DACHVARD

Carl Sagan — October 1, 1987 — 24 min read

On the exquisite balance between skeptical scrutiny and openness to new ideas — and why science has the additional virtue of being true.

◆SAGAN·SKEPTICISM·SCIENCE·PSEUDOSCIENCE·WONDER·COPERNICUS·SETI

Samuel Johnson — March 24, 1750 — 20 min read

On the governance of chance, the tyranny of hope, and the disguises of idleness — from The Rambler and The Idler.

◆JOHNSON·ESSAYS·MORALITY·CHANCE·HOPE·IDLENESS·RAMBLER·IDLER

Arthur Schopenhauer — January 1, 1851 — 16 min read

A collection of aphorisms on the nature of the will, the masks we wear, the consolations of distance, and the pendulum of opinion.

◆PHILOSOPHY·PSYCHOLOGY·HUMAN-NATURE·WILL·INTELLECT·SCHOPENHAUER

Richard S. Sutton — February 4, 1988 — 13 min read

This article introduces temporal-difference methods — a class of incremental learning procedures that assign credit by means of the difference between temporally successive predictions. The E=mc² of reinforcement learning.

◆REINFORCEMENT-LEARNING·TD-LEARNING·PREDICTION·MACHINE-LEARNING·MARKOV-PROCESSES·CONVERGENCE

Stewart Brand — January 1, 1999 — 12 min read

Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power.

◆SYSTEMS·CIVILIZATION·COMPLEXITY·TIME·ARCHITECTURE

Eugene Wigner — February 1, 1960 — 7 min read

The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious, and there is no rational explanation for it.

◆MATHEMATICS·PHYSICS·PHILOSOPHY·EPISTEMOLOGY·BEAUTY·SCIENCE

Richard Sutton — March 13, 2019 — 7 min read

The biggest lesson that can be read from 70 years of AI research is that general methods that leverage computation are ultimately the most effective, and by a large margin.

◆AI·COMPUTATION·SCALING·SEARCH·LEARNING·HISTORY

Dachi — March 31, 2026 — 1 min read

Leap before you look

◆POETRY·YEATS·AUDEN

Alon Halevy, Peter Norvig & Fernando Pereira — March 1, 2009 — 7 min read

The complete 2009 treatise by Halevy, Norvig, and Pereira on why massive, messy datasets trump elegant theories.

◆MACHINE-LEARNING·NLP·DATA-SCIENCE·GOOGLE·SEMINAL

Dachi — March 20, 2026 — 5 min read

Working through the original Transformer paper with my own annotations and re-derivations. What they got right, what I still find weird.

◆TRANSFORMERS·ATTENTION·NLP·SEMINAL·AI

Dachi — July 24, 2025 — 8 min read

The complete technical paper on Archias: a standalone system designed to categorize user queries and shield LLMs from adversarial tactics.

◆EXPERT MODEL·GENERATIVE AI·JAILBREAK ATTACKS·LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS·PROMPT INJECTIONS

Kevin Kelly — May 4, 2023 — 1 min read

394 pieces of advice from Kevin Kelly, one at a time.

◆ADVICE·WISDOM·LIFE·KEVIN KELLY·APHORISMS

David Silver, Satinder Singh, Doina Precup, Richard S. Sutton — January 1, 2021 — 8 min read

◆REINFORCEMENT LEARNING·ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE·AGI·REWARD·INTELLIGENCE

David Deutsch — January 1, 2011 — 53 min read

◆DEUTSCH·OPTIMISM·EPISTEMOLOGY·POPPER·PROGRESS·ENLIGHTENMENT

Paul Graham — February 1, 2003 — 30 min read

The key to this mystery is to rephrase the question slightly. Why don't smart kids make themselves popular?

◆SCHOOL·NERDS·POPULARITY·ADOLESCENCE·SOCIETY

Simon Leys — June 1, 2001 — 19 min read

In debates, the word 'quixotic' is nearly always meant as an insult — which puzzles me, since I can hardly think of a greater compliment.

◆DON QUIXOTE·CERVANTES·LITERATURE·CRITICISM·IMITATION·FAITH

Douglas R. Hofstadter — January 1, 2001 — 16 min read

Analogy is anything but a bitty blip — rather, it's the very blue that fills the whole sky of cognition.

◆HOFSTADTER·ANALOGY·COGNITION·LANGUAGE·CHUNKING·PERCEPTION·TRANSLATION·PUSHKIN

Richard S. Sutton, Doina Precup, Satinder Singh — January 1, 1999 — 9 min read

◆REINFORCEMENT LEARNING·TEMPORAL ABSTRACTION·OPTIONS·MDP·AI

Leo Szilard — January 1, 1993 — 2 min read

The fragments of the stone tablets that Szilard picked up are clearly different in both substance and tone from those which Moses brought down — softer, not nearly so blunt and unequivocal.

◆SZILARD·PHYSICS·ETHICS·COMMANDMENTS·MANHATTAN PROJECT·WISDOM

Charlie Munger — June 13, 1986 — 9 min read

I couldn't tell you how to be happy, but I can tell you from personal experience how to guarantee misery.

◆MUNGER·WISDOM·INVERSION·COMMENCEMENT·SPEECH

Richard Hamming — March 7, 1986 — 102 min read

◆RICHARD HAMMING·RESEARCH·CREATIVITY·SCIENCE·LEARNING·BELL LABS

Donald E. Knuth — April 1, 1984 — 9 min read

Important aspects of popular songs are best understood in terms of modern complexity theory.

◆KNUTH·COMPLEXITY·COMPUTER SCIENCE·HUMOR·SONGS·ACM

Edsger W. Dijkstra — August 14, 1972 — 19 min read

We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremendous difficulty — as Very Humble Programmers.

◆DIJKSTRA·PROGRAMMING·SOFTWARE·COMPUTER SCIENCE·TURING LECTURE·LANGUAGES

Martin Gardner — October 1, 1970 — 7 min read

Because of its analogies with the rise, fall and alternations of a society of living organisms, it belongs to a growing class of what are called 'simulation games.'

◆CONWAY·GAME OF LIFE·CELLULAR AUTOMATA·MATHEMATICAL GAMES·EMERGENCE·COMPLEXITY

Benoit Mandelbrot — April 5, 1967 — 9 min read

Geographical curves are so involved in their detail that their lengths are often infinite or, rather, undefinable. However, many are statistically 'self-similar,' meaning that each portion can be considered a reduced-scale image of the whole.

◆MANDELBROT·FRACTALS·GEOGRAPHICAL·PAPER

Italo Calvino — January 1, 1967 — 21 min read

The only way to escape the prisoner's state is to know how the prison is built.

◆CALVINO·TOPOLOGY·ESCAPE·DUMAS·PRISON·MATHEMATICS·LABYRINTHS

Herbert A. Simon — January 1, 1962 — 8 min read

◆COMPLEXITY·EVOLUTION·HIERARCHY·SYSTEMS

J. L. Austin — October 29, 1956 — 58 min read

◆J. L. AUSTIN·PHILOSOPHY·LANGUAGE·EXCUSES·ORDINARY LANGUAGE·ACTION

Claude Shannon — March 20, 1952 — 9 min read

What are the tricks, the gimmicks, that actually aid in creative work? I think they can be catalogued — and if one consciously applied them, in many cases you'd find solutions faster.

◆SHANNON·CREATIVITY·RESEARCH·MATHEMATICS·THINKING·BELL LABS

Jorge Luis Borges — January 1, 1952 — 17 min read

On the impossibility of classifying the universe — and the impossibility of escaping chance.

◆BORGES·LANGUAGE·TAXONOMY·CLASSIFICATION·WILKINS·PHILOSOPHY·CHANCE·LOTTERY·FATE

W.H. Auden — January 1, 1948 — 22 min read

For me, as for many others, the reading of detective stories is an addiction like tobacco or alcohol.

◆DETECTIVE FICTION·GUILT·INNOCENCE·FORM·CRITICISM

C. S. Lewis — January 1, 1944 — 13 min read

Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.

◆LEWIS·VIRTUE·AMBITION·FRIENDSHIP·SOCIETY·BELONGING

G.K. Chesterton — January 1, 1908 — 18 min read

◆CHESTERTON·ESSAYS·NONSENSE·LEAR·CARROLL·WONDER·INCONVENIENCE·ADVENTURE

G.K. Chesterton — January 1, 1908 — 20 min read

◆CHESTERTON·ESSAYS·HUMILITY·EPHEMERAL·MODERNISM

William Hazlitt — January 1, 1821 — 12 min read

There are people who have but one idea: at least, if they have more, they keep it a secret, for they never talk but of one subject.

◆HAZLITT·CHARACTER·OBSESSION·CONVERSATION·EGOTISM·WIT

Sun Tzu — Invalid Date — 2 min read

Favourite passages from the Art of War in Classical Chinese and Georgian.

◆SUN TZU·STRATEGY·WAR·GEORGIAN·CHINESE