Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[rocks]

EDIT: On the other topic, I also don't think scalability is this huge doom and gloom issue for bitcoin, so long as we allow it to happen!  Worst case, when BTC is adopted worldwide it may not be usable for small payments, and you may need to rent a kick-ass cloud computer to run a full node.  But that's an effect of too much success... I wish we had that problem today! :-)  This is why I'm not in a huge rush to post my ideas on a scalable blockchain. [today I'm running a full node at home on an old junker laptop I bought for $25 on ebay.  We have a long way to go]

precisely.

another way of saying it is "you can't have a universal money if it's not universal".

The simple reason why I still do not understand the concerns over increased blocksize and scalability, is because the mining mechanism is not impacted by blocksize at all.

We could end up with 100-1000 very large centralized blockchain maintainers on the P2P network (pools, universities, CBs, paid services, etc), but the mining mechanism would be just as distributed as it would be if we have 10KB blocks and nodes were run on every phone in the world. And this mechanism is very decentralized today.

The scaling concerns are just related to centralization of nodes on the P2P network, but these are just maintainers of a database, a database secured by miners.

[TPTB_need_war]

And also it may not be ideal but its OK if full nodes exceed the home hobbyist's budget.  If it takes some $ to rent a small data center to become a full node we will still have "permissionless innovation" for small startup companies.  This is what really matters.

EDIT: On the other topic, I also don't think scalability is this huge doom and gloom issue for bitcoin, so long as we allow it to happen!  Worst case, when BTC is adopted worldwide it may not be usable for small payments, and you may need to rent a kick-ass cloud computer to run a full node.  But that's an effect of too much success... I wish we had that problem today! :-)  This is why I'm not in a huge rush to post my ideas on a scalable blockchain. [today I'm running a full node at home on an old junker laptop I bought for $25 on ebay.  We have a long way to go]

Centralization isn't avoided by such shell games.

It is no longer permission-less when your hosting company requires you to be compliant with coming global (G20) regulations on crypto as the war on cash advances.

Having such an extreme bandwidth, connectivity, and processing power footprint means it is unlikely you can obfuscate your activity on a home internet connection over Tor or other anonymity network (preferably a high-latency anonymity network so it doesn't have Tor's vulnerability to timing analysis attacks).

Anonymity comes from blending normal activity with targeted activity.

The simple reason why I still do not understand the concerns over increased blocksize and scalability, is because the mining mechanism is not impacted by blocksize at all.

And you haven't understood the technical conversation then.

And that is a problem with having any discussion here.

[molecular]

what happened to this?

To everyone, I think I've written all I needed to write. Thanks for reading and apologies if haven't managed my couth optimally. Good luck to everyone and hope to see you all on the other side of this chasm.

[TPTB_need_war]

what happened to this?

To everyone, I think I've written all I needed to write. Thanks for reading and apologies if haven't managed my couth optimally. Good luck to everyone and hope to see you all on the other side of this chasm.

I wrote "I think". Apparently there were a few more points that needed to be finished. thezerg expressed comprehension. That inspires me. I acknowledged it. Then he backslid a bit. I prodded him again. I know he will get it.

[cypherdoc]

And also it may not be ideal but its OK if full nodes exceed the home hobbyist's budget.  If it takes some $ to rent a small data center to become a full node we will still have "permissionless innovation" for small startup companies.  This is what really matters.

EDIT: On the other topic, I also don't think scalability is this huge doom and gloom issue for bitcoin, so long as we allow it to happen!  Worst case, when BTC is adopted worldwide it may not be usable for small payments, and you may need to rent a kick-ass cloud computer to run a full node.  But that's an effect of too much success... I wish we had that problem today! :-)  This is why I'm not in a huge rush to post my ideas on a scalable blockchain. [today I'm running a full node at home on an old junker laptop I bought for $25 on ebay.  We have a long way to go]

Centralization isn't avoided by such shell games.

It is no longer permission-less when your hosting company requires you to be compliant with coming global (G20) regulations on crypto as the war on cash advances.

Having such an extreme bandwidth, connectivity, and processing power footprint means it is unlikely you can obfuscate your activity on a home internet connection over Tor or other anonymity network (preferably a high-latency anonymity network so it doesn't have Tor's vulnerability to timing analysis attacks).

Anonymity comes from blending normal activity with targeted activity.

The simple reason why I still do not understand the concerns over increased blocksize and scalability, is because the mining mechanism is not impacted by blocksize at all.

And you haven't understood the technical conversation then.

And that is a problem with having any discussion here.

it seems to me that the Nasdaq is not only going to want it but demand it if they want to transact shares off the blockchain.  seems to me that Goldman Sachs is not only going to want it but demand that Circle be able to act as a MSB so they can get a return.  seems to me that the NYSE is not only going to want it but demand that Coinbase be able to act as a MSB so they can get a return.  i also think that guys like Arthur Levitt, Vikram Pandit, Eric Schmidt, Reid Hoffman, Li Ka Shing, Richard Branson, the Winklevii, Andresen, Sheila Bair, Blythe Masters are NOT going to take kindly to their millions of investment capital being vaporized by some politicians.

i also highly doubt that the Chinese Mandarins are going to cooperate with the USG apparatchiks to prop up a sinking USD.  not to mention Iran & Russia.

[NewLiberty]

On the other hand, its quite possible that he was not trying to replace credit cards, only bank accounts and wire transfers...

Replacing credit card internet transactions was a part of the initial vision.

[Adrian-x]

EDIT: On the other topic, I also don't think scalability is this huge doom and gloom issue for bitcoin, so long as we allow it to happen!  Worst case, when BTC is adopted worldwide it may not be usable for small payments, and you may need to rent a kick-ass cloud computer to run a full node.  But that's an effect of too much success... I wish we had that problem today! :-)  This is why I'm not in a huge rush to post my ideas on a scalable blockchain. [today I'm running a full node at home on an old junker laptop I bought for $25 on ebay.  We have a long way to go]

precisely.

another way of saying it is "you can't have a universal money if it's not universal".

The simple reason why I still do not understand the concerns over increased blocksize and scalability, is because the mining mechanism is not impacted by blocksize at all.

We could end up with 100-1000 very large centralized blockchain maintainers on the P2P network (pools, universities, CBs, paid services, etc), but the mining mechanism would be just as distributed as it would be if we have 10KB blocks and nodes were run on every phone in the world. And this mechanism is very decentralized today.

The scaling concerns are just related to centralization of nodes on the P2P network, but these are just maintainers of a database, a database secured by miners.

I agree with you totally, but it does have a relation and that part of the incentive structure, miners are incentivized to find blocks as fast as possible, and have there blocks propagate through the network as fast as possible so to secure their work, this is an incentive to make small blocks, as larger blocks take longer to propagate and pose a risk of being orphaned.

this becomes important and the marginal cost of utility plays out when rewards diminish. on the other hand nodes are just incentivized to store the transaction history and keep the protocol intact, IMO this block size debate is not about block size but other interests.

[Adrian-x]

And you haven't understood the technical conversation then.

my apologies, from the tone of your posts, and the your boxing videos I wasn't sure if you were having a technical conversation either, I'll have to have another look. 

[thezerg]

...

Centralization isn't avoided by such shell games.

It is no longer permission-less when your hosting company requires you to be compliant with coming global (G20) regulations on crypto as the war on cash advances.

Having such an extreme bandwidth, connectivity, and processing power footprint means it is unlikely you can obfuscate your activity on a home internet connection over Tor or other anonymity network (preferably a high-latency anonymity network so it doesn't have Tor's vulnerability to timing analysis attacks).

Anonymity comes from blending normal activity with targeted activity.

The future is bifurcated.  If Bitcoin continues to be legal in any jurisdiction, it will be very popular so we will need these high powered computers.  If it is outlawed to the point where you can't even be part of the network then running in your home computer over TOR will be fine.  But BTW TOR will likely be outlawed first.

If is illegal in some jurisdictions, you won't be able to run a full node there.  But you'll be able to do stuff like hide txns in image files and upload them out of the jurisdiction.

I wrote "I think". Apparently there were a few more points that needed to be finished. thezerg expressed comprehension. That inspires me. I acknowledged it. Then he backslid a bit. I prodded him again. I know he will get it.

This kind of comment is the exact reason why you head over to a forum topic full of early adopters and you can't even score 10-20k seed.  Your technical "hints" don't suck which makes me think you might have some ideas in there (I mean I only have time to read 1% of your walls of text), but you somehow think that you are the end-all-be-all of BTC and economic knowledge and you need to "prod" me from backsliding.  

The truth is that I haven't learned a single thing from you, possibly because you don't share your ideas, possibly because there is nothing there.  We'll never know.  But from my perspective reading your stuff is just a waste of time so I only read it when someone else quotes you.

And it is simply rude to be so holier-than-thou to non-programmers like cypherdoc about technical issues.  They make great contributions here by distilling the gestalt of today's markets into something that readers can understand quickly.  I try to do the same for the technical side.

[rocks]

The simple reason why I still do not understand the concerns over increased blocksize and scalability, is because the mining mechanism is not impacted by blocksize at all.

We could end up with 100-1000 very large centralized blockchain maintainers on the P2P network (pools, universities, CBs, paid services, etc), but the mining mechanism would be just as distributed as it would be if we have 10KB blocks and nodes were run on every phone in the world. And this mechanism is very decentralized today.

The scaling concerns are just related to centralization of nodes on the P2P network, but these are just maintainers of a database, a database secured by miners.

I agree with you totally, but it does have a relation and that part of the incentive structure, miners are incentivized to find blocks as fast as possible, and have there blocks propagate through the network as fast as possible so to secure their work, this is an incentive to make small blocks, as larger blocks take longer to propagate and pose a risk of being orphaned.

this becomes important and the marginal cost of utility plays out when rewards diminish. on the other hand nodes are just incentivized to store the transaction history and keep the protocol intact, IMO this block size debate is not about block size but other interests.

After Gavin's IBLT proposal is implemented, there will be no need to re-transmit transactions in a block, and miners will be incentivized to include ALL transactions in their mempool into a block (since this reduces the likelihood of the diff being too large).

The last analysis of miner incentives and transaction fees that I've seen (it has been a bit though) showed that an average transaction needed a 0.0008 BTC  fee to make it worthwhile to include in a block (which is higher than the current 0.0001 BTC min fee). The reasoning was the extra time required to transmit a transaction's data slowed down propagation of the block and increased the possibility of another block mined near the same time propagating faster. Most miners will include 0.0001 BTC fee transactions though, even though the math showed none of them should.

So the way I've seen it: 1) the upcoming changes to block transmission align miner incentives to include more transactions and 2) miners have already demonstrated behavior that shows they will include unprofitable transactions in order to support the network (because it's in their interest).

I absolutely agree that Bitcoin should always be very careful about changing, especially regarding the incentive structures and maintaining it's censorship resiliancy.  But ecosystem growth with direct usage is also essential to it's success, and in the blocksize case I only see ecosystem growth pros and immaterial cons.

[TPTB_need_war]

And you haven't understood the technical conversation then.

my apologies, from the tone of your posts, and the your boxing videos I wasn't sure if you were having a technical conversation either, I'll have to have another look.  

The discussion has been multi-pronged, lol.  

Yeah I am a type A personality and a fighter. I hate to lose. I also talk too much for my own good. And all this ego noise in this thread is just a huge waste of time. My first posts were about technical and correcting incorrect statements. This caused a firestorm of egos and character assassination attempts.

Ah fuck it, I am outta here, it is a huge time sink.

...

Centralization isn't avoided by such shell games.

It is no longer permission-less when your hosting company requires you to be compliant with coming global (G20) regulations on crypto as the war on cash advances.

Having such an extreme bandwidth, connectivity, and processing power footprint means it is unlikely you can obfuscate your activity on a home internet connection over Tor or other anonymity network (preferably a high-latency anonymity network so it doesn't have Tor's vulnerability to timing analysis attacks).

Anonymity comes from blending normal activity with targeted activity.

The future is bifurcated.  If Bitcoin continues to be legal in any jurisdiction, it will be very popular so we will need these high powered computers.  If it is outlawed to the point where you can't even be part of the network then running in your home computer over TOR will be fine.  But BTW TOR will likely be outlawed first.

If is illegal in some jurisdictions, you won't be able to run a full node there.  But you'll be able to do stuff like hide txns in image files and upload them out of the jurisdiction.

You didn't include the scenario which I am confident is the actual outcome coming. That is ultimately (after some gyrations) Bitcoin will not only be legal, but it will be encouraged and very popular. And to run a full node you will comply with all regulations, which includes requiring signed identity to accompany every transaction (automatically done for those who use a mainstream behemoth wallet such as Coinbase, Circle, Paypal, Amazon, Facebook, etc).

The Digital Kill Switch.

I wrote "I think". Apparently there were a few more points that needed to be finished. thezerg expressed comprehension. That inspires me. I acknowledged it. Then he backslid a bit. I prodded him again. I know he will get it.

This kind of comment is the exact reason why you head over to a forum topic full of early adopters and you can't even score 10-20k seed.

You are offended by my competence and confidence on the facts. Yet you are confident that I haven't scored a seed. Should I be offended or smug.

Your technical "hints" don't suck which makes me think you might have some ideas in there (I mean I only have time to read 1% of your walls of text), but you somehow think that you are the end-all-be-all of BTC and economic knowledge and you need to "prod" me from backsliding.

Thanks. Sorry but I think I have more HOLISTIC experience than you. I am ~50 years old. I come from an era where the youth respected their elders. This new generation of geeks think experience comes from being smart and they expect elders to act as their peers. I am inspired to be both a mentor and to learn from interacting, but first we must begin with mutual respect and appreciation for the fact that experience comes from doing and not from just being smart nor academic cathedrals.

If you are youthful, you can do somethings better than me (e.g. I have no patience nor energy to dig up a $25 computer from the junkyard as you've stated) and in theory you have a more flexible mind than me.

Realize the above comment from me was provoked by some arsehole who was offended that I posted after I said I thought I could exit the thread. So it is not something I would have said to you if not for the general animosity towards me in the thread from numerous individuals. You and others disrespected me from the start. That is where the tone of acrimony and animosity began. Any time you want to recognize and respect my experience, I am willing to be more cordial and couth. Otherwise, I will just go pound you into submission with my code.

You can rightly say it is my fault for coming into a hive of butthurt Bitards and trying to speak against their idols.

I hate the concept of we are all equal and all this politically correct Communist bullshit. I realize I am not respected here, and I will have to go prove myself in the crypto space (even though I already proved myself numerous times probably even before you graduated high school).

The truth is that I haven't learned a single thing from you, possibly because you don't share your ideas, possibly because there is nothing there.  We'll never know.  But from my perspective reading your stuff is just a waste of time so I only read it when someone else quotes you.

Yeah when you start with the attitude of disrespect, then this is what we get. I respect myself because I know what I have accomplished in my life and where my expertise lies (and doesn't, e.g. I have to walk on eggshells when debating gmaxell because his crypto-math knowledge is superior to mine).

And it is simply rude to be so holier-than-thou to non-programmers like cypherdoc about technical issues.  They make great contributions here by distilling the gestalt of today's markets into something that readers can understand quickly.  I try to do the same for the technical side.

Sorry but I emphatically disagree. Cyperdoc makes incorrect statements in nearly every post he writes and is causing a lot of disinformation. I don't subscribe to the Communist bullshit of telling people they are worthy when they are not.

He could learn to respect more the experts instead of speaking about that which he is in unqualified to speak about. His lack of humility is Dunning-Kruger-ish. I would be more compassionate towards him if he wasn't such a presumptuous arsehole. My humbleness depends on yours.

But I disgress again...wasting time on shit that doesn't matter... it is better for me to STFU... I will see you in codeland...

[Peter R]

Yes, and this is why I was in favour of Gavin's original 20MB + 40%/year growth.  Many people were concerned about the exponential growth of the blocksize limit under this proposal, but in my mind it was just a sensible way to slowly transition from a hard limit to this "Nash equilibrium" limit.  Whether 40% was the *perfect* number to match BW and storage growth was never really that important in my mind.

Let's allow the network to grow!

So... we just need a great visualization of this. If an idea is good enough AND people can understand it easily and quickly, it spreads faster than others and takes over.

Haha, OK I tried to think up a good visualization for this today, but came up blank.  Did you have any ideas?

[molecular]

Realize the above comment from me was provoked by some arsehole who was offended that I posted after I said I thought I could exit the thread. So it is not something I would have said to you if not for the general animosity towards me in the thread from numerous individuals. You and others disrespected me from the start.

It takes a little more than that to offend me.

You're quite full of yourself, but that's ok. You're easily provoked, that's also ok. Calling me an 'arsehole'... I can overlook it. Your whole attitude of riding into this thread on your high horse and 'prodding' people who I have come to hugely respect is pushing it, though. You're being a know-it-all and smartass and you should be clever enough to predict the reaction and you should be emotionally prepared for it. It seems you aren't and frankly name-calling is something I hadn't expected from you. Kinda sad.

If you interpret a little tease as disrespect then that's entirely on you.
[/quote]

[ErisDiscordia]

Yeah I am a type A personality and a fighter. I hate to lose. I also talk too much for my own good. And all this ego noise in this thread is just a huge waste of time. My first posts were about technical and correcting incorrect statements. This caused a firestorm of egos and character assassination attempts.

I've been pointing out that you seem to be exhibiting the most ego-driven behavior around here. But the nature of one with a big ego is that they do not respond to feedback concerning their ego so the reaction will be aggressive.

What a shame. Your self-proclaimed superior intelligence is going to waste, because you package your messages in a way which makes it very hard to respond to the message itself (which is often obfuscated) and instead lends itself to focusing on your ego-mania. You'll mostly get other egos lashing out at you, further fueling your story about sub-par beta-males being jealous of your superiority, ignorance or trolling. We could have a useful discussion but instead it seems to me that in spite of your rhetoric that is not what primarily motivates you - instead you write lengthy posts focusing on your person, supposedly "proving" your superiority, demanding admiration and constructing negative feedback as admiration clothed in jealousy. No fun and no profit in that I fear. You cut yourself off from valuable feedback and we don't get anything useful out of the interaction either.

I have respect for many people frequenting this thread and posting material which makes me think and I am grateful for that. I have respect for you because of the same thing - your writings have made me think and research as well. That is why I care and keep pointing this out to you. If you really want to be useful and harvest your abilities for the advancement of common good, get off your high horse, stop making everything about yourself and talk to us like a decent human being.

Communication is possible only between equals

[Bagatell]

The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies (spooks, feds, etc.)

[hdbuck]

Yeah I am a type A personality and a fighter. I hate to lose. I also talk too much for my own good. And all this ego noise in this thread is just a huge waste of time. My first posts were about technical and correcting incorrect statements. This caused a firestorm of egos and character assassination attempts.

I've been pointing out that you seem to be exhibiting the most ego-driven behavior around here. But the nature of one with a big ego is that they do not respond to feedback concerning their ego so the reaction will be aggressive.

What a shame. Your self-proclaimed superior intelligence is going to waste, because you package your messages in a way which makes it very hard to respond to the message itself (which is often obfuscated) and instead lends itself to focusing on your ego-mania. You'll mostly get other egos lashing out at you, further fueling your story about sub-par beta-males being jealous of your superiority, ignorance or trolling. We could have a useful discussion but instead it seems to me that in spite of your rhetoric that is not what primarily motivates you - instead you write lengthy posts focusing on your person, supposedly "proving" your superiority, demanding admiration and constructing negative feedback as admiration clothed in jealousy. No fun and no profit in that I fear. You cut yourself off from valuable feedback and we don't get anything useful out of the interaction either.

I have respect for many people frequenting this thread and posting material which makes me think and I am grateful for that. I have respect for you because of the same thing - your writings have made me think and research as well. That is why I care and keep pointing this out to you. If you really want to be useful and harvest your abilities for the advancement of common good, get off your high horse, stop making everything about yourself and talk to us like a decent human being.

Communication is possible only between equals

I disagree. From my pov, everybody here has ego issue to some extend. Anonymint just has a slight différent view of the situation worldwide. Maybe more desperatly cynical. But i value his inputs as much as others around here. On the end i think we all want the same: bitcoins success, pocket money, and a fairer world.

[rpietila]

Communication is possible only between equals

Well to the extent that 2-way communication is required, yes.

Much can be gained from 1-way transmit of information as well, and I for one don't hesitate to call me a guru in a field where I obviously am one, and a disciple in another.

Communication between peers might be pleasant but in the end does not acquire that much. The change happens when the communication crosses borders of classes.

[cypherdoc]

Let me ask again.

Does anyone know the average number of unconfirmed TX's that exist in mempool at any given time, the average size in MB (i know <1) and what % of them get cleared into a block every 10 minutes or so?

[Adrian-x]

Yeah I am a type A personality and a fighter. I hate to lose. I also talk too much for my own good. And all this ego noise in this thread is just a huge waste of time. My first posts were about technical and correcting incorrect statements. This caused a firestorm of egos and character assassination attempts.

I've been pointing out that you seem to be exhibiting the most ego-driven behavior around here. But the nature of one with a big ego is that they do not respond to feedback concerning their ego so the reaction will be aggressive.

What a shame. Your self-proclaimed superior intelligence is going to waste, because you package your messages in a way which makes it very hard to respond to the message itself (which is often obfuscated) and instead lends itself to focusing on your ego-mania. You'll mostly get other egos lashing out at you, further fueling your story about sub-par beta-males being jealous of your superiority, ignorance or trolling. We could have a useful discussion but instead it seems to me that in spite of your rhetoric that is not what primarily motivates you - instead you write lengthy posts focusing on your person, supposedly "proving" your superiority, demanding admiration and constructing negative feedback as admiration clothed in jealousy. No fun and no profit in that I fear. You cut yourself off from valuable feedback and we don't get anything useful out of the interaction either.

I have respect for many people frequenting this thread and posting material which makes me think and I am grateful for that. I have respect for you because of the same thing - your writings have made me think and research as well. That is why I care and keep pointing this out to you. If you really want to be useful and harvest your abilities for the advancement of common good, get off your high horse, stop making everything about yourself and talk to us like a decent human being.

Communication is possible only between equals

I disagree. From my pov, everybody here has ego issue to some extend. Anonymint just has a slight différent view of the situation worldwide. Maybe more desperatly cynical. But i value his inputs as much as others around here. On the end i think we all want the same: bitcoins success, pocket money, and a fairer world.

You're talking about TPTB, not Anonymint, I quite enjoined Anonymint'w posts in other threads. The boxing video inputs pushed the topic of Bitcoin out of my entertainment zone. On the leval of digital binary his signal to noise ratio was very low.

One's attention is the most valuable commodity today, approximately 50% of the cost of making a new car today is spent on getting your attention.

TPTB (no pun intended) would be a little more effective if he understood the value of attention.

[sidhujag]

Yeah I am a type A personality and a fighter. I hate to lose. I also talk too much for my own good. And all this ego noise in this thread is just a huge waste of time. My first posts were about technical and correcting incorrect statements. This caused a firestorm of egos and character assassination attempts.

I've been pointing out that you seem to be exhibiting the most ego-driven behavior around here. But the nature of one with a big ego is that they do not respond to feedback concerning their ego so the reaction will be aggressive.

What a shame. Your self-proclaimed superior intelligence is going to waste, because you package your messages in a way which makes it very hard to respond to the message itself (which is often obfuscated) and instead lends itself to focusing on your ego-mania. You'll mostly get other egos lashing out at you, further fueling your story about sub-par beta-males being jealous of your superiority, ignorance or trolling. We could have a useful discussion but instead it seems to me that in spite of your rhetoric that is not what primarily motivates you - instead you write lengthy posts focusing on your person, supposedly "proving" your superiority, demanding admiration and constructing negative feedback as admiration clothed in jealousy. No fun and no profit in that I fear. You cut yourself off from valuable feedback and we don't get anything useful out of the interaction either.

I have respect for many people frequenting this thread and posting material which makes me think and I am grateful for that. I have respect for you because of the same thing - your writings have made me think and research as well. That is why I care and keep pointing this out to you. If you really want to be useful and harvest your abilities for the advancement of common good, get off your high horse, stop making everything about yourself and talk to us like a decent human being.

Communication is possible only between equals

I disagree. From my pov, everybody here has ego issue to some extend. Anonymint just has a slight différent view of the situation worldwide. Maybe more desperatly cynical. But i value his inputs as much as others around here. On the end i think we all want the same: bitcoins success, pocket money, and a fairer world.

You're talking about TPTB, not Anonymint, I quite enjoined Anonymint'w posts in other threads. The boxing video inputs pushed the topic of Bitcoin out of my entertainment zone. On the leval of digital binary his signal to noise ratio was very low.

One's attention is the most valuable commodity today, approximately 50% of the cost of making a new car today is spent on getting your attention.

TPTB (no pun intended) would be a little more effective if he understood the value of attention.

Aren't they the same person/thing?