> in 2022, mainstream and westoid virtualism opinion was ``china is cut off from the future now`` (cue the clownface here). ``we cut off chinas legs`` yadayada
maybe where you were paying attention. were they also certain that americans wouldn't be paying the tariffs?
but lots of people who saw what china was doing with renewable energy and EVs rightly suggested this would put them on the path of independence w/r/t GPUs and LLMs.
this isn't like the ol' days where "japan can't do software". we knew china can.
I disagree with the last point -- it's a pain to gather a bunch of things up, put them in vehicles (or rent a truck), find a storage facility that isn't full, rent the unit, haul your things over to the unit.. all the while ignoring that you're putting off whatever culling and disposal ceremony you should actually be engaging in.
My local town gives you two free visits to the garbage transfer station per year. Choosing storage over that seems harder.
Many things invoke "but this is a perfectly good..." I had a LaserJet monochrome printer. I knew I would never use it because I now have a color model, and if the color one broke I would replace it immediately. "But this is a perfectly good printer." It sat for a few years on a shelf before I finally tossed it. Resale nets too little to be worthwhile.
Other things represent work. This is old files in the office. My workplace was full of file cabinets with drawers of papers. It was decades of accumulated knowledge. No one would ever read them or use them. But throwing them away seemed disrespectful of all the work that went into those papers. For these things, I think of my daughter's math homework. It is extremely valuable and lots of work went into it, and there is zero reason to retain it the instant it comes home.
Other things represent memories. They embody a long friend or lost relative, or a vacation, or an occasion, or a feeling they caused when worn, used, etc. Discarding it seems to disrespect the memory. I try to keep these things to a minimum - keep representative samples, and digitize to the extent possible.
This is why discarding things is hard. I don't want storage space and have none, but I completely understand why people would rather shove apparently useless things into a storage locker. It's easier to pay to store it than to discard it. I go a step farther and say that it's worth it for folks to pay to store these things. It's worth $80/month or whatever it costs to have that stuff sitting in a storage box, even if they know they will never ever use or even look at them.
sadly, it is often true though. I learned early on that "free" usually meant "trash I don't want to deal with disposing of". There are of course people who don't do that (like myself) but that "price" is unfortunately a real signal to pay attention to
About memories - throwing away the associated item often feels like admitting that you can't go back to the moment represented by the item. It's hard to face that small grief so it's easier to keep it there.
> My local town gives you two free visits to the garbage transfer station per year.
Where I live in Norway the recycling station is open three days a week and I can take stuff there free as often as I like up to 2 000 kg of stuff per year.
It has never occurred to me that there would be a limit on the number of visits. Or have I misunderstood?
Recycling dropoff is normally free in North America. Waste that cannot be recycled is typically charged by weight for the cost of disposal at waste facilities. You can visit either as often as you like, but will pay to have your garbage disposed of. The GP lives in a place where you do not have to pay for non-recyclable waste the first two times you visit per year. This is normally done to encourage people with a large volume of waste from a single cleanup to dispose of waste properly (dumping on vacant land is a big problem in many parts of NA).
Recycling drop-off is not free for me, and neither is having recycling picked up at the house. If I need to drop stuff off at the dump, it's a flat fee per drop-off with a limit of one trailer load per drop-off. Burn barrels are also illegal in Maricopa County, so Amazon boxes just go in the trash.
US here. where I am: Recycling is free, hazardous waste is open a few days a month (also free), appliances are free, and rubbish is measured by weight (they weigh your vehicle on the way in and out). They pay you to take metal.
Without any fee beyond the required annual solid waste bill, my municipality will let me set out up to 20 (!) bags of trash per week with up to 50 lb (!) in them every week. I can throw out two tons of trash per month without having to haul anything anywhere or pay any extra fees.
Clearly this is madness, but it does make it a lot easier to throw shit out than put it in a storage unit.
Trust me, given how many people just accumulate trash because it's expensive, that's an absolutely sane and excellent policy. As a society, we want people to use trash disposal, because the alternative is expensive, painful, and disgusting.
You can literally tell which municipalities in my state have been hoodwinked by the Karens into adopting "pay as you throw". They're the ones where there's trash everywhere.
It's like these people can't think two steps ahead (I'd go so far as to say that's the defining feature of regulatory policy in this state). You just gave people a financial incentive to litter and dump.
Alaska was like this. Taking your trash to the transfer station or dump was expensive, so people throw it all over the place, trashing the highways and vacant land, or they use burn barrels and cause massive pollution torching plastic and other things. It's pretty horrifying to see such beautiful areas littered up :-(
Are you serious? Here in NH it's either once or twice a year. I call it "The real Father's Day" and plan to have a couple of podcasts or similar queued up for the wait in line.
Good god! Why on earth would you make it difficult to dispose of hazardous waste safely?
Here in Blighty, the local tip (sorry 'recycling centre') is open throughout the week and accepts everything from used engine oil and battery acid to asbestos. Granted some of the smaller tips might not have such facilities, but they will direct you to one that will.
All free of charge for non-commercial users. (Business will have their own regulated arrangements for hazardous goods).
In Copenhagen (and I think it's similar in most of Denmark) there's a fireproof cupboard in the basement of my apartment building for hazardous waste. Houses have a small red box they can leave out if they have something.
Making hazardous waste disposal inconvenient seems like a good way to have it end up in the normal waste stream.
Oh very much so. By the time I finally got to a hazardous waste day early enough to make it tolerable, the milk crate full of various poisons and extremely flammable toxins I had would have put low-level terrorist orgs to shame. I might as well have had a glowing suitcase.
Where I live (America, but waste processing is all handled at the local level and policies differ), the landfill has a "resident convenience center" with a bunch of dropoff stations for various types of stuff, along with a big ledge you can toss things over to be sent to the landfill.
When you arrive, and attendent will ask and/or look at what you have and tell you where to put it. Sometimes the answer is "you can't dump that for free. Go to the transfer station and pay by the pound".
In theory, there is also an annual wait limit to free dumps, but they can't actually enforce it.
My theory is self storage is actually in competition with getting a bigger house.
If your family is seriously considering moving to a bigger house, and that move is going to cost you $20,000 that makes renting a storage unit for $1000/year sound like a great deal.
> My theory is self storage is actually in competition with getting a bigger house.
Obviously true. If one had a house with space for posessions, there would be no need for storage. As houses become ever smaller (for a given $/sqft) external self-storage becomes the only affordable way to gain some space.
My parents were poor but back ~70 years ago it was still achievable for a lower income family to buy a house with some space. As an engineer in Silicon Valley, the largest house I can afford is barely twice the square footage of my childhood bedroom. In such a tiny house we fit 3 people, all with hobbies and equipment, child has toys, etc. A house with enough space would be another million at the very least. So that's impossible.
So compared to that, a couple hundred a month for self-storage is a bargain. I hate it, would rather have the equity in a larger property but it is impossible to afford.
So yes, that's why storage facilities have such a boom. Housing by $/sqft is impossibly expensive.
Donation isn't that easy if one has to find someone who actually desires each item. It requires a lot of online posts, communication, and overall effort, but this ensures that each item finds a new home that's right for it.
Best to look up what people actually need. There is a lot of this junk we collect that just gets junked by the donation groups turning into a cost center.
Donating to donation groups isn't a great donation. It's better to catalog and post each item, communicate with people who want it, and thereby find it a new home that's right for it. Granted, this is not possible for all items, especially never for clothing.
Yes, and every time this narrative comes up we seem to conveniently ignore that this is highly correlated with renting instead of buying a home and people of all ages enjoying frequent travel.
If you move often enough within a small radius, you will highly value your storage unit. It's not necessarily just a place for junk. Many people rotate their things when their apartment lease is up or even seasonally. If you live near water, you might even store a boat. Many facilities also offer RV storage. Personally, when I had roommates I would keep my most important stuff in there instead of at home.
The attacks against storage units are engagement bait for nerds about a non-story.
I'm glad you have free visits to the dump for it. I've never lived anywhere where I wouldn't have to also pay to get my trash hauled away, so it's a big pain with old mattresses or furniture honestly.
Rebuying decorations every year is also a leak on finances. Rebuying a bunch of camping gear (more than I can comfortably store in my home) is also a leak on finances.
It's far cheaper to use a storage unit for a lot of this stuff I do routinely use than buying and selling a house just to get more storage space at home.
I'm not blind to the fact not everyone just stores junk they never use. I'm certain there's a percentage of stuff in mine that is probably better off sold or trashed. But until we stop changing decorations for the different seasons, stop a number of hobbies with bulky stuff, or move to a giant mansion I just don't have the space and could use a few more square feet of pure storage space.
So give up on hobbies and everything occasional that requires some equipment since they can’t keep it at home, so basically give up on things that make life worth living to a lot of people. Yeah nah.
Every square footage of every home costs $$$ to keep in your possession. I pay a mortgage. I pay insurance. I pay taxes. I pay maintenance costs. There were acquisition costs in the purchase of it, and there will be acquisition costs wherever I go next. Not one square inch of my home is "free".
Suddenly that simple answer isn't so simple when actually confronted with reality, unless you're willing to be homeless and just carry your possessions in your hands.
i think they are suggesting to rethink the need for things like seasonal decorations if you are forced to pay a life long recurring fee for the privilege.
> if you are forced to pay a life long recurring fee for the privilege.
I have to regardless of a storage unit or in a closet in my house. That closet in my home and that shelf in my garage isn't free either.
So then it's just a question of owning anything at all or nothing, because it all has a life long recurring fee for the privilege of continuing to own it. And yes, my family finds value in decorating for holidays as a part of celebrating, remembering, and keeping traditions alive.
Sometimes people don't just want to live in the same IKEA box 365 days a year.
My garage doesn't even have enough space for all the various vehicles my family uses near daily. It doesn't have the space for the tools I use monthly. I barely even have the space for the workbench I use every other day. I have to have an additional shed to store a lot of other tools and supplies which get used consistently.
Your standard also doesn't make much sense. Garages can vary from barely being able to fit a compact car to having like a four car garage with a workspace area. You're saying that for both instances that's just perfectly the right amount of storage space for those people? The person with the small garage just isn't supposed to have any of the same hobbies as the person with the giant garage?
I guess I could just get rid of all these tools though. Every time I need something fixed I'll just not do it myself and just pay others instead of just doing things myself. I guess I could also just give up on a ton of hobbies we have. We can just throw away our family traditions that have been passed down for over a hundred years. I'm not wealthy enough to live in a house with enough storage space with the other constraints about where I'd like to live, so I guess I just don't get to have these hobbies and traditions and heirlooms.
Or I can just spend like $500/yr and still manage to keep all these hobbies and traditions and heirlooms.
No, I'm not, and I've also never rented a storage unit.
It seems hard to imagine the sums involved becoming comparable to other amounts of money lit on fire to avoid fights with family though (i.e. home renovation, travel).
Who tf is breaking the bank on subscriptions and phone bills?
Are all these comments like yours coming from college students or what? If anything else, a storage unit is one of the most valuable things to pay for if you just moved out on your own.
VPS is production. Linux dev box is my local big box. Macbook just lets me move about and do iOS development. Orca lets me run agents either on linux box or locally on the macbook depending on how I'm feeling, and Orca handles all the worktrees & sub-agents for me (via Opencode). Everything runs in a tailscale network, ssh connects all the things.
My github repos all have CONSTITUTION.md files that keep multi-agent dev grounded. Production runs trigger github actions that automatically check logs daily, file bug reports, etc. I launch Orca and literally just type "checking in" and the CONSTITUTION.md file governs the scanning of github issues and prioritization of which issues need to be addressed. Another process prioritizes and bundles them. When I type "checking in" the Orca worktree handles the launching of sub-agents that fix things. Occasionally I weigh in with an opinion or pick a recommendation. If I'm in the mood to pay attention I'll ask it to find another round of bugs and let's keep going. Often I just let it close after the first round. When I tell it "done?" it does a full regression and a production box review. Code auto-deploys to production twice/day. I don't regularly push to production manually.
On Fridays the CONSTITUTION.md kicks off a strategy and roadmap review when I type "checking in". As I have ideas I add them to the roadmap in one of the worktrees. Generally nothing happens until they're reviewed on Fridays together, unless I push one manually.. which happens.
Hermes runs on the production box. I have a few skills and quick commands that lets me check in on production runs and the status of things. It's read-only by design, basically my version of a dashboard. If I have a thought, idea, research link, or question it'll write to a github issue and we'll deal with it in the next check-in.
Orca lets me do all this remotely from an iPhone, and I talk to Hermes via Telegram. I generally don't INITIATE new work using either of these. I report issues/ideas and let the process do the things. But I can, and have.. I just tend not to. The whole thing churns, and so my inclination to "jump in and do a thing" is less than before. My inclination now is to toss things into the machine and let the machine work the schedule. I'm at a point where I could easily automate 80% of this and do my manual things 1x/2x week and I think progress would stay steady. I'll get there at some point, but I like the level of engagement I'm participating in now.
Occasionally I use Claude Code as a watchtower review of things, or do a wholesale code review, or do a review of logs. But deepseek is much better at building this machine -- I built something manually over time and through a ship of theseus process it got ugly. Deepseek reviewed the situation and wrote the CONSTITUTION.md and designed the processes independently. It favors deterministic scripts for process but launches them via LLM and monitors for exceptions; also, no memory system which also disqualifies Claude from being at the center of this. Memory plugins didn't work well because instructions start accumulating all through the chain of instruction files (AGENTS.md, memory, etc) and that gets very undeterministic very quickly. Instructions are written once, reviewed/audited intentionally.. it's best not to let LLMs learn and write their own dynamically (yet).
I've since used it as a template for other projects I've started -- they work the same. Currently building the GTM agent that will handle all SEO, marketing, keywording, etc for my projects -- it'll be a significantly autonomous Hermes agent. Don't really need Claude for any of this and my Deepseek bill is $50-100/mo.
A lot of dev tools now support remote execution, even those used in corporate environments. And for orgs that need locked down dev instances under regulatory control, these tools fit that bill too. I don't think I'm operating outside of norms that are used across all kinds of industries. It may not be the most common config yet, but these tools are building for customer bases that exist.
1) Dario keeps appealing to Trump, who obviously wants nothing to do with him, and will bash on him every change he gets. Dario isn't learning and it almost feels like Sam and Elon voted him KOM just to watch him get whacked by Trump, which was so easily predictable. Given the admonishments he received from David Sacks after he published his blog post, it's nutty he couldn't see where the administration would land on his statement. He should've known, especially when there was no groundswell of interest when OpenAI hacked Hugging Face -- doubling down with "no really guys!" wasn't going to play.
2) The frontier labs have people smart enough to build frontier lab tech but not smart enough to message on this matter more intelligently. It's pretty glum, how they keep trying the same tactic over and over. It's either cover for some other actions in the background, or they're operating way below par for this kind of campaign.
3) This is climate change all over again, but with the activist gun on the opposite side of the net (I'm mixing all the metaphors so you know this isn't AI written). The language and pleas are very identical though. Before, climate activists wanted the government to control GHGs releases by everyone, now the loudest voices want the government to control frontier AI by.. themselves.
It's comically misbegotten. And I have a work meeting about it on Wednesday.
Hm, I thought there was a lot of interest after Hugging Face in broader tech and it started breaking into the media with articles in the NYT, etc. Then with the Jacob Coxon tweet, appearances on national TV, Bernie superintelligence ban it seemed to be going mainstream.
In many news organizations--certainly newspapers, potentially an outfit as big as TechCrunch--headlines are typically not written by the authors themselves but instead by an (copy)editor. Many times journalists are unhappy with the headline that an article ultimately runs with.
The amount of useless griping and sniping on HN has made it a less interesting and resourceful community. Moreso than the flood of AI news.
Tagging may not help though. Even the latest Apple product announcement threads were just.. bad. Everyone wants to be grumpy and dismissive.
If I had to keep one and lose one, I’d keep X and lose HN. And while I hate Elon, HN is losing on vibes, utility, information, network, links, and tips.
I cross code and review between Deepseek v4 Flash and Claude Opus/Fable. I will do a full code review of my project with DS 4.1 F later today, but Claude makes a lot of mistakes that DS finds. Claude is slightly more ambitious about what it's reaching for, but DS is far more proficient and efficient with a slightly lower ceiling. That may not be true after the upgrade, but if I had to live with one, as I'm paying out of my own pocket, I'd def stick with Deepseek.
maybe where you were paying attention. were they also certain that americans wouldn't be paying the tariffs?
but lots of people who saw what china was doing with renewable energy and EVs rightly suggested this would put them on the path of independence w/r/t GPUs and LLMs.
this isn't like the ol' days where "japan can't do software". we knew china can.
your attitude isn't warranted.
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