Should you code well or code fast? - <AUTHOR> http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/should-you-code-well-or-code-fast-121310118

<comment><USER2> This wasn't a very good essay. The closing line sums up its problem: "We need to complete quality work in the shortest amount of time possible." Why, yes, I would like a double helping of pablum! Thank you for offering. You know, before now, I thought it was best to complete quality work in the _longest_ time possible.

Sarcasm aside, the most telling line was this one: "If the project is for a three-month campaign that must be completed next week, the shortest path to the finish line is probably best. I've only been a developer for five years, and 95 per cent of my professional projects are [like that]."

This essay was written by a developer at BKWLD, an "independent digital agency." They do a lot of advertising work. Of _course_ code quality doesn't seem important! Code quality matters when you have a team of people developing and maintaining software over a long period.

Here's a more nuanced view: speed matters, and you can be really successful developing important, business-critical software by emphasizing speed over quality. If it's a problem domain you're particularly familiar with, especially if you have a lot of tools, frameworks, and libraries to help you, you can get an impressive amount of work done.

As you continue to work, you'll slow down. At some point—about six weeks is my guess—you'll actually be going slower than someone who's focused on quality. They'll speed up over time (asymptotically), and you'll continue to slow down (also asymptotically). You'll still be ahead of them, though, because you got so much done in that initial burst of energy. Your life will start to suck, though, and you'll be looking forward to when the project is done.

Eventually—about three to six months, I'd guess—you'll fall behind. You'll be going so slow that your initial advantage will have been erased. Luckily, you now get to hand the project off and start a new one. Win!

Three to seven years later, your code will be thrown away. It will be so expensive to change that it no longer makes economic sense to maintain. If it's still relevant, it will be rewritten at great expense and even greater opportunity cost.

So, does quality matter? Depends on who you ask... and who ends up paying for it.

<comment><USER3> "Code quality matters when you have a team of people developing and maintaining software over a long period."

And for me, 'a long period' is anything longer than a month, or more specifically, the time period it takes for me to have to change any code I've already written in order to deliver new business value to a customer.

...and just noticed your 'six weeks' estimate. We're on the same page here it seems. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think one of the problems is the language and metaphors we use to describe the quality of the code.

Words like 'clean', 'elegant', 'well-structured', even SOLID are qualities of objects we want to consider at a distance, like statues or paintings. They are words of repose and reflection. You know: business death.

Here's an example from this essay:

"There is a reason good code is considered to be a form of poetry. It's elegant, clean, easy to read, and fun to write. These are all exceptional qualities that we should strive for every single day."

Try telling a product manager or CEO or other stakeholder how 'clean', 'easy to read', or -- God forbid -- "fun!" your code is, and watch their eyes roll back in their head. (I exaggerate for effect.)

These ideas make sense to us as developers because that's what we spend our entire day doing: considering, reflecting and thinking about code. But I think what we should be talking about is the inherent _speed_ of the codebase. I'm not talking about my velocity as a developer, or the velocity of the team and how many story points they deliver per sprint, but the inherent velocity of the codebase as a function of its technical debt. Codebases, from a business standpoint, should not be "clean" or "dirty", but rather "fast" or "slow".

Technical debt should be surfaced to the stakeholders using language that conveys the dollar value, the fiscal liability, of technical debt. The most accurate way to describe that and show how debt is slowing your team down, is to talk about its inherent speed.

"Our codebase is getting slower" makes business sense to a Product Manager. "Refactoring this will make our codebase faster" is a phrase that conveys the worth of initiatives that otherwise seem to have no immediate effect on the bottom line.

All of the tools and agile methods we have talk about velocity in terms of what a team is delivering, and can parse that down to the sprint and developer level. But in my experience, the most significant contributor to a team's relative speed is the (intertia|speed|velocity|momentum) of the codebase itself, as a function of its technical debt. I think we need to start using language that intuitively and constantly surfaces the dollar value of technical debt to the stakeholders, so that "just ship it!" no longer sounds like a sound business strategy.

<comment><USER4> This is a great idea. Thanks for sharing.

It's definitely much easier to convince people when you're talking dollars rather than "beauty" or "maintainability" which are much more abstract concepts. This pushes that to the forefront.

I wonder if anyone has experience with trying to use this language that they can share. I'm curious because it seems like a great idea. But I wonder if it would solve the "just ship it!" mentality. I still feel like there may be a missing component which is that what might be fast to build now will slow down the overall development effort later on. I think that time gap is one of the big things that stakeholders fail to think about. They're thinking "what can we get out the door now?" and not further down to what impact that will have on getting other things out the door a few months from now.

Great post!

<comment><USER3> Yeah I'm trying to get my head into how this would come about. It would be along the lines of how agile thought leaders shifted the notion of 'man hours' to 'story points', or how we stopped measuring LOC as a feature of productivity.

But there would have to be some cultural and language support for an entire idea around _what_ a codebase is. The idea that it is an object that can _possess_ the property of velocity will take a bit of enculturation. But the software/agile community has done it before, so...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Slow is smooth and smooth is fast

<comment><USER6> Infinite upvote. A French word for fast is 'vite', from Latin visitus meaning to see; slow -> see -> fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Answer: learn to do it the right way and you'll end up coding faster.

<comment><USER8> I was thinking similar. The best (and deepest thinking) programmers that I know are also the fastest. They don't always work the most hours or seem the most harried (which doesn't bode well for places like Advertising which like to seem "Busy and Creative") but they can produce in 20 lines in a day what others produce in 500 lines in a week. They may not look as fast though. ("What? All day? Just 20 lines?")

<comment><USER9> I also notice that good design decisions can go a long way. I implemented a "shopping cart" type feature where users can select a set of samples they are working with. Initially it was just to compare ones which would have been paginated apart on the interface, and there would have probably been a quicker fix. But it has proved useful for many other features since then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When a question asks whether to do A or B, you know the answer is: "it depends"

Just use your brain, use your judgement on the result, make a decision, iterate.

<comment><USER11> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The best way to code fast is to code well.

When your code sucks or you intentionally code fast you end up adding tons of things that will drag you over and over again. And unavoidably you'll end up asking yourself "why didn't I code well. I would have ended up much faster".

</comment><comment><USER13> The best developers I know have the experience to know when each is required. Getting the right balance between speed and quality is one of the things I find hugely valuable in a developer, usually more so than their maximum coding speed or maximum output quality.

<comment><USER14> The best developers code well AND fast in my opinion.

<comment><USER13> When pushed to their limit, one of the two will drop first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I give some actual advice and suggestions on learning to become a faster programmer here: [http://deliberate-software.com/quality-is-future- speed/](http://deliberate-software.com/quality-is-future-speed/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think code visibility is more important (intention revealing). It allows you to move forward (with proper abstraction) while still provides a chance to refactor later. DRY and Boy Scout Rule should always be honoured.

</comment><comment><USER17> 'Release early, release often.' This suggests quick and dirty code is better than slow and mature code.

Though worse code benefits the most by having well-enough made Comments.

</comment><comment><USER18> My favorite pithy insight on this subject is from McConnel's code complete (mangled, most likely):

"Code is usually read more times than it is written."

</comment><comment><USER19> por que no los dos?

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes.</comment>


Removing Bad Actors on Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/removing-bad-actors-on-facebook/ <comment><USER2> It sure would be nice if Facebook would come out and clearly say that these bad actors are clearly non-partisan, and are simply trying to cause civil unrest in the US by agitating both sides of the political spectrum.

I'm sure these state actors are thrilled that their plan has gone so well -- not only are their agitations seemingly driving the population apart, but the wider politicization of the issue itself, fueled by the media, where people think the bad guys are acting to tip the scales in the favor of the opposition just plays further into the hands of these actors and does more to fracture our society than any of these stupid Facebook ad campaigns they're concocting ever could.

<comment><USER3> Could someone ELI5 why FB is in the business of policing any non-illegal speech at all? Political, partisan, foreign-made, domestic-made, poor taste humor, memes, etc. -- why not just keep all of it? It seems like a slippery slope if they turn to active moderation, and they have everything to lose by selectively choosing one or other side of some debate.

<comment><USER4> It's not a slippery slope at all. It's Facebook. The slope is made of rough grit sandpaper.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube et al. should go on outright banfests. There is no free speech argument to be made. None. Zero. These aren't government enterprises and getting banned from these sites for any reason really shouldn't matter. Facebook already enforces some weird moral code where a nipple gets you instantly banned, but when it comes to politics somehow it's a "free speech" argument and they don't want to take sides. It's 100% bullshit.

These companies need to grow up. If people don't like that they have been banned then they can start an alternative site or, you know, use the decentralized Internet the way it was designed. If we were talking about ICANN policing domains that would be a legitimate "slippery slope", but we aren't.

The only thing they really stand to lose by banning blatant conspiracy theory whack jobs and divisive hate speech is some ad revenue associated with that stuff, most of which is predatory anyway. Nipples? Not acceptable, banned. Fair use of media owned by a large company? Copyright strike, banned. Divisive conspiracy theories that promote hate? Free Speech! Selling literally snake oil? Free speech!

Americans LOVE to pretend like they are morally superior, but the moral code and values built into todays companies are completely bonkers. Free speech is constantly invoked when it doesn't even apply, and it's applied so inconsistently it doesn't even make sense.

Mark Zuckerberg should travel to Nidavellir and have the Dwarf King Eitri forge him a ban hammer the likes of which the Facebook has never seen.

<comment><USER5> I think this is a more nuanced topic than you're giving it credit for. While free speech does not classically apply to corporate enterprises like Facebook, as society shifts into the digital world the nature of communication itself shifts as well.

The 1700s and 1800s version of Twitter was standing in the street square, handing out pamphlets, and screaming your message. You were protected to say what you wanted to say via free speech. The 2018 version of that is online through tools like Twitter. By refusing to acknowledge this, we're actually experiencing a dramatic practical reduction in free speech rights without ever technically violating the Constitution.

It's really the ultimate loophole to the ultimate problem. Want to limit free speech? Simply remold society so that communication patterns across the entire nation change and become controlled by private corporations. Done.

A particularly dystopian and extreme imagining of this would involve the CEO of a company like Facebook running for President and controlling speech and news to an unprecedented extent in favor of his/her candidacy.

<comment><USER6> Hold up.

Somewhere between _" handing out pamphlets in Hyde Park"_ and Twitter there were plenty of _other_ shifts in communication patterns as well. There was a good 100 years or so where if you wanted to be heard you had to get your message into a newspaper, and then another 50 years where you also had the alternatives of TV and radio. All of these were controlled by corporate interests, and it's not like there was ever a right to have your Letter To The Editor published.

<comment><USER5> Pretty interesting point. One thing that pops out to me is scale, not just of output from these systems but also input into them.

For instance, newspaper, radio, and TV all reached unprecedented numbers of people, but they didn't bring the same scale to the number of folks contributing content. To use your Letter to the Editor example, a newspaper only has so much space, of which only a certain portion is allocated to displaying such letters. This means the vast majority of the country could never have their letter published just due to space limitations alone.

Modern social media like Twitter is notably different because it has scaled the input just as much as the output. Every consumer can now be a producer as well. The idea that _anyone_ can be a producer is very powerful and is what makes it feel more like a public space than, say, a newspaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Once again, we are seeing very skilled PR from Facebook.

Problem: Media have painted Facebook as an enabler of propaganda

Reality: There is so much activity on Facebook it is impossible to manage, even with the best AI tools available. There is likely next to nothing they can actually do to stop coordinated exploitation by highly skilled and intelligent state actors.

Solution: Make a hollow yet visible action to take steps in the right direction and use it as cover to make a public statement of values knowing that this action is fundamentally inconsequential and that the media and public will be temporarily fooled since most people don't understand the real situation.

<comment><USER8> They're hiring 10,000 full time moderators this year to help police this stuff. It's a serious attempt, and the cost of this on their projected earnings is why the stock crashed.

<comment><USER9> That is not why their stock crashed. You're spreading even more Facebook PR propaganda.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure that's what analysts are saying. The biggest cause was the drop in earnings and projected earnings due to increasing spend on security. It's not all the moderators but it's all part of the same push.

<comment><USER10> And on features that have lower potential for monetization, but higher user engagement like stories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have to say that this is essentially insignificant, they have only removed 32 pages where there are likely 100s of thousands of pages that are run by scammers. This is not something that can be solved without requiring every page that could be verified to have this be done.

Maybe a year back, I was contacted by a fraudster claiming to be affiliated with the FBI, they had a facebook page ([https://www.facebook.com/pages/FBI- of-Cambridge/161182553906...](https://www.facebook.com/pages/FBI-of- Cambridge/161182553906717)), which has still not been taken down even after my report saying what exactly this was.

Their response was "Thanks for your report - you did the right thing by letting us know about this. We looked over the Page you reported, and though it doesn't go against one of our specific Community Standards, we understand that the Page or something shared on it may still be offensive to you. We want to help you avoid things you don't want to see on Facebook."

<comment><USER12> Going after political subversion groups first seems like a great priority. If they are just now starting for real, they're starting in the right place.

<comment><USER11> Absolutely, but I think with the case of political subversion, it has a much less clear practical impact on their every day users. I could easily see an older person who isn't as technically inclined seeing that this FBI location has a facebook page and just assuming they are legitimate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, I know it's easy to slam FB, and I'm no fan of the company, BUT...this is a really hard problem. Whether they are just making an attempt for the sake of looking like they are making an attempt, or actually trying to solve the problem, the fact is, preventing an institution the size of a major nation government from manipulating the discourse on their platform, is difficult bordering on impossible. Like spam, we should try, but like spam, don't expect it to get solved any time soon.

<comment><USER14> > Like spam, we should try, but like spam, don't expect it to get solved any > time soon.

I don't understand. To me, spam was solved decades ago by Gmail with a simple Bayesian filter. I can still read the spam I receive if I look into the spam folder, so there is no censorship or moderation taking place. I can chose what is spam or not and it reduces noise in my inbox. Why not do the same on just everything else?

<comment><USER15> It's not about you. It's about messages other people are receiving about you.

For example, Alex Jones insisting that the parents of some murdered children are fakes has resulted in them receiving death threats offline: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/09/sandy- hook-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/09/sandy-hook- conspiracy-theorist-death-threats-prison)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> j-c-hewitt Coordinated attempts to influence elections? Are you sure you didn't mean to write "political campaigns"? Are you also implying that politicians aren't always authentic and honest when they go on campaign? Heavens to Betsy.

<comment><USER16> Those same people have zero issue with gerrymandering.

<comment> j-c-hewitt Is that making 10 million fake accounts that have the first name 'gerry'? I was born yesterday so a lot of these figures of speech are confusing to me.

<comment><USER17> Google is your friend.

In short: gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing voting district boundaries to ensure your victory in as many districts as possible.

<comment><USER18> You might consider looking up the word "sarcasm", while you're at it.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, I've checked it! If I understand it correctly, your comment is a poor attempt at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If they publish every time they remove "32 Pages and accounts":

1) that will be a lot of blog posts

2) it will take a rather long time to chew through the vast quantities of fake accounts and bad actors

<comment><USER20> > In total, more than 290,000 accounts followed at least one of these Pages, > the earliest of which was created in March 2017. The latest was created in > May 2018.

<comment><USER21> So 0.1% of Americans were affected by these updates? Seems like fb needs to take broader strokes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "inauthentic behavior" is an strange way to put it. propaganda, information warfare, disinformation, incitement, false flags, fake news ;)

<comment><USER23> Yeah, there exists perfectly good vocabulary words for naming this stuff.

Yet for some reason facebook has chosen to neutralize their language. I wonder why?

BTW Infowars is still up on facebook, right?

<comment><USER24> Maybe because inauthentic behaviour accurately describes all those different words in a single two work statement?

<comment><USER23> "Inauthentic behavior" is not intrinsically offensive by itself and could mean almost anything or nothing at all.

"Disinformation campaigns to induce people to vote against their own interests", that's more precise, much better. What? Are we trying to conserve words here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wait they published an entire blog post and held a press call to announce they "removed 32 Pages and accounts"? Seriously? 32? It's a start (and I'm glad to see they're laying down some precedent) but who needs fancy algorithms and machine learning to find 32 bad accounts? You could find that many by hand by spending a few hours on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER26> My entire life, I've seen ad campaigns (TV, radio, web, etc) from American politicians; ads which are projected to a wide audience, and which are neither shy nor subtle about bashing their opponents.

I'm curious, how would others describe the line between acceptable influence (American political ads) and unacceptable influence (Russian political ads).

To be clear, I'm not saying there is no line, I'm just curious to read peoples' description of the difference.

</comment><comment><USER27> This statement terrifies me:

> It's an arms race and we need to constantly improve too. It's why we're > investing heavily in more people and better technology to prevent bad actors > misusing Facebook

To me this sounds like "We need to make sure who is real, so we need more information for our AI algorithm; lets gather more data."

</comment><comment><USER28> > "coordinated inauthentic behavior"

Shouldn't they come out and say propaganda campaigns.

I still have questions about what they deem as acceptable and where they place hte line.

<comment><USER29> People can reasonably disagree on what constitutes propaganda, which is why I like the language that they are using here.

Coordinated inauthentic behavior -- multiple account purporting to be unrelated acting in tandem. Regardless of where you land on the magnitude of election interference vs. information warfare, and state actors vs. trolls vs. hacker collectives, this behavior, using sock puppets to create the impression that information is coming from multiple independent sources, is worth exposing.

<comment><USER28> > People can reasonably disagree on what constitutes propaganda, which is why > I like the language that they are using here.

However in this case they're using alternative language to manipulate the reader that their judgement is correct.

<comment><USER29> I'm way more willing to accept this policy than I would a policy, say, of 32 accounts that have been "issuing propaganda" or "spreading lies" or "failing fact checks" or "interfering with an election" or "saying offensive things".

Each of those other heuristics sound horrifyingly Orwellian.

The judgments involved in enforcing this policy seem way easier to apply without excluding individuals with genuine opinions that they wish to voice to their friends or followers on the platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Amusing that the organizing principles of our society are so waekend as to be broken by bad-intentioned memes

</comment><comment><USER8> This is awesome. I'm glad Facebook is getting more involved in moderating astroturfed stuff.

</comment><comment><USER31> The problem here is personalized political advertising. This is dangerous. Political advertising should be general so every citizen has the same messaging.

So rather than look for bad actors a cleaner solution is to disable personalized political ads, but that will affect revenue.

There is no way you can ban or even demonize activism and dissent without back-pedalling on nearly every democratic ideal. It's not a matter of slippery slopes, its bad actors manufacturing crisis to demonize dissent.

</comment><comment><USER32> TBH, I don't think Facebook can prevent "coordinated inauthentic behavior," as they're calling it.

The only solution is for users to be more aware of who they're online "friends" are, and to be aware that they can't trust everything they read online.

In a way it's funny this problem snuck up on them like this. They make money by social engineering people to buy stuff. It should be a no-brainer that the exact same techniques can be used for other purposes.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if Facebook will move towards even more 'real world ID' \- not only to prevent these types of attacks from fake people - but because it might provide additional revenue lift. Or maybe wouldn't add much revenue value, their real human targeting is pretty great already.

</comment><comment><USER34> Any evidence of bad actors on HN comment threads? Why would attacks be limited to FB?

<comment><USER35> Return on investment I'd guess. HN is hardly a pipeline into the hearts and minds of the average US citizen. Facebook is practically the collective unconscious of our country, as disgusting as that sounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> What is the recall of these efforts, that is, what % of the "true bad actors" are they actually catching? My gut is that it's a whack-a-mole problem and it's not getting better.

</comment><comment><USER37> the federal government should send real intelligence officials to police this effort at this point. isn't this literally what the national security letters were for?

and don't get started on that slippery slope stuff, we are deeeeep in the mariana's trench with regard to NSL and what the intelligence community does to private companies.

<comment><USER38> The Federal Government should not be in the business of censorship.

<comment><USER37> if thats the line for you, then they don't need to do that, they need to be there in real time helping Facebook investigate where these users are coming from, instead of getting reports later after the Facebook security team says they're behind 7 proxies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> All flagged comments here should be unflagged.

</comment><comment><USER40> If you're skimming this, as I was, and seem confused -- IRA in this article is not the Irish Replubican Army...

> Russian-based Internet Research Agency (IRA)

<comment><USER41> "But security is not something that's ever done." I initially read this as "Security is something that nobody ever does."

Not to be pedantic, but "finished" would have been less ambiguous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Facebook themselves are a bad actor.

<comment><USER43> This is something that's been in the noggin for a while, kind of like a bottle of some spice that sits in the back of your kitchen cabinet; you know it's there, but never really use it or even touch it-but you always remind yourself to seek out recipes where it may have some flavor value but otherwise you never use it.

"Facebook themselves are a bad actor" is the comment that jiggled the mind- cabinet enough for that spice bottle to fall off the rack and into full view.

That's the head space I'm in when I ask this question. So with that Caveat Lector out of the way:

Am I out of line in thinking Facebook kind of opened the doors for this by aggressively "graphing" social connections and going full speed at turning relationships into algorithms and then giving everyone and their mama the tools to sculpt all of this data however they please? And that they're probably getting off way too easy?

Last night I said to a friend with much sincerity: I miss the days of MySpace and LiveJournal where I could collect all of my friends into one online space, my own little corner of the internet and interact with them on _my_ terms. No nudges to participate in a post, no prompts to go look at what someone else is doing, no suggestions I go buy what my friend just bought and shared simply because "it's my friend". It existed, we were there, and we didn't need MySpace's help to interact with each other. Of course, that was a different Internet where everyone wasn't trying to analyze and monetize your every click and keystroke.

Just kind of thinking out loud. But curious what others think.

<comment><USER44> The book "Trust me, I'm Lying" was eye opening to me - it described intrinsic human behaviors that has made FB into such a devastating agent (genocides in Burma, attacks on democracy, etc.) Helped me kill my FB account quickly.

<comment><USER43> Thanks for the recommendation, I will look it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> "On November 8th of 2016, half the country learned that everything they believed to be both true and obvious turned out to be wrong. The people who thought Trump had no chance of winning were under the impression they were smart people who understood their country, and politics, and how things work in general. When Trump won, they learned they were wrong. They were so very wrong that they reflexively (because this is how all brains work) rewrote the scripts they were seeing in their minds until it all made sense again. The wrong-about-everything crowd decided that the only way their world made sense, with their egos intact, is that either the Russians helped Trump win or there are far more racists in the country than they imagined, and he is their king. Those were the seeds of the two mass hysterias we witness today.

Trump supporters experienced no trigger event for cognitive dissonance when Trump won. Their worldview was confirmed by observed events."

Facebook is a convenient collateral damage victim the Traditional Media is willing to make to further their narrative. It continues to fuel the cognitive dissonance for 50% of the country.

<comment><USER46> We detached this generic political tangent from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17654791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17654791).

<comment><USER47> Cornfielding good discussion looks terrible on you HN. Please stop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Lets get over this bad app called facebook, its actually not that relevant

<comment><USER49> Relevant enough for you to type 10 words....

<comment><USER48> hmmm...I guess so, 13 words?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> If they control content, they are publishers, not platforms, and that changes how they are taxed and how they are regulated.

If they want to be treated like platforms with the power of publishers, that's not going to fly.

</comment><comment><USER51> I wonder what FB would do if they had bought more than $11000 measly dollars in ads?

All of these examples are identical in form to content that is otherwise plastered all over Facebook and Instagram. Especially Instagram; that's basically all shitposting and memes still over there, like Facebook was in its youth.

<comment><USER16> They would have gladly accepted the money and turned the other way. 11k is rookie numbers. I'm sure they'll spend more tomorrow on the new page they spin up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Why is Zuck's account still active then?

</comment><comment><USER53> So the Russian bots are posting left-wing content? How does that work?

EDIT: Looking for clarification, here. Not sure why I'm being downvoted.

<comment><USER54> If the sources I read were itself not fake, the idea is that they simply try to increase the gap between left and right. Decrease mutual understanding, prevent dialog between sides, increase mistrust.

I'm not entirely sure how that can benefit the Russian government though. But hey, I have no idea what their end game is. I'm sure someone here has ideas.

<comment><USER55> Foundations of Geopolitics by Durgin lays out the groundwork for Russia's current western strategy. Putin's been implementing it word for word.

<comment><USER56> Interesting to note that Amazon seems to have removed this book [https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Geopolitics- Geopolitical-...](https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Geopolitics-Geopolitical- English-Translation/dp/1521994269)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Pointlessness of banning a mere 32 pages aside, their stock is up 1% today so they'll box it up as a win internally.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is interesting, but it's not clear from the article what the groups in question were actually doing - they don't seem to be directly connected to the republican party or Russia.

<comment><USER16> Obviously Facebook wasn't making enough revenue from these accounts / page(s) to turn a blind eye.

Give Facebook $100k and they'll allow you to upend a democracy.

<comment><USER8> The thing is, the ad spend of the bad actors during the election was basically inconsequential. But the organic reach was huge since inflammatory fake stuff spreads easily, especially if you pay 100s of people controlling individual accounts to boost it.

<comment><USER16> $100k versus 5 billion dollars spent by the presidential campaigns. Why are these people working for the IRA? Wouldn't they make billions in marketing anything other than political division?

[https://www.economist.com/graphic- detail/2016/03/07/the-2016...](https://www.economist.com/graphic- detail/2016/03/07/the-2016-presidential-money-race)

<comment><USER8> Like I just said, it's specifically not about the ads. It's about the farm of fake content creators. They don't work for anyone else because it's state supported and also not particularly skilled, just no real companies would do that kind of astroturfing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> A quick thought: There is one actor on Facebook that Facebook can never -- indeed, will never -- consider removing... regardless of how bad or horrendous the community considers the behavior of that actor. That actor is of course Facebook itself.

</comment><comment><USER60> If I removed bad actors on Facebook I would lose half of the friends I met doing improv comedy.

<comment><USER61> Are you here until Friday?

<comment><USER60> No, but I have a show every Tuesday. For the love of God, please come out. Admission is $2.

<comment><USER62> One annoying thing about the people who run and use this site: they don't like comedy and especially, good puns.

Try SlashDot.

<comment><USER60> My services are very highly valued on reddit and I have the comment karma to prove it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> We are witnessing very dangerous times. Groupthink is real now. If you disagree with a new story you can simply claim it's "fake news". Getting doxxed is a real possibility. The 4th estate is no longer to be trusted. "May you live in interesting times" is no longer just a fortune in a cookie...

<comment><USER43> _If you disagree with a new story you can simply claim it's "fake news"._

Wonder if this is an entirely new phenomenon, or if with Trump we just got some new, and easy to prescribe nomenclature for this phenomenon you describe.

Edit: is there something objectionable about what either myself or the person I replied to said, if so I welcome a discussion on it. There's a LOT of downvote activity happening in this thread over completely reasonable arguments that are worth _discussing_ here.

<comment><USER63> It's funny, the downvote wars going on, I've lost karma for a comment that's innocuous. Just comes to show the world we live in where solipsism is pandemic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> All this sounds great until legitimate political orgs get blacklisted because someone at FB thinks they're astroturfing

Regardless of who actually created the event, I can imagine that posting a removal notice of a political event is going to trigger the conspiracy nuts and aggravate distrust against FB</comment>


Apple Updates iMac - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/09/24Apple-Updates-iMac.html <comment><USER2> I own and love my 27inch iMac. It exemplifies the quote from Apple's senior vice president:

 _"iMac continues to be the example that proves how beautiful, fast and fun a desktop computer can be," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "_

But as someone that doesn't like to mess with hardware too often, I am very disappointed at how difficult it is to change a simple hard drive on this machine, and that they don't figure out how to make it easier. My computer is beautiful, but I have to suction off the glass display to change the hard drive.

The other day I upgraded my PS3 to an ssd with almost zero knowledge of what I was doing. There was a tab, a screw, and a lever. Unplug tab, unscrew screw, pull lever, replace hard drive. Took < 5 minutes.

I understand aesthetic beautiful designs, but something about the way inside my iMac makes me feel like its a big design flaw. I knew what I was getting into when I bought this computer, but I was hoping in the future, updates to the iMac would make it much easier.

I guess in the end, the beauty of the design is in the eye of the beholder. Tough to make everyone happy...

<comment><USER3> Who still upgrades their own machine?

I like to tinker with hardware a little, which is why every 3 years or so I put my own home server together even though I could probably buy a cheaper ready-made solution.

In the days of my old Apple Powerbook I've pretty much replaced everything from memory, harddisk to optical drive, even though the latter definitely wasn't made to be upgraded by end-uses.

But in the last 10 years I've never had to upgrade any hardware, not even the stuff I've put together myself. The days where upgrading was a natural part of the lifecycle of a computer are in the past.

Storage and memory has become cheaper so computers are well equipped from the start, and the need for rapid upgrades in order to be able to use the latest software is no longer an issue except in very small niches.

<comment><USER4> > _Who still upgrades their own machine?_

Hardware enthusiasts? PC gamers? Really, what a silly question on a tech oriented website. That's like asking who works on their car over at Jalopnik.

<comment><USER3> Personal computers aren't interesting "tech" anymore, they are commodity consumer products which most of us discard after a few years.

Tinkering with your own PC is rapidly becoming a niche similar to model trains. (Or working on your own car, also completely unnecessary and doesn't yield any new insights or advances.)

It's not about tech and curiosity anymore, just another hobby. And as such, you'll never see discussions about it on HN, there are other forums for such hobbyists.

<comment><USER5> I don't know what you think HN is for, but -- and maybe I'm completely wrong on this -- hacking computers is surely part of it. We also discuss every day computing as well, of course, but not exclusively. _That_ would be silly and uninteresting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm mostly disappointed in how poor the Win32-based hardware vendors are at following Apple's lead. Apple is narrowing the cost gap in their hardware, and their quality is still leaps and bounds ahead of the competitors.

If I want to buy a solid all-in-one device with a minimally usable on-board videocard so I could fire up the occasional game (not a hardcore gaming rig but keeping lighter fare an option) then the competitors are quite close to Apple in cost.

It's the same in laptops - while geeks argue about performance, Apple's devices have build-quality that blows everything else out of the water. If you start looking at similarly-constructed competitors, Apple's prices don't seem crazy at all.

<comment><USER7> The Chromebook Pixel has better hardware features than the MacBook line. (The touchscreen and LTE are both fantastic options.) But, pricewise, it's not far off from Apple's either.

<comment><USER8> It has a really poor harddrive (32GB) - I realize it's not meant to be used offline, but the world is not yet fully online.

Also, what system is it running? For me, one of the main advantages of owning a mac is the OS - nice, slick, fast, *NIX (hence good for developers), without all the configuration hassle of Linux.

<comment><USER9> Interesting how you call OS X UNIX, as opposed to Linux.

<comment><USER10> If by "interesting", you mean "accurate"

<comment><USER9> By "interesting" I mean a BSD veneer over a Mach core is only marginally better UNIX compatibility than Windows Services for UNIX (also POSIX certified). Did you know you can call Mach directly to override basically all the UNIX emulation, including access permissions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Command+F -> "Retina" -> 0 of 0 ಠ╭╮ಠ

<comment><USER12> I'm hoping for a timeline of:

Winter 2013: Mac Pro for sale, announced together with 30" 4K retina display

Spring 2014: MacBook Pro Retina updated to support 4K output

Fall 2014: High end iMac gets retina option

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very "quiet" update. I hope this means, that Apple will have too much other stuff to show off at their October event (expected to be announced soon).

<comment><USER14> Here's hoping. I've been waiting for a Retina Macbook Pro for about 8 months now.

<comment><USER15> Do you mean MacBook Air? The Pros have been retina for a while :)

<comment><USER16> MBPR refresh probably. I'm in the same boat :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I ordered an iMac three days ago, it has not been shipped. Is there any change that I will get an updated model?

(No, I do of course not demand an updated model for me, I am happy if I get what I ordered and paid.)

<comment><USER16> You have 14 days to return an apple product, opened or unopened, no questions asked. They will definitely upgrade your device to the latest model if you bring it in, done it for a macbook laptop before.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, good to know!

(I actually checked on the local Apple website if you are correct since my home country is not known for being consumer friendly. In this case, however, it is Apple being consumer friendly …)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Somewhat related: Anyone know if they're going updating the displays soon?

I'm about to buy a 27" Thunderbolt display, but I don't wanna drop £900 on a screen only for a better one to be released one month later...

<comment><USER19> Depends on what feature you are looking for.

For laptop users, the displays still require you to use a dongle for Magsafe2. I consider this unacceptable.

If you are waiting for a Retina screen, you're screwed. IMO this soft launch indicates no Retina iMac is forthcoming in the near future.

<comment><USER18> I've got a late 2011 (non-retina) MBP, so old style magsafe connector suits me. There's been a lot of hints at a 4k screen to match the new Mac Pro.

Not looking for any features in particular, I've just got a bad habbit of buying something just before it gets updated :s

<comment><USER20> Could you please buy it now?

<comment><USER18> Care to elaborate?

Edit: no wait, just got it! I'm having a slow day today :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There is yet a solid date on 10.9 release (sometime in October?) and Apple is updating the iMac line. From the article it says they are shipping with Mountain Lion - I hope that the machines that ship have a free upgrade path to 10.9 because I would hate to have to put out another $20.

<comment><USER22> > I hope that the machines that ship have a free upgrade path to 10.9

They will, Apple takes care of that via their Up-to-Date program.

When Mountain Lion was announced Apple gave free upgrades for people who bought a computer in the 45 days preceding the release: [http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/25/apples-os-x-mountain- lio...](http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/25/apples-os-x-mountain-lion-up-to- date-program-experiencing-early-hiccups/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It is me, or is Haswell taking a very long time to become available everywhere? The Haswell Mac Air came out 3 months ago, (June 10th), but you still can't get it in a MBP or a Thinkpad, and can only now get it in an iMac.

<comment><USER24> Haswell is more different than ivy bridge. More changes, more verification. Apple and thinkpad lines are also the slowest updating, IMO. They keep existing models around for a lot longer than the two weeks it seems acer or asus do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It might be wiser to wait until Mavericks is shipped.

<comment><USER26> See above, Apple usually gives free upgrade to people who bought a computer in the 45 days preceding the release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> as was known when these new thin models launched, always wait for the second iteration. They are significantly better performance wise.

<comment><USER28> _... always wait for the second iteration. They are significantly better performance wise._

In fairness, you could give the same advice about practically any technology purchase one will ever make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love how those iMac can run windows. the hardware is nice, and it runs windows, since laptop PC hardware is not that good.

</comment><comment><USER30> They make it hard to upgrade because they want you to bring it in and get it done = added revenue.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is Apple getting gunshy about iterative releases? Back in Steve's day this would have been tacked on to at least the launch of something like the new Mac Pro.

<comment><USER31> That's quite a selective "Back in Steve's day" memory. A lot of spec bumps like this one for Macs and Macbooks happened exactly through press releases like these.

<comment><USER32> >> That's quite a selective "Back in Steve's day" memory.

Is there any other kind?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Oh you Apple. You sneaky bastards. I still love you though...</comment>


Sell your product with fake screenshots - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-circle/browse_thread/thread/90c344816e4f1cd6?hl=en&pli=1 <comment><USER2> Personally I think it would be crazy not to start with putting fake screenshots in front of users to get feedback before you invest development time and energy on what is likely to be the wrong thing. Iterations with a graphic designer are a lot cheaper than iterations with a development team, and are nearly as effective for identifying large usability issues.

The trouble with user feedback normally is that people can't get a sense for how it would work unless they can see it. Sure you can make them put it in writing, but if they haven't seen it they almost surely asked for the wrong thing. So you really need to get them something they can see before you get useful feedback. And you want to do that in the fastest way possible. (Albeit while generally making it clear that actually getting it will take time.)

<comment><USER3> It makes sense to show potential customers pre-development screenshot mockups but I find it mildly sleazy to deliberately lead them to believe that these are screenshots of an actual working system.

<comment><USER4> Yes you'd at least want to tone down the language and call it a prototype, or a work-in-progress.

<comment><USER3> Right, it isn't good business practice to start out a new potential contract with dishonesty on your part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's surprising to me that in that entire thread, not one person expressed any misgivings about the fact that the author actively deceived his/her customers (indeed practically brags about having done so). This despite the fact that the OP added:

 _There has been a lot of discussion about what the anonymous poster did right. How about some things that he/she could have done better?_

I just joined the group to post that surely he/she could have done better by not lying. But the thread is old and there was no Reply link, which is just as well: it would have been rude to butt in like that.

I've been vaguely aware of this group for a while. I've read several of Eric Ries' posts, I have Steve Blank's book, and I like Steve Blank's blog a lot. The ideas of customer development make a lot of sense. But the above makes me think there's something wrong with this community. I'd rather surround myself with people whose first reaction to something like that is WTF.

Edit: Obviously if the message to the customer had been, "these are just mockups as we figure out what you need," there would be no ethical objection. That's part of what I can't understand. What would have been the problem with just telling the truth?

<comment><USER6> OP did tell the truth. Your interpretation adds judgment.

The relevant facts to the listener (prospective customer) are:

\- "This is a picture of software to buy"

\- "This software to buy will solve your problems."

Here is what you added:

\- "These are just..." we ourselves do not believe that this software to buy is valuable despite we are here to convince you that this is software to buy is valuable

\- "figure out..." we ourselves do not believe that this software to buy will solve your problems despite that we are here to convince you that this software to buy will solve your problems

<comment><USER7> Deciding which facts are "relevant" to the customer is a pretty dicey proposition: why do you assume that the fact that no code has been written is irrelevant to the customer? Just because the sales guy wants it to be irrelevant doesn't mean that the customer shouldn't have the right to make their decisions based on the actual facts, rather than what's convenient for the seller.

<comment><USER8> No, if the facts are important to the prospect, the prospect asks about them. I didn't read anything in this post about them supplying false answers to direct questions.

You are not obligated to provide SEC disclosures along with your pitches. I do that, and it's a horrible habit and something I've been trying hard to break. It communicates nervousness and lack of confidence.

Again: you can't just make stuff up. If the prospect asks, "how much of this stuff actually works", you need to be clear --- "we're still in the design phase". But if the prospect doesn't ask, the prospect doesn't care, and you let it go.

<comment><USER7> Fair enough; you're not obligated to disclose everything up front if they don't ask. But that's a world different from making a deliberately misleading statement.

If someone says "We're actively developing this" I'm not going to just assume I'm being mislead and say, "Sure, but do you have code?" The statement implies an answer to the question, so I'll feel like I already have an answer to the question, and I'd be wrong.

So no, it's not a direct answer to a question, but it's meant to imply an answer to the question so people don't ask anything further. Deliberately attempting to mislead people is just as bad as outright lying in my book, and I can't see the way that statement is worded as anything less than an attempt to mislead the potential customer.

<comment><USER8> Change the words "actively developing this" to "actively designing this". Can we stop debating it now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So much good stuff in this article:

1\. You're not your customer/user

2\. Identify the minimum viable product

3\. Incur technical debt wisely

4\. Get feedback early and often

Pursuing angel financing with those signed LOIs is a completely different ballgame from showing up with an idea, or even working code.

<comment><USER10> Except the LOIs in this case are utterly meaningless. I've been on the customer side of LOIs that were signed on request, knowing that it obligated us to nothing.

<comment><USER9> They just mean you have a sales pipeline, nothing more.

Imagine you're an investor. Two guys with ideas of similar merit come in front of you. One has three signed (and admittedly meaningless) LOIs from potential customers and knows what to build. One has a prototype but is really unsure of the marketplace.

The investors I know pick the LOI guys every time, all other things being equal. It's the execution side of the "ideas vs execution" debate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Starting with prototypes and mockups? Great idea. Definitely the only way to go. Deliberately misleading customers into thinking those are actual screenshots instead of mockups? Ugh.

Part of the reason it's so hard to sell software is that so many people have historically sold vaporware, which makes life harder for those of us that go out of our way to be honest with customers about what's implemented, what's a mockup, what's planned, and what's promised. Customers don't trust us because they've been screwed over by decades of shady sales guys.

Please, let's not contribute to the horrible, shameful record of software companies lying to customers in order to get sales. (And yes, I personally count "deliberately misleading" and "outright lying" as approximately the same thing: if lying about X is unethical, so is deliberately misleading someone about X.)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is possibly the sleaziest way to describe what most people would describe as a great paper prototyping session. Everyone should be doing this, it's super easy, you don't even need to photoshop anything, just draw out your interface on paper or use balsamiq.

Would have anything changed if he hadn't been shady about it? No, except he wouldn't have come off soundingly like a d-bag.

<comment><USER4> I love Balsamiq. Demo of it here: <http://www.balsamiq.com/demos/mockups/Mockups.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "BUT it definitely does NOT have the super-duper-hyper-ultra-cool Web 2.0 spit and polish about it because we haven't been able to find a good, dependable designer who works at reasonable rates."

Couldn't he have just said: "But it doesn't look good because we can't afford a good designer."

</comment><comment><USER13> I have started working on something similar. I have 3-4 ideas of apps I would like to do. I figure it would be far easier and way cheaper to launch landing pages for each, with mocked up "screenshots" of the apps. I plan to include on each of the apps a form to provide your email address in exchange for an invite. Then, I would do some simple SEO and word-of-mouth marketing and see what kind of response rates I would get back through this form. I figure in the end, this would help identify which application has the lowest barrier to adoption (e.g. easier discoverability, more user interest).

</comment><comment><USER9> A lot of commentary about whether this is lying/unethical.

Have you ever played poker?

Salient quote:

 _we told our potential customers that we were actively developing our web app (implying that code was being written) and wanted to get potential user input into the dev process early on._

Does paper prototyping fall inside of your dev process or outside of it? It's definitely inside mine.

If you bet on every round of poker based solely on the cards in your hand, you'll lose.

</comment><comment><USER14> _...he had spent the last 6 months in a cave writing a monster, feature-rich web app for the financial sector that a potential client had promised to buy, but backed out at the last second_

Wait a minute, because one of you got burnt and lost 6 months of work, now you won't do _any_ work? With today's technology, I have to think there's a good middle ground between 6 months of dev work and paper prototype only.

If I was one of your prospects, I would never sign a letter of intent based on drawings only. I'd make you come back later with something, anything I could play with for 2 reasons:

1\. I'd want to see that you can actually produce _something,_ no matter how limited.

2\. There's a _huge_ difference between playing with something and talking about something. We'd arrive at a real functional requirement much faster with a working model. Anything less is just waterfall analysis and design, and we already know how well that works.

Come back when you have something real to show. Until then you're no different from any other poser.

</comment><comment><USER15> Very good example of the minimum viable product. It's the right approach (minus the lying). VentureHacks had a really good coverage of the topic at <http://venturehacks.com/articles/minimum-viable-product>

</comment><comment><USER16> Don't most industries work with prototypes? As long as no lying is involved it seems okay.

Besides, most of the projects I've worked on don't actually begin until after the first delivery (when the customer finally looks at the software and starts deciding what they _really_ want!).

<comment><USER14> _Don't most industries work with prototypes?_

A screen shot != a prototype

A prototype = code that runs

<comment><USER17> yeah!

 _echo "there are data from our distributed, fault-tolerant cloud-based backend"; # TODO: Insert actual code here._

is much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Like some of you, I disagree with the idea of propping up stuff for the purpose of making your prospects believe that you're up to something helpful. I call it "the feel good factor" entrepreneurship is supposed to be hard work nothing simple.

Like the guy who used markups in the 90's, I come from the school that seeks a point of pain and then start working your way into solutions.

I learned this from the advertising agencies where I worked a few years ago. Client came in with a problem, specified the problem and the particular need for a solution and wrote this out in something called "a creative brief" we took this info, worked our way into sketches, prototypes and then convinced the client that we had a solution.

Convincing the client meant conducting independent customer research and validation.

Lots of iterations where done but at no point did we push, shove or even seek to misled clients for the sake of validating our ideas without hard work done.

I like customer validation. I use it everyday. But I want to do my research and some hard work and then let the customer guide my way. Real MVP and real customers and then we can do all the supper stuff. But you have to be willing to do the hard work and the phony part makes me uncomfortable.

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome case study. Totally what we did with our new pivot (same market B2C Customers - Saas), that is now in the works (didn't do this first time around, and paid for it). Only difference, we told the customer that these were just high fidelity screen mockups for the product we will eventually be building.

Get your screens in front of customers before you ever code. It is mind BLOWING!

Wonder how well this would work for consumer web... thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER20> I love the line about how they can't find a designer who can follow directions. Ah, creatives.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is this unethical?

<comment><USER22> Is selling any unrealized concept unethical? Is pitching you an idea for a company in trade for your money wrong?

I think it becomes unethical when you begin lying: "Production of the app is coming along nicely! Here are a few more screenshots from development this week."

So the question might be more accurately: do you position this so you don't have to lie to a potential customer, but have them assume it exists? Is that positioning unethical? What do you say if they ask you point blank?

<comment><USER23> _Is selling any unrealized concept unethical?_

Of course not, if you disclose that it's unrealized.

 _Is pitching you an idea for a company in trade for your money wrong?_

Of course not, if you disclose that it's an idea.

 _I think it becomes unethical when you begin lying_

Which they were doing. They have your example of what would cross the line almost verbatim: "Each time we would come back with a few more 'screenshots' and tell them that development was progressing nicely and ask them for more input."

 _How do you position this so you don't have to lie to a potential customer, but have them assume it exists?_

You don't. Creating the impression it exists when it doesn't is the unethical part. Why not just be up front with your customer and win them over with your design, insight, and ability to turn around real prototypes?

<comment><USER24> A good set of evolving screenshots _is_ nice progress in development.

With just a little other investigational programming on the side, everything in their presentations would have been truthful, to the level of detail that a customer cares about.

<comment><USER23> _A good set of evolving screenshots is nice progress in development._

It is, but that's not what they were referring to.

 _With just a little other investigational programming on the side, everything in their presentations would have been truthful, to the level of detail that a customer cares about._

Which is a big reason why I think it's unforgivable that they chose to lie instead. They crossed a brightline in their relationship with their customer without any real benefit from doing so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think they would be better off to have tried to charge __something __, rather than give it away.

It's important to validate the pricing and business model -- and you can only do that by selling it (charging for it).

But, a good read.

</comment><comment><USER26> _"we haven't been able to find a good, dependable designer who works at reasonable rates"_

I found this to be a really tough part of my project as well.. Good designers are often really hard to find and charge a shitload..

</comment><comment><USER27> This is very interesting when working with B2B style consulting, but the real trick is to apply these MVP practices to the creation of entire new B2C markets.

</comment><comment><USER28> It was almost Microsofts story at the beginning.</comment>


If Satoshi Nakamoto has over 1,000,000 BTC, why doesn't he just sell it now? - <AUTHOR> Even if he asked for a stupid $500 per 1 BTC, that'd still be a $500,000,000 payday. <comment><USER2> Occam's Razor:

For some reason he can't sell them. We just don't know what those reasons are.

Lots of people can speculate, but the reality is that we don't know.

The ones I've heard mentioned are:

1\. He is dead

2\. He cannot sell them without risking his anonymity

3\. He lost them (machine crash / re-install)

4\. He treated the early mined coins as test data and deleted them

5\. If Satoshi starts dumping, then the market will definitely crash. If the public believe that Satoshi has lost faith in BTC then everyone is going to want to sell too. It is like putting a gun to the head of his own child and pulling the trigger.

Whether or not he really has 1,000,000 BTC is also debatable I believe. Often people quote this figure as the bulk of the early coins that were mined, and make the assumption that Satoshi was the only one mining. Nobody really knows which addresses Satoshi really owns. It is all "educated" guesswork.

</comment><comment><USER3> You could only sell it if someone was willing to buy it all-- there's no exchange that would buy $500,000,000 or more worth of Bitcoin at once.

Alternatively, he could slowly sell it off over time, but there's no way anyone could sell that much at once. Of course, he very well could be slowly selling it off right now.

</comment><comment><USER4> Because then his system would crash.

His bitcoins are currently something like gold backing USD at the moment. If he sells his bitcoins now, the entire market will going to fail, because people will loose faith.

He could just sell 100 bitcoins from time to time and still earn a lot of money from it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think it might be because satoshi cares more about changing the world than he/she does about cashing out - doing so before bitcoin has a stronger/stabler adoption might ruin the whole thing. My guess is satoshi's already making decent money somewhere being smart and is just sitting back with a smile watching the whole thing take off

</comment><comment><USER6> Or really, Satoshi's laptop died and he couldn't be bothered anymore about Bitcoin

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be easy to sell 1,000,000 BTC without anyone noticing. It's only 100 BTC per minute for a week.

<comment><USER8> The combined 30 day volume of the five exchanges on the homepage of [http://bitcoincharts.com/](http://bitcoincharts.com/) is about 140 bitcoins per minute. Adding 100 per minute all on the sell side would be a 70% increase in volume, and there would not be a corresponding buy interest added until the price of bitcoin fell considerably. This would reduce the value of the bitcoins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because those coins are all worth a million dollars each -- what fool would sell them for $700?

<comment><USER10> A fool who realizes no one's going to pay what they're "worth"?

<comment><USER9> The price of Bitcoin in January was $13 -- no one was willing to pay more than $20 for a Bitcoin back then.

But BTC is trading for over $900 now... and plenty of people are paying.

What you do not understand is that Bitcoin is a new technology, that gives us capabilities that we never had before. Just like other powerful new technologies, it will slowly eat its way through every aspect of society until it has changed the world and everyone's life.

The same as happened with electricity, with the computer, with the Internet itself.

If you want to know where Bitcoin is going, take a look at the adoptions of other important technologies:

[http://www.uversity.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/Comm...](http://www.uversity.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/Communication-Technology-Adoption-Peter-Leyden.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> maybe he doesn't need/want the money in a "bona-fide" currency?</comment>


In wake of riots, British PM proposes social media ban - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/08/11/london.riots.social.media/index.html <comment><USER2> > when people are using social media for violence, we need to stop them.

Is this the same Cameron who criticized Libya when they shut off the Internet against what, in their view, were violent protesters?

<comment><USER3> They seem like different issues. I don't think the Libyan protestors were looting, burning, attacking & robbing bystanders... In other words, in Libya they had protestors, in the UK they have rioters and mobs. I could have the wrong impression; I live in neither Libya nor the UK.

There were also accusations that Libya shut off the internet to mask actions of their armed forces against the protestors. Once again, seems like a different beast.

<comment><USER4> But the fear is that given that power, the government will be able to make subjective calls on situations they deem important enough to intervene. There is definitely a line between justified Libyan protests and the violent riots here, but where does that line fall? Do you trust the government to make that call today and (once it's law) forever into the future?

It's a tough question, I know I don't know the answer.

<comment><USER3> Fear indeed! I am quite surprised at the vehemence with which my speculation is being quashed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's sad how the British government is responding compared to Norway.

Norway: First) Provides support to anyone who needs it. Problem) Mentally unstable bomber/shooter. Solution) We'll continue supporting. Security will get reviewed but not that necessary to implement new laws.

Britain: First) Cut back support for bringing up people. Problem) Surprised people riot. Solution) Slam down authoritative fist. So far; 1) Increase police from 20,000 to 26,000. 2) Consider restricting internet further (This). They believe the cure is apparently better than the vaccine, better parenting and government assistance.

<comment><USER6> I don't think censoring social media is a good idea or even remotely helpful, but these comparisons are beyond ridiculous. The Norwegian attacks were carried out by one person who is already in custody. The British riots arise out of amorphous groups of thousands of individuals who are still at large. They're completely, utterly different.

<comment><USER5> It wasn't a comparison of problems, it was a comparison of solutions to serious problems.

Nurturing vs authoritarian.

<comment><USER6> Different serious problems require different serious solutions. The comparison to Norway isn't useful.

<comment><USER7> I agree it's not a fair comparison, but I think it's an interesting thought experiment nonetheless. How do you think Norway would have reacted if a situation similar to the UK riots occurred in Norway? Implement more laws and add police, or look deeper to the root causes?

<comment><USER8> It really isn't an interesting exercise. It's comparing one bombing by one person to thousands of acts of vandalism and theft by thousands of people.

It's fairly self evident that "looking deeper into the root causes" is not going to prevent rioters from destroying private property in the next 24 hours.

<comment><USER7> Sorry let me clarify -- again I'm not focusing on the comparison of the two acts. What I consider interesting is to ponder how another country (Norway in this case) would handle a situation that arises in another country. Naturally there are many variables to consider, however in general it allows me to look at the situation from a different perspective, or through a different lens. I find that to be a valuable exercise and one I feel isn't exercised often enough.

Does this make more sense?

In addition, clearly "looking deeper" won't resolve anything on its own as I feel you are suggesting -- what counts rather are the actions that could result from gaining better understanding through the act of looking deeper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you have a good number of citizens that, when some instability happens, goes to the street and fire cars, houses and rub shops, you have a much more serious problem than 100million GBP in loses.

During the Tunisian revolution, the police was ordered to leave a 1 million citizen city that I'm living in after a tough day where the ruling party locals where burnt. Although without any security (and before people gather and create groups for protection), the city was relatively stable.

There was theft, but theft existed before that day. Also there wasn't that kind of violence in the thefts that happened. When I went to the center of the city the day after that, I saw no signs that a private property was abused.

<comment><USER10> I thought about this sort of thing. It almost seems like the underclasses in Britain are less civilized than the people of the countries that have had recent revolutions.

However, I also believe that the riots in Tunisia weren't limited to lower class people, and maybe involving a larger section of society in them caused them to be more civilized.

<comment><USER11> Everyone is starting to generalize wildly about 'Britain'. London + Birmingham is not the same as Britain. The problems of urban Britain are not the same as the problems of Britons outside the major cities. London has 13% of the population. As a member of the underclass in Britain, I resent being called uncivilized. Well, I would if I didn't have a sense of humour.

Now, where's my nearest Apple store.

<comment><USER12> You write too well to be part of the underclass. The underclass is uneducated, mentally ill, has limited access to social services.

The real underclass doesn't come to Hacker News; the real underclass typs lik dis- u no- txt speak

<comment><USER11> Oh, that underclass. Thought you meant the looters:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8696977/London-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8696977/London- riots-Straight-A-student-Laura-Johnson-faces-being-thrown-out-of- university.html)

But yes, I agree with you.

<comment><USER12> You missed this part: "One of her co-accused, Alexander Elliot-Joahill, is from a deprived area of south-east London"

Also, anecdotes aren't data.

<comment><USER11> I'm from Tottenham. It's not much better. But it was never an excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know half the Internet is going senationalist over this, but _please_ go and actually watch the debate before the knee-jerking spoils this discussion as well.

The tone of the debate was actually quite reasonable, and many MPs, including the PM, were vocal about the benefits of social media during this whole sorry affair.

Sadly, a lot of people are reading things into it that weren't actually said and then turning them into senationalist headlines on sites like this where the liberal crowd upvote them without bothering to check any facts.

<comment><USER14> > liberal crowd

I think when it comes to free-speech, as opposed to things like taxation or healthcare, there's not really a clear "liberal" contingent, just the amorphous civil-liberties contingent. Includes many libertarians, liberals, and anyone else who opposes the state exercising anything even remotely approaching censorship, in any circumstance, whether it's against "nazis" or "rioters" or "terrorists" or whomever else the emergency of the day is.

<comment><USER15> Americans are somewhat unique among English speaking people for not distinguishing between liberalism and leftism. Once you make that distinction, the "amorphous civil-liberties contingent" is liberal by definition.

The culture of internet outrage that involves upvoting these things to the roof _does_ get in the way of understanding and addressing the issue in a reasonable fashion. I don't think it matters especially what specific worldview someone has when they're in that mindset.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "free flow of information can sometimes be a problem" — I never thought I'd hear these words from a British PM.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, wow, I'm dumbfounded.

If the British government follows through with this, the rioters will actually have a new reason to riot: freedom of speech.

<comment><USER18> Not that I agree with the knee-jerk reaction put forward by Cameron, but actually, _protesters_ will _protest_. There's a big difference between rioting and protesting, and it's important to make that clear.

<comment><USER14> By horse-charging and kettling peaceful protestors, the UK police have been doing their best to blur the distinction, trying to meet every protest as if it were a riot, and perhaps turn it into one.

<comment><USER18> That's a sweeping generalisation. I participated in the big march against cuts and the police were very respectful and only moved to contain those who were participating in violent behaviour (trashing shops, etc.). The vast majority of protesters were peaceful, treated well, and not kettled or horse-charged - a direct response to the previous condemnation of those sorts of tactics used against the students in the previous marches.

<comment><USER5> Look up agent provocateurs where both sides can be innocent but played against each other.

<comment><USER18> I know what they are, but I don't think that any such thing justifies the sweeping generalisation the previous commenter made. The police have been employing a range of tactics, and some have worked better (in terms of public opinion too) than others. Kettling, as far as I have seen since the public outcry over its use in the student situation, has not been used against _peaceful_ protesters since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> To us, Libya protesters are freedom fighters, to the Libian government they are criminals.

No surprise that when the protests happen here, governments swap position right away.

<comment><USER20> This is a slightly tired and broadly awful analogy. The rioters this week haven't shared the same motivations, determination or moral conviction of "rebel" (but now recognised) Libyan Government. If I were Libyan, this comparison would be frankly insulting.

<comment><USER2> >The rioters this week haven't shared the same determination

Are you saying you'd have liked the rioters better if they didn't give up so "quickly"?

<comment><USER21> Misquoting to make your point is antithetical to honest debate. Flagged.

<comment><USER2> What's the misquote? The parent makes three points ("motivations, determination or moral conviction"), and the middle point is invalid.

<comment><USER22> I agree with Anigbrowl. The middle point doesn't stand alone and was not meant to. You've gaken it out of contest which is disingenuous. Given your phrasing he claimed with motivation and moral conviction, determination to achieve their goal would have him liking the "rioters" more. Though rioters would doubtfully be the correct word in that case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Free speech is central to our democracy, but so is public safety and security,"

There is no other word for this than stupid. Free speech is not in opposition to security. You can have free speech _and_ safety. Unless you're too stupid to figure out how.

</comment><comment><USER24> I am firmly against blocking any communication tool on the internet, though I am all for prosecuting those that incite violence and illegal activities should they be dumb enough to use a website that can be linked back to them.

</comment><comment><USER25> Think about it. This makes sense.

People who are in power of course are threatened by new, fast ways to share information just as much as established businesses are threatened by ecommerce-sites like Amazon. This threat is real and the danger is justified.

Recent uprisings in Libya, Syria etc. put fear in the hearts of western politicians, too. Rightfully so. The world must and will change as a consequence. I think in more profound ways than we can predict yet.

Of course they don't react rationally because they don't understand it. They also make the mistake that the voters actually would like a social media ban. Of course they don't.

</comment><comment><USER26> Maybe they should focus on enforcing the laws they have, not forming special committees to write more. I have to believe it is against the terms of service of all these apps to conspire to commit crimes or participate in criminal activity using Twitter, Facebook, BBM, etc. Would they propose shutting down telephones, text messaging, and all other forms of communication (snail mail, singing clown telegrams, monkey butlers) which have been used for good and evil since their existence?

<comment><USER27> Just yesterday some commentator on Sky said it's the television to blame in the first place, for spreading a message that looting gets away without punishment. Internet and mobile communication came into play only after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> i don't agree with Cameron, but CNN's headline is a bit sensationalist.

> "to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these > websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and > criminality."

he's not saying facebook and twitter should be banned, just that it should be monitored (and potentially block users). again, i disagree with Cameron, but its hardly the same as a ban on social media.

<comment><USER29> Monitoring is far worse than banning.

<comment><USER30> Twitter's a public medium, I don't really see how anyone could object to a government monitoring it, given any individual could do the same thing.

<comment><USER31> Twitter has both public and private messages. If anyone is taking about monitoring communications on it, I would assume they're talking about the private ones.

<comment><USER30> Why would you assume that ? - a large amount of the "incitement" that took place caused problems in a large part because it was public in a one-to-many form.

<comment><USER29> I'm sorry, did I miss the part where they said they would only monitor Twitter? Or am I remembering correctly where they used the broad, sweeping term "social networks", which would include Facebook, and I'm sure BBM chat.

Do you live in a fantastical world where governments pass very strictly limited, narrowly defined laws that precisely target one specific problem? Because here on earth the rule is overbroad laws made by ignorant legislators.

<comment><USER30> No, but the OP specifically mentioned twitter.

More generally I think we should wait until the government comes out with a formal proposal rather than getting all hung up on a soundbite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Best comment I saw regarding this was on Twitter: "Urban rioting existed before SMS/social media. You know what didn't? Large-scale community cleanups, spontaneously organized within hours."

</comment><comment><USER33> How did the riots spread to so many disparate areas? Copycat activity based on seeing riots occur _on TV_. So, sure, turn off Twitter and Facebook for a while, but be sure to turn off Sky News and BBC News at the same time, since that's where people are seeing the most sensational videos that encourage people to join in. Or.. perhaps just leave it as is, eh?

</comment><comment><USER34> Makes about as much sense as groping millions of passengers before they fly and take away their water bottles because a dozen people managed to take over a plane.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is completely ignoring the potentially positive effects of social media during the riots. @metpoliceuk was helpful in spreading news and tamping down false rumors.

<comment><USER36> Or this: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14475741>

(twitter tag #riotcleanup)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Right that's the solution.

When there's civil unrest, why try to fix the problem that caused it when you can just stop people from organizing the unrest?

</comment><comment><USER38> See also MP Louise Mensch's twitter feed:

[https://twitter.com/#!/LouiseMensch/status/10175449570018508...](https://twitter.com/#!/LouiseMensch/status/101754495700185088)

"And really, stop w/ all the dramatics. Nobody is talking about "shutting down Twitter". It's about listening to police & a couple hours off." amongst other opinions.

</comment><comment><USER39> Wow, and that worked so well in North Africa!

</comment><comment><USER40> OK lets look at the facts here. Blackberry phones have become widely used by the urban poor because they are free on cheap tarrifs. BBM is essentially free text messaging and so also widely used by the urban poor. Its should come as no surprise that the riots were co-ordinated by BBM. Its just text messaging, quick and easy. I find it hard to believe that the rioters running round London was browsing facebook and twitter.

The comparison should not be made with social networking sites (which the term social media is synonymous with), just because BBM uses the internet, rather the comparison should be made with text messaging. I like how the term 'social media' has been used here. What is social media? Anything that is used for communication? So are we talking about controlling text messaging, phone calls, email? Because to organise this amount of organised theft and vandalism these avenues of communication are more likely to be the methods of choice.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think it is really people that is the problem. People should be banned.

</comment><comment><USER42> One might have hoped that a leader in a democratic society would have thought carefully and fully before suggesting that a type of media be regulated or restricted. It is sad that Cameron instead chooses to indulge in irresponsible speculation about the value of such measures.

Indeed, it would seem that the spread of the rioting and looting can most easily be explained by people watching television and seeing others get away with such crimes.

</comment><comment><USER43> No no no. You're doing it wrong. What you need to do is ban socket() on all computers everywhere. That's the only way to fix this problem.

</comment><comment><USER44> The mere suggestion of this is proof of how impotent the government really is. How do they really think it would help? Shutting down this channel or that channel is meaningless in the age of easy communication. Unless they shut off the internet and cell phone networks entirely it will have little effect. Pathetic really.

</comment><comment><USER45> If this could encourage people in Britain to use alternatives to Facebook and Twitter, then this could be a pretty good thing for the health of the social media ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER46> It's strange because this is not getting reported at all in the UK (and by the UK on mean on the BBC).

</comment><comment><USER47> I implore everyone commenting here to;

a) Listen to the actual statement [1] (or even better debate) - DO NOT take what CNN, Metro or anyone other news outlet says for granted. Journalists want to sell newspapers/adspace, parliamentary debate is often not the most glamorous thing in the world, so there is a certain need to spice things up. Reporting can be factually accurate while remaining bias or even misleading.

b) Do _NOT_ draw unconditional comparison with incidents in Libya, Egypt or Norway. It's ignorant and more than anything belittles events in those countries.

c) Understand that the reporting of these riots by the international community, or more importantly the profiling of those involved, has been unreasonably flattering. The absolute majority of people in the UK have no sympathy for these people. This is not a class, race or age issue. Clearly, I cannot speak for all British citizens, but the only people I've seen with anything complementary regarding those involved in the riots (and I say riots, which are separate from the initial protests, which are a whole other kettle of fish) are ill informed and closed minded. This is not an uprising of the social underclass - it's rioting by a tiny fraction of people who have been systematically failed by elements of multiple governments' social, economic and education polices, but that does in no way give them to right to behave as they have. Many thousands more are in the same situation and did not participate, but rather displayed horror at the events.

This is not meant to be inflammatory - there are many problems which need to be addressed, both in terms of policy, as well as the more worrying collapse of morals and underlying social detritus which again is very much not a class, race or age factor. These riots are symptomatic of that.

However, in no way did David Cameron (who is not my favourite person in the world) propose an all out social media ban, and I feel that by omitting the ("... for rioters") in this title is somewhat misleading. The government will discuss the situation with the companies at hand (initially RIM/Twitter and Facebook), and if a workable solution presents itself, this will be debated in parliament. David Cameron is not an expert on social media, but would you expect him to be? That is the reason for these meetings. That is how democracy works.

This is not a knee-jerk and blanket reaction (as seen in Egypt/Libya) but one that will go through proper process. There is already an e-petition which has attracted enough supports to force governmental debate on the subject of removing benefits from rioters [2], a poorly thought out move in my opinion, but one that will nevertheless be debated by parliament. People are angry, and the government must respond to that without being too heavy handed. This is not straightforward, but equally a lack of review regarding social media's impact on the riots would be irresponsible.

d) (And not really relevant here at all, but it's been winding me right up) BlackBerry is a brand of phone. RIM is the company that makes that phone. Officials cannot talk to "BlackBerry", they talk to RIM - it's like saying officials will talk to "BigMac".

[1] - [http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/pm-statement-on-disorder- in-...](http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/pm-statement-on-disorder-in-england/) [2] <http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/7337>

</comment><comment><USER48> Because nobody ever rioted before facebook.

<comment><USER49> exactly. And after blocking it all down, the rioters will be all like "huh, what now? Oh well, we better not start a riot then".

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Good luck enforcing that.

</comment><comment><USER51> There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

<comment><USER52> I love that movie. I've watched it every 5th of November for about the last 5 years.

<comment><USER53> It really was the best Harry Potter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> What worries me as much as the double standard, i.e. scorning Iran, China etc for their crackdown social networking sites is that the conservatives have the unequivocal support of Labour on this issue.

Not only is there no criticism coming from the political left in the UK, but their obsession with deploying intrusive computer systems during their previous period in office suggests a power like this would have been enacted far more quickly were they still in charge.

</comment><comment><USER55> It won't make any difference. A lot of the rioters had PMRs as do the police. Even ground.

</comment><comment><USER56> ored</comment>