Links

Everything is heritable:

• Genome-wide meta-analysis identifies six novel loci associated with habitual coffee consumption, The Coffee and Caffeine Genetics Consortium et al 2014 (excerpts)
• Results of a GWAS Plus: General Cognitive Ability Is Substantially Heritable and Massively Polygenic, Kirkpatrick et al 2014
• Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?, Johnson 2010 (excerpts)
• The impact of neighbourhood deprivation on adolescent violent criminality and substance misuse: A longitudinal, quasi-experimental study of the total Swedish population, Sariaslan et al 2013 (excerpts)

Politics/religion:

• Why the World Is Not Falling Apart: Never mind the headlines. We’ve never lived in such peaceful times., Pinker & Mack; Good News You May Have Missed in 2014, Gates
• Race and Justice: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
• The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side
• Police, Paramilitaries, Nationalists and Gangsters: The Processes of State Building in Korea, Porteux 2013 (excerpts)
• Sacculina parasite
• Truncated transcript from today’s SCOTUS argument (parody)
• Question 94. The relations of the saints towards the damned: Whether the blessed in heaven will see the sufferings of the damned?

Statistics/AI/meta-science:

• Contradicted and Initially Stronger Effects in Highly Cited Clinical Research, Ioannidis 2005 (excerpts)
• A Sham Procedure Leads to Disappointing Multiple Sclerosis News
• The power of placebos: when water feels like LSD.
• What Went Wrong? Reflections on Science by Observation and The Bell Curve, Glymour 1998 (correlation & causation)
• Full publication of results initially presented in abstracts (Review), Scherer et al 2008 (publication bias & incorrect papers; excerpts)
• Prisons Are Built With Bricks Of Law And Brothels With Bricks Of Religion, But That Doesn’t Prove A Causal Relationship
• Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomised controlled trial, Leibovici 2001 (Norvig comments)
• What effect size would you expect?
• On the distribution of time-to-proof of mathematical conjectures, Hisano & Sornette 2012

Psychology/biology:

• Thank you for doing something ambiguously between smoking and not smoking
• CBD in Colorado: Seeking a marijuana miracle [for children with severe epilepsy] (The question is not whether it is ethical to run a randomized trial, but whether it is ethical to not run a randomized trial, I found myself thinking again and again in this sad and pitiable story of being fooled by randomness.)
• Morningness-eveningness and educational outcomes: The lark has an advantage over the owl at high school, Preckel et al 2013
• What Do You Desire? (on the porn company Kink.com)
• Suicide: An Economic Approach, Becker & Posner 2004 (excerpts)
• The Graying of Academia: Will It Reduce Scientific Productivity?, Stroebe 2010 (excerpts)
• Can Behavioral Tools Improve Online Student Outcomes? Experimental Evidence from a Massive Open Online Course, Patterson 2014 (excerpts)
• Direct Effect of Sunshine on Suicide, Vyssoki et al 2014
• The future of teratology research is in vitro, Bailey et al 2005
• Spaced Repetition and Mnemonics Enable Recall of Multiple Strong Passwords, Blocki et al 2014 (excerpts)
• Subu Must Die: How a nation of junkies went cold turkey
• Golden Gate Bridge suicides

Technology:

• Human Performance, 2008 JASON (excerpts)
• Spreadsheet mistakes
• Scholarly Context Not Found: One in Five Articles Suffers from Reference Rot, Klein et al 2014
• The Hundred-Year Language
• M50 Ontos
• Photoacoustic spectroscopy
• Turing Drawings: flowing sand
• The NSA copes with a volcano

Economics:

• College major salary premiums
• What Are Foundations For? (principal-agent conflicts; against perpetuities)
• A lucky little fish turns out to be the solution to iron deficiency among women in Cambodia, a problem solved by a University of Guelph researcher.
• Should Psychological Neuroscience Research Be Funded? (discussion)
• Kids for cash scandal
• Smart companies try to commoditize their products’ complements.
• The Coase Theorem is false: contracts depend on tort law
• One Kind of Lawlessness: Estimating the Welfare Cost of Somali Piracy

Philosophy:

• Bayesian Adjustment Does Not Defeat Existential Risk Charity
• Transhumanist Fables
• Study: Wolf Attacks Still Leading Cause Of Death In U.S.
• Even More Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays from Vectors 3.0, James Richardson

Misc:

• Limits, Jorge Luis Borges
• Great mistakes in history: the scuttling of the German navy
• Hollywood Archaeology: The Super Mario Bros. Movie; Unearthing a major disaster to learn the lessons held within
• On Pins and Needles: Stylist Turns Ancient Hairdo Debate on Its Head

Books

Nonfiction:

• Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, Lowe (review)
• Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose, Thomas & Turner (review; online guide)

Fiction:

• Ra, Sam Hughes (hard SF web serial; Goodreads)
• Un Lun Dun, China Miéville (review)
• Reject Hero, Farmerbob1 (About; superhero web serial, set in a Worm-like universe; somewhat unusual conservative middle-aged perspective as he negotiates his way into the deeper magical universe, culminating in a fun twist Jurassic Park ending with a sting; good fic but not great, and probably goes on too long)
• Perseverance island: or, The Robinson Crusoe of the nineteenth century, by Douglas Frazer (review)
• CVN73 USS George Washington (manga; review)

Music

Touhou:

• Sixth Movement Dawn of East End (MORRIGAN feat. 三澤秋; Symphonic Tarantella Lily -Illusionary Waltz: Belladonna Lily- {M3-27}) [orchestral]
• Fifth Movement 9th moon / Pale Indigo Dream (MORRIGAN feat. 三澤秋; Symphonic Tarantella Lily -Illusionary Waltz: Belladonna Lily- {M3-27}) [orchestral]
• The Black Eyes (Swing Holic Band; SWING HOLIC VOL.9 {R9}) [jazz]
• NEMESIS (Sanokan; SWING HOLIC VOL.9 {R9}) [brass]
• ON FIRE (Maurits禅Cornelis feat. Vivienne; DANCE with WOLVES {C86}) [house]
• Fantasia Nightbug (激戦の人 feat. 迷犬; Summer Festival {C86}) [Rock]
• Eternal Steam Engine (Suzumu feat.Sae Tsukiyama; Summer Festival {C86}) [vocal]
• To the Limit (あとぐる feat. Mai Kotoge; 悠啼 YU-NARI {C78}) [rock]

Doujin:

• Prelude (Instrumental) (Treow; KOLLECTION+OI {2012}) [electronica]
• A Longing (yuxuki waga; Evergreen {VM23}) [ambient]

Kantai Collection:

• ThroBBing (母港BGM) (W*M; Splash! {C85}) [instrumental]

Vocaloid:

• Sunrise (Miku; akayaka; KARENT presents Skylight Theater {Trans city}) [ambient]
• トウキョウトガリ (Miku; Kobayashi Onyx; LOG {2010}) [electronic]
• サイハテ(ver,LOG) (Miku; Kobayashi Onyx; LOG {2010}) [electronic]
• Moon Walker (Gumi & Piko; KTG; FREEZE {2011}) [electronic]
• Welcome to the Future (Miku; 青屋夏生; Welcome to the Future {2014}) [Jpop/trance]
• Light Falls (Miku; yuxuki waga {2011}) [Jpop]
• ヒトリの誕生日 (Miku; ため; 7 Kilometer {VM28}) [Jpop]
• ルッキング・フォー・ザ・ヘヴン (Yukari; カミウラ, カミウラレコーズ; Lavender and White Rose {2013}) [vocal]