birb_cromble
No bio...
User ID: 3236
birb_cromble
14hr ago
Except crypto was almost always purely in the realm of theory-applications.
If nothing else, Bitcoin can always buy you a pizza, although the only topping will be regret
birb_cromble
17hr ago
I'm in my 40s. I haven't had a drink since I was 22, when I absolutely obliterated myself in a blackout bender after a bad break-up.
A lot of my peers have stopped or curtailed their intake significantly. Alcoholism was rampant in my social circles, and everybody seems to have cut back or died.
birb_cromble
18hr ago
Thanks!
birb_cromble
19hr ago
Because we apparently picked ourselves up by our bootstraps and created from scratch all the text which is used to create LLMs.
This is clearly proof that the Saurian Overlords of Agatha in the Hollow Earth taught us language.
More seriously, isn't there a lot of research going into using synthetic data safely? I thought that the current consensus was that you can avoid model collapse with synthetic data if it's properly labeled as such.
birb_cromble
19hr ago
This sounds like it has a lot of promise. Can you provide a link to what you mean when you say downspout adapter? I have a huge gap in my handyman skills when it comes to this kind of thing.
birb_cromble
20hr ago
My one gutter downspout is clogged. My ladder isn't tall enough to reach that corner, and my usual gutter guy retired on short notice this year. The downspout connects directly to an old pipe and has concrete poured around it. Even with an extended pole I can't go in through the top because it has gutter guards. All the other services in the area either aren't calling back or are booked til mid summer.
I'd like to try and clean it out, but my only ideas right now are to buy a large and expensive ladder, or to try and find a point where I can take the downspout apart and come in from the bottom.
Do any of you have ideas?
birb_cromble
1d ago
At least for me personally, I just hope this leads to less retarded mandates from my higher-ups about using AI X times a month etc. (we're literally tracked on usage and it can affect our raises/bonuses).
I work at a dinosaur of a company, so I can't speak to this directly, but a friend of mine that I recently mentioned gave me an update the other day. They've gone from "you must burn as many tokens as possible to maximize your performance review" to "we must use our token budget wisely."
The timing is interesting. It happened right around the same time Anthropic started putting the screws on its customer base with increased token usage and tighter rate limits.
I really feel like the company that sits on a "good enough" model and aggressively cost cuts is going to win this particular war.
birb_cromble
1d ago
I've definitely seen a decline in chicken quality over the last five years. I'm not exactly sure what the cause is, but it's real. Woody breast, in particular, is almost a guarantee unless you get chicken from a farmer's market.
birb_cromble
2d ago
I would put a cornucopia on the fruit of the loom logo and never speak of it again.
birb_cromble
2d ago
This is one of the reasons I'm taking a break from BJJ. Over half the guys were openly on something, and I have a feeling half of the remaining half just kept their mouths shut about it. It got to the point where people didn't believe me when I said I wasn't getting outside help.
birb_cromble
4d ago
The best explanation I've heard is that nobody is an objective 10. A 10 is a 9 that does it for you, specifically.
birb_cromble
4d ago
Goddamn. That's a right kick in the balls. I hope it works out for you.
birb_cromble
4d ago
Every time somebody makes an "AI related" move like this, I go look at their financials. Once again, I am unsurprised. From Variety:
For a full-year 2025, Snap reported a revenue of $5.931 million (up 11%) and a net loss of $460 million (compared with $698 million in the prior year).
Looking at filings, I don't think they've ever been profitable over the course of a full year unless you're talking positive EBITDA, which is something of a nonsense measurement.
I think my bigger question is: how the fuck is a company that was founded in 2011, and IPOed in 2017, employing over five thousand people while losing hundreds of millions of dollars per year, still in business?
It really seems like that's the deeper question here. Ever since ~2021, the economics of software companies have increasingly decoupled from the fundamentals that are supposed to describe a healthy business. I look at that and think "no wonder people are having trouble finding entry level jobs, some of the biggest sectors in our economy are very sick".
Am I missing something here?
birb_cromble
4d ago
Implants are expensive, particularly when there are complications.
birb_cromble
4d ago
The good news: spending is $838.88 lower than it was on the same day last year.
Bad news #1: My insurance reimbursement for my $4k dental expense was... $35. Modern dental insurance is a Kafka-esque joke.
Bad news #2: I was awoken to a loud, repetitive banging outside my window the other day. It turns out that a woodpecker decided to punch a hole in the soffit of my house. The rot is extensive enough that I don't trust myself to do the work, so I'm looking at a $4k - $5k repair.
I'm reminding myself that emergencies like this are exactly why I made the resolution in the first place, but it's still frustrating.
birb_cromble
4d ago
I'm going to second tea. It's hot, and in a mug, but you can drink more for the same amount of caffeine.
birb_cromble
5d ago
Looks aren't everything. If Ms Fang was in fact part of a Chinese Honeypot, then she was potentially trained in the arts of seduction at a government black site dedicated to the craft. Thousands of man years and billions of dollars may have gone into research and development of novel techniques and grueling conditioning.
The way she fucks probably violates the Geneva convention.
birb_cromble
5d ago
He's loved programming ever since he was a little kid playing with scratch. In theory, he's the kind of kid who should be considering it.
birb_cromble
5d ago
I'm assuming the congressional sex defense slush fund is running dry.
Over the last decade or so, I've heard the name Eric Swalwell a few times.
First, because he got caught up in a Chinese Honeypot, then because he obliquely threatened to nuke me.
He has reappeared in the news recently, not only as a California gubernatorial candidate, but also as an alleged rapist. Fox news is reporting that he will step down.
The balance of power in Congress will likely remain unchanged, as GOP congressman Gonzalez will also be stepping down, though the impact on California politics may be notable.
Historically, California's executive branch has been a powerful feeder into future presidential races. The fall of Swalwell will cause a localized power vacuum that may have unexpected repercussions.
As someone who is not a California resident, I have no special insider information here. Would any locals care to weigh in on how this is impacting things within the state?
birb_cromble
5d ago
Neon Genesis Evangelion gets away with using Christianity as an aesthetic, because it looks exotic and cool. Trump did something similar.
Why do we live in the reality where Trump is appropriating Christian iconography instead of Evangelion? Trump making an illustration of himself in one of those skintight fan service suits would have broken open at least three of the seals.
birb_cromble
5d ago
Any one passing their classes (we hire in two very narrow degrees) while playing an NCAA sport (I don't care what sport or the GPA. Because you need at least some time management skills to do both.
When I was in college, I tutored a football player. He was a decent guy, but he read on an elementary school level. Does the degree requirement filter that kind of guy out?
birb_cromble
6d ago
Oh I'm not a lawyer. I bailed and stayed in software before I racked up a shitload of debt.
I'm one of those engineers.
birb_cromble
6d ago
restaurant business
As somebody who has been looking into the economics of restaurants in the modern economy, let me say that the numbers are not good.
My current layman's opinion is that the current environment is a bubble, but that bubble is entirely independent of the technology itself.
It's clear that at least some people, in some circumstances, are getting value out of the technology. It's not like NFTs, where even the best use cases are better served by simpler, pre-existing tech.
That said, the current economic environment is baffling to me. Every big provider is acting like this is a zero sum game where one company winning will give them a monopoly forever. They're also acting like the progress curve will produce exponentially increasing capabilities forever while operating costs approach zero.
I'm not sure if the market as it stands can achieve profitability that justifies the current AI company valuations if there are 3-4 winners instead of one. They're all priced with the assumption that one of them will utterly own the most transformative technology since the steam engine. If that's not true, people are going to start asking why they're not getting a 10% return on a company that has a 20x P/S ratio. Once people start asking that question, it's going to get uncomfortable for anybody that's not a monopoly already.
They're taking on significant debt, too. Take meta, for example. If just one of their data centers has a twelve month delay, that's a ~3% hit to free cash flow to service debt on an asset that isn't making any money. When was the last time that you saw a construction project more complex than a doghouse finish on time and on budget? Even if they finish construction, there are significant delays getting them powered, and gas turbines aren't a permanent solution. There's pretty enormous systemic risk there. Some companies are better equipped to handle it than others, but none of them are immune. Oracle, in particular, appears to be laundering questionable debt through their investment grade credit rating, which is unlikely to end well for them.
That said, even if Anthropic and OpenAI shit the bed and contagion through the bond market causes a market crash, and Google puts their research back on the shelf, LLMs don't go away. Local models exist. China is still plugging along with much more reasonable objectives.
I don't know exactly what the future holds, but either way, it'll have LLMs in it.
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