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megopie

@ megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

Posts
17
Comments
450
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Bernie Sanders proposes bill to give the public a 50% stake in AI companies

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  • I don’t think these companies are worth the value of the paper that their charters are written on. I don’t think many of them are going to last much longer, but he might actually be on to something here in terms of diffusing a massive financial fraud that’s about to happen in broad daylight.

    The common wisdom right now is to just “put your money in an index fund, it’s safer and outperforms actively managed portfolios.” Which is to say, a fund that just buys a little bit of everything from a given list, rather than trying to pick stocks that someone thinks will do well, it creates a very diversified portfolio that is protected from anyone company fucking up by having the value spread over as many things as possible. Because many people just put their money in index funds now, getting listed in an index kind of guarantees that lots of people will be buying the shares consistently and thus consistently causing the price to rise over time.

    To get in to these lists, normally, a company has to have been public for a while, generally about a year, and show profitability for a prolonged time. These rules have recently been changed though.

    A bunch of the AI companies are doing initial public offerings (IPO meaning putting their shares on the public markets for the first time) in the next few months. And stating absolutely insane valuations. Because of the rule changes, they’re basically all getting immediately listed in index funds. And since they’re all targeting insane valuations, they’re going to automatically suck up a bunch of retirement money by default.

    I’m not sure about anthropic and openAI on this next part, but SpaceX (which just “bought” Xai), is only going public with about 5% of it’s shares, so theoretically they can just trickle more shares on to the market to get bought up by index funds, and because supply of actual shares is artificially constrained, it will lead to massive overvaluation of those shares, taking up a disproportionate amount of money going in to index funds.

    It’s actually fucking criminal that this is being allowed to happen, but because the rules for index funds and IPOs are set by financial institutions and stock exchanges, with very limited oversight by the government, they can just do this.

    If the government were to take these 50% shares, it would kind of throw a wrench in the plans, since it would give the government the ability to sell those shares on to the market and stop the over valuation that allows them to take disproportionately from the index funds.

  • Give up on Asahi?

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  • Asahi is still getting a lot of work and development done, but since they’re reverse engineering everything without proper documentation from Apple, they basically get kicked back to square one on any component that Apple makes big changes too with each new generation of chip. They’re more focused on polishing off support on older chips and keeping what they have up to date rather than jumping on every new chip release and leaving stuff unfinished on the older ones

    So right now M1 and M2 Macs are fully supported. M3s are mostly working but very much a WIP, and M4 hasn’t really gone anywhere yet.

    I’d say that if you find the advantages of the M chips really compelling, but want to stay on Linux, an M2 running Asahi is still very competitive, and the work to support the M3s is chugging along.

    If you want the newest hardware possible, then yah you’re probably better off with an AMD or Intel based computer. There are also some other ARM based desktops out there, and Linux on arm is a thing, I have no idea what’s going on over there though.

  • AOC takes more steps toward 2028 run for president

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  • Most people saying that kind of thing don’t believe in electoralism at all. They don’t think voting is useful. They believe in a litany of other things as alternatives, specifics depend on the group and individual.

    But I found most of the people in that camp also aren’t… doing any of the alternatives they like to suggest as meaningful. It’s more like excuses to not do anything, take a “holier than thou” position, or to avoid being associated with something that could fail.

    Some anarchist groups actually do “mutual aid”, which is to say, charity work effectively. Which is commendable, but also, like, not a replacement for participating in the political system that currently exists.

  • The circle of life

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  • They’re all moving to tokens based billing to stop the bleeding. The markets aren’t as willing to let them burn infinite cash on operating expenses anymore. A lot of the private investors see the writing on the walls, that these AI companies are not worth anywhere near the valuations, and propping them up to ensure further datacenter build out to keep Nvidia shares high is costing more than it’s worth.

    A lot of the model providers are lining up for ipos to cash out their initial investors and dump the responsibility of the mess on the public markets. They have to jack their prices to pretty up their books if they want to cash out with an IPO though. The unlimited access for a flat monthly cost shtick was obviously never a viable business model. They’ve all been spending massively more on inference than they’ve been taking in subscriptions, and even with the changes to token based billing, they still will be.

    Anthropic is claiming that they will have their first “profitable” month soon, but that’s actually just a magic trick of book keeping. They’re deferring some cost of compute for a few months, and accepting a bunch of pre payments from customersr. Basically pretending to have high revenue and lower cost by shifting when the payments are made. And then on top of that they’re jacking up prices and thus decreasing their demand with the shift to tokens.

    Everyone is running around rearranging deck chairs on the datacenter titanic hoping they can keep their feet dry a little longer.

  • AOC takes more steps toward 2028 run for president

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  • I know who he is because I’m a space nerd and follow congressional politics closely, and I like him, but I also know that most voters don’t pay attention to congressional politics, nor remember the kind of news stories he’s showed up in.

  • AOC takes more steps toward 2028 run for president

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  • He would be a strong candidate… if he had a larger public profile with the average voter.

    I like him, but the average voter doesn’t know about him. He doesn’t even rank in battle ground polling.

  • AOC takes more steps toward 2028 run for president

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  • The average voter doesn’t know who mark kelly is.

    They don’t know where he stands.

    They know where AOC stands.

    Of the commonly proposed candidates for 2028, she routinely preforms best in polling in battleground states.

  • AOC takes more steps toward 2028 run for president

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  • She’s the only federal level Democrat with any sort of broad public support.

    No one else is note worthy or generally liked.

    She is literally the only option. Anyone else is risking mass voter apathy and a voter turn out flop in an election that should be a slam dunk.

    If you’re going to vote in the dem primaries, don’t fucking vote based on who “is most electable”, vote for who you want to win. Choosing the candidate that “is the most electable” keeps losing elections, because that crown keeps getting chosen by corporate owned media who just anoint that tittle to the most corporate friendly candidate, and voters don’t like corporate friendly candidates.

    The most electable candidate is one who excites people, no one else even considered for running excites anyone except for corporate lobbyists.

  • AOC takes more steps toward 2028 run for president

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  • Bush, Clinton, bush, Regan, Ford, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Wilson, McKinley.

    The majority of US presidents between 1900 and 2000 never spent time as senators, most in no foreign policy position what so ever. Most didn’t even serve time in an elected federal office. Even less exposure to foreign policy in a governor position than a house rep.

    Why is it different here? Who would you suggest, who has been “in the senate” or some other role more exposed to foreign policy? The other potential candidates that have even close to her level of public support have even less foreign policy experience.

    This is absurd, it is nonsense, any excuse to discredit the only candidate who has real public support, not just a bunch of corporate funded think pieces.

  • AOC takes more steps toward 2028 run for president

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  • The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily

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  • Tax unrealized gains

    “Oh, but that’s not real money, they’d have to sell their assets to get the cash to pay those taxes, thus diminishing the value of the assets.”

    Oh, so the value of the assets is over valued then? So them taking out loans with those assets as the collateral is fundamentally allowing them to take out more money from the financial system than they are realistically due? Damn, tax their fucking loans against their assets as well.

    “NOOO! That’s not fair! Then they’re paying a higher tax rate than specified by the law!”

    Crazy how that works, crazy how tax rates actually payed can be different from those specified in the laws. Hey did you know that Warren Buffet pays effectively a lower tax rate than his laundry lady, being stated as unjust by himself. Crazy how right now people working for wages get taxed way more than people working for asset valuations.

  • Google CEO Sundar Pichai says graduates booing AI will shape its future — and live with its consequences

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  • … shut!

  • Google CEO Sundar Pichai says graduates booing AI will shape its future — and live with its consequences

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  • the leadership at a lot of companies have a very poor read on public sentiment, kind of strange given how much data they collect and how much they like to talk about how good they are at using that data.

    And a lot of high level leadership at collages run in the same circles are executives at big companies. These speech events are sort of a benefit for both sides, the leadership at the collage gets to advertise what a good job they’re doing that they were able to get someone so influential to speak, and the speaker gets a sudo-academic platform to state their ideas and an ego boost from the huge in person captive audience.

    A lot of them just kind of write off the discontent they see as “a vocal minority”, so when mass confronted with actual public sentiment, i do think it kind of blind sides them.

  • Tulsi Gabbard resigns as director of national intelligence, citing her husband's health

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  • I think, she has a very small set of sincerely held beliefs, one of them being that the US should completely disengage from all foreign entanglements.

    I think that she tried to seek opportunities to gain influence and power in the Democratic Party to enforce those goals, she was disillusioned and saw no route for her self there, so she pivoted to maga because it looked easier to advance to a position of power within. She was willing to say and do anything to get that position where she could pursue her deeply held belief, and she got there, and found that by the very nature of the easy power, she had completely given up any autonomy to act upon her beliefs.

    Now, it’s pretty clear that this is not the beginning of a political movement she can harness, but the death of one that used her, she’s stepping away to not be associated with the worse to come. Maybe she’ll be able to salvage a career of some sort, but really, the best she can hope for is not be noted in history text books as a key player in the clusterfuck coming.

  • Starbucks does not recycle plastic cups it claims are ‘widely recyclable’, report says

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  • So, it’s not just benzene but a whole cocktail of aromatics (carbon molecules with rings in them) in addition to the ethane which is used to make poly ethylene plastic.

    To answer your question, no, they never alter production for the sake of making more plastic, rather changes in production are driven by the availability of certain types of crude oil (heavy vs light, sweet vs sour) and demand for certain types of fuel. These changes result In more or less production of plastic precursors as a side effect.

    Demand for plastic is almost entirely driven by the availability of the precursors, more supply means a lower price, means more uses for plastic become cost effective and displace other materials. They make far more money selling fuels than they do selling plastics. The margins on fuels are much higher as plastic requires additional inputs, additional manufacturing/processing, and additional marketing to be sold.

    The fuel sales are effectively subsidizing the cost of plastic, as it would not be cost effective to produce on its own. Other, cheaper, and easier to manufacture materials would displace its uses if it wasn’t already being produced as a byproduct of fuel.

  • Starbucks does not recycle plastic cups it claims are ‘widely recyclable’, report says

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  • Actually it was a response to local governments attempting to ban plastic packaging. You know, because they were the ones who had to pay for disposing of it.

    Glass bottles of milk or soda got picked up and re-used by the companies that sold stuff in them, metal cans got bought up for use as scrap metal. Municipal garbage only had to deal with stuff like wood, paper, cardboard, and food scraps; stuff that rotted and broke down over time. Plastic though, well, it didn’t break down, it filled up the dumps, and suddenly towns had to constantly be digging new dumps. This was expensive and a bunch of local governments started banning the use of single use plastic packaging. Oil/plastic lobbyists went to state governments and got them to ban the local bans.

    Of course this was going to be unpopular, so they also spent a bunch of money funding PR blitz’s to convince everyone plastic recycling was viable, and that it was actually the responsibility of average consumers and municipalities to implement it. And now local governments are burdened with the cost of dealing with all the waste generated by oil and plastic companies.

  • Starbucks does not recycle plastic cups it claims are ‘widely recyclable’, report says

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  • And in real life, the shredder is plastic packaging and junk that everyone else has to dispose of when they’re done with it. Not the oil companies problem, now it’s the responsibility of local municipal governments. Your tax dollars subsidizing the disposal of oil company byproducts.

  • Starbucks does not recycle plastic cups it claims are ‘widely recyclable’, report says

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  • So, there are certain products of refining oil that are just in the wrong range of properties to be used in their own right as fuels, over a century of work has gone in to finding uses for the stuff that can’t be fuels, or performing alchemy to make it in to fuel, what’s left over at this point is stuff that just… can’t be made in to fuel. Some of the thickest, densest gunk gets turned in to asphalt for roads, this is called bitumen. Above that is heavy oil used in ships or for heating, then diesel, then kerosene/jetfuel, then Naphtha, then petrol/gasoline, and then stuff like butane and propane.

    Naphtha is just in this weird space where it’s too thick to be useful for places where you need the fuel to vaporize in to a gas easily like butane or gasoline, but to light to be used in something where you need it to stay liquid at high temperatures, like diesel. Lots of stuff was tried to find a usage for Naphtha but none of it was economical or had a large enough demand to use enough of it. So they started doing catalytic reformation to it, basically smashing the molecules up to make them lighter. This produces a new mix of stuff, the heavier bits are added to gasoline to raises its octane, but the lighter half of this stuff is too short for use in gas. This lighter stuff is mix of some useful stuff like butane and propane, but then there is ethane and a mix of weird aromatic compounds. These are just not useful as fuels and there isn’t an affordable way to process them in to fuels. So… something needs to be done with them; just venting them is not an option because a lot of it is super carcinogenic stuff like benzene.

    And this is the issue, this is the bottom of the barrel left overs after so much processing, it can’t be dumped, it can’t be sold as fuel. It’s only useful as chemical feedstocks for making various plastics and chemicals. If we’re going to refine oil to make diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline, we’re gonna end up with these byproducts and we’re spent a century trying to figure out how to use them as fuel, and there just isn’t an economical way to do so. Ether the fuels get way more expensive to cover the costs of disposing of the junk safely, or they get passed along as plastics, chemicals, and asphalt for everyone else to deal with when they’re not useful anymore.

  • Starbucks does not recycle plastic cups it claims are ‘widely recyclable’, report says

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  • Yah, but hear me out, growing trees doesn’t make the planet get hotter.

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Sliderule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Unattended rulecream machine

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Now THIS is pod ruling!

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Forbidden candy-bar rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Lab coat rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Expedition rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Moisturized Rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Currency rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Jug car rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Advanced rule rage

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Pizzakinesis rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Time is a rule circle

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    True allegiances rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    World building rule.

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    100 rule

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    megopie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Long Connecticut rule