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Links

Archive of links I've read. For exercise-related links, see Training Links.

I organize by the following tags appended to the end of each entry. Search the page by tag to find specific types of links. As of 19 November 2022, I only use tags for select links.

List of tags
!science	!productivity	!nature
!unique	!fitness	!health
!communication	!technology	!philosophy
!useful	!culture	!psychology
!fun	!events	!economics
!important	!misc(ellaneous)	!art
!future	!history	!favorites
!architecture	!literature	!thoughts
!film	!music	!military
!language	!medicine	!stories
!quality	!geography	!crime
!cybersecurity	!games	!food
!advice	!politics	!dating
!gaming	!biology	!diy
!guns	!meditation	!academia
!finance	!sports	!career
!education	!drugs

October 2025

September 2025

August 2025

July 2025

June 2025

Picoeconomics
Sinaloa cartel used phone data and surveillance cameras to find FBI informants, DOJ says
A case for courage, when speaking of AI danger
OpenAI Leadership Responds to Meta Offers: 'Someone Has Broken Into Our Home'
Sport For Health
The Highest Impact Thing You Can Do in Your Everyday Life
towards a theory of spillover altruism: a framework for community flourishing
Biafra
Come on Man
Boots (poem)
Walking the Great Road with Friends
Crystal Ball Trading Challenge
Netflix Culture Deck
Paradox of tolerance
a truly tolerant society must retain the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance. Popper posited that if intolerant ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices.
IQ and wealth: The dumb rich and the smart poor
How important is intelligence to financial success? Using the NLSY79, which tracks a large group of young U.S. baby boomers, this research shows that each point increase in IQ test scores raises income by between $234 and $616 per year after holding a variety of factors constant. Regression results suggest no statistically distinguishable relationship between IQ scores and wealth. Financial distress, such as problems paying bills, going bankrupt or reaching credit card limits, is related to IQ scores not linearly but instead in a quadratic relationship. This means higher IQ scores sometimes increase the probability of being in financial difficulty.
Attitudes one can take towards people who have behaved badly
Lindahl tax
Hacking Pinball High Scores
Alleged doubles of Vladimir Putin
Backyard Coffee And Jazz In Kyoto, Japan
George Piro
Media films Saddam sons
I Was A Juror On A Murder Trial
My Economist Father
The Gentle Singularity
Juche
Derawar Fort
Pavel Prigozhin
Valery Chekalov
Hafez Bashar al-Assad
Why it’s nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting
TimeGuessr
Iran Update Special Report, June 14, 2025, Evening Edition
Project Horizon
Killing of Brian Thompson
The Claude Bliss Attractor
This Is Not a Drill
So You Want to Work at a Frontier AI Lab
Ghiblification for Privacy
If It's Worth Your Time To Lie, It's Worth My Time To Correct It
Read the Pricing First
The Wire That Transforms Much of Manhattan Into One Big, Symbolic Home
The Mirror Trap
Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
MISSILEMAP
NUKEMAP
How to be a good citizen of the infovore-blogosphere
50 Ideas for Life I Repeatedly Share (part 2)

May 2025

April 2025

March 2025

February 2025

January 2025

What science is like in North Korea
North Korea Is So Afraid of This Volcano, It Asked Western Scientists for Help
DEF CON 30 - Andrew Logan - Tracking Military Ghost Helicopters over Washington DC
Adragon De Mello
Yakov Novichenko: "He notably protected Kim Il Sung, the first leader of North Korea, from an assassination attempt in 1946. He is considered the only non-Korean to have had a cult of personality in the country, and is the only non-Korean to have received the Hero of Labor award, the highest title in North Korea."
Right Wing Cancel Squads
Intelligence and Prejudice
Uncomfortable truth: How close is “positivity culture” to delusion and denial?
U.S. Clears Way for Antitrust Inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI
How companies trick you into overpaying
How I Overcame My Addiction to Sugar
Fast Crimes at Lambda School
How to (hopefully ethically) make money off of AGI
On Dwarkesh’s Podcast with Leopold Aschenbrenner
Emerald Triangle: "region in Northern California that derives its name from being the largest cannabis-producing region in the United States"
How to Become More Likable Using 9 Techniques From the World’s Most Charismatic People
- Enter rooms with intention - acknowledge everyone, move confidently, and set the tone like Matthew McConaughey does by greeting hosts, band members, and audience members on talk shows.
- Use names frequently - incorporate people's names in conversation and create nicknames to build intimacy, following The Rock's example of personalizing interactions with fans.
- Track conversation details - remember personal information shared during small talk by using tools like phone contact notes to recall important life events and follow up later.
- Practice random kindness - make time for others and use your position to help people, following examples set by Keanu Reeves and The Rock who regularly engage with fans and support others.
- Tell compelling stories - master the art of narrative by using proper pacing and dramatic elements, like Matthew McConaughey's ability to turn simple ideas into engaging tales.
- Frame risks positively - present challenges as heroic journeys rather than obstacles, similar to how Sara Blakely tells the Spanx founding story.
- Use preemptive humor - defuse potential criticism by acknowledging it first with humor while maintaining dignity, following Dolly Parton's approach.
- Listen without competing - avoid overshadowing others' experiences with your own and show genuine interest in their stories.
- Show authentic imperfection - embrace your quirks and awkward moments like Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, combining confidence with relatable humanity.
Sam Altman Was Bending the World to His Will Long Before OpenAI
Sleep, Diet, Exercise and GLP-1 Drugs
The Intelligence Curse
Woolly Mammoth, Dodo Get Another Shot as Startup Raises $200 Million
What is a SCIF?
Situational Awareness
"GILAHARI (LIZARD) SYNDROME" IS IT A NEW CULTURE BOUND SYNDROME? - A CASE REPORT
AI Can Write a More Believable Restaurant Review Than a Human Can
OpenAI: Fallout
Aumann's agreement theorem:
The theorem concerns agents who share a common prior and update their probabilistic beliefs by Bayes' rule. It states that if the probabilistic beliefs of such agents, regarding a fixed event, are common knowledge then these probabilities must coincide. Thus, agents cannot agree to disagree, that is have common knowledge of a disagreement over the posterior probability of a given event.
How to Pick Your Life Partner – Part 1
Lustre (file system)
How 3M Discovered, Then Concealed, the Dangers of Forever Chemicals
Chess Brat A year after an outrageous scandal, the grandmaster Hans Niemann has been kinda-sorta vindicated. So how is he more disliked than ever?
Silk Road's Second-in-Command Gets 20 Years in Prison
Computer Programmer Sentenced To Prison For Making False Statements About His Involvement In The “Silk Road” Website
Feds Arrest an Alleged $336M Bitcoin-Laundering Kingpin
OpenAI: Exodus
Shipbreaking
A Dozen Ways to Get More Dakka
Floor796
Post 41: Overcoming Helplessness
Post 44: What’s Stopping You?
Gaza Hostage Crisis Led To "Unprecedented" Delta Force and SEAL Team 6 Deployment
Evaluability (And Cheap Holiday Shopping)
What Have I, What Have I Done To Deserve This?
Fahren-height
Things You’re Allowed to Do: University Edition
Automate the Food
Don’t ignore bad vibes you get from people
Notifications Received in 30 Minutes of Class
The Dark Arts Preamble
Smartphone Etiquette: Suggestions for Social Interactions
Rejecting Television
Tax Price Gouging?
How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates
Watching historians dissect _Chernobyl_
Salesforce Will Hire No More Software Engineers in 2025, Says Marc Benioff
Disagreement on AGI Suggests It’s Near
MBA Class Project Got a Bit Too Real

December 2024

November 2024

The Importance of Diminishing Returns
Blake Benthall, former Silk Road operator, revisits the scene of the crime
November 2024 Batroun raid
Shayetet 13: Israeli naval unit specializing in special ops.
Playing to Win
The Online Sports Gambling Experiment Has Failed
People skills I am working on
Bright Light (CIA)
Camp 1391
Uber's Deleted "Rides of Glory" Blog Post
Tang ping (lying flat)
Congrats To Polymarket, But I Still Think They Were Mispriced
FGC-9: Fuck gun control 9 mm
"What if your entire worldview was just because of near-zero interest rates?"
How to grow your princes
rich kid memes & the online culture of the 1 percent
Sloth was not the right answer
Ortolan Bunting

October 2024

September 2024

August 2024

July 2024

BDSM Subtypes And Their Prevalence
Indonesia’s 'Strava jockey' trend goes viral, but buying exercise achievements comes with potential pitfalls, say experts
Tyler Cowen’s 12 rules for life
Who We Are And What We Do
How Attorneys Can Represent Their Guilty As Charged Clients In Good Conscience by Keyana Jones
Why doesn't advice work?
LyondellBasell La Porte Fatal Chemical Release
Stochastic terrorism
World’s best new architecture revealed: Agreed on most of these. Beautiful features and structures and, best of all, no modern, sleek bullshit that somehow passes for architecture.
Lifeboat Games And Backscratchers Clubs
Why Do Men Dominate Chess?: Status-seeking behavior and a greater tendency to obsess over things seem to be the big drivers.
Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it: I'm surprised they didn't resort straight to threats. Good cop, bad cop, I guess.
Devil's Advocates: I've always wondered if there's an moral excuse for defense lawyers to get away with representing a horrible client and this somewhat confirms it: there's not (much). I'll read the linked blog posts at some point.
Why I attack: Strong agree with Carlini's stance on this. It's important to highlight weaknesses in systems lest they get exploited because they were considered patched or foolproof. This allows users to avoid the system or start working on a fix. Would love to see Zhao's response to the article and if he views it in a different light.
How to use your wife/husband/gf/bf correctly: See One-on-Ones: Experiences and Suggestions.
You’re Good Enough, You’re Smart Enough, and People Would Like You: Meetups are a great example of this, unless of course you don't talk. People are kind enough to pull you into the group and let you talk about your interests. The same goes for most online writing; I'm surprised about how much (well, little) traffic my site gets given its niche and personal topics.
The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free: Managers continue to find ways to surprise me on how disconnected they can be from the feelings and sentiments of low-level workers (i.e., the people who actually do the work). My company took away our quarterly tacos and replaced them with four-pack donuts, then bumped those down to three-packs! WTF! Do you want morale to drop? Bean counters will continue to be the ruin of companies.
Robotaxis should be a wakeup call for cities: I always expected FSD to happen with a bang, not a quiet softstart like what's happening in San Francisco.
How to Evaluate a "False Flag" Claim
The Fate of Democracy Isn't a Decision for One Man

June 2024

Fucking Goddamn Basics of Rationalist Discourse
Microfeatures I Love in Blogs and Personal Websites: Sometimes I wonder if I should add small features like this to my website. It's a decent amount of work: I have to go back through all of my posts and add things like the status bar, external link markets, etc. I do use table of contents, series info, and other site links (via my friends list). But there's something about a very simple site, one only coded in HTML and very little CSS and JS, that just feels better, more minimalist, easier.
Status-oriented spending
What Cost Variety?: This seems substantially better, allowing us to signal status in different ways, like who's fitter, more well-read. I suspect people who oppose this signal status via purchasing things because they lack substance in other areas (to an extent)?
Obvious travel advice: I don't really have any favorites out of these given I follow most of them. Embracing the tourist persona is probably something I should do better about.
Prof or Hobo? - Quiz
I once witnessed a spider controlling a motion activated flood light to catch prey.:
Upon closer inspection, I found that the spider had created a singular strand of webbing, thicker than the rest (5x-10x), directly over the front of the sensor. It would then pluck this thicker strand whenever it wanted the light to turn on.
Transcript and Brief Response to Twitter Conversation between Yann LeCunn and Eliezer Yudkowsky: Yann LeCunn being hardheaded on Twitter. It surprises me how he refuses to believe in anything AI safety-related despite it being taken seriously by so many people.
I would have shit in that alley, too: Experiences with the homeless, including alley-side defecation, compliments, death, waxing, and talking. As in Aella's recent piece, homeless people seem a lot more friendly than people give them credit for. Maybe I'll try approaching one in the future.
In AI we trust, part II: Using Claude to provide opinions on Supreme Court cases. Some of them match judges' opinions, while others are taken a step further and provide some extra information and justification. Pretty neat!
Sportswashing: "using sports to improve reputations tarnished by wrongdoing. A form of propaganda, sportswashing can be accomplished through hosting sporting events, purchasing, or sponsoring sporting teams, or participating in a sport."
Photographer Disqualified From AI Image Contest After Winning With Real Photo: Meh, I get his point, but meh.
Taylor Swift fans cause seismic activity in Edinburgh – but not as much as Harry Styles did: 23 nanometers?! Bruh, call me when it gets to the micrometer scale. (Also, pretty cool we have the capability to measure that small of movement.)
They recorded a maximum of 23.4 nanometres (nm) of movement – admittedly considerably less than an actual earthquake – during the 7 July concert, with particular impact coming as the 73,000 fans danced to Ready For It? and Cruel Summer.
On dromomania: Self-proclaimed travelers—the self-righteous ones who believe they're better than you for having been to more countries—are the worst. On top of that, most people probably don't travel to maximize the benefit they get, but to maximize the status they gain from talking/posting/bragging about it. And in the end, does it really make one's life that much better? Does eating foreign food in a foreign place really enhance things? Some may say yes, others no. I'm in the middle and think it depends on who you are.
Microsoft’s star AI chief peers into OpenAI’s code, highlighting an unusual rivalry: As Nadella has basically said, Microsoft owns OpenAI and everything about them. I'm surprised Altman let it get to this point (unless he has something else up his sleeve or figured it was the only way to get the compute needed or has an exit strategy). I wonder how the agreement works and if Microsoft can simply take what they want when they want (I'm guessing a hard no, but how close can they get without violating anything?).
Elon Musk’s Boundary-Blurring Relationships With Women at SpaceX
Dan's the man: Why Chinese women are looking to ChatGPT for love: It seems like East Asian countries tend to adopt these customs before the West (see the stereotype of Japanese sex robots), but I think it's only a matter of time before we do, too. First it will be in the form of text, then other customizable things like voices, video, maybe even physical objects. A case study of the current status of AI partners would be interesting, along with a forecast.
What is it like to work in an Ethiopian factory?: Terrible. Not sure what I was expecting reading this—does anyone think working in a third-world country's factory is good?
Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test: Choose the emotion that best describes the eyes. I got 26/36, with a majority of my wrong answers being a toss-up. I'd love to see results on genders, ages, etc. I also wonder if this can replicate with voices, althought the phrase used would have to be consistent and applicable to all emotions.
Meet the woman who transformed Sam Altman into the avatar of AI
OpenAI expands lobbying team to influence regulation: Regulation helps companies far ahead to throttle those left behind; more regulation prevents those behind from catching up due to laws, etc. Altman's connections and ability to gain power combined with money and other heavy hitters will lead to them gaining an edge (if they don't already have one).
My tantric "awakening" turned me off sex
AI Will Become Mathematicians’ ‘Co-Pilot’: I'm a bit surprised that 20-ish people can work on the same paper at the same time... it seems like there would be one approach that a mastermind devises. But maybe this is the way it is.
ASML Aims for Hyper-NA EUV, Shrinking Chip Limits
Four Futures For Cognitive Labor: Printing press, mechanization of farming, computers, and the ice trade (talk about something I never even thought about!):
whether the tech will be a productivity enhancing tool for human labor or an automating substitute and whether the elasticity of demand for the outputs of the augmented production process is high enough to raise the quantity of labor input.
Silicon Valley’s Best Kept Secret: Founder Liquidity: Yes, good for them, but they should also own that and make it public to their employees.
INSIDE THE NSA’S SECRET EFFORTS TO HUNT AND HACK SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS: Not sure why anyone would be surprised by this? If you are the hub of a desirable network and have immediate access to all the nodes, of course you're gonna be sought after by the NSA. Accompanying documents here.
I’m a Screenwriter. These AI Jokes Give Me Nightmares:
Based on the secret stuff Dan’s shown me, I think it’s only a matter of time before AI will be able to beat any writer in a blind creative taste test. I’d peg it at about five years.
I think this is about right, if not a tad long. Same goes for graphic designers and other freelance type artists.
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: The Decade Ahead
Gruen transfer: Why stop at just shopping malls? Any place that you can spend money at can easily take advantage of this, such as casinos (although intentions may be straightforward here) and strip clubs (intentions are definitely straightforward here). Claude tells me IKEA has its maze to entice customers to different places to get a full offering of their products. This could be used in tandem with the Gruen transfer.
On Being Brought Up by Libertarian Economists: I, too, fought back against the taboo of contradicting elders or "because I said so" mentality. Children can understand explanations, too, and even if they can't, that's their problem. Simply explain the reason is simple terms and let the child defend themself if they deem it stupid or unreasonable.
Why Men Are ‘Rawdogging’ Flights: But why? The movie selection is insane, books are readily available on phones, tablets, or in print, and sleeping is a bit easier with melatonin or good ol' lounge alcohol. I suppose there's a meditative aspect to it where you can just be alone with your thoughts and maybe that is valuable; there's very few places where that truly happens, and an airplane may not be the worst place to do it (you can reflect on why you travel, the technological marvel of airplanes, etc).
adventures with the homeless people outside my house: Homeless people definitely get a bad rap, and I expect that is more of a rule than exception, but I'm also fairly sheltered. This has made me want to do profiles of homeless people around my city.
Photographs of the Los Angeles Alligator Farm (ca. 1907)

May 2024

Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting
Leblouh
Employee Equity
On Really Trying
How To Lose Weight, Method #394
A better strategy is to exert self-discipline over something with no real opposition, a positive action. It takes much less self-discipline to force yourself to do something you don't want to do (e.g. flossing), then it does to not do something you want.
Don't Hate Her Because She's Successful
Ten Extra Seconds Would Have Saved True Detective's Finale
The Case for Marrying an Older Man
I Went Undercover as a Secret OnlyFans Chatter. It Wasn’t Pretty
ChatGPT can talk, but OpenAI employees sure can’t
Everything is Dominance Hierarchies
The Power Move of Working the 5-to-9 Before the 9-to-5
HEARING IS BE-LEAFING: STUDENTS INVENT QUIETER LEAF BLOWER
Everything on ‘Naked and Afraid’ Is Real—and I Lived It
1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot
1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack
Smart, Qualified People Behind The Scenes Keeping America Safe: ‘We Don't Exist’
Twitter Timeline Height
You have a sad feeling for a moment, then it passes
Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike resign from OpenAI
This Woman Sees 100 Times More Colors Than The Average Person
Platypus venom
Deep Honesty
The Package King of Miami
How retailers like Best Buy, T.J. Maxx and Home Depot quietly target ‘problem’ returners
Jeffrey Ladish
Dating Roundup #1: This Is Why You're Still Single
The Billion-Dollar Unraveling Of The 'King' Of Silicon Valley
Why Do East Asian Firms Value Drinking?
The Emotional Support Animal Racket
Are Schools Too Focused on Mental Health?
Ballasting Happiness
Asterisk/Zvi on California's AI Bil
OpenAI Is Doomed? - Et tu, Microsoft?
Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution
In Defense Of Describable Dating Preferences
The boy Jones
On Llama-3 and Dwarkesh Patel’s Podcast with Zuckerberg
Gender quotas and company financial performance: A systematic review:
We conclude that quotas for women on corporate boards have mainly decreased company performance and that several moderating factors must be taken into account when assessing causal effects of quotas on company performance.
The Legend of John Von Neumann
Sheetz sued by EEOC for conducting criminal background checks
Book Review: The Origins of Woke
Haitian quake shook leader to his core
SA's Haitian travels 2
SA's Haitian travels
SA's Indian travlels
She's the One

April 2024

March 2024

February 2024

'Magnificent creatures': New photos show largest anaconda ever recorded
Price fixing by algorithm is still price fixing
Why Do Mosquitoes Like Me So Much?
AI #53: One More Leap
Person addicts themself to housework using nicotine
Love seems like a high priority
Crash at Crush
Nongqawuse
Straight line from Seattle puzzle
Cartouches - Fra Mauro
Why Children Need Risk, Fear, and Excitement in Play
Why time seems to pass faster as we age
Ant geopolitics
Unemployment Part 2 - How to Save Yourself
Unemployment Part I – Quitting Won't Save You
BERLIN TYPE
The Pareto Best and the Curse of Doom
Who Does Polygen Selection Help?
Finding enjoyment in a boring life?
Housing Can’t Be Affordable and a High-Performing Investment
Do Trees Really Support Each Other through a Network of Fungi?
Things Unexpectedly Named After People
CFAR Takewaways: Andrew Critch
I'd also take $7 trillion
You can only get ~10% hotter
Female Neediness or Female Status Seeking?
On the desperation of female neediness
The Layoff
Utility monster
"No-one in my org puts money in their pension"
‘Humanity’s remaining timeline? It looks more like five years than 50’: meet the neo-luddites warning of an AI apocalypse
Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot
On AI and Interest Rates
Raising children on the eve of AI
Words Must Become Flesh
Scale Was All We Needed, At First
Sam Altman Wants $7 Trillion
Plan your charcuterie board
The Tyger
Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion - a randomized controlled trial [!productivity]
Doing 1-on-1s Better - EAG Tips Part II
How I Survived a Year in ‘the Hole’ Without Losing My Mind
A simple guide on words to avoid in government
So you wanna de-bog yourself
Disney trips are so complicated now that you need a class to plan one
Spycraft and Statecraft
Napoleon: a Cautionary Tale for Young Idealists
What's so great about tunnel man?
Underrated reasons to be thankful III
My attempted cult recruitment
Things to argue about over the holidays instead of politics II
Seems Like Targeting
Squirrel king
People with disagreeable personalities (selfish, combative, and manipulative) do not have an advantage in pursuing power at work
disagreeable individuals engaged in two distinct patterns of behavior that offset each other's effects on power attainment: They engaged in more dominant-aggressive behavior, which positively predicted attaining higher power, but also engaged in less communal and generous behavior, which predicted attaining less power. These two effects, when combined, appeared to cancel each other out and led to a null correlation between disagreeableness and power.
The End of Airbnb in New York
AI #48: The Talk of Davos
Recursive Middle Manager Hell

January 2024

The privilege of being relatable; how often do you filter what you say for the sake of fitting in?
Small signs you live in a complacent society
The Most Loved and Hated Classic Novels According to Goodreads Users
"I'd be worried about someone spending down all their reserves because they expected superintelligence in 5 years. That is not a sort of thing that can be predicted."
Exclusive: Altman says ChatGPT will have to evolve in “uncomfortable” ways
Learn Like an Athlete
What Should You Work On?
How do poor countries get rich?
Thinking about big numbers
Passenger mortalities aboard cruise ships
How Relationship Satisfaction Changes Across Your Lifetime
AG Ferguson investigation shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
Sex differences in friendship preferences
men, compared to women, more highly value same-sex friends who are physically formidable, possess high status, possess wealth, and afford access to potential mates. In contrast, women, compared to men, more highly value friends who provide emotional support, intimacy, and useful social information
Keep Breathing
AI Sleeper Agents
Startup Advice
(unauthorized) advice from guest 04
A Two sentence Jailbreak for GPT-4 and Claude & Why Nobody Knows How to Fix It
1100 Declassified U.S. Nuclear Targets
What Is Nightshade?
How to design a house to last 1000 years (Part I)
How to design a house to last 1000 years (part II)
How to design a house to last for 1000 years (part III)
Six Rules To Being a Frugal Foodie
Andrew Wiles
Gwern on neural net progress
Gwern on OpenAI drama
Dad Jokes
Stanley Williams
The Republican Party is Doomed
The dangers of virus hunting
EA Wins 2023
Losing my son
Beaver drop
When Your Child is a Psychopath
What good is G-factor if you're dumped in the woods? A field report from a camp counselor.
The Big Problem With the Giant Stanley Cup
Who By Very Slow Decay
The Road To Honest AI
Mini Blog Post 4: Reward the ways you’d like to be treated
CHRISTMAS DAY AS JUDGEMENT DAY
Tailored Access Operations
“Play-to-earn” and Bullshit Jobs
The Missing Missing Reasons
Not All Estranged Parents Are Abusive
What is DARVO?
DARVO stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim -- or the whistle blower -- into an alleged offender.
How Do You Tell Which Parents Are Abusive and Which Are the Victims of Abusive Children?
Why Study Estranged Parents' Forums?
Stories from Estranged Parents
“Autism is a Spectrum” Doesn’t Mean What You Think
A deep dive into an NSO zero-click iMessage exploit: Remote Code Execution
The secret Uganda deal that has brought NSO to the brink of collapse
Internet Movie Firearms Database
Risks of myocarditis, pericarditis, and cardiac arrhythmias associated with COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection
We found increased risks of myocarditis associated with the first dose of ChAdOx1 and BNT162b2 vaccines and the first and second doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine over the 1–28 days postvaccination period, and after a SARS-CoV-2 positive test. We estimated an extra two (95% confidence interval (CI) 0, 3), one (95% CI 0, 2) and six (95% CI 2, 8) myocarditis events per 1 million people vaccinated with ChAdOx1, BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273, respectively, in the 28 days following a first dose and an extra ten (95% CI 7, 11) myocarditis events per 1 million vaccinated in the 28 days after a second dose of mRNA-1273. This compares with an extra 40 (95% CI 38, 41) myocarditis events per 1 million patients in the 28 days following a SARS-CoV-2 positive test. We also observed increased risks of pericarditis and cardiac arrhythmias following a positive SARS-CoV-2 test. Similar associations were not observed with any of the COVID-19 vaccines, apart from an increased risk of arrhythmia following a second dose of mRNA-1273. Subgroup analyses by age showed the increased risk of myocarditis associated with the two mRNA vaccines was present only in those younger than 40.
Exact, Exacting: Who is the Most Accurate World Champion?
How to rest well
The last warrior of Africa’s ‘Forgotten Army’: Gambia and WWII
Dark Humor in the Dark Ages
Bill Ackman Harvard thoughts
Pristina notes
Politician's syllogism
Views on when AGI comes and on strategy to reduce existential risk
Chinese military purge exposes weakness, could widen
Salta (and Jujuy) notes
Are cities for tourists or residents?

December 2023

AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities
GPTs are Predictors, not Imitators
‘Daddy isn’t coming back’: surviving my partner’s suicide
Ten Steps Towards Happiness
Spintronics: Build mechanical circuits
Retrospective 2023: To Sing as a Seagull Should
What is the source of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2)?
This European Town Was Built to Resemble Lego Blocks
Ad Astra
Law Firm Sues Kellogg for not Enough Strawberries in Pop-Tarts
Productivity [!productivity]
CDC gets list of forbidden words: Fetus, transgender, diversity
E Pur Si Muove
A Clarification
What I Heard From Trump Supporters
By endurance we conquer
More interesting dinner conversations
Aliens
Successful people
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
Petrov: The man who lived in the woods of Mendocino County
Crown shyness
Costs of running a macOS app studio business
Haley Morris-Cafiero
Sam Altman’s Knack for Dodging Bullets—With a Little Help From Bigshot Friends
Mundane Magic
In The Long Run, We're All Dad
Chamber A
Do Things that Don't Scale
Alain Bombard’s Castaway Cuisine
WHY BANNING ALL PARTY MEMBERS IS STUPID
Women’s perceptions of breast size, ptosis, and intermammary distance: Does breast morphology play a role in women’s intrasexual competition?
Women with large breasts were rated as more attractive, fertile, reproductively successful, likely to befriend, threatening, and they were rated as less likely to be introduced to a current partner. More importantly, these ratings were influenced by the interaction between breast size, intermammary distance, and ptosis.
Anna (feral child)
Genie (feral child)
Alone and Together
Airliner Number 4
Don't Read the News
Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order
ByteDance is secretly using OpenAI’s tech to build a competitor
15 of the most useful razors and rules I've found
Couvade syndrome:
an expectant father experiences some of the same symptoms and behavior as his pregnant partner. These most often include major weight gain, altered hormone levels, morning nausea, and disturbed sleep patterns. In more extreme cases, symptoms can include labor pains, fatigue, postpartum depression, and nosebleeds. The labor pain symptom is commonly known as sympathy pain.
One Tenth of a Second
Send Me To Heaven
Signals Are Forever [!important]
Businesses I Love
Is the 2 A.M. Principle the Secret to a Great Night Out?
The Case for Lifelogging as Life Extension
Timeline of Your Life
Make a Plan to Improve Your Life
Eight ways you can get more enjoyment from the same activity
Ways to be a Better Friends
How to Learn From Conversations
The Mysterious Heir of Extreme Travel
Swiss spy chief exits after reports of row over CIA-linked firm
My Beautiful Bubble
How much should nerds compromise their nerdiness?
The Don'ts of Dating Romantic Advice for Mottizens
A rant about lawns in America
The Home Buying Decision + The Home Happiness Calculator
Hedonometer [!favorites]
Don’t Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You
Guns and Protofascism
Get In The Van
THE SIX FORCES THAT FUEL FRIENDSHIP
How Street Dogs Spend their Days
On Aging Alone
Reward Long Content
Good examples of: Correlation doesn't prove Causation
Expensive Taste
Thriverism
Shadow of the Sun
Thérèse Kirongozi
The new generation of robots conceived by the inventor has cameras set in their “eyes” and “shoulders” that film traffic continuously. Thanks to the antenna fixed on top of their head, data can be transmitted to a control center via an Internet Protocol (IP) transmission
Propaganda as Signaling
Cognitive RF
AN/VLQ-12 CREW Duke: "The most widely deployed counter-IED system protecting our warfighters against roadside bombs today."
Why The Secret Service Needs An $8 Million Scale White House Replica
The Fascinating Anatomy of the Presidential Motorcade
Brazil’s mysterious tunnels made by giant sloths
Son Of Bridge Of Bay Area House Party
Heresy
Life Advice from NYC Chess Hustlers
Core Views on AI Safety: When, Why, What, and How
Dive in
The idea doesn't have to be good, and it doesn't have to be feasible, it just needs to be the best incredibly concrete plan that you can come up with at the moment. Don't worry, it will change rapidly when you start slamming it into reality. The important thing is to come up with a concrete plan, and then start executing it as hard as you can — while retaining a reflective state of mind updating in the face of evidence. ... The important thing is to stop waiting on the sidelines for better options to appear, and to start leaping in there. Make a crazy detailed plan, and dive into the fray.
Goldman executive who earned more than $100M since 2020 to ‘retire’ after clashing with CEO David Solomon: report
Why I Couldn’t Get Over My Brother’s Death
29 Lessons From Owning A Bookstore
Human genetic variation
One hundred thousand brains
Bezos on the big brains
The real smart guy
Rat Attack: NYC seeks hands-on leader in anti-rodent fight
New York City hires first-ever ‘rat czar,’ a former teacher who beat out nearly 1,000 applicants
We now have more info on what Sam Altman did that was so bad he got fired from OpenAI
OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever has become invisible at the company, with his future uncertain, insiders say
Hotel Baghdad
AI Girlfriends
Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse
New York approves the first congestion toll in the US: Drivers to be charged $15 to enter Manhattan
Dieselgate, but for trains – some heavyweight hardware hacking
Born secret
What is jury nullification?
The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
Company Leadership and tactical decisions
Prioritizing Parental Sleep
The Problem With Intelligence
Ever wondered why plumbers are paid so much?
What it’s really like to live in Monaco
An Unexpected Ass Kicking
What is a Wildcard Person?
Freedom to Roam in Scotland: Everything You Need to Know
Goldman Sachs CEO stops doing controversial DJ gigs
Tiny robots made from human cells heal damaged tissue
Who is responsible for grade inflation at Yale? (economists are meanies?)
Minnesota flag design contest submissions
Speedrunning College: Four Years Later, A Conclusion
Insights from 2,961 First Dates
Gold Base
Special Force (2003 video game)
2017 electronics ban
Ten Thousand
1788 doctors' riot
DALL*E system prompt
My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard
Queuing theory: Benefits of operating at 70% capacity
Public Weights?
Out-of-distribution Bioattacks
Know your customer
Quantopian contest, but for food intake and weight
The 101 Space You Will Always Have With You
You Get About Five Words
n1.tools
When Getting High Is a Hobby, Not a Habit: Notes for reading club:
Meet the Stripe mafia: These 14 former employees are raising millions for their own startups, from climate tech to a Slack competitor

November 2023

October 2023

The Science Behind Loneliness - And How To Escape
Towers of Bologna
The Class Divide in Marriage
Best Practices for Time Travelers
Attacked By Thugs
Sana'a
How to Improve Your Productivity as a Working Programmer
Programmer Interrupted: The Real Cost of Interruption and Context Switching
Sexual Abuse attitudes might be infohazardous
Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy
Youtube’s Anti-adblock and uBlock Origin
Programming Language Checklist
Intelligence killed genius
16 questions posed & answered by Leslie Berlin's book "Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age"
Ramanujan, Einstein, Tolstoy, Napoleon, Richard Muller, and Michael Jackson on God
December 2017 Time Tracking
Dividing Tasks
Lifelong Investments
TOO MUCH DARK MONEY IN ALMONDS
Bets, Bonds, and Kindergarteners
WHY ARE YOU SO SLOW?
Omens of exceptional talent
10 notes from watching pulp fiction yet again
Where do These People Get Their (Unoriginal) Ideas?
SMPY 65: Help support the SMPY Longitudinal Study
Winsorized mean
Can't Be F*cked: Underrated Cause of Tech Debt
IPhone “SOS” Button Saves Injured Climber
The Case Against Travel
Scientific Self-Help: The State of Our Knowledge
Violent Class: the Point of Empire
Impacts of Lack of Sleep
Narcissism of small differences:
the more a relationship or community shares commonalities, the more likely the people in it are to engage in interpersonal feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to minor differences perceived in each other
Your Organization Probably Doesn't Want To Improve Things
The Mystery of Magic’s Greatest Card Trick
nothing, except everything.
Be sceptical of your own work
List of how people have become more hard-working
Subscripts for Probabilities
Life is a Picture, But You Live in a Pixel
The Marriage Decision: Everything Forever or Nothing Ever Again

September 2023

August 2023

July 2023

Crown jewel defense:
when a company is threatened with takeover, the crown jewel defense is a strategy in which the target company sells off its most attractive assets to a friendly third party or spins off the valuable assets in a separate entity. Consequently, the unfriendly bidder is less attracted to the company assets. Other effects include dilution of holdings of the acquirer, making the takeover uneconomical to third parties, and adverse influence of current share prices.
Camel's nose: "a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions."
Aughts
Work hard
Do the Real Thing
Notes apps are where ideas go to die. And that’s good.
WFH - Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep
On the Slow Productivity of John Wick
How to Do the Thing You've Been Avoiding
Communism/Socialism Is A Cancer Of The Social Body
Living By The Sword
How Wearing Fake Sneakers for 30 Days Drove Me Into Deep Depression
My productivity system in 2022: [!productivity]
Derinkuyu
Stuff I buy and use: a listicle to boost your consumer surplus and productivity
Life is Not Short
The Case of the Vanishing Cafeteria Tray
Dependency
Workflow
Why Can't Programmers.. Program?
Human Error Rate Tables:
Note that ‘Read a 5-letter word with poor resolution wrongly’ can be changed from 3 errors per 100, to 3 errors per 10,000 (a 100 times reduction in misreads) by making it into ‘Read 5-letter word with good resolution wrongly’. All you have to do is make sure that your documents are clear and easy to read. ... I suggest that the smallest font you should ever use in any document is a 12 point font. I would even accept the argument that 14 point is the smallest font size to use—especially in technical and maintenance documents and for legally binding commercial documents. The human error table makes the right thing to do clearly obvious.

If you get your people to use checklists with specific criteria to check, instead of doing what they can remember to do, you will intentionally have designed your business for some 100 times fewer errors.

make things simple and make sure that there is enough time to do the job without undue haste. Once situations get stressful you guarantee huge increases in human failure rates.

Every human error rate table tells us that people simply do not perform well if things get difficult, confusing or stressful. ... If you want to turn complicated tasks into routine simple tasks that hardly ever go wrong, simply write clear and stress-reducing SOPs incorporating the 3Ts, and then train your people to do them systematically. Watch the human error rate fall by 100 to 1000 times less.
Managers and Productivity in Retail: (I only read the abstract)
Willingness to look stupid
How Long Does It Take Ordinary People To "Get Good" At Chess?
Playing to Win Overview
Ordinary Incompetence
When Work Didn't Follow You Home
Drone Rescue Map
you aren't the shit you like
Dan Luu on culture fit
Hacker New Thread 1
The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code
We only hire the trendiest
Algorithms interviews: theory vs. practice
Dan Luu tweet 1
Misidentifying talent
Mark Zuckerberg: “We’re moving very slowly”
Defecting From North Korea Is Now Far Harder
The Problem with Pit Bulls
How to Blow Up a Timeline
Effect of low-cost airlines on communities
Fogbank
Enfant terrible
AI Capacity Constraints - CoWoS and HBM Supply Chain
Nobody Will Admit The Best Novel of Our Generation is About Football
Creative nonfiction training exercises
Tinker Hatfield
Luxury Sneaker Markets Are a Preview of Capitalist Dystopia
Duḥkha
Not for the Sake of Pleasure Alone
What Is The Collecting Mindset?
Turning my Passion/Hobby into a Business Made Me Hate It
Cocktail party ideas
How big was the Tonga eruption?
High-Rise Safety Systems
Internet Sacred Text Archive
Shipwrecks, Stolen Jewels, and Skull-Blasting Are Some of This Year’s Best Mysteries
Against 3x Speed
The Ten Rules of Golden Age Detective Fiction
Thanksgiving Prayer
Gratitude Walking Through Walmart
Angle of repose
Shooting an Elephant
Embryo Selection: Healthy Babies vs Bad Arguments
Where in the USA is this?
Douglas Hofstadter changes his mind on Deep Learning & AI risk (June 2023)?
Through a panel, darkly: a case study in internet BS detection
The rise and fall of Skype
New York Times Election Day Crossword: [!fun]
Low-set ears
When Hennessy's not behind the bar, some see discrimination

June 2023

It is of utmost importance that I share this anecdote with you.
Terrible Real Estate Agent Photos
Our Self-Imposed Scarcity of Nice Places
Brown Physics Student Manfred Steiner Earns Ph.D. at Age 89
The Deep Sea
Man in the Arena
The Value of Science Is in the Foresight
On the paper “Exploring the MIT Mathematics and EECS Curriculum Using Large Language Models”
Has Xbox really lost the console wars?
No Vehicles in the Park
North Korean Market Prices Suggest Serious Food Shortages
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 23, 2023
Gamification, life, and the pursuit of a gold badge
Against Tulip Subsidies
Software engineers solve problems: [!favorites]
Buy Well. Buy Once.
List one task, do it, cross it out
Unabomber property photos
Zaza rule
Whose dream bf is it anyway
Escaping the Premium Mediocre
Flippening Watch: "“The Flippening” refers to the possible future event when Ethereum overtakes Bitcoin to become the most valuable cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization."
The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millennial:
Premium mediocrity is a pattern of consumption that publicly signals upward mobile aspirations, with consciously insincere pretensions to refined taste, while navigating the realities of inexorable downward mobility with sincere anxiety. There are more important things to think about than actually learning to appreciate wine and cheese, such as making rent. But at least pretending to appreciate wine and cheese is necessary to not fall through the cracks in the API.

premium mediocrity is dressing for the lifestyle you’re supposed to want, in order to hold on to the lifestyle you can actually afford — for now — while trying to engineer a stroke of luck.
Women Laughing Alone with Salad
Pluralistic: Tiktok's enshittification
Archive Your Reddit Data While You Still Can
Gen Z Is Thinking of Retirement Too Early and All Wrong
To be of use by Marge Piercy
Quote by Orson Scott Card:
The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So of course, we killed him.
The ants and the grasshopper
Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin: Critical comment by jimrandomh:
There's one core truth that you need to understand, and then all the talk of UFOs, videos, and the reactions to them make sense. The US military has secret aircraft. Other militaries also have secret aircraft. These are kept in reserve for high-stakes operations. For example, in 2011, a previously-unseen model of stealth helicopter crashed in the middle of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. Rumor is that the Chinese military got to inspect the wreckage; if true, this would be a pretty major fuckup, since it would enable them to plan around its capabilities, to design radars to detect it, and to attribute any operations using it to the United States. The performance characteristics of secret military aircraft are military secrets. They are highly prototypical military secrets. That means the secrecy radiates a few conceptual steps outward: our own country's aircraft are secret, what we know about other countries' aircraft is secret, what we know that other countries know about our aircraft is secret, and so on. Deliberate disinformation is expected; if you look far back enough in time for things to be declassified, you'll find publicly-reported examples of the US putting out fake aircraft mockups for Soviet satellites to photograph, and similar tricks. There are a few videos taken from fighter-jet sensor packages floating around; these require some expertise to interpret, or else you'll wind up thinking that the sharpen filter is a glowing aura, or that the parallax is a fast movement speed, or that image-stabilization problems are fast accelerations. As it happens, the characteristics of fighter-jet sensor packages are *also* military secrets (perhaps a bit less well kept), which means that 100% of the people who are qualified to interpret those videos, are also legally forbidden from talking publicly about them. With that as background, there's nothing left to explain. Given a specific video, it can be hard to tell whether it's an aircraft with a surprising capability, or a fake video, or a sensor issue. That's the point; foreign military strategists will also look at those videos, and encounter the same problems. Dispelling the confusion would mean accepting a substantial handicap in future military operations, and there's no reason to do that.
Meta-conversation shouldn't be taboo
Mystery Math Whiz and Novelist Advance Permutation Problem
Barnum effect: Also called Forer effect or Forer statements.
Slide to Unlock: Phone or tablets only!
Seek the Root: how to handle requests more effectively:
So when you get a request, and you want to add value, get curious, and try “seeking the root.” Too often, we take requests literally and narrowly without understand the deeper intention behind them. This prevents us from fulfilling them as well as we are able.
Have no excuses
Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization
Burch's Law

May 2023

Statement on AI Extinction - Signed by AGI Labs, Top Academics, and Many Other Notable Figures
Half-assing it with everything you've got:
Be a perfectionist about identifying good strategies, about abandoning sunk costs, about killing your darlings, about noticing when you're done. Be a perfectionist about wasting no attention. Be a perfectionist about learning from your mistakes. Perfectionism can be a powerful tool, but there's no need to point it at overachieving on metrics you don't care about.
Why Real Men Wear Pink
Taleb: IQ is a pseudoscientific swindle
A lesser known mechanism for alcohol tolerance
Advice for newly busy people
A catalog of wealth-creation mechanisms
Ways to be a Better Friend: [!favorites ]
The Top Idea in Your Mind
How to Work Hard
How to Make Wealth
Psychological factors in exceptional, extreme and torturous environments:
The main factors in an abnormal environment are: psychological (isolation, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, sleep deprivation, temporal disorientation); psychophysiological (thermal, stress positions), and psychosocial (cultural humiliation, sexual degradation). Each single factor may not be considered tortuous, however, if deliberately structured into a systemic cluster may constitute torture under legal definition.
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror
IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle
Evidence of Voter Fraud in the 2020 US Presidential Election
Nassim Taleb on IQ
Minimal Retirement Calculator
Recursive Middle Manager Hell
Properties of Good Textbooks
Technology Holy Wars are Coordination Problems
Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement
Meet the Ultimate WikiGnome: "Comprised of"
Transcending My Father's Abuse
Brett Kavanaugh assassination plot
Three men make a tiger: "individual's tendency to accept absurd information as long as it is repeated by enough people"
Germanwings Flight 9525
Littlewood's Law and the Global Media
How much can you really earn creating content on Youtube!
Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg
Scientific Reproducibility: Begley’s Six Rules:
1) Were studies blinded? 2) Were all results shown? 3) Were experiments repeated? 4) Were positive and negative controls shown? 5) Were reagents validated? 6) Were the statistical tests appropriate?
Tryon's Rat Experiment
Feynman’s Maze-Running Story
The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions
When you smile, you become happy: evidence from resting state task-based fMRI
Psychological Changes following Weight Loss in Overweight and Obese Adults: A Prospective Cohort Study:
Weight loss over four years in initially healthy overweight/obese older adults was associated with reduction in cardio-metabolic risk but no psychological benefit, even when changes in health and life stresses were accounted for. These results highlight the need to investigate the emotional consequences of weight loss.
The Attractiveness Advantage At Work: A Cross-Disciplinary Integrative Review:
We conduct a comprehensive review of research on attractiveness discrimination, finding relatively more evidence that this phenomenon constitutes, to some extent, statistical (as opposed to solely taste-based) discrimination, in which decision makers assume that attractive people are more competent and discriminate based on instrumental motives. We then review research that speaks to whether decision makers might be correct in assuming that attractive workers are more productive, finding that the attractive possess a slight advantage in human and a notable advantage in social capital.
Up The Road

April 2023

Life Paths and Accomplishments of Mathematically Precocious Males and Females Four Decades Later
Is it worth writing about?
Machine intelligence, part 1
Date Me, Doc!
Reasons after nonpersons
Losing 43lbs in 144 days on the ex150 diet
Links for April 2023
How do we predict high levels of success?
On Pausing Alcohol
Why AI Won't Cause Unemployment
YouTube Addiction
Only One Pair of Distinct Positive Integers Satisfy The Equation n^m = m^n
The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
Humans are not automatically strategic [!productivity, !useful, !advice]
HOUSING SHOULD BE AFFORDABLE EXCEPT WHEN I SELL MY HOUSE FOR A MILLION DOLLARS
Dishwasher salmon
Too busy to think about life [!advice]
One of the Last People to Live in an Iron Lung Is a Longhorn
Commenting vs. making
Ugh Fields [!productivity]
Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm
Killing your $1000 Grocery Bill [!finance]
Getting Rich: from Zero to Hero in One Blog Post [finance]
Advice for ambitious 19 year olds [!advice]
Successful people
More interesting dinner conversations:
When seated at a table with people you don't know, ask "what are you interested in?" or "what have you been thinking about lately?" instead of "what do you do?".
How things get done [!advice]
Kramatorsk radiological accident
A COLLISION OF OPINIONS
Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter
Incompetent but Nice
Why big tech companies need so many people
Greeks (finance): quantities representing the sensitivity of the price of derivatives such as options to a change in underlying parameters on which the value of an instrument or portfolio of financial instruments is dependent.
Diderot effect: "acquiring a new possession leads to a spiral of consumption that results in the acquisition of even more possessions"
Professional success and personal success: two independent dimensions
Wealth is not money, it’s the things we use money for

March 2023

EUV Requirements Halved? Applied Materials' Sculpta Redefines Lithography And Patterning Market
Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down
lifehacks: [!productivity]
Half An Hour Before Dawn In San Francisco
High Status Eschews Quantification of Performance:
If you have a community with high status people, and try to introduce clearer metrics of performance into that community, high status individuals in the community will strongly resist those metrics because they have an asymmetric downside: If they perform well on the metric, they stay in their position, but if they perform poorly, they might lose status. Since they are at least a little bit unsure about their performance on the metric relative to others, they can only lose.
St Scholastica Day riot:
The disturbance began when two students from the University of Oxford complained about the quality of wine served to them in the Swindlestock Tavern, which stood on Carfax, in the centre of the town. The students quarrelled with the taverner; the argument quickly escalated to blows. The inn's customers joined in on both sides, and the resulting melee turned into a riot. The violence started by the bar brawl continued over three days, with armed gangs coming in from the countryside to assist the townspeople. University halls and students' accommodation were raided and the inhabitants murdered; there were some reports of clerics being scalped. Around 30 townsfolk were killed, as were up to 63 members of the university.
Ask HN: What has your personal website/blog done for you?
Low-background steel
A Hope
Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
CARDIOLOGISTS AND CHINESE ROBBERS
How To Do Less
Everyday Magic in the Middle Ages
AI: Practical Advice for the Worried
Summary of "AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities"
The Gaps In The New China Lithography Restrictions – ASML, SMEE, Nikon, Canon, EUV, DUV, ArFi, ArF Dry, KrF, and Photoresist
The Future of the Transistor
Embracing Chaos: The Imperfect Art of Semiconductor Manufacturing And Lithography
Indirect Prompt Injection Threats
The most dangerous substance known to man
Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says
Planning for AGI and beyond
Why I Am Not (As Much Of) A Doomer (As Some People)
MIRI announces new "Death With Dignity" strategy
Can GPT-4 *Actually* Write Code?
Your friend the language model

February 2023

I Hired 5 People to Sit Behind Me and Make Me Productive for a Month
Secret crawlspace cryptomine discovered in routine inspection of MA high school
Things I Won't Work With: Thioacetone
It's Time to Get Serious
Why I left Google: work-life balance
The Mines
Go F*** Someone
Why dating apps don't work
Friendships form via shared context, not shared activities
What is it like doing AI safety work?
Stanford's War on Social Life
AGI in sight: our look at the game board
China and USA Are Officially At Economic War – Technology Restriction Overview
Inside a US military cyber team’s defence of Ukraine
On Feeling Competent
Variability, Not Repetition, is the Key to Mastery
World's Largest Photo of New York City
Executive Order 13800: Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure
Night of the Long Knives
Women-are-wonderful effect: "people associate more positive attributes with women when compared to men"
Grading My 2018 Predictions For 2023
Ilha da Queimada Grande: Island off the coast of Brazil with many pit vipers.
Cromwell's rule: "the use of prior probabilities of 1 ("the event will definitely occur") or 0 ("the event will definitely not occur") should be avoided, except when applied to statements that are logically true or false".
For Many Widows, the Hardest Part Is Mealtime
Staring into the abyss as a core life skill
Conversation Skills Essentials
Even More Bay Area House Party
Why didn't we get the four-hour workday?
The Happiness Lottery
THE MTA’S SPECIAL ARMORED MONEY TRAIN THAT RAN FROM 1951 TO 2006 IN NYC
The Inner Beauty of Basic Electronics
Telicity
The Economics of Dating
Normalization of Deviance
They Rule
WHAT CAN YOU DO WHEN YOU GET RICH?
Perfidious Pricing
The Window Trick of Las Vegas Hotels
Everything You Can't Have
Ghost Boat with Garmin GPS Leads Father-Son Duo to Man Overboard
Finland’s Most-Wanted Hacker Nabbed in France
They say that stocks go down during the day and up at night.
What I Think About LeBron Breaking My NBA Scoring Record
Hikikomori, A Japanese Culture-Bound Syndrome of Social Withdrawal? A Proposal for DSM-V
My bad habit of hoarding information
No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health
Pangram: "a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once"
Travelling just for the people
The Melancholy of Subculture Society
We have one client which we manage an Azure tenant for. They require, and have specified, a zero-tolerance for device non-compliance.
Georgia Guidestones
Goiânia accident:
a forgotten radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated.
NYSE Mayhem Traced to a Staffer Who Left a Backup System Running
Perfidious Pricing
Ask HN: Where are all the parties?
how to completely own an airline in 3 easy steps
Strava Raises Prices But Can’t Tell You How Much It Costs Anymore
The Pretty Good House
Quitting the Rat Race
Four Thousand Weeks
This Voice Doesn't Exist - Generative Voice AI
Draw a Perfect Circle
Aleister Crowley, The Wickedest Climber Ever?:
He made the first attempts on K2 and Kanchenjunga, and was a visionary rock climber putting up difficult routes in the late 1800s, but his climbing later took a backseat to his unsavory reputation as an occultist and sex fiend.
Even More Bay Area House Party
Sergey Brin: "Irate call from Steve Jobs"
My Youtube earnings: "total earnings: 664 000 USD"
Mr. P lifts up student body
Post 39: On Reflection: [!productivity, !advice]
Fetish Tabooness vs Popularity
The days are long but the decades are short
Things to argue about over the holidays instead of politics
Hacking on a plane: Leaking data of millions and taking over any account
Roger The Buff Kangaroo, Beloved Online, Dies At Age 12
‘Constant rejection,’ big rewards: Life as a door to door salesman
Sheeple
Too Much
Retird And Dull
I have to paraphrase a brilliant friend here, I know the world and mankind could be better, bigger, faster, and more, if only people could make a commitment, could stick to it, and really do something. In the mountains I overcame my own mediocrity, and became exceptional. Sadly, the result of having achieved simply showed me how much further I have to (and can) go. Most never earn this gift because it is only given to those who recognize and then overcome their own self-imposed limitations. And who wants to do that when the new 90210 is on the TV?
Why Is Everyone So Boring?
I see roughly three typical public stances: boring, lively, or outraged. Either you act boring, so the bandits will ignore you, you act lively, and invite bandit attacks, or you act outraged, and play a bandit yourself. Most big orgs and experts choose boring, and most everyone else who doesn’t pick boring picks bandit, especially on social media. It takes unusual art, allies, and energy, in a word “eliteness”, to survive while choosing lively. And that, my children, is why the world looks so boring.
Shift: The System, And My Place In It.
A Project of One's Own
Luhn algorithm: "simple checksum formula used to validate a variety of identification numbers, such as credit card numbers"
Why Aren't There More Schelling Holidays?
The ethics of reclining airplane seats
Insulation: first the body, then the home

January 2023

KOLMOGOROV COMPLICITY AND THE PARABLE OF LIGHTNING
Grandma Gatewood
Air Marshals Will Refuse Orders To Go To The Border, Prefer Protecting First Class Cabins
They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care
More Clothes Over Time?
Robustness principle: "be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept"
ALASKA 2011: DENALI WEST BUTTRESS AND CASSIN RIDGE: Beautiful photographs taken from Denali.
If You Want a Vision of the Future, Imagine a Toddler Swiping on Tiktok, Forever.: "Cherish your mind. It’s the only thing you truly own."
Be One of Those Who Make Things Beautiful
Your Coworkers Are Less Ambitious; Bosses Adjust to the New Order:
Nassim Taleb keeps being wrong about IQ: I got banned for calling Taleb out on this back in June 2020 haha.

December 2022

Ménage problem: "the number of different ways in which it is possible to seat a set of male-female couples at a round dining table so that men and women alternate and nobody sits next to his or her partner."
Secretary problem
DOE National Laboratory Makes History by Achieving Fusion Ignition
Monet’s Garden in Giverny
Secretary Granholm Statement on DOE Order Vacating 1954 Atomic Energy Commission Decision In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Confessions of a Michelin Inspector
On Twitch, You Can Never Log Off
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas after U.S. files criminal charges
The Hype Around Esports Is Fading as Investors and Sponsors Dry Up
Hutter Prize
SHOW REVIEW: Harm’s Way Was Great Until the Singer Made Me Do 20 Push-Ups
Walk It
Fear
Musical Influence 2
Have Fun, Good Luck
Self Delusion
TNSTAAFL
Should I?
2007 Year-End Wrap-Up
Inner Conflict
Remake Remodel
Failure 2
Deliverance
Hard Work
300 Opinions
"300"
Training
Old Foundation
The Old School (Part Three)
The Old School (Part Two)
The Old School (Part One)
Breathing Ladders
Talent
Attitude
Failure
Will and Suffering
Testimonial "300"
Why
Quality
Musical Influence
Warning
Twitching
Easy
Disclaimer
Strength For Endurance
Protein
Testimonials
11/25/70
Endurance V.2
I’m Asking You For A Peer-Reviewed Study Showing That A Typical Fat Person Can Become Sustainably Non-Fat Through Deliberate Weight-Loss
BOOK REVIEW: THE HUNGRY BRAIN

November 2022

Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
I know more than 12,000 people. So do you.
The Marriage Lesson That I Learned Too Late: [!favorites]
It was about consideration. About the pervasive sense that she was married to someone who did not respect or appreciate her. And if I didn’t respect or appreciate her, then I didn’t love her in a manner that felt trustworthy. She couldn’t count on the adult who had promised to love her forever, because none of this dish-by-the-sink business felt anything like being loved.
Man of the Hole: Last member of an indigineous Brazilian tribe.
MODULATE YOUR FREQUENCY, THE END (FINALLY)
MODULATE YOUR FREQUENCY, PART 2- GET YOUR FUCKING HEAD RIGHT
SERIOUSLY… GET YOUR FUCKING HEAD RIGHT
STOP BEING A PUSSY- GO FUCKING FERAL
LONELINESS WILL KILL YOU… OR MAKE YOU KILL YOURSELF
Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies
Mystery in a children’s classic: Who is the 12th girl at dinner while Madeline is in the hospital?
271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book
Year 2038 Problem: "a time formatting bug in computer systems with representing times after 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038."
Investigating why Steam started picking a random font
Wreck Site: Database of shipwrecks around the world.
Update on the fake story about the river laborers paying people to whip them
On Michael Crichton’s Busy Ambition: [!productivity]
The first model, exemplified by Crichton, is what I call Type 1. It craves activity and feasts at the buffet of appealing opportunities that success creates. The other model, exemplified by Grisham, is what I call Type 2. It craves simplicity and autonomy, and sees success as a source of leverage to reduce stressful obligations.
The coming long-run slowdown in corporate profit growth and stock returns
Shift: The System, And My Place In It.
The truffle industry is a big scam. Not just truffle oil, everything: Overview of fake truffle products and what real truffles are like.
Security: Encryption is only as strong as the person who has direct access to it.
The Centipede's Dilemma:
"The Centipede's Dilemma" is a short poem that has lent its name to a psychological effect called the centipede effect or centipede syndrome. The centipede effect occurs when a normally automatic or unconscious activity is disrupted by consciousness of it or reflection on it.
Watch Quake: Playing Quake 1 on an Apple Watch.
The Crypto-Currency: Bitcoin and its mysterious inventor: Archive of Joshua Davis' 2011 article. Hopefully he bought (and kept) some Bitcoin around that time!
What happened at Alameda Research: [!economics, !events]
Knight Capital Group: [!economics, !events]
worldoptimization: Caroline Ellison's tumblr blog. [!events, !ftx]

October 2022

What AI Can't Write: [!technology]
Fake books: Using GPT-3 to publish books. [!technology]
Freedom Ship: Large series of barges connected together in the ocean. [!fun, !unique, !literature]
Wanggongchang Explosion: [!history, !events, !guns (maybe)]
Efficient frontier: "set of portfolios which satisfy the condition that no other portfolio exists with a higher expected return but with the same standard deviation of return (i.e., the risk)." [!economics]
Wealth shown to scale: As described. It's hard to fathom how much $1B is! [!fun, !economics, !culture]
Untapped Potential at 13-18: Proposing that motivated teenagers should be able to join the workforce. [!culture]
wargame – A LaTeX package to prepare hex'n'counter wargames: [!fun, !unique]
The Musk Emails: Communicate directly: [!communication, !economics, !psychology]
1. The larger company is more important than their manger, their chain of command, and their department. This is a core organizational principle in helping to reduce interpersonal and interdepartmental conflict. This is mentioned in most of the emails. 2. Focus is on logical communication. If someone's input or help is required on something in order for it to be done, that employee should speak directly with the other person. This is part of the reason startups work. People - who know what they are doing - speak to each other. This is in contrast to bloated corporate or government organizations where middle managers speak to each other about things they do not know (enough) about. 3. Trust your employees, (more than your managers). This email is very clear about how Elon would like communication in Tesla to flow. It is written so that every employee knows how things are to be done. It is also very clear that managers who try and bypass this approach in the way they run their department will no longer work there.
GET OUT OF THE FUCKING BOX: [!thoughts]
You haven’t had one original thought in your whole stupid fucking life. Everything you think, do, and say is derivate, played out, stereotypical, cookie cutter, cliché, passé, antiquated, obsolete, yesterday’s news. You are so fucking devoid – of novelty, value, honesty, soul.
A Call to Minimize Distraction: [!thoughts, !psychology, !technology]
Crab mentality: "The metaphor is derived from a pattern of behavior noted in crabs when they are trapped in a bucket. While any one crab could easily escape,[4] its efforts will be undermined by others, ensuring the group's collective demise." [!culture, !psychology]
Juul: Taking Academic Corruption to a New Level: Paying editors to publish papers. [!crime, !science, !politics]
Fired by Bot at Amazon: ‘It’s You Against the Machine’: [!economics, !culture]
112 Gripes About the French: Booklet given to Americans that were living in France after WWII. It helped Americans to better understand the French. [!history, !military]
Useful Methods for Optimizing Space: [!advice, !useful, !productivity]
38% of remote workers work from bed: Some WFH numbers. [!culture, !covid]
On Being Rich-ish: [!culture, !thoughts]
Petrov Day Retrospective 2022: Three button presses. [!fun]
Free market solutions to obesity: [!health, !fitness, !economics]
Why Nerds Are Unpopular: [!thoughts, !culture]
OneZoom: Zoom into various aspects of life. [!fun, !unique, !nature]
The Thing (listening device): Concealed inside a wooden plaque gifted to the U.S.-Soviet ambassador. [!technology, !history, !military]
Larry Tesler: Considered the top dog of computer-human interaction. He was hired by Amazon in his later years. [!technology, !psychology]
The dogs of war (phrase): Said by Mark Antony in Julius Caesar. [!history, !language, !literature]
Should You Reverse Any Advice You Hear?: [!thoughts, !advice (wait wut)]

September 2022

being OK with things as they are: [!thoughts, !advice]
as happy as possible: [!thoughts]
There are very few instances in history where the removal of a monarchy has led to better national outcomes: [!history, !politics]
Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics: [!politics, !philosophy]
Everyone is conservative about what he knows best; Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing; The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
October Surprise conspiracy theory: [!politics, !events]
On the day of his inauguration—in fact, minutes after he concluded his 20-minute inaugural address—the Islamic Republic of Iran announced the release of the hostages.[2] The timing gave rise to an allegation that representatives of Reagan's presidential campaign had conspired with Iran to delay the release until after the election to thwart President Jimmy Carter from pulling off an "October surprise".
DoomPhone: Running DOOM on an office phone. [!fun, !games, !technology, !unique]
When you monetize your hobby, it looks a lot like a job: See the overjustification effect. [!psychology]
Someone is pretending to be me.: Job/interview fraud at its finest. [!covid, !misc]
Telling the bees: [!culture, !fun, !history, !nature]
Tradition in many European countries in which bees would be told of important events in their keeper's lives such as deaths, births, marriages and departures and returns in the household. If the custom was omitted or forgotten and the bees were not "put into mourning" then it was believed a penalty would be paid, such as the bees leaving their hive, stopping the production of honey or dying.
Harrison Bergeron: A classic! [!literature]
I was terrified of an eyeball injection: [!misc, !medicine]
Covid recovery — a guide: Suggestions on getting back into training after COVID. This is probably a good rule of thumb for any illness. [!advice, !health, !fitness, !covid]
What Universal Human Experiences Are You Missing Without Realizing It?: Some people have no idea they're colorblind, etc. until someone blatantly points it out. [!psychology]
Lee Kuan Yew on Race: Quotes from the former Singaporean leader. [!history, !culture]
The Answer That Destroys All Our Futures: "Think about all the miracles we’ve worked, things like the bank that you fucking don’t even consider because, well, it just works. Then contemplate what kind of future you can build." [!advice, !thoughts]
How Learning To Make Small Talk Can Give You Better, More Enduring Sexual Relationships: I don't know about the "sexual" part, but being interested in a mundane or unfamiliar topic definitely helps relationships. [!dating, !communication, ]
Words of estimative probability: Used by analysts to clearly communicative likelihoods: Almost certainly, probably/likely, even chance, unlikely, remote. [!language, !communication]
LEGO has designed a set that can't be taken apart: [!fun, !games]
Keep a log: [!thoughts, !advice]
Keep a Changelog: [!thoughts, !productivity, !advice]
Plans you're not supposed to talk about: [!thoughts]
A boring reason to keep a plan secret is so that people can’t find out about it and stop you. If I sell you 10 kilos of methamphetamines, we probably don’t want to advertise that. The above examples aren’t like that. A more interesting reason is that you want to do things in public, but you don’t want others to know your true reasons. Even more interesting are plans that work best if you yourself don’t understand them. For these, your best hope is that you inherit a culture that’s figured them out for you (and also forgotten about the reasons for you) so you can get the benefits just by going with the flow.
3 Lines of Code Shouldn't Take All Day: Build time must be fast else it will take all day!
Have At It: Fuck yes. Love this philosophy. Go harder, go faster, go lighter if possible. Stop being scared to push limits.
We Americans are simply repeating our own feeble efforts. This is due, in part, to fear. If my experience on Denali this season is any indication, most American climbers are scared: scared to be cold, or they wouldn't be trudging along in down suits when others rush past them freed by their light clothing and flexible attitude. They are scared to be hungry, or they wouldn't carry so much damn food. Scared to rely on their own skill, or they would not carry so much unnecessary hardware. With few exceptions, American climbers are afraid to do anything other than follow a recipe that was designed to succeed based on twenty-year old equipment, technique and knowledge.
How to Improve Your Speech: I had the following thought many years ago, so kind of cool to see Taleb also thought of it: [!advice, !productivity]
In life we know what is wrong with more clarity than what is right, and that knowledge grows by subtraction. Also, it is easier to know that something is wrong than to find the fix. Actions that remove are more robust than those that add.
How to be a Game Changer: Intro: [!thoughts]
SCARE EASY: [!philosophy, !covid]
But I do recognize that every time we heed "their" advice, the WHO advice, the CDC advice, about diet, about exercise, about fitness we become less healthy, and weaker, with less strength, less endurance — we become less capable — and if we obey, if we do as we are told we build a habit that leads to less autonomy, less freedom, with fewer possibilities to make individual decisions regarding our own health, and opportunity. If that's what you want so be it. If that is what you were working toward during the previous five years or ten years then so be it. If it wasn't then you need to ask questions, you need to risk the penalty for civil and social disobedience to do what you believe is right for you.
greater: [!philosophy]
Walk It: "What the world needs is less talk and more action." [!philosophy]
You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?: [!health, !culture]
The good citizen in real life fights the planning applications for new adverts; they tell their local politicians about the damage badverts cause; they fund campaign groups to tell others the same. Make a conscious decision to avoid adverts, and enjoy your life more. Do the science that explains to advertisers exactly why these badverts don’t help them sell. Technologists too: use the benefits of modern technology to multiply your effort, shut down the adverts sooner.
How To Help a Friend Who Lost Their Home in a Fire: Hopefully this advice is never needed. [!advice]
Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?: Great suggestions. [!advice, !productivity, !health]
What the World Will Be Like In a Hundred Years: Written in 1922, this is actually not too far off... [!history, !fun, !unique, !future, !technology, !science, !culture]
The Pentagon and CIA Have Shaped Thousands of Hollywood Movies into Super Effective Propaganda: This piece is also propaganda, but I believe the general gist of the government being heavily involved in Hollywood. [!history, !psychology, !military]
The Man Who Lives in a Boeing 727 in Oregon: Almost completely renovated and in the middle of a forest. [!fun, !unique, !architecture]
I Quit!: Quitting caffeine and the issues (and glory) that follow. [!health]
Euler’s 243-Year-Old ‘Impossible’ Puzzle Gets a Quantum Solution: [!science]
Six army regiments each have six officers of six different ranks. Can the 36 officers be arranged in a 6-by-6 square so that no row or column repeats a rank or regiment?
Things I recommend you buy and use, second edition: [!misc, !advice]
Things you're doing but don't want to be doing: I actually bought a coat hanger because of this post. [!productivity, !thoughts]
Patron Saint Holidays: [!thoughts]
An Observation of Vavilov Day: [!history, !thoughts]
The seeds Vavilov and his staff protected now cover 80% of the cropland of Russia. Credit for scientific revolutions is hard to apportion, but as I reckon it Valilov is responsible for, at a minimum, tens of millions people living when they would have starved or never born, and the number could be closer to a billion.
Is Time Working for or Against You?: Invest in yoself. [!thoughts, !productivity]
Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind): [!productivity]
Ask HN: How / where to learn practical electrical / electronics?: I agree that hands-on projects are supremely important, but learning the theory is also helpful, at least in my opinion. [!technology, !advice]
What $500-$1000 investment was a total game changer for your house?: [!misc]
Buy Things, Not Experiences: Things that are purchased should be used to promote or enhance experiences, whether solo or with others. [!thoughts, !social]
building a modern home: All that goes into surveying the land, designing the layout, and actually building the home itself. Way more than I'd imagined or considered! [!architecture]
Charles Domery: French soldier with a massive appetite: "In one experiment, over the course of a day he ate 16 pounds (7.3 kg) of raw cow's udder, raw beef and tallow candles and four bottles of porter, all of which he ate and drank without defecating, urinating, or vomiting." Similar to Tarrare. [!fun, !unique, !food]
Do Things, Tell People: I often feel like I should be sharing this site with more people, especially my friends, but don't have the proper introduction without feeling like I'm grossly advertising. [!thoughts]
You would not believe how much opportunity is out there for those who do things and tell people. It's how you travel the entreprenurial landscape. You do something interesting and you tell everyone about it. Then you get contacts, business cards, email addresses. Then you get contracts, job offers, investors, whatever. You make friends who think what you do is cool. You make a name for yourself as "the person who did that cool thing." Then, the next time someone wants to do something in any way related to that cool thing, they come to you first.
Heuristics That Almost Always Work: [!psychology]
But second, because it builds false confidence. Maybe the heuristic produces a prior of 99.9% that the thing won’t happen in general. But then you consult a bunch of experts, who all claim they have additional evidence that the thing won’t happen, and you raise your probability to 99.999%. But actually the experts were just using the same heuristic you were, and you should have stayed at 99.9%. False consensus via information cascade!
How to know if you’re addicted: Recognizing the signs, which include an increasing tolerance, urgency to get the first hit of the day, loss of interest in other activities, cannot quit usage, and doing anything to satisfy the behavior. [!psychology, !health]
Dad takes down town's internet by mistake to get his kids offline: Glad my Dad wasn't that crazy. [!fun]
The Skill Learning Curve: [!thoughts, !productivity, !advice]

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.
Doomed ship of gold’s ghostly picture gallery is plucked from the seabed: Portraits preserved in glass see the light for the first time in hundreds of years. [!history]
Pāli Canon: "the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language.[1] It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon". [!literature, !history]
Laplace's demon: "According to determinism, if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics." [!science, !thoughts]
Elemental: Hubris is required to make progress in many disciplines. [!philosophy]
Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people: Critical points can be glossed over or missed entirely based on formatting within a slide or its order in the deck. [!events, !thoughts]
Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate: [!thoughts]
Cities Should Not Pay For New Stadiums: I actually figured that the economic benefit would be strong, but evidently not. Even before that, I agreed—especially when it came to Texas high school football stadiums! [!economics]
Agnus Wallace: Doctor who performed surgery during a flight with makeshift tools. [!unique, !fun, !medicine]
Plaintext Productivity: An intriguing productivity system. Sadly, I've committed myself to Word all the way and can't switch at this point. [!productivity]
Iron law of oligarchy: "all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy, power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise." [!culture, !politics, !psychology, !philosophy]
The Opposite of Autism: AI alignment researchers need to consider the realm of people they never think about. [!thoughts]
New Type of Ultraviolet Light Makes Indoor Air as Safe as Outdoors: I doubt this will become widespread. [!science, !covid]
Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?: [!science, !technology, !architecture]
Maybe you should do less 'work': "You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer." Stop working hard enough that you burn out yet gain nothing. [!thoughts, !productivity]
The phones of Ukrainian president Zelensky: Very detailed overview of all of his phones, including basic security of each and their histories. [!history, !unique]
How to use weekends for mental health: Set the phone aside and block out time for yourself. [!health]
THE REAL THING: Someone who does what they say they're going to. [!philosophy]
DARPA Completes Underminer Program: The ability to safely mine underneath hostile environments to deliver supplies to remote parties. [!technology, !military, !future (is now)]
Choose Your Status Game Wisely: Two-dimensional statuses are the main source of my pride. [!culture, !psychology]
The Bitter Lesson: Scaling continues to work. [!technology]
What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists: Some people think they're really smart, when in fact they're idiots. [!science]
You Need a Budget (YNAB): Very popular budget program that maps out where all money goes: [!economics, !advice, !helpful]
The general theory of YNAB is to "give every dollar a job". Each dollar is allocated to a specific purpose, such as annual car insurance payment, long-term housing repair fund, college savings, etc. The app encourages users to consider recurring expenses every month to prevent spending "surprises" and break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. It encourages users to be flexible in their spending. When overspending occurs, the app encourages users to move money between categories to "roll with the punches" if more funds than allocated are spent in a category.[4] Over time, users are encouraged to "age their money", accumulating savings and watching their money grow.
25+ Years of Personal Knowledge Management. From scattered ideas to networked thoughts: Standardize, standardize, standardize! [!productivity, !thoughts]
Yak-Shaving and Bikeshedding: Small tasks and unimportant priorities. [!technology, !language]
What Does "Shitty Job" Mean in The Low-Skill, Low-Pay World?: An eye-opening view into what a crappy job looks like, how much it pays, and what people are willing to endure. This reinforces that I have it made where I work. [!culture]
An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California: Gifted children should be encouraged to get smarter. [!culture]
How I Earned $160,000 in Passive Income from Writing Non-fiction Books: No, you earned $160k in active income. [!technology, !economics]
why do you waste so much time on the internet.: This really is true. Quitting Reddit and YouTube cold turkey helped me a lot with this. [!psychology, !culture]
Bivouac shelter: "variety of improvised camp site, or shelter that is usually of a temporary nature, used especially by soldiers, or people engaged in backpacking, bikepacking, scouting, or mountain climbing." [!fitness, !nature]
Shaving is too expensive: "most consumer products are designed to extract more money from you rather than to improve your life, or the world, or to be in any way remotely good." [!culture, !economics]
Area Man Always Nostalgic For Four Years Ago: [!fun]
Maps: Google Maps 'til I die (except for some aspects). [!technology, !loyalties]
Do you boast about your fitness? Watch out – you’ll unavoidably become rightwing: Oh, no! [!culture, !fitness]
The coming food catastrophe: Staple foods are significantly, and the Russia-Ukraine war has only worsened that. 1.6 billion people are now at risk of lack of food. [!events, !economics]
Explaining the USA Pro Gun Position to a Foreigner: Each claim points to a different blog post, which I didn't bother to read. He also comes across as too aggressive for mind-changing. [!culture, !guns]
Last public payphone removed from Manhattan streets: The end of an era. [!technology, !history]
Marriage Makes You Rich and Stupid: Love the idea of rival and semi-rival goods. [!economics]
What We Overlooked in King Tut’s Tomb: [!history]
Are You Suffering from Toxic Productivity?: Tangible ways to identify and resolve symptoms of toxic productivity. I especially like the idea of blocking out work vs. free time. [!productivity, !culture, !advice]
Burdens: If you feel like a burden to society, read this. [!thoughts, !culture]
List of most expensive video games to develop: Never heard of Star Citizen, but I've definitely played my fair share of some of the other top ones. [!games, !technology, !economics]
2000-watt society: When an individual uses only 48 kWh per day. The U.S. is currently (19 September 2022) at 12 kWh/hr. [!science, !future]
The hyperinflation gallery: Examples of million or hundred-thousand X bills from various countries, former or otherwise. [!economics]
Important CIA Contributions to Modern Technology Over the Last 75 Years: Lithium-iodide batteries, Google Earth, imaging, spectrometry, trace metal detection, and custom prosthetics. [!fun, !technology, !military]
This Man Broke 15 Bones When He Fell into a Glacier—Here’s How He Survived: Sheer will and perseverance. [!stories]
Tongue Stuck: The beauty of the Romanian language as opposed to English. [!language, !culture]
The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it: Explanation of the different types of meth, their histories, and current statuses. [!culture, !medicine (kind of??), !drugs]
Jobs that Marry Together the Most: I found this to be mostly true when polling married or engaged friends. [!culture]
How Did you train Superman? An Interview: Q&A between Michael Blevins (I think) and a high school girl. [!fitness, !film]
How much slower is remote work?: I agree with his conclusions, especially the following, as I experienced it greatly when I started my career during COVID. [!productivity, !covid]
My bottom line is that remote work is sometimes significantly less efficient (by factors of 2x-5x), but that this effect is felt most for people who are new to an organization or who are switching fields or roles. In particular, many senior employees won't experience a productivity hit, so the relevant decision-makers might systematically underestimate the costs of remote work.
Empty Cup: Explanation of nonprophet's symposiums. [!misc]
ILL-Usions 2022: [!culture, !thoughts, !covid]
Meet the Fearless Women of the Lone Star Mower Racing Association: [!fun, !unique, !culture]
Prairie madness: [!history, !psychology, !geography]
Settlers moving from urbanized or relatively settled areas in the East faced the risk of mental breakdown caused by the harsh living conditions and the extreme levels of isolation on the prairie. Symptoms of prairie madness included depression, withdrawal, changes in character and habit, and violence. Prairie madness sometimes resulted in the afflicted person moving back East or, in extreme cases, suicide.
Danish Protest Pig: Pig that looks oddly like the Danish flag. It was used as a symbol of national pride when they weren't allowed to display it. [!history, !fun]
CERN drafts plans to idle accelerators due to Europe’s energy crunch: The LHC will likely remain online, but the others will shut off to save up to 25% power. This is primarily caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. [!military, !economics, !events]
Nicky Case's website: [!fun]
the minimalist question is the important thing: "what is important to you?" [!thoughts]
the lean life: Weight, possessions, finances, business. [!thoughts]
the art of brief emails: Minimize unnecessary text; edit after it's written. [!productivity, !thoughts]
An odd card trick: The magic separation card trick, or magically finding out the number of face up cards using conservation of mass. [!fun]
What have you done to make your life easier?: [!advice, !productivity, !health, !useful]
The Saga of the Cannibal Ants in a Soviet Nuclear Bunker: [!fun, !nature]
PAM Duress: Enter a duress password and have all sensitive information deleted. [!technology, !cybersecurity]
Arithmetic on the Frontier: Kipling's poem. [!poetry, !literature]
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information: "often interpreted to argue that the number of objects an average human can hold in short-term memory is 7 ± 2. This has occasionally been referred to as Miller's law." [!psychology]
Reflections on 10,000 Hours of Programming: 31 lessons on pure coding. [!technology]
Explaining Software Development to a Jury: [!technology]
Why medieval city-builder video games are historically inaccurate: Current state of the games, reasons why they're inaccurate, and suggestions to make them more accurate (at a cost of fun and customers). [!history, !games]
How to Make Trillions of Dollars: Change the consumer landscape altogether and coerce people into buying unnecesssary things that make them happy for a fleeting moment. [!thoughts, !culture]
consumerism vs. minimalism: [!thoughts]
Learn to be more conscious of my impulses when I’m ready to buy something. Learn to pause, and to breathe, to let the physical desire wane. Force myself to wait, if the purchase isn’t an absolute necessity. Let myself think about it, and analyze whether it’s something I really need to buy. Often the answer is no. Slowly improve upon this, over time, as I always make mistakes.
step lightly upon this world: "A life of less means you consume less, use fewer natural resources, pollute less, own less stuff, contribute less to greenhouse emissions." [!thoughts]
if you had to move, what would you take?: I'm now rethinking all the books I have. What purpose do they serve? Wouldn't it just be better to keep them all on a Kindle? [!thoughts]
why less is better: [!philosophy]
Less means you spend less. You need less storage. You need a smaller house. Less means you worry less. You search for things less. You are less bogged down by clutter. Less means you’re lighter. You’re freer. You can focus on better things. Less means you can travel more quickly. You spend less time with stuff, and more time doing stuff.
rethinking necessities: I should probably go through my house and see what I can donate. One thing mnmlist misses is the money that can be saved. [!productivity, !thoughts]
my minimalist desktop: [!productivity]
minimalist mac setup: Suggestiosn for decluttering a Mac. [!productivity]
lowering your life’s requirements: [!thoughts]
The fewer requirements we have, the less of a burden these requirements become. The more often we have the same thing every day, the more likely they are to become a requirement.
I Don’t Want Stuff Any More, Only Things: Things have a place and purpose, stuff just takes up space and does nothing. [!thoughts, !productivity]
Sears Archives: "The milestones, introductions and stories fill volumes. However, we've boiled Sears history down to a short narrative and event timeline for you: Sears narrative history tells the story of the founding of Sears and the Sears chronology is an up-to-date primer of Sears milestones and events. Both sections span from 1886 to today." [!history, !economics]
How to Choose a Goddess (Using a Spreadsheet): Yes, it's as crazy as it sounds. [!dating, !culture, !science]
Justification for an Elitist Attitude: Defining Consciousness on Denali's Czech Direct: [!philosophy, !sports]
The Reality Bath Redux: One of, if not the, most dangerous ice climbs in the world. [!sports]
Biography II: List of Mark Twight's achievements. [!sports]
Biography: Overview of Mark Twight's life. [!sports]
Lost islands cited in Welsh folklore and poetry are plausible: New study of coastal geography and a medieval map: [!history, !geography]

August 2022

The Transhuman Olympics: Promoting the safe use of steroids to enhance performance and show people what's possible through hard work and technology. [!fun, !sports, !future]
Nakatomi Space: See Gwern's related article here. [!psychology, !thoughts]
From Stolen Laptop to Inside the Company Network: Using a mixture of hardware and software exploits to gain read/write access. [!cybersecurity, !technology]
Why most gas stations don’t make money from selling gas: Profits per gallon of gas go for less than $0.10/gal, way less than I expected. A majority of profits are from the convenience store. [!]
Those Who Witnessed Castle Bravo Looked Into Armageddon [!history, !military, !nature, nuclear, trinity test]"
90 Hours A Week And Loving It!: Working a lot in order to ship software by the promised date got the engineers sweatshirts. [!fun, !technology, !history]
Combating Spoofed Robocalls with Caller ID Authentication: Using STIR/SHAKEN protocols to stop robocalls. [!technology, !crime]
Why are hyperlinks blue?: The answer can be found in a Mosaic changelog entry. [!technology, !history]
As Demand For Bikes Surged, Amazon Got in the Way: More and more private sellers are getting fed up with Amazon's practices and moving to an independent model, cutting revenue but gaining sanity. [!economics, !covid]
Radio Transmissions From Police Helicopter’s Chase Of Bizarre Craft Over Tucson Add To Mystery: Another UAV mystery. Probably military. [!military, !technology]
5 Commonly Used Idioms in the Tech Industry, Vol. 1: Bikeshedding, rubber ducking, dog fooding, bus factors, yak shaving. Happy to know I knew at least two of them (rubber duck debugging and bus factors). [!technology, !culture]
Goodbye magnetic stripe: Mastercard will begin phasing out the magnetic stripes on credit cards, opting for chip-only cards. [!economics, !future]
526 Mailable Live Animals: The following can be shipped via USPS: "Live bees..., Live day–old poultry..., Live adult birds..., Live scorpions (only under limited circumstances) ..., Other small, harmless, cold–blooded animals". Scorpions require the final use to be antivenom. [!unique, !nature]
The 2021 Early-Retirement Update: A very honest and introspective look into what life is like after retiring early and way before friends. Another point for needing something to do after retirement. [!economics, !health]
The strange 19th-Century sport that was cooler than football: Pedestrianism was in the spotlight. Article discusses major races and athletes. I suspect it's lost its cool because of how long it is. [!fun, !sports, !history]
Blog monetization: Weighing the pros and cons of monetizing a blog. I expected him to make more money based on his page views. [!economics]
On blankfaces: [!thoughts, !culture]
Some people will object that the term “blankface” is dehumanizing. The reason I disagree is that a blankface is someone who freely chose to dehumanize themselves: to abdicate their human responsibility to see what’s right in front of them, to act like malfunctioning pieces of electronics even though they, like all of us, were born with the capacity for empathy and reason.
Minimize Distraction: Click through and see how long it takes to get to the end. Hint: a long time. [!technology, !culture]
Hacker Typer: Type gibberish and get some cool green text as a result. [!fun, !technology, !cybersecurity?]
The high-return activity of raising others’ aspirations: [!thoughts, !future, !advice]
At critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind. It costs you relatively little to do this, but the benefit to them, and to the broader world, may be enormous.
Internet in a Box: "Internet-in-a-Box “learning hotspots” are used in dozens of countries, to give everyone a chance, e.g. in remote mountain villages in India. It works without internet — like a community fountain, but for the mind — wirelessly serving anyone nearby with a smartphone, tablet or laptop." [!technology, !future, !education]
Face To Face: In-person coaching is better, yet more demanding. [!thoughts, !fitness]
How to Ship the World’s Largest Space Telescope 5,800 Miles Across the Ocean: Making the suitcase, charting the course (including filling any minor potholes!), and transporting it in a mobile cleanroom. Gotta love engineering. [!science, !technology, !future]
Paintings by Adolf Hitler: Little did I know that Hitler was an artist! [!history, !art]
Madagascar Plan: "plan to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar which was proposed by the Nazi German government". "it was permanently shelved in 1942 with the commencement of the Final Solution, the policy of systematic genocide of Jews". [!history]
Goldwater rule: "psychiatrists have a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health, but they should not give a professional opinion about public figures whom they have not examined in person, and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public statements." [!psychology, !culture, !politics]
Graphing when your Facebook friends are awake: Exactly what it sounds like. Alex uses a basic Python script to pull the little green dots for certain times, then plots them. [!fun, !creepy]
Facial features provide clue to autism severity: Using 3DMD to map the heads of autistic children. [!science, !medicine]
boys with autism have broader faces and mouths, flatter noses, narrower cheeks and a shorter philtrum — the cleft between the lips and nose — compared with controls
Buffon's Needle: Dropping a needle to approximate the value of pi. [!fun, !unique, !science]
home: The role environment plays in all journeys. It's important to surround oneself with people and things that raise all; it's important to avoid those that detract from a goal's progress. [!philosophy, !thoughts]

if your actions are not in line with your desires – examine your environment. what is it asking of you? what behaviors is it rewarding? accept that when you are tired and hungry and scared that you will do what is easiest, and find a way to make what is easiest also what is correct. use that 3pm energy to set the stage. make it beautiful. make it echo and nurture your desires. because it effects you. it affects you. accepting that will at least allow you to use it to your advantage.

too often people see “change your environment” as move to a different one. while this is sometimes needed, how often do people simply recreate the same mess in a new place? yes, there is occasionally toxicity that must be left – but if that toxicity is your own mess, there may be value in at least trying to clean it up. there is also power in creation. in molding an environment for a purpose. to sit in a space with ethos. with soul. and an objective.
signal.: [!thoughts]
Science Isn't Strict Enough: [!science, !culture]
As long as most scientists can manage to accept definite, unmistakable, unambiguous experimental evidence, science can progress. It may happen too slowly—it may take longer than it should—you may have to wait for a generation of elders to die out—but eventually, the ratchet of knowledge clicks forward another notch. Year by year, decade by decade, the wheel turns forward. It's enough to support a civilization. So that's all that Science really asks of you—the ability to accept reality when you're beat over the head with it. It's not much, but it's enough to sustain a scientific culture.
Something Was Wrong: School's have become prisons that stifle creativity and force its prisoners into routines. [!education, !culture]
Simple Advice on Being More Likeable: Be genuinely interested in the other person and what they're saying. [!dating, !psychology]
I no longer believe that it’s possible to achieve extremely high productivity sustained over long periods of time working on difficult projects alone, so now I spend the majority of my working time co-working with my friends over video in my virtual gather.town office: [!productivity]
Tour of the Sacred Library: Using AI to generate imaginative realism pictures of library based on James Gurney's work. [!art, !technology, !fun]
Visualizing All the Vacant Office Space in San Francisco: [!covid, !fun]
there is now 12.7 Salesforce Towers, or 747 Salesforce Tower floors, worth of empty office space spread across San Francisco, which is roughly enough space to accommodate between 98,000 (based on an average, pre-Covid, density) and 131,000 (a la twitter) worker bees.
Word gap: When money’s tight, parents talk less to kids: [!psychology]
analyses revealed that parents engaged in fewer conversational turns with their children at the month’s end, a time that typically coincides with money being tight as parents await paychecks or other sources of income.
Collating widely available time/money trades: Practical ideas for buying time. [!thoughts, !advice, !productivity]
How to trade money and time: Practical ideas for buying time. [!thoughts, !advice, !productivity]
Most Ivy-smart students aren't at Ivy-tier schools: [!education]
Excerpt from We Learn Nothing, by Tim Kreider: Gaining a newfound appreciation for life by getting stabbed in the throat. [!psychology]
We Only Ever Talk About the Third Attack on Pearl Harbor: Two other attacks were staged by U.S. admirals trying to show how unprepared we were. They were brushed under for being unfair. [!military, !history]
Father's Day: Stories about RC's father. [!stories]
Master’s Degrees Are the Second Biggest Scam in Higher Education: I was always told that a physics master's degree was worse than a bachelor's, because it implied you didn't complete a PhD. That is tangential to what this article is talking about, though. [!culture, ]
Keeping People Out of Jail Keeps People Out of Jail: When choosing to not arrest for small, petty(-ish) crimes, more serious crimes also go down. Baltimore and Suffolk County (which includes Boston) have seen success in this approach. [!culture, !crime]
Stuff I buy and use: Basic list of consumables and non-consumables. I like the nutrition analysis. [!advice]
How I accidentally took down GitHub Actions: Play-by-play of Teddy's doings. [!technology]
Radioactive hybrid terror pigs have made themselves a home in Fukushima's exclusion zone: Sadly they don't look roided up or glow. [!fun (kind of), !history, !nature]
Perceptions of Probability and Numbers: I rank almost certainly at 95%, almost no chance at 5%, a couple at 3 (I know, I know), and hundreds of at 300. [!science, !psychology]
How to get promoted: Applies mostly to small, growing companies. [!career, !advice]
Umeshisms: If you've never done X, you're probably doing Y. [!philosophy, !thoughts]
The Rise of the $10 Million Disc Golf Celebrity: Niche sports seem to be making bigger waves (and money) recently. [!sports]
Haunting Photos Reveal a Massive Abandoned Town of Disney-esque Castles: Burj Al Babas has over 700 castles, but will likely never be finished. Would be cool to sneak in and visit. [!architecture, !economy, !covid]
Five Kinds of Relationship Problems: Stupid, basic incompatibilities, problems disguised as problems, horrifying soul-sucking messes, and terrible people. [!dating, !psychology]
The Myth of the Myth of the Lone Genius: [!psychology]
The Myth of the Lone Genius is a bullshit cliche and we would do well to stop parroting it to young people like it is some deep insight into the nature of innovation. It typically goes something like this—the view that breakthroughs come from Eureka moments made by geniuses toiling away in solitude is inaccurate; in reality, most revolutionary ideas, inventions, innovation etc. come from lots of hard work, luck, and collaboration with others.
Ten Kilograms of Chocolate: Testing 32 chocolate brands across 1,400 battles. Includes raw statistics and methods. Björnsted won. [!fun, !food]
Raw Data: More Than a Tenth of All American Adults Have Been Convicted of a Felony: [!culture]
It will surprise no one to know that although felony convictions have gone up for everyone, they are far higher in the Black community than the white community. As of 2010, about 23 percent of black people had a felony conviction on their record compared to 6 percent of white people.
The specter of Mannetjies Roux: [!history]
Yes, lockdowns were good: "Proving" that lockdowns were net good. I especially find interesting the economy analyses: two towns on opposite sides of a river had similar levels of economic downturn, and even on a state level, there was very little difference. [!covid, !economics]
The Best Questions For A First Date: Using statistics to find it. Sad that OkCupid took down all of their research, but good thing Gwern documented most of it. I'd be curious to see if these have changed at all since it's been 10+ years. [!dating, !culture]
Poor in Tech: Those two words rarely seem to go together, but there are people out there who do experience it. Meg details what it was like being poor in an office of the wealthy. [!culture]
A Teenager's Guide to Avoiding Actual Work: Using computer skills to avoid physical labor. The nerd part checks out! [!fun]
U.S. Secret Service: “Massive Fraud” Against State Unemployment Insurance Programs: Crazy that millions of dollars a year is lost due to fraud. [!economics, !covid]
The Parable of the Talents: "The modern word “talent” comes from this parable. It implies “a thing God has given you which you can invest and give back”. [!philosophy, !thoughts, !quality]
How Bad Are Things?: When put into perspective, my life isn't really that bad. I haven't been abused, I'm financially stable, no mental health issues, have a secure job, friends and family who like and love me. [!culture]
Getting Eulered: Advanced math shouldn't be enough to destroy the logic of an entire, complicated argument. I've had this thought many times before, especially on culture war topics, especially on Twitter. People come out swinging with study critiques and complicated math—who am I to believe? What about The Bell Curve? I hate people like that. [!psychology, !science, !culture]
Does Race Exist? Does Culture?: Feynman-ing others in an attempt to prove that race exists in some form. [!science, !culture]
Against Rat Park: Does addiction really follow bad circumstances? Bruce Alexander believes so, but the real answer is (likely) more nuanced. [!science]

July 2022

The Acceleration of Addictiveness: Things have gotten much more addictive over the past few decades and will likely continue the trend in the coming decades. [!psychology]
Color-changing cats were once part of a US government plan to protect humankind: Changing color whenever the interact with radiation. [!science, !fun]
Wheat’s Evil Twin Has Been Intoxicating Humans For Centuries: "Darnel is poisonous, but in small enough doses can give food a special kick." [!fun]
Toni Kurz and the Insanity of Climbing Mountains: The Rupal Face and the Eigerwand. [!sports, !nature]
Junto: Questions for Meetups and Rando Convos [!advice, !culture, !fun]
The deluge of crappy papers must stop: "There should be repercussions for scientists who pollute the commons with crappy papers". [!science]
The Sally-Anne fallacy: "the mistake of assuming that somone believes something, simply because that thing is true." [!psychology]
How to Walk (12 miles a day): Practical tips on clothing, routes, injury prevention, and safety. [!fitness, !health]
How I Earned $160,000 in Passive Income from Writing Non-fiction Books: Writing books =/= passive income. [!finance]
How I put my whole life into a single database: Excellent idea, but I expect the time commitment to be high and the payoff not worth it. [!productivity]
Inside DARPA's Subterranean Challenge: Overview and interviews with winners. Pretty awesome all of the work is autonomous and the accuracy is astounding. [!military, !future]
No One Expects Young Men To Do Anything and They Are Responding By Doing Nothing: [!culture]
Monetizing hobbies: I am swayed more towards yes, but not all the way. The overjustification effect is powerful, even when attemping to "not make it about the money". The other points are valid. [!advice]
The Fermi Paradox: Excellent overview of explanations for why we appear to be alone in the world. [!future]
Cabinet of curiosities: Collections of notable objects used to display interests and status. [!history, !fun, !unique]
The Joy of Small Projects: Choosing small projects and getting them done quickly can provide much satisfaction. [!productivity]
Ask HN: I'm interested in so many disciplines, but what can I do with that?: Thoughts on what a jack-of-all-trades can do. [!thoughts, !productivity, !career]
#42: Are you nice or kind?: Nice is noticing, kind is doing. [!thoughts]
Challenge Coins: Using special tokens to make things more robust. [!thoughts]
Tank Man: Jeff Widener's story of shooting the famous "Tank Man" in Tiananmen Square. [!history]
How a Public School in Florida Built America’s Greatest Math Team: [!culture, !science]
Harvey R. Miller: Considered the "most prominent bankruptcy lawyer in the nation", he helped to lead the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers. [!economics]
Depth of Field: Getting a better idea of just how many stars are in the universe. [!science]
Travel photos are underrated: [!architecture, !culture]
I love capturing the little moments of daily life that happen at street level as I'm wandering around a city, whether it's a new one an ocean away or my own neighborhood in San Francisco. These are very different from the photos of the Eiffel Tower that every visitor to Paris has somewhere in their phone camera, different from the ones you'll find on travel guides or city government websites. You can't easily find the pictures I want on Google Images. I've yet to find a consistent good source of photos capturing exactly what it is that I find interesting on a city street, the sort of thing that I want to include in my City Reviews exploring the effects of infrastructure, culture, geography, and history on the day-to-day life of people living in that place. The only alternative is to capture them myself.
The hunt for Nigerians who can change into cats: The chase continues! [!fun, !culture]
The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet: Investigating who and why the RPi was put there. [!technology]
The Curious Case of the Accidental Indian Missile Launch: While Ukraine-Russia was raging on, India "accidentally" launched a missile into Pakistan and nobody heard about it. Clary discusses the history of close calls and how we are teetering on the edge of more. [!military]
Examples of barbell strategies: [!thoughts, !philosophy, !economics, !fitness, !health]
The barbell strategy is an investment concept that suggests that the best way to strike a balance between reward and risk is to invest in the two extremes of high-risk and no-risk assets while avoiding middle-of-the-road choices.
60-30-10: Dedicate 60% of effort to accomplishing a life goal, 30% to second-order goals, and 10% to nice-to-haves. I think this only works if there is an overarching life goal, not so much if there are many first-level goals. [!productivity]
I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer!: Summary of Seema's experience with cancer. [!health]
The Vintage Beauty Of Soviet Control Rooms: Some awesome pictures of analog control rooms. [!architecture, !history]
My favorite Wikipedia articles about science: Bunch of interesting, quirky links. [!science, !technology, !fun, !unique]
Gamification, life, and the pursuit of a gold badge: Henley's life and how it relates to rewards, tangible or otherwise. [!productivity]
What a $500,000 grant proposal looks like: A pretty prominent no-longer-professor shares his NSF CAREER document, something that most do not do. [!technology, !academia]
Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News: I think these can apply to social media, too. I've practically quit Reddit and YouTube and have noticed I feel better, didn't accomplish much by watching YouTube (besides entertaining myself—Reddit I learned quite a bit from), and there are more productive, enjoyable ways of entertaining myself. [!health, !communication, !culture]
Explorer Carl Akeley Kills A Leopard With His Bare Hands: Crazy dude! [!fun, !history]
How a Baby Saved ‘Toy Story 2’ From Near Complete Deletion: Because someone was working from home after having a baby, they had regular backups sent to their email. [!fun, !film]
Braess's paradox: "Adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it." [!science]
Does needle anxiety drive vaccine hesitancy?: Possibly so. [!covid]
Nearly a third of TV ads play to empty rooms: I too would much rather look at my phone than change the channel or watch the actual ad. [!psychology, !culture]
Among other results, the team found that ad viewing behaviors vary depending on channel, time of day, program genre, age and gender. For example, older viewers are more likely to avoid ads by changing channels; younger viewers are more likely to avoid ads by leaving the room or diverting their visual attention – likely due to multitasking with a second screen.
Words Known Better by Males than Females, and Vice Versa: I tested this on coworkers and it checks out. [!fun, !language]
Travel Is No Cure for the Mind: HN discussion here. [!meditation, !thoughts]
When you view life as a continuous cycle in this box, it can be easy to take its components for granted and view everything as a mundane blur of familiar events. However, when you take the time to actually inspect the box with mindful awareness of its contents, you will discover the true amazement that lives within them. And the best tool one can use to magnify these great discoveries is the practice of gratitude.
Internet disrupted in Burkina Faso amid military uprising: [!military, !history]
Building without heating: how to build healthy, comfortable homes with virtually no heating: Make sure the direction utilizes the sun's position efficiently and invest in windows. [!architecture, !useful]
In 1st, US surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient: We've been using pig valves for decades to much success, but the heart is still elusive. The patient died a couple of weeks/months after. [!future, !science, !health]
MDOT reveals 299 winners of Michigan snowplow naming contest: Some really funny, some serious. Good to see officials taking jokes like this seriously! [!fun]
Counterfeit Kamov Helicopter Ring Busted: In Moldova, Europe's poorest country. Apparently it is ridden with fraud and criminal activity. [!military]
Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride: A stupidly-dangerous compound that is rarely ever formed (on purpose). [!science]
Sick Systems: Qualities That Keep You in a Sick System
Sick Systems: On Whittling Yourself Away: [!psychology]
Sick Systems: How to Keep Someone With You Forever: [!psychology]
1000 Hours Outside: Attempting to get people outside just as much as they spend in front of screens. [!health]
What The Hell Is This Company The 76ers Just Partnered With?: Color Star, rather sketchy company who is opaque and elusive. [!misc]
Self arrest on the Slippery Slope of Addiction: The addictiveness of substances and immediate entertainment. [!thoughts, !health]
First Cyclist in UK Completes Double Everesting: [!exercise]
How I Became the Internet's Most Notorious Bike Thief: Getting photoshopped for a good cause. [!fun]
The Origins of ‘Horn OK Please,’ India’s Most Ubiquitous Phrase: A few theories, mostly centered around letting drivers know you're there. [!culture, !history]
Eden: A Gated Community: Longform essay on Palena, a commune founded by a wealthy American in Chile. [!nature]
Seven ways to become unstoppably agentic: [!productivity, !thoughts]
1. Figure out what you need, figure out who can help you get it, ask them for it
2. My concrete strategy to thrive on rejections
3. Increase your surface area for serendipity
4. Get on Twitter and post stuff and interact with people. Also get in the habit of sending cold emails.
5. Seek forgiveness rather than permission
6. To get smart, ask dumb questions
7. Consider a wider option space – what is the upper bound scenario?
The Mandelbrot Monk: Udo of Aachen seemed to find Mandelbrot set prior to Benoit! [!history, !science]
How DVD Players Work: Reading DVDs, compatibility, inputs/outputs. [!technology]
The Shortest Possible Game of Monopoly: 21 Seconds: Describing a really short game of Monopoly. [!gaming]
Realizations about personal appearance: Basic thread about dressing and grooming. [!advice, !helpful]
Thank God Everything Is Back To Normal: Returning to the office grind after a long COVID winter. [!history, !fun]
Enigma: Guess which abstract is fake, as generated by an AI model. [!technology, !science]
Heritability of professions: Professors 5x, dentists 80x, doctors 25x, lawyers 18x. I wonder if the dentist number is because a lot of kids have the ability to inherit private practices. [!culture]
Officials detained over medieval-style castle residence built in EU-protected forest in Poland: [!architecture]
Names of the chemical elements in Chinese: The most comprehensive list of the names of chemical elements in Chinese anywehre (at least at the time of writing). The author also discusses the structure of the names. [!language]
Does America need its ‘Doomsday plane’?: Short summary of the Doomsday plane designed as a safe haven for VIPs. [!military]

June 2022

CEO Behind 5,300% Stock Gain Says Secret Is Raising Salaries: Buying companies to cut out the middlemen and then increasing the worker's salaries. Booyah! [!culture]
Movies Every Physics Student Should Watch: No idea how accurate this list is (i.e., should physics students really watch these?), but bookmarking it here for later. [!film, !science]
Are some personalities just better?: And unrelated to this, I would still say yes! [!psychology]
People who are extroverted, agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable, and open seem to do better at basically everything. Let’s call these people all-blues. Broadly speaking, they are more happy, successful, intelligent, creative, and popular. They have fewer addictions and less of every mental disorder. The only real tradeoffs are agreeableness against income/intelligence and extraversion/conscientiousness against math scores.
What It Takes to Climb Everest with No Oxygen: A strong mindset and a hell of a lot of strength endurance and aerobic work. [!fitness]
Braitenberg vehicle: A vehicles that has sensors and actuators (that respond based on the inputs to the sensors). While simple, it can appear complex. For example, if a left-side sensor's output increases with light exposure, the vehicle can be designed to go to the left. [!technology]
Stand or Fall: What's missing is the fact that people put trust in others because of lack of knowledge in some domain. I will trust scientists before myself when it comes to something they're experienced in. [!thoughts]
Resistance has value, however you express it. Take control of your health, don't cede it. If that means changing your diet and your physical behavior, if it means shrinking your bubble to reduce your exposure — to the virus, of course, but also to feeble minds and obedience — then so be it. Independent individuals, building enclaves of independent thought, is the only way ahead that I can imagine. Because lockstep in lockdown, both physical and intellectual, has never produced an outcome wherein free ideas and free people may survive.
Consume: [!health, !fitness, !thoughts]
The only goal is to try and understand what you think and feel that you need. This could be based on performance, general well-being, or adaptations to foods that you believe are good for you but that you are currently intolerant to. If what you put in does not have a purpose, then consider the behavior or habit, take inventory of your practice and make a change.
My 40-liter backpack travel guide: Info on optimizing for space and functionality. [!advice]
Five Geek Social Fallacies: Ostracizers Are Evil; Friends Accept Me As I Am; Friendship Before All; Friendship Is Transitive; Friends Do Everything Together. [!culture]
Boring Advice Repository: Super basic advice that applies to most people. [!advice]
Smart Contracts: Ethereum's page on smart contracts. [!cybersecurity, !technology]
correr el metro: Running all the lines of the Madrid metro. [!fun, !fitness]
perks of doing errands with friends: New experience of the world, new knowledge of your friend, lower-pressure setting, and the Ben Franklin effect. [!thoughts, !psychology]
Vibes: agoraphilia: [!thoughts, !psychology]
embrace the nostril pain: Feeling discomfort is a good thing when 95% of living is dull. [!thoughts]

May 2022

California Gubernatorial Candidates From Z to Z: All 26 of 'em explained in sarcastic, but sometimes serious, detail. [!fun, !politics]
Eat Or Be Eaten: Twight's experiences in a tactical defense course and thoughts on lessons learned. [!guns, !culture]
Missing It 2012: Reminiscing on what climbing brought to Twight's life. [!thoughts]
A Good Salad: Using Flagyl to kill parasites and stop future salad-eating. [!fun, !health]
The Stanford Marshmallow Prison Experiment: Thoughts on IQ, success, depression, and causes. [!culture, !psychology]
I'm an addict: [!productivity, !thoughts, !culture]
The Decade of Cheap Rides Is Over: Uber is now much more expensive than it once was, caused by their need to profit and the current economic conditions. [!economics]
Steelmanning the NIMBYs: A critique/support of five of NIMBY's most prominent claims. And they are not unreasonable. [!culture, !economics]
Bowling Alone at Twenty: Review of Bowling Alone twenty years after its publication. Hudson takes a look at the current state of American socialization and where it is trending. [!culture3]
Stalking your Facebook friends on Tinder: Using Tinder's API and some h4ck3r magic to do so. [!technology, !fun]
My Many Girlfriends: The story of Sten, an eccentric software developer who claimed to have multiple girlfriends (like, a lot of 'em) and always referred to himself in third person. [!fun]
Friendship paradox:
most people have fewer friends than their friends have, on average. It can be explained as a form of sampling bias in which people with more friends are more likely to be in one's own friend group. In other words, one is less likely to be friends with someone who has very few friends. In contradiction to this, most people believe that they have more friends than their friends have.
K: The Overlooked Variable That's Driving the Pandemic: [!covid, !biology]
The definition of k is a mouthful, but it’s simply a way of asking whether a virus spreads in a steady manner or in big bursts, whereby one person infects many, all at once.
Dude, Where’s My Stuff: [!economics]
The global supply chain mess will require increased global vaccination and acquired immunity, semiconductor capacity expansion and the end of extraordinary housing/labor supports to resolve. We expect all three to occur over the next few months, leading to a global growth bounce in 2022.
Signal for Help: [!helpful]
Progress: By Aldous Huxley. [!thoughts]
Summarizing our previous arguments, we may conclude with a few broad generalizations. Evolutionary progress of the species has not been perceptible within historical times and may, for all practical purposes of record of prophecy, be left out of account as non-existent. Uninheritable progress, due to tradition, has genuinely taken place in the realism of science and technology, where each worker stands on the shoulders of his predecessors. In the realm of morals, the refinement of traditional codes may lead to a certain ethical progress throughout a whole society. But the greater part of what is called moral progress consists merely in changes that are entirely without ameliorative direction. Progress in the arts is very limited and, as soon as the technique of artistic expression is perfected, ceases altogether to exist. Every artists starts from the beginning and depends for success on his personal talents alone. Something analogous is true of religion. Even in the material world the idea of progress is untenable. We are today very rich because we are living on our cosmic capital. When that capital is exhausted, mankind will be bankrupt. Nothing could be more obvious.
Whither Tartaria: Modern vs. old-age architecture and what the shift towards modernism means and implies. [!architecture, !history]
Always do Extra: Extra =/= more. I believe this article speaks the truth. It looks better to employers, it develops skills, and satiates passion and desire. [!thoughts, !productivity]
Self-Parking Car in 500 Lines of Code: Walkthrough. [!technology]
The Threat of Pop: [!thoughts, !philosophy, !fitness, !health]
If you want to know something, or develop a skill or ability, go do it. Get out of the “I read it on the internet” mask of expertise. It is an endless scroll of conjecture and assumption, most often from people who sit all day and stare at a screen. Want to know how to build a “superhero physique?” Go fucking build one.
Gender Differences Among Top Performers in Chess: Using international data, men are better than women at chess. [!games, !culture]
Elemental: Balancing humility and hubris during the quest to achieve goals. [!thoughts]
The Lost Art of Warming Up: [!fitness]
The Real Thing: [!thoughts]
Bear Trap: Story about a bear that climbed 10+ miles of glacier to terrorize a couple of climbers. [!fun]
Bussin': Twight's battles with injuries, his hip replacement, and getting back on the fitness bus after so much time off. [!thoughts, !fitness]
Disappearing Bicyclist - Sam Loyd: Where'd he go? [!fun]
Beast of Gévaudan: "historic name associated with a man-eating animal...that terrorised the former province of Gévaudan in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France between 1764 and 1767". [!history, !fun]
Core Beliefs: Rosen's beliefs about how the world operates. [!philosophy, !thoughts]
My Trip to Ghana: u/LawOfTheGrokodus' Ghana trip report. [!culture]

April 2022

Imitate, then Innovate: [!philosophy, !thoughts]
The simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people: I've tried something like this with Excel, but it doesn't notify me of who to contact for that day and is too inconvient to remember to open it. Maybe I'll adopt this one day, or transfer the Excel review into my weekly planning (will probably do this now that I think about it). See HN discussion. [!productivity]
If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?: [!thoughts]
Intentionally Making Close Friends: Neel's take on forging solid friendships and how to do so. [!favorites]
Schön scandal: Lying about scientific results. How careless do you have to be to duplicate figures? And how did the ediotrs of the very prestigious journals (Science and Nature) not catch it? [!science]
The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents: Article was retracted due to lies! Good on the The Atlantic. [!culture]
Why Parents and Kids Get Estranged: [!culture]
Mini Blog Post 3: Become a person who Actually Does Things: [!productivity, !favorites, !thoughts]
The main symptom is that, in the moment, acting upon your desires never feels urgent. It never feels important, and can be put off. Or it never feels possible, the problem just feels like a fact of life. And so a solution must center on solving the problem in the moment. And the solution that worked for me, is to make it part of your identity to be an agent. Make it a point of principle to do things, not because the thing is necessarily the perfect action, but because I choose the life where I do things, over the life where I always wait for the perfect opportunity.
A New Way to Prevent Shark Attacks: Examining behaviors of both people and sharks. [!technology, !nature]
Is internet addiction eradicating the habit of reading?: I am mostly in agreeance with Wadji's thoughts. Having access to the internet, regardless of whether or not it is needed, makes it much more tempting to use. I know a few people who choose to not have internet at home for that reason alone. But at the same time, it is a fantastic tool for research, and is often needed. One should learn how to restrict their usage accordingly. [!thoughts, !culture]
Fat Shaming Kids in Singapore: Anecdotes from the TAF program and its results. [!culture, !health]

March 2022

Dear Self; We Need To Talk About Social Media: Suggestions on achieving "Quiet", a state of flow and peace. [!advice]
Groups Never Admit Failure: The only retort I have is individuals acting on behalf of a company, but no example immediately comes to mind. [!culture]
How to get the most out of your 1:1s: Wiffin's take on productive 1:1s in a workplace setting. [!productivity]
It Looks Like You're Trying To Take Over The World: Gwern's take on AI takeoff and what it would look like for us, complete with hyperlinks to examples of exactly what he's talking about. [!technology, !future???]
10 Reasons You’re Lazy About Dating: Dating is pain; inconsistent reward; waiting for a soulmate; trying isn't hot; doomerism; narcissism; the app promise; evolved psychology; far from Grandma; people are just lazy. [!dating]
Uncle Yarv #0: dating call: An ad looking for a partner. I respect the directness and intention of the post. [!dating]
Write plain text files: Portable (able to be used anywhere), un-commercial (doesn't rely on a company), offline (self-explanatory), independent (not reliant on any other software), convertable (can easily be converted to a different file type). [!productivity, !advice]
Microaddictions: Scott's thoughts on addictions, and how the first instance of something is way better than later instances. [!thoughts]
Epistemic Minor Leagues: [!thoughts, !culture]
I often find myself trying to justify my existence; how can I write about science when I'm not a professional scientist, or philosophy when I'm not a professional philosopher, or politics when I'm not a professional policy wonk? When I'm in a good mood, I like to think it's because I have something helpful to say about these topics. But when I'm in a bad mood, I think the best apology I can give for myself is that the discovery drive is part of what it is to be human, and I'm handling it more gracefully than some.
How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives: Annie Dillard on Choosing Presence Over Productivity: [!productivity, !thoughts, !philosophy]
The most appealing daily schedule I know is that of a turn-of-the-century Danish aristocrat. He got up at four and set out on foot to hunt black grouse, wood grouse, woodcock, and snipe. At eleven he met his friends, who had also been out hunting alone all morning. They converged “at one of these babbling brooks,” he wrote. He outlined the rest of his schedule. “Take a quick dip, relax with a schnapps and a sandwich, stretch out, have a smoke, take a nap or just rest, and then sit around and chat until three. Then I hunt some more until sundown, bathe again, put on white tie and tails to keep up appearances, eat a huge dinner, smoke a cigar and sleep like a log until the sun comes up again to redden the eastern sky. This is living…. Could it be more perfect?”

February 2022

Working hurts less than procrastinating, we fear the twinge of starting: [!psychology, !productivity]
Thoughts on Shitpost Diplomacy: Using memes to make a difference. [!politics]
The professor who beat roulette: So the wheels can be biased! [!gaming, !fun, !crime??]
Glory to Ukraine: A national salute used during wartime: Слава України! [!language, !military, !culture]
Agency: [!thoughts, !philosophy]
Advice: Life advice for 10-20 year-olds (for now) by Patrick Collison. [!productivity, !thoughts, !advice]
Productivity: General and specific tips on improving productivity. [!productivity]
Be anonymous: Thoughts on being anonymous on the internet with two examples. [!cybersecurity, !advice]
Never, Ever, Ever Use Pixelation for Redacting Text: [!cybersecurity, !fun, !technology]
San Francisco Shoplifting: Prelude: Very brief overview on what appears to be rising crime in San Francisco. [!crime, !culture, !news]
Inverse care law: "availability of good medical or social care tends to vary inversely with the need of the population served." [!culture, !health, !economics]
Minus: "a finite social network where you get 100 posts—for life." Designed not to "induce endless engagement", but instead make things meaningful. [!unique]
Follow boring advice: Action, consistency, iteration, compounding, deliberate practice, focus, divide and conquer, positivity and gratitude. [!productivity]
Lives of the Cambridge polymath geniuses: Some pretty cool facts about famous polymaths. [!fun, !history]
Dutch Headwind Cycling Championships: Riders ride a race-provided single speed bike against winds of 30+ mph! [!fitness, !fun]
Just Room Enough Island: I wonder when/if water will ever make it up to the house itself. Still very cool! [!architecture, !unique, !geography]
Students Think the College Board Is Running a Reddit Sting to Catch AP Test Cheaters: u/dinosauce313 is still active! I took a look at his posts and they're not that bad. I definitely typed like that in some places while still in high school. [!fun]
Incidents Connected with the Life of Selim Aga, A Native of Central Africa: [!history, !unique]
Red Queen hypothesis: "species must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate in order to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing species." [!biology, !science]
Fisher's principle: "the sex ratio of most species that produce offspring through sexual reproduction is approximately 1:1 between males and females." [!biology, !science]
The Dark Night: An exchange on meditation's infamous Dark Night. [!meditation]
Stroop effect: "delay in reaction time between congruent and incongruent stimuli." An example is telling someone to say the font color of the word "red" when the font color is green.
US grounded planes as a ‘precaution’ after a North Korean missile launch: [!events]

January 2022

Who Is Greg Glassman?: The original culture of CrossFit and how it's changed over the years. [!culture, !fitness, !history]
ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory: As with most events like this, I do not suspect a major impact. [!technology]
He Paid $30 for a Drawing. It Could Be a Renaissance Work Worth Millions.: [!art, !history]
Ten Years of Logging My Life: Reflections on life logging since 17 years old. Very disciplined, very cool. [!productivity]
Space colonies of the future as imagined by NASA in the 1970s: Beautifully-drawn pictures of imagined space colonies. If only we had that now! [!future, !art]
The Story Of The Max Headroom Incident, America’s Creepiest Unsolved TV Hack: Short summary of the incident and similar events that followed. [!events, !crime]
25 Anti-Mimetic Tactics for Living a Counter-Cultural Life: Notes here. [!philosophy, !thoughts]
How a Glock Works: Excellent animation of the internal workings of a Glock pistol. [!technology, !guns]
Things you're doing but don't want to be doing: Common desire paths in life and how to avoid them. [!productivity]
Accurate VO2 Max for Zwift and Strava: [!fitness, !health]
You Won’t Believe My Morning: 22 months later and we find that the virus did not unite us... [!covid, !culture]
Your Life in Weeks: This infographic really adds a lot of insight into just how short life is. I'm 24 and the past year has flown by—months blended together. And looking at this, I'm sure the next many months will fly by, too. Just gotta make sure to make the best of them. [!productivity, !favorites, !thoughts]
How an Apartment Balcony Became One of Italy’s Best-Known Stages: What an awesome idea. I've always wanted to attend or host something like this: a living room concert or similar. Glad they won their case. [!culture, !music]
The dangers of dimethylmercury: C2H6Hg. Even two drops of this on the professor's skin ended up killing her. Crazy to think how toxic some substances are. Even HF and TMAH aren't this bad! [!science]
7 Myths About Cooking Steak That Need to Go Away: Some I've heard of and abided by, others not so much. I like the scientific approach used, though. [!food]
Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile: And as a HN commenter notes, it is extremely challenging for an infiltrator to stop the dolphin from doing what it wants to do. Good luck! [!military, !fun]
The Price of Discipline: The last paragraph sums up Perrell's thoughts:
If we want to raise healthy, high-agency children, we should give them the freedom to make decisions without removing them from the consequences of those decisions. Giving children agency now will help them avoid a dark cycle of work, pain, and reckless release in the future. Even if a life of indulgent hedonism is fun in the short-term, it ultimately leaves a void in the heart.
Or, in short, let children be children and understand that eventually they will form some degree of discipline by growing up. [!productivity, !thoughts]
There oughta be a WiFi Game Boy cartridge.: See title. The technical details seem pretty difficult. Respect. [!technology, !diy]

December 2021

Is [REDACTED] a Christmas Movie?: The rise of social media and its influence on people's arguments. [!culture]
You Have No Idea How Hard It Is to Get a Hamster Drunk: Hamster have an insane alcohol tolerance and actually enjoy grain alcohol straight! [!biology, !nature]
Group of Monkeys Kill Over 250 Dogs for 'Revenge' in Indian Town: [!events]
A group of monkeys in a small town in India took "revenge" on the local dog population this month by throwing them off of the top of tall buildings and trees.
Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China: And so the European-Chinese cold war begins with China as the aggressor (surprise, surprise!). [!politics]
My values, howled into the wind: Aaronson explaining his values in specific examples, some over the past few years and others in a general sense. Call me what he is! [!philosophy, !culture]
Chopped: How Amputated Fingertips Sometimes Grow Back: Just don't go too far and it will come back! [!biology]
Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech: "The big tech does not mind having a few false positives. They will never care." It takes much more effort to fix these few false positives than to just ignore them. [!technology]
Kyiv or Kiev? Why does it matter so much to Ukrainians?: Kyiv is the Ukrainian spelling, Kiev is the Russian spelling. [!politics, !language]
My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file: This is quite similar to my system, but I use Word. I love the idea of record keeping, easy search through standardization of phrases. I probably need to have a better email system in place. [!productivity]
Hard Work: [!philosophy]
"There is no shortcut to strength development, as there is none for the development of skill, agility or endurance in an athlete. No amount of fancy gimmicks or equipment or adoption of alleged time-saving 'fads' will substitute for a long term program of hard work, that is required to develop the quality of strength needed by an athlete for optimum performance in his specialty. Greater progress in track and field during the past 15 years has been the result of harder work by the athletes, not by resorting to shortcuts and less work."
Why [!favorites, !philosophy]
The Peter Principle: More of Twight's thoughts on COVID. [!covid, !thoughts]
Models by Mark Manson: Summary and Lessons: Decent summary of Models, but nothing revolutionary. [!dating, !culture]

November 2021

How My Genius Roommate Changed My Perspective: [!productivity]
This exercise inspired me to approach the world with this new-found mental tool. I thought to myself: “Identify my goal, take into account what I have, and creatively repurpose towards my goal.”
How To Be More Productive: Working smart is one thing, but working hard is often forgotten. [!productivity]
REvil Ransom Arrest, $6M Seizure, and $10M Reward: He brings up an excellent point about how simple it was to find these two guys. However, finding the true masterminds will be markedly more difficult. [!cybersecurity, !crime]
Omicron Variant Post #1: We're F***ed, It's Never Over: [!covid, !culture, !events]
Is it stealing to read by the light of your neighbour’s lamp?: [!philosophy, !culture]
Why thieves love to steal catalytic converters: Rhodium, platinum, and palladium are all precious metals fetching crazy high prices per oz. I remember the time I had a chance to take a rhodium target (used for sputtering)... $10k just like that. But I'm an honest person. [!crime]
The Stroad: [!economics, !architecture]
The function of a street is to serve as a platform for building wealth.

the function of a road is to connect productive places.

Besides being a very dangerous environment (yes, it is ridiculously dangerous to mix high-speed, highway design geometry with pedestrians, bikers and turning traffic), they are enormously expensive to build and, ultimately, financially unproductive.
Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard: Do these stores still even operate at most things being $1? I completely understand the increase to $1.25 with how inflation has been this past year. I find it especially crazy how they plan to open up 2,000 new stores by 1Q22. I've heard that a way-bigger-than-expected percentage of the population shops for groceries at dollar stores, which makes it unsurprising that they're opening more—it's relied on by so many people! [!economics]
Back when it was normal to advertise cocaine gadgets in magazines, 1970-1980: Probably 50+ cocaine paraphenalia advertisements from the 1970s. Weird to think how mainstream this is vs. now (2021), but the harm wasn't known. [!history, !fun]
Underrated reasons to be thankful: Underrated and uncanny, but all very valid! [!culture]
Just A Minute: How close can you get to estimating one minute? [!fun]
Why I am no longer driven: Life really is hard sometimes, and energy is a big contributor to how difficult something is. Finding ways to both increase energy and decrease energy output can do wonders for life. [!health, !productivity]
MORE LUX: light bars for SAD: [!health]

October 2021

An Unexpected Victory: Container Stacking at the Port of Long Beach: Containers can now be stacked at four tall, five if a safety check passes. Interested to see how this changes supply chain issues. [!economics]
Three-martini lunch: "sometimes used in political debates on tax deductibility of business meals in the USA". [!economics, !culture]
Edsel Ford Fong: "He was called the 'world's rudest, worst, most insulting waiter" and worked at Sam Wo restaurant.'" [!fun]
MIT Abandons Its Mission. And Me.: Abbot was canceled for arguing for meritocracy in the sciences and against diversity policies. [!culture]
Timeline of Bush's secret journey: 43's infiltration into Iraq to surprise soldiers for Thanksgiving. [!events, !fun]
After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep: Who caters to the rich like Graeber claims? Not me! I live my life for me, no one else. [!culture, !covid]
The Hidden Costs of Living Alone: I firmly believe that living with another person who is agreeable and had similar values will make someone happier. They help with bills, serve as a friend, keep company, help out with things, etc. While living alone does have its perks, I believe they are outweighed by roommating. [!culture, !economics]
Hindenburg Research Announces $1,000,000 Bounty For Details On Tether’s Backing: Tether is a stablecoin, or a cryptocurrency backed 1:1 by traditional currencies. The company still refuses transparency, so Hindenburg is calling bullshit. Hindenburg's track record is fairly impressive, so I suspect their expertise (plus the allure of $1 MM) will quickly bring to light information. [!economics]
List of IEEE Milestones: In chronological order beginning prior to 1800! [!technology, !history]
Moore's Law vs. Wright's Law:
progress increases with experience: each percent increase in cumulative production in a given industry results in a fixed percentage improvement in production efficiency.
Style Guide: Not Sounding Like An Evil Robot: 11 specific ways to sound more normal. I'm guilty of saying "human" at work because of a specific part of a tool. I also find once I get into a pattern of saying things, it builds momentum and it's harder to catch myself saying said things. [!communication, !culture]
Willingness to look stupid: Reasons why looking stupid (looking =/= being) can be helpful. [!productivity, !useful]
Real CHADS: Facts spoken in the comment section: "Chad is just a body. Real Chad is a mindset." We all need help at some point in our lives and should repay the debt when needed. [!psychology]
Teen Girls Are Developing Tics. Doctors Say TikTok Could Be a Factor.: Title says it all. The numbers seem to indicate there is something going on out there. Whether it can all be attributed to TikTok is up for debate, but it appears to play some role. [!culture]
Is nuking women and children cheaper than firebombing them?: Brief discussion into strategic bombing in the game Axis & Allies. [!military]
Haunted Houses Have Nothing on Lighthouses: Tales from lighthouses throughout history. [!history]

September 2021

Auto-experiment: Hyper-masculinity: Set of experiments that supposedly increase masculinity. [!dating, !health, !culture]
Knuth reward check: "awarded by computer scientist Donald Knuth for finding technical, typographical, or historical errors, or making substantial suggestions for his publications." [!fun, !technology]
20 Reasons To Quit Social Media: Most of these are very accurate: more free time, less comparing, getting attention back. [!psychology, !culture, !advice]
Google has locked my account for sharing a historical archive they labeled as "terrorist Activity": Disturbing reminder of a few things: have at least one backup solution, preferably two; private companies can do what they want at will with the info/materials you post on there (within the law, of course); posting controversial things like this on Hacker News is bound to get some attention! [!culture, !technology]
Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People: This is true. It's not funny! [!advice]
You feel like shit.: Interactive app that helps to pinpoint why the reader is feeling so poorly. [!useful, !psychology, !health]
Pygmalion effect: "high expectations [from others] lead to better performance and low expectations [from others] lead to worse" [!psychology]
Legendary Call of Duty Maps Recreated in LEGO: Using a LEGO engine to recreate Crash, Terminal, and Rust, among others. Definitely detailed enough to recognize what it is! [!architecture, !gaming]
Missing white woman syndrome: "The term is used to describe the higher coverage of white women and girls in the upper-middle-class who disappear, compared to coverage of missing women that are not white, women of lower social classes and missing men or boys." [!psychology, !culture]
Unemployment Part 2 - How to Save Yourself:
Day to day, progress is never going to be linear, so winning has to be about behaving the right way, not achieving the right results.
Unemployment Part I – Quitting Won't Save You: [cont.] from being bored. People need focus, hobbies, something to do. Getting extra free time won't make those magically appear from thin air. [!productivity, !thoughts, !psychology]
The mysterious disappearance of the world's longest shrubbery: A 2,300 mile-long, extremely thorny and fairly well-guarded hedge was used to prevent the smuggling of salt into British territory. It effectively no longer exists, both physically and in the minds of the Indian people. [!history]
Bin Laden's Bookshelf: Consisting of letters, some English books, manuals, studies, media articles, and terrorist publications. Pretty cool this was published! [!events]
Book Review: Permanent Record by Edward Snowden.: A pretty poor review of Snowden's recent book, although I haven't actually read it. [!events]
A Single Laser Fired Through a Keyhole Can Expose Everything Inside a Room: NLOS imaging making advances. I'm not surprised by the lack of resolution. I also wonder how the photodetector is able to distinguish between a photon from the left and right side of the room. [!technology, !military]
1922: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating: [!psychology]
I control my charities now; they do not control me. I am master of my time; it is not wasted wantonly among a thousand thoughtless folks. And while I find ways to do more than ever for those who really deserve help — the young, the sick, and the bereaved — I no longer allow myself to be sacrificed by the selfish demands of those who are perfectly able to take care of themselves.
Ten Signs a Claimed Mathematical Breakthrough is Wrong: The LaTeX observation is obviously based on experience and has exceptions. The other ones are fair. [!science]
9/11 Realtime: News coverage synced to 11 September 2001. A timeline is provided and the time can be chosen at will. [!quality, !events, !history]
Frugal Early Retirement FAQ: By Ran Prieur. [!economics, !culture]
Escopetarra: "a guitar made from a modified gun, used as a peace symbol. The name is a portmanteau of the Spanish words escopeta (shotgun) and guitarra (guitar)." [!culture, !military]
Human zoos: The Western world’s shameful secret, 1900-1958: Pictures of zoos featuring Africans, Filipinos, Native Americans, and others. [!history, !film]
Old and spectacular photos of Bedouin nomads, 1898: [!history, !culture, !film]
Art Student’s 407-Piece Hand-Carved Wooden Clock Literally Writes The Time: Some badass art out of Japan. [!unique, !art]
All Personal Finance Experts Are Liars: A poor take on why financial experts are "wrong". They're not wrong, they're just giving average advice that the average person can follow. Starting a business follows a pareto distribution with a vast majority failing or being mildly successful. Following the typical FIRE advice is virtually guaranteed to make someone mildly wealthy. [!economics]
Please cheer me up: A plea from Aaronson in regards to the state of the world. [!events]
Terence Tao - Anonymity: Tao discusses the finite amount of anonymity one can have on the internet, as well as how to increase it using disinformation. [!cybersecurity, !technology]
Takeaways from one year of lockdown: mingyuan's experiences during hardcore lockdown. In hindsight, this is extreme. During the latter half of 2020? Not so extreme... [!covid, !culture]
Career advice: Focused on academia. [!productivity, !culture, !advice]
The State of Being Stuck: Being "stuck" in any situation—math, engineering, etc—is not necessarily a bad thing, as it can often be a learning process. [!psychology]
Beg The Question: A site devoted to preventing misuse of the term. [!culture]

August 2021

Thoughts of work invaded my life—until I learned how to unplug: Put the phone up, focus on the present, and try to leave work at work. [!culture]
Black Dolphin Prison: Russian prison in which prisoners are blindfolded while being transported to prevent obtaining a layout of the prison. There are other stringent requirements in place (standing for ~16 hours, replying to guards correctly). [!crime]
Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed: The 40-hour workweek, unnecessary purchases, and the perks of not working and not spending. [!economics, !culture]
Written in Taliban: A short, yet scathing, summary of the U.S.'s involvement in Afghanistan, highlighting our shortcomings and faults. [!military, !events]
Carnegie library: Built with Carnegie's donated money. "total of 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929". I've heard an interesting idea of the same being done with gyms. These could be placed in areas with higher-than-normal obesity rates. [!culture, !health, !literature]
Culdesac: "The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US!" All major amenities are available in the immediate vicinity. [!future, !architecture]
Chaotic Inversion: "And the reason we don't think of the alternative explanation "I'm stupid", is not—I suspect—that we think so highly of ourselves. It's just that we don't think of ourselves at all. We just see a chaotic feature of the environment." [!psychology]
The Myth of the Myth of the Latte Millionaire: Turns out saving money on regular, small purchases can add up fairly quickly. [!economics]
The Byrne Hobart Portfolio: "Alternative title: Byrne Hobart is 64x better than the average hedge fund." [!economics]
On the list: Ten prime ministers, three presidents and a king: [!cybersecurity]
How to spot a good fake ID: Self-explanatory. Very cool! [!quality, !unique]
What We Got Wrong in Afghanistan: I disagree that the U.S. is responsible in the way the author describes. Afghanistan is not able to sustain a central government—there are too many individual tribes with individual loyalties to find common ground. I believe the U.S. did not take this into account when entering Afghanistan. [!history, !military]
Don’t Be a Schmuck. Put on a Mask.: Schwarzenegger's plea to the people to step up and mask up. He brings up valid points about us shelving our pride and comfort for the greater good, both in war and now. But some people are idiotic and stubborn, causing things like these to fall on deaf ears. [!events]
This Beach Does Not Exist: Yet another iteration of the TDNE... fun! [!technology, !nature]
The insides of pro bowling balls will make your head spin: Precisely engineered to improve spin and other behaviors. [!technology]
Letter from Acting Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection Samuel Levine to Facebook: After Facebook shut down to NYU researchers from examining the platform's advertising methods. [!events]
Money Stuff: [!finance, !psychology, !culture]
To me, money is instrumental — a resource to put a number on, trade off against time and effort and risk, and manage with basic math. But to other people it seems to be a measure of their character, a core part of their identity, and a leading cause of their derangement.
Easily Top 20%: Some people's lives may seem great, but under the surface there's more to it. Jacob explains his situation after a rather rude comment. [!dating]
The Hostage Rescue Team—Part 6: Mission in the Gulf of Aden: HRT's role in the responding to the hijacking of the S/V Quest. [!military]
Siberia’s wildfires are bigger than all the world’s other blazes combined: Overview of the wildfires buring in Siberia and how Russia is handling it. [!geography, !events]
Demand Justice: Jason Momoa's training for Aquaman. [!fitness, !health]
Taking Social Initiative: [!favorites, !important, !psychology, !culture]
I Fucking Hate Lists: Training suggestions regarding barbells and mindsets. [!philosophy]
Against Nothing: The philosophy of being "strong" and the dogma of barbell enthusiasts. [!philosophy]
Nakatomi Space: [!psychology]
Early Retirement: Thoughts on early retirement. Definitely something a lot of people in the FIRE community need to come to terms with before pulling the trigger. [!thoughts]
Licence to crenellate: "granted the holder permission to fortify his property." [!history]
Links: Collection of links on a variety of subjects. [!misc]
"February" by Stanley Roy Badmin RWS: [!art]
Lost Cosmonauts: "Soviet Union attempted to launch human spaceflights before Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight, and the cosmonauts onboard died in those attempts." [!history, !events]

July 2021

There’s no speed limit: Learning and/or practicing doesn't have to have any limit on it. [!philosophy, !productivity]
“the standard pace is for chumps” — that the system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you’re more driven than most people, you can do way more than anyone expects. And this principle applies to all of life, not just school.
Logan Strohl on exercise norms: A lot of statements I agree with here. [!philosophy, !thoughts]

Being difficult is part of the very nature of exercise; you don't get physically stronger or gain physical endurance unless you work hard enough to be uncomfortable, and you don't improve meaningfully in these ways unless you are uncomfortable over and over again frequently and consistently. So I think sentiments like "it doesn't really matter, only do it if it's easy and you like it" (which rarely pop up in those words but I think are nevertheless subtly pervasive in nerdier subcultures) are especially detrimental to exercise in particular. And that's why I do sometimes bother to promote exercise explicitly.

but it's also at least a little annoying and frustrating. because yeah, i almost certainly do have a genetic predisposition to be coordinated and so forth; but also, i started gymnastics training when i was in preschool, and every single year since then i've practiced some combination of gymnastics, soccer, dance, yoga, martial arts, running, weight lifting, swimming, cycling, hiking, and a smattering of more niche activities that require and develop physical skill. it's not like i just woke one morning able to do backflips. i did not roll a natural twenty on "core stability". i've worked hard for it my entire life, and that's important to me.

Including some good comments:
"You'll feel so much better" and "it's healthy" were the main reasons I was told to start exercising. I guess that's true, but after lifting for 7 years consistently, the main thing I noticed that no one told me was "you'll gain this superpower of every social interaction being a bit tilted more in your favor". Getting a good haircut for the first time ever probably helped too. The difference in how I'm listened to and treated is clear - people are much more interested in what I have to say.
Harvey’s Casino Bomb: A rather intricately-designed bomb meant for a casino. [!events]
Evil tip: avoid "easy" things: [!productivity, !thoughts]
TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant: [!technology, !events, !economics]
The Whitworth Three Plates Method: Supposedly this is how EUV mirrors are manufactured to such a high degree of precision (although I'm sure there are other tricks involved). [!technology, !science, !unique]
Write To Say Stuff Worth Knowing: This is the main purpose of this website: to write about things I think other people should know. This includes my thoughts, information and knowledge I've accumulated over the years, and so on. [!philosophy, !quality]
When writing triggers memory reconsolidation: [!psychology]
Working With Monsters: [!philosophy, !culture]
And now you have to make a choice. You can go out in a blaze of glory, fight for what you know is right, and maybe take down a few moral monsters in the process. Or you can choose to live and let live, to let injustice go unanswered, to work with the monsters you hate. It’s up to you.
Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years: [!technology, !history]
With Timelapse in Google Earth, 24 million satellite photos from the past 37 years have been compiled into an interactive 4D experience. Now anyone can watch time unfold and witness nearly four decades of planetary change.
Awesome Falsehood: "A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe in." [!technology]
Practice the Maui Habit to Build a Success Mindset: [!advice]
What is the Maui Habit? Each day when you get up from your bed you repeat these words “ Today is going to be a great day”.
Environmental impact of Mardi Gras beads: "government spent $1.5 million to pick up about 1,500 tons of Mardi Gras-induced waste, consisting mostly of beads." "they are not biodegradable and contain high amounts of heavy metals". [!culture]
Hundred years are nothing: In the end, very little matters and very little will change. [!thoughts]
Cycles: [!philosophy, !thoughts]
Life is full of cycles, great and small. Personal development is linked to lasting change. We pass through various stages, some achieved consciously, others reached accidentally. Daniel Levinson proposes that one's life cycle is composed of four 25-year eras. Confucious argued for six cycles. Aristotle thought there were three stages. The details don't much matter only that we change over the course of our lives and—sometimes—we have the opportunity to direct that change. At other times life appears simply "to happen" and we find ourselves on a different road, or continent.
Killed by Google: List of apps and services that Google axed. [!technology]
Marvin Heemeyer: "Heemeyer drove his armored bulldozer through the wall of his former business, the concrete plant, the town hall, the office of the local newspaper that editorialized against him, the home of a former mayor (in which the mayor's widow then resided), and a hardware store owned by another man Heemeyer named in a lawsuit, as well as a few others." [!events]
The Map of Mathematics: Only a very brief introduction into the specific fields, but still helpful when trying to figure out what is unknown. [!science]
Awesome Split Keyboards: A list of split keyboards with pictures and purchase links. [!fun]
VentScape: Place to write private thoughts that eventually disappear. [!misc]
Daigo Fukuryū Maru: "Japanese tuna fishing boat with a crew of 23 men which was contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954." [!history, !events, !military]
What are Trigger-Action Plans (TAPs)?: See TAP notes. [!productivity, !useful]
Jimmy Carter UFO incident
Jimmy Carter rabbit incident: A swamp rabbit swam towards Carter's boat while he was fishing. [!fun]
How Will Moderna Meet The Demand For Its COVID-19 Vaccine?: Moderna, a relatively small company when compared to Pfizer, has done fairly well since this article was published. They used other facilities to help produce the vaccine. [!events]
A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits: [!economics, !philosophy]
La Malinche: "woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, by acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés." "She is understood in various and often conflicting aspects as the embodiment of treachery, the quintessential victim, or the symbolic mother of the new Mexican people. The term malinchista refers to a disloyal compatriot, especially in Mexico." [!history, !culture, !language]
Epigrams: "A list of quotes I find myself regularly using, not necessarily coined by myself." [!philosophy, !technology, !useful, !advice]
NSA seeking new business for in-house CMOS wafer fab: So the rumors of a "spook fab" are true! [!technology, !military]
Floor Employment: [!economics, !useful, !advice]
By a floor job, I mean something that puts a floor in how bad and desperate your life can be. As in “I won’t be unemployed forever, I can always go do X”. Or “I won’t be working at this miserable fast-food place with this boss I hate forever, I can always just do X”. A lot of this depends on just how unlucky you are – the floor for high-IQ people with savings and college degrees is quite a bit higher than the floor for less smart people with no qualifications who need something now.
Nissan.com: You'd think it'd be the car, but nope. More info here. [!events]
PediaPress: Purchase printed books consisting of Wikipedia content. [!misc]
Calligraphr: Make your own fonts by scanning a piece of your handwriting. [!fun]
Why We Fight Over Fiction: [!culture]
Ekphrasis: "vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art." [!art]
The Murder of Wilbur Wright: Discussing the amount of great minds that could have accomplished much, but didn't due to other humans and responsibilities. Another reason to be in favor of putting attention on the bright ones in class and making sure they excel—it will be good for everyone involved! [!culture, !history]
Things you're allowed to do: "List of things you’re allowed to do that you thought you couldn’t, or didn’t even know you could."
The feeling of breaking an Overton window: Very rarely have I ever done this. Sometimes discussions can get lively amongst friends, but with strangers it's a different story. [!culture]
Light and Weight: The effects of losing a loved one bring both the important and unimportant parts of life into perspective. [!thoughts]
The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday: There's a lot to be said here. Doing a little bit every day adds up quickly. Sometimes returns can be superlinear. It's important to understand that motivation ebbs and flows, and habits are powerful. [!productivity, !advice]
Bring Back the Breakfast Drink: It is no doubt frowned upon to drink before noon, but Tucker makes a compelling historical case for bringing back the breakfast drink, although a morning Guinness doesn't sound too appetizing.
Richard Thompson: The dangers of gardening: Making gardening sound like a perilous activity. Sounds like people should just stop going outside. [!thoughts]
Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation: Document 9 is a leaked report by the Chinese government detailing the seven problems modern-day China faces in the ideological sphere:
1. Promoting Western Constitutional Democracy: An attempt to undermine the current leadership and the socialism with Chinese characteristics system of governance.
2. Promoting “universal values” in an attempt to weaken the theoretical foundations of the Party’s leadership.
3. Promoting civil society in an attempt to dismantle the ruling party’s social foundation.
4. Promoting Neoliberalism, attempting to change China’s Basic Economic System.
5. Promoting the West’s idea of journalism, challenging China’s principle that the media and publishing system should be subject to Party discipline.
6. Promoting historical nihilism, trying to undermine the history of the CCP and of New China.
7. Questioning Reform and Opening and the socialist nature of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The government calling these problems is not surprising by any stretch. Their solution to prevent these from occurring has four legs:
1. Strengthen leadership in the ideological sphere.
2. Guide our party member and leaders to distinguish between true and false theories.
3. Unwavering adherence to the principle of the Party’s control of media.
4. Conscientiously strengthen management of the ideological battlefield.
[!politics, !economics, !events, !history]
Pump Session: [!philosophy]
[Amazon] Lethal for career. Think 100 Times before you join Amazon: Note this poster is only referring to India, but I've heard similar stories (and contradicting ones) of how bad Amazon is in the U.S. But the FAANG name on a resume speaks volumes, regardless of how things really went. I suspect there will be little change in Amazon's hiring practices nor the number of applicants over the near future. [!culture]
Was the Military Operation in Afghanistan Worth the Sacrifice?: I agree that there was little, if any, success in Afghanistan. But hindsight is 20-20, and the purpose of the campaign was virtuous. I estimate it's only a matter of months before the Taliban regain control of what Americans fought so hard for. [!military, !eventss]
No yes. Either HELL YEAH! or no.: I agree on the conditions it is being used with. Else, why add another mundane thing onto your plate? [!advice]
On Being a Loser, or Should you Start a Blog?: The answer is a resounding yes. Starting this website was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. I am able to sort through thoughts, track projects, etc. [!productivity, !advice]
Live a life you feel excited about: [!psychology]
I find that these break down into 3 areas: finding new projects that I feel excited about, reframing tasks I need to do anyway into ones I feel excited about, and feeling excited about self-improvement - fixing a particular problem in my life.
The Joyride Era of Space Travel Is Here: Branson's flight to "space" has opened up the door for tourists to travel up to space. I predict, like other expensive adventures over the past hundred or so years, this will get progressively less expensive until the average middle-upper class citizen can participate. [!science, !events]
It’s Hard to Make Friends When You Move to a New Town: Interview of two women who became friends during the pandemic. [!culture]
Why Are Gamers So Much Better Than Scientists at Catching Fraud?: Fraud exists in both communities, but seems to only be taken seriously in gaming. [!science]

June 2021

A Grisly Skin Disease Is Creeping Into the American South: Leishmaniasis. [!medicine]
We’re Learning the Wrong Lessons From the World’s Happiest Countries: The author argues that equality is the reason many "unhappy" countries are unhappy. [!culture]
People are more satisfied with their lives when they have a comfortable standard of living, a supportive social network, good health, the latitude to choose their course in life, and a government they trust. The highest echelon of happy countries also tends to have universal health care, ample paid vacation time, and affordable child care.

May 2021

Which was the costliest volcanic eruption in history? Mt. St Helens was number two at $860MM! [!events, !nature]
US officials revisit rules for disclosing risky disease experiments: Gain-of-function research seems critical in helping to prepare for pandemics. [!science]
Berkshire Hathaway’s Stock Price Is Too Much for Computers: Sadly, a patch will be pushed to fix this issue. Clickbait, kind of! [!technology, !economics]
Hackers who shut down pipeline: We don’t want to cause “problems for society”: [!events, !technology, !cybersecurity]
One million people saw my dumbest tweet: Twitter serves to spread both good and bad ideas, depending on the spreaders. [!technology, !culture]
Into the Mystical and Inexplicable World of Dowsing: Do some people really have an innate talent for finding underground water? What about other objects? Some skeptics have turned into believers after seeing these people at work. [!science]
The Biggest Churches in the World: Beautiful architecture from churches in both the UK and Europe. [!architecture]
The True Size of Africa: Africa's size visualized by overlaying multiple other countries with it. [!geography]
Three Body Problems: Complex systems still exist in which there are no solutions. [!science]
No One Goes There Anymore: [!culture]
Blueberry Earth: What if the entire Earth was instantaneously replaced with an equal volume of closely packed, but uncompressed blueberries? Sandberg is glad you asked, and makes a valiant effort at answering the question. [!fun, !science]
Demon core: A 6.2 kg plutonium core that killed two Manhattan Project scientists, hence the name. [!history]
Fast: "Some examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together." [!technology, !history, !architecture]
Research: Where a Founder Is from Affects How They Structure Their Company: Founders from countries with higher transparency scores were more likely to have companies with higher employee autonomy, among other traits. [!culture]
Gifts Which Money Cannot Buy: Experience and expertise allow for gifts that are more valuable than what the receiver could get on their own. [!thoughts]
London Beer Flood: "580,000–1,470,000 l; 154,000–388,000 US gal) of beer were released in total" with eight people killed. [!history, !events, !fun]
Minimisation (psychology): "denial coupled with rationalisation/rationalization in situations where complete denial is implausible". Essentially saying "this doesn't matter as much as it seems". [!psychology]
GRIM test: Used to find data inconsistencies using means. [!science]
Limerence: "romantic attraction to another person and typically includes obsessive thoughts and fantasies and a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and have one's feelings reciprocated" [!psychology]
Why haven't Physical Books died yet?: Better cognition/learning and better experience. [!culture]
Why I Write Under My Real Name: Falkovich's reasons for writing under his government name, some of which are identical to mine. [!thoughts]
The Bitter Fight Over the Benefits of Bilingualism: Some studies have shown the benefits of bilingualism to be overhyped or even non-existent. Sadly, researchers are not up for collaboration for what seems to be lack of personal gain. Sad that it has come to that. [!psychology]
Thriverism: Sonya discusses the meaning of life with help from others. [!philosophy]
Leatherman (vagabond): Homeless man in the 1800s who traveled a 365-mile circuit throughout the year, living in caves along the way. His identity is unknown. [!history, !fun]
Workers eradicate first nest of 'murder hornets' found in US: [!events]
Steve House / knowing yourself: [!philosophy]
This provides time for reflection. To understand, deep in my own body, that to suffer is to grow. To try things that are deeply frightening, and to fail wisely and come back again and again until I succeed. That defines one possible (and proven) channel for growth and the goal of growth is nothing less than knowing yourself. Not the self that is uncovered, excavated, but a self that is molded by your very own trials and tribulations.
A Sorceress’ Kit Was Discovered in the Ashes of Pompeii: [!history]
On Incels, Dead Bedrooms and The Hard Problems of Loneliness: Sympathizing with incels. I've been of the same mindset (not that I know any incels) in that we should be kind and accepting of them in an attempt to help them see the light. [!culture]
we can offer sympathy, acknowledge the problem and offer help working towards solutions in what small ways we can, or we can abandon these young men to seek acknowledgement of their issues from dark side of the internet for want of any other options.
12 Rules for Life: lsusr's version. I strongly agree with a majority of items. [!philosophy, !thoughts]
Pitch drop at Trinity College Dublin successfully recorded on camera after 69 years: 2MM times the viscosity of honey. [!science, !fun]

April 2021

Open source goes to Mars: Another win for open source! [!technology, !events]
My neighbours have so many fucking IoT devices that they basically fuck over the entire 2.4GHz spectrum over here just by themselves...: Title is self-explanatory... [!technology]
You Are Not 'Behind': Comparison should only be made on a intra-personal level, i.e., to our past self. Comparing ourselves to others without knowing the full circumstances of their success leads to unhappiness. It took me a long time to understand this, but when I finally did, my life was much better for it. [!thoughts]
How often do people actually copy and paste from Stack Overflow? Now we know.: Answer: quite a bit! [!technology]
Microsoft says mandatory password changing is “ancient and obsolete”: And it is. What is the point of changing a password? If anything, people will make it less secure because it's a pain to remember the new one you changed it to. [!technology]
The Real Reason to End the Death Penalty: Too many innocent people are killed. See Blackstone's Ratio. [!thoughts, !culture]
The Wrestlers Fighting to Build a Chinese WWE: Overview of the Chinese professional wrestling scene. While starting small, it has begun to grow. Funnily enough, the antagonist is often an ESL teacher... [!culture, !fun]
Test Ad Blocker: [!technology]
Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism: Online communities should be ruthlessly culled of their lowest-quality posters to maintain the community's quality. Yes, this is censorship, but it's also what's best for everyone. [!philosophy]
Against Alcohol: Book review of Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health. In all, alcohol is incredibly harmful to individual health, and by extension, societal health. I do not see any point where alcohol becomes uncool and not widely drunk. [!health, !culture]
Missing Hiker Found After Man Using Computer at Home Pinpoints His Location: [!misc]
Married to the job: how a long-hours working culture keeps people single and lonely: Dating apps feels like another chore to complete after a long day of work, something few have the motivation to pursue. Making this easier is a matter of meeting partners during normal activities, whether hobbies or chores. This increases both the time and effort burden of that activity minimally, while still getting to meet a potential partner. [!culture]
Doping with Oxygen: Twight correctly argues that supplemental O2 on high peaks is doping, and in a sense, disrespectful. It is not a true necessity (for some, it is, but for those many they should not be up there in the first place). [!philosophy]
Dropping out of High School to Join a Startup in San Francisco: Summary of interviews and the hiring process of a degree-less SWE. [!culture]
Advice for High School: I definitely agree with the "Cheat Codes for Life" section. My list is quite similar: start a website (website =/= blog), become fit in all modalities (strength, aerobic capacity, anaerobic capacity), learn how to socialize properly, and find a hobby. Follow up post here. [!productivity, !useful, !thoughts]
Anger: Avoid angry people at all costs. They will make you suffer with them. [!productivity, !useful]
Vladimir Putin still does not use smartphone, spokesman says: But how does he text his friends? And look at Reddit on the go? [!fun]
Calibrating Spending: Winter burns a $100 bill and becomes better off because of it. [!productivity, !psychology]
But Did You Really Climb It?: No, probably not. [!fun]
2019–2020 vaping lung illness outbreak: "BuT iT's JuSt WaTeR vApOr." [!health]
College Level Mathematics: Turns out college really is a scam. [!fun, !culture]
Better air is the easiest way not to die: Literature review of air quality and its impact on human health. Includes practical suggestions on improving air quality in everyday life. [!health, !useful]
Why I Planted the Brighton Bomb for the IRA and What Came Next: The Brighton Bomber's background, the operation itself, and meeting the daughter of a man who was killed. [!history, !culture]
The Spy Who Came in From the Carrel: Preserving books and other cultural treasures in WWII Europe. [!history]
Whitewood Under Siege: An inside look into the world of pallets (yes, those pallets) and how one company has waged a war. [!history, !culture, !economics]
Cube Rule: Identifying food types (sandwich, taco, etc) based on the location of its starch ingredients. [!fun, !culture]
The answer to "Will you mentor me?" is: [!philsophy]
In other words, when you asks for a busy person's time for "mentorship" or "advice" or whatever, show (a) you are serious and have gone as far as you can by yourself (b) have taken concrete steps to address whatever your needs are and (optionally. but especially with code related efforts)(c) how helping you could benefit them/their project.

March 2021

Building a Fab – It's All About Tradeoffs: Overview of building a fab. I am still looking for a detailed explanation. [!technology,]
Lost in Thought—The psychological risks of meditation: The harm that meditation can bring is rarely spoken and not well understood. One woman experienced this during a meditation retreat, ultimately resulting in her suicide. [!psychology]
Why drink is the secret to humanity’s success: Dunbar argues that because alcohol releases endorphins, that is the one reason people become much closer. He also cites research proving a correlation between number of friends and years lived. [!nature, !culture, !psychology]
Recognizing and Localizing Endangered Right Whales with Extremely Deep Neural Networks: Using a NN to identify and distinguish whales based on a fairly obscure aerial photograph. Done for a Kaggle competition. [!technology]
Encephalization quotient: "relative brain size measure that is defined as the ratio between observed to predicted brain mass for an animal of a given size". [!science, !nature, !psychology]
The Secret of Nanda Devi: A CIA-trained team of climbers summits mountains to install spy devices, only for one to get lost (and remain lost) in an avalanche. [!history, !military]
Against and Then for Hyperproductivity: ADS works for 12 hours in a single day with good and bad results. [!productivity]
Low tech stuff I recommend: Guzey's recommendation on productivity and other items. I also suggest 10+ ft phone charging cords. [!productivity, !useful]
Slack: A good point on the importance of Slack in everyday life, which allows us to pursue the things we want. [!psychology, !philosophy]
Definition: Slack. The absence of binding constraints on behavior.
Beware Trivial Inconveniences: I see this phenomenon in my life quite often, sometimes preventing me from doing things, other times not (but more begrudgingly). This is tangentially related to Zero-effort habits. [!productivity, !psychology]
Reddit: Organized Lightning: This piece reminds me a bit of the businessman-fisherman story. Why must Reddit continue to grow? Why can't it just maintain its original focus, instead of delving into cryptocurrencies and streaming? I enjoyed Reddit a lot more back in the early-mid 2010's. It wasn't as washed-up and mainstream as it is now. I was really the only one of my friends who was truly considered a "redditor", and liked it that way. Now it seems everyone gets on. [!culture, !economics]
Kilobyte's Gambit: A chess computer made with 1024 bytes of JavaScript, which only allows four-move memory. I was able to beat it with only a rook and promoted queen remaining, but I'm not a super good player. [!fun, !games]
Lost in Time in the Antarctic Ice Age: A sleep scientist's work in Antarctica, and how its seemingly-perpetual days play tricks on the mind and body, ultimately resulting in poor sleep. Just another anecdote on the importance of sleep in quality-of-life. [!health, !psychology]
Project Azorian: "CIA project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in 1974". I wonder what kind of technologies are born (or heavily advanced) during efforts such as these. [!history, !fun, !military]
The Air Force Is Having To Reverse Engineer Parts Of Its Own Stealth Bomber: An interesting perspective is brought up: could the U.S. have stolen someone else's technology in developing this? My hunch says no, given how advanced we are, but it is a possibility. I am curious to see if an even better product comes out of this effort, not that it will ever be revealed. [!technology]
Austen Allred is Consistently Deceptive: Founder of the Lambda School misrepresents the company's success. When I first saw this on Twitter in 2020, it did seem too good to be true. A Reddit user offers a good perspective:
Lambda School's founder and CEO is a masterful influencer and marketer. Lambda School launched amid frustrations about the cost of traditional universities combined with the growing "learn to code" movement. Their promise seemed like a dream come true: Pay nothing up front, learn faster than a traditional college, and you don't owe anything if you don't get a job.
I would love to see Allred respond to this article, but I doubt it will happen. Yet again, if something is too good to be true, it probably is. [!culture, !technology]

February 2021

Style Matters: [!philosophy, !thoughts]
Reconstructing the Menu of a Pub in Ancient Pompeii: Done by looking at the drawings on the shop and referencing ancient cookbooks. The author even includes ingredients and instructions! [!useful, !food]
Deliberate Grad School: Grad school offers many more benefits than one would expect, all of which can greatly enhance the experience itself and the opportunities that come during and after. Academian provides eight suggestions on making the most of grad school. [!culture, !useful]
Clear: [!thoughts, !philosophy]
If you want good things to happen, you must have or make room for what you envision to occur. Do you want better friendships? How does that occur if you don't clear time for meaningful conversations? Want to improve your diet? Where do healthful foods go if your pantry and 'fridge are full of low-quality consumables? Opportunity is only such if you have the means to seize it and the space to store it.
The Power of Pomodoros: Overview of the Pomodoro method and why it works so well. [!productivity]
Thoughts on the virus: Written in February 2020 before shit hit the fan in the U.S., this is one of the best predictions of what the virus would end up looking like in 2020. Sadly, it was not over by summer... [!events, !covid19]
Learning How to (and How Not to) Kill: [!psychology]
Before you speak, ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid.
Life is Short: "Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have." [!philosophy, !thoughts]
Catullus 16: "considered so explicit that a full English translation was not published until the late twentieth century." See Wikipedia page for translation. :) [!history, !language]
Password Strength: Choosing four random words is much better than a complicated password like ***************. [!technology, !useful]
Social Media Helps Smokers Quit?: [!culture, !health, !psychology]
It also takes advantage of the online communication features of social media by engaging new users with specially appointed ‘quit coaches’, finding social support through the program’s Facebook group, and arranging meetup events for members. Overall, researchers found that this method was highly successful. Participants in the social media group were 205% as likely to quit smoking, and 214% more likely to be able to remain smoke-free over a period of 30 days.
Is Social Media Hijacking Our Minds?: [!culture, !psychology]
Play in Easy Mode: [!culture, !psychology]
Masculine Virtues: [!culture, !favorites]
The Fireplace Delusion: [!health]
There is no amount of wood smoke that is good to breathe. It is at least as bad for you as cigarette smoke, and probably much worse. (One study found it to be 30 times more potent a carcinogen.) The smoke from an ordinary wood fire contains hundreds of compounds known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and irritating to the respiratory system. Most of the particles generated by burning wood are smaller than one micron—a size believed to be most damaging to our lungs. In fact, these particles are so fine that they can evade our mucociliary defenses and travel directly into the bloodstream, posing a risk to the heart. Particles this size also resist gravitational settling, remaining airborne for weeks at a time.
Let’s Eliminate Sleep: A worthy, but seemingly futile cause. Sleep is incredibly important for our health, and like the author says, has biological roots that we can't just eliminate. She does discount the option of simply reducing sleep. [!health, !thoughts]
Book Review: Why We're Polarized: [!culture]
Did you know that seventy years ago, our grandparents were having an underpolarization crisis? True! In 1950, the American Political Science Association "released a call to arms...pleading for a more polarized political system". The report argued that "the parties contain too much diversity of opinion and work together too easily, leaving voters confused about who to vote for and why". Everyone agreed with each other so much, and compromised so readily, that supporting one party over the other seemed almost pointless.
Against Facebook: The problems with Facebook explained in-depth. [!culture, !psychology]
Silicon Valley’s Safe Space: Slate Star Codex's hit piece by NYT. [!events]
Play in Hard Mode: [!philosophy]
2020 Shkreli Awards: I am curious to know if there is any reasonable excuse for these behaviors. [!culture]
Myths of Vaccine Manufacturing: The vaccine wasn't ready in February, and it's sure as hell a lot more difficult to manufacture than one would think. [!science, !events]
You Are: [!philosophy]
As a practice, we teach that you should not look up to someone. Looking up infers also looking down to. This hierarchy might feel like a natural consequence of ability, and to a certain degree, it might be, but ranking others is a trap that puts yourself in between those you despise and those you glorify. You become stuck because your impression of greatness is wedged between the disappointment you have in yourself and the place you imagine is better.

January 2021

Wear a Weird Looking Mask: [!culture]
Wear a weird-looking mask. You’ll get some looks, but you’ll be better for it: it’ll steel you for the moments when having the courage to stand out really matters.
How I Got a Computer Science Degree in 3 Months for Less Than $5000: Western Governors University to the rescue. [!culture]
Why does it take so long to build software?: Essential vs. accident complexity. [!technology, !productivity]
Get Rich Slowly: Putanumonit's investment strategy. [!economics, !culture]
What exactly is the physical or chemical process that makes adhesive tape sticky?: [!science]
How to Get a Nuclear Bomb: The process and its weaknesses around the world. [!favorites, !history, !culture, !events, !military, !quality, !favorites]
1% rule (Internet culture): [!culture, !psychology]
only 1% of the users of a website add content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Variants include the 1–9–90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio),[1] which states that in a collaborative website such as a wiki, 90% of the participants of a community only consume content, 9% of the participants change or update content, and 1% of the participants add content.
What if we all just stayed at home and didn't get covid for two weeks?: [!culture, !events]
Working yourself ragged is not a virtue: [!culture, !psychology, !thoughts]
Press Gaggle With Acting Secretary Miller En Route to Washington, D.C.: [!events, !military]
I wanted to take that one on….F-35s, the case study. Although, I gotta tell you, yesterday we were talking to some guy, some lieutenant colonel, or colonel, said ‘what are you flying?’ Said ‘F-35,’ I was like that’s a piece of…and he was like…and he laughed, and I was like, ‘no seriously, tell me about it,’ and he was…an F-16 guy, F-35, he said…’unbelievable aircraft,’ I’m not…I…that investment, for…that capability, that we’re never supposed to use, ‘well, we have to deter, blah blah bluh blah…Are we fifth generation? You know we…I think it’s hilarious, you know, right now, you know, ‘well we need to invest in the sixth generation,’ I’m like, we have created a monster, but you know that.
What is the origin of 3 meals a day?: [!culture, !history]
As for mealtimes, few people in northern Europe ate breakfast in 1501. The medieval two-meal rhythm of the day persisted: dinner was at about 11 a.m. and supper at about 5 p.m. But as more people moved into towns, and made their living by working long hours for other townsmen, the time at which they could have supper was pushed back into the evening. This meant that dinner, the main meal of the day, had to be eaten a couple of hours later and became lunch. It followed that you had to eat an early meal, breakfast, in order to get through to lunchtime. School also helped bring about this change, for more and more boys went to school, and the long lessons required that they eat breakfast. Hence breakfast was ubiquitous in towns by 1600.
I Am Not a Soldier, but I Have Been Trained to Kill: U.S. gun culture and the available training classes. [!culture]
Woman behind the voice at 200 airports: [!fun, !history]
How Many Microcovids Would You Spend on a Burrito?: The development of microCOVID and the risk mindset. [!culture, !technology]
You're Probably Wondering Why I've Called You Here Today: The advent of Astral Codex Ten. [!misc]
Monkey Madness: RIP Pepe! [!fun, !culture]
Special Feature Deep-Sea Creature: [!history, !fun, !nature (is it?)]
sea monk or sea bishop, an animal that was sighted of the coast of Poland in 1531, washed up on Danish shores in the late 1540s and went the 16th century equivalent of viral.* *This of course had nothing whatsoever to do with the Protestant Reformation or Henry the Eighth declaring himself head of the Church of England. Scientific interest only.
The earliest surviving photo of the White House, 1846: [!history]
Wooden Pillows: Gwern's experiments using wooden pillows. [!health, !misc]
Gender Differences Among Top Performers in Chess: Men seem to perform better than women despite considering sample size. [!culture, !games]
Zip Files: History, Explanation and Implementation: Wonderful post and discussion on zip files. [!technology]
FDA Statement on Following the Authorized Dosing Schedules for COVID-19 Vaccines: Meaning no half doses, dose-mixing, etc. [!events]
Why are bicycle pedal threads' handedness left on the left and right on the right?: See precession. [!techonology]
Equation Group: The Crown Creator of Cyber-Espionage: Brief overview of the Equation Group. See also Kaspersky's EQUATION GROUP: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. [!technology, !crime (kind of, depending on who you ask!), !cybersecurity]
Anatomy of a $9 Burglary: The beforemath and aftermath. [!misc]
Tyler Cowen’s three laws: "There is something wrong with everything", "There is a literature on everything", "All propositions about real interest rates are wrong." [!psychology, !economics, !thoughts]
TEMPERATURE CONVERSION FOR THE LAZY AND SIMPLE-MINDED: "For the numbers 04, 16, and 28, transposing digits switches from Celsius from Fahrenheit." Further, the ranges between classify as cold, cool, warm, and hot. [!useful]
The Radicalization of Kevin Greeson: "How one man went from attending President Barack Obama’s inauguration to dying in the mob protesting Donald Trump’s election loss during the Capitol insurrection." [!culture]
A Crisis In DoD’s Trusted Foundry Program?: Overview and history of the DoD's chipmaking process. [!technology, !military]
Streetlight effect: "people only search for something where it is easiest to look." [!psychology]
An Exploratory Toy AI Takeoff Model: Exponential intelligence growth modeled using a hill-climbing algorithm and brute-force search. [!technology, !future]
Operation Luigi: How I hacked my friend without her noticing: Good ol' phishing and easy-to-crack passwords. [!technology, !psychology]
Lessons for Philosophers and Scientists from Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown: Why Brown beats Sherlock. [!culture, !literature, !history]
Mpg For Speed: MPG decreases significantly after a certain speed. [!useful, car speed gas price]
Do Weighted Blankets Enhance Sleep Quality? Results: No, at least not for the author. [!health]
What the success of rock climbing tells us about economic growth: Comparing the two via knowledge externalities, knowledge transmission, and group size and the cost of transmitting information. [!economics, !fitness]
Absolute Zero is 0K: The history and unachievable quest for absolute zero. [!science, !history]
AllSides: News on a single topic from a left, right, and centrist source. [!culture]
Hacking your neighbour's Wi-Fi: Step-by-step process. [!technology, !crime (technically)]
Wi-Fi deauthentication attack: Kicking people off of Wi-Fi. [!technology]
When you browse Instagram and find former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's passport number: [!favorites, !technology]
Mercy dog: Used to bring medical supplies to wounded soldiers and comfort the mortally wounded. [!military, !history]
be more selfish.: [!philosophy, !thoughts]
act in a way that you are proud of. do you like being a person who cuts corners? who inflates their victories and hides their defeats? or do you want to be the person who does it right every time. who humbly works for what they know is right. who owns their victories and their defeats without embellishments. do you want to be a person who responds to pettiness with pettiness? who lies and cheats because everyone else is doing it? or do you want to be a person who rises above it. who acts to fulfill their understanding of the world, who has the courage and grace to stand for something.
hold-fast: [!philosophy, !thoughts, !culture]
so interrogate your model. update it often. use your strength. challenge your definitions. recognize when you are getting angry about a media pundits characterization of their opponents argument. use the internet (or better yet the real world) to actually talk to someone who disagrees with you. ask them why they believe what they do. what their objective is in supporting certain policies. realize that we are all variables in someone else equation – modeled and primed and generalized to explain and mobilize. that we are sold formula-as-truth by those who’s profits are the sum. we all do it.
Microsimulation of Traffic Flow: Adjust parameters and see how traffic flow changes. [!fun, !technology]
Shopping for Happiness: [!psychology, !productivity, !useful]
Buy experiences, which include things that are cheap and you use for a long time in short increments. Make it a treat because the joy declines as you get used to anything, inject novelty where you can to refresh the source of delight. Calculating the value of your time, even very roughly, will let you make good trade-offs whether you’re buying time or paying with time. Pay now (cash) and consume later (memories) just make sure not to overestimate the time you’ll spend reminiscing and the amount of suffering you’ll have to pay. Invest in others, but don’t confuse the warm feeling of treating a friend with the ethical imperative to make the world a better place.
Learn the Art of Memory: Free introductory ebook on memorization techniques. [!psychology, !fun]
The Finances of Harvard University: 2004 vs. 2019/20: [!economics, !culture]
Uncle Fester: Author of Home Workshop Explosives, Silent Death (synthesis of nerve gases), Practical LSD Manufacture, and Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture. [!culture, !history, !science, !crime]
Clandestine chemistry: Essentially illegal drug manufacturing. [!culture, !crime]
Visual snow: "condition in which people see white or black dots in parts or the whole of their visual fields." Causes are unclear, but seem to originate in the brain (right lingual gyrus and cerebellar anterior lobe). No complete cure, but reduction is possible. [!nature]
Clock of the Long Now: Clock designed to keep time for 10,000 years, with a few specific principles in mind: longevity, maintainability, transparency, evolvability, scalability. [!technology, !future]
success.: Burkey's reason for success (Mark Twight), and how to go about being successful. [!philosophy]
so you say you want to lose weight...: Burkey's take on how to lose weight. First, un-fuck your head: your emotions cause your behavior, and your behavior causes you to be dissatisfied with the way you are. Some specific pieces of advice follow. [!exercise, !health, !philosophy, !favorites]
Why You Should Stop Reading About Productivity: [!productivity]
The key is you have to find what steals your time and squash it.
Time Well Spent: Gamifying productivity in the form of points based on certain activities. [!productivity]
Submarine: The role of PR firms in promoting companies. [!culture]
My year in data: Logging every 15 minutes of life for one year. [!productivity]
20 Strange things you can buy on Silk Road: [!fun, !culture, !history]
The Ethics of Piracy: For and against arguments of online piracy as related to software. [!culture, !philosophy]
Deep Work: Notes of Cal Newport's Deep Work. I will be reading it, taking notes, and applying its principles at some point. [!productivity, !useful]
Life Hacking: Tips on health, productivity, and others. [!productivity, !useful]
Pfeilstorch: "storks injured by an arrow while wintering in Africa, before returning to Europe with the arrow stuck in their bodies. To date, around 25 Pfeilstörche have been documented."
When Birds Migrated to the Moon: It was once believed by many. After all, if you can't see them, they must be going to the moon! [!culture, !history, !fun]
'They are not one of us': SAS soldiers condemn war crime perpetrators: In response to the Brereton Report. [!history, !events, !military]
Homeless By Choice: How to go about living a regular life (at least in university) while not having an official home. [!culture, !favorites]
Compact Calendar: Shows the entire year and fits on the left third of a piece of paper. [!productivity]
School or Prison: Decide if the picture is of a school or prison. [!fun, !whatsthedifference]

December 2020

A Sea Story: Experiences aboard the doomed Estonia. [!histort, !events, !quality]
This network of microphones listens for the chainsaws of illegal loggers in the rain forest: [!technology]
Be Skeptical of Income and Wealth Claims: "politicians and pundits are often sloppy or untruthful with data when making such claims. But a different issue is that there are pessimistic and optimistic versions of most income and wealth statistics." [!culture]
Štěchovice treasure: Nazi treasure thought to be buried in a Czech tunnel. [!history, !fun]
Thruhikes: List of longer international hikes. [!nature, !fitness]
Nazi gold train: Rumored train full gold and other treasures in a Polish tunnel. Yet to be found. [!history, !fun]
Athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon: [!fun, !history, !events]
Hicks received several doses of strychnine (a common rat poison, which stimulates the nervous system in small doses) mixed with brandy.[4] He continued to battle onwards, hallucinating, barely able to walk for most of the course. When he reached the stadium, his support team carried him over the line, holding him in the air while he shuffled his feet as if still running. Hicks had to be carried off the track, and might have died in the stadium had he not been treated by several doctors. He lost eight pounds during the course of the marathon.
Action Park: An incredibly dangerous, interesting, fun theme park that was open in the late 1900s. Ride descriptions included. [!fun, !history, !unique, !architecture, !culture]
Gifts: Thoughts on gift-giving. [!thoughts, !culture]
Rising Early: Why waking up early is beneficial (free time, better sleep, signaling). [!productivity]
Ten Things I Want To Stop Seeing On The Internet In 2014: [!culture]
Tall poppy syndrome: "cultural phenomenon of mocking people who think highly of themselves, 'cutting down the tall poppy'."
Predicting Temperatures: Are Weather Forecasters Accurate or Not?: Not 100%, but they have gotten much better over the years. The author compares predicted vs. actual temperatures in 1970/80/90 and finds the differences steadily decrease. Given this was published 20 years ago, it may be time to replicate it. [!nature, !technology, !science]
Basic Acoustics for OHV Noise Control: Basics of sound, effect of landscape on sound, detection, safety, specifics related to off-highway vehicles. [!science, !nature, chainsaw, noise, forests]
How does the sound decrease with distance?: "We get a sound level drop of 6 dB per doubling of distance." This is the ideal and further decreased by absorbing obstacles in the way: trees, atmosphere, structures, etc. Calculators included. [!science, !architecture, chainsaw, noise]
Locking Eyes with a Monster: Staring at somebody’s face for ten minutes may give you nightmares. Dubbed the "strange face illusion" by Giovanni Caputo, participants experienced strange effects after looking at their face for 10:00 min. [!science, !psychology]
Playing chess is an essential life lesson in concentration: Concentration as a skill in both chess and life; the difference between concentration and attention. [!productivity, !philosophy, !useful, !thoughts, !games]
Obsolete occupations: Some interesting ones include burlak, court dwarf, garden hermit, louse-feeder, priest hunter. [!history, !fun, !unique, !culture, !favorites]
Configurable Computing: Explanation of FPGAs and their current trajectory (written in 1997). [!technology]
The most-read Wikipedia page on each day of 2020: Goes to show how quickly trends rise and die. [!culture, !fun]
Blackstone's ratio: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." [!philosophy, !history]
"If it Hadn't Been for the Prompt Work of the Medics": FSB Officer Inadvertently Confesses Murder Plot to Navalny: Title says it all. [!events]
When Cadaver Dogs Pick Up a Scent, Archaeologists Find Where to Dig: Using cadaver dogs to find ancient human remains. [!science, !history]
Zodiac '340 Ciper' cracked by code experts 51 years after it was sent to the S.F. Chronicle: See the article's YouTube video for a detailed explanation. [!technology, !history, !events]
Eating meat makes you sexy: Conformity to dietary gender norms and attractiveness.: Results are in, folks. [!psychology, !culture, !health]
Shawn Kingrey: Experience during the Four Horsemen of the Solstice race. "267 miles, over 24,000’ of climbing, 18 hours, 21 minutes." [!misc, !thoughts]
Sport is nothing, if not a gateway to physical and psychological possibility. All one needs is the courage to push the boat way out: the deeper and rougher the water the better. Such a test distinguishes the fiery from the faint. Confronting it you are either pointed or pointless. You can do as much as you imagine. Often more. Or you come up short.
Margaux Alvarez: [!misc, !thoughts]
I watched from afar as she detached herself from the the usual Games athlete triteness; she doesn’t market her abs or hype her “program”. That said at the deepest level she is still in the public eye, the “athlete thing” is an experience, and whether a blessing or an inconvenience she handles her role positively. At its heart, the energy she expresses with her vineyard and the process by which she learned to grow, harvest, and bottle her own wine is the same energy you may see her sink into the winning stride of a silly fitness competition: it was effort, toil, and joy, and whether she loses or tastes a blended red that exceeds her expectations, her eyes crease and her smile requires no explanation.
Ben Staley: The photographer's experiences with Mark Twight. [!misc, !thoughts]
Brian Enos: The competitive shooter's impact on Mark Twight. [!misc, !thoughts]
The Bridge Between Atoms and Bits: 2D Code: Written in 2008, pretty spot-on prediction about the future of QR codes. [!future (at least when it was written), !technology]
Addiction Vaccines: Using vaccines to treat drug addiction by blocking the substance before it kicks in, giving the user the high. This was written in 2008, and I've yet to hear anything about this recently, so seems like it has failed to take off. [!science, !future]
1000 True Fans: All you need to support yourself on personal creations is 1,000 true fans, fans who will buy all of your products without hesitation. This roughly produces 1,000 * 100 = $100,000/yr in income, plenty to live on. Now if you can do this in your spare time... [!culture, !important, !thoughts]
A History of MIT Pranks: If only all colleges encouraged this! See also Caltech-MIT pranks and Cal Tech's official prank history. [!culture, !history, !fun]
Fever Dream: Short story by Ray Bradbury. [!literature]
The Father of Modern Metal: Harry Brearley's life, from underage laborer to lab assistant to scientist father (but not necessarily inventor) of stainless steel. [!science, !history]
What happened to all the non-programmers?: [!culture]
What is the roundest country? As I enjoy geography, I spent one minute thinking of first and last place, coming up with Australia and Chile, respectively. Final answers: Sierra Leone (0.934) and Marshall Islands (206, but I'm not really counting islands (besides Australia)). My answers were Australia (61) and Chile (201). [!geography, !fun, !technology]
OpenStreetMap is Having a Moment: [!technology, !events, !future]
Gods and Gamma.: [!events, !misc]
Spider fighting: Common in SE Asia, but also in U.S. prisons! [!culture, !fun, !unique]
Can Things Be Both Popular And Silenced?: [!culture]
Things I Learned By Spending Five Thousand Years In An Alternate Universe: Constructing worlds (conworlds, similar to conlangs) can be equally as complex as the real world, teaching similar lessons. [!culture, !fun]
Proving Too Much: [!culture, !psychology]
Lizardman’s Constant Is 4%: [!culture, !psychology, !science]
When we’re talking about very unpopular beliefs, polls can only give a weak signal. Any possible source of noise – jokesters, cognitive biases, or deliberate misbehavior – can easily overwhelm the signal. Therefore, polls that rely on detecting very weak signals should be taken with a grain of salt.
Complaining about trail work: Trails change all the time. If you're not riding it, are you allowed to complain? [!misc, north shore, mtb, riding]
sit with it: Death is inevitable, go live your life. [!culture, !philosophy]
Thank you for doing something ambiguously between smoking and not smoking: Are e-cigarettes good or bad? [!culture, !science, !thoughts]
If opposites attract, why is my sister so pretty?: [!culture, !science, !psychology]
The Toxoplasma of Rage: [!culture, !psychology, !events, !quality]
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate: "Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough." [!literature, !philosophy]
The 24 Hour "Do Nothing" Challenge: As boring as it sounds! [!fun, !psychology]
Spaceflight osteopenia: Bone mass loss up to 1% per month due to less stress. [!science, !health]
The Power of Annealing: Developing complex systems by randomly searching the space for the bost configuration. [!science, !technology]
Burnout: 35 years of research and practice: Overview of burnout. Lacks mitigation strategies. [!productivity, !culture, !psychology]
Chronotype: "propensity for the individual to sleep at a particular time during a 24-hour period. Eveningness (delayed sleep period) and morningness (advanced sleep period) are the two extremes with most individuals having some flexibility in the timing of their sleep period. However, across development there are changes in the propensity of the sleep period with pre-pubescent children preferring an advanced sleep period, adolescents preferring a delayed sleep period and many elderly preferring an advanced sleep period." [!health, !science]
Chicago Pile-1: World's first nuclear reactor created during the Manhattan Project.
Safecracking for the computer scientist: Detailed overview of locks and how to crack them. [!quality, !technology]
Bloodbath of B-R5RB: Largest PVP MMORPG ever, with 7500+ players involved and $300,000+ worth of losses. [!culture, !technology]
The rectangulareness of countries: Egypt is first, Maldives is last. [!fun]
Advent calendar: [!culture]
The Campaign for North Africa: Classic board game with playing time up to 1500 hours. [!fun, !unique]
Wanted woman who wants to conceive child during totality eclipse in OR: Quite possibly the best Craigslist post of all-time. [!fun, !events]
Reflections on Having a Bad Idea: The inception of a nootropics company and its subsequent downfall. Includes benefits and detriments of announcing plans. [!fun, !economics, !psychology, !medicine (is it though)]

November 2020

HEDGEFUNDIE's excellent adventure [risk parity strategy using 3x leveraged ETFs]: [!culture, !economics]
zxcvbn: "password strength estimator inspired by password crackers. Through pattern matching and conservative estimation, it recognizes and weighs 30k common passwords, common names and surnames according to US census data, popular English words from Wikipedia and US television and movies, and other common patterns like dates, repeats (aaa), sequences (abcd), keyboard patterns (qwertyuiop), and l33t speak." [!technology, !useful]
Machine Gun Jetpack: Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward firing machine guns? Yes, and quite the jetpack it would be! [!technology, !fun]
The return trip effect: Why the return trip often seems to take less time: [!psychology]
the return trip effect is likely due to a violation of expectations. Participants felt that the initial trip took longer than they had expected. In response, they likely lengthened their expectations for the return trip. In comparison with this longer expected duration, the return trip felt short. The greater the participants’ expectations were violated on the initial trip, the more they experienced the return trip effect
Vibration white finger: Constant vibration from power tools can damage nerves, arteries, etc. in the hand, causing lack of blood flow. Exposure limits are set in law and gloves can help mitigate the risk, assuming they are made for the appropriate frequency. [!health, !misc, !chainsaw]
Clarity: What Gym Jones was and wasn't. [!philosophy]
North Sentinel Island: Located in the Indian Ocean, it is arguably the last bastion of uncontacted people (there have been a few attempts, but none successful). [!history, !culture]
Clean: [!philosophy, !events]
Metcalf sniper attack: Gunmen destroyed 17 transformers, totaling $15 million in damages. They were never caught. [!events]
Essay: How do you describe TikTok?: Addictive, entertaining, simple, algorithmic. [!technology, !culture]
Ray Bradbury Wrote the First Draft of Fahrenheit 451 on Coin-Operated Typewriters, for a Total of $9.80: Bradbury's process of writing Fahrenheit 451. [!literature]
The Shell Guide to Trees and Shrubs: Stanley Roy Badmin's paintings of the twelve months, each featuring a different tree. [!art]
Disappearance of Robert Levinson: A CIA contractor who was kidnapped and held hostage by Iran. [!events]
Supersonic electric flight: Designing an electric plane to go supersonic: propellers/fans, power, thermal, aero, structure, controls, batteries. [!technology, !future]
Beirut Port Explosion: Examining the 2020 explosion using 3-D models, available videos and pictures, and other methods. Watching the video is much more informative than the text. Many other analyses here. [!events, !technology]
Idea Napkins: "There you are, sipping coffee at your favorite café, when all of a sudden an idea! Never forget those awesome ideas again. When you've got your Idea Napkins handy you can let your brilliance shine." [!fun]
The Secrets of Ramanujan's Garden: Srinivasa Ramanujan is considered one of the best mathematicians of all-time. His method of operation and contributions are briefly described here. I, too, wonder how many more unknown prodigies are out there, whether in science, sport, or elsewhere. [!history, !science]
Leap second hiatus: Background of leap seconds (slight difference between rotation time and 24*60*60 seconds) and why we won't be having a leap second added any time soon. [!science]
How To Be Attractive: As cliche as it is, be yourself. [!communication, !useful, !psychology]
Motte-and-bailey fallacy: The motte is a position that is easy to defend, while the bailey is a controversial position. The arguer (of the two positions) focuses on the bailey, but when challenged, "retreats" to the motte, thereby "winning". See r/TheMotte. [!culture, !psychology]
Heron's formula: Formula to find area of a triangle with just side lengths. $A = \sqrt{s(s - a)(s - b)(s - c)}$, where $s = (a + b + c)/2$ and $a,b,c$ are the side lengths. [!science]
Volkmann's contracture: "claw-like deformity of the hand and fingers" caused by lack of blood flow to the forearm flexors. [!medicine]
May you live in interesting times: A falsely-attributed Chinese curse, where "interesting" generally means "troubling". [!culture, !history, !language]
Montana Was Once the Last Bastion of Hot, Nasty, Bad-Ass Speed: "But officer, 100 mph is reasonable and prudent to me". [!fun, !culture]
Investing Time and Resources in Happiness: [!culture, !technology, !thoughts]
The End of the Pandemic Is Now in Sight: Moderna and Pfizer's mRNA-based vaccines explained. [!science]
Roughneck throwing chain: Extremely dangerous task... No wonder why these guys get paid so much. [!culture, !history, !unique]
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (broken-heart syndrome): 90% of occurrences are in women 58 to 75. "experts think that surging stress hormones (for example, adrenaline) essentially "stun" the heart, triggering changes in heart muscle cells or coronary blood vessels (or both) that prevent the left ventricle from contracting effectively." [!health, !medicine]
Nirmal Purja: Ex-soldier climbs 14 highest mountains in six months: Insane feat. [!fitness, !events]
Seawise Giant: Longest ship ever built at 459 m long. It couldn't even go through the English Channel! [!history, !architecture]
A Pretty-Good Mathematical Model of Perfectionism: How to deal with perfectionism and become a bit more happy with lack of it. [!productivity, !psychology, !health]
Isle of the Dead: Painting by Arnold Böcklin. There are five versions. [!art]
My Fully Optimized Life Allows Me Ample Time to Optimize Yours: A satirical take on modern-day gurus. [!culture]
Primum non nocere: "First, do no harm." Sometimes it is better to do nothing than to do something that may cause more harm. [!philosophy, !language]
Koinophilia: "animals preferentially seek mates with a minimum of unusual or mutant features, including functionality, appearance and behavior." [!nature, !science]
Russian political jokes: [!language, !history]
Rumblr: "Rumblr is an app for recreational fighters to find, meet, and fight other enthusiasts nearby." [!culture, !fun]
I met Robert Mugabe in the late 1970s. What he told me still haunts me.: Robert Mugabe was a terrible person and did not do Zimbabwe a service. The one upside is the Zimbabwean dollar meme. [!history, !economics]
Modeling a Wealth Tax: How much money does the government take with specific taxation values? Hint: a lot. [!culture, !economics]
Johari window: The knowns and unknowns as applied to individual personalities. [!psychology]
Metro-2: Supposed secret metro system for high-level Russians beneath Moscow. [!history, !fun]
What It's Really Like Piloting Private Jets For The Rich And Famous: As expected. The perks of flying private really do make it worth it. [!stories, !culture]
The real danger: What happens when the three biggest kids in a teacher-less school fight on the playground? They keep fighting, possibly escalating it. [!culture, !events]
Dark triad: "comprises the personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy." The "dark tetrad" adds sadism as a trait. [!psychology]
14,000x Speedup a.k.a. Computer Science For the Win: Using knowledge of computational complexity to speed up a straightforward program by 14,000x. [!technology]
"The Day Big Tech Stopped Being Untouchable": A summary of August's Congressional big tech hearings and what the future holds. I'm not optimistic about anything improving. [!technology, !economics, !culture]
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP): Site containing the entirety of SICP, one of the most influential computer science books of all-time. [!technology, !productivity, !useful, !science]
Dead reckoning and the exploration explosion: Using tuples of {direction, time, speed} to navigate oceans. Wikipedia page here. [!technology, !history]
Global issues beyond 80,000 Hours’ current priorities: 30+ issue descriptions complete with resources, further reading, and practical suggestions on how to get started. [!science, !technology, !economics, !important, !future, !medicine]
Good sleep, bad sleep! The role of daytime naps in healthy adults: [!health]

Several investigators observed that short naps of less than 30 min duration had an invigorating effect, helped to maintain daytime arousal levels and enhanced performance...Moreover, short daytime naps were also reported to improve the emotional state. Even habitual nappers have been reported to benefit from naps

Naps of less than 10 min duration have few if any benefit, whereas naps of between 10 and 45 min have restorative effects that last throughout the rest of the day...The body and mind thus need to be trained to take short naps.

The optimum time for a nap is in the afternoon around 15:00 hours [3:00pm]. Daytime naps during the afternoon may have a biological basis, as daytime arousal levels have been shown to decline around this time

Daytime naps are associated with sleep inertia after the patient awakens. Sleep inertia results in impaired alertness and performance for approximately 30 min after awakening from a nap, and slows the speed of cognitive tasks, but has few effects on the accuracy of task performance.

Another concern about daytime naps is that they could diminish the quality of subsequent sleep at night [23,24]; however, there is little evidence to support this concern. Most investigators have not found daytime naps to affect nighttime sleep adversely.
A Lollipop That Isn't Candy: Fentanyl is now in a lollipop form (only available to the military). I've seen a video or picture (can't remember) of some SF team administering it to one of their members. A few benefits:
Unlike morphine which takes 15 to 20 minutes to relieve pain, the lollipop is effective within five minutes. It’s also much easier to administer than morphine, which must be injected into a large muscle, and if the dosage is too strong the lollipop can be rapidly removed. The effects of morphine cannot be halted.
Seems like a good solution to pain management. [!medicine]
Put More Muscle in Baseball Drug Tests: Zelinksy proposes a three-part solution:
First, an independent lab should store blood and urine samples from all major league players annually and test these samples (using the latest detection techniques) at 10-, 20- and 30-year intervals following each player's retirement. Second, all players should be paid over a 30-year period. Third, if any player's blood tests positive for performance enhancing drugs, that player will forfeit his remaining salary and pension and will be banned from baseball for life.
I especially like last part and have advocated (amongst my friends) for this to be implemented in track and cycling, along with forfeiture of their sponsorships. These athletes' livelihood is dependent on their participating in major events. The risk of this being rescinded is significantly greater than the "risk" of not using PEDs and performing poorly. Sadly, I think PEDs increase the excitement of events, as the athletes are playing at higher levels. [!culture]
When Meth Was an Antidepressant: Other drugs fall into similar categories. I've also heard that Hitler's cocktail of drugs included meth. [!science, !culture]
1985 MOVE bombing: [!events, !history]
There was an armed standoff with police, who lobbed tear gas canisters at the building. The MOVE members fired at them, and a gunfight with semi-automatic and automatic firearms ensued. Police used more than ten thousand rounds of ammunition before Commissioner Sambor ordered that the compound be bombed. From a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter, Philadelphia Police Department Lt. Frank Powell proceeded to drop two one-pound (0.5 kg) bombs (which the police referred to as "entry devices") made of FBI-supplied Tovex, a dynamite substitute, targeting a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the house. The ensuing fire killed eleven of the people in the house (John Africa, five other adults, and five children aged 7 to 13). The fire spread and eventually destroyed approximately sixty-five nearby houses. Although firefighters had earlier drenched the building prior to the bombing, after the fire broke out, officials said they feared that MOVE would shoot at the firefighters, so held them back.
Systems/software development life cycle: Consists of six stages: "requirement analysis, design, development and testing, implementation, documentation, and evaluation." [!technology, !productivity]
Costco's founder once told the company's current CEO, 'If you raise the [price of the] effing hot dog, I will kill you': I've heard that Costco actually loses money on their food court (or maybe just their hot dogs), but keeps it that way to retain customers. [!fun, !economics]
Collective Motion of Humans in Mosh and Circle Pits at Heavy Metal Concerts: Mathematically describing mosh pits. [!science, !fun]
Wirehead: "technologies involving electrical wiring that is implanted in or otherwise connected to a human brain and used to deliver safe amounts of electricity either to the whole brain or to more specific areas of the brain, often the so-called "pleasure centers" or reward circuitry." [!technology, !future]
The Husband-and-Wife Team Behind the Leading Vaccine to Solve COVID-19: Two billionaires still pushing forward for the sake of the world and science. [!events, !science, !culture, !medicine]
Bus Factor 1: As number of employees who need to be hit by a bus in order to ruin a company increases, personal satisfaction decreases. See bus factor. [!psychology, !economics]
The Blind, Alone, and Confused for 24 Hours Challenge: Dormin successfully goes blind for 24 hours with some interesting effects. Perhaps I'll have to get some nicotine lozenges... [!fun, !unique]
Dallas Pedestrian Network: System of tunnels and skywalks connecting buildings in downtown Dallas. [!architecture]
magic sketchpad: "Draw things with machines! Every time you lift your pen up, a machine learning algorithm tries to finish that stroke and match the category you've selected." Works surprisingly well. Next up should be the algo guessing what you're drawing. [!fun, !technology, !art]
Cheat codes: Collection of low-effort practices that make life a lot easier. [!productivity, !useful, !health]

When you're feeling depressed for no good reason, force yourself to laugh. It triggers happiness almost as well as externally-induced laughter. Eventually, you will noticeably condition yourself to release seratonin (or endorphins, or something) every time you notice that you're seratonin-deficient. It's been effective for me. I started it as a moody teenager and it quickly became self-perpetuating. Google suggests I'm not alone. It's got a whiff of wire-heading, I admit, but ideally you're using it to solve a brain chemistry defect, not an external problem.

Waking up: I found brute force works best - Old style alarm clock with clanging bells placed on opposite end of room. This trumped all sorts of complex maneuvers, including training self to have a fixed pattern response to an certain iPhone alarm.
Hannah Montana Linux: Britney Spears' sister site. [!fun, !technology]
Pfizer and Biontech Announce Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19 Achieved Success in FIrst Interim Analysis From Phase 3 Study: Promising news! [!events, !science]
Kalsarikännit: "The feeling when you are going to get drunk home alone in your underwear – with no intention of going out." [!fun, !language]
The $3500 Shirt - A History Lesson in Economics: How much a shirt would cost today if modern-day production techniques weren't used. [!history, !economics]
Notes on the Resolution and Other Details of the Human Eye: [!nature, !science]
The eye is not a single frame snapshot camera. It is more like a video stream. The eye moves rapidly in small angular amounts and continually updates the image in one's brain to "paint" the detail. We also have two eyes, and our brains combine the signals to increase the resolution further. We also typically move our eyes around the scene to gather more information. Because of these factors, the eye plus brain assembles a higher resolution image than possible with the number of photoreceptors in the retina. So the megapixel equivalent numbers below refer to the spatial detail in an image that would be required to show what the human eye could see when you view a scene.
Yimakh shemo: One of the strongest curses in Hebrew, meaning "let his name and his memory be erased". [!culture, !language]
Guy Fawkes Night: 05 November 1605, the date when Guy Fawkes was arrested while guarding explosives that were meant to destroy the House of Lords. V for Vendetta vibes... See also Gunpowder Plot. [!history, !events, !film]
Bushism: Unconventional statements by George W. Bush. A few of my favorites: [!fun, !culture]

I think we agree, the past is over.

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.

You work three jobs? ... Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that.
A Ruined Gothic Church beside a River by Moonlight by Sebastian Pether, oil on canvas, 1941. [!art]
Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In: The U.S. immigration policy causes many great programmers from other countries to be rejected. This is a major issue for tech companies, given the value of a superb programmer compared to an average one (1, 2). [!culture, !technology]
The Most Loved and Hated Classic Novels According to Goodreads Users: Top ten most beloved classics doesn't surprise me, I liked all of them that I've read; most hated, I liked most of the ones I read (Atlas Shrugged, A Separate Peace, The Pearl); can confirm the most popular classics being assigned high school reading (although some were middle school for me). [!literature]
Mask shop: Factory that manufactures photomasks for photolithography. "Captive mask shops are in-house operations owned by the biggest semiconductor corporations, while merchant mask shops make masks for most of the industry." Would be nice to have sources on the costs of equipment. [!technology]
Zeigarnik effect: "occurs when an activity that has been interrupted may be more readily recalled. It postulates that people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks." "suggests that students who suspend their study to perform unrelated activities (such as studying a different subject or playing a game), will remember material better than students who complete study sessions without a break (McKinney 1935; Zeigarnik 1927)." [!psychology, !productivity, !useful]
Why indoor lighting is hard to get right and how to fix it: How humans respond to light and how to design a good lighting environment. [!productivity, !health]

October 2020

Night vision devices used by Taliban forces: History of Taliban NVD use and their obtaining. [!history, !military]
A Void: French novel that never uses the letter 'e'. Impressively enough, all of the other translations followed the same restriction. [!fun, !literature]
Kentucky meat shower: Incident in which meat randomly fell from the sky. This has been attributed to vultures dropping it after regurgitating it. [!fun, !events]
Intel 14nm and AMD/TSMC 7nm transistors micro-compared: SEM cross-sections of 14/7 nm transistors. [!technology]
Cave paintings: The art of 'The Descent': Art that gives similar vibes to the movie The Descent (2005). [!art, !film]
She Used to Clean City Hall. Now, She Runs It.: When a rigged Russian election was made to look fair, the unassuming challenger actually won. This shined a bit of light on the "democratic" elections held central Asian countries. [!culture]
When Things Go Missing: Reflections on two types of loss: objects and people. [!psychology, !thoughts]
You Can Face Reality: Part of Yudkowsky's Sequences. [!literature, !philosophy]
Eliezer Yudkowsky's bookshelf: Books that changed his lfe, of knowledge, of future shock, of fun, and of his youth. [!fun, !literature]
McBroken: Always going to McDonald's for a cone or McFlurry, only to find out their ice cream machine is broken? Be disappointed no more! [!fun, !useful]
3D printed microboat: 30 um long and able to sail in water. [!fun, !science, !technology]
Ugly Gerry: A font created by gerrymandered congressional districts. [!fun (not really), !culture]
Boris Johnson reciting the Iliad in Greek: [!fun]
Watch Soviet Scientists Bring a Dog’s Decapitated Head Back to Life: WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK/LIFE. It's all in the title. Using an artificial heart and tubes, a dog's head was brought back to life. [!science, !history]
24 empty boxes: With necessities, we get around three or four empty boxes (hours) per day to pursue what we want. Krishnan also provides suggestions on getting more boxes, but at a cost. [!productivity, !psychology]
Oracle Database 12.2: More than 25 MILLION lines of code and millions of tests, all somehow working together to run. oraguy describes the process of putting new code in the database and the weeks it takes to test and implement it. An interesting reply tells of ASML's poor SWE practices and how they stand to gain if they improve these or lose immensely if a competitor comes in (although it doesn't look like there will be any takers soon). [!technology]
Prince Randian: Limbless circus performer who could roll and light cigarettes with just his mouth. [!fun, !history]
Yudkowsky's Law of Ultrafinite Recursion: A [blank] of a [blank] of a [blank] is as deep as one can go before it becomes impractical. [!psychology]
Why the U.S. Navy Manages a Forest: The oldest wooden frigate remaining in the U.S.'s arsenal, the USS Constitution, uses white oak lumber from this forest to maintain its hull. [!unique, !history]
the next step: No summary, just read it. [!philosophy, !favorites, !important]
The Goal of Learning Everything: What wanting to "learn everything" entails and how to go about it. I identify with the "lifelong learner" category. I enjoy learning about a wide variety of things and have done so for quite some time. [!productivity, !psychology]
A man’s journey from dismissing to getting sick and spreading coronavirus: Lesson learned in a tragic, sad way. [!events, !culture]
Computer Scientists Break Traveling Salesperson Record: "able to subtract 0.2 billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a percent" off of the (in)famous travelling salesman problem. That's 0.000000000000000000000000000002% (I may be missing a zero, but the idea is there). Regardless, this is progress, and psychologically helps future researchers in showing them that it is possible to improve upon the current time. [!technology]
The company that has a monopoly on ice cream truck music: The history of Nichols Electronics, their 97% control of the ice cream truck music market, and designing ice cream truck music (it needs to be short, simple, and rooted in nostalgia). [!fun, !history]
Glasgow Ice Cream Wars: "turf war in the East End of Glasgow, in Scotland, in the 1980s between rival criminal organisations selling drugs[1][2] and stolen goods[1] from ice cream vans." [!history, !unique]
Fenn treasure: A chest hidden by Forrest Fenn in the Rocky Mountains with the only clue being this poem. It was found in June 2020 in Wyoming by a medical student. His record here and Outside magazine article here.
Potato paradox: Question below. Click the link for the answer. See my puzzle archive here. [!fun, !science]
Fred brings home 100 kg of potatoes, which (being purely mathematical potatoes) consist of 99% water. He then leaves them outside overnight so that they consist of 98% water. What is their new weight?
Predatory journals: no definition, no defence: "Leading scholars and publishers from ten countries have agreed a definition of predatory publishing that can protect scholarship. It took 12 hours of discussion, 18 questions and 3 rounds to reach." [!science, !culture]
Cali Botanicals, LLC (MARCS-CMS 575320): That Which is Not Heroin Can Still Get You High: Kratom isn't all it's chalked up to be. [!health]
A Billionaire Pledges to Fight High Drug Prices, and the Industry Is Rattled: Arnold, a former Enron trader, has $2.2B in his foundation to help fight big pharma and their outrageous drug prices. Unsurprisingly, there is major pushback. [!culture, !events, !economics]
George H. W. Bush broccoli comments: 41 hates broccoli, going far enough to mention it 70 times while he was in office. [!events, !fun]
The psychology of resentment: [!psychology]
at work, we naturally resent the people who get paid more and work less than we do. We almost never notice the people who are paid less and work more than we do.
Coinbase is a mission focused company: Coinbase's controversial take on pursuing social issues as a company, rather than just an individual outside of work. [!culture, !philosophy]
Thoughts on Meaning and Writing: Living a fulfilling life. [!important, !favorites]
Polar bear jail: Facility in Manitoba to hold polar bears that are found too close to the nearest town before being relocated. There are individual and family cells available. Story here. [!nature, !fun]
Daisy (advertisement): Controversial, yet effective, ad used by the Johnson campaign against Goldwater. [!history]
Dendrocnide moroides (gympie gympie): One of the most painful stings on the planet caused by an unsuspecting plant found in the Australian outback. [!nature]
300 Training: [!philosophy]
Almost Every Bob Ross Painting in Existence Lives in a Virginia Office Park: Sadly, they are not for viewing or sale. [!art, !history (kind of), !fun]
Nine Billion Names of God: Short story by Arthur C. Clarke about Tibetan monks printing every name of their god in hopes of them coming. [!fun, !literature]
North American Numbering Plan expansion: What happens when the U.S. gets too many cell phones and available numbers run out. [!future, !technology]
Some interesting tidbits about the White House Physician: This came up in the midst of Trump's COVID-19 infection and his treatment at Walter Reed Hospital. [!history]
Ginsberg's theorem: The laws of thermodynamics in game format: [!fun, !science]
1. There is a game.
2. You can't win.
3. You can't break even.
4. You can't even get out of the game.
What is the Probability Your Vote Will Make a Difference?: "we estimate the probability of a single vote being decisive as, at most, about 1 in 10 million in a few states near the national median." and "a vote is like a lottery ticket with a 1 in 10 million chance of winning, but the payoff is the chance to change national policy and improve (one hopes) the lives of hundreds of millions, compared to the alternative if the other candidate were to win". [!culture]
Naumachia: "the staging of naval battles as mass entertainment, and the basin or building in which this took place." [!history]
Personality value (Pokémon): "an unsigned 32-bit integer that is created when the Pokémon is first generated by the game". This is not what I expected... [!fun, !technology]
On the use of a life: Are smart people "wasting" their lives by not working on big problems in academia? Percival, developer of Tarsnap, directly answers a challenger. Another testimonial on the issues with the modern science machine. [!science, !productivity]
Kantubek: Ghost town used for biological weapons testing by the Soviet Union. Story here, pictures/story here. See also Gruinard Island. [!history]
Hints for proposing deals . . . (or, "My word, this inbox is a mess"): Be succinct, be specific, and be purposeful. [!productivity]
Collyer brothers: Two well-educated (Columbia University) brothers who hoarded a collective 140 tons of items (read: junk). Booby traps were set up throughout their home, which caused the demise of Langley. Photo gallery here. [!fun, !history, !culture]
Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law: "regulations adopted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1969 to formalize its 'policy, responsibility and authority to guard the Earth against any harmful contamination … resulting from personnel, spacecraft and other property returning to the Earth after landing on or coming within the atmospheric envelope of a celestial body.'" The regulations were removed in 1991. [!history, !culture, !science]
Gruinard Island: Scottish island for anthrax experiments beginning in 1942. It is now safe to inhabit. [!history]
The longest cell in the history of life: The winner goes to the sauropod, whose cells going from the brain to tail could get as long as 40-50 m. [!nature, !science]
An Evidence-based (Non-hygiene Theater) Return to Work Plan: Test, limit aerosol transmission via ventilation, prioritize employees who do return to the office. [!culture, !productivity]
London Necropolis railway station: Used to transport dead bodies out of the city due to overcrowding in London's cemetaries.
Old Maps Online: Search for old maps of almost any location. I was able to find the 1967 map of where my home currently is. [!architecture, !history, !fun]
Kowloon Walled City: A rather dense city (settlement?) in Hong Kong, demolished in 1994. High crime, high population density. Videos here. [!history, !fun, !culture, !architecture]
Gray goo: "Hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass on Earth while building more of themselves". Is this not just humans? [!fun (kind of), !future]
Qian Xuesen: After being forced out of the U.S., he became the father of the Chinese nuclear program. Makes me wonder how many other top scientists we have forced out. [!history, !culture, !science]
Haigui (海归, hǎiguī): A Chinese person who studies abroad and returns for work. "The homophonic 海龟 (also hǎiguī) meaning "sea turtle" is sometimes used as a metaphor since sea turtles also travel great distances overseas. The term "overseas turtle" has also been used." [!culture]

September 2020

My Observations During the Explosion at Trinity on July 16, 1945: Enrico Fermi's estimate of the strength of and experience during the Trinity test. [!history, !events, !science]
60 Million Fewer Commuting Hours Per Day: How Americans Use Time Saved by Working from Home: The extra time saved is spent "working on primary job" (35.3%), "indoor leisure" (18.6%), and "home improvement/chores" (15.5%), among other tasks. [!culture]
Weapons Bazaar: U.S. military surplus items are often not demilitarized and sold to the highest bidder, regardless of their affiliations. Get your Cobra attack helicopter today! [!economics]
Livestreaming monetisation models: How livestreaming services work, their similarities to cam models, and the author's predictions about the future of livestreaming. See also Your Favourite Streamer is NOT Your Friend. [!culture, !economics]
Catenary: "the curve that an idealized hanging chain or cable assumes under its own weight when supported only at its ends." [!misc, !nature]
Tape-out: "final result of the design process for integrated circuits or printed circuit boards before they are sent for manufacturing." [!technology]
The Effects of Lawn Signs on Vote Outcomes: Results from Four Randomized Field Experiments: [!culture, !psychology]
One red paperclip: Trading a single paperclip (yes, that kind) a number of times until a house is the final product. [!fun, !unique]
Friendship: Different types of friends and what friendship means. I especially like the quote: [!communication, !health, !psychology, !culture]
I used to think I disliked social interaction. I have since realized – and it blew my mind – that I only disliked social interaction with people who aren’t awesome.
Walmart Shane: [!fun]
Littlewood's law: "a person can expect to experience events with odds of one in a million (defined by the law as a "miracle") at the rate of about one per month." [!fun]
Fast Vaccine Approval Could Mean Better International Relations: [!culture, !events]
What happens if you drink acetone? Probably nothing, but you still shouldn't drink it. [!science, !health]
Making the Monte Hall problem weirder but obvious: An inuitive explanation of the Monte Hall problem. [!fun, !science, !psychology]
Bees chase car for 2 days to rescue queen: All I can picture is an angry swarm chasing the poor woman as she weaves in and out of traffic on the highway. [!fun, !events]
The Billionaire Who Wanted To Die Broke... Is Now Officially Broke: Over $8 billion in donations later, and not to frivolous "charities" that are just corporations in disguise. I'm curious to see the effects of giving anonymously vs. publicly: does the latter spur peers into action? Relevant paper here. [!culture, !events]
E-cigarette Use Among Middle and High School Students — United States, 2020: E-cigarette use is on the decline in the U.S. The main causes of use (from my perspective of friends who use(d) them) are 1) they are deemed "cool", 2) they taste good (mint, fruit, etc), and 3) they make you feel really good. The latter two points could possibly be mitigated by banning certain flavors or the "feel-good" agent concentration, but look at how prohibition worked. The "cool" part will die out on its own in due time (hopefully). [!health, !culture]
A sensory deprivation flotation tank almost drowned me: Not the best way to go out. [!misc, !technology]
Pain and Gain, Part 3: The reconstructed story of the Sun Gym Gang. [!history, !events]
Pain and Gain, Part 2: The reconstructed story of the Sun Gym Gang. [!history, !events]
Pain and Gain, Part 1: The reconstructed story of the Sun Gym Gang. [!history, !events]
Stigler's law of eponymy: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Examples include Hubble's law, which was derived by Georges Lemaître two years before Edwin Hubble, the Pythagorean theorem, although it was known to Babylonian mathematicians before Pythagoras, and Halley's Comet, which was observed by astronomers since at least 240 BC." [!culture, !science]
Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." [!culture]
The animals that sniff out TB, cancer and landmines: Rats are commonly used in sniffing out all of the above. Cheaper, faster, and often more effective than humans, rats (and in some cases of cancer, dogs) are the best choice for detection of these dangers. [!science]
Fun and Standards: [!philosophy, !training]
Standards are set to help raise people up. To inspire. To push. Standards aren’t lowered just so folks can brag about hitting them. If it could be done easily you wouldn’t bother trying. If everyone achieves it easily they must be doing it wrong. Or the standard must be changed. How do so many end up on the bad, self-defeating side of ego?
Weakness Index: Work on your weaknesses. [!philosophy, !fitness]
So I say, “Why don't you try to get good at something?” Pick one thing and do it to the exclusion of other things. Develop it. Progress. Rise. By doing so you will reach a height from which you may observe what you have left behind, what you sacrificed in order to achieve. Being good at the one thing clearly exposes the difference between what you can do well and what you can’t. Weaknesses become obvious. The focus of future work is clear. But only IF fixing those deficiencies will take you closer to your goal.
Evolution of Well-Being and Happiness After Increases in Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables: Eating fruits and vegetables make you happier—who would've thought? [!health, !psychology]
What does randomness look like? Things that seem non-random are often actually random. Includes the origin of the Poisson distribution. [!science, !psychology]
Rock's law (Moore's second law): "the cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles every four years". [!technology]
Klaiber's law: "the silicon wafer size will dictate the largest diameter of ultrapure water supply piping needed within a semiconductor wafer factory". [!technology]
How to shuffle songs?: Spotify users complained about the shuffling being not random enough when it was actually perfectly random. [!technology, !psychology]
Rent a White Guy: Wearing a nice suit and having a fair complexion can get you a job as a fake businessman in China. The look of having "foreign companies" interested in Chinese companies is apparently worth $1,000/wk. [!fun, !culture, !economics]
"Priming Effects Replicate Just Fine, Thanks": Priming—the use of certain words, gestures, etc—to get an individual to do something shows poor replication. Gelman discusses one of the more well-known priming papers and refutes it. See also Influencing choices with conversational primes: How a magic trick unconsciously influences card choices. [!science, !psychology]
Terrorists Vs. Chairs: An Outlier Story: Should outliers be included in datasets? It depends on the circumstances. [!science, !culture]
My son's flashcard routine: Using a spaced repetition-like system to learn elementary school spelling and arithmetic. [!psychology, !science]
SuperMemo Guru: A wiki offering 1769 pages of "texts on memory, learning, sleep, creativity, problem solving, brain science, health, and education". Great resource. [!science, !important, !psychology, !useful]
Kurdish language thrives online thanks to hidden heroes: Another great aspect to Wikipedia: keeping dying cultures and languages alive. [!culture, !history]
The Great Purge of 1933: How Nazism Destroyed Science in Germany: A mass exodus of prominent German scientists occurred before and during the Hitler's reign. [!history]
Your Favourite Streamer is NOT Your Friend: Nor do they want to be. Viewers spend tens to thousands of dollars on big-name streamers for a few seconds of fame on stream. "Thanks for the sub, [username]" is the simple recognition they're looking for. Want more recogntion? Spend more. Sad. I do watch streamers on occasion, but never donate or sub. [!culture]
Death Star: Term used by Enron for relieving congestion in Californian power grids. [!economics]
Young people have a stake in our future. Let them vote.: Should the voting age be lowered to those "who can successfully fill out a ballot"? The author contends yes, I vote no for reasons 2 and 4. You need skin in the game. [!culture]
An Attempt at Explaining, Blaming, and Being Very Slightly Sympathetic Toward Enron: A wonderful summary of the Enron scandal. [!economics, !events, !culture]
The new dot com bubble is here: it’s called online advertising: Does advertising actually work, or will the consumers reach the advertiser regardless? Research says the latter, yet companies are refusing to listen and instead plug their ears. [!psychology, !culture, !economics]
Dropout: The essay that started FIRE? [!philosophy, !fun]
U.S. Says Bin Laden Aide Tried to Get Nuclear Material: See also the CIA's report Al Qaeda has Nuclear Weapons. [!history, !events]
Run the Line: Retracing 43km of hidden railway: Miles retraces miles of overgrown, sometimes even destroyed, railroad track that was closed down in 1958. He goes over 140 fences and through 34 private properties on his journey. [!fun, !history]
Inside the intricate world of video game cartography: Video game designers often use real-world maps to model their video game settings. [!technology]
You Can’t Dig Upwards: Parallels between the programming language C and a manual transmission vehicle; why C is so important in writing good software whereas Python isn't. [!technology, !philosophy]
How Not To Sort By Average Rating: How to correctly rate something with both positive and negative reviews. [!science]
Optimal Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches: Using machine learning and computer vision to make the best peanut butter and banana sandwich possible. [!fun, !technology]
Honesty: Being honest with yourself and others serves much more benefit than conventional wisdom leads people to believe. Never settle. [!favorites, !psychology]
Analog Snake: A revamp of the classic Snake. [!fun]
Notes on Spain: Dormin's trip summary and insights he had while across the pond. [!fun, !culture]
Tips for a longer life: [!psychology]

routine is the enemy of slow subjective time. It will speed up subjective time enormously.

Novelty is what slows time down, and a routine is an engine for eliminating the unexpected, thereby eliminating novelty.

Novelty makes the human brain pay attention. Something novel is something potentially life-changing, in both good and bad ways. Full focus, aliveness to the present moment and unusually clear memory all kick in when paying attention to something novel.

I’ve found that doing some kind of significant event (holiday, life goal) in January makes the subjective year seem much longer.
Carlo Urbani: Italian doctor credited with warning the world about SARS and preventing a major pandemic. [!events]
How to Spot Toxic Software Jobs From Their Descriptions: Toxic jobs make you in charge of many different areas, have generic requirements, and poor descriptions of the job. Good jobs focus you on one area, have specific requirements, and clear descriptions of the job. These criteria apply to every job, not just software. [!communication, !useful, !culture]
Winner Of French Scrabble Title Does Not Speak French: Consider the "best Scrabble player all-time, hands down", Richards was able to win by remembering the entire French Scrabble dictionary. [!fun]
Punka Burn: Mark Twight's climbing feats and philosophy as told by Ian Parnell. [!fitness, !philosophy, !events]
Dating: a Research Journal, Part 1.5: Artificially (read: mathematically) increasing your match percentage by selectively choosing easy questions. [!communication]
Dating: a Research Journal, Part 1: Putanumonit offers his analytical method of using OkCupid to date. His points are sound, but I suspect his experience is better than most: "the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men." [!communication, !culture]
Jim Keller: Top chip designer for AMD, Apple, and Intel. [!technology]
What's it like as a Senior Engineer at Google?: [!culture, !economics]
At the senior levels most of your time goes into identifying what needs to be built and how to build it. You have to research what the problem looks like. You talk to others and get everyone to agree on what needs to be done.
It Is Perfectly OK To Only Code At Work, You Can Have A Life Too. [!culture]
Stroboscopic effect: When the frequency of light and the frequency of another object match, no motion appears. This is especially dangerous with rotating machinery, as operators may think it is not moving. Video example here. [!science, !fun]
He Led the CIA to bin Laden—and Unwittingly Fueled a Vaccine Backlash: The CIA used a legitimate vaccination campaign to track bin Laden in Pakistan at the cost of future suspicion of vaccines. Now, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only regions where polio is still active. [!events, !history, !culture]
‘Luxury beliefs’ are the latest status symbol for rich Americans. [!culture, !philosophy]
The Perfect Selfishness of Mapping Apps: Do mapping apps make traffic worse or better? It seems better for the individual, but worse overall. May the self-driving cars come soon! [!technology]
List of inventors killed by their own inventions: Much respect to these brave souls who put their skin in the game (or just made a silly mistake). See also list of selfie-related injuries and deaths. [!history, !events, !fun (not in the true sense, but interesting-fun)]
WTF Happened in 1971?: A host of economic metrics either spiked or stagnated all around 1971. The website doesn't provide any written explanation. [!economics]
Mastermind group: "Peer-to-peer mentoring group used to help members solve their problems with input and advice from the other group members". This is similar to one-on-ones, which definitely work. I can imagine adding like-minded members would work better, as more perspectives are in play. [!productivity]
Streisand effect: "Social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information, often via the Internet". [!culture, !psychology]
microCOVID calculator: Find out how risky certain activities are in regards to catching COVID-19. [!technology, !science]
Jump the Shark: Nutrition is figured out, don't let the so-called "experts" with their shiny smiles and glamorous books tell you otherwise. [!health]
The role of sleep hygiene in promoting public health: A review of empirical evidence: "Selective review of research investigating the impact of caffeine use, smoking, alcohol use, exercise, stress management, noise, sleep timing, and napping on nocturnal sleep characteristics." [!health]

August 2020

Sport is my Teacher: What sport taught Twight and what it can teach to anyone. [!philosophy, !favorites, !important]
11 Reasons Not to Become Famous: Moral of the story: don't be famous, it's not worth it. [!culture, !psychology]
Control. [!philosophy, !culture]
Benford's law: "In many naturally occurring collections of numbers, the leading significant digit is likely to be small." [!science]
The Wonderful World of Chinese Hi-Fi: $25 Chinese earbuds can rival even the best brand name products. [!technology, !culture]
The commonly held view that children learn new languages faster than adults because their brains are more supple: Adult language learning is significantly different than child language learning, and the two should not necessarily be compared. If we change normal ALL methods (grammar, vocabulary) to CLL methods (little dedicated study, just have fun and experience the language), then it might speed up adult acquisition. [!culture, !psychology]
A Middle East Monarchy Hired American Ex-Soldiers To Kill Its Political Enemies. This Could Be The Future Of War.: Is it okay for U.S. citizens to work for foreign countries and kill for them? Supplementary article here. [!philosophy, !events]
Marit ayin: A Jewish law concept that "states that certain actions which might seem to observers to be in violation of Jewish law, but in reality are fully permissible, are themselves not allowed to prevent onlookers from arriving at a false conclusion." [!history, !philosophy]
Jonathan Wild: A criminal kingpin who fought crime (in order to increase his standing). [!fun, !history]
How to Be Really, Really, Ridiculously Productive: See also Productivity: Technology and Practices. [!productivity]
The Inside Story of the 25-Year, $8 Million Heist From the Carnegie Library: Priceless books were ransacked so the rare book room's manager could afford to send his children to private school, and yet the sentences did not come close to matching the severity of the crime. See also The Untold Story of the "Transy Book Heist". [!culture, !history, !events]
Chewbacca defense: "Legal strategy in which a criminal defense lawyer tries to confuse the jury rather than refute the case of the prosecutor." The name comes from a South Park episode making fun of Johnnie Cochran during the O.J. Simpson trial. [!history, !fun]
Beating Burnout: There are three components to burnout: exhaustion, including physical, cognitive, and emotional; cynicism, losing the personal connection and satisfaction associated with work; inefficacy, "feelings of incompetence and a lack of achievement and productivity". Methods to alleviate these components: [!productivity, !health]
It’s essential to replenish your physical and emotional energy, along with your capacity to focus, by prioritizing good sleep habits, nutrition, exercise, social connection, and practices that promote equanimity and well-being, like meditating, journaling, and enjoying nature.

What aspects of your situation are truly fixed, and which can you change? Altering your perspective can buffer the negative impact of even the inflexible aspects. If exhaustion is a key problem, ask yourself which tasks—including critical ones—you could delegate to free up meaningful time and energy for other important work. Are there ways to reshape your job in order to gain more control or to focus on the most fulfilling tasks?

Reduce exposure to job stressors. You’ll also need to target high-value activities and relationships that still trigger unhealthy stress. This involves resetting the expectations of colleagues, clients, and even family members for what and how much you’re willing to take on, as well as ground rules for working together. You may get pushback. But doubters must know that you’re making these changes to improve your long-term productivity and protect your health.

Seeking out rich interpersonal interactions and continual personal and professional development. Find coaches and mentors who can help you identify and activate positive relationships and learning opportunities. Volunteering to advise others is another particularly effective way of breaking out of a negative cycle.
Roosevelt Was Wrong, Comparison is Not the Thief of Joy: Comparing "down" can improve gratitude. See comparison. [!health, !psychology]
List of games that Buddha would not play: Wow, I bet he was a blast at parties. [!fun, !history]
Saffir-Simpson scale: Hurricane classifier based on wind speeds (5: 70+; 4: 58-70; 3: 50-58; 2: 43-49; 1: 33-42 m/s). However, the scale does not account for rain or storm surge, which can cause major damage in cities (see Katrina (5) after the levees broke). [!nature]
Is all of FAANG like this? New software engineer discovers working at a FAANG isn't as fast-paced as stereotyped. "Basically no work gets done and there's no motivation to do any." While the pay is good, the question begs itself: is it worth staying? Some good advice from a replier: [!culture]
I’d suggest finding the local legends now, see what they are working on, building deep knowledge about it, ask for an interview and join them. In a big place like that, there are always movers and shakers - they are also looking for motivated and talented devs for their team, so it is mutually beneficial. It will only work with your initiative and a bit of luck though.
How I Stay Productive: Another post on someone's personal productivity habits. See Productivity: Technology and Practices. As always, take what's useful and discard the rest. [!productivity]
The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States. [!culture, !events, !history]
Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse: The CDC's suggestions on how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse. Plenty of useful comments: "Only thing I’ve got to say is, double tap, baby."; "I might suggest adding a baseball bat, preferably aluminum, to your emergency kit as well. It doesn’t require ammunition and can be highly effective at clearing a path through hordes of zombies whilst trying to make good your escape."; "I have bad news, it is too late. Unfortunately all one has to do is look at Congress and the RNC and see that the Zombie apocalypse has already started. The CDC should have acted sooner to prevent this travesty of nature, my only recourse is a small hut in the valley in the Himalayan range where I can wait this out then work to repopulate the earth." [!fun]
Grey literature: "materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. Common grey literature publication types include reports (annual, research, technical, project, etc.), working papers, government documents, white papers and evaluations. Organizations that produce grey literature include government departments and agencies, civil society or non-governmental organizations, academic centres and departments, and private companies and consultants." [!science]
Buying time promotes happiness: Time is still our most valuable commodity. See also time optimization and The philosophical case against sleeping in. [!psychology, !productivity]
28.2% of respondents spent money to buy themselves time each month [mean_amount = $147.95 US dollars (USD) for respondents who reported buying time]. Respondents who spent money in this way reported greater life satisfaction
Searching the Internet for evidence of time travelers: Three methods are used to search for time travelers on the internet: checking tweets about Pope Francis and Comet ISON before they were a thing; search engine queries about topics before they were a thing; direct communication requests to time travelers. All time travelers that were searched for were (are?) from the future. [!technology, !fun]
Linking volume and intensity of physical activity to mortality: Exercise intensity and volume are often underestimated (i.e., what I said I did is actually a lot more than what I actually did) and non-standardized, meaning that benefits from exercise are much higher than previously thought. [!science, !psychology]
Super-Human Performance in Gran Turismo Sport Using Deep Reinforcement Learning: All it took was 73 hours and the AI was beating the best of the best GTS players on multiple tracks. [!technology]
If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance: Too often people attribute success to hard work. But what about those business owners who worked 90 hour weeks and still failed? Why aren't they successful? Luck is not accounted for as much as it should be, and often leads lucky ones to higher, but false, levels of self-confidence in their abilities. [!psychology]
The Coach in the Operating Room: Coaches can help us in all aspects of life, regardless of skill level. See also Luu's 95%-ile isn't that good, especially his notes on reviewing practice. [!productivity, !useful, !psychology]
For society, too, there are uncomfortable difficulties: we may not be ready to accept—or pay for—a cadre of people who identify the flaws in the professionals upon whom we rely, and yet hold in confidence what they see. Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance. Yet the allegiance of coaches is to the people they work with; their success depends on it. And the existence of a coach requires an acknowledgment that even expert practitioners have significant room for improvement. Are we ready to confront this fact when we’re in their care?
Stupider Than You Realize. [!culture]
Isaac Newton's college notebook: 340 pages available digitally. [!fun, !history]
Informal Teaching Advice: As a recent college graduate, I approve these messages. [!communication]
In search of Shangri-La in a lost Himalayan kingdom: A glimpse into some Tibetan history. [!history, !nature]
The NIPS experiment: A conference breaks its reviewers into two independent groups, but both sides review 10% of the papers. [!science]
Behavior of Young Children Under Conditions Simulating Entrapment in Refrigerators: A highly controversial, but extremely useful study. 200+ children were intentionally trapped within a refrigerator-like box to examine their behavior and attempts to get out. This has improved the safety design of refrigerators, preventing up to 1.5 million deaths. Case study analysis here. [!psychology]
Frog battery: Created by attaching a number of dead frogs in series. [!science, !technology !fun]
The philosophical case against sleeping in: We spend approximately 8/24 of our lives sleeping. What if it bumps up to 9/24 or 10/24? That's around 75*365*(1-2) = 27000-54000 hours spent sleeping that could have been spent doing something—anything—else: reading, exercising, socializing, experiencing! I have found my lower bound for required sleep that still allows me to function and recover properly. This gives me many years of my life back. [!philosophy, !productivity, !fun]
Pandemic-Emptied Hotels Could Become Affordable Housing, City Officials Suggest: NYC is looking at converting hotels into single room occupancy units. [!misc]
Productivity Variations Among Software Developers and Teams: The Origin of 10x: Research shows that there is often a 10x productivity difference between the best and worst programmers, despite similar credentials.
There is also lots of anecdotal support for the large variation between programmers. During the time I was at Boeing in the mid 1980s, there was a project that had about 80 programmers working on it that was at risk of missing a critical deadline. The project was critical to Boeing, and so they moved most of the 80 people off that project and brought in one guy who finished all the coding and delivered the software on time. I didn’t work on that project, and I didn’t know the guy, so I’m not 100% sure the story is even true. But I heard the story from someone I trusted, and it seemed true at the time.
I can absolutely see this being true. More manpower doesn't always equal more productivity, as there is a lot more room for conflict. This concept was refuted by Laurent Bossavit here (Bossavit "no longer stand[s] by this article", and instead offers a book to explain) and subsequently addressed by McConnell here. [!productivity]
Using Time-Compression To Make Multimedia Learning More Efficient: Current Research and Practice: Speeding up multimedia when learning has no adverse effects on comprehension nor satisfaction, up to a certain point. 1.5-2.5x speed is the range depending on the cognitive load of the learning material (e.g., quantum mechanics is more difficult to understand than underwater basket weaving theory, and should be presented slower), while 1.2-1.4x is the preferred speed based on two studies. The Chrome extension Video Speed Controller allows for easy speed changes and time jumps using hotkeys. I now watch almost all of my videos at 1.5-2x speed with no entertainment or comprehension loss. [!psychology, !productivity, !useful]
Meat Your Doom: Is eating meat really that bad for you? [!health, !science]
Showcase of beautiful typography done in TeX & friends: Thread of beautiful documents made using LaTeX. [!fun, !technology]
Cognitive and academic benefits of music training with children: A multilevel meta-analysis: Music training provides no benefits to any other academic areas. This is contradictory to what many believe. Notes: [!science, !psychology, !culture]
Whereas near transfer – i.e., the transfer of skills within the same domain – is sometimes observed, far transfer – i.e., the transfer of skills across two distant domains – is rare or possibly inexistent (Melby-Lervåg, Redick, & Hulme, 2016, Sala et al., 2019a). Moreover, when it does occur, transfer of skills is often limited to the degree to which the two domains (source and target) share contents...performance significantly worsens when experts engage in certain subspecialties of their field of expertise.

they claim that it is possible to induce far transfer by engaging in domain-specific cognitively demand ing activities that boost domain-general cognitive skills...At a neural level, this generalization is thought to be enabled by the activation of shared brain structures that are common to the practiced activity (e.g., music) and other core cognitive skills (e.g., fluid intelligence, working memory, and language;

The overall impact of music training programs on cognitive and academic outcomes is weak and moderately heterogeneous (gbar = 0.184, SE = 0.041, tau² = 0.041, I² = 43.16%)...inverse relationship between the studies’ design quality and magnitude of the effect sizes. Conversely, a small overall effect size is observed in those studies employing neither active controls nor random assignment (gbar = 0.246).

these results indicate that music training fails to produce solid improvements in all the examined cognitive and academic skills equally
Waffle House Index: Informal metric used to measure the severity of a disaster. If the restaurant is open, the storm wasn't that bad. See also Big Mac Index. [!fun, !unique]
The Grad Student Who Never Said "No": Wansink's blog post that contributed to his downfall. Sadly, most of his comment replies are defending his behavior. How he became a professor, who knows. [!science]
How Many Undetected Frauds in Science? A look at fraud in science and how many fraudulent papers are never retracted and continue to be cited, despite it being known they are incorrect. [!science, !important]
Maxwell's Demon: A thought experiment that violates the second law of thermodynamics (entropy (disorder of a system) can never decrease). [!science, !philosophy]
Britain from the air: 1945-2009: Aerial photographs of Britain's various landscapes. Full list of pictures here. [!history]
Isle of Ely Assizes court records: A project led by University of Cambridge, it aims to analyze court records between 1557-1775. Crimes includes theft of swans, witchcraft, and infanticide. Great illustrations alongside the story. Second part here. [!history, !fun, !culture]
A Mind Dismembered: In search of the magical penis thieves: Magical penis loss is more common than you'd think in Nigeria. Men abruptly feel their penis is shrinking or has completely left their body and search for the thief, sometimes causing them to get killed by mobs (see On Mob Justice in Nigeria). Those robbed of their manhood legitimately believe it and become extremely frightened at the thought of never getting it back. This is called kogo in medicine. [!culture, !psychology]
The Impact of Schooling on Academic Achievement: Evidence From Homeschooled and Traditionally Schooled Students: Three groups were tested and compared: public school, unstructured homeschool, and structured homeschool. Structured homeschool had the best results, while unstructured had the worst. The involvement and role of the parents plays a significant role. I find this easy to believe based on my experience with homeschooled students. I know three boys whose father is a university professor and department chair of a well-known private university. All three of his kids are well-behaved, intelligent, and high-achieving. On the other spectrum, I know other homeschooled students whose skills aren't nearly as strong as the three boys. What some don't consider is the social learning that takes place in public school. Students are exposed to a wide variety of backgrounds in public school (provided they live in a relatively diverse area). This is challenging to replicate in a homeschool setting. Co-ops are an option, but it is unlikely the same amount of diversity would be achieved. [!culture, !psychology]
Bloodletting: Purposefully removing blood from a "patient" (hey, it was considered medicine back then!) to cure them of or prevent illness/disease. [!culture, !history]
Working memory capacity predicts individual differences in social-distancing compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: If you don't socially distance, you're stupid. [!culture, !psychology]
Predicting personality from patterns of behavior collected with smartphones: Six metrics are taken from smartphone data ("1) communication and social behavior, 2) music consumption, 3) app usage, 4) mobility, 5) overall phone activity, and 6) day- and night-time activity") and used to predict personality based on the Big Five traits. Top predictors for each overall trait:

Openness: Daily mean length text messages

Conscientiousness: Robust mean dur[ation] weather app night

Extraversion: Nightly mean no. phone ringing

And some specific subtraits and their predictors (not necessarily best):

Ambition: Robust mean time first event [wake-up time]

Assertiveness: Daily mean no. outgoing calls

Openness to ideas: Loudness fourth most listened song

Carefreeness: Daily mean no. Android-Email (app) [I suspect the lower this value is, the more carefree a person is. Go figure!]

I'd be interested to see how companies harness these predictors to their advantage. [!psychology, !culture]
An Experimental Study of Search in Global Social Networks: The average chain length was found to be 7. Facebook found in 2016 the average is 3.5, a significant decrease from Dodds' 2003 estimate. This can be attributed due to the rise of the internet and social media sites, both of which increase interconnectivity across and within countries and communities. [!culture, !science]
The missing memristor found: The fourth passive circuit element originally proposed by Chua in 1971. [!technology, !science]
One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge: Money was paid out to "anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria". Over 1,000 people have tried and all failed. Funnily enough, "few unsuccessful applicants ever seriously considered that their failure to perform might be due to the nonexistence of the power they believe they possess". [!fun, !events, !science, !psychology, !unique]
John Titor: A self-proclaimed military time traveler who posted future predicitions on message boards. He also described the time machine he used. [!fun, !events, !technology, !unique]
Sublime introductory lectures: Videos on a variety of topics, from "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" to "Finance Theory" to "Death". [!science, !technology, !history, !fun, !economics]
2019 retrospective: A look back on Klaing's 2019. I really enjoy this format and have a similar, personal system I use. I will use this one for the end of 2020 and post on this site. [!productivity]
One-Touch to Inbox Zero: How I Spend 17 Minutes Per Day on Email: Designing a system to maximize email productivity. Like all productivity advice, all, some, or none may work. My email system is similar and has a few rules:
- Never have any unread or need-to-respond-to emails at the end of the day.
- If possible, immediately reply to emails. If not, flag and respond tomorrow.
- Keep emails as concise as possible without losing information. Ex: "I was able to look through my schedule and found a few openings for the following times: [times] If you're not available then I am also available these times. Let me know what works for you and I will make myself available" can easily be changed to "I am available these times: [times]. Let me know what works". The latter is 1) much faster to type, 2) much easier to read (for both parties).
[!productivity, !useful]
If you're good, you need to talk more: A few concrete suggestions on implementing this: [!productivity, !philosophy]

Making an effort to be as open and responsive as possible with loved ones: reaching out more, responding faster, expressing dissatisfaction more readily, and offering praise whenever it occurs to me.

Redistributing speaking time to quieter people when group conversations become lopsided.

Being more vocal at work: speaking up more in meetings, writing more thorough documentation, leaving more detailed comments in code reviews, and sharing links that are relevant to company projects in the #random Slack channel.

Participating more actively on Twitter. This means writing more Tweets of my own, responding more frequently to others, and being more liberal in my use of the ‘like’ button.

Writing more blog posts. Writing takes a lot of work, and more often than not, what I write doesn’t bring me much recognition. But occasionally I hear a word or two of thanks for sharing an idea that helped or stimulated someone, and this is enough to convince me that my efforts are worthwhile.
Zeno's paradoxes: A set of four problems related to motion. Achilles and the tortoise is arguably the most famous, where despite Achilles running much faster than the tortoise (who was given a head start), will never catch up. [!fun, !philosophy]
'Like a Full-Body Massage': Thinking About the TSA: What's the purpose of the enhanced security at airports? Is all of the money and time spent attempting to reduce risk worth it, or could it be better spent elsewhere? Politicians have only one door they can go through: taking a hard stance on terrorism. Any other position makes them look weak and apathetic about American lives. [!culture, !events]
That's [terrorism's main damage-doer is everything that happens after the attack—the money spent, fear induced, etc.] what Osama bin Laden noted in a tape after 9/11 -- that on the cheap, his attackers had not simply killed 3,000 people but induced a response that will cost the U.S. trillions of dollars over a decade or more (if the costs of war in Iraq are included, as they should be).
Virological Sampling of Inaccessible Wildlife with Drones: Viruses of marine mammals are difficult to access. Researchers used drones to drive over whales as they "blow" water out of their blowholes, collecting the water and potential viruses in a closable petri dish attached to the drone. [!science, !fun]
Experiencing Ecstasy: What's it like to be on ecstasy? Can it solve all of your problems, make you happier, or even change destructive behaviors? What's the cost? Klam gives his experiences. Some science about Ecstasy is discussed. I see many parallels between this and ADHD medicine and marijuana. I knew quite a few people who used ADHD medicine (Adderall, Vyvanse) for studying, despite not being prescribed it. They felt motivated, driven, like they could learn and remember anything and ace any test that came upon them. But special usage became regular usage and studying depended on that little pill to spur them into action. With marijuana, social activities had to include smoking. A simple meal was preceded by the inevitable "wanna smoke?" question and some felt weird hanging out with friends without being under the influence. This is an extremely dangerous cycle, as being under the influence should never be the norm. [!culture]
Reimagining fabs: Advanced analytics in semiconductor manufacturing: How machine learning and computer vision are being used to enhance productivity in fabs. There is lots of room for improvement. [!technology, !future]
Coma, Hyperthermia and Bleeding Associated with Massive LSD Overdose: Eight partygoers rip a line of coke. Wait, you mean that's not coke? That's LSD? Someone check the LD5...*falls unconscious*. All were fine in the end. [!culture, !science]
Postal Experiments: Researchers attempt to mail an assortment of unwrapped items via USPS and record their results. Some funny cases: [!fun]
The ski was slipped into a bin of postage that was being loaded into a truck behind a station (a collaborating staff member created a verbal disturbance up the street to momentarily distract postal workers’ attention). Notice of postage due received, 11 days. Upon pickup at the station, the clerk and supervisor consulted a book of postage regulations together for 2 minutes and 40 seconds before deciding on additional postage fee to assess. Clerk asked if mailing specialist knew how this had been mailed; our recipient said she did not know.

"Please be advised that human remains [item was molar tooth in plastic box] may not be transported through the mail, but we assumed this to be of sentimental value, and made an exception in your case."
The potentially conflicted evaluations of others based on their intelligence: "the smarter target was rated more unfavorably...the equally smart target was rated more favorably than the less intelligent target." People tend to like others who are of similar intelligence. Gender may also matter (women who are less intelligent are better liked, while men who are more intelligent are better liked). [!culture, !psychology]
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: "group of conditions that can occur in a person whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy.[1] Symptoms can include an abnormal appearance, short height, low body weight, small head size, poor coordination, low intelligence, behavior problems, learning difficulties and problems with hearing or sight." [!science]
An Ambitious Future: [!future, !culture]
the future of ambition is one in which millions of brilliant people globally, historically excluded from the global economy, have the opportunity and incentive to harness ever more powerful technologies to solve some of our species’ and our planet’s most important problems. Impressive progress in areas like artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology gives ambitious individuals the tools – again, at falling capital cost – to build products and services that we can scarcely imagine today.
Crackpot Index: "A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics". I wonder what the highest score is for a contribution that actually turned out to be true. [!fun, !science]
Room 641A: A room owned by the NSA dedicated to intercepting incoming internet traffic as part of their surveillance program. [!technology, !events]
Re:scam: Simply forward your scam mail to me@rescam.org and AI will take over the conversation on your behalf. [!fun]
The IQ Halo effect: "Increased IQ correlates with consequentially morally desirable actions, attitudes, and beliefs." Gwern reviews literature related to the previous sentence. [!psychology]
The Rise and Rise of Citation Analysis: Problems with counting citations include homographs (J. Doe =/= J. Doe, although this is easily checked), cronyism (or citation circles, "I'll cite you if you cite me"), self-citation, ceremonial citations, and negative citations. Meho also discusses other citation metrics, such as the h-index, and citation variations across databases. [!science]
Structured Procrastination: When procrastinating from task A, simply do task B. [!productivity]
Spaced Repetition for Efficient Learning: Gwern's overview of spaced repetition. Includes background information, literature review, information suggestions, and supplemental links. [!important, !psychology, !science]
LeoLabs satellite visualization: See the plethora of satellites currently in Earth's orbit. You can even search for specific names. [!fun, !technology]
What to Do About TikTok and WeChat: Both apps are essentially controlled by the CCP, making transparency of their operation almost impossible. Looks like Microsoft is in talks of purchasing TikTok. [!culture, !events]
Companies That Stand in Solidarity Are Licensing Themselves to Discriminate: Does virtue signaling with companies work? Answer: mostly no, but there are definitely some doing the right thing. [!economics, !culture]
Why Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever: Some people seem to take pride in the amount of hours they work per week. While this is fine for some, it should not be the sole indicator of value in a person's life, nor should work be the only source of joy. Leisure time should be why we work, so we can afford things to facilitate our hobbies and extracurriculars. [!culture]
The Applicability Of The Elite Overproduction Theory To India: There are only so many spots available for hundreds of thousands of applicants, whether in law or technology, in India. For some, it is their only chance of escaping poverty, forcing them to study for 12+ hours a day during their prime childhood/adulthood years. Suicide in India is high, one of its leading causes being the immense amount of pressure put on students to do well. [!culture]
Why do technology firms publish scientific papers? The strategic use of science by small and midsize enterprises in nanotechnology: "More likely to publish when their work is associated with public science and when it involves a greater technological focus". [!economics, !technology]
How Mormons Built the Next Silicon Valley While No One Was Looking: Culture and ambition go a long way. [!culture, !technology, !economics]
Learning to Cartoonize Using White-box Cartoon Representations: Real-life images are processed using a GAN and transformed (cartoonized) into cartoon-like images. [!fun, !technology]
Travel Through Time to Increase Your Effectiveness: A few methods (lifehacks) to mentally travel through time are detailed. Exercises for each method are at the end. [!productivity]
- Second Chances: The earlier this is done, the better.
  Optimize for mindfulness, growth, or productivity based on the circumstances of the day and its relation to all subsequent days.
- Split Selves:
  At an undisclosed location outside of time, there is a version of myself who notices when I have chosen a goal that requires reliable performance over an extended period. This self then runs an integrity check and, provided the task does not seem prima facie unrealistic given our capabilities, replicates us as many times as there are days needed to complete the task. Each clone is sent to a specific day. I am one of these clones. I don't need to worry about whether I will follow through on my commitments beyond today, because that's not my job. Someone else is handling that. I am TodayMe, and if I follow through on my portion of the task, then I can trust that TomorrowMe -- who is, after all, identical -- will also do his part. And so on.
- Bobbling:
  You're forking off a temporary version of yourself who ignores the passage of time and forgets all cares beyond the task at hand. As the forked self, it doesn't matter how long it takes to "spool up" and get through the "ugh field" surrounding the task, because time is meaningless inside the bobble. It takes what it takes and that's that.
- The Past, Interrupted: When distracted by the past and occupied with the present, let the present go and focus on the past. Once that is done, return to the present.
- Toward a More Excellent Future:
  Successful time travel is all about bringing our past, present, and future selves into a cooperative alignment. They need to trust each other. They need to communicate. Sometimes, we need to prepare things in the present and send messages into the future. Sometimes, we have to envision different futures to provide direction to the present. Sometimes, we need to honor the past.
Automated vacuum collection: "Transports waste at high speed through underground pneumatic tubes to a collection station where it is compacted and sealed in containers". Awesome. Surely this would help the problem in cities of both trash taking up major space and the rats that come alongside it. Hopefully these can be implemented in future cities. [!technology, !future]
Saudi Arabia, With China’s Help, Expands Its Nuclear Program: For a two reasons: they want to decrease their dependence on their chief export, oil, and to defend themselves against Iran and their nuclear weapons. China meddling in the Middle East does not seem like a good thing. See China's investments (read: exploitation) in African countries. [!events]
A Scalable Urban Design and the Single Building City: What do future cities look like and how do they operate? The focus is on space optimization (raised streets, level rooftops for more transporation space, mass transit to pull focus away from cars) and automation of human services (delivery, firefighting). Overall good points, but actually implementing these ideas (at least the ones requiring physical changes, like raised streets) in current cities will be quite the hassle. A book on my to-read list is Future Cities: Architecture and the Imagination (no idea if it relates to this article). Also see stroads (street + road) and why they should be eliminated (slow traffic, low financial productivity, unsafe, expensive). [!technology, !culture, !future]
Let’s take all these things together: In a world where you can get cheap housing in or quite close to a massive hub of culture. A world where all shipments and returns are cheaper and faster, where you can order food from anywhere quickly for no cost, where you can travel anywhere in the city with exceptional speed. A world where all the streets have shade and no cars, there’s considerably less pollution, and the view is amazing even in the densest sections.
What Are Stingrays and Dirtboxes? Devices that simulate a cell phone tower, allowing phone to ping off of them. They are used in tracking criminals and anyone in the vicinity of the device. Manuals are available online, but I do not want to link them. Hacker News discussion here. [!technology]
- 2006 catalog of surveillance devices: 66 pages of high-tech surveillance devices used by U.S. law enforcement and military. Very cool stuff, but very likely to be outdated. [!technology]
Why Did The World Shut Down For COVID-19 But Not Ebola, SARS Or Swine Flu? COVID-19 is easily spread, but only somewhat deadly (relatively speaking). SARS and MERS are highly deadly, but not easily spread; H1N1 (swine flu) is easily spread, but not very deadly; Ebola is extremely deadly, but difficult to spread (contact with bodily fluids must occur). [!science]
Subjective and Objective Facial Attractiveness: "Female patients presenting to a dermatology office rated themselves more attractive than did judges who viewed photographs of the subjects. Age [younger more attractive] and marital status [unmarried more attractive] were significant factors, and male judges rated attractiveness lower than female judges." [!psychology]
Back From Yet Another Globetrotting Adventure, Indiana Jones Checks His Mail And Discovers That His Bid For Tenure Has Been Denied: Well, when you put it that way... [!fun]
Are Hyperlinks a Bad Idea? No. Footnotes are horrible. They require scrolling to the end of the page, whereas hyperlinks can be accessed during the article in a new tab. [!productivity, !useful]
Collectives 2008-2019: Aerial photographs of a variety of landscapes: airports, ski hills, roads, farmland, beachs. [!art, !fun]
Aging: Are these 4 pain myths complicating care? 1) Pain is a natural part of getting older; 2) Pain worsens over time; 3) Stoicism leads to pain tolerance; 4) Prescription analgesics are highly addictive. Conclusion: "Pain is not a natural part of aging and often improves or remains stable over time, stoicism does not lead to acclimation, and pain medications are not highly addictive in older adults". [!health, !science]
The Untold Story of the "Transy Book Heist": So much time to do appropriate planning, yet they still messed up. As always, 1) confidence is key, and 2) act like you belong. [!events, !psychology, !misc]
U.S. military nuclear incident terminology:
- Bent Spear: A significant incident with a nuclear weapon, nuclear components, or nuclear-bearing vehicle.
- Broken Arrow: An accidental event that involves nuclear weapons or nuclear components but does not create the risk of nuclear war or a code phrase that a ground unit is facing imminent destruction from enemy attack and all available air forces within range are to provide air support immediately.
- Dull Sword: Minor incidents involving nuclear weapons, components or systems, or which could impair their deployments.
- Empty Quiver: The seizure, theft, or loss of a nuclear weapon.
- Faded Giant: A reporting term to identify an event involving a nuclear reactor or radiological accident.
- Nucflash: Detonation or possible detonation of a nuclear weapon which creates a risk of an outbreak of nuclear war.
Deliverance From 27,000 Feet: In May 2016, three Bengali climbers died near the top of Mt. Everest. I am a firm believer that if someone can't make the climb unassisted (as in carrying all their own gear, not necessarily finding the way), they shouldn't be doing it. It puts the guides and any rescue personnel in dangerous positions, all because the climber was too proud (read: stupid) or stupid to turn around. The so-called suggestions, which should be considered commands, put in place are formed by world-class climbers: start early, retreat by 12:00pm, etc. The risk is just not worth the reward. See Into Thin Air (review, see penultimate paragraph ("A postscript...") for another opinion on unprepared climbers attempting to summit). [!nature, !events, !culture]
Joe Kenda: A detective who solved 356/387 homicide cases. [!misc]
The asshole's guide to screenwriting: An overview of how to try to succeed as a screenwriter in Hollywood. [!culture]
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? [Warning: this article is extremely graphic and saddening.] Weingarten delves into the lives of families who have accidentally left their child in a car, resulting in their death. Sadly, safety measures have not been universally implemented due to "a powerful auto manufacturers’ lobby". The attitude of "this couldn't happen to me" prevails and surely causes many deaths. But should they be prosecuted? None of the parents showed any intent whatsoever—it was a lapse of memory while focusing on other important aspects of their life. Anything can happen to anybody (called the optimism bias) and those vulnerable should prepare for the worst. It's not acknowledging poor X skills, it's admitting human nature and bad luck sometimes combine in potent combinations and you're doing the best you can to mitigate that. [!culture]
A Year of Spaced Repetition Software in the Classroom and A Second Year of Spaced Repetition Software in the Classroom: A high-school English teacher uses SRS in their classroom and reports the results. My experiences are quite similar. See Gwern's LessWrong's Spaced Repetition Wiki for an overview of the method and applications and my SRS page for suggestions. Everyone serious about learning should be using some form of SRS. [!psychology, !culture, !science]
What it takes to run Stack Overflow: A description of the hardware used to support Stack Overflow. [!technology]
How much Silicon Valley CEOs spend on security and protection: A lot. $23 MM was spent on Zuckerberg's security in 2019, reportedly including "a 'panic chute' in case him and his team need to evacuate the offices". Bezos' spending is a surprising $1.6 MM. I expected much more, but I suppose people don't hate him as much as Zuckerberg. [!culture]
Cryptopals Crypto Challenge: Eight sets of increasingly-difficult cryptography problems based on real-world systems. [!technology, !fun]
Doomsday: Using data up to 1960, the world population should have passed 10¹⁰ (10 billion!) just before 2010, with Doomsday being on Friday, 13 November 2026. [!science]
Chesterton's fence: "Principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood." If only everyone abided by this. [!philosophy, !psychology]
How old are people when they start interesting companies? More data here. [!economics]
Laborland: Part 1: What it's like living on low wages in Orlando. Raising the minimum wage is more complicated than touted. Those who don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from are truly lucky. [!economics, !culture]

July 2020

Illegal number: "A number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter, propagate, or otherwise transmit". Examples include: the numbers 89, 6, and 4, as they represent the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests; 1488 as a reference to the Fourteen Words, a slogan used by white supremacists; an AACS encryption key. [!technology]
How many US cities can you name? and How many European cities can you name? YouTube's GeoWizard was able to name 497 cities in an hour. [!fun]
Put your target in a decision dilemma: "If you design your action well, you can force your target into a situation where they have to respond, but have no good options — where they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t". The target loses and the provocateur wins. See current (31 July 2020) relevance here. [!psychology]
The secretive government agency planting 'cyanide bombs' across the US: An inflammatory headline, it's actually U.S. Wildlife Services working to eliminate animals causing agricultural damage. [!events]
When the Levee (or Dam) Breaks: A Twitter thread (threadreaderapp'd) explaining what the (immensely bad) economic and possibly geopolitical ramifications are if China's Three Gorges Dam breaks. Includes hourly estimates for flooding in various cities and how supply chain will succumb. There is currently (20 July 2020) major flooding in the area. u/gamedori3 claims the "worries are presently overblown", which is hopefully the case. [!events]
Nuclear Weapon Archive: Information about nuclear weapons that is updated regularly. Includes a complete list of U.S. nuclear weapons, frequently asked questions, and other great links. [!technology, !history, !science]
A New Theory of Dreaming: "The role of dreams is to ensure that the brain's visual cortex is stimulated during sleep. Otherwise, if the visual system were deprived of input all night long, the visual cortex's function might degrade". Paper here. [!science, !psychology]
Inside the REAL Casa Bonita from South Park: One of the most unique restaurants out there. Management tracks when the South Park episode will air so they can expect 10% more sales. [!fun, !culture]
Marriages and Divorces: Trends in marriage and divorce throughout the world. It seems to be shifting away from traditional times: marriage is less common; marriage is happening later; living together while not married is acceptable; single parenting is acceptable and increasing; same sex marriage is now legal in some countries; divorce rates have trended upward, but vary country-to-country and are lower in younger countries (unexpected). [!culture]
Scientists Recover the Sounds of 19th-Century Music and Laughter From the Oldest Playable American Recording: Sound recorded onto a piece of foil were played back using software. I expected them to perform a Lidar-like scan, then 3D print it and go from there, but software works, too. [!fun, !history, !technology]
Safety Lessons From the Morgue: Baker, an epidemiologist, studies the injuries and seeks to eliminate their causes. "'What would happen if a new disease started killing Americans at the rate of 121,000 people a year?' she demanded. 'The government would instantly mobilize, and we’d do whatever it took to conquer the disease.'" especially stuck with me. [!science, !culture]
Non-detection of the Tooth Fairy at Optical Wavelengths: "Finally, we note preliminary evidence that not only is the Tooth Fairy transparent at optical wavelengths, she is also a stingy sonnuvabitch. She left behind nary a penny! We tentatively attribute this swindle to spite: perhaps the creature took offense at what might be interpreted as a crass and deliberate invasion of her privacy." [!fun]
The 120-Hour Workweek - Epic Coding Time-Lapse: Nick Winter spent 120 hours in one week (that's 17 hours a day, or 71% of the entire week) programming, yet reports it as being extremely productive, fun, and even "the happiest week he has ever recorded by a wide margin"! Mostly contradictory to time-energy limit most people experience. (Whether his work is "deliberate practice" he does not necessarily specify. I've coded for a few hours before without a mental drain. I knew what I needed to do and there wasn't much thinking involved.) [!productivity, !psychology]
Email, We Just Can’t Get Enough: In 2015, Adobe's survey respondents reported checking their emails for SIX hours a day. What! University professors nor students were definitely not part of the surveyed people. [!culture]
Absolute Authority: Uncertainty in science and how "unenlightened ones" perceive it. [!philosophy, !science]
Overjustification effect: "When an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task". [!psychology]
Constitutional and Legal Basis for So-Called Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency: It comes down to national security in the end. The debate on whether this is reasonable continues. [!events, !philosophy]
GPT-3 discussing Elon Musk: Greenberg gets some advice from GPT-3 on how Musk can become more powerful. (LPT from GPT-3: Veltron poison (no idea what that is, Google gives no reasonable results) leaves no trace and is easy to acquire if, uh, you ever need it.) [!technology]
Godwin's law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1". [!culture]
120 Epigrams in Programming. [!technology, !fun (but is it really?)]
Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? [!psychology]
The New Epidemic – My Experience of Losing a Friend to Heroin: What is life like for a heroin addict and their family? See Reqiuem for a Dream (review). [!culture]
The Scourge of Hygiene Theater: COVID-19 rarely infects via surface transmission, yet companies and businesses are boasting about their deep-cleaning efforts. Whether or not they actually believe in its effectiveness, the effort and announcement of the effort point largely to signaling. "We care about your safety and are doing everything we can to ensure it, including disinfecting all possible surfaces" just sounds good to potential customers. This is no excuse to allow large gatherings or open businesses that by design do not allow distancing (bars, some restaurants). [!culture, !science]
SSC Gives A Graduation Speech: Is higher education really worth it? [!culture, !psychology]
The Barbarian and the 7-11 Clerk. [!culture, !philosophy]
Hillbilly Elegy – The Culture of White American Poverty: The story of J. D. Vance and his experience growing up in Appalachia (also known as hillbilly country). [!culture]
Little Soldiers – Inside the Chinese Education System: A book summary and review of Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve. The Chinese education system, specifically the pre-kindegarten years, are detailed in all of its horrors (at least from my Western eyes). [!culture]
Machine Intelligence Research Institute Research Guide: A list of textbooks, concepts, and information for those wanting to work or already working on machine intelligence. "This guide is geared towards students who are wondering what to study if they want to become MIRI researchers in the future, and toward professionals in other fields who want to get up to speed on our work." [!useful, !technology]
A New Interactive Visualization of the 165,000 Most-Frequently Assigned Texts in College Courses: 165,000 texts are plotted onto an interactive map, allowing the user to zoom in and explore. Also see the Lindy effect. [!culture]
Why South Koreans are trapped in a lifetime of study: The pressure to succeed in life and academics is immense in South Korea. Some consider not getting into one of the SKY universities to mean they failed. Although it means well, it's truly an unhealthy culture. [!culture]
Al Qaeda has Nuclear Weapons: AQ has claimed to possess nuclear and chemical weapons purchased from central Asian countries. Fortunately, nothing else has come to light and they are hopefully bluffing. [!history]
What Happened When I Tried to Play Men’s Soccer: Labbé discusses the gender differences in soccer. There is no physical reason why women should not be allowed to play in a men's league. They are physically weaker than men and pose no distinct advantage. The opposite (men playing a women's league) is obviously unfair. The last sentence really stood out: "at the very least, I will walk away knowing that those guys on the team saw me for who I really am: a professional ~~female~~ athlete". In her case, she is simply an athlete playing with other athletes. [!culture]
Photoreal Roman Emperor Project: GANs were used to create realistic images of Roman emperors based on busts. [!fun]
Probability and Markets: Very basic information about probability as used in financial markets. [!technology, !economics, !science]
How to Echolocate: Brief tutorial on how to begin using echolocation. [!science, !fun, !useful]
Phantom jams: When it comes down to preventing traffic jams, you don't want the drivers behind you to brake. Also see this Reddit comments on preventing traffic jams. [!useful]
Goodhart’s Law: Are Academic Metrics Being Gamed? The answer is yes. Academic metrics now matter more than good science. [!science, !culture]
What if schizophrenics really are possessed by demons, after all? A paper discussing this was somehow accepted into the Journal of Religion and Health. [!culture]
Quaint, Quizzical Questions: 25 unique questions that prompt thoughtful answers. Useful for interviewing or getting to know someone. Could possibly be used in conjunction with The 36 Questions That Lead to Love, but some are probably a bit too impersonal or unrelated to relationships (I wouldn't want to be asked "Do you think macroeconomics works?" by a potential partner.) My answers: [!communication, !useful]
1. Why people rely so much on their emotions and allow them to cloud their judgment.
2. Anything high-tech. Wi-Fi, [blank, e.g., deep or machine] learning, etc.
3. Self, work, family, friends. The latter 3 are all very close.
4. Dead: Leonardo da Vinci. Alive: Barack Obama. Both would be incredibly interesting to talk to, assuming Leonardo spoke English and Obama could tell me anything regardless of classification level.
5. A currency not regulated or backed by any government, but rather the people who believe in it. (Yes, I timed myself.)
6. Not familiar, so no confident answer.
7. Know everyone. Delegation of tasks and team cohesiveness is much easier.
8. Not familiar, so no confident answer (although I'm currently working through Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations(see here for my notes.)
9. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Lays out the principles of being a good personal overall, whether in life, work, relationships, etc. My most recommended book to others.
10. West Coast/Valley inclusion and support. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt authored the book How Google Works, which talks little about Google's actual operation and more about their culture, which seems optimal. Everyone has a say, everyone feels useful, and it's very supportive.
11. Absolutely. Education is largely signaling, as Bryan Caplan lays out in his book The Case Against Education. The name recognition of Harvard or Yale trumps the average state school any day.
12. If language counts as a skill, speaking Russian, French, German, or Spanish would be nice for travel and employment purposes. Otherwise, a circus skill like juggling or advanced handbalancing.
13. Outside of direct investments, education.
14. N/A
15. N/A
16. N/A
17. Not too familiar with the business models of Silicon Valley, but disintermediation seems like a good path. The less middlemen between the buyer and supplier, the better.
18. Both, but more of an art.
19. Action. Without action, intent means nothing.
20. Texas Instruments.
21. No, morality is learned.
22. School brand, standardized test scores, GPA, cocurriculars.
23. Harvard diploma. The education part can be learned anywhere (see Good Will Hunting), the diploma can't.
24. Learning to work together, especially the people skills involved. Companies, at least the engineering-focused ones, seem to be leaning more towards the more social, less smart candidates in lieu of those that are less social and more smart.
25. Can't think of anything.
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: My favorite comic strip ever. See more here. [!fun]
How to Steal $31 million from the U.S. government: Using the logic of the Strawman theory, simply use the Federal Reserve's routing number. You can also purchase CDs with it. Sadly, this method won't hold up against the law. [!unique]
How Many Eye Surgeries Can Go Wrong? Opthalmologist (eye surgeon) performs three operations on the wrong eye and gets angry about being permanently removed from surgery duties. Moral of the story: if you're getting eye surgery, make sure the doctor knows which eye to work on and their left from their right. [!unique]
The 36 Questions That Lead to Love: Three sets of 12 questions, ranging from "Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?" to "Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen." I've done this before with a former partner, and while it was fun and informative, I did not fall in love with her. Original paper here. [!psychology, !communication]
Chicken eyeglasses and blinders. [!fun]
How Not to Talk to Your Kids: Being praised for being "smart" doesn't necessarily help. Bronson reviews literature that discusses this idea, and gives examples of other children, including their own, that have both suffered and improved with different types of praise. A few takeaways: 1) Effort should be praised, as intelligence generally follows effort (my studying hard for an exam will increase my knowledge for that exam), but not vice versa. 2) Be specific in praise. Saying "great job!" is ambiguous and doesn't give the child a certain behavior to continue. Instead, saying "great job figuring out why that first approach on your math homework didn't work!" is much better. 3) Let kids fail. Some people I knew in high school who never failed did very poorly on their first exam in university, resulting in tears and a self-existential crisis never before seen. What's important is learning from failure (how, why) and learning how to recover from it. [!psychology]
The best general advice on earth: Five pieces of advice from William James' Principles of Psychology. They all relate to habit and making habit as autonomous and low-energy as possible, like Kuhn suggests in his Make your habits zero-effort. [!productivity, !psychology]
AI Helped Uncover Chinese Boats Hiding in North Korean Waters: A neural network was used to identify illegal trawlers using various imagery. [!technology]
Inside the secretive world of stalking apps: In short, don't jailbreak an iPhone and let someone else use it unless you fully trust them. Also, two-factor authentication is always good, even if inconvenient. [!technology, !culture]
What The Hell Is Going On With UFOs And The Department Of Defense? My guess is that the UFOs seen on camera are advanced U.S. technology. Some say DARPA has projects that are 10-20 years ahead of publicly-known technology (can't remember the source, may have been Annie Jacobsen in her The Pentagon's Brain). As the author says, this is the perfect testing ground. Unsuspecting pilots and technicians, state-of-the-art tracking technology, and no danger to any parties. [!events, !technology]
Influencing choices with conversational primes: How a magic trick unconsciously influences card choices: Ever wonder how a magician "magically chooses" your card? Well, he did, but he chose it for you. Discussion of the paper here. [!psychology]
The Martians of Budapest: A history behind some of Hungarian's smartest minds, such as John von Neumann and Paul Erdős. While naturally gifted, it seems the key was early, focused childhood education. Laszlo Polgar, a Hungarian chess player, was able to train two of his three children to become chess grandmasters, one of which is considered the best female player of all-time. He discusses his methods in his book, Raise a Genius! (review). [!history, !psychology]
EUV lithography revisited: How extreme ultraviolet lithography works in the semiconductor industry. Using a 40 kW CO₂ laser, a drop of Sn, and a conglomeration of mirrors, patterns below 10 nm can be achieved on Si wafers. Moore's Law will soon end. [!technology, !science]
My Roommate's Tik Tok Fame Made My Life Hell: What it's like living with a TikTok influencer. Be ready for the weekly challenges. [!culture]
Explore 'The Last Supper': Considered to be the best copy of Leonardo da Vinci's famous work, the detail and condition are pristine compared to the original. Zoomable version here. While there, I suggest taking a look around at all Google Arts and Culture has to offer. [!history, !art]
Octopus wrestling: Just like it sounds. Divers wrestle with an octopus to try and bring it to shore. World championship were even held at one point! [!unique]
Long-time nuclear waste warning messages: Messages left at nuclear waste sites to deter people from entering. Warning messages—no matter how they were written—should be similar to phrases like "What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger." and "The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited." The Sandia report can be found here. See also the Human Interference Task Force. [!science, !history]
Ludmila Soboleva: A circus coach based out of Ukraine (I think, may be Russia or Belarus). Some of the strongest young handbalancers I've seen. Some example videos are spiral OAHS hops, handstand tightrope walking, OAHS on head of tightroper, HS jumproping, collection of HS, Mexican HS. [!fitness]
Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems: An essay explaining why speed of tasks is important. If you associate tasks with taking a long time, you're less inclined to do them. His solution is to force yourself to go fast—"faster than you think is healthy"—"because the tasks will come to cost less in your mind ... so you'll do it more ... [and] you'll get better. Eventually you'll be both fast and good". [!productivity]
Levels of wealth: Reddit user details the different "gradations" of wealth: $10-30MM, $30-100MM, $100MM-1B, $1B+. Interesting glimpse into exactly what money provides. [!culture]
Peter the Mint Eagle: The U.S. dollar's mascot, now on display at the Philadelphia Mint. More funny Philadelphia oddities here. [!unique]
GPT-3 writing samples. Writing samples by GPT-3, "an autoregressive language model with 175 billion parameters". [!technology]
The Science of Winning at Life: "A sequence by lukeprog that summarizes scientifically-backed advice for "winning" at everyday life: in one's productivity, in one's relationships, in one's emotions, etc. Each post concludes with footnotes and a long list of references from the academic literature." My favorite post below: [!productivity, !useful]
- How to Be Happy: Discusses what correlates with happiness (physical attractiveness doesn't very much, while relationship and work satisfaction do), as well as concrete methods for becoming happier. They all boil down to working on yourself: increasing extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, self-esteem, and optimism are all likely to make you happier. [!psychology]
Be Happier: Similar to lukeprog's How to Be Happy post (see directly above), this also examines literature in hopes of finding how to achieve happiness. The author provides a "Nutshell" summary, then begins quoting various studies supporting each point. Money, work satisfaction, materialism and purchasing, interpersonal relationships, and appreciation and how they relate to happiness are all discussed. Some of my favorite points: "Don’t be stingy. It's bad for your health.", "Set goals that are reasonably challenging and reasonably achievable.", "Prefer experiential purchases; avoid materialistic goals.", "Associate with happy people.", "Go for smaller, more frequent successes rather than larger ones.". [!psychology]
Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America’s Prisons: The author recounts his experience in Iran's Evin Prison, the place where a majority of the country's political prisoners are held (and tortured). He then gets a tour of a California prison, including its Secure Housing Unit (SHU), also known as solitary confinement. How prisoners are (unfairly) sent to solitary is discussed. [!culture]
Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors: Guzey dissects only the first chapter of Walker's Why We Sleep and finds "egregious scientific and factual errors", including how "the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span" is wrong and how the WHO never "declared a sleep loss epidemic throughout industrialized nations". This essay should be read before the book (which probably shouldn't even be read at all). [!science, !health]
False awakening: A dream about awakening from another dream (dream within a dream). [!science, !psychology]
Cue-dependent forgetting: "the failure to recall information without memory cues". This has happened with me when using (or rather not using) SRS. I’ll be pressed with a question that I’ve studied many times, but can’t come up with the answer because my Anki deck isn’t in front of me. I’ve improved it by recalling items throughout the day without the Anki deck in front of me. [!productivity, !psychology]
Cicada 3301 (episodes by Great Big Story here: E1, E2, E3, E4). [!unique, !technology, !culture]
What are the things you've come across over the past few years that you're most glad about finding? My favorite of this thread is the apartment Schelling point. The user has met many interesting individuals through this and had some awesome experiences: "wine tastings, holiday parties, chess nights, jam sessions, a concert, comedy routines". I would like to implement this when I move to my full-time job. [!culture, !useful, !productivity]
U.S. Navy swapping $38,000 periscope joysticks for $30 Xbox controllers on high-tech submarines. Who knew my hundreds of hours of playing Xbox would eventually pay off? [!unique]
Why do dozens of diseases wax and wane with the seasons—and will COVID-19? The truth is we don't entirely know. Some diseases increase in the summer, others in the winter. Knowing the functions behind the seasonality will help us combat future viruses. [!science]
342 Stalder presses. Truly impressive strength and endurance. To simply stand on the hands for 50+ min is impressive, but to maintain balance AND press is an entirely different beast. [!fitness]
Quantum lithography: Used in lieu of standard photolithography and using the principle of quantum entanglement with two photons, this method can resolve features smaller than the diffraction limit. [!science]
Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor: Stoller gives two reasons as to how McKinsey & Company make so much from the government. First, they are close friends with those in charge of appropriating funds, allowing them to receive the contracts. Second, the Industrial Funding Fee, which incentivizes more money to be granted, as they get a kickback of sorts for money spent. [!culture]
On the current state of Anti-ICBM technology: Details the different phases of an ICBM (boost, post-boost, mid-course, terminal), vehicles and payloads, interception capabilities (mini-satellites, lasers, MOKV). The comments are also insightful and clarify some points. [!technology]
Sam Zeloof's website: Sam Zeloof has made a small semiconductor fab in his garage, including a scanning electron microscope and electron-beam lithography. [!science, !technology]
arXiv vs. snarXiv: Pick which paper title is real. [!science, !fun]
The Translation Wars: Any bilingual knows that literal translations often do not contain the nuances the original text holds. The same holds for Russian novels. Constance Garnett is a prolific Russian-English translator, but in the opinion of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky—a husband and wife pair, the latter of whom is a native Russian speaker—lacks the ability to convey the subtle meanings and atmosphere Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, among others, include in their prose. (P&V are largely considered the best translators of Russian novels. I've read both The Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace and was very satisfied, albeit I can't speak Russian). The Nabokov vs. Wilson feud is also discussed. [!history, !culture]
Marriage does not mean citizenship: A U.S. citizen's account of helping his wife to become an American citizen. Net costs: "99 pages of applications, thousands of pages of supporting documents, $10,861 in fees and a lawyer, 9 days off work for appointments, 1,824 days". One thing some people do not know of is the Green Card Through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. Through this, immigrants from under-represented countries may win a green card. [!culture]
Make your habits zero-effort: You should design your habits to take as little effort as possible. Kuhn gives some examples. [!productivity]
Why Humans Totally Freak Out When They Get Lost: It's much easier to get lost in the woods than one would think. Moral of the story: stay put if you feel lost. If you have to move, make a distinct path showing where you've been by breaking branches, marking trees, or something similar. Also do this if you have to exit the trail. [!psychology, !nature]
Updates from Boston: LessWrong's evolution-is-just-a-theorem shares some productivity advice, successes and failures. Successes: Bureaucracy Days are dedicated to taking care of bureaucratic (read: boring and undesirable) tasks; Sprint Days are 10-hour, extremely-focused, no-distraction work periods. Failures: Creating a group on Habitica did not find many participants; Group intervention testing—pick a random intervention ("take modafinil, plan your day in the morning, etc.") and implement it—also failed. I suspect these are too time-consuming with little return. See Kuhn's Make your habits zero-effort. [!productivity]
The Complexity of Coffee: Learn about the history, science, and manufacturing processes behind making the perfect cup of espresso. [!science, !unique]
Why Men Love War. [!psychology]
Dunbar's number: The "suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships". Dunbar estimates this to be around 150, but ranges from 100-250 based on the individual's neocortex size. [!psychology]
State the Problem Before Describing the Solution: A simple one-page essay about creating better solutions to problems. [!science]
Five Books: The best books on [subject] as recommended by experts. [!useful]
How Automation Will Transform Farming: The rise of autonomous vehicles in farming and where the industry is heading. [!technology]
How To Become A Hacker: Work on interesting problems, learn how to program, and contribute to open-source software. [!technology]
The HTML Hell Page: Examples of what NOT to include in a webpage: blinking text/animation, automatic audio, and hit counters are a few. The author even dreams up some rather detailed punishments: "People who abuse these should have flip books rammed into every bodily orifice until they figure out that a two- or three-frame graphics loop is even less pleasant than that", "club them to death with a chair leg or something. No court would convict", "Anybody who use these tags for running text should be compressed by 30% themselves, slowly, and preferably in a machine with big nasty spikes". Point taken. [!technology, !fun]
Meditations on Moloch: What makes systems stay the way they are, despite all users wanting it to change? Examples are presented and reasons behind them examined. [!psychology, !important]
Marion Tinsley: The best checkers player of all-time with no competitors. While Fischer, Kasparov, and Carlsen all vie for the best-player-of-all-time title, Tinsley's is undisputed. He lost a grand total of seven games (two to Chinook). [!unique, !culture]
Exposure of Photoresists: Chemicals reactions that take place; exposure techniques, such as mask aligners, steppers, and direct writers; UV light sources; determining dose and duration; contrast curves; diffraction; issues with photoresist. [!science, !technology]
Networking for Fun and Profit: Ideas for more effective networking. Hint: Just reach out. [!communication]
How Much Would You Need to be Paid to Live on a Deserted Island for 1.5 Years and Do Nothing but Kill Seals?: The title says it all. [!culture, !history, !unique]
The Crimes of SEAL Team 6: There are undoubtedly bad apples in the Teams, O'Neill and Bissonnette are both likely liars and scoundrels, and more people should speak up when they feel a wrong act has been committed. [!culture]
WindowSwap: Look out the strangers' windows across the world. [!unique]
Levels of self-driving cars: Tesla is currently at level 2. Level 5 is a long ways away. [!technology]
Showdown on the Nile - The bitter dispute over Africa’s largest dam: Ethiopia is building a dam that may prevent sufficient amounts of water from reaching Egypt, where "over 90% of the country’s 100m people live along the Nile or in its vast delta". Egypt is not happy. [!events]
1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash: A B-52 dropped two nuclear bombs over North Carolina, one of which came close to detonating. [!events]
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius: Some people are just born with a niche interest, and often times, despite their work seemingly leading nowhere promising, it culminates in a breakthrough (Darwin's theory of evolution, Ramanujan's various contributions to mathematics). Also see Scott Alexander's Lottery of Fascinations and more of Graham's essays here. [!psychology]
DIY Dream Machine: Tutorial on how to create a Dream Machine for gymnastics rings, which effectively reduces your bodyweight by half through a pulley mechanism. Useful for training more advanced skills. [!fitness]
A controlled trial for reproducibility: Science is notoriously irreproducible. Following the exact same procedures in lab B as done in lab A can yield completely different results. DARPA seeks to change that. I spoke to a friend (PhD student) who is part of a DARPA project. While they don't have counterparts reproducing their exact experiments throughout the project's lifetime, they do have "handlers" (scientists) who review their methods, critiquing them for weaknesses and suggesting improvements. At the end, the DARPA scientists will perform some of their experiments for validity. [!science]
Army researchers see path to quantum computing at room temperature: Estimated time is around 10 years, but science has a way of prolonging estimates. One company, Xanadu, is also working on room-temperature quantum computers using photonics. Big implications if this is achieved. [!science, !technology]
Supercomputer cryptocurrency mining: Estonian crackers were able to gain access to a Canadian university's supercomputer and used it for mining. If it's on your dime, it seems it's worth it financially. [!technology, !unique]
The clinical development process for a novel preventive vaccine: An overview: What the process is for developing and testing a vaccine. [!science]
501 kg deadlift by Hafþór (Hafthor) Björnsson, the heaviest ever. 500 kg was the previous record held by Eddie Hall and he almost died. [!fitness]
Execution by elephant: Elephants in South and Southeast Asia were able to immediately kill or torture prisoners. "Most commonly employed by royalty, the elephants were used to signify both the ruler's absolute power and his ability to control wild animals". [!culture, !unique, !history]
Against Dog Ownership: Is it immoral to own a dog? [!culture, !philosophy]
Invest now or temporarily hold your cash? Short answer: invest now. Long answer: still invest now, but read the paper. Investing a lump sum often outperforms dollar cost averaging with similar portfolios. (Vanguard no longer hosts the PDF on their site.)[!economics]
Estimating the economic impact of the COVID-19 shock: Researchers calculate the U.S. GDP should be back to expected levels at the end of 2021. As expected, industries that are not able to social distance easily are hit harder than their counterparts. [!economics, !history]
Oral Sex, a Knife Fight and Then Sperm Still Impregnated Girl: As the saying goes, "life finds a way". [!science]
Geophagia: The practice of eating soil and/or clay. It is prominent in rural communities and used to suppress hunger or for superstitious reasons. [!psychology, !culture]
How Gödel's Proof Works: An intuitive explanation of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. [!science]
This X Does Not Exist: A collection of sites that generate artificial images of various things (people, cats, snacks) using generative adversarial networks. There are NSFW versions available if you search. [!technology]
How to Run a Successful Less Wrong Meetup Group: Tips and tricks for starting, running, and growing a successful Less Wrong meetup group. [!communication, !useful]
How to Topple a Statue Using Science: It takes around 70 average people to topple a statue. Or you can just use thermite. [!science, !unique]
It's Time to Build. [!culture, !philosophy, !technology]
On Stress. [!philosophy, !psychology]
Crumbs! Large Hadron Collider suffers snack-related bird mishap: Bird drops part of a baguette into some machinery, causing the LHC to overheat. [!events]
Orthodox Privilege. [!psychology, !culture]
2020 Twitter bitcoin scam: Hackers were able to gain access to celebrities' accounts and pull the age-old scam "give me money and I'll double it!". [!events, !psychology]
Dazzler: Weapon to cause temporary blindness using a laser. [!technology]
2020 World Happiness Report: The table on Page 146 shows the happiness factors of various activities, e.g. making love (11.40), singing/performing (4.985), pet care (4.031), childcare (2.427, doesn't necessarily mean your children, making the lower value than pet care understandable), smoking (-0.167), gambling (-0.794). A few thoughts below: [!culture, !important]
Language Models are Few-Shot Learners (GPT-3): The paper that details a deep learning model for creating natural language. See the collection of GPT-3 results and some of its writing samples. It seems this is the beginning of a true artificial intelligence. [!technology, !important]
Why Physical Attraction Matters, and When It Might Not: Attractiveness matters in the beginning when attracting potential partners (attractive implies other positive qualities, like healthier and happier), but declines as more time is spent together. [!psychology]
Leaderboards keeping track of AI's task abilities: Mostly NLP. [!technology]
Civic honesty around the globe: Researchers return a "lost" wallet with $0, $13, or $94 to businesses and check the rate of return. The returning rate increased with the amount of money. [!psychology]
Joshooahh's Story: The story of a drug addict's experiences in jail. Very well written. (Note this is not the full story—see karacter0's comment on this page and start on Part 7). Also see Wes Watson's YouTube channel for more on what life is like in prison. [!psychology, !culture]
Life on Hold: The Ian Powell Story: Ian Powell is arguably the number one sculptor of holds (hand and foot) in climbing. [!fitness]
How not to be sad: Deming has grappled with intense sadness (read: depression) before and offers some solutions to overcoming it. A few notes: it's not necessarily normal to be sad, and you can work to not be sad. Depression obviously has roots in brain chemistry and all that, but exercise and socialization helps mitigate the negatives. Sadness is often brought on by the person themself. They are intensely critical of their choices and get caught in a self-blaming loop. Work on being kinder to yourself. There are many ways to view different situations—choose the positive one. [!psychology]
The Last Hunter Gatherers: A photographer joins the Hadza during hunts and experiences their way of life—complete foragers, no agriculture. [!culture]
Pointer Pointer: Thousands of pictures that will point to where your cursor is on the screen. [!fun]
Kim Jong Un’s Undercover Adolescent Years in Switzerland: KJU spent grades 6-9 in Bern under another alias. [!history]
Things I Never Knew About Skiing Until I Was a Private Instructor in Aspen: From exclusive gangs to fat tips from big-name celebrities, ski instructors in Aspen (and likely other ski resort towns) seem to have a pretty nice life. [!culture]
I Thought Silicon Valley Burnout Couldn’t Happen to Me, But Then It Did: The writer shares her story with burnout: the long hours, constantly answering emails and writing down new ideas and thinking about work. I see myself in her during my time at my old workplace. I would answer emails as soon as I got them (although it was more just one of my quirks, I hate seeing an unread message). I would stay late and go in on weekends to help students with issues. I was soon feeling occasionally burnt out, but it fluctuated. Some nights I would go to bed giddy with excitement at the following day's work, while other days I would slog through my tasks for the day. I am a firm believer that no one can work more than 60-70 hours per week without feeling some degree of burnout. Being conservative in your time commitment and setting strict rules for yourself (e.g., no bringing work home) can help ward burnout off for some time. [!productivity, !culture]
You Are Never Entitled to Your Opinion: Some "opinions" are objectively wrong. Saying "well, I think coronavirus is fake" is objectively wrong. As Hanson writes, "beliefs are not about you...[but] about the world". Some people have a hard time accepting this, but it's the truth (or so I believe). [!psychology]
The Effects of Peanut Butter on the Rotation of the Earth: Despite no calculations provided, the conclusion is trustworthy. More fun articles with similar content can be found here and here. [!fun, !science]
Dancing mania: During the 14-17th centuries, mass dance parties were held until people literally collapsed. Theories include cults, stress relief, and illness, but there's no conclusive evidence. If this occurred today, I daresay world peace would be achieved. The closest we've gotten is this guy starting a dance party from scratch. [!fun, !history]
Hidden cities: Eternal September-like events are not just for online, but in-person, too. Small towns that are discovered and subsequently touted for their beauty and uniqueness can have their cultures destroyed by tourism; what was once truly a small town now grows to meet the tourism demand, changing the feel entirely. While the food or scenery may still be the same, it's just not the same as it once was. So I say go off the beaten path. If Yelp or another website tells you to go there, don't. Go explore and see if you can find your own small town that has yet to be discovered by the roving masses looking and don't tell anybody about it. [!culture]
Incentives in publication and online comments: "Why make one 10x effort paper when you will serve your interests much better and with lower risks making 10 1x effort papers?" After all, the 10 1x papers will still be accepted and people will likely enjoy the work, while the one 10x paper will only have a marginally-greater impact, i.e., people won't notice you put in 10x the effort. PhD students often have publication requirements set by their professor: publish X papers and I'll let you graduate. While this is one measure of progress, it fails to include quality in that measure. One of my professors, Dr. Edward Dougherty, is a big advocate of good science. I once heard him freely describe a student's paper as "steaming garbage" (or something to that effect). He believes to put out a truly decent paper on cancer takes many years, not the 1-2 that most papers nowadays get finished in. And yet those who produce more papers are viewed as higher value to potential employers, academia or industry. The current structure of publication incentive should change. I'm not sure to what or how to go about doing so, but the amount of poor papers published in poor journals with poor reviewers only discourages quality science from happening. (All this is not to say that all papers which are produced in a short time period are poor.) Also see Meditations on Moloch and Who's Afraid of Peer Review? [!science, !culture]
Who's Afraid of Peer Review?: Bohannon creates a blatantly fake papers using a Mad Lib-style approach and submits them to open-access journals with (not) surprising results. [!science, !culture]
Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine: Why we need big chips for Deep Learning: Short article describing the logic in designing the largest chip ever (>46,000 mm₂, 1.2 trillion transistors, 400,000 cores!) to be optimized for deep learning applications. In a nutshell, more calculations are performed and communication improved by "1) more/better cores, 2) more memory close to cores, and 3) more low-latency bandwidth between cores." More information can be found in the Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine: An Introduction document. [!technology]
Idea Generation: How to test ideas you have for startups. [!technology]
95%-ile isn't that good: With some dedicated practice, time, and effort, virtually anyone can become 95%-ile or greater in something. The formula is simple: establish background knowledge (read a book, watch videos, etc), practice, and get feedback (preferably from an expert, but others with some experience can be helpful, or even yourself). For example, a relative of mine is an excellent poker player: he entered in the World Series of Poker and made it past the first two rounds. To get this good, he read a book, took notes, interviewed players, read another book, and kept practicing in his free time. That's it. The path to getting good at something is straightforward, all that's needed is time and smart, focused effort. [!psychology, !culture, !productivity, !useful]
GitHub Archive Program: GitHub is storing public repositories in Svalbard, Norway. This is for future societies and is designed to last 1,000 years or more. [!history, !technology]
RAND Research: A collection of research performed by RAND Corporation, a U.S.-based think tank. Topics include healthcare, gun laws, education, employment, foreign affairs, and many more. They also offer the Pardee RAND Graduate School, a public policy PhD program. See Soldiers of Reason (my review) for a history of RAND. [!technology, !science, !economics]
A New Breed of Drug Dealer Has Turned Buying Drugs into a Treasure Hunt: The Russian darknet market Hydra uses "drops" to deliver drugs, rather than the traditional disguise of a letter or package in the mail. [!culture]
The Best Textbooks on Every Subject: An attempt to compile of a list of the best textbooks on various subjects. Posters must satisfy (via honor system) a few rules: "have read at least two other textbooks on that same subject" and "explain why [the] chosen textbook is superior to them." Topics include: western philosophy, cognitive science, logic for philosophy, economics, statistics, music theory, business, machine learning, algorithms, electrodynamics, self-help, probability theory, linguistics, neuroscience, thermodynamics, algebra, calculus, linear algebra, differential equations. [!useful, !productivity, !economics, !science, !technology, !important]
Special Atomic Demolition Munition: A wearable nuclear weapon that was developed in the case of a Soviet invasion. Picture of man jumping with one here. [!history, !technology]
Wikivoyage itineraries: A list of various intra- and inter-continental voyages with details on safety, history, and other information. Follow in the footsteps of Marco Polo or cross the Himalayas via the Karakoram Highway. [!useful]
68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice: A mix of fun(ny), wise, and practical pieces of advice. I especially agree with: [!productivity, !useful, !culture]
- "The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth, to flossing." Habits are a big part of my life, and having to spend energy on all of them would take too much energy. See Kuhn's Make your habits zero-effort.
- "Saving money and investing money are both good habits. Small amounts of money invested regularly for many decades without deliberation is one path to wealth." A reasonable statement, but one that eludes most people. The Richest Man in Babylon stresses this approach on the path to wealth.
- "Acquiring things will rarely bring you deep satisfaction. But acquiring experiences will."
- "Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures." This goes for both physical objects and things in your mind.
Enemy at the Grates: The story of humans' war on rats and their destructive behavior. See the R.A.T.S, a NYC group that use their terriers (which were originally bred to hunt rats) to hunt and kill rats. A similar issue in the southern U.S. are hogs, which do approximately $400 million in damage every year. You can even take a helicopter to go hog hunting. [!history]
My weekly review habit: I've found that a major part of improvement is simply reviewing past performances. Luu claims this in his 95%-ile isn't that good essay and it's worked for me, too. Constant iterations of "how did X go > how can I improve X" compound over the long run, weeding out productivity killers and other dead weight. While I don't do 3-4 hour weekly reviews, I do a small 10-minute review daily: summary, gratitude, and improvements (which normally consist of not watching as many YouTube videos). [!productivity]
Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ! What is quantum supremacy and what is the impact of Google's Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor paper? [!technology, !science, !important]
Computer science skills across China, India, Russia, and the United States: U.S. computer science students were found to score consistently higher than their counterparts in China, India, and Russia (p = 0.000 for all). [!technology]
Impossible to Understand Reality: A first-time LSD user's experience with the drug. The atemporal experience is the most interesting part to me. [!psychology]
Erfurt latrine disaster: When too many nobles gathered in one room, their combined weight caused the floor to collapse, leading them to drown in the excrement below. [!history, !fun]
Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive? Morris employs the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, which is used to compress files into .zip, .rar, etc. format, to see just how repetitive songs are. [!fun, !technology, !culture]
A Pickpocket's Tale: The story of Apollo Robbins, a renowned pickpocket. His skill is attention diversion, which allows him to take from areas where the victim isn't focused on. This is further proof that if you have a unique skill and are one of the best at it, it can likely be used in a variety of disciplines. [!psychology]
The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code: Benter wrote an algorithm that bet on horse races in Hong Kong, making close to $1 billion (yes, you read that correctly) off of it. [!technology, !unique, !culture]
Malice in Dallas: The CEOs of Southwest Airlines and Stevens Aviation took to the boxing ring to arm wrestle for rights to the slogan "Just Plane Smart". The slogan ended up being shared and donations made to charity. Why can't more things like this happen! [!fun]
This 1990s LSD Lab Built Inside An Underground Missile Silo Gave Us The World's Acid: Leonard Pickard bought a missile silo from the Air Force and used it for LSD manufacturing, producing up to one kilogram of LSD every five weeks. (The article's authenticity is questionable, as it says Jerry Garcia introduced Pickard to Skinner in 1998, but he died in 1995. Pickard's Wikipedia article clarifies it was in the former home of Garcia.) [!history, !unique]
Inside the Secretive Group Trying to Bring Down North Korea’s Regime: Free Joseon, a U.S.-based group, is responsible for evacuating the family of Kimg Jong-nam after his assassination and engineering the defection of other North Korean diplomats. [!history, !events]
World Economic Forum's Global Risk Report 2020: The four pages after the cover are worth looking into. Unsurprisingly, "weapons of mass destruction" are not likely but highly impactful, while "climate action failure" and "cyberattacks" are more likely and still impactful. [!events, !important, !technology]
Reimagining the PhD: Eghbal gives her perspective as an independent researcher and provides some suggestions on how to get the most out of independent research. Her new book, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, comes out 4 August 2020. [!useful, !productivity]
Self-Locatingly Uncertain Psilocybin Trip Report by an Anonymous Reader: A mushroom trip report. [!psychology]
Evidence grows that peopling of the Americas began more than 20,000 years ago. [!history]
'Perplexed ... Perplexed': On Mob Justice in Nigeria: Vigilante lynchings and beatings are still common in Nigeria. Simply being accused of a crime, including "penis theft" (yes, you read that correctly), can put your life in danger in the matter of seconds, where escaping is up to quick wit or quick feet. [!culture]
Why experiments matter and why we hate them: "From steroids to social policy, what works and what doesn’t is often surprising". [!science, !psychology]
Shirky’s Law and why (most) social software fails: To make social software successful, keep it simple and dedicated to one thing (at least for the beginning stages). Look at Snapchat: at the beginning it was only pictures and videos, 10 seconds maximum. Only once they were established did the venture into major ads and other features (filters, friend maps). [!psychology, !culture, !technology]
Alan Kay's Reading List: List of books recommended by Alan Kay, one of the pioneers of objected-oriented programming. [!useful]

June 2020

The Secrets of the World's Greatest Art Thief: Social engineering at its finest, Stéphane Breitwieser stole more than $1.4 billion worth of art, most of the time in the middle of the afternoon right under people's noses. [!unique, !history]
Brocken spectre: A massive shadow produced by standing atop a mountain when the sun is beginning to rise. Mist or low-hanging clouds required. [!nature]
Quantum suicide and immortality (basic explanation here): Interesting thought experiment based on the many-worlds interpretation. [!science, !philosophy]
Chicago Tylenol murders: A series of murders in Chicago after someone poisoned Tylenol (pre-tamper-resistant packaging) with potassium cyanide. This led to tamper safety seals being implemented across many industries, with Johnson & Johnson leading the response. [!history, !events]
ReviewMeta: Checks the reliability of Amazon reviews and filters out unreliable/fake reviews, giving the user and adjusted product rating. How it works here. [!useful]
Electrostatic Wall: "This 'invisible wall' was strong enough to prevent humans from passing through". Explanation here. [!unique, !science]
Physics Special Topics archive from University of Leicester: A collection of funny, interesting, and bizarre papers from physics students. Titles include "How Many Lies Could Pinocchio Tell?", "How Hot Is Tatooine", and "How Hungry Was The Very Hungry Caterpillar?". [!science, !unique]
The unreasonable effectiveness of one-on-ones: A great write-up of how one-on-ones improved the author's SO's life and his management style. This motivated me to start 1:1's. The main topics the author discussed with his employees were: personal habits and self-improvements, project management, communication, alignment, and uncertainties. You can see Guzey's personal writeup here. Mine to be posted here (empty for now). [!communication, !productivity]
Networking for Nerds: Essay discussing how to go about networking, especially for so-called "nerds." Tactics are suggested, but comes down to the main point: make it easy. [!communication]
How to make friends over the internet: The main part of meeting people is simply reaching out, and ocial media (especially Twitter and Reddit) easily allow that. On social media, "be somebody people want to follow" and "create the opportunities to be discovered" (simply by reaching out). Supplementary Twitter Guide by Lama Al Rajih here. [!communication]
Twitching with Twight: One of Mark Twight's most famous essays, basically telling you to screw the recipe life ("mix one high school diploma with an undergrad degree … a poorly built house in a cul de sac … working for a board that doesn't give a [expletive] about you") and live how you want. I first read this in his book, Kiss or Kill. If you enjoy this piece, I suggest reading the book. RAZE Anthology is a good follow-up on Twight's philosophy and outlook on life. [!philosophy, !favorites]
Atomik Vodka: Website for vodka produced from the Chernobyl zone near Pripyat. Distillation was used to reduce radiation from the grain (paper here). [!nature, !unique, !science]
Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone: Everyone, including institutions with journal access, are using Sci-Hub to access papers. Convenience and reliability trumps the institution's lack of library structure and inconsistency in paper results. Started by Kazakhstani student Alexandra Elbakyan, who is now in hiding due to major lawsuit filed by Elsevier. [!science]
4:01 mile training log of Steve Magness, a high-schooler who ran 4:01 for a full mile. Goes to show the time commitment and dedication require. [!fitness]
Internet Search Tips: A collection of tips and tricks to make Google searches more effective. Adding a basic term like "site:[website]" can filter many results, allowing the search results to be more concise and desirable. [!productivity]
The Man with the Golden Airline Ticket: The story of the American Airlines AAirpass and Steven Rothstein's experience using it. For just $250,000, the cardholder can fly an unlimited amount of miles for as long as they live—no catch. For an extra $150,000, the cardholder can add a travel companion with the same privileges. AA grossly underestimated Rothstein's yearly travel, eventually finding a loophole in the terms and conditions to revoke his pass due to so-called fraudulent behavior (Rothstein would offer strangers to be his designated companion, leaving AA out of one ticket—this added up). [!unique]
The Great Paper Caper: The story of Frank Bourassa, a career criminal who was able to counterfeit $200 MM using an offset printer, a German paper company that supplied 75/25% cotton/linen paper, and a farmer's garage. [!unique]
Video Speed Controller (Github): Google Chrome extension that allows speeding up, slowing down, and jumps in HTML5 videos via hotkeys. Since most videos can easily be watched at 1.25-2x speed without sacrificing information, this is a great tool for saving time. [!productivity, !useful]
Japan awards first-ever Ninja studies degree. [!unique]
105 pull-ups in a single set: Most pull-ups I've ever seen done in a single set without a single arm hang (which makes it significantly easier). His 8 year-old son did 53 pull-ups—like father, like son. [!fitness]
Feynman Lectures of Physics: The entire collection of Richard Feynman's undergraduate physics lecture for free. Mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism, and quantum mechanics are all discussed. Explanations are all very intuitive and detailed. A great resource for both physics students and laypeople looking to learn more. I also recommend reading Feynman's book, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (my review here). [!science]
There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, a lecture given by Richard Feynman in 1959, discussing nanotechnology. Read more about nanotechnology here. I also recommend reading Feynman's book, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (my review here). [!science]
Twitter thread on traveling to Beijing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The precautions taken by both passengers and the airline show the seriousness in which they took the virus. [!culture]
World's first webcam was used to monitor a coffee pot. The coffee machine even has it's own Wikipedia here. [!technology, !unique]