things i learned

The most common noun in the English language…

2022-12-23

is “time” according to Dr. Dean Buonomano on the Ezra Klein podcast.

Relatedly, Wikipedia’s list of sundial mottos will leave you with something to think about.

Elevator operators gone extinct

2022-12-22

Just one of the 270 jobs in the 1950 census has been eliminated by automation... elevator operator.

Other jobs that were expected to be automated by tech, like bank tellers by ATMs, just shifted the nature of the job. Hopefully, AI follows this pattern. https://t.co/F7dGbApCyH pic.twitter.com/Ck5b0ae3eO
— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) December 20, 2022

Parenting culture in the United States

2022-12-21

The average college educated mother in the United States spends ~2 hours a day with her children. Amazingly, this is a 100% increase from 1965.

From the Economist via Sarah Constantin

Before peer review

2022-12-20

Only one of Einstein’s papers was ever peer-reviewed, by the way, and he was so surprised and upset that he published his paper in a different journal instead.)

Via Adam Mastroianni, who makes a compelling case against peer review.

It does seem that writing publicly and emphasizing auditability (sharing of data and code) would be more important than anything else.

India/China facts of the day

2022-12-14

India is going surpass China as the most populous country in the world next year, according to Pew Research. China’s population is expected to decline by 46% by 2100 according to the UN’s middle of the road projection.

The population cliff ahead of China is astounding. And a fact that has been true all my life (China is the most populous country in the world) isn’t true any longer.