Historical events that inspired the Game of Thrones' Red Wedding ; One thousand wasted research papers; Does insulin resistance cause fibromyalgia? ; An open economics journal of negative results; and more...
Business, News, Science, Technology, or whatever gets my attention.
Straight from my RSS feed:
Ten links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.
- The Very Real Events That Inspired Game of Thrones's Red Wedding - (i) The Massacre of Glencoe: In 1692, 120 English soldiers were house-guests of the Scottish Macdonald clan after the chieftain had been late for a deadline to swear allegiance to William of Orange. The soldiers slaughtered 38 members of the clan while they slept, and drove another 40 into hiding. (ii) The black dinner: In 1440, concerned that the "black Douglas clan" was getting too powerful (as opposed to the "red Douglas clan"), Scottland's king, James II, invited the Earl of Douglas and his younger brother to dinner. The earl was 16, and his younger brother was 10. The king, however, carried out a plan that involved interrupting the dinner and ordering the two boys to be executed after a mock trial.
- A Waste of 1,000 Research Papers - Using the methods of the time, a 1996 research group identified the SLC6A4 gene as a candidate for depression research, but the technology of the time was simply not up to the task. Instead of being skeptical, however, the scientific community spent another 20 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to investigate the link. A large study with today's advanced technology found no evidence at all to support the linkage. h/t RealClear Science
- Is insulin resistance the cause of fibromyalgia? A preliminary report - A study in PlosONE reports that Fibromyalgia patients in a study could be differentiated from the control group by the levels of glycated hemoglobin A1c, a marker for insulin resistance. It also reports that some patients who were treated with metformin exhibited marked improvement in their experience of widespread pain. The annual cost of Fibromyalgia treatment in the US is around $100 billion. h/t Daniel Lemire
- Thanks Autopilot: Cops stop Tesla whose driver appears asleep and drunk - Police in the Netherlands pulled over an autonomous Tesla whose 50 year old operator was asleep. The man's license was collected when he failed a sobriety test. In the past, other inebriated operators of autonomous Teslas have been pulled over in California jurisdictions near San Francisco, and Palo Alto.
- This economics journal only publishes results that are no big deal - I have often thought that there was a need for something that I termed a "journal of negative results". Looks like the field of economics now has one. The Series of Unsurprising Results in Economics (SURE) exists to fight publication bias that favors studies that seem to find positive relationships. By publishing non-relationships that are observed, it can prevent researchers from duplicating efforts that others have already tried. SURE is online, open-access, and has no fees. It is hoped that this sort of publication will lessen the severity of the so-called replication crisis. h/t RealClear Science
- Overly Attached - Technology's version of the sunk cost fallacy. Technology workers need to be able to let go of the emotional attachment when the product they support has run its course. Managers need to help them do it. The article offers six techniques for managers to use to help make sure that technology products don't outlive their usefulness.
- DNA database opts a million people out from police searches - After helping police to identify a man they say is the Golden State Killer last year, GEDMatch changed its terms and conditions over the week-end to opt its million-plus users out of searches by law enforcement. Members who want to can still opt in to having their profile be searchable by law enforcement, but the new default is for it to be disallowed. The company did not explain the reason for the change in course.
- Do Not Track is back in the US Senate. And this time it means business. As in, fining businesses that stalk you online - The 2009 Do Not Track implementation was voluntary and didn't include a standard mechanism for company's to follow, so it has been toothless. Now, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) is proposing legislation that is patterned after the Do Not Call database, and comes with fines for companies that ignore it.
- STEEM Technology Making Companies Into Dinosaurs. - In this post, with examples from his own life and publicly available charts, @cryptoandcoffee discusses the rapid pace at which technology is spreading throughout Africa, and threatening to disrupt the current market-leading businesses. (@cryptoandcoffee will receive 5% of this post's payout)
- STEEM Breaking a Natural Market On Steem - Thoughts from @whatsup on ways to cultivate the Steem blockchain. The post points out that the emergence of bidbots has been an organic phenomenon and therefore demonstrates a real need. It further suggests that people should accept the system the way it is and work to grow it from there, instead of perpetually chasing Utopian changes to the underlying blockchain rules. (5% of the rewards from this post will go to @whatsup)
### About this series
Note: Sharing a link does not imply endorsement or agreement, and I receive no incentives for sharing from any of the content producers.
Thanks to SteemRSS from @philipkoon, @doriitamar, and @torrey.blog for the Steem RSS feeds!
In order to help make Steem the go to place for timely information on diverse topics, I invite you to discuss any of these links in the comments, and/or your own response post.
If you're not on Steem yet, you can follow this account in RSS.