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Sam Kumar Sachdev

@samsachdev.bsky.social
286 followers 47 following 571 posts

Founder of Ziporama. I like math and Alf. Ziporama: www.ziporama.com Alf: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALF_(TV_serie…

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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
OpenAI claims they've solved 377 open math problems: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/s... If true, this would be spectacular.
nytimes.com
OpenAI Releases Findings on 377 Math Problems, Further Roiling Field
After a previous solution angered mathematicians, the company characterized the new release as being more responsive to concerns about A.I. disrupting research.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Scott Bessant, during questioning of why the Trump admin has few or no experts in their field, makes the statement that one of the most famous physicists of the 20th Robert Oppenheimer, wasn't a phycisist: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIwW...
youtube.com
Bessent: “Robert Oppenheimer was not a physicist...”
YouTube video by American Bridge 21st Century
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 09/09/2026
Not to brag, but our product has been foldable since 1828.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The number of planned or under construction nuclear reactors in: China: 37 India: 8 Russia: 7 Egypt: 4 Turkey: 4 Bangladesh: 2 Japan: 2 UK: 2 Iran: 1 Brazil: 1 Slovakia: 1 Canada: 1 USA: 0 Mexico: 0 Vietnam: 0 Sweden: 0 world-nuclear.org/information-...
world-nuclear.org
Plans For New Reactors Worldwide - World Nuclear Association
Nuclear power capacity worldwide is increasing steadily. Most reactors under construction are in the Asian region. Significant further capacity is being created by plant uprating.
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Steve Rattner @steverattner.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Corporate incomes are soaring. Worker incomes are barely treading water against inflation.
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Steve Rattner @steverattner.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Last quarter, corporate profits reached their highest share of GDP ever recorded: 13.2%.
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Steve Rattner @steverattner.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Workers' share of GDP is at its lowest point on record whereas the corporate share is near record highs. This dynamic may exacerbate as Trump's fiscal policies disproportionately benefit corporations and the wealthy.
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 09/08/2026
Trump 2.0 has blown up US scientific research in a way that will take decades to roll back. Labs that took years to build have closed, young people have left science. NYT Mag published a long report on Dismantling Cancer Research. Why does Ross Douthat lie like this?
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The effective federal corporate income tax rate: 1950: 50% 1990: 25% 2020: 13% Stop asking "but how we will pay for it?" Restore the corporate tax rate. That is how we will pay for it.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Life expectancy of: Mississippi: 72.6 Iran: 78.2 Alabama: 73.8 Lebanon: 79 California: 79.3 West Virginia: 72.2 Haiti: 65.2 China: 79.2 Norway: 83.2 India: 72.2 Kentucky: 72.3 Sudan: 66.5 Phillippines: 71 Italy: 83.7 Mexico: 75.4 South Carolina: 73.5 Chad: 55.6 Bulgaria: 75.9 Ukraine: 72.5
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 03/08/2026
Nearly 500,000 public comments have flooded in since the Trump administration proposed a rule that gives political appointees control over research funding. “The United States will not just fall behind. It will step aside,” one physicist wrote.
propublica.org
How Trump’s “America First” Administration Could Shut U.S. Scientists Out of the Next Nobel-Worthy Discovery
A proposed White House rule would give political appointees unprecedented control over scientific funding. One physicist, who helped discover the Higgs boson, explains how the rule would’ve stifled th...
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
56% of all HTTPS-enabled website use the P-256 elliptic curve, which was developed by NIST. In order to use this curve for, say, key exchanges you need a seed. NIST provides one sentence in its documentation of P-256 that says use this one seed. That's it. No mention of who developed it or how.
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Pew Research Center @pewresearch.org · 30/06/2026
#SCOTUS has overturned a 91-year-old precedent that has prevented presidents from removing members of independent agencies at will. ⚖️ In the past 20 Supreme Court terms, about 1% of cases have overruled an earlier decision.
Chart showing in the past 20 Supreme Court terms, about 1% of cases have overruled an earlier decision.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Mississippi has an infant mortality rate of 9.7 deaths per 1000 babies. America's is 5.6. Here are other countries: China: 3.8 Mexico: 11 Japan: 1.7 India: 23.5 Phillippines: 18 Italy: 2.1 South Africa: 23 Canada: 4 Peru: 9.75 Denmark: 3 UK: 3.5 Indonesia: 14.6 Sudan: 37 Ghana: 30 Brazil: 10
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
At about 12:50 in this video, it's explained why 89% of Meta's free cash flow are actually expenses. That is, the $45 billion free cash flow for '25 is actually about $5 billion. The video explains why but primarily it's an accounting trick to hide the cost of paying out options to employees:
youtube.com
The True Cost of AI Hidden in Big Tech's Financials | WSJ’s Take On the Week
YouTube video by WSJ Podcasts
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Mike Fainzilber @mfainzilber.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
🧪 The decimation of U.S.A. federal science funding grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...
grant-witness.us
The NSF is on Track for its Worst Year in Generations – Grant Witness
Throttling of science funding is utterly unprecedented and radical when compared to the past 50 years.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Zap Energy, which has raised $327 million (US) to build a fusion power plant, has decided instead to become a company that builds fission power plants: energy.media/energy-deals...
energy.media
Zap Energy Raises $130M for Nuclear Fusion - Energy.Media
Zap Energy, a Washington-based startup developing fusion power technology, recently secured $130 million in Series D funding. This brings Zap Energy’s total capital raised to $327 million, positioning...
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
A reminder: the Dallas Mavs let Jalen Brunson go in 2022. That is, they didn't trade him. They simply didn't resign him. During the playoffs, in '22, Brunson averaged 32 points/game. After the playoffs, the Mavs offered Brunson $55 million/4 yrs. Brunson signed with the Knicks for $104 mil/4 years
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
New York Knicks fun facts: 1) They've been down more than 10 points in every game in the Finals. 2) They've lost three playoff games total by a collective of six points.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Tom Steyer, who is running for governor of California and is presently in third place, has spent $213 million on the primary election. So far, he's received approximately 1,488,000 votes. This means he's spent about $143 per vote.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
The Jaecoo 7 is the most popular car sold in the UK in 2026. This is a Chinese car brand. As an American: 1) Have never even heard of Jaecoo 2) Don't think I've ever seen a Chinese brand of a car 3) Am shocked that in many countries Chinese cars are popular www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/j...
autocar.co.uk
We drove the £30k Jaecoo 7 for 6000 miles. Does it deserve to be UK's bestseller? | Autocar
Chinese newbie has conquered sales charts, offering strong value and high-tech interior
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
On Polymarket, a bet can be placed if Jesus Christ will return before Dec 31, 2026. It pays 2% if you bet he won't. For a period of two months, from February to April (2026), the rate of return for a "no" bet was greater than a one year US Treasury rate 3.81%. During this time, it was about 4%:
polymarket.com
Will Jesus Christ return before 2027?
$63,455,218 has traded on "Will Jesus Christ return before 2027?" as of June 3, 2026. View real-time odds or trade on The World's Largest Prediction Market™
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
What I learned today: Anne Bancroft was 35 during the filming of "The Graduate". Dustin Hoffman was 30. In the movie, Anne's character is 21 years older than Dustin's.
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Michael D. Green, PhD @michaeldgreen.phd · 28/05/2026
President of MIT not mincing words today in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2026/05/27/s...
So let me say it as clearly as I can: Without basic scientific research, supported by the kind of farsighted public investment that allows large-scale, undirected, curiosity-driven inquiry, the scientific pipeline will run dry.
In daily life, people may not feel the effects right away, or even in 10 years. But we will feel it. And when someone we love needs therapies that could have emerged but didn't or when other countries now
investing in science can launch new science-based industries or run their societies on vast resources of fusion energy or reap the benefits of quantum computing power or advanced medical breakthroughs, America will wish it sustained its leadership in scientific research here and now.
Sally Kornbluth is the president of MIT.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
On Seatgeek, the cheapest ticket for the first home game for the NY Knicks, who are in the NBA Finals, is $3,354 and the most expensive is $183,300: seatgeek.com/new-york-kni...
seatgeek.com
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Homicide rates of various countries per 100k people: The US: 5.9 Mexico: 15.5-17.5 Germany: 0.91 India: 2.0-2.7 Jamaica: 24 Columbia: 25.8 Japan: 0.2-0.8 Canada: 1.91 Brazil: 18.5-19.2 Phillipines: 4.3-5.2 South Africa: 45 Bulgaria: 1.15-1.3 Singapore: 0.1 China: 0.44 Guatemala: 17.4 Sweden: 0.8
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
This is an excellent introduction to the Langlands Program: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bKe...
youtube.com
A Glimpse into the Langlands Program - Ana Caraiani
YouTube video by Institute for Advanced Study
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam are the least entrepreneurial countries I've encountered. Consider, the number of startups valued at over $1 billion (US): Japan: 10 South Korea: 33 Vietnam: 7 Taiwan: 3 Israel: 42 (which has half of the population of Taiwan) India: 128 China: 416 US: 1172
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
SpaceX has bought Cursor for $60 billion (US). Here are the valuations of Cursor, starting from 15 months ago: Jan, 2025: $2.25 billion May, '25: $9 billion September, '25: $29 billion April, '26: $60 billion www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwme...
youtube.com
The Real Reason SpaceX is Buying Cursor
YouTube video by ByteMonk
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Hypothetically, could Trump have dropped a nuclear weapon on Iran and be immune from criminal prosecution?
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
1/I know little about robotics; so this question may seem naive. But, I wonder if there are analytical equations for the distributions of correct probabilities of robotic grasping. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtK5...
youtube.com
Ken Goldberg: Good Old-Fashioned Engineering Can Close the 100,000 Year “Data Gap” in Robotics
YouTube video by MIT Robotics
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
1/Today, read that Yann LeCun raised $1 billion (US) for an AI that understands the physical world: www.wired.com/story/yann-l... The company, Advanced Machine Intelligence, is going to be based on LeCun's idea of joint embedding predictive architecture: arxiv.org/pdf/2512.10942
wired.com
Yann LeCun Raises $1 Billion to Build AI That Understands the Physical World
Meta’s former chief AI scientist has long argued that human-level AI will come from mastering the physical world, not language. His new startup, AMI, aims to prove it.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
McPherson College is a small college -- about 800 students -- in Kansas (a state in the US). On its Wikipedia page, under notable alumni, Duane Earl Pope is listed. He was, according to this page, a "convicted bank robber and murderer. Briefly on the FBI 10 Most Wanted List":
en.wikipedia.org
McPherson College - Wikipedia
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
2025 is going to be Baltimore's safest, especially regarding homicides, in its history: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQs5...
youtube.com
Inside Baltimore's Safest Year in History
YouTube video by Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
84% of women, under 35, voted for Mamdani: www.youtube.com/watch?v=j45t...
youtube.com
Democrats Just Had Their Best Night in YEARS
YouTube video by The Bulwark
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
A quick logic puzzle: If you're running a (foot) race and are in 3rd position, you then pass the runner in the 2nd position. Which position are you now in?
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
1/ I just discovered this -- and can't believe I just did. There is no solution to the following: find the integral from infinity to minus infinity of e^((-z^2)/2)dz, where z is any real number. Specifically, it's been proven that there's no solution to this indefinite integral.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
An insightful, intelligent talk from an historian of 20th century German history on the parallels between Trump, the GOP and Hitler's regime. More broadly, the talk is about when history can be interpreted literally and when it can't: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7FY...
youtube.com
Margaret MacMillan Lecture featuring Prof. Benjamin Carter Hett
YouTube video by Trinity College in the University of Toronto
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
1/Nexperia is a 100% Chinese-owned company based in the Netherlands. It makes semiconductors primarily for cars. Last week, the Dutch gov't nationalized it. That is, they formally took over ownership of the company. Why? It seems to be because of US pressure. This has the potential to blowup.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 21/09/2025
📽️ WATCH: Epidemiologist Erin McCanlies spent much of the past 20 years studying how parents’ exposure to toxic chemicals affects the chances that they will have an autistic child. RFK Jr. cut her entire division — yet promises to identify the causes of autism by September: propub.li/4nhXQua
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
According to the latest AP poll, there's been a significant drop in Republicans who say the country is on the wrong track. In June 70% thought the country was on the right track. This month, September, it fell to 50%. Also noteworthy, this didn't change Trump's approval rating:
youtube.com
More Republicans say US is headed in the wrong direction, poll finds
YouTube video by Associated Press
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
This is posted on a San Francisco billboard: https: // {64659, 123310, 75584, 8138, 38271} These are tokenizers (token id's). So, a brute force approach is needed to map the text to the lexical token. Didn't know these were token id's. Googled it. After that, it was straight forward. Disappointed.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
1/According to this average of presidential approval ratings, Trump is -7.5%. Here, however, is approval rating for: Immigration: -3.4% Economy: -14.1% Trade: -18.9% Inflation: -30.4% This averages to -16.7%. Obviously, a weighted average can be used to get -7.5%. The question is...
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
The (political) joke of the year (so far): “RFK Jr has less brains than his uncle”: m.youtube.com/watch?v=p3db...
m.youtube.com
Pro-Vaccine Messengers Need to Pick a Lane | Gianmarco Soresi | Stand Up Comedy
YouTube video by Gianmarco Soresi
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
If you sum the amount of steel the top 8 steel producing countries produce annually and multiply this by two, you get the amount of steel that China produces annually: www.visualcapitalist.com/who-makes-th...
visualcapitalist.com
Who Makes the World’s Steel? Top 10 Countries, Ranked
One country makes over half of the world’s steel. See how other nations stack up in our ranking of the top ten steel producers by output.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Scott Bessant has founded two hedge funds. Both failed. In 2000, he founded Bessant Capital, which closed in 2005. In 2017, he founded Key Square. By '24, it had lost 90% of its value and was closed: www.anbound.com/Section/Arti...
anbound.com
Scott Bessent: An Ambitious but Unfit Treasury Secretary
The conflict between Elon Musk and Scott Bessent has become public, and their shouting match in the White House corrido...
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
The two movie suggestions that Hulu repeatedly keeps suggesting to me: "Gandhi" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin".
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
A reminder: Helium-3 sells for $19 million (USD) per kilogram: m.youtube.com/watch?v=wiHT...
m.youtube.com
This Startup Is Racing To Be The First To Mine Helium On The Moon
YouTube video by Forbes
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, there's only one country, among the 184 it looks at the data of, where tourism is projected to decline this year. And that's the US. It's projected to decline 8%. Prior to the start of this year, it was projected to rise 9%:
edition.cnn.com
The ‘self-inflicted injury’ to US tourism that’s making some Americans angry and disappointed | CNN
Many international travelers are skipping the US this year. ““I am super-duper angry. I’m also disappointed,” said one business owner who’s feeling the effects of tourists staying away.
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Sam Kumar Sachdev @samsachdev.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
1/Is 561 prime? I used Fermat’s little theorem, where a=100. So: 100^560 = mod 561 = 1. So, 561 is prime. The problem, 561 is composite. This has resulted in a lot of reading of why certain values of “a” — the base — work and which don’t.
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