We can do it, we just have to decide we want to. If we're going to have a Tulip Mania Redux I'd rather have it with space data centers and reusable rockets and autonomous human-level AI moonshots/boondoggles than... I don't know, literal tulips, or factoring large numbers to mine bitcoin or whatever...

By the time you got permission to lay all the cables you'd need to lay, etc. your competition would already be done with their space data center, or Lunar one in a peak of eternal sunshine or whatever. This is a race to the most compute. Whoever gets the most geniuses in their "country of geniuses in a datacenter" wins.

Wins what? Well, everything they want effectively forever.

NIMBY stuff is why we will go to space. In space nobody can tell you “no.”

I started this by doing some work for an old employer that asked me to start by modernizing an excel spreadsheet into an app I made for them like 10 years ago? They kept asking for more though since, and they’re my biggest customer right now. Which is good because I only have the bandwidth for like one more place right now.

I’ve had a few sort of one off things with other places? But I’m working on getting another company in the same industry right now and I’ll be able to adapt most of the code I’ve built here for another company if they end up deciding to use me.

But my biggest value to companies is “I already know this industry extremely well.”

I mean, in your defense, last year I think you would have been right, but right now? Codex rocks, as does Claude. I am literally making money shipping a greenfield project to a customer right now. I'm basically a cheap consultant that is incrementally adding features to make something exactly what they want for way cheaper than it would be to do it the old way.

There are hiccups, outages, things to fix etc. but the customer is happy with the output, and the reduced price means they get bespoke solutions rather than some BS one size fits all SaaS app. Then my job is maintenance and effectively "ITSM." Which kind of sucks in some ways, I miss writing real code for real projects, but this is the future going forward. If you want something for your business, you'll generate it rather than pay for it and for now at least, getting beyond localhost requires someone who knows a bit about computers or is willing to learn. Most small businesses aren't willing to learn.

Now, to your point. Is the code all that clean? Nope (and in your defense sometimes I read through the codebase and shudder)... but who cares? Like, for awhile I would go through and frantically edit it, but why? It worked. Not only that, but there's going to be a new model in 3 months or whatever that can clean it up and make it less shitty. I've literally done that a couple times since I started doing this in January.

The customer ain't reading the code. They don't care as long as the the functionality works - that's what counts. The gazillion tests I have keep it stable as I push code, and the CI/CD pipeline removes a ton of the ass pain I'd have without it.

The biggest thing I'm worried about when it comes to clean code and good design is trying to make sure I keep the token count down on these projects so I can actually do meaningful work without burning through a week's worth of tokens in a single day. That, and I like to try to keep a sort of architectural bird's eye view on what's happening...

Like, I'm not sure what niche of the industry you're in, but for the stuff I'm using it for, stuff is working really well with LLMs.

As though the decades of work I've put into my career means I should want a job as the hamburger man or working as a ditch digger. No shade to burger flippers or ditch diggers, but these are not jobs that I'm trained for, nor are they jobs that I remotely want to do. So for me, aviation expert, programmer, ML engineer, weird IT generalist, guy with a math degree who speaks a couple languages, and isn't exactly fully capable anymore, the idea that jobs in some other field (like an RN or an Oncologist or Electrician) are just something I can pivot into is just hilarious. It's such a shallow and ignorant take. Even the premise that all jobs are equally distributed and there aren't jobs that are more or less in demand at any time is a real funny take too.

I'm so glad I started working for myself, because honestly, seeing this dogshit analyses from supposed experts means I'll be able to keep making money for a long time just be actually trying when I need to think about something.

Good. I’m totally fine with whiners self-selecting out of the state.

Also? I’ve worked in rural Alaska. It’s not nearly so bad as the people on here would say.

Totally fair - and with Star Shield and basically SpaceX being the only reasonable launch provider, and a Musk-Friendly government currently in the executive… then I think my thesis holds. The only people who can tell SpaceX no at that point are like 3 nation states with ASAT capabilities?

Regardless, he won’t have to ask the “city” counsel of Asslick Indiana if he can “please build here pretty please!”

Mark my words, they’re going to build “up.l

Right now, 70% of the country is at least skeptical of DCs and at worst absolutely hate them. NIMBY is basically the rallying cry. That's why you go "up" (if they can make starship work). The physics is "hard" but doable, you can keep them cool enough in a sun synchronous orbit. The math pencils out. It's not my field, but back of the envelope math seems to work. Scott Manley has a video on it if you're skeptical.

But, people keep thinking about this like "return on investment" is the only thing driving this play. They're literally the only company with a mostly reusable system (unless you count that company trying in China?). They're the closest company to a fully reusable launch vehicle. They have a ton of government contracts with star shield. After Bezos' rocket blew up last week, there's basically nobody close to competing with starlink...

I am not a Musk fanboy, but, like, there is literally no other serious space competitor right now. I mean, "maybe" Boeing? But not really - they're years away...

So, like if you read about the Memphis Datacenter - Colossus I think? They're unable to get power, they're pulling in power from Mississippi to keep the thing running. You know how many times they have to ask permission for that? The infrastructure costs there just to power it start to get absurd too. Then the unending line of approvals and environmental impact studies and permits. For all the people saying, "it'd be cheaper on earth" it might be in terms of dollars, but if you can basically iterate entirely unfettered in space, it's the obvious choice if you can make it happen.

Like, seriously, go try to build something, there are a LOT of rules outside of rural areas. It's literally why my wife and I decided to build our cabin where we are building, because there were basically no restrictions. Meanwhile in town, my buddy's deck was a nightmare to permit... it was a deck, not bridge. Seriously, to all the people saying, "it's easier" go try to get something built in a big city or where you have to fight through permit hell.

These tech oligarch guys view this (I think rightly - it's one of the only things I view them as right on) as a race to AGI against the Chinese. We're in the lead right now, cool, but the Chinese have excess kilowatts and we don't. In fact, we don't have adequate power plant infrastructure at all and we couldn't get the power plants built if we wanted to (the Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson book Abundance touches on this topic if you're curious as to why). It's not going to happen.

But up? No NIMBYs in space (yet). So they're going to go where nobody will tell them "no." At least, that's what I would do if I owned a literal rocket company.

People are all looking at this stuff through the lens of "money" as if that matters hardly at all after AGI, lol. The analysts are looking at this like it's 1995. I mean, PE ratios are important, don't get me wrong, but after 2016, and Trump, and the applications of transformers, and the war in Ukraine (and current shit show in Iran), and the rising price of fuel, and, well I'll stop, the list goes on and on, but acting like the "normal" rules of investment apply is just silly. This stuff is about power, and he who controls access to orbit is worth a basically unlimited amount of money...

Do I wish it was happening differently? Yup. But hey, we decided to give up on space as a country like 50 years ago, maybe we can try to do cool stuff in space now.

Look man, you don't owe anyone anything for existing. Nor does anyone owe you anything. This idea that we have to grind down the best years of our lives into an apparatus that doesn't give a shit about us so that we can justify our right to keep breathing? That sucks. I want to end that. I think people should be able to do the things they want to do. I think we should make that a priority.

I mostly get to do the things I want to do and largely work for myself on projects I pick. I think everyone should have that opportunity. My wife does too - she's doing exactly what she wants in life. I think that's a good thing, and I think everyone should have the opportunity to live like that.

And if they don't want to do anything at all? I'm fine with that too.

When I was flying for a living, I would have gladly continued to do it gratis if all my needs were met, but you can bet your ass I wouldn't be doing it on nights and weekends (except for when I was doing medevac work). Now as an entrepreneur and software person, I work for myself - this is optimal. But I certainly don't think I should have to to justify my right to continue sucking oxygen.

You shouldn't owe society something for simply existing. Full stop. Neither you nor I chose to instantiate into this environment, so us having some sort of moral duty to feed our heart and soul into the economic system is nonsense and we should eliminate that requirement for everyone.

If Bob Smith wants to spend all of his time wanking off, so be it, it's his life to spend. He shouldn't be compelled to work so he can have the continued right to exist. We can do better. We have the ability to.

There, is that better? You shouldn't have to do a job you hate (or indeed a job you love) to have the right to continue to exist in our society, and that's the current state of affairs more or less. You work, or society is happy to let you die. I want to end that.

We're finally approaching a world where humans could work less and the only thought people can think about is how jobs might go away or some other such bullshit. Capitalist Realism has gotten so bad that I've seen anarchists cheering on copyright law and "so called" leftists wishing for the halcyon days of 30 years ago - just like their parents did in the 90s.

It's wild how conservative of an era we're in right now.