Hacker News: worldvoyageur

New comment by worldvoyageur in "France pulls last gold held in US for $15B gain"

worldvoyageur — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 11:50:21 +0000

It's the rules of how they must account for the value of the gold they have. Gold is valued at the price paid. Then, it is valued at the price sold. If there is no sale for more than a century, it stays on the books at the price paid. Once a transaction happens, the numbers update. Then, the gain that everyone knows is there is 'realized'. It's like if you mined Bitcoin in the early days. Your gain is only 'realized' when you actually sell it. Until then, it is only theoretical.

Mark-to-market accounting systems are one way to deal with this quirk, but they create their own issues.

New comment by worldvoyageur in "France pulls last gold held in US for $15B gain"

worldvoyageur — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:18:04 +0000

The US gold would have been on the books at the original purchase price, so something like US$35 from 1910 (when a penny had a purchasing power of 38 cents now). Having deemed it more efficient to sell that gold and buy the same amount to replace it, the new gold is on the books at the 2026 purchase price. As the 2026 money price is far higher than the 1910 price, the value on the books shows a dramatic realized capital gain.

No gain would have shown for the gold that was simply moved, even though in this case the buying and selling was simply a more efficient way of doing the equivalent of moving the gold.

Gold that was simply moved wouldn't show the same gain.

Local AI vs. Cloud AI Speed

worldvoyageur — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 11:52:55 +0000

Article URL: https://tomtunguz.com/local-vs-cloud-speed/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47437807

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Quantum Factorization with a Vic-20, a dog, and an abacus

worldvoyageur — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 16:56:38 +0000

Article URL: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2025/09/17/best-quantum-computing-paper-of-2025/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45278375

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Life, Maybe, on Mars, Unless We Change Our Minds

worldvoyageur — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 19:41:50 +0000

Article URL: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/life-maybe-mars-unless-we-change-our-minds

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45202601

Points: 7

# Comments: 0

Tell Me Again About Neurons Now

worldvoyageur — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 16:04:27 +0000

Article URL: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/tell-me-again-about-neurons-now

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44594830

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Microsoft cutting jobs with largest layoff in years

worldvoyageur — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 21:32:32 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/technology/science/article-microsoft-cutting-thousands-of-jobs-with-largest-layoff-in-years/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44449077

Points: 11

# Comments: 4

Astronomers get first picture of aftermath of a star's double detonation

worldvoyageur — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 21:28:48 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-astronomers-get-picture-of-aftermath-of-a-stars-double-detonation-for/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44449054

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by worldvoyageur in "Benchmarking LLM social skills with an elimination game"

worldvoyageur — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 23:56:45 +0000

Diplomacy is a multi-player board game. Successful play tends to involve well timed betrayals.

Delta Plane Crash Investigation Preliminary Report [pdf]

worldvoyageur — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:33:21 +0000

Article URL: https://www.tsb.gc.ca/sites/default/files/2025-03/A25O0021-Preliminary-Report-ENG.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43453197

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by worldvoyageur in "The Reasoning Token Explosion"

worldvoyageur — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:26:07 +0000

From deep in the article:

" Jensen drove the point home by discussing how these innovations have made him the “Chief revenue destroyer”. He further illustrated this by highlighting that Blackwell had an up to 68x performance gain over Hopper, resulting in an 87% decline in costs. Rubin is slated to drive even more performance gains – 900x that of Hopper, for a 99.97% reduction in cost.

Clearly, Nvidia is pursuing a relentless pace of improvement – as Jensen puts it: “When Blackwells start shipping in volume, you couldn’t even give Hoppers away” "

The Reasoning Token Explosion

worldvoyageur — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:21:55 +0000

Article URL: https://semianalysis.com/2025/03/19/nvidia-gtc-2025-built-for-reasoning-vera-rubin-kyber-cpo-dynamo-inference-jensen-math-feynman/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43453133

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by worldvoyageur in "Can a Geothermal Startup Vaporize Rock to Drill the Deepest Holes?"

worldvoyageur — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 11:45:13 +0000

Eavor is a Canadian geothermal company that does closed loop systems with diamond drills and insulated drill pipe. https://www.eavor.com/technology/

Closed loop and insulated pipe allows a geothermal project to be drilled into hot rock, which is pretty much everywhere, even if there is no water.

They have a demonstration project in Alberta, a 'commercial' project in Geretsried, Germany (4500 meters, 64MW thermal, 8.2MW electric) and a deep demonstration project in New Mexico (5500 meters, no news since early 2023).

From the company website, it looks like the projects work though Eavor doesn't give any data on their projects that would help calculate the economics. The heavy presence of government in their media suggests that, at least for now, significant government involvement is required to get projects built.

The Hero Trap

worldvoyageur — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 15:03:53 +0000

Article URL: https://ownerinstitute.beehiiv.com/p/stop-lying-to-yourself-about-your-business

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43184277

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by worldvoyageur in "TheMoment researchers learned that tigers hunt bears"

worldvoyageur — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 18:18:48 +0000

Ecologist and The Wild podcast host Chris Morgan recounts the moment Chinese researchers discovered Siberian tigers hunt and eat bears, offering new insight into the dynamics between these two apex predators.

TheMoment researchers learned that tigers hunt bears

worldvoyageur — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 18:18:48 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6646884

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43039293

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

Abundant organic matter in samples from asteroid Bennu

worldvoyageur — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 19:53:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/fresh-asteroid-getcher-fresh-asteroid-here

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42891176

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

Sound and video of meteorite strike, scientists believe it's a first

worldvoyageur — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 19:08:39 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-charlottetown-meteorite-strike-first-audio-1.7430018

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42742065

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by worldvoyageur in "Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram"

worldvoyageur — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 16:32:07 +0000

It makes sense to me. Meta knows who their real users are and what their real users want to consume. They know who their real advertisers are and what they are willing to pay to reach their real users.

This means they know what their real users would like to consume but can't, because that content isn't being created.

Why wait and hope that content your real users want to consume gets created? Have AI create that content. Now you have more product for your advertisers to pay for, plus it is the juicy, premium rate stuff you know they'd want to buy.

With all your data, it practically automates itself.

I'm not saying all this is good, just that it totally makes sense if you are in the business of making money and see yourself as doing that by giving both your users and your advertisers what they want.

A Kilometer High Cliff on Comet Churyumov – Gerasimenko

worldvoyageur — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 13:07:44 +0000

Article URL: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241216.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42430633

Points: 2

# Comments: 0