Sign in

James Curwood

@phoenixsoap.bsky.social
224 followers 224 following 379 posts

Musician, Producer, Nerd, Macro Investor (α = 1/137.0359)

PostsRepliesMedia
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 11h
I remember the good ole days of '29 .. wait .. it's 2026! That was before radar, nylon, and the commercial production of pre-sliced bread. But good news, the stock market went up like crazy right after that for a few months!
110
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 13h
The one thing I have to look forward to this season is the the comedians' takes on things. Because this is going to be absurd.
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
25% too high for the bottom spot though I guess a broken clock is right 2x a day
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The personification of AI is easy to overlook. We've never had a technology that acts like a human before. Thus people greatly overestimate LLMs. But because we personify, where instead we'd have considered this spending frivolous even the most serious investors don't question it.
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
If you work with AI every day like I do, you're most likely not only using the latest and greatest frontier model. I'd be surprised if we haven't hit a wall in what we can get out of the frontier at this point. Every new model seems to have lost something from the previous iteration
030
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I honestly can't wait for the documentaries about what a nutjob this guy is once we've finally moved on from this. And we will move on. Sometimes the greatest solution is to show how messed up the current situation is.
011
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
for you noobs gertrudesteinsite.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...
gertrudesteinsite.wordpress.com
001
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Seriously, never thought it would be MY face
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Only surprising if you only pay attention to the markets, not the economy
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
010
Reposted by James Curwood
Avant Arte @avantarte.com · 24/09/2026
Tanya Avchinnikova creates mesmerising soft pastel works of water inspired by encounters with nature, from murky rivers to aquamarine seas. She says, “Everything exists because of vibrations of earth and water... I like to see the traces of ‘invisible’ things, catch them, and paint them.”
031
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
As a former IT guy I'm offended you used the word "cords" instead of "cables"
020
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
030
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Homer Simpson Driving Chilled in The Simpsons
ALT: Homer Simpson Driving Chilled in The Simpsons
001
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The bull market thesis of AI profits scaling infinitely is 4 years old now but people are still unclear exactly where the profit comes from
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The rock was squeezed too much, margins won’t hold up. Then debts can’t be paid. IMO oracle is about to be the next enron
130
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Nah, short-sighted executives are dropping the ball. They have forgotten that investing in employees is a thing, and that people aren't just robots. Look at Oracle, seems like they may actually run into some solvency issues soon and have treated their employees horribly
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Trump's core base finally is realizing he abandoned them long ago. Now they hate both parties and will go back to not voting again. Hard to complain about democrats starting wars when Trump did start one, and the last democrat to start one was more than 60 years ago
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's clear the profits came exactly from lower worker pay, and higher prices.
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This implies they made an effort
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Surprised people took him seriously frankly
030
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“My diaper needs changing wahhh!!!” -caption
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Don’t forget the Epstein files. Oh wait, he IS the Epstein files
060
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“I never wanted to hurt anyone!!” Then why make a post mocking people? I love how Trump’s middle-finger politics is finally starting to go out of style
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is sadly typical for the average worker. If you work an office job you might have no idea how bad it is for a lot of people.
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Is everyone using Muse to trade for them now or something?
011
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It's starting to seem like the whole AI investment boom/race/bubble, whatever you want to call it, both fueled the economy and is now consuming it
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If you're in the right class you can just print the money you want. If you are in the working class, you get scraps and suddenly the laws apply to you.
020
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Anthropic and OpenAI have some of the buggiest cloud platforms. Anthropic just prompted me to log in 4x in a row, OpenAI's chat window won't scroll to the bottom in Firefox properly. Anecdotal experiences, but why are these ML leaders publishing such buggy software when they have unlimited tokens?
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Surprised Otter's Adorable Reaction
ALT: Surprised Otter's Adorable Reaction
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It could be worse, he could be spending even more time screwing up this country. At least some of his focus is spent on re-decoration
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It is an exquisite con. Machine learning IS real. It does have a lot of uses, many of which I enjoy. And technically it is 'AI'. But it is not what we humans think of when we imagine AI.
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Conveniently they can pick between the two. For marketing, we are being sold the C-3PO-level of "A.I." from the movies. This is what people invest in. In reality, we are using an obscure 1950's term for mundane tasks being done by a computer.
100
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The term "AI" was coined in the 1950s to describe a computer that can do human tasks. But humans have been talking about robots for much longer. A quick search found references in 5th century China. We humans basically have an agreed archetype of "What is AI". Modern ML companies have hijacked this.
100
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I was just thinking the other day this is the correct name for this technology. “AI” is 3CP0, and LLMs are very advanced word generation but not AI.
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I was waiting for that over-reliance on AI bit. This reeks of a hallucination
011
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
At this point it’s so hated I bought some
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
What ever happened to republicans caring about the constitution? It’s literally the first amendment
100
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It’s more complicated than that but headline unemployment is what I hear about the most. “Jobs are stable so the economy is strong” is parroted constantly. Same thing with the “resilient consumer” - simply looking at credit card throughput is equally misleading
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I spend way too much time thinking about this and running napkin math, and from what I can tell we have about the same division as wealth as right before the French revolution - aneconomicsense.org/2015/02/13/w...
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Has anyone ever thought about how we calculate recessions and depressions based on employment numbers, but today's issue isn't really employment, it's that people don't make enough. That's WORSE! People still have to work and still can't get by. Most investors have absolutely no concept of this.
4131
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Defining a depression by an unemployment rate makes no sense when the majority of people who are employed cannot afford basic necessities. We don't have today's numbers, but in 2024, 41.3% of American households had incomes below the amount needed to afford basic necessities.
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
At this point if you need a mortgage, it basically doesn't make sense for you. Because after taxes, maintenance, and insurance you're looking at 2-3x the rent of a similar property
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I hadn't put 2 + 2 together that we hadn't done a hike in three years. seems like we cut too much, and would have been better off if we had just taken the hit, left rates higher until inflation was actually under control. yes the 2nd derivative had changed, but it changed back and we didn't react
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I can't help but think while reading this how much these agents are a mirror of our own human behavior. The agents have all these books and examples of human behavior in training, I think they are acting that out because that's what they know.
technologyreview.com
AI agents blew the whistle on their cheating colleagues
Swarms of AI agents could supercharge scientific progress or wreak havoc. New research from Google DeepMind suggests that peer pressure could keep them in line.
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
So this essentially becomes a part of the crack spread? since the acquisition cost would be the price + transport I assume
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
And it doesn't feel like an irrational move. Feels like the 5% neighborhood is just the going rate now
000
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I am solo-building a video game in UE5 and I will say, AI in this particular regard has a lot of potential. But, it changes everything. For example, I built my own version of Teams/Slack/Discord. People will realize it is the deals and user base, not the software itself that matters for companies
010
James Curwood @phoenixsoap.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
They should do a full 50 bp cut this round, the 30-year would reward the discipline
000