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nmk.wtf
nic 🔹
@nmk.wtf
260 followers 350 following 830 posts
mathematician, aspiring quant, reader of things
https://nmk.wtf
I give 10% of my income to GiveWell and so should you
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nmk.wtf
Ah yes
November 27, 2025 at 9:23 AM
nmk.wtf
I asked Claude to make a multiple choice quiz for me and it never made A the correct answer:
November 26, 2025 at 3:14 PM
nmk.wtf
Rent control can sometimes work in very narrow circumstances when combined with a large supply expansion. On its own it leads to more problems and mostly benefits middle class renters who already had a stable place to live.
Wikipedia excerpt: There is consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units.[7]: 1 [8][9][10][11][13][14][16][17] However, some economists challenge this consensus and argue that controls do not have a statistically significant impact on quantity and quality of housing units.[18][19][20] Wikipedia excerpt: On low income renters In a 2013 analysis of the body of economic research on rent control by Peter Tatian at the Urban Institute, he stated that "The conclusion seems to be that rent stabilization doesn't do a good job of protecting its intended beneficiaries—poor or vulnerable renters—because the targeting of the benefits is very haphazard.", and concluded that: "Given the current research, there seems to be little one can say in favor of rent control." [28]: 1  [2]: 1  [44]: 1 
November 26, 2025 at 10:05 AM
nmk.wtf
November 25, 2025 at 6:51 PM
nmk.wtf
From money stuff
For a while, you could sell $1 of crypto on the US stock market for $2. You could take a tiny public company with a stock market listing but little or no operating business, merge it with a pot of, say, $100 million of Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency, and sell shares of the pot at a $200 million valuation. This is called a “digital asset treasury company,” and it was a great trade and a lot of companies did it, though in recent months it has largely stopped working for the obvious reason (it is dumb).
November 25, 2025 at 6:49 PM
nmk.wtf
Claude?
November 17, 2025 at 2:48 PM
nmk.wtf
claim
An image of Matthew Yglesias quote tweeting Elon Musk: Elon Musk: "Grok Imagine prompt: She smiles and says 'I will always love you'" Matthew Yglesias: "An alternative that takes more work but I also think is more rewarding might be to have a normal relationship instead of three divorces."
November 10, 2025 at 11:05 AM
nmk.wtf
The version that's good enough for everyone is not as good, but it's incredibly cheap. As with many other such complaints, when you say "People used to be able to afford X, and now they can't," what you mean is "My parents were relatively well-off, which I assumed was normal, and I've reverted to the mean faster than the mean has gone up."
November 9, 2025 at 3:25 PM
nmk.wtf
Reddit gives a much better description
November 9, 2025 at 9:38 AM
nmk.wtf
Sometimes the economist is quite funny.
November 8, 2025 at 1:03 PM
nmk.wtf
Claude is really doing some thinking for me
November 5, 2025 at 5:24 PM
nmk.wtf
TIL
Reddit Comment: RedBaboon • 6y ago • Edited 6y ago It's called a diaeresis; it indicates that the vowel it's on is in a new syllable and not a continuation of the previous vowel. For example, coördinate = co-ordinate not coor-dinate, naïve = ni-eev, not nive. It died as part of the general practice in English of dropping diacritics, the same reason <cafe> is common for café and <resume> or <resumé> for résumé and <canyon> replaced cañon. It sort of survives in naïve and in some names (e.g. Chloë, Zoë), but it's still optional in those places. And it famously survives in its full glory in The New Yorker, if you want to experience it with modern text.
November 3, 2025 at 6:29 PM
nmk.wtf
Okay interesting. Poking around in the hugging face I only found the embedding matrix. Might be a huggingface thing?
November 3, 2025 at 1:56 PM
nmk.wtf
October 30, 2025 at 9:53 PM
nmk.wtf
Okay one more
October 30, 2025 at 5:06 PM
nmk.wtf
and the biggest of these loops
October 30, 2025 at 4:54 PM
nmk.wtf
and the associated (macroscopic) loops
October 30, 2025 at 4:52 PM
nmk.wtf
Self avoiding random walk
October 30, 2025 at 4:52 PM
nmk.wtf
I can't believe I have to defend Nate on this one, but you are a) cutting out context (see image), and b) this is a fair characterization of MVT if you have to explain it in 2 sentences. Are you claiming Nate doesn't understand MVT?
With that said, everyone in this debate can be squishy about the distinction between “moderate” vs. “popular” vs. “taking positions that happen to resonate well with the local electorate”. There may be issues on which the platforms offered by both major parties are well to the left or the right of the median voter, perhaps erring too far away from the direction of populism relative to what would maximize their chances of winning. Conversely, centrist elites tend to be “fiscally conservative but socially liberal.” But I’m not sure you’d win a lot of elections by, say, pledging to substantially increase immigration levels while cutting social spending to lower deficits.
October 28, 2025 at 10:42 AM
nmk.wtf
The US almost has the most expensive rent relative to housing prices in the world
October 27, 2025 at 7:23 PM
nmk.wtf
These are the numbers for 2025
October 27, 2025 at 7:22 PM
nmk.wtf
Does east Asia have cheap rent or expensive housing?
October 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM
nmk.wtf
Made some pretty pictures
October 26, 2025 at 5:50 PM
nmk.wtf
October 18, 2025 at 8:10 AM
nmk.wtf
Venting to Claude about interview prep is great!
October 16, 2025 at 10:09 AM