research

Bilingual

Four Types of Thinker
2 months ago
- The study found that people's thoughts are dominated by work, coffee, and a desire to return to bed.
- Four distinct groups of thinkers were identified: worriers, domestics, bodily thinkers, and work-hard-play-hards.
- Thoughts follow daily rhythms, with work prominent during the day and entertainment in the evening.
- About half of all thoughts are intentional, while the rest are intrusive or accidental.
- Sensory information and mental impressions account for nearly 20% of thoughts, followed by work (17%) and food (14%).
- Desires often focus on food or drink (especially coffee) and relaxation, including naps and sleep.
- The study supports Marcus Aurelius' idea that the quality of one's thoughts predicts happiness.
Travel notes: PLDI Boulder
2 months ago
- Attended PLDI conference in Boulder, meeting many new people and engaging in research discussions.
- Participated in workshops on e-graphs and learned about Knuth-Bendix completion.
- Collaborated on implementing linear scan register allocation in Datalog.
- Attended talks on versioned e-graphs, streaming BPE tokenization, and compiler topics.
- Had informal coding sessions and social events with colleagues, including trying to implement Knuth-Bendix.
- Ended the conference with a book shopping spree and reading Anathem.
Antibodies on command? - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- Antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients can provide temporary immunity or faster healing, but limited supply makes this infeasible for everyone.
- A new Chinese study successfully isolated over 200 antibodies from 8 recovered patients, cloned them, and tested their ability to neutralize the virus.
- One antibody, P2C-1F11, blocked half the virus's infectivity at a concentration of only 100 nanograms per milliliter (less than 1 in 10 million).
- The researchers also performed genetic analysis of the antibodies and confirmed they are specific to the virus, not binding to unintended targets.
- While cloning and producing these antibodies is promising for research, it remains uncertain whether they can be safely and rapidly manufactured for human treatment.
- The author notes that this kind of research seemed impossible a month ago but is now a reality, though it may be ready for future outbreaks rather than the current one.
Your pie doesn't need to be original (unless you claim it so)
2 months ago
- Sharing a creative project often invites criticism about its novelty, but for personal projects, originality is not the goal.
- The mismatch in values occurs between personal creative acts (e.g., baking a pie for enjoyment) and academic or community contributions (e.g., advancing pie-baking techniques), which require positioning work in context.
- To avoid confusion, creators should clarify their intent upfront, but in practice, projects often evolve from playful exploration to serious research.
- Starting with a playful mindset encourages creativity and reduces early doubts, while beginning with a serious goal invites harsh critique.
- Feedback-givers should understand the creator's goals, especially when the creator may not yet know them.
Blog prize for big questions about AI
2 months ago
- Dwarkesh Patel announces a $20,000 blog prize to find a research collaborator for AI questions.
- Prizes: $10,000 (1st), $6,000 (2nd), $4,000 (3rd). Submit by May 10th, 11:59 PM PST.
- Choose one of several deep questions about AI progress, profitability, philanthropy, or global impact.
- Entries must be under 1,000 words; LLMs allowed but not recommended for these ambiguous questions.
- The contest aims to hire a researcher to help answer critical AI questions for his podcast and blog.
- The role is ideally in San Francisco, with competitive pay, and open to remote.

research

Four Types of Thinker

Travel notes: PLDI Boulder

Antibodies on command? - Bert Hubert's writings

Your pie doesn't need to be original (unless you claim it so)

Blog prize for big questions about AI