• 0 Posts
  • 16 Comments
Joined 1 month ago
cake
Cake day: July 29th, 2026

help-circle










  • Things like the 40 year old computer monitors have a negative value, unless they’re something special like a 21" Trinitron or an IBM T220/221.

    Unless the furniture and furnishings are of a sought-after style (e.g. Art Deco), they’re basically worthless.

    I sold most of my belongings back in 2009. Furniture and beds had basically zero value. A solid wood table retained decent value. Electronics were worthless unless they were vintage collectable (e.g. Rotel amplifier). eBay was the best place to sell things because people are committed. Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace are a huge time-suck because you get so many flakes, low-ballers, and tire-kickers.


  • The problem is that you’re not arguing anything.

    No, the problem is that you presented no argument. You just presented a false equivalence.

    Your first comment is an ad hominem at best

    I quite literally addressed what you wrote, and the complete lack of substance. It wasn’t any kind of personal attack. You’re abusing logical fallacies in order to sidestep the fact that you never presented any kind of argument.

    Your actual argument boils down to, “AI isn’t complex enough yet, therefore it will never be or is some long time away”. Okay, that’s really not much of an argument. Progress marches on.


  • That’s better, but you’re still just defining things such that you have to be correct.

    Humans spend 90% of their time just predicting the next token. All we need is to mix in a little bit more reasoning and bam, AGI!

    See how annoying and hollow that rhetorical technique is?

    The fact is that we have no idea whatsoever. We might reach AGI next week. We might never reach AGI. The Chinese government might be sitting on AGI right now. We have no idea, and this is completely new territory that has caused us to question our very understanding of intelligence.




  • This is tangential, but I recently learned quite a bit about hospice care in Oregon. I was dating someone who worked in the industry. She said that private equity was buying up the industry, intending to bill Medicare for as much as possible. I asked why she and her hard-working co-workers didn’t start up their own hospice. Don’t quote me on the specifics, but 1) a new hospice here has to generate no profit for the first X years and 2) you have to have something like half a million in reserves in order to be allowed the license to start one.

    The laws were well-intentioned, but they end up being a way for the wealthy to continue generating income on the backs of everyone else. If you have the industry knowledge and funding to start a hospice, you can do it, then sell it off to private equity after a few years. Rinse and repeat. The rich get richer and we all pay for it, largely via Medicare.