2016-05-23

  1. The Doomsday Invention: Will artificial intelligence bring us utopia or destruction? - New Yorker

“... the word hanging in the air—an echo of Oppenheimer, who famously said of the bomb, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it, and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success.”

  1. Does the Fifth Amendment Undermine Eighth Amendment Arguments Against the Death Penalty?

"If you do not subscribe to concrete-expected-applications originalism, you have no reason to read the Fifth Amendment's limits on the death penalty as incompatible with reading the Eighth Amendment to render the death penalty unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment."

  1. Give War a Chance - Foreign Affairs
    Worth checking out, with the same title: Give War a Chance - PBS Frontline.
    Have we learned the lessons?

  2. The Machiavelli of Maryland - Gaurdian
    Speaking of Luttwak, an interesting profile.

  3. Moving On in Vietnam, but Remembering Its Lessons - NYT
    On a related note, a joint op-ed article by John Kerry, John McCain, and Bob Kerrey.

2016-05-16

  1. Chill-Pass: Using Neuro-Physiological Responses to Chill Music to Defeat Coercion Attacks
    Using neurophysiological response to make password resistance to coercion/torture.

  2. The Obama Doctrine - Atlantic - The Atlantic
    President Obama reflects on his administration's foreign policy decisions.

  3. Sheryl Sandberg’s powerful commencement speech - Quartz - Qz
    Sheryl Sandberg reflects on her husband's death and resilience.

"Last month, eleven days before the anniversary of Dave’s death, I broke down crying to a friend of mine. We were sitting—of all places—on a bathroom floor. I said: “Eleven days. One year ago, he had eleven days left. And we had no idea.” We looked at each other through tears, and asked how we would live if we knew we had eleven days left.
As you graduate, can you ask yourselves to live as if you had eleven days left? I don’t mean blow everything off and party all the time—although tonight is an exception. I mean live with the understanding of how precious every single day would be. How precious every day actually is."

  1. How Larry Page’s Obsessions Became Google’s Business - NYT - NYT
    Google's confounder Larry Page profile.

2016-05-10

  1. The poetry of function naming - Stephen Wolfram
    I've always felt that many aspects of Mathematica are designed with systematic and thoughtful considerations. And it's a no surprise that they spend much thoughts and time into the process, and Stephen Wolfram reflects on the process.

  2. Do you want to live forever? - Technology Review - MIT Technology Review
    Profile of Aubrey de Grey and his theories on stopping aging.