DradisPing
No bio...
User ID: 1102
DradisPing
12hr ago
So it's being hit by a few things.
- UI work is low status in tech.
- Microsoft wants to use it's UI frameworks to tie people to Windows, but it burned a lot of developers and companies with Silverlight.
- HR departments don't believe in transferable skills. They only hire for the same stack.
So Microsoft has tech like XAML, which is perfectly fine. But their own developers don't want to learn it because it's career suicide. 5 years as a XAML wizard at MS means that every other tech company will view you as less than a fresh grad.
So the developers working at MS have been trying to avoid UI work or shoehorn React into the OS UI to preserve their ability to get other jobs.
Additionally there are some structural problems at MS. The main customer from the sales point of view is the corporate IT department. The tools for managing Windows Domains are excellent. However the IT departments view the desktop OS as an overly complicated launcher for Microsoft Office. They have no interest in things like moving the launch bar, and would probably like an option to ban that.
Also Microsoft has been getting increasingly culturally Indian. It used to have a bit of a barbarian flavour where it was OK to get in fights over tech decisions. I don't have enough information about the details and consequences of this to do a good write up, but I'm sure it has effects.
DradisPing
14hr ago
In Shards of Earth he favours a prose style I find a bit convoluted.
Until there's a chapter in a bar where he's describing the crews polyamorous dating habits. It suddenly switches into a perfectly clear writing style.
He goes back to being convoluted when the interesting space stuff starts up again.
I've read Shards of Earth and Ruin, and I don't remember any sex or romance in either of those.
DradisPing
5d ago
So a few things are hitting at once.
US energy production has been basically flat for the past 25 years. Renewables have been replacing coal with the total largely unchanged. Progressives, thanks to funding from China, adopted anti growth strategies and blocked new power plants. Now there's suddenly huge strategic demand for power hungry data centres. They need to find places with enough surplus grid capacity to build them. China has switched to PR campaigns about water usage.
The typical small town mayor will eagerly sell out the towns water and power rights to get his daughter a Google marketing internship. The small town residents are well aware of this. Additionally data centres don't generate many local jobs, so most towns don't see the point.
We're in an era of high interest rates, so companies that need to raise big money to build big computer now need big IPO.
I haven't seen any actual craziness yet. The original dot com bust had things getting just silly... loose money on each sale and make up the difference in ads! SF had a proto door dash that would have someone deliver a single candy bar for no mark up. The 2008 real estate bubble was famous for it's NINJA loans (no income, no job, no assets).
In comparison data centres are genuinely useful and they should be able to pay for themselves with other tasks if AI doesn't pan out like they expect.
I'm not sure how wasteful the current model training is... eg how much each new version carries over from the prior training. It might be possible that they are currently doing too many releases and it'd be more long term efficient to do fewer. But it's R&D, so who knows.
What people tend to miss is that all of the money is being spent on the AI training arms race. It's simple to run a model profitably after it has been produced. The issue is recovering cost of development and funding new development.
So even if all of the AI companies go bust, we're likely going to still be running models in those data centres.
It doesn't exactly feel like a bubble to me because the average Joe isn't getting rich off of it yet. There are no FOMO investors getting into it because their neighbour made a ton of money. That may change with the IPOs.
DradisPing
7d ago
So historians tend to have either a pro-Soviet or anti-Russian bias. If you start looking into the numbers Russia was well behind the great powers but industrializing.
At the dawn of WW1 Russia had more km of railway than anyone except the US. Note that sources split the UK and British India, so you can easily argue that the UK was ahead. Obviously that's spread over a massive territory, but it's still something. The Trans-Siberian Railway was pre-communist.
During WW1 the Russian Empire was making it's own artillery, rifles, and armoured cars.
Sure it was underdeveloped, but it was a major oil producer during the age of oil. A more moderate government would have been able to industrialize a bit more slowly but with far fewer corpses.
DradisPing
7d ago
Taking a break from being censured by the NH house, Travis Corcoran released the audiobook of "Red State Mars".
I'm enjoying it so far. I do find the action scenes tend to drag a little, but I feel that way a lot. It's a me problem.
DradisPing
7d ago
Not always better. Despite always having ardent defenders on the left, the communists were just terrible.
Basically in the post communist era it's been clear that Russia was much poorer than it should have been. So a lot of bright minds went into government to improve things.
In the West improving things inevitably involves fighting tooth and nail with entrenched powers.
I post-Soviet Russia smart people can dedicate their lives to looking for easy wins.
The big problem that the West has is that their elite has been focussed on how to get rich in the global economy. That doesn't require them to improve things in their actual countries at all, and in some cases making them worse will be more personally profitable.
DradisPing
9d ago
A disapointing joke. Like TacoCopter.
DradisPing
14d ago
What else have you enjoyed? I'm always working on adding to my backlog.
DradisPing
14d ago
"The MAGA project has failed" is far too strong wording. The Dems have proven increasingly willing to go after people they dislike on trumped up charges. There's probably a 30% chance that a state or federal prosecutor will try to indict him over the next 10 years. If he's out of the country he'll be out of mind for them.
The other thing is that it's probably possible for him to do a big construction project in Argentina that wouldn't be possible in California. He might be trying to fulfil some dream from his 20s about building a beach town for brainy gay nerds. Basically to build a Mecca for his tribe.
DradisPing
14d ago
I enjoyed it. However in the audiobook RC Bray did the Duke voice for Mr Boots a couple of times, which was a bit annoying.
DradisPing
15d ago
Here's the secret. The point of laptop stickers is to make it easy to find your MacBook on a table full of MacBooks.
I kind of like pristine laptops but when everyone on the team has the same model things can get confusing.
DradisPing
20d ago
Mace exercises feel great on you shoulders if you slouch a lot in front of a computer. A kettle bell is also pretty handy.
Neither take up much space if you aren't using them.
DradisPing
26d ago
Physical activity? Alcohol gets converted to acetaldehyde which causes the hangover effects and then to acetate which causes the hangover effects.
If you're burning off the acetate quickly it may stop acetaldehyde from building up.
See if working up a sweat after drinking at home helps.
DradisPing
29d ago
It's made my Larry Ellison's daughter. There's huge money behind it.
I'm sure they sprung for the "ultra premium ad package" for the major sites.
DradisPing
30d ago
Also once you're used to taking care of a dog every day, a child seems more manageable. You've already adopted a lifestyle that involves being home on a regular schedule.
DradisPing
30d ago
I too love how cats get indignant at any perceived slight.
DradisPing
30d ago
The new Dungeon Crawler Carl book just came out. Book 8, A Parade of Horribles.
So far it hasn't been thrilling me. Book 7 featured the conclusion of multiple long running storylines. Book 8 starts with Carl and Donut isolated from the supporting cast. I probably just wasn't in the right mood, I'll give it another shot in a week or so.
DradisPing
30d ago
So there are some skills that you need to practice heavily while producing mid content before you can get really good. Fine arts, music.
People doing that tend to lean auth left because they think that in a communist system they'd be able to focus on their art full time.
AI is a real threat to them because it kills their dream of working for an ad agency for a decade to hone their skills before breaking out as real artists.
Note that the dream wasn't as crazy as it sounds. Banksy was a successful commercial illustrator before his big switch.
DradisPing
30d ago
Thoughts on some recent pets:
Black cat. Black cats are surprisingly good at hiding in a home environment. He liked to curl up on a black towel / jacket / backpack and become invisible. Watching the humans look for him provided immense entertainment. I got him a black throw blanket and a window bird feeder and he'd spend all day staring at the birds who only saw two golden floating orbs. After pouncing at the window a few too many times he learned to squint at the birds to remain hidden.
Toy poodle. Adorable. High energy with extreme demands for attention. Likes cat wands more than cats do. Does not get along well with cats, who just want to sleep. Stubborn. Thinks the world will end if he's ever more than ten feet away from a human. Thinks he can win at tug if he just finds the right leverage despite being 11lbs. He likes sitting on the back of the couch and resting his head on my shoulder during Zoom calls.
Outdoor Maine Coon (cat). Friendly and adorable. Conned me into thinking he was a starving stray despite living in a large house. Could eat shocking amounts of tuna.
DradisPing
30d ago
So is anyone planning on doing an effortpost on "Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC" that dropped last week?
Transport brokers lost immunity for hiring trucking companies with bad safety track records. It's causing some chaos and loops in the CDL and foreign driver discussion.
The important thing is that the trucking industry didn't prepare and because it came into full force immediately there's some chaos.
I'm asking because if someone with more legal and shipping knowledge than me does a write up, anything I write will look pretty half assed.
This should link to the twitter trend: https://x.com/i/trending/2055714473541771375
DradisPing
1mo ago
As far as I know, the law in US federal states and Western European countries is usually that a husband may not have a paternity test done on the child or children unless the wife agrees to it in writing and the family court permits it (in case of a divorce).
In the US laws vary a lot by state. Generally they are more along the lines of a man may contest paternity for a limited period. If he discovers false paternity years later he's SOL.
I'd say it's extremely unfair, but it's also not likely to get fixed.
There's a saying along the lines of "the problem with civil rights cases is the plaintiff." The Men's Rights movement suffers from that greatly. The men who really get screwed by family courts are typically low status who married very poorly.
People don't live atomic lives, and higher class women will have their behaviour policed by friends and family.
I'm sure you've heard "don't stick your dick in crazy". These men proposed to crazy and went through with the wedding.
Courts and lawmakers look at them and aren't that eager to put a major effort into helping them clear up that mess.
DradisPing
1mo ago
So I think talking about "communism" is kind of a bad way of thinking about it. It allows people to go back to the loose ideas Marx had and try to pretend the dispute is about economic ideas.
In practice Communists are trying to implement Leninism as practiced.
The best way to understand it is Moldbug's Brahmin trying to remake society by force. There's no room in that for a loyal opposition or principled dissent.
The Brahmin particularly don't like being called out for their mistakes by their lessers and will always crack down harshly when they can get away with it.
DradisPing
1mo ago
So I've been mostly working on Minecraft stuff, and it can handle small 2d grids. A full image is going to get you into trouble. I don't really have my head around how the llm image analysis works, it's quite complex.
DradisPing
1mo ago
Is it not also in their best interests to understand dating market dynamics and thereby snag a high-quality man
Depends. It's more fun to let their limbic system take control and just enjoy the ride.
A lot of women are dating for entertainment and aren't necessarily trying to figure out how to land a good husband.
I'd focus on spices. Fresh bay leaves are useful and you can share them with neighbours. Fresh dill really improves things like scrambled eggs but isn't worth a trip to the grocery store.
Grow mint and invite your friends over for mojitos with mint from your garden.
Plants where the useful part is the leaf / stem can probably just sit in your backyard until you need it. Plants that fruit have the issue where you suddenly have a lot of fruit to deal with.
You should also look into growing ghost peppers or Carolina reapers. They are fun to give away.
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