2 weeks ago: https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/1046864324310982668 > Some personal news: Recently, I learned the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma I battled in 2009 has returned. I’ve begun treatment & my doctors are optimistic that I will see a good result. Appreciate the support I’ve received & count on it as I fight this challenge Just now: https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/1051958128885940226
Wow can your condition go south that quickly?
Two weeks is the questionable speed record in my family. From 'hm, why do I almost black out when I sneeze or cough' to funeral.
I down voted you because I believe this post in is incredibly poor taste. Nobody is perfect and calling out perceived flaws is a pretty shitty thing to do right when someone dies. Especially true given that several people who have posted here knew the guy on a personal level.
Why? Because automatic lionization of people is the proper way? Wouldn't it be incredible if someone died and we could finally speak about them honestly?
Well... it would be but that's not what we do. In part because people know that one day they too will pass and they hope people will remember them kindly and forgive them their trespasses. Think of it as a 'pay it forward' mechanism.
And to qualify, you usually have to be extremely rich and well-connected, thus enforcing the idea that there are two sets of laws - one for hoi polloi and one for the exalted elite. I think it's better when there's just one, and your rights do not depend on who you know.
That's just straight-up wrong. Legal ownership of a gun in Japan requires an extreme amount of bureaucracy, but it's entirely possible and most legal gun owners in Japan are (non-rich, non-well-connected) farmers. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/gun-control-how-japan-has...
OP may very well be referring to California. There are some districts where concealed carry permits are "may issue" -- issued at the discretion of an authority like a sheriff -- as opposed to "shall issue" -- mandatory issuing if you meet the legal obligations / restrictions. In practice, this results in celebrities and the well-connected getting permits, and "nobody" citizens with clean records and legitimate personal safety concerns being denied permits.
He was also the person responsible for UoW's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science, in total he donated around $50m (with another $10m in match from Microsoft) for the school's foundation.
Just the building, not the entire CSE department. Not to mention Allen library.
The library was named for Kenneth S. Allen, Associate Director of Libraries from 1960 to 1982, in recognition of his years of service to the Libraries, and in appreciation of a generous gift from his son, Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft.
My uncle went to the dentist complaining of bit of bleeding in his gums. The dentist immediately sent him to get blood tests done and the next day he was diagnosed with leukaemia. Three days later he passed away.
Like Arthur Kane, bass player for the New York Dolls. Goes to the hospital thinking he has the flu, is diagnosed with leukemia, 2 hours - HOURS - later, he dies.
By the time you notice the symptoms, in a serious way, you're unfortunately already as good as gone. :(
My parents went hiking/camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Dad was having trouble swallowing. On returning, they went to the doctor and he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He seemed the picture of health. In 5 weeks he died.
I'm sure most of us were envious of his life, but almost no one would trade places with him today. It goes to show that health really is more valuable than money.
Here's the thing... One rich-person-year is typically equal to 4 common-person-year. Why? Rich people (defined here as folks with net worth of $100M+) can spend all of the time in things they desire. They can outsource almost all of the chores like cleaning house or doing taxes or laundry or cooking leaving more free time besides not having to do 8-hour jobs. Their transportation and commute is frictionless and doesn't penalise their effective available lifespan. They have approximately 13 hours available in each day to acquire desired experiences while a common person has only 3 hours. Things are actually bit more worse for a common person because the available experiences for them is far more limited. They can't fly out to Paris in personal jet, have dinner in 3 star michelin restaurant and fly back while taking a nap in cushy bed. In other words, a rich person typically gets to have 4X experiences in same period of time than a common person. In other words, if human common-man life span was 60 years, the effective life span of a rich person is approximately 240 years.
I worked as Paul's technical adviser at Vulcan - he was funny, warm, and prickly in turns, well aware of the outsized shadow he cast, and absolutely dedicated to bringing the sci-fi future he so loved into reality. His legacy in the Institutes, in his philanthropic ventures, and in the bones of Seattle itself cannot be overstated. Outside of the sciences, he built South Lake Union (home of Amazon and many other tech…
> absolutely dedicated to bringing the sci-fi future he so loved into reality. We need more people like this. Some of this stuff might be impossible, but there is only one way to find out. It takes a great person to throw themselves into the machine of failure for the benefit of humanity. It is, ultimately, also philanthropy - it's just philanthropy on a timescale that is far greater than one life and far more than a…
>It takes a great person to throw themselves into the machine of failure for the benefit of humanity.
I have to mention an article by Allen which I think is the single best critique of the idea fo the "singularity" which I have seen. Paul Allen: The Singularity Isn't Near https://www.technologyreview.com/s/425733/paul-allen-the-sin...
Good article. I'll also add, progress on AI may also be severely restricted by energy usage. We can build supercomputers which by some measures match the complexity of biological systems, but they consume huge amounts of power compared to the 20W of the brain.