A historical collection of our writing.
Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced sensitivity and specificity as measures of how good a test is (or using the language of our framework, how strong a signal is). We derived the following formula P(B | H) = P(B)/P(H) * P(H | B) which relates P(B | H), i.e. the probability of the state of the […] Read more (opens Continuations in a new tab)
In my draft book World After Capital, I have a section on Human Needs. I am currently in the middle of rewriting that section (so don’t go read it now) because it suffers in parts from a confusion between needs and solutions. What do I mean by that confusion? Our bodies need nutrition for survival. […] Read more (opens Continuations in a new tab)
As regular readers of Continuations know, I believe humanity urgently needs to act on climate change. In this context it is particularly appalling that the current administration wants to unwind the advances of the Clean Power Plan. The atmosphere is a crucial global commons. Everyone around the […] Read more (opens Continuations in a new tab)
In my book World After Capital, I open with a section on the duality of technology: since the days of inventing fire we can use technology for good and for bad. The technology itself simply broadens the space of what’s possible. We have to choose how we want to use it. Interfacing human brains to […] Read more (opens Continuations in a new tab)
Today’s Uncertainty Wednesday is a further continuation of the PSA Test example, but I got tired of the boring title and wanted to give the post as more, well, specific one. Last Wednesday I wrote that sensitivity and specificity are “widely used to assess the quality of medical tests.” Here are […] Read more (opens Continuations in a new tab)
A non trivial part of my time is spent reading and writing a lot of email. Here are some things that I have learned and that work for me. There are only two legitimate uses for bcc. First, explicitly moving someone to bcc who no longer needs to be part of the ongoing exchange. Second, […] Read more (opens Continuations in a new tab)
