# Recent updates to gwern.net (2014-2015)

> Previously: [2011](/lw/8kv/recent_updates_to_gwernnet/); [2012-2013](/lw/h0b/recent_updates_to_gwernnet_20122013/); [2013-2014](/lw/kgt/recent_updates_to_gwernnet_20132014/)

“Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. / For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.”

Sorted by topic:

Darknet market related:

*   [Darknet Market archives, 2011-2015](http://www.gwern.net/Black-market%20archives): 1.5tb of mirrors of scores of Tor-Bitcoin black-markets & forums 2013-2015, and other material; this is the single largest public archive of all DNM materials, and creating it was a major focus of mine since December 2013. The release also marks the end of my career as DNM expert - I’ve lost interest in the topic due to the apparent stability of the DNMs & being trapped in a local equilibrium
*   [DNM arrests compilation](http://www.gwern.net/Black-market%20arrests): a census of all known arrests Jan 2011-June 2015
*   [“Silk Goxed: How DPR used MtGox for hedging & lost big”](https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2tgymg/silk_goxed_how_dpr_used_mtgox_for_hedging_lost_big/)
*   there was an [ICE subpoena on my Reddit account](https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/30tudk/psa_5_reddit_accounts_subpoenaed_by_ice/)

Statistics & decision theory:

*   [When Does The Mail Come? A subjective Bayesian decision-theoretic analysis of local mail delivery times](http://gwern.net/Mail%20delivery)
*   [`resorter` tool for statistically re-ranking a set of ratings](http://www.gwern.net/Resorter)
*   analysis of [Effective Altruists’ donations as reported in the LW survey](http://www.gwern.net/EA%20donations)
*   anthology on how [“everything is correlated”](http://www.gwern.net/Causality#everything-correlates-with-everything)
*   [electric vs stove kettle boiling-time analysis](http://www.gwern.net/Tea#electric-vs-stove-kettle-fight): collected some simple data on my kettles & demonstrated some statistics tools on the dataset like a Bayesian measurement-error model
*   [dysgenics power analysis: how much genetic data would it take to falsify those claims?](http://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes#dysgenics-power-analysis)
*   [noisy polls: modeling potentially falsified poll data](http://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes#dealing-with-all-or-nothing-unreliability-of-data)
*   [Value of Information for suicide](http://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes#value-of-information-clinical-prediction-instruments-for-suicide) (example cost-benefit analysis of weakly predicting suicide)
*   [Air conditioner upgrade](http://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes#air-conditioner-replacement) cost-benefit analysis
*   probability/gerontology problem: can one visit 566 centenarians before any die? [No.](http://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes#the-traveling-gerontologist-problem)
*   [do causal networks explain why correlation≠causation is so often true?](http://www.gwern.net/Causality)
*   a little example of estimating [scores from censored data](http://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes#estimating-censored-test-scores)

QS related:

*   [2015 modafinil community survey](http://www.gwern.net/Modafinil%20survey) (not quite finished)
*   [Bitter Melon experimental & cost-benefit analysis](http://www.gwern.net/Melon)
*   [Redshift self-experiment](http://gwern.net/Zeo#redshiftf.lux): screen-reddening software shifts bedtime forward by 20 minutes
*   magnesium citrate experiment finished: [initial benefits but apparent cumulative overdose led to net negative effect](http://gwern.net/Nootropics#citrate) and [mixed effects on sleep](http://gwern.net/Zeo#magnesium-citrate)
*   playing with inferring Bayesian networks for my [Zeo](http://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes#zeo-sleep-data) & [body weight](http://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes#daily-weight-data-graph) data (powerful generalization of SEMs, but requires a lot of data before networks stabilize)
*   Nootropics: [initial results on LLLT](http://gwern.net/Nootropics#lllt) correlated with large increases; but the followup randomized experiment showed zero effect
*   [LLLT re-analysis](http://gwern.net/Nootropics#sleep): no change in sleep as hypothesized by another LLLT user
*   [analysis](http://gwern.net/2014%20spirulina) of sceaduwe’s spirulina/allergies self-experiment (no reduction in allergies)
*   [Noopept experiment](http://gwern.net/Nootropics#noopept-followup-experiment) (no benefits)
*   [Treadmill spaced repetition experiment](http://www.gwern.net/Treadmill#treadmill-effect-on-spaced-repetition-performance-randomized-experiment): expanded analysis to cover treadmill’s impact on successive reviews with SEM (no additional damage to recall beyond that implied by the original damage)
*   lithium orotate experiment finished: [no effects positive or negative](http://gwern.net/Nootropics#lithium-experiment)
*   sleep correlations:
    
    *   [alcohol](http://gwern.net/Zeo#alcohol): no harm
    *   [optimal bedtime](http://gwern.net/Zeo#bed-time-for-better-sleep): a little earlier than usual
    *   [optimal wakeup time](http://gwern.net/Zeo#rise-time-for-productivity): a little earlier than usual

Tech:

*   [“Effective Use of arbtt”](http://arbtt.nomeata.de/doc/users_guide/effective-use.html): My window tracker/time-logger of choice is [arbtt](http://arbtt.nomeata.de/) which records X window info for later classification and analysis; but one of the challenges is you don’t know how to set up arbtt or improve your environment or write classifications rules. So I wrote a tutorial.
*   [Time-lock crypto](http://www.gwern.net/Self-decrypting%20files): wrote a Bash implementation of serial hashing time-lock crypto, link to all known implementations of hash time-lock crypto; discuss recent major theoretical breakthroughs involving Bitcoin

Debunking:

*   [Bicycle face](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bicycle_face#Serious_sourcing_issues)
*   [“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dionysius_Lardner#Did_he_actually_say_that.3F)
*   [did _Fifty Shades of Gray_ have only 4k readers as the original Twilight fanfiction?](/lw/kl3/fifty_shades_of_selffulfilling_prophecy/#entry_t1_b5bj)

`gwern.net`-related:

*   [switched to Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/gwern) for donations
*   continued sending out [my newsletter](http://eepurl.com/Kc155); up to [24 issues now](http://www.gwern.net/tags/newsletter)
*   rewrote `gwern.net` CSS to be mobile-friendly; should now be readable in an iPhone 6 browser
*   optimized website loading (removed Custom Search Engine, A/B testing, non-validating XML, outbound link-tracking; simplified Disqus; minified JS, and fully async/deferred JS loading)
*   A/B testing:
    
    *   [proposal towards](http://gwern.net/AB%20testing#deep-reinforcement-learning) recurrent neural network for reinforcement learning of CSS
    *   [metadata test](http://gwern.net/AB%20testing#moving-sidebars-metadata-into-page): indicates moving it from the sidebar to the top of page works as well
    *   [indentation test](http://gwern.net/AB%20testing#indented-paragraphs): no real result, defaulted to 2em
    *   [floating footnotes test](http://gwern.net/AB%20testing#floating-footnotes): verified no apparent harm (as hoped)
    *   [paragraph indentation test](http://gwern.net/AB%20testing#indented-paragraphs) (responding to anonymous complaint; they were wrong)