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Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky is set in the same world as the Sarantine Mosaic duology, and the Lions of Al-Rassan, The Last Light of the Sun, and A Song for Arbonne. I’ve enjoyed Kay’s work for more than half my life at this point, so no surprise that I enjoy Children of Earth and Sky. As I’ve noted before, Kay is arguably the world’s greatest historical fantasist, and for someone like me it’s always pleasurable to make connections between our own real history, and his secondary creation. This sort of fantasy is more magical, than characterized by magic.
I know I have readers in India because of IP addresses. Keep an eye out for my byline in India Today, where I’ll make some contributions now and then. The first should drop this Friday in print and online, a short review of Shadi Hamid’s Islamic Exceptionalism. An Indian friend told me that India is one nation where the sales of print are actually increasing, so I’m curious how this will go.
On Twitter most of my blocks come because I’m being tweeted at directly by someone. If I don’t follow you on Twitter in most cases I don’t want to be bothered. The main reason I block isn’t because I’m a coward or I feel unsafe. It’s because the person is probably stupid, and starting to annoy me. Sometimes, it’s because they want me to make a point that they want to make. Needless to say, I don’t take kindly to that. Between all my various adult responsibilities that I have now at this age, I don’t really feel guilty at all muting stupid people (who invariably think they’re genius, because you know, they’re stupid).
So you’ve convinced me that functional programming is the way to go.
Since my genotype is public somehow it got used in an rnsnps tutorial. Pretty funny.
Also, Running Structure-like Population Genetic Analyses with R. Looks like there are some interesting visualizations of admixture components which are feasible with the new program.
People keep emailing me about the HGDP plink data set. I think I removed where it initially was, and it’s linked to my old Admixture tutorials. Well, download this zip, and look at the .fam file. It has clear population labels, so you should be able to do what you want in Plink.
Should We Be Having Kids In The Age Of Climate Change? The arguments really go all the way back to the ZPG movement. Actually, they’ve popped up in philosophical movements from the beginning of time. The world is a “vale of tears”, etc. Myself, I have no guilt about having children. My children are attractive, and seem rather intelligent so far. Would that more children like mine exist in the world!
Stop Tweeting Your #Firstsevenjobs: It’s just a way to disguise your privilege. FUCK YOU. The author of the piece has a degree in French language and literature from Columbia university according to her Linkedin. She gets to write for a living for Slate about food, and was editorial assistant for Mark Bittman. What. The. Fuck. She gets paid to write about food! She was Mark Bittman’s assistant. I guess it takes one to know one. Not that the author tries to mask her privilege: “But this list doesn’t tell you that I went to an Ivy League school and graduated without debt, since my parents were able and willing to pay for my tuition.”
I hate it when people say that gender is a continuum, because that tacitly brings to mind a uniform distribution. It’s not. It’s highly bimodal.
Lou Pearlman is dead. The weirdest thing about his career is that several stories have implied he became a boy-band impresario because he was a closeted gay man, and that was a way for him to have access to young vulnerable teenagers. The fact that he became very prominent in the late 1990s boy-band boom was almost a coincidence.
Sarah Haider has been accused of being a white supremacist.
Let Caster Run! We Should Celebrate Semenya’s Extraordinary Talent. As they would say, “I don’t even.”
The company I work for has a 20% discount on kits right now. So if you want your dog to get genotyped on 200,000 markers, and get ancestry and health, it’s a good time as any.
What are you reading?
The Amazing Atheist youtube channel has some pretty funny videos. E.g.,
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I have met stupid people who think they are smart and stupid people who know they are stupid. What do you think accounts for the difference?
But are they good?
Attractive, intelligent people can wreak havoc in the world if they are self-centered and self-indulgent. As much as I think my own children are smart, beautiful, and athletic, I have taken great pains to make them good – to love and serve God, country, community, and family (in that order) above themselves.
Attractive, intelligent people can wreak havoc in the world if they are self-centered and self-indulgent. As much as I think my own children are smart, beautiful, and athletic, I have taken great pains to make them good - to love and serve God, country, community, and family (in that order) above themselves.Replies: @Razib Khan
But are they good?
too young to tell. also, my son is two. he’s an OK sharer, but at that age they’re kind of selfish.
I have met stupid people who think they are smart and stupid people who know they are stupid. What do you think accounts for the difference?
the latter have wisdom?
i should admit that it’s not just stupidity. some people are just disagreeable, constantly tweeting at me until i agree with them (which i won’t if i don’t).
I’ve been reading “Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire” by Crowley, about Portugal’s wars in Africa and India for trade and Christianity. It reminded me of another book (“Empires of the Silk Road” maybe?) that talked about how the nomadic empires were defeated by the Qing and Russians only after the Portuguese and Dutch had opened up the alternative sea route for Eurasian trade, leaving the old Silk Road powers bypassed by trade and impoverished.
Do you think that is a good theory? I’d be interested in your take.
i think the rise of industrial war would have done it. the qing defeated the dzungars through concerted genocide.
“What are you reading?”
I’ve just completed Richard Overy’s The bombing war: Europe 1939-1945.
Can recommend it, probably the best single volume there is on bombing in WW2 era Europe, and covers subjects usually neglected like German bombing in the Soviet Union, bombing by and of Italy etc.
Hey Razib,
The other day you said the Nordics were a mongrel race 4k years old. Can you go a bit more in depth with that? Any links on the matter?
One may say “The Nordic traits are recessive so it’s impossible for us to have been a result of mongrelization”.
I loved Tigana by GGK.
read this paper: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.02783.pdf i have blogged extensively on this, i’m not going to repeat myself at length. #becauseIts2016 and the data is out there.
One may say “The Nordic traits are recessive so it’s impossible for us to have been a result of mongrelization”.
one may say that if you are retarded. i can name two “nordic traits,” lactase persistence and skin color, which are not recessive. the former is mostly dominant (h ~ 1) while the latter exhibits midparent parent values closer to light than dark (h > 0.5). others, like eye and hair color are more recessive (h < 0.5). but one can not say that an individual is mostly recessive or dominant, as that is not even wrong.
if you are a "racerealist" you should know these basic facts of human population genetics in 2016. otherwise you are a racemythist.
(of course, anyone who has seen my son would laugh at the idea that “nordic traits” are recessive 🙂 like ~20% of northern europeans he is a het. on KITLG locus with one loss of function allele)
(oh, and also, nordic traits are recent anyway, so ancestry is less important than you think: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v528/n7583/abs/nature16152.html)
American slaves narratives:
“My grandfather belonged to Thomas Jefferson.”
thought this was interesting because they were actually there.
Do you think that is a good theory? I'd be interested in your take.Replies: @Razib Khan
Do you think that is a good theory? I’d be interested in your take.
i think the rise of industrial war would have done it. the qing defeated the dzungars through concerted genocide.
I’ll have to give Kay another go. I read and loved some of his books (such as Lions of Al-Rassan), but I didn’t continue to read more because I was starting one of my periodic burn-outs on reading fiction.
That’s a good reminder on gender. It’s easy to forget that transsexual folks are less than 1% of the US population, given how vocal trans activism has been on the internet and in public. Some of it is riding off of the success of gay/lesbian activism.
Interesting. I remember you posting his baby picture ages ago – does Little Lord Khan take more after his mother?
That's a good reminder on gender. It's easy to forget that transsexual folks are less than 1% of the US population, given how vocal trans activism has been on the internet and in public. Some of it is riding off of the success of gay/lesbian activism.Interesting. I remember you posting his baby picture ages ago - does Little Lord Khan take more after his mother?Replies: @Brett, @Razib Khan
Sorry, that was probably too personal a question on that last one.
That's a good reminder on gender. It's easy to forget that transsexual folks are less than 1% of the US population, given how vocal trans activism has been on the internet and in public. Some of it is riding off of the success of gay/lesbian activism.Interesting. I remember you posting his baby picture ages ago - does Little Lord Khan take more after his mother?Replies: @Brett, @Razib Khan
yes. arguably both my kids do, but especially LLK. both my kids are tan as you’d expect, but they curiously have no clear south asian features.
the first actual practical use from epigenetics?
The first epigenetic test to diagnose tumors of unknown origin
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-08-epigenetic-tumors-unknown.html