Inside Bill’s Brain • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#31

Post by ttul » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #23

Dangeranger wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is bifurcated between people who see no problem with current nuclear plants and those who see any nuclear plant as an abomination in need of removal. It’s hard to have a reasonable debate about this issue when the sides are so diametrically opposed due to their dogmatic beliefs.

The question is do we need nuclear and the risks? Can renewables like wind, hydro, and solar provide what we need cheaper and without the dangers associated with nuclear? If so, then why even mess with it?

The risks are completely manageable. Aside from a couple of disasters, nuclear energy has not killed or poisoned very many people at all. There is a cost to all forms of energy production. But because nuclear involves weird stuff with atoms that most people don’t understand, they find it scarier.

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#32

Post by rantwasp » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #23

Dangeranger wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is bifurcated between people who see no problem with current nuclear plants and those who see any nuclear plant as an abomination in need of removal. It’s hard to have a reasonable debate about this issue when the sides are so diametrically opposed due to their dogmatic beliefs.

The question is do we need nuclear and the risks? Can renewables like wind, hydro, and solar provide what we need cheaper and without the dangers associated with nuclear? If so, then why even mess with it?

i would say yes. watch the series and see why nuclear as is has issues and what was proposed (ie they were not proposing to build yet another nuclear reactor, they actually designed and build a nuclear reactor that could run on current nuclear waste - and estimated that the current waste that we store could power all of the US for 125 years given the current energy needs).

i don't know if humans will still be a thing in 500 years but I can tell you that if we're still going to be around the history books are not going to be kinds to us in general and to Trump in particular.

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#33

Post by turbinerneiter » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

plemer wrote: post #13

curiousDog wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you guys please stop with the Soros bashing? There's literally no basis for all the BS being spewed about a self-made man like that.

Calling for a more nuanced rendering of someone’s character isn’t “bashing”, nor does being a “self-made” man disqualify one from criticism.

The whole Soros story is an anti-Semitic smear made up by Orbans team to win elections in Hungary. Nobody would give two shits about Soros if it wasn't for that. No matter how true it might be that he earned some of his money to the detriment of others, the only reason why it's being discussed is is so that Orbans has a virtual enemy to win against.

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#34

Post by rantwasp » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

blueside wrote: post #21

joezydeco wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly get downvoted for pointing out that Saint Bill the Philanthropist refuses to acknowledge all the shitty behavior and the damage he left behind to earn him that fortune in the first place.

Couldn't agree more. How he got there is always overlooked. Bill is certainly very intelligent and competent. But could Bill start a company from scratch and be competitive today? One that is remotely close to MS and from competing fairly? I'm doubtful.

oh wow. just wow. i think it's really easy to be an armchair philosopher vs actually doing things. I for one, even though I am not a big fan of MS or Gates, have no doubt that he could find a niche and grow a successful business today. There is a lot of luck involved when starting from scratch so it's anyone's guess if it would grow as large as MS - but it would definitely take off the ground.

Competing fairly is IMHO nice, but I don't believe that's your number one concern when you're trying to get things off the ground and survive. We look at all the successful companies and nitpick on questionable things they did in they early days (or current days for that matter). We overlook that no successful company got where it is without actually aggressively pursuing their goals. Nobody hears about the companies that compete "fairly".

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#35

Post by immichaelwang » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

GimbalLock wrote: post #25

I found it pretty surprising how much they romanticized his years of working instead of sleeping. That’s a dangerous thing to promote.

It's supposed to be an honest raw look at his life. And frankly, it makes a lot of sense that he had poor work life balance. It's to be expected that extraordinary effort is required to build extraordinary things.

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#36

Post by traverseda » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #27

traverseda wrote: post #9

Maybe this is unfair, but I hope they at least touch on the halloween documents and the antitrust suite. Anything that touches on microsoft's history should at least mention the anti-competitive practices they used to cripple competition.

Why in the hell would they do that in this documentary?

I thought I was pretty clear on that?

>Anything that touches on microsoft's history should at least mention the anti-competitive practices they used to cripple competition.

Do you want to clarify your statement a bit? Why "the hell" do you think they shouldn't?

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#37

Post by donarb » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

ScottFree wrote: post #29

joezydeco wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly get downvoted for pointing out that Saint Bill the Philanthropist refuses to acknowledge all the shitty behavior and the damage he left behind to earn him that fortune in the first place.

Not to mention his philanthropy work frequently causes considerable damage itself, like the malaria nets[0] that poisoned the local food supply, the failed public school overhaul[1] and common core[2][3]. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/world/africa/mosquito-net... [1]: https://nancyebailey.com/2018/07/04/gatess-blunders-destroy-... [2]: https://www.philanthropydaily.com/gates-philanthropy-failure... [3]: htt…

A better view of the things they've learned while trying to help the world is Melinda Gate's interview with Dave Letterman on his Netflix show.

Melinda talked about how they were told by the women in small African villages not to bring condoms, that the women wanted birth control in the form for Depro-Prevara shots. Condoms have the stigma of AIDS prevention and so a wife that wants her mate to use a condom is seen as suggesting that he has been unfaithful and is infected.

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#38

Post by rantwasp » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #11

I binged this yesterday. I didn't particularly enjoy the way they mixed Gate's early story with his current endeavours with the foundation, but all in all it's still interesting enough.

to me it made sense. it was a parallel between his early years and what he was doing now - basically applying the same way of thinking/working just for a different class of problems.

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#39

Post by adventured » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #23

Dangeranger wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is bifurcated between people who see no problem with current nuclear plants and those who see any nuclear plant as an abomination in need of removal. It’s hard to have a reasonable debate about this issue when the sides are so diametrically opposed due to their dogmatic beliefs.

The question is do we need nuclear and the risks? Can renewables like wind, hydro, and solar provide what we need cheaper and without the dangers associated with nuclear? If so, then why even mess with it?

It makes enormous sense to have some diversity in the electrical generation system, along with the essentially guaranteed & dependable output of nuclear. It's an excellent backbone. The US could very easily get to 30% renewables (17-18% now), 30% nuclear (19%-20% now), 40% natural gas (35%-36% now), from where the figures are at today. That ends coal. Then push forward on reducing the natural gas share thereafter. 30%-40% nuclear and 60%-70% renewables long-term, would perhaps be ideal.

We could trivially float ~$200 billion to build new nuclear plants and rapidly wipe out all the remaining coal power along with a modest increase in renewables and natural gas, rather than following the gradual coal decline route.

60 nuclear plants are giving us 19-20% of our power base now. It'd cost ~$200-$250 billion to take that up to 30%, assuming $7 billion each. Even if the cost were $10b each ($300b total), it'd be fine. The nuclear plants buy us many decades to keep pushing renewables higher. It's an irrelevant dollar price to pay, shouldered over decades (low yield debt), for the benefits. And it keeps our generation diversity intact.

Re: Inside Bill’s Brain

#40

Post by jasoneckert » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

I'm not a fan of documentaries, but I liked this one (all three parts). It's Bill essentially saying "You know - this is what matters, the Microsoft stuff is secondary." And I respect that.

The Steve Jobs documentaries were more like "Hey, this guy was a douche, but people worship the cult he made from peddling computer stuff, and that is good, right?"

Definitely a difference in approach.