Hacker News Reader

jimbofisher1on Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

Why you seem to think Maven will target civilians is beyond me. If you build better recognition systems for drones they will be better able to mitigate collateral damage. Is this not exactly what you want?

jimbofisher1on Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

What a luxury to be a pacifist. Definition of 1st world privilege.

jimbofisher1on Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

Name 1 Major thing NATO or the UN has done without US support. The idea that they have any power outside what the US sanctions is to be pretty ignorant of the reality of power in world affairs.

jimbofisher1on Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

Elon Musk is some kind of enlightened prophet to most techies despite mountains of evidence that he is a shitty person running shitty companies.

jimbofisher1on Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

You think the US itself doesn't do this?

jimbofisher1on The US startup is disappearing

Startups lasting longer would have nothing to do with this? 0-2 Years represents "New" startups, so the number of new startups is declining.

jimbofisher1on Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

You may have just changed my life with The Great Suspender...

jimbofisher1on Fatalities vs. False Positives: The Lessons from the Tesla and Uber Crashes

Read the actual report. The Uber system registered that emergency braking was necessary to avoid a collision but the brakes were not under the control of that system.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/HW...

Relevant section: "At 1.3 seconds before impact, the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision (see figure 2).[2] According to Uber, emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior. The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action. "

jimbofisher1on Fatalities vs. False Positives: The Lessons from the Tesla and Uber Crashes

The human operator was responsible for braking in this situation and failed to do so.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/HW...

jimbofisher1on Fatalities vs. False Positives: The Lessons from the Tesla and Uber Crashes

In fact, as anyone who has read the NTSB report would know, a Human was responsible for braking in this situation and FAILED to do so in time. The above discussion is irrelevant and results from ignorance of the facts.

From the report: ". At 1.3 seconds before impact, the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision (see figure 2).[2] According to Uber, emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior. The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action. The system is not designed to alert the operator."

For anyone interested in actually being informed about this incident. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/HW...

jimbofisher1on Just How Much Money Do “Influencers” Make?

I'd love to see their data, I'd bet that people making six figures or more make up less than 1%.

jimbofisher1on Survivorship bias and startup hype

Given a sample size of 1 I don't think there's much to be discerned form the data at all either way.

> There is no evidence that they are anywhere close to surpassing human...

Famous last words.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

I am not an investment advisor But you can approximate the returns you would get from real estate appreciation by carefully investing what you would spend on a home (down payment, taxes, mortgage etc.). Though if theres a major downturn that could also be risky.

Buy gold?

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc180604/

This was recently posted on HN and gives a good overview of indicators to look at though it's pretty blatantly alarmist.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. I definitely see HNs pro-at all costs-SV bias but I think it's a website dedicated to tech news and not income maximization? Oh and I can't smell any of y'all so that isn't really an issue.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

The problem with this assumption is that you imagine all minimum wage workers are 18 year olds living on their own. In reality there are countless(millions?) of people trying to support a family on those wages and are forced to turn to government assistance to make up the difference.

As a libertarian I'm sure you hate the idea of people using government assistance more than forcing corporations to pay them a fair wage in the first place.

jimbofisher1on SpinLaunch raises $40M to build a machine to catapult objects into space

Its built on blockchain using state of the art Deep Learning. Our website is pleasegivememoney.io and all of our founders dropped out of Stanford CS.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

Because there is more to life than income and being surrounded by sweaty nerds?

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

Their entire analysis hinges on counting benefits as wages. Sorry but my health insurance doesn't pay my rent or put food on the table. Also given that health costs in the US are wildly inflated this analysis seems lacking as health insurance accounts for a very large chunk of employer benefits and are almost entirely eaten up by inflated costs.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

FWIW as someone working in tech in Texas I would say that Austin is probably only 30% more expensive than other cities in Texas overall and has real estate maybe 20% more expensive. Meanwhile it is far and away the major Tech hotspot here with Dallas a distant 2nd.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

I think you are missing the point, VCs, the corporate entities DJF, Sequoia etc are not landlords. But their millionaire/billioniare founders and partners almost certainly are.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

Why is this a conspiracy theory? VCs are very wealthy and at least in theory financially savvy so they probably have a diversified portfolio of investments, some of which is definitely real estate. Seems obvious to me.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

Rates of indebtedness, quality of debt(AAA, BBB ratings etc), stock market overvaluation, real estate overvaluation. Take your pick, conditions are very similar to 2007. Whether anything actually happens is the trillion dollar question.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

You are probably missing the fact that many VCs are likely heavily invested in Real Estate and this chain simply loops back to them, what incentive would they have for changing the status quo?

VC -> Startup -> Employee -> VC/Landlord

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

His assumption is that Corporate Profits which are already at all time highs cannot be sacrificed in order to pay workers more and keep prices level.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

Given that Corporate profits have been at all time highs recently I think their responsibility to their workers is obviously being circumvented in order to increase shareholder value. You are stuck in this Corporation first mindset. You ought to get out of it.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

Rents/Real Estate costs in the Bay Area are artificially inflated because of zoning laws, nimbyism and general lack of supply.

jimbofisher1on Nation’s top three most expensive places for renters: all in Bay Area

Bbbuut the ecosystem of the Bay Area and my Stock Options.... /s

jimbofisher1on SpinLaunch raises $40M to build a machine to catapult objects into space

This is just total lunacy. Have we reached peak VC yet? If not I have a startup that is building a warp drive even though its totally theoretical and the technology to build one is 100+ years away. Throw money at me please.

jimbofisher1on Twitter meets TensorFlow

This is hardly unique to twitter. You don't this is happening at Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, etc...