Mastodawn

"Trump ...fails to understand that what made America gr8 was not its power 2 achieve its ends unilaterally but its singular ability 2 build international institutions that embodied its values & interests & that others wanted 2 join. ...The 1st draft of the U.N. Charter was written in the State [Dep't] ...so that the [US] would not again have 2 send its soldiers 2 stop “...forces seeking 2 subjugate the world”"
Oona Hathaway
www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/america-allies-superpower-iran.html

Colin Rowat 4d ago

Jane Street gets into formal methods: https://blog.janestreet.com/formal-methods-at-jane-street-index/

#formalverification #formalmethods

Formal methods and the future of programming

I’ve been telling people for the last 25 years that Jane Street as an organization was just not interested in formal methods.

Jane Street Blog

Colin Rowat 4d ago

“More than 60% of dogs assessed do not meet the testing requirements,” ... but if the ones who do meet the standards are bringing in $1.8 million a year then maybe you should lower the standards?

Or maybe ... this is a superstar economy, the top dogs are bringing in $20 million a year, and the marginal dog is barely breaking even after deducting the handler’s salary and the cost of kibble. ... I guess they can’t really quit to go work for Zimbabwe.

#MattLevine 19 June

Colin Rowat 4d ago

The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics & Finance has just published my article on explainability and interpretability in AI & ML:

https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/61801/chapter-abstract/565744399?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Those of you in Tokyo may have seen me present versions of this.

Comments very welcome!

#xai #iml #explainableAI #interpretablML

Colin Rowat Jun 17

<MattLevine> This is pretty stupid, but on the other hand I bet there will be an absolutely straight-faced launch of a prediction markets index in like two weeks. I really like the idea of television commentators saying “prediction markets were up today.” </MattLevine>

#MattLevine #MoneyStuff #Bloomberg #predictionmarkets

Colin Rowat Jun 4

Either Nordhaus has made a typo, or I have done worse than that: https://economics.stackexchange.com/q/61089

Help appreciated from anyone whose dynamic systems knowledge is less rusty than mine!

#econsky #econtwitter

what parameter values generate Figure 1 in Nordhaus' 1992 (Lethal Model 2)?

Figure 1 in Nordhaus (1992) depends on $\theta_1, \theta_2, \xi_0, \xi_1$ and initial values $Y_0$ and $L_0$. It displays the values used for $\theta_1$ and $\theta_2$, but not the others. I have...

Economics Stack Exchange

Colin Rowat Jun 3

#60minutes was responsible for one of the most important political interviews of my life, when #LesleyStahl asked US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about estimates that the US #sanctions on #Iraq had contributed to a half million extra deaths of children under five years old. Albright replied, "we think the price is worth it".

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/business/media/scott-pelley-cbs-bari-weiss.html

CBS News Fires Scott Pelley of ‘60 Minutes’

Mr. Pelley, a former “CBS Evening News” anchor, was ousted after months of tensions between staff and Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief.

The New York Times

Colin Rowat May 31

https://theconversation.com/my-unsung-hero-of-science-william-adams-the-bombay-bureaucrat-whose-vision-of-a-solar-future-was-dashed-by-colonial-conservatism-283799

#solarpunk #steampunk #solarsteampunk #steamsolarpunk #nchoosek

My unsung hero of science: William Adams, the Bombay bureaucrat whose vision of a solar future was dashed by colonial conservatism

William Adams was convinced that solar energy could change the world. The problem was, he needed more sun to demonstrate it.

The Conversation

Show thread

Colin Rowat May 27

Offer AgentGPT as a premium service, charging more - it makes the (random) shufle trades for them automatically, generating `--verbose` logs for .md file@ 'execution' rather than TradeGPT's 'advisory'. Add dashboards, analytics, bells, whistles to both.

Colin Rowat May 27

TradeGPT pitch deck: sign up customers, offering free LLM credits to support trades. Ask them what their risk/return preferences are. Use their funds to buy inexpensive market trackers. Randomly propose shuffles of market portfolio around between their accounts: no actual trades, to save the TCs. If they sell out of a rise, cheap LLM tells take profit story; when out of a fall, a stop loss story. Give them the vol they want, stories galore, cheap GPT calls, and 1% less than the market return.