Ryan Gibson
@ragibson.bsky.social
I am a Computer Scientist and Mathematician with a wide range of technical interests. In my free time, I enjoy working on mathematical, statistical, and programming projects as personal hobbies.
https://ryanagibson.com/
https://ryanagibson.com/
I experimented with a toy model of stress that compounds during consecutive work days and decays during rest. Greedy optimization of PTO then ends up looking a lot like typical vacation advice.
ryanagibson.com/posts/optimi...
ryanagibson.com/posts/optimi...
December 29, 2025 at 10:17 PM
I experimented with a toy model of stress that compounds during consecutive work days and decays during rest. Greedy optimization of PTO then ends up looking a lot like typical vacation advice.
ryanagibson.com/posts/optimi...
ryanagibson.com/posts/optimi...
I looked at Charlotte's rush hour using Google Maps traffic data. It turns out shifting your workday barely helps unless you work far outside normal hours.
ryanagibson.com/posts/charlo...
ryanagibson.com/posts/charlo...
Charlotte Traffic Patterns and the Best Times to Commute
Analyzing commute trends in Charlotte, NC using Google Maps traffic data.
ryanagibson.com
October 26, 2025 at 7:30 PM
I looked at Charlotte's rush hour using Google Maps traffic data. It turns out shifting your workday barely helps unless you work far outside normal hours.
ryanagibson.com/posts/charlo...
ryanagibson.com/posts/charlo...
Glad to share that my video lesson on deriving the Black-Scholes formula (aimed at high schoolers & undergrads) earned a score equivalent to the top 10% in the 4th annual Summer of Math Exposition.
some.3b1b.co/entries/8264...
I also highly recommend checking out the other entries!
some.3b1b.co/entries/8264...
I also highly recommend checking out the other entries!
SoME — Create and discover new math content
The Summer of Math Exposition is an annual competition to foster the creation of excellent math content online.
some.3b1b.co
October 1, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Glad to share that my video lesson on deriving the Black-Scholes formula (aimed at high schoolers & undergrads) earned a score equivalent to the top 10% in the 4th annual Summer of Math Exposition.
some.3b1b.co/entries/8264...
I also highly recommend checking out the other entries!
some.3b1b.co/entries/8264...
I also highly recommend checking out the other entries!
Quick riddle: which is slower and by how much? Thousands of simple operations or one print statement?
ryanagibson.com/posts/print-...
ryanagibson.com/posts/print-...
August 20, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Quick riddle: which is slower and by how much? Thousands of simple operations or one print statement?
ryanagibson.com/posts/print-...
ryanagibson.com/posts/print-...
Many fat-tailed distributions model real data, but they’re not exactly drop-in replacements for each other. I fit rules of thumb to convert tail parameters between t, Pareto, stable, generalized normal, and hyperbolic distributions, plus a few more.
ryanagibson.com/posts/fat-ta...
ryanagibson.com/posts/fat-ta...
Converting Between Fat-Tailed Distributions
A set of rules of thumb that I’ve fit to convert between the most popular fat-tailed distributions.
ryanagibson.com
August 13, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Many fat-tailed distributions model real data, but they’re not exactly drop-in replacements for each other. I fit rules of thumb to convert tail parameters between t, Pareto, stable, generalized normal, and hyperbolic distributions, plus a few more.
ryanagibson.com/posts/fat-ta...
ryanagibson.com/posts/fat-ta...
Many LLM safeguards can be bypassed by simply starting the response with "Sure" or "Of course!" These kinds of inference-time attacks deserve a lot more attention from open model red teams.
ryanagibson.com/posts/inject...
ryanagibson.com/posts/inject...
Injected Approval: A Low Effort Local LLM Jailbreak
A quick look into into one of the simplest attacks on LLM safety mitigations, revealing large gaps in current approaches from major tech companies.
ryanagibson.com
July 30, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Many LLM safeguards can be bypassed by simply starting the response with "Sure" or "Of course!" These kinds of inference-time attacks deserve a lot more attention from open model red teams.
ryanagibson.com/posts/inject...
ryanagibson.com/posts/inject...
I played around with a custom "trend-reverting" stochastic model using 150 years of stock data to see how much recent returns influence future ones.
Outside of very extreme cases, not much. Returns usually stay somewhat near long-term averages.
ryanagibson.com/posts/long-t...
Outside of very extreme cases, not much. Returns usually stay somewhat near long-term averages.
ryanagibson.com/posts/long-t...
Modeling Stock Market Corrections Over 150 Years
How fast does the stock market correct back to long-term trends? Let’s fit a fat-tailed, skewed stochastic model to find out.
ryanagibson.com
July 16, 2025 at 4:38 PM
I played around with a custom "trend-reverting" stochastic model using 150 years of stock data to see how much recent returns influence future ones.
Outside of very extreme cases, not much. Returns usually stay somewhat near long-term averages.
ryanagibson.com/posts/long-t...
Outside of very extreme cases, not much. Returns usually stay somewhat near long-term averages.
ryanagibson.com/posts/long-t...
Months ago, I ran a benchmark of consumer-grade local LLMs, as judged by LLMs. Alibaba's Qwen came out on top, followed by Google's Gemma. Newer and more official evals like LiveBench show similar results.
ryanagibson.com/posts/llm-ju...
ryanagibson.com/posts/llm-ju...
Leaderboard of Open LLMs Ranked by LLM Judges
An evaluation of recent consumer-grade open LLMs based on ratings generated through an LLM-as-a-judge framework.
ryanagibson.com
July 10, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Months ago, I ran a benchmark of consumer-grade local LLMs, as judged by LLMs. Alibaba's Qwen came out on top, followed by Google's Gemma. Newer and more official evals like LiveBench show similar results.
ryanagibson.com/posts/llm-ju...
ryanagibson.com/posts/llm-ju...
Correlation can be unintuitive: even a 90% correlated hedge can only cut about half your risk.
ryanagibson.com/posts/correl...
ryanagibson.com/posts/correl...
How Risky is a Correlated Hedge?
A brief analysis of how much risk you can reduce by hedging with correlated assets. Even in a perfect world, a 90% correlation limits risk reduction to about 50%.
ryanagibson.com
July 2, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Correlation can be unintuitive: even a 90% correlated hedge can only cut about half your risk.
ryanagibson.com/posts/correl...
ryanagibson.com/posts/correl...
Why is your Git project so bloated? I trimmed 97% off the size of a Hugo theme repo without sacrificing history or functionality.
ryanagibson.com/posts/shrink...
ryanagibson.com/posts/shrink...
Why the Hell Is This Git Repo So Large? And How to Trim It Down
A guide on reducing the size of an oversized Git repository, using the Blowfish Hugo theme as a case study. Learn best practices for maintaining a lean repo and its history.
ryanagibson.com
June 26, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Why is your Git project so bloated? I trimmed 97% off the size of a Hugo theme repo without sacrificing history or functionality.
ryanagibson.com/posts/shrink...
ryanagibson.com/posts/shrink...
Republican states are cheaper and have shorter commutes.
Democratic states are happier and healthier.
A majority of 100+ state metrics follow political voting patterns: ryanagibson.com/posts/politi...
Democratic states are happier and healthier.
A majority of 100+ state metrics follow political voting patterns: ryanagibson.com/posts/politi...
Analyzing Political Party Strength vs. Quality of Life in U.S. States
A data-driven exploration of how political lean correlates with quality of life metrics across the United States.
ryanagibson.com
June 18, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Republican states are cheaper and have shorter commutes.
Democratic states are happier and healthier.
A majority of 100+ state metrics follow political voting patterns: ryanagibson.com/posts/politi...
Democratic states are happier and healthier.
A majority of 100+ state metrics follow political voting patterns: ryanagibson.com/posts/politi...
How much should you spend for the most cost-effective PC build? How often should you upgrade? Is future-proofing worth it? I scraped more than a decade of data and spent some time on a simple model to find out.
ryanagibson.com/posts/optima...
ryanagibson.com/posts/optima...
June 11, 2025 at 4:12 PM
How much should you spend for the most cost-effective PC build? How often should you upgrade? Is future-proofing worth it? I scraped more than a decade of data and spent some time on a simple model to find out.
ryanagibson.com/posts/optima...
ryanagibson.com/posts/optima...
Remote/hybrid work is worth more than most people realize. For a typical American office worker, every extra in-office day per week amounts to a ~5% pay cut and ~12% less weekday free time.
ryanagibson.com/posts/time-b...
ryanagibson.com/posts/time-b...
On the Time Burden of Office Work
How much of a pay cut is in-office work compared to remote? All else being equal, maybe a bit more than you’d expect.
ryanagibson.com
June 4, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Remote/hybrid work is worth more than most people realize. For a typical American office worker, every extra in-office day per week amounts to a ~5% pay cut and ~12% less weekday free time.
ryanagibson.com/posts/time-b...
ryanagibson.com/posts/time-b...
Many online retirement calculators are extremely simple under the hood, so I built a simple analytic one to better understand them and improve on common flaws I’ve noticed.
ryanagibson.com/posts/analyt...
ryanagibson.com/posts/analyt...
Analytic Early Retirement Calculator
A retirement calculator that estimates your retirement timeline, required annual savings, and assesses your progress toward retirement goals.
ryanagibson.com
May 28, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Many online retirement calculators are extremely simple under the hood, so I built a simple analytic one to better understand them and improve on common flaws I’ve noticed.
ryanagibson.com/posts/analyt...
ryanagibson.com/posts/analyt...
I worked on some QR code cellular automata that remain scannable on every frame. See ryanagibson.com/posts/qr-cod... for details.
May 21, 2025 at 2:55 AM
I worked on some QR code cellular automata that remain scannable on every frame. See ryanagibson.com/posts/qr-cod... for details.
Beating a dead horse with an old post, but: save aggressively and invest early. Some back of the envelope calculations show those first few years matter the most.
ryanagibson.com/posts/early-...
ryanagibson.com/posts/early-...
May 15, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Beating a dead horse with an old post, but: save aggressively and invest early. Some back of the envelope calculations show those first few years matter the most.
ryanagibson.com/posts/early-...
ryanagibson.com/posts/early-...
I was curious how closely Vanguard’s target retirement funds follow the investor guidance they publish. So I pulled the funds' holdings and took a look at the breakdown by age, asset class, domestic vs. international, and so on.
ryanagibson.com/posts/vangua...
ryanagibson.com/posts/vangua...
Vanguard Implied Asset Allocation Recommendations
A collection of asset allocation rules for every age, implied by Vanguard’s target date retirement funds.
ryanagibson.com
May 6, 2025 at 4:13 PM
I was curious how closely Vanguard’s target retirement funds follow the investor guidance they publish. So I pulled the funds' holdings and took a look at the breakdown by age, asset class, domestic vs. international, and so on.
ryanagibson.com/posts/vangua...
ryanagibson.com/posts/vangua...
A 16-character random password exceeds the brute-force capabilities of the entire planet.
A while back, I calculated what you'd need for lone hackers, state actors, and intergalactic supercomputers: ryanagibson.com/posts/absurd...
A while back, I calculated what you'd need for lone hackers, state actors, and intergalactic supercomputers: ryanagibson.com/posts/absurd...
Absurd Password Lengths and the Computational Limits of Humanity
A discussion of password strength, brute-force attacks, and the physical limits of the universe.
ryanagibson.com
April 30, 2025 at 4:19 PM
A 16-character random password exceeds the brute-force capabilities of the entire planet.
A while back, I calculated what you'd need for lone hackers, state actors, and intergalactic supercomputers: ryanagibson.com/posts/absurd...
A while back, I calculated what you'd need for lone hackers, state actors, and intergalactic supercomputers: ryanagibson.com/posts/absurd...
I don’t really do social media, but I’ll probably share some ad-hoc analyses here from my website, GitHub, etc. I mostly work on #programming, #math, #quant, and #investing projects. No guarantees on frequency, but I’ll be here occasionally.
April 13, 2025 at 6:50 PM
I don’t really do social media, but I’ll probably share some ad-hoc analyses here from my website, GitHub, etc. I mostly work on #programming, #math, #quant, and #investing projects. No guarantees on frequency, but I’ll be here occasionally.