It's a fitted Bradley Terry model, scaled to familiar Elo scores, anchored to wins against Mixtral-8x7B at 1114 (at least last time I looked at it). When you fit the model against historical data, and then you add another month of time that contains newer models, the relative strength of a given model might decline even if its absolute ability remained fixed.
It's kind of an illusion when you think about it. "Whose turn it is" is an inseparable part of the game state. If any move makes the game state worse this turn, then the game state was already bad before this turn.
You can infer the game state from way before a zugzwang is played out on the board, and if you're on the losing side of the eventual zugzwang, it's normal to resign.
But if you were allowed to pass your turn, and both players see the draw coming because of a forced repetition, they'll just call it a draw before it even plays out. So the game would play out differently from the same position, if that rule existed. Essentially changing the way you would evaluate any given position.
Prediction markets have realized that they will lose potential customers if they don't prevent insider trading. Kalshi already has a policy banning politicians from trading. Presumably they understand this, so while I'm glad to see the rule, I wouldn't say it's that self-sacrificing.
It's not a perfect analogy because of factors that affect individual policies, such as the replacement cost of the home, moving next to a fireworks store, moving into a flood zone, etc. You pay more when your home is more at risk.
Oversimplification. Businesses can exist when the the cost of a good is less than the price they can get. There are many possible prices that this might be true, and there is some price that maximizes net profit.
When an item's margin becomes large, the risk/reward equation becomes favorable for new competition to come in. That puts downward pressure on prices.
For a given good, let's say that tariffs increased the business's cost for that good. If that cost goes away and the price stays constant, then the margin increases. That triggers more competition.
> we also need to talk about the effects of cannabis use on neurodivergent folks.
"Neurodivergent" lacks a well-defined meaning. What is it about someone for whom you would define as neurodivergent that makes cannabis more harmful than someone someone for whom you wouldn't label as neurodivergent?
For a while I thought I really liked sci fi novels and short stories, and maybe that's somewhat true. But I've started wondering if maybe I just liked Asimov's writing in particular. Other writers in the genre are more hit or miss. Can anyone recommend other writers that are on his level?
It wasn't until I discovered I was on the spectrum that I realized why it clicked so much. >.< I'm masking all the time, running conversational simulations to anticipate the societally-expected response to any given situation (and am high on the IQ spectrum).
It's not really sci-fi but I also really enjoyed The Merchant And The Alchemist's Gate, and the one about the tower of babel, I forget the name at the moment.
Have you tried Arthur Clarke? I would say he is close to Asimov in many ways, being from the same time.
For others who share some similarities, though with a greater emphasis on character and adventure, perhaps Hal Clement, Larry Niven or Robert L. Forward.
As someone who loves the Big Three (Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein) and have read a lot of SF, I pretty much despise Bradbury. There’s no science in his science fiction.
Or even Star Trek to be honest. I don't know why Star Wars always gets passed off as "science fantasy" when it's a more grounded universe than Trek by far - space wizards notwithstanding (which Trek has plenty of.)
Even in a lot of hard SF, a lot of the science is wonky if it falls outside of the author's special interest or area of expertise. Relevant to Asimov, the only reason robots have "positronic" brains in his stories is that positrons were a new discovery at the time and it sounded cool and futuristic to him.
Space opera is still a subset of speculative fiction and science fiction, saying "just" dismisses its influence on the genre as a whole.
A lot of classic science fiction is basically "x with spaceships" where x is the Napoleonic Wars, or feudal Europe or the Wild West or what have you, and the "science" is little more than set dressing.
> saying "just" dismisses its influence on the genre as a whole.
Well, it was meant to be parsed as:
Star Trek is speculative fiction and space opera.
Star Wars is just space opera.
Some space opera is also speculative fiction, but I wouldn't say it is a subset. I wouldn't call some space opera stories speculative fiction at all.
They're all classified as science fiction.
(Yes, yes - there is no consensus on these terms...typically science fiction is considered a subset of speculative fiction, and here I inverted a lot of things).
Early Heinlein e.g. Have Spacesuit - Will Travel, Farmer In The Sky, The Rolling Stones or for non-juveniles, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress have lots of science.
ted chiang if you haven't already. story of your life, exhalation, the lifecycle of software objects. same thing asimov does where the sci fi premise is really just a frame for a very human question. except chiang does it in like 30 pages and you feel it for a week
>> But I've started wondering if maybe I just liked Asimov's writing in particular.
A less commonly mentioned Asimov book that I really enjoyed and will read again is "The End of Eternity". If you've not read it, the ending is IMHO amazing and unique.
Last Question reminds me of it because of the style.
Also worth reading, although a very different style is The Gods Themselves. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure there's a single Asimov book I haven't enjoyed and I've read almost all of them.
Depends what you consider on his level really. Some find the writing too dry, but maybe you like that? Have you read Dune? What about The Forever War? They are different styles but definitely enjoyed by someone who also likes Asimov.
I didn't get on with Neuromancer or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at all, though. Suspect you wouldn't either.
I also find stuff like Andy Weir way too literal, like you're basically reading a film script. Asimov leaves a lot more room for imagination.
perhaps Fredric Brown? He and Asimov were in my primary school reading anthology, and I will never thank enough the people who put the book together.
Also, I am not sure he's translated in English, but Sessanta Racconti[0] by Dino Buzzati is high on my list of fantastic short stories (not sci-fi, just.. I don't know).
A Fire Upon The Deep is a fantastic novel for programmers to read, and I think the prequel A Deepness In The Sky is even better. There are some amazing old-school coding jokes in there, like that everyone thinks the universal time counter started at the first moon landing, but programmer archaeologists know it was really 15 megaseconds later.
Neal Stephenson's work is outstanding in my opinion, although some find it polarizing. My favorite of his is _Anathem_, followed closely by _Seveneves_.
Iain Banks's science fiction novels (mostly set in the Culture, but he does have others) are also great.
And the liver creates cholesterol. It even senses and reduces cholesterol output when we have too much. Except saturated fats interfere with this process.
reply