Thursday Assorted Links: Lookism, AI Social Media Management, NBA Injury Prediction, and More
Key Takeaways
- •Only a small number of U.S. jurisdictions, including Michigan and several cities, currently provide explicit civil-rights protections based on height or weight.
- •Generative AI is shifting from content creation into everyday curation of personal social media communication among young adults, prompting concerns about authenticity.
- •NBA medical staffs increasingly depend on load-management data and biometric monitoring to identify risk factors for Achilles ruptures, which have ended or altered multiple prominent careers.
- •An LLM-based dataset is being used to trace large-scale cultural shifts over centuries, extending a computational humanities tradition that includes Google's Ngram Viewer.
- •Xi'an Famous Foods, a New York-originated chain known for popularizing regional Shaanxi cuisine, is expanding to Clarendon in Arlington.
A roundup of noteworthy links and items for Thursday:
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Joshua Rothman examines lookism — the phenomenon of discrimination based on physical appearance — in a piece exploring whether society should do more to address it. Appearance-based bias intersects with employment law in limited ways; only a handful of U.S. jurisdictions, including Michigan and several cities, currently extend explicit civil-rights protections on the basis of height or weight. (New Yorker)
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Young adults are increasingly turning to AI tools to manage their social media feeds, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The trend reflects a broader shift in which generative AI is moving from content creation into the day-to-day curation of personal communication, raising ongoing questions about authenticity and social norms. (WSJ)
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What predicts an NBA Achilles tear? A discussion of the factors that may forecast this significant injury. Achilles ruptures have altered or ended the careers of multiple high-profile NBA players, and the league's medical staffs increasingly rely on load-management data and biometric monitoring to identify risk factors. (X post)
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An LLM-based data set tracks changing cultural trends over the centuries, offering a large-scale view of historical shifts. The project builds on a tradition of computational humanities research — exemplified by efforts like Google's Ngram Viewer — that uses large text corpora to quantify how language and ideas evolve over time. (X post)
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Xi'an Famous Foods is coming to Clarendon, bringing its well-known hand-pulled noodles to Arlington. The chain, which originated in New York and helped popularize regional Shaanxi cuisine in the U.S., has been expanding beyond its original Manhattan foothold. (Washingtonian)
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A creative visualization imagines what a silent-film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey might have looked like had it been directed by a German expressionist filmmaker in the 1920s. German expressionism of that era — associated with films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis — was defined by stark lighting, distorted sets, and psychological intensity. (X post)
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An important NBER methods lecture is scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern today. The National Bureau of Economic Research is a leading nonprofit research organization whose working papers and methods seminars are widely followed in academic economics. (X post)