I make occasional pictures & words
More links to stuff that I found valuable or interesting this season! (Previously: Signal Boosts for Autumn 2025 ) 😻 Crowdfunding a queer top-level domain (ENDS FEB 16!) ↪ 🎥 Videos Montréal cyberpunk Kafkomedy short film ↪ Indie Indonesian furry animator-musician ↪ "Your kid might date an AI" + interview with the founder of Hinge ↪ A new, up-and-coming math channel! ↪ THIS HOUSE HAS GOOD BONES ↪…
(content note: scientific discussion of depression & suicide) "Too Long; Didn't Read" Summary: Exactly what the title says. Longer Summary: The "effect size" of the best antidepressants on depression, vs placebo, is around 0.4. ( On average ; some people respond much better or much worse.) This is like going from a C to a C+ . In contrast: the effect size of 1500 mg/day of "≥60% EPA" Omega-3…
Oh! To compete! With an autocomplete! In a recent RCT [1] They found that good ol' GPT Could beat! A human like me. Oh! Dare I ask! At what special human task! Poetry, and humans guessed worse than chance, at the test of who's human, and confessed to like AI above the rest: Obsolete! A human like me. Oh! What a shame! Who's the scapegoat I shall blame! The masses, their dumb asses? Postmodern…
So you have a Dream. Like all worthy Dreams, it may take years or decades to achieve. Alas, the human motivation system can’t learn from rewards with a year-long delay. So, you're instead advised to “trust the process”, and convert your long-term goal into regular short-term micro-goals: Write a novel ⇒ write 500 words a day. Cure your social phobia ⇒ talk with one stranger a day. Get married in…
Hey folks! Things are still in the works. In the meantime, here's some recent-ish stuff I found valuable, and I hope you do too. 💖 (Sorry this post is, uh, over 10,000 words. Guess I'm making up for not posting a Signal Boost in almost a year!) Much ado about The Algorithm 🎙️ An interview series with experts on this new algorithmic era ↪ 😑 New study: It's probably not the algorithm's fault, we…
Hello, y'all classy blog/rss feed readers! I got something new for you today — my first vlog! Okay this isn't actually my first first vlog, but it's my first in over 10 years? I want to experiment more with video — (more fun for me & you, makes it easier to showcase simulations & animated explainers, larger audience reach, Video Killed The Everything Else Star) — so, here's a vlog, where I am a…
(⏱️ ~25 min read ) Hello, distinguished Blog Readers! Sorry for the, uh, 7-month silence. In the last seven months I: did a 10-week AI Safety "research bootcamp" , dealt with legal/border hassles (all resolved now), went on vacation, and in-between I got my ass kicked by ADHD. Here's a photo from my vacation, starring my travel plushies, Capyccino & Sacabambackpack: Anyway — in this month's "Show…
(⏱️ ~10 min read ) Another month, another collection of shiny objects (stuff I found in the the past month that were valuable/inspiring). See also, previous Signal Boosts for Oct/Sep , Aug/July , June , May 🩸 Kurzgesagt gets to the bottom of a science myth ↪ 😭 Paper: AI poems are now "more human than human" ↪ 🇺🇸 U.S. Election-related analysis ↪ 👄 The Substance ↪ 🩸 Kurzgesagt gets to the…
(⏱️ ~8 min read ) Once again I got swamped with work so I missed last month's Signal Boost / Links post, so here's a two-fer, for all the stuff I recommend that I found last & this month. Previous months' Signal Boosts: July/Aug 2024 , June 2024 , May 2024 This month's Signal Boosts: 🐦 Trans furry hyperpop conlang musical mockumentary ↪ 👋 DynamicLand is back, bay-beeeee ↪ 🍞 "I put a toaster in…
Hi! This is a "share your work" notes-dump, for some independent research projects I'm doing in AI Alignment/Safety. Alas, this means this post will be more wordy, sloppy & technical than my usual "explain it like I'm 12" style. Sorry! Should any of these bear fruit, I'll share the fruit's juice in more accessible packaging. (If any of these ideas inspire you to do some research of your own, feel…