Priors

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# priors — updating beliefs on markets and machines

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No Two Shuffles Alike

Probability

Every time you shuffle a deck of cards, you almost certainly create an ordering that has never existed before in the history of the universe.

Why the Closest Large Galaxy Is Simultaneously 2.5 Million Years Away and Just Around the Corner

Physics

Andromeda is 2.5 million light-years away. At the speed of light, that’s a 2.5 million year trip. So why does the physics say the journey could feel like a short hop?

The Impossible Bracket

Probability

The odds of a perfect March Madness bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion. Warren Buffett bet a billion dollars on it, and he was never worried about paying out.

Perpetual Futures: The Market for Leverage

Finance

The derivative that never expires, the funding rate that never sleeps, and the incentives that quietly shape crypto volatility.

The Bit Bridge: Why Modern AI Still Speaks in 1970s “ASCII Armor”

LLM

A journey from the 7-bit limitations of early dial-up to the multimodal prompts of today, exploring why ‘ASCII Armor’ remains the essential glue for modern AI.

Getting a Mortgage from the Market

Finance

Articles showcase a select group using options to borrow money rather than a traditional Agency mortgage. Are advertisements of $0 down and near treasury-rate mortgages a…

The Future of Context, DeepSeek OCR

LLM

A breakthrough in optical character recognition (OCR) has profound implications for the future of LLMs.

Modeling a Coin Flip Game

Python

Probability

A casino offers a game: Flip a coin as long as you want. Your prize is the ratio of heads to total flips. What’s your strategy to maximize your winnings?