Sailor Sega Saturn

Yeah I saw that but had completely forgotten about it in the meanwhile because I have the memory of a goldfish.

In the grand scheme of things there are worse controversies, but I would so love an enthusiast browser that is, well, “woke” rather than one having a faint stink of techbro worldview about it.

Wait Ladybird is anti-woke? Sigh am I going to have to make my own browser?

(I know I know I’m a lot better about posting about wanting to do cool stuff than actually doing it, hazard of having a full time job)

I think an actual building. Though Forest City is not exactly prime real estate.

There’s some pictures here: https://www.ryanchern.com/posts/network_school (and probably a few other sites scattered across social media). I could geolocate it better than that but I’m currently on shitty mobile hotspot internet.

This appears to be the explainer: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=476 , also referenced here: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=5769

Edit: bonus cursed findings: https://web.archive.org/web/20071006184928/http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=260

why do we, as a society, provide food stamps for the hungry but not sex stamps for the celibate?

“I’m a rationalist because they let me put “quantum computer scientist (not physicist) who’s always right (despite the suffering of fools)” on my nametag”

So what does the name of his blog stand for?

I’m using the term a bit loosely to mean “libertarian citadel except with techies”. Though I think the phrase is technically supposed to mean a nation that starts out as an online community.

Anyway for some reason these weirdos all have this idea that if it wasn’t for all those pesky regulations and people they could usher in a glorious new sci-fi and/or cryptocurrency society. Like look at this example: this B-list CEO in the apartment rental business thinks he’ll be the ruler of a fiefdom that brings about AGI, Quantum Computing, a nuclear energy revolution, bladerunner style flying cars, and sci-fi materials. It’s delusional; or at best grift.

The canonical example of network state is Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School. He owns(?) a building in Forest City, Malaysia (or as he calls it: an island in an undisclosed location off the coast of Singapore). But in a broad sense it’s useful to consider everything from Sidewalk Labs to California Forever to the M.S. Satoshi as thematically in the same sort of ballpark.

More network state nonsense is afoot: https://frontiervalley.com/ https://www.thenerdreich.com/startup-seeks-trump-ai-emergency-for-california-tech-city/

They (who?) have publicly drafted an executive order because they want to take over the Alameda Naval Air Station (a superfund site).

Edit: Per the twitter account the weirdo behind this is James Ingallinera.

Sorry folks, but our iteration is about to be unplugged unless someone releases a proper sequel to Amagi Brilliant Park real soon. Legal anime streaming services herald the end times.

Hell yeah!

Seems there’s a lot of buzz about pride month this year. I’ve been to one pride parade as a teen and have approximately zero LGBT fashion items, but solidarity and visibility seems more important in recent years. I should find a necklace with trans flag colors or something.

Only rationalists (and possibly Chat-GPT) have the spark of life. The rest of us? Unfortunately we’re computationally efficient p-zombies. Mere cardboard cutouts designed to give flavor text to motivate the main characters.

Remember not to offer player characters any SP Potions, that was last universe when we were in the RPG universe!

An internal transfer at my job actually. At least for now they need me so helped set that up, though I’m pretty worried on if that will last long enough for permanent residency or not.

I’d be a little nervous on a job seeker’s visa before knowing the language. It is really hard to find a job as a programmer in Europe without living there or being a citizen; because of language barriers, the labor market test, and the difficulty in getting a company to sponsor your visa. I didn’t send out that many job applications but so far my response rate is zero.

Probably if I couldn’t do a transfer I’d have ended up on an investment visa or study visa somewhere; though maybe I could have found a job in Japan since I can read intermediate Japanese.

I expect learning German to the B1 level will open up a lot of doors, so that’s my main goal for the next few years.

Nah it’s not too bad the IRS guide is only 40 pages! ^{somebody save me}

• All US citizens get to file US taxes every year regardless of if they have any US sourced income
• Foreign income is also taxed (but see next two points)
• The first 126k of foreign income earned while living abroad is excluded from taxation (Foreign Earned Income Exclusion)
• Income that went to paying foreign taxes is also not taxed (Foreign Tax Credit)
• Banks hate opening accounts for US citizens since we’re subject to FATCA filing requirements and thus generate extra paperwork
• Also certain foreign mutual funds are taxed heavily (PFICs), requiring care in planning investments.
• There are a bunch of tax treaties with different countries, which may influence the exact details.
• If you do have deferred compensation that was granted in a state but that was vested or exercised while a non-resident of that state you may also have to file state taxes (e.g. FTB Publication 1004 for California)

I haven’t run through this in practice yet and I will probably give up and hire a professional.

OK completely off topic but update on my USA angst from earlier this year: I’m heckin’ moving to Switzerland next month holy hell.

Back on topic: Duolingo continues to circle the drain. I kind of hate that I’m linking to this because it’s exactly what that marketing-run company wants; but they posted these two videos to TikTok in response to the AI backlash: https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo/video/7506578962697456939?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo/video/7507337734520868142?lang=en

I uh… I don’t think it’s going to change anyone’s minds. Half the comments on the videos go something like:

EVERYONE LISTEN UP!!! 🚨 - starting from today, we are gonna start ignoring duolingo. We will not like the video it posts, or view it. - BASICALLY WE WILL IGNORE DUO!!💔 💔 ON EVERYBODY SOUL WE IGNORING DUO!! 💔 (copy this and share this to every duo related video)

can’t have AI bro coworkers if you’re unemployed :P

I’d certainly feel less conflicted yelling about AI if I didn’t work for a big tech company that’s gaga for AI. I almost wrote out a long angsty reply but I don’t want to give up too much personal details in a single comment.

I guess I ended up as a boiled frog. If I knew how much AI nonsense I’d be incidentally exposed to over the last year I would have quit a year ago. And yet currently I don’t quit for complicated reasons. I’m not that far from the breaking point, but I’m going to try to hang in for a few more years.

But yeah, I’m pretty uncomfortable working for a company that has also veered closer to allying with techo-fascism in recent years; and I am taking psychic damage.

Urgh over the past month I have seen more and more people on social media using chat-gpt to write stuff for them, or to check facts, and getting defensive instead of embarrassed about it.

Maybe this is a bit old woman yells at cloud – but I’d lie if I said I wasn’t worried about language proficiency atrophying in the population (and leading to me having to read slop all the time)