Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money? - <AUTHOR> Here are some questions that I find myself pondering from time to time as I code.  To those who have achieved "FU money" (I use this term loosely):<p>* Has your life changed in unexpected ways?<p>* Has there been any change in the way you interact with strangers?<p>* Has the number of things you <i>have</i> to endure increased or decreased?<p>* And is "FU money" all its cracked up to be?  e.g., is your life an order of magnitude more enjoyable now, or is it pretty much the same etc? <comment><USER2> I've been meaning to write about this one day. There are some things that change. For example, you learn to distinguish problems that can be solved with money from those that can't. You can buy your way out of a lot of schleps.

Life doesn't get an order of magnitude more enjoyable, because you still can't buy your way out of the most serious types of problems, but a lot of annoyances are removed.

The best part is what I thought would be the best part: not having to worry about money. Before Viaweb I'd been living pretty hand to mouth, doing occasional consulting. It felt like treading water, in the sense that while it wasn't hard, I knew in the back of my mind that I'd drown if I stopped. Getting rich felt like reaching the shore.

One thing you learn when you get rich, though, is how few of your problems were caused by not being rich. When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard.

<comment><USER3> One thing I genuinely want to know is how much money it takes to be "rich" in Silicon Valley. In my experience, $5M yields a slightly better but still basically middle-class life. I suspect a lot of people are underestimating how much they need to reach the FU level.

<comment><USER4> If you plan on staying on to live in the valley, $20-30M. I have many friends who are worth $3-5M and they do not consider themselves even close to rich in the valley. Housing and schooling in Palo Alto are very expensive. $5M is nowhere near enough to buy a really nice house and then take it easy for the rest of your life - sad to say, but true.

At least in the valley, most people still live below their means. I find that on the East Coast and Southern CA that those with expensive lifestyles are usually heavily burdened by debt. There are many many wealthy people in the valley who live in simple apartments and walk everywhere, not needing the flashy car or flashy clothes to justify their existence and place in society.

<comment><USER5> I know a few people who consider themselves to be in "FU money" territory, in the sense that they don't have to ever work unless they want to, and have _way_ less than $20m. It depends on how you want to live, to some extent. The Valley isn't all _that_ expensive if you don't require a big house in Palo Alto or Los Gatos, and especially if you're looking to rent. If you set your budget at, say, $50,000/year for housing, i.e. you can afford to pay a bit over $4000/mo rent, there are a lot of options. There are quite nice apartments or even townhouses in S.F. for that money, or reasonably large houses in Santa Clara.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Be prepared for it mentally and emotionally _before_ getting FU money. It's not dissimilar to winning the lottery.

Most of you reading this site is either working extremely hard to get FU money or has it already. If you're not prepared for it, it will just amplify your worst nightmares and habits, and there's a good chance the meaning of many things in life, including life itself, will disappear. Plan for a use/purpose for the FU money.

The journey is sometimes better than the destination, so make sure that once you arrive at the destination, it is only one stop of a longer journey. Here's a story of a millionaire who liked the journey much more than the destination, so gave away all the money to restart the journey. [http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SmartSpending/blog/page...](http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SmartSpending/blog/page.aspx?post=1618309&_blg=1,1618309)

After you've bought/rented all your material wants, you will feel an empty feeling and ask yourself, "that's it?", unless you have a purpose greater than yourself. Belong to a higher cause, whether it's joining a local non-profit or helping others (or start a yc? ;-). Money is a means to an end, not the end itself. Beyond buying power, money has no value unless it is used/invested/earmarked.

Here are some example people who were unprepared and how they used their FU money: <http://www.oddee.com/item_97101.aspx>

EDIT: Not sure why I'm being downvoted. Yes, we can talk about the great positives of FU money and the awesome power/material good it brings, but not about the potential downsides it'll bring if you don't keep it in check or plan for it in advance? For what it's worth, I've started several companies, each did well, and the points I've raised above were important for me (for belonging to a higher purpose, I sat on the board of a non-profit and helped raise money). There was a time when I thought I reached my "destination", only to feel that I had arrived at an deserted island.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure why someone would downvote you. Having a journey _is_ key, and this is why "FU money" would be useful. Given a lucky $5,000,000 lottery win, many people on HN would probably have a chance to leave the day job and finally take a shot at accomplishing their dream (perhaps building the next amazing geo-tagging-social-network, or opening a store, or whatever it might be.) Without a dream, people will just spend money on toys that seem far too obvious, such as fancy cars.

Simple money management skills help as well.

<comment><USER8> There are a ton of stories of lottery winners who blew the lot in surprisingly little time, and have literally nothing to show for it.

The problem seems to be if you suddenly have x money, you start to live as if you have 10x.

<comment><USER9> I hear a lot of people saying this. Do you have any data points links for the same?. Just curious.

<comment><USER8> Not any hard numbers on % of lottery winners or anything, but stories in the papers are common:

[http://www.metro.co.uk/news/813314-top-5-lottery-winners- who...](http://www.metro.co.uk/news/813314-top-5-lottery-winners-who-lost- everything)

<http://loanscreditcards.co.uk/tag/uk-lottery-winners/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In the short-term, my life was much worse. I spent a lot of really painful time struggling to come to grips with my situation.

After that was over, things went pretty much back to normal. There's now a low-level fear all the time of losing all the money (something PG's written about recently) and I'm constantly worried I've invested it badly. I didn't make any dramatic life changes so people don't really treat me differently.

The biggest thing is that it provides a sort of mental backup -- when I'm feeling bad about myself or about to do something risky, I can tell myself not to worry.

My sense is that it bears out what the happiness research says: dispositional factors are much more important than situational ones. PG was an abnormally happy person before he got rich and he's still abnormally happy. I was pretty miserable before and I'm still miserable. (The reasons are more complicated but the result is I prefer my misery.)

<comment><USER11> Did you tend to worry a lot before you had the money? You mention the misery is consistent. Is worry part of that.

I think coming into money is pretty much like losing a limb or experiencing a tragedy. After a certain period of time, the person who has experienced the tragedy goes back to where they were, mentally, before the tragedy. Same with lots of money, eventually they return to their norm.

<comment><USER12> Lots of money brings lots of freedom, which can bring a lot of instability/chaos. You lose all the structure that you had from the constraints of working for a living. If the instability (and resultant stress) is too much, going back to "the way you were" could be a relief.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm in no way in the league of pg or others but I might have an interesting story to share.

While at university I was pretty skint (as students are). Anyway, long story short I happened to "start a company" that never took off but did take the interest of another competitor - who then bought me out (it never came to anything from them - they were "super funded" and had a not-that-good team....).

Anyway; it wasn't a _lot_ of cash considering - but compared to what I was living on...

I immediately went and bought a silly car which ate up petrol and insurance money (tip 1: don't buy a really nice car unless you drive a lot, now I run a 14 year old Peugeot and it is more reliable, economical and fun :)).

This sort of thing (silly spending) went on for about a month until I was stocked up on all sorts of technology porn (in fairness to myself I did splash money on my friends/flatmates quite liberally). I can't exactly remember what made me stop but did eventually realise that I was acting silly ;)

Even when I stopped spending it was hard to avoid buying stuff I saw and trivially wanted - there was no sense of ownership on the expensive items any more (compared to the 32" TV I had bought a few months earlier and saved for for nearly a year) and they never really made me happy.

Long story short; most of it went into Ebay, I put the money into a long term fund and finished up Uni as a poor student.

Two years later the money is still there; I managed to find a job that rocks and pays pretty good (considering). I've got over the need for money/items and have (in my mind) a much nicer outlook on life and "stuff" :)

So, yes, having "large amounts of cash" (relatively speaking) did change me - but not in the way I expected :)

And the best bit is that I have money for a house, wedding ring (hopefully :)), kids etc... in the future if things don't work out.

</comment><comment><USER14> The more I think about this -- really think about it -- the more I become convinced that anonymity and a small amount of recurring income, along with a reasonably-frugal life, is probably the best outcome in life.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying to be poor. I'm saying that the more your income becomes visible -- past just having a low-key life -- the more it gets in the way of things, both for you and your family.

That can either mean living in a room where they shove a couple pizzas under the door every day or living in a modest 4BR house in a mediocre neighborhood. It's the visibility and the host of hidden entrapments that come with that visibility. What I didn't realize when I was younger that this problem of visibility isn't just limited to how others view your wealth -- it's really more a problem of of you view it.

<comment><USER15> As long as you are content there forever. Like the research says, once you take the worry about money out of the equation, money no longer becomes much of a motivator.

Kind of makes it hard to work or do other ventures.

<comment><USER16> If money was you only motivator in the first place.

<comment><USER15> Eating and having shelter was a motivator before, not money. Once you don't have to worry about those anymore (i.e. don't need a paycheck, feasibly never needing another paycheck).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Pretty much the same life, the toys are just a bit bigger. One thing I've found though - girls don't care about the money in the bank. Maybe they care about if you drive a big car or something, but just spending a lot does not seem to result in the ladies being significantly more impressed.

Interaction with other people is more of a i-don't-give-a-shit-who-you-are anymore. Take it or leave it is much easier.

Life is more relaxed - that constant stress of being broke is gone. But there are other problems that come up when some problems go away. Stuff that appeared smaller before (how do I get people to like me, for example), now seem more important.

<comment><USER18> _One thing I've found though - girls don't care about the money in the bank._

Wherever you are meeting girls, I want to go there.

My experience in an NJ bar a week or two ago: I was talking with a coder friend of mine about my job. This was a geeky conversation with words like "latency", "queues" and "atomic operations", as well as "lost $BIGNUM in half a second", rather than a manly conversation about "parachuting into darfur to deliver aid." A guido girl at the bar visibly perked up and came over to talk and asked if I was a trader within 5 minutes of conversation.

(Note: I don't have fuck you money, though my casual reaction to losing $BIGNUM might suggest I do.)

<comment><USER19> This is a great point against living in NYC metro area. I doubt you'd suffer this in Boston (Academia seems to be the dominant life form), SFBA (tech; a trader would be a lot less sexy than the founder of a tech startup even pre-fu money), or Seattle or Portland (environmentalism? art? food?).

<comment><USER20> No. As someone who both have experienced both NYC and Boston urban living, I can tell you that Boston is no better than NYC. Sure there are a lot more schools in Boston, it's only the arbitrary scale of judgement has changed but the intensity/consistency of judgement is still the same.

Whereas in NY, yuppie culture surrounds either the high-finance/media- fashion/hipster type, Boston's culture is more on academic/engineering/townie- pride. In some sense, I prefer NYC because at least everyone's honest and at least it's a meritocracy of superficiality. You either gotta make six figures or have the American Apparel attitude and look to be in the group. In Boston, it's more like "of course, we are a open & accepting people," but "oh? you don't go to grad school at Harvard/MIT/BU? You are involved in software/allied health professions and don't have the holier-than-thou attitude? You are not WASP or a white-washed minority and don't drink the vegan-hippie-liberal ethos?" Haven't lived in Seattle/Portland extensively but my own superficial judgment of these two cities while traveling there, is that the latent vegan- hippie-liberal superficiality is even more rampant there.

<comment><USER21> This reminds me a lot of the "Messages that cities send" essay that PG wrote a while ago. NYC's message was that you should be richer, Boston's is that you should be smarter, Silicon Valley's is that you should be more powerful (in the technocrat sense of the word) - and extending it out, Houston's is that you should have a bigger house, Portland is that you should be more eco- friendly, and D.C's is that you should be more powerful (in the political sense of the word).

Maybe girls are evolutionarily wired to seek more "successful" men, and then "success" is defined by the culture surrounding them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Has your life changed in unexpected ways?

Not really. The most unexpected thing is how much the same life is after FU money than before. The main difference is that a lot more people line up to try to take your money from you. One way or another you pretty much have to deal with the same old shit.

> Has there been any change in the way you interact with strangers?

I probably feel a little less insecure, especially when I talk to other people with money. But I don't think anything else has changed, at least I hope not.

> Has the number of things you have to endure increased or decreased?

The number of things I _have_ to endure has definitely decreased. In particular, I don't have to stress out over making the choice between "enduring" a job that I hate or going without a salary. But other problems have arisen to replace those. I call these "nice problems to have", but they are still problems.

> And is "FU money" all its cracked up to be? e.g., is your life an order of > magnitude more enjoyable now, or is it pretty much the same etc?

Neither. Life is definitely better with FU money, but it is no panacea. FU money gives you extra options, but the fundamentals have not changed: you are still faced every morning with a choice of what to do with the resources you have at hand. And even FU money has limits. It's amazing how fast you can learn exactly where those limits are.

</comment><comment><USER23> Here are some of the things I discovered after hitting it, and watch others do the same:

1\. Getting rich makes you more of who you really are. If you're a jerk underneath it all, you'll be a bigger jerk when you hit it big...and vice versa.

2\. In terms of problems, you're squeezing on a balloon. It's easy to pay the bills, but a whole new set of problems and hassles will present themselves. It's just a new set of irritants. There's just as much pain, it just comes from different sources.

3\. When you can have everything you want, you have to learn to control your appetites. You can't imagine how much crap you buy when you can afford everything. It's surprisingly hard for most people to control their spending once they hit it.

4\. You'll turn into the First National Bank of Bill, but your loan standards will be lower...and few people will ever pay you back.

5\. Old friendships will wither and some of them will die, no matter how hard you try to maintain them. Jealousy is one reason. Subtile changes in your own personality will be the other.

5\. If your pals aren't all in the same boat, and similarly rich, you'll have no one to play with.

In short: Money is a tiger. You master it, or it masters you.

</comment><comment><USER24> I would appreciate it if people posting here would also tell us if they were low/middle/upper class before they got wealthy/wealthier.

</comment><comment><USER25> I once read a fantastic interview with Douglas Adams back in the late 70s, after Hitchhikers Guide had become successful in the UK, but prior to its impending US release.

Both Adams and his interviewer knew that the author was about to come into A LOT of money, but he didn't have it yet. The interviewer asked how he expected his life to change and Douglas Adams said one of the most prescient things I've ever read:

"The only thing that money changes is the size of your bills."

For instance, my wife and I always talked about traveling more, but after selling my company, we continued to mainly talk about travel. It's just not something we do a lot, even though money isn't an issue. Meanwhile, I've got friends who managed to backpack around Asia and Europe all summer in college when they were totally broke.

Money doesn't change who you are or how you live all that much.

</comment><comment><USER26> When I achieved something akin to FU money, there were the expected benefits (i.e., greater freedom), but that freedom also strips away many excuses we come to rely on.

For example, if you spend hours coding at the computer (because you love it), that is now YOUR choice and it affects how the rest of your family will perceive it because you can no longer claim that you NEED to spend that much time. In fact, if you are not careful, you may end up with your family controlling more of your time than you want.

You also go through a bit of an identity crisis. So much of your identity is tied up in what you do. All of a sudden when you are at your kids soccer game, casual conversation becomes more awkward as people inevitably ask "what do you do?".

Put these together and you clearly need to come up with your next purpose because otherwise you will have a heck of a time deciding how to spend your time.

In the process of figuring out the planning and investing piece I became a CFP and registered investment advisor (more of a multi-family office). I have now seen a number of others go through the transition and can offer the following observations for different levels of FU money.

< $10 million -- The focus stays mostly on the individual and family with the money supporting their pursuits.

$10 - $50 million -- At this level there starts to be a strong pull between wanting to support the family and wanting to create a lasting legacy. The pull from these two directions can create a lot of stress depending on the person's values and the values of the rest of their family (mainly spouse).

$50 million+ -- At this level the legacy becomes the focus. The responsibility of making that money improve the world becomes paramount. You don't see someone with this kind of money deciding to become a math teacher. In this sense, someone with this much money is less free than someone with only $10 million who wont feel as strong an obligation to ensure their money gets put to good use improving the world.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm going to think about answering this because it's going to take more than a short comment, those are 4 really complicated questions.

The short answers are yes, yes, decreased, no and different.

The longer ones will take me a bit of time to put together.

<comment><USER27> Ok, it's up: <http://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=1512876>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Some points-

1\. I laughed when the gentleman said that $3mm would be enough money for him. Anyone who says $3mm is enough will realize that whatever number they say is "enough" is not enough once they reach it.

2\. Money doesn't make you happy. But if you're already happy and you have money, it can make you happier.

3\. Money makes people pay more attention to you- especially people who didn't pay attention to you before. People will say, "well Barack Obama would never have shown up to your wedding before you sold your company for $1bb". Well no sh!t. Why would he? Charities will call you. "Well the University never paid attention to you back when you were poor". Universities and Charities are in the business of raising money from individuals.. Why would they? This will be tough for people without money to understand.

4\. Those who have sold their companies find that money is sometimes harder to hold onto than it was to make in the first place. If you don't have enough money (to never work again), become complacent due to your original ability to make money (particularly those in tech world), you could find yourself broke.

5\. Speaking of broke. Minimize your borrowing. The majority of very rich people who suddenly file for bankruptcy are over-leveraged and/or not diversified in their investments. An example: Let's say I have $20mm. I could go to a bank today and get a $40mm house. However, my taxes, upkeep, mortgage, and other lifestyle expenses would likely cause me to deplete my original 20mm within a few years.

6\. When you're rich, its very difficult to deviate from an expected lifestyle. Once you spend 60k on a car, 90% of the time your next car will be more. This is true of houses and everything else you purchase. My advice is pace yourself.

</comment><comment><USER29> Using the term loosely (some of my friends would consider me someone with "FU" money - but I'm not in the "go out and buy a porsche for every day of the week cause I like it" territory")

1) I view money differently than I did before. Not because I don't have to care about it, because I absolutely do, or it wouldn't last long, but everyday worries around "how can we pay bill X" go away, and are replaced by worries about long term strategy and, at least in my case, not getting caught up in long term strategy. Life goes on.

2) It takes some effort to adjust your thought process with regards to how to treat others. Talking about my exciting trip to europe with my friends comes across to some people as bragging or showing off - and while it's absolutely _NOT_ \- it's just me being happy and sharing it with friends - after some time you learn to read people and pick up on this - and remember that money isn't the same thing for everyone, and can be a sensitive topic.

\- FU money is no more or less than what you make of it... and it can run out as fast as it came if you aren't careful. Plenty of people are in the "FU" financial stage and don't even realize it, and plenty of people who wish they were there wouldn't do any better - your financial practices largely dictate your long term financial well being - whether you have a little or a lot.

I know a number of people well further into the FU money than me - and I'd say they're an even mix of people who became happier, struggled and are still unhappy, or even worse, or who pretty much just stayed exactly the same (as far as I can tell).

Remember, when most people say they wish they were rich, what they mean is they want the lifestyle they think rich people have - which isn't, in reality, what they envision it to be. (Rap stars on MTV don't sit around smokin blunts surrounded by hotties 24/7 and driving sports cars - they spend time _working_ on new albums, hanging out with friends, and doing the scene)

<comment><USER30> "FU money is no more or less than what you make of it... and it can run out as fast as it came if you aren't careful. Plenty of people are in the "FU" financial stage and don't even realize it, and plenty of people who wish they were there wouldn't do any better - your financial practices largely dictate your long term financial well being - whether you have a little or a lot."

Eh, this just doesn't ring true to me. I'm pretty sure that everyone I know would do much better with an extra $10M, not the same or worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I won't say I am in the big league but I have enough to last me a couple of years if I stay comfortably. It is invested well so I am hoping that it will last longer. I also don't have any major outgoings like mortgages or rent.

> * Has your life changed in unexpected ways?

One change has been that I haven't worked for the last 2 years and don't plan to in the near future. I love programming so just spent my day working on some hobby projects and watching stocks. The risk is that as there isn't any hard deadline for delivery I end up taking things easy which is not good and probably something I should be changing.

One problem I face is that much of the money is just lying in either accounts or investments so its not really visible - no flashy cars or toys for me. And I tend to be frugal in my living so most people think I am good for nothing and feel bad for my wife. Some of her concerned friends have been asking here when I plan to start working. My wife doesn't have any problem with my lifestyle as she knows about my financial situation.

> * Has there been any change in the way you interact with strangers?

Social interaction is one thing I miss about having a job. It provides a clear structure in which you interact with other people. So my interaction is now primarily with existing friends and family. If anything, my previously average social skill have probably become below average.

> * Has the number of things you have to endure increased or decreased?

I would say life has started appearing much simple to me. With money not a factor in my choices, I sit around doing exactly what I want to do. As of now I have nothing to show for my last 2 years (except my investments going up but thats a passive activity) but I am hoping that will change in a year or two.

> * And is "FU money" all its cracked up to be? e.g., is your life an order of > magnitude more enjoyable now, or is it pretty much the same etc?

I would say that I put up with less crap but its less enjoyable. To explain the contradiction, when my wife comes home from work and talks about "management is making X mistake", "my product was not highlighted in our newsletter" etc, the usual office activities. I understand that but its been a long time (2 years to be precise) since I experienced these things. These basic experiences (good or bad) did keep me occupied and made life interesting. Now with all that gone, its HN, hobby projects, stocks and after that I am pretty much on my own do something that would make me feel worthwhile.

Overall I would say that I am much more comfortable and happier than I was but my social interactions have become pretty minimal which I don't think is good.

<comment><USER32> Have you considered taking you hobby projects further? Hiring a team, renting an office and putting a product out there? I am not suggesting you do, I am just curious.

<comment><USER31> I do want to start focusing on one project and get it to the point where its useful. Following this I hope to do what you mention and put some more resources behind it and make it grow faster.

I initially had a small startup but that didn't quite work out for various reasons, so for about a year I have been prototyping various projects alone. One thing about the no-deadline situation is that for the last year I have basically been experimenting with different ideas and technologies. I suspect if I have some sort of a deadline I wouldn't have spent so much time on it. But then again maybe the time was well spent as the architecture and ideas are more precise now.

One fear I have is my project becoming a Duke Nukem Forever :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> While I have never gotten 'FU' money, at one point in my life I had access to all the digital media I could ever want. All the appz, movies, games, music, audiobooks, etc.

Everything in digital format, I either could get, or had.

At first, I was extremely excited - and naturally told a few people (who subsequently told a few people) and before I knew it I was the 'go to guy' for anyone that wanted any media.

This experience scarred me. To the point where now I am ultra private and if I get a new album or new movie or something (even through legitimate means) I hoarde it and tell no one.

I have always imagined that this is what getting FU money would be like. Relatives, old friends, etc. would come out of the woodworks...especially once you start spending and travelling, etc.

For those that have experienced FU money, and the transition from not having to having it, can you shed a little light on how your interactions with close family, other relatives, close friends, etc. changed. Did you tell them? Who did you tell and why? Also, who surprised you by the way they view you and your money?

Anything else interesting about how you manage your wealth and why you decide to tell who what, would also be appreciated.

P.S. I have since given up said access, because I got bored and the maintenance required was stressful. I wonder if this is a precursor to unimaginable wealth.

<comment><USER17> Are you trying to say that you discovered thepiratebay?

<comment><USER6> No, he's trying to say he operated a drop site (glftpd?) where couriers from groups like motiv8 used software like flashfxp or linfxp to trade releases from razor1911, paradigm, etc.

This assumes he was integrated at or near the top. Otherwise, he would be further down the trickle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think about this all the time.

I didn't make "FU money" from an exit, but rather from the ongoing success of a couple of online businesses, which have been earning me far more than I know how to spend. When this started happening, my initial reaction was to be perplexed, because I no longer had a _financial_ motivation to get up in the morning and work. Money had been the most salient part of my motivation for as long as I could remember.

But I found that I still wanted to work, and it took me a while to understand why. It turns out there are lots of other good reasons to create useful things that people will pay for, like self expression, connecting to others, a sense of achievement, and a feeling of contributing to the world. The money was still nice but became secondary. Still, it allows me the luxury of working on interesting things that I think people will like, even if I doubt I'll ever make much money from them.

I found that the main challenge of being rich is finding a way to spend the money in a way which contributes to my happiness, rather than detracts from it. This is harder than it sounds. The most obvious way to spend money is to buy an oversized home. But this is a really bad idea. First of all you have to spend a lot of time maintaining that home. But most importantly it will likely alienate your (presumably not so rich) real old friends who are still working daily to pay off the mortgage. How will they feel about inviting you over to their condo when you live in a palace?

The solution I found to the "friend alienation" problem is to spend money on personal experiences rather than visible possessions. You can eat out at fancy restaurants, travel the world and enjoy the best shows without your friends knowing what you're up to, at least not in detail. It really helps if you have a spouse and/or children that you can do this with, since they can make these experiences all the more fun.

BTW this also neatly dovetails with recent research on happiness:

[http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/10/happiness.possessio...](http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/10/happiness.possessions/index.html)

The one rich guy possession I'm allowing myself to buy is a second home in a foreign country that I like to visit often. This will (hopefully) make those visits less hassle and more enjoyable, and again, none of my close friends need to know.

And yes, I worry about losing the money a little, and have taken a self- propelled crash course in personal wealth management. But luckily I find the subject quite interesting anyway, and I don't let myself lose any sleep over a couple of percentage points in yield. In the long run, we all die anyway.

To summarize, getting "FU money" been a net benefit in my life, but it took a lot of careful thought and planning to ensure it worked out that way.

Finally if anyone out there who's suddenly landed FU money is feeling a little disorientated by their new situation, I highly recommend reading "Escape from Freedom" by Erich Fromm, which is a wonderful book about the psychological and existential challenges that freedom brings.

<comment><USER6> Where did you end up living? I'm facing a similar situation regarding my living situation. I live in the heart of Boston, but most of my close friends do not, and this does have an alienating effect. I've contemplated moving up north to andover (a rural town -- opposite of boston) to position myself closer to friends/family, but would have to give up the city life. This is one of my current issues that I'm mulling over... thoughts?

<comment> bsnss-mn-cdr Live your life, not theirs.

<comment><USER35> The problem is that "their life" is so much a part of "youe life" (for the poster above you). Good relationships with other people are a huge part of what makes life better. I've always imagined that if I ever get FU money that it would allow me to live closer to people I have good realtionships with.

<comment> bsnss-mn-cdr I have near life long friends who I still see regularly enough but several of us live in different states / countries now. I wasn't implying that they should alienate themselves from their friends but they shouldn't make drastic changes to their life just to accommodate them. ( I consider changing your lifestyle + moving to a new location a 'drastic' change ) One the best things having FU money allows for is the ability to 99.9% of the time decide to travel to X at 1pm on Tuesday and be on a plane to X by 4pm the same day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Was the term "FU money" coined by Neal Stephenson, or was it in use before he wrote Cryptonomicon?

<comment><USER37> I'm pretty sure Nassim Nicholas Taleb wasn't the source, but I first heard the term from him.

<comment><USER38> His explanation was pretty good, roughly: you can say FU while you are still on the phone with someone instead of after you hang up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Eventually, it didn't change me much, but I do spend a bit more on cheap frivolous stuff (like <http://store.xkcd.com/xkcd/#Sudo>). But then I have been through the cycle twice.

Initially I was broke. When I got my first real job (after undergrad in India), I felt like I had all the money in the world. In the first few months, I bought myself a nice camera, motorbike, smartphone, gifts for family and my girlfriend, started eating at nice restaurants etc. But then I figured I already had whatever I needed and things I enjoyed most didn't really require any money (except the camera and motorbike, I guess).

Then I quit my job and went to grad school for which I had to pay for (Masters, not a PhD) and went into debt (US schools are sooo expensive), and drastically cut down my expenses (ate cheap Thai food almost every day). After that I got a well-paying job again, paid off all my loans, and am now back to my earlier lifestyle i.e. I spend on things I enjoy, give a modest amount of money in charity regularly, enjoy the occasional expensive dinner, buy nice gifts for my family and close friends, but I still save a good amount.

I am definitely happier than I would be without any money, but I don't think I would be any happier if I suddenly started earning 2x.

<comment><USER40> This is not FU money. FU money is not worrying about having to work.

<comment><USER41> Maybe it is to him.... I've known a remarkable number of folks who had "FU money" with $20k in the bank.

<comment><USER42> Homeless broke people say FU all the time. FU money means never having to work another day for the rest of your life. $20k might mean that in a few places in the world, but some happy-go-lucky personality who doesn't know where their next buck is coming from doesn't count.

<comment><USER43> They feel like they have the freedom to be all 'FU'. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

By some people's definition, having 'fu money' means you can tell people to F off without risking your financial security. So... if I'm a homeless and broke person, or someone with really low financial standards - that's true - isn't it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Sorry, but what does "FU money" mean?

<comment><USER45> "Fuck You" money - enough money that you can tell anyone you want to fuck off and not have to worry about not being able to pay your bills as a result.

<comment><USER22> There's an important thing to realize about FU money: it does _not_ make telling people to fuck off cost-free. Telling someone to fuck off is an indulgence, and it is not free of cost no matter how much money you have. Having FU money simply means you can afford this indulgence. But one of the many problems that comes from having this kind of money is that now you have to make this choice. When you can't afford something, it's a no-brainer. When you can afford it, you actually have to think about it and take responsibility for the result of your decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'll probably get downvoted, but just a friendly PSA: "successful" does not mean "has lots of money". I might ask the community members what they perceive success to be, if it hasn't been asked already. And if I didn't already have my own definition.

</comment><comment><USER47> Maybe if someone has enough money to be safe and would be interested in investing with a high ratio, contact me :D

<comment><USER47> As always on hacker news, no fun allowed.

<comment><USER47> As always on hacker news, truth things get down-voted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is a stupid thread. It's addressing a problem that most HN readers would love to have, but don't, so it's simply a bunch of pleasant daydreaming, not a useful discussion of how to solve a real problem.

I understand that people on HN want to be rich; I'd rather see an HN filled with articles that help materially in getting there, not one talking about how great (or not?) it is to be rich.

<comment><USER42> It's probably wise to think about it while you still have some perspective.

Imagine the let-down of working your ass off and getting the big payday only to screw it all up because you were psychologically unprepared.</comment></comment>


SanDisk SD memory card 'largest ever' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29175093 <comment><USER2> Honestly, 512GB in a removable postage stamp is the stuff of Science Fiction. I remember when I was kid in the early 90s and in my school computer club and we sat down to sketch out what kind of computer we'd have in the _YEAR 2100_ and I put down the ridiculous storage size...something like 24GB or something. I wasn't even close.

1 of these could have easily stored a copy of all of the internet traffic that happened over the course of a day in 1993. [1]

Now we've got spaceships, VR, pocket sized personal computers with always on global network communications, video calls, amazing smart watches, and now half a _terabyte_ in something the size of my big toenail.

It kind of feels like the future we were promised pre-internet is finally starting to happen.

My less than a year old desktop's main drive is the same storage size as this. In a year it will be the size of my fingernail and I can put it in my phone and my tablet.

1 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte#Illustrative_usage_ex...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte#Illustrative_usage_examples)

</comment><comment><USER3> Now you can lose even more pictures and video when your SD goes bad. Woohoo!

There are a lot of photographers who won't use SDs larger than 8GB for just that reason--lose one, you don't lose everything.

<comment><USER4> Or you could just back things up regularly.

<comment><USER5> With your magic instant remote backup machine?

<comment><USER6> Sure...

[http://www.amazon.com/EZOPower-Portable-Wireless-External- Sm...](http://www.amazon.com/EZOPower-Portable-Wireless-External- Smartphone/dp/B00EP13JBC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410536260&sr=8-1&keywords=sd+backup)

I mean it does cost $35, but it's pretty much exactly a magic remote backup machine (that can also charge your gear!). Or you can spend more cash and get one with an integrated hard drive and need no other devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know people are going to scuff at the $800 price tag, but frankly it CAN be justified for certain things. For example a lot of studios use a direct feed to a terminal (e.g. WiFi/USB delivery of pictures as they're taken) but they also utilise an SD card as a "backup" in case the photo is somehow lost or the computer was down.

Changing out SD cards on an SLR doesn't really take very long, but it does disrupt the workflow (particularly when you have to take a thousand pictures in an hour or more, that could be a dozen SD card changes) and $800 for a card which might last you the whole day might be worth it.

It definitely won't be useful for your kid's birthday party or even to film your school project. But as an industrial tool there are definitely uses for a card such as this (although external SSDs are starting to become "big," so maybe less so than a year ago).

<comment><USER8> That $800 will be $29.95 before the decade is out. And by then it will be a micro-sd version.

If you don't mind my asking, what application would require a photographer to take 1,000 pictures / hour?

<comment><USER9> For me it's perfect when we tether our shoots to an SSD Macbook Pro.

We can 'set and forget' the SD card in the SD slot and have ChronoSync automatically transfer anything in our tether folder to it. It's a great backup/scratch disk. $800 is chump change for a professional photography studio.

edit: I love that I was downvoted for this.

<comment> jack-r-abbit Possibly because there is zero connection between your comment and the parent comment?

<comment><USER8> Actually, there is and I got the connection perfectly. It's an automatic way to have a separate copy of a high volume shoot where you don't have to interrupt shooting because of the tethering.

<comment> jack-r-abbit Parent comment talks about the price and how in a bit is will be cheaper and smaller. And then asked about when a person would need 1000 pics an hour. You didn't really connect any of that. You talked about tethering.

edit: I'm not saying your comment was lame or stupid or wrong or whatever. It just didn't really fit as a reply to the parent. Perhaps someone else thought so too. I also would not have downvoted you for it. But maybe someone else did.

<comment><USER8> He replied to me, and I got the reference. I realized that the studio implied the 1000 pics / hour. That thought had not occurred to me but the example made it clear. You don't always need to have everything spelled out. The other example mentioned (sports photography) and fashion used to rely on motor drives, I had completely forgotten about those. And they would go through a roll of film like there was no tomorrow. It's just not something I ever used or did.

Also, I think you are confusing your parties in this thread.

<comment> jack-r-abbit my bad. I did confuse the two of you. never mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Amazing, that is 320 GB/cm^3. I didn't know that we have possibly already passed the information density of the human brain (~80 GB/cm^3).

<comment><USER8> You can't really compare passive storage with combined processing and storage. The brain computes all over, it does not have a 'data bus' or a von Neumann like bottle-neck as far as we know today.

<comment><USER10> Of course not. However, I would have guessed that the 3-dimensional structure of the brain would still have higher information density compared to 2-dimensional IC's (+ wiring + heat regulation) by some orders of magnitude. But I guess neurons aren't that small after all.

<comment><USER8> They're not all that small _and_ there is a ton of support infrastructure and deadweight around them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love it how in one paragraph they state that capacity has increased over 3 (decimal) orders of magnitude but there is a magical hard cap of 2T (only a factor 4 removed from where we stand today). If that's correct then 2^10 = 1000, over 10 years that's one doubling per year so we are 2 years away from reaching the ceiling in SD cards. You read it first on the BBC website.

<comment><USER11> The article seems widely confused. It goes from SD cards to 4K movies to HD movie storage to _the cloud_.

<comment><USER12> Obviously the cloud is just a pile of SD cards connected together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish more devices had SD slots. Particularly Windows Tablets. There's plenty of room in there, and SD cards are way better than microSD.

<comment><USER14> Except when you tread on them. As I found out yesterday. I had another that got damaged in the post, bent and dead.

<comment><USER8> When I send them in the mail (which I do rarely but it does happen) I sandwich them between two taped together pieces of thin wood. That means it's no longer a very thin envelope but it increases the chances of safe arrival. They also always go registered.

USB sticks tend to be more robust.

<comment><USER6> What about the little plastic cases that they come in?

<comment><USER14> Don't the MicroSD cards come with plastic cases, but not the larger SD cards?

<comment><USER6> Every SD card I have gotten has arrived in a case. I'm sure there are exceptions, but you can also buy them cheaply (there's a 10-pack for sale as an add-on item for $4.25 at Amazon).

<comment><USER14> Since realised that I've bought both SD and MicroSD cards with and without cases. A MicroSD got bent in the post, bought as new. And a accidentally put my foot on an SD while shuffling cards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Also remember the 128GB microSD.

This new 512GB SD could be useful for 4K video and that kind of stuff.

[http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Adapter- SDSDQUAN-128G-G4A-Newe...](http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Adapter- SDSDQUAN-128G-G4A-Newest- Version/dp/B00M562LF4/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1410622135&sr=1-1&keywords=128GB+sandisk+micro+sd)

</comment><comment><USER16> Is "Extreme Pro" really the best name they could come up with?

It would be sweet (as others have hinted towards) if there could be some built in redundancy, i.e. two 256GB partitions that act as a raid.

<comment><USER17> Not sure SDs fail that way - the flash is usually pretty reliable. I think its mechanical stress (flexing in your pocket; wet or humid conditions causing corrosion to fragile connections) or static shock that causes the on-board controller to fail. In those cases the flash is still good, but you can't get at it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> obligatory [http://xkcd.com/691/](http://xkcd.com/691/)

<comment><USER8> Obligatory links rarely are.</comment></comment>


"Why I'm Dropping Posterous This Weekend" - <AUTHOR> http://forums.posterous.com/why-im-dropping-posterous-this-weekend <comment><USER2> Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. Most of our users do want the canonical url to be the posterous version.

However, this isn't true for all our users, especially those who are using us to autopost to other sites.

We'll make this a theme element so that it can be removed if desired.

Thanks

Sachin CEO, Posterous

</comment><comment><USER3> as the posterous spokesperson alludes to in the comments, he is probably better off elsewhere.

i totally get the gripe, and i do sympathize, but it's a free service and at the end of the day it's not something that shows up on the radar screen for a large majority of their users..

</comment><comment><USER4> Didn't notice that. Good to know, I was thinking about using Posterous as a super super easy way for some of clients to populate their blogs. That would have been a big mistake on my side!

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised its not because of that ridiculous floating toolbar.

<comment><USER6> Yup, that's why I picked Tumblr over Posterous. The toolbar is just ugly, I'd be fine if I could make it that 2D tag they used to have, but I couldn't get it to work.

Tumblr is definitely less stable, but my blog isn't that important anyways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone have thoughts on Tumblr versus Posterous? Any recommendations?

<comment><USER8> I just moved back to Tumblr after using Posterous for 6 months or so. I finally got tired of the slow page loads and buggy editor I experienced using Posterous.

<comment><USER9> Posterous crashes my browser (Opera 10.63, on Gentoo Linux) about 40% of the time it loads. If Opera wasn't so good at saving my tabs I'd probably have stopped using Posterous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You're using a hosted blogging service. And you're surprised that they want to drive traffic to the version of the content that they're hosting? I agree with their comments: You're better off somewhere else.

<comment><USER11> The response was dismissive because his whine deserved to be dismissed.</comment></comment>


The Real Difference Between Mercurial and Git - <AUTHOR> http://stevelosh.com/blog/2010/01/the-real-difference-between-mercurial-and-git/

<comment><USER2> _I personally don't like [git's] index. I feel that git encourages people to check in changesets that contain code which they've never tested (or even built) because the index is such a prominent part of git's workflow._

This doesn't make sense.

Git has the concept of the "index", which is the set of changes to be committed. This can be (and usually is) different from "every modified file in the working directory."

For example: when working on a change that spans multiple files, I frequently work on one file, add it to the index, and continue in that fashion. By the time I'm done the index reflects every file necessary for the [feature|bug fix|whatever] and is easily committed.

The index doesn't _encourage_ commits any more than having modified files in the working directory does.

</comment><comment><USER3> > `git help checkout | wc -l` vs `(hg help update && hg help branch && hg help > revert) | wc -l`

Excuse me, but comparing text readability and documentation quality by line counting is boldly incorrect.

</comment><comment><USER4> The real difference between Mercurial and Git:

Steve Losh is to stupid to use git.</comment>


An Olympic honour for Alan Turing | John Graham-Cumming - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/10/alan-turing-2012-olympics <comment><USER2> This is a great idea in so many ways, and JGC does a great job of laying them all out. I hope he's as successful as this as he was with the apology.</comment>


Depression could be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs, scientists suggest - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/09/08/depression-physical-illness-could-treated-anti-inflammatory/ <comment><USER2> What else we know:

It's genetic and medical-enviro-psychosocial-situational-existential (ie purpose, employment and goals).

Depression decreases self-care/normal activities, encourages social withdrawing and sleep.

More likely to occur in cities and in people with fewer positive social interactions.

Missing an antidepressant dose and then sleeping feels, from the neck up, exactly an alcohol hangover.

Depression takes hold during EEG detectable, disordered sleep.

Anti-depressants mechanisms aren't uniformly, completely understood, and often enormously affect:

\- GI tract

\- aggression / sex drive

\- positivity

\- inward/outward focus / existential goals

\- prioritization

\- pain perception

\- stress impact / decreased vagal tonality/RSA

\- clarity of thought

[http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/causes- depression#1](http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/causes-depression#1)

[https://www.dovepress.com/sleep-electroencephalography- as-a-...](https://www.dovepress.com/sleep-electroencephalography-as-a- biomarker-in-depression-peer-reviewed-article-CPT)

[http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsdisorders/alco...](http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsdisorders/alcoholdepression.aspx)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We know that illness causes depression ("sickness behaviour"), and we also know from animal and human studies that psychological stress causes inflammation in the brain. So I don't think it's true that all depression is caused by physical rather than psychological factors, as implied by the headline.

<comment><USER3> [https://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=12841](https://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=12841)</comment></comment>


Machine Learning and Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@giacaglia/machine-learning-and-privacy-4c7558096f4d <comment><USER2> Nice overview!</comment>


Scientific Evidence Confirms That You Can See into the Future (Especially Women) - <AUTHOR> http://metascientist.com/scientific-evidence-confirms-you-can-see-the-future/ <comment><USER2> I didn't know The Onion had a Science section!</comment>


Choice blindness: You don't know what you want - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227046.400-choice-blindness-you-dont-know-what-you-want.html?full=true <comment><USER2> There's an excellent TED talk by Malcolm Gladwell on this subject.

See here: [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spagh...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html)</comment>


National Geographic, Feb, 1922 - <AUTHOR> http://books.google.com/books?id=xBoSAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

<comment><USER2> I love old issues of National Geographic. I used to read these in the library in high school, and actually remember this issue because of the picture on page 134 (of the Cupo tree, which is pretty distinctive).

There's something about exploring, and in particular this golden age of pulp- novelesque/Indiana Jones-style exploration, which is really exciting to me. Also, check out the way they describe things: an iguana is described as an "antediluvian reptile" on page 140.

At this point, the areas which can engender this type of unvarnished wonder and excitement of discovery seem to be the deep ocean and outer space. Most of the rest of the world has been explored thoroughly enough to seem banal or uninteresting to a lot of people, which is really sad. I hope the world never starts seeming ordinary to me.

<comment><USER3> My grandmother at one time in the 90s had NGs going back to the late 20s/early 30s, but by the time I was old enough to appreciate them, they were in terrible condition, having spent years in the attic over her garage. I'm glad they're archived online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "No preview available" Is it only available in the U.S? I'm in Sweden.

<comment><USER5> Yes, it is. I just tried it with and without a VPN with a US endpoint and I get 'No preview' if I appear to be outside the USA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also see The Complete National Geographic:

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1426296355>

(Disclaimer: I helped develop the app)

</comment><comment><USER7> That's awesome. The article on the Mayans is really interesting.

<comment><USER8> Some things never change :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In parts it looks and reads more like a scholarly journal than like the modern Nattional Geographic. Particularly the article on the Mayans.</comment>


Details of 100m Facebook users collected and leaked - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10796584

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know when this snapshot was taken? With all the changes Facebook has made to their privacy settings recently, there have been times when previously private information was suddenly public and I've had to go in and change it back.

It would be nice to know if my "private" (though privacy on Facebook, and the internet as a whole, isn't a real thing) data is now available in torrent form due to Facebook's tweaking.

Is there an easy way to find your information in this torrent?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you invest in companies on the public markets? - <AUTHOR> Young software developer with a more aggressive risk tolerance looking for long investment opportunities and was wondering how experienced individuals here invested on the markets, this is just so I can get some advice on hopefully enjoying a good retirement and general life.<p>Much thanks! <comment><USER2> I'm not buying stocks directly. I have neither the knowledge nor the time to study the financial results and business model of each company I would potentially be interested in. I'm putting a fixed amount of money in trackers every month (and that amount is a fixed percentage of my monthly savings). I've selected the trackers by reading their fact sheets and checking their fees.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.amazon.com/One-Up-Wall-Street-Already- ebook/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/One-Up-Wall-Street-Already- ebook/dp/B006YDFYW6)

^ For fundamental investing, this is a good start.</comment>


Do I need to pay for Java now? - <AUTHOR> https://dev.karakun.com/java/2018/06/25/java-releases.html <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, the conclusions that the article draws in "What does the new release train mean to my company?" are wrong.

Starting with Java 11, Oracle JDK is no longer free for commercial use, not even for a single day. However, as long as people are OK with GPL v2 + Classpath Exception (which is more permissive than it sounds) and don't need support from Oracle, they can just move to OpenJDK, which is built from the exact same codebase.

Shoutout to [https://adoptopenjdk.net](https://adoptopenjdk.net), which plans to provide LTS releases of OpenJDK. I believe this will be crucial for a healthy Java ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER3> "You might ask why Oracle changes the releases of Java in such an big way."

Nobody who had to deal with Oracle in the past will ask this.</comment>


I chose not to become a digital nomad - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@julienvallini/why-i-chose-not-to-become-a-digital-nomad-20e62e668d3b <comment><USER2> Quote from Beveridge's "Full Employment in a Free Society", 1944

"A Liverpool man, when told by an [employment] officer that he had spent most of his working life in jobs away from his home, which he could visit only on holidays, exclaimed, "Good God! What kind of a home did you have, then?" This incident may serve to illustrate the folly of expecting a common-form social outlook among persons with entirely dissimilar experiences and traditions. Middle-class people, trained for the professions, expect to have to follow the job, wherever it may take them. The same hold good only to a limited extent among the working-class people"

Somewheres vs Anywheres. It's an old dichotomy.

</comment><comment><USER3> Working remote frees much time, even if you aren't a nomad.

It took me 30minutes to get to work and 30minutes back, so I had five hours a week of unpaid labor.

That's half a week in a month and one month a year if I don't count the holidays.

One month a year that I can do something different now...</comment>


Facebook Seeks Friends in Washington Amid Privacy Concerns - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/facebook-seeks-friends-in-washington-as-privacy-concerns-mount.html

<comment><USER2> Microsoft and Google both started bulking up their Washington offices as they came under government scrutiny, so no surprise to see Facebook doing the same. Last summer they hired Marne Levine, who the article describes as "a former top aide to Larry Summers, director of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council".</comment>


A self-driving car might decide you should die - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/reinventing-the-trolley-problem-85f3d1730756 <comment><USER2> There's actually a much more exciting corollary to this though: the car can choose to crash in whatever way minimizes the risk of injury to you and others. This may entail deliberately crashing into the known best crumple zones, even at the optimal angle to ensure there is reduced risk of impingement of your limbs, say - perhaps even tailored to knowledge of your shape. It would know you have no passengers, perhaps, and so choose to cannibalize your rear by either spinning sharply (if this is safe, which admittedly it's probably not, unless perhaps the road surface has lost grip and you cannot decelerate effectively using breaks) or - if a pile-up is likely - breaking more sharply to begin the crash with the vehicle behind ahead of schedule. There could be cooperative crashing, with all vehicles minimizing occurrence of collision and maximising optimal crumple-zone utilisation. I have no idea whatsoever what is or isn't safe or possible, but the cars can be made to know.

These things are all a long time away, but it's actually far more exciting than terrifying.

<comment><USER3> Scenario: two passangers in your car, four in the other. Head on crash incoming. Let's say the AI has two options:

A - You both die, one passanger in the other car dies. B - You survive, all four in the other car die.

What should the AI do?

Should the AI be set to value the driver and occupants life above all others, no matter what? or do we set an equation? 1 driver = 2 others? 3 others? 4? maybe the AI should ascertain fault and make a decision on that? ("if you're to blame you get a x2 weighting to die")

My guess is Google is ignoring this possibility and working to the car never crashing. But at 55mph on ice a loss of traction and control is always a possibility.

See, once we have AI making decisions, then we must also implement responsibility chains. Who takes the fall when decision making AI goes bad? The code writer? code owning corp? vehicle owner? CEO?

In general: AI = good to go, decision making AI = we are not ready.

<comment><USER4> We already have rather detailed rules (product liability law) for responsibility for products; and I've yet to see anything that points to any specific shortcoming of them when the product is an "AI making decisions".

I don't really understand why people act like "this product caused harm when used for its intended purpose, should someone be accountable and if so who?" is a question that society hasn't thoroughly considered.

<comment><USER3> Dumb products (for which the established laws apply) don't make decisions. AI does. That's what makes it AI, and it's gonna need new rules and regulations.

<comment><USER4> Even to the extent that the ways putative future AIs might "make decisions" might be more like the way humans do than the way existing products respond to stimulus and produce results, out body of liability law, thanks in part to the legacy of less egalitarian times, already had ample precedent for the treatment of responsibility for results of human decision making by entities that are legally property rather legal persons.

To the extent that more enlightened times might see actors with that kind of independence as legal persons even if they are manufactured, well, we have personal liability law already, which also addresses agency relations, etc. where one legal person might be responsible for the acts of another.

So, again, rather than vague handwaves at poorly defined distinctions, I'd like to hear those arguing that liability law is a real imminent problem with AI that will require major and fundamental change to do something to specify the specific ways in which existing law is inadequate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a clickbait meme that has been done to death.

There is no reason to assume that self-driving cars won't behave as selfishly as human drivers. That is, act in the self-interest of the passengers in all but the most extreme cases, most of which will be beyond the capability of the AI (or human driver) to understand. Like a human, an AI might be expected to stop suddenly if a child runs into the street, even at the risk of being rear- ended, because the risk to the passengers is minor. In the same circumstance, one would not expect an AI to drive off a cliff to avoid the child.

</comment><comment><USER6> Previous discussion (It has no too many comets, but the comments are interesting.) : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9584026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9584026) (9 points, 60 days ago, 5 comments)

</comment><comment><USER7> The problem with this article us that it does not take into account consequences. With human drivers the consequences of hitting another driver or pedestrian is on the driver while for automatised vehicles the consequences will be on a few companies. Companies are rarely held accountable for their action as seen by the GM ignition switch deatht except for a few fines and law suits. While a driver can be arrested and tried by criminal law for their actions. A person also has to live with the fact they killed someone while companies it will be a statistic.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ah the endless protectionist argument : let's take all control from your life so that we can save lives.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I'm not saying people dying is a good thing and nothing should be done to prevent it, but we are to be reasonable about it.

No matter what we do, people will eventually die, so let's not transform our lives in something so boring that the only non natural cause of death will be suicide.

</comment><comment><USER9> Banks get hacked, governments get hacked, purveyors of malware get hacked, sleazy websites get hacked.... any reason to expect that self-driving cars won't get hacked? Something as complex as autonomous pilot software surely has plenty of attack surface, which will be promptly exploited by scum like HackingTeam to provide remote control/monitoring abilities to shady customers.

</comment><comment><USER10> I honestly don't think this will ever be the case because it relies on two major assumptions: (1) there is some parent process in control of both cars involved in an accident. (2) all cars implement the same AI.

What is far more likely is a future in which there are many different types of self-driving AIs on the road from many different manafacturers, each of which will have different algorithms for all aspects of autonomous driving. Ultimately, this diversity will lead to carmakers designing algorithms that speculate on what another car might do. This is likely because the coordination costs between n different automaker's autonomous systems will rise with the square of n. In other words, unless we end up with a monoculture or only two or three different systems on the road, coordination just isn't going to happen. The second issue is that even if the automakers could coordinate, such coordination would rely on vehicle to vehicle communication of the actions each car wants to take. Coding the decision making for other cars into each car to anticipate onboard makes no sense because your vehicle would not have access to the sensor data to resolve the decision of the other car. Lastly, with V2V communications, negotiation and decision making, the impact of latency in likely to be so costly to making the best decision that any attempts of doing V2V negotiation will either be non-trivial or limited to an extremely simple model such as each car proposing n strategies (where n is like 2-3 solutions) and each care deciding the best option and incompatible option. This could keep negotiation fast enough to make a best decision.

Regardless of whether there is negotiation or merely guessing in real time about what the other car might do, the only thing each autonomous system designer can consider is the well-being of their passengers. All vehicles involved in an imminent accident acting in the self interest of their passengers is likely to be the optimal solutions. The only improvement I can see is some negotiation where some ideas of what decisions the other car might make allows each vehicle to make slightly between decisions to preserve the well being of their passengers.

People just like bringing this up because it lets them discuss this interesting philosophical question about morality. Once these discussions encounter the realities of how autonomous cars are likely to evolve and penetrate the market, it's going to be painfully obvious that this is a futile thought exercise to even waste your time with.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'll go with a custom firmware which saves driver's life unconditionally.

<comment><USER12> How does the firmware save you from the prison shank?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pity the title refers to an interesting discussion point that isn't discussed till quite late in the article, and then only fleetingly.</comment>


Best configuration for dedicated server? - <AUTHOR>

I've some forums running on a VPS at Rimuhosting. Everything works great, but dedicated servers are cheap right now.
What's the best way to setup a dedicated server to have some services online? do you really need XEN?
I Would like to setup php5, mysql5 on apache (maybe ngnx too). And would like to ran some rails development to, so, SVN required.
Would be great if you share your dedicated servers layout. <comment><USER2> Just get plenty of memory. Nothing else matters in a modern server--CPUs are way faster than they need to be, disks are bigger than necessary (generally), and the bottleneck is pretty much always going to be RAM.

<comment><USER3> Memory is important, but I wouldn't skimp on the CPU. In my experience (a rails app on mongrel/nginx and a php5 app on lighttpd/nginx), CPU has been the bottleneck, not memory. It's also a lot easier to add memory than to increase CPU power.

<comment><USER2> I can't imagine how that could possibly be true without pathologically CPU intensive code. But, all things are possible in an infinite universe, so I won't argue too strenuously about it.

I just haven't seen any web service situations in the past seven years, or so, where CPU was the bottleneck, and I've been involved involved in a lot of web scalability projects (it's what my previous company specialized in).

Are you sure you weren't actually seeing some kind of thrashing triggered by being low on memory or too-slow disk access? For example, when Squid gets overloaded, CPU usage spikes up to nearly 100%--but increasing the speed of the CPU does nothing to make things go faster. You have to give it more memory and more disk throughput. The reason it looks like a CPU usage spike is because the select or poll loop is so busy waiting for file descriptors to be ready (not an entirely accurate description...but it should give you the gist of it if you've ever done any concurrent programming in C without using threads). But maybe PHP and Ruby can work the CPU in pathological ways that I've not seen...modern CPUs are just so damned fast, it's hard to imagine.

<comment><USER4> The universe isn't infinite. If that'd be the case, there'd be infinite matter, and therefore infinite gravity, and we'd all be reduced to black hole singularities :-)

<comment><USER2> In that case, I guess it's impossible for CPU to be the limiting factory in this universe. ;-)

(And, technically, there is still debate about whether the universe is infinite or not. And, our universe may yet reduce to a singularity. Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. The universe is tricky like that.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Learned this neat trick from the EngineYard guys. If you plan to scale, I would recommend having seperate Xen slices for your web, app, and database components. It was a life saver to be able to just move your database and app servers to seperate boxes when we needed to scale out.

Memory is critical. Yes, Rails is a little slow but application servers are trivial to scale. The database is virtually always going to be the hard bottle neck so you're going to want plenty of memory.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure, but there was a PDF from EngineYard recommending a layout right? using XEN a many different vps for dns, mysql, etc?

<comment><USER5> Yes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have the .PDF?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry! I've just found it.

[http://www.slideshare.net/vishnu/xen-and-the-art-of-rails- de...](http://www.slideshare.net/vishnu/xen-and-the-art-of-rails-deployment/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I will go for XEN, virtualization is always good and nowadays the performance lost is unappreciable, on the other side you gain a machine you can copy and move. If you have your full machine image backuped and you screw something on it, you only need to go the real shell and restore it. Also, you can have a develpment vm and a production vm, well you know better what you need.

On the hardware side setup a RAID either hardware or software, but with a hardware RAID you better pray for it to not crash. I've seem some nasty issues with raid controllers. Also, get plenty of memory and dual/quad core processor.

For the OS, I will go for Debian or Ubuntu Server if you want some kind of support (yes, I know that there are people servicing Debian support, but they are less blamable!)

<comment><USER7> I tend to think of virtualization as a sandboxing method instead of a deployment method. I'd only use virtualization if the apps I'm running may compromise the security or stability of the host machine. Otherwise, most web frameworks have some kind of deployment method, as well as support for different environments (production/test), and that's generally good enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It really depends on what the server is being dedicated to.

Xen and any other virtualization comes out of your overhead costs, unless you have a specific need for it (like being able to migrate seamlessly to EC2) don't bother.

For what you are planning to do Ubuntu server edition would probably cover most of your needs and give you enough support to quickly resolve problems.

Don't bother with softraid, if your data isn't important enough for you to afford a dedicated RAID controller and the disks to go with it; you can live with the possibility of losing everything up to the last backup (you will be taking backups).

<comment><USER2> I disagree on the soft RAID vs. hardware RAID (if by soft RAID, you mean the md layer in Linux). I'm not a fan of hardware RAID, in general. I wrote the following ages ago on Slashdot in response to the same kind of disparaging statement about soft RAID:

The data integrity benefits are still present, as are some performance benefits in some circumstances (in fact, Linux RAID is demonstrably faster in some workloads than a top end Adaptec hardware RAID controller, though this is the exception rather than the rule)

That said, I hate pretty much all RAID controllers (whether software or hardware). Linux software RAID means that I can drop the disks into any PC and access the data. Every RAID controller from Promise, Adaptec, and Tektronic requires me to use their disk format, and if I lose the controller I lose the data until I can get another controller. Sure, in high availability environments, you keep a spare...but with Linux software RAID, every PC in the office is a spare controller. That's my kinda redundancy. I've even had two identical Adaptecs with different firmware lead to pretty massive data loss during a server migration. Thankfully there were good backups. I've never had similar problems moving Linux software RAID disks into a new Linux box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're going to be using PHP then I would strongly recommend finding a host that will let you install Fedora 7/8.

I had to set up a PHP environment on 64-bit Ubuntu recently and it wa s a major pain. The PHP binary from apt-get was 5.1.2 and pdo_mysql wouldn't install out of the box (I had to comment out part of the install script). The lighttpd binary was also pretty old (1.4.11 I think) and had a bug specific to Ubuntu/Debian that caused major performance problems with fastcgi; I had to build the latest version from source. It's still workable but it just seems like Fedora is a lot more PHP-friendly.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would like to share this about XEN and Deploying Rails.

Very Interesting.

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/69623/RailsConf07-Notes-Xen-And- Th...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/69623/RailsConf07-Notes-Xen-And-The-Art-of- Deploying-Rails)

</comment><comment><USER9> unless you are pushing the virtual to the max I would just stay with that. I have used both and to be honest there is nothing in it when it comes to running web apps. I have done gaming servers on both and dedicated have the edge just. I would save your money.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everybody for the great feedback! :)</comment>


What's your advice about our startup? It's really solve problem? - <AUTHOR> https://www.pbxdom.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Video about PBXDOM [https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/lyvuwj9org?popover=true](https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/lyvuwj9org?popover=true)</comment>


Ask HN: Help me decide to build my next startup - <AUTHOR>

I was researching one field for starting my next startup, but after researching a lot I have found 2 issues:
* We have some competitors on this field Working in this area for almost 4-5years, some of them are working on this field more than this probably
* The area we are going to tackle mostly done face-to-face, through paper, on-site and depends on local physical place.
Why do we want to do this?
* area has enourmous spendings each year (about ~1Trln), we are not saying we can get 1-2%, no, we just want to change it somehow, we are in 21st century, it should be automated more, it should go online (sure some parts of it already online which they use, no way without this)
* in 21st century they are doing this mostly kind of offline, you should find local provider of this service, then fill form on their web site (if any) then go there to meet them onsite and etc,.
Can you give some advice on this issues? <comment><USER2> I would go and talk to some of your potential customers first. Find out of its a real pain point for them or if there is something you did not consider. I took this approach when I thought about doing a startup focused on recruiter

</comment><comment><USER3> You're being so vague about your startup that it's not clear whether or not you've got a good chance.

What do your customers say? Are you meeting their needs right now? Would they recommend your product or service to others?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am actually in researching phase. I was reading an article and saw statistics related to that area, numbers were not so bad, decided to research how most companies do this kind of business and seemed like most of them are offline.

Decided to research online side of. Very few players, but doing it over 4-5years, some of them 8years. Couldn't find any big valuation or exits. Thats why decided to research more. Maybe its not time to build it now, because no big investments for that type of companies, maybe it is just starting, lots of confusion on my brain.

Searching guys from my network who is involved in this business in order to get his opinion about making service online

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes you should maybe do some of all of the things above and/or below this comment.

Seriously though - what's the industry? Real estate? Insurance?</comment>