aforest

I think for myself. I am politically far-center.

[vittorio @IterIntellectus]

holy shit
i asked claude to make a video on western civiization

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

I’m in love with this sentence:

“Don't let someone ruin your peace just because they can't find theirs.”

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

A burglar breaks into a dark house late at night. As he’s grabbing the TV, he hears a voice behind him:

“Jesus is watching you.”

He freezes. He shines his flashlight around and spots a parrot in the corner.
“Did you say that?” the burglar asks.
“Yes,” the parrot says. “My name is Moses.”

The burglar laughs. “What kind of idiot names a parrot Moses?”

The parrot stares back. “The same idiot who named the Rottweiler Jesus.”

[Hillbilly @JamesHu27192912]

See y’all tomorrow I’m just tired and my day isn’t finished

[Coleman Hughes @coldxman]

Because it's a ridiculous question. Why should my daughter eat healthier food than the average person? Why should she breath cleaner air than people living in Beijing & Mumbai? The answer to all such questions is "because I love her & can provide her something better". Period.

[Meditations in Color @MeditateColor]

Around 1910, Franz Marc deliberately stopped trying to paint animals in their natural colors. He developed his own symbolic system.

Blue was spiritual and masculine, yellow gentle and feminine, while red represented matter, something heavy and brutal.

[Jake @JakeCan72]

Harvard kids singing Radiohead’s “Creep.”

This could have gone very wrong.

Then the lead singer opens his mouth.

The Harvard Veritones have won at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella — the real-world competition that inspired Pitch Perfect.

Turn the sound on for this one.

[liminal @Liminal1988]

The most badass thing you can do is,...

[aforest @tserofa]

Agree with your analysis and conclusions. Adding that the residential mortgage rate has settled in at roughly its long-term historical average.

So, maybe the new reality is normality. Which suggests that resale house prices will re-set downward closer to normal levels.

Grok calculated the average 30-year mortgage rate since 1971 as "roughly 7.6–7.7%."

Also, from Grok:

[Matthew Chang @MatthewChang]

Allow me to interpret what’s happening.

Anthropic is being audited.

Anthropic desires to file an S-1, as they would like to go public. Therefore they need an audit. And by “they”, I mean the VC’s who invested in them. So “they” can exit their position and pass the bag to firemen, nurses, teachers and policemen.

How does this go from the VC’s to the working man and woman? Because the size of the IPO will automatically qualify Anthropic for the Fortune 500 and the Dow Jones 100. Therefore, every working person with a 401k or pension will end up owning a little bit of Anthropic in their mutual funds. Teachers hold the bag, VC’s take the cash. Thank you, come again.

Now back to the audit. The audit required is a PCAOB audit, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. This audit is what all public companies must comply with be on the stock market. Revenue recognition, expense classification, depreciation, related party transactions, etc. It’s there for consumer protection.

This audit is TOUGH. It is INVASIVE. There is no way to lie your way through it. Any company that passes a PCAOB audit automatically earns my trust on finances.

How do I know? Because I’ve been through it before. @ChangRobotics is 2 year PCAOB audited and currently underway for a 3 year audit. It’s brutal. The same as showing up as the valedictorian to your high school graduation, except you’re naked, and you have to walk on stage and deliver the speech. It’s rough. And I know many incredible founders that can’t pass one.

Now, why would Anthropic be leaking all kind of weird statements lately about “self pacing” a slow down on AI (e.g. they are WAY behind on revenue), and profitable if they didn’t have expenses (e.g. we just learned for the first time what our expenses are, because we’re being audited).

Because they were claiming NVIDIA discounts and Microsoft cloud credits as revenue. Because they had no clue what their expenses were, or why it even mattered. Because they had unlimited investor capital and their job was to burn it to make an LLM. Well, they did a great job with that!

That’s the same as my wife coming home with Bed Bath and Beyond coupons and telling me it’s her paycheck. Ummm, not the same, sweetheart.

So by now hopefully you can see that Anthropic is in a PCAOB audit right now, in order to file an S-1 and go public, and pass the bag to teachers so the VC’s get profits. And hopefully that explains their “crazy” behavior.

In reality you can be grateful to KPMG, PWC, or whoever is auditing Anthropic, because it’s the first time Dario learned that:

1) we are not profitable
2) expenses matter
3) coupons are not revenue
4) we have no clue how to be “profitable”
5) growth is hard when revenue numbers are in an audit and not a power point

-your neighborhood engineer

[Naval @naval]

The best way to pace the frontier is to hold the labs fully liable for the behavior of their models.

[DE GOLDSMITH🪙🪙🪙⭐ ⭐⭐ @vickervics9]

A woman on the flight looked at my dog and whispered that he looked dangerous. She asked why a German Shepherd like him was even allowed on the plane.
His name is Drake.
For six years he worked with Marine Special Operations as a Multi-Purpose Canine. While most of us step back from danger, Drake was trained to move toward it.
He tracked high-value targets on missions that could not fail. He found hidden explosives before they could take a life. He was shot twice protecting the team beside him.
The scar on his shoulder came from shrapnel in an IED blast in Helmand Province. Bleeding and hurt, he kept working and located four more devices nearby. That slight limp is from the rounds he took during an ambush while covering his handler. Because of Drake, a young Marine made it home to his child.
He received a Navy Commendation Medal and a Purple Heart. He is credited with helping save more than forty lives.
He has never bitten a person. The only things he ever went after were the threats he was trained to stop.
So no, I am not moving my seat.
If you want to, you can thank him for his service.
If this changed how you see him, comment Drake. I would love to show you the dog he is now — quiet, loyal, and still watching over the people around him.

[🕊️ @lichthauch]

My children laugh for no reason sometimes, and when it comes it feels like a spell being cast. i think i might be witnessing the birth of magic itself when i hear them giggling alone in another room for absolutely no reason. there is no sound like it in the world. nothing compares to it. i know of no prayer or substance that will stop me in my tracks and bring me to the verge of tears the way their idle laughter in the midst of an ordinary day does. it feels like being handed a proof that reality isn't what it seems, that there is an undercurrent of mystery flowing beneath the surface of all things, and they have found a way to dip their toes in it while the rest of us go on with our daily lives, unaware of the miracle lapping at our feet. i am so grateful to live with such small wizards who can summon pure joy out of thin air and sprinkle it around my house like fairy dust

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

All I can tell you is that's it's been one damned "existential" panic after another since I was old enough to turn on the TV.

And no panics at all since I was old enough to turn it off.

[County Highway @countyhwy]

This is why you need to hear American music as a continuum.

[Olga Tuleninova 🦋 @olgatuleninova]

Journey, Every Step”
Acrylic on Canvas - 24 x 18 inches
By Canadian Painter..Mark Grantham
(Born 1966)

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

Many have never seen inside of one. Most heard it…

This is the magic of the Leslie Rotating Speaker.

Listen to the sounds wave expand and collapse like a train whistle passing you by.

[aforest @tserofa]

🤣🤣🤣

[Encyclopaedia Britannica @Britannica]

We've revised our first edition illustrations to reflect the updated terms.

[aforest @tserofa]

@FischerKing64 Seems an example of Elon's Razor: "The most entertaining outcome, especially if ironic, is the most likely."