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Barracoon

105 karma · joined January 6, 2020

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Barracoon··on The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
A related article https://archive.is/2024.12.17-161126/https://www.theatlantic...

Our scaling is human oriented - add more shifts. Maybe we can adapt new manufacturing methods like screw extrusion mentioned in the article

Barracoon··on Fine dining restaurants researching guests to make their dinner unforgettable
Lots of people saying they don’t like the idea of this here. How many people works at companies whose bottom line is driven by researching website visitors to make their ads unforgettable?
Barracoon··on Grok 4 Launch [video]
Funny, the scenario you described is exactly what Elon wanted to do!

https://openai.com/index/openai-elon-musk/

> In late 2017, we and Elon decided the next step for the mission was to create a for-profit entity. Elon wanted majority equity, initial board control, and to be CEO. In the middle of these discussions, he withheld funding. Reid Hoffman bridged the gap to cover salaries and operations.

Barracoon··on X changes its terms to bar training of AI models using its content
The median American net worth is $192,700. Elon’s net worth is $393.4 billion, so if I’m doing math right he’s about 204,000,000x more
Barracoon··on NSA spied through Angry Birds, other apps: report (2014)
The NSA does not do either of those things
Barracoon··on Layoffs Don't Work
IIRC Amazon has a 2 years 401k match vesting period.
Barracoon··on GSA Eliminates 18F
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3331 The agenda of the president does not matter
Barracoon··on DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
This assumes that DOGE has actually found something in their "audit", which seems dubious given TFA
Barracoon··on Tesla recalls 380k vehicles in US over power steering assist issue
Perhaps this FAQ will help you https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2024-11/MVSDefec...
Barracoon··on US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago
The Tulsi that pushes Russian disinformation? That should do well for rooting out lying. Also some facts: Intelligence services did not lie us into the Iraq war - politicians did. Politicians manipulated intelligence reporting to fit their narrative. Since you seem to like conspiracy theories, it should be obvious that this was so Halliburton, the company vice president Dick Cheney was CEO of, could profit from government contracts. Guess what CEO will now profit from government contracts due to all the lying from the current slate of politicans.

And by conservative parents as domestic terrorists, I assume you mean the people convicted of crime due to their actual criminal actions on Jan. 6?

Barracoon··on TikTok goes dark in the US
It makes the whole world blind
Barracoon··on A mole infiltrated the highest ranks of American militias
As a vet, get some help bro and stop hanging around the militia losers.
Barracoon··on I am rich and have no idea what to do
Leading tech for a 250 person startup is surely different than wrangling the vast bureaucracy of the US Government, especially when the author says they didn't want to join Atlassian because they would have to deal with "politics" and "NPC coworkers". TBF DOGE as a non-governmental entity is just going to make bullshit recommendations to Trump and not have to actually deal with the consequences of things they recommend, so maybe it would have been perfect for this guy.
Barracoon··on Trump's likely FCC chair wrote Project 2025 chapter on how he'd run the agency
Should they be responsible for what they algorithimcally show to users?
Barracoon··on The military is an impossible place for hackers, and what to do about it (2018)
BRS still pays at least 40% of base, plus potentially more via TSP assuming people are moving out of the G fund.
Barracoon··on Twitter/X migrated to Cloudflare, bypassing Brazilian block
Cloudflare was happy to host Kiwi Farms for a long time. I doubt they care what Musk does.
Barracoon··on Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week
Amazon comp is based on your annual performance review (OLR) and your pay band (level + job family). OLR has 5 tiers: least effective, highly valued 1-3, and top tier. Each of those tiers determines your band penetration.

Lets say your pay band is 100-200k. A new hire is theoretically better than 50% of their team, so they join at an HV3 and make 180k. If they receive HV3 at OLR, their total comp target (TCT) remains 180k. If it is their first OLR, they are probably not getting any additional RSUs because the cash-based comp of the first 2 years means they are already at their TCT.

If they made TT, their TCT goes to 200k and they would receive additional RSUs to reach that pay.

If they were HV2 or below, they would not get additional RSUs and their TC would slowly fall from 180k to 160k or below. If it fell below the HV2 level of 160k they would get some RSUs later to bump them back to TCT.

Amazon also assumes the stock will go up 15% year over year, so when RSUs are granted over a multiyear time horizon, you receive less based on assumed growth that would make you reach your TCT.

Barracoon··on Someone is wrong on the internet (AGI Doom edition)
So the AI has overtaken all code and manual processes within a laboratory environment to hijack the ability to print DNA sequences without anybody saying “man it’s weird that my projects never finish now”? There’s also the modeling vs real-world aspect that Halvar talked about in the submission - the AI needs to do some degree of real world testing to make sure the pathogen properly kills humans. It then needs to distribute that pathogen around the world quickly enough to prevent humans from cutting power.

That’s all incredibly fantastical and sounds vaguely plausible unless you’ve had to interact with bureaucracies.

To your second: I’m not sure that we’re talking about the same thing? If I own $100mm worth of H100s and their electricity, networking, and engineering overhead, I’m very interested in their utilization and return on investment. I’m going to have specific goals and milestones. When those are not met because the AI is doing something else, I’m going to direct introspection (which presumably is what kicks off the reboot in the discussion on point one).

And since you mentioned the poor having to pay higher prices, that highlights the fact that AI is not operating in a vacuum. If AI starts making life that much worse for people, they are going to rise up. FUD works to some degree, but there are always people without Internet or willing to martyr themselves for a cause.

Barracoon··on Someone is wrong on the internet (AGI Doom edition)
Who built the automated lab that allows it to create a deadly pathogen before someone presses reboot?

I see almost no chance that an AGI starts redirecting resources like energy and compute without someone who has an economic stake in what the AI does noticing and taking action to correct the behavior so they can maintain their investment.

Barracoon··on OpenAI: Model Spec
Clearly, since this is OpenAI’s model spec, it is desired by them. If other AI groups publish their own desired behavior, you can make an informed decision as to which model you want to use.
Barracoon··on The Class Struggle in Silicon Valley
I wonder if the National Basketball Players Association limits Lebron’s ability to negotiate his upcoming $122mm contract.
Barracoon··on Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight
Technically, it’s if you communicate to a target of a foreign intelligence investigation AND they deem you suspect enough to request FISA approval to access your side of the communication.
Barracoon··on The myths we tell ourselves about American farming
Rather than just claiming that the history is “flat out wrong”, it’d sure be neat if you provided some sources the back that up.
Barracoon··on Google dusts off the Google+ playbook to fight ChatGPT
Here's an experiment at JHU: https://alperovitch.sais.jhu.edu/five-days-in-class-with-cha...

I'm not fully convinced it was a net-positive, because sometimes asking the "dumb" question shows that other people in class had that question but didn't want to ask, or didn't know they had that question until someone else voiced it.

Barracoon··on Voyager spacecraft begin to power down
I’m trying to square how only [15% of oil price controls](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/29/us/president-abolishes-la...) remained when Reagan single handedly saved the day. Seems like Carter spent 4 years doing the hard work and Reagan was able to capitalize on the last bit, which as the article states, Carter would have accomplished by spring.
Barracoon··on A CIA hacker’s revenge
Why does the NY Post repeat known to be false assertions about Russian malign influence. DNC was APT28 and not an inside job.
Barracoon··on High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993
Were they not American or did they not have traditionally white Anglo-Saxon names?
Barracoon··on Safari tries to fill username
Right, win32 is insensitive
Barracoon··on GitHub, fuck your name change
NPR looked into this 7 years ago.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/30/295931070...

Barracoon··on How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation
I'd add the active component of Facebook compared to tabloids/broadcasts. With the latter, I'm just a consumer. With the former, I'm actively contributing via share/like/comment. There's probably a psychological component that deepens your commitment to the viewpoint when you actively participate like that.
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