Brad Spahn

The best and worst part of the internet is that it facilitates people with minority views and tastes connecting with people and content that suits them.

@rohitshinde121 Do you read nutrition papers regularly? I would have a hard time characterizing fields other than my own this generally.

This is Exhibit A for why economics is the apex predator of the social sciences. This should be a nutrition paper. It wouldn't have been NBER material 30 years ago. But economists spent decades sharpening their econometric toolkit into a weapon while other fields coasted on p-hacked garbage, sloppy identification, and storytelling dressed up as research. Now they're colonizing nutrition, public health, criminology, and publishing better work than the people who've spent their whole careers there. Adapt or get swallowed. Simple as.

@mungowitz What specific powers/actions do you have in mind here? Charitably I could think of drone strike type stuff or immigration action deferments for dreamers, but not sure that’s what you have in mind.

Sure. Still, as Barack Obama put it, "Elections have consequences, and I won." I wish BHO had not claimed kingly powers. But he did. Now we are all sorry. Precedents matter. That's how our system works: Precedent for the President.

@MidSouthMax1 @conorjrogers There is a trust fund though. It has about $2.5 trillion and is invested in treasuries.

How radicalizing is it when you understand that SS isn’t supposed to be a tax but a forced IRA savings safety net? Hence no reason to scale up the contributions forever? Wait until you realize there is no lock box or trust fund. The government burns every dollar you are trusting them with.

One of the most radicalizing moments of my life was when I learned that they just stop collecting social security taxes on money earned over like $150K. Like you just suddenly keep 3-6% more money on all money over that threshold.

@nolllio @flyosity @MercedesBenz In addition to being cheaper, moving controls into screens means that there are fewer blank buttons, which are unsightly and make the car look cheap. Car reviewers used to roast car brands for them.

@flyosity @MercedesBenz idk who told auto companies that physical buttons = bad but they deserve jail time

While I was getting my car serviced, Mercedes let me borrow a new S 580e with a $144K sticker price The steering wheel has all touch controls made from cheap plastic while my 2022 GLE has aluminum buttons and knurled thumb controls What are we even doing here

@skcLIC @mungowitz Calculations like these are really dependent on how you calculate growth. AFAIK there's no market for inflation-adjusted annuities, so it's hard to benchmark NPV of contributions.

@mungowitz That’s not really true. Since contributions are capped. The wealthiest seniors are typically at least getting out what they put in on an NPV basis.

Yes, but.... Amount you "take out" of Social Security is fraction of what you "put in," for "wealthiest seniors." Since Soc Sec is correlated w/ income, this result is hardly surprising. The problem is not amount seniors receive, but fact that future generations have to pay!

@acheronix @kevinrschultz @sgodofsk There's a large class of vehicles (probably most vehicles!) where most rear-seat occupants are kids. I think you're right where they should design for them. Whether regulations would catch up is a separate question...

@kevinrschultz @sgodofsk sure, idk how far those go down but if we have kid belts we can probably adjust those too

what I don't understand is why not just have a 2nd lower down seatbelt for children

@elemental_j @lugaricano Lab techs make medical determinations all the time.Totally conceivable that medical imaging AI with a good insurance policy could do the job of reading scans. Might require a supervising radiologist for liability purposes (or to consult on tough cases). I suspect Hinton was right

@lugaricano AI cannot be liable.

Famously (there is a beautiful Works in Progress piece on this) in 2016, Geoffrey Hinton told an audience in Toronto that medical schools should stop training radiologists, since AI would soon outperform them at reading scans. Ten years later, there are more radiologists than ever, and they earn more than they did then. Hinton was right about the task, but he was wrong (so far!) on the future of the radiology profession. Times have never been better for them. The gap between those two claims, the difference between tasks and jobs, is the subject of a paper I have written with Jin Li and Yanhui Wu, and that we release today: "Weak Bundle, Strong Bundle: How AI Redraws Job Boundaries." (Very relatedly we are also finishing the first draft of our book "Messy Jobs" on AI and Jobs!! You will be the first to hear). We start from the observation that the growing literature on AI and labor markets measures the AI shock by task exposure: people count how many tasks AI can perform in a given occupation AI can perform, and infer that more exposure means more displacement. Eloundou et al. published a paper in Science in 2024 that started this literature, and many follow the same logic. The inference they make is that the more exposed tasks, the worse the outcomes. This is incomplete, because labor markets price jobs, not tasks. A radiologist does not just sell image classification, but does many other jobs: triages cases, communicates with other physicians, trains residents, makes the difficult decisions, and signs a diagnosis. The market buys a bundled service. The question AI poses is not whether it can do one task inside the bundle. The question is whether that task can be pulled out. Thread (1/3) dropbox.com/scl/fo/689u1g7…

@LeCodeBusiness @BoringBiz_ OpenAI is a PBC now with a large stake owned by a non-profit.

@BoringBiz_ 17.5% guaranteed return on preferred equity is the number that needs unpacking. What's the liquidation preference structure if OpenAI converts to for-profit and the cap table gets renegotiated? PE gets the yield, but who holds the residual risk?

OpenAI reportedly working with private equity firms such as TPG and Advent to raise preferred capital at a minimum return of 17.5% and provide early access to latest models Feels like an absolute win for PE if you can get a 18% IRR on a preferred equity piece and get the upside from making rest of your PortCos more efficient using AI

@Aella_Girl @J_K_Wood The norms you mentioned are enforced by surrogacy agencies and fertility clinics who won’t work with surrogates that don’t meet those criteria (they aren’t legal restrictions). This is a bad situation but since she’s carrying her own egg, she has a strong claim to parenthood.

@J_K_Wood they only allow surrogates who've already had kids. How did she not know what it was like to have a baby and get attached to it before??

SURROGATE MOTHER: “I agreed to do this for the money, I am not very financially stable… I said I would turn over my baby when she is born” Make baby buying illegal again.

@lrntex When we were car shopping in late 2024, we ruled out an electric car because at then-current prices, gasoline was cheaper than electricity. It's an odd policy choice for a very climate-concerned state!

A typical CA household is now paying an extra $290-450 per year for wildfire mitigation through their electricity bill. About 80% of wildfire mitigation in CA is now being funded through the rate base, while only 20% is being funded through the tax base (CAL FIRE). This is not only a highly regressive way of funding wildfire mitigation but an extremely suboptimal method of reducing fire risk (most fires are not ignited by utilities)!!!

@BradSpahn You should check your math 😉

+2sd is 1 in 40 basically 1 student in every class is in this situation bored out of their mind because they’re not permitted to learn anything that their slower classmates can’t

@SinaiLawFirm ADU for aging parents, long term guests, au pair. Maybe even (god forbid) early 20 something kids.

Maybe an ADU is good for the 21 year old French au pair

Why are there so many homes for sale with an ADU? What am I going to do with a detached two bedroom that’s taking up yard space? Rent it out? I bust my ass to finally buy a house to become a landlord? Why are people doing this?

@zach26655 @real_jensen_lee @mSanterre That’s right. Double trigger rsu’s typically vest on ipo day, so there’s an income event on ipo day. In this case, there’d be a capital loss that could then offset gains later on. Makes me wonder if double trigger RSU’s should trigger ob end of lockup.

@real_jensen_lee @mSanterre If it's like what I had, the vesting (and taxable event) is on the IPO date as that's when the shares become "yours" Source: I had RSUs with a lockup period and an IPO. Uncle Sam got me on the IPO price, which was higher than the price when I could sell

Imagine paying taxes on vested RSUs at $120 and it falls by 75% by the time lockup ends.

@camsoft2000 Are you using Codex? I think there've been some issues that have led the team to reset rate limits a few times. x.com/thsottiaux/sta…

I know OpenAI said 5.4 costs more but is more efficient but I'm not sure I believe them. I burning through my rate limits much faster than 5.3 and I'm not doing anything different. I'm not seeing the efficiencies they are claiming.

@yyyxxxzzzxxxyyy @rohindhar There’s no need to talk about yourself like that.

@rohindhar more shitty selfish piece of shit neighbors

San Francisco home sale in Bernal Heights at $2000 per square foot

@Retrad @vickilb99 @KTLA Jail keeps them from stabbing innocent people on the street.

@vickilb99 @KTLA jail doesn't solve it either.

The family of a man who was stabbed to death by a homeless man while he was charging his electric car outside the Downey City library has filed a claim against the city seeking $40 million in damages. Details: ktla.com/news/local-new…

@credealjunkie Berries are ~5% sugar, which is about it half of oranges, apples and pears and around 1/3 of grapes. They’re really not so bad. Ice cream is 20% sugar and candy bars are about 50%.

Congratulations you fed your kids $40 of sugar and called it “proper nutrition.”

@Bordash @agarwal The store could choose not to sell those products.

@agarwal I understand the point, but that also reads a bit more as an issue created by the brand marketing team or designer, less the store itself. Doubt the store has a say in the packaging design, and at least the manager was honest..?

I purchased a few things at a toy store in SF. My kids opened the boxes and the items were clearly not what was pictured. I called the store, and the manager said, “Yes, the boxes are deceitful.” He refused to offer a refund and told me I should “temper my kids’ expectations.” 🤯

@MobileChicaneYT @CrystalRacing Stroll was so good at Baku 2017. He used to be a promising young driver who deserved his place on the grid. His dad’s money totally changed the vibe.

I just found out George Russell hasn’t won Driver of the Day since 2020. The only thing crazier than that was finding out that Lance Stroll has, at some point (2017 to be exact), been awarded DOTD. I know it’s an arbitrary prize than even Rio Haryanto (nearly) won BUT STILL.

@hspter I haven’t really heard people in tech calling for protectionism or any sort of intervention for their jobs. More just…acknowledgment that the industry (and the market for their labor) is profoundly changing.

I get why engineers are feeling a lot of existential angst right now over their craft, but I also have very limited patience for it. This is literally a field that was obsessed with "disrupting".. and now the disrupters are being disrupted. Have perspective.