With the advent of spring, I reflect on a #backoftheenvelope time a few years ago @ the ht of the Covid crisis. Learning more ~flowers & #doodling was comforting.

#backoftheenvelope #gemstone #gelpens

#backoftheenvelope calculation. Suppose you want to handle 100M #mastodon users. One reasonably connected server can handle order of magnitude of 2000 users, so you need 50k servers. That's based on @mastodonusercount

At the current fairly linear growth rate we'd hit 50k servers in about 1 year and 100M users in about 4 years. But as people increasingly use mastodon, we expect some amount of "contagion". That will make growth faster than extrapolating the linear trend. #statistics

What's so great about #estimations? Here is the answer along with estimation tips #backoftheenvelope https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-get-better-at-back-of-the-envelope-calculations/