Praxtime Archive

Popular Posts

1. Avoiding “Sagan Syndrome.” Why Astronomers and Journalists should pay heed to Biologists about ET. Plus also see related post Intelligent life is just getting started
2. Understanding AI risk. How Star Trek got talking computers right in 1966, while Her got it wrong in 2013.
3. Apple’s strategy tax on services versus Google. Voice interaction becoming the “God particle” of mobile.
4. The surveillance society is a step forward. But one that harkens back to our deep forager past.

Archive By Date

Note: You can also browse Archive by Topic

Jan-Dec 2019

1. Apple’s new services strategy. Apple is commoditizing (some) of its complements: music, movies, TV. 13-Jan-2019
2. Sunday links 13-Jan-2019: Apple services, China climate change, superstar cities, falling murder rates 13-Jan-2019
3. Saturday links 19-Jan-2019: Gravitization of quantum mechanics, Revolt of the public, income sharing for tuition, Big 5 personality quiz 19-Jan-2019
4. Wednesday links 30-Jan-2019: Cognition models, Marx and virtue signalling, slime, iterated embryo selection, screentime 30-Jan-2019
5. Apple revoking Facebook’s certificate was a strategic err which may come back to haunt the tech industry 02-Feb-2019
6. Saturday links 9-Feb-2019: climate and epidemics, ur DNA r belong to us, Alzheimer’s gum disease, Aphantasia 09-Feb-2019
7. Saturday links 16-Feb-2019: Campus disinvitations, reducing suspensions backfires, college loans, Fortnite is all about the social 16-Feb-2019
8. Sunday links 10-Mar-2019: Facebook privacy, DNA shell casings, workism, our baby shark future 10-Mar-2019
9. Sunday 17-Mar-2019: College admissions, Waymo, Wigner’s friend, Zebra flies 17-Mar-2019
10. Saturday links 30-Mar-2019: status as a service, niche superstars, screentime, Model T as hatkiller 30-Mar-2019
11. Why did boomer become an insult? Because the internet is shattering industrial era politics and culture 19-Nov-2019
12. Why is Christmas music so bad? Answer: 1950’s television. 25-Dec-2020

Jan-Dec 2018

1. Saturday Links 06-Jan-2018: Meltdown, Tabby’s dusty star, live tweeting Fox, aDNA from Alaska 06-Jan-2018
2. Saturday Links 13-Jan-2018: CES and Apple, Facebook newsfeed, IQ genomics, Star Wars 13-Jan-2018
3. Saturday Links 20-Jan-2018: Spotted Toad on Opiods, Amazon HQ2 as tech monopoly marketing, Blue Planet II 20-Jan-2018
4. Saturday Links 27-Jan-2018 Cloned monkeys, Amazon Go, AI medicine outperforming humans since the 1970s, Eye for an Eye 27-Jan-2018
5. Saturday Links 02-Feb-2018 Amazon health, faithland, driverless trucks, rules for life 03-Feb-2018
6. Saturday Links 10-Feb-2018 Subscription news is innately partisan, Voice UI, Europa and Enceladus, Hobbits back to the trees 10-Feb-2018
7. Saturday Links 24-Feb-2018 (part 1). Cheddar Man, YIMBY housing, musical puberty, Alto’s Odyssey 24-Feb-2018
8. Saturday Links 24-Feb-2018 (part 2). Decentralized crtyponetworks, Neatherthal art, STEM Women, Magic Leap becoming Segway 24-Feb-2018
9. Saturday Links 03-Mar-2018 President Xi, Elephant aDNA, tribalism, stock and flow 03-Mar-2018
10. Saturday Links 10-Mar-2018 social fake news, grit and growth mindset, aDNA, Fermi Paradox, cool map of US voting 10-Mar-2018
11. Saturday Links 17-Mar-2018 Human tools 320k years old, Children and paychecks, Drake plays Fortnite, astronaut DNA 17-Mar-2018
12. Saturday Links 24-Mar-2018 David Reich genetics, Facebook data, fav Robin Hanson podcast, Eukaryotic cells crush Marvel 24-Mar-2018
13. Saturday Links 31-Mar-2018 Facebook outrage about privacy or politics, Galaxy dark matter, student testing, Stratechery 5 years old! 31-Mar-2018
14. Attempting a constructive take on the Sam Harris/Ezra Klein/IQ disagreement. The Nerd and the Manager. 04-Apr-2018
15. Saturday Links 07-Apr-2018 End of Windows, Harris and Klein and IQ, Wasps and Whales, 2001 is the best 07-Apr-2018
16. Saturday Links 14-Apr-2018: Facebook, China Tech fusing with government, Birds see magnetic fields, Media a side hustle for tech giants 14-Apr-2018
17. Saturday Links 21-Apr-2018 iPhone X survey, humans at sea, Huang’s law, housing, humans versus megafauna 21-Apr-2018
18. Saturday Links 28-Apr-2018: DNA joins the surveillance society, voting for status, music streaming, seagoing Neanderthals 28-Apr-2018
19. Saturday Links 5-May-2018: Viral sex redistribution, Filipinos 700k years ago, Contingency of Marx, Marchetti’s constant, Email as micromeetings 05-May-2018
20. Saturday Links 12-May-2018: Google Duplex means…begun, the spam war has. Also genomics math, chokers are the best, hearing with a vibrating vest. 12-May-2018
21. Saturday Links 19-May-2018: AI GPUs crush Moore’s law, Europa plumes, Ice cores and Rome, evolving cultural brains 19-May-2018
22. Saturday links 26-May-2018: Golden Rice, Algorithmic social feeds, Racism as original sin, Asteroid smotes flying birds 26-May-2018
23. Saturday Links 2-Jun-2018: AI’s balmy winter, Malaria GMO mosquitoes, Marshmallow 2.0, Mass of life on Earth 02-Jun-2018
24. Saturday Links 9-Jun-2018: Facebook teens, Ozimek’s economy is alright, Ritchie’s Hypeology, chill out on banning plastic straws 09-Jun-2018
25. Thursday Links 21-Jun-2018: the rise of market Autocracies, Uighurs, Taubes comeuppance, Scootermania 21-Jun-2018
26. The Asian discrimination lawsuit against Harvard won’t change admission rates. But it damages claims to meritocracy. 22-Jun-2018
27. Saturday Links 23-Jun-2018: Disability is down, German immigrants, Patrilineal kin groups, Paul McCartney carpool karaoke 23-Jun-2018
28. Saturday Links 30-Jun-2018: Next gen Apple maps, WEIRD Cousin Marriage, Fermi Paradox, Dunbar limits on places 30-Jun-2018
29. Saturday Links 7-Jul-2018: Free Speech and power, Tribal nations, Imperceptibly changing minds, flying electric spiders 07-Jul-2018
30. Saturday Links 14-Jul-2018: Genomic Prediction of Social Mobility, Alzheimer Virus, Mind as prediction, Sonos teardown 14-Jul-2018
31. Sunday Links 22-Jul-2018: Voice computing, Netflix, Quantum gravity, blueberry Earth 22-Jul-2018
32. Sunday Links 29-Jul-2018: Genetics of education, Big tech economics, MOOC middlemen get the $, Underground water on Mars 29-Jul-2018
33. Sunday Links 5-Aug-2018: Shifting language of racism, two kinds of YIMBY, Island Dwafism, Wildfires and Houses 05-Aug-2018
34. Sunday Links 12-Aug-2018: most don’t shop with Alexa, Loss Aversion, workplace wellness RCT, Arambourgiania, Colima volcano 12-Aug-2018
35. Saturday Links 18-Aug-2018: Turchin’s model for social crisis, feudal California taxes, PGS for disease, Elephant genes 18-Aug-2018
36. Sunday Links 26-Aug-2018: Facebook and Nutella, Neanderthal Denisovan mix, infinite book scroll, Angry Angry Hippo 26-Aug-2018
37. Sunday links 3-Sep-2018: the Cavalli-Sforza era, text editing methods, some excellent charts 03-Sep-2018
38. Saturday links 8-Sep-2018: Kessler space junk, unsupervised play is good, white flight Asian edition 08-Sep-2018
39. Saturday Links 22-Sep-2018: Ben Thompson on internet regulation, Apple reviews, micromobility, Kipchoge’s ridiculously fast marathon 22-Sep-2018
40. Tuesday Links 25-Sep-2018: Dickinsonia is an animal!, demography of poverty, China US rivalry, Insitome and Ezra Klein podcasts 25-Sep-2018
41. Saturday Links 29-Sep-2018 Flashbulb memories and Kavanaugh, China-US trade, Facebook and mob violence, climate change 29-Sep-2018
42. Monday Links 8-Oct-2018: Tyler Cowen Straussianism explained, Banksy shreds, China v English prose 08-Oct-2018
43. Saturday Links 13-Oct-2018: Khashoggi murder and crude oil, IPCC climate economics, Harvard as elite finishing school 13-Oct-2018
44. Monday Links 22-Oct-2018: Warren and genetic testing, Polygenic scores and racism, Wealth increases gender differences 22-Oct-2018
45. Sunday Links 28-Oct-2018: Spotify playbook, Ben Thompson on tech regulation, exponential overdoses, Hilary Greaves on consequentialism 28-Oct-2018
46. Why the new hoax papers on cultural studies merely confirmed everyone’s priors 31-Oct-2018
47. Monday Links 5-Nov-2018: Printing and Populism, Psychologists and free speech, new Apple maps 05-Nov-2018
48. Saturday Links 10-Nov-2018: Amazon HQ2 as farce, American aDNA, Head Start, do not summon the doxxing demon 10-Nov-2018
49. Saturday Links 17-Nov-2018: Stagnant science, Chinese fan economy, Qualtrics, best burgers no more 17-Nov-2018
50. Monday Links 26-Nov-2018: embryo selection is a bigger deal than CRISPR, China panopticon, Saudi relations, software eats photography 26-Nov-2018
51. Sunday Links 16-Dec-2018: Bitcoin bubble or scam or platform, Waymo cars, population mountains 16-Dec-2018
52. Sunday Links 23-Dec-2018: US-China cold war, moving to superstar cities, internet shaming 23-Dec-2018

Jan-Dec 2016

1. On the harsh reaction to Paul Graham’s post on inequality. Adapting Tyler Cowen’s laws to writing on the internet. 2016-Jan-12
2. My Soylent review: decent with a very annoying packaging flaw. Plus disruption frameworks. 2016-Jan-25
3. The dream of AI has always been talking computers. General AI as prediction. 2016-Jun-09

Oct-Dec 2015

1. Homo naledi and the braided stream of humanity. It’s miscegenation all the way down. 2015-Oct-21
2. An iPad with a keyboard is not a PC! Technology transitions and PCs in the Clipper ship era. 2015-Oct-27
3. The current Perez tech cycle is software driven. Which is great, except now monopoly is eating the world. 2015-Nov-13
4. Using Hannah Arendt to understand the Islamic State. And other recommended reads. 2015-Nov-24
5. Since cars replaced horses, won’t robots replace people? The future of technological unemployment. 2015-Dec-09
6. Why a new Star Trek is a bad idea, even though a new Star Wars is fine. Science Fiction ≠ Fantasy. 2015-Dec-18
7. Praxtime 2015 year end review. My favorites in science, tech, econ, pop culture. Grading and making predictions. 2015-Dec-28

Jan-Sep 2015

1. The best place to look for aliens is in a galaxy far, far away. 2015-Apr-20
2. Cord Cutting: You know it’s all about UX, ’bout UX. No savings. 2015-Apr-30
3. Understanding AI risk. How Star Trek got talking computers right in 1966, while Her got it wrong in 2013. 2015-May-27
4. Talking computers pose a threat to current Apple versus Google market segmentation. Beyond Peak Google. 2015-Jun-04
5. 2015 is a transition year to the (somewhat creepy) machine learning era. Apple, Google, privacy and ads. 2015-Jun-10
6. Blazing a path on machine learning and privacy, Google risks becoming “Uber for lawsuits” 2015-Jun-16
7. Twitter’s Temptation: The False Allure of Anonymous Users. 2015-Jun-22
8. Science Fiction movie priorities should be movie first, science second. Because movies are hard. 2015-Jun-29
9. The algorithmic hand is replacing the invisible hand. But Hayek still applies. 2015-Jul-07
10. Why I’m excited about the new Apple TV for gaming, movies, TV, apps, Siri 2015-Sep-08

Jul-Dec 2014

1. Windows 9 explained with smiley faces and Venn diagrams. An emoji update to my Win8 post. 2014-Jul-07
2. Disruption theory’s ultimate ironic success would be falsifying itself. Plus Newton, Popper and Darwin duke it out. 2014-Jul-14
3. Dan Kahan’s cultural cognition shows why climate-splaining is a fail. Plus applying it to Paul Krugman. 2014-Jul-21
4. Wall street, businesses and even developers feel the seductive allure of monopoly without consequences. 2014-Aug-04
5. Internet economics is relentlessly pulling ebooks and libraries towards subscription streaming. 2014-Aug-18
6. The surveillance society is a step forward. But one that harkens back to our deep forager past. 2014-Sep-08
7. Apple is taking biometrics mainstream. Watch out as software eats identity and payments. 2014-Sep-15
8. There’s a lot to be said for analyzing tech eras by user interface: Gaming, Oculus, Apple Watch. 2014-Oct-13
9. Retailers hate Apple Pay now, but it may work out fine for them long term. 2014-Oct-27
10. Grading last year’s praxtime predictions for 2014 2014-Dec-30
11. 5 praxtime predictions for 2015 2014-Dec-30

Apr-Jun 2014

1. Getting fat is a metabolic disorder. An evolutionary take on Paleo and Low Carb Diets. 2014-Apr-07
2. Twitter should copy Facebook the Conglomerate or Facebook Paper, not Facebook the web site. 2014-Apr-14
3. Contrary to popular belief, fusion power generation is not really like the Sun 2014-Apr-21
4. Sure software methodologies appear different. But keep in mind what they have in common. 2014-Apr-28
5. Windows 8 explained with smiley faces and Venn diagrams. 2014-May-05
6. Jimmy Iovine argues curating music playlists is niche behavior. But this critique applies more broadly. 2014-May-12
7. Inequality, Piketty and Matthew Yglesias’ The Rent Is Too Damn High 2014-May-19
8. The Ideological Turing Test. What it is. Why it’s worth taking seriously. 2014-May-27
9. Time to accept Frozen’s greatness. And why not? John Lasseter modeled Elsa’s biggest scene. 2014-Jun-02
10. Timing is Everything. Apple TV, gaming disruption, and why futurists aren’t billionaires. 2014-Jun-16
11. On the fated path from disruptive startup to regulated tech monopoly 2014-Jun-23
12. The job to be done by Android TV is big screen app entertainment, which will (eventually) subsume existing TV. 2014-Jun-30

Jan-Mar 2014

1. Mobile Telecoms. Not just big. Really really big. 2014-Jan-06
2. Multiple TV remotes showcase the evils of complexity. Smart TVs just make it worse. 2014-Jan-13
3. Let’s get real about Selfish Genes, Group Selection and Altruism. Towards a less impoverished view of humanity. 2014-Jan-20
4. Google believes they’re Bell Labs. They’re becoming GE. Long term danger? Becoming a regulated utility. 2014-Jan-27
5. Make the world better. Don’t say “thin client” again. Ever. 2014-Feb-01
6. Internet pricing, Dungeon Keeper and the case for Minimum Viable Free Product (MVFP). 2014-Feb-10
7. Bad Software Design. Splitting the blame between Malice, Stupidity and Difficulty. 2014-Feb-17
8. Bitcoin is a far better payment system than currency. And that’s just fine. 2014-Feb-24
9. WhatsApp’s first year free model deserves to be emulated 2014-Mar-03
10. Bitcoin as Rorschach Test. Some see Traditional Currency. Others see Byzantine Generals. 2014-Mar-10
11. Mundane Science and SF are awesome. Please stop it with the invisibility cloaks and FTL. 2014-Mar-17
12. What Chess and Moore’s Law teach us about the progress of technology 2014-Mar-24
13. The God Particle Revisited: Augmented Audio Reality in the Age of Wearables. 2014-Mar-31

Oct-Dec 2013

1. Utopian Radicals Never Recant. Not 1960’s leftists. Not Tea Party rightists. 2013-Oct-06
2. GM Crops: The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good 2013-Oct-13
3. Life hacking tips and tricks 2013-Oct-20
4. Business Models for Free Software 2013-Oct-27
5. This is my first Praxtime blog post on WordPress. Moved from Tumblr. 2013-Nov-03
6. Apple’s strategy tax on services versus Google. Voice interaction becoming the “God particle” of mobile. 2013-Nov-03
7. What Star Wars teaches us about being “wrong on the internet” 2013-Nov-10
8. Area man reports “I’m in a promising local blog.” Which is why Twitter needs Pandora style timelines. 2013-Nov-18
9. Avoiding “Sagan Syndrome.” Why Astronomers and Journalists should pay heed to Biologists about ET. 2013-Nov-25
10. Coal is so bad it makes fracking good 2013-Dec-02
11. The Reproducibility Crisis in Science. Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love nukes with a side of bacon. 2013-Dec-09
12. Average is Over could use more focus on the Zero Marginal Cost Economics of software 2013-Dec-16
13. Grading last year’s predictions for 2013 (my 2014 predictions coming next week) 2013-Dec-23
14. 10 Praxtime predictions for 2014 2013-Dec-30

Jul-Sep 2013

1. The Gradual Singularity 2013-Jul-07
2. The Economics of Artificial Intelligence 2013-Jul-14
3. The College “Bundle” and MOOC online learning 2013-Jul-21
4. MOOCs and the future of college 2013-Jul-28
5. Economists agree on microeconomics, not macroeconomics. The public believes the opposite. 2013-Aug-04
6. With some sympathy for Orson Scott Card 2013-Aug-11
7. In favor of the Super Early Anthropocene 2013-Aug-18
8. Homo Erectus – not so different from modern humans 2013-Aug-25
9. The stock market blindly lusts after exploitative monopolies 2013-Sep-01
10. The Innovation/Monopoly axis 2013-Sep-08
11. The Future of Phones? Free Phablets! 2013-Sep-15
12. Next Gen TV Set Top Boxes are generalized platforms combining DVR + Cable + Receiver + Game Console 2013-Sep-22
13. Intelligent life is just getting started 2013-Sep-29

Apr-Jun 2013

1. Gay marriage is conservative 2013-Apr-07
2. Football, Boxing and head injuries 2013-Apr-14
3. A future where it’s normal for all public spaces to be captured on video 2013-Apr-21
4. Coupons will never, ever, ever go away 2013-Apr-28
5. Sometimes bad policy isn’t caused by red state/blue state, but by biased human cognition. 2013-May-05
6. Politics are driven by urbanization as much as race 2013-May-12
7. Snail mail to the stars 2013-May-19
8. Race and IQ. Can’t we all just get along? 2013-May-26
9. Atheism as a sacred belief 2013-Jun-02
10. Living with a deep faith in science 2013-Jun-09
11. Demonizing along your preferred axis 2013-Jun-16
12. Predictions about self-driving cars 2013-Jun-23
13. Bees are to hives what neurons are to brains 2013-Jun-30

Jan-Mar 2013

1. Digital Economics: The Zero Marginal Cost Economy 2013-Jan-06
2. Digital Economics: Movies 2013-Jan-13
3. Digital Economics: TV and cord cutting 2013-Jan-20
4. Life on Wet Planets 2013-Jan-27
5. So where are all the aliens? 2013-Feb-03
6. Articles worth thinking about – Feb 2013 2013-Feb-10
7. How much should we worry about the Population Apocalypse? 2013-Feb-18
8. What sport are humans best evolved for? 2013-Feb-24
9. Two Models of Why We Get Fat 2013-Mar-03
10. Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes 2013-Mar-10
11. Digital Economics: Content wants to subscription stream 2013-Mar-17
12. What are the risks of a global pandemic? 2013-Mar-24
13. College athletes should be paid 2013-Mar-31

Oct-Dec 2012

1. The (very slow) Rise of Scientific Materialism 2012-Oct-07
2. Consciousness and Free Will 2012-Oct-14
3. The debate on Strong Artificial Intelligence and conscious computers 2012-Oct-21
4. Sifting through bad password advice to find the good stuff 2012-Oct-28
5. Understanding Republican Science Denialism. Haidt is right. Mooney is wrong. 2012-Nov-04
6. Perfect meritocracy replaces class with caste 2012-Nov-11
7. Repeal price gouging laws now. Why? Zombie apocalypse. 2012-Nov-18
8. The winding path to multi-ethnic democracy 2012-Nov-25
9. Advice on home stereo gear 2012-Dec-02
10. Why is Christmas music terrible? Answer: 1950’s television. 2012-Dec-09
11. Digital Economics: The Hollow Middle 2012-Dec-16
12. The Long View on Violence and Gun Control 2012-Dec-23
13. 10 Predictions for 2013 2012-Dec-30

Jul-Sep 2012

1. Science on the cusp of mainstream 2012-Jul-08
2. Higgs nightmare scenario – still good science 2012-Jul-15
3. Adventures at Safeway 2012-Jul-15
4. Closing the astronaut window. Robots onward. 2012-Jul-22
5. Cheap genome sequencing – expectations and reality 2012-Jul-29
6. Genomics goes from trickle to flood 2012-Aug-05
7. The Genomic Tsunami. Reshaping arguments for Human Equality. 2012-Aug-12
8. Ricardo does the medal count 2012-Aug-19
9. The Enduring Appeal of Ayn Rand 2012-Aug-26
10. Why did Paul Ryan lie about his marathon time? 2012-Sep-02
11. Partisan Incomprehension. “You didn’t build that” edition. 2012-Sep-02
12. On the total awesomeness of economist Scott Sumner 2012-Sep-09
13. The Rise of the Touchscreen Interface 2012-Sep-16
14. Beyond the Touchscreen Interface, to Voice Interaction 2012-Sep-23
15. The Apple maps kerfuffle means the opposite of what most of the press is saying 2012-Sep-30