I still think this question is a future minefield, as well as the question of what happens if an LLM outputs a patented algorithm

This is not really a question. Accidental patent infringement is still patent infringement. Just because you used new trendy technology to do it does not mean that it isn't infringement.

Anything with a probability mass or distribution function has entropy; the state space of Markov chains just tends to get combinatorially big as the chain's memory increases.

There was for a brief period a Middle Path, called libiberty (now mostly subsumed into gnulib). It generated GNU-compatible shim functions for whatever system you happened to be on that translated those calls into the native calls. So you wrote one clean GNU-esque codebase and gnulib patched together essentially a translation layer for it when you built.

As an aside, back in the days of Stack Exchange I would always type out manually whatever answer I found to make sure I understood WTF I was adding to the system.

I did this too. Almost always I'd rename variables, change formatting, add or remove comments, etc..

Unfortunately this feels less easy to do with modern tools. For example, Claude Code expects to edit your actual source files, and the Claude chat is much worse at writing code.

I use zed for this (you can use vscode as well), just use the side panel chat, take away write permissions, prompt it with "answer with code in chat" or similar, then you can use it as a personalized StackOverflow for your codebase. Even if it outputs an entire new file, you can take your time and go function by function.

They moved the functionality from Firefox to Thunderbird IIRC, which seemed like a desperate attempt to get anyone to use Thunderbird.

Buzz was weird because its main impact was killing another Google product, Orkut

In the early aughts the web was largely anonymous (MySpace and Friendster were just starting out and Facebook was still a Ivy league only thing). We thought we wanted to be able to find and be found by specific people, but in retrospect I definitely regret that change. It was better when I was just a randomish string of characters.

IDK, I ran an RSS feed that had ads 20 years ago (it was a niche hobby blog and every fifth post was an ad for supplies for that hobby). It made enough to pay for the hosting.

I mean, go to an IBEW hall in a busy area and talk to the shop steward; he can probably start you tomorrow

That's $25B before discounts, and their discounts to Anthropic in the current quarter alone are $12B of that.

I’m not sure what you’re referencing, I can’t find any source for this.

Why would they offer an 80% discount? Hardware is the limiting factor for many AI companies.

The xAI Anthropic deal was pretty widely covered, but the press release is here: https://x.ai/news/anthropic-compute-partnership

The absurdly large discount was why Anthropic could claim a revenue-positive quarter for the first time. But that discount window ends IIRC in September. The problem remains that xAI announced the discounted revenue as "revenue before discounts".

No, no, I get that the general deal was public information. I’m not doubting that Anthropic partnered with SpaxeXAI for additional computer. I said as much in my original comment.

What I’m doubting is your claim that SpaceXAI is giving them a 12 billion dollar discount. That link does not say anywhere that SpaceXAI is giving them an 80% discount after charging them $15 billion. That doesn’t make any sense.