--- title: December 2015 News created: 2015-11-28 status: finished previous: /newsletter/2015/11 next: /newsletter/2015/13 confidence: log cssExtension: dropcaps-de-zs backlink: False ... This is the December 2015 edition of [the Gwern.net newsletter](https://gwern.substack.com/ "'Gwern.net newsletter (Substack subscription page)', Branwen 2013"); previous, [November 2015](/newsletter/2015/11 "'November 2015 News', Branwen 2015"). This is a collation of links and summary of major changes, overlapping with [Changelog](/changelog); brought to you by my donors on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/gwern). # Writings - [metformin for life-extension: cost-benefit analysis](/longevity#metformin) - [shell scripts for easy cryptographic timestamping](/timestamping "'Easy Cryptographic Timestamping of Files', Branwen 2015") # Media ## Links ### Genetics **Everything Is Heritable**: - ["Genetic and environmental determinants of violence risk in psychotic disorders: a multivariate quantitative genetic study of 1.8 million Swedish twins and siblings"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4842006/), Sariaslan et al 2015 (Genetic [pleiotropy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiotropy)/confounding in schizophrenia & drug abuse, rather than causation or reverse causation?) - ["Systems genetics identifies a convergent gene network for cognition and neurodevelopmental disease"](/doc/iq/2015-johnson.pdf), Johnson et al 2015 - ["How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?"](/doc/iq/1969-jensen.pdf), Jensen 1969 - [on the benefits of exercise]{.smallcaps}: - ["Modifiable Risk Factors as Predictors of All-Cause Mortality: The Roles of Genetics and Childhood Environment"](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/156/11/985/80696), Kujala et al 2002 - ["Physical activity in adulthood: genes and mortality"](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep18259), Karvinen et al 2015 - ["Physical Activity, Fitness, Glucose Homeostasis, and Brain Morphology in Twins"](/doc/genetics/heritable/2015-rottensteiner.pdf "'Physical activity, fitness, glucose homeostasis, and brain morphology in twins', Rottensteiner et al 2015"), Rottensteiner et al 2015 ### Politics/religion - ["Operation Easy Chair, or how a little company in Holland helped the CIA bug the Russians"](https://decorrespondent.nl/3789/Operation-Easy-Chair-or-how-a-little-company-in-Holland-helped-the-CIA-bug-the-Russians/106823277-f4300cc3) - ["The Life Issue"](https://web.archive.org/web/20131229234049/http://squid314.livejournal.com/338026.html)/["What if drone warfare had come first?"](https://web.archive.org/web/20131229234045/http://squid314.livejournal.com/338607.html) - ["'Perplexed ... Perplexed': On Mob Justice in Nigeria"](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/perplexed-perplexed-on-mob-justice-in-nigeria/264006/) ### Statistics/AI/meta-science - ["What my deep model doesn't know..."](https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/yarin.gal/website/blog_3d801aa532c1ce.html) (Something of a tour de force: isomorphism between [Gaussian processes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_process) and deep neural networks showing [dropout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropout_%28neural_networks%29) is equivalent to using 1 NN to average over a whole family of similar models (explaining why dropout improves results, since we all know the advantages of ensembles) and showing how variation in NN output when wiggled by dropout gives an indication of uncertainty in predictions and from there yields useful results and stuff like usable [Thompson sampling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_sampling) (!) in the famous [deep Q reinforcement-learner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-learning#Deep_Q-learning) for optimizing exploration and learning faster. Phew.) - ["On Learning to Think: Algorithmic Information Theory for Novel Combinations of Reinforcement Learning Controllers and Recurrent Neural World Models"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1511.09249#schmidhuber), Schmidhuber 2015 ([AIT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory) is usually too hopelessly abstract and general to apply to anything, but Schmidhuber gets inspiration for some interesting architectures from it.) - ["The Endogeneity Problem in Developmental Studies"](/doc/statistics/causality/2004-duncan.pdf), Duncan et al 2004 ([How often](/correlation "'How Often Does Correlation=Causality?', Branwen 2014") does correlation=causation? More examples.) - ["...a list of thirty four Nobel Laureates whose awarded work was rejected by peer review."](/doc/statistics/peer-review/2008-gonzalezalvarez.pdf "'Science in the 21st century: social, political, and economic issues', Gonzalez-Alvarez 2008") - ["The Use and Abuse of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to Modulate Corticospinal Excitability in Humans"](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0144151), Heroux et al 2014 ### Psychology/biology - ["Safety Lessons From the Morgue"](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/safety-lessons-from-the-morgue.html) - ["Adolescent sleep and fluid intelligence performance"](http://jtoomim.org/brain-training/fluid%20intelligence%20and%20sleep.pdf), Johnstone et al 2010 ### Technology - [Archaeoacoustics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoacoustics): ["Scientists Recover the Sounds of 19th-Century Music and Laughter From the Oldest Playable American Recording"](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/scientists-recover-the-sounds-of-19th-century-music-and-laughter-from-the-oldest-playable-american-recording/264147/ "Computer analysis of a piece of foil reveals audio captured by a Thomas Edison-invented phonograph in St. Louis in 1878.") - ["Computer-related accidental death: an empirical exploration"](https://www.cs.uic.edu/~i377/MacKenzie-Computer-related-accidental-death-an-empirical-exploration.pdf), MacKenzie 1994 - [Experimental History](https://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007/07/experimental-history.html) ### Economics - ["The financing of jihadi terrorist cells in Europe"](https://ffi-publikasjoner.archive.knowledgearc.net/bitstream/handle/20.500.12242/1103/14-02234.pdf), Oftedal 2015 - ["How persuasive are Open Borders advocates? The case of Bryan Caplan"](https://openborders.info/blog/how-persuasive-are-open-borders-advocates-the-case-of-bryan-caplan/) - [Tableau économique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tableau_%C3%A9conomique) ### Fiction - ["The Argentine Writer and Tradition"](/doc/borges/1951-borges-theargentinewriterandtradition.pdf), Borges 1951 - ["Axe Handles"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57150/axe-handles), Gary Snyder - ["Back from yet another globetrotting adventure, Indiana Jones checks his mail and discovers that his bid for tenure has been denied"](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/back-from-yet-another-globetrotting-adventure-indiana-jones-checks-his-mail-and-discovers-that-his-bid-for-tenure-has-been-denied) ### Misc - ["The Bonsai Kid"](https://craftsmanship.net/the-bonsai-kid/ "A young Oregonian believes that he can create a uniquely American form of the Japanese bonsai tree. And he is literally betting the farm on the idea that if he builds it, they will come.") ## Film/TV ### Live-action - [_Star Wars: The Force Awakens_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Awakens) (2015; [review](/review/movie#star-wars-the-force-awakens)) **Animated**: - _[How The Grinch Stole Christmas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss\'_How_the_Grinch_Stole_Christmas!_%28TV_special%29)_ ([review](/review/anime#how-the-grinch-stole-christmas)) - [_Big Hero 6_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hero_6_%28film%29) - _Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works_ ([review](/review/anime#fsn-unlimited-blade-works)) - [_Brave_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_%282012_film%29) ([review](/review/anime#brave)) - [_Charlie Brown_ Christmas special](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Charlie_Brown_Christmas) ([review](/review/anime#a-charlie-brown-christmas))