jimkleiber

The analogy that recently came to me is like internet itself. Your advice seems to say just do everything locally on my computer without access to the internet, because internet might suffer service disruptions or price hikes in the future.

Luckily, ISPs tend to be quite reliable and don't have outrageous price hikes, but maybe that's because of regulation or focused competition, I'm not sure.

Ironically in chatting with Gemini, helped me realize that telecoms have often solved this problem of unlimited usage with rate/speed limiting. If one goes over 10GB or whatnot of data, then the speed drops from 5G to 3G, and data remains unlimited.

I wonder if there could be something like that, maybe even a progressive rate limiting, where after a certain number of tokens or another metric of use, then the speed slows down a LOT.

Not saying that I would love that as a consumer, as I'd prefer this all-you-can eat, unlimited data plan, but I wonder if that would be a compromise that could work, as it seems to have worked OK with the telecom space.

edit: the nerd in me loves the irony of me making the above comment and then later seeing your username as flux :-)

Then why not update their chart to at least say that? The numbers (shading, actually) on the chart are not absolute numbers, they're relative, so just make it look as if I spent a lot of time on it. If they're gonna change their limits without being clear about it, at least go all the way. Right now, I can go, "See, you're actually saying I didn't use that much compared to the limits."

Well then I would just not use their service. I used extra usage once and just for what I'd consider a low amount of tests and coding, racked up like $300 in an hour or more. For some, that's not a lot of money, for me, I'd just code it manually, especially without knowing almost any way to gauge how much I'll need and how fast it goes.

I'm not sure how businesses budget for llm APIs, as they seem wildly unpredictable to me and super expensive, but maybe I'm missing something about it.

Fair, and I think openclaw and all the orchestrators are having agents maxing out the plans. So maybe they figure out a new tier that is agent-run vs human-run. Agents are much more insatiable, whereas humans have a limit. Not sure if it'd be possible to split between those two different modes, but I think that might address the appetite issue better.

Fair on not knowing what you'll get out of someone. But if that varies wildly, I may not want to hire that person. Even with employment, predictability matters a lot. If they underperform too much, I might feel annoyed. If they overperform, I might feel guilty.

They can charge whatever they want, I think many people like to make business decisions based on relative predictability or at least be more aware that there's a risk. If they want it to be "some weeks you have lots of usage, some weeks less, and it depends on X factors, or even random factors" then people could make a more informed choice. I think now it's basically incredibly vague and that works while it's relatively predictable, and starts to fail when it's not, for those that wanted the implied predictability.

I just want a little predictable insight into how much I get. For example, at a buffet, I know I can only eat so much food and can plan around it. This is like going to a buffet and not knowing how many plates I can take or how big the plates are, and it changes each week, and yet I have to keep paying the same price. Except it's not about eating, it's about my work and deadlines and promises and all that.

I looked at my cc usage and I was at 90% of my weekly allowance after 3 days of use...BUT, if I looked at the usage stats with the chart, it showed, on a scale of 1-4 intensity of usage (4 being most intense), the three days as such:

Day 1: 2

Day 2: 3

Day 3: 1

Not sure how I can hit such limits so quickly with such low scores on its own chart.

Oh I didn't mean to say that's what you wanted it to mean, just that I've heard clean cut in two main spaces: taking off bandages and slaughtering animals.

If you mean clean cut as in only cleanly cut the contract, but then maintain the relationship in other ways, I think that could make sense, as it doesn't pretend the decision hasn't already been made. I think I was reacting to clean cut the relationship completely, which I don't even think works well. But yeah, I'd appreciate if the individuals or even the company helped the people out.

It'd be like ending a relationship with someone who was financially dependent on you and just letting them fall of the cliff, compared to saying that you know it doesn't work for you two together, but you'll financially help them transition. I dunno, some people should say clean cut the relationship, drop friendships, never talk, cold turkey, I just don't know how well that works for human well being in the long term.

Yeah that makes sense to me and I appreciate you saying it. If the whole team gets laid off, it's we all go down with the ship. But if one person gets laid off on a team, I think it can create intense dynamics. Like why them specifically? It wasn't about the department, it was about them. I can see why they'd take it personally and why the survivor guilt might be stronger on that team as well.

It sounds as if you're describing how to humanely kill a living being.

There are alternatives to killing things and I don't think fast clean cut is true in all industries. I think people want it to be true because then it hides away the complexity of the emotions we feel. Just cut it off and pretend that the cutting off won't bother us or them after the event.

I think that strategy may appear helpful but just buries most of the feelings, which don't go away, most likely just to fester underneath and erode trust.

And that includes them, the people doing the layoffs, who are employees as well. And what we often don't realize is that causing the pain to others most often causes pain to us as well. Human group output and productivity can rely a lot on trust, and if that trust is damaged, it can hinder all productivity.

Eh, that's brutal, wondering why someone isn't replying to your email only to find out they get let go. Almost like finding out a friend died, in a professional way.

I think we often just don't understand the full dimensionality of layoffs.

Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time with almost no reason for why they're being let go except maybe a vague profitability scorecard.

And also to expect and manage people snapping and giving them an off-ramp, financially but emotionally as well and maybe professionally, too. Why not try to help them find other jobs?

Companies don't just provide money, they provide people with meaning, routine, social circle, and so much, and layoffs cut all of those immediately.

Yeah, our litigation culture to me is just an inability for individuals/companies to resolve conflicts and escalate it to the legal system. And unfortunately there are many elements in the system that discourage us from reconciling and push us towards escalating.

I'm not sure if companies understand the emotional impact on the laid off and the layoff survivors. It almost seems like a terror campaign, whether intended or not.

I had struggled so much to measure text and number of lines when creating dynamic subtitles for remotion videos, not sure if it was my incompetence or a complexity with the DOM itself. I feel hopeful this will make it much easier :-)

I think when we say that an executive is the only one to put an end to another executive in power, we overlook how the problem might be that the parties have deadlocked Congress and the legislative branch is one to take power back from the executive branch.

I had no idea they actually changed the domain name. Reminds me of Musk wanting it to be X because it sounded tougher. Something about trying to appear tough seems to make me think those people are less tough. I'm sure there's some famous paradox in that.

Got an error on Level 17, just a heads up.

Love the game, btw.

There was a South Park episode about this years ago where everyone was trying to get it from Tom Brady.

Perhaps for people who have large sums of money, they don't tend to play in high risk bets anyways, they don't need to. Large sums make large sums on small percentage movement. Most people don't have enough money to make large sums on small percentage increase, id assume this route makes more sense for like the vast majority of humans, especially the ones who have access to privileged, often government, information.

Banks are about saving money and reducing risk. Arguably when they got into high risk investments to make high reward is what contributed to the 2008 recession.

Not sure if banks are the best example of proving the country is not headed towards high risk gambling.

Well markets give a huge financial incentive for it. Before you had to get paid a bribe for an intelligence agent. Now you can just "legitimately" bet on a market. It's a LOT easier and more spread out, I imagine.

Yeah but less direct incentive than "If my friends (and I) bet money on X, and I do X, they (and I) make money."

In 2020 at the start of covid, I did an experiment I called Project 35 where, for 35 days straight before my 35th birthday, I wrote 3 times per day, for 10 minutes each, I livestreamed it and whatever I wrote I would put directly into a book with no edits. While I didn't invite many people to join the calls (maybe fear, maybe just not wanting to coordinate it all), I found the process to be more raw, more human, and less perfect than 10x edited writing. It also helped me get better at typing in the moment and not rewriting everything, especially for social media, HN, and other places.

Anyway, it's at https://www.jimkleiber.com/p35/ if you wanna check it out, all sessions posted as blog posts, I think there's a link to the ebook (pay-what-you-want) and there may be audio (I recorded myself reading the writing right after each session).

If you check it out, please let me know :-)

How well does such llm research hold up as new models are released?

Probably depends how you're using it. I've been able to modify open-source software in languages I've never dreamed of learning, so for that, it's MUCH faster. Seems like a power tool, which, like a power saw, can do a lot very fast, which can bring construction or destruction.

You articulated it: "They're gonna take MY ___ away!" It's not about taking guns or free speech, it's about taking THEIR guns or free speech.

I don't think they're bad people, just think sometimes we humans seem stuck in a very us vs them mindset and it becomes more about my team vs your team than anything else.

You mean like apartments/condos in Trump Tower? Ha. I wonder if banning them from buying SFHs actually decreases the supply of SFHs and shifts people to build more, guess what, apartments/condos that Trump can put his name on and sell to institutional investors.