Links

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; excerpts)
• “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 (excerpts)

Politics/religion:

• “World population stabilization unlikely this century”, Gerland et al 2014 (excerpts)
• “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/AI/meta-science:

• “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 (excerpts)
• “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?” (commentary)

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 (excerpts)
• 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:

• Dunant’s Blood and Beauty (historical fiction: early history of the Borgias; interesting time period + mediocre writing = decent but not great book)

• Troupes:

  • Renaming of the Birds (review)
  • The Fountain (review)
  • The Simple Men (review)

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 {24 Oct 2013}) [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]