Favourite things of 2022
This year I decided to get into dancing. I actually got into kayaking, gelato, Haskell. I theorised country music.
This year I quit nicotine. Zyban works! For a while.
Work
- I worked 2103 hours, not counting fun stuff like the blog.
- Arb
- Proposal about developmental neuroscience and AI.
- Proposal about backfiring AI safety
- Off Road launch and handover.
- Emergency research teams: writing and executive search.
- Running an ESPR camp.
Other
- I learned Haskell tolerably (did Euler).
for
loops are now hopelessly ugly to me.
Breakthroughs
- Epstein-Barr as principal cause of multiple sclerosis
- Immune therapy for MS https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1513931415712374789
- https://twitter.com/NeelNanda5/status/1559060507524403200
- Q > 1 (fusion).
- DALLE-2
- Stem cell embryogenesis
- Pan-influenza vaccine
- Small modular reactor, NuScale
- GLP agonist prescriptions take off
- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63937438
Papers
https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010316 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.09238.pdf
- https://transformer-circuits.pub/2022/toy_model/index.html
- A Neural Network Solves and Generates Mathematics Problems by Program Synthesis
- https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2203150119
- https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248793
- Generalizing in the Real World with Representation Learning
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.01191.pdf
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.07287
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.00671
- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9996601
- https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/1/e053820
- https://openreview.net/forum?id=mxi1xKzNFrb
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010027712002326
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691614556679
- https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/handbook_chapter.pdf
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.08289
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.01167.pdf
- Citing Fiction
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0020174X.2022.2124542
- https://turingarchive.kings.cam.ac.uk/publications-lectures-and-talks-amtb/amt-b-6
- https://philpapers.org/rec/KAHWEW
- Cremer
- https://twitter.com/hashtag/RobSelects
- https://mariokrenn.wordpress.com/fancy-science/
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.07870.pdf
- https://www.liamkofibright.com/uploads/4/8/9/8/48985425/on_being_of_some_use_lkb.pdf
- https://www.newthingsunderthesun.com/pub/3wpc3plu/release/1?readingCollection=01a7b84d
- So fucking metal. Weapons to come.
- Someone actually thinking about thinking
Books
- The Chemistry Book by God
- Frank Ramsey by Misak
- Robbery Under Law by Waugh
- Learn You a Haskell by Lipovaca
- Automation and Utopia by Danaher
-
Moral Mazes by Jackall
- When We Cease to Understand the World by Labatut
- Based on a True Story by Norm
- Moby Dick
- Diaspora by Egan
- The Prince of Nothing by Bakker
- Xenocide by Card
- Shards of Honor by Bujold
- Lord of Light by Zelazny
- China Mountain Zhang by McHugh
Worst book: Mathematics for Human Flourishing
Shorts & poems
- The Borders of Infinity (short) by Lois Bujold
- deWitt, Sexual Codes
- [I Want to Be The One]
- Labatut, Prussian Blue
- Thomas Lux, ‘Motel Seedy’, Fridge
- Onions
- Dirge
- Glasses
- The Utilityverse
Essays and sites
- I hope so much this is wrong. Used to hate the author but I read this blinded and came out very impressed.
- Good easy picture of what GPT changed
- The best essay on psychosomatic disease I’ve ever read. The key is compassion; he understands that even when purely mental or “functional neurological”, disease is real and deserves care. And yet awareness raising and the urge to medicalise seems to have massive costs.
- One of the best products of the Tumblr Mindset. On the surface it’s about transphobia, but this is too narrow.
- With you other idiots, I have been misreading Omelas for ever.
- Jan Kirchner: on scaling academia
- Jan Kirchner: on not reading papers
- https://universalprior.substack.com/p/the-brain-that-builds-itself?sd=pf&s=r
- metaismurder the charisma of leaders
- https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/how-to-keep-cakes-moist-and-cause
- buy things
- How the world works
- https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n11/jonathan-meades/hatpin-through-the-brain
- https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost-always-work
- https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/motivated-reasoning-as-mis-applied
- https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-sadly-porn
- https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/justice-creep?s=r
- https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/criticism-of-criticism-of-criticism
- https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-prophet-and-caesars-wife
- https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/california-gubernatorial-candidates?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyODY4OTQxLCJwb3N0X2lkIjo1NjAxNTk0NiwiXyI6IkhKSWp1IiwiaWF0IjoxNjUzNDI3MDczLCJleHAiOjE2NTM0MzA2NzMsImlzcyI6InB1Yi04OTEyMCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.HJ33JceUkwVVMFy9feKdagGQ22jdCocDr3YlTdenF-A&s=r
- https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/681995334169346048/prokopetz-the-fun-thing-about-speedrunning-is
- https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/CjFZeDD6iCnNubDoS/humans-provide-an-untapped-wealth-of-evidence-about
- https://guzey.com/theses-on-sleep/
- https://afeteworsethandeath.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-echo-chambers
- https://jaydaigle.net/blog/replication-crisis-math/
- https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2021/03/01/dolly-parton-and-the-danger-of-doing-what-you-love/
- https://dynomight.net/thanks-2/
- https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sDk3RziupmzShN2RN/cryptoepistemology
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uWs2PnvYsjXMnQ9GSECx1LkZObTk3T-99rwsQ_Jab_k/edit
- https://anarchonomicon.substack.com/p/cocytarchy
- https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/
- https://popehat.substack.com/p/alex-jones-at-the-tower-of-babel
- https://reasonablypolymorphic.com/blog/monotonous-web/index.html
- Lewis-Kraus on MacAskill
- I Should Be Able To Mute America
- https://carcinisation.com/2022/09/07/the-limits-of-help/
- https://aella.substack.com/p/learning-the-elite-class
- https://cungadero.tumblr.com/post/693894720342179840/cungadero-who-wants-a-list-of-some-of-my-best https://just-evo-now.tumblr.com/post/695080473435783168/just-evo-now-just-evo-now-just-evo-now
- I was moved to tears by Stewart Brand, John Bull
Vids
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XWEVoI40sE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHOn8u-c2wk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJ6_GAprFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Mx42zOet4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoZUjxstIZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq5inG547JA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhXSlFjODvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-DH4owYP1k&list=LL&index=10
Tweets
https://twitter.com/xuenay/status/1546453510920830978 https://twitter.com/sp_monte_carlo/status/1478783658714673159 https://twitter.com/the_aiju/status/1495582144009285632 https://twitter.com/zacharylipton/status/1488669529005821953 https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1509832349986562048 https://twitter.com/micefearboggis/status/1554851031670001667 https://twitter.com/DanSchkade/status/1560552093684903938/photo/4 https://twitter.com/jackclarksf/status/1555980412333133824 https://twitter.com/ExileGrimm/status/1436340416513810434 https://twitter.com/ben_j_todd/status/1504439141924278278 https://twitter.com/BasisOfCulture/status/1505248977804951552 https://twitter.com/AgnesCallard/status/1507355908321468422 https://twitter.com/bantablack/status/1510289000812228609 https://twitter.com/land_planarian/status/1511549227658141705 https://twitter.com/XanderManshel/status/1538150707060215808 https://twitter.com/georainbolt/status/1554648828275347456 https://twitter.com/Wiglet1981/status/1580197903007907842 https://twitter.com/ben_golub/status/1582224782728495109 https://twitter.com/drewcoffman/status/1590527437418684417
Films / TV
- The Lighthouse
- Top Secret
- Invention for Destruction
- Uncut Gems
- EEAAO
- The General
Podcasts
-
Games
- Inscryption
- Two Crowns
- Backpack Hero
- Star Traders
- https://sdkgames.itch.io/ecocoru
- Iris and the Giant
- The Devil’s Calculator
Albums
- Dragon New Warm Mountain (2022) by Big Thief
- Expert in a Dying Field (2022) by the Beths
- Beach House - Once Twice Melody
- Ab-Soul - Herbert
- Half Man Half Biscuit - The Voltarol Years
- Tourist - Inside Out
- Click Click (2006) by Freschard
- Spinoza (2022) by John Zorn
- Musique Citadine de L’Ere Edo (2007) by Ensemble Hijiri-Kai
- Out of the Blue (1979) by Blue Gene Tyranny
- Live at the Star-Club (1964) by Jerry Lee
- The Songs of Tony Sly (2013) by Various
- 万能青年旅店 (2010) by 万能青年旅店.
- An Elephant Sitting Still (2018) by Hualun
- A Place to Call Home by Pontus Hulgren. Fanfic music!
Songs
- ‘As the World Caves In’ by Matt Maltese
- ‘Discourse on Accents’ by Amy Walker
- ‘Better Days’ by Turner Cody
- ‘Make Me Feel’ by Janelle Monae
- ‘I Won’t Lie to You’ by Francis
- ‘Something’ by Lasgo
- ‘Piano Concerto 2’ by Rachmaninoff
- ‘Вот такой пацан’ by TalanT
- ‘Numb’ by Jerry Galeries
- ‘Acroyear2’ by Autechre
- ‘Seychelles’ by Masayoshi Takanaka
- Expert in a Dying Field (2022) by the Beths
- ‘An Ending, A Beginning’ by Dustin O’Halloran
- ‘Fantasy Baseball’ by John Samson
- ‘Swap Meet Louie’ by Sir Mixalot
- ‘Nosetalgia’, the Kendrick verse
- ‘Wow & Flutter’ by Jeffrey Lewis
- ‘Ana Ng’ by They Might Be Giants
- ‘Kids’ by Current Joys
- ‘You Can Have the Crown’ by Sturgill
- ‘Pretty Girls’ by Coco Peila
- ‘Body Terror Song’ by AJJ
- ‘Silk’ by Wolf Alice
- Op 87 by Shostakovich
- ‘Future of HUmanity’ by Tom Cardy
Deals
- Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1 9th Gen (£60) ??????