I've decided to post these in weekly batches. This is the fifth of five. I'm posting these here because Blogspot's comment apparatus sucks and also because no one will comment otherwise. Because this is the last week and because there's only two posts in it, I'm also going to mention a few highlights and talk about what went well and what missed the mark.
29. My PhD Thesis: Part 1: Preliminaries - Algebra, Topology, Algebraic Topology
Surprise! We've actually been thinking about the basics of algebraic topology this whole time, skipping right past the horrors of point-set topology...
Every topological space has a fundamental group. Some of them are extremely weird. (Your search term here to start off down that rabbit hole is "Hawaiian earring space".)
30. Atoms to Agents As Filtered Through Some Tame Research-Creature
Tools are not agents, but they're almost agents. They have no goal, but seem to be clearly designed for some purpose, or have been subjected to some kind of selection pressure comparable in optimization strength to intentional design. They are always composed of other tools, all the way down to atoms; they are the bedrock of our theory. I claim no constraint on their actionspace, or the actionspace expansion that they afford to an agent wielding them. Hammers, bones, pens, ribosomes, and spoons are all tools; viruses are marginal.
Highlights! I've picked out the handful of posts with the ~most reads after a little while, and the handful that I was most proud of. I'll crosspost the best couple of each category at some point.
Highlights (as judged by estimated readers/day, measured on 12/9):
All others had <1.34 readers/day.
Highlights (as judged by me and what I thought were my best posts):
...OK I'd thought these were going to be substantially different from the reader's choice highlights but they mostly overlap. A few notable posts that I really liked but don't seem to have got a ton of attention: Seven-ish Evidentials From My Thought-Language, The Ultimate Sylow Theorem Guide for Algebra Quals, A Partial Theory of Flavor Pairing in Foodcraft, What's the Type of an Ontological Mismatch?, and In Defense of Boring Doom: A Pessimist's Case for Better Pessimism.
Ultimately, though, I was pretty happy with like half of these posts.
Postmortem! What was I hoping to get out of this? What went well, and what could have gone better? What could I have done to get more out of Budget Inkhaven Halfhaven?
As ever, I accept public feedback here, and private feedback at https://admonymous.co/lorxus .