Welcome to Dan’s brain

The contents of my head are not useful if they stay in there, so I regularly copy-paste them onto the internet, into this very website. Here you can find most of the things I am thinking about, in the form of a higgledy heap of half-finished notebooks and occasional polished essays. Themes include whatever shiny thing distracted me into taking notes, including, but not limited to,

Not what you are looking for? You might be after information about me, or my other projects.

☟ Oh, and there is a decorative, confusing 3d-spatial map of the blog hidden in the topic map section.

Show topic map

Economics of foundation models

agents
bounded compute
collective knowledge
economics
edge computing
extended self
faster pussycat
incentive mechanisms
innovation
language
machine learning
neural nets
NLP
swarm
technology
UI
when to compute

Organising a music collection

computers are awful
faster pussycat
making things
music
search
signal processing
standards

Southeast Asia

place
Southeast Asia

Building AI Agents

computers are awful together
faster pussycat
language
machine learning
neural nets
NLP
premature optimization
technology
UI

Advice on advice

algebra
graphical models
how do science
machine learning
networks
probability
statistics

Causality, agency, decisions

adaptive
agents
cooperation
economics
evolution
extended self
game theory
incentive mechanisms
learning
mind
networks
social graph
utility
wonk

Aligning AI systems

adversarial
classification
communicating
feature construction
game theory
high d
language
machine learning
metrics
mind
NLP

AI search

boring
computers are awful together
faster pussycat
incentive mechanisms
mind
NLP
provenance
search
wonk

Urbanism

buzzword
cooperation
culture
design
diy
economics
housing
incentive mechanisms
institutions
insurgency
making things
policy
spatial
straya
the rather superior sort of city
wonk

Continuing to do obviously complicated things in a naïve way that doesn’t work

adaptive
collective knowledge
cooperation
culture
economics
evolution
faster pussycat
incentive mechanisms
institutions
mind
networks
snarks
sociology
wonk

Hydra for tracking machine learning experiments

computers are awful
faster pussycat
how do science
premature optimization
provenance
python

Gaussian Ensemble Belief Propagation

approximation
Bayes
distributed
dynamical systems
generative
graphical models
machine learning
Monte Carlo
networks
optimization
particle
probabilistic algorithms
probability
sciml
signal processing
state space models
statistics
stochastic processes
time series

Quarto integrated website system

academe
faster pussycat
how do science
javascript
julia
language
making things
plain text
premature optimization
python
R
writing

Ensemble Kalman updates are empirical Matheron updates

Bayes
distributed
dynamical systems
generative
linear algebra
machine learning
Monte Carlo
optimization
particle
probabilistic algorithms
probability
sciml
signal processing
state space models
statistics
stochastic processes
swarm
time series

Quarto

academe
faster pussycat
how do science
javascript
julia
language
making things
plain text
premature optimization
python
R
writing

Fediverse

computers are awful together
confidentiality
distributed
diy
economics
P2P

Computational complexity results in Neural Nets

compsci
machine learning
making things
neural nets

Research discovery and synthesis

academe
collective knowledge
faster pussycat
how do science
institutions
mind
networks
provenance
sociology
wonk

Misinformation, disinformation etc

adversarial
catastrophe
computers are awful together
confidentiality
democracy
economics
evolution
game theory
incentive mechanisms
insurgency
networks
P2P
provenance
social graph
virality
wonk

Gradient steps to an ecology of mind

adaptive
agents
collective knowledge
cooperation
culture
economics
energy
evolution
extended self
game theory
gene
incentive mechanisms
learning
mind
networks
probability
social graph
sociology
statistics
statmech
utility
wonk

Incentive alignment problems

adversarial
economics
extended self
faster pussycat
game theory
incentive mechanisms
institutions
networks
security
swarm
tail risk

Data summarization

approximation
estimator distribution
functional analysis
information
linear algebra
model selection
optimization
probabilistic algorithms
probability
signal processing
sparser than thou
statistics
when to compute

Free images

content
making things
photon choreography

Attention management tips for web browsing

bounded compute
computers are awful
computers are awful together
faster pussycat
incentive mechanisms
mind
standards
UI

Voice fakes

dynamical systems
language
machine learning
NLP
optimization
signal processing
time series

Windows Subsystem for Linux

computers are awful
MS Windows
POSIX

Distilling Neural Nets

machine learning
model selection
neural nets
optimization
when to compute

submitit

computers are awful
computers are awful together
concurrency hell
distributed
premature optimization
python

Code generation, programming assistants

faster pussycat
language
machine learning
making things
neural nets
NLP
real time
signal processing
stringology
time series
UI

Generative AI workflows and hacks 2025

economics
faster pussycat
innovation
language
machine learning
neural nets
NLP
stringology
technology
UI

Australia in data

data sets
place
Southeast Asia
straya

Diffusion of innovations

adaptive
collective knowledge
economics
hidden variables
incentive mechanisms
institutions
mind
networks
social graph
sociology
technology
virality
wonk

Bitter lessons in compute and cleverness

bounded compute
functional analysis
machine learning
model selection
optimization
statmech
when to compute

Adaptive design of experiments

functional analysis
how do science
model selection
optimization
surrogate
when to compute

Democratization of generative AI

agents
bounded compute
collective knowledge
concurrency hell
distributed
economics
edge computing
extended self
faster pussycat
incentive mechanisms
innovation
language
machine learning
neural nets
NLP
swarm
technology
UI

Being stroppy

adaptive
collective knowledge
economics
evolution
game theory
networks
social graph
sociology

VS Code online and networked

computers are awful together
faster pussycat
plain text
UI
workflow

Making good intertemporal decisions

bounded compute
economics
faster pussycat
incentive mechanisms
mind
utility

Sparse regression

estimator distribution
functional analysis
linear algebra
model selection
probability
signal processing
sparser than thou
statistics

Regression with functional data

calculus
dynamical systems
functional analysis
Hilbert space
nonparametric
sparser than thou
time series

Dynamics of recommender systems at societal scale

classification
collective knowledge
confidentiality
culture
economics
ethics
faster pussycat
game theory
how do science
incentive mechanisms
innovation
language
machine learning
mind
neural nets
NLP
sociology
stringology
technology
UI
wonk

Goodhart’s Law

economics
game theory
incentive mechanisms
institutions
machine learning
optimization
statistics
utility

Ageing

drugs
faster pussycat
fit
gene
health
mind

Scaling laws for very large neural nets

bounded compute
functional analysis
machine learning
model selection
optimization
statmech
when to compute

The blogosphere

academe
faster pussycat
how do science
plain text
workflow
writing

Blame engineering

adaptive
cooperation
culture
economics
engineering
ethics
incentive mechanisms
institutions
wonk
No matching items