screye

Placing my bets here.

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Gaming will undergo the movie industry cycle of 2010-2025.

First, Only AAA (GTA-6) or micro-indie games will make money. mid-budget games will get eaten out. <---2010 Hollywood

Until, people get AAA exhaustion and game creation keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.

Then a single auteur makes a mid-budget game with a recognizable aesthetic, that makes AAA money.

A studio (A-24) realizes that auteur curation is profitable, and builds recognize-able identity.

The studio (A-24) starts churning out reliable hitters, that people buy because of the studio more than the game itself.

AAA stagnates, hires the most recent auteur to make their next AAA game with full control.

If it goes bust, then AAA tries again.

If it goes boom, they pick the next auteur for their next AAA game. <---Hollywood is here in 2026

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B1 German is about 1 year of intensive studying from zero. With immersion and part-time commitment, I'd say ~3 years is a comfortable timeline to learn B1 German.

I am basing this off my personal experience of going from A1 -> A2 -> half-way through B1 (I dropped after I decided against studying in Germany, but my classmates continued the course). Given that German companies are known for excellent work-life balance, there should be enough spare time to learn German by the 5 year point.

All that being said, I imagine it's harder to learn a language when you have kids and family responsibilities.

Ah yes, the nation's most influential sex-trafficker/pimp was a Mossad asset and the $100b budget CIA knew anything about it. They set up the world's most advanced domestic spying system, and the NSA did not flag anything.

You do realize that such conspiracy theories require all 3 of these things to be true ?

1. American elites are totally clueless

2. The CIA is hopelessly incompetent

3. Mossad has compromised every layer of the American military and elite civilian life

Israel obviously has a ton of influence on American elites and politicians. Just the AIPAC donations and the strong representation of Jews in American elite life is proof enough. You don't have to look much further.

It's the unsubstantiated conspiracy theories (often peddled as fact) that me think there is a certain hysteria going on. It's not anti-semitism per se. More so that otherwise respectable people lose all discernment towards unsubstantiated claims when those claims support their biases about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

It's hilarious listening to CIA insiders talk about spying.

John Kiriakou [1] will spend 3 hours talking about the CIA's torture program (illegal) and NSA spying on Americans (illegal). In the same conversation, he will insist that the US would never spy on Israel because it is illegal.

Who is this fooling ?

[1] Senior ex-CIA official, whistleblower & internet meme phenomenon.

How can a vassal state with 1/60th your GDP 'influence' your nation into a war ? It's a rhetorical question. It can't.

Makes the MAGA military look incompetent. The US has a history of botched wars around the globe, most of which have little to do with Israel. If I'm drawing from data, then the Iran conflict is consistent with the post-war military movements of the US.

Now that the communists are no more, Israel is the next best scapegoat. The way I see it, Israel's current leaders are happy to be scapegoats because the war benefits Ben Gvir and a radicalized Likud. It allows them to consolidate domestic power and pursue aggressive foreign objectives under shadow of the Iran conflict.

I hope Netanyahu has thought this through. He has burned through 100 years of western guilt in the span of 3 years. To break even, Israel's military excursions must secure outsized outcomes, to the tune of decades of security. Because, I believe we are entering a couple of decades of bipartisan & unprecedented* anti-semitism.

* Figuratively speaking. Historically ofc, anti-semitism is pretty precedented.

Nations do not apply a standard of 'total freedom' for most other vices. It is known that grown consenting adults can't compete against an algorithmic assault on their self-control systems.

Nations have established middle grounds for gambling. To gamble, drive a couple of hours down to an exempt casino and set fire to your money if you so wish. Bootleg operations are permitted as long as they stay low. Prostitution has similar regulations. Sports betting, Onlyfans & Prediction markets remove those necessary frictions from each vice, preying on men (it's mostly men) at their most vulnerable.

Prediction markets : gambling :: weed : cigarettes

Aren't we ignoring the elephant in the room ?

Garry Tan has been the primary crusader for AI driven decision making. I'm sure his position is more nuanced, but his twitter driven communication makes him appear like a caricature of a man in AI psychosis.

When the head of YC champions AI driven decision making, companies will inevitably be influenced into doing exactly that. It's unfortunate, because AI is generational technology and the hyperbole distracts from the real sea change occuring in labor markets everywhere.

Google makes money on ads, because its products span the entire internet.

Youtube, Gmail, Search, Maps, Android, Devices, Photos and Drive are how they get the data to make money on ads. Cloud, Android & Youtube would be a 2 trillion dollar company even without Google. They don't make money on these, because they don't need to make money on it.

Meta has 4 identical products, most of which have reached feature complete. They do few things, and make absurd amounts of money from it.

Google, MSFT and Apple do a lot more and most of their products have large feature backlogs.

Different scenarios

If AI winning means that data center companies win out, then the wins for Azure will more than make up for the death of Office.

I am surprised that Microsoft's own copilot product is so far behind though.

TBPN, OpenClaw and Astral - that's 3 high profile acquisitions in a month. I smell a PR push to be seen as the 'good guys'.

I don't buy it. The leaked emails and actions of OpenAI's leadership point to a cynical growth machine.

The winner of this AI cycle will fund the lobbies that decide the politics of the future. OpenAI gives me a 'must escape the permanent underclass' energy. Not the energy I want from possibly the most influential people of the near future.

UV is arguably this decade's most important addition to the python ecosystem. They are a small, but they are important.

What core capabilities of a car need to be improved anyway ?

It's the reverse. Every Waymo on the road saves more lives. The average driver is a bufoon