- Google Assistant can now have you assign reminders to other people. Solve, as they say, for the equilibrium.
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.. - On the whole, a depressing read about higher education in India.
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.. - “Anyway, please join me on an annotated trip through my favorite parts of the mandatory filing.”
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A delightful (truly!) romp through WeWork’s IPO filings.
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.. - Robotic shorts that make walking and running easier.
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.. - xkcd is a treasure. This one on conferences.
Month: August 2019
Tech: Links for 22nd August, 2019
- “1. first bionic hand with a sense of touch that can be worn outside a laboratory
2. development of a new 3D bioprinting technique, which allows the more accurate printing of soft tissue organs, such as lungs
3. a method through which the human innate immune system may possibly be trained to more efficiently respond to diseases and infections
4. a new form of biomaterial based delivery system for therapeutic drugs, which only release their cargo under certain physiological conditions, thereby potentially reducing drug side-effects in patients
5. an announcement of human clinical trials, that will encompass the use of CRISPR technology to modify the T cells of patients with multiple myeloma, sarcoma and melanoma cancers, to allow the cells to more effectively combat the cancers, the first of their kind trials in the US
6. a blood test (or liquid biopsy) that can detect eight common cancer tumors early. The new test, based on cancer-related DNA and proteins found in the blood, produced 70% positive results in the tumor-types studied in 1005 patients
7. a method of turning skin cells into stem cells, with the use of CRISPR
the creation of two monkey clones for the first time
8. a paper which presents possible evidence that naked mole-rats do not face increased mortality risk due to aging”
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That is an excerpt from an excerpt, but I found the list astonishing. These are advancements from only the field of biology, only from 2018… and as the article goes on to say, only from January 2018. Remarkable. I know very little of how life sciences work, but the article was very informative on that score.
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.. - Do Uber and Lyft contribute to congestion? Note the funding agencies.
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.. - Benedict Evans on whether Netflix is a TV business or a tech business.
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.. - This link comes via MR, and Tyler Cowen said it is Tiebout Twitter. I prefer Voting With your Tweets.
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.. - “But perhaps he also sensed that power in society is shifting from the institutions he oversaw, to those that distribute private capital—it wouldn’t be the wrong read, even if it’s an unsettling one.”
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A not altogether pretty look at the VC industry and its evolution over time.
RoW: Links for 21st August, 2019
- “Aides expressed both expectation and reservation at the President’s still-unclear interest in the idea and had questions about the island’s military and research potential, the Journal reported. ”
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President Trump is interested in buying Greenland. (Why not?)
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.. - Via Marginal Revolution, why not indeed.
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.. - Especially because of opportunity costs.
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.. - Plus, there’s precedence, of course.
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.. - Lots of it!
Livemint Interviews Cass Sunstein
Quick update, especially pertinent given the behavioral economics workshop at Gokhale Institute: Cass Sunstein interviewed by Anil Padmanabhan.
Who is Cass Sunstein, you ask?
Here’s a slightly old profile. Here’s the link to his Amazon author page. Here is an interview he did with Tyler Cowen. Here is his faculty page. Here’s a piece I loved reading (written by him).
Tech: Links for 20th August, 2019
Five online resources that are free, and that help you be a better student in today’s set.
- An utterly beautiful way to learn statistics. That is not hyperbole.
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.. - If you are a data nerd, you will have already heard of Kaggle. If you aren’t, welcome to the club.
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.. - The magic of Wolfram Alpha. If you aren’t sure about how to start, try the “Surprise Me” link on the home page
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.. - If you are using Google Classroom, the latest update might interest you.
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.. - Try the Socratic app?
Lunch With FT: Richard Thaler
“One thing for sure is Remain is a horrible name. It’s weak. Whereas Leave is strong.”
Richard Thaler is by now a household name – well, I think so at any rate, and this interview that he gave to Tim Harford (who should be a household name!) is worth reading in its entirety. You’ll need to sign in/register, I think – sorry about that.
Quick update: we’re conducting a workshop on behavioral economics for undergrad students at GIPE this week, and I’ll post nuggets such as these along the way.
India: Links for 19th August, 2019
CCS is organizing a conference around the theme “Legal Foundations of a Free Society”, and it is being hosted by the Gokhale Institute. One of the speakers is Shruti Rajagopalan, whose writing I have long admired. Here are five pieces by Shruti that I thoroughly enjoyed reading:
- The implementation of laws matters as much as their framing (as any parent will tell you!)
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.. - “Deshmukh, a former RBI governor who had argued against bank nationalization immediately after independence, was also contesting the election, this time supported by the Swatantra Party and Jan Sangh. Giri won with Gandhi’s support, and his legacy is often regarded as that of a rubber-stamp loyalist who damaged the independence of the President’s office.”
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A little bit of trivia that I was completely unaware of, and makes me think of many counterfactuals – but the article is about how the nationalization of banks came to be.
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.. - Shruti explains (rather acerbically and entirely appropriately so) why the budget is a spectacle we’d all do well to ignore completely.
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.. - “First, we need to create more positions for judges, especially in the lower levels of the judiciary, as caseloads have exploded over the years. India has only 12-15 judges per million people compared to the US’s 110 per million. The immediate goal is to reach the Law Commission’s 50-judges-per-million recommendation. A good start is to double the number of judges across the board in the lower judiciary.”
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On some much needed reforms to the Indian judiciary.
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.. - A paper by her on a favorite theme (and bugbear) of mine: the complete lack of true decentralization in India.
Video for 18th August, 2019
Federer Djokovic matches have a, uh, history
Tweets for 17th August, 2019
Etc: Links for 16th August, 2019
I have linked to brainpickings before, but this week, I have been reading it almost incessantly. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I have economics textbooks coming out of my ears.
In particular, I have been reading about what Maria Popova has to say about Kurt Vonnegut – and that is a heady combination indeed. And so today’s links are five posts about Vonnegut by Popova (and a bonus sixth one at the end!)
- “I think it’s important to live in a nice country rather than a powerful one. Power makes everybody crazy.”
An excerpt from a letter to his daughter.
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.. - “When I get home from school at about 5:30, I numb my twanging intellect with several belts of Scotch and water ($5.00/fifth at the State Liquor store, the only liquor store in town. There are loads of bars, though.), cook supper, read and listen to jazz (lots of good music on the radio here), slip off to sleep at ten.”
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A part of his daily routine, as outlined to his wife.
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.. - “I have just demonstrated to you that Shakespeare was as poor a storyteller as any Arapaho.”
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Hamlet from his viewpoint.
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.. - “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”
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This was the second piece that I read this week about Vonnegut, and the advice about how to write better is masterful.
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.. - “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.”
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And this was the first.
And because it is Friday, and because why not, a short poem by Vonnegut.
EconForEverybody 