I think it would be newsworthy if Linus was invited to speak at the CIA, or Andy Rubin, so: yes.
I find it pretty hard to believe that linus would either a) send a warning to a mailing list that he'd be speaking at Langley in a few months or b) that anyone would link to such a low content post on HN.
What sort of pattern would qualify as not organic to you?
First five to ten votes of each story mostly coming from different people/ips. Or whatever standard HN usually uses to break voting blocks or set a spammy url to auto-dead.
I was one of the early upvotes on this story. I don't vote up most bitcoin stories, though I read most of them. It's an interesting topic, an extra-governmental currency.
I've been undecided about the prospects of bitcoin as anything more than a fringe activity. I have the software installed, but I never run it. I have like 0.05 bitcoin I got from some free source when I first came across it. In other words, I have no vested interest.
But this story seemed to be the first early indication that people with actual influence on the world were giving bitcoin some interest. So I voted up for two reasons - 1. To see if anyone in this community of tech savvy people would have any commentary of value on it. 2. To flag it as an early warning sign of a disruptive tech to follow up on later.
But I like HN stories about bitcoin! Very genuinely interested in it, not just a speculator. (Actually, I don't trade bitcoins on the exchanges anymore)
Sure, of course you're a global moderator at the bitcoin.org forums, right? With nearly 4,000 posts there in the last 9 months? It's hard to imagine you need to come to HN to see links back to your own forum and other stories that you've already read.
I find it pretty hard to believe that linus would either a) send a warning to a mailing list that he'd be speaking at Langley in a few months or b) that anyone would link to such a low content post on HN.
What sort of pattern would qualify as not organic to you?
First five to ten votes of each story mostly coming from different people/ips. Or whatever standard HN usually uses to break voting blocks or set a spammy url to auto-dead.