Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Firm SF that focuses on the adventures of a mathematician monk. Science in the world of Anathem is still science, but it has a quasi-mystical culture built around it. It's a long, slow-building book but eventually has plenty of action and rationality alike. The ending is the highlight.

Technology: * "Exponential and non-exponential trends in information technology" (LW) * "The Three Projections of Dr Futamura" (isomorphisms between compilers/interpreters/etc) * Framing Brian Krebs with heroin * "It's the Latency, Stupid" * Medieval computer science: "STOC 1500" * "A World Without Randomness" * "Life Inside Brewster's Magnificent Contraption" (Jason Scott on the Internet Archive) * "Mundane Magic" * Sand as a form of power storage Statistics: * "Search for the Wreckage of Air France Flight AF 447", Stone et al 2014 (technical report) * "What do null fields tell use about scientific fraud?" * "A whole fleet of gremlins: Looking more carefully at Richard Tol's twice-corrected paper, 'The Economic Effects of Climate Change'" * "Theory-testing in psychology and physics: a methodological paradox", Meehl 1967 (excerpts) * "What Bayesianism Taught Me" * "The robust beauty of improper linear models in decision making" * "Big Data needs Big Model" (converting non-random Xbox-based polling into accurate election forecasts by modeling the non-randomness & adjusting for it) * What are statistical models? * "Non-industry-Sponsored Preclinical Studies on Statins Yield Greater Efficacy Estimates Than Industry-Sponsored Studies: A Meta-Analysis", Krauth et al 2014 (Typically when you look at study results with an industry funding variable, you find that industry studies are biased upwards - this is the sort of study that comes up in books like Bad Pharma - but here we seem to see the opposite: it's the non-industry, academic/nonprofit/government, funding which seems to be biased towards finding effects. Interestingly, this is for studies early in the drug pipeline, while IIRC the usual studies examine drugs later in the approval pipeline and which have reached human clinical trials. This immediately suggests an economic rationale: early in the process, drug companies have incentives to reach true results in order to avoid investing much in dru

A bit of humor: World's Supercomputers Release Study Confirming they are not Powerful Enough A journalist talks about the irrational fears of parenting. It includes a good hearing of a hard-nosed rationalist view, but it's not posed as a debate. The day I left my son in the car

The Universal Death Clock In short, this video displays a 43-part clock in Minecraft which pulses once every 1.3 googol years, and uses that to talk about universal heat death and deep time. It's somewhat chilling to watch, and provides a nice system of units to use for talking about really long times. 3 trillion years is 8 Death Clock Units (DCU's). Also, figuring out how long energy could be generated in the universe is an interesting mental exercise. I think I figured out how to generate power until 15 DCU's.

* OK Go - The Writing's On the Wall is categorically a mind-bending-music-video, remixing optical illusions into music * Vi Hart's topic for the month is infinity; specifically, How many kinds of infinity are there? bridges a wide range of math fields

In Search of Kazakhstan - largely just a travel book, but the author does a good job of getting out of the way. The stories around independence (e.g. secretly producing a new currency) are fascinating, and it was interesting that the president's very popularity seems to present a problem for democracy. But mostly just a whole lot of interesting new information (even as someone who's been there).

How To Train Your Dragon - a Dreamworks animation which they didn't just fill with tropes the kids won't understand to keep the parents amused. And today the 7yo and I watched the first six episodes of the TV animation that comes next in the story, Dreamworks Dragons. It's really pretty good and Freda laughed like a drain. You and your kid will enjoy it. Second movie is out shortly. I ran it by her because she's been playing the online School of Dragons game (requires Unity Web Player). Literally the first activity in the game is to teach the player a version of the scientific method, as are several subsequent activities. I thoroughly approve of putting that into a 7yo's head.

From the season just finished, Hitsugi no Chaika consistently overdelivers on what it promises, despite a weak first episode. The worldbuilding is pretty decent (I normally use Moribito as the touchstone for that, and it's not quite that good, but few things are), the plot - while not overly complex - seems quite fresh, and cliches are often avoided. On the downside, while they don't actually leave you on a cliffhanger, you get half a series - the other half to come in the autumn. Also One Week Friends is pure tissuebox material, possibly one of the most emotion-inducing shows in the last year or two. That sort of thing is not everyone's cup of tea though, natch.

Sakamichi no Apollo (Kids on the Slope): A fantastic one-season slice of life about a city boy who plays classical piano learning jazz from a country boy. We'd been going through a spate of good-to-mediocre anime with horrible endings (the aforementioned Sword Art Online, for instance) so it's worth noting that the ending of Kids on the Slope is excellent. Skip if you're not a fan of jazz, obviously.

Hunter X Hunter: I'd heard several recommendations that this was some kind of "thinking man's shonen", which it hasn't really lived up to so far (I'm around episode 80, so I understand I've finished all the complete arcs and are about to start the ongoing one). The powers seem very arbitrary (far more so than e.g. Fate/*), and any number of characters seem to be massively overpowered if they'd think a little more about how they use their abilities. It's hard to get a coherent sense of the world, because there are a huge number of differences from reality that one would expect to radically change the world, but the consequences of these things aren't really explored or visible, so it never felt real to me. I'll keep watching - the way the various plot threads interact is quite clever, and some of the powers and fights are quite fun, but I can't really recommend this.

Easy A - went in expecting a dumb teen movie and found it surprisingly clever. A bunch of literary allusions (at the level where I could spot them but felt smug about doing so) and some genuinely amusing dialogue (at one point I had to pause for a minute or so and just laugh); the lead's snark is implausible but can be assumed to be mild unreliable narrator. Portrays what felt like a realistic case of someone trying to do good by stepping around conventional moral rules, and finding this introduces unexpected difficulties, but without (to me at least) implying she made the wrong choice. I'm not sure whether Hollywood in general has shifted in recent years, but I was surprised by the relatively positive take on sex and the Christian antagonists. I also liked that even the "evil" characters were acting in ways that made sense; some people are quite selfish, but everyone's motivations are understandable.

* The Thing I enjoyed this a great deal. The special effects hold up well, I liked the suspense & paranoia especially since I had no idea how the plot goes and really was unsure who would be assimilated, and the characters don't act too stupidly for most of the movie. * Dr. Strangelove * Her * Nebraska 2013 (??? My relatives say this is a good depiction of the more Scandinavian parts of the Midwest but it left me deeply nonplussed)

I got interested in Person of Interest after the recent article and binged through the three seasons. It's definitely not essential viewing, most of it is forgettable case of the week fluff, particularly almost all of the first season, but it was fun seeing a standard procedural show gradually turn into a Neuromancer lite by the third season finale. Also, Michael Emerson makes it much better than it would be otherwise be.

Battle rapper "Rone": * a best-of video * Non-battle raps: Stranger, Raw Life Cypher Other rappers: * Curren$y, Sir Michael Rocks, Curren$y and Sir Michael Rocks * Allday * Toys For Boys * Tyler, The Creator

The Kraftwerk box set again. (In which Autobahn is renumbered as album number 1, instead of album number 4 as it actually was. Not that the first three are worth almost anyone's time.) A band that is simultaneously prog rock, disco, hiphop and note-by-note composition that really rewards close listening. All the details are important. I have been particuarly playing Trans Europe Express, which I've given a close listening to in conjunction with "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker, which combined the beat of "Numbers", the melody of "Trans Europe Express" and rapping to form what was pretty much the first popular record where the rapping just went over a beat. I've also been listening to people's old mixtapes from 98.7 KISS FM which they put up on YouTube - there was a phase change, where the rapping went from instrumental backing to just beats, and "Planet Rock" appears to have been it. So yeah, I've put together a pretty good rough version of "Trans Europe Express" to a "Numbers" beat myself. The loved one (who can actually sing) will be recording vocals for it in English and German next week. Just getting her to also translate "Planet Rock" into German (the less rhyming and scansion the better for this purpose) and that will follow. I will also do "Metal on Metal", of course. (Those KISS FM mixtapes are just amazingly good stuff, by the way. This is what Shep Pettibone did before making it even bigger as a remixer.)

Doujin: * "それでもグランドマザーは" (ds_8; bacon8tion {2011}) [instrumental] Touhou: * "孤独なウェアウルフ" (TAM; 純白の東方子守唄 {R11}) [classical] * "春色小径　～ Colorful Path" (TAM; 純白の東方子守唄 {R11}) [classical] * "月時計　～ ルナ.ダイアル -十六夜" (TAM; 純白の東方子守唄 {R11}) [classical] * "幽雅に咲かせ、墨染の桜 alt. ver." (埼玉最終兵器; Rain Drop {R11}) [instrumental metal] * "恋心ひとつ" (ハム; TOHO BOSSA NOVA 3 {R11}) [bossa nova] * "Telepathy, Telepathy" (雨宿 どみ乃; デジウィ LEGEND {R11}) [Jpop] * "Eternal Verities" (ayame; POP | CULTURE {C84}) [Jpop] Vocaloid: * "bpm (club rework)" (Miku; KTG; CueB Legacy Collection {VM21}) [club] * "クラブ流星群 (Extend mix)" (Miku; 味噌汁P CueB Legacy Collection {VM21}) [club] * "Just hanging around" (Gumi; ベーコンP; bacon8tion {2011}) [Jpop] * "Just carry on my way" (Gumi; ベーコンP; bacon8tion {2011}) [Jpop] * "いつか" (Rin; カラスヤサボウ; goodnight, wonderend {2014}) [Jpop]

Transistor is a mildly tactical Diablo-like by the makers of Bastion. It's a fairly quick, incredibly artsy game with a wonderful soundtrack, challenging opponents, and an interface that I want to hit with a hammer. Well worth a purchase if you're into the game genre at all. Vg'f /nyfb/ nobhg n infgyl cbjreshy bcgvzvmngvba cebprff hfrq ol sbyx abjurer arne pnhgvbhf bs vg, naq n cbfg-Fvathynevgl hcybnqrq fbpvrgl punfvat vgf gnvy.

I disliked The Drowned Man (theatre); the format felt like an awkward compromise between traditional theatre and LARP with the downsides of both. Full review here