u/AltKite

Lots of companies have large engineering and product teams full of expensive people and don't ship as fast as Anthropic, or product as good as them.

Generally, the fastest moving tech companies that hit the mark with consumers the most are much smaller. When they try to do the same at scale, the frequency gets slower and the quality reduces.

"They have more money" is reductive nonsense.

Anthropic have leant much more heavily into replacing the work of an engineer rather than aiding it, imo. What they are doing is replicatable, but nobody else is doing it well.

I pay my Claude Pro Max subscription, but I've never spent more than $20 a month on any other AI product, even when I thought their models produced as good or better output. I'm a product manager by trade, I don't live in my terminal, but with Claude I'm easily able to build tgings myself. I don't even have to open Claude Code, I can do it all in projects with CoWork and it does a great job of storing context and guiding me through.

You can argue vibe coding is shit, I need a real engineer etc all you like, but the perception I can build this shit myself is what really matters. Not to say engineers don't love Claude as well, but they've made it remarkably easy for everyone else. Their product also just feels like it's been built by PMs and designers as much as engineers. They realized early an LUI is not all you need.

What protected class do you think this message could possibly discriminate against?

I grew up in the UK playing snooker, then later UK 8 ball. Snooker has special place in my heart, and it's the pro sport I actually regularly watch. Every time I'm home I'll go down the snooker hall with my Dad and play.

I moved to N America 10 years ago and didn't pick up a cue for 8 years. Getting back into cue sports was a lot easier with pool because there's halls everywhere, leagues, a big social scene - and it's a lot easier to pick up a cue and be decent after so long!

I did play snooker again recently. Over 4 hours my highest break was 35, and that was manually spreading all the balls into nice positions lol. When I was 15 I made a break of 85, depressing more than 20 years later I'm nowhere near.

But I can run out off my break in 8 ball when I make a ball 20% plus of the time, so that does my ego some good.

I'm better at it.

Also more social game and scene.

People don't have to pay for your app for you to make money from an app.

Feel like if you look at top amateurs you'd get your answer. Anecdotally, dominated by Mezz and Predator - more wood shafts.

And Ray Mercer. Not the same style as Usyk, but high output, pressure fighting combined with speed Tua didn't have caused Lewis a lot of problems

Erm, I know? That's what I'm saying. The only games where you might need a smaller diameter tip are ones with smaller balls, and have different equipment. Anything on a US table with US balls it isn't needed

A game with smaller balls! But those games are snooker and UK 8 ball, where you need a tip much smaller than 11.5mm anyway.

I play with 11.5, but it's because I transitioned from UK 8 ball which I played with an 8mm tip. As I have acclimated more and more to US pool and the ball sizes, finding that if I shoot with a 12mm or 12.5mm I'm perfectly comfortable, and reducing the occasional unwanted side I put on a ball with 11.5mm.

I'd only recommend 11.5mm in my circumstances. If you're transitioning from snooker using 9, or 9.5mm then perhaps 12mm will suit better than 12.5.

I also have a much better, more consistent stroke and cue action than the average player of my overall ability, which makes using the 11.5mm a lot easier. When others of similar ability use my cue and I use theirs in practice, there's a noticeable drop-off in their performance and very little in mine. If you have a great cue action, it can work. If yours still needs refinement I wouldn't recommend it at all.

Main Billiards

Your best bet is to find somewhere that sells cues and has a table, and will let you knock some balls about. The best cue is the one that feels natural in your hands.

There's a guy in the UK that I played Suffolk under 18s with, who was playing for the men's A team when he was 15.

He has a good job, and barely plays pool. Maybe 1 tournament a year.

I'm convinced he could have been (and possibly is) the best UK 8 ball player there is, and would have transitioned to 9-ball / American pool just as well as guys like Tom Cousins and Joe Prince are now, and Chris Melling has done.

I played him in practice a lot. 10 years ago we played a race to 30. I won 8 racks. All of those were break and runs, or clearing off his dry break (which was almost never). I think 27 of his 30 wins were all break and runs or clearing off my break.

Pool just doesn't pay enough. If you've got a 6 figure career, you can't dedicate enough time to pool to even travel to tournaments without giving up your career, let alone practice enough. I imagine there are plenty of examples like him, where committment to the game just isn't worth it.

Not going to name him because he's not someone in the public eye but sure many in the UK pool scene know him.

2nd one he's definitely playing. It's an exhibition for him

It could be the best rating system ever invented and this will still be my feedback. Every new rating system makes things worse than today.

https://preview.redd.it/jg0dnvh6mivh1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=77ef443673b16a2f1f7a178647ff8a04de5fc922

I bought one, I like it 🤷

The tiger doesn't have trainers, it's not a circus. There's also not really much of a concern about preventing a tiger from seeing humans as food, because it's a bloody tiger, its default is to see us as food.

I don't think that was the main problem - iirc, they said 60% ish of people preferred New Coke - it baffles me any exec would think such a low number made changing a good idea.

The product is drunk by most Americans, the baseline is that they like it. 60% of people aren't drinking Pepsi or saying Coke is shit. By switching, you risk losing 40% of your customers.

Nothing unethical about the J rack. It doesn't give you an advantage, just the least likely to bunch one set of balls.

In 8 ball I don't think this is true. Finding a way to guarantee a particular set and make those break nicer than the other with the standard UK rack has literally never been an issue in the pro game in the UK.

Here's a better one. https://youtube.com/shorts/n0a_Y_mRph4?si=3p5XWBIJTmY_fwON

This Shaun Murphy shot might be my favourite shot ever played by a pro in cue sports

https://youtube.com/shorts/XPLi3YeGzxc?si=eQo_-C18nYOEBjNz

Dunno why leagues don't just do what every league in the UK does and have a set pattern that's tested and designed to ensure fair distribution. It's how I rack every time

Honestly think Duran would absolutely murder Manny.