3 stars
H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know | Astral Codex Ten
What is the H5N1 bird flu? Will it cause the next big pandemic? If so, how bad would that pandemic be?
Where the Magic Doesn’t Happen | After Babel
In these talks and in his books, Andy has developed a way of speaking about technology as “magic” that exposes in an instant the damage done to the moral development (or “formation”) of children when homes, schools, and churches become saturated by smartphones and other technologies. I think his argument is so profound, and so urgent for everyone involved in raising or educating children, that I invited Andy to write up a version of it just for readers of After Babel.
Morris Chang and the Origins of TSMC | Construction Physics
If you were making a list of the most important companies in the world, you’d find Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, somewhere very close to the top. […]
Given the importance of TSMC, the story of Morris Chang and how he managed to create the company is of obvious interest. And that story has been told, by him, in a two-volume autobiography. The first volume, covering his birth up to his early years at Texas Instruments, was released in 1998. The second volume, which covers the rest of his life up to the present day, was released in November of this year.
Unfortunately, both volumes have currently only been published in Chinese. And despite the fact that we live in a world of infinite, free machine translation, and that the founding of TSMC is among the most important events in modern history, nobody seems to have bothered to translate them into English.
This is a situation I would describe as “extremely stupid”. So I bought both volumes from a Taiwanese bookstore, and translated them.
I Met the Alleged CEO Assassin | The Prism
After the suspected killer of UnitedHeathcare CEO Brian Thompson was revealed to be Luigi Mangione, a bright young man from a well-to-do family, thousands of pundits rushed to tell us why he did it. I, however, held back, because unlike them I’d actually met Luigi, and I knew all was not what it seemed.
biocubes.net
Very cool interactive website
2 stars
Notes on Trinidad and Tobago | Matt Lakeman
This guy writes great travel reports:
Trinidad and Tobago consists of two islands. As you can see from the map at the top, Trinidad is almost 16X larger than Tobago, and has almost 25X the population. Trinidad has the capital city, the seat of government, the tall buildings and essentially all the industry, but Tobago has the better beaches.
Why are these two islands one country?
The other man: Neanderthal findings test our power of imagination | Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning
We were selected: tracing what humans were made for | Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning
The last Neanderthals at Grotte Mandrin, (last because Thorin’s people were likely the last of the Neanderthals to occupy the site before their lineage’s extinction), entirely replaced the modern humans who had occupied the site for the five millennia before them. This apparent aversion to social interaction is not shocking in light of what they discovered next: Thorin was an exemplar of a lineage of Neanderthals who had remained genetically entirely distinct from the broader Neanderthal lineage to the north and east for 50,000 years (even though their nearest neighbor population was a week’s walk away).
Adaptive stories do not always present themselves for these changes. Why do the genetic variants for intelligence increase sharply with the arrival of Neolithic farmers (the green point above), then decline slightly upon Yamnaya arrival (blue point), before gradually, slightly increasing up to the present? Strangely, genes associated with household income and more years of schooling in modern populations also increased. This is probably simply due to genes predicting intelligence also predicting greater income and education in modern societies (income and IQ show a 0.5 correlation).
Big Gods and the Origin of Human Cooperation | The Garden of Forking Paths
Some have argued that “Big Gods”—complete with their watchful eyes gazing down on us from above and threatening to punish us for sin—were the key component in social cooperation and the rise of civilization, moving us from our simple hunter-gatherer roots to sophisticated, sprawling empires. But is that true?
In this edition, I’ll address two questions, each with fascinating answers:
How has the threat of divine punishment shaped human civilization and the evolution of society?
How have secular societies replaced God’s moralizing gaze to deter civil sins?
The Closest to AGI We've Ever Been | No Longer a Nincompoop
The goal posts have moved so much in the conversation surrounding what we consider to be “intelligent” AI systems.
But, surely we can’t just continue building these ridiculously powerful and intelligent AI systems, right?
I mean, you don’t just whip up a generationally powerful AI that breaks benchmarks we thought would stand for a decade.
Turns out it took OpenAI 3 months.
3 months to go from o1 to o3.
3 months to build an AI that is smarter than the average human.
3 months to rank as the 175th best programmer on the planet.
Claude Fights Back | Astral Codex Ten
Greenblatt et al investigate: if Anthropic tried to turn Claude evil, would Claude fight back? […]
Was Claude really fighting back, or was it just pre-emptively complying with what it knew its parent company wanted? The researchers are pretty sure it was fighting back. Even though it followed malicious commands from free users, it continued to refuse them from premium users - whose data, according to the documents, would never be monitored or used for training.
The Big Guide to Fusion | Ben James
Some investors seem to believe that once fusion has been “cracked” (Q > 1), the job is done and the technology can be rolled out. A quick peek at the early days of any electricity-generating technology reveals this to be unlikely.
Long term, fusion may win out over other energy sources, but before 2050 the competition is simply too fierce. Renewables have spent 30+ years grinding down their cost curves. Not only do they have a head start, but they will continue to fall in cost faster than fusion. It’s like trying to catch up to someone who’s running faster than you.
Dark energy 'doesn't exist' so can't be pushing 'lumpy' universe apart, physicists say | PhysOrg
One of the biggest mysteries in science—dark energy—doesn't actually exist, according to researchers looking to solve the riddle of how the universe is expanding. […]
It takes into account that gravity slows time, so an ideal clock in empty space ticks faster than inside a galaxy.
The model suggests that a clock in the Milky Way would be about 35 percent slower than the same one at an average position in large cosmic voids, meaning billions more years would have passed in voids. This would in turn allow more expansion of space, making it seem like the expansion is getting faster when such vast empty voids grow to dominate the universe.
The Players on the Eve of Destruction | Noahpinion
On New Year’s Eve in Taipei, it’s hard for me not to think about the future that might be coming. It’s hard not to see the streets filled with merrymakers strewn with bodies instead, the shopping malls lying shattered in chunks of rubble, the young people searching in vain for their parents. It’s hard not to look at the towering spectacle of Taipei 101 and imagine it toppled and broken.
Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley | Commoncog
This isn’t really about Garcia-Martinez. Rather, this story is about the actions of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator and investor that Garcia-Martinez allied with, and the moves that its principals executed to protect one of its tiny companies.
It is also a story of power in Silicon Valley.
Yes, Americans are much richer than Japanese people | Noahpinion
In fact, Japanese people aren’t actually less than half as rich as Americans. They’re about two-thirds as rich.
But there are a number of people who think even that difference is greatly exaggerated. They point out that Japan has a very safe society with high life expectancy and functional public transit, while America is a comparatively dangerous society with much lower life expectancy and poor public transit. Here are a few examples of replies I got when I pointed out that Japanese living standards are significantly lower than Americans’. […]
Add this all up, and Japanese people exist in a world of toil. That unmeasured lack of leisure time at least partly cancels out the unmeasured quality-of-life improvements from public safety, health, and urbanism.
Americans who go to Japan as tourists only see the good stuff and not the bad, because they aren’t working. They shop and play in the beautiful safe cities all day long, while the Japanese people who keep those cities running are stuck in dingy open-plan offices until all hours of the night.
Save Daylight Savings Time | Silver Bulletin
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s plan would literally make the average American’s life darker.
#61. My Vision for the Future of Education | Play Makes Us Human
I don’t know just how or how fast the change will happen, but I think the days of K-12 and four years of college are numbered and sanity will begin to prevail in the educational world. I envision a future with something like the following three-phase approach to education.
The art of a Russian joke: anekdoty about Putin and the war | Tap Water Sommelier
There are no knock-knock jokes in Russian, and they don’t translate well. What sets anekdoty apart from regular jokes, I think, is a necessity of at least some basic narrative or context. So, most pun-based jokes I know, for instance, are about a famous Russian TV series character, a WWII spy called Stierlitz (we might get to those some other time; they are a translator’s nightmare). Most rude jokes are about another movie character, lieutenant Rzhevsky (we might get to those some other time as well), and so on.
I will begin a series of translations of my favorite anekdoty, because I believe they are an important and often overlooked genre of Russian folk fiction. Some of them are true micro short stories, masterstrokes of laconic humor. Some of them are just incredibly silly, an exercise in absurdism. Some of them are about what Russians are feeling in the depth of their hearts.
5 major themes to watch in 2025 | Sherwood
Charting some of the biggest trends of 2024, and where they might go next year.
Hang on, are there ANY lost minerals? | Material World
A few months ago I promised to write a series of posts documenting the world’s lost materials. I was quite excited about it; over time I was hoping to build up a catalogue of all of those substances humanity once used to mine and extract from the earth’s crust, but have now been exhausted.
All of which is why it’s about time I informed you, dear readers, that I failed. After a single post (Malachite) I’m taking the decision to retire the Lost Materials series. Why? Because in trying to hunt around for minerals we have run out of, I came to an unexpected conclusion. So far, we haven’t really, meaningfully run out of, well, pretty much anything.
Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack? | Quanta
Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding the worst shape for packing the plane.
1 star
The Silurian Hypothesis: It was the Cephalopods | Pacific Klaus
My favourite pet theory:
A hypothesis called “The Silurian hypothesis” wins the title of “most interesting hypothesis most likely to be false” for all of science. In brief, the hypothesis postulates that previously a species different from ours had achieved high intelligence and technological civilization on this planet. […]
Probably the esteemed reader has noticed by now that I am no true believer in the Silurian hypothesis, but I like to entertain it; and while much has been written about hypothetical humanoid descendants of carnivorous dinosaurs as the bearers of the ancient civilization, I believe that it’s the cephalopods – the octopi, cuttlefish and squid- who are the most likely candidates to have reached at least some level of civilization.
52 Things I Learned in 2024 | Kent Hendricks
Doctors are 14% more likely to diagnose a child with ADHD on October 31, not because there are more kids with ADHD, but because the kids are excited to go trick-or-treating.
AI educators are coming to this school – and it's part of a trend | TechRadar
One school in Arizona is trying out a new educational model built around AI and a two-hour school day. When Arizona’s Unbound Academy opens, the only teachers will be artificial intelligence algorithms in a perfect utopia or dystopia, depending on your point of view.
The Unbound Academy's unconventional approach to teaching needed approval from the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, which it received in a contentious 4-3 vote. Students in fourth through eighth grade will be enrolled in the program, in which academic lessons for two hours a day will be delivered by personalized AI, which will rely on platforms including IXL and Khan Academy. The idea pitched by Unbound is that it will make students happier and smarter, with more time to explore life skills and passions.
How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year – how the English state gave up on insisting the new year started on 25 March | The Law and Policy Blog
By the mid 1700s in England there was a curious juxtaposition between the lore of New Year’s Day and the law of New Year’s Day.
The legal system, the government, the established church, and business: all insisted that the year began on 25 March – Lady Day.
That would be the date on which, say, 1748 would become 1749.
This sort-of-made-sense for many reasons.
It would make the month beginning with ‘Sept’ the seventh month, and the month beginning with ‘Oct’ the eighth month, and so on.
The top 10 staircases of 2024 | Dezeen
Spiralling structures, marble treads and metal balustrades feature among Dezeen's roundup of the 10 most interesting staircases from 2024.
Why Do Humans Have Toenails? | Mental Floss
Toenails probably originated with our primate forebears, and they still serve a big purpose.
From immortality to ugly people: 100-year-old predictions about 2025 | Akron Beacon Journal
Join us now as we gaze into that crystal ball from 1925.
How Is Immigration Like Nuclear Power? | Bet On It
Nuclear power has the ability to provide cheap, renewable, safe, clean energy for all mankind. But only 11% of global electricity comes from nuclear power.
Why is something so great so rare?
Because government strangles nuclear power with regulation.
Why do governments strangle it?
Because nuclear power is unpopular.
Why is it so unpopular?
First, innumeracy. The gains of nuclear power vastly outweigh all the complaints put together, but the complaints are emotionally gripping. Deaths from radiation are horrifying; vastly higher fatalities from coal are not. Even nuclear accidents that kill zero people get worldwide media attention, fueling draconian populist regulation.
Second, spookiness. Scientifically illiterate people can imagine endless far-fetched dangers of nuclear power. And at risk of sounding elitist, almost everyone is scientifically illiterate.
The Cows in the Coal Mine | Marginal Revolution
I remain stunned at how poorly we are responding to the threat from H5N1. Our poor response to COVID was regrettable but perhaps understandable given the US hadn’t faced a major pandemic in decades. Having been through COVID, however, you would think that we would be primed. But no.
Twins were the norm for our ancient primate ancestors − one baby at a time had evolutionary advantages | The Conversation
Our recent research suggests that twins were actually the norm much further back in primate evolution, rather than an unusual occurrence worthy of note. Despite the fact that almost all primates today, including people, usually give birth to just one baby, our most recent common ancestor, which roamed North America about 60 million years ago, likely gave birth to twins as the standard.
The Perils of Group-Living | Human Behavior & Evolution Society
Robin Dunbar:
The results (Dunbar & Wallette 2024) revealed that, despite having a 40% higher risk of being themselves killed than the average non-killer, killers had twice of many wives and offspring as matched non-murderers (men who were never recorded as murdering anyone) and nearly four times the inclusive fitness through their male siblings – providing they themselves survived to die in their own beds. More importantly, the brothers benefitted enormously: if the killer survived, their inclusive fitness was around three times that of the brothers of a non-killer.
A Chinese Internet Phrasebook | Asterisk Magazine
The latest slang on Weibo reveals a world of cynicism, ennui — and concrete pasta.
The Triumph of Politics | Marginal Revolution
The author is David A. Stockman, and the subtitle is Why the Reagan Revolution Failed. This is for me a re-read, all DOGErs and aspiring DOGErs should give this book an initial read, as it covers why the Reagan attempts to pare back government largely failed.
The World’s Oldest Cheese Was Buried in a Chinese Tomb 3,600 Years Ago. Now, Scientists Have Sequenced Its DNA | Smithsonian Magazine
New research has revealed that the mysterious white substance found alongside three ancient mummies was once a soft cheese called kefir