This is not the same for all crypto currency, but a bitcoin represents a “proof of work”. When people “mine” bitcoins, they are consuming computational resources, and when they find a bitcoin, it is a certification of the work that was done to find it that becomes the value of the coin. And then, as others as mentioned, people just agree that that work has a certain amount of monetary value. But the proof of work is what limits the supply and allows that value to exist. 3Blue1Brown has a really good video that goes into the technical details if you’re interested.

One of my favorites is the “ladder paradox” in special relativity, although I originally learned is as a pole vaulter rather than a ladder:

A pole vaulter is running carrying a pole that is 12m long at rest, holding it parallel to the ground. He is running at relativistic speed, such that lengths dilate by 50% (this would be (√3/2)c). And he runs through a barn that is 10m long that has open doors in the front and back.

Imagine standing inside barn. The pole vaulter is running so fast that the length of the pole, in your frame of reference, has contracted to 6m. So while the pole is entirely inside the barn you press a button the briefly closes the doors, so that for just a moment the pole is entirely closed inside the barn.

The question is, what does the pole vaulter see? For him, the pole has not contracted; instead the barn has. He’s running with a 12m pole through what, in his frame of reference, is a 5m barn. What happens when the doors shut? How can both the doors shut?

I will admit that I have never used this thought experiment for any practical end.

Oh Brother Where Art Thou is a good one.

I think you mean “I don’t understand density in infinity”.

Rare in this context is a question of density. There are infinitely many integers within the real numbers, for example, but there are far more non-integers than integers. So integers are more rare within the real.

They probably wouldn’t take off.

Election reforms. IRV, public campaign financing, nix the electoral college, proportional representation, etc.

Is that even a close call? If Trump called me a shithead I’d wear that as a badge of honor. If Mr Rogers called me a disappointment I would question my life choices.

Yeah backreferences in general are not “regular” in the mathematical sense.

Prior to the 2016 election, I was hopeful that the freedom caucus and the rest of the far right was getting too crazy for the general public, and that its support would collapse leading to a bit of a normalization of politics.

Wishful thinking, in retrospect.

The solution is for states to allocate delegates proportionally. That is in the best interest of each state, so it’s not fragile. It can be accomplished one state at a time, so it’s logistically easier.

Isn’t this overlooking that each state that does this, especially swing states, does it at their own disadvantage? States that allocate their electoral votes all-or-nothing have more sway over politicians who receive those votes (because the politicians are, in turn, are incentivized to spend their effort on states where the return on that effort is larger, and an effort that wins you 5% of the vote in an all-or-nothing swing state could win you the whole state’s worth of electoral votes, compared to 5% of electoral votes in a proportionally allocated state).

I heated up some soup that I made a while back and froze. I make some good soup!

A 0x0 px jpg (trying to get an old webcam working, unsuccessfully)

I live in the suburbs of a decently sized but not super large city in WI.

• Convenience store: 120 m
• Chain supermarket: 2.6 km
• Bus stop: 5 m
• Park: 450 m
• Big supermarket: 3.1km
• Library: 1.5 km
• Train station: 58.9 km :(

When ChatGPT first started to make waves, it was a significant step forward in the ability for AIs to sound like a person. There were new techniques being used to train language models, and it was unclear what the upper limits of these techniques were in terms of how “smart” of an AI they could produce. It may seem overly optimistic in retrospect, but at the time it was not that crazy to wonder whether the tools were on a direct path toward general AI. And so a lot of projects started up, both to leverage the tools as they actually were, and to leverage the speculated potential of what the tools might soon become.

Now we’ve gotten a better sense of what the limitations of these tools actually are. What the upper limits of where these techniques might lead are. But a lot of momentum remains. Projects that started up when the limits were unknown don’t just have the plug pulled the minute it seems like expectations aren’t matching reality. I mean, maybe some do. But most of the projects try to make the best of the tools as they are to keep the promises they made, for better or worse. And of course new ideas keep coming and new entrepreneurs want a piece of the pie.

Two spaces after periods.

I had a cherry chutney hamburger at a restaurant somewhere in Missouri. I ordered it because I thought it was a weird combo. IT WAS DELICIOUS.

Whoa, spoilers man, c’mon!

Kaleidoscope Heart is near the top of my list.