> the idea is to use AI to build super productive farms and greenhouses
How? What are the mechanisms in which AI will lead to farms and greenhouses being more productive? How will AI improve the existing automation that already exists for the farming sector, and has existed for a hundred years?
fully automated with robots. the AI designs thousands of experiments and deploys them at scale. idk, i'm not an agriculture expert. it was just one example. what other possibilities are there?
electronics recycling, disassembling old computers to get the raw materials into a form that can be used again. we'll need programs to automate the production and testing and analysis of the robots that will recycle the components.
That much is obvious. The fact that you’re straining so hard to come up with these bongcloud “ideas” should clue you in that maybe this isn’t the revolutionary tech that the suits are selling it as
Alcohol makes a good solvent so it extracts flavours in things that don't tend to go in a liquid. That's for liquors at least, for things like beer and wine, they're tasty drinks that also happen to have alcohol in them through the process of creating them.
This unsubstantiated rumor coming from......the Secretary of Commerce?
"Reuters was not immediately able to establish how the fee would be administered. Lutnick said the visa would cost $100,000 a year for each of the three years of its duration but that the details were "still being considered.""
"Lutnick said on Friday that "all the big companies are on board" with $100,000 a year for H-1B visas.
"We've spoken to them," he said."
It's not what the official announcement from the White House said. The official announcement from the White House has made it seem that the $100K fee applies for the full duration of the visa. This number is chump change for a 3+3=6 year visa.
> The exec also said "less than one percent of one percent" of players are filing customer service tickets about performance issues, and asked people to "code your own engine and show us how it's done, please."
???
Why wouldn't we just use your competitors engines instead.
They aren’t even using an engine they built themselves. It’s built on top of Unreal Engine 5 which performs great for a ton of other games. They had to put effort into making it as badly performing as it is. It’s crazy.
> Charlie Kirk thought conversation was the only way we were going to heal America. He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger. We had to be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean. And to talk to each other across divides. These are exactly the kind of things good discussion here exemplifies.
And just so we're clear on what some of those surely great conversations were, to say what he meant, without him being mean, to talk across divides, here's some of the guy's ideals:
"If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?"
"Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more."
"Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge."
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement
"We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately."
"The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white."
"The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different."
"America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America."
"Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America."
"There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists."
Can't lionize a guy for promoting what he believed in without saying what he believed in.
And since we need a disclaimer in all these threads: I don't care about the guy before or after his death, I don't agree with him at all, and I think his views were pretty bad, pretty bad.
Okay, you disagree with him. I get that. But why are you telling us? Are you venting? Are you responding to an experience you had in another thread?
Right now it feels like you've dropped us in the middle of an argument without any context regarding 1) who you're talking to 2) what you're responding to.
You've quoted the OP, but your response seems directed to something else. I don't think the OP lionized anyone, or at the very least, they didn't discourage discussing Charlie Kirk's views. I'm not sure what prompted this response.
Are you saying you don't agree with civil discourse? That you don't believe we should learn to talk to each other without vitriol, poison, and anger? That we shouldn't be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean?
> Can't lionize a guy for promoting what he believed in without saying what he believed in.
On the contrary, he spoke very plainly and clearly. Reading in or projecting beliefs is the activity of those who would lie about him to try to justify harm.
Thank you for sharing the quotes. I haven’t vetted them, but I trust you. I provide context one by one:
1. "If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?"
Refers to how DEI elevates people by skin tone or ethnic claim who would otherwise not have sufficient merit for those roles. Commonly misinterpreted as implying skin or ethnicity correlates with lack of merit, but in truth the view fairly seeks a merit-only approach.
This criticism of DEI doesn’t pretend that two equally meritorious applicants—one a Black female, one a white male—have an equal chance of success in a context where either of them is the minority (e.g. a white guy in a Black finance house, and vice versa). There’s a role for merit-based DEI that addresses the situation: if the only reason you don’t get it is because of your skin color, you should get it. Most people believe this is fair. Racism from every race is real, but practically it may not work to force a non-ethnic Asian into an Asian workplace even with perfect language, because racial stories from the culture will impede optimal collaboration.
2. "Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more."
Statistically, Black people in the U.S. are more likely involved in violent and property crimes against all other races. It’s a fact-based representation. It is not to disparage Black people but to reflect a current fact to do with crime. It is not to suggest that crime is caused by race, but rather correlated with cultural-socioeconomics which themselves are correlated with race.
3. "Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge." – Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement.
Refers to Charlie celebrating Swift’s engagement to “the Pfizer spokesman,” hopeful the experience of marriage will be a positive transformative experience for her, and encouraging her to embrace the traditional marital values he believes work.
Full transcript (via Wisprnote): "But maybe one of the reasons why Taylor Swift has been so just kind of annoyingly liberal over the last couple of years is that she's not yet married and she doesn't have children. I say this non-sarcastically. I say this as a husband and a father: having children changes you, getting married changes you. And I hope that America's biggest pop star, marrying the pharmaceutical spokesperson, ends up conservatizing them. Taylor Swift might de-radicalize herself, she might come back down to reality. I want them to have lots of children—it teaches you something about yourself. Deep down, I think Taylor Swift was actually raised as a conservative who has gotten kind of caught up in this metropolitan liberal stuff, and she doesn’t quite have an attachment to the conservative backbone she was raised in. But this might reattach her in the best possible way. And I'm not saying this sarcastically; I've seen it happen time and time again. When people start to get married and have children, it changes your politics, it clarifies your worldview. And for Taylor Swift, who obviously is very popular and incredibly supported, she might go from a cat lady to a JD Vance supporter. I think we should celebrate that. Taylor Swift, having two or three children—she should have more children than she has houses. That is my challenge, Taylor Swift, and I'm not being sarcastic. I think if she ends up having children, she'll stop this kind of liberal, endorsing-Joe-Biden nonsense. We want Taylor Swift on Team America. We want you to leave the island of the Wokies, and we would welcome you with open arms. One of the reasons so many people on the right have been skeptical or at least a little negative on Taylor Swift is that, up until this point, she’s not a great role model for young women to wait all the way until you’re 35 and just put your career first. We just talked about this with Katie Miller. However, there’s a great chance to change that—a great chance for Taylor Swift now to get married and have a ton of children. You can certainly afford it, Taylor. And you’ve been all through America and the ups and downs. If you feel that violent shaking in your home, that is the earthquake of the pop culture. If you hear that high-pitched scream, those are the young ladies on your block screaming. And honestly, Pfizer pays well, baby. Pfizer pays the bills. That is quite a ring, Mr. Kelsey—I’m impressed. I got to be honest, we don’t know exactly how much Pfizer paid you to peddle that product, but boy, you brought in the Benjamins, sir. That is some impressive carrots right there—that right there has its own zip code. I’m impressed. All kidding and sarcasm aside, this is something I hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative, engage in reality more, and get outside of the abstract clouds. Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge. And most importantly, I can’t wait to go to a Taylor Kelsey cuff—I can’t say it without laughing. You’ve got to change your name; if not, you don’t really mean it. Congratulations, Taylor.”
4. "We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately."
Refers to the medical practice of encouraging solving personal psychological problems with a medical/social solution, and pathologizing normal youthful confusion and experimentation into something that needs to be controlled and fixed, often in irreversible ways, before the age of consent.
5. "The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white."
Refers to sanctuary policy of unchecked immigration and selectively enforced immigration law in Democrat states and cities, backed by party leadership rhetoric supporting this. The thesis is that unchecked immigration is destructive on multiple fronts: it erodes democracy by farming votes, creates costly benefits that don’t produce productive contributors, erodes rule of law, enhances conflict between existing communities and newcomers, and unvetted channels lead to abuse, trafficking, and the entry of violent criminals.
6. "The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different."
Refers to the math of increasing one ethnic demographic population necessarily shrinking the proportion of all others.
7. "America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America."
Refers to issues arising from different values, challenges integrating across religious/ethnic lines, and the long-term consequences of that.
8. "Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America."
Refers to how Islam has been abused as a sword by various revolutionary or terrorist groups, and draws analogy between those groups and the American left. The analogy is apt: much of the narrative structure and discourse used by Marxist revolutionaries and terrorist recruiters finds parallels in the American left.
9. "There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists."
Refers to some finer points of constitutional and religious law and history, which I’m not an expert on. But broadly, it reflects the idea that America’s constitution was founded on, designed with, and inextricably linked to Christian values—among other possible connections.
It's amazing to me that you put this much effort into a calm, thoughtful rebuttal that honours the HN guidelines, and got downvotes and no responses for it. My experience has been that people who post lists of quotes like that are not interested in a discussion or in considering the possibility that they have been misled.
In the future I recommend verifying quotes and looking up full context as well rather than simply trying to consider the words as given.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I understood this to apply to people under discussion, not just other users.
Well it's American immigration law, so who knows, really depends person by person. Like I legitimately think there isn't an objective answer to that question, it's a patchwork of laws and forms and guidelines that overlap and are interpreted by different people. Two different border agents can have completely different opinions on whether your work trip can be counted under a B1/B2 visa or not, and then USCIS (not CBP, border agents, but the immigration services agency, a completely different department) could have a different idea.
The points the article make come close to my gripe with ghost kitchens but don't quite cover it:
they feel like scams and when I've accidentally ordered from a ghost kitchen it was by design a terrible experience.
I'm talking like, you order a 15$ main that is called "creamy pasta with prosicutto" and when it shows up its buttered spaghetti with a couple stamp-sized bits of ham. Ordering from actual restaurants come with some of the downsides the article assigns to ghost kitchens, like cold food and weird presentation, but ghost kitchens never seemed to reach the bar of "food someone would actually order, even if it was teleported to them instantly".
They also scammed the operators. It was an Uber-esque ploy.
What actually got sold was an uber-esque scam: these kitchens were rented to tiny operators who, instead of opening their own restaurants, opened in a ghost kitchen facility. I read an in-depth article that showcased the extremely high failure rate of the operators. They were sold indiscriminately to anyone who could be suckered into doing it, with no thought of whether the "restaurant" was likely to succeed. The parallels to driving for Uber are obvious.
I actually suspect that ghost kitchens would work fine, but it would be one company operating them and carefully selecting products that sell and controlling for quality.
It always felt like a weird business model to me. If you lack a physical presence, the only thing you have over a decent prepared section at the grocery store is variety (and freshness, at least in theory). You don't even have convenience on your side since Instacart exists, and because the lower rent was predicated on leasing in more remote areas, the food is even less likely to be warm by the time it arrives than if you got groceries delivered.
And for the providers of the ghost kitchens, while they are selling a shovel of sorts, their bet was there would be a continuing market for their shovels. That space isn't likely to be used for any other restaurants because of the lack of foot traffic, but it also isn't likely to be used in large-scale food production because the facilities usually aren't large enough to be re-tooled for anything beyond catering companies. Commercial kitchen build-outs are not cheap, so investing in large scale small kitchen spaces is a risky bet.
I mean,they could get better bags that keep the food warm,or a "heating spot" downtown to heat the food,but it's prepared in the kitchen? I don't see how it's impossible,just nobody willing to invest in the Business model that's not a scam
I think inequality is part of the story here too, even with restaurants generally. 60 years ago, it was reasonable to save some money at your union factory job to open a restaurant. If it didn't work out, you could go back to the plant and finish out your 30 years and retire with a full pension.
Now, I'm a top decile professional and would basically have to bet my whole net worth, including my retirement money, if I wanted to open a real restaurant. No wonder chain restaurants rule the day and the only thing interesting happening in food in most of the country are in food trucks. Ghost kitchens, at least a few years ago, seemed like a logical next step after the food truck: an even less capital-intensive way to get into the food service business.
The same forces will push someone who has this ambition to go the ghost kitchen route. Hopefully failing this way instead of with a fully staffed restaurant has saved at least one family from total ruin (downgraded instead to partial ruin).
Yup, this is a crucial detail that the article sort of assumes the reader already knows: the companies being discussed are not actually cooking the food. They are ghost kitchen facility providers. Like WeWork for takeout/delivery cooks. And, surprise: they don’t print money any better than WeWork did.
It's interesting to contrast to food trucks that are another method for more profitable places by reducing costs.
Food trucks seem to be pretty popular and work well.
Perhaps the difference is that food trucks are all about establishing a reputation for good cheap food that you can verify where as ghost kitchens wind up being the opposite.
Food trucks are also usually founded by a person with a vision and passion. Someone who wants to do something completely different with their life, a cook who thinks they have what it takes to go out on their own, etc, and that can be something that goes beyond even the reputational incentives.
Certainly not always, but I'd wager far more commonly than a generic ghost kitchen out of a shared kitchen with an Applebee's or out of the back of a cheap warehouse district.
A ghost kitchen is like an LLM or an ephemeral container, or any stateless instance. Even if you could impart some feedback, it would be gone by the next time you place an order.
Food trucks seem like they would involve more cost than a "ghost kitchen" and the branding on the truck especially will follow you around. If a ghost kitchen sucks, there is no cost in changing their name and maybe even their menu and continuing their bullshit. But there are real costs in re-branding and vinyling your food truck and food trucks deal with face to face business.
>>"food someone would actually order, even if it was teleported to them instantly".
The article states
>>Quality control became impossible. Shared kitchen facilities meant that one staff member prepared food for multiple brands simultaneously. No ownership. No accountability. Just assembly-line cooking with zero connection to customers.
I'm not sure if it was impossible or if management never actually prioritized it, not bothering to understand what an actual customer would want. How much of it is the stupid management assumption that they can "just make a dish generally meeting description X on the menu" and deliver that and it'll be ok? «— Real question, did mgt fail at the product specification level, or was QC just as a practical matter, impossible?
On the economics, it really seems 30% for delivery is insane. It seems that same 30% might exceed the cost of the physical restaurant. And when it adds a 15-45min delay while homogenizing and cooling the meal, it seems an impossible problem. Maybe if the 30% transported it instantly and losslessly...
Probably good this soulless idea will die. Too bad so much perfectly good capital was squandered on it instead of better ideas
It really seems like it should be possible, but you have to put in the effort to develop recipes, buy minimum quality ingredients, and train the staff. Old school diners, especially Greek diners in the NYC area, used to be famous for their wide-ranging menus—burgers, spaghetti, spanakopita, chopped liver, etc.—and the food was generally pretty good. Cheesecake Factory has built something similar on a national level, and workplace cafeterias often aren't bad either, certainly not at the level of a ghost kitchen.
I think tech founders often underestimate what it takes to build a food business and what the margins are like and then start to cut corners to make the business viable.
Greek diners in NYC are a miracle to me. The food isn't the greatest, but it's good enough, and the huge diversity of menu items (usually made by one guy in the back), served for decades, is enough to make me wonder if there's something I'm not understanding about the business -- like secretly they're running 50% gross margins, or the meat is all rat.
Land and rent used to be cheaper, and a lot of people come through the door. The margins on a lot of diner food, like eggs, ground beef, and coffee and fried potatoes, were at least historically fairly high. People in NYC also historically ate out a lot.
I think longtime NYC restaurant owners often love being a community hub, particularly if they’re first generation Americans, so they’re not thinking of how to squeeze the customers or follow the latest fads.
A lot of stereotypical “ethnically owned” businesses in NYC also have their own supply chains. It’s very possible they are or were buying from Greek-American wholesalers who are effectively buying in bulk for diners across the city.
My impression in general is also that people who’ve worked in the NYC food business for a while in general know their preferred vendors to call for any particular thing, from whole chickens to pest control, and that if you tried to compete with them by finding vendors on Yelp or whatever without those relationships you would be at a complete disadvantage.
> I think tech founders often underestimate what it takes to build a food business and what the margins are like and then start to cut corners to make the business viable.
Is that just tech founders, or American business culture, generally? Seems like everything's getting corners cut to the maximum extent possible.
> Just assembly-line cooking with zero connection to customers.
And this is how it works in many (not all) American airports. Local restaurants put their brands on the signs, but the food is prepared by probationary employees of Acme Baggage Displacement And Cafeteria Management Corp.
I like airport newsstands because they remind me a tiny bit of my rare trips downtown as a kid, when there were one or two places still open that sold magazines like The Atlantic and The Economist. Such a delight at the time.
Shops that run 100 different brand names usually do a spectrum of quality and pricing ranging from great quality and great prices to high prices with terrible quality. You might for example put a very similar item (if not exactly the same) on two different menu cards where customer B gets twice as much for half the price. B is the stability of the project while A is a disposable brand. If you can corner the market A conditions the customer to think B is a great deal.
I mean they basically are drive by scams. They just flood the market with a million listings for the same kitchen, use some stock photos (AI generated now). And if you get bad reviews or food poisoning complaints you delete the business and list up 5 more.
I just assumed it was me getting old, but I do go "oh yeah that time when" and then realizing that was a literal decade ago. It all does just bleed together, COVID feels like it was just yesterday, 2015 feels like it was just last year, 2001 feels like a decade ago but that was 24 years.
> 30,000 Hamas fighters
those are different things.