Phase 3: Profit - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/?p=349

<comment><USER2> Search engine style ads don't work because people login to see what their friends are up to, not because they're open to buying something.

Ultimately, the answer may lie in some kind of customized event sponsorship:

 _e.g._ you're planning a poker game with your friends, and facebook allows its clients (beer and snack companies for this example) to offer you a deal on those products.

Or something else entirely.

Either way, I agree with the blog post that they haven't found that something yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> The biggest problem with facebook, imo.

All the lovers will come and razz Matt and this comment, but none of them will be able to provide any evidence that facebook is doing anything but spending capital.

<comment><USER4> My suspicion is that Facebook will have to change how online advertising works, or die.

Look at Compete data: average stay of 15 minutes * 350 million visits/month = 87.5 million hours / month in the US. That is coupled with decent demographic data and ability to target. How much would that much attention be worth in TV or newspaper advertising? A lot more than Facebook is currently getting, I suspect.

If it can convince major brands that Facebook eyeballs are worth the same as traditional advertising (in effect sell them CPM, not CPC - "Facebook is the new TV"), then Facebook will do quite well. That's a very tough sell for smaller players, but it might not be impossible for Facebook.

<comment><USER5> They can convince major brands to advertise there. The problem is, unlike traditional media ads, web based advertisers can quantify how much bang for their buck they are getting (click throughs, etc).

Turns out that blanket, weakly-targeted advertising just doesn't perform that well, and companies get explicit feedback from these networks on just how bad the typical ad really is in terms of ROI.

<comment><USER6> Brand advertising (most of traditional media ads) isn't measured in click throughs, isn't any easier to measure on the web than elsewhere, and can't be dismissed without evidence.

<comment><USER5> It wasn't a dismissal. I would strongly disagree with _isn't any easier to measure on the web than elsewhere_ though. If I place an ad on a site that results in 16 clicks which result in 4 transactions out of an audience of 32, I have a mathematical percentage of the effectiveness of my ad placement. This is possible on any ad placement on the web.

If I run the same ad on tv or print, I have nowhere near the ability to accurately attribute any delta in sales activity to that specific ad run at that specific point in time.

<comment><USER4> That's not the point of brand advertising though. The point is to hammer the consumer with a brand over and over again until they KNOW that's the brand for them and go out and seek it on their own. Think Coke, Ford, etc. Facebook has terrible click-through rates, so if they're going to make money from advertising, it'll probably be this way.

<comment><USER5> That was not the point being argued here. He stated that web ads cannot be measured any more efficiently than any other form of advertising, and I provided evidence on how they can.

You're probably right about that being the only form of ad they can monetize, though. The question then becomes when do companies spend as much in that space as they do on tv, if ever?

<comment><USER7> That doesn't measure what brand advertising wants to measure, though. If one ad gets 16 clickthroughs that result in 4 transactions, that ad is inferior to one that gets 0 clickthroughs but results in 8 sales when customers actually go to the store.

Brand advertising works because most consumers rely on a recognition heuristic when faced with the dozens of products in a store. They'll buy products they recognize, even if they have no personal experience with the product. You don't go out and buy an All-New Mercedes Benz immediately because you saw it on TV - but when it comes time to buy a car, you're far more likely to buy it because of all the associations that its name & image bring up. You can't measure this with any existing web metrics - it may be years before customers actually go out and make a purchase.

<comment><USER5> Right, that is how brand advertising works. But given the structure of the web, you can get an estimation of how effective it is by how users respond to it (clicks).

Put yourself in the position of an ad exec who has $n dollars to spend on his campaign and has to present to a superior how effective it was. If he has a web ad placement, the execs in charge of the money are going to immediately query him on what they got out of it (how much traffic they got from it). Adsense has spoiled companies into being far more demanding on number metrics on effectiveness. I can't think of 1 flash ad, branding or not, that does not have the option to click and learn more about the product. They _are_ measuring the ad resonance, transaction driven or not.

The fact of the matter is, companies want a return on their web ads they can quantify. They measure using stuff like this: <http://www.vizu.com/>

When they don't get it, branded or not, they leave: [http://mdurwin.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/corporations- leave-s...](http://mdurwin.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/corporations-leave-second- life-we-never-knew-you-were-there/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One easy way for them to make money is to charge some nominal fee (say $15/yr) for premium services or ad-free experience. I don't use facebook myself, but most of my friends do, and most of them would gladly pay a small fee to just keep using facebook as is, nevermind premium features.

Mining the social graph is the holy grail of social networks, but facebook, with its millions of addicted users, doesn't have to solve that problem to generate revenue. It can do so with other means until they figure it out.

IMO, Google was in an even more precarious position before it figured out advertising because people could switch easily. Facebook's got its hooks in your life; you can't switch.

<comment><USER9> I'd pay $15/yr to automatically block all Facebook Apps.

Sadly I don't think I'm alone. It was useful before, but it's gotten increasingly spammy.

<comment><USER10> Facebook will keep on getting more and more users but it just seems that if they want to get to the next level, they need to do something about this App thing. Once they figure it out I don't doubt they'll be able to offer some type of productivity software - they already have the social infrastructure as well as the users in place for that.

When they launched the API and the apps I, as many others, were excited about the entire idea of a facebook OS but it seems that notion is drifting farther and farther away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The difference between Facebook and Google is Technology, the value of goods is define by its availability/scarcity. There's nothing spectacular about Facebook technology, Fame alone is not enough to justify those billions if you don't think so let see when they go public.

<comment><USER12> I disagree. Google's value is in the quality of its results and the speed of search. Facebook's value is in 1) all the users (a social site sucks if your friends aren't there) and 2) it's brand (people know about it and trust it). Someone could buy equivalent technology but not the users or the brand. Remember Google Video vs YouTube?

(fwiw, I think Facebook is valuable but if they can't monetize it, then they're in trouble and it won't bode well for all the other social network sites out there either)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Somebody should start a poll:

Facebook + Email + IM + Phone vs. HN + Email + IM + Phone

Which would you rather have?

I suspect this would provide some valuable information as to the near future of the internet -- so many of us are on HN because it is specific to our current interests -- whether hobby or professional -- and our desire to know and bounce ideas off of similar minds.

Now for specific interests replace HN with (Popsugar, TMZ, Social Investing sites, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER14> Matt reminds me of this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes>

</comment><comment><USER15> [http://www.outrunpoker.com/blog/2008/03/a-way-for-social- net...](http://www.outrunpoker.com/blog/2008/03/a-way-for-social-networks- to-a.html)

I don't think social graphs or other "hocus pocus" BS will get them much more CPM than they are currently getting. I believe the only solution is to take more of the revenue stream from advertising by starting some companies in fields where it is possible, and ones that already advertise on FB. This is the most direct approach, and takes the longest and most work, but the most rewarding in the long run due to many reasons.

</comment><comment><USER16> I go to places because of the value they offer. Facebook offers me next to nothing. I went there exactly once to peek at the Thrift documentation (you can download the source without registering but the link to the docs is a group).

I'd be there if there were some there there.

</comment><comment><USER17> From PG's latest: Why Aren't There More Googles "So what's the real reason there aren't more Googles? Curiously enough, it's the same reason Google and Facebook have remained independent: money guys undervalue the most innovative startups."

</comment><comment><USER18> Why do people keep repeating that FB is 'worth' $15 Billion?

Is it an American thing for self-delusions?

FB as a business has the same credibility as a Washington Mutual AAA rated CDO.

<comment><USER19> Because that's their market value based on recent investments.

<comment><USER20> I've never understood if the $15B valuation is real either (although I understand that it's quoted by everyone as being real). The original $15B number comes from an investment that Microsoft did for a share of the company plus advertising consideration.

If you just valued the company on the share then it would be worth $15B but since there were other considerations you can't know at all what the valuation was.

I've heard of follow-on investments but I never heard any hard facts about the valuation of those investments.

On the other hand, I've heard people who should know (actual VCs, TechCrunch, press) say FB has a $15B valuation. I just don't understand how that's the case. Is it bogus or what is the piece of information that I'm missing?

<comment><USER19> Without knowing the details on the MS deal or the follow on funding, it's hard to say. I would speculate, solely from what I've read, that MS's investment values them at $15 billion while giving them the right to run ads for which they'll have to pay a certain amount as well. So in the case, and assuming other investors also valued them at $15b, that's their actual valuation.

<comment><USER21> I recall Zuckerberg admitting at SXSW they only valued it at that so that Microsoft could invest their cash and not suck up a big percentage of the company. That would mean not even Zuckerberg pretends its worth $15 billion. It seems a bit lame to repeat this valuation as if Zuckerberg is running around yelling "My company is worth $15 billion!" because he's definitely not doing that.

<comment><USER22> _as if Zuckerberg is running around yelling "My company is worth $15 billion!" because he's definitely not doing that_

well current hires are getting their stock at that valuation so the net effect is the same

<comment><USER7> Confirmed or assumed? If this is true, it's a big point against FaceBook's continued success, because it means current employees are underwater until FaceBook's worth more than Ford. One of the big motivators for a startup employee is seeing those options you got for pennies suddenly being worth dollars; if those options won't be worth anything for the foreseeable future, there's little reason why good employees would choose to work at FaceBook instead of Yahoo or Adobe or any of the other mature tech companies.

<comment><USER22> i know it for a fact

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't disagree with his main idea, but I really find it hard to believe that AIM and most cell phones are open platforms; though someone can prove me wrong.

<comment><USER19> I know of many apps not built by AOL that use AIM. Meebo, Trillian, Pidgin, Adium, etc. I don't think they meant it to be an open platform (until fairly recently) but it became one.

I meant the phone system. Individual cell phones are not necessarily platforms.

<comment><USER23> "open AIM" isn't really open, I think this was discussed in a past yc post; there are a lot of terms and conditions that are more overbearing than facebook's or google's terms/conditions \- like if you have x number of users, you must feature AOL ads on your app (or something like that)

Until Google Contacts API came out, I don't remember any major company giving third parties access to their users and their contacts officially. (ok Plaxo did but they had a condition that you couldn't make anything for profit) typically apps like Trillian got access when users gave them access to their own login information which is far from ideal and still not open by choice - more like 'broken into'

"I meant the phone system. Individual cell phones are not necessarily platforms."

the problem is, the social graph (contact info and call history) is contained and accessible from individual cell phones and not the phone system (unless again you trust some company to your login information for your cell phone web site account - still not open and a more dangerous than giving someone access your AIM login).

individual cell phones may not be platforms themselves, but the OS's they run on are...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I suppose you are only looking for excuses so that your startup doesn't have to create a Facebook app ;-)

</comment><comment><USER25> Excellent, I love the ZuckerGnome!

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen A minor nit-pick: only one d in 'adds', in the phrase 'video adds'.

</comment><comment><USER17> quick name the only company in the valley that scares googles mngt team?

quick name the only company in the valley thats harvesting googlers like its October in Napa valley?

<comment><USER26> If I were well-vested at Google, I'd definitely try my best to jump on the Facebook train. Whether or not they're going to make me rich (again), it's probably the most fun place to be in the Valley right now.

Doesn't mean Facebook is the next Google, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> so many fb haters - yet they keep growing users, keep launching features, you can say they have no tech (baseless), they can't monetize (eer ask pg about this one; build something people want - a business model will emerge) and all the rest - yet you can say nothing about their growth and engagement.

<comment><USER27> Matt's not saying they aren't getting a lot of traffic, or that a lot of people don't enjoy using Facebook (nobody in their right mind would claim those things). Matt's saying that it's a rare form of chutzpah that Zuckerberg possesses that allows him to make up stuff like "the social graph" as justification for his second-place social network being worth 30 times the first-place social network (he's also saying some other stuff, but I think that's the funniest/truest part). And, of course, it takes an astounding reality distortion field for him to be able to convince half the people in the valley that it's a done deal: Facebook is "the next Google".

<comment><USER5> Facebook is not the next google for the simple fact that everyone is saying that it is. The Next Big Thing usually slips under the radar until it becomes completely dominant.

<comment><USER19> Google did that for sure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Generational Poverty the Exception, Not the Rule by Stephen Pimpare - <AUTHOR> http://talkpoverty.org/2014/06/27/generational-poverty-exception-not-rule/

<comment><AUTHOR> Reposting this from the original source, per policy guidelines. I did not initially realize the other link was a secondary source.

Excerpt:

 _So poverty in the U.S. is, in fact, a much larger problem than we think it is, and it's one that most Americans will face.

While that's a grim realization, perhaps it's also a cause for hope. Maybe if more Americans understood what their own personal stake is in committing to poverty reduction, they might be more inclined to press for higher wages, better access to affordable child care, more generous social welfare programs, a reinvigorated right to form a union, and so on. These are not policies that benefit some group of Others, but policies that serve the majority of us. If we can't count on empathy to improve well-being, maybe selfishness will do the trick?_</comment>


Show HN: Paul Graham's Essays ordered by Popularity  - <AUTHOR> http://jsfiddle.net/WA2fX/embedded/result/

<comment><USER2> Very nice! What is the unit of the numbers? K hits?

<comment><AUTHOR> twitter shares</comment></comment>


What is a Bitcoin fork? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.coinbase.com/what-is-a-bitcoin-fork-cba07fe73ef1 <comment><USER3> FYI the segwit2x fork this post was probably mainly motivated by appears to have been called off: [https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin- segwit2x...](https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin- segwit2x/2017-November/000685.html)

<comment><USER4> Until it's on again. Didn't they fork a few months ago too (Bitcoin Cash)?

<comment><USER5> Coinbase didn't sign the notice calling off segwit2x[0] even tho they were an NYA signatory - but rather said they were "monitoring"[1] the situation

I sense some uncertainty from Coinbase on what they want to do next.

edit: also interesting that the price for segwit2x futures has increased today to ~$380 after a low of $198[2]

[0] [https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin- segwit2x...](https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin- segwit2x/2017-November/000685.html)

[1] [https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/928476503062462464](https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/928476503062462464)

[2] [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/segwit2x/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/segwit2x/)

<comment><USER6> What is bitcoin futures? Is this speculative pricing on the speculative 2x fork?

<comment><USER7> This reminds me of the scene in The Big Short where a manager casually talks about CDOs, synthetic CDOs and squared CDOs. And Steve Carell's character start asking: "what are squared CDOs... ?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We attempted to snapshot the current situation with [https://imgur.com/Zlopq7S](https://imgur.com/Zlopq7S)

May be outdated now that 2X has been called off

<comment><USER9> Nice infographic! oh I just got an email from the Bitcoin Gold peeps saying they were going live in 2 days

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That helped but I do not understand the economic compatibility of a fork. How do they not wreak havoc and chaos on that coin's economy? Do I get coins for each of the new coins or do I have to pick? It all feels really risky and that risk feels foisted upon me. Can I cash out before the fork?

<comment><USER11> I don't either. Fiat currencies don't fork - you can simply exchange one for another. Another close comparison is a traded equity having a 2:1 split, except shareholders technically lose nothing. Another case would be stock dilution - though, I have never heard of a public stock diluting to 50% value... that seems unlikely. If a specific commodity were to suddenly decide it had an unreported surplus on the order of 100% of current market estimates, the consequences on valuation would be pretty significant (maybe not a 2x loss...).

I guess the closest comparison to bitcoin is; oil price is at $60 / barrel today and speculators believe there is a 30% chance that they mis-estimated the number of barrels by 100% - but you won't know for sure for another 3 months. What's should the price of oil be tomorrow?

<comment><USER5> > Fiat currencies don't fork

There was an interesting situation after the fall of the Soviet Union. Because most of the states didn't have economies strong enough to support their own currency, they remained a unified currency union as part of the CIS

The only problem was that each state then started printing the money like mad and then sending it to other states to be sold / traded. Some of the states then introduced what was a quasi two-currency system - to _buy_ local currency or to exchange it, you required _both_ the old Soviet Ruble _and_ a new "permission" note from the state to exchange.

In theory this placed a cap on the inflation but the result was almost like a currency fork. A lot of these states ended up establishing their own currencies but still had problems with "swaps" from the old currency - so they were constantly reissuing new notes and new coins that needed to be exchanged - but many of the old notes or permission slips would have value on the black market

<comment><USER12> > Fiat currencies don't fork

Another situation: in Brazil 90's, inflation was rampant and a new currency was being planned. But, until BRL was printed as the final currency, a few "forks"/new money were introduced, like URV (for one year), which set the market value for the new BRL, something like 2500:1 old-money:URV then 1:1 URV:BRL. So, the analogy: a fiat fork did happen and a two-currency system was put in play, until the "miners" decided to ultimately put the hash power into just one fork.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Do a little searching on the people pushing the "2x" Fork - Here's one example, CEO of OP's link Coinbase.com:

>Coinbase CEO Owns More Ether Than Bitcoin - <USER2>

>Coinbase CEO Armstrong: Ethereum Scaling Better Than Bitcoin

Another example, The head coder on the "2x" fork has announced his own coin to ICO soon,

> Jeff Garzik, ... has seen its shortcomings firsthand. So he decided to > create a better digital currency.

All the people pushing the 2x fork are very heavily invested in coins competing with Bitcoin. It's odd.

<comment><USER14> Both Brian & Jeff are still both heavily invested in businesses that rely on Bitcoin, they are not just speculators who simply buy and hold.

Their business plans are ruined if Bitcoin fees get too high. Note that 'extremely low fees' was the original selling point of Bitcoin which now has been ruined. So they were simply defending their businesses.

<comment><USER13> Jeff's business model relies more on ETH than Bitcoin:

"The current launch plan includes launching on Ethereum chain, which will require paying ETH to obtain MTN tokens"

20% pre-mine

price starts at 1.67 ETH per MTN token

Remember Tezos? That raised a quarter of a billion dollars. There is way more money in making an ICO and saying "Bitcoin is broken! You need [new coin]!"

Brian makes money when you convert USD/BTC/ETH into USD/BTC/ETH. They announced they are adding more coins soon.

The main "2x" supporter runs "Grayscale Ethereum Classic Investment Trust" and tries to sell investors on a coin that nobody has ever used for anything ever.

The people who are "all in" on Bitcoin (the developers for example) think the "2x" fork is a terrible terrible idea. The people who are heavily invested in other coins want the "2x" fork to happen.

<comment><USER14> Oh, I was referring to bitpay, which probably will not last long unless it pivots into b2b or altcoins.

It's also hard to tell if Bitcoin developers are all in or not. Note that developers can have different interests than holders (eg. The want to get control of the codebase in order to get status and recognition & hopefully future consulting contracts). Note that the current bitcoin devs are mostly a new generation that got later in the game. Source & analysis about this point here [http://hackingdistributed.com/2017/08/26/whos-your-crypto- bu...](http://hackingdistributed.com/2017/08/26/whos-your-crypto-buddy/)

<comment><USER13> > Note that the current bitcoin devs are mostly a new generation that got > later in the game.

this is 100% false, see this post:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/72lwzv/if_bitcoin_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/72lwzv/if_bitcoin_is_subject_to_backroom_takeover_then/dnjkuoc/)

<comment><USER14> citing reddit? I'm guessing you'd like to point out the commit history table. Nice.

You might notice that the table (conveniently) starts from 2010, after a good chunk of coins already has been mined. 2011-2012 is when a lot of the new devs came in which is the new generation, but it was getting much more difficult to mine then.

There's also so many problems with git commit history, so let's be honest here, ie. How many commits doesn't tell the whole story.

Hey, btw, my comments are just observations & not meant to criticize, sorry if you think I'm attacking you. I'm pretty positive about bitcoin and I think it's good that it can re-invent itself and find a good niche (the b2b / institutional market could be huge and certainly would see Bitcoin really growing up). The direction that the current team has chosen to lead it to has certainly paid off well. I sincerely wish the project more success in the future!

<comment><USER15> There were very few people involved in Bitcoin before 2010. Probably guys like Finney and theymos. The software was more like a proof of concept back then, I believe. I think we have to count even people getting involved after it became mainstream in 2013 as early adopters in the larger scope of things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's another stupid question: Can anybody start a new fork?

Let's say, I invested in the original Bitcoin. Then somebody who has the marketing resources to build enough interest in a new coin comes along and decides to fork. Because of the hype around the new coin type, enough people are willing to trade it after the fork.

I'm being given the same number of coins of the forked kind and the value of my original coins drops by the difference in value compared to the new coins (or around that).

If I'd rather only invest in the original Bitcoin, I'd have to sell the forked coins immediately and buy the original Bitcoin back just to keep my investment value the same.

If anybody can come along and fork:

That sounds like in the world of stocks, a competitor could come along and decide to split the stocks of MY company from the outside, driving down the price of my stocks (me as the company's owner or investor) and there's nothing I can do about it.

<comment><USER17> Yes, anyone can start a fork. It's hard to get momentum on it though, as it'll likely just be a shitcoin that no one cares about. Witness what happened with Bitcoin Gold.

So far there's only been one successful hardfork of Bitcoin (Bitcoin Cash) in all its history. Anyone can try, but few succeed.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but it doesn't answer the OP's question. What if government, official bank or other strong entity with virtually unlimited resources starts a fork (something like Ecoin for those who watch Mr. Robot)? I wouldn't call such event improbable.

<comment><USER19> I strongly assume that a strong entity would prefer to create a new coin from scratch instead of donating huge amounts of value to existing bitcoin owners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ok, stupid question: in real dollars, if I sell my ONE coin just before a fork or my then TWO coins right after the fork, will I end up with the same dollar amount?

For that to happen the old coin type would have to lose in price at which the fork starts. How is the price for a coin of a fork determined?

<comment><USER20> For all intents and purposes, from the point of view of each chain, the other does not exists but it merely turns out their past are the same. IOW BTC _is_ B2X (the money, not the unit) before the fork, and each one considers that its own blockchain is _the Truth_ †. So:

        - from the BTC point of view, there is 1 BTC both before and after the fork
        - from the B2X point of view, there is 1 B2X both before and after the fork
        - at any one time the value of 1 BTC is whatever people want to exchange it for
        - at any one time the value of 1 B2X is whatever people want to exchange it for
        - it just turns out that BTC == B2X before the fork

Therefore the value of each one merely depends on how much people care to trade them for, and the fork may affect this value, both before and after. Both may crash, both may shoot through the roof, or anything in between independently. But yes indeed since they come from the same past, if T is the last common transaction on the blockchain, then in between T and T+1 your 1(BTC+B2X) == X$ just became 1BTC + 1B2X == Y$ + Z$ (which at that precise, immaterial, instant == X$ + X$) by virtue of the fact that they disagree about the validity of any transaction you may make on each chain, including ones that get $$ out of the system. Hence you can "double spend" the coin. But speculation may shortly thereafter make Y and Z stay == X$ + X$, or become X$ + 0$, or X/2$ + X/2$).

† Without replay protection, transactions may or may not be replayed, but the blockchains _do_ differ.

<comment><USER16> So if the exchange price for BTC does not drop by the same amount of the exchange price for B2X, a fork essentially means money (dollars) is generated out of nothing and given to me as the owner of now 2 coins (one of each type)?

Or in the opposite case, a fork could mean I lose money, just because somebody else decided to create fork?

<comment><USER21> In fairness you could also lose money because it's Bitcoin and its value is all over the place, fork or no fork

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A bitcoin fork is a political decision on the currency, like the ones central banks make.

There are going to be a lot of forks in the future.

<comment><USER23> > There are going to be a lot of forks in the future.

I tend to agree. The problem, then, is what happens after 3 forks? 4? 10? We're going to keep increasing the number of crypto currencies we own and then we figure to figure out who supports what version of the currency we have to figure out how to cash out...

The entire idea of a fork sounds like an absolute nightmare. This is why I'm not putting any serious amount of money in crypto currencies.

<comment><USER5> More dangerous than the tech part of the fork IMO is that with any one fork one or more of the bitcoin deposit holding companies can decide at-will that they'll follow a fork as the "new" bitcoin

This is an even bigger threat when you consider that they could be incentivized to follow a less valuable fork: exchange your new bitcoin for the old, convert all your users to the new bitcoin - you can now pocket the difference.

On the other hand you can also attempt to keep the airdropped funds from forks. Coinbase at first didn't recognize the Bitcoin Cash fork - it was only with pressure that they relented. But there have been other trusted holders who just "ignored" forks

<comment><USER24> Or you could hold your own bitcoin in your own wallet.

<comment><USER5> That's the moral of the story - but a lot of people don't

I _still_ haven't convinced my own brother that he needs to move his coins off-market - he said he'll "get around to it at some point"

Also have tech friends who keep coins in Coinbase/Coinbase Vault

<comment><USER23> It's hard to ignore how handy it is when someone else holds your money. When my bank holds my money I can send it to anywhere from any place. Using a crypto wallet I now have this file I have to somehow keep safe and with me at all times. What happens when or if it gets stolen? Like cash it's gone.

So I understand why people do it. Ease of use typically outshines most security issues. Someone needs to figure out how to strike a better balance.

<comment><USER25> Keep a paper or electronic backup at home and/or another safe place.

Also your should protect mobile/app wallet with a passphrase so it is safe if you lose it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So you have a ledger... Somebody makes a copy of it and adds "Gold" or "Cash" to the title. Then continues to use that ledger with some people however they want.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is an interesting paradox because the whole point of the system was that it was decentralized, and once set in motion the rules could not be changed.

Or so they can?

And who decides?

Because these forks can have considerably favourable or negative outcomes for specific stakeholders, it's nary impossible to make the decision 'fairly' and this rather undermines the whole thing, no? And yes, I do understand that 'value' may be the same after such 'forks' but different post-fork mechanisms will imply different outcomes, surely.

Would it be possible for nefarious actors to wedge themselves into this process? ... Because we were all looking for the 'technical fault' in the maths/encryption, we possibly missed this aspect of risk?

<comment><USER28> Saying the rules can be changed is like saying that your eyes changed color if you have a child with different color eyes. A fork is not the same chain as the original.

<comment><USER27> All of the comments above lead me to understand that basically anything can happen with BTC and this kind of undermines it's value as a 'hard currency'.

The whole point of decentralization was that nobody could control it, and devaluation was based on some algorithm, limited by tech.

If these rules can change, then the intrinsic value of BTC is truly up in the air.

What business would invest in using BTC as a currency knowing such things can arbitrarily happen?

<comment><USER29> Businesses don't invest _in_ currency, they invest _with_ it. Businesses don't use cash for investments, either. Investing is buying something that will generate returns, and cash cannot generate any return, kind of by definition. Fiat currencies have no intrinsic value, either, but everyone still uses them. But since one has to keep some cash on hand, a stable currency is preferable.

The only reason people are investing in BTC is that the price is going up because demand is going up faster than supply is increasing. It's not really any different than if Confederate paper money became the hot thing, and stores started accepting it for payment, despite it not being legally currency. Since they only discover new sources of Confederate money every so often, if everyone wants to buy the stuff, the price is going to go up. If this keeps on happening year after year, people are going to start thinking it always goes up and buy it expecting it to go up.

<comment><USER27> Yes, I get what you are saying but BTC - as a currency - will require a lot of investment 'in' BTC for transactional purposes, accounting etc..

BTC is already waning as a currency - fewer vendors using it.

As a 'store of value' it's really too volatile - there are just too many other, better options.

So what's left?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Physically a BitCoin is, when you look at it with your own eyes, nothing, not even air. And probably everyone knows what a fork is (metal thingy for eating stuff) ... so here is your answer. Everyone else who says otherwise, is probably employed by Bitcoin ;)

<comment><USER25> I'm sorry what was your answer??

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Lately, it's an insider cash grab and market manipulation technique.

</comment><comment><USER32> So a Bitcoin fork is a kind of a git branch or at least one could think of it so. In this sense, it would be interesting to implement this possibility as a feature. Then everybody could start a new branch using new software branch. What is important, all such forks/branches will share the same parent paths (previous transactions). Essentially, all transactions will be represented as a git-like tree where each branch is managed by the corresponding software version.

</comment><comment><USER33> If Coinbase only supports one version, what happens to the forked coins?

</comment><comment><USER34> > What is a Bitcoin fork?

An attempt to pretend that an inherently inefficient non-scalable technology can be made efficient and scalable.

</comment><comment><USER35> Forks foster creativity

</comment><comment><USER36> Informative post

</comment><comment><USER37> Coinbase is going to only support Bitcoin Cash.

<comment><USER38> This is flat out false. They have no plan to even support it at all, let alone default to it

<comment><USER24> "We are planning to have support for bitcoin cash by January 1, 2018"

[https://blog.coinbase.com/update-on-bitcoin- cash-8a67a7e8dbd...](https://blog.coinbase.com/update-on-bitcoin- cash-8a67a7e8dbdf)

<comment><USER38> "assuming no additional risks emerge during that time...We'll make a determination at a later date about adding trading support"

They do not have a plan to add it to the trading platform, which is the only thing that would drive any real value to the Bitcoin Cash market. The only reason they added it at all is to allow people to take their coin and sell it on another exchange, to avoid lawsuits.

If they had any plan to add it to add it to the exchange. It would make much more sense to release it at the same time, thereby profiting off of the trading fees</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Organically Increase Your Followers With the Twitter API and a Little Python - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jmoz.co.uk/increase-your-twitter-followers/ <comment><USER2> This is basically what FollowGen[1] does. HN discussion of when the guy that built FollowGen wrote about how Twitter should shutdown his app: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5607186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5607186)

[1]: [https://followgen.com/](https://followgen.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Anytime I notice this going on, I report the account as a spammer, and you should too.

<comment><USER4> Tweet-favoriting is an insidious form of twitter spam.

What's weird is that almost all favoriting done by someone I don't recognize is done on a tweet that is many weeks old. It's always bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've tested this before and while it works incredibly well, essentially it's just gaming the system by spamming favorites. If everyone would do this (and they will when more services start popping up that offer to automate this), everyone's Twitter notifications would turn into a spamhaven of fake favorites.

</comment><comment><USER6> you can do the same thing within your browser. simply open the desired search on twitter.com (such as [https://twitter.com/search?q=giacomoballi.com](https://twitter.com/search?q=giacomoballi.com)) and then paste the following in the address bar:

javascript:allFavs=document.getElementsByClassName("favorite");for(var a=0;a<allFavs.length;a++){allFavs[a].click();}

</comment><comment><USER7> Auto-Favorite Tweets to Trigger Automated Emails to Thousands of Twitter Users and Hope Lots of them Follow You

<comment><USER8> It does seem kind of spammy, but to play devil's advocate:

1) At least the favorites are _related_ to the account. I get favorites from spam bots all the time with seemingly no connection to anything.

2) I might be wrong, but I believe by default emails are only sent if the favorites come from people you already follow. So it clogs up your "Connect" tab, but not your inbox.

<comment><USER4> "I might be wrong, but I believe by default emails are only sent if the favorites come from people you already follow. So it clogs up your "Connect" tab, but not your inbox."

The thing is, I'm more interested in knowing about new people who favorite a tweet of mine than people I already follow. So I've set the notifications to 'Anyone'.

Sadly, this has become largely spam, i.e. useless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I, uh, one question please.

How is making something that farms humans for time and influence – while deceiving them into believing they're interacting with a human – sit with you morally?

Is it part of any future you'd like to imagine, on the receiving side?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hardly preventing me from sleeping at night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems to be _farming_ of a sort, but I don't know if I would call it _organic_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Automatically organic.

<comment><USER10> Is that a thing? I think _organic_ in this context implies that a person is in the loop taking an action somewhere.

Don't get me wrong. I can think of a couple of legitimate uses for this, so I don't think it's a 100% scammy tactic. I just wouldn't call it organic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the best analogy for something like this is getting coupons/ads/"special offers" in the mail. They aren't sent out _completely_ indiscriminately (good distro strategies will use a fair amount of segmentation), but they're not exactly bespoke. You're basically shoving your content into a traditionally high-signal-to-noise ratio arena, hoping that the mismatch works in your favor.

Still, there's nothing incredibly malicious about it besides the fact that its annoying and is a signal that you're a low-value brand. Besides, some people really like leafing through a valpak; similarly, if a customer sees your favorite, clicks on your handle and decides you're worth the follow, what's the harm?

If you're a company or startup seriously considering doing this, consider two things:

1\. Think about the mechanics behind a drip campaign. You don't want to inundate your users; you don't want to annoy them; you don't want to overgeneralize them. One of the difficulties of these auto-favoriting campaigns is that a favorite is a very low-value, low-information interaction; have you thought about creating multiple accounts and working on a reply queue system (just as one would create multiple email campaigns to target different consumer segments?)

2\. What would the potential consequences be if someone posted a blog post about you using these tactics, and that post got a lot of coverage? Would it be worth the extra few hundred followers? (Honestly, in some cases, yes! But in other cases -- particularly if you're targeting developers -- probably not.)

</comment><comment><USER12> Use the streaming api, instead of the search, and favorite every targeted tweet with a 20s-60s delay, that's incredibly efficient.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you want bots and some real people to follow you who are trying the same. Join twiends.com it's a follower exchange and you get 10 credits per day for visiting the site which equals 5 twitter followers. If you want to play ugly actually use the exchange and few weeks later some mass unfollow tool. This is pretty damn ugly way to get followers and I know it because I did it almost two years ago and in a month gained around 10k followers, afterwards I stopped doing it and the follower count has slowly been degrading.

Though if you want actual followers who discuss with you. Follow those tags and reply on their tweets. Some might actually enjoy that you replied to them even though you are not following them and start following you.

</comment><comment><USER14> I still find it amazing that people respond with a "thanks for favoriting" tweet. I get it when someone shares out your link, but favoriting? Who really knows why someone has favorited - it could be so that they remember it later, so that it pushes to their Pocket or Instapaper account (via IFTTT), or a multitude of other reasons.

And yes, I agree with @ultimoo that Twitter needs to do something about this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Unfortunately, the spammers have already figured this one out before James. Nearly every tweet of mine that has certain product or service keywords gets favourited by a spambot or two attempting to grab eyeballs.

(I also vaguely recall a front-page article about this on HN a year or so back..)

</comment><comment><USER16> It's about time that Twitter did something about this 'favorite-spam' problem.

</comment><comment><USER17> just tried for fun this technique (with node.js + twit + 7 lines of code). My account was suspended within an hour. Probably i choose too popular words or something, but Twitter do stop this type of interaction.</comment>


Ask HN: What got us stuck into our greedy, environment killing ways? - <AUTHOR> As IT people, I thought I'd like to ask other IT people what they think about the current state of play. VC's can go back to their yachts and paid whores.
Have we, as developers, sysadmins, IT people in general, been co-opted into an advertising scheme? Why does Google produce so much pure revenue?
Is constant growth OK on a finite planet? Who started this? <comment><USER2> The thin book "The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations" by Dietrich Dorner offers one explanation of how and why we got where we are today. If I remember correctly, he says that a million years ago we were so few and the world so large that there was nothing we could do that would make a dent in the world, it was all about grabbing everything you could to just survive and side effects meant nothing. Fast forward to the present, the teeter totter has tipped, the situation has reversed, side effects far outweigh getting what you need to survive. But our brains haven't caught up with the changes in last 2000 years, let alone a million. He goes on to show lots of current examples of our intuition being no match for current complex problems and how to try to learn to better deal with that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Back before agriculture, Hunter-gatherers had a very slow population growth with a timescale of thousands of years. By the time they started getting crowded, some startup discovered agriculture and bread and beer and now we could support a larger population and a higher growth rate.

Living without growth would be hard too. The zero-sumishness which characterizes our politics would be even worse.

</comment><comment><USER4> Important question, but I'm afraid I don't know. I have no idea.</comment>


Want to Think Logically? Trust Your Emotions  - <AUTHOR> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-sense/200909/want-think-logically-trust-your-emotions

<comment><USER2> The author seems to be stretching quite far to reach her conclusion, which seems to be to be that intuition is just another aspect of emotional response. The difficulty I have had in trying to explain this intuition is that there _is_ a feeling of confusion attached, which superficially seems like it just goes to prove her point.

I don't think it does, though, and hopefully I can argue my way through this without stepping on any traps.

The argument of the author seems to rest largely upon the function of the amygdala. Because it lights up when exposed to stimuli where the recipient has a memory of that stimuli associated with some undesirable outcome, her assertion seems to be that amygdala must be the basis behind our reaction to all things our memory has build intuitive associations of outcomes around. I think this is a conclusion we can't yet draw. Because these research subjects are able to isolate important photos in a series based upon some intuition of a prior exposure, this doesn't mean I will always build an intuitive order of things based upon my own prior recollections about my emotional state of mind. As Mz points out as well, it makes a tremendous assumption about memory.

This almost reads like she _wants_ this to be true. If this is the case, she is not the only one. I've had a number of discussions about this with other people who seem emotionally reactive toward things, who have expressed a desire for similar findings, because then they can declare that the emotional snap judgments they had which resulted in very bad outcomes were as good as they could've possibly done. Based on anecdotes from people in my life, this seems wrong; hence, my intuitive sense that this author's conclusions are faulty doesn't seem entirely out of line. Both intuition and experience are feeling confused.

</comment><comment><USER3> The flawed assumption is you can know what will be important ahead of time.

<comment><USER4> True, but some sort of heuristic is necessary. Without a heuristic for guessing what would be important ahead of time, we wouldn't have paging on computers, and then where would we be? If the heuristic is right more often than not, at least it's useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In this case, they are drawing on the fact that emotion is a type of memory. It has it's good points and bad points. Strongly emotional people are more able to make snap judgments. But those snap judgments may be biased by negative experiences. In some cases, those previous negative experiences are a good predictor (ie a good basis for judging X to be a bad thing). In other cases, they are essentially a personal stumbling block.

</comment><comment><USER6> It often seems to me that emotional evaluation frequently amounts to shallow, parallel processing. For example "feelings" based on previous experience which you can't necessarily immediately deeply analyse and explain, but typically encompasses an enormously broad set of circumstances you've experienced in the past. When we hear a line like "I'll create a gui in visual basic, see if I can track an IP address" we don't immediately have an impartial, rational response as to why that doesn't make any sense, the shallow emotional response kicks in first and you roll your eyes and groan.

If you then needed to explain in detail and in a logical way why that response was provoked, you can, but it's not what's at the immediate cognitive surface of the response. Take a far more complex example that just leaves you feeling kinda vaguely uneasy at first glance (spacetime is quantized) and I think that better illustrates what I'm getting at.

Rational, logical evaluation on the other hand is a deep, focused analysis which can't quickly account for every little thing you've ever experienced, and often initially leaves you with the nagging feeling that "you're missing some little thing".

The constant attempt to link intuition to emotion is probably based around the fact that people don't have deep objective reality based models of the universe as a general rule, so it's very difficult for them to be able to imagine the kind of person who does.

On the other hand, it's not that hard to understand that there are intuitive patterns to human emotion, even amongst those that have trouble grasping those intuitive patterns, thus the two become linked in the minds of the majority.</comment>


Examining How a PG&E Transmission Line Claimed 85 Lives in the 2018 Camp Fire - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2020/09/17/closely-examining-how-a-pge-transmission-line-claimed-85-lives-in-the-2018-camp-fire/ <comment><USER2> discussion of the source this article is based on: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24499924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24499924)</comment>


Ask HN: How many startups exist in the US? - <AUTHOR>

Any idea, estimations, links? How many are web-startups? <comment><USER2> Lots of info at SBA: <http://www.sba.gov>

Key facts from <http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/sbfaq.pdf>

* 99.9% of all US businesses < 500 employees

* 29.7 million total businesses in US

* Approximately 600,000 new businesses start per year (and that number is relatively constant)</comment>


Treasury Sanctions Individuals Laundering Cryptocurrency for Lazarus Group - <AUTHOR> https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm924 <comment><AUTHOR> four pages from indictment: [https://twitter.com/SeamusHughes/status/1234519281372717058](https://twitter.com/SeamusHughes/status/1234519281372717058)</comment>


Poll: Which 3 languages would you learn - <AUTHOR>

A lot of the comments to a recent post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1982903) suggested that they would like to see a similar poll for HN, so here it is. I don't want to restrict the choices and will collate the data in the replies. THREE languages per reply, please
Let me broaden it a little and also ask the optional question: Which new natural language(s) would you like to learn and why (i.e., other than your native language an the ones you are fluent in) <comment><USER6> Python, C, Javascript

I am assuming you aren't talking about learning 3 new languages, but rather, 3 languages if you are to learn only 3.

Python - A practical and elegant language. It supports both one-off, throw- away scripts and large applications. It has native libraries or bindings for majority of tasks. You can do procedural programming, object oriented programming, some FP, state machines....

Besides getting things done, it's a beautiful language for exploratory programming(IPython, concise language, slime...). It has some good meta- programming and reflective features. A lot of literature is available on advanced python - I watched Alex Martelli's Google talk on design patterns and I whole heartedly recommend it.

The whole ecosystem: * Superb documentation * Backed by big companies * Good tooling - sphinx, App Engine, pip, virtualenv * Abundant, battle tested libraries * Helpful community

makes it a good choice.

C - Insanely fast, lot of existing software and libraries written in it. Used for implementing high performance servers, used for browser, kernels... You can contribute to your favorite project viz. chromium(is actually c++), kernel, python, ruby; you can rewrite slow parts of your Python application in C.

People not conversant in C often say things pertaining to C being verbose. That's far from truth; C is in fact a very terse language. It's the standard library and lack of high level data structure that got it this incorrect reputation. The libraries might seem lacking but it's only the standard library that is small. Third party libraries are abundant and should be used, rather than reinventing the wheel.

Javascript - It would be a practical choice to complete the stack. Python/C for backend/desktop apps, Javascript for client side. With V8 and node.js, Javascript has sneaked in to the backend. Coffeescript takes out the ugliness out of Javascript, if the language quirks are bothering you.

Web is buzzing with activity now-a-days, and performant & conformant Javascript implementations has partly ridden the wave, partly triggered the wave.

If you are playing on web's playground, you should learn this language. If you aren't playing on the web, you should consider it. It's a lot of fun, and who knows, Google might acquire your startup for $ 6 billion. Even if you aren't after the money, the web is still a superb platform for getting your products out to a big audience. It's rewarding and a learning experience.

</comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only one who doesn't think programming language when I read natural language?

I speak 4 at the moment; I would like to be able to read French since it was the international language up until 200-300 years ago and maybe some Greek to be able to read the ancient texts.

In terms of useful languages, I think Italian is the most enjoyable language although I know it I would like to master it.

<comment><USER8> If you are interested in Greek Language check these Speeches from Xenophon Zolotas <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon_Zolotas>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bliss, Sisal, Mercury, ECLiPSe, Esterel.

Bliss is Wulf's baby, and I have the book; sick compiler. Purely for the sake of idol-worship.

Sisal, very influential language. FP for scientific computing, high performance. Would love to implement it.

Mercury .. I never really got logic programming all that well, besides some elementary prolog. Would love to explore the domain further but hindered by the opaque works that spill over from logic.

ECLiPSe is a constraint-logic programming package. Never used a standalone CLP system before. Only via Mozart/Oz, AliceML and Common Lisp (via Screamer)

Esterel is a language for reactive programming: think real-time and embedded devices. I vaguely know the language (1-2 weeks) but I haven't got the theoretical backbone to tackle it fully. Need to study temporal logics, brush up on process algebra, and perhaps even take up some discrete event simulation before I can fully grok it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Java, Javascript, C++

I know this selection seems passe but here's my rationale: First, learn a lingua franca that (almost) everybody knows and has huge libraries. That would be Java. Java is the English of computer languages, I think.

Javascript not only has immense presence (the default selection?) in most web development, and is gaining prominance in developing on mobile devices, e.g. bypassing the whole Objective-C & Cocoa stuff for iPhone and iPad. I don't know it much, but it also seems like an interesting language.

The third choice is not that clear, depends on whether you want to have an all-powerful language (C++) or one that excels in concurrency (e.g. Erlang) or want to expand your horizons (Scheme or Haskell, perhaps), etc. etc. I use C++ daily and if I had to do again I would still select it, but I may be biased because I am doing image and video analysis work.

As for natural languages: If you are interested in linguistics, I think you've got to learn Ancient Greek, to see a lot of the complexity and mechanisms that has been lost in other IE languages (you can, of course learn Lithuanian or Hittite for even a better grasp, but sources to those are harder to find and the reading material would not be as exciting, I think :-). It was an eye opener for me. As a second choice, I would go with Chinese, for the mind- expanding aspect (did you know that Chinese speakers can roughly classify the meaning of a word even if they don't its meaning, using radicals?) Also, you prospects for a job get multiplied 10x.

</comment><comment><USER10> Well i already know php to some extend, and the basics of C/CPP, Java, Action Script and all..

But i really like to get my hands dirty on C/CPP(im working on a MySQL storage engine as a hobby) and i like to learn python( i like maya[Animation], not only that python is a very strong language) too .. Those are the 2 currently in my list..

And if u want me to chose one more.. i say Java, because it will give me a very strong background on some very kewl concepts which i can use in other languages.. :)

And about my natural languages..

I definitely like to learn Sanskrit because their is a lot of knowledge hidden in Sanskrit books which u can never find else where, then i like to learn Chinese because i like the way its pronounced. and finaly spanish because.. well their is no because for that.. i just like to learn thats all.. :)

actually its harder than i thought it will be to reason why you learn a natural language other than if you are going to visit the related country or you are dating someone from that country ;) ..

</comment><comment><USER11> Python, Ocaml, Erlang

Learning Korean at the moment. Mainly in order to know what I'm buying in the supermarket.

<comment><USER11> Well, I guess that was the wrong answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Haskell, Erlang, Lua

I do C++ and q/kdb+ professionally, plus I know enough Python to get by. The three above are pretty different and would be interesting to expand my horizons.

Bonus question: Spanish (it's the second most common language in the States)

</comment><comment><USER13> I assume you mean "learn" as in "master", not just merely pick up the syntax to bang out the next big web app(tm) quickly, as it's fairly easy to pick up Python/Ruby/PHP/Javascript/whatever if you already program in a mainstream language.

Programming languages:

Haskell - Lots of interesting language features that you don't see elsewhere

Assembler - Already know some C, but would like to be working knowledge of the inner workings of computers (especially things like cache misses etc)

R - Need to brush up on statistical analysis skills

Natural language: Already learned English... I guess I'd take Japanese or Korean next? It'd be mostly for entertainment.

<comment><USER11> > ... working knowledge of the inner workings of computers ...

I'm a big fan of 'The Elements of Computing Systems' - takes you from NAND gates to pong.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elements-Computing-Systems- Building-...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Principles/dp/0262640686/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291824873&sr=8-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Clojure, C# (or more generally the .Net Framework), and Python.

As for natural languages, hands down Mandarin. I spent the summer in Hong Kong, and while they spoke Cantonese there, it was still a fantastic introduction to Chinese culture.

</comment><comment><USER15>
      - <USER5>
      - <USER3>
      - <USER4>

Optional: Japanese, probably. I thought of learning a new language for some months but am still unsure which. Maybe this thread gives some idea :)

</comment><comment><USER16> C -- It's the classic. I've only learnt Java in the C-style languages, and I'm interested in all of the code written in C.

Emacs Lisp -- I love using Emacs and I've always been interested in Lisp from what I've heard online. Sounds like a useful way to do it.

Haskell -- The idea of a functional language intrigues me... I'd love to try it.

And spoken languages? I'm interested in Latin and Ancient Greek because I already read a lot of works written in those languages, in translations. Thirdly, probably German.

</comment><comment><USER17> Haskell, ruby, javascript

Just because Haskell has a lot of interesting features. Ruby is too easy but vast and javascript makes cool stuff possible both in and out of the browser.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm already fluent in Mandarin and English and have some Japanese, Taiwanese, and Cantonese.

If I had extra time specifically for language learning, I'd like to have the Japanese become fluent and pick up some Spanish and Russian. Japanese because of its enormous economic and cultural clout, Russian, because a lot of Russians live in this part of the world, and Spanish because it's the second most common first language on the planet after Mandarin, which I already speak.

</comment><comment><USER19> Are folks answering "three new to them" languages or "which three languages, even if you already know one or more"?

<comment><USER11> The original question was 'If you could only learn 3 languages ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Python, Haskell, and actually master C

</comment><comment><USER21> Javascript: Currently the lingua franca of the Web. In the near future, the "bytecode" other languages (existing and new) will compile down to.

D: So far seems like "C++ - the good parts".

Scala: In case I ever have to touch the JVM again.

</comment><comment><USER22> C- Fast, lingua franca of the programming world

Lisp- Just to keep my mind agile

Prolog- I've always enjoyed it as much or more than anything else.

Natural language- ancient greek, to read the classics in the original tongue

</comment><comment><USER23> Haskell, Erlang, Ocaml

</comment><comment><USER24> Java, Ruby, Javascript

<comment><USER25> Why? I liked your list, but I'm a novice. Would you please elaborate about why you like this combination? Ruby and Javascript make sense to me for web scenarios. Is Java your third because it's more enterprise accepted? Other reasons for Java? Thanks!

<comment><USER26> The best thing about Java is how much it will make you appreciate the other ones. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> F#, Haskell, Clojure

Chinese, Sanskrit, Spanish

</comment><comment><USER28> VHDL, Haskell, Self.

Bonus question: Linear A, because it would be scientific progress, and put me in the history books.

</comment><comment><USER29> Shell (I'm including the mini-languages like awk), C, and Haskell.

</comment><comment><USER30> C, Standard ML, and Unix shell.

Lojban, Swedish, and Japanese.

<comment><USER31> I would love to learn Lojban. But when I'm feeling pragmatic, I think it might be easier to to find someone to practice with if I tried to learn Esperanto.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> take two: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1986905>

</comment><comment><USER33> Scala, IO, Erlang

</comment><comment><USER34> Chinese, Spanish, Deutsch?

<comment><USER18> Why? The first two make sense due to sheer numbers. What's the motivation for the third?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> F# - Clojure - <USER5>

</comment><comment><USER36> C, Java, Lisp

c - because you can always do it in c

java - because there is tons of work, and its a damn good language

lisp - because sometimes i just need a language with which i can build another language.</comment>


Ask HN: Does HN "help" upvoting posts by YC-backed companies? - <AUTHOR> One post by a YC-backed company was on the frontpage for some hours, got 30'ish upvotes and landed on page two rather quickly. Then, some hours later it was back on the frontpage with over 300 votes.<p>If I understand the HN algorithm correctly, it is unlikely that this happens organically or am I totally wrong? <comment><USER2> HN is an independent entity within YC, and it wouldn't be in their interest to play favorites. Instead, they focus on making the front page as intellectually gratifying as possible: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

If the story was bumped to the front page, it's because it was substantive, not because it was from a YC co.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, unfortunately, there are de facto voting blocs on HN these days. It wasn't always like this.

But now there are 10,000 YC affiliated people, 50,000 from Google/Microsoft/Amazon, etc and so it totally skews the results towards these larger organizations.

I would be happy if users were asked to provide their Bigco employer in a private field, and then I could filter out their votes by visiting /nobigco or something.

But ideally, voting on stories/comments related to your own BigCo employer would be disabled entirely.

</comment><comment><USER4> It appears they do. Right now, #7 on the front page is a YC company with no points or comment count associated with their post.

[https://imgur.com/m7HzrHs](https://imgur.com/m7HzrHs)

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7571449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7571449)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987870)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the links. Makes sense.</comment></comment></comment>


Scammers inject bogus news to BBC web site - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm

<comment><USER2> Are you saying the linked story (from 2003) is false, and has been maliciously placed onto the BBC's web site? If so, what's your source for that?</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News for Startup Pitches - <AUTHOR>

Hey ★ Startup is an online pitching platform that aims to gather an engaged community of startup mentors, investors and entrepreneurs, and give budding startups feedback about their project, idea and pitch technique.<p>See: http://www.heystartup.com <comment><USER2> If you're looking to get a user base consider listing yourself on Beta List: <http://betali.st/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. However, I think betali.st only accepts startups that are for a better word not "complete" i.e. in beta stage. In any event, we did submit and didn't get a response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I signed to AngelList: <https://angel.co/> , so I recommend to you post your service there too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats a good idea. Thanks

<comment><USER3> You're welcome ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It needs a way to browse submissions without registering (unless that's waiting for traction).

<comment><AUTHOR> As you suggested: <http://www.heystartup.com/hey/pitch/1>

Although currently only one submission - that is ours!

<comment> adam-_- This just shows the homepage for me?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, some bugs were in the recent push. Now you should see the video. In fact new video.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Tempah – Reserve a Spot in Supermarket - <AUTHOR> https://tempah.herokuapp.com <comment><AUTHOR> Another weekend another project. Since the movement control order, all the supermarket are imposing a limit of customer in store. This can lead to a long queue which is not ideal to anyone.

So introducing [https://tempah.herokuapp.com](https://tempah.herokuapp.com) . A website that allow supermarket customer to reserve a slot based on time for supermarket.

The customer can reserved a slot and a QR code will be generated for them. The supermarket can then scan the QR code to confirm the reservation.

If you think there are supermarket owner who could benefit from this please share it to them. It's free. Thank You</comment>


The 25 magic words in American television - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/09/17/161277400/the-25-magic-words-of-american-television

<comment><USER2> Is there a list like this for startup names?</comment>


'Ubuntu Friendly' Hardware Certification Program Maturing - <AUTHOR> http://www.thevarguy.com/2011/09/23/ubuntu-friendly-hardware-certification-program-maturing/ <comment><USER2> _manufacturers these days will change the underlying chip sets and configuration of "models" without changing the model # or appearance. The manufacturer has some incentive to keep their official compatibility with Microsoft but you may find that Linux compatibility changes._

This is definitely the case. I work at Canonical and previously worked on the Hardware Certification team (who produces the list of hardware on <http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/> and is working with the community on the Ubuntu Friendly program). The number one issue we saw was exactly this. We'd get a system, test it and enable or certify it, and then the components would change during production. Suddenly people were getting systems that didn't work properly.

It's not always the OEM's fault -- sometimes the ODM would change parts without properly notification. (After all, if they can save a half a cent per device and it still works just fine under Windows, that's just money in their pockets.)

We're working on it. It's gotten better in the past year or two with the major OEMs and we're continuing to improve our relationships with them and the ODMs that build the hardware for them. It's a process of education, driver improvement, and QA that goes on largely out of sight of anyone not actively involved in the process, but it is happening. The good news is that this helps everyone, as the OEMs and ODMs are starting to think about this sort of issue throughout the design and production process rather than as just an afterthought.

Edit: Whoops, meant this to be a reply to joe_the_user

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone actually managed to the alpha page it seems to be down. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFriendly> (see under Alpha page)

<comment><USER4> It's here: <http://linkpot.net/friendly/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sounds good.

However, what I have read is that to leverage chip prices and availability, manufacturers these days will change the underlying chip sets and configuration of "models" without changing the model # or appearance. The manufacturer has some incentive to keep their official compatibility with Microsoft but you may find that Linux compatibility changes. Those with more hardware knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong.

Off-topic, the problem I've had with laptops lately isn't lack of Linux compatibility but simply that the hardware is total crap on quality and ergonomic side.

<comment><USER6> Have you seen this list? <http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/>

I checked it before I bought a Lenovo and discovered that the ThinkPad X220 (the one I really wanted) was on that list. It works like a dream with Ubuntu. I wanted Gnome 3 as a first class experience and went with Fedora, and it works great.

<comment><USER7> Lenovo does a great job with ensuring reasonable level of linux compatibility in their hardware.

I've been fairly loyal customer for years for that reason and basically everyone I know who doesn't use a mac is on thinkpad running linux.

I think it may actually be meaningful customer segment for them.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Bitcoin Rises - Hacker News for Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoinrises.com

<comment><USER2> Looks interesting, thanks for sharing ^_^

</comment><comment><USER3> Love the ticker at the top! Maybe some tiny charts to go with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, will me on the todo list :)</comment></comment>


Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/mark-shuttleworth-dishes-on-where-canonical-and-ubuntu-linux-are-going-next/#ftag=RSSbaffb68 <comment><USER2> I think the major distros defaulting to GNOME is not going to end well. I tried very hard to use (and like) GNOME Shell for a while, and put it on my wife's computer as well. I always ended up finding completely wrong for the way I want to interact with my computer. And my wife long complained "why don't you switch my machine to the nice interface you use" and finally last week I did switch her off of GNOME and she's much happier.

<comment><USER3> I'm interested to learn why they chose to switch to Gnome instead of KDE plasma. What was the thinking behind it? Why wasn't the community involved in the decision? Gnome has the backing of Redhat and is the default DE on Fedora, so Canonical backing an alternative would have been desirable.

I'm biased, but Plasma or even Mate would have been much better choices. Plasma has been so good lately and seems to take community feedback seriously. Stability has been great, it's extremely lightweight and the customization options make me...happy. I've been kicking myself for not switching from Gnome to plasma sooner. For anyone skeptical of plasma, I urge you to give it a try : kubuntu, kde neon, fedora kde, arch + plasma, opensuse are all great.

<comment><USER2> I've heard lots of good things about KDE lately.

For Canonical: I suppose it sort of makes sense from a historical perspective in that before Unity they used Gnome, so they were returning to Gnome. But given that Gnome appears to be a single-threaded Javascript engine with memory leaks, I'm not convinced it's a great choice. Still, Gnome is backed by Red Hat and just got a $1 million donation ( [https://www.gnome.org/news/2018/05/anonymous-donor- pledges-1...](https://www.gnome.org/news/2018/05/anonymous-donor- pledges-1m-donation-over-two-years/) ), so in theory it should get better....but I've been thinking "it should get better soon" for a while, so who knows.

<comment><USER4> > I've heard lots of good things about KDE lately

Modern KDE (e.g. 5.12+) is amazing! It's slim, it's fast, it lets you configure tons of stuff and it looks beautiful.

If you haven't used it in the last two years you should give it a try!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have to agree with him on Unity, the reaction to it seemed to outweigh it's presentation. I gave it a try and liked some aspects but ultimately ended up on Cinnamon.

I realize that's a totally subjective statement but I was surprised by some of the reactions I heard about it.

<comment><USER6> I actually stopped using linux as my main OS in 2010 because of Gnome3 and Unity. The "Applications","Places","System" menu was clear, intuitive and desktop oriented. I never liked KDE, and MATE seemed like a rather unoptmized fork. So it left me with using Xubuntu VM on a Windows host (and I hate Windows because of it lacks bash).

Once I moved to the US I started using Mac and never looked back. The best thing that Apple does is that they don't try to merge desktop and tablet UX.

<comment><USER7> > The best thing that Apple does is that they don't try to merge desktop and > tablet UX

With all the IOS apps they keep bringing to macOS, the merging of the IOS and macOS dev teams, and the imminent release of ARM macbooks I wouldn't get comfortable

<comment><USER7> Not sure why that got downvoted but ok. Just expressing my opinion that apple are moving toward exactly this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Found as users -- and Shuttleworth himself -- of the Linux desktop..._

Good grief. Presumably that should be " _Fond_ as users... _are_ of the Linux desktop"...

<comment><USER9> Also, "... Snap _contanizeried_ applications ...". That 'z' is way out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are those cloud usage numbers missing some zeros? "Ubuntu dominates the cloud with 209,000 instances."

<comment><USER11> This "Cloud Market" stats they quote (which they've quoted in the past) seems like a very dead website.

Looking at the site: [http://thecloudmarket.com/stats#/by_platform_definition](http://thecloudmarket.com/stats#/by_platform_definition)

The numbers haven't changed in the last 2 years, looking at "Popular Images": [http://thecloudmarket.com/#/popular](http://thecloudmarket.com/#/popular)

The top listed image is Ubuntu 7.10 ("Gutsy") from 2007...

.. and looking at recently added the most recent is from 1 year ago: [http://thecloudmarket.com/#/recentlyadded](http://thecloudmarket.com/#/recentlyadded)

So a bit of a bad journalism moment there I think that's a very bad source!

I'm sure theres a more recent source but one 2015 article claimed that Canonical was claiming "In 2015, over 2 million Ubuntu instances were launched in the cloud – Based on their statistics, Canonical claims that 67,000 new Ubuntu cloud instances are launched every day! That's by far the largest number that any OS vendor can dream! Ubuntu dominates the LAMP deployments in the cloud."

So indeed, probably missing a few zeros :) I can't find a newer public source, but this blog post from 2015 has some numbers for Ubuntu: [https://blog.ubuntu.com/2015/12/22/more-people-use-ubuntu- th...](https://blog.ubuntu.com/2015/12/22/more-people-use-ubuntu-than-anyone- actually-knows) \- At least 20 million unique instances of Ubuntu have launched in public clouds, private clouds, and bare metal in 2015 itself. \- In fact, over 2 million new Ubuntu cloud instances launched in November 2015. \- That's 67,000 new Ubuntu cloud instances launched per day.

Of course some instances last minutes or days, but never the less.

(Disclaimer: I work at Canonical just in case that matters to you)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Serious question: What are the advantages of Ubuntu on a server over, say, Debian?

<comment><USER13> In my experience Debian has considerably older packages. However if one installs everything with docker the underlying OS has very little importance. It stops at sshd, systemd and vim, anything else can be dockerized.

<comment> cup-of-tea A lot of people run Ubuntu _inside_ the container. There are many libraries today that officially only support some Ubuntu LTS (Tensorflow, for example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Mark changed his mind a lot and Canonical has started and cancelled many projects to the point it's hard to care about their new stuff anymore.

Oh you're supporting netbooks and doing a distro related to it? Cancelled.

Oh you started a cloud service that stores files forever? Cancelled.

Oh you created a competitor to X and Wayland for compositing? Cancelled.

Oh you created an alternative window manager to replace Gnome She'll? Cancelled.

Did they cancel their phone yet?

Didn't they have some kind of $30,000 server they were talking about for a while that wad cancelled?

It's hard to keep up with all their cancelled projects.

<comment><USER15> Sure, it's a bummer to see potentially cool stuff get canceled. But Ubuntu was all about innovation from the start. I wouldn't mind seeing twice as many canceled projects, because it's a sign that you're willing to put yourself out there and fail often. Innovation has a cost, and if part of that cost is "we can't support netbooks but other distros will, heck you can even use Xubuntu if you want" that's fine with me.

<comment><USER16> > Ubuntu was all about innovation from the start

I thought it was about making a distro that was approachable and accessible?

Source: vaguely remembered "What does ubuntu mean?" promo videos from many years ago.

<comment><USER15> Yes, and at the time that was a huge innovation. Don't ask a neckbeard, but it was a huge innovation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _You can love technology and you can have new projects and it can all be kumbaya and open source, but what really matters is computers, virtual machines, virtual disks, virtual networks. So we ruthlessly focus on delivering that and then also solving all the problems around that._

What is he even talking about?

<comment><USER18> No more vanity projects for the desktop version of Ubuntu is what I got out of it. He's probably referring to the spirit in which Ubuntu desktop was originally released (the Linux desktop for everybody) and now the focus is on things that can assist virtualization and containers in the cloud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "I'm now convinced a lot of the people who demanded its demise never used it."

I personally always wondered if anybody at Canonical had ever used it. It never worked right. You always had the feeling that you have to beg to make unity accept a mouse movement or a key shortcut to view that damned panel -- for starters.</comment>


Demo: Meteor-based emailer with geolocation and UA tracking - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mailgun.net/post/demo-meteor-based-emailer-with-geolocation-and-ua-tracking/

<comment><USER2> As always, we are open to any feedback to help make our webhooks better. We recently added domain toggles to them so you can add different end points for each of your domains, due to popular demand.</comment>


US capital swaps top compensation spot with Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-19/beltway-earnings-make-u-s-capital-richer-than-silicon-valley.html

<comment><USER2> I think this really highlights some of whats wrong with America. We are beginning to value those who extract value more highly than those who innovate and create value. I have worked very closely with government employees and while there are definitely some very qualified people doing very enlightened work, the majority of the ones in government positions are there because they are unfit for private employment and in many cases lack even a remedial understanding of the issues they regulate.</comment>