IG_Semmelweiss (u/IG_Semmelweiss)

IG_Semmelweiss commented on The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein scottaaronson.blog/?p=953... · Posted by u/pfdietz

zozbot234 · 5 days ago

This would have deeply weird and counterproductive effects on election candidacies; ultimately, people are willing to do their duty for the country, but not at the expense of their entire future income growth. It's the constituents' job to vote for better candidates, there are no foolproof rules beyond that.

IG_Semmelweiss · 5 days ago

i think you underestimate how many silent heroes and patriots walk among us

in the end , the people running for office should decide if its a price they are willing to pay

it used to be a celebrated virtue to be a company man. why cant it be the same to be a "government" man ?

IG_Semmelweiss commented on The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein scottaaronson.blog/?p=953... · Posted by u/pfdietz

alphazard · 6 days ago

Taxation is the mechanism that moves power from the people to the government, and increasingly politicians and their specific interests. Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power? Every government goon doing authoritarian dirty work collects a paycheck and wouldn't do their job without it.

IG_Semmelweiss · 5 days ago

Take that to the next level.

How about taxing the...Government ?

For example: I am a teacher. I run for office. I win. Now, as a consequence of my win, my tax bracket for the rest of my life, is 100% after i exceed the higher of either: a) my elected official salary, OR b) the average last 5 years of W2 income, OR c) the average last 2 years of W2 income.

You'd delete inmediately all the grifters getting into government to be rich. And because those narcissists griefters people would self select themselves out of the running; it gives breathing room to those willing to actually do their DUTY for country. Those willing to sacrifice lifetime income.

This is pathway to the less charismatic, but more duty-oriented people that would not mind working in the govt and also do a good job. Under these rules, you dont care if I stay in govt forever, either. Limited terms have no point, when you can't grift.

This also takes care of those pesky post-election speaking fees, as well!

IG_Semmelweiss commented on The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein scottaaronson.blog/?p=953... · Posted by u/pfdietz

iwanttocomment · 5 days ago

Keeping in mind that I wasn't the interviewee and this happened over 15 years ago, there was apparently a combination of extreme secrecy about the organization and a massive disconnect between the largely military experience of the interviewers and the company's supposed product space. Partner left wondering "black ops or bullshit?"

IG_Semmelweiss · 5 days ago

Its certainly not everyday that you are left wondering

"black ops or bullshit?"

IG_Semmelweiss commented on Don't rent the cloud, own instead blog.comma.ai/datacenter/... · Posted by u/Torq_boi

conductr · 6 days ago

Believe you're talking about conserving cash through reduced taxes since this guy was against paying taxes.

However, spending a premium on cloud services over what you could with an on-prem capital investment does not help your cash position.

His tenant of frugality would have conflicted, especially since the cloud premium can easily exceed the tax rate - that is to say, paying taxes would have been cheaper

Section in your linked article about frugality https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/john-malone-operating-manua...

In any case, spending on this either opex or capex doesn't help you gain or lose marketshare. Conserving cash can help, so you'd want to employ the lower cost option regardless of what line of the financial statement it hits - it's not going to be cloud if you follow that thought through

If cost was equal then opex gives a tax advantage, most companies are valued on EBITDA so still may not be their priority to optimize tax spend - a lot of other methods to avoid taxes. But the environment I've operated in I choose to capex because it conserves cash (is cheaper) and improves EBITDA optics (is excluded)

IG_Semmelweiss · 6 days ago

I didn't say conserve cash.

I say lower your tax bill.

"not the same ting" - nnt

IG_Semmelweiss commented on Don't rent the cloud, own instead blog.comma.ai/datacenter/... · Posted by u/Torq_boi

conductr · 6 days ago

CFO here and I capex everything I can, never understood why you'd want to opex this. I'm trying to make EBITDA as enticing as possible for investors and anyone else that cares. Also want to show we have control over technology cost and it grows at a step function instead of a linear. Capex spending is usually large and planned, so we monitor it more closely and need to see a good reason to approve a large new purchase. Giving AWS a credit card is giving devs a blank check.

IG_Semmelweiss · 6 days ago

its quite simple.

if you are a profitable company paying taxes, you 100% want to defer taxes (part of EBITDA) thus trade earnings for market share.

This is exactly what TCI did [1] with cable

[1] https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/john-malone-operating-manua...

IG_Semmelweiss commented on Don't rent the cloud, own instead blog.comma.ai/datacenter/... · Posted by u/Torq_boi

scalemaxx · 7 days ago

Everything comes circle. Back in my day, we just called it a "data center". Or on-premise. You know, before the cloud even existed. A 1990s VP of IT would look at this post and say, what's new? Better computing for sure. Better virtualization and administration software, definitely. Cooling and power and racks? More of the same.

The argument made 2 decades ago was that you shouldn't own the infrastructure (capital expense) and instead just account for the cost as operational expense (opex). The rationale was you exchange ownership for rent. Make your headache someone else's headache.

The ping pong between centralized vs decentralized, owned vs rented, will just keep going. It's never an either or, but when companies make it all-or-nothing then you have to really examine the specifics.

IG_Semmelweiss · 7 days ago

There's a very interesting insight from your message.

The Cloud providers made a lot of sense to finance departments since aside from the promised savings, you would take that cloud expense now and lower your tax rate.

After the passing of the One Beautiful Bill ("OBB"), the law allows you to accelerate CapEx to instead expense it[1], similar to the benefit given by cloud service providers.

This puts way more wind on the sails of the on-prem movement, for sure

[1] https://www.iqxbusiness.com/big-beautiful-bill-impact-on-cap...

IG_Semmelweiss commented on The Hallucination Defense niyikiza.com/posts/halluc... · Posted by u/niyikiza

nerdsniper · 13 days ago

The distinction some people are making is between copy/pasting text vs agentic action. Generally mistakes "work product" as in output from ChatGPT that the human then files with a court, etc. are not forgiven, because if you signed the document, you own its content. Versus some vendor-provided AI Agent which simply takes action on its own that a "reasonable person" would not have expected it to. Often we forgive those kinds of software bloopers.

IG_Semmelweiss · 13 days ago

Actually, things are heading in a good direction re:AI bloopers.

Courts of law have already found that AI interactions with customers are binding, even if said interactions are considered "bloopers" by the vendor[1]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2024/02/19/what-ai...

IG_Semmelweiss commented on We can’t send mail farther than 500 miles (2002) web.mit.edu/jemorris/humo... · Posted by u/giancarlostoro

PunchyHamster · 14 days ago

What's my recent annoyance is that users will describe their problem in great detail if they are talking to LLM, yet same people make just as shit support tickets as before

IG_Semmelweiss · 13 days ago

your dream is coming true - most SMBs are quickly moving to have LLMs as their Level 1 support anyway. Makes sense unf, too many people fail at writing the proper ticket.

IG_Semmelweiss commented on We can’t send mail farther than 500 miles (2002) web.mit.edu/jemorris/humo... · Posted by u/giancarlostoro

gnabgib · 14 days ago

Popular in:

2023 (1164 points, 198 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37576633

2020 (1034 points, 136 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23775404

2015 (915 points, 140 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338708

IG_Semmelweiss · 14 days ago

I wonder when we will see a timeless classic like this on HN, but for AI.

We can then poke some fun at what AI did, what went wrong, and our incredibly illogical "debug" of AI