MikeTheGreat

Well that explains it!

See, if they'd quoted Sneakers instead of Hackers then we all would gotten the reference :)

> optionally or mandatory turn in of the glasses when leaving

"optionally?" What sort of parties are you going to where the host casually hands out Smart Glasses as party favors? :)

I don't even know what I'd do with a pair but I definitely want to be invited to parties hosted by folks who have this kind of wealth!

I think they meant "sleeper agent" like the spy-thriller concept: a person who behaves like everyone else until some criteria is met, and then they spring into action and reveal (by their actions) that they're secretly working for the other side and betray us all.

I don't think they meant they'd ship an extra copy of Claude CLI inside the model :)

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that you actually want to chain kids to desks. I thought the juxtaposition of the two statements was funny in a "clearly you did not mean this, so it's funny that one can intentionally mis-read it in this way".

And - thank you for your posts! They're interesting and insightful!

Genuine question: how did this error get through? It seems really simple/basic and I thought that expressing a proof in a formal language was supposed to prevent this?

Disclaimer: I'm kinda familiar with the ideas of automatically provable software systems but haven't done anything with them myself. If I'm missing an obvious fact(s) here please let me know :)

I get that the proof is big and complicated, but "We messed up a +/- sign" kinda sounds like announcing that the next version of the Linux kernel is done ("Version 7.0.0 is awesome!") followed by realizing that it doesn't compile ("Turns out someone used 1 equals where they should have used 2. Stay tuned for V 7.0.01!").

I've got to be missing something here :)

"the cause appears to be a lack of engagement"

"...unless you’re chaining kids to a desk and not letting them leave until they finish some quota of problems."

Uhm, hey, could we talk for a quick minute after this meeting? No, no worries - it's just that the other teachers and I were wondering if we could have a quick chat about what "engagement" means :)

Humor aside, your point is very valid - interest in a topic is often a prerequisite to someone engaging with a topic. Even stuff like "I hate this class, but I gotta do well if I want to become a doctor someday" is based on an interest in that longer-term goal.

On the one hand my assumption is mostly hyperbole

and

On the other hand that idea that "companies exist to make money for shareholders, to ONLY make money for shareholders, and doing any other than maximizing shareholder returns is bad" is pretty commonly accepted (and, I believe, enshrined in US law)

Today I learned a new word! Thanks!

I wonder how much of that is caused by folks actually noticing actual degradation in product quality over time (whether or not this exact product is suffering from it).

Shrinkflation is a thing, which people suddenly started noticing in the past 5 years.

There's also "the Schlitz Mistake", which I've heard summarized as "most customers won't notice if you take your product's quality from A to B (or C), but they definitely will if you take it from A to J (or A to M)"

At this point I kinda assume that any company releasing year updates to a physical product that _doesn't_ take the opportunity to trim costs / reduce quality would be vulnerable to a shareholder lawsuit for leaving money on the table...

According to other comments on this thread:

Yes! That's it exactly! Carbon Copy!

Except from email, not rip-offs :)

/s

(And: agreed on this being a terrible name!)

Citation?

I apologize - I know that the "Citation needed" meme is mostly a way to say "I disagree" but in this case you literally left out your citation :)

You make a claim ("most monopolies don't actually raise prices") you use the end-note citation format ( "[0]" ), but then the end-note is a parenthetical comment that starts to restart your claim and then trails off.

In all seriousness: If you or anyone else can list examples of efficient monopolies I'd be curious to know.

Off the top of my head: local utilities are often given local monopolies. Telecom seems to often be a local monopoly (I've got one option for Internet access, and that's reasonably common here in the US, especially outside of metro areas). I feel like the utilities are reasonably efficient but the telecoms aren't, but I don't have any specific data to back that up.

pandoc

Genuine question: can I ask why?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it seems early to say yes or no about a particular technology, and LLMs seem especially hard to dismiss given how magical / magic-adjacent they feel :)

I'd be curious to hear more, if you don't mind sharing.

That seems like a somewhat orthogonal point? Like, if I'm a carpenter and my batteries all run out / I can't actually power my power tools then the best course of action is to go home and recharge all the batteries instead of trying to hand-cut 100 pieces of lumber today. After all, the power tools can do it a lot faster (and with less effort) than I can.

I say this as someone who's watched a bunch of woodworking videos but hasn't actually done this myself :)

:)

I had no idea this reference existed, or that it's a a fun, though dystopian, read.

Thanks! :)