Mattasher

5 ms·

1.
by Mattasher 3mo ago
The answer is simple once you understand that for thin-tailed distributions, the mean is way more important than population size for getting extreme results. In concrete terms, suppose that to win the olympics you need 5-sigma players (ones
2.
by Mattasher 4mo ago
> At least for me, in many cases I have achieved a much better understanding of various things after I studied the historical development of the ideas related to them. Completely agree with this. Math, and especially related studies like
3.
by Mattasher 4mo ago
Interesting document. Especially interesting compared to the Bourbaki movement from a century ago, which was much more focused on universality and correctness, and much less focused on process and attribution (in fact, demanded anonymity).
4.
by Mattasher 2y ago
I'm not sure how common this type of intersection is. I live and bike daily in Amsterdam and it took me about a minute to fully understand what's going on here. The picture seems to show a special case where the intersecting road
5.
by Mattasher 2y ago
The intuition here that helped me understand this is that, if you know the search strategy of another player in advance, your best best is to "front run" where they will look as much as possible. So in the ideal case, look in the
6.
by Mattasher 2y ago
In this definition an "observer" is anything whose path depends on some perceived outcome (as in state of the universe), correct? So that could be human or a rock tumbling down a hill.
7.
by Mattasher 2y ago
I think there's a case to be made that, if the simulation hypothesis is correct, we are god's dice[1]. We exist as agents to introduce randomness in the form of free will or enough chaos to ensure non-determinism, at least from th
8.
by Mattasher 2y ago
The use of "some" here in the headline seems dishonest and diminishing of what was done. Like, "some people were effected by the car crash". Technically true, but effectively more narrative than journalism, especially si
9.
by Mattasher 3y ago
There is an advantage of using pie charts when you have lots of categories, especially when some are tiny slivers. It's that you can see which items are negligible in terms of their relative contributions. A world GDP pie chart gives a
10.
by Mattasher 3y ago
It's worth being very careful about these constructions. "no evidence of a difference" is fine so long as it's proceeded with "This study found", which when studies are translated to press reports often gets dr
11.
by Mattasher 3y ago
This is most certainly true when it comes to investments. Yes, you could put 100% of your savings in an index fund and forget about it, but that seems extreme, and also you have to live somewhere, so instead of paying rent and living in a n
12.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Good post I'm quite certain this is correct: > Meaning that if you go from 4 priorities to 3, you can get, say, 10 percent more done; but if you go from 4 to 1, you get 400 percent more done. But unless you can afford a butler or wo
13.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Will that work seamlessly overseas and with my iPhone? I've had issues in the past getting verification calls and SMSes with "virtual" carriers.
14.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Agreed that emails aren't a good permanent identifier. Though using phone numbers as any part of identification is even worse. I've had the same email for almost two decades (through my own domain name), but I've gone throu
15.
by Mattasher 3y ago
You might want to check out Buena Vista Social Club.
16.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Key quote: “The facts show clearly that this is being driven largely by an increase in deaths of despair, with fentanyl overdoses being the leading cause of death for Americans 18 to 45”
17.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Databases still have to be maintained and updated. You're better off setting up an Ethereum contract with proper economic incentives for others to act as an oracle and return the proper answer at any given time.
18.
by Mattasher 3y ago
There is no such thing as "universal health care" in a country, in any meaningful sense. Every country with government run health care rations with limits on availability, wait times, excluded treatments (mental health, dental, vi
19.
by Mattasher 3y ago
> They could reach new highs with alternate business models but only at the cost of short term reduction in revenue from ads. Yes. Long term, if you control peoples attention and their flow of information, you will almost certainly figur
20.
by Mattasher 3y ago
This tracks roughly with the 4 categories of unknown and know, as in the Rumsfeldian "unknown unknowns". To me the most interesting is the "unknown knowns", those ephemeral things you know but don't consciously thin
21.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Humans have a long history of comparing ourselves, and the universe, to our latest technological advancement. We used to be glorified clocks (as was the universe), then we were automatons, then computers, then NPC's, and now AI's
22.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Confusion about the Monte Hall problem isn't an issue with people not understanding probability, it's that the problem is usually presented in a way that's under-explained and with hidden assumptions: https://stati
23.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Interesting idea, but you're not getting any entropy for free by going back in time. If you wanted to map every possible file of a set length to a specific time and location where it's stored, you'd still need, in general, th
24.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Taking this comment at face value. Whether or not we should just let people do what they want, we most certainly do not. Our laws and our culture have a lot of rules about personal behavior, and these impact the suicide rate. Changes to t
25.
by Mattasher 3y ago
Interesting project. Though the sample conversations in the picture read like what someone thinks a human would sounds like in conversation. Or like those snippets you get in a language learning module: >[Abigail]: Hey Klaus, mind if I j
26.
by Mattasher 3y ago
The confusion between libraries, especially school libraries, not carrying certain books, and censorship or "book banning" is disingenuous and hyperbolic. All libraries curate, every single one. In particular, school and special
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by Mattasher 3y ago
Shameless self promo: I had a great discussion with Peter Godfrey-Smith about his books and consciousness for my podcast https://mattasher.com/2021/04/22/ep-33-peter-godfrey-smith-o... My own leaning is towar
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Ask HN: Zero Latency Text Editing
1 points by Mattasher 3y ago|1 comments
29.
by Mattasher 3y ago
No judgement of OceanGate either way, but the Monday morning quarterbacking is pointless. Doing dangerous things is dangerous. If we had infinite time and infinite money no corners would be cut for anything, all risk would be subdued, and w
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by Mattasher 3y ago
The problem with rolling back tech use is that it's very hard to do incrementally in an individual person's life, without giving up a lot, and losses tend to sting way more than equivalent gains make us happy. So sure, I can do re

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