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davidw

68,837 karmajoined 19 years ago
Me: http://www.welton.it/davidw/

Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/davidwelton.bsky.social

Email: [email protected]

Book reviews: http://davids-book-reviews.blogspot.com

Submissions

Marc Andreessen Says One Job Is Mostly Safe from AI: Venture Capitalist

gizmodo.com
21 points·by davidw·5 days ago·21 comments

The SpaceX Squeeze

bloomberg.com
12 points·by davidw·last month·3 comments

Index funds can't say no to SpaceX

bloomberg.com
7 points·by davidw·2 months ago·1 comments

Iran threatens to attack US tech companies

gizmodo.com
11 points·by davidw·3 months ago·2 comments

[untitled]

24 points·by davidw·6 months ago·0 comments

[untitled]

1 points·by davidw·9 months ago·0 comments

Can “second life” EV batteries work as grid-scale energy storage?

volts.wtf
196 points·by davidw·9 months ago·288 comments

How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

inc.com
206 points·by davidw·9 months ago·223 comments

A distributed systems reading list

ferd.ca
330 points·by davidw·2 years ago·56 comments

Jerry Pournelle has died

en.wikipedia.org
322 points·by davidw·9 years ago·148 comments

comments

davidw
·5 hours ago·discuss
That potentially consumes a lot more resources than the very negligible marginal wear and tear that using a work computer would cause.
davidw
·2 days ago·discuss
Oh no, I died of dysentery.
davidw
·3 days ago·discuss
And now we have a guy with dementia, which got kind of ignored by the media while they hyped up the other guy's decline.

People did actual research on how much the 'old!' thing was very inconsistent in narrative and framing:

https://css.seas.upenn.edu/new-york-times-a-case-study-in-in...
davidw
·3 days ago·discuss
Framing someone who supports democracy vs someone who tried to overturn a free and fair election as a 'weaker' candidate is kind of the problem though. In any sane world, you'd support a literal corpse over a guy who does not want there to be free and fair elections.
davidw
·3 days ago·discuss
This explains the problem with it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

It's fine if you're talking about something where there are a broad spectrum of fairly reasonable policy positions. It's not fine when you have a TV segment that's like "here's Christina, an astrophysicist from Stanford, explaining how we measure the circumference of the earth, and up next we'll have Bob from the flat earth society"
davidw
·3 days ago·discuss
After subscribing for 15 years or so, I noped out after their "walker" cover. The world has enough "both sides" journalism, and I had thought them somewhat immune from that.
davidw
·12 days ago·discuss
People are already sour on the economy. They are going to be in a whole mood if we get a real, serious recession.
davidw
·13 days ago·discuss
That area still has some 'gold rush' mentality to it, where people want to get in, make their money and get out. That doesn't foster much of a long-term attitude that pays attention to local politics. Also some of the local politics are totally psychotic, like the guy harassing Scott Wiener.
davidw
·15 days ago·discuss
There's a huge difference between 'pro market' and 'buddies with some big businesses' and this administration is making it very clear, at least to those who would see.

https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/47857230937/luigi-zi...
davidw
·15 days ago·discuss
"We've been trying to contact you about your extended chariot warranty"
davidw
·15 days ago·discuss
It's all about housing and the rampant NIMBYism that drove prices up in the 'desirable' places.
davidw
·19 days ago·discuss
This sort of seems like a pattern in CS - someone creates something and then it blows up 20 or 30 years later when the world is ready for it.
davidw
·23 days ago·discuss
Unsurprisingly, the blog they're quoting is just straight up white nationalist trash:

"Cut off nonwhite immigration, meaning dropping it by at least 90%, similar to the Quotas Acts, with the top priorities being Mexico, India, and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. Ideally, you would increase white immigration too, because even in the absence of further immigration the white (meaning American) population will be a minority in a few decades, and it’s very difficult for a minority to assimilate others."
davidw
·24 days ago·discuss
They don't care about the long term - it's a smash and grab to get as much as they can while they can.
davidw
·24 days ago·discuss
Organizations that are overall bad can have people who have done some good things, or at least technically impressive things.
davidw
·25 days ago·discuss
And of those, how many does this help, and how much? Like does this mean I could look at a map application while my wife drives for a few minutes and be ok? Or does it help a lot of people be able to read for a long time?
davidw
·25 days ago·discuss
It'd be interesting to gather some actual statistics. I can't look at a screen for more than a minute as a passenger without starting to feel a twinge in my gut.
davidw
·25 days ago·discuss
Still though, perhaps the existence of low-margin, generic, cloud LLM's puts some downward pressure on the 'brand name' companies?
davidw
·26 days ago·discuss
Aren't those widely regarded as 'not as good', because right now LLM's are a game of "who has the most resources wins"? And even those require very high end personal computers.

The freedom pendulum looks like it swung away from individuals.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48542100
davidw
·26 days ago·discuss
You only have as much freedom as you can buy from a handful of huge corporations.