Who could have guessed that the greedy, opportunistic, evil corporation whose sole intent is to invade our privacy in the name of "security" would be run by incompetents in the security realm?
Their CEO comes off as a real self-righteous character.
One has to wonder whether these passwords were that way purposefully to avoid accountability for privileged partners. Most of these systems are deployed with grant money that it comes from the department of justice.
“Wow, we totally didn’t know we had everything accessible on Shodan! We totally hope that no federal entities exploited this (fake tears), but I guess we can’t tell anyway! It’s not as if they found out about it from us :(”
> We are committed to protecting human privacy and mitigating bias in policing with the development of best-in-class technology rooted in ethical design, which unites civilians and public servants in pursuit of a safer, more equitable society.
…and of course they do the exact opposite. All a bunch of bullshit from inception.
Y combinator has funded a significant portion of the most harmful tech companies of this century. They're profoundly amoral, just like you'd expect from a profitable venture capital firm.
On the bright side, they also hire dang, so that's one against 100 million.
Most of the bad ones IPOd in 2021, when there was a huge overvaluation of speculative tech companies... Marking performance since IPO is also a bit weird since it's kind of arbitrary date in the firm's history.
They have collectively had a return of -49% when the S&P 500 have had a return of 58%. It shows that all of the value went to the VCs and the public markets were the “bigger fools”.
It's surprising to me that investors have been so wrong about combinator IPOs. I wonder if this has been driven my retail, or by the expectation of a small probability of enormous success.
Oklo seems to have recovered thanks to the AI boom and they made a deal with Meta to deliver power fir their data centers. It looks like the best performing YC stock
To be honest, I have personally funded almost all of the most harmful companies that are around today, too.
But that's because I funded pretty much all the companies via my investment in an index fund.
YC pretty much takes something like an index fund approach to startups: they finance a lot of them. So naturally they would also have a significant portion of what you deem to be harmful ones.
What part of buying index funds of public shares in a company (aside from direct investment, IPO or private placement which are not hallmarks of index funds) funds the company?
Thieves steal because they know a fence will take the goods of their hands. The fence will take the goods of their hands, because they know they can sell them on.
People buy into IPOs partially because they know a lively secondary market exists, where they can offload the shares later. Index funds are part of that secondary market.
Just to be clear, I don't think investors in IPOs are thieves. I'm just saying that you can legitimately say that the secondary market financies companies just as much as the primary market does. Perhaps a better example might be farmers selling to food factories selling to retailers selling to me. I never hand money directly to the farmers, but you can still say with a straight face that my purchase of bacon funds the pig farm.
Given YC's leadership over the past decade or so, I don't think they have anything they'd want to speak up about. This is probably all fine with them.
I used to hold YC in very high regard, but these days I don't think they're materially different from any other investing shop when it comes to values.
It's also interesting Garry Tan (YC Partner) has a lot of comments for the masses when it's on a one sided platform like X. But, will never engage here. Oh the irony.
He seems to enjoy spreading factually misguided "statistics" [0] about how Flock is "solving crime". OK buddy.
I mean, just look at how he enagages with those replies. If that's at the helm of YC? WTF.
He and the entire tech ecosystem is in a bubble where being as right wing as possible is currency. Literally middle of the road liberal pg is basically a communist compared to this ecosystem now. It’s extremely short sighted on their part as the dialectic is guaranteed to flip back the other way. Much better to hold your own genuine beliefs than to kowtow to whatever is popular at the time
The “left” view points of the US currently seem to be similar to Reagan. The furthest left I’ve seen the US go in my lifetime is about David Cameron or Boris Johnson levels of “left”.
Bernie Sanders was nearly the Democratic candidate for president and is still the most popular politician in American politics. However, this countries politics is completely and totally captured by moneyed interests. Our political leadership is openly corrupt and has been for decades. And of course about every decade the US commits another atrocity against some sovereign nation or the other. It does feel a bit hopeless at times
A root-cause analysis here that's about intrinsic difficulty is misguided IMHO. Secrets and secrets-delivery are an environment service that individual developers shouldn't ever have to think about. If you cut platform/devops/secops teams to the bone because they aren't adding application features, or if you understaff or overwork seniors that are supposed to be reviewing work and mentoring, then you will leak eventually. Simple as. Cutting engineering budgets for marketing budgets and executive bonuses practically guarantees these kinds of problems. Engineering leadership should understand this and deep down, it usually does. So the most direct way to talk about this is usually acknowledging willful negligence and/or greed
> Nor do I understand the negative reactions to new restrictions on SNAP - candy and sugary drinks are no longer eligible.
I can think of one issue here. Ultra-processed foods, candy, and sugary drinks are cheap and shelf-stable. They're cheap because they're subsidized. Fruits and vegetables are more expensive, and they don't last very long. So a person on a very limited SNAP budget will get less food under the new restrictions.
The answer, of course, is to make it so that fresh produce and other healthy options are cheaper than the junk food. I have a hard time seeing that happening, given how susceptible the administration is to being "lobbied".
The actual issue is that "Ultra-Processed" is EXTREMELY broad and vague.
For example, hot dogs are ultra-processed. Obviously hot dogs are not the healthiest food but also obviously "franks and beans" is a pretty good meal for a tight budget and is something you should be able to get with SNAP.
Franks and beans are not the best meal on the cheap. Sounds more expensive than cooking fresh and you're missing out on better nutrition.
For the most bang for your buck you want to be eating less expensive real protein like chicken and pork and filling up on salads. Limit carb intake from beans and other starches. Prefer fruit for carbs because it has fiber and vitamins you can't get anywhere else.
You are preposterously out-of-touch with reality here. "Filling up on salads" is healthy but it is FAR from the most "bang for your buck". And are seriously trying to say that beans aren't a good source of fiber and vitamins?
Sure you shouldn't eat hot dogs and baked beans three meals a day every day but you are absolutely out of your mind if you think cheap sausage and canned beans are bad to have in the house when you are struggling.
I am reading what you wrote and disputing it but you don't seem to want to hear it.
I am saying that denying the sale of all "ULTRA PROCESSED" foods to people receiving food assistance is NOT helpful because deciding what counts as "ultra-processed" is too messy and imprecise.
You are trying to split hairs over the most cost-effective struggle meals.
I can indulge you.
---
Perdue Young Whole Chicken Fresh (~5lb) = $12.49
Oscar Mayer Original Uncured Turkey Chicken & Pork Wieners (10 count) $4.49 +
3x Bush's Best Original Baked Beans (16 oz.) $7.47 ($2.49 ea.) = 11.96 total
You eat half a can of beans and one hot dog per meal. That's six meals and four extra hot dogs you can do whatever else you want with.
You can definitely get six meals out of a whole chicken but it's going to be a lot more work plus the additional 50c cost (and that's ignoring the value of the four extra hot dogs). 1 hot dog + 8oz of beans is going to be a fairly similar portion to 1/6th the recoverable meat from a 5lb bird.
It should obviously go without saying but, since you seem to be a stickler, I should point out that there is nothing stopping you from eating chicken one week then frank & beans the next. Variety is the biggest part of a healthy diet.
Your body doesn't care about the weight of the food nor the quantity of items in the package.
You eat calories and process nutrients. You can make a lot more meals and a wider variety of recipes with a whole chicken than a pack of hot dogs.
Anyone who shops like you described is not being efficient with their money as long as they have their own kitchen. Poverty is a lot of possible scenarios. I'm not saying they're dumb or anything.
Nutrition is hard to think about when tempted by the modern convenient grocery store with limited money. Unit price has a way of messing with your head. I also get the practicality of having packaged and shelf stable food when you lack access to a freezer and can't stay somewhere for too long. It is what it is.
"What meals can I make with a given amount of money?" is a reasonable way to shop.
You said:
> Franks and beans are not the best meal on the cheap. Sounds more expensive than cooking fresh and you're missing out on better nutrition.
> For the most bang for your buck you want to be eating less expensive real protein like chicken and pork and filling up on salads.
I gave you math on how you can take the money you would have spent on chicken and get essentially the same "bang for your buck" by spending it instead on canned beans and cheap sausage for the protein portion of your meals.
It is completely reasonable to allow people who receive money for food assistance to buy hot dogs.
It is completely unreasonable to disallow people who receive money for food assistance from purchasing anything "Ultra Processed" because "Ultra Processed" is a category too broad and loose to determine whether or not a given food item is "healthy".
Beans are legitimately one of the most balanced foods out there. Yes, they have carbs (but they're more complex than the simple sugars in fruit), they also have a lot of fiber, protein and several key micro-nutrients. Not to mention, most people on SNAP have kids and good luck getting them to eat salads.
I think you answered your own question with the last sentence. Have cattle ranchers, chicken farmers, vegetable and fruit farmers lobby for same or higher subsidies than grains.
> a person on a very limited SNAP budget will get less food under the new restrictions ... make it so that fresh produce and other healthy options are cheaper than the junk food
I'm confused by these statements. How are you deciding to measure the quantity of "food"? If you see food as a means to deliver nutrients, fresh produce is already far cheaper than junk food.
From the perspective of your body, you can sustain yourself much better on a smaller amount of nutrient dense calories than a larger amount of empty ones. Obesity is not merely an overconsumption of calories or a measure of food or body mass.
The number of times I've been praised for going "above and beyond" has been absolutely dwarfed by "stay in your lane". Turns out, a lot of people don't appreciate you trying to prove you could do their job.
I get notifications for text messages, phone calls, and emails on my VivoActive 6. There are also good apps; for instance, the built-in (free) golf app is great. Battery lasts over a week, too. So far, I'm pretty happy with it and don't feel the need to get an Apple Watch which requires charging every day.
When I see a parent just shove a tablet in front of a little kid's face to shut them up, it makes me die a little inside. Of course technology can be used in a beneficial manner, but I can't help but think that it stunts their mental growth.
> A separate study by the same team in 2024 suggested that parents could help counteract some of the brain changes in young children caused by passive screen time by reading to them frequently and engaging more with them in person.
Presumably they haven't found the correlation yet.
Yeah, could we please stop treating twitter as the canonical source of company communications? There is always a blog post or in this case, a github discussion.
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