May 2014 Media Thread

Politics/religion:

• "Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse", Bennett 2013 (A fascinating read. I didn't know many of those details about how the East German collapse was able to go so smoothly, or that Kim Jong-Il had intimidated his subordinates during the '90s famines with footage of impoverished humiliated East German elites.)
• "Where Was China?: Why the Twentieth-Century Was Not a Chinese Century"
• "The Market for Martyrs", Iannaccone 2003 (excerpts)
• "The Paradox of Modern Individualism"
• "Real life conspiracies"
• "United States cryptologic security failures in WWII"
• "Happy birthday, Satoshi Nakamoto" (Satoshi Nakamoto left a cool Easter egg in his profile: his birthdate (5 April 1975) is a double reference to the banning & relegalization of gold in the USA.)
• Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany
• "F.B.I. Informant Is Tied to Cyber Attacks Abroad"
• "Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite" (see particularly the "Unrepresentative Democracy" section)
• "Who Is Ali Khamenei? The Worldview of Iran’s Supreme Leader"

Statistics:

• "You've just been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, how long will you survive?" (Survival analysis in R)
• "Randomized Controlled Trials Commissioned by the Institute of Education Sciences Since 2002: How Many Found Positive Versus Weak or No Effects?", Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy 2013 (excerpts)
• "Preclinical research: Make mouse studies work"
• "Neural Networks, Manifolds, and Topology" (Very nice visualizations. Now I understand the appeal of topological approaches to machine learning.)
• "Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death", Gross et al 2014 (An intriguing application of survival analysis)
• "The [Parapsychology] Control Group Is Out Of Control"
• Data scientist interview anthology (Nice selection of domains - computer vision for makeup selection? It's a thing.)

Literature

• Calvin & Muad'Dib
• "The Sleepwalkers"
• "The Gloria Incident"
• "Equoid" (Charles Stross; Lovecraft meets My Little Pony)
• "The Study of Anglophysics"

• Seamus Heaney:

  • "A Dog Was Crying Tonight In Wicklow Also"
  • "When all the others were away at Mass"

Medicine/biology:

• "Interventions Tend To Combine Synergistically To Extend Life Span A Little, But The Typical Improvement Is Statistically Insignificant", Kingsley 2013
• "Life Extension Supplements: A Reality Check; In a paper published late last year, a cautious and expert biochemist reports that none of the most popular “life extension supplement” mixes actually extend life span in mice"
• "New Drug Development: Estimating entry from human clinical trials", Adams & Brantner 2003 (excerpts)
• "Breeding a better crop seed, trait by trait" (molecular breeding : plants :: embryo selection : humans?)
• "The Bell Curve: What happens when patients find out how good their doctors really are?" (Cystic fibrosis as paradigm for general differences in practical effectiveness between hospitals & practitioners. Also a reminder why you need things like multi-level models for analysis: there is hierarchical structure to outcomes.)
• "DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types" (FAQ), Horvath 2013; mainstream overview of results: "Biomarkers and Ageing: The clock-watcher; Biomathematician Steve Horvath has discovered a strikingly accurate way to measure human Ageing through epigenetic signatures" (The truly exciting part here is the possibility that his clock will not just be real, but it'll be caused by aging and not just correlated through the myriads of possible pathways. If you get an actual biomarker for aging, it'll revolutionize anti-aging studies by letting you test interventions in a decade with a small fraction of the humans you'd need with mortality-based methods. Right now, it takes decades and sample sizes of thousands or tens of thousands of people to show a reduction in all-cause mortality - a highly-precise anti-aging marker would change all that.)

Psychology:

• "Do Elephants Have Souls?" ("Another way of catching elephants, employed less now than it used to be, is to save the babies from a cull and market them. Because of the psychological problems caused by having their entire families slaughtered around them, culling experts now recommend just killing the babies with everybody else.")
• "The Market for Less" (akrasia)
• "Genetic enhancement of cognition in a kindred with cone–rod dystrophy due to RIMS1 mutation", Sisodiya et al 2007
• "Salt Iodization and the Enfranchisement of the American Worker", Adhvaryu et al 2013
• "Neurological and psychological applications of transcranial lasers and LEDs", Rojas & Gonzalez-Lima 2013
• "The reality show: Schizophrenics used to see demons and spirits. Now they talk about actors and hidden cameras – and make a lot of sense"
• "Psychedelics and Mental Health: A Population Study", Krebs & Johansen 2013

Science/technology

• "The Challenge of Relativistic Spaceflight"
• "Information, Beliefs, and Trading"
• "The Steely, Headless King of Texas Hold 'Em" (Weren't we being told 5 or 10 years ago that - sure, maybe chess is trivial for computers, but poker would be way harder?)
• "How to build a guerrilla communications network"
• "Tables of Soyga: the first cellular automaton?"
• "The Designers Behind Airline Business Class Seats"

Philosophy:

• "The Great Penguin Sweater Fiasco" (For when you've debated 'effective altruism' to such an extent that you've forgotten what the status quo looks like.)
• "The Unilateralist's Curse: The Case for a Principle of Conformity" (see also winner's curse & bid shading)

Business:

• "Yet another modest proposal: The Roentgen Monetary Standard"
• "How Japan Copied American Culture and Made it Better"
• "The Dead Zoo Gang" (Irish organized crime focusing on rhino horn theft for the Chinese market.)
• "What happened to Jai Alai?: Echoes of a dying game"
• "How Burrowing Owls Lead To Vomiting Anarchists (Or SF’s Housing Crisis Explained)"
• "Eliezer Yudkowsky asks about automation & unemployment"
• "The Value of a CEO": estimating the damage done by Steve Ballmer to Microsoft
• "No Evolutions for Corporations or Nanodevices" (see also "Protein stability imposes limits on organism complexity and speed of molecular evolution", Zeldovich et al 2007; "Mutation Induced Extinction in Finite Populations: Lethal Mutagenesis and Lethal Isolation", Wylie & Shakhnovich 2012)

Misc:

• "...At the time the Dewey Decimal was introduced, most libraries in the US used fixed positioning: each book was assigned a permanent shelf position based on height and date of acquisition..."

"Unique online experiments find success really does breed success"

In the first experiment, the researchers donated funding to 100 of 200 new, unfunded projects on the crowd-funding website kickstarter.com and monitored the level of later funding. 39% of projects without the initial experimental donation attracted future donations, compared with 70% of those given the experimental donation – almost two times more.

(the other three experiments are comparable).

However, when the research team carried out a second study to investigate whether success increases in proportion to the help given, they found that, for example, giving twice as much funding does not provide twice as much success.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0414/280414-success-breeds-success

Comic about The Adventures of Fallacy Man.

I also love #27, #26, #23, and #3 (funny ones) and #1, #5, and #24 (serious ones).

I recently discovered the British Museum's online collection database, which looks like an amazing resource for anyone interested in archaeology or with a need to reference artifacts from obscure times and places. Though I expect that's a fairly small set.

ETA: The Smithsonian's got one too, although it doesn't look as well organized.

Child of Light is a side-scrolling jRPG for PC and all non-portable consoles, made by Ubisoft Montreal. I haven't finished it yet, but so far the story and characters are great, and the hand-drawn graphics are so beautiful I want to cry.

An old Ikea commercial gives an amusing example of the difference between fuzzies and utilons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I07xDdFMdgw

Plead The Fifth

I'm not a fan of Evangelion or Doctor Who, but I've been enjoying Shinji and the Doctor

• Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (brief review)

"The Martian" Hard scifi

Look Who's Back; I have a soft spot for Hitler comedy (I feel it's good to mock rather than be solemn and respectful) and found that side of it very amusing, but it also works as a Nathan Barley-style sendup of media/hipster culture. For a translation it read remarkably smoothly, though I suppose German-English is a smaller linguistic distance than most.

I'm reading World without End, by Ken Follett. It's the sequel to his superb The Pillars of the Earth, which is a marvel, but you don't need to have read the first to savor the second.

What surprised me about World without End is the amount of characters who openly defy the mindless obedience to dogma that you'd expect in a typical Medieval town. I've only read until the 100-ish page, and there's already a clever plotting mother, an aspiring doctor, a carpenter apprentice, all willing to question conventional wisdom and try new ways to do things. It's been refreshing so far.

Fiction:

• Household's Rogue Male
• Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch
• Cesares's The Invention of Morel

I just finished Shin Sekai Yori (aka From the New World), a serious science fiction anime series of 25 episodes (link is to a free stream). You could almost think of it as a (more) rationalist Warhammer 40,000, except that the atmosphere and aesthetic is a lot less heavy metal and more similar to, say, Speaker for the Dead. It's a little over-reliant on choppy flashbacks but generally well executed with likable characters and very strong world-building.

Person of Interest is a pretty good show. It starts as an above-average procedural about an AI that predicts premeditated murders and the people (both civilians and police officers) who try to stop them. Seasons two and three move away from the procedural aspect and start to deal more with conspiracies that try to control super-intelligent AIs, and how the AIs begin influencing and controlling humans to achieve their programmed objectives. Very good acting and a great visual aesthetic.

Anime:

Rewatched Ga-Rei Zero with friends and it holds up; be careful to avoid episode 1 spoilers. Fun supernatural fantasy/horror action, with character relationships that develop and make sense so that one is drawn into caring about them.

Knights of Sidonia is only four episodes in (so may yet turn bad) but it's the most interesting sci-fi I've seen since Shin Sekai Yori; spaceships that feel realistic, and hints of the social/political consequences of life on a generation ship. Animation is CG with these over-smooth faces which may be a deal-breaker for some; together with the used future aesthetic the early parts reminded me a lot of early Ergo Proxy.

I watched Shiki recently. I have no idea what I was doing to miss it back when it was airing in 2010, but I'm glad I eventually got to it. The quality of writing is unusually good for an anime, and I think it touches on a bunch of lw-relevant themes which is why I'm mentioning it here. I would hate to spoil anything for anyone so I won't go into any details, but I definitely recommend a watch.

Some things you might be glad to be forewarned of before starting: a common complaint appears to be that this show has a slow start, so being aware of this might help. I would say that this is probably not a show you can make accurate judgements about based on only having seen a few early episodes. Also, the character design is a bit wacky. I like it and it helps to distinguish each individual in what is a large cast of characters, but regardless some may find it offputting. Finally, there are 2 bonus episodes (the 'specials') that originally came with the BD/DVD releases that you wouldn't want to miss if you really liked the show proper.

p.s. I watched the coalgirls release (Japanese audio, 1080p). It was acceptable, if a bit bloated in terms of filesize.

Animation:

• Madoka: Rebellion (a must-watch for anyone who enjoyed the TV series; I am not certain in general what to make of it, and need to rewatch it. If you're going to watch it at all, I recommend avoiding spoilers.)
• Ayakashi (3-part anthology; skip the truly wretched first part, watch the second if you have time for a mildly-interesting metafictional kabuki play, and enjoy the third part which started Mononoke)
• Frozen (unobjectionable for a Disney movie although not without flaws - slangy dialogue will date it fast, plot made characters unnecessarily evil, snowman was the most hateful character since Jar Jar Binks)

I've been enjoying "Suits." The characters are competent and ruthless. No idea how accurate it is for US law.

edit Its Slytherin competence porn

Long time no see LW. Glad to see this is still going.

Anyway, after finding the first half of the premier season mediocre and giving up on it, I recently tried to get back into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and am happy to say that the second half was some of the best television I've seen since, well, Joss Whedon's last television show.

I just wattched Tim's Vermeer. It was very good, fun Documentary.

I've been enjoying Un-Go. It's a detective drama with political plots in a near-future Japan after an unspecified war. Also, the protagonist has a shapeshifting magical girl sidekick whom everyone else seems to just take in stride without further comment.

Florence and the Machine - Drumming Song

"Ghost" by Jeremy Messersmith

This song cheers me up tremendously, and I'd appreciate recommendations for other music that seems similar.

Kancolle:

• "Welcome to my harbor" (mag; Kantai Collection Arrange Compilation 2 {2013}) [instrumental]
• "Old navy never die." (Morrigan feat. リリィ; Old navy never die. {C85; Kancolle}) [choral]

Touhou:

• "farce" (spctrm; historie {C78}) [instrumental]
• "fable" (spctrm; historie {C78}) [instrumental]
• "Dreaming Tonight" feat. Renko (ORANGE★JAM; Starlight {C85}) [trance/Jpop]

Doujin:

• "Landscape" (ryuryu; Homeland {VM14}) [instrumental]
• "Morning Glory" (Spr+out; Seasons {2013}) [pianostep]
• "Every cat dances to the premium music" (OSTER project; ねこのかんづめ☆プレミアム 2009) [jazz]
• "青色ブロウティアー" (カミヤシロ; Blue-pencil 2013) [instrumental]

Vocaloid:

• "Inverse Relation" (Miku; Clean Tears; Reverberations {C84}) [trance]
• "Count Down" (Gumi+Gakupo; M@SATOSHI; Wakabairo D-i-s-k {VM17}) [Jpop]
• "Mitasare" (Luka; もふ＠, Tinkle-POP, 6人の君と僕の歌 {VM20}) [classical]
• "Counterclockwise" (Miku; ryuryu; Homeland {VM14}) [trance]
• "STEP" (Lily; maretu? Robot☆Anime VOCALOID War {March 2014}) [Jpop]
• "Aqua" (Meiko+Miku; shu-t; AIMS {2010}) [trance]

Quality control vs. openness in advocacy movements

23:minutes. Possibly a good test of mental flexibility for left-wingers.

I think this may have come up before but couldn't see it in the archives: I'd like to see a separation of animation from the general Television and Movies thread.

• I think there's a divide between people who watch animation and people who don't (whereas most people who watch tv watch movies and vice versa). I've met several people who I would place in the LW cluster but who "don't watch anime", and I don't generally watch non-anime tv/movies.
• People are opening their comments by stating that something is animated, or dividing lists of recommendations between animated and non-animated, which suggests we consider this information important. Doing it in individual posts is less efficient than dividing by thread.
• Categorizing animation as a distinct medium aligns better with the rest of the web (e.g. TV Tropes). For newcomers it may not be obvious that the tv/movies thread is the appropriate place for animation - ISTR a few months ago a newcomer creating an "anime thread" for this reason.