What public figures publish and believe, in their own words.
About this feed
Highlights: posts that did unusually well for the person who wrote them, everything they published at length, each release and new project, and every belief — at most two a day from anyone. Day by day, newest day first; within a day, the people with the most beliefs on this site come first. Nothing else orders it. Show everything instead.
The quoted blocks are what people actually said; a beneath one is the belief those words support, in korrents' wording. Nobody here wrote their own page.
Top people are the people in this feed with the most beliefs on this site, then the most here. Choose an area and the row leads with the people whose beliefs are about it; tap a face for their feed.
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23 November 2023
21 November 2023
20 November 2023
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Mixed onrcmnd.app
ObsidianTheir words
Depending on your goals, needs, and tolerance for customization, Obsidian might be the perfect choice for you.
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Dislikedrcmnd.app
TanaTheir words
I encountered much the same experience as I did with Obsidian: too much complexity, most of it front-loaded and unavoidable, making it difficult to get to the task of writing.
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Dislikedrcmnd.app
MemTheir words
I liked Mem’s editing experience within notes because it resembled word processing, without extra steps getting in the way. But I found the app otherwise surprisingly lacking in basic functionality, despite its polished appearance.
+ 2 more
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Usesrcmnd.app
EvernoteTheir words
If you look at the sheer number of different methods for getting content into Evernote, it becomes clear how difficult it will be to replicate this functionality.
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
How to Switch From Evernote to ObsidianTheir words
I recommend checking out Nick Milo’s video How to Switch From Evernote to Obsidian if that’s you.
From one piece What do I do with these songs? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
The only thing a maker really controls is telling the good work from the bad; what arrives is not up to them.Their words
Where we do have control is in identifying which is which.
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Their words
But I have come to understand that the feeling of creative control is an illusion, that the songs are predetermined and have their own destiny, that they are not our own.
From one piece My Free Speech Means You Have To Shut Up 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
In my view, too many critics of “cancel culture” are recklessly promoting not the speech of the powerless, but the censorious resentment of the powerful.
My Free Speech Means You Have To Shut Uppopehat.substack.com
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Their words
“Your criticism violates my right to free speech” is a fatuous but common American sentiment.
My Free Speech Means You Have To Shut Uppopehat.substack.com
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korrents.com
Refusing to advertise on a platform is protected expression, not an attack on the platform owner's free speech.Their words
Elon Musk’s sullen yawp amounts to a claim that he has a right for companies to sponsor his speech, no matter what he says. That’s nonsense, both legally and philosophically.
My Free Speech Means You Have To Shut Uppopehat.substack.com
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Not the End of the WorldTheir words
His life and work have influenced my own tremendously—and just a few pages into Ritchie’s essential and hopeful new book, Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet, it became clear that she was carrying on his tremendous legacy.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
The Song of the CellTheir words
If I had been able to read The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee in school, I might have fallen in love with biology a lot earlier.
19 November 2023
17 November 2023
From one piece John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 | Lex Fridman Podcast #401 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Economic interdependence does not prevent war, because survival always trumps prosperity.Their words
The point is that economic interdependence at its root has prosperity as the core variable. In the realest story, the core variable is survival, and survival always trumps prosperity.
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korrents.com
Whether a state is a democracy or an autocracy makes no difference to how it behaves abroad.Their words
A realist like me would say that it doesn't matter whether a state is a democracy or not, all states behave the same way because the structure of the system, getting back to our earlier discussion about international anarchy, the structure of the system leaves those states no choice, whether they're democracies or autocracies.
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korrents.com
States are not inherently aggressive; anarchy leaves them no choice but to behave aggressively.Their words
So it's very important to understand that I'm not arguing that states are inherently aggressive. My point is that as long as states are in anarchy, they have no choice but to behave in an aggressive fashion.
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korrents.com
A state's power rests on two material foundations only: the size of its population and its wealth.Their words
The two key building blocks of power are population size and wealth. You want to have a lot of people and you want to be really wealthy.
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Their words
I believe that power is the currency of international relations, and by that I mean that states are deeply interested in the balance of power and they're interested in maximizing how much power they control.
16 November 2023
From one piece The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautiful 4 beliefs · lg.substack.com
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Their words
Better design does not mean more design. Often, the most obvious designs are invisible.
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Their words
Obviousness comes from conforming to people’s existing mental models. Don’t waste time reinventing common UI patterns or paradigms unless they are at least 2x better, or you have some critical brand reason to do so.
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korrents.com
If the people a product is designed for cannot generally agree that the design is good, it is not good.Their words
If you cannot get a group of people for whom your product is designed for to generally agree that your design is good, it’s not good.
+ 1 more
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Their words
Do not judge a product’s beauty by its aesthetics; judge it by how it made you feel.
15 November 2023
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Likedrcmnd.app
The Vagabond’s WayTheir words
Best travel book I’ve ever read! Shook my soul many times. Tiny “daily meditation” format, with lots of quotes from others, but wow what wonderful insights. They make me yearn to travel again. Love love love these ideas and perspectives so much.
From one piece An Overview of Instruction Tuning Data 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
In instruction tuning, a smaller set of high-quality training examples outperforms a larger, noisier dataset.Their words
training on a small set of high-quality data outperforms instruction-tuning on larger, noisier data.
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korrents.com
Models fine-tuned to imitate another model's outputs copy its style without acquiring its factual accuracy.Their words
Models that are instruction-tuned on ChatGPT-generated data mimic ChatGPT's style (and may thus fool human raters!) but not its factuality
12 November 2023
10 November 2023
From one piece Permitting Reform Or Death 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
There is almost no lower-impact use of low-value land than covering it with solar panels.Their words
In summary, it is hard to imagine a lower impact use of low-value land than solar development.
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korrents.com
Delay in permitting clean energy kills more Americans every year than the September 11 attacks did.Their words
The terrorist attacks on 9/11 killed 2996 people in a day of singular horror. Our ongoing indifference to regulatory inefficiency, considering only the area of green energy development, kills more people every year – more than 10 people per day, and that’s only within the US.
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Their words
The primary driver of increased impact, longer time scales before displacement, and catastrophically high levels of avoidable pollution is environmental protection regulations.
+ 1 more
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korrents.com
The binding constraint on building anything in America is permitting and litigation, not money.Their words
Yet solar development is hopelessly snarled by dozens of different development regulations which begin with the assumption that it will permanently and severely harm the environment unless proven otherwise, at exhaustive length.
9 November 2023
From one piece Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Look, I think I would just recommend do not send the flower of Ukrainian youth to die in trenches, whether he talks to Putin or not, just don’t do that. Whoever goes on the offensive will lose massive numbers of people and history will not look kindly upon them.
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Their words
So generally, I think we obviously want to prioritize civilizational risks over things that are painful and tragic on a local level, but not civilizational.
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Their words
So really the question is like for every Hamas member that you kill, how many did you create? And if you create more than you killed, you’ve not succeeded. That’s the real situation there.
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Their words
So the counterintuitive thing here, I think that the thing that I think should be done, even though it’s very difficult, is that I would recommend that Israel engage in the most conspicuous acts of kindness possible
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Their words
People think of nature as perhaps some sort of peaceful thing, but in fact it is not. There’s some quite funny Werner Herzog thing where he is in the jungle saying that it’s basically just murder and death in every direction. The plants and animals in the jungle are constantly trying to kill each other every single day, every minute. So it’s not like we’re unusual in that respect.
8 November 2023
6 November 2023
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Their words, before
If the future is like the past, this implies that debt rollovers—that is, the issuance of debt without a subsequent increase in taxes—may well be feasible. Put bluntly, public debt may have no fiscal cost.
Their words now
Across advanced economies, the celebrated ( r - g ), i.e., the difference between the interest rate and the growth rate, appears to have durably changed sign or, at a minimum, to have gone from a substantially negative number to a number closer to zero.
From one piece If markets are right about long real rates, public debt ratios will increase for some time 2 beliefs · piie.com
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Their words
Thus, once current debt has been refinanced and the average interest on debt reflects the higher long rates, absent changes in policy, debt ratios will increase.
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Their words
It is fair to say that, while economists expected the short end of the yield curve to reflect the higher rates needed to win the fight against inflation, the sharply steeper long end of the yield curve in the last few months has come as a surprise. I shall freely admit that I did not predict it.
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Their words
One thing that drives me crazy about the React ecosystem, and more specifically "tech influencers" and "thought leaders" in the space, is the infantilization of the developers using and working in it. I’m tired of reading takes like TypeScript generics, mapped types, etc should only be needed and used by library authors for most use cases. Or today’s discourse; Don’t use `useCallback’, ‘useMemo’, and React.memo. If you’re building anything beyond a simple CRUD app or a an incredibly focused app with few features, you _will_ need these features.
4 November 2023
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
The VulnerablesTheir words
Sigrid Nunez's novel The Vulnerables: Nunez's most famous novel, The Friend, was what you get when you take autofiction from a well-established NYC writer and add a big, friendly dog.
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Family MealTheir words
Bryan Washington's novel Family Meal: Bryan is the great millennial fiction writer of food, among many other talents. His descriptions of cooking and meals are fantastically rich, as much for the food itself as for the social and emotional exchange involved.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Stay TrueTheir words
Hua Hsu's memoir Stay True: This book is now out in paperback, and you probably don't need me recommending it (it won a Pulitzer), but it is fantastic.
+ 1 more
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Usesrcmnd.app
ZojirushiTheir words
Turn on the rice cooker for normal or quick cooking (I have a Zojirushi, either setting works).
3 November 2023
2 November 2023
1 November 2023
31 October 2023
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Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Palm Beach FinlandTheir words
Mind candy: black comedy crime fiction / murder mystery, in rural Finland. I enjoyed both the comic darkness and the convincing happy endings all around. (At least, happy by the characters' own lights...) My first Tuomainen, but I'd read more if they crossed my path and I was in the right mood.
30 October 2023
28 October 2023
27 October 2023
26 October 2023
From one piece Managing extreme AI risks amid rapid progress (with 24 co-authors) 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Despite evaluations, we cannot consider coming powerful frontier AI systems "safe unless proven unsafe". With current testing methodologies, issues can easily be missed. Additionally, it is unclear if governments can quickly build the immense expertise needed for reliable technical evaluations of AI capabilities and societal-scale risks. Given this, developers of frontier AI should carry the burden of proof to demonstrate that their plans keep risks within acceptable limits.
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Their words
Without sufficient caution, we may irreversibly lose control of autonomous AI systems, rendering human intervention ineffective. Large-scale cybercrime, social manipulation, and other harms could escalate rapidly. This unchecked AI advancement could culminate in a large-scale loss of life and the biosphere, and the marginalization or extinction of humanity.
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Their words
For AI to be a boon, we must reorient; pushing AI capabilities alone is not enough. We are already behind schedule for this reorientation. The scale of the risks means that we need to be proactive, as the costs of being unprepared far outweigh those of premature preparation.
+ 1 more
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Their words
Society's response, despite promising first steps, is incommensurate with the possibility of rapid, transformative progress that is expected by many experts. AI safety research is lagging. Present governance initiatives lack the mechanisms and institutions to prevent misuse and recklessness, and barely address autonomous systems.
25 October 2023
From one piece Adversarial Attacks on LLMs 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Universal adversarial trigger attacks are easy to detect because the learned trigger tokens tend to be nonsensical.Their words
One drawback with UAT (Universal Adversarial Trigger) attacks is that it is easy to detect them because the learned triggers are often nonsensical.
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Their words
High perplexity makes an attack more vulnerable to be detected and mitigated.
From one piece Age of Invention: Lessons from the Rise of Coal 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
“lots of anonymous people just invented through trial and error and adaptation” just doesn’t cut it for me — I’ve never found such stories to be true upon closer investigation.
Age of Invention: Lessons from the Rise of Coalageofinvention.xyz
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Their words
Yet lime is a huge blind spot for economic historians, despite it increasing the productivity of what was still by far the largest portion of the economy: agriculture.
Age of Invention: Lessons from the Rise of Coalageofinvention.xyz
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Their words
The Dutch Republic’s Golden Age did not fail because it lacked energy sources.
Age of Invention: Lessons from the Rise of Coalageofinvention.xyz
24 October 2023
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New TycoonTheir words
Going Infinite is awesome. I would have been happy with my decision on the basis of any one of the following:
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korrents.com
Most people who love the Next.js app directory would also love Remix nested routing, for many of the same reasons.Their words
Most people who love the next.js app directory would also love remix nested routing for many of the same reasons.
19 October 2023
18 October 2023
17 October 2023
16 October 2023
From one piece The Techno-Optimist Manifesto 2 beliefs · a16z.com
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Their words
We believe technology is a lever on the world – the way to make more with less. Economists measure technological progress as productivity growth: How much more we can produce each year with fewer inputs, fewer raw materials. Productivity growth, powered by technology, is the main driver of economic growth, wage growth, and the creation of new industries and new jobs, as people and capital are continuously freed to do more important, valuable things than in the past.
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korrents.com
There is no material problem, whether created by nature or by technology, that cannot be solved with more technology.Their words
We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.
15 October 2023
From one piece Orbitals 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
It's important to look around you for solutions instead of accepting the current unavailability of options.
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korrents.com
Reading even one book on a niche topic sharply shrinks the number of people you can discuss it with.Their words
Most people don't read books. If you read a book on a topic (say, clouds, or Italian furniture), you can now only communicate on that topic with 1 in 10 to 1 in 100 people.
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Their words
you should be frightened of smart people who don't read. They're the ones that build Jurassic Park, or send all the dentists to build a dam.
12 October 2023
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korrents.com
Meat substitutes have to become clearly cheaper than meat, not merely as cheap, before most people will switch.Their words
Meat substitutes need to be quite clearly cheaper, especially if we want them to break into middle- and low-income markets.
11 October 2023
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korrents.com
Cheap clean energy has broken the old trade-off between raising living standards and cutting environmental harm.Their words
Cheap solar is the unlock that brings human progress and climate action from the realm of fundamental incompatibility to complimentary inevitability.
10 October 2023
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Likedrcmnd.app
Finite and Infinite GamesTheir words
So abstract. Maybe the most abstract book you’ll ever read. Compares “finite” games with rules and winners, versus “infinite” games without winners where we can play with the game itself. Is it about a job versus a calling? Religion versus spirituality? A story versus story-telling? Who knows. Thought-provoking if you can apply the metaphor to whatever concerns you.
From one piece Multimodality and Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
A model that can effectively learn from bitstrings or bytestrings will be very powerful, and it can learn from any data mode.
Multimodality and Large Multimodal Models (LMMs)huyenchip.com
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korrents.com
Image is the most versatile input modality for a model, since it can represent text, tabular data, and audioTheir words
Image is perhaps the most versatile format for model inputs, as it can be used to represent text, tabular data, audio, and to some extent, videos. There's also so much more visual data than text data.
Multimodality and Large Multimodal Models (LMMs)huyenchip.com
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korrents.com
Text is a more powerful output modality for a model than images, because text supports many downstream tasksTheir words
Text is a much more powerful mode for model outputs. A model that can generate images can only be used for image generation, whereas a model that can generate text can be used for many tasks: summarization, translation, reasoning, question answering, etc.
Multimodality and Large Multimodal Models (LMMs)huyenchip.com
7 October 2023
4 October 2023
From one piece The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
But while I have seen no evidence (and Chris provides none) that higher food prices alleviate global hunger, there is a wealth of evidence that they exacerbate it.
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korrents.com
Local self-provisioning cannot feed the world, because most people do not live within reach of enough fertile land.Their words
They show that, while agrarian localism might be great as far as it goes, it simply cannot, by itself, meet the challenge of feeding the world.
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korrents.com
Long-distance food transport is what stops a local harvest failure from becoming a famine.Their words
But without long-distance transport, many more would starve.
+ 2 more
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korrents.com
Raising yields on land already farmed is what keeps farming from taking more of the wild world.Their words
It was achieved almost entirely through higher crop yields per hectare.
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Their words
In 2023, a world of 8.1 billion people suffers far less hunger and famine than the world of 3.2 billion did in 1963, the year of my birth.
3 October 2023
From one piece A Fertility Reckoning 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
It seems to me that an attractive robust approach is to have governments pay lots for kids (at no cost or risk to them!) and then let those who respond to these incentives tell us which compromises seem most attractive.
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Their words
the most likely identifiable scenario by which fertility will rise again is via the growth of currently-small insular high-fertility subgroups like the Amish and Orthodox Jews
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Their words
Its main causes are tied to deeply held modern values that have been pushing us in this direction for most of this time across most of the world.
1 October 2023
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korrents.com
Returns for performance are superlinear rather than proportional across most domains that matter.Their words
One of the most important things I didn't understand about the world when I was a child is the degree to which the returns for performance are superlinear.
From one piece GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter? 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
I am myself skeptical that there is a clearly defined notion of who “the right people” might be, and thus I am on public choice grounds far more skeptical of government than Keynes was.
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Their words
I view Keynes’s bisexuality and his strong interest in gay sex as a significant cause of what made him interesting and which gave him so strong an ability to grasp different and outside perspectives.
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Their words
I often like to say that all thinkers are regional thinkers, namely they are indelibly shaped by the circumstances they grew up in
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Their words
I don’t view Keynes primarily as an economist, rather I see him as a British aesthete rationalist who did economics in his spare time, and fortunately he had lots of spare time.
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Their words
And indeed overall that interaction fits with my more general reservation about Friedman: he wanted to make economics just a little bit too simple.
29 September 2023
28 September 2023
From one piece Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse | Lex Fridman Podcast #398 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Open sourcing a foundation model creates significantly more value than the risk it carries.Their words
I think at this point there's the value of open sourcing, a foundation model like Llama 2. It's significantly greater than the risks in my view.
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Their words
I don't think we necessarily want there to be one big super intelligence. We want to empower everyone to both have more fun, accomplish their business goals, just everything that they're trying to do. We don't tend to have one person that we work with on everything, and I don't think in the future we're going to have one AI that we work with.
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korrents.com
Screens, books, art and board games are all better as holograms you can summon and dismiss than as physical objects.Their words
I mean, any screen that you have can be a hologram, any media, in any book, art. It can basically be just as effective as a hologram, as a physical object. Any game that you're playing, a board game or any kind of physical game, cards, ping pong, things like that, they're often a lot better as holograms.
+ 2 more
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korrents.com
By the end of the 2020s, walking into a room will mean seeing as many holograms as physical objects.Their words
And in that world, I think that there are going to be, not too far off, maybe by the end of this decade, we'll be living in a world where there are as many holograms when you walk into a room as there are physical objects.
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korrents.com
The real world is not the physical world; it is the physical and digital worlds coming together into one experience.Their words
And I kind of think increasingly, the physical world is super important, but I actually think the real world is the combination of the physical world and the digital worlds coming together.
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Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Nasty, Brutish and ShortTheir words
Nasty, Brutish and Short, is the most accessible and fun book on philosophy you'll encounter this year.
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Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
King: A LifeTheir words
King: A Life, is a clear and direct biography of one of our greatest citizens.
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Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Nothing Is Missing: A Memoir of Living BoldlyTheir words
My friend Nicole has written a provocative, funny and honest memoir. Nothing Is Missing: A Memoir of Living Boldly. I'll be interviewing her in NYC on October 9.
+ 2 more
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Recommendsaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
MisbeliefTheir words
Dan Ariely's book Misbelief is a must-listen for anyone trying to understand how social dynamics are changing the way some people see the world.
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Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Kafka on the ShoreTheir words
Years later, Kafka on the Shore remains one of my favorite all-time audiobooks. It's an extraordinary story, beautifully told.
25 September 2023
24 September 2023
22 September 2023
21 September 2023
From one piece What I learned from analyzing 300 particle size distributions for 24 espresso grinders 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Burr geometry matters more than burr size for how uniform and unimodal a grinder's output is.Their words
It therefore appears that burr geometry may be more important than burr size in determining unimodality and uniformity.
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korrents.com
Grinders that produce fewer fines (more unimodal) also tend to produce more uniform particle sizes.Their words
Contrary to popular hearsay, more unimodal grinders appear to also be more uniform on average.
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korrents.com
Conical burrs tend to be less unimodal and less uniform than flat burrs, though the two overlap a lot.Their words
Conical burrs appear on average less unimodal and less uniform, although there is a large overlap meaning that one can easily find a specific flat burr that is less unimodal and less uniform than a specific conical burr.
From one piece Quantum Confusions, Cleared Up (or so I hope) 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
The collapse postulate cannot simply be discarded without replacement instructions for measurements.Their words
As we just saw, one cannot just discard the Collapse Postulate. For this reason, if one does calculations in any Many Worlds approach, one must effectively replace the Collapse Postulate by other assumptions, notably about what happens to observers and/or measurement devices when worlds branch.
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korrents.com
Decoherence has not yet satisfactorily solved the measurement problem and does not restore local causality.Their words
while decoherence has the potential to solve this aspect of the measurement problem, it hasn't yet been satisfactorily done. Decoherence also certainly does not return us to Local Causality.
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korrents.com
Violations of Bell inequalities reveal only properties of models, not of nature itself.Their words
Since Local Causality is a property of a model, observing violations of Bell's inequality cannot tell us anything about nature itself, but merely about the properties of the model that we use to describe nature.
+ 1 more
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Their words
The Copenhagen Model-and because of that, the Copenhagen Interpretation-is not locally causal in Bell's sense.
18 September 2023
17 September 2023
15 September 2023
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
ChatGPT Custom InstructionsTheir words
Using Custom Instructions properly can completely transform your experience with ChatGPT.
14 September 2023
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Their words
Less than half their revenue comes from game engines. Over half comes from advertising.
13 September 2023
From one piece Self-exfiltration is a key dangerous capability 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
If a model was capable of self-exfiltration, it would have the option to remove itself from your control.
Self-exfiltration is a key dangerous capabilityaligned.substack.com
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Their words
Moreover, model exfiltration is likely impossible to reverse.
Self-exfiltration is a key dangerous capabilityaligned.substack.com
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Lovedtheir ownrcmnd.app
Pulsar dripperTheir words
After years of development, I'm super happy to report that the dripper I dreamed of for so long is finally out!
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Likedrcmnd.app
Lvl-10 dripperTheir words
I was super excited when I saw the Lvl-10 dripper, because it was very close to what I wanted to achieve, and as I expected, it performed very well in terms of extraction quality.
10 September 2023
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Objective KnowledgeTheir words
The first thing I would do is start meditating, and then I would read, concurrently I would read Objective Knowledge by Karl Popper.
7 September 2023
From one piece Read terrible books, too 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
What you want to avoid, I think, is mediocre writing, which neither thrills nor instructs.
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korrents.com
Reading bad work is instructive as well as reassuring, so a maker should not read only the good stuff.Their words
Yes! Reading bad writing not only boosts one’s confidence, it can be very instructive.
5 September 2023
From one piece Biofuels: the US could switch to electric cars and solar power on just a fraction of the land 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Growing food to put in cars is a mistake at a moment when the world should be farming less land, not more.Their words
The world’s croplands are still expanding. At a time when we should be using less land for farming, allocating high-quality farmland to grow food that we then put into cars is a mistake.
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korrents.com
We worry about the land solar needs while ignoring how wastefully the world already uses its farmland.Their words
While we fret over the amount of land needed for solar, we are often blind to how inefficiently we have used the world’s farmland.
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Their words
You can drive about 150 times as far from a solar-powered electric car compared to using corn bioethanol.
+ 1 more
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korrents.com
Biofuels have probably raised greenhouse gas emissions rather than lowered them, once the land they take is counted.Their words
They estimate that biofuels have increased emissions, not decreased them.
4 September 2023
2 September 2023
From one piece Why NYT’s Connections makes you feel bad 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
A puzzle whose categories can only be seen by the broadly educated is elitist by construction.Their words
But it’s fundamentally elitist — it basically requires you to have a broad education to find the categories in the first place.
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Their words
Fundamentally, the game invites you to make guesses, but punishes you for them — and a missed guess doesn’t help you prune the logic space, only the trivia space.
1 September 2023
From one piece Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #394 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
So if you think about entire all of nature, let's say all of living systems as a matrix that runs across two axes one is material sophistication, which is terribly relevant for designers, and the other is communication. The termites ace on communication, but their material sophistication is crap.
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Their words
So we keep coming back to this answer of nature wants to increase information, but decrease entropy. So find order, but constantly increase the information scale.
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korrents.com
The mycelial network is not the model for a connected nature, because it stops wherever there is a physical gap.Their words
Well, first of all, yes, they're connected, but that network stops when there is a physical gap. That network does not necessarily enable the whales in the Dominican to connect with an olive tree in Israel to connect with a weeping willow in Montana.
+ 2 more
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Their words
Everybody talks about intelligence these days, but I like to think that nature has kind of wisdom that exists beyond intelligence or above intelligence, and it's that wisdom that we're trying to tap into through technology.
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Their words
I think that let's say from the beginning of mankind going back 200,000 years, the products that we have designed have separated us from nature. And it's ironic that the things that we designed and produced as humankind, those are exactly the things that separated us.
31 August 2023
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korrents.com
The evidence that driverless cars are already safer than human drivers is piling up, especially for Waymo.Their words
But the evidence for better-than-human performance is starting to pile up, especially for Waymo.
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Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Star KingdomTheir words
Buroker is a reliable author of very fluffy mind candy, either science fiction or fantasy. A lot of her output is re-working material from identifiable prior art, without hewing so closely to the canon as to constitute fan fiction.
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Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Spy IslandTheir words
Comic book mind candy, affectionately parodying several genres at once: glamorous spies, mysterious islands, etc.
30 August 2023
From one piece Farming Needs to Suck Less 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
the solutions to our food and climate problems need to scale up absurdly quickly.
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korrents.com
Synthetic fertiliser is a serious climate and pollution problem and also the reason half the people alive are alive.Their words
They suck! But they also feed the world. Half the people alive today would be very not alive if fertilizers manufactured from natural gas weren’t super-sizing our harvests.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Sony WH-1000XM3Their words
Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones. Best thing I bought in 2019.
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Usesrcmnd.app
Kindle PaperwhiteTheir words
Kindle Paperwhite e-book reader, for when I don't have access to the print version of the book.
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Usesrcmnd.app
Razer Viper UltimateTheir words
Razer Viper Ultimate With Charging Duck - Quartz mouse (pink version).
+ 2 more
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Usesrcmnd.app
Akko World Tour Tokyo 87-Key R1Their words
Akko World Tour Tokyo 87-Key R1 pink mechanical keyboard.
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Usesrcmnd.app
Fujifilm X-T4Their words
Fujifilm X-T4 camera.
29 August 2023
From one piece Language models surprised us 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
AI progress is faster than people expect, and ordinary scaling can be enough to solve problems that looked very hard.Their words
This rapid scaleup will probably drive another qualitative leap forward in capability like what we saw over the last 18 months.
-
Their words
Massively underestimating near-future progress could be very risky.
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Their words
Most importantly, ML experts and superforecasters both seem to be massively underestimating future spending on training runs.
+ 1 more
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Their words
Most experts were surprised by progress in language models in 2022 and 2023.
From one piece Age of Invention: Does History have a Replication Crisis? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Historical myths are especially zombie-like. Even when disproven, they just. won’t. die.
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Their words
But I’ve become increasingly worried that science’s replication crises might pale in comparison to what happens all the time in history, which is not just a replication crisis but a reproducibility crisis.
25 August 2023
24 August 2023
23 August 2023
19 August 2023
From one piece Seth Explains Consciousness 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
It is unclear whether a digital emulation of a person could ever be conscious, even in principle.Their words
But it is not clear at all that such a being could even exist in principle.
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korrents.com
Free will does not require violating the laws of physics, yet the subjective experience of it is real and meaningful.Their words
There is no "spooky free will" that violates the laws of physics in our common model of them, but the experience of free will certainly exists and is informative.
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korrents.com
Color as perceived is not an objective property of objects, but a construct generated by the perceiving brain.Their words
Redness is not "objective" in the sense of being "in the object", it only exists in the models generated by the sort of brains which are hooked up to eyes.
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Being YouTheir words
I highly recommend that you read Being You, and then that you spend a good while thinking about it.
18 August 2023
17 August 2023
16 August 2023
From one piece What does it mean to “trust science”? 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Physics, chemistry and biology can point out problems, but we need history, economics and philosophy to solve them.
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korrents.com
There is no capital-S Science that can stand as an authority; there is only reasoning done systematically.Their words
There is no capital-S Science—a new authority to substitute for God or King.
-
Their words
Even in that case, though, what we should trust is not the particular output of the scientific process at any given time. It can make wrong turns. Instead, we should trust that it will find the truth eventually, and that it is our best and only method for doing so.
15 August 2023
12 August 2023
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Their words, before
Reading the book had not changed my fundamental belief that, in balance, we were on a good trajectory with AI research: good for science and good for society with expected positive impacts in many domains.
Their words now
I now believe that I was wrong and short-sighted to ignore that dual-use nature. I also think I was not paying enough attention to the possibility of losing control to superhuman AIs.
-
Their words
Instead of decades to centuries, I now see it as 5 to 20 years with 90% confidence.
11 August 2023
From one piece The Myth of the Individual 2 beliefs · terryreal.com
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Their words
Neurobiologists tell us that it takes two things to unlock and open up a neural pathway. The first is that the implicit must be made explicit. Sometimes you need help seeing what you don't see. But you must be open to the feedback. Second, there must be some sort of recoil, a sense of discrepancy, of "Oh no, I'm not sure I really want to keep doing that."
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korrents.com
Character is not fixed: therapy works because habitual neural pathways can re-form, sometimes within minutes.Their words
In my practice, I have seen that opening neural pathways can lead to profound change, to brand-new traits and behavior, sometimes in a matter of minutes.
10 August 2023
From one piece I work in the music industry and there is a lot of excitement around ChatGPT... what's wrong with making things faster and easier? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
The struggle of making something is not an obstacle in front of the work; it is where the meaning comes from.Their words
It is our striving that becomes the very essence of meaning.
-
Their words
ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary.
7 August 2023
5 August 2023
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korrents.com
You cannot make America build subways ten times cheaper while only ever talking to Americans.Their words
You can’t change the United States from a country that builds subways for $2 billion/km in New York and $1 billion/km elsewhere to a country that does so for $200 million/km if all you ever do is talk to other Americans.
4 August 2023
2 August 2023
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Lovedrcmnd.app
You Can Negotiate AnythingTheir words
Everything is negotiable. Challenge authority. You have the power in any situation. This is how to realize it and use it. A must-read classic from 1980 from a master negotiator. My notes here aren’t enough because the little book is filled with so many memorable stories — examples of great day-to-day moments of negotiation that will stick in your head for when you need them. (I especially loved…
From one piece People Are Lying To You About The Trump Indictment 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
The way to tell legal analysis from partisan lying is to distrust absolute certainty and to trust conceded ambiguity.Their words
Be skeptical of absolute certainty not backed up with proof. Be skeptical of pronouncements that there’s only one way a court will ever possibly interpret something.
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korrents.com
Anyone who tells you a contested legal question has one obvious answer is lying to you rather than analysing it.Their words
Here’s the point: there are legal and factual defenses to this indictment, but anyone telling you that it obviously, inarguably violates the law is lying to you.
1 August 2023
31 July 2023
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Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
CodaTheir words
Comic book mind candy fantasy. Superficially, this is a cynical, post-apocalyptic subversion of the Matter of Middle Earth. In fact, the hard-bitten surface merely conceals a core which actually believes in epic fantasy, both in the content and in the classical form (a trilogy ending in a eucatastrophe).
30 July 2023
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Likedrcmnd.app
How Minds ChangeTheir words
The psychology of how and why we believe. How we learn and change. The craft of doubt and persuasion. Insights into the social definition of truth. Epistemology. Certainty is a feeling not based on facts. Well-written with a nice balance of story-telling and deeper dives.
28 July 2023
From one piece Microincentives and Enshittification 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Ranking first in a search has become near enough to being true, which is why search and spam are permanently at war.Their words
Google’s the first — and often the last — place we go to for answers, so snagging top billing in a Google search results page is, approximately speaking, equivalent to being “true.”
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Their words
The only way for Google Search to grow is to make itself worse.
23 July 2023
22 July 2023
20 July 2023
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Likedrcmnd.app
How Religion EvolvedTheir words
Great anthropology! So many insights into religions, tribes, friendships, organizations, the evolution of minds, superstition, and more. Got me thinking most about friendships.
18 July 2023
17 July 2023
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Unshackled: A Practical Guide For Highly-Skilled Immigrants To Thrive In The United StatesTheir words
breaks down how legal immigration works in America in a way that is friendly, accessible, and human
16 July 2023
From one piece AV Safety and the False Dilemma Fallacy 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
They frame the situation as a choice between continued human drivers killing people (without statistical context) vs. immature robotaxis who don't drink and drive (but make other mistakes).
AV Safety and the False Dilemma Fallacysafeautonomy.blogspot.com
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Their words
Non-autonomous technology (AEB) is making far more of a contribution right now -- but is missing from the false dilemma.
AV Safety and the False Dilemma Fallacysafeautonomy.blogspot.com
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korrents.com
It is too early to know whether robotaxis are safer than human drivers where it counts, in fatal crashes.Their words
It is too early to know whether current robotaxi technology is safer than human drivers for fatalities.
AV Safety and the False Dilemma Fallacysafeautonomy.blogspot.com
14 July 2023
13 July 2023
10 July 2023
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Devil Take the HindmostTheir words
In the fall of 1999, against the backdrop of the massive gains being achieved in tech, media, and telecom stocks, I read Edward Chancellor’s excellent book Devil Take the Hindmost.
9 July 2023
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Lovedrcmnd.app
LunarTheir words
Lunar app is one of the best apps I've used to manage my monitors.
-
Usesrcmnd.app
SoundSourceTheir words
Get truly powerful control over all the audio on your Mac. I use SoundSource for a superior sound management and redirects.
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Likedrcmnd.app
1PasswordTheir words
1Password is my password manager of choice. I've been using it for years and that's usually the first app I install in any new supported device.
+ 2 more
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Usesrcmnd.app
GrammarlyTheir words
I was born in Brazil and I've been living in the US for the past 11 years, yet, english doesn't feel like my first language. I use Grammarly to help me with that.
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Likedrcmnd.app
Affinity SuiteTheir words
Affinity Suite is my go to for all my design needs. I use Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo.
7 July 2023
From one piece Are We Getting Rid of Product Managers? 2 beliefs · melissaperri.com
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korrents.com
Product management is not going away, but hiring product owners who just feed developers tasks should stop.Their words
I don’t think Product Management is going anywhere, but I do hope the days of hiring Product Owners who just feed developers tasks are done.
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korrents.com
Product management is merging with the GM role as more companies become software companies, not disappearing.Their words
As more and more companies become predominately software companies, I believe the Product Management role and GM roles are going to merge.
5 July 2023
4 July 2023
3 July 2023
From one piece The Food Problem Is Bigger Than Lettuce 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
But vertical farms are not technologies. They’re farms.
The Food Problem Is Bigger Than Lettucemichaelgrunwald.substack.com
-
Their words
it’s going to be incredibly difficult, but also incredibly necessary, for the world to produce much more food with much less land.
The Food Problem Is Bigger Than Lettucemichaelgrunwald.substack.com
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korrents.com
Vertical farming swaps a land problem for an energy problem, and the energy cost is what stops it feeding the world.Their words
I explain why in the essay; the TLDR is that they’re energy hogs. The sun is a really awesome source of calories, and it’s kind of dumb not to take advantage of it.
The Food Problem Is Bigger Than Lettucemichaelgrunwald.substack.com
1 July 2023
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
A Mathematician's ApologyTheir words
This idea I learned from Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology
30 June 2023
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Lovedrcmnd.app
SuperhumanTheir words
I’ve been a happy Superhuman subscriber since they were Silicon Valley’s hottest invite-only club, and I’ve been waiting for them to do something like this for a while.
29 June 2023
From one piece George Hotz: Tiny Corp, Twitter, AI Safety, Self-Driving, GPT, AGI & God | Lex Fridman Podcast #387 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
I think we’re going to build super intelligence before we build any sort of robustness in the AI. We cannot build an AI that is capable of going out into nature and surviving like a bird. A bird is an incredibly robust organism. We’ve built nothing like this. We haven’t built a machine that’s capable of reproducing.
-
Their words
We’re actually going to build that, I think, but it’s not going to be one static tape. I think the human brain is too complex to be stuck in one static tape like that. If you look at ant brains, maybe they can be stuck on a static tape, but we’re going to build that using generative models. We’re going to build the TikTok that you actually can’t look away from.
-
Their words
When I talked about will GPT12 be AGI, my answer is no. Of course not. I mean, cross-entropy loss is never going to get you there. You need probably RL in fancy environments in order to get something that would be considered AGI-like.
+ 2 more
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Their words
It is actually all their nuances and quirks and slight annoyances that make this relationship worthwhile. I don’t think we’re going to realize that until it’s too late.
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korrents.com
Whether time really exists does not matter; what matters is that time is a useful model for describing reality.Their words
I think time is a useful model, whether it exists or not. Right. Does quantum physics exist? Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s about whether it’s a useful model to describe reality.
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korrents.com
There is no correct list of best investing books, only the books that speak to a given readerTheir words
In the end, there is no "right" list of the best investing books. There are only those books that speak to you and those that don't.
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Recommendsaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
A Random Walk Down Wall StreetTheir words
If you haven't heard the argument for passive indexing (or haven't heard it argued well), then A Random Walk Down Wall Street is the book for you.
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Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
The Psychology of MoneyTheir words
So when he decided to release his first book, The Psychology of Money , I knew it would become an instant classic. Thankfully, I was right.
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Recommendsaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
The Most Important ThingTheir words
Thankfully, Marks published a book called The Most Important Thing , where he lays out his investment philosophy through 20 timeless principles.
+ 2 more
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The Money GameTheir words
Trust me on this one and go pick up The Money Game .
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
Just Keep BuyingTheir words
My own book, Just Keep Buying , which expands upon many of these ideas.
26 June 2023
From one piece The Articulation Barrier: Prompt-Driven AI UX Hurts Usability 2 beliefs · jakobnielsenphd.substack.com
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Their words
GUIs have superior usability because they show people what can be done rather than requiring them to articulate what they want.
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korrents.com
Half the population in rich countries is not articulate enough in writing to use prompt-driven AI well.Their words
For sure, half the population is insufficiently articulate in writing to use ChatGPT well.
23 June 2023
22 June 2023
-
Their words
This was not a mistake, and it was a mistake to categorize it as a mistake.
From one piece AI Is First New UI Paradigm in 60 Years 3 beliefs · jakobnielsenphd.substack.com
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Their words
Thus, the 2nd UI paradigm will survive, albeit in a less dominant role. Future AI systems will likely have a hybrid user interface that combines elements of both intent-based and command-based interfaces while still retaining many GUI elements.
AI Is First New UI Paradigm in 60 Yearsjakobnielsenphd.substack.com
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Their words
I doubt that the current set of generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, Bard, etc., are representative of the UIs we’ll be using in a few years because they have deep-rooted usability problems.
AI Is First New UI Paradigm in 60 Yearsjakobnielsenphd.substack.com
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Their words
The third UI paradigm, represented by current generative AI, is intent-based outcome specification. The user tells the computer the desired result but does not specify how this outcome should be accomplished, such as the steps to be executed. Compared to traditional command-based interaction design, this completely reverses the locus of control.
AI Is First New UI Paradigm in 60 Yearsjakobnielsenphd.substack.com
20 June 2023
17 June 2023
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Slouching Towards UtopiaTheir words
Slouching Towards Utopia offers one thought-provoking answer to the question that is worth taking seriously, and integrating into your thinking.
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Dislikedrcmnd.app
The World Is FlatTheir words
I don’t know about you, but I personally feel starved of ambitious sensemaking frames for recent history that aren’t quite as silly as say Friedman’s World is Flat or Harari’s Sapiens, or quite as ideologically compromised as Graeber’s Debt.
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Dislikedrcmnd.app
SapiensTheir words
I don’t know about you, but I personally feel starved of ambitious sensemaking frames for recent history that aren’t quite as silly as say Friedman’s World is Flat or Harari’s Sapiens, or quite as ideologically compromised as Graeber’s Debt.
+ 1 more
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Dislikedrcmnd.app
Debt: The First 5000 YearsTheir words
I don’t know about you, but I personally feel starved of ambitious sensemaking frames for recent history that aren’t quite as silly as say Friedman’s World is Flat or Harari’s Sapiens, or quite as ideologically compromised as Graeber’s Debt.
14 June 2023
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korrents.com
Anxiety and worry arise from dwelling on an imagined future rather than the present moment.Their words
Most of our fears begin to subside when we just allow ourselves to be in this moment, as anxiety and worry stem from a preoccupation with an anticipated or envisioned future.
10 June 2023
From one piece Whose dream bf is it anyway 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Whether one does find a good spouse or not depends more on one's orientation towards actually building relationships, and whether they can identify non-trivial traits in a partner that would contribute to that.
-
Their words
It's not that looks and status don't matter, it's that focusing on looks and status as one's dating strategy is perfectly pointless.
7 June 2023
6 June 2023
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Likedrcmnd.app
FoundationTheir words
Asimov’s Foundation books were a strong influence on me as a child
From one piece Why AI Will Save The World 3 beliefs · pmarca.substack.com
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Their words
I even think AI is going to improve warfare, when it has to happen, by reducing wartime death rates dramatically. Every war is characterized by terrible decisions made under intense pressure and with sharply limited information by very limited human leaders.
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Their words
The single greatest risk of AI is that China wins global AI dominance and we – the United States and the West – do not.
-
Their words
My view is that the idea that AI will decide to literally kill humanity is a profound category error. AI is not a living being that has been primed by billions of years of evolution to participate in the battle for the survival of the fittest, as animals are, and as we are. It is math – code – computers, built by people, owned by people, used by people, controlled by people.
1 June 2023
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korrents.com
A world without mass child mortality does not have to be imagined, because rich countries are already living in it.Their words
I think we don’t have to imagine what a future could look like without this immense loss.
What does it mean when fewer people die?scientificdiscovery.dev
31 May 2023
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Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
The Silver TideTheir words
They're all mind candy, but of high quality, and this one even makes me swallow a time-travel plot without complaint. But it really does rely on having read the rest of the trilogy beforehand.
30 May 2023
From one piece RedwoodJS’ Next Epoch: All In on React Server Components 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
When it comes to React Server Components, it's still the first inning.
-
Their words
RSC is the future of React. The React team has made this very clear and we are lucky to be in touch with their amazing team members to help us along this path.
-
korrents.com
Building a secure, performant GraphQL API is tricky and adds real cost during early-stage app prototyping.Their words
While we love GraphQL for many use cases, implementing a secure and performant GraphQL API can be tricky and there is a definite cost to requiring it during early prototyping of your app.
-
Their words, before
Samuelson was the one claiming realism.
Their words now
I no longer think the main substance of my earlier post was correct.
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Born in BlacknessTheir words
If you’re interested in learning more about the history of Africa, its central role in the world, and the ways in which both have been misunderstood in the West, I highly recommend Born in Blackness.
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and TomorrowTheir words
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow resonated with me for personal reasons, but I think Zevin’s exploration of partnership and collaboration is worth reading no matter who you are.
29 May 2023
27 May 2023
25 May 2023
From one piece AI and the Hard Stuff 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
But we do not have enough data and we do not have enough insight to use AI/ML to pick better targets that have a higher chance of succeeding in the clinic.
-
Their words
There are no existing AI/ML systems that mitigate clinical failure risks due to target choice or toxicology.
23 May 2023
From one piece 10 Thoughts from the Fourth Trimester 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
this is the most personal of personal decisions and no one should ever try to pressure anyone else to have kids-it's way too big a thing to be anyone else's business.
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korrents.com
Expecting parents should be required to take a mandatory course before caring for a newborn.Their words
There should obviously be like a mandatory four-hour course every expecting parent has to take before they're actually in charge of a newborn.
-
Their words
The problem is, when humans went bipedal, our pelvises got smaller, and as humans got smarter, our heads got bigger. So evolution had to get creative. Its solution: all human babies would be premies, born when they were still small enough to pass through a human pelvis.
21 May 2023
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Draft No. 4: On the Writing ProcessTheir words
McPhee is a spectacular writer.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Levels of the GameTheir words
I’ve read many books about tennis, but it’s still my favorite
-
Likedrcmnd.app
String Theory: David Foster Wallace on TennisTheir words
coming in a close second
+ 1 more
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Avid Reader: A LifeTheir words
If you want to understand that in-depth, grab a copy of Avid Reader: A Life by Robert Gottlieb.
19 May 2023
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korrents.com
Building more housing in a city raises its local prices, because density is what people are moving there for.Their words, before
So empirically, as you move along the density spectrum from the empty North Dakota plain to Manhattan, housing prices go up.
Their words now
Although it wasn't a mistake to ask people to change my mind, I've mostly updated against believing the theory.
-
Their words
So I can now state with confidence: beating out a crowded field, this is the worst book about quantum computing, for some definition of the word "about," that I've ever encountered.
17 May 2023
16 May 2023
From one piece I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a cop 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
If my class is so boring that I have to devise an additional carrot-and-stick system to get students to pay attention, the problem is my class is boring.
I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a copexperimental-history.com
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korrents.com
Evaluation should be taken out of the classroom and given to people whose whole job it is.Their words
One solution is to separate instruction and evaluation. Let teachers be teachers and cops be cops.
I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a copexperimental-history.com
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korrents.com
Grading flattens whatever is taught into what can be tested, and teaches students to ignore everything else.Their words
Evaluation forces me to flatten everything I teach into something that can be tested, and it encourages students to ignore everything that isn’t on the test.
I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a copexperimental-history.com
+ 2 more
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Their words
Instruction is collaborative: students want to learn, and I want them to learn, too. Evaluation is adversarial: students want the points, and I have to make sure they don’t get too many.
I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a copexperimental-history.com
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korrents.com
Teaching and grading are two different jobs, and doing both at once makes a person worse at teaching.Their words
Grade harder, grade softer, grade with words rather than numbers, hide the grades entirely—none of it works, because the problem was never the grades themselves. The problem was trying to be both a teacher and a cop at the same time.
I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a copexperimental-history.com
12 May 2023
From one piece Waste Your Time, Your Life May Depend On It 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
The freedom that automation offers is freedom from the very involvement that makes a life meaningful.Their words
The liberation we are offered is a liberation from the very care-driven involvement in the world and in our communities that would render our lives meaningful and satisfying.
Waste Your Time, Your Life May Depend On Ittheconvivialsociety.substack.com
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korrents.com
Saving time and labour has become an unexamined imperative rather than a judgement made case by case.Their words
The problem is that “saving” time and labor have become default settings and social imperatives.
Waste Your Time, Your Life May Depend On Ittheconvivialsociety.substack.com
11 May 2023
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Their words
Ships are great at carrying bulky and heavy stuff with minimal cost and energy usage. We need a battery chemistry that leans into that and sacrifices performance to reduce cost.
Why Battery Powered Cargo Ships are Compellingaustinvernon.site
9 May 2023
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Lovedrcmnd.app
MacWhisperTheir words
MacWhisper is a little app I just discovered that changed the game for me when it comes to creating high quality subtitles for my videos.
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
MimestreamTheir words
Mimestream feels like the Apple Mail app I’ve always wished Apple would make. It’s incredibly fast and fluid, it syncs instantly, and it supports all the keyboard shortcuts that you’d expect in a modern app
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
PeteyTheir words
The app costs a few dollars up front and then has an optional subscription for unlimited requests, but I would recommend going directly to OpenAI’s developer dashboard, creating your own account, and copy/pasting your own API key into Petey.
+ 2 more
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Readwise ReaderTheir words
is my favorite way to save things to read later, to actually read them, and to sync my highlights wherever I want.
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Dislikedrcmnd.app
Apple MailTheir words
unlike Apple Mail, which seemingly uses shortcuts that made sense in 1995 and refuses to change.
8 May 2023
4 May 2023
From one piece Content Shaping 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
AI will soon let anyone consume any content reshaped into the timeframe, tone, voice and bias they choose.Their words
This isn't perfect, but soon it will be, and you will be able to listen to or read any content you want in the timeframe, tone, voice and bias of your choosing.
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korrents.com
The gap between what media covers and what actually matters, like real causes of death, is very large.Their words
The gap between reality and media is very large: The gap between cause of death and what people search for and read.
2 May 2023
1 May 2023
From one piece Why Chatbots Are Not the Future 4 beliefs · wattenberger.com
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Their words
I want to see more tools and fewer operated machines - we should be embracing our humanity instead of blindly improving efficiency. And that involves using our new AI technology in more deft ways than generating more content for humans to evaluate. I believe the real game changers are going to have very little to do with plain content generation.
-
Their words
Good tools let the user choose when to switch between implementation and evaluation. When I work with a chatbot, I'm forced to frequently switch between the two modes.
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Their words
Good tools make it clear how they should be used. And more importantly, how they should not be used.
+ 1 more
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korrents.com
Chatbots are a terrible interface for large language models, because a text box has no affordances.Their words
Hopefully I've convinced you that chatbots are a terrible interface for LLMs. Or, at the very least, that we can add controls, information, and affordances to our chatbot interfaces to make them more usable.
30 April 2023
27 April 2023
26 April 2023
From one piece Performance Excuses Debunked 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Performance-aware programming is a skill a working developer can learn in months rather than years.Their words
Learning basic performance-aware programming skills is something a developer can do in months rather than years.
-
Their words
the logical conclusion would be that programmers need to take performance more seriously than they have been, not less!
-
korrents.com
Software performance is central to long-term business success rather than a niche engineering concern.Their words
Software performance appears to be central to long-term business interests.
23 April 2023
From one piece Some mistakes I made as a new manager 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Neglecting maintenance of infrastructure over time makes it degrade faster and become costlier to repair later.Their words
unmaintained infrastructure degrades more quickly, and is more expensive to fix in the long run.
-
korrents.com
People with little experience at a task often welcome a degree of close oversight, provided it is given thoughtfully.Their words
People with low task-relevant maturity appreciate some amount of micromanagement (if they're self-aware and you're nice about it).
-
Their words
Manage projects according to the owner's level of task-relevant maturity.
20 April 2023
-
On changing their mind
There's always a chance I might never see my family again. Because of that, I often regret it. It's usually best to keep options open.
-
korrents.com
Removing your own ability to retreat is how you make yourself follow through on a hard change.Their words
I forbid myself from anything too tempting or addicting. I keep no cookies in my home. To prevent myself from falling off the wagon, I strap myself to the mast.
-
Their words
Design is not the way it looks, or beautiful colors and animations. It's not the brand or the logo. It is how the product works. Designing is the the process of exploring and arriving at a solution. I believe all builders are designers.
15 April 2023
12 April 2023
11 April 2023
10 April 2023
7 April 2023
From one piece A design practice for social systems 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
A big moment of realization for me is that most of the social sciences are not design practices.
-
korrents.com
The job of a multiplayer designer is to grow a community, not to make gamified numbers go up.Their words
We are no longer in the business of delivering systems where players make gamified numbers go up.
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korrents.com
A designer’s obligation is to satisfy real human needs rather than to manufacture needs that pay.Their words
Every team should ensure they are fulfilling real human needs over merely inducing needs for profit.
+ 1 more
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korrents.com
Extracting time and money from unhealthy users works in the short run and loses them in the long run.Their words
You may be able to extract time and money from unhealthy players in the short term. But long term, unhealthy players leave extractive services.
28 March 2023
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Their words
These are important principles, but they ignore the problems of sustainability, inequity, and bias. In addition, the emphasis is usually on the immediate issues, not the long-term impact. In other words, they describe the way we did things in the past, not the issues in this book, and not the way we need to do things in the future.
22 March 2023
21 March 2023
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korrents.com
An AI can already earn an A on a university economics midterm, years earlier than informed forecasters expected.Their words
To my surprise and no small dismay, GPT-4 got an A. It earned 73/100, which would have been the fourth-highest score on the test.
15 March 2023
14 March 2023
13 March 2023
9 March 2023
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving RelationshipTheir words
Stop working on yourself as an individual and start working on your relationship as a couple.
-
Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love WorkTheir words
Terry shares five non-starters to avoid and practical strategies for bringing honesty, passion, and joy back to even the most difficult relationship.
-
Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
How Can I Get Through to You?: Reconnecting Men and WomenTheir words
How Can I Get Through to You? explores the causes of communication blocks between men and women.
+ 1 more
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male DepressionTheir words
In it, Terry reveals how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse.
7 March 2023
4 March 2023
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Their words, before
My view is that it’s going to take more than this regulatory campaign to defeat dynamism in China.
Their words now
What I did not sufficiently appreciate is that a state that would so casually decapitate a sector like online tutoring would also have the will to visit catastrophe upon whole cities.
From one piece 2022 letter 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
China's technological competitiveness is grounded in manufacturing capability rather than in scientific research.Their words
Whereas the US has a track record of doing great science, China’s technology competitiveness is grounded in manufacturing capabilities.
-
Their words
Beijing decided to partner with Russia, an imperial aggressor, when it is the US and Europe that have markets and technology.
-
korrents.com
The Chinese state's famous capability is largely spent putting out fires it started itself.Their words
First, it increasingly resembles a crew of firefighters who bring extraordinary skill to dousing fires that they themselves ignited.
+ 2 more
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Their words
Second, China’s problem is usually not too little state capacity, but too much.
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Their words
And on balance I believe we should think of the Chinese state today as an autocratic regime that is occasionally capable of economic pragmatism rather than a technocratic regime that slips occasionally into Marxist faults.
2 March 2023
From one piece Choose People 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
If we collectively devoted the same levels of investment and inventive power and entrepreneurship to developing more and better legal pathways for people to move across borders to needed jobs, including a variety of modalities for labor mobility, we could solve the growing challenge of labor scarcity.
-
Their words
But, whether it makes financial sense or not for the individuals involved, they are responding to distorted prices, not scarcity, and the world is not better off from their invention and innovation.
-
korrents.com
The world economy is flat for capital, goods and ideas, and has a legal cliff at the border for people.Their words
This is not because there are not people who would drive trucks for Amazon in the world, and not because “natural” scientific progress has made machines that drive trucks easy and cheap, but because in a global economy which is “flat” for capital, information, and goods, there is a legal “cliff at the border” for labor, as prices don’t reflect scarcity.
+ 2 more
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korrents.com
Labour-saving innovation in rich countries is aimed at the only asset most of the world’s poor have to sell.Their words
Therefore, we have the perverse situation that the richest people are hiring some of the most talented and technologically sophisticated people on the planet to engage in innovation aimed at driving down the demand for labor—the major and often only asset of the world’s poor.
-
Their words
My key argument is that in the current global economy we have some of the scarcest resources on the planet devoting themselves to economizing one of the most abundant resources on the planet.
28 February 2023
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korrents.com
The programming practices taught as best practice are ruinous for performance and should not be followed.Their words
The ideas underlying the “clean” code methodology are almost all horrible for performance, and you shouldn’t do them.
26 February 2023
23 February 2023
From one piece Modular Deep Learning 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
But modularity may also facilitate a shift away from a concentration of model development in a few institutions and to distributing the development of modular components across the community.
-
Their words
Given the trend of pre-training larger and larger models, we believe modularity will be crucial.
19 February 2023
From one piece Twiddler 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
The problem isn’t the existence of intermediaries — it’s how much power the internet gives to intermediaries.
-
Their words
A platform operator can effortlessly change the distribution of surpluses in an instant, while suppliers and customers have to engage in minute, time-consuming and unreliable Platform Kremlinology just to detect these changes, much less understand them.
-
Their words
tech barons are ordinary mediocrities, no better and no worse than the monopolists that preceded them, and any differences come down to affordances in technology and regulation, not an especial wicked brilliance.
17 February 2023
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Their words
The biggest issue is probably that we don’t control neutral networks enough to be able to ensure AI doesn’t harm humans. We can’t even control AI to not reveal internal prompts.
From one piece A Short History of My Last Six Years 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Liberal societies currently face an existential risk that must be addressed to reach a better future.Their words
This book is my best crack at explaining what I think is an existential risk to liberal societies and what I think we need to do to get to that awesome future I used to be so excited about.
-
Their words
There were a bunch of bad trends: Tribalism was flaring up everywhere, mass shaming campaigns were roaring back into fashion, politicians were increasingly clown-like, public discourse had become a battle of one-dimensional narratives.
12 February 2023
11 February 2023
8 February 2023
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Heal SquadTheir words
I spoke with @mariamenounos about the link between emotions and illness, and the importance of focusing on mental health, on her Heal Squad podcast. To listen to the full episode, please follow: https://t.co/XPIKAvi8tH
7 February 2023
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Their words, before
Experiencing sleepiness is normal and does not necessarily imply that you are undersleeping.
Their words now
Therefore, I realized that it’s very important to be as awake as possible and that my model of sleepiness where you can be “awake”, “sleepy” and “asleep” is dumb.
-
korrents.com
A cultural focus on psychological health, meditation included, is one of the great obstacles to human progress.On changing their mind
I think meditation has been very good for me and that it would be very good for a lot of other people too.
5 February 2023
4 February 2023
2 February 2023
From one piece I’m Now a Full-Time Professional Open Source Maintainer 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
This is how I frame it: if the effort required to replace or fork a dependency should it go unmaintained is measured in engineer-months, that’s a critical dependency and retaining its maintainers probably makes good business sense.
-
Their words
As a project gets more popular in the ecosystem, the workload increases but the value of that project for the company stays the same, so resources don’t increase accordingly.
-
korrents.com
Foundations, on the whole, do not pay the maintainers of the projects they exist to support.Their words
Virtually all maintainers are either volunteers or full-time employees of large companies. Foundations on average don’t pay maintainers.
+ 2 more
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Their words
Volunteerism is self-evidently not sustainable, as people’s life circumstances change.
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korrents.com
Maintainers of widely used open source software are not adequately funded, and that is a real and unsolved problem.Their words
This experiment started from the observation that despite being critical for the functioning of the Internet—and, by extension, the economy—the role of open-source maintainer has not yet found a sustainable manifestation.
1 February 2023
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korrents.com
Fluvoxamine probably treats COVID, at about 60-40, and doctors should be prescribing it on those odds.Their words, before
At this point I'd give it 60-40 it works.
Their words now
More recent studies have found fluvoxamine does not treat COVID.
-
Their words
This wasn't exactly a mistake, since it's not wrong to give 60-40 odds on a false thing, but it seems worth acknowledging here.
30 January 2023
From one piece Cargo airships could be big 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Building a manufactured object at a high enough rate pushes its cost down toward the cost of its inputs.Their words
A high rate of production tends to drive costs down toward the cost of inputs.
-
Their words
Designing your aircraft for the beachhead market is a huge distraction, particularly when there are certification costs that have to be paid for each new model.
-
Their words
FAA certification is required before you transport anything for money.
+ 1 more
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Their words
A small rigid-body airship for good physical reasons should not exist.
27 January 2023
18 January 2023
17 January 2023
-
Likedrcmnd.app
fast.aiTheir words
https://course.fast.ai/ is a free course on deep learning with PyTorch. It helped me get started with deep learning, though I didn’t get that far.
-
Likedrcmnd.app
CryptopalsTheir words
Cryptopals – a set of exercises to learn cryptography by breaking it. Very fun.
-
Likedrcmnd.app
NightmareTheir words
Nightmare – an intro to reverse engineering. I did a few problems and it was really fun.
+ 2 more
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
TinyWMTheir words
TinyWM is where I’d start if I wanted to learn how a window manager works
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
Go standard library documentationTheir words
the Go standard library documentation is probably my favourite language reference
16 January 2023
-
Their words
What ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty. ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song.
14 January 2023
-
Their words, before
The Fed needs PCE inflation to average 1.96% for the remainder of the decade in order to hit their AIT target.
Their words now
I assumed they intended inflation to average roughly 2% during the 2020s.
13 January 2023
12 January 2023
From one piece High Costs are not About Precarity 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Importantly, low-cost countries with more clientelism and politicization of the state tend to be more deferential to the expertise of engineers.
High Costs are not About Precaritypedestrianobservations.com
-
Their words
Our best explanation is that the UK adopted what we call the globalized system of procurement, privatizing planning functions to consultants and privatizing risk to contractors, which creates more conflict; the UK also has an unusually high soft cost factor.
High Costs are not About Precaritypedestrianobservations.com
-
Their words
Just giving more support to agencies in their current configuration is not going to help. To the contrary, it only confirms that profligacy gets rewarded.
High Costs are not About Precaritypedestrianobservations.com
+ 1 more
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Their words
In fact, the worst cost blowouts are for the politically most certain projects; Second Avenue Subway enjoyed unanimous support in New York politics.
High Costs are not About Precaritypedestrianobservations.com
10 January 2023
8 January 2023
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Their words
Taken together, there is an argument to be made that AVs should be safer than human drivers by about a factor of 10 (being a nice round order of magnitude number) to leave engineering margin for the above considerations.
4 January 2023
From one piece There's No Such Thing as Affordable Housing 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
These shifts in price without any physical change to the housing stock are by far the biggest part of the affordability story. They dwarf the impact of actual new construction.
-
Their words
Affordability for the masses will live or die not by what we build this year or next, but by what happens to the price of homes that already exist, in which the vast majority of people live.
-
Their words
Because affordability is not, and has never been, an intrinsic quality of a building.
+ 1 more
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Their words
Adding chairs to the game—any kind of chairs—will tend to make the competition less cutthroat for the chairs already in play.
3 January 2023
1 January 2023
From one piece Why Not Mars 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
With our current capability, NASA would struggle to keep a crew alive for six months on the White House lawn, let alone for years in a Martian yurt.
-
korrents.com
The International Space Station exists mainly to teach its builders how to build another space station.Their words
The ISS crew spend most of their time fixing the machinery that keeps them alive, and when they have a free moment for science, they tend to study the effect of space on themselves.
-
korrents.com
A crewed spacecraft does no work: putting people aboard is what stops a mission getting anything done.Their words
In 2023, we simply take it for granted that if a rocket goes up carrying passengers, it’s not going to get any work done.
+ 2 more
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korrents.com
Fifty years of miniaturisation have made robotic spacecraft better and cheaper explorers than astronauts.Their words
But fifty years of progress in miniaturization and software changed the balance between robots and humans in space.
-
Their words
The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human beings to Mars, at least not anytime soon.
-
korrents.com
The more freedom a design gives people to interact, the more of that freedom will be abused.Their words
The more freedom you give players, the more they will abuse it.
31 December 2022
From one piece I am not a supplier 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
If you use this, I owe you nothing. At all. We have no relationship. I put this up online on the condition that if you use it, all the risks are on you.
-
Their words
But to do that, I am going to have to become a supplier. Which means you are going to have to start to pay me. A fair price, that we can negotiate. Under a different license.
-
Their words
We are not suppliers. All the people writing and maintaining these projects, we are not suppliers. We do not have a business relationship with all these organisations.
+ 1 more
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korrents.com
Maintainers of widely used open source software are not adequately funded, and that is a real and unsolved problem.Their words
Hell even worse, a lot of the libraries that underpin the fabric of what we all call the digital economy have trouble getting enough money to pay for food.
From one piece The Dark Forest and Generative AI 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Referencing obscure concepts, friends who are real but not famous, niche interests, and recent events all make you plausibly more human.
-
Their words
Every time you find a new favourite blog or Twitter account or Tiktok personality online, you’ll have to ask: Is this really a whole human with a rich and complex life like mine?
-
Their words
Easier said than done, but one of the best ways to prove you’re not a predictive language model is to demonstrate critical and sophisticated thinking.
+ 2 more
-
Their words
But I think the sheer volume and scale of what’s coming will be meaningfully different. And I think we’re unprepared.
-
korrents.com
The web is being flooded with coherent, generic, generated text that buries the writing worth reading.Their words
These new models are poised to flood the web with generic, generated content.
29 December 2022
27 December 2022
From one piece Science isn't storytelling 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
A scientific paper isn’t supposed to be a story.
-
korrents.com
Compressing a piece of research into a journal paper's word count is itself a distortion of what was found.Their words
The mere act of squeezing a complex process into a few thousand words—limited by a journal-imposed word count—is itself a distortion of reality.
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korrents.com
Deciding your conclusion before you look at the data is one of the most reality-distorting things a scientist can do.Their words
Having a pre-existing conclusion—a “take-home message”—in mind is one of the most reality-distorting influences on our thinking.
+ 2 more
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Their words
This, as was noted on Twitter, is a recipe for bad studies: it encourages the cherry-picking of results that went your way and the hiding of those that didn’t.
-
Their words
We know how easily these practices can distort the scientific record and give us false-positive, nonsense results.
19 December 2022
18 December 2022
17 December 2022
14 December 2022
From one piece Indie Game Dev: Death Loops 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Each project you finish makes the next one easier to finish and teaches you more about what a successful one takes.Their words
"Finishing games gets easier with each game you finish, and the more games you finish, the better you will understand what it takes to make a successful game."
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korrents.com
Aiming to make an objectively great work is the wrong goal; make the best you can now and treat it as one of many.Their words
My advice is to abandon the goal of making an objectively great game.
-
Their words
I find it best not to spend too long on any one part of the game until the entire game is playable from beginning to end.
+ 1 more
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korrents.com
The right way to size a project is by the size of the projects you have already finished, not by how skilled you are.Their words
the best metric for scoping a project is not technical skill, but the scope of the previous games you've finished!
10 December 2022
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Likedrcmnd.app
Guns, Germs, and SteelTheir words
I have a soft spot for extremely broad histories like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel and Joseph Henrich's The WEIRDest People in the World.
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth CenturyTheir words
Slouching Towards Utopia is a rich, nuanced story of the interplay of politics, economics, and ideas and how they shaped progress.
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant SuccessTheir words
Absolutely. It is incredibly enjoyable and readable. The authors, in a way that is very rare for economists, find small stories that paint big pictures for the points they make.
+ 2 more
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about ItTheir words
Although his training is not in economics, Richard Reeves draws on economic research, as well as research from the fields of sociology, psychology, and political science, to tell an under-told story. The book explores the problems faced by boys and men, the roots of those problems, and possible policy solutions.
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical TechnologyTheir words
Chris Miller tells us the history of how microchips were developed, emphasizing the critical role of the government, and especially defense procurement.
-
Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. TrumanTheir words
this one is one of the best leadership books I have ever read
-
Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
The War of ArtTheir words
Before I start any book project, I take a few hours and re-read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, maybe the greatest book ever written on the creative process.
-
Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Outdoor Kids in an Inside World: Getting Your Family Out of the House and Radically Engaged with NatureTheir words
It’s about encouraging curiosity and interest, and cultivating resiliency and self-sufficiency.
+ 1 more
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Recommendssponsoredrcmnd.app
HiyaTheir words
The Reading List email is sponsored by Hiya , the pediatrician-approved superpowered chewable vitamin created by two dads tired of children’s vitamins that cause more problems than they solve.
8 December 2022
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Fellowship PointTheir words
There have been many novels written in historical modes this year, and I've hated all of them except Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark precisely because that novel feels vibrant and lively and full of characters and it reminds me of early 20th century literature.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
eBayTheir words
I wanted the the superior UK edition of two Kawabata books, so I ordered them from eBay. They arrived in like five days. It was amazing.
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
The Drama BookshopTheir words
Recently though, I went to The Drama Bookshop, which was a delightful surprise. It is the closest I have come to the experience of a Manhattan bookshop as a third place in the kind of Prairie Lights mode.
+ 2 more
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
the StrandTheir words
For used books, the Strand is pretty amazing. If you want an interesting, vibey new book, you don't go to the Strand, you go to McNally Jackson.
-
Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
The Late AmericansTheir words
Also, please preorder The Late Americans so I can write more homosexual novels—it comes out next year!
7 December 2022
From one piece Why encrypted backup is so important 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
A handful of Silicon Valley executives made the choice for us, in pursuit of adoption metrics and a “magical” user experience.
Why encrypted backup is so importantblog.cryptographyengineering.com
-
Their words
It terrifies me, because these data repositories are not only a risk to individual user privacy, they’re effectively a surveillance super-weapon.
Why encrypted backup is so importantblog.cryptographyengineering.com
6 December 2022
5 December 2022
4 December 2022
1 December 2022
30 November 2022
28 November 2022
24 November 2022
23 November 2022
22 November 2022
From one piece in which legibility comes at a price 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
Being easy to find online exposes people, especially those in marginalized groups, to a high risk of targeted abuse.Their words
ask any member of a marginalized group and they'll tell you that being easy to find can have a high cost when it exposes you to targeted abuse.
-
Their words
the real goal was to make their users more legible, primarily for advertising purposes, but also to law enforcement and other authorities.
21 November 2022
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Likedrcmnd.app
The Inner Game of TennisTheir words
But The Inner Game of Tennis is just as relevant today as it was in 1974.
17 November 2022
9 November 2022
5 November 2022
From one piece Where Are The Crewed eVTOL Videos? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
All radically new products, and air taxi eVTOLs certainly count as radically new, require the convergence of many different capabilities and technologies. Often one or more technology will be lagging and it may take decades for them all to come together in the right place at the right time.
-
Their words
I see lots of hype about eVTOLs being on the verge of being big, but I can’t find any videos of prototypes doing what the hype says will be common place by 2025.
3 November 2022
31 October 2022
26 October 2022
-
Recommendssponsoredrcmnd.app
Template Metaprogramming with C++Their words
I spent the last few weeks reading Template Metaprogramming with C++ by Marius Băncilă. It is currently 50$ on Amazon. Though, technically, the book is about advanced 'template' techniques, it is much more broad and practical. It is one of the 'good programming books'. If you are an experienced C++ programmer, you should give it a peek
13 October 2022
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Likedrcmnd.app
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.Their words
Fascinating account of a Gilded Age titan much worse known than Carnegie.
-
Likedrcmnd.app
In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our LivesTheir words
I learned a great deal from this book about Google, which put some of my own experiences with Google products in context.
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Likedrcmnd.app
The Black CompanyTheir words
I enjoyed the first book a great deal: it’s in a fairly stock medieval setting, but it handles the dark fantasy well
+ 2 more
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Likedrcmnd.app
Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War IITheir words
a fascinating book on the bloody aftermath of WWII as the destruction wound down
-
Likedrcmnd.app
Tombstone: The Untold Story of Mao’s Great FamineTheir words
The statistics and anecdotes are fairly horrifying, and the sheer profusion drills in how widespread the famine was.
12 October 2022
From one piece Starting from scraps 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Hence, the necessity of shitty first drafts.
-
korrents.com
Writing gets better when it is handled physically, like a collage of scraps pushed around, rather than composed.Their words
I’m constantly on a quest to make writing more hands on — more manipulative, in the sense that you’re using your hands to shape it. The more I treat writing like one of my collages, the better it gets.
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
The Great DivergenceTheir words
His 2000 masterpiece The Great Divergence argues that the Americas, won and worked by force, provided the critical ghost acreages that propelled Britain past the Old World's common ecological constraints.
11 October 2022
From one piece Review of DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia" 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
What I’m nitpicking here is that this decline in fertility deserves equal billing with the research lab, corporation, and globalization.
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Their words
Without this anti-Malthusian response the research lab, corporation, and globalization cannot provide sustained growth.
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korrents.com
What broke the Malthusian trap was that productivity growth raised the price of bringing a child to adulthood.Their words
The key change is that productivity growth, starting around 1870, reached down and profoundly raised the price of bringing a child to adulthood.
+ 2 more
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Their words
Prior to this inflection point, productivity growth had increased before, but every time had induced a response of higher population growth rates, eroding any gains in per-person living standards.
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Their words
It was an acceleration in productivity combined with a decline in population growth that put us on a slow trudge towards utopia.
8 October 2022
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korrents.com
The three-year bet about whether AI image models could handle compositionality was won in three months.Their words, before
In fact, not only did they reach this level in three months, but probably they were at this level before the bet was even made
Their words now
I retract my claim to have won and will continue to see how AI progress advances over the next three years.
4 October 2022
30 September 2022
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27 September 2022
23 September 2022
From one piece The Hierarchy Is Bullshit (And Bad For Business) 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Burnout comes from not caring and from not feeling needed, not from working the hardest.Their words
The times I have come closest to burnout or flaming out have never been when I was working the hardest, but when I cared the least.
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Their words
But if there’s one thing we know, it’s that for industries that are fueled by creativity and innovation, command-and-control leadership is poison.
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korrents.com
Treating the org chart as a ladder on which higher is always better is the central lie of hierarchy.Their words
The “Big Lie” of hierarchy is that your organizational structure is a vertical tree from the CEO on down, where higher up is always better.
22 September 2022
21 September 2022
19 September 2022
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Their words
Drag and tire friction dominate energy expenditure. Engineering effort to improve drag is worth so much more with electric vehicles.
15 September 2022
12 September 2022
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korrents.com
AI progress is faster than people expect, and ordinary scaling can be enough to solve problems that looked very hard.Their words
I think this matches the general finding that AI progress is faster than expected, and increases my certainty that scale and normal progress can sometimes be enough to solve even very difficult problems.
8 September 2022
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
Outer Order, Inner CalmTheir words
With clarity and humor, Gretchen Rubin illuminates one of her key realizations about happiness: For most of us, outer order contributes to inner calm.
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
The Four TendenciesTheir words
Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so understanding this framework lets us make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress and burnout, and engage more effectively.
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
Better Than BeforeTheir words
With her signature mix of rigorous research, easy humor, and personal experimentation, author Gretchen Rubin identifies the 21 habit-change strategies that will help every reader to create the habits that will transform their lives.
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
Happier at HomeTheir words
Happier at Home is the account of what she tried, and what she learned, when she undertook to be happier at home.
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
The Happiness ProjectTheir words
The Happiness Project synthesizes the wisdom of the ages with current scientific research, as Rubin brings readers along on her year to greater happiness.
7 September 2022
From one piece Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
If we found a thousand life forms across the universe, 995 of them would be carbon-based and living in water.Their words
I would say pretty fundamental. I wouldn’t like to say it’s impossible for life to start any other way, but water is everywhere. Water’s extremely good at what it does, and carbon works in water especially well. And carbon is everywhere. So, those things together make me think probabilistically, if we found 1,000 life forms, 995 of them would be carbon-based and living in water.
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Their words
So, there is no necessary trajectory towards great complexity in human beings at the end of it. It’s very easy to imagine that without photosynthesis arising or without eukaryotes arising, that the planet could be full of bacteria and nothing else.
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korrents.com
The primordial soup is a miracle story: life needs a continuous flow of reaction, and a soup can never provide one.Their words
So, how did they do that? You may as well say that a miracle happened. I don’t believe in soup. I think what we have in a vent is a continuous conversion, a continuous growth, a continuous reaction, a continuous converting a flow of molecules into more of yourself, you might say, even if it’s a small bit.
+ 2 more
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korrents.com
Life probably arose only once on Earth, and the deep split between bacteria and archaea is the evidence for it.Their words
But there’s a very interesting deep split in life between bacteria and what are called archaea, which look just the same as bacteria. And they’re not quite as diverse, but nearly, and they are very different in their biochemistry. And so any explanation for the origin of life has to account, as well, for why they’re so different and yet so similar. And that makes me think that life probably did arise only once.
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Their words
It’s possible it started multiple occasions. There’s two provisos to that. One of them is oxygen makes it impossible really for life to start. So, as soon as we’ve got oxygen in the atmosphere, then life isn’t going to keep starting over.
6 September 2022
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korrents.com
Electric bikes are worth their cost, flaws and all, because they bring the world nearerTheir words
Sure, electric bikes aren't cheap. But I believe they're a rare object to be well worth the cost. This in spite of their annoying flaws, their often bad software, their defective geometries. Because they open the world.
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Mixed onrcmnd.app
BESV PSA1Their words
Despite these flaws I put hundreds of kilometers on this thing in the first month. The front and rear suspension turn every road to glass, and are even fine for dirt trails; I find myself hunting down paths through parks I'd never otherwise think about.
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Mixed onrcmnd.app
Vanmoof X3Their words
The Vanmoof is much smarter — the brain and software within it are refined, the app good, the acceleration curves smooth — but the bike is all custom components, and they aren't the highest quality at that.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Klamper disc calipersTheir words
The Pauls feel as fresh today as the day I put them on, whereas the hydraulics have required much bikeshop tuning over the course of the last eighteen months.
+ 2 more
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Brooks grips and saddleTheir words
I upgraded my BESV to an SRAM drivetrain and Paul brake levers and Klamper disc calipers, some MKS pedals, and a set of Brooks grips and saddle and it feels wonderful through and through.
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Likedrcmnd.app
MoultonTheir words
I still have a custom orange Moulton that I've modified into a single-speed city bomber that goes remarkably fast while floating atop its simple suspension.
1 September 2022
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Their words, before
That hokey unfashionable techniques like practicing gratitude turn out to have strong scientific evidence behind them
Their words now
I was wrong about gratitude. I thought it was a guaranteed way to become happier
30 August 2022
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Usesrcmnd.app
NotionTheir words
I use Notion but this guide can help you choose one if interested.
26 August 2022
From one piece Collections: Why No Roman Industrial Revolution? 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
New land can be brought under cultivation (or cultivated more intensively) of course, but marginal gains decrease rapidly (because the best land is cultivated first and because adding more labor to already cultivated land, while it can increase harvests, is less efficient than cultivating new land) and there is a fairly hard ceiling on total production of this sort that was, for the most part, fairly low.
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Their words
If you had given the Romans the designs for a Newcomen steam engine, they couldn’t have built it without developing whole new technologies for the purpose (or casting every part in bronze, which introduces its own problems) and then wouldn’t have had any profitable use to put it to.
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Their words
The specificity matters here because each innovation in the chain required not merely the discovery of the principle, but also the design and an economically viable use-case to all line up in order to have impact.
+ 2 more
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Their words
As much as we might want to imagine that the greater currents push historical events largely on a predetermined path with but minor variations from what must always have been, in practice events are tremendously contingent on unpredictable variables.
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Their words
In my view the key takeaway here is just how contingent the industrial revolution was: the industrial revolution that occured required a number of very specific pre-conditions which were really on true on Great Britain in that period.
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