shawndrost

7 ms·

1.
by shawndrost 5mo ago
It seems to me that Trump's second term foreign policy is obsessed with dismantling the "shadow" oil market -- ending the system where China captures upside when sanctioned countries like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela sell oil,
2.
by shawndrost 9mo ago
Think of your product as part "content" and part "container". When I say "content" I mean "stuff that could fit on a content platform". When I say "container" I mean, the bundle of forces th
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by shawndrost 10mo ago
I don't understand this POV, can you explain what I'm missing? Usually when people say "corporations aren't people" I think they are confused about the need for an abstraction. But you acknowledged the need for an a
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by shawndrost 10mo ago
Do they include the costs of dead-end runs?
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by shawndrost 11mo ago
This article is a midwit dismissal; it may contain valid corrections but it is ignorant on the core topic at hand. This is a shame, because it is extremely interesting and under-reported topic! The core thesis of the book (per Claude) is: &
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by shawndrost 1y ago
I have loved Cormac's books since I was a child, but never read Larry McMurtry until recently. If you're in the same boat, I implore you to give one of the below a try. Lonesome Dove -- A great story about washed-up Texas Rangers
7.
by shawndrost 1y ago
I think of you as a direct person, so it's strange to hear you dismiss "stablecoins are regulatory arbitrage" as misguided or incurious. Maybe I am wrong about something. Would you agree that "actual regulatory evasion&q
8.
by shawndrost 1y ago
My argument is really not about the 58->176 transition (which was slower than 20% YOY) but the rapid datacenter deployment that started around 2022. It is basically all LLMs (McKinsey says ~75% IIRC). Anyway, yeah, thanks for the excha
9.
by shawndrost 1y ago
Does anyone know why "Hours spent in childcare" started skyrocketing in the 1990s? Here is the graph from the article: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2g7_!,w_1456,c_limit...
10.
by shawndrost 1y ago
The below DOE link substantiates my quotes about US data centers and power usage, which I'll reproduce here. "[D]ata centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 [and ~1.5% in 2014]." "[T]otal [US] data
11.
by shawndrost 1y ago
As a matter of fact, the police return fewer stolen USD to rightful owners than the "financial system" (ie regulated banks, credit card companies, etc). If you report an identity theft (a theft of your USD via your CC or bank info
12.
by shawndrost 1y ago
My statements about the recent history of declining US power sector emissions are pretty vanilla and I won't source them here, but they should be pretty easy to verify. What I'm asking you to take on faith (or to google) is that t
13.
by shawndrost 1y ago
You have this extremely wrong. TLDR: LLMs singlehandedly reversed the secular decline in US power emissions, which were the only reason for climate optimism. The story of US power sector emissions was a good story. Emissions appeared to be
14.
by shawndrost 1y ago
"THOSE ARE NOT MY CHOICES. THOSE ARE YOUR CHOICES."
15.
by shawndrost 1y ago
But which is it? Do you agree with Graham's essay and your own graph, or do you disagree? It sounds like you believe in the graph, but don't want to turn people off. Just own your belief. FWIW I think you should disagree with Grah
16.
by shawndrost 2y ago
+1 to this analysis. Urban ratepayers in CA subsidize rural and fire-prone ratepayers. (Utility rates are a stealth tax. Same story as home insurance.) The fight is ultimately political and not as one-sided as you might think. The broad reg
17.
by shawndrost 2y ago
I work in hydrogen and I have semi-solid information* that there is a real economic case for hydrogen as a fuel for large mining equipment. The story as I heard it: the overall output of a mine is often bottlenecked by air quality permits,
18.
by shawndrost 2y ago
Calling out something that seems obvious to me, but is not visible ITT: This is Facebook doing their main MO, which is to reproduce social products that are exhibiting hockey-stick growth. They are looking at character.ai et al.
19.
by shawndrost 2y ago
One of the most interesting things to me about LLMs is the set of emergent anthropomorphic behaviors which they exhibit. Confabulation is one of them -- what a deeply human behavior! -- and intentional deception is another. Kudos to the aut
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by shawndrost 2y ago
I imagine the argument here is: FDP wants lower energy prices enough to horse trade with Greens for new conservation designations. That kind of thing.
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by shawndrost 2y ago
This is not just some art thing. People note it in every field. It's not the only predictor; the author of Chrome reportedly did most of it offline IIRC. But it's a real phenomenon that is robust in the face of the concerns you&#x
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by shawndrost 2y ago
You can find the text of the original OpenAI/MSFT deal here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-ema...
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by shawndrost 2y ago
It seems you have convinced me that IC fabrication is a dark art, despite your intentions.
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by shawndrost 2y ago
I have to repost an earlier comment of mine ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27752798 ) on this topic: I have a tip on finding a cofounder. I've been looking for the last 12 months and I tried a lot of things, but
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by shawndrost 2y ago
> Imprecative retorts in English > While not a mood in English, expressions like like hell it is or the fuck you are are imprecative retorts. These consist of an expletive + a personal pronoun subject + an auxiliary verb.
26.
by shawndrost 2y ago
One thing that's happening here is that YC believes "sloppy copy-paste is Good, Actually" more than you do. Maybe more than is polite to say in public. I don't mean to defend PearAI, which seems to be doing dumb and unac
27.
by shawndrost 2y ago
I too love biking in the woods. But I would oppose your specific policy prescription (leave it up to local decisionmakers) on the grounds that I would expect OHVs, loggers, etc to lobby against the aims of the current designation in small o
28.
by shawndrost 2y ago
Imagine I am a PM for an AI product. I saw Tay get yanked in 24 hours because of a PR shitstorm. If I cause a PR shitstorm it means I am bad at my job, so I take steps to prevent this. Are my choices bad? Should I resist them?
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by shawndrost 2y ago
A ring light indicates if it's reached set temp.
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by shawndrost 2y ago
Government jobs have a fixed pay grade that isn't changing. It doesn't afford an upper-middle-class life in an expensive city. You may find yourself wanting both, but you can't have them. If you already get that, you're

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