2023-05-26 An oral history of the final episode of the best show of the 2010s? Yes, please. Spoiler alert, …
2023-05-25 By the way, the article I just wrote about found its way to me via Artifact, which has become great …
2023-05-25 "The First Social-Media Babies Are Growing Up—And They’re Horrified"
2023-05-25 At $5 per month for a cozy social network and a static blog hosting service, micro.blog was already …
2023-05-24 Chores
2023-05-23 Having forgotten my work laptop at home — why oh why is every backpack I have black? — I now have to …
2023-05-22 Any text about building a better NIH will have my interest, and the Brookings Institute came up with …
2023-05-19 There is a strong belief among scientists and lay people alike that: more information is always …
2023-05-18 Back to school
2023-05-17 Currently reading: The Formula by Albert-László Barabási 📚 which starts off as self-help dreck, but …
2023-05-16 📺 Season two of Slow Horses: even better than the first! But with better time management we …
2023-05-15 Finished reading: Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand 📚 Funny that a book about our entire …
2023-05-14 🍿 The Hound of the Baskervilles has had many shots at the silver screen, but the 1988 version made …
2023-05-12 A one-two punch today for the journal Science, which while not at the very top of my to-read …
2023-05-12 As two of our three offspring lay in bed with fevers, a thought comes to mind: could covid have …
2023-05-11 Project Tailwind — Google’s answers to DEVONthink, Obsidian/Roam, and ChatGPT rolled into one …
2023-05-10 On the topic of firsts, here is my first Tweet, linking to a rather funny New Yorker article. It …
2023-05-09 Revisiting AOL Hell
2023-05-08 My decoupling from Twitter continues, with all of the 9K+ tweets now available on micro.blog. What …
2023-05-05 And in some positive news — can you imagine those still exist? — the US Food and Drug Agency has …
2023-05-05 A beautifully designed essay about an ugly entity: dark patterns. I’ve never heard of The …
2023-05-04 I just learned about Bike — from Brett Terpstra, who is back blogging and we are all better for it — …
2023-05-04 Currently reading: Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand 📚 Slowly realizing that the aversion to …
2023-05-03 A modest proposal: institute gun tax. Use the money to fund schools (or better yet, school …
2023-05-02 Millions of D.C. traffic tickets remain unpaid as bad drivers flee penalty - The Washington Post
2023-05-02 May lectures of note
2023-04-29 For your Saturday reading — I dare not say enjoyment as there are, alas, few joys in the story — a …
2023-04-28 It is a cool, rainy spring morning in D.C. and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D dur sits …
2023-04-27 Notes on moving
2023-04-26 Belatedly reading a wonderful post from David Smith on that strange feeling you get right after …
2023-04-25 Finished reading: Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton 📚 Not much has changed in how people think about …
2023-04-24 Apps and/or services I have tried and dropped so far this year: Arc Ulysses Rewind Wavelength The …
2023-04-20 The 20th day of the 4th month is a special day for everyone, most of all lovers of murder mysteries …
2023-04-15 He’s a Firefox user.
2023-04-13 The finalists of Axios DC’s best building bracket are the Washington National Cathedral and …
2023-04-12 Old man yells at "date me" docs
2023-04-12 I am having more fun than I should following the Axios D.C. building madness brackets. The …
2023-04-11 DMV flags
2023-04-10 As evidence that people can change with age, I present this manual for spaced repetition. Some 20 …
2023-04-08 For your Saturday reading pleasure: How to Beat Roulette: One Gambler Figured It Out and Won Big …
2023-04-07 To put in perspective some recent SCOTUS-related news, I was once, as a federal employee, chastised …
2023-04-07 I made my feelings about Substack known a few days ago, so why should I care that a blue bird pooped …
2023-04-06 Each time I pop into the Midjourney Discord server I feel like I’ve entered a crowded wizards' …
2023-04-06 The Mastodon Vibe
2023-04-04 📺 Severance… Well, what is there to be said about Severance? Just hook it to my veins.
2023-04-03 I love my current blog template: good typography, pleasant color scheme, Tufte-esque footnotes. …
2023-04-03 April lectures of note
2023-04-02 Updated thoughts on AI
2023-04-02 Dopamine exchange networks
2023-04-01 Now let me sell you something
2023-03-31 WaPo is on a roll of good opinion articles. Today’s had advice on coping with the many crises we are …
2023-03-31 Subscribing to the Financial Times continues to pay off splendidly: just look at this Twitter thread …
2023-03-30 A colleague once told me you were never really finished with a manuscript until you well and trully …
2023-03-29 “The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment."
2023-03-29 The Spectator has a profile of Nassim Taleb out today, and it is entertaining enough. E.g.: Taleb …
2023-03-28 Thing I thought I’d never write about #2: bias. A brief commentary on unbiased methods, social …
2023-03-27 In this morning’s EconTalk, the guest Kevin Kelly mentioned Upstract as a web page he goes to …
2023-03-26 The Popperian Podcast: Interviewing academics, professionals and other experts, The Popperian …
2023-03-26 If Mad Men gave you any kind of 1960’s nostalgia, watching Boston Strangler on Hulu will be a …
2023-03-23 Not two months have passed since I declared (in Serbian) that we should ban cars — which, yes, is …
2023-03-23 Today’s WaPo: The Washington Post and KFF surveyed one of the largest randomized samples of …
2023-03-21 Nothing beats repetition for reinforcing concepts. This week’s episode of EconTalk began with …
2023-03-21 Peace and joy through keeping house
2023-03-20 Finished reading: Against Method by Paul Feyerabend 📚 A well-made case for why capital-s-Science is …
2023-03-18 On the off chance anyone reading this also knows the language formerly known as Serbo-Croat, now …
2023-03-17 Who needs TikTok when you have encyclopedias?
2023-03-16 AI's thoughts about Stephen Wolfram's thoughts about whether AIs will take all our jobs and end human history
2023-03-16 “How to Achieve Digital Mindfulness”, you ask? Step 1: install an add blocker.
2023-03-15 Daylight Shifting Torture
2023-03-14 Adam Mastroianni: We all know that talk is cheap, so we tend to believe what we see more than what …
2023-03-14 Working with lymphocytes in one way or another for the last 15 years, I am obligated to link to …
2023-03-13 📺 The Last of Us was the best and the worst of modern-day American television. Great acting. An …
2023-03-13 🍿 Jumanji: Welcome to the Junge was as silly and mindless as you would expect, and sometimes …
2023-03-12 FT: the spectacular unravelling of the tech industry’s banker
2023-03-12 Here is a list of appliance lifespans from our new home owner guide: AC: 15 years Dishwasher: 9 …
2023-03-11 For your weekend reading enjoyment, FT’s Janan Ganesh on (un)healthy eating: It is easier to …
2023-03-10 Annus semi-mirabilis
2023-03-09 Air power
2023-03-08 He gets my vote.
2023-03-07 Yes, there is dire inequality in clinical trial enrollment, but this is the precisely wrong way to …
2023-03-07 My Browser Can Write Blog Posts For Me!
2023-03-06 📺 Not one but two new AppleTV shows feature middle-aged men whose lives — and own selves — …
2023-03-03 Almost 5 years old, but still worth sharing: the first ever video of mating anglerfish. Most of …
2023-03-03 Fact checking fail of the day
2023-03-02 BS bonanza
2023-03-01 March lectures of note
2023-02-28 Finished reading: The Revolt of the Masses by José Ortega y Gasset 📚 A series of essays published in …
2023-02-22 Papermoon Diner, Baltimore’s finest eye spy establishment. The food is good, too! Best bread pudding …
2023-02-21 Our first day of vacation: Basement flooded for the second time in as many weeks. Washing machine …
2023-02-20 Bias of the day: immortal time
2023-02-19 Finished reading: Fundamentals of Clinical Trials by Lawrence M. Friedman 📚 It is assigned reading …
2023-02-18 Twitter greeted me this morning with a notification that, not being a subscriber, I will no longer …
2023-02-17 LLM convergence
2023-02-16 Notes from the future
2023-02-15 My default browser is now Microsoft Edge, thanks in no small part to Ben Thompson. What strange …
2023-02-15 Stephen Wolfram is usually too verbose for my taste, but his style of writing is exactly what was …
2023-02-15 Is the Sunshine Act a joke?
2023-02-14 If you are as ambivalent about AI as I am (and I dare you to say that out loud), you will appreciate …
2023-02-14 For Valentine’s Day, The Washington Post decided to write about a promising new male …
2023-02-13 When Russ Roberts, my favorite interviewer, speaks with Adam Mastroianni, the author of my favorite …
2023-02-13 Roses are red, Violets are blue, Guess who had a flooded basement On Super Bowl night. I don’t …
2023-02-12 📺 The Americans are to the 2010s what The Wire was to the 2000s: a masterfully crafted epic …
2023-02-11 Did the US military shoot down a literal UFO over Alaska a few days ago or was I dreaming? The …
2023-02-10 🎮 Getting into Pentiment now, and I don’t know what I like more: the use of typography in the …
2023-02-09 The academic prisoners' dilemma
2023-02-08 A Skynet update: As of yesterday, GPT-3 (or is it 4?) is part of Bing, for which there is now a …
2023-02-07 🕹️ Unavowed was an unexpected surprise: beautiful 16-bit graphics, engaging, mature story, and just …
2023-02-06 🍿 The Pale Blue Eye was big on feels, short on plot. For a murder mystery, that is a death sentence. …
2023-02-05 One of the reasons why 24-hour time is better than the am/pm shenanigans the English-speaking world …
2023-02-04 Et tu, FT?
2023-02-03 February lectures of note
2023-02-02 Yes, yes, America has terrible health care — even a tech podcast says so — while paying an order of …
2023-02-02 People enthralled with Microsoft’s innovation streak must never have used Teams. Like nails on …
2023-02-02 Nitpick of the day: clinical trial versus clinical study
2023-02-01 National Cancer Advisory Board meeting on February 9
2023-02-01 Science and medicine blogs on FeedLand
2023-02-01 📺 I was 10 when The X-Files came out and watched it week by week through hyperinflation, school …
2023-01-31 Some work news
2023-01-30 This April will be 10 years since Elsevier aquired Mendeley, up until then the best reference …
2023-01-29 With only two days to go before the worst month of the year starts, I can declare infrastructure …
2023-01-28 Invention versus discovery, medical treatment edition
2023-01-27 Competing our way to Skynet
2023-01-27 A lengthy overview of the implications of ML/AI to biology and drug discovery came out yesterday, …
2023-01-26 From my inbox, regarding enterprise software with enterprise price: The Zoom link is now in the …
2023-01-26 …and the scary/great thing about middle age is that you forget that you have, in fact, made a …
2023-01-25 If you are giving a pre-recorded talk at a “hybrid” scientific conference, you can count on the …
2023-01-25 The great/scary thing about the internet is that for any fleeting thought I have, there is somone …
2023-01-24 I am sure that Sofa is a fine, artisanal app, lovingly crafted by the best designers and software …
2023-01-24 Among the few Latin phrases I listed yesterday, I’ve somehow managed to miss my favorite: Ars …
2023-01-23 My first Covid-19 paper
2023-01-23 Some phrases in Latin, from profound to trite
2023-01-22 Finished reading: 1177 B.C. by Eric H. Cline 📚 Come for the meticulously documented story of the …
2023-01-22 Finding an article about AI in a major news publication that sticks to facts and makes sense has …
2023-01-21 My position in regards to ChatGPT
2023-01-21 With Tweetbot and Twitterrific gone, and both the website and official app insistant on algorithmic …
2023-01-20 Feeling sad for Twitter app developers and, considering there will be some delay between the fit …
2023-01-19 Further evidence that T cells are the best cells.
2023-01-19 Why are people losing their minds over ChatGPT?
2023-01-19 📚 An unpopular opinion: nonfiction audiobooks are an oxymoron. Those which are better heard than …
2023-01-18 If ChatGPT and other predicitive AIs kill Google, it won’t be because they are better at …
2023-01-17 Craig Hockenberry: A lot of folks appreciated the visual design of our Twitter app. And we are …
2023-01-17 An update on an update: the projector is en route to… Alabama, I think, leaving us without a living …
2023-01-16 Finished reading: How to Listen to Jazz by Ted Gioia 📚 “Finished” as in read every word on the page, …
2023-01-15 Finished reading: Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott Scheper 📚🗃️ There are two and a half books here for …
2023-01-15 🍿 Three Thousand Years of Longing was an unexpected delight. If the theme of Fury Road, George …
2023-01-14 News distortion, a case study
2023-01-14 🍿 White Noise starts off as a Wes Anderson and almost finishes as a David Lynch before veering off …
2023-01-13 And with that, the Twitter chapter of my life has closed. May 2008 to January 2023. Not a bad run, …
2023-01-13 Tech trouble update: LG’s only way of communicating is via phone calls at unpredictable times …
2023-01-12 Currently reading: How to Listen to Jazz by Ted Gioia 📚 Always wonderful to read experts in their …
2023-01-12 A yearly theme, of sorts
2023-01-11 Finished reading: On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt 📚 A timeless masterpiece that takes less than an …
2023-01-10 Finished reading: The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison 📚 A story of damp decay. …
2023-01-10 Adam Mastroianni’s Experimental History newsletter has enabled paid subscriptions today, and …
2023-01-09 From the Annals of Internal Medicine: Curiosity
2023-01-09 It is hard to watch an animation like this (a plot of England’s population versus GDP from …
2023-01-09 🍿 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is on the regular re-watch list. Think what you will of Tim …
2023-01-07 Things that the Arc browser does well: Mini-browser for opening URLs in other apps Built-in …
2023-01-06 23 books for 2023
2023-01-05 The downside of living in a city others come to visit is that it never feels like a good time to be …
2023-01-04 I have seen many people sharing links to Maciej Cegłowski’s (excellent!) case against …
2023-01-03 2022 in review: lists
2023-01-02 🍿 Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical was a lovely reminder of Tim Minchin’s work which I …
2023-01-02 🍿 Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio: beautiful stop-motion animation with inexplicable changes to …
2023-01-01 Good to know I wasn’t the only one who thought Lex Fridman’s podcast was dull. I tend to …
2022-12-31 2022 in review: books.
2022-12-30 🍿 A Trip to Infinity started off strong: I can never get enough Steve Strogatz, and between him, …
2022-12-30 Finished reading: Craft Coffee: a Manual by Jessica Easto 📚 Re-reading each time I change how I make …
2022-12-29 We are only 6 months away from the 10-year (!?) anniversary of Vesper, an app that not only still …
2022-12-29 🍿 Top Gun: Maverick was, no doubt, the best comedy of the year. By the end I felt like standing up …
2022-12-28 A short list of earnest but misguided attempts to reduce costs in medicine
2022-12-27 Link rot
2022-12-26 Infrastructure week
2022-12-25 Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!
2022-12-25 🍿Strange World had some interesting ideas, but the message got in the way of a good movie. And I …
2022-12-24 2022 in review: television
2022-12-24 🍿Glass Onion: more Triangle of Sadness than Knives Out — the latter being a better movie — but still …
2022-12-23 Speaking of Quanta Magazine, their own series of year-in-review articles is out. If you have no …
2022-12-23 2022 in review: voices in my head
2022-12-22 2022 in review: music
2022-12-21 Dave Winer writes about textcasting, which sounds amazing. Meanwhile, sites like Serious Eats which …
2022-12-20 Currently reading: Craft Coffee: a Manual by Jessica Easto 📚 Read this a while back, but always good …
2022-12-19 About that new profile pic
2022-12-19 ☕️ Entered a recently opened shop with Counter Culture Coffee logo on the window. Turns out it was …
2022-12-18 Eeast coast beach vacations in December are underrated (Virginia Beach, VA)
2022-12-17 Finished reading: Checkpoint Charlie by Iain MacGregor 📚 Stories of the Berlin Wall, told through …
2022-12-16 Finished reading: Genius by James Gleick 📚 The temptation for scientists' biographers is delving too …
2022-12-16 Fascinating how people least deserving of sitting at the table are so often the ones making the most …
2022-12-15 Some beautiful charts in this Pew Research overview of their 2022 findings. What they show is not as …
2022-12-14 To all trainees who are smart and lazy: no, you are not getting away with it. Sure, you can …
2022-12-13 Why is progress in biology so slow?
2022-12-13 Fad of the day: Longtermism. Longtermism is an ethical stance which gives priority to improving the …
2022-12-13 🎮 Finished playing Little Nightmares with my daughter yesterday and it is not what I expected a …
2022-12-12 For those of you completely off Twitter, it is now in the impossible-to-avoid-Elon-Musk phase, where …
2022-12-12 🎥 A Gremlins re-watch
2022-12-11 The older I get the more I appreciate anything in life that reduces friction. Yes, I could write a …
2022-12-11 The cost of the ludic fallacy…
2022-12-10 📺 Season 2 of The Mysterious Benedict Society: bright colors, quirky characters, upbeat music, and …
2022-12-10 📺 Wednesday started off strong but quickly devolved into 90210 with a high body count: enjoyable, …
2022-12-09 🎥 Triangle of Sadness Part 1: A masterpiece of dialogue, acting, pacing, everything. Give it an …
2022-12-08 Singin' in the Rain is my all-time favorite movie so its thorough deconstruction was a joy to watch, …
2022-12-08 I logged in to LinkedIn for the first time in months and it looked like people were actually using …
2022-12-07 2022 in review: disappointments
2022-12-06 Never apologize, never explain. Those who care don’t matter, Those who matter don’t …
2022-12-05 Found on Twitter: this photograph of the late, great architect Zaha Hadid. She is notable for …
2022-12-05 Want to read: On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt 📚 Planning to re-read in light of the impending …
2022-12-04 British Film Institute’s once-per-decade survey of Top 100 movies of all time is out, and it …
2022-12-04 Finished reading: The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy by Michael Lewis 📚 Anecdotes about federal …
2022-12-04 If you have seen and enjoyed Bodyguard, make sure to watch Slow Horses. How good is it? First time I …
2022-12-04 The Reverse Turing Test
2022-12-02 If you would like to hear more about what I’ve been up to professionally for the last year or …
2022-12-01 OpenAI’s new chatbot produces paragraphs of text indistinguishable from what you can find in …
2022-12-01 Fooled by randomness, tornado edition (from The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis) 📚
2022-11-30 “I rob banks because that’s where the money is.” This is what the bank robber Willie …
2022-11-29 I consider myself a fairly rational creature, and yet… Mastodon out of the box: An eye sore! …
2022-11-28 Magpie Murders were an absolute delight, even if the modern-day mystery was somewhat predictable. …
2022-11-28 The principal-agent problem of medicine
2022-11-26 Finished reading: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow 📚 Three remarkable achievements here: …
2022-11-25 Today I learned that the IMDB rating of This Is Spinal Tap… goes up to 11! Many thanks to Russ …
2022-11-24 This is the perfect number of times a year to have cranberry sauce: one. John Roderick (or was it …
2022-11-23 “…and Neymar will fall and cry like a baby”, predicts a boy in Belgrade about …
2022-11-23 In a last-minute change of plans we will be roasting our own turkey for the first time since 2015. …
2022-11-22 The Washington cottontails
2022-11-21 Schroedinger's civilization
2022-11-21 Found on Mastodon via @m_clem@econtwitter.net, a passage from The Enchiridion by Epictetus, …
2022-11-20 An homage to M.C. Escher’s Three Worlds, shot at he US National Arboretum, which is another one of …
2022-11-20 So, for people new to soccer watching the World Cup, just to clarify: that wasn’t an offside, …
2022-11-20 Over the years, I turned from a book highlighter — because that is what they said you should do with …
2022-11-19 There is a good overview of the two ways Micro.blog can interact with Mastodon, from @pmcconnell. I …
2022-11-19 Today I found, via a (paywalled) Janan Ganesh article, an hour-long conversation between Cormac …
2022-11-19 So it looks like the new Pokemon game is buggy as hell. This brings back fond memories of TES II: …
2022-11-18 Public health, lead time bias, and The Dude
2022-11-17 Not a tourist trap, DC edition
2022-11-16 ☕️ After a few decades of making coffee with various techniques (including a dual boiler ECM …
2022-11-16 🎙️ Two recent episodes of EconTalk reminded me why it was the best podcast around: Devon Zuegel on …
2022-11-16 Lists for weekly review
2022-11-15 After a 10-month hiatus I am reactivating my linkblog account on Radio3, one of Dave Winers' many …
2022-11-15 David Simon on Twitter: The worst and most cancerous campaigns on the internet are not to be …
2022-11-15 It is remarkable how quickly the new Verge homepage became my go-to for tech information. Nilay …
2022-11-15 Misfortune without delight
2022-11-14 Don't go there, it's a tourist trap
2022-11-14 Still standing! And even more impressive in person. The “new” museum, 3 years old now, is also …
2022-11-14 In the late 1700s, America’s founding fathers had a fight over the best treatment for yellow fever, …
2022-11-13 Notes on Twitter
2022-11-11 Eleven years have passed since the 11/11/11 release of Skyrim. Tempus fugit.
2022-11-10 The Wizards’ new cherry blossom styling is quite fitting for DC, and even more pink than this photo …
2022-11-10 Guillermo del Toro is single-handedly saving Netflix, first with his Cabinet of Curiosities, now …
2022-11-09 The driveway test
2022-11-08 Everything Everywhere All at Once
2022-11-08 Today is Election Day in America. By law, this is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in …
2022-11-08 This was, in fact, a trick question. They are all stalactites, the ones at the bottom being a mirror …
2022-11-07 Which ones are stalactites and which are stalagmites?
2022-11-07 This wishing well in the Luray Caverns must be the most American thing I’ve seen yet. Nature: …
2022-11-05 Do better cancer drugs cost more?
2022-11-05 Notes on Nashville
2022-10-16 Downtown Nashville TN, October 15 2022, 1:15pm CT.
2022-10-14 Madam’s Organ/Adams Morgan, Washington DC, October 14 2022, 8:30am EST.
2022-10-13 I love Hamilton the musical, but the opening 5 minutes didn’t quite capture the absolute horror of …
2022-10-12 Angela Lansbury (1925-2022). The original production of Sweeney Todd is my favorite work of hers, …
2022-10-07 And the day is off to a great start! I have heard nothing but good things about the Playdate, save …
2022-09-24 It took me a while, but I finally got it: The Road Not Taken is not about individualism and thinking …
2022-09-23 Pre-weekend reading: How to nurture a personal library. Just lovely.
2022-09-13 Orange tabby cat wearing a crown: Stable Diffusion running on a meager M1 versus Midjourney running …
2022-09-12 Thanks to a weekend trip to the DC zoo I now know about bear-cats, who are neither bears nor cats. …
2022-09-10 Junkspace
2022-09-09 This FT lunch interview with Piers Morgan was written for someone more clued in to British media …
2022-08-31 Charlie Warzel puts out a brilliant newsletter every week, and today’s is no different. …
2022-08-30 📚From The Complacent Class by Tyler Cowen, February 2017.
2022-08-17 Miško (Mouser) the cat, living up to his name.
2022-08-17 Word of the day: blankface
2022-08-16 How Unforced Errors Hobbled America's Monkeypox Response
2022-08-12 Associated Press: Next year, the country is set to allow people to be killed exclusively for mental …
2022-08-10 Ah, DC summers… (our office view right now)
2022-08-08 🎬 Luck (2022) was a disappointment in every respect. The awkwardness started with the initial …
2022-08-08 Luck
2022-08-02 The perils of courting audience feedback, part deux
2022-07-25 Don’t read the comments
2022-07-24 On the scourge of sarcasm
2022-07-23 Suffocating is the right word
2022-07-19 So, we are fine tearing down the beautiful old Penn Station, but want to preserve the concrete tomb …
2022-07-18 Donald McNeil, formerly of the New York Times, wrote a primer on the monkeypox outbreak which is …
2022-07-17 “This was an ambitious report recommending all sorts of ways to reform government, but no one …
2022-07-16 📚 The last paragraph of the last chapter of Fooled by Randomness, and I can’t read it without …
2022-07-15 Social sciences aren't the only ones with reproducibility issues
2022-07-12 “Lazy columnists rest a sweeping argument about political ideology on a tossed-off missive …
2022-07-09 📚 On regression to the mean in Fooled by Randomness. Beware the uncontrolled phase 2 data, …
2022-07-09 📚 Halfway through Fooled by Randomness, the seeds of Antifragile. It’s all one work, all that’s …
2022-07-07 📚 Catching up with John, the busted high-yield trader in Fooled by Randomness. If you are talking …
2022-07-04 📚 Fooled by hindsight bias. This one is for anyone who thinks lockdowns and school closures in the …
2022-07-03 Several imprecisions in this essay on IRBs should not detract from its key point: social sciences …
2022-07-03 📚 Taleb the prophet, writing about cryptobros and the summer of 2022 back in the early 2000s. …
2022-07-01 Give a lecture once and you help a few hundred people (if you’re lucky). Post the lecture to …
2022-06-30 📚 Re-reading Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness for the first time since covid hit. From the preface, on …
2022-06-29 “Whether hot or cold water freezes faster remains unknown.” Thus begins a wonderful Quanta Magazine …
2022-06-28 “A lot of people simply won’t read a 15-page whitepaper, but will be impressed by flowcharts. …
2022-06-26 “If you are trying to figure out a thinker and his or her defects, see if you can spot that person’s …
2022-06-25 “This contains a combination of various life-extension medicines (metformin, ashwagandha, and …
2022-06-25 More art deco than brutalism? Yes, please.
2022-06-25 Notes from Asheville
2022-06-17 Hard to say what’s better here, the article or the illustrations that accompany it. Good job, FT …
2022-06-16 All aboard the hype train
2022-06-14 “When people stopped smoking, toxic clouds disappeared from indoor spaces like bars, …
2022-06-10 “The speed of review times and increasing number of FDA-approved cancer medicines has long been used …
2022-06-09 PSA: don’t dig holes in the sand. A few years ago my wife and I finished a Thanksgiving beach …
2022-06-09 The NYT dostarlimab article is reverberating through international media with predictable …
2022-06-08 “It is in the nature of jesters to speak their minds when the mood takes them, regardless of …
2022-06-08 Residency programs' publication requirements generate the worst kind of scientific BS — useless case …
2022-06-08 “Brilliance represents an upper bound on the quality of your reasoning, but there is no lower …
2022-06-08 The bullshitization of science
2022-06-07 To reform NIH, maybe you should first understand it?
2022-06-06 Walking around Seoul
2022-06-05 The New York Times should have its medical provider license revoked
2022-06-05 📷 Nature is obviously a fan of Escher.
2022-06-05 📷 Reminds me of M.C. Escher’s Three Worlds (Tregaron Park, NW DC)
2022-06-03 “The Cotswolds are like Disneyland, they said. And I suppose that was meant to be pejorative. …
2022-06-02 “Many breakthroughs in scientific progress have required massive funding and national coordination. …
2022-06-02 “We can’t keep making so many scientists tear out their hair over well-intentioned but …
2022-05-31 “…the sheer amount of regulation is so voluminous that if I had to actually read the guidelines that …
2022-05-30 📚 Calculated Risks was funnier than you’d expect from a book about statistical (in)numeracy. …
2022-05-30 Calculated Risks
2022-05-30 Why not let them buy a rocket launcher?
2022-05-29 Norm Macdonald's last show
2022-05-29 📚 Bullshit Jobs ended up being copy pasta of David Graeber’s fan mail. Too bad, as the premise …
2022-05-29 Bullshit Jobs
2022-05-28 📷 Seriously?
2022-05-28 📷 It’s moments like this when I regret not having a newer phone (shot on an iPhone XS Max, 4 years …
2022-05-28 📷 This is, without a doubt, the best time to visit Kenilworth aquatic gardens in DC.
2022-05-26 🎙 Still, 2022 is the best year to be alive, and 2023 will be better. Many reasons, but JWST should …
2022-05-25 “To be able to suppress your dislike or lack of interest in things and just do them to gain an …
2022-05-24 Funny that the phrase “stylized facts” started out in economics and is being used in social sciences …
2022-05-21 📚 Cal Newport has some good ideas.
2022-05-21 A World Without Email
2022-05-21 “Natural systems … may look like (a Rube Goldberg machine) superficially because we don’t fully …
2022-05-21 That’s one good-looking pig. www.ft.com/content/8…
2022-05-10 🧪 Happy to see Quanta magazine recognized for its outstanding science reporting. Their website is an …
2022-05-08 📚 Social networks aren’t the problem, ignorance is. Carl Sagan called it 30 years ago. So if you are …
2022-05-07 The Demon-Haunted World
2022-05-07 📚 Five months into the year, and I’ve abandoned my first book: The Ministry for the Future. …
2022-05-06 A not so great Plenary Session 🎙 episode this week, in which Vinay wonders why people are leaving …
2022-05-06 Two excellent episodes of Healthcare Unfiltered 🎙 in two weeks: Aaron Goodman on heme malignancies. …
2022-05-03 Secrets of the Moon’s Permanent Shadows Are Coming to Light
2022-04-29 “We all got fooled by the 1990s . . . We got fooled into thinking that liberal democracy is easy and …
2022-04-27 🧪 For the five people out there who are interested in T-cell malignancies, one of the last papers we …
2022-04-26 “There can be found, inside every American, a miniature Puritan yearning to grow large and seize …
2022-04-23 📚 Starting the morning with some Gerd Gigerenzer. Hope he doesn’t get into trouble for implying the …
2022-04-22 Zeynep Tufekci on missed opportunities
2022-04-22 Alan Jacobs on science and politics
2022-04-22 “Whatever its flaws, the NBA is one of the more functional institutions in American …
2022-04-21 The Good Science Project is underselling how good it is. More like this, please. (signatures below …
2022-04-19 Twitter-friendly controversies
2022-04-18 Debates I'd rather avoid
2022-04-18 The most important article you'll read this week
2022-04-09 From David Graeber’s uneven but in parts excellent book BS Jobs. This was my own conclusion after …
2022-04-08 “We live in Applicatia, a world where people must spend their days improving their resumes in …
2022-04-07 🎙 Out of the two podcasts about randomized controlled trials that came out this week, I much …
2022-04-07 Frustrating to listen. Yes, well-done RCTs are prohibitively expensive and many good ideas are …
2022-04-06 🎙 A fantastic episode of EconTalk this week: Richard Gunderman and Russ Roberts discuss …
2022-04-05 🧪 Good morning to everyone except to whomever is in charge of the eRA Commons service desk. …
2022-04-01 “This is the question that haunts me: How much genius are we losing to the compulsive need to scroll …
2022-03-31 Inside the Virus-Hunting Nonprofit at the Center of the Lab-Leak Controversy This gun isn’t smoking, …
2022-03-30 A marvelous xkcd from a few days ago. This one strip explains the trouble with odds ratios better …
2022-03-30 Putin’s useful German idiots 📰 This is not limited to Putin. Germany has a rich history of enabling …
2022-03-28 Invasion of the Fact-Checkers 📰 An uneducated populace with little capacity for critical thought …
2022-03-27 Review: Understanding Nonlinear Dynamics 📚 Thought I’d be too old for textbooks, but here we are…
2022-03-27 Understanding Nonlinear Dynamics
2022-03-27 Ann Druyan wrote the last paragraph of The Demon-Haunted World (1997). Hate to say it, but darkness …
2022-03-26 American cities never stood a chance 📷
2022-03-26 Ann Druyan on localism. Timeless 📚
2022-03-26 “We are still talking about the original Wuhan strain coronavirus vaccine. Sad!” Attempted Trumpism …
2022-03-26 This whole chapter is striking, particularly when you consider all that came after (the book was …
2022-03-26 A timeless couple of paragraphs 📚
2022-03-25 It’s only the first episode, but The Joy of Why looks to me like the podcast RadioLab used to be, in …
2022-03-24 📺 Station Eleven 👍
2022-03-24 Station Eleven
2022-03-24 Good morning 📰
2022-03-23 After long last, an episode of Conversations with Tyler worth linking to: Lydia Davis on language, …
2022-03-23 Sagan on sceptics. While true, the paragraph would have to be rewritten for the 2020s: being a …
2022-03-22 Edward Teller is a prime example that you can be a world-class physicist and also as dumb as a rock. …
2022-03-21 Sagan on the perceived benefits of not pursuing truth. He would’ve gotten into so much trouble two …
2022-03-20 Sagan on science and anti-science. This kind of language could get you into trouble nowadays. 📚
2022-03-20 In theory there is no difference between theory and practice (…) in practice there is. Benjamin …
2022-03-20 Back to microblogging. Making blogs fun again!
2022-03-20 Back to microblogging
2022-03-19 On the other hand, this view from Mt Vernon is worth preserving
2022-03-19 American NIMBYism runs deep
2022-03-18 The Top articles feature of Twitter Blue is well worth the price! Now if only there was a Twitter …
2022-03-18 “Most TV shows are not good. The key problems are that too much quality scripting is required, …
2022-03-18 Sagan quoting Harvard’s then-Chief of Psyciatry, Dr. Frankel. Everything old is new again, and …
2022-03-18 Reading The Demon-Haunted World, trying to figure out if Carl Sagan would be disappointed in us or …
2022-03-18 The Worm Moon, looking intense
2022-03-17 🍿 Turning Red: like Bao meeting The Mitchells… to produce something less artistic then either, but …
2022-03-17 Bloodshed in DC last night.
2022-03-15 Turning Red
2022-03-13 Where Good Ideas Come From
2022-03-03 The French Dispatch
2022-02-23 Pieces of the Action
2022-02-01 January reading
2022-01-31 Safe Haven
2022-01-26 How to Live
2022-01-21 Twilight of Democracy
2022-01-19 Four Thousand Weeks
2022-01-18 The Scout Mindset
2022-01-06 How to Speak and How to Listen
2022-01-05 One last thing about Don't Look Up
2022-01-04 How to Think
2022-01-03 The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
2022-01-02 22 books for 2022
2022-01-02 A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
2022-01-01 Science and scientism
2022-01-01 Happy New Year
2022-01-01 Encanto
2021-12-31 Newsletters of note
2021-12-31 Corona 300
2021-12-29 Influence
2021-12-28 Don't Look Up
2021-12-28 Goodbye, Drummer (for now)
2021-12-25 Zero to One
2021-12-25 Voices in my head, 2022
2021-10-28 Godwin’s Law and the Rise of Hyperbole on MedTwitter
2021-10-23 Dune (2021)
2021-10-19 The Mysterious Benedict Society, Season 1
2021-10-18 A brief chronology of my employment
2021-10-11 CODA
2021-09-08 The Mare of Easttown
2021-08-26 The White Lotus, Season 1
2021-08-06 How I handle meetings (which most certainly is not how everyone should, but again, may be useful to some)
2021-08-02 Blogroll
2021-07-31 Notes from West Virginia
2021-06-22 The Mitchells vs. The Machines
2021-06-17 Range — Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
2021-06-05 Clearing the PDF log jam
2021-06-03 Interstellar (2014)
2021-05-31 Mulan (2020)
2021-05-30 Cruella (2021)
2021-05-29 A promising young woman (2021)
2021-05-23 Southwest Florida is better for a short family vacation than Maui, conditional on the family not …
2021-05-19 Conspiracy — Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the anatomy of intrigue
2021-05-13 Dune (1984)
2021-04-24 Shin Godzilla (2016)
2021-04-21 Against sarcasm
2021-04-20 The Year Earth Changed (2021)
2021-04-19 Our Towns (2021)
2021-04-18 Kong: Skull Island (2017)
2021-04-17 Godzilla (2014)
2021-03-19 The Tree of Life
2021-02-16 The Undoing
2021-02-14 The Social Network
2021-02-03 Chernobyl
2021-01-30 The Mandalorian, Season 2
2021-01-24 The Goldfinch
2021-01-23 The Mandalorian, Season 1
2021-01-16 Things I heard were good but was holding out for reasons unknown then wondered why I haven't tried them sooner
2021-01-16 Things I used to like but now wonder what in the world I was thinking
2021-01-13 Some observations on Covid-19 from recent personal experience
2021-01-12 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
2021-01-08 National Treasure
2021-01-07 Day Seven
2021-01-06 Day Six
2021-01-05 Day Five
2021-01-04 Day Four
2021-01-03 Day Three
2021-01-02 Day Two
2021-01-01 Day One
2020-12-29 Soul
2020-12-27 Palm Springs
2020-12-24 Baby Driver
2020-12-23 Voices in my head, 2021
2020-12-22 Barry Lyndon
2020-12-19 The Great British Baking Show, Season 8
2020-12-14 Wolfwalkers
2020-11-24 The Computer and the Brain
2020-11-23 Enola Holmes
2020-11-15 The Queen's Gambit
2020-11-14 Ted Lasso, Season 1
2020-05-06 Malignant
2019-12-31 My American decade
2019-12-29 Watchmen, Season 1
2019-12-23 Voices in my head, 2020
2019-12-15 Capitalism, Alone
2019-11-23 Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
2019-11-12 The 2010s
2019-11-04 Talking to Strangers
2019-11-03 Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
2019-09-24 Consider the Lobster
2019-09-12 It's time to stop the foreign doctor kabuki
2019-08-20 Diagnosis (1)
2019-07-25 In the land of outrage and snark
2019-07-04 The Royal Society and the Invention of Modern Science
2019-06-25 The Language of God
2019-06-14 The Theory of Everything
2019-06-09 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
2019-05-30 Get Out
2019-05-20 Dallas impressions
2019-05-16 Upgrade
2019-05-13 Catch-22
2019-05-06 Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About
2019-05-03 Maui
2019-05-01 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
2019-04-30 Aquaman
2019-04-28 Maui, more impressions
2019-04-25 Maui first impressions
2019-04-24 Foundation
2019-04-22 Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
2019-04-02 The Making of the Atomic Bomb
2019-01-25 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
2019-01-20 How I handle email (which is not how everyone should, but you may find some of these useful)
2019-01-12 Flashpoint: Trieste
2018-12-28 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
2018-12-21 Voices in my head, 2019 edition
2018-11-28 The drunkard's walk: How randomness rules our lives
2018-11-27 Buffet: The making of an American capitalist
2018-11-20 A Wrinkle in Time
2018-11-12 Ending medical reversal
2018-10-20 Stubborn Attachments
2018-09-07 Applied minds: how engineers think
2018-05-06 50/50
2018-04-15 If on a winter's night a traveler
2018-01-24 The death and life of great American cities
2018-01-08 The Last Jedi
2017-12-27 What I believe that most people probably don’t (no data behind this, just the armchair)
2017-12-27 Brush up on your Serbian
2017-12-24 A few unpopular (in certain circles) opinions from a person who has no rights having them
2017-12-23 Voices in my head, 2018 edition
2017-06-07 The hero with a thousand faces
2017-04-26 Doctor Strange
2017-04-25 Black Swan
2017-03-25 Stoker
2017-03-23 La La Land
2017-03-14 Birdman
2017-03-07 Hacksaw Ridge
2017-03-06 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
2017-02-28 Moonlight
2017-02-26 Whiplash
2017-02-25 Arrival
2017-02-23 Manchester by the Sea
2017-02-19 Looper
2017-02-15 The Dark Forest
2017-02-12 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
2017-02-11 While We're Young
2017-02-07 Begin Again
2017-01-29 Captain Fantastic
2017-01-28 How to write a thesis
2017-01-26 They Came Together
2017-01-23 The Autopsy of Jane Doe
2017-01-21 Brick
2017-01-19 An Education
2017-01-18 The Three Body Problem
2017-01-18 Children of Men
2016-07-12 The culture that is Northwest Washington DC
2016-02-23 Submitted without comment: NYT: Cancer and Climate Change Esquire: When the End of Human …
2016-02-18 Level up
2016-02-11 Podcast time
2016-02-08 Storytellers
2016-02-04 Also, this is happening: Or it may happen, eventually, when I get to it. Probably close to the trial …
2016-02-04 The 7:07 train dilemma
2016-01-04 Yes, but why?
2016-01-02 Locked in
2015-11-17 Shonda Rhimes on work: Work will happen 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, if you let it. We are …
2015-08-14 Programming, meet medicine
2015-07-01 A yearly welcome
2015-05-29 The overhead
2015-05-07 Talk therapy
2015-02-28 Apple’s App Store rules, Dosegate edition
2014-12-30 Statistics resources for clinicians
2014-12-20 Why be a chief resident?
2014-12-17 A few good pens
2014-12-11 How to say I Don't Know like an intern
2014-11-03 On medical euphemisms
2014-09-21 It’s well-known that most common knowledge is false
2014-09-21 How to spend a Monday morning train ride
2014-09-14 No, there's nothing wrong with your attention span
2014-09-12 Many times during residency I looked for a table like this online. There weren’t any, so I …
2014-08-22 What is the evidence for that?
2014-07-25 Research during residency
2014-07-22 Down the vim rabithole
2014-07-01 June 2014, final tally
2014-06-22 Goodbye, Sinai
2014-06-03 Three tech tips for new interns
2014-05-18 Just can't get a break
2014-05-14 A podcast a day
2014-04-30 To Cuba and back
2014-01-14 Get a journal article through your library proxy quickly with Alfred 2
2014-01-13 If you have a Google+ account—and you might not be aware that you do—anyone using Gmail can now …
2014-01-03 The difference between being well and feeling well
2013-12-29 Two podcasts, three doctors, one good show
2013-12-25 Ten common residency idioms and phrases
2013-12-18 As a one-time interviewer and two-time interviewee...
2013-12-03 30 iPad apps I use almost every day
2013-09-24 On RVUs, sort of
2013-09-15 On patient notes and busy interns
2012-12-02 Peeves