Links for 20210813
Cortical neurons are so complex that you need a 5-8 layer CNN to faithfully capture the I/O properties of just one. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627321005018
DeepMind makes a data-agnostic architecture called Perceiver – and it could be important https://deepmind.com/blog/article/building-architectures-that-can-handle-the-worlds-data
“Introducing PonderNet, a new algorithm that allows artificial neural networks to learn to “think for a while” before answering, like humans do. This improves the ability of neural networks to generalize outside of the training distribution.” https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.05407.pdf
Let's remove Quaternions from every 3D Engine: Intro to Rotors from Geometric Algebra youtube.com/watch?v=Idlv83CxP-8
Semiconductor quantum dots: Technological progress and future challenges https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6555/eaaz8541
Survey of 500+ researchers gives us a sense of how these people think about hot-button issues https://jair.org/index.php/jair/article/view/12895
Interest in Biostasis: Much More Than You Wanted to Know. Results from the ACX 2021 Biostasis/Cryonics Survey https://synopticz.github.io/acx_2021_survey
A short thread about what is perhaps the most successful cyber attack in the history of any nation state: "hey’ve downloaded the entire “АИС Паспорт” database which contains all personal details of every Belarusian citizen including passport photos, home address, place of work (including those with restricted access who work in KGB and other special services)..." https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1424734523519025152.html
In 2014, China’s government successfully stole the full records on EVERYONE with a security clearance in the USG. 127-page applications, psychology notes, family members, fingerprints. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach
"It was considered one of the CIA’s worst failures in decades: Over a two-year period starting in late 2010, Chinese authorities systematically dismantled the agency’s network of agents across the country, executing dozens of suspected U.S. spies." https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/botched-cia-communications-system-helped-blow-cover-chinese-agents-intelligence/
Scott Alexander does a self-experiment to test whether CO2 levels really affect cognition astralcodexten.substack.com/p/eight-hundred-slightly-poisoned-word
Single-molecule laser nanospectroscopy with micro–electron volt energy resolution https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6550/95