
• "Railway Paradise: How a Fine-Dining Empire Made the Southwest Palatable to Outsiders" (statistical discrimination vs taste discrimination: profiting from sexism)

Fiction:

• "Spring and Fall", by Gerard Manley Hopkins

• Flow in the workplace#Flow_in_the_workplace))
• Cognitive bias mitigation to date
• Policy maker
• Debiasing
• Denial checklist
• Collaborative Truth-Seeking

I've been reading a lot about the UK's referendum about whether to stay in the European Union. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was undecided for months, but finally decided to vote in favour of Brexit.

All of his articles about the referendum have been good. Here is the one where he reveals his decision.

Brexit vote is about the supremacy of Parliament and nothing else: Why I am voting to leave the EU http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/12/brexit-vote-is-about-the-supremacy-of-parliament-and-nothing-els/

On Twitter, he is @AmbroseEP https://twitter.com/AmbroseEP/

Here are links some of his earlier articles.

Crippled EU is no longer the 'anarcho-imperial monster' we once feared http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12116429/Crippled-EU-is-no-longer-the-anarcho-imperial-monster-we-once-feared.html?sf20270117=1

Wise Men warn on dangerous delusions of Brexit http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10887991/Wise-Men-warn-on-dangerous-delusions-of-Brexit.html

Brexit threat looms over Britain's election and Europe's fate http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11587901/Brexit-threat-looms-over-Britains-election-and-Europes-fate.html

Britain's Brexit tantrum grates in a brittle world but the die is cast http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12098176/Britains-Brexit-tantrum-grates-in-a-brittle-world-but-the-die-is-cast.html

(Have not read it. Possibly of interest to some people here). An investigation of teachers' beliefs of students' algebra development. M. J. Nathan, K. R. Koedinger. Cognition and instruction, v. 18, n. 2 (2000), pp. 209-237.

• Significant Digits (Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: sequel intended to conclude the story; more action-focused with a literary bent, and much less didactic/"author tract" and Harry-focused than MoR. Highly recommended for anyone who liked MoR.)

Masters of Doom is an entertaining, well-written, and insightful story about John Carmack, John Romero, and the other founds of id Software, the makers of Doom and Quake.

The relationship between Carmack and Romero is a good case study of the perils and potentials of founder personality dynamics. Their company was very successful while the two remained together, and failed quickly after their relationship fell apart. The cause of the breakup seems to be 1) Romero lost discipline and focus after their initial big success and 2) Carmack didn't have sufficient appreciation for Romero's contributions, which were in the nebulous realms of design and marketing. One crucial component of their collaboration was that Romero, to a greater degree than anyone else including Carmack himself, was enormously enthusiastic and optimistic about the world-changing potential of Carmack's engineering work. There are a lot of parallels to the Jobs/Wozniak story about Apple's founding.

Oxygen: A Four Billion Year History.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10089.html http://www.amazon.com/Oxygen-Billion-History-Science-Essentials/dp/0691168369/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Very detailed walk through the apparent history of photosynthesis (non-oxygen-producing and oxygen-producing) over the history of Earth with a strong emphasis on the very large unknowns about its timing, the geochemical and biological consequences thereof, and the significance of oxygen-producing photosynthesis in particular (not just allowing multicellular creatures with lots of energy but also long before there was even any oxygen in the air allowing for much higher levels of biomass due to removing chemical limiting factors on biomass production by nonoxygenic photosynthesis).

The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

http://www.amazon.com/Copernicus-Complex-Caleb-Scharf/dp/0374129215/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464890000&sr=1-1&keywords=the+copernicus+complex

Still reading it. For once a reasoned analysis of living and intelligent systems in the universe, given what we know and most importantly what we don't know.

Lucien Laubier, Des oasis au fond does mers, 1986. In Russian translation - Люсьен Лобье, Оазисьі на дне океана, 1990. Great short book about ecosystems forming on the ocean floor due to chemotrophic bacteria. Probably quite dated by now, but I would still recommend it for illustrations, clarity and frequent mentions of alternative hypotheses, whether they were proved, disproved, or something else. Would be of particular interest for fans of Peter Watts's underwater sci-fi.

(Misposted it the first time, sorry)

• Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Chernow (review)

In Spite Of The Gods, By Edward Luce

https://www.amazon.com/Spite-Gods-Rise-Modern-India/dp/1400079772?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

This is a really good read. The author goes into what's up with modern India. Lots of interviews, its basically a description of all of the things he's seen in his reporting on India. In particular, he focuses on the damage that is done by the myth of India as this uniquely spiritual land. For me, as a dude from America, where we use a two party system, the chapters on how politics works in the largest democracy in the world (and how it interacts with the caste system) was really interesting.

The horror of the heights by Arthur Conan Doyle (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Horror_of_the_Heights). A story with predators living 40k feet in the air. I am going to recommend it to a kid who is wants to specialize in chemistry and to strengthen his English reading skills. It's such an...adorable example of early horror:)

• Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, by Gerard Manley Hopkins (review)
• "CORDYCEPS: Too clever for their own good" (SF/horror humor novella on overthinking things; early chapters are best in exploring acausal & amnesiac reasoning, somewhat like Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria, but goes on perhaps a bit too long and explains too much)

• Short Peace (anthology; mostly good, with the fire story notable for its animation, and the final short film an engaging exploration of near-future warfare using networked soldier squads assisted by drones and robotic suits)
• Death Parade (expansion of Death Billiards, as an episodic series; stories remain a bit heavily focused on suicide and murder, but while the dark background story arc ultimately ends in a whimper, the main story arc ends in a very emotionally satisfying way)

• Father Goose (peculiar Cary Grant WWII comedy-drama; it's unusual to see Grant cast as a misanthropic drunkard and the movie can't quite decide whether to be deadly serious or comedic, but most of the comedic beats are highly predictable)

Overwatch: Blizzard (Warcraft, Diablo) does an FPS. Specifically, it's a clone of Team Fortress, multiplayer only, where you participate in a 6 vs 6 team match around a more a less standard set of objectives (no deathmatch, though). There are a lot of classes with unique abilities and you can freely switch classes throughout the game. All classes and abilities are available from the start, the only unlockable things are cosmetics (skins, sprays, etc.)

The game is moderately fast and relies on tactical positioning and finding counters to the opponents' team (that's why you change classes in the middle of the game). Teamwork is quite important, but if you're playing in a pug, well, that works in the usual way :-/

Recommended if you play FPSes.

ETA: Recommendation confirmed by Elon Musk :-D

I've only played about 12 hours, but the Total War: Warhammer crossover is very enjoyable so far. It's the first Total War game I've played since Medieval 1, but it still feels familiar enough while introducing interesting new elements and atmosphere via the Warhammer fantasy setting. On the downside, some of the UI elements are a bit fiddly or obscure, and there are a lot of features to take in when you're first getting started.

For those unfamiliar:

Warhammer = Pretty standard late-medieval fantasy setting with humans, dwarfs, elves (not in this first release), undead, etc, but with more grimdark/heavy metal, and a touch of steampunk.

Total War = Strategy games where you alternate between building and moving armies around on a turn-based strategic map, and playing real-time tactical battles that are unusually realistic and slow-paced compared to the typical hyperactive RTS.

Touhou:

• "無間の鐘 ～ Infinite Nightmare" (xi-on feat.oz_hiro; Mapleaves {C89}) [jazz]
• "Zen～然～ -hybrid remix-" (NSY feat. 茶太; LessExtra {C89}) [electronic]
• "Monolog -Remix-" (Pastry; 'Plusieurs Fleur' {K8}) [electronic/classical]
• "金木犀" (Ringing Volcano; Shinmyômaru's Little Adventures {C89}) [folk]
• "露時雨" (Ringing Volcano; Shinmyômaru's Little Adventures {C89}) [folk]
• "Like the geese" (Escarmew; Secret Sealing Moratorium {K2012}) [Celtic]
• "This apple is bad" (thj.quartet; Jazz Funk Live! {C89}) [jazz]

• "Tea Funk" (thj.quartet; Jazz Funk Live! {C89}) [jazz]

• "俯瞰する蒼然暮色" (とらっしゅ; 秘封サウンドスケープ集III Phantasma Sound Archive No.53 {TK10}) [orchestral rock]

• "還流大洋の原点へ" (とらっしゅ; 秘封サウンドスケープ集III Phantasma Sound Archive No.53 {TK10}) [orchestral rock]
• "飛来する蓬莱物質" (とらっしゅ; 秘封サウンドスケープ集III Phantasma Sound Archive No.53 {TK10}) [orchestral rock]
• "アンラクト・フィリング" (とらっしゅ; 秘封サウンドスケープ集III Phantasma Sound Archive No.53 {TK10}) [orchestral rock]
• "Your World" (はちみつれもんxAftergrow; TOUHOU SIX STRING 02.封 {C89}) [instrumental rock]
• "Month of Flowers" (あいざわ feat. ゆーな; TOUHOU SIX STRING 02.封 {C89}) [Jpop/ballad]

Vocaloid:

• "Autumn Beat" (Miku; adidkh; PRE:Days EP {2016}) [electronic]

Doujin:

• "Once Upon A Love" (P*Light; Colorful Palette {C89}) [hardcore]

Recently listened to Joe's Rogan's Podcast with Sam Harris as guest. He talks a little about his views on AI safety, nothing controversial, he takes it seriously.

One particular thing that stood out was that he didn't really seem to know about tDCS at all, which really surprised me as I would think this is totally up his alley. https://xkcd.com/1053/

Today's SMBC will drag a smile out of many people here if thy haven't read it already.

Note that a new "Games" subthread has been added.

Amazon now has a charitable contribution shopping feature, and you can donate to MIRI

Yes, I understand that I must always start at smile.amazon.com to support Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Why is there a separate URL? The AmazonSmile program offers customers a new benefit, making a donation to your favorite charity. We're able to provide this benefit to you when you choose to start your shopping at smile.amazon.com in part because we expect AmazonSmile to grow primarily through word of mouth instead of paid advertising—and this enables us to fund donations to our customers’ favorite organizations.