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 about it, including, but not limited to,

You might be after information about me generally, or what I am doing right now.

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Commitment, contracts, cooperation

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

Garbled highlights from ICLR 2025

neural nets
South East Asia
statistics

Bayesian epistemics

adaptive
agents
bounded compute
collective knowledge
control
cooperation
distributed
economics
evolution
extended self
game theory
how do science
incentive mechanisms
institutions
learning
machine learning
mind
networks
provenance
sociology
squad
standards
swarm
utility

Learning with theory of mind

adaptive
agents
bandit problems
bounded compute
collective knowledge
control
cooperation
distributed
economics
evolution
extended self
game theory
incentive mechanisms
learning
machine learning
mind
networks
swarm
utility

Design of multi-agent systems

agents
bounded compute
collective knowledge
concurrency hell
distributed
economics
edge computing
extended self
game theory
incentive mechanisms
machine learning
networks
swarm

Quarto

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

Web browser automation

browser
computers are awful together
confidentiality
diy
doing internet
faster pussycat

Code generation, programming assistants

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

q-exponential process

Gaussian
Hilbert space
kernel tricks
Lévy processes
nonparametric
regression
spatial
stochastic processes
time series

Python

computers are awful
python

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

Mechanistic interpretability

communicating
feature construction
high d
language
machine learning
metrics
mind
NLP
sparser than thou
statmech
stochastic processes

Which self?

economics
ethics
extended self
gene
incentive mechanisms
institutions
mind
utility

Knowledge geometry

collective knowledge
how do science
stringology
topology

AI search

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

Graphical model / machine learning decoder ring

algebra
graphical models
hidden variables
hierarchical models
how do science
machine learning
networks
neural nets
probability
statistics
when to compute

Conflict theoretic models

adaptive
bounded compute
cooperation
culture
economics
evolution
game theory
incentive mechanisms
networks
wonk

Configuring machine learning experiments with Fiddle

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

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

Flashcards

faster pussycat
language
learning
mind

Databases (for scientists)

computers are awful
concurrency hell
data sets

DIY social networks and social-groupware

computers are awful together
confidentiality
distributed
diy
economics
P2P

Indieweb, small web, cozy web

communicating
computers are awful together
diy
doing internet

Secure chat systems

communicating
computers are awful
confidentiality
encryption

Human domestication

agents
cooperation
culture
distributed
economics
evolution
extended self
incentive mechanisms
language
mind
utility
wonk

Editing images using a GUI

computers are awful
generative art
making things
photon choreography

Configuring machine learning experiments

computers are awful
faster pussycat
how do science
premature optimization
provenance

Real estate economics

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

Git tricks

computers are awful
provenance
workflow

Pathwise solutions of stochastic differential equations

dynamical systems
Lévy processes
probability
sciml
SDEs
signal processing
stochastic processes
time series

Scalable vector graphics

computers are awful
faster pussycat
photon choreography

Generative AI workflows and hacks 2025

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

Text data processing

computers are awful
data sets
plain text
stringology

Won’t somebody think of the children?

cooperation
culture
economics
ethics
evolution
incentive mechanisms
mind
social graph
utility
wonk

Multimodal AI

approximation
Bayes
generative
Monte Carlo
neural nets
optimization
probabilistic algorithms
probability
score function
statistics

Email blogs and newsletters

academe
faster pussycat
how do science
plain text
workflow
writing

Indonesia

nusantara
place
Southeast Asia

Feedback system identification, not necessarily linear

calculus
dynamical systems
geometry
how do science
Lévy processes
machine learning
PDEs
physics
regression
sciml
SDEs
signal processing
statistics
statmech
stochastic processes
time series
uncertainty

Developmental interpretability

Bayes
bounded compute
dynamical systems
feature construction
high d
language
machine learning
metrics
mind
NLP
sparser than thou
statmech
stochastic processes

Human enthalpy

cooperation
culture
economics
evolution
incentive mechanisms
mind
social graph
utility
wonk

Free images

content
making things
photon choreography

Neural nets that do symbolic mathematics, logic and other reasoning tasks

compsci
language
machine learning
meta learning
networks
neural nets
NLP
stringology

Syncthing

computers are awful
computers are awful together
concurrency hell
distributed
diy
P2P

Causal abstraction

approximation
Bayes
causal
generative
graphical models
language
machine learning
meta learning
neural nets
NLP
probabilistic algorithms
probability
statistics
stringology
time series
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