I think it's hard to grasp just how much money he poured into this folly. $80 Billion. For an idea that any random person on the street could have torn apart. He read Ready Player 1 and decided that was what the future should be. Then he tried to make it. He ruined the Oculus brand and stole all the oxygen from other VR development just to make a lesser copy of our own world, but one where he could be admin.
Seattle just opened a new transit line, spanning from downtown Seattle to Bellevue. It's 33 miles long and cost $3.7 billion. It was already carrying 2 million people per year [0] even before the entire line was finished and on the opening day after completion it reached 200,000 riders.
Further from home, the entirety of the Artemis II program cost $93 billion [1] and lists an estimated $4 billion per launch.
One last example - the panama canal would cost an estimated $50 - $75 billion if you built it today. [2] The panama canal reshaped trade routes and the global economy.
Where is Meta's moon landing? Where is their impact? Zuckerberg spent enough money to build a new transit system for an entire city. Enough money to land astronauts on the moon. Enough to connect oceans together. He poured this money down a hole chasing his own vanity and a vision of the future that no one wanted.
How, after all that, did he get punished? He's still CEO. "Meta" is still overvalued. They're still regarded as a serious tech company.
> Vibe coding requires the sota models to work at all
I've been hearing that vibe coding is the future for at least the past year but somehow it always requires the newest model, and all the "old" models produce trash results. Why is that?
Because expectations on what could feasibly be vibe coded have changed. Before with older, worse models it was only toy projects that were expected but now with better models it's much larger enterprise apps.
Genuinely curious, what could an LLM even do for an ice cream shop? Checkout already takes less time than scooping a cone, and it's even quicker with cash. Maybe it could surveil the customers and employees? But I think that will lose you more customers than it gains.
Generally I would expect the ROI to be negative, like we've seen with most corporate AI projects, so yeah any ice cream shop that didn't invest in "AI" is going to come out ahead of one that poured money into the pit.
> There was high turnover from the lack of headcount and overwork which was somewhat alleviated by lowering the hiring bar...
Seen this game played before, at AWS working on the control plane for outposts. The correct solution here is dedicated operations staff to coordinate with the team and let the developers fast track issues that are resulting in high call volumes, not lowering the hiring bar for the entire team. The problem you run into with high call volumes and small teams is that it disrupts most developers enough that they can't build solutions and deal with the maintenance burden at the same time. You bleed talent because it places way more stress than necessary on the team.
I agree that we should abandon car-only transportation and instead move cars much further down the transit hierarchy. Ideally we would be relying on trains, bikes, and buses for most daily movement, using cars as needed instead of by default. But,
> still doesn't solve c02 [sic] emissions
This is incorrect. It doesn't magically make the entire grid carbon neutral but it does let us use much more efficient forms of power generation to make the electricity, and electric cars themselves do not emit CO2 (Carbon with 2 Oxygen). Effectively, switching to electric cars would remove cars themselves as a source of CO2 and make decarbonization much much easier.
If you want a real explanation, this is how defensive wars against an overwhelming opponent are fought. Iran knows that they can't build an iron-clad air defense perimeter, there still isn't a reliable answer against stealth aircraft and cruise missiles. They never had a chance of shooting down every plane that enters their airspace, and that isn't their goal.
Instead, they will fight this war by absorbing blow after blow, hiding their capabilities and striking back when it is advantageous.
All Iran needs to do to win is:
1) Outlast the US air campaign - note this only requires protecting enough of their defensive capabilities to remain difficult. It does not require shooting down every US aircraft that enters their borders. It does not require shooting down most aircraft that enter their borders.
2) Prevent free shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
That's it. They just need to apply economic pain as domestic and international opposition to the unprovoked attack grows.
I'd argue there is a 3) show other gulf nations that the US can't defend them. They are doing a pretty reasonable job of that right now too considering the infra that is being destroyed daily. The real question is what are their goals and what do they stand to gain? A new list may be:
1) Stay in power. They really were pretty destabilized before this. This war may actually be propping up their government because hitting a bully, despite what the movies say, just gives them more power. Reporting from inside the country is sparse, but it seems like the few stories coming out aren't showing the same level of internal unrest that was there a month ago. This objective seems on track.
2) Increase their influence in the region. This is likely happening by the minute mainly by the fact that the US is losing influence in the region the longer this goes on. The US's loss is Iran's gain. I suspect that actual negotiations are happening in secret between Iran and gulf nations that will have long term consequences. I don't know that this objective is on track, it will take years to see, but if I were betting long term I would bet that Iran in 5-10 years will have much more influence in the region than they had a month ago.
3) Harm the US and Israel. Spain is getting almost hostile and we have a lot of US assets there. Pretty much every country on the planet is turning their back on the US openly. The most 'help' the US has gotten is basing from the UK and, of course, gulf nations supporting strikes. Israel is going to loose military aid for decades and potentially more after this administration leaves. This objective seems on track too.
I honestly don't know how Iran could get a better outcome than what is happening right now. By the end of this they will look rational compared to the US, the rhetoric of the last 50 years will look vindicated giving them increased influence and access in the region and a new generation of extremists will have been created. This has the makings of becoming one of the worst blunders in military history.
I guess it's possible that Russia and/or China delivered some hardware to the Iranians. Doesn't seem far fetched given the low international support for this "excursion". Both countries benefit from a US quagmire.
I'm an American and a patriot and the way I want to see this end is with Pete Hegseth and others from this nightmare administration delivered to the Hague, in chains.
They are explicitly forbidden from doing this without attribution. So yes, there is a legal problem with this. All they needed to do to avoid that was provide attribution, but Delve was staffed with such morally bankrupt and incompetent individuals that they couldn't even do that.
I think it's hard to grasp just how much money he poured into this folly. $80 Billion. For an idea that any random person on the street could have torn apart. He read Ready Player 1 and decided that was what the future should be. Then he tried to make it. He ruined the Oculus brand and stole all the oxygen from other VR development just to make a lesser copy of our own world, but one where he could be admin.
Seattle just opened a new transit line, spanning from downtown Seattle to Bellevue. It's 33 miles long and cost $3.7 billion. It was already carrying 2 million people per year [0] even before the entire line was finished and on the opening day after completion it reached 200,000 riders.
Further from home, the entirety of the Artemis II program cost $93 billion [1] and lists an estimated $4 billion per launch.
One last example - the panama canal would cost an estimated $50 - $75 billion if you built it today. [2] The panama canal reshaped trade routes and the global economy.
Where is Meta's moon landing? Where is their impact? Zuckerberg spent enough money to build a new transit system for an entire city. Enough money to land astronauts on the moon. Enough to connect oceans together. He poured this money down a hole chasing his own vanity and a vision of the future that no one wanted.
How, after all that, did he get punished? He's still CEO. "Meta" is still overvalued. They're still regarded as a serious tech company.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Line_(Sound_Transit)
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/artemis-2-cost-explaine...
[2] https://www.mikegravel.org/how-much-would-the-panama-canal-c...
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