They go on to acknowledge the growth profile and valuation multiples vs competitors based off projected profits ...which is probably the more useful way to look at it -

There have been reports of investors valuing TikTok around $50 billion in the takeover bid, this is approximately 50 times its projected revenue for 2020. Many publications have compared this to SnapChat’s market capitalization which sits around $33 billion at the moment (15 times its 2020 projected revenue). While Snapchat exists within the same social media ecosystem the comparison has to account for two factors.

1) TikTok vs Snapchat’s position in the growth cycle 2) TikTok vs Snapchat’s core proposition

I think facebook would pay a hefty premium even above that; handing Microsoft a buzzing social media platform on a silver platter - with the weight of Microsoft's resources behind it. Surely Zuckerberg's nightmare manifest...and he has no real chance of trying to outbid - what with all the anti-trust press.

This is what always strikes me...the knowledge that you are competing against a "new" category of entertainment but the hubris to dismiss it in one fell swoop...why wouldn't you ask "why did this cattegory crop up"; "is there something new going on here that they do better than us?"

‘A ctrl+f for ‘privacy’ brought the word up thirteen times – the subtext was very much ‘at Google, we think about privacy’. But what makes this particularly interesting is that decentralised data analysis isn’t a new concept and didn’t find its origins in privacy.'

That short course looks like its still available on edx - though it's archived - I seem to be able to access the material.

https://www.edx.org/course/street-fighting-math

But even Keep the Aspidistra Flying was basically mutilated by circumstance [1] and it's still a great book. So, I'll take the insults towards mathematicians with humour and actually read some of it—I often switch between grumpy rigour to applicative speed. We all need to earn an income.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Aspidistra_Flying#Lit...

Edit: Just to be clear, my comment on mathematicians is not on your quote, but this quote from OP's post:

> an antidote to mathematical rigor mortis

If it is the quote you added to the bottom of your comment, my question still stands. That isn't an insult to anyone (certainly not mathematicians) but rather a comment that many people freeze up when it comes to mathematics (at least that was my interpretation).

Immanuel Kant wrote about it [1] and many engineers have a varying degree of animosity towards pure mathematics. So, in the book's description they say this:

This engaging book is an antidote to the rigor mortis brought on by too much mathematical rigor, teaching us how to guess answers without needing a proof or an exact calculation.

I don't like the advertising, or the description if you will, as it basically tries to discount rigour. One can simply say it's an addition to the usual rigour of mathematics for the sake of daily street fighting style problem solving. The way they state it, however, it sounds like they are saying that rigorous math is not necessary.

My reference to George Orwell is simply that when he wrote Keep the Aspidistra Flying his publishers made him write a lot of things he didn't want to write, and they even specified the amount of words the books needed to have (which is is somewhat understandable, but limiting still).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason. However, note that this is about metaphysics and one can argue that pure mathematics is not what he was critisising and that his work doesn't directly try to disprove the use of axioms, without which mathematics cannot exist.

The word "antidote" is used in the book's summary, which is defined as (via Google) "a medicine taken or given to counteract a particular poison." One could take the "poison" to be mathematical rigor, or something similar.

Perhaps this does not change your opinion, but I do not think the original comment was completely off base.

You think the British intelligentsia would react kindly to an honest portrayal of the class system?

And similarly to Orwell's book, it seems like Street Fighting Mathematics does actually have interesting content, despite whatever the reason may be that they need an "antidote" for general mathematics.

I think the author meant the same thing as Feynman when he described the "Greek" and "Babylonian" approaches to mathematics.

For all but a select few (pure mathematicians), the "Babylonian" approach is a lot more fun. Both approaches are clearly necessary and useful in different settings.

With the advent of systems like the Lean theorem prover, the two approaches may start to see a lot more overlap.

~~~

SlateStarCodex shutting down in direct response to the hubris/disregard of one NYT reporter hungry for a story. This parasitic appetite for airtime come-what-may approach to journalism needs to be checked. There's no reason the writer couldn't leave the real full name out of the article once requested and with legitimate concern aired by the person hes naming.

I'm glad "Scott" is taking this stance if only for the fact that it puts the onus of hard/difficult decisions back on the NYT - i.e. why despite legitimate concerns are your writers comfortable doxxing people?

The key highlight for me -

"When I expressed these fears to the reporter, he just said that me having enemies was going to be part of the story. He added that “I have enemies too”. Perhaps if he was less flippant about destroying people’s lives, he would have fewer.

(though out of respect for his concerns, I am avoiding giving his name here.)

After considering my options, I decided on the one you see now. If there’s no blog, there’s no story. Or at least the story will have to include some discussion of NYT’s strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks."

This is especially important to ask when a big complaint of the NYT staff about the Tom Cotton is editorial was that it was directly endangering their safety.

Apparently the NYT does not have the same concern about other’s safety.

[1] https://newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/

From the article "when we know where the seams are and how to manipulate them. The power in being able to manipulate the seams creates an elevated experience, one that emulates the ease of a seamless experience with the added power of control. Where seams help you identify how any one element interacts with the broader environment, the knowledge of ‘beautiful seams’ (source) could become invaluable to the user experience."

I have a sneaking suspicion that SEO/keyword mapping with all the resources devoted to that space may have some tools that elaborate on this idea - though im no expert. If anyone knows of useful tools to replicate this in browser I am all ears.