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And honestly? That’s rare.

I have no idea how reliable this source is, but it looks plausible - from the "American Investment Council", which appears to be some kind of private equity trade association ( https://www.investmentcouncil.org )

https://www.psprs.com/uploads/sites/1/AIC_PublicPensionRepor...

Some interesting details:

- "Nearly 50 percent of the private equity investment dollars that make their way into American businesses come from public pension funds", which substantiates OP's thesis.

- "U.S. public pension funds invest 9% of their portfolios in private equity, on a dollar-weighted basis." 46% is in public equity, so obviously the lion's share is in still in public markets.


This isn't surprising. Public companies tend to be lower risk (and therefore offer lower returns) than PE investments and pension funds want a mix of both. They want the juicy returns of PE deals, but a portfolio invested completely or mostly in PE would be unacceptably risky. Most pension fund mandates will set % limits on how much can be invested in different asset classes, with lower limits for riskier asset classes.

The annual Polypad Art Contest is worth browsing through: https://polypad.amplify.com/contest

From last year, this Moonlight Sonata in the 12-15 year old category is awesome: https://polypad.amplify.com/p/3VOW6BLM7AYqhQ

And I'm partial to this creation by an educator: https://polypad.amplify.com/p/hPjJZ4DC2Tpywg

but they're all great

(disclaimer: i am CTO of Amplify)


I'm curious, do you notice an uptick in complexity in submissions, corresponding with AI popularity?

Yes – CTO of Amplify here.

As a sibling poster notes, the Desmos calculator and math tools spun out to Desmos Studio PBC, which has a bunch of great people – with the goal of ensuring those remain available to all and not tied to a single curriculum provider. The Desmos Classroom tools for social, interactive classroom instruction, and another bunch of great colleagues, are part of Amplify, which together with Polypad and other tooling, make up Amplify Classroom ( https://classroom.amplify.com ), powering terrific IMO math, science and English curricula.

It's been a lot of fun – and a lot of tricky work! – bringing all of these tools and humans together.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we are hiring, including for Software Engineer, Analytics Engineer, Data Engineer, and AI Engineer positions at various levels :)

https://amplify.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Amplify_Careers


(Since you're in the thread, can I ask you to give kudos to whoever's kept the original "Let's Explore Geography! Canadian Commodities Trader Simulation Exercise" class code active all these years? I think you might have even changed the multiple-choice component to better support the weird thing I was doing with empty choice text.)


Ha absolutely! :) That's you eh? Very nifty


This is exactly true and it’s what every SaaS company counts on. They have four basic moves:

1. Sell you X seats, expecting that internal network effects will get you to 3X soon enough.

2. Sell you X seats, noting that as soon you reach 2X seats, you need to move to the Enterprise plan, under which largely the same feature set plus a couple of gated SCIM controls will cost twice as much.

3. Sell you X seats for their core product, then announce that features B and C are actually an additional SKU that requires additional per-seat subscriptions that double the cost.

4. Sell you X seats for their core product, then immediately announce that you’re on a “legacy plan”, but they’re happy to move you now to their updated offering, which is the same product but now structured to cost twice as much.


Yes, once you’re over some threshold (most recently 150 seats), you have to pay the per-seat fee PLUS usage.

And once you can make a certain threshold of commit, the seats are free and all you pay is usage. They are definitely making a margin on the usage.

In other words, this article is, I wouldn’t say misinformed, but definitely underinformed.


Yeah I want to know how to get my local government to register themselves as one of these.


Yeah, as I was toggling "blue" / "green" / "blue" / "green" I had the distinct sensation that it might just show me that I was in a region where I couldn't even make a consistent distinction.


2027 White House proposed budget[1]: $18.8 billion

2026 White House proposed budget[2]: $18.8 billion

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/budget...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal...

[2] is represented as deltas, explainer here https://spacenews.com/white-house-budget-proposal-would-phas...


Congress passes the budget since they have the power of the purse. Presidents have requested all sorts of nonsense to appease the base.


That is indeed how it is supposed to work. But things haven't exactly been working like they're supposed to lately.

For FY26, when we had a PBR proposing massive cuts followed by a government shutdown with a long stretch where NASA didn't know what their real budget was going to be, we saw a bunch of layoffs and project cancellations in preparation for a budget that might resemble what the president was requesting. Whether or not that was legal is in question:

https://democrats-science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/SST%20Mino...


That is true, but in all fairness, every politician has at one time, or another requested all sorts of nonsense to appease the base, not just presidents hence the term "political lobbying". If you look up the definition of 'politics," it's the method or strategy: sometimes used to describe the tactics, schemes, or "art" used to gain influence, sometimes carrying a negative connotation of manipulation or intrigue. Everybody has done it since the beginning of time :|


Congress also declares wars, and we know how well that has worked out for everyone.

First year civics: the legislative branch passes the budget, the executive branch is the one that actually spends it. Or doesn’t, in which case you have a constitutional crisis.


Congress has granted the president a lot of power to conduct wars on its own


This same president wanted a Mars landing by 2028.


It has been 30 years since Congress last passed a budget.


Congress passes a budget every year, what are you talking about?


It’s a technical distinction. The last true “budget” was FY1997. Otherwise, CRs are used until some kind appropriations bill can be passed. The problem is, that appropriations bill isn’t a true budget as money was already spent via CR.


not exactly a tourist :) but the point stands


I dunno, given the reputation we Americans have as tourists, it'd be nice to point out good ol' Alex and say, "hey, it could be worse!"


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