- California: 83% renewable, dominated by solar

- Spain: 73%, dominated by solar & wind

- Portugal: 90%, dominated by wind & solar

- The Netherlands: 86%, dominated by solar & wind

- Great Britain: 71%, dominated by wind & solar

There's real momentum happening.

This is...not true of many hyperscaler outages? Frequently, outages will leave individual VMs running but affect only higher-order services typically used in more complex architectures. Folks running an SQLite on a EC2 often will not be affected.

And obviously, don't use us-east-1. This One Simple Trick can improve your HA story.

In any case, my point was more about the silly idea that it's imperative for any organization to be on the 8th-largest US site.

An interesting thing about this era is that things which were bipartisan in the 2000s are now seen as partisan. Some examples of things that I remember as bipartisan in the 2000s which are now seen as left-leaning ideas: NATO membership, suffrage for women, freedom from state religion, the Forestry Service, national parks.

Things are changing.

Worth keeping in mind that Twitter/X is something like the 8th largest US-based social media site. Like it's ~1/6 the size of Facebook.

It's in all probability smaller than Pinterest (we cannot get trustworthy numbers from Twitter/X). LinkedIn is 2x its size, and real people across a swath of society use it. Knocking Threads for the Instagram distribution is silly because part of the point of posting is to get distribution. This is a PLUS for Threads, which organically is still close to Twitter/X's size.

Nobody is saying it's urgent for brands to be on Quora, a close size mate.

Of these sites, Twitter/X is the only one that (effectively) requires brands to pay to post.

And keep in mind that no agreement, apparently not even the ceasefire, have been signed. So this is all armchair analysis from all sides (except you, because you apparently already know).

In any case, it's not clear the cease fire will make it to the weekend so we will all (except you, who have the benefit of already knowing) have to sit tight to find out what happens.

I mean, nobody can be evaluated as right or wrong today about what will happen in two weeks. We shall have to wait and see!

shows the US agreeing to acceptance of the Iranian 10-point plan as a basis for negotiation. You can find those 10 points from a source you trust, but they include reparations to Iran in the form of payments from ships transiting the Strait.

> Oman hosts a US air base

The 10-point plan also requires the US to remove its combat forces from the region.

> Who signed off on that agreement for the US for example

The President posted this, so it's likely the most official artifact available to the public. Likely nothing is signed yet, it appears the President did not even get Israel onside before announcing so the ceasefire may not make it to the weekend.

wrt Beirut. I don't know how to convey that Israel is only operating the way they are in Lebanon because they do not feel the existential threat that comes with a nuclear deterrent. I'm not really sure I understand your position that nuclear weapons do not deter.

Not going to debate this, since you seem to know more than the people negotiating this. I can only go by what negotiators (you?) have publicly released through official channels, which is that Iran and Oman will get a windfall at the expense of free maritime navigation.

> Do you see how stupid and quickly escalatory this is?

Yes? To be clear, I am against nuclear non-proliferation. I also understand that internal politics will lean towards populations not being terrorized by their neighbors. I understand that non-proliferation depends on nuclear powers acting responsibly and underwriting a semblance of a security regime. The best course of action would be for the big nuclear powers to act in ways aligned with long-term peace and nonproliferation.

But they are very much doing the opposite. The big nuclear powers are engaging in piracy and seeking to redivide the globe. In those circumstances, it would be folly for countries not to get their own deterrent.

> boom Beirut up in smokes

Yes, look at videos of Beirut today. That is exactly what is happening.

(More to my point, "accelerate" does not imply any given velocity. It means move it fast-er. Notably, one must accelerate from a complete stop to move at all.)

Every state that feels threatened must see acquisition of nuclear weapons (or acquiring a nuclear-armed protector) as Job #1. Maybe they buy using the new windfall from the toll on the Strait, maybe they use their own know-how. Maybe a combination.

But yeah, every leader needs to get their country under a nuclear umbrella. Any leader who is not will be replaced for delinquency.

It's abundantly clear that we are entering an age of nuclear proliferation. Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba are just the earliest examples. Entirely possible US didn't invade Greenland due to its nuclear protection. Would Israel be cleansing (ethnically) large swathes of Lebanon if there was a risk they could lose Tel Aviv this afternoon? But now it is clear that we are (again) in a geopolitical environment in which the strongest can take whatever they want from the weak. Demonstrated nuclear capability is the only clear deterrent.

Any Iranian leadership whose brains are not made of sawdust will use that money to race to a nuclear weapon. Clearly, we are in an era where the only reliable nuclear umbrella is locally sourced and homegrown. Expect a dominant geopolitical theme to be proliferation as every state that feels somewhat threatened boots up a nuclear weapons program. From ~9 states today, we should expect to see ~30 within the next 10-15 years.

US spent vast amounts of money on not achieving any meaningful objective, while at the same time granting the opposition items from their long-term wish list (removal of sanctions). That's a loss.

If Iran's leaders' brains are not made of rotten oatmeal, they will massively accelerate their nuclear weapons program with their windfall.

SQLite is not a terrible choice here.

> large gap between OpenAI’s $852-billion valuation and Anthropic’s $380 billion

IIRC Anthropic's revenue is either roughly at parity with or larger than OpenAI's, and Anthropic is growing faster[1]. All indicators are that Anthropic should be worth more than OpenAI. Given that, one could reasonably expect the relative valuations to change a great deal. In any case, it's not clear why OpenAI would command such a price premium over Anthropic.

1 - OpenAI says they are doing $2B/mo run rate https://openai.com/index/accelerating-the-next-phase-ai/

Anthropic's run rate increased from $12B to $19B in the period between February 12 and the end of the month. If the implied growth rates held through March, Anthropic may well be larger than OpenAI now.

> imagine many haven't tried Codex recently since all we hear about is Claude Code

My theory is Codex allotments are higher because the demand isn't there (yet). Claude users hit their limits because there is so much more usage.

- how old are they? If the poster is ~60, likely has savings and may even have Social Security income. If they worked as (say) a police officer for 20 years, they may have pension income. A 47-year-old former military officer could reasonably have kids at home and also pension income from the military.

- Many people inherit houses (most houses are eventually inherited). Most sell them, but it can be a viable choice to just move into an inherited house to zero out housing expense. OR one could inherit a house that is >> valuable than one's own, such that selling the inherited house allows one to pay off one's own house.

- Location. The Discourse typically divides between HCOL and LCOL, but ignores that in both there are also people who spend much less than the average. In NYC the average home price is ~$850k, but there are today listings for 3BR homes in the low $200s (<$1,500/mo).

And of course these are stackable. One could have a military pension and buy a cheaper place and have a buffer from an inheritance. (None of this is uncommon.)

There are two kinds of countries: countries that use metric, and countries who have put a person on the moon.