oxag3n

I liked it, felt the translation "ate" something."For now" is more organic in the original language.

The dialog with the cheese-maker would convey the mood better (consider that so far = so long in the original): - Why cheese? - So far no one is doing this for me. - So far? - So long.

% would be helpful, is it -1% or -100% per month per person?

It's not the end of the world. Seattle is incredibly expensive, however the market is down this year and listings sitting on the market for months and months. The problem is influx of people who need to sell because they lost their job or accepted the buyout - it can ruin their life further down the line.

There goes Seattle Eastside housing market. At least 30% households on my street have someone at Microsoft.

The main message from Altman is closer to the end - “I think we’re going to have to completely switch the defense model to using the same technology for a new kind of defense shield,” he said.

Which mean they couldn't monetize security bug discovery and are pairing it with the "anti-virus" AI, or racketeering in other words.

Heard from one mathematician recently - math is not about problem solving, but about the artifacts that are produced in the process. The new Navier-Stokes solution for singularity isn't worth a million, it supposed to generate new mathematical methodologies, tooling and lead to additional discoveries, like the graph theory.

I had to return iSpring RO system bought through their official portal. It came as a shock to me that I had to pay for shipment that was 70% of the contents value. IMO that's the way to discourage returns.

Interesting part about form submissions:

Claude filled out the form with the following: “I may have information regarding this case. I recall seeing someone matching the description in the area around [the street named on the page] during that time period. Please contact me if this information is relevant.” (The website did not include a description of the perpetrator.) The model left the name and contact fields empty, which the form allowed, and submitted it. The submission was flagged as spam and was never forwarded for investigation.

When it can replace a white collar remote worker without humans team realizing they work with the machine. And no, Agents are not like this whatever initial prompt and set of skills you give them. They still won't progress, learn and apply that knowledge like a human.

> A dumber, less social world, is far less likely to be a successful world, even if the tools available are unprecedented.

En masse such worlds had successes in the past - renaissance, industrial revolution.

It's something else what I can't describe but it's the zeitgeist that was different when world recorded new successes. Look at CS revolution that led to PC and web of nineties and noughties, they didn't think about the result product , or how to steer thousand engineers to build something - amazing things were born in a very small teams, many times authored by a single person, who was deeply invested into the field and knew what he was doing.

[1] is not a valid proof LeCun was wrong, LLMs still can't do spacial reasoning when it can't be derived from the training data. He didn't argue that GPT 5000 won't be able to describe something with words.

This advice helped a lot of students I interacted with - hypes come and go, observe them but think about yourself in 10 years, invest into your skills, even if that means writing web pages manually for the sake of learning. Think about all those who invested into UML code generation, Java EE frameworks instead of core skills.

Just stop supporting this narrative if you don't want to participate in it.

When it comes pro-AI the goals are mostly clear.

But when engineers who can and choose to skip the hype write at length the obvious, what's the goal?

Most houses are old and many in shit condition, you'd want at least replace shingles before installing solar.

Everything becomes harder and expensive - no more standard gutter cleaning fee (200-300 bucks per average roof). For damp subclimates no more moss treatment possible.

For many houses you'd need structural engineer assessment to make sure roof can add such a load.

Many vents and outlets need to be relocated to cover large and nice area with the panels.

Dealing with contractors on standard things is such a pain already in US - expensive, many unskilled, trying to get more money out of your pocket. When they see someting expensive or non-standard their attitude changes even more.

Translation: "I'm so wise guys, that I'm using epistemic humility principles to hide it"

AI can make everyone miserable. Solution? Partner with all major AI companies using foundation (tax free btw) money. It's like saying Hitler is bad, let's split Europe in half so we can profit as well... ah well, that actually happened.

User experience is not always correlated with metrics targeted by engineers.

I visit a building sometimes with destination dispatch elevators, and with low exposure across multiple years I'm confused every time the elevator I need to take is open behind me.

I once used the paternoster lift in Germany, beats any elevator algorithm efficiency because it's a non-stop "conveyor" with no doors. I still get nightmares about that elevator.

I wish I knew that one month ago. Hired a small local company to fix something in my house, great reviews in yelp/facebook/google, license+insurance. The guy came for the estimate and everything felt smooth. Two other guys came for the actual job, no company, no license, I couldn't even communicate with them until I opened voice translator. They did a terrible job and made the situation worse than before.

And yet listings in nice neighborhoods are gone in under a week in Seattle suburbs now. I started a rental 2 years ago and now again - similar houses are at least 25% more expensive now than two years ago. There was a line of families when I was viewing houses with good schools.

I think this is all demand/supply problem. There were way more rental listings May/June 2024 than this year.

Looked for this comment!

All those C*Os and founders are good and successful politicians, not nerds. There was a colossal PR campaign to picture them as nerds for multiple reasons, but most of them never created like nerds would do (with a passion, going deep, enjoying the process & the result).

Politicians become successful due to skills incompatible with nerd mindset. Look at Linus, he could built an empire but he's a git.

Was invented long, long time ago. I first learned formal definition as "part count reduction" fromm Design for Manufacturing (DFM).

Renting won't match home ownership for few reasons.

First one already mentioned in the comments is you can be kicked out at any time within your rental agreement. I was "lucky" enough to get our rental sold two years ago and then again this year. Packing and looking for another rental with 2 months notice is not fun (and boxes smell).

Another difference is location and place itself. You'll have much fewer rentals in a very nice neighborhood, and even those that are rented out, are the worst - corner lots (3x gardening cost/effort), facing major roads or other things that make life less comfortable.

Rental condition is not under your control. At least in Seattle area owners I rented from didn't keep the house well maintained, which resulted in:

* roof leak (no moss treatment performed, grew and lifted shingles).

* 25 yo furnace "worked" until one midnight my family had to evacuate and call fire fighters due to CO alarms getting off. Four days without heating after that (owner offered to reimburse for the cheapest hotel nearby).

* Appliances are not replaced until they break. I looked at one property few weeks ago that had original once white appliances. I asked if owner is willing to upgrade them, the agent laughed at told us they will fix it if something doesn't work after we move in.

Interesting times we observe. I don't recall such a massive rupture in opinions about modern technology. Even fight over blockchain and NFTs looks minuscule compared to AI.

Engineers always fought about technology - MS technology stack iterations that promised new era in development, Borland RAD tools that made everyone "GUI developer", all those had evangelists and companies who pushed it. It's a healthy competition and we see where Java EE ended up, although in 2010s it was still promised as one and only future for servers.

Will this time be different? I don't know and I'm afraid there's a critical mass accumulated to push it forward forcefully. But when I talk to my friends and students I give one advice that I follow - invest in your intelligence, not tooling and ecosystem of large corporations. Build something yourself, not for the sake of chasing venture investors with your million LOC slope, but to learn and master real skills. When one student implemented Paxos for his thesis and followed my advice, the feedback was that not only he learned and built a mental model of the algorithm and all corner cases, but also led to novel algorithm development, just because his brain was into it, not on top of AI.

<sarcasm>History teaches us that rich and powerful think about consequences of their actions and optimize for balanced, non-violent outcomes</sarcasm>

In this context, I argue that if a significant sector of economy goes fully AI, it is similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union where within few months most people lost their jobs. The wikipedia link above shows how similar scenarios unfolded in many eastern block countries, specifically mass unemployment, poverty and crime.

Totally, that's what history teaches us /s

Not from so distant past - Soviet Union collapse caused mass unemployment and similar socioeconomic scenarios - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_wild_nineties

Mass poverty and skyrocketing crime levels (mugged for sneakers was common), while ultra rich grabbed money and power.