botwerks

books seeing with fresh eyes: meaning, space, data, truth (edward tufte) - basically a picture book for information dweebs. this isn’t as nicely structured as some of his earlier work, but it’s still worth poring over slowly. to hold up the sky (cixin liu) - first rate collection of short stories. movies save yourselves - dumb fun. shirley - that simmered. the assistant - really painful to watch....

zeynep tufekci thread on blocking the noise on twitter to actually see the interesting feedback and responses. I try not to block actual criticism but things I've started pretty much automatically blocking to make Twitter usable: Snitch-tagging; "Oh you're surprised?" reply guys; People who respond to an article *I* wrote with a point made in the article as if I could have no idea. https://t.co/BVUsVEzokM — zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) February 16, 2021 meta location: Minneapolis weather: 1....

an excellent 99% invisible episode about the minneapolis skyways. these are truly a mixed bag. but today, it was -19F when i woke up. at midday, it’s -10F. we definitely need to do something about the unwelcoming nature of the skyways. i’m not ready to give up on them yet. https://overcast.fm/+DCoaTMQ meta location: Minneapolis weather: -9.4°F and Clear ...

largely apropos of nothing given the state of things these days. the article is primarily interesting to me given the author author and the candor. Op-Ed: I called Arizona for Biden on Fox News. Here’s what I learned Having been cosseted by self-validating coverage for so long, many Americans now consider any news that might suggest that they are in error or that their side has been defeated as an attack on them personally....

Even I, Satan, Am Appalled at the State of the Republican Party so many gems in this piece. And make no mistake, I hate war. Sure, all the people responsible for the millions of deaths get tormented with Ben Shapiro’s audiobook version of Lolita on full volume for all of time. But you know what happens to the millions of innocent people? They go UP, not DOWN. …...

“A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer argued Monday that the United States can kill its own citizens without judicial review when litigation would reveal state secrets. The argument drew alarm among judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Courthouse News Service reports.” US can kill its own citizens without review when state secrets are involved, DOJ lawyer argues https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/doj-lawyer-argues-us-can-kill-its-own-citizens-without-review-when-state-secrets-are-involved via Instapaper meta location: home weather: 26....

I wrote about some key takeaways from @nntaleb's new technical book, Statistical Consequences of Thick Tailshttps://t.co/Qj5ab0WtpJ It's a short review on fat tails in plain english, including the relationship between moments, tail indices, and pseudo-convergence pic.twitter.com/X5Zbmc088J — F Y Isaac (@gelmanisaac) December 23, 2020 source link a surprisingly readable rundown on fat tails that will force you to brush up on some old stats stuff. oh, and there’s wolfram/mathematica code to explore as well....

to hold up the sky – cixin liu a coworker described liu’s work as having a very small view of humans. my initial interpretation of his remarks were that liu held a dim/negative view of humans and humanity. this was largely informed based on my (incomplete) reading of the dark forest trilogy. human’s don’t behave well and are driven by base desires. i was wrong.b this collection of shorts corrects my understanding of things....