Links - June 3, 2016
- What Tech Workers Can Learn From Harry Bridges Kelsey Gilmore-Innis
San Francisco and the Gold Rush, both old and new. Labor, unions, and narratives of success.
- Deep Reinforcement Learning: Pong from Pixels Andrej Karpathy
Another in depth look at modern solutions to artificial intelligence and problem solving. As usual, Karpathy makes complex ideas understandable, this time using OpenAI’s Gym to play Pong.
- Video is the new HTML Benedict Evans
HTML, Flash, Video, etc, are only a medium. Corporations today are working hard to exploit these new means of distribution.
- Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants Farhad Manjoo - The New York Times
- Can social science yield objective knowledge? Noah Smith - Noahpinion
Great analogy between natural science vs. religion and natural science vs. social science. As Noah points out, the idea of the “God of the Gaps” fits in quite well. I have long been a fan of Paul Davies and his take on the classic fight. Noah gives a good explanation for why they are, in a way, the same.
- Carts Without Horses Aaron Harris
Understanding that developing markets are fundamentally different beasts, and not just waiting for copies of what has already been done, is both challenging, and exciting. Makes me wonder what I could do if I went back home.
- Why Trump voters are not “complete idiots” Chris Arnade - Medium
The expanded version of the tweetstorm. Poor people understand optionality, too. If your downside is flat, and your upside isn’t, logic says break the system.
- What happened, what's happening now and what's next Benedict Evans
Yes, two posts by Evans today. It’s that good.