birb_cromble
No bio...
User ID: 3236
birb_cromble
13hr 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.
birb_cromble
15hr ago
Most of the Amazon warehouse employees I know are young , extremely online, and make me look like I'm to the right of Francisco Franco.
Are you thinking union jobs?
birb_cromble
15hr ago
Waiting tables isn’t demeaning
You'd be amazed at the shit customers pull these days. I don't wait tables anymore, but in the time I did, I had customers:
- Scream profanity and slurs at me
- Hit me
- Pour drinks on me
- Spit on me
- Dine and dash
- Lie to management about my behavior in an attempt to get comps.
Bartending wasn't much better.
My partner still works in the industry and it seems like not much has changed.
birb_cromble
15hr ago
and the person has worked in some kind of law office and finds they enjoy the work.
It's funny. I love the idea of law. I briefly worked in the mail room of a law firm and even enjoyed that.
I took the LSAT and got a 178.
Then 2008 happened and every single liberal arts student in the country stampeded into law. I guess it wasn't meant to be.
Maybe I'll sit for the patent agent test one day.
birb_cromble
15hr ago
It's not a belittling suggestion. My family has a long history of military service. The only reason I didn't join was because I was in a car accident that rendered me medically unfit my senior year of high school.
Being an officer isn't a bad gig, if you can get it.
birb_cromble
15hr ago
I've personally suggested he join the military. That idea did not go over well with the family.
birb_cromble
16hr ago
Honestly, maybe?
When Capone was running his soup kitchens, publicly funded relief systems didn't really exist like they did today. He took the floor from "nothing" to "something".
It seems like we need more stops on the way down between "gainfully employed" and "underpass resident". Bringing back SROs, for example, might help. On the government side, we could consider reinstating the civilian conservation corps.
birb_cromble
16hr ago
The San Francisco Chronicle.
birb_cromble
16hr ago
Its patently absurd to say he should toss out his academic achievement and instead divert into blue collar/physical work.
At this point he's considering law, because lawyers decide what's allowed or not in this country. His opinion is that it'll be one of the last safe fields left.
birb_cromble
16hr ago
https://morenogama.substack.com/p/ai-existential-risk-is-real
This is the substack of the firebomber.
birb_cromble
16hr ago
In Chicago, Al Capone was popular among the working class because he ran soup kitchens.
An assurance that you won't starve to death in a ditch seems like a pretty good baseline.
birb_cromble
16hr ago
I think that has something to do with it. He's been in the news quite a lot lately, between the Ronan Farrow expose and the general AI hype.
In the case of the individual who firebombed him, he was a full blown hard-takeoff AI doomer, so I am unsurprised that he'd go after the largest and most established company.
birb_cromble
17hr ago
I don't know if this is the right place for it, but what the hell. Maybe you can help me out.
I've struggled with spiritual matters for most of my life. I have wrestled with the problem of theodicy, particularly, since I was a young child who did not know the word existed. Surviving abuse puts a different spin on the idea of a loving, powerful God who died for our sins.
I've since come to terms with it, but I still struggle with the idea of the Church. I've read the Bible cover to cover twice in my life, once in English, and once in Latin. Both times, the same passages have stuck with me in a way that I can't let go of.
Matthew 6
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
John18:36
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here."
Matthew 18:20
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.
Maybe it's because I don't know if I am Christian or not, but I have always had a deep suspicion that if I were, going to Church would be sinful. I don't know how else to explain it. The Word itself states that I should not publicly proclaim my faith. It says that the presence of the divine is in all worshippers, regardless of any structure. It says that the trappings of this world are irrelevant, because his kingdom is not here.
How do you reconcile something like that?
birb_cromble
17hr ago
The friends I have in this camp are exactly the people I would expect, namely those who have a dogshit understanding of, well, everything
Dogshit or not, how would you describe their model for all of this?
birb_cromble
18hr ago
Having been homeless a few times, it does have its charms, but they pale in comparison to having a refrigerator with food in it and a place to sleep that doesn't have earwigs.
birb_cromble
18hr ago
If you need to put the animal down, please include the child to the extent that they are willing and able to be there. Be honest about what's happening, and let them have closure. Impress on them that it's not their fault.
My mother had a pet euthanized while I was at school and lied about it, claiming he had run away because I had left the door open. I found the receipt later, and to this day I still bear a grudge about it.
birb_cromble
19hr ago
Sam Altman's bad week continues, as a car stopped and appears to have fired a gun at the Russian Hill home of OpenAI’s CEO.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home appears to have been the target of a second attack Sunday morning, a mere two days after a 20-year-old man allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the property, The Standard has learned.
The San Francisco Police Department announced (opens in new tab) the arrest of two suspects, Amanda Tom, 25, and Muhamad Tarik Hussein, 23, who were booked for negligent discharge.
It appears that, if measured by deed, Mr. Altman may be in contention for the title of most hated business executive in the country.
Unless I am profoundly misinformed about the base rate of assassination attempts on tech CEOs, it appears AI anxiety has apparently reached a precipitation point among American youth, to the point where discontent is crystalizing into direct action. I've seen this in my personal life. My youngest brother is a bright kid - top of his class, eagle scout, 1400+ on his SATs as a junior, the whole shebang. He's completely given up on his original goal of going to college for something software-related, and he's not only adrift about what he's going to do with his future, but he's angry about it. I hope he has a support network sufficient to keep him on the right track, but I don't like what I see.
I'm not exactly old, but I'm sure as hell not young either. For those of you who are 25 or under, what does it feel like on the ground right now?
birb_cromble
1d ago
Gemini eagerly offer to coach me through violating HIPAA requirements
We're seeing the same thing from all major providers. It has seriously dampened management enthusiasm for anything more intense than automating LinkedIn posts.
birb_cromble
1d ago
As someone who's default response to visiting a city is to eat his way through it, I'm going to drop a recommendation for Fet Fisk in Bloomfield. It's a vaguely Nordic place with excellent seafood. The wine list isn't bad, and my partner stated that the cocktail menu is acceptable.
birb_cromble
1d ago
Absolutely nobody knows who Sam Altman is
Nobody knows who Sam Altman is, but "AI CEO who's stealing all the water" has filtered all the way down to my rod and gun club.
birb_cromble
1d ago
My personal favorite test is working with stock tickers. Since most models vaguely map tokens to 3-4 characters, and most stock tickers are under 6 characters, it's pretty easy for them to get tripped up. I've seen all the big name models fail at consistently distinguishing between VBIL and VBILX, though for some reason Gemini is particularly egregious about it. Claude sonnet had briefly gotten pretty good about it, but it's slipping in again.
birb_cromble
1d ago
One thing I've noticed over and over is that LLMs are only lagging in areas where I have personal expertise. It's so strange. What are the odds?
birb_cromble
1d ago
In the interview, he made a joke that he didn't want to get whacked. It might have been a joke. It might have been a "ha ha only serious" thing.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/27/five-guys-ceo-workers-bonus
birb_cromble
1d ago
The tradies have a pretty big punk subculture that also lean left. That was the group I saw last night.
@OliveTapanade is right though - they just know an "AI CEO" was involved - not Altman specifically.
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.
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