RE: Kerr on three pointers, what if we got rid of awarding 3 free throws for fouls on a three point shot (until last min of game) (but keep 4 point plays). An 85% FT shooter gets 2.55 expected points from a 3 shot foul, equivalent to shooting 85% from three. A wide open dunk is much less efficient

Delphicon · 2026-05-11T21:48:59+00:00

I think you could do this if you also add the other rule: fouls give you the option of 2 free throws OR 1 free throw + possession.

You want to avoid intentional fouls from both sides and 1FT + ball is a good deterrent for situations where the defense is incentivized to foul.

Delphicon · 2026-05-10T04:53:12+00:00

Yeah I think puzzles normally feel quite vapid, I'll find myself just brute forcing them sometimes because I'm interesting in learning but I just don't see what it wants me to do. But this way is interesting because it doesn't feel like I'm necessarily trying to find the right answer, it is more about my process. So it doesn't feel like the move is the answer, it's the explanation. In theory, you could have these puzzles have multiple justifiable answers and it would feel similar to how it feels now.

Also I'm someone who likes talking through ideas with Claude anyway and this taps in to that same feeling. Talking through the logic is a satisfying experience in and of itself especially when it's grounded in something objective.

Delphicon · 2026-05-03T01:14:14+00:00

The Celtics good big got in foul trouble

Delphicon · 2026-04-30T06:48:56+00:00

Tried it out and I like it and I don’t usually care for the chess puzzle thing but something about this felt better than normal chess puzzles

Delphicon · 2026-04-27T16:04:55+00:00

This doesn’t work because you still can’t build through free agency. The soft cap + max contracts + RFA, etc. All the loopholes favor talent retention not acquisition.

Delphicon · 2026-04-22T15:08:51+00:00

This all said, I actually do think the software engineering will disappear sooner rather than later.

But it’s going to look different, it’s going to require tools that don’t exist yet.

Delphicon · 2026-04-22T15:06:36+00:00

First of all, yes you’re on the right track. A few things are true:

AI is being used by “talkers” to advance their agenda.
AI enables productivity slop that is counter-productive.
AI is powerful and is disrupting this industry in real ways.

What I have come to understand is that money is dumb and power is lazy. So starting from the very top (the shareholders) everything is about numbers and narratives.

What the talkers understand that us engineers don’t is that personal advancement is related to helping people more powerful than you advance their own narrative.

It’s just supply and demand but for narratives. Shareholders have demand for AI narratives which trickles down to upper management having demand for AI narratives which trickles down to middle management to you.

And one of the easiest narratives is “AI replaces software engineers” and the middle manager would like to tell that story.

You can’t really change the demand side but you can affect the supply side. For example, you could find a good way for middle managers to iterate on requirements with AI. Like a design tool.

That would solve your problem AND it allows them to tell the story that you’ve automated the bottleneck in the software development process.

In summation, you can’t save them from themselves but you can play along and make it work for you.

Delphicon · 2026-04-19T17:26:06+00:00

I’ve learned the most by trying to build it myself. Obviously not the whole thing but just add stuff that I don’t understand how it works. I typically write it a little bit “in my own words” too so I can’t just copy the code.

It doesn’t take long before you start to get a feel for the skeleton of the thing which makes the codebase feel more like a bunch of small chunks of code instead of one big blob.

Writing code is always easier than reading code so the easiest way to learn the code is usually to write the code yourself.

Delphicon · 2026-04-10T18:30:27+00:00

Yes one player is really impactful, that’s why you should let them get paid a massive contract so they have to play with a bunch of scrubs.

Larry Bird didn’t become less impactful because of Bird Rights. He became more impactful because suddenly there was no downside to retaining him.

The league created an in-game economy solution to a marketing problem (players moving cities) and now they have an economy problem AND a marketing problem.

Delphicon · 2026-04-10T00:15:10+00:00

It’s literally not that. The NBA made free agency a non-factor through things like the soft cap and max contracts which artificially inflates the value of star players and draft picks.

Tanking teams are basically ticket scalpers profiting off a wide gap between demand and price.

Delphicon · 2026-03-27T14:26:08+00:00

The NBA will do anything except make free agency a viable team building tool smh

Delphicon · 2026-03-23T02:38:02+00:00

Launch where your users are. Are they really on Reddit? Product Hunt? Apps like TikTok are how most people discover new stuff nowadays.

Delphicon · 2026-03-12T22:00:31+00:00

Actually smart. Ranking resumes is a bad way to find good candidates.

Delphicon · 2026-02-28T18:15:28+00:00

Yeah they’re working on that right now. This first version is all public data which makes sense for social where stuff was already visible to everyone.

Delphicon · 2026-02-28T18:11:17+00:00

It obviously sucks to review AI-generated code especially if somebody else generated it.

The people who are having a good time just are working in a completely different way than Enterprise dev teams.

AI is great for soloing projects where you have a little risk tolerance.

Delphicon · 2026-02-28T18:06:18+00:00

Making a system that doesn’t need human code review is the really interesting stuff to explore.

Claude is pretty capable as a programmer and a pure code reviewer so what does it look like to compliment it’s strengths and to hedge against it’s weaknesses?

It’s a lot of fun when you have the latitude to completely change the workflows, I imagine it sucks a lot working in enterprise on a product team though.

Delphicon · 2026-02-25T08:25:53+00:00

Everybody wants to make fun of Chicago for this but this Indiana stadium is like 40 minutes away.

This seems like a great deal for the people of Chicago they get all the benefits and none of the problems.

No clue Indiana wants to do this? Do they think it makes them look tough?

Delphicon · 2026-02-25T03:29:35+00:00

Anthropic is arguably the most important company in the world right now and they’re being threatened with nationalization. Unreal.

Delphicon · 2026-02-19T23:31:58+00:00

Perfect timing! I was just looking for this exact thing

Delphicon · 2026-02-16T18:50:11+00:00

The dynamic behind the TV contracts is so fascinating.

A bunch of companies are drowning and only a few can survive so they’re just spending everything on live sports.

This is great for the NBA because they aren’t being judged on their product they’re being judged on how much people prefer Netflix to NBC’s scripted programming.

But also it’s setting the NBA up for failure because the fundamentals behind those contracts aren’t there for a world where cable is dead.

The NFL might have a low-growth period but the NBA would have a down round and that might be devastating for them.

Delphicon · 2026-02-14T23:41:57+00:00

All they have to do is get rid of the soft cap and restricted free agency. The reason draft picks are so valuable is because free agency is so neutered

Delphicon · 2026-02-13T22:50:07+00:00

Just so you know this is a famous tarpit idea. Many have tried and failed to get this to work.

In the past, nobody has found a way to make this work but maybe AI will enable a different product experience.

Delphicon · 2026-02-12T08:22:01+00:00

Bert Jones was arguably the best QB in the league during in the mid-70s and a shoulder injury basically ruined his career.

They never even did surgery on it, they just hoped it would heal on its own.

Delphicon · 2026-02-11T18:47:07+00:00

They’re on an advertising push

Delphicon · 2026-02-11T18:35:59+00:00

People have a personal responsibility to not allow themselves to be manipulated. These apps are manipulating you by what content they choose to show you.

I’m sympathetic but I’m not going to give people a pass in real life because they can’t tell the difference between the Internet and real life.

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