User talk:Tango

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[edit] The Signpost: 3 January 2011

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[edit] Wikipedia Ambassador Program is looking for new Online Ambassadors

Hi! Since you've been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, I wanted to let you know about the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, and specifically the role of Online Ambassador. We're looking for friendly Wikipedians who are good at reviewing articles and giving feedback to serve as mentors for students who are assigned to write for Wikipedia in their classes.

If that sounds like you and you're interested, I encourage you to take a look at the Online Ambassador guidelines; the "mentorship process" describes roughly what will be expected of mentors during the current term, which started in January and goes through early May. If that's something you want to do, please apply!

You can find instructions for applying at WP:ONLINE. The main things we're looking for in Online Ambassadors are friendliness, regular activity (since mentorship is a commitment that spans several months), and the ability to give detailed, substantive feedback on articles (both short new articles, and longer, more mature ones).

I hope to hear from you soon.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:56, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

[edit] .999....

Hope you don't mind, but I've removed the blather you replied to (as well as your reply) from the .999.../Arguments page; there's no use whatsoever in attempting any form of dialog with Anthony R. Brown, judging from years of his history here and elsewhere. --jpgordon::==( o ) 17:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

That's fine. The /Arguments page was created as a place to put all the cranks so they wouldn't interfere with the main article talk page, so it is inevitable that we'll get that kind of person there. I did consider ignoring it as standard crank material (particularly based on the interesting capitalistion - I don't understand why cranks always write like that!), but I guess I was in a generous mood! --Tango (talk) 22:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you!

Thank you for replying, and replying very clearly, to my question on the maths refdesk! (I'd do one of those fancy barnstars, but it's late on a Sunday evening and I don't want to get started with that...) --jftsang 23:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

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[edit] Hi Tom

See here. Thanks Victuallers (talk) 22:39, 8 February 2011 (UTC) Tom I have a meeting at the museum on Tuesday. Is it possible to say yea or nay on the microgrant? As you know the enthusiasm is still high. Roger Victuallers (talk) 15:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC) I see you editted the microgrants page but missed this. Can we get a yea/nay on the Smart phone? Thanks Victuallers (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

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[edit] Microsoft Excel

I saw Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2010_July_14#Microsoft_Excel and was hoping that you could answer my question at Microsoft Excel 2007 linking automatic updating. Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 23:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

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[edit] thanks for your input - how then?

this is regarding what you wrote about IPO's on the Reference Desk. Thanks for your input. I guess if I want to keep the company, I'd better not float any of it in an IPO. At the same time, I'd like to be debt-free, and am not quite ready for customers. So, given that I don't want to give up shares in the company, don't want debt, and am not ready for customers (and hence revenues) what can I do to raise money? I was thinking, I could sell an inordinately large percentage of the company, like 25%, for a very low amount, like $5000, which would only value the entire billion-dollar idea at $25,000. HOWEVER, I would include in the sale an option to purchase the shares back from you within 5 years for 10x the price ($50,000). Do you see how this would make it likely that you would agree, as you either have 25% of a company at a very low valuation, or, you have 10x return within a few years? Is there any chance I could do this? (if not with you, then someone :) --86.8.139.65 (talk) 20:05, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

What you are describing sounds a little like preference shares or convertible bonds, which are common ways of getting funding for a business. I'm not quite clear on your idea, though. Who is the option on? I mean, which of us gets to decide whether you buy back the shares? At the end of the day, the only ways of getting funding for a business (other than via profits) are debt and equity. Preference shares and convertible bonds are basically just combinations of debt and equity. --Tango (talk) 20:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Let me put it to you this way. If I have a old rusty Ferrari in my garage that is a bit of a fixer-upper, a risk you might say (this is an analogy on investing in my business), then if you value it at $25,000 and I say "no way, this is an extremely valuable antique! More like $25 million is the correct valuation" then we would never be able to agree. That market simply would not "clear" - the transaction wouldn't get made between a seller valuing the asset at $25m and the buyer valuing it at $25k. Now let's do away with an analogy. Say it's the early days of Google, and the founders know for sure that they are sitting on a roughly $1bn+ idea (given their plans). Meanwhile, the investor would like to value it at $1m valuation - say, by writing a check for $250k in exchange for equity of 25% (meaning a valuation of $1m). So, if we go with the Ferrari example, one party values the thing at $1b and one party at $1m -- how would this market ever clear! But there is a solution. Say the founders say "Look, poker face, you REALLY don't believe us that this is a $1bn idea? Then you won't have any problem selling us the option to buy back your $250k investment for $2.5million, right? After all, you are sitting here telling us that the company is worth $1mil, that you will not accept less than 25% of it for more than $250,000. So, poker face, if you're not LYING when you say it's a $1mn company -- instead of a $1 bn company as we see it -- then you won't mind letting us have the option of buying your 25% share within 5 years for $2.5m." Or whatever, for $5m, or $10m. THe point is, there is a GROSS difference, a 1000x difference, between a $1m and a $1b valuation. In other words, I am saying that the option would be for me, the founder of the company, to be able to exercise, and for a strike price far above the valuation implied by your original purchase conditions, and more in line with my own valuation of my company. Let me be crystal-clear about why I am asking you this: I am in Google's position (though I do not have a clear plan for growing beyond $2bn-$8bn - I would say at this stage any plans I would have to be a $100bn+ company (like Google) are somewhat speculative. Fine. But I need some $25,000-$250,000 to produce the company, to get it into the position it needs to be in. (can't use more than $250k, however $25k means I would have to write all code myself, which is fine, I just don't have that much in savings). Now here's the problem: what valuation would you imply by giving me $25k right now, Tango? (I mean, what percentage of the company would you want). You would probably want something like 7%, for a valuation of about $360,000. So, here we have a company that I think is worth $2bn-$8bn (plus a certain chance of being able to grow to $100bn, though by no means certain), and you think it's worth $360k. That's difference in valuation by you and by me of a factor of 10,000x! So, normally, we could never agree. But what if we agreed like this: Fine, you don't have to believe me that it is a $2-8bn company. Say in your myopic world-view it's a $500k company, or can become one within a couple of years. Then, by investing at a valuation of $360k, there are two options: your myopic world-view means 500k/360k = 38% return within a couple of years, which is quite respectable; OR, if I am correct, include in the transaction an option for me to buy you out at 50x your input: at $1.2million for your 7%. 1.2 million is a pittance compared to what I think the company will be worth (2-8 bn) and therefore, I am very likely to press ahead. Finally, we can make the initial transaction (before we add the option) in the form of a convertible debt (note), thus even if the valuation is far less than $360,000, even as low as the low six figures, worst comes to worse I can just pay your debt off. So, you would pay $25,000 and receive a debt note convertible to 7% stake in the company, however at the same time you write for my purchase an option for me to buy the same 7% back for $1.2million within 5 years. Then the three options are: 1) you get 38% return if your myopic valuation turns out to be right (we can tweak this up to 60-70% or 100% very easily, just by increasing the same 7% to a greater number) 2) you get a 50,000% return if I turn out to be right 3) you get your money back with interest if both of us is wrong (it turns out to be worth less than even your myopic valuation) and the company can just pay you off as debt. Do you see what I'm proposing? How does that not make sense? --86.8.139.65 (talk) 20:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
It does make sense. That could work. However, you might well be better off going to a bank and borrowing the $25k. If you can convince me that the company is worth $360k, you should be able to convince a bank to lend the company $25k (you can set it up as a limited liability company so that you aren't personally liable for the money - if the company goes bust, the bank just loses its money). The difficulty will come in actually convincing someone the company is worth $360k when it is currently just an idea. --Tango (talk) 21:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
the proposal would work for a real $360k company, like a car dealership or whatever, but in this case I would be convincing you of a billion dollar idea as well as my background which enables me to execute it. No bank is going to even evaluate a billion dollar idea for a 20k loan; but when you do, you would say "by Golly that is brilliant, and he is just the guy to do it" and so you want to invest. Then you put your poker face on and lie to me that due to risks (not really, you would not invest if you thougt it was a real risk) you can only give me 25k for 7% of the company. See, the bank does not give a loan for a billion dollar plan at all, and you, after understanding it and agreeing with it, turn around and lie an say tha you are taking a real risk, and therefore have to give a much lower valuation. (meanwhile in reality you wouldn't invest at all if you thought it was so risky). see how that works? 86.8.139.65 (talk) 23:05, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
If you can convince me that it's a brilliant idea, you can convince a bank. Banks don't like to take risks, but borrowing $25k against a genuine billion dollar idea shouldn't be difficult. You can agree to a pretty high interest rate, since even at a high rate the interest on $25k would be trivial compared to your revenue once you are up and running. The problem will be convincing people of your idea. --Tango (talk) 23:54, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
no, just because I can convince you doesn't mean I can convince a bank. At the time Zuckerberg was begging for paltry sums ($1000) from his partner Paul Ceglia so he could create his billion dollar company, no bank in Cambridge would have lent him the same $1000 for the same idea and presentation. That's a fact. (why: because a bank is not in the business of being your partner on a project.) 86.8.139.65 (talk) 00:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
A serious investor (which Paul Ceglia was not) is no easier to convince that a bank. They are willing to take a chance on riskier ideas, generally, but their valuations of a company are going to be pretty similar to those of a bank. Another problem with your example is that, while a bank wouldn't have lent him $1000 for his business idea, they would have lent him $1000 if he asked nicely, had a job and half-decent credit rating. $1000 isn't a lot of money and banks lend out those kind of sums very easily. --Tango (talk) 00:12, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
did Zuckerberg in fact have a job? No: he was busy coding Facebook. Do I, in fact, have a job in line with my abilities? No: ai'm busy producing the billion dollar company. When I convince someone of its merits, I don't want that person and turn around and say "fine: $25,000 for 7% of it". Or, if they do, I want to be able to retort, "fine, option at my discretion to repurchase the 7% from you at any time in the next three years for $2.5 million". Only they would never agree, because all that motivates them is greed, and that's why they offer the lying-faced 400k valuation (being calulated from 7% and 25k, I don't mean what they really value the company at.) This company by the way is a new category of technology, and it takes me a huge amount of lab work to make it work at all, an then a huge amount of marketing development to make it meet both functional and biz requirements. If I weren't doing this, yeah I'd have 25k, but I wouldn't have this. 86.8.139.65 (talk) 00:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
I don't know if Zuckerberg had a job, but he could easily have got one doing a few shifts behind a bar (or waiting on tables if he was under-age at the time). You don't need much income to get a $1000 loan approved (assuming you don't have a history of bad debt and are willing to pay the high interest rates that unsecured loans tend to have). I don't know where you get this idea that investors give false valuations. If they did that, no-one would accept their investments. Sure, they'll try and negotiate for the best deal they can, but there is only so much they can haggle before you just go to someone else. --Tango (talk) 00:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
sure, he could have been a bartender instead of codin facebook, then we wouldn't have facebook. sure I could have been doing a million things instead of coming up with my company, then I wouldn't have my company. point is, he did not ge that money from a bank, and neither will I. I can raise it by working or by letting an investor tell me he believes in it and will buy 7% of my company for 25k. But e surely will not give me the option of buying it back later for 35x what he paid - he wants his share of the billions without valuing it as such in his investment. 86.8.139.65 (talk) 00:49, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
You can work part-time and still create a website. The option you want would increase the share an investor would want, since you need to compensate them for not having the small chance of making a billion dollars, but a 3600% return is still more than enough to interest an investor if he thinks there is a decent chance of achieving. Remember, though, that when an investor values your company, he's taking into account the probability of it succeeding. Few, if any, billion dollar ideas are a sure thing. He may think there is a 1% chance of the company succeeding and becoming worth a billion dollars. He would then value it at $10 million. --01:01, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
And what happens if your VP finance runs off with the mail boy and all your bank accounts? This scheme works only to the extent that I trust you will not lose my initial stake, and evidence of that would be that you would have to have much more money in it than I do. As for the "option", it would have to be at my discretion, and thus I would only exercise it if the shares were worth less than my option price, or you are my son-in-law (which is the only time I have handled a buy-out this way). I do this kind of investing often enough that I know there is little appeal in your plan. Bielle (talk) 21:13, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
You can have an option with the choice being the buyer's if that's the way you write the contract. --Tango (talk) 21:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I do have much more in it than you. I would have a billion dollar company in it, since as soon as I buy you out for 2.5mil per my option, I own the company in full again. I would not like to ever do an IPO or give up shares if I can avoid it, but be very closely privately held instead: I just need between 25k and 250k tonot be speculative. Actually I can probably get the sum down to "a plane ticket to California, deposit on a room in a shared apartment in San Jose, and a powerful laptop", however this plan would involve having to have a day-job while I develop, which obviously puts the whole company at great risk of failure for that reason alone. 86.8.139.65 (talk) 22:58, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
A key part of your problem is that investors will generally think $25,000 very small potatoes indeed. If you have a job and are good enough at what you do that people are going to want to invest in you and your idea, you should be able to raise that much either through savings or from family and friends. Anything with that low a barrier to entry that it can be overcome by a mere $25,000 will be copied the instant it is out of the gate, if not before. I know Tango writes very knowledgeably about matters of business and finance, but I don't know if he/she is a venture capitalist. At the time you want someone like me to invest, you have nothing in it but an idea. That's not very attractive as security. Come back when you have finished your research and have a business and marketing plan. Then we can talk. (This is not an offer, but sets how how venture capitalists think.) Bielle (talk) 23:26, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I do have a complete business and marketig plan, could write it out in 200 pages. The problem is that people like you assume everyone is like them "surely you have family or friends with a few tens of thousands". In fact, my family couldn't come up with $1000 if my life depended on it, and I don't have many close friends. The reason I don't have more money is that I have focused on learning instead of working. There are probably 3-6 people in the United States right now who are in as good a position to create a $1-8 billion or even two orders of magnitude larger company from intitial cash on hand of no more than $25,000. It's too bad that investors are greedy rather than trying to evaluate a plan and it's background on its merits. 86.8.139.65 (talk) 00:01, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Their greed is precisely why they evaluate plans on their merits. They want to make as much money as possible, which means they want to invest in the best ideas. --Tango (talk) 00:22, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
No, I'm not a venture capitalist. I'm an actuary. I was basing my responses on the premise that an investor would value this company at $360k. Obviously, we have no evidence for that premise, but if it is true then getting a $25k start-up loan wouldn't be hard. There are ways to protect an idea for less than $25k - a patent, for example. --Tango (talk) 23:54, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I didn't mean "value" I meant "valuate". The investor DOES share my belief in the billion dollar idea (or wouldn't invest in it - no one says, this kid with his billion dollar idea is almost completely wrong about it - he's 99.95% wrong about it, in fact, but there's nothing wrong with th idea, itls just worth $400k and not $1bn, so even though he's 99.95% wrong I will invest). So, the venture capitalist DOES value the billion dollar idea. He then turns around and produces a VALUATION of $500k by investing 25k for 5% of the company. He's ripping the guy off, knwoing that one person can't both produce a billion dollar plan and be in the right position (an with the right background) to execute it while a the same time working a dayjob he has saved 25k from. There was even recently large scale VC collusion pointed out, where the biggest vc's were tryig to agree with each other on keeping valuations on firs round investing artificially low. 86.8.139.65 (talk) 00:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
If the company is clearly worth more than $500k, then you can just go and find another investor that is willing to offer you a better deal. If investors really were colluding with each other, there would be an extremely strong motivation for an investor to go against the rest, offer a slightly better deal, and win the bid. --Tango (talk) 00:22, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
It's not true that the investor believes that your idea is worth a billion dollars, although he/she may. All he/she believes is that there is an acceptable level of risk that the principal amount of the loan plus what ever is the appropriate return (given what other uses the same money could be put to) will be repaid. All else is gravy.
Patenting an idea in my part of the world takes from 18 months to 2 years, but it is doable. And you are right that the real stickler is valuing the idea and the likelihood of its coming to fruition. Investors do evaluate the idea based on the plan, its merits and the integrity and experience of the people behind the idea. It isn't really a matter of greed so much as a matter of balancing risk; the riskier I think the deal, the more security I want for my investment. After all, investors are choosing among several options, and the one the gets the nod will (generally) be the one with the best return for least risk. Bielle (talk) 00:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
That's the official story, but it's not my experience. I'm probably the only one who will ever tell you I can produce a billion dollar company from a laptop and a plane ticket to California, plus depost on a room there - no one else is vying for this kind of investment - but that doesn't mean there is any chance in hell you would make it. I would offer you a convertible loan on the cost of the plane ticket and laptop and deposit, paying 10% annual interest rate, and convertible to 20% of the company, however with the caveat that this share would not vest for three years, during which time I have the option (exercised at my discretion) of repurchasing the note (annuling the debt or equity) for 35x what you paid for the plane ticket, laptop, and deposit. I think this offer is more than fair, yet there is not an investor who would take it. They are buy thinking "if I'm so smart, why don't I make 60k working, a plane ticket, laptop or room is nothing, it's a pittance". Just like $1000 for Zuckerberg. Now he's in deep shit with a lawsuit from his silent partner. 86.8.139.65 (talk) 00:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
You are far from the only person to say they have a billion dollar idea and all they need is a laptop. Loads of people say that all the time. Very few are actually right, though. If your experience is that you can't find investors, then the reason is probably that you are one of the 999,999 in a million that think they have a billion dollar idea, but are wrong. If you really did have a fantastic idea, you would be able to find investors. You're not going to find them on my talk page, though. As Bielle pointed out, I am not a venture capitalist. --Tango (talk) 00:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


Hey, same guy here. I think you guys would be a lot more amenable to investing in me - like I mean a LOT more amenable - if I hadn't started by revealing my plan to spend investors' money on hookers and blow. Let's just leave it at that. --188.28.140.106 (talk) 00:02, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, we were never going to invest in you, whatever you did. We're Wikipedians trying to provide some helpful advice. We aren't investors. --Tango (talk) 19:17, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
Bielle is, he (or she) admitted it! --188.29.60.182 (talk) 09:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

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[edit] Math reference desk question: convex optimisation

Hi Tango, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering whether you have any further input in response to my question.

By now I'm convinced the problem is indeed convex, but I'm not sure how to model it. By setting z = 1/x, the objective would become a sum over z2 which can be modelled using a positive semidefinite matrix, but zx=1 can't be modelled by such a matrix, so we don't get a QCQP via this route. Can you offer me any insights? Or could I ask the question at the reference desk in a different form to solicit inputs from others? Thanks! Oliphaunt (talk) 06:25, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

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[edit] Question removed

I'm just letting you know that I removed this ref desk question that you had replied to,[1] in case you like to be notified in such cases. I explained the removal on the talk page.[2] Red Act (talk) 11:42, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I had noticed, but it's good to be notified just in case I don't. --Tango (talk) 11:47, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

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[edit] Ref desk/Science

Regarding this:[3] Good for you for removing it. If anyone hassles you about it, I'll support you. I was astonished that so many were just blithely trying to answer something that looked like a very shady situation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:59, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I should "go with my gut" which was "What's a qualified pharmacist doing asking a drug-related question on WP?" You are right; many of the rest of us were not. Bielle (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
(ec) Astonishment was my reaction as well. If a doctor wants to get advice from a pharmacist about drugs then fine, that's just medical professionals helping each other out, but what made people think we should be getting involved? --Tango (talk) 18:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps we have all spent too much time over this holiday season waxing opinionated about things we know not of with others of equal knowledge, all in earnest and often loud tones. It gets to be a habit. Bielle (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Very true! --Tango (talk) 18:24, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
That reminds me, did I email you my latest theories on perpetual motion and time travel? My brother and I developed them while watching a soccer game. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I also agree with your removal. While I hope that your interpretation of the OP's situation is what's actually occurring, I'm more than a little concerned that we weren't dealing with a professional (or someone related to a professional) at all. My first guess when I saw the question was that we had an individual who either had a collection of (old, and probably expired) prescription meds from the family's medicine chest, or – given the breadth of the meds listed – someone who just ran through the catalog of on online pharmacy and picked one item from each major category. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:28, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
The entire premise posed by the OP sounded like a tall tale. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:33, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
The same thought did occur to me. I was more concerned about the conduct of the ref deskers than of the OP, though. The OP isn't my problem! --Tango (talk) 18:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Infra-Red

What the hell is this? Take a look at the question, then look at your answer:

  • It has nothing to do with either the question or the 1st response.
  • There are no references, just your baseless statement that you portray as fact.
  • It is patently incorrect, Infrared imaging technology utilizes the available energy, be it natural or artificial (hint: "Starlight scope").

Your conduct on the reference desk is highly objectionable. The unilateral action you took to remove the medicine kit question with the numerous editors responses (read: Tango decides that the OP and all of the editors that responded are wrong, Tango is right and will remove all of it), coupled with unreferenced gibberish, as noted above, constitutes disruption. You have been warned, continued behavior of this sort will not be tolerated. Bred Ivy (talk) 14:38, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI, I have requested further opinions here: Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#I_have_been_warned. --Tango (talk) 14:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
You're in the right. The redlink is a harassment-only account and will be dealt with. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:58, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

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