I don't expect Menlo Park to keep it character for long as Silicon Valley CEOs are fleeing the state.

I wonder if tax returns of corporations could be made public data.

It could but then it would show that the effective tax was not 30% but 3% and there is a strong lobby in Washington against that.

You think public companies are just lying in their audited financial statements?

No, I think both of the following statements can be true at the same time:

1. The audited financial statement meets all requirements and is accurate according to the relevant definitions, stating that the effective federal tax rate is 30%.

2. They pay an effective federal tax rate of 3%.

I don't think those statements can be true at the same time, without significant qualifications on (2) in a way that make it meaningless. Certainly not the reasonable straightforward reading of the phrase.

Maybe you are right, but maybe the significant qualifications are on (1) in a way that make it meaningless.

There is a reason why large companies have entire departments dedicated to identifying and utilizing every available national and international tax loophole, all while working to maintain a positive public image.

> maybe the significant qualifications are on (1) in a way that make it meaningless.

I don't agree with this. Are you willing to suggest any specific qualifications you take issue with, so the rest of us can consider them?

I am by no means an expert in this field, but I do know that in the US, money is the primary source of power. Major tech companies have vast financial resources - so much so that their wealth surpasses the GDP of many countries. It's also clear that lobbying holds tremendous influence in the US. For instance, organizations like the NRA and NSSF wield significant power, which is why strict gun control measures are rarely enacted, regardless of the number of casualties from mass shootings.

1. Money translates to power

2. We know lobbying is highly effective

3. There are numerous national and international tax loopholes

I’m simply connecting these three points. Some might suggest that the government could intervene, but do you really believe Trump would challenge these major corporations while refusing to disclose his own tax returns? Absolutely not. So these companies have the required power, motivation and lack of resistence to make it happen.

Companies use different numbers for different things for maximum advantage. The president of the United States does so routinely in his business dealings. One set of numbers when getting insurance and another when getting a loan.

To you, what's the point of spending countless billions on space exploration?

Space exploration needs things to be better. Better propulsors. Better seals. Better materials. Or else the space capsule explodes and people die.

What the article is proposing is making programming worse, for no apparent benefit for anyone except those who sell AI data center cycles.

Good comp. Working with expensive materials and stuff that can explode while people are inside by necessity forces a greater scrutiny of good vs. bad ideas. You don't get that ideal balance between experimentation and wisdom when anyone can type anything into an editor at no cost.

You can make that argument about every single thing that is wasteful but can be justified as "research".

Sure, every bit of f--ing around is research, but ROI is far from constant.

100% this. There's nothing wrong with focusing on first principles and this is a rediscovery in that matter.

It's just an acknowledgement that the Miura pattern works and this kid kept his focus. To be perfectly honest, he just took something that was already done before (the fold) and applied it. Scientists do this all the time and win prizes--like cellophane tape to create graphene.

I see this posted everywhere this week. Is it really that good? I understand this runs on any hardware (not limited to Mac Minis) as long as you have an API key to an LLM (Preferably to Claude). People online make bold promises that it will change your life...

It sounds interesting to me, I might install it on a cheap Mini PC with Ubuntu. This can't come at any worst time as storage and RAM has gotten astronomical. I feel bad for people who are just starting to build their first rig and an alt rig for this.

I thought the same thing. I had a spare iMac sitting around so I thought I would kick the tires on it. I realize I could have used something else, but I wanted to give it iMessage access. I have to say, it's just better enough than a few things I have tried to really give me a glimpse of what is possible and make me excited. I am nervous about handing over a computer, my accounts, data, etc to a tireless bot that can destroy my life for a year on accident, but regardless I think this is startling good and fairly polished.

What’s the main use case for you or feature with the greatest promise?

It's only been a few days and I am still exploring, but my household has two adults and three kids all with very busy, individual schedules, and one of the nicest features was setting up a morning text message to everyone with reminders for the day. It checks school schedules, test reminders, sports events, doctor's appts (I am in PT), and adds personal context assuming it has access to it (it usually does). I understand much of this probably could have been done for a while, but this seems like the nicest packaged up assistant that I have tried.

You can use local llms, API key is not required...

I've been really impressed with it.

Windows 11 doesn't support Intel CPUs older than 8th gens. Linux is no longer an alternative, it's a lifeline for many old yet very capable machines.

What is Microsoft trying to do by ending Windows 10 support?

I believe it does, but only from a clean install, rather than an in-place upgrade; I ran into this a few years ago.

By default the official unmodified Windows 11 ISO enforces CPU, RAM, and TPM/Secure Boot checks. You can bypass these by customizing the installer, configuring some things at install runtime, installing on one machine and moving it over, etc and it may work but the resulting install is not officially supported unless the machine meets the requirements described under https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica.... Some ISO-to-USB tools like Rufus can make doing this as easy as a checkbox.

I've run many machines this way without issue yet, but it's not officially supported. I'm hoping Microsoft will really just make "Windows 12" or something if they ever decide to make these true hard requirements to load at all instead of just be supported.

+1 to simple machines.

As an analogy and anecdote, I've learned a lot about cars through RC racing as a teen. Building differentials, CVDs and Universal Joints, hydraulic shocks towers, and tuning radios really gave me the baseline to know and fix cars as an adult.

I still lack a very basic understanding of computers which has somewhat neutered what I'm capable of doing today. I'm now sorta getting back into learning these things but it's kinda hard when it is limited to weekends and holidays. I hope RPI keeps going with their vision as a publicly traded company. Kids need to learn these things.

Ever thought of writing an emulator? On Reddit theres /r/EmuDev which is a nice place.

For example you could start by writing a CHIP8 emu, then a Space Invaders Emu. After Space Invaders most people write a Game Boy(almost same CPU as Space Invaders and hardware is well documented) emu, but you could try to do a 8086 PC if you want to know more about "real" computers.

There are free BIOS you can use, and FreeDOS, and then rest of the machine is pretty well documented.

Thanks for this writeup, I'm going to try myself as I have a few Raspberry Pi Picos laying around myself. I'm going to try to create a Google Colab Notebook for my virtual environment instead.

Question. Have you worked for a utility company?

Steam is starting to become the 'Apple Computer Inc.' everyone wants.