sbilstein

13 ms·

1.
by sbilstein 1y ago
Personally I think LLM benchmarks make agents worse. All these companies chase the benchmarks, overfit, and think being able to cheat at the math olympiad is gonna get us to AGI. Instead researchers should peer in and get me an agent that c
2.
by sbilstein 3y ago
The man lived at the same time my great grandfather did, a ww1 Jewish German veteran. Everyone’s views on their integration into German / Gentiles society were completely upended throughout those years. Einstein wasn’t always an ardent
3.
by sbilstein 3y ago
You can definitely go to a mall and get ray bans with solid barrel hinges
4.
by sbilstein 3y ago
As a kid I ate this stuff up. In the eighth grade, I defaced my middle school website. The IT person easily figured out it was me and then tricked me into thinking I would be expelled within days. She pulled me out of class, told me such in
5.
by sbilstein 3y ago
Not in an urban area. E-bikes fly through sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks in NYC. Threatening pets and people at all times. Bikes were already bad, now it’s just more and faster.
6.
by sbilstein 4y ago
Therapy, meds, support groups on Reddit, and exercise are the best thing you can do to deal with childhood trauma. It actually seems to get worse if you don’t manage it, I probably only really started attacking my trauma at 28/29. Made
7.
by sbilstein 4y ago
Yep. I’m personally skeptical of so many other use cases for LLMs but CoPilot is fantastic and basically just autocomplete on rocket fuel. If you can use autocomplete, you can use CoPilot super effectively.
8.
by sbilstein 4y ago
Be nice but remember you have objective skills and you need to suss out the CEOs objective skills. 1) Can they raise money? Proof is good here. Sometimes someone will say "I want you as my co-founder to go and raise my seed round"
9.
by sbilstein 4y ago
Well, in this scenario, you are actually the 'former' colleague getting recruited to be a co-founder while the other folks stay stable. You just admitted you would and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a PM or even another
10.
by sbilstein 4y ago
Oh absolutely. Twice I made the mistake of coming onto a startup to fix the “mess” the previous dev shop had made. Both times the founders had developed an incredibly negative relationship with their dev shop. Hell, the company with the Ser
11.
by sbilstein 4y ago
The MAGA deadhead crossover vibe is so weird. At least the actual cultural icons they worship seem to have kept their heads on at old age.
12.
by sbilstein 4y ago
Oh yes! Extend that to fish and you get Tokyo where you have to work your ass off to get mediocre sushi.
13.
by sbilstein 4y ago
common app is over 20 years old.
14.
by sbilstein 4y ago
everyone, except Reason, knows that scammers descend on disaster areas. who knows if this guy is gonna repair roofs to code? or just rip off desperate families. i lived in florida for 20 years, beware the post-hurricane “helpers”
15.
by sbilstein 4y ago
A large nuclear power plant may use up to 1 billion gallons of water a day and, for this reason, they are often built next to rivers, lakes or oceans to utilise the bodies of water. The water is drawn from these sources and heated to create
16.
by sbilstein 4y ago
the “PC mob” might be new but we’ve had mobs of every political, religious, and cultural motivation pressuring academia since it’s invention.
17.
by sbilstein 5y ago
+1, and how many engineers do they employ? thousands, just like big tech companies.
18.
by sbilstein 5y ago
a friend of mine went from working in oil extraction field engineering to being a patent agent. he does a lot of reviewing applications, finding prior art, and analysis of the inventions. it’s interesting to him since he is always coming ac
19.
by sbilstein 5y ago
I suppose when I read Hacker News, I think about the kind of companies that would apply to YC or otherwise compete with SV-ish funded companies.
20.
by sbilstein 5y ago
I kinda agree with you -- half the job as a programmer is being really tedious and paying attention to written text on a screen. If you can't reasonably review your resume and use spell check, it is not a great look.
21.
by sbilstein 5y ago
Take those assumptions and spend a year burning your savings. Once you see that all your competitors raised at least a few hundred k pre-product while you’ve got a hole burning in your pocket, you’ll feel like an idiot. If you run an alread
22.
by sbilstein 5y ago
Yep.... Bootstrapping is for fools. Virtually no founders out there are pouring their personal savings into their company. The issues with bootstrapping: 1) No one to tell you to give up except your own survival instinct. 2) You've alr
23.
by sbilstein 5y ago
yea especially when locals do the same shit all over the world: wake up get dressed do a job / raise kids / relax eat maybe do a hobby go to bed it's not like you get to Mongolia and are like "wow instead of jobs Mongoli
24.
by sbilstein 5y ago
Same experience as you. I still take psychedelics once in a while but at this point it has become really clear to me that after a few initial epiphanies it can becomes purely recreational. I love taking them recreationally but I am no longe
25.
by sbilstein 5y ago
I agree that both are true but what contributes to loneliness is far more likely to be your own personal choices. Is challenging your own choices and behavior worth it? The answer to that is subjective.
26.
by sbilstein 5y ago
the inability for self-described rationalists to reason about how their emotions determine what they deem "objective" or significant is the most annoying thing on the planet. one example where a lot of rationalists stop making sen
27.
by sbilstein 5y ago
yea tbh working hard and iterating on skillset to climb the promotion ladder sounds/was much easier for me.
28.
by sbilstein 5y ago
rolling your own auth is underrated.
29.
by sbilstein 5y ago
Public health agencies have been telling people to lose weight for decades.
30.
by sbilstein 5y ago
admittedly a very personal reason but I _don't_ want to be able to log in to facebook. Each property of theirs has it's own flavor but I personally find facebook with its treasure trove of decade old memories and connections to pe

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