I might be completely out of context, but why is it only 4x compression? Do they commit a lot of binaries? I just don't understand why would code compress so badly.

I spent too much effort parsing the title and trying to understand what the project is.

You can do a lot of cool stuff with the same lego pieces.

I find it interesting that they only analyzed texts that mention at least two cities, like this one:

> From Durhumit until Kanes I incurred expenses of 5 minas of refined (copper), I spent 3 minas of copper until Wahsusana, I acquired and spent small wares for a value of 4 shekels of silver. (Tablet AKT 8/145, lines 24–29)

Because I know some local businesses here that are based in city X would not mention this fact in the books, at least not for every transaction. They would write something like 'Got shipment from Y' or 'Sent for repairs to Z' etc.

They also exclude texts that mention Assur, which is the largest city there

> We exclude Assur, the home city of the Assyrians, from our automated search. First, the word Assur is also the name of the main Assyrian deity and occurs very often as an element of personal names. Second, the city of Assur is often referred to as simply alum — “the City” (comparable in use to references to the financial district of London)

So very cool work, and it can be improved upon too!

I never heard of Gangrel magazine [1]. It had only 4 issues total, and this essay was in the last one. Editors J.B.Pick (age 24 at the time) and Charles Neil asked Orwell and other writers to explain why they write. Pick later became a writer himself.

All this to say that we might've not see this essay if not for those two young editors trying to get established writers' perspective on the craft.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangrel_(magazine)

The whole 'demon' thing in the essay reminded me how my mom likes to say: you should only write if you cannot not write.

[1] https://storage02.forbrukerradet.no/media/2026/02/breaking-f...

1. 2016 was years after Bitcoin was developed. So you could still make 200x returns without being early adopter.

2. Is this even true? I'd bet scraping experts or people who can fine tune LLMs have easier time finding a job than classical ML academics.

3. Candy Crash was released when iPhone was on its 5th iteration.

If anything, you just added to OPs points. Being an early adopter gives limited advantage.