nikita krynkin
@krynkin.bsky.social
exhausted and exhaustified | semi-anonymous linguist
so excited to read this!!! quite a treat for new year's eve
We wrote a thing -- showing you don't need LLMs to model language production dynamics like the tendency for speakers to reduce predictable words. All you have to do is better model how speech rate varies depending on where a word is and how long the utterance is. arxiv.org/abs/2512.23659
Less is more: Probabilistic reduction is best explained by small-scale predictability measures
The primary research questions of this paper center on defining the amount of context that is necessary and/or appropriate when investigating the relationship between language model probabilities and ...
arxiv.org
December 30, 2025 at 4:10 PM
so excited to read this!!! quite a treat for new year's eve
Reposted by nikita krynkin
Call me crazy, but “people feel and perceive and experience things the same way” should be the very strong default position. This isnt universally true—I think aphantasia and supertasters are two good examples of big differences—but the bar should be very, very high.
A common assumption is that throughout history, people have experienced the same basic range of emotions. A radical field of history now challenges this assumption, Gal Beckerman reports. theatln.tc/KD2QRX9Y
🎨: Nicolás Ortega
🎨: Nicolás Ortega
December 26, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Call me crazy, but “people feel and perceive and experience things the same way” should be the very strong default position. This isnt universally true—I think aphantasia and supertasters are two good examples of big differences—but the bar should be very, very high.
October 31, 2025 at 4:47 AM
"Bayesian cognitive science, also known as computational cognitive science" --- wiki
now, who did that??? and why???
now, who did that??? and why???
September 17, 2025 at 4:34 PM
"Bayesian cognitive science, also known as computational cognitive science" --- wiki
now, who did that??? and why???
now, who did that??? and why???
i can't help but operationalize love for sci-fi terms as a red flag nowadays
The people dominating our political landscape, culture, and economy are just so stupid and full of shit it's almost impossible to describe
August 19, 2025 at 2:58 AM
i can't help but operationalize love for sci-fi terms as a red flag nowadays
i loooove articles about scientists with a prominent political position: jacobin.com/2025/08/stev...
Steven Rose Brought His Science and Socialism Together
Steven Rose, who died last month, was a major figure in the field of neuroscience and a brilliant scientific popularizer. Rose was also a committed socialist who challenged the misuse of science to le...
jacobin.com
August 18, 2025 at 10:48 AM
i loooove articles about scientists with a prominent political position: jacobin.com/2025/08/stev...
August 18, 2025 at 10:40 AM
who is this even for mitpress.mit.edu/978026255252...
in a time where skepticism towards the generative program is as strong as ever, C. continuing the ridiculous merge circlejerk is detrimental to the whole field
in a time where skepticism towards the generative program is as strong as ever, C. continuing the ridiculous merge circlejerk is detrimental to the whole field
Mathematical Structure of Syntactic Merge
The Minimalist Program advanced by Noam Chomsky thirty years ago, focusing on the biological nature of human language, has played a central role in our moder...
mitpress.mit.edu
August 11, 2025 at 1:23 AM
who is this even for mitpress.mit.edu/978026255252...
in a time where skepticism towards the generative program is as strong as ever, C. continuing the ridiculous merge circlejerk is detrimental to the whole field
in a time where skepticism towards the generative program is as strong as ever, C. continuing the ridiculous merge circlejerk is detrimental to the whole field
I feel like today is a good day to start re-reading cartwright's the dappled world
August 9, 2025 at 7:43 PM
I feel like today is a good day to start re-reading cartwright's the dappled world
Reposted by nikita krynkin
the fact that there is some other (extremely stimulus rich!) route to similar performance is just a non sequitur
August 9, 2025 at 7:00 PM
the fact that there is some other (extremely stimulus rich!) route to similar performance is just a non sequitur
Reposted by nikita krynkin
there's a story that we've always compared the human mind to our most impressive tech and so when computers became the most impressive tech we started thinking of minds as computers and that's just not what happened historically! computational theory grew out of attempts to understand cognition!
August 3, 2025 at 10:59 PM
there's a story that we've always compared the human mind to our most impressive tech and so when computers became the most impressive tech we started thinking of minds as computers and that's just not what happened historically! computational theory grew out of attempts to understand cognition!
Reposted by nikita krynkin
New elements from the great Ryan nefdt! Free
Download for two weeks
Download for two weeks
The Philosophy of Linguistics
Cambridge Core - Philosophy: General Interest - The Philosophy of Linguistics
cup.org
July 25, 2025 at 8:43 AM
New elements from the great Ryan nefdt! Free
Download for two weeks
Download for two weeks
Reposted by nikita krynkin
19. Niche linguistics content here, but: DO support does not arise due to anything like a Stray Affix Filter, and I will die on this hill.
July 22, 2025 at 6:33 PM
19. Niche linguistics content here, but: DO support does not arise due to anything like a Stray Affix Filter, and I will die on this hill.
Reposted by nikita krynkin
”If you’ve ever been personally victimized by the need to publish or perish, you can blame one man, and his name was Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen... Münchhausen was ... probably the single person most responsible for introducing a new criterion for academic advancement: the publication record."
The Origin of the Research University—Asterisk
Universities have existed for more than a thousand years — and for almost all of that time, they weren’t centers of research. What changed in 19th century Germany?
asteriskmag.com
July 18, 2025 at 3:24 PM
”If you’ve ever been personally victimized by the need to publish or perish, you can blame one man, and his name was Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen... Münchhausen was ... probably the single person most responsible for introducing a new criterion for academic advancement: the publication record."
Reposted by nikita krynkin
In a single day at Les Halles, in New York City, Anthony Bourdain once nourished himself with three double espressos, two beers, three cranberry juices, eight aspirins, a hunk of merguez sausage, and an “Industrial”—a beer stein filled with a Margarita.
One Day—and One Night—in Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen
From 2000: The people who will be coming tonight and tomorrow night to Les Halles, a restaurant on Park Avenue South where I work as the chef, aren’t like the people who come during the week.
www.newyorker.com
July 9, 2025 at 2:24 AM
In a single day at Les Halles, in New York City, Anthony Bourdain once nourished himself with three double espressos, two beers, three cranberry juices, eight aspirins, a hunk of merguez sausage, and an “Industrial”—a beer stein filled with a Margarita.
90% of phonology papers are one of:
1. We don’t need underlying representations
2. Actually, we do
3. HOLY SHIT we cut out a person’s throat and now they can’t speak. Anyway, this proves connectionism is correct.
1. We don’t need underlying representations
2. Actually, we do
3. HOLY SHIT we cut out a person’s throat and now they can’t speak. Anyway, this proves connectionism is correct.
June 30, 2025 at 11:13 AM
90% of phonology papers are one of:
1. We don’t need underlying representations
2. Actually, we do
3. HOLY SHIT we cut out a person’s throat and now they can’t speak. Anyway, this proves connectionism is correct.
1. We don’t need underlying representations
2. Actually, we do
3. HOLY SHIT we cut out a person’s throat and now they can’t speak. Anyway, this proves connectionism is correct.
no fucking way. very happy with the NY primary. no fucking way
June 25, 2025 at 2:59 AM
no fucking way. very happy with the NY primary. no fucking way
Reposted by nikita krynkin
Omg just remembered about the semantics of proper names. Fuck. What the fuck? FUCK
June 24, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Omg just remembered about the semantics of proper names. Fuck. What the fuck? FUCK
global.oup.com/academic/pro...
nice book; I have been reading a bunch on anti-democratic thought (given my conviction that nothing is new under the sun, it's nicer to read smart ppl's arguments rather than dumb ppl's press releases), and this one is, imo, the most helpful for current times
nice book; I have been reading a bunch on anti-democratic thought (given my conviction that nothing is new under the sun, it's nicer to read smart ppl's arguments rather than dumb ppl's press releases), and this one is, imo, the most helpful for current times
global.oup.com
June 22, 2025 at 3:05 PM
global.oup.com/academic/pro...
nice book; I have been reading a bunch on anti-democratic thought (given my conviction that nothing is new under the sun, it's nicer to read smart ppl's arguments rather than dumb ppl's press releases), and this one is, imo, the most helpful for current times
nice book; I have been reading a bunch on anti-democratic thought (given my conviction that nothing is new under the sun, it's nicer to read smart ppl's arguments rather than dumb ppl's press releases), and this one is, imo, the most helpful for current times
steven piantadosi citing charles reiss was never something i would expect but here we are
June 19, 2025 at 12:31 AM
steven piantadosi citing charles reiss was never something i would expect but here we are
Reposted by nikita krynkin
Fish see visual illusions the same way humans do. Flies too. And bees. This changes everything about the WEIRD sampling debate in cognitive psychology. New post on @dorsaamir.bsky.social and @chazfirestone.bsky.social's devastating paper.
Keep Cognitive Psychology WEIRD
Back in 2010, Joe Henrich, Steve Heine, and Ara Norenzayan dropped a bomb[1] on psychology with their paper "The WEIRDest people in the world?" They argued that most psychology studies rely on Western...
open.substack.com
June 4, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Fish see visual illusions the same way humans do. Flies too. And bees. This changes everything about the WEIRD sampling debate in cognitive psychology. New post on @dorsaamir.bsky.social and @chazfirestone.bsky.social's devastating paper.
new yorker's profile is much, much better. i think it paid off to highlight the personal affairs of a self-proclaimed "political thinker"
yarvin """interview""" in nyt is laughably bad from both sides; it reads like a shitty satire of political conversations as a genre in twenty-twenty-four/five
June 2, 2025 at 11:01 PM
new yorker's profile is much, much better. i think it paid off to highlight the personal affairs of a self-proclaimed "political thinker"
Reposted by nikita krynkin
LITTLE LILY - I don't say bad words. Lamby doesn't either.
HALF LIGHT - FUCK OFF.
HALF LIGHT - FUCK OFF.
June 2, 2025 at 7:11 AM
LITTLE LILY - I don't say bad words. Lamby doesn't either.
HALF LIGHT - FUCK OFF.
HALF LIGHT - FUCK OFF.