Science reporter Charles Piller questions the pharmaceutical industry incentives in the fight against prediabetes. “A third of Americans are considered prediabetic—but many may be better off without treatment.” My take: I think he makes a good point about incentives but somehow misses the fact that people don’t just wake up one day with full blown type 2 diabetes. ~ learn more
I first heard the term ergodicity in Nassim Taleb’s writing. I first learned of ergodicity economics from this article about its history. Definition from wikipedia: “Ergodicity economics is a school of thought that questions whether expected value is a reliable indicator of economic performance over time. It builds on criticisms of expected value that began shortly after its introduction in 1654.” ~ learn more
“Like intellectual boxers; they come to understand ideas by making them fight with each other. Their style of analysis is effective because it’s so bloody. One friend calls his style “violent thinking.” He talks about thinking like a soldier talks about interrogation. He subjects ideas to ruthless torture, shaking them and grabbing them by the throat until they can no longer breathe and, eventually, reveal their true nature.” ~ learn…
From a team at Meta: “Called Chameleon, the new system is built on an early fusion architecture, and because of that it is able to comingle multiple inputs in ways not possible with most other systems.” ~ learn more
“The company that put a computer on every desk and in every home. The company that invented the software business model. The company that so thoroughly and completely dominated every conceivable competitor that the United States government intervened and kneecapped it… yet it’s STILL the most valuable company in the world today.” This links to an episode of the Acquired podcast and it’s 4 hours long, getting as far as…
This author comes in hot: “It’s a well-documented fact that a small number of repeat-offending criminals are responsible for a large share of all crime. The primary reason why prisons effectively reduce crime is exactly because they prevent the crimes that these offenders would otherwise (had they not been incapacitated) commit over the duration of their imprisonment.” I know some of my readers have opinions on criminal justice and I’d…
A lesson in never giving up! Also a reminder that computers don’t do random very well. ~ learn more
Map every block in a city by how close it is to places like parks, schools, restaurants, dentists, grocery stores and more by foot, bike or transit. ~ learn more
“A deep dive into the booming desalination industry.” This article updated some of my prior beliefs about the current/future costs of desalination (making freshwater from seawater). The promise is better than ever! ~ learn more
“The bottleneck lies in the very architecture of how value is transferred from one customer to another — as messages flowing between trusted intermediaries. Supplanting it with a superior design will be less like replacing carrier pigeons with telegrams, and more like substituting the existing 700-year-old record-keeping system with something analogous to an internet protocol, built for finance.” ~ learn more