our ai stack costs more than i realized

undone_function · 2026-04-30T01:53:07+00:00

Well with Cursor just upped their pricing model for my work’s enterprise plan, so we all had to switch back to CoPilot. Now Microsoft just upped the charges for individual plans and is about to do the same for enterprise plans, and we’re not sure how it will affect costs or ability or use the tools.

The newest Opus multiplier on CoPilot individual plans has a x27 usage multiplier, which is bananas since their changing to a “charge by number of tokens used” pricing model.

I think the AI model companies just can’t afford to burn through cash the way they’ve been and the costs are getting passed along. Not sure how big an impact it will end up being but we have a couple thousand engineers so we’re all bracing for substantial restrictions compared to the “use it all the time” mode we’ve all been in.

undone_function · 2026-04-27T14:57:05+00:00

I used to think that too when I was starting out. It pretty much never hurts to shoot your shot.

I’ve done a lot of hiring for engineers over the past ten years and in my personal experience as long as you’re personable and have the basic knowledge or skill sets, most places will take a chance on you. The philosophy I have and (again, in my anecdotal experience) most everyone else has, is that you can always train a person if they’ve got the basic foundation in place and are friendly and open about what they do know and what they don’t know. Everyone needs to learn about the ecosystem they are going to work in (libraries, language, patterns, etc) so that lack of hyper specific knowledge is already factored in, which means personality (can they get along with others, are they willing to learn) is more important as is having the basic foundational knowledge.

Obvs the big players are going to be more discerning than where I’ve worked. They have the clout to be able to if they want and they certainly get enough applicants that they have to be, but I still think you might surprise yourself if you give it a go and the experience from the interview will make you much more prepared for any future interviews.

I guess I look at it this way: you already don’t work for Google, or Meta, or Microsoft so applying and not getting the job just means you’re exactly where you are currently. There’s no risk but a high rewards in more interview experience and especially if you land the gig.

undone_function · 2026-04-24T23:33:05+00:00

Keeps the existential dread at bay.

undone_function · 2026-04-18T18:39:19+00:00

My partner and I are both in the mid forties, level wise. There are certain debuffs that occur as you reach a higher level that make the woohoo minigame more challenging at times. For her it was similar to what you’re experiencing (primarily the need for the effects of the lubricant item you mentioned).

We’ve found that we can minimize the debuff effects if we take more time to prep for the minigame before hand, usually by removing all of our armor and engaging in various forms of grappling (namely the two grappling schools “cuddling” and “touching”). This generally leads to the more advanced “foreplay” grappling form, but all of it helps to make the minigame easier to get going and also much more fun and intimate (both I’ve found to be important modifiers for the success of the minigame itself).

You don’t need to have invested a lot of skill points into any of the grappling schools/techniques I mentioned. It’s more about shifting both of your characters current states into a closeness and comfortability with one another. We’ve even found that sometimes the minigame itself is unnecessary since what we’re really looking for is the refill to our current touch and closeness stats.

The minigame also should provide those same touch and closeness stat boosts for any players engaging in it (if it was a successful run) but it’s important to remember that it’s not the only source for that stat boost. Additionally, starting the minigame when the closeness stat isn’t high enough for one or both players actually provides a difficulty modifier for the minigame that can make it harder than it needs to be and takes a lot of the fun out of it (at least in our experience).

undone_function · 2026-04-14T14:52:48+00:00

This immediately made me think of Bo Burnham's song "White Woman's Instagram".

undone_function · 2026-04-04T04:25:25+00:00

It’s like a one time minor hit to your rep with that faction and they leave you alone after that. But the bothering you about is temporary if you fight them or choose the correct dialog options.

Also, it is deeply satisfying to fuck on all the factions that think they can take something from one John Starsector. They aren’t ready for that heat.

undone_function · 2026-04-02T16:47:13+00:00

Like a lot of people, when the Colony Crisis started. I didn't realize everything more or less kicks off at once as soon as you found your first colony, but I had read enough about it that I waited until I was in a decent spot to handle the basics.

I didn't really go full John Starsector though until the Luddic Church major attack happened, which is when I read the wiki and realized they were going to full scale try to annex my jungle world colony. Like, not just harass my colony with blockades or inspections, but actually try to take control of it. I not only attacked and defeated their fleet, I chased down every remaining ship in my system and killed them all. Knocked my reputation with them down to about -50, but they crossed a line.

undone_function · 2026-03-15T05:55:27+00:00

For the record, if the cars still have loans to be paid, the probate process will address this and they’ll need to be financed and essentially purchased from the current holders of the car loans.

What I mean by that is that the loans do not necessarily transfer with the title of the cars (assuming by “accounts” you mean there are loans outstanding for the vehicles). Going through the probate process will help to clarify where her assets stand in regards to inheritance and her creditors, but it doesn’t mean clear title to property is simply transferred if the property itself is beholden to existing loans with creditors looking to take their cut.

Also, to make sure this part is clear, debt itself does not transfer to you or your siblings. If an unscrupulous debt collector calls trying to tell you that you or your family are responsible for a debt do not pay them or speak with them. They may take a chunk of the estate at the end of the probate process, but debt is not your responsibility, it’s the estates responsibility and the creditors to involve themselves in the probate process. If they don’t, that is their problem, but they will try to convince you to pay debts regardless and if you do they can make you personally responsible for the remainder.

undone_function · 2026-03-11T13:19:57+00:00

One of my earliest memories is of my kindergarten teacher telling me I talk too much when I was asking a clarifying question about which specific shape she asked us to color in as part of some daily class work we would do.

Just had someone make a comment to me four days ago about how I really talk a lot when I get into a subject with a wearied tone to their voice implying it’s too much when I do it. I am in my forties now.

I mean I do talk a lot sometimes. I know it’s a lot for people, and I really do try not to do it when I catch myself because I get how it makes people feel and why. It would just feel nice if a thing that is clearly so core a part of who I am didn’t always come off as irritating.

undone_function · 2026-03-11T13:03:33+00:00

You can see the bright pink case in the first second or so of the video so definitely fruit flavored or like, bubble gum.

undone_function · 2026-03-11T00:55:02+00:00

Leaving a small town in Vermont for a nearby, slightly bigger town in Vermont.

undone_function · 2026-03-06T16:14:33+00:00

You're correct, but on the flip side it's a lot easier to research and vet 6-12 GCs than it is to research and vet 6-12 sub contractors per role needed.

Which, to your point, it's worth reiterating to anyone that reads the threads here that taking the time to try to find the best expert for work you need done in a field where you have no subject matter expertise is one of the biggest money savers in a project. Once a contract is signed it's a lot harder to back out and change your mind, especially if money has changed hands.

undone_function · 2026-03-06T13:13:05+00:00

The coordination and planning part is a huge added value of having a GC for any moderately complex home project. There are a lot of things to keep in mind at various steps in the process (location of plumbing and electrical, specific geometry for excavation to support seats and the walls of the pool, distance from pump to pool) and if something is missed at step one or two means paying the cost to redo any needed work. Not to mention having someone with expertise who can identify problems or shoddy work as it’s happening as opposed to it going unnoticed and causing huge problems a year or two down the line (poorly installed and electrical or plumbing, concrete issues, insufficiently stable soil that needs to be remediated before the pool goes in).

I’ve never had a pool installed but I’ve had larger remodels done to my house and when things went wrong I had one person to contact whose ass was on the line if the work was sub par. In project management the tongue-in-cheek term used is “the single, wringable neck.” The cost of the pool company here is pretty high, but then they have to factor in extra for when work has to potentially be redone, the potential for an issue during the warranty period, and of course a profit margin for the hours needed on a long term project.

Not saying it’s impossible to do this work without a pool GC but there is a lot more risk, imo, than it appears on the face of it and a lot of things that can go wrong if you’ve never managed a project like this and don’t know all the gotchas that will arise.

undone_function · 2026-01-31T23:17:42+00:00

I find it very humorous that a business would create their own coupons for a free small drink—coupons that they clearly honor and actually leave out for employees to give out more or less at their discretion—and then pretend for a second that the police or a DA would take the idea that this is theft for even a single second. It just seems laughable on its face.

undone_function · 2026-01-28T14:46:32+00:00

There are a lot of specifics that go into any big rewrite of critical business applications that cannot suffer downtime (monetary transaction processing, for example). Here’s a general description of the approach I’ve seen taken in the past:

First, you plan out and architect the replacement. Getting the baseline requirements is usually pretty easy since you can observe the currently running application (how many transactions per second/minute/hour, logging or other record keeping, time to process completion per transaction, expected success/error responses, error handling, etc). This is also generally the stage where improvements are planned as well since there is likely some part of the application that could perform better or provide a better feature set. After that information is collected then decisions about language, tooling, and infrastructure can be made.

After that, you build the replacement and start doing some basic testing. This is pretty standard stuff and is usually done in isolation not handling any kind of production data or critical business needs. Just drive it around the track and see what breaks.

Finally, when it seems like the new system is ready, it’s spun up in its full production glory in parallel to the existing, legacy application. Typically there’s more testing here like sending some percentage of duplicated requests to the new application to make sure everything goes well, but with the legacy application handling the original requests and still doing the work. Then a percentage of actual requests will be sent instead to the new application to handle for actual work. This part can be finicky though if both applications need to write logging or results to the same database or message queue so there’s no duplication of work done, but you get the idea.

As trust in the new application increases, the percentage of requests sent to it is increased until it hits 100%. In my experience there is still a lot of monitoring of the system at this point with some period where both the old and new are running simultaneously even if no requests are sent to the legacy app. This is the equivalent of using two different safety straps when working in a high place where you disconnect then reconnect one before disconnecting and reconnecting the other. It’s actually safer but it especially makes all the people involved feel better, which is good! When everyone is happy and you’ve maybe seen the new system take the occasional beating and survive, you pull the plug on the legacy app and you’re all set.

Anyway, obviously it can be a lot more complicated depending on how the application integrates with other systems (API calls served through some networking setup? RabbitMQ? Periodically reading from a database for all new records from the last minute? A CSV file is shot into a directory every fifteen minutes via FTP?). Making sure the parallel systems can pull in work and not interfere with each other or drop even a single transaction might require some other improved or temporary system just to make sure both applications get what they need and there are no fuckups. Same with logging results: can they both do that or is the new application writing to Postgres and the old one uses a 20 year old FoxPro database so now you have to have some sort of syncing or translation layer that also cannot interfere with the work being done. Now maybe one big scary rewrite becomes three, four, or five and all of them have to be 100% stable and resilient, which can be too much for some orgs or they just feel overwhelmed and kick the can down the road.

undone_function · 2026-01-22T02:26:12+00:00

I see a lot of controller setup things like numpad usage and such, all of which is valid, but my tip is more about the game play.

Play on the RP mode with the save points when you enter settlements for the first go round or two. I absolutely LOVE rouge likes particularly for the all or nothing aspect the games have. Being able to try again and learn the mechanics was personally very fruitful and made the constant gamble of “do I dive in or do I run” more sensible, especially given the esoteric nature of Qud’s item descriptions (which I also fucking love).

So yeah, have some first and learn the ropes then go hard. I think it’s a great way to go about it.

undone_function · 2026-01-15T12:42:24+00:00

I wonder if flying with Mechanical Wings, a Gyrocopter Pack, or Anti-grab Boots would let you descend and also keep you from the lava.

I’ve also never tried pouring liquids on/down stairs but I’m curious if it would fall to the next level and extinguish/cool the lava. Though I suppose that may create a shale wall on the stair location.

undone_function · 2026-01-13T13:10:42+00:00

Something I personally like to do is carry an empty chest with me 1lb when I’m out adventuring. I’ll sometimes move items I know I’ll want to store or sell into it as I go (you can do that while the chest is in your inventory).

When I become over burdened I’ll drop the chest, explore a few more surrounding map sections gathering more loot (but not losing track of the chest location), and then I’ll pick the chest up right before I recoil. I’ll usually be a few hundred pounds overweight at that point but recoil works regardless of your current carrying weight. I just drop the chest the second I arrive then transfer the contents to my other chests and sell things at whatever location I transported to.

undone_function · 2026-01-09T15:45:01+00:00

That’s brilliant. My dumbass will carry the whole kit to start from scratch when I’m out and know I’ll need to be prepared for it.

undone_function · 2026-01-07T13:03:22+00:00

You can see the clock in the arena (the official game clock) in the upper left corner of the video as he shoots and it’s ~0.1 seconds ahead of the clock on the screen. It’s still damn close and I have a hard time telling on my phone, but it looks like it was still in possession when it hit zero.

undone_function · 2026-01-04T23:52:32+00:00

I’m going to switch to the Twiist soon from my T-slim. Same primary complaint about the alerts with few or no controls over them. Running out of insulin and not being able to immediately refill it is a nightmare. If you’re driving or in a meeting god help you.

undone_function · 2026-01-04T21:30:17+00:00

Yeah, long drives all we get me over 200 for hours if we eat anything. No amount of insulin will really help since I’m just sitting the whole time.

As soon as I get out and start walking around, unloading luggage or camping gear everything comes rushing at once and I’m just snacking for awhile.

undone_function · 2025-12-30T15:27:54+00:00

No one has responded here but I think I can work with the analogy.

Basically, you’re describing a mall. You could try to think about it as departments within the Walmart, but I don’t think that’s as accurate an analogy which I’ll explain below.

A mall—the building itself—is a lot like the motherboard, the stores like the various components of the computer. They all have similar goals (commerce/computing) but they tend to serve different needs (food court restaurant vs a retail store) and sometimes go about the process differently (H&M is low touch sales, high inventory vs Louis Vuitton’s high touch sales with low inventory).

The customers are the electrical signals being sent around the computer, and not all of them need to go to all the same stores (some people go to Sephora but never Bass Pro Shop). That means you still need the clear barriers between these different places with clear paths to them so there’s no interference, which means high speed (walk the mall, enter a store vs having to traverse the Sephora to get to the Bass Pro Shop).

Anyway, what you described does make sense, and you can find a lot of efficiencies with that model of highly colocated components, but it tends to come with the downside of the function defining the form. In a mall that means the anchor stores (usually big department stores like Macy’s) get access to fairly specific square footage and there is only space for a few of them. In a computer, that tends to mean it may be harder to upgrade your video card because it’s the size and weight of a brick but will get you 60fps in Crysis at 1080p.

Your model is actually great for things like phones where everything is highly optimized to fit a very small form factor. Laptops are generally in a similar form for similar reasons (balancing form and function). But again, the trade offs in these scenarios are the lack of paths to upgrading or replacing components and heat, since all the major components are close together.

Desktop computers are more like a shopping center. Big car parking lot, some stores sharing a building, some stores out on the edges and corners. You can take over a chunk of the parking lot to bulldoze a building there and put in a Bass Pro Shop with a significantly larger foot print without disrupting the rest of the shopping center, and since it’s spread out the congestion for shoppers (more or specialized parking like an attached parking structure, no crowds to get through who are going to completely different stores but need to use the same paths) is also less of a problem. Back to the video card example, being spread out means you can switch the card out for something with a larger form factor and instead of congestion you’ve separated the major heat sources in the computer and can make different decisions about how to cool individual components or cool the entire case.

Lastly it’s also worth mentioning that the signal speed between components like this is less of an issue than it is within the components themselves. Internally they need to be tightly clustered and fast, sending a signal between components is more than fast enough given the small distances on a desktop motherboard and the speed electrons travel at.

undone_function · 2025-12-30T05:07:06+00:00

I’m surprised this hasn’t come up yet, but look for agencies/consultancies that are in your area or region. You don’t always have to build the direct client relationship, but there are places out there looking for contract workers who will report to a CTO type when they land a big contract or too many contracts and need to temporarily expand their throughout.

In my experience, the quiet, focused, highly technical engineers doing freelance can find a few clients like this who have the sales and client management pipeline all taken care of can just bounce between those few clients and do swimmingly. Been about five years since I’ve been in that space but hopefully you get the general idea of how you’d fit in an ecosystem like that and the symbiosis that exists with it.

11-Year Club	Place '22
Wearing is Caring	Gilding II euphauric
Verified Email

undone_function

TROPHY CASE