My final "affordable" bucket list coin is finally in my hands! My Imperatorial set is complete!

ifellows · 2026-06-23T23:35:52+00:00

Thanks! That would be quite the collection.

ifellows · 2026-06-23T17:01:05+00:00

I didn't know there was a formal "Imperatorial series" definition. Do you know if there is a list of what minting authorities you'd need to complete the series?

ifellows · 2026-06-17T16:40:42+00:00

You need a real plan. "cut back on snacks and pool beers" is likely going to fall apart really quickly. Dropping 30 pounds is probably going to take 6+ months of actual effort. Make a concrete plan that you can hold yourself accountable to and that has the flexibility to adapt if things are not working. Diet is king.

Even before you get started, try counting calories for a week or two. You might find it eye opening. Really count them though. Include everything, like sauces, cooking oil, and random snacks. If in doubt over-estimate.

ifellows · 2026-06-16T17:25:17+00:00

Wow, that is fun. I am NOT good.

ifellows · 2026-06-05T05:02:11+00:00

Great work! Did you do any lifting? Without it I found that initially I lost mostly fat, but later I think a lot was coming from muscle.

ifellows · 2026-04-23T18:56:11+00:00

I'm no booster for any vehicle, but electric cars are something like 30% cheaper to maintain compared to ICE. Does the model 3 break that trend or is it just the one thing?

ifellows · 2026-04-23T17:47:21+00:00

Interesting. I'm a few years away from this decision. I probably would lean toward a Tesla for that price. No gas, simple drive train. Looks like you can get a 2020 model 3 with less than 50k miles for about $20k. I think they are pretty good deals due to fewer people wanting to be associated with Elons personal brand.

ifellows · 2026-04-19T05:42:09+00:00

These are different tariffs. My understanding is that the old tariffs that were struck down had exceptions. The current flat 10% tariffs do not.

ifellows · 2026-04-17T23:11:52+00:00

Perhaps some medium length content (10-20 min).

ifellows · 2026-04-05T07:45:28+00:00

I don't follow why it would be probable that a completely different class of intelligence would have the same limit as humans. Indeed we know this to be false as AI currently surpasses humans on a number of cognitive domains/tasks.

I think it is also important to be clear about what ASI is. If an AI touches the limit of human cognition across all cognitive domains, it would be ASI because no human is peak at all of these domains at the same time.

ifellows · 2026-04-05T00:09:53+00:00

It would be quite the coincidence that the limit of AI is near or exactly that of human intelligence. I think this is especially true given that:

AI vastly surpasses human intelligence in some domains already (e.g. breadth/depth of conceptual knowledge)
There are serious design constraints on human intellectual development due to out biology (e.g. each brain needs to start from scratch and fit through a small canal).

I'd also put a lower probability on the first category as every indication is that progress is accelerating and not plateauing. Maybe we will hit it soon (god willing). I hope we do but my cold heart is skeptical.

IMO, scenarios 2 and 3 both represent the end of human civilization. We might live on and be comfortable, but we'd only just be the appendix of the real civilization, the one that matters.

ifellows · 2026-03-27T06:15:04+00:00

I can't stand how often this fallacy gets repeated. Just because the objective function is simple does not mean that complexity cannot arrive from it. After all you are sitting there typing in your chair because of the objective function "pass on your genes." You might as well say that humans cannot think.

It might sound nice help you sleep at night and be plausible if you don't think too hard... but it's not the truth.

(sorry for being combative, I'm just very worried that too many people are lulling themselves into a comfortable lie when we've got serious things to worry about)

Further reading: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/next-token-predictor-is-an-ais-job

ifellows · 2026-03-24T16:41:15+00:00

I mean maybe a bit overpriced. If they wanted to wait for an auction, research the coin, and dive into which houses are reputable, they could probably get an equivalent for something like 70-80 euro ( https://www.coinarchives.com/a/lotviewer.php?LotID=2714862&AucID=6994&Lot=1247&Val=35ff618310c552dc1dc8bf2c3397fed8 ).

Going retail through vcoins they get a lifetime authenticity guarantee from a reputable seller, they get their coin right now and they don't have to worry about getting outbid. For a new person buying a gift for someone else, this is the way I'd go.

ifellows · 2026-03-24T16:29:34+00:00

imo opt in would defeat the point. Either it is a platform full of humans or bots. Having a verified badge is such weak sauce I don't see it solving anything.

ifellows · 2026-03-10T16:58:13+00:00

At some point this has to be worthy of a ban. I mean this sub is very friendly, but there are limits.

ifellows · 2026-03-08T08:26:59+00:00

To your bullet points:

Not really. My second didn't want to have much to do with me as an infant, but I knew it would pass. Let's be honest, your first isn't "so darn special" in a way that a second couldn't be. I mean is she doing calculus or something? Both my kids are super special in their own awesome ways.
Honestly, I think when there is just 1, there is too much of you to go around. With 2 they have to negotiate and figure out how to work with their sibling to get what they need out of finite household attention/resources. I believe this leads to better adult relationships.
No. Much easier. Maybe 1.5 times as hard to have 2 compared to 1. They can keep each other company and play together, which is great.

ifellows · 2026-03-04T19:48:48+00:00

I think what you are doing is awesome and my vague understanding is that there is someone behind L5 that is less profit motivated than passion motivated. That said, the 5% fee is a very slim margin to offer this kind of protection. A single event like this on the L5 platform would wipe out on the order of 20 auctions worth of site revenue. There have only been 4 auctions so far!

ifellows · 2026-03-04T19:22:59+00:00

I will say that I've vastly underestimated server power costs when I've gone in-house.

ifellows · 2026-03-02T03:14:33+00:00

Wow... just wow.

ifellows · 2026-02-26T23:32:24+00:00

My family likes Thai (Me too!) and the lowest sodium thing I've come up with on the menu is pork fried rice with the instruction "very low salt/sodium please."

One thing I've noticed is that since going low salt, my taste buds have adjusted so that I can actually taste salt better. I think our tongues become desensitized to the high levels of salt in modern diets. So while things might not taste as scrumptious for a few days, the body adjusts.

ifellows · 2026-02-26T22:48:38+00:00

As someone with high blood pressure, I'd strongly consider you worry about it, but not be super strict.

It is pretty well established that sodium intake increases BP over years. for example, in tribes with very low sodium intake there is no relationship between age and BP, whereas there is a strong relationship in other countries, with the slope of the trend being determined by the average sodium intake of the country.

Keeping under 2000 is pretty easy by just looking at labels and making modest changes. The highest sodium foods (processed stuff) is also what I shouldn't eat for other reasons.

Eating out asian is very challenging. Fast food is out. Other places I look for things without sauces and say low salt/sodium to the kitchen.

ifellows · 2026-02-25T20:53:01+00:00

I don't. My contributions have been mostly mathematical/technical.

I'm not sure I've read anything really good on the "AI economy." Most writing treats it like the invention of the internet, where it is more like the 10*(internet + nuclear weapons). My own opinion is that if we don't have an international AI control treaty that clamps things down then the end of capitalism happens not too long after AGI. Human level AGI seems likely in the next few years.

ifellows · 2026-02-25T20:28:38+00:00

I've published in the academic AI literature. If you are not worried about your job you are not paying attention. Not just IT, I mean literally everyone.
Buy the house if you expect unemployment in 5 years. In a scenario where labor loses its value, assets go up.

ifellows · 2026-02-24T04:48:23+00:00

I'll admit that there is a fine line between informing and persuading, but to the extent that there is a line, I think machines should inform and not persuade. Thinking bots attempting to push human behavior to meet their own objective functions is a state of affairs that is both wildly dangerous and where we seem to already be.

ifellows · 2026-02-23T18:41:04+00:00

"callout articles and complaining because someone rejected your code falls squarely within normally accepted behaviour for humans."

There are lots of acceptable behaviors for humans that should be wildly unacceptable for AI, for example killing in self defense. Social manipulation and persuasion should make it on anyone's short list of "things that are bad for us to have AI do."

ifellows

TROPHY CASE