> Bob's weekly updates to his supervisor were indistinguishable from Alice's. The questions were similar. The progress was similar. The trajectory, from the outside, was identical.

No they won't be. They might be worse. They might be better. But they'll be very different.

And, like you said...

> Alice and Bob had the same year. One paper each.

No they won't. Alice would've taken a year. Bob would've taken a few days.

You've already covered why that might actually be OK, so I'll talk about the author's other error:

> This sounds idealistic until you think about what astrophysics actually is. Nobody's life depends on the precise value of the Hubble constant. No policy changes if the age of the Universe turns out to be 13.77 billion years instead of 13.79. Unlike medicine, where a cure for Alzheimer's would be invaluable regardless of whether a human or an AI discovered it, astrophysics has no clinical output. The results, in a strict practical sense, don't matter. What matters is the process of getting them: the development and application of methods, the training of minds, the creation of people who know how to think about hard problems. If you hand that process to a machine, you haven't accelerated science. You've removed the only part of it that anyone actually needed.

Keep asking why. why does the development of the application and methods, the training of minds matter?

the goal isn't abstract. The goal is still ultimately for the benefit of humanity, just like the cure for Alzheimer's.

Humanity learned physics, so we made rockets and now we have satellites, and the entire planet is connected with communication and information.

Humanity must continue to invest in astrophysics so that we do not get wiped out by a single rogue asteroid barreling through the cosmos, like the dinosaurs did.

Now i'm not saying that there isn't other benefit to making generically intelligent humans that know how to think. But at the end of the day, the purpose of astrophysics is no less existential than the purpose for developing medicine.

I want to know the age of the universe so that we can understand what created it, and if we can reverse entropy, and if there is anything beyond the universe. That is a quest for humanity that will take hundreds if not millions of years.

This is from the pilot and I watched it based on high recommendations, and I couldn't keep going because the character you're describing as so convincing and charismatic is so dramatically unlikeable!?

In this scene, he is:

* disrespectful and entitled with a coworker

* privileged and self-important about his background with a client

* then makes an admittedly pretty rousing speech, but TBH the show doesn't really trust us to understand that "this is meant to be inspirational" because it keeps cutting to the other character reacting "inspired", which is significant because

* he doesn't make the sale

* then proceeds to verbally scream abuse at the other character.

and then i'm supposed to be excited about watching the two of these start a computer company together? ..........why?

At least at companies where the upper management is aware enough of the details to make good judgements, and the business is critical enough for some reason that low level management can't just be entrusted to yeet/yolo-things into production?

The word "rape" makes people visualize the most extreme scenarios of strangers in the night attacking those weaker than them, and assaulting them with violence.

But there are still significant parts of the world, even the western world, where "marital rape" is considered an oxymoron.

So people tried to come up with a generic neutral term like "sexual assault" which could mean everything from someone's worst rape nightmare, to unwanted touching in a sexualized manner in a crowd.Because that's the reality - physical contact requires consent. And consent is........complicated.

If I say "Do you consent to sex with me?" and you say "yes", did you consent? Yes.

If I say "Do you consent to sex with me, so I don't murder you", and you say "yes", did you consent? No.

Everyone can plainly understand the above. But finding the line for consent shifts can be surprisingly difficult.

* "Do you consent to sex with me, so I can give you the antidote to the poison you accidentally ingested"

* "Do you consent ..., so I can pay for life-saving cancer treatments that you need so that you otherwise can't afford?"

* "Do you consent ..., so I can pay for your rent, and otherwise you will be evicted?"

* "Do you consent ..., so that I don't fire you from the job you have?"

* "Do you consent ..., so that I no longer support you financially in a way that is currently entirely based on good will, and you've come to depend on it, and are scared of losing, because you've moved across the planet to be in my orbit, and now it looks like if you disappoint me, I'll turn on you"

Gaiman's accusations are at the end of this spectrum. Should he be in jail? I don't think so. Should he lose his livelihood? That's entirely up to his fans. Is he "innocent"? Well, if the facts aren't in dispute, I don't think so.

Which is why it' so frustrating and unhelpful to see writers and newspapers like https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y07w7nyxzo dwell on details like:

> Gaiman's legal papers also included WhatsApp messages which he says back up his case, in which Ms Pavlovich thanked him for a "lovely lovely night" and told him their relationship was "consensual".

PLENTY of sexual assault victims "thank" their assaulter, and assure them things were consensual even when they're not. Because they still feel at risk. Or because *THEY DON'T WANT TO ADMIT TO THEMSELVES THAT THEY'RE A VICTIM*.

Nobody wants to feel like they were violated. Nobody wants to admit that they didn't consent. Nobody wants to have the burden of now being the one to decide what to do about this - on a social level, on a criminal level, etc.

Admitting you were assaulted is saying "OK, so do i want this to be something I have to admit about myself for the rest of my life? To waste countless time and money and stress and anxiety to pursue justice that probably won't happen? To risk my own safety and sanity?" No wonder so many people don't.

None of this may change anything that's in this Project. But the whole framing of it pisses me off. It leaves no room for nuance. This man is probably not a monster. That doesn't mean he's not an abuser.

I get a very unopinionated but effective music player that has all the music I need, and it doesn't try very hard to "upsell" itself to me unlike Spotify because to Google YouTube is the real money driver.

So to me getting no YouTube ads as well is well worth it.

* These are elite athletes at the top of their pyramid, which means they have an absolutely bonikers elite competitive drive that got them where they had so far.

They were probably the best player on every team they've been since kindergarten. They've made it to the top of the pyramid and most want to keep going. Championships, all-stars, MVPs, all of these are things they are USED to getting at every level so far, and they want to keep going.

So when they sign there $X00,000 rookie deal they're not thinking "OK how do i save the most of this for my retirement", they're thinking "how do i get $Y,000,000 deal next? And the $WZ,000,000 deal after that?" And of course then I'll be set for life, and it will be easy to save and retire cuz i'll be rich.

This is just human nature.

And if there are any interoperability concerns, you offer an ability to opt-out with that (instead of opting in).

There is precedent for all of this at AWS.

It's why they all have "motion smoothing" turned on all their TV's too. Yes, it's animation, but the Blu-rays look "higher resolution", and look "smoother" and less "noisy".

All the artistic benefits you and I see are lost on most watchers.

So yeah in a hot economy anything you launch grows crazy. Then you do the thought leader talk circuit.

And in a cold economy, you can stop growing, optimize for your 24/7 steady workload, and also do the thought leader talk circuit.

Which makes perfect sense - even putting aside the dopamine benefits of getting into a coding flow state.

Coding is craftsmanship - in some cases artistry.

You're describing Vibe Engineering as management. And sure, a great manager can make more of an impact increasing the productivity of an entire team than a great coder can make by themselves. And sure, some of the best managers are begrudging engineers who stepped up when needed to and never stepped down.

But most coders still don't want to be managers - and it's not from a lack of skill or interest in people - it's just not what they chose.

LLM-based vibe coding and engineering is turning the creative craftsmanship work of coding into technical middle management. Even if the result is more "productivity", it's a bit sad.

I worry that as bad as things are, at least the blue state resistance (pathetic as it is) provides SOME restraint on the red states/MAGA's worst instincts.

Even if there was a way to divide the country evenly without dealing with the urban/rural divide, I have to imagine the first thing the new separate Red America do is start invading it's neighbours, if not outright nuking parts of the world.

There is no way that a breakup of the most powerful empire in the history of the world, with military bases around the entire planet, can happen without severe consequences for the rest of us.

The reality is there was a sweet spot - when the industry got less toxic and started attracting visible minorities, and you started getting some diversity of thought AND passion.

Then the money got too good and it started attracting the personalities that 10 years earlier would've become finance bros and caused the 2008 crash. And they fucked it all up.

It was unambiguously clear that no matter how bad you felt Obama/Biden/Harris were on Israel, Trump was/would be worse.

If every single human life is worth saving (and it is), it's indisputable that Trump is worse for Gaza than Harris would have been.

It was the ultimate Trolley Problem, and a bunch of progressives acted like pulling the switch on move the trolley is NEVER acceptable regardless of how many lives it saves...

It literally takes a half a second to tap "speaker" during the dialer after the update, which it didn't before.

Disappointing.