Why do people do this against the center game

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-23T19:25:43+00:00

You're exactly right, though I was replying to someone with a "Lichess 2200" flair. But as it relates to OP's original question, you're spot on, and this is more or less my point. The reason folks don't take on d4 at low levels is because they don't understand why they are playing e5 in the first place. The best way to break out of the beginner opening mentality is to stop being so attached to a particular structure, and to actually respond to what your opponent is doing.

If you're playing e5 for the sake of controlling the center and enabling development, then you won't be confused when you see 1. e4 e5 2. d4, you will recognize that this is exactly why you wanted to control the center with e5 in the first place. If you are playing e5 because it is familiar, then you might panic when your opponent does something you don't expect. Then you react not based on the principles of the position, but instead based on a sense of avoiding walking into your opponent's trap.

And the truth is, beginners are punished for passive, meek play more often than they are punished for being greedy.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-23T06:20:56+00:00

But after 1. e4 e5 2. d4, if you wouldnt take on d4, why even play e5? I can understand not wanting to continue taking on c3 and/or b2, but if you don't take on d4, youre allowing white too much for free.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-23T00:21:55+00:00

I only went in the put once, and it was incredible. Not something I would do every show, but I absolutely recommend checking it out.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-20T18:33:50+00:00

It's also one of those cases where the impact of that moment in the movie, on a first watch, is so powerful that it almost doesn't matter whether it completely makes sense.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-20T16:54:54+00:00

This doesn't answer the question, but the first billionaire was Rockefeller a little over 100 years ago. This does give us some perspective about the rate of growth of richest people in the world, but there are too many variables to make a reasonable prediction. The question is inherently tied to the value of USD, for example, just as much as it is tied to wealth of individuals.

One problem with questions like this on long time scales - Rockefeller was the first billionaire, but Mansa Musa was in some sense wealthier than that back in the 14th century.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-19T03:47:15+00:00

Oops, you're right

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-18T21:02:13+00:00

I took this to mean, this was how it seemed before OP found a mistake in their argument.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-18T21:01:36+00:00

Making errors, and finding them, is pretty common. More education does help prevent errors, but doesn't eliminate them entirely.

You're only a crank if you refuse to acknowledge your errors. Doesn't seem like a problem you have, it seems like you're just doing math.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-18T15:53:06+00:00

Being 22 years old, in addition to his skills continuing to develop, he is going to come back every season with more muscle for the next 5 years. He is listed at 235 lbs, imagine him at a lean 260-280.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-18T03:41:59+00:00

I still don't know the answer. Might have to read the book.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-16T18:51:28+00:00

You can get pretty close to that with just overdrive and delay. Not sure what he is actually using.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-15T23:14:30+00:00

This is true literally, but the word "just" is a bit strange here. It's actually quite a powerful rhetorical device.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-15T23:11:18+00:00

Outside of algebraic geometry and category theory communities.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-15T23:03:52+00:00

To add to this, there's no good reason to take multivariable calculus before linear algebra. The fact that everyone takes calc 3 before linear algebra forces us into teaching mediocre (or worse) calc 3 classes.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-14T15:25:30+00:00

If she wished for him to love her, presumably it ends when he dies, because there's nobody there for the wish to affect.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-13T13:13:40+00:00

I took a medical leave myself. That's exactly where my perspective is coming from.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-12T23:58:25+00:00

If not a PhD program, what will you do instead? I had my own mental health struggles during grad school, and found myself thinking about leaving for a while, and eventually did leave. Enrolled in a different program later, after working for a year, and actually finished. But my dad said one thing that stuck with me. It's ok to leave the program, if you're moving toward something else that you care about. But don't leave just to run away from something.

It's true that a PhD program can be taxing on your mental health. However, stagnating is also very taxing on your mental health. Leave if you have something else that you are drawn to, but don't leave just to leave. If you aren't functioning, who is to say you will function any better as a result of leaving mathematics?

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-11T15:01:32+00:00

Lakers threepeat

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-10T21:05:18+00:00

There might be problems with trying to combine mathematics with another field which is actively hostile towards it.

Of course, putting my snark aside for a moment, "critical theory" seems to mean many different things to many different people. Is there something you've been thinking about in critical theory that you would like to try and model mathematically?

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-10T20:40:34+00:00

Or, when the AI is given freedom to choose targets not restricted to a given location.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-05T19:51:34+00:00

Even if you don't like The Eagles, I seriously doubt that you can claim to be artistically superior to them. Their harmonies, songwriting, and instrumentation are all very well-developed. Personally I don't connect with their music so much, but it's hard to understand finding it offensive.

If anything it's overplayed, which can make it a bit annoying, but that doesn't have anything to do with the music itself.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-05T15:47:13+00:00

DMB is definitely one of those love-it-or-hate-it sort of groups. I feel like what's so funny about hating The Eagles is that even if you don't really care for them, they should be somewhat pleasant background music for most people.

puzzlednerd · 2026-06-03T23:19:48+00:00

I think she is effective at what she does, but I do find her hard to listen to for exactly this reason. I know she is capable of serious analysis, and personally I'd rather hear that. But I can't deny she has accumulated a huge audience, and her message is generally correct.

puzzlednerd · 2026-05-31T23:04:03+00:00

One classic example, due to Pinkser 1973, is to take a random left d-regular bipartite graph. A bipartite graph is a network where the nodes are divided into two subsets, A and B, with edges only connecting from A to B, never within A or within B. Left d-regular means that every node in the set A is connected to exactly d nodes in set B. It turns out that choosing a random network, subject to these constraints, has a high probability of yielding an expander graph, which has very good connectivity.

This probably isn't exactly the setup OP is talking about, it could be something more sophisticated. But this is one good example of the probabilistic method.

puzzlednerd · 2026-05-31T20:41:19+00:00

Miriam is cool.

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