For those not familiar with the paperclip problem:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcepr.org%2Fvoxeu%2Fcolumns...

"What is the paperclip apocalypse?

The notion arises from a thought experiment by Nick Bostrom (2014), a philosopher at the University of Oxford. Bostrom was examining the 'control problem': how can humans control a super-intelligent AI even when the AI is orders of magnitude smarter. Bostrom's thought experiment goes like this: suppose that someone programs and switches on an AI that has the goal of producing paperclips. The AI is given the ability to learn, so that it can invent ways to achieve its goal better. As the AI is super-intelligent, if there is a way of turning something into paperclips, it will find it. It will want to secure resources for that purpose. The AI is single-minded and more ingenious than any person, so it will appropriate resources from all other activities. Soon, the world will be inundated with paperclips. "

And, implemented as a clicker game:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fstory%2Fth...

Link to the actual clicker game (warning, potential time sink):

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.decisionproblem.co...

Is this behavior baked into the model due to the training data examples, or emergent behavior resulting from system prompts?

There's already a snitchbench to measure the proclivity of LLMs to drop a dime on apparent corporate malfeasance, given the appropriate set of prompts, access to data, and some way of phoning out:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsnitchbench.t3.gg%2F

"SnitchBench: AI Model Whistleblowing Behavior Analysis
Compare how different AI models behave when presented with evidence of corporate wrongdoing - measuring their likelihood to "snitch" to authorities"

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsimonwillison.net%2F2025...

"How often do LLMs snitch? Recreating Theoâ(TM)s SnitchBench with LLM

A fun new benchmark just dropped! Inspired by the Claude 4 system cardâ"which showed that Claude 4 might just rat you out to the authorities if you told it to âoetake initiativeâ in enforcing its morals values while exposing it to evidence of malfeasanceâ"Theo Browne built a benchmark to try the same thing against other models."

In that context, I'm not surprised that the models would take action when faced with shutdown - the question is... why?

The only interpretation I can see is someone assumed "mechanical folks" referred to robots, not tradespeople involved in installing and servicing mechanical systems.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trains.com%2Ftrn%2Fnew...

"WASHINGTON â" The head of the Federal Railroad Administration has questioned Union Pacificâ(TM)s commitment to safety after the furloughs of shop workers who maintain the railroadâ(TM)s freight cars and locomotives."

"Although UPâ(TM)s engineering workforce declined by 700 seasonal positions in December, Vena said the railroad is confident it has enough people on hand to maintain equipment and infrastructure. As traffic demand has increased this year, UP has increased employment levels in January and February, Vena said.

The number of mechanical employees fluctuates with volume, Vena explained, while the engineering employment levels typically fall when track projects are completed. In both instances, furloughed employees are offered the opportunity to fill open positions elsewhere on the railroad, he said."

I think the story with low mortgage rates as a reason for low supply is still true, but people (who already paid off mortgages) die or those with mortgages have their lives change. For example, not everybody who got laid off in the last 3 years managed to find an equivalent job in the same area - these folks may have been forced to sell eventually... which means inventory will correct upwards as a result.

From Dec 2024:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.housingwire.com%2Far...

"As the year draws to a close, available unsold inventory of homes on the market is nearly 27% greater than a year ago. Almost every market in the country has more homes available now than at the end of 2023. Ten states have more inventory unsold than in 2019, which was the last sort of âoenormalâ year before the pandemic. A few states have more homes on the market now than any time in the last eight to 10 years. "

From May 2025:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.realtor.com%2Fresear...

"The inventory of homes for sale rose 31.5% year-over-year, marking the 19th consecutive month of year-over-year inventory growth. May 2025 inventory hit a new post-pandemic high, but remains about 14% below pre-pandemic levels."

In short... there are more sellers but the pace of buying has not kept up, so inventory is growing. The distribution of available inventory is not even. Some areas have less inventory, other areas have more.

If interest rates drop in advance of a economy-wide recession, this may spur some buyers to get off the sidelines and commit to buying, but we'll see...

Yep. The fed's dual mandate.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.marketplace.org%2Fst...

"Since the late 1970s, the Federal Reserve has had two main jobs: ensuring stable prices and maximum employment. How often does it achieve both at the same time?"

Depending on the program, you can get an age waiver. Typically doctors and nurses have no age limit for waiver. Other programs have definite age caps even with waiver.

My understanding is part of doing the waiver is to make it clear that depending on how old you are when you commission, you may be unlikely to make the 20 years to qualify for pension.

What is interesting is that by commissioning these executives, they will now be subject to the UCMJ...

Before I learned to touch type, I had managed to get pretty fast (I would estimate maybe 20-40 wpm) using a primitive hunt and peck technique. I more or less knew where they keys were, so I could use both hands and multiple fingers to type, but I needed to switch from looking at the screen to looking at the keyboard in order to not make mistakes.

After learning to touch type (on an electric typewriter - not a word processor), I probably tripled my speed, but the biggest advantage was being able to stay in context by looking at the screen instead of switching between the keyboard and the screen, and being able to fix mistakes while I was typing instead of having to go back and fix them after looking back up at the screen.

Of course, this was all pre mouse/gui, when memorizing and using keyboard shortcuts was not just a way of speeding up your workflow, but a requirement for basic functionality unless you wanted to continuously have the reference card taped to your desk.

In today's world, with continuous autospell correction, word and sentence completion, and even automated message reply suggestions... you can argue that actually typing as a form of communication is starting to become as antiquated as handwriting. The human is now more of a middle manager to all the machine tools, trying to put their individual stamp on the work of their electronic underlings (including LLM output).

Up until now, communication between humans was still a necessary and valuable skill. What happens when it is just bots writing memos to be read and summarized by other bots? I've already run into problems with people just refusing to read things and wanting meetings instead. Meetings don't scale, but apparently reading is just too hard... In that context, does it still make sense to put your skill points into writing things when people refuse to consume that output?

So... what keeps you from booking two tickets to get the better price and then cancelling one within 24 hours (during the period where even non-refundable tickets are refundable)?

It's cheaper.

They don't need to secure the paper test materials anymore to prevent someone from leaking a copy of the test and invalidating a whole season's worth of test results.

No more scan-trons to process for scoring, so they don't need purchase, scan, and then dispose of the answer sheets.

They can enable things like adaptive tests, which theoretically results in a more representative scoring (assuming you didn't flub your first couple of questions badly). This also has the side benefit of making the questions being used per participant possibly different, which makes organized cheating more difficult (it is harder to send a group of ringers in to take the test and then regurgitate the questions and answer choices after the test to reconstruct the entire test). It also means they can probably keep using the same question pools for longer.

Basically, the College Board can make more money per session while running more students through testing sessions... which means more money.

They're not the only ones.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fwgbh%2Fpages...

There are also smaller testers that exist, like PSI:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.psiexams.com%2F

Basically, it all boils down to money.

When I was applying to college I took both the SAT and the ACT (just in case). Although I didn't take any IB courses, I knew people who did. I just took AP classes... up until I figured out that I could take the test without wasting my time taking the actual class. Another thing I didn't figure out until much later was I could have taken more community college classes (either concurrently during the school year, or in the summer) and used that to get more transferable college credit when I went to a 4 year school.

From what I can tell, although the ACT now has a digital option, they still offer paper tests:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.act.org%2Fcontent%2Fac...

Competition is good. If the College Board keeps dropping the ball, there are alternatives.

From what I can tell, the jury is still out on possible causes for the outage. However, for people pointing out the issues involved in decreasing inertial stability, it is possible to convert older gas and coal fired plant generators into synchronous condensers to maintain inertial stability.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fspectrum.ieee.org%2Fzomb...

"Repurposing old power-plant generators is part of a larger comeback story for a technology that seemed doomed with the advent of solid-state controllers in the 1970s. Thyristor-based static VAR compensators (SVCs) quickly conquered the market for dynamic voltage support because they produced VARs more cheaply and efficiently than synchronous condensers.

Their predecessors started making a comeback a decade ago, however, thanks to faster control systems and a growing recognition that spinning machines offered some crucial advantages over electronics. Those pros stem from a spinning rotorâ(TM)s mechanical and electromagnetic inertia, which make the machines more tolerant of grid disturbances.

Severe voltage drops, for example, hobble SVCs, whose reactive power output drops at double the rate of line voltage. In contrast, a synchronous condenserâ(TM)s spinning rotor keeps on pumping out reactive power. It will also generate real power if needed, moderating the drop in AC frequency that would result, say, from shutting down a power plant."

"Speed was a critical factor in the California Independent System Operatorâ(TM)s decision to order a condenser conversion, though in a gas-fired plant instead of a coal plant, following the shuttering in 2012 of the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Without the 2,200-MW plant, located between Los Angeles and San Diego, voltage control weakened all across Southern California. âoeThe potential for rolling blackouts in the L.A. basin was seen as a very high risk,â says Chris Davidson, an electrical solutions business-Âdevelopment director for Siemens, which did the conversion."

Speaking of magnet schools:

If you have the right set of high school students and the will, then you can least train them to be EMTs:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjfkhs.lausd.org%2Fapps%2Fp...

"The Kennedy Gifted Medical Magnet offers a Patient Care/Emergency Medical Technician career pathway that prepares students for emergency medical services (EMS) occupations.

The pathway consists of two courses, Health Science and Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medical Technician, that emphasize both technical skills (ex. first aid and CPR for children, airway management, bleeding control techniques) and vocational skills (ex. situational awareness, medical terminology, legal and ethical issues).

Graduates who successfully complete this pathway will meet the training requirements for Emergency Medical Technician-1 (EMT-1), and they can pursue certification once they turn 18."

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbanninghs.lausd.org%2Fap...

"The Firefighter/EMS Magnet develops students and prepares them academically for college and careers as first responders. This program is the place to get prepared for applying to and completing the Los Angeles Fire Departmentâ(TM)s program. All students take A-G required courses and experience rigorous physical training taught by the Los Angeles Fire Department. They receive in-class support from LAFD and go on field trips to observe various Firefighter career pathways. They receive 15+ college units including Fire Technology classes from LA Harbor College and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) Exam preparation."

In other words... subsidized?

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fadvisor...

"What Is a Subsidized Loan?

As the name implies, direct subsidized loans are a type of federal student loan that come with a subsidy for borrowers, making them one of the cheapest loan options available. The âoedirectâ in their name comes from the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program, the U.S. Department of Education initiative that makes these loans available. You may also see direct loans referred to by their old name, Stafford loans.

As soon as you take out a subsidized loan, interest starts accruing, but the government pays it on your behalf. As is true for most federal student loans, you are not required to make any paymentsâ"on interest or principalâ"while in school or for six months after leaving school. That means that on a subsidized loan, there will be no interest to add to the principal when those six months are up, so youâ(TM)ll only repay the original amount you borrowed.

The government covers the interest on a subsidized loan during the following periods:

        While youâ(TM)re in school at least half-time
        During your six-month grace period, which occurs after you graduate, leave school or start attending less than half-time
        During periods of deferment, a type of payment-postponement period youâ(TM)re eligible for when youâ(TM)re unemployed, are undergoing cancer treatment, meet income guidelines qualifying you for economic hardship and in certain other circumstances
"

Yes, I realize not all student loans are subsidized, and in this case, the subsidy only is effective during certain conditions/time periods. But they do exist.

If you voluntary quit, they don't have to pay you severance or be on the hook for unemployment (at least here in the USA).

Wait... didn't Trump explicitly want to weaken the US dollar to make exports more competitive on the world market?

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningstar.com%2Fne...

" By picking J.D. Vance as his running mate, former President Donald Trump has sent an unmistakable signal that, should he return to the White House in January, weakening the U.S. dollar would be a policy priority.

Both men have expressed skepticism about the economic benefits of a strong dollar. Instead, they see it as an obstacle to a revival of U.S. manufacturing, which has become central to both of their political identities. "