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jacobjjacob

228 karma · joined November 2, 2021

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jacobjjacob··on The End of a Fair Price: Dynamic Pricing and the Normalization of Gouging
Fair would mean everyone gets the same price or that it’s based on somewhat transparent factors, especially when those factors have no impact on the seller. But in many of these cases, it is not disclosed at all and we have no idea what factors they are using.

Compare that to car insurance where many of the factors are well known and have a clear impact on risk.

jacobjjacob··on The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024
Over what timescale do you amortize your investment by pricing it in? Do you earn back your $100k by selling $20 coffee? That wouldn’t be sustainable. So, this is where the loss comes in. You can’t realistically sell at a profit considering your capital investment if you aren’t carrying it over longer periods of time.
jacobjjacob··on Codeberg Bans Cryptocurrency Projects
The value of air conditioning is much more than 20x the value of bitcoin. It might be more than 20,000,000x the value.
jacobjjacob··on LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do
I don’t think that my career has been eroded by even 1%. The areas of erosion listed by the author feel like reverse order to me. The domain is knowing what questions to ask. That’s the last thing to be replaced.

I think that if you are a skilled software engineer and can adapt, you will be amplified in all aspects. If you just like writing artisanal code, you might have a bad time.

jacobjjacob··on I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis
AI is currently, actively getting better. That might stop in a year, and you can argue whether it’s linear or exponential, but it’s very difficult to argue that it won’t get better in the near term. On the other hand, arguing that we hit a plateau at this time is just ignoring reality.
jacobjjacob··on Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
It’s 100% trackable. It’s anonymous but there are many datapoints that could be used to deanonymize if the transaction parties are not extremely careful
jacobjjacob··on Warren Buffett dumps $1.7B of Amazon stock
Markets can’t see the product quality of a monopoly. It won’t be reflected in the metrics because there’s no competition to anchor the earnings to the real consumer value. But that doesn’t mean quality isn’t a factor- it makes them vulnerable to disruption.

Warren Buffett is known to trade on product quality (he buys what he uses). So his sale could be based on that.

jacobjjacob··on AI is going to kill app subscriptions
No one should be charging $10/month for a local PDF editor anyways… but I don’t think AI will solve that
jacobjjacob··on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics
What does this have to do with Garry Tan and CA, it happened in Georgia?
jacobjjacob··on ABC yanks Jimmy Kimmel’s show ‘indefinitely’ after threat from FCC chair
He wasn’t claiming that he is. He was pointing out that people were scrambling to label him as being from “the other side”. The reality isn’t so binary.

I agree it could have been worded better but I think it’s clear if you watch it in context.

jacobjjacob··on Nano Banana image examples
Yes, I think it was the right call if they want the post to be taken seriously by a broad audience.
jacobjjacob··on Nano Banana image examples
Does the first example really need to be some softcore weeb p*rn?
jacobjjacob··on AirPods live translation blocked for EU users with EU Apple accounts
It’s not breaking the law in this case as far as I know.

The law requires Apple to provide equal access to the iPhone hardware and software in marketplaces that it competes in.

That can be done in a manner that is either additive, by providing access to third parties (which is potentially a significant expense and liability) or subtractive, by choosing not to engage in the regulated activities at all, in that jurisdiction.

jacobjjacob··on AirPods live translation blocked for EU users with EU Apple accounts
As far as I understand, the act can’t control what Apple decides to do outside of the EU. Whether Apple has products or features available outside that market means nothing because it’s scoped to that jurisdiction.

I think that whether or not they built the thing does not matter.

jacobjjacob··on AirPods live translation blocked for EU users with EU Apple accounts
If the consumers in EU don’t like the legal and predictable effects of the DMA in this case, how is Apple subverting the democratic process? If the act isn’t having the intended effect, then either voters will change their minds or it will need to be reformed. But this sounds like a successful outcome of the law insofar as preventing anticompetitive behavior.

Subverting democracy, to me, would involve things like dark money campaigns and lobbying.

jacobjjacob··on How Tesla is proving doubters right on why its robotaxi service cannot scale
Saying the Waymo was even involved in the crash is misleading. It was a victim along with most of the other vehicles.
jacobjjacob··on How Tesla is proving doubters right on why its robotaxi service cannot scale
They only have ten cars on the road? What a farce, the stock is inflated with hopes and dreams and hot air.

Only needs a little bit of work to not drive into trains.

jacobjjacob··on Game over Tesla (and, maybe, Western car industry)
They claim to have delivered L4 autonomous parking, not full L4.
jacobjjacob··on Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express
Was just there a couple weeks ago and didn’t get to ride, they were doing engine repairs :(
jacobjjacob··on Just Fucking Use React
This example just sounds like it was coded poorly. I would assume that experienced React developers would know to avoid something like this.

For inexperienced developers, you don’t need a framework to do something dumb.

jacobjjacob··on Tesla now offers discounted financing on Cybertruck as the truck a flop
It’s a flop relative to the expectation that Elon set - that they’d sell 500k units per year.
jacobjjacob··on US Forest Service firings decimate already understaffed agency
Many seasonal campgrounds never open due to lack of staffing. Fire risk can’t be sufficiently managed and creates massive fuel buildups.

Illegal dumping at the edges of the national forests is also a big problem that they can’t keep up with, as well as preventing other illegal activities like poaching or unlawful harvesting of resourceg.

jacobjjacob··on US Forest Service firings decimate already understaffed agency
AFAIK, this affected probationary employees of all or most agencies. So I’m not sure how this argument makes sense as something the Forest Service did wrong or could have prevented.

Also, the government should be efficient but shouldn’t be required to break even or profit… it’s a public good.

jacobjjacob··on Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
This site is called hacker news… the article is news about hackers
jacobjjacob··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
I think that the practical solution is to hire more auditors/investigators, and they would end up paying for themselves, but I don’t think Elon would accept a solution that requires more humans and up front cost.
jacobjjacob··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
I’m not advocating for war but one thing this deficit pays for is being a military superpower, which is the main way our debt is “guaranteed”. As in, call in the debt at your own peril.
jacobjjacob··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
I would guess that part of it is to tear down what’s there so they can rebuild in their own vision. I think this is a desire that any engineer can understand- and also understand that it often has to be suppressed because it’s a common blunder.

How many engineers have walked into a legacy project and their first instinct is to rebuild? Of course this is sometimes warranted, but almost always costs way more than anyone expects and doesn’t necessarily lead to a better outcome.

Edit: I’ll also add that this mentality is more common in younger / junior folks, which fits the context here.

jacobjjacob··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
Maybe the strategy is to let it play out until there is enough of a case that the other branches can’t look away? Let Elon show himself out by inevitably crossing Trump and going the way of so many other advisors?
jacobjjacob··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
Looking at the quoted post, what do they have against Direct File? It is really hard to keep track of their positions which I believe is intentional.
jacobjjacob··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
Separation of powers, checks and balances. The executive branch taking powers from the legislative branch with the judicial branch approving can be seen as a coup.
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