Microfictions 2
A few more microfictions, still no LLMs.
Evan Fields
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Microfictions
A few microfictions, very much inspired by Quiet Pine Trees. I hope to add more over time. No LLMs.
Claude 4 Sonnet feels off
Anthropic recently released Claude 4 Sonnet and Claude 4 Opus, and I’ve been using them at work for the last two days. 4 Opus seems okay, but 4 Sonnet feels “off” – less sharp than 3.7 Sonnet. My assessment is almost entirely vibes-based, just from chatting with the models and using Claude Code a bit.
Weighty phrases
I’m deeply fond of weighty phrases – little snippets with cultural gravitas and mystical overtones. Most of my favorites have biblical origin or are fragments of culturally foundational art, remixed memetically over the centuries until they become units of their own. A few of my favorites: Not by bread alone A thousand and one nights All men are created equal That the strong might not injure the…
Reflections on the 2024 US Presidential Election
Warning: fully political post, which is not the typical genre here and not the vibe I’m mostly trying to cultivate. I pretty much stand by this, though my emotions have cooled in the weeks since the election.
Update to my philosophy: less resolutely materialist and utilitarian
Like many people with my demographics, I’ve long had strongly materialist and utilitarian philosophical intuitions. I think empirical science is a good way to learn about the world; material explanations suffice for most phenomena we encounter in everyday life; more people having more well-being is better than fewer people have less well-being. But over the last two-ish years, these intuitions…
Dynamic pricing, not discriminatory pricing
There’s a great bagel shop near my house that has consistently long lines on weekend mornings. This is a market failure: if the line is predictably and consistently long, then the price in dollars is not high enough. The bagel shop could charge more on weekend mornings, which makes them better off; the average customer would then pay more in dollars but less in time.1 The mixture of customers…
Blog inspiration: Jeff Kaufman
I’ve been reading Jeff Kaufman’s blog for years because he’s well known in the effective altruist1 space and local to the Boston area. We’re also now coworkers, which is pretty cool. One of many things I like about Jeff’s blog: he interleaves many different kinds of posts. Some are deeply technical or philosophical, but others are quick notes about what’s going on in his life. This variety imbues…
Status update on eating animals
Since roughly 2009, I’ve wrestled daily with how to be a moral eater. My thoughts and uncertainties have evolved over time, so as both a time capsule for myself and an exercise in writing-clarifies-thinking, I thought I’d jot down my current status.
Shake-tempering chocolate
tldr: microplane 2% seed chocolate into fully melted chocolate at 94F and shake the heck out of it.