skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on US states are learning the wrong lesson from the ‘Mississippi [reading level] miracle’ (gifted link) in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I think deBoer is right that local reporting would be helpful for understanding what actually happened in Mississippi. He isn't doing the digging himself, though? He's clearly done a lot of...

    I think deBoer is right that local reporting would be helpful for understanding what actually happened in Mississippi. He isn't doing the digging himself, though?

    He's clearly done a lot of reading and is much more knowledgeable than I am about education, but I think this adds up to having a skeptical prior. Comparisons to what happened elsewhere aren't a substitute for doing a new investigation in each situation to see what happened and if anything can be learned from it.

    I'm reminded of the anecdote about the economists who miss the $20 on the sidewalk because according to theory, someone should have picked it up already.

    And that's not journalism. A lot of news stories are similar, but there are always new situations for journalists to report on.

    That said, nobody is required to the homework, and I'm not going to do it either. I just keep an eye out for reporting by someone who did.

    5 votes

  2. Comment on Prototyping with LLMs in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    On my personal link-sharing website, the bot and I have written 80 design docs so far. It works fairly well, but doesn't keep me from over-engineering things. :) Before that I would only write...

    On my personal link-sharing website, the bot and I have written 80 design docs so far. It works fairly well, but doesn't keep me from over-engineering things. :)

    Before that I would only write design docs at work, not for my hobby projects.

  3. Comment on US states are learning the wrong lesson from the ‘Mississippi [reading level] miracle’ (gifted link) in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I do think it's plausible that those reforms were important, but it's not obvious to me how we would know if they worked. For example, how many underperforming schools did Mississippi actually...

    I do think it's plausible that those reforms were important, but it's not obvious to me how we would know if they worked.

    For example, how many underperforming schools did Mississippi actually take over and did this actually help? There's no way someone who hadn't already investigated would know that. How would they know?

    2 votes

  4. Comment on US states are learning the wrong lesson from the ‘Mississippi [reading level] miracle’ (gifted link) in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    It sounds like Mississippi did a bunch of different things and other states are trying some of them with decidedly mixed results. I don't think it tells us which of their reforms made the most...

    It sounds like Mississippi did a bunch of different things and other states are trying some of them with decidedly mixed results. I don't think it tells us which of their reforms made the most difference, though?

    4 votes

  5. Comment on Prototyping with LLMs in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link
    That's quite the bible quote. I had to look it up to see if it was real :) It's a bit unclear what they mean by "sketch," though. Literally draw a picture?

    That's quite the bible quote. I had to look it up to see if it was real :)

    It's a bit unclear what they mean by "sketch," though. Literally draw a picture?

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Anthropic announces deal with Google, Broadcom, says revenue has tripled in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Yes, they're company-provided numbers that shouldn't be trusted as much as audited financial statements. But this isn't itself evidence that they're lying.

    Yes, they're company-provided numbers that shouldn't be trusted as much as audited financial statements. But this isn't itself evidence that they're lying.

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Anthropic announces deal with Google, Broadcom, says revenue has tripled in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Okay but just because Enron did it doesn't mean Anthropic is doing it.

    Okay but just because Enron did it doesn't mean Anthropic is doing it.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on Anthropic announces deal with Google, Broadcom, says revenue has tripled in ~finance

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Annualized revenue does not mean they earned that much (since it hasn't been a year), so the big numbers don't quite mean what they seem. We are also missing the financial statements that would be...

    Annualized revenue does not mean they earned that much (since it hasn't been a year), so the big numbers don't quite mean what they seem. We are also missing the financial statements that would be available for a public company, so we have to go by these selective disclosures. Someone put them in a graph.

    But as an indication of a trend they do seem kind of meaningful? This is indicating that revenue is growing rapidly. Divide by twelve if you'd rather see monthly revenue.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Anthropic announces deal with Google, Broadcom, says revenue has tripled in ~finance

  10. Comment on Anthropic announces deal with Google, Broadcom, says revenue has tripled in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It's mostly business customers. I think it has more to with Claude having the reputation of being the best for writing code.

    It's mostly business customers. I think it has more to with Claude having the reputation of being the best for writing code.

    24 votes

  11. Comment on US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire with Tehran saying it will reopen Strait of Hormuz in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It's been less than 24 hours. I don't think that's enough time to see if shipping will increase? It sure looks like Iran is willing to do a two-week ceasefire or maybe more, and the rest of the...

    It's been less than 24 hours. I don't think that's enough time to see if shipping will increase?

    It sure looks like Iran is willing to do a two-week ceasefire or maybe more, and the rest of the world would be happier if the Israel agreed to stop bombing Lebanon for a bit.

    It seems unlikely that the US and Iran will agree with anything more substantial than a ceasefire (they are far apart), but once it's in place, it can be extended, and in the meantime it would prevent a lot of economic suffering if shipping increased, even with restrictions.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on How China built its vast natural gas stockpile in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I don't think anyone is confused about where natural gas comes from. Also, methane is cleaner than coal or oil. For example, CO2 emissions are 50% less than coal and 25–30% less than gasoline....

    I don't think anyone is confused about where natural gas comes from.

    Also, methane is cleaner than coal or oil. For example, CO2 emissions are 50% less than coal and 25–30% less than gasoline. Methane is a gas because there are fewer carbon atoms.

    It's still a fossil fuel, but transitioning from coal to natural gas does help.

    7 votes

  13. Comment on Anthropic announces deal with Google, Broadcom, says revenue has tripled in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...]

    From the article:

    Anthropic also said Monday that its revenue run rate has now crossed $30 billion on an annualized basis — more than three times the roughly $9 billion figure it recorded at the end of 2025. Enterprise traction has also accelerated: The number of clients committing at least $1 million a year has surpassed 1,000, a threshold Anthropic said is twice what it was reporting around the time of its Series G announcement in February.

    [...]

    Anthropic said the majority of the new infrastructure will be built on U.S. soil, framing the commitment as a continuation of a pledge made last year to direct $50 billion toward domestic computing capacity. According to Monday's securities filing, Broadcom flagged that Anthropic's ability to draw on the additional compute hinges on its ongoing commercial performance, and noted that discussions with outside operational and financial partners are underway to support the rollout.

    8 votes

  15. Comment on US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire with Tehran saying it will reopen Strait of Hormuz in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Pakistan and Iran acted like there was a deal and apparently they thought it included Israel staying out of Lebanon. Or maybe they're just playing along?

    Pakistan and Iran acted like there was a deal and apparently they thought it included Israel staying out of Lebanon. Or maybe they're just playing along?

    9 votes

  16. Comment on Project Glasswing: securing critical software for the AI era in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    The rate at which new security bugs are found by Mythos seems measurable. It seems like it would slow down a lot after they fix the ones it finds easily. After it hasn't found anything new for a...

    The rate at which new security bugs are found by Mythos seems measurable. It seems like it would slow down a lot after they fix the ones it finds easily. After it hasn't found anything new for a while, it would be safer to release it. (At least for major OSes and browsers.)

    The tricky bit: what if Mythos gets better when someone improves the harness that runs it? The LLM is an important part of of the system, but the other parts matter too.

    The worst case is something like "eternal September" where reports of new security bugs never slows down. I imagine that would only happen for a project where the software development process is somehow cursed, not for code that's reasonably well-engineered.

    2 votes

  17. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    skybrian
    Link
    Still tinkering with my personal links website. I decided that it would handy to be able to import images for charts.

    Still tinkering with my personal links website. I decided that it would handy to be able to import images for charts.

    3 votes

  18. Comment on Project Glasswing: securing critical software for the AI era in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I expect they'll open it up more after major browsers and OSes are hardened. Also, people at these companies can contribute patches to open source projects.

    I expect they'll open it up more after major browsers and OSes are hardened. Also, people at these companies can contribute patches to open source projects.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on Project Glasswing: securing critical software for the AI era in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Yes, it seems more like gossip than conventional wisdom at that point. A lot of people are building their own infrastructure and coming up with their own best practices based on what seems to work...

    Yes, it seems more like gossip than conventional wisdom at that point. A lot of people are building their own infrastructure and coming up with their own best practices based on what seems to work and by trying things they've heard about.

    But I expect that the industry will learn things and they will be written down, codified as open source software and become more widely known. It seems a little odd to bet against people learning how to use tools better.

    It might take a while, like what happened with JavaScript frameworks.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Project Glasswing: securing critical software for the AI era in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    There’s a lot of enterprise legacy code out there that was written without AI, so that situation doesn’t seem new. It’s not easy to refactor your way out, but it’s possible, and coding agents...

    There’s a lot of enterprise legacy code out there that was written without AI, so that situation doesn’t seem new. It’s not easy to refactor your way out, but it’s possible, and coding agents might help?

    I think as long as you spend some time asking the AI to clean up the code, you’re less likely to get stuck like that.

    4 votes