pdabbadabba

Got evidence that they supplied weapons? GP’s Wikipedia article does not seem to say that they did (apart from an unclear reference to US military aid, which I don’t think refers to US military aid to Sudan specifically).

Probably so. I imagine the U.K. has laws that make such artifacts the formal property of the state. Was this true for 19th century Egypt?

I think it was true, on some level, at the time the bust of Nefertiti was taken in the 1920s. Supposedly, the Germans nominally followed some sort of legal process for removing the artifact -- though perhaps with less-than-full transparency.

Perhaps there are other reasons to claim that Egyptian artifacts were 'stolen.' But I'm trying to have a conversation about what those might be since the subject is not as obvious to me as others seem to think it is.

Interesting points, but can you explain how they apply here? It's interesting and, afaik, true that modern Egyptians's lives today are more similar to their ancient ancestors' than you might expect (moreso than in many other nations). But how should we think about the relevance of this fact to debates about looted artifacts? Does the fact that they still work fields irrigated by the Nile suffice to give them a claim to repatriate artifacts taken generation ago? (Perhaps there are more similarities than this. I don't mean to be flippant on this point, I just am not an expert on all the similarities.) Or is it significant that they have generally abandoned the ancient Egyptian religion in favor of Islam, have a President rather than a Pharaoh, own televisions and smartphones, are now generally safe from crocodiles, have controlled the Nile's annual flooding (whose volatility was a dominant source of danger and drama in ancient life), etc.?

Regarding the Bust of Nefertiti, I guess it's debatable whether 100 years ago qualifies as "quite recently," but I suppose it does seem like yesterday when one is thinking about ancient Egypt! In any case, the analysis certainly may differ depending on the artifact. If the the date of the looting makes a difference I think that only supports the general thrust of my argument.

You're using the word "stolen" here with a lot of conviction but, imho, not a lot of rigor. In what sense did people "own" the artifacts that the British removed from Egypt? Who owned them? If nobody owned them, how were they "stolen"? That's the weak version of the problem.

The stronger version: how is it the case that Egypt, or Egyptians, today "own" something that has been in the British museum far longer than any of them have been alive? Even if the artifacts were wrongfully taken in the first instance, does that automatically mean that the only right thing to do is to return them, even after centuries? Are the myriad other interests that have accumulated in the interim simply not matter? How long domes something have to remain in Britain for it to meaningfully become part of British heritage as well as Egyptian? Should we also be working to return artifacts looted by the ancient Egyptians to their own ancestral homes, even though the looting occurred thousands of years ago when they were the dominant power? Perhaps they should give back everything south of the First Cataract to the Nubians. (Hopefully it's clear that this is a reductio not a policy proposal!)

That's not to say I think it's categorically acceptable for powerful nations to take historical artifacts. But I don't think this has really anything to do with "stealing" in the usual sense. if anything, that rhetoric just obscures the issues here that might truly be worth thinking about.

Well, they do make satellites...

They weren’t caught. (Yet.)

The view among "authorities" is certainly something I find relevant in assessing a highly opinionated but thinly sourced medium article from someone who, respectfully, I've never heard of and know nothing about. Certainly it would be defeasible by a closer look at the research itself. But, barring that, it's a very useful heuristic.

This. Lawyers can use AI tools. But an attorney is ultimately responsible for everything that goes out the door. So they had better check the output from their AI tool carefully. In most firms (at least most good ones) someone would check every citation that goes out the door, even if it was written by an experienced attorney, so it speaks volumes that someone would fail to check citations generated by an LLM.

The phone looks much nicer without a case. And in my 10+ ceaseless years, I’ve only damaged my phone once (and, in that case, I doubt that a thin silicone case would have saved me). And in that one case, I just needed to replace the front glass. Cost about $40 IIRC.

So why would I use a case?

Your mileage may vary, though, if you have kids, are a woman (fewer/shallower pockets), etc.

No? What makes you say that?

I don't see the contradiction "paying partners to secure browser placement" =/ "exclusivity." This just means you can have partner deals, but that they can't be exclusive, right?

I'm honestly not sure which point you're making in this thread. Are you saying that government should somehow make people whole for the loss of their coastal property? Or are you making the point that the government has no business interfering with the property rights of others? There seems to be a tension here, because I don't see how you could do the latter without also doing the latter — i.e., making coastal property owners whole requires taking someone else's property (either money or real property) and giving it to them. Or maybe you'd propose that we resettle them onto federal lands? (Even in that case, taxpayers bear a significant opportunity cost.)

I think that was just a joke about "Full Self Driving" -- and how it still doesn't work.

> Yet now in 2025, they had a total victory, they've annihilated all phone spam, and I didn't notice for months. No media release, no trumpeting from the roof tops. They just quietly and effectively did their job.

How?

You're responding to a different point than the one I made. It's true that being a "nonprofit" doesn't logically entail that donations will be tax decudtible. But it still implies it to potential donors. The former is a matter of logic, the latter is a matter of psychology. Both are relevant.

Yes, there are multiple classes of nonprofit, not all of which are tax deductible. But it is also true that holding yourself out to the public as a "nonprofit" has the potential to mislead because it may imply to potential donors that contributions would be tax deductible. That is why responsible (or at least well advised) nonprofits disclose which they are, because claiming you're a "nonprofit" in marketing materials, without further explanation, can mislead potential donors.

At least in the US, claiming that you are a nonprofit implies that contributions are tax deductible. Claiming that you are a nonprofit when contributions are not tax deductible might be considered fraudulent.

If they want to serve the U.S. market, which they do, they still have to deal with the FCC and comply with U.S. regulations, regardless of the launching country.

No need to guess:

“This allows you to mold soft plastics (which you can buy from the company, also called Saltgator, or a hobby shop or fishing-lure supplier) and mold a piece up to 250mL (8.4 oz) in volume in about 15 minutes.”

If you’re a citizen of the United States in particular, you might reflect for a moment in where this line of reasoning might lead.

> “False slander” is not a thing.

It's only not a thing because, in the U.S., it's redundant. In other jurisdictions, it might be a thing, because there are places where a claim can be both defamatory and true.

> They are looking at lightweight EVs at lower speeds. But Americans drive heavier EVs at highway speeds. The rotors & pads are huge.

Perhaps other EV drivers can chime in but, if anything, I think I use my friction brakes less at highway speeds where, in general, you're not really supposed to do a lot of braking. I'd say, overall and regardless of speed, my friction brakes are really used only to bring the car to a complete stop or for emergency braking to avoid a potential accident.

And if those $2B just go poof because they somehow failed to notice what is apparently so obvious to people on his thread -- that there is no real product -- your position is that the VC does not suffer any significant consequences?

There are a lot of interesting thoughts here -- many of which I tend to agree with. But I don't see how this answers my questions, unfortunately -- unless you mean to say that the answers are something like 1) "almost everyone" and 2) "virtually everything they do."

So your position is that a VC will invest $2B in a startup on vibes alone without having any idea what they're building, because it is not literally their money? That seems like a significantly stronger and less plausible claim than mine, which his merely that a prospective $2B investor has access to more information about the company's plans than we do and that their investment is at least some indication that there is a real product in the pipeline.

Could somebody explain why there is so much negativity towards Thinking Machines in this thread? I realize that they haven't publicly announced a product yet but presumably the VCs have some idea of what Thinking Machines is building, and they have some pretty significant OpenAI talent on board, including Murati herself. Some amount of skepticism is warranted, of course, but a lot of these comments read as closer to hostility.

Could you explain what you mean by that? Who are the proponents of “big reality”? How do they fight against its disruption?

That's the study I'm really interested in: does AI use improve the output of lower-skill developers (not experts). My intuitions point me in the opposite direction. I think AI would improve their work. But I'm not aware of any hard data that would help answer this question.

Sure. But what would you suppose the ratio is between expert, average, and mediocre coders in the average organization? I think a small minority would be in the first category, and I don’t see a technology on the horizon that will change that except for LLMs, which seem like they could make mediocre coders both more productive and produce higher quality output.

Fair enough. For what it's worth, I've always thought that the more reasonable claim is that AI tools make poor-average developers more productive, not necessarily expert developers.

Maybe it's convenient. But isn't it also just a fact that some of the models available today are better than the ones available five months ago?