random 12:39 am
My friend Tom McCabe has uploaded several essays and papers that may interest Accelerating Future readers:
Failure and Success in AGI Projects
Optimization of Rockets with Variable Exhaust Velocity
Singularity FAQ, with Kaj Sotala
Sales in Startups
How Gold and Glory Led the Roman Republic to Greatness
A Unified Theory of Success
An Alternative Theory of Startups
There is also a short essay by Michael Vassar:
random 1:24 pm
Scientific research indicates human athletic performance has peaked
Corporations, agencies infiltrated by botnet
Dolphin cognitive abilities raise ethical questions, says Emory neuroscientist
Synchronized flying robots could paint pictures in the sky (w/ Video)
Millimeter-scale, energy-harvesting sensor system developed
Nanodiamonds Produce ‘Game Changing Event’ for MRI Imaging Sensitivity
The Onion: U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion
CNN: Bill Gates and the “Nuclear Renaissance”
Telegraph: Christians to debate impact of high-profile atheist scientists
Michael Graham Richard: Science is the Only News
random 10:50 pm
random 2:44 pm
Around 420 million years ago, during the Silurian, the ground was only colonized by non-vascular shrubs and tiny insects, except for one exception: Prototaxites. These primitive, fungus-like spires reached up to 8 m (26 ft) in height, by far the largest organisms on land at the time. For decades, paleontologists have wondered what the hell these things really were.
Now, a small group of scientists think they have the answer. Their results were recently published in the American Journal of Botany. Their article, “Structural, physiological, and stable carbon isotopic evidence that the enigmatic Paleozoic fossil Prototaxites formed from rolled liverwort mats”, is available for free for the next 30 days only.
Coming on the heels of a discovery that Ediacaran organisms had musculature, this year has been a good start for paleontology. That Ediacaran finding contradicts the doubtful paper from 2008 that asserts that giant protists may be responsible for pre-Cambrian ichnofossils attributed to early bilaterians, and another paper that argues that the Ediacaran fauna were lichens.
random 11:22 pm
Here’s an interesting article if you haven’t seen it yet. Did you know that the Marie Byrd Land is the largest patch of unclaimed land on Earth, with an area of 1.6 million sq km?
random 7:53 pm
Neuroscientists making computers smart enough to see connections between brain’s neurons
At Davos, MIT faculty discuss the nature of intelligence
Rotifers avoid sex for millions of years by blowing away
Insectlike ‘microids’ might walk, run, work in colonies
The Physical Basis of High-Throughput Atomically Precise Manufacturing
Chris Phoenix: Basic Survival Package
Air Force to use artificial intelligence and other advanced data processing to hit the enemy where it hurts
Robin Hanson: AI In Far And Near View
The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
MIT’s Mind-Machine Project: Student Position Paper
Law of probabilities backs hopes for E.T., conference hears (what a banal claim.)
NEC’s Facial Recognition Technology Achieves First Place in the Still-Face Dataset
Cube Spawn — Open Source, Flexible Manufacturing System
Mondo 1995: Up and Down With the Next Millennium’s First Magazine
Dale Carrico: Futurological Brickbats
The Onion: God’s Wrath According to Pat Robinson
Thanks to everyone who sent me links in the last week.
random 1:37 pm
Here are some quick links I’ve been meaning to post.
Video: Julian Savulescu: “Genetically Enhance Humanity or Face Extinction”
Nanowerk: A nanocomposite for electronic skin
Nanowerk: Bacteria make the artificial blood vessels of the future
LiveScience: New Device Prints Human Tissue
Alan Darwst: The Importance of Wild Animal Suffering
Science Daily: CR: Scientists Take Important Step Toward ‘Fountain of Youth’
Call for Papers: Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on Consciousness
UK Telegraph: Alcohol substitute that avoids hangovers in development
UK Telegraph: Toby Ord’s philosophy is one we all could learn from
Technology Review: The Year in Biomedicine
Michael Crichton: Complexity Theory and Environmental Management
Mark Gubrud: Nanotechnology in Warfare
Fabbaloo: O’Reilly Names 3D Printing Best Tech of The Decade, Sorta
Weird Things: Taking Brain Mapping to the Next Level
East Bay Express: Berkeley High May Cut Science Labs
The New Republic takes apart Malcolm Gladwell: Mr. Lucky
Eliezer Yudkowsky: Darwinian dynamics unlikely to apply to superintelligence
Have a Happy New Year!
random 12:30 pm
Here’s Dan Piraro, who draws the comic Bizarro, on the holiday of Thanksgiving.
random 12:21 pm
Robin Hanson on how students are too obsessed with GPA and should instead focus on original, independent research:
Students seem overly obsessed with grades and organized activities, both relative to standardized tests and to what I’d most recommend: doing something original. You don’t have to step very far outside scheduled classes and clubs to start to see how very different the world is when you have to organize it yourself.
For example, if you try to study a subject in depth without following a textbook or review, you’ll have to decide for yourself which sources seem how relevant to your topic. If you try to add something to the subject you’ll have to decide what changes are how feasible and interesting. Doing these may feel awkward at first, but they will be very useful skills later in life. Similar skills come from writing your own game or starting your own business or composing your own album.
Along with many other things that Prof. Hanson says, this sort of thing should be obvious, but neglecting it is nearly universal. How come so many of the “smart people” we all know are so focused on activities organized for them by other people?
random 5:07 pm
When popular science writers actually reference scientific literature, good things can happen, like this article by Mark Peters: “A Happy Writer Is a Lousy Writer?”
Transhumanists tremendously shocked and dissatisfied with the current state of the world relative to other possibilities can tap into this to improve their writing. Twinkly-eyed techno-utopian transhumanists can continue to produce poor writing.
random and rationality 6:35 pm
My friend and colleague Tom McCabe, who I consider one of the smartest people I know, has been Twittering some interesting stuff lately, in the last few hours especially. He has been posting a list of lies. Here is that list below, ending with #19:
A list of lies. #1: For most Americans, an Ivy League college is more expensive than other private or public colleges.
Lie #2: Most lawyers are wealthy and earn a six-figure income.
Lie #3: Teachers are poorly paid, can be easily fired, and have terrible working conditions.
Lie #4: Most millionaires wear expensive suits, have expensive watches and drive expensive foreign-made cars.
Lie #5: Recycling paper or plastic is a cost-effective way to help the environment.
Lie #6: (hopefully everyone knows this by now): Real estate always goes up.
Lie #7: The stock market returns 8-12% over the long term (real number is more like 5% including dividends.)
Lie #8: Paying to go to a no-name college is an investment, which will pay out much more than it cost in future wages.
Lie #9: Mathematics is about numbers and equations and calculations and algorithms (see http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf)
Lie #10: America is more socially mobile than the Old World (France, Germany, Scandinavia, Spain, Italy et. al.)
Lie #11: Rich people, as a general rule, pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than middle-class people.
Lie #12: There is a Biblical law prohibiting abortion.
Lie #13: Illiteracy, in the sense of not being able to read and understand newspaper, is essentially nonexistent among Western adults.
Lie #14: Health insurance is a hedge against risk, like package insurance or life insurance (it’s more like a protection racket).
Lie #15: Americans nowadays are freer than Americans in 1900, or most people in third world countries.
Lie #16: America since 1930 is essentially a capitalist, entrepreneurial, free-market society.
Lie #17: Big company mergers and acquisitions generally create value for shareholders.
Lie #18: Most people want to get rich.
# Lie #19: A majority of people who matriculate into college graduate within six years.
How many of these lies do you believe? The only one which really would surprise me is the last one.
random 1:15 pm
Rolf Nelson, a friend of mine who is working on a Silicon Valley startup, recently began writing The Rational Entrepreneur, a new blog that applies knowledge of heuristics and biases to entrepreneurship. If the first ten or so posts are any indication, he is producing quite a bit of interesting, valuable content, with daily posting.
