Favorites November 21st 2023
Here's the site for comparing car sizes. I was surprised to learn that my current sedan is actually almost exactly the same size as the first one that I bought. I'd like to think that as an EV, it can have a bit of extra interior space, but I have no idea.
Here’s the underlying article. Because OpenAI's charter actually hinges in some ways on the specific term “AGI”, they actually tried to define it. Trying to decide whether it's already here or not was discussed a bit today. Yglesias definitely buys that GPT-4 already is AGI. Here's OpenAI’s charter:
But as Tim points out, that's not how economics or comparative advantage works: "There will never be a point when ai “does half of the work” because humans will always spend most of their time doing stuff ai isn’t good at." 150 years ago half of all human work was on farms, but an automated tractor isn't AGI.
But it appears all the drama is coming to a close. Also, Larry Summers??
These are expected to be used mostly for stationary grid storage. They perform similarly to Lithium-Ion, but they're cheaper and heavier. (As opposed to Iron air that are cheaper yet, and even heavier, but can store energy for a far far longer time)
I'm just trying to keep my readers up to date on modern kids lingo. And here's that original Mad Men Scene.
Flotsam and Jetsam
– I think there's a real argument that having public restrooms be free may have been a mistake, although I'm by no means sure. (src)
– Microsoft's relationship to the Nonprofit OpenAI is similar in some ways to Google's relationship with the Nonprofit Mozilla foundation. (src)
– Russia trying to create a migrant crisis on their border with Finland. (src)
– "Currently, as a % of graduates, Argentina produces the most economists in the world" because they all want to know why their country's economy is so messed up (src)
– Pro CCP groups in SF attacked reporters and took their equipment (src)
– Probably you didn't need anyone to tell you this, but solar panels and wind turbines do not generate that much waste in the grand scheme of things. Here's the detailed write-up. (src)
– China is now building nuclear submarines that are very close to on par with those of the US. (src)
– The junta in Myanmar may finally be collapsing (src)
– Texas leads the US in renewable energy (src)
– Joe Weisenthal likes prediction markets, but argues they're better thought of as just a way to get a quick barometer of the current situation (src)
– Long article about why LinkedIn content is so cringey. (src)
– When asked whether they'd rather be in the Chinese Bloc or the US Bloc, only Russians prefered China. (src)
– Progressive organizations are having trouble staying focused on a wide range of issues as activists push them to spend more time discussing Israel/Palestine. Lrrr of Futurama meme commentary (src)
– George RR Martin has made no progress on Winds of Winter in the last year, despite the fact that he says he's spending all his time on it. He's been stuck so long that it's mentioned in a movie that came out years ago (src)
– WSJ is confused, thinks that battery components going down in price means that there will be shortages of EVs (src)
– Wouldn't it be great if there was an unsubscribe QR code on spam mail? (src)
– Sudan situation is still absolutely horrific (src)
– SF is allowed to use automated license plate readers, they need to do it. (src)