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iamthirsty

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I like email.

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www.theguardian.com 2y ago

The Guardian's Notes and Queries

iamthirsty
1pts0
oftheclock.com 2y ago

Sam Altman, Lately

iamthirsty
160pts118
www.ft.com 2y ago

Biggest US retailers cut prices as inflation hits shoppers

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apnews.com 2y ago

Today in History: May 21, Amelia Earhart Crosses the Atlantic Ocean

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apnews.com 2y ago

It's so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees

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30pts13
news.ycombinator.com 2y ago

Ask HN: What's the best book you've read so far in 2024?

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46pts83
www.wsj.com 2y ago

FDIC Chairman to Resign After Report into Regulator's Culture

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www.baltimoresun.com 2y ago

Dali back in Baltimore port, freed 55 days after striking and collapsing Bridge

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www.wsj.com 2y ago

Why 'Rocky' Deserved to Beat 'Taxi Driver' for Best Picture

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www.economist.com 2y ago

San Francisco staged a surprising comeback

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www.theverge.com 2y ago

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a higher price and loads of AI

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en.espn.co.uk 7y ago

Banned Brilliance (2012)

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www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov 7y ago

Personality characteristics and risky driving behaviors – a meta-analysis

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2pts0
www.mixedmartialarts.com 7y ago

Turinabol half life and Jon Jones

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www.bloomberg.com 7y ago

The Billionaires and the Guru: How a Family Burned Through $2B

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arxiv.org 7y ago

Exeum: A Decentralized Financial Platform for Price-Stable Cryptocurrencies

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1pts0
fortune.com 8y ago

Venezuela Petro Cryptocurrency Launches in Pre-Sale

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www.bloomberg.com 8y ago

Coinbase Looks at Insider Trading After Offering Bitcoin Cash

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seanmaloney.house.gov 8y ago

Representative Sean Maloney (NY-18) Introduced the Save Net Neutrality Act

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www.newyorker.com 8y ago

Europe’s Plan to End Its Migrant Crisis Is Failing

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www.nytimes.com 8y ago

Horst Faas defined a new breed of war photographer

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15pts2
www.hnoc.org 8y ago

Lost Friends Exibition

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www.fastcompany.com 8y ago

FCC Chairman Calls Silicon Valley a Bunch of Hypocrites on Net Neutrality

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www.nytimes.com 8y ago

Birth Control Pills Still Linked to Breast Cancer, Study Finds

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www.nytimes.com 8y ago

New York Times Co. Sues Weinstein Company Over Unpaid Bills

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www.nytimes.com 8y ago

This Duck-Like Dinosaur Could Swim. That Isn’t the Strangest Thing About It

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news.ycombinator.com 8y ago

Ask HN: What was the best book you've read this year?

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29pts24
www.nytimes.com 8y ago

Scenes of Devastation from California’s Latest Wildfire

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www.youtube.com 8y ago

[video] Elon Musk Gives Updates on Mission to Mars

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www.bloomberg.com 8y ago

U.S. Supreme Court Lets Trump Travel Ban Take Full Effect

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7pts1

As a local, most of it is actual locals, often bringing out of town friends, but the core is always locals.

You should come to Miami. Some people start the night at a normal club, go to a rave at Factory town, and meet the sunrise at Space, all in one night.

It's idiotic. Just phone it in directly and go pick it up.

I don't have a car at the moment — am I just never supposed to eat outside of home-made food anymore? I've done that math many times, Ubering both ways to a restaurant is even dramatically more expensive than a delivery service.

If you don't live in an extremely walk-able place, sometimes it's the only option.

Hard disagree. The idea that the machinery your life will depend on might be made with half-assed safety in mind is definitely not part of the deal.

It's definitely built in. The Apollo LM was .15mm thick aluminum, meaning almost any tiny object could've killed them.

The Space Shuttle flew with SSRB's that were solid-fuel and unstoppable when lit.

Columbia had 2 ejection seats, which were eventually taken out and not installed on any other shuttle.

Huge risk is inherently the deal with space travel, at least from its inception until now.

We used spreadsheets to manage offices -- there is about 15 separate offices -- complete data set (clients, analytics, call logs) and each sheet has many, many different formulas interconnecting all the sheets in the book.

We use Google Sheets, as we changed from Office at the beginning of this year, and 10-15 times a day my tab crashes on Chrome from just existing, let alone when trying to do any operations.

It's a mess, and I'd rather build a simple web app to replace it, but don't have the time, approval, or financial resources to make the switch. So instead of letting me improve 100+ peoples daily workflows, we just suffer.

Go spreadsheets!

I had COVID five times over the past four years. Last three times barely any symptoms.

It’s kind Wrong to say that Covid causes these things. Because if Covid alone caused these issues then everyone would have these issues after Infected.

However, this is not sound logic. As stated in the study, it causes these different issues in some percentage of cases, not all.

I consistently wear one in shops, especially shopping centres.

...I don't know how I feel about this, honestly. I respect everyone's right to be as cautious how they want in their life and dress how they choose but after 4+ years I think those who haven't returned to not wearing masks 24/7 outside the home are being a little, uh -- I guess a word for it would be over-dramatic.

My counterpoint: if your product is simply a ChatGPT wrapper, you have no moat.

A really low barrier to entry isn't always necessarily a good thing, as someone can usurp your business relatively quickly.

Yeah, I feel similarly. It's an extreme over-generalization making a relatively intentionally proactive statement using very vague anecdata.

Just keep the experts around.

This has always been a thing with small business, especially in the age of higher interest rates + rising wages + end of VC over-spending era.

Sam Altman, Lately 2 years ago

Thanks for your reply! Couple thoughts:

How someone structures themselves around that conflict is the signal. Disclosing potential conflicts of interest is the ethical bar and that has been done.

This is kind of the problem though, it hasn't been done. Graham, my example in the post, didn't know YC invested in OpenAI. The previous board didn't know about Altman's ownership of the Startup Fund. His growing investments were, for most of them, published on the WSJ — yesterday.

Whatever the real reason for the original OpenAI’s board to ouster Sam, the current board has found no wrongdoing on Sam’s part and crucially made no request for him to cease investment activity.

The original reason was a lack of trust, and the original board was pushed out so he could return. Of course the current board, one built from it's foundation to be much more receptive and docile to Sam's activities and statements.

It is possible for Sam to take both positions.

1. Not taking financial gains from OpenAI so that his decisions are guided by building safe AGI

2. Investing in companies that are betting on trends he has the most conviction and knowledge about

The whole point here is that the second contradicts the first. If you're still directly making money off OpenAI's decisions & deals, the hand-waving of "being guided by building safe AGI" and not money ceases to be trust, because there are clearly billions at stake for Altman.

we feed a narrative that has little explanatory power and perpetuates unrealistic expectations on how life in a position of power works.

The thing here is, Sam could realistically be an altruistic monk, not driven by any financial incentive when it comes to AI. There are a ton of different options, if he wants to live up to the standard he set for himself.

For example, putting investments into a trust that have to do with AI, not investing in related companies at all, putting a majority of his wealth into a Bill & Malinda Gates-style charity — the list goes on.

If had not tried to tell everyone he's doing this for the good of humanity and not money, he could take a multiple million $ salary + a huge personal stake in OpenAI and no one would bat an eye. It's the fact that he himself is position his image to be one thing, which is not the case.

Sam Altman, Lately 2 years ago

Honestly was a typo, I was actually aware of the type of reactor. People make simple mistakes sometimes, especially while typing fast. Fixed in post.

Sam Altman, Lately 2 years ago

Thanks for your reply! Couple things:

Which clearly carries the implication that this was an inarguable firing for misdeeds. In this context, it does not matter if being asked to make a choice is technically firing. The main point is that this is a rebuttal of the narrative put forth by Helen Toner.

I actually agree with Paul Graham's post — totally reasonable thing to ask someone to do, and I didn't agree with the replies to his post. I tried to point out what happened — he posted the image and people didn't believe him — rather than how I felt about that specific topic. Arguably could've done better, however.

The Gist of the critique is that there are deals between OpenAI and enterprises that Sam Altman has an investment in. It is not uncommon for individuals to be in decision making roles in one company while it does dealings with another in which they have a financial interest.

It is not enough to establish that this connection exists for it to be a story. There needs to be some suggestion and evidence that there were decisions that were improperly influenced by the person with the conflict of interest.

If you are alleging that Sam Altman improperly influenced the negotiation with Reddit for data

I highly recommend you use archive.today, or whatever means to read the WSJ articles (even a paper copy, if it's in there), because the assertions about impropriety or influence of deals originally stems from those two articles. I didn't just claim that with no evidence, I was highlighting statements and assertions already made.

Sam Altman, Lately 2 years ago

Obviously not, but as I state in the article he has plead:

“He owns no stake in the ChatGPT developer, saying he doesn’t want the seductions of wealth to corrupt the safe development of artificial intelligence, and makes a yearly salary of just $65,000.”

According to OpenAI themselves.

So he takes a “low” salary and no ownership as to, according to him and the company, not influence his decisions in the pursuit of financial gain — yet that’s a complete omission of the whole truth.

I’ll stop short of calling it a flat-out lie, but a mischaracterization of reality for sure.

Sam Altman, Lately 2 years ago

let's dissect actually why Sam is still evil.

I never said Sam is evil, nor anything close.

Sam Altman, Lately 2 years ago

If nothing else this idea that a person that is positioned to lead such a company is willing to do it for just $65k for altruistic reasons, backfired.

In my first draft “backfired” is the exact word I used too but thought it would come off as too targeted language against Sam, so I changed it.