Leo Broflovski

I likely retweet than tweet (:

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

Dealing with difficult people may be hazardous to your health.

Data: Each additional "hassler" in your network predicts 1.5% faster biological aging—and worse health a year later. Non-spouse family hasslers are the most problematic.

Some ties aren't worth the toll they take.

[The Dallas Express News @DallasExpress]

🚨 DFW AIRPORT, TEXAS 🚨

American Uber driver reports seeing large groups of Muslims and other foreign groups FLOODING airport parking lots. Drivers are reporting MASSIVE rideshare FRAUD.

Why is this happening in TEXAS?

@Carlos__Turcios

[Leo Broflovski @LKhye1]

https://t.co/NC5rbZ6NUr

[Peter Boettke @PeterBoettke]

@GeorgeSelgin @lawrencehwhite1 New book by Kevin Dowd out with Cambridge https://t.co/Lwdj64j8Re

[BlockHead @blockhead4000]

"Im so much smarter than Aristotle, there's no such thing as a natural slave!"

[Kraut @The_Davos_Man]

Data protection laws so crazy in Germany that the police can't even tweet out an image of a wanted terror suspect who is currently on the run.

[Steven N. Durlauf @sndurlauf]

State of Sociology

This article is being lauded by the usual suspects. IMO it is a failure because it fails to recognize that sociology is producing much great research. Here are four examples of great books by sociologists published in 2025/2026 that rival those of any social scientists.

For inequality, here are two books which I rank among the most important I have read in the last several years. Neither, IMO could have been written by an economist. The natural kinds undergirding their logic, the ways that evidence is evaluated, are essential complements to the ways that economists, including me, normally think.

1. Aaron Reeves @aaronsreeves and Sam Friedman @SamFriedmanSoc , Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite

is a tour de force in analyzing the ways that British elites have reproduced themselves since the 1890s, finding relatively little changes in the rates of elite reproduction during this period. The book characterizes the ways that elites have evolved in the ways that they conceptualize themselves and present themselves to others. As such, Reeves and Friedman provide deep insights into the nature of intergenerational mobility and of meritocracy for Great Britain, past and present. All of this is done using an amazing array of qualitative and quantitative information that the authors constructed.

2. Michelle Jackson @mivich, The Division of Rationalized Labor

is a remarkable analysis of the nature of modern jobs. The book argues that contrary to the classical idea that increasing division of labor would leads to job simplification, the modern economy has produced jobs of increasing complexity as a given position involves more complex and heterogeneous objectives. Teachers are one example that is discussed in detail. Michelle argues that rationalization of the economy facilitated by increased capacity to understand and measure how productivity of individuals and organizations is determined, underlies this evolution. This vision contains deep implications for labor market and intergenerational inequality.

Methodology. These two books stand on par with the best econometrics texts.

3. Cristobal Young and Erin Cumberworth, Multiverse Analysis: Computational Methods for Robust Results

defines an important frontier in the analysis of the effects of model assumptions on empirical claims, by constructing ways to communicate information about objects of interest across model spaces, which define different portfolios of assumptions. This vision of empirics is the next generation after model averaging, which has been important in the economic growth literature.

4. Geoffrey Wodtke and Xiang Zhou, Causal Mediation Analysis

is a masterful synthesis and will become a standard citation and the essential reference for students and researchers.

To be clear, my objection to the WSJ article and the way it is being is fully consistent with my endorsement of the Vanderbilt-Washington report. The fact that I know world class sociologists who have dropped their memberships in the American Sociological Association over its politicization (while many others have expressed misgivings to me) speaks volumes. But the idea that the field is a systematic failure is nonsense.

[Quiver Quantitative @QuiverQuant]

JUST IN: Claude can now pull data on stock trades by politicians, hedge funds, and insiders.

Link below.

[Leo Broflovski @LKhye1]

NIMBY in full swing.

[Laura Waxmann @laura_waxee]

Hundreds of #SanFrancisco Marina residents turned out this evening for townhall on controversial @Safeway housing plan, which would place what for many is an uncomfortably tall, 22 & 18 story project at the low-slung neighborhood’s waterfront.
@sfchronicle

[Rob Henderson @robkhenderson]

Just arrived @Jack_Raines

[Madeleine @JournoMaddie]

This image of a woman transporting a grinning male illegal immigrant across the sea is almost too perfect of a metaphor to be a real photo.

[Brett Harrison @BrettHarrison]

HFT Market-Making Systems

I spent the first 13 years of my career designing algorithmic trading systems for large HFTs in options, futures, and ETFs (intl/US equities, commodities, fixed income, volatility). Here’s a summary of each component, note the role AI/ML actually plays.

Market data. A market-making system requires realtime orderbook deltas and trades, not just for the symbol that’s being quoted but also for every related instrument used in computing the theoretical fair value of the instrument. Every exchange has a different protocol specification and format, from JSON over websocket (slowest) to FIX (common) to fixed-width binary (fastest). The lowest latency systems will ingest market data on a different thread or process to avoid interfering with the core trading logic of the system.

Fair Value. Successful market making depends on a precise understanding of the theoretic fair value of an instrument, which is the indifference point between buying and selling the instrument modulo fees and other costs. The complexity spans from a several-parameter model based on one or two instruments to highly multivariate calculations across a basket of different symbols. This component is usually the firm’s most guarded intellectual property.

Order placement. Accurately predicting the price of an instrument is only half of the core logic of a trading system; deciding where and how to place orders is equally determinative of P&L. Maintaining balanced two-sided quotes, optimizing for queue position, minimizing traffic to comply with order rate limits, canceling to avoid adverse selection, and order sizing are all intricately determined by the strategy designer.

Exchange connectivity. Similar to the market data component, all trading systems must send orders and cancels using each exchange’s unique messaging protocol. JSON, FIX, and binary formats are all used, with the last most common among traditional exchanges where latency and throughput are optimized. The connectivity layer can be embedded within the order placement process or segregated as its own gateway process.

Offline training. Training is not part of realtime transformation of ticks to trades, but it is one of most important differentiators between trading firms. All parameters that define fair value calculation and order placement are set via offline compute tasks that are often guided by machine learning. A significant amount of the GPUs that large HFTs buy or rent are directed to model discovery and parameter optimization.

A handful of HFTs already use specialized GPUs for the linear algebra behind valuation, but the practice remains rare, confined to strategies where predictive power matters more than shaving the last nanoseconds off latency. As purpose-built inference silicon such as Google’s TPU and OpenAI’s Jalapeño becomes widely available, more HFTs will fold online ML and inference into their systems’ trading loops.

[Max For AI @MaxForAI]

‼️突发：DeepSeek @deepseek_ai 创始人梁文锋在一场据称长达四小时的投资者会议上的发言内容曝光。

过去一个月里，这场对话的片段一直在中国 AI 圈和投资人圈内流传。
最引人注目的是梁文锋反复强调的“不”字。
不搞“天才”神话。
不追求利润最大化。
不搞闭源。
不盲目争夺用户。
不做视频生成、3D、世界模型，也不做下一个“超级应用”。

他的解释很简单：
“克制是一种策略。放弃一些东西，是为了提高实现 AGI（通用人工智能）的概率。”

以下是会议中的核心观点：

- DeepSeek只有一条主线：AGI
梁文锋认为，现在不是追求产品收益最大化的时候。
核心是追逐人工智能最高峰，即AGI。
他的AGI路线图非常清晰。
去年的台阶是思维链，今年的台阶是Agent。
Agent之后，是持续学习。
持续学习之后，是AI自我迭代。
然后，AI开始帮助人类研发更加先进的AI系统。
最后才是具身智能。
梁文锋将这个过程称为“渐进的奇点”。
根据这个思考，DeepSeek目前正在主动放弃许多热门方向。
“很多东西不在我们的主线上，包括3D和视频生成。”
他也质疑了世界模型的重要性：
“世界模型跟智能的上限没有太大关系。”
多模态对产品和C端用户很重要，但它仍然只是一个组件。
“它不是主线，也不是智能本身。”

- 下一代模型必须拥有持续学习能力
人类可以在工作中不断学习。
但AI每次开始一个新任务，都需要人类重新提供所有相关上下文。
“这几乎是不可能的。”
这也是梁文锋认为，当前AI还无法真正替代员工的原因。
“下一代模型必须具备持续学习能力，否则就不能叫下一代模型。”
同时他表示智能的终点可能是具身。
他的逻辑很简单：
人类真正需要的，并不是另一个计算机界面。
人类需要的是劳动力。

- DeepSeek不追求利润最大化
梁文锋表示，DeepSeek不会以收入最大化为目标进行定价。
“我们只赚一个合理的利润。”
DeepSeek V4最初担心需求过多，所以价格定得比较高。
后来，DeepSeek把价格降到了四分之一。
“公司群里很多人都在欢呼。”
因为做出这个模型的目的，就是让更多人能够充分使用它。
备受关注的低成本不仅是一种商业策略。
“低成本是架构带来的结果。”
更低的成本可以让AI变得更加普惠。
但还有一个更深层的原因：
单位计算成本越低，DeepSeek就越能够在有限算力下训练更大的模型。
“大公司可以通过增加资源解决问题，我们优先考虑成本效率。”
有意思的是梁文锋并不觉得API生意有多么好。
“我不觉得卖API这个事情有那么大的吸引力。”
DeepSeek只需要一个很小的团队维护服务。
几乎没有客服，也不需要销售，用户自己就会来。
“我们一直在商业化，只是不以商业化为目标。”
他认为，DeepSeek彻底转向商业化的时间点仍然非常遥远。

- 开源是DeepSeek的战略甜蜜点
对于员工来说，开源能够带来成就感和组织凝聚力。
对于社会来说，它能够帮助研究者、企业和普通用户。
“开源是一种让利。”
梁文锋认为，AI最终会成为一个规模极其庞大的产业，任何试图垄断它的人，最终都会失败。
“如果AI最终占到人类社会GDP的10%，任何想要独占这部分利益的人，都会被历史抛弃。”
梁文锋表示，DeepSeek不会开源一个较弱的版本，同时在内部保留更强的模型。
他不担心竞争对手部署DeepSeek模型。
小型创业公司可能缺乏资源和意愿，去进行前沿模型研究。
大型公司可能拥有资源，却存在组织上的困难。
梁文锋认为，DeepSeek刚好处于一个罕见的中间位置。
“这是属于我们这个规模公司的sweet point。”

- 中美AI的差距主要在资源
梁文锋认为，中国并不真正缺乏人才。
DeepSeek希望改写中美AI竞争的叙事：
用几分之一的算力，把差距缩短到6个月，甚至3个月。
他作出这个判断的原因是他依然相信Scaling
“我们相信Scaling，规模越大，效果肯定越好。”
DeepSeek训练当前规模的模型，并不是因为这个规模已经足够。
而是因为现有算力只允许它做到这个规模。
梁文锋认为，前沿模型的竞争，最终会由三个因素决定：
成本、时间、用户体验。
“成本排在第一位。”
如果两家公司提供的模型质量相同，胜负将取决于谁能以更低的成本提供服务。
时间排在第二位。
早几个月和晚几个月，结果可能完全不同。
用户体验可以形成一定的黏性和壁垒，但梁文锋并不认为它是最本质的护城河。

- 团队稳定是梁文锋唯一不能让步的事情
他将其视为DeepSeek面临的最大风险之一。
原话是：“只有一个是没法退让的：必须保持团队的稳定性。”
而最近的一轮融资，已经大幅降低了这个风险。
“只要能够保持团队的稳定性，我一定能做成AGI。就这么简单。”
有趣的是DeepSeek的组织既是自上而下，也是自下而上
自上而下的部分，被梁文锋称为“做正事”。
但他不希望被安排的工作占用员工一半以上的时间。
另外一半时间应该保持自下而上。
研究人员可以自由探索他们认为重要的方向，不需要提前审批，也没有固定要求。
与很多AI团队不同，DeepSeek不鼓励过度加班。
“做研究需要一个相对松弛的环境。”
另一个原因是聚焦。
DeepSeek的许多产品并不完善，但公司会主动选择不去补齐所有问题。
梁文锋认为，这同样是一种克制。
有趣的是DeepSeek靠愿景驱动，而不是KPI
“要实现某个KPI，不是我们的方式。”
梁文锋表示，DeepSeek的愿景甚至不一定被正式写下来。
它存在于公司的做事方式里，也存在于公司对待世界的态度里。
“愿景不是挂在墙上的标语，不是怎么说，而是怎么做。”

梁文锋最后的警告，可能也是最重要的一句话
“如果你的愿景是拿得更多，你就已经输了。你可能会面临更大的困难。这个世界就是这样。”

DeepSeek不想赢下每一个AI市场。

它想保留实现AGI所需要的专注、成本优势、团队稳定性和组织自由。

而梁文锋似乎愿意放弃几乎所有其他东西，只为增加实现AGI的概率。

他在做真正很Cool的事情。

[Alex & Books 📚 @AlexAndBooks_]

The CIA released a "Reading Improvement Course" that had been hidden from the public since 1955.

I read all 117 pages so you don't have to.

Here are the 10 most interesting quotes from it:

1) "Good reading is not necessarily rapid reading. The rate must be adjusted to comprehension requirements."

2) "To read well you must concentrate. No activity except perhaps writing or thinking makes more rigorous demands upon the whole mind than reading."

3) "Suggestions to develop your ability to concentrate: Be interested. There is no spur to concentration like honest interest."

4) "Some readers have found certain devices useful in keeping their minds on the subject. One device is to jot down key thoughts as one reads. These words act as a fence to confine our wandering thoughts. The practice of underlining key ideas and making notes at the end of each section serves the same purpose.

5) "Concentration is a habit and must be formed. Habits require, at first, a conscious effort of the will. Force yourself to let nothing come between your mind and the matter on the page before you."

6) "When our attention wanders, words slip by us and leave no trace of meaning. Under such conditions we cannot expect a harvest of logical thought. We go through the motions of study or reading, but do not get results. We waste time that could be used far more pleasantly and profitably."

7) "Drawing conclusions is the final step of the reading process and should be based on sound judgment of the author's qualifications, facts presented, methods of presentation, validity of arguments, or style of presentation."

8) There are 3 types of reading:

Intensive reading: when the purpose is to master new subject material, the skills required are translation, integration, analysis and evaluation. The best procedure is (a) rapid preliminary survey of the material, (b) formulation of questions prior to the reading, (c) careful reading, and (d) review and recitation of important points.

Extensive reading: with the purpose of acquiring a broader frame of reference and widening the range of knowledge. The skills required are integration, analysis, and evaluation. The best procedure is rapid and thorough reading of the material. The extensive reading rate should be as fast as the thinking process permits.

Scanning: for (a) the main idea, (b) specific information and (c) a preview of the material. To read effectively the reader must first review the material and the specific purpose for the reading.

9) The SQAR3 Reading Strategy:

"Scan: Quickly scan the introductory paragraph, subtitles, key sentences, key words, summary. Decide on the author's plan.

Question: Turn the title or key sentences into questions.

Anticipate: Before reading, try to answer these questions mentally.

Read: Read the entire selection and look for the author's ideas to answer your questions.

Recite: Close the book or magazine. Tell yourself in your own words what you have learned. Write notes on material that must be remembered.

Review: Later, to make your knowledge stick, review the gist of the article or chapter, again in your own words."

10) How to read with purpose:

-"Have definite questions which you wish answered through reading a given selection.
-While reading, make a mental note of the main points in the paragraph or article.
-From time to time stop to think over the material just read in preceding section.
-Notice the illustrations and examples that are used.
-Develop the habit of criticizing what you read."

My favorite quote from the report:

"Reading is a pleasure, a source of information, and the basis for most decisions that are made today. It deserves the liveliest interest and the best techniques we can master."

[Leo Broflovski @LKhye1]

@NikosMohammadi @RichardHanania @ScottMGreer @unherd Toda

[Leo Broflovski @LKhye1]

Dems get their true faces revealed

[zerohedge @zerohedge]

Just an innocent little error folks

[Leo Broflovski @LKhye1]

@briam_emo Did you vote for Zohran 2025?

[Clavicular @Clavicular0]

My new strategy is going to be Geomaxing. The United States is far too brutal of a dating market to compete in, so im going to geomax to countries with poor economies to mog people.

[Alexander 𖤓 Nietzschean Vitalist @UbermenschMind]

Need a Rhodesian Foid