Peak indifference: "where it's easy to ignore the problems with something that works well but fails badly, until those failures mount to a point where you can't ignore them anymore."
"In the short term, smoking gives the smoker pleasure, not cancer."
A lot of this sounds like the frog in slowly boiling water. The tread also claims this gem, such a succinct description:
"Larry, Sergey, thou shalt stop rotating thine logfiles and instead mine them for actionable market intelligence."
A link posted on Dec 29th, 2021.
Great results are often just good results for an uncommonly long period of time.
A link posted on Aug 21st, 2021.
"Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to consistently doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long period of time without convincing yourself that you're smarter than you are."
A link posted on Aug 15th, 2021.
Virtue
Justice is a form of wisdom - applied socially. Temperance is a form of wisdom, applied to self. Courage, simply a way to drive the other virtues despite obstacles (pain, threats, etc).
A note posted on Jun 30th, 2020
Lots of good stuff in here. "A job-rich recovery, catalyzed by the 2012 labor market reforms, has reversed some of the negative social economic effects of the crisis..."
A link posted on Jun 11th, 2020.
Ugh, passed a night here while doing the Camino de Santiago years ago.
A link posted on Jun 4th, 2020.
I know this article has done the rounds and become quite famous, but I'm linking it up for Danny Sullivan's comment and link (https://support.google.com/business/answer/9503613) should I need to advise a client about this.
A link posted on May 20th, 2020.
This, Kim thought, is why we do practice runs.
A link posted on May 13th, 2020.
Great long writeup with explanations and references.
A link posted on May 11th, 2020.
An overview that lays out the basic concepts of training low and high cho, with some data also discussing supplements and gut training. Having been training morning fasted for several weeks now, it would be interesting to have found some details of what facet I might be detraining due to this effort. I didn't see anything specific mentioned.
A link posted on May 9th, 2020.
I really like the design of this page. Anyways, I spent some time reading the linked full PDF as it provides an in-depth look at the idea of "Private Firms as Public Enforcers", which on the face of it seems so totally hackable and corruptible I find it hard to believe it is even being considered.
A link posted on May 2nd, 2020.
After reading a few papers and discussions, this seemed to summarize things quite nicely.
A link posted on May 2nd, 2020.
Some examples of 'local currencies'. Some ideas here I hadn't encountered before.
A link posted on Apr 29th, 2020.
Saving this to pass on to some folks, actually want the Spanish article (https://www.eldiario.es/theguardian/Christian-Drosten-principal-coronavirus-hundiendo_0_1021548406.html) but saving the English one for me.
A link posted on Apr 29th, 2020.
One of these fields is the gravitational field. In the regimes in which we candisregard its dynamics, this field interacts with the rest of the physical objects asif it were a fixed background. This background is what Newton discovered andcalled space and time.
The dy-namics of the gravitational field itself, on the other hand, cannot be naturallydescribed in terms of evolution in any well-defined preferred time variable.Instead, we must describe reality in terms of correlations between observables.We can measure physical quantities around us. The physical theory restricts thecombinations of quantities that we can measure. It predicts relations betweenthese quantities. Only in particular situations we can choose one quantity as the, call it time, and express the others as functions of it. Ingeneral, this may not be possible, and the physical theory gives us constraints onthe values of measurable quantities that we can obtain from physical measure-ments, not evolution laws in a preferred time variable.
Lots of great text here, quoting this for now and have this tagged for review.
A link posted on Apr 28th, 2020.
Would have been interesting to have had this a few years back, and in Spanish.
A link posted on Apr 28th, 2020.
Some good links to papers about this clotting issue. Also, first sighting of "Hemostatic derangement" used for Covid, I wonder how quickly until it becomes the next Covid buzzword.
A link posted on Apr 23rd, 2020.
UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
Some good points raised here. Worth revisiting later; marked for review.
A link posted on Apr 21st, 2020.
Just what it says on the box :)
A link posted on Apr 14th, 2020.
Users looking to send email in a manner that keeps this information private from message recipients should use either Gmail’s web interface or an alternative mail provider.
A link posted on Apr 7th, 2020.
Another era of debt-fueled profiteering is ending with a bailout. How we’re institutionalizing the unfairness economy.
A link posted on Apr 7th, 2020.
Our results indicate that surgical face masks could prevent transmission of human coronaviruses and influenza viruses from symptomatic individuals.
A link posted on Apr 3rd, 2020.
We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife, as have so many other emerging pathogens.
A link posted on Apr 2nd, 2020.
The world is driven by tail events. A minority of things drive the majority of outcomes. It’s one of the most important concepts in investing, where a few positions may account for most of your lifetime returns.
History is no different. World War II, World War I, and the Great Depression influenced nearly every important event of the 20th century. Industrialization and the Civil War did the same in the 19th.
Demographics, inequality, and information access will have a huge impact on the coming decades. How those Big Things end is a story yet to be told. But when it’s told we’ll have a better idea of where it began.
A link posted on Apr 1st, 2020.
Something I like about the clean feel of this design. I know this is quite popular in some places. I might wat to steal some ideas from this particular example.
A link posted on Apr 1st, 2020.
Twenty years ago I read a story that changed my life. I think about that story often; it helps me to stay calm in the face of crisis, to remain hopeful in times of depression, and to resist the pull of fatalism and pessimism. At this gloomy moment, when Asia’s woes seem to threaten the world economy as a whole, the lessons of that inspirational tale are more important than ever.
A link posted on Apr 1st, 2020.
Scientists have been trying to map the pattern of the early transmission of Covid-19 since an epidemic was reported in the central China city of Wuhan in January, two months before the outbreak became a global health crisis.
A link posted on Apr 1st, 2020.
More on masks.
A link posted on Mar 30th, 2020.
Published: 30 October 2013
A link posted on Mar 27th, 2020.
Although bats are likely reservoir hosts for SARS-CoV-2, the identity of any intermediate host that might have facilitated transfer to humans is unknown. Here, we report the identification of SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses in Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica) seized in anti-smuggling operations in southern China.
A link posted on Mar 27th, 2020.
If needed I would like to follow up some of the references here.
A link posted on Mar 24th, 2020.
🤦🏽♂️
The issue of a respirator shortage during a widespread influenza pandemic was addressed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which released a report entitled ‘Reusability of Facemasks during an Influenza Pandemic. Facing the flu’ (Bailar et al., 2006).
A link posted on Mar 24th, 2020.
Study for detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
A link posted on Mar 20th, 2020.
Lots of good Q&A here.
A link posted on Mar 19th, 2020.
Just a flu, yeah?
Before the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003, only 12 other animal or human coronaviruses were known. The discovery of this virus was soon followed by the discovery of the civet and bat SARS-CoV and the human coronaviruses NL63 and HKU1. Surveillance of coronaviruses in many animal species has increased the number on the list of coronaviruses to at least 36.
A link posted on Mar 19th, 2020.
SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans; SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe disease, whereas HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E are associated with mild symptoms6.
A link posted on Mar 18th, 2020.
This reflects what I saw here in Spain: people were not taking it seriously, joking and calling the early actors silly and over-reacting. Then you hear people blaming the government, when reality was marching itself across the globe and we all knew it! You don't need the government to tell you what you can read in plain site.
Normalcy bais ftw.
In a penetrating piece published just two days ago, the Italian journalist Mattia Ferraresi argued that the fundamental failure in Italy was not a lack of testing or slow political action but a social and collective failure: People just did not take the coronavirus seriously enough to even slightly adapt their habits. It is a brave argument. It would be much easier to criticize the government for errors of action or inaction, rather than risk being accused of blaming the victims. But what Ferraresi saw and could not repress was something else: the radical incapacity on the part of the Italian public to adapt to the possibility of a terrible outcome, an outcome discounted by everyone until it was really too late.
A link posted on Mar 18th, 2020.
We should remember the 1918 pandemic as we deal with yet another infectious-disease emergency: the growing epidemic of novel coronavirus infectious disease (Covid-19), which is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
A link posted on Mar 18th, 2020.
Bookmarking this and removing the pre-print bookmark. Much easier to read :)
A link posted on Mar 18th, 2020.
UK report concluding that epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time, rather than 'herd immunity'.
A link posted on Mar 17th, 2020.
Interesting thread. I didn't follow up, but based on the papers I have read, the idea presented in the thread and the following are what I have seen. He says "the edge of human knowledge", and yes, this thing wasn't known 13 weeks ago, seems to have first been sequenced on the 24th of December, and the thing is, these outbreaks are a process. Have we seen Covid's full cycle yet? You can suppose our knowledge in this area (virology etc) can help, but each will have its own quirks.
I think one of the things that is so hard to grasp for even smart knowledgeable normally reasonable people is that we are truly fighting something that stands right beyond the edge of human knowledge in the 21st century. The issues I have highlighted here are not unique to 15/n
A link posted on Mar 17th, 2020.
Interesting discussion with supporting literature.
Note: You might think this means that symptomatic people aren’t contagious, but actually it just means that people who show symptoms are doing a good job of isolating themselves. People with COVID-19 symptoms are definitely contagious and need to isolate themselves and notify people they might have spread it to.
A link posted on Mar 17th, 2020.
I should be qualified to comment on the covid-19 pandemic. I'm a computational/system biologist working on infectious diseases and have spent five years in a world class 'pandemic response modelling' unit. In this thread, I will summarise what I believe I (don't) know. (1/12)
A link posted on Mar 16th, 2020.
Median duration of viral shedding was 20·0 days (IQR 17·0–24·0) in survivors, but SARS-CoV-2 was detectable until death in non-survivors. The longest observed duration of viral shedding in survivors was 37 days.
A link posted on Mar 16th, 2020.
Some timing and date informaiton.
A link posted on Mar 16th, 2020.
What habits can sharpen the focus when things are crazy?
While hindsight can be 20/20 (depending on how prone we are to fooling ourselves), when things are happening the view can be blurry and confusing.
What habits can sharpen the focus when things are crazy?
A note posted on Mar 16th, 2020
This is whee I got the link for flutrackers. Takeaway, hindsight is 20/20, when things are happening the view is blurry and confusing.
A link posted on Mar 16th, 2020.
Same as below.
A link posted on Mar 14th, 2020.
For future reference.
A link posted on Mar 14th, 2020.
Apparently the first spotting of the outbreak by western 'journalism' or sources.
A link posted on Mar 14th, 2020.
Saving this for some of the data.
A link posted on Mar 14th, 2020.
Event 201 simulates an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic. The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS, but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms.
A link posted on Feb 3rd, 2020.
The first "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" was written in 1992 by Henry W. Kendall and signed by 1,700 leading scientists, including the majority of the Nobel laureates in the sciences. In November 2017, 15,364 scientists signed World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice written by William J. Ripple. This is the Third Notice, and is also led by William Ripple.
A link posted on Jan 21st, 2020.
Google allowed ToTok back into its Google Play store over the weekend despite the fact that the intel community insists the chat app is a spy tool for the UAE and ToTok is trying to bribe journalists into saying good things about it.
This underlying quote and the main tweet and discussion touch on something important and a wider theme: privacy and security seem to have been ignored by the majority of builders over the years. The famous "but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should" from Jurassic Park seems fitting to some degree.
People have built stuff on the web, track users, gather data without much further consideration and this spills over to apps on phones and pads which have much greater user data available to the builders. The implications are so subtle people don't notice that the water is boiling.
A link posted on Jan 7th, 2020.
Saved for sharing :). Real time emotional analysis scoring.
A link posted on Dec 25th, 2019.
Well written short story on #hacking by the folks at Wordfence.
"If you’ve hired a developer to build a new WordPress site, ensure they are sourcing all of their content responsibly."
In my experience, it is hard for non-tech people to ensure this is carried out.
A link posted on Dec 18th, 2019.
Idea I'm pondering right now... CRM/ERP/OMS/etc./+SaaS users are, in a sense, renting an interface to their data, an interface that maps out their business logic/rules and allows them to service their market.
To what degree should a business do this? How much of your processes should be entangled in something you do not own? Are people comfortable having this situation and possibly all of their data serverless or in the cloud?
So many ways to think about this:
- What is your business, really?
- How much of your employees daily satisfaction is governed by these tools?
- How many of these layers are just expertise hoarding rent-seekers?
A link posted on Dec 13th, 2019.
Many location companies say that when phone users enable location services, their data is fair game. But, The Times found, the explanations people see when prompted to give permission are often incomplete or misleading. An app may tell users that granting access to their location will help them get traffic information, but not mention that the data will be shared and sold. That disclosure is often buried in a vague privacy policy.
A link posted on Dec 11th, 2019.
Been forever since I've done ascending sets (in my own programming) and I think it would be a good plan for when this round of 5x5 gets sticky. I might give this a try.
A link posted on Dec 3rd, 2019.
How to DELETE 99.9% of your digital footprint from the internet [a thread]...
A link posted on Dec 3rd, 2019.
This looks like a cool tool for monitoring a wide range of "site things". When this comes up in review I should click the link and see if I have the time to make use of it yet!
A link posted on Dec 3rd, 2019.
I wonder if this is where discipline would be useful. Mindfulness, sure, but systematically speaking, would discipline be a good solution for this...?
A link posted on Nov 29th, 2019.
This wasn't a real banger of a speech, imo, but this one line made it worth it, for me:
"Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever."
A link posted on Nov 18th, 2019.
Cool graphic.
A link posted on Nov 4th, 2019.
Short article with an example and references at the end.
A link posted on Oct 18th, 2019.
A funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century: Even as old conspiracy theories were growing more implausible, they also became more popular.
A link posted on Sep 25th, 2019.
Saving this for the last workout.
A link posted on Aug 20th, 2019.
Diffusion of responsibility[1] is a sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present.
A link posted on Aug 20th, 2019.
This stuff seems so obvious to catch, I don't understand how companies don't have people working for them actively trying to do malicious things with their apps and data.
A link posted on Aug 8th, 2019.
Slowly working my way through this.
A link posted on Aug 6th, 2019.
Saving this for possible future reference.
A link posted on Aug 6th, 2019.
Might be into one of these one day. My super minimal IKEA half desk is still going strong though.
A link posted on Aug 6th, 2019.
Putting this under the review tag so it gets pinged to me once in a while.
A link posted on Aug 6th, 2019.
In this Presidential Lecture, cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter examines the role and contributions of analogy in cognition, using a variety of analogies to illustrate his points.
A link posted on Aug 5th, 2019.
The author has a book that is distilled in this piece.
A link posted on Aug 5th, 2019.
Fun read, love the bit about being able to commit perjury in French courts.
A link posted on Jul 26th, 2019.
I would like to consider this along with that idea of normalcy bias. Going to dig into the topic a bit more...
A link posted on Jul 25th, 2019.
Economist's interactive overview of government debt across the planet.
A link posted on Jul 23rd, 2019.
Everything was awful for a very long time, and then the industrial revolution happened.
A link posted on Jul 10th, 2019.
Play stupid games...
From the Joe Rogan podcast with Naval, this was a cool little idea. Building status is "play stupid games win stupid prizes". Building wealth, however, which could loosely be defined as time freeing strategies from taking care of your basic needs, thereby allowing you to bridge across to new spaces you wouldn't be able to get to if you had to exchange 1:1 time for handing these needs.
A note posted on Jul 10th, 2019
We explore the design and implementation of trading algorithms in the crypto space. In particular, we focus on execution algos, market making algos, and several market microstructure considerations. We also investigate where practice diverges from theory, especially in handling the idiosyncrasies of the crypto markets.
A link posted on Jun 26th, 2019.
All the data.
A link posted on Jun 25th, 2019.
Need to keep this in mind.
A link posted on Jun 10th, 2019.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster. I don’t subscribe to this school of thought, but it seems pretty popular.
A link posted on Jun 10th, 2019.
I want to re-read this so filed under review.
A link posted on Jun 10th, 2019.
Going to use this for the next cleanup of our PC. From Tay on Twitter.
A link posted on Jun 10th, 2019.
Looks like a worthy upgrade.
A link posted on Jun 10th, 2019.
I totally thought I had this saved already after tweeting about it on several occasions. New Facebucks seem a step in this direction!
A link posted on May 27th, 2019.
Lots to dig into here...
A link posted on May 23rd, 2019.
About a year ago, I wrote a piece suggesting that regulations like GDPR could actually strengthen concentrations of private power by introducing compliance costs that only big corporations could bear. This is now what appears to be happening. https://t.co/gwvX8CD8d6"
A link posted on May 22nd, 2019.
Squally - New Mini-Game to Teach x86/x64 Registers, Pointers, Segfaults, Addressing.
A link posted on May 22nd, 2019.
I'd like to share some reflections on the death of a patient. I’ve thought about her a lot. She gave me explicit consent to tweet the details of her case, about four hours before she died. Her hope was that someone might benefit from her experience.
A link posted on May 20th, 2019.
Sweet chart showing market cycles and halvenings.
A link posted on May 16th, 2019.
WhatsApp discovered in early May that attackers were using zero day exploit developed by NSO Group that installed malware on a user's iPhone or Android phone simply by calling them. Target did not have to answer phone to be infected, and calls often disappeared from call logs...
There will always be holes...
A link posted on May 14th, 2019.
Nice little write up by WW. Fun comments too :)
A link posted on May 11th, 2019.
"I talk to my friends who have already finished university and to the ones who didn't continue their education. The conversation is always the same. Thread.… https://t.co/9MAWwYVQZw"
Can't argue with this at all.
A link posted on May 11th, 2019.
CHARLIE MUNGER'S 7 IRON LAWS: Charlie Munger has been the biggest COGNITIVE INFLUENCE on my life so far. Here are a list of my favourite PRINCIPLES from the eccentric billionaire. THREAD...
A link posted on May 7th, 2019.
I want to come back to this in the future so it has been tagged for review. I'm not sure this solves for what I would want solved, but the idea of "Captures the value of “obscure genius,” as the least popular narratives offer the greatest potential profit" is interesting. But I doubt this will do much for truth.
A link posted on May 2nd, 2019.
I thought I had pinned this already; having read the book, it is a nice little review now and then.
A link posted on May 2nd, 2019.
"Why did Societe Generale tokenize a 100M Euro bond on the Ethereum main net? - Product scalability and reduced time to market - Computer code automation structuring, thus better transparency - Faster transferability and settlement - Reduces cost and the number of intermediaries"
A link posted on Apr 26th, 2019.
What’s the matter, Ben? You got a problem holding this card up over your head? It’s for the troops. You support the troops, don’t you? Don’t you?
For whatever reason this is one of the best pieces I've read to date on Epsilon. Maybe it was my mood today or whatever, but ten thumbs up!
A link posted on Apr 21st, 2019.
Fantastic thread from someone who has been on the inside banging away. Somewhere in there another fellow says, "This was mostly my calculus as well. You can maintain 99% exposure to everything in crypto by just holding Bitcoin, so diversify your career just in case."
Very close to how I am feeling these days.
A link posted on Apr 20th, 2019.
Just what it says on the box :)
A link posted on Apr 18th, 2019.
A fascinating look at strategies for extracting value deep within the Ethereum system based on front-running DEX transactions.
A link posted on Apr 11th, 2019.
Encrypted notes
Just had the thought that it should be important to enable the destruction of encrypted content in some automated manner if it is sensitive because some day, it may be easy to break.
A note posted on Apr 6th, 2019
The WorkLock strongly incentivizes participants to use the token for its intended purpose and gives them skin in the game through their locked ETH.
A link posted on Apr 5th, 2019.
What if the government let anyone use a currency of his or her choosing? What if the government permitted entrepreneurs to innovate in the monetary sector, such as by creating digital currencies or minting commodity money?
A link posted on Apr 4th, 2019.
We have curated this collection of research to serve as the primary repository for the most impactful work done in the nascent but fascinating field of crypto asset valuation. We believe this is deeply important work presented by the most talented minds in our space. It is an honor to share it with you.
A link posted on Apr 4th, 2019.
Asymmetry.
A link posted on Apr 4th, 2019.
Not as bad as it sounds :)
A link posted on Apr 4th, 2019.
To follow the previous article. Both need to be re-read later.
A link posted on Apr 4th, 2019.
A good place to start is with a simple description that you can carry in your pocket: MMT proposes that a country with its own currency, such as the U.S., doesn’t have to worry about accumulating too much debt because it can always print more money to pay interest. So the only constraint on spending is inflation, which can break out if the public and private sectors spend too much at the same time. As long as there are enough workers and equipment to meet growing demand without igniting inflation, the government can spend what it needs to maintain employment and achieve goals such as halting climate change.
A link posted on Apr 4th, 2019.
Years ago while working as a Geologist in northern British Columbia, I was walking back to camp on a steepish slope with lots of deadfall. It was difficult to walk thru all the underbrush and fallen trees. At one point I'm up on a large piece of deadfall and a bear strolls across below me, turns, rears up and sniffs the air at me.
Seeing this video now, I wonder if it was just scratching its back and I we happened to cross paths at that very moment. This video is very close to how I remember it moving, rearing up, wiggling its head and then slowly dropping down to go on its way...
A link posted on Mar 28th, 2019.
A very well written look at Amazon.
A link posted on Mar 19th, 2019.
Interestingly though, once we depart from a strong centralized authority, strong assurances might only be possible at the other end of the spectrum: via highly decentralized networks.
A link posted on Mar 19th, 2019.
Just what the title says :)
A link posted on Mar 18th, 2019.
Some good information in here wrt timing, hacks and other privacy incidents.
A link posted on Mar 13th, 2019.
This could be a deep rabbit hole...
The subtitle is inspiringly underwhelming: The tolerance of mediocrity in nature and society. Reader Killian Butler sent me this post on being mediocre. Our movement is really slouching along now.
A link posted on Mar 11th, 2019.
The people running the presses aren't buying fiat currencies. They're buying a 'worthless rock'
A link posted on Mar 11th, 2019.
Most highly successful people have been really right about the future at least once at a time when people thought they were wrong. If not, they would have faced much more competition.
I have no idea how he measures the 'most people' here, or in the article where the phrase is used many times, but the proposal here is that some form of asymmetry allowed these successful people to be in the right place at the right time.
A link posted on Mar 4th, 2019.
To do anything requires energy. To specify what is done requires information.
The more energy the faster the bits flip. Earth, fire and water in the end are all made of energy, but the different forms they take are determined by information. To do anything requires energy. To specify what is done requires information.
Seth Lloyd 2006
A note posted on Mar 4th, 2019
A smarter way to secure your Node.js applicationsIntrinsic is an application runtime security technology which limits your application's privileges to exactly what is needed and nothing more.
A link posted on Feb 27th, 2019.
I've been interested in this since I saw it used in TRAC nodes. Link to the original paper here: https://goo.gl/YgJ2Us
A link posted on Feb 27th, 2019.
Reference for, err, referring people to.
A link posted on Feb 27th, 2019.
A nicely tied together look at some of the players and happenings in the 'open finance' area of the crypto world. I need to dig a little deeper into this rabbit hole; marked for review.
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
Space reserved for comment :)
And this link: https://he3labs.shinyapps.io/RadixEconModel/
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
I suspect had Satoshi realized that fixed, low, inflation was technically feasible bitcoin might have had it.
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
Article about Facebook moderation co in the U.S.
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
I've been reflecting on this a lot lately, posting it here as a sort of timestamp.
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
More rabbit hole from Naval's tweet:
The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after political scientist Joseph P. Overton, who claimed that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within a range acceptable to the public, rather than on politicians' individual preferences.
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
This is how I came across the previous link:
Social media makes it easier to organize people, so the motivated people are organizing digital mobs. Thread...
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
I read this short story over the weekend and really enjoyed the futuristic view and outlay of technology.
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
I might need this for a project...
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
I only read the tl;dr but it provided some confirmation and some thought, mostly from this viewpoint:
We aren’t just building businesses so corporate governance won’t work. We aren’t just building economies so economics alone won’t work. We are building global communities, so I’m afraid, we are going to need politics.
A link posted on Feb 26th, 2019.
What to do when you don't know what to do
Putting this thought into a note...
You know when you wake up and have a day where nothing works or you have time and its just not happening? It happens...
I've found for years now that if you can't figure it out, the best thing to do in this situation is to really rest - let go of it all and rest - and if you can't, try to lift, and failing that, grind. There's always something that needs some grinding, tasks that have been put off, kipple to get rid of or whatever. Mindless dull tasks that need to be done.
When you don't know what to do, grind.
A note posted on Feb 23rd, 2019
There is zero alpha in value investing based on public information, over all time horizons. And for large cap companies, public information is all you’ve got.
I'm loving these drops of reality from BH on Twitter.
A link posted on Feb 22nd, 2019.
I bought "the short something or another about Jung", will be reading that and saving this for future follow-up.
A link posted on Feb 19th, 2019.
The 1948 paper.
A link posted on Feb 17th, 2019.
I've just put up a live chart of various Bitcoin Valuation metrics for you all. Live chart: https://t.co/R5k7szUfY5 It features some previously unpublished work, fresh off the press. Much of this new stuff was in collaboration with @kenoshaking. Let's take a guided tour...…
A link posted on Feb 16th, 2019.
Ok, let's talk quickly about Amazon and what I'll call the gangster-ification of American business. In the 1980s, mobsters dominated the gas station business in NY and NJ by not paying taxes their competitors had to
A link posted on Feb 16th, 2019.
Thoughts to come...
A link posted on Feb 12th, 2019.
What got you here, won’t get you there.
From Tribe of Hackers.
A note posted on Feb 9th, 2019
Pushed into the review tag for later consumption. No time for fun course just yet.
A link posted on Feb 6th, 2019.
Some good examples and discussion in this thread; I can't say that I understand it all yet, but I'm working on it.
A link posted on Feb 3rd, 2019.
In line for reading, first finishing up some extra math and cryptography coursework.
A link posted on Feb 3rd, 2019.
Much like the previous post, something for that sometime.
A link posted on Feb 3rd, 2019.
I've been meaning to find time to get to this and read some, might not be until next summer holidays. Marked for review.
A link posted on Feb 3rd, 2019.
I'm going to need to read this a few more times for it all to sink in. Recommended by Naval.
A link posted on Jan 26th, 2019.
An interesting concept for a decentralized socmed platform, but not quite what I am thinking of...
A link posted on Jan 25th, 2019.
Oh the places you will go.
A link posted on Jan 24th, 2019.
Grumble grumble more stuff to read.
Excellent paper on the "Doomsday Economics of PoW currencies." https://t.co/bza8eIBsL3…
A link posted on Jan 24th, 2019.
Tagged in review as I want to be brought back to this. The video is quite good.
A link posted on Jan 24th, 2019.
Michael Dunworth spelling out some great detail on how they use BTC under the hood and nobody needs to even know.
A link posted on Jan 24th, 2019.
Saving this as it does look interesting:
Related reading: - Artificial Unintelligence, by @merbroussard: https://t.co/WjTXqGXr5h - “Machine Bias,” stories from @ProPublica, by folks who went on to found @team_markup: https://t.co/XqOWE6oux6 - Weapons of Math Destruction, by @mathbabedotorg: https://t.co/bGNJigckGd"
A link posted on Jan 23rd, 2019.
Tails is a live operating system that you can start on almost any computer from a USB stick or a DVD.
A link posted on Jan 22nd, 2019.
Fascinating:
Less information is acquired, shipments are faster, isolation between participants is high, and multiple independent sales channels are established.
A link posted on Jan 22nd, 2019.
Great write-up on MW, Grin and Beam.
A link posted on Jan 17th, 2019.
Over the last several months I have written a series of articles — which I have called the Bitcoin Fundamentals series. My goal is to go down the rabbit hole as far as I could, to see what Bitcoin is really made of.
I've read all of these posts (linked within) but would like to revisit once I finish my own trip down the extensive rabbit hole.
A link posted on Jan 17th, 2019.
Survival came down to cultivating a sense of belonging, purpose, and stewardship.
A link posted on Jan 17th, 2019.
About to start her book (listening to it), I'll save this for reading later.
A link posted on Jan 17th, 2019.
"Standard Notes is a safe place for your notes, thoughts, and life's work."
I'm not using it, but linking it in case I get interested. I would still like to roll my own encrypted backend with Pinboard as the front end for now. Obvs Pinboard isn't encrypted, but getting one side working first would be the idea.
A link posted on Jan 17th, 2019.
FT looking at external private equity in Spain (I had to search the title in GOOG and click from there to get past the wall). This looks very similar to same old thing happening elsewhere, and the article quotes all the wrong metrics to evaluate success: jobs, recovery etc.
A link posted on Jan 17th, 2019.
Website that calculates the cost to mine BTC/ETH/LTC.
A link posted on Jan 17th, 2019.
A high level yet somewhat complete look at the systems around 'crypto' from an investment thesis point of view. This following thought is one to dwell on, for me:
Another way to think about this tech is as the long tail of finance: just like Amazon became the long tail of Internet retail and eventually cornered most the market, crypto will start as the long tail of finance.
A link posted on Jan 16th, 2019.
The Blackbird is used as a stand-in for many cars advertised in US car commercials as it is capable of maneuverability many of the cars that replace it visually (via CGI) do not have.… https://t.co/obkc0Kqcqb
More noise, less signal!
A link posted on Jan 15th, 2019.
Not a comment about the article, which I haven't read yet, but style, layout and UI envy.
A link posted on Jan 12th, 2019.
The phishing starts normally, with a fake Gmail page asking the target for their password.
A link posted on Jan 12th, 2019.
Examples for different IDEs in the thread.
A link posted on Jan 11th, 2019.
Thoughts on momentum and its manifestations around us. In the final part, the author mentions, "work your butt off to get some momentum behind you"... I'm ruminating the thesis that you don't need to work your butt off, you just need to do the basics and be consistent. That effort rolls up into something bigger that without a doubt could be considered "working your butt off" but I'm considering that it really is just discipline + the basics.
A link posted on Jan 11th, 2019.
FS podcast with Gawande that I mentioned earlier, this idea I quite liked, that of "necessary fallibility":
We will never have complete knowledge of all of the conditions and states of the world.
A link posted on Jan 10th, 2019.
money is a unit of prior work associated with mismatch in needs found in barter systems.
While perhaps oversimplified, this is a decent short phrase to describe an aspect of money.
A link posted on Jan 10th, 2019.
Great talk on public health and medicine, arrived to from a Farnam Street podcast by Atul Gawande. Also cool to see the bits of behind the scenes BBC action.
A link posted on Jan 10th, 2019.
Tagged this under review so that it will pop-up in my notes email reminder. Having heard the book, I would like to do parts of this course over the year, so hopefully when my reminder comes in I catch this while scanning and get at it :).
A link posted on Jan 9th, 2019.
I have this lined up for listening to and tagged to review here later.
A link posted on Jan 9th, 2019.
16 (x4) Books We Read Winter 2018 – Andreessen Horowitz
In case I need to find some interesting titles... I *would* like to read some David Foster Wallace, but for now nothing else that I scanned on the page jumps out at me.
A book note posted on Jan 9th, 2019; link.
Article from the Economist on brain-computer interfaces.
A link posted on Jan 9th, 2019.
Some interesting information about childhood leukaemia, pre-birth mutations and immune system priming.
A link posted on Jan 9th, 2019.
Regular reminder: The telecom network is a giant tracking system and the number of people who can gain access to subscriber data is practically unlimited.
A link posted on Jan 9th, 2019.
Thread to a video about lightening nodes, becoming a good routing node.
A link posted on Jan 9th, 2019.
Something else to keep an eye on wrt BTC price action.
A link posted on Jan 9th, 2019.
Bookmarking this to come back to a few times through the year to see how it plays out. I'm hoping to save a few people's predictions and see how each plays out.
A link posted on Jan 8th, 2019.
A great overview of a critique of Protonmail's marketing their E2EE in the webapp. The breakdown of the arguments is excellent, and the author points out how the text in ProtonMail's own biz paper where they acknowledge their servers may be compromised. This might be useful for citing at a later date.
A link posted on Jan 6th, 2019.
Focus on Process rather than Product
The title says it all!
A note posted on Jan 5th, 2019
This Zerohedge article has the Chinese click farm video I was looking for the other day.
A link posted on Jan 5th, 2019.
Following these three Twitter threads:
https://twitter.com/BryceWeiner/status/1081434134264725504
https://twitter.com/deosbot/status/1081426166194552832
https://twitter.com/deosbot/status/1081425158114590720
A link posted on Jan 5th, 2019.
Note reviews
I power this notes section with an outside service to handle the data, pulling in the feed from that service to build this page.
In the future I would like to store and update the feed in my own place, so to speak; I'm not sure where, or how, yet. The easy answer is a mysql DB on this server, but I'd like to find a harder problem to tackle since I took the easy way WRT the input interface.
Anyways, before all of that I would like to add an interesting feature: having the notes section email me a weekly update of the last week's posts, *and* have it hi-light posts that I have tagged for 'review'. Reviewing my notes is something I don't do consistently, and automating this could help.
(I often tag some notes for reviewing because I want to check back to see if the author was correct, or I want to actually do some research on the note.)
A note posted on Jan 5th, 2019
The Four Horsemen of the Investing Apocalypse, and I want to review this after I finish the Coursera Game Theory course I am doing.
A link posted on Jan 5th, 2019.
We might find ourselves using this service in the near future.
A link posted on Jan 4th, 2019.
All PKI systems solve for the same problem: knowing what key material was associated with an ID at a given time and deriving its current state. It's a relativistic physics problem of how you deterministically align a series of events across different observers in space-time... Current PKI systems are centralized b/c there was previously no way to create a global, deterministic lineage of events in a decentralized way, which is why blockchains are so useful in the context of identity - they solve the question of "When?" across relativistic space-time
A link posted on Jan 4th, 2019.
People think that PoW and PoS are consensus protocols, and that they are the only two consensus protocols out there... This is false. Let me explain.
I'm not sure I totally follow him, so I'm posting this for reviewing at a later date.
A link posted on Jan 4th, 2019.
Greater Vancouver home sales for 2018 fell to an eighteen year low. Lowest annual sales count since the year 2000.
Roughly 18 years ago I sold my apartment in Vancouver.
A link posted on Jan 2nd, 2019.
Sharing the group assets and managing incentivization is what's new since the advent of the "p2p era"
I need to think about this line, in particular how could that be done differently now versus then? Could cryptocurrencies *really* play a role here?
A link posted on Jan 2nd, 2019.
WRT the previous link, this provides some info to get started.
A link posted on Jan 2nd, 2019.
José Valim has Twitched the Advent of Code solutions with Elixir, something I plan to watch here before the holidays end. A few very bright folks have told me to start looking at Elixir...
A link posted on Jan 2nd, 2019.
Researchers have demonstrated that an amoeba—a single-celled organism consisting mostly of gelatinous protoplasm—has unique computing abilities that may one day offer a competitive alternative to the methods used by conventional computers.
This, like the fungus that worked on the Tokyo subway system I linked earlier, are fascinating examples of leveraging nature's long iterated capabilities for solving problems that we are trying to do with computers.
A link posted on Jan 2nd, 2019.
I like this font.
A link posted on Jan 2nd, 2019.
I suppose I will need to review this at some point so linking it up for when the time comes!
A link posted on Jan 2nd, 2019.
Thoughts on information
* Facts
* Events
* First principles
* Personal biases and misinformation
* Purposeful misinformation or misdirection, manipulation
The whole Deepfake uptake and social media misdirection has me thinking about what will happen with information in the future. Using mainstream media to manipulate people has been around for ages, using social media to herd the crowd is happening, and with deepfakes individuals can manipulate the messages from other individuals.
What information can we believe to be 'true'? Anyways, wanted to scribble this down here as something in my head can't stop thinking about it.
A note posted on Jan 1st, 2019
I'm looking forward to digging into this history a bit more.
A link posted on Dec 30th, 2018.
One small amoeba found a solution to the traveling salesman problem faster than our best algorithms. What does it know that we don't?
Fascinating; need to read this paper when it come out. Tagged in Review.
A link posted on Dec 29th, 2018.
We have said that recent years of low interest rates + cheap capital is like a tractor beam—pulling 20-year far-out FUTURE ideas forward to the PRESENT into 20-month frenzied projects.... Similarly be it in TECH or CHINA or GDP abundant cash has taken DEMAND from future years...
How to survive as the bill arrives for this in years to come?
A link posted on Dec 28th, 2018.
The Netherlands is a small, densely populated country, with more than 1,300 inhabitants per square mile. It’s bereft of almost every resource long thought to be necessary for large-scale agriculture. Yet it’s the globe’s number two exporter of food as measured by value, second only to the United States, which has 270 times its landmass. How on Earth have the Dutch done it?
A link posted on Dec 28th, 2018.
The basics
Life is mostly about following the basics.
This was a line from Naval Ravakant in this podcast, and it is something I have seen in many places. Oftentimes just doing the basic work is enough to get great results*.
Take the gym as an example; just working a simple plan like a 5x5 with the compound lifts, and cycling in some downtime to keep yourself fresh is a great way to stay strong and healthy in this regard. But people overcomplicate it like crazy.
I have to admit, in some areas I find it distressing how hard it can be to find the basics amongst all the noise.
* If great is used in a relative sense, that's a bit of a disappointing statement.
(The actual quote is
Life is mostly about applying the basics and only doing the advanced stuff in the things that you truly love and where you understand the basics inside out.
)
A note posted on Dec 26th, 2018
Very lucid thoughts on systems, narratives, society and decentralization from Sarah. I need to review this and write down some more thoughts on it.
https://goo.gl/Q3KDeE
A link posted on Dec 24th, 2018.
Blockchain is a database. A cryptographically linked list. For the uninitiated, imagine spreadsheets tied together by a password.
An efficient manner to explain in simple terms what a blockchain is. Nice.
The idea presented about open networks is very similar to what I have been thinking about open protocols.
A link posted on Dec 24th, 2018.
Bitcoin’s protocol has no top-down supply audit built into validation.
This is something I want to look into or think about. The programmer in me would have wanted to put something like this into the system rather than leave the checks where they are.
A link posted on Dec 24th, 2018.
Setting the bar
Denying mediocrity is a deliberate and conscious way of life.
Not to make a correction is to establish a new minimum standard.
Two quotes I picked up tangentially from the CrossFit world. I don't think of this as setting the bar high, instead, simply setting the bar.
A note posted on Dec 23rd, 2018
When Einstein Walked with Gödel
I'm not sure where I came across this book, but I listened to the audiobook this year and have purchased the paper-back to review every once in a while. This is a great dive into parts of math and physics, each chapter a standalone essay. Lots of crossover with other math books I've read, but little details that I didn't know fill in gaps and make the stories all the more interesting. I can see myself keeping this one around to read bits here and there.
A book note posted on Dec 23rd, 2018; link.
I J Good
Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion", and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.
A note posted on Dec 22nd, 2018
A look back ad the advertising revenue model that dominates the internet.
The example of Pinboard is interesting (at the moment in 2018, I use Pinboard to power my notes website here) and I can't help but wonder: if these services were protocol based, services like search and social, then users could pay for really good UI tools, but also not pay and just use free ad-supported ones too. What could have been.
A link posted on Dec 22nd, 2018.
trying to understand a sentence by looking at each letter individually
I need to think about this.
A link posted on Dec 22nd, 2018.
A really well written piece, and I particularly loved this and the following paragraph:
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya once recalled his work with Facebook this way: “We trumpeted [our platform] like it was some hot-shit big deal. And I remember when we raised money from Bill Gates…And Gates said something along the lines of, ‘That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a ‘platform.’ A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.’” The brilliant Microsoft founder knew that his own Windows operating system was a true platform because, as Microsoft openly bragged, the company itself captured only a minority of the value created through the Windows ecosystem. Facebook, YouTube and Google are in a completely different category—because the vast majority of the wealth they generate is controlled by the social-media oligopolies themselves. They aren’t platforms so much as rent-seeking agents that oversee a set of critical economic protocols.
A link posted on Dec 21st, 2018.
Over the course of the Technology Theft Campaign, which began in or about 2006, Zhu, Zhang, and their coconspirators in the APT10 Group successfully obtained unauthorized access to the computers of more than 45 technology companies and U.S. Government agencies based in at least 12 states, including Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. The APT10 Group stole hundreds of gigabytes of sensitive data and information from the victims’ computer systems, including from at least the following victims: seven companies involved in aviation, space and/or satellite technology; three companies involved in communications technology; three companies involved in manufacturing advanced electronic systems and/or laboratory analytical instruments; a company involved in maritime technology; a company involved in oil and gas drilling, production, and processing; and the NASA Goddard Space Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
A link posted on Dec 21st, 2018.
What if we were stateless?
Imagine we were stateless beings; we have no memory of a previous instant. No awareness of our previous states.
We would have no concept of songs, sentences, family. For some reason the idea of music really gets me here. Would songs exist if we couldn't recall the previous note or sequence of notes?
A note posted on Dec 20th, 2018
Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
A fascinating dive through the history of everything. I listened to the well narrated audiobook at 1.5x and can see myself hitting up the associated Big History Project website and also listening to this book again.
The big takeaway for me in this book, besides a reminder of the scale of time, was how we are at a point where we have a never before available level of information and understanding available to us. I found it very motivating to learn how to learn, ala spaced learning, using the many tools we have at our disposal: podcasts, books, audiobooks..
A book note posted on Dec 20th, 2018; link.
Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction - Timothy Gowers
I've had this on the shelf for years, and finally getting back into some math this year I felt compelled to read it to jog my memory a bit. It can be read quickly on a nice relaxing weekend and for folks who love math but didn't study it too widely or deeply, it is a fun hop back in.
A book note posted on Dec 20th, 2018; link.
A review with references and some app/software suggestions wrt Spaced learning.
I have been playing with this concept lately, or a similar idea, by listening to audiobooks that I am reading, but also finding podcast discussions on the topic with or without the author. This seems to help reinforce the ideas and allows me to have more of those little aha moments one has when reading.
A link posted on Dec 20th, 2018.
Humans, state, facts and interpretation
Humans are imprecise, biased, state recording beings. We record our state of the world and of ourselves and try and communicate our state and interpretations to others.
Facts are often muddied by imprecision. Interpretations are biased, and suffer from a lack of or poor information.
The illusion of time results from "recording" state and the sequence in which it occurred.
A note posted on Dec 19th, 2018
Go to source for privacy tools and best practices.
A link posted on Dec 19th, 2018.
PDF on mimetic theory, startups/founders and Peter Theil. I need to revisit this after letting some recent investigation on mimetic theory sink in.
A link posted on Dec 19th, 2018.
Even what might seem like a thing—a stone, say—is really an event taking place at a rate we can’t register.
A link posted on Dec 18th, 2018.
Quite a good if not hard to hear discussion on Girard and some of his concepts.
A link posted on Dec 18th, 2018.
Search here for two podcasts with René Girard. Both very good discussions.
A link posted on Dec 18th, 2018.
5 part series covering the ideas of René Girard. Of all that I listened to this was probably the best place to start, though I did listen to most several times.
A link posted on Dec 18th, 2018.
"Instead of viewing scarcity in terms of a dearth of some physical substance, @NickSzabo4 imagined scarcity as the property of being expensive to produce and for this cost to be hard to fake - or said another way, easy to verify."
A link posted on Dec 18th, 2018.
"Since many of my twitter fights devolve into people saying "but it's actually not centralized tho", let's talk about wtf decentralization actually means."
A link posted on Dec 18th, 2018.
...the bitcoin network, and, by extension, its money token enable the highest form of property rights of any socio-economic institution in the history of man... That is the key innovation of Bitcoin: It detaches property rights from the legal system and the monopoly on violence. For the first time, we can have property that does not rely on a local authority to enforce and protect. It is easy to conceal, defend, divide, move, and verify — all by yourself, granting you the highest level of personal sovereignty.
A link posted on Dec 18th, 2018.
Keeping this around for when I read the book. I tried the audiobook and the narration was not to my liking, so, paper when I can.
A link posted on Aug 9th, 2018.
I'm not sure how I feel about this interpretation of Girard to these events, but this was the tweet that got me interesting in reading about mimetics.
A link posted on Jun 26th, 2018.
A nice bit of financial history, and this bit I quite liked, "The more successful you are at something, the more convinced you become that you’re doing it right. The more convinced you are that you’re doing it right, the less open you are to change. The less open you are to change, the more likely you are to tripping in a world that changes all the time."
A link posted on May 26th, 2018.
Worth keeping this around for returning to or referencing.
A link posted on May 13th, 2018.