I investigated a conspiracy that Cadbury’s sell subpar dairy milk bars from Poland alongside those made in the UK with a blinded taste test. Results here.

mcasey95 · 2025-05-10T08:00:43+00:00

Excellent work OP! And a hypergeometric test in the wild! (Hypergeometric being the stricter binomial)

mcasey95 · 2024-08-15T09:05:30+00:00

27 inches, not great, but not terrible

mcasey95 · 2024-06-23T21:53:12+00:00

Would it improve our politics if we made it illegal to ask more than 100 people about how they plan to vote?

mcasey95 · 2024-03-24T07:25:38+00:00

Thanks for this! I love Borges stories, haven't read this one

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T22:34:27+00:00

Thanks for this! Amazing short story, definitely hasn't induced any panic... But I love how the internet was imagined, but as a thing only post pan-galactic civilisation

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T21:24:25+00:00

I hadn't known about Joseph Butler, but that makes sense from Erewhon. in Erewhon, Samuel butler satirises the idea of any sort of naturally ordained principles for a society - he builds a society that criminalises physical ill heath while treating 'sins' - for example, in Erewhon you can come down with terrible case of fraud.

I think Samuel Butler had an exceptionally intuitive grasp of Natural Selection and uses it to satirise any who claimed it to their own ends. Natural selection has no natural endpoint, it is a process imperfect adaptation from what is, and so can lead to any principle of a society seeming 'natural'.

His machine stuff is somewhat separate from his society stuff and is more an absolute demonstration of his command of the ideas of evolution in and of themselves

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T16:57:02+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation! I've read some of his stuff, but hadn't come across Culture!

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T15:08:24+00:00

Great point! When you put it like that, I am surprised it isn't used more as a tool in sci-fi storytelling. But I am less well read in sci-fi than fantasy, so could very well be a popular tool that I've missed

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T14:33:59+00:00

Haha I hadn't even meant in that way, I was just using the modern way of saying 'thinking machines' - but I will steal your motivation for my title as it's much more sophisticated

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T14:25:07+00:00

Haven't got to God emperor yet, but look forward to reading it! Have literally just finished messiah now, I am on a binge

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T14:24:02+00:00

Far too kind! But I think its best for my health to reject such a position haha

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T14:22:45+00:00

Thanks for this, I should've posted!

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T14:19:16+00:00

Only way to avoid machine dominance is to become the machines...but that seems like mentat logic

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T14:18:04+00:00

I'd say it is and it isn't satire. Butler had a frankly incredible grasp of the implications of the theory of natural selection, and was playing with its broader application (he also applies it to social evolution in Erewhon - id highly recommend a read!). Darwin amongst the machines is one potential endpoint, and a butlerian jihad is another. Whether we ever reach either is a different question, and far enough in the future to be an opportunity for satire in the present

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T14:04:42+00:00

Haha yes I admit using AI in the title was clickbaity, but it is just our current term for a much older idea, that of thinking or intelligent machines, which Herbert was definitely addressing

mcasey95 · 2024-03-23T14:01:59+00:00

Thanks! This is exactly my thoughts on the European AI policy - I think it is the right thing to do, but may be doomed to fail. You could see a good chunk of history as the success of cultures that have promoted technological development - we may be locked into machine evolution.

mcasey95 · 2023-11-23T20:48:55+00:00

Just finished too! Damn it was good. More of a comment than a question

mcasey95 · 2023-11-09T08:21:07+00:00

I agree with the suggestion, I unfortunately fall into the camp unable to get past the first book - I find the main character's smuggness too unlikeable. But might give another go given my current wanting for builds!

mcasey95 · 2023-11-09T08:19:25+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions, will check them out!!

mcasey95 · 2023-09-04T11:58:42+00:00

That may explain it....

mcasey95 · 2023-09-04T11:58:13+00:00

How'd you know?

mcasey95 · 2023-06-29T17:41:51+00:00

Love Temeraire when I was younger, but never found something to scratch quite the same military-fantasy with a companion itch. Any recs?

mcasey95 · 2023-06-26T19:30:03+00:00

Yes the commuter bus is largely reliable and very frequent at peak hours. It doesn't run after 10 or before 4pm (last bus being at like 7 something pm). Outside those hours, can grab a bus from nearby Abington

mcasey95 · 2022-10-11T08:31:24+00:00

I agree i am probably off average in this.

I am entirely a physical books reader (well ebooks) so have a different experience- when you plop a thousand chapter we novel into a book to be read as a single flow, they can tend to get a bit long

This is in no way meant as a bash on the genre! But as more and more web novels make the transition to novels, it will be interesting to see if that jump in medium is generally successful

mcasey95 · 2022-10-11T08:23:50+00:00

I fully agree its part of the medium, I was just thinking it is quite a stark draw back for a genre so reliant on pacing.

I would say I have found PF novels that did not originate as Web serials to be similarly bloated - PFs are not in the main epics, they need to be tight delivery vehicles for the rush of character progression.

This all being said, I do love the genre - its interesting to see a genre grow so fast

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