birb_cromble
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User ID: 3236
Your results are worse than mine, but I'm in a similar boat. The results that the boosters are seeing are not what I am seeing in my professional life.
I can approximate what the boosters are seeing in personal projects, if I keep the scope small, and I use python, and the project doesn't involve much state management, and I write a spec that is roughly the same size as the codebase that would exist if I were to write it by hand.
This kind of tracks with the handful of AI enthusiasts I know in real life, too. The first category is professional programmers. When I ask what problems they solve with it, they tell me they're using AI to write an AI agent orchestration framework to better run their AI. When I ask what they'll use that tool to do, I'm told to shut up, because AI is the future and you can't be left behind. The second category is non programmers who ask Claude to process a CSV file, and this blows their dick clean off. The idea that you can process a CSV file and you don't even need Excel to do it is a mind-altering experience for them. The fact that Claude is doing a tool call that runs ten lines of python is irrelevant. This is the future. They'll keep rebuilding that same deterministic python script from an elaborate prompt every single month, because holy mother of cyber-jesus, this saves them half an hour in Excel every month.
Everyone else I know is either possessed of a terrifying antipathy, or can't muster up anything more enthusiastic than "it's ok, I guess".
On an unrelated note - do you know why .net projects like to keep their unit tests in a segregated project? Most other languages that I've used have a convention where the unit tests are in a separate folder in the same project.
birb_cromble
21hr ago
SpaceX will not be granted accelerated access to the S&P 500 index. Specifically, they called out the profitability requirements.
So far I think this is the current situation, with respect to index funds:
- QQQ/QQQM - Definitely including it with some kind of multiplier
- VOO - Not including it
- VT/VTI - Including it, but float adjusted
Is that accurate?
birb_cromble
1d ago
There is no way this isn't a publicist ghost writing for him. Everything is just a little too on the nose, like George Takei used to be.
birb_cromble
1d ago
The most amusing part is this is not some cooked zoomer who picked up Claude last week and deluded himself into thinking he was now a real coder. This guy is the founding author of the project, and has been its primary maintainer for 30 years.
This tracks. The most zealous AI boosters I've seen online and in real life are older guys who have reputations for having done really cool stuff in the past. Steve Yegge is another example.
birb_cromble
1d ago
In ancient Rome, one of the gayest things you could possibly do was go down on a woman.
birb_cromble
2d ago
I have a vague theory that they're weaponizing their financials and using this equity raise to try and suck all the money out of the room before the big three can IPO.
birb_cromble
2d ago
I try to cross my middle finger over my index finger so it isn't as noticeable.
birb_cromble
2d ago
It's very difficult for me to fully straighten my index finger on one hand due to multiple fractures over the course of my life, along with arthritis. The middle finger is easier.
It's funny. This particular health scare is almost 30 years old. I didn't have health insurance at the time, so it healed wrong and has caused problems my whole life.
Apparently you can just... Fix some of it? That is, if you can afford it.
birb_cromble
3d ago
I'll try to describe it in a way that's probably not 100% accurate, but simple enough to explain briefly. When you buy a share in a company, you do so because you believe that it will provide value back to you over time. Most commonly, this is done as either a dividend (traditionally) or as a share buyback (more common these days).
When you make that purchase, you have to decide how much you believe you'll get back, and how quickly you'll believe it'll happen. Deciding that can involve a lot of different factors. One easy one is to look at their revenue. A company that's earning ten billion dollars a year is more likely to pay back your investment quickly then a company earning a buck fifty a year.
Share price reflects that belief of ROI. Higher prices represent a confidence that the company will have a better payoff, and company valuation is usually a function of share price.
birb_cromble
3d ago
One rule of thumb I've seen is 10x revenue. It seems to work fairly well in the general case.
birb_cromble
3d ago
Morningstar is valuing SpaceX at around $780B. Do you think that's fair?
Just based on the S-1, I'd put it somewhere between $600B and $750B.
birb_cromble
3d ago
Google is issuing new equity. A quick search suggests this is the first time they have done so since their IPO.
In the last eighteen months, we have seen Google go from funding their spending with cash flow, to issuing bonds, to issuing equity. Am I missing something here? It seems like a bigger deal than the news coverage would suggest.
birb_cromble
3d ago
In a little good news, I don't need surgery on my shoulder.
I tried to go straight to a physical therapist on advice from some folks here. After an initial appointment he made some uncomfortable noises and told me to go to a specialist to see how bad the damage was. The specialist gave me a once over and said that I had multiple "adhesions" in the joint, then sent me back to the physical therapist.
The treatment is interesting so far - they're essentially re-injuring the joint so that it can heal properly. It hurts like hell, but it's a good hurt. My range of motion is already significantly better.
If you're dealing with chronic pain, maybe talk to a medical specialist about it. Sometimes it's fixable.
birb_cromble
3d ago
Spending is $640.82 less than on this day last year. I have one more big ticket expense in July that might put me over the edge. For now I'm just going to try my best.
birb_cromble
4d ago
My internal model is that it's a threat, or a sign that he doesn't need to remain a US citizen like some mere peasant, bound to the land.
birb_cromble
4d ago
If you're holding a lot of QQQ, you might want to consider your risk tolerance.
birb_cromble
4d ago
Jokes about the right wing German tendency to flee to Argentina aside, I think it's entirely for economic reasons.
California has proposed a wealth tax recently, and I wouldn't be surprised if it went through.
birb_cromble
4d ago
There's definitely some fuckery afoot. The NASDAQ 100 is changing specifically to allow SpaceX to list early and the S&P is "considering it". The NASDAQ 100 specifically is pretty bad because they don't float adjust their holdings. On top of that, SpaceX has an unusual lockout structure that lets holders unload early.
Beyond that, the share voting structure is fairly unique. Musk holds a special share of stock that has 10x voting power, so you're never going to have input as a minority owner.
Per their S-1, SpaceX's only profitable line of business is starlink, and starlink may only be profitable because they're booking many of its costs to the rocket division. Even if they aren't, we're starting to see competition that will hurt those numbers. Their other lines of business are not profitable - xAI, in particular, is nothing but a highly efficient money incinerator at this point. One of their biggest revenue lines is renting hardware to Anthropic.
Altogether, this IPO looks almost custom-designed to leave excitable retail investors holding the bag.
birb_cromble
6d ago
What happened with UBS?
birb_cromble
6d ago
In that case, the gym is the customer, not you.
Cancellation being a ball-smashingly miserable experience for the end user is a feature, not a bug.
birb_cromble
6d ago
I have done some work with credit unions, and I never want to do it again. I think I legitimately spent 10x more time fighting with auditors than I did actually fixing their problems.
"Can your system fully attest X?"
"Not formally"
"Then we can't certify it."
"Can the existing system?"
"No."
"Then why is it allowed?"
"It was granted an exemption."
"Can I do that?"
"No."
birb_cromble
6d ago
Kevin Warsh has been sworn in as fed chair, and markets have been digesting his recent statements in an attempt to predict future movements in the federal funds rate.
What are your predictions on rate changes over the next year?
From my perspective, Warsh is in a tight spot. Inflation is stubbornly sitting above the 2% target, which would suggest a series of rate increases, culminating around 5.5 - 5.75%. Comments from major bond investors have said the same. Unfortunately, the debt to GDP ratio is high enough at this point that there may be a ceiling to how high he can go before the US starts seeing structural problems.
My prediction is that we'll see a single token rate increase this year, and the Fed will make excuses for why they don't go higher. Particularly, I believe that they will claim that most of the inflation is transient due to the Iran conflict, and that AI-driven productivity gains are inherently deflationary.
birb_cromble
6d ago
ACX book review competition
Maybe it's for the best. I've noticed, perhaps somewhat uncharitably, that the greater Scott-diaspora and larger rationalist community tend to treat writing as a sport, or even as a naked dominance exercise.
It's fascinating to read as a case study in rhetoric and status-jockeying, but it's also tiring after a while. We get it. You're smart. You're smarter than me. Your 160,000 word blog post on why mormons would have built superintelligent AI on the moon if it weren't for female empowerment and declining cultural notions of Asabiyyah has proven that you are a very smart and special boy. Good job. Now that you've scored your points, can we get back to the original goal of meeting in the middle and finding a truth that's greater than the ones we each hold?
If you've never read it, Neal Stephenson did an interview decades ago where he talked about the two classes of writer. It's worth a read.
So, for those of us with mixed ancestry, do we pick one, or turn into a Wayne Reynolds character?
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