.

_drafts/inbetween-posts/2024-10-10-capitalism-london.md

@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+---
+title: 
+subtitle:
+permalink:
+layout: post
+categories: 
+  - historical-fiction
+---
+
+<!-- 
+a historical fiction story about living in 1800-1900s london.
+where capitalism is the most recent 'big idea'.
+and the city is a place of chaos and opportunity.
+
+the main point of this story is to show how scary true capitalism can be.
+pure freedom and competition.
+-->
+
+
+<!-- 
+ill need quotes from famous economists?
+along the lines of; 
+- the goal of capitalism is financial democracy.
+- capitalism is the best system for allocating resources.
+- 
+ -->
+
+***
+how can i build this story around a character?
+options;
+
+- 
+
+***
+
+research i need to do.
+
+- what was the state of contracts in the 1800s? how were they enforced? how were disputes resolved?
+- 
+
+***
+
+examples of bad things that happen in a capitalist society:
+
+1. water companies. and cholera outbreak(s). water isn't provided by the state. the water companies are not regulated and do not accept responsibility for the quality of the water they provide.
+
+2. milk companies. chalk to make milk look more white. (what made the milk blue?)
+
+3. monopoly of ???
+
+4. waste removal companies. dispose of waste in the Thames. (have no regard ). 
+
+5. liars and cheats / fraud. lying not considered a crime.
+
+***
+possible scenes to include:
+
+
+***
+
+what does our govt provide that pure capitalism doesn't?
+- regulates markets
+- holds companies accountable
+- social welfare
+
+
+***
+
+Conclusions:
+

_drafts/inbetween-posts/2024-10-10-math-origins.md

@@ -2,19 +2,29 @@
 title: Ikram and his tricks
 subtitle: A story about the origins of math
 permalink: math-origins
+layout: post
+categories: 
+  - historical-fiction
 ---
 
 <!-- A short story that follows a trader. The story starts before the development of any math / arithmetic and we would get to see the issues that come with no math (spending lots of time counting, getting counts wrong, ...?). The accountant would invent some of their own tricks, and learn some from other accountants (in different cities). -->
 
-about ikram's character (possibilities):
+the point of this story is to explore / understand / imagine the origins of math. 
+to show that;
+- even the simplest pieces of math were not always obvious.
+- math has been collecting 'tricks' for thousands of years. building upon itself.
+
+
+Ikram's character (possibilities):
 
 He's a rather sly businessman. He understand that his image is important for trading. He needs people to trust him (learned through experience).
 In the end he uses these mathematical tricks to help make himself seem more intelligent (and to make him money).
 
 Simplicity and order. How can I show these are things that Ikram values? 
 (and how can I show that these are things that are important for math?)
 
-potential scenes:
+Possible scenes:
+(which convey a mathematical discovery)
 
 1. Ikran has a child assistant, who's job is mostly 'counting'. Where counting means drawing the icon for wheat on a tablet for each wheat bale in storage. He also has another child assistant for 'counting' the number of sheep in the pen, and another for counting the number of coins in the chest, and another for counting the number of jars of oil in the storage room, and another for counting the sacks of barley in storage, and another ...
 Ikran trades in large volumes, e.g. 100s of hay bales. So he often he has to wait for things to be counted.
@@ -23,15 +33,69 @@ One day he's sitting at his desk, with 3 different count tablets. And he has the
 2. Ikram needs to purchase a field for grain storage. The seller describes it as "8 lengths by 15 lengths." (but how much wheat can it hold?)
 Rather than the usual approach to determine the area (using small clay tokens to lay out a rectangle representing the field, and counting them one by one to determine the area) Ikram has an insight. He realizes he has seen these numbers before and he knows the answer. Last week he had 8 seperate orders of 15 bottles of wine, this totalled 120 bottles.
 Later that week, while travelling (with idle time to think) he realisees he could list all the possible areas of a field with a length of 1 to 10, and a width of 1 to 10. This would give him a table of 100 areas. He could then use this table to quickly determine the area of any field by looking up the length and width in the table.
+Now that Ikram knows how to determine the area of some land, he advertises this ability. A customer will come to him with measurements of their land, and Ikram will tell them how much wheat it can hold, for a small fee.
+Uses. How many seeds do I need to purchase to plant this field which is N x M?
+
+
+3. mismatch between old and new measurements (rod vs reed). and / or mismatch between units used by foreign traders and local. motivate the need for fractions. 
+
+
+***
+
+
+Over arching storyline (possibilities);
+
+is Ikram starts in a small town doing trade with neighboring towns. Moves to bigger city and learns some new tricks.
+The bigger city is chaotic and ???. But math helps organise his life.
+
+Other, (minor) possibilities.
+
+- meets a friend and starts doing recreational math.
+- discovers 
+
+
+
+***
+
+set the scene / world building. 
+
+This is based in Susa and Nippur.
+Susa is a cluster of small towns, each with a few hundred people. It's main industry is farming (wheat, barley, dates, olives, sheep, goats, cattle). It's main export is wheat and barley.
+the lands / cities to the north are mountainous (closer to afghanistan) traded in minerals and metals (copper, silver, gold, iron, lead, tin, ) and textiles (wool, silk, cotton).
+the lands to the south are fertile and traded in plants (dates, olives, ) and animals (sheep, goats, cattle).
+already exists a complex trade network.
+Akkadian, aramic, and Sumarian are the main languages spoken.
 
+mina and Shekel.
+kurru and nindan.
 
+Currently peace after ???
 
+Technologies;
+- clay tablets for writing
+- irrigation
+- wheel
+- plow
+- sailboat
+- iron tools?
+- bronze and copper tools
+- pottery
+- weaving
+
+***
+
+Chapters;
+
+1. 
+
+2. 
 
 ***
 
 
 A few of the discoveries I'd like to include;
 
+(these are all related to arithmetic)
 - when traders develop a short-hand / symbols to represent their wheat bales (instead of writing ticks). And then realise they can use these same symbols to count beers, or other goods.
 - The realisation that the units of area can be written in terms of units of length. 
 - The standardisation of the sexagesimal system.
@@ -40,25 +104,14 @@ A few of the discoveries I'd like to include;
 - The discovery of place value notation
 - The realization that debts can be recorded as negative quantities
 - The invention of fractions for trading partial quantities
-- Early banking concepts - lending with interest
-
-
-***
-
-Over arching is Ikram starts in a small town doing trade with neighboring towns. Moves to bigger city and discovers more cools tricks.
-The bigger city is chaotic and ???. But math helps organise his life.
 
-Possibilities.
-
-- meets a friend and starts doing recreational math.
-- discovers 
+what about discoveries related to;
+- geometry? (e.g. the 3-4-5 rule for right angles, or the discovery of the Pythagorean theorem)
+- algebra? (e.g. the discovery of the quadratic formula, or the use of algebra to solve problems)
 
 ***
 
 
-The Partial Payment
-
-Ikran faces a dilemma when a merchant wants to buy 7 bales of wheat but can only pay for 5 and a half bales worth. Initially stumped by how to record this "half" quantity, he experiments with marking a line halfway through his counting symbol, essentially inventing a fraction notation. This leads to him developing a whole system for handling partial quantities.
 The Debt Record
 
 > After being burned by a few bad deals, Ikran develops a system of recording who owes him what. He creates a special mark to indicate "owed goods" versus "goods in hand," essentially creating negative numbers. This evolves into a rudimentary lending system, where he begins charging extra (interest) for the convenience of paying later.
@@ -78,4 +131,13 @@ Ikram is negotiating with another merchant who owes him grain but wants to conti
 Ikram needs to build new storage rooms along the city wall. The wall runs at an angle to his existing storehouse. He needs to know how much roofing material to purchase to span between the two structures. A young architect shows him how to measure the shortest distance between the buildings using a rope and the "3-4-5" rule, explaining that this always works for right angles. Ikram is fascinated and begins collecting other number combinations that work this way.
 
 Ikram is teaching his daughter to use the balance scales. She's frustrated that adding small weights one by one takes so long. Together, they discover that if they know a large weight equals twenty small weights, they can use the large weight to speed up their measuring.
-This leads to the development of a short-hand system for recording weights, where a single symbol represents twenty of the smaller weight.
+This leads to the development of a short-hand system for recording weights, where a single symbol represents twenty of the smaller weight.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Outtro.
+
+Unlike in the story, it was not a single person who invented most of arithmetic, nor was it done in a single generation.
+It took hundreds of years for these seemingly obvious insights to accumulate into a system that resembles modern arithmetic.

_posts/inbetween-posts/2022-06-23-killer-ai-and-regulations.md

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ categories:
 
 While headlines scream about killer robots, a far more immediate threat lurks: the misalignment of corporations with the public good.
 
-AI alignment, the field concerned with ensuring AI goals match human values, is crucial. But before worrying about hypothetical AI overlords, shouldn't we tackle the very real power of corporations prioritizing profit over people and the planet?
+AI alignment, the field concerned with ensuring AI goals match human values, is crucial. But before worrying about hypothetical AI overlords, shouldn't we tackle the very real problem of corporations prioritizing profit over people and the planet?
 
 ### Aligning AI with human values.
 
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ For example;
 - Oil companies have long denied the reality of climate change, despite overwhelming scientific evidence, to protect their bottom line.
 - Pharmaceutical companies have fueled the opioid crisis by aggressively marketing addictive painkillers, leading to widespread addiction and death.
 
-These examples highlight the misalignment between corporate goals and the public good. Instead of serving society, corporations exploit us for financial gain.
+Instead of serving society, corporations exploit us for financial gain.
 
 ### Conclusion
 

_posts/technical-posts/pits/2024-08-10-pits-main.md

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ To solve inverse problems usinbg a prior, we normally require the ability to eva
 
 Neural flows {% cite albergo_stochastic_2023 liu_flow_2022 lipman_flow_2023 %} have recently achieved s.o.t.a {% cite esser2024scalingrectifiedflowtransformers %} and do support likelihood estimates. They can be used to find the local maximum of the posterior {% cite benhamu2024dflowdifferentiatingflowscontrolled %}. However, differentiating through a flow is extremely expensive.
 
-So, seems that solving inverse problems via a principled approach like MAP is not quite possible with s.o.t.a generative models.
+So, it seems that solving inverse problems via a principled approach like MAP is not quite possible with s.o.t.a generative models.
 Maybe we can provide a viable alternative.
 
 ***
@@ -65,6 +65,11 @@ I wrote a few posts to help you understand PITS;
 [5.]({{ site.baseurl }}/pits/flow-theory) (WIP) Theory showing that in the Gaussian case, PITS combined with flows is principled. \
 [7.]({{ site.baseurl }}/pits/review-dps) A brief review of methods attempting to solve inverse problems using s.o.t.a  generative models.
 
+<!-- 
+As we saw in the background on typicality. Likelihood is not always representative of what we would see in the real world.
+
+
+ -->
 
 <!-- A main advantage of the PITS approach is that it provides a way to control the quality (/typicality) of the solutions. -->
 

_posts/technical-posts/pits/2024-08-10-pits-map.md

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ scholar:
   bibliography: "pits.bib"
 ---
 
-We solving an inverse problem with MAP vs PITS.
+We solve an inverse problem with MAP vs PITS.
 Here we pick the prior and likelihood to be Gaussian distributions.
 
 $$