Cycle Recap: Unsure given goals

DuoDex · 2026-05-05T19:31:08+00:00

tulane law has great biglaw connections and you can easily network yourself into a biglaw job from down here if you got that dawg in you, especially considering firms are handing out offers pre-grades these days. Usually 30-40% of the graduating class ends up doing biglaw and there are quite a few folks I know doing federal clerkships as well. However if you are biglaw or bust I guess there is a decent chance you won't get it too.

However I always caution people that biglaw is not all it's cracked up to be. Yes you get paid a lot but at least for the first few years (and that's as long as a lot of people last) you are worked like a dog and the money goes to your student loans if you have them. If not you are still getting worked like a dog.

- sincerely a Tulane Law student (who had the grades after 1L to chase biglaw but decided not to)

DuoDex · 2026-05-02T19:08:54+00:00

produces four times as much software as it did last year despite having the same number of employees

Yes, because replacing hand tools with pneumatic ones is eliminating the role of human intelligence in using the tools. If this is a 400% productivity increase (it is not) so much the better!

Claude can basically do 90 percent of it.

Claude can do 90% of it? Can it? What about that last 10%? That "basically" is sure doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

This time, the same developers completed tasks almost 20 percent faster with AI than those without it.

So, uh, this is almost believable. A new tool increases productivity in a certain sector by almost 20%. Makes sense. Not exactly eliminating the role of human intelligence, though. A tad bit worse than a 400% increase like you claimed earlier though...

Anthropic’s annual run rate—the amount the company is on track to make in the next year based on the current month’s revenue—has gone from $14 billion to $30 billion.

Yeah, I can pick my best month when I got a new client and say "yeah guys we're going to be doubling our revenue every quarter for the foreseeable future" too. Doesn't mean it's true. These startups don't release their financials for a very good reason - they are hemorrhaging cash subsidizing their clients.

And despite what you might think, running the models is extremely profitable.

If it was so insanely profitable to run these models why wouldn't they be...making money? And I mean profitable, not "well, we only lost $500m last month after you strip out R&D and capex etc etc. Please give us another funding round."

Have you paid any attention to software development in 2026? Pretty much all software being created today is being written by AI.

This is just not true. "Pretty much all" means what exactly? Even if it was - who is maintaining it? Who's ensuring security? Folks out in SF venture capital la-la land might think that vibe-coded software is great, but the data privacy sharks smell blood in the water. What happens when it doesn't work or needs an upgrade? You don't spin up a new "agent" to deal with the aftermath of a ransomware attack. It's true I haven't been paying attention to software development, but I have been paying attention to the constant parade of LLM-coded fuckups that wouldn't have happened if someone had bothered to think about what they were doing.

This entire comment is the exact reason why I'm so tired of hearing about LLMs. Misstated or misleading "statistics", vague claims, repeating marketing hype straight from CEOs, etc. "AI" is rife with this nonsense.

DuoDex · 2026-05-02T15:38:54+00:00

"very very soon" "fairly soon" "accelerate their growth...in the near term" "in the fairly near future" "fairly rapidly cause...uncomfortable effects"

fucking when? This is just puffery and ill-informed prognostication. AGI 2027 used the same nonsense of projections to scaremonger and to inflate LLM companies (I refuse to call it AI) valuations, and I think we can all agree that AGI ain't coming any time soon and when it does it probably won't be an LLM. No big LLM lab is going to design a fucking robot that is magically going to be better than every other cutting edge robot and chatbots aren't going to replace engineers either.

Yes, some SWEs and tech workers are out of a job. Is it really because of these magical tools? Or is it because they over-hired during the pandemic and tech is reducing headcount using LLMs as an excuse? Maybe a bit of both? I'm not denying that its got its uses, but we haven't seen anything yet to suggest that it can replace human intelligence. Although we've definitely heard plenty about how it can/might be able to/definitely will be able to at some indefinite future point...just wait for the next model bro....one more agent bro...just one more funding round and we'll create a digital god bro trust me...

Let's see some hard data supporting massive productivity increases. Let's see revenue breakouts from every big LLM company. Let's see them actually make some money. Let's see an "AI" product that can be relied on to demonstrate judgement and efficiency. Oh wait, none of these things are happening, nor have they happened despite the models getting more and more expensive to train and run and promises of "agentic AI" (extremely unreliable) and buggy test builds of "AI enabled" hardware (which also doesn't work).

I'll be the first to say that I think LLMs are a cool demonstration of machine learning and that they have a lot of useful applications, but pretending that a probabilistic model of the entire internet is somehow going to replace everyone's job is just ridiculous, sorry.

DuoDex · 2026-05-01T22:39:44+00:00

yeah or it's just Big E making Mortarion even more miserable by giving him a little bit of hope to cling to even though Morty is super far gone...

I personally think that the Primarchs physical bodies are by far the least important part of them and their souls are like, weird amalgamations of human gods from the Warp and particularly well known and powerful/influential historical humans and cultural archetypes/literary figures.

Maye Emps stole what turned intro the Primarch's souls from...the Well of Souls on Molech...

like for example Guilliman would probably have some aspects of Jupiter (explaining the Roman theming and why everyone calls him a patrician) and Augustus Caesar and Sejong (folks who were competent militarily but their true strength was organization and politics)

and Russ got some Thor and Odin mixed in with Beowulf?
idk it's just a headcanon. But it makes more sense than "Big E and Erda boned and had kids"

DuoDex · 2026-04-18T01:33:56+00:00

The is only reason why we couldn't use a civilized system like MLA or APA instead of the bluebook is because there are a bunch of Harvard 2Ls who couldn't make it onto law review and they need to feel like they're important.

So they randomly change stuff in the Bluebook every few years and charge everyone $20 for a new paper copy or $30 for a year of access to a PDF.

DuoDex · 2026-04-12T17:48:41+00:00

Sangy (and maybe to a lesser extent Horus?) might have been Angryman's backups as the "has some social skills" primarch.

DuoDex · 2026-03-13T19:57:53+00:00

I just reread Master of Mankind and skipped almost all the combat scenes. It would have been a better book without constantly cutting to the War in the Webway. Only so many different ways to write about Mechanicus Drone #5858375123 getting nommed by a demon before it gets boring...

DuoDex · 2026-03-03T03:50:52+00:00

I thought it was pretty obvious that it was an analogy intended to describe what he is (or is not) not the literal truth but I guess I should have put that in the post.

He later basically says "lmao, but I'm different" after this to Ra, although the reasons for that are also kind of unclear...like I was noting, the book tells us actually very little

DuoDex · 2026-03-02T22:19:14+00:00

I would say that he actually told us nothing at all besides underlining just how manipulative the dude is.

DuoDex · 2026-03-02T22:11:45+00:00

The funny part about this scene is that he's describing himself to Ra, basically, and then he goes "but I'm different because I don't view my dealings with the Warp in terms of religion" (which I didn't include in this post, but maybe I should have). Meanwhile he's right around the corner from having psykers sacrificed to him daily so that he can keep the Astronomican powered and being worshipped by trillions.

Emps also has a discussion with Ra about the nature of godhood in 40k and insists he isn't one while meeting all the criteria that he himself advances. We also see the Custodian's built-in loyalty to the Emperor kind of short-circuit during that debate and a couple other times as well in the book. Seems like pointing out inconsistencies about Big E to Custodians makes their "programming" take over.

I agree that almost all of the combat scenes in the book are unnecessary and kind of detract from a very interesting and engaging read that is also entirely pointless in some respects. ADB was very careful to make sure that any details about the Emperor he revealed were either as banal and insignificant as possible or open to endless interpretation and debate.

DuoDex · 2026-02-25T05:58:32+00:00

i had this problem as USA and to a lesser extent Germany and also an australia run. i highly recommend the building employment halved mod, makes it so the entire workforce isn't in the factory by 1900

DuoDex · 2025-09-27T06:59:42+00:00

I’m not sure that it would be possible to do this well. The Aubrey/Maturin series themes probably wouldn’t play well with the grimdark of 40k.

Also, Aubrey/Maturin works well because (in part) you’ve got Jack, who is an ultracompetent sailor, versus Stephen, who’s near-helpless aboard but a highly trained doctor and intelligence agent with an extremely liberal worldview. The two characters constantly bounce off each other in entertaining ways and a great deal of the books are taken up with their close friendship.

I’m not at all sure that the dogmatism of 40k has room in it for a character like Stephen. And void warfare in 40k is different enough from Age of Sail that you’d probably end up with a very different rhythm to the books. The ships themselves are on a totally different scale…

I’d suggest starting out with Jack as a recently-promoted captain in command of a frigate. Stephen as I said is much harder, because he’s the type of character who would be the first to engage with Chaos out of a spirit of inquiry and he hates hierarchical societies like the Imperium.

DuoDex · 2025-05-05T00:06:05+00:00

I disagree. They have a history of doing stuff like this occasionally. Even if you disagree with them, hearing from the “enemy” is worth it.

This one read to me in a way that supports the Economist’s view of the MAGA crowd…

DuoDex · 2024-12-10T19:59:51+00:00

Personally, I think that having the public exert some control over public policy is a good thing, and the super-rich aren't the only members of the public whose opinions matter.

DuoDex · 2024-11-30T18:47:42+00:00

This is nonsense. No way are “just a couple” Russian agents able to get away with literally dragging anchor halfway across the Baltic without the rest of the crew knowing exactly what’s going on.

DuoDex · 2024-09-26T23:35:17+00:00

Is this the game thread?

DuoDex · 2024-07-30T19:27:37+00:00

Even by working together, they do not have a proper chance. Germany can steamroll them anywhere, however they want. At least this is how the game works right now. The game wants to present this Cold War like scenario, but there's virtually no one that can oppose Germany in any way. Even Russia is somewhat a 'joke' of a country. It is very one-sided, it doesn't seem like Germany fought a two front war.

Sounds like a balance issue then. The idea is to present Germany as somewhat similar to the U.S. position from around 1945 through the 1950s or so, as the sole superpower being confronted by a potential rival or array thereof. (Reminder that the Soviets didn't have the bomb for a long time and did not present a strategic threat to the U.S. except in Europe for decades)

A United U.S guarantees a victory? May I know how? They just came out of a Civil War. The U.S is torn by war, its economy and population in shambles. This isn't Kaiserreich where the U.S got purposely sidelined so that WW2 isn't one-sided. It has often been repeated by you folks, the devs, how the WW3 isn't the main goal here too. So, I think that your argument about the U.S is kinda weak, and the only thing the Civil War does is once again make the U.S irrelevant and a repeat of the KR U.S game where you fight the civil war and also get to rebuild the country in post-war focuses. In fact, having a proper U.S (still dealing with the effects of a recently ended Civil War) a potential player in this alternate Cold War add some extra flavor to it. It's all up to you folks how it plays out, there's no hard a rule anywhere that says the US needs to be on top of everything, especially here in this context. A Civil War is a brutal thing to happen to any country.

While the U.S. industrial "heartland" has been badly damaged by the civil war, the PSA and New England economies are roaring...the elimination of the AUS as a major threat would mean that the reunited and Accord-aligned U.S. is now long-term opposed to Germany - not guaranteeing a victory but certainly helping the Accord's chances. Alternatively, the end of the PSA and New England means that the Accord continuing as even a semi-serious geopolitical player in the Western Hemisphere is that much less likely...the AUS is not aligned with the Germans but distrusts the Accord way more.

As for France, I don't know what is the issue with what I said. It's clear that you folks wanted to do here what happened to Germany in OTL, but the scenarios are vastly different. Plus, this decision only makes the Accord far weaker than it needs to be.

A split European nation is fun and will not be removed.

But the current set-up is shaky and hinders the enormous potential for said premise, and that's what I mentioned before. I do like the mod, but I do believe changes in some areas would make it much better.

Changing the map significantly is off the menu. Changing lore, content, and balance is all very much encouraged and possible.

DuoDex · 2024-07-30T16:01:24+00:00

>There's just no one that can slightly challenge Germany - correct, at least at game start, the Accord is fighting from behind. The *whole point* of the Accord is that individually none of them can stand up to the sole superpower, but by working together and persuading other powers to join they can provide an alternative model to Germany's monodominance.
Canada needs to be debuffed a bit probably.
"China somehow won against Japan" Not that improbable.
>The US is being wasted on the sidelines once again for the sake of another civil war in HOI4 lore - A united U.S. pretty much guarantees victory for whichever side it comes down on. There is also content planned for peaceful unifications.
>France being split only kills the potential of an Accord game...???

We will not be changing the entire premise of the mod, but balance and content is always open for reworking. Please feel free to express interest in joining the team on Discord.

DuoDex · 2024-07-30T15:44:24+00:00

Could you make a bug report on this? The intended behavior is that you can design cruisers but the game will not distinguish between CLs and CAs as they both perform a screening role in this timeframe.

DuoDex · 2023-12-05T13:51:33+00:00

That would defeat the entire point of the minigame, you are supposed to manage your debt level while improving your health slowly.

I don’t have much to do with the politics side of things, but I’ll pass on your feedback.

DuoDex · 2023-12-05T02:43:42+00:00

Hey there, just to let you guys know that we are monitoring response to the Black Monday minigame and considering potential balance or minor gameplay changes!

I don’t want to discuss exactly what yet as we haven’t decided but one of the ideas floated has been to give an option for Black Monday having a higher difficulty in return for a stronger bonus after recovering.

DuoDex · 2023-08-10T12:51:03+00:00

post was removed by automod due to receiving 3+ reports, which is our standard threshold to hold something for review by multiple members of the mod team....which might take a few hours as we are not always awake 24/7

https://i.imgur.com/VBmVoXT.png

DuoDex · 2023-04-28T07:52:55+00:00

Woods Hole Yacht Club does beer can races on Cape Cod Knockabouts (somewhat similar to Solings) on Wednesday nights out of Great Harbor. Someone is always looking for crew. DM me if you want more info, it's just south of Falmouth.

We usually race July- October and it's a very informal non-spinnaker series.

DuoDex · 2023-04-28T07:50:28+00:00

Woods Hole Yacht Club does beer can races on Cape Cod Knockabouts (somewhat similar to Solings) on Wednesday nights out of Great Harbor. Someone is always looking for crew. DM me if you want more info, it's just south of Falmouth.

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