Is Facebook Ready to Be the World's Live News Network? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-14/is-facebook-ready-to-be-the-world-s-live-news-network <comment><USER2> What's nice about Facebook Live (and Periscope) is that in tense situations, the authorities could confiscate the phone but the video has already been sent server side, so there's no way to suppress the footage. With the recent streamed shooting in Minnesota, transparency into such events has just been opened up a little more for all of us.

While a lot of the HN crowd hates on Facebook, the Minnesota shooting and Dallas shooting have been eye opening and it's easy to see streaming video as the next great equalizer.

Obviously Facebook could start suppressing contentious video, but so far they've seemed to be pretty liberal and that's probably a separate issue. At least the technology is in place so that people can open up to the possibilities and other parallel platforms can be built if Facebook drops the ball on content policy.

<comment><USER3> Totally agree. I love the idea in concept, I'm just quite wary of Facebook being the place that implements it.

<comment><USER2> It's a hard problem. If you prioritize everything, say some decentralized source, it becomes a shit show of junk where it's impossible to discern what is relevant.

If we curate, then we're at the mercy of the curator's judgement and personal interests.

<comment><USER4> You say that like it's impossible to decentralize curation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My god, what a bad idea. The concentration of power in controlling what news people see is one of the huge problems of modern times.

Personally, I like following a few diverse news feeds on Gnu Social, and if a story interests me, then go on google news and read a story from a few sources in different countries. I live in the USA and our news is very much controlled/censored.

<comment><USER6> I also live in the US, but migrated there only 7 years ago. And, the news is one of the things that shocked me the most. They are not news, they are echo- chambers designed to please viewers and sell time slots to ad-publishers.

Every single story has to be sensational, has to be "crazy", or "unbelievable". Everything has to be a show with music, sound effects and cool teasers.

<comment><USER7> That's interesting, I never thought about what news might be like elsewhere. It's better in other countries? I guess I just kind of assume it's like this everywhere. (this may make me sound like an ignorant American, but honestly I've no idea what the news is like everywhere else, I barely follow it here for dudul's exact reasons)

<comment><USER8> Try this : [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio](http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio)

You don't have images, but you'd surprised how many things happen in the world at once...

<comment><USER9> Agreed. BBC World News is also available on some cable networks apparently ([https://bbcnewschannelfinder.com/](https://bbcnewschannelfinder.com/)).

(Live streams also exist, both "unofficially", and legally but geo-restricted on Livestation, apparently.)

PBS and NPR are the only American sources on TV I considered fairly comparable in tone and depth to news programs in other countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How would a closed platform fit into this?

Everytime i happen to land on a facebook link literally half of the screen is used by some penetrant ad that suggests that i should register for facebook and does not let me close it, and thats just the public links, most links are not even public so i just see a login screen.

I don't see how such a closed environment would have any meaning for news.

Edit:// Looking at the article the example makes it even worse. Wasnt that video censored away not even 24 hours after it happened? Again how would such a platform fit the phrase "news" in any way?

<comment><USER11> But it's a more open platform than the alternatives, with live posting there are practically no gatekeepers, and it's hard take things back - cell phone videos that aren't published are much more likely to be suppressed, or have their release delayed reducing the sense of public urgency. A few ads on the screen don't change the impact.

<comment><USER10> I too think that Twitter would fit this niche perfectly with their live stream environment that also works as expected with higher loads and the way that nobody gets forced to register just to consume.

I also don't see how news work where those who post the most (usually those with the weakest quality) are ranked better than anyone else. Their current platform/algo is simply not suiteable for such things.

I don't see how Facebook provides any benefit other than live streaming, what is not exactly rocket science.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> News today is such a waste of time. Live news is an even bigger waste.

The reporting, the outrage, the novelty, the opinions are all so over the top one would think, the lack of value produced would actually cause the entire news system to fall apart.

But instead I see more and more people just jumping in to prop these models of outrage, unqualified opinion, celebrity culture and worship up. Its all very sickening.

<comment><USER13> It does not seem like things will change until the masses (especially those with money and influence) reject such low standards and demand something better. Any ideas? I'm thinking something along the lines of intellectuals and entertainers forming a coalition along some hard-to-define shared interests.

Those interests are so hard to define because success in the modern era _depends_ on such sensationalism.

<comment><USER14> I think something is required to drive home the point to people who don't know better what a waste of time all this stuff is.

Even sites like hacker news (where you would think things can be different) seem to send a signal that if you don't check us out everyday you are missing stuff.

Nobody really needs to be checking hackernews everyday. Seriously. But for some reason we have this need too. And there is no reason to feed that need. Especially when it wastes everyones time. Even when there is something interesting on here, I feel my time being wasted wading through ever increasing unnecessary commentary. I'd like to see a system that deletes 80% of commentary just like StackOverflow works. If you don't know what you are talking about there should be a separate space for that. Probably IRC or a chat room.

I also don't like these karma and upvote/downvote systems that every news related site seems obligated to implement. The kind of people who fixate on these numbers also turn into the biggest contributors on these sites. And that's artificial and doesn't reflect society at all.

<comment><USER15> Sites like Hacker News actually do force you to check every day as there is no way to see the content from previous days. Technically the content exists, but it becomes noise as the actual value of the site is the ranking that lets me see what people were interested in, not the raw list of all stories, and the ranking is live and "rots" over time.

<comment><USER16> This is no longer true. A new feature release [0] now allows you to view page 1 of HN for a given date.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073675)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been wondering: can Facebook prevent news media from rebroadcasting their Facebook Live videos? It seems that currently news outlets can rebroadcast as they like, but if this could changed legally, it seems FB could extract subscription fees from news networks to use their video. This type of scenario would cement FBL as a core service for TV news and could be a nice recurring revenue stream for FB--at least until traditional TV news disappears completely (no tears shed here).

<comment><USER18> Probably not, unless they add a clause in their ToS saying they have an exclusive licence to whatever is uploaded to Facebook live. I don't think they'll do that though because everyone will be up in arms about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yeah bad bad bad news. Anti trust already have prob regulating media co mergers and media cos are not super smart. FB having this kind of power... shudder

</comment><comment><USER20> The amount of engineering that has gone into this is incredible.

It's true Facebook is poised to become a huge source of news and information sharing. It would be great if they could release clear guidelines regarding the type of content allowed on Facebook Live, however doing so might reduce their control as they'd have to answer to those very guidelines.

<comment><USER21> [https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards](https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards)

<comment><USER20> Completely forgot about those. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Are news networks ready to change their news reporting format? I am seriously too impatient for it when live to the point news and 10 second to the point snaps are available

</comment><comment><USER23> Facebook no, Twitter could have been, but they focused on stickers and magic ponies instead of solving discoverability.

</comment><comment><USER24> >so there's no way to suppress the footage

What? I tried to watch one of the videos through a FB link (linked from HN) and FB returned a page saying the video was gone. FB is not anti-censorship; what makes you think that they are?

Hmm: HN bug. Why did this comment go under the root post instead if the comment I replied to?

</comment><comment><USER25> The news people I know are all saying this now.

</comment><comment><USER26> iOS 10 will have immediate direct video transmission built-in.</comment>


Anonymous Hacks U.S. State Department  - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2013/02/20/anonymous-hacks-us-state-department

<comment><USER2> When you read reports like this, it's easy to guess the age of typical Anonymous hackers -- they're very young, too young to realize their strategy plays into their adversaries' hands.

The worst strategy would be one in which a large number of weak attacks results in progressive adaptation by the victims, creating a gradual evolution and improvement in cyber-defense.

The best strategy would be a long process of method development but no overt or detectable attacks, in order to strengthen the offensive methods, followed by an all-out attack with mature methods that completely overwhelm the adversary.

The worst strategy is almost as childish as the Anonymous hackers are themselves. The best strategy is the one the 9/11 attackers used -- quietly observe the adversary, detect weak points but don't betray your intentions, then launch a major attack all at once that causes a defensive reaction that is perfectly suited to the threat, but that arrives too late to contain the damage.

In this sense, Anonymous, by setting off many small alarms about unacceptable security practices, is only serving the needs of its adversaries in ways it doesn't understand.</comment>


Brexit means Brexit? - <AUTHOR> https://thedot.news/brexit-means-brexit?ref=hackernews <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks

For the past few months Barry ([https://twitter.com/pace](https://twitter.com/pace)) & I have been talking to a bunch of young'uns about their news habits and one thing that keeps coming up is that people are overwhelmed with the news, and in particular, they're sick and tired of Brexit. So tired, they've switched off.

So, why are we providing _more_ Brexit commentary?

We believe context is important, that our democracies need us all to be informed and engaged. Brexit is the defining issue of our time (at least this side of the pond) and so if anything deserves some extra effort, it's this.

But context, though vital, must be given in the right package.

By slicing it into 5 bite-size, interactive chunks (~3 min read time each), we hope to be able to clear some of the fog surrounding Brexit to help play our part in our nation moving forwards with clarity and purpose.

We hope you enjoy this short-series, but whether you do or don't, we'd love your feedback. We'll be hanging out in the comments here most of today

Many thanks to Larry Ryan ([https://twitter.com/larry_ryan](https://twitter.com/larry_ryan)) for writing the content & Alicia Gomez ([https://twitter.com/ali_gomeztapias](https://twitter.com/ali_gomeztapias)) for making it look good

<comment><USER2> As just been reported by Paul-Olivier Dehaye who got 4 separate emails from Leave.EU, as well as one from MasterInvestor.co.uk indicating that the Leave.EU campaign used customer data from Arron Banks insurance businesses. I hope the ICO is all over this. see [https://twitter.com/podehaye/status/1059758450010456065](https://twitter.com/podehaye/status/1059758450010456065)

Carole Cadwalladr has been calling for an investigation into the potential use of dark money surrounding the campaign for many months. She deserves a lot of credit in pushing the investigation by NCA and ICO.

see [https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/105970758375225753...](https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1059707583752257536)

<comment><USER2> for anyone who needs a primer on the topic FT ran a well researched article on this [https://www.ft.com/content/4610a4be- dde2-11e8-9f04-38d397e66...](https://www.ft.com/content/4610a4be- dde2-11e8-9f04-38d397e6661c)

Carole Cadwalladr in interview with Sky News yesterday: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOcPyPJ5tKE&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOcPyPJ5tKE&feature=youtu.be&t=493)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Syllabus for web technologies 101?  - <AUTHOR>

My girlfriend is enrolled in summer session at Berkeley. She signed up for "Web Architecture" class (http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i153-waim/su10/) and got the following syllabus:
- HTML 4 & 5
 - Cascading Style Sheets
 - Internet Protocol / DNS
 - URIs / HTTP
 - Client Side Scripting
 - HTML II - Basic Web Apps
 - <USER2>
 - Server Side Scripting
 - Content Types / Data Exchange
 - <USER3>
 - State & Local Storage
 - <USER4>
 - Security
For me, it feels really outdated. Anyone can read documentation! Do we really need thousands of graduates who know how DNS works and do not know Rails/cloud/mobile? And many modern topics are completely missed:
- jQuery, other javascript frameworks
 - web frameworks: rails, djnago
 - cloud (AWS, GAE, ...)
 - mobile web: iPhone/Android/iPad
 - social apps...
 - <USER5>
 - overview of APIs (e.g. Facebook, Google, YQL, Twilio, Paypal, Google Maps...)
What's your take guys? What should / shouldn't be in "Web Technologies 101"? <comment><USER6> Outdated? It seems pretty good to me. I would protest the teachings of API and framework-specific topics without having some fundamentals down first. E.g., Teaching someone jQuery without teaching them bare-bones JavaScript first would be a mistake IMHO.

I imagine the Basic Web Apps and AJAX topics may well use a framework you have suggested. Client Side Scripting may touch on jQuery etc.

Once a student has an understanding of the topics in that syllabus they'll be able to _leap_ into Rails, Django or whatever they like. That sounds much better to me than having someone know how to use one tool only.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel that the opposite sequence (hands down first, fundamentals later) works better. Otherwise, you can only teach semantics. When you have zero experience with a particular technology, how can you appreciate the "fundamental design principles"?

<comment><USER6> Perhaps I'm a little biased from studying computer science rather than something more vocational, but as you say there are already dedicated classes for the technologies that you suggested so I think the syllabus is still well- suited for a "web architecture 101" course.</comment></comment></comment>


Fundamental frequency estimation and supervised learning - <AUTHOR> http://obogason.com/fundamental-frequency-estimation-and-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> There is a good way to make the harmonic product spectrum more robust to the effects of noise. You generate a synthetic spectrum starting from a histogram of zero crossing intervals that has been "smeared" back into a continuous signal with Gaussian peaks by applying a kernel density estimate. The result can then be passed through the HPS to find the fundamental. The decorrelated zero crossings caused by noise are much less problematic than working with the HPS of the original signal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds interesting, do you an example of the performance you might expect from such a system? I must say that out out of the estimators I tried, HPS is the most difficult to deal with. You need information about how the harmonics are related to the fundamental and how many harmonics you expect before applying the algorithm. Maybe there are some adaptive methods that exists for this job but HPS is intrinsically ad-hoc, which is not very nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The MPM algorithm is an even better variation on autocorrelation than YIN.

It picks the first peak of the autocorrelation after zero-crossing that is greater than k*(max peak). k~=0.9

[http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/tartini/papers/A_Smarter_Way_to_Fi...](http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/tartini/papers/A_Smarter_Way_to_Find_Pitch.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a way to download all the instrument samples from the University of Iowa in a single archive file?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately they only provide .zips for each instrument in Post-2012 category. You can download them at the bottom of each page f.x. [http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS- Pitches-2012/MISEbClarin...](http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS- Pitches-2012/MISEbClarinet2012.html) There's no compressed file option for the Pre-2012.

It might be easier to make a scraper then downloading all of the files individually.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: I have a serious GF, but still want to apply. Good Idea? - <AUTHOR> Hey all,
I have a serious Girl friend of 5 years and a full time job to take care of all my student loans.  $80,000.00 worth of loans.  I live over in Florida and wonder do you think if I have a great idea, that I should do this.
I would either have to keep my girl back at home for the summer or take her and our dogs with me.
Do you think its viable to do so?  To live on the $5,000.00 for the summer? <comment><USER2> you shouldn't be asking HN about this, you should be asking your GF about this.

<comment><AUTHOR> asked, shes okay if it can be afforded..... Don't know that I can.

If I were to quit, does that mean that I will be unemployed or do I receive a check like employment from YC?

<comment><USER3> No - You'd be self-employed, with no income.... Yeah - I know - it's a distinction that I wonder about every day.

YC hand out a cheque when you accept their offer. That's it until you secure other funding or revenue.

Doing a startup is a (significant) lifestyle choice. So if your GF is on board with that, and is happy a part of it, then just apply. If not, then you've got some bigger issues to wrestle with.

<comment><USER4> Just apply! If you get accepted go to your friends and family and ask if they can provide a security blanket in case nothing becomes of your work at YC. That would allow you to find employment if need be!

If you do get accepted stretch the resources as far as possible! Find roommates and eat like a poor man(do not go out to eat)!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Based on your situation, I'd say no.

Why don't you do your startup now from home, grow it a little and see if its a viable model, and then apply when you start getting some traction?

Because right now you are talking about uprooting your whole life over a 1-2% chance of success.

<comment><USER6> I guess it depends on how you define "success", but I think the chances of the YC startups getting more out of it than they put in is higher than 1-2%. Even if they end up folding the startup, just having been accepted into YC and having the network probably changes your career path significantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well the financial math is simple, no $5k is not enough for you both.

The relationship math is simple as well. After five years of dating, you're probably getting to the point where you are going to get married or break up. If you think you are going to get married, why would you uproot your life with a full time job when you are in debt?

YCombinator is not a silver bullet to start up success. Work on something from home in your spare time. Find out more about your talent for this type of thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apply and decide after you've been accepted.

<comment><USER9> If you're accepted via phone you have to respond right there. If he puts this decision off until then, that gives him only 30 seconds to decide. I think it's better to think this through beforehand.

<comment><USER10> Yea, but he has to at least get to the interview first. If he isn't invited to that process then there's nothing to even consider. Once invited to an interview, its a good time to start considering any major decisions (and you will have a few weeks). Up until that point, theres nothing to lose but a free weekend in Cali.

<comment><USER9> You're right in the sense that there's nothing to lose. But if he does get accepted to the interview and decide not to do it, he took the spot from another startup that would probably have accepted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Startups are hard on partners, but if its serious and this is something important to you then you should apply.

Trial by fire :D

I love my wife, and I know she loves me too. And part of the reason I know that is because I was broke as hell on the second iteration of my first startup when we met. I crashed at her apartment and ate her food while I built my prototype.

She put up with it, she must love me :)

<comment><AUTHOR> My girl is doing the same to me now. Living off me while she attends school.

<comment><USER11> Well, then do the math. A formal budget, something most 20 somethings have never done. Figure out what sacrifices you've got to make. Then sell the team on them.

Add a fudge factor, cause shit happens.

An exercise in startup leadership :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If your idea truly is great you have absolutely nothing to lose by applying. If your idea is accepted you still have the option of declining the funding, requirements to move, etc... But if your idea is accepted then it obviously has some merit and you'd at least have the YC stamp of approval and a slightly better chance of succeeding than those who didn't get in.

At the end of the day, do what makes sense to you and your values. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's simple math.

If you come to YC for the Summer will you:

a) finish up with a working product ready to take to the next level

b) at that point then be able to afford to move home _or_ ship the GF out

c) still be with the GF in the Autumn should you not go to YC

d) are unable to get the project off the ground from where you are

Yes? Then try it :)

(err and also: have you asked what the GF thinks? that seems the first port of call... :))

<comment><AUTHOR> My girl will undoubtedly stay with me.

But managing two households at once on $5,000.00 that YC offers is hard work. I would be eating ramen all the way for the entire summer.

Whats the percent chance that your actually profitable after 3 months worth of work.

<comment><USER13> TBH fairly small - but there is a difference between profitable and being able to get hold of some capital (beyond the seed funding of YC). You might well get to that stage (no - you should get to that stage :D).

Is there any reasons the GF cant come to the bay with you?

EDIT: cheeky but does the GF have any hacker skills to become a cofounder?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish she had the hacker skills. But she is still in school which makes it EXTREMELY DIFFICULT.

<comment><USER14> Having a look at your responses throughout this thread it seems like you're looking for reasons to go rather than reasons not too.

Starting a startup is a huge commitment, potentially a lifelong one depending on your idea.

If you're even slightly unsure (which you seem to be), you should perhaps maybe think about it some more, or start it up from where you are.

I'm not trying to make you depressed or anything mate, but when things aren't going according to plan and everything goes wrong (as things can do with startups) you still have to be willing to give it 110%

So yeah, read some of the advice in this thread but really sit down, have a LONG HARD think about it. If you're prepared to make sacrifices (which there will inevitably be, it's your choice what they will be though) - then make a decision.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. Agreed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Man Up. (at the risk of being downvoted).

<comment><USER16> What does that even mean?

<comment><USER14> Other interoperable phrases could be

      "Toughen up Tinkerbelle"
      "Grow a pair, son"
      "Who wears the pants in your relationship?"
      "Just do it" (proudly swiped from Nike)

<comment><USER17> Or, for me, "Put on your big girl panties."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You said your GF is in school right now. If that's so, how will she move with you to SF? She won't be able to go to school (unless the school allows 100% telecommuting or she decides to take a semester off).

Remember that the $5,000 +$5,000n is an investment in YOUR COMPANY, not a paycheck. That money is meant to cover the founder's living expenses during the YC round. I think you will have a hard time using that money to live off of and support your GF.

If your GF can get a job and support herself (either while still going to school or by taking a semester off) I would say go for it. But if the only way is to send money back to FL then you are hurting your chances of succeeding, and I would find another way.

<comment><USER19> It's one thing to be fresh out of college with no debt and no responsibilities. I could imagine finding a roommate, eating ramen and stretching $5000 for 6 months or more.

However you sound a bit more like me. I'm 30, married, with $60,000 of student loans and a car payment living in Mountain View. In case you don't know what expenses are like out here, let's just say $5000 wouldn't even cover my loan payments + rent for 2 months. You will not find a decent one-bedroom under $1500. You can do better if you cram yourselves into an efficiency or get roommates, but just FYI, I got a 30% raise to move out here and I've never felt poorer. Given your situation, your runway will be shorter than most, but if you are good, that may be the extra drive you need to get something up and fundable in under 3 months. Me? I'm bootstrapping from someplace cheaper when I leave my current startup. I see the YC model as more appropriate for those with no experience, no connections and no responsibilities.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> This clears a bit up for me as we are in pretty much the same situation. Thank you. As for your last sentence,

I see the YC model as more appropriate for those with no experience, no connections and no responsibilities.

I see that I have all three....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wouldn't bank on getting in if you have no co-founder. You should probably worry about finding one of those first.

</comment><comment><USER21>
      g = Girlfriend.find(:all).last
      a = YCapp.create(:term => 'Summer 09', :name => 'spoiledtechie')
      if a.accepted
        g.propose
        self.move('SF')
        g.move('SF') if g.fiancee
      end

<comment><AUTHOR> g.propose is out of the question (for now).

if a.accepted self.move('SF') g.stay('FL') || g.move('parents') end

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Remember the underpants gnomes from South Park? Their plot was simple. 1. Steal underpants, 2. ???, 3. Profit. Most YC people have something similar going on: 1. Come up with great idea, 2. Get YC to fund it, 3. ???, 4. Profit, 5. Get a Girlfriend. You've already jumped to step 5, skip 1-4.

<comment><AUTHOR> Found the girl early on in life. Way before college. lol. Now stuck with the girl. Love her to bits though so can't let go and move without her.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think for you the best solution would be to keep your day job and work nights/weekends on your startup. With your big financial liabilities and GF that has to stay in school in FL you can't make it work on a YC check and uproot to silicon valley...

If you really wanna be in the silicon valley tech scene -- it's a good place to network about your startup idea -- start applying for jobs out there. You'll make way more money than you're making now and you can still work on your idea nights/weekends. You'll probably find a co-founder and some advisers out there and have a better chance of getting serious funding than you'd have in Florida.

</comment><comment><USER24> We don't know all your details. You know your life better than we do.

Is she willing to find employment and pay some of the bills if she lives with you? How fast do you have to pay off your loans? Have you looked to see how good a living situation SF affords you? It's an expensive place.

I agree with menloparkbum: Apply either way. If you're accepted, then decide further.

</comment><comment><USER25> Just to clarify... one founder gets $10,000.00, two founders get $15,000.00, three founders get $20,000.00. It's clearly stated in the FAQ... what hope is there, if you can't even read the terms correctly.

<comment><USER26> not sure but i think he meant (10k) - (taxes) - (cost of moving to sf from florida)

which is about 5k

<comment><AUTHOR> yep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Aren't YC companies expected to stay in the Valley even after the summer is over?

<comment><USER13> No - but I imagine most do because that is where the investors are :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> just out of interest - do many founders _bring_ their girlfriends with them?

<comment><USER29> I wonder too. I'm considering applying - still working it out with the cofounder as to our final decision about applying - and (as much as I'd like a girlfriend) I have a boyfriend who'd support me no matter what but can't move because he has a full time job where we are right now. Sorta complicated :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> if you have to ask...

</comment><comment><USER31> TechStars, (www.techstars.org) pays $6,000 per founder, so that is at least a thousand extra bucks there if you wanted to try that instead. There application deadline is Saturday I think.

</comment><comment><USER31> Not unless the dogs are willing to share their dog food with you, lol.

</comment><comment><USER32> Just think of all the girlfriends you'll be able to buy once you become rich and famous in Silicon Valley!

<comment><USER7> Meaningful girlfriends? You mean zero?

<comment><USER7> It appears that whoever downvoted me misinterpreted my comment. To expand the implication: you can buy zero meaningful girlfriends.</comment></comment></comment>


Brutal baboon battle erupts for throne at Toronto Zoo after matriarch dies - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/11/29/brutal-baboon-battle-erupts-for-throne-at-toronto-zoo-after-matriarch-dies.html <comment><USER2> > So Dutton and his staff anesthetized her to figure out what was going on. An > exploratory surgery revealed a tumour in her uterus that had spread to the > abdominal wall. It was terminal, Dutton said, so they euthanized her on the > operating room table on Dec. 5, 2014.

> "You have to let their natural behaviour happen," Franke said. "They have to > sort it out. In the wild, a lot of times it's to the death."

Which makes me wonder how things would have played out had they not euthanized the current matriarch. Would she have lived long enough to allow her oldest daughter to mature? Would have there been other behaviors/rituals the baboons would have gone through because they would have seen the matriarch pass naturally?

Edit: grammar

<comment><USER3> It seems the caretaker confuses himself here. Allowing animals to sort things out by themselves, but removing leader unnaturally? Sounds like there was a lack of deeper thought in here and human emotions (saving animal from pain) took over logic.

<comment><USER4> Killing the animal earlier is not really unnatural - animals die suddenly all the time.

There's a difference between "natural" and "what would have happened otherwise".

<comment><USER3> That's right, unless animals felt safe since they are in Zoo and their behavior is different than out in dangerous nature...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a lot of grumpy sarcasm in this thread! I wonder, might a violent primate story stir some innate tendency towards violence in humans?

Or maybe it's just monday during holiday season and that has people rumpled. Or maybe too much of the internet is leaking into HN these days ... :(

</comment><comment><USER6> Ridiculous for them to close the exhibit. Lest we can't have people learn and understand how different animals behave within their groupings.

<comment><USER7> From what I understood from the article, they closed the exhibit because they didn't want the visitors to see the (potentially unsettling/traumatizing) injuries on the baboons. Which actually sounds reasonable to me.

<comment><USER8> At something like 4 or 5 years old I lived in Pittsburgh. The zoo had an elephant with a red eye that terrified me. These were the days of bars and chains and up close displays so you could see right into its horrible red eye and after it tore aside the bars and snapped its chains it could easily destroy you. (Note: 4 or 5 years old). The elephants were one of my brothers favorites so we spent a lot of time there. I can still see that eye after more than half a lifetime, I expect I'll still see it at the end. (LOTR could have had a much more ominous eye.) I spent a lot of time looking at the animal opposite the aisle pretending there was no elephant, it was in a low cage, I have no recollection of what it was, maybe a marsupial? Now I can hear the elephant shifting its weight back and forth behind me.

Point being, eventually… A zoo probably does not want 4 year old children looking at a baboon with the side of its face torn away to expose the bone. In this case, "think of the children".

<comment><USER9> Children all over the world participate in animal slaughter ever day. That's just a normal part of being a human (historically). Only recently has our society hidden that from view. Now as a result, we're becoming increasingly crueless about the realities of survial.

<comment><USER10> I agree, but personally it has been somewhat emotionally taxing that this deer season I've had to cut _two_ throats. Too much bow hunting seems to have left me a poorer shot with a gun.

At some level, however, if I'm not comfortable cutting the throat of an animal that is staring at me in fear, how comfortable should I be eating meat?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> At a wolf preserve, we were told that one of the packs was currently leaderless, with several betas vying to be the alpha. This was apparently an unusual situation as it had gone unresolved for quite some time.

This was precipitated by the previous alpha being tranquilized and brought to the vet, where the alpha died. The thinking was that since the other wolves did not see the alpha actually dead, it created a lot of confusion for the pack. They've since changed policy.

</comment><comment><USER12> Bit like Iraq/Syria after they took out Hussein. At least the baboons didn't kill thousands.

</comment><comment><USER13> What's with the anthropomorphizing cutsy naming, they're baboons not kids.

<comment><USER14> Not sure if it happens at Toronto, but some places sell "adoptions" which help pay for keeping the animals.

And some people respond more strongly to the cutesy names, which may increase the amount of education they get from the zoo.

[http://www.monkeyworld.org/primate- adoptions](http://www.monkeyworld.org/primate-adoptions)

<comment><USER13> Take a look at 'David Attenborough .. Life on Earth' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czgc56Vfz4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czgc56Vfz4w)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://i.imgur.com/glHzNoe.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/glHzNoe.jpg)</comment>


You Don't Own That Software You Bought - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/first-sale-doctrine/

<comment><USER2> Looks like a newer submission is taking off - for crossreference purposes, here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1680185></comment>


Starting an ISP is hard (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slashgeek.net/2016/05/31/starting-isp-really-hard-dont/ <comment><USER2> I was involved in starting one of America's biggest ISP's back in the early 90's - I won't name which one, but it was #2 for a while - and I can say that things have radically changed from the way they used to be. But, I don't believe that the fact that "its hard" is a reason not to do it - I think we really need to return to the days of Mom&Pop BBS'es and locally-maintained and operated NOC's in neighborhoods that really need it.

Which is why I think its great that we have social movements such as Funk Feuer ([https://www.funkfeuer.at](https://www.funkfeuer.at)) to look at today, point, and say "thank god for the kids!", keeping the original 'net spirit alive.

<comment><USER3> I worked at #1! The place all this went bad was when big cable and AT&T got into the game and flushed out all the rest of the competition.

Comcast is a reprehensible company from top to bottom--the pricing sucks, cable tv sucks, bundling sucks, and their customer service SUCKS! So I won't do business with them and am relegated to crappy DSL from Frontier which also SUCKS, just not as bad as Comcast as a company. How did we ever get into this situation?

Granted the ISP I worked at was mostly dialup at the time, but they ran a decent business with decent service. The Mom & Pop ISPs in the rural areas were so cool back then--real American entrepreneurs, which starkly contrast with the robber barons.

<comment><USER4> If the Mom & Pop -- real American entrepreneurs -- had grew to national scale, would they have become robber barons? It is just a consequence of size or is more complex than that?

<comment><USER5> Publicly traded vs private. I.e. whether investors are okay with steady return or always pushing for profit growth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Starting an ISP doesn't have to be that hard at all. If you want to start one in the country where I live you could do so with very little investment.

All the issues he talks about are due to the fact that there is no real competition in the US and no infrastructure to support competition.

The way it works over here is that there is a (commercially owned) open fiber network which can be used by anyone who wants to, and prices are the same for everyone. This network owns the last mile fiber, a PoP in each neighbourhood and a City-PoP linked to the neighbourhood PoP's.

You want to start a small ISP with very little investment ? Just lease everything from one of the bigger players. Bandwidth, IPTV service, etc. can all just be repackaged and resold under your own brand name and you can work on getting a customer base. You could run this from your basement without buying a single piece of hardware.

Want to spend a little more ? Use your own backbone network and uplink to the internet, but lease all the last-mile stuff from one of the bigger ISP. Go ahead. Want to do everything yourself ? You can rent space in the PoP's and install your own equipment, all you'd need from a 3rd party is to lease the last mile dark fiber.

You can pretty much choose anything from just reselling an existing package to doing everything yourself except owning the physical fiber and PoP your equipment is placed in. IIRC the situation on DSL is similar.

My current ISP started out as one of those that pretty much resold existing packages and currently they are on the other end of the spectrum and run their entire network by themselves including spinning off their own TV provider that now sells IPTV services to other small ISP's.

Net result of all this: at my address I can choose between 13 ISP's on fiber alone.

How do you get to a situation like this ? Very simple. Make sure the government only issues permits for the installation of a broadband network if the network to be built is going to be open to everyone.

<comment><USER7> What is this superb country you live in?

<comment><USER6> The Netherlands.

Unfortunately, the fiber network doesn't cover the entire country yet. It was bought by the biggest telco a couple of years back and they pretty much halted expansion. Fortunately, a lot of local initiatives have started up with similar conditions.

<comment><USER8> > "It was bought by the biggest telco a couple of years back and they pretty > much halted expansion."

Why did they halt expansion? Would they not make enough profit outside of denser metropolitan areas? Could such a model (whereby the government only allows construction of broadband network for companies that agree to lease out the wires to everyone) while facilitating ISP competition actually stifle deployment of new wire?

<comment><USER6> > Why did they halt expansion?

Because it's cheaper to upgrade their existing phone network to VDSL than to install new fiber. Basically, they already own a nation-wide copper phone network, the fiber network was a competitor. They bought the competitor and halted expansion so they could squeeze some more money out of their existing copper network. The official PR bullshit is that by upgrading the copper network they can offer high speed internet to more people in a shorter amount of time than by expanding the fiber network.

> Would they not make enough profit outside of denser metropolitan areas?

The denser metropolitan areas are the main areas where there is no fiber yet. It's the more rural areas that have the best fiber penetration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is obviously a response to an earlier post. This seems to happen a lot. Posts inspiring links, inspiring even more branches. It'd be interesting to apply one of those bioinformatics algorithms for computing the phylogenetic tree of DNA to the stream of links featured here on HN.

<comment><USER10> I'm sure this being posted was a response to the previous link, but looking at the URL of this post, it seems to have been made over a year ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> These guys are really, really redundant, which is excellent, still I am sure my local fibre ISP doesn't have even 1/3 of that. Probably two uplinks, no second power line and one diesel etc. I haven't seen those expensive splicing machines, technicians have used a laptop and some small tool..

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting read. It seems to me some of the long tail risks mitigated by expensive redundancies might be an acceptable risk for the customers. For example, the article indicates that they have redundant power suppliers, along with 2 days worth of diesel for on-premise generation. Apparently keeping the second power company available is a recurring cost. What are the chances power is cut to the office for more than 2 days that (1) doesn't also affect the other power company (e.g., earthquake, hurricane, etc.) and (2) couldn't be mitigated by purchasing more diesel? Even if (1) and (2) are true, couldn't this just be a reasonable outage?

<comment><AUTHOR> Few things,

There are limits on how long you can keep your generators running without causing mechanical damage - hence two generators.

Redundant power company only charges for usage, there is a small recurring fee for connectivity. If Power goes out from one provider, online UPS kicks in - we switch to secondary power-company if there is a long downtime.This happens about 4-5 times a year - longest blackout was 12 hours to the best of my recollection.

When you provide internet service for SME, Banks, and some large-scale corps - redundancy and SLA plays a huge role. Home users benefit from this too.

I probably should have been more clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a unique perspective on the control Google has on the web. You basically can't start an ISP without access to Google, and access to Google is expensive. And you can't cache/proxy it yourself, because https is, like, really useful, man.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know if I agree with this. I cofounded an ISP in the mid-90's. It was in a relatively small town in a rural state in the midwestern US.

I have no idea what the residents options for internet access are now, but at the time the only really choice (unless you were college faculty or a student) was AOL. But there wasn't a local line - you had to call a city 30 miles away that had a long distance toll charge.

That meant we had a relatively captive audience. But, not a lot of people knew what the "internet" was then.

At the time, our largest cost was the 32 phone lines coming in (more expensive than a residential phone line). Initial equipment for the T1 and the modems (sixteen 28.8 ciscos) and setup was only something like $30k. The second largest cost was the T1 (none of us took a salary).

The issue was capitalization. It got to a point where additional significant personal guarantees were going to be required from people who hadn't had a salary for almost 2 years (I was making a little money making static websites). At that time the state telecom called and offered a little money for the customers and to assist in migrating them (I guess they were finally ready to offer rural internet access).

At the end of the day, we might have been a little early to the market, we were under-capitalized, and we didn't realize at the time that if we had offered complementary services around residential internet access (we only had a couple commercial customers, more aggressive web development and hosting services, and a better idea in how to raise capital without more personal guarantees), who knows.

I should add that I never wanted to be in the ISP business, I had an idea about a web based business (that I still think was a really good idea and I'm sorry that running an ISP and burning through all of our collective savings prevented me from doing) and was talked in to the ISP model by the people I went to looking for investment.

TLDR: Technically, starting and running an ISP isn't all that hard. Probably easier today than it was 22 years ago. The business/economic side is the challenge.

<comment><USER15> In the article they mention they run 100km+ of their own fiber. They don't mention which country they are in, but in most of the US, this would be very difficult and expensive. The upside to old dialup ISPs is the local telco had built and was maintaining your last mile physical infrastructure.

<comment><USER14> Very true, but it's also easier today to rent space on some one else network in most municipalities, and to scale up without significant capital investment. On course, you're right in pointing out that it depends on where you are geographically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Back when I was 16 and the Dial-up was slowly dying, I took a cable connection and start selling internet to my neighbours.

By the 3rd year the network reached 3 blocks around the neighbourhood and I had ~50 paying clients. I still remember I did that with an old Intel 486 running Slackware Linux and a bunch of ipchains MASQ scripts. I had even a small local website where you were able to see your traffic ( I remember I was paid 10EUR/500MB or something. )

Back then I was not alone. Almost every neighbourhood had those networks, but at one point they started to unite together and the bigger ones were buying the small ones.

Now the biggest problem would be regulation, rather than the hardware requirements.

</comment><comment><USER17> A nationwide FTTH ISP is a completely different affair to a local WISP...

</comment><comment><USER18> In the 90s there were ton of mom and pop ISPs. But in the 90s they piggy backed off of telephone lines (dial up) so they didn't have to have an infrastructure aside from running a high speed connection to their office and having a bank of modems connected to phone lines.

I remember there was even a company that let you "start your own ISP" with just a 10 minute sign up form. You used their high speed connection and their modem bank and they took 3/4 the profit.

</comment><comment><USER19> the original impetus for 'build your own ISP' started from a HN discussion, and frankly i think its where it should end.

Detroit is a sterling reminder of the hubris of a generation in the wake of late stage capitalism. Naturally, creating your own internet in the wasteland that was once americas crown jewel of middle class prosperity seems not only natural, but necessary as the economic incentive from private industry is nonexistent.

For the rest of us, effort is best spent in cultivating a healthy local network. build your own open source router, control traffic according to your own best practices. For example, limit advertising servers and telimetry servers so as to diminish the unspoken incentive the repeal of net neutrality and operating systems that do not respect privacy. Host your own VPN for security and DNS server to avoid SRVFAIL hijacking.

[https://prism-break.org](https://prism-break.org) [http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm](http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm)

<comment><USER8> Why can't people do both prism break stuff and build new ISPs? Those can be complementary. The new ISPs could be built with freedom-respecting FOSS software and hardware.

Also could you elaborate on "limit advertising servers and telimetry servers so as to diminish the unspoken incentive the repeal of net neutrality and operating systems that do not respect privacy." What is the unknown incentive? Aren't there other incentives other than advertising and telemetry?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Indeed, it sounds easier to start a bank. Probably more profitable also.

<comment><USER21> Infact, I would love an article on just that! "Don't start an ISP, start a bank"</comment></comment>


Caesarean babies have different gut bacteria, microbiome study finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/18/caesarean-babies-have-different-gut-bacteria-microbiome-study-finds <comment><USER4> This has been known for quite a while, basically passing through the non sterile vaginal canal vs the sterile (or close to it) abdominal wall yields differences. This has lead to some questionable practices such as "vaginal seeding" whereby new moms will swab their vagina and then seed their babies shortly after birth (usually through placing the gauze in babies mouth or around their face). This comes up not infrequently at the hospital I work at. I think much of it stems from Facebook rather than actual discussions with their OB.

<comment><USER5> The article addresses this practice and states that the bacteria found in babies born vaginally differs from the bacteria found in the vaginal canal this further calling into question this practice. The bacteria instead seems to come from the mother's gut.

<comment><USER6> Specifically, it comes from faecal matter that she expels during the birth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My younger brothers are identical twins, one born vaginally and the other 20 min later via C-section. I've always said they'd be good data for these type of studies.

Anecdotally, they don't really have big differences regarding allergies or autoimmune disorders. Although growing up I always complained one stunk up the bathroom worse than the other.

<comment><USER8> Any idea how frequent this (the first naturally, the second via C-section) is ?

<comment><USER9> Increasingly in developed countries twin births are caesars; the risk profile of twin births often necessitates this for patient safety.

When a normal vaginal delivery is possible (ie first twin cephalic) generally the second will follow. My partner (obgyn Resident ) says she has had 2 twin births where the first was vaginal and the second Caesar, out of roughly a couple hundred

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This has been hypothesised for a while and is listed in many pregnancy books. There are also hypothesis linking the difference in gut flora to other long term outcomes (obesity, autism etc) in adults.

Reference:

J. Neu and J. Rushing, "Cesarean Versus Vaginal Delivery: Long-Term Infant Outcomes and the Hygiene Hypothesis," Clinics in Perinatology 38, no. 2 (2011): 321–331.

</comment><comment><USER11> My twin brother was born by caesarean. He gets asthma attacks from allergies that I don't have. I've wondered for a while what effect a faecal transplant could have...

<comment><USER12> This is something that his doctor should be concerned with.

<comment><USER13> The idea that there is some doctor who will employ the latest and greatest of medical research to take care of me is at odds, to say the least, with my experience in the healthcare system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was under the impression that this has been pretty well established for a while.

<comment><USER15> Came here to see if I was going crazy or if others had also heard of this before.

Is this about new findings? Or just a regurgitated set of findings to get into the press? The article isn't clear as far as I can see.

<comment><USER16> Here is a link to the study the article references published today: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1560-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1560-1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > "In many cases, a caesarean is a life-saving procedure and can be the right > choice for a woman and her baby,"

And in other cases it is a way to make life easier for medical staff?

Here in Panama, babies are disproportionately born through C-section in privately run hospitals.

Update: While I can't cite any stats for Panama, there is an article [0] that says

"The rates can be even higher in private clinics. For example, in Brazil, 80-90 percent of births in private clinics are now C-sections, compared with about 30-40 percent of births in public hospitals."

[0] [https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/10/12/6561984...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/10/12/656198429/rate- of-c-sections-is-rising-at-an-alarming-rate)

<comment><USER18> "To posh to push", was also a saying a generation ago.

<comment><USER19> In Dutch the C-section is called the "King's cut".

<comment><USER20> Sorry for nitpicking: "emperor's cut"

<comment><USER21> Named after emperor Caesar, just like the word "caesarian".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder, does this relationship hold at 1 month old? 1 year?

Any decent longitudinal studies of C-section babies from elective sections removing the health based ones?

</comment><comment><USER23> Having a c-section might not be the underlying cause of the problem. Doctors carry out c-sections when a vaginal birth would create complications for the mother or the child. I.E. the mother or child was already "sicker" prior to the c-section.

I'd love to see a randomized control trial for this. To do it ethically, the trial could be designed like the CRASH trials. In those trials, doctors received patients with head injury and administered a placebo or corticosteroids. Since it was unclear whether corticosteroids helped or hurt, it was ethical for doctors to randomize patients. For births, only situations where it's 50/50 between a c-section and vaginal birth would qualify. Perhaps it's too small a subset to be workable or perhaps it's never 50/50, but that type of trial would provide much stronger evidence for this intriguing idea.

On a personal note, I was a c-section baby and seem OK!

<comment><USER24> > the mother or child was already "sicker" prior to the c-section

That is your illusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> TL DR: C-section babies pick up more hospital bacteria than those born vaginally, research shows. The findings could explain the higher prevalence of asthma, allergies and other immune conditions in babies born by caesarean. By six to nine months, the differences between the two groups had levelled out. But scientists think that the initial exposure to bacteria at the moment of birth could be a "thermostat" moment for the immune system, defining its sensitivity and which strains of bacteria trigger a response.

<comment><USER6> Please don't tldr if you're going to do it this poorly.

The new bit of this story is that the vaginal canal isn't adding anything to the microflora of the baby, and that the source is in fact fecal matter from the mother during birth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The biggest question that surround all this microbiome discussion is - <USER2> the difference even matter?

Note that you can significantly alter your gut microbiome simply by changes to your diet.

Right now the link between the microbiome and allergies is tenuous at best.

<comment><USER27> My understanding is that yes environment makes a huge difference in your biome, however there may be strains of bacteria, for example, that you would only get from your mother. Maybe something she picked up playing in the dirt in a different country, or maybe something from her mother.

Whether it makes a difference really depends on the individual. Personally I think it's better to get the gut bacteria that you can from your mother near the time of birth, but that's me.

<comment><USER26> If you were to test the microbiome of a family, you'd find they are very similar. Humans living in close quarters exchange biomes readily (oral - <USER3> transmission).

I'm certainly not arguing there is no impact of the microbiome on disease, but right now the data is far to early to say anything conclusively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I was depressed for half my life, I read on gut microbiome about 5 years ago(swapping the gut microbiome of mices changes their character) but didn't put it together until I switched my diet to meat only. Any kind of sugar seems to trigger depression for me, that sadly means that I can't eat plants. And current push for plant based diets worries me a lot. I was a C-Section baby.

<comment><USER29> Eating only meat is a serious health risk.

There are other sources of protein, and many vegetables that go very well with a low carb diet.

<comment><USER30> > Eating only meat is a serious health risk

[citation needed]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Gut bacteria IIRC effect personality/mood as well as other things.

</comment><comment><USER32> the mother probably gets antibiotics before caesarean. Does that antibiotic make it into the baby? That would mean that beside not getting the good vaginal mix of bacteria (that mix among other benefits seems to be able to control candida yeast growth which is a big deal on its own), the bacteria set that the baby already possesses gets hit by the antibiotic, a double whammy of sort.

<comment><USER9> A Caesar mother does get a stat of antibiotics before opening. In crash caesars this would barely have time to distribute; normal operating procedure calls for the dose to occur 30 min to 1 hr before skin incision though.

You have a bit of a misunderstanding here - a baby does not have a microbiome in the womb - it is a sterile environment

<comment><USER32> >You have a bit of a misunderstanding here - a baby does not have a microbiome in the womb - it is a sterile environment

no. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4350424/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4350424/)

"The first, and most important, contribution to the genesis of the microbiome is vertical transmission of maternal microbiota. Colonization of mucosa in the digestive, respiratory, urogenital tracts, as well as the skin begins at, or perhaps even before, the time of birth when a newborn is exposed to a mother's microbiota. It was previously thought that the in utero environment was largely sterile and that a fetus was not colonized with bacteria until the time of birth. Recent studies suggest the presence of a microbiome within the placenta as well as fetal meconium, suggesting that the colonization process begins well before delivery. "

And my point is that the "most important, contribution to the genesis of the microbiome" probably gets hit with the antibiotics given for C-section.

<comment><USER9> Thanks. This is new knowledge since I was at medical school.

The paper you link however is not at all convincing.

A better paper here: [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.0112...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01124/full)

Does a better job of explaining things. Interestingly the species isolated are highly homogenous - [https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/454989/fmicb-10-0...](https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/454989/fmicb-10-01124-HTML/image_m/fmicb-10-01124-g001.jpg)

Most samples had only a single species isolated from meconium; Controlling for sources of contamination it looks like out of the sample of 43 there were several that would meet the classification of a sterile environment.

So, I was wrong; but so are you

<comment><USER32> I'm not insisting on specific source of bacteria. I mentioned it only as illustrative detail/example, and it only distracted (who knew that here would be a medical professional for whom getting such details right is naturally important - the same way like it is very distracting for coders when movies get computers related details wrong :) from the main point that baby coming out of C-section may have antibiotics in him/her which would screw with whatever gut microbiome "priming" scenario pre-/post- delivery he/she would be going through.

<comment><USER9> I take your point but it's not binary - in the sense that I have strong doubts that the MIC (Minimum inhibitory concentration) of antibiotics would touch much of a colonisation in a neonate should it be present.

Having a single dose of abx in an adult doesn't kill everything; the intent of a pre-surgical dose of abx is because evidence shows it significantly reduces post op infections; and the antibiotic used is active primarily against gram positives (cephazolin 1-2g) whereas _Pelomonas puraquae_ is a gram negative anerobic rod and more than likely not going to be touched, even if the MIC is reached (and my experience of obstetric theatres is the antibiotic usually (80% of the time) goes in only minutes before skin incision.

So; a couple of things:

\- presuming no contamination in the study, the primary coloniser of neonates appears to be a gm -ve rod

\- antibiotics given for caesars are active against gm +ves /aerobes

So while there may be a mechanism, it's not highly plausible in light of the other known mechanisms affecting Caesar births vs natural (ie bacterial microbiome pickup during traversal of the birth canal) about which there is significant evidence regarding immune priming

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is old news.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought the same, but No, as the original hypothesis was the bacteria came from the vaginia, but this study shows it comes from gut. It maybe because during delivery women often have anal fissures.

<comment><USER34> I am not an obstetrician but I am pretty sure that fecal transfer is far more likely because of acccidental pooping while 'pushing' instead of anal tearing/fissures.

<comment><USER33> Oh God. How did I get here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Many of us Caesarian babies didn't get "vaginal seeding" at birth, but have been trying to catch up ever since.

<comment><USER36> You joke, and are being downvoted, but I had never ever thought about cunnilingus affecting ones gut biome. Is that ridiculous or even possible?

<comment><USER35> It certainly affects gut biome, personal observation and what I've read. Michael Douglas also believes this caused his cancer.

It's a cliche that the kids from the rich side of town, who didn't put dirt in their mouths growing up, are the ones who get mono in college. Farm kids are healthiest; our immune systems need regular work they can manage.

<comment><USER37> > Farm kids are healthiest

Why can't we just buy some farm dirt in pill form?

<comment><USER26> Coronado Biosciences tried to treat Crohn's disease using hookworm eggs. Basically give the patient a bunch of eggs, the hook worms hatch, cause an immune response, then die (as they can't live in humans).

Clinical trial showed no impact at all on the disease.

<comment><USER38> I think you mean to say they can't, but… they can [https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/hookworm/gen_info/faqs.html](https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/hookworm/gen_info/faqs.html)

<comment><USER26> I did mean "can't".

Coronado used porcine (pig) hookworm eggs that's can't complete a reproductive cycle in humans.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pirate Bay Founder Is Offering Anonymous Hosting to Fight Government Censorship - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy5qpj/pirate-bay-founder-is-offering-anonymous-hosting-to-fight-government-censorship <comment><USER2> anonymous domain registration _</comment>


Measure what is relevant: A critical look at bounce rates - <AUTHOR> http://briancray.com/2010/03/03/bounce-rate-measurement-relevance/ <comment><USER2> Bounce rates are also _ridiculously_ sensitive to traffic source. You can do things which are _screamingly_ net-beneficial for the business and impact bounce rates in a negative or counter intuitive manner.

If your company blog gets picked up on Reddit or CNN, your bounce rate just went through the roof.

If your ongoing SEO triples the number of visitors you get from Google every month and double revenues, you probably now rank for at least a few phrases which you are not a good fit for, causing bounces

If you make changes to your site's design which clearly suggest to people that this is not the Facebook login they are looking for, your bounce rate will increase as your blood pressure decreases.

All of the above suggests ditching bounce rates and concentrating on metrics which actually matter to the business. Conversions and revenues are two excellent choices -- most of the scenarios where one says "Our revenues are up by 100%... DANG IT ALL" are fairly contrived. The only reason bounce rate persists is because it is very easy to measure without getting buy-in from anyone else in the organization -- sort of like hits.

I think we've successfully embarrassed anyone who would quote hits as a meaningful metric out of the industry. Bounce rate should probably be next. (Full disclosure: at least one guy who knows what he is doing about metrics -- Avinash Kaushik -- disagrees with me violently on this one.)

<comment><USER3> I respectfully disagree on revenue - it's also largely a vanity metric. I know it doesn't feel that way (especially when there is little of it), but think about the seasonality problems and all the things that may compete for users attention like the Olympics. Revenue is a good indicator over several months, but it's largely useless for day-to-day decision making.

Far more useful metrics would be engagement among the people who have proven to be the core audience, likelyhood to recommend the product to others, time- to-first-satisfactory-outcome, feature use frequency. I am contemplating a diabolical plan of turning features off and measuring the relative frustration rates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A time-based bounce rate measurement would largely minimize all the downsides listed in the article. (That plus some sort of event tracking for outside links.) It's unfortunate that's not the standard, default measurement for bounce rates.

<comment><AUTHOR> By "time-based" do you mean how long they spent on the page?

<comment><USER4> Exactly. Some analytics programs go by whether they viewed a single page, some go by visits that viewed page(s) and only stuck around for less than 3 to 5 seconds. Most, if not all, analytics programs measure "time on site", so it's theoretically possible to segment out the groups that only viewed a single page and spent only a few seconds on the site, it's just inconvenient to set up if that's not the default.

In Kaushik's book, Web Analytics an Hour a Day, he defines bounce rate as "The percent of traffic that stayed on your website for fewer than 10 seconds." So that's probably why he's so keen on bounce rate, using his definition you avoid some of the issues listed in that article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure - I've read that - but even if you record >10 second visits, you're still not finding out if users did what you wanted them to do based on bounce rate, unless your metric is time on site.

I don't think the 10 second rule minimizes all other points in the article.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter storing submissions before Enter is pressed. Should I write about this? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Facebook does the same [1]. May help you decide.

BTW pics or didnt happen.

[1] [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/1...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/12/facebook_self_censorship_what_happens_to_the_posts_you_don_t_publish.html)

<comment> Hattori-1 Google search is also an example of "unsearched" terms finding a way to google's servers</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you go about managing your studying sessions? - <AUTHOR> I am curious to know what do you guys use to plan your time when you have to study for an exam/standard test.
How do you plan the courses and make schedules?
Obviously using a paper/pen works but it's not editable as opposed to using a certain app/website. <comment><USER2> Since most standardised tests I've taken don't require any serious examination of the subject matter, I load the things about a lesson or section of book that seem relevant into Anki. I spend a half hour to an hour a night (with a break at the half-hour) reviewing the decks on the occasion that I've cause to study for something.

It may not be optimal, but it has sufficed for everything I've done so far and isn't hugely time-eating.

</comment><comment><USER3> These days I study in 90-minute chunks with 30-minute breaks in between.</comment>


PHP 5.3.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://php.net/releases/5_3_0.php

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or is the namespace syntax HORRIFICALLY ugly?

Couldn't they just overload the "::" syntax or something? Maybe ":::"? Every time I look at an example I feel like something is being escaped.

EDIT: the reasoning as to why "\" is here: [http://wiki.php.net/rfc/backslashnamespaces#resolution_of_t_...](http://wiki.php.net/rfc/backslashnamespaces#resolution_of_t_string_t_paamayim_nekudotayim_t_string_and_why_this_kills_as_namespace_separator)

<comment><USER3> "::" wouldn't work, because it's ambiguous at compile time. Personally I would have preferred ":::", but at some point it turned into a [bike-shed discussion](<http://www.bikeshed.com/>), and then a few of the core developers made a judgement call. I don't think they realised how controversial a choice they'd made, or perhaps they just didn't think it through, but once the pick was made, there was really no turning back, because of the politics. That's php core for you, and honestly I think it's a major flaw of php.

It's sort of the same way that GOTO entered the language too.

<comment><USER4> > "::" wouldn't work, because it's ambiguous at compile time.

Why is "::" ambiguous at compile time? It seems to me something is rotten here. C++ using :: for both namespaces and static access of classes. Why didn't PHP go the same way?

I never complain about the choice of operator, I complain about it's need to exist in the first place. :: would have done the job just fine, just as it does in C++, which is where they stole it from in the first place.

<comment><USER5> For some reason the PHP developers think it should be Ok to have a class in your code with the same name as a namespace you're using. I just tested this out with Python and it seems that doing the same thing simply gives you what was last defined, so if you have import lib and then class lib you will just end up with lib as being the class.

Frankly, it's insulting to me that the PHP team doesn't think I have the skills needed to not name my classes after namespace _I_ imported.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The addition of lambda functions and closures is a huge forward step for php.

<comment><USER7> with late static bindings, hopefully the php-activerecord project will get more attention and users since 5.3 is out of release candidates.

<http://github.com/kla/php-activerecord/tree/master>

<comment><USER8> i'm also excited about lsb. i ran into a situation the other day where they would have been extremely helpful

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm going to upgrade immediately so I can use goto.

Why am I being downmodded? I'm quite serious. I think it'll help clean up some of my previous PHP code.

<comment><USER10> There are dozens of valid reasons to hate PHP. I don't know why everyone keeps picking on GOTO though.

There are situations where it is the clearest and most concise way to express what you want (in modern times we emulate this functionality with continuations, exceptions, etc. because of the stigma attached to to GOTO). See [http://pplab.snu.ac.kr/courses/adv_pl05/papers/p261-knuth.pd...](http://pplab.snu.ac.kr/courses/adv_pl05/papers/p261-knuth.pdf) for a few examples.

Lots of perfectly respectable languages (Scheme, Lisp, C-Sharp, etc) have GOTOs in some form or another. Yes, you can abuse them, just like you can abuse functions, methods, objects, or anything else.

<comment><USER9> I'm not hating, I think it'll help clean up my PHP code. Just like you said, there's nothing wrong with GOTOs unless they're abused, just like any other language feature.

<comment><USER11> How would gotos clean up your code?

<comment><USER12> They can be extremely useful in error handling. They're also great as a substitute for labeled break statements if your language doesn't support them.

<comment><USER11> What ever happened to exceptions, which were explicitly invented to handle errors

<comment><USER12> Yeah. Turns out they're no silver bullet either. These days, my approach is pragmatic: use whatever works and produces the most readable code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here is a real question. Why could they not use a simple single : for namespaces? It would be able to parse that just fine. And it would actually look clean/nice.

<comment><USER14> The ternary operators conflict with that. ?:</comment></comment>


Satoshi Roundtable Thoughts - <AUTHOR> http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi-roundtable-thoughts <comment><USER2> There is a revolution going on in Bitcoin land. Very similar to how dictatorship gets overthrown in the real world. In the real world, dictators fight with censorship and violent force. In Bitcoin land these are social media censorship and DDoS attacks. The main Bitcoin forum on Reddit is censored heavy handed. No criticism allowed, mentions of alternative software or forums get deleted right away. People who run alternative implementations of Bitcoin get DDoSed so heavy, that sometimes whole districts of cities get cut off from the internet. But this is the internet. people manage to jump over the fence pretty fast...

[http://imgur.com/xNjN0kH](http://imgur.com/xNjN0kH)

...and find ways to get together and discuss their opinions without censorship:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/48zggz/a_behind...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/48zggz/a_behind_the_scenes_look_at_how_bitcoin_core/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/)

<comment><USER3> > The main Bitcoin forum on Reddit is censored heavy handed. No criticism > allowed, mentions of alternative software or forums get deleted right away.

This is simply not true. The only rule on the /r/bitcoin Reddit is not to promote these network fork attempts. This is not just alternative software, it is software that follows DIFFERENT rules from the main bitcoin software and would follow a different ledger history if a fork happened.

In fact talking about this topic, criticisms of developers and the like is practically all you see there, for the last 8 months!

You are not explaining the origin of the "please don't promote network forks" rule. ("Bitcoin XT", now "Bitcoin Classic").

The people pushing the need to fork would bombard the Reddit forum for many months, very likely with sockpuppets. They were extremely hostile and aggressive, down voting anyone who would disagree with them. Readers would notice their posts would instantly be scored negative only seconds after a post. This pro-fork group would harass the developers with personal attacks and threats, forcing some developers to leave due to the harm it was having on their mental health.

Only after this went on for a very long time did the moderators finally try to get things under control. The pro-fork crowd yelled "censorship". But this is not censorship, it is long needed moderation.

> People who run alternative implementations of Bitcoin get DDoSed so heavy, > that sometimes whole districts of cities get cut off from the internet.

The majority of the fork software run on freebie Amazon AWS servers:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/499bai/51_of_bitco...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/499bai/51_of_bitcoin_classic_nodes_hosted_on_aws/)

Where do you get this claim that "whole districts of cities" are being cut off the internet?

<comment><USER4> > The people pushing the need to fork would bombard the Reddit forum for many > months, very likely with sockpuppets.

Or, maybe, a lot of people read the white paper, and took significant issue with command-and-control style Bitcoin development.

Everything needed to understand the roots of the debate can be found here: [https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf)

> The proof-of-work also solves the problem of determining representation in > majority decision making. If the majority were based on one-IP-address-one- > vote, it could be subverted by anyone able to allocate many IPs. Proof-of- > work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote. The majority decision is represented > by the longest chain, which has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested > in it.

<comment><USER5> > Or, maybe, a lot of people read the white paper, and took significant issue > with command-and-control style Bitcoin development.

Bitcoin development is anything but command and control. Please stop repeating nonsense.

<comment><USER4> Nonsense?

If development isn't already centralized, then by definition, it cannot be "taken over" by anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Opinion is moving against the Core devs who currently control the code that nearly everyone is using to run the Bitcoin system. What the Bitcoin community is learning is that you cannot have a decentralized monetary system controlled by a centralized group of programmers with out running in to conflicts of interest. Decisions about the direction of Bitcoin's future should not be made by a few coders, and the people pulling their strings, behind closed doors. Bitcoin needs competing teams of developers. Miners and node operators need to use a variety of softwares in order to support an ecosystem of dev teams. These softwares must interoperate with one another but do not have to operate in exactly the same way. Consensus will come about when a sufficient number of dev teams decide to implement a certain feature and miners chose to run their code. The methods for voting for new features via the Bitvoin network are already established. As new features are implemented they should be developed by multiple teams in parallel so that there is less risk of catastrophic failure due to everyone running the same software with the same set of bugs. This concept runs contrary to how nearly every other software system we know works. Thus the current growing pains.

Ultimately crypto-currency will win out in some form. But please don't invest in it now. You'll only dilute the profits of those willing to take on early stage risks.

</comment><comment><USER7> So this is #3 of the Satoshi Roundtable notes and opinions that have made it to HN, as far as I can tell (I was initially confused and thought this was a re-submission of Brian Armstrong's notes [https://medium.com/@barmstrong/what- happened-at-the-satoshi-...](https://medium.com/@barmstrong/what-happened-at- the-satoshi-roundtable-6c11a10d8cdf)).

As someone who has dabbled into the bitcoin and block chain area but never seriously, all of these reports and the constant reporting of the serious issues facing bitcoin with little to no consensus about what's going to be done to scale it just scares me away from touching it.

Maybe I'm just not understanding the issue in its entirety but many of the opinions just keep talking about how uncooperative everyone is, how wrong or right one group is versus another and no solutions are really being worked on that expect to be accepted. Blockchain is cool tech but bitcoin itself seems like a horribly immature place to ever put real money into.

<comment><USER3> There is near complete consensus, see:

[https://medium.com/@bitcoinroundtable/bitcoin-roundtable- con...](https://medium.com/@bitcoinroundtable/bitcoin-roundtable- consensus-266d475a61ff)

Nearly every developer, along with the vast majority of miners, have agreed to this.

The group that did not agree (Coinbase, 2 developers, and some small miners) is extremely good at social media and has done a great job of spreading a false story of "serious scaling problems" and "developers can't reach consensus". It's simply not true.

They want to take over the bitcoin network with a fork, which will follow different rules, called "Bitcoin Classic". This is their second attempt at a takeover, the last was the failed "Bitcoin XT" fork. There is no sane reason to fork the network short of trying to take control of the protocol.

Here is the roadmap that the main Bitcoin ("core") team has put together and is working on:

[https://bitcoincore.org/en/2015/12/23/capacity-increases- faq...](https://bitcoincore.org/en/2015/12/23/capacity-increases-faq/)

<comment><USER8> Your reply is demonstrating the parents issues with the discussion perfectly.

Anyone not closely following the situtation(such as myself) just sees a enormously heated up discussion (I was reminded of [1]). Every party involved is accusing the others of spreading lies,misrepresenting the situation and trying to take control over the blockchain/bitcoin/protocol.

Based on that, I have difficulties understanding and evaluating the potential technical and political challenges.

Bitcoin (and similar crypto currencies) seem to be a huge risk at the moment: Everything might collapse tomorrow (or not). The market could be split into incompatible segments(or not). One entity could become strong enough to take control of the network and enact unfavourable policies(or not).

Right now,I do not see why somenone would decide to start investing (time and money) into bitcoin while there are generally accepted, scaled up and working solutions for the underlying problem of getting money from A to B (Banks Credit cards, etc). These work fine for most people/companies and their cost and risks can be estimated fairly well in advance.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc)

<comment><USER3> "The reports of Bitcoin's problems are greatly exaggerated".

There is a small group who seem really good at spreading a message of "Bitcoin is about to collapse". They are doing this either because they control a lot of competing currency (Ethereum), or because they think it will help adoption of their Bitcoin fork.

The reality is, 95% of Bitcoiners are very happy with the team working on the protocol, and the market seems happy too (the price has gone up +68% over the last 6 months.)

But you absolutely should not take some random internet person's word for it. You'll have to invest large amounts of time reading bitcointalk, reddit and the like to make a sound decision. Luckily it's pretty fascinating reading. In time when Bitcoin's future is clearer, it will either be worth much more, or nearly nothing. But I think you can get great insight into where it is going by following it closely today.

<comment><USER9> Your 95% number is completely made up, and doesn't match what others are seeing. There are many posts in r/bitcoin that are pro-large-blocks/anti-Core with hundreds of upvotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why should there be One True Bitcoin implementation? What should be worked on is creating an official protocol specification, which would allow competing implementations, that miners could freely choose from. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

<comment><USER11> That would make sense, but sadly hasn't happened. Bitcoin has become defined by Satoshi's original C++ implementation.

<comment><USER12> It's not even the original that has the 1MB limit. That was added later as a temporary measure. Satoshi said that it could be increased and heavily implied it would be increased long before it acted as a limit to transaction amounts.

But I expect someone will be along shortly to "correct" my understanding.

As a neutral (I own no bitcoin), the whole thing is very dogmatic, very messy and looks like it's about control not about the limit at all. In fact many core devs were previously arguing for increasing the limit until it became clear that that position wasn't compatible with their position in core.

Outsiders see core as having been corrupted by the wishes of blockstream VC money. Pro-core see all outsiders as a conspiracy trying to wrestle control away.

In short, it's a complete mess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can anyone point me to good resources to understanding the technical side of Bitcoin?

I tried to read the white paper but it glossed over technical details (for instance, what does "signing" actually entail?). Everything else is either very hand-wavey and high level or assumes you already know how it works.

I'm interesting in understanding the spec and potentially expanding on it or being able to understand the ongoing issues with Bitcoin

<comment><USER14> The beauty in what Satoshi did was that he took several existing technologies (p2p, hashcash, public key cryptography, etc.), combined them and added only a slight twist (how the consenus is achieved).

In his white paper he only describes the twist, so you won't get a complete overview on how bitcoin works (even if you know how the stuff he's building on works).

This link has been posted to HN before and gives a pretty good overview on how bitcoin works: [http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin- protocol-a...](http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin-protocol- actually-works/) So you won't get

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So far as I can tell as a complete outsider...

Bitcoin developers and the bitcoin community (i.e. people trying to make bitcoin much larger) are not finding shared solutions for the future of the network.

It's impossible to know (from the outside) who is right, but both sides are very very sure that they are in the right!

Time to fork it and move on I think.

<comment><USER16> and have two things half as great?

No, similar to Abe lincoln bringing the entire union together splitting the country into a 'north' and 'south' would have disabled the progress that was made in the 100 years after.

trying to make everyone happy is not possible and in my opinion is one of the first steps towards failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A simple and clear understanding of which group is trying to distort Bitcoin from its mission can be had by simply reading this informative white paper:

[https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf)

I would encourage everyone following this discussion to start by reading the foundation document, and then comparing the design and goals of the system envisioned by its creators and adopted by early-adopters, with the vision being propounded by "Bitcoin Core" versus its opposition teams.

I would furthermore ask everyone who has read the paper, to decide for themselves what it means for Bitcoin that "consensus" can be "reached" by putting all the key players in one room and signing a document.

</comment><comment><USER17>
        95% miner voting is a problem for some miners, who don't
        want to have veto power over such an important change.
        The chances of extortion either against them ("vote the
        way I want or I will DDoS you off the Internet") or by
        them ("If you want me to vote a certain way, pay up")
        are just too great.

One of the interesting parts of Bitcoin is how it offloads, to a certain extent, the consensus guarantees into the economic and political realm. The flip side of this however is that it opens up the network to exactly these sort of considerations to a greater extent than other distributed consensus algorithms.

<comment><USER5> What? That is exactly what it does not do! Bitcoin takes the politics and money out of consensus -- once you are running a full node you are validating the rules and the ruleset is unchanging. Being above politics is entirely the point.

<comment><USER14> The ruleset is certainly not unchangeable.

If enough miners and full nodes install a different bitcoin implementation, having combined more than 51% of the hash rate of the network, the ruleset of the new majority is valid.

That's how bitcoin reaches consensus and that's how Classic would activate (going for 75% and a grace period of a month, because otherwise you'd probably get chaos and the possibility of 2 distinct bitcoin networks).

<comment><USER5> > If enough miners and full nodes install a different bitcoin implementation, > having combined more than 51% of the hash rate of the network, the ruleset > of the new majority is valid.

No, that is a misunderstanding of how bitcoin works. If the miners activate a new ruleset, and if that change is not so very carefully constructed as to make the old rules a special case of the new rules (a soft-fork), then those miners fork themselves off the network no one automatically follows. The amount of hashpower on the fork has zero relevance to the validity of the blocks they are mining, from the perspective of an un-upgraded node.

<comment><USER14> Bitcoin is simply decision making by CPU power. Quote Satoshi: "Proof-of-work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote. The majority decision is represented by the longest chain, which has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested in it."

I didn't say that everyone follows automatically if there's a hard fork. But if there's a hard fork and an un-upgraded node finds itself on the losing side of the fork, it is lost.

Whoever generates the longest chain that gets accepted by the majority of the networks, wins.

<comment><USER18> Don't mistake the ten second elevator pitch description for an engineering analysis.

No version of any Bitcoin node software previously released has worked how you describe.

The consensus selection rule is more complex: It's the longest _valid_ chain that nodes follow. Chains that violate the rules are ignored, and this is an integral part of the set of incentives that make the system work.

<comment><USER17> You are correct. However the rules are determined by what the majority of miners say the rules are. If the miners decide to change those rules and they have enough others who agree with them then they can do so. And the economic incentive for everyone else is to agree with that or get left on a worthless network or a greatly decreased in value network.

The economic incentive is that if you play nice with others and follow the majority ruleset then the coin that you mine will be worth something.

<comment><USER5> > You are correct. However the rules are determined by what the majority of > miners say the rules are.

This is simply factually wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Who'd had thought your unregulated currency would eventually fail.

</comment><comment><USER20> As someone who's studied economics at the grad level, bitcoin has never made sense to me.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand why people buy baseball cards, either. But if I could send those baseball cards over the internet nearly as easily as an email, I could see it becoming a small niche currency (small as in millions of people).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The lack of product managers and an abundance of engineers is both the weakness/strength of the protocol. They have maybe 12 months of runway before everyone loses faith and sells, and by everyone, I mean me.

<comment><USER22> >They have maybe 12 months of runway before everyone loses faith and sells

Yeah, and I'm gonna stop using the internet because the http protocol isn't exactly how I want it. Grow up.

<comment><USER23> Yes i did. And moved to HTTPS instead.

Not having fate our doubting the backing technology is a very legitimate reason to move your money eslewhere

<comment><USER24> HTTPS is just HTTP over SSL. It's still the same protocol, just tunneled through a transport security layer.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chinese domain registration scam - <AUTHOR> http://squelchdesign.com/web-design-newbury/chinese-domain-name-registration-scams/

<comment><AUTHOR> I received similar emails this week, so I'm posting this on HN to caution others.</comment>