Frugal Streaming for Estimating Quantiles:One (or two) memory suffices · HackerPapers discussionshttps://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1407.1121/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMTFrugal Streaming for Estimating Quantiles:One (or two) memory suffices — mentioned by tadkarhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25202448urn:hackerpapers:mention:1407.1121:25202448Tue, 24 Nov 2020 20:05:23 GMT<p>Related to this, one of my favourite articles [1] suggests that it’s sufficient to only use one or two pieces of memory to get good estimates. Here’s a pretty amazing result from the paper. To estimate the median (loosely) on a stream, first set the median estimate m to 0 prior to seeing any data. Then as you observe the stream, increase the median estimate m by 1 if the current element s is bigger than m. Do nothing if the current element is the same as m. Decrease the estimate by 1 if the element is less than m. Then (given the right conditions) this process converges to the median. You can…</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1407.1121/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>cs.DB