fatherwavelet

None of this should even be published. Comparing junk science to other junk science doesn't make one more true.

I have an interest in econophysics and what people think of as "economics" is mostly bullshit.

David Ruelle put it best in 1991 when he summed up economics as "We don't currently have the tools to properly study this subject". 35 years later we only have slightly better tools.

I haven't had social media in 11 years.

The best part to me is not mediating all experience through this filter of post worthiness.

I can remember anything I would learn or experience would be quickly interrupted by the thought of the possibility and worthiness of sharing what I just learned or experienced.

I would be lying if I said I am not more disconnected from people than I would be otherwise but social media gives me a form of a learning disability because of the post worthiness filter.

Yes, it is not the cool idea that matters. It is the tools that are important.

I have messed around with making a number of different web drum machines but I really like the square step sequencer for something fresh instead of the standard row.

I notice right away how I am focused on the specific sound I am looking at compared to the step row that feels more focused on the pattern overall.

You could also make it so it plays samples for the drums instead of synthesizing them directly but I do like the default sounds too.

I agree but I haven't used Apple or iphone since the Apple IIe as a kid.

I am sure people have all kinds of associations and emotional involvement with these icons.

With having no idea what these icons even do, to me it just looks like meaningless complexity.

I use Gemini almost obsessively but I don't think feeding the entire corpus of a subject would work great.

The problem is so much of consensus is wrong and it is going to start by giving you the consensus answer on anything.

There are subjects I can get it to tell me the consensus answer then say "what about x" and it completely changes and contradicts the first answer because x contradicts the standard consensus orthodoxy.

To me it is not much different than going to the library to research something. The library is not useless because the books don't read themselves or because there are numerous books on a subject that contradict each other. Gaining insight from reading the book is my role.

I suspect much LLM criticism is from people who neither much use LLMs nor learn much of anything new anyway.

Totally agree. The best thing about AI for me so far has been the audio models that can turn an ebook into an audio book.

I have not only switched from podcasts to audio books but now I am on to all the books I have wanted to listen to but are too obscure to ever hire a voice actor for.

This week I have been listening to a PhD thesis in the car that is on an obscure subject of interest to me. In contrast, even what I use to think of as good in terms of podcasts seem more like junk food now.

Of course this is true. Just like the need to travel long distances over land will never disappear.

The skills needed to be a useful horseman though have almost nothing to do with the skills needed to be a useful train conductor. Most the horseman skills don't really transfer other than being in the same domain of land travel. The horseman also has the problem that they have invested their life and identity into their skill with horses. It massively biases perspective. The person with no experience with horses actually has some huge advantages of the beginner mind in terms of travel by land at the advent of travel by rail.

The ad nauseam software engineer "horsemen" arguments on this board that there will always be the need to travel long distance by land completely misses the point IMO.

This is just not true at this point but believe whatever you want to believe.

I really enjoyed How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.

I think you also have to mention along his talent stack, all his failed business ideas. He really seemed to give his ideas a shot even if they didn't make much sense. I don't think most people would even pursue the Dilbert idea.

I think the better example is the mechanization of the loom created a huge amount of jobs in factories relative to the hand loom because the demand for clothing could not be met by the hand loom.

The craftsman who were forced to go to the factory were not paid more or better off.

There is not going to be more software engineers in the future than there is now, at least not in what would be recognizable as software engineering today. I could see there being vastly more startups with founders as agent orchestrators and many more CTO jobs. There is no way there is many more 2026 version of software engineering jobs at S&P 500 companies in the future. That seems borderline delusional to me.

I still read a lot of books and I use LLMs all the time. I have even got a bunch of book recommendations from LLMs. Imagine that. You actually have agency over these tools. I know it is hard to believe for some.

I think the financial pressure is optical in the preparation for an IPO. The timing really makes perfect sense if the goal is an IPO later in the year.

There is just much denial of all this right now.

I could say I make my living with various forms of communication.

I am not worried about AI replacing me 1:1 communication wise. What is going to happen is the structure around me that gives my current communication skill set value is going to change so much and be optimized to a degree that my current skill set is no longer going to have much value in the new structures that arise. I will have to figure out how to fit into these new structures and it surely won't be doing the same thing I am doing now. That seems so obvious.

The type of person who outsources their thinking to their social media feed news stories and isn't intellectually curious enough to deeply explore the models themselves in order for the models to display their increase in strength, isn't going to be able to tell this themselves.

I would think this also correlates with the type of person who hasn't done enough data analysis themselves to understand all the lies and misleading half-truths "data" often tells. In the reverse also, that experience with data inoculates one to some degree against the bullshitting LLM so it is probably easier to get value from the model.

I would imagine there are all kinds of factors like this that multiple so some people are really having vastly different experiences with the models than others.

The printing press was also used to print witch hunting books and caused 200 years of mass hysteria around witches and witch trials.

Before the printing press, only the clergy could "identity" witches but the printing press "democratized knowledge" of witch identification at larger scale.

The algorithmic version of "It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so" is going to cause huge trouble in the short and medium term.

From the release page, this seems like a pretty big deal in terms of office jobs at some point in the future: "Spreadsheets with formulas: Generate Excel files with working VLOOKUP, conditional formatting, and multiple tabs"

There are so many office workers who just shuffle data between systems. Not sure about the error rate though but it is not like the error rate is going to be worse a decade from now.

In the 20th century you left the house because otherwise you were bored.

I love being alone but I am not "lonely" and I am never bored.

When I go for a walk on a beautiful summer night in America, always alone, there is rarely anyone outside. They are in the house, mostly alone unless they have a partner/kids.

I think we have a loneliness epidemic because we have a culture that makes it fun to be alone. Some people don't like this level of being alone but many do. Those that do aren't really going to pitch in to help so I am not sure what the solution is. You can throw a party but I am not going to show up. I would rather be alone. This is enough interaction. There is also a culture of narcissism, hyper stimulation or both involved I imagine. I can't just close the browser window in person if the conversation seems boring or jump to something more interesting instantly. I would even say that being alone is more fun now than hanging out at someone's house in the 20th century. There is just so much more to do. The group was less bored together but it was still pretty boring then. That is why going to the bar was so popular. Not much else to do then besides get drunk and smoke cigarettes in groups to get rid of the boredom.