overview I figured the reasoning capabilities would lend themselves to chess, and they do. Right now I am limited by the 50 o1-preview requests I have to do research in this area so keep this mind when I share. testing vs stockfish I was playing o1-preview against stockfish (via lichess), and it held up for the most part, but stockfish was...
purpose Physicists long balked at colloquial usages of “entropy” (especially by philosophers). I believe some usages of entropy as resistance to systematic understanding has precise mathematical grounding in information theory. I am tired of arguing with my physics major friends over this. definitions Shannon entropy H(X) for discrete random...
premise After I saw that Github Copilot was able to do my DSA coursework with little guidance (though, I never did use it to cheat) I for sure thought that LLMs would ruin kids ability to learn how to code and that it would handicap their learning of not only coding but the meta-cognitive skills around learning coding (ie, “learning how to...
clarification What I mean is that, conceptually, “MOATs” are not a useful abstraction. There is a saying that “all models are wrong, but some are useful” and I am saying that, as a model, MOATs are not useful. I think that asking a founder “what their MOAT is” will not offer useful information about their project. I am also specifically...
the analogical physics of creativity Consider paint mixing: two colors swirling together create temporary, unrepeatable patterns. These patterns exist only in transition—between separation and uniformity, in a parallel to mental states. Like those paint swirls, certain cognitive configurations exist only in transition, in states of productive...
backstory (skip if only interested in technical explanation) Yesterday I had a CS midterm from 8-10pm. I was somewhat stressed as I had basically gambled by not properly studying for it. However I finished early, and I was feeling pretty good. Even though it was a Monday night I felt it was cause for celebration. So all of us CS kids gathered...
This is an example workflow of how to integrate LLMs into your software dev. First script (prompt.sh) does one thing: dumps your entire codebase context into a text file. It first appends the file tree while ignoring what you tell it to ignore (node_modules, files not needed contextually, etc), and recursively finds and auto includes what you...
Recently I have been working on what I guess is called an LLM agent, but it’s more just building more ergonomic tools for myself to use LLMs in my life. The code base keeps growing, and I use it to help write itself. What I have noticed is that the patterns I have made for making code more intelligible to LLMs also apply to making code more...
Disclaimer I am not affiliated with YC or have any personal insight into the inner workings of YC. It is hard to track YC’s success (with precision) as those metrics are largely not public, and this article is mainly a speculative guess based on limited history. The Thesis Generally, the YC thesis makes a lot of sense. Remove the barrier to entry...
The college startup pipe dream I write this article to pose a question: Will the next trillion dollar startup be started by a college-aged kid in his dorm? Can the pattern of Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Google be repeated? (Bezos being a sort-of exception to this, as he was ancient when he started Amazon at 30). An analysis of historical...
I recently rewrote the interests section of my blog to be more concise. The primary interest I wrote down was “making things that alter thinking at scale.” When I distilled what I believed to be one of my long-term goals I landed on that. Recently I thought about how this is both similar and different to YC’s goal of “Make something people want”....
inspiration I frequently lost pencils and never took notes for most of my academic career. Eventually I got to the point in my self-studying and in my learning were notes was necessary. I find that writing things down can 2-3x the amount of stuff I can hold in my head at once, while making it easier to reference, and makes me remember it for...
about me I am 18, born in 2006. This is generally a good thing as I am in the prime of life currently. I am not one of those people who think they were “born in the wrong decade”, I think I was born at the perfect time to take advantage of superlinearly growing technological advancements. the internet today I generally greatly dislike social...
In 9th grade my English teacher told me I was writing an assignment with broad over-generalizing maxims and beliefs. I tend to write absolutely, especially when being un-technical/un-scientific. I think this is because this makes my writing more concise and more clearly communicative–unencumbered by the recognition of my limitations or the...
Most people fundamentally misunderstand risk. Risk is a broad, somewhat useful, metric that people use to predict future outcomes. Risk is only correct relationally to the system that its defined by. It’s a way to quantify a lack of knowledge in relation to predicted future outcomes. Risk is inherent to all systems designed to predict the future...
preface I don’t care if you believe or don’t believe in God. I care if you dogmatize science. the problem Unfortunately it is becoming common to portray people who are religious as dumb and claim that God is dead due to science. Our mathematically understanding of reality (physics) is not reality. We are not uncovering the hidden code of the...
There is no shortage of deeply intelligent but characteristically uncreative and cynical people. This is wildly unfortunate. This piece is about one piece of advice I would give this archetype of people. the sum of the total is not the total of the sum Think about cooking. The product has much more “value” than the constituent ingredients alone....
The Problem Crypto becoming a commodity is the single stupidest thing to gain widespread popularity. It’s the paragon of post-neoclassical/postmodern economics. If Adam Smith saw NFTs he would shoot himself. What I mean is that value is deconstructed to peoples own assignments to objects, abandoning the notion of any essential value in things....
The Laptop Before I broke it, I used a Zephyrus G14, it was great, the best mobile AMD cpu, and a pretty good gpu. It was probably the best laptop on the market. Great cpu for compiling stuff (gentoo moment), and great gpu for VM passthrough so I can send texts and write swift. (sorry apple). I am now using a thinkpad x13 yoga, the folding and...
DISCLAIMER: Let me preface this by saying my favorite language is Haskell and that I write toy languages for fun. I am a pl nerd so my opinion is valid. Also the title is like 20% bait. My secret was always that I like coding in java, in some sort of masochistic way. Everything is dead simple. Everything is so verbose you can never forget what...
The moment my dreams were shattered (a childhood story) In the second grade I played in a chess tournament. I made my way somewhat easily to the semi-finals and I still remember exactly how I lost. I remember the exact moves that caused me to fall into a relatively common opening trap (called the Noah’s Ark Trap) and how I lost. After the...
The Addictive Idea of “Grinding” There is this idea, often sold to young men, that “you just need to choose to be successful,” that success is only a function of how much suffering you can put yourself through. The reason this is addictive is that it lowers the perceived bar to peoples dream life. The problem is this only works if, on a...