Demon Core: The Strange Death of Louis Slotin (2016) - BerislavLopac
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/demon-core-the-strange-death-of-louis-slotin
======
mjb
I've always found this story fascinating, because it's such a clear example of
the role of operator error in safety. Both Daghlian and Slotin were experts in
the work they were doing, and both were well aware of the danger of getting it
wrong. Still, they made a mistake. As people do.

On one hand, the mistake was the effect of time and schedule pressure. Some of
that was real, but some also illusory (as shown by the fact that Los Alamos
could stop doing those experiments entirely as still deliver). They chose the
approach they did because it was the easiest. But not only that - at least in
Slotin's case he chose the approach he did because he didn't believe that he
would make a mistake. He'd done this a bunch of times. The danger had become
routine, an idea captured in Diane Vaughan's books as "normalization of
deviance", and in economic and sports research as "the familiarity heuristic
("I know this, so I'm safe").

On the other hand, the experiment itself set them up to fail. Minor tweaks
with near-zero cost impact, like bringing the tamper up from the bottom rather
than down from the top, would likely have saved both men. My understanding is
(and it's hard to get clear evidence of this) that both men designed their own
experiment. Both were in a position to do it in a safer way with no additional
cost. With hindsight, both likely would have. In Slotin's case it seems like
the commitment heuristic ("I want to be consistent with my past actions")
played a role in him doing something he knew to be dangerous "one last time".
In Daghlin's case, there seems to have been some role of the scarcity
heuristic ("if I don't get this done tonight after the party, I might not get
another chance").

This all goes to show how fallible we are. Not only these guys, both extremely
smart people. We take irrational risks all the time. The big take away here is
that systems need to be safe _even though_ people are going to make bad
decisions for bad reasons. One extremely effective way to do that is to
separate design from implementation, using our rational decision making
processes to make the hard decisions ahead of the moment. Then write the
decisions down. Then follow them in the moment.

~~~
ska
A more mundane and perhaps relatable version of this is the relaxation of key
automobile driving skills once the operator has become comfortable. It is not
unusual to see someone performing maneuvers that are only "safe" under
assumptions that cannot be strictly true but are statistically likely to be
true (e.g. there is nobody coming the other way around this blind corner,
there is no cross traffic this late at night, whatever). I doubt people
consciously think of it as a dice-roll every time they do it, but it is. Over
time you may get comfortable doing things simply because nothing bad has
happened but if the assumption fails you will likely crash.

~~~
ethbro
I can't seem to find the statistics, but I've always wondered if there's a
secondary peak around ~1-2 years of driving experience.

Hypothesis: at that point you feel comfortable, but you haven't accumulated
the full spectrum of experience.

I'd expect the relevant statistic would be accidents per person, by age. But
everything seems to normalize per miles-driven (where no such effect is
apparent) or against total accident rate.

------
liability
Slontin was a cowboy (in the derogatory sense of the term) who thought bravado
would keep him safe from intense radiation. The demon core incident wasn't an
isolated incident, one of his less famous exploits involved swimming in an
active nuclear reactor, which obviously irradiated him badly.

> _" In the winter of 1945–1946, Slotin shocked some of his colleagues with a
> bold action. He repaired an instrument six feet under water inside the
> Clinton Pile while it was operating, rather than wait an extra day for the
> reactor to be shut down. He did not wear his dosimetry badge, but his dose
> was estimated to be at least 100 roentgen.[12] A dose of 1 Gy (~100
> roentgen) can cause nausea and vomiting in 10% of cases, but is generally
> survivable.[13]"_

~~~
ethbro
That seems unfair. As a trained nuclear physicist and engineer, he was no
doubt quite clear on the risks related to radiation.

Just because I choose to jump a motorcycle through a flaming hoop doesn't
indicate that I think my body is impervious to flame.

It means I weighed the risks and made a choice.

In other words, ignorance, chance, and bravery are different things. And
accidents are some mix of all of them.

~~~
liability
Extreme risk taking is characteristic of young men. It's not so much a
rational decision as it is a mind clouded by testosterone. Sometimes it's
entertaining good fun. I enjoyed _Jackass_ as much as anybody. The problem is
when such men do it without consideration for the wellbeing of those around
them. Slotin didn't, he regularly performed his "tickling experiment" with
other people in the room.

------
BurnGpuBurn
Stories like these will forever remind me of Hisashi Ouchi who died horribly
from a different kind of criticality incident in Japan in 1999 [0]. He had
received 17 sieverts and they tried to keep him alive for as long as possible
in a human experminet. I won't post links to articles about this as you can't
unsee pictures like that, putting his name in a search engine will get you
there.

[0] [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/1999/12/22/national/jco-
wo...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/1999/12/22/national/jco-worker-
succumbs-after-83-days/)

------
roryrjb
Also discussed a couple of months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20205876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20205876)

------
fnordfnordfnord
The incident that caused Slotin's death was discussed a bit in a recent
documentary: _The Half-Life of Genius Physicist Raemer Schreiber_ (2017)
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4870510/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4870510/)

It's available on Amazon Prime.

------
larrydag
This sounds a lot like Fat Man and Little Boy movie. The John Cusack character
was killed by radioactive exposure from a mishap at Los Alamos. The movie is
really interesting.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097336/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097336/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt)

------
watersb
There is a replica of the Demon Core in the Bradbury Science Museum in Los
Alamos.

A sphere of metal, a bit larger than a basketball, it's just the right size
and shape to be manipulated by hand tools.

I wonder if that contributed to normalization of deviance. It doesn't look
weird enough to kill you.

------
hmahncke
> "Four of the fatalities were just bad luck, involving a group of janitors
> who shared muscatel wine that was laced with antifreeze"

I'd like to hear a little more about the "bad luck" that caused a bottle of
muscatel to get laced with antifreeze...

~~~
Abekkus
Small amounts of antifreeze can be used to make bad wine taste better, and
kill you faster.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_diethylene_glycol_wine_sc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_diethylene_glycol_wine_scandal)

~~~
sp332
More recently, Fireball whiskey was recalled in a few countries for high
levels of propylene glycol. [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fireball-whiskey-
recall_n_606...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fireball-whiskey-
recall_n_6067486) Note that it had the same levels in the USA but was not
recalled because our standards are laxer. Still, it's unlikely to to kill you.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Propylene glycol is a food additive. It is also used in "safe" anti freeze. It
is not the same as Ethylene glycol which is common automotive anti freeze and
very toxic.

~~~
simcop2387
It's also one of the primary ingredients in most e-cigarette vape fluids too,
and used in fog machines for the same reason.

------
wernsey
This video "A Brief History of: The Demon Core" on the Plainly Difficult
channel showed up in my YouTube recommendations just the other day:

[https://youtu.be/VE8FnsnWz48](https://youtu.be/VE8FnsnWz48)

------
Halluxfboy009
Love Alex's archival research work. Never seen a couple of those pictures or
heard that particular account of the airglow from Schreiber before. I'm glad
to see it finally falling out of favor to paint Slotin as some kind of
'Canadian hero' as it was fashionable to do 15-20 years ago. He was a fool who
regularly courted fate, doing things like diving to the bottom of a cooling
pool of an operating reactor to repair an instrument he didn't want to wait
another day to do, giving himself a nice 100R dose.


Anyway, stop recommending bazookas to kill flies in programming - greenchriss
https://medium.com/@arieldi/anyway-stop-recommending-bazookas-to-kill-flies-in-programming-65f13439be3d
======
wstuartcl
Are you asking on reddit (or some other site that is structured to pass quick
thoughts on a subject)? Are you giving no more information on your questions
than - OP: I have an issue with SEO in my current Vue project how can I do
this? \- Community: Have you tried nuxt?

Context and details are important on both sides of the fence, Explain enough
about your apps architecture and reasoning to convey that you have considered
other structures before you expect to get answers that take more time than
simply pointing you down a path that resolves your issue without any details.

Pointing you to NUXT is equivalent of a longer sentence: "You don't tell us
what you have tried or considered, what your application architecture is or
what problems you have run into based on your previous design decisions --
therefore we recommend using something like NUXT which has boilerplate design
decisions baked in that resolve your issues."

\- OP: I have two components, I want to share data, how can I do? \-
Community: Have you tried vuex?

This seems perfectly reasonable to me, vuex, while being one option for
sharing data/state between components is IMHO almost always the best option
for doing so. It has a little more boilerplate than event bus or data
reference passing, but for almost every non-trival need I have come across
vuex has been a better choice. So much so that I have found myself reworking
to modular vuex stores in _every_ circumstance where I have used event bus or
other slight of hand to accommodate shared data/state (hoping to avoid the
setup work of vuex).

------
sdegutis
Where are you seeing this happening so often? I've only seen this kind of
thing in help-communities where the emphasis is on quantity over quality, and
giving the quickest and most answers, and where it's not necessarily important
that they're correct.


Donald Sherman orders a pizza using a talking computer (1974) [video] - adamnemecek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94d_h_t2QAA&t=12s
======
melling
Dec 4th is the 40th anniversary?

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266780/Vintage-
foot...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266780/Vintage-footage-
shows-pizza-order--took-attempts-right.html)

------
antsam
"Can you spell that?" "Yes."

------
Fundlab
Apparently pizza prank calls arent new


GrabaGoodDomain.com - Get a Great Domain - dawie
http://www.grabagooddomain.com/
======
timg
I'd pay 100$ for a really good one that describes one of my sites in a non-
limiting way, and has ALL of the good qualities that a domain name should. I
am just nearly certain that all of these that consist of any keywords that
describe my sites are taken.

So, last night I registered for a similar service for 50$. But feeling guilty
for spending money that I don't really have without exhausting every other
option, I wrote a program to use letter/letter combination frequencies from a
number of various data sets to find the best available names consisting of
pseudo-words that are left.

It's man against computer, and this time I'm betting on the computer.

~~~
dawie
timg, We will prove to you that we are the best. Send me the infortion found
on <http://grabagooddomain.com/?q=node/3,> and I will give you suggestions. If
you use my suggestion you can pay us $100. Just this one time, you don't even
need to make a deposit. This is to show you how certain we are that
GrabaGoodDomain.com is better than computer programs or anyone else...

------
imer111
Our service will do the same or better job for only $50. Just because someone
is asking for twice the going rate, doesn't mean they necessarily do a better
job.

Please check us out at <http://PowerNamer.com>

------
bls
How do you expect to differentiate yourself from pickydomains.com?

~~~
dawie
We provide better results. You get what you pay for. Quality costs more money.
In any case, its risk free.

~~~
Alex3917
If you think finding a great domain is hard, try selling a great domain. heh.

/trying to sell eskimokissing.com.

~~~
danielha
i just find it kinda funny that eskimo kissing came to mind while trying to
register domain names. :)


John Gruber: Windows Phone 7 "Really Nice" And Better Than Android - Flemlord
http://www.businessinsider.com/john-gruber-windows-phone-7-2010-10
======
mycroftiv
Since Android is much more of a threat to Apple than Windows Phone 7 appears
to be, it makes sense that Gruber would praise it at the expense of Android.
This evaluation is based on 5 minutes of use at a cocktail party. I think if
someone had put a live eel in his hand and asked him to compare it to Android,
he would have praised the eel's smooth skin in comparison to Android devices.

~~~
orangecat
Right. Microsoft, Apple, and the carriers would all be pleased if Android were
to be replaced by WP7 in the market. No more pesky suggestions of user
freedom, so everybody gets to keep their comfortable oligopolies and maintain
veto power over potentially disruptive innovations. Expect to see many more
Mac fans praising WP7, especially once it or the iPhone is on Verizon.

------
steverb
I got about 5 minutes hands on with WP7 hardware last week, and I have to
agree with Gruber. WP7 is really nice.

* The UI is very responsive on pre-release hardware. I've been told that the released version will be faster.

* The keyboard is very nice. I can't compare it in over-all usability to other smart phones as I haven't lived day in day out with a smart phone.

* The way applications are organized is interesting. Instead of merely having a mongo huge list of apps, apps can also register themselves in app hubs. So applications that manipulate photos will show up under your photos, applications that deal with music show up there, etc. I'm not totally sold on this, but it seems like a good idea.

* Development for WP7 in silverlight is shockingly easy. And silverlight on WP7 runs super fast. Actually runs faster on the device than on my beefy desktop in emulator. Given the number of .NET developers I know that are registered for the WP7 marketplace I expect the MS app store to add applications at a blistering pace.

* There isn't yet an easy way to handle deploying WP7 phones in an enterprise, but I was told that this will be addressed later. There was only so much they could do before this launch though.

I'm in the market for a smart phone, and after handling the WP7 phones I'm
sold. In my opinion it's at least as good as the current iPhone. I'm not sure
whether that will translate to market share or not though.

------
wazoox
Hum, the "one button" is a real problem on the iPhone. Having one interface
element working in an extremely modal manner is a bad ergonomic choice for the
sake of esthetic. Having 3 or 4 different buttons is much more practical.

~~~
steverb
WP7 mandates three buttons. Back, Home, and Search.


Gigapixel AI Accidentally Added Ryan Gosling’s Face to This Photo - Hard_Space
https://petapixel.com/2020/08/17/gigapixel-ai-accidentally-added-ryan-goslings-face-to-this-photo/
======
murbard2
Before casting stones, have they checked with Ryan Gosling to make sure that
wasn't him behind a giant magnifier at that window?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I started posting IFOTD - Inanimate Face Of The Day on social media a few
weeks back.

When you start looking you see faces _everywhere_.

The Gigapixel AI is a fair bit more detailed in this example though.

~~~
Judgmentality
[http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com/](http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com/)

Hasn't been updated in forever but I used to love this.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
That's great!

I'm here if you want to have a look:

[https://www.facebook.com/amosrust](https://www.facebook.com/amosrust)

------
wongarsu
If Gigapixel AI works like other state of the art upscaling networks it
upscales patches at the time, not the whole image at once. If the only context
you have is small enough, scaling it up as Ryan Gosling's face seems
completely reasonable. After all I see a face there too. When looking at the
larger context(some kind of building) it becomes clear that there isn't
supposed to a face, but the AI likely didn't have that much context.

~~~
WillPostForFood
It's like the AI is replicating the same mistake a human brain on LSD makes.

------
virgilp
It's only now that we fully realize how bad the depicted policing was in all
those TV shows where they zoomed & "enhanced" the photo evidence.

~~~
murbard2
Not quite. Super-resolution from face prior is probably a bad idea if you're
looking to identify someone, but super-resolution _from video_ works. It
doesn't make up information based on what it expects the face to be, but
collects and aggregates information from multiple frames.

~~~
_visgean
sauce?

~~~
morsch
Literally the first Google result for _super-resolution from video_ :
[https://paperswithcode.com/task/video-super-
resolution](https://paperswithcode.com/task/video-super-resolution)

~~~
_visgean
Yeah thats not a source at all. Its a collection of paper on the relevant
topic.

The claim of the parent comment was

> but super-resolution from video works. It doesn't make up information based
> on what it expects the face to be, but collects and aggregates information
> from multiple frames.

So I was simply interested in hearing where this claim comes from. Has any of
these papers mentioned that this is the case? I briefly went through some of
them but did not see any such guarantee.

~~~
murbard2
Many of the modern ones are based on deep learning and might indeed capture
priors for faces. However, other approaches do not depend on machine-learning.
The priors that they implicitly use are weak or rather general (e.g. natural
images have mostly sparse wavelet representations, videos represent things
that move mostly continuously, etc). They essentially compensate for the
motion over several frames and use the redundant information to denoise the
result.

------
PoissonVache
It's like robots are now like human, seeing faces everywhere !
[https://www.reddit.com/r/facesinthings/](https://www.reddit.com/r/facesinthings/)

~~~
eternalban
Wait till they start getting religion.

~~~
tzs
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_(short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_\(short_story\))

------
blauditore
Pretty sure that's not Ryan Gosling. Just a random face, but adding a
celebrity to the headline probably generates more clicks.

~~~
jonplackett
Yeah it's just some dude's face. Excellent headline writing to take advantage
though.

~~~
chrisco255
Turns out the article was written by a GPT-3 bot optimized for clicks. Welcome
to the future.

~~~
jonplackett
It's like a kind of virtual grey goo EOTW scenario where all the world's
resources are consumed writing increasingly effective clickbait.

The Utopian version of the story has the clickbait getting so good that it
actually evolves into a high form of art and expression.

------
Jabbles
This is an AI-supercharged version of this bug, which just changes numbers
when photocopying:

[https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_mea...](https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_means_dodgy_numbers_and_dangerous_designs/)

~~~
taneq
Yep, Xerox was hallucinating different numbers way before it was cool!

------
amelius
The main problem I see here is that the inserted image is much sharper than
the original. I'd guess that the result would be more acceptable and less of a
problem if the "blurriness" was preserved. Perhaps they should train on this
aspect; it shouldn't be too difficult.

~~~
londons_explore
I have a feeling the "detect faces" feature is a hand-engineered feature. It
isn't end-to-end ML like the rest of the software.

I guess they run a face detector over the whole image, then cut out faces,
pass them through a system to generate a similar but sharp and clear face, and
then blend that back into the original image.

------
jonplackett
This is just fantastic.

Also, red dwarf's enhance sequence must be added to any commentary about photo
enhance, just in case someone hasn't seen it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aINa6tg3fo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aINa6tg3fo)

------
hellofunk
That does not look like Gosling to me. Why does the photographer think it is
him?

~~~
gibolt
For the headline!

------
grenoire
Hilarious; now that I look at the original photo, I could see myself making
the same mistake, perhaps not in such detail!

------
dewey
That sounds like a classic Submarine article
([http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)).

------
coryfklein
I'm sorry, but that does not look like Ryan Gosling.

------
ffhhj
There are lots of crossing lines, if the AI took those geometrical shapes into
account it should have placed lines in front of his eyes and mouth. That would
have been more accourate, incidentally avoiding the match with Goslin. Is that
possible to implement in Gigapixel? Asking as a CV enthusiast that tailored a
volume recognition solution in OpenCV years ago.

------
jasode
fyi of related terminology:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia)

------
polskibus
That just shows how far away from the expectations is the quality assurance
for AI-supported projects. Black-box methods like NN will at some point
produce weird results. Now we need an AI to check AI if a random face was
added to the image in the process.

------
fierarul
Enhance! Enhance!

I bet the Pentagon pays good money for such unblur features.

~~~
diegoperini
Now you a have a fractal of faces as you go deeper!

------
scott31
Besides the added face, rest of the upscaling done seems to be terrible as
well. I wonder why the photographer is using the software

~~~
sudosysgen
The image is likely zoomed in 800% or more. It's normal that it looks terrible
from that close. When you see the images at a normal scale using Gigapixel AI
they often look much more detailed (but not always).

Your phone also does this, but even more poorly.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Yep. You can find the finished product here [https://retoucher.fi/mercedes-
benz-eq](https://retoucher.fi/mercedes-benz-eq) (first image), and the
Gosling-area in question on the right where the tiny green dot is.

------
renewiltord
Wow, this software is amazing. The results are _great_. The moon landing
videos linked there are remarkable.

------
atkbrah
It's not just Ryan Gosling. It's Ryan Gosling with "Charlie Chaplin mustache".

------
dghughes
The day in the life of AI "Meh, close enough. Nobody will notice."

------
perlpimp
this for some reason triggers recall of jesus on a toast from a while back.

------
cpach
Reminds me of this: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/phallus-purposely-
added-ar...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/phallus-purposely-added-
artwork-little-mermaid-vhs-cover/) [NSFW]

~~~
taneq
The term for things like this is Pareidonglia.

~~~
cpach
Ah. TIL!

------
ChrisMarshallNY
It wasn't Rick Astley? Times, they are a' changin'...

------
mrlonglong
Perhaps the AI has a crush on Ryan Gosling

------
eplanit
Ryan Gosling is the new Rick Astley. You can now get Ryan Rolled!

------
Ruhrbaron
Why not Nicolas Cage though?

------
numlock86
Yes, just like any camera since cameras have a "detect and focus face" feature
like to see faces in things like curtains or other seemingly random
structures, just without trying to match a specific known face to it and
replacing it. So how's this news? Because of a celebrity name? Surely it's not
because it's screaming "ad for Gigapixel AI" in my face. My Sony Ericsson C905
did this over 10 years ago. But looking at the other comments its at best
entertaining a little because it's just silly.

~~~
morsch
_Yes, just like any camera since cameras have a "detect and focus face"
feature like to see faces in things like curtains or other seemingly random
structures, just without trying to match a specific known face to it and
replacing it. So how's this news?_

It's news because it's trying to match a specific known face to it and
replacing it.

~~~
drusepth
It doesn't seem like it's matching a "specific known face". The face only
marginally looks like Ryan Gosling; more realistically it just inserted a face
that happens to look like a random celebrity and the site ran away with it for
clicks.

------
ashleytharp
Hi, Ashley from Topaz here. We all had a good laugh about this. Want to help
us fix it? we're hiring a deep learning researcher at the moment,
[https://jobs.lever.co/topazlabs/5ff7aa41-d733-4ca9-9323-f68a...](https://jobs.lever.co/topazlabs/5ff7aa41-d733-4ca9-9323-f68af5ebcfbb)
...,

I am researcher there, please feel free to ping me at
ashley.tharp@topazlabs.com with questions if you would like.

------
AmVess
I just tried it with his images and did not come close to replicating his
results. I am using the current version of Gigapixel AI on Windows.

My first thought when I saw the image was that he photoshopped it. Looks like
I am not wrong. Why? Who knows. Bored, I suppose.

~~~
hombre_fatal
I reckon it's like that one paper that shows a neural network swinging from
1.0 confidence that a picture of a lion is a picture of a lion to 1.0
confidence that it's actually a baseball bat once a single pixel had been
changed.

So to repro, you would need the original image, not this zoomed in crop nor
his final retouch.


Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016 - submeta
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-21/tesla-s-musk-paid-at-least-593-million-in-income-taxes-in-2016
======
tdehollain
That's $593M taxes on $1.34B earnings on exercising stock options...44% tax
rate is pretty harsh!

~~~
WJW
For the US maybe. Income tax in the Netherlands (my country) in the top
bracket is 52%. On the second hand, we have no capital gains tax so he might
come out ahead when exercising options. On the third hand, we have a wealth
tax of 1.2% on your entire capital above a certain floor (of about 20k) so he
might not come out ahead in the end.

It's always interesting to see the opinions of different cultures about how
much tax is reasonable :)

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Not bad, but doesn't that come with social services like free medical care and
greatly subsidized education?

Here in he US the middle income pays taxes and receives almost no directive
social benefit, as most social programs are geared towards lower income and
the rich can afford accountants and lawyers to keep their tax burden very
light.

~~~
kareemm
I'm not sure how you can say that the rich keep their tax burden light when
the topic of this thread is how Musk paid tax amounting to 44% of his income
totalling over half a billion dollars.

~~~
CocaKoala
If it were common for rich people to pay 44 percent of their income in tax, it
wouldn't be a newsworthy story.

~~~
jstelly
Are there people who receive millions of dollars in income via stock options
who pay a lower rate? If so, how does that work?

~~~
CocaKoala
Here's a Bloomberg article from 2012 that lists ten techniques:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-04-17/how-to-
pa...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-04-17/how-to-pay-no-
taxes-10-strategies-used-by-the-rich)

~~~
jstelly
It's worth mentioning that none of these techniques actually apply to the case
where you exercise stock options - other than the one that says basically
"take options as compensation if you can because you don't pay taxes until you
exercise them" which is true for everyone who gets options (because you don't
get any liquidity) not just rich people with expensive accountants.

The only techniques that apply to income taxes are the "borrow against stock
technique" (has a big caveat about a rich person who lost in court when he
used it) and the deferred compensation example (which is also zero liquidity;
presumably you pay all of the income taxes when you actual get the money).

The article makes a better case for ways to avoid death taxes or real estate
taxes though.

------
throwaway999a
It's very strange how people now seem to feel like they are entitled to see
the tax returns of public or well-known figures. Tax returns are nobody else's
business! Would you demand to see their medical records as well?

The implicit subtext (especially with highly successful people like Musk) is
that we do this to "make sure they pay their fair share". Here's the reality:
the top 1% of US tax filers pay nearly half of all US income taxes[1]. The
bottom 80% of filers (by income) pay only 15% of all taxes. This myth that the
rich don't pay taxes is completely, utterly false. It is a myth promulgated
for political purposes.

1\. [http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-
fede...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-federal-
income-taxes.html)

~~~
accountyaccount
I think people care that the rich pay a smaller proportionate rate[1] than the
poor. People who make under $19k a year pay twice the rate of those making
$470k+

Comparing total of taxes paid and leaving it at that is generally a tactic to
distract from the proportion problem.

1.[http://www.itep.org/whopays/full_report.php](http://www.itep.org/whopays/full_report.php)

~~~
propman
45% of Americans pay 0 federal income tax. That is a very small rate

~~~
c0nducktr
Federal income tax isn't the only tax out there...

------
engx
The video clip seemed unusually harsh. The reporter said he'd announced the
Hyperloop to "thrill and confuse"? Followed by several skeptical tones and
questions all while contrasting it with saying he'd done things no one else
had.

------
submeta
On the other hand this: "Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion
in government subsidies"

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-
subsidies-2015...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-
subsidies-20150531-story.html)

~~~
marricks
Sounds like money better spent to me than the 5 trillion dollars in global
fossil fuel subsidies in 2015, or 500 billion just in the US[1]

That 5 billion number for Musk I think is a grand total of all subsidies,
spanning all time.

[1]
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16304867)

~~~
kolbe
I don't have to click any like to know that the US did not spend $5t on fossil
fuel subsidies. I'm pretty sure the US only spent like $5t total in 2015, and
most of that is in medicare and social security.

~~~
adventured
That $5 trillion figure isn't actually spending at all. It's entirely an
invented figure, meant to supposedly cover all estimated environment damage
for example. Really what it's meant to do, is be massive enough to enable
people to throw it around when arguing in favor of obliterating the fossil
fuel industry.

Why does the invented aspect matter? Because it's comical. It leads to the
premise that over just the next 10 years, the subsidies are a likely
cumulative ... $56 trillion or so (about 20%-25% of all wealth on earth). Aka,
greater than the combined profit of every oil company in world history going
back ~140 years.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Imagine you ran a small, successful business. Imagine, as part of that
business you killed someone every year.

Now, we could look at your tax returns and see that you have a successful
business. Or we could "invent" some figure to represent the lives you ended.

Is it really crazy to imagine that the total we invent would be higher than
your yearly, or even total profits?

Just scale that up to the point that you're starting wars, causing a crime
epidemic with lead poisoning, overheating the planet, etc.

------
jkchu
The article mentions that he kept the remaining shares (as opposed to selling
them as well). I wonder what is the general strategy for founders to cash out
their stocks? Of course holding the shares for 1 or 2 years to get short/long-
term capital gains tax breaks makes sense. But outside of that I imagine there
is a balancing act of not selling so many shares to raise investor's eyebrows,
but also freeing up money to diversify your assets.

------
joatmon-snoo
Imagining this scaled down to options that someone might get for joining a
startup early... wow.

------
SEJeff
Not sure about everyone else, but I'd love to have this problem. Oh I have to
pay $593 million in taxes? Boo hoo, let me cry all the way to the bank to
write the check.

~~~
user5994461
Imagine that you are a GAFA CEO 2 years before you IPO and you are asked to
pay 593 millions based on the estimated value of your shares.

~~~
accountyaccount
I keep trying to imagine it, but I can't get past the part where I'm excited
about having hundreds of millions of dollars.

~~~
throwaway999a
Just having hundreds of millions of dollars wouldn't be particularly exciting
once the novelty wore off. The exciting part is _earning_ hundreds of millions
of dollars via the immense success that it implies/requires.

------
submeta
I wonder how much the founders of Google paid. Or the CEO of Apple. Or Uber's
founder. Or for instance Mr Trump.

~~~
r_smart
It really depends on the year. The people who top income tax payments one year
will generally not be anywhere near it on subsequent years because they don't
draw a steady income, but instead cash out periodically. So while none of the
people you've listed are likely to be in this years top earners, at some point
in the years prior, or in the years to come, you'll likely see their names pop
up. And when they do, they'll have paid some massive amount of money in taxes.

------
Alir3z4
$593M could be used for developing the company and its products.

~~~
Archio
What is the point of this comment?

I initially misread "company" as "country" \- and in that interpretation I
wholeheartedly agree.

------
econner
Wow. That's a yuge amount of income.

~~~
neaanopri
A narrow and literal reading of events makes Musk the richest african
american. It's pretty depressing the richest african american is white

~~~
gotodengo
I'm not trying to deny the (until very recently legally enforced) class
difference between whites and blacks in South Africa, nor the social issues
causing hiring discrepancies in the States.

However, it's not a narrow reading of events. Musk is African. Head a bit out
of the way in South Africa and you'll find white kids who spend all day
running around with black friends with the whole group speaking fluent Zulu.
They've grown up there and their families have been there for generations.

~~~
bmmayer1
The problem here lies with the imprecise term 'African American', a
designation which, according to customary usage, includes many native-born
Americans who have never been to Africa, as well as excludes many native-born
Africans (like Musk) who are also Americans.

~~~
gla8
As a thought experiment, if you define Americans as those with natural rights,
then every human being on Earth could be considered African American.

Although I've met a surprising number of intelligent people who somehow do not
believe we are all descended from Africa. Which I suppose is related to people
failing to understand that all individuals have innate inalienable rights,
regardless of their citizenship.

~~~
bmmayer1
Sure, we're all descended from Africa. But we all know that ethnographic
definitions are arbitrary, and how long ago you or your ancestors immigrated
apply more or less to your demographic label depending on a host of cultural,
social or economic factors. The definitions are convenient only in labeling
populations in broad strokes anyway; every individual has multiple ethnic,
religious, cultural, racial identities that can be sliced/defined/labeled any
way that society deems 'normal'...

------
youdontknowtho
I personally think that after the first 1.5 million that they tax rate should
be 100%. That's still an incredibly large amount of money. After that we need
the resources to tackle problems and we can't if people hoard them.

I know that it sounds simple, and lots of people on this site will disagree,
but I'm having trouble justifying this kind of extreme wealth to myself
anymore.

There are so many people in poverty and ignorance. What's it for any way if
people are starving and illiterate?

I'm really not looking forward to some of the responses to this comment, but I
find myself thinking more and more about the morality of letting people
accumulate massive sums when the resources that wealth could muster go unused
by the people that need them most.

I don't know. I'm genuinely interested in hearing what other people here have
to say if you can keep from being condescending or mean. Please be nice.

~~~
jcsnv
>I personally think that after the first 1.5 million that they tax rate should
be 100% Remember, Elon funded SpaceX and Tesla with the wealth he generated
from the sale of Paypal. Where would the funding have come from for those
entities if he was taxed at 100% after 1.5mm?

~~~
youdontknowtho
To be fair, he has raised money from investors to start those companies. I'm
not advocating for the end of banking, so people would still be able to borrow
money and invest. I'm also not talking about taxing wealth, but income.

SpaceX is interesting because we could be doing that stuff at NASA if it were
funded well.

I get what you are saying though, it would have an effect on investment and
speculation. Maybe we don't need as much of those things.

I'm also not saying that this is particularly well thought out.


Girard in Silicon Valley: Notes from a Lecture by Peter Thiel - sergeant3
http://www.imitatio.org/mimetic-theory/girard-in-silicon-valley.html
======
fitzwatermellow
Glosses over the role of dynastic succession as a primary motivation to
institute what we now call monarchic control over subjects.

As much as I dig ontological psycho-historical speculation I find myself
beginning to realize just how different we moderns are from the ancients. I
fear that any resemblance between our own systems and those that existed
several millennia ago would, like "Business Secrets of the Pharaohs", be
purely coincidental.

It just so happened on this moist summer eve that as I stumbled upon this link
I happened to be perusing Tagore's Sādhanā.

In "The Relation of the Individual to the Universe" he indeed speculates about
what caused the ancient forest-dwellers to acquire wealth, build cities and
become kings. After failing to become one with Nature, the ancient sadhus
sought to emulate the wider Cosmos in a controllable microverse, in which they
could achieve a limited all-consciousness.

Perhaps somewhat analogously to the way mathematicians in the 1930's, stymied
by Gödel's proof that axiomatic formalism would always remain necessarily
incomplete, created their own artificial oasis of finite and deterministic
binary logic in the form of early computing.

------
AndrewKemendo
Interestingly this kind of progression is mirrored in a previous link today
about the "clock like nature" of technology press - nothing > glowing >
skeptical > sacrificial.

I think it's just something in human nature to want to raise and nurture
something successful - but past a threshold you become too much and are now
something to vilify and despise. Seems like a good way to put it is that for
successful people, the public says "We think you are a God, but as soon as you
believe you are, we will kill you to prove that you aren't"

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9846003](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9846003)

------
w1ntermute
Mirror (it was sporadically down for me):
[https://archive.is/lM0Ds](https://archive.is/lM0Ds)

------
biohax2015
What a self-absorbed article.

------
SandersAK
It's got graphs so it's definitely scientific.


Why Not the Funnel Chart? - pella
http://practicetrumpstheory.com/2013/09/why-not-the-funnel-chart/

======
ggchappell
Link is bad. Correct link:

[http://practicetrumpstheory.com/2013/08/why-not-the-
funnel-c...](http://practicetrumpstheory.com/2013/08/why-not-the-funnel-
chart/)


Interview w/ Mateusz Cyrankiewicz, Co-founder of Dropr - keesj
http://interviews.betali.st/interviews/mateusz-cyrankiewicz

======
hedaru
Interesting one.

------
betalist
Nice post Beta List.


Webhooks, REST and the Open Web - bpedro
http://apiux.com/2013/09/12/webhooks/

======
brissmyr
Webhooks are in need of some standardisation for sure, so moving towards
something like PuSH is a step in the right direction. However this technology
has been around for a while, so whether this will become standard or not
remains unclear.

PuSH solves a couple annoyances with webhooks that comes to my mind:

\- Lack of debuggability: the inability to subscribe to events forces me to
explicitly set up callback URL(s) on service providers' dashboards or in query
strings in requests. IF I managed to set them up correctly, data will come
crashing in any day in the future, throwing exceptions, or bouncing on
unspecified routes. And all these POST catchers and local tunnels developers
play with to get this right in the first place.

\- Ad-hoc verification schemes: Every service comes up with their own way of
ensuring the data originated from their servers. Signature hashes as
'X-*'-headers, a number of extra fields inside the JSON body, etc.

There are more, but these two has annoyed me for quite some time.

~~~
johns
We've (Runscope) tried to make debugging better than what you can do with a
simple post catcher like requestb.in. The nice thing about our forwarding
setup is that if a webhook fails on your server you have a log of that and can
retry it.

~~~
brissmyr
Yeah, I saw your service on Heroku a couple of weeks ago. Haven't tried it for
our API's yet but I recall you had a pretty nifty approach. Good work!

------
chesh
Nice article with a concise overview of PubSubHubbub and HTTP Subscription
Specification. It would be really nice if you could complement it with
pointers to some real example of interfaces using one or the other approach.
This could help practitioners identify is the better fit for their use case.

------
rdtsc
I don't understand the diagram.

The POST to /subscription line going from left to right is clear. What is the
GET request below it, is that another HTTP GET requests or a the response to a
POST. If it is a GET why is the arrow going from Server to Client.

Then the response to that GET has a 201 code but that is going from client to
Server?

~~~
ihsw
The POST to /subscription informs the API server that there is a "webhook
endpoint" that's available to respond to API events. This request happens only
once.

The GET request represents the "webhook request", where the API server makes
GET requests to the webhook endpoint. These requests are on-going and
regularly occurring as a result of service events.

The dotted arrow at the bottom is the webhook endpoint responding to the
webhook request, and many API services treat responses with 2XX code as
successful, whereas 4xx and 5xx response codes are unsuccessful. In the event
of an unsuccessful webhook request then the API service will make multiple
attempts at sending the webhook request.

For example:

* HN comment gets posted

* webhook endpoint receives GET request with related information (eg: user id, username, comment date, comment body)

* webhook endpoint responds with 2XX indicating success

~~~
rdtsc
I think I understand now, thank you for explaining!


Google instant previews - rbarr
http://www.google.com/landing/instantpreviews/

======
terryjsmith
I'm beginning to miss Marissa Mayer's axe on things on the main search page. I
think Google's primary advantage for a while now has been cleanliness of
results (as the difference in relevance between search engines has slimmed);
they're opening themselves up to a competitor with a better design/flow by
continuing to cram these "useful" items in.

------
rgrieselhuber
So far, it's been one of the goddamndest annoying things I've ever seen on the
serp.

------
zachster
This has been Snap.com 's competitive advantage for years. I suppose Google
gave them enough of a head start for them to make something of it if they were
going to. Theirs is certainly more mature though. And they have a JS include
you can place on your site to enable this sort of image preview on all
external links.

Theirs customizes the preview type depending on the content. For example,
links to stock information shows a little quote and graph preview.

~~~
harrybr
To call it a "competitive advantage" is stretching it a bit. It's a feature,
that much is unarguable.

I'd say that the snap.com UI probably falls into the "Hover and cover" UI
Antipattern (as defined by Bill Scott)

[http://www.slideshare.net/billwscott/design-anti-patterns-
ho...](http://www.slideshare.net/billwscott/design-anti-patterns-how-to-
design-a-poor-web-experience)

(slide 36 onwards)

------
Tycho
I installed an extension on Safari called Apperture or something - when you
select any text it lets you bring up search results in a little sub-window,
conveniently organized to put wikipedia at the top and videos in a separate
tab and stuff. Search technology is changing, Google are no.1 at the moment
but they need to be a moving target.

~~~
sathyabhat
Apture[1], you mean ?

[1]: <http://www.apture.com/>

------
meinhimmel
It was enabled for me by default, and to be honest I didn't care for it at
first. It's grown on me a little bit, but I'm still not sure I'll keep it.

I highlight while I'm reading, and it plays against that by distracting me
with the popup. The article says that it comes up from pressing the icon, but
it also includes the text. I'm leaving it enabled though to see if I benefit
from it like I do Instant.

That said, I'm still unsure about Google Instant because I'll see my result
then keep typing and fly by it having to backtrack and see where Google gave
it to me.

------
seiji
Interesting implementation detail: the images are XHR'd in with a json wrapped
data URI. Try to right click on an image and share it.

Other notable notes: they don't render flash in the previews and they let the
hovers cover up the right-hand ads.


Show HN: Write rust in off-side syntax (indent instead of braces like in Python) - chankyin
https://github.com/chankyin/off-side.rs
======
karmakaze
Too bad about the trailing commas and semicolons. It would be cleaner if they
could be implied and there be punctuation for when a comma or semicolon is not
meant.

The commas aren't visually as bad as the semicolons. Would it work to say in
an off-side block any non-blank line implicitly ends with semi-colon unless it
explicitly ends with comma or colon?

~~~
chankyin
Also, semicolons in Rust have special semantics. In Rust, semicolons are
delimiters rather than terminators, and function similar to how comma
operators work in C++ (see
[https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/operator_other](https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/operator_other)).
While some may not like the implicit return behaviour in Rust, I think it has
a genuine idiomatic meaning in Rust that cannot be easily replaced. Ending a
function with a semicolon differentiates returning the last value from
returning void (i.e. the empty tuple), so it does not seem like a good idea.
(This is a proof of concept anyway it's not like I'm introducing a new
language)

------
smt88
Why do you prefer semantic whitespace?

~~~
chankyin
You can find loads of reasons for and against semantic whitespace out there. I
created this project not because I think it's better or worse, but just that
it's cool to offer such a variant. As mentioned in the README, I don't really
recommend using this in serious projects, not because I am against semantic
whitespcaes, but because multiple variants of the same language just sucks.
(Yes, just like Python 2 vs Python 3) (I actually hate Python for lots of
things, but nothing to do with the semantic whitespaces)


Show HN: Pantry – Free JSON Storage for Personal Projects - fiveSpeedManual
https://getpantry.cloud/
======
stevage
Looks useful. I really dislike the "Download Postman and then you will have
documentation" approach. Documentation lives on the web, and there are better
alternatives to Postman anyway.

~~~
Nezteb
I’m curious: what are your top alternatives to Postman?

~~~
bovermyer
cURL, with some bash aliases to help things along.

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
I prefer this as well.

Rather not go down the road of having examples for every major platform.

------
fiveSpeedManual
I'm so excited to finally be able to share this with you!

Pantry is a free cloud storage service that I've been building for the past
few weeks. You can use the API to store & retrieve data for you and your users
online for free.

Looking forward to seeing what you all think of it, and please feel free to
post suggestions or AMA.

Thanks!

~~~
whalesalad
\- How would you sell me on Pantry vs. AWS S3? (You can use S3 in much the
same way ... throwing up JSON at a path and fetching it. The cost some would
argue is neglible)

\- How do you deal with CORS?

\- How do you deal with authentication?

Is this intended to be like the take a penny leave a penny jar? You put stuff
here knowing anyone could come and destroy it at any time?

I did not sign up, I am only going off your API docs.

~~~
strogonoff
> How would you sell me on Pantry vs. AWS S3?

Is this question really appropriate? The developer is sharing a pro bono
offering, where does selling anyone on it against a commercial service even
come into play?

It looks like a project that must have been fun to make and could be useful
for storing non-sensitive data with very little hassle. Long bucket IDs appear
to leave little chance for name collision.

If you are building a piece of software that deals with anything remotely like
PII or has specific availability requirements, I sincerely hope this is not
something you are seriously considering (otherwise, pardon me, I hope I won’t
be your user or customer), starting from the fact that you aren’t paying for
it and there is no SLA.

~~~
marktangotango
Of course it’s appropriate! From the docs this service doesn’t even meet the
“viable” part of MVP! Ok a user can post some json that’s public (no
authentication) and doesn’t even work across domains (CORS).

Suppose adding those things and targeting “mobile backend as a service” or
even more general “backend as service” there is still a lot to be desired.
Like static html, ok you’re competition is Firebase.

How’s Firebase doing these days?

------
jventura
I've done something similar for some of my students to test restful apis at
[http://mockrest.com](http://mockrest.com).

It is quite similar to this although you just write your own data on a
textarea, and get/post/put/delete to modify it.. Then you can copy-paste the
result json from the backend to a text file or something like that..

It dynamically finds your objects (even nested ones) and you can CRUD them..

------
osrec
Is the pantry GUID the only form of security for all objects? Can this be
rotated should it be compromised?

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Great question!

Currently, the PantryID (uuidv4) is the only form of security, I am thinking
that in a future release perhaps another form of authorization may be
required.

Do you have any suggestions - I'm all ears!

~~~
osrec
Yeah, I imagine this is okay for testing, since UUIDs are fairly impossible to
guess, however, you probably want a slightly more elaborate "authenticated
session" based structure to ensure someone malicious who has obtained the UUID
does not have an unlimited time window to exploit it.

------
1-more
I had this exact idea the other day with a tiny twist. This is rad. Might use
it for my little project. TY

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Thanks for the kind words, this means a lot to me :)

I hope you find some good use out of Pantry, very excited to see what you come
up with!

------
tyhoff
Very cool! I was looking for something like this about a month ago when I was
building an example web application for firmware developers. Firmware
engineers aren't expected to know anything about databases and usually don't,
so I just wanted some dumb JSON store in the cloud that didn't need any
provisioning.

In the end, I went with Heroku and it's included PostgreSQL offering and
stomached the complexity, but along the way I found
[https://jsonbox.io/](https://jsonbox.io/), which I thought was neat and seems
very similar.

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Thanks for the kind words! You're essentially the use-case that I had in mind
when I was developing Pantry!

How did your project turn out btw, did the firmware developers get their mind
blown by web tech?

~~~
tyhoff
Project/Article turned out very well. It was more of a proof of concept with
the code open-sourced so people can have something to start with to track
firmware binary sizes on a commit-by-commit basis.

[https://interrupt.memfault.com/blog/code-size-
deltas](https://interrupt.memfault.com/blog/code-size-deltas)

Unsure if their minds were blown, but I at least know that mine would have
been if I showed it to myself a couple of years ago. During that time, I had
never touched databases, migration files, or devops in general. Now that's
changed, but I still try put myself in those shoes.

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Wow, this is pretty neat!

I have some friends who are into firmware development so ill pass this along.

Love how verbose your docs are - good stuff!

------
mikequinlan
What are the rate and size limits for the API? Also what is the data retention
(how long before you delete the buckets)?

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Great question!

Size limits are pretty small, a little over 1mb per basket.

As for data retention, the account has a TTL of 5 days, baskets 3. Any
activity on the account/bucket will result in the TTL's being refreshed.

~~~
mikequinlan
Some API requests get a JSON response (Retrieve Account, Get Basket). Others
get a plain text response (Create Account, Create Basket). Errors seem to get
an HTTP response with an HTML page. Is this documented anywhere?

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Ouch that is confusing. And no, I haven't added these details to documentation
yet. This is a bit of an issue at the moment, having everything return in one
format is the right thing to do.

Will be addressing this in the near future - thanks!

~~~
mikequinlan
The Retrieve Account API seems to always return an empty baskets array, even
if baskets with data exit. fyi,

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Oh yeah, this definitely needs to be addressed and is currently an active
issue on GitHub. Thanks for reporting!

------
arthurcolle
How do you prevent someone from spamming you and filling your cache up with
abusive documents?

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
I have a basic rate limiting implemented, but nothing that prevents people
from really abusing the storage platform.

Accounts and Baskets that are stale are automatically removed, however, so
there's that?

Will look into alternative methods of spam prevention - any tips?

------
ammmir
I love the graphics and web design! It looks like a simple service, and more
alternatives in the space are welcome!

Full-disclosure, I also develop a "competing" (if you can call it that)
service: [https://kvdb.io](https://kvdb.io) \- my landing page isn't as nice.
Our buckets offer some atomic operations on keys and Lua-based scripting (you
can spit out arbitrary text or HTML and handle basic GET/POST requests with
parameter parsing), which might be useful for prototyping.

You should figure out how to sustain this kind of service on $FREE. In my
experience, I've found a lot of people sign up but don't use it for anything
serious. One of my first customers signed up and demanded a refund immediately
after he discovered "oh, your simple key-value store doesn't support SQL
queries?"

Good luck!

~~~
nurettin
Is this a monetized redis?

------
sosodev
I’m currently building something very similar but with a usage based payment
system (not implemented yet). [https://quickstash.io](https://quickstash.io)

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Very exciting, I really like your website - especially the API docs!

Awesome work!

~~~
sosodev
Hey thanks! I guess we'll have some friendly competition. :)

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Looking forward to it!

------
dontchooseanick
A mozilla alternative is Kinto

* Used e.g. for profiles sync

* Deploys to heroku - 1 click

[https://www.kinto-storage.org/](https://www.kinto-storage.org/)

------
onion2k
The API docs page is only scrollable if your mouse is over the docs text. If
you try to scroll on either side nothing happens (OSX, Chrome Canary).

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
Ouff - good catch!

Will fix soon, thanks!

------
MattGaiser
Where are you sourcing the clip art? You are the 3rd startup I have seen with
the zen woman in the past week.

~~~
fiveSpeedManual
I found these great illustrations here -
[https://www.opendoodles.com/](https://www.opendoodles.com/)

They're really well done!


Ask HN: Why is there no software for generating cross-platform native UI code? - dreamer7
HTML + CSS, iOS and Android all are complete design systems. Any UI that we design can be developed for these platforms.
Forgive my possibly naive understanding of mobile UI. Why is there no software/ service that allows us to develop on one platform and automatically transpiles into the other platforms?
Is it because it is extremely complex or because developing the UI is not the most time-consuming element of cross-platform development or both?
A form field for web -
<input ..../>
is
<EditText ..../> for Android
and
<UITextInput ..../> for iOS
======
praveen9920
Kony is proprietary platform which does generate native app code (
[https://www.kony.com/](https://www.kony.com/) )

Major problem for implementing such thing is that there is no exact 1-1
mapping between all UI elements. There are certainly few elements which has
the mapping but all the features cannot be done with those.

Also, I remember that apple has problem with generated code.

Note: I worked for Kony few years back


Amazon patents wristband that tracks warehouse workers' movements - neverminder
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/31/amazon-warehouse-wristband-tracking?
======
le-mark
Ah, gathering data to train ML picker bots? Ie reverse kinematic the arm
(shoulder, wrist, elbow) movement? Very interesting indeed.


Laura Poitras learns why she endured airport stops for years - bearcobra
https://apnews.com/d69a8e6db867477795f4152d0511bbf9/Filmmaker-learns-why-she-endured-airport-stops-for-years
======
kw71
It sounds like someone knowingly fabricated false information. If so that
person should be civilly and criminally liable because that act caused obvious
harm.

------
stevep98
Even if it's true that she broke the law with regards to the ambush, how does
that lead to being stopped and questioned every time you enter the country?

------
Neliquat
So, it seems like an elaborate cover, to justify the obvious reasons of her
heightened scrutiny. What was not clear in the article is if/when this
stopped. Tbh, you could have reasonable suspicion just for the documentary,
but that would have looked worse than a security incident. I will now remove
my Reynolds Cap.

~~~
tinus_hn
It looks like she just published some things someone didn't like and they
decided to punish her by putting her on the list. Why not? There's no
consequence for it.

------
jti107
is Laura a US citizen? when the US invaded Iraq what laws were in place? Seems
like a pretty big leap to say that "A female was videotaping us" to "she knew
an ambush was about to take place"


Sears Kit Homes Changed Housing - prostoalex
https://www.curbed.com/2018/10/16/17984616/sears-catalog-home-kit-mail-order-prefab-housing
======
walrus01
The person who does the McMansion Hell blog has a guide to historical kit
houses:

[http://mcmansionhell.com/post/155602312686/the-mail-order-
am...](http://mcmansionhell.com/post/155602312686/the-mail-order-american-
dream-an-introductory)

Part two: [http://mcmansionhell.com/post/155922980391/the-mail-order-
am...](http://mcmansionhell.com/post/155922980391/the-mail-order-american-
dream-part-ii-the-hunt-is)

------
clatan
There's a recent 99% invisible episode about this:

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-house-that-
came-i...](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-house-that-came-in-the-
mail/)

~~~
djsumdog
That's where I first heard about this. Excellent podcast episode. It's pretty
different to actually see photos though.

------
ZachWick
The "DIY with basic tools" approach of Sears extended well beyond houses.
Sears also sold motorcycles [0] that came with a thick manual that gave
instructions on how to do everything from assembling the motorcycle from the
shipped pieces in the crate to fully disassembling and rebuilding the engine.
I've restored a handful of them before, and they are a lot of fun to work on.
They are simple enough that there aren't too many hurdles to get over, and
they are always a good conversation starter when you're parked somewhere.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puch_250_SGS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puch_250_SGS)

[1] A build log of one restoration that needs updating
[https://zachwick.com/sears-allstate-project-1-n/](https://zachwick.com/sears-
allstate-project-1-n/)

------
asaph
> Sears promised that a buyer with only rudimentary skills could assemble a
> kit home in 90 days.

People used to be handier than they are today. I don't know anyone who would
dare take on this project.

~~~
CalRobert
I would, until the neighbors started threatening to sue me in planning
meetings and the local authorities demanded $30,000 of architect's drawings
and then I was told I had to have two parking spaces for some reason and that
my house was too small for any decent individual.

~~~
namdnay
> I had to have two parking spaces for some reason

The reason for that is that in ten years' time, you may have moved on and sold
your house, and the next tenants will probably own two cars (this being the
US), and so will end up parking on the street. If everyone does this, it's a
nightmare

Enforcing a number of parking spaces per dwelling is very common even here in
France

~~~
pc86
And these are exactly the kinds of things the home buyer should take into
account. But if the builder doesn't need or want something, they shouldn't be
forced to build it for the sake of a theoretical buyer decades in the future.
If the builder doesn't put in something that is in high demand it will
negatively impact their ability to sell the home or they'll have to price it
accordingly. Seems like a pretty good system without having a government
commission tell someone they need an arbitrary number of parking spaces that
they have no use for.

~~~
namdnay
The problem is that the impact is also external. Maybe the future buyer
doesn't mind parking in the street, but the neighbours definitely do.

The government isn't telling anyone anything - it's a purely municipal
decision

~~~
pc86
Municipalities are governments.

------
bluedino
You can buy a house kit today from places like Menard’s - my uncle purchased a
garage and we assembled it over a couple weekends, I could see doing a house
with much more time and skill

[https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/books-
buildi...](https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/books-building-
plans/home-plans/shop-all-home-projects/c-9919.htm)

~~~
tomcam
The prices are literally unbelievable to me. What’s missing? These sure look
like the spiritual successor to the Sears homes.

~~~
nikanj
The labor and the land. Those are by far the most expensive components of a
home.

~~~
gambiting
Yep. People outside of the construction business can be shocked by how cheap
materials to build a house actually are. It's the land and labour where the
money goes.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Contractors are like lawyers. You're not paying them to argue your case.
You're paying them because they have a professional relationship with all the
other parties that's been built upon years of doing business with them.

The lawyer knows the prosecutor and the judge. The contractor knows all the
inspectors and bureaucrats. They get favorable treatment compared to some
nobody off the street. A huge chunk of what you pay them is compensation for
all the time they spend building that professional relationship with the
people who you need to appease. The fact that services are rendered is what
blurs the line between business and corruption.

~~~
encoderer
This guy remodels.

Seriously, good luck getting the subcontractor back to finish quickly when
somebody who has been providing him with work consistently calls and needs a
hand. As a homeowner you are back burner.

~~~
nikanj
Very similar to trying to get support from a software company, when you're a
one-off $19.95 customer, and their biggest enterprise clients are also
calling.

------
fallingfrog
According to the CPI inflation calculator, The Classic home from 1916 for $918
would cost $22,282 today. That's actually quite a bit less expensive than the
same size houses being offered by Menard's today, by about a factor of 2. I
don't have any good insight as to why the cost would actually be higher today
after 100 years of productivity gains. Productivity has increased by about a
factor of 5, so all other things being equal the same house should cost only
$4400 today. What gives?

~~~
greeneggs
I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers, but the construction industry
has long had notoriously slow productivity growth. In the US, labor
productivity in construction has stayed essentially flat since 1947, and
decreased since its peak in 1968.

"Reinventing construction: A route to higher productivity", McKinsey Global
Institute (2017) (pdf, see page 23):
[https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Capital...](https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Capital%20Projects%20and%20Infrastructure/Our%20Insights/Reinventing%20construction%20through%20a%20productivity%20revolution/MGI-
Reinventing-construction-A-route-to-higher-productivity-Full-report.ashx)

~~~
fallingfrog
My numbers are very very approximate and come from eyeballing the following
graph, which was the best I could get from a google search:

[https://images.slideplayer.com/27/8913519/slides/slide_9.jpg](https://images.slideplayer.com/27/8913519/slides/slide_9.jpg)

------
rmason
There are several Sears kit homes near me. They succeeded because they offered
value. I don't know about the coasts but the homes were very popular in the
Midwest.

So popular that close to eighty years after they were last available it is
very common to mention a property is a Sears home in real estate ads.

Amazon may have sped up their demise but Sears lost track of offering their
customers value decades ago.

~~~
adventured
Amazon had close to zero role in the demise of Sears. Keep in mind, Amazon had
a mere $34 billion in total sales as recently as 2010. Sears was realistically
already a zombie ten years ago, long before Amazon was taking a consequential
bite out of retail.

The rise of Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy, etc. serving the Sears
customers better - as you mentioned - is entirely what killed Sears. They
ultimately lost in every category to those guys, from clothes, to electronics,
to home & garden. They kept doing a lot of things, and did nothing well. Any
article that claims Amazon played a role in the demise of Sears, is selling
click-bait.

~~~
ghaff
Arguably they did a couple of things (e.g. appliances) at least competitively.
But the competition in those areas definitely increased from the big box
stores, department stores in general have been in significant decline, and
Sears as a whole was quite a mish-mash.

~~~
Finnucane
It used to be that Sears house brands--Kenmore, Craftsman, etc--provided good
value to the customer. Not luxury or top-of-the line, but reliable stuff that
worked and was worth what you paid for it. But in recent years that hasn't
really been true. But then, it's not really true for just about anyone any
more. Amazon copied the Sears model--sell everything to everyone--but it has
also opened the floodgates of third-party sellers selling cheap crap and
counterfeit goods. It's less like the old Sears and more like an old-world
medieval bazaar.

------
wnoise
So, does anyone else offer catalog homes? If not, why not? Have building
permits gotten too complex?

~~~
newnewpdro
Cabelas does log homes

~~~
busterarm
Not anymore (at least not referenced on their site anymore). They're also at a
huge markup compared to other kit log cabins.

------
skookumchuck
If you ever watch a house being built, there's a huge pile of waste lumber
from cut off ends. Carpenters don't look through the pile looking for an end
to reuse, they just pull a fresh board and cut off what they need. With some
careful design, and pre-cut pieces, one can nearly eliminate this wastage and
cut costs substantially. It's not just the boards, it's the millwork,
plumbing, carpet, etc.

~~~
bluGill
When I was in construction all ends longer than a foot (30cm) were saved and
most were used. They look like the are to be discarded, because most are
created the first day and just sit there. However the very last thing before
we leave we look around and verify that there is backing in all the corners to
attach the drywall to. This used most of the longer scraps.

I don't know about the other steps you name.

~~~
skookumchuck
> other steps

I recall reading about a spec house builder who would design the houses so
that the dimensions of the rooms would fit an even multiple of the widths of
carpet rolls. This nearly eliminated carpet waste, and made installation
cheaper, too, as there were no seams.

------
fallingfrog
I live in one on these houses! The construction is very solid, the insulation
is thinner than you would ideally want but overall it's a nice house. The trim
work is beautiful, every piece fits together nice and tight. My only complaint
is that I wish they hadn't used lead paint on it.

------
examancer
I didn't know they sold homes. Kind of amazing. It's a surprising footnote in
the tragedy of Sears.

The popular narrative of an out-of-touch company unable to compete with the
likes of Amazon is false. The CEO is a hedge fund manager who pillaged the
company, sold off it's best assets (sometimes to himself), loaded up the
company with debt, and used it to pay himself millions.

[http://prospect.org/article/it-was-vulture-capitalism-
killed...](http://prospect.org/article/it-was-vulture-capitalism-killed-sears)

There is no good reason we are losing this company which has been the backbone
of American commerce for over a century.

~~~
newnewpdro
You need to see one of the old Sears catalogs, the ones that were two+ inches
thick and sold ploughs, wagons, blacksmithing tools, everything you could
imagine of use to homesteaders. It's fascinating to flip through, excellent
coffee table reading material.

~~~
walrus01
Shotguns, corsets, wagon wheels, pocket watches, derringers, medical
apparatus, furniture, top hats, bowler hats, Masonic accessories, oil lamps,
wood stoves.

------
RickJWagner
Those are nice looking houses, I'm surprised.

My wife and I are thinking about building a new house. I'm surprised how many
new houses are still built from bespoke plans, and how much the plans cost.
You'd think house plan 'Open Sourcing' would soon give us better houses at
better prices. (I hope so, anyway.)

------
rtpg
I'd be really interested in what these "kit homes" end up arriving as to the
customer. Are you shipped a bunch of wood and materials at a spot and you
start building? Is there some prefab stuff going on?

Very interested in knowing what the user experience is on this sort of
product, so to speak

~~~
anonymous5133
These questions are hilarious because all of us are just a bunch of young
"know it alls" and all the old timers would be able to tell you all about
these sears homes....too bad no one here is older on this site.

~~~
woolvalley
The youngest person to have conscious memory of these things would have to be
82 or 83, and wouldn't be much of a help in building them. The 95 year old
adult in 1940 is even rarer still.

------
Insanity
First time I heard of 'home building kits'. I don't think they are popular
here in Europe (Belgium at least?) but the idea is quite neat.

Then again, I don't consider myself handy enough to take on such a project
anyway :)

------
wj
How does being a kit home affect resale value if at all?

~~~
tptacek
I don't think it does. I think it's regarded as charming. There's a whole
enthusiast community. Also: they're kit houses, but they're not like, mobile
homes or pre-fab; they're just houses, like any other.


Wanted to get into RC but didn't have the money - KrisCubed
I wanted to get into the RC hobby but I didn't have $300 to drop on a Traxxas or other rig--I have a friend who had a really nice RC car and it made me want one--So I made my own!!
Its really cool!
People have been telling me none stop that PLA will never work for this...
The wear is actually so minimal that I haven't needed to grease the moving parts more than once--After hours of drive time, there is almost no wear on the gears--The only thing that wears are the dogbones, but that is because sand and dirt get into the joint and cause wear, but they still last much longer than you'd ever guess.
What are your thoughts?
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fneoYrtdVjo
Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3545173
======
jakobegger
How much did you end up spending on the parts that you couldn't print? This
looks like a pretty sweet car, but is it really cheaper to build your own than
buying a finished kit?

------
onemoresoop
That's the way to go. Great project. Hope to see a lot more innovation coming
out of DIY projects. Great job!!!


(Futurama) Bender Smartspeaker using completely offline software - crankylinuxuser
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/g3whxq/i_will_make_my_own_smart_speaker_with_blackjack/
======
ourcat
Nice. Since there's no way I'm going to put a multi-billion-dollar company's
'smart' speaker in my apartment, I've been wanting to build something offline
like this inside an old dial telephone (like a red Bat phone) which only
listens to your commands when you pick up the handset. ;)

~~~
NotSammyHagar
I like the idea. I'm shocked that a ras pi has enough cpu power to make this
work.

~~~
foxyv
My Dad used to use voice typing on his old Pentium II laptop in the late 90s.
It's doable, although a lot less reliable than the ones nowadays.


Great User Experiences Require Great Front-End Development - mbesto
http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/04/great-user-experiences-require-great-front-end-development.php

======
kenrose
There is a great irony in the fact that the UX for this site is pretty awful:
* Gigantic social sharing buttons (they're bigger than the headline) * Glossy
nav bar makes options difficult to read * When scrolling a long article, the
left and right areas for nav are completely empty. I end up with two giant
purple bars flanking the article. * On the topic of purple, sooooooo much
purple.

Maybe I'm spoiled by the reading UX that medium.com provides.


Government Shuts Down as Congress Misses Deadline - ISL
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304373104579107051184641222.html
======
rodgerd
From the perspective of someone who live in a Westminster-style democracy this
is made especially bizarre by virtue of the fact that failing to be able to
pass a budget bill results in new elections[1]. If you're going to block the
budget, you'd better be damned confident that voters agree with you.

[1] I suppose technically it results in the head of state inviting other
political partites to form a government, and then calling elections when they
can't.

------
daegloe
We had two similar "partial shutdowns" of the US Gov't in the 1990's.
Democratic President refusing to cut healthcare-related spending vs.
Republican-controlled Congress holding the debt ceiling hostage. Sound
familiar? Same game, different players.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governmen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_shutdown_of_1995_and_1996)

~~~
khuey
In the 90s Congress failed to pass a budget. Holding the debt ceiling hostage
was never seen or tried as a legitimate political tactic before the last few
years.

~~~
daegloe
Nope. In the former speaker's own words...

[http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/opinion/gingrich-obama-
congres...](http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/opinion/gingrich-obama-
congress/index.html)

------
ck2
I imagine a Koch brother handing the other a single $1 over a bet they could
shutdown the government like in Trading Places.

~~~
D9u
Maybe the loser has to donate an extra million dollars or so to the winner's
favorite charity?

[http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/02/koch-brothers-
give-m...](http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/02/koch-brothers-give-more-to-
charity-than-to-right-wing-causes/)

------
clarkmoody
Wouldn't it be nice if the federal government were small enough that it
contained no personnel who were "non-essential" ?

~~~
squidi
It's impossible to have only "essential" staff as you will always need "non-
essential" staff to support their work. For example, NASA TV employees are
"non-essential" [1] but without the TV station it may mean lots of kids are
not inspired by NASA any more. Also, Labor statisticians are "non-essential"
but would you rather the Department of Labor make decision on gut feelings
instead?

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/27/us/who-goes-
to...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/27/us/who-goes-to-work-
during-government-shutdown.html?_r=0)

~~~
insertnickname
I'd rather not have a Department of Labor.

------
coffeeaddicted
One sad aspect of this is that it won't have any effect on the income of the
involved politicians.

~~~
summerdown2
If they were on suspension too, how would they get together to eventually
agree a fix? I agree about the incentives being wrong, and I think the whole
thing is ridiculous, but unfortunately, they're exactly the ones who have to
keep working until it's over.

~~~
coffeeaddicted
Doesn't have to be all or nothing. But they are responsible for this mess, so
cut their income by 50% or even just 25% for the time. Or reducing their
income by X% each day where they can't find a solution.

------
malkia
Does anyone know how would this affect public schools?

~~~
seanalltogether
I've always been under the impression that public schools and police services
are all managed by state/local taxes and not tied to the federal budget.

~~~
LandoCalrissian
They get federal dollars for certain things, but you are correct that they are
managed and largely paid for by their respective state.

------
orsenthil
I can't understand this. What is meant by Government Shuts Down? No law and
order will be enforced?

~~~
Cub3
The US government is on _partial_ shutdown. So many hundreds of thousands of
US government workers will either 1. not be paid to work, or 2. be furloughed
(not go in to work). This applies to non-essential workers (found a list here
-
[http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/09/politics/government-s...](http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/09/politics/government-
shutdown-impact/index.html?hpt=hp_t1) ).

Retroactive pay will apply once things are worked out.

~~~
rbritton
One important thing not to forget, Partisan issues aside, is that both
Congress and the President still get paid without any hiccups.

~~~
techsupporter
Congress and the President are both required to be paid by the Constitution
(20th amendment and Art 2, Sec 1, respectively).

~~~
alan_cx
Ah, so they like that part of the constitution.


S3 Bandwidth from Every EC2 Instance - DVassallo
https://github.com/dvassallo/s3-benchmark
======
QuinnyPig
This is awesome!


Silk Road owner can't be guilty of money laundering if Bitcoin isn't money - markmassie
http://theverge.com/2014/4/1/5570984/alleged-silk-road-owner-says-he-cant-be-guilty-of-money-laundering
======
mschuster91
Still the fact remains that DPR attempted to hire at least one hitman for a
job. He won't get out of this one easily, I'm afraid.

Also, the Feds might pull a Capone on him and fine/imprison him for not
reporting the (significant!) income from SR.


Smartest Kids in the World: American Schools - jseliger
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2014/06/21/smartest-kids-in-the-world-american-schools/
======
bobzibub
[http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/15/m...](http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/15/map-
how-35-countries-compare-on-child-poverty-the-u-s-is-ranked-34th/) Is child
poverty an issue or is it not? Is it left to the schools to correct? Finland
is the best in the world for child poverty. America, (ahem) less so. So the
question is not really answered.


Why a Hacker Who Exposed Rapists Faces More Jail Than the Rapists - chunkyslink
https://www.inverse.com/article/20876-steubenville-rape-case-deric-lostutter
======
brett_shavers
Hacker should have asked for immunity prior to disclosing criminal activity.


MDMA - kaboro
https://www.profgalloway.com/mdma/
======
mindfulplay
He does not convey anything new and it almost feels like he is milking the
limited fifteen minutes of limelight a bit much.....

------
loceng
Fortunately, the reality - now that the lights are on for many more, people
woke by Trump, by China with Hong Kong - isn't insurmountably ugly.

There is abundance. There is plenty of capital, plenty of passionate,
hardworking, healthy-educated people or those who we can quickly lead to being
healthy and have higher productivity, who will find their passion if they
haven't yet.

The issue and why the ugliness has formed at all, why the lights have dimmed
some, is because capital has increasingly been generated by fewer players -
due to increasing efficiency of automation, consolidation of markets, and
money pooled into the financial industrial complex - and simply billionaires,
large companies holding onto cash reserves, while doing their best to not pay
taxes.

Badly run government due to regulatory capture, two-party system, and bad
policy that doesn't provide people with the basic necessities of life -
causing multi-generational dis-ease progression is another artifact of this
suffocation of society; capitalism isn't the cause, it is the bad actors
maximizing their profits through any means - and society not understanding
this: Andrew Yang is the only 2020 POTUS candidate that is shining light on
these foundational mechanisms, and has policies aligned to correct them -
including his flagship policy - the Freedom Dividend, a Universal Basic Income
of $1,000 / month to every adult American.

UBI is a simple mechanism that will "take the boot off the neck of people" and
add fluidity to an otherwise stagnating, decaying and dis-eased system -
creating a trickle up economy. Elon Musk recently publicly endorsed Yang via a
Tweet saying "I endorse Yang," not surprising as he also beforehand relatively
recently mentioned that he believes UBI is inevitable; business economics wise
it also is smart to support as empowering every adult American with $1,000 /
month can pay for many rides in his upcoming Tesla Network as a competitor to
Uber/Lyft, or afford people to lease a Tesla or any of their other offerings.

It would play very well for Jeff Bezos of Amazon to step into the arena in
support of Yang at the right moment - regardless of the profit hit he takes -
as to whether he is for the people or for himself. All things created equal:
the future economy, who people buy from - who they vote for with their money -
will be based on who that person is, how they lead, their vision, plan, how
they are helping humanity - how they are helping educate people, helping heal
people, improving their lives on an ongoing basis; governance with a
foundation of building trust, relationship, community.

Ecosystems will form as different systems of automation and the best leaders
align, converging different markets and technologies to compete with the
remaining status quo. Once the Freedom Dividend is implemented there will be a
massive new market of people who only have at minimum $1,000 / month to spend,
and that will drive an immense amount of competition to capture as much of
this market as possible - all of which will be related to providing the best,
highest, quality of life - for the lowest cost; all survivability related
innovation, in reality leading to a foundation that will allow people to
thrive.

All of what Scott is highlighting here is a distraction, designed chaos,
funded, perpetuated by the financial industrial complex - and at a basis by
ego-driven greed. VCs primarily funding entrepreneurs with ideas instead of
leaders with a vision and who have proven themselves enough to deserve capital
to allow them to further implement their vision, accelerating the leader's own
opportunities for personal development - along with their plan. Leaders who
are ready for being allocated an increasing amount of resources to manage,
distribute, perhaps seemingly at their whim with a simple command of language,
meanwhile hopefully carefully pointing the direction of their drawn sword for
direction - have to first prove that they as an individual deserve this power,
instead of - seemingly for the vast majority of cases - having an idea, being
good enough to execute - or just a single member or luck being why you
executed well - toward shallow metrics that are moving upward at a pace that's
exciting only because it means they can lure in the next funding round they
mostly plan to depend on for survival.

Why has the financial industrial complex evolved to where it has? In part it's
the speed at which capitalism has been successful with innovation, with
allowing funds to be pooled. Another part is systems of indoctrination working
more and more efficiently, along with the general population not knowing who
they should invest part of their income into - so they buy into whatever
shallow hype their advisor(s) present, no matter how seemingly intellectually
or cleverly supported these systems have evolved to look to us.

Those who understand these systems best of course can make the most profits,
make the best bets, alas the system is currently structured to be ripe for
corruption, for bad actors to influence and unreasonably gain wealth through
bad behaviour - behaviour that is against the outcome of humanity.

I'd argue the biggest problem however is that historically we've had
relatively weak leaders to choose from - to invest in, vote for. Politically
and technologically hope is in the air with leaders like Elon and Yang: Elon
at lead of shifting away from the "dumbest experiment in history" re: burning
fossil fuels, and Yang clearly the yin to Trump - yin being slowness,
friction, stagnancy, destruction-failure, toward death - and Yang being rapid
flow, fluidity, movement, creation-innovation, life.

Another point I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere, a pattern I realized
recently, is that the Software-as-a-Service business model is rent-seeking
behaviour. It's the mechanism of the Landlord-Rental complex - as I call it -
and will be another industrial complex to have a large disruption within the
next decade, as global economic pressure is being felt - along with platforms
like Airbnb being an additional negative pressure. Local governments, and
higher, are doing a terrible job at adjusting, compensating and managing for
these various pressures.

Scott's also completely wrong on Tesla: he should study it, the synergy of
what Elon is designing for, to realize he's going to force competitors not
only to attempt to create comparable EVs - but also to change their business
model; one competitive lever he has in hand: at an instant Tesla could offer
free charging for life at their growing network of Supercharger stations - but
he doesn't have to. He's got this. Yang too.


Paul Graham on War Powers - crystaldev
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/477625-graham-paul-rift-deepens-over-trumps-war-powers
======
zimpenfish
The title is wrong: it's actually "Graham, Paul rift deepens over Trump's war
powers" (which is a somewhat different slant!)