Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham
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paulgp.com
Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham
@paulgp.com

Yale SOM professor & Bulls fan. I study consumer finance, and econometrics is a big part of my research identity. He/him/his

Economics 47%
Mathematics 9%

Ok what is economics’?

“Scientific disciplines, like nations, have their own founding myths. These may sound inconsequential at first, but they deeply shape how disciplines see themselves, what they value, and what they believe their role in the world ought to be. “
The Empiricization of Computer Science
Scientific disciplines, like nations, have their own founding myths.
doomscrollingbabel.manoel.xyz
If you were wondering - though I’m not sure why - yes, mosquitoes can fly in the rain.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/1110.3051
How Much Snow Will Fall Where You Live?

A fairly big snowstorm is expected in the Northeast in the next 24 hours. Type in your town to see the range of possibilities.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Really outstanding post for both CS and social science folks #linkoftheday
doomscrollingbabel.manoel.xyz/p/the-empiri...

Oooh I enjoy this
"Again, for lack of a better term, I’ll call it describe-and-defend empiricism. This flavor of empiricism treats inference as the first-class citizen: you formulate a claim about the world, assemble evidence, and argue why the data support that claim."
In a new blog post, I contrast two flavors of empiricism: the one practiced in the social sciences and the one practiced in ML/CS.

I argue that we need both, given that CS is increasingly about "claims," and not just constructing artifacts.

doomscrollingbabel.manoel.xyz/p/the-empiri...

In a new blog post, I contrast two flavors of empiricism: the one practiced in the social sciences and the one practiced in ML/CS.

I argue that we need both, given that CS is increasingly about "claims," and not just constructing artifacts.

doomscrollingbabel.manoel.xyz/p/the-empiri...
They find that RoPE (the positional encoding used in most modern LLMs) has a fundamental flaw. It entangles "what" (content) and "where" (position) information.

They propose PoPE (Polar Coordinate Position Embeddings), which eliminates the what-where.
yep, Claude Code + cheap cloud hosting sets the cost of personal software to basically 0. So far this break we have:
1) an RPG built in Obsidian
2) an app for uploading non-english books that helps you study languages
3) and a fun surprise project @mariaa.bsky.social and I are building...

Merci! A vous aussi!!

Genius
Merry Christmas! Please enjoy the opening to this Japanese Christmas concert special that I watch every year.

As far as I can tell, this has otherwise been scrubbed from the internet

I enjoyed Hades 2! But it didn’t grab hold of my attention quite as effectively as the first.

Hyrule Warriors with my son sounds like a great idea…

More or less the same — not traveling, so just Xmas at home and in a few days we’ll have a bigger set of family here. Trying to embrace the no-work vacation vibe!

And play more Clair Obscur

I hope you have a restful and enjoyable Christmas with that in mind! Any fun plans?
Christmas crowd work
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (Steam) is $7.96 on Gamebillet buff.ly/QF0uOD6
$9.99 US eShop buff.ly/D0uxS8R
$9.89 XBL buff.ly/liewQZB

Switch $29 VGP buff.ly/DgzsPLe
PNP buff.ly/VW2xmHc

Deck verified
Merry Christmas! Please enjoy the opening to this Japanese Christmas concert special that I watch every year.

As far as I can tell, this has otherwise been scrubbed from the internet

Gotta do mine soon!
Continuing an annual tradition (following @paulgp.com ). A (very) short list of great games I found time to play this year:
Continuing an annual tradition (following @paulgp.com ). A (very) short list of great games I found time to play this year:

I definitely know I’m preaching to the choir by saying “X is bad” here

I get it; I think I would enjoy posting there and miss interacting with folks there. But I think it’s really quite bad to be there, socially; I think there’s something in the water thats quite bad for all of us.

Child, I bequeath to you untold riches of hair

Comical:

Picked terrible company to be born into

That kids got some hair

I want to write some good resolutions this year.

Made a Sbagliato dolce @dynarski.bsky.social (with correct vermouth @judychevalier.bsky.social )
2 pm negroni lead to 3 pm nap which means 4 pm through 11 pm is a lit hydration and snacking

The irony of this is I never used the algorithm but so many others do that it creates a super weird discourse dynamic

I feel the same way about Jackass and that was very much of my generation?