New study quantifies Bitcoin's ludicrous energy consumption - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/05/new-study-quantifies-bitcoins-ludicrous-energy-consumption <comment><USER3> I provided this statement to some journalists who contacted me to get another viewpoint on Alex de Vries's paper:

His findings are not completely accurate, but also not completely wrong either. My own formal well-documented estimate is that Bitcoin used 0.09% of the world's electricity as of January 11th, 2018 ([http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity- consumption/](http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption/)). After 4 months of growth I estimate we are around 0.15-0.20% today. Therefore reaching 0.50% by the end of 2018 is plausible; not likely but plausible. That said, overall I think Alex de Vries's figures are rather inflated because he makes two errors. Firstly, his model assumes that manufacturers sell at cost and make zero profits, which allows miners to spend more on electricity. In reality we've seen Bitmain, the largest manufacturer, make billions of dollars over the last few years. No one expects them to make zero profits by the end of 2018. Secondly, de Vries makes the mistake of assuming that all cryptocurrency mining chips produced by TSMC on behalf of Bitmain end up in Bitcoin mining machines. In reality many chips are fabricated for cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. This altcoin sector is rapidly growing. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that Bitcoin mining machines will represent less than half of Bitmain's sales by the end of 2018.

(This is a copy of my comment from yesterday's thread on the same topic [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17084253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17084253))

<comment><USER4> > In reality many chips are fabricated for cryptocurrencies other than > Bitcoin.

OK, so replace "Bitcoin" with "Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies" in the title. The point remains the same: blockchain-based technologies are extremely inefficient with energy. That's the nature of "proof of work" algorithms.

<comment><USER5> Which algorithms are more efficient at doing what Bitcoin does?

<comment><USER6> You're thinking efficient compared to another hashing algorithm. I think op is saying efficient compared to the value it creates. I.e. cryptocurrency is useful for some things, but it's burning a LOT of energy to do it.

<comment><USER5> I'm asking what is more efficient at doing what Bitcoin does: censorship- resistant transactions with sound money.

<comment><USER7> I think the point here is that the need for such a currency is not absolute and may be outweighed by the cost of such a large energy consumption rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Serious question... has there been a bigger waste of electricity in any commodity trading or in any internet trend?

A the cost of a single bitcoin transaction (~300kW) could power a use home for more than a week [1]. How is this even remotely defensible by people who participates in coins and also make posts about climate change? Seems very hypocritical to me, because I'm pretty sure it's not those "filthy denier types" that are wrapped up in the coin game.

[1] [https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3)

<comment><USER9> The question about how much costs a single bitcoin transaction is deeply flawed. The amount of transactions a bitcoin network can process does not directly depend on amount of electricity spent. Bitcoin network can work the same way using 10% of its current electricity consumption. Also, lightning network will allow for thousand times more transactions with same energy cost.

Why is everyone obsessed with bitcoin electricity consumption? I wonder how much energy is required by the banking system to operate(imagine those thousands of people burning gas in cars to get to their daily work at bank). Humanity spends vast amount of energy on much more useless stuff with just entertainment value(World football cup, all those fans coming from different parts of world in the jets, logistics...)

Also, energy is a resource like any other and it's generation and price is subject to supply/demand. The fact, that is is used on mining bitcoins just indicate, that people value bitcoin technology more than something else they would spend the electricity on.

<comment><USER10> >Why is everyone obsessed with bitcoin electricity consumption? I wonder how much energy is required by the banking system to operate

People care because Bitcoin is, by design, massively wasteful. The banking system's energy use can be curtailed with green tech. Bitcoin's entire ledger is powered by proof of work, which _by definition_ requires computers to grind at maximum power calculating millions of hashes. And the difficulty goes up if more people are mining. And on top of that, the Bitcoin network is extremely slow _and_ several orders of magnitude less efficient than other banking systems in terms of transactions per second.

Everyone is obsessed because we're wasting damn near 1% of the world's energy so nerds can speculate on Dunning-Krugerrands and it's not doing anyone any favours in the long run.

<comment><USER11> > People care because Bitcoin is, by design, massively wasteful. The banking > system's energy use can be curtailed with green tech.

Still does not explain how the current banking industry along with others, such as the entertainment industry is not "massively wasteful" by design. Sure, maybe a small portion of the banking system's energy can be curtailed with green tech, but what about the 24 hour ATM, the light posts at the banks, the AC units in each branch, the massive skyscrapers in which all of the banks corporate offices operate? and the energy required to build all of that infrastructure? As stated already, there are countless number of things that "waste energy", and in some cases "by design". Check out "b.s. jobs" on wikipedia.

<comment><USER12> > _Sure, maybe a small portion of the banking system 's energy can be > curtailed with green tech, but what about the 24 hour ATM, the light posts > at the banks, the AC units in each branch, the massive skyscrapers in which > all of the banks corporate offices operate? and the energy required to build > all of that infrastructure?_

The point is, that waste is all upkeep. Something the system tries to minimize, as it bleeds money through it. If ATMs can be made more efficient, the system saves money. In Bitcoin, OTOH, waste is not upkeep but _a feature_ , which the system tries to _maximize_.

<comment><USER13> > which the system tries to maximize

How exactly the system is trying to maximize waste?

In fact, miners did more progress on efficiency in terms of pure hashrate/watt with a million time improvement in past 10 years, than banking industry ever.

It is demand, that is driving the energy usage, not the system on its own. I agree with the person above, that it is basically justified by increasing consumption of the service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > So de Vries calculated how much electricity bitcoin miners would have to > consume for bitcoin mining to no longer be profitable. He assumed that > electricity prices make up 60 percent of the cost of mining and that > electricity costs an average of 5 cents per KWh. That yielded energy > consumption of 7.7GW, which serves as an upper bound of the bitcoin > network's energy consumption

That's not the upper bound, since there a monetization strategies that end up using other people's hardware and electricity. Websites that run JavaScript miners are ridiculously inefficient but also don't have to meet his profitability formula because the electricity is paid by someone different than the person/entity that gets the Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER15> Three hundred kWh per transaction!!! That keeps my household running for 40 days!

Humanity has a pretty screwed up way of getting its global priorities right.

<comment><USER16> What do you think human's priorities should be?

Just curious. I'm not a scam-coin fan at all.

<comment><USER17> I think that securing a safe and prosperous future should be an obvious one, and one that we're royally screwing up with the amount of energy we spend.

If climate change is even a tenth as bad as it is projected to be this will have been a terribly selfish era of history. We're essentially devouring our young.

<comment><USER18> Okay, but that came as a problem long before Bitcoin arrived on the scene. In fact, bitcoin itself is a response to an overreaching, overextended global system of control led by banks and other corporations - the same ones who have ravaged the Earth and lied about it, causing the runaway global climate change we have now.

Yes, bitcoin uses way too much energy. But if we had a more fair system in the first place - that is, distribution of resources - it is unlikely anyone would have resorted to inventing bitcoin in the first place.

<comment><USER17> Well you can't change it now. There's no use crying over spilt milk. I don't see the logic in creating this wasteful system in response to an pre-existing wasteful system, especially with how dubious it is that cryptocurrency is beneficial to mankind.

Like okay Alex Jones, we got a global system of control led by globally globalist banks. I don't think bitcoin is going to change that. Call me crazy, but that seems a bit grandiose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bitcoin is a ridiculous waste of energy. Can we please have more regulation of this waste? What is the real benefit of Bitcoin? It can't even be used to pay for anything.

Gold sits somewhere and can be used for manufacturing. Storage of gold uses almost no energy whatsoever. Maybe to protect and produce a safe and hire people to watch it if its a large stockpile. Extraction is also difficult and energy intensive. Best way would be to move beyond move gold and Bitcoin. Bitcoin just continues to waste more and more energy without being used for anything. Storing it and seeing if coins are actually real is too energy intensive.

Bitcoin is irresponsible and a waste. Gotta be a better way to use and create cryptocurrencies for the environment and to avoid exuberant transaction costs.

<comment><USER20> You know what else is a huge waste of energy? Video games. They produce negative value. Should we regulate them? Should you even be allowed to play them?

<comment><USER21> This argument comes down to "we can't regulate anything if we don't regulate everything". You could use the same argument to say everyone should have nuclear weapons if they're allowed to have toothpicks. It's a slippery slope!

Given that we all accept some things should be regulated/disallowed, we can set aside the slippery slope argument and try to decide what the threshold for societal good or harm should be. Should you be allowed to dump CFCs into the atmosphere? How about lead in the drinking water? Can you defoliate the rain forest for your own amusement? Can you fire machine guns into the air over a city and let the bullets fall where they may? People disagree about where the threshold is, but they generally agree that there is some threshold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If bitcoin was not using said electricity (if there was no demand), would the power plants be producing that electricity in the first place? You might say no and hence we burn less fossil fuel. But for renewable sources like hydro, you just produce less when the demand is less. (Based on what I read on wiki [0]).

Should we really say `don't try out new ideas because it's wasting precious electricity`? Maybe we should. But I feel like humans have enough technology under their belt that enough electricity generation isn't a dire situation. So are people worried about fossil fuel? If so maybe we should address that. If not, are we saying we need to quota electricity and decide if new techs shouldn't get a shot (if they are somewhat 'wasteful' and we don't know how useful it is)?

Side not, I wonder how much electricity gaming system uses.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity#Flexibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity#Flexibility)

<comment><USER23> > But I feel like humans have enough technology under their belt that enough > electricity generation isn't a dire situation.

It isn't a direct situation it is just wasteful...

> Side not, I wonder how much electricity gaming system uses.

A high end system uses around 750W and assuming 3 hours of game play a day is around 800kWh a year, so enough for 2.5 Bitcoin transactions.

Besides honest question: is there anything about Bitcoin that is experimental anymore? Seems most research switched to different coins so defending Bitcoin to defend research is odd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. There is no proven alternative to Proof-of-Work. No, not even Proof-of- Stake: [https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf](https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf). Most PoS fans admit this.

2\. Thanks to second-layer scaling solutions, there can be arbitrarily many off-chain transactions powered by an on-chain transactions. For more information, visit [http://lightning.network/](http://lightning.network/)

3\. Bitcoin was not invented as a cheap transaction medium, although it was mistakenly marketed as such for a long time. It was invented to serve as a uncensorable sound money. The cost calculation needs to reflect that aspect, otherwise we are measuring the aerodynamics of a tank.

<comment><USER24> Oroborus proof of stake is kind of proven on paper [https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/889.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/889.pdf)

And bitcoin proof of work isn't that perfect. Over 50% of the hash power is with a few guys in China so they could hack the system if they wanted to.

<comment><USER5> No they can't "hack" the system - they can try do a double-spend, but it would be very expensive. The cost is proportional to chain length.

What's the cost of creating a parallel chain in "Oroborus" as a function of chain length?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why the obsession about energy consumption from mining bitcoin? It is because many people still consider it imaginary or non-productive? It is because, unlike many other markets, it is fairly straightforward to find upper and lower bounds for consumption?

<comment><USER26> Well, if this sort of system is going to be the future of finance, isn't the environmental impact of it something we should consider? Especially, when we hear about old inefficient power pants coming back on-line to fulfill the new demand created by cryptocurrencies.

Edit: Don't the mining costs basically exponentially increase as the supply of bitcoin runs out as it's an exponential decay? Being bounded by an exponential function isn't a good sign.

<comment><USER27> In response to your edit, no. There is no set cost to mine a bitcoin. Energy is expended in trying to solve the problems the generate bitcoins. Once bitcoins run out, this is still true as instead of directly creating new bitcoins, miners will still be rewarded with the transaction fees connected to whatever block they main.

The difficulty of solving a problem to generate coins is dynamically and automatically adjusted such that it takes about 10 minutes. What this means is that if you had a total of 800 nuclear reactors dedicated to exclusively powering ASIC systems to mine Bitcoins it'd take, on average, just as long as it would if your total electricity consumption was the equivalent of one guy running a low power laptop using a hand crank or bike generator.

So all the electricity consumption represents is demand. As demand increases for bitcoin, so does this price. When the price goes up this means you can afford to pay more for electricity and still show a profit. When demand goes down for bitcoin you need to pay less and less for electricity to maintain profitability.

What will happen when no new coins are being generated is that the reward for each block mined will decrease. This will mean you receive less money for mining a block and thus can not afford to pay as much for energy and remain profitable. The net effect being that we'll see a decline in energy usage as miners running on thinner margins are pushed out of profitability.

The dynamic balancing is actually quite a clever design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rando-brando420 In a market system, why is this a problem? How much energy and resources are used in all manner of activities which somebody could consider wasteful?

In any event, it seems to me that bitcoin is becoming a proxy for Arthur C Clarke's "megawatt-hour" currency which he predicted would emerge by 2016 [0]. Tying a currency to a fundamental quantity (the Joule) seems like a reasonable way to overcome the deficiencies of fiat currencies.

[0] [http://www.kurzweilai.net/arthur-c-clarke-offers-his- vision-...](http://www.kurzweilai.net/arthur-c-clarke-offers-his-vision-of- the-future)

<comment><USER28> It's a problem because market systems commonly fail at correctly gauging externalities without enforced regulation or taxation to properly tune the market to more effectively balance short term gains against long term/big picture (planetary) losses.

Something like Carbon taxes, for instance, might help the market hit a better long-term equilibrium for uses of electricity that takes long-term problems like climate change into better account.

<comment> rando-brando420 Carbon taxes apply to power generation, not power utilization.

Put another way, why is it not a problem for millions of people to turn on tv sets and "waste" electricity watching football? What is the logical endpoint of the regulatory approach?

<comment><USER28> A) See the "something like" hedge.

B) Most taxes get "passed on" to the next buyer, eventually. A carbon tax on power generation affects power costs, which in turn affects power utilization. It's not a direct effect, but it's still more awareness of the externality in the market as a whole than without such a tax.

C) It's possible that household TV usage is a waste of power utilization, in terms of long term carbon state, and a carbon tax or something like it might encourage more people to watch football games in person or read more books. A carbon tax could encourage more household users to reexamine their power utilization. If you trust the markets to be rational (and that's a wild assumption, I think, these days), people will sort that out for themselves if the market reflected externalities better.

D) That said, the people truly fighting against options like carbon taxes are industries whose daily output far outpaces household power utilization and households may not need to change hardly that much, if industry simply got cleaner or paid more of its share of the damage it was causing.

E) Just because your hypothetical is a silly one, I think the statistics show that right now in terms of carbon output, staying at home and watching TV is actually one of the best power utilizations with regard to greenhouse gas output of an average household. Most American households' carbon output are most influenced by their a) internal combustion vehicles, b) HVAC systems, c) beef-eating habits, roughly in that order. Modern LED TVs are masters of efficiency with respect to other things in one's household.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What is the standard for virtuous use of energy?

<comment><USER20> So much outrage for bitcoin energy consumption from people on their computers, in well-lit, air-conditioned rooms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Please somebody convert it to human deaths, for example using data from this paper about death toll of energy generation: [https://sci- hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(07)612...](https://sci- hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736\(07\)61253-7)

</comment><comment><USER31> Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a problem that can't be corrected, either. Decreasing energy use means doing fewer calculations (and a few people here have mentioned PoS). If I'm running a multi million dollar cryptocurrency farm, it's against my interests to support a system that's less computationally intensive. The whole point of investing in powerful GPUs is to crunch numbers harder. If the community comes along and says "we're switching to this thing that doesn't need your beefy energy-guzzling hardware" these miners are going to do whatever they can to make sure their investment is still maximally beneficial. Nobody is going to say "Well it was fun while it lasted!" and throw millions of dollars of hardware in the trash.

</comment><comment><USER32> FYI: At Bits & Blocks Press I've collected some bitcoin myths and facts, see Best of Bitcoin Maximalist - Scammers, Morons, Clowns, Shills & BagHODLers - Inside The New New Crypto Ponzi Economics [1] or Crypto Facts - <USER2> Payments - Efficient, Low Cost, Fair, Clean - True or False? [2]

[1]: [https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin- maximalist](https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-maximalist) [2]: [https://bitsblocks.github.io/crypto- facts](https://bitsblocks.github.io/crypto-facts)

</comment><comment><USER33> It's a currency that is backed by crypto and is printed via a kWh backing. Better than gold and government if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is one reason why I think Nano (Nano.org) will eclipse Bitcoin for pure transfer of value transactions. Nano uses a block lattice that doesn't require mining. The transactions are instant and feeless b/c of this. There is a tiny bit of PoW on the sender's device to prevent spam transactions.

<comment><USER35> Hmm, how small is "tiny"?

I suspect it would either be too small to be a deterrent, big enough to be wasteful at scale, or both. Is there really a sweet spot that avoids both of those?

<comment><USER34> This site claims that a single Nano transaction taking 0.112 Wh vs a Bitcoin transaction taking 950kWh. (note Wh vs kWh) [https://isnanogreenyet.com/](https://isnanogreenyet.com/)

Check Nano's FAQ regarding "Is Nano vulnerable to attacks?" here [https://nano.org/en/faq](https://nano.org/en/faq)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Why weren't these points raised for gold & diamond mining through out human civilization. Africans have been killed ruthlessly for diamonds and our so called "smart users" of HN can't seem to see eye to eye on these points. Cause they missed out on BTC! and now they hate it.

</comment><comment><USER37> Disclaimer: I have invested in Bitcoin, and I think that PoW is outdated. However, I also think that people that keep attacking this aspect are better off tackling other issues.

As everyone else before me said, the banks are wasting a much greater amount of electricity in order to operate. I am not talking simply about gas, lights et al. (although all banks where I live keep lights on 24/7, and in some cases even air conditioners), but also about the massive, MASSIVE amount of legacy infrastructure that keep them going. I'm talking software and hardware that are several decades old, stacked on top of each other with little to no optimization in order to support legacy features and to avoid breaking anything. I fully expect that if we even had a way to calculate how much power is wasted in order to support that kind of jurassic infrastructure for every bank, Bitcoin would still come out on top by an order of magnitude at the very least. And on top of that, we have to compound the aforementioned energy to operate the physical locations.

Yes, I know that this is pure and simple whataboutism, but seeing this kind of argument over and over and over again is tiresome, especially since the fact that we found a way to monetize power consumption could also -hopefully, I admit- have the added benefit of incentivizing renewable power sources such as solar panels.

And remember, cryptocurrencies are at their infancy, and we are already moving away from PoW. I fully expect that at some point Bitcoin will move on too, if it is not replaced by Ethereum or something much more sensible energy-wise.

<comment><USER38> You might have a point if banks provided the same service as Bitcoin, but they do multitudes more. Such as, providing a infrastructure for doing payments that is actually used by billions of people. Bitcoins are mainly used as an investment or as a store of value, for payments they are not a very good fit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is why proof of stake is so needed

</comment><comment><USER40> There's nothing inherently bad about energy consumption. The raw amount of energy consumed is a useless metric without determining how much of this energy is derived from clean/renewable sources.

<comment><USER41> You're right that's there's nothing inherently bad about energy consumption.

I would gladly use 7.7 gigawatts and more if it meant developing a cure for cancer, or exploring Mars, or anything useful really.

The crux of the issue is that Bitcoin is mostly used as a speculative asset, i.e. something with little actual usefulness except for traders basically.

Using 0.5% of the world's total energy consumption for this is an issue, imho.

<comment><USER40> If there's nothing inherently bad about energy consumption, why do you think it is an "issue" for 0.5% of the world's consumption to be used for mining bitcoin? What if 100% of bitcoin mining is powered by renewables?

<comment><USER21> "If there's nothing inherently bad about energy consumption" is assuming a lot. In theory we could produce all the energy we need with wind, tides, solar, hydro, fusion, zero-point energy, or whatever. Then there would be no issue. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world where most energy in some places is produced with enormous externalities. In other places, the externalities are fewer, but wasting this energy generating bitcoins doesn't eliminate the other uses of the energy, so the aluminum smelters or whatever that might have used the clean energy buy their energy from a different source that pollutes. And if most of the bitcoin mining is happening in China, most of it is being powered with the dirtiest energy source: coal.

<comment><USER40> You assume that a substantial portion of bitcoins are being mined in populated areas where the energy would otherwise be used for what you deem "better" purposes. How do you reach this conclusion?

The article does not make any effort to investigate the location of bitcoin mining facilities or sources of energy being used. For all we know, 99% of bitcoins may be mined using sustainable energy, off the grid. Without this information, any estimation of raw energy consumption is meaningless.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mr. Jobworthy or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Job Search - <AUTHOR> https://www.hireart.com/blog/mr-jobworthy-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-job-search/

<comment><USER2> The author gives off a sense of both entitlement and arrogance that permeates the post. It was a major turn off and I would not recommend this writing style to anyone trying to win people over.

Then again it may not be arrogance so much as the naivete of a youth who think himself much wiser than he should.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the part where he talks about how he thinks everything should be doable through the internet. Need food? internet. Need dates? internet. Need entertainment? internet. Totally true that most job boards don't work.

<comment><USER4> But where do you go when you need internet access?

<comment><USER5> The harder question is where do I got when I don't want internet access. Meaning no one around me has it either.

<comment><USER6> Go rock climbing in a remote area... a lot of times you will have zero signal for miles around.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: A calculus theorem question?  - <AUTHOR>

Any curve can be considered to be made of sufficiently small straight lines. http://musr.physics.ubc.ca/~jess/hr/skept/Math/node10.html
What is the name of the theorem which states this fact? I know integral calculus sums small units of the curve; but what is the name of the theorem?
I asked the same in mathoverflow but it has been downvoted and got no answer. http://mathoverflow.net/users/9811/zeynel
Thank you <comment><USER2> The problem is that your assertion is not true for any arbitrary function. For example, consider a function(aka curve) defined by: f(x) is x if x is irrational and 1 if x is rational. This function is discontinuous and cannot be approximated by shorter and shorter straight lines.

The calculus concept you are reaching for is continuity. If f(x) is continuous, then for any e>0 there exists a d>0 such that abs( f(x) - f(y) ) < d if abs( x - y) < e. That's the famous epsilon-delta mantra of the calculus. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(%CE%B5,_%CE%B4)-definition_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/\(%CE%B5,_%CE%B4\)-definition_of_limit).

Continuity is a powerful property that enables much of what is useful in the calculus. Continuity of a function and its derivative is even stronger; continuity of the function and first and second derivatives is stronger still.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Consider a function(aka curve)..."

Thank you for this answer and I apologize for the ambiguity in my question, especially, regarding the word "curve."

By "curve" I meant "curved line" or even more precisely, a "curved line without a gap." Obviously this is an assumption; I ignore if the line is made of points; because I want to compare a curved line with a straight line. So I believe that the question is not about "continuity."

(By the way Galileo has a nice discussion about lines and points here [http://books.google.com/books?id=SPhnaiERbWcC&dq=galileo...](http://books.google.com/books?id=SPhnaiERbWcC&dq=galileo%20galilei&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q&f=false))

Maybe I can ask the same question like this. Here are 3 numbers: 0.0872664626; 0.1047197551; 0.1221730476. Is it possible to tell if these are points on a straight line or if they are points on a curved line? I believe both; depending on the scale they are plotted; the numbers would look like a straight line on some scale; but they are points on a sin curve. In other words, nature does not distinguish between straight line and curved line; the same three numbers can be read both ways.

So I am looking for a theorem that would describe this fundamental property of nature.

Thanks.

<comment><USER2> For x sufficiently small, sin(x) looks like x (x in radians). That's because if you write the Taylor's series expansion of sin(x) and ignore high order terms, you get x. The property you are looking for is continuity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's not really a theorem; it's the definition of the derivative.

f`(a) = lim h->0 (f(a+h) - f(a))/h

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

Is it correct to say that the definition of the derivative states the equivalence of the secant and tangent lines?

I am looking for a theorem that states the equivalence of curved and straight lines. Does this make sense?

<comment><USER3> Well, the tangent and the secant will converge to the same thing as h -> 0.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the equivalence of curved and straight lines" though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tangent and secant converge to the same [point] but as far as I understand this is not a statement about the equivalence of the curved and straight lines. By this I mean something like Archimedes's method of exhaustion [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_exhaustion#Use_by_Arc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_exhaustion#Use_by_Archimedes) when he approximated a circle (curved line) with a polygon (straight line).

I would think that there would be a theorem in mathematics generalizing this fact; something like; "curved line is equivalent to straight line." It depends on how we divide (or scale) a line that gives it its "curvature." Or "there is no curve but curvature." Something like that?

<comment><USER3> Around a given operating point, you can approximate any function with a polynomial (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_series>). This includes approximating a polynomial with a lower-order polynomial. A line is first- order polynomial. Therefore, around a given operating point, a line can approximate a function.

The key phrase there is "around a given operating point". If you zoom in close enough, a line and an exponential will appear to be the same. Outside of this area, they will clearly diverge.

So you can't really say that a curved line is equivalent to a straight line, but you can say that sin(x) = x, for small values of x (and tolerable levels of error in sin(x)). In fact, that comes up quite often in engineering.

<comment><AUTHOR> "you can say that sin(x) = x"

Yes, this is the small angle approximation <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-angle_approximation> and also the example I gave above: 3 points on a sin curve may be considered a straight line or a curved line; 1 meter on earth's orbit is a straight line. The same idea comes up in the string theory too as a pun between point and line.

I am surprised that there is no mathematical theorem to express this fundamental property of nature. Or maybe I am not expressing myself clearly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In mathematics you always try to minimize the preconditions, and the "theorem" you are looking for is likely a combination of strong special proofs.

Maybe <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapezoidal_rule> comes closest to what you are looking for. It states that you can approximate the definite integral using "straight lines", which includes your case, however, this rule has preconditions for the curve. HTH

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. This looks exactly like an "application" of my putative theorem. The trapezoidal theorem assumes that straight line and curved line are the same thing with different curvature (I think); the way a circle and ellipse are the same figure but have different eccentricity.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some answers in stackexchange too: [http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/6136/is-there-a- math...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/6136/is-there-a-mathematical- theorem-that-states-the-equivalence-of-curved-and-straigh)</comment>


Nikola Tesla's FBI file - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/16139/Nikola-Teslas-FBI-File

<comment><USER2> Is there a summary of the interesting bits anywhere? Scribd is a little wonky for me and the scan is very difficult to read.

<comment><USER3> Or a simple .PDF? Scribd can rot in Gehenna.

<comment><USER4> I thought the Hinnom valley was burning, not rotting.

<comment><USER3> Ah, that's correct, my mistake. Scribd can _burn_ in Gehenna, or rot in Dahiyat a-Salam. Either way works for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't wait to see the Richard Stallman government files in 50 years. Would it be FBI or Homeland Security do you think?

<comment><USER6> Why wait 50 years? He's files are available under GPL3 as we speak. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I couldn't read through the scans without straining my eye either. All I want to know is: wasn't he also indirectly involved in the Philadelphia experiment? I'm insinuating that Einstein had a direct hand on that according to history records.</comment>


NASA's SDO Captures a Monster Prominence [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5483193591/ <comment><USER2> Wow, someone should make an Android live wallpaper of that video.</comment>


Just released this: Freeware "finger simulator" for iPhone dev - <AUTHOR> http://www.wonderwarp.com/phonefinger/

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool! I'm thinking aloud... would it be possible to somehow simulate two fingers at the same time (for gestures)?</comment>


Conversing with Socrates (GPT-3) - <AUTHOR> https://blogofjake.com/2020/07/19/conversing-with-socrates-gpt-3/ <comment><USER2> I've been wanting to try out GPT-3 while I wait for them to accept my application, but sadly [https://learnfromanyone.com/](https://learnfromanyone.com/) returns a Firebase "site not found" error.</comment>


Docker Swarm and Digital Ocean - <AUTHOR> I'm running an app on Docker stack. And as stated in title it is based on Docker Swarm and Digital Ocean.
I'm relatively new to DevOps but need to say that I  really like how easy compared to Kubernetes I could setup and run Docker Swarm on Digital Ocean. Reading doc took about 10 minutes and I could start a fleet of several nodes "infected" by docker agent. Then minor changes to existing docker-compose file (we deliver apps in docker containers). Finally "docker stack deploy" and that's it! App in the cloud with service level load balancer out of the box.
Needless to say that Digital Ocean nodes are cheap and I can run the cloud at significantly lower cost than similar one on AWS.
But, I wonder why isn't this approach that popular? I can't say there are a lot of docs/articles about swarm. Even worse — I'm struggling to find online services for orchestrating/monitoring swarm clouds (CLI is great, unless you have more than 3 nodes)
I admit that experienced DevOp guy can setup AWS to be cheaper and more advanced with Kubernetes. But is it worth the efforts if you don't expect high loads and your architecture is not that complex? <comment><USER2> The difference between reality and Internet news/blogs can sometimes be vast, and we "problem solvers" have to be aware of that. There are hundreds or more enterprise companies using Docker EE, which is using Swarm currently as its orchestrator/scheduler. (see [https://www.docker.com/customers](https://www.docker.com/customers)) and I also recently ranted about the assumption that everyone is using one thing for orchestration. [https://twitter.com/BretFisher/status/958416831659872256](https://twitter.com/BretFisher/status/958416831659872256)

IMO, a healthy ecosystem always has multiple opinions on how to solve a problem.

I'm biased and like Swarm for those that want a great UX (from dev through CI/CD to prod) and their needs match the problems that Swarm solves. I currently teach workshops and consult on Swarm because that's what my circles ask for. It doesn't make anyone wrong or better. These are all opinions on how to create container clusters and some teams like Mesos/DCOS, some Swarm, and some Kubernetes.

In the end, does Swarm solve your problems? If so, stick with it until it doesn't. Docker has publicly stated on their blog months ago that they are not EOL'ing Swarm, despite the news falsely stating Swarms demise. In Docker's main paid product, Docker EE, their new Kubernetes integration actually uses Swarm to help ease K8s deployment AFAIK, so at this point, I feel its future is solid and don't have a problem using it or recommending it. It's still early days for the ecosystem through, so I might be singing a different tune in two years. Swarm may not be the most talked about container orchestrator, but like others, it does solve problems for many people.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree. The story is that Kubernetes has 'won' but I still love the simplicity of Docker Swarm. And I would definitely recommend anyone to start with it and maybe later, if you have hundreds or thousands of nodes, migrate to k8s.

<comment><USER4> one thing i need to point out is: swarm intentionally ship many features conflict with kubernetes in order to compete with it, then it failed, and leaves migrations somehow impossible. so if u only have small cluster and love swarm thing and does not need more mature orchestrations level, just keep it. but recommendng others jump in this hole is definitely Irresponsible.

<comment><USER5> I learned first-hand that migrations are difficult. Do not go to production with Swarm if you are thinking of migrating to k8s. Use it for experimentation and learning.

<comment><USER3> I respectfully disagree. If you move your existing stack to Docker Swarm, by far most of the work is in containerization. Creating Dockerfiles, decoding how containers interact, deciding on environment variables, deployment mechanisms etcetera. When moving to Kubernetes the same thing happens: most of the work goes to those same activities. That work is not lost if you defer moving to k8s to later. And that move itself will be so easy compared to the containerization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> when a open source project gets less attention, it's dead. u can keep your swarm thing as hobby. i have mine too, i love VeltOS, but will i install it in my servers? NO!</comment>


Cubesats to go interplanetary with tiny plasma drives - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/15/cubesats_to_go_interplanetary_with_tiny_ion_drives/

<comment><AUTHOR> The kickstarter: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597141632/cat-a- thruster...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597141632/cat-a-thruster-for- interplanetary-cubesats)</comment>


The Beginner's Guide to Sales - <AUTHOR> http://strideapp.com/beginners-guide-to-sales/ <comment><USER2> I have some concerns about some of the advice they are giving, especially in "Chapter One". This idea of making compensation for sales people so commission driven, and having the big "leader-board" and everything, seems so "Glengarry Glen Ross" and 1990's to me. At least a few firms are starting to experiment with paying sales people a flat salary, combined with regional and company- wide bonuses (or something along those lines) to try and align the incentives the the sales-person with the company as a whole. Because, as we all know, not every sale is a Good Thing.

That older model also risks creating a situation where your sales people are competing with each other and not acting in concert as part of a team. I can't help but wonder if there isn't a better way.

<comment><USER3> "least a few firms are starting to experiment with paying sales people a flat salary"

An "experiment" is all that will end up being.

I've been involved in selling and dealing with sales people (as a buyer) for a very very long time.

Simply not going to work at any scale. Goes against the psychological motivations of people and how they respond to rewards. Why not pay people for more effort? When you don't (say with a union) you end up with the postal system. [1]

Even with respect to sports people care about their individual performance greatly in addition to the team winning obviously.

Back to selling - Not that you aren't going to find a few people who don't fit the typical mold just not as many as you will need.

There is nothing wrong to tying compensation to performance and it actually works quite well. One of the things that I notice even when selling things is that if a customer paid me for 3 years in advance it more or less took the fun out of things and providing service that you have been paid for that way becomes much more of a drag than if you are earning it as you go along.

Money is a powerful carrot and for the right reasons.

Don't lump all selling and compensation into the mold of the abusive assholes portrayed in Glengarry.

[1] I was just at a high quality hotel where I noticed that the maids seemed a bit surly and uninterested when I asked them to make my room up or for extra towels. Seemed odd to me. Turned out that there is a room charge daily and that you don't leave tips.

<comment><USER2> _Goes against the psychological motivations of people and how they respond to rewards. Why not pay people for more effort? When you don't (say with a union) you end up with the postal system._

I don't have a problem with tying compensation to performance, but I do question the alignment of interests. When every salesperson has this "it's me or them, every man for himself" mentality, I doubt that's best for everyone in the long-run. A commission heavy structure also seems like it will encourage short-term thinking - that is, the classic "get the sale at any cost, no matter what downstream damage ti does" mentality. Now maybe the commission based structure can be tweaked to account for that... I'm just saying that I think there may be room for some new models here.

Anyway, if you do multiple levels of bonuses, tied to the performance of the company as a whole, you are still hooking compensation to performance, albeit with a bit of indirection.

Also, there has been plenty of psychology research that suggest that not all people are motivated mainly by extrinsic rewards (ie, money). Maybe compensating sales-people differently just means hiring a different kind of sales-person? Just food for thought...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really wish this were on a single page so I could Instapaper it.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure about Instapaper (haven't used it for a long time), but Pocket has great support for multi-page stuff, and handled this like a champ.

Full disclosure: I'm a big Pocket fan, and a big Instapaper anti-fan.

<comment><USER6> I know this question is going a little off-topic but what do you dislike about Instapaper? Is there something they can do something to that will help you change your mind?

<comment><USER5> I much prefer Pocket's abilities to handle multiple media types.

I like how Pocket is a first-class citizen on all of the platforms I use, not just iOS. I know Instapaper has an Android app, but it sucks.

I prefer the design of Pocket over Instapaper. I'm not a designer, so I can't comment on which is actually "better", only which I prefer.

I do prefer Instapaper's business model. I would like a chance to pay for Pocket.

Finally, I am not a huge fan of Marco Arment, and would rather support Pocket than him.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for your honesty. The final point means that Pocket (never fully understood the name change from Read It Later, perhaps because like you said it supports different media types not just text?)

I've never tried instapaper. At some point I got lazy and stopped marking stories as read on Pocket/RIL and now I have this ginormous (almost 2 GB) of things to read. So what did I do instead of reading? I uninstalled the app and the bookmarklet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ugh, I hate the attitude on display in this article.

The idea that everybody will benefit from your product, and that you just have to help them see the light is false and patronizing.

I would not benefit from a new iphone because my current phone does everything I want my smartphone to do.

"Uncovering problems for your customers" is newspeak for "selling a solution in search of a problem"

</comment><comment><USER8> As an engineer, the most soul crushing aspect of sales process is when people simply ignore your calls and emails. I hesitate to follow up because I do not want to seen spamming people and eventually all hope inside of me just shrivels up and just dies.I find rejections to be emotionally devastating.

I would gladly pay for a sales guru/therapist who would listen to what I have been upto and tell me what I am doing wrong , what I am doing right and what I should be doing more.

<comment><USER9> If you are devastated by rejection, you are not getting enough of it.

It's very hard to get devastated by rejections when you follow 20~30 leads any given moment and getting rejected every day.

<comment><USER8> Upvoted you because that was a very good advice. I will keep that in mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me of Daniel Pink's To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others. Worth a read if you like this.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice! Thanks for sharing this. You should include some more sales anecdotes if you have any to add. They're a really useful way of communicating a sales strategy being applied to a unique scenario.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great post, alot of good stuff here. Its all about understanding your customer and bringing them True Value!</comment>


Dear Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews - <AUTHOR> http://gistarchive.appspot.com/3787583

<comment><USER2> Hope this goes viral on the Internet and gets prime-time TV coverage across the world!</comment>


Verizon nears deal to acquire Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-22/verizon-said-nearing-deal-to-buy-yahoo-beating-rival-bidders <comment><USER2> It's now being reported that Verizon and Yahoo are exclusively negotiating. That's as close as anyone has gotten since Microsoft made an offer years ago.

Verizon is really doing a big transition with this acquisition and their AOL acquisition. They've acquired alot of valuable web space to put adds on/monetize. This is a probably good news for Yahoo employee's as Verizon then has a vested interest in keeping the company running and not splitting it up into pieces like a PE firm may be more inclined to do.

The one interesting thing I've heard is that Verizon isn't interested in Yahoo's patent portfolio, which means it could still be up for grabs.

Hopefully its bought by a Microsoft/Google consortium and very liberally cross licensed rather than a private equity firm who will look to more aggressively monetize it.

I also heard that Tim Armstrong, formerly of Google with Mayer will lead the combined AOL/Yahoo company, which means that Mayer probably isn't coming along as part of this deal. I think most people expected this.

If this ends up going through for the reported 3.5 billion, then Verizon has bought a significant portion of traffic on the web for roughly 8 billion (AOL was acquired for 4.4 Billion).

This could end up looking like a very good acquisition in a few years!

<comment><USER3> _Hopefully its bought by a Microsoft /Google consortium and very liberally cross licensed_

I don't think such a consortium exists, Microsoft and Google are usually on opposite sides. Microsoft (along with Apple/RIM/others) bought the Nortel patents in 2011 and sued Google, Samsung, Huawei, and others. Google bought Motorola and its patents the same year and sued Microsoft. Patents are weaponized as soon as these companies acquire them.

<comment><USER4> That patent war was started by Microsoft under Steve Ballmer and both companies dropped it after Satya Nadella took over. I genuinely don't believe Microsoft under Nadella would go to patent war except defensively. Everything I've read about Ballmer leads me to believe he definitely shares similarities to the stereotype of the businessman trying to squeeze out as much money as possible.

<comment><USER5> I think it's the sales mentality - you work with the product you have, today, to get the deal done today/this quarter.

Not great for the ten-year plan, but those are a luxury of companies with lots of products selling _today_.

<comment><USER6> And, perhaps not surprisingly, Ballmer didn't last much over ten years as CEO and left MS in a very precarious position when he did leave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is deeply sad that there's even a chance that Yahoo will be sold for ~$5BN to Verizon, which bough AOL for $4.4BN, especially considering that AOL has 0.9% of the US web search traffic while Yahoo still has more than 10% and amazing agreements in place that allow it to show the best search results between Google and Bing. How is this maximizing value for shareholders exactly ?

<comment><USER8> Yahoo has been on sale for a long time, clearly there have been issues with buyers finding value. They probably have a point.

People don't see growth in Yahoo. They were on top before Google (I remember Yahoo was _my_ choice for a long time) and it seems they've just been existing, coasting on brand recognition but not accomplishing much. It's easy to see a future where Yahoo only goes slowly downward.

<comment><USER7> I doubt in this future AOL grows faster than Yahoo however.

<comment><USER9> I disagree, the AOL purchase came with things like Huffington Post and Tech Crunch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So they dumped the great Fios on insanely incompetent Frontier, and are picking up the failing Yahoo. What's their strategy here?

<comment><USER11> In a typical year (excluding the Alibaba sale or big write-down last year), Yahoo makes as much profit as Verizon's entire wireline unit.[1] Selling _part_ of the FiOS network for $10 billion to buy Yahoo for less than $5 billion is a no-brainer. It'd be better to buy a healthier tech company, obviously, but Yahoo is what's on the market.

[1] While costing about $4 billion a year to run, versus $35 billion a year for Verizon's wireline division.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So finally that merger with Aol is happening after all...

<comment><USER13> A Yahoo!/AOL will be a bit of a homecoming for Mozilla. :)

<comment><USER14> We have the mozilla dragon down the hall at aol headquarters --- it's a Pokemon Go Gym, even.

<comment><USER15> The San Francisco Mozilla Office is its own Pokemon Go Gym also. It's down the street from the Niantic HQ too.

<comment><USER16> It's in one of the official screenshots on the app's Google Play page, too.

[http://i.imgur.com/PjdPzcs.png](http://i.imgur.com/PjdPzcs.png)

As a Mozilla intern I've always thought that was funny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Marissa Mayer is a terrible CEO. Unbelievable the amount of money she has been paid to flush the remainder of Yahoo down the drain with no strategy while employees suffer. Yahoo (net of BABA) is less than worthless.

<comment><USER18> I know she's unpopular, but she's hardly the first one who tried righting that ship without success. I think she's stabilized it and made people believe there was a possibility in turning around, giving it breathing room more than the previous three. You have to remember that when she came on board, Y! was taking water fast.

No one, no one could have saved it and made it relevant. I think she did a pretty commendable job trying.

<comment><USER19> _> No one, no one could have saved it and made it relevant._

Agreed. I simply can't understand why we keep flogging this dead horse, Mayer or Verizon, none of it makes any sense. Am I missing something regarding the true value of Yahoo _!_?

<comment><USER20> I _believe_ the reason the horse keeps getting flogged is because a wide swath of HN doesn't believe Mayer had the skill set needed to make a real attempt to right Yahoo (and, arguably, her actions support that assumption).

Yahoo never had a chance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yahoo did serve one purpose, it was the exit system for a lot of almost successful startups. Hope that continues under Verizon, though I doubt it.

On Mayer, well eh she put her hand up and suffered. but then Yahoo was pretty much past saving. Hopefully, she's learned from her mistakes and moves to something more productive.

<comment><USER22> The macro economically productive "purpose" of a start-up is to make profit, not to "exit". Until this is understood and forced by the economy, the overall economic climate in the US will continue to deteriorate.

<comment><USER23> The purpose of a company is to make money. There is no disagreement there. But the fact that economic climate in the US is deteriorating is bunk, and double bunk that even if it were, it would be related to misunderstandings of the purposes for which startups are founded and run...

<comment><USER22> Do you own a house in SF now, as an Uber employee? In 1950s one would be able to afford that, with a non-working wife and several children.

<comment><USER23> Rather personal no? I guess a question merits answering. I do not - but not because I cannot afford one, I am saving my money for something else :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm hoping Yahoo's Smart TV platform business is sold to someone who will make it awesome. It has potential and a pretty massive installed base.

<comment><USER25> I got the impression that Yahoo's Smart TV platform was outdated, and being eroded by Opera's HTML5 platform.

Given that this is pretty much all that is left of Opera after the Chinese buyout [1] it may well be a chance for Yahoo to get back in the SoC game.

1: [http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/search.do?messageId=406030](http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/search.do?messageId=406030)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> That's just wow!

Fifteen years or so from now, some company will likely be picking up Facebook on the cheap. By that time, Twitter will probably be history.

Google?

The wheel of life...

<comment><USER27> My bet the last couple years has been Google eventually becomes nationalized as it gets to be "too big."

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Verizon is discussing a price close to $5 billion for Yahoo's core Internet > business...

Yahoo's current market cap is ~$37b

<comment><USER29> Yahoo! has three major assets: its stake in Alibaba (worth about $32B), its stake in Yahoo! Japan (worth about $8.5B), and its core internet business. Verizon would only be buying that last piece.

<comment><USER30> While it is fun to do the subtraction and see that Yahoo's core business is negatively valued, liquidating the Alibaba and Yahoo Japan assets would come at the expense of significant taxes, which I believe accounts for why shareholders value the firm the way they do. Still shocking how drastically small the core asset valuation is in comparison to a deal Yang struck years ago, but it might make the valuation make more sense.

<comment><USER31> Also, the simple subtraction ignores that the drag on Yahoo's value is debt. If Yahoo sold their stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan the cash would presumably be used to pay off that debt. It is incorrect to tie all of the debt only to the core business.

<comment><USER32> No idea what you mean by that.

Yahoo has $6B in cash and short term investments, and $1.2B in debt.

<comment><USER31> That is just the "current" debt. They also have almost $15B in long-term liabilities, primarily $13.5B in deferred tax payments and $1.2B in general long-term debt.

<comment><USER32> Deferred tax is only payable when shares in Alibaba are sold, which will not.

Yahoo will spin it off tax free to shareholders.

<comment><USER31> In which case that liability does not transfer and all the people here subtracting Alibaba's asset value without subtracting that liability are wrong.

<comment><USER32> That is 100% wrong.

Ask an accountant if you don't believe me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> My requests:

1\. don't touch yahoo finance

2\. bring back pipes

<comment><USER34> Don't touch Flickr as well

<comment><USER35> I think it's a bit too late for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I am hoping Verizon will change their logo after this aquisition. It looks ridiculous..

[https://cdn0.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/zL414AMfclnMcwL59xa3ZTXrcDw...](https://cdn0.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/zL414AMfclnMcwL59xa3ZTXrcDw=/3x0:1418x796/1600x900/cdn0.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/47080648/Screen_Shot_2015-09-02_at_2.20.55_pm.0.0.png)

</comment><comment><USER37> Is Verizon Wireless still injecting tracking headers into cellular data traffic? If so, how will these new acquisitions affect the way that these headers can be used?

</comment><comment><USER38> A bad marriage is taking place.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have mixed feelings about this. I still use Yahoo once or twice a week to read their news feed, and I am a long time Verizon customer (although my wife and I are considering saving a lot of money each month and switch to Google Fi when we need new phones).

I would hope that a media company like Yahoo could have existed independently from a parent company.

</comment><comment><USER40> This certainly seems to make the most sense. It does seem like Verizon is chasing the past with this acquisition, going for Internet 1996 and Internet 2000 rather than the mobile future. (I don't buy Mayer's contention that Yahoo is now a mobile company)

</comment><comment><USER41> This isn't good for consumers. Verizon is looking to add web assets with a longer term strategy, locking in people to their web space.

As in, two different data tiers, they family of businesses and everything else.

If there were true net neutrality, the government would block this purchase.

<comment><USER42> I don't think they would have any regulatory challenge. Remember comcast invested in Vox media earlier?

Not sure how will the net neutrality be affected with this acquisition, but this is mostly done to build a huge media/entertainment(Yahoo! + AOL) business which will be complementary to Verizon's current offerings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> What, other than some japenese websites and Alibaba does Yahoo own that is worth anything?

<comment><USER44> That $1.1Bilion price tag paid for Tumblr is just over 10% of the indicated price tag. Maybe Tumblr are also good for something.

<comment><USER45> You're joking right? They keep writing off Tumblr, it is worthless. Just 4 days ago:

[https://www.yahoo.com/tech/yahoo-reports-another-big- loss-21...](https://www.yahoo.com/tech/yahoo-reports-another-big- loss-212237743.html)

> Yahoo also reported Monday that it's writing down $482 million in charges > related to the declining value of Tumblr, the social-blogging service that > Yahoo acquired for $1.1 billion in 2013. Combined with an earlier write-down > of $230 million, that indicates Tumblr's value has plunged by almost two- > thirds.

<comment><USER46> There is a certain irony reading about the downfall of Yahoo on Yahoo news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Wow, i gotta say this is like Time Warner/AOL. Perhaps the internet is more mature now to make this work but Im not holding my breath. How will they reconcile the 2 adtech stacks which are huge messes in and off themselves.

<comment><USER48> I can imagine 3 years from now tech journalists will be writing that "history repeats itself". I can foresee that 3 things will happen:

\- There will be a people drain from Yahoo. Anyone was is passionate about Yahoo will feel completely disenfranchised with being merged into a smaller competitor that is owned by a larger company. Some people will hold out for being made redundant in the hope of a good severance package, and some will simply stay regardless, but those who see what is happening will realise that Yahoo is over, and won't want to be a part of the frankenstein being assembled within Verizon.

\- Yahoo's main properties (Homepage, Weather, Finance, Mail) will survive, Flickr/Tumblr I don't know. Tumblr itself has suffered from the difficulties of merging into Yahoo's culture and way of doing things. Flickr was resurrected in some ways, but struggles from the difficulties that other web 2.0 brands have - how to stay relevant and interesting to consumers today when the industry has changed so much since their creation.

\- Mayer will go. She tried and she didn't succeed. She'll get a decent severance package, but Tim Armstrong will finally get what he's wanted for a long time. Whether he's able to successfully merge two large-sized businesses together I don't know, this is a different challenge compared to acquiring businesses like Goviral or Millenial Media, we're talking about a headcount of ~8000 employees, and there will be lots of duplicate roles. I don't expect the merger to go smoothly - I expect it to be a bit messy.

Either way, the goal of creating a relatively strong #3 to Google and Facebook seems at this point a lost cause - both Google and Facebook have market valuations that dwarf what AOL and Yahoo were worth at the time of their merger, and given a signal of what we might see in the next couple of years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> From what I've read, it appears unclear as to what Yahoo defines to be its "core business". Are there any details on what specifically Verizon is seeking to acquire, and whether Flickr is included?

</comment><comment><USER50> For 3.5 billion (rumored price), I'm surprised Google wouldn't take a flyer on Yahoo.

<comment><USER51> > For 3.5 billion (rumored price), I'm surprised Google wouldn't take a flyer > on Yahoo.

If they anticipate substantial antitrust scrutiny of the deal (and I would think Google buying Yahoo! would have to in ways many other suitors would not), it might not be worth the purchase price _plus_ the cost associated with the scrutiny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I wonder what Jerry Yang thinks about all this.

I still remember the "Go 3.0" marketing liner.

</comment><comment><USER53> Curious what is Yahoo! worth sans stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan?

<comment><USER54> [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UHMfzlmE7HXY_ph9BN68...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UHMfzlmE7HXY_ph9BN686gOCiji1bQ- rsbnjtKD3oho/edit?usp=sharing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Somewhat unrelated but: Since the Government is already tapping into wired and wireless networks without consent, it would be nice if they would take control of all ISPs... we would probably get better cellphone service at least.

</comment><comment><USER56> "Ma Bell, proud owners of both AOL and Yahoo." Clinton running for president. You would be forgiven for asking if it was the 1990s. It's hard for me to be excited by any of this. Those are three really dull companies.

</comment><comment><USER57> Ugh, isn't there a better company out there to buy Yahoo?

<comment><USER58> Do you really want verizon to buy a good company?

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Hopefully this will sink Verizon.

<comment><USER60> There's ~0 chance of that happening. Verizon can afford to completely write off $5 billion, so you would need some sort of poisonous cultural inversion for the deal to sink Verizon.

(Verizon is a much larger company, so if the Yahoo culture ended up dominating it would be an inversion)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> "Verizon sees a complimentary set of businesses that could find a home alongside its AOL properties."

This tells you everything you need to know, because AOL should have died years ago as well.

<comment><USER14> What exactly do you think aol is?</comment></comment>


Phone camera-based vital signs monitoring - <AUTHOR> https://www.binah.ai <comment><USER2> Unsure if it's just me not being able to find stuff on their website, but is there any mention of how accurate this is? The page isn't really making me confident that it is achieving all the things they say it does...

<comment><USER3> They state "Medical-grade accuracy" on their page

<comment><USER2> So what does that mean? ±.5°F? ±1°F? Does that vary at higher vs lower temperatures? What's the actual range it can handle? How does it work for people w/different skin colors (since this seems to be just based off of imaging data alone)? How about older phones w/lower resolution? How about cameras w/different fps?

<comment><USER3> I do not know, but I hope sensitive data is protected by military grade encryption

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fact that you can't try it out, even though it works with "any camera" is a bit of a red flag.

<comment><USER5> _" The process doesn't even require a great high-definition camera. 30 frames/second with a decent processor will get you there, meaning aging or low-end smartphones will work, and even laptop webcams will be just fine."_

From the article in Forbes listed on the landing page. ([https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/19/ai- heal...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/19/ai-health- startup-can-get-15-vital-signs-via-your-phone-camera))</comment></comment>


From Shake Shack to Starbucks, the HK-China Standoff Is Proving Bad for Business - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/business/from-shake-shack-to-starbucks-the-hong-kong-china-standoff-is-proving-bad-for-business/ <comment><USER2> With a flashpoint like this, it makes it easy to see where on the map MNCs stand. This seems to be the beginning of the new cold war with China.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh no the poor corporations, however will the helpless people take care of themselves</comment>