hoops, oolong, metrics, and experimentation
San Francisco, CA
Joined April 2007
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Brent Cohn retweeted
remember this old post of mine? Tried it with Jev---it seems to have a grasp of the globe on par with some of the best models a year ago
due to the architecture & low cost, it was also feasible to extract a labeled map of continents and countries. lots of interesting details
Brent Cohn retweeted
science advances are typically preceded by measurement advances. the closer the lab model is to the underlying phenomenon the faster we typically progress. this is a good essay laying out that logic for organoids for alzheimers in particular but i think applies to many brain diseases
Are organoids useful for Alzheimer’s research?
(3.8k words, 17 minutes reading time)
owlposting.com/p/are-organoi…
the final organoid essay; a case study into how useful organoids have been for one of the hardest-to-address diseases that exist today
also: i moved to san francisco!
Brent Cohn retweeted
If Bass waited 24 hours for the car to move and instructed crews to fill it the next day, she could have claimed a win—72 hours ain't bad! But her camp is so focused on process over outcomes that it doesn't even occur to them that people just want to see the pothole filled.
Brent Cohn retweeted
i’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the product of agentic data analysis quickly becomes “recognizable,” much in the same way that ai-generated text does. it’s a different kind of slop, but slop nonetheless.
Brent Cohn retweeted
I found this very moving. We have so much to be grateful for and to wonder and rejoice at
Ordinary Abundance. This is the greatest thing I've read in weeks. No kidding. This should win a Pulitzer in a category not yet invented. ordinaryabundance.com/
Brent Cohn retweeted
Mathematicians aren't going to lose their jobs because of AI. Nor their prestige. Nor the fun of finding things out.
The only thing they'll lose is their chance to be heroes.
noahpinion.blog/p/the-end-of…
Brent Cohn retweeted
Great post by my colleague Dylan on an opportunity for reforming the Jones Act:
- the waiver period is showing the harms
- the harms are real and worth billions
- it’s bad for the climate and clean energy
- and there’s a potential odd bedfellows coalition for reform!
This quoted post is unavailable.
Brent Cohn retweeted
Your project should be more ambitious. Intelligence is cheaper than ever. Increasingly, money is cheap. And the world needs new institutions. Go harder!
Brent Cohn retweeted
New paper on the economics of RSI – and a new org, the Elasticity Institute:
A list of my own takeaways…
Very happy to share the first paper from @ElasticityInst: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement. Two parts:
(1) a graphical representation of feedback loops, to formalize a variety of RSI-related arguments, where each arrow represents responsiveness (elasticity);
(2) a survey of existing evidence with a loose calibration & a “wish list” of evidence that would help us calibrate better.
Brent Cohn retweeted
ever wondered if @googlemaps will route different people differently to lower overall congestion?
turns out - they have been experimenting with this based on this recent paper in @NatCities
key line - "For this study, the Google Maps algorithm was modified to prefer alternative routes with similar travel times and segment types, effectively guiding trips away from the pre-selected congested segments."
result?
"Averaged across citie ... a median increase of around 2% in driving speeds"
research.google/blog/the-pow…
Brent Cohn retweeted
I found this super compelling
New from Scott Alexander: "The AI Superforecasters Are Here" astralcodexten.com/p/the-ai-…
Brent Cohn retweeted
here is Mamdani's entire speech at the Knicks parade, which is easily the best speech I've ever heard at an event of this sort
Brent Cohn retweeted
In celebration of TFT's 7th birthday bash, i am giving away 5 Party God of Tactics Pengu codes!!
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picking winners on 6/15!!
GOOD LUCK!!
Brent Cohn retweeted
Kalshi's first example of a small business using it as hedging tool is The Jeffrey, an NYC bar that's promising free drinks to all customers if New York Knicks wins NBA Finals Game 1 on Wednesday
Brent Cohn retweeted
México, desde La Conquista (+500 años) ha tenido 130 jefes de estado. Solamente UNO de ellos sabía hablar náhuatl, el idioma indígena dominante:
Maximiliano de Habsburgo.
