NullHypothesist

Perhaps "ASI" is the better acronym here

These are amazing! This post made my day.

I wonder if they can simulate the Beatles crossing the street at Abbey Road in the late '60s

Broken link :(

Definitely a "huge if true" headline.

Seems like there's natural skepticism here (https://electrek.co/2026/01/05/verge-unveils-370-mile-electr...), but boy, if it works... Hopefully would be a bellwether for commercial solid-state truly emerging in the next few years.

Fingers crossed this is true.

A few software engineers work a weekend to fix the issue, and it never happens again?

Methodology can be found here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15389588.2025.2...

"Benchmarks were aligned to the same vehicle types, road types, and locations as where the Waymo Driver operated."

So yes, it's apples to apples... I'm sure there's some inherent variation, so maybe it's fuji to granny smith apples, but it seems there's nothing wildly off in their methodology.

This is super cool!

Cupertino is in there, no?

Looks like they've opened up SJC Airport, too! SFO imminent?

This is a huge sign of confidence that they think they can do this safely and at scale... Freeways might appear "easy" on the surface, but there are all sorts of long tail edge-cases that make them insanely tricky to do confidently without a driver. This will unlock a lot for them with all of the smaller US cities (where highways are essential) they've announced plans for over the next year or so.

> the opposing "Newton hypothesis", which says that scientific progress is mostly the work of a relatively small number of great scientists (after Isaac Newton's statement that he "stood on the shoulders of giants")

I guess the Ortega equivalent statement would be "I stood on top of a giant pile of tiny people"

...Not quite as majestic, but hey, if it gets the job done...

I read a lot of non-fiction, and while I'm definitely guilty (and proud of it!) of sentimentally holding onto old books, I think the value of having a personal library isn't to show off what you've read (an added bonus), but to be able to go back and reference books / passages when inspiration strikes or you realize your memory's gotten a bit fuzzy on a topic. Re-reading a book in its entirety is great. But sometimes just pulling back up a specific passage or chapter is all you need.

I like the sentiment here. Governance is the algorithm on which societies run (culture, too, sure, but if you're starting a new city, culture tends to come out of governance more than the other way around), and we need to try out more ways of running societies.

Some will fail, for sure. But just because you can point to some examples of new cities or nations that fail doesn't mean it's not worth trying and that the impact can't be incredibly huge when it goes right (e.g. America in 1776). If you pointed to a handful of failed startups and said, "I can list 7 start ups that ended terribly, therefore you should never start a company" that's naive.

That said, just thinking about pretty buildings won't get you very far either (that said, I love me a good pretty building).

I appreciate the nuance of this post; it's not "build things = good, let's build cities" nor "build things = bad, preserve status quo at all costs"

I'd love to see more thoughtful attempts emerge in this space, and happy a gaping hole in many current attempts is being pointed out.

"Waymo has been granted a permit to test its autonomous vehicles in New York City, the first such approval granted by the city. The company told TechCrunch it plans to start testing “immediately.”

The company is allowed to deploy up to eight of its Jaguar I-Pace SUVs in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn through late September. Waymo’s vehicles must have a trained safety operator in the driver’s seat, with at least one hand on the wheel at all times. The company cannot pick up passengers (since it would need a license from the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission) and it has to regularly meet with and report data to the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT), according to the mayor’s office."

I think this is a partnership announcement? Didn't they just announce they have Spotify in the cars now? I don't think it's an ad (though I see the potential confusion).

This is what corruption looks like.

Found this ~10 years ago. Still one of the best things i've ever come across on the internet.

-- "If homeownership is best understood as an investment, like equities, we should root for prices to go up. If housing is an essential good, like food and clothing, we should cheer when prices stay flat—or even when they fall. Instead, many Americans seem to think of a home as existing in a quantum superposition between a present-day necessity and a future asset." --

I completely agree; we should build more damn houses. It's better for everyone except people seeking to extract rent from land values.

That said, it's going to be incredibly hard to circumvent the system of incentives we've set up for home-ownership in the US. Building codes are one thing, but baking property ownership into policy as a core investment vehicle is another... Building ARE commodities, and should not be treated as speculative assets in a healthy society.

Aside from building more (which we should do!), thinking about property ownership incentives is another side of the coin that deserves attention -- this is likely what enables the self-deception required to forget the basic laws of economics, as Thompson discusses here.