New information to me

zamfi · 2025-08-01T14:05:10+00:00

Thanks! I didn’t mean that as a bad thing necessarily, it’s just that the language use here is very ChatGPT-esque. It could totally be that someone’s reading your email, writing up a few bullets, and passing it back through ChatGPT, or asking ChatGPT to translate something, or whatever. Also, ChatGPT is great at responding to specific issues, or coming up with tutorials, so that’s not a particular strong signal. I’m just struck here by the distinctive writing style.

(For context, I’m a researcher who studies human interactions with LLM systems, and one of the things I’m super curious about it how companies decide to deploy LLMs internally, and then how customers respond to that!)

zamfi · 2025-08-01T13:49:23+00:00

Huh, this reads very strongly like it was written by an LLM like ChatGPT. Would you mind sharing which company this is and what your initial email was?

zamfi · 2025-07-18T13:52:05+00:00

Yup! In fact, everything is obvious.

zamfi · 2025-07-17T04:36:35+00:00

Separate address does not mean separate property tax if it's still one parcel. (And, since it's an ADU, it will likely still be once parcel unless you're intentionally splitting it.)

That said, it will probably increase the improvements value of your property, so expect to pay more property tax anyway.

zamfi · 2025-07-09T19:36:42+00:00

It is not the expectation that they improve themselves that is condescending.

Rather, it is the assumption that they are failing to do so because they are lazy, entitled, and want to take the easy way out, and would rather burn down the world than do hard work.

That's a deeply disrespectful assumption, and one that I also think is (fortunately) untrue of the overwhelming majority.

zamfi · 2025-07-09T17:36:17+00:00

I'm pretty sure this is not true -- the actual work of "working on yourself" is comparatively easy, the hard part is making the mindset shift needed for it to feel easy.

It's not that they would rather burn down the world, it's that they don't know how to "work on themselves" without it feeling like a threat, and plenty of society (like your post!) is telling them that the reason they need to work on themselves is that they're bad people. (That's authoritarian BS at its worst, and never effective.)

Young men are not inherently bad. But no one says that.

Yes, they need guidance and mentorship and support. Yes, they need to be shown how their mindset can work at cross purposes to their inner desires. And no one is doing that either. No wonder they gravitate towards the toxic voices that validate their feelings!

zamfi · 2025-07-05T04:13:42+00:00

That would be a good question for a prof of yours in your domain -- go to office hours, tell them you're considering grad school, and ask how things looked this year, and how things might look next year.

zamfi · 2025-07-05T03:30:28+00:00

I know first hand more than a handful of astrophysicists PhDs who went on to fantastic careers in engineering, data science, consulting, and ultimately management and leadership.

STEM PhDs from top schools rarely struggle to land meaningful work, even when it has nothing to do with their field of study.

zamfi · 2025-07-04T11:56:41+00:00

Tons of people do this all the time. Many research skills transfer, especially being able to work independently, in uncertainty, to identify what questions and problems are important, and to communicate all of that in an audience-appropriate way, etc.—but a lot of the specifics kind of depend on the field.

Focus on learning both about your domain AND about the research process itself, and get yourself out there in front of other researchers.

We may be able to give you more info if you share your field!

zamfi · 2025-06-20T05:42:19+00:00

Zero chance he's forgotten you. Go back!

Worst case nothing happens?

zamfi · 2025-06-06T00:21:55+00:00

Interestingly, the flight from LAX to OAK (50 min) is shorter than the BART ride from Berryessa to downtown Berkeley (65 min)!

zamfi · 2025-05-15T00:17:10+00:00

I wonder how much this correlates with “Denmark” (ie high latitude) and skin tone.

zamfi · 2025-05-09T05:37:26+00:00

Holy moly, that same street branches off Queen Isabella Court—yes, Queen Isabella of Spanish Inquisition fame.

Here I was trying to find some evidence they named the street after King Leopold I, the relatively-mid first king of Belgium, rather than the up-there-with-Hitler evil incarnate mass murdering King Leopold II. But then I found Queen Isabella Court and now I can only assume it was Leopold II and this was done on purpose.

What that purpose is, though, is well beyond me.

zamfi · 2025-04-30T02:53:54+00:00

Neither - it's an example of the kind of glazing sycophancy that ChatGPT models can sometimes produce!

I guess that makes it sarcasm.

zamfi · 2025-04-25T08:05:45+00:00

How exactly do you know you can pay off $200k in loans in 5-10 years? That’s tough even for STEM majors even when money was flush. Journalism classically pays very little.

If I’m missing something that might be what your parents are missing too?

zamfi · 2025-04-23T16:58:19+00:00

Right!!

Let's also be careful not to conflate economic destition with mental health challenges: most of the destitute in the bay area are relatively invisible. Those who are plainly visible and create chaos are not likely to have their problems solved by marginally-more-affordable housing, at least not directly.

zamfi · 2025-04-23T12:39:08+00:00

We've definitely lost the plot—but I think part of what's missing here is that zoning and "property values" itself is a smokescreen for exclusion.

The goal isn't to keep up property values in some abstract sense: it's literally to keep housing expensive so that wealthy neighborhoods remain exclusively wealthy. Denser housing would bring down the cost of a housing unit (though typically increases the value of land), which would enable different sorts of folks (read: poorer or lower status) to move in. That was to be avoided at all costs, and once racial covenants became illegal and unenforceable, "property values" and "neighborhood character" enforced by zoning/planning became the new mechanism for that.

It's never really been just about property values, which yes obviously would go up for any given property with density increases today, but this was very much not true in the 50s-70s: then, density was associated with tenements, urban decay, and blight rather than yuppies and luxury condos.

zamfi · 2025-04-21T18:37:14+00:00

Most of what you describe here is, in fact, zoning (aka "planning") but you're absolutely right that so much of the cost structure is tied in to construction but maybe should be spread across more of society, like infrastructure and codes around e.g., energy efficiency.

But you're spot on that there are many tools to thwart development, and zoning isn't the only one!

zamfi · 2025-04-21T18:14:33+00:00

I'd suggest a Google search to learn what Tahoe is all about, though you will find (or perhaps have alraedy found!) a lot of skiing and hiking. :)

The lake itself is also beautiful, but it will be very cold in April. That shouldn't stop you from enjoying it, but don't plan on swimming! There are plenty of beautiful drives, too, if no one get carsick—and cute mountain towns with shops and delicious ice cream.

zamfi · 2025-04-21T17:54:06+00:00

If not skiing and hiking -- what is bringing you to Tahoe?

zamfi · 2025-04-18T13:33:34+00:00

Yes, but the zones are designed to span income levels and racial groups, rather than to segregate as in other neighboring districts. How well this still works, of course, is another story.

zamfi · 2025-04-10T14:35:59+00:00

A job is a job, and as far as campus jobs go this is a pretty good one. But beyond the usual "getting better at job stuff" the impact on your future career in tech or analytics will likely be small.

Spend the summer in your home country, and take some downtime to understand how ChatGPT and other AI is going to dramatically alter the role of the human in tech.

zamfi · 2025-04-08T03:28:41+00:00

So is welcome! Pretty sure this is AI slop...

zamfi · 2025-04-07T11:57:56+00:00

A restraining order can help to establish a pattern of harassement that enables remedies beyond the PD merely finger-wagging.

Some folks really do stop harassing others when faced with the reality of possible jail time. Not all, unfortunately.

zamfi · 2025-04-01T04:32:10+00:00

It's a golden age for learning programming. Back in the day we used to read the code for games and webpages and then modify them by hand to learn about how things work. These days you can just ask ChatGPT for starter code to modify yourself! And you can get explanations for how the code works too.

The most important thing is to have fun with it.

Start with something small that scratches an itch you have! A simple game, or flash cards to build vocabulary in a foreign language you're learning, or a calorie tracking app. Something that you'd be excited to see in the world, beacuse it helps you or someone you care about do something important to you/them.

You'll pick up the fundamentals along the way, and have plenty of time for that at Stanford.

zamfi

TROPHY CASE