Links from the past weeks 

  • Downs–Thomson paradox

    The equilibrium speed of car traffic on a road network is determined by the average door-to-door speed of equivalent journeys taken by public transport; improvements in the road network will not reduce congestion and improvements in the road network can make congestion worse if the improvements make public transport more inconvenient or if they cause disinvestment in the public transport system.



  • GPT models are actually reasoning engines not knowledge databases

    “Even though our AI models were trained by reading the whole internet, that training mostly enhances their reasoning abilities not how much they know. And so, the performance of today’s AI models is constrained by their lack of knowledge.”



  • Cang Lan Jue is a Visual Feast inspired by Hades & Persephone

    I was recommended to watch this, and did not expect the high level of CGI wizardry. It was a visual treat, and a break from the overly sexualised storylines you get from most other things one watches on Netflix. Reminds me of the shows we watched as children, but with much better computer graphics.



  • Why EY and its rivals may eventually break up, after all

    Because the audit business is in conflict with the consulting/ advice business. Amazing how the conflict of interests rules don’t apply to some professions.



  • To fend off creepy guys online, Chinese women gather around ‘baby solid food’

    The hashtag, associated with parenting, means the algorithm pushes the content mainly to women. I am guessing there will be various other hashtags one has to use to get away from creeps.



  • I was today years old when I learned about asparagus pee. (I can’t smell it.)



  • The Benner Cycle Predicts 100+ Years of Market Movement

    Someone once told me about 11-year cycle, but in recent years, the cycles are much harder to interpret.



  • The Dubious Wisdom of Smart Brevity

    “Personally, I cannot imagine sending a note with the brusque subject line “our chief of staff quit.” I suspect this is a gender thing: I spent much of my early professional years inserting exclamations into e-mails so as not to sound like a stone-hearted ice witch.”

    We can all learn to write more concisely, but the ideology behind Smart Brevity may not be so universal, as this writer eloquently explains: “Smart Brevity is essentially a book about how to write a good e-mail. (And honestly it probably could have been a long e-mail.)”