Whenever I think of Telegram, I think of this:

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram-is-not-really-an-encrypted-messaging-app/

When using LLMs for coding, I only get results that I like and trust when I slow down to my level of comprehension. If I don't, it becomes this blob of text that I have no context on. I do not feel proud of it. I cannot trust it.

I'm doing a project with LLMs now. It's been going for a month. I barely made any meaningful progress. I'm just trying new things, prompting, waiting for things to finish. But no real output.

Yes, I explored some things, but I maybe understand 10% of it because I have no time to review, I need to keep the velocity up. I need to keep prompting.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have just written it all by myself, slowly, mostly using the LLM as a search engine. I think I would have ended up in a better place.

I feel like we are all being lied to by AI companies. They dumb us down. We are too lazy to do hard things now because it feels not modern to do your own work.

But the thing is - with LLMs, you are getting the same results as everyone else. It's the worst. A complete monoculture.

I will keep using them because I am still worried that I'm just not using them right. Maybe there's a chance. Maybe I should just prompt better. Just one more prompt. Then one more. The cycle continues.

I feel like a sucker. I hate it.

I enjoyed reading Gravity's Rainbow, but I could not finish it (two times). No spoilers! I was reading it with the Pynchon wiki side by side because there are so many references. It goes super slow. I have to reflect on every paragraph. My vocabulary is not advanced enough. It is kind of like a tea ceremony for me and the pace of modern life seems to be incompatible with this. There is also a great podcast called Pynchon in Public.

@hashbender I would love to hear more on the history of Luxor and company management. I have so many questions. Also on your view of Bitcoin.

Did you bootstrap? If not, how did you find and approach investors? Is it just a numbers game? Is it all about who you know or is it about having a great product? Both? Any unconventional advice there? Do you think that bringing in investors robs you of your vision by giving you another boss to work for or do you think of them mostly as a means to an end?

Any tips on growing the company? Is it easier after you get to a certain size or harder? Different? How?

These days, how do you ensure you're not stagnating? Being the CEO, how do you decide what to focus on next? How do you ensure you get original ideas? How do you ensure you're not surrounded by yes-people?

What do you think is the main job of you as the CEO? What do you actually do day to day? How do you decide what to delegate? If people you delegate to or hire do not have the same standards, how do you avoid thinking that you might be dragging the company down?

Do you get depressed sometimes thinking that you're just in a rat race? Why not retire today? What is driving you today? Is it harder or easier than in the early days? Do you work every day? What do you do when you do not work? How often do you exercise, for example?

What do you think of the "Bitcoin is bad for the environment" claims? Are you actively fighting that or just ignoring that? Are you a Bitcoin believer or do you do this mostly because it's a profitable business?

What would you like to do to support Bitcoin? It seems like these days it is extremely unpopular. Are you worried about Bitcoin failing? Reflecting on the past 10 years, is Bitcoin progressing, regressing, or stagnating? Do you even care?

Please no. First, there is already 4chan or whatever chan you like. Just go there.

4chan in particular has a lot of negativity attached to it and it will only make Bitcoin adoption more difficult.

I like this place for nuanced discussions that are not weird. Please do not ask me to define weird, you know what I mean.

Great channel and I appreciate your journey, but I am sad to hear that you're a BIP110 supporter. There is a reason that BIP has no hashrate support. It does not solve the problems it claims to solve and it creates more problems.

What I'm trying to say is that most people won't do that, so instead they rely on accountability. E.g., you don't need to review Apple's code (some of it is open source), because you can always sue them (in theory) because they are a legit company.

I feel like to many Graphene is a toy project, but it is now backed by a foundation and has a reputation, so the argument is moot, and there's no need to be worried about who is responsible.

I was mostly addressing arguments similar to "what is preventing Graphene devs from backdooring it?"

Great post because it includes a practical todo list. Modern tech companies are all the extension of the state. As the state gets more oppressive year to year, so does software. It may be scary to trust your secrets to anonymous developers behind Graphene, but you don't have to go all-in. It may also seem like a company like Apple would be more trustworthy because you know who is in charge, but realistically, you have very little leverage over such a big company, while Graphene developers have a reputation to lose, so there is no reason to trust Graphene less compared to a traditional company.

What do you like about Taleb? IMO the only reason why he is so popular is because people are attracted to contrarian ideas. They are always looking for a cheat code to life, but there is none. Taleb is a doomer, similar to Ray Dalio, just with academic credentials (this is not a compliment), who predicted 21 of the last 3 recessions. The performance of his hedge fund is also questionable. So I see no reason to listen to him, but I'm glad that he managed to create this great reputation for himself.

@robin_linus I wish you would do it on Nostr.

Based on the replies below, it seems like we need various modes: default (current), Emacs, Vim.

@k00b I would be interested to hear how the website is doing from the commercial standpoint. Is it something you're doing as a passion project? Is it making money? In my opinion, it being commercially viable is essential for long-term success. What is your strategy to achieve that?

But why only these two? Do you buy everything from that lady and only use your friend to commute?

Would you mind advertising businesses that you like? Maybe that's another part that's missing: being able to discover (good) merchants.

Read or listen to Stephan Kinsella in Against Intellectual Property

I am glad you are involved.

Great that the money is being allocated to Bitcoin work.
It needs to follow the same model as other grant programs.
Should be no strings attached, transparent, and proof of work based.

Otherwise, this will face the same fate as the Rust Foundation initiative.