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BurdensomeCount

Thou Shalt Read BC's Writings!

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joined 2022 September 05 16:37:04 UTC

The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines and "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the"bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.


				
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BurdensomeCount


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Thou Shalt Read BC's Writings!

				
				
				

				

					6 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 16:37:04 UTC
				


				
					

					
The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines and "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the"bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Fair point, perhaps my counter-signalling should instead be that I never had any tutoring before beginning my university education and then afterwards I only got what everyone else with me also got, I didn't have to do any "special" guided learning that me or my parents paid for to give me an edge.


Supervisions though are genuinely one of the things that make the experience unique and yes, I'll admit I wouldn't be as comfortable with my academic learning if I'd instead gotten the UK's bog standard university experience where classes have 15+ people on average instead of supos.




graduates of elite British universities have received a more rigorous university education than graduates of elite American universities




Absolutely agree on this. I've had the (mis)fortune to meet more than my fair share of US elite graduates through my job and otherwise and apart from the MIT grads none struck me as particularly impressive on average (this includes Harvard, Yale and perhaps surprisingly Stanford, but my Stanford sample size is low). All I'll say is I'd wager 60% of elite US students who major in what I studied would have likely failed our end of year exams and been thrown out (fun fact: effectively no resits, you get one shot; if you fail, you are out), this is not an exaggeration and the rest would mostly have gotten thirds or lower second class honours. I refer back to my post here on why I think the US higher education system for undergrad is fundamentally broken.




I think Eton provides a more rigorous pre-University education than traditional-elite American prep schools




Didn't go to Eton but I can believe this, my Etonian friends (who made it to Oxbridge, so not an unbiased sample) were not merely more polished than the average in terms of social interactions but also tended to do better. Same for Westminster, Oundle and the Leys.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The problem in the UK is actually the opposite. We have startups that have working viable products with actual repeat customers and they still have trouble getting funding a lot of the time, especially Series B onwards (Seed funding is better resourced). These companies are usually already making money, they just need further funding to expand their offering which is unfortunately not available here in the UK for various reasons.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, people say the UK and Europe are generally bad for startups however the US showers even shitty companies with so much cash that I'd treat a random UK company that managed to raise £100k from UK investors as being more promising than a US startup that's been handed $2 million for their idea. Seems like an allocation inefficiency for humanity as a whole with a corresponding deadweight loss that can be avoided if the US VCs were funding the UK companies instead of Juicero v2.5 (now with electrolytes!).


Instead of getting Trump to sign meaningless promises on data center investment in the UK when he visited Starmer would have been much better advised to get him to make promises on forcing American VCs to invest in UK startups that aren't looking to enter the US market in the short to medium term. That would genuinely have been a lot better for the country than yet another mega datacenter when we have some of the highest industrial electricity costs in the world.


The amount of cash shoshing around in the US is obscene, relative to basically anywhere else in the world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is the place where I counter signal and make it known far and wide that I never had or needed any after school tutoring to get to where I am. The absolute numbers of people sitting these countrywide enterance exams is massive but 95%+ of them are abysmally bad, the real competition is within the top 2-3% and you'll know if you're in with a realistic shot well before test day. Otherwise you might as well be playing the lottery here, except that the lottery has better odds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No cookies for either of us then, the model has revealed that we're splitting the same biscuit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hey, do me now. I know I can do this myself but I'm feeling too lazy right now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And I think that the big hyperscalers grossly underestimate how much optimizations are left in the pipeline.




Strongly agree on this. Deepseek V4 already brought down the output cost per million tokens below $1 (they say it's a promotion, but they keep extending it) for a model that's perfectly good enough for all "normal person" uses. I expect further optimisations will bring this cost down to $0.01 or so per million output tokens (with two more zeros in front for the input cost) within 5 years or so for models that are as capable as the stuff out there today (see how Qwen 3.6 27B today which you can run locally if you have a decent GPU outperforms Opus 4.0 from less than 12 months ago and which used to cost $75 per million output tokens).


For the vast majority of tasks you don't need the smartest model out there, you just need one which is good enough, and once the baseline for "good enough" is established Chinese competition will drive down the marginal price for "good enough" tokens to the point that some companies are going to be left nursing huge losses.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can confim - Having nukes is great!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've also had a lot to think about since the first time we've had this question. My current honest thought process is that if the question is asked to "everyone in the world" I'd feel confident in pressing Blue. However if the question gets asked only to people in Quant Finance there's no way in hell I'm pressing anything other than Red.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Back when this question first came out I unhesitantly said Red. Now that I am older and wiser I would likely choose blue, purely because of the framing of the question. Frame it as red:live vs blue:potentially die and I'd still choose red:live.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The solution here would be an arms length neutral body made up of experts from non-political backgrounds which deicdes on districts and isn't subject to the executive in who's on it. A bit like how the Judicial Appointments Comission decides on who to appoint as judges in the UK completely independent from whoever is in government at the time. All the gerrymandered angular districts would disappear in one fell swoop and things would look a lot more reasonable.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


They did not rule categorically that race may not be used as a factor in redistricting decisions, but they did rule that if a redistricting decision could be explained by a partisan gerrymander rather than a racial one, there was no case.




This is like saying that if I ban my employees from wearing turbans during work then I'm not discriminating against Sikh Men, even though Sikh Men are the ones who are going to be hit by the change almost exclusively. All I've done is laundered religious prejudice through an apparently neutral criteria. Shame on the 6 ideological justices.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


fancy Japanese notebooks




I highly recommend Maruman Mnemosyne paper if you use fountain pens at all. Expensive, but absolutely worth it. Far better than the Midori MD Paper stuff which is decent but doesn't have that premium feel of Mnemosyne.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Totally agreed. I don't even care if a lot of women are or aren't like what these articles portray them as. There are still lots and lots of groups where women by and large don't behave in the manner suggested. I've structured my affairs to steer away from these sorts of people, and it isn't hard to do so. For all I care nowadays these hypergamous man-haters (to the extent they exist) might as well be living on Mars vs two blocks below me in how much of a direct impact they have on my life. They can live their life, I will live mine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's being a care worker, not a proper hospital nurse, and is a very different job which yes I'd agree is low status. I'm thinking more like ICU or Operating theatre helper as "nurse".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nursing has the whole do gooder schtick attached to it; in the eyes of the normies that beats out the actual difficulty of breaking into the job (the job itself is not easy, I grant you, but then neither is being a janitor, and that's about as low status as you can get).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I'd agree. These days it looks like being a quant as well falls into the same category unless you're talking some very select elite groups. For the common person if a man says he's a nurse he'll get more respect than if he says he develops trading models for a living.


Sad times...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh, even if it wasn't real Christ, "Christ" did absolutely the right thing here by rejecting the Devil. If everyone follows that reasoning and accepts that they are crazy it means the real Christ also gets caught up by it. Imagine Christ giving in to the Devil in exchange for 100k fewer psychotics across all of human history causing minor disruptions that are forgotten years after they die at the latest. Humanity would be in a very different place today.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interesting, I don't have any formal benchmark, much like we don't have any formal benchmarkes for the Opus 4.6 degradation beyond people (and AMD) complaining, but that's very much the impression I personally get from using Gemini 3.0+ and ChatGPT (before 5.4).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Google and OAI have already engaged in the enshittification. Their latest models (apart from GPT-5.4, which is genuinely a good model) hallucinate in ways the earlier offerings 6 months ago weren't doing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
People are shitting on the fact that 35% more token usage means they have to pay more for the same text. I'm pissed off by the fact that 35% more token usage means the amount of actual text/code rather than tokens before Opus 4.7 needs to compact is down by around 25% meaning more frequent compactions and worse long context performance.


Just give us back release Opus 4.6, that was a great model.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, the margins are massive, but someone needs to do the work in the end, and we do it the most efficiently.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Do not forget to thank every day Israel and heroes working in quantitative finance who made it all possible.




I wouldn't say we are heroes but quant finance isn't completely zero sum. It may be almost zero sum on the margins but Phoebe and Co. would notice very quickly if we all disappeared in a poof of smoke.