iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

7 is a random number between 1 and 10, we randomly selected it years ago

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'd actually put this up on my wall

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

i'm going to be insufferable and use "explication" in every sentence i utter for weeks

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

i learned a new thing today! i've been struggling for almost a year with a paper in which i introduce a definition that matches a latent intuitive concept that is broadly shared but hard to articulate; basically, a case of "you know it when you see it".

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I've never heard it put this well before

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It's fine I don't think we would have gotten along anyway

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

i feel like I've finally found my bsky follows that I enjoy. smart people i don't always agree with but are generally in the right direction. i was in a desert of bad faith hot takes for a minute and almost deleted my acct

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

one thing i like about games is that they abstract away the messy stuff so that we can focus on the structure we care about. this means less noise and tighter feedback loops, and ultimately leads to principled theories (e.g., poker helped lead to nash equilibria in imperfect information systems).

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

damn, accurately summarizing 50+ years of related work with subtly different terminologies, conflicting definitions, and differing mental models of the underlying problem is tough

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This guy gives me the E B jeebies

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

We've had an argument very similar to "LLMs can't think" before. I'm not saying they do or don't, it's more that we overfit to "definitions of convenience", where we can't articulate the properties we want so we give some correlational definition and then conflate correlation with the thing itself.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

What I am referring to when I say that I'm keeping up on current events

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

a strategy is a program. the problem with #poker-solvers is that they write programs for machines to execute. we want to write programs for humans to execute at the table.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

big honkin' mantis tried to fight me

closeup: blurry image of an 8 inch long mantis crawling up my chest

the mantis looking at me like we got a score to settle

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

poker solvers turn imperfect information games into perfect information games and that's pretty neat #gametheory #pokersolvers #poker

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

people often ask *why* a #pokersolver does a thing. this is a semantics question: it asks about *meaning*. problem is, solvers do not reason over the same abstractions as humans. the solution? meet in the middle: introduce better solver abstractions that are easier for humans to understand.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

it finally just clicked for me in #cs2 what folks mean by "the clock starts off as a weapon for ts and then becomes a liability for ts." early round, ct has finite util, and you can't cover all site entrances for the full match. ts can put pressure to force cts to use util, give away info, etc.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

studying equilibrium strategies i keep coming across a structure where different strategic components (e.g., poker hand classes, cs2 player positions, ...) where each component's strength covers another component's weakness. i wish i knew the name for this

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

i hope to someday have the self esteem to ask a stranger at a busy cafe if i can sit at their table and then proceed to make multiple phone calls and dictate full paragraphs of text to my computer

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I've never been great at the long application of my attention to a single problem (over months and years). One thing that I've learned during my PhD is how to balance the desire to explore with the discipline to stay hard-nosed about problems.

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Reposted by gigaben (ascending)

Max Willsey @mwillsey.com · 03/04/2026

EGRAPHS Workshop deadline in two weeks (Apr 17)! Plenty of time to whip up your presentation proposal. Remote/in-person, in-progress or already published work is welcome.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

i'm having a strangely strong emotional reaction to asking an ai agent to do a heap of grunt work....I actually feel guilty then again, when i was a kid, i used to feel guilty about walking because i was worried i was hurting the floor, so...

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Lol the monkey paw grants another wish

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Bluesky has been insufferable since the Kirk murder. The amount of celebration is disgusting. He was a POS, so I get it if you don't grieve for him, but this is about to escalate in a very ugly way and people are cheering it on. Do you really think the world is better today than a few days ago?

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Reposted by gigaben (ascending)

Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Holy shit, they did it. They wrote the headline.

NYC Mass Shooting Was Nearly Impossible to Prevent, Experts Say

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

I'll go w/ their #2 pick then, thanks

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

My Uber driver had the worst smelling car. I was nauseous from the smell of this dude's cologne or whatever the entire ride and now an hour later it is still all I can smell. I've changed my clothes and showered but that shit is ON ME.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

My partner is currently in Chicago surrounded by three cowering dogs who all think the world is ending because the neighbors are setting off firecrackers outside our window. I really don't like fireworks.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

I've been trying to loser a poker tournament for about 30 minutes so I can go get some food before everything closes but I can't stop winning hands. I've gone from 100th place to 13th place w/ 35 remaining lol

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

I'm seeing folks reclaiming the Gadsden flag and I gotta say, I love to see it

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

The problem with writing papers is no matter how many times I rewrite a paper, upon finishing it I realize that I should have actually written it totally differently.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

It's CRAZY how bad adobe acrobat is. The one thing it needs to do is let me read PDFs, yet somehow it chokes on a 25 page PDF while trying to prompt me to read an AI summary. Free/OS PDF viewers are better than acrobat which has had who-knows-how-many millions of dollars pumped into it.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Law enforcement literally enforcing the opposite of the law

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Republicans, clutching pearls: WE MUST INVESTIGATE THE ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES OF AUTISM!!

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Reposted by gigaben (ascending)

ACLU @aclu.org · 10/05/2025

Today, our client Rümeysa Öztürk was released on bail from ICE detention in Louisiana, and she will return to New England to continue her studies. 📸 Giancarlo D’Agostaro

Two woman walking and embracing each other in front of an ICE detention center. The woman on the left is wearing a black dress and heels. The woman on the right is smiling and wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. Members of the press are in the background.

Two women standing, smiling, and embracing each other with grass, water, and the sky in the background. The woman on the left is wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. The woman on the right is wearing a black dress.

Two woman stand next to each other and hold onto one another. The woman on the left is wearing a black dress. The woman on the right is smiling and wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. In the background is the fence of an ICE detention center.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

I'm rebranding...instead of being "not a morning person" on east coast time

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Where are new smells made? Down at the ol' factory

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

I accidentally stole some bread earlier today. It was ill gotten pains

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

God I'm tired of not having people to talk to about my research

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

I'm finally home after being away pet sitting for over a month. Omg it feels so good

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Yeah but silver lining, this whole experience has been a great civics lesson: I now know so much more about how my government used to work

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

people who post basic questions on forums without ever trying anything themselves first

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

I think I need to de-broligarch my life. No more Amazon, no Twitter, no Netflix (AWS), no Hulu. I might not be able to de-google at first but it's a good goal.

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gigaben (ascending) @thebenku.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Whenever I Cmd+Space and type "blue" my mac always shows "Bluetooth File Transfer" instead of "Bluetooth" as the first response. I've never intentionally used it, but I keep accidentally opening it because I just auto-hit "Enter" after "blue" Very minor and very aggravating in equal proportions.

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