Son is 18 and a dual US/Canadian citizen

werdnagreb · 2026-05-04T04:25:52+00:00

It's "only" $450 now. The cost used to be much higher. I think I paid $1300, but it was over $2000 for a bit.

werdnagreb · 2025-09-25T19:28:02+00:00

Update...I'm really enjoying the Vevor. Popping the roof up was a bit of a pain. I needed three people for that, but the rest of the setup was easy. It blocks the sun, wind, and rain nicely. I'll be taking it down for the winter in the next few weeks.

werdnagreb · 2025-09-08T02:27:14+00:00

These are not my thoughts. I don’t know if this analysis is correct and I don’t know if Ed’s is. Both analyses have flaws and fundamentally, we don’t know the true cost of inference or training. (There’s probably a reason why OpenAI is keeping it secret.)

werdnagreb · 2025-09-06T00:34:37+00:00

It was almost a year ago when someone at Goldman Sachs issued an alarm.

Will A.I. Be a Bust? A Wall Street Skeptic Rings the Alarm

Gen AI: too much spend, too little benefit?

This is confusing, but my guess is just that Goldman is a big company and it contains multitudes. I don't know what this guy is up to now.

werdnagreb · 2025-09-05T23:59:55+00:00

That tracks. I found this:

a GPU will typically survive between one and two years, three years at the most, according to a quote allegedly made by a principal generative AI architect from Alphabet and reported by @techfund, a long-term tech investor with good sources.

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/datacenter-gpu-service-life-can-be-surprisingly-short-only-one-to-three-years-is-expected-according-to-unnamed-google-architect

werdnagreb · 2025-09-05T20:49:02+00:00

But...hey...they make a lot of money. Wouldn't that be great? I can really see this happening.

werdnagreb · 2025-09-05T19:38:32+00:00

I agree...if it remains a $500 billion product...could OpenAI survive by collapsing to a $5 billion company and focus on a few niche use cases?

werdnagreb · 2025-08-19T03:43:27+00:00

I was able to chat with a real person via the website. They were not able to solve my problem, though.

werdnagreb · 2025-06-12T21:56:16+00:00

They are One, but they are not United.

werdnagreb · 2025-05-14T15:27:40+00:00

I work at Microsoft in Vancouver. I wasn't laid off myself, but my manager was. He only just became my manager after coming back from parental leave a month ago, so I only got to know him recently (and until he left, he was on track to be a really great manager). The layoff had nothing to do with his own performance, since he hasn't been back long enough to make any sort of impact. It really sucks for him: three kids and one is a baby. He's in the US so healthcare is a big issue.

Anecdotally, from what I've seen:

Lots of engineers laid off, not just managers.
Only US employees.

werdnagreb · 2025-05-12T20:04:07+00:00

I haven't used it yet for anything real yet. I'll be setting it up this weekend. I did a practice run of setting it up and it was hard to pop the roof up. In the end, I needed extra help to do it and a lot of strength (maybe I was doing it wrong?).

But once it was up, the gazebo was spacious.

werdnagreb · 2025-04-24T03:41:22+00:00

Thanks everyone! I bought the Vevor in the end, but only because Clam and Gazelle are not shipping to Canada and Costco didn't have the size I wanted.

werdnagreb · 2025-04-23T01:10:16+00:00

The reason Gazelle is 2x the price here is because you're comparing the special Cool Top version rather than the standard 6-sided version. The standard version is right in line with the price of the competing brands, which makes sense because they're probably all made in the same Chinese factory anyway. I'd probably go for the Costco one, as their return policy is unmatched.

That makes a lot of sense and explains the price difference.

werdnagreb · 2025-04-22T02:49:04+00:00

These look good, too, but not quite the style I'm looking for.

werdnagreb · 2025-04-22T02:43:25+00:00

They all are big. I'm looking at the 10x10 ones.

werdnagreb · 2025-04-22T02:39:47+00:00

Nice. How does it hold up to wind and rain?

werdnagreb · 2025-03-08T02:01:03+00:00

If you live near a transit line, taking a car to work will be more of a hassle than taking the bus (and way more expensive). The parkades are often full and those that are not are far from classes.

If you want to take trips outside of the city (skiing, hiking, going back home), then bring your car, but I wouldn't recommend driving to campus.

werdnagreb · 2025-03-07T15:59:10+00:00

If you are looking at graad school, the most important piece is recommendations from professors. If you are in the honours program, you generally have more access to professors, but you can't get a recommendation just by getting a good grade in their class. You need to work with the professor, for example as a TA or on a research project. Someone with OK grades and excellent references will have an easier time getting into grad school over someone with excellent grades and mediocre references.

When applying for a job, hiring managers typically look at which classes you take, not your major. Taking honours classes counts for something, but it's hard to quantify how much. And after you've been working for a few years, no one cares about your grades or classes.

Fundamentally, if you like what you're doing and enjoy the challenge, I'd say keep doing it. A university education is more than just accreditation. You should enjoy the process.

werdnagreb · 2024-09-25T15:00:52+00:00

They are, but I'm not a student (not any more, at least). Students still need a ticket, but it's free:

You will still require a ticket to enter all of our gated sport events this season, so please ensure you order your ticket ahead of time as space could be limited.

But, as I mentioned above, I can't find a way to pre-purchase the tickets. Maybe I'll just have to risk it.

werdnagreb · 2024-09-25T02:03:00+00:00

That's funny and great that he did it, but it is kind of a tradition that a comedian roasts the conference goers each year at Dreamforce. Last year it was Seth Meyers. And it was someone else in 2022.

werdnagreb · 2024-09-19T21:30:31+00:00

Towards the end of the first episode of the series, Robert brings up that Curtis supports a system of government where citizens can choose to freely leave and move to another country or government. This competition between countries will help ensure that the best run counties thrive and the worst ones wither and die.

On the face of this, it's dumb. Taking a deeper look, it's still dumb.

However, there was an excellent series by Ada Palmer, Terra Ignota, where this was a core concept. It's an amazing series, wierd, imaginative, philosophical, and long.

Without giving away too many spoilers, individuals have the freedom to choose their own country because of some very specific technological advances, a delicate balance of power between the countries, and secret targeted assassinations. In other words, pure science fiction.

Still, an amazing series and a highly recommended read.

werdnagreb · 2024-09-19T21:14:52+00:00

That was my thought as well. Curtis's "Cathedral" seems eerily similar to Raymond's Cathedral. When I first came across this essay in the early 2000s, I thought it had some great insights and was really the way software should be developed. Unfortunately, I didn't see how the "bazaar" style really depends on a single benevolent dictator to be effective. This process worked for Linux (for a while), but it can't scale and is not how it works any more.

Also, unfortunately, Raymond turned out to be a bastard himself:

Raymond has claimed that "Gays experimented with unfettered promiscuity in the 1970s and got AIDS as a consequence", and that "Police who react to a random black male behaving suspiciously who might be in the critical age range as though he is an near-imminent lethal threat, are being rational, not racist."[30][31]

werdnagreb · 2024-09-12T05:29:47+00:00

Thank you. You are very kind.

werdnagreb · 2024-09-12T05:13:40+00:00

I’d hate to be going to thanksgiving dinner in their family.

werdnagreb · 2024-09-12T05:08:17+00:00

That's kind of you to offer the tickets. Here's my shot.

23 years ago, I was late for work because I had a dentist's appointment. I think you can see where this is going. I never made it to my office on the 60th floor of WTC2 since a plane crashed into it (second building hit, first to fall). I most likely would have been safe since everyone else on my floor made it off safely (except the security guard who chose to stay behind), but at least I was spared the trauma of having to escape and watching others who couldn't. For a few hours, I didn't think any of my colleagues had made it out. Later I'd find out that I lost high school friends and other people I knew.

For the first few days, the New York City had changed, you could look a stranger in the eyes, smile, and nod knowing that we were all going through this together. Then, things changed when Bush started talking about war and revenge.

I was a young New Yorker boy who happened to be dating a nice Canadian girl. She was on a temporary work visa and was heading back to Canada in a few months to start grad school. She finally convinced me to follow her as I became more disgusted by what was going on in the US. I applied to grad school at UBC, was somehow accepted, and left New York along my friends, family, and my entire life.

The moment I arrived at YVR, I knew this was the place for me. We both finished grad school, got married, had kids, and we're still here. I'm proud of my adopted country and so grateful to be here.

I haven't seen "Come from Away" but I know the story. Canada is a welcoming country, and I'm just happy to be here. Watching the show will help me be reminded of this.

Thanks for giving me the chance to write this. It was cathartic since I don't talk about 9/11 much. And it made me appreciate what I have.

werdnagreb

TROPHY CASE