iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 09/05/2024

25% of the Swiss population is using Bitcoin - if they're all criminals and drug dealers, Switzerland must be one gangsters paradise of a country. Better watch out and stay away from their tasty chocolate.

Swiss newspaper showing investments done by swiss population

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 06/05/2024

Considering that the majority of the world's population doesn't live in stable democracies, a censorship-resistant social media might not be the worst idea. What's the role of privilege-bias of those who disagree?

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 28/04/2024

Tesla has Level 2 of 5 automation. That's far from "full self driving". Using it as if it had a higher level than the actual technical qualification is willingly endangering people. Mercedes Benz achieved Level 3, allowing it only on highways for slow traffic.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 21/04/2024

JPMorgan is a scam only used by drug dealers, money launders and other criminals.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 18/04/2024

Here's your use case: you're living in Egypt (110 mio people). Your government is managing the local fiat currency so badly (see chart), that your savings are completely destroyed over and over for years. Then you put your savings in bitcoin, use fiat only for purchases. Saving now works.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 17/04/2024

The percentage of transaction fees in total income of miners is far above 0.024% - currently it's mostly between 2.5 and 5%, frequently peaking much higher. As block space is limited, settlements on chain will get more expensive, most transactions done on faster, cheaper lightning net.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 17/04/2024

When adding more data points to the plot it almost seems, as if the long term development wasn't so random as people always say it was after all..

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 15/04/2024

True! It's amazing. It's actually dropping like a rock for 15 years straight - if you hold the chart upside down.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 11/04/2024

26% of the Swiss population is invested in Bitcoin. So: Either 26% of Swiss are scammers and criminals transacting in shadow markets.. ..or Bitcoin is used by the broad population of this highly regulated, educated and conservative country.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 11/04/2024

To me the main use case of the scarce commodity "Bitcoin" is being a scarce store of value as an alternative to the many deprecating (USD) and collapsing (e.g. Egyptian Pound - see image) government issued currencies. That's my subjective risk evaluation. You see that differently, that's fair.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 11/04/2024

The US Dollar becomes worthless slowly - that's why it doesn't cause a collapse. It lost >90% of its value since inception. It's a melting ice cube rather than a collapse.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 11/04/2024

Bitcoin is actually pretty far from being a "penny stock". Theres very few bigger assets.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 09/04/2024

Totally! Bitcoin price moves completely random for more than 15 years now, as can be seen on this chart of historical BTC/USD price (yellow).

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 23/03/2024

Your post gives the impression, that Bloomberg was clueless about Bitcoin and Crypto - which is not true. They have a dedicated section with daily reports and some great authors as James Seyffart.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 21/03/2024

Price of gold measured with that yardstick is constant over the last 30 years - that's a good sign, that the yard stick has quality.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 20/03/2024

Most important: 7) don't listen to advice from financial influencers on social media (Source at bottom of image)

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 13/03/2024

I recently sent an IP package and it got lost - total scam! Tried to contact customer support, but couldn't even find their fax number.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 13/03/2024

It keeps amazing me, how - in our digital age - there's still a lot of people out there, who consider only physical things "real". Platon described the reality of ideas ~2400y ago. Identity, math, science, software, education - all ideas. "I cant touch it, so it ain't real" is Pre-Platonic.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 13/03/2024

You're absolutely right. Data is an object, not a science. It can be analyzed with scientific methods and tools, though. Doing so in the pursuit of knowledge is what Data Science does.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 12/03/2024

The crashes are truly horrifying - after the next one Bitcoin will be finally dead (again) and Microstrategy in ashes.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 11/03/2024

The 10 highest valued assets of the world by market capitalization. Congratulations to Bitcoin - which just overtook Silver and is now #8.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 10/03/2024

Fees for on-chain settlement are currently 7$ in average. Long term average is around 3$. Fees were never in history "thousands of dollars" - that's disinformation.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 08/03/2024

It's an individual choice, of course. But in context of the above facts I'm not surprised, that many individuals attribute subjective value to Bitcoin - despite its high volatility.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 08/03/2024

The same is true for Nigereans - yet another minority, who might see value in Bitcoin.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 08/03/2024

Egyptians do much better saving in bitcoin rather than their currency - also those with bank accounts and credit cards.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 08/03/2024

The population of Turkey is one example of a minority whom Bitcoin would allow rescuing their savings from ongoing devaluation. That's a pretty good use case.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 06/03/2024

Not random at all - it's a power law adoption curve with a media hype every 4 years. You can set your clock after it. People are surprised every 4 years for some reason. X-Axis is in years.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 06/03/2024

Sorry, here's a better version (source: Wiki Commons "political spectrum 3d"). Also: great article about why Milton Friedman and Josef Stalin are both "centrists" on the political left-right axis, why that's a problem and how more complex models can solve that: medium.com/the-outsider...

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 06/03/2024

Yesterday the tulip bubble finally popped! It was a bloodbath, all those bros lost their risky bets, got scammed! Store of value my ass! Back to zero - all licking their wounds. At least that's what I read on Bluesky.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 06/03/2024

It's so funny, that "liberal" in the US means almost the complete opposite as in Germany (here that stands for "free market capitalist"). That term is as useless as "left" and "right". I prefer 2d or 3d political compass - putting positions on there makes so much more sense.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 04/03/2024

A log-log chart (both axises log, not only the y-axis), shows a power law function as a straight line.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 01/03/2024

The top ten assets in the world by total market value (market cap). Be cautious with gold — in 1971, France was scammed, losing all its deposits and receiving worthless paper in return. That one might be a pyramid scheme.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 28/02/2024

Some real numbers to support my insane claim: 'Red' represents pensioners, 'Blue' symbolizes individuals funding pensions through their contributions. If you know basic math, you shouldn't bet on your pension in that system.

Statistics on German pension system showing that less and less people pay in per pensioner.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 16/02/2024

Now 43.7b. Assuming continuation of current trend, crossing would be on 21st of march.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 14/02/2024

Quote from Bloomberg article on German economy. Fits here, too, though... Same problem.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 10/02/2024

Found another source, not as close to mining lobby, approximates numbers within the same order of magnitude: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Problem with these naive total consumption comparisons: Electricity is time and space local (hard to store or transport). I'm sure, you know 😁

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 06/02/2024

The final conclusion sounds not too bad to me. Positive and negative effects on energy production more or less even out, while the block chain is secured.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 06/02/2024

I'm a bit shocked, that the authors don't seem to know the difference between proof of work and proof of stake, which are several orders of magnitude apart in energy consumption.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 23/01/2024

Trying to capture even more of the signal with a formula as short as possible. First component: power law growth Second component: oscillation with period of 4 I've heard people call these data points being "random" - they only see the third component: noise.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 22/01/2024

Quite amazed by the simplicity and accuracy of this formula - found it today via regression.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 10/11/2023

Hab mal nachgesehen und sehe nicht, wie der Begriff hier passen soll.

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

Problem: oscillates too fast... Let's add a low-pass filter (a resistor and a capacitor) - it allows slow oscillations to pass, but not fast ones. This makes oscillation slower. By selecting appropriate values for the low-pass filter, we can precisely adjust how fast: pitch control 🎵

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

The input has 0V (false), causing an output of 5V (NOT false -> true). Since the output is connected to the input, the input is now 5V (true). So output switches to "NOT true"="false"=0V, and so on... ...it starts oscillating... ...and oscillating current, when connected to an amp, becomes sound 🔊

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

DIY Synthesizers: This here is a 'NOT' gate. A logical component from digital tech that 'negates' a value. For a 5 volts input (='true'), it outputs 0 volts ('NOT true'... hence 'false'). Now, what happens when you interconnect the NOT gate into a paradox? When it takes its own output as input?

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∇ Gradient Descent @gradient-descent.bsky.social · 28/10/2023

Snare Drum is now also on board - the orchestra is complete! Snare still has a lot of noise - need to look at that, before soldering it. Here's a short audio recording of the all drums together. drive.google.com/file/d/143au...

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