This is a weird concept to people in stem fields, but in law intent matters a lot. It's the difference between manslaughter and murder.

It apparently doesn't in one of the areas of which I have a high level interest. The ATF is constantly changing their mind on what a machine gun is, and if it is one, it is a strict liability crime.

Not long ago a guy was put in jail for creating business-card sized metal sheets with the image of a 'lightning link' (machinegun conversion device) on it. Not the actual device, just a picture of it etched <0.001" into the metal. Clearly just art, and even when the ATF cut it out they could not get it function as a machine gun. They gave it to an actual machinist, and even after a day he could not get it to function as a machine gun. They could only get it to do anything by literally jamming it into the gun and making it do hammer follow, which every AR-15 can do with the parts already in it.

Up until the guy was convicted I don't think anyone had any idea a picture of a machine gun on a metal card was a machine gun. They even convicted the guy advertising it, who never as far as I know actually distributed one.

Meanwhile, you can use bump-stocks as a redneck machine gun all day long.

Are you talking about the AutoKeyCard case, Kristopher Ervin and Matthew Hoover? Ervin finally gets out of prison on 2025-05-03 and Hoover gets out on Christmas 2026.

Yes. Honestly I am astonished Ervin, the leader of that enterprise, is getting out so much sooner than Hoover who IIRC just advertised it.

Respect

And the salaries for DOGE employees that are higher than the highest pay band.

There's definitely a conversation we can have about the cost and accessibility of higher education in this country. I don't think that conversation should include an administration that is unilaterally and arbitrarily canceling international student visas, threatening to withhold research funding that was already allocated by congress, and turning back foreign scientists at the border for things they said in private conversation that the government only knows about after a warrantless search.

Massachusetts has some of the best public schools in the nation.

They hate you because you're a useful idiot, not because of your skin color, for the record.

Yes we all know what good defenders of truth and knowledge the Trump administration is. Surely the same people who seem to have made a habit of causing constitutional crises and have directly challenged the 1st, 5th and 14th amendment have our best interest at heart.

The answer is that it was 2021 and they were in an incredibly favorable fundraising environment. It's not "what are we going to use this funding for?" It's "investors are flush with stimulus cash and leveraged to the tits from low interest rates and they're banging down our door to invest, let's take the funding"

> Capital is also relatively accessible, it's not an 'unfair' thing.

Hilariously out of touch, even for a hackernews comment.

Startup valuation is based mostly on sentiment in the current age so if you're not breathlessly hyping up your shitty product you're almost literally leaving money on the table.

for AI companies, sure. for non-AI, the microscope is brought out.

for this specific company, there is specific value to Google, that is included in the valuation. this isn't unfair at all; lots of startups are acquired for strategic value, not intrinsic value.