All the crap you never needed

February 23 2024

February 16 2024

February 9 2024 Friedberg is back Apple Vision Pro Better than MetaQuest Pro - no dizziness and disconnectedness apparently Lots of image collection, data collection, etc can be done while you’re working Enterprise applications - data is being ingested in real time Workforce can be trained by the goggles in a way video can never do Relate this to how young people are having bad outcomes because of technology and social media - might exacerbate it When Apple comes into the race, its the starting gun for the space Friedberg predicts they will get $100B in sales over the next 5 years You can do all your work without people seeing your screen, etc Jason thinks its an enterprise device Chamath, Friedberg, etc have strict rules for their kids’ electronics Can also go long SSRIs, etc with Apple Meta vs Snap Meta is rocking, Snap is rocked Snap has voting imbalance and maybe that’s what’s hurting them A different kind of investor will go to them because they have no say ...

February 2 2024 Friedberg out JCal bought Apple googles for all besties Never know when you will get lucky in life Senate hearing on social media This is misguided - how can you end all harm - zeroism is dangerous Moral panic Powerful moment where Zuckerberg faced the families and apologized in court In the past too people blamed other factors - Judas Priest was brought to court for their lyrics Rap music was targeted in the past too There is a massive law of large numbers at play here too - 1/10 of 1 percent of all users is still > 3M people How does Section 230 apply here? Are platforms publishers or distributors? Are they editorializing or are they a newstand? Section 230 says if you make a good samaritan effort to combat bad things, you should be protected Parents also have to play an active role if we want social media at scale Lawyers are salivating at how they were able to extract money against tobacco, etc and now at this - they are a big donor for democrats...

January 26 2024 Besties body shame Phil Helmuth and mock his fashion sense Markets going up SP 500 up Gas prices down Consumer sentiment positive Counter BTFP ending in March China negative economic signals National debt and debt service are out of control Media job cuts Business Insider, LA Times did lots of layoffs, Conde Nast Sports Illustrated, Pitchfork, etc are in trouble Bill Ackman (virtually) sticking the knife in People prefer experts going direct instead of random media Google trends shows Twitter is doing quite well for the mainstream If you don’t have a strong personality at the center of your publication, you have to lie or make up stuff or toe the party line, so there’s a glut of outlets doing the same thing Gellman amnesia effect starting to wear off - people are realizing that they are not telling the truth Immigration and Border Crisis Texas vs Federal government Border security is removing barbed wire Mayor Eric Adams of NY i...

January 19 2024 WEF Parody Oh Davos Kumbaya Jason with killer beats Davos not so cool anymore Earlier people would flex it, now apologize for it People fly in on private jets and tell people to stop consuming carbon They eat rich stuff and tell people to stop consuming Only things that became serious and went viral were Milei’s speech and Jamie Dimon’s comments (including saying Trump was mostly right) Milei Says in front of Klaus Schwab and others that collectivist spirit is to blame and extolled capitalism Dimon Said like Chamath that Trump was right on NATO, immigration, tax reform, mostly on China, might not like how he said things and his policies were largely sound and only look better since we abandoned them Davos was about high status, now its not useful anymore Its a glorified enterprise software sales conference - basically allows you to close very big deals because leaders of counter party are there too to get a deal done - pay $40K per ticket to get...

January 13 2024 Friedberg shooting hoops US and allies attack Houthis Fired rockets Conflict in the middle east escalating - will result in war with Iran 😟 Big alliance - so Iran will be careful if they want to escalate China being affected or not - their ships are not being attacked, but their containers are on other ships that are being attacked This affects Europe and also China What is the need for the US to really get involved Wag the Dog reference - you start a war for the political benefits instead of necessity Are they deflecting from domestic struggles (non-Biden candidates doing well like Dean Phillips, some Republicans, etc)? American people might be exhausted by wars but media propagandizes for wars and rams it down people’s throats This might make the administration look good But they are so incompetent that they apparently couldn’t even find the Secretary of Defense - Lloyd Austin (having some health issues) Market data is mixed Inflation might be ...