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bernardlunn

447 karma · joined March 22, 2008

Retired tech entrepreneur, who made his living when the bleeding edge became the leading edge
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bernardlunn··on Why won't some people pay for news? (2022)
Scanning headlines is free and enough for me
bernardlunn··on Bessemer Venture Partners' Anti-Portfolio
My favorite take on startup investing by a long shot
bernardlunn··on AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them
I am in the market but “ The system is not commercially available”. This is a perfect opportunity for Apple.
bernardlunn··on Wiley shuts down 19 science journals and retracts 11,000 gobbledygook papers
New headline “AI robot takes psychedelics and messes up a scientific publisher”
bernardlunn··on I am pleased that trust busting is back in fashion
Not gone but no longer in fashion, just look at valuations
bernardlunn··on AI could kill call centres, says Tata Consultancy Services head
https://on.ft.com/3Uhznrs

AI could kill call centres, says Tata Consultancy Services head

Chatbots will soon take over much of the work of human agents, forecasts chief of Indian IT group

I read the article to see if TCS was offering more than “we prefer to get paid for high end AI engineering work rather than low end call center work.”

The more I was looking for was an understanding that paying customers reward good service by buying premium services. We are receptive to an upsell if the company offered a useful service when we called them. Whether the service was delivered by a robot or a human is less interesting to a customer.

It could be that TCS did not understand this or they did and the journalist buried the lede.

Having read the article, my take is that TCS is simply saying “we prefer to get paid for high end AI engineering work rather than low end call center work.”

If you’re not an FT subscriber, hopefully someone will post a free link. It is not worth subscribing to get this PR piece.

bernardlunn··on Think of your career like a dartboard
Struggling sounds a bit judgmental but if that is the word you want - yes
bernardlunn··on Financial market applications of LLMs
As a human, I like anomaly tracking if I understand what you mean by that. LLMs are maybe 99% good and 1% totally wrong (hallucination). Lots of profit betting against the 1% totally wrong. Not hard to see when wrong but do need to act fast.
bernardlunn··on Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
With writing the second version is definitely better, sucks having to redo but improvement makes it worth while.
bernardlunn··on Think of your career like a dartboard
This bit resonates (having recently retired) “Some people work to live, while others live to work. I like to think I fall into the latter bucket.” Me too
bernardlunn··on Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
The free money era is over. It is time for that message to sink in for both founders and investors. VC funds want founders to shoot for the moon but protect themselves by a) having a portfolio b) liquidation preference. As a founder you don’t have either. VC funds are not investors, they are middlemen who take very little risk.
bernardlunn··on The case against caffeine
I am in day 4 of tapering off, so this is only anecdotal but as each person is different anecdotal is ok. Try it and see. At the moment, with tiny amounts of caffeine my pm is better ie more even energy. I recognize addiction in some of the most virulent anti poster pro caffeine comments.
bernardlunn··on 99% by AI is an economic and geopolitical game changer
Thanks
bernardlunn··on The business of check cashing
Business should not pay by check - only in America is this technical debt so prevalent. Cash or payment into bank account please
bernardlunn··on Intel's Humbling
Brilliant article. He is totally right that what Pat Gelsinger is doing is as brave as what Andy Grove did and just as essential. In hindsight Andy Grove was 100% right and I hope Pat Gelsinger is proved right.

The fact that Intel stock went up during the Brian Krzanich tenure as CEO is simply a reflection of that being the free money era that lifted all boats/stocks. Without that we would be writing Intel’s epitaph now.

You cannot play offense in tech when there is a big market shift.

bernardlunn··on Internet, Blockchain, AI, Amara's Law and the Gartner Hype Cycle
Makes sense. Innovation stacking explains speed of market penetration
bernardlunn··on I do not care if Nazis move from X (fka Twitter) to Substack
See this on the Verge Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content / Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie’s plan to ‘strip bad ideas of their power’ is to profit from disseminating them as widely as possible.
bernardlunn··on Is Twitter/X Down
I deleted X to break this habit and cos it is becoming an Elon Musk vanity project so don’t care if it’s down
bernardlunn··on Blogging Like a Hacker (2008)
Love this bit: “The act of transforming ideas into words is an amazingly efficient way to solidify and refine your thoughts about a given topic.”
bernardlunn··on FT is losing control over comments
Agree, it is just more work than it used to be & heading in the wrong direction. I am assuming some subscribers are corporate with multiple users doing fake comments
bernardlunn··on Cognitive ability and miscalibrated financial expectations
If you are an entrepreneur you tend towards being like Tigger ie optimistic but listening to Eeyore will help create your action plans.

Be pessimistic about incumbents and competition, but pessimism about incumbents will show what needs fixing ie the opportunity.

bernardlunn··on Cognitive ability and miscalibrated financial expectations
Too much assumption that realism = pessimism. Optimism might be wrong, but not if it spurs you to action to make something happen.
bernardlunn··on The Bluffers Guide to the Mythical Man Month
I read it in the 1970s as a youngster, now retired, brilliant then and now.
bernardlunn··on Show HN: YouTube banned adblockers so I built an extension to skip their ads
!
bernardlunn··on Have you noticed the frequency of ads increasing on free services?
Yes, companies are trying to boost revenues & profits to compete with 5% risk free treasury bonds
bernardlunn··on Have you noticed the frequency of ads increasing on free services?
I use YouTube a lot (too much) & Youtube no longer allows AdBlockers. Spotify is the worst offender with way too many ads
bernardlunn··on Moving Away from Substack
DIY using Wordpress
bernardlunn··on EU Parliament Civil Liberties Committee adopts position on CSAR
Wow!!
bernardlunn··on The Humane AI Pin is a cross between Google Glass and a pager
No I do NOT want an AI pin

I do NOT care if this makes me less than hip. I do NOT want to pay $699 plus $24 per month for another addiction that will spy on me.

Your grouchy old sceptic.

bernardlunn··on Seeing like a bank
No, Misys
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