Mehmet Mars Seven ♞

What it feels like to spend $10M on a handbag, according to the man who did it | CNN In his first major sit-down interview, Japanese CEO Shinsuke Sakimoto reveals how he outbid his “enemies” during the record-breaking auction of the original Hermès Birkin bag.

"We were almost at the upper limit, but in those few minutes we were strategizing how to inflict psychological damage on our opponents and force them to give up by making a bid without delay."

edition.cnn.com/2025/08/01/s...

#Tennis

Not many Monte Carlo simulations predicted that outcome .

Victoria Mboko defeats Cori Gauff and will face the winner of Lin Zhu and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in the Quarters.

Why Did The Universe Begin? | Quanta Magazine In this episode of The Joy of Why, Thomas Hertog discusses his collaboration with Stephen Hawking on a provocative theory arguing that the laws of physics evolved with the universe, and how this…

How could the universe have created the conditions needed for life to emerge? Tune in to “The Joy of Why” from @prx.org and @quantamagazine.bsky.social with co-host @jannalevinastro.bsky.social.

‘I’m good, I promise’: the loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player The long read: I was once Ireland’s No 1 player, and tried for years to climb the global ranks. But life at the bottom of the top can be brutal

‘I’m good, I promise’: the loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player www.theguardian.com/sport/articl...

Brain Surfaces of 70 primate species

1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!

🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...

I don't think I've seen a better example of an animal smiling in my life... 🥹

Nash 75 - YouTube To celebrate 75 years of Nash equilibrium a group of renowned speakers and participants gathered at the Maison Française d'Oxford, Oxford, UK (2-4 July 2025)...

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

This seems so strange as LLMs always provide answers 😅‬

Advanced version of Gemini with Deep Think officially achieves gold-medal standard at the International Mathematical Olympiad Our advanced model officially achieved a gold-medal level performance on problems from the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), the world’s most prestigious competition for young...

Somewhat strange coincidence: Gemini also solves IMO questions 1-5 but gives no answer to Q6. Curious why neither ChatGPT nor Gemini attempted it. If the methodology holds (still unknown), this could be an important milestone.

deepmind.google/discover/blo...

YouTube video by Timothy Gowers IMO2025Q1

From time to time I like to video myself solving maths problems in real time. Since the IMO has just happened, I plan to try a few of this year's questions. Here I get through Question 1. More to come at some point.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G1n...

Statistical Decision Theory: Using a 1940s Idea to Fix a Problem in 21st Century AI

#CHANCE @amstatnews.bsky.social @tandfresearch.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

One of the wildest color gradients I’ve ever seen in the aurora!

The natural gas trap Switching to gas reduces emissions in the short term but increases them in the long run

Today in @financialtimes.com:
OpEd on how it is tempting to let gas outcompete coal,
but why the long-term consequence is less renewables and more emissions
+ policy implications for Europe
based on:
The Gas Trap, with @kholtsmark.bsky.social, forthcoming in JPE.
www.ft.com/content/e969...

what a plot twist! It's becoming harder and harder to follow a healthy lifestyle

For the first time in league history, there have been 7 different NBA Champions in 7 years 🏆

2025: THUNDER
2024: CELTICS
2023: NUGGETS
2022: WARRIORS
2021: BUCKS
2020: LAKERS
2019: RAPTORS

2/2 "So if AIs gain that ability to sort of assess the viability of certain proof strategies
[dividing a task into smaller, easier tasks] so if they can pick up a sense of smell, then they could maybe start competing with human level mathematicians”

"In some sense AI developed a smell for go and chess positions that this position is good for white, good for black. They can’t enunciate why, but just having that sense of smell lets them strategize." Terence Tao on AIs on chess vs proofs
1/2

GiveWell sought an independent check on the evidence supporting >$1 billion it has granted to its top charities. This fall, Alex Cohen asked whether we could obtain the datasets needed to reproduce the underlying RCTs. We said yes; charging only a modest fee to cover our time.

🧵 + 🐀 + blog post!

Academic brings research insights to global audience A King’s academic brought insights from his research to a global audience at the prestigious Norway Chess tournament.

Our academic, @mehmetmars7.bsky.social brought insights from his #gametheory research to a global audience at the prestigious Norway Chess tournament ♟️📺

Read more ⬇️

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/academi...

AEP Lecturer in Politics and Research Methods

We’re hiring 3 permanent (tenured) lecturers in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. These are ‘education pathway’ posts (in Economics, Research Methods, & Comparative Politics) 1/4

www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/117268-...

www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/117209-...

www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/117245-...

Selfie with the GOAT of chess Magnus Carlsen, who has just won Norway Chess 2025 🏆 👏

All pillows have washing instructions on them, all pillows go lumpy and unusable when you wash them, why will no one admit this, who is in the pocket of Big Pillow

Too late to explore the earth
Too early to explore the stars
Just in time to eat tasty salad bowls

1985: “Don’t sit too close to the TV, it’ll ruin your eyes!”
2025: Straps a screen to our face.

Progress? Maybe. Ironic? Definitely.

Somewhere, every mom just sighed.

#FlashbackFriday #TechEvolution #VRLife

I'm currently looking into the impact of GenAI and LLMs on the social sciences, especially classification tasks. If I can think of some work, especially from a philosophy of scientific practices perspective, I would be happy if you could put it into the answers. Thank you!
#philsky #philtech

A comparison based on "using same tools" is certainly a relevant point. But, as I mentioned, the human vs. machine competition is more fundamental, at least for me.

But we're definitely not just talking about that :)

I don't see why your comparison is the "correct" one? To me, the human vs machine comparison is more fundamental

Once a machine reaches AGI, it almost inevitably becomes ASI with scale because no human can compete with a machine's knowledge base

bookmarking this to be read later