I think Adams accepted this theory on Trump would cost him money.

Why do you think it costs him money? Adam is a blogger. He get's money from doing things that grab attention.

So you think he assigns a lower probability to Trump winning than someone unfamiliar with his argument might suppose? In theory he might have lost more than 2mill * 0.38 = 760000, but the higher that probability goes the worse your argument sounds.

Has there been a description of what specific advanced persuasion techniques Trump has been using? Or why they work powerfully on some people and not others?

Note that Adams is using persuasion tactics in the interview itself. The most obvious trick is that he describes himself as being objective (he doesn't care about Trump vs Clinton) and altruistic (because he's wealthy and older), making it more likely for us to believe the other things he has to say.

My guess is that Adams is hoping that Trump wins the election, because he will then write a book about persuasion and how Trump's persuasion skills helped him win. He already has a lot of this material on his blog. In that scenario he can capitalize on his correct prediction, which seemed radical at the time, to generate a lot of publicity for the book. Persuasion is a topic of perennial interest, and Adams is a skilled expositor. So there's a good chance that a Trump win will mean a multi-million dollar payoff for Adams.

I actually like Adams and think he's a smart guy, but I doubt he's much more altruistic and objective than everyone else. ;-)

According to Technology Review Gates is targeting 2029 for releasing gene drive mosquitoes.

it looks like this is a big boost to the simulation argument.

It could be that you only get civilizations "in universes is governed by a tiny subset of all possible functions" because else wise either evolution can't "discover" how to create intelligent life, or evolved intelligent life can't figure out science.

You should see:
http://cognitivefun.net/
https://www.lumosity.com
http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

I'm having trouble sending a text message with an ipad and iphone? The recipient isn't receiving the text. What are the sources of error other than wrong number? Also, are you supposed to input the 1 before the 10 digit number? It's U.S. to U.S.

Technology:

• "Strategy Letter V" (Reminder: Android vs iPhone, Oculus vs Vive, Microsoft vs Apple, Facebook vs media, Twitter vs API users, Amazon vs anything - everything in SV is ruled by 'commoditize your complement' and low marginal costs.)
• "DDoSCoin: Cryptocurrency with a Malicious Proof-of-Work", Wustrow & VanderSloot 2016 (Who knew HTTPS connections could provide third-party-verifiable signatures and so HTTPS is a valid Proof-of-Work and one can incentivize creating HTTPS connections and hence DDoSes?)
• "Losing My Revolution: How Many Resources Shared on Social Media Have Been Lost?", SalahEldeen & Nelson 2012
• "Learnable Programming: Designing a programming system for understanding programs"

Economics:

• "The Case Against Everyone's Favorite Tax Break: The Mortgage Interest Deduction"
• "Fair Division of Black-Hole Negentropy: an Introduction to Cooperative Game Theory"
• "Arbitrage and equilibrium in the Team Fortress 2 economy"
• "Open-access deal for particle physics: Consortium brokers agreement with 12 journals"
• "Grade inflation: why weren't the instructors all giving all A's already?"

Philosophy:

• "Trying to See Through: A Unified Theory of Nerddom"
• "Covert virtue - the signal that doesn't bark?"
• "Let Us Give To Future"
• Alarm Bell Phrase

Fiction:

• The Mongolian Wizard: "Day of the Kraken", Michael Swanwick
• "Villon's Straight Tip To All Cross Coves"

Misc:

• "Detailed Discussion of Legal Rights and Duties in Lost Pet Disputes", Berry 2010 (lost/abandoned pets are surprisingly complex legally)
• "What was it like to try a rat? (Comparative Jurisprudence, part 1)"
• Tendril perversion (An uncommon name for a common phenomenon; investigated by no less than Charles Darwin.)
• WSJ hedcut

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