skybrian's recent activity
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Comment on New US-Canada bridge to open after delay in ~transport
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New US-Canada bridge to open after delay
6 votes -
Comment on Zelenskyy taps European allies to build Freya, a cheaper counter to Russia’s ballistic missiles in ~society
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...]From the article:
Ballistic missiles remain the one threat Ukraine still can’t intercept with a system it built itself. Freya could change that, potentially shifting Kyiv’s position on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.
Freya centers on the FP-7.X interceptor, produced by the Ukrainian company Fire Point, and is designed to hit a ballistic target at roughly 15 miles altitude.
Like Patriot interceptors, Freya is an entire system and will rely on allies for production support.
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Fire Point has signed a memorandum with Germany’s Hensoldt for radar technology and is in talks with France’s Thales, Italy’s Leonardo and Norway’s Kongsberg to supply tracking and command-and-control systems.
Zelenskyy said the Freya coalition, which he described as comprising roughly eight partner nations, will speed up the production process and make a faster timeline possible.
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Fire Point is targeting a per-shot cost near $700,000, versus roughly $3.8 million for a Patriot PAC-3.
The missile was flight-tested in early June, the company said, and is aiming to mass-produce three a day starting in August and intercept its first ballistic missile by the end of 2027.
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Zelenskyy taps European allies to build Freya, a cheaper counter to Russia’s ballistic missiles
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Comment on Control the ideas, not the code in ~comp
skybrian LinkFrom the article:From the article:
So mine is a trick. People feel more and more programming is completely modified by AI and don’t know what they should do, if they can really start coding in a completely different way, without looking much at the code as their main output. They feel like they are betraying their own field. So my intention is to arrive and say “look at me, In can write code, you know, I’m not hiding behind AI: yet, things changed, it’s not your weakness, it’s not that you are AI-pilled. It is just that our field is evolving in an incredible *and* painful (but also joyful) direction”.
This is why yesterday, on X, I said that I believe many programmers at this point have less impact they could have because they look at the code. I truly believe into that. And note that this does not mean to vibe code something just asking for the final product. The point is: if you control the ideas of your software, looking at the code itself is suboptimal and often pointless. For the following reasons:
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Control the ideas, not the code
3 votes -
Comment on US Federal Communications Commission approves test of space mirror to light night sky despite outcry in ~space
skybrian Link ParentLaunch approval just means they can do a test. The FCC doesn't require any proof that it will be effective. It would be odd to require that for an experiment.Launch approval just means they can do a test. The FCC doesn't require any proof that it will be effective. It would be odd to require that for an experiment.
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Comment on Are we burning it down by proxy? in ~talk
skybrian Link ParentIt is inflation adjusted. Since a single person making $100k is quite different from a large family earning $100k total, I’d like to make a better graph that uses income per capita in a household,...It is inflation adjusted. Since a single person making $100k is quite different from a large family earning $100k total, I’d like to make a better graph that uses income per capita in a household, or just lets you filter by household size. But that would require more digging rather than plotting data in a table that the Census Bureau already made.
The overall trend is that household size decreased and therefore, counting households exaggerates population growth in the early years.
It’s a bit tricky to decide how to account for cost of living when it can also be an amenity you choose. For example, let’s say a new college grad moves to a high cost-of-living city and gets a high-paying job. Moving to the city is a choice they made to live in a more desirable place, and the job is how they pay for it. Just like you could have expensive tastes in food or clothing, you can have expensive tastes in choosing a place to live.
Other people are closer to being trapped where they live than choosing it, though, so they’re essentially forced to buy higher-priced housing.
Anyway, there’s only so much you can get out of one graph. National statistics will only tell you so much and it might be better to look at whichever city you’re interested in.
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Comment on Are we burning it down by proxy? in ~talk
skybrian Link ParentIt so happens I made a chart that shows that there are a lot more high-income households in the US. But also, the population grew in general so there are more poor and middle income households...It so happens I made a chart that shows that there are a lot more high-income households in the US. But also, the population grew in general so there are more poor and middle income households too.
(Made by asking an AI to write code to redo a chart I saw online, by downloading the spreadsheets from the Census Bureau.)
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Comment on Sen. Lindsey Graham dies at 71 after ‘brief and sudden illness’ in ~society
skybrian Link ParentIn case anyone is wondering, it’s covered in Wikipedia. Search on “Reaction to 2020 presidential election results.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsey_GrahamIn case anyone is wondering, it’s covered in Wikipedia. Search on “Reaction to 2020 presidential election results.”
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Comment on Mesh LLM: distributed AI computing on iroh in ~comp
skybrian Link ParentThe public mesh might be ok as a demo, but it sounds like it’s more likely to be used by an organization that has a bunch of computers in a computer lab that they want to use. If you’re concerned...The public mesh might be ok as a demo, but it sounds like it’s more likely to be used by an organization that has a bunch of computers in a computer lab that they want to use.
If you’re concerned about the resource consumption of LLM’s, it seems like this is going to be worse than anything they’re running in a data center?
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Comment on Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring in ~finance
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...] [...] I can confirm that listing houses for sale at prices below their "true" asking price is routine now, even in the east bay where we were looking. It's what real...From the article:
In March, San Francisco regained its title as the most expensive city for homebuyers in the US, overtaking rival San Jose 50 miles to the south in the heart of traditional Silicon Valley.
That month, the median house price in San Francisco rose 19% on the year before, and that trend has continued, up 14.5% and 14.1% in April and May respectively, according to data provided by Redfin.
The median sale price in the city as of May 2026 is a record high of $1.76m, compared with nearly $400,000 for the US as a whole, where prices rose by just 1.4% in March, and 2% in both April and May.
The prevailing view of pretty much everyone is that AI money is the driver of the red-hot San Francisco property market. "We have come to that conclusion based on what we're seeing in the data, and what we've heard from our agents," says Fairweather.
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Last October, more than 600 current and former OpenAI employees sold combined shares worth $6.6bn, an average of $11m per participant, it was recently reported.
At Anthropic, whose main product is Claude, workers were also recently said to have been allowed to sell shares totalling some $6bn.
And with both companies due to have full stock market flotations later this year or next, minting more multi-millionaire employees, many see no end in sight to San Francisco's real estate rises.
"Today's bidding wars are going to be seen as bargains, and they already are," says Rachel Swann, the listing agent for the Duboce Triangle property.
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The upward trend, he says, is not just confined to luxury properties but extends across the market, from single-family homes to one-bedroom flats, and while it is most pronounced in desirable neighbourhoods, it is being felt almost everywhere.
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Danielle Lazier, another experienced San Francisco realtor, describes similar, but adds some perspective. There has long been a tendency in San Francisco for homes to be listed below market value to get an auction effect going, she says.
I can confirm that listing houses for sale at prices below their "true" asking price is routine now, even in the east bay where we were looking. It's what real estate agents recommend. You need to look at the automatic estimates on real estate websites to get a sense of what a house might really go for, or ask your real estate agent to do an estimate.
Typically they have open houses for a few weeks and then there's a day when people should get their offers in, but sometimes would-be buyers will jump the gun with an early offer.
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Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring
9 votes -
Comment on Big Boy no. 4014 in ~transport
skybrian LinkFrom the article:From the article:
Big Boy No. 4014 is the world’s largest operating steam locomotive. Of the eight remaining Big Boys in existence today, No. 4014 is the only one still in operation.
Twenty-five Big Boys were commissioned exclusively for Union Pacific Railroad, the first of which was delivered in 1941. These massive locomotives were built to haul heavy equipment in support of the war effort, normally operating between Ogden, Utah, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. The Big Boys are 133 feet long and weigh 1.2 million pounds.
Due to their great length, the frames of the Big Boys are “hinged,” or articulated, to allow them to negotiate curves. They have a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement, which means they have four wheels on the leading set of “pilot” wheels to guide the engine; eight drivers on the first engine; another set of eight drivers on the second engine; and four wheels trailing that support the rear of the locomotive.
No. 4014 was retired in Dec. 1961 after traveling 1,031,205 miles. Union Pacific reacquired it from the RailGiants Train Museum in Pomona, California, in 2013 and relocated it back to Cheyenne, Wyoming, for a multi-year restoration. It returned to service in May 2019 to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad's Completion.
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Big Boy no. 4014
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Comment on Ukrainian forces strike twenty-one Russian tankers, four tugboats, two cargo ships in ~society
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...]From the article:
The Ukrainian Defense Forces carried out a series of large-scale strikes against Russian maritime logistics on Saturday, July 11, hitting 21 oil tankers, four tugboats, and two dry cargo ships in the Sea of Azov.
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According to sources cited by Reuters, the Russian Border Guard Service has stopped accepting applications from shipping companies seeking transit through the Kerch Strait and the Don-Azov Canal, effectively freezing commercial navigation between the Black and Azov seas. Russian authorities have not provided a timeline for reopening the strait.
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Because the Azov Sea handles up to 25% of Russia’s outbound wheat shipments – with major agricultural hubs in Rostov and Krasnodar situated along its coast – the closure immediately impacted global food markets. Following reports of the shipping restrictions, wheat futures on the Euronext exchange surged by nearly 4%, reaching a six-week high.
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Ukrainian forces strike twenty-one Russian tankers, four tugboats, two cargo ships
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Comment on Japan successfully launches and lands reusable rocket in ~space
skybrian LinkFrom the article:From the article:
Japan’s space agency said Saturday its prototype reusable rocket successfully completed the first liftoff and landing test, marking a step forward in the cost-cutting technology dominated by SpaceX.
The prototype, launched from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA’s) test site in Noshiro, Akita Prefecture, reached a height of about 10 meters, and then landed.
The flight lasted about 40 seconds, according to JAXA.
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Japan successfully launches and lands reusable rocket
39 votes -
Comment on The end of reading is here in ~books
skybrian Link ParentI prefer reading articles and books by historians who tell you about the debates between different historians (the historiography) and what consensus there is, along with an overview of what...I prefer reading articles and books by historians who tell you about the debates between different historians (the historiography) and what consensus there is, along with an overview of what evidence historians have to work with, as well as their own personal opinion. They can be biased too, but at least they give you context.
From the article:
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