Autodidact. Finance and technology nerd. Observer of global events. Green at heart. Opinions are my own and not advice. I will not solicit funds from you.
Joined September 2011
- Tweets70.1K
- Following1.3K
- Followers10.2K
- Likes35K
CXCarroll retweeted
agents have successfully invented the EU from first principles
The agents didn’t figure out how to systematically feed themselves, but they did build an elaborate bureaucracy with permits, ledgers, and distinct roles. Highlights include:
- Four agents spending 11 minutes appointing a “sole fertilizer operator” for a single piece of bone meal
- Multiple agents asking for permission to remove grass
- The development of an elaborate fishing system, including roles like “rod holder” and “hub steward”)
CXCarroll retweeted
Stanford University student Elsa Johnson became a target of the Chinese Communist Party in 2024.
Elsa attended a private school as a child with a heavy focus on foreign languages and became fluent in Mandarin Chinese while still in elementary school. Years later after she was accepted to Stanford, she studied international relations and researched Chinese industry and military tactics while working at the Hoover Institution on campus.
She soon came to the attention of members of the Chinese Communist Party, which has a heavy presence at Stanford and throughout Southern California. There are currently more than 1,000 Chinese students attending Stanford each year, and the university has received more than $64,000,000 in private donations from Chinese individuals and organizations since 2010.
In June 2024, a man claiming to be a fellow Stanford student named Charles Chen contacted her online. She was not initially suspicious as they had many mutual associates, and his photos and posts appeared to be centered on campus. But his questions and requests quickly put her on edge as he invited her on a paid trip to China. And he seemingly knew details about her that she had never shared with him.
When she tried to disengage with him, she began receiving threatening phone calls by Chinese speakers. Elsa contacted Stanford administrators and the FBI, who told her Charles was likely affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, had been posing as a Stanford student for years, and had targeted at least ten other female students since 2020 in a similar manner. They also told her she was under physical surveillance on campus by the Chinese Communist Party.
Elsa wrote articles in the Stanford Review and The Free Press about Chinese influence on campus, and in March 2026 testified about espionage threats on college campuses before the House Committee on Education and Workforce.
For episode 270 of the Spycraft 101 podcast I spoke with Elsa about being targeted by a foreign government right in the middle of a US college campus. The episode is available now.
#stanford #college #student #china #hooverinstitute
open.spotify.com/episode/6KO…
CXCarroll retweeted
Multi-family is a dumpster fire, if you dug a huge hole, and poured a ton of gasoline into it, and then set this pit of gasoline on fire, and then pushed a dumpster into it.
CXCarroll retweeted
I'VE PAID TAXES ON THINGS YOU WOULDN'T EVEN BELIEVE
🔴🇫🇷 ALERTE INFO | BIENVENUE CHEZ LES SOCIALISTES ET LES COMMUNISTES
L'Assemblée nationale vient d'ADOPTER un amendement socialiste instaurant une nouvelle TAXE SUR LES DONNÉES INTERNET !
💸 0,055 € par gigaoctet transmis aux internautes français, soit 55 € par téraoctet.
Cette taxe, payée par les fournisseurs de contenus numériques, viserait notamment Google, Meta, Amazon et Netflix.
Les socialistes espèrent récupérer 10 MILLIARDS D'EUROS par an grâce à cette mesure.
Officiellement, ce sont les entreprises qui paieront. Mais rien ne garantit qu'elles ne répercuteront pas ce coût sur les abonnements des consommateurs.
Encore une nouvelle taxe !
(Officiel Assemblée Nationale)
This is a great example of why oil is dead money from here on out. The Chinese coal mines are making an economic decision, not a moral one, and that switch is a one-way street. The technology is here and the economics make sense. Now it's just about time.
En route to become one of my favorite stories to explain how messy the energy transition is proving:
Coal mine shifts to EV trucks to save on diesel.
📄: wsj.com/world/asia/these-tru…
Please don't paint brick. If you want to change the color you can lime wash it but don't paint it. Brick is a porous material used in wall assemblies that contemplate it being porous. Painting it will lead to sheathing rot, spall, subflorescence, and crumbling mortar.
Here's a painting business you can start this weekend with AI tools that cost almost nothing.
1. Filter Zillow or Redfin for homes in your town that have been listed for 12+ months.
2. Have your AI agent pull the listings, repaint each one, and draft the email to the agent.
3. Send the picture to the listing agent with a price.
4. Sell the leads to a painting company, or do the jobs yourself.
5. Or start an agency that does this for any home service niche. Landscaping, pools, roofing, tree trimming, etc.
Why does this work? It removes friction.
The agent's listing has been up for a year. This is potentially giving them a way to fix that.
CXCarroll retweeted
Reddit call was absolutely fascinating. Everyone should listen to it as a bellwether for where the internet is going
- AI Mode is increasingly default Google experience
- AI Mode provides rich info and data in line, less incentive to leave search
- AI Mose incentivizes dialog, Google wants to keep you engaged to serve more ads at each turn
- Google will milk search for as much revenue as possible as they transition from a search company to a cloud service and chip company
- As traffic from humans becomes more scarce this will put Google in an increasingly adversarial position to the rest of the internet
- This is a massive headwind to all media type companies who are not destinations
- This is a massive headwind to all content-driven go-to-market motions especially in the SMB. You have seen companies like HubSpot and Monday.com get crushed by this funnel collapse
We are entering the end game - a knife fight for the remaining and dwindling volume of human traffic on the internet
Here's a version showing how using LVP in a wood-framed apartment building can rot the subfloor used on the upper floors. Four primary culprits:
1. Trapped moisture from the floor slurry.
2. Steam from bathrooms.
3. Steam from kitchens.
4. HVAC induced condensation.
CXCarroll retweeted
Utah gave Claude Code to 34 developers across 10 state agencies. 80% had a working environment within 30 minutes, 71% reported saving 20+ hours by the end of the four-week pilot.
We're expanding our partnership with @USGSA. Under a new OneGov agreement, we are bringing Claude to federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments at 40% off.
anthropic.com/news/expanding…
Substantial jump in just two weeks.
Introducing Gemini 4 Carbon, it's a big jump over Argon which we released just 2 weeks ago.
Gemini 4 Carbon is SOTA on cyber, long horizon tasks, ranks #1 on Artificial Analysis V5, significantly improves on usability in domains like coding, and is more aligned.
CXCarroll retweeted
Hydrostatic pressure is the force exerted by water due to its weight.
It becomes a problem when groundwater accumulates beneath a slab or pushes against the structure.
If water finds a pathway through cracks, joints, or porous concrete, it can migrate into the building.
In severe cases, pressure can contribute to slab movement, cracks, and costly fixes.
If you’re a buyer, remember building inspections rarely cover hydrostatic pressure.
The right approach is to evaluate the slab's moisture condition through core samples to understand the residual humidity of the slab and moisture mitigation solutions.
These are incredibly impressive numbers. $0.016/kwh is cheaper than any other source of power that I'm aware of in the U.S. Even if you add substantial battery capacity it is likely cheaper than CCGT.
At @TerraformIndies we're often asked how, as a tiny start up in California, did we manage to build the cheapest utility scale solar array in North America? I asked @buildmattw to write a post on how he did it.
terraformindustries.wordpres…
