N_trglctc_joe

one commonly used measure of inequality is the Gini coefficient, which isn't perfect but is great for getting a "big picture" view of things. The increased exposure of the rich to the vicissitudes of valuations doesn't really get accounted for, even in more detailed analyses. I'm guess that's because it would be horribly impractical to measure; you'd have to take a detailed look at the finances of almost everybody.

That formula won't work with compound interest. I'm not sure if most spreadsheet packages have an exponential function, but the formula should be

money_in_account * exp( interest_rate/12 )

This is a really good point. Direct evidence of Satoshi's identity can only be in the form of someone claiming to be him, and that just wouldn't be credible. Circumstantial evidence is all we're going to get; even somebody spending Satoshi's BTC wouldn't be direct evidence since, as the article points out, someone else could have obtained (and be in the process of cracking) his hard drives.

There's a difference between a "conversation" and an "internet exchange".

In person, I agree completely. Skepticism towards your friends/ family/ acquaintances can easily poison the discourse and ruin relationships. If I have a discussion with a person I know, then I should absolutely give them the benefit of the doubt, and take what they say at face value unless they say something I find literally incredulous.

When you're having a discussion online though, it's a completely different story. People say stupid stuff on the internet, and "stupid" is a spectrum that goes all the way to "well-intentioned and seemingly-logical but poorly-researched and false". Online, and on a site such as this which aims for a certain level of discourse, every claim should be backed up. There's always somebody who disagrees that is going to read your comment, and you should give them a reason to reconsider their initial position.

This is not an easy thing to do. I believe a lot of stuff without knowing immediately why. This forces me to better account for my ideas, which helps structure my thinking. I'm not a strong enough logician to make infallible arguments, but by trying to convince an eternal skeptic, I only make my own arguments better.

[EDIT: I gave you an upvote, since you were in the gray. Some others had downvoted you, but that was undeserved, since I think your disagreement was in good faith. Other people, please don't downvote stale's comment.]

>Now that I have shown you the evidence about how people in the city are more likely to have attempted to reduce their meat consumption, are you willing to admit that your initial skepticism was completely and totally wrong?

Regardless of the accuracy of the original statement, I feel as though "initial skepticism" is ALWAYS the correct response to a claim made on the internet. If anybody is going to claim anything on a site like HN, they shouldn't have to provide evidence because they might not be trustworthy, but rather they should have to provide evidence so their statements can actually have something to stand on.

Without knowing more details about your resources, your skill set, and the other company, nobody here can possibly provide a helpful answer to that question. And even if all that information had been provided, you would run the risk of somebody slightly-better-positioned stealing your idea.

Here's a counter-question: why do you think you would be able to compete with them on price? If you have a good reason to think you can, then I'd say you have a chance, but if your reason is "Saas X just feels like it should be cheaper", do some more research.

I came here to ask something along these lines. Sometimes I'm baffled by what percolates up to the first few pages of HN. I've seen more than a couple Wikipedia pages about random scientific trivia, and that sort of thing just doesn't feel up to snuff.

> But 84+33>100...? I know you have sources there, but something doesn’t as up.

There's only a contradiction if the two groups are mutual exclusive. Retirement accounts belonging to those in the top 10% will be counted in both categories.

Assuming the data is good, a little math shows that less than half of stocks owned by retirement accounts belong to the bottom 90%.

well, the first thing you do is ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️ a ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️ to ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️ ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️ your ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️, and after that it's all pretty ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️.

Big if true.

If not though, nearly a million out of 17.6 million bitcoins seems like a huge number to be out of circulation, and that's a lower bound (other bitcoin owners have almost certainly died without being able to pass them on). I know that the rate at which bitcoins are awarded slows over time, so it seems like eventually the rate at which bitcoins are lost due to owner death should exceed the rate at which they are created.

How is the long-term state of bitcoin not just a bunch of unrecoverable keys held by dead people?

There's no way for me to phrase this while coming across as civil, but I'm genuinely curious: does anybody actually believe Musk? If so, why?

Honestly? Nothing.

I think I would get more from investing in something boring-yet-reliable and finding another job. Do you really think that an idea someone gave you on the internet is likely to provide more happiness than having a cushion and retiring earlier?

At the very least, you should hold off for a few years until you have an idea and the technological/business skills/partners to implement it.

> The overall goal of the Boring Company is to substantially decrease the cost, and increase the speed of building tunnels.

Good for it, but in the mean time a car tunnel would still have worse throughput than public transportation (less than two train's worth per day), rely on unproven technology (both for tunneling and moving the cars in a human-friendly way), and almost certainly not be financially viable (without massive subsidies).

Yes we need better public transportation, but there are well-established methods for effecting this. We just need to invest in them instead of Musk's poorly-conceived flamethrower company.

Homer's a bit of an unusual case. The Illiad was the first written work produced after a long dark age (or close to it; I'm not sure where the consensus is right now on whether Hesiod came earlier), so Homer was drawing on a few centuries of pent-up oral tradition from a culture that had itinerant hostorian-poets. As such, he probably didn't compose all his own verses but could well have been the first to write them down. I'm not sure how effective the technique referred to in the article (stylometry) would be at teasing apart the distinction between composer-of-verse and author-of-lines.

Just because most users use their devices for entertainment doesn't mean that entertainment is a valid reason to need more bandwidth. Most users couldn't give a good gosh dang whether the resolution is higher on their 6" phone. It makes literally (literally) no difference.

Nice emoticon, btw. It definitely didn't make me completely disregard your opinion.