Tesla Cybercabs keep you logged into your music accounts between trips and cars. It's a very small but very nice detail.

One of my favorite things about Mark is that he'll say something deeply nerdy and autistic but he's also kind of a bro so he'll catch himself. That tension makes me admire him more, makes me feel seen.

Prediction: Intuit in 10 years doesn't survive if they don't control the data source. They will try to acquire something like (or specifically) Yodlee or Plaid then claim to need higher security standards than currently available, which will require developer verification, ultimately metering calls to maintain revenue as the picks and shovels provider to the swarm of alternatives (software and or agents) that will ultimately supplant QB which is a widely used and wildly despised ledger, basically.

Much of what we call AI slop isn't based on bad code. It's slop because of speed. Most good ideas don't come quickly. They simmer over time, iterate in conversations, blossom in the shower, walks in the woods. The extended time building something is an opportunity to let new ideas come. I think this is much of what we think of as AI slop, because the ideas are not fully baked. Just because we can build things quickly doesn't mean we need to ship them immediately.

One of the biggest barriers to autonomous agent operations is expiring sessions. I've long been critical of overzealous infosec people who think their systems are so precious that they expire sessions in unreasonably short time. This has ripple effects on efficient operations. For example, our regional bank expires auth through Plaid every 10 days. This means tools like Ramp and Netsuite lose connectivity to a dozen accounts, each of which has to be re-auth'd individually. Chase seems to do it every 30 days, which is at least somewhat better. And Chase auths at the login level rather than the individual account level. Aside from banks, ridiculously short expiration windows basically mean background automations break. You can't schedule things or perform agent-based tasks easily, especially on headless hosts, without re-authing, as in the case of Netsuite, every 3 days.

While I am passionate about investing in physical businesses what I'm truly passionate about is having access to a dumpster near my house.

A weekend side project is an independent analysis of CapMetro's ridership data, which I requested for FY 2025 in a public information request. I'm just getting the data organized with Claude, but here are a few preliminary stats. - On average, 6.4 people rode a bus in service, filling 18% of its seats. - 45% of fully counted bus trips never filled more than 20% of their seats, even at their busiest point. - Only 49 of 1.18 million trips reached the maximum load CapMetro’s own 2023 standards allow (80 people on a 40-ft bus). - On 40-ft buses, 97% of trips never carried more people than a 35-ft bus can seat.

after picking it up and dropping it a dozen times over ~7 years, i finally finished snow crash. now i understand. i also now understand why it will never be a movie.

Tesla FSD got lost this morning in the I-35 construction zone and did a 2-mile loop twice to figure out how to get through to where I was trying to go. It eventually recovered. Funny thing is I wasn't mad and didn't takeover b/c I also didn't know where to go. That zone is a cluster-f that changes every day and in no way resembles the maps. My only improvement feedback is to consider displaying a note on the screen like "oops, i messed up, fixing it, all is good" so I don't think I'm crazy.

Some years ago I invested in a friend's business and quickly the annual dividend grew, long since repaying the initial investment. When I get the dividend check each year I like to look at my 2003 tax return to remind myself how lucky I am to be where I am today.

Nike's troubles are quite simple and of its own making. A good mantra in retail is don't make it hard for me to give you money. Nike makes it nearly impossible. A few years ago it retreated from most online retailers and many brick and mortar to become mostly D2C. Remaining third-party retailers could offer only part of the catalog, retaining specialized products for Nike direct. The third parties had wide Nike selections online and in-store, ecommerce had great filters, people could find what they want, or at least get close. Discoverability in ecom is hard. We had 6000+ skus at Zappos. We constantly fretted over colors (display all in search or just on product page), words, category definition, searchfilter facets. What language to customers use to describe what they are looking for? What is a white shoe vs a shoe *with* white? Nike doesn't even try. The site has 779 mens shoe choices. It's impossibly difficult to find the filter you need. Every colorway is displayed as unique and almost never adjacent to its other colorways. Its stores stock a comical, seemingly random array of products. To effectively shop at Nike you need to hear about a shoe from someone else. It blocks ChatGPT and other bots so even if you're looking for something new (find me a casual shoe), ChatGPT can't direct you to Nike. I get this for third-party sites...minimize comparison shopping...but for brands it makes no sense. In store, for example, you can't buy a Nike soccer or tennis shoe at either of its Austin stores right now. That's an edge case but if its a category they care about, it would seem they would use their real estate to at least show you it exists. Try buying a casual Nike at Nike Soho, the flagship store. Nike stores are not a place you go to get Nikes when your intent is utility. They are hype beast outlets designed to brand build on top of very expensive real estate (Nike Austin is next door to Hermes). Brand building makes sense when your product is easy to buy. If you make it hard, you're toast (or Hermes in which case you won at life).

when i'm a billionaire my act of public service will be to run around the country and fund lawsuits like this

Longshoremen’s Union: If you automate anything we will go on strike and cripple the US economy. China: