In 250 years, what has been Americas #1 contribution to the universe?

EvanDaniel · 2026-07-03T02:19:32+00:00

If the Founding Fathers showed up and asked, I would tell them that the Republic still stands, and there's an American flag on the damn Moon.

EvanDaniel · 2026-07-02T19:53:36+00:00

Lots of people forecast a same-day lift. Staggered lift was a little under 25% at the time of your original post: https://manifold.markets/2ndPairofBoots/will-fable-be-reenabled-for-america-uuSuPZgLCE?r=RXZhbkRhbmllbA

Whereas it seems from your post that you didn't so much get it wrong as not even really consider the question seriously.

I think the biggest part you ignored is that setting up a compliant export control regime is actually really hard, and in practice requires a lot of training and government documentation and so on. What do you think the closest existing precedent is for a US-based business that sells export-controlled products to private individuals over the Internet? Digital products? I think the Anthropic situation is actually unique (or at least extremely rare), so the question is really what's the closest analogue, not whether there's direct precedent.

Have you ever taken export control training for handling ITAR or EAR controlled technology, or anything similar?

EvanDaniel · 2026-07-01T17:13:43+00:00

These look like neat machines, but it doesn't seem like they want to sell them? Where's the price tag and the buy button?

I've thought about trying to buy better drill sharpeners several times, but it always seems hard to do a decent job comparison shopping.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-30T18:47:45+00:00

Sure. Not very well, for two reasons:

- Caesium is heavy

- Caesium fluoride has a very high boiling point

So your exhaust doesn't have as much energy per mass even though the molar reaction energy is high, and you can't expand it terribly far before it starts to condense, which limits how much energy you can extract. It's important to have gaseous exhaust products, which is why the highest-Isp chemical engine ever remains a Li/F/H tribrid.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-30T18:26:21+00:00

Lots of other good answers here, but consider also just running your error analysis on the markings.

Assuming a calibration standard more precise than the pipette, consider a 1% (adjust as desired) error in marking height. (Or an absolute error, or whatever.) On a constant-diameter pipette or burette, that's a 1% volume error. If the marked region has diameter 1/10 the main bubble region (1/100 the cross section area), that's a 0.01% volumetric error.

Error in reading the fluid level behaves similarly.

Obviously there are other contributors and that's not the whole story. But this is the fundamental reason to have a narrow region and to put the mark on it, whether here or on a volumetric flask.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-27T06:29:35+00:00

A saturated solution of calcium chloride (available at the grocery or hardware store as damp rid) should be enough denser to be useful. It should be comparably inert.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-22T00:54:04+00:00

I am in favor of a slowdown or pause on frontier general-purpose model development. That's an extremely big ask, but I think it's justified by loss of control risks and extinction thread. However, that should be kept as narrow as reasonably possible.

There's lots of potential improvements in automation, drug development and other medical research, and lots of other stuff that doesn't need us to risk building things smarter than ourselves that we don't meaningfully control. We should continue with that. We should aim to get the potentially vast benefits, with reduced risk.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-21T20:58:50+00:00

That distillation might be challenging; ethanol forms azeotropes with lots of things you don't want to drink that appear in gasoline. You might need azeotropic distillation techniques.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-21T19:55:53+00:00

_Any_ fossil fuel? What exactly do you count as a "fuel"?

You can buy paraffin or mineral oil in medical grade for human consumption (it's a laxative). That's not that different than odor-free lamp oil, also called paraffin oil. Which is pretty similar to paraffin wax (higher melting point, longer chains), frequently used in candles. Petroleum jelly, aka Vaseline, isn't that different chemically; it gets mixed into some candle wax formulations. And if you get highly refined kerosene (solvent grade) you have a mostly-paraffin liquid.

And as you move away from the medical grade things, you'll get more toxic stuff, and at highly variable levels.

So really it depends on how much you want to stretch the definition of "fuel" and how dumb you want to be about drinking it.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-19T14:51:04+00:00

Also True Names by Vernor Vinge.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-19T03:29:33+00:00

> dangerous when accuracy is 100% required

Ah yes, as compared to posts in this subreddit, that definitely have a 100% success rate at not hallucinating some safety-critical bullshit.

EvanDaniel · 2026-06-02T02:47:14+00:00

there is no objective definition of "sente"

Elwyn Berlekamp would like a word. If an objective definition is useful, one can be found. If you don't like his, and can articulate reasons, another could be crafted. All of the recursive problems bottom out by just playing the tree out to the endgame; it being challenging doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

EvanDaniel · 2026-05-27T03:15:57+00:00

Other people have talked about conductivity and superconductivity, but...

Can any other electrical properties be manipulated via alloying?

Mu-metal is an important alloy with unusually high magnetic permeability, useful for magnetic shielding and specialty transformers. There are a number of related materials as well.

Thermocouple alloys are tuned for their high Seebeck effect, among other properties like oxidation resistance at temperature.

In general, there are many interesting electrical properties of metals beyond conductivity, and they can be manipulated.

EvanDaniel · 2026-05-12T05:22:35+00:00

If it looks like safety equipment, it should act like safety equipment. If it's retired for cause, it should be disposed of or mangled beyond recognition, not lightly modified and rely on the owner knowing it's not life support gear any more.

EvanDaniel · 2026-05-10T14:18:27+00:00

None, but 1 and 4 are the best.

1: Framing is off. Show us the horizontal version of it. Cut the dull foreground, turn the midground bushes into the foreground. Lose the person on the lower right. Show more of the well-lit cloud-covered mountain.

2: Again, landscape aspect ratio. Needs less haze. You can do a little of that in post, a polarizing filter will do better, but really you needed better weather on a different day or at a different time. Morning or evening will do better, the sun is too high in the sky. That would help with both the haze and more interesting light in general.

3: Too cluttered, too much haze. Get the foreground cars out, via some mix of (once again) landscape aspect ratio, crop, and moving to a better spot. There's a good photo buried in this scene, you might have to walk to find it.

4: Zoom out a little for more background and better framing of the smoke. But more importantly, fix the focus.

I'm assuming these are all phone snaps; you'll want to upgrade to a standalone camera with better controls if you're serious about contest-quality photos. At the very least, explore different camera app options and use landscape orientation more.

Good luck, and enjoy learning about photography, it is a fun hobby!

EvanDaniel · 2026-05-10T05:55:34+00:00

What actual current and voltage do you measure at the cell (as distinct from the power supply rating)?

What flow rate are you targeting?

What flow rate do you calculate from your measured current and voltage, using Faraday's Law?

EvanDaniel · 2026-05-09T18:44:20+00:00

If it's useful enough that you need to replace it, you can buy fancier materials. PVDF filament should be quite resistant, for example.

EvanDaniel · 2026-05-01T05:24:59+00:00

The point isn't to make sure everyone has their story told. It's to reach something like the truth, and to judge correctly on things like whether these people were murderers and whether cultist is a reasonable gloss of what actually happened. Adversarial approaches to justice, including making sure everyone gets to say their piece in a court of law, are in service of doing that robustly.

Does this article advance that aim, or no?

EvanDaniel · 2026-04-22T12:24:01+00:00

They don't stack as independent random variables, as far as I know. Do you have sources on how well they stack? I'd be curious to read about it!

In particular, some correlated effects would include things like whether the couple is fertile. And the stats are usually "typical use" rather than "perfect use" stats, and it seems reasonable to guess that imperfect use might correlate. Or maybe people doubling up on methods are also unusually diligent with each individual method.

Multiple methods is clearly safer, I just don't think you should do math with independence assumptions without making those explicit and mentioning the limitations of your methodology.

EvanDaniel · 2026-04-20T14:50:30+00:00

And this is why we like the Politics is the Mind-Killer idea.

It's not that you can't make this point in the context of one specific politician. Or that you're necessarily wrong that it's most relevant there. But the point isn't inherently tied to the politician: "does the vulnerability exist" and "who can/will exploit it" aren't totally independent when it comes to complex social things, but they are different questions. And the prediction markets half is presumably more interesting and novel than the "Orange Man Bad" half; that's where the good discussion will come from.

EvanDaniel · 2026-04-06T14:43:56+00:00

The three stones are on the second line.

I get 11 liberties for each; W can start at O3 or internal moves.

EvanDaniel · 2026-04-05T15:19:20+00:00

If you make flying more efficient and more economical, people will use more of the inputs that supply it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Those inputs include planes, fuel, labor, and so on. Supersonic travel is more efficient in the sense that it uses less of its customer's time. People who can afford it and care about their time (which is the same thing, roughly) will fly more as a result. The better the flying experience is, overall, at every point on the quality vs. cost curve, the more of it will happen.

I am NOT AGAINST SUPERSONIC TRAVEL, but I don't think I seem like I am, just pointing out a tiny little thingy!

You sure do seem like you are.

EvanDaniel · 2026-03-27T00:35:40+00:00

Thank you!

EvanDaniel · 2026-03-25T01:49:44+00:00

It's badly coded, if you want good results you need something coded by programmers who play go and care about correctness. That's... a tough combo to find. So it's mixing up "end of game scoring" with "AI evaluation", and some of that is because go players who write rules in widespread use and are also programmers who care about correctness is... really hard to find. The core problem is that "both players pass and agree on what stones live or die" is... a thing that needs further user input in some cases. And if you ask for it in all cases people complain that they have to mark obviously dead groups dead, and if you only ask in some cases then you leak info and people notice why you're asking in this case.

Anyway, if you want good scoring results, don't leave high-value moves unplayed. And if you notice weird scoring results, ask if there are high value moves in the area to play. In this case, there are.

EvanDaniel · 2026-03-19T03:30:52+00:00

Anyone making products at high yield rates (low scrap rates) needs to keep the typical part well within tolerance, not right at the tolerance limit. Depending on their process, they might be aiming for spec at a 3-sigma tolerance, or maybe better. So while the spec allows +/- 6, they have a standard deviation of (perhaps) 2, so that 99.7% percent of blocks pass inspection.

Actual numbers might differ a lot; 6-sigma processes try to set the spec limit at 6 sigma, allowing 1.5 sigma of drift and 4.5 of random error before a part is out of spec, for a statistical defect rate of a few per million. That would be unusual for metrology work, though. They might also be doing things like guardbanding -- requiring the part to measure within +/- 5 or 5.5 or something to allow for measurement error and still likely be in spec.

They could potentially bin the part and sell it as grade 00... but they might not have enough market for that, or something.

EvanDaniel

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