I liken it to the Ikeaficiation of furniture. To a great majority, such as my college self, it was preferable and desirable. As I've made more money, I've wanted something better.
There's a market for both, but the furniture slop of Ikea is dominant.
This is true, but only for the bigger players. The nature of hardware still fundamentally favors scale and centralization. Every hyper-scalar eventually gets to a size that developing in-house CPU talent is just straight up better (Qcom and Ventana + Nuvia, Meta and Rivos, Google's been building their own team, Nvidia and Vera-Rubin, God help Microsoft though). This does not bode well for RISC-V companies, who are just being used as a stepping stone. See Anthropic, who does currently license but is rumored to develop their own in-house talent [1].
> Extensibility powers technology innovation
>> While this flexibility could cause problems for the software ecosystem...
"While" is doing some incredible heavy lifting. It is not enough to be able to run Ubuntu, as may be sufficient for embedded applications, but to also be fast. Thusly, there are many hardcoded software optimizations just for a CPU, let alone ARM or x86. For RISC-V? Good luck coding up every permutation of an extension that exists, and even if it's lumped as RVA23, good luck parsing through 100 different "performance optimization manuals" from 100 different companies.
> How mature is the software ecosystem?
10 years ago, when RISC-V was invented, the founders said 20 years. 10 years later, I say 30 years.
The nature of hardware as well, is that the competition (ARM) is not stationary as well. The reason for ARM's dominance now is the failure of Intel, and the strong-arming of Apple.
I have worked in and on RISC-V chips for a number of years, and while I am still a believer that it is the theoretical end state, my estimates just feel like they're getting longer and longer.
> good luck parsing through 100 different "performance optimization manuals" from 100 different companies.
Imo this is pretty misguided. If you're writing above assembly level, you can read the performance optimization manual for Intel, and that code will also be really fast on AMD (or even apple/graviton). At the assembly level, compilers need to know a little bit more, but mostly those are small details and if they get roughly the right metrics, the code they produce is pretty good.
One of many things that bums me out about AI is whether content I create will be truly appreciated by humans, or will just be fed back into the algorithm.
I often wonder how exactly you'd mitigate this. Further, as a user, I wonder what incentive there is for me to write anything at all online, let alone commenting on forums, if it will just be fed back into an LLM.
Is paywalling or forcing user accounts the solution? That feels antithetical to the reason for the internet at all.
Simply putting up a basic auth wall that says “Enter any password to proceed” would stop all modern crawlers dead in their tracks, afaik. You could make it more defensible to the trivial overcome by putting a rotating / per-source password in the basicauth message, but honestly, I think they’re all coded not to invite a CFAA hacking lawsuit by trying random passwords on password-protected sites :)
While I definitely agree CEO pay is quite egregious, in theory, to mitigate short-sighted quarterly earnings hyperoptimization, couldn't a board simply tie equity incentives to performance targets and timeframes though?
Lip Bu Tan, for instance, has performance targets on a five year timeline, which are all negated if the stock falls below a certain threshhold in 3 years. [1]
Or, ever controversial Elon Musk, certainly has an (also egregious) $1 Trillion dollar pay package, but it has some pretty extreme goals over 10 years, such as shipping 1 million Optimus robots [2].
All in all, we can debate about the Goodharting of these metrics (as Musk is keen to do), but I feel boards of these public companies are trying to make more long-term plans, or at least moving away from tying goals to pure quarterly metrics. Perhaps we can argue about the execution of them.
Note: I own neither of these stocks and my only vested interest is buying the S&P.
I disagree with that measure — that was a sell out in order to get votes in Detroit.
That said, it's true that a selective reading of his statements and legislative actions could be used to support almost any position.
But here’s something worth considering from a broader policy perspective:
Ronald Reagan cited three prominent 19th-century champions of free trade as his heroes: Richard Cobden and John Bright, founders of England’s Anti-Corn Law League, and Frédéric Bastiat, a renowned French economic writer. Reagan specifically praised Cobden and Bright for their efforts to eliminate tariffs on imported grain in the 1840s.
Throughout his presidency, Reagan consistently expressed support for free trade. In his July 1981 “Statement on U.S. Trade Policy,” he pledged to reduce government-imposed barriers on international trade and investment.
One of his strongest affirmations came during a January 1988 speech in Cleveland, where he framed America’s trade deficit as a sign of economic strength. On several occasions—often in response to protectionist moves by congressional Democrats—Reagan reiterated his free-trade stance. For instance, he vowed to veto the House trade bill if it included a restrictive amendment sponsored by Representative Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.).
Recent research from Killingsworth and Kahenman in 2023 [1] highlights that those most already happy have their happiness accelerated by money, while those most unhappy have their happiness plateau.
This makes some intuitive sense to me. Money provides freedom, but freedom is not happiness. It's freedom to explore, which is quite scary in and of itself. But if your mindset is proper, your creativity and appetite for exploration will be unbounded.
> In the late 1960s annual inflation approached 7%, more than double the economic predictions utilized in the original plans back in 1962. From mid-1967 onward, the system fought one financial crisis after another, struggling to remain afloat [...] The actual construction figure ended up being about $1.6 billion, $315 million of which came from the Federal government.
1.6 Bil in 1969 dollars translates to 13.6 Bil in 2024 dollars.
Oftentimes I hear complaints that today's projects cost too much, or I come across ballot measures where the other side is always like "something something we have no moneys" such as Prop 4 in California [1]. Sometimes reading about the past puts the present in perspective.
Usually if you think it over the mass transit projects have excellent value. For example the new eastern half of the Bay Bridge cost $6.5 billion (year of expenditure totals ending 2013) and that is not anywhere near as extensive, complex, or valuable as BART. Adding 1 stupid lane to US-101 in Novato cost $800 million. Then if you look at the HSR project that all the reactionaries whine about, they spent only $11 billion to design the entire system, get all the EIRs approved, build over 100 miles of trackway, and electrify Caltrain.
East of Eden by Steinbeck really changed my college mindset on what it means to be "good" and "evil", "right" and "wrong".
It's really hard to describe what the book's about. It's an epic, through and through, and all epics are hard to detail precisely. Inter-generational trauma? Handling one's "sin"? Making a livelihood after repeated failure, be it yourself or external factors?
Contrary to my first sentence, there is one character that I would describe as pure evil. But I feel that just supports one of the conflicts; however incredibly rare, what can an individual do when they come across a bonafide force of evil?
It is dripping with Biblical imagery, and Steinbeck's prose is rambling and tangential for some (though poetic for me), and his characters are not "realistic" and larger than life (but that's what makes them pop off the page for me and so memorable. I guess it's always a balance).
"Now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."
Hopefully this is not too tangential, but it's something that's been on my mind a bit recently.
When you had kids (or I guess anyone who is considering having kids), did you ever fear of "passing down" your trauma?
I feel that us tech workers, for all intents and purposes, have "made it," which might best position us in general to overcome and prevent a cycle of trauma to the next generation.
Yes. The fear is real, and 100% more tangible when you're holding your child the first few times. Overcome with love, joy and sadness because you cannot comprehend how anyone could treat someone that they love so deeply in a bad way.
I don't think "made it" is the differentiator here. It's more about emotional maturity and acceptance that you're chiefly responsible for another human beings experience of the world: What you put in can set them up, or break them down.
That said, I created some rules for myself:
1. Never lie to children. It's easy to make up a story to avoid an emotional outburst. People that lie cannot be trusted, trust is the cornerstone of a relationship, don't lie.
2. Don't avoid emotions. Lean in. Feeling emotions is a human right. Let kids feel emotions. Be with them and make them feel safe. Through conversation try to dissect, explain and appreciate why they're feeling emotional.
3. Hug them. Only let go when they let go.
4. Say goodbye. Don't sneak out the house to avoid an emotional outburst. Not understanding where a parent went, or why you missed them leaving is traumatic. Say goodbye.
5. Never pretend that you'll leave them. Kid is at playground and doesn't want to leave? Never faux walk away and pretend you're leaving without them. Fear is not a parenting strategy, it's abuse.
I'm sure my list will grow. My daughter is 2. I try to live with integrity, honesty and love. What I get out is pure unfettered joy.
#1 is exceptionally powerful. My parents never lied to me or attempted to deceive me. They always emphasized telling the truth, no matter how painful the consequences might be.
I’ve seen other families that lie to each other about the most trivial of things and it ends up with them all constantly feeling gaslit and not trusting each other. How horrible it would be to not have that feeling of safety and security with your own parents.
A well-meaning but frustrated parent might try that move in the moment but not consider what it could mean from their child's perspective. "My parent could leave me" should never be a potential consequence for misbehaving.
They're probably more aware of it because of worse things they've endured like it. A severe example is kicking your kid out of the car and driving off without them. Or packing them a bag and forcing them out of the apartment.
This. I was in the car with my mom and I wouldn't shut up. She told me to and if I didn't, she'd make me walk home. Open my mouth I did!
I walked maybe 2 miles home. Stopped in every store/business where I knew someone. I stopped in the stationary store, the little 5 and dime, a doctor's office. Said hello and chatted a bit. I had to have been 7 or 8. Some folks asked where my mom was and I told them what happened. I have no recollection of what they said. All I know is that I walked on home. Thank goodness there were sidewalks and that I knew where I was going.
What had a much greater negative effect was the walkathon. I was a fat kid and somehow decided I was going to walk 20 miles to raise money for some charity. No one, most of all my father, thought I would walk more than a couple of miles. So neighbors, friends, colleagues of 'rents pledged $20/mile.
Day of, my friend and I were told to go to friend's mom's office when we finished and she'd drive us home. Off we went! Thank goodness we had some idea where we were. It took us all. day. long. We went to a wedding, watched some cute guys play basketball, admired gardens, and talked and talked. We were at the tail end and had no idea if anyone was in front of us or what time it was. Got to the center of town and the organizers had packed up. We had to walk probably 1/2 mile to friend's mom's office. . . and I finally showed up at home and it was like I'd never gone! Sometimes the walkaton pops into my head and I wonder how the hell my parents were not worried about me. More now that my mother has moved in with us and we talk more. I actually asked her about it the other day and she remembers nothing about the walk other than I walked all 20 miles.
End of the world? Absolutely not. But it sure taught me about what my parents thought I could do.
#5 is the only one I do, but because I never thought about it as a fear mechanic - I'll definitely avoid doing this now. That said, what's a good alternative? Sometimes you don't have time to bargain, is picking them up kicking and screaming actually better?
Yes, it is that bad. I used to do it a lot. Didn't help the slightest. As soon as I adopted an "I'll do it for you" strategy everyone's lives started to improve. Even mine.
Yes, it is that bad. I used to do it a lot. Didn't help the slightest. As soon as I adopted an "I'll do it for you" strategy everyone's lives started to improve. Even mine.
Yeah my 10-month old son asks for me constantly(da da di da ta ti) if I'm away from him for more than a few hours. Separation is really tough for them to deal with because they don't have the tools or sophistication to understand why we're gone and that we're coming back. I had to spend a few weeks away from him when he was 4 months when my wife needed to be somewhere with a working kitchen and a clean floor and I needed to repair our kitchen and I think he was "colicky" during that time because he didn't understand where I was or when I would be back. This persisted during the week and then when I would spend the day with them he would calm down.
It's threatening abandonment if they fail to comply with whatever whim you have. It's actually one of the most traumatic things you can do to a small child - because they've learned what you want is all that matters, and if they don't guess what you want properly, they'll be left without a parent.
That's a great list; while not explicitly writing them out, we raise our kids by similar rules, and I think it's been a huge help. #1 is huge. We also explicitly answer any question they ask (barring privacy concerns). The answers vary based on how old they are, and what they're capable of understanding, but they can always ask for more detail if we guess wrong. It lets them know that there are no taboo subjects with us, and they can always come to us with their hard questions.
It did mean nuanced conversations about how not to ruin the "Santa Clause game" for other kids, etc.
> When you had kids (or I guess anyone who is considering having kids), did you ever fear of "passing down" your trauma?
No kids yet because of exactly what' you've said. I was not going to have kids until I could give them a better life, even if that means I never have them. We're actually trying now because I'm comfortable with my life and skills now.
Not OP or a parent, but this is absolutely a fear of mine. I don't think I'd be actively bad for them, passively lacking in critical areas like emotional support.
Hell, I don't have the energy or social skills to get to that point. Either I or the other person move on, so I just optimize the process.
There's a market for both, but the furniture slop of Ikea is dominant.