GPT-3 tells me a story, does not disappoint
You are Liv, a cyborg living in the the futuristic city of Zail. You have a bionic arm and a holoband. You’re walking down the dark city streets while neon lights flash brightly above you. As you pass an alley you see a man wearing a hooded cloak and holding a blade about to kill a woman.
How LONG is the Earth – video calculations
Calculations behind the "How LONG is the Earth" video: Galaxy length earth: Earth's volume is approx 10^21 cubic metres. The diameter of the galaxy is estimated at around 100,000 light years, which approximately = 10^21 metres. Hence, the earth disassembled and...
Coronavirus: Why You Shouldn’t Rely On Your Intuitions
A weed is growing in a garden, and it doubles in size every week. If it takes forty weeks to completely cover the garden, how many weeks does it take to cover half? If your first instinct was “twenty”, your instinct was wrong. The correct answer is thirty-nine. This...
I’m on Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s new podcast!
I can't quite believe it... I'm the guest on the latest episode of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's fantastic podcast "Creative Processing"!!! You know, the superstar genius actor JGL. From Inception. And Don Jon. His actual podcast. Wow. Anyway, each episode is based off a...
Hypochondriac? Bayes’ theorem can help!
(This post originally appeared on Vox, but I want to share it here too) I’ve been a hypochondriac for much of my life. When I was 13, I read an article about a girl my age who had recently lost her hair to alopecia. For the next six months, my teenage self...
LivGor Platinum Pass Round 4 Quiz: Q & A’s
Here are the questions and answers to the 4th preliminary round of our #PlatinumPass contest. Thanks to the thousands of you who took part in the contest - I hope you enjoyed it! We are now in the process of collating and double-checking the scores, and will be...
Reducing Scope Insensitivity
There’s been a huge oil spill somewhere, and you hear that approximately one thousand birds are covered in oil and dying slow, horrible deaths. You’re upset, as you should be. Now you hear that actually, it’s one million birds that are covered in oil and dying. You...
The Importance of Quantified Thinking
A good poker player would never just think to themselves "Oh, that big bet means she probably has the best hand", or "Maybe he'll fold if I make a big bluff". Instead, they'll carefully think through all the information they have, evaluate the strength of each...
LivGor Platinum Pass Quiz – Round 3 questions and answers
Hi folks, apologies for the delay in posting these answers - WCOOP and a few other life things held it up. Anyhoo, below are the answers to round 3 of our quiz. Hope you enjoyed the quiz, and congratulations those of you who think you're likely to still be in the...
The Joy of Winning – BBC4 documentary
Enjoy games? You'll love this BBC documentary I was part of recently: "The Joy of Winning" presented by mathematician Hannah Fry. It takes a deep dive into general game theory and strategy. A pleasure to see the subject given some mainstream attention! Watch the full...