OpenAI LP - <AUTHOR> https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp/ <comment><USER2> Wow. Screw non-profit, we want to get rich.

Sorry guys, but before you were probably able to get talent which is not (primarily) motivated by money. Now you are just another AI startup. If the cap would be 2x, it could still make sense. But 100x times? That's laughable! And the split board, made up of friends and closely connected people smells like "greenwashing" as well. Don't get me wrong, it's totally ok to be an AI startup. You just shouldn't pretend to be a non-profit then...

<comment><AUTHOR> (I work at OpenAI.)

I think this tweet from one of our employees sums it up well:

[https://twitter.com/Miles_Brundage/status/110519043405200588...](https://twitter.com/Miles_Brundage/status/1105190434052005889)

Why are we making this move? Our mission is to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity, and our primary approach to doing this is to actually try building safe AGI. We need to raise billions of dollars to do this, and needed a structure like OpenAI LP to attract that kind of investment while staying true to the mission.

If we succeed, the return will be exceed the cap by orders of magnitude. See [https://blog.gregbrockman.com/the-openai- mission](https://blog.gregbrockman.com/the-openai-mission) for more details on how we think about the mission.

<comment><USER3> I believe you. I also believe there are now going to be outside parties with strong financial incentives in OpenAI who are not altruistic. I also believe this new structure will attract employees with less altruistic goals, that could slowly change the culture of OpenAI. I also believe there's nothing stopping anyone from changing the OpenAI mission further over time, other than the culture, which is now more susceptible to change.

<comment><USER4> Something something money and power corrupts?

We can just look at Google and see that "do no evil" does not work when you've got billions of dollars and reach into everyone's private lives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't be surprised if OpenAI had some crazy aquisition in its future by one of the tech giants. Press release says 'We believe the best way to develop AGI is by joining forces with X and are excited to use it to seel you better ads. We also have turned the profits we would have payed taxes on to a non profit that pays us salaries for researching the quality of sand in the Bahamas'

</comment><comment><USER6> I was buying it until he said that profit is "capped" at 100x of initial investment.

So someone who invests $10 million has their investment "capped" at $1 billion. Lol. Basically unlimited unless the company grew to a FAANG-scale market value.

<comment><AUTHOR> We believe that if we do create AGI, we'll create orders of magnitude more value than any existing company.

<comment><USER7> I was going to make a comment on the line

>The fundamental idea of OpenAI LP is that investors and employees can get a capped return if we succeed at our mission

Is that the mission? Create AGI? If you create AGI, we have a myriad of sci-fi books that have explored what will happen.

1\. Post-scarcity. AGI creates maximum efficiency in every single system in the world, from farming to distribution channels to bureaucracies. Money becomes worthless.

2\. Immortal ruling class. Somehow a few in power manage to own total control over AGI without letting it/anyone else determine its fate. By leveraging "near-perfect efficiency," they become god-emperors of the planet. Money is meaningless to them.

3\. Robot takeover. Money, and humanity, is gone.

Sure, silliness in fiction, but is there a reasonable alternative from the creation of actual, strong general artificial intelligence? I can't see a world with this entity in it that the question of "what happens to the investors' money" is a relevant question at all. Basically, if you succeed, why are we even talking about investor return?

<comment><USER8> re 1) there may be no scarcity of food and widgets but there is only so much beachfront land. Money probably won't be worthless.

<comment><USER7> I hear you, but not everyone wants beachfront land. Furthermore, I do believe it would be possible to give everyone a way to wake up and see a beach, particularly in a post-scarcity world. I mean, let your imagination run wild - filling out existent islands, artificial island, towers, etc.

<comment><USER9> But there will be always preference. Whenever there is preference for finite resources (even if that resource is "number of meter from celebrity X") there needs to be a method for allocation.. which currently is money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really neat corporate structure! We'd looked into becoming a B-Corp, but the advice that we'd gotten was that it was an almost strictly inferior vehicle both for achieving impact and for potentially achieving commercial success for us. I'm obviously not a lawyer, but it's great to see Open AI contributing to the new interesting structures to solve hard global scale problems.

I wonder if the profit cap multiple is going to end up being a significant signalling risk for them. A down-round is such a negative event in the valley, I can imagine a "increasing profit multiple" would have to be treated the same way.

One other question for the folks at OpenAI: How would equity grants work here? You get X fraction of an LP that gets capped at Y dollar profits? Are the fractional partnerships/transferable if earned into?

Would you folks think about publishing your docs?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we're planning to release a third-party usable reference version of our docs (creating this structure was a lot of work, probably about 6-9 months of implementation).

We've made the equity grants feel very similar to startup equity — you are granted a certain number of "units" which vest over time, and more units will be issued as other join employees in the future. Incidentally, these end up being taxed more favorably than options, so we think this model may be useful for startups for that reason too.

<comment><USER11> >>Incidentally, these end up being taxed more favorably than options, so we think this model may be useful for startups for that reason too.

Is this due to long term capital gains? Do you allow for early exercising for employees? Long term cap gains for options require holding 2 years since you were granted the options and 1 year since you exercised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They were able to attract talent and PR in the name of altruism and here they are now trying to flip the switch as quietly as possible. If the partner gets a vote/profit then a "charter" or "mission" won't change anything. You will never be able to explicitly prove that a vote had a "for profit" motive.

Elon was irritated that he was behind in the AI intellectual property race and this narrative created a perfect opportunity. Not surprised in the end. Tesla effectively did the same thing - "come help me save the planet" with overpriced cars. [Edit: Apparently Elon has left OpenAI but I don't believe for a second that he will not participate in this LP]

<comment><AUTHOR> > If the partner gets a vote/profit then a "charter" or "mission" won't change > anything

(I work at OpenAI.)

The board of OpenAI Nonprofit retains full control. Investors don't get a vote. Some investors may be _on_ the board, but: (a) only a minority of the board are allowed to have a stake in OpenAI LP, and (b) anyone with a stake can't vote in decisions that may conflict with the mission: [https://openai.com/blog/openai- lp/#themissioncomesfirst](https://openai.com/blog/openai- lp/#themissioncomesfirst)

<comment><USER13> People who control the money, generally have a lot of influence, especially when money is running short, regardless if they are on the board or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Investor returns are capped at 100x, thats quite a high cap for a non-profit.

<comment><USER10> Interesting way to think about it:

This is equivalent to saying:

"If you put 10m$ into us for 20% of the post-money business, anything beyond a 5B$ valuation you don't see any additional profits from" which seems like a high but not implausible cap. I suspect they're also raising more money on better terms which would make the cap further off.

<comment><USER15> Yeah but they've already said they need to raise __billions __not millions. It 's a completely implausible cap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> First not publishing the GPT-2 model, now this...hopefully I am wrong but it looks like they are heading towards being a closed-off proprietary AI money making machine. This further incentivizes them to be less transparent and not open source their research. :(

</comment><comment><USER17> OpenAI's mission statement is to ensure that AGI "benefits all of humanity", and its charter rephrases this as "used for the benefit of all".

But without a more concrete and specific definition, "benefit of all" is meaningless. For most projects, one can construct a claim that it has the potential to benefit most or all of a large group of people at some point.

So, what does that commitment mean?

If an application benefits some people and harms others, is it unacceptable? What if it harms some people now in exchange for the promise of a larger benefit at some point in the future?

Must it benefit everyone it touches and harm no one? What if it harms no one but the vast majority of its benefits accrue to only the top 1% of humanity?

What is the line?

</comment><comment><USER18> Greg, you seem to be answering questions here so I have one for you:

This change seems to be about ease of raising money and retaining talent. My question is: are you having difficulty doing those things today, and do you project having difficulty doing that in the foreseeable future?

I'll admit I'm skeptical of these changes. Creating a 100x profit cap significantly (I might even say categorically) changes the mission and value of what you folks are doing. Basically, this seems like a pretty drastic change and I'm wondering if the situation is dire enough to warrant it. There's no question it will be helpful in raising money and retaining talent, I'm just wondering if it's worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our mission is articulated here and does not change: [https://openai.com/charter/](https://openai.com/charter/). As we say in the Charter, our primary means of accomplishing the mission is to build safe AGI ourselves. That means raising billions of dollars, without which the Nonprofit will fail at its mission. That's a huge amount of money and not something we could raise without changing structure.

Regardless of structure, it's worth humanity making this kind of investment because building safe AGI can return orders of magnitude more value than any company has to date. See one possible AGI application in this post: [https://blog.gregbrockman.com/the-openai-mission#the- impact-...](https://blog.gregbrockman.com/the-openai-mission#the-impact-of- agi_1)

<comment><USER19> How much progress do you think you've made in the past 3 years towards that goal and what makes you think that you'll get there within the next few decades?

Also what makes you believe that Open AI will get there way ahead of thousands of other research labs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yes or no: will you remain a registered non-profit organization (401/501-type orgs or similar), or were you ever? It's fine to call your self non-profit but if you don't have to abide by the rules of them then you aren't, period.

I think all of us here are tired of "altruistic" tech companies which are really profit mongers in disguise. The burden is on you all to prove this is not the case (and this doesn't really help your case).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, OpenAI Nonprofit is a 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. See our Charter for details: [https://openai.com/charter/](https://openai.com/charter/).

The Nonprofit would fail at this mission without raising billions of dollars, which is why we have designed this structure. If we succeed, we believe we'll create orders of magnitude more value than any existing company — in which case all but a fraction is returned to the world.

<comment><USER21> In other words, you have no downside. Create AGI and you win the game. Don't and you walk away with profit from the ride.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> They are looking to raise billions and cap returns at x100? That means the returns will be capped at the "trillions"? So if they raise $5bn, they need to generate $500bn for the money to start pumping to the non-profit organization.

More like: If we make enough money to own the whole world, we'll give you some food not to starve.

</comment><comment><USER23> Reactions on Reddit seem different from here - [https://redd.it/azvbmn](https://redd.it/azvbmn)

</comment><comment><USER24> Genuine question: Is this restructure for the purpose of taking government military contracts? I don't see how investors would be getting 100x returns otherwise and my understanding was that salaries for employees was competitive with big tech companies. Curious where Open AI feels like there's money to be made.

<comment><AUTHOR> No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> OpenAI is slowly but surely turning into another for profit AI company. They are slowly killing all the original ideals that made OpenAI unique over the hundreds of AI startups. They should just rebrand it.

And they are unironically talking about creating AGI. AGI is awesome of course but maybe that is a tiny little bit overconfident ?

</comment><comment><USER26> Ok, so when OpenAI was still a straight non-profit the Charter made sense in the context and there wasn't much need to specify it any further.

Now with OpenAI leaving the non-profit path the Charter content, fuzzy as it is, is 100% up for interpretation. It does not specify what "benefit of all" or "undue concentration of power" means concretely. It's all up for interpretation.

So at this point the trust that I can put into this Charter is about the same that I can put into Google's "Don't be evil"...

<comment><AUTHOR> The Nonprofit has full control, in a legally binding way: [https://openai.com/blog/openai- lp/#themissioncomesfirst](https://openai.com/blog/openai- lp/#themissioncomesfirst)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Will investing be open to all accredited investors or just a handpicked selection? Opening a crowdsourced investment opportunity would be in line with your vision to democratize the use of AI. The more people that have a non- operational ownership stake in Open AI the better.

<comment><USER28> Great question, and how OpenAI LP handles accepting investments will say a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is there something about the mystical nature of AGI that attracts sketchiness and flim-flammery? I remember the "Singularity Institute for Artificial General Intelligence" trying to pull similar scams a decade ago.

</comment><comment><USER30> Clearly deep learning has solved the heardest AI problem of them all: that of _funding_.

</comment><comment><USER19> > ... Sam Altman (CEO) ...

Was this announced before or is this the first time they've mentioned it?

<comment><USER31> It was tangentially implied in the "YC Updates" thread from a few days ago, where it mentioned Sam "stepping away" to "focus on open.ai".

<comment><USER32> I did not think this was implied by the previous statement. But I have not been following org structure of openai at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> They say they have started this new form of company because there's is no "pre-existing legal structure" suitable.

But there are precedents for investing billions of dollars into blue sky technologies and still being able to spread the wealth and knowledge gathered - it's called government investment in science - it has built silicon chips and battery technologies and ... well quite a lot.

Is this company planning on "fundamental" research (anti-adversarial, "explainable" outcomes?) - and why do we think government investment is not good enough?

Or, worryingly, are the major tech leaders now so rich that they can honestly taken on previous government roles (with only the barest of nods to accountability and legal obligation to return value to the commons)

I am a bit scared that it's the latter - and even then this is too expensive for any one firm alone.

<comment><USER34> These people have spent their entire life in the Valley, they don't know any better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I was very much behind the mission; now I'm not so sure. If it was this easy for OpenAI to start down this path, think of what Amazon or Facebook will do - people with no moral compass whatsoever. It's probably not too early to start thinking about government regulation.

</comment><comment><USER36> Presumably OpenAI created a lot of IP with donor dollars under the original nonprofit entity. Who owns that IP now? I imagine it got appraised and sold by the original nonprofit to the new OpenAI LP. That seems like a difficult process, given no one really knows what this type of IP is worth. If this is what happened, who did that appraisal and how was it done?

If no IP was sold to the new OpenAI LP because some or all of the IP created under the original nonprofit OpenAI was open sourced, will the new OpenAI LP continue that practice?

<comment><AUTHOR> (I work at OpenAI.)

See my tweet about this: [https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1105173883378851846](https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1105173883378851846)

<comment><USER37> > We had the fair market value of anything transferred from the nonprofit to > the LP determined by an outside firm.

Greg, would you please elaborate more on this part of your tweet? Also, can the OpenAI LP commercialize work/research produced by OpenAI non-profit? Can you use grants that were raised by the non-profit into recruiting for the LP?

Thanks for talking questions and engaging in conversations to make things clear for our community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> So first they withhold the model they built and now this. I'm not implying anything but this looks fishy

</comment><comment><USER39> Very cool idea. Like some others here, I really appreciate attempts to create new structures for bringing ideas to the world.

Since I'm not a lawyer, can you help understand the theoretical limits of the LP's "lock in" to the Charter? In a cynical scenario, what would it take to completely capture OpenAI's work for profit?

If the Nonprofit's board was 60% people who want to break the Charter, would they be capable of voting to do so?

</comment><comment><USER40> To OpenAI team, that is not right but it's very well played.

You guys raised free money in forms of grants, acquired the best talent in the name of a non-profit that has a purpose of saving humanity, and always had publicity stunts that is actually hurting science and the AI community, and talking the first steps against reproducibility by not releasing gpt2 so you can further commercialize your future models.

Also, you guys claim that the non-profit board retains full control, but seems like the same 7 white men on that board are also on the board of your profit company and have a strong influence there.

Call it what you want, but I think this was planned out from day one. Now, you guy won the game. It's just a matter of time to dominate the AI game, keep manipulating us, and appear on the Forbes list.

Also, I expect that you guys will dislike that comment instead of having an actual dialogue and discussion.

</comment><comment><USER41> > We are traveling a hard and uncertain path, but we have designed our > structure to help us positively affect the world should we succeed in > creating AGI—which we think will have as broad impact as the computer itself > and improve healthcare

Grammar--would change to: _as broad an impact_

</comment><comment><USER42> Could some random regular person, who is an accredited investor after US rules (e.g. a non-US person) invest, say, $10,000 in this venture as a minor investor/contributor? Or is OpenAI LP only interested in much larger investment amounts?

</comment><comment><USER43> OTOH, it is exciting to see people who are not google/facebook/uber going in the race for-profit. Perhaps they 'll feel some competition over real products now. (but the "100x cap" thing is just childish)

</comment><comment><USER44> One object lesson in how this can go wrong: REI

This "cooperative" ostensibly elects its board. In reality, nomination by existing members of the REI board is the only way to stand for election by the REI membership, and when you vote you only by marking "For" the nominated candidates (there's no information on how to vote against, though at another time they indicated that the alternative was "Withold vote"). While the board members don't earn much, there is a nice path from board member to REI executive ... which can pay as much as $2M/year for the CEO position.

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting, I'm super tempted to apply to that Mechanical Engineer opening. How exactly does OpenAI make money though? It is sponsored or is there external investment (Can you invest in a non-profit?)?

</comment><comment><USER46> I don't think we can guarantee AGI will benefit all humanity, open-sourcing it may help but not necessarily. My heart actually sinks when I read that mission statement on this page, it's like in the movies where the guy has a gun to someone's head and gets them to give up the information they know before blowing their brains out.

</comment><comment><USER47> Is there any indication of what avenues OpenAI will be (or would consider) using to generate revenue? A lot of the most financially lucrative opportunities for AI (surveillance/tracking, military) are morally ambiguous at best.

<comment><USER7> If they actually make a strong, general artificial intelligence, sci fi has a couple answers.

In one (I can't find the title), MIT students make an SGAI and somehow manage to keep it contained (away from the internet). They feed it animated Disney movies and it cranks out the best animated movies ever made. They make billions. Eventually they make "live-action" movies that are indistinguishable from the real thing. Then they make music, books, etc, and create an unstoppable media force.

They could leverage the AI to discover hyper-efficient supply chain methods.

They could sequence genomes and run experiments, and sell the data.

Possibly exciting things around weather prediction.

Very exciting things around _any_ research.

<comment><USER47> Certainly if they make a strong AGI, money is no longer an issue. I'm curious what they will do in the, ah, interim, on the off-chance that inventing SAGI turns out to be a difficult problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Without an obviously stated business model to satisfy the investor returns, it's hard to take the values platitudes seriously. Do you plan to make your pitch deck public? That'd help.

</comment><comment><USER49> I admire the attempt to create a sustainable project that's primarily about creating a positive impact!

For those (including myself) who wonder whether a 100x cap will really change an organization from being profit-driven to being positive-impact-driven:

How could we improve on this?

One idea is to not allow investors on the board. Investors are profit-driven. If they're on the board, you'll likely get pressure to do things that optimize for profit rather than for positive impact.

Another idea is to make monetary compensation based on some measure of positive impact. That's one explicit way to optimize for positive impact rather than money.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why the Limited Partnership at all? What can the nonprofit "Inc" do through the for-profit "LP" shell that it could not do in its own right?

</comment><comment><USER51> Hey Greg,

Since you seem to be answering questions in this thread, here's one:

How does OpenAI LP's structure differ from that of a L3C (Low-profit Limited Liability company)?

</comment><comment><USER17> To "ensure it is used for the benefit of all" requires limiting how AGI is used.

How will OpenAI do that?

</comment><comment><USER52> There are a couple of comments on the theme that this is taking a non-profit into a for-profit company, and that that is a bad thing.

I'd like to offer up an alternate opinion: non-profits operating models are generally ineffective compared to for-profit operating models.

There are many examples.

* Bill Gates is easy; make squillions being a merciless capitalist, then turn that into a very productive program of disease elimination and apparently energy security nowadays.

* Open source is another good one in my opinion - even when they literally give the software away, many of the projects leading their fields (eg, Google Chrome, Android, PostgreSQL, Linux Kernel) draw heavily on sponsorship by for-profit companies using them for furthering their profits - even if the steering committee is nominally non-profit.

* I have examples outside software, but they are all a bit complicated to type up. Things like China's rise.

It isn't that there isn't a place for researchers who are personally motivated to do things, there is a just a high correlation between something making a profit and it getting done to a high standard.

</comment><comment><USER53> So are they looking for capital or they have it?

<comment><USER54> "Our investors include Reid Hoffman's charitable foundation and Khosla Ventures, among others."

I'm assuming these investors have already provided capital.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Mission oriented for-profit companies is an oxymoron. Profit comes from competing in markets and markets determine what you end up doing. That's why I'm always skeptical of Don't Be Evil types of missions because when you're starting you can't even imagine what market pressure will end up making you do.

Between the market pressures from investors, employees, competitors, to what extent can a company really stay true to its business and deny potential profit that conflicts with it.

Also, it's hard to root for specific for profit companies (although I'm rooting for capitalism per se).

</comment><comment><USER56> Why not make OpenAI LP a B-Corp?

</comment><comment><USER57> Is it just me or there are not many african americans working in AI research and industry. I don't have stats to back me up but that's my personal observation. People in the field, what are your thoughts on it.

<comment><USER58> I don't have any statistics for you, but Google at least is looking to improve on this a bit. A good friend of mine from their NYC Brain office moved to Accra, Ghana just last week to help build out their new office there.

<comment><USER59> I don't think an office in Ghana would be employing very many African Americans (or, for that matter, very many Americans of any background).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> And Khosla Ventures is one of their key investors.

Let's not forget that Khosla himself does not exactly care about public interest or existing laws [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/tech...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/technology/california- beach-access-khosla.amp.html)

<comment><USER61> Non-AMP link: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/technology/california- bea...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/technology/california-beach-access- khosla.html)

I just read the article, and am not sure I see the issue. Quote from his lawyer: "No owner of private business should be forced to obtain a permit from the government before deciding who it wants to invite onto its property"

Where's the issue here? They guy basically bought the property all around the beach, and decided to close down access. I wouldn't say it's a nice thing to do, but it's legal. If I buy a piece of property, my rights as the owner should trump the rights of a bunch of surfers who want to get to a beach. The state probably should have been smart enough not to sell __all __the land.

Failing that, just seize a small portion via eminent domain: a 15-foot-wide strip on the edge of the property would likely come at a reasonable cost, and ought to provide an amicable resolution for all.

<comment><USER62> It's actually not legal, at least in California. That's why he's trying to take it to the Supreme Court- he's hoping to get the federal government to override state laws.

He was also completely aware of this when he bought the property, so it's not like this is a surprise or someone forcing him to change things. He's the one who broke the law and broke the status quo that had existed at that beach.

<comment><USER61> Property rights are constitutionally protected, and under the precedents surrounding the 14th amendments, this overrules California's rules. Eminent domain remains legal, but legally speaking, Khosla is in the right here.

<comment><USER63> The Supreme Court begs to differ.

<comment><USER61> The Supreme Court didn't grant cert; that's different. That means they don't want to set precedent or believe sufficient precedent exists already. This was last adjudicated in 1999 with Saenz v. Roe, where California tried to set new residents' welfare to what they got in other states for one year. The court ruled this violated the constitutional protection of interstate travel, and upheld the view that the 14th amendment applied all constitutional rights to all states. Source: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fourteenth_amendment_0](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fourteenth_amendment_0)

This undoubtedly then applies the 5th amendment takings clause: "…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." This is clearly violated in this sense, and the state cannot violate this right (see above).

The fact that the Supreme Court didn't grant cert probably means they believe there is already precedent here, or just as probably that they didn't have the time. They always have a full docket; they were probably just out of slots.

I urge others to rebut this from a legal sense, not just say they disagree. People keep killing my comments, but it seems like they all just dislike the "selfish" appearance of the actions.

<comment><USER62> The Supreme Court refused to overturn the appeal, which means they upheld the decision of the lower courts.

I honestly don't understand how you can take that action and try to turn it around the way you are.

<comment><USER61> > The Supreme Court refused to overturn the appeal, which means they upheld > the decision of the lower courts.

Completely incorrect. "The Court usually is not under any obligation to hear these [appealed] cases, and it usually only does so if the case could have national significance, might harmonize conflicting decisions in the federal Circuit courts, and/or could have precedential value. In fact, the Court accepts 100-150 of the more than 7,000 cases that it is asked to review each year." Source: [https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational- re...](https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational- resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/supreme-1)

The SC not hearing the case doesn't mean they uphold the lower court's ruling, it means they aren't hearing the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Sam Altman here to shake things up it seems!

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been working on this new structure together for the past two years!

<comment><USER64> Oh that's pretty cool. Do you by chance have any articles or posts going through your initial thought process and/or eventual realization for why you ultimately thought this transition was necessary for OpenAI?

Was it a particular event, a conversation, perhaps just an incremental ideation without any actual epiphany needed, etc?</comment></comment></comment>


Scott Kelly Spent a Year in Orbit. His Body Is Not Quite the Same - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/scott-mark-kelly-twins-space-nasa.html#click=https://t.co/Tr2EtNP2z3 <comment><USER2> >Drawing his own blood in zero gravity, for example, was a familiar routine. "I've had a couple spills in my time," Mr. Kelly said. "You just reach out and grab the blobs of blood."

That paragraph stopped me short. It reads like something from a Heinlein novel.

<comment><USER3> I absolutely love hearing stories from astronauts about how quickly they adapt to microgravity and how easy it is to forget when they come back.

Things like stories of them suddenly letting go of stuff they are holding on earth and expecting it to float there, or reaching out to grab on to a wall to stop themselves while walking down a hallway.

<comment><USER4> I've heard a couple of similar stories from people who spend a lot of time in VR and forget that the rules don't transfer back. One guy smacked his head into the fridge door trying to look inside it because he forgot that he would actually _collide with_ the door.

<comment><USER5> I'm really not looking forwards to VR driving games, then.

<comment><USER6> I heavily played GTA: Vice City during the time I learned how to drive. After I got my driver's licence, I remember one instance where I clearly noticed how my brain drifted into GTA mode while I was driving through town. I had to actively remember myself that this is a real environment and that I cannot just drive over the street lamp post without anything happening. I talked to a classmate about this and he had had a similar experience, but with Mafia (which had a very realistic car handling, you could even activate an expert mode where you had to shift manually iirc).

I stopped playing GTA for a while after that.

<comment><USER7> This has been part of my concern with such things. I don't know that the alarmism about "violent videogames create young terrorist-wannabes" is correct, but it's hard (especially as games become increasingly photorealistic and physics become more and more accurate) to distinguish, I'm sure.

It's a little scary to think we might have a guy run someone else over, and plead insanity saying "I thought it was a videogame". This strikes me as another manifestation of the same problem we will have to deal with concerning things like Google Duplex: is it okay to have robots that can impersonate humans? Games that can impersonate the real world? There was a discussion the other day on how online dating apps are causing a large percentage of men to end up "involuntarily celibate"; some people proposed sex-bots as a solution. Can we really live with ourselves as people and as a society if these things come to pass?

<comment><USER4> That's the thing, though. It's not "I thought I was in a video game, officer." (In fact that's often used as a strawman.) It's "my reflexes were slightly perturbed by the amount of time I've spent practicing an activity that looks very similar to this activity but has very different rules in some circumstances."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I guess outline.com doesn't work on NYT any more. Copy/paste here?

<comment><USER9> Do what you got to do, but I'd like to take a moment to say I signed up for an online subscription. Journalism is important and I'm ok with a couple bucks a month to support it.

<comment><USER7> I would rather not support the New York Times. I find their coverage to be overtly biased, and don't think that's worth giving money to.

I think the Wall Street Journal is closest to center: reporting leans left; editorials lean right.

<comment><USER9> To each their own. I've found WSJ is fine, it gets a little simplistic at times where I find it a bit disingenuous. Too many "here's a one line bar graph that shows a thing going up 10 years after de/regulation" like that's not evidence of anything.... but that's hardly unique among news these days.

Outside of what I think are the obviously truly "biased" groups, I don't perceive it as just left or right all the time. I think there's a lot of room to cover a story various ways and not necessarily be "biased". But I certainly see how folks think that way, it does worry me though, even on HN you'll see "here's 3 negative sounding articles about this topic... that reporter is biased". Like that's not necessarily biased man...

<comment><USER7> I agree that WSJ isn't perfect, I just think it's good about breaking news and original reporting. The rest, I get from other sources (including far-left and far-right ones). It's part of a balanced news diet, so to speak.

I understand not everyone is biased, but the NYT is still not good about it. The top of their front page today is the Israeli election "through the eyes of a palestinian". Top of the page has an article called, "How Capitalism Betrayed Privacy". Also top is an article entitled, "How Big Business Is Hedging Against the Apocalypse", followed by an article about how the "digital world is not designed to keep women safe." that advocates for regulation (but seriously, why would we design the internet to keep one group safe? And how?).

I understand that doesn't make everything they report wrong, and I still read articles by them, but I'd rather support the WSJ if I've got to pick one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I read his memoir when it first came out. It's mentioned briefly in the NYT article, but I highly recommend giving it a read.

</comment><comment><USER11> Have there been precious studies that look at generic changes in astronauts?

This article is great but it feels like everyone mentioned in it is making a lot of statements on an extremely limited sample size.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, so far there were just estimations. Even this is still in a wayI mean my gf's father has a twin and they were mirror image of each other but then in less than 5 years both became so different that you can hardly even tell that they are related in any way. If there will be few more twins to repeat this project then a more generic result could be gathered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe the reality is that all the science fiction stories have got it wrong all these times: that we have to genetically engineer different humans to traverse interplanetary (and in the far future, interstellar) distances and to live in alien worlds, so that we have less in common with them, physiologically, than we have with, say, the Cro Magnons.

<comment><USER14> I imagine interstellar travel with some kind of Matrix-like hibernation. But all the problems with interplanetary are just a matter of stinginess. Low gravity? Make a 2001 style ring. Radiation? Make a big ass ship with enough isolation.

Is that _astronomically_ expensive? Of course. But avoid gravity well. Start building a Moon base with mining facilities, then move to Ceres, and son on.

Current Mars fever is a distraction. We have no idea what Mars gravity could do to babies born there. Do parents have the right to raise their children in Mars? Even if they're viable, they might want to come to Earth and find out their bodies won't resist the gravity. What about waiting for animal tests?

<comment><USER15> _> Current Mars fever is a distraction._

Yes, but it's a distraction from doing absolutely nothing at all with humans in space. I agree in a saner world we'd have built a Moon base first, and then moved on from there. But it's apparently not how we as a civilization operate.

Instead we set lofty and slightly impractical goals. If we meet those goals, we usually take two steps back and wait for a few generations. But if we are not successful, we usually never try again.

It's not ideal, but yes, I'd absolutely prefer an ambitious Mars program over nothing at all. And for decades, until recently, nothing at all was where we were comfortable.

 _> We have no idea what Mars gravity could do to babies born there. Do parents have the right to raise their children in Mars?_

Historically, we have been very bad at predicting these things, and we usually mispredicted on the side of doom. Yes, there will be a physiological impact, not just on babies, on everybody living there. However, there is no reason as such to assume babies in particular would be unviable there.

Today, parents can and regularly do make decisions about their children's mental and physical health that are absolutely _known_ to be detrimental. For better or worse, we generally accept that children are brought up completely powerless over their lifestyle, their healthcare, their economic situation, their education, their belief system... Compared to that settling on another world with unknown dangers seems at least on par.

I'd wager that a child born on Mars today is way more likely to die of things other than gravity or the lack thereof. We already have animal test data in microgravity.

<comment><USER5> > _I agree in a saner world we 'd have built a Moon base first, and then moved > on from there._

Mars is more livable than the moon because it has atmospheric CO2, (more) water, and a better mineral story.

> _Today, parents can and regularly do make decisions about their children 's > mental and physical health that are absolutely known to be detrimental._

After decades of parenting and diet fads followed by a replication crisis, it's clear that nothing which filters down to the parents could be called anything close to known (much less absolutely).

<comment><USER14> _Mars is more livable than the moon because it has atmospheric CO2, (more) water, and a better mineral story._

The goal of a Moon base is not living there, it's building from a place near to Earth but outside the gravity well. Martian atmosphere and water are a pie in the sky. If we're unable to build a base in the Moon, how are we supposed to do it in Mars? If we can do it in the Moon, it would be incredibly useful for preparing a Mars base.

That's all pretty obvious and it was the plan half a century ago. The only reason Mars is getting so much attention is to captivate our imagination. But what's the real purpose of _living_ in Mars? I can't see the reason. I do see why it would be useful to send humans to space in general.

<comment><USER16> Or, as I always say when this comes up, start with a base on the top of Mt Everest. Much more similar to Mars, and definitely cheaper to try. With all the challenges of no breathable air, storms, inhospitable rocky terrain, bleak environment.

If this seems ridiculous or impossible, then that's the state of our Mars colony ambitions as well.

<comment><USER5> There is already an undersea base for training astronauts for the ISS. There is also the ISS, which is already a significantly more challenging environment than Everest. Although it would be nice to have scientific outposts in all of these places, one must bear in mind that these things are very expensive, so the cost/benefit of the scientific value has to be weighed carefully. The cheapest option is not always the best value.

A lunar space station called LOP-G (lunar orbital platform gateway) is presently planned, and although it is a "smaller step" it is being widely attacked for not being useful.

<comment><USER16> So Everest would be possible? Am I hearing that? No launch costs, you can walk away if you need to (depending on the weather). Has to be cheaper by billions than an orbital station.

<comment><USER5> It would absolutely be possible to have a base on the peak of Everest. I think you can even get up there with helicopters. The only question is, what would be the scientific value? Astronauts do not go to the ISS just because they love living in cramped quarters for six months... ;)

<comment><USER16> Live for a year without resupply, generate own heat and power, prove you can survive. And do useful work. Before committing human beings to Mars. The topic of this discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> His moustache fell off.

<comment><USER18> It's his twin brother, Mark, who has the moustache: [https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/mark-scott-kelly-nasa-ht- jc-...](https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/mark-scott-kelly-nasa-ht- jc-190410_hpMain_16x9_1600.jpg)

<comment><USER17> winseybash doesnt get jokes lol

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would expect a body to change after a year of any circumstance.

<comment><USER20> The point is that it changed in ways different to his twin's body, and some of those changes even reverted once he was back on earth for a while. It's pretty unlikely that this is all just an anomaly and the regular changes of a body over the course of a year independent of the fact he was in space.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you feel about people who say "Techies" are raising the rent? - <AUTHOR> I was talking to my girlfriend the other day about rent prices and such here in the Bay Area, and she said (Knowing that im a programmer/"techie"), that, and I quote "All these fucking techies keep moving here and are making it harder for the rest of us normal people." What's your thoughts on it, HN?<p>Personally, I think people need to stop blaming the techies that are moving out here for all the work that there is that needs to be done, and start blaming the shitty ass landlords and such that keep raising rent, because they know they can. We don't want to pay higher rent either, you know. <comment><USER2> It's your girlfriend telling you this, so there are a lot of ways to win that argument and harm your interests.

If it were a stock San Franciscan, you'd be well advised to open with something like "Do you think immigrants should be allowed in SF?" "Me, too! I think everyone should have the opportunity to live in SF, because SF is awesome. Sadly, not all SFians agree with us -- they'd prefer to put a maximum quota on the number of people who get to live here. The mechanism for this is our building process, which they exert de-facto control over. It's like building a wall around the city made up of the houses they won't allow to be built.

The existence of the cap on housing guarantees anyone over the SF Resident Cap gets screwed. Sometimes they're immigrants; sometimes they're tech people; sometimes they're immigrant tech people. I don't care who is getting screwed, because no one should be without a house. That's why I support building more housing."

</comment><comment><USER3> It's happening in Seattle.

A building might be 3 floors and have 12 units per floor, built 50-70 years ago. Each of these units rents for $800-900.

Now that Amazon is building 70,000 units of office space, people are predicting that another 70,000 people are going to be moving nearby for work. And so landlords are seeing a lot of people willing to pay a higher rate for these apartments. This requires evicting the ~24 people who live there, 2 of which (on average) will become homeless.

These landlords can either make the same amount of money, or they can make more money by raising the rent and forcing out the "average" people, confident that an Amazonian or other Techie will pay $1200 a month for the same apartment. And so the traditional residents of Seattle are being pushed out - to surrounding communities, to other areas, and out of the city they love.

A more drastic option is to evict all 24 people, demolish the building, and rebuild with twice the units at twice the rate.

Is this the fault of landlords for being capitalists?

<comment><USER4> It is not the fault of the landlords. Almost anyone would do the same given the same situation and ability to make a large amount of money. The problem is that the City of Seattle allows for the creation of new housing without the creation of enough affordable housing.

It would also be reasonable to index the level of income for new city-mandated apartments to the minimum wage. So if we have someone working for $15/hr (minimum wage) and 30k/yr who takes home $1939.26 monthly they should only be paying maximum 40% after-tax income into rent, which is 1939.26 * 0.4 = $775.70. Someone making $85k/yr will have a take home of $4997.46/mo, and can afford $1998.

So someone making minimum wage would not be able to afford their own apartment...

This is where the city government should take control, and mandate more low to medium income housing, and more micro apartments. South Seattle along the light rail would be a great area to build up, as it allows for easy access to downtown & Seatac jobs, and would finally stop some of the problems that we have seen here. The U-district/Ravenna could also be redeveloped more, although that is already happening.

<comment><USER5> > This is where the city government should take control, and mandate more low > to medium income housing, and more micro apartments.

And where will the money to build these dwellings come from?

<comment><USER3> The popular suggestion is to tax (land) developers. The unpopular suggestion is rent control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think people will always have sour grapes when the tides of the market shift against them.

I know just as many "techies" constantly bemoaning that the housing market is insane in the Bay Area and they can't buy here because of all the NIMBY's and the fact that Prop 13 screws up all the market dynamics that would normally be self-correcting.

Everyone wants someone to blame when things don't go their way. I've largely stopped listening to people who blame "techies" vs. taking a more critical look at underlying dynamics of the market.

Also, everyone wants to blame the techies because it makes it a more expensive area to live, but they don't want to thank them when schools improve, cities get more tax dollars for improvements, etc. as a direct result of the inflated prices and reset property taxes. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER7> >and start blaming the shitty ass landlords

Blaming the landlord doesn't really solve the problem. If every landlord decided to charge 50% under market rent, it would just mean that apartments would be very over-subscribed and you'd need to be quite lucky to get an apartment. There are various causes to the problem, but a more reasonable one is the unwillingness of the government (in large part due to NIMBY types) to allow for more development, which would increase the housing stock and decrease the pressure on rents. I'm not flat-out advocating for that, but I don't think it's reasonable to just blame every landlord either.

</comment><comment><USER8> Bubble pops, techies leave, rent goes down, businesses of all sorts close, non-techies lose their jobs in droves. Are they happy about the rent now? Anyone here from the first bubble to confirm?

</comment><comment><USER9> It is what it is. We're all making decisions which are in our own best interest.

Tech people want to live close to work and can afford it. Is it wrong to make a high salary and spend your money at your own discretion?

Landlords can charge more because there's greater demand. Charging less leaves money on the table unless you refuse to rent to people in tech. Are landlords really being greedy in this situation?

Are we part of the problem? In a sense, yes. But is it wrong to act in our own best interest? I'd argue no - it's the government's job to ensure that society still functions despite people being inherently selfish.

That said, your girlfriend has completely legitimate frustrations and I'd definitely try to empathize with her a little instead of trying to be right or point blame at something.

<comment><USER10> > Tech people want to live close to work and can afford it.

Aren't much of the complaints about tech people who _don 't_ want to live close to work? E.g., the large number who work in Menlo Park (Facebook), Mountain View (Google), and Cupertino (Apple) but live in San Francisco?

At least that's the impression I got from the brouhaha a few months ago over the buses those companies run between SF and their aforementioned offices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rent control and other government instituted economic controls are what is creating the housing shortages in these popular 'tech' cities. People in general are ignorant of basic economic principals which leads to quotes like the one spouted off by your girlfriend.

<comment><USER12> Uh, No. NIMBYism and lack of policies to ensure enough low-income housing is planned and built.

Techies can't rent low-income housing under normal circumstances.

There must be low-income housing available in a city to ensure that there are places for low income folks with jobs to have shelter. Without these people, the city could not function properly.

Rent control may be necessary in extreme situations where there is a lack of housing for low-income families, but only as a last resort.

Disclosure: I'm a landlord and derive part of my income from rental property I own.

<comment><USER13> I'm not saying it's a good idea, but low income workers can and do commute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >keep raising rent, because they know they can.

What is bad about this? It's a scarce resource so they charge more. Ideally they charge enough to keep 100% occupancy and make the most amount of money possible.

</comment><comment><USER15> I feel that people who are saying that are ignorant.

Even though technically they are partially correct: techies are pushing prices up.

But, of course, that's the SF voters who are mostly at fault here: it's them who limit new housing.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Normal people"? "Fucking techies" while she knows you're one? Dude she seems nice.

</comment><comment><USER17> another huge problem is that buildings are being sold to international holding/investment firms at current market value, which will not allow them to keep the existing tenants at $1000 - $1500 per unit when the new mortgage for the new owners requires a minimum of 4k per unit per month.</comment>


Why AdMob's reported iPhone and Android market shares are inflated - <AUTHOR> http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2010/03/why_admobs_repo.html <comment><USER2> Interesting read.

I wonder why he didn't include <http://www.canalys.com/pr/2010/r2010021.html> as reference for smartphone share. Also i think, when he is trying to "guess" the real marketshare, he is underestimating symbian and also i think he is not really aware of the huge divergence of marketshare in different countries all around the world. He assumes what is in the US is true elsewhere which is absolutely not the case. Even more so when talking about featurephones. For example, Symbian/Nokia has huge marketshares outside of the US, but RIM is much bigger in the US then anywhere else.

Unfortunately i don't find the statistics anymore, but the mobile market looks quite different on every continent.

edit: From admob too, but look at the totally different marketshares of symbian and blackberry on the different continents! -> [http://metrics.admob.com/2010/01/december-2009-mobile- metric...](http://metrics.admob.com/2010/01/december-2009-mobile-metrics- report/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Article Summary:

AdMob is an advertising network that specializes in showing ads for mobile phones. Their ads can be shown in web pages loaded in mobile web browsers, or the ads can be embedded in mobile applications that run natively on the phones. AdMob does not segment ads in browsers from ads in applications so a single device running a browser and several applications with AdMob ads count count as several devices in AdMob's figures. This likely leads to a significant inflation of the total number of iPhone and Android users.

[http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/why- admob%E2%80%99s-reported...](http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/why- admob%E2%80%99s-reported-iphone-and-android-market-shares-are-inflated/)

</comment><comment><USER4> A misleading title. Peter-Paul himself says that AdMob is being very clear about what it measures. The real issue is misinterpretation of the data by analysts.

In response to Peter-Paul's question, yes, AdMob could separate out impressions to applications and impressions to web browsers. The user agents are different.

However, I believe some (not all) application usage should be legitimately considered the equivalent of browser usage when determining browsing share by platform - separating out in-application and in-browser impressions would be equally misleading. Use of the New York Times' application or Instapaper's application, for instance, is a direct substitute for web browsing, and should be taken into account.</comment>


California does not have the highest poverty rate in the USA - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/california-is-doing-fine-thank-you-very-much/ <comment><USER2> This article boils down to one point: that the basis of the LA Times article's claim is California's sky-high real estate prices. If it wasn't including house prices, poor Californians would be doing 'just fine.' That's like saying a laptop works perfectly fine if you ignore the fact the screen is busted.

Why shouldn't housing prices be looked at when determining how poor a population is? Obviously it's a significant component of cost of living, which directly impacts how much purchasing power individuals and families have.

<comment><USER3> That's your interpretation of the article. I don't believe that's how the article was written.

Author acknowledge the high housing cost but states that the metric that was used only account for a few things and it ignore other metrics which can skew it towards a certain argument.

Author also stated that the other person lied about how large state employment for California is. Author actually normalize/standardize it per capital instead of a having stating this is a large number.

You and the article can argue whatever yall want but it's just an opinion until yall do factor analysis or some sort of algorithm to figure out what's the right combination of metric is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a Californian I don't agree with the sentiment of this analysis. Sure, certain segments of the population here are doing well -- particularly, the well-off and those from out-of-state -- but if you were born and raised an average life here any time in the past 35 years, particularly on the coast, then your life is particularly tough in some areas: $1500 rents for a 1BR apartment, super-low wages, apathetic middle class, increasing traffic, now we have a homeless problem....

More succinctly I disagree with the authors' assertion that CA is doing fine "if you take out housing prices"

<comment><USER5> As a Californian from the coast I feel your pain, but seriously compare this state to opioid country and we're doing great. Most of the people I knew from high school have had to leave because they can't afford it here now. But these are signs of a good economy and low poverty.

We are doing fine if you take out housing prices, and we are doing not great if you include them. Which is why everyone throughout the state is talking about the housing crisis. Unless you have some brilliant ideas like draining the SF Bay[0], housing is hard to do while simultaneously worrying about the environment.

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

<comment><USER6> > compare this state to opioid country...

That was a bit gratuitous.

> ... and we're doing great.

OK...

> Most of the people I knew from high school have had to leave because they > can't afford it here now.

So most of the people you went to high school with have been forced to leave (for "opioid country"?) - why? Because they'd be poor otherwise? Maybe even homeless? That's a bit odd for a place that's "doing great".

> But these are signs of a good economy...

These are signs of an economy with high cost of living, lots of high-paying jobs, and not much place in it for those who can't get one of those high- paying jobs.

> ... and low poverty.

"Most of the poor people leaving" is not normally what I think of when I hear "low poverty".

I mean, yes, if California weren't creating all these high-paying jobs, there wouldn't be the demand, and so housing would be affordable. That's all true. And yet, I think on your own evidence you're painting a happier face on the situation than it deserves.

<comment><USER5> I don't know where everyone has gone, because I'm not an obsessive Facebooker. But gentrification means the economy is doing well. It sucks if you're the one displaced. But the jobless rate is very low, and incomes are rising here. Not everyone can ride this wave, but that's capitalism in America. Yes we create more people living in cars. If we want to fix that, maybe build more housing and do UBI?

I understand the impulse to say everything is terrible, because it frequently is. But that doesn't mean it's not improving. The new challenges created are not larger than our successes in California.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The housing in California is probably most expensive in the Bay Area. On the other hand, poverty is probably disproportionately concentrated in the Central Valley, where I expect housing is very cheap compared to the Bay Area. If you just look at average housing prices and average income levels, I think you may get a distorted view of the actual cost of living.

</comment><comment><USER8> One of the best things I ever learned in school was from my German teacher in junior high school. I have no idea what we were talking about, but she said, "You can prove anything with statistics." I'm 41 years old and that has stuck with me all of these years.

<comment><USER2> Ronald Coase: "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Build more houses

</comment><comment><USER10> Take a look at the recent affordable housing legislation passed in the state assembly and signed by the governor. Can you guess who opposes these measures?</comment>


Fed Policy May Have Widened America's Wealth Inequality - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/06/08/fed-policy-may-have-widened-americas-wealth-inequality-philadelphia-fed-paper-says/

<comment><AUTHOR> From the paper:

"It might be also true that the gain to society's well-being from stabilizing the overall economy is greater than the loss coming from associated redistributive effects, in which case we could safely focus on the overall effects and ignore the redistributive effects."

"One could also argue that, in the long run, the redistributive consequences of monetary policy might average out. In other words, if the same type of households that tend to gain from monetary policy during economic expansions also tend to lose from monetary policy during recessions, then over time the average effect could be a wash."

So they suggest that while the rich "may" get richer during boom times, recessions equalize wealth inequality, so in a perfect world it might all even out.

It's actually quite noteworthy that just admitted that deflationary forces are wealth equalizers and inflationary forces benefit the rich.

<comment><AUTHOR> And as Fed policy creates endless artificial booms, and limits recessions, they reduce the possibility of equalization and creates a continuous money transfer mechanism from poor to rich, as they note:

"There is a good chance that the redistributive effects do not average out because business cycles are known to be asymmetric —expansions tend to be long and moderate, while recessions tend to be short and sharp."

And recessions are short and sharp precisely because the whole modus operandi of the Fed is to shorten recessions and lengthen expansions. So it's admitting its (inherently inflationary) core policy thesis makes the rich richer and the middle-class poorer.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Friends4Tonight – Meet new groups of friends. Tonight - <AUTHOR> http://www.friends4tonight.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone!

We just launched Friends4Tonight! The app is on both iOS and Android. Please send us feedback at firstname.lastname@example.com or text/call (917) 720-0983

Thanks!

Friends4Tonight Team</comment>


Turkey blocks Wikipedia under law designed to protect national security - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/29/turkey-blocks-wikipedia-under-law-designed-to-protect-national-security <comment><USER2> Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14225602](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14225602)</comment>


The Newbie Guide to Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://ghostopera.org/blog/2012/06/24/the-newbie-guide-to-common-lisp/

<comment><USER2> I was first exposed to Lisp via AutoCad in 1989, but other than creating the most simple programs it has never made much sense as a language compared to BASIC and those using semi-colons.

Just last night, I read PG's explanation of Lisp in _Hackers and Painters_ that Lisp's parentheses are there because a Lisp program is its own parse tree (I hope I got that right) and that this is what gives it its flavor.

That explanation is what I think was missing from the Lisp tutorials I used to read, and what is missing from the article. Showing a few examples of lisp programs shows how all those insipid parentheses are used, but doesn't explain why.

A lisp tutorial can't look like a semicolon language tutorial without ignoring what's most beneficial in the language. To understand lisp, I think grsping the computer science concepts matters to a degree that it doesn't in some other languages.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is ten years old, but I put together a guide with LOTS of help from the Lisp community "Loving Lisp, or the Savvy Programmer's Secret Weapon" <http://markwatson.com/opencontent/lisp_lic.htm>

</comment><comment><USER4> This is more a guide on how to get up and running using SBCL and Emacs, and less a guide on Common Lisp

</comment><comment><USER5> Any experience using Emacs with "cl" (a package to add Common Lisp functionality to elisp)?

(Now that it has lexical scoping...)

I would rather avoid installing anything else than Emacs before I write the first program that _must be efficient_. Is cl good enough for that? Or should I go straight to SBCL or similar if I don't want to restrict myself to writing emacs packages?

<comment><USER6> I've used the CL package in Emacs (with the proviso that if you're using it to build an Emacs library, as I was, then you're supposed to restrict its use to compile time, which is weird and takes back most of the value). It doesn't make Emacs Lisp into anything much like Common Lisp. The two are very different languages. The CL extensions in Emacs are kind of useful if you already know CL, but they're also a strap-on and the result is predictably a monstrosity.

I think you'd be better off picking which of the two languages you're interested in and learning that.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, it's clear now. I was confused about the purpose of the cl package. Just checked the manual again and it is not misleading.

I think it was my wishful thinking as I was looking for something more concise than elisp's set functions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone who is currently reading SICP, this is a great complement. Thanks for putting it together.

<comment><USER8> You realize that the code given in SICP is Scheme, not CL, right?

<comment><USER9> Emacs/Slime combo is how one writes _any_ kind of Lisp code nowadays. I have Slime (swank, really) backends for CL, scheme, clojure, dylan, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not trying to thread dump, but I see more practicality from learning Clojure. You'll get a wealth of libraries and an active community to help you on your journey.

That said, if you want to learn CL for fun, that is understandable (heck, I did it myself after doing elisp years ago in grad school). I recommend 'Land Of Lisp' as a fun way to learn CL.

<comment><USER11> I find common lisp to be plenty practical, its libraries mostly satisfactory(restas/cl-redis/cl-closure-template make a good combo for playing with web development), and its community's frankness and no bullshit attitude are rather refreshing after spending some time in the land of the cool kids. Also these lists of success stories contain some impressive shit:

<http://www.franz.com/success/> <http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/> <http://wiki.alu.org/Industry%20Application>

PS Land of lisp is an awesome book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article should direct the "Newbie" to the very comprehensive Wikipedia article.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp>

</comment><comment><USER13> I've found Vim + Slimv + SBCL an adequate development environment as a long time Vim user.</comment>


How We Cracked the Code Book Ciphers (2000) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://codebook.org/codebook_solution.pdf <comment><USER2> That was an excellent book!

I got the book and couldn't put it down. Luckily when I got to the contest at the back I found myself with a couple of weeks of summer holidays with Pascal and my 286 and no internet connection.

I cracked the manual ciphers with computer programs. I started on the Engima cipher, but did not create an accurate Enigma machine (the drawings in the book were incomplete and I didn't know that and had no internet access).

A couple of years ago I chanced upon the book again and set about solving the Enigma part. [https://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/145830743193/my-...](https://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/145830743193/my- attack-on-the-enigma-cipher-machine)

Fond memories! :D

The book is warmly recommended.

<comment><USER3> I second! This book was excellent. Actually, I've read all his books but one, and they are all great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently Stage 1 - 7 were classical ciphers, followed by brute-forcing the 56-bit DES, and factoring RSA-155 though distributed computing.

> _Compaq provided access to one of their benchmarking computers with four 667 > MHz Alphas and 8 GB of primary memory._

This was massive computational power for a workstation in 2000! It's always impressive to see the progress of Moore's Law, even although single-core performance has peaked long ago.

</comment><comment><USER5> Loved this book. Didn't realize the codes had been cracked. Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Look, It's Really Hard to Land a Rocket on a Boat, OK? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/elon-musk-spacex-look-really-hard-land-rocket-boat-ok/ <comment><USER2> Surely Elon Musk has the cash to buy an island?

Or lease one?

<comment><USER3> Perhaps, but does he have cash enough to have said island moved to somewhere off the Florida coastline?

<comment><USER2> Maybe he could push it into place with some surplus soviet rocket engines?</comment></comment></comment>


Localization Technologies at Netflix - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/06/localization-technologies-at-netflix.html

<comment><USER2> And yet, when traveling, keeping the UI in English is a challenge. The auto complete lists show localized (by IP) headers. And if you call support, they provide a number that responds in another language.

</comment><comment><USER3> The more I read about Netflix's technology stack & setup, the more impressed I get. At least on frontends, I have heard about Netflix leveraging Angular, Backbone, Ember, and React. Not too many companies can claim being that diverse technologically, much less push their boundaries.

</comment><comment><USER4> My burning question: will Hydra be open sourced too?</comment>


Information is Beautiful - 2012: the End of the World? - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/2012-the-end-of-the-world/

<comment><USER2> Y2K in a different number system - at least we're consistent in prophesying apocalypse.

<comment><USER3> If only they had more stones the world would have lasted longer!

<comment><USER4> I think it was actually because of the base 20 number system they counted in because of the fact that they had 10 fingers and 10 toes.

If only the six fingered man had taken a break from killing Inigo Montoya's father and lent them an extra order of magnitude...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Never mind all the times people have predicted the end of the world before, _this time_ it's for real!

I'm fascinated that people don't lose hope even though the track record is so bad.

<comment><USER6> It's kind of like the anthropic principle: of course all predictions of the end of the world have been false, otherwise we wouldn't be here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I should start making up bullshit doomsday predictions to ensure the people of year 2500 have something "fascinating" to think about.

</comment><comment><USER8> We're supposed to believe a doomsday prediction made by a society that couldn't even predict (or avoid) it's own demise?

<comment><USER9> Well, purportedly, it's an astronomical/mathematical prediction of doom from natural causes, made by a society with very advanced math and astronomy.

Whereas their own society was brought down by sociological/biological causes, which we have no reason to _expect_ they would be particularly adept at dealing with.

Not that I believe a word of the 2012 nonsense. But logically your critique doesn't hold much weight for me, despite sounding truthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> End of the world malarkey aside, Information is Beautiful is an excellent blog - really nice information design.

<comment><USER11> Check out his book, Visual Miscellaneum. Not all visualizations are good, overall its a nice book though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Peak oil... religious fanatics... pollution... nuclear war... an out of control climate... gigantic tsunamis... nuclear fallout... disease... rising sea levels....

Sorry if I left something out. I feel like one of those comedians saying as many slurs possible.

Needless to say, we're plunging into some interesting years. 2012 just feels so... pivotal.

<comment><USER13> Asteroids, comets, alien invasions, the singularity (aka robot invasions)...

<comment><USER12> "Our simulation gets turned off" can be tacked on too, but I was trying to think of things that are real, current, problems. Or more probable in the near future.

My main point is that 2012 onward will be interesting without mystical interpretations of the celestial.

<comment><USER14> You could say the same thing for 2009, 2010, 2011...

<comment><USER12> Yes, every year will will be pretty interesting without "mystical interpretations of the celestial."

I guess I failed to ask myself if 2013 will be more interesting than 2012. And the answer is, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The solar storm part is scary :/ (especially if you've seen the Nicholas Cage film 'The Knowing'.)

<comment><USER16> A guy I knew actually quit his job last year to prepare for this event.

<comment><USER17> You should start a blog & vlog on this guy. I have a feeling he would be a goldmine for you ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What a ridiculously concise way to handle "omg the end of the world" nonsense "argument" by argument.

It's amazing how silly some theories become when they are compared visually.

</comment><comment><USER19> Actually the 2012 is not always discussed as the end of the world. If you look at the article it also proposes the possibility of a major change in society. The completion of cycle in the mayan calendar, I think, indicates just that. End of the cycle of one society.

My bet, maybe robots will do all our work and we would become all spiritual, some people may say the time frame is too short for this but it doesn't have to be abrupt. 2012 may mark the start in some way. May be the first positronic brain will be completed on that day. sigh... hopes</comment>


The pragmatic programmer tips - <AUTHOR> http://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic-programmer/extracts/tips

<comment><USER2> If there's one thing in here that I wish I could drill into every programmer's head, it's that abstractions are longer-lived than details. So few programmers seem to understand how important abstractions are.

<comment><USER3> According to the Antipatterns book, only 1 in 5 programmers "get" abstraction, which roughly matches my quarter century experience in the real world.

A corollary of this is that absent really good hiring practices, "democratic" design processes are _doomed_ to fail, since the non-abstractionists invariably out vote the ones who get it.

<comment><USER4> This is a fascinating comment. As someone who thinks he gets abstraction I'd love to hear some real world examples on the off chance I'm deluded. How do we know if we're actually non-abstractionists?

<comment><USER3> Pretty much by definition you'd have to be told by an abstractionist ^_^.

More usefully, look at some APIs that have earned serious respect, especially by people who clearly are abstractionists. If you don't "get" too many of the reasons why, then you probably aren't (yet) an abstractionist.

This also applies to languages and idioms in them. If you grok SICP, you're probably an abstractionist (if you don't, I wouldn't say you necessarily aren't one).

The best self-test, and it's eerie when it happens, is that you design a greenfield (new) architecture and start building it, and then discover that it solves problems you didn't realize you had. I suspect this requires a fair degree of experience: it happened to me in the mid-90s, having stared programming in 1978 ... although maybe I got a taste of it in 1992. But it might have happened earlier if I'd had a chance to do a greenfields project earlier.

Some facility with abstract math is a good sign, e.g. can you do pure algebraic manipulation, especially outside the context of solving a real world problem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Test Your Software, or Your Users Will Test ruthlessly. Don't make your users find bugs for you." At my current workplace, this is seen as a feature, not a bug! (having the users find the bugs). And no, I don't work for Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have not read this book but the list of tips seemed to be bit too much. I am really a fan of all simplicity and tips from getting real book.

But someone who has read both books can explain it better.

<comment><USER7> Well, for what it's worth, I really liked it and consider it a keeper. It's on my bookshelf between "Programming Pearls" and "Mythical Man month".

It's less about programming per se and more about how to _think_ about programming.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: How to determine whether or not you should list a particular technology on your resume? - <AUTHOR>

Pretty much every job posting I see lists a bunch of "required" or "desired" or "preferred" technologies. Sometimes I've heard of them all, sometimes I haven't. However, I've never encountered a list where I feel I can truthfully claim significant experience with everything on it. Do you apply anyway? Additionally, how would you determine whether or not you are comfortable enough with a technology to list it on your resume, or apply to a job with that language in the title? For example, I've started learning python to build a db-driven website. But, just because I have something that works doesn't mean I now consider myself a python hacker... or should I? <comment><USER2> i wouldn't claim proficiency in a language until i've used it for around a year and feel comfortable writing apps with it. i would claim exposure and experience for the other languages i've played with but wouldn't be comfortable with saying i could sit down and rattle out a solid program with them.

right now on my resume, i have two classes of languages: those i'm proficient in and those i have experience using.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just learned enough awk to alter a tiny script written by someone else. It's so going on the resume.

Seriously - just apply to anything that sounds good - if they really are decent and the position is junior - or if it is a senior position it doesn't revolve around that particular technology - you can learn on the job.

<comment><AUTHOR> it sounds like your recommendation is to make sure i am competent/comfortable in the core technology, and then worry about the ancillary stuff as it comes up. is that right? i'm not worried about not knowing the answer to something in an interview (it's bound to happen eventually)--i am worried about someone thinking my resume isn't truthful.</comment></comment>


Bose Dynamic Automobile Suspension - <AUTHOR> http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_STATIC_PAGE_EVENT&url=/learning/project_sound/bose_suspension.jsp

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting area of research, but nothing especially new:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_suspension>

The trouble is almost always with how much energy these systems suck down, typically increasing fuel consumption by 5-10%.</comment>


HTTPS: //blog.datahut.co/how-to-select-a-web-scraping-service-that-is-on-point/ - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I've been using proxycrawl for a while, I don't know why is not included in the list

</comment><comment><USER3> It took me an embarrassing amount of attempts before I finally noticed the _" extra space" typo_ above.

Working Link: [https://blog.datahut.co/how-to-select-a-web-scraping- service...](https://blog.datahut.co/how-to-select-a-web-scraping-service-that- is-on-point/)</comment>


Christmas Day Or April Fools?: Prediction That Web 2.0 Will Die in 2008 Due To Lack Of Advertising - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/25/christmas-day-or-april-fools-prediction-that-web-20-will-die-in-2008-due-to-lack-of-advertising/ <comment><USER2> Well that depends on what "web 2.0" means, I'm assuming social networking integration. If so it's the heart of why the internet works, just because it has a name doesn't mean it's going away. The name might change but social networking is the single most important attribute of the internet. Maybe in 100 years, but not in 2008.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought web 2.0 already died. Or was that Facebook? I can't ever keep them straight.</comment>


We are not time travellers - <AUTHOR> http://www.behance.net/gallery/ALT1977-WE-ARE-NOT-TIME-TRAVELERS/545221

<comment><USER2> Prior discussion from two weeks ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1443873></comment>


SSL/TLS in a post-PRISM era - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.thc.org/ssl

<comment><USER2> > There is mounting evidence that the NSA had a copy of several ROOT-CA keys > to perform SSL/TLS interception on a massive scale.

Has anyone tried putting 2 and 2 together yet from all the leaks about what NSA has collected so far, and how easily, to see if that is likely, or if they did it through other means?

DNS SEC alternative: [http://dnscurve.org/](http://dnscurve.org/) (Dan Bernstein)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8EGA834Nok](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8EGA834Nok)</comment>


Who's Responsibility Is It to Provide Jobs to People? - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/blog/whos-responsibility-provide-jobs-people/#gs.x4I5EYw <comment><USER2> It's an important topic but I have to question some of your arguments:

\+ no-one's talking about the possibility of people being replaced by robots and software - I presume you missed Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and a number of other fairly high profile people discussing this topic?

\+ the fundamental work model for thousands of years has been the private company - apart from all the others like feudalism, indenture and so on.

\+ the state can't employ people - I believe that the state is a huge employer of people in a wide range of countries.

\+ you can't force companies do things that aren't directly related to making money for the owners - except for laws and taxation.

\+ there won't be any jobs within two decades - I guess you might be right but the likelihood is vanishingly small that it'll be in anything like that timeframe. The US is currently close to full employment (in the economists' sense), for example.

That's not to say the basic premise of the piece isn't valid: that the world of employment is likely to change and we aren't really prepared for it. But the argumentation needs a bit of work.

</comment><comment><USER3> *whose

<comment><AUTHOR> Derp.</comment></comment>


AutoFlip: An Open Source Framework for Intelligent Video Reframing - <AUTHOR> https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/02/autoflip-open-source-framework-for.html <comment><USER2> All this research when the correct answer is "you are holding it wrong"</comment>


Paul Thurrott reviews Surface with Windows 8 Pro - <AUTHOR> http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/microsoft-surface-windows-8-pro-preview

<comment><USER2> So - the base model is priced at $899 to which you will want to add a "Type Cover" - another $100 or so - and you get a $1,000 tablet with 64GB of storage.

Oh - and it comes with a stylus - what - just like the Windows CE devices in the year 2000? Very similar.

The article does not cover things like GPS and other sensors. The selling feature seems to be that it might run standard desktop programs.

So who is going to buy them?</comment>


Predicting Disk Replacement Towards Reliable Data Centers [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.kdd.org/kdd2016/papers/files/adf0849-botezatuA.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This paper [1] analyzes the Backblaze open source Hard Drive reliability data set [2].

In this paper, Researchers at IBM Research Zurich analyze Backblaze's raw data. They used machine learning to formulate drive replacement rules with confidence intervals [1,3].

In addition to the factors identified by Backblaze, they identify certain additional Smart stats that enhance the predictive capability [1, Table 6].

For Hitachi drives they factor in average time of spindle spin up (Smart raw 3). For Seagate they factor in count of aborted operations due to HDD timeout (Smart raw 188).

[1] Botezatu et al, KDD 2016, Predicting Disk Replacement towards Reliable Data Centers, [http://www.kdd.org/kdd2016/papers/files/adf0849-botezatuA.pd...](http://www.kdd.org/kdd2016/papers/files/adf0849-botezatuA.pdf)

[2] What SMART Stats Tell Us About Hard Drives, [https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-smart-stats-indicate- har...](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-smart-stats-indicate-hard-drive- failures/)

[3] Predicting disk failures for reliable clouds, IBM Research Blog, [https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2016/08/predicting- disk-f...](https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2016/08/predicting-disk- failures-reliable-clouds/)

<comment><USER2> The Botezatu et al paper is quite good. The recommendations they make are well worth further consideration in our environment. -- Andy at Backblaze.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Eager to know if their model would still be accurate when new/future hard disk models are used, i.e., would their model need to be retrained every time. If so, you would first have to wait until the new disks are old enough to show signs of wear and tear, before the machine learning techniques can say something meaningful. So in practice I'm afraid this approach gives you only a pretty high confidence intervals for for last generation's harddisks. But companies like Backblaze probably buy the relatively newest type of hardware every new "hardware-season".

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question: will newer firmware continue to behave the same?

The backblaze dataset itself covers a certain duration of time. One could model an early portion of the data, and test the prediction for the latter portion. That could be one way to approach the question.

One unstated assumption here is: the hard dives in the data set are running the hard drive manufacturer's retail firmware, not another storage vendor's (Dell, HP, EMC, etc) modified firmware. I believe this is the case, and it may also contribute to the consistency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So who's going to make us all a nice fork of smartmontools that does all the prediction?

<comment><AUTHOR> The code is in SVN, but there's also a mirror on github: [https://github.com/mirror/smartmontools](https://github.com/mirror/smartmontools)</comment></comment>