Favorites January 9th 2023

July 4th 2022, Mountain View

Jay Van Bavel @jayvanbavel

Representative samples may be overrated. A replication of 27 survey experiments (n = 101,745) finds that convenience samples overwhelmingly produce similar findings to representative samples. pnas.org/doi/full/10.10… In 0 of 393 analyses were the effects in opposite directions.

This is interesting, there's a bit more in the thread. Importantly, subgroup analysis doesn't work on non-representative samples (obviously?).

The Ringer @ringer

“Every day I wake up and remember that ‘Avatar,’ a huge international blockbuster, used the Papyrus font for their logo.” This is the story of a modern classic #SNL sketch and the typeface that inspired it. @jakeks19:

theringer.comThe Intertwining History of the ‘Avatar’ Papyrus Font and the ‘SNL’ Sketch That Spoofed ItIt surely is odd that James Cameron chose to use such a ridiculed typeface for his 2009 mega-blockbuster, but he wasn’t exactly acting like a thoughtless child wandering by a garden, yanking leaves along the way

In honor of Avatar 2 coming out, a deep dive on the amazing SNL sketch Papyrus. They even found the actual person responsible for the font choice, who still defends it: " 'I didn’t aimlessly pick Papyrus', he insists. 'I chose it very strategically.' "

Eric Topol @EricTopol

The bivalent booster in people age 65+ compared with those who did not receive it, among >622,000 participants 81% reduction of hospitalizations (Figure) 86% reduction of deaths papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… @ClalitHealth @ArbelRonen

And the Bivalent vaccine is of course a closer match to the new XBB variant than the original shot was.

Rhiannon L Cosslett @rhiannonlucyc

This Sunday Times piece about boarding school syndrome is just heartbreaking

It's not like boarding school is something I have any knowledge of in real life, but this is an important reminder that Harry Potter is bad.

Alec Stapp @AlecStapp

US public policy that accelerates a future of clean energy abundance is the best foreign aid strategy imaginable:

Here's the washing machine talk by Hans Rosling, I really like it. And here's the nytimes article being quoted, by Ezra Klein.

Colin McCarthy @US_Stormwatch

Lightning levels are rapidly increasing in the complex of strong/severe thunderstorms that will make landfall along the California coast tonight. Incredible satellite imagery ahead of a night of wild weather.

Amazing animation, we'll see if it bears out.

David Weiner @daweiner

Can't believe I've never seen this commercial of Mr. T threatening racist landlords

Threads

• Great thread of AI Generated art portraying each major country as a supervillian.

• Long thread excerpting the work of Berenice Carroll on the various ways wars end. TL;DR: when you break it down you either get a ton of categories or (surprisingly) some differential equations. None of these truly give you any answers, although it's nice to have a basic model.

• A relatively pessimistic thread on the possibilities for growth in the near term in AI. TL;DR: a lot of popular discussion around ChatGPT has been for using it to do SEO, which is pretty unimpressive.

• Short thread by zoning expert M. Noland Gray about how unusual (and bad) the US system of zoning is.