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New articles

ACX 2025 Prediction Contest Retrospective

Over the past year, I have not been competing in forecasting at all. But I did make predictions for the ACX 2025 competition at the start of the last year, and with it all resolved now I ended up placing just outside the top 5 %. This year I have submitted predictions for the ACX 2026 contest, and I will try to participate actively in the Metaculus Cup this spring to see if this is something I want to get back into.

Full article (2–6 minute read): ACX 2025 Prediction Contest Retrospective

Nvidia Stock Crash Prediction

One of the questions in the ACX 2026 contest is whether Nvidia's stock price will trade under nearly half its current value at any point in the year. I think there's a 12 % probability of this. If you've ever been curious about how to price options and what thas has to do with Nvidia halving its price, this is the article for you!

Full article (10–25 minute read): Nvidia Stock Crash Prediction

Flashcard of the week

One of the things I've never understood properly because I've never taken the time to experiment with it is complex maths, and its connections to trigonometry, frequency, Fourier transforms, etc. I can probably recite the basics, but I have no intuition for any of it, and as soon as it goes beyond the basics I'm completely lost.

Sometimes I lament this lack of understanding and create flashcards for the basics.

In which direction does the point spin when increasing t in e^(iωt)?

This is one of those flashcards. The main parameter is t, and by multiplying it with i and then using it as the exponent for e we are guaranteed to get a point along the unit circle in the (Re,Im) plane.

Assuming positive angular velocity ω, the point will spin

Counter-clockwise

when increasing t.

Forecasting 2026 and multi-criteria pathfinding (premium newsletter)

At this point the new premium newsletter is almost finished and will go out in the next few days. Here's the table of contents:

• A brief review of 2025 for the blog (1 minute read)
• Some personal notes on ZFS mirroring (2 minute read)
• Pathfinding using multi-criteria shortest path (15 minute read)
• Book recommendation: Vitön by Uusma (1 minute read)
• Forecasts for the ACX 2026 prediction contest (30 minute read)

I suspect the readership will be split down the middle as to whether they find the pathfinding tutorial or the forecast rationales more interesting, but I had fun writing both.

You might not think any of the above is interesting, but you'd still like to support the blog. You can do so for $4 per month, cancelable any time with no questions asked. To upgrade, click the subscription link at the top of this newsletter and fill in your email again.

If you do, you'll also get access to the most recent premium newsletter about optimising automated test execution, text adventures, storytelling, and links to three small games I've enjoyed recently. Oh, and that mysterious image illustrating compass sighting. Right, and the full archive of the other 8 premium newsletters, too.

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