https://zrkrlc.com/Deforming scrap into usable stuffFri, 13 Mar 2026 12:34:51 +0800clj-rsshttps://zrkrlc.com/notes/quarter-time/1769472000/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/quarter-time/1769472000/Note: I’m experimenting with a new format where I vomit an essay into a voice memo and have Sonnet 4.5 minimally convert it into prose, only removing tics and fillers and flagging acronyms/links/footnotes it didn’t get so I can manually add them. The slop is all mine, or well, mostly mine.I've been doing capoeira for almost two years now, and the other day I sat down and tried to calculate how many hours of instruction I've actually received, and the number that came back was something like 120 hours.Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/how-i-learned-to-love-skill-trees/1684771200/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/how-i-learned-to-love-skill-trees/1684771200/See discussion on LessWrong.There seems to be a stupid, embarrassingly simple solution to the following seemingly unrelated problems:Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/the-power-plant-is-not-the-machine/1648857600/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/the-power-plant-is-not-the-machine/1648857600/NOTE: this is about Daniel Gross’ interview on World of DaaS which can be found here: LINKWhat do we mean when we say that a person is energetic? We’re not literally talking about physical energy of course–after all, we’re more or less eating the same 2000 calories everyday, and the image of a founder eating a dozen pizzas and several blueberry pies a day to move faster is almost comical. But if it’s not that, then what is it?Sat, 02 Apr 2022 08:00:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/verbal-mathematics/1600237453/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/verbal-mathematics/1600237453/— a sequence introducing mathematical thinking to VerbalsThesis: (verbally loaded) mathematics is just philosophy, but where everything is precisely what we meanWed, 16 Sep 2020 14:24:13 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/poisson-on-startups/1600237384/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/poisson-on-startups/1600237384/Let’s start with some sage advice.A lot of curmudgeonly commenters on HN treat viable side-projects as a lottery. If we take that idea seriously, well, your chances of winning a PowerBall per ticket is 1 in 13 983 816. There are around 42620 programmers in Silicon Valley + the other US tech hubs (Seattle, Dallas/Fort Worth, DC, NYC)1. So if every single one of those Y programmers tries to found a startup, the expected number of startups we’ll get is:Wed, 16 Sep 2020 14:23:04 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/the-four-intuitions/1562959680/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/the-four-intuitions/1562959680/Epistemic status: lots of introspection and typical-minding; caveat lector.I.Sat, 13 Jul 2019 03:28:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/a-long-guide-to-conversations/1543316832/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/a-long-guide-to-conversations/1543316832/NOTE: This was originally a Reddit essay. Please excuse the crude language aka "writing to your audience".I.Tue, 27 Nov 2018 19:07:12 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/review-the-useful-idea-of-truth/1516350840/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/review-the-useful-idea-of-truth/1516350840/This sequence is Eliezer's second attempt at The Great Canon of Modern Rationality. He took the insight-porn-style of the original and recast it into a sleeker (and quite frankly, more useful) theory-then-exercise format. Not unlike the original, however, he begins by digging beneath the idea of truth:The Sally-Anne False-Belief task is an experiment used to tell whether a child understands the difference between belief and reality. It goes as follows:Fri, 19 Jan 2018 16:34:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/the-land-after-time/1484236680/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/the-land-after-time/1484236680/Note: I'm currently publishing pieces from my vault. This was supposed to be published on 2017 January 13.I had an enlightening talk once with The Giving Tree1 about his plan to start a VR-focused organisation in University X-1. In X-1, you have to do a couple of things before you can start your own club:Thu, 12 Jan 2017 23:58:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/dimes-demons-and-desperation/1465884540/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/dimes-demons-and-desperation/1465884540/Note: I'm currently publishing pieces from my vault. This was supposed to be published on 2016 July 31 when I was on the fence about dropping out. In the end, I didn't.n. a carbohydrate-rich environment composed of "virtual reality", "startups", and a bunch of empty space in betweenn. where I currently find myself inTue, 14 Jun 2016 14:09:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/i-have-no-idea-what-to-say/1464001680/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/i-have-no-idea-what-to-say/1464001680/Everyone who writes for a living will eventually write about themselves. It's almost a natural law. Heck, someone else has probably thought of a name for it. (Hint: it starts with an 'N'.)So why this piece?Mon, 23 May 2016 19:08:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/on-keeping-things/1460881620/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/on-keeping-things/1460881620/I.I have a wiki.Sun, 17 Apr 2016 16:27:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/a-self-centered-history-of-neo-vr/1459802160/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/a-self-centered-history-of-neo-vr/1459802160/On the 9th of May 2015...my stomach was grumbling.Tue, 05 Apr 2016 04:36:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/things-i-dont-understand-bayes-theorem/1459037220/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/things-i-dont-understand-bayes-theorem/1459037220/In which I lay down foundationsProbability is interesting to me for two reasons:Sun, 27 Mar 2016 08:07:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/spelunking-series-react-native/1458615300/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/spelunking-series-react-native/1458615300/In which I try to avoid Hell as much as I canI've heard a LOT of things, good and bad, about React Native (or RN for short) so I have decided to do a bit of prodding. I'm going to start with this tutorial and hopefully it will take me to a place I didn't know I wanted to be in.Tue, 22 Mar 2016 10:55:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/the-sapa-project/1458541500/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/the-sapa-project/1458541500/The Ghost of Testing PastThe SAPA project is a personality assessment tool. It has "synthetic aperature" in its name because its brainparents thought, "Hey, what comes to mind when you combine little things to yield a single big thing? That's right. Radio astronomy." The VLA looks like this:Mon, 21 Mar 2016 14:25:00 +0800https://zrkrlc.com/notes/a-discourse-on-purpose/1411226100/https://zrkrlc.com/notes/a-discourse-on-purpose/1411226100/Epistemic status: philosophical spitballing with a bit of mathI.Sat, 20 Sep 2014 23:15:00 +0800