waning gibbous sampler
@waningibbous.bsky.social
economist in tech. opinions my own.
I think the relevant question is whether the National Review would have done a similarly glossy cover piece for Kathleen Sebelius
November 26, 2025 at 12:43 AM
I think the relevant question is whether the National Review would have done a similarly glossy cover piece for Kathleen Sebelius
yeah but you and I are, uh, not teenagers, and it only takes one.
I've been fairly amused that many of the AI -slop Sketchers ads adjacent to the Friend ads have started getting defaced as collateral damage---to me that speaks to genuine annoyance / momentum.
I've been fairly amused that many of the AI -slop Sketchers ads adjacent to the Friend ads have started getting defaced as collateral damage---to me that speaks to genuine annoyance / momentum.
November 24, 2025 at 12:48 AM
yeah but you and I are, uh, not teenagers, and it only takes one.
I've been fairly amused that many of the AI -slop Sketchers ads adjacent to the Friend ads have started getting defaced as collateral damage---to me that speaks to genuine annoyance / momentum.
I've been fairly amused that many of the AI -slop Sketchers ads adjacent to the Friend ads have started getting defaced as collateral damage---to me that speaks to genuine annoyance / momentum.
I'm sure it was part of the strategy, but there's an irl ubiquity to these ads that isn't matched by anything else I've seen---why is there one at the 96th & CPW B/C stop???
November 24, 2025 at 12:40 AM
I'm sure it was part of the strategy, but there's an irl ubiquity to these ads that isn't matched by anything else I've seen---why is there one at the 96th & CPW B/C stop???
ok, yeah, that is all consistent with my baseline prior of not really trusting Hersh---thanks for the color!
November 23, 2025 at 4:08 AM
ok, yeah, that is all consistent with my baseline prior of not really trusting Hersh---thanks for the color!
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
this is the most complete treatment I've seen. I have no idea what to think, would be very interested in your perspective.
this is the most complete treatment I've seen. I have no idea what to think, would be very interested in your perspective.
Seymour M. Hersh · The Killing of Osama bin Laden
Would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 23, 2025 at 2:56 AM
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
this is the most complete treatment I've seen. I have no idea what to think, would be very interested in your perspective.
this is the most complete treatment I've seen. I have no idea what to think, would be very interested in your perspective.
given that this is literally put out by the farm lobby, why would our prior not be that the results have been manipulated to make Trump / Rs look good?
November 21, 2025 at 5:23 PM
given that this is literally put out by the farm lobby, why would our prior not be that the results have been manipulated to make Trump / Rs look good?
AFAIK Q mostly uses Claude as the underlying LLM... they're also in process of rebranding / consolidating with Kiro, both externally and internally.
November 21, 2025 at 1:31 PM
AFAIK Q mostly uses Claude as the underlying LLM... they're also in process of rebranding / consolidating with Kiro, both externally and internally.
unfortunately, the right answer is: do both, start with the easy technique, explain the additional juice you'd get from the complex one, compare / contrast.
this is why take homes are imo great for extracting signal but also pretty fundamentally unfair to candidates.
this is why take homes are imo great for extracting signal but also pretty fundamentally unfair to candidates.
November 21, 2025 at 2:09 AM
unfortunately, the right answer is: do both, start with the easy technique, explain the additional juice you'd get from the complex one, compare / contrast.
this is why take homes are imo great for extracting signal but also pretty fundamentally unfair to candidates.
this is why take homes are imo great for extracting signal but also pretty fundamentally unfair to candidates.
ok but it's not actually true that electricity supply is the rate limiting factor for GPU production, right?
November 19, 2025 at 1:40 PM
ok but it's not actually true that electricity supply is the rate limiting factor for GPU production, right?
just do a full fire-and-replace, tilting the hiring process for new people towards law enforcement, of all stripes, who were pushed out during 2024-2028. there's no reason not to keep the allocated budget and just scoop out the innards.
November 18, 2025 at 2:06 PM
just do a full fire-and-replace, tilting the hiring process for new people towards law enforcement, of all stripes, who were pushed out during 2024-2028. there's no reason not to keep the allocated budget and just scoop out the innards.
the Hungarian pastry shop in Morningside heights is very much not new, but very nice. there are also some pretty nice open seating areas around the new Columbia campus in manhattanville iirc.
November 15, 2025 at 7:38 PM
the Hungarian pastry shop in Morningside heights is very much not new, but very nice. there are also some pretty nice open seating areas around the new Columbia campus in manhattanville iirc.
yeah, that seems right on the consumer side.
on the b2b side, I think AWS's lack of bias towards an in-house model will incentivize it to aggressively push cheap open models in the long run. plus they prooobably have a scale advantage? amzn also dogfoods AWS more than goog does GCP.
on the b2b side, I think AWS's lack of bias towards an in-house model will incentivize it to aggressively push cheap open models in the long run. plus they prooobably have a scale advantage? amzn also dogfoods AWS more than goog does GCP.
November 15, 2025 at 3:37 PM
yeah, that seems right on the consumer side.
on the b2b side, I think AWS's lack of bias towards an in-house model will incentivize it to aggressively push cheap open models in the long run. plus they prooobably have a scale advantage? amzn also dogfoods AWS more than goog does GCP.
on the b2b side, I think AWS's lack of bias towards an in-house model will incentivize it to aggressively push cheap open models in the long run. plus they prooobably have a scale advantage? amzn also dogfoods AWS more than goog does GCP.
why Google, specifically, more than AWS? just the TPUs?
November 15, 2025 at 1:37 PM
why Google, specifically, more than AWS? just the TPUs?
the thing is, the FT and WSJ genuinely have better straight-news coverage on a variety of topics---they're just too expensive!
the amusing thing about the NYT is that it's become the premium mediocre outlet for people who want the appearance of news but don't want to pay.
the amusing thing about the NYT is that it's become the premium mediocre outlet for people who want the appearance of news but don't want to pay.
November 14, 2025 at 1:40 PM
the thing is, the FT and WSJ genuinely have better straight-news coverage on a variety of topics---they're just too expensive!
the amusing thing about the NYT is that it's become the premium mediocre outlet for people who want the appearance of news but don't want to pay.
the amusing thing about the NYT is that it's become the premium mediocre outlet for people who want the appearance of news but don't want to pay.
imo "no algorithm" should eventually be a big part of the Bsky pitch to the liberal elite
November 13, 2025 at 2:41 PM
imo "no algorithm" should eventually be a big part of the Bsky pitch to the liberal elite
I had a sticky toffee donut in dimes square last weekend and it was life changing
November 13, 2025 at 4:43 AM
I had a sticky toffee donut in dimes square last weekend and it was life changing
I mean, politics is a zero-sum game, the theory can just be "we keep it going until the evidence that it's hurting us more than it's hurting them." I don't think we have that evidence yet.
November 10, 2025 at 3:06 AM
I mean, politics is a zero-sum game, the theory can just be "we keep it going until the evidence that it's hurting us more than it's hurting them." I don't think we have that evidence yet.
it's not even clear that rageclicks are something they should want! the paper measures itself on clicks / views, but what they should actually care about is propensity to subscribe / unsubscribe and click on ads.
November 8, 2025 at 2:09 PM
it's not even clear that rageclicks are something they should want! the paper measures itself on clicks / views, but what they should actually care about is propensity to subscribe / unsubscribe and click on ads.
yeah I think that's definitely fair for Trump.
Zohran is an interesting case IMO because he very much did not really take off as a professional entertainer, beyond what his mom was able to do for him, but the training and sensibility clearly gives him an edge in politics.
Zohran is an interesting case IMO because he very much did not really take off as a professional entertainer, beyond what his mom was able to do for him, but the training and sensibility clearly gives him an edge in politics.
November 7, 2025 at 4:30 PM
yeah I think that's definitely fair for Trump.
Zohran is an interesting case IMO because he very much did not really take off as a professional entertainer, beyond what his mom was able to do for him, but the training and sensibility clearly gives him an edge in politics.
Zohran is an interesting case IMO because he very much did not really take off as a professional entertainer, beyond what his mom was able to do for him, but the training and sensibility clearly gives him an edge in politics.
the margin also ended up being closer than expected / too close for comfort imo... it shows good political instincts that Zohran was trying to grab any advantage he could until the very end.
November 7, 2025 at 2:23 PM
the margin also ended up being closer than expected / too close for comfort imo... it shows good political instincts that Zohran was trying to grab any advantage he could until the very end.
I think "they don't answer their phones but do participate in scammy river-sampled instagram ads" also explains some things
November 6, 2025 at 4:47 AM
I think "they don't answer their phones but do participate in scammy river-sampled instagram ads" also explains some things
The entire practice of combining surveys with weighting seems totally antiquated to me. There should be groups that specialize in getting as-random-as-possible samples on the phone, and groups that specialize in forecasting the composition of the electorate. No obvious reason to combine them.
November 6, 2025 at 4:36 AM
The entire practice of combining surveys with weighting seems totally antiquated to me. There should be groups that specialize in getting as-random-as-possible samples on the phone, and groups that specialize in forecasting the composition of the electorate. No obvious reason to combine them.
idk, as someone who forecasts professionally, I think "assumed" is absolutely the right word---if it's just a choice, then publish the expected results under a variety of configurations, and let customers choose for themselves.
November 6, 2025 at 4:30 AM
idk, as someone who forecasts professionally, I think "assumed" is absolutely the right word---if it's just a choice, then publish the expected results under a variety of configurations, and let customers choose for themselves.
I am not a fan of her creative approach to vertical antitrust, but I think she did some pretty good stuff on employment and consumer regulation towards the back half of her term, and would hopefully have scope to do more of the same in nyc.
November 5, 2025 at 5:35 PM
I am not a fan of her creative approach to vertical antitrust, but I think she did some pretty good stuff on employment and consumer regulation towards the back half of her term, and would hopefully have scope to do more of the same in nyc.
if they end up with a Major Questions rationale, anchored in genuine pushback from business constituencies, it also seems unlikely that they're going to just sit back and let him replicate the current regime in aggregate
November 5, 2025 at 4:23 PM
if they end up with a Major Questions rationale, anchored in genuine pushback from business constituencies, it also seems unlikely that they're going to just sit back and let him replicate the current regime in aggregate