He’s saying that the spreadsheet represents the “picture” of the cat in terms of pixels and RGB values etc.
The algorithm/workers are not really “looking” at a picture of a cat, they are analysing and looking for patterns in the data that defines the picture of the cat.
What did you use to write the installer, and how do you determine if the targeted version of Excel is 32 or 64 bit?
I've built an Excel-DNA based Add-in (https://www.excelpricefeed.com/) and distribute it via an installer built using Advanced Installer. It works well, the only real pain point is the the user has to find out which version of Excel they have installed in order to choose the correct download (32 or 64 bit).
I use Wix for the installer. Can't remember how I dealt with that particular issue, but ping me at antonio [at] querystorm.com in a day or two, if you're interested, and I'll have a look at how exactly I dealt with it.
No idea, haven't seen this until now. Hopefully they provide a mechanism for allowing legitimate addins to get around it. Perhaps using a code signing cert (which I do) or an EV certificate would be appropriate. Security has been a bit of nightmare with Excel addins. I've had to deal with false positives on and off again a bunch of times already. First it was windows smart screen, then antivirus vendors every so often. It's a slog...
Cool. How can I turn off the animated cursor movement in Excel? And Outlook? Drives me crazy. I keep submitting feedback. Even a registry hack is fine.
Looks great, will give it a try (as a fellow Excel developer).
One small point: on your webpage the "Try QueryStorm out" button on the "Start a free trial" panel just points to: https://querystorm.com/csharp-in-excel/ rather than the generate key page.
How does this square with Tesla's "green" mission?
Bitcoin consumes annually the electricity output of a small country. Surely if they were serious about tackling environmental issues they would not be investing in Bitcoin?
This news itself has pushed the price up over 15% today and no doubt enables another warehouse full of machines to start working 24/7 to mine more bitcoin...
The vast majority of bitcoin mining is a sustainability solution.
The source is more important than the amount of energy.
Most bitcoin mining is using energy at the source that was uneconomical to use for other purposes, because of the loss experienced in transporting the energy to economic centers. That includes places that were previously opting to pollute the air with hydrocarbons, which now use that energy on site for miners instead.
"In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity. As part of the policy, which was duly approved by the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors, we may invest a portion of such cash in certain alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified in the future. Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long-term. Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt."
You’ll notice that even if they accept Bitcoin as payment, they’ll never price anything in Bitcoin. Nobody does that. They always price it in dollars and accept Bitcoin at the market rate.
When people start pricing things I’m Bitcoin without doing some daily calculation, that’s when you know it’s serious.
You will never be able to price anything in Bitcoin, ever. It's volatile because deflationary currencies are inherently volatile.
The future of finance is in some future crypto that provides for economic-growth-based inflation/deflation of the money supply. The Fed does this manually, and that's what keeps USD more-or-less stable.
> It's volatile because deflationary currencies are inherently volatile.
That is wrong. Maybe you mean 'fixed supply currency'.
There is nothing inherent in deflation, defined as 'general decline in general price level' that makes it volatile in terms of purchasing power.
The old pre-WW1 gold standard was deflationary, but it was also as stable as any system humans have ever come up with. It worked by banks adjusting reserves depending demand for their base currency.
You can definitely price things in a volatile currency but that doesn't mean the situation will be ideal. One just has to look at the research on the economic impact of currency volatility on emerging markets to see how this plays out.
tesla doesnt need to hold sizable BTC reserves to accept BTC as payment, so using the word hedge there doesn't seem correct to me.
please elaborate on your stratement, it doesnt make sense that this BTC position is a hedge. it seems like a speculative allocation, betting on BTC price increasing vs USD? and maybe some kind of marketing thing to convince people tesla is cool?
All major corporate asset allocation is speculative. Look at Exxon's assets. Some are in short term investments. BTC can be seen as a short term investment to offset depreciation of the USD. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/XOM/financials/annual...
Thanks - I thought it was a clear explanation of the basic forces/processes driving things, at least the financial aspects. Now I can see how to fit in the information (accurate? I don't know) that someone else on HN said - that owners of large blocks of stock are driving the price downwards at times by selling to each other. If this is true, then the simple thesis of the Infinity Squeeze is wrong and explains why short sellers keep piling in. Somebody is going to lose money somewhere...
But I have no idea, I am not in finance and don't take anything I say as fact.
Sociologically, there are a whole lot of different things driving it and I look forward to the book examining all those aspects.
The algorithm/workers are not really “looking” at a picture of a cat, they are analysing and looking for patterns in the data that defines the picture of the cat.