Reads, Listens

Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled

🎧 Bill Gates | The Atlantic Interview

Listened to Bill Gates by Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic Interview

The mission of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to ease suffering around the world may be somewhat at odds with the "America First" sentiments that propelled Donald Trump into the presidency. But Bill Gates is moving ahead with enthusiasm. He tells Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic's editor in chief, why he's still optimistic, and how he feels about no longer being the richest man in the world.

Here’s a case where this podcast runs a bit off the rails in interviewing someone perhaps too “popular”. It’s a good interview and certainly a “get”, but I’m not sure I learned too much interesting here that I haven’t seen or heard elsewhere. Much of the strength of what I’ve heard thus far stems from interviews with people that are slightly off the beaten path, but with serious messages and interesting viewpoints. The other strength is that the show can give them additional time and depth than they might receive on other shows. I’m not saying that Bill Gates doesn’t have anything interesting or important to say, just that he isn’t revealing anything particularly new here that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

👓 Webmasters: Have some (sub resource) integrity! | InfoSec Guy

Read Webmasters: Have some (sub resource) integrity! (InfoSec Guy)
Earlier today it was discovered that a large number of websites (over 4,000) – including UK government and NHS websites – had been compromised with a “cryptominer”. A cryptominer is a piece of software that “mines” cryptocoins like Bitcoin, LiteCoin, Ethereum, etc, which in turn generate income. When a cryptominer is included within the code of a website and a visitor visits a web page on the site, his/her web browser becomes a “miner” and their device’s CPU is used to “mine” coins for whoever placed the cryptominer within the code. Essentially, someone else profits at your expense (and at the detriment to your device, if its CPU is being maxed out through mining), and all this takes place without your knowledge!

👓 Slack is the opposite of organizational memory | Abe Winter

Read Slack is the opposite of organizational memory by Abe Winter (abe-winter.github.io)
slack empowers your worst people to overwhelm your best. It has that in common with the open office. It normalizes interruptions, multitasking, and distractions, implicitly permitting these things to happen IRL as well as online. It normalizes insanely short reply times for questions. In the slack world people can escalate from asking in a room to @person to @here in a matter of minutes. And they’re not wrong to – if your request isn’t handled in 5 minutes it’s as good as forgotten.
An interesting take. There is obviously still room for a better mouse trap here.

👓 TEDxManchester 2018 – transcript | Dan Hett

Read TEDxManchester 2018 - transcript of presentation on Terrorism and the real problem (blog.danhett.com)
Yesterday I stood on stage at the sold-out TEDxManchester at the Bridgewater Hall, and spoke to about 2,400 people about my experiences. It was terrifying, but ultimately a really positive experience. I've barely decompressed, and I'm going to write a full blog post about it all when my head is back together a bit, but for now here's the transcript of what I said, more or less:
A stunning and powerful story about the true effects of terrorism…

👓 Children aren’t starting puberty younger, medieval skeletons reveal | The Conversation

Read Children aren’t starting puberty younger, medieval skeletons reveal by Mary Lewis (The Conversation)
Children are entering puberty younger than before, according to recent studies, raising concerns that childhood obesity and hormone-contaminated water supplies may be to blame. However, our archaeological research suggests that there’s nothing to worry about. Children in medieval England entered puberty between ten and 12 years of age – the same as today.
Of course, naturally, this isn’t the publicly perceived story. There’s still some science missing from the overall arc of the story, but people who believe that chemicals in the environment and hormones in food are causing children to start puberty at younger ages should be questioning why they think this is the case.

If anything, perhaps better first world lives may be pressuring the age down a bit, but even then it sounds like there’s a lower limit. Evolutionary effects are also certainly at play as well.

👓 On digital archaeology | Andrew Eckford

Read On digital archaeology by Andrew Eckford (A Random Process)
The year is 4018. German is widely studied by scholars of classical antiquity, but all knowledge of the mysterious English language has died out. Scene: A classics department faculty lounge; a few professors are relaxing.
I worry about things like this all the time. Apparently it’s a terrible affliction that strikes those with a background in information theory at higher rates than the general public.

👓 Disaster strikes for couple who sold everything to sail around the world | The Mirror

Read Disaster strikes for couple who sold everything to sail around the world by Jeff Farrell (The Mirror)
Tanner Broadwell, 26, and Nikki Walsh, 24, have just £60 left after their vessel they had used all their funds to buy capsized at sea off the coast of Florida
Clickbaity article. They were young and honestly didn’t lose that much in the grand scheme. How do inexperienced sailors eschew insurance on a new boat though?

👓 State launches Aetna probe after stunning admission | CNN

Read State launches Aetna probe after stunning admission by Wayne Drash (CNN)
California's insurance commissioner has launched an investigation into Aetna after learning a former medical director for the insurer admitted under oath he never looked at patients' records when deciding whether to approve or deny care.
Things you often suspected were true sadly, sometimes, are.

👓 The Songs That Bind | The New York Times

Read Opinion | The Songs That Bind by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (New York Times)
Data drawn from Spotify listeners reveal that we are all teenagers in love.
Apparently our musical tastes are firmed up in our early teens… this explains a lot for me.

👓 Top official departs ‘rudderless’ railroad safety agency | Politico

Read Top official departs ‘rudderless’ railroad safety agency by Lauren Gardner (POLITICO)
The resignation of the former acting chief of the Federal Railroad Administration comes while Democrats are blocking a vote on a permanent leader — and as train-related deaths climb.

👓 Gillibrand: If Trump wants due process, we’ll have hearings on allegations against him | The Hill

Read Gillibrand: If Trump wants due process, we'll have hearings on allegations against him by Jacqueline Thomsen (The Hill)
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) went after President Trump on Saturday for his tweet questioning a lack of "due process" in abuse claims, saying that Congress could hold hearings about sexual misconduct allegations against him if he wanted due process. “The President has shown through words and actions that he doesn’t value women. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t believe survivors or understand the national conversation that is happening,” Gillibrand tweeted.

👓 Can’t Get Your News From Facebook Anymore? Try These 6 Apps | Wired

Read Can't Get Your News From Facebook Anymore? Try These 6 Apps by Josie Colt (WIRED)
Now that the social network is changing what shows up in your feed, you’ll have to go elsewhere for current news.
I’ll particularly agree with how good I find Nuzzel to be, though I will say that I do take heavy advantage of a variety of highly curated Twitter lists which I’m sure helps the algorithm for the quality of news I get back out of the system.

I would prefer more transparency about how those that use algorithms are doing so.

Some of these don’t amount to much more than glorified RSS feed readers, and I’m shocked that the state of the art of the area isn’t much further along than it was a decade ago.

👓 Flu Vaccines and the Math of Herd Immunity | Quanta Magazine

Read Flu Vaccines and the Math of Herd Immunity by Patrick Honner (Quanta Magazine)
Simple math shows how widespread vaccination can disrupt the exponential spread of disease and prevent epidemics.
This is a very clear and lucid article with some very basic math that shows the value of vaccines. I highly recommend it to everyone.

👓 Which problems make good research problems? | Back Reaction

Read Which problems make good research problems? by Sabine HossenfelderSabine Hossenfelder (Back Reaction)
Scientists solve problems; that’s their job. But which problems are promising topics of research? This is the question I set out to answer in Lost in Math at least concerning the foundations of physics. A first, rough, classification of research problems can be made using Thomas Kuhn’s cycle of scientific theories. Kuhn’s cycle consists of a phase of “normal science” followed by “crisis” leading to a paradigm change, after which a new phase of “normal science” begins. This grossly oversimplifies reality, but it will be good enough for what follows.
A nice little article on a question many of us should be asking ourselves more often. This one has some additional nice overview of bits of physics in addition, but circling back around to the original question is always very valuable.

I’m going to have to track down a copy of Sabine Hossenfelder’s book Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray.