skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have never understood the classical rule of no spaces around em-dashes. If you’re going to use fancy dashes at all, an em-dash represents a clear pause, a break in thought — something more robust than a mere comma. Typesetting an em-dash sometimes literally touching the words on either side has the opposite effect, visually connecting those words rather than separating them, and unlike a lot of the typographical snobbery we sometimes engage in, that one is a well-known (at least to designers) effect of proximity. Personally I prefer a thin space rather than a full one in media where it’s possible, purely for cosmetic reasons, but I’d rather have a normal space than none.
I'm hesitant to use stock sales less than $1M as direct evidence.

Was this amount uncommon? How does it compare to total stock ownership and recent compensation?
Maybe the standard banking model is broken. Banks offer a theoretical guarantee of the ability withdraw your money at any time and then just hope the situation that prevents that doesn't happen.

Perhaps they should require your consent to invest your money in illiquid assets. If they can't promise depositors liquidity they are cheating on their obligation in hopes seek a higher interest rate (profit).
Here, buried in the bottom of the comments, is the most useful piece of information in the entire section.

My question is what else has this fellow identified and what have Thiel et al. read and internalized?
Uneducated in this space, but why don't we see more T-Bill ownership transfer?

I owe vendor $100k. I transfer $100k of T-bills. They are paid cash equivalent, no?

The obvious thing that comes to mind is I am guessing there is some lockup of those t-bills maturing? Wouldn't this make sense for the Fed (Or some government entity) to be the broker+last resort to allow conversion of t-bill to someone else at a cost of breaking the term?

Even though the t-bill itself would still exist until maturity on the Fed's side and now company A is able to always guarantee payment transfer.
The book “Learned Optimism” (Martin Seligman, PhD at the forefront of the discovery of learned helplessness in the 60s-70s) explores the impact of explanatory styles and how those styles are indicators that reliably predict depression/stuck-ness on the one side and resilience/achievement on the other.

I think your instinct is right on, and highlights both sides of this effect: people like being around people who are optimistic. This has implications for both optimistic people and pessimistic people.

Pessimism reinforces itself (No on wants to hang out with me, I’m unlovable), and optimism seems to have the opposite reinforcing effect.

Cultivating qualities of optimism in yourself seems to be powerful because it not only changes your own outlook for the better, but actually leads to real world improvements in your relationships, which in turn gives you more reasons to feel optimistic.

For most of my life, I spun my own default-to-pessimism as just part of my identity and occasionally useful in certain work settings.

But I’ve recently come to realize where this pessimism came from (drilled into me during childhood), that it doesn’t need to be permanent, and can be replaced by better patterns of thought.

Mix this with a bit of mindfulness/zen meditation, and the world looks like an entirely different (better) place.
The langchain project is an example of the iterative queries approach. It comes with constructs for working memory, factual lookup / calculation agents, etc.

https://github.com/hwchase17/langchain

The general (non-technical) guideline is that the LLMs can "answer" anything you just gave them the answer for. So you give it a problem, ask it how to solve it, tell it to use that method and explain the data it needs, give it that data, and then show it everything at once: "With this data you requested and summarized, use this technique to answer this question".
>Young boys need competition and activity to thrive, not cartoons

And girls don't?
Or you could split it between two banks and reduce your exposure by half. Four banks and you reduce it by 75%. That way a deathblow turns into a setback, and overhead is minimal. There are cash management services that will do this for you if you can't be personally bothered.

Running a business means doing the maintenance keeping ship afloat as well as charting a course to exotic destinations.
The same law school dean Martinez wants to abandon LSAT in law school admissions. I am fine with abandoning LSAT/SAT/MCAT scores, GPAs, etc. Now you are replacing one thing with a worse one.

It appears that Dean Jenny Martinez (another DEI warrior) was forced by Stanford U President to apologize.
Plenty of startups fit that bill and will nonetheless be impacted by SVB’s failure, while the most pointless businesses surf by on their founders’ access to inherited wealth and political power. Any revenge on them will be short-lived and will have serious, lasting consequences for middle class workers throughout the industry. For anyone reading this who doesn’t already know: startups aren’t all snotty trust fund kids making $300k+ selling AI deodorant on the blockchain.

As I said on another post this weekend, I’ll remember the comments I’m reading here for the rest of my life.
No, all banks are illiquid by design, not insolvent. Sure the banks don't have cash in the vault to cover all deposits, but the mark to market value of their assets should be greater than liabilities which makes them solvent. SVB was insolvent due to the interest rates increasing since they bought their mbs's.
My opinion is heavily shaped by this interview (5-9 minutes is a good summary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAiQ1jTN5k.

We're currently running up against the Von Neumann bottleneck in ML. It's a great architecture for general purpose compute, but not suited for efficient operation of neural networks: a ton of energy is spent shuttling weight and activation values between GPU RAM and ALUs. Biological networks appear to be able to process a large amount of information per unit energy by exploiting the static physical structure of the network. A small amount of energy in sparse neural activations can transform a large volume of information stored in the structure and synapse strengths.

Here's some very rough napkin math: assume the brain has 100 billion neurons, each with 1000 synapses, and is sparsely activated at ~5% activation, and processes at 30Hz (gamma wave frequency, roughly). This means every "tick", 5 billion neurons must interact with 5 trillion other neurons. If you tried to implement this in a Von Neumann architecture, even if you only calculate for the sparsely activated neurons, and even if you quantize your weights values to 1 byte, this means processing ~150 TB/s of weight data. That's an insane amount of memory bandwidth. An A100 is 2 TB/s at 300W, but our brain only uses 20W.

My two cents is that the future will involve a hardware architecture that let's us avoid moving these weights around during inference. Whether this will mean a "mortal computer" as Hinton has recently discussed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sghvwkXV3VU) or whether the weights will be loaded and fixed at init time (as with Mythic's or other neuromorphic approaches), time will tell.
deepest condolences and best wishes
The FDIC promises to make a large portion of uninsured deposits available within a week.

If a company still can't make payroll, they were pretty close to the edge. If the company is either profitable or very promising, they can look to their investors or providers of things like bridge loans.

If not, well, most startups fail, so it's all part of the game. But it's a good lesson for people in why profitability is more than just a nice-to-have.
The bank is already gone. It's been wiped out.

The discussion is now about the depositors.
How is that different from just buying short term treasuries, instead of long term, in the first place?
In 2008, during the global financial crisis, the German government declared that all deposits in all German banks will be guaranteed by the state. No limits. The official limit before was 100k euros:

> “The state guarantees private deposits in Germany,” Finance Ministry spokesman Torsten Albig said. A second ministry spokesman said the guarantee was unlimited.

https://www.reuters.com/article/financial-germany-deposits-i...
I don't understand why it should be a blockchain as opposed to some append-only log like the certificate transparency log?
> Why does everybody want everything to be free?

To fully understand the question, we need to understand the alternative.

The only viable, practical alternative to a free, ad-supported internet is basically a monthly subscription one, where your ISP charges an extra $20/mo. (or allows metered usage) and the money gets distributed through some proportion of the pages you visit and the minutes of videos you watch. Basically the same way you pay Spotify $10/mo. and the money gets distributed to the artists you listen to, more or less.

But this would have required the government to step in and set this all up in a mandatory way which would have been totally against the original decentralized ethos of the internet. It requires massive tracking and so forth, and a centralized authority to manage all of the billing and payments.

And basically very few people want that. Hackers and libertarians are against the centralization and tracking, left-wingers are against the poor having to pay more for internet because it's almost like a regressive tax, consumers in general don't want to pay more for internet, and so forth.

Whereas nobody likes advertising, but they'll put up with it or just block it if they can.

(And the other funding alternative -- micropayments -- is dead in the water because everybody hates them. Nobody wants to be constantly deciding whether it's worth $0.02 or $0.07 or $0.12 or $0.87 to read this one news article on this one site when it might turn out to be a crappy, useless article anyways.)
EDIT: Summary: it is a tragedy of the commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).

The value added of using less RAM for a single application that you develop is close to zero, so people don't do it; if all other apps on that computer use hundreds of MB to several of RAM, your reduction from 100 MB to 5 MB is insignificant for the overall system. When everyone thinks the same, you just buy another 16 GB of RAM and everyone's messy app will fit. Developers know RAM is cheap, but don't calculate the result of cheap multiplied by millions (not cheap at all).

The only 2 times developers think about RAM consumption is when they design an application and set a target and then when they go to testing and exceed the target, so they need to reduce it enough to pass. If the design review allows them to set a relatively high target, they don't have to care at all.
If the air had no currents, the steady state would be motionlessness except gravity effects. If it had currents, the steady state would be to follow them.

Of course those gravity effects would also apply to the air, which makes the scenario inconsistent. I'd be interested to see a formulation of the laws of physics that actually makes a substantial interplanetary atmosphere possible.
Israel has only 9 million people, so in absolute terms it will still be small, but in relative terms, it punches hugely above its weight. It also depends on methodology; I am mostly familiar with Canada but am generally confused how 3446 would be produced, unless you’re counting very generously. (I can’t imagine the largest centers have more than 300-500 serious startups.) I’d propose that an easier metric might be looking at venture investment in the area; for example, this is on the first page of a quick search [1].

[1] https://www.inc.com/peter-cohan/why-israel-drew-28-times-mor...
This is facile and representative of so much of the internet. Our ears our closed to each other, we cherry pick the weakest arguments, or ones that aren’t made at all.

No one seriously thinks there’s only $250K/client available. People are saying the same thing you are, just gleefully.
Because of secondary effects. It's not like SVB failure is limited to just depositors and start-ups. Which means way more damage than just the nominal amount lost.
In response to the student calling him disgusting, all after 20 minutes of nonstop heckling.

(That said, yeah, he should have responded to the insults with more patience and composure.)
Yes, the ceiling of the guarantee. If the bank has additional assets to be sold you can still receive more of your deposit back, but the government doesn't guarantee it.
Other banks will buy them at the right price (ie. less than what SVB paid initially).
The PiP of men doing excel.

The angry call from a boss about an unclear footnote.

The suspense!
Personally, I think this sentence would benefit from a comma before the ‘or’. And in that case we could probably benefit from a clearer way of setting aside the parenthetical.

“Sometimes writing for money, rather than for art, or pleasure, is really quite enjoyable.”

– this seems awkward to me. This version, though:

“Sometimes writing for money—rather than for art, or pleasure—is really quite enjoyable.”

Isn’t that more fluid?
Are a book of assets that easily accessed to be able to even create a portfolio of interest?
>Do these companies hire thousands of employees a year? I doubt that

Wasn't a problem for Microsoft and other companies. But then again, those valued their employees...
because SVB was making loans to the startups they invested in. startups had a contractual obligation to bank exclusively with SVB and then SVB would give them loans, so they had a fat cash balance on their balance sheet, but they couldnt actually withdraw the money. SVB was getting paid to make startups look good so they could raise more money.
> VC guys who are disingenuously claiming that every bank in America is now at risk because of SVB

They’re deflecting blame. A bailout is unrealistic given the House. And there is no contagion to the systemically-important banks. VCs should have advised their founders to adopt reasonable treasury procedures. Instead, they funnelled them into an easy solution.
>"Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes."
I was wondering what's better. The document is clearer if we use unicode.

But maybe for humans it's easier if we have a limited character set and use context instead. Like this.

In plain text, - is a hyphen:

twenty-five, -1

In math context - is a minus sign

$ (-1)^3 + x^3 $

Where it will be ensured to be rendered as appropriate
Depositors will get 50% this week, the bonds are already sold. The loan book is more… interesting.
What? AFAIK the FDIC just keeps paying employees as normal. Where’d you hear about 1.5-2x comp, except perhaps in the event they’re hourly employees working overtime, which would just fall under normal overtime rules not some special FDIC bonus.
1. No

2. NO

Absolutely not. Software should not be copyrightable because math equations are not copyrightable. But besides that, ML Models end up as polynomials at the end of the day, and that literally cannot be copyrighted.
I don't understand it.

If I don't need a visa, because I'm a "visa-exempt" national insn't ETIAS just another name for a visa then?

It's confusing and looks like a copout from the previous VISA agreements countries have signed.
Arcade machines had solved it in the '70s.

Want to play? Insert coin. We need payments-hardware integrated to our computers

Today that is not possible. Visa and Mastercard want to play world police so they set rules and regulations about what is allowed to be paid. Even if BAT tries to solve this, people still have to onboard their money somewhere , again via visa+MC
Apparently they did that on purpose to be better able get a view on the activity of the money they poured in. Someone on a different thread is pointing to the levers VCs had in SVB for this exact purpose.
Brex at least mitigates by spreading deposits across multiple banks: https://www.brex.com/journal/how-business-account-works .

But given https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/19/brex-applies-for-bank-char... and the fact that https://www.brex.com/svb-emergency-line emerged literally overnight... it's unclear to me whether these strategies are truly robust, or whether much of this is hype driven by Thiel and other Brex etc. investors - who are, at the very least, incentivized to capitalize on this situation.
Cross-national analysis of attitudes towards fossil fuel subsidy removal
No, it's exceptionally bad to fly close to Mach 1 and you do better if you fly faster up to Mach 3 or so. The "Mach 1.4 business jet" class will be terrible, the Concorde was better, something that flies at SR-71 speeds could be better still but needs SR-71 materials and relatively small wings that won't support the weight of the aircraft taking off with a full fuel and pax load.
that is true for some customers not all and not the primary reason why it failed.

and the problem is you know nothing about the financial health of the small banks that are white label providers so how can you say you’re confident in the management of these individual banks that Mercury is contracting with? you don’t know anything about them.
This is an example: https://www.difxs.com/DIF/Home.aspx

But I think it's not common because there are other treasury management strategies besides "keep all your eggs in one pure-cash basket".
> even if the company you work for goes bankrupt, you're very likely to still receive your salary

Spoken like someone who has no experience with bankruptcy. The rule of thumb used to explain this to an unsecured creditors, before this happens, is -- dude, you might get 10 cents on the dollar. Employees are rarely made completely whole.

> as debts to workers are the highest priority in any bankruptcy case

Secured creditors have to get paid first. Then after quite a few other priority claims (attorneys, trustees must be paid, domestic support, etc.) employees are paid.
Our vocal cords evolved for language, but the brain remained as rasa as a tabula can be.
It's worth noting this essay is written by the president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), "an American conservative, libertarian economic think tank." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Economic_Educat...
>The thing I don’t get is why go to work for privacy when I can get that at home in my own office?

Can your manager just disrupt you and micromanage you in person at all times at home?

Does it even justify their role in the company when noone can see his subordinates all together in the same space?
If a company would have bought short term bond (6 months) does it would be safe, right?

Even if these bonds are purchased using SVB brokerage account.
First of all SVB should be left to fail. We should not privatize profits and socialize losses. We should have much more stringent regulation to prevent this from happening again.

Secondly people are conflating bailing out depositors with bailing out SVB. The bank took all the risk and had all the gains. The depositors did not have anything to gain here besides keeping their money safe. The depositors picked a reputable bank that has been around for 40 years. Their business should not fail because the failure in the bank and the government regulation.

Edit:
The ones who are hurting the most are not the VC's startup who told their startups to take their money out. It is those who didn't contribute to this problem. The depositors that didn't want to cause a bank run is the ones that will be hurt most.
We have the same reading, I was answering for Duncan rather than the students. It wasn’t worth his effort to continue imo.

These are future lawyers - they should have come armed with facts and performed an eloquent take down if they disagreed. Instead it’s just childish, disruptive, and completely unprofessional whining condoned by the administrator.
Difficulty finding a job, getting dates, etc, etc
It's likely startups only exist to begin with due to low federal interest rates. It is obvious that if those rates are low investors will look elsewhere. Startups are one of those elsewheres. Now that rates are on the way up, there's no need for investors to risk their money on startups anymore. So startups no longer have one of the pre-conditions for their existence. Namely, free investor money literally pouring in and paying for all their expenses.

Such is life in the free market. Looks like the US government disrupted you. Doesn't mean the US taxpayer has to bail you out.
I'm not sure any private insurance exists that can cover a $42m deposit?
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Our Employee's Account Was Hacked by Russians
I've been looking for a great local baker for months. I don't think Americans realize just how bad most baked goods are here. And yes, even the stuff made by your local grocery store or bakery is probably quite bad. I was looking over the vendors from the local farmer's market, which hasn't opened yet this year, and noticed a baker. I checked out their website and found that during the offseason they take orders online and have about a dozen pickup locations on Saturdays. After checking out the small number of reviews I could find online, as well as the photos and descriptions on their website, I placed a small order. Their stuff it amazing and is exactly what I've been looking for.

I bought some art last month after discovering the artist by seeing their art on the cover of a sci-fi/fantasy magazine.

After watching a lot of content about digital music creation and explanations and reviews of various equipment, I bought a midi controller that I'm very happy with.

I own several pieces of Made In cookware, and Made In no doubt gave away a lot of cookware to YT cooking channels, but I only bought it after seeing several people I trust use it and give honest reviews of it. The reviews were never the focus of the videos. Arguably there is not a lot of difference between an ad and a plug in a video, other than the source and context of the plug. I think it boils down to the fact that I neither care nor trust what companies think of their own products.

For retail stores, it has always been known that physical location is everything. In a dense (for the US) city like Chicago, a new bakery would be discovered by everyone in the neighborhood. Even out in the suburbs this is how I discover new places, like the new dispensary that opened this year.

I don't know how the financials would work, but I much rather receive a small weekly flyer from someone I trust pointing out good local businesses. I absolutely do not want all of the flyers I currently receive that were paid for by the businesses they are promoting.
We've been with WF since the early 2000's so for us, what I reported is based on our experience with them.
Yes. FDIC is very persuasive though, as evidenced in the past 15 years.
Yep. Patrick Byrne of Overstock has been railing against short sellers since at least 2007.
Specifically for this work,

More reconfigurable softer spaces is exciting to me. Cubicles are hard & fixed infrastructure. Having more dynamic use of space invigorates me, helps me escape a feeling of being trapped by routine.

The focus on sound absorbing material seems also extremely compelling. Sound dampening can have enormous impact & I can imagine some of these partitions doing a lot (ideally with the help of some more room treatment) to make the space pleasant.
There were definitely issues with SVB. They reportedly didn’t hedge at all against interest rate rises. That didn’t present a big issue until this year… Also apparently they had an unusually huge amount of deposits backed by mortgage-backed securities.

This is potentially going to be a problem for other banks (although SVB seems to have been unusually susceptible), as when interest rates are so high but banks can’t afford to pay anything like that on deposits (because all their loan book and much of their bonds is at lower rates), there will be a lot of cash flowing out of banks into treasuries…