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cool-RR

3,593 karma · joined July 30, 2007

I'm Ram, an AI Safety researcher with a background in software engineering.

I'm applying multi-agent reinforcement learning to AI Safety. I want to ensure that Artificial Intelligence will benefit human society rather than hurt it. I'm addressing both short-term consequences of existing AI tools such as LLMs and long-term existential risk imposed by the potential development of Artificial General Intelligence.

I propose to solve the problem of AI Safety by improving the social behavior of AI agents. Most AI research is focused on getting AI agents to solve bigger and more complex problems in the most efficient way possible; my research is focused on achieving cooperation, reciprocity and teamwork between AI agents.

My strategy is to distill lessons from the study of animal and human societies and apply them to AI agents.

Read more about my research here: https://r.rachum.com

submissionscomments
cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (July 2016)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups.

My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (April 2016)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups.

My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (March 2016)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups.

My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (January 2016)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups.

My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (December 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups.

My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
I take your point regarding phoning home. I also think that's a problem.

But really, you can't blame software providers. In the old days they'd all do the one-off purchasing model, and then they would all starve to death because people don't want to pay for software. So it's no wonder they're going for a model which is actually proven to work, which is a subscription.

cool-RR··on How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
Except a small fixup on a car can cost about as much as an entire computer.
cool-RR··on How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
>> taxi drivers invest more money than software developers

> Citation needed.

Pretty sure that for the price of a car, including maintenance, you could pay for a nice workstation and multiple monitors with lots of "expensive" software on a subscription model.

> You are assuming that everyone who develops software is employed as a software developer. There is fine work done by hobbyists and independents.

If you're developing open-source software, you can probably get a free license for many IDEs. If you're both a hobbyist, don't want to release your software as open-source, and expect to be given top-rate tools for a cheap price...

cool-RR··on How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
It's absolutely about the price. If I told you you need to rent them, but the price for renting for the next 15 years is negligible, I don't think you'd have a problem with renting them. Now our only disagreement is on what constitutes "negligible".
cool-RR··on How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
I see a lot of whining in this thread. If you think that an increase of $100/year in the price of a tool that you use every day, for, say, at least 5 hours daily as part of your job as software developer as a meaningful price increase, than the cost of your IDE is not close to being your biggest problem.

Even taxi drivers invest more money than software developers in the tools that they use every day, and software developers make quite a bit more money than taxi drivers.

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (September 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups. My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Git 2.5.0
https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/releases

I use Git 2.4.3 on Windows. (Using Msysgit.)

cool-RR··on Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App
Not really seeing how this is anything more than a fancy outsourcing company. Yes, they can say "We're different because we have the best developers," but really, lots of outsourcing companies say that.
cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (July 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups. My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Breaking the Zyzzyva encryption
I wonder whether you can bypass copyright for a word list if you feed it into a bloom filter[1] and then save just the bloom filter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter

cool-RR··on Show HN: Universal Pause Button
"I like to play video games. I also have a significant other, and she often walks into the room to talk to me while I'm playing a video game."

Looks like the real solution would be to pause your SO ;)

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (June 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups. My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on RegExr: A website for interactive regex prototyping with syntax highlighting
I use RegexBuddy, it has a shitload of different modes.
cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups. My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Boltons: over 100 Python utilities
I agree, more documentation would be very helpful. Unfortunately, no time...
cool-RR··on Boltons: over 100 Python utilities
I could write an entire article about this (possibly someday I will), but to explain it briefly: I feel it hurts my creative process to have to take the time to write these commit messages at every commit. It's making me not want to commit. I treat a commit as an extended save operation, so unconsciously avoiding saving is definitely not something you want to do. I know most people would object to my use of a commit as an extended save, but I stand by that opinion as well, especially in these days of deploy-by-commit systems like Heroku. Sometimes I make commits that are smaller than a commit message would be so having to write a message will be a big waste.

Also, commit messages are a form of documentation; but they are one of the least useful ones. Much less useful in my opinion than docstrings, topical guides, references and blog posts. So I think that spending time on them is a much lower priority than spending time on the other kinds of documentation.

cool-RR··on Boltons: over 100 Python utilities
Yeah, I get that a lot. I don't believe in commit messages. I know that 99% of developers are disturbed by this, but I think it's the best way to work so I'm willing to deal with people not liking it.
cool-RR··on Boltons: over 100 Python utilities
Quite similar to my project, Python Toolbox:

https://github.com/cool-RR/python_toolbox

It supports Python 3.

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (April 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups. My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (March 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups. My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (February 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

Hi, I'm Ram, a freelance web developer with six years of experience building web applications for startups. My expertise is in taking your idea and building it from scratch to the point where it's a fully-functional web app that serves paying users.

Technologies used: Python, Django, Postgres, Heroku, Git.

More information: https://chipmunkdev.com/

cool-RR··on How we run hackathons
I'd appreciate a hackathon for making AeroFS sync reliably. I've been using it for years, since when it was invite only, and it often simply refuses to sync. I've spoken with their support a dozen times. They're nice and courteous but the problems don't get solved. I've already given up on AeroFS; it's great for moving files inside a lan quickly but not for much else.
cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (January 2015)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

My name is Ram Rachum, and I’m a freelance software developer. I help businesses solve their problems using software, mostly by developing web-based applications. I work mainly in Python and Django.

On the technical level, it’s my responsibility to have high problem-solving skills; to design a good architecture for each project I work on; to implement that architecture quickly and effectively; and to be experienced with the languages and frameworks that I’m using, so when a problem comes up, I don’t have to spend 2 hours to research and solve it but rather just 5 minutes, because I’ve seen that problem dozen of times before.

On the project-management level, it’s my responsibility to communicate clearly and honestly with the client and my collaborators on the project; to understand exactly what the client wants to build as we plan together how to build it; to always keep the client updated about progress; to have an owner mentality and make decisions with the best interest of the client in mind; to own up to mistakes when they happen; and to always get feedback as early as possible from the client and from the users, so we know we’re not wasting time going into blind alleys, and we’re spending time only on features that the users are happy with. My email is ram@rachum.com . Send me an email and say hello.

More details about me: https://ram.rachum.com/cv/

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (December 2014)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

My name is Ram Rachum, and I’m a freelance software developer. I help businesses solve their problems using software, mostly by developing web-based applications. I work mainly in Python and Django.

On the technical level, it’s my responsibility to have high problem-solving skills; to design a good architecture for each project I work on; to implement that architecture quickly and effectively; and to be experienced with the languages and frameworks that I’m using, so when a problem comes up, I don’t have to spend 2 hours to research and solve it but rather just 5 minutes, because I’ve seen that problem dozen of times before.

On the project-management level, it’s my responsibility to communicate clearly and honestly with the client and my collaborators on the project; to understand exactly what the client wants to build as we plan together how to build it; to always keep the client updated about progress; to have an owner mentality and make decisions with the best interest of the client in mind; to own up to mistakes when they happen; and to always get feedback as early as possible from the client and from the users, so we know we’re not wasting time going into blind alleys, and we’re spending time only on features that the users are happy with. My email is ram@rachum.com . Send me an email and say hello.

More details about me: http://ram.rachum.com/cv/

cool-RR··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (November 2014)
SEEKING WORK - Remote only. (Based in Tel-Aviv.)

My name is Ram Rachum, and I’m a freelance software developer. I help businesses solve their problems using software, mostly by developing web-based applications. I work mainly in Python and Django.

On the technical level, it’s my responsibility to have high problem-solving skills; to design a good architecture for each project I work on; to implement that architecture quickly and effectively; and to be experienced with the languages and frameworks that I’m using, so when a problem comes up, I don’t have to spend 2 hours to research and solve it but rather just 5 minutes, because I’ve seen that problem dozen of times before.

On the project-management level, it’s my responsibility to communicate clearly and honestly with the client and my collaborators on the project; to understand exactly what the client wants to build as we plan together how to build it; to always keep the client updated about progress; to have an owner mentality and make decisions with the best interest of the client in mind; to own up to mistakes when they happen; and to always get feedback as early as possible from the client and from the users, so we know we’re not wasting time going into blind alleys, and we’re spending time only on features that the users are happy with. My email is ram@rachum.com . Send me an email and say hello.

More details about me: http://ram.rachum.com/cv/

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