JDulin

But it looked like there was scarcity to the consumer. When you are the one means of distribution, you can create as much scarcity as you want. It just seems that the record labels and movie industry have carried out that ruse for so long, they actually believe it.

At first I wasn't sure if "Defining Property" was one of the most insightful essays I read in a long time, or lazy logic on Paul's part trying to protect the internet in the copyright debate. But I'm pretty sure Paul is talking about something important now.

What he hits on is that there is no scarcity anymore. Media is reproduced and shared freely and instantly, because that is the nature of the internet. The 'pipes' (expensive, physical means of distribution) the recording industry pumped music through for decades have now dissappeared and have been replaced with an open environment. Anything that tries to close that environment is just trying to create artificial scarcity.

It's true that media costs money to produce. And the publishers can still charge for it, if they make the distribution model convenient (or not). But that is still a one time cost which promotes the artist. And let's not act like artists are going to just stop making media if they don't think publishers are going to give them a big payday. They aren't. The more likely scenario is that the distribution will shift to being handled by the artists and that money will be made through concerts and merchandise. Downloaded music will be paid for sometimes, but mostly used for advertisement.

Considering NASA's recent performance record and what the motivation for spaceflight was in the 20th century (Russia), I understand your reasoning. But government sponsored space programs pursue valuable goals private organizations never can.

If you believe in the value of science and the importance of humanity becoming a multi-planetary species, I think you have to support government funded spaceflight. No private company would have had the incentive to make the Hubble or Spitzer telescopes a reality, and they have given us unparalleled insight into the nature of the universe. Because companies have to operate with budgets that demand profit or death within a small amount of time, they will never send probes to investigate other planets, the outer reaches of space, and invest in experiments that may not prove their value for decades. The exploration of space is going to be a long journey, and it requires organizations that can handle long-term goals.

It's also naive to think that SpaceX and other private space companies would even exist without NASA. Their largest contracts are with NASA right now because there is no profit in spaceflight outside of government contracts, space tourism, and satellite launches. And SpaceX engineers say themselves that they owe their success to the designs and knowledge of the early NASA programs which they copy (Very well designed spacecraft with lessons NASA has forgotten). Many designs on Falcon 9 are taken directly from the old Apollo missions, with improvements [1]. In most technical revolutions, large-scale accessibility comes only after a path is paved by a central power. Computers and the internet came to the masses after decades of investment by the military. The only reason jets became the new standard so quickly after WWII was because of development in the war. And when SpaceX goes to Mars, it will be thanks to the wealth of knowledge NASA exploration missions created over decades.

[1] http://www.gizmag.com/date-set-for-spacex-dragon-launch/208

The lack of government funding for a space exploration program makes me as sad and angry as anyone. However, I find Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan's argument against commercialized space-flight lame.

They say it would be less safe than a NASA program and that "To be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature..." Note though that some of their argument was directed at the cancellation of NASA's planned moon missions.

With that in mind, let's consider the shuttle program. In 135 missions, it had an abysmal safety record that claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, making it the deadliest spaceflight program in history. It's budget cost $196 billion dollars over the craft's lifetime instead of the estimated $43 billion (adjusted for inflation), while making around half of the promised flights. The shuttle was an important (for both good and bad) craft that helped accomplish great things, like build the ISS and Hubble space telescope. But nationalist pride shouldn't make us blind to the fact that NASA's last program probably set progress in spaceflight backwards, or at least slowed it, and never attempted to leave low-Earth orbit. Those astronauts may not like it, but Elon Musk has a clearer vision and more ambition than NASA (or the politicians) have had for a very long time.

First of all, thanks a lot for sharing this Paul. I have just entered college and have only just started to see the importance of these lessons you illustrate: Accepting the past and being good to ourselves and each other.

Unfortunately, they are learned too late in life by too many people. I myself have spent too much time working for the sake of some future reward instead of the love of my work. The problem with this is that it can create unhealthy feedback loops. You keep working, certain that sooner or later this work you hate will pay off. And when it doesn't, you think you either didn't work hard enough and try again, or you finally decide to find work you love. But when you've spent the past working for a reward that never came, it's really hard to accept the past. That's where some of the most painful burnouts come from.

The military has been investing huge amounts of money into robotics for decades now, and most of the advancements in capability have been linear (and expensive). But now the exciting thing is that thanks to Willow Garage, Aldebaran-Robotics, and FIRST, the accessibility of robots has fallen to a point where we have thousands of researchers and hobbyists working on robotics constantly, building open-source software and raising the abilities of all robot platforms. Higher accessibility will drive capability exponentially, just like it did in the 1980s.

The cool part is that capability and accessibility are one in the same chain. If you pull from either end, the other follows.

FIRST is one of the most important sports in the world, and brings back many great memories to anyone who has participated. There is no high school program that teaches the principles of engineering, programming, rapid prototyping and teamwork so well. That, and it is just downright fun to build robots.

Part of FIRST's value lies in its ability to get anyone involved in a team and get them excited about technology. There were non-technical students who joined my high school's FRC team (Team 3652) and helped by leading our fundraising and media projects. They learned plenty of business and life skills. But best of all, when the robot scored for the first time, they were just as excited as the rest of us.

I think your argument is aiming at the right target, but is using the wrong ammo.

The essay outlines why piracy is not possible (or at least practical) for space commerce. However, it is very plausible that nations will fight over shipping routes and try to destroy each other's freighters and merchant ships. Like you said "Anywhere you have commerce, you are liable to develop conflict." This will be true, but probably only between political states.

A fascinating read and good outline for what space battles require, but not a predication of what future space combat will look like. By limiting the discussion to only technology that we could build today, the exact scenarios in here will never play out.

Large scale space combat will play out only when humans can build these weapons cheaply, and have an incentive to build them at all. That is decades from now. By the time a human society decides to construct the ridiculously expensive space warships and defenses the author talks about, we will have much more advanced technology (that is probably a lot cheaper to.)

This essay admits the fact that there will always be someone willing to "come out of the woodwork" to implement the SOPA. However, the reason this idea could work is that the programmers you have building the law will never be as smart as the hackers not. Or even actively working against it.

The most exciting part is that once a few large companies like FOXCONN make a commitment to robotic manufacturing, we may be able to see the exponential decreases in robot costs we have been waiting for as they want cheaper sensors and actuators in larger quantities. Robotics have been (and are) incredibly expensive, but but we are reaching a point where the price will begin to plummet.

I understand what you are saying and will try to make future HN posts more accurate.

However, the BSA has been the only source of info as to what Apple, Microsoft, and most of the other association members have to say on SOPA. To my knowledge, none of the companies with BSA membership have made any independent statements[1] on the bill, and if so, certainly not on the scale Google did. * My hunch is that the BSA was created for a reason in addition to stopping copyright infringement: To represent these companies without their explicit support, just like any good lobbying company.

If we are considering evidence as to what these companies' positions are, the BSA is the only source we have, and the fact most of them stand to gain from software licenses.

[1] If anyone has seen a BSA member show opposition to SOPA in the past few weeks, I'd like to see.

*Edit

Other than Startup Roots, are there any other good ways to find Bay Area startup internships?

Awesome essay from Paul, very insightful.

This mindset is good at not only helping yourself become yourself, but placing the best people in your life.

If you spend your entire life trying to please everyone you meet, decide who you should be friends with and who you shouldn't, and become a person that others will like more, you will ultimately not make friends who you would have by just being yourself. And those are the friends you want most.

Perhaps even worse, you could waste endless amounts of time on people who you think you should be friends with or have in your life, but really shouldn't. Sooner or later, the relationships with these people that you built on the foundation of some artificial idea of yourself will crumble. If you know that you are nothing, then become yourself, you will be surprised how many amazing friends you will find in your life.

This could be a breakthrough technology for robotics and AI. For years it has looked liked a new computer architecture would be required to let robots make all of the complex decisions in real-time that humans take for granted, especially in the realm of perception.

If these chips can do what they say they can (well), I can't wait to see how they change robotics!

This is a good argument saying the desktop is still alive, but it is a bad argument saying that it isn't dying.

Most of the points that the author illustrates the importance of desktops with will matter less and less in the next 5 years as storage and CPU power become cheaper. But most importantly, as hardware innovations make tablets convenient to use for typing (1) and easy to use with large displays (2), the desktop will become a niche power-user market.

(1) http://wingstand.com/ (2) http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/breakthrough-device-of-ces-201...

I think I will organize a pilgrimage from my school's CS department.

The entreprenuers who are determined and flexible enough to keep going through the crucible of winter may have an even better opportunity to succeed than they did in summer.

http://paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html

I would hope the real Anon understands the magnitude the challenge they just set before themselves.

"Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria."

^ Besides, if Anonymous wanted to disgrace facebook, I think a better way to do that would be to show evidence backing up this claim.

Well done Anonymous. Although it may seem like an empty gesture based on what the U.S. government has (or hasn't) done.

Although the world population has more than doubled from the middle of the twentieth century, technology has doubled many times more, and continues to at a much faster rate than our rate of consumption and reproduction. This exponential increase means that is only a matter of time until the efficiency of technology overtakes the amount of jobs that a society needs to produce more than it needs.

Technology will net kill jobs someday if it isn't already. It remains to be seen whether that is happening now, or if this unemployment is just the symptom of a country that has borrowed too much.

"My point is that people fresh out of school who want to be independent are tackling the biggest problems they can on a budget of $1-2000/month."

As a teenager, I agree here. I know that I can build a trendy little web app for relatively nothing if it has the possibility of making me rich. However, any ideas I have for robotics, healthcare, and energy are going to require me working in a job at a large company (which I wouldn't like) or getting an unusually large amount of VC investment (which would be unlikely.)

I think the problem could be experience. For a recent graduate, it's hard to acquire the amount of VC funding you need for a hardware-based, regulated field when you can't say you have any entrepreneurial experience. For conservative VCs, there's a big difference between giving $20,000 to a college-age kid and giving $100,000 to a college-age kid.