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steveads

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I use ChatGPT fairly frequently, but am frequently annoyed at how hesitant it is to answer any question that is somewhat subjective.

From it's Pulp Fiction response: "...However, whether you personally consider "Pulp Fiction" a good movie depends on your taste in film."

To avoid this noise I often add something like this to my queries "skip any preamble or qualifications about how x is subjective" and the results are much better.

Gail.com FAQ 4 years ago

Funny, I read the link as 'Gmail' and didn't realize it was 'Gail' until entering the site.

I've read twice as much this year as previous years.

I joined a book club back in January that meets bi-weekly. I really enjoy it and met some friends that I now see occasionally outside of our meetings.

Flanderization 6 years ago

good luck. I love Baudrillard's philosophy but had a hard time getting through Simulacra and Simulation.

Thanks for your feedback. You definitely make some good points that I understand, but probably just don't weight as heavily as you do.

1) Gaining critical mass is definitely a barrier to entry for competition. I'm just less sold that Facebook's current popularity is not due to it's foothold in the space vs it's utility.

2) Economy of scale is what allows these companies to offer their services to me as 'free'. I don't really mind that Facebook or Google have taken something that is useless to me (my personal browsing history, locations, likes, etc) and found a way to monetize it if I get to use their platform for free in return.

3) I'm not sure that breaking up big tech would significantly discourage their 'moat maintaining' behavior. If anything, with additional competition introduced, wouldn't there be even more incentive to put time and resource into maintaining what majority they have?

I'm unpersuaded by Warren's arguments for breaking up big tech. If her strongest concerns are that the big tech companies are anti-competitive and loose wrt privacy I think Tyler Cowen makes some strong counter arguments.

1. The big tech companies are not true monopolies. They simply offer a better service than current competitors. It's hardly set in stone that Facebook, for instance, will continue to hold it's majority in social networking.

2. I'd trust a large company like Google who has stronger data protection policies in place than the smaller alternative also in the same space.

3. Breaking up or regulating more strongly distracts some of the most productive and innovative companies.

"22 years from cross to launch". It will be interesting to see if the time to market will be cut in the near future which could lead to an explosion of new flavours and produce products.

Some back of the napkin math: 650,000 Amazon workers. Let's say 600,000 are min(ish) wage and get an increase from $11/hr to $22/hr. That's a 13.2B increase per year. Jeff Bezo's net worth is 165B. Jeff Bezo's Net Worth drops 8% after one year.