Monday, January 26
Daily News Stuff 26 January 2026
National Anthem Edition
National Anthem Edition
Top Story
- Replication crisis as a service. (Columbia)
You may have heard about the replication crisis science, and if you haven't, you should. Half of all published medical research, for example, cannot be replicated, and for preclinical trials the rate increases to four fifths.
An interesting point from that Wikipedia article is that 70% of scientists have tried and failed to replicate another researcher's work, but only 20% have been contacted by another scientist trying to replicate their work.
Which is perhaps by design:This paper in Management Science has been cited more than 6,000 times. Wall Street executives, top government officials, and even a former U.S. Vice President have all referenced it. It’s fatally flawed, and the scholarly community refuses to do anything about it.
Management science, huh? Bad as things are in medical research, at least they admit to baseline reality.
When someone tried to correct the record on this particular paper, his efforts were not well received:The authors ignored me, the journal refused to act, and the scholarly community looked the other way. Two universities disregarded evidence of research misconduct - even after the authors admitted publishing a misleading report.
A latter-day dissolution of the monasteries?
The article remains largely uncorrected - misleading thousands of people each year.
I believe our systems for curating trustworthy science are broken and need reformation.Having received no response from the authors, I contacted Management Science. After getting advice, I submitted a comment.
As the article says, ah, the tone police.
It was rejected.
The reviewers did not address the substance of my comment; they objected to my "tone".The authors did admit to the editor that they had misreported a key finding - labeling it as statistically significant when it was not. The authors claimed the error was a "typo." They intended to type "not significant" but omitted the word "not".
That's one hell of a typo.
The story gets worse from there. And that's just a single paper out of millions.
Tech News
- Washington state wants 3D printers and CNC milling machines to monitor everything you do and report on you if you are creating something that could be used in a firearm. (Adafruit_
Violating the First and Second Amendments with a single piece of legislation. Such efficiency!
- Google won't stop replacing our news headlines with terrible AI. (The Verge) (archive site)
The Verge may have gone full-blown communist revolutionary newspaper but on this they are not wrong. Google is sometimes completely reversing the meaning of tech articles in its AI summaries.
- How to add a coin slot to your gaming PC. (Tom's Hardware)
Sometimes the quest for an authentic arcade experience goes a little too far.
And sometimes it goes a lot.
- A New York startup has built a machine that produces gasoline from air. (Jalopnik)
Which is perfectly possible, just not very efficient. After all, dinosaurs breathed air, and all our gasoline comes from liquified dinosaurs.
It takes carbon dioxide and water vapour from the air, electrolyses the water, and combines them to create methanol. Then it goes through a more complicated process to turn the methanol into usable fuel.
The device costs an estimated $20,000, and if you have a free source of electricity, a gallon of gas costs around $1.50, though the article doesn't mention exactly how this was calculated.
Since you probably don't have a free source of electricity, a gallon of gas will actually cost between $10 and $30, which is why dinosaurs always win.
Anime Update
Noble Reincarnation: Born Blessed, So I'll Obtain Ultimate Power: Wish-fulfillment isekai reincarnation slop, but well-crafted wish-fulfillment isekai reincarnation slop. The main character leverages his adult mind and lifetime of experience to navigate treacherous waters - he's the 13th son of the emperor - and gain a reputation and a prodigy.
Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord: Exactly the same story clumsily told. The main character is simply overpowered; there's no real significance to the fact that he's an adult reincarnated as a child.
Kaya-chan Isn't Scary: Looks at first glance to be just a light-hearted episodic story about a kindergartner who can see ghosts and beats them up to protect her classmates, but it actually takes its subject matter seriously, and the subject matter is, well, dead people. One of my picks for the season, along with Sentenced to Be a Hero and Frieren.
There Was a Cute Girl in the Hero's Party, So I Tried Confessing to Her: More isekai reincarnation slop, though this time the overpowered protagonist (if he is that) was reincarnated as mid-ranking officer in the Demon Lord's, and kills his commander so that he can have more time to dally with the healer in the hero's party. Meh.
ROLL OVER AND DIE: Flum, a member (of course) of the hero's party, is secretly removed and sold into slavery by the party's sage for the crime of being kind of useless. Then she finds out why she was chosen for the hero's party in the first place. Has possibilities. No ghosts and no reincarnation, which is refreshing.
The Villainess is Adored by the Prince of the Neighbouring Kingdom: Otome game fan reincarnated as the villainess in her favourite game, which is a well-worn trope. Overly so, though Bakarina was a gem. In this case, she comes to awareness the day before the denouement of the plot with no way to avoid it... Only to find out that she is not in the game she thought she was. Still meh though despite the twist.
The Holy Grail of Eris: Girl without a spine is granted one in the nick of time... By a ghost. A ghost bent on bloody revenge. Well, blood optional, but revenge definitely. Also, the nobles in this show are psychotic. Show a moment of weakness and they will gleefully torture you to death.
Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord: Exactly the same story clumsily told. The main character is simply overpowered; there's no real significance to the fact that he's an adult reincarnated as a child.
Kaya-chan Isn't Scary: Looks at first glance to be just a light-hearted episodic story about a kindergartner who can see ghosts and beats them up to protect her classmates, but it actually takes its subject matter seriously, and the subject matter is, well, dead people. One of my picks for the season, along with Sentenced to Be a Hero and Frieren.
There Was a Cute Girl in the Hero's Party, So I Tried Confessing to Her: More isekai reincarnation slop, though this time the overpowered protagonist (if he is that) was reincarnated as mid-ranking officer in the Demon Lord's, and kills his commander so that he can have more time to dally with the healer in the hero's party. Meh.
ROLL OVER AND DIE: Flum, a member (of course) of the hero's party, is secretly removed and sold into slavery by the party's sage for the crime of being kind of useless. Then she finds out why she was chosen for the hero's party in the first place. Has possibilities. No ghosts and no reincarnation, which is refreshing.
The Villainess is Adored by the Prince of the Neighbouring Kingdom: Otome game fan reincarnated as the villainess in her favourite game, which is a well-worn trope. Overly so, though Bakarina was a gem. In this case, she comes to awareness the day before the denouement of the plot with no way to avoid it... Only to find out that she is not in the game she thought she was. Still meh though despite the twist.
The Holy Grail of Eris: Girl without a spine is granted one in the nick of time... By a ghost. A ghost bent on bloody revenge. Well, blood optional, but revenge definitely. Also, the nobles in this show are psychotic. Show a moment of weakness and they will gleefully torture you to death.
Musical Interlude
Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the national anthems.
Disclaimer: Okay, you can sit down now.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
03:36 PM
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1
Being in New Yorkistan, I bet the whiners at Adafruit are conflicted about this.
I note they gratuitously muckraked Sparkfun at the bottom. Must still be butthurt about the Teensy contretemps.
I note they gratuitously muckraked Sparkfun at the bottom. Must still be butthurt about the Teensy contretemps.
Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, January 27 2026 12:17 AM (1zWbY)
2
There's a meme going around about Google's "AI" search: add "-xxx" where xxx is the n-word, to the end of your search. It'll return the same set of results, because that word won't be in them, but the naughtiness of the word will make the AI stop. I can't endorse this, I'm just reporting it.
Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, January 27 2026 12:31 AM (1zWbY)
3
In fairness, I have failed to replicate what I am fairly sure is legitimate research by scientists, where I think the issue is that I am a newbie that needs to git gud. IE, I am actually legitimately missing some of the background knowledge and skills.
I can tell it is me, because I can't tell what my experiments are actually doing, and because if it were easy to disprove this slice of literature, I think people would have done it already (1). (Though, if it does turn out that this subsubfield is also fake, I think I am going to quit entirely.)
(1) I know there are a ton of obviously fake chunks of literature, where the scholars in question are mostly government owned propagandists. That is my baseline level of mistrust.
I can tell it is me, because I can't tell what my experiments are actually doing, and because if it were easy to disprove this slice of literature, I think people would have done it already (1). (Though, if it does turn out that this subsubfield is also fake, I think I am going to quit entirely.)
(1) I know there are a ton of obviously fake chunks of literature, where the scholars in question are mostly government owned propagandists. That is my baseline level of mistrust.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, January 27 2026 01:27 AM (rcPLc)
4
This is gonna clarify that I am extreme far right, but the real economic benefit of a technology comes from the people choosing to use it for their own tasks. The likes of Davos attendees or elite managers at technology or engineering companies have nothing to do with real economic potentials of AI.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, January 27 2026 02:14 AM (rcPLc)
Posted by: normal at Tuesday, January 27 2026 03:29 AM (Sbqr6)
6
I always had commented that with one exception, any process aimed at producing gasoline or oil out of something else, like the Fischer-Tropsch process, is not economical or anywhere near cost-effective unless the absolute availability of crude oil is the determining factor. So unless you are an authoritarian power whose enemy has blocked your access to sources of crude oil, there is no economic reason to do so.
The one exception is natural gasoline, which can be produced as a side product of natural gas production.
The one exception is natural gasoline, which can be produced as a side product of natural gas production.
Posted by: cxt217 at Tuesday, January 27 2026 07:12 AM (ZLF73)
7
I can see it being useful in remote locations where the only transport is by air. Or possibly in locations where grid supply is plentiful when wind/solar is working, but expensive when it's not, as an alternative to huge battery farms.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, January 27 2026 08:55 AM (PiXy!)
8
I can see it being useful in remote locations where the only transport is by air.
It would work better if the plant can produce diesel fuel, since that is used more widely in any other setting other than private transportation. But it also comes under the 'absolute availability of crude oil.'
On the other hand, if you DO have crude oil available in an isolated location where fuel is consumed in huge quantities, you can just build a low capacity refinery and save the middleman - and yes, a number of refineries in the US are built specifically to service locations where it would not be economical to transport refined fuel even if those fuel are critically needed.
It would work better if the plant can produce diesel fuel, since that is used more widely in any other setting other than private transportation. But it also comes under the 'absolute availability of crude oil.'
On the other hand, if you DO have crude oil available in an isolated location where fuel is consumed in huge quantities, you can just build a low capacity refinery and save the middleman - and yes, a number of refineries in the US are built specifically to service locations where it would not be economical to transport refined fuel even if those fuel are critically needed.
Posted by: cxt217 at Tuesday, January 27 2026 10:27 AM (ZLF73)
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