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Will The Real AGW Skeptic Please Stand U...

Posted by kevindick in Climate, Economics, Science on 05 31st, 2009 | View Comments

Normally, I don't debate random bloggers on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). However, I made an exception for Robin Hanson. For those who don't already know of him, he was both an early proponent of decision markets and has a reasonably well known journal article on why two Bayesian rationalists can't...

World’s Most Ambitious Crowdsource...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Crowdsourcing, Incentives, Management, Science, Science 2.0 on 05 31st, 2009 | View Comments

Everyone has heard about the Large Hadron Collider, arguably the most ambitious and complex engineering project ever undertaken, anywhere. The purpose, no less ambitious, is to answer all sorts of burning questions about the nature of the universe, including whether the Standard Model of particle physics...

Don't Eat That Marshmallow!...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Cognition, Education, Happiness, Incentives, Psychology, TED on 05 30th, 2009 | View Comments

Short but brilliant TED talk by Joachim de Posada. I love the economic point he makes at the...

The Catholic Perspective on Evolution...

Posted by plektix in Evolution on 05 28th, 2009 | View Comments

As an occasional reader of science blogs, I can't help but notice the extraordinary amount of time and space devoted to the debunking of Creationist and Intelligent Design "science." Certainly there are good reasons for this: the poor reasoning and scant evidence behind such pseudoscience makes it an easy...

Robin Hood Foreclosure Fund...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Asymmetry, Economics, Interventions, Social Entrepreneurship on 05 27th, 2009 | View Comments

Have you ever heard of anyone selflessly helping out a stranger by buying their house at a bank foreclosure auction and just giving it back to them? Well, now you have. More likely, you've probably heard of private investors taking advantage of the banks' unwillingness (or inability) to deal with all the...

Cool Time Based Map of Job Creation/Dest...

Posted by acebailey in Economics on 05 26th, 2009 | View Comments

Here The 2009 map evokes nuclear strike graphics from 80's films! Very clear that it is easier to destroy an economy than build...

More on the California State Budget...

Posted by kevindick in Economics, Government, Voting on 05 25th, 2009 | View Comments

A number of people responded to my recent post on the California budget. So I thought I'd dig a little deeper into the issue. The three points I'd like to address at the moment are whether spending as a percentage of income is rising, where the extra spending is going, and whether the extra spending is...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Cognition, Competition, Computation, Crowdsourcing, Evolution, Games, Medical Breakthroughs, Science, Science 2.0, Socio-technical systems, Visualization on 05 25th, 2009 | View Comments

Has anyone played Foldit, the protein-folding game that is designed to advance the science? This Wired article makes it sound like Ender's Game meets biochemistry! Sounds like the Poehlman kid is the protein-folding equivalent of Stephen Wiltshire. I love the crowdsourcing, the meta-evolutionary...

Answer to "Guess What Species?"...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Autocatalysis, Emergence, Evolution on 05 22nd, 2009 | View Comments

Yesterday's puzzler was to guess the species being talked about here: One became super efficient at gobbling up its food, doing so at a rate that was about a hundred times faster than the other. The other was slower at acquiring food, but produced about three times more progeny per generation. The answer...

Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Impr...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Asymmetry, Cancer, Happiness, Health, Psychology, Science on 05 21st, 2009 | View Comments

1. Smile. 2. Spend time with friends, or even try and make a new one. 3. Help another person. Donate a small amount of money, that has nominal value to you, but significant value to someone else. (Kiva, Vittana Foundation.) 4. Quit Smoking. It might be even worse for you today. 5. Stop worrying about...

Guess What Species?...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Evolution on 05 21st, 2009 | View Comments

Without doing a text search (that would be cheating), guess what species is being referred to in this quote about the evolution of competing strategies: One became super efficient at gobbling up its food, doing so at a rate that was about a hundred times faster than the other. The other was slower at...

Is the 'War on Drugs' Ending?...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Education, Government, Language, Society on 05 20th, 2009 | View Comments

A few short months ago, Hillary Clinton declared an end to the "war on terror." Now, it appears as though the "war on drugs" is ending as well, or is it? In an excellent column in today's Washington Post, Courtland Milloy explores the use of the war metaphor, and how it can be better used, if need...

Disgusted with the California Budget...

Posted by kevindick in Economics, Government, Voting on 05 19th, 2009 | View Comments

First, let me apologize for the posting lull. I've been busy with work and also struggling with a sinus issue that has sapped my discretionary intellectual energy. But enough about me. In honor of California's special election on budget measures, I thought I'd shed a little light on the fundamental...

Methuselah Foundation...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Health, Interventions, Medical Breakthroughs, Singularity, Technology on 05 16th, 2009 | View Comments

If, like Aubrey de Grey, you believe that immortality is achievable, or you are just intrigued by the possibility, you should check out this news story on The Methuselah Foundation. Lest you dismiss the idea out of hand, note that in 2006 Alan Russell gave a TED talk which showed a man...

NIH Challenge Grants: Is Competition Bad...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Asymmetry, Competition, Economics, Government, Health on 05 15th, 2009 | View Comments

As part of President Barack Obama's stimulus package, NIH is awarding $200 million in "Challenge Grants." But, according to Science Magazine, these grants are far more competitive than initially intended: A frantic grant-writing effort that has consumed biomedical research scientists this spring came to...

Amazing Feats of Memory...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Architecture, Cognition, Visualization on 05 13th, 2009 | View Comments

From time to time we hear about people with "photographic" memories who supposedly can remember every detail of something they experienced. When you look into what's really going on though, it becomes clear that this is not really the case, and their capabilities are actually limited to certain segments of...

Are Realtors Really Making Too Much?...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Competition, Economics, Markets on 05 11th, 2009 | View Comments

The Freakonomics guys have been on this rant for years, and until recently, I agreed with their logic. But the mounting evidence (in my mind) is starting to swing the other way. The biggest piece of evidence is the existence of credible discounted brokers like Redfin.com which has been operating for a...

Newcomb's Meta-Paradox...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Asymmetry, Causality, Computation, Epistemology, Games, Limits of Knowledge on 05 10th, 2009 | View Comments

Tweeter, Claus Metzner (@cmetzner) alerted me to this cool area of study with this paper. Suppose you meet a Wise being (W) who tells you it has put $1,000 in box A, and either $1 million or nothing in box B. This being tells you to either take the contents of box B only, or to take the contents of both A...

On the Advice of Counsel…...

Posted by kevindick in Point of Order on 05 8th, 2009 | View Comments

Yesterday, the attorney for my new company advised me that I should be careful about what I disclose to the public about the company's activities. The company operates in a highly regulated field. Evidently, any open discussion of what the company does, especially of any offerings it may or may not...

Peer-Review vs. Info Prizes and Markets...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Autism, Crowdsourcing, Limits of Knowledge, Markets, Science, Science 2.0, Socio-technical systems on 05 5th, 2009 | View Comments

I have been having a 140 character discussion with Ciarán Brewster (@macbruski) via twitter. And while it's kind of interesting to force complex subject matter into very few characters, it is limiting the discussion, so I will summarize it so far here and hopefully others can weigh in too. Ciarán...

Nature Minus Humans?...

Posted by plektix in Causality, Culture, Interventions, Media, Politics, Scarcity / Abundance on 05 5th, 2009 | View Comments

From the "nothing is quite so simple" department, a Boston Globe article this week points out a hidden legacy of the conservation movement: The expulsion of native peoples from their land. Starting with Yosemite in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the pattern of forcing indigineous civilizations...

Drug Decriminalization: Portugal's ...

Posted by acebailey in Economics, Government on 05 5th, 2009 | View Comments

Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 (yes that includes cocaine and heroin). And “ none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents—from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for “drug tourists”—has...

Game Theory and Military Planning...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Common Knowledge, Competition, Cooperation, Evolution, Games, Incentives, Mutual Knowledge, Poker, Psychology, Science, Social Networks, Society, Socio-technical systems, Stability, Technology on 05 3rd, 2009 | View Comments

In "Game Theory: Can a Round of Poker Solve Afghanistan's Problems?" Major Richard J.H. Gash creates a simple two player game to show how game theory can be used to influence military planning. Gash's game involves two villages in Afghanistan with the choice to either support the "Coalition" or support the...

Even Assuming Global Warming, We Shouldn...

Posted by kevindick in Climate on 05 1st, 2009 | View Comments

In order for you to believe we should do something about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) such as impose a carbon tax, you really need to believe all of these things: CO2 causes a direct temperature increase Positive feedbacks amplify the direct temperature increase several fold The effects on humans...