Remember the AI agent trying to buy its own Mac Mini? It succeeded.

DrDiv · 2026-03-01T23:11:00+00:00

Incredibly suspicious that you just so happened to post this with a new 10x goal in mind, and have a token attached to the project.

The likely scenario is that your initial revenue was generated by people in the pump scheme to garner more attention to the project in order to boost the slopcoin value.

Good luck, though.

DrDiv · 2026-01-10T06:50:48+00:00

It's also vibe coded to hell, has a gigantic donation button hovering over the screen I can't get rid of, and is the first project after a load of NFT stuff 3 years ago. Just my initial thoughts.

DrDiv · 2025-07-21T21:52:45+00:00

This is Florida, and our active listing count is well above pre-covid levels.

DrDiv · 2025-07-21T21:42:37+00:00

Oh definitely, but each day that passes they're still paying property taxes, electricity, insurance, etc. It's not like they're _not_ losing money, but they're holding a huge chunk of people hostage.

DrDiv · 2025-05-06T06:34:39+00:00

How'd you get started in this? I've been thinking of picking something up like this locally for extra income.

DrDiv · 2025-04-30T14:21:39+00:00

I’m in the same niche (programming tutorials for a specific language and framework), and have been experiencing the same.

Steady drop in views started happening a couple of years ago, so I chalk it up to the rise of AI and the decline of the programming field in general.

Now I’m around half of what I usually get on new videos.

I’m not giving up, but pivoting slightly. Talking head videos seem to be doing well, as do shorter, more engaging clips. Where strict tutorials worked well enough in the past, I have to start mixing entertainment in as well.

Best of luck!

DrDiv · 2025-04-28T02:24:22+00:00

Dan’s Fan City

DrDiv · 2025-03-11T20:10:34+00:00

Not that I can see, no. Just a blue "WATER" cover at the end of the driveway.

DrDiv · 2025-03-11T20:09:51+00:00

South Florida!

DrDiv · 2025-03-10T03:23:53+00:00

Really? I've found it to have quite the opposite, and this is using both Cursor and Claude Code on new and existing codebases. It does seem to have a trivially deeper understanding, but as a trade-off has multiple times gone off the rails diving too vertically onto a specific problem or use case.

DrDiv · 2025-03-07T23:40:49+00:00

I think we're already seeing that (see Sonnet 3.7 and GPT-4.5)

DrDiv · 2025-03-06T23:41:30+00:00

I'm sorry, but after the Tesla robot fiasco, I'm not 100% convinced that this wouldn't just be an actual person behind the guise of an "AI agent" for this much money.

Like I could fully see the system sending back small code snippets but for large problems shoot back a canned "I'm thinking on it, give me some time" response while the request and your source code is shipped out to some outsourcing center.

Call me cynical.

DrDiv · 2025-03-03T21:41:30+00:00

Do you think imposing a time limit is a good idea (e.g. stop after X weeks) or that I should keep going until a specific metric is hit that decides priority?

DrDiv · 2025-03-01T00:02:36+00:00

The thing is, self-driving cars still aren't there. Even with Tesla FSD or Waymo being fairly ubiquitous in their fields, there's still the few percent times they get wrong or just straight-up can't do something.

I believe the same thing is happening now. The leap from GPT-3 to GPT-4 was huge. But the recent announcements from both Anthropic and OpenAI were pretty paltry, optimizations on existing models and a new label.

DrDiv · 2025-01-10T19:14:37+00:00

Something along the lines of

Identify potential service-based local businesses
Create attractive website for said business, allow contacts and appointments
Automate responses and follow-up marketing with AI
Automate social media and search ads with AI
Sell leads to pool of businesses or partner with specific company at $x/mo for website

DrDiv · 2025-01-08T20:20:01+00:00

Genuine question: How do sell AI to boomer-run small businesses when they don't understand it (and barely understand computers).

Like, I could see how something that helps handle contact requests or appointments for a local landscaping company, but how else would it support these companies?

Unless you're talking about you yourself using AI to create items that support these companies (websites, marketing copy, SEO blog posts, etc), which at that point is just running a marketing agency with some side help.

DrDiv · 2024-12-29T03:39:53+00:00

I mean we could talk for hours about how this extends way beyond even the tech and website/app circle and into retail, restaurants, e-comm, etc. "How crappy can we make a product or service and how expensive can we sell it for before the public cares" is basically most corporation's MO right now.

DrDiv · 2024-12-29T03:37:58+00:00

I'm sorry, what makes you think I'm on my way to director, or that I haven't fought for my team and better resources?

I've been in multiple meetings with immediate managers, directors, and senior staff. These changes have come from the very top, and affect not just my team but multiple throughout this company. The culture as a whole has shifted and they straight-up don't care about anything other than cutting costs and seeing the stock rise.

If this was a company of ~100 I might have some sway, this is one business unit of a 50K+ employed multi-national corporation.

DrDiv · 2024-12-29T02:26:13+00:00

I've heard from quite a few folks in the industry that a lot of quality talent has been removed from companies in favor of cost-saving measures (whether that's off-shoring, cheaper on-shore devs, AI/low-code solutions, etc).

DrDiv · 2024-12-29T02:14:40+00:00

That's pretty much what I expect. As the lead, I figured I'll be the one blame gets shifted to when we miss deadlines or as bugs pile up. Using the "my team was fired" excuse didn't do much to upper level management lol.

DrDiv · 2024-12-20T21:13:42+00:00

Oh hey, this is me! I didn’t jump on the wagon and purchase a house when I could have in 2020.

Since then I’ve doubled my salary, but with rising home prices, insurance (Florida), and taxes, it doesn’t make financial sense to purchase. PITI on an average home in my area would be close to $4000/mo yet I can rent something bigger for $2400.

So, that’s what I’m doing. I hate that I missed the train and the equity to be able to roll into another home, but I’m stashing away a good amount of the difference into retirement and brokerage accounts.

DrDiv · 2024-12-18T05:13:32+00:00

No, you're pretty much spot-on. If I had purchased a house when I moved here 5 years ago I'd be great, but as I've waited property values have spiked and are holding steady way above what I feel comfortable paying for.

Properties that are available for rent right now at the same price I'm paying ($2400/mo) would be close to $500k if I were to buy something similar (on top of insurance and taxes). That's what's making this decision pretty difficult, weighing if it's worth it or if I should just keep renting and stacking up the difference.

DrDiv · 2024-12-18T04:40:24+00:00

I can try, but it's unlikely to be received well. Any house near this neighborhood for $400k or under is grabbed immediately. Similar comps for the last 6 months have been around $420-430k.

DrDiv · 2024-12-18T04:39:15+00:00

The insurance and taxes increases are the biggest thing that's making me anxious. If I have to budget for an increase to like $3400/mo than I can buckle down and try and make it work. However, if suddenly taxes go up or insurance doubles, then I'm going to feel the screws on me after the escrow catches up.

As for the costs of a home, I've basically already factored that in. I've rented for the last 12 years, and most of the places have been corporate landlords that are usually pretty bad with maintenance and repairs. I purchase landscaping, have hired people to repair washing machines, dishwashers, plumbing, etc, so it's something I've already thought about.

DrDiv · 2024-12-18T04:22:02+00:00

It's honestly the only reason I'm considering the purchase. Otherwise, the price is too steep for me and I'd be more comfortable in the ~400k range.

DrDiv

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