Butters

Google AI answered my question, but it's more concerning than I thought tbh

@Elliott awesome insight. However, a fully stage orange+ 'dictatorship' seems to be possible when you study Singapore. So far that experiment has gone well but who knows how it will pan out. Same for China of course.

Drake is turning 40 too. Happy birthday Drake, you made the 2010s what they were 🎵

Today I saw what seemed like my dad. The way he walked, his clothing, his face all looked exactly like my dad. But my dad is 2400km away. That is the second time in 4 months. Last time I met a guy who looked exactly like my best friend in high school, just as I was thinking about him a lot. I consider these glitches in the matrix. The dream revealing itself to me. Shits weird man.

What's actually concerning is combining both that video I shared with the new article I shared. No Fortune 500 company, legal or medical could ever use Anthopic's Fable 5 because it retains user data for 30 days by default with no way to opt-out. Yet "They highlighted that British hospitals, researchers, and enterprises were already actively integrating Fable 5 into their workflows". Wtf 😑 I assume the UK hospitals were using it for tasks that have nothing to do with patient data but still, this is the whole point of data protection and why we need a strong EU alternative.

Just the fact that digital autonomy is such a hot botton issue around the globe now. https://www.thetimes.com/business/technology/article/lift-ban-on-newest-ai-models-uk-urges-donald-trump-vlhr3qhbv and: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/eu-commission-looking-practical-consequences-anthropic-decision-spokesperson-2026-06-14/ It's a pretty big deal. https://table.media/?p=ec56e75d-cf8a-43fc-a1f5-6b4c163e53e4 https://www.cep.eu/eu-topics/details/us-access-ban-on-anthropics-fablemythos-5-more-of-a-geopolitical-signal-than-a-necessary-security-measure.html

Yeah Anthropic is pretty evil.

I just don't agree with that. I think it will make their non-US enterprise customers seriously consider local LLMs and non-US alternatives. This move really broke something in how people view flagship models from now on and that you can't rely on using them.

But that's not how it works in practice. You really think Trump represents the American people? He's just a grifter who got elected by being in the media constantly and playing on emotions, not because of his fantastic competence as a politician to represent the people.

I mean, I don't think this particular move was deliberate but hurts them instead. I don't see how constantly screaming your software is going to make everyone unemployed or destroy us all is good marketing. Cal Newport actually has an interesting take on this: Basically he's saying these Silicon Valley AI guys are so deep into this "rationalist doomer subculture", that's just how they talk. Only now are they getting pushback on that because they're trying to take these things public. It's impossible to enforce this. Besides, the open source models are only about 6 months behind the flagships so it's constantly moving.

Chapter 2: Lisbon, Portugal Guy at my hostel said I would enjoy Lisbon, so I bought a bus ticket and went there. After a 3.5 hour VERY CHEAP bus ride (paid like €4.30), I arrived in the Portuguese capital. Now mind you, it was still raining. Apparently a tropical rainstorm (or multiple) went over the south of Europe this time and it rained literally day and night, pretty much 24/7, at least that's how I remember it. This was definitely depressing. I was also stressed about money all the time so I just couldn't enjoy it much. Somebody left a pack of condoms in the hostel room, as if to say "I don't need these anymore, you guys have fun". The Lisbon hostel was always noisy because they played music in the common areas. The only trick to work quietly was to wake up at like 4am and sit there before they turned on the music. I really need quiet time and privacy, hostels just gave me stress. Having literally no money for food or hostel AND no income AT ALL made things more stressful and depressing as the intense rain continued day in day out. Locals told me that this level of rainfall was very unusual. Homelessness: I cannot write about Lisbon without addressing this. The streets are full of homeless people. Even the fancy areas! Like you need to crawl over a few sleeping homeless to get into the Gucci store. It was clear to me there were 2 types of homeless: drug-addicted and pretty much regular people. I've seen guys sleep in little tents, wake up, brush their teeth and get to work in the morning. This is because of a massive housing problem in the city. People cannot afford housing because of the high rent prices so they sleep in the streets. Even though there's a lot of homelessness, I never worried about my safety. It surprised me how kind the local people were to homeless people. Banks allowed them to sleep on their steps. they sleep in front of stores and nobody seemed to kick them out. Even right next to the police station is one of the largest homeless colonies I'd seen.

@enchanted fair point, China remains such a mystery to me. On the one hand they're evolving so fast while at the same time remaining this dictatorship where you cannot criticize the government, although I believe it's not as bad as most other authoritarian regimes. The central government also needs to keep a really high approval rating afaik so it's not truly a dictatorship. It's kinda brilliant how Beijing has been playing 4D chess for decades, but would I wanna live there? I still prefer Western democracy. It's the media that influences people to have such dumb opinions and that is bad for democracy. The loudest most viral monkey gets the most votes.

Pretty good video, these companies are pure evil. I've had multiple people try to recruit me into one but thank God I've never joined.

Anthropic used a lot of scare tactics marketing but that has nothing to do with the real application for ai. There's a growing need for ai from corporate and government, more demand than supply can handle. I found this interview with Mystral (a French AI company) CEO quite interesting. Basically all he talks about are enterprise and government use cases which is Mystrals core customer base, not consumers or hype . I think this news is bad for anthropic . Europe is already busy to reduce their dependency on US big tech and these things only accelerate that.

Interesting takes on the Mythos ban, the reasons behind it and he predicts it will be back online within a few weeks.

I don't know. I mean having the government just pull flagship models after they release is a pretty bad look trying to attract investment. And that's what they want, investments. Of course having teenagers create silly videos is a massive cost but surely there's future profit for these companies from coding and enterprise usage, which is the only real use.

It is an amazing model for agentic coding work. Why would they get companies spending thousands a day of this and then just stop offering it? On Reddit everyone's saying they got refunds anyway. But yeah, I upgraded to Max for this and will stay on Max because of the recent price increases from Github Agent so I need this anyway.

That's all you need.

Hell Week: First few weeks sucked. I had booked a private room in a hostel for the first few nights but everything went wrong. I locked myself outside of my room in my underwear when taking a shower so I was stuck in the freezing cold in the common areas for about 3 hours until reception arrived at 10AM. After so many years of having my rigid daily routine, guess I wasn't used to change anymore. Things continued to suck. I couldn't sleep at night because of the noise coming from the street. Had to move to a regular hostel bed because the private room was fully booked and I was already low on money. Here I briefly started living the 'hostel life' of socializing and hanging out. The problem with that was of course how pointless it is, and it distracted me from work. When I say 'work' in these early days I really mean I had no idea what to do for money. I had some ideas but they weren't that great. I was vibe-coding basic 'SaaS apps' (if you can call it that) and sold them on Flippa. This didn't bring in much money and I was broke. Anyway, hanging out with a bunch of hostel people didn't help me make money and it was just a distraction. These people were young and had no purpose. We've all been there, but I had no time for that. One night I went out drinking with these people and got sick. That was the last time I drank alcohol. First few weeks sucked. Now I had a fever, sick at a hostel, broke, rain everyday. C'mon now, it ain't so bad: Just like I did at home, I walked a lot. I enjoyed the scenery and noticing the subtle differences in culture. Things I noticed in Porto: People and objects smell good Buildings feel nostalgic Abandoned buildings galore Tourists annoy me Every street is a total climb People dress fancy People make eye contact (more on that later) (abandoned buildings in Porto)

Now Netherlands could barely win against Uzbekistan, not looking good 😑 My money is on Curacao (I mean it's literally a 1/2500 at the bookies)

Chapter 1: Porto, Portugal Tis early January of 2026 and I am really, really sick of living in the Netherlands. There was a snowstorm going over the country as I moved my stuff out of the house and towards the garbage dump in a little van I rented for the day. I almost broke my hip as I slipped and fell in front of a lady taking a selfie of the 'beautiful snow'. Everything pissed me off. I wanted to go to the sun! My original plan was to move to Bali. I've been to Bali before, but that was 12 years ago, before the word Digital Nomad even existed. But I wanted to go there now, and live the Nomad Lifestyle: morning coffees, gym, swimming pools and co-working spaces. And tropical heat! Lots of tropical heat. But for some odd reason I decided to go to Porto first. It just felt safer to stay within the European Union while my money was low. Then, hopefully a month later I'd have more money saved up and can safely travel to South East Asia (spoiler: I didn't). Anyway, I made it thought the snowstorm and on the day of my flight all trains were canceled. Not a single train went, except for the one going to the airport. I don't know if this is faith or luck but I guess I'm going to Porto. Had minor / major fear of flying. I hadn't flown since I lived in Indonesia 9 years ago (not getting into that right now). My fear of flying was purely mental. Sometimes I'd expand this fear into other areas such as the train or cars. It's the same fear, and it is exactly this reason why I wanted change in my life. I'd been stuck in the same place for too long! My mind has become lazy and stale. I wanted to throw my lazy stale mind into the deep end; immersion therapy baby! At the airport I was actually pretty calm (so all this meditation was good for something after all, huh). The girl in front of me seemed nervous. I wanted to say something but didn't. She was cute and spoke French with the customs guy. A lady cut in line by asking everyone if she can go in front of them; a strategy so bold it is only tried by few. Went through security, got on plane and flew. Was still kind of nervous on the plane. Not nervous but ... groundless. I guess that's fitting. It just weirds me out that I'm stuck in this tube with other people and can't even move around freely, but whatever. Landed fine. Had to buy a tram ticket but the machine confused me. It's funny how when you arrive in a new country you're often just confused. This is what it must feel like when a pigeon accidentally gets on the subway and ends up underground. Asked a girl to help me and figured it out. Went outside to wait on the tram. First Impression: My first impression of Porto was mixed af. On the one hand it was nice since there's palm trees and stuff, on the other hand it was still kinda cold. Not freezing cold, but it felt like going to a waterpark while they're changing the water, or a beach resort in the winter, or a ski resort in August. Idk. (...to be continue cause turns out I write WAY more than I thought I would)

I have little hope for my country of the Netherlands. They just lost a friendly to Algeria. I mean, really? 😑 They used to be great. The world cup in South Africa was fire 🔥

Many people just stop using the forum after a while. Probably more people are on and off than being on here consistently.

See I've been too busy for this forum lately 😭 but y'all still having a good time.