shelled

Imagine we figure out that we are part of a simulation and that that simulation is nobody's, it just happened and keeps on happening, like the universe just happened and keeps on happening if we keep going back (or is it forth?) in time, and that we can't do anything to change that simulation. Would we lose all the purpose and meaning of life? Or will evolution, now simulated evolution, still manage to collectively pivot us into accepting that as the creation and move on? If we become capable of altering minds enough, this can be a very interesting and cruel experiment on human beings - a meeting of Westworld and MKUltra.

This is very helpful. Thank you!

> Cost-wise, a $200 subscription wasn’t enough to get through 20-30 tasks while $30 of DeepSeek was

Thank you. This alone helps! I think I should jump into it once and try it all out while I still have GLM access at old prices as a backup.

How much do you get out of these models for same amount (say $20 sub for claude/codex/zai-glm) - the equivalent amount of tokens? Also is deepseek as good as glm5.3? (if we don't compare it with frontier models from USA)

Hey. I am on a GLM Coding plan subscription (old price; their base coding plan) right now and share the key (this will go away soon).

I was thinking of going with a subscription of Claude or Codex. The reason (at least that's what I am assuming): with OpenRouter or any PAYG per token setup there will be the anxiety of using up all the tokens in days or maybe 1-2 weeks instead of a month (say I set myself a budget of 15-20 USD per month, average equivalent of a usual subscription price).

Now I don't really want the top-notch models for the coding work I do.

So how much worth of "work/tokens" will I reasonably get for ≈$20 USD if I use it a lot? How much does that equal to - or is equivalent to, say in the world of subscription based Claude, Codex, or even GLM (with their 5-hour and all those cooldowns/limits)?

I am looking for a mental model/framework to visualise this. Can you (or anyone else reading this) please point me to a source where I can get some idea about this? I know I can just add $5 on OpenRouter and try to test. But I don't really know what/how to test these spends. I also want to understand how all this works. (I am new to agentic/llm world/coding, 2-3 months, after a career break of ~3 years, that too after working for more than a decade. I know, not at all good timing!)

That temptation is akin to giving in to maladaptive (day)dreaming. The problem is the dreaming, the noticing, the getting annoyed, and the feeling drained - all of these are happening at one place - being done by one entity - your brain. So how to train it to not to do that? Well, again, that same brain has to do it. What I am saying here is - our brains are extremely good at getting "used to". Because it "feels good" to the brain - at least in that instant. So any work that's happening on its own, feels good for most people. More the time passed in that "got/getting used to" state unchecked, more difficult it is to try and bring it back to not getting used to. Or control it, in an attempt to strike a fine balance.

It's weirdly being dreamed/expected as some sort of alignment will be achieved. Or that that's the intention. This is just like the nuclear race that started in the 40s and 50s and prevention is ongoing! It's not about safety and danger and I am not saying whether more open nuclear access would have been safer (I don't think so). It's about being the only select few to possess and control this, possibly - very soon — unfathomably, dangerous and unsafe technology frontier. Few companies of a single country, or a few companies from a very few countries. Keeping everyone else decisively out. That's what it is about.

What's worse - in this case the "everyone else" is not just the every other nation or company, but pretty much literally everyone else.

ZAI/GLM because a friend has generously shared an API key. They have other subscriptions and also a lot more from their employer.

A day ago I activated Google AI Pro free via Google's tie-up with a local company (I do pay for this company's product though and it's anything but costly). Now I will use this too.

No other reasons to pick these, or not picking anything else.

I see a lot of people focused on servers and production environments, and of course that's needed, because that's business after all — but the personal computer seems to be absent from this discourse. Not everyone can buy a spare mac studio, and they might still need to install these tools on their personal computing devices, like their personal/home laptops. At that point, it's not even about whether a Claude Code, an OpenCode, or a Pi will steal/sniff personal data, but whether it can — though I think saying "it's a matter of 'when'" might be hyperbole. As of now, it's just: keep giving access and permissions or struggle while working, or create another user, or use Docker, run inside sandbox-exec, a VM, etc. As an end user, I am really scared. Someone who has been very disciplined and vehemently privacy- and security-conscious feels the ground below has just shifted.

OEM/OSes don't seem to have woken up to it yet. A mild proof is Apple's own special folder access reporting. When you go to Privacy & Security > Files & Folders, for a certain app, "Full Disk Access" is shown greyed out and mentioned in both cases — whether you had given Full Disk Access to that app or not. This directory-level permission UX is itself broken — there's Full Disk Access, and there's Files & Folders, and Full Disk Access gets shown in Files & Folders as well. This is, for lack of a better word, such an undesirable mess.

As of now I am debating between: creating a new user and just move everything work/learning to that user. Or just run all of it inside sandbox-exec (and maybe even block it from the shell if it tries to run outside it). Or use a tool that makes the latter easier and better. I even came across such a tool here on hn few weeks ago. agent-safehouse, yet to try it.

I understood by just looking at the title and after reading what is going on I am still concerned and not for some .name domains but I've .net and .com domains.

The main issue here is the way VeriSign and ICANN are operating. Unchecked, hostile, and without consequences (even the ombudsman okay the move). Someone might come along and say but you can always fight in the court - and that's the problem! Some company or entity claims one of those .net/.com domains I "use" and just gets us suspended and handed over, as someone not living in the USA I will literally be out of any option. This "then go to the court" is a very dangerous setting. We all know this but this squarely rigged to be in favour of the offenders with means and power.

Is there a case in which a heavy agentic coding user of mid or mid++ tier (remotely hosted) models is better off using PAYG/API pricing than just getting a subscription? (Assuming no easy access to high end local hardware and I've deliberately left the top tier/cutting edge models out becau).

I have also noticed a general drop in fawning over and deification of 'made a billion, must be a visionary' figures, and a receding tolerance for every sundry kind of hot take and proclamation. Mustn't be related.

> A representative from that airline was asking internally if they could put me on the no-fly list.

These are the kinds of scary scenarios that people should fight and push back on opaque, unaccountable laws that other people and organisations in power try to enact in the name of safety and security, and we need to collectively fight back when someone is charged, or worse "taken away", without due process and visibility.