Culture & ideas
691 discoveries · Hand-picked discoveries from the open web, newest first.
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The Power Broker Book Review
When Robert Moses, the subject of Robert Caro's The Power Broker, fought for his vision of parks, bridges, and expressways in Long Island and New York City, the single most important tool at his disposal was his power. When his dreams met the resistance of his opposition, the outcome of each conflict reflected the balance of power on each side. When Moses prevailed, it was because of power. Though it is also a biography of Moses and a study of 20th century urban planning and civil engineering, this book shines as a treatise on power: how it is acquired, used, and lost. Moses has long faded int
LessWrong · EN
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Against strawmanning unilateral pauses
Summary: Scott Alexander’s Against SURA post is arguing against a strawman version of unilateral pauses. He admits as much deep into the post. I think his conclusions fail against stronger pause plans for conditional or limited unilateral pauses, where training resumes if the pause does not cause others to pause, and where personnel are redirected toward work on alignment and product, rather than simply fired. In addition, Scott’s post is incorrect about the simplicity of the game theory involved: getting companies to agree to conditional pauses is not strictly easier than convincing them to p
LessWrong · EN
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Organizations I'd recommend for funding
I was a grant evaluator for Lightcone Commons last round. Funders disbursed about $45mil through the program, and this included funding roughly my first $6.8 million worth of recommendations. There are other projects I would've preferred to fund over what I did fund, but nobody was doing them and so they weren't on offer. Here's a series of projects that I'd fund in the next round, in rough order of priority. The next round is starting now, and is scheduled to end mid-December. I expect rounds to continue at similar speed. I expect similar amounts of funding will route through me in future rou
LessWrong · EN
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You can't make an omelette without breaking some urns
TL;DR In this post, we investigate two methods that aim to improve training efficiency over standard PPO for a grid world RL agent. In our experiments these methods can converge on better policies, but take roughly twice as long to do so. This project was done in the context of an ARENA 8.0 capstone project. Our code is available on GitHub . Introduction Reinforcement learning agents are trained to maximise a given reward function in their training environments. Common failure modes of the training process are reward hacking and goal misgeneralisation, roughly corresponding to outer and inner
LessWrong · EN
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Limiting Charging to 80%
In an ideal world the incentives on phone manufacturers would be to optimize useful lifetime, but instead people buy phones based on their as-new performance. Which means phones charge to 100% even though that's bad for the battery. Every time I get a new phone it feels a bit like magic : I no longer need to think at all about battery life. This lasts for a few years, and then at some point my phone doesn't always make it through the day. Some amount of this is normal, but some of it is just bad battery management: new phones should come set not to charge past 80%. Charging a lithium-ion batte
LessWrong · EN
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The Missing Product Layers in AI Safety
Epistemic Status: We’re highly confident in how the larger tech industry defines roles, makes decisions and builds products based on our years of experience in it. We’re fairly confident in the frontier labs operational models based on their job postings. Our suggestions for what to build and how to have gone through some pressure testing, and confidence could be raised through discussion with leaders in AI Safety to further understand what makes this space unique. Intro Frontier labs have adopted proven methodologies from tech to build their capabilities using matrixed organizations, includin
LessWrong · EN
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The Gilded Age review – what did we do to deserve such a terrible stinker?
Julian Fellowes’ high-society period drama has, somehow, picked up Emmys and reached its fourth series. Poor Meryl Streep must feel so awkward watching her daughter Louisa Jacobson in such a uniformly awful show A doctor with a fully qualified moustache races up a carriageway towards an immaculate stately home. “I fear we should have sent for you sooner!” says the lady who greets him on the doorstep as the screams of a woman in drug-free labour rattle the windows in their frames. Oh, ya think? is not Dr Moustache’s reply. When this many cliches assemble so quickly, it can only mean one thing:
Guardian Culture · EN
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Martha Stewart makes a grave Halloween costume mistake
The lifestyle mogul's tasteless choice to dress up as a homeless person has fans questioning her judgment
Salon · EN
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“The sitting president doesn’t win”: Ahead of midterms, Trump reflects on himself
As early voting breaks records, the president harps on Washington construction projects and "communist jihadists"
Salon · EN
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Control of Congress Is on the Line. Time for Trump to … Talk a Lot About Plumbing?
Trump's closing midterms message has to be heard to be believed.
Slate · EN
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The Mega-Rich Backlash Has Claimed Its Latest Victim. I Never Thought It Would Be Her.
Her brand of vaguely attainable homemaking makes it easy to forget who she really is. Then we saw her costume.
Slate · EN
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The Saga of Haley Stevens’ Fiancé Keeps Getting Weirder
Elizabeth and Billy have nothing on Haley and Jason.
Slate · EN
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What the polls can’t tell us about the midterms
This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here. We’re at T-minus eight hours until Election Day — at least here on the East Coast — and Democrats are likely feeling good about their electoral odds right now. The party is strongly favored […]
Vox · EN
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Trump’s final midterms pitch: Look at my pool
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is closing out the midterms by talking about anything but. What’s happening? If polls bear out, Republicans are a day away from a […]
Vox · EN
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In defense of the dilettante. Unfairly dismissed as a dabbler, he is in fact a tonic for our overspecialized world
In defense of the dilettante. Unfairly dismissed as a dabbler, he is in fact a tonic for our overspecialized world
Arts & Letters Daily · EN
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The last Shakespearean. The professional literary specialist is increasingly an endangered species
The last Shakespearean. The professional literary specialist is increasingly an endangered species
Arts & Letters Daily · EN
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The philosopher Bernard Williams refused every ism. That made him hard to pin down. And hard to refute
The philosopher Bernard Williams refused every ism. That made him hard to pin down. And hard to refute
Arts & Letters Daily · EN
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Daily Cartoon: Monday, November 2nd
A drawing that riffs on the latest news and happenings.
The New Yorker · EN
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Reliving the Bronx’s Biggest Battle
In 1776, Continental Army soldiers defended what is now Glover’s Rock from the British. The other day, reënactors did it all again at Orchard Beach.
The New Yorker · EN
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Who Thought This Ad Was a Good Idea?
Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas is using his final campaign message to call attention to the biggest criticism of him.
The Atlantic · EN
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Trump’s Venezuela Project Just Got a Lot More Complicated
The return of María Corina Machado puts the U.S.-backed regime on the clock.
The Atlantic · EN
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Maybe Donald Trump Doesn’t Want His Party to Win the Midterms
If he does, he’s certainly picking a strange way of showing it.
The Atlantic · EN
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置き場所に困らない。小さくても3画面対応のAcerの新型ミニPC
Acerから約13cm四方のコンパクトなデスクトップPC「Revo Box」が登場。Windows 11を搭載し、日常使いに十分な性能を確保。3画面同時出力や2系統の有線LANにも対応します。VESAマウントでモニター裏にも設置でき、机を広く使いたい人や家族共有用のPCを探している人にぴったりの1台です。
Lifehacker JP · JA