I’d do the startups only if they’re once in a lifetime opportunities. I’ve seen that work for people with young kids because it would eat them up inside NOT to do it.
But probably not to just “get startup experience”. Having a kid is a time to not upset your routines if you can manage it. Startups have very wide variance in experiences compared to roles at big company in my experience. Just switching jobs would be difficult.
I had a cushy year at a comfortable job when my first kid was born. I did more the founder thing (write a career changing book) when my second kid was born.
LLMs don't really think, they emulate their training data. Which has a lot of examples of humans walking through problems to arrive at an answer. So naturally, if we prompt an LLM to do the same, it will emulate those examples (which tend to be more correct).
LLMs are BAD at evaluating earlier thinking errors, precisely because there's not copious examples of text where humans thinking through a problem, screwing up, going back, correcting their earlier statement, and continuing. (a good example catches these and corrects them)
I think Fukushima rather than Chernobyl looms over us as a more realistic disaster that could happen again.
When you look at the data though, its political fallout was much worse than the actual toll on human life, etc. Fukushima released a small about of radiation into the environment. But modern reactors don’t have the same runaway reactivity flaws that Chernobyl did.
Not zero risk. But not the level of risk resulting in half a continent potentially being uninhabitable.
Fukushima was the result of the biggest earthquake in 1000+ years of Japanese history occurring where the resulting tsunami knocked out the backup generators at the plant.
Such an extreme set of outlier events could happen again, of course, but it's not very realistic.
That Tsunami also knocked out most of the Tsunami walls it encountered, because it was so much bigger than expected. Nevertheless, a nearby power plant of the same design survived a slightly higher crest than at Fukushima unscathed and even served as an emergency shelter for Tsunami victims.
That plant had always had the higher wall due to one engineer who insisted, and Fukushima actually had a natural barrier that was higher, but lowered during construction for convenience. And TEPCO dragged their feet on increasing the height to the new norm that had recently been made mandatory. My understanding is that this is one of the reasons TEPCO got dinged.
And even with all that, a German reactor, for example, would have remained undamaged due to various mandatory safety features even without a sufficiently high tsunami wall. For example, multi-sited and bunkered diesel generators, so no flooding. Also Hydrogen recombinators, so none of those lovely hydrogen explosions that blew the roofs off.
But of course Germany had to shut off its nuclear plants due to the regular occurring 1000-year Tsunamis in Germany that German plants would have survived.
We're crazy.
Oh, and still exactly 0 radiation deaths from Fukushima, and no measurable health impact expected. All health effects, including deaths were due to the unnecessary evacuation. And not just unnecessary in hindsight, this was known beforehand, gut officials panicked.
Did I mention that Japan is restarting their reactors and considers nuclear an essential part of their future energy strategy, as it is the cheapest baseload power source? The monetary cost of importing Gas exceeds even the vastly inflated cleanup and compensation costs (due to the unnecessary evacauations) by at last an order of magnitude. And of course the health impact of those fossil fuel plants during normal operations is higher than that of the nuclear accident.
Among others variables, the plant was designed to be constructed on a hill 30-35 meters above the ocean, but someones decided would be cheaper to construct it at sea level in order to reduce costs in water pumping, others decided to license this, and much latter, one decade before the disaster when was requested to reinforce the security measures within all the reactors in the country -in Fukushima for example to elevate critical systems to hills- others decided to ignore it [1][2]
What happens is that nuclear fusion is not here yet, and there is insufficient stable/maintained energy to meet current demand without using combined cycle power plants (combustion), and this without even a transition to full electric vehicles, with right now sounds to pure phantasy (how will be feed).
So the realistic by the moment sounds like to keep constructing new nuclear fission plants and renewables, keeping a diversification of sources, as is doing China with their mega projects. Without this will not be way to compete with their industry.
But more important, I think is needed to end the nepotism, the revolving doors (amakudari), and, of course, to prevent sociopaths from accessing positions of responsibility in any field... what sounds difficult because those positions are like magnets for them. This is what seems we don't learn from the human history.
Would Chernobyl have realistically made half a continent uninhabitable had the Soviets not taken all measures to contain it? Or is it more worse case fear mongering nuclear has always had, while oil tankers s[ill into oceans, pipelines leak into national parks, people die from polluted air, and climate change continues to grow worse?
I mean, the basic problem at Chernobyl was the lack of a big heavy containment vessel that essentially all other reactor designs have. That containment vessel (and a couple of other design features, e.g. negative void coefficient in a PWR) has, so far, largely prevented Chernobyl like issues at other, better designed reactors. So far a TMI/Fukushima Dai Ichi/Chalk River is about the worst that has been observed in a reactor with a containment vessel.
And as for how realistic it was that it would make large areas unlivable, the threat was of a melt-down going far enough down to hit the water table and contaminating the groundwater. That would make large areas only livable if you brought your own water, even for bathing, basically making the area impracticable. Obviously it didn't happen, but I'm not clear whether it was a 0.5% chance, a 5% chance or a 50% chance.
LLMs can write. Often with more clarity than I can. But I still like to write, because writing is thinking. And I want to hone my thinking about the problem.
The same can be said about coding. Code to think and explore a problem. See how different languages help you approach a problem. Get a deeper understanding about a topic by coding.
All independent agencies are dead, according to SCOTUS fiat. If we want anything to survive they'll have to be rebuilt, either with an enlarged court that won't strike them down again, or as section 1 agencies that Congress has to power directly (which will also be hugely corrupt). Either that or an amendment that creates a branch that straddles the legislative and executive, to be truly independent.
Nah, they are fine. They ate head of presidents office alive last week.
Add: it's also not one anticorruption agency, but the whole bunch of them -- law enforcement one (think of FBI, but investigating corruption in government), special prosecutors office, another agency monitoring assets of anyone close enough to government (including immigration officers on a country level) and their family and a whole separate court with judges vetted by independent panel.
It's elections of Doge of Venice level of indirection.
> "Nah, they are fine. They ate head of presidents office alive last week."
That's the same guy who tried to take over that anti-corruption office. He would be controlling it now, if it weren't for the massive country-wide protests about it. I'm not sure that they're doing fine.
Economist, July 2025:
> "On July 22nd the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, passed a bill that would place the country’s two main anti-corruption bodies—NABU, which investigates wrongdoing, and SAPO, which prosecutes it—under the control of the presidency. This was not the work of rogue MPs. It was orchestrated from the top by President Volodymyr Zelensky and his all-powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak."
>That's the same guy who tried to take over that anti-corruption office. He would be controlling it now, if it weren't for the massive country-wide protests about it. I'm not sure that they're doing fine.
Stage AGs have a strong role to play in anti-trust law. And the other party they're suing _isnt_ a Federal agency this time.
Now maybe nothing matters. But conflicts of interest will come up in those cases. Trump doesn't win _everything_. Trump wins at places where the Supreme Court is using him for their own project of reworking the constitutional order. Basically Trump shoots up a volley with some absolutely batshit PoV, they interpret the topic in some saner (still crazy) right wing legal idea. And the Supreme Court fast track's these cases about executive power.
This case would be State AGs having independent standing to challenge major M&A.
It will drag things out at a minimum, in a way the Supreme Court's rapid resolution of executive branch cases is not dragged out.
Competitive markets provide natural death of weak content, without premature euthanasia of strong content. With on-demand streaming, viewers can stop watching if/when a show deteriorates in quality. Some shows have maintained relatively high quality over multiple seasons.
I was taught that lesson during Lost. If I see a show start doing unnecessary romantic/drug/backstory scenes, I’m out.
I wish more content makers advertised that they have the whole story planned before the show starts (like Breaking Bad/Vince Gilligan). Show Horses is a good example of a modern story without much fluff.
AFAIK Andor was supposed to be 5 seasons, and the story for seasons 2-5 was squashed into season 2, because the production was too long, because that's how it goes these days in streaming.
It was indeed originally conceived as 5 seasons, but the creator Tony Gilroy has consistently said shortening it was his decision because the production was too long and taxing:
"We were halfway through shooting season 1, coming through Covid, and the monumental size of the show, the effort, and everything else was just dawning on us. We realized that I didn't have enough calories to do it, and Diego's face couldn't take the timing, because it just takes too long to make it."
"By that point, the work that was required to make the show, at its minimum, was just dazzlingly blinding to look at. And Diego was like ‘Oh my god, we told them we’d do five years.’ Nobody, if we were gonna do it like this, you couldn’t physically do it. It was just impossible."
IIRC the Go / Now switch was due to Go being the app if you already paid for cable and wanted to watch HBO by logging into your cable provider account. Now was the pure streaming option those without cable could purchase. Took a bit to consolidate I think.
That was the given reason, and I'm sure they knew it was ridiculous and fixed it as soon as they could get all their ducks in a row, but it sure was comically bad from the outside perspective of ordinary users. Even if there had to be 2 apps for some contractual reasons I think most people would have been more tolerant if they had identical functionality and appearance after login, and were just titled "HBO Go for Cable" and "HBO Go Streaming."
I could imagine HBO Go starting off as literally their cable package "on the go" with no intent to ever charge for streaming, being able to login at others houses or on vacation to enjoy your paid package etc. Then another team / project starting up the streaming option and went with Now and I wouldn't be surprised if it was indeed all contractual reasons.
But probably not to just “get startup experience”. Having a kid is a time to not upset your routines if you can manage it. Startups have very wide variance in experiences compared to roles at big company in my experience. Just switching jobs would be difficult.
I had a cushy year at a comfortable job when my first kid was born. I did more the founder thing (write a career changing book) when my second kid was born.
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