George3d6 (π^12.2/∞ quale experienced)

The quotes from this book are all making fun of customer preferences that were solved in exchange for billions. I think it beautifully boils down a core difference in the "builder" class on the US west coast and in China compared to the rest of the world.

What the book does is it identifies all of these pain points that customers have and want solved. But the reason for doing this is to say: > These customers are annoying, and probably low value. Increase your ROI by droping them if they make these sort of requests

@HeyeGross was reading quotes to me from the book "Kunden aus der Hölle" (Customers from Hell) Seminal for company builders in Germany in the early 2010s It contains a list of ideas that have generated dozens of trillions in value ... for American and Chinese companies

It is a quintessential European move to predict the future correctly and execute on the technical bits perfectly but fail because you refuse to charge people money to use your services.

Essentially all European companies and institutions are not capitalist in that they don't respond directly to price signals. This is the stock chart of the world's 5th largest owner of GPUs and high-powered servers:

A recent exchange I had with @OVHcloud support boiled down to: Me: Do you have VM capacity? Support: Yes Me: Can we pay you money for them? Support: In a month, we need a team to manually review all accounts Me: But we kinda need this now Support: Ahm, try AWS, I guess

The most influential postmodernist bar none was Richard Nixon, who by ending the gold standard untethered the signifier from the signified.

Jonas is great, you should work with him!

I’m looking for a co-founder. Frontier labs are over-refusing legitimate bio work because they can't tell who's a real researcher and who isn't. I’m solving this with BioTrust — building the credentialing layer between frontier AI labs and researchers. Strong early interest from frontier labs. Backed by funder Sentinel Bio. I am looking for a builder who's run the trust and security backbone at a company in identity, fintech, compliance, health data, or cybersecurity. Someone with strong instincts on the trust-vs-friction calls. Finisher energy. Deeply motivated by mitigating catastrophic risk from AI and biology. Full context and how to reach me here: docs.google.com/document/d/1UB… Tag the people you know who'd be unreasonably good at this.

There's a common misconception that Brutalist buildings were unpainted, but thanks to microscopic analysis of the exteriors we can now recreate what they looked like in their prime.

@dioscuri But bro, in this idealized model I have that doesn't include moving a body or blood circulation outside of major veins and arteries the heart is like a pump. And we only need to add 10 books of epicycles when we try (and fail) to explain reality.

@dioscuri "Well ok, the heart is like a pump, but in this analogy the vascular system is like a complex feedback system that you can write 10 books about but still fail to generate any models making meaningful predictions" ... and yes the heart is also vasculature

Not a fan of these clichéd “we used to think the mind was clockwork” analogies. Sometimes science just makes progress. Hearts really are pumps. DNA really is code-like. Disease really is caused by microorganisms. Some mechanistic explanations were wrong; others are just true.

@ReasonMeThis Like what is the brainfuck of llm coding

@ReasonMeThis There is indeterminisim in python's pseudo-types such that, I think, a clever: > Can you please add type checking to this codebase style prompt Could, in principle, keep growing the codebase if looped. Just an example of a broader concept - I want competitions around this

Me reviewing

Soil depletion for ag is an epistemic landmine Whatever TF mint or a tomato is on the coast of the dead sea (i.e. amazing god-sent taste which defies all reason and silences the mind) is unavailable in the US (and most of the world) But I've never seen anoyned quantify this "scientifically"

@relic_radiation @thecolesummers You have India as a good reference points to how sustainable US ag is, and they point to > a thousand years (given the production/land ratio and the fact it's ag is still sufficient to feed itself +/- a few % points)

do any of my followers work on countrywide soil health / regeneration? based on what I’ve read it seems like default agriculture is pretty shockingly terrible for soil quality, and I want a clearer assessment. & I’m curious if we’re headed towards systemic malnutrition or no