I'm doing Budget Inkhaven again! (I didn't realize last time that "Halfhaven" also meant specifically shooting for half-length posts, too.) I've decided to post these in weekly batches. This is the first of five. I'm posting these here because Blogspot's comment apparatus sucks and also because no one will comment otherwise.

1. My Exceptionally Qualified Background in Quantitative Finance, Advanced Math, and AI Safety Research

I've been getting a lot of questions lately about my background in quantitative finance, algorithmic trading, and mathematical research, so I thought I'd put together a comprehensive overview. If you're a hiring manager or recruiter looking into my background, this should give you a complete picture of my capabilities...

...And for one last question: what's today's date?

2. Zendo (Comprehensive Rules)

[I will not put examples for 3+ star Hard/Hard+ rules here. I have not deployed them in a game. No one has been ready. To attempt such might drive anyone mad. I thus will not put examples of those here. Do not try to use them.]

3. Praise the Unknown Quechuan!

Somewhere in the Andes, perhaps 8,000 years ago, some enterprising Quechuan farmer saw promise in a poisonous and barely-edible nightshade with slightly engorged tubers. They worked and selected and bred and perfected and perhaps 50 years later they died...

..."Her face was like an open word
When brave men speak and choose,
The very colours of her coat
Were better than good news...
The wise men know all evil things
Under the twisted trees,
Where the perverse in pleasure pine
And men are weary of green wine
And sick of crimson seas."

Skill issue.

4. The Compass I Wear Which Works Only At Night (And Why the Moon Matters When All Else is Lost)

I don't, to be clear, think that civilization is about to collapse - though given the shape these days of the world and of the future and of the plague-ridden recent past these days, I'm not quite as sure about that as I once was. But I think there's a particular flavor of agency that comes from having skills and tools that work no matter what else is happening around you.

5. Pending Project List

Maybe I'll get to all of these. Probably I won't. But I consider all of them worth doing and I hope I manage to get as many of these done as possible before I lose the interest or ability to craft powerfully.

6. More Reasons Why the First "High Dimension" is Six or Maybe Five

After talking with IL a bit more and doing some thinking for myself, I realized with creeping delight that the long heuristic argument that I gave for why we should consider the first qualitatively high dimension to be six or maybe five is not remotely the only one. In fact, a shocking number of strong heuristic arguments all converge on the same figure: very specifically, "six or maybe five". That is: five is marginal, and six is definite.

7. Yoda's Dance/In the Hall of the Jedi Master

(Epistemic status: a riff on existing cogtech. May not land for you unless you're a huge puzzle game nerd like me. Mild spoilers for The Witness.)