hirpslop

ChatGPT estimates for $300,000 I can build a 10x12 datacenter in my backyard with an operating breakeven at 29% utilization and 489 year capital payback. No thanks, not in my back yard.

The bay’s first LLM (large liquid model) was invented in the 1950s.

I agree with a caveat: the offending agency’s budget should be impacted rather than the general fund. The cost of lawsuits ideally would be itemized in the budget and publicized to show which agencies have legal waste. Otherwise the drag on taxpayers is obscured which gives cover for yet more malfeasance and political opportunism.

c/o Jay Lund, Vice Director, Center for Watershed Engineering Distinguished Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Tried to replicate the second result multiple times with Opus 4.7. No luck. Various prompts and it guesses ‘rationalist-community’ thinkers each time.

Yes, that’s exactly right. Maximal ‘individual liberty’ is my right to maximize my land’s value. My neighbors either agree to maximize theirs in a way that increases, or doesn’t hinder, mine, or they are my enemy to be litigated to death by my lawyers for damages.

This may or may not lead to a weaker Iran. From FP: “Iran is frequently portrayed as a political order bound tightly to individuals. Yet the architecture that emerged after 1979 was formed by a different logic, one founded in the revolutionary experience itself. Khomeini captured this hierarchy in a remark (https://abdimedia.net/en/ruhollah-khomeini/system-ahead-life...) often cited within Iran’s political elite: “Preserving the Islamic Republic is more important than preserving any individual, even if that individual were the Imam of the Age”—a reference to Shiism’s 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi. It is still unclear whether the system will always follow this principle. But one should expect a change in leadership in Tehran to be treated less as an ending and more as a chance for the country’s institutions to show they can survive.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/28/iran-khamenei-ayatollah...

/cocaine should talk at length about the amazing new code you’re going to write together until it burns through all its tokens

American government cash transfers overwhelmingly skew rural with the caveat that income maintenance is a smaller slice of the pie.

This report illustrates rural cash transfers beautifully: https://eig.org/great-transfermation/

An analysis of the sustainability of AI financing by Cédric Durand, political economist at the University of Geneva.

As part of a research project, I combed through archives of my local paper from the 70s and 80s. As a practice exercise, I highly recommend you log in to your local library and try exploring yours. I was stunned at the quality papers used to produce. It left me with a profound sense of loss and regret, but also hope that we can do better.

Even the most trivial seeming stories were treated with a care that seems lost to time.

The power of observation beats most content I encounter now. For instance, the coverage of a Lieutenant Governor’s election victory celebration after being snubbed by Gov. Reagan’s inaugural party. The clever politician persevered because he knew the way to people’s hearts: free steins of beer and brats. Thousands attended on a chilly winter night in a parking garage.

They even followed up to verify precisely how much beer and brats were consumed.

They were also funnier and better written that most journalistic writing see today. Local restaurant reviews had a sense of responsibility and respectful conduct, but didn’t shy away from levity when the food stank. Far from a mere aggregate of gripes of the crankiest customers or sycophantic pablum, it was a the product of someone who’d honed their craft—taking pains to represent what was there according to a professional ethic.

This amounts to a public record that’s a dependable source of historical truth in a way that a forum or social platform doesn’t approximate.

They may not be as good today, but $200 a year is arguably worth the democracy protecting function alone.

Logged on to say Kagi[1]

[1]not an employee, sponsor, or autonomous agent of the above company

Hagen Blix on AI as a wage depreciation strategy rather than a productivity tool.

Adam Tooze’s analysis of an era defining alliance of convenience