michael_nielsen

@michael_nielsen

Searching for the numinous Research

San Francisco, CA
michaelnielsen.org
Joined July 2008
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  1. Pinned Tweet
    11 Apr 2016

    Really grateful for Twitter. Seeing the tweets flow by feels like access to some great super-genius for the ages. (Quite serious.)

    15 replies 77 retweets 525 likes
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  2. 5 hours ago

    More generally, it’s plausible that most powerful ideas are best expressed in executable form. And so unless academic journals (or their replacements in the political economy of science) become executable, more and more of the best ideas will come from outside academia

    7 replies 18 retweets 83 likes
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  3. 5 hours ago

    Now, many powerful ideas are better expressed as systems, prototypes, and protocols (http, tcp/ip, BTC, mother of all demos, Dynabook etc). But academia hasn't caught up, so much of that work is coming from outside academia.

    3 replies 12 retweets 72 likes
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  4. 5 hours ago

    Historically, a brilliant thing about academia was that it turned powerful ideas into public goods, by incentivizing scientists to publish research papers.

    2 replies 15 retweets 59 likes
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  5. Retweeted
    6 hours ago

    I'm so thrilled that has synthesized many of his observations on serious use of Anki as part of his creative work: It's become a very powerful tool in my life, but I've only taken the first few steps here. Learning how to learn! 🔰

    2 replies 8 retweets 75 likes
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  6. 8 hours ago

    The essay explains a tonne of use patterns for the personal memory system Anki. It’s a much more in-depth version of my tweet storm:

    The use of spaced repetition memory systems has changed my life over the past couple of years. Here's a few things I've found helpful:
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    1 reply 6 retweets 36 likes
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  7. 9 hours ago

    New essay on “Augmenting Long-term Memory”:

    16 replies 52 retweets 243 likes
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  8. 16 hours ago

    Bell’s law of computer classes: (1) established market class computers remain constant in price (but get better functionality); and (2) every decade a lower-priced class is introduced, and becomes a new market:

    8 retweets 23 likes
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  9. Jul 3

    Are aphantastics - people with no “inner eye” - able to use visualization-based memory techniques such as the method of loci or memory palaces?

    13 replies 1 retweet 20 likes
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  10. Jul 2

    Chanced to hear the end theme from Schindler’s List tonight. First time in years, and I wasn’t consciously aware of it, but began to get upset and emotional. Had no idea why until I noticed the music. What an astounding story.

    1 retweet 36 likes
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  11. Jul 1

    Estimated distribution of global incomes, 1988 and 2018. Inequality appears to have very slightly reduced (maybe within errors sizes). Note: that can be true and within-country inequality may still increase for many countries.

    The Lorenz curve of global incomes in 1988 and thirty years later. There is no Pareto dominance (an inward shift up to the 8th decile, and an outward shift in the top decile). From ’s new paper in the JEL:
    2 replies 5 retweets 20 likes
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  12. Jun 29

    An estimate that there are ~26 different synaptic strengths:

    4 replies 32 retweets 101 likes
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  13. Retweeted
    Jun 29

    I think this sets a record for long-now thinking. The trillion-year plan.

    Planning ahead, WAY ahead
    6 replies 18 retweets 62 likes
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  14. Jun 28

    At risk of what? Not succeeding? Sounds like they have about a 1% chance of not succeeding (or 21%, by the stricter standard). Very low risk.

    7 replies 2 retweets 25 likes
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  15. Jun 28

    A European Research Council report suggests 79% of projects they fund “achieved a major scientific advance”, & only 1% make no contribution. Also, that they fund mostly “high risk” work I don’t know what “high risk” means if almost e’thing is succeeding:

    10 replies 42 retweets 170 likes
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  16. Jun 28

    That should be

    1 reply 2 likes
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  17. Jun 28

    “But can a machine play?” by @autotranslucence Interesting reflections on the value of goals and optimization.

    2 replies 7 retweets 26 likes
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  18. Jun 27

    . with a great essay on independent research:

    2 replies 19 retweets 82 likes
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  19. Jun 26

    In particular, they apparently look for a high degree of disagreement among reviewers, and to create a diverse portfolio. This is the opposite of how much funding often works.

    2 replies 7 retweets 47 likes
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  20. Jun 26

    I also hadn’t realized to what extent they operate independent of peer review. The graph here repays study: only a weak correlation between review score and which projects were funded.

    2 replies 6 retweets 22 likes
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  21. Jun 26

    This account of how DARPA works is surprisingly interesting: I underestimated both how flat it is, and how much authority the 100 program managers have to decide their own programs.

    5 replies 47 retweets 165 likes
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