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What would you do with $700 Billion? | kolokonokos: Death Star. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | UandIblog: I'd get a crew of volunteers together and torch the The World Bank & The International Monetary Fund.. just burn it to the ground. That might cost a couple hundred grand tops. With them out of the way it would be easy to implement a true Meritocracy in all governments. Presidents will get a paycheck on a sliding scale, the more wealth they are responsible for creating for their people, the better off they will do personally. I'd then use crowdsourcing to dictate what investments were made with the remaining 699 1/2 billion. We would then use the interest created by the these investments to fund all of the projects previously mentioned by the HackerNews Community.edit I'd make sure all of the employee's were out of the buildings, of course... |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | tdavis: Use it to somehow dismantle all organized religion, probably. Likely the quickest way to save the world. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | danw: Try and fix poverty, hunger, clean drinking water in a sustainable way. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | iamdave: Probably keep enough to retire on, and give the rest to my alma mater and have a football stadium named after me :) |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | rms: Cure cancerCure HIVEliminate hungerEliminate thirstTake over Equatorial Guinea |
Offering Commissions to Marketers? | noodle: this is the equivalent of hiring a "PR guy", is it not? |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | raheemm: build my own university - maybe university on a ship, no a university on a ship with its own navy, wait - a university on a ship with its own navy, its own private islands and a jet plane and a space shuttle. Damn, it got crazy so quickly! |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | michaelneale: Free renewable energy. Probably geothermal. About 100bn on research to develop the system, the rest to roll it out. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | einarvollset: I would sponsor a manned mission to Mars. It's roughly the same amount of money. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | nazgulnarsil: money doesn't solve problems, smart people do. money is just a way of freeing smart people of distractions.
and i think 70 billion in todays dollars is a lot more realistic than 700 billion.
that said:10 billion for space elevator research10 billion for terraforming mars research10 billion in scholarships available to anyone in the world as well as the money needed to pull strings to get the smartest kids into the best colleges.10 billion for a clean water research30 billion in free contraception/medical for every country. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | run4yourlives: I wouldn't do anything. You would, because I will own you. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | qqq: 100 billion goes to speeding up immortality and cryonics research a lot. i don't want to die, and i'd rather you didn't die either. 10 million (or whatever) pays for aubrey de grey, and anyone he recommends, to be my advisors for using the 100 billion effectively. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | thebigshane: Find the 299 most influential people in the world and pay them 10m a year for twenty years to do my bidding. Hold on the last 2 billion for reserves in case they turn on me. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | phr: Hire a mercenary army to conquer some third world sh*t hole, then give it a modern infrastructure, education system, etc., and turn it into a capitalist/libertarian utopia.With some of the profits, I'd pick another country and iterate. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | dshfnc: I would buy massive amounts of gold and start a anonymous, secure digital currency backed by gold :) |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | semblance2: Since it seems like defaulting mortgages are the cause of the situation, why not use the money to pay off those mortgages?. If it took $50,000 on average to save an individual mortgage, then you could rescue 14 million mortgages. Some would say that presents a moral hazard, but it seems like that cat is way out of the bag already. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | MaysonL: Replace the US auto fleet with Better Place cars http://www.betterplace.com/ . |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | zandorg: Longevity. Hook me up with some new organs. |
What is the fastest way for American customers to pay to a company in India? | shajis: money2india - It's run by a reputable Indian bank, ICICI. |
help i've moved computers and can't find a password emailer option | jgamman: finally figured it out, but still think there should be an email me option |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | tptacek: 700 billion is 1400 times the operating budget of Harvard Medical. So I might do that a couple times. |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | zitterbewegung: Create a new space station and possibly try to go to mars. |
just started a company, which bank should I go with | Shooter: At this point, stick your money under your mattress... |
just started a company, which bank should I go with | SwellJoe: Doesn't matter. All depositors protected up to $100k (investment accounts are usually insured for much more) by the FDIC...as long as you think the US is solvent (questionable, at this point, but we're all working with USD, so doesn't matter where the dollars are...if they become worthless they'll be worthless no matter what).Choose a bank that's got a branch near you...you'll be there more often than in the past. National, or at least in the major cities you can imagine finding yourself in. We've got an account with WaMu, who just merged into JP Morgen (which kinda sucks, as banks go) due to insolvency. I don't plan to move to another bank until the policies and fees change to the JP Morgan Chase standard (which they will), and folks start showing up in the uniforms and trying to sell me something every time I walk in the door. |
Good books on mathematics for somebody who's only taken high school math? | janm: Concrete Mathematics by Graham, Kunth and Patashnikhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_Mathematics |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | trapper: Buy microsoft and open source it.
Buy google and open source it.
Buy apple and open source it.
Spend the rest on hookers and beer for all programmers. |
What are some interesting projects you've worked on lately? | noodle: i'm working on a hardware project. its interesting to me since i've not touched hardware design or microcontroller programming since i graduated. |
Business Plan Resources | zacharye: You can find a good guideline on Sequoia's site:http://www.sequoiacap.com/ideas/ |
What would you do with $700 Billion? | rainface: I would use it to pay back the loan from which it came. |
What are some interesting projects you've worked on lately? | wheels: Uhm, could you be a little more specific than "projects"? What are you good at? What's your background? |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | wheels: Working on hard stuff is in my bones, but it'd be nice at times to be able to live in a la-la land where monetization was completely irrelevant.If I, say, "solved the money problem" in the sense that Paul usually uses the term, i.e. had a few million piled up, I'd probably get a small team together to rethink the way that music composition on computers is done. Start with a lot of research and interviews about how composers actually build up a piece and just build the best system for expressing musical ideas. I'd like to get around to that someday. It'd be cool being able to ignore the fact that it's a small, poor customer base. ;-)The fact that computer interfaces are still designed to mimic tape recorders or wire cabling is a embarrassing. |
What are some interesting projects you've worked on lately? | Hutzpah: In this times you are short on supply for THAT???!!Android Apps: Massive Multipayer Online Games with Google Maps so the players actually have to move theire asses out into the real world. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | mwerty: Work on riskier ideas with bigger payoffs (financial or otherwise). |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | nazgulnarsil: I would run an experiment to figure out how long it would take me to get tired of sleeping with gold digging models. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | tc7: Wake up earlyish, work in a small garden office with the windows open and the crisp fall air streaming in, break for lunch on patio with my wife, read a book, go on a walk in the countryside.I dunno. I think I'd like it, though.I'd still work on things, but I feel like the pressure would be released, so I could work on indie adventure games and not have a nagging conscience telling me to do something that will make money.
I do want to write my novel. And create a board game. And a stop-motion animated film. And take up painting and drawing. And travel a lot.Wow. In the meantime, I'll pack up here at the cube and head home. Then I'll come back Monday and do it again. Yayyyyy. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | esja: I'd work for the political party you started in point 4. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | tdavis: I'd do the same thing with my life that I'm doing with it now. I'd just like to do it in a slightly more modern apartment that doesn't contain a futon. That's about it. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | bps4484: I'd teach. Math, science, or computer science to high school aged students. I really think teaching is fun and fulfilling, you just don't get paid well at all. I'd also read a lot. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | vaksel: $100K/yr is really not that much now. I mean if you think about it the only difference between 50K and 100K is a slightly bigger house, a slightly better car and a slightly better vacation. A lot of programmers make close to that already |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | sutro: You're going to start a city with $100K a year? You must have mad city-building skills. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | robg: Quite honestly, the most freeing moment in my life was when I realized I had already "solved the money problem". That is, I knew I could be happy and could survive doing exactly what I was doing. Every decision since then has been an effort to do more of what I most liked doing (and conversely less of what I didn't). The only problem now is how to find time to do it all. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | yan: Why aren't you doing some of those things during your free time right now? You certainly don't need money to create a series of games or research robotics in your free time. If you're not doing it now, what makes you think you'll do it if you are relieved of the job obligation?I find that flaw with myself: come up with reasons why I'm not doing what I really want to be doing. I'm trying to overcome the friction of day dreaming and start actually doing something.These thought exercises are cute, but in the end, counter-productive. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | tptacek: Get a good night's sleep. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | pavelludiq: I have no idea. I only know that its not going to be boring. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | jcapote: I'd open up PARC again. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | rsayers: With nothing holding me down to a specific location I think I would travel most of the time, "live" in a certain part of the world for a time before moving on. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | thingsilearned: I'm going to move to Argentina and build a sailboat. Its been my goal for 3 years. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | simplegeek: Go back to school and finish my degree first. These days I really want to go back to school despite I've a good job. More I work without a degree more I realize I need to learn more. But then again I'm getting married soon. Ah, well...... |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | 3KWA: what I am doing now with a tad more surfing :P |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | fgimenez: Noble Causes:-Be a high school teacher for math and computer science (a la lockhart's lament)-Start some form of programmers without borders to see how tech can help those in 3rd world nations-Write as much free medical software as possible (I.E. PACS servers and dicom viewers for MRI's. OsiriX already does this for mac, but nobody has even come close for windows or linux)Eccentric Causes:-Put a paintball turret on a golf cart, have a mad max style race with buddies-Build a rocket with an autonomous guiding system. Seriously, fricken rockets with computer vision on their heads.-Write stock picking software based on my own random math theories like Ed Thorpe did (Which was very well recounted in "Fortune's Formula)-Surf more. I already get about a day a week, but I'd like to up it to 4.-Related to surfing, tap into publicly available weather data to write software to predict swell sizes. FFT here I come!-Build a poker server with an API for bots. Pit humans against AI.A billion more things to put here...[Edit for weird markdown formatting] |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | lux: Well, I've got one album recorded and another written (need to rehearse with a band again to record this one), so I'd get back into pursuing a music career. My lawyer actually made me promise my next "startup" would be my music, so I guess I have to now...I'd read a LOT more (classics and non-fiction mainly), get back into Muay Thai (planning on starting again this fall anyhow, money permitting), donate some volunteer time instead of just money, and travel. I'm interested in studying chess too.After all that, I'd most likely start another company. What else could I do? ;) In reality, I love the challenge of starting companies, and there's nothing like going from zero to success to prove to yourself you can (even if I had a safety net next time!). |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | ph0rque: I'd probably work on molecular nanotechnology... in my spare time, I'd try to solve poverty. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | froo: If personal money wasn't an issue, there are a couple things I would do I guess.- I'd more than likely hack/work on projects that I thought would contribute to society in a meaningful way rather than trying to do something for profit.- Spend more time doing the things I enjoy, perhaps take on a significant hobby project that wasn't work related- I'd probably also help my mother out a little more too.- Maybe contribute a little of my time directly to community related projects, like volunteer work in something I found meaningful.Sounds kind of strange, but I guess overall I'd like to be able to give more of myself to others and make much more of a positive impact in other's lives; sounds kind of tree-huggerish I know. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | mpk: 1) I'd spend a year writing a web-app to teach mathematics and physics, open-source it, run it on my own servers and lobby to have it used in high-school education.2) I'd put more time into promoting awareness of Humanism and showing people that morality isn't restricted to the belief that an omniscient police agent is judging your every move.3) I'd try to get NATO to play nice with Russia and after that get China on board as well. A USA/Russian/EU/Chinese block should be strong enough to stop nuclear threats and have the added bonus of getting us to Mars faster.4) Having brokered world-peace and ensured continuity for all mankind, I'd chill out, read Ceasar's De Bello Gallico in Latin, master Bach's violin pieces at solist concert level, learn Russian and Mandarin Chinese, polish my French and grow awesome grapes for delicious wine. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | qaexl: (1) Practice martial arts 4hrs a day, and travel around the world preserving some lineages that are disappearing this generation.(1a) I want to meet some Khampas(1b) I want to meet some of my teacher's teachers in Taiwan.(1n) ad nauseum(2) Set up a lab where I can play and build AI models, specifically relating to OpenCyc and neural networks, using Google news as training data then feed it people's RSS feeds and blog posts. Run the whole thing on the cloud and see what else I need to get it to start messing with people.(3) Collect a huge library and read. Lots. Both non-fiction and fiction.(3a) Get to the point where I can consistently beat the top Go software and can hold my own near the top kyu rankings. Then go back and read through history books with the skills I acquired from playing Go. Figure out if people make different strategic decisions based on whether they played Go or played chess. Maybe write a book about it.(3b) Study all of Joseph Campbell's work, and identify the top active, modern myths operating on modern social psyche, both overt and hidden. Distill it and write something similar to Neal Stephenson's Primer (from Diamond Age).(3c) Write a series of short stories in English using themes from classic wuxia theater (martial art fantasy stuff, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and embed in there how to survive high school with your sanity intact. Then slip it out in the wild.(4) Write a mobile MMO.(5) Learn Ancient Chinese, maybe take a crack at Sanskrit. Dig up some old stuff and figure them out. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | kicker: #1 grabbed my attention. I'm doing it right now in my spare time. Email me at be288@yahoo.com if you want to trade some ideas.It'd be fun to talk about it with someone else with the same idea. Most people I tell this to stare at me like I'm a purple cow. |
quickest, most dependable way to solve the money problem? | oldgregg: I've heard Buenos Aires is nice. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | comatose_kid: Randomly visit message boards posing rhetorical questions. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | steveeq1: Easy, I'd travel the world with my laptop and write code on the road. Hopefully code that would change the world. |
quickest, most dependable way to solve the money problem? | breck: Move to California. It's awesome out here. Opportunity abounds to create your ideal lifestyle. |
Free dataset of IP and location? | amrithk: Maxmind comes to mind. They have a free solution with paid packages that offer additional features. |
Free dataset of IP and location? | oldgregg: http://www.hostip.info/ |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | Prrometheus: I'd work for the Seasteading Institute full-time. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | streblo: I'd do what I've always wanted to do:
-Buy old houses and fix them up and put them back on the market
-Buy a few bars and small restaurants to manage
-Write short stories and maybe a novel with the hopes of getting them published
-Once famous, go back to my alma mater and teach a class on something I think I'm good atOf course, I plan on doing this anyway. Some of it might have to wait, the market being what it may, but you have to stay optimistic. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | nickfox: What ever you would do is what you should do. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | yters: Start a big family and be the best parent I could, and not give my kids a dime unless they earn it. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | known: If I were you, I'd start a political party. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | iuguy: Spend every waking minute making my wonderful wife, who puts up with my stupid hours, travelling away from home, stress, lack of organisation and everything else that would turn mere mortals away ludicrously, deliriously, cartwheel-turning happy. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | arthurk: The same things I'm doing now. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | paraschopra: I hate wishful dreaming! |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | kaens: 1. Buy a warehouse, convert it into living / productivity space, a large room for any one "type" of productive activity (read: making stuff).2. Contact everyone I know who is passionate about whatever it is they do, and inform them that they can live here, as long as they're productive and clean up after themselves, etc. Focus on people I know who are into green technology, and people that are just generally awesome.3. Spend the rest of my life learning, implementing, and creating awesome stuff with other people doing the same. I personally would be making music, implementing an mmo where the npcs learned from their surroundings and the actions of past npcs, and were controllable by a human at the individual and group level, learning and working with electronics - making effects pedals and similar, and researching and implementing ways to use technology to improve the average humans existence without totally raping nature.3.1 Try to set up more places like that.EDIT: I wrote out a bit of an extrapolation on this idea, you can see it here: http://kaens.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-i-would-do-if-i-had-1... if you're interested. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | plinkplonk: Phil Greenspun says"Ask a wage slave what he'd like to accomplish. Chances are the response will be something like "I'd start every day at the gym and work out for two hours until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I'd practice the piano for three hours. I'd become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the largest transformation of our time. I'd really learn how to handle a polo pony. I'd learn to fly a helicopter. I'd finish the screenplay that I've been writing and direct a production of it in HDTV."Why hasn't he accomplished all of those things? "Because I'm chained to this desk 50 hours per week at this horrible [insurance|programming|government|administrative|whatever] job.So he has no doubt that he would get all these things done if he didn't have to work? "Absolutely none. If I didn't have the job, I would be out there living the dream."Suppose that the guy cashes in his investments and does retire. What do we find? He is waking up at 9:30 am, surfing the Web, sorting out the cable TV bill, watching DVDs, talking about going to the gym, eating Doritos, and maybe accomplishing one of his stated goals. ":-DSource: http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/ |
Free dataset of IP and location? | gstar: Look at this blog post - despite what it says (Django) it's fairly generic Python.http://boomby.com/?p=3 |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | matthewking: Id sail around the world, and just enjoy life. The ultimate goal is always to break free of the confines of modern life, and live life as it was intended. Note: No that doesn't mean getting naked ;P |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | maxklein: I'd be building robots. I've never wanted to do anything else. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | fallentimes: Whatever the fuck I wanted, which is the true beauty of it. :) |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | HeyLaughingBoy: $100k/year isn't that much. I barely get by on that, so I'd first have to sell the farm and move farther out to find a place that would be affordable at $40k/year. Easy to do if I don't have to limit my commute distance which is the main reason my current place costs so much (well, that and I didn't want to buy a 100 year-old house).Then:
- Raise money so I could do research in medical devices: barriers to entry are all about money in this field.
- Start a company offering software services to the medical device/pharma/healthcare industry
- Robotics research with a focus on elder care or construction assistance
- Raise s few goats and a pair of cows (already have horses and chickens)
- Farm software (already looking at this on)I'm in the medical industry and I'd love to start a business in this field if I could afford to. At least with 100k/yr I'd have the time to raise the amount of money it would take. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | viggity: two chicks at the same time |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | andreyf: Build the GUI of the 21st century :) |
Deciding between Haskell & Lisp | yan: I'd try to start learning both. Spend a few days learning lisp, do as much of it as you can. Then, spend a few days learning Haskell.After you start picking up on their essence, I'm sure one of them will feel like home more so than the other and you'll understand their individual raisons d'etre. |
Deciding between Haskell & Lisp | gaius: Add OCaml to your shortlist.What sort of applications are you trying to write? Which language has the people working in your field? That's what it boils down to really. |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | mstefff: Came across gobootstrap.com - pretty nice |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | noodle: http://lessaccounting.com/http://blinksale.com/http://www.freshbooks.com/ |
Deciding between Haskell & Lisp | gruseom: In CL, I find it natural to program functionally most of the time, but use side effects whenever it suits me. That leads to a different mentality than pure functional programming. I like it because it's pragmatic. But if functional purity appeals to you, you may want to go with Haskell (or Scheme).p.s. "It compiles to native code" is true of CL as well. |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | dabeeeenster: Will plug my UK-based app:http://www.pipelineworks.comAlthough it's more tailored to time tracking and invoice generation, we are writing hooks into some accounting packages... |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | jasonlbaptiste: less accounting by far. |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | iuguy: I would advise against anything free in this sector.In fact.We had Quickbooks, it was great, it was Windows only, it was one system only unless we paid an absolute fortune to upgrade to a network version (which was windows only, which wasn't workable due to our IT policy which allowed people to use non-Windows OSes).We don't use Quickbooks anymore, nor do we recommend it. I would say we'd quite happily pay for a web service providing we can get the data out in a format we can use... |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | justinkelly: http://www.simpleinvoices.org for your free/open-source web-based invoicing needs, soon there will be an accounting extension avilable for itCheersJustin Kelly
- http://www.simpleinvoices.org |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | wheels: Best, Simple, Free: Pick any two. ;-) |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | drhowarddrfine: http://mint.com |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | senthil_rajasek: I haven't tried it personally but this is worth looking into atleast based on the advertised feature set,http://invoice.zoho.com/ |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | thinkcomp: My startup: http://www.thinkcomputer.com/software/exponent/enterprise.ht...Does your books, does your payroll, does your taxes. |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | MicahWedemeyer: Any that are good at tracking losses? My company has a lot of red ink, but not a lot of revenue ;) |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | shutter: Wholeheartedly second this question. I've always enjoyed software, but I have an itch to play with hardware too. |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | perdurabo: http://www.nerdkits.com |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | tesseract: Some questions to consider which will narrow down the available options:- Do you want to design and/or build circuitry, or just write code for an existing board?- Do you want to have lots of peripherals on the board (e.g. blinkenlights, buttons, display, ethernet interface, analog/digital converters, ...) or would you rather add on what you need?- Do you want to make purely data-processing things, or do you want to control something in the real world (like a robot)?- Do you want to do any audio or video processing?- Do you want an embedded processor (runs software), or do you want an FPGA (acts like reconfigurable logic hardware)?- If you are going to be writing software, do you want to do it in assembly? C? Something higher-level than that?- Do you plan on doing something complicated that you think will require a fast processor and/or lots of memory?- Do you require an open-source compiler/development environment or are you OK with using the board/chip vendor's?- Are you at all interested in working with analog electronics or do you plan to stick to digital? |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | sown: Many helpful suggestions here:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=149317 |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | ph0rque: Can't do much to answer the questions, unfortunately, but if you're familiar with ruby, RAD (Ruby Arduino Development; http://rad.rubyforge.org) might be interesting for you to check out. |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | judegomila: Some projects to get you into electronics:Building a 555 timer circuit.Build some basic amplifiers.Build some basic filters.Building a basic AC to DC convertor.Controlling stepper motors with your USB/parallel port.Building an A2DC convertor.Building a USB controller.Connecting a Wii controller to your PC.Build a basic robot.Lego Mindstorms - play around with this kit.Build CERN. |
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