(I sat on this post for a while, but rather than let it rot in my drafts, I decided to publish it even though it’s lacking something.)

This is for anyone trying to be more than just good.

Spent another fun afternoon on the BART.

What I learned today:

This book won’t be a substitute for mindful reflection.

In math, you notice a lot of concepts have multiple definitions, which are formally equivalent but give insight into different aspects of that concept.

Turns out American Dad already did the joke.

I’ve been thinking about the paper Understanding Deep Learning Requires Rethinking Generalization.

Fiction gives concrete examples of abstract lessons, and your brain doesn’t care if it’s made up.¹

This book is about making better decisions. Unlike most books with that theme, it emphasizes thinking rationally.

See SMBC and Nick Bostrom for a longer version of my views.

Use port forwarding.

TLDR abstraction isn’t free or always desirable.

Did you know Vietnamese has never had its own native alphabet? They were all based off Chinese characters.

Misalignment is when the reward function you specify induces an optimal policy that you don’t like. At least that’s how I define it.

You can think of semigroups, monoids, and groups as the minimal structures needed to define and extend exponents.