The problem is how do we tell you from someone who retires early?
We determine unemployment using a survey, so presumably you just ask.
Readit Newsmiyoji commented on U.S. had almost no job growth in 2025 nbcnews.com/business/econ... · Posted by u/ceejayoz
miyoji commented on Do not apologize for replying late to my email ploum.net/2026-02-11-do_n... · Posted by u/validatori
There are only two suitable mediums: E-Mail or phone call.
If you try to contact me with a phone call, you might as well send your message into outer space. You'll have better luck getting a response from aliens.
99% of incoming calls to my phone are spam. I won't pick up an unknown number unless someone has already contacted me and told me to be expecting a phone call, or it's a call from someone I already know (people I already know don't call me either).
That is to say, your mileage may vary on what counts as a "suitable medium".
I vaguely remember that they tried to reboot it several times. So the same crew invented personal computers, BBSes and the Internet (or something like that), but every time they started from being underfunded unknowns. They really tried to make the series work.
That's not really what happens at all. The characters on the show never make the critical discoveries or are responsible for the major breakthroughs, they're competing in markets that they ultimately cannot win in, because while the show is fictional, it also follows real computing history.
(MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW)
For example, in the first season, the characters we follow are not inventing the PC - that has been done already. They're one of many companies making an IBM clone, and they are modestly successful but not remarkably so. At the end of the season, one of the characters sees the Apple Macintosh and realizes that everything he had done was a waste of time (from his perspective, he wanted to change the history of computers, not just make a bundle of cash), he wasn't actually inventing the future, he just thought he was. They also don't really start from being underfunded unknowns in each season - the characters find themselves in new situations based on their past experiences in ways that feel reasonable to real life.
miyoji commented on AI generated music barred from Bandcamp old.reddit.com/r/BandCamp... · Posted by u/cdrnsf
> you sound like someone from the 1800's shouting about how photography should be banned and not allowed to crowd out hard working painters.
I'm saying that you shouldn't call photographs paintings because they aren't paintings. I don't particularly care if people make AI "music" or "art" and I don't particularly care if they consume it (people have been consuming awful media for the entire history of humanity, they aren't going to stop because I say so), but if you give me a ham sandwich and call it a hamburger I am going to be annoyed and tell you that it isn't a hamburger and to stop calling it that because you're misleading people who actually appreciate hamburgers.
AI "art" isn't art. I don't care whether you like it. It's like fractals or rock formations or birdsong - it may be aesthetically appealing to some people, but that isn't the definition of art.
This is why most publishers won't even talk to you unless you have a finished manuscript already, but I appreciated this look into a different situation.
I hope you finish the book. I would buy it.
I agree in principal, but: The people at the frontier aren't alone at the top of a mountain, they still have each other for guidance. The master that transcended limits while in isolation is a literary trope.
This doesn't contradict my point at all, I agree entirely that people work with each other and it's a great way to learn. And obviously people aren't going to achieve what took tens of thousands of person-hours at the highest level in one lifetime on their own. One does need to stand on the shoulders of giants and all that.
But the OP was making a much stronger claim, that it is, in principle, impossible to learn anything on one's own, and that HAS to be wrong, for the reasons I listed.
Golf is like rowing, like knitting, like learning a new language. If you start without instruction, you'll build bad habits that stay with you forever. You can row as hard as you want, but without proper technique, you’ll never get faster. Golf is the same. Effort doesn’t equal improvement unless it's guided. If you start with fundamentals and practice them intentionally, you will get good. But if you repeat the same shitty swing for 10 years with no feedback, you’ll end up exactly where you started.
> If you start without instruction, you'll build bad habits that stay with you forever.
> Effort doesn’t equal improvement unless it's guided.
This obviously has to be false. Progress is made, people learn better ways to play golf and do all the other things. At the frontier, people simply MUST be doing self-guided experimentation and learning from objective results, and since this has always been true, there was once someone who could not play golf at all (because no one could) who figured out how to hit a ball with a club correctly on their own, without learning from anyone else, because that person was the first person who did it. Thus, self-guidance must be possible and self-improvement must also be.
> But if you repeat the same shitty swing for 10 years with no feedback, you’ll end up exactly where you started.
You always have feedback. If your ball doesn't go where you intended, your swing was bad in some way. If you keep doing the same thing without making adjustments based on measured outcomes, yeah, you won't improve. But you can try different things and figure out what works and what doesn't without ANY instruction or outside guidance.
miyoji commented on How did DOGE disrupt so much while saving so little? nytimes.com/2025/12/23/us... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
Fascinating. Why do you think the stereotype of these hard to fire people is the exact opposite?
I think most stereotypes are the opposite of the truth and it isn't hard to find reasons why.
It's also interesting that you draw a a correlation between "hard to fire" and "incompetent". It's very hard to fire Elon Musk, what does that make you conclude about him?
miyoji commented on How did DOGE disrupt so much while saving so little? nytimes.com/2025/12/23/us... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
Yes. I've been twice in the 9 years that I've been living here. Total time in the DMV in 9 years is under an hour. Last time I went, I spent under 5 minutes inside the building, less than a minute at the desk getting my registration done (I usually do it online, had a weird one-off situation).
I've never experienced customer service half that good from ANY corporation.
It's not unreasonable to think that "is [software] easy or hard for an LLM agent to consume and manipulate" will become a competitive differentiator for SaaS products, especially enterprise ones.
Maybe, but it sure makes all the hyped claims around LLMs seem like lies. If they're smarter than a Ph.D student why can't they use software designed to be used by high school dropouts?