Things I Learnt in March 2021
From VR and artificial life to money and the history of the equality symbol
More interesting
Virtual Reality is mind-blowing! Experiencing it for yourself is the only way to understand. Via my own experience after buying an Oculus Quest 2.
Xenobots are new organisms designed by a computer algorithm.
There are various attempts being made to store data in DNA, and this article describes one of the latest attempts.
The Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction is a chemical reaction that oscillates back and forth, with the colour of the mixture switching between blue and orange. And other physical systems that have curious behaviours, like metronomes that sync up automatically, tidal locking and firefly’s syncing up. Via Veritasium video on Synchronization.
Children are vastly under-estimated by most of society: they are exceptionally robust, they are fully realised people, their behaviour is not random but makes sense, and they care. Via Duncan Sabien.
The distinction between convex and concave utility functions. The punchline is that in some situations a compromise between two options gives the best results, but in other situations going all-in either of the two options gives the best results. Via interview of Vitalik Buterin on Rationally Speaking podcast.
Jacob Falkovich used the power of money and prices to vastly improve how chores were allocated during their time in the Isreali military. They introduced a ‘bummer currency’ where you gained bummer points for doing chores and had to pay to skip chores for the day. “Money is magic, and you don’t need to run a central bank to be a wizard.” Via their blogpost describing the whole thing.
The financial industry provides various tangible benefits to society, which most people (including me!) do not appreciate. Via Jacob Falkovich.
Jacob Falkovich and many other people in ‘rationality community’ were at least a few weeks ahead of the curve on reacting to covid. See, for example, this blogpost by Jacob on 27th February 2020.
Less interesting
A new and large study suggests that TV advertising is basically useless. Via Freakonomics Radio.
Melissa Bell, a co-founder of Vox, has an excellent ice-breaker activity: have everybody think about something they have expertise in for 30 seconds (without them knowing this is for an ice-breaker), and then tell them to say hello to person next to them and share what they are expertise in! Via their talk on lessons for upcoming journalists.
Fungi is fascinating. Via Stephen Axford, a hobbyist whose timelapse videos of fungi are used in all of the top documentaries on BBC, Netflix, etc.
AI algorithms can take a picture of a face, say of an person from 100 years ago or of a statue, and bring it to life by creating a little video of the face looking around, blinking and smiling. Via theverge.
The equality symbol = was invented to represent equality because it consists of two lines of equal length. “I will sette a paire of parralles bicause noe 2, thynges, can be moare equalle.” From this webpage describing the etymology of various mathematical symbols.
The UK Government has a surprisingly helpful and thorough guide for writing.
You ought to make loans within family / close friendship groups. The alternative means throwing away interest to a third person. Via Jacob Falkovich.
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson gives a gut-punching sense of how things could realistically progress with regard to climate change.
The bureuacracy in Interval Review Boards for (psychology) research is excessive and non-sensical. Via Scott Alexander’s post about their nightmarish experience.
The result of New York Times doing A/B testing on their headlines is more click-bait. Via somebody’s excellent analysis by scraping headline data for several weeks.
The majority of people working at Bletchley Park, the UK’s centre for code-breaking during WW2, were women. Via an interview of Sue Black on the Turing Podcast.
Category Theory, a particularly abstract part of mathematics, has applications in data management. Via The Data Exchange podcast.