there  could  be  snakes  in  here

citogenesis (n.): the creation of a loop of citations for a baseless fact. Coined by Randall Munroe. Bradford Factor (HR n.): dumb measure of the burden of someone's sick days: (Number of occasions sick)^2 x Total days absent. Objectively badly calibrated: making an effort to come in to the office before full recovery is penalised compared to taking a whole week off. Apparently widely used in the UK. dehiring (HR n.): euphemism for being fired gently; colluding with an employee you want rid of, to get them hired somewhere else. outplacement (HR n.): another kind of gentle firing: in particular, outsourcing the firing process to a training-and-counselling company. scripta manent (Latin proverb): 'text remains'; can I get that in writing? music bread (Sardinian n.): sort of like a papadum or hardtack. sea-turtle (海龟) (n.): a Chinese graduate of foreign universities who returns to China. Pun on haigui, ocean-return . ...

imeldific (adj.): ostentatious; extravagant to the point of vulgarity. Coined by Imelda Marcos, which tells you something about her relationship to herself. Professor the Lord (UK pron.): Honorific for someone who is both a university professor and a peer. cf. Professor the Lord Vice Chancellor Winston and Professor the Lord. privately rational (economics adj.): Tyler Cowen 's new term for economically rational. I think I'll taboo the latter from my speech, since the former is so much more evocative. senolytic (bio n.): agent that kills only old, malfunctioning, cancer-prone cells. Just beginning applications... Lit: age destroyer . elephant's breath (pretentious n.): beige-grey . do-calculus (stats/CS n.): Judea Pearl's causal identification framework; a symbolic logic for deriving all the observational implications of a model. turbocode (electronics n.): particularly good way of encoding signals to g...

Cassandrafreude (n): twisted pleasure in things going wrong exactly the way you predicted, when no one believed you. forensicist (med n.): criminal psychiatrist, involved in e.g. verifying insanity defences. Real lie detectors. egregore (occult n.): thought-form; Volksgeist ; manipulative hivemind; some sort of supernatural meme. Poland problem (social n.): having a polarised and unmanageable political culture despite good economic performance. (This is an exception to a very general socioeconomic rule.) Peculiar to Barkley Rosser but he makes up for the usage gap on his own . packed assembly (politics n.): an artificially-skewed parliament / voter base. Ballot stuffing via selection bias. cattle-cake (husbandry n.): animal feed block; mostly straw and yeast and other run-off. talcosis (med n.): inflammation of lungs from constant exposure to talc powder. BID (Latin): bis in die; twice a day. culture add (HR n.): Ne...

My main output was to teach you 500 strange words . I got cross about the prestige of certain knowledge workers . I collated some skits . I tried to predict what would happen this year . I reflected on what I did wrong in school . I wrote about the difference between knowing (the password, the algorithm) and grokking . I wrote about the perception of value and dissed phenomenology again . I wrote about how unrealistic realistic art is . I made analogies between my philosophy and the ancients' . I reviewed Robin Hanson's grand book, Geoff Dyer's nonbook, and Ted Chiang's sculptures . I estimated how many lives the media thinks certain kinds of lives are worth . I estimated how many hours I have spent on maths . I wrote a poem about the north . I wrote a poem about nationhood . I made a joke ranking of mathematics students . I wrote about how it feels to grok statistical learning for the first time . I wrote about the compleat scientist . I wrote about Nazi nuclear...

psycho-boom (心理热潮) (n.): recent rapid, enthusiastic import of psychiatric concepts and treatments in China. Excellent stuff. Except, unfortunately, psychoanalysis has stolen a march on the cognitive/biological approach, and is enjoying a lucrative afterlife, following its much-deserved death in the West. American psychoanalytic institutes often have trouble finding willing patients; Chinese programs have the opposite problem. When Beijing University held a series of lectures on Carl Jung a few years ago, it could admit only a quarter of the people who wanted to attend. scènes à faire (legal n.): something too simple or cliched to be copyrightable. e.g. rooftop showdown, the millenial whoop. to get winstoned (underground UK v.): to cut one's septum on one of the new plastic £10 notes, which have Churchill's face on them. bomb (underground UK n.): a paper case to deliver powder to the stomach. sac (chess v.): to sacrifice Quadrila...

exercise intolerance (medical n.): Collapsing after minor physical effort. Marker of severe heart disease or CFS. Might this be a less-heralded advantage of doing regular exercise: a canary in the mine? degan (n.): death-free vegan; vegan who will eat cultured meat. Coined here , no traction yet. degen (thieves' cant n.): sword capacity discipline (airline n.): Overbooking, downsizing, outsourcing, just-in-time arrivals. Using fewer planes to maintain prices, while enforcing this monopoly with state violence if necessary. plasmon (physics n.): the quantum of plasma oscillation; the as-if smallest unit of change in the free electron gas. exciton (condensed matter n.): Way of describing a paired electron/ electron hole as if they were a particle. First-ever unambigious sighting, the other day . goniometer (physics n.): Device for measuring or creating precise angles psychrometrics (engineering): the study of gas-vapor mixes...

[work in progress] NOVELS The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) Tales of Earthsea (1998). Tehanu (1990). The Farthest Shore (1972). A Wizard of Earthsea (1968). Sometimes described as most suitable for children, but I read it at 26 and felt no deficiency of tone or . The Dispossessed (1979). Lathe of Heaven (1971). Grand psychedelic indictment of utilitarianism. Endorsement of psychoanalysis and Daoist woo. I don't care, it's amazing. The Other Wind (2001). The Tombs of Atuan (1970). STORIES Things or The End (1970). Beautiful study of apocalypse and mass psychosis. Planting an apple-tree. I gasped. Romance: 5/5. The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas (1973). Intuition pump for utilitarianism. Details about this toy society are added one by one, and your mood darkens. She condemns it but not loudly. I'm afraid I think she is a coward, but I appreciate her clarity. If you walk away from Omelas you must believe in banning...