
The freakishly strong base - mherrmann
http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-freakishly-strong-base/
======
namelost
This article isn't what I was expecting, but to satisfy my curiosity, the
strongest known base is (according to Wikipedia) _Ortho-diethynylbenzene
dianion_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortho-
diethynylbenzene_dianion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortho-
diethynylbenzene_dianion)

[https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/basically-record-
breakin...](https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/basically-record-
breaking/1010062.article)

~~~
ardme
Wow, thanks this is exactly what I expecting in the comments here! I was
expecting it to have some cool application but according to wikipedia there
are no known uses for it yet.

~~~
microcolonel
Well, when your materials basically react viciously and dangerously every time
you move them, it's hard to see what application they could have.

Edit: nevermind, I'm too drowsy for HN right now.

~~~
tfmatt
Was this in the articles??? No nitro groups on the molecule and benzene is
extremely stable due to its resonance. Where did you get this info?? Just
curious.

~~~
thereisnospork
It won't exactly explode, but it will strip a proton off of pretty much
anything. It is undoubtedly reactive with water, pretty much any 'interesting'
organic compound, and probably even methane. The thing is so sensitive (being
a superbase it by definition has a massive propensity for stealing protons)
they had to make it in the gas phase by pelting it with negative
ions/electrons at high energy.

So there is no use/will be no direct use because A. It is so reactive that it
can't be in contact with pretty much anything else w/o reacting and B. there
is no way to make it in any meaningful quanity - even micrograms would be
exceedingly difficult. There might be some interesting
theoretical/computational implications, but that's not my field of expertise.
(and it seems to be claimed by pretty much every paper regardless)

------
SonOfLilit
The $1.9B number is terribly ungrounded in reality. Buffet's is a success
story not of compounding but of leverage. He bought an insurance company so he
could play with as much money as he needed, and that is considered one of his
great secrets.

Basically everyone in the world is dying to give Warren Buffet their money so
he'd invest it for a fee. The reason he is now worth $81B and not $162B is
that every investment strategy has a maximum AUM it can support, and trying to
use more money than that will just lower your returns. Buffet is so amazing
because he can reach consistent good results with such a huge AUM, by
employing a strategy that acquires entire large-cap companies and grows them.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Buffet 's is a success story not of compounding but of leverage_

These are not mutually exclusive. Anyway, more on the latter:

"Berkshire’s more anomalous cost of leverage, however, is due to its insurance
float. Collecting insurance premia up front and later paying a diversified set
of claims is like taking a 'loan.' Table 3 shows that the estimated average
annual cost of Berkshire’s insurance float is only 2.2%, more than 3
percentage points below the average T-bill rate.

...

In essence, we find that the secret to Buffett’s success is his preference for
cheap, safe, high-quality stocks combined with his consistent use of leverage
to magnify returns while surviving the inevitable large absolute and relative
drawdowns this entails. Indeed, we find that stocks with the characteristics
favored by Buffett have done well in general, that Buffett applies about
1.6-to-1 leverage financed partly using insurance float with a low financing
rate, and that leveraging safe stocks can largely explain Buffett’s
performance."

[http://docs.lhpedersen.com/BuffettsAlpha.pdf](http://docs.lhpedersen.com/BuffettsAlpha.pdf)

~~~
SonOfLilit
First of all, thanks for that quote and link. I learned something new and
interesting.

But my point about leverage was that Buffet could raise as much money as he
believes he can put to good use and since he earns fees as well as interest
losing a few years wouldn't mean as much as the article claims, the thing
about the specific leverage trick he is famous for is just an anecdote and my
point doesn't depend on it... I think?

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danaliv
_> Apple has a strong brand… because it’s consistently been building good
products since the 1980s_

This writer wasn't using Macs in the '90s.

Not crucial to the argument, I know, but seriously, Apple was _famously_
inconsistent.

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schoen
> If I ask you to calculate 8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8, your head will explode (it’s
> 134,217,728).

If only this question had asked for 8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8 instead... that's
(2⁸)³=2²⁴=16777216, which many programmers would know. :-) (for example
because it's the number of IP address in a /8 network, or the number of colors
in a 24-bit color space, or the number of bytes addressable on by the Intel
286)

Edited with typographical correction pointed out a by commenter below
(thanks!).

~~~
JimboOmega
It's pretty easy to estimate if you know - as I think most of us do - that
2^10 = 1024 ~= 1000

8^9 = 2^27, so 1000 * 1000 * 2^7 = 128,000,000.

~~~
wickawic
For anyone who doesn't know the whole trick:

    
    
        2^10 ~= 1_000 (2.5% error)
        2^20 ~= 1_000_000 (4% error)
        2^30 ~= 1_000_000_000 (7% error)
    

Because of exponentials, each power of 5 between is about 1/30 of the way to
the next power of 10 (2^5 = 32, 2^15=32_768, etc).

With this framework you have good anchors for all 2^(5k), which means you only
ever have to divide/multiply by at most 8 to get a good approximation for any
power of two. Now you can impress your coworkers with your amazing ability to
fudge powers of two in your head.

~~~
iainmerrick
Huh, that’s a little different from the way I do it!

I don’t do it in fives, I just remember that 2^10 ~= 1000, then memorize the
powers from 0 to 9. Sounds like GP does the same.

(Anyone else play the old DC Heroes RPG?)

------
bitwize
My favorite story about Buffett: I used to think Berkshire Hathaway was just a
douchey name he chose to sound posh, like Stratton Oakmont -- but that's not
the case. Before Buffett bought it, Berkshire Hathaway was a textile company
he'd invested in. He wasn't fond of their CEO, so he bought the whole company
just to fire him.

To this day, Buffett regrets his display of petty rage and wishes he'd taken
the money he used to spite Berkshire Hathaway's CEO and invested in insurance
companies instead. As filthy rich as he is, he could have been even richer
(about $200 billion richer), and that _bothers him_.

~~~
thisisit
> He wasn't fond of their CEO, so he bought the whole company just to fire
> him.

Slight correction. It was not that he was fond of the CEO, rather he was angry
with the CEO for undercutting him on a deal. Here's the exact story from
wikipedia:

"In 1964, Stanton (then CEO) made an oral tender offer of $11 1⁄2 per share
for the company to buy back Buffett's shares. Buffett agreed to the deal. A
few weeks later, Warren Buffett received the tender offer in writing, but the
tender offer was for only $11 3⁄8. Buffett later admitted that this lower,
undercutting offer made him angry. Instead of selling at the slightly lower
price, Buffett decided to buy more of the stock to take control of the company
and fire Stanton (which he did). However, this put Buffett in a situation
where he was now majority owner of a textile business that was failing."

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kqr2
The article mentions: _Physicist Albert Bartlett put it: “The greatest
shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential
function.”_

Link to one of his video lectures : Arithmetic, Population, and Energy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vII-
GxsrR2c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vII-GxsrR2c)

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yonatron
"wreak havoc", not "wreck havoc"...

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panzer_wyrm
TL:DR get on processes that grow exponentially early if benevolent or kill
them in infancy if harmful.

Hardly earthshaterring epiphany for anybody that has played turn based rts in
the last 30 years

~~~
wakamoleguy
Are turn-based and real-time not antonyms when applied to strategy games?

Also, that does still sound like it could be an epiphany for some. It's not
immediately obvious to apply game strategies to real world scenarios. I would
consider that type of analogous thinking to be one of the hallmarks of
cleverness.

