Links for 2022-03-01
Five analyses of Russia’s military campaign:
The Mysterious Case of the Missing Russian Air Force https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/mysterious-case-missing-russian-air-force
Why the Russians Are Struggling https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-the-russians-are-struggling/
Interview with Rob Lee, Russian defense policy specialist https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/video-interview-rob-lee-russian-defense
Interesting background on Russia’s attempt to modernize its armed forces https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497993363076915204
“…the first 96 hours have gone, still very early/incomplete impressions. The initial Russian operation was premised on terrible assumptions about Ukraine’s ability & will to fight, and an unworkable concept of operations. Moscow badly miscalculated.” https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1498396341235601410.html
More links:
How to win at Wordle: “Guess HANDY, SWIFT, GLOVE, CRUMP with your first 4 guesses. Then, for your 5th and 6th guesses, if you can think of a target word that is consistent with the replies so far, you are guaranteed to always win, for all possible target words. The idea of a static 4 word set is by Christos Papadimitriou; I found a set that works for every target word. This is the first strategy I have seen that is easily memorizable by a human and is guaranteed to win. However, this strategy is not good for minimizing the number of guesses.” https://github.com/norvig/pytudes/blob/main/ipynb/Wordle.ipynb
Chimpanzees consider freedom of choice in their evaluation of social action. Chimps are more likely to accept a non-preferred food from an experimenter, and less likely to throw a wobbly, when the experimenter couldn't have offered a preferred food. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0502
Nano-Architected Material Refracts Light Backward – An Important Step Toward Photonic Circuits https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c02851
Scientists Use Micromagnets to Remote Control Brain Cells https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202104194
Why cage-free eggs becoming norm: It’s what people want https://apnews.com/article/business-iowa-des-moines-animals-animal-welfare-1a611490e5af70a9b9d7b9f8b903bb6f
Criminal offending as part of an alternative reproductive strategy: investigating evolutionary hypotheses using Swedish total population data: “Convicted criminal offenders had more children than individuals never convicted of a criminal offense…We conclude that criminality appears to be adaptive in a contemporary industrialized country…” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513814000774
“I have little doubt that less rational people are gradually taking over the profession...By and large, the latest generation of left-leaning economist is now part of the left’s excesses.” ― Bryan Caplan https://www.econlib.org/a-fond-farewell-to-econlog/
Shai Carmi (Hebrew University): Polygenic risk scores & embryo screening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-_qfoZo8Dg
Poll:
How would the United States react if someone blocked their ships from leaving or entering one of their major naval stations?