An early Nvidia advisor says a paperwork slip cost him a billion dollars in stock
What the article says
- In 1993 the author became an early advisor to Nvidia and was granted 25,000 stock options.
- The signed agreement said they vest over one year. In 1996 Nvidia's CFO told him only 15,625 had vested, as if it were a four year schedule.
- He exercised those and forgot about it. Decades later, after all the stock splits, the missing shares would be worth about a billion dollars.
- His lawyers traded letters with Nvidia for a year. Nvidia did not dispute the agreement, only that the claim was far too old.
- He decided not to sue, since a court would likely throw it out as time-barred.
What HN is saying
- Most commenters say he has no case. The options expired in 1996 and the statute of limitations ran out long ago. thread ↗
- Some read it as a clerical error. The real deal was probably four years, and paperwork that misstates it does not become the agreement. thread ↗
- Even if he won, many think damages would be the 1996 value of the shares plus interest, not a billion dollars. He would likely have sold them early anyway. thread ↗
- Several say the title is clickbait, since Nvidia does not really owe him anything. thread ↗
- People defend limitation periods as the price of letting society move on, and note the author would want one if a plumber sued him over a 30 year old bill. thread ↗
Anthropic's new mid-tier model is faster and cheaper, but is it worth picking over Opus?
What the article says
- Sonnet 5.5 is a big upgrade on Sonnet 5, faster and cheaper for most tasks.
- It is aimed at everyday, well-scoped work like fixing bugs and making polished slides and documents.
- Anthropic says Opus 5.5 is still clearly better at complex, open-ended work that needs sustained judgment.
- Risky cybersecurity requests now fall back to the older Sonnet 5, and new protections guard against copying its reasoning.
- A smaller Haiku 5.5 is promised in the coming weeks.
What HN is saying
- The loudest complaint is that at higher effort settings Sonnet costs about as much as Opus, so many see no reason to pick it. thread ↗
- Defenders say it shines at low and medium effort, where it is cheaper and faster, and that it suits subagents. thread ↗
- A sharp correction on the coding benchmark: Opus lost points because a fallback model answered some of its trials, which may explain why Sonnet scored higher. thread ↗
- Many say Chinese models or OpenAI's Luna are far cheaper, though others reply that subscriptions make Anthropic's real price much lower. thread ↗
- Simon Willison found that at maximum effort it burned through its whole thinking budget and never finished the drawing. thread ↗
- One developer says their work is already saturated by the model, so they struggle to find uses for more tokens. thread ↗
Fan pirates keep classic films alive, and now the studios are quietly borrowing their work.
What the article says
- Studios and directors often replace the original version of a film with a reworked one, then let the real thing go out of print.
- Fans fill the gap by stitching together the best sound and picture from old discs and prints, free of budgets, deadlines and legal limits.
- Legally this is piracy, and the preservationists know it. They follow an informal code: own a copy, never sell, never post publicly.
- The author helped turn a fan restoration of a Leone western into an official release, and an Arrow producer admits he borrows fan fixes: "pirating the pirates."
What HN is saying
- Many agree the real sin is making the original cut unavailable. Directors can revise, but the old version should stay on sale. thread ↗
- Fan edits get warm praise, especially the unaltered Star Wars versions that match childhood memories. thread ↗
- A sharp quibble over the word remux: one reader says the article misuses it, and a community member replies that the term is standard. thread ↗
- Old games face the same fate. People want abandonware protected in law, and complain that studios take down fan channels. thread ↗
- Some are quitting streaming to buy discs, but others note that shops and studios are dropping physical media. Libraries are a handy fallback. thread ↗
A veteran engineer says AI writing code isn't the same as software being solved, and the comments fight hard.
What the article says
- The author argues that cheap code creation is not the hard part. Maintenance, reliability and security are where most of the cost lives.
- Nobody can hold an AI accountable, so whoever ships the code owns it. You cannot own what you do not understand.
- Code is the side effect of thinking through a problem, so shrinking an engineer's job to typing misses the point.
- AI is great for prototypes, personal tools and translating formats, but risky where failure is costly, like healthcare, finance and aviation.
- He points to bugs in Claude Code itself as proof the loudest believers have little to show for it.
What HN is saying
- The top reply says tests, fuzzers and traces from LLMs can make software more reliable than reading code ever did. Others answer that testing is not understanding. thread ↗
- Many worry that lazy developers now push mountains of code no human can review, so code review is effectively dead. thread ↗
- Newer model fans say the article is already out of date. Skeptics reply that people have said this every year since 2023, and long-term codebases still age badly. thread ↗
- The compiler comparison split the room. Agent believers say nobody reads compiler output. Critics say compilers are deterministic and tested, and AI is neither. thread ↗
- A good middle view: small, well-defined changes are solved, but deciding what to build and living with the tradeoffs never will be. thread ↗
- One commenter vibe coded a crypto wallet, hit a bug the models missed, and realised they should have read the code. thread ↗
A fake Windows desktop that nails every pop-up, upsell and nag you've learned to hate.
What the article says
- This is an interactive parody of Windows, running entirely in your browser. It is not a real Microsoft product.
- It mocks modern software life: subscriptions, ads, AI features, forced updates and storage warnings.
- Buttons pretend to install apps, sell you plans or break your system. None of it is real.
- Clippy keeps a visitor ledger and gives you a persistent visitor number, stored under a random anonymous ID with no personal details.
What HN is saying
- Most people say it captures how Windows feels now: one pop-up chasing another, always something demanding attention. thread ↗
- The running joke is that the parody is too fast. The start menu and context menus open instantly, which real Windows rarely manages. thread ↗
- Plenty of commenters say they have already moved to Linux, and one describes setting up a new Windows 11 laptop for a relative as miserable. thread ↗
- The pushback: Linux has its own headaches, with updates and printers named as examples, so every OS has nonsense to wade through. thread ↗
- Older-Windows nostalgia shows up too. XP, 2000 and a tidy Windows 7 are remembered as systems that stayed out of your way. thread ↗