{"id":351,"date":"2013-05-02T09:42:18","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T14:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/?p=351"},"modified":"2013-10-02T12:59:48","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T16:59:48","slug":"reading-list-for-2-may-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/reading-list-for-2-may-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading List for 2 May 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marginal Revolution :: Tyler Cowen :: Is there a shortage of STEM workers in the United States?<\/a><\/p>\n

Simplified analogy: I'm not bidding up the price of quadcopters. That doesn't mean that if we had more of them I wouldn't find cool stuff to do with them.<\/p>\n

(For other takes on this see Ian Hathaway<\/a> and Alex Tabarrok<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The paper Cowen is responding to<\/a> states: \"The annual number of computer science graduates doubled between 1998 and 2004, and is currently over 50 percent higher than its 1998 level.\" Another way to describe this situation is \"The annual number of CS graduates has fallen by a quarter in less than a decade.<\/em>\" That gives a rather different spin than the authors formulation.<\/p>\n

\"Taschen<\/a>\u25ca Uncrate :: Information Graphics<\/em> by Sandra Rendgen<\/a><\/p>\n

Recommended. Both useful and pretty. There aren't many books I've gotten from the UMD library for work that I'm happy to leave on the coffee table.<\/p>\n

Christopher Rowe. \"The new library of Babel? Borges, digitisation and the myth of the universal library.\" First Monday, 18(2). 2013.<\/a><\/p>\n

As a general rule, I'm skeptical of papers that make heavy use of vocabulary like \"problematise.\" But another general rule is that Borges' \"Library of Babel<\/i>\" is amazing, so...<\/p>\n

HBR Blogs :: Grant McCracken :: Is Timex Suffering the Early Stages of Disruption?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Bloomberg :: Virginia Postrel :: Dove\u2019s Fake New 'Real Beauty' Ads<\/a><\/p>\n

Dove did a great job of rhetoric but then they had to go and dishonestly cloak it in the banners of Science.<\/p>\n

Physics Buzz :: Chris Gorski :: Physicist Proposes New Way To Think About Intelligence<\/a><\/p>\n

Wissner-Gross calls the concept at the center of the research \"causal entropic forces.\" These forces are the motivation for intelligent behavior. They encourage a system to preserve as many future histories as possible. For example, in the cart-and-rod exercise, Entropica controls the cart to keep the rod upright. Allowing the rod to fall would drastically reduce the number of remaining future histories, or, in other words, lower the entropy of the cart-and-rod system. Keeping the rod upright maximizes the entropy. It maintains all future histories that can begin from that state, including those that require the cart to let the rod fall.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I'm not sure I buy this, but I'll hold judgement until I read the Phys Rev Lett paper. I do know this though: there are already about 10,000 different definitions of \"entropy\" in different fields, and that causes no end of inter-disciplinary confusion. I'm not looking forward to having to keep track of another.<\/p>\n

Growth Matters :: Clement Wan :: Experiments in Education<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

io9 :: A map of U.S. roads and nothing else<\/a><\/p>\n

\"map<\/p>\n

Check out the full res version<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marginal Revolution :: Tyler Cowen :: Is there a shortage of STEM workers in the United States? Simplified analogy: I'm not bidding up the price of quadcopters. That doesn't mean that if we had more of them I wouldn't find … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-lists","wpautop"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sddF-5F","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/netflix-marathon\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":0},"title":"Netflix Marathon","author":"jsylvest","date":"14 February 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Tyler Cowen :: Will marathon viewing become the TV norm? On Friday, Netflix will release a drama expressly designed to be consumed in one sitting: \u201cHouse of Cards,\u201d a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Rather than introducing one episode a week, as distributors have done since the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Business \/ Economics"","block_context":{"text":"Business \/ Economics","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/business-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"house_of_cards","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/house_of_cards-300x168.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":392,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/the-disposable-academic\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":1},"title":"\"The disposable academic\"","author":"jsylvest","date":"1 May 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Economist :: The disposable academic You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle. True. And true. Although the first has more to do with my wife and I having\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/tag\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Chad Hagen's \"Nonsensical Infographic No. 1\" ","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/hagen-nonsensical1-298x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1228,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/art-in-space\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":2},"title":"Art in Space","author":"jsylvest","date":"22 April 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I'm going to put on my Tyler Cowen hat and speculate about what art work will be valuable when humans are space-faring. That's a pretty big range of possibilities, so let's keep things to a realistic, near(-ish) future. That means ignoring Iain Banks-type, post-singularity futures in which people are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/160126_NorthFront_MidTownCeres_Concept_B_v5.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/160126_NorthFront_MidTownCeres_Concept_B_v5.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/160126_NorthFront_MidTownCeres_Concept_B_v5.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/160126_NorthFront_MidTownCeres_Concept_B_v5.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/160126_NorthFront_MidTownCeres_Concept_B_v5.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":62,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/computational-cartography-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":3},"title":"Computational Cartography (Part 2)","author":"jsylvest","date":"20 February 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In the previous post I talked a bit about how one might build a system which would algorithmically divide the US into 50 states of approximately equal populations. I've messed around with the problem a bit and developed a very rough approximation. Actually, I don't even feel comfortable calling this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding"","block_context":{"text":"CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/cs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"auto sized states - after","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/auto-sized-states-after-1024x768.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/auto-sized-states-after-1024x768.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/auto-sized-states-after-1024x768.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/auto-sized-states-after-1024x768.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":129,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/reading-list-for-2-apr-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":4},"title":"Reading List for 2 Apr 2013","author":"jsylvest","date":"4 April 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Alan Winfield's Web Log ::\u00a0Extreme debugging \u2014 a tale of microcode and an oven \"Components on the CPU circuit board were melting, but still it didn't crash. So that's how I debugged code with an oven.\" If that's not a closing line that gets you to click through, I don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Lists"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Lists","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/reading-lists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":278,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/reading-list-for-26-april-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":5},"title":"Reading List for 26 April 2013","author":"jsylvest","date":"26 April 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Tom Murphy :: learnfun & playfun: A general technique for automating NES games Wow. Here's the conference paper [pdf]. This suggested to me that it may be time to automate the playing of NES games, in order to save time. (Rather, to replace it with time spent programming.) Ha! I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Lists"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Lists","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/reading-lists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}