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Kevin Kortum

274 posts

Posts by Kevin Kortum

Donald Trump’s latest climbdown suggests he wants to end the war

On Monday Mr Trump did the rounds of American business television channels, repeating his claims of “great conversations” with Iran. Iran has firmly denied the existence of such talks in public and rejected offers from America in private, according to a Gulf official. The war’s unexpectedly long duration, as well as Mr Trump’s latest climbdown, undermine the idea that Iran’s regime is fragile and that regime change is possible. Instead, it is looking more likely that the ill-judged campaign will either drag on or end messily, with an Iran that is battered but defiant, and still able to inflict considerable damage on the region and the world.

This is what happens when you have power hungry buffoons in power. Make no doubt about it, America are the bad guys. Despite how bad things might've been in Iran or Venezuela, bombing indiscriminately because they don't do things our way should sound some alarms—especially since they are basically just trying other get the Iran nuclear deal back that Trump threw out during his first term; and now he's just lying out of his ass all over the place even more than normal, which .

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Sora is dead

What is the Venn diagram of people who thought Clubhouse and Sora were the next big thing, and is it a perfect circle?

I think a big "feature" of the start-up age we've been in since "apps" on our phones became a thing, is people building something because they can, not because they see a practical use for it. Then rich people give them lots of money to help shove it down peoples throats. Obviously, there has been some good to come from it, but overall, we still have this move fast and break things attitude in society where we throw something out there to see what happens without thinking about consequences or downstream effects. This, of course, is partly due to capitalism, but also because people "experience" life a lot less to know how things work in the real world.
Now I'm really starting to sound like a crotchety old man...

Trump wants $200 billion for bombs. Here's what that could buy instead.

7 years of free school lunches. 3 years of Medicare dental coverage. 2,000 Trump heads on Mt. Rushmore.

This is the argument I and others have been making for years. These war mongers don't blink an eye at spending billions on killing people, but when it comes to trying to help people who could use it here at home, every penny has to be scrutinized to the point they start making up "welfare queens" and "fraud and waste."

Apple Maps may be about to get ads

Such a shift could represent a solid revenue driver for Apple. Google has included ads in its navigation app for years, and Bing Maps also offers a similar advertising capacity to local business owners.

Apple should use all that cash to take themselves private. Seriously, come on. Y’all did it, you made a trillion dollars and won capitalism. Every decision Apple has made in the last decade has been at a detriment to the consumer experience. How badly they ruined the Apple Store and Genius Bar experience is still unforgivable in my mind.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says ‘I think we’ve achieved AGI’

Fridman, the podcast’s host, defines AGI as an AI system that’s able to “essentially do your job,” as in start, grow, and run a successful tech company worth more than $1 billion.

“Essentially” is doing a whole lot of work in that definition. No matter what the definition, a real AGI would be smart enough to never hallucinate, and frankly, I don’t think the current path of LLMs will ever reach real AGI.