Links for 2022-05-26
Long-Hidden Ancient Pyramids, Settlements Discovered in Remote Amazon Region: “Many of the sites included complex monumental mounds known as lomas, waterways and reservoirs, in addition to massive pyramids topped with small platforms...They’re integrated into a network of roads and canals. That implies a degree of culture never thought to exist in Amazonia before.” [Wall Street Journal]: https://archive.ph/Y7kmp
A project to systematically aggregate the views of experts https://www.apollosurveys.org/
Why is AI hard and Physics simple? https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.00008
So where are we with deep learning for biochem? https://www.ladanuzhna.xyz/writing/deep-learning-for-biochem
“This low earth orbit visualization tool allows users to see satellites all over the world. You can click on a satellite to see details about it, or you can perform a search using specific filters. During my time playing with the site, I saw 19,165 satellites. Zoom in and out to see the orbit from any perspective.” https://platform.leolabs.space/visualizations/leo#view=originCountry
“[The] aircraft called Vanilla Unmanned, set the record in October when it flew eight days, 50 minutes and 47 seconds over 12,200 miles of continuous flight.” https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-vanilla-unmanned-drone-endurance/
“Tenstorrent is one of the leading AI startups with one of the most interesting architectures and software stacks.” https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/tenstorrent-blackhole-grendel-and?s=r
Surprising Discovery: How a Gene Mutation Causes Higher Intelligence in Humans https://scitechdaily.com/surprising-discovery-how-a-gene-mutation-causes-higher-intelligence-in-humans/
Why the West lost India’s culture wars https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial-india/
In 1964, the Firedevil of Volkhoven attacked the people at an elementary school with a home-made flamethrower and a spear, killing eight pupils and two teachers, and wounding twenty-two others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_school_massacre
Roald Hoffmann, 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. When he was aged 5 to 7 he was hiding from the Nazis in an attic with his family. He previously lived in a Nazi labor camp.
Walter Kohn, 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. As a Jewish boy, he lived 1 1/2 years under the Nazi regime that murdered his parents. At age 17 he was transferred to Canada where he was held in a detention camp.
Imre Kertész, Nobel Prize in Literature. At the age of 14, he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and was later sent to Buchenwald.
There are 3 other Jewish Holocaust survivors who went to win a Nobel Prize and many others, like Alexander Grothendieck and Daniel Kahneman, who later revolutionized fields such as mathematics. Still others, like Roman Polanski, managed to become famous by other means. Indeed, there are more Jewish Nobel laureates than Nobel laureates from Sub-Saharan Africa despite Jews being a comparatively tiny population that has been persecuted for centuries and suffering systemic discrimination that culminated in genocide.
Socioeconomic status or discrimination are not destiny. IQ is.
See also this old article by Scott Alexander about Haiti (quote below): https://web.archive.org/web/20150407223525/http:/squid314.livejournal.com/297579.html
…they don't understand the concept of sorting numerically. Not just "they don't want to do it" or "it never occurred to them", but after months and months of attempted explanation they don't understand that sorting alphabetically or numerically is even a thing.