Nicholas_C

I see you have read James C Scott as well.

I was skeptical about that as well so I googled it and:

Helium cannot support life because it is a chemically inert noble gas. It does not form the complex, stable molecular structures (like carbon chains) required for biology. Unlike oxygen, it cannot be used by living organisms for cellular respiration to generate energy, making it an asphyxiant.

However, maybe we are projecting our current understanding of biology and shouldn't rule it out. I'm not a scientist so I have no idea.

I'm confused on why browsers can't automatically handle the cookies pop ups. It's beyond annoying and something that should just be automated since my preferences don't change.

Do you have a link to this? Sounds very interesting.

Another idea I had was simulating an entire town with an LLM representing each person, which sounds somewhat similar.

I had this idea for an LLM that would play Sim City 24/7 while broadcasting live. It would be fun/interesting to check in now and then. Implementing this would be somewhat challenging.

This idea of this book fascinates me but I haven’t had a chance to read it. Worth it?

I wasn’t aware of that but it looks like he is upset that Spain won’t meet its defense spending commitments for NATO. Which goes back to my point about how the EU is totally reliant on the US for security. Europe’s biggest threat is itself, they won’t even do the bare minimum to ensure their security.

China and Russia would love that. It would also be very bad for European security that is mostly guaranteed by U.S. strength and willingness to fight wars.

We’ve been boiled in water like frogs, or however the saying goes. Even cars these days have subscription pricing for features which is insane to me but the average consumer is accustomed to this garbage. If they tried this 20 years ago it wouldn’t fly.

Someone once said that if libraries were invented today they would be illegal and that feels more true every day.

I believe Western countries will be poorer than they are now, and countries in Asia and Africa will become richer as more money will flow into their manufacturing and Agricultural industries.

I believe the opposite will happen as the post-WWII liberal international order continues to fragment. Countries that have relied on complicated supply chains/globalization (e.g., China) will struggle as the international order fragments and the world can't rely on these things anymore.

I get a lot of ads from clothing brands I already buy stuff from. It will usually be a sale or a new style.

I’d agree with you if it doesn’t cost billions to train models.

I'll admit that instagram ads get me every now and then.

It's all about the execution. Most of our customer's prefer AI (per their feedback, so there is some selection bias) since they can get quick responses 24/7 rather than wait. That said there are still many cases where you need human intervention and it can be frustrating to have to get through the AI first (my experience with Stripe's AI support).

Their tone is just as fake as typical fake marketing speak - they are trying to come off as nonchalant. I bet this announcement was wordsmithed to hell.

Is it a better or worse idea than doing putting them in the ocean?

https://panthalassa.com/

Any reading suggestions? That sounds very interesting. I’m reading through the Bible this year and I’m currently working through the NT.

I think they will all be minor going forward, feels like the major improvements have all been made and we'll only see incremental improvements from here on out. Maybe I'm wrong but we'll see.

I've lived/traveled all over the Bible belt and I can't remember that ever happening even once. I'm sure it does happen but never seen it.

I don’t use any mods, I’m a pretty casual player but maybe I should look into some.

Q: How can you tell if someone is an atheist?

A: Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

Sim City 4 and Civilization 5. Both are timeless and I still play them a few times a year. Hard to believe Sim City 4 is over 20 years old.

If they’re just using excel or their LLM vibe coded its own double entry accounting system this is a pretty bad idea.

In my post I said "this kind of stuff" which also includes their DRM policies (which is the real reason they are ending the users' kindle support).

This kind of stuff is why I no longer use a kindle. I use a kobo which IMHO is not as good of a product but it's worth not supporting this behavior.

Houston has quite a few software company billboards. It’s just that in SF it’s 100% software billboards so it’s really noticeable.

I'm surprised he would admit that publicly on a podcast.

The HN of old is no more unfortunately. Things get up or down voted based purely on political alignment.

Maybe it has always been this way but it seems like these days it's only a matter of time before anyone "authentic" (or at least seems authentic at first) turns into some type of grifter. If you have a big enough following there is too much money to be made not to grift.

There are a lot of people with incentives to hype the AI industry (VCs, founders, CEOs, internet personalities that need clicks, people that sell courses, etc). Last week everyone was hyping Claude Cowork, this week it's Clawdbot. Don't get me wrong I think there are a lot of cool things going on but there is a lot of hype (similar to the original internet bubble).