skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on Pedagogy recommendations in ~humanities

    skybrian
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    Not a teacher and I can't guess how well it would work, but the "classroom tips" look pretty interesting.

    Not a teacher and I can't guess how well it would work, but the "classroom tips" look pretty interesting.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Debunking “When Prophecy Fails” in ~science

  4. Comment on Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: ... ... ... ...

    From the article:

    The short answer is both simple and surprising: in many cases, lowering the rent on a building will force the bank to foreclose on it.

    Foreclosure is very bad for both the bank and the operator, so both parties would rather “extend and pretend,” leaving the building vacant while they wait and hope for the market to change.

    This seems absurd. Surely everyone would be better off it they just lowered the rent and got some use out of the building — getting some rent must be better than getting no rent, right?

    Intuition fails because normal people think of a building as a building, when in the majority of cases, a building is not a building, but a financial product. Behavior that makes no sense for buildings can make perfect sense for a financial product.

    ...

    The important thing to understand here is that the actual building is not an important part of the value calculation. We’re not really looking at the replacement cost, the unique design, the amenities, the location, etc. Those things influence the assumptions about the gross rent we can get, or the cost of operating the building (higher cost means less net rent), but at the end of the day it isn’t the building that has value, it’s the income stream.

    ...

    Remember, the building isn’t a building, it’s an income stream. Before, the operator and the bank had a model that said the operator would be able to make $1M per year. Now, reality has proven the operator can only make $700k per year.

    700k per year is not worth $20M. Given our agreed-upon cap rate of 5%, this proven $700k per year income stream is only worth $700k/0.5 =$14M.

    In this scenario, the building has proven to only be worth $14M, but the operator owes $16M to the bank, so he is now $2M underwater on the loan. In two more years he’ll have to pay off the full $16M, and he doesn’t have that much cash, so he’ll need to refinance.

    ...

    When year five rolls around and the loan on the building comes due, both the original bank and the owner would like to avoid losing a combined $6M. And so long as the operator can afford to keep losing $140k per year on the building… they can!

    What they need to do is stick to the original model. Don’t lower the rent. Just claim that there was a blip in the market, nobody could have seen that coming, it’s all going to be fine.

    ...

    The only sticking point here is that the building operator is still losing $140k per year. But remember that if he gives up, he loses the $4M he’s already put into the building. Even if he ended up paying $140k per year for 10 years before things turned around, losing $1.4M is still better than losing $4M.

    So both the operator and the bank have a lot of incentive to extend and pretend, rather than lower the rent and face the consequences of having overpaid for the building.

    12 votes

  6. Comment on The gift card accountability sink in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I'm definitely a fan (most of his articles on Tildes were shared by me), but I think his writing style is overly clever and often hard to understand. This article is short, which helps.

    I'm definitely a fan (most of his articles on Tildes were shared by me), but I think his writing style is overly clever and often hard to understand. This article is short, which helps.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on The gift card accountability sink in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    In the US, every store has them, so I assume they're pretty popular.

    In the US, every store has them, so I assume they're pretty popular.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Releasing CORE One CAD files under the new Open Community License (OCL) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link
    Prusa is introducing a new hardware license customized to their needs. (I don't think it counts as an open source license, and they don't claim it does, other than the title.) From the article:...

    Prusa is introducing a new hardware license customized to their needs. (I don't think it counts as an open source license, and they don't claim it does, other than the title.) From the article:

    The Open Community License (OCL) is our answer to the gaps left by traditional software licenses when applied to physical hardware.

    It is designed to be concise and human-readable (it fits on one page) and it even includes practical examples linked directly in the document so you know exactly what you can and cannot do.

    • For Makers & Hackers: You have complete freedom to use, modify, and share derivatives back to the community.

    • For Businesses: You can build and modify machines based on the source designs for your internal production (e.g., a custom print farm). Unlike vague “Non-Commercial” licenses, OCL explicitly allows you to make money using these designs to run your business; you just can’t make money selling the machines.

    • The Restriction: You cannot commercially exploit the design files (selling the product or remixes) without a separate agreement.

    • The Protection: It includes an explicit patent license grant, protection against AI data mining, and a codified Right-to-Repair.

    [...]

    [W]e are missing a simple (and I cannot stress this enough) license that would be fully open for non-commercial and still open for internal commercial use. Basically we had to either choose a fully open or copyleft license which removes all control or a non-commercial licence which restricts all business use.

    Furthermore, most licenses were source code focused and hardly usable for data (graphical or technical) let alone hardware itself. Based on that we had to mix and match licenses that can sort of live together in one product each for different part. OCL should remove these restrictions. Keep things open, if needed all under the same license, and still keep control to exclude people who don’t play fair.

    The license is short, but to some terms seem ambiguous to me. (What is "data mining," exactly?) I wonder what lawyers familiar with how open source licensing works would thing of this?

    3 votes

  10. Comment on The gift card accountability sink in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: .... ...

    From the article:

    [...] [I]f you call your bank and say, “I was defrauded! Someone called me and pretended to be the IRS, and I read them my debit card number, and now I’ve lost money,” the state machine obligates the financial institution to have the customer service representative click a very prominent button on their interface. This will restore your funds very quickly and have some side effects you probably care about much less keenly. One of those is an “investigation,” which is not really an investigation in the commanding majority of cases.

    And if you call the program manager and say, “I was defrauded! Someone called me and pretended to be the IRS, and I read them a gift card number, and now I’ve lost money,” there is… no state machine. There is no legal requirement to respond with alacrity, no statutorily imposed deadline, no button for a CS rep to push, and no investigation to launch. You will likely be told by a low-paid employee that this is unfortunate and that you should file a police report. [...]

    ....

    The people of the United States, through their elected representatives and the civil servants who labor on their behalf, intentionally exempt gift cards from the Reg E regime in the interest of facilitating commerce.

    ...

    And so the fraud supply chain comes to learn which firms haven’t done that investment, and preferentially suggests those gift cards to their launderers, mules, brick movers, and scam victims.

    And that’s why the AARP tells fibs about gift cards: we have, with largely positive intentions and for good reasons, exposed them to less regulation than most formal payment systems in the United States received. That decision has a cost. Grandma sometimes pays it.

    7 votes

  12. Comment on Statement from Mozilla's new CEO in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    This is just blatant low-effort anti-Google bias, no facts involved. I wish such posts weren't so commonly accepted.

    This is just blatant low-effort anti-Google bias, no facts involved. I wish such posts weren't so commonly accepted.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on AI will likely affect administrative and operational jobs in heathcare in ~health

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Reducing costs (and prices) is obviously an important goal, but it's also the case that many products have vastly improved. Computers, electronics and cars most obviously.

    Reducing costs (and prices) is obviously an important goal, but it's also the case that many products have vastly improved. Computers, electronics and cars most obviously.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on How Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    We just got a Roborock (based on Wirecutter's recommendation) for our new house and it kind of works, but it seems kind of mediocre at cleaning rooms with rugs. It tends to leave dust bunnies...

    We just got a Roborock (based on Wirecutter's recommendation) for our new house and it kind of works, but it seems kind of mediocre at cleaning rooms with rugs. It tends to leave dust bunnies everywhere despite cleaning the brush often. Maybe it's because we also got new rugs.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on AI will likely affect administrative and operational jobs in heathcare in ~health

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    This is assuming that new technologies will be implemented badly. Often they are, but I think that's better judged on a case-by-case basis.

    This is assuming that new technologies will be implemented badly. Often they are, but I think that's better judged on a case-by-case basis.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on AI will likely affect administrative and operational jobs in heathcare in ~health

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Never tried it, but I've heard that asking for the cash price sometimes works? We do pay cash for dental and vision, because it wasn't clear that the insurance was worth it.

    Never tried it, but I've heard that asking for the cash price sometimes works?

    We do pay cash for dental and vision, because it wasn't clear that the insurance was worth it.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on EU drops 2035 combustion engine ban as global electric vehicle shift faces reset in ~transport

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    This sounds a lot like retirement communities with extensive golf cart paths, like The Villages and Sun City. They do also have roads for cars, though.

    This sounds a lot like retirement communities with extensive golf cart paths, like The Villages and Sun City.

    They do also have roads for cars, though.

  18. Comment on AI will likely affect administrative and operational jobs in heathcare in ~health

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Probably not, but finding another job isn't easy. What businesses are expanding? What do they need people to do? A lot of the job creators want to use AI instead.

    Probably not, but finding another job isn't easy. What businesses are expanding? What do they need people to do? A lot of the job creators want to use AI instead.

    5 votes

  19. Comment on JustHTML is a fascinating example of vibe engineering in action in ~comp

  20. Comment on NOAA deploys new generation of AI-driven global weather models in ~enviro

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: ...

    From the article:

    The new suite of AI weather models includes three distinct applications:

    • AIGFS (Artificial Intelligence Global Forecast System): A weather forecast model that implements AI to deliver improved weather forecasts more quickly and efficiently (using up to 99.7% less computing resources) than its traditional counterpart.

    • AIGEFS (Artificial Intelligence Global Ensemble Forecast System): An AI-based ensemble system that provides a range of probable forecast outcomes to meteorologists and decision-makers. Early results show improved performance over the traditional GEFS, extending forecast skill by an additional 18 to 24 hours.

    • HGEFS (Hybrid-GEFS): A pioneering, hybrid "grand ensemble" that combines the new AI-based AIGEFS (above) with NOAA’s flagship ensemble model, the Global Ensemble Forecast System. Initial testing shows that this model, a first-of-its kind approach for an operational weather center, consistently outperforms both the AI-only and physics-only ensemble systems.

    ...

    The team leveraged Google DeepMind's GraphCast model as an initial foundation and fine-tuned the model using NOAA's own Global Data Assimilation System analyses. This additional training with NOAA data improved the Google model's performance, particularly when using GFS-based initial conditions.

    8 votes