norvigs-law SKILL.md skillA

norvigs-law from the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.

Install it, pinned
mdr add the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer/norvigs-law@git:20260530.3e17152

Pins git:20260530.3e17152 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.

Audit grade
A, 17 of 17 checks passed
Kind
SKILL.md skill
Repository
the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer
Path
norvigs-law/SKILL.md
Versions recorded
1
Latest version
git:20260530.3e17152, committed May 30, 2026
Size
3,553 bytes
Repository stars
6
License
MIT

Apply Norvig's Law when evaluating growth claims about technology adoption, market size projections, "exponential growth" narratives, or headlines claiming a technology will "double" its reach when it's already dominant. Trigger on phrases like "X is growing exponentially", "this will double in the next year", "the market will 2x", or any context where someone is applying growth rate assumptions to a technology that already has significant penetration. Also useful when evaluating numeracy in…

Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.

What the file says

# Norvig's Law

> "Any technology that surpasses 50% penetration will never double again."
> — Peter Norvig, 1999

## The core idea

This is a deliberately simple, tongue-in-cheek observation about mathematics and the growth of technology. If a technology already reaches more than 50% of its target market, it cannot double again — because doubling would require more than 100% penetration, which is impossible.

More broadly: growth rates that sound impressive early in adoption become mathematically constrained as penetration increases. The "doubling" narrative that works at 1% doesn't work at 51%.

## Why this matters

**Evaluating growth claims:**
When someone says "smartphone adoption will double in the next 5 years," check the current penetration rate. If it's already at 60% of the relevant population, doubling is impossible. Claims like this reveal either innumeracy or deliberate misdirection.

**Understanding S-curves:**
Technology adoption typically follows an S-curve:
- Slow initial growth (early adopters)
- Rapid growth through the middle (majority adoption)
- Flattening as the market saturates
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

The exact contents, by fingerprint
mdr add the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer/norvigs-law@sha256:4eae8274909388bf

The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260530.3e17152, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.

Badge

mdr badge

[![mdr](https://markdownregistry.com/badge/art_yjfjd3sgd7aeqd3c.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_yjfjd3sgd7aeqd3c)

4 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.

Versions

The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on May 30, 2026.

versioncommittedcommitsizeaudit
git:20260530.3e17152 latest2026-05-30 3e17152 3,553 BA view

Audit of the latest version

A  17 of 17 checks passed. Fixed automatic checks with no AI involved, so the same checks give the same answer every run.
  • pass: Frontmatter block present
  • pass: Frontmatter declares a name
  • pass: Frontmatter declares a description
  • pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (3553 bytes)
  • pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
  • pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
  • pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
  • pass: No credential-shaped string
  • pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
  • pass: No text hidden with inline styles
  • pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
  • pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
  • pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
  • pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
  • pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
  • pass: No link to a raw IP address
  • pass: No script tag

Source

GitHub

the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer · 6 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-11-08 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_yjfjd3sgd7aeqd3c
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer/norvigs-law
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/4eae8274909388bfcd54b95ff626b91d6aa8e78c32fb48bf8aca8587343c4b48

Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.

Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.

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