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Round two: Round two
478 words
So. I'm 22 now. Wow, well, my 21st year went by pretty fast. Subjectively. This year has been one of monumental mistakes, high stakes, and incredible ...
Last Updated: 2020-12-10 23:47
Curation Is Increasingly Valuable
203 words
Something obvious that I don't think I'd fully considered or written down: quality curation becomes more valuable as our collective output increases. ...
Last Updated: 2020-12-02 10:46
A thing
2 words
one test ...
Last Updated: 2020-10-04 07:22
NFT Staking with yfBeta
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# Intro If you haven't already, you probably want to read my short piece about [Dynamic NFTs](https://mlu.red/muse/53028466310.html) for some context...
Last Updated: 2020-10-04 00:35
Dynamic NFTs
535 words
So NFTs are really hot right now in the crypto-sphere. If you aren't aware, NFT are non-fungible tokens, which mean that they aren't denominated, like...
Last Updated: 2020-09-30 18:48
Interpretability through insight compression
364 words
In interpretable machine learning, I think one important question we should be able to ask of our models is “What is something useful you can tell me ...
Last Updated: 2020-09-19 13:42
Some AI Safety Thoughts
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I had a nice chat with Alex Flint today, and here are some things that came up, which seem worth writing down: One view of interpretability is about ...
Last Updated: 2020-08-20 19:31
Interpretability in ML: A Broad Overview
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This blog post is my attempt to give an overview of the sub-field of machine learning interpretability. This post isn't comprehensive, but my goal is ...
Last Updated: 2020-08-17 20:28
Post-hoc Interpretability Is Not Enough
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[Post-hoc intepretability](https://mlu.red/muse/52906366310.html) in machine learning is about extracting explanations after the model has already bee...
Last Updated: 2020-08-15 23:25
Frequentist vs Bayesian Statistics
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Frequentists: if things are not exciting, then how likely is it to see my results? Bayesians: what do my results say about whether or not anything is...
Last Updated: 2020-08-10 21:00
Levels of Criticism
210 words
Cue [meta-contrarianism](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/9kcTNWopvXFncXgPy/intellectual-hipsters-and-meta-contrarianism) for criticism. It looks so...
Last Updated: 2020-08-09 19:06
Immersive Media
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I'm pretty wary of watching movies because I think they're too immersive. I'm also wary of reading good books for the same reason. Doing so is like ag...
Last Updated: 2020-08-02 23:46
Personal Websites I Like
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Links to personal sites of cool people who have cool essays, oftentimes with cool graphics.
Last Updated: 2020-07-26 12:25
The Shape of the Question
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One incredibly useful razor that I use when thinking about philosophical questions is to ask myself what shape I expect the answer to look like, *cond...
Last Updated: 2020-07-14 21:25
Just Add Time
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Sometimes the right thing to do is to not worry about optimizing for the best way to do X. Sometimes the right thing to do is to just find a strategy ...
Last Updated: 2020-06-24 22:06
Notes on Hull
288 words
### Types of financial derivatives Forward contracts are just agreements to buy/sell an asset at a certain price in the future. They don't cost anyth...
Last Updated: 2020-06-22 18:42
Explicating Removes The Uncertainty. And The Fun
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I'm usually a big fan of explicating. Uncertainty can give a false sense of security, and forcing things to be specific can expose those flaws. It's a...
Last Updated: 2020-06-21 10:23
Insights Over Ontologies
406 words
* When you have a set of ideas, one natural human thing to do is to try and find an overarching theme that can hold them together * e.g. a model abo...
Last Updated: 2020-06-19 23:41
An Illustrated Proof of the No Free Lunch Theorem
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Lots of equations, but also lots of pictures. Learn about one of the coolest things in statistical learning theory. Not that complicated.
Last Updated: 2020-06-12 07:52
Proving the No-Free-Lunch Theorem
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Proving that every learning algorithm has a distribution it can't learn well.
Last Updated: 2020-06-12 07:40
Perceptron Convergence Proof
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A proof that the perceptron converges in a finite number of updates.
Last Updated: 2020-06-12 07:40
Overcorrecting As Deliberate Practice
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Something that I've gotten a lot of value out of, when learning many different things, is to deliberately overcorrect, when I notice I'm doing somethi...
Last Updated: 2020-05-31 23:25
Acronyms vs Surname?
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### Motivation I've been writing some papers lately, and one thing that has bugged me is how many different formatting styles have resorted to (LastN...
Last Updated: 2020-05-31 15:12
DuckDuckGo vs Google
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Times when DDG has failed me, and I had to resort to Google.
Last Updated: 2020-05-31 12:53
Latency and Mindfulness
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I like it when my apps or software have longer latency and lag if the goal is to afford me more time to think. Having to wait a little while for Windo...
Last Updated: 2020-05-21 15:58
EN-ROADS is Awesome
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[Cross-posted from the [EA Forum](https://ea.greaterwrong.com/posts/YtdhHQrQmgqoKGGDM/interactive-graph-of-climate-change-intervention-effects)] A li...
Last Updated: 2020-05-21 09:00
Projects I Want To Build
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I don't know if this will end up being a frequently updated list, but there are at least two things which are on my to-do list, to be done eventually:...
Last Updated: 2020-05-21 08:51
Why P-values Are Problematic
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As advertised.
Last Updated: 2020-04-12 12:48
Resistance Distance
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Okay, so I'm trying to understand how the resistance distance between two nodes of a graph is calculated. ...
Last Updated: 2020-04-07 22:34
NHST notes
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Things which are important: 1. This has been going on a for a long time? 1. Were the original critiques 50 years ago the same as now? 2. Common pi...
Last Updated: 2020-04-01 13:54
20-28-03
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Just getting my thoughts out here. So it's been a week since I finished my winter quarter at school, and I've finally largely recuperated. COVID-19 is...
Last Updated: 2020-03-28 22:24
Structuring Your Info Diet
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Since coming to college, I feel like I have been browsing the net a lot more. It's been nice these past few weeks because, for a variety of reasons, I...
Last Updated: 2020-02-18 17:44
On Gaining Skill Via Rhythm Games
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For the past few years, my default example of a weird thing you can learn to observe skill development (and thus potentially abstract general principl...
Last Updated: 2020-02-16 20:59
Desire for Behavior Change as Desire for Value Change?
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The New Year has come and gone, and I'm sure people have had their resolutions either continue or fail. I don't think I've explored this view here on ...
Last Updated: 2020-02-16 20:51
Pokemon with GANs
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Something I've seen other people do, which seemed cool was using GANs to create Pokemon sprites. I decided to give this a go today. I pulled up the bo...
Last Updated: 2020-02-16 10:17
How To Grip A Pen???
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So I've been holding my pen roughly the same way for around 15 years now. It looks like this: ![my default hand holding an image](../images/handwrite...
Last Updated: 2020-02-09 09:36
Bookmark A Little Earlier
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It just occurred to me that I would probably benefit from placing my bookmarks a little before where I actually stop reading. Oftentimes, when I retur...
Last Updated: 2020-02-07 11:26
Stuff I Wish I Were Doing
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1. Stop going on Reddit. 2. Stop playing games. 3. Journal more regularly. 4. Do back exercises every day. 5. Spend 1 hour thinking every day. 6. Spen...
Last Updated: 2020-01-22 21:16
Knowing Vs Building
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When I have free time, I feel like I could go read something or go write something. Writing stuff is more effortful. Reading stuff is fun. There are t...
Last Updated: 2020-01-18 18:39
The Power of Small Numbers
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I think that, as humans, we collectively underestimate how BIG a "small" number of things can feel. There's a few things here. One is that we ruminate...
Last Updated: 2020-01-18 18:05
Perceptron Musings
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Thinking about why the Voted Perceptron works well. It works because if you have data that's generally linearly separable, then the weights which have...
Last Updated: 2020-01-18 18:00
What Level of Abstraction Actually Generalizes?
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In the vein of TDT, the [Sliding Window of Experience](https://mlu.red/muse/55073266310.html), and Being The Sort of Person You Want To Be, I think th...
Last Updated: 2020-01-13 15:50
Push and Pull
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Here's something that fits into a 2x2: | | **Pull** | **Push** | | ---- | ---- | ---- | | **Internal** | Doing something because you like it. | ...
Last Updated: 2020-01-13 15:29
Neural Networks 1
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Writing a neural net in Python, covers forward pass and backpropagation code and derivations.
Last Updated: 2020-01-11 17:22
Aw Snap, Here We Go Again
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Oh snap, now I'm 21 years old. That's pretty scary; humans just keep getting older. I think I've basically sucked quite a bit at life these past two y...
Last Updated: 2019-12-11 23:34
On Effort
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I used to better at just doing the thing I needed to do. Lately, I've been needing to resort to effort. I don't think this is the optimal ontology. Id...
Last Updated: 2019-12-11 23:16
Weighing Second Order Effects
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I'm confused about how to order second order effects, compared to first order ones. Both of these are things that happen after you take an action. Fir...
Last Updated: 2019-11-24 15:14
How to Weight Second Order Effects?
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I've been feeling confused about how to weigh second order effects. This essay is an attempt to tease out when it makes sense to over or underweigh th...
Last Updated: 2019-11-24 14:26
My Personal Views on Value
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I was talking with RJ earlier, and I think I finally articulated what I think is a core feature of my philosophy. I value the production of work much ...
Last Updated: 2019-11-22 00:47
On Doing Stuff
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It seems like affordances are really important when talking about my ability to get stuff one. One part of it is paying attention to what sorts of thi...
Last Updated: 2019-11-16 17:14
The Flip Side of Cynicism
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I've noticed myself getting more and more critical lately. As in, when people say things or when I hear new ideas (or maybe ideas in general? or ideas...
Last Updated: 2019-11-07 19:58
Favorite Books
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I expect to update this over time, as a reference for things I've really enjoyed reading, that are vaguely book-shaped. ### Fiction 1. Harry Potter ...
Last Updated: 2019-11-07 19:36
Mathematics for Machine Learning
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Working through mml-book and Deep Learning.
Last Updated: 2019-10-24 15:37
Unread Emails: A Biased Survey
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I ask my Facebook friends how many unread emails they have.
Last Updated: 2019-10-21 21:32
Updating Before Reporting
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When people ask me questions, I sometimes think about how my response will be received. For example, if I have strong views on a subject, I might want...
Last Updated: 2019-10-08 23:15
More on Pedagogy
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I think I've been jumping the gun too quickly when it comes to "helping people figure things out". To reiterate: it's much better to have people figur...
Last Updated: 2019-09-20 22:25
Do What You Really Want
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I think that if I were to go back in time and give my freshman college self some good advice, it'd be "work on what you really want". I am still inter...
Last Updated: 2019-09-11 00:02
What Makes Good Exercises?
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Ben Pace has a new post up on LessWrong that's asking about good exercises for rationality / general LW-adjacent stuff. I think this is a good thing t...
Last Updated: 2019-09-07 21:44
Thoughts on Recovering
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### Knowing Isn't Enough Say that you have a problem, and you know that you're doomed to fail. 1. Knowing that you have a problem isn't enough. 2. ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-22 23:29
Speediness 1
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It's now my second year of college. I suppose that Muse works more as a place for me to be far more casual about what's been up with my life. I'm not ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
I Think I'm Feeling Less Scared of Apocalypses Now
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A few years ago, I was viscerally scared by the thought of the world ending. It felt a lot closer than it does now. Also, since a few years ago, I've ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Stockholm Syndrome and Cargo Cults
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Two concepts: Stockholm Syndrome: - A bunch of classes / requirements are probably only perpetuated because of Stockholm-Syndrome-esque reasons, whe...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Stat Check 19-05-21
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It's been a while now, but I've found that I really enjoy writing my dates in terms of year, month, day. This is like how numbers work, with the most ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Controlling vs Controlled Attention
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I often think about activities we can engage in as one of two types: activities in which we're directing our attention and activities where our attent...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
What Makes A Skinner Box?
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One common theme that I return to, time and time again, is that of addictiveness. More specifically, what makes something habit-forming in a bad way? ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
The Surprising Effectiveness of Doing Literally Anything
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So I've been using Todoist as my to-do list of choice for over a year now. This feels pretty good and great. I don't think it's the optimal to-do list...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Caring About Literally Anything
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I have this gut feeling that games should have some degree of *depth* to them. There should be lots of options, menus, customization, and variety. Whe...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
A Stickler For Rules
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Here's something that feels like another instance of the deontologist vs consequentialist abstraction, except that the particulars of the situation ar...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Reward Loops
210 words
Sometimes, when I'm on Facebook, I'll get a notification. I'll click on it, and then someone has sent me a message. I'll respond to the message, and t...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Black-box Explanations For Productivity Stuff
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You know how sometimes you're staring at a problem or a math proof, and you know that you *could* find the solution? But maybe you don't go all the wa...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Happiness and Meaningness
381 words
I used to think that happiness was pretty important. Now, though, it looks like I didn't do a good job of figuring out exactly what 'happiness' was ab...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Where Did The Excitement Go?
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So it's been a while since my last blog post. It still feels weird writing all of my insecurities out into this weird internet void. But I figure it's...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Consuming vs Creating
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This is similar to my previous post on Consumers and Creators. Except this time, instead of thinking about roles that people play, I'm thinking about ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Titles are Evil
99 words
[Malcolm Ocean gets it](https://malcolmocean.com/2016/02/sparkly-pink-purple-ball-thing/). There's a terrible thing that happens when you try to encap...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Morning Page
476 words
Mornings Pages were this thing I used to do. I feel like my mornings have been significantly out of whack, so I'd like to get more into a habit of doi...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Important Stuff in Romance
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Everyone kinda knows that some mixture of love and affection doesn't cut it in relationships. I've been reading Attached on attachment theory. (Yes, I...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Acceptance, Analogies, and Asymmetries
211 words
Three concepts that I seem to be using a lot lately are acceptance, analogies, and asymmetries. They feel like important building blocks that I use fo...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Corporate Ruins Everything
197 words
I'm currently at Microsoft. We're really big on growth mindset. It feels fake when corporate people try to espouse it. It also feels fake when we try ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Self-Discovery vs Self-Modification
575 words
In [Normative vs Descriptive Confusions](https://mindlevelup.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/normative-vs-descriptive-confusions/) I touch upon a key distinc...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Writing Journals
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It's been a while since I have written in my journal. This is quite odd, actually, as I have previously written in journals daily for 4-ish years. So ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Why Does Self-Help Work?
218 words
One thing I've been thinking about is why self-help works at all. In conjunction with the blog right below this one, why *is it* the case that doing a...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Anticipated Fear in Mental Explorations
166 words
There's this weird thing that's been happening lately where I generally feel okay, and I'm noting that my state of mind is "y'know, pretty good". And ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Attention vs Effort
222 words
I think I missed the memo on this, but apparently 2x2 squares have been the sexy thing to do when talking about concepts for a while now, re: Ribbonfa...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Calibrating With Cards
729 words
In this post, I'll try to bring together two things I enjoy: rationality and magic. Like [Hazard](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ctBCPaD3yYimEHXPu/ma...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Ascetic Aesthetic
271 words
I have a Mood or a Feel that I care a lot about. It's a little like minimalism. It's a little like praising deprivation. It's a little like mindfulnes...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Critiquing Schoolwork
358 words
I'm taking some classes this quarter, and they are all sort of okay. What I'm annoyed by is how much better the assignments and lectures could be. Bei...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Famous People I Don't Know
442 words
There are lots of famous people in the world, and I don't know most of them. That's a little weird for me to think about. By "famous", there are two d...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Building Up Constantly
212 words
It's a little weird. I haven't been really doing lots of rationality stuff or introspection. And I think this correlates with enjoying life a lot less...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Waning Attention
459 words
I've been worried lately at my ability to do work and to focus and do work. Not Deep Work in the Cal Newport sense, of putting in several hours, mind ...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
What Sources Inform Your Friends?
454 words
(A lot of ink has been shed on the topic of how to rationally update your beliefs with respect to other sources. I don't mean for this little essay to...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Working on MLU 2.0
385 words
So I finally got around to updating my site. It's been my goal for a while ot have a nice place where I can port over all of my blog posts, and I'm ex...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Sliding Windows of Experience
189 words
Maybe because it's one of the algorithms that's been showing up lately, but I've been thinking about sliding windows as an analogy. Specifically, as a...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Blogging Redux
373 words
Hey, yo, so I'm back to writing stuff for now. Or, sort of. I mentioned that I'd be taking a break for about three to four months. And now I'm back. I...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Creators vs Consumers
292 words
It feels like there's been a push towards getting people to start creating their own content. Platforms like YouTube + the Internet make it a lot easi...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04
Experience Is Compounding
396 words
I've been on a real not-learning kick lately. By that, I mean a long stretch of not feeling like I've changed much as a person. See also [Learning fro...
Last Updated: 2019-08-08 18:04