N/A
2014-01-01–2019-03-29
finished
certainty: log
importance: 0
This is the inaugural December 2013 issue of the Gwern.net mailing list; you probably signed up through a link there. If you do not want to receive further monthly emails, there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom.
The purpose of this mailing list is to be a more meaningful and summarized version of the RSS feed (which lists every patch, no matter how small) overlapping with my Changelog page, but in a push/
While I was at it, I thought I would include some other material like the links I share on Google+. Since this is the first time, I don’t know if people are interested in this or if I omitted anything that people expected; feel free to email me with suggestions or feedback (I believe the reply-to should be set to my address, gwern@gwern.net
, but I am not sure). Without further ado:
Writings
Darknet markets:
- compiled an updated table of all known darknet markets with lifetimes
- wrote up an essay on 3 attempts to blackmail/
extort/ scam
Statistical:
- analyzed a self-experiment about low level laser therapy improving reaction time
- power simulation of the penalty from omitting key covariates in A/
B testing - critique of Chinese moxibustion study
Radiance:
- transcribed novella “Radiance”
- transcribed & annotated the autobiographical essay “Old Legends” by Gregory Benford on his physics career, SF & science, the “Star Wars” program, Edward Teller, etc
- tracked down and scanned a copy of “The Astounding Investigation: The Manhattan Project’s Confrontation with Science Fiction” (Berger 1984, Analog )
Personal:
Site:
- signed up for MailChimp & started a monthly mailing list for Gwern.net updates
- my Gratipay is up to $7.35 a week. I thank all donators.
Media
Links
Technology:
- “Welcome to the Jungle” (CPU design and Moore’s law)
- Debian bug report #217243: “
wget
: Possibility to really reject files on recursive downloads” (serious gotcha everyone needs to know about if they are trying to spider withwget
a site requiring cookies/login, like, for example, a DNM forum) - “Computational Complexity of Air Travel Planning”
- “RSA Key Extraction via Low-Bandwidth Acoustic Cryptanalysis”
- “You advocate a ________ approach to calendar reform” (I always sigh when I have to deal with any date-time programming.)
- “Does Copyright Affect Creative Reuse? Evidence from the Digitization of Baseball Digest”, Nagaraj 2017
- Baal (Impressive. A ring of child pornographers communicating securely via PGP &
alt.anonymous
maildrops, rotating keys regularly, where the bust only happened because a member was busted for non-ring-related problems and the only busted members were violating the Hushmail lesson by using a third-party service.) - “How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation?”
Science/
- “The Intelligent Plant: Scientists debate a new way of understanding flora” (also worth reading: “If a Lion Could Talk: Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of Consciousness”)
- “Embryo Selection for Cognitive Enhancement: Curiosity or Game-changer?”, Shulman & Bostrom 2013
- “Were James Bond’s drinks shaken because of alcohol induced tremor?”, Johnson et al 2013
- “So depression is an inflammatory disease, but where does the inflammation come from?”, Berk et al 2013
- “Change in Against Malaria Foundation recommendation status (room-for-more-funding-related)”
- Replication backlash
- “When Mice Mislead” (“Of Mice (Studies) and Men”)
- “The dangers of zero and one” (Fun example from genetics research of how even extremely weak priors are useful)
- “Do Certain Countries Produce Only Positive Results? A Systematic Review of Controlled Trials”, Vickers et al 1998
- “China’s academic scandal: call toll-free hotlines to get your name published”
Writing:
- “Roomlore is the lore anent heavenly bodies such as stars, wanderers, moons, star clouds, star clusters, and starswirls, their bodily workings, and their gathering…” (written in Anglish)
- “Deadline” (science fiction story)
- Excerpt from The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien (Atomic theory proves that bicycles are plotting against us.)
- “Lady Yodo-Dono” (poem)
Politics:
- ‘Review of “The Rise of China vs. The Logic of Strategy” by Edward Luttwak’
- “David Walsh’s wisdom beats the odds”
- “Snowden: Hero”
- “Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013” (Bill Gates reviews global health & poverty progress)
General:
- “Like I Was Jesus: How to bring a nine-year-old to Christ”
- “We Are All MsScribe” (sockpuppeting, fandom wars)
- Preference falsification
- “An opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance”, Kurzban et al 2013 (willpower; discussion)
- “Making a kangling for chöd” (An unexpectedly practical discussion by David Chapman of femur-flutes.)
- “100 Years Later, the Crossword Is Still the King of Puzzles”
Philosophy:
- “Discussions for information” (These are some of the reasons I’ve soured on discussion as a way of exchanging information and evaluating new stuff.)
- “Scott Aaronson interview on Philosophical Progress”
Film/TV
- Aku no Hana: dropped after a few episodes, couldn’t stand the rotoscoping
- A Christmas Story/
National Lampoon: Christmas Vacation: watched with family. The former was pretty good. The latter, though, had some good jokes but was generally mediocre and strained, and a product of its time.
Books
Nonfiction
I reread Discovery of France because I liked it so much the first time (review).
Fiction
Descending order of enjoyment:
- I finished Umineko back in September, finished writing a review
- New Legends (SF anthology; review)
Music
Giants (recommended if you like Explosions in the Sky or El Ten Eleven; I particularly liked “While the Ages Steal”):
- “A Near-life Experience” (Demo) [post-rock]
- “The Sleep of a Laboring Man” (Demo)
- “Berlin Rooftop” (Demo)
- “Under The New Sun” (They, The Undeserving)
- “Steps In Static Progression” (They, The Undeserving)
- “The Palace Stands In Its Proper Place” (They, The Undeserving)
- “Withered Life- Communal Rhythm” (They, The Undeserving)
- “While The Ages Steal” (Old Stories)
- “At Last, Ashore” (Old Stories)
- “O’ Tide” (Old Stories)
Misc:
- Raiders of the Lost Ark, “End Credits” (John Williams) [orchestral]
- “I Saw Three Ships”, (King’s College Cambridge) [Christmas carol]
Touhou:
- “流体、ライフサイクル instrumental (Fluid, Life Cycle)” (o ben to box; miskyworks {C82}) [instrumental]
- “パンザマスト (instrumental)” (o ben to box; miskyworks {C82}) [instrumental]
Vocaloid:
- “echoes_teha” (声になる; HKGrecords) [trance/
vocal] - “vanishing_しじみ” (声になる; HKGrecords) [electronic/
vocal] - “小規模な世界の私_ぴすた” (声になる; HKGrecords) [Jpop]