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Cake day: June 29th, 2025

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  • I may get this half right as I’m not super hip to this stuff, but I have read that from a design and engineering standpoint humanoid robots are the least efficient possible whereas purpose-build robots (which typically look nothing like humanoid) are the obvious choice in most cases. Having said that, a lot of companies are chasing the humanoid form because they’ll be able to immediately adapt to existing infrastructure (to replace human workers). They’ll be able to occupy existing work spaces, use existing tools, etc etc. Which from a profitability/capitalism perspective is the goal.

    The better these things get at doing general labor and even skilled tasks like harvesting crops, building houses, garbage collection, etc etc… the less jobs for the working class. Libertarians genuinely believe that AI and robotics will create a utopia but the self-same libertarian billionaire assholes will never stoop to paying taxes, or contributing to social safety net programs, etc etc. So for them robotics taking over as many labor markets as possible is a dream come true. They don’t give a flying fuck what happens to the rest of us. If we don’t have work, we don’t have money to participate in capitalism. They’re already outlawing homelessness and building concentration camps for the poor.

    It’s a good time to re-read The Grapes Of Wrath in my opinion.





  • The whole *ESG (edit) thing is partly a grift if you dig into it. Originally there were some actual ethical ones (and there probably still are) but as usual the hypercapitalist machine of wall street & co saw a lot of people putting their money into them and promptly created their own, and here we are. They are probably arguably better than nothing but there is quite a bit of writing out there about how many of them turn out to be bunk when you scratch the surface, with plays in O&G or weapons manufacturing or prisons etc etc. I don’t do much investing but what little I have done, I’ve chosen to buy stocks in companies that make products I actually use and support and want to see do well. It’s not a very scientific strategy to say the least but I’ve done alright with it.

    Michael Burry is an interesting one. Fairly recently he dumped most of his positions and put it all into Estée Lauder. For a lot of reasons. One of them being the so-called “Lipstick Effect” which, counter-intuitively, things like beauty products actually do better during recessions and depressions. Do with that information what you will.

    I’ve been trying to find ways to invest in things that will earn me some return on the NYC housing and short term rental market profitibility crash if Zohran wins in November. The landlord class is terrified of him getting in and a lot of rental property companies and large orgs that invest in and flip housing, and the banks that prop the whole thing up with loans to same, have already been doing some pretty major pullbacks just based on the outcome of the primaries. My hope is those groups sell en masse to cover their debt and bring housing prices and rents down dramatically. Some puts on the right companies could be a pretty nice return. It’s fun to think about.




  • True story I actually meant to switch to .zip and I had both it and dbzer0 open in tabs for a few days (deciding between them) and on d-day for .ee I opened one and signed in and did the verification… and then realized where I was. And actually I’m happy with my accidental choice. It’s rad here.