cfield

Allowing Congress to override a pardon is a change in the law that would be effective only if done by amending the Constitution. A statute purporting to do so would be an unconstitutional infringement of an expressly granted presidential power.

    “The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

    - Article II, Section 2, Clause 1

How about glitter nail polish?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6986327

fwiw, for the RT-AC68U, ASUS currently[0] recommends downgrading the firmware to the version at this link: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-AC68U/FW_RT_A...

To downgrade, they pointed to the 'Method 2: Update Manually' section of this support FAQ: https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1008000/#a2

Other comments from ASUS chat support:

- Asus is "in the process of fixing the issue".

- When a new firmware update is available "it will be just on the ASUS website to the router itself". [I presume they're referencing the router's web GUI admin tool?]

- When asked for an 'official Asus forum or support site' to monitor for updates regarding this issue, they said: "We don't have a forum page for newly released updates but this should be posted on the ASUS website main page."

----

[0] ASUS chat support session ending at 12:32:46 PT on 2023-05-18

In recognition of their absolute blame for any collision, Navy captains are reported[0] to joke with their ship-steering subordinates:

  "In case anything goes wrong, call me so that I can see the end of my career."

---

[0] As reported in the ProPublica article linked to in this HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19094762

The landing was beautifully smooth — an impressive feat by any measure.

The best video of it I've seen so far is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2fQkJGbRcA

Another perspective is at 1:24 of this video: https://youtu.be/k1n85oiLqUc?t=84

Indeed.

The uncertainty inherent in the universe we understand today and in all human endeavors is difficult to contend with in code.

In the main, contracts serve to reduce uncertainty and to attempt to manage uncertainty that can't or shouldn't be reduced. Of necessity, contract law has developed a myriad of principles and rules in service of this aim. However, these principles and rules are themselves predominantly characterized by uncertainty. See, for example, the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.[0]

Humility — and a corollary respect for our ancestors — is a defining characteristic of my own study of the law.

---

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith_(law)

And, more specifically, the interpretation of that phrase (as it's defined in the AstraZeneca/EU contract) under the laws of Belgium by the courts located in Brussels, Belgium.[0]

Assuming this aspect of Belgium contract law sufficiently resembles its US counterpart, the interpretation of variants of "reasonable efforts" is a rabbit hole with few rivals. In the book written by a leading authority on US contract drafting[1], the topic commands its own chapter:

  Chapter 8 Reasonable Efforts and Its Variants

—

[0] per sections 18.4 and 18.5 of the AstraZeneca/EU contract linked to here

[1] A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting by Ken Adams (https://www.americanbar.org/products/inv/book/297140045)

Canons of legal construction exist because of ambiguity in human language.

Here are a few that illustrate common imprecision in language.[0]

Conjunctive/Disjunctive Canon. And joins a conjunctive list, or a disjunctive list—but with negatives, plurals, and various specific wordings there are nuances.

Last-Antecedent Canon. A pronoun, relative pronoun, or demonstrative adjective generally refers to the nearest reasonable antecedent.

Series-Qualifier Canon. When there is a straightforward, parallel construction that involves all nouns or verbs in a series, a prepositive or postpositive modifier normally applies to the entire series.

Nearest-Reasonable-Referent Canon. When the syntax involves something other than a parallel series of nouns or verbs, a prepositive or postpositive modifier normally applies only to the nearest reasonable referent.

Proviso Canon. A proviso conditions the principal matter that it qualifies—almost always the matter immediately preceding.

General/Specific Canon. If there is a conflict between a general provision and a specific provision, the specific provision prevails (generalia specialibus non derogant).

——-

[0] https://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/adjunct/dstevenson/2018Spring...

Perhaps.[0]

Or perhaps not.[0]

-----

[0] https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2019/lead-vs-lede-...

Lee Filters has an online color shift calculator to help select filters to convert light to the desired temperature. It even gives suggestions on filter combinations to get to the desired color.

http://www.leefilters.com/lighting/mired-shift-calculator.ht...

The Lee Filters color shift calculator proved handy when I recently found an LED work light stand [0] that I thought would make for a nice looking lamp in our living room if I could figure out how to convert the light to a color that was more normal for a home.

[0]: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Pro-1-Light-40-Watt-LED-S...

Got it. With those numbers, the returns are ~1.86x for the investors of the $565M. ($3B * ($565M/$1615M) / $565M).

It looks like the $1B figure is a pre-money valuation for the $500M raised.[0] If so, that results in a 2x exit for those investors.[1] This assumes those investors don't have rights that would entitle them to more than their pro rata of the acquisition proceeds, such as special liquidation preference rights that would entitle them to more than a 1x liquidation preference. It's these kinds of special liquidation preference rights that have attracted some attention for helping "juice" valuations, particularly with unicorns.[2]

-----

[0] https://www.crunchbase.com/funding-round/79d35bb376dcc222a8a...

[1] Math: $500M invested at $1B results in those investors owning 1/3 of the company. Assuming pro rata distribution of the acquisition proceeds, they would get $1B in a $3B acquisition.

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-17/the-fuzzy-...

I imagine the graduate degrees Hewlett and Packard earned at Stanford were, for their time, at least equal in prestige to a Stanford Ph.D in 2000.

Assuming Wikipedia can be believed:

Hewlett - 1939 Stanford "degree of Electrical Engineer"

Packard - 1938 Stanford "master's degree in Electrical Engineering"

My sense is that, by definition, evidence of ways the future will be different than the present is always weak, particularly if the evidence you're looking at is data.

What is the legal issue?

This is one potential outcome of AngelList syndicates[0], which is I think one reason they have been vocal[1] about the SEC's implementing regulations of the securities reforms (including crowd-funding) that Congress called for in the 2012 JOBS Act.

[0] https://angel.co/help/syndicates [1] https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-06-13/s70613-37.pdf

I think it's simply that it's harder to find buyers for that kind of stock. And finding buyers for stock in a high risk enterprise is already a pretty difficult task.

Yes, the board is elected by the stockholders.

Absent an alternative structure, default corporate laws provide for the directors of a company with only one class of common stock to be elected by majority vote of the stockholders.

However, there are all sorts of alternative structures that can alter this default. For example, it is common in a VC-backed company that preferred stockholders are given the right to designate a specified number of board members. The right is usually laid out in the company's certificate of incorporation or a voting agreement among the stockholders.

Source: I am a startup attorney.

I don't think this has ever been a throwaway term during an acquisition in cases where the investors proceeds were higher under their liquidation preference rights than they would have been under their pro rata stockholder rights.

Thinking back over all such deals I worked on as a startup attorney, I can't think of a single one where the liquidation preferences were not asserted by the preferred stockholders (i.e., investors).

The selling owners generally view it as a buyer's problem to figure out retention, which is usually accomplished by the buyer making equity grants to the team that vest over time following the acquisition.

Sellers sometimes have a similar incentive issue -- i.e., they need to incentivize a team whose equity will be worthless in an acquisition. This is often accomplished by some form of "management incentive plan" which can have all sorts of structures. But the gist is typically to set aside some of the acquisition proceeds for distribution to key employees or management.

I think limited scope is exactly the point made by skriticos2.

I don't doubt that a private entity is as capable of scope creep as a massive federal government institution.

But I suspect mission-fatal scope creep occurs with less frequency with private entities than with massive federal government institutions.

Indeed, she credits your blog post for giving her "confidence that someone else had done it before" (and noting that your situation "was way worse")!

I'm glad you both took time to share your stories. There are so many factors, known and unknown, that influence these kinds of outcomes. But, as pg has written [0], the one constant is simply ... DON'T GIVE UP!

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html

Given the broad geographic footprint of the HN community, I'm curious what folks here think about how much of a role that a tolerance of failure plays in Silicon Valley's track record of supporting commercial innovation.

I don't know if others agree (and it's no doubt an over-generalization), but my intuition is that commercial failure lacks the stigma in Silicon Valley that it does in most other places. Much ink has been spilled on the topic and some have even suggested that Silicon Valley has a "Failure Fetish".[1]

It seems popular to trace the roots of this and other cultural features of Northern California (e.g., 60s counterculture) to the Gold Rush of 1849. But perhaps it simply another artifact of startup density that Sam suggests is so critical?

[1] A sampling from various forums: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/silicon-valley-... http://www.npr.org/2012/06/19/155005546/failure-the-f-word-s... http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/brilliant-failures/why-sil... http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225202 http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/10/18/silicon-valleys-greates... http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2013/03/06/pages/1054/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/17/japan-to-fix-your-economy-h... http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/2012/12/does-silicon... http://www.quora.com/How-has-Silicon-Valley-developed-and-su...

I believe you can explain the difference by understanding Sam to mean "important to the founders". As he explains, this is the source of the motivation to persist, despite the risk and downsides discussed by Dustin.