jkf
1d ago
complete lack of info coming down from the top other than "nothing is happening, everything is fine, proceed BAU".
ruh-roh.jpg
jkf
1d ago
But do they care quite so much?
Because if they don't have Taiwan, they are bottled up in any big war involving the US, and this is a serious strategic problem! (and strategic problems in potential wars are taken seriously there, I guess?)
I've heard the same about Tibet -- it's military importance (in a hypothetical big war involving India) is much more, um, important than any deep cultural need to oppress Tibetans -- makes sense to me.
jkf
2d ago
C# is also kind of bad, yes -- to the extent that I had a point beyond lazy shitposting, it was that the LLMs seem to have picked up on a particular... style of OOP which is not only overly verbose, but also misses the basic idea of the thing. All of the factories are more of a symptom, people do the same thing even when trying to be object oriented in Python. Rigid adherence to something that they read somewhere while not really understanding the reasons, I guess? The "Clean Code" series is likely the source of a lot of it. And yes I have seen it in the wild (from humans) all the fuckin time -- you can actually coax an LLM not to be too brutal with it more easily than most human perps, but so far as I can tell it's absolutely their default mode. (due to training data prevalence I should think)
Which sure, fine -- but shouldn't the default architecture for any tools that implement LLM call and response be pretty fuckin agnostic towards what it's plugged into? Like, we are sending some questions and getting back answers; "the answers keep getting better!" seems like an awfully lazy excuse for not making the tools also get better!
jkf
2d ago
Chinese interest in Taiwan goes back to the Chinese Civil War and is completely unrelated to hopes of taking the semiconductor industry intact. In fact at this rate they might do it themselves to slow down American AGI scaling. They'd prefer no war at all, though.
I thought the main motivation these days (and for the past quite a while) was preventing their navy from being bottled up? (and shipping blockaded I suppose)
Not that the "Taiwan is a fake country" stuff is itself fake exactly, but I'm not sure they'd care quite so much if it were a fake country in a non-strategically important location?
jkf
2d ago
It's too busy making ObjectFactoryFactoryClasses to deal with such things, I suppose...
jkf
2d ago
Part of the reason why this hasn't been built is that the underlying models are improving too fast and too unpredictably to make building it a good business.
Do we not have, uh like, modular software design? Encapsulation? Maybe instead of hiring weirdo rationalists to philosophize about sentience and safety these companies can pick up a couple of 90s-era C++ developers?
jkf
3d ago
I'd believe anything from "months to repair" to "we've already restored most of the capacity".
If you can build a pipeline, you can also fix one -- "however long it would have taken to build however many feet of pipeline got blown up + time overhead for general setup" would be a good first guess. Of course if a pumping station gets hit or something it will take a little longer to get everything in place, but I'd think "days not weeks" when shipping fees on 6-7 MBpD are on the line...
jkf
6d ago
If people are using them to fish with, it's pretty clear that (at least) those particular nets are indeed not helping stop malaria at all?
jkf
7d ago
But why would a consumer buy a developer's random spec house with no economies of scale and no subdivision, when he can just get a construction loan that converts into a mortgage all by himself?
Most people are afraid of it, and/or aren't competent to get it done themselves -- seems to me that you kind of like it (in a pig-wrestling way) and are certainly competent.
As you say it's not that much work; seems like a feasible hobby is all I'm saying.
General contractor margins tend to be in the 30%+ range for custom work (custom work is a PITA; I personally would want more!) -- if you come off as a pro doing a spec house and say "just get these plans done" they will build it for a lot less; the difference is your margin.
Check out Zillow on existing houses and go get a quote I guess?
jkf
7d ago
Nah, you can totally buy a single lot and contract the building (on spec) with reasonable margins -- my wife did it for quite a few years. You just need enough seed for the bank to write you the construction loan, and a real estate market that isn't actively dropping. (I think Florida is mostly OK ATM?)
In your case I would definitely include an architect in the budget (or just buy some blueprints from Jenish or something) -- it's not so much that your designs are terrible, it's just that they are pretty specific to your tastes. This will make your house hard to sell, but I'm pretty sure you could build one that isn't.
jkf
7d ago
If I had known about these properties prior to buying land in Pennsylvania, I might have considered purchasing one (though I'm not a big fan of living in Hurricane Land). But I definitely am not rich enough to own two houses.
"Florida real-estate developer" seems like a great intersection with your retirement hobby tho?
jkf
8d ago
As for the 100 million people thing...yes, that was a thing people used to bandy about, the northern version of Yglesian thinking. Trudeau killed it.
Carney just appointed the guy who invented it to CEO of our business development Crown corp -- the other co-founder is sitting on the advisory comittee for US relations!
Carney is deeply embedded in this world and I'd be very surprised if he is not personally supportive of the idea -- he can't say so because the actual consequences of mass immigration have become obvious over the Trudeau years, and voters don't like it at all. I wouldn't really say that Trudeau killed it, it was always sort of a shadow policy. Very beneficial for rich globalists, which is kind of Carney's whole deal...
jkf
8d ago
You know what's really big? The ocean -- not super interesting on a map though!
Make Pangea great again!
jkf
9d ago
https://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/72/lonely_finally.png
@erwgv3g34 If I can only hold out for a few days, it's not much of a bunker, now is it -- crappy bunkers are for losers.
jkf
9d ago
A hidden bunker will just mean you die last.
Surely that's the very best one can do, if "everyone dies" is what's happening?
(even leaving aside the possibility that it's actually almost everyone dies, ofc)
jkf
11d ago
usually not their Chinese animal
Do chinese restaurants not have placemats with their zodiac on them in your locale? Every one-horse town in Canada has had such a place for a hundred years; sometimes the only decent restaurant around. It's something to talk about while waiting for your food, reading practice for kids, etc -- so I'd say most people here would know their Chinese animal. (which is bits I'm not going to release about myself)
jkf
12d ago
The US (also Canada) has really large tariffs on Chinese panels -- I haven't looked lately, but I think they would cost quite a bit more than 5500 EU here.
jkf
16d ago
No, that sounds like Deadwood lol -- if it makes you like it better, as I recall it was a considered artistic decision in that the characters are basically the underbelly of society and would in fact have been swearing all the time as a class signifier if nothing else. Period-correct swears were considered but came off as sounding quaint and silly, so they went with all-cocksucker-all-the-time.
jkf
17d ago
Who? Who the fuck are these other better mouse trap makers that they're afraid of?
China I would think? OFC they are more like "similar but slightly worse mousetrap, but without the 'we need a trillion dollars'" thing, but still...
I'm not seeing it -- can you expand?
It does put us at risk of having to fight a liquor war on two fronts though -- not quite a land-war-in-Asia level blunder, but I'm not sure I like the vibe...
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