Don't Play Hurt - <AUTHOR> http://push.cx/2008/dont-play-hurt

<comment><USER2> When I worked for a startup 200+ DLOC days were the average. And it was all good elegant code, nut just lots of it.

Now that I'm working for a paycheck in corporate cubicle, I'm not producing bad or worse code, I'm just producing ~ 20-30DLOC a day and that's apparently great in cubiclevile.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, what's the D in DLOC?

<comment><USER4> Delivered.

<comment><USER2> Debugged lines of code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In Finance, "playing hurt" means working through a hangover. It's an important ability to have.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yea I agree but we all need to pay the bills.

<comment><USER7> True, but there are people who pay the bills while being happy and motivated at the same time doing things they like.

So don't settle for being miserable just to pay the bills. Life's too short for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The original c2 link seems to conflate several concepts, and come off worse because of it.

\- working despite being sick \- working despite being temporarily bored or disinterested \- working despite being unmotivated long term on the job/project \- working sub-optimally despite being able to identify ways you could work better and be happier (win-win changes), but changes which you are not allowed to make.

I wish some of those people posting about how great their code and employers are were writing the sort of software I get to use on a daily basis. :/

<comment><USER9> I agree this is not c2's finest hour. But, there are serious gems of wisdom all over the place on c2. It's a seriously awesome source of knowledge. Random, "drinking from a firehose", kind of knowledge...but it's worth soaking in it every once in a while.</comment></comment>


Vinod Khosla Wins Ruling Threatening Public Beach Access - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-26/billionaire-khosla-wins-ruling-threatening-public-beach-access <comment><USER2> Vinod wants you to think this debate is over property rights, but it's really just a game of expensive cat and mouse between him and the government for his own amusement. The road in question services over a dozen homes, and he has no building or presence on his property, so logistically there's no warrant for the gate. The gate was re-opened (for at least daytime hours) a few years ago. The beach had previously been accessible to the public for nearly 100 years.

The legal fees Vinod is paying are far greater than what he'd have to pay to maintain rightful public access. He likely didn't understand the access issue at the time of purchase (since he's never actually there!) and so this protracted argument was the only way for him to derive value from his purchase.

[https://sf.curbed.com/2017/10/5/16431150/martins-beach- san-m...](https://sf.curbed.com/2017/10/5/16431150/martins-beach-san-mateo- open)

[https://www.surfrider.org/pages/timeline-open-martins- beach](https://www.surfrider.org/pages/timeline-open-martins-beach)

<comment><USER3> It's also a horrible business practice for his VC fund. As an entrepreneur there's no way I would want to work with Khosla ventures. He just comes across as an asshole and a bully in this fight.

Beaches and rivers belong to all of us.

<comment><USER4> "Beaches and rivers belong to all of us."

This seems like an arbitrary distinction. What makes you think this and not something like "all geographic features belong to all of us"? What makes beaches and rivers so special that rights suddenly don't apply?

<comment><USER5> What makes you think this shouldn't extend to all geographic features? Why do we have property rights to land?

Owning land merely means being the last in a line of people who enriched themselves on the backs of others by taking common property and depriving everybody else.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious to know what alternate, practical solutions there might be. The current system mostly work. Are you proposing no one can own land and hence no one can build exclusive homes/establishments? Anyone is free to build anywhere and pray no one else wants to move in at will? How will such a system work?

<comment><USER7> The place to start looking is Journal of the Commons. Communal ownership with limited privileges of individual use have been a regular feature of mankind's societies for a long, long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a shame to read about these legal arguments that hang on technicalities (whether previous access was tied to private parking or not) as opposed to what surely must be the actual issue: the public's right of access to the scarce national resource of beaches.

<comment><USER9> Technicalities are part have having a rule of law. The legislature (or at the formation of a governmental system) is where the issues get debated and the law determined.

<comment><USER10> > Technicalities are part have having a rule of law. The legislature (or at > the formation of a governmental system) is where the issues get debated and > the law determined.

I think there are valid philosophical differences that significantly affect how the system interprets technicalities. I understand the US takes an approach that's much like code: specify everything precisely in great detail, and technicalities and loopholes can be exploited to subvert the original intent of the law. I may be mistaken on this, but understand the EU tends to laws that specify broader principles, so technicalities and loopholes aren't as useful.

The US approach leads to more precise and consistent application, at the expense of flexibility and achieving the original purpose of the law easier to subvert or avoid. The EU approach leads to less consistent application in corner cases, but is more flexible and harder to subvert the original purpose.

Apologies if I got the EU case wrong, please correct me if I did.

Personally I wish the US tended more towards the EU approach: so in this case if California law mandates public beach access, Khosla needs to provide it somehow, and can't weasel out of it on a technicality.

<comment><USER11> The legal philosophy is actually the opposite. Common Law is heavily based upon precedent and what the norms of the community are to "fill in the gaps". The vast majority of what goes into a decision is this historical case law. The actual legal text is more of a framework than exhaustive guide.

Much of Europe works with civil law where everything is expected to be codified beforehand. Past cases have little bearing on how a new one will be decided.

<comment><USER12> In theory, civil law can still be technical or principled. It's a set of instructions used to make a decision. The interpreter then decides, maybe based on law maybe based on precedent, or a mix.

<comment><USER13> >>The US approach leads to more precise and consistent

Technical and principled? Yes

Precise? If that particular scenario has been anticipated and coded for, yes.

Consistent? No

<comment><USER11> If a case has been litigated in the past then you should get the same result if the facts are the same. It's the party with the case law on their side's responsibility to demonstrate past rulings that support them. If you spend time watching legal shows you'll see them use the word "precedent" a lot for this reason.

Of course the facts being the same is the big "if". Jury verdicts are also not strictly bound to precedent the way judges are.

<comment><USER13> What you're talking about is a feature of common-law.

I'm talking about civil law or codified jurisdictions. The ancestor comment confused the US for being a (mostly) codified system, which is why I quoted that, but it was really about describing civil law as being "precise and consistent".

In hindsight I see that it's confusing...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > the three-judge panel upheld a trial judge's ruling in Khosla's favor, > finding there was substantial evidence that the previous owners didn't > intend to dedicate the road for public use because they charged fees.

Why does it matter what the previous owner(s) did? The law states there must be public access to the beach. This is an 89 acre parcel of land, providing not even a single access point sounds like the owner could be blocking an appreciable amount of ocean frontage.

<comment><USER15> The law is not implemented like that. Basically if there is a property which does not provide through-access to the beach, the law does not require them to provide it. If any change is made to the property, including improvements, then as part of the permitting process a requirement will be made to provide the access.

This is why at California beach areas and piers, old buildings have no access, but all remodeled ones do.

That all said, still amazingly entitled behavior by Khosla.

<comment><USER16> He is literally entitled, because he owns the land.

<comment><USER17> The concept that property is so religiously sacred that simply owning of a thing entitles one to cause external harm using that thing, even passively, is sickening.

<comment><USER18> The concept of property being sacred is what drew a lot of people to America in the beginning. Instead of paying a Lord you could literally come to America and be given free land by the Federal government. It was a huge reason we rebelled against England in the first place.

In this situation is sucks for regular people but in a lot more situations it benefits everyone else.

<comment><USER10> > The concept of property being sacred is what drew a lot of people to America > in the beginning.

That's not what you describe below.

> Instead of paying a Lord [sic] you could literally come to America and be > given free land by the Federal government. It was a huge reason we rebelled > against England in the first place.

I think the most important thing here is the _free land_ aspect. Property ownership has never been "sacred" and was always subject to things like squatter's rights and other practical exceptions:

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

> The principles of homesteading and squatter's rights embody the most basic > concept of property and ownership, which can be summarized by the adage > "possession is nine-tenths of the law," meaning the person who uses the > property effectively owns it. Likewise, the adage, "use it or lose it," > applies. The principles of homesteading and squatter's rights predate formal > property laws; to a large degree, modern property law formalizes and expands > these simple ideas.

<comment><USER18> I don't believe in squatters rights and I'm glad my state doesn't have laws like the West Coast. There was a Reddit post recently where someone didn't visit their property for 2-3 weeks. Someone moved in, broke everything, and then preemptively called the police to get squatters rights. Now the home owner has to go through a complicated eviction process and have his second home trashed.

<comment><USER10> > I don't believe in squatters rights and I'm glad my state doesn't have laws > like the West Coast. There was a Reddit post recently where someone didn't > visit their property for 2-3 weeks. Someone moved in, broke everything, and > then preemptively called the police to get squatters rights. Now the home > owner has to go through a complicated eviction process and have his second > home trashed.

There's a lot wrong with your comment:

1\. It looks like all states have adverse possession laws [1].

2\. 2-3 weeks wouldn't cut it _anywhere_ to claim adverse possession. The shortest time required to be in possession is 5 years [1].

3\. Why would you believe _any_ anecdote that you read on Reddit? So many are lies posted to gain sweet e-points that all should be met with _heavy_ skepticism.

I guess it's your right to not "believe in" squatters rights, but abandoned and underutilized property does society no good, and squatter's rights are a reasonable solution to that problem.

[1] [https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/state-state-rules- ad...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/state-state-rules-adverse- possession.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This case is misunderstood in a lot of ways. A couple of things worth noting:

\- The beach up to the mean high tide line is public land by law. No one, including Khosla, disputes this.

\- The sandy beach above the high tide line as well as a convenient parking lot was previously accessible to the public for a small fee. This is what Khosla wants to shut down and what Friends of Martin's Beach & The Surfrider Foundation have sued over. It seems fairly obvious to me (though perhaps not to others) that Khosla is in the right here. The private land is his. He can do what he wants with it.

\- Kind of in the middle of these two issues is actual beach access. FOMB has insinuated that shutting down the parking lot and access to the sandy beach constitutes complete removal of access to the beach. This, however, isn't really clear. FOMB could very well lose their lawsuit while beach access was maintained via a small road or walking path through Khosla's property. Despite what most of the press has indicated, the actual lawsuit isn't really about this.

<comment><USER20> > It seems fairly obvious to me (though perhaps not to others) that Khosla is > in the right here. The private land is his. He can do what he wants with it.

You and Khosla are both wrong. If an area is designated public land, you cannot _de facto_ prevent all access by buying up all the land around it and refusing to provide any point of entry; you must provide an easement (and you can even charge a small fee for it, if you want). This is a _very_ well- established bit of property law, and Khosla is only weaseling out of it on technicalities.

<comment><USER19> I covered access in my third bullet point. You are responding to something I said in my second bullet point. The conflating of these two distinct points is one of the core areas of misunderstanding surrounding the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The amount of public land that is locked in by estates (basically making them private to the estate holders) is astonishing.

<comment><USER22> I'd never thought about this before. How do property rights apply to enclaves? If I own all the land encircling another piece of land, what prevents me from barring access to the encircled piece of land? Are there laws forbidding this?

<comment><USER23> Typically the interior property will have a cross access easement, a legal document that gives them access across the encircling piece of land. This is also pretty common in commercial developments where you have to cross a parcel to get to an outlot in a development.

<comment><USER24> My grandparents' house had a small lane beside it which was a right-of-way or easement (not sure the terminology used here). It was for horse drawn coal wagons so they could reach the building behind my grandparents house. The rear house was facing a main street but there wasn't any driveway or way for the coal wagon to reach the rear of the house.

Then of course coal for home heating became obsolete but for the next 70 years the right-of-way existed. The home behind my grandparents had a driveway and a parking lot added to it. A fence was put up probably 75 years ago, turned posts, very old fence.

The home changed hands many times I even lived in it as a baby when the rear house was divided into apartments.

Now lawyers own the rear house and guess what they want? Yes they are demanding the 75 year-old fence be torn down. And they want to use the right- of-way for vehicles. Only the right-of-way is four maybe at most barely five feet wide bordered by my grandparents old home and the fence of the house beside it.

There it is the use of close to 80 year old disused narrow coal path now demanded by the latest owners of another property.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Personally I think Khosla is doing everyone a favor here. All the free publicity over CA's right to public beachfront, and it's great motivation for the legislature to strengthen the laws around guaranteeing that access.

Without entitled billionaires fighting the system, it would be much harder to drum up support for stronger protections enshrined in law. They could call it the Khosla Act.

In all seriousness, CA should enforce the law they wrote, not the law they wish they had. But also, good luck if Khosla wants to so much as upgrade a circuit breaker, if I understand the law correctly, any permitted work on the property is an opportunity for the local building inspector to require a new _public_ access road to be put in.

<comment><USER19> _if I understand the law correctly, any permitted work on the property is an opportunity_

FWIW, this permitting process is precisely the law that Khosla is challenging. He asserts that the state government doesn't have the right to such fine grained and arbitrary control of private property.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't know the area, but could someone setup a little business nearby ferrying people to and from the beach on a boat? How much did the previous owners charge for access? Would the same amount of money per trip make a ferrying business viable?

</comment><comment><USER27> Somebody should create a charter service to the beach.

<comment><USER28> "Thank you for choosing Streisand Effect Charter Service, providing daily access to the hotspots of entitled Billionaires who abuse the legal system since 2019..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's a shame that so much energy is put into blocking public access to beaches.

This was on HN ~5 months ago, related topic: "Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay hit with $1.6 million penalty for failing to provide public beach access" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20179511](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20179511)

</comment><comment><USER30> The case against this here is fascinating. It's basically a bunch of people who will likely never be able to afford their own beaches cheering on a billionaire as he takes the beach they currently have access to away from them because "freedom." Yeah Mr Khosla, you take my beach! Wooo! You're right, I _shouldnt_ be allowed on there, I am the rif-raf after all.

This is basically the problem in a nutshell: people voting against their own interests because one day they may be rich (they won't though, probably, because if everyone was rich nobody would be) and when they get there they want their own beach too. So they give their beach away to the wealthiest, and now nobody but Vinod has a beach. If instead they just agreed to share the beach they'd all have it now, but of course that's un-American, apparently.

<comment><USER31> It seems on-the-face-of-it unlikely that any significant population imagines that they will one day be able to own a private beach, even if they are unjustifiably optimistic about their future wealth. I've been around a lot of people who have hopes about their level of future wealth, and that's not a level anyone thought they would achieve.

So, look, have you considered that when you try to make common cause with the whatever non-super-elite class of people you're trying to make common cause with, you do it in a way that doesn't make you a patronizing asshole? Because you're assuming that people are too dumb or brainwashed to "vote their interests" rather than that they have a different conception of their interests than you do

<comment><USER30> You are of course right that I was being neither tactful nor political and wasn't really expecting to sway anyone already committed to the idea. However I'll ask openly and genuinely: what does anyone stand to gain by allowing a wealthy individual to cudgel away their right to access a large swath of beachfront as enshrined in the California state constitution? To what benefit to ones self can you possibly point?

<comment><USER32> I couldn't care less about this rich person's beach nor the people who want to surf on it, but I do care about the property rights issue at play here and how it intermingles with popular perception and treatment of "rich people" (a relative term that, for most people reading this, almost certainly is applied pejoratively to them by those who have less than they do). I don't like the idea that someone feeling entitled to something I own factors into the question of control over that thing -- I worked and paid for it, I should get to do what I want with it. It seems to me that this simple principle is thrown out when the owner is deemed "rich", which is frightening to me.

> To what benefit to ones self can you possibly point? I worry that tolerating > the entitlement of the many over the rights of the few will result in a > degrading of those rights. It's this dude's beach today, what about a > website that I suddenly charge for tomorrow? Or hey, lets be realistic here, > what about _my_ future beach when that aforementioned website makes me my > billions :)

<comment><USER33> I agree with you generally about property rights and "rich"people, though I'm not sure, based on this thread, if you know what is actually happening in this particular case. In California, you can't use private property to prevent people from reaching the ocean past the median tide line, which is public land by the state constitution.

Every bit of this was in place and well understood when Khosla purchased this land. The easement already existed. This isn't as situation where the government is coming in and seizing someone's private land, it's simply enforcing the easement that has existed for the last 100 years.

I apologize if you are aware of all this and are making a narrower point, that property rights shouldn't stop mattering because the person who owns it falls within the category of "rich people". However, there are all kinds of land use laws (another is "freedom to roam"[1]) that predate and preclude certain types of ownership. In other words, you can own property, and you have broad rights to do "what [you] want with it", but if you purchased it under conditions that were reasonably knowable at the time you made the purchase, it doesn't make sense to complain about it later.

Lastly, yeah, there is a problem here with rich. We're talking about a Silicon Valley billionaire showing up and denying access to a beach that the surrounding community had access to - as guaranteed by the California constitution - for the last 100 years. I'd say Khosla created his own popular perception of "rich" people in this case. It's the sort of thing were I can image other "rich" people cringing, like, _dude_ , Americans still don't resent the wealthy, what are you _doing_ here.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So because I have to pay to get into a public park or reserve, it's suddenly not "really" public?

<comment><USER35> A "public park" is simply owned by a public entity, it does not mean you get unlimited unrestricted access to it. If the city/county/state/fed decided to wall it off and not allow anyone in it, it would be their prerogative.

If I (a private individual/entity) owned a 60 acre flatland park, and one day decided not to allow people on my land, is that not my right as land owner?

If we allow a person to own the beach, then it is their property to disallow trespassers.

The better question would be why do we allow ownership of a beach.

<comment><USER36> >The better question would be why do we allow ownership of a beach.

Devil's advocate: why do we place such a high value on a "beach" vs any other kind of land? Is there something extra precious about where the water meets the land?

<comment><USER37> Yes there is. Just look at the average property values of beach front property, riverfront property etc... There are other "special" types of land as well with additional value that governments have decided to regulate differently.

<comment><USER36> I acknowledge that it is valued differently, I'm asking why we collectively do it.

<comment><USER38> Access to navigable waterways has always been immensely valuable to humans. It's much easier to trade, travel, and transport.

<comment><USER39> Have you heard of anyone who has been unable to trade, travel, or transport because he could not use Vinod Khosla's beach as a loading dock, port, and harbor? Waterways have ports which are often publicly-owned or operated for commercial use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I see law the same way I see a computer program, and court as a computer.

The current legal code is never wrong in what it does. It simply executes and terminates. The courts define interpretation and execution semantics for it.

If you do not like the result, you've just failed at implementing the correct legal code.

It's futile to blame laws and court rulings. Caveat to some extent obviously, since laws and courts have informal specs, it does mean that two different court (in my analogy computers) could end up on slightly different results.

But most importantly we should focus on changing the legal code itself if we don't like the results.

If anything, the bigger issue with laws and courts is the cost of execution. Just to know what outcome the current legal code results in given a concrete situation takes years, lots of money, tons of appeal, etc. If we could make that much cheaper and quick, it would greatly improve things. Think development feedback cycles. Imagine it took you years to test your code on a few scenarios? That's what happens with legislation today.

So back to the article. It's not up to the courts to decide the desired behavior. It is only up to them to define the result of the currently described behavior. And it might seem in this case, the describe behavior maybe has a bug with regards to the desired behavior of some of the users...

</comment><comment><USER41> Irony is not lost, just like this pay-walled article

</comment><comment><USER42> In France, _la Loi littoral_ guarantees public access to the shoreline, everywhere. Or at least it should since it's often compromised by private interests. But it's still quite good for anyone who likes the sea, ocean and coasts. I'd love France to also have a "right to roam" law like Norway.

Are there such laws in your country? How well is it enforced?

<comment><USER18> In most states no. It's a feature not a bug. Property rights are considered sacred. Plenty of people don't want the government telling them what to do on their property. It's bad in this situation but good for owners in plenty of others.

Fort Walton county is one of 2 counties in Florida where the property owners own the beach to the high tide line. You're allowed to walk on the beach around the water line but not setup on the beach. The Sheriff and county decided they want to change it and is now suing all the beach owners in Fort Walton (my wife's family being one of them).

The Florida governor signed an emergency Bill that they couldn't just take the land all of the sudden they had to go through the courts. The Sheriff's office came out and said they would stop issuing or enforcing trespassing on the beach and lesson beach patrols.

The home owners legally own the beach. The county officials want to take it from them without paying anything and change the uniqueness of the county that drew home owners in the first place.

I can see both sides but the county government and Sheriff can't just decide one day they want to take property. No vote or anything just we want to take it.

My family owns a condo in the next county over. It's a lot more noisy and I can see why home owners were draw to Fort Walton in the first place.

<comment><USER30> > Plenty of people don't want the government telling them what to do on their > property.

Sure if we pretend libertarianism exists as a functional concept. Can you build an enrichment facility on your property? No. Can you dump toxic chemicals into your well? Nope! Can you fly drones at 30K feet? Nah. Can you brew up a batch of grandma's finest crystal meth? No siree bob. So yeah, you accept plenty of encroachment. The sanctity of your property is an arbitrary line you're drawing to exclude campers, sunbathers and randos off on a hike. That's sure to teach somebody... something...

<comment><USER18> Could I buy property zoned for industrial use and build an industrial or chemical facility? Yes.

Can I buy residentially zoned property and do residential things on it? Yes.

Could you do illegal things anywhere? Yes but you'll face the consequences.

<comment><USER30> You're actually kind of making my point here. You're accepting the governments intrusion (defining what can and can't be done on "your" tract of land via zoning and law). And that's my point. Once you accept that it's a question of where you draw the line -- you're debating shades of grey and not moral black and white.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Unpopular opinion but I'm kinda on his side on this one. It's a liability issue.

If you open a "public access road" through your property, and there's a pothole that damages someone's vehicle, you can get sued. If you don't put up fences at the cliffs and some dumbass drives off the edge, you can get sued. If someone decides to camp at the edge of the road and a tree falls on them, you can get sued.

Anything that happens to people on your property is automagically your fault in the US. Allowing the public onto your property, especially when you're not making any money off of it (so you could, you know, pay for insurance like the previous owners definitely did) is a terrible idea.

<comment><USER44> > Anything that happens to people on your property is automagically your fault > in the US.

That's not true. California has a Recreational Use Statute (Civil Code Section 846) which makes private landowners immune from liability for people who enter their land, as long as they don't charge a fee. Most states have similar laws.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This sounds like a job for The Boring Company.

</comment><comment><USER46> Time to find out the exact borders of what is considered "his" beach and crowd the ever living shit out of it, just outside of what could be considered "his". "I'm not touching you!"

<comment><USER47> Under the California Coastal Act, everything below the mean high tide line is public. But that's not the issue here; the issue is getting access to this beach.

<comment><USER48> So you could bring in house boats and floating docks. This is common in some regions. I am not sure if the coast guard would have any say in it though.

How bright of dance / disco lights are you allowed to have on a house boat?

<comment><USER49> The waves at this beach are huge and surfable...

<comment><USER48> Oh in that case, just drop a note on some of the surf forums and tell them they are not allowed to surf there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It would be ironic if a mega billionaire bought the land surrounding his land and worked with the county to route the road around that surrounding property.

<comment><USER51> That would include highway 1 so it is not actually feasible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Could one not walk up to this beach by foot following the road built? I ask this because the article said the previous owner charged for parking not access. If so I don't agree with the judges assessment because that would mean anyone from the public could just walk to this beach and use it as they are arguing it has always been open to the public which seems true to me from what I've read.

</comment><comment><USER53> [http://archive.is/EF77s](http://archive.is/EF77s)

</comment><comment><USER54> If this irritates you then you should also read about how Larry Ellison owns 80% of a Hawaiin island. I can envision the world's prettiest places eventually closed to the public and existing for the sole enjoyment of billionaires and their future generations.

</comment><comment><USER55> In my country, no one can buy land up to 4 meters (13 feet) away the sea, rivers and lakes because it is a public domain. Because of this, tourists from other countries like to come here and enjoy every beach...

</comment><comment><USER56> It's amazing how much he's willing to ruin his reputation over this.

<comment><USER57> You misspelled admirable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Maybe someone ought to make a nice business out of this. Ferry interested parties to this exclusive public beach as part of an interesting tour about history and minutiae of treaty and law.

</comment><comment><USER59> Well, he actually will lose much more money now, because we all know for sure what exact order of magnitude of an asshole he is.

</comment><comment><USER60> I like surfing at this beach. It is a shame an amicable solution could not be found. This is a big loss for the public.

</comment><comment><USER61> If this beach gets any more famous, someone will build a ferry to brings tourists to it via the sea.

</comment><comment><USER62> Can't the state eminent domain an access road and compensate Khalsa for the taking?

</comment><comment><USER63> Guess that leaves one option, park a bunch of ugly boats right in his view.

</comment><comment><USER64> There's a good Lucy Parsons quote about this type of guy.

</comment><comment><USER65> Few people are this small. The dude is pretty old (64 years). He'll probably only be able to live on his own for 10-15 more years. The beach will be open again when someone else buys the property.

</comment><comment><USER66> 1\. My understanding is that the issue is getting to the beach, not being on the beach itself. Everything below the mean high tide line is public, but all routes to the public area pass over private land and in Khosla's case he's having success arguing that there is no easement.

But that only applies to routes over land, right? I wonder why no one has started some kind of shuttle service that runs boats from a place the public can reach by land to Khosla's beach?

Charge people $15-20 for the trip, and also offer snack and drink and suntan lotion sales, beach umbrella and beach chair rental and other things like that.

2\. I haven't really been following this case, but I recall that at one point he was making an argument based on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was the treaty between the US and Mexico that ended the Mexican-American War in 1848. I haven't seen any mention of this aspect of the case in quite a while-- was it dropped?

It was this treaty that gave the US ownership of California (and much of the rest of what is now the western US). Part of this treaty was a guarantee that the US would honor existing property rights of people in those territories that were switching ownership from Mexico to the United States.

The argument went something like this, I believe. Under Mexican law, private ownership of beaches was allowed, and many California beaches were private. When California became a US territory, those beaches remained private under the Treaty. When Calfornia became a state a couple years later, in 1850, its Constitutional provisions making beaches public did not apply to beaches covered by the Treaty.

This seems like sound reasoning up to that point, at least in the case where the beach was still owned in 1850 by the same person who owned it when the Treaty was ratified.

Where it gets iffy is dealing with changes of ownership. Usually in the case of real property you can convey all your rights to the next owner. You can probably make a decent case that this means that if one of those original owners sold their private beach to a third party, or passed it on via inheritance, it should stay private, because the right to convey such ownership was one of the property rights they had when it was part of Mexico, so should be covered by the Treaty.

But what about the conveyances one step beyond that? Two steps beyond? Surely the intent of the Treaty was not to forever make Mexican property rules apply in former Mexican parts of the US. It was to provide a fair transition so that the current owners would not lose out as those territories transitioned from Mexican rules to US rules.

I'd expect most beach property to have changed hands enough times since 1848 that it should be considered fully transitioned to US rules, and California law would fully apply.

</comment><comment><USER67> Is there a ferry service?

</comment><comment><USER68> Can someone who isn't paywalled summarize?

<comment><USER69> If you use ublock origin, blocking javascript breaks bloomberg's paywall. You can do that for bloomberg.com (and nothing else) by opening the site, clicking the ublock icon, and clicking the bottom at the far bottom right.

<comment><USER70> Alternatively, using just Firefox: stop (X) the page loading after the content has loaded but before the giant JavaScript bundle has downloaded, and then enter reader mode.

<comment><USER20> Opening it in a different container (with a right-click) also works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> To paraphrase the quip: There's a difference between rich liberals and the rest of us--they have more money.

</comment><comment><USER57> Is it so preposterous? Let the rich dude have his slice of private beach.

<comment><USER56> Is it so preposterous? Let the public have access to their beach.

<comment><USER57> Is it so preposterous? Let the rich dude have his slice of private beach.

It's not very caring to the rich guy. It's not like there's _no other substitutes_ people could use to get their beach fill. But for him, it's right there. Come on, where's your empathy for the guy?

<comment><USER72> They can pay for his boots to be licked, no need to provide the service for free.

<comment><USER73> I think the person you're replying to is being facetious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> The Bloomberg article about this is itself paywalled.

Sad, but poetically fitting.

<comment><USER75> Bloomberg is creating content. Their article is presumably of value to people. Hence, they're charging for it.

<comment><USER76> Bloomberg also wants to have it both ways, they want their content to be referenced on Google, and a select number of people to share the articles they read for free, while disallowing others to do the exact same thing. Fortunately no nobody can prevents people from screenshooting and sharing the screenshot for free instead of the article directly.

Bloomberg can't have it both way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> I think that the level of discourse in threads on paywalled articles is frequently disappointingly low. I think there should be a rule against articles on paywall.

</comment><comment><USER78> Nowhere else in the world other than California could Khosla have amassed the wealth he has in the way that he did. You'd think at some point he'd want to "give back", but I guess sociopaths gonna sociopath.

</comment><comment><USER79> CA really deserves a slow clap for this one... Can't wait to see them try to regulate their way out of this bit.

</comment><comment><USER80> dude... that dude is 64?!?!?! he looks like he's 84. dude must of had a tough life.

while it sucks that he wants to restrict access, i can see where he is coming from if this was a private beach to begin with and the original owner allowed the public to use it. it also says in the article that the original owner would charge for parking so that strengthens his case.

can't hate on a dude from wanting to do with what is rightfully his.

<comment><USER81> There are no private beaches in CA by law. He owns the only road leading to it, which the previous owner allowed people to drive through for a small fee for many years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Is this not a text book case for imminent domain? Can't the government just "buy" the land from Khosla?

</comment><comment><USER83> FYI: khosla funded companies [https://www.khoslaventures.com/portfolio/all- companies](https://www.khoslaventures.com/portfolio/all-companies)

</comment><comment><USER84> I know many of you are dismayed, but there is a silver lining of ecological benefits. Studies show that relatively inaccessible beaches and wilderness (whether public or private) have healthier ecosystems and less litter.

For example, even mere regular trampling of sandy beaches impacts the food chain:

[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161905)

</comment><comment> cde-v The rich are just begging to be eaten up these days.

<comment><USER85> Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.</comment></comment>


Adobe Tells Users They Can Get Sued for Using Old Versions of Photoshop - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xk3p/adobe-tells-users-they-can-get-sued-for-using-old-versions-of-photoshop <comment><AUTHOR> > _" You are no longer licensed to use the software," Adobe told them._

This is insane, and should be a clear wake up call for people previously apathetic about software freedom. When RMS talks about unethical software, this is the kind of things he means.

Seeing things like this make me so appreciative and grateful for GIMP and other free-as-in-speech tools (and to myself for having learned how to use them). Might be a good time to throw them a few bucks.

<comment><USER3> I think you're looking at this wrong.

Without things like licenses that force users to pay more money to Adobe regardless of whether the users are actually running the latest version, Adobe can't make enough money to finance changes to their user agreements.

Are you for, or against capitalism? It comes down to that!

Think of Adobe's lawyers' children!

<comment><USER4> > Are you for, or against capitalism? It comes down to that!

This has nothing to do with capitalism, but with copyright.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was stunned by this revelation, but then I think back to all the other times Adobe has exhibited similar behaviour and it seems like they won't change. It's not like the CC suite is cheap either. To compare, Office 365 subscription provides so much more value for a better price.

For a very high-class replacement of Adobe products, I would recommend Affinity suite of products - they are a buy once, use forever kind. And Affinity Designer (replacement for Illustrator) is incredibly good - <USER2> better than Illustrator in a lot of areas. And price of Designer is less than 2 months of Illustrator fees. Beat that!

<comment><USER6> I think Affinity Photo is a great Photoshop alternative, but Designer is more geared to illustrators than actually designers.

The simple fact that working with groups is practically unusable in Designer is a major deal breaker for me. There have been feature requests in Affinity's forums for years to fix that which Affinity has ignored.

For example: [https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/1640-ad- is...](https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/1640-ad-isolation- mode/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article is maddeningly unclear.

Are these users still paying a monthly fee? Is Adobe trying to force them to upgrade? Does the software license contain a provision about older versions expiring? If it does, why doesn't Adobe disable the licenses remotely, instead of threatening to sue? (Which is bizarre.) Do users have a reason for not upgrading? Does Adobe CC not auto-update? If not, why not, since isn't that a benefit of a "cloud" subscription? Etc etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> Adobe and Oracle should merge and the parent company should be called Bend Over And Take It

<comment><USER9> Adobe is stupid evil and greedy. They bought Macromedia and tried to turn an animation tool into a whole application language and it ended up being the online criminals best tool. They ran authorware and director into the ground and abandoned beloved appliations. All they want to do is milk the customer for software features everyone has owned for 20 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The dumbest thing about this is that Adobe's Creative Cloud manager is responsible for installing and keeping their software updated on my computer, so Adobe installed software that I'm now not allowed to use on my computer!? Adobe needs to take some responsibility. It's really not my fault that Adobe can't manage it's install base...

<comment><USER11> If they don't have your card on file, it should start warning you a month before expiration, then nag you hourly about your poor financial hygiene and, finally, revert to a degraded demo mode.

It's really not that hard to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've never used any standalone Adobe software like Photoshop, but can't you just add some firewall rules to disable the online functionality? I do this for Clip Studio to stay locked into an older version.

<comment><USER13> It checks to see if your paid up, and after a few failed checks Photoshop stops working.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Stalk Studio – An experimental debugger based on distributed tracing - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dgurkaynak/stalk-studio <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN -- I'm really excited to finally release my hobby project, which I've been working for over a year now.

At work, we experimentally used distributed tracing to debug a highly-event driven multi-agent system. There are not many alternative tools for (distributed) trace visualization & analysis; we had tried both Jaeger & Zipkin's built-in UI and Trace Compass. And I've found that the debugging experience to be too cumbersome since these tools are built for inspecting just a single request (trace). I wanted to see all the traces produced by a specific cluster in a specific time range to see the bigger picture. I wanted a more customizable DevTools-like experience. So that's why I've built Stalk Studio. Hope someone else finds it useful too.

And of course, any feedback is appreciated.</comment>


Show HN: Bookmarks manager – Fastbmk.com - <AUTHOR> http://fastbmk.com/ <comment><USER2> This is the #13 repost. A few reposts are ok here, but somewhere between 5 and 10 is too much. The mods may get mad and ban your account and your site.

Try a different strategy, like posting an interesting blog post about the tech stack or the problems you had to solve for your site. Perhaps you can make a post with some statistics of the use of the site, if it doesn't break the privacy of the users.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Can you imagine how ridiculous HN would become if every start-up copy- paste posted every day like this? I don't have the required karma to downvote here, yet, but I think after a dozen reposts of the same exact Show HN, I'd be clicking it if I could.

Edit: As of this writing, the previous submission of this site is still on the first Show HN page.

<comment><AUTHOR> So have you tried the service? :)

<comment><USER3> I have no use for it. I use my broswer's native bookmarks sync functionality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello all! We built Fastbmk.com as a fast, lightweight and reliable bookmarking service. You can create bookmarks with tags and notes. List bookmarks by tag. Search bookmarks. Import and export bookmarks.

Browser addon is available for Firefox and Chrome. Using addon, you can create bookmark and check if the current page is already bookmarked.

We intentionally used a minimal set of web technologies to create a tool for everyday use, which doesn't waste resources of client's computer.

Minimalistic design Low CPU/Memory usage Quick server responses

We already use the service on a daily basis and it works just fine. So we invite you to try it too :) Currently the service is more like a minimum viable product. A lot of features are planned to be implemented in the future.

So your opinion, questions, suggestions and ideas are greatly appreciated :)</comment>


A Simple Fix for Our Massive Inequality Problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/opinion/inequality-social-wealth-fund.html <comment><USER3> Have they not heard of Adam Smith's _The Wealth of Nations_? *

IIRC, prior to Smith's famous book, the wealth of nations was viewed in terms of gold kept in the coffers of the kings. This was increasingly a source of puzzlement because it was failing to explain why some nations were thriving and others were not. This seminal work has been credited with being single- handedly responsible for transforming our understanding of _wealth_ as "gold in the king's coffer" to what we now refer to as GDP. Wealth of a nation is measured by its productivity, not the money in the bank.

While I agree we need to do something about the current trend towards concentrating money in the hands of the few, clearly at the expense of the many, this is not the way to do it. This in no way protects the productivity that gives rise to these riches. In fact, it is likely to undermine said productivity.

There is no limit to how much people can spend. If you just cut everyone a check, whether you call it Basic Income or American Equity, the money will get pissed away. It will not get invested in a better future.

We have to find ways to address the underlying structural problems that are causing the 1 percent to effectively bleed the masses for more. We also must do so without creating perverse incentives. This is a case of "the cure they are recommending is worse than the disease."

* [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations)

<comment><USER4> "...the money will get pissed away."

This is a common misconception about money. It never gets 'pissed away', it just changes hands. How fast it changes hands, and the degree to which it leaves productive assets in its wake, are the determining factors for economic health. The question is whether money spent by individuals on daily necessities would ultimately be better for the economy than money spent by high speed traders exchanging commercial paper or by a surgeon buying a second yacht. I don't know the answer to that question, but in no case is the money 'pissed away'. To paraphrase Al Gore, there is no 'away' to piss it into.

<comment><USER3> "Easy come, easy go" is a well known phenomenon. How you get your money influences how and what you spend it on. Most lottery winners are bankrupt within 5 years (about 2/3s of them).

I know someone who got fired, got six weeks severance pay, drove to a vacation spot with a friend and blew six weeks pay in one three day weekend on sex workers and cocaine. They then moved back home because they couldn't afford their apartment anymore. Six weeks severance pay plus unemployment benefits could have bought them their ongoing independence.

I would call that _pissing money away._

Edit: Changed _hookers_ to _sex workers._ They were called _hookers_ back in the day.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't matter as much what he got for his money, as where it goes from there. The question is whether the money has a faster path to productivity via the sex worker or drug dealer than it would via a hedge fund manager. And that is not an easy economic question to answer, all moralizing aside.

<comment><USER3> I think that completely discounts the negative long term impact on his life, which seems particularly egregious in a discussion where I am being criticized as if my remarks are an act of callous disregard for the welfare of the common person.

You don't care that he flushed his own life down the toilet, just as long as sex workers and cocaine dealers invested it well after they cleaned him out. And then you criticize me for "moralizing."

<comment><USER4> You're correct, it _does_ discount the impact on his life because that impact, however emotionally compelling, is irrelevant to the point of the subthread. Which is that, short of literally destroying it, money is never 'pissed away'\---it simply moves on to someone else. People often confuse the benefits (and moral implications) for the spender (which are often pretty clear, as in this case) with the broader economic benefit of the transaction to the economy (which is much less clear). Ie, "someone made a bad moral choice in spending their money, so that _must_ be bad for the economy." Not necessarily.

<comment><USER3> So, his inability to buy a house for himself and the fact that he continued to live with parents for many years has no bearing on our discussion of the economy and the creation of wealth?

I don't want to give a lot more details about this person's life. It is a real person and giving too many details amounts to gossiping about them. But I think you are in error. The impact it had on this person's life has other impacts.

I don't know why you think this is some appeal to emotion. It isn't. A person who cannot get their life together because of one youthful indiscretion has long term consequences that impact the wider economy.

This is likely part of why such stories are _emotionally compelling_ : Because it actually matters.

I am not generally not talk about morality in the sense that other people do. I am not too happy to have the concept of morality injected into the discussion in such a way that it slings mud all over me at every step of the way. I am not talking about morality. I am talking about what makes for a healthy system that serves both the commoner and the rich person well. Our current approach doesn't do that.

One of the reasons it does not do that is because I have seen a number of statements by wealthy people to the effect that they live with a lot of fear due to their wealth plus the state of the world. I thin this fear is legitimate and I think it tells us that a system that makes the ultra rich richer by bleeding the common person is a fundamentally unhealthy system that serves no one well, not even the rich people soaking up the extra money and wondering if they will need to abscond to Australia in their jet should the crap hit the fan.

I think this fear is part of why so many tech giants talk so much about things like creating basic income. They want to be able to stop living in fear that someone is going to want them dead because the world is going to hell for so very many people and this makes them a potential target.

<comment><USER4> "So, his inability to buy a house for himself and the fact that he continued to live with parents for many years has no bearing on our discussion of the economy and the creation of wealth?"

We're only talking about the marginal impact of the money itself---in this case, his six weeks of severance. That he didn't invest it more productively certainly has some small impact, but the point is that he didn't actually destroy its value, he simply transferred it to someone else. Had he gone off to live happily alone in the mountains as a Buddhist monk, he would've been similarly unproductive. I assume you would've found that more admirable, but the economy doesn't care what we find admirable. It only cares about how fast money moves, and whether or not it leaves productive assets in its wake. He obviously didn't use his severance directly on productive assets, but a lot of people don't. It doesn't mean that they can't be a vector for efficiently getting it to people who do. That's the harder question to analyze. Given the choice between a spendthrift living a dissolute life of debauchery, and a monk who ceremoniously burns all his worldly possessions and lives in solitude, I suspect the economy prefers the spendthrift.

<comment><USER3> _Had he gone off to live happily alone in the mountains as a Buddhist monk, he would 've been similarly unproductive. I assume you would've found that more admirable_

Yeah, I am done with this. In spite of me stating that this is not about moralizing, you keep projecting moral nonsense onto me.

The only thing I am talking about is this guy blew through a lot of money in a single weekend and this had long term negative repercussions for his entire life. He went back home to his parents and then never really cut the umbilical cord again. It interfered with his ability to live as he saw fit for many years afterwards and to this day. He threw away his one shot at ever getting to be an adult and live on his own terms.

To be perfectly clear, if he had blown through all that money for cocaine and sex workers, come back revitalized, stood up to his parents and said "Yeah, I don't care about your opinions about my life" and sold his second car to make it possible to keep his independence, I might well feel that was money well spent. But that isn't how it went down. Instead, he tucked tail, moved back home and then never lived down what an untrustworthy "loser" he was in the eyes of a lot of people whose opinions mattered to him.

Edit: Trying to stop using the F word like a substitute for _very._

<comment><USER4> I meant no offense. I understand that the guy's story is a sad one, and that he could've spent the money more productively. He could've been a better person. None of that has anything to do with what happened to the money _after_ he spent it, which was the point of my original comment. If the focus is on the guy and his behavior, and the money that comes in and out of his life, it says very little about how much that money is contributing to the economy. Like a lot of things, it's the economic _network_ that matters, and his position in it, and not so much his direct marginal contribution to it (or lack thereof).

If he had been terminated without any severance, he might've still moved back home and never lived it down. And the money would've taken some other path through the economy, maybe a more productive one, maybe a less productive one. Either way, it wouldn't be pissed anywhere, it would just travel a different path through the network.

<comment><USER3> _I meant no offense_

Thank you.

Money can be spent in a manner that is harmful, that actually reduces value in the world. It can also be genuinely lost or destroyed.

But I don't imagine you and I will ever bridge whatever communication gap is happening here. So, I don't plan to "throw more good money after bad" in terms of investing more of my time in what feels like an inane discussion.

<comment><USER4> Don't give up, you're actually pretty close. Yes, it _can_ be spent in a way that reduces value. And it can literally be destroyed (as I noted several times above). In the latter case, we agree it's been lost. But in the case where it's used to destroy value, the money itself still remains in the system, and might very well be used to create greater value than what was destroyed. For instance, a kid might buy a cherry bomb from another friend and destroy a mailbox. But the kid he gave the money to uses that money to start a business. The net value of the money's path through the cherry bomb to the business _could_ be greater than if the first kid had donated it to a charity instead. My point is that while we can make a value judgment on the kid's spending, _we can 't say with certainty what the broader economic effect is._ Even if he's spending all his money on sex workers, cocaine, and cherry bombs.

<comment><USER3> _My point is that while we can make a value judgment on the kid 's spending, we can't say with certainty what the broader economic effect is._

There is about a metric fuckton (TM) of data that shows that when people are handed a big check that they didn't work for, it typically gets spent differently than it would have been had it required blood, sweat and tears to get the exact same amount of money. And the way in which it gets spent differently is typically consumptive, usually with little or no long term value and potentially a lot of long term harm.

This is a thing we can know with a fair degree of certainty. It is part of why the NFL tries to provide some kind of financial literacy for its players. Most of them will have a very short career in professional football. Probably most of the ones who aren't there very long will never make that kind of money again. They are trying to make sure that if some guy only make a quarter of a million dollars one year of his life, it pays for something of long term benefit, like a house or some retirement savings.

 _Don 't give up, you're actually pretty close._

This suggests you are the smart, knowledgeable person here to educate my less smart, less knowledgeable self.

I was describing a communication gap due to differing mental frameworks for the issue. I was not suggesting one of us was "dumber" than the other.

I moderated a smarty pants email list at one time. I am all too familiar with the tendency for smart people to think they are smarter than the person they are talking to. That attitude is not constructive and it is not something I care to keep engaging with.

<comment><USER4> _I was describing a communication gap due to differing mental frameworks for the issue. I was not suggesting one of us was "dumber" than the other._

I should probably have said "we're pretty close". It _is_ the mental framework that's the issue, or more accurately the frame of reference. Most of your discussion is focused statically, on what a particular individual gets for their money. And whether you want to admit it or not, there is a consistent thread of moral judgment in your arguments. You talk about people spending money on vices, and other people who receive money without earning it.

My frame of reference is global, looking at the two factors that actually mathematically matter for economic growth: the velocity of money, and the productive assets left behind. There is no moral component. In that frame, it's entirely possible that spending that appears wasteful could actually be part of a productive system. The net effect of an air conditioner is to produce more heat, despite the fact that it blows cold air into your home. Your original argument was that a basic income would be "pissed away" and be economically inefficient. My response is that you're only looking at one side of the system, like someone concluding that too many air conditioners might cause an Ice Age. That basic income would pass back into the economy by way of grocers, landlords, auto dealers, and yes, probably some liquor stores and cigarette companies. It could nonetheless be a more effective way of stimulating the economy than giving tax cuts to the wealthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> simple sure but let's talk about what it would take to give a meaningful dividend to all americans

If we used a conservative 3.5% average return to give $1,000 USD for each American (~325M) you need nearly 10 Trillion dollars in this fund or over half of our yearly GDP.

Now keeping in mind this would need to be generated from a tax on some good/service/capital which obviously has a cost component at it's base. Just getting the initial 10Trillion in a fund would be ridiculously hard. Now add to that the fact that 1k is a pittance and figuring out a true basic income -- this is wayyyy more complex.

I'd like to point out a HUGE fallacy in this "simple" plan -- it only works in low population high natural capital resource areas. Alaska and Norway happen to be relatively remote/cold places with an abundance natural gas/oil. Norway's 1T dollar fund would be comical at US scale.

<comment><USER6> If the United States wanted a fund the same size proportional to population of Norway's it would need 65 trillion dollars, which is about the same size as the total value of the top 60 stock exchanges in the world.

The NYT article made me think it was a good idea, but this comment inspired me to run the numbers myself. It's impossible to run a UBI with this type of system in the United States without total state ownership. Why would they publish something like this?

<comment><USER7> >Why would they publish something like this?

It's as if people in the world have agendas that allow them to handwave away things like facts.

In all seriousness, it's an op-ed, so the NYT hasn't subjected it to their standards of journalistic rigour, and it's written by a lawyer/blogger who works for a think tank called Demos. Maybe I'm biased from living in DC/the Beltway for so long, but in my head whenever I read 'works for a think tank,' I substitute 'professional liar'. The author is the very definition of someone pushing an agenda.

<comment><USER6> > The author is the very definition of someone pushing an agenda.

I understand people have reasons for writing appealing lies. I understand part of the job of a think tank is to write and publish their ideas.

I do not understand why The New York Times would publish a policy idea that is impossible. A critical thinking person can conclude that the investment fund model cannot be applied to The United States in a meaningful way. The New York Times is one of the most respected news papers in the world. In my mind, publishing this article has the effect of decreasing the paper's reputation among people that critical analyzed this policy proposal. This is damaging the The New York Times' greatest asset, the reputation of their brand.

I do not know a lot about newspapers generally, or The New York Times specifically. What I do know is this discourages me from investing more of my attention into The New York Times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The inequality problem only exists if you look at absolute wealth numbers, and not the level of confort and opportunities that wealth affords.

The amount and the quality of goods and service that is available to even the lower income bracket has never been better; most families can afford access to a car, a washing machine, food from around the world, unlimited entertainment, unlimited knowledge, air travel, telephone, etc. etc.

Put another way, all the money in the world can't buy you a better phone than a 1000$ one, and that phone is only marginally better than a 100$ one, which everybody can afford. And that is how it works for most things nowadays.

The reason people are so pissed about inequality, is that despite people having material and service equality like never before, social status remain extremely unequal. But that is human nature, and no amount of money redistribution can change it.

<comment><USER9> That may be true for some physical objects, but not for things like a secure retirement, protection from crippling health-care bills, and secure (non-bank- owned, non-landlord-owned) housing. There are vast and real inequalities there.

<comment><USER8> All those inequalities you cite are paradoxically the consequence of the vast increase of wealth and services accessible to everyone.

The retirement insecurity is a consequence to lifetime expectancy having increased vastly beyond retirement age. The health care bills ? You couldn't even get them before, as all the healthcare one could expect was penicillin, aspirine, bandages and hot soup. Housing ? People would live with their parents until and even after they married. Now people can afford to move out and divorce.

Social behaviour and expectations have changed to fill in the opportunities offered by newfound wealth, driven by the search for longer life and higher social status.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >Wouldn't the enormous wealth that our increasingly productive society is generating, which now flows into just a few pockets, be a fair source?

This has never been done successfully in an economy not based on resource extraction without destroying the engine that produces that "enormous wealth".

The whole thing is both well intentioned and incredibly naive.

<comment><USER11> >This has never been done successfully in an economy not based on resource extraction without destroying the engine that produces that "enormous wealth".

So it's a good idea as long as we constrain it to our natural resources?

<comment><USER10> Well, it's not a spectacularly _bad_ idea under those conditions. But it's not like companies don't already pay for drilling, mining, and grazing rights on federal land. Right now the money doesn't go into a special fund, though, and in any case it's not much divided over 340 million people.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund is significant because there just aren't that many Norwegians.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Rich people are only rich because poor people aren't willing to kill themselves in large numbers.

The best thing any individual can do to reduce inequality is to only contribute to institutions that do not exacerbate inequality.

Is the median wage at your company less than the wage required to buy the cheapest home within a 2 hour commute of your office? You're likely exacerbating inequality every single day.

Are one or more people at the top of your company working on buying their next Ferrari or second/third home? You'renliklwy exacerbating inequality every day.

If poor people were more willing to die than to contribute to the same companies and people that fuck them over and the middle class was more willing to work for themselves instead of contributing to greedy corporations all for a mediocre home, then we would have much more equal power structures in this country.

Every single person in this country is responsible for the way it is. Being at the bottom isn't an excuse to fall in line and do exactly what your masters tell you everyday.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think we already have this -- it's called Corporate taxes. Nominally 35% of all of the profits of every U.S. corporation are paid to the federal government. In practice after deductions it's about 20%. His analysis of where the money comes from amounts to either diverting money from the federal budget in one way or another, or increasing taxes.

It seems to me that the real problems here are this: An increasing share of GDP is going to corporate profits, and away from wages, due to deunionization, globalization, immigration, and automation. Government policies are mostly responsible for the first three. This stagnation of wages has combined with the post war relentlessness of Madison ave, which programs us to increase our consumption, even though there is no new income to support it. The result is decreased savings and increased debt among the bottom 90%.

</comment><comment><USER14> FTA, "It's called a social wealth fund, a pool of investment assets in some ways like the giant index or mutual funds already popular with retirement savings accounts or pension funds, but one owned collectively by society as a whole. One that paid dividends not to the few, or even just to the shrinking middle class lucky enough to have their savings invested, but to everyone."

<comment> crooked-v So, effectively the same thing as a basic income guarantee?

<comment><USER15> The end result is a basic income, but this is more about _how_ that would be accomplished, and it ties the income to the wealth if the country.

The income is drawn from a dividend on a kind of sovereign wealth fund which would be gradually capitalized with government assets, increased wealth and capital gains taxes, and possibly directly via the Fed (rather than the Fed capitalizing private banks).

This is in contrast to other schemes that directly pay the UBI based on more progressive taxation.

In the end it is still redistributive, but it redistributes capital downwards and not just income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This sounds pretty much like what Sam Altman proposed the other day[1].

Posted on HN here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15789108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15789108)

1 - [http://blog.samaltman.com/american- equity](http://blog.samaltman.com/american-equity)

</comment><comment><USER17> I've yet to see a diverse _company_ with no inequality, let alone a diverse society.

On that note, I wonder how feasible it would be to have a company who uses profit to fund an endowment and then later vows to only pay employees a percentage of the _gains_ from said principal. That'd be neat (assuming you could find employees to agree to said payment method).

Assuming the company has no shareholders, wouldn't it exist in perpetuity? If this works, perhaps a similar scheme could work to fix real life inequality -- force rich people to invest their money and give the gains to the poor. Rich people don't lose any money (other than the opportunity) and poor people thrive. Win win?

</comment><comment><USER18> I agree in principle. Alaska's state fund has worked phenomenally well. But there's a problem -- coincidentally one Alaska has recently faced. A fund with meaningful returns would be measured, quite rapidly, in the trillions of dollars. That is an enormous incentive to 'borrow just a little from' to solve this issue or that issue.

Alaska has been facing a multi billion dollar budget deficit as they recklessly spent during times of high oil prices -- ironically not dissimilar to the events that led to the initial creation of the fund. So what was their solution? The governor unilaterally slashed payments from the fund - <USER2> decision that was challenged and then upheld in the state courts. We can write all the sort of legalese we want to try to prevent this from happening, but I think the current state of society illustrates quite clearly that laws are subject to the views of those in power. For instance are the actions of the NSA and CIA the sort of government programs the founding fathers intended to allow when passing the 4th amendments? I doubt many would say yes, yet here we are.

And I'm not even considering the inevitable graft involved in the management of such a monumental fund. Ultimately, I just do not think this sort of idea is possible in the US on a national level. State level initiatives are a very interesting idea, however.

<comment><USER19> There is definitely a difference between state budgets and federal budgets: fiat currency.

<comment><USER20> Perhaps more immediately significant is virtually all states have constitutional requirements for short-term balance of operating budgets, and often strict constitutionsl rules on approval and use of debt financing, while the federal government has neither.

Fist currency in principal allows monetizing budgets (either in general or debt specifically), but this is avoided in practice (and one reason for independent central banks is to provide confidence that political actors will not engage in monetization.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe a simple fix is to make the Federal Reserve aware of the problems they are creating.

<comment><USER22> Why do you think they are _not_ aware?

Note well: "If they were aware, they would fix it" is not a valid response. Fixing inequality is not a part of the Fed's mandate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Wouldn't the enormous wealth that our increasingly productive society is generating, which now flows into just a few pockets, be a fair source [of money to initialize the fund]?"

So wealth redistribution was the punchline after all.

<comment><USER24> Inequality refers to unequal _distribution of wealth_ so in fairness what could this article have been about, if not some suggested mechanism for distributing wealth differently?

<comment><USER23> The issue is the specific mechanism for distribution--taking wealth from people. Another mechanism would be taking proceeds from natural resources, or improving education to enable a broader range of people to succeed in the market. My point isn't that these are better options, just that redistribution is not the only kind of distribution.

My issue with this article is that it claims a fund mechanism makes the inequality problem simpler, but it is still subject to all of the same problems that plague the existing redistribution schemes.

<comment><USER24> > taking wealth from people

None of the ideas in the article truly boil down to this, except maybe some specific implementations of taxation.

> redistribution is not the only kind of distribution.

I'm trying to understand this, but I can't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "That would never work" protest citizens of country whose military spending surpasses that of the next eight countries combined.

</comment><comment><USER26> If you enjoy Matt Bruenig's writing, check out the [People's Policy Project]([https://peoplespolicyproject.org/](https://peoplespolicyproject.org/)), which he heads. Matt's a fantastic writer in the space of social issues and economic policy.

</comment><comment><USER27> I am no economics expert but I found this idea to be very promising. Moreover the concept of buying more stocks during a downturn could resolve the boom and bust cycle.

Perhaps this national wealth fund could pay out this citizens dividend or ubi as a cryptocurrency?

</comment><comment><USER28> > Norway uses its fund not to directly pay out dividends but as a source of > revenue for its famously generous welfare state.

That wouldn't work in the good ol USA because the rich would use racisim and sexual panic to turn people against the welfare state and divert the money for more tax cuts for the rich. In this country the only bennefits that stick around are direct benefits that are mostly targeted at the upper middle class, such as the mortgage interest deduction or 529 college saving fund.

</comment><comment><USER29> The Social Security fund kind of sounds like what is described in the fourth paragraph.

</comment><comment> ng-user What if I told you there were no "Simple Fixes" for "Massive ____ Problems"

<comment><USER30> It's so simple...no one will do it. Lol.</comment></comment>


Hacking a ping pong table - <AUTHOR> http://sidigital.co/blog/lab-notes-hacking-our-ping-pong-table

<comment><USER2> Tangent:

Given the sidigital is a digital marketing solution company. These kind of projects is ingenius content marketing for themselves.

It generates good buzz for:

1\. their potential customers (look how innovative we are)

2\. their potential hires (you will have heaps of fun working here)

3\. gives existing employees something to brag about (look how cool my company is)

As a side note, I remember there are a startup in SF that mapped every engineer's desk and have nerf guns (hooked up to their continuous integration service) that shoot at engineer whenever someone breaks the build; If I were the CEO, I would only approve these kind of projects if I get some marketing benefits out of it

Has anyone here been with companies with similar side projects, what are your thoughts on ROI?

<comment><USER3> I run a small agency(currently 6) and we run monthly hack days to build something cool. The last was a dashboard that links to an ibeacon once we enter the room it says hello and says goodbye when we leave. Completely pointless but it was interesting to build and had some great side effects.

We received 6 applications for jobs that weren't advertised (5/6 were very good). But also we got a great amount of feedback from our existing clients interested in using it for their own companies!

Our next project is a drinks robot built into a globe!

As a CEO you need to care for more than the bottom line.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, none of our (Si digital) hack projects would have been possible without our MD's go ahead and foresight to see the value in these projects. More of what he made possible here [http://sidigital.co/lab](http://sidigital.co/lab)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope they're keeping detailed statistics, like how often each player wins a point on their own serve, which opponents are the best/worst against each player, etc.

<comment><USER4> Yep, time for each game too, and which end they play best at for the superstitious amongst us. Tons of stats we'll probably never use, but just in case!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" and when it's time to switch servers (every multiple of 5 points). […] Once one player reaches the final score of 21 with 2 points clear, the system automatically ends the game"_

It amazes me how long it takes for rule changes to propagate throughout the world.

Table-tennis has been using 11-point games for over a decade, with serve rotation after every two points ([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_tennis#Rule_changes](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_tennis#Rule_changes)), but I rarely meet recreational players who are aware of that, and that includes people who played it first after those rule changes were made.

<comment><USER4> We are definitely aware, but given our skill level games to 11 would end far too quickly. That's why we opted for the old 21 system. Maybe in a year when we can actually maintain good rallies we will upgrade to 11 :)

<comment><USER7> It's not a matter of skill, with games to 11 you can play 2 out of 3, which often turns out to be longer than games of 21. Personally I think games to 11 make it more exciting; it's really fun being down a game and then gaining hope when you win the next :)

<comment><USER8> You can play 2 out of 3 just fine with games to 21.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another version of this idea:

[http://the-incredible-machine.com/pingpong-what-if-your-tabl...](http://the- incredible-machine.com/pingpong-what-if-your-table-tennis-table-keeps-score/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow, everything looks so smooth and slick. Great job, guys.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very cool.

I made a web app that would show whether or not our table was currently in use based on the sound and frequency of ping-pong ball impacts. [https://github.com/helious/rails-sound-spy](https://github.com/helious/rails- sound-spy)

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be awesome if this could handle scoring for Doubles and then evaluate the best teams over time.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice. But score keeping in one's head, while challenging, is at least doable. Truly impossible: keeping track of serve/receive pairs and partner switches during casual doubles play. I've never seen four trained engineers get it right. :-)

<comment><USER13> Switching sides during a double is easy. As soon as the serving side is switched (every 5 points), the new serving side switches player positions. Everything else stays the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Developers don't have the best hand eye co-ordination

1\. "hand-eye coordination"

2\. Generalizations should at least be supported by references

3\. Pretty awesome hack

<comment><USER4> 1\. Thanks, fixed!

2\. Every developer in our office :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> C'mon! Project the score and win/lose effects directly on the table!

If you're gonna go graphic-y and fun, go big!

</comment><comment><USER16> This was pretty cool. Was anyone else upset that there wasn't a full clip of them playing and showing this in use?

<comment><USER5> It would be nice to hook up a GoPro in the corner of the room and automatically record each matchup. Given that the system knows when games start and end and who's playing, you could even overlay a scoreboard and live stream or upload to YouTube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> 2500mAh gone in a week? What are they doing?!</comment>


Neural network chip built using memristors - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/neural-network-chip-built-using-memristors/ <comment><USER3> This is one of the exotic devices in DARPA's UPSIDE competition for exascale computing. This initiative seeks to find non-state (non-transistor) based approaches to computation: exploitation of nanoscale response properties of discrete components to perform some restricted, non-binary, forms of computation. Essentially, exotic ways to abuse silicon lithography to get analog computation.

The idea, and this can be seen on DARPA's slides ([http://www.darpa.mil/workarea/downloadasset.aspx?id=21474857...](http://www.darpa.mil/workarea/downloadasset.aspx?id=2147485714)), is to get computation that is several orders of magnitude higher for their specialized sets of problems than what can theoretically be reached by traditional computing models even if Moore's law continues.

DARPA would like to first apply this technology to ARGUS drone systems ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA)) and related technology because streaming video can't be done to the ground, tracking and decision making must be done on board - yet traditional processing platforms can only track a few orders of magnitude fewer targets that what the military would like.

In a more advanced phase, if memristor or coupled oscillator (etc) approaches to building inference models become possible, then programs written in DARPA's other initiative (Probablistic Programming) could be programmed into these exotic solid state devices to compute in a way more analogous to today's generic computation. And indeed, eventually the adoption of Probablistic Programming will train programmers to write code for quantum computers - <USER2> more complicated, replacing Probablistic Programming's PDFs with probability amplitudes almost get one there.

I hope to see more journalistic coverage of some of the other exotic devices.

<comment><USER4> I find it disturbing how everyone seems relatively unfazed by DARPA's intended use of this technology.

<comment><USER5> People have, I think, internalized the logic of arms races. Someone's going to have [scary technology X], so why shouldn't we have it first/best? (Sure, there are answers to that, but none that I think most people would stick to when push comes to shove).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm very excited about this! Is there any possibility for me to work in a company working on similar stuff? That would make a dream come true for me! I live in Germany and would love to write my masters thesis a related topic!

This is so amazing! Btw. I have found an HP Invent sign in my town, but the security guard didn't answer any questions about it. The only thing he said was that I won't find any address or telephone number for it. That made me curious, because HP is working on a memristor based Computer, but I doubt that they produce it in Germany.

<comment><USER7> Are you an EE? What exactly would you like to work on?

<comment><USER6> I've previous EE experience, but I study CS. I'm open for project suggestions and would love to do research in self-assembly for mass fabrication and study/develop AI Models.

<comment><USER7> Well, the obvious project suggestion is to read about challenges of building a larger crossbar, then work on overcoming those challenges. Literature list is provided in the paper.

This type of work all about mass fabrication, but has nothing to do with AI models. Which direction you want to go?

<comment><USER6> I think given my background I'm a better match for AI, than for mass fabrication. That's what I'd really enjoy working on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Link to original paper: [http://rdcu.be/cJ0x](http://rdcu.be/cJ0x)

<comment><USER9> [http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.0611](http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.0611)

<comment><USER10> THANK YOU! Also, Dec 1 2014, this has been out a while then

<comment><USER11> More recent papers at [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?&q=leon+chua+memristor](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?&q=leon+chua+memristor)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A neural network chip semi-conductor startup: [http://brainchipinc.com/technology/](http://brainchipinc.com/technology/)

They "backdoor listed" on to an Australian mining company, share price went from 1 cent to 27 cents: [https://www.google.com/finance?cid=11163357](https://www.google.com/finance?cid=11163357)

Valued at $57m.

<comment><USER13> Man, why are all the silicon people so fixated on spiking nets? Maybe in 20 years once we figure out how the brain works they'll be great but if you built a convnet chip instead then it could be smashing records in real problems like speech recognition, translation, image identification, etc, _today_. Where are the convnet chip startups?

<comment><USER7> First of all, what makes you think a hardware convnet will perform better than a software convnet?

Second, you can implement a convnet with a spiking circuit: [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11263-014-0788-3](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11263-014-0788-3)

<comment><USER13> That paper does not implement training, only testing. Low-power testing is good to have e.g. for mobile applications, but it doesn't increase the capabilities of our algorithms. What we need to advance the field is faster training of larger nets. That's where the really interesting applications will be discovered.

A convnet-optimized chip could clearly be much faster and more power efficient than a convnet running on a CPU or GPU. The move from CPU to GPU brought a 10x speedup already, but GPUs are hardly ideal for running convnets. For one thing, they have tons of graphics-specific hardware that's useless for convnets and could just be deleted in a convnet chip. For another, GPUs are much more flexible than necessary for convnets. The main operation you need to perform is convolution and you could make fixed-function convolution units that would be much more power and area efficient than generalized GPU shader cores. For yet another thing, there's no reason to believe that 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point is the best power/precision tradeoff for convnets. I'm willing to bet that you could go much lower. You could even experiment with approximate arithmetic; 0.5 ULP precision is probably not necessary.

<comment><USER7> Building a hardware convnet is only beneficial when you figured out the exact parameters of the network. Everything is hardwired. Therefore, it's useless if you want to experiment with lots of different parameters, tricks, or architectures to "advance the field".

Moreover, building such a chip is an expensive and long process, and given how fast GPUs are improving, it's not clear that by the time you build it, it will still be competitive.

Finally, if you want to speed up training, try to figure out a better algorithm. For example, humans can learn from very few training examples. Current neural networks need many thousands, or even millions. There's a potential million-fold speed up in training time right here - and to find it, you need the flexibility of the software.

<comment><USER14> Maybe the brain can do one shot learning only after it has trained for years?

<comment><USER7> Maybe. We want to reduce the amount of supervised training. I think that's what Hinton is trying to do with his capsules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Memristor crossbars are exciting even outside of neural network applications: it can be used as a very dense, non-volatile memory. If this design can be scaled up, it could potentially replace both flash memory storage, and RAM.

<comment><USER10> These things are really not well respected for what they can do. IBM introduced their TrueNorth tech late last year. Those used a 'neural' design for the chips to overcome the von Newman barriers for computer design. Along the way, the TrueNorth chips also reduced power consumption by a LOT. However, those designs are still digital. With a memristor in the TrueNorth set-up you can have a similar system for input, processing, storage, and output in an _analog_ system.

I feel that I need to emphasize that. The memristor is the component that will easily allow for analog logic to occur at digital speeds and with digital logic type systems ( _very_ grossly speaking). What these little guys can do is under-sold.

<comment><USER7> There have been dozens of analog neuromorphic chips built in the last 30 years. Latest ones use floating gate transistors for synapses. Memristors, in theory, are better devices that flash memory (faster, lower power, more dense), however that's just in theory. In practice, they are very hard to scale. This crossbar is 12x12. No one knows how to build anything much larger than that, on a mass scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have nothing to say but that this is a cool application of memristors. My graduate research is in cognitive computing and the thought of using circuitry to represent the synaptic weights as opposed to hardware/software based adders and multipliers is pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER16> The general theory of memristors, meminductors, memcapacitors of any order (first order memristor is the genuine one invented in 1971 by Professor Leon Chua, however he generalized recently his discover to second, third order memristor, etc.)is published in a paper I wrote with him on september 2014 in International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos. One can download it freely from the site [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261676241_MEMFRACTA...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261676241_MEMFRACTANCE_A_MATHEMATICAL_PARADIGM_FOR_CIRCUIT_ELEMENTS_WITH_MEMORY)

</comment><comment><USER17> This looks cool but I'm somewhat skeptical. I would be more interested in seeing what problem the system solves better or decently (say even MNIST) rather than how it was built using memristors.

There is a lesson from IBM trying to mimic a rat's brain -- that is you try to solve a problem rather than just burn power.

<comment><USER7> >>>I would be more interested in seeing what problem the system solves better

Better than what?

<comment><USER13> Better than previous state of the art on a standard machine learning dataset. Check some leaderboards here: [http://rodrigob.github.io/are_we_there_yet/build/#datasets](http://rodrigob.github.io/are_we_there_yet/build/#datasets)

<comment><USER7> What are you talking about? They build a 12x12 crossbar. The best you can do with it is to implement a single layer perceptron to classify 3x3 pixel patterns. Once they figure out how to scale it up, they will implement a larger network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The technology sounds very promising but if the goal is to simulate the brain, the ANN models we have today are inadequate. Current evidence suggests that it needs to incorporate dendritic dynamics and , soon, molecular computation.

<comment><USER19> Is the goal simulation or functional equivalence?

For example, to simulate a horse, is it necessary to create legs, or is it okay to build a road and use wheels?

<comment><USER18> possibly, we don't know yet, but ANNs are not isomorphic to real neurons. If we are talking about a bottom-up approach to intelligence, we have to opt for realistic simulation. If, on the other hand we knew what intelligence is, we can simulate it any way we like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Memristers are supposed to be the main memory of HP's future computing project called The Machine. It is supposed to be as fast as register memory and compact as flash.

</comment><comment><USER21> Lemme know when I can order a few on cut tape from DigiKey.

<comment><USER22> I know it's not what you're asking, but for the record you can buy memristor- memory-based microcontrollers in single quantities from Mouser today.

The reason I mention it is that memristors are being accused of being vaporware when really they're in production already.

<comment><USER10> LINK! You just can't say that and not provide a link to the catalog for us!

<comment><USER23> [http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Panasonic/MN101LR05DXW/?...](http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Panasonic/MN101LR05DXW/?qs=OeBdveGBEcQzg65tbPujiw%3D%3D)

<comment><USER24> For anyone interested: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistive_random- access_memory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistive_random-access_memory)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Even on a 30 nm process, it would be possible to place 25 million cells in a square centimeter, with 10,000 synapses on each cell. And all that would dissipate about a Watt."

Wow - seems like a lot.

Human brain by comparison (sourced by google): \- 12 watts \- 100 billion neurons \- 1000 trillion connections

Computing with memsisters is going to be very interesting.

<comment><USER26> The human brain has between 100 and 500 trillion synapses and consumes a lowly 12 watts. (In contrast, a 12.6 megawatt supercomputer, in 2013, took 40 minutes to simulate one second of biological brain activity.)

The article cites 250 billion synapses per watt.

For the same 12 watts as a human brain eats up, a set of memristors could simulate three trillion synapses. A cat, in comparison, has 10 trillion. To get 100 trillion synapses, multiply those 12 watts by 33.3 to get 400 watts (the draw of nearly seven 60-watt incandescent bulbs).

Since one watt bags us 250 billion synapses and 400 watts is equivalent to a memristor-based human brain, then 400 cm^2 is the area needed to emulate the meekest of human minds.

That's nearly the same area as half of a medium Domino's pizza.

Certainly is... food for thought.

<comment><USER27> "In contrast, a 12.6 megawatt supercomputer, in 2013, took 40 minutes to simulate one second of biological brain activity."

Just as a note: we are not sure whether that large computer really simulated brain activity or not. The tricky thing in brain research is that we have practically zero* idea about what matters and what can be omitted from the simulation. (For example, the glia cells seem to be important -- until recently, we have disregarded their role.)

So at this point even we had an infinitely big computer we could not simulate the brain properly because we don't know what exactly to simulate.

*zero means that there's much more we don't know than what we know.

<comment><USER28> As I never tire of quipping, if you can't get it high on neurotransmitters, it isn't a neural network.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Speaking Fees of Media/Internet "celebs" - <AUTHOR> http://paidcontent.org/article/419-bonfire-of-vanities-part-deux-speaking-fees-of-mediainternet-types/ <comment> onreact-com Crime pays: Kevin Mitnick: "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history" $15K to $20K.</comment>