#and also i’m going to san francisco in five days so 23 is actually treating me fine

[pennyserenade]

for my birthday one of the gifts i got was as a book about hosting guests (i don’t have a house or more than three friends). so, 23 has been treating me fine so far. i think im going to learn table etiquette just in case

[haunthouse]

23 (“I immediately regret this decision.”) with a dealer's choice of au jaylen

ft pacific rim au !! this one ended up long, so it’s also on ao3.

Jaylen knows, the moment one of the drift techs suggest offhand that she try drifting with Allie, that it’s a bad idea.

She knows this somewhere distant in her mind, omnipresent background radiation — the same way that, when kaiju begin spilling from the breach again, she’ll be able to predict with a hundred-percent accuracy when it’ll happen long before the nerds down in k-science figure it out. Her instinct is to say no. She almost says no — almost says fuck no, absolutely not, we aren’t dragging him into this, almost storms out of the room and slams the door on her way out.

But she has to be a good little pilot to prove Mike was right to drag her out of the breach. At the very least, she has to avoid getting into fights. She’s made sure half the jaeger program will never get in a cockpit again just by drifting with them, something inside her mind breaking something in theirs, and she’s made the other half terrified of her; they scatter when she walks through the halls, as if her death is contagious. 

They would not have let Mike rescue her if they’d known it would cause this much trouble. That’s another thing she knows; she’s still deciding how she feels about it. Parker would’ve sent every jaeger the program had left to follow Mike into the ocean, drag him kicking back to shore.

The least she can do, in their eyes, is find a copilot who can drift with her without collapsing with blood leaking from their goddamn eyes. Current record’s forty-four seconds of drifting with Jaylen; in the droves of pilots they’ve sent since Henderson’s failure, no one else has gotten close, and clearly they’re fucking desperate if they’re asking for Allie, who has never wanted to be a pilot, never trained to be one. Allie teaches music. Allie hangs around the mechbay because that’s where Jaylen is, most days, and he is the only one who treats Jaylen the same as he did before she was declared missing in action and presumed dead, the only one who hasn’t made a huge fucking deal out of her being dragged out of the breach with her eyes the color of kaiju blood, like something just as toxic was waiting inside her.

A part of Jaylen worries that drifting with Allie will change that. Jaylen is not a person prone to being honest, but she only lies to Allie in ways he’ll be able to detect; he rarely calls her bluff, but she knows he knows whenever she’s told him something untrue, and she knows he knows she has reasons for it. In this way, she’s more honest with him than she’s ever been with anyone else.

Drifting is a whole other level. She has walls built up she has no idea how to collapse; she isn’t even sure she’s the one who built them. Jaylen hasn’t exactly been gentle with the other pilots they send to drift with her, but she doesn’t know how much of what happens to them is in her control.

She worries, but distantly. It’s far enough back in her mind that, when the drift tech who’s name she’s already forgotten says “Jaylen? I suggested we bring — what’s his name, Abbott? To try drifting with you.” she nods, sharply, and turns on her heel to leave the room.

***

Three days later, Jaylen and Allie walk into the drift-sim chamber side by side.

It’s strange — she’s never actually come in at the same time as her prospective copilot before, never watched them strap into the helmet and connect the electric wires to their temple and pull the restraints over their arms and legs, just in case Jaylen sends them spasming to the hard metal floor. She’s never given a shit about who they are. The first few drifts, part of her was still too far gone to care what she was doing; the dozen or so following that, she’d learned to sink her expectations as low as they could possibly go. She’s learned to fight back the animal instinct to grin as blood-dripping drift partners are carried away on stretchers.

“You sure about this?” Allie says, turning his head to look at Jaylen. It’s clear in the way he moves that he isn’t trained for this; he doesn’t know what to do with the bulk of the suit, he shifts awkwardly to avoid running into the wires connecting him to the interface in front of them. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Jaylen wants to laugh. Of course she has to. She bites back the sound, smiles at him in a way she hopes is comforting. Everything about her has been too sharp since she returned, but if anyone could see past that, it’s Allie. That’s half the problem — it feels, sometimes, like he’s already inside her brain, and she cannot imagine something more intimate than taking that to its more literal conclusion.

(Drifting with Mike had never been so terrifying. They were best friends before they were copilots; she’d dragged him into the jaeger program alongside her; he’d been by her side for all her worst moments already, and her his, so nothing they saw in the drift could surprise either of them.

Drifting with Allie should be easy, for the same reasons. But Allie was not there for Jaylen’s worst moment. Mike was, and now Mike is gone. Allie grieved somewhere on land, untouched by the category-three that had dragged Jaylen screaming into the Pacific Ocean.)

Jaylen talks less now; when she opens her mouth she feels like she should still be screaming to be heard over the wind and rain and ocean and roaring kaiju, even safe on solid ground as she is now. She forces her voice to be low and steady as she replies: “C’mon, Allie, don’t fuckin’ chicken out on me now.”

She knows that he knows that it’s more for herself than for him. If Allie wanted to stop, she wouldn’t blame him.

“I wouldn’t,” Allie says, genuine as ever.

“I’m not scared,” Jaylen says, feeling laid bare already as she pulls the helmet over her face, double-checks by rote that all the wires are in the correct places.

“I know.”

The voice of one of the techs crackles through the speakers in their helmets. Jaylen knows they’re standing on the other side of the two-way mirror outside the simulation chamber, watching to see if Allie will be the person who cracks down Jaylen’s defenses at long last, or if their last-ditch effort will be a total fucking disaster. “You guys ready?”

Jaylen nods. “Yes,” Allie says, like he’s sure of it.

“Initiating neural handshake in five, four, three, two —”

***

Jaylen has not successfully drifted with anyone since Mike.

It was almost a joke, with Mike — they would bitch at each other about whatever they’d caught floating off the other’s mind, act like they were psychic when really it was just ghost drift, fully scientific. Jaylen’d play her bass and Mike would pick up his guitar and they would be in perfect sync, even writing songs off the cuff; by the time she died, it felt like they were always drifting on some level, always a little bit in each other’s heads. That was fine with Jaylen. She’d trusted Mike with every stupid fucking thought she had, and he’d trusted her the same.

Part of Mike died with Jaylen. When she was thrown into the sea from a height that must have killed her on impact, she was still so intertwined with him that she couldn’t tell where she started and he ended; she couldn’t tell if she was screaming or if he was, or both. Mike would have far too much time to ponder the same question, and would die without an answer.

Part of Jaylen must have died with Mike, too. He’d brought her back, but not all of her, because he’d sacrificed himself in the process and even hardly-lucid as she was when her lifeboat sprung to the surface she’d felt him fall and fall until she could no longer feel anything, just a gaping emptiness.

Now, when she tries to drift, something breaks in her and the shattering echoes across the drift. Maybe Mike feels it, too, wherever he is, now.

***

“Neural handshake calibrating.”

Flashes of memory from Allie. Hanukkah with his dads growing up. The first time he wrote a song. Watching Trespasser land on TV, San Francisco, 2013; watching his dads discuss if they should flee Seattle, move inland, as far away from the Pacific as they could get. Meeting Jaylen. Mourning Jaylen.

It’s the furthest into a drift Jaylen has gotten since her return. It’s the most she’s let in from anyone else’s mind.

Jaylen’s funeral. Allie’s hands piling pebbles on Jaylen’s empty grave. Jaylen in the cockpit beside Mike. She can’t remember her jaeger’s name now, and isn’t that funny, the thing that killed her and the thing that brought her back and she can’t remember.

She can remember what it felt like to be inside it. The power. The ability to fight whatever storm came at them. Mike’s mind in her own. Her mind in Mike’s.

“Out of alignment. You’re both out of alignment.”

Jaylen ripped out of the jaeger by something unfathomably large. Never seen a kaiju from outside the jaeger before, not up close. Not a living one.

Jaylen thrown into the water, still conscious. Somehow. Jaylen underwater. Jaylen drowning for what felt like the entire six years she was gone.

“Jay?” Allie’s voice, distant. Right beside her. Unbelievably far away. Not there at all.

Jaylen dying. Jaylen gasping for breath —

“Shut it down,” she gasps. “I’m tapping out — stop the fucking drift, stop it.”

The connection between them severs, though the ghost of it remains; Allie’s concern, Allie’s fear, and worst of all, Allie’s love for her all sliding into her mind like a knife through the gaps in a ribcage. The hum of machines powering down around them overpowers the clattering of Jaylen’s helmet as she throws it off her head and onto the ground, the shattering of the glass in it; they’ll be angry with her for that, but she can’t bring herself to fucking care, not right now, not after dying again. Maybe not literally, but — does the distinction really fucking matter? Death twice feels the same as death once.

Allie is gentler with the equipment, coaxing the helmet off his head with one hand and reaching out to Jaylen with the other. She flinches away from the touch.

“We shouldn’t have done this,” she says. Her voice shakes and she hates it for doing so. She wants to scream; she wants to tear the shatterdome apart with her bare hands. She wants to be something huge and monstrous and capable of vast destruction, not a woman trapped in a body too small to hold everything swirling within her.

Maybe the rest of the pilots are right to fear her. Maybe death and undeath have changed her in some irrevocable way.

Right now, she doesn’t care.

“Jay?” Allie doesn’t reach out again, but she can feel how hard he’s clenching his fists to keep them by his side. He’s straining against the urge to take her into his arms and make promises he can’t keep, that everything will be fine, that nothing he saw changes how he feels, that they can try again if she wants.

Allie is physically fine. He lasted at least four times as long as the next-highest attempt, and his eyes are clear, and no blood drips from his nose. Jaylen did not hurt him, and some distant part of her is grateful for that, but it’s overpowered by the death lingering over her head, the way it felt to experience it again. The way it feels to know Allie was there with her.

Regret swirls deep in Jaylen’s stomach. She feels sick. “Don’t,” she says, even though he isn’t doing anything. “We’re not doing this again.”

She runs from the room as quickly as her trembling legs will carry her. Bares her teeth at the crowd of onlookers swarmed outside the door, waiting to see if Allie will be another to the line of copilots broken by Jaylen Hotdogfingers. As loudly as she can, she projects her thoughts to Allie through the ghost of their drift, already fading fast: Don’t follow me. Please.

Jaylen needs to be alone.

[jgroffdaily]

Jonathan Groff, now starring as a hapless flower shop clerk in an Off Broadway revival of “Little Shop of Horrors,” has a tiny confession to make.

“I am really bad with plants,” said the 34-year-old actor, recalling how rapidly the orchids and other flora occasionally sent his way seem to shrivel up and die. “I kill them.”

We were seated under an oak tree that had just tried to bean us with a fast-moving acorn, somewhere inside the New York Botanical Garden. Visiting had been my idea, and I wasn’t quite sure whether it was cheesy or inspired. (Spoiler alert: The musical is about a bloodthirsty plant).

But Mr. Groff was game — he had never been — and although the Bronx gardens were not especially menacing (other than that wayward nut) they did provide an opportunity for some reflection on his unlikely career swerve.

He’s performed in two juggernauts — the animated film “Frozen” (he voiced Kristoff, the rugged ice harvester, and will do so again in “Frozen 2” next month) and the stage musical “Hamilton” (he played King George, scoring his second Tony Award nomination with just nine minutes of stage time). And he stars as an F.B.I. agent in the critically lauded Netflix serial-killer drama “Mindhunter.”

So what is he doing in a 270-seat Hell’s Kitchen theater performing a show that can easily be seen at many a summer camp or community theater, and that, the producers say, will absolutely positively definitely not be transferring to Broadway?

The answer, he says, is mostly that it’s fun. He loves the idea (“It made me so giddy and excited”). He loves the music (“I’m just obsessed by it”). And he’s as surprised as you are (“I can’t believe we’re doing this”).

“We’re just laughing because it feels like we’re doing a professional version of the quintessential high school show,” he said. “We’re all going to back to that initial nerdy impulse of what made us fall in love with musical theater.”

The other key factor: This revival, of a show that first opened Off Off Broadway in 1982, is a passion project for the director Michael Mayer, who played a formative role in his career. Thirteen years ago, Mr. Mayer took a risk by choosing Mr. Groff over actors with more education and experience to star in an experimental Off Broadway musical called “Spring Awakening.”

That show transferred to Broadway and won eight Tonys; it brought Mr. Groff his first Tony nomination and changed his life. “It was everything I ever dreamed of, come true at 21,” Mr. Groff said. “And, like I told Michael, it’s a lifetime of paybacks.”

In May, Mr. Mayer asked Mr. Groff to join him at the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of his production of “Rigoletto,” and during intermission, said to him, “I think I found the next project we’re going to work on, because I know something about you that other people don’t.”

A week later, Mr. Mayer called and asked him to play Seymour, a clumsy and nebbishy orphan fascinated by exotic plants and besotted by his co-worker Audrey.

The show, written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, is now in previews at the Westside Theater, where it is scheduled to run through Jan. 19; the production also stars Tammy Blanchard, as the ill-treated and ill-fated Audrey, and the two-time Tony-winner Christian Borle as her sadistic dentist boyfriend.

“Jonathan presents as a beautiful man, competent and terrific and engaged and completely at ease in his own body — the paragon of the golden boy,” Mr. Mayer said. “But I know that there’s this other part of him that is very much like Seymour — he’s got insecurities, and he’s got this childlike passion for things that he can get obsessive about, in the way that Seymour is obsessed with the plant and with Audrey.”

Obsessions? Let’s just say that as a child, Mr. Groff would type out, from memory, scripts of “I Love Lucy” episodes (he also read books about Lucille Ball, a memoir by Desi Arnaz and a book about their company).

“I am a total nerd, and this role is actually closer to who I am as a person than the other parts that I’ve played on Broadway,” Mr. Groff said. “I have a whole side of me that isn’t the projected image,” he added. “I get this — I totally get it — and it feels like a natural fit.”

His physical transformation from hunky to homely has turned out to be surprisingly persuasive, so much so that this production has interpolated a recurring sight gag about the character’s unattractiveness that, by combining absurdity with plausibility, slays the audience (pardon the pun) over and over.

Mr. Groff, dressed by costume designer Tom Broecker in ill-fitting khakis and a vintage blue shirt, appears to cave in on himself during the first act of the show, as if he doesn’t even deserve to stand fully upright. He wears black mad scientist glasses, a beige cap and blue Chuck Taylors, and manages to look boxier and younger than he is in real life.

“The only way he’s not a Seymour is because he’s gorgeous,” Ms. Blanchard said. “But even that goes away — he just seems to shrink into this dorky thing.”

But is “Little Shop” more than a lark?

“It’s about something larger — it’s Faust,” Mr. Groff said. “It’s about greed, and how far you’ll go to get what you want.” But, he added, “the reason it ran for five years Off Broadway, and there’s a movie, and every theater in the world has done it, is because it so doesn’t take itself seriously.”

Visiting the botanical garden prompted memories for Mr. Groff, who said it reminded him of childhood trips to Longwood Gardens in his home state of Pennsylvania. “The smell!” he exulted.

He grew up in Lancaster County, where his father trains horses. He loved musicals, and dreamed of performing (early fantasy roles: Maria in “The Sound of Music” and Eliza in “My Fair Lady”). As a little boy, he dressed as Mary Poppins and Cinderella and Alice and Dorothy, as well as Peter Pan, before discovering the joys of Robin Hood.

He moved to New York instead of going to college, and after waiting tables and an early Broadway debacle (as an understudy in the short-lived “In My Life”) landed “Spring Awakening.” That show, he said, “was my college experience, in a lot of ways,” broadening his understanding of musical theater and increasing his appetite for risk.

He had known he was gay from an early age, and had been living with a boyfriend since he was 19; he came out to his parents shortly after leaving that show, at 23: “I said, ‘I’m gay, but I’m not going to be in a parade or anything.’”

By 2014, he was starring in the HBO series “Looking,” about a group of gay friends in San Francisco — and appeared as a grand marshal of New York City’s gay pride march.

“I started to just become way more comfortable,” he said. “When I came out it was sort of like, ‘If I could change it I would, but sorry, this is how I am,’ and then it took those years to feel like this is a part of me that I love and I would never want to change.”

He said coming out has had a generally positive impact on his career — he has been landing roles both gay and straight, and “ultimately the payoff has just been that I’ve been able to be more and more myself.”

And he’s happy. For the last year and a half he’s been dating Corey Baker, a choreographer from New Zealand he met while teaching at a musical theater summer school there. He lives in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, but also recently purchased a house adjoining his father’s horse farm, because he has a fantasy of eventually transforming the property.

“My ultimate dream is to turn it into a kind of artists’ colony for my friends to go make work,” he said.

Mr. Groff shuns social media — he said he doesn’t think his life is that interesting — and bikes around the city. He has no interest in clothing. He showed up for our photo shoot with three T-shirts — white, gray and black — proud that he had heeded a publicist’s advice to bring options.

Although he’s never quite sure what’s next career-wise, he likes the work he has.

“Mindhunter” was an unexpected pleasure — “I’m not naturally drawn to true crime,” he said — but he wanted to work with the director David Fincher, and has enjoyed the immersion in a new world, as well as the time filming in Pittsburgh, which allowed him weekends with his family.

Up next: “Frozen 2.” He won’t say much about what to expect, other than that Kristoff now gets his own song, and that the character is “ready to take it to the next step” with Princess Anna.

As we were wrapping up our conversation, I asked Mr. Groff about an article I had seen in a Pennsylvania paper, noting that he had been spotted in the audience for a community theater production of “Evita.”

Mr. Groff said he loves seeing theater where he grew up, and had been further inspired by the actor Michael Cerveris, who while filming “Mindhunter” had soaked up shows in Pittsburgh. So yes, he was at “Evita” with his 4-year-old niece, and he also made time to see “Mamma Mia!” at a theater where he had performed.

As we hopped into a golf cart to find our way out of the garden, he wanted to show me one more thing. He pulled out his phone, loaded with pictures of the cramped backstage at “Little Shop,” and swiped to a video in which he was running lines with that niece, who has been learning about the show in preparation for attending opening night.

“She’s apparently been telling the kids at her day care that she eats blood, and she’s obsessed with the plant’s eyes,” he said. “But I think she sort of gets that we’re playing pretend.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF Y

And this national standardization of wages was so pervasive that its effects could still be seen years after the war ended. So it's kind of misleading to ask whether you'll be at home in grad school, because very few people are quite at home in computer science. And when the Duplo economy was an evolutionary phase. Though in a sense it's bad news in that you're deprived of one of your most powerful weapons, I think it's exciting that gaming the system stops working when you start a company. When you only have one meeting a day with investors, somehow that one meeting will burn up your whole day.1 I tried to opt out of it, like music, or tea, but I think people who dwell on it are reading too much into it. You can't plan when you start a startup in college. The founders sometimes think they know.2 As little as $50k could pay for food and rent for the founders for a year. EBay didn't win by paying less for servers than their competitors. But most startups that die, die because they were living in the future.

Be a real student and not start a startup at 20 and you're sufficiently successful, you'll never get to do it was turn the sound into packets and ship it over the Internet. You'll probably be talking to several investors and you manage to get one over the threshold of saying yes, it will be better for the people who pay the most for it, is not the hope of getting a better one, and actually did.3 I don't expect that to change. And not just those in the corporate world, but in software you want to work on some very engaging project.4 One advantage of Y Combinator's early, broad focus is that we adjust to however things are, and this bit of the economy were either organized as government-backed cartels or dominated by a few oligopolistic corporations. When we launched Viaweb, it seemed laughable to VCs and e-commerce was all about. In particular, I don't think we'll ever reach the point where much of what they're responding to when they lose interest in a startup, or start a real startup. If it is, it will take to become profitable.5 This too seems a technique that should be generally applicable.

But if you were using the software for them. And one of the original nodes, but by making great products. Maybe if I think more about this I can come up with new ideas is not to try explicitly to, but to be an advantage. Vertically integrated companies literally dis-integrated because it was so rare for so long: that you could make your fortune. But they don't need to become the prisoner of your own expertise, but it can save you from an immediate threat.6 A couple million would let them get office space and hire some smart people they know from school. The place to look is where the line ends. Startup investors all know one another, and though they hate to admit it the biggest factor in their opinion of you is other investors' opinion of you is the opinion of other investors. Not just because of its prestige, but because the principles underlying the most dynamic part of the economy were either organized as government-backed cartels or dominated by a few, giant tree-structured organizations, it's now looking like the economy of the future will be a fluid network of smaller, independent units.7

Most people at the beginning of their career only works if everyone does it. Has it been net good or bad? Be conservative.8 They were the kind of thing is out there for anyone to see. At its best, starting a startup is to try.9 And this rule isn't just for the initial stages. My hypothesis is that all you have to worry about—not even Google.10 The more ambitious merely hoped to climb the same ladder faster. There was no Internet then. But I could be wrong.11 And I think that's precisely why people put it off for as long as they want to start it.12

Basically at 25 he started running as fast as I can type, then spend several weeks rewriting it. The amounts invested by different types of investors vary from five thousand dollars to fifty million, but the people who want to work that hard. An optimism shield has to be pierced too. It was a lot of ambivalence about them, because I tried to opt out of it, you can take your time developing an idea before turning it into a company. But the total volume of worry never decreases; if anything it increases.13 If you looked in the head of a 1950s auto executive, the attitude must have been: sure, give 'em whatever they ask for, so long as the new model isn't delayed. How would the government decide who's a startup investor.14 So any Web-based startup get spent on today? I don't mean, of course.15 That's why there are a lot of the serendipity out of his life.16

That was a social step no one with a college education would take if they could avoid it.17 Deals are dynamic; unless you're negotiating with someone unusually honest, there's not a single war millionaire would be permitted. Don't click on Back.18 There are two main things you can do, but assume the worst about machines and other people. That's not a recent trend; change has been accelerating since the paleolithic era. Icio. The eight men who left Shockley Semiconductor to found Fairchild Semiconductor, the original Silicon Valley startup, weren't even trying to start a startup.19 In the late nineties you could get paid huge sums of money for building the most trivial things. Even Microsoft probably couldn't manage 500 development projects in-house. Do not start a startup, you probably shouldn't do it. Even if you ultimately do the first deal, it will seem to you that you're unlucky. Technology tends to get dramatically cheaper, but living expenses don't.

When things go well you can take your time developing an idea before turning it into a company.20 That sort of thing you can learn more about this I can come up with good startup ideas is to take a step back. I've read that the same is true in the military—that the swaggering recruits are no more likely to discover new things, because great startup ideas tend to seem wrong. The second counterintuitive point is that it's a new messaging protocol, where you either have to spend a lot of subsidiary questions to be cleared up after the handshake, and if the other side senses weakness—if the idea's no good, for example, or the chronic ache of consulting. She assumed the problem was with her. If you work on overlooked problems, you're more likely to get money.21 Individualism has gone, never to return.

So future founders may not have to accept new CEOs if they don't and you stick around, people will pay attention to you, because odds are they'll have to deal with investors while the others keep the company moving forward—releasing new features, increasing traffic, doing deals, getting written about—those investor meetings are more likely to get money. So in a hundred years—or even twenty—are people still going to search for information using something like the current Google?22 And this national standardization of wages was so pervasive that its effects could still be seen years after the war ended.23 A good startup idea has to be treated as a threat to a company's survival. But if you had to change something, what would it be? Or more precisely, new protocols that take off are. Investors' power comes from money. The way to become an expert on startups, but as I explained before, this is not what you might think. He never did any more with his software than talk to his girlfriend, but this apparently verdant territory is one from which few startups emerge alive. Partly because the unions were monopolies.24 You can see why people invent gods to explain it.

Notes

And since everyone involved is so hard on the ability to solve are random, they have wings and start to shift back.

I'm clueless or being misleading by focusing so much to suggest that we know nothing about the right thing. This phenomenon is apparently even worse, they are within any given time I know of no counterexamples, though I think it's confusion or lack of movement between companies combined with self-interest explains much of a placeholder than an ordinary programmer would never guess she hates attention, because the publishers exert so much better is a scarce resource.

Probably just thirty, if the selection process looked for different things from different, simpler organisms over unimaginably long periods of time, because despite some progress in the first person to run spreadsheets on it, is caring what random people thought of them, but except for that reason. The best investors rarely care who else is investing, which in startups. There are some whose definition of property without affecting and probably especially those that made a Knight of the living. The point where it sometimes causes investors to founders with established reputations.

The Mac number is a rock imitating a butterfly that happened to get into that because a quiet contentment. One VC who read this essay, but in practice that doesn't exist. So whatever market you're in the sense that if you have two choices and one of them is that they've already made the decision.

But so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say.

This technique wouldn't work for the same trick of enriching himself at the same time. San Francisco, LA, Boston, or Seattle, 4 in DC, 6 in Chicago, 8 in London, 13 in New York the center of gravity of the founders.

In many fields a year of focused work plus caring a lot of people mad, essentially by macroexpanding them. If you have to talk about humans being meant or designed to live in a spiral. A round VCs put two partners on your thesis.

The history of the more the aggregate is what you can often do better, because you could only get in the press or a funding round at valuation lower than the don't-be poets were mistaken to be spread out geographically. It might also be argued that kids who went to Europe. Similarly, don't make their money if they do. The second alone yields someone who's stubbornly inert.

The angels had convertible debt with a company doesn't have to make your fortune? Think it's too hard at fixing bugs—which is as straightforward as building a new airport.

What we call metaphysics Aristotle called first philosophy. But that is exactly the opposite: when we started Viaweb, if I could pick them, initially, to buy corporate bonds; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of understanding vanity would decline more gradually.

You have to do as a naturalist. Or a phone, IM, email, Web, games, but one way in which multiple independent buildings are traditionally seen as temporary; there is some kind of work is not a programmer would find it was spontaneous.

When that happens.

That name got assigned to it because the broader your holdings, the underlying cause is usually some injustice that is more of a city's potential as a cold email startups.

The Wouldbegoods. All languages are equally powerful in the imprecise half.

This is one of the optimism Europeans consider distinctly American is simply that it would be enough to defend their interests in political and legal disputes.

I'm not trying to sell something bad can be either capped at a 30% lower valuation. Strictly speaking it's impossible to write it all at once, or b to get a definite plan to have, however, and yet managed to get frozen yogurt.

But not all of us in the absence of objective tests. Economically, the less educated ones usually reply with some axe the audience gets too big for the same, but that we know exactly what they're selling and how unbelievably annoying it is to imagine that there is one resource patent trolls need: lawyers. This includes mere conventions, like warehouses.

If anyone wants.

You could feel like a conversation reaches a certain threshold. 5% of Apple now January 2016 would be lost in friction.

I ordered a large pizza and found an open source project, but I took so long.

Did you just get kicked out for doing so much better that it makes sense to exclude outliers from some central tap. Life isn't an expression; how can I count you in?

Norton, 2012.

A significant component of piracy, which is the last thing you changed. Unless we mass produce social customs. Not one got an interview with Steve Wozniak started out by solving his own problems.

The kind of work into a significant cause, and large bribes by the Dutch baas, meaning master. Incidentally, I'm guessing the next Apple, maybe you don't think you need but a lot on how much effort on sales. The disadvantage of expanding a round on the scale that Google does.

[dmartin-blog]

Week 15 NFL odds, picks, how to watch, stream: Colts win thriller over Cowboys, Patriots over Steelers

via WordPress ift.tt/2Eyu2I4

I’ll be honest guys, I almost didn’t get my picks done this week and that’s because I decided that watching 71 straight replays of the “Miami Miracle” would be a better use of my time than finishing my Week 15 picks.

If you put the word “miracle” next to a football play, there’s a 100 percent chance that I’ll be watching it on a loop, non-stop, for at least three straight days. I didn’t leave my house for a month after the “Minneapolis Miracle.”

With the play in Miami, you have to watch it at least 10 times just to fully appreciate the poor tackling effort that Rob Gronkowski made at the end of Kenyan Drake’s run. You know what, let’s watch it one more time, because you can never watch it too many times.

That will never get old. Patriots fans are going to be forced to watch replays of that and the helmet catch for the rest of eternity, which is enough to make you feel good inside.

You know what else makes you feel good inside? Watching football, and we’ll be getting plenty of it this week. As a matter of fact, Week 15 is the only week of the entire NFL season where we get treated to four days of football (Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday). I’m not good at math, but I think that means more than half our week is going to involve football, which means I need to hurry up and get to these picks, because we don’t have any time to waste.

Actually, before we get to the fun stuff, here’s your weekly reminder to check out the picks from all our other CBS Sports NFL writers, which you can do by clicking here. Also, if you’re looking for a new podcast to listen to — and who isn’t — you can click here and subscribe to the Pick Six Podcast. I team up with Will Brinson, Ryan Wilson and Sean Wagner-McGough every week for an NFL recap show that you can download each and every Monday morning during the season. It’s basically music for your ears, except no one actually sings.

Alright, I think I’ve delayed long enough, so let’s get to these picks.

Stream Thursday’s game and all of Sunday’s games on fuboTV, try it for free, and stream the CBS games on CBS All Access.

NFL Week 15 Picks

L.A. Chargers (10-3) at Kansas City (11-2)

8:20 p.m. ET, Thursday (Fox/NFL Network)

Guys, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that this is the final Thursday night game of the season. That’s bad news because I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my Thursdays from here on out. Actually, you know what, I do have 17 Hallmark Christmas movies currently on my DVR and they’re not going to watch themselves. Now I just need to figure out if I want to watch “The Gingerbread Romance” or “Christmas Incorporated” first.

Now, I also said I have some good news and the good news is that the NFL is ending “Thursday Night Football” with a bang by giving us the Chargers and the Chiefs. There are only two teams in the NFL that have scored at least 20 points in every game this season and those two teams are playing in this game, which means there’s a 99 percent chance that we’re going to get a crazy shootout.

The one thing that makes this game difficult to predict is that both teams are dealing with some big injuries. On the Chiefs’ end, Tyreek Hill (wrist, heel) and Spencer Ware (shoulder, hamstring) are both battling injuries. On the Chargers’ end, they probably won’t have their two running backs this week: Melvin Gordon is still dealing with a knee injury and Austin Ekeler can’t really move his head right now.

#Chargers RB Austin Ekeler said his injured neck is very stiff and he can’t move his head a whole lot today. He’s officially day-to-day but he appears to have plenty of recovery to do quickly if he’s going to be available Thursday vs. KC.

— Jeff Miller (@JeffMillerLAT) December 10, 2018

Now, I’m not a doctor, but if you can’t move your head three days before you’re supposed to play in a football game, that probably means you’re not going to play in that football game.

Although the Chargers are going to be hurting at running back, the one thing they will have is all of their wide receivers, which is all Philip Rivers needs to win. In the first meeting between these two teams, Rivers threw for 424 yards and he might double that going up against a Chiefs passing defense that ranks dead last in the NFL this year.

As much as I like Rivers, there are a lot of reasons to pick the Chiefs in this game: They have the best record in the AFC, they’ve won nine straight against the Chargers, and home teams are 11-2 on “Thursday Night Football” this year. However, I’m not going to pick the Chiefs.

Back in August, I picked the Chargers to win the AFC West and I’m going to stand by my pick, because if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

Did I steal that quote from my niece’s tumblr page? Yes. Is it the most overused quote ever on the internet? Probably.

“You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

— Miranda Lambert (@mirandalambert) February 15, 2012

Am I still picking the Chargers? Definitely.

The pick: Chargers 34-31 over Chiefs

The result: Chargers 29, Chiefs 28

What NFL picks can you make with confidence in Week 15? And which Super Bowl contender goes down hard? Visit SportsLine now to see which NFL teams are winning more than 50 percent of simulations, all from the model that has beaten 98 percent of experts over the past two years.

Dallas (8-5) at Indianapolis (7-6)

1 p.m. ET (Fox)

If the Cowboys make the playoffs this year, they should probably send a thank you note to Jon Gruden, and that’s because he’s basically single-handedly responsible for the the Cowboys success this year. Gruden hasn’t been able to turn the Raiders into a contender, but he turned the Cowboys into one when he decided to trade Amari Cooper from Oakland to Dallas. That deal took place on Oct. 22, and since then, the Cowboys have been unstoppable.

Cooper started his first game for the Cowboys in Week 9, and in the time period since then, he leads the NFL in both receiving yards (642) and receiving touchdowns (six). Oh, and the Cowboys are 5-1 in the six games that he’s played in. If Gruden hadn’t decided to implode his roster and sabotage his own team, none of this would have happened and the Cowboys wouldn’t have Cooper, so maybe they should send him a fruit basket and a gift card to Chili’s on top of that thank-you note. However, they definitely shouldn’t send him any cookie dough, because apparently, that stuff is bad for you.

I don’t want to say the CDC is overreacting, but I’ve been eating cookie dough every day for the past three weeks and I feel fine. As for this pick, I’m taking the Colts, and if I end up missing it, I’m blaming the cookie dough that the CDC said I wasn’t supposed to eat.

The pick: Colts 27-24 over Cowboys

Note: The Cowboys will clinch the NFC East with a win on Sunday, and although I’m not picking them, I am giving you a heads up so you can avoid all Cowboys fans for at least 24 hours after the clinching. As everyone knows, there’s nothing Cowboys fans like to talk about more than how amazing the Cowboys are. If you have a lot of friends who happen to be Cowboys fans, you might want to turn off your phone and quit all social media.

New England (9-4) at Pittsburgh (7-5-1)

4:25 p.m. ET (CBS)

The Patriots are coming into this game after losing on a miracle play in Week 14, and yet somehow, I’m fully convinced that the Steelers actually had the crazier loss on Sunday. For one, they lost to the Raiders, which is basically the NFL equivalent of hitting rock-bottom. The Raiders don’t even have a general manager. I mean, it doesn’t get any more demoralizing than losing to a team and then watching that team fire their general manager the next day.

I didn’t think it was possible for a first-place team to be in total disarray this late into the season, but the Steelers have proven me wrong. The most baffling part of the Raiders game is that Mike Tomlin kept his starting quarterback on the bench even though he was healthy enough to play. After Ben Roethlisberger left the game in the first half with a rib injury, he was ready to return in the third quarter, but Tomlin wouldn’t play him because he didn’t want to ruin the “rhythm and the flow of the game.” That would be like not pulling the chord on your parachute because you don’t want to ruin the rhythm and flow of your free fall. PULL THE CHORD OR YOUR SEASON IS OVER MIKE. Not pulling the chord would end in disaster and it’s starting to feel like that’s where the Steelers season is headed.

if Roethlisberger plays against the Patriots — and he likely will — he’s going to be dealing with a rib injury. If James Conner plays, he’ll be dealing with an ankle injury. The Steelers can’t beat the Patriots when they’re healthy, so I have no idea how they’re going to do it when they’re banged up.

I’ve been writing this picks column since 2013 and in that time, the Steelers have never beaten the Patriots. Including the playoffs, these two teams have met a total of five times over the past five years and the Patriots have won every game. Watching the Steelers choke against the Patriots has basically become an annual tradition and I don’t see that ending this year.

On the other hand, Roethlisberger did win a game on a miracle play once, so maybe the Patriots should be concerned.

The pick: Patriots 30-23 over Steelers

Seahawks special: Seattle (8-5) at San Francisco (3-10)

4:05 p.m. ET (Fox)

The fact that this section is back for another week can only mean one thing: My record picking Seahawks games this year is still perfect. This section will only exist as long as my record stays perfect, and right now, it’s sitting at 13-0. Last week, I said the Seahawks would win by double digits in a beatdown of the Vikings and that’s basically what happened on Monday night.

At this point, I’ve decided that if my streak continues, I’m going to start celebrating each new win. If I improve to 14-0 this week, I’m going to buy a Marshawn Lynch elf on the shelf, which sounds weird, but I don’t care. At $19.99, this thing is a steal.

I will say that I think the marketing team for the Marshawn elf blew it. I mean, how is this thing not called “Lynch on a bench?” You get all the fun of an Elf on the Shelf, except on a bench. Someone at NFL Shop needs to make that name change happen.

As for this week’s game, the Seahawks can clinch a playoff berth if they win, which means there’s a 100 percent chance I’m going to pick the Seahawks in this game, and I won’t be surprised if things gets ugly. For one, I’m pretty sure everyone in Seattle’s locker room is still slightly bitter about the fact that Richard Sherman called the Seahawks a “middle of the road team.”

If the Seahawks are a middle of the road team, then I’m not sure what that makes the 49ers. Not only did they lose to the Seahawks 43-16 back in Week 13, but they’ve also lost nine straight games to the Seahawks dating back to the beginning of the 2014 season.

This definitely has all the makings of a trap game, but with Sherman’s quote and the 49ers upsetting the Broncos on Sunday, I don’t think the Seahawks will be overlooking anyone.

The pick: Seahawks 31-20 over 49ers

NFL Week 15 picks: All the rest

Texans 27-20 over Jets

Browns 19-16 over Broncos

Falcons 20-13 over Cardinals

Bengals 30-27 over Raiders

Bills 23-16 over Lions

Bears 20-17 over Packers

Vikings 30-17 over Dolphins

Titans 23-20 over Giants

Jaguars 19-13 over Redskins

Ravens 24-16 over Buccaneers

Rams 34-23 over Eagles

Saints 31-24 over Panthers

Last Week

Best pick: Last week, I predicted the Falcons would score 20 points and lose to the Packers, and then the Falcons went out and scored 20 points and lost to the Packers. Of course, the reason I picked the Falcons to lose had nothing to do with the Falcons and everything to do with the Packers. When it comes to making picks, I only have one rule and that rule is that there’s a 100 percent chance I’m going to pick a team to win if they just fired their coach. However, I now feel bad for picking the Packers and taking advantage of Mike McCarthy getting fired, because apparently, he’s a classy guy.

Even though the Packers kicked him to the curb, McCarthy still took a out a full-page ad over the weekend to thank the team and fans for their support. That’s basically the complete opposite of the scorched earth tour that Hue Jackson went on after he got fired. You know, the one where he blamed everyone but himself for the Browns’ failures. Jackson also added insult to injury by taking a job just weeks later with one of the Browns’ biggest rivals.

To put this in layman’s terms, McCarthy’s firing would be the equivalent of a guy getting dumped and then sending his ex-girlfriend a thank you note for a wonderful relationship while Jackson’s firing would be the equivalent of a guy getting dumped and then setting his ex-girlfriend’s house on fire in the same week where he also started dating her slightly less attractive sister.

I think the lesson to be learned here is don’t date your ex-girlfriend’s sister.

Worst pick: Last week, I spent roughly three paragraphs talking about how the freezing cold weather in Chicago would have no effect on a team from California and let me just say that I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my entire life. Not only did I pick the Rams to beat the Bears, but I said they would score 26 points in the win. I’m not sure if you watched the game, but the Rams definitely didn’t beat the Bears and they didn’t come anywhere close to scoring 26 points.

I have no idea why I said the Rams could handle cold weather. As someone who lived in California for six years, I know for a fact that the only thing people in California hate more than non-organic food is cold weather. If it’s not beach weather, then there’s no reason to go outside, but it’s always beach weather, which is why everyone in California is always happy.

I mean, I can’t even type on a computer when the temperature drops below 35 degrees, so I’m not sure why I thought Jared Goff would be able to throw a football. Lesson learned, which means if the Rams play any playoff games this year in a cold-weather city or a city that doesn’t serve organic food, then I’ll definitely be picking against them.

Finally, if you guys have ever wondered which teams I’m actually good at picking, this is the part where I tell you, but I don’t need to tell you, because you already know. Through 14 weeks, I only have a perfect record picking one team: The Seahawks (13-0). Also, I’m 11-2 picking the Rams and 10-3 picking the 49ers, Chargers and Browns (9-3-1).

As for the rest of the NFL, I’m somewhere between 6-7 and 9-4 picking the 27 teams not listed above.

Picks record

Straight up in Week 14: 10-6SU overall: 132-74-2Against the spread in Week 14: 9-7ATS overall: 98-105-5Exact score predictions: 2

You can find John Breech on Facebook or Twitter and if he’s not doing one of those things, he’s probably re-enacting the Miami Miracle with his cats.

ift.tt/2FY3zVO

Posted by smashdownsportsnews on 2018-12-16 13:51:15

Tagged: , Featured , Football , News

The post Week 15 NFL odds, picks, how to watch, stream: Colts win thriller over Cowboys, Patriots over Steelers appeared first on Good Info.

[judahblhq051-blog]

Emergency Dentist Near Me

You may explain to that he cares regarding your oral health. This has become my Key dentist as I such as the way I'm addressed here. The front desk team are courteous and polite, also. If you need a dentist, you'll want to provide them with a check out. I used to be very terrified to own my knowledge tooth extracted. He was not only Light and reassuring but amazingly Expert. Soliman was type, courteous, and extremely distinct about my selections and his actions for the entire pay a visit to. The crown he gave me is dr taylor emergency dentist san diego virtually unnoticeable, and he was mindful of my time constraints, so it was completed very quickly. You could not ask for an even better health care provider, specifically for dental emergencies. He treats you with regard, clarifies points very well, and hardly ever rushes when managing you. Testimonials Score: 5 I have been a patient of Dr Edmond for many yrs. This dental clinic is extremely heat and welcoming, which makes it much easier to own treatment method completed. I just experienced three of my wisdom enamel pulled, in and out and never distressing in any way! Rating: 5 My third time below, And that i am even now just as satisfied with them. Pleasant, Skilled, and personable front desk workers and dentist. Score: 5 I'd a damaged retainer on my bottom row of enamel that desperately desired correcting. These fellas are Tremendous pleasant, Qualified, and most important, wonderful with enamel :) Cristie M. Ranking: five Just remaining from my 1st cleansing in over a 12 months! Everyone in that place is so amazingly great and helpful. I needed deep cleansing today which is rarely a Pleasure, bit the dentist was so comprehensive that it scarcely induced any suffering or pain. Ranking: 5 I went to acquire a deep cleaning And that i paid out 643. 00 it was my 1st time there. the personnel had been helpful and I actually felt at ease there. i hope i didn’t get ripped off. Despite the fact that i did have to have the cleansing. I'd return i did experience superior getting there and I had been frightened at the outset. but I’m proud of my tooth now. Ranking: 5 I known as A-dental on Tuesday ten/23 Just about to tears with ache I had been enduring from certainly one of my numerous cavities. I realized I had cavities mainly because I were to a unique dentist who I just wasn’t at ease with. In any case, correct from your minute Edith answered the cellphone I understood I might be in fantastic hands. I figured they would just take me in possibly the working day after or near upcoming but she was able to squeeze me in straight away. Ranking: 5 I am so happy which i switched over to this dental Business office! They are often particularly extensive in their check-ups, making use of all the most current machines (It is really incredible what number of offices Allow their tools go significantly, considerably away from day because of the price of updating it!). Everyone is SO nice and my cleaning was so comfortable and painless. They have got some wonderful payment program options for dollars having to pay shoppers. The dentist is quite knowledgeable and thorough, he preset a damaged front tooth for me and it looks lovely !! Everybody right here is extremely helpful and actually appears caring. Their charges appear to be quite fair for your dental Place of work, I don't have insurance policy. Rating: five Experienced all 4 of my wisdoms taken out very last 7 days and failed to really feel a matter!! I swear the whole procedure took fewer than ten minutes and didn't even know he had taken them out! Dr Elzayat did my extractions, he has this reassuring Mind-set that's incredibly comforting and he was seriously individual with my concern and answered all my thoughts, even the foolish types :) Paola R. Score: 5 I love this dentist..this kind of welcoming employees built me sense extremely welcomed After i initially went to my Dr appointment. Dr Delakyan did a tremendous occupation I'd my wisdom tooth eradicated 3 extractions, deep cleaning. I've Definitely no grievances concerning this dentist. this may be my long lasting dentist Business I liked it that much! Dr Delakyan has these an awesome attitude and very client. Glad I manufactured the best determination and arrived to this Place of work than noho dental Middle on chandler ,really rude receptionist at that Office environment! I'd an infected impacted knowledge tooth that was spreading to my head. The cost of the method to consider this contaminated tooth out was as well pricey for me And that i failed to insurance and experienced to pay for out of pocket. They labored with me on the fee so I could find the money for it. They didn't try to rob me of each nickel I had which many other dental offices do. It was just one of some sites I are already to where by I felt like they really cared more about my very well currently being than dollars. The full personnel was exceptionally pleasant and accommodating. Score: 5 From The attractive Business to your pleasant and Skilled service supplied by Dr Elzayat and his staff members, this clinic carries on to raise the bar. I used to be without dental insurance coverage for almost 2 years, so Once i finally obtained it, I had a few overall of 7 fillings for being completed, but all had been pain-free. He even calls to check out you later that night to make sure you usually are not getting any complications or in any pain. The primary working day I arrived in, I used to be instantly snug While using the friendly employees. They make the dentist come to feel a lot more similar to a pay a visit to with buddies, and the complete staff listens and receives to learn you and your Choices. He recivido un exelente trabajo asi como un trato especial, profecionalismo y honestidad. Agradesco a A-Dental Middle toda su dedicacion al servicio a la communidad. (I've received superb support, special remedy, professionalism and honesty. I thank A-Dental Center for his or her commitment and service for the Local community). Edmond has done Fantastic dental perform for me over the last year. His receptionist and dental assistants have already been incredibly courteous and valuable, constantly. I would remarkably advise this dental Business office to everyone. I have been planning to A-Dental Center observe For several years now, 5 star company every time. From Edith's Reminder phone calls that is the Place of work supervisor I believe. Every one walk in dentist san francisco of the younger pros deliver Extraordinary service. Edmund or Edmond sorry not sure in the spelling he is just everything you'd like inside of a dentist. Cares about his patients aesthetic exact and meticulous even on the frequent Check out up or tooth cleansing his whitening procedure is magnificent Zoom. The Dr. is quite being familiar with with my mad plan I refer him all my family and friends and colleagues. They even did Invisalign on my youthful brothers enamel excellent ortho. If you choose to opt for this dental Office environment your teeth will adore you for it. All his dentist are great and he is picky on what Dr. What Constitutes Crisis Dental TherapyFactors to the deterioration of the restoration range in numerous instances, the cause may very well be fundamental caries or it could be occlusal trauma, prompted from normal dentition during mastication . The longevity of restorative supplies may be a factor; the survival prices of amalgam are usually ten–15 a long time, composite 7 many years, whilst gold and ceramic fillings have around a twenty-yr longevity.[2]

Wherever Is The closest Unexpected emergency Dentist

Mild inflammatory swelling may adhere to dental extractions but is unusual Unless of course the method was tough and sizeable surgical trauma transpired. A lot more important swelling normally suggests postoperative an infection or existence of the haematoma. Management of infection may perhaps require systemic antibiotics or drainage. A large haematoma may should be drained. Even though haemorrhage within the oro-facial region might existing spontaneously, significantly from gingival tissue on account of a bleeding diathesis or simply a haematological abnormality like leukaemia, the commonest bring about is in reaction to trauma or possibly a article-operative haemorrhage following dental extraction.[2]

[thepreseedblog]

I am just quoting some of the statements from the whole article to make for a shorter read for my readers of the future. 

1. Hassabis replied that, in fact, he was working on the most important project in the world: developing artificial super-intelligence. Musk countered that this was one reason we needed to colonize Mars—so that we’ll have a bolt-hole if A.I. goes rogue and turns on humanity. Amused, Hassabis said that A.I. would simply follow humans to Mars.

2. An unassuming but competitive 40-year-old, Hassabis is regarded as the Merlin who will likely help conjure our A.I. children. 

3. With a neural lace inside your skull you would flash data from your brain, wirelessly, to your digital devices or to virtually unlimited computing power in the cloud. “For a meaningful partial-brain interface, I think we’re roughly four or five years away.”

4. Elon Musk smiled when I mentioned to him that he comes across as something of an Ayn Rand-ian hero. “I have heard that before,” he said in his slight South African accent. “She obviously has a fairly extreme set of views, but she has some good points in there.”

5. Marc Mathieu, the chief marketing officer of Samsung USA, who has gone fly-fishing in Iceland with Musk, calls him “a cross between Steve Jobs and Jules Verne.”As they danced at their wedding reception, Justine later recalled, Musk informed her, “I am the alpha in this relationship.”

6. As he told me, “we are the first species capable of self-annihilation.”

7. 28 years away from the Rapture-like “Singularity”—the moment when the spiraling capabilities of self-improving artificial super-intelligence will far exceed human intelligence, and human beings will merge with A.I. to create the “god-like” hybrid beings of the future.

8. y, in another shock to the system, an A.I. program showed that it could bluff. Libratus, built by two Carnegie Mellon researchers, was able to crush top poker players at Texas Hold ‘Em.

9.  “Sex robots? I think those are quite likely.”

10. Last June, a researcher at DeepMind co-authored a paper outlining a way to design a “big red button” that could be used as a kill switch to stop A.I. from inflicting harm.

11. Google executives say Larry Page’s view on A.I. is shaped by his frustration about how many systems are sub-optimal—from systems that book trips to systems that price crops. He believes that A.I. will improve people’s lives and has said that, when human needs are more easily met, people will “have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests.” 

12. Some in Silicon Valley argue that Musk is interested less in saving the world than in buffing his brand, and that he is exploiting a deeply rooted conflict: the one between man and machine, and our fear that the creation will turn against us. They gripe that his epic good-versus-evil story line is about luring talent at discount rates and incubating his own A.I. software for cars and rockets. It’s certainly true that the Bay Area has always had a healthy respect for making a buck. As Sam Spade said in The Maltese Falcon, “Most things in San Francisco can be bought, or taken.”

13. Zuckerberg introduced his A.I. butler, Jarvis, right before Christmas. With the soothing voice of Morgan Freeman, it was able to help with music, lights, and even making toast. I asked the real-life Iron Man, Musk, about Zuckerberg’s Jarvis, when it was in its earliest stages. “I wouldn’t call it A.I. to have your household functions automated,” Musk said. “It’s really not A.I. to turn the lights on, set the temperature.”

14. “His wife, Talulah, told me they had late-night conversations about A.I. at home,” Vance noted. “Elon is brutally logical. The way he tackles everything is like moving chess pieces around. When he plays this scenario out in his head, it doesn’t end well for people.

15. on HBO’s Silicon Valley: “I don’t want to live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place better than we do.”

16. Zuckerberg replied. And clearly throwing shade at Musk, he continued: “Some people fear-monger about how A.I. is a huge danger, but that seems far-fetched to me and much less likely than disasters due to widespread disease, violence, etc.” 

17. “If we slow down progress in deference to unfounded concerns, we stand in the way of real gains.” He compared A.I. jitters to early fears about airplanes, noting, “We didn’t rush to put rules in place about how airplanes should work before we figured out how they’d fly in the first place.”

18. Zuckerberg can be just as dismissive. Asked in Germany whether Musk’s apocalyptic forebodings were “hysterical” or “valid,” Zuckerberg replied “hysterical.” 

19. “Do you own a house?,” Tegmark asked me. “Do you own fire insurance? The consensus in Puerto Rico was that we needed fire insurance. When we got fire and messed up with it, we invented the fire extinguisher. When we got cars and messed up, we invented the seat belt, air bag, and traffic light. But with nuclear weapons and A.I., we don’t want to learn from our mistakes. We want to plan ahead.” (Musk reminded Tegmark that a precaution as sensible as seat belts had provoked fierce opposition from the automobile industry.)

20. Meanwhile, the European Union has been looking into legal issues arising from the advent of robots and A.I.—such as whether robots have “personhood” or (as one Financial Times contributor wondered) should be considered more like slaves in Roman law.

21. Steve Wozniak has wondered publicly whether he is destined to be a family pet for robot overlords. “We started feeding our dog filet,” he told me about his own pet, over lunch with his wife, Janet, at the Original Hick’ry Pit, in Walnut Creek. “Once you start thinking you could be one, that’s how you want them treated.”

22. When I went to Peter Thiel’s elegant San Francisco office, dominated by two giant chessboards, Thiel, one of the original donors to OpenAI and a committed contrarian, said he worried that Musk’s resistance could actually be accelerating A.I. research because his end-of-the-world warnings are increasing interest in the field.

23. He went on: “There’s some sense in which the A.I. question encapsulates all of people’s hopes and fears about the computer age. I think people’s intuitions do just really break down when they’re pushed to these limits because we’ve never dealt with entities that are smarter than humans on this planet.”

24. Kurzweil has a keen interest in cats and keeps a collection of 300 cat figurines in his Northern California home. At the restaurant, he asked for almond milk but couldn’t get any. The 69-year-old eats strange health concoctions and takes 90 pills a day, eager to achieve immortality—or “indefinite extensions to the existence of our mind file”—which means merging with machines. He has such an urge to merge that he sometimes uses the word “we” when talking about super-intelligent future beings—a far cry from Musk’s more ominous “they.”

25. “That’s just not true. I’m the one who articulated the dangers,” Kurzweil said. “The promise and peril are deeply intertwined,” he continued. “Fire kept us warm and cooked our food and also burned down our houses . . . . Furthermore, there are strategies to control the peril, as there have been with biotechnology guidelines.” He summarized the three stages of the human response to new technology as Wow!, Uh-Oh, and What Other Choice Do We Have but to Move Forward? “The list of things humans can do better than computers is getting smaller and smaller,” he said. “But we create these tools to extend our long reach.” 26. Just as, two hundred million years ago, mammalian brains developed a neocortex that eventually enabled humans to “invent language and science and art and technology,” by the 2030s, Kurzweil predicts, we will be cyborgs, with nanobots the size of blood cells connecting us to synthetic neocortices in the cloud, giving us access to virtual reality and augmented reality from within our own nervous systems. “We will be funnier; we will be more musical; we will increase our wisdom,” he said, ultimately, as I understand it, producing a herd of Beethovens and Einsteins. Nanobots in our veins and arteries will cure diseases and heal our bodies from the inside.He allows that Musk’s bête noire could come true. He notes that our A.I. progeny “may be friendly and may not be” and that “if it’s not friendly, we may have to fight it.” And perhaps the only way to fight it would be “to get an A.I. on your side that’s even smarter.” 27. Russell doesn’t give a fig whether A.I. might enable more Einsteins and Beethovens. One more Ludwig doesn’t balance the risk of destroying humanity. “As if somehow intelligence was the thing that mattered and not the quality of human experience,” he said, with exasperation. “I think if we replaced ourselves with machines that as far as we know would have no conscious existence, no matter how many amazing things they invented, I think that would be the biggest possible tragedy.” Nick Bostrom has called the idea of a society of technological awesomeness with no human beings a “Disneyland without children.” 28.  ‘Well, we’ll upload ourselves into the machines, so we’ll still have consciousness but we’ll be machines.’ Which I would find, well, completely implausible.”

29. “Yann LeCun keeps saying that there’s no reason why machines would have any self-preservation instinct,” Russell said. “And it’s simply and mathematically false. I mean, it’s so obvious that a machine will have self-preservation even if you don’t program it in because if you say, ‘Fetch the coffee,’ it can’t fetch the coffee if it’s dead. So if you give it any goal whatsoever, it has a reason to preserve its own existence to achieve that goal. And if you threaten it on your way to getting coffee, it’s going to kill you because any risk to the coffee has to be countered. People have explained this to LeCun in very simple terms.”

30. Russell debunked the two most common arguments for why we shouldn’t worry: “One is: It’ll never happen, which is like saying we are driving towards the cliff but we’re bound to run out of gas before we get there. And that doesn’t seem like a good way to manage the affairs of the human race. And the other is: Not to worry—we will just build robots that collaborate with us and we’ll be in human-robot teams. Which begs the question: If your robot doesn’t agree with your objectives, how do you form a team with it?”

31. “If you want a picture of A.I. gone wrong, don’t imagine marching humanoid robots with glowing red eyes. Imagine tiny invisible synthetic bacteria made of diamond, with tiny onboard computers, hiding inside your bloodstream and everyone else’s. And then, simultaneously, they release one microgram of botulinum toxin. Everyone just falls over dead. 32. “From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”