OCaml (/oʊˈkæməl/ oh-KAM-əl, formerly Objective Caml) is a general-purpose, high-level, multi-paradigm programming language which extends the Caml dialect of ML with object-oriented features. OCaml was created in 1996 by Xavier Leroy, Jérôme Vouillon,[5] Damien Doligez, Didier Rémy,[6] Ascánder Suárez, and others. The OCaml toolchain includes an interactive top-level interpreter, a bytecode compiler, an optimizing native code compiler, a reversible debugger, and a package manager (OPAM) together with a composable build system for OCaml (Dune). OCaml was initially developed in the context of automated theorem proving, and is used in static analysis and formal methods software. Beyond these areas, it has found use in systems programming, web development, and specific financial utilities, among other application domains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCaml (more)

Jon Barton has been a YouTube Red/Premium subscriber since basically day one... YouTube Premium is the mega subscription (content bundle) model you're describing, and it already works brilliantly - Google just can't market it to save their lives... YouTube splits Premium subscription revenue 55/45 with creators, just like ad revenue. But here's the kicker: it fundamentally changes the entire ecosystem. Instead of viewers being the product sold to advertisers, we become the customers. Creators get paid MORE per Premium view than ad views, without worrying about "advertiser-friendly" content guidelines. I never get that "feels bad" moment of deciding if a video is worth X cents - I just watch what interests me, guilt-free. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: AI #118: Claude Ascendant. The big news of this week was of course the release of Claude 4 Opus. I offered two review posts: One on safety and alignment, and one on mundane utility, and a bonus fun post on Google’s Veo 3. (more)

Twitter-acquired newsletter tool/service, killed Dec'2022

maker of Digital Video Cameras (more)

from Randall Collins: if there is a period in history where new ideas are produced, there are always between 3 and 6 networks linking the creative figures of one generation to the next. There are always at least two or three major figures at the same time; if a single network dominates, it is not creative (because creativity is negating what exists, taking up an oppositional position in a field).

Georg Simmel (/ˈzɪməl/; German: [ˈzɪml̩]; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, asking "what is society?"—directly alluding to Kant's "what is nature?"—presenting pioneering analyses of social individuality and fragmentation. Simmel discussed social and cultural phenomena in terms of "forms" and "contents" with a transient relationship, wherein form becomes content, and vice versa dependent on context. In this sense, Simmel was a forerunner to structuralist styles of reasoning in the social sciences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Simmel

Sprezzatura ([sprettsaˈtuːra]) is an Italian word that first appears in Baldassare Castiglione's 1528 The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it".[1] It is the ability of the courtier to display "an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them".[2] Sprezzatura has also been described "as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance".[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura See Renaissance Man (more)

book by Randall Collins. (more)

The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America is a 2001 book by Louis Menand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metaphysical_Club:_A_Story_of_Ideas_in_America (more)

This smells like a good deal: $300 for a Chromebook where the keyboard is removable, giving you a tablet. "Lenovo - IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook 2-in1 Laptop - 13.3" Full HD Touchscreen - Snapdragon 7cG2 - 8GB - 128GB eMMC - with Keyboard - Abyss Blue" (more)

Hard to resist the experiment of a $60 chromebook. "Lenovo 11.6" 100e Chromebook 2nd Gen (2019) MediaTek MT8173C 4GB RAM 16GB eMMC (Refurbished)" (more)

Randall Collins: Simmelian Numbers. 3 -- The lowest sociological number. This is the cornerstone of Georg Simmel’s “The Significance of Numbers in Social Life” [1908]. 3 is the lowest number for social structures, because it makes possible coalitions of 2-against-1, creating a dimension which transcends the immediate 1-on-1. It also creates the sense of a group, since no one individual can destroy a group of 3 or more by leaving. (more)

Computer Science post-doc (PhD) at MIT. (more)

For Hack Your Life With A Private Wiki Notebook, Getting Things Done, And Other Systems. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Monthly Roundup #20: July 2024. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: The Case Against Education (Schooling). (more)

The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money[1] is a book written by libertarian economist Bryan Caplan and published in 2018 by Princeton University Press. Drawing on the economic concept of job market signaling and research in educational psychology, the book argues that much of higher education (college education) is very inefficient and has only a small effect in improving human capital, contrary to the conventional consensus in labor economics. Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to certify their intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity—attributes that are valued by employers. He ultimately estimates that approximately 80% of individuals' return to education is the result of signaling, with the remainder due to human capital accumulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education ISBN:978-0691174655

I want to speed up the future. I work at OpenAI and I’m thinking about speeding up science at New Science. I’m most inspired by Augustine of Hippo, Aaron Swartz, Freeman Dyson, Scott Alexander, and Gwern. https://guzey.com/

Fredrik DeBoer says Scott Alexander is not in the Gizmodo Media Slack. (more)