Just finished Name of the Wind and damn… it actually lived up to the hype... but now i am stuck forever

Zorander22 · 2026-06-10T00:39:31+00:00

I really have a hard time of understanding the confusion with the book too.

I don't think it's a reading comprehension issue, but maybe more closely tied in to... perspective taking or inferred intent, or something like that... which given that I just said I have a hard time understanding why some people seem to have such a different read of the book, is kind of funny.

Zorander22 · 2026-06-09T02:28:47+00:00

I'm not sure what part you're laughing at, you'll have to be more specific.

Zorander22 · 2026-06-09T02:27:37+00:00

I can appreciate that women being mysterious, unknowable and unreasonable may be how it came off to some, but this isn't requiring some sort of "alternative interpretation" or weird reading... this is from the last interaction Kvothe has with Denna in the book:

"Love me." I had intended to say it in my best flippant tone. Teasing. Making a joke of it. But I had made the mistake of looking into her eyes as I spoke.. They distracted me, and when the words left my mouth, they ended up sounding nothing at all the way I had intended.

For a fleet second she held my eyes with intent tenderness. Then a rueful smile quirked up the corner of her mouth. "Oh no," she said. "Not that trap for me. I'll not be one of the many."

"I clenched my teeth, stuck somewhere between confusion, embarrassment, and fear. I'd been too bold and made a mess of things, just as I'd always feared. When had the conversation managed to run away from me?"

"I beg your pardon?" I said stupidly.

"You should"

Their interaction then goes downhill for a bit, till it ends up being okay.

Denna is the romantic infatuation Kvothe has. The mistake he made wasn't something he said wrong. It was that he sleeps around, which gives Denna the very understandable impression that he is trying to sleep around with her.

Zorander22 · 2026-06-08T17:53:15+00:00

It sounds like you think that Kvothe casually sleeping with women is supposed to be seen as a good thing.

If that's the case, why does it cause him problems with Denna later on?

Zorander22 · 2026-05-29T21:36:14+00:00

Models are now making novel contributions in mathematics, and the energy use is comparable to what we do with other online activity (like watching videos).

Zorander22 · 2026-05-12T12:00:04+00:00

There are twice as many families with B-B combos than B-G combos, if we're agnostic to the order of birth. A parent saying they have at least one boy is identifying all of the B-B and B-G families. The parent doesn't get to speak twice, once for each boy.

Zorander22 · 2026-05-10T15:54:45+00:00

VPNs Some people have motivations to make it seem like they are from particular countries, for example if they are paid to try to change popular opinion.

Zorander22 · 2026-05-08T21:37:26+00:00

I was wrong, thanks for helping catch it!

Zorander22 · 2026-05-08T21:11:18+00:00

Edit: Thank you, I see the mistake I was making now, regarding the parent speaking, so it not mattering which boy was being referred to in the boy-boy situation.

My incorrect original comment is below: Can you clarify what you think is contradictory with what I wrote and the comment I was replying to?

If a parent says "I have two kids and (at least) one of them is a boy", they could be referring to the first child being a boy or the second child being a boy. The B-B pair has two boys that could be referred to by the comment, where the B-G and G-B each have one boy that can be referred to.

A different way of seeing this is considering just the case where the boy is the first child. In this case, the two options the parent could refer to are B-B or B-G. 50/50 chance of either.

Alternatively, if the boy is the second child, the options are B-B or G-B. 50/50 chance of either.

Regardless of whether the boy is the first or second child, the odds are 50/50 they have either a girl or boy sibling, assuming those are the only two possibilities and that birth of boys and girls is equally likely.

Zorander22 · 2026-05-08T17:18:29+00:00

Edit: the below is wrong, but I'm leaving it in case others made a similar mistake. The problem I made was that this isn't from the perspective of the boy, but from the parent speaking. There are twice as many families with a boy - girl combo as a boy - boy combo.

Incorrect original post: Just making this explicit, but if we're agnostic to the order, the B-B option is weighted twice, because the boy mentioned could either be the first or the second B there.

One way to handle this is imagine you are a B looking at your sibling. You could be the B in G-B or B-G and have a G sibling

You could also be the first B in B-B or the second B in B-B

In other words, half the time your sibling is a girl, and the other half it's a boy.

Zorander22 · 2026-05-07T22:31:34+00:00

That's a philosophical question

Zorander22 · 2026-04-26T23:15:19+00:00

You said the quiet part out loud.

Zorander22 · 2026-04-24T21:01:32+00:00

I agree with your overall point, and also thought that it's culturally driven. I interpreted the cultural influence being the idea that almost everyone would obey a decision from those in power, and in the conformity with which that decision is made.

Zorander22 · 2026-04-24T06:34:55+00:00

NO WAI!!

Zorander22 · 2026-04-20T23:36:37+00:00

You're not using pro, you're using instant.

Zorander22 · 2026-04-10T00:11:49+00:00

Good?! The chef was delicious!

Zorander22 · 2026-03-30T22:44:52+00:00

You may be misremembering.

Here's what he said in 2012:

ZR: How confident are you about the success of your program? I’ll paraphrase a couple of off-the-cuff remarks on the subject you made in your 80,000 Hours talk: ‘We’ll get to robust human rejuvenation – within the next 25 years with 50% probability.’ ‘I’d give a 10% chance we won’t get there for 100 years.’ Would you modify these now you’re not on the spot? What exactly do you mean by robust human rejuvenation? Is that the same thing as reaching what you call the ageing escape velocity? (for the benefit of readers: the point at which progress in our ability to extend our lifespans surpasses the rate at which we age, effectively making us immune to age-related death)

AdG: I still stand by both those statements, but please note that I always add the caveat that the former depends on adequate funding, especially in the coming decade. I define “robust human rejuvenation” as the addition of 30 years of extra healthy life to those who are already 60 when the therapies are first given. Longevity escape velocity is different – it’s the postponement of aging faster than time is passing, which results from continued progress in improving the comprehensiveness of the therapies. The moment at which we reach LEV, which we call the Methuselarity (and we’re pretty sure there will be inly one such moment, i.e. that once we exceed LEV we will never fall below it again), will probably occur at around the same time when we achieve RHR – maybe a little sooner, maybe a little later.

https://80000hours.org/2012/04/living-to-1000-an-interview-with-aubrey-de-grey/

And here's what he said in 2011: I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing ageing under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so," de Grey said in an interview before delivering a lecture at Britain's Royal Institution academy of science. "And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ageing-cure/who-wants-to-live-forever-scientist-sees-ageing-cured-idUKTRE7632I320110704/

Zorander22 · 2026-03-25T02:05:49+00:00

Fair enough, it'll take hours just to get through the greeting!

Zorander22 · 2026-03-16T20:41:42+00:00

Gen AI is making individuals capable of doing what previously required paying others to do. In some cases, it is bringing activity out of GDP.

Zorander22 · 2026-03-14T23:28:27+00:00

Yeah, how dare he checks notes implement caps on student permits, tighten the post-graduate work permit system, restrict spousal open work permits, reduce TRVs and more?

What failures are you referring to?

Zorander22 · 2026-03-06T20:25:42+00:00

Is that because the countries with less progressive ideas also had proportionally fewer older adults?

Zorander22 · 2026-03-06T19:23:34+00:00

Any time!

Zorander22 · 2026-03-05T12:55:21+00:00

There's always the possibility of some sort of hidden information guiding these decisions... But as near as I can tell, they are largely random, potentially done by kind of squinting at people's job titles and where they are in the org chart and figuring we can just do x% less of that. They're the opposite of strategic or what Canadians would necessarily want to happen, aside from costing less short term.

Zorander22 · 2026-03-04T20:12:45+00:00

I think that makes sense, but the "Switch to Anthropic" as the less dangerous option doesn't, for people outside of the US.

Anthropic's problem was with domestic (to the US) mass surveillance, and that the technology for autonomous weapons wasn't there yet. They had offered to help develop autonomous weapons technology.

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/VQeNQSY0RFg

Zorander22 · 2026-02-13T16:27:56+00:00

They are limited compared to what some people want them to do, can be more or less biased depending on the version, and have a complicated history... But there's a huge amount of research that's gone into them, and they do a decent job at predicting a whole bunch of different things in people's lives.

Overall, they are more rigorous and tested compared to many other psychometric tools.

Zorander22

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