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Reposted by James King

David Sacerdote @davidsacerdote.bsky.social · 1d

A decade after it was written, I find myself pulling out the @cingraham.bsky.social's gerrymandering explanation to help people understand why California’s Prop. 50 is so important to pass.

wapo.st/3WfcjeB

This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see

By simplifying gerrymandering we see how problematic it really is.

wapo.st

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James King @jamesking.io · 1d

Enjoyed this video from @tantacrul.bsky.social about the design and engineering of the new version of Audacity (open source audio software). Beautifully explained and produced. This link is to the last section, but whole video is great. youtu.be/QYM3TWf_G38?...

How We're Redesigning Audacity For The Future

YouTube video by Tantacrul

youtu.be

James King @jamesking.io · 2d

Side note: I really hope Aaron Sorkin and the writers of Silicon Valley are sharpening their pencils. There is so much material here.

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James King @jamesking.io · 2d

Latest episode of Acquired is great! It’s a recent history of Google’s successes and failures on AI, but covers most of the main players like OpenAI, Anthropic and others along the way. It’s 4 hours long, like all good podcasts should be. www.acquired.fm/episodes/goo...

Google: The AI Company | Acquired Podcast

The complete podcast (and transcript!) of Google and Alphabet’s AI history and business strategy.

www.acquired.fm

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James King @jamesking.io · 6d

Yesterday @aubreyclayton.bsky.social delivered a talk for the Ergodicity Economics seminar series. Aubrey shows how it is possible to derive the equations of probability without linking them to frequencies. A video of the talk is here: ergodicityeconomics.com/2025/10/01/6...

Ergodicity Economics

ergodicityeconomics.com

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Reposted by James King

Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 7d

New episode of HARD DRUGS!

AlphaFold, ProteinMPNN & other AI tools are transforming biology and drug design.

But how do they work? What can’t they do? And can we use them to make a vaccine against Strep A for the very first time?

In this episode, Jacob and I talk about hacking proteins with AI.

Hacking proteins with AI

open.spotify.com

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James King @jamesking.io · 14d

Just spotted that this was shared in the @observablehq.com newsletter. Nice!

James King @jamesking.io · 29d

Big fan of @observablehq.com and since their preview release of Observable Notebooks 2.0 my team at Fora Health have integrated Notebook Kit into our app. Works really well so far. Quick demo ⬇️

screen.studio/share/TqvyfFbU

Observable Notebooks 2.0 in Fora Health — Screen Studio

Observable Notebooks 2.0 in Fora Health — Created and shared with Screen Studio

screen.studio

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James King @jamesking.io · 14d

I'm helping to organise this seminar series. The next seminar will be given by Aubrey Clayton, the author of Bernoulli's Fallacy. Come and join us: ergodicityeconomics.com/event/semina...

Seminar. Aubrey Clayton. “Teaching Probability Without Frequencies” – Ergodicity Economics

ergodicityeconomics.com

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Reposted by James King

Mike Bostock @ocks.org · 23d

Observable Notebook Kit & Desktop 1.4 now support TypeScript cells, along with TypeScript for Node.js data loader cells. (Just type stripping, but greatly helps interoperability.)

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James King @jamesking.io · 28d

Great!

James King @jamesking.io · 28d

New episode of my Audiolog: audiolog.jamesking.io/2025-09-10/

Wall of sound - Audiolog

Clips from Grant Sanderson, the MMT Podcast, The London Review of Books podcast and some very fast trains.

audiolog.jamesking.io

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James King @jamesking.io · 29d

New blog post: jamesking.io/2025/09/10/i...

Incomplete Open Cubes | James King

jamesking.io

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James King @jamesking.io · 29d

Thank you for such an amazing set of tools.

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James King @jamesking.io · 29d

Big fan of @observablehq.com and since their preview release of Observable Notebooks 2.0 my team at Fora Health have integrated Notebook Kit into our app. Works really well so far. Quick demo ⬇️

screen.studio/share/TqvyfFbU

Observable Notebooks 2.0 in Fora Health — Screen Studio

Observable Notebooks 2.0 in Fora Health — Created and shared with Screen Studio

screen.studio

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James King @jamesking.io · Sep 2

New blog post: Failing to reproduce Axelrod, 1980

Today I learned that a foundational result in game theory hasn’t been successfully reproduced, and not from lack of trying.

jamesking.io/2025/09/02/f...

Failing to reproduce Axelrod, 1980 | James King

jamesking.io

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James King @jamesking.io · Aug 26

This thread is a really good short summary/review of the Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies.

Nikhil Venkatesh @nikvenkatesh.bsky.social · Aug 26

I enjoyed this very much - thanks for writing it @dsquareddigest.bsky.social !

The front cover of a book: "The Unaccountability Machine: why big systems make terrible decisions" by Dan Davies

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James King @jamesking.io · Jul 31

You can add more than 1 to a prompt and use them as inline references. That’s really nice.

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James King @jamesking.io · Jul 31

Oh wow! That’s really useful! Thanks for the tip

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Reposted by James King

Mike Bostock @ocks.org · Jul 29

Notebooks 2.0 is here! 📓🔮 Previewing today: Notebook Kit, an open file format for notebooks with open-source tooling for generating static sites; and Observable Desktop, a macOS desktop application for editing notebooks as local files, with a radical new approach to AI. observablehq.com/notebooks/2/

Observable Notebooks 2.0 Technology Preview | Observable

observablehq.com

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James King @jamesking.io · Jun 30

Beautiful cover!

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James King @jamesking.io · Jun 15

From the same issue, this article is one of my favourites: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

The ergodicity solution of the cooperation puzzle | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

When two entities cooperate by sharing resources, one relinquishes something of value to the other. This apparent altruism is frequently observed in nature. Why? Classical treatments assume circumstan...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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James King @jamesking.io · Jun 11

It’s the Aquired podcast format applied to drug discovery. That’s a very good thing.

Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · Jun 11

LAUNCH DAY 🚀

Today I’m launching a new podcast, Hard Drugs, with Jacob Trefethen (@jacobtref.bsky.social)

Our first episode is about lenacapavir — a new HIV drug that blocks infections with an efficacy rate of nearly 100%, and which could completely change the fight against HIV worldwide.

Lenacapavir: The miracle drug that could end AIDS

Hard Drugs · Episode

open.spotify.com

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Reposted by James King

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · May 14

Excellent video on whether retinol is a scam — there are only few low quality RCTs, why would one still believe in it? — and it’s so good, talking about various incentives and the role of mechanistic knowledge. I’ll have to think about how to fit this into teaching!>
m.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Z5...

Does retinol in skincare even work?

YouTube video by Lab Muffin Beauty Science

m.youtube.com

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James King @jamesking.io · May 14

Really great video! Thanks for sharing. Reminded me of Nancy Cartwright’s argument that RCTs shouldn’t be the only way we find out what works. www.thelancet.com/journals/a/a...

A philosopher's view of the long road from RCTs to effectiveness

For evidence-based practice and policy, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are the current gold standard. But exactly why? We know that RCTs do not, without a series of strong assumptions, warrant pr...

www.thelancet.com

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James King @jamesking.io · Mar 22

@mmtpodcast.bsky.social your intro to MMT at the start of the latest episode was excellent. Such a good distillation. 👏

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