Favourite things of 2018

Work

Jang, ‘Dijkstra’s in Disguise’. Just astounding, technical acrobatics.
Daswani & Leike, ‘A Definition of Happiness for Reinforcement Learning Agents’
Brundage et plus al, The Malicious Use of AI
Amodei et al, ‘Concrete Problems in AI Safety’. Life-changing. The face that launched 100 PhDs.
Ziebart, Maximum Causal Entropy
Lundberg, Lee, ‘A Unified Approach to Interpreting Model Predictions’. So elegant, so useful.

Terra Ignota. The most exciting - and daft! - science fiction I have read in a decade. The only good depiction of longtermism.
The Elephant in the Brain.
Lost in Math. The German title is much, much better: ‘The Ugly Universe’ or ‘The Hateful Universe’.
Factfulness.
The Patrick Melrose Novels.
Step Aside, Pops!
Dril Official “Mr Ten Years” Collection. Distillate of Twitter and Reddit and 4chan, revealing the mess inside.
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. I won’t say that it is to True Crime what The Wire was to cop procedural tv, but.
Blindsight. Stunningly cynical.
The Earthsea Quartet. Notionally for children, but rich enough for everyone else.
Shadow of the Torturer. Read this as a teen and completely missed what’s great about it, the symbolism, the glum glimmers.
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Joy in the Morning, Right Ho, Jeeves
An Encyclopaedia of Myself
A Deepness in the Sky
The Information by Martin Amis
The Case Against Education
The Sellout
Blindsight
Inadequate Equilibria

Worst book: The Four by Scott Galloway.

Reviews here.

Scott Alexander, ‘Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia’
Scott Alexander, ‘Conflict vs Mistake’.
Scott Alexander, ‘Review of “Twelve Rules for Life”’.
Scott Alexander, ‘The Whole City is Center’.
Tom Adamczewski, series on ‘Philosophical Success Stories’ of the last century. (which are Predicate logic, Computability, Modal logic, The formalisation of probability, Bayesianism.)

Legion. The only Marvel related thing I have ever gotten excited about.
The Shape of Water. A total triumph: romance without words, without physical beauty.
Blade Runner 2049. My friend insists that this has a disgusting bioconservative / pro-life message but I disagree.
Eighth Grade.
Isle of Dogs.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Nasty but undogmatic about it.
L’avventura. I saw this in 2010 and was too immature to appreciate it. It is slow, slow as a motherfucker, but the performances make it sing.
Hateful Eight. First time I’ve really laughed at a Tarantino film since Kill Bill. And he is best as a comic.
Upgrade. Actually new action choreography. Transfixing.
The Death of Stalin
Better Call Saul. Much cleverer spin-off, relying less on spectacle.
My mate James on University Challenge.
Adventure Time. Sniff.

I don’t really listen to albums anymore.

Bob Stanley & Pete Wiggs Present State Of The Union
MF DOOM X TATSURO YAMASHITA
SOPHIE - OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES
繼續嚎叫，致敬中國朋克二十年！
矢野顕子 [Akiko Yano] - ふたりぼっちで行こう
Anna Meredith & Scottish Ensemble - ANNO: Four Seasons by Anna Meredith & Antonio Vivaldi
Half Man Half Biscuit - No One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut
輕描淡寫 [Understatement] - 小圈子