Over-incarceration as a market failure. It seems like much more could be written on this perspective.

Deepmind declares victory! Mohammed AlQuraishi outlines the method, and discusses the implications for protein structure prediction and related fields. And here is a video about the result from a machine learning researcher.

Gowers issues a challenge: create a computer-checkable proof of a foundational result in “condensed mathematics”. The challenge is issued as a result of his own fear that his proof is flawed (after spending about a year working on it).

Socrates as the bad guy.

Bryan Caplan doesn’t think much of elite universities.

Another claim of quantum supremacy appears! As with all these early claims, a key question is whether or not a classical computer could perform the same computation. In this case, Gil Kalai thinks so.

The essence of economics, in a parody of he-who-must-not-be-named. Nearly half applies to physics without modification.

Microsoft’s report on the SolarWinds hack is worth a read. One can draw many parallels between public health (particularly pandemic preparedness) and cyber security. One way in which they’re not similar: we have a pretty good idea what “the worst” pandemic looks like. We have no idea what a worst-case cybersec incident looks like.