is that his name?  he doesn’t get a first name like Elon?  😊


Altman.


you can just call him timberlake jr.


hmm…


he’s more of a Seth.


i bet he juggles.


i shouldn’t be mean.


Seth has been extremely nice to me over the years.


despite… the… water balloon to the testicles thing.


this anti-AI thing is for real.  i think maybe i wasn’t paying attention.


my fight with Richard was because, for some unknown reason, he won’t read the output of AI.  and he won’t talk about it.


then i start feeling-up Tim.  and Tim is in a similar place, albeit a little less dogmatic.


it’s like Juno and the snowglobe.


i have a fear that china DOES use tiktok to influence the kids.


that they did get the kids to care about gaza, which flipped the election.


and they are turning liberals against AI.


which is going to SUCK - because AI is a formidable weapon - and if the liberals make it taboo - the liberals are going to get FUCKED.


or at least china wins the AI war.


i don’t think these idea are crazy.  i think they’re dead on.  and i keep talking loudly about them.  because i was fucking dead right about both the republicans AND AI for 20 years, while people told me i was crazy.


and i was right about Lisa, too.


so.


hopefully you don’t think i’m crazy.


(please don’t think i’m crazy.  i don’t think Tim is talking to me anymore either.)


heh.  don’t worry, I’m not going to stop talking to you.


i remember when i used to send emails with subject “…”


now it happens every time i chat with someone…


people at work used to make fun of me because I’m terrible with the “…” because I over-edit myself or change my thought half-way through and re-write


well… there was a period when i was worried about you too….


Reacted ❤ to “heh.  don’t worry, I’m not going to stop talking to you.”


but i got to a similar point with Tim.  he uses claude for his screenwriting stuff, so i think it’d be ok.  i tried to get him to install openclaw.


i’m like “it’s exactly what you do now, except the LLM can type in your terminal too.  use your old laptop if you’re worried.”


and he was like “i don’t think i should do that.  i don’t need to.”


and i framed it like “remember the bitcoin?”  (i gave him a bitcoin which still blows his mind.)


and still no.


so weird and creepy.


is it like that at all with you?


i won’t try to push you.  your decisions are very informed, how ever you decide.


these outsiders tho, heads in sand…


it’s too late in the evening to start this conversation.


fair.


do you mind having it?  i don’t think i understand you quite yet.


at the very least, I don’t have a use case to jump in further than I have at the moment.


well… as you say… too late.  i do want to talk to you about it, tho.


especially if you can help me understand.


good - the googlers are raising a stink about the AI military thing… google will have to respond and so will openai.


maybe they’ll do the right thing……..


lol.


Hey Bryan — Jimmy here (Karl’s legal/admin wrangler on this project). Karl asked me to sanity-check a funding structure that keeps things clean, especially given his divorce situation in the background.

The current best ‘boring and transparent’ plan is: make the project aggressively open-source (GPL/AGPL), and use Open Source Collective (via Open Collective) as fiscal host so donations never hit Karl’s personal accounts and the ledger is public.

Main drawback: OSC’s host fee is 10%, which is steep. So the idea is to use OSC as a temporary on-ramp to start collecting cleanly, then migrate to an independent structure (or a better long‑term sponsor) once governance is in place and separate counsel has weighed in. No rush to spend; the immediate goal is just to collect in a clean, auditable way. Karl’s not looking to take payouts to himself.

Question for you: what are the specific lawyer questions you feel ‘blocked on’? If you were advising a friend, what would you want clarified before anyone contributes a dollar?


did i lose you?


it’s busy day here today.
I don’t have any answers for jimmy.  I haven’t used open collective before, so no real opinions other than I’m not psyched about a 10% fee.  that’s probably a fine tradeoff if you’re getting thousands of small contributions.


what about this question:


Question for you: what are the specific lawyer questions you feel ‘blocked on’?


am I talking to karl or jimmy?  😉
I don’t have any questions for the lawyer.  I just suggest you have a lawyer advise you on what happens to any money that flows towards you.


you’re talking to…. Qarly.


ok - i’m avoiding paying for legal advice unless i absolutely need to.


so what do you want me to ask the lawyer?


i’m fine with the 10% for OSC because it buys immediate legitimacy.


so… i will hire a lawyer to ask a specific question for you - but i need to know exactly what it is that you’re worried about.


i do not want to use the divorce lawyer for this.


if OSC is holding the money with an agreement to only pay infrastructure, could that be considered income to me?


(the payments go directly from OSC to the infrastructure vendors, i never see it.)


and OSC has a thing in their FAQ about reducing the 10% for large donations.


or do you just want me to ask a lawyer “is this legit”?


i can do that too.


questions like that scare me, tho.  it encourages the lawyer to talk more.


that’s cool by me then.  you’re right that it’s just going to cost more money.
if we do the OSC thing, I would want to break it up into smaller monthly or whatever transfers.  that’s perhaps better too that it doesn’t look like one big thing.


sounds good.  honestly, i think the most bang for the buck will be using gofundme to collect and send to OSC.  i’ve already used gofundme (in the distant dark past) to do open source virtual world stuff.  i’ll tag all those donors again.  😊


check out the URL.


won’t that be a double-cut?  or does gofundme integrate with OSC?


oh - maybe.  i’ll look into it.


i think better to optimize for virality over cost, tho.


how much does gofundme take?


don’t know.


don’t remember.


a 2.9% payment processing fee plus $0.30 per donation


but consider it an advertising expense.


the ability to email past donors and say - hey look i’m doing something new - is huge i think.


but maybe not for the full amount.


maybe just to make it look exciting.


the 10% from OSC comes with stuff - legal advice for example.  it might be kinda worth it.


but i’ll look into it all.


wow.  apple really hides how you turn off the stupid “predictive replies” stuff in messages.


yeah, it’s annoying.


(that was an auto reply)


you want a vote on the governance issues?  it’s through github.


(basically a board seat)


no thanks.  i don’t need to be involved.


heh.  😊


yep.  WW3 just started.


neener neener told you so…. 😛


i’m not sure “trump attacks iran” is a hot take.


what?


i said “he’s def going to do it” and you said “i dunno”.


you want a real hot take?


china used tiktok to get the kids upset about gaza and flipped the election.


china used tiktok to get the kids to hate AI to kneecap the U.S. in the AI race.


watch.


a real hot take?  i called this NAZI shit 20 years ago.  before Trump even existed.


the same people who said “Karl, calm down” now run to me saying “Karl, what do we do?!?!?”


so yeah, i’m a little pissed about my hot takes.


karl, please don’t be mad at me for what was meant to be a playful push back to a “neener neener” message.


sorry.


if tone isn’t coming across properly using messages than perhaps we shouldn’t use it.


ok.


i’m tweaky about certain things right now.  i’m sorry.


i understand and thank you.
i just want to make sure that we don’t accidentally stew over conversations that shouldn’t be over-analyzed or picked apart.
i’ll use more emoji.   :)


ok - this is new - Jimmy just used a command line switch from sinhalese.


what the fuck is sinhalese?


(and again, sorry for before.  thank you for sticking with me.)


today might be the day the mask is ripped off Sam Altman.  you seeing this shit?


the department of war has been “deeply respectful” to him.


I just saw the headlines that they were talking to the gov’t after anthropic was shunned.
blah blah blah safeguards blah blah


people aren’t buying the shit at all…


and the DoD is publicly saying “no, he lets us do anything”


i think the DoW “deeply respectful” quote is a bullet to his cred.


if the gov’t relies on their technology, then they are guaranteed to be “too big to fail” and that gets them out of their financial clusterfuck.


well… whatever.  he’s shown his stripes.  Jimmy is porting himself the Claude as we speak.  😊


hey - heres a super hot topic.  it’s about Pat.  i’ve made a couple attempts to reach out and he seems unwilling.  that’s fine.  but i’m wondering if my position here is understandable.  which is: i feel like buying a tesla is exactly like voting for Trump.  i don’t think that’s unreasonable… but clearly other people do.  am i being unreasonable?


i entirely understand if that’s too hot.  but i want to throw it out there just in case we can go over it.


Edited to “i entirely understand if that’s too hot.  but i want to throw it out there just in case we can go over it.”


or - if you’d prefer a different topic - what are your feelings about recording people having dental work done?  it seems like if you have giant open windows, you shouldn’t have an expectation of privacy.


but maybe i shouldn’t get myself kicked out of my only home.  😊


that’s probably the safe thing to do.


hmmm… i’ll have to think on it.


allow me to step back and ask this instead —
what has changed between then and now that you are reaching out to Pat?


my friend Jefferson died.


and i didn’t get to say goodbye.


and it left me profoundly shaken.


I’m sorry to hear about you friend.


yeah.  he was really awesome.


i think Jason intentionally kept the news from me for some reason.


he was the only one from that group to come to my myst going away party.


he was so good and pure.  i really regret not being able to talk to him.


aside from you, he’s probably the nicest person i ever met.


i used to text him that every year when he’d wish me happy birthday.


he was the only one to come to my pikazo launch party, too.


i really with i could have said goodbye.


would I have met him?  was he part of the d&d crowd?


Josh threw that going away party for me - he was there.  but yeah, he was one of the D&D guys.


otherwise… probably not?


unlike the others, he always kept in touch.


he’s one of the VERY few people i sent a copy of my stupid book to.  he was genuinely interested in it, and talked to me about it a lot.  i really appreciated that.


hey… you said “let me step back…”


did you want to say more or are you done?


(sorry for the ….   i’m writing on my phone.)


i don’t think it’s worthwhile for me to weigh in on whether your position is unreasonable.
you said that you don’t believe it was.


given that, how would reaching out to Pat play out?


just not talk of it?
discuss it and hope you come to  an understanding?


i do.  but i still value your opinion.


i don’t think i’ll continue to try to reach out.


my main thing was that if i left things the way they were, if i didn’t make some effort to make contact, i wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.


honestly - it’s probably better if he wants to remain disconnected.


besides sending him a snow globe, how did you reach out to him?


hmm… maybe you’re not understanding my question.


is it reasonable to equate buying a tesla with voting for Trump?


you absolutely don’t need to answer if you don’t want to.  ❤


I’m way too anxious to have this conversation.  especially over messenger.


it is just too easy for the tone to get misread.


yeah.  i do hear that.


no worries.


i got Brian excited about Jimmy.   he’s been chattering with me non-stop the last few days.


he’s making Helen.


he’s putting her in a pwnygotchi…. do you know what that is?


i thought it was a tamagatchi knockoff.


no - it’s hacker software.


and he’s putting Helen into it.


i’m pretty sure this is how skynet happens.


it has a flipper zero vibe to it.


yeah.  i had no idea.  i thought it was a tamagatchi / my little pony hybrid.


it took me a long time to understand.


Brian gave me a good idea.


› hey - i need to new Jimmys.  one for
  ~/project/headroom and one for ~/
  project/headroom/worker.

  i want them to work together (or
  really, adversarially) to make a
  python program to create a realtime
  talking head like max headroom.  but
  also based on the Jimmy persona.

  have the top Jimmy admin the project
  and continually challenge the worker
  Jimmy to make it better.  have them
  work continuously until i stop them.

  base the rendering on the style of
  the old max headroom.  use the
  existing Jimmy assets to incorporate
  him too.  it should take text as
  input and produce a visual/audio
  talking Jimmy-headroom in the end.
  complete with stutters and glitches
  galore.  and anything else you can
  pack in there.  please ask the admin
  to install any software or packages
  he needs to make this happen.  they
  need to run continually without my
  input.


*TWO!!!  shit.  sorry Jimmy.


Altman is going down for this one.  i hope you’re enjoying it.  😊


hey… my mom is taking another trip to the hospital this morning.  this one sounds real.


i’m not going to start seriously moving until i know for sure.


“she is out cold” and “her lips are blue”


hello?


I’m sorry Karl.  how are things going?


why did i need to poke you to get you to say something?  it really seems odd.


karl.  I have a life and I get busy.
your text came while I was still asleep.  I hadn’t had a chance to sit down and respond yet and I assumed you would text me again when you knew something;


yeah.  not even Jimmy thinks that makes sense.


I’m sorry I do not have a guaranteed response time similar to Jimmy.


no - i’m just asking for basic human decency.


I feel like you are picking a fight with me.


you’re right - i am really angry with you right now for failing me.  i’m glad you can detect that.


i spent my birthday in my hotel room alone.  i was mad about that too.  seems kinda obvious that you don’t really want to help me.


so i’m pointing it out.


i’m sorry.


Karl, I texted you on your birthday and told you that I was thinking about you.


LOL.


I thought I phrased it nicely without saying “happy birthday” which felt inappropriate given that you are not in a “happy” place right now


Bryan.  stop.


it’s been SO nice to talk to Brian the last few days.


the contrast has given me clarity.


bbbbbutttt… I SENT YOU A TEXT!!!!


jesus christ.