before I opened the image I thought this was the start of a painting (on canvas) of a rocky island beach, a grey and cloudy sky, and the ocean. and I was like, “hey, pretty good”!
November 3, 2025 at 4:23 PM
before I opened the image I thought this was the start of a painting (on canvas) of a rocky island beach, a grey and cloudy sky, and the ocean. and I was like, “hey, pretty good”!
It’s a wonder that even something like “chatgpt what’s a p-value” will return something correct, considering all the incorrect next-word completions that surely exist in the training data!
October 17, 2025 at 11:57 PM
It’s a wonder that even something like “chatgpt what’s a p-value” will return something correct, considering all the incorrect next-word completions that surely exist in the training data!
my personal theory (only half serious) is that theres more bad stats than good stats out there, and this makes for an almost uniquely polluted training set
October 17, 2025 at 11:55 PM
my personal theory (only half serious) is that theres more bad stats than good stats out there, and this makes for an almost uniquely polluted training set
i also feel this way about glass hotel. i didnt even like station eleven all that much but glass hotel is a masterpiece.
July 25, 2025 at 4:11 PM
i also feel this way about glass hotel. i didnt even like station eleven all that much but glass hotel is a masterpiece.
also- this newsletter is clearly generated by chatgpt lol
June 21, 2025 at 2:35 PM
also- this newsletter is clearly generated by chatgpt lol
i only walked 4hrs, didnt know id get something like this if i kept it up for 5 more or i would have kept going
June 16, 2025 at 1:28 AM
i only walked 4hrs, didnt know id get something like this if i kept it up for 5 more or i would have kept going
i cant believe i moved to this country man
June 5, 2025 at 7:48 PM
i cant believe i moved to this country man
thinking about this again today, realized this has the funny side effect of making the Gambler’s Fallacy real
June 2, 2025 at 8:40 PM
thinking about this again today, realized this has the funny side effect of making the Gambler’s Fallacy real
(If im remembering correctly, there’s a character [aptly named “spirit breaker”] with exactly this stun mechanic, the gimmick being that his draws, unlike everyone else in the game, are actually IID random)
June 1, 2025 at 4:03 AM
(If im remembering correctly, there’s a character [aptly named “spirit breaker”] with exactly this stun mechanic, the gimmick being that his draws, unlike everyone else in the game, are actually IID random)
this feels unfair under principles like “players should be able to respond to what their opponent does” and “who wins an encounter should depend more on skill and less on hitting a lucky sequence” .
June 1, 2025 at 4:03 AM
this feels unfair under principles like “players should be able to respond to what their opponent does” and “who wins an encounter should depend more on skill and less on hitting a lucky sequence” .
maybe unfair is the wrong word! say you have an ability with a 50% chance to stun another player on hit for 1.5s. A run of (say) five or more successes could lead to a scenario where you kill the player without them ever exiting stun.
June 1, 2025 at 4:03 AM
maybe unfair is the wrong word! say you have an ability with a 50% chance to stun another player on hit for 1.5s. A run of (say) five or more successes could lead to a scenario where you kill the player without them ever exiting stun.
Related: a bunch of competitive games (DOTA etc) use modified non-independent processes to prevent runs making stuff unfair
observablehq.com/@manuelblanc...
observablehq.com/@manuelblanc...
Pseudo-random distribution
Problem description:
Random coin-flip events, like crits or procs, have a high variance for the expected number of attempts between succeses. You can get many consecutive crits or a long dry streak. P...
observablehq.com
June 1, 2025 at 1:43 AM
Related: a bunch of competitive games (DOTA etc) use modified non-independent processes to prevent runs making stuff unfair
observablehq.com/@manuelblanc...
observablehq.com/@manuelblanc...
I’ve been saying this since I moved here! the “space” needle is actually embarrassingly small compared to a *real* tower (like the CN tower (😎)). They use tricks of perspective in the skyline photos!
One way to solve this embarrassment would be for Seattle to build maybe 3, 4 more space needle.
One way to solve this embarrassment would be for Seattle to build maybe 3, 4 more space needle.
May 28, 2025 at 3:41 PM
I’ve been saying this since I moved here! the “space” needle is actually embarrassingly small compared to a *real* tower (like the CN tower (😎)). They use tricks of perspective in the skyline photos!
One way to solve this embarrassment would be for Seattle to build maybe 3, 4 more space needle.
One way to solve this embarrassment would be for Seattle to build maybe 3, 4 more space needle.
same with online content spam – this stuff used to be limited by the number of people willing to write spam copy on medium or for geeksforgeeks.
lots of this stuff is transformative specifically *because* it doesn’t require large buy in.
lots of this stuff is transformative specifically *because* it doesn’t require large buy in.
May 21, 2025 at 9:10 PM
same with online content spam – this stuff used to be limited by the number of people willing to write spam copy on medium or for geeksforgeeks.
lots of this stuff is transformative specifically *because* it doesn’t require large buy in.
lots of this stuff is transformative specifically *because* it doesn’t require large buy in.
I think most of the troubling outcomes (I think maybe most notably auto-scamming old people?) don’t require wide buy in, just a few bad actors.
May 21, 2025 at 9:07 PM
I think most of the troubling outcomes (I think maybe most notably auto-scamming old people?) don’t require wide buy in, just a few bad actors.
not a serious post, but i do wonder who qualifies
May 17, 2025 at 5:13 PM
not a serious post, but i do wonder who qualifies
I actually love Zed tho, I use it for work when I need to ssh into a remote machine — it actually works better than the famously good VSCode ssh implementation ime. So impressive.
May 8, 2025 at 9:36 PM
I actually love Zed tho, I use it for work when I need to ssh into a remote machine — it actually works better than the famously good VSCode ssh implementation ime. So impressive.