April 2026 Links

nomagicpill
Mon, 04 May 2026 23:17:35 GMT

Everything I read in April 2026, ordered roughly from most to least interesting:

Automated Deanonymization is Here: Stylometry wins again. The new status game is how well the LLMs know you and what they think of you.

Strait of Hormuz: A Citrini Field Trip: You can just travel to places that are adjacent to active war zones and take pictures, talk to people, and figure out what is actually happening. There have been recent reports about satellite imaging companies being asked (forced?) to withhold imagery for U.S. national security purposes. I wonder if we’d see the smuggling and passing of ships had this data not been stifled?

Historical Tech Tree: I often think about how many shoulders I have stood on, both with what I do in my career and in my personal life. My career consists of working on cutting-edge semiconductor fab tools that were designed by people much smarter than I. But even those people may have said that they were no match for their predecessors who didn’t have as much technology at their disposal and were essentially pioneers of the industry, coming up with crazy ideas that had never been done and seeing if they worked in the real world. I spend a lot of time on my computer in my personal life, something that wouldn’t be possible without the internet and all of its networking technology, transistors, computer architecture, and software. It’s amazing! And you can see the progression with these graphs: just go search for “laptop”, select “Highlight all ancestors”, and trace it out from there. I also think about how a lot of these wouldn’t have been invented if the world was just inhabited by clones of myself. I like to think of myself as above average intelligence (after all, I’m browsing r/slatestarcodex—kidding!), but I’d be lying if I said I thought I or any number of my clones working together could have invented the transformer architecture or any amount of advanced math (see u/gwern’s You Could Have Invented Transformers for a counterargument). Humanity’s intellectual diversity and long right tails are what drive us forward to a large degree—a small number of extremely smart people doing extremely smart things extremely well out for rewards. Alternatively, how much of this is just a natural or lucky progression, a guess or stumble-upon of the next advancement, no matter how small? Is going from the p-n junction to MOSFETs to FinFETs to GAAFETs really that intellectually challenging (not taking into account actual fabrication difficulties), or did it make sense as a next step once we fully grasped that MOSFETs weren’t going to take us as far as we wanted? Maybe we—we being a world of clones of yourself—could go further than we think given enough time, interest, and resources. This is a beautiful website that is well-designed and obviously took a ton of hard work and research to do properly. Big props to the author! (I won’t validate all the claims and connections, but the ones I did spot check seem reasonable.)

How should you change your life decisions if we are being watched by alien drone probes?: Over the past few years I’ve shifted my ambition towards goals that I think are fairly robust from advent of aliens or AGI: competitive cycling and being an interesting person (of which the process is way more important to me—I enjoy all the reading, writing, discussing, etc that happens along the way, and the end result of being “interesting” is a nice perk). I think this is probably a good thing to orient to because your achievement, and in some cases, your identity, is mostly protected. Robot cycling races, whenever they may come, don’t negate my effort, and I suspect humans will still be comparing themselves to each other on the Tour de France or in 24-hour mountain bike races well after AGI arrives. Just look at chess: Deep Blue won in 1997 and Stockfish hasn’t looked back since, yet humans are still comparing themselves against each other. Same with learning and such: the models are wayyyyy more knowledgable than me about everything (minus a few esoteric topics that may not be in the training data), but nobody wants to talk to a model for hours, they want to talk to other people!

Court of appeal says it cannot rule on which identical twin fathered a child: I propose Blackstone’s Law of Child Support: it is better that ten possible fathers do not pay child support than one cannot-be-the-father does. (To be clear, I’m not sure if this is morally right as I’m not sure of the arguments for or against child support, but it feels like a humorous, albeit controversial, adaptation of the law that would show up on something like The Maury Show.)

Women are being abandoned by their partners on hiking trails. What’s behind ‘alpine divorce’?: Before reading the article, my guess would’ve been different, incompatible goals for what the hike would have been. Men are more likely to take hikes, especially challenging ones, as a chance to push themselves, while I’d argue women are more likely to want to enjoy it for the nature, beauty, etc. Can this extend into other aspects of life, and manifest itself into frustration on the trail?

Returns to intelligence: Some people can rotate shapes really well. (Side note: having the same Soma cube as a coffee table puzzle would be super fun—I’m surprised that I can’t find it for sale anywhere.)

3000 Autists vs the World: A Gen Z explanation of how Jane Street pushed and pulled and scammed the price of Bitcoin down.

Personal Encyclopedias: A Wikipedia clone that goes through your personal history—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Uber, Shazam, bank transactions, Google Maps, you name it—and pieces everything together into an intimate story of your life.

How to take a perfect dating photo: I largely agree with the technical details of this post, but have two small, somewhat-related thoughts. First, I don’t think Photofeeler is necessarily as good as people make it out to be. I’m happy to be proven wrong. Photofeeler, as far as I can tell, doesn’t default you to the opposite sex when voting on dating photos (or I just set that setting years ago and forgot), nor can I find a setting that allows me to only allow women to vote on my dating photos. I also just went through about 20 votes, counting 15 men and 5 women. This sounds about right: men are probably more likely to use this app because they’re male-brained, maybe a bit more analytical with numbers and optimization, women don’t want to get creeped on on there, etc. So in the end, if my percentages hold, 75% of votes on my pictures are from a certain subset of men rating my photos and 25% from a certain subset of women. I don’t know if I necessarily trust these results? After all, they are the same people who are asking for advice on their photos! If they knew what a good picture looked like, wouldn’t they just take one themselves? I would much rather be able to directly access my target demographic and have them rate my pictures (or have Photofeeler reveal the demographics behind each vote) than trust some random people on the internet. That said, maybe there’s some prediction market/wisdom of the crowd thing going on that is helpful? Disclaimer: I got an 8.5, 8.9, 9.2 STA score on a picture and it was by far my most liked on a dating app, so maybe there is something there. Further, I think there’s an incentive to just quickly click through buttons to maximize credits per unit time. I’m not sure if they are able to detect this? Like you said, it may weight their votes less than someone who varies their scores, but I think there may still be an impact. Second, I think there can something icky about dating photos if done improperly or they’re by themselves in that they (can) signal that your life isn’t interesting enough to have candid photos and you have to resort to dressing up, posing, lighting, and angles to sell yourself as a package. Sure, you may not be the picture-taking type, but I’d argue if your life is interesting enough, you’d want to get pictures on the reg of the cool, fun shit you’re doing, or you’d simply adjust your habits to take more pictures. I think there’s more nuance to these arguments than I let on, but they feel directionally correct.

Anyone Else Have Those Weird Dreams Where Sobbing Future Generations Beg You To Change Course?: Sam Altman is ostensibly one of the most disliked people in the world (at least based on my various feeds and articles I read, which lean towards AI safety ecosystems), but he doesn’t even appear to be polarizing like Trump or Kanye, just straight disliked. (In his defense, I do admire his ability to get shit done—cannibal king!) I wonder what that does to a man’s psyche... constantly getting derided and criticized on the internet as a liar, cheater, manipulator, and all-around bad person, whether by Ronan Farrow or The Onion or random people on Twitter; knowing your own board wanted you out and were scared of you; probably second guessing friendships and if they just want something from you (granted all famous people probably deal with this to some degree); the list goes on. I also wonder how much this changes his behavior in either direction: does getting this level of hate make him do fewer “bad” things than he would have done if there wasn’t any hate? Or does it make him do more “bad” things because “fuck those people” and continue his power-seeking behavior because “might as well”? My hunch is the former, not out of some noble “I should be a good person and limit my bad behavior” stance, but a “if I don’t look better, OpenAI may not do better”. (I recognize I’m violating the Goldwater rule, but hey, I’m not a psychiatrist!)

Q1 2026 Timelines Update: Daniel Kokotajlo and Eli Lifland share their AI timeline updates since Opus 4.6 and some other great models were released.

Forrest Fenn Treasure Location: Detailed explanation of how to find the Fenn Treasure, a $1MM cache hidden in North America to encourage people to get outdoors and explore. Eventually it was found and a disgruntled treasure hunter sued the legitimate finder, claiming that he hacked her to get the correct location. I spent an hour of my life trying to solve it before realizing it would probably take quite a bit more, but in hindsight, the expected value was probably there? Spending 100 hours to get $1MM is about $10k/hour. I also wonder if one of the leading LLMs could solve it now if the training data was polluted with the solution.

Why chatbot therapists can’t offer what we need: In an ideal world, a chatbot therapist would have access to all of the patient’s life to determine their best treatment. What do they respond well to? Poorly to? What’s their past history like? Are there patterns they can’t recognize? The list goes on. I’d guess a good therapist is better than a good chatbot, but a good chatbot is much better than a bad therapist.

90 cuisines you can try in New York City: I wonder how many restaurants in NYC are a direct result of culinary diplomacy [1]. Surely some, right? A few not-confident thoughts on why I think this may or may not be the case: Opening and running a restaurant is expensive and hard work. I guess I’d need more info on the owners and if they are immigrants, first-gen Americans, etc. Opening and running a restaurant seems more accessible than going down the white collar route? Plus, they may not need to upskill much if their cooking is good (minus restaurant-specific skills). It seems in a country’s best interest to apply CD to NYC specifically given it’s the top U.S. tourist city. Side note: I wonder how top _world_ tourist cities (Bangkok, London, etc) compare to NYC’s variety?

Daycare illnesses: It’s not making you stronger! You are suffering! Stop this madness (if you can)!

Anxious Parents Are Spending Upwards of $50,000 to Land Their Kid a Job

Your Supplies Probably Won’t Be Stolen in a Disaster: I agree, but not sure who’s saying this. Things would have to get really bad for bad guys to start kicking down your door to steal your supplies. And to Jeff’s point, we mostly stay inside, and if you have plenty of supplies, there’s no need to expose yourself.

The AI people have been right a lot

Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?: Almost certainly not given his track record?

A Timeline of the OpenAI Board: Loeber trawls through the internet and documents to find who was on the board when, coming up with a pretty detailed history that’s not available anywhere else.

The “guerilla warrior” who taught OpenAI to fight: A profile of Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief lobbyist, Clinton’s savior, and extremely effective political operative.

OpenAI’s AGI boss is taking a leave of absence: I’m curious what the base rates are of high-level executives taking LOAs for the reason given vs. one that is trying to save face—I suspect it is very low, i.e., people rarely leave for the reasons the company gives. In my company people often leave to “spend time with family”. Is it really that bad to state “hey, they weren’t doing well, everyone knows this, we need to make a change”? I suspect yes, because it shows that management chose the wrong person or that their mission isn’t going as well as they would have liked.

Reid Hoffman was privately unhappy about leaving OpenAI’s board

Poison, Poison Everywhere

Tread Carefully When Approaching the Bench: Kozinski discusses persuasion techniques used by lawyers from a judge’s perspective.

Alex Kozinski gift suggestions: The former judge recommends a political detective story, a non-fic about junk science in the courtroom, commentary on the litigous society of America, and a biography of “an illustrious jurist”, among others.

Fooled by Randomness: Kozinski reviews Taleb’s book.

The worst job I ever had: Paul recounts his 10 hours as a paralegal, fending off secondary cell phone offers, meeting aspiring paralegals who were definitely going to law school soon, and learning about the not-so-ethical law firms that exist.

Are You in a Restaurant Gap Relationship?: “These habits reveal our comforts, upbringings and how we choose to spend our time and money” is spot on, to which I’d also add status somewhere in there. The food itself has also marginal benefits at the upper end, eventually turning into a status or ambience venture than a culinary one. You can relate (or not!) to others based on where and what you’ve eaten and use that to help figure out who the other person is because of all it reveals: comfort, upbringing, priority, and status (potentially related to upbringing). I don’t think it means someone is necessarily incompatible, although it could be. It also makes the dining experience less valuable to the person who cares more when the one who cares less isn’t enjoying it as much. The solution? Suck it up and enjoy it every once in a while; find ways to cook delicious food at home (if it really is a food thing); get them to go with someone else who will enjoy it as much; find a compromise in between the $ and restaurants; eat beforehand and order less if it’s a money thing; find a restaurant that appeals to both.

Losing My Friend Over Wegovy: The subsequent link gives a better review than I can.

What Shouldn’t Have Made The Cut

DOOM: The Documentary | Ultra Endurance Bikepacking Race | Full Film: Doom is a pretty legendary gravel race, at least among hardcore cyclists in my area, and evidently it’s made its way up north and to other countries. It’s no joke, and this doc makes it clear why that’s the case.

I quit drinking for a year: Turns out alcohol makes you feel pretty crappy and cutting it out is generally a good thing.

Teenagers are the new face of AI startups while still in school: Add another tally to a business that is succeeding despite major, already-established competition (there should be a term for this if there isn’t already). This is a positive effect of LLM’s coding skills in that people who were previously time-constrained by school and other commitments now don’t have to necessarily learn to code, but can instead just straight build. I did find it a bit funny that when I visited one of their websites it didn’t work.

SantaCon Organizer Charged In Wire Fraud Scheme Targeting Attendees And Host Venues

SantaCon: “annual pub crawl in which people dressed in Santa Claus costumes or as other Christmas characters parade in hundreds of cities around the world.”

OpenAI acquires TBPN: Aaaaaaaand there goes the journalistic integrity.

Anthropic vs. Department of War

USA-247: A reconnaissance satellite with a controversial logo of “an [Lovecraftian] octopus sitting astride the globe with the motto ‘Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach’”. While the premise is kinda crappy, the logo is pretty sick.

Royal Caribbean’s Treehouse Suite on New Icon Class Ship Reportedly Costs Over $200,000 for 1 Week

Claude Mythos Preview System Card

Red Hen restaurant controversy: “On June 22, 2018, a co-owner of The Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders, then the White House press secretary, to leave. The co-owner later cited Sanders’ role in what they called the “inhumane and unethical” Trump administration in which Sanders had “publicly defended the president’s cruelest policies.”“

Randy George: 41st chief of staff of the United States Army from 2023 to 2026. Removed by Hegseth for supposedly controversial reasons.

Christopher LaNeve: Acting chief of staff of the Army as of 2 April 2026.

Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers: “United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Appointed in 2011 by President Barack Obama”. She will be presiding over the OpenAI/Sam Altman/Greg Brockman vs. Elon Musk case and has also presided over other high-profile tech cases given her district, such as Epic Games v. Apple.

The FBI Director Is MIA: A history of Kash Patel’s behavior and antics as FBI director.

See a man about a dog: “apology for one’s imminent departure or absence, generally to euphemistically conceal one’s true purpose, such as going to use the toilet or going to buy an alcoholic drink.”

Soma cube

Discuss