Lucent®
@lucent.substack.com
"Thinkers aren't limited by what they know…they're limited by what puzzles them, because there's no way to become curious about something that doesn't puzzle you." —Daniel Quinn
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Lucent®
@lucent.substack.com
· Jul 31
I now almost solely post replies to myself and create topical threads, so hit that tab for better recency sorting
never thought about F1 until the movie. a sport that's entirely costly signal of brand reputation. 95% may know you have a team but not whether you're #2 or #10. once on the board, midfield fights become worth it at $10-15m per position. massive gamble to try for #1 with commensurate media reward
Lucent on X: "My favorite sport in which teams of fixed specification vehicles negotiate drafting partners? Probably either NASCAR or Tour de France." / X
My favorite sport in which teams of fixed specification vehicles negotiate drafting partners? Probably either NASCAR or Tour de France.
twitter.com
January 18, 2026 at 7:46 AM
never thought about F1 until the movie. a sport that's entirely costly signal of brand reputation. 95% may know you have a team but not whether you're #2 or #10. once on the board, midfield fights become worth it at $10-15m per position. massive gamble to try for #1 with commensurate media reward
excess deaths is such a good measure for getting around misclassification accusations like we had in COVID. i believe 10,000 per cyclone since probably everything is like that: fragile eggshells losing a decade from a change of environment, but YLL is probably a better metric here
Mortality caused by tropical cyclones in the United States - Nature
A large-scale evaluation of the long-term effects of tropical cyclones on human mortality in the contiguous United States estimates that the average tropical cyclone results in 7,000–11,000 ...
doi.org
January 18, 2026 at 12:23 AM
excess deaths is such a good measure for getting around misclassification accusations like we had in COVID. i believe 10,000 per cyclone since probably everything is like that: fragile eggshells losing a decade from a change of environment, but YLL is probably a better metric here
the burden of AI is you are no longer calling appliance repair for expertise, but out of laziness
January 10, 2026 at 9:48 PM
the burden of AI is you are no longer calling appliance repair for expertise, but out of laziness
ignoring our shared calendar since I know we have an event coming up purely from the IP-based retargeted ads I get for Rent the Runway
January 6, 2026 at 4:58 AM
ignoring our shared calendar since I know we have an event coming up purely from the IP-based retargeted ads I get for Rent the Runway
get the feeling the goal here is just to snatch up wunderkind before they go to other labs or start competitors and sequester them until takeoff the way Meta did with established adult researchers
Residency 2026
Research · San Francisco · FullTime
openai.com
December 30, 2025 at 12:26 AM
get the feeling the goal here is just to snatch up wunderkind before they go to other labs or start competitors and sequester them until takeoff the way Meta did with established adult researchers
i'm guessing AI doomers don't get LASIK given tail risk is weighted above all else?
Lucent on X: "Who takes the school debate competition technique of claiming tiny existential risks should be our main focus and turns it into a cult?" / X
Who takes the school debate competition technique of claiming tiny existential risks should be our main focus and turns it into a cult?
twitter.com
December 28, 2025 at 6:51 PM
i'm guessing AI doomers don't get LASIK given tail risk is weighted above all else?
if broadcast/cable wants to steal back viewers from streaming, coordinate with still-extant brands to run vintage commercials period-matched to classic Christmas movies. i'd watch low-bitrate Griswold interspersed with Folgers incest, cola polar bears, and dopey M&Ms over my own 4K disc
Lucent on X: "Didn't realize how much of getting in the Christmas spirit is from TV commercials until I quit cable." / X
Didn't realize how much of getting in the Christmas spirit is from TV commercials until I quit cable.
twitter.com
December 24, 2025 at 4:18 AM
if broadcast/cable wants to steal back viewers from streaming, coordinate with still-extant brands to run vintage commercials period-matched to classic Christmas movies. i'd watch low-bitrate Griswold interspersed with Folgers incest, cola polar bears, and dopey M&Ms over my own 4K disc
LLM psychosis cranks developing wrappers to solve fundamental questions have an even bigger blind spot than cranks who believe LLMs are lensing their genius because the former think they've subtracted their ego from the equation
December 21, 2025 at 5:34 PM
LLM psychosis cranks developing wrappers to solve fundamental questions have an even bigger blind spot than cranks who believe LLMs are lensing their genius because the former think they've subtracted their ego from the equation
contemptuous of gushing praise for the dead you wouldn't give to them alive. the changed variable is their inability to covert praise into status, so they are no longer a sink but a reflector, inanimately forced to return all of what would empower a living rival into pocketable virtue points for you
Lucent on X: "If everyone gets the same glowing eulogy at death regardless of whether they were a jerk, how will we know when actual good people die?" / X
If everyone gets the same glowing eulogy at death regardless of whether they were a jerk, how will we know when actual good people die?
twitter.com
December 16, 2025 at 3:35 PM
contemptuous of gushing praise for the dead you wouldn't give to them alive. the changed variable is their inability to covert praise into status, so they are no longer a sink but a reflector, inanimately forced to return all of what would empower a living rival into pocketable virtue points for you
every As Seen on TV product being a scam is evidence for Nothing Ever Happens because the medium is perfect for selling products so qualitatively, structurally better they need longform visual description to coax you out of the status quo's local maxima, yet apparently no such products exist
December 14, 2025 at 3:02 AM
every As Seen on TV product being a scam is evidence for Nothing Ever Happens because the medium is perfect for selling products so qualitatively, structurally better they need longform visual description to coax you out of the status quo's local maxima, yet apparently no such products exist
whether a friend sends me AI-generated or human nudes, my question is the same. which model is this?
December 13, 2025 at 5:25 PM
whether a friend sends me AI-generated or human nudes, my question is the same. which model is this?
AI safety charities are incentivized to catastrophize because the typical estate donation is decades away. if you want 20-somethings pulling Bay money to tithe, you need an argument for Now
December 8, 2025 at 1:08 PM
AI safety charities are incentivized to catastrophize because the typical estate donation is decades away. if you want 20-somethings pulling Bay money to tithe, you need an argument for Now
what is this stupid as fuck @highlight feature Facebook has given boomers to annoy us with their free Winnebago contest entries?
December 5, 2025 at 12:43 AM
what is this stupid as fuck @highlight feature Facebook has given boomers to annoy us with their free Winnebago contest entries?
a lot is made of "How Jews Became White Folks" but rarely is it mentioned that if an unaccented Asian man is old and plump enough, he also achieves honorary white status
December 4, 2025 at 7:20 PM
a lot is made of "How Jews Became White Folks" but rarely is it mentioned that if an unaccented Asian man is old and plump enough, he also achieves honorary white status
irregular periods as evolution throwing a fork in the gears of natural fertility tracking to increase births? optimal cadence to trick the human brain is probably more fractal than mast years that only need overwhelm the squirrel hippocampus
Mast seeding - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
December 4, 2025 at 7:51 AM
irregular periods as evolution throwing a fork in the gears of natural fertility tracking to increase births? optimal cadence to trick the human brain is probably more fractal than mast years that only need overwhelm the squirrel hippocampus
Concorde droop nose had the same menacing aura as handgun side grip
December 3, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Concorde droop nose had the same menacing aura as handgun side grip
my girl as reluctant wingman has incredible theory of mind into competitors. spotted her rival reading my writing would have no use-mention distinction, so object-level "uses" are interpreted as deliberately dropped "mentions" of that term. this read totally escaped me, but it explains a lot
November 30, 2025 at 2:06 AM
my girl as reluctant wingman has incredible theory of mind into competitors. spotted her rival reading my writing would have no use-mention distinction, so object-level "uses" are interpreted as deliberately dropped "mentions" of that term. this read totally escaped me, but it explains a lot
in cities with trams that share lanes with cars, do they have TV ads or something so you know how to coexist with these things?
November 20, 2025 at 1:06 AM
in cities with trams that share lanes with cars, do they have TV ads or something so you know how to coexist with these things?
finitist presentist computationalist physicalist: i am an equivalence class
radical eternalist Platonic realist: so i took that literally
radical eternalist Platonic realist: so i took that literally
November 15, 2025 at 4:03 AM
finitist presentist computationalist physicalist: i am an equivalence class
radical eternalist Platonic realist: so i took that literally
radical eternalist Platonic realist: so i took that literally
Nature Valley bars were everywhere for years, then everyone stopped eating them at once. do our teeth collectively meter their own micromort of mastication, refusing further microfracture risk in a globally synchronized retreat?
November 4, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Nature Valley bars were everywhere for years, then everyone stopped eating them at once. do our teeth collectively meter their own micromort of mastication, refusing further microfracture risk in a globally synchronized retreat?
to an outside observer, "we'd like to become friends, but must be careful not to come on too strong by delicately introducing and dancing around new topics" looks a lot like "our souls are enemies but we are trying our best to avoid outright conflict"
November 3, 2025 at 11:03 PM
to an outside observer, "we'd like to become friends, but must be careful not to come on too strong by delicately introducing and dancing around new topics" looks a lot like "our souls are enemies but we are trying our best to avoid outright conflict"
airline seating seems beyond random—maliciously tuned to maximize misery. they won't alternate by sex or body size but will alternate by politics and age
November 1, 2025 at 3:50 PM
airline seating seems beyond random—maliciously tuned to maximize misery. they won't alternate by sex or body size but will alternate by politics and age
can't tell if the cast of Stranger Things and their stunt doubles and triples are at this airport or every 20-something is copying their look
October 31, 2025 at 7:44 PM
can't tell if the cast of Stranger Things and their stunt doubles and triples are at this airport or every 20-something is copying their look
want to know when and how long you actually spent writing? Substack autosaves every few seconds, so those timestamps alone reveal your writing runs. paste this script into the browser console while viewing any draft to see an ASCII art daily timeline
Fetches Substack draft save times bins them into configurable N-minute chunks, and prints one ASCII line per day showing active vs idle periods
Fetches Substack draft save times bins them into configurable N-minute chunks, and prints one ASCII line per day showing active vs idle periods - substack_draft_timeline.js
gist.github.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:41 PM
want to know when and how long you actually spent writing? Substack autosaves every few seconds, so those timestamps alone reveal your writing runs. paste this script into the browser console while viewing any draft to see an ASCII art daily timeline
forcing Spotify to redownload my 1700 liked songs in lossless instead of 320 kbps made the cache go from 16 GB to 61 GB. do they have all music in lossless already? because that's a factor of 3.8 and i would only expect 2.8 if every song went from 320 kbps to ~900 kbps FLAC. 24-bit 48 kHz 1.2 Mbps?!
October 29, 2025 at 5:04 PM
forcing Spotify to redownload my 1700 liked songs in lossless instead of 320 kbps made the cache go from 16 GB to 61 GB. do they have all music in lossless already? because that's a factor of 3.8 and i would only expect 2.8 if every song went from 320 kbps to ~900 kbps FLAC. 24-bit 48 kHz 1.2 Mbps?!