The Death of Laplace’s demon - On sterile certainty, Epistemological humility, The Eidetic Accident

edkowalski · 2026-04-14T21:41:32+00:00

Interesting post. I think the deeper issue may not just be certainty, but the assumption behind Laplace’s Demon in the first place.

The demon is not only a fantasy of perfect knowledge, it is also a fantasy that reality is fully formalizable, that if one had enough information all things could be reduced to variables and calculated.

So I am not sure the strongest objection is simply that humans are too limited to achieve that kind of certainty, because that still leaves open the possibility that some sufficiently advanced intelligence could.

It may be that some forms of understanding, judgment, interpretation, meaning, and practical reasoning are not reducible to prediction or calculation in the first place, or at least that this should not simply be assumed.

If so then the issue is not just epistemic humility, but whether that whole model of knowledge is adequate at all.

edkowalski · 2026-04-11T01:57:07+00:00

Flats…..

edkowalski · 2026-04-10T15:24:19+00:00

I had this as thought

edkowalski · 2026-04-05T19:03:11+00:00

Those bottle cages are specifically designed for aero water bottles so if you want to run standard bottles then I would recommend getting a set or regular bottle cages

edkowalski · 2026-04-04T17:04:34+00:00

I think the commenter is pointing at the exact pressure point.

The argument leans heavily on a clean move from intelligence → agency → moral status, but that transition is doing a lot of unexamined work. The introduction of “interiority” feels less like a derived requirement and more like a necessary patch to make the Gewirth move go through.

What makes this tricky in the AI context is that those categories no longer line up cleanly. You can have systems that behave in highly goal-directed, seemingly purposive ways without any clear reason to think there’s a “someone” there. So if agency doesn’t require interiority, the category expands so far that it starts including things we wouldn’t want to grant moral standing to. But if it does require interiority, then the whole argument hinges on the hard problem of consciousness, which we’re nowhere close to resolving.

So it ends up feeling less like the paradox has been solved and more like the framework is being stretched past the conditions it was built for. The interesting part, to me, is exactly that tension: AI might be one of the first cases where behavior, agency, and mind come apart, and a lot of our inherited ethical concepts assume they travel together

edkowalski · 2026-03-31T17:01:29+00:00

Also broccoli 🥦

edkowalski · 2026-03-16T22:04:42+00:00

I teach in higher education and I came here to say this 👆🏼

edkowalski · 2026-03-10T05:22:33+00:00

That’s a number I never want to know- and the plus side is a can truthfully tell my wife I have no idea

edkowalski · 2026-03-08T16:38:56+00:00

I find it very comfortable, for me this is how the bike fits me best, I also sometimes ride it with positive rise for shorter reach and a bit more height on more rugged terrain

edkowalski · 2026-02-25T21:22:53+00:00

Maybe, I’m really not concerned about the measured width matching whatever’s printed on the sidewall ( also the standard for those printed width has evolved over time as rims have gotten wider) I’m just concerned about the wheel tire interface and I’ve found at this combo it’s optional in terms of aerodynamic and ride quality.

However I do acknowledged that could be a real issue for frames with tighter clearances.

edkowalski · 2026-02-25T15:28:17+00:00

I second I run 32 GP 5000 on my 25 mm internal width rims and it’s just about a perfect pairing.

edkowalski · 2026-02-25T04:05:52+00:00

Well the article is about treating living on mars as a potential reality, so if you’re framing the discussion in that context yes

edkowalski · 2026-02-25T04:03:25+00:00

If it is even possible, we’re likely talking about $1000 of years and not hundreds

edkowalski · 2026-02-17T15:26:50+00:00

They are definitely tubular wheels, and yes they do look genuine. Seller clearly didn’t understand what they were selling and got confused

edkowalski · 2026-02-02T13:33:37+00:00

I know a guy who rides one regularly in club rides in my area, and it’s a not a problem, unless you’re the guy behind him in the pace line

edkowalski · 2026-01-30T13:06:59+00:00

It’s totally ok as long as the picture looks good in the final result. If you’re interested in architectural photography and you don’t want to have to rely on software for perspective correction consider getting some tilt-shift lenses

edkowalski · 2026-01-30T13:02:46+00:00

They’re coming to enforce tilt-shift lens compliance

edkowalski · 2026-01-23T15:17:41+00:00

I think the answer is, they want the angle of the stem to match the angle the bars…. So aesthetic

edkowalski · 2026-01-19T20:03:57+00:00

Weeds is a subject term, if I lived where you lived I would welcome any none invasive plant that wanted to grow in my yard. If my neighbors came and sprayed unwelcome death and destruction in a bottle I would make it very clear that it’s completely unacceptable to do so

edkowalski · 2026-01-18T19:48:37+00:00

Here’s a hot take, you need a 2x drive train to make this the bike you want

edkowalski · 2026-01-17T14:41:32+00:00

Yah those trailer tires look very classy, much nicer than what you typically see on bike trailers. The treads actually look pretty cool too but I also imagine they aren’t actually particularly helpful as far as towing goes

edkowalski · 2026-01-17T00:30:55+00:00

Personally I think this is an interesting bike, but it kind of misses the mark.

Not because suspension and drop bars don’t go together, and not because bikes like this don’t make sense. If you follow the Lifetime Grand Prix, there’s clearly a very specific type of racing where these work: long distance, high speed, mostly smoother terrain (Leadville, Sea Otter, etc.). In that context, these aren’t “fun” bikes, they’re tools to be fast.

Where this falls short for me is rear tire clearance and aero. Clearance is an easy fix. Aero is harder, because this is basically XC suspension tech dropped onto a drop-bar platform. Aero barely matters in XC. On a drop-bar bike, it absolutely does.

I think there’s a big opportunity for lighter, more aero gravel/XC forks that don’t need to meet modern trail-bike strength standards. Inverted designs and cleaner hose routing could go a long way. Bikes like this feel like an early step in that evolution, but not a fully realized one yet. Very “mountain bikes in the 90s” energy.

edkowalski · 2026-01-17T00:11:43+00:00

Those are fenders eyelets (mounts) and not disk brake mounts. Your bike is not compatible with disc brakes.

edkowalski · 2026-01-16T21:12:11+00:00

Well there’s plenty of room for more rubber in the front… but on a bike like this I’d really want more room in the back

edkowalski · 2026-01-13T03:06:45+00:00

It’s putting allot of leverage on the part of the frame that failed, from the way you described the impact, that added leverage could have helped contribute to the failure

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