Here’s my weekly list of links and commentary. 1. Peter Turchin’s model says US violence will peak in 2020. This Nature News article from 2012 summarizes Turchin’s work: To Peter Turchin, who studies population dynamics at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, the appearance of three peaks of political instability at roughly 50-year intervals is not a… Continue reading Saturday Links 18-Aug-2018: Turchin’s model for social crisis, feudal California taxes, PGS for disease, Elephant genes

Here’s what I found interesting this week. Plus commentary. 1. Amazon Alexa only rarely used for shopping. The Amazon Alexa voice interface device is primarily used to “answer simple questions about the weather, set timers and play music and radio stations.”  Via Charles Arthur on twitter, of the 1 million who’ve tried shopping with Alexa,… Continue reading Sunday Links 12-Aug-2018: most don’t shop with Alexa, Loss Aversion, workplace wellness RCT, Arambourgiania, Colima volcano

Here’s 5 links, with commentary, on what I enjoyed reading this week. 1. The shifting language of racism. If you spend time on twitter (guilty), it was impossible to miss the kerfuffle around the New York Times hiring Sarah Jeong to its editorial board. People looked into her twitter history, and dug up tweets like:… Continue reading Sunday Links 5-Aug-2018: Shifting language of racism, two kinds of YIMBY, Island Dwafism, Wildfires and Houses

Here’s comments on what I most enjoyed reading this week. And yes, a lot of this post is on educational attainment genomics paper number three (nickname EA3). Point #1 below. But plenty of other good stuff too! 1. Genomic prediction of educational attainment. New paper analyzes DNA of 1.1M people of European descent to find… Continue reading Sunday Links 29-Jul-2018: Genetics of education, Big tech economics, MOOC middlemen get the $, Underground water on Mars

1. Voice Computing. Benedict Evans has long been skeptical of voice as a computing interface. I’ve generally been bullish. In the end I think everyone agrees voice would be great, but it’s unclear on when it will become good enough to be truly useful. It’s a matter of timing, always the hardest thing to know… Continue reading Sunday Links 22-Jul-2018: Voice computing, Netflix, Quantum gravity, blueberry Earth

1. Genomic Prediction of Social Mobility. New paper using 20k individuals predicts SES mobility with genomic scoring. In English this means that by looking at your genes, you can predict, at least to some extent, who is going to rise and fall in socioeconomic status. The study included predictions of siblings (since children have different mixes… Continue reading Saturday Links 14-Jul-2018: Genomic Prediction of Social Mobility, Alzheimer Virus, Mind as prediction, Sonos teardown

1. Free Speech is a signal showing who has power. On June 20 Wendy Kaminer, former board member of the ACLU, accused the ACLU of backing away from their longstanding defense of free speech. She based this on a leaked internal ACLU memo, which, to be fair, tries to have it both ways. First saying “As… Continue reading Saturday Links 7-Jul-2018: Free Speech and power, Tribal nations, Imperceptibly changing minds, flying electric spiders

1. Next gen Apple Maps coming in iOS12. In his story, Matthew Panzarino unsurprisingly hits the Apple PR privacy talking point (Apple is not bad bad bad like Google) rather hard. But that’s expected since he’s getting an exclusive from Apple. Main points: Apple built their next gen mapping data up from scratch (no external partners) by driving… Continue reading Saturday Links 30-Jun-2018: Next gen Apple maps, WEIRD Cousin Marriage, Fermi Paradox, Dunbar limits on places

Here are links/commentary on what I found most interesting to read recently. 1. Asian discrimination lawsuit against Harvard won’t change anything, except damage their claims to meritocracy. Not much new if you’ve been paying attention to the lawsuit. By now it’s clear Harvard and the Ivy League capped admissions for Asians at about 17% at… Continue reading Saturday Links 23-Jun-2018: Disability is down, German immigrants, Patrilineal kin groups, Paul McCartney carpool karaoke