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jocaalon The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

The pie isn't always growing and the pie isn't always static. There are times where either can happen. I think people are just feeling that we are entering a period where the pie will be stagnant for a while. In the short term the world might be a zero sum game.

jocaalon Terrence Tao Loses Funding

You only need engineers for those. The type of science engineers and other academics do, are very different. The best way to lose top tier engineers is to de-industrialize and flood the market for engineering labour with low cost labour from out of the country.

jocaalon OpenAI raises $8.3B at $300B valuation

My comment was a reply to

> Given their current product offerings, I really don't see a way they could ever justify a $300B valuation unless they get everyone on the planet to subscribe to their $200/month plan.

jocaalon OpenAI raises $8.3B at $300B valuation

L comment. If every person on the planet subscribed to the $200pm product, OpenAI's revenue would be 16.8 trillion dollars (used 7bn people x $2400pa). Would be hilarious for a company making that type of revenue to be only worth 300bn.

Let's look at it from another perspective. It's not uncommon for tech companies to be valued at around a PE ratio of 30. This would mean a company worth 300bn should make about 10bn in profit each year. Chatgpt's usage is as ubiquitous as products that make 100's of billions in profit such as google search and instagram, does the valuation really seem that insane? OpenAI just needs to open the ad flood gates and suddenly no one is laughing anymore.

jocaalon Escher's art and computer science

This is the reason I dropped out of my masters program. There isn't room for exploration and looking for beauty anymore. Everything is about production throughput.

jocaalon US economy shrank 0.5% in the first quarter, worse than earlier estimates

https://polymarket.com/event/us-recession-in-2025?tid=175098...

Polymarket puts 30% chance on a recession.

jocaalon Photon transport through the entire adult human head

This will probably never get the image quality of either of those. The image quality you get is proportional to the density of the detecting elements. These types of infrared methods usually have to touch the skin, so you would need a flexible array of detectors and your not going to get the same quality with that.

jocaalon Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

Not a chance for MD's. MD's are the only degree where jobs are guaranteed, but graduation is not. They will always have a shortage.

jocaalon Ask HN: What is your fallback job if AI takes away your career?

She is a great politician given the attention she can grab from the media. The primary goal of politicians is to get votes and she seems to be excelling at that.

jocaalon Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

I'm a EE masters student and I also want to reinforce how inaccessible EE is and that I don't really recommend it as a hobby. EE is a very mature field and it's very math heavy for a reason. The second you move past the hobby boards, stuff becomes really difficult and really expensive really fast. If your end goal is to create toys for kids, then it's fine as a hobby. But without the formal training and lab access you are going to struggle to get past that point so it's pretty much impossible to turn the hobby into something more. Unlike software, where tinkering genuinely has the possibility of turning your side projects into careers. Hell, if you don't live in EE hotspot locations, I wouldn't even recommend it as a career anymore. Software is where it's at, even in the age of AI.

jocaalon Why does Apple make a minority of developers finance the entire App Store?

Like most things in life, the profit that companies make follows a decaying exponential, the so called power law. Most of the money is in the big winners.

jocaalon For Some Recent Graduates, the A.I. Job Apocalypse May Already Be Here

Jevin's paradox isn't guaranteed to take effect. It is an observation that sometimes occurs, not a tool for prediction.

jocaalon How to live on $432 a month in America

In the article he mentions there is a well at the house. Also blankets and wood fires are free heat.

jocaalon First hormone-free male birth control pill enters human trials

> Yes, but some people want all the benefits with none of the side effects

Life is about making tradeoffs. There is no such thing as a free lunch, except while you are still a child.

jocaalon First hormone-free male birth control pill enters human trials

Ok, I'll just ignore the rest of the context of this thread.

> the side effects of the pill, which women endure and men don't.

women are free to choose to not take the pill or take it and accept the consequences. Also, there are many alternatives to the pill.

Either way, I don't understand what point you are trying to make. You are just making random statements and ignoring the context of the discussion.

jocaalon First hormone-free male birth control pill enters human trials

I hope you replied to the wrong comment, I don't think women complaining about paying for birth control is a valid reason for sterilizing a population. Also condoms exist.

jocaalon China Can Have It All – China is currently winner of America's self-sabotage

> However, the US, need an external boogeyman who appears competent to make politics work.

The republicans need an external boogeyman, the dems are very willing to create internal boogeymen.

jocaalon IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

> but are often conditioned by society to act differently

Mind expanding on this a bit?

jocaalon CVE program faces swift end after DHS fails to renew contract [updated]

> That's because we got reliant on the funds from government

Not we, some people got reliant on the funds from government. It is always at the cost of someone else. The tax the rich and bourgeoisie mentality is what led to Mao Zedong and Stalin, but no-one wants to learn about history anymore.

jocaalon Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

https://archive.is/qMtHz

jocaalon Everything You Need to Know About the Basis Trade Spooking Markets

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/breaking-down-treasury-basis...

Hedge funds were performing this trade with large amounts of debt and due to the tarrifs they were forced to sell off treasuries to obtain cash, so the treasury market tanked. This is likely the reason for trump reducing tarrifs.

jocaalon The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." - Milton Friedman

jocaalon Data centers contain 90% crap data

For your car note, insurance is only worth it if the thing being insured can ruin you if something were to happen to it. In the case of cars, you can potentially get ruined from the value of the other party's car. But if you live somewhere where most people drive normal cars, it might be worth it not having insurance. Our culture of insure everything, from your iphone to house is a market failure. If your house were to burn down, the value of the asset is still mostly concentrated in the land.

jocaalon The Curse of Ayn Rand's Heir

> When we eventually find time for hobbies and charities we find out we don’t think like everyone else, and often not in a good way. We have “missed out” on experiences others take for granted

Could you expand a bit on this statement for the young and inexperienced.

jocaalon Ask HN: As a Founder, is this business model compelling?

There is no way to know if a business model is compelling. There have been many business models that didn't make sense to most people, yet yielded good businesses. If you believe there is potential, you as entrepreneur can take the risk in trying it out and potentially reach success. If you end up trying, I hope you succeed in your endeavours.

jocaalon Growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us (2003) [pdf]

That is the case for western economies. China controls nearly all levels of its supply chain. In the past, they didn't have the skills for design, but over time has gained that skill set (china now creates nearly a third of the worlds new engineers per year) and is now capable of designing and manufacturing world class products all in-house.

I guess the only exception is semi-conductors, but we all know they are desperately trying to remedy that.

jocaalon Growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us (2003) [pdf]

China's playbook in a nutshell

jocaalon Framework Laptop 12 pre-orders open next week

Making the framework 16 a gaming machine and going on about a modular gpu was a large miss in my opinion. That laptop should have been like the Asus Zephyrus g16 but without a gpu. If they released a refresh now, it should have the strix halo flagship and a different design. I wonder if the sales numbers agree with me.

jocaalon xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

TIL dolphins are born with hair

jocaalon xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

In the video, trump urges people to go out and vote, in which case telling them "just this time" and "you won't have to do it anymore, 4 more years, it will be fixed, it will be fine"

When I watched the video, I saw no malice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gE7xoHJkgvE&pp=ygUqdHJ1bXAgc2F...