This feels like the same moment for me when I realized I couldn't keep using Gentoo and needed to move on to a Linux distribution that was ready to go without lots of manual effort. I have a family and kids I need those hours. I had the same feeling as OP of losing a fun learning activity. No longer progressing on Linux knowledge just maintaining. Granted it was good enough level to move on but it's still a loss.
I do the same as you with AI now, it's allowing me to build simple things quickly and revise later. Sometimes I never have to. I feel similarly that I'm no longer progressing as a dev just maintaining what I know. That might change I might adapt how I approach work and find the balance but for now it's a new activity entirely.
I've talked to many people over the years who saw coding as a get shit done activity. Stop when it's good enough. They never approached it really as a hobby and a learning experience. It wasn't about self progression to them. Mentioning that I read computer books resulted in a disgusted face "You can just google what you need when you need it".
Always felt odd to me, software development was my hobby something I loved not just a job. Now I think they will thrive in this world. It's pure results. No need to know a breath of things or what's out there to start on the right foot. AI has it all somewhere in it's matrix. Hopefully they develop enough taste to figure out what's good from bad when it's something that matters.
Was the same in the 1990s I'd contend. I distinctly remember talking to my dad about how the internet was going to revolutionize everything. As a teenager I was all into everything going on. His words were "This won't last they don't have enough customers and costs are too high" I'd like to give him credit for predicting this but I don't think he was alone in that realization.
This is were AI maybe today cost too high, not enough customers. Some firms will survive (Amazon/Google of the AI era) others will fold.
I think there plenty of success stories out there but there a lot of snakeoil propped up by VCs.
Who will be the pet.com of the 2020s?
Also everyone and their cab drivers have money in Nvidia right now. I think we all get hurt here.
dot com bubble was a way to make retirement funds pay for global telecom infrastructure. after the companies are gone, infrastructure is still there. google is buying dark fiber to this day...
the last gpu-fuelled bubbles (gaming, web3, ai) are an attempt to starve enemies of chips without kinect involvement. you will have datacenters filled with garbage tech when it's over.
so, no, there won't be a pets.com in this space because as soon as it bursts, it crushes their business defensibility (access to chips and power) will be gone as the price plummet. there's no consumer products.
i guess the analogy to dotcom, is if people were buying pets.com stock just because it had more Herman Miller chairs!
That kind of gives a point in favor of AI enabled IDEs, these kind of operations could often be achieved with simple refactoring tools available without AI today and save massive amount of trees.
Really depends where you live. Obviously if you live in tech hub cities you'll do better than other non hub cities.
Some recommendations: Seattle has Ada technical books. Portland has Powells. Strand in NYC has some technical books. and in Boston MIT Press Bookshop is gold. There are others.
Why would they spend money to replace it? The idea is to weaken and destroy the US and its institutions. Giving Palantir money might mean that security improves, and that goes against their goals. They have already demanded that Russia stop being treated as a cybersecurity threat in other areas of the government, this is a way to ensure that systems are vulnerable to attack.
These sort of government services are always under attack by private organizations. The US Gov doesn't have to give Palantir or whoever a contract, they just cede the ground, give the right people a heads up, and then make the new subscription service a "recommended service provider" as a solid to whichever of Elon's circle gets the nod.
In the UK the some "entrepreneur" was after monetizing access to the Land Registry a couple of years ago. Apparently the free UK Gov service was not fit for purpose it needed a paywall to make it better. Nothing as globally significant as the CVE database, but you can see if the vultures are going after small UK Gov services, something like the CVE database is absolutely a chance to add to the executive bonus pool.
Exactly. The Trump admin is well on its way tanking the USD with tariffs and getting every country (including the penguins) mad at us. The rationalization given by the admin for tariffs (trade imbalance) make zero sense, and they haven't offered anything else.
Ok have that argument on it's own and do it right legal, go through the legislature and discuss the appropriateness of public funding for private institution.
The Trump administration is not arguing or even considering that as part of their objectives here.
I am not up to date on all details, but how exactly is it overreach? It's a good question whether government should give money (9bn but I could be wrong) for research, but lets put that aside for now. (who determines what "research" is this? it could be quantum mechanics, or it could be "gender studies")
Curious as to why do you think this is an overreach.
"By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement
merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices among faculty, staff, and leadership. Such adoption and implementation must be durable and demonstrated through structural and personnel changes. All existing and prospective faculty
shall be reviewed for plagiarism and Harvard’s plagiarism policy consistently enforced. All hiring and related data shall be shared with the federal government and subjected to a comprehensive audit by the federal government during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028."
Trump administration is now the defacto HR department for Harvard, and eventually all universities.
> cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
But! Also! "The University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse."
Cease all DEI programs, but we require 'viewpoint diversity'...
"Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity. If the review finds that the existing faculty in the relevant department or field are not capable of hiring for viewpoint diversity, or that the relevant teaching unit is not capable of admitting a critical mass of students with diverse viewpoints, hiring or admissions within that department, field, or teaching unit shall be transferred to the closest cognate department, field, or teaching unit that is capable of achieving viewpoint diversity."
You say that they are "demands". As if the taxpayers should automatically give billions to Harvard, no matter what Harvard does. That's insanity (to me at least).
"Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment."
"The United States has invested in Harvard University’s operations because of the value to the
country of scholarly discovery and academic excellence. But an investment is not an entitlement. "
So basically, they are claiming that the Federal government will not invest money until Harvard gets rid of the communist/socialist rhetoric. As far as I can see, they are free to burn their money to fund communist ideals. Who says that they deserve taxpayers money by default?
It's amazing how communist problems always end with: "you eventually run out of other people's money"
> they are claiming that the Federal government will not invest money until Harvard gets rid of the communist/socialist rhetoric
They're changing the terms of the trade after a contract was signed. At the very least, this is the U.S. defaulting on commitments.
That said, I broadly agree with you--the U.S. shouldn't be funding Harvard. And the public shouldn't have a say--or continuing economic stake, the way we do with publicly-funded research--in what Harvard does and produces.
This is Trump's trademark move, writ large. We've all read the reports of him refusing to pay contractors after work is done, ignoring the contracts and saying "sue me". This is who he is, and he's just bringing this playbook (back) to the federal government, cheered on by people until they're personally and directly affected by this behaviour.
Research grants come with stipulations on how research is conducted, these grants were already granted so this is essentially breaking their contract. So there is no by default grant, generally the grants also don't delve into what the school can teach and hire for teaching which is very much protected by first amendment rights.
Considering a private university rights to hire and teach as they wish as communism is definitely an odd definition of communism I've rarely seen.
As if the taxpayers should automatically give billions to Harvard, no matter what Harvard does. That's insanity (to me at least).
AFAIK, Harvard doesn't get money for nothing -- it's primarily for research. The demands are orthogonal to what Harvard provides: top tier talent for whatever the government sees fit to fund.
It's amazing how communist problems always end with: "you eventually run out of other people's money"
It's always someone else's money. Roads suck? You probably have too many roads for other people's money to fix. The list goes on. Libertarian dreams of self-sufficiently die when their money has to pay for things. Unless you meant feudalism or plutocracy, where wealth primarily flows away from the working class.
Humans are creatures of community. There will always be taxes for any sufficiently developed people, the only hope is they serve the public good and aren't funneled into the oligarchs' pockets.
Banking as well, this is the kind of offering they've been looking for a while. Google just saw the demand decided to jump in while OpenAI and Anthropic probably calculated they don't have the manpower to deal with the support for this.
I do the same as you with AI now, it's allowing me to build simple things quickly and revise later. Sometimes I never have to. I feel similarly that I'm no longer progressing as a dev just maintaining what I know. That might change I might adapt how I approach work and find the balance but for now it's a new activity entirely.
I've talked to many people over the years who saw coding as a get shit done activity. Stop when it's good enough. They never approached it really as a hobby and a learning experience. It wasn't about self progression to them. Mentioning that I read computer books resulted in a disgusted face "You can just google what you need when you need it".
Always felt odd to me, software development was my hobby something I loved not just a job. Now I think they will thrive in this world. It's pure results. No need to know a breath of things or what's out there to start on the right foot. AI has it all somewhere in it's matrix. Hopefully they develop enough taste to figure out what's good from bad when it's something that matters.
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