Craig Steven Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-steven-wright-claims-be-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin <comment><USER3> I don't believe this for a second - and i'm more interested in figuring out how he duped two Bitcoin developers and some of the most notable news outlets in the world.

When the link to Wright was first reported in Wired[0] and Gizmodo[1], after letting the news sink in for a day it was apparent that the evidence trail was an elaborate ruse. I don't know if Wright leaked the hack to the media (I think it was more likely to be a disgruntled former employee who bought into the story), but there were many journalists who turned down that story while it was being shopped widely because it didn't smell right (this is no slight on gwern, Andy Greenburg and Sam Biddle who could bring to the story more than what most ordinary journalists could, and mention that it could be a hoax)

Consider that Wright faked old blog posts, allowed them to be found, and then deleted them. Consider that he added a new Satoshi Nakomoto PGP key to keyservers with an email he controlled (which was different, obviously) in 2013, _three years_ after the real Satoshi disappeared. Consider that Wright claimed to have a super computer and produced a reference letter from SGI, but that SGI claimed no knowledge of the computer or letter and it turned out to be fake (in some parts of the world - this is known as fraud)[2]. Consider his LinkedIn said he earned a Phd. from Bathurst University but the University knew nothing about it[3]. Consider the only people Wright revealed he was Satoshi to were a few select employees and people _he was trying to raise money from_ (he said he was a billionaire but the funds were _locked up_ \- it is a modern digital version of a 419 scam).

Consider, also, that he says he "tried to keep his head down" but shows up at a Bitcoin panel as an unknown and suggestively describes himself vaguely - with a smirk and a wink. Consider that he says he doesn't want the fame or attention, but shopped an exclusive deal around the media for a month and went with the BBC, The Economist and GQ - and is currently on every TV channel. Consider that Wright, despite being quasi-published, has never produced anything approaching the complexity, clarity, succinctness and humble nature of the Bitcoin paper, but is the complete opposite of all of these characteristics (rambles and talks down to people, explaining detail not so that the reader learns it - but so that you know that he knows this shit).

From what I know about him, it seems Wright is experienced with barely getting along with big pie-in-the-sky ideas that convince a lot of people around him, but that definitely are in the grey area between legitimate and fraud. He is able to drown people in quasi-technical talk and on big ideas and is very personable (we also have a word for people who take fraudulent action via their charms).

He avoids people who are actual experts in the areas he himself professes to be an expert in, and when he is in relevant forums or other online communities he downplays his achievements.

Some examples: He claimed to be published in infosec, but rather than writing for the usual outlets he wrote for political blogs on infosec topics[4] (often poorly). He added his two supercomputers to the top 500 index (which is self reported) but never participated in the online communities, but he did brag about it in investment material. He didn't interact with professors or students at universities, but did teach a remote webinar course on supercomputing at a pay-for school[4] and finally, with Bitcoin - <USER2> investment material and to employees he was a domain expert and the founder but he was never a regular in online communities or conferences (although it seems he got to a point of even convincing Bitcoin _experts_ that he knew what he was talking about)

He is currently being pursued in Australia by tax authorities not because, as was commonly reported, not paying taxes on the Satoshi coins (you don't pay tax in Australia until gains are realized) but because he was one of the largest claimants of R&D tax concessions in Australia (larger than Google and Atlassian) and this is a common area of fraud (create a fake company, say you employe 50 people, claim that 'R&D spend' back - similar to sales tax fraud).

One more point of doubt - but I leave it because it is a bit _ad hominem_ \- it turns out that you can't work for long in Sydney without knowing someone who worked for Wright in one of his schemes or knowing someone who knew someone. Turns out I had 2 friends who worked with him at various points. Both offered characterizations of Wright as being crazy and deceiving. He is very convincing in the short term, but things start to unwind over time. One is still, despite being mildly burnt by him, partly convinced he may have had _something_ to do with Bitcoin because "he is just that crazy, you learn not to be surprised by stuff" \- but then snapped out of it.

Is this really Satoshi? It isn't - i'm going to start from the perspective that Wright has pulled off (another) impressive fraud. I'm more interested in figuring out _how the hell he did this_.

edit: that didn't take long. It appears there is evidence in this thread, on reddit and on Twitter that the 'verification' falls short and is just an old bitcoin transaction[6]

edit: I just got this from another former employee of Wright's - "best conman i've ever met"

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi- nakam...](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-is- probably-this-unknown-australian-genius/)

[1] [http://gizmodo.com/this-australian-says-he-and-his-dead- frie...](http://gizmodo.com/this-australian-says-he-and-his-dead-friend- invented-bi-1746958692)

[2] [https://www.wired.com/2015/12/new-clues-suggest-satoshi- susp...](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/new-clues-suggest-satoshi-suspect- craig-wright-may-be-a-hoaxer/)

[3] [http://gizmodo.com/the-mystery-of-craig-wright-and- bitcoin-i...](http://gizmodo.com/the-mystery-of-craig-wright-and-bitcoin-isnt- solved-yet-1747576675)

[4] [https://theconversation.com/lulzsec-anonymous-freedom- fighte...](https://theconversation.com/lulzsec-anonymous-freedom-fighters-or- the-new-face-of-evil-2605)

[5] [https://www.itmasters.edu.au/free-short-course- programming-s...](https://www.itmasters.edu.au/free-short-course-programming- super-computers/)

[6] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hf4s2/craig_wrigh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hf4s2/craig_wright_reveals_himself_as_satoshi_nakamoto/d2pf5op)

<comment><USER4> _" Questions about Mr Wright's academic degrees arose because he had listed so many on a LinkedIn profile which has since been deleted, and because some could not be confirmed. He now says that the profile was a "joke"—to "take the piss out of myself" and to keep people from bothering him. "No one took me seriously, which was great... His doctorate in theology, however, remains a mystery and Mr Wright does not want to talk about it"_ [0]

For once Nik, I tend to agree with you. The above line is a line from the Economist that points to deception. Is that Doctorate a technical PhD? [1] What matters most is a demonstration of the ideas in code and then discussions with bitcoin peers. You don't need a doctorate on your CV to show this.

[0] [http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig- steve...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-steven- wright-claims-be-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin)

[1] _" His doctorate in theology, however, remains a mystery and Mr Wright does not want to talk about it"_ ~ [http://www.drcraigwright.net/about/](http://www.drcraigwright.net/about/)

<comment><USER5> Note that in his bio on his site it's:

"He has a Doctorate in Theology and has submitted his completed thesis for his second Doctorate in Computer Science."

It can be interpreted "second Doctorate in CS" and "second Doctorate, but this time in CS," and based on the rest of the claims, it's the second. The original phrasing on the site is exactly how a good conman would phrase it. Which doesn't prove anything but adds to the other red flags.

And last year he claimed he has "a couple of Doctorates."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&t=2m10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&t=2m10s)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is absolutely fake and already debunked, as mentioned on the bitcointalk forums: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1457039.msg14728531#...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1457039.msg14728531#msg14728531)

The signature Wright posted is a signature from a transaction on the blockchain (and therefore cannot be a signature of a Nobel prize refusal speech or whatever other message he claims): [https://blockchain.info/tx/828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69...](https://blockchain.info/tx/828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe)

The above tx's scriptSig: 3045022100c12a7d54972f26d14cb311339b5122f8c187417dde1e8efb6841f55c34220ae0022066632c5cd4161efa3a2837764eee9eb84975dd54c2de2865e9752585c53e7cce01

The signature Wright posted:

        $ echo 'MEUCIQDBKn1Uly8m0UyzETObUSL4wYdBfd4ejvtoQfVcNCIK4AIgZmMsXNQWHvo6KDd2Tu6euEl13VTC3ihl6XUlhcU+fM4=' | base64 -d | xxd -p
        3045022100c12a7d54972f26d14cb311339b5122f8c187417dde1e8efb68
        41f55c34220ae0022066632c5cd4161efa3a2837764eee9eb84975dd54c2
        de2865e9752585c53e7cce

<comment><USER7> Note to mods: the really long signature line makes the page unreadable on mobile; probably too late for OP to edit.

<comment><USER5> It would be good if the HN software during accepting the post which contains "the really long lines" inserts automatically pre tags around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> EDIT 2: Debunked!

The signature in Wright's post is just pulled straight from a transaction on the blockchain. Convert the base64 signature from his post (MEUCIQDBKn1Uly8m0UyzETObUSL4wYdBfd4ejvtoQfVcNCIK4AIgZmMsXNQWHvo6KDd2Tu6euEl13VTC3ihl6XUlhcU+fM4=) to hex (3045022100c12a7d54972f26d14cb311339b5122f8c187417dde1e8efb6841f55c34220ae0022066632c5cd4161efa3a2837764eee9eb84975dd54c2de2865e9752585c53e7cce), and you get the signature found in this transaction input: [https://blockchain.info/tx/828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69...](https://blockchain.info/tx/828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe)

Note that the base64 string at the top of his post isn't a signature, just a cleartext message: " Wright, it is not the same as if I sign Craig Wright, Satoshi.\n\n".

Now the only question is how he fooled Gavin. I would imagine this story will still get spread around some naive channels for a while, just like the last time Wright tried something like this.

Credit goes to jouke in #bitcoin for figuring it out.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

EDIT: Current opinion: still skeptical. Here is the public cryptographic "proof": [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- significance/)

Something still seems off to me, why does he go into such specific detail in verifying the signature? I would have assumed he would just let people figure out the verification themselves. But maybe I'm just skeptical because Satoshi having a public identity takes some of the magic away.

As pointed out by maaku, he never revealed what message the signature is supposed to be signing.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

My Original Post:

Everyone in this thread is already taking this as the truth. But remember that Wright has not publicly released any cryptographic proof, there is only a claim from BBC that he showed the signature to them and a few magazines.

This strikes me as a little strange since originally Satoshi pretty much only interacted with the community via the bitcoin mailing list. Why did he "reveal" the proof by sending it to some magazines rather than emailing the mailing list?

It really seems like the person who created Bitcoin, a trustless system based on cryptographic proof, wouldn't make everyone take his word on his identity when it could be trivially solved with one email.

<comment><USER9> That's an interesting position.

The question is: why creating this hoax in the first place? If anything, the price of bitcoin has been negatively impacted by this.

[http://www.coindesk.com/price/](http://www.coindesk.com/price/)

What would it be one's motivation behind this?

<comment><USER10> Let me put forth an alternate theory. Everyone is suggesting this is a scam for more money, which is undoubtedly the most likely explanation. However, I think an alternate explanation is that this may be a larger ploy to try to bait the real Satoshi out of hiding. Get him to say "No, that guy's a poser, it's really me." and while he's out, say "Hey man, what do you think about the blocksize?" This could explain Gavin's participation; pulling out all the stops to try to "save" bitcoin by getting founder-approval for a blocksize bump.

<comment><USER11> Even if that were the case, why would it reveal Satoshi? Even if the real Satoshi felt the need to step in, he wouldn't need to reveal himself or open up future communications - just post an anonymous message signed with a known key that states "I am not Craig Wright".

<comment><USER12> This is the best solution so far, however, it assumes the real Satoshi is still around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a hoax I think. And also Gavin supporting it is weird. The Signature in the blog post, is, in fact a signature from this transaction: 828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe

Relevant Reddit Comment: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hf4s2/craig_wrigh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hf4s2/craig_wright_reveals_himself_as_satoshi_nakamoto/d2pf5op)

<comment><USER14> Andresen's support would make sense in the context of building a new blockchain\bitcoin business.

To have Satoshi & Bitcoin's chief scientist would be impressive for a start- up.

Too good in fact.

<comment><USER13> No. It'd just kill his career in the bitcoin world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reposting my other comment:

I think Wright is just a smooth-talking conman with some crypto experience. I'm betting he met Gavin and other (unfortunately, merely "supposed" at this point...) experts in person, talked shop for a while, then took out his laptop and staged verifying the signature of blocks 1 and 9 with dummy commands. (Edit: Gavin actually claimed it was a clean computer, not one that Wright brought. Disregard that.)

The Economist actually states this directly:

>Mr Wright has also demonstrated this verification in person to The Economist—and not just for block 9, but block 1. Such demonstrations can be stage-managed; and information that allows us to go through the verification process independently was provided too late for us to do so fully. Still, as far as we can tell he indeed seems to be in possession of the keys, at least for block 9. This assessment is shared by two bitcoin insiders who have sat through the same demonstration: Jon Matonis, a bitcoin consultant and former director of the Bitcoin Foundation, and Gavin Andresen, Mr Nakamoto's successor as the lead developer of the cryptocurrency's software (he has since passed on the baton, but is still contributing to the code).

Relevant bit:

>Such demonstrations can be stage-managed; and information that allows us to go through the verification process independently was provided too late for us to do so fully.

For Gavin's demonstration, he claims Wright validated the signatures on a "clean" computer, with the implication that it could not be staged.

>Part of that time was spent on a careful cryptographic verification of messages signed with keys that only Satoshi should possess. But even before I witnessed the keys signed and then verified on a clean computer that could not have been tampered with, I was reasonably certain I was sitting next to the Father of Bitcoin.

So, either the clean computer wasn't really clean, or Gavin's complicit in the scam, or Wright does have Satoshi's private keys and may be Satoshi.

Either way, why would Satoshi want to prove it yet only demonstrate proof to a few people in private rather than putting a message and signature online for anyone to verify?

<comment><USER16> > I think Wright is just a smooth-talking conman with some crypto experience. > I'm betting he met Gavin and other (unfortunately, merely "supposed" at this > point...) experts in person, talked shop for a while, then took out his > laptop and staged verifying the signature of blocks 1 and 9 with dummy > commands.

I don't believe that anybody with the most basic understanding of cryptography would fall for that. I don't think there is a slightest chance that Gavin would. So the most interesting part of the story to me is why did he publish his blog post.. Something made him do that, but it's beyond doubt to me that he did not take part in planning of this operation.

<comment><USER15> I agree that it seems extremely absurd Bitcoin experts would fall for that.

I'm very interested to see how this story develops.

<comment><USER17> It doesn't seem at all absurd to me that an expert at any subject, speaking to someone else they believe is another honest expert, but who is actually an experienced con-artist / fraudster, can be fooled. Don't think of it as one cryptographer deceiving another via cryptography. Think of it more like a Penn & Teller trick (to use an example of some well-known experts in the art of deceit - not that I think for a moment they'd ever actually defraud someone) only with the computers and cryptography. The actual deception is likely so far outside the mark's expectations and normal thought processes that the possibility of it never even occurs to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This guy > [http://cdn.static- economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...](http://cdn.static- economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full- width/images/2016/05/articles/main/20160430_blp539.jpg) < cannot possibly be Satoshi Nakamoto. He looks, feels, and smells like a conman. It only takes one red flag to question credibility and this guy has several.

1\. Contradicts himself, privacy vs brokering a deal with major media outlets for a story.

2\. Faking LinkedIn experience & degrees.

3\. Associates believe he is 'crazy' and a 'conman'

4\. Failed the writing syntax test comparing his multiple published works to the original posts and bitcoin paper and eventually...

5\. ...Shifting blame or holes in his story towards the DEAD known people who've worked on Bitcoin or who had contact with Satoshi in the past.

6\. SGI does not acknowledge him or his claimed statements regarding his relationship with SGI.

7\. And I'm not going to go any further... the point is, he has too many 'excuses' for every little thing.

I understand he wants to be infallible and unchallenged in his claim, but just the number of alibis and excuses he dishes out, sans his questionable private- key proof, leaves a gut feeling that he's not Satoshi and smells of con.

<comment><USER19> Don't judge people by their looks when their actions speak far louder.

<comment><USER18> Sorry, I'm just taking this a bit personally because I know a guy who ruined a few peoples' lives by telling lies habitually and scamming for investors. For me, Dr. Wright relates to him and already as a bias I paint a bad image.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's no real proof here that Craig is Satoshi. If he really wanted to prove it to us, he would need to sign a message saying 'Craig Wright is Satoshi signed 2016-05-02' using the genesis block key.

Read his post: [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- significance/) he goes into all sorts of details but then glosses over the fact that the arbitrary Sartre quote could have been signed by anyone at any point in the past.

<comment><USER21> Or he could just use the PGP key he used on the mailing list for months at the start of bitcoin's life.

<comment><USER22> Or donate some of the first blocks (s)he mined.

<comment><USER20> Pre-announce and donate Block 1 to the red cross or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is a very interesting situation. Fundamentally, there is no reason he shouldn't be willing to sign an additional message. If he is the crypto expert he claims to be, he should understand the perfect legitimacy of such a request. So either:

a) He can't sign it.

b) He is really that petulant and petty that he "won't keep jumping through hoops", even when those hoops represent completely reasonable and trivially fulfillable requests. Which itself doesn't really seem to match the temperament I would have expected Satoshi to have, though i'm certainly no expert on the man.

Something is wrong here. I'm not unconvinced, but i'm suspiciously reserving judgment until he signs a second, unpredictable message.

<comment><USER24> Well, there is (d) paranoia.

Suppose he does have the private key, but, because it is literally worth millions of dollars, he has it somewhere secure. It's not sitting on his laptop, waiting for someone to steal it (physically or electronically).

Signing a message before the announcement was lower risk than signing messages now, after the announcement. Accessing it a second time, with greedy little eyes all over him, is risking millions of dollars to convince people who probably wouldn't be convinced anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> _" Mr Wright does not want to make public the proof for block 1, arguing that block 9 contains the only bitcoin address that is clearly linked to Mr Nakamoto (because he sent money to Hal Finney). Repeating the procedure for other blocks, he says, would not add more certainty. He also says he can't send any bitcoin because they are now owned by a trust. And he rejected the idea of having The Economist send him another text to sign as proof that he actually possesses these private keys, rather than simply being the first to publish a proof which was generated at some point in the past by somebody else."_

Sounds extremely dubious. Especially when he's presented fake proof before.

</comment><comment><USER26> Craig Wright says that (the late) "Hal Finney was one of the engineers who helped turn Mr Wright's ideas into the Bitcoin protocol", according to this article.

However, in Hal Finney's "Bitcoin and Me" post, Hal says he mined the first block in 2008, then turned the miner off, and then heard about Bitcoin again in 2010 and transferred his coins to a cold wallet. But he doesn't say anything about working on the protocol. [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833#ms...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833#msg1643833)

Interesting story there. Either way – RIP, Hal.

<comment><USER27> Hopefully Hal comes back in some years in the future and sets the record straight. (He's at Alcor now)

<comment><USER28> Hal Finney (sadly) died two years ago.

<comment><USER13> No. He was cryonized. Hopefully, the future makes it possible to resurrect him to life.

<comment><USER29> Alcor's competence, unfortunately, leaves a little to be desired. [http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze- pein](http://thebaffler.com/salvos/everybody-freeze-pein)

<comment><USER27> I've been to their conferences, and am a member.

I agree they could do far better. I think they are doing the best they think they can do. I think the entire field got poisoned by defining itself in some kind of struggle in the 60s/70s against anti-cryo people, which is stupid.

IVF, organ banking, etc. are progressing nicely. The Russians are doing a great job on human cryo. My hope is that the Alcor preservations are still good enough today that recovery is possible, although it's likely a better preservation technique, causing less damage, might lead to a recoverable person at an earlier date (i.e. Alcor 2016 person is recoverable in 2100; RU- Cryo person cryopreserved with better technology and technique in 2020 is recoverable in 2070.)

I still think Alcor is better odds than box in the ground or being incinerated. For ~$1k/yr (membership + insurance), it's worth it to me, even if only to fund/etc. research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "One of the most useful lessons I learned from working at Facebook had nothing to do with technology: Doubt the media. Always doubt the media."

([https://medium.com/@blakeross/don-t-outsource-your- thinking-...](https://medium.com/@blakeross/don-t-outsource-your-thinking- ad825a9b4653))

I'm happy to see that The Economist, at least, has a healthy sense of skepticism.

</comment><comment><USER31> Gavin Andresen says he's verified that Wright is Satoshi. If this is a hoax, a lot of people are going to wind up with a lot of egg on their faces. :)

[http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi](http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi)

<comment><USER32> This happens. The historian Hugh Trevor Roper was the world's greatest expert on Adolf Hitler and fell for a scam, famously publicly endorsing some fake 'Hitler diaries'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Much more useful link: [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- significance/)

Working through it now -- lets say I am rapidly heading towards "Not a hoax" territory.

[Edit: Or, possibly, totally quackadoodle -- but very convinced-in-himself quackadoodle. I've gotten as far as proving "OK, he knows how to reverse a Bitcoin address into a public key, and picked a good address for the purpose."]

<comment><USER33> I was unable to torture the inputs into verifying, despite worksmanlike effort, unless I trusted calculations made by "the adversary."

I consider the posts by others of this thread of a Bitcoin transaction with the same signature to be dispositive that he was not signing any variant of the Sartre message.

Conclusion: a) The linked blog post is pure hokum. b) I'm very clear on how he got this past generalist media but unsure of how he got it past Gavin.

<comment><USER4> Patrick, Gavin is just a person and as fallible as any other person. If a long con is being attempted, everything may appear to be right. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Time will tell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Again? This was debunked months ago when he first tried to pull of this stunt.

Remember, it's easy to prove you're Satoshi by either

* Signing a message with his PGP key [http://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/satoshinakamoto.asc](http://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/satoshinakamoto.asc)

* Signing a message with one of his early Bitcoin address keys

Edit: apparently he did the latter, quote article

> Mr Wright said he planned to release information that would allow others to > cryptographically verify that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Wonder why it takes so much planning.

Edit2: apparently he signed something

[http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- significance/)

Gavin Adresen also is convinced: [http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi](http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi)

Edit3: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609707)

<comment><USER35> His proof has been shown to be fake.

<comment><USER34> He didn't sign a message "Craig Wright is Satoshi", which would be the proper way to prove this.

The signature he has could come from one of the signatures the real Satoshi has created.

Edit: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609707)

The signature came from a blockchain tx.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This article from 2015 was right after all: [https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi- nakam...](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-is- probably-this-unknown-australian-genius/)

<comment><USER34> No, journalism is in an even worse shape than we expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why is no one talking about Dave Kleiman, the wheelchaired man who died in 2013? He was supposedly a friend of Wright. My gut feeling is that he was the real Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright just sounds like an fraudulent opportunist who tries to bank by all means necessary from knowing the guys secret.

<comment><USER38> Nick Szabo as Satoshi is my own hypothesis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> That's really interesting. I've been updating this Quora answer for a while and he actually commented on it saying "People always know" in Sep 2015 before his name ever came up.

I'm not sure I believe his comments fully in his latest video though. It seems he's been conflicted for a long time on whether to reveal himself but for all the times he says he wants to be left alone, he easily could have but yet here he is.

[https://www.quora.com/Who-is-most-likely-Satoshi- Nakamoto/an...](https://www.quora.com/Who-is-most-likely-Satoshi- Nakamoto/answers/4157306)

<comment><USER40> [https://www.quora.com/profile/Frank- Blu/log](https://www.quora.com/profile/Frank-Blu/log)

The owner of the profile of the person who answered your question (whoever he is) seems to have changed his username from "Craig S Wright" to Frank Blu on Dec 12th 2015. He also seems to have deleted, on that same day, every post he made on Quora after Dec 11 2014.

The titles of the questions on which he posted revolved a lot around cryptocurrencies, cryptography and supercomputers, as well as finance and economics. Some example of questions to which he contributed are:

"How large will the Bitcoin blockchain be in November 2015?" "How would I estimate the cost of setting up a 100 Tera-Flop server at my..." "Why is gold considered so precious and why does it have such high prices..." "Are there better uses of stimulus funds than others?"

His earliest activity on the site is the creation of a topic called CSCSS, on Jul 30th 2012.

[https://www.quora.com/topic/CSCSS](https://www.quora.com/topic/CSCSS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> A little OT, but whenever the "real" Satoshi Nakamoto is found, what does that mean for the lawsuit that Dorian Nakamoto has against Newsweek and its 2014 claim?

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/dorian- nakamoto-f...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/dorian-nakamoto- fingered-as-bitcoin-creator-wants-to-sue-newsweek/)

</comment><comment><USER42> Unless Craig Wright comes out with further proof, proof that is undeniable and unquestionable, I am left feeling sick to my stomach.

I have read several articles this morning which tout this event as total fact (BBC, Venturebeat, NPR and more), and it just saddens me. If this is a hoax, I have lost even more respect for these outlets. If this is a hoax, I have also lost respect for Gavin Andersen, unless he has an ulterior motive for backing Wright in the first place, or was hacked as some have speculated.

Whenever this kind of "unveiling" happens, I get disheartened. It makes a serious technical community and set of ides I care very much about look like little more than a soap-opera or disorganized group of gossip-hounds, as protrayed in major media outlets, overshadowing everything else.

Total bummer (until further proof and/or notice).

</comment><comment><USER43> It's kinda sad this is being reported by credible journals, it's super likely to be completely false. I'm glad on HN the link states it's just a claim, and that on the economist it's phrased as a question: 'is he Satoshi?' (the rule being in 99/100 cases, the answer is no.) But I've seen otherwise.

<comment><USER44> Agence France Presse (AFP) says in English "Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright on Monday revealed himself as the creator of the virtual Bitcoin currency to media outlets..." which in French becomes "Bitcoin: le véritable créateur de la monnaie numérique est Craig Wright".

This translates as "the actual inventor of the virtual Bitcoin currency IS Craig Wright", conditionals or precautions be damned; and it's printed as is all over the French press this morning.

<comment><USER43> Yup, Dutch media it was less bad but still not great.

Instead of saying it was a 'claim', or preferably not writing anything about this scam, they wrote 'Wright admits he's Satoshi' in the title.

This 'admitting' implies everyone thought he was Satoshi, and he confirmed it. When in reality, everyone thinks he's definitely not it, and he claimed it without proof.

Then in the article they make completely false claims about him signing messages he didn't etc. It's really sad, there wasn't a hint of skepticism that was present in the Economist which I thought was poor itself already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> We changed the URL from [http://www.economist.com/news/business-and- finance/21698060-...](http://www.economist.com/news/business-and- finance/21698060-craig-wright-reveals-himself-as-satoshi-nakamoto), which points to this longer story.

</comment><comment><USER46> There's more chicanery in Wright's code [1]

In the posted image of EcDSA.verify.sh, he base64 decodes $sign _i_ ture, but this is uninitialised. The path is stored in $sign _a_ ture.

[http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing- significance/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Didn't they debunk this guy as a hack? /r/bitcoin pretty much destroyed him when he popped up last time

</comment><comment><USER21> > arguing that block 9 contains the only bitcoin address that is clearly > linked to Mr Nakamoto (because he sent money to Hal Finney)

Block 9 contains no transactions other than the mining reward.

[https://blockchain.info/block- index/14858/000000008d9dc510f2...](https://blockchain.info/block- index/14858/000000008d9dc510f23c2657fc4f67bea30078cc05a90eb89e84cc475c080805)

<comment><USER48> Block 9 reward payout address 12cbQ... was used in the transaction to Hal Finney later in block 170.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Funny to go back and watch this panel:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE&feature=youtu.be&t=57s)

</comment><comment><USER50> Some time ago I read this: [https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well- deserved-f...](https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved- fortune-of-satoshi-nakamoto/)

Not sure how effective this is, but if this is true then Satoshi has been awarded most of the bitcoins.

</comment><comment><USER51> Here we go again... anatomy of a new _" satoshi unmasked!"_ story:

\- Big media spreads bs claims (check)

\- BTC price drop (check)

\- Community CSI debunks story (check)

\- New core devs drama chapter (check)

\- Back to "normal" __

</comment><comment><USER52> The proof contains some strange bash commands, using & instead of &&: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610192)

</comment><comment><USER53> It would be pretty annoying if he was making all this up. Posting a signed random quote does not prove anything. Signing something provably recent is better, especially if that is message akin to "Satoshi is Craig".

</comment><comment><USER54> So either Gavin knew or didn't. As a core dev I am not sure which is worse.

</comment><comment><USER55> I don't want to sound like a nerd-snob, but isn't weird that the potential Satoshi Nakamoto uses Windows and notepad? [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean- paul-sartre-signing-signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre- signing-significance/)

I mean, to each his own- especially when talking about dev tools- so why not I guess?

<comment> TD-Linux Not really. The original Satoshi client only ran on Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Craig: But how will those who don't get ECC believe that it's me?

X: Set your hostname to be wintermute, that should remove all doubt people might have.

</comment><comment><USER57> On the academic side of things, he has a very thin paper trail: [http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/w/Wright:Craig_S=](http://dblp.uni- trier.de/pers/hd/w/Wright:Craig_S=) and [http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81488659808&coll=DL&dl=...](http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81488659808&coll=DL&dl=ACM&trk=0&cfid=779669783&cftoken=67111435)

I'm not saying the real Satoshi _has_ to be an academic computer scientist, but if someone with a significant academic publication record in cryptography stepped forward, I would take it much more seriously.

Of course, this is secondary to the fact that Wright has not signed a new message with the original Satoshi key.

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm not sure whether I actually care if he is or if he isn't - there's just so much good material in this story: hidden super computers and theology degrees and all sorts of craziness. The only thing that could really improve it would be a link to Paul Le Roux!

</comment><comment><USER59> If this is fake, is this some kind of ploy to flush out the real Satoshi? Or a publicity stunt?

</comment><comment><USER60> What I find fascinating about all of this as a normal techie, not a crypto specialist, is whether he is Satoshi or not, the idea of "Satoshi" in all its guessing will be bigger than Craig Steven Wright, or I would say even the real Satoshi if he came out and proved it. We romance our notions of who is behind something to the point where that notion is too grand to be filled by an ordinary (pretty smart) human being.

Only Craig Steven Wright for sure, and possibly the real Satoshi, knows the truth. Whomever it is, he can cash out to the tune of $450 million!

Fun being on the sidelines here, but I do have a heavy intellectual, emotional investment in the idea of Bitcoin, and I hope it carries on.

</comment><comment><USER61> "Mr Wright has also demonstrated this verification in person to The Economist—and not just for block 9, but block 1." Economist confirms: [http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig- steve...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-steven- wright-claims-be-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin)

BBC says it's also confirmed through GQ but I don't see anything related yet.

(My view below)

The way he is communicating in the interview sounds like the government was putting pressure on him. Whomever is 'forcing him' to come out as Nakamoto, I don't think this will end well for Wright nor his companies.

</comment><comment><USER62> >> _In future, he explained, the blockchain could become so vast that it could keep track of every Visa transaction, every stock-exchange transaction, every bank transaction and much more. "We could even create an individual account for that tissue", he said, pointing to a paper napkin on the table._ <<

Quote from OA. Would this not short circuit any form of privacy? Or would various agencies and individuals still have to show that the various 'napkin accounts' that make up one's daily transaction count belonged to the same person?

I'm less concerned with the identity of Nakamoto and more concerned with the shape of the future!

<comment><USER63> > Would this not short circuit any form of privacy?

As far as I can tell, Wright wants to extend the blockchain considerably, adding opcodes to get Turing-complete functionality. Among other things, he's hinted at using ring signatures for tracking things, which would give one both secure control and anonymity. (I think Monero and its descendants may have stolen that thunder, though.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I don't believe he would be so naive to publish this without having checked that matter with transaction 828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe before.

</comment><comment><USER65> Why do people care about the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto?

<comment><USER66> I don't know. Its kind of like "celebrity culture". I'm a little bit of an outlier on these things (I lack a facebook account)

There is something in human brains that makes us really want to know about social network around us. Despite the strange URL this article tries to expain it [1]

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the- ooze/201503/why...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the- ooze/201503/why-caring-about-celebrities-can-be-good-you)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> That looks like an extremely elaborated way to make a claim that could normally be done in a few lines.

And even if the claim would _require_ a long explanation, for instance if Satoshi lost or destroyed the keys for the first few blocks, or the passwords to his accounts on several forums where he used to write, there would be no need for him to do this explanation himself. The burden of the proof his on him, but not the explanation of the proof.

<comment><USER68> The LiteCoin founder showed how easy it was:

[https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/727157971428331520](https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/727157971428331520)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Satoshi can also log into bitcointalk.org where the real Satoshi communicated with the public for quite some time during and after the release of the bitcoin client. Can Wright log into it and post or is he gonna claim he forgot his password? Oh wait, a password can be reset. Oh no, he forgot his password to the email he registered on BitcoinTalk.org.. Damn... I guess we're SOL :).

<comment><USER63> No, he can't. That email was probably the hacked one, and Theymos locked the Bitcointalk account ages ago. And that's a dumb method of proof compared to cryptographic ones anyway - how many times has Bitcointalk been hacked now? 2? 3?

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> What is up with this specific comment thread being so horribly wide on mobile? Why isn't CSS enforcing a width and wrapping the page?

<comment><USER71> This thread contains several posts that have very long, unbroken, lines. If those lines had started with four (two?) spaces they've have got different CSS - the pre-formatting would have put the very long unbroken line inside a different box with scrollbars.

Here's one example post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610111](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610111)

<comment><USER70> The top comment seems to be the one that sets the tone, and it doesn't look like anything should be in a code block:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610101)

Edit: oddly, going directly to that comment looks better than going to the main thread. It's still smaller than normal on mobile, but nowhere near as bad as the main thread.

Here's what things look like for me in Safari on iOS:

[https://imgur.com/a/KVrSX](https://imgur.com/a/KVrSX)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I was convinced at the first outing 2015 already: [https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi- nakam...](https://www.wired.com/2015/12/bitcoins-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-is- probably-this-unknown-australian-genius/)

</comment><comment><USER73> My impression is that these things happen in order to try to force the real Satoshi to come forward. I wouldn't be surprised if guys like Wright are paid and supported by others to do this. I hope Satoshi will never be revealed and don't see what that would provide anyway. Just leave them be.

</comment><comment><USER74> sit the guy in a room. Fire up sublime, emacs, vim, or whatever IDE. Give him an hour to write an app in C++ to solve something trivial that he does not know in advance, such as the 8 queens problem. End of debate. The guy most likely cannot code to save his life.

</comment><comment><USER75> Well, he either is Satoshi, or a genius conman. I would love for him to be Satoshi, it would be a great story. It's also ridiculous that people think they would be able to derive the personality of someone from a paper he wrote.

</comment><comment><USER76> What is this - some kind of really, really weird hiring campaign for crypto folks?

</comment><comment><USER77> Maybe he is trying to get Nakamoto to out himself..? His claim is ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER78> Guess the only way he can really prove he is S.N. is that he transfers cca. million bitcoins to himself for everyone to see ;) ...Wanna see that happen, lol. (most probably S.N. is a group not a person).

</comment><comment><USER79> So does the bitcoin community prefer it if the real satoshi comes forward or not? It seems that many would prefer a leader to set the future of bitcoin, eventhough that's counter to its principles.

</comment><comment><USER80> "Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to amassed about one million Bitcoins which would give him a net worth, if all were converted to cash, of about $450m."

Anyone know what this was worth at its peak?

<comment><USER81> The question is can he liquidate his holdings without causing a market crash? Not just because of economics of demand and supply but because of the psychological effects on the market.

<comment><USER82> considering the cause for him needing to liquidate is known, he has major tax penalties he has to pay, exchanging them now won't cause as big of a stir as if he did it when he was anonymous and would lead to suspicion of some sort of problem with the protocol. and a run to cash in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> BBC interview with Craig Wright (video, 4m50s)

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36168863](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36168863)

</comment><comment><USER84> This comment section is unreadable on mobile. Why is it so wide?

</comment><comment><USER64> It seems, we either have someone lying or a SHA-256 collision.

</comment><comment><USER64> [https://github.com/patio11/wrightverification](https://github.com/patio11/wrightverification)

</comment><comment><USER85> Simple. Satoshi owns millions of BTC. Anyone claiming to be Satoshi should just spend a small chunk of BTC from that initial block as a challenge response.

</comment><comment><USER86> Satoshi Nakamoto was most likely a group, like Bourbaki.

<comment><USER87> I second it

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Might the reason they were fooled so easily be, that they were flattered, that Satoshi would reveal himself to them, but not the community directly?

</comment><comment><USER61> Edit: (Sad that I submitted the long story yet original submission was just a snippet but HN mods change the submission.) That's not fair.

Not full story. Just snippet.

Full story (HN Sub): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609708)

Direct: [http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig- steve...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefings/21698061-craig-steven- wright-claims-be-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin)

</comment><comment><USER89> In a way it's a slightly disappointing end to the mystery!

<comment><USER90> I see what you mean! It felt like the end of the Perplexity puzzle that existed, the moment it was found the excitement behind it all just didn't keep going!

Mind you, the card to find someone using six degrees of separation is also called Satoshi!

[http://perplexcitywiki.com/wiki/Billion_to_One](http://perplexcitywiki.com/wiki/Billion_to_One)

<comment><USER91> Hah, I was just thinking about Perplex City the other day and wondered if that Satoshi was ever found. I really did love that game and the community around it.

<comment><USER92> Based on the wikipedia page that is one of two cards never solved, the other being the Riemann hypothesis.

<comment><USER92> I'm curious, why are people downvoting this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Just remember that The Economist a few years ago published a story on Steorn's Perpetual Motion machine.

You don't go to The Economist when you want hard hitting investigative journalism - you go The Economist when you need investor money.

<comment><USER94> It was a (full-page) ad, not a story, not even a "sponsored" one, as the layout was quite distinct: [http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/images/steorn_economist_a...](http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/images/steorn_economist_ad.jpg)

<comment><USER93> What's the difference between this and Nature having a full page ad for a Homeopathy clinic?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Is he going to way in on the whole Blockchain size debate?

</comment><comment><USER96> I wont believe so unless he signs the first block

</comment><comment><USER97> Dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609619)

</comment><comment><USER98> Does it even matter? Why?

</comment><comment><USER99> I was hoping they would ask him why choose the name 'Satoshi Nakamoto'?

<comment><USER100> The BBC article stated that Nakamoto was after Tominaga Nakamoto, and Satoshi was a secret.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> Fascinating. Why would he chose to reveal himself now?

</comment><comment><USER102> Satoshi is Satoshi; please leave things be.

</comment><comment><USER103> Are the details of the key signing public?

</comment><comment><USER104> Beyond fake

</comment><comment><USER87> Hoax

</comment><comment><USER105> "He also says he can't send any bitcoin because they are now owned by a trust."

Well, the trust could create a new address, and send btc to itself. This above all makes me not believe him.

<comment><USER68> When he talks to media, he uses technobabble bamboozle.

When he talks to tech, he uses legalbabble bamboozle.

Even if he didn't want to transfer any original BTC pre-news-release, they could have coordinated for him to transfer 1 BTC from an early block to some charity at the time of reveal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> Tech journalists: "Bitcoin creator confirms his identity by using, um, crypto stuff. Or something"

</comment><comment><USER107> Of course he wants to be left alone: he didn't pay taxes. Also of course there is no real public proof as he's not Satoshi.

<comment><USER108> He wouldn't owe any taxes. At least, not any income tax. The coins were worthless when he first mined them, and so there wouldn't have been any tax due.

If he were to sell the coins now, he might incur a capital gains tax, depending on where he lives.

<comment><USER107> The tax fraud doesn't have anything to do with Bitcoin. The top comment explains it more, but it was clear from earlier news about him as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> interesting that he didn't want to reveal his identity, but got in trouble and thought it might help

</comment><comment><USER81> I'm sure people will still question his claims even though this should settle the debate.

</comment><comment><USER110> This is bittersweet. I loved the mystery and the whole guessing game of _what Satoshi Nakamoto would have wanted_.

</comment><comment><USER111> It's funny how many commenters on hacker news think that this is actually satoshi nakamoto.

<comment><USER64> Man Has Never Set Foot on The Moon

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> Looks like the sceptics at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10701785](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10701785) were wrong. Interesting to read through now that the truth is known.

</comment><comment><USER113> Why would he verify that he is the creator? Even though Bitcoin is past the phase where the governments can criminalize it publicly they will surely torture him in every roundabout way possible for the rest of his life.

He seems to be owning up to it in order to protect others but I think he has no idea what he is getting into. They mention that his house was raided a couple of years ago but I guess that didn't phase him.

<comment><USER114> Governments could have criminalized it at any point, they can criminalize it now, and they will certainly criminalize it in the future if they feel a need to do so (unless this thing gets used by >1% of the population which I'm willing to bet money against.) They didn't because they didn't want to. If they wanted to know who created Bitcoin in order to "torture" them they would have found out, at this point we know how good they are at this sort of thing; also, if they wanted to "torture" prominent people behind the Bitcoin software there was never a shortage of people with known identities. That he didn't pay his taxes seems to be a separate issue.</comment></comment>


Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 Now Available - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/26/internet-explorer-8-release-candidate-now-available.aspx

<comment><USER2> wohooo! Another browser to support!</comment>


Nate Silver: The End of Car Culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.esquire.com/print-this/nate-silver-car-culture-stats-0609 <comment><USER2> We're in the deepest recession in half a century, and people are cutting back, and from ONE DATAPOINT, effectively, we're supposed to believe that it's the "end of the car culture" ?

> To sort this out, I built a regression model that accounts for both gas > prices and the unemployment rate in a given month and attempts to predict > from this data how much the typical American will drive.

Note that this model is tuned using 15 years of data, and yet we're in a mini Black Swan event that happens every 50 or 100 years.

OF COURSE there's divergence of reality and model.

I'm amazed that anyone can take this seriously.

<comment><USER3> But this really is part of a trend seperate from the recession. People are leaving the exurbs and moving back to cities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I moved to Boulder, CO on Saturday. In good part because I hate driving. It's hard to really grasp how much more enjoyable it makes life until you experience it. It's not just being car-free though, but the community that follows.

I lived in NYC for awhile and while it's car-free it's still pretty awful. You still have the same 30 minute commute -- there is no sense of geographic community. Unless you just refuse to make friends with people outside your neighborhood, every time you go out you're gonna end up on the train for who knows how long and-- oh wait, the cross-town is out of service and the train doesn't stop after 2am at blah blah blah. The stress level is easily on par with rush hour gridlock.

<comment><USER5> Welcome to CO.

I've always found it amazing how people put up with rush hour traffic commutes. To waste a solid hour (or more), 5 days a week, doing something thoroughly unpleasant seems insane to me. I'd be willing to trade off a lot in life to avoid doing that.

Commuting on public transport is OK as long as I can read. Bikes are OK since they're fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "If there have been two seemingly immutable trends for the American consumer, they're that he's eaten more every year and driven more every year."

Ouch.

</comment><comment><USER7> I know 3d charts are nifty, but a 2d chart would have been more legible -- [http://graphjam.com/2008/11/13/song-chart-memes- perception-o...](http://graphjam.com/2008/11/13/song-chart-memes-perception- of-3d-pie-charts/).

</comment><comment><USER3> Nate Silver's rise to intellectual prominence is my favorite consequence of the 2008 election so far.

</comment><comment><USER8> Predictions via regressions should always have confidence bounds. I am skeptical of the conclusions given that he has prediction for 1980. In order to estimate predictions he probably ran his model on 1970 - 1979 data. The confidence in that prediction is a lot worse that the 1999 prediction and should impact all future predictions. I know it is an Esquire article, but I rarely see his posts go into these important details.

</comment><comment><USER9> more interesting: what software did they use to make that chart?

<comment><USER10> illustrator or equivalent, most likely. most infographics are custom in publications of that size.</comment></comment>


So You Want To Be The Next Warren Buffett? How's Your Writing? - Mark Sellers - <AUTHOR> http://www.manualofideas.com/files/sellers.pdf

<comment><USER2> Some good points there, but I will say one thing, and its not even original, I'm going to paraphrase Warren Buffett: Its really easy to win the game when the other players don't show up.

Put another way, it is easy to make a killing in stocks when most of the world thinks that putting their money into mutual funds is a good investment (or even index funds. When a company gets added to the S&P 500, all those funds have to buy it, and the sharks run up the price just before they do so you get to buy it at a premium.)

I'm no genius, and I never spent a lot of time on investing, other than reading some good books....and %20 a year, consistently, year in and year out, is really not that hard to do. I think anyone can do it, if they are disciplined enough to be rational.

Its the constant string of bad information from politicians and the media that gives people doubt and causes them to react irrationally when the market "doesn't seem to be going their way." or to irrationally get into the flavor of the day.

I'm a longtime fan of apple, but I've never once owned their stock. I saw them at $13 and they had $6.50 in the bank, and I said "damn, that's a screaming buy" and I didn't buy, because they don't fit my discipline. Yeah, that's the one that got away, but I take a lot of comfort from the fact that I made the right choice.

Being a good investor is understanding that missing out on a 40 bagger is sometimes the right choice.</comment>


Seen that job listing for a while, its no coincidence - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/seen-that-job-listing-for-a-while-its-no-coincidence-1434667304 <comment><USER3> Hiring velocity is one area where small companies can use their agility to advantage when competing against larger companies for talent. As a hiring manager, I always endeavor to make this process as streamlined as possible.

A couple of anecdotes:

I was able to hire an outstanding candidate simply because I got them through the process and extended them an offer. Our competition was a reasonably high- profile company in the area. In the end he joined us because after more than a week, the other company was unable to execute their paperwork to get an offer generated.

More recently, I saw a very big name West Coast company (think Google/Facebook/Uber) lose out on a great person because they had a third party do a reference check. In the time it took for that check to happen, the job seeker had lots of time to re-consider the offer and instead ended up working for a smaller company on the East Coast which kept in touch and was able to move blindingly fast.

<comment><USER4> Sounds strange to me.

If I want to work at a big company, I would only consider small companies if the big ones don't want me and not if the big ones just want me a month later.

<comment><USER5> If you want to work at a company offering more responsibility and/or more money, you consider the company that's offered it to you more favourably than the bigger company that says they like you very much and will decide if you're good enough after a week or two. Especially if you suspect that reflects how the respective companies will respond to any future requests you might wish to make if working for them.

If you only want to work at a big company, you probably don't interview with the smaller company in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some long-term job listings, especially the vague ones, are dummies put there by recruitment firms who are keen to get you on their books.

<comment><USER7> Another tiresome tactic that recruitment firms use is to leave up ads for roles that were actually filled months ago - either to attract CVs and/or make them look busier than they actually are.

Edit: There's probably a book waiting to be written on the dodgy tactics of recruitment firms. Mind you, I became a bit less harsh on individual recruiters when I was in an office that shared a floor of a building with a recruitment firm and got to see how they treated their staff. They were too cheap to hire meeting rooms when they were doing staff reviews so we regularly had people getting complete bollockings in the shared kitchen area - <USER2> isn't much fun to witness and a pretty ghastly way to treat your own staff.

<comment><USER8> I've been recruiting for almost 20 years and have been considering writing a book about various tactics. My blog regularly exposes some of the recruiter tricks and strategies on topics from counteroffers to candidate control. If I become convinced there would be even modest demand, I'd write it.

<comment><USER7> I love this book "exposing" management consulting:

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rip-off-Scandalous-Management- Consul...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rip-off-Scandalous-Management-Consulting- Machine/dp/1872188060)

I'd like to read an equivalent for recruiters and as more people encounter recruiters than management consultants I expect the audience would be much larger!

<comment><USER8> My comment got a few upvotes, so perhaps there is more interest in this topic than I originally thought. I wrote an ebook "Job Tips For Geeks: The Job Search" a couple years ago that included a few tips on working with recruiters, but that wasn't the focus. I'll give it some thought, thanks for the insight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a fresh grad interviewing for (real, non-internship) jobs for the first time, I'm really surprised at how long the hiring process is. The article mentions 23 days average. I'm currently interviewing for a BigCo where I already had done an internship, so they knew me. After I contacted my former supervisor, it took him 2 weeks of wrestling bureaucracy to open a position, then HR insists on collecting CVs for 4 weeks, after which I got a phone screen. HR lady told me she would be phone screening for 2 weeks before passing on the CVs to the hiring manager who would contact people for in person interviews.

I'm finally scheduled for an interview next week. But really, 60 days before even interviewing a candidate they already have experience with? I'm surprised they even manage to hire people before they are extended another offer. But then again, this is not programming.

<comment><USER10> HR are a major problem in many large companies.

Oftentimes, they're lazy (outsourcing most of their job to expensive recruiters and agencies), obstructive (creating all manner of stupid, bureaucratic, red-tape hoops you have to jump through before they'll approve whatever it is you're trying to do), and add zero value to the actual process of recruiting an employee.

My hat of HR know no limit.

<comment><USER11> Sounds like they are working on job security in the same way a developer does when he make undocumented code only he can understand. Considering how many developers actually think like that, it shouldn't be surprising to see this in HR as well.

Some places where I've worked at, if you fail to hire (say you select a candidate and they get a better offer), you have to start all over at square 1. Square 1 being justifying to HR why you need the position (a multi-week process).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Business-oriented publications and companies that are hiring always seem to carefully avoid the easy way to fix long hiring times: Increase wages.

<comment><USER6> The long hiring times seem not to be due to lack of applicants, but due to internal hiring politics and process. Rising conservativism about making a "bad hire", perhaps.

<comment><USER12> You can't discount the role of applicant volume in that, though; if you have a 20 day hiring process with one person going through it at a time, the odds of it taking 40-60 days are a lot better than if you have 2-3 going through at once.

<comment><USER6> Those are unrealistically low applicant volume numbers, surely?

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10949825/Employers-r...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10949825/Employers- receive-39-applications-for-every-graduate-job.html)

<comment><USER12> It's not clear to me how many of those applicants would actually be valid for the job, so i'm not sure. The companies that i've worked at which had stagnant wages had barely 1 candidate per position most of the time, so i've seen it somewhere at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I personally have little confidence in job postings that I've seen available for at least three months. Similarly with apartments rentals - in a market where developers and apartments are high in demand I usually see it as a red flag if a job or apartment has been available for three or more months. It begs the questions - why didn't others take it?

I never considered that the average interview process is getting longer.

<comment><USER14> This fails to take into consideration a growing team. We have had a single job listing open well over a year, but that single listing at one point represented 7 open positions.

It's interesting to see this possible view. We might be better off posting duplicates to make this nuance more obvious.

<comment><USER15> Even just an annotation "This post represents multiple open positions" might be good. It also directly sends a message you want to send ("we're growing and hiring lots!"), instead of implicitly by number of listings, which might be missed by a candidate doing searches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> some long-term job listings come from: > the larger companies are for roles where there is constant churn (or growth) and they need to keep the pipeline of active candidates warm > As mentioned already, spammy recruiters looking to collect cv's

Also: > Companies are in-undated with applications and really can't separate the wheat from the chaff. They have thousands of resumes for one or two job openings because its so easy now to apply online and click submit. Perversely the harder they make it to apply online, causes those most in need of a job to jump through hoops to fill out a complete application

Tried hiring help on a local jobs board I was swamped and astounded with volume and eagerness of the responses. Ended up going with someone who was recommended by a friend as I didn't have the resources to process and filter the applications

</comment><comment><USER17> the article mentions 27 days as the average time from job candidate to actual employee. This seems like a very reasonable amount of time for anything that is not traditionally high turnover like retail, certain service industries etc.

I like to give at least 3 weeks notice simply because it usually takes that long to transfer all my projects and responsibilities. That only leaves 6 days for the active screening and interviewing process.

The article seems to be covering very general employment and job statistics so most likely the 27 day average vacancy is quite high for service and retail positions and fairly low for tech positions.

<comment><USER18> What if you are not working?

<comment><USER6> Obviously nobody will hire people who's _unemployed_.

/possible sarcasm

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 23% of interviews have a drug test. What's the incentive behind that?

<comment><USER20> To avoid having to actually do some real human thinking. Fail a "drug" test, you can just treat those people as scum, not worth your time, disgusting pariahs. You don't have to look at them as human, and actually use your wits to decide.

People who, for example, smoke marijuana, will fail a drug test. Will they miss work because they're hungover from a Big Weekend? No, mostly not. Will some straight arrow call in sick because he or she got sick on Sunday evening? Yes. We know this. But to avoid having to cope with ambiguity or grey areas or hard decisions, we just let a "drug" test do it all.

<comment><USER21> I am confused by your point. Would you rather sick people come into work and get even more people sick?

<comment><USER20> My point is that potheads probably don't call in "sick" from a weekend bender hangover, but we know alcoholics do. We test for marijuana use, we don't test for alcohol use. We know for a fact that even a teetotalling, cautious person calls in real sick every once in a while. So the reason for drug testing being "to avoid absences" is logically inconsistent.

<comment><USER22> Its incomplete; still useful if we assert that potheads will miss work.

<comment><USER20> Stipulated. But experience with co-workers tells me that drinkers miss more than potheads work, and can have catastrophic life collapses. "Drug" tests don't often test for alcohol consumption. So, I still think that "drug" tests aren't in place for that particular reason.

<comment><USER22> Arguable. I personally don't think any invasive test is warranted. Measure my performance; all else is irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > "The jobs disappearing from the economy are routine, really simple jobs. The > kind of jobs that are booming are jobs that take lots of judgment and > creativity. They're harder to hire for and so it takes longer."

Funny they ended with this. It makes some sense. The inverse is true too (for a truck driver, one can do more investigation to see if she has a safe & trustworthy background for instance) but certainly it takes more work to hire a developer than a retail salesperson.

</comment><comment><USER24> Seems like the kind of story you see just before a call to expand the H1-B program. I've worked with many fine H1-Bs but its purpose is to fill a need you can't fill locally, not to get someone to take a job that is underpriced.

</comment><comment><USER25> heh -- I know some people who interviewed for the Teespring DevOps lead position.... they said that teespring was trying to "interview like google, while being a tee shirt company" \-- teespring keeps putting that posting up.

Maybe they should realize their reqs for that position, or their actual interview process is a little disconnected from who they are...?

</comment><comment><USER26> Is a "group panel interview" many interviewers and one interviewee, or the other way around?

</comment><comment><USER27> I thought the market would provide! Have they considered paying more?</comment>


Personal Rapid Transit Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22083/ <comment><USER2> All these plans are doomed to failure. These are mass transit systems designed to be more convenient to people. However, I don't think people were spending $40,000 on an SUV out of needing convenience.

People will want their own vehicle, not many people will be willing to give up their sports cars or their trucks and SUV's to switch to a smart car look-a- like that you don't even own.

The other problem with these systems, even if they do develop a way to beat the whole 'wanting your own car' problem. What happens when you want to go to a different country? I mean quite honestly, this system will _never_ work in Europe as anything more than an alternative to buses. The systems need to be universally accessible, I need to be able to move from England to France to Spain and into Portugal without my vehicle losing control and driving me off the side of a bridge because Spain has a different system.

There's the whole doorstep to station problem in PRT's, however thats only the first problem they've got. Allowing people to have their own vehicles (something that has to happen, there's too many vehicle companies that would need take out a PRT system to stay in business) would solve the doorstep to station, because the station is in your garage and thus negates the doorstep. However, then there's recognition between cities, I'm sure users and car manufacturers don't want vehicles doing a game of chicken when you drive onto another cities system, and the same happens between states and countries. What happens if California drove on the right and Nevada drove on the left? Someone would have to change their system. It's happened in lots of countries around the world, that one changed the side of the road they drove on because it just made it safer than trying to teach the 'stupid foreigners' they're in a different country with different rules.

<comment><USER3> I think you are overlooking the main purpose. It's not meant to eliminate cars. Its meant to be a faster, more accurate means of public transportation. For example I live in Manhattan; walking, subways, taxis and buses are the main means of transportation. Having a car is not affordable and ends up being an inconvenience.

Walking obviously isnt practical all the time. Cabs are expensive. So for people who need to get around are left with buses and the subway. Both run on specific schedules (which arent always great) and often times you need to take multiple variations to get to the final destination (or remotely close).

If a pod system existed here it would allow me to travel faster and more accurately. I can run on my own schedule and go direct. Lets also not forget the green factors from eliminating hundreds of buses and subways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's pretty nifty, but the holy grail remains solving the last-mile problem. Once you've solved the doorstep-to-station issue, existing public transit solutions are fairly competent.

Does anyone know of current startups in this space? The last high-profile development was the Segway, and that clearly didn't catch on for its intended purpose.

That said, it sounds like you wouldn't have to worry about line changes and transfers with PRTs. Which would be nice.

<comment><USER5> >solving the last-mile problem.

I think the only way you can hope to achieve this is through zoning and long- term alteration of how cities are built. Sprawly cities like Houston et al. can't possibly hope to build out any right-of-way based system such that everyone is within a mile of a station...thus you build the center and let density rise. Combine this with a suitable number of edge-sitting mega stations that outlying folks drive (or, even better: ride a bus) a shorter distance to (relative to a full commute) and you've solved a large portion of the problem, anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The same problems of people being able to move fast without exertion or neighborly interaction seem as true for this PRT as for cars.

What's the problem that they're trying to solve? People want to talk on their cellphones and read a book as they drive? Cabbies aren't everywhere? Even if it solves these problems on the cheap, it's going to be pretty unsatisfying if you just zip around in your lonely pod. This sounds like an enormous capital expense, compared to (say) self-driving 15mph cars, and it doesn't seem like it's a big benefit holistically to a city.</comment>


Beyond the Front Page of Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://www.metafilter.com/83734/Beyond-the-Front-Page-of-Reddit <comment><USER2> I only upvoted this because of the irony that was a link on HN to a Metafilter link to Reddit.</comment>


CheckiO Python Learning Resource Offers a Code Review - <AUTHOR>

CheckiO www.checkio.org is one of the most popular Python learning and practicing services for Python programmers.(more like a game) It is suitable for for beginners and more advanced programmers.<p>Now it offers a code review of your mission solution, simply tweet your solution link and add #reviewmycode hashtag to it! <comment><USER2> You should have used this instead:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show)</comment>


Warren Buffett calls Bitcoin a "mirage", says "stay away" - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/101494937

<comment><USER2> He is absolutely right, it is a mirage. But a mirage we collectively believe in, becomes our reality.

Heck, if we still believed tulips are expensive, they'd still be quite expensive.</comment>


Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/danish-utility-to-build-worlds-first-one-gigawatt-offshore-wind-farm-1454505216 <comment><USER2> Just sharing for anyone interested - the UK National Grid has a nice (if a little antiquated looking) site which breaks down power generation by source [http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk](http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk)

<comment><USER3> That's actually a third party site, that uses the National Grid's SOAP(!) API for the data.

<comment><USER2> Ohhh nice, I had no idea I never looked too closely at the domain before

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice! Always good news when there's more investment in renewable energy sources.

I only read the one in the guardian so it might be answered there but isn't higher transmission loss another con for offshore wind farms? How do they deal with that?

<comment><USER5> It's only a few percent. Of more concern is transmission line _capacity_ , especially between Scotland and England. At the moment the biggest concentration of coal fired power stations is roughly central in Yorkshire (Drax, Ferrybridge etc: there is a point on the railway from which you can see five of them). If we move to more offshore wind we'll need to reroute the power lines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the article - wind power is projected to reach 30gw worldwide in 2019 - for comparison nuclear power worldwide reached 300gw in the 1980's.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what they're referencing there, but GWEC keeps better numbers and we're well over 400GW installed worldwide by now:

[http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Global- Cumula...](http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Global-Cumulative- Installed-Wind-Capacity-1997-2014.jpg)

We're adding more than 50GW/year now, which should easily put us over the amount of nameplate capacity nuclear installed worldwide. Within the next decade, wind will surpass Nuclear in actual twh of generation as well.

If you assume nuclear is about 400GW installed worldwide and a 90% capacity factor, then wind would only need 900GW installed to match output at a 40% capacity factor. NREL just realeased data that shows potential capacity factors of 60% on over 2 million acres in the US:

[http://apps2.eere.energy.gov/wind/windexchange/windmaps/reso...](http://apps2.eere.energy.gov/wind/windexchange/windmaps/resource_potential.asp)

Wind and solar are steadily eating world power generation.

<comment><USER8> Comparing wind and nuclear is not an apples-to-apples comparison. To make a valid comparison, you would need to compare wind + some kind of back up such as natural gas (or possibly some nuclear).

There is a premium for reliable sources of electricity generation since you have to have reliable generation to avoid blackouts.

<comment><USER9> You make an excellent point.

Wind and solar can capture more $fiat per MWh if they purchase Tesla stationary storage and can deliver firm dispatchability (that premium for reliable generation you mention).

Natural gas will make a fine stopgap until we have enough battery storage.

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

<comment><USER10> I am not aware of any market where generators are getting a premium for being dispatchable. I would be very interested in knowing what the value is.

Certainly some markets have prices that vary through the day to give generators the incentive to generate when power is needed most if they have that flexibility.

<comment><USER5> The UK system has a "capacity auction", separate from the spot price, which covers dispatchable generation.

"Through the auction, government has procured 49.26GW of capacity at a clearing price of £19.40kW" (second link). Note units are kW not MWh.

[http://www.nationalgridconnecting.com/keeping-the-lights- on/](http://www.nationalgridconnecting.com/keeping-the-lights-on/)

[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-first-ever- capacity-m...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-first-ever-capacity- market-auction-official-results-have-been-released-today)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lack of subsidy cited as reason that "Spain Installed No Wind Power for First Time Since 80s in 2015"

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/spain- inst...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/spain-installed-no- wind-power-for-first-time-since-80s-in-2015)

</comment><comment><USER8> The title of the WSJ article is misleading. An offshore wind farm does not power more than 1 million homes, unless you only want electricity when the wind is blowing.

Offshore wind is one of the most expensive sources of electricity generation-- more expensive than every except solar thermal. [https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm](https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm) Offshore wind is more than twice as expensive as onshore wind.

The fact that the U.K. is pushing offshore wind is one reason why the U.K's electricity rates are much higher than in the U.S. The U.K.'s electricity rates about about $0.22 per kwh [1] compared to an average of $0.13 in the U.S. [2]

[1][http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/File:Half- yearly_electricity_and_gas_prices,_second_half_of_year,_2012%E2%80%9314_\(EUR_per_kWh\)_YB15.png) [2] [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a)

<comment><USER3> There are only two reasons to have offshore wind power. One is because NIMBYs make it hard to erect onshore turbines. The other reason is that it really pisses off Donald Trump. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east- orkney-shet...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney- shetland-35106581)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone have a mirror to this that's not behind the WSJ paywall? Thanks.

<comment><USER13> Alternative source: [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/worlds- la...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/worlds-largest- offshore-windfarm-to-be-built-off-yorkshire-coast)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the uk politicians are paid peanuts, hence we have monkeys who make stupid descions like this - guaranteeing 3 times market price for such electricity - it's a complete scam confiscating our hard earned cash, then paying most of it too foreign companies somwe don't even benefit from tech advances in this field.

All in the name of the modern religion - nonsense computer modelled weather forecasts. Most weather cycles - particularly solar cycles related to Gas giant orbits and and our position in the milky way point towards cooling. Currently we are in a weak solar maximum, when this goes minimum in 5 years after El Ninio swings to La Ninia next year - it will be very obvious how silly most people are. Co2 is good, life is carbon based, the world becomes much more fertile at higher levels, in anycase warm is better than cold, most prefer Florida to Canada a much greater temp diff than any concievable warming.

<comment><USER15> > In the uk politicians are paid peanuts, hence we have monkeys who make > stupid descions like this

Indeed. If only we paid MPs like they do in Nigeria it would all be much better.

Furthermore, to call computer modelling, i.e. recording all the data we can find and then trying to make sense of it via predictive [though inevitably flawed] analysis a religion is one thing; but if your only counterpoint is some waffle about gas giants and the observation that the weather is nicer in Florida than Canada I find your argument unconvincing. We make predictions as best we can with the data, and maths available to us. ANYTHING else is religion because it isn't subject to counter arguments.

Finally, this obsession with politicians "confiscating our hard earned cash" is pernicious nonsense. We pay tax. The government uses it to build stuff. Most (not all - governments are largely made up of people no smarter than you or me) of it is useful. There are places on the planet where taxes aren't collected in the same way. You're welcome to go there and live with warlords, barrel-bombs, water born diseases that wreck eyesight, drug cartels and all the other fun stuff that goes with any system other than the (rotten, annoying, frustrating, inefficient) thing we already have here in the UK.

I'm not from the UK but I consider myself lucky to have spent time living and working here. I build useful things, get well paid, and willingly pay taxes in exchange for roads, hospitals [modulo PPI], schools, sanitation, rule-of-law and so on.</comment></comment>


Scientists (sort of) settle debate on low-carb vs. low-fat diets - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/08/14/scientists-sort-of-settle-debate-on-low-carb-vs-low-fat-diets/ <comment><USER2> I've tried both and can't stick to low fat. My genotype is carb sensitive. Eating carbs of low nutrient value (bread, grains, pasta ...) makes me hungry. A well formulated low carb diet that has me keto-adapted reduces my appetite dramatically and has me losing 2+ lbs a week. Of course I have to exercise but I have been doing that for years. And I do count calories. It is not hard to stay under my requirement for calories.

It is important to understand what a well formulated low carb diet means. I track protein, carbs and net carbs after fiber. I have targets for each. Fat is mostly from good oils like olive oil.

[http://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate- Living/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate- Living/dp/0983490708/ref=sr_1_1?s=books)

The study seems flawed. Low carb diets assert that you need to be keto adapted. That can take weeks. It took about 3 weeks for me. And there may be other benefits of keto adapted diets: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2367001/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2367001/)

<comment><USER3> I didn't read the study, but the WSJ article also didn't even mention the amount of fat or carbohydrates in the diets. I wouldn't be surprised if a "low-carb, but not actually ketogenic" diet was bad for you - if you're restricting carbs to be lower than the control 50% but still consuming, say, 20% carbohydrates, then you would never even become keto adapted.</comment></comment>


An Old-Media Empire, Axel Springer Reboots for the Digital Age - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/business/media/an-old-media-empireaxel-springer-reboots-for-the-digital-age.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1 <comment><USER2> I worked for a long time in the publishing industry and experienced first hand that their culture is their major obstacle in adapting their business to the 21st century. Good to read that at least one company is trying to transform. And very interesting to see how they accomplished this. It started by putting senior managers in "student mode". Interesting.</comment>


The Mandatory 15-Second Voicemail Instructions - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/technology/personaltech/30pogue-email.html?8cir&emc=cira1

<comment><USER2> No registration link:

[http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/the- mandatory-15-s...](http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/the- mandatory-15-second-voicemail-instructions/)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's an easier way to "take back the beep". Stop using the service.

Most cell phone plans have call forwarding built in. You can easily forward the incoming call to a land line or free voice mail system when you are unable to answer the phone, and save yourself the precious 15 seconds of airtime.</comment>


Warrantless Searches of Controlled Substance Prescription DB Threaten Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-california-supreme-court-warrantless-searches-californias-controlled-substance <comment><USER2> This is surprising. Are these databases not considered HIPAA covered entities? If they are not, is the state government itself forcing physicians and pharmacists to violate HIPAA by sharing medical and prescription information with a non covered entity? Officially, you can only share data with other entities for "treatment, payment, and operations". I don't see how law enforcement can access medical records without either a HIPAA release or a warrant.</comment>


General Powerhouse Kinescope Theater of the Air - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/channels/325432/103401185 <comment><USER2> "This is a private video, please provide the correct password to view."</comment>


Samsung 3D Vertical NAND crams a Terabit on a single chip - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/samsungs-3d-vertical-nand-crams-a-terabit-on-a-single-chip/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a pretty interesting part. I was pretty convinced that the FLASH guys had nowhere to go with respect to geometry limitations, clearly I was wrong. :-)</comment>


Show HN: SPAM Fighting IT Job App, Blacklist Lookup Exposes Unethical Recruiters - <AUTHOR> https://www.teqopps.com <comment><USER2> I like the idea, I hope it catches on, the recruiter spam is getting unruly

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> About a year ago I was in a product meeting and just by chance happened to find myself sitting next to the director in charge of my development team. My cell phone was on the conference table in front of me just like almost everyone else at the table. During the meeting I got a text message from a recruiter soliciting me about an "Amazing Opportunity!!!" . I wasn't looking for a job at the time nor had I ever had any previous contact with this recruiter. At the time, I didn't pay any attention to it, this type of thing was common, getting SPAMMED by recruiters was something I was used to.

So a week goes by, and I come in to work that morning, set up my laptop and check my email before I go to make my morning coffee and begin my normal routine. In my inbox I have an email from my director asking me to please come see her in her office "ASAP". Great, I thought, what fire was I going to have to put out today? Like a good soldier, I immediately get up and make my way to her office, winding my way through the workstations in our open floor plan. I get to her office and knock on the door. "Come in." I hear her say. I enter her office and immediately notice that a member of the HR team is also there with her. My heart sank.

My director then tells me; "Ryan, as you know, our new CTO is making some changes. And we feel that in those changes, we no longer have a place for you." She then stopped talking and the lady from HR began walking me through my exit package. After she was finished she asked me if I had any questions. I turned to my director and asked; "Why is this happening? Did I do something wrong? On my last quarterly performance reviews I received 5 out of 5's." She looked at me and plainly said, "We just don't feel that you are a loyal team member. I saw the text message you received last week in our product meeting, and we only want team members who are committed." I tried to explain, but it was too late, her mind was made up. I was now unemployed because a recruiter that I never knew existed, decided to SPAM me with a text message at the worst possible time.

This experience got me to thinking about just how bad the climate of tech recruiting has become. If this has happened to me, it has also probably happened to others as well. I felt that something had to be done. No one else seems to be doing anything about this, so why not me?

After thinking about this problem of recruiter SPAM I decided that the heart of the problem was with just how easy it is for recruiters to mine contact information on job sites like Indeed, Monster and Dice. And that there are no repercussions for them when they use this information to engage in unethical activities to make a buck. Also, these traditional sites are catered to the recruiter's experience, not the job seeker. I felt that this approach was wrong. The demand for tech workers is far greater than the supply. There needed to be an alternative that catered to the job seeker, not the other way around.

So I created Teqopps, a No SPAM IT job search site that makes life easier for the job seeker not the recruiter.

Features Include:

\- Job Seekers are in control, no one can search for them or find them unless they initiate the conversation first \- All Job Postings must be completely filled out, to give the candidate the most possible information about the job before they decide if it's the right opportunity to apply to \- Full Transparency, they will know exactly who posted the job with contact information, and how many applicants have expressed interest in the job \- Review and Rate recruiters/companies, to help them decide which staffing representative to begin the application process with \- Blacklist service to expose recruiters that engage in unethical and dishonest behaviors

We went live on January 1st and we have seen some good traction with many jobs posted and user signups...so I'm optimistic that this can really help.

Any feedback you can give would be greatly appreciated, positive or negative. I really just want this to create a meaningful change in the status quo, and hopefully stop others from experiencing what I have.

Thank you</comment>


High-End Specs + Low Price + No Wireless Contract = Success For The Nexus 4 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/13/screw-wireless-contracts/ <comment><AUTHOR> I am tired of ATT and Verizon. Hope someone teams up with Google to provide better coverage at a reasonable cost</comment>


Show HN: Visualizing the Utilization of ALOHAnet - <AUTHOR> http://rbsn.me/visualizing-alohanet/

<comment><AUTHOR> A small webpage I put together using JavaScript and Chart.js to help show the difference in utilization that can be achieved between slotted and unslotted ALOHAnet.</comment>


Is Charging for Information Right or Wrong? - <AUTHOR> http://chris.pirillo.com/is-charging-for-information-right-or-wrong/

<comment><USER2> The simple answer to the question is "Neither."

Tl;dr version Chris Brogen created a 'webinar' which one can access for $47 which gives you Chris' take on how to best exploit Google+, unsurprisingly some haters have come out and lambasted him for it.

Its impossible to truly fathom why some people respond the way they do, we can speculate but without telepathy that is ultimately unsatisfying. As a free market type I'm all for Chris charging what ever he wants to 'teach' Google+, others can offer their own version for less (or more) and people who don't think its 'worth' it don't have to buy it. Its not like their life will be ruined because they couldn't afford it.

Most people forget that money has two values, the value placed on it by the person receiving it, and the value that the person giving it. They can be wildly different. When a third party evaluates a transaction based on their personal value of money they can often come to an erroneous conclusion as to who it favors.

So if $50 for you is a week of groceries to feed your family and sometimes you can't find that $50. It's insane to spend that kind of money on training for a product or service which will probably be completely different 2 months from now. If $50 for you is the rounding error on the tip you left for dinner, then paying it for someone to summarize Google+ for you rather than spending two or three or eight hours of your time figuring it out on your own is probably a no-brainer.

So 'charging' for information is neither 'Right' nor 'Wrong.' Tricking people into paying for something they didn't expect? That can be wrong. Mis- representing the information you're presenting? That can be wrong. But if you're up front with what you pay and what it is, and better yet if you offer money back if they aren't satisfied. Not 'Wrong' in the slightest.

</comment><comment><USER3> Give me $5 and I'll tell you.</comment>


Tesla's Autopilot: Too Much Autonomy Too Soon - <AUTHOR> http://www.consumerreports.org/tesla/tesla-autopilot-too-much-autonomy-too-soon/ <comment><USER2> I'd say it's too _little_ autonomy too soon.

The most dangerous thing about "Autopilot" is that the human is still supposed to be responsible.

So after what might be hours of inactivity, the human driver is expected to assume control of the vehicle within a split second when the Tesla suddenly decides it's not confident enough in it's own driving.

That's hardly autonomous.

</comment><comment><USER3> If we replaced every car in America with a Tesla with Autopilot, do you think we would see more road fatalites or less?

Less by a long shot. We ignore tens of thousands of deaths per year and focus the one fatality of someone who was using autopilot incorrectly.

People are much better at killing themselves and each other than autopilot is.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Human drivers, too much autonomy, too long."

<comment><USER5> There is going to be gigantic culture war coming over this issue.

On one side will be the technologists, familiar with rapid iterations of software development, and willing to experience "bugs" because they realize it means faster longer term progress and greater ultimate gains for the human race.

On the other side will be luddites, who will see willingness to experience bugs that result in real human tragedy as an entirely new category of human moral decay. If I were a conservative with a book deal, this would the new fear platform I would be trying to jump off.

<comment><USER6> 2.3 million accidents a year and 35,000 deaths in the US alone. We can't get to autonomous soon enough. In the meantime, I wonder if we can't use "driver assist" to greatly reduce that number within 5-10 years.

<comment><USER7> It sucks to say it that way but we really need a driving assist that can compensate to the losses of faculties that comes with drunk driving. That's one third of all road crashes. People are always going to be idiots.</comment></comment></comment></comment>