joelhaus (u/joelhaus)

joelhaus commented on Ingesting PDFs and why Gemini 2.0 changes everything sergey.fyi/articles/gemin... · Posted by u/serjester

anirudhb99 · a year ago

member of the gemini team here -- personally, i'd recommend directly using gemini vs the document understanding services for OCR & general docs understanding tasks. From our internal evals gemini is now stronger than these solutions and is only going to get much better (higher precision, lower hallucination rates) from here.

joelhaus · a year ago

Could we connect offline about using Gemini instead of the doc ai custom extractor we currently use in production?

This sounds amazing & I'd love your input on our specific use case.

joelatoutboundin.com

joelhaus commented on Automattic–WP Engine Term Sheet automattic.com/2024/10/01... · Posted by u/mobilio

ValentineC · a year ago

> >That is not true. Automattic asked for a verbal agreement that WP Engine would give some percentage of their revenue back into WordPress, either in the form of a trademark agreement or employee hours spent on core WordPress.

In the term sheet, it's phrased as:

> Commit 8% of its revenue in the form of salaries of WP Engine employees working on WordPress core features and functionality to be directed by WordPress.org.

So, pay for employees to be directed by WordPress.org (not Automattic or WordPress Foundation, apparently just Matt).

joelhaus · a year ago

Adding to the strangeness, as the owner of WordPress.org, is Matt violating the trademark owned by the foundation or is there another undisclosed licensing agreement?

joelhaus commented on FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank fdic.gov/news/press-relea... · Posted by u/khuey

seanhunter · 3 years ago

Fractional reserve banking absolutely does not create money[1]. It creates credit exactly the same as if you lend a friend of yours some of your money. You now have an asset (the loan) and your friend has a liability (the debt) and the amount of M1 or M2 money in supply has not changed.

The explainer videos I have seen are wildly wrong. I learned this stuff by reading the Basel accords [2], working with banking regulators and central bankers, working on banks' capital reserve models etc. That is to say I know how this actually works because I have been inside the sausage-making process for good or ill - I didn't learn it second-hand from someone who probably also learned it second-hand which is the feel I get from these videos.

Almost any time you see someone "explain" fractional reserve banking it is about 99% probably total bullshit. It's got to the point where "fractional reserve" is almost a trigger phrase for me - I know when I hear it that it is highly likely the speaker doesn't know what they are talking about. Almost like when you hear the word "fiat currency" you know it's very likely someone is going to try to shill you some crypto. An explanation which is not nonsense is here. [3] Fractional reserve banking means the bank doesn't need to keep the full amount of deposits in reserve, but can use some percentage to make loans. These loans are assets the bank has, but as with the example I gave above where you lend to a friend, no additional money is created in this process and when a bank does it, it's not fundamentally any different.

[1] You can find the definitions of M1 and M2 money and a good explanation of what's included in the definition of "money" here https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/moneysupply.asp

[2] Which are not secret by the way - you don't have to be initiated into the templars or something to understand them. They are boring as all hell to read but otherwise reasonably understandable with a little bit of background https://www.bis.org/basel_framework/

[3] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fractionalreservebankin...

joelhaus · 3 years ago

This is the way. It's too bad this can't be pinned to the top. Thanks for laying this out so clearly.

joelhaus commented on Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date? · Posted by u/debanjan16

dvko · 3 years ago

It’s definitely not my passion but in 2013 I built a WordPress plugin around the API of a popular newsletter service and it’s been paying my bills ever since.

Still going strong at €36K per month excluding VAT.

There was (and still is) a huge market where non-technical people are looking for a GUI around something a programmer would find very simple (and usually too boring to work on). More so if the tech surrounding it is not particularly sexy, as is the case for WordPress and PHP.

Ps. In case anyone is reading this, I am open to selling. I spent about 4 hours a week on it and the rest is handled by 2 freelance people costing about €1K / month each. Contact me for details if interested and willing to pay in the ballpark of €1.6M.

joelhaus · 3 years ago

I'm interested! Email in my profile.

joelhaus commented on The pandemic revives interest in a morbid French financial scheme economist.com/finance-and... · Posted by u/tagawa

joelhaus · 5 years ago

Worked for two brilliant founders at a startup built around this concept, Irene Retirement.

I'd still like to believe it can be institutionalized to address many of the risks noted here by other comments.

joelhaus commented on Finding My Next Bootstrapped Business Idea derrickreimer.com/essays/... · Posted by u/derrickreimer

bdcravens · 7 years ago

I'd second this. I've seen several people get their agent license in recent years, and most of them have additional jobs. (meaning they're not generating as much income as an agent as they'd need to do it full time) It's a very flooded market.

joelhaus · 7 years ago

Agreed. Just launched my company to help the types of agents you're talking about: GeneralReferral.com

Brings technology to an underinvested corner of the traditional brokerage.

Could use some marketing help...

joelhaus commented on American landlords derive more profit from renters in low-income neighborhoods citylab.com/equity/2019/0... · Posted by u/vector_spaces

mjevans · 7 years ago

Skimming the article, an obvious solution seems to be overlooked.

Someone is probably a lot less likely to trash/destroy something they own / are in the process of owning.

Imagine if there was far less rental and much more liquid stock of housing units in markets?

What if everyone who was renting now could actually "buy" livable housing at that same level of rent; rather than lining the pockets of others?

joelhaus · 7 years ago

True, but beware the unintended consequences of 2007.

joelhaus commented on Bitcoin hits 3-year peak, nears record high on U.S. ETF approval reuters.com/article/us-gl... · Posted by u/mrb

colordrops · 9 years ago

Can't the same be said of any monetary instrument that has changed in value due to deflation or inflation?

joelhaus · 9 years ago

Your point illustrates why half of the federal reserve's mandate from congress is price stability. See Macroeconomics 101... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply

OP's point seems to be that inflation of bitcoin value is built in, effectively resulting in de minimis velocity and seeking out of alternative stores of value which are more stable. Bitcoin is how I would design a currency if I wanted it to self implode.