N/A
2014-08-31–2021-01-04
finished
certainty: log
importance: 0
This is the September 2014c edition of the Gwern.net newsletter; previous was August.
This is a summary of the revision-history RSS feed, overlapping with Changelog & including material from /
Writings
QS:
- Noopept experiment (no benefits)
- Treadmill spaced repetition experiment: expanded analysis to cover treadmill’s impact on successive reviews with SEM (no additional damage to recall beyond that implied by the original damage)
Statistics:
- anthology on how “everything is correlated”
- probability/
gerontology problem: can one visit 566 centenarians before any die? No.
Technology:
-
My window tracker/
time-logger of choice is arbtt which records X window info for later classification and analysis; but one of the challenges is you don’t know how to set up arbtt or improve your environment or write classifications rules. So I wrote a tutorial. Time-lock crypto: wrote a Bash implementation of serial hashing time-lock crypto, link to all known implementations of hash time-lock crypto
Media
Links
Genetics:
Everything Is Heritable:
- “Uncovering the Hidden Risk Architecture of the Schizophrenias: Confirmation in Three Independent Genome-Wide Association Studies”, Arnedo et al 2014 (press release)
- “Common genetic variants associated with cognitive performance identified using the proxy-phenotype method”, Rietveld et al 2014; supplementary information (Rietveld et al 2013 hits replicate some more; discussions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
- “Substantial SNP-based heritability estimates for working memory performance”, Vogler et al 2014
Politics/
- “World population stabilization unlikely this century”, Gerland et al 2014
- “Growing Up Sexually in Europe”
- “School Desegregation and Black Achievement: an integrative review”, Wortman & Bryant 1985 (publication bias: “The 31 studies found to be acceptable [by our statistical criteria for our meta-analysis] contained only two published articles.”!)
- “Going, Going, Gone…” (The dilemma of polio research—amelioration vs cure—as a paradigm for aging.)
- Buddhist warrior monks
Statistics/
- “ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge”, “What I learned from competing against a Convolutional Network on ImageNet” (neural networks near parity with trained humans on ImageNet: “Based on the sample of images I worked on, the GoogLeNet classification error turned out to be 6.8% (the error on the full test set of 100,000 images is 6.7%). My own error in the end turned out to be 5.1%, approximately 1.7% better.”)
- “How to critique claims of a ‘blood test for depression’”
- “World values lost in translation”
- “At what sample size do correlations stabilize?”, Schönbrodt & Perugini 2013
- “Yes We Canities! A quantitative analysis of the graying of Barack Obama’s hair”
- invoking spirits to control coin flips (p < 0.05): Bakan 1966 (This is an even better burn than it looks because Bakan is also illustrating optional stopping—he would have broken off the flipping if he hadn’t kept getting heads—which is routine among psychologists and makes his p-value incorrect; naturally, no one computes their p-value correctly to account for optional stopping…)
Psychology:
- “Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America’s Prisons. We throw thousands of men in the hole for the books they read, the company they keep, the beliefs they hold. Here’s why.”
- “MH’s book review of Deafness, Deprivation, and IQ (Braden 1994)”, “The study of deaf people since Braden (1994)”
- “Induction of self awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity”, Voss et al 2014 (causing lucid dreaming through tACS)
- “Towards Reliable Storage of 56-bit Secrets in Human Memory”, Bonneau & Schechter 2014 (tricking website users into memorizing secure passwords via spaced repetition)
- “Iodine and the Renaissance: Will history turn full cycle?”
Technology:
- SMBC: the falling problem
- The Codeless Code: Case 96: “Stateless” (can you spot all 3 FP concepts used?)
Economics:
- “Dire Warnings by Big Tobacco on E-Smoking” (example of Bootleggers and baptists)
- A Second Look at a wooden bench (Joy in the merely real.)
- “How much damage can a 6 year-old possibly do? An analysis of the cost of raising a child like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes”
Philosophy:
- “The Importance of Wild-Animal Suffering”
- “On the Pedagogical Motive for Esoteric Writing [in Western Philosophy]”, Melzer 2007; “Appendix: a chronological compilation of testimonial evidence for Esotericism”
Misc:
- survival of the flattest: “Viroids: Survivors from the RNA World?”, Flores et al 2014
- Gong farmer
- “The World’s Heaviest People” (“…A contemporary poet has him declare that he aspired to end his days ‘on my back, lying on my many rolls of fat, scarcely uttering a word, taking labored breaths, and eating my fill’, for of all the ways a man might die, an excess of luxury was the only truly happy death.”)
- “How (not) to communicate new scientific information: a memoir of the famous Brindley lecture”, Klotz 2005
Books
Nonfiction:
- Nicholas Wade’s Troublesome Inheritance (review)
Fiction:
Film/TV
Anime:
- Steamboy (decent Victorian steampunk with a wholesome Ghibli sort of vibe)
- Arakawa under the Bridge x Bridge (review)
- Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space (review)
Music
Touhou:
- “Poison Body” (TAM; Namida no Touhou Komoriuta {R10}) [classical]
- “Love-Colored Master Spark” (TAM; Namida no Touhou Komoriuta {R10}) [classical]
- “Love-Colored.” (Crazy Berry feat Ichigo; OSUSHI PROJECT 1 {C86}) [jazz/
vocal] - “Far East Fruits” (K2 SOUND; 詩夏 Si-ka {C84}) [instrumental]
- “櫻の樹の下には (Septette?)” (sisimai-3go; Tomodachi {R10}) [instrumental]
- “自制的な喜怒哀楽 (Cosmic Mind)” (sisimai-3go; Tomodachi {R10}) [instrumental]
- “櫻の樹の下には (Border of Life)” (sisimai-3go; Tomodachi {R10}) [instrumental]
- “Transparent” (Aizawa; Silver Scenery {C86}) [instrumental rock]
- “Phantom Ensemble” (CROW_S CLAW; THE FLAMES OF THE INFERNO {R10}) [instrumental rock]
- “竹取飛翔 ～ Lunatic Princess (2nd Spell -Fullmoon-より)” (xi-on; 東方志奏 Ex2 Spell -Regeneration- {R10}) [instrumental rock]
- “東方妖々夢 ～ Ancient Temple (5th Spell -Changing Times-より)” (xi-on; 東方志奏 Ex2 Spell -Regeneration- {R10}) [metal]
- “幻想の永遠祭—空の帰り道 ～ Sky Dream” (埼玉最終兵器 & Aether; Silent Stratosphere {R10}) [metal]
- “Dressed-Up Shadow” (Tim Vegas feat. 陽花; DANCE with WOLVES {C86}) [dance]
- “Twinkle” (ena feat. peЯoco; デジウィ DREAM {C86}) [Jpop]
Kantai Collection:
- “Sailing to the Horizon” (Yuri Yuzriha; 艦これパラドクス {C85}) [house]
- “Shigure 2nd Remodel Celebration!” (R E S T I A feat. Yumi Tanibe {2013-10-24}) [trance]
Doujin:
- “誰かの幸せ” (櫻井アンナ; 不思議の国の音哲樂 夢語り篇 {C86}) [vocal]
Vocaloid:
- “Hard-Disk Hide and Seek” (Avanna; nostraightanswer (Kenji-B); Hard—Disk Hide and Seek) [electronic]
Link Bibliography
Bibliography of page links in reading order (with annotations when available):
“August 2014 News”, (2014-06-21):
N/A
“Changelog”, (2013-09-15):
This page is a changelog for Gwern.net: a monthly reverse chronological list of recent major writings/
changes/ additions. Following my writing can be a little difficult because it is often so incremental. So every month, in addition to my regular /
r/ subreddit submissions, I write up reasonably-interesting changes and send it out to the mailing list in addition to a compilation of links & reviews (archives).Gwern “/r/gwern subreddit”, (2018-10-01):
A subreddit for posting links of interest and also for announcing updates to gwern.net (which can be used as a RSS feed). Submissions are categorized similar to the monthly newsletter and typically will be collated there.
/
Treadmill#treadmill-effect-on-spaced-repetition-performance-randomized-experiment “Everything Is Correlated”, (2014-09-12):
Statistical folklore asserts that “everything is correlated”: in any real-world dataset, most or all measured variables will have non-zero correlations, even between variables which appear to be completely independent of each other, and that these correlations are not merely sampling error flukes but will appear in large-scale datasets to arbitrarily designated levels of statistical-significance or posterior probability.
This raises serious questions for null-hypothesis statistical-significance testing, as it implies the null hypothesis of 0 will always be rejected with sufficient data, meaning that a failure to reject only implies insufficient data, and provides no actual test or confirmation of a theory. Even a directional prediction is minimally confirmatory since there is a 50% chance of picking the right direction at random.
It also has implications for conceptualizations of theories & causal models, interpretations of structural models, and other statistical principles such as the “sparsity principle”.
“Time-lock encryption”, (2011-05-24):
In cryptography, it is easy to adjust encryption of data so that one, some, or all people can decrypt it, or some combination thereof. It is not so easy to achieve adjustable decryptability over time, a “time-lock crypto”: for some uses (data escrow, leaking, insurance, last-resort Bitcoin backups etc), one wants data which is distributed only after a certain point in time.
I survey techniques for time-lock crypto. Proposals often resort to trusted-third-parties, which are vulnerabilities. A better time-lock crypto proposal replaces trusted-third-parties with forcibly serial proof-of-work using number squaring and guaranteeing unlocking not after a certain point in time but after sufficient computation-time has been spent; it’s unclear how well number-squaring resists optimization or shortcuts. I suggest a new time-lock crypto based on chained hashes; hashes have been heavily attacked for other purposes, and may be safer than number-squaring. Finally, I cover obfuscation & witness-encryption which, combined with proof-of-work, can be said to solve time-lock crypto but currently remain infeasible.
https:/
/ web.archive.org/ web/ 20140924070551/ https:/ / news.wustl.edu/ news/ Pages/ 27358.aspx http:/
/ www.pnas.org/ content/ suppl/ 2014/ 09/ 06/ 1404623111.DCSupplemental/ pnas.1404623111.sapp.pdf “GWAS of 126,559 individuals identifies genetic variants associated with educational attainment”, (2013):
A genome-wide association study (GWAS) of educational attainment was conducted in a discovery sample of 101,069 individuals and a replication sample of 25,490. Three independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are genome-wide significant (rs9320913, rs11584700, rs4851266), and all three replicate. Estimated effects sizes are small (coefficient of determination R(2) ≈ 0.02%), approximately 1 month of schooling per allele. A linear polygenic score from all measured SNPs accounts for ≈2% of the variance in both educational attainment and cognitive function. Genes in the region of the loci have previously been associated with health, cognitive, and central nervous system phenotypes, and bioinformatics analyses suggest the involvement of the anterior caudate nucleus. These findings provide promising candidate SNPs for follow-up work, and our effect size estimates can anchor power analyses in social-science genetics.
http:/
/ infoproc.blogspot.com/ 2014/ 09/ common-genetic-variants-associated-with.html http:/
/ www.nature.com/ news/ smart-genes-prove-elusive-1.15858 http:/
/ theconversation.com/ intelligence-inheritance-three-genes-that-add-to-your-iq-score-31397 http:/
/ lesswrong.com/ r/ discussion/ lw/ kxv/ open_thread_september_814_2014/ bazf “World population stabilization unlikely this century.”, (2014):
The United Nations (UN) recently released population projections based on data until 2012 and a Bayesian probabilistic methodology. Analysis of these data reveals that, contrary to previous literature, the world population is unlikely to stop growing this century. There is an 80% probability that world population, now 7.2 billion people, will increase to between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion in 2100. This uncertainty is much smaller than the range from the traditional UN high and low variants. Much of the increase is expected to happen in Africa, in part due to higher fertility rates and a recent slowdown in the pace of fertility decline. Also, the ratio of working-age people to older people is likely to decline substantially in all countries, even those that currently have young populations.
http:/
/ deepblue.lib.umich.edu/ bitstream/ 2027.42/ 68589/ 2/ 10.1177_0049124185013003002.pdf http:/
/ chronopause.com/ chronopause.com/ index.php/ 2011/ 05/ 30/ going-going-gone/ “Sōhei”, (2020-12-28):
Sōhei were Buddhist warrior monks of both medieval and feudal Japan. At certain points in history, they held considerable power, obliging the imperial and military governments to collaborate.
“ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge”, (2014-09-01):
The ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge is a benchmark in object category classification and detection on hundreds of object categories and millions of images. The challenge has been run annually from 2010 to present, attracting participation from more than fifty institutions.
This paper describes the creation of this benchmark dataset and the advances in object recognition that have been possible as a result. We discuss the challenges of collecting large-scale ground truth annotation, highlight key breakthroughs in categorical object recognition, provide a detailed analysis of the current state of the field of large-scale image classification and object detection, and compare the state-of-the-art computer vision accuracy with human accuracy. We conclude with lessons learned in the five years of the challenge, and propose future directions and improvements.
https:/
/ karpathy.github.io/ 2014/ 09/ 02/ what-i-learned-from-competing-against-a-convnet-on-imagenet/ http:/
/ www.coyneoftherealm.com/ 2014/ 09/ 25/ critique-claims-blood-test-depression/ http:/
/ www.washingtonpost.com/ blogs/ monkey-cage/ wp/ 2014/ 09/ 02/ world-values-lost-in-translation/ http:/
/ www.psy.lmu.de/ allg2/ download/ schoenbrodt/ pub/ stable_correlations.pdf http:/
/ www.motherjones.com/ politics/ 2012/ 10/ solitary-confinement-shane-bauer http:/
/ humanvarieties.org/ 2014/ 09/ 21/ mhs-book-review-of-deafness-deprivation-and-iq-braden-1994/ http:/
/ humanvarieties.org/ 2014/ 09/ 21/ the-study-of-deaf-people-since-braden-1994/ “Cranial electrotherapy stimulation”, (2020-12-22):
Cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) is a form of neurostimulation that delivers a small, pulsed, alternating current via electrodes on the head. CES is used with the intention of treating a variety of conditions such as anxiety, depression and insomnia. CES has been suggested as a possible treatment for headaches, fibromyalgia, smoking cessation, and opiate withdrawal, but there is little evidence of effectiveness for many of these conditions and the evidence for use in acute depression is not sufficient to justify it.
http:/
/ www.usenix.org/ system/ files/ conference/ usenixsecurity14/ sec14-paper-bonneau.pdf http:/
/ www.nytimes.com/ 2014/ 09/ 29/ business/ dire-warnings-by-big-tobacco-on-e-smoking-.html “Bootleggers and Baptists”, (2020-12-28):
Bootleggers and Baptists is a concept put forth by regulatory economist Bruce Yandle, derived from the observation that regulations are supported both by groups that want the ostensible purpose of the regulation, and by groups that profit from undermining that purpose.
http:/
/ foundational-research.org/ publications/ importance-of-wild-animal-suffering/ -
Beginning with Homer and ending with Wittgenstein, I present here in chronological order all the major, explicit testimony concerning philosophical esotericism that I have found to date. It includes all the quotations of this kind used in the book as well as many others that were not used. Still, it is far from exhaustive. Readers with suggestions for additions can send them to philosophybetweenthelines@outlook.com.
The compilation includes statements of several different kinds. First, declarations by an author of his own esotericism; second, other remarks concerning the phenomenon of esotericism in general; third, the author’s claim that some other writer wrote esoterically; and fourth, some other writer’s claim that the author wrote esoterically.
- Testimony about Ancient Philosophy as a Whole
- Homer
- Hesiod
- Aesop of Samos
- Anacharsis
- Pythagoras
- Simonides of Ceos
- Heraclitus
- Protagoras
- Thucydides
- Isocrates
- …
- Sigmund Freud
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
[110 pages]
“Gong farmer”, (2020-12-28):
Gong farmer was a term that entered use in Tudor England to describe someone who dug out and removed human excrement from privies and cesspits. The word "gong" was used for both a privy and its contents. As the work was considered unclean and off-putting to the public, gong farmers were only allowed to work at night, hence they were sometimes known as nightmen. The waste they collected, known as night soil, had to be taken outside the city or town boundary or to official dumps for disposal.
https:/
/ pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ b2bd/ 359082555b1cf62eb223ed835a0f7106ae5b.pdf “A Troublesome Inheritance”, (2020-12-28):
A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History is a 2014 book by British writer and journalist Nicholas Wade, a retired science reporter for The New York Times. Wade argues that "human evolution has been recent, copious and regional" and that this has important implications for the social sciences. The book has been widely denounced by scientists.
“Sarah Dunant”, (2020-12-22):
Sarah Dunant is a British novelist, journalist, broadcaster, and critic. She is married with two daughters, and lives in London and Florence.
“Steamboy”, (2020-12-28):
Steamboy is a 2004 Japanese animated steampunk action film produced by Sunrise, directed and co-written by Katsuhiro Otomo, his second major anime release, following Akira. The film was released in Japan on July 17, 2004. Steamboy is one of the most expensive Japanese animated movies made to date. Additionally, the film was in production for ten years and utilized more than 180,000 drawings and 440 CG cuts.
“Arakawa Under the Bridge”, (2020-12-28):
Arakawa Under the Bridge is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hikaru Nakamura. The manga was first serialized in the Japanese seinen manga magazine Young GanGan starting December 3, 2004. An anime television series adaptation by Shaft was broadcast in Japan between April 4, 2010 and June 27, 2010 on TV Tokyo. A second season, titled Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge, aired in Japan between October 3, 2010 and December 26, 2010.
“Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space”, (2020-12-28):
TAMALA 2010: A Punk Cat in Space is a 2001/2002 Japanese animated film written, directed, animated and featuring music by a 13 to 16 year old person named Onizuka, also with his friends K. and kuno. The film features both 2D and 3D computer animation, and is mostly black-and-white. The characters, designed by Onizuka and a few background characters designed by Kentarō Konpon, are reminiscent of Sanrio's Hello Kitty and 1960's anime and manga such as Astro Boy.
https:/
/ web.archive.org/ web/ 20141003185916/ http:/ / www.rokugen.net/ sp/ 201408.html “Gwern.net newsletter (Substack subscription page)”, (2013-12-01):
Subscription page for the monthly gwern.net newsletter. There are monthly updates, which will include summaries of projects I’ve worked on that month (the same as the changelog), collations of links or discussions from my subreddit, and book/movie reviews. You can also browse the archives since December 2013.
“Gwern.net newsletter archives”, (2013-12-01):
Newsletter tag: archive of all issues back to 2013 for the gwern.net newsletter (monthly updates, which will include summaries of projects I’ve worked on that month (the same as the changelog), collations of links or discussions from my subreddit, and book/movie reviews.)