Zachary Clement

Data Scientist. Currently working at CVS Health. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@testingham Also “halfhearted compliance”. You say I have to submit my bug report in this specific format? Ok fine I’ll throw it in an LLM

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

Lots of places where you need to have a real statistician sign off on an analysis (and put their reputation on the line to vouch for its correctness)

When you’re designing an experiment, it’s helpful to have a human that will tell you if you’re making dumb design choices (and you can probably convince an LLM to sign off on dumb choices)

I see LLMs making statisticians 4x more efficient, not eliminating the need for statisticians completely.

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@drnafizhamid @austinc3301 lol I read it that way too, was thinking that I didn’t realize how much people literally worship those who know about AI

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@iamnyct0n01r @danmet @CCPISASSH0E Lindon Utah https://t.co/gYoBuDO9o5

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@ByuSome We’ve had a good amount of success (at least I think) from doing high frequency, low effort, free activities. Weekly pickleball nights, watching a game together, board game nights, etc.

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

Depends on how costly it is to make a mistake. If you’re a cashier, your 80th hour per week is probably about as efficient as your 40th. But if you’re writing a code base that needs to be maintainable and readable to future people it’s easy to get to a point where additional marginal hours do more harm than good.

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@landon_wx I feel like my memory of the northern lights has been brightened after the fact by looking at pictures on my camera

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

I prefer the feeling of “man, the guy running the DMV needs to get better at his job” to “man, the guy who won the contract to run the DMV for 5 years is really trying to hire the fewest employees possible so they can buy a second vacation home”

Private businesses provide good service either because they want to grow market share or are afraid of losing market share. That feedback mechanism is absent for a lot of services provided by the government.

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@DanFromChicago @ArmandDoma Once I booked a campsite in Yellowstone that was outsourced to a private company and it kind of made me mad

I imagine I would feel 10x that if it were the DMV

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

Northern lights in Newton Massachusetts

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

50-year fixed rate mortgages would provide most of the benefits of rent control (people are never forced to move out of their homes and they don’t have to worry about rent increases) while ameliorating some of the drawbacks (housing supply can meet demand, people can sell and move out of units that are too big for them rather than being forced to hold on to a rent controlled place, and units will probably stay maintained better).

It is also more straightforward to see who is paying to subsidize fixed rate mortgages (the taxpayer base) than who is paying to subsidize rent control (probably mostly new renters), which I think is a positive.

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@deepfates Felt something with this one

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@shinboson A big part of what makes democracies great is that if you dislike the government, there is a way to change it through nonviolent means. It’s a lot better for people to dump money into campaign ads than coup attempts.

It’s good to have as many people voting as possible I think.

[Boston Globe Pitchbot @BostonSatire]

“The Elevated Market of Starre, with Carriages Hastening to Boston,” oil on canvas, 1781, by John Trumbull

[Adam Kranz @adam_kranz]

Occurred to me last night that these two aphorisms get interpreted as interpersonal points about exploitation and generosity, but they're really two ways of phrasing the same wisdom about what constitutes scalable and persistent value in the context of cultural evolution

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@MFrancis107 @bernhardsson @arvidkahl Accordion is very fun and pretty easy to learn

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

Oh no, there’s no chance Dave would like brick oven

Maybe slab has a chance?

[Dave Portnoy @stoolpresidente]

Just to clarify I am currently en route

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

I've seen a few people on this site make a post like "Everyone on this site has started about X recently" and then draw a conclusion from that

It's unhelpful and inaccurate to attribute what X's algorithm shows you as "what everyone is talking about" because it's driven by your interests and engagement, not a random sample of what "people" are talking

It's also crazy how easy it is to get pulled into that belief by accident--a couple of weeks ago I watched an ad for Claude too many times and then for a week I had to consciously push myself way from believing that "literally everyone is talking about Claude now" and consciously dis-engage from that content for a bit until my feed got back to normal

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@Deadpoolx33 @rowanfornow Feel free to ask me any questions! I’m happy to chat and explain anything

[Zachary Clement @clement_zach]

@isilanorien @rowanfornow Feel free to ask me any questions you have! I’m a Mormon and happy to chat