The New Sharing Economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.life-connected.com/2010/10/sharing-study-part-1-is-social-media-paving-the-way-for-an-offline-sharing-economy/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting, especially the finding that online sharing predicts offline sharing. The authors of the article say that it's "largely because they are learning to trust each other online" although I haven't seen that in the data they've posted yet. Looking forward to the rest of the study. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER3> I'm not convinced that online sharing has _caused_ offline sharing, although there are examples of online communities such as couchsurfing that have brought online communities offline.

This seems like a case of correlation not equalling causation. These are probably the people that are more likely to be trusting and sharing both online and off.

That said, people have been sharing for millennia, so are we just now learning to trust each other, and is it because of the internet?

<comment><USER4> Things like Airbnb don't exist without the Internet -- fundamentally they connect people who wouldn't have met any other way.

It's about building communities that didn't exist before. That's significant. The modality is the difference. People didn't have a reliable and simple and cheap and instant way to connect. Now they do.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. My point is that there are certain people that would likely be predisposed to share anyway. And although the internet has provided new opportunities for sharing, other types have occurred in different communities (village, folk, scientific, etc.) for ages.

Basically, new opportunities don't mean that people wouldn't have shared or weren't sharing in other ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It will be interesting to see if this type of personal socialism will continue in the future. There is now an entire generation of people exposed to individual "ownership" in the form of failed mortgages, crushing debt, and failed lending institutions.

<comment><USER6> "It will be interesting to see if this type of personal socialism will continue in the future. "

The free exchange of one's property for a value you find acceptable sounds more capitalist than socialist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is anyone interested in working in this space? If so please shoot me an email. I have implemented a prototype of a service for sharing physical stuff.

\- it's a Facebook app to utilize the existing trust network

\- game elements (gaining karma for sharing)

\- built in Python on Google App Engine

</comment><comment><USER8> _Car sharers share across significantly more categories than non-car sharers – 11 versus 8 categories on average._

Which is odd, because car "sharing" isn't really sharing in any normal sense -- no more than Avis about car sharing or Hilton is about sharing rooms.

<comment><USER9> To me, people who car-share have prioritized access over ownership as a lifestyle. Plenty of people who own cars occasionally rent a vehicle from Avis (say, when they travel or when their car is in the shop)—so that seems a little different than being a Zipcar member.

More directly to your point, the end of the report (PDF) also addresses the evolving notion of what "sharing" means to people these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> SnapGoods is also looking at this space: <http://snapgoods.com>

I saw the founder speak at the Dumbo Arts fest a couple weeks ago -- it'll be interesting to watch them over the coming months.

</comment><comment><USER11> see also <http://neighborgoods.net/>

<comment><USER9> And <http://rentalic.com/></comment></comment>


Foundational Patterns for Efficient Quantum Computing - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.11513 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

We wanted to share a paper that we wrote on quantum computing with the software engineering community here on HN. Hopefully you find this paper helpful or interesting. TY</comment>


Not Even Scientists Can Easily Explain P-values - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/not-even-scientists-can-easily-explain-p-values/ <comment><USER3> P-Values can be pretty unintuitive to people unfamiliar, but can readily be explained I think.

I do think that this book did an excellent job of explaining it:

What Is a P-Value Anyway? [http://www.pearsonhighered.com/vickers/](http://www.pearsonhighered.com/vickers/)

Excerpt (starts at p.57 in the link above):

[I]f you do nothing else, please try to remember the following sentence: "the p-value is the probability that the data would be at least as extreme as those observed, if the null hypothesis were true." Though I'd prefer that you also understood it—about which, teeth brushing.

I have three young children. In the evening, before we get to bedtime stories (bedtime stories being a nice way to end the day), we have to persuade them all to bathe, use the toilet, clean their teeth, change into pajamas, get their clothes ready for the next day and then actually get into bed (the persuading part being a nice way to go crazy). My five-year-old can often be found sitting on his bed, fully dressed, claiming to have clean teeth. The give-away is the bone dry toothbrush: he says that he has brushed his teeth, I tell him that he couldn't have.

My reasoning here goes like this: the toothbrush is dry; it is unlikely that the toothbrush would be dry if my son had cleaned his teeth; therefore he hasn't cleaned his teeth. Or using statistician-speak: here are the data (a dry toothbrush); here is a hypothesis (my son has cleaned his teeth); the data would be unusual if the hypothesis were true, therefore we should reject the hypothesis.

[...]

So here is what to parrot when we run into each other at a bar and I still haven't managed to work out any new party tricks: "The p-value is the probability that the data would be at least as extreme as those observed, if the null hypothesis were true." When I recover from shock, you can explain it to me in terms of a toothbrush ("The probability of the toothbrush being dry if you've just cleaned your teeth").

<comment><USER4> This is way too much for the layman and full of mathematical language. What is null hypothesis? What is "at least as extreme as"? What is probability? Nevermind that the null hypothesis forces us to think in double negatives, which isn't the most intuitive.

It also isn't clear to me how you would apply your example given how most p-values are used. I read an article that says exercising makes you richer with a 95% confidence. So, as a layman, if I attempt to apply your example, it leads me directly into a common p-value mistake: the probability of me becoming richer if I exercise. 95%, right? Wrong!

<comment><USER5> I'm having a hard time understanding why p-values are so hard to explain without resorting to jargon... it seems very intuitive to me, and none of these examples really put it in context.

I'd explain it like this:

It's easy to lie with statistics if you take them out of context. Maybe I have an idea that drinking flouridated water causes cancer, so I take a survey and find that 40% of people who drink flouridated water develop cancer. That number is meaningless without knowing how likely it is for people who don't drink it to develop cancer, which is about 40%, so the numbers match up 1:1, completely normal. In this case, 1 is the p-value, and it gives you a starting point for developing an experiment.

<comment><USER6> >"That number is meaningless without knowing how likely it is for people who don't drink it to develop cancer, which is about 40%. That's the p-value, and it gives you a starting point for developing an experiment."

That is the frequency of cancer given not drinking fluoridated water. That is not a p-value.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I saw how that could be misleading by saying that's so I clarified right away... not fast enough I see. I mean that comparing the observed data to a baseline gives you a p-value.

<comment><USER6> This example is still misleading because you have selected a special case where the frequencies are exactly equal. In any other case the p value will depend on the sample size.

<comment><USER5> True, but what I'm trying to convey is that if someone just wants to generally understand what a p-value is from no knowledge, understanding how to read a specific number isn't important. At first, I wasn't even going to include a specific number, but I realized not having one would be confusing in its own way.

Looking at a specific p-value and understanding its significance is only useful once they're actually looking at a study. But first they just want to know how it's derived and what it's good for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lest anyone skimming the headline misses it, the point here isn't that these scientists couldn't correctly explain a p-value. The scientists here all could. It's that they couldn't explain it in a way that made intuitive sense to anyone. So, rather than being a dig at scientists, I think the points here are:

1\. p-values are intrinsically none-too-intuitive.

2\. What p-values tell us isn't necessarily that interesting.

<comment><USER8> > 1\. p-values are intrinsically none-too-intuitive

P-values are quite intuitive. They are the ratio of observations made which agree with the null hypothesis to the total number of observations made.

Edit: If you are going to downmod, at least point out the error you perceive.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't make sense to say in a binary sense that an observation agrees or disagrees with the null hypothesis, there are only probabilities. The p-value is the probability of seeing a set of values as extreme as your actual observations, assuming that the null hypothesis is true.

<comment><USER10> FWIW, 'jsprogrammer is smuggling here the basic definition of probability - that P(event) = (number of observations in which an event happens) / (total number of observations).

<comment><USER11> That only is the case if you work on a discrete uniform distribution, which you usually don't.

<comment><USER8> The axioms are only defined on discrete uniform distributions. All other distributions must be constructed from the discrete uniform.

<comment><USER9> This is not true. If you have a discrete uniform distribution, you can only have finitely many elements in your probability space, so it wouldn't make sense to have an axiom which refers to countably-many disjoint sets. The axioms are most useful for continuous distributions, and are closely related to measure theory.

<comment><USER8> The discrete, uniform nature is obvious in the rule of computation:

Σ P(E)

Each "unit" of the computation is weighted equally (though, the value of the units may differ).

<comment><USER9> I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you aren't deliberately trolling me, but you do seem to be deeply confused. I'll just give you a link to some lecture notes that go all the way from the axioms of probability (lecture 1) to p-values (lecture 12) and leave it at that: [http://www.win.tue.nl/~rmcastro/2DI90/index.php?page=lecture...](http://www.win.tue.nl/~rmcastro/2DI90/index.php?page=lectures).

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the massive set of pages. I already went through a similar course a long time ago.

You'll note that the notes don't derive the calculation of p-value. It merely gives a trivial example (curiously, the sum of two probabilities) with a fiat interpretation.

It's curious that my last post, merely quoting the third axiom and showing its properties plain, makes you think that I am deeply confused, when you cannot even refute trivial points and must resort to arguments (poor, in that they do not address our issue here) from authority.

<comment><USER11> I assume you refer to page 28 in the first slide deck? If you would have read closely you would have noticed that it says:

> We will restrict ourselves to discrete sample spaces for now, to avoid some > technical difficulties…

In the later lectures they take a look at sample spaces that are uncountably infinite. Good luck working with a sum there.

<comment><USER8> No. I am referring to lecture 12 (ie. Ch9).

What reformulation of the probability axioms are you using to eliminate the sum in the third axiom?

The axioms may be trivially extended to bounded intervals (a la calculus).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My go-to phrase: "Even if there were no real difference, we would see a result like this X% of the time anyway."

<comment><USER13> I agree that makes intuitive sense when applied to explicitly constructed experiments we could attempt to exactly repeat, but the intuition begins to break down in more complicated circumstances, such as retrospective or longitutinal studies. Saying something would happen "X% of the time anyway" becomes a philosophical issue.

<comment><USER14> Yes, well, we could talk about frequentist vs bayesian statistics, but that's hardly the point of the article.

That _is_ what a p-value means, feasibility aside. There are also more intuitive ways to think about it, "false-positive rate" being one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Having been both a scientist and, now, a product manager for a medical device, I think science would benefit from the work around verification vs. validation:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verification_and_validation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verification_and_validation)

A p-value is a verification tool and nothing more, and yet scientists all too often take the "hunt for the p-value" as the only goal. Rather than fish through data for a p-value that ends up defining the scientific narrative in a paper, p-values need to be integrated into a much larger validation process driven by pre-defined scientific goals. It's no wonder that so many results are found to be specious given today's scientific culture.

</comment><comment><USER16> The point of p-values is to limit false positive rates.

If you only accept results with p-value <= 0.05, your false positive rate is at most 5%. Of course, if you had apriori knowledge that everything was a "null result" , then 100% of the results you accept would be false positives.

By Bayes' theorem, P(H|D) = P(D|H) * P(H) / P(D) . Therefore, given a fixed "prior probability" of a hypothesis P(H), a lower p-value (P(D|H)) implies a lower probability of the null being true. I think this relationship leads to a lot of confusion when thinking of p-values.

<comment><USER17> You are incorrect. False positive rates in practice appear to be about 20-50%, even with a p-value of 0.05.

<comment><USER6> The best estimate right now is 20-50% replication rate for fields that rely on p less than 0.05 to judge results. So I think you meant 50-80% false positive rate, although these are not equivalent (ie is the null hypothesis of no difference ever really exactly true...):

>"Ninety-seven percent of original studies had statistically significant results. Thirty-six percent of replications had statistically significant results; 47% of original effect sizes were in the 95% confidence interval of the replication effect size; 39% of effects were subjectively rated to have replicated the original result; [...] In cell biology, two industrial laboratories reported success replicating the original results of landmark findings in only 11 and 25% of the attempted cases" [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26315443](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26315443)

Edit:

For comparison, Dr. Oz was accused of fraud and called in front of congress for only being wrong half the time: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/12/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/12/19/half-of-dr-ozs-medical-advice-is-baseless-or-wrong-study- says/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> P-values are only hard to explain when you try to explain in English. Stick to the math, where it's just P(X >= x | Ho) and once you understand the math it's immediately clear in a way an English sentence (or paragraph trying to equate to the math without math) isn't. My go-to presentation on this is: [http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/~cfrangak/cominte/goodmanvalues...](http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/~cfrangak/cominte/goodmanvalues.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> In my experience, people in science who are not statisticians have not completely understood the p value. Typically people are clueless on p-Values and the statistical power and how they relate.

<comment><USER20> This is scarily true. When my lab (bioinformatics) would work/collaborate with research biologists and their labs, the research biologists lack of statistics would become very clear. Especially when we did data mining on their qpcr experiments, we constantly have to explain things like bonferroni corrections.

Edit: This is just my experience at one university with 6-7 biological research labs. I regret using the generalization, apologies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My belief is that p-values are popular exactly BECAUSE they can be misunderstood so easily as the answer to the question people really want answered. Namely, "What are the odds that this is the right answer?"

I many years of experience in helping people understand A/B testing. And I have found that no matter how many times you give a correct explanation, people will have this exact misunderstanding. Repeatedly.

So if you're A/B testing, here is something to consider. If you successfully set up a testing culture where you decide at a 95% confidence level, and are running one A/B test per week, you will make an average of 2-3 mistakes per year. In the long run, mistakes are unavoidable. You will make mistakes. The only question is how often you make mistakes, and how bad those mistakes are.

P-values manage to bound how often you make mistakes with the trick of most of the time saying you couldn't figure out an answer. THIS IS USELESS FOR A BUSINESS. A business needs to decide what text to use, even if they're not confident.

Your A/B tests should always produce a usable business answer. The question of interest is how often you make _bad_ mistakes and _how bad_ they are. And p-values are useless for that.

</comment><comment><USER6> >"I've come to think that the most fundamental problem with p-values is that no one can really say what they are."

Not surprising. The correct interpretation of p-values was not discovered until ~2 years ago. If you search around the internet you will find out that, according to the discoverer, he couldn't find a stats journal to publish it. The number of people who know the correct definition must be vanishingly small.

Thank god for arxiv, or I would have never understood p-values: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0081](http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0081)

tldr: Calculating the p-value + sample size is a lossless compression algorithm. The thing being compressed is a likelihood function (way of describing effect size).

<comment><USER22> I think you overestimate the importance of that paper. You can get "a" likelihood from the p-value in the same way that a sufficient statistic determines "the" likelihood function. In the best case, if the sufficient statistic is one-dimensional and you are doing a one-tailed test, both likelihood functions are the same (because the mapping from the sufficient statistic to the p-value is bijective). In general you're losing information (there will be multiple values of the sufficient statistic mapped to the same p-value).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The coin example makes perfect sense to me and I had no idea what a p-value was before I read this article.

Here's an intuitive explanation: a p-value is the probability of getting your experimental results given that your hypothesis is wrong.

<comment><USER24> > a p-value is the probability of getting your experimental results given that > your hypothesis is wrong.

That's a common misconception. Actually it's the probability of getting your experimental results given that your _null_ hypothesis is _right_.

<comment><USER25> Well normally, hypothesis is wrong <-> null hypothesis is right.

<comment><USER26> No, if the null hypothesis is right that implies that the hypothesis is wrong, but the implication relationship _does not_ go the other direction.

Consider an experiment where your hypothesis is that cold temperatures cause the common cold. This is a good example for a thought experiment because we "know the answer" in a way (there have been a lot of experiments on this). The null hypothesis in this case is that cold temperatures are uncorrelated with incidence of the common cold.

You place people in isolation in cold areas and a control group in warm areas, and study how many get the common cold. None of the people who didn't already have colds get the common cold: because they are in isolation and the common cold is caused by rhinoviruses (which they can't get because they are in isolation), you get exactly the same results.

This disproves the hypothesis, but it _does not_ prove the null hypothesis, that cold temperatures and the common cold are unrelated. Cold temperatures are, in fact, related to the common cold.

Try a second experiment: you place people in groups of five in cold areas and in warm areas, and discover a moderately high correlation between cold temperature and incidence of the common cold. This disproves the null hypothesis. But the simple hypothesis that cold temperature causes the common cold has also been disproven by your first experiment.

The reason for this is that the correlation between cold temperature and the common cold is a dependent correlation: _given that rhinovirus is present in the system_ cold temperature is correlated with incidence of common cold (rhinoviruses reproduce ideally at temperatures significantly lower than human homeostatic temperature).

The null hypothesis is not just a statement that there is no independent correlation, it's a statement that there is no independent _or_ dependent correlation. As such, the null hypothesis is an extremely broad hypothesis which is impossible to practically prove. This is why there's such a focus on finding correlations rather than finding non-correlations: you aren't going to prove the null hypothesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> From my limited teaching experience, renaming "p-value" to "probability of a false positive" makes it all very simple.

<comment><USER6> This is a very common, but dangerously wrong, interpretation of p-values. Others in this thread have expressed the same misconception, see the paper linked here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10628860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10628860)

<comment><USER14> Duly noted, thanks for the reference!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is an excellent talk I attended a while ago that explains it very well from a programmer's perspective: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dnw46eC-0o&list=PL055Epbe6d...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dnw46eC-0o&list=PL055Epbe6d5Y8_iZPo7pH3hOnAtchMCJt&index=8)

</comment><comment><USER28> How about: The p-value is, in a statistical hypothesis test, the probability of Type I error, that is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true.

Or, suppose we have some data and want to use it to estimate the value of some number b. It can be that if we can assume something about b, e.g., that b = 0, then we can calculate the probability distribution of our estimate of b. This assumption about b is the _null hypothesis_. Intuitively it is a hypothesis that there is _no effect_ , that what we thought might have happened didn't, was a _null_ effect.

We can make two mistakes. We can reject the null hypothesis when it is true -- this is called _Type I_ error. Or we can accept the null hypothesis when it is false -- this is called _Type II_ error.

With our null hypothesis, we get and look at the distribution of our estimate of b and see where our actual estimate is in that distribution. The p-value is the probability, from the distribution of our estimate, of getting an estimate as far or farther from our null hypothesis value for b as we did. So, if the p-value is really small, say, 1%, then we can reject the null hypothesis, that is, say that it is false, and be wrong only 1% of the time.

E.g., if our null hypothesis is that b = 0 and our estimate of b is 10 and from the distribution of our estimate a value of our estimate being as far as 10 from b = 0 is 1%, then we reject that b = 0 and conclude that it b is not zero and are wrong only 1% of the time. If the probability of our estimate being greater than or equal to 10 is 1% and we reject the null hypothesis, then we conclude that b > 0.

This is all just hypothesis testing in statistics 101. Will also want to know about the _power_ of a test, the t-test, the F ratio, the chi-squared test, and _resampling_ and distribution-free tests.

There is more detail in

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors)

<comment><USER6> >"How about: The p-value is, in a statistical hypothesis test, the probability of Type I error, that is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true."

No, see here: "Of critical importance, as Goodman (1993) has pointed out, is the extensive failure to recognize the incompatibility of Fisher's evidential p value with the Type I error rate, α, of Neyman–Pearson statistical orthodoxy."

P Values are not Error Probabilities [http://www.uv.es/sestio/TechRep/tr14-03.pdf](http://www.uv.es/sestio/TechRep/tr14-03.pdf)

<comment><USER28> Okay, I looked at that PDF. I read through several pages and mostly saw lots of discussion of statements the authors claimed were common and wrong. I can agree with the wrong but am less convinced about the common.

I never saw a clean definition of p-value or alpha -- probability of Type I error.

In my study of statistics, p-value and alpha are essentially the same. Maybe a difference: A p-value is what a researcher has in mind before the hypothesis test as a 'cutoff value', say, 5%, for alpha while alpha is whatever the statistical hypothesis test says, for the data and the test, is the probability of Type I error, e.g., 3.141592653 or some such random number. So, since the 3.14 is less than the p-value of 5%, the experimenter rejects the null hypothsis. MAYBE this is the difference, if any, between p-value and alpha, in which case we're talking a triviality.

The paper you referenced also starts to get wound up over beta = 1 - alpha as the _power_ of a test. Okay, but that little equation is the definition of _power_. So,if have some data and a p-value or alpha in mind, and have several candidate statistical hypothesis tests, say, some _parametric_ and the others _distribution-free_ , etc., then will want to use the test with the smallest probability of Type II error, that is, the largest beta. Okay. Now are done with beta, and no more strain or struggle needed.

A biggie point is the real role of the null hypothesis -- it lets us calculate some probabilities that, otherwise, we would not have assumptions enough to do.

If there was a fight between Fisher and Neyman-Pearson nearly 100 years ago, then I'm sorry, but now I have no sympathy for whatever the heck, if anything, they were arguing about then.

<comment><USER6> >"I never saw a clean definition of p-value or alpha -- probability of Type I error."

On re-reading this I agree. They do not make a clean comparison. They do define them though:

p-value: "the probability of the observed and more extreme data given the null"

alpha: "α is the long-run frequency of Type I errors"

To begin with, you appear to have these reversed. Second, the p-value is dependent on the data, it will be different from experiment to experiment. The exact same experiment can give you p=0.001 one time and p=0.32 the next time. Which is the probability of type I error?

<comment><USER28> Each of 0.32 and 0.001 is the _conditional probability_ of type I error conditioned on the data actually used in finding it. It is common to play fast and loose when are conditioning on something and when not.

This conditional probability is conditioned on the observations we used; since those are random variables, so is the conditional probability. Then the 0.32 and 0.001 are values of this random variable on the two trials. The expectation of this random variable will be the probability of Type I error alpha.

I strained and tried to find a difference between p value and alpha, but in current usage I see no difference. My guess is that people prefer p-value because it abbreviates _probability_ while alpha does not.

Maybe some people want to say that

alpha = E[E[p value|given data]]

but this is not very _operational_. Maybe it is what people mean in which case, right, alpha is the expected value of p-value.

So, for a given experiment and hypothesis test, can draw a graph with alpha on the X-axis and beta (probability of Type II error) on the Y-axis. Then the graph shows beta as a function of alpha. So, typically the graph runs from (0,1) to (1,0) and is convex. A _more powerful_ test is lower at each value of alpha. A _perfect_ test is just the point at the origin. A _trivial_ test is the one get by ignoring the real data and using a random number generator, and here the curve is just the straight line from (0,1) to (1,0) and is useful for some cases of interpolating when the available values of alpha are discrete, e.g., in resampling plans for distribution-free statistics.

Right, beta and _power_ = 1 - beta don't have much to do with alpha or p-value except for the point that for a given statistical test in a specific context, e.g., distribution of the data and number of data points, there is that curve I described that relate alpha and beta, and, thus, also 1 - beta, exactly. As I outlined, a different statistical test, maybe parametric instead of distribution-free, can have a different curve and more _power_ for a given alpha.

<comment><USER6> >"0.001[the p value] is the conditional probability of type I error conditioned on the data"

From the paper: alpha= probability of type I error

So, there are two equations:

p value= p(alpha|data)

alpha = E[E[p value|given data]]

Substituting we get:

alpha = E[E[(alpha|data)|given data]]

What is the difference between "given data" and "data"? How do you isolate alpha?

<comment><USER28> alpha is a number. Type I error is an event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If i flipped a regular coin 1000 times, and happened to get 900 heads in a row, you may think 'hey, something is wrong with this coin' \- however, could you be sure something is up? How would you go about telling whether something is really up, or if this is just a fluke chance this one time?

The motivation for the p-value is to tell you what the probability of a fluke chance this would be.

The way to do better is to run the experiment over and over, flipping this coin 1000 times again, and again. However, since science experiments are extremely expensive, instead we only run them one time, and try to 'make sure this wasnt some fluke chance'.

</comment><comment><USER30> That it's called a "p-value" is rather indicative of it's nebulous nature. For something that is used in a rather applied context, giving it a one-letter name that has zero context is a bit of a cop-out.

<comment><USER31> That's how basically everything in mathematics works tho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> In order to use p-values properly, that is to make decision, you should explain what are you going to do with the information that the p-value provides. Rejecting the null hypothesis when the p-value < 0.05 is a sensible thing, but making a strong decision when the p-value is < 0.0001 doesn't make sense in many circumstances. You should have a scheme for the decision before having the p-value.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm surprised nobody has brought up the backlash against routine use of the p-value among scientists and journals. At least one journal has actually banned papers that report p-values:

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/psychology-journal- bans-...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/psychology-journal-bans- significance-testing/)

<comment><USER8> Leave it to psychology to ban pretty much the only scientific tool we have...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> My attempt to describe it for psych research methods students - in visual novel form: [http://evc-cit.info/psych018/hyptest/index.html](http://evc- cit.info/psych018/hyptest/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> Could someone grade the explanation I gave my non-technical boss last week?

In the context of a regression analysis, I said, "P-values indicate the chance that the apparent effect of the variable is from random fluctuations in the data instead of the variable itself."

<comment><USER36> While we're at it, let's try this one too: The p-value, _if correctly computed_ , is the probability that data collected under different conditions actually come from the same distribution. My definition sidesteps the word "effect."

<comment><USER35> My two cents is that once you start talking about "distributions" you add a layer of obfuscation that makes it a non-intuitive explanation.

<comment><USER36> Thanks. That's a good point. I wonder if there's a better term, or way of explaining it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> My takeaway is to not depend on or use them wherever possible. If I do use them, I get some heuristics from a survey of a bunch of statistics experts claiming to know what it is. And I'll be sure to keep a minimal, survey size of 30. ;)

</comment><comment><USER38> This is a surprisingly meta article... It claims there's a general lack of statistical understanding among experts, and then supports itself by making sweeping generalizations from a tiny sample size!

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm sure that there are lots of scientists that can easily explain p-values.

"Some scientists can not easily explain p-values" should be a more accurate, and much better, title.

</comment><comment><USER40> From what I understand, p-values are typically used by frequentist method for verifying that the "prediction" seems correct. On the other hand, the Bayesian approach is to split the data into training and test sets, and verify how much of it holds.

Does this make sense? If the p-values are not very good at conveying "confidence in the prediction," is this another argument in favor of a more Bayesian approach to statistics? Any thoughts would be appreciated!

<comment><USER41> Well, neither your description of p-values, nor your understanding of Bayesian inference is correct, so... no?

<comment><USER10> It would be helpful to tell how the commenter is wrong, and what is the correct description.

<comment><USER41> It would also be helpful if they'd read the article.

<comment><USER10> I read the article and it's almost completely orthogonal to the questions asked by 'graffitici. There's nothing suggesting that they didn't read the article, so now I assert that you have _three_ things to explain - <USER2> they're wrong, what's the right answer to their question and _why on Earth did you think they didn 't read the article_?

<comment><USER41> From the article: "We want to know if results are right, but a p-value doesn't measure that. It can't tell you the magnitude of an effect, the strength of the evidence or the probability that the finding was the result of chance."

From the first sentence of the parent comment: "From what I understand, p-values are typically used by frequentist method for verifying that the "prediction" seems correct."

If my reply seemed glib, it was because I thought the question was so far off base, that graffitici almost certainly hadn't read the article. To relate to the topic under discussion, the distribution of possible comments produced by people who have carefully read the article is extremely unlikely to result in a post as extremely misinformed as the one above.

If there was a simple statistical misunderstanding, perhaps that would be worth clearing up. Instead, the parent comment used some statistical words, but was very nearly incoherent. Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything if I wasn't willing to write a protracted essay about the differences between frequentist and Bayesian inference.

<comment><USER10> > _To relate to the topic under discussion, the distribution of possible > comments produced by people who have carefully read the article is extremely > unlikely to result in a post as extremely misinformed as the one above._

I disagree. There's an alternative hypothesis that could explain a comment like that - the author harbors some confused views about frequentist and Bayesian approaches to statistics. I'm inclined to believe that this hypothesis is right, because I recognize that comment as something I'd write myself back when I was more confused about this topic. Reading the article is unlikely to affect this particular issue.

> _Perhaps I shouldn 't have said anything if I wasn't willing to write a > protracted essay about the differences between frequentist and Bayesian > inference._

I think even one sentence explaining the gist of the author's confusion would be enough. Plenty of essays have been written on the topic, but one needs to be pointed in their general direction in order to benefit.

<comment><USER41> That's a fair point, but I'm not sure I understand the gist of the author's confusion. Any response I would craft would end up being a re-statement of the usual one sentence definition of p-values and Bayesian probability, both of which are already under discussion elsewhere in the comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is the video broken for anyone else?</comment>


Fly Through a Star-Studded Nebula [video] - <AUTHOR> https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/00000160-e73b-d22c-a568-e7ffbe290000 <comment><USER2> Here's a link to the original video (without the animated text overlay):

[https://youtu.be/fkWrjrdT3Zg](https://youtu.be/fkWrjrdT3Zg)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you like this kind of stuff, take a look at Space Engine: [http://spaceengine.org/](http://spaceengine.org/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I could have sworn I'd seen something very much like this either at the Hayden Planetarium in New York or in an episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's remake of Cosmos. The shockwaves from the stars, all of it, seems familiar. I found it of course utterly beautiful and very compelling. This one presumably is based on better data, and is all the more fascinating for it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can you imagine living on a world orbiting one of those stars?

I wonder how it would affect myths and culture to look up at _that_ every night...

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how fast we're moving in the visualization. A million c? A billion?

<comment><USER7> Right in between those.

The Orion Nebula is about 24 light years across, a million c would mean we pass through it in about 750 seconds. The point of view clearly moves faster than that. How hard exactly is hard to judge (I think it also changes speed) but it looks like going through the whole nebula would take somewhere between 75s (10 million c) and 7.5s (100 million c).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very mesmerizing; too bad for the usual animated-text-overlay thing so popular these days.</comment>


The Male Programmer Privilege Checklist - <AUTHOR> https://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Male_Programmer_Privilege_Checklist

<comment><USER2> Too long didn't read (all), but still.

I think I'm in plausible denial or perhaps I'm a blind jerk, but can someone confirm we are in such bad state(!!!?).

I know the gender income gap, and some people in HR prefer a dick but this was too awful.

<comment><USER3> It happens everywhere. The tech community just seems to really wants to fix this issue. But it really doesn't help when things like this read as if they are blaming all men. Even a lot of things that are supposed to help bring women into tech is not that effective as could be. Some exclude men from attending which doesn't help with the __most __important issue: helping women work better with men and helping men work better with women.

It would be much better that instead of referring to men as sexist jerks, we refer to sexist jerks as sexist jerks. I have yet to meet someone who has openly been against women working in tech, but I sometimes feel that it takes one post on medium to make it feel like we are not really progressing in the slightest.

Jeff Atwood said it best: [http://blog.codinghorror.com/what-can-men- do/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/what-can-men-do/)

Read the "What can you do?" section at the very least.

Disclaimer: I'm a man.

<comment><USER2> Yeah. Well, I think I should change my own perception about my self right now.

But if there was something that gave me chills was this claim made by Sara

>The Internet is the largest recording of human history ever built

(I mean I'm not that dumb, but I mean I never considered that in a such crucial time we are excluding basically a half of the population by default).

Fuck. Men had the leadership in the field on politics for centuries and in most countries women vote since a couple of decades.

And the computers and internet will certainly will lead our lives for the centuries from now this is quite worrisome because turn the table is pretty difficult.

I'm a man too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of the time I was at LinuxWorld, ages back, and Sun had a Java booth. I wandered over and remarked that my mother was using Java. They thought I was insulting them. I wasn't.</comment>


Facebook–while it apologizes for scandal–funds campaign to block CA data-privacy - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> A post like this, with no article attached, is editorializing. That's the last thing we need on a red-hot topic that has been dominating HN for over a week now. It's an important topic, of course, and that makes it more important to have substantive content grounding the discussions. Please don't submit like this again.

People sometimes do this by mistake when posting an article but since web search doesn't come up with anything for this title other than this HN page, I'm interpreting this submission as abuse rather than a trivial error. Sorry if I've sounded harsh, but this is one trend we really don't need to get going.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why are people surprised by all this? I am seriously confused. We _know_ corporations do this. We have protested about Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Tobacco, etc in the past. Why are we surprised Big Tech is doing the exact same thing?

A lot of these tech companies had revolving doors with the ruling administration of the country for 8 years. They have been deeply embroiled in politics for decades. Ironically, Microsoft circa late 1990s serves as a great lesson when you _don 't_ have a revolving door with politicians. In my humble opinion, Shkreli is another example of people who didn't kiss the Godfather's hand.

If you got duped by "Don't be evil" or the other "make the world a better place" propaganda by these tech companies, some of the _biggest_ companies this world has ever seen -- then that is on your ignorance. I don't blame Big Tech at all. They will (and _should_ ) use the same formula as the other Big Corps for their own self interests. That is what our system requires of them, for better or for worse. We as citizens and consumers should have been vigilant. And to be fair, many on HN have _always_ been vigilant about Big Tech.

In my opinion, people have no right to criticize FB or Google today if they did not feel a chill run down their spines after Snowden's leaks or after AaronSw's death.

<comment><USER4> > _people have no right to criticize FB or Google_

I've never understood the phrase "X has no right to Y." In this context, it's doubly absurd. Americans have a right. A Constitutional right. The very first one in the Bill of Rights.

Users quibbling at Facebook is negotiation (albeit ineffectively done). Voters complaining via political channels is activism, a First Amendment right.

<comment><USER3> I know you want to quibble _part_ of that one sentence. Let me help you read the full sentence / context so that you can see the deeper point, in case you missed it.

If you read the full context, I said "in my opinion ...", and not "according to American constitutional law ...".

I am using the word "right" in the "moral" sense of the word, and not the "legal" sense of the word (and you can look up the definition of the word "right" if you prefer).

Now, perhaps, you can look at the entire context of that sentence and give address the actual point I was trying to make.

<comment><USER4> > _I am using the word "right" in the "moral" sense of the word_

Calling legal, Constitutionally-protected political protest immoral because someone "did not feel a chill run down their spines after Snowden's leaks" isn't better.

Jumping up to your original comment [1]:

> _Why are people surprised by all this?_

It's novel. Specific beats abstract, actual beats hypothetical, relatable beats austere. In Cambridge Analytica we have a specific example of Facebook dropping the ball and creating actual consequences relatable to the average American.

Americans love to forgive. We wanted to see Zuckerberg acknowledge the issue, take responsibility and overcorrect. (Think: Tylenol [2].) Instead Zuckerberg disappeared for a few days, apologized like he was making a scripted sales pitch [3] and proceeded to do nothing tangibly evident to the average American. Seeing Facebook lie and cheat so brazenly, in respect of a specific, actual and relatable crisis, was novel for many people.

We're also seeing a narrative shift. Facebook once lived in the shadow of Steve Jobs, within Silicon Valley's greater story arc and the myth of the founder. (Think: HBO's _Silicon Valley_ [4].) They were allowed to cut corners as the product of a goofy if influential wunderkid. That's shifting. Shifts surprise. There is no need to throw people under the bus for agreeing later rather than sooner--at the end of the day, agreement is what matters.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16685315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16685315)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6DOhioBfyY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6DOhioBfyY)

[4] [https://www.hbo.com/silicon-valley](https://www.hbo.com/silicon-valley)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is lobbying really helpful for the people in the US? For me, it looks like it always benefits the companies and the politicians. Lobbying is illegal in many countries. Why is it allowed there? Under what thoughts? Can someone explain, please?

EDIT: Quickly checked Google. An Investopedia article argues that it's not bribery because it benefits everyone in the country. But we can see that it's always so that the companies make more money right? Only the rich keep getting more money. Also, the article seems to have been written by a lobbying enthusiast!

<comment><USER4> > _Is lobbying really helpful for the people in the US?_

The EFF [1] and ACLU [2] are lobbyists. We have a problem in the U.S. with money and politics, but lobbying _per se_ is a natural consequence of the First Amendmenr.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundati...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation)

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Uni...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union)

<comment><USER5> The examples of EFF and ACLU are okay and I'm pretty sure that there are hundreds of well intended lobbying groups in the US. But, I'm often confused by the lack of control or checks for private players with a lot of money like for example, Intuit which blocks easy tax return filing, NRA which blocks gun control/ban, Facebook which blocks privacy bill, etc., There must be so many other examples that an outsider like me cannot comprehend or understand. So how come this is allowed without any protest? It looks like the first amendment is being used to disguise crony capitalism!

<comment><USER6> Yes, it is hard to explain. Something about those companies employee shareholders individually having free speech rights via the company that they own. It was a recent change.

I don't really mind companies lobbying for things, I suspect that it has more good than bad from open lines of communication of needs from the business community. But the balance has to be right. It shouldn't be one company drowning out a million people.

The NRA is at least made up of real human members. Who shockingly donated $85M to them in since 2005. I may dislike their point of view, but they certainly deserve to be able to lobby.

<comment><USER5> People get killed in thousands because of them. I'm not sure if they should enjoy this kind of a freedom!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here is the actual measure and explanation: [https://ballotpedia.org/California_Consumer_Personal_Informa...](https://ballotpedia.org/California_Consumer_Personal_Information_Disclosure_and_Sale_Initiative_\(2018\))

And yes, I agree FB should keep their distance from opposing this initiative or lobbying against it. In fact, Equifax et al would probably be affected and I hope the initiative passes.

after the FOSTA/SESTA fiasco we need to carefuly figure out the implications of new laws and initiatives before deciding to support them.

And this is one that actually nails it.

<comment><USER8> Is FOSTA a fiasco for those that supported it? I thought that was just the puritans getting what they wanted.

<comment><USER7> Its a fiasco for everyone. On the face of it sounds commendable and how can anyone NOT be against trafficking. But the way its implemented not only fails to achieve what it sets out to do, but hinders it by making it Necessary for publishers either actively moderate user contributed content, or avoid it all together, (which is economically more feasible given that the risk of liability for user content "trumps" any other consideration, (pun intended)

since FOSTA/SESTA covers hate speech, sites for political debate either assume the risk an invest heavily in moderation, risk becoming censors of speech or close the doors altogether.

as a "left leaning" commentator so eloquently put it after hearing the lamentations of a "conservative" member of the /pol discussion forum when the new policies were announced in 8chan:

"See what happens? Now burn in the fire you set yourselves"

Nobody (but perhaps the EFF) saw it comibg

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reminder that we can, and should, hold Facebook employees, who hold _literally all the power_ , responsible for this.

If you worked at Facebook past mid-2017 (because that's the only time _I_ know you should have known about it -- really, you should probably have quit earlier) in an non-visa-restricted engineering role and don't have a damn good reason for it, I will never hire you. Same with Uber. And same now, for Google. Your technical merits are worth nothing to me if I don't know you have solid ethics.

<comment><USER10> Which companies would you view, from a hiring perspective, as having solid ethics?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let's assume Facebook fixed their privacy flaws. Are we good then ?

Same company (CA) used other tools to manipulate elections. For example, they used Whatsapp to manipulate Kenya elections and this was reported last august by Al Jazeera: [https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2017/08/f...](https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2017/08/fake- news-shape-kenya-elections-170805081741474.html)

Did Whatsapp help CA to manipulate elections in Kenya? Nope (If yes, that would be a much bigger scandal). According to the report from Al Jazeera, it could be Telegram or Signal, doesn't matter.

Most people just focus on Facebook but I think it's just the tip of the iceberg. We should actually think about how democratic elections can survive manipulations...

<comment><USER12> You could just spam channels on Telegram but for Whatsapp and Signal you'd have to get the phone number first, then be added by the receiver. I wonder how they did it. The aljazeera article is not really informative and I can't play the video here.

<comment><USER11> You didn't check the link. People volunteerly shared fake news with their friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They always have been disgusting and will always be. I have ceased all activity on Facebook and my life has never been better. F#ck Facebook and f#ck Zuckerberg.

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://boingboing.net/2018/03/20/why-did-facebook-pitch- in-...](https://boingboing.net/2018/03/20/why-did-facebook-pitch-in-over.html)</comment>


The Ultimate Guide to Dropshipping - <AUTHOR> http://ecommerce.shopify.com/guides/dropshipping <comment><USER3> Out of curiosity, if drop shipping enabled you to quit your job in finance a few years back ([http://ecommerce.shopify.com/guides/dropshipping/about- the-a...](http://ecommerce.shopify.com/guides/dropshipping/about-the-authors) ) , why are you now 'giving away your secret sauce' by running a website dedicated to teach people how to setup "copycat" businesses?

Is it that the drop shipping business has gotten so competitive that there is more money in teaching people about it than the business itself, or were there other reasons?

<comment><USER4> Co-author here, and a totally valid question! I started my blog about eCommerce / drop shipping for a number of reasons:

1) To expand my professional network and opportunities

I just finished co-writing a book with Shopify on drop shipping, which is something I never would have had the opportunity to do without the blog. It's allowed me to build credibility and expand my network.

Additionally, the blog allows me to reach out to really interesting people when I otherwise wouldn't be able to. For example, I recently interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk - something I never would have been to do without leveraging eCommerceFuel.

2) To connect with other eCommerce entrepreneurs

I've had the chance to connect with hundreds of other eCommerce merchants and share strategies and tips. I eventually hope to build a really vibrant community for small eCommerce merchants (as I think that's lacking online), and this is helping me accomplish that.

3) To eventually diversify my income stream with something new

Like all entrepreneurs, I think the desire to try new things is strong - especially after you've been doing the same thing for a while. I saw the blog as a way to create another income source that leveraged the experience I have.

While one of my eventual goals is to make money from the blog, my first priority is to keep the content extremely high quality, genuine, authentic and USEFUL. I wanted to give away a ton of useful information before I asked for anything in return.

Take the eBook on my site, for example. I spent 2 weeks solid writing it and I give it away for free. If you download it and don't think it's one of the better free resources you've come across online just let me know and I'll send you $20 via PayPal for wasting your time. :-)

4) To dispel the the idea of "easy money" online

You asked why I'm teaching people to setup "copycat" business, and I'd argue I'm doing nothing of the sort. 80% of success with any kind of business involves the execution and strategy - and not picking the perfect niche or having some "secret" sauce.

If Alexis Ohanian released a killer guide to programming in Python that doesn't mean someone is going to be able to create a Reddit copycat... ...at least one that will successfully compete with them. Also, just because someone is sharing their knowledge and/or tactics doesn't mean that their original project is no longer viable. It simply means they're interested in sharing their experience.

If building a profitable drop shipping business was an easy 48-hour project, I'd be less likely to share so publicly - you're right! But just like any business, it takes a lot of hard work. The knowledge is important, but the legwork is really what makes it difficult to implement.

I completely understand your skepticism as the online business space is full of scams. But hopefully if you invest a few minutes reading our guide, and my blog (<http://www.eCommerceFuel.com>) you'll realize we're committed to publishing quality, useful content and not trying to rip people off.

Let me know if you have any questions - happy to answer them.

<comment><USER5> This is a great answer. I think it is important to note that all of the information you have provided is already available on the web, so you aren't _really_ revealing super secret information. You have provided a very well written and properly structured guide for information which could have been gathered anyways. I went down the dropshipping information wormhole recently it was a super annoying process. You're guide has definitely helped provide a strong structure the information I gathered.

Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Thanks! You're right - most of the information is publicly available, and we just consolidated it into one spot. Some aspects are a bit harder to find publicly - like some of the tricker aspects of managing the logistics of operating a drop shipping business - but still not impossible to find. You just have to dig a bit deeper, or talk to someone with experience.

<comment><USER6> And... you touched a point which new people to dropshipping will hardly read somewhere else: that you take responsibility and accountability for your suppliers' mistakes. This happens all the time. I did some dropshipping in the past with suppliers in China. I can tell you it wasn't for those with faint hearts. Having customers calling/emailing you 10^2345 times a day to complain about the product they had received wrong, while it's not your fault, sucks big time. Back to the point, I'm glad you have made a note about this aspect in your website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Your guide looks really good, but you're definitely correct in your 1st paragraph: when I hear "guide to drop shipping" I immediately think back to the days of "MAKE THOUSANDS FROM HOME SELLING PRODUCTS ON EBAY" ... it has a bit of a snake-oil perception to me and I'm glad you addressed that right away.

My wife started an Instagram printing business (<http://cheergram.com>) a few months ago and it's going very well. All products are dropp-shipped from our partner lab so I know it can work.

I haven't finished the guide yet, but so far it looks really good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much. Part of the reason I decided to write this guide with my co- author Andrew is there's so much bullshit out there regarding drop shipping. It's really bad.... and if you go to Google to learn more about the topic I'm afraid most results are scams. I wanted to change that. Shopify was gracious enough to give me the time out of my regular duties to pursue this project and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Tell your wife Cheergram is awesome, and a huge congratulations for getting her drop shipping business up and running! Happy reading callmeed - I really hope you enjoy the rest of my guide! :)

<comment><USER7> That's great ... it's probably a good time to tackle this since people seem to be gravitating away from Ebay and toward more direct selling through social media, shopify, and all the recent "SELL ANYTHING WITH STRIPE" services we see here on HN.

If you have any specific questions or need quotes related to print/photo drop- shipping, let me know. I actually just got back from a big photo industry trade-show. Lots of interesting things going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would love to get a PDF version of this. I'll make one once I get home but if someone beats me to it... ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I just launched the online version today so I haven't had time to make a PDF yet. But yes, I'll definitely get on that ASAP. Glad to hear you think that would be useful mrchess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great job! One typo in Chapter 3: "drop hipping" (though that would be a cool name for the official Shopify dance)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha drop hipping sounds awesome. I think I'll just keep that there as an easter egg. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is especially ironic considering shopify does not offer dropshipping. I've had multiple people inquire about dropshipping our products but we've never been able to make it work.

<comment><USER11> And they link to a specific inventory management system which is expensive and isn't tailored for drop shipping when there are other alternatives, at lower price, in the Shopify app store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This guide has some great information. A dropship commerce store can be a great complement to a software company if you are able to integrate a company's products in with your software.

My wife and I develop a cattle management software called CattleMax and began operating two dropship e-commerce stores several years ago. Our stores help us offer customers a full solution (identification + weighing/measuring + management software) and also provide a nice supplement to our SaaS revenues.

Our first store, The Cattle Tags Store (CattleTags.com), sells cattle identification supplies including visual ear tags and RFID tags & readers. Our software is useless of the rancher hasn't identified his or her cattle, so good identification is important.

Our second store, The Cattle Scales Store (CattleScales.com), sells digital weigh scales designed for weighing livestock. It is a natural fit since our software can import weights from the scales and these scales also integrate with the RFID readers we sell at The Cattle Tags Store.

In the beginning, we were hesitant to create the stores but got through that hesitation by saying "OK we will try it out for a few months".

</comment><comment><USER13> Dropshipping = Chargeback risk that you can't control.

<comment><USER14> The amount that you save on inventory and warehousing could offset that risk. Plus depending on your niche I would imagine that the risk varies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not entirely sure if it's still classified as dropshipping.

But I've been told that some postal services (e.g. NZ Post) are able to provide dropshipping like logistics for you.

e.g. You manufacture your product in China. The postal service will then manage logistics for you from factory to your customers.

</comment><comment><USER16> okay, I've never heard the term "drop shipping" before and I read the entire intro page and I still have no idea what it is. I guess you plan to tell me in Chapter One, but that's a lot more commitment than I want to make when I have no idea what you're talking about.

<comment><USER4> Good feedback - we'll have to incorporate this into our 1st round of revisions.

Drop shipping is a fulfillment model where a merchant doesn't carry any inventory. Instead, they only purchase an item from a wholesaler when they receive an order from a customer. Then, they have that item shipped directly from the wholesale warehouse to the customer.

It allows a merchant to start a store without having to invest up-front in inventory, and without having to manage a warehouse.

<comment><USER17> So, now we have merchants with no store, no warehouse and no inventory... what exactly is left for the merchant to do?

<comment><USER18> Marketing, making the sales happen, etc. They wouldn't exist if they didn't do something useful.

It's like asking why affiliate marketing exists. It does and it's huge.

<comment><USER17> I suppose I was thinking about the wrong kind of product, I now realize it would be much more viable for one-time small purchases than it would be for repeated purchases or large purchases. (where the incentive to cut out the middleman would be powerful)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a manufacturer who drops hips for online sellers, this is a pretty god guide (jewelry)

<comment><USER19> Embarrassing number of typos made on train home yesterday. Can't fix now, but good reminder to proofread when tired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's a typo on this page[0]:

"per-order drop hipping fee"

[0] [http://ecommerce.shopify.com/guides/dropshipping/finding- sup...](http://ecommerce.shopify.com/guides/dropshipping/finding-suppliers)

</comment><comment><USER21> I just read the section of your guide about finding suppliers. So you recommend supplier marketplaces like Doba? I've heard alot of strong opinions either way on them. Is the pricing you can get there really competitive? Most of their clients appear to be really small mom-and-pop online stores.

<comment><USER4> DOBA's interface can be convenient because they integrate seamlessly with big suppliers, but they have a limited number of end-suppliers and the service is more expensive. So while I'm sure some people have used them successfully, I think starting from scratch there are more compelling options. I've never used them, however, so I can't speak from personal experience.

If you can find and work directly with your suppliers, that's preferable. Next best is going with a directory like World Wide Brands if you're struggling to find suppliers or need a solid brainstorming tool. Instead of serving as the go-between, they simply connect you directly to suppliers via their listings. Additionally, they'll have a larger selection of smaller niche suppliers which is where I see people have the most success with drop shipping. I've used WWB for years and they're a good source for legitimate wholesaler suppliers.

Full disclosure: I've been interviewed / posted on the DOBA-affiliated blog to promote eCommerceFuel.com as they have a well-known blog in the drop shipping space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I work at a Wholesale supplier and he pretty much nailed the 3 points regarding the Google searches.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is right supplier best kept secret in dropshipping?

It would be nice if you can provide at least one supplier for any product you wish, this would give us fair idea about suppliers.

</comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone have any experience with pixmania-pro drop shipping? I am specifically looking for a merchant that sell automated vacuum cleaners. (iRobot / Samsung)

</comment><comment><USER25> Very awesome. Might be worth adding ecommhub.com in there somewhere - <USER2> life a hell of a lot easier for a drop-shipper :)

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the mention :) I'm Kurt, founder of eCommHub. I think it was an editorial mistake, so hopefully we'll get included in the guide soon.

Just to give others some background, we started as a Shopify app a few years ago, so our whole platform is built around dropshipping (with Shopify). eCommHub helps with automating the inventory management and order processing, which can otherwise be quite manual and tedious. Some of our clients are automating as many as 5,000+ orders per DAY through Shopify using eCommHub.

Anyway, this truly is the ultimate guide on drop shipping, so congrats to Mark and Andrew for putting together such a great resource!

Here's our app listing if you're interested in checking out more: <http://apps.shopify.com/ecommhub> or <http://ecommhub.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Could you make it into a kindle book please? 9.99 looks like a good price to me. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER28> Gonna burn karma here but... I read the title as "The Ultimate Guide to _Dropshitting_ " and realized I have a great new name for 2HWW-inspired fly- by-night fulfillment companies :)</comment>


iPad: Nothing Creative - <AUTHOR> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/01/27/iPad

<comment><USER2> You can bet that the these reactions of "it doesn't have this or that" have already been addressed and are sitting in prototypes locked in an interior room at 1 Infinite Loop. USB and cameras are easy to add. I'm waiting for handwriting recognition and 3D UI modes. This device will evolve into something very cool and useful just like the original deck-of-cards iPod evolved into what we have today.

<comment><AUTHOR> It already has USB and theoretically could use a USB-attached camera. The problem is, the iPad-to-USB adapter is something more you have to carry in addition to the svelte iPad and I would worry about inadvertently damaging the iPad connector on the iPad with the (relatively) big adapter.

Adding a USB-attached camera is even worse: _two_ more things to carry plus a cord to add leverage for stressing the adapter.

Tethering a peripheral (e.g. camera) via bluetooth or WiFi would get around the adapter part, but it still is an ugly solution.

I agree with Tim, Apple's target audience isn't me, it isn't him, and it probably isn't most of the people on HN. It is consumers, not creators.

<comment><USER2> I meant to imply "USB and cameras are easy to integrate into the device."

I'm not sure I'm going to get a first gen iPad either unless I find five hundred dollars on the ground. But, I see the potential for getting one in the future. It's perfect, though, for my daughter to use for school work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yeah well, all of us geeks complain about what this thing can't do and doesn't have. But in the end, Bray comes to the right conclusion: the iPad wasn't designed for us.

The iPhone and the iPad are just what portable devices look like after crossing the chasm: no multi-tasking (a massive number of people I know do not grok multi-tasking), minimally-complicated input devices, and obviously: no developer tools or software freedom.

Because "being able to run whatever software I choose" is only great when the user belongs to that n% (where n is small) of people who know what they're doing. I will be "selling" (as in recommending) these iThings to many friends and relatives, and at the same time, I don't think I'll ever buy them myself.

</comment><comment><USER4> bitch bitch bitch... ffs people, I thought the whole thing about being creative were that you were, um, creative.

It's easy: a. don't buy one, or b. if you accidentally do buy one, then think of something creative to do with it.

It seems there's a large number of people at the moment who can't see them selves buying one of these (sorry, still can't bring myself to call it an iPad) for whatever reason, and they're working hard at mentally positioning those who may buy one as 'stupid', 'couch potatoes', 'dumb', 'fanboys', 'not creative people', 'want to be cool', 'gullible', 'buying it just because of the marketing' etc. I'm sure you've read the endless swathe of similar comments today. Why? Why is is so hard to accept that whilst a product ay not be for you, it may be just what someone else wants?

[Disclaimer: I'm in the group of those who probably won't buy one. I can't see a use case for it yet]

</comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't want to be Wacom right now, though. I could imagine the tablet beats traditional digitizer tablets for graphics design.

<comment><USER6> Right... because drawing with your finger on a small screen of a tablet without a half decent graphic application is going to overnight destroy the market for high end computers running photoshop, autocad or some other graphics program hooked up to digitizer tablets with extremely high resolution and analog sensors in the tip registering the down force to modify effects.

No way these are even remotely in the same space.

<comment><USER7> I don't know if the Apple Tablet will impact Wacom's business in any way, but for what it's worth a picture drawn on an even smaller screen using one of these "not half decent graphic applications" ended up on the cover of The New Yorker.

[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/tny/2009/05/jorge- colo...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/tny/2009/05/jorge-colombo- iphone-cover.html)

And simply because Apple don't supply a stylus with the device, doesn't mean that you can't use one with it.

<http://tenonedesign.com/stylus.php>

<comment><USER8> The Wacom tablet computers sells in the thousands, iPad is going to sell in the millions. There is nothing like a wacom for drawing with hi quality, but I'm sure Apple realise a "notebook computer" needs a pen and will add it in the future.

The capacitive stylus has very poor resolution, and is difficult to contrast with the part of the hand that you use for support on the screen. It would be simpler to use an optical,sound, radio or inertial add on.

<comment><USER6> > iPad is going to sell in the millions

Wow! Your crystal ball must be a lot better than mine. I figure early adopters several tens of thousands, most of them people that want to be seen with the latest gadget.

Then they find out that it is cumbersome to have something like this because it requires a carrier, it does definitely not fit in your pocket, which was _the_ reason Jobs was railing against netbooks not all that long ago.

And I actually agreed with him, now it seems he disagrees with himself.

The wacom tablet computers sell in the thousands because they are a niche device, the apple tablet for now is a niche device too, until the opposite has been proven.

This is _not_ an iphone, and the iphone is not an ipod.

Iphones and Ipods are selling as good as they do because they fit their niche (pocket devices for entertainment and connectivity) very well, this device is in a completely different class.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Millionaire migration in 2015 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://nebula.wsimg.com/6e5712bf40ffe85cc116a52402d5a7d7?AccessKeyId=70E2D0A589B97BD675FB&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 <comment><USER3> Interesting:

> In our view , a Brexit w ill not result in an outflow of millionaires from > the UK. On the contrary, we believe that wealthy UK citizens are more likely > to stay in the UK if there is a Brexit. This view is backed up by the fact > that most of the wealthy British people we interviewed voiced concern over > the UK's open border policy with Europe .

<comment><USER4> I really want to see what would happen to that theory after a Brexit. Would the economical/financial benefits of a closed border policy outweighs the economical/financial benefits of being a member of the European Union ? If so then that's really bad for Europe image, if not then that's really bad for those financial super powers to realize their judgments are really biased.

The third option being: the analysts here really messed up and shouldn't make a connection between a stance on open border policy and an outflow as consequence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for posting - very interesting read for someone thinking of moving due to, well, changing times...

</comment><comment><USER6> Frankly I'm not surprised. Europe really seems to be in deep trouble from rising religious and racial tensions, slowing economy and lack of security. I would indeed emigrate if I had the cash and a wife that wasn't completely numb to what goes on in the world.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been seriously contemplating it for about a year now: is it the time to abandon Europe and find new life elsewhere? Asking for the honest HN opinion, is the old continent already the sinking ship? On one hand it is comforting to consider that there is ~1000 years of history of civilized Europe behind us, with rich culture, the discovery and development of science and, in general, prosperity. On the other, it took less than a century for the Western Roman Empire to collapse.

<comment><USER3> Where would you want to go?

In the US, you're more likely to be killed by a cop than by a terrorist in Europe.

Japan is peaceful for now, but has its own problems - rising tensions with China, proximity of North Korea, low economic opportunity. Same goes for most other developed Asian countries.

Africa, Middle East, Russia, most of Asia and South America are less developed (AFAIK), in terms of social cohesion, healthcare, economic opportunity.

The best options seem to be Australia and New Zealand, they are English- speaking, highly developed, peaceful, lawful and, most importantly, far away - a problem for some (e.g. if you have family members in other countries), but in case of major conflict, it will probably be a good idea.

All in all, some perspective is in order. Europe is probably the strongest it's been in the past 100 years. There are 300 million inhabitants, so even 1M migrants is a drop in the bucket. There are no immediate threats from other nation-states, except possibly for a few countries bordering Russia - <USER2> even they seem focused more on the Middle East recently. Most European countries still have the strongest social security.

On the other hand, the unexpected is just that, by definition. Chances are low, but it's possible that some crazy person does something crazy (Putin? Erdogan? A right-wing EU leader?). But that's true pretty much anywhere in the world.

<comment><USER8> Of developed countries, Australia is expected to be one of the most impacted by climate change. Already crop yields are being affected; drought (in the west and interior), floods (in the north and east), and heat waves (everywhere) are posing challenges to Australians.

Most of North and Central Europe is less likely to suffer from such drastic effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Parts of this study seem dubious. Neither 'city' nor 'millionaire' is defined. The authors allege that rising religious tensions and a lack of opportunities are to blame for the French millionaire outflow. Is that the whole story? Could the aggressive tax rates and hurdles posed by regulation have more to do with it?

Here's a fun fact: when Hollande's 75% tax rate was announced, waiting lists at some of the more expensive francophone Swiss boarding schools ballooned overnight. Make of that what you will. (NB this tax rate was introduced in 2013 and dropped in 2014.)

<comment><USER10> Millionaire is defined at the bottom under "Notes and Definitions"

Here's the relevant text: "Millionaires" otherwise known as "high net worth individuals" or "HNWIs" refer to individuals with net assets of US$1 million or more excluding their primary residences

<comment><USER9> Oof, didn't catch that, sorry. I normally expect definitions etc. at the very start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> why are so many rich people moving to Australia?

<comment><USER12> I moved to Australia around 10 years ago (originally from Poland but traveled the world extensively) and worked in tech since then wishing I did a course in welding or heavy machinery operation instead. Even mining laundry service workers here get 120,000/year salary!

The tide is turning though and world's biggest quarry is in trouble.....since China problems are looming more profoundly on Australian economy (China sneezes and Australia catches a nasty cold) more people are looking towards other industries i.e. services, tech, medical and those who used to make a tidy profit in the mines are being let go due to slumping iron ore pricing and weakened demand. In the space of last 12 months iron ore price was cut in half.

Add world's most expensive housing prices, climate issues, stalling economy, bogan attitudes (less so with the influx of educated migrants) etc. and Australia has its own share of issues to deal with. All things considered though, I would never want to go back to Europe or move to US. Why? To name a few: stable democratic government, great lifestyle, far away from some of the the loony bins e.g. Putin or not sharing borders with other countries (can get pretty lonely here at times though as to get anywhere is a minimum 10 hours flight), good pay and social support system, lots of nationalities in bigger cities so racial tensions are rare (we all just seem to get along), warm weather etc. Why would I want to live anywhere else? Yes, I could make more money in US, be more culturally aware/inspired in Europe, have cheaper lifestyle in Asia (south-east) etc. but when you look at what's really important in life and narrow it down to a dozen or so factors, especially if having a family is a prospect, nothing comes close to living Downunder. Even Kiwis want to live here. And that comes from someone who lived (at least 16 months) on every continent, except Antarctica and Africa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Several of my smartest and most ambitious friends have emigrated from London to Aus and Japan. Destinations that have sensible immigration policies, and which have maintained their cultural integrity.

A country is not a country without borders. When I emigrate I will choose a country based on its singular culture, and crucially, how well it maintains that culture. Why would I choose a country that's right for me now but risks changing in the future when I have kids there?

Multi-ethnicity in London is great. Multiculturalism in London is a sickness. No one chooses to move here for "London's culture," because it doesn't have an identifiable culture. So people come here expecting to maintain their own culture in a bubble instead, resulting in ghettos, self-segregation and rising tension.

<comment><USER14> Is "sensible" a euphemism for "don't allow brown people in"? I've never heard Japan's immigration policies described as sensible before. Japan as a country is dying because of their low birthrate and overly restrictive immigration policies. What's sensible about that?

<comment><USER13> "Sensible" is a euphemism for "don't allow religious fundamentalists with a deep-seated hatred of the West in"

Additionally, this demographic (I won't name the religion - I'm sure you know the one I'm describing) has a male unemployment rate of 50% and female unemployment rate of 75% in the UK.

You don't die as a country through low birthrates - this could only happen in a bygone era that required massive labourforce, agriculture, factory work etc. No - the modern economy does not require "throwing bodies at the problem." We are entering the age of automation, a having more humans in a country is not as important as having the smartest humans to build the automation.

In fact having more humans in the country just creates an aging population timebomb. This problem is confounded by immigration. Not resolved by immigration. Immigrants age just like the rest of us.

<comment><USER6> Literally every statement in this comment of yours needs a reliable source.

<comment><USER13> Happy to oblige:

[http://examine-islam.org/islam-and-the-uk-some-facts/](http://examine- islam.org/islam-and-the-uk-some-facts/)

<comment><USER6> Yes but that includes none of the the statements you made. You said unemployment rate of Muslim women is 75%. According to this 29% of Muslim women are in full time employment compared to 50% of general population. Yet, unemployment rate of general population is not 50%. There is a huge different between lack of full time employment and unemployment.

Every other statement after that is also utter nonsense pseudo opinion.

<comment><USER13> "More than half of Muslim men and three quarters of Muslim women are unemployed."

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8054436/Indians- and-C...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8054436/Indians-and-Chinese- get-better-jobs-than-white-British-men.html)

<comment><USER6> You're just pointing to the statistical bias in British media. There is a huge different between not being in FULL time employment and being unemployed.

Since we're pointing at random articles: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british- musli...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-muslim- women-71-more-likely-to-be-unemployed-due-to-workplace- discrimination-10179033.html)

"The recent national Labour Force survey showed the unemployment rate among Muslim women was 18 per cent, compared with 9 per cent for Hindu women and 4 per cent for white Christian women."

No doubt unemployment rate is higher for Muslim women, and it is a problem. But citing figures that out of your pocket isn't gonna help.

<comment><USER13> Your article is showing a different type of measure, but it's showing the same glaring problem - Muslim women are not working in this country - not nearly as many of them as other demographics. I don't care whether a Muslim commentator thinks the cause for this is anti-Muslim "bias." There isn't an institutionalised anti-Muslim bias in our workplaces, and if there was you'd have to ask "why?" \- is it the five-times-a-day prayer breaks? The 30 days of fasting leaving workers unable to properly function? The subjugation of women in Muslim society? All of these factors could explain the figures we see, and they're all the fault of Islam. Not of Western employers.

<comment><USER15> Your sources are second hand, and old. The article you picked was from The Telegraph and was published in 2010, about the government report "Is Britain Fairer?", which was also published in 2010.

The latest report, from 2015, makes for interesting reading. It shows that:

a. White people have a higher rate of employment than for ethnic minorities generally (74.7% vs. 59.3%)

b. Men have a higher rate of employment than women, and women are more likely to be in part-time work and less likely to be in senior management positions.

c. Religious minorities are more likely to be unemployed, and in particular Muslim men experience the highest levels of unemployment.

There's no analysis though of why any of this is the case though. All the things you highlight aren't necessarily issues that can't be overcome. But you have selectively cherry-picked what you want to see, and I can't see that you can provide any sources that back up your assertions about why Muslims face high unemployment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Millionaire means little, if you have 1.0 million @ 4% your below the median US income. In large part this is tracking the migration of retired people.

<comment><USER8> I agree, they should change it to 10 million or qualify it with "1 million in assets excluding primary residence".

<comment><USER16> They do exclude their primary residences. But, many retired people downsize and they are looking at people who are moving anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> 15%+ of the San Francisco population are millionaires! No wonder this city is outrageously expensive.

San Francisco millionaires: 129,000. Population: 837,442 (2013)

</comment><comment><USER18> Millionaires are fleeing their country to avoid penal liability.

I am french, I have read Clinton's email, and I think they try to avoid investigations. And some have a lot on their plate.

On one hand I think the country will be better without them, on the other one I still hope justice will be made. And I would like the welcoming countries to be aware some millionaires are rich by bending rules.</comment>


From a college student: Facebook 2.0? - <AUTHOR>

I kind of posted this topic before, but I just wanted to see what other people thought about facebook.<p>As a college student, I don't really enjoy using facebook as much as I first did. Also, I've asked around and many of my peers are starting to the same. We are all become spectator's in facebook. I think there is a way to revolutionize this problem. What do you think?<p>-CC <comment><USER2> The thing that annoys me most about FB is its built to keep people engaged and spend too much time on it. Its interface and updates are kinda built around being "addicted". Why can't they provide it in simpler way, to keep people connected and let them do the things which matter more.

What if google built the FB? (oh yeah, they tried that with Orkut, but I guess it lost the game because of interface). Mark Zuckerberg talk about social graph all the time, but I don't think anyone on facebook have a true graph.

People will project themselves the way they want to on FB. Funny, Clever, Kind whatever they want to. Its more of a marketing tool for me. Kinda personal branding tool.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really can't imagine facebook in 10 years. By then, there will be a whole generation that has gone from grade school through college using facebook. Part of growing up is leaving things behind and god knows that facebook desperately wants to keep you coming back day after day.

I swear that people are going to look back at Facebook and make a lot of comparisons to AOL's rise and fall.</comment>


A Surprising & Amusing Question: What are you trying to find out about us? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
This is the last question in the Y-Combinator application: "Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered. (The answer need not be related to your project.)"
I like the question, but find it a bit ambiguous as to what you're looking for. Luckily I can ask for an elaboration on this forum.
It seems the generality might lead to corny responses. A super-specific anecdote from a sub-genre of geek lore might not be appropriate.
I almost want to just tell my favorite Zombie/Pirate/Robot joke.
Any thoughts from past applicants? Any thoughts from those that wrote the questions? <comment><USER2> I'm not reading the apps, but if I were then this would be the rough hierarchy of answer goodness:

1."What is the most useful new idea you've contributed to humanity?"

2\. "What is the most useful and counter-intuitive insight you've come across that I'm not already aware of?"

3\. "What is something especially useful and insightful that I'm not already aware of, even if it's not counter-intuitive?"

4\. "What piece of new information would most challenge my preconceptions?"

5\. "What one fact tells me something useful about yourself?"

6\. "What's an interesting fact?"

7\. "What's some random thing you pulled out of a science fiction novel or magazine?"

8\. "What's something about yourself that I'd rather not have known, possibly leading me to throw up in my mouth a little?"

</comment><comment><USER3> I forget where I heard about it, but one PG liked a lot was this guy who wrote that he'd devised something algorithmic for wiping after dropping the kids off at the pool. It involved lotion and toilet paper, maybe someone else remembers better.

The conclusion I drew was that it really didn't matter what you put, it's not a loaded question. Just tell them something surprising or amusing to YOU, simple as that.

<comment><USER4> It wasn't one that I _liked_ , just one that was especially memorable.</comment></comment>


DNA Sequencing Costs: Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/DNA-Sequencing-Costs-Data <comment><USER2> Somewhat off-topic: Have the government sorted out universal legal protections (data storage, DNA storage limits, data and DNA destruction) for citizens DNA? Many moons ago, I had to fight the military on this topic, but I don't believe I should have had to.</comment>


Roubini's crypto critiques are nothing new, and they're worth taking seriously - <AUTHOR> https://www.chepicap.com/en/news/4400/roubini-s-critiques-are-nothing-new-and-they-re-worth-taking-seriously.html <comment><USER2> Roubini is risking significant social capital recently IMHO I believe calling bitcoin a 'scam' and the block chain ledger 'histories least useful technolog'</comment>