Tim Hua

a lot of the criticism about the methodology/statistics reads like "oh wow this macro paper used a panel data of only eight countries, you can't draw any conclusions from N = 8!!!" like yes you can. Skill issue on the part of the reader.

well idk a lot of research isn't that useful.

I think this is a good study executed as well as they could've, and it's probably the best study of its type/genre? Also they're operating in an insanely brutal environment, where any result like this is ~obsolete after like five months. I just think

The main point is to reject the expert predictions null.

But also come on, there's nothing special about the zero point. Even if it's not a slowdown surely the study contained valuable takeaways.

Btw, the fact that bluesky is filled with tweets like this is why I barely log on. It's just endless people being angry all the time. And it makes me angry too, and that's not very pleasant or productive.

"In other words the existence of a free market creates the most efficient production possible"

lol reading my diary entry from July 1, 2020:

"Microeconomics is so fucking woke.
I just learned about how, in the long run, entry and exist of firms drive prices until profit is zero and firms are producing at their minimum average total cost in a perfectly competitive market with identical firms"

Wait isn't switching costs for foundation model providers near zero

Achievement unlocked: attended a toddler playgroup with more dads than mums present

Very cool demonstration of in-context representation learning. This figure says everything.

arxiv.org/abs/2501.00070

Big congratulations to @middecon faculty member Erick Gong, who was just promoted to full professor!

Bravo, Erick!

I’m not afraid of heights but this trail in Taiwan was a bit much 😬

Man

This from Paul Graham is so fucking well said

I love AI art. I love that I have a magic image machine that can summon dreams in a moment. I love living in the future and being able to ask for visions of a beautiful past that never was. When the machine can write as I would, I will love that too. I just want these concepts to exist.

The Maritime Approximation xkcd.com/3023

As someone who grew up in the 80s, I am absolutely amazed by the strides we've made with HIV.

When I was a kid it was a death sentence. By college it was survivable, but a lifelong illness. Maybe for the next generation it won't even be that

the most terrifying things for a conservative to see

i wrote a custom llm sampler for llama-3.1-8b so it could only say words that are in the bible

github.com/vgel/biblica...

I have so much to say about today’s case, legal analysis, and more.

But the most powerful thing today was watching Chase Strangio argue in front of the court as the first trans attorney to do so.

You could feel history, and nobody will ever take that away.

OLS is under attack.

RT if you are a TRUE BLUE OLS FAN.

I've never seen a more perfect resume for U.S. Ambassador to France.

Dude at the FAR Labs office corner I work at, there’s like four people (including me) and three of us would be on split keyboards it’s crazy

Banger

Claude be like “what are you talking about? everyone I talk to knows about Claude”. Call that the Anthropic principle.

"Working class material self-interest includes cheap energy" is perhaps the biggest thing contemporary progressives miss about economic policy.

PEPFAR delivers outsized returns—it deserves more funding Belinda Archibong discusses the importance of reauthorizing the U.S. President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program.

PEPFAR is one of the most successful foreign policy programs in US history and US-Africa relations. Yet it's at risk of not being funded come March 2025. Wrote a piece on why Congress should fund PEPFAR in @brookingsinst.bsky.social: www.brookings.edu/articles/pep...

Throwing caution to the wind

Remember the trend when people would ask Dall-E, “make it more X”? I vote that you do this but with Claude and how strongly you recommend the person.

Hello,

We've created a starter pack for all of the economics journals on Bluesky. Please nominate other journals to join the list.

go.bsky.app/4kR21vX