Facebook

Usually I don't care about social networks. But the recent purchase of Whatsapp from Facebook is something I can't grasp. I was explained by Marisol (who uses whatsapp against her will, because everyone she knows uses it) that users in latin america enjoy Whatsapp because it costs less than a text message assuming you are on the 4G network, due to Carlos Slim's horrible capitalist empire. OK, so for some, Whatsapp might be useful. This app has 450 000 000 monthly users. The first year is free, after that, it's 1US$ per year. So what users do is they deactivate their account and create a new one. Some 20 000 000 users actually pay the subscription fee.

So great, Facebook simply swallowed a super successful competitor. For 16 000 000 000$. Now OK, maybe Facebook decided the risk was too high to let them go, Whatsapp was the competitor with the highest chances of eventually being more popular than Facebook. But... Who cares if they only make 20 000 000$/year?

If I were Facebook, I would have tackled the problem this way: Create a new app (like messenger), with services at least as practical as Whatsapp. Why buy a simple name and software for 16 000 000 000$ when your company has the potential to crush them in an instant by just making something better. And it's not like it would be less popular than Whatsapp, we're talking about Facebook releasing a whole new product. And for the hell of it, make it free, just to make Whatsapp die and beg for being purchased before bankruptcy. Maybe buy it for 50 000 000.

To dominate a market, you must crush, not swallow. One word: Apple.

Facebook is ruled by young, hyped billionaires with nothing to loose. Maybe except 16 000 000 000$.

Stephen Hawking The Overrated Joke

Stephen Hawking recently released a "paper" "revolutionizing" black holes. Right, I read it. It's barely 2 pages long and contains not a single mathematical character.

Physicists (including me) don't take him or his "paper" seriously, which is normal as it's obviously a way for him to get attention, so people will talk about him, so he will make more money by raising sales of his books.

Same marketing technique as the Miley Cyrus "twerking" story. She didn't care about what she was doing, she just wanted people to talk about her to make money, and the people who called her names were just too dumb to not fall into her obvious trap. Same with Hawking here. But then you might think: Hey Yan, you're talking about him, you're doing the opposite of what you're suggesting! Hold your horses reader, I didn't give my opinion about that yet. Here it is.

I don't care if Hawking makes money, I care for what people think. Now do your research, and please understand that Hawking is nothing close to being a genius. He once said in a Discovery Channel documental: "[...]This leads me to a profound realization. The simplest explanation is there is no God and no afterlife either.", "When people ask me if a God created the universe, I tell them the question itself makes no sense, before the universe, there was no time for God to make the universe in." Oh right, and having the opposing opinion should make more sense?

The concept of God is that he is even beyond time, God doesn't need time, so that argument makes creationists laugh, and with reason, it's of school yard intellectual strength. And if time really is necessary to create the universe, how did the universe come into existence, God or no God, if there "was" no time? Good uhh.. Strong logic there Stephen.

If you read my blog before you know that my take on this is that the universe exists for no reason because the odds of it coming into existence for no reason were not of 0%. I hold nothing personal against Stephen Hawking, but he's a puppet portrayed by the media as being the greatest scientist of our times even if he has absolutely nothing to show for that. He writes books. Big deal. Read Newton's Principia Mathematica, now that, is 600 pages which define the very idea of genius.