thinkcomp

There's a pretty significant difference between a warm referral and a kickback, and especially a kickback that makes use of a shell company that disguises from entrepreneurs and other investors the kickback's existence and the origin of the funds used.

If it's not illegal, it should be. Investments typically involve disclosure for good reason.

...says one of them.

You use shell companies to obfuscate investments.

As a former CS50 student and Mark's classmate, I personally find it depressing that Harvard's current CS50 professor, who is widely praised, is secretly on Sequoia's payroll via a shell company so that they can have the inside track on the "next Zuckerberg."

If professors want to teach, they should teach. If they want to invest, they should invest. But they shouldn't be doing both without making it clear to students what they've actually signed up for.

Actually, all of it is deceptive (to entrepreneurs, to students, to the public, to other investors) and depressing. But that part is particularly disturbing.

You might be thinking of GovTrack: https://www.govtrack.us

Also:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-s-greenspan/autism-concep...

Ear infections are common with autism and consistent with moderate hydrocephalus, which might be a sign of cerebellar dysmorphism. Increased intracranial pressure can distort the shape of the skull making it slightly bigger, leaving extra space for infectious bacteria, especially with exposure to water. DWV also results in the ears being placed slightly lower than normal (or maybe the rest of the head just looks bigger).

Your friend should definitely see an ENT to get any infections cleared up, but an MRI wouldn't be the worst idea, either.

The cyst mentioned in the original article (and shown in the MRI image at the top) is a posterior fossa CSF cyst that most likely formed as the result of hydrocephalus. Basically, it's the same thing. This is an example of how confusing all of the terminology underlying autism is. In some patients, CSF cysts, hydrocephalus, Dandy-Walker Variant and "autism" may all be very much related or referring to the same thing.

And to your earlier point, that SpringerLink article shows that they've been draining such cysts with shunts since at least as early as 1985, even if they didn't necessarily know what leaving them in place might result in later in life.

Not exactly the same, because this has absolutely nothing to do with mercury, and has support in journal articles that have not been retracted on account of scandal. Search on PubMed for yourself, or start here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677555/

The scams you mention are even discussed in the article. Did you read it? Or are you saying that MRIs are like chelation therapy?

Obviously moral judgments in medicine can be incredibly difficult, but who's to say that this person's life might not have been drastically altered for the better ("saved") if a MRI scan 20-25 years earlier had revealed the cyst, so that could have been removed? Then the brain might have developed normally.

The point is that the condition is time-dependent because the brain develops most in a child's early years, and scanning early could make a difference.

Definitely not. Ask most doctors if an MRI is warranted for an autism diagnosis and they'll laugh at you.

That's one possible conclusion. More broadly, the morphology of the cerebellum matters a great deal, and minute differences from person to person A) could explain why autism appears to have such a broad array of symptoms and severities; B) have been largely ignored by medicine for decades due to mistaken convention, deep confusion among physicians over medical terminology (mega cisterna magna versus DWV) and a tendency for doctors to throw their hands in the air the minute they hear "autism" because it's simply accepted that it's too complex to diagnose; and C) suggest that brain MRIs may be the most cost-effective cost-preventive diagnostic tool available for those with autism diagnoses--which doctors hardly ever recommend due to (B).

This is the kind of topic that unfortunately often devolves into a flame war because each side simply doesn't understand the other. But there's something important that neither Silberman nor the mass media has caught onto yet: that the collection of discrete diseases referred to as "autism" has a nexus, and it's in the cerebellum.

There are a large number of recent (2013-2015 range) medical journal articles in respected publications such as Cell that confirm this. Autism is largely about the cerebellum: what happens when cerebellar cells aren't present at all (severe disability, as in Dandy-Walker Variant, aka "autism"), and what happens when they're present but not wired up properly (unusual personalities, aka the condition formerly known as "Asperger Syndrome"). It's not really that simple of course but those are both real conditions that we don't bother distinguishing right now.

This is what should be in the newspaper: that autism is really a collection of things that should be called Cerebellar Dysmorphic Disorder. Everything else is clearer when people aren't just arguing about abstract terms with no morphological basis. (Wonder why some people with autism are able to have intense debates while others can't talk at all? If you have an arbitrarily-shaped Dandy-Walker cyst that has displaced 30% your cerebellum, it's unlikely anyone else will have the exact same symptoms, but you might not be able to do a lot of things.)

The upshot is that anyone with severe deficits and an autism diagnosis should get an MRI of their brain to image the cerebellum.

This is a topic I take really seriously. E-mail me at greenspan at post.harvard.edu with any questions. I'm not a doctor but these views have been run by many MDs and MD/PhDs and I'm happy to point people to journal research if helpful.

Case docket here:

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2lf62q01i/new-york-southern...

Related case:

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2lf6dcjz7/new-york-southern...

I'm pretty sure the court order discussed in the article (which is never specified) is this one, Document 188 from the first link:

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=215714507&...

Incidentally, the California courts have erected enormous barriers to transparency, perhaps inadvertently, by using a collection of differing docketing systems from county to county, and then charging outrageous fees for records.

A scathing letter I sent to the California Judicial Technology Council was successful in lowering Los Angeles County's search fees from $4.75 per 20 results to $1.00 per search back in March. They rarely get any comments at all from the public (because no one knows they exist).

See http://www.courts.ca.gov/jctc.htm. And send in comments!

"Standard Treasury was never keeping customer cash on their balance sheet"

It's worth asking why not. I think we know...

It's also worth pointing out that they were quite relevant for Simple (your company), which ended up in a similar position.

Not really. That article has numerous errors in it, and I'm not even counting Europe solving everything. If you have one U.S. customer you are subject to U.S. law.

...except that A) Bitcoin doesn't get around money transmission laws, it causes large numbers of people to inadvertently violate them; B) that's why Coinbase had to completely shut down in Wyoming as I recall; and C) is anyone seriously suggesting that Satoshi Nakamoto took a look at some state money transmission statute or 18 U.S.C. § 1960 and decided to create Bitcoin as a result? If so, that would be the first time I've heard that.

And your evidence for this wild notion--that money transmission laws spur innovation--is?...

I called it four years ago. Financial innovation is dead and money transmission laws are directly to blame.

https://thinkcomp.quora.com/In-Fifty-Days-Payments-Innovatio...

No, I mean what I wrote:

"In fact, they and just about every VC-backed portfolio company have made the situation far worse..."

Here's how state regulators define money transmission: A pays B, and B pays C. If that is true, B is a money transmitter.

Does that cover practically all commercial activity? Yes. Does it make any sense to use that interpretation? No. Do regulators anyway? Yes.

Life is grand when you sell out to one of the largest money transmitters in the nation (in this case, PayPal).

The problem isn't due diligence requirements. It's that you have to do it 47-48 separate times at a cost of $2-$20 million in such a manner that no one is actually protected anyway.

I testified before Congress on this issue.

http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20131118.hsgacstatemen...

CFPB comment (mostly the same, some exhibits also) here:

http://www.thinkcomputer.com/20140214.cfpbcomment.pdf

Nothing has changed, and Y Combinator certainly hasn't helped. In fact, they and just about every VC-backed portfolio company have made the situation far worse by convincing legislators that everything is fine. After all, look at the proliferation of innovating startups (who are all breaking multiple federal and state laws so numerous that no one in political office can keep track)!

Also, the article contains an error (really, two) regarding California: the law has been amended so that it is basically moot, and the theoretical surety bond is now $250K, not $500K.

For those who prefer specifics of Newegg's litigation history rather than a summary:

http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/newegg-inc/

The actual lawsuit docket is here:

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/k5ulex5l/california-norther...

The docket is available (free) here:

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2lue6fyli/california-northe...

That's not what it says, and that's not any of the sections where it says it. §2037(e) says you need a surety bond.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=fin&gr...

Surety bonds are not 1:1 reserves.

Untrue. It's standard for money transmitters to obtain surety bonds, but never have I seen a 100% reserve requirement flat out.

That being said, given Bitcoin's history, I don't think Wyoming's interpretation is unreasonable.