> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Further Reading
- URL: https://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/blog/2023/02/06/further-reading-89/
- Published: 2023-02-06T10:51:31.000Z
- Updated: 2023-06-05T09:18:14.000Z
- Description: Diffusion models. The decline in disruptive science. Gamifying behavioural experiments. Combining reinforcement learning and LLM. Unlucky numbers. Matisse. Theaster Gates. Hans Belting. And more.
- Author: Ivar Hagendoorn
- Tags: Blog, Further Reading

[Diffusion models](https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-physics-principle-that-inspired-modern-ai-art-20230105/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) generate incredible images by learning to reverse the process that, among other things, causes ink to spread through water.

[Interview](https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/we-come-to-fuck-shit-up-theaster-gates-gets-deep-with-arthur-jafa?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) with Theaster Gates. Too bad I’ll miss his show at New York’s New Museum.

Hans Belting. An [obituary](https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2023-01/hans-belting-kunsthistoriker-kunst-bild-nachruf?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) (in German).

Der Kampf gegen die globale Katastrophe hält uns gefangen. War es das schon? Wer jetzt noch nach Hoffnung sucht, muss in die Vergangenheit reisen. Slavoj Žižek in [Die Zeit](https://www.zeit.de/2023/03/krisen-vergangenheit-zukunft-philosophie?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

[Matisse: The Red Studio](https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5344?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com). This must have been a [wonderful](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/09/going-to-extremes-matisse-the-red-studio/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) exhibition.

[Unlucky numbers](https://www.science.org/content/article/unlucky-numbers-fighting-murder-convictions-rest-shoddy-stats?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com). Statistician Richard Gill is fighting the shoddy statistics that put nurses in prison for serial murder.

A wave of [research](https://www.quantamagazine.org/machines-learn-better-if-we-teach-them-the-basics-20230201/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) improves reinforcement learning algorithms by pre-training them as if they were human. “They taught a robotic arm to manipulate tools it had never seen before, and pre-trained it using descriptive language taken from successful language models.”

The proportion of publications that send a field in a new direction has [plummeted](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04577-5?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) over the past half-century. “Data from millions of manuscripts show that, compared with mid-twentieth-century research, that done in the 2000s was much more likely to push science forward incrementally than to veer off in a new direction and render previous work obsolete. Analysis of patents from 1976 to 2010 showed the same trend.”

Unearned authorship [pervades](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00016-1?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) science. “Almost 70% of researchers based in Europe say that they have been involved in projects in the past three years that listed authors who did not contribute sufficiently to the work, according to a major survey.”

How [games](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00065-6?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) can make behavioural science better. Wordle, Minecraft and Scrabble are played online by millions. Gamifying experiments can make behavioural research more inclusive, rigorous and reproducible, if it’s done right.

[A recent comparative study](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/23/medieval-marvels-in-latin-west-and-islamic-world-karnes/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) of medieval Christian and Islamic culture suggests that marvels offer common ground: wonder is a shared delight, a shared motive.

The universe's [first stars](https://www.quantamagazine.org/astronomers-say-they-have-spotted-the-universes-first-stars-20230130/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com)?

[Fireworks display](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00202-1?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) from rare dying star is unlike anything astronomers have seen.

The Milky Way in spellbinding detail and more. [January’s best science images](https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-00215-w/index.html?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).