Posted on - 5 Comments on Assorted Links

Assorted Links

  1. Self-experiment on short-term memory announcement
  2. Why the Chinese government censors the Internet. James Fallows was able to figure out why they blocked the NY Times website for a few days (an article about suppression of rebellion).
  3. Nassim Taleb on iatrogenesis. “They never consider that “nothing” may be better than the best model.”
  4. The Lost Art of Walking by Geoff Nicholson.
  5. Best journalism of the year. More lists like this! One reason Spy was so good, I think, was that they covered stuff, especially New York publishing, that they knew about from personal experience. Like scientists writing about science.
  6. Six ballsiest scientific frauds.

Thanks to Dave Lull and Tyler Cowen.

Posted on - 2 Comments on Assorted Links (mental health edition)

Assorted Links (mental health edition)

  • many psychology-related blogs
  • a blog about how “we simply are not getting the kind of results that patients, myself included, were promised 20 years ago at the dawn of the psychopharmacological revolution”
  • confirmation of a correlation between autism and rainfall
  • the selling of Dr. Joseph Biederman, a Harvard child psychiatrist
  • trouble at “The Infinite Mind” (a radio show). “Dr. Fred Goodwin [the show’s host] accepted at least $1.3 million in pharmaceutical company speakers’ fees while he was hosting . . . Goodwin defended his actions by claiming this is what all doctors do, plus he took funding from all kinds of pharma companies so that canceled out his conflicts.” As if non-pharma therapies didn’t matter.
Posted on - 3 Comments on Assorted Links (China edition)

Assorted Links (China edition)

  1. Chinesepod.com.  Podcasts for learning Chinese.
  2. Popup Chinese. More podcasts
  3. Pinyin.info. “Most of what most people think they know about Chinese — especially when it comes to Chinese characters — is wrong.”
  4. Laowai Chinese. “I’ve been busy not losing my job (teaching) and not ignoring my publisher.  What I mean is: I’ve been working on the editing and layout of my book Chinese 24/7. I’m glad to announce there are now over ten people outside my family who have expressed interest in my book.”
  5. Sinosplice. “There are some seriously rank odors out there on the street. Rotting organic matter, urine, feces, stinky tofu…. But don’t worry, soon you’ll be gleefully playing “name that odor” with your Chinese friends!”
  6. Imagethief. “Chinese netizens were outraged when Gong Li played a Japanese woman in “Memoirs of Geisha”, alongside fellow crypto-Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.”
  7. Beijing Sounds. A linguist blogs. “The final indignity comes when you utter a phrase that incites peals of laughter. Ignoring your request for explication, your [Chinese] spouse goes over to tell the in-laws (did I mention you’re living with them?) and the lesson comes to an ignominious close with the stern father-in-law, who rarely chuckles, doubled up on the couch, tears rolling down his cheeks.”
  8. Danwei “Today’s New Culture View reports that the People’s Supreme Court approved the death sentence of Yang Jia, the man who murdered six policemen and wounded three others and a security guard on July 1 this year.”
  9. Scientific and academic fraud in China. One popular post printed a letter from a Yale professor teaching at Beijing University upset about plagiarism among his Chinese students: “When plagiarism is detected in America, it can end the career of the person doing it,” he writes. Such as Harvard professors Laurence Tribe, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Charles Ogletree, and Alan Dershowitz?

Happy Thanksgiving! A Chinese friend texted me this. I replied I was surprised she was aware of it. “The majority of Chinese know this day,” she replied, “and say thanks to their friends and families.”