jcgrillo

40 ms·

841.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
Yeah it's 100% true. A good independent mechanic you trust is very important if you're not DIY
842.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
It's very true, though. There's something to be said about technology you can build without a huge capital investment. With maybe $50k worth of tools and materials you could probably build a vehicle from ~1980. You can't manu
843.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
Mercedes dealers in particular are thieves. Mercedes-Benz of Boston tried to bait and switch me replacing an AC compressor on my 1999 E300D Turbo. Initial quote was $1750, after they had the car a couple days they made up some bullshit abou
844.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
I think we're close, and they're trying damn hard. We'll see what happens.
845.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
The problem is all those wonderfully tuned, reliable, and efficient mechanical parts require millions of lines of source code and some really intricate wiring to make them move. And you'll never have the documentation or the source cod
846.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
Modified vehicles can be completely reliable if you do it sensibly. More reliable, even, than factory. While the IDI 1HZ isn't the most optimal platform, I'm building my engine with 1HD-T rods aftermarket upgraded pistons which ha
847.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
Yeah it's true, it's a shame the consequences are so severe though. E.g. $1200 to replace a plastic bumper because it has some silly backup camera in it. I don't mind getting out of my car once or twice every time I need to h
848.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
But is it worth the price? I concluded I'd rather build a vehicle that's simpler and better than the one I could buy. And it's costing me about 20% as much to do so. And it'll burn a hell of a lot less fuel.
849.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
You could be right on all counts. But I'm 100% confident I can keep my 80 series running another 50 years with relatively minimal work (occasionally rebuilding things, maybe some rust repair if I get lazy about rust prevention, etc.)--
850.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
> We are supposed to be creating tools with longevity & utility that improve welfare. We are not here to create toys and infotainment for people. The same can be said for b2b SaaS (which is where I work), and yet... For some reason w
851.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
I was seriously considering buying an Ineos Grenadier because I wanted a nice, modern, safe solid axle 4x4 with decent towing capacity that'll last 50 years or so, but the complexity of that B57/58 and the ZF 8spd, let alone all t
852.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
In what sense is the federal government "the boss" of private sector businesses? This isn't an oligarchy yet, right? They don't have to behave obsequiously, they are choosing to . They're doing it for themselves,
853.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
I missed this, did they actually tell congress this is some kind of consequential winner takes all race with dire consequences for losing?
854.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
And they're all stupid enough to actually believe it? Why would a world leader listen to anyone in tech? They should ask an actual expert. Edit: to be clear, what I mean is that to a first approximation technologists are charlatans a
855.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
Didn't he lie about having a physics degree?
856.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
Another point of view is that they never flopped or flipped. They were fascists the whole time and were just lying about it before.
857.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
This is excellent, thanks
858.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
I believe we call that a "step change". It's only really two data points at most so you can't fit a continuous function to it with any confidence.
859.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
excellent, thanks.
860.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
To what extent (if any) will this program be impacted if all U.S. federal grant funding is permanently cut? Are there U.S. funded components/researchers involved?
861.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
I sure hope not, because what they've released so far is worse than useless. The "notifications summaries" in particular are hilariously bad. It's the same problem with Google's "AI Overview"--wrong or mis
862.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
Yes, I agree it's crudely framed and flawed. And other plentiful examples of left wing anti-evidence/expertise movements come from the "alternative medicine" arena. I think the problem with this moment in time is that fa
863.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
> AI doesn't seem to be one of those things where society as a whole will say, "we have enough of that; we don't need any more". Really? Has anyone made a useful, commercially successful product with it yet?
864.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
They only got more useful if the AI goldrush participants actually strike, well, gold. Otherwise it's not useful at all. Afaict it remains to be seen whether any of this AI stuff has actual commercial value. It's all just speculat
865.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
The problem with facts has been well known to science since at least 2006: > We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in reality. And reality has a well-known liberal bias[1] [1] https
866.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
You put this better than I could have. I am really impressed by LLMs' ability to respond to a prompt with code which compiles and runs. That's a hugely impressive result. But it doesn't mean the technorapture is just around t
867.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
No, I don't think it's overly harsh. This hype is out of control and it's important to push back on breathless "exponential" nonsense. That's a term with well defined easily demonstrated mathematical meaning. I
868.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
Care to justify those beliefs or are we just supposed to trust your intuition? Why exponential and not merely quadratic (or some other polynomial)? How do you even quantify "it"? I'm teasing, somewhat, because I don't ac
869.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
I guess that's the thing: I can't imagine wanting to automate a light switch. There are plenty of practical things to automate. For example, window shades for passive solar heating (or the prevention thereof), hvac, hell I think i
870.
by jcgrillo 2y ago
It's infecting everything. The other day I overheard someone saying "we don't need to expose a query interface, we'll just give users a text box and let them use natural language". Total brain rot.

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