D_E_Solomon's recent activity

  1. Comment on What happened: OpenAI and Hugging Face in ~comp

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    It's not great, but I like the alternative of not knowing the black hat capabilities of the frontier models even less.

    It's not great, but I like the alternative of not knowing the black hat capabilities of the frontier models even less.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on What happened: OpenAI and Hugging Face in ~comp

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    The downside of prosecuting or fining companies or people - besides figuring out the who - is that nobody is going to disclose the security risks. If you start to prosecute and fine, then...

    The downside of prosecuting or fining companies or people - besides figuring out the who - is that nobody is going to disclose the security risks. If you start to prosecute and fine, then companies will be hush-hush and we're going to be even more in the dark on security risk. Then we're facing an unknown threat where really bad people have the tools and nobody knows what they're capable of.

    Large technology vendors are already moving to much faster patch cycles which is causing some ruckus based of the Mythos security vulnerability discussions and we've seen some pretty high profile security bugs.

    As much as I don't like ignoring moral hazard, I think I prefer it in this situation for the short future.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    Hard agree. One of my favorite examples is that the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was setup originally back in 1969 to catch very high income earners who avoided paying their fair share of taxes...

    Hard agree. One of my favorite examples is that the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was setup originally back in 1969 to catch very high income earners who avoided paying their fair share of taxes via deductions and credits that were present in the law. It eventually got modified to be a parallel tax system with it's own set of rules and calculations back in 1982. And to be clear - it's not just a few rule differences - most credits and deductions are disallowed and there are different calculations across the board.

    The problem is that it wasn't indexed very well to inflation and, so overtime, people in pretty normal financial circumstances started getting caught by it. Before the TCJA act in 2017, some taxpayers - a relatively small number - with household income in the 75,000 - 100,000 USD per year were starting to get caught in it. That meant extra work for every tax return and for every software solution to verify the AMT calculations.

    So the thing that was originally intended to tax the wealthy - because of poor legislation - turned into a bunch of extra tax and sometimes legal work for everyone.

    6 votes

  4. Comment on My polish costs nothing in ~tech

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    Using five bullet points might be your (and honestly my) communication preference, but it's certainly not a universal norm. I've worked for bosses that prefer bullets and others that prefer...

    Using five bullet points might be your (and honestly my) communication preference, but it's certainly not a universal norm. I've worked for bosses that prefer bullets and others that prefer paragraphs. Some corporate cultures - Amazon for instance - are notoriously text heavy. Others work via face to face discussion. Most people don't get to dictate those preferences all the time and have to adapt to the people around them.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on My polish costs nothing in ~tech

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    Most of the workflows that I've seen are less that they write in their native tongue and then translate, it's more that they have five bullet points and ask the AI to create paragraphs, or they...

    Most of the workflows that I've seen are less that they write in their native tongue and then translate, it's more that they have five bullet points and ask the AI to create paragraphs, or they write the full email and then ask the AI to clean up their grammar.

    I guess I find it odd that anyone gets offended about ai generated text. I've read so much human generated crap that I don't get particularly excited about machine generated. Maybe my set point is higher than most people's or my one emotion is already permanently bruised.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on How has climate change affected your life / plans? in ~enviro

    D_E_Solomon
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    I'm in the midwest and I have asthma. I've shifted from running outdoors to indoors on a treadmill due to the wildfires and air quality issues that come with it. It's disappointing since so many...

    I'm in the midwest and I have asthma. I've shifted from running outdoors to indoors on a treadmill due to the wildfires and air quality issues that come with it. It's disappointing since so many gains have been made in air quality since the 80s which has really improved my life.

    21 votes

  7. Comment on My polish costs nothing in ~tech

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    Yes - I broadly agree. A lot of the strategy work was already under pressure since so many of the strategy consulting tools and knowledge are well known. AI probably accelerates that except for...

    Yes - I broadly agree. A lot of the strategy work was already under pressure since so many of the strategy consulting tools and knowledge are well known. AI probably accelerates that except for the truly novel problems.

    IBM's latest returns showed that the business process outsourcing work is really under pressure right now. AI agents are going to eat that portion of their business and automate what was probably automatable.

    The ERP systems are probably quite busy with AI projects and attaching AI capabilities and use cases to the core systems.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on My polish costs nothing in ~tech

    D_E_Solomon
    Link
    I disagree with this line here. I'll give some counterexamples: (1) I work with quite a few people who have English as a second language. AI has been really helpful for them in composing and...

    Which is to say that LLM prose folds in signals of authority, competence, rigor and insight without any of those things needing to be present in the content. A fluent human is often worth listening to while a fluent LLM is just the default, the fluency carries no information. I think that's part of the reason for AI psychosis, I think it effectively uses, now outdated, expectations to hijack perception.

    I disagree with this line here. I'll give some counterexamples:

    (1) I work with quite a few people who have English as a second language. AI has been really helpful for them in composing and managing emails - it reduces the cognitive load of having to write in English and they can express themselves easier and faster. The combination of their thought process and the AI composition lets them be more fluent in email then they could be otherwise.

    (2) I have about 20 years of helping small nonprofits with finance and accounting issues. I needed to draft a policy for one I'm working with at the moment. I used Claude to draft the policy - and it did a pretty good job - it essentially hit the best practices. I needed to customize and redraft a few items to meet the organizations specific context, but overall, it was 85% complete. It saved me quite a bit of time. It was also better produced then about 75% of the nonprofit financial policies I've read in my lifetime. The raw AI output wasn't as good as if I had hand drafted it, but most nonprofits don't have someone like me in their corner. The fluency of the AI's policy is better then what is available to most nonprofits.

    6 votes

  9. Comment on America’s enterprising spirit is booming after decades-long slump in ~finance

  10. Comment on Why socialists should embrace luxury apartments in ~society

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    I'd rather not have Donald Trump choose whether I can rent an apartment or not.

    I'd rather not have Donald Trump choose whether I can rent an apartment or not.

    14 votes

  11. Comment on More people around the world now favour China over the US, Pew study suggests in ~society

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    That sounds a lot like Trump.

    Right now China has an extremely strong leader who is not subservient to capital.

    That sounds a lot like Trump.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on What did banning Airbnbs in New York City accomplish? in ~finance

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    Hi fellow r/neoliberal friend :) I think the problem with that is that these type of policies get enacted but then the actual effort to address the larger issues never occurs. I'm fine with...

    Hi fellow r/neoliberal friend :)

    I think the problem with that is that these type of policies get enacted but then the actual effort to address the larger issues never occurs. I'm fine with banning AirBnb as long as supply reforms also happens. The reality though is that the populist policy gets done, but the thing that actually helps the problem doesn't.

    8 votes

  13. Comment on What did banning Airbnbs in New York City accomplish? in ~finance

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    The larger problem is that we need more housing supply. I don't think anyone is shedding tears for AirBnB, but the data is clear that this policy is also not helping. The energy spent on AirBNB...

    The larger problem is that we need more housing supply. I don't think anyone is shedding tears for AirBnB, but the data is clear that this policy is also not helping. The energy spent on AirBNB legislation should be better redirected to enact policies that encourage more housing supply.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on Are we burning it down by proxy? in ~talk

    D_E_Solomon
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    We had less fireworks this year - but it rained pretty hard on the 4th and the 5th. Also, the neighbor that used to set off a shit ton moved away. I got more sleep than normal this year and I...

    We had less fireworks this year - but it rained pretty hard on the 4th and the 5th. Also, the neighbor that used to set off a shit ton moved away. I got more sleep than normal this year and I can't complain.

    I don't usually mind them, but we live in a pretty dense neighborhood with most people having only a small or no yard. So I've become a hater over the years because of the fire risk and that they're so loud in such a confined area.

    4 votes

  16. Comment on There is no reason to buy another PlayStation or Xbox in ~games

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    Supplier marginal cost doesn't have anything to do with the price and the value of the good to the consumer. Unless you're trying to argue that the cost of stamping out the cdrom or the cost of...

    Supplier marginal cost doesn't have anything to do with the price and the value of the good to the consumer. Unless you're trying to argue that the cost of stamping out the cdrom or the cost of the transmission of the game are the only 'real' thing that price should be based upon in some platonic idealized truth.

    Consumers will buy the game if the utility they get from it exceeds the price that they have to pay subject to their budget. It doesn't matter if the game is delivered on cdrom, 1000 floppy disks, a USB thumb drive, or via the internet.

    6 votes

  17. Comment on Memory is too expensive so I made my own (DIY Core Memory) in ~comp

    D_E_Solomon
    Link Parent
    This is a really deep rabbit hole that I started going down and don't have enough time to finish this morning. The original requirements from the original release were 4mb of RAM. Once you get to...

    This is a really deep rabbit hole that I started going down and don't have enough time to finish this morning.

    The original requirements from the original release were 4mb of RAM. Once you get to the ports, it's a lot more exciting. The SNES version had fewer features but ran in a constrained environment with around 256k of memory. I think that's the smallest official port - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doom_ports

    On third party versions, there is a port for the Raspberry Pi Pico that is a technical marvel and fits in 264k of memory - https://kilograham.github.io/rp2040-doom/ There are a few in this size category - some sacrifice features, but I don't think any of the others get much smaller for memory.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel

  19. Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel

    D_E_Solomon
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    I'm a lifelong vegetarian, but I'm pretty flexible if someone accidentally serves me meat or it would cause trouble. When I was traveling to Shanghai for work, we had a person who would take us...

    I'm a lifelong vegetarian, but I'm pretty flexible if someone accidentally serves me meat or it would cause trouble.

    When I was traveling to Shanghai for work, we had a person who would take us out and navigate food and what not. My boss had given them a heads up that I was vegetarian, but at the time at least, vegetarian really hadn't entered into the popular conscious in China. So what this turned into, is that our guide would order a small bowl of leafy greens for me at each meal and then I would just break vegetarian and eat with everyone else so I got enough to eat. That enabled him to save face that he was taking care of my vegetarian sensibilities but still allowed me to eat enough to survive.

    In Montreal also for work, we had a situation where my French speaking boss ordered a vegetarian omelette for me. When it came out, it had ham in it. That turned into my manager and another consultant arguing very loudly in French with the owner on the definition of vegetarian (in French) and whether it means "has vegetables" or "does not have meat". Given that we had a Parisian, a German who spoke French fluently, and multiple Quebecois, there were a lot of fun conversations about the proper way to speak French.

    Last story is that I had a client in Kentucky who I was visiting. The situation was pretty perilous and I was trying to defuse tensions. At the end of the meeting, I suggested we go and have a nice lunch. I had picked out a few nice looking restaurants that had something vegetarian. Instead, the client's manager said very directly that they wanted Mama's BBQ. So I went and had BBQ with them. One of my legends in that job, is that I (the semi-strict vegetarian) went so far as to eat BBQ with the grouchy client.

    15 votes

  20. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    D_E_Solomon
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    My wife is an artist - went to fancy art school, works as a graphic designer, etc - and I'm about as opposite of that as you can get. We've gone to a lot of art museums through our travels. I try...

    My wife is an artist - went to fancy art school, works as a graphic designer, etc - and I'm about as opposite of that as you can get.

    We've gone to a lot of art museums through our travels. I try to think about modern/postmodern art is that it's a conversation that artists were having with themselves about the form, color, shape, etc. It can be a bit frustrating if you're seeing it for the first time and not following the conversation from the early threads.

    15 votes