fatbird

16 ms·

181.
by fatbird 2y ago
Decent skills and ordinary expertise requires a good process and a healthy team/work environment, and then it's totally possible. I've never worked with rock stars, and I'm not one myself. The difference between gettin
182.
by fatbird 2y ago
And Canadians, apparently! "the only diplomats who were more treacherous and disingenuous than the Canadians were the Communist Chinese."
183.
by fatbird 2y ago
Peter Navarro is the big driver of Trump's economic approach (and he's a mercantilist quack): https://hatchetmedia.substack.com/p/the-man-behind-trumps-wa... (podcast with Justin Ling, a great independent jou
184.
by fatbird 2y ago
The whole site should have this as a tagline.
185.
by fatbird 2y ago
10 years is total independence. There's a lot of independence to be seized in the coming year (starting with not waiting for US decisions) and EU leaders seem to be quite enthusiastic about it. From analysts I follow, the feeling is t
186.
by fatbird 2y ago
As if Trump and Vance's demand that Zelensky abase himself in front of them isn't "emotional thinking"; as if cutting off military aid because Zelensky didn't bow and scrape isn't "emotional thinking"
187.
by fatbird 2y ago
"Reading the room" meant "prostrating himself and kissing the ring", which might have been worth it if it meant actual guarantees, but it didn't. You said you don't believe there are huge deposits to be exploi
188.
by fatbird 2y ago
Zelensky predictably plays the tough guy by telling him to pound sand. Zelensky flew to Washington to sign the agreement, and fully expected to--they waited an hour after the blown up press conference before being told to get out. Diplom
189.
by fatbird 2y ago
I think you're going to get your wish: the summit in London today is focussing exactly on "how does Europe proceed without depending on the US?" They're going to ramp up defense spending, and support of Ukraine, and Fra
190.
by fatbird 2y ago
This is a gracious response and I appreciate it. Europe in total equals the US by numbers: population, GDP, military availability (though obviously not cohesiveness). It's not that the US wanted a weak Europe; they wanted weak individ
191.
by fatbird 2y ago
Ukraine doesn't consume Russian LNG. As of January 2025, the LNG transitting Ukraine for Russia has stopped because Ukraine refused to renew the deal. No, Ukraine is not in a position to reclaim significant ground. The state of the w
192.
by fatbird 2y ago
First, 2% is a guideline, not a requirement. No one is required to spend 2% of GDP, which is an inherently fluctuating target anyway. Second, European underspending has been by American design. Europe spent decades being told to rebuild
193.
by fatbird 2y ago
Apparently 1,172 characters on that machine. No mention I could find of composability of characters, which is possible in theory (many characters are combinations of simpler characters, but combining them alters the representation, shrinki
194.
by fatbird 2y ago
Because all the allies signed a treaty promising exactly that: we'll come and die for you. It's the whole point of an alliance! You don't consider someone an ally if you can't count on them to show up!
195.
by fatbird 2y ago
It's clearly not unwinnable. Russia is doing serious structural damage to its economy and can't get enough Russians to fight, so they're pulling North Koreans in (who think they're going to fight South Korea). At worst
196.
by fatbird 2y ago
Zelensky left the White House without signing the agreement.
197.
by fatbird 2y ago
Exactly: "I found the root cause and corrected it. It may be an issue in these other two places so we should check there as well." "Great. How do we avoid issues like this in the future?" "By doing X thing a diffe
198.
by fatbird 2y ago
My skill at troubleshooting has caused me to be the goto guy in every project, which lends great credibility and opportunities for leadership. Your pride in your troubleshooting skills isn't pride in a side-quest, it's pride in h
199.
by fatbird 2y ago
Do you think Bezos has it in mind to take on those oligoplies when he changes the editorial focus to promoting free markets?
200.
by fatbird 2y ago
So the AI didn't prove anything, it offered a hypothesis that wasn't in the published literature, which happened to match what they'd spent years trying to verify. I can see how that would look impressive, and he says that i
201.
by fatbird 2y ago
How often do Tesla or SpaceX fire and rehire only the essential people?
202.
by fatbird 2y ago
Organizational inertia can be cut through without causing a tremendous amount of pain and disruption. Stopping things by default is a very lazy way to do it. Doing it this way is a strongman fantasy that inflicts large costs: now your emp
203.
by fatbird 2y ago
Anyone with experience in a large org will hate this because it's a stupid, hamhanded way of forcing people to continually beg for the resources to do their jobs. Leaders think it's brilliant because it relieves them of the need
204.
by fatbird 2y ago
As someone who worked inside Honeywell for 10 years, I can tell you that "large organizations that operate as for-profit businesses will collapse" is absolutely not a true generalization. Everything the GP said about large organi
205.
by fatbird 2y ago
As you pointed out, demand will drop, so there's fewer sales, and it drives inflation, slowing the economy, leading to (ultimately) a reduction in revenue all around. Also, it's basically a heavy sales tax, since it's throug
206.
by fatbird 2y ago
They're light gray when dry and dark gray/brown when wet. Their lack of colour feels dreary and oppressive. I like the form of quite a few brutalist buildings, but the grayness of them feels like a neverending cloudy afternoon
207.
by fatbird 2y ago
Which is sadly contrary to brutalism's aims, which don't require buildings to be a mid-gray (and dark gray/brown when rained on), but it's a principled consequence of the approach that raw concrete buildings look so fu
208.
by fatbird 2y ago
Well, yes, that's the point: it doesn't matter who pays up front, it affects the supply/demand equation, typically hurting everyone. Regardless of where I am in the chain, I'm not going to run at a loss and hope to make
209.
by fatbird 2y ago
How many immigrants are allowed in is orthogonal to whether the process is efficient and direct. The process is insanely complicated and takes years and no small amount of luck, or dodging arbitrary discretionary decisions by mid-level bur
210.
by fatbird 2y ago
I think you're correct about the importer paying the tariff, but it doesn't really matter, does it? If I sell into the US and have to pay the tariff, I'm going to raise my prices to cover the additional expense. Regardless

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