Lack Of

Chill Political Economy, Tech

It’s AI. My company has canceled at least one hire due to longer needing the role since AI is doing 100% of the job.

And that’s how it’ll happen. Despite flashy layoffs (Oracle, Microsoft), most of the results of AI will be people who are not hired: junior and even mid-level people in various tech fields just aren’t obligatory to bring on board any longer. And that is only going to get worse.

So, in other words, the problem is not and won’t be firing. It’ll be lack of hiring.

And yes, this will soon happen to other fields1, as it always does. As usual, tech just gets hit first.

  1. Already is, really, but harder to see in the numbers just yet.

Chill Links

How Microsoft Vaporized a Trillion Dollars.

California’s only nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, just won approval to stay open until 2045. Cool. Should build a hundred more.

The True Shape of Io's Steeple Mountain.

LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer.

Vector Meson Dominance.

The Wealthy Investors That Powered Private Credit Are Rushing for the Exits.

Untaxed wealth hidden offshore by richest 0.1% surpasses entire wealth of the poorest half of humanity.

EV adoption in America: Who’s winning, who’s losing?

Welcome to the Technocracy. The dreams of a forgotten movement from the 1930s live on.

Scientists are working on “everything vaccines”.

Iran Strikes Leave Amazon Availability Zones “Hard Down” in Bahrain and Dubai, Per Internal AWS Communication. Welcome to another part of the future of warfare.

Never Start Always Stopping

Chill Annoying

Drivers Celebrate the Demise of the Most Hated Feature in Their Cars.

Good. That start/stop feature was such an annoying, worthless piece of crap. Especially growing up with cars that often would just shut off randomly, it increased my aggravation level higher beyond all reason whenever I was cursed with a rental that had that execrable feature.

It truly sucked so much to drive one of those cars.

No one will miss it. No one should.

Chill Links

Only one of these degrees treated people as anything more than an interchangeable asset.

Hershey to resume using chocolate in most products; Reese’s grandson may taste sweet victory.

Another GLP-1 weight loss pill gets FDA approval, and it has fewer restrictions on how it’s used.

As arms agreements fray, China secretly expands its nuclear weapons infrastructure.

‘You’re a liar.’ Why the world’s biggest building boom has run into a wall in California.

A $22.5 million warning for the return-to-office era.

A third inflationary shock in less than a decade is coming: who will pay the price this time around?

‘On a whole other level’: rapid snow melt-off in American west stuns scientists.

Why is my toothbrush texting me?

Retirees receive six times as much in federal dollars as young people.

The Rise, Fall, and Glorious, Gory Return of Practical Effects in Horror.

Iran war shows why WA should lean into all-electric future. As should everyone with a damn lick of sense. Which the US does not have.

Spectacular fossil treasure trove pushes back origins of complex animals.

America Now Has an EV Rust Belt. High Gas Prices Won’t Rescue It.

Fake Imm

Chill Regular-ass Post

All of the rich nations who are being overwhelmed by Islamic terrorists and parasites should band together to buy land in Africa or somewhere else to house them. Any “refugees,” economic migrants or asylees go there. That’s their new home. Provide enough troops to safeguard it and send some food (enough to survive), but that’s it. Then after a series of years-long evaluations, education, and tests, you can move to a real country.

I bet that would cut fake immigration 99%+.

KuberNOTes

Chill Annoying, Tech

Kubernetes is such absolute shit to work with. It’s one of the worst tech products I’ve ever used. It perpetually feels alpha-level. Partially that’s because it’s based on the priorities and “needs” of developers, so it favors extreme complexity over everything else — with security, networking and performance as a very late afterthought. Infrastructure people wouldn’t overlook those items. But the reality is, most devs don’t care about them and don’t understand them. (Many devs think a millisecond is “not much different” than a microsecond, for instance.)

It’s also an example of “new, cool, so must be good.” Tech is much the same as the fashion world. Surprisingly similar, in many ways. Various flashy products emerge, most of which don’t perform in any way as well as the old versions, but offer some cachet, some sense of being “in style” and are adopted by people shilling things or too clueless to actually understand anything other than the latest headlines.

And then MBAs and poor tech leaders pick up on this and force others to adopt that tech, even when it is completely inappropriate to the use case. Kubernetes experienced significant growth and usage from that.

Kubernetes is needed by maybe 0.01% of companies. Everywhere else, it’s an absolute waste and pointless.

Tears of Tiers

Chill Politics

(1) Max (@minordissent) / X

I think this is largely correct. As for me, I am on the side of whoever does not condone rape gangs, does not support burqas, does not believe people like Iryna Zarutska being murdered is an example of social justice, and who would not join Hamas if given the chance1.

I’m willing to fight beside people who support progress, who are not degrowthers, and who believe we should be out in space doing cool space stuff. If that is fight is political or me with a big-ass sniper rifle, I can roll both ways.

That’s what side I’m on. I don’t care about labels. I care about the work and protecting civilization.

  1. Where they’d quickly be murdered, of course