I'm negative on this proposal because it sounds like Anthropic put the cart before the horse. Today, at this very moment, 9 out of 10 non-profits and NGOs run of IT infrastructure wholly dependent on email servers, office software, and phone calls. For Anthropic to create a positive result from flooding the space with cut-rate FDEs, NGOS would need to have in-place the sort of infrastructure that could accommodate whatever widgets Sonnet generate, not to mention the right personnel to manage that infrastructure long-term. If an NGO's IT Department is already positioned properly to embrace a Claude Corps Missionary, they near-certainly wouldn't need a Claude Corps Missionary because they would need to publicly justify that department's existence year-after-year. So what does this actually look like for the chosen organizations, other than a sales pitch.
I think the author hit the right notes here; we do know how best optimize learning for high marks at a classroom-level, we do struggle with improving outcomes for students who need extra help, and we do bore students to tears when they outpace their peers. Over their lifetime of schooling, students regularly a standard deviation above or below subject-matter-expectations do breed resentment for the parts of the institution that inconvenience them, and we would probably do well to fix that if we want to avoid ending up recreating "Idiocracy" from first principles. I wish more folks were more reflective on their own opinions like this.
But you don't see center-pivot or linear-movement farmland built up in areas with high population density, nor do you see them using the municipal, potable water supply for irrigation. That is where datacenters are being built and what datacenters are doing, however, and it is why datacenters are blamed for the exacerbation of municipal water systems in these communities. Groundwater, surface water, harvested rainwater, and reclaimed wastewater are the major sources used by farms. Dasani is the major source of water for datacenters, and it makes a massive difference on the water use math.
SOMA was a cognito-hazard for me and my roommate in college; we played it in the dark together while on some sort of mild hallucinogen and when it came time for Simon to find that high-pressure dive suit, we lost our minds (no pun intended). Watching the WAU twist its way through PATHOS II in whatever way worked first is a particularly jarring analogy for what has happened to our own profession. I can't help but think it would be nice for Frictional Games to revisit this topic again soon.
Sidenote: It breaks my heart that all the great underwater-settings in media are hotbeds of horror scenarios. I think Subnautica broke the mold for this, here's to hoping the next generation of aquanauts take to the depths from that series.
Excellent work as expected from NOAA's Habit Conservation team. These fish ladders are such an excellent investment in the future of our inshore fisheries, I wish it were easier to express that to citizens and corporations,
There is absolutely zero will in the United States to invest money in unprofitable exploration or scientific research. There used to be such will generations ago, but today's wannabee-autocrats couldn't care less. Look at how they gleefully cut scientific research funding, undermine academic sovereignty, and strip-mine the public sector performing that work in favor of private enterprises. When the shit hits the fan and we're all broke because the corpos laid everybody off for Devin, Claude, and Clippy, there won't be much left besides surrogacy and plasma donation.
It is such a shame, too, because what Framework has achieved at this pricepoint should be commended. The fact that their business can sustain a lower-margin SKU like the Framework 12 is nothing short of extraordinary! But wow, the MacBook Neo threw a bomb into the low-end market.
I thought the same thing. The author's reference point for LCOL developer seems a bit outdated. With what we pay our teammates in Colombia, the model pushed out to 22 months before crossover.
Eric Schmidt has no clearer a crystal ball than Woz has; to say one is telling the truth while the other is lying is not particularly objective of you.
My take away from the article was that this likely isn't the only public-private intelligence network propped up by local PDs; that was pretty alarming to me.
I'm legitimately curious how these American payment companies held onto their worldwide dominance for so long. I'm used to seeing the sign at restaurants of all the other cards they accept, but for so long I've only ever seen Amex, Discover, Visa, and Mastercard in folks' hands.
GitHub's Copilot CLI is nice enough; now it is not as well-packaged as Claude Code, but I like being able to use their harness in my emulator of choice, and it gets better at the little stuff every week.
My fiancee left a lovely stats PhD program at Maryland after two years and entered the workforce instead. She started the fall before the COVID-19 quarantine in the US, and while the shift to online only exacerbated her feelings, there was plenty worrying her to make the decision palpable. Her stiped was meager, her advisor was functionally absent and _would not_ use their computer, and the thought of coming out the other end six years later with debt from her undergrad and no job - or worse, a job she would need to spend more money to accept and move for than she had on hand - was terrifying. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think she regrets her decision. I'm sure she wishes the conditions were different, but the value of a PhD today has been dragged down so thoroughly that it only makes sense for a privileged few.
The AnCap prof behind this email raises an extremely fine point; what good could possibly come from preventing reasonably-prepared classes from administering exams? I've never been an A student, I relied on stellar final exam grades to slingshot my course average every semester of my college career. Say what you want about me or my work ethic, but we all agree to the course syllabus at the start of the semester. Unilaterally withholding finals is detrimental to students who struggled early on and particularly cynical given how many courses were prepared to operate without Canvas.
There isn't much to fear here. Web Bluetooth has been around nearly ten years now and nothing monumental has sprung forth from it. It is wonderfully convenient to have at your fingertips, especially in the ChromeOS world, but it's not gonna turn everyone's devices into Flipper Zero targets.