“Genes Take Charge, and Diets Fall by the Wayside” (there’s also a recent Spanish study showing very high heritability of BMI, like most such studies, but since the fulltext is in Spanish there’s no point in linking it)
“ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World” (very impressive historically-accurate in-browser simulation of the logistics of the ancient Roman Empire. My only regret is that I can’t think of any situation in which I actually need an exact calculation of how much it would have cost to get from Londinium to Rome during winter while avoiding the Atlantic. But some of the graphs showing cost-distances between Rome and the provinces are pretty interesting, as are some of the disparities)
My only regret is that I can’t think of any situation in which I actually need an exact calculation of how much it would have cost to get from Londinium to Rome during winter while avoiding the Atlantic
What about constructing a decent fantasy-world economics? ;)
What about constructing a decent fantasy-world economics? ;)
An alt-historical fic maybe, but you’d have to input an entire world of data to construct a fantasy world. Seriously, the world in ORBIS is amazing: they have detailed geographical tiles of land/shore/water/various-routes, water current speed in both direction, fees for each point to point, variation in fees by time of year… You’d spend more time constructing your world in ORBIS than it would take to write your novel with some reasonable guesses as to plausible economics.
Yeah, realistic worlds are not necessarily optimized for being entertaining. That’s why fiction exists, after all—because we’re not satisfied with nonfiction.
Everything is heritable:
“Genes Take Charge, and Diets Fall by the Wayside” (there’s also a recent Spanish study showing very high heritability of BMI, like most such studies, but since the fulltext is in Spanish there’s no point in linking it)
“Not by Twins Alone: Using the Extended Family Design to Investigate Genetic Influence on Political Beliefs”, Hatemi et al 2010 (excerpts)
“Chimpanzee Intelligence Is Heritable”, Hopkins et al 2014 (excerpts)
“Genetic Variation Associated with Differential Educational Attainment in Adults Has Anticipated Associations with School Performance in Children”, Ward et al 2014 (Rietveld et al 2013′s 3 SNP hits for intelligence are starting to replicate; excerpts)
“The genetics of investment biases”, Cronqvist & Siegal 2014 (excerpts)
“Genetic Relations Among Procrastination, Impulsivity, and Goal-Management Ability: Implications for the Evolutionary Origin of Procrastination”, Gustavson et al 2014
Politics/religion:
“ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World” (very impressive historically-accurate in-browser simulation of the logistics of the ancient Roman Empire. My only regret is that I can’t think of any situation in which I actually need an exact calculation of how much it would have cost to get from Londinium to Rome during winter while avoiding the Atlantic. But some of the graphs showing cost-distances between Rome and the provinces are pretty interesting, as are some of the disparities)
“Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology”, Hibbing et al 2014 (excerpts; mass media)
Dinosaur Comics on the lyrics of “La Marseillaise”
“Political Extremism Is Supported by an Illusion of Understanding”, Fernbach et al 2013 (excerpts)
“Toward a theory of revolution”, Davies 1962 (excerpts)
“Paying Kidnapping Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror” (incentives matter)
“How Hijackers Commandeered Over 130 American Planes—In 5 Years”: the golden age of hijacking
“NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?”
“Inside the United States: GlobalPost goes inside the United States to uncover the regime’s dramatic descent into authoritarian rule and how the opposition plans to fight back.”
Saint Guinefort: greyhound & patron of sick children
Dr Seuss and the Cold War
“The Blurb I Wish I’d Had”
“Nakatomi Space” (Die Hard as conceptual art/philosophy)
“Welcome to the Future Nauseous”
What about constructing a decent fantasy-world economics? ;)
Truly remarkable though...
An alt-historical fic maybe, but you’d have to input an entire world of data to construct a fantasy world. Seriously, the world in ORBIS is amazing: they have detailed geographical tiles of land/shore/water/various-routes, water current speed in both direction, fees for each point to point, variation in fees by time of year… You’d spend more time constructing your world in ORBIS than it would take to write your novel with some reasonable guesses as to plausible economics.
I know of at least one author who did exactly that (not with Orbis though). Predictably, the outcome was pretty boring.
Who was that?
Yeah, realistic worlds are not necessarily optimized for being entertaining. That’s why fiction exists, after all—because we’re not satisfied with nonfiction.