read through some HN comments the other day and felt so intelligent by comparison. I’m kind of a dipshit so don’t get that feeling many places. just there and /r/adviceanimals really

ok. this stackexchange answer suggests “at least” 810 gp as the cost for a wizard to cast wish.

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/138091/how-much-should-you-pay-a-wizard-for-casting-your-wish-spell-scroll-for-you#138094

the cost of gp has little relation to that of modern currency. but in DND settings a goat costs one gp, and I am just going to bullshit and say goats are roughly as valuable irl as they are in the vaguely 18th century englandish default vibe of dnd. based on this goats as a store of value theory, we need to pay the wizard at least 810 goats.

now the cost of a goat depends greatly on its age and type, but we can guess that the cost of an adult dairy goat will be about 750 USD: https://rurallivingtoday.com/livestock/how-much-does-a-goat-cost/

in Australian dollars, the cost comes out to about $13,000. we now need to consult an Australia expert. @dgerard@awful.systems, is paying a wizard 13,000 Australian dollars to cast a tik tok protection spell over Australia a superior deal to paying an ai company however much to detect age from hand motions?

so openai is claimed to be doing great on the FrontierMath dataset. I’ve already seen the usual sort of dipshits using this to pump ai on reddit, and here’s a post that went to the frontpage on HN:

https://xenaproject.wordpress.com/2024/12/22/can-ai-do-maths-yet-thoughts-from-a-mathematician/

(tl;dr only a few problems from the dataset are public but if representative the problems are about 25% survivable by an undergrad; coincidentally this is the % openai says their models are completing.)

this post is by kevin buzzard. he has a let’s say not easily beloved personality, but I don’t think of him as credulous or grifty, and people in his area regard him as an excellent mathematician.

he points out but I think does not focus enough on how discrediting the secretive nature of the dataset is. the fact that you can’t make it public is necessary to run such experiments in a scientifically reasonable way, but also makes it totally impossible to run the experiment in a scientifically reasonable way. an experiment which cannot be examined or reproduced is actually the opposite of science. it’s pure grift fuel

do you have any thoughts on why these wealthy and powerful public figures have all chosen this extraordinarily unusual aesthetic

very interesting, thank you for sharing

anyone know of an applicable rpg spell here. I want to know how much this would cost

“no,” he says, “miku-tan will have a banana juice.”

a libertarian, a pedophile and an early crypto enthusiast walk into a bar

genuine question https://mathstodon.xyz/@sc_griffith/113680680638530340

most people who are considered skilled programmers seem to know very little math (by my arbitrary standards), so I wouldn’t worry about it. if you get that the remainder of 8 divided by 5 is 3 then you’re 99% of the way there

if you think about it the human mind is really just a kind of naturally arising artificial intelligence #Deep

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(also, I might take on a roguelike project in Godot myself… there’s a new library I want to try which implements my favorite way to do game logic for roguelikes)

this looks really cool 👀

that was a joke about abstract mathematics. anyway I’m not much of a programmer but I have found I’ve learned a lot from working on godot stuff, so I second that recommendation

well, first you’ll need a solid grounding in the theory of categories

wittle hary pawter

I really don’t get it. they see something they don’t understand and immediately start writhing on their keyboards in rage. “what the FUCK is THIS”

it’s definitely linked to rationalism (and various far right bullshits), which right away means people who get into it are likely to be at least cult adjacent. not the most stable spot to be in, psychologically

tangent, as a callow youth I listened to rationally speaking, which used to be a cohosted show with julia galef and massimo pigluicci. mostly after leaving the show (I think?), pigluicci ended up getting really into stoicism and would post shit about how unhappiness is purely one’s own choice etc. when I asked him if jewish people in WWII concentration camps were just choosing to be unhappy he was like yes. so, yeah, that’s stoicism for you

there has to be difficulty determining what the most ethical choice is to have an “ethical dilemma.” when the options are “do something unethical or don’t” that’s the opposite of an ethical dilemma!

Journalists will also face ethical dilemmas as prediction markets are normalized. Should reporters participate in markets they cover?

sorry, what exactly is the dilemma here? how is it an ethical dilemma to have an unethical way to make money?

The rise of prediction markets raises questions about ethics and regulation. Current platforms are primed for market manipulation, insider trading, and the potential for bad actors to game the system. Platforms will need to enforce rigorous safeguards to maintain credibility and prevent misinformation from being incentivized.

lmaooooooo