Ask HN: What is the relation between Rx Observables and "raw" OO objects? - <AUTHOR> I think I have lack of a deeper understanding Rx especially its relation to OOP. By OOP (which is an overloaded term today) I mean message passing - like in Erlang.
To me every Observable seems like a piece of a state (aka object) which sends messages (events) to other Observables (objects).
If so, question arise:
* When to use "raw" objects which respond to events through their methods (1 method ~= 1 event), and when to use Observables?
* Is there anything an Observable can't do but a "raw" object can? Is there anything a "raw" object can't do, but Observable can? Simplicity, expressiveness matters!
* Shall I replace every object with an Observable? Are Observables "just superior" in every way? If not: what are the exceptions? <comment><USER2> Observables are a powerful abstraction, but with great power comes great complexity (so use them only when you expect/require updates)

An observable can be created from an event and have several transformations applied to that event (see [https://www.learnrxjs.io/](https://www.learnrxjs.io/)). These transformations functions are powerful because they can be composed to create the observable and can also be shared and reused.

They are not _" just superior in every way"_, they are just suited to listening and emitting events to/from various components in your system. A simple object is perfect if no events are needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> "A simple object is perfect if no events are needed."

To my understanding calling an objects <any_method> can be interpreted as the object receives the message named <any_method> (with additional args).

From that point of view there is nothing but messages: method calls are also messages, so that part "no events are needed" does not hold, because if methods are needed then virtually events are needed.

"so use them only when you expect/require updates": To me, it turned out I always expect/require update. The only question is in what form of. Via method calls consecutive or via "explicit" events. My intuition says that using Observables won't change the problems inherent complexity in any direction. << That's the real, deep question I think.

So if there are useful transformation functions to use with observables I don't know why not to use them in every case.

<comment><USER2> > From that point of view there is nothing but messages.

Yes this is true. The observable's implemented by Rx is an interesting abstraction that can act as an emitter _OR_ a listener of messages (events).

The events emitted from an Observable can be an object with methods. However, you need to subscribe to the observable to get the object and call those methods.

> To me, it turned out I always expect/require update.

Yes, most systems will need to send updates around to various components in the system. Rx is a great option for these use cases.

> So if there are useful transformation functions to use with Observables I > don't know why not to use them in every case.

The complexity of an event-driven system is why you generally shouldn't use them every where. Events inherently make things more complex and harder to debug as dependencies between components become implicit rather than an _explicit_ function call.

My advice is to use Rx to decouple parts of your system. But try to stick with the KISS principle and keep things simple to understand.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a former maintainer of RxJava so my answer might have a Java tint to it.

I would describe Observable as representing an uninitiated computation. More analogous to function reference than an Object with state. If you delve deep into an observable implementation you'll likely find that the only concrete property is the function to invoke on subscription.

As an exercise replace "Observable" with "function" in each of your questions and see if they still make sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds weird to me, but I'm not a maintainer at all! :D "Uninitiated computation" isn't more like "good old" Command Pattern?

To me Observables and (its methods) seem more capable.</comment></comment>


Theo de Raadt on Plan 9 licensing (2003) - vezzy-fnord https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.plan9/0j5Xa_Bu_fs <comment><AUTHOR> ___" I urge you to write something much simpler."_ __

When I was younger, I thought that the OpenBSD folks were backward and unsophisticated when compared to Linux. I imagine that a lot of younger people feel that way. But after working with various systems over the years, I can now really appreciate that simplicity. It 's really the heart and soul of OpenBSD, OpenSSH and all the other projects (libreSSL, etc.) that they release.

<comment><USER2> This. I really wish I could get paid to use it but everyone wants Linux and Microsoft shufflers. I can live in hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > I urge everyone in power regarding this issue to think this through -- and > then, make your simple compiler which we can build into a trusted component > FREE, or, if you don't, sometime in the next few years something else which > is simple and matches it in power, can and might and probably will show up > (because it is clear the gnu bloat compiler will never achieve such a > goal...)

Looks like Theo correctly predicted the advent of clang.

Related: [http://www.quora.com/Compilers/Why-did-Apple-create- Clang](http://www.quora.com/Compilers/Why-did-Apple-create-Clang)

<comment><USER4> Clang is dramatically more complex than the Plan 9 compiler, and doesn't really qualify for satisfying Theo's prediction.

<comment><USER5> Maybe that is because clang supports much more than plain C? Also, they have set a very ambitious goal with the friendly error messages for C++.

<comment><USER6> Just linking libclang.so (newest svn version) takes over 8GB of memory. How much more you ask? Well we will find out when i got _more_ ram. So i don't see that compiler becoming a gcc replacement in OpenBSD anytime soon.

<comment><USER2> I think something that requires 8Gb memory to run the linker has a bug.

<comment><USER7> The memory use at the "link step" is so high because due to whole-program optimization, that's the point where everything actually compiles.

It used to be fairly typical for large C++ applications. Chromium and Firefox had problems with it before GCC got fixed. Sounds like clang still has work to do there.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree but my point is more that the compiler shouldn't be that large even whilst linking and doing whole program optimisation. Proportionately to the size of the output binary the overhead is unreasonably large. Firefox and Chrome for example are problematic due to the architecture. I've built modular applications which compile smaller units (.so's) that are runtime linked using dlopen() etc. Not quite the same scale but this was in a time when the kit was a lot slower.

I'd like to see a return to a simpler time. We can afford to lose some of the optimisations now and produce clean, simple, fast and predictable compilers.

I think Roslyn/RyuJIT on the .Net platform is an example of where this all falls apart: bad tail call optimisation leads to non-determinism in parameter passing. If the compiler consists of lots of code then there are lots of bugs and you can't afford bugs there.

<comment><USER8> Can I interest you in the original Plan 9 compilers? Their source should be around somewhere and they don't do much in the way of optimization, if any, so they shouldn't any giant memory use problems.

<comment><USER2> You can indeed. Are they the ones that shipped with the original Go as well?

<comment><USER9> My understanding is that the original C toolchain in Go (only recently removed in 1.5) was based heavily on the Plan 9 compilers.

In fact there was a rather inflammatory blog post[1] whose basic theme was that "Golang is trash" because the toolchain was so simple. One of the main Go developers then responded[2] on HN. Different people value different things I suppose.

1\. [http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is- trash/](http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/)

2\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8817990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8817990)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not that it would make Theo happy, but Plan 9 is now also licensed under GPL V2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs#License](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs#License)

<comment><USER11> The toolchain was Gpl/MIT first as part of Inferno.

The OpenBSD team were interested in said toolchain to replace GCC. His railing at the Plan9 team was a little unfair, we (the team and the community) mostly agreed with his basic point. It was Lucent legal that walked slowly.

This was a time when money was on fire at Lucent. Bell-labs had removed every other lightbulb as a money saving exercise for example. Playing at Open Source wasn't very high up anyone's todo list.

The initial opening of the code in 2000 was just too late for plan9, the GPL was eating the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Put another way... do you guys have some kick ass technology that you want to change the world, or don't you?"

At the right time they might have had just that. I do hate Lucent's lawyers for the roadblocks.

Who actually owns the copyright on Plan 9 these days?

<comment><USER13> Nokia recently acquired Lucent and Bell Labs... So the answer is probably "a Finnish telecom equipment maker that many people mistakenly assume was bought by Microsoft".

<comment><USER14> Alcatel, Alcatel not Nokia bought Lucent.

<comment><USER13> Yes, and Nokia bought Alcatel-Lucent this year.

<comment><USER12> Wonder how much cash it would take to get Plan 9 open sourced under MIT / BSD license?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The license itself, which is critical to this discussion, is a dead link. If it's not included then we're just re-opening an old flamewar.

<comment><USER16> Can't remember if he was talking about the first, or the second version of the LPL, but in any case, around the same time-frame (can't remember exactly when either) the compilers were available under the MIT license, distributed as part of Inferno (Inferno generally is GPLv2/commercial, but the compilers were MIT).

<comment><USER17> He's talking about the current version. The first version was rejected by OSI.

<comment><USER16> It might have been rejected by OSI, but it was used for several years.

<comment><USER17> for several = 2, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >> The license you propose is NOT FREE SOFTWARE. I am astounded the OSI has gone and decided to become an organization that just rubber stamps things which are not free. I don't know who they are talking to, but these "licenses" which they approve are chock full of constraints against various segments of the user community.

OSI is not about free software. It's not even very good about open source. They seemed happy if people had access to the source code regardless of the terms around it. They approved lots of licenses that had crap in them.

IMHO BSD/MIT or GPL/LGPL are pretty much it. If you need a different license than those, you've probably got an agenda. OSI gave a rubber stamp to different agendas.

<comment><USER19> Please point one single OSI-approved license that is not free by the FSF's Free Software Definition and/or the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

I'd be delighted to learn something I don't know. I asked Stallman once, and he could only remember a case where OSI messed up and then fixed it when they realised.

<comment><USER18> Well this is turning into a lesson for me. There are a few that used to be non-free until newer versions came along:

Apple Public Source License - was nonfree before 2.0

Artistic License 1.0 was nonfree. 2.0 is.

Reciprocal Public License - FSF doesn't indicate a revision, but OSI shows a version 1.5.

Without history it's not clear weather these were OSI approved before revision. There are also some in the OSI list that are not on the FSF list, so I'm not sure if they're free or not.

But I still stand by my second assertion that most of them are unnecessary. If you're not BSD/MIT compatible and not GPL/LGPL compatible, your code will probably have a limited life.

<comment><USER20> > Without history it's not clear weather these were OSI approved before > revision.

OSI has history. All licenses approved by OSI are either on the current list [0] or the superceded list (where the originator of the OSI-approved licenses has indicated it should not be used for new work) [1].

[0] [http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical](http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical)

[1] [http://opensource.org/licenses/do-not- use](http://opensource.org/licenses/do-not-use)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If it were up to ken and dennis, it would have been wtfpl-licensed, I'm sure.

</comment><comment><USER22> His writing style makes me cringe... just unprofessional, regardless of content.

<comment><USER23> "Professionalism" is usually nothing more than a euphemism for using PC/CYA language and avoiding any type of discussion of hard truths because they might offend someone in power.

Technology as an industry would be better if we discarded it.

<comment><USER24> "Professionalism" is expressing yourself without using ad hominem attacks or insults. Using professionalism actually makes your points stronger, since people are forced to discuss and debate facts instead of how focusing on how you are behaving like a child.

I'm sick of this idea that "professionalism" == whiny or politically correct and being "honest" allows you to be a jerk. The entire thing is so unproductive.

<comment><USER25> What's unproductive is forcing people to tap dance around their true feelings on a subject for fear of hurting someone else's feelings. As a grown adult, I'd much rather have someone use offensive language but be honest than spend so much effort trying not to offend anyone that we all have to guess at what they really want.

<comment><USER23> You put this into better words than I ever could.

What it comes down to is that someone being a "jerk" can be willfully ignored or looked past to see what their point is. (And IMO, stubbornly refusing to do this is a lot more of an indication of childishness than how few four letter words you use.. i.e. it's a tone argument, i.e. near bottom of PG's hierarchy)

If the "point" part is unclear, there's no looking past it, and the problem never gets solved since asking someone to stop beating around the bush is seen as jerk behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Note that I sell OpenBSD CDs to fund our project. That contract right there says in term 7:

            If Theo accidentally sells a CD to
            North Korea, the US can fuck him.

Thanks OSI. Thanks for being so damn patriotic.

It also says in term 4:

            Sell this in a product in ways which "we" do not like, and the
            contract you have accepted says you can be fucked by anyone
            who owns this license later and who decides they want to fuck you.

Who is "we". You don't read term 4 that way? ."

Is he for real ?

<comment><USER27> He's extremely real; one of the three founders of NetBSD and the founder of OpenBSD. [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt)</comment></comment>


Steve Ballmer Roams The Halls Of Microsoft Swinging A Baseball Bat - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/ballmer-roams-halls-with-baseball-bat-2013-2

<comment><AUTHOR> essentially ...

"Six-foot-two Steve Ballmer sometimes brings a baseball bat with him into meetings. And that's if he's feeling happy ... "

<comment><USER2> Neeced surgey? Really? As slippery slope said.</comment></comment>


IBM Built a Copy of the Internet for Mock Cyberattacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/news/349629/ibm-built-a-copy-of-the-internet-for-mock-cyberattacks <comment><USER2> Sandia Labs worked on a similar project to this in 2009, booting 1 million Linux VMs on their cluster to model Botnets

[https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/sandia...](https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/sandia- computer-scientists-successfully-boot-one-million-linux-kernels-as-virtual- machines/)</comment>


A new vantage point: Canonical CEO Jane Silber to step down - <AUTHOR> https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/12/a-new-vantage-point/ <comment><USER2> It is not surprising if one follows their development, though. Neither Unity, nor mobile, nor Amazon integration was a move that anybody liked. And many of these were just announced to be dropped. That this strategical shift also means a shift in leadership is normal.

And honestly, I have to say: Finally! Nothing of these things were really doing any good to the community as a whole, and therefore also can't be in the long term financial interest of Canonical.

The only thing I wonder is if this Jane Silber, who I've never heard about before, is really responsible for all these failures or if she's just the goat that gets slaughtered for the oracle of public opinion.

<comment><USER3> Well if we're speculating, I'll speculate something else. Mark is shopping the company around, trying to find buyers. The buyers told him he needs to axe some projects and fire Jane. These things might not be related outside this context.

It even says in the other article that they are downsizing due to an "external analysis". External analysis happen when you are about to be bought.

<comment><USER4> I think 4ad has a good point here. It's been a long time since I has the same kind of thinking: Shuttleworth won't spend all his money in Ubuntu indefinitely and/or he wants his firm to be financially sustainable over time. They've tried hard to make a living out of desktop market, and it never worked out. Now they cut it and focus on B2B markets. No longer expect Canonical to make innovation for the end user market in foreseeable future.

The way he is expressing his bitterness to the open source community in its Google+ post is telling.

We may expect Ubuntu to drift slowly into the once-in-a-time-popular distribution graveyard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suppose it makes sense given the change in strategy, and she has been the CEO for quite a while. I sincerely hope this is not a sign that Canonical is in trouble. They have done a great job putting together a convenient Linux Desktop. There have been occasional things I disliked, and they have tried a lot of things that didn't work out, but the core product is great. A refocused and committed Canonical will be good for the Linux ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is it possible that Canonical is about to be bought by Microsoft? Collaborating to Windows 10's WSL IMHO hints at that, and no doubt it would be a brilliant move by the latter - swallowing almost the whole server market (which is something they have been wanting since when Windows NT was a thing) in one move. And then we might see Ubuntu integrate more tightly with Windows, or perhaps even turn into the first GNU/Windows distro... (though I'd rather wish Microsoft would replace their kernel, and collaborate with WINE instead, but the latter could intriguingly come too, as a natural consequence of becoming the "largest" distro in the market)

I don't how the market would react at that though: panic, and everybody moving to Debian, or rather _enthusiastic adoption_?

Edit: clarified

<comment><USER7> I hope not, it would be damaging to Canonical brand, the same way it was damaging to Nokia - and look what happened to them in the phone market.

<comment><USER8> To be fair what was already happening to Nokia in the phone market just kept on happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had to look hard to find out the CEO's name, Mark was mentioned a couple of times throughout the text.

Now that I know her tenure began at 2010 I wonder what Mark would've done differently in her position? I look at her CV and am surprised there are no notable OSS affiliations apart from her stint with Ubuntu in the enterprise / ubuntu one area: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Silber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Silber)

It is weird to see conflicting interests of enterprise users / normal users and people moving away from Ubuntu in such an obvious way.

<comment><USER10> > _I had to look hard to find out the CEO 's name_

It's immediately under the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why must there be something bad going on here? All good things come to an end, leadership positions among them, and the sign of the best leaders is a measured and orderly transition and an organization which lives on long after them.

</comment><comment><USER12> Canonical has NO job vacancies at all currently [https://www.canonical.com/careers/all- vacancies](https://www.canonical.com/careers/all-vacancies)

Is something wrong with the company?

<comment><USER13> Don't want to add fuel to the acquired-by-microsoft rumor fire, but when Xamarin was being acquired they had a hiring freeze in place for the duration of the process. I understand that is standard practice for acquisitions, but might be wrong on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think Canonical is preparing to get acquired by Microsoft

<comment><USER15> I've thought about this too. It is entirely possible but I doubt it this will end up well for Ubuntu on the desktops. Everybody should remember the backlash against SUSE when they made a deal with Microsoft back in the decade.

<comment><USER16> It's been a decade, though. Probably 20% of the current Linux community hasn't even experienced the whole SCO story first hand because they were in elementary school at the time :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> tldr; Mark to become CEO again

I'd assume their are some behind the scenes politics that will leak in the coming weeks.

<comment><USER18> I doubt it. The post talked about how there will be 'transitioning' for three months. That doesn't happen in case there are politics serious enough for her to step down.

<comment><USER3> Steve Ballmer transitioned for a full year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Titles in HN are supposed to be meaningful when the original is not. Suggestions:

> Canonical CEO retiring plan

> Canonical CEO seeking new challenges

</comment><comment><USER20> OT: Again, HN changing the title to the original title makes everything worse. "A new vantage point" means nothing to me unless I go to the article or comments. "Canonical CEO steps down" is short, to the point, and is a perfect description of the topic.

<comment><USER21> Yes, there would be virtue in clarifying the title in brackets, just as HN often suffixes titles with "(2011)" or similar.</comment></comment>


Introducing Facebook Deals - <AUTHOR> http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=446183422130

<comment><USER2> Places is still a better deal for advertisers and retailers than it is for my friends, and deals is another step in the direction of empowering them (advertisers and retailers).

You can check yourself in anywhere, tag your friends (whether they're there or not), and see where others are checking in. But I want to use Places to meet up with people, to organize events, to see where my friends' favorite places are. It's just not very good for that.

And it still reeks of poor design -- enough people checking in at your house will force it to be a public location, and there is no process to privatize it again.

It just feels scummy, like much of Facebook.

<comment><USER3> Facebook, practically by definition, is for the advertisers. Advertisers pay their salaries, after all, and the users are the product that Facebook is selling them.

<comment><USER2> Certainly. But you wouldn't know it from the language in the Deals announcement, which uses the word "friend" no fewer than 10 times.

      We launched Places to let you share where you are with
      your friends and see who's nearby. Now with Deals, you
      also can see what offers are nearby and share those deals
      with your friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Facebook is becoming Tecent QQ in US. (If you dont know abt Tecent QQ, please google it). It implements ideas from emerging companies and squeeze them out because they have the most important thing: 500 Million eyeballs.

<comment><USER5> You mean Tencent QQ: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent_QQ>

<comment><USER4> Yah, this is the company I mean. They are huge in China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Deals shouldn't be the focus of our discussion. Instead, we should be afraid of the fact that facebook can wield the power of the social graph (which it owns) to create extremely valuable wholly owned subsidiaries. Most startups that rely on the network effect could be better implemented by facebook.

<comment><USER7> Does that make them a monopoly? If so, is it something we should fight? If the idea of a network-effect based startup benefits from a bigger network, we should all want them to own these ideas then, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A while ago I wrote a short piece about how location-based services will be 'hackable' for a long time (the specific piece was about gaming Foursquare with nine lines of Perl). Given how easy it is to game any location checkin service, what incentive will advertisers have when their deals are monopolized by a small group of Perl+wget armed, obsessive compulsive script kiddies? I don't know enough about marketing numbers--presuming that vendors give out deals to bring customers back to their store, do they care if the deals are systematically monopolized by freeloaders or bargain hunters?

<comment><USER9> During the live broadcast, a Facebook employee asked Mark how Facebook planned to handle people from fake check-ins and fake people tags, and his answer was that you have to show the retailer your phone in order to redeem the reward.

He also laughed at the question while answering it. Classy.

<comment><USER10> This seems like the kind of hubris that will come back to bite him in the ass.

Maybe someone can take a screenshot of their iPhone showing the deal, then send it to their friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think this is the right direction for Facebook to take. In my opinion, eventually they'll take on 'the America Online of social networks' stigma. This certainly doesn't help. After a certain point I think there will be a real opportunity for a competitor.

<comment><USER10> An old tweet of mine:

Whenever I see or hear "facebook.com/foo" I think "AOL keyword foo".

<http://twitter.com/thwartedefforts/status/15794051975>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The thing about all this check-in deals is that it solves mostly the first problem - customer acquisition. Loyalty deals are great for customer retention, but for that part of the puzzle, I'm wondering why businesses would, and seem to want to, rely on an intermediary to manage the relationships. Allowing Facebook or any other site to be a key part in managing loyalty seems like one step away of losing all customers (or at least the data of them).

<comment><USER13> Costs and reach. The costs for a single business to implement something like this would be, I imagine, prohibitive. Their is also the issue of reach. Facebook presents a platform that business can build on that people really use. Facebook has users. A lot of users.

To implement the same system for a business, they'd have to deploy their own hardware and software, and then reach out to customers to use their special set up. Sitting on top of Facebook essentially gives them all of this without a problem. Most places can't do what Facebook is providing for them.

So now users have a reason to "Place" themselves at a business, and businesses have a reason to link into the system. A "Place" by a user gives them exposure to the users friends.

Consider also that this isn't the only means a business can use for loyalty. Business still have other means to go for customer retention.

<comment><USER14> To be fair, they can get a not insignificant part of the benefit by putting a sign outside the venue saying "checkin on Facebook for X" and asking at the counter.

They can then using that list compiled and stored for them for free by Facebook to generate a free mailing list which they can send free messages to and get free metrics on their success.

Most of the most effective ways of marketing on Facebook are free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This seems like 'Foursquare meets Groupon'. It will be interesting to see who gets assimilated.

<comment><USER16> Where's the "meets Groupon" part? Look exactly like just Foursquare to me...

<comment><USER17> Check out Groupon Stores. Groupon just released a self-serve store for deals where you can get customers to follow your business and push out deals to them. They're not exactly the same, but Groupon's new offering is a very different beast than the daily deals it was offering before and much closer to Facebook Deals. Those two combined with the LBS's going to make it very interesting for businesses. Marketing is changing at an increasingly rapid pace and while there are themes, I don't think anyone can guess where it will be in a year or two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The most practical thing I got out of this was that free jeans are coming soon:

"Gap: Giving blue jeans to the first 10,000 customers to claim their deal."

</comment><comment><USER19> Step 1. Take all the deals from Facebook deals

Step 2. Build an iPhone app or web page that lets a user pick a location and prints out a deal to look like a Facebook deal

Step 3. Get your user to show the deal to the counter

Step 4. WIN! (or profit..)

</comment><comment><USER20> Link doesn't seem to work anymore. Does anyone have the skinny on it or the replacement link?

</comment><comment><USER21> I really don't mind being the "product being sold" on Facebook, but I still resent helping to sell my friends, such as by filling their feed with ads for local businesses so that I can save a few bucks. Personally, I draw the line here.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think the single-sign-on for other apps on iPhone/Android announcement they also made today was more interesting. Also that Zuck said they don't consider iPad to be "mobile" (so don't expect an iPad app any time soon).

</comment><comment><USER23> Facebook could potentially be sued by Tippr (so could Groupon).

[http://gigaom.com/2010/04/16/tippr-buys-up-collective- buying...](http://gigaom.com/2010/04/16/tippr-buys-up-collective-buying- patents-to-take-on-groupon/)

Unless Zuck & Co. ponies up like they did for the Friendster patents.

<comment><USER24> the old "it's possible to own an idea or pattern in nature" thing. i love that. patents -- oh how I hate thee, let me count the ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I didn't see it mentioned in the blog post, but in the press conference Z said they are not monetizing deals yet, and have no short term plans to.

EDIT: I removed a point saying I didn't think these would be more interesting than what Yelp does until they start to monetize. I think that's too strong a statement.

<comment><USER26> Except that they have such a huge existing userbase compared to Yelp (both in terms of end-users and businesses who are aware of them, and likely use Facebook themselves already).

<comment><USER25> I bet yelp has more queries per unit of time of people looking for places to go shop/eat/drink.

<comment><USER27> That's because you open yelp looking for NEW places to check out, fb/4sq is for the places you already are or friends are. People discovery vs venue/place discovery

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I feel like this should best be handled by outside apps rather than the FB platform itself.

Edit: Perhaps I should offer the disclaimer that my suite of Facebook tools (fanbldr.com) will eventually include some Places-linked features.

<comment><USER29> My old intern's new startup does this: <http://devoteeapp.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Well, it was nice knowing ya Groupon.</comment>


Write it the F*** Down - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/better-things-digital/write-it-the-f-down-6d2ff254706d <comment><USER2> As a consultant I've learned the hard way to document everything. Decisions taken together with the customer, what I have done. Keeping a work journal has become second nature and has saved me numerous times. When I'm lazy and sloppy with the notes I usually regret it.

Often, the work journal becomes the tool I use to do work itself. If I'm going to investigate some technical issue and send an email afterwards I'll do the investigation documentation in the journal, and can then just copy-paste the result into the email. Just adding a note in the journal that the when email was sent and to whom.

The tipping point was when I worked as an ASIC designer in Copenhagen, Denmark. We had meetings when a decision was made regarding functionality to be implemented. Only having the customer come back two weeks later and change the requirement. The customer then blamed on language issues for me not understanding the requirement in the first place and therefore the new functionality was what was stated from the beginning. As a consequence I as a consultant therefore would carry the cost of two weeks worth of work without pay. The first time this happened I was unable to prove that the customer in fact had changed the requirement. So I Started keeping a very detailed journal.

The next time I could ask if it fact wasn't the case that Mr XYZ in a meeting 20yy-mm-dd had decideed that we should do ABC, but now wants instead wants to do CDE. If so, that is not a misunderstanding but a changed requirement. After two such incidents the customer stopped with those tricks. And I've kept keeping journals ever since.</comment>


GLB: GitHub's open source load balancer - <AUTHOR> https://githubengineering.com/glb-director-open-source-load-balancer/ <comment><USER2> See also:

Facebook: [https://code.fb.com/open-source/open-sourcing-katran-a- scala...](https://code.fb.com/open-source/open-sourcing-katran-a-scalable- network-load-balancer/)

Google: [https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/03/Google- shares-s...](https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/03/Google-shares- software-network-load-balancer-design-powering-GCP-networking.html)

The design of all 3 is very similar.

<comment><USER3> I haven't looked at what Google has released, but there are big differences between GLB and Katran. (Not affiliated with any of those companies)

In terms of technology, Katran uses XDP and IPIP tunnels, both upstream in the Linux kernel. GLB uses DPDK, which allows processing raw packets in user space, and Geberic UDP encapsulation + a custom iptables module. Neither DPDK nor the module are upstream.

There are architectural differences as well. Katran is much closer to a classic load balancer, and uses connection tracking at the load balancer to know where to send packets for established flows. GLB has no per-flow state at the load balancer, which gives it the very nice property that load balancers can be added and removed from an ECMP group without disturbing existing connections. There is an academic paper about a system called Beamer, which most likely influenced GLB (or maybe the other way round?). It's a good read, and relatively short.

Finally, Katran is really a C++ library you could build a load balancer on, while GLB comes with batteries included.

I think GLB looks nice, hats off to GitHub for open sourcing it.

<comment><USER4> It is unfortunate that Fastly did not open source faild. That's the most elegant solution to draining that I have ever seen.

<comment><USER5> Fastly's MAC-based solution to this was actually one of the existing implementations we read about back when designing the original implementation of GLB in 2015/16, along with Facebook's IPVS-based solution. We loved the ideas behind Fastly's model, but didn't want to mess with Layer 2 to do it. GLB Director took some inspiration from both designs in the creation of L4 second chance and the L4/L7 split design.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the details! I'd love to hear more about any data you have on the efficiency of a "second chance" design vs expanding to three or more failover servers. Very curious if a single alternate is enough to cover majority of incidents (xxx out of 1000 events?) Or how frequently you see failures that fall outside the two chance design decisions.

Keep up the great work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool use of SR-IOV, I like it. We've done a few (academic) experiments with SR-IOV for flow bifurcation and we've wondered why no one seems to use it like this. The performance was quite good: neglible performance difference between PF and a single VF and only 5-10% when running multiple >= 8 VFs (probably cache contention somewhere in our specific setup).

You seem to be running this on X540 NICs, aren't you running into limitations for the VFs. Mostly the number of queues which I believe is limited to 2 per VF in the ixgbe family. I wonder whether the AF_XDP DPDK driver could be used instead if SR-IOV isn't available or feasible for some reason.

A more detailed look at performance would have been cool. I might try it myself if I find some time (or a student) :)

<comment><USER5> We found that we could achieve 10G line rate with just the queues available to the VF, the NIC didn't seem to be a bottleneck providing DPDK was processing packets faster than line rate. It's worth noting that other traffic on the PF was/is minimal in our setup.

We tested this using DPDK pktgen on a identically-configured node (GLB Director and pktgen both using DPDK on a VF with flow bifurcation, on 2 separate machines on the same rack/switch), with GLB Director essentially acting as a reflector back to the pktgen node. pktgen was able to generate enough 40 byte TCP packets to saturate 10G with 2 TX cores/queues, and GLB Director was able to process those packets and encapsulate them with a sizeable set of binds/tables with 3 cores doing work (encapsulation) and 1 core doing RX/distribution/TX.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, 10G just isn't that much nowadays. And bigger NICs have more features in the VFs.

I've just built a quick test setup:

* two directly connected servers

* 6 core 2.4 GHz CPU

* XL710 40G NICs

* My packet generator MoonGen: [https://github.com/emmericp/MoonGen](https://github.com/emmericp/MoonGen) with a quick & dirty modification to l3-tcp-syn-flood.lua to change dst mac

Got these results for 1-5 worker threads in Mpps: 3.84, 6.65, 10.17, 11.57, 11.3.

~10 Mpps is about 10G line rate for the encapsulated packets; this seems a little bit slower than I expected and it looks like I might be hitting the bottleneck of the distributor at 4 worker threads. Didn't look into anything in detail here (spent maybe 30 minutes for setup + tests), but we've done some VXLAN stuff in the past which I recall being faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This basically looks like an open source Maglev [1]. Awesome!

[1] - [https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c...](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/44824.pdf)

<comment><USER9> This is similar but not totally. Linux has an open source version of Maglev as a scheduler for LVS since 4.18 (to be released). GLB uses a specific consistent hashing algorithm selecting two servers and a module to let the first server redirect the flow to the second in case it doesn't know about it. This helps minimize disruption even more than with Maglev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks really cool! Though a simpler solution for most people will probably be OpenBSD's CARP protocol to share a single virtual IP between multiple boxes (with for example relayd). ECMP routing can get complex fast.

<comment><USER11> Or VRRP with the open source keepalived, which has been around for a decade+ and works wonderfully on Linux.

<comment><USER6> That is exactly what Stack Overflow uses: keepalived to manage a virtual IP between two decent sized baremetal HAProxy servers (w/ bonded 10G nics). Works great and combined with DNS or Anycast based load balancing can scale pretty damn well. Definitely worth investigating as a KISS approach. To quote a recent Atwood tweet:

"if I have learned anything in my career, it is the shocking effectiveness of building ... literally the stupidest thing that could work. (And then iterating on it for a decade.)"

[https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1026332543153389569](https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1026332543153389569)

<comment><USER11> Indeed! It powers all of the internal loadbalancing (non-direct customer facing) for ticketmaster.com. I was on the core systems team ~12 or so years ago and learned all about how great it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Off-topic: I _love_ the GLB icon, pure genius!

</comment><comment><USER13> I am having trouble understanding this passage. I'm wondering is someone could help me understand this as it seems like an important design detail:

>"Another benefit to using UDP is that the source port can be filled in with a per-connection hash so that they are flow within the datacenter over different paths (where ECMP is used within the datacenter), and received on different RX queues on the proxy server's NIC (which similarly use a hash of TCP/IP header fields)."

A source port in the UDP header still needs to be be just that a port number no? Or are they actually stuffing a hash value in to that UDP header field? How would the receiving IP stack no how to understand a value other than a port number in that field?

<comment><USER6> Just a guess, but by using UDP transport for the encapsulated data and configuring the module on the proxy to accept UDP on a wide range of ports, you can pick any port you want (not just the destination port of the TCP stream in the encapsulated packet). And if you are using ECMP with a known hashing algorithm you can then use that UDP port to explicitly spread packets across the RX queues on the proxy servers (gaining better performance).

<comment><USER13> Thanks I think that might be what they mean - hash the source port for better distribution across the RX queues on the destination proxy. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the first I've heard of Rendezvous hashing. It seems superior in every respect to the ring-based consistent hashing I've heard much more about. Why is the ring-based method more common?

</comment><comment><USER13> The article states:

>"Each server has a bonded pair of network interfaces, and those interfaces are shared between DPDK and Linux on GLB director servers."

What's the distinction between DPDK and Linux here? It wasn't clear to me why SR-IOV is needed in this design. Does DPGK need to "own" the entire NIC device is that? In other words using DPDK and regular kernel networking are mutually exclusive option on the NIC? Is that correct?

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe I don't see the use case since I'm not at that scale, but it seems like a lot of added complexity for what appears to be hacking around using other load balancing solutions as a Layer-4 option?

Edit: It's a question, if you downvote please let me know why it's a better solution.

<comment><USER9> The goal is to avoid disruption during topology changes. If you have long- lived connections, this is important to keep them alive. The explain this a bit more here: [https://github.com/github/glb- director/blob/master/docs/deve...](https://github.com/github/glb- director/blob/master/docs/development/second-chance-design.md#comparison-to- lvs-and-other-director-state-solutions)

I have also written about this in a past article: [https://vincent.bernat.im/en/blog/2018-multi-tier- loadbalanc...](https://vincent.bernat.im/en/blog/2018-multi-tier-loadbalancer) (which may or may not be easier to understand)

<comment><USER16> I read your link, and it's easy to understand because it's really well explained :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why would one use this over HAProxy?

<comment><USER18> HAProxy is an Layer 7 (i.e. HTTP, for the most part) load balancer and only handles the use case of spreading load across multiple backends. A single instance binds to a single IP. There's no redundancy; lose the HAProxy and you lose traffic.

For true redundancy, you need a layer above that handles the distribution of traffic to multiple redundant load balancer instances, and GLB does that via ECMP (Equal-Cost Multi-Path) routing. Github supposedly uses HAProxy as their L7 load balancer.

All of this thoroughly explained in the article.

<comment><USER15> I thought best practice for HAproxy was to run two HAProxy's in parallel with VRRP or DNS load balancing?

Does that not achieve the same outcome? I've used HAProxy for layer 4 in the past without any issue this way.

<comment><USER6> It does but that setup runs into limits on throughput of individual servers, and doesn't have the same drain/fill/failover capabilities discussed in the article.

To be clear, the HAProxy+vrrp+dns is often a better solution, but this describes an interesting design for a load balancing system that can handle many orders of magnitude more traffic and have maintenance without breaking established connections (one of it's core design features)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Previous discussion (September 2016): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12558053](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12558053)

<comment><USER20> This new post is about the newly released GLB Director. The title should be changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Will it have some special love in azure ecosystem?

<comment><USER22> Azure already offers load balancing. I'm not sure how much differentiates all the products out there now. I've never seen a load balancer be a bottleneck in any system I've worked on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Where is the source code? Skimmed but didn't see a link.

<comment><USER24> [https://github.com/github/glb-director](https://github.com/github/glb- director)</comment></comment>


Show HN: iOS Motion Library – detect a backtap, knock and wave in your app - <AUTHOR> http://www.kiwimotion.io Try out an alpha version of our new iOS motion library. <comment><USER2> I was really excited to try this out, but then I hit the requirement to provide contact information just to download the library. This is, for good or bad, always off putting to me. I don't consider the need to collect certain information bad in itself as long as it's reasonable or at least justified. In this case however, there's a distinct lack of communication as to why the information is being collected and that makes me wary (it's also fairly common recently so this isn't the only offender). I can make all sorts of my own assumptions as to why the developers would need that information, but after being bitten a few times by folks who have been a little less than transparent with their actual use of that information I'd prefer not to rely on my own assumptions.

Some feedback based on my experience (take with a healthy dose of salt):

\- The quickstart menu item is the only one that takes you away from the main page which interrupts the experience when using this particular style of pagination. The way back to the main page from the quickstart page is also not particularly obvious (just a back arrow within the logo would be sufficient).

\- A big red flag is the counter counting how many gestures have been "tracked" leading me to believe that there's some sort of phone home going on which, all things being equal, doesn't make too much sense for a gesture library (unless some explanation is provided).

\- Another big red flag is no mention of why the need for a full name is required in addition to the email, or why the email is necessary for the download (It's mentioned that it will be sent to the email if the user scrolls down to the 2nd form, but not in the first "page").

\- No obvious way to provide feedback is immediately available (I assume it's provided in whatever email communication is made or within the library itself).

(edit formatting)

<comment><USER3> Yeah... what I thought:

Intercepting the traffic coming out of the app shows me its making api requests to [http://api.parse.com](http://api.parse.com) — so, basically, I would imagine it's sending some kind of usage data (can't yet decipher the headers as I don't have time) back to Parse.com, which is allowing it to 'phone home'.

Also... this is happening with _every_ motion gesture attempt.

 _sigh_

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Applaud the efforts. Motion/gesture libraries in general are notoriously tricky to get right.

I am a little bit confused at the three gestures you chose in terms of 'launching' with. Recording custom motions and a good path to implement those could be incredibly useful, but I'm a little bit hesitant at the real world use of the 'knock' and 'backtap'.

Either way, signed up. Keen.

The use of backgrounds in that website make it a little bit hard to read stuff, by the way :)

What are the plans long-term for this?

</comment><comment><USER5> My current favourite use of gesture control is the Peek option for the glance screen in WP8 [1]. I find it sits in a nice spot where it allows crude interaction with the device when you dont want to commit to fully interacting with it. Similarly with the xbox one gesture controls - I use them as a last resort when I dont want to commit to making full use of the device; such as when I am sitting on the sofa and want to change it to watching TV and all other controls are out of range.

Also, sorry for being off-topic, but as someone from New Zealand I find the name to be slightly confusing. Is there any connection to NZ, the fruit or the bird? I'm not complaining, just sounds odd to me.

[1] [http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-brings-new-hover-feature- lumi...](http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-brings-new-hover-feature-lumia- devices-quickly-turn-display)

</comment><comment><USER6> The library looks great - congrats on that!

Just one small gripe: the name. Kiwi ([https://github.com/kiwi- bdd/Kiwi](https://github.com/kiwi-bdd/Kiwi)) is a (pretty popular!) BDD testing framework for iOS. Maybe consider renaming, as two Kiwi libraries in one project is confusing :)

</comment><comment><USER7> The lib is 17.7MB, that's pretty big for tap detections

Direct link to download: [http://www.kiwimotion.io/library/kiwi-motion-app- master.zip](http://www.kiwimotion.io/library/kiwi-motion-app-master.zip)

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure it's so big because it includes the Parse framework (31MB framework, uncompressed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> thanks for your note. Gestures are indeed tricky and hence the alpha version. We initially started as a custom gesture library, but realized that even basic back tap type gestures could be useful to augment existing apps.

thanks for your feedback on the site. Ali

What other languages are you interested in using?, we will likely publish a node version next if there is interest

</comment><comment><USER9> Just signed up for it and I'm going to give it a try as soon as I can. Has anyone had any (good or bad) experience with it?

</comment><comment><USER10> > 328 taps have been captured and 352 developers have joined

Is library phoning home?

<comment><USER3> Yeah... see my comment to @yojimbo...</comment></comment>


Entrepreneurs don't have a gene for risk–they come from families with money - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/

<comment><USER2> I think this greatly speaks for a welfare state. If people have a certain safety net they are able to spend their time on things that advance the status quo.

It also reminds me of another study showing that poverty appears to result in mental capacity being constantly used up for what could be described as "worrying for money".

This makes sense, because you can be more focused as you have fewer distractions.</comment>


FBI discussed charging HRC with 'gross negligence' and DOJ said 'no' - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/lisa-page-said-fbi-discussed-charging-hillary-clinton-with-gross-negligence-in-2016-and-doj-told-them-no <comment><USER2> Is this any surprise? Since early 2017 people have been alleging that the Obama DOJ was biased in the 2016 election in favor of HRC. Beyond shielding her from criminal charges and protecting people in her circle, they and the FBI got a fishy dossier funded by themselves and the DNC / Clinton Campaign as opposition research and used that to secure a FISA warrant on Trump campaign staffers and regularly unmasked them to leak things to the press.

The only question now is which details are true and which are fantasy?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with domain squatters? - one-off

I work for a well known, but very small startup that does not have a dedicated legal staff, nor the money to pay for one.  A more-well-known competitor of ours recently registered a domain that is a one letter transposition of our main domain, and redirected it to their homepage.  The name of our site is not a generic term, and as far as I can tell this is a willful violation of anti-cyberquatting laws: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:S.1255.IS:=<p>The problem is, how does a small business like ours approach this? We have attempted to contact the competitor directly, but been blown off.  Do we bite the bullet and hire a lawyer, hoping that we can win enough money to pay for them?  Do trademark attorneys work like personal injury attorneys, and not collect unless victorious?  We've never had to deal with major legal issues before, and this is somewhat overwhelming.<p>(I've created a one-post account for this as I don't want to needlessly complicate the matter by divulging the identities of the involved companies.) <comment><AUTHOR> I would send a certified letter to your competitor notifying them that you will be filing a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) complaint, unless they transfer the domain to you by a certain day:

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDRP>

* <http://www.internic.net/faqs/udrp.html>

You may won't hear back from your competitor, but you will win the UDRP complaint after about two months. You'll be out like $1.5-2k and you can't recover costs, but you'll have the domain back.

</comment><comment><USER2> You can almost always talk to lawyers for free, on an initial consultation. They're happy to talk to you in exchange for the opportunity to get your business. That will yield enough information to figure out whether it's worth proceeding. They should be able to tell you things like how much it will cost, and what the likely outcome is.

<comment> one-off Thanks, this is probably the best advice. Having never dealt with lawyers on a professional level, I figured they would start draining our money immediately upon contact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Spend at least some to get a real lawyer opinion. Should cost you a few hundred dollars for some hours of his time. Ask him to present you with several options, there's a whole spectre in the middle of lawsuit and doing nothing.

For example, you've already contacted the company, so at least it seems you've made them aware that you think there's a problem, which only a lawyer can tell if it'll help you in the future you decide to sue them.

</comment><comment><USER4> You can potentially try something more grass roots and start blogging/twittering about it.

No idea what type of response you will get but people love rooting for the underdog.

</comment><comment><USER5> To take action against a third party that has bought a domain name that you believe is in breach of your identity you need to satisfy 3 criteria;

A) Name is identical or confusing to a trade or service mark. B) The registrant has no claim to the name C) The name is being used in bad faith

If you can prove all 3 criteria you can appeal to the registry. If the extension is .uk you would approach Nominet, they have a DRS (Dispute Resolution Service) procedure which is free of charge and details can be found at <http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes>

Each extension internationally will have different rules and procedures. You can contact us directly at <http://www.names.co.uk/obp-recovery-services.html> and we will outline your particular case and offer advice as to your next step. There is no obligation to use myself to carry out the recovery on your behalf.

</comment><comment><USER6> Somebody did this to me, too. I've never bothered to take action about it. Realistically, what harm is this doing your business? Customers who weren't getting to your website anyway aren't getting to your website. A microscopic number of customers, actually, since direct navigation is all but dead these days -- thanks, Google. If you doubt me, pick another off-by-one domain name and typosquat yourself, then read your HTTP logs.

Some people on the Internet are jerks. Oh well, you've got more profitable uses of your time than to worry about them.

<comment> one-off We actually have about 30 visitors per day coming to our site from searches on this exact misspelling (which google knows is a misspelling). Based on the number of people searching for our domain name including the .com, this translates to a few hundred missed visitors per day. I hope that people who type this into their location bar realize their error, but the site they visit is a direct competitor, so I'm sure a few visitors stick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Call up any lawyer in your area charging less than $200/hour, explain your situation in less than 15 minutes, say that you are willing to pay him/her $100 just to send that competitor a formal letter demanding them to stop the redirection or threaten further legal action.

This sometimes works, i.e., assuming your competitor is not well funded enough to afford a lawyer either. Otherwise? I don't know, do something similar to your competitor?

</comment><comment><USER8> I would get over it and focus your attention on making a great product. Having a great domain name is not going to make your business a success.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you trademarked the original, its like an automatic go card for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution. Send the UDRP folks your trademark papers and they'll yank the domain from the squatter and deliver it, silver platter style to your registrar of choice.

You do trademark all of the domains you register for your startup, right?

</comment><comment><USER10> To address one of your sub-questions: you can generally find a lawyer in any field who will work 'on contingency' (meaning they get paid a percentage of damages awarded), but they'll only take your case if there's a possibility of a substantial award, which seems unlikely in your case.

</comment><comment><USER11> can I ask you if you had trademarked your name? I was recently asked a similar question by someone else. He had registered a domain through gandi and a minute later as he went to register the plural, he discovered it was taken in that instant. I imagined that there was little he could do legally if he had not trademarked the term prior. Neither of us know how someone knew to register the plural or whether it had anything to do with gandi. It was registered anonymously through iregistry.

<comment> one-off It is trademarked, which also complicates the issue as we're obligated to defend our marks.

<comment><USER12> Yes, but this also gives you more legal leverage in most cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> send them a cease and desist letter, a lot of people will roll over right away</comment>


Ask HN: Balancing your interests and the interests of the company you work for? - <AUTHOR>

I am a mid level software engineer at a startup that has been running for a little while. I understand that being a startup, we need to prioritize effort into making the company succeed but at the same time, I do not feel that I am really learning the things that would enhance my skills as a developer.
The reason I mentioned we have been running for a while is that because I learn and pick up things very quickly, I have always been the one sent out to evaluate or implement features that were "needed" quickly. Over time, every one else fell into place for implementing full features which involve detailed design etc. and I end up implementing everything that is "needed" by the company. I have
gone over this over the past several performance reviews and the situation has not changed.
I try to self learn and it works most of the time but sometimes it helps to have a change to learn from people with more experience as well.
How does everyone deal with balancing your interests and the company's
interests? <comment><USER2> Update your resume.

Much better companies than your current one are starved for good developers. You're not helping anyone by remaining underemployed.

(Be sure to have a job offer in writing before you quit, however. :)</comment>


The debt closet: student debtors are looking a lot like indentured servants - <AUTHOR> http://karissamck.com/blog/2015/01/13/coming-out-of-the-debt-closet/

<comment><USER2> Student debt is one of the instruments of the system. Think about it, what would make young people willingly give up their life to go and become salarypersons in the big corporations? Debt.</comment>


Trillion Dollar Inheritance: The World's Biggest Family Fortunes - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-richest-families/ <comment><USER2> Even Bloomberg does wealth/GDP comparisons now? How the mighty have fallen.</comment>


portier.github.io - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The URL has a wrong format. Try submitting again.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Portier is an email-based, passwordless authentication service that you can (but don't have to) host yourself.</comment>


My Android Experience by the Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://davezor.posterous.com/my-android-experience-by-the-numbers

<comment><USER2> Is there any chance you may build , apps that bring more value? Wallpapers are probably good to pay the bills,but in the long run, this is Android market pollution, don't you think?</comment>


Latest Black Hole Collision Comes with a Twist - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/latest-black-hole-collision-comes-with-a-twist-20170601/ <comment><AUTHOR> Source: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift

[https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.221...](https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.221101)</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good Crowdsourced Testing Platforms? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, I'd like to get your feedback on my new site and wish to find some good Crowdsourced Testing Platforms.<p>Check it out - http://www.now-do.com
I'm looking for a crowdtesting platform, and I have the following specific things I'd like the beta users to provide feedback/comment on.<p>- Look around the home page - what is your initial impression of what you see? Are any good call-to-action buttons? Is it a clear idea what the website is doing?<p>- After you click one featured, was reading/translating/sharing/signup straightforward? Did you find anything confusing?<p>- Think of something you want to find on this website. Now try to find it. Did you find what you were looking for? Was anything confusing? <comment><USER2> 0\. If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

1\. Just tell me: _NOWDO is an international social networking community with a focus on animation, comics, games, novels._ Don't make why-you-think-I- should-care a mystery.

2\. The calls [there are two] to action buttons are big and bold. The text calling me to action is generic because the page did not show me what Now-do is before calling me to action.

3\. The 'Browse' call to action is redundant since there is a collection of examples just below the call to action.

4\. Clicking on the examples is more natural than the 'browse' button and suggests less risk to the user [e.g. redirection to a newsletter signup or 'let's chat' before seeing the content].

5\. My advice: the interesting content on the site is much more interesting than two buttons and a generic call to action. Quickly orient visitors [see item 1] and get them browsing and lurking. I think signup is going to have much more limited appeal than lurking and pushing signup won't make user experience better in the short term...signing up is not a form of site use, it's a distraction from the content that only creates organic user value when participation is worth the costs of distraction.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you promoting your product (Show HN) or asking a serious question about crowdsourced testing platforms (Ask HN)? It's better to split the two topics into separate submissions.</comment>


Ask HN: Programming Language Predictions For The Next 20 Years - <AUTHOR>

Fast-forward 20 years from now:<p>* What are the dominant programming language paradigms?<p>* What language(s) has/have emerged to solve yesterday's (today's) problems?<p>* What problems remain? <comment><USER2> I don't know about 20 years, but over the next few years more and more developers will have to utilize and understand concurrency, and be able to make use of all processing power available to them. Go and Node have put a nice set of sugar around this problem and I think will only gain popularity.</comment>


Ask HN: How do email/SMS and SMTP servers work? - <AUTHOR> Tonight I wasted ~4 hours trying to run a self-hosted email platform locally and see if I could email myself.
I am really frustrated, but I have to admit I learned a great deal about how complex mail server operation is compared to, say, something like HTTP where you can just expose & tunnel.
It seems like a lot of the complexity stems from the fact you need multiple components for a mail system to function properly (SMTP Server, MTA/MSA, Mail Store, Delivery Agent, IMAP/POP server). And from what I gather, it seems as though ISP's can choose to block the traffic regardless, which is entirely out of your control?
Is there anyone who might be able to explain how these things work, and what the bare-minimum requirement would be for an HTTP API that could only send outbound emails? <comment><USER2> yes, ISPs can block certain ports. Best way to get a VPS with a non rotating IP and host everything there.

If you are looking for a hosted solution with HTTP API, see mailgun like services. You need a translater from HTTP to SMTP in order to send email.</comment>


I Collected 361 Remote Jobs for Designers - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkOnline/comments/dnfgv9/i_collected_361_remote_jobs_for_designers/ <comment><USER2> Hi, is this private? I upvoted + requested access through the email in my profile.

<comment><USER3> Same here. Already have access after about one minute of waiting</comment></comment>


German-led consortium about to invest €400 billion in Solar Energy (Desertec) - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,630699,00.html

<comment><USER2> They plan to use low tech solar thermal power and high voltage transmission to Europe. They want to have it up an running within a decade.

This low tech approach (all existing technology) seems to me to be exactly the right way to go.

<comment><USER3> A major advantage to photovoltaic's is they still work when it's cloudy unlike concentrating systems. That might now seem like a major issue, but without long term energy storage the peak power output is less useful.

<comment><USER4> I can guarantee if they are ready to spend 400 Billion Euros, they have thought out these details. They have the very best minds working on this plan.

<comment><USER5> You could say they have top men working on it right now. _Top men_.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple Music added a few million songs to my playlist - <AUTHOR> http://thelinell.com/2015/07/02/fixing-apple-music/

<comment><USER2> Why is this on HN?

</comment><comment><USER3> iTunes sucks..

</comment><comment><USER4> iTunes sucks.</comment>


Rarest language? Objective-C has highest job posting to developer activity ratio - <AUTHOR> https://generalassemb.ly/blog/the-biggest-opportunity-of-2012-learning-objective-c

<comment><USER2> Ah, that is a horrible analysis. They are wanting to estimate the number of people with these skills by searching on hashtags, but they search only on the term "objective-c" when what they really should be searching on is Cocoa, iPhone, iPad, iOS and other terms that require one to be working in Objective-C. There's not so much to Objective-C itself that there's a lot of discussion about the language itself compared to what it is used in.

Also, in general I don't buy into these methodologies where someone spends a few hours doing searches on internet boards for certain keywords as a way to estimate the number of people with various skills. It's not been shown to be a valid way of getting accurate data.

</comment><comment><USER3> Java's Ratio: Slightly less than 2 Obj-C's Ratio: Slightly more than 3

Let's see, I can learn Java and get a job building Android apps or a job building web apps or a job writing mainframe software or writing desktop software or writing server software or building web services or making video games...

...or...

I can learn Objective-C and get a job building iOS apps.

If you need a job and you're deciding between the two, Java should be a no- brainer.

Objective-C is a nice tool to have in your toolbox, but it shouldn't be the one you take out the most.

<comment><USER4> "I can learn Objective-C and get a job building iOS apps."

...And make $250/hr contract rates. There is ludicrous demand for iOS work. I know several enterprising devs who got into Obj-C over Java purely because the pay is insanely good.

And give me a break. What serious companies are doing web apps or video games in Java in 2012? Sure, Facebook and Twitter are using Java internally, but only for really specific technical challenges forced on to them by scaling. Objective-C is way more fun from a product perspective because you're close to the user. That is desirable for many.

<comment><USER5> > And make $250/hr contract rates. There is ludicrous demand for iOS work.

I don't buy this. Any links?

How many developers can expect such rates in face of more than 250,000 apps in competition? I think only some big publishing houses would pay this big money because in the long run they would get their money back.

Smaller companies would never pay this rate because AFAIK the average income for even very good apps is the range of some thousands or some ten thousand dollars. In case of say 10.000 dollars, all the money would be lost to the developer for just 40 hours of work, that's four days :-)

<comment><USER6> Consulting work for enterprise companies. They aren't selling their app anyways, it's just a checkbox their sales people use to sell the real product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Okay, so everyone wants to hire an iPhone developer for whatever awesome app idea they have. Most experienced iPhone developers are already pretty busy.

Does that pretty much explain it?

<comment><USER8> Yeah.

A further explanation would include the fact that a lot of those people who have a great idea and just need a developer to code it up for them have no idea how the software process works, and the gig will likely involve them stiffing you on the last month's pay and feeling like you ripped them off unless you're pretty experienced at contracting and managing upwards.

<comment><USER9> _> a lot of those people who have a great idea and just need a developer to code it up for them have no idea how the software process works_

They also don't realize how insanely expensive it is.

"I want a mobile app. That's like $500 bucks, right?" \- Client

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How are Twitter mentions a reliable source of data about the job market??

<comment><USER11> The tweets in question were from the #Code2011 hash tag where devs were saying what languages they used in 2011 and from tweets collected by my site <http://jobstractor.com> which tries to find people hiring devs on Twitter. Hope that sounds a bit more sane :)

<comment><USER10> I read that. Surveys are fun, but such data shouldn't be taken for measure.

Number of job postings vs average number of offers submitted is one of the first factors that come to mind when seeeking a supply/demand number on the job market, not twitter popularity contests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The issue with learning objective c is the lack of portability. Yes the language runs on everything via the use of gnustep, but on first appearances its is nextstep ported to modern hardware.

As a disclaimer objective c is my language of choice, my plan this year is to make the code portable.

<comment><USER13> If you want to make your code portable to Android, consider helping the effort to port Objective-C to it (specifically, enough to get cocos2d running).

Some info here: <http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/25414>

<comment><USER14> Don't port objective-C to android for Cocoas 2D. Cocoas2D is a fluster-cuck enough on iOS.

<comment><USER15> Thats insane, why not just port cocos2d itself (I think there might have been an effort before) - after all the original cocos2d was python, so it's been ported across languages before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The solution? MacRuby!

Take the surplus of enthusiasm for Ruby, combine it with the high demand for iOS developers, and there you have it!

Now if only Apple would make MacRuby a first-class language for developing iOS apps...

<comment><USER17> It'd be second class in terms of performance. Native code execution speed is one of iOS device's strongest selling points vs. Android, which has a few GC hiccups here and there. Apple is probably more inclined to push the tool that yields the best performance for its users, perhaps even at the expense of developers' productivity.

<comment><USER18> Dude, Laconian - iOS 5 already enables GC (a generational one at that), which already came out for regular Cocoa in in obj-c 2.0

You can bet your socks a lot of devs for typical iOS apps will be using GC.

I dunno what GC algorithm is used for MacRuby, I don't see how the upper limit of performance will be much different since obj-c uses dynamic dispatch the same, and Google/Mozilla is making strides in type inference.

Dyanamically typed languages might be pretty close to static language performance (with properly written code since the JIT is still dumb compared to a human) pretty soon.

<comment><USER14> What are you talking about? There is no GC in iOS 5. The only GC in the Objective-C world is the one on the Mac and it's pretty much the off the shelf Boehm one.

The only thing iOS has is ARC. This is a compile time reference counting solution. This doesn't work with ruby in it's current form in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Objective-C's outlook will be about as strong as the Apple platform will continue to be for better or for worse. Yes, it does exist outside of the Apple ecosystem, but only really in nominal form. What's more, Objective-C work pretty much implies that you'll be doing Apple development...which people may or may not want to get into for hangups. I'm not sure if the app dev craze is a trend that can continue over the long term or not. Should be interesting to see!

</comment><comment><USER20> But is the pre-eminence of IPhone apps going to last? Number of android phones is catching up, but it seems the iphone app market has much larger revenues. Source: [http://finance.yahoo.com/news/android-vs-iphone-economics- ap...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/android-vs-iphone-economics- apps-160608285.html)

What do devs at HN think? Does it make sense to think the market for Obj C talent is going to last?

<comment><USER14> Android is full of hello world, copy cap apps, and junk that doesn't get filtered as well as in the Apple app store. So quantity doesn't really amount to much there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Objective-c is slightly strange compared to other languages but its really just another language anyone can pick up if they put the time and effort into it. Just like you decided to learn clojure or ruby or whatever put some time in, and you can code in any language.

</comment><comment><USER22> I do C++ for a living, do I get a pretty red line too?

</comment><comment><USER23> Objective C is painful.

<comment><USER9> Once you get to know it, it's the most beautiful and elegant (while verbose) language you'll ever see.

I cringe now when I write PHP.

<comment><USER24> I really like Objective C, but I don't know that I would call it the most elegant. I agree it is an elegant solution to adding objects and messages to C (especially when compared to C++), but it is still an extension of another language, which makes it more pragmatic than elegant.

<comment><USER25> I find Obj-C elegant in the sense that it reads like an explicit english sentence:

        NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringLocalAndRemoteCacheData timeoutInterval:60.0];

If you've never used an NSMutableURLRequest object before, but know how HttpRequests are made, you can figure out what's going on without having to dig into any documentation.

Many languages I've seen (C in particular) hide that explicitness. You call someFunction(arg1, arg2, arg3), but what do arg1, arg2, and arg3 do? Can you pass a 4th or 5th argument too? Unless you've memorized what someFunction() does, you have to dig into the docs, which makes the language harder to read. Obj-C method calls always list "every" available parameter, regardless if its used or not (e.g. nil).

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

Obj-C takes up a lot of horizontal screen space. It works best on high- resolution widescreen monitors, with a modern editor, and modern mouse, both supporting vertical AND horizontal scrolling. Limiting lines to 80 characters, or anything really, destroys its readability.

The most unreadable Obj-C code I've seen is usually formatted this way. Google's Obj-C code is a nightmare to read; they limit it to 80-characters ([http://google- styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/objcguide....](http://google- styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/objcguide.xml#Line_Length)). Great for a 1980's terminal, not for modern 2560x1440 displays.

Frankly line-length should not be the job of the programmer writing the code, but of the IDE/Editor displaying it properly on-screen. When you say "all code must be 80 lines long", you've forced that upon every programmer regardless if it's a good decision or not.

It's like decoupling the Model and View. The Model is the actual code written, where the View is how it's displayed. Programmers should be able to customize how their View looks using their IDE/Editor. When you hard-code the View into the Model, you break decoupling, and force everyone to use the same View.

Most Editors/IDEs let you customize the view somewhat, like color-schemes and "wrap text". But I haven't seen a "complete" decoupling of the model (code) and view (how it's presented) yet, in any IDE/Editor. Someone please correct me if one exists. This is a feature I'd "LOVE" to see in all IDE/Editors and programming languages, as it will make verbose languages like Obj-C much easier to read based on the programmers preference.

<comment><USER26> This is more of a praise of Apple's naming conventions with the ios and Cocoa sdk's (which I agree are very good, as is auto-completion in XCode) than of Objective-C itself. Of course the quality of the framework is hugely important in how pleasant a language is to work with, but I wouldn't say that Objective C is an elegant language compared to everything else that's out there (IMO Python and Haskell are both very elegant, but there are a lot of languages I've never played with).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Did Apple create Ping to eventually compete with Facebook? - <AUTHOR>

Did Apple create Ping to eventually compete with Facebook? <comment><USER2> I don't think so. Anyone can join Facebook. Ping requires an iTunes account. Ping is more like trying to keep people sticking around so they'll buy more. Apple is clearly leveraging the power of person-to-person recommendations over algorithms. It will be interesting when Ping adds books.

<comment><USER3> I highly doubt they would jump into the water and try to compete with Amazon. It's way to direct, I really don't see them being able to just brute force their way in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would say Apple is trying to compete more with last.fm and maybe even myspace. A lot of musicians use myspace as their social networking to communicate with their fans. I can easily see Ping being used for the same purpose and being tied into iTunes will help out the musicians a lot.

</comment><comment><USER5> Considering that it only features songs bought on iTunes and has a strong bias towards artists right now (normal users can't do status updates as far as I can tell), it created it to increase sales under the consumer benefit of music discovery.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wouldn't say they're so much competing with myspace or last.fm as they're poised to dominate a wide open space hobbled by those two companies poor execution. Nonetheless, I effectively agree with danishkhan.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ping is probably centered on becoming the platform for culture/entertainment. It will disrupt a lot of startups if and when it becomes web-based.

<comment><USER8> Agree but it's a long way away from that. Imagine if Ping was built in to the AppleTV as well, and additionally being able to be set automatically (like a scrobble) so that you can have conversations going with others while watching/listening/etc.

We've seen how Twitter peaks during major events (like the Olympics or during major TV episodes). I can see Apple eventually wanting to be the source for that info. Then again, they'd have to open it up a lot more and get it on other systems. Ping for PC, Ping for Android (GoogleTV?), Ping plugins, and so on. Which would all eventually lead to the iTunes store...

And what if they then struck marketing deals with a place like Amazon or Zappos? Ping "I like her shoes" and it recognizes that with a "buy" button linking to Zappos and the same shoes.

We've seen how Apple starts small and grows features much bigger than the original intention. We've also see how Apple has transformed themselves from Apple Computer Inc to just Apple (and all that that means).

While Ping certainly sucks now I believe they are committed... and they have a plan.

<comment><USER7> Very interesting thoughts...

I think Ping is a "Trojan horse" to enter the Web space without causing too big of a scene. They are testing a few theories out in iTunes before dropping the bomb in January with their next batch of products. Apple is historically cunning and sly in this way. No one can fully guess their next batch of moves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> looks like Zune + Zpass+ Zune social to me. Now that all the zune stuff and music subscriptions will ship with the phone,etc... Seems like competition will be though and Apple would be behind if they didn't have a subscription/recommendation/social offering.</comment>


Show HN: Responsive, extensible menubar with extensive lib of widgets for macOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ahmadassaf/gaudi.ubersicht.widgets <comment><USER2> I'm curious — how does this relate to the macOS menu bar, the dock, or any icons that the finder might place on the desktop?

We see an example of what it looks like with what appears to be a single (large) terminal window, but what about those of us with multiple GUI windows on top of the desktop?

And how does this play with macOS spaces?</comment>


Why can't Windows PCs catch up to the MacBook Air? - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.com/article/161775/2011/08/why_cant_windows_pcs_catch_up_to_the_macbook_air_.html

<comment><USER2> I've always thought that another reason (and part of the reason why Apple is in the drivers seat) is that the PC manufacturers seem to take reference designs and juts make some minor changes to them. How much of the computer are they actually designing.

The Air pricing is a brilliant move by Apple, and I have no doubt it will sell well. However, it is still in the premium price point in comparison to Windows laptops. That can't be overlooked. The most expensive windows laptops are competing with the cheapest Mac.

I wonder how many people really care about the devices they buy? If you aren't in the space, will you pay the premium for a mac? I think this is the reason you see so many Mac's in NYC and SF. Big tech communities. Look at other markets and Windows is still king.

It's like Porsche vs Ford. There will never be as many 911s sold as there are F150s. But who buys the 911s? It isn't just those that are wealthier. It's those who want to show they are wealthier. In Canada the F150 is the most popular vehicle sold to those with more than $1million net worth. [http://finance.yahoo.com/banking- budgeting/article/110333/mi...](http://finance.yahoo.com/banking- budgeting/article/110333/millionaire-myths?mod=bb-budgeting)

<comment><USER3> Are you comparing a sports car to a pick-up truck?

<comment><USER4> Pick-up truck will be overkill to draw analogy to a shitty PC, it still doesn't crash every now and then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They probably could but the users don't want to pay the premium for that. PC users that always bring up the cost argument remind me of the guys from the mad max movies who build those insane looking frankencars. Why buy a BMW when you can get the parts to do the same thing from miscellaneous cars. Most PC users do care about design but not to the levels of detail that Apple puts into their computers. They want to spend the money where it counts for them and that's on the guts.

</comment><comment><USER4> If Apple ditch the optical drive, it's a choice. They did the math, looked out for ourselves and made the decision.

If HP did it that PC is a cheap sake.</comment>


PeakFinder: See the view from any mountain or hill - <AUTHOR> http://www.peakfinder.org <comment><USER3> This didn't show anything in Safari or Firefox. Finally I tried Chrome and could see the SVG display.

It's pretty cool, but yeah, I don't see ever using this on desktop. It makes a whole lot more sense on mobile while you're out in the mountains and can see the scenery.

Regarding the AR apps:

In 2018 I downloaded both the PeakFinder and PeakVisor iOS apps while in Namche Bazaar during my EBC trek. PeakFinder's maps were much smaller and downloaded over bad wifi fairly quickly, whereas I never managed to download all of the PeakVisor maps while on the trek (it was several GB). But oddly, PeakFinder did not give me any more information than PeakVisor. So when a mountain label was missing in PeakVisor, PeakFinder wouldn't tell me either.

It's a pain to export photos from the PeakFinder app, so I did use it for a couple days on the way up to Lobuche, but not much after that.

The PeakVisor display was a lot nicer than PeakFinder's back then, so I preferred those photos and ended up using it exclusively. It looks like PeakFinder has better/shorter peak labels now, but still takes extra steps to export a photo, which is kind of a dealbreaker.

A nice thing about PeakFinder is that it still costs a fixed price for the app. If this is the only mountain AR app you use, it's worth it.

PeakVisor has transitioned to an IAP "Pro" subscription. Since I bought PeakVisor in 2018, they grandfathered my install with all the original features, with temporary free access to Pro features, so I can't tell what features are Pro or not, but it's super fancy now. If you're into hiking, then I suggest you give PeakVisor a try as well. (I have no affiliation.)

</comment><comment><USER4> A PeakVisor developer here :-) I suggest giving a try to peakvisor.com - <USER2> also renders panoramas for any place in the world, allows searching for peaks, and provides detailed information on mountains like mountain ranges this mountain belongs to, national parks, key col, isolation, topographical parent, etc. We originally built it to manage our data but it appears to be very valuable for others as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty cool although somewhat Spartan. Something that I find that could be improved on is what if feels like when looking around. To me it feels as if I am moving across a horizontal axis, rather than rotating. This is probably because there are some visual elements missing that would convince the brain that you are looking around. When I look around in an FPS shooter it doesn't feel as if I am moving horizontally, for example.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use the iOS app a lot when I'm hiking back in Austria. It's always fun to play around and works very well.</comment>


Anybeat - a Facebook alternative that respects your privacy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.anybeat.com/beta <comment><USER2> Anybeat was formally Altly which did intend to become a Facebook alternative. Once Google+ launched they realized that Google+ is positioning themselves as an alternative to Facebook and made a major pivot which included the name change. The new focus is not to be an alternative to Facebook at all. Facebook and Google+ will more than likely remain the place where people go to socialize online with people whom they already know including their personal and business relationships. However, Anybeat's focus is entirely on meeting new people who you do not already know in the physical world. Yes, pseudonyms are supported but not forced and are really only a small aspect of their focus. Other features which I find the most enjoyable but not often mentioned are the Interests Roulette which pairs you up to chat with random people on the site based on similarities. Also, the public square which is a place to have conversations about topics you are interested in with people you have never met. Public square is very much like a forum but having that functionality within more of a social network type environment leads to some really interesting interactions.

Bloggers and tech media love to try and spin Anybeat as a Facebook killer, or alternative because it sounds like such a juicy story and in fact has some truth in the history of the company. However, the vision of Anybeat is much different than Altly and whether people want to acknowledge it or not they are really going after a totally different type of interaction than both Facebook and Google+

For anyone who wants to see something besides the login screen, here is a link I found on Techcrunch for some beta invites <http://www.anybeat.com/ia/4e6d1ab62caca06253000024>

</comment><comment><USER3> 'Privacy' is NOT a killer app.

Unfortunately, the reality is most people using Facebook do not care so much about privacy as the media wants you to believe If they did, they would not be putting a hundred pictures of 'last night' up on Facebook to show their hundreds of friends which is one 'share' away

Build a great product. It is all that matters.

The 'our Facebook' link at the bottom explains why you cannot beat facebook at its game.

</comment><comment><USER4> Anybeat reminds me more of the chat room scene in AOL or IRC or Compuserve and the like in the early 90's. The chance of serendipitous encounters focused around topics and chance.

This appealed to me a lot more when I was 13 however.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's the problem. To be a "Facebook alternative", you need to have the people. It's not an alternative until it's useful as one.

Privacy and data ownership are great features, but they aren't products.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell "A Facebook alternative"... Really?

"We don't expect Anybeat to replace Facebook" - <http://www.anybeat.com/about>

<comment><USER6> Makes sense. Saccharine is a sugar alternative, and I don't expect saccharine to replace sugar.

<comment><USER7> totally agree. carob is a chocolate alternative, and i don't expect carob to replace chocolate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am the CEO of Anybeat and happy to answer any questions :)

</comment><comment><USER9> the true facebook killer is going to be a "social markup" standard and its many implementations that has the potential to surpass the power the facebook platform gives to the advertiser, not another centralized service. (note how hosting your own social hub elegantly solves any privacy concerns you might have) given the amount of work that goes towards this (not much), I don't think facebook has much to worry about.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yet another Facebook alternative? Seriousely? I'm all for competition, but between diaspora, G+, unthink, now this ...</comment>