It’s officially t-shirt weather in Boston, and while enjoying this first taste of spring I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a thought-provoking talk by Alex J. Wood on contesting algorithmic workplace regimes at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REdidsHj_Fs

Next was a fantastic talk by Lenka Zdeborova on investigating the foundations of generalization in attention-based models at the Kempner Institute at Harvard University. I love research that digs into the theory behind what works in practice without us knowing why, and here Zdeborova combines a broad area of research to show early inklings for what drives performance in large models and sets out why this rigorous methodology is essential for making progress in AI. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hECIITnOGho

Next was a great talk by Anne Boring on using experiments to study anonymized hiring practices at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQQqAX7t-lY

Next was “Work, Retire, Repeat” by Teresa Ghilarducci. Ghilarducci provides a jarring look at the economic realities of older folks looking to retire, convincingly demonstrating that a significant majority of people in the US (and interestingly Japan, although this isn't deeply analyzed here) must continue to work after "retirement." She shows how the erosion of social security benefits and pensions has led to this point, and suggests policy interventions to improve conditions moving forward. Importantly, this book doesn't grapple with the fact that the pension system isn't coming back since most people today don't want to work for a single company for their whole career. Still, given the aging population in the Global North, understanding the issues here are essential for people in both management and government. Highly recommend https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo212888995.html

Next was “Cartography” by Matthew Edney. This is a very academic book, for better or worse. Edney works through the history of the field of cartography, breaking up the different views of the field and its work and disentangling it from the common conflation with mapmaking. Much of the book assumes some familiarity with the field and the important concept that maps and mapping are inherently linked with society and politics, so if you're interested in more introductory texts you should look elsewhere. Beyond that, for the non-expert reader sometimes Edner goes into too much depth, which if I were writing a paper on the topic I would appreciate but makes it harder to read this book cover to cover. If, instead, you're looking for a book to occasionally peruse when you want to learn more about a specific topic, this could be a good book to pick up https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo34094164.html

Last was “Cellular: An Economic and Business History of the International Mobile-Phone Industry” by Daniel Garcia-Swartz and Martin Campbell-Kelly. This book is an excellent blend of technical, legal, and market views onto the development of the cell phone industry, starting with early wireless technologies and moving to the present day. This history demonstrates how important government investments and legal structure were in establishing these various industries and allowing them to flourish (or not, in the case of some countries discussed here). Unfortunately besides market share and cell phone penetration data there's very little economic data or analysis to speak of - one is left to guess at the market size in different countries or combine data from separate tables to adequately compare different markets. Overall, however, this book is a great entry into the history of markets literature. Highly recommend https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262543927/cellular/