Ask HN: SaaS startup hired me as their first programmer, help? - <AUTHOR> I graduated this year and SaaS startup founders hired me to build their project.
They offered me 1/3 of the market salary and 6% of the startup as equity.
I believe in the project idea. I think it's worth gambling on it.
Founders told me the startup should be unhackable. So, I think this implies that we should not create any backend and entirely base our app on APIs supplied by existing product companies who have better security track record than me.
Do you know what companies provide user account management, auth management, subscription management who have a good track record in this industry.
What else do you suggest?
I've already coded the MVP in Go and React last week.
I am having hard time implementing user accounts, subscriptions, auth in secure way.
We don't have devops/sysadmins, so i am responsible for all servers to.
I've been thinking if it's worth having any database (for user accounts, subscription) because then i will be responsible for backups/recovery etc...
Since, I am the only programmer of the startup for now, I think best would be to let some other company store accounts, subscriptions, etc..
The core app database is DynamoDB, so it's responsible for its backup and recovery. <comment><USER2> There are a number of services that offer user management:

[https://aws.amazon.com/cognito/](https://aws.amazon.com/cognito/) [https://auth0.com/](https://auth0.com/)

You just need to provide a hook on the app/website to authenticate.

Not sure if you can completely get away from doing any kind of database. I bet you'll need to store some kind of user state. Again, try amazon dynamodb, or their Postgresql alternative, all cloud hosted with backups.

Now some comments:

\- Founders demanding "unhackable" implementation. Be clear, explain you'll do your best to ensure that is the case, but even large companies with 1,000s of developers and security professionals are still getting hacked. Explain there is no way you can provide a guarantee (so that later it does not become reason for dismissal or something like that). And whoever will guarantee unhackable solution is simply lying.

\- If I understand correctly, there are 2 founders (idea people), and you are the first programmer. If that is the case, you are the sole person responsible for implementation, design, support, hardware, deployment, networking.. and other stuff. And you got 6% of equity... I would question that.

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER3> Just keep looking for a real job. You and your "founders" are both clearly in over your heads...</comment>


An iPhone user's take on the Galaxy Nexus - <AUTHOR> http://www.thetechblock.com/articles/2011/galaxy-nexus-review-from-an-iphone-users-perspective/

<comment><USER2> maybe the best review yet

<comment><USER3> i've never owned an Android and while I've considered the possibility, I think this review nails it right on the head. looks like i'm sticking with iOS for the foreseeable future.</comment></comment>


Apple to create virtual social app store environment - <AUTHOR> http://business2press.com/2010/02/09/apple-creating-virtual-social-app-store-environment/

<comment><USER2> i hope they don't release something stupid like this. yay, more ways to waste time online.</comment>


Leaving Mozilla - <AUTHOR> http://robert.ocallahan.org/2016/03/leaving-mozilla.html <comment><USER2> I've never heard about rr [http://rr-project.org/](http://rr-project.org/)), his tool to record program execution and debug it afterwards. The alleged 1.2x slowdown in execution is negligible. The ability to reverse in time is almost a nirvana. I'm sad I didn't have it when I used to program C++. Hope he succeeds in his new endeavor. We'd all win big.

Does anyone knows of similar tools for Python and in-browser Javascript?

<comment><USER3> Sounds very similar Green Hills Software's TimeMachine for embedded applications.

<comment><USER4> My thoughts were very similar to yours. In 1992, when I started out in embedded on a Philips 8051 and debugging it was via an ICE and had direct visibility and control of the 8051.

The ICE would be connected to a bonded out version of the 8051 and I was almost able to capture every single clock cycle of 8051's execution. When I hit a failure, I would just replay the trace and see what went wrong.

It looks like the folks on the big machines have caught up :-)

<comment><USER5> I had access to a Huntsville Microsystems ICe that used a bog-standard - non- bonded-out - 68008 in harness. I had scripting tools that would capture and replay all the registers to back the machine up.

That HMI was a brilliant machine.

It's really the last debug tool I ever used besides AVR, PIC and one ARM JTAG for doing BSP work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I worked with Robert at Mozilla for many years. He might be the most talented software engineer I've ever met, and he's a strong candidate for nicest person as well. An absolute pleasure to work with. Mozilla will miss him dearly but some other project (apparently rr) just got really lucky.

<comment><USER7> rr is roc's baby ;-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> From reddit to answer the question some might pose ("who?"):

> One of Mozilla's most senior engineers who has worked on Mozilla projects as > a contributor and employee for well over a decade particularly working in > the graphics code and helping make native audio and video in the browser a > reality.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/48ix55/robert_ocall...](http://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/48ix55/robert_ocallahan_is_leaving_mozilla/d0k5bay)

<comment><USER9> Great! Now how about the next question:

"Why?"

I suppose it's nice to know that he is a big deal but as someone who doesn't follow mozilla religiously a little more background is always appreciated.

<comment><USER10> Why is he leaving? That's covered in the OP: he wants to devote his full-time attention to working on rr, a reversible debugger for native code that imposes impressively low overhead, and possibly spin it into a startup.

<comment><USER11> I think roc would give me a sly smile for pointing out that this doesn't really answer the "why". It's what he's going to do after he leaves. Doesn't quite answer _why_ he's leaving.

<comment><USER12> He just wants to build a startup out of some cool tech and get rich. There's no conspiracy or dirty laundry here.

<comment><USER13> My, cynical much? Seems to me that 10+ years at a non-profit, and choosing to live in a place outside the traditional startup locations (New Zealand) with fewer networking opportunities, might indicate fairly little interest in that exact trajectory, for those exact reasons.

But what do I know, I'm just another ten-year Mozillian myself. And if or when I leave, it'll also surely be to get filthy rich at a startup, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> And for those that have no idea what rr is: [http://rr- project.org/](http://rr-project.org/)

So no, he is not leaving for "rest and relaxation"

<comment><USER15> To be fair, people also think "rest and relaxation" is amazing, and we probably need to capture some of the value of this technology via a for-profit company as well.

<comment><USER16> I would pay to be able to time travel and replay my rest and relaxation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, it's the end of an era.

I wish him the best of luck. rr is really awesome and deserves even more attention.

([http://rr-project.org/](http://rr-project.org/))

</comment><comment><USER18> Regarding RR he says:

> we probably need to capture some of the value of this technology via a for- > profit company

I hope this doesn't mean making it proprietary. I mean obviously a person gets to decide how to best compensate themselves for the fruits of their labor. But I've seen too many compelling technologies fail to achieve the impact they could have because they were proprietary.

I mean, DTrace languishes despite being open-source, because it wasn't open- source _enough_

<comment><USER19> There's a decent market for selling consulting consulting services on top of open source technology. Being the expert on applying an open source technology to solve specific problems comes with a decent rate card.

<comment><USER20> You're still selling your labour rather than a product, though. It's possible to be well off doing that, but basically impossible to become ludicrously rich.

<comment><USER21> He didn't say his goal is to become ludicrously rich. He said he has ideas that Mozilla can't and shouldn't provide resources to realize, so some for profit company would work better for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thanks Robert for signing up for StackOverflow just to answer my question [http://stackoverflow.com/q/34488237](http://stackoverflow.com/q/34488237)

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not familiar with Robert or his work, but I quite liked this post. The brevity and honesty was refreshing. I couldn't help but feel excited at the end!

</comment><comment><USER24> Reverse debugging has been around for several years, but hasn't seemed to be widely adopted. Which seems kind of unfortunate, as the concept of it looked really useful.

Does rr make reverse debugging much easier than it's previously been in gdb or something? :)

</comment><comment><USER25> I've tried to use rr on LibreOffice but had no luck whatsoever. :(

<comment><USER26> Please file an rr issue. I've had it working in the past.

<comment><USER25> Just saw this - will do!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> rr ([http://rr-project.org/](http://rr-project.org/)) is a piece of magic. I've heard lots of people talk about using it in wild and awesome ways.

The second part of a magic trick is to connect it to your audience. Making time-travel style debugging is... not easy, but possible. Making it _relevant_ to people, across languages and other conceptual domains, is hard.

If your next work is tackling this, good luck and godspeed :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Great work; Great song!

</comment><comment><USER29> Wonder if that's the end of Mozilla's only southern hemisphere office in Auckland.

<comment><USER10> I know of at least one other NZ Mozillian (Nick Cameron, on the Rust project) but I'm not sure if he works remotely or at an office.

<comment><USER30> There were about ten NZ Mozilla employees when I worked there a year ago. Not all at the Auckland office but there were plenty there to keep the office utilized at the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If and only if there is a way to debug network traffic like I am stopping at this router and hop to the next router.

</comment><comment><USER32> "we probably need to capture some of the value of this technology via a for- profit company"

Why?

<comment><USER33> Perhaps they don't want to end up having to beg [0, 1] for donations so that they can maintain a high quality application while also being able to afford trivial niceties like "food" and "housing."

[0] [https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email- encrypti...](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encryption- software-relies-on-one-guy-who-is-going-broke)

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2014/04/tech-g...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2014/04/tech-giants-chastened-by-heartbleed-finally-agree-to-fund- openssl/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> he just committed 7 hours ago. [https://github.com/mozilla/rr/commit/ef7691ac8a25ec9767ba744...](https://github.com/mozilla/rr/commit/ef7691ac8a25ec9767ba7446e124bda45d192044)

<comment><USER35> Yes, per the blog post he plans to spend more time working on rr than he thinks it's reasonable for Mozilla to have to support:

 _And now there 's rr. People think it's amazing, and it is, but we're only scratching the surface of what could be done. I'm bursting with ideas, and realizing them will require a lot of resources, resources that Mozilla cannot and should not provide --- we probably need to capture some of the value of this technology via a for-profit company. We can change the way people debug software, and in its own way that may be as important as my Web platform work, and it's work I desperately want to do._</comment></comment>


The Bias of 'Professionalism' Standards - <AUTHOR> https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_standards <comment><USER2> I would tend to agree with this. Except in the UK it isn't purely based on colour but based on class. White working class kids who come from coastal towns are some of the most deprived and underrepresented segments of the UK population as a whole.</comment>


Silicon Valley Investor Jason Calacanis Loses It over TopTal Shenanigans - <AUTHOR> https://www.exaronews.com/silicon-valley-investor-jason-calacanis-loses-it-over-toptal-shenanigans <comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear Co-Founders Taso and Breanden's perspective on this.

<comment><USER2> Well Breanden is currently suing Taso because he never got any equity either and Taso is counter suing Breanden for fraud. Probably will be awhile before everything gets sorted out.

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw the filings but Breanden's silence is deafening. It would be good if Jason could get him on his show to find out what the equity deal was when they formed the company.

<comment><USER3> His lawyers probably told him to stay quiet.

That company is screwed. I won't be using it anymore.

Boycott bad leaders.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to spend your day when you are searching for the next idea? - <AUTHOR> When you are searching for the next project/startup to work on, what kind of things should you do to fill up your day?
With so much free time on my hands, I find it quite difficult to not get distracted by video games or mindlessly browsing the Internet.  The devil finds work for idle hands.
It seems like ideas for projects/startups don't really come about if you sit down and just think super hard.  Ideas usually come to me spontaneously from some life experience, so it doesn't seem like I can force it.  Unless I am doing it wrong somehow...
One thing I tried to do is to just work on various side projects.  But I find it really hard to work on a project without a clear vision on what I want the project to become.  I just lose interest and stop.
I find that I can only persevere with a project when I have a clear vision on what it will become.
It's been quite awhile since I felt genuine excitement about working on something.  I know what that feels like and every day I'm trying to find a way to find that excitement again.
So how do you go about living each day when you are unsure of what you want to work on? <comment><USER2> My suggestion is to keep a notebook with you at all times, and keep track of the following 3 things:

# 1. Every time you need to do something, but you don't don't know how to do it.

Chances are you aren't the only one who doesn't know how to do it.

So once you learn how to do it, write a tutorial and then publish it on the web. The advantage of writing something soon after you learnt it yourself, is you remember which bits were tricky. (If you leave it too long, everything becomes obvious in hindsight and so you think what you write is obvious and thus maybe not worth explaining, writing or sharing.)

Get some feedback and then sell a premium version of it.

# 2. Every time you want to do something but you don't want to do it.

Chances are that you aren't the only one who doesn't want to do it, either.

It is said, the only things people either pay for are fun, knowledge, time, or safety.

So if you have an engineering mindset, you might be inclined to figure out how to automate or outsource this task. Once you have streamlined this for yourself, consider offering this same service to others.

#3. Every time a product or service that you already have, frustrates you.

Chances are that you aren't the only one with the same frustration.

What is the smallest modification you could make to the existing product that would eliminate this frustration.

Cloning / reverse-engineering a product for MVP is almost always faster than building a new product out of thin air. So then build this product and then share it on the web. Get some feedback and if positive, sell an improved version of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> You should first ask if you really even want to make something. As developers, we like building stuff and solving problems, but sometimes you truly are just "forcing it". The biggest problem for me isn't deciding what to build, it's finding the time to make something. When my time is so constrained, I find myself prioritizing higher pursuits in my life than just hacking on projects.

Personally, I only make something when a problem becomes so annoying or time consuming, that I'm forced to make it. This is why you should always do things the hard way or manual way first before automating it and only then can you say "Wow, this could make money".

Contrary to what others have mentioned, I advise against keeping a notebook on you at all times. You end up obsessing over things and overdeveloping the idea and much of it is wasted effort. If a concept for a project/idea you randomly think of is truly good, you'll remember it, otherwise it wasn't really that important. The exception to this rule is if if the scope of what you want to do or the problem is very large and requires tons of research, such as developing a new programming language or OS, etc, and not just an app or farming ads.

Overall, I would say to keep your process organic and invest more time in learning new things than you do on gambling on what may be half baked ideas. When I'm not sure what to build and have time to, I just buy a book on a subject I'm interested in, that has some overlap with the idea and but more so with what I'm interested in as an individual—-hell, maybe consider writing a book. Otherwise, be very experimental and conduct small hypothesis tests, starting with your largest to smallest, to make conclusions and _do_ keep a notebook of them. This is simply a matter of taking inventory of what assumptions/conjectures you have and either rejecting them or failing to. What I usually do is take an assumption and do the exact opposite; if, say, you wanted to make a new chat app, then write an essay on why making a new chat app is a bad idea and publish it. You'll be surprised how much software out there is "broken by design".

</comment><comment><USER4> This works for me (when I have the time):

\- keep a notebook with you all the time. Get in to a "mode" where you collect ideas (shitty or not :) ). Similar to to the photographers look when walking through the city you might end up seeing ideas you where not open to see before.

\- Get out of the house. Go ta a cafe, to the river, woods etc. Helps focusing and "doing work".

\- For finding ideas I use sort of a systematic exploration (prefer a keyboard over a notebook for that one). I guess it helps that I enjoy doing this.

 _Systematic Exploration:_

\- find constrains or focus

\- see what fits

\- once you found something explore in depth

Constrains/Focus:

\- I'm good at UI and computers

\- I'm fascinated by the nature of information

\- I won't be able to build AI

Possible Fit:

\- I can see problems in organizing information, maybe there is something.

Explore:

\- So what is "organizing information"? Writing down, re-organizing, consuming again. How do they relate? If I can record everything, is that good? Nope, need to be good for consumption or my knowledge doesn't help at all...

\- So what might be wrong is a lack of focus on later consumption when taking notes, how can we improve that? Where do people take notes, can I modify that environment? Here we are getting closer to a product...

There is more approaches to the exploration, I could also start with: What costs time and effort in my work? Can I make it more efficient?

Also get used to 98% of the ideas not working out or having flaws when sleeping over them for a night. You will get better at ideas and once you have one worth perusing it will also give you new ideas or morph into another one (nothing ever goes as planned).

</comment><comment><USER5> In such times, I spend most of my time studying products that I use. Understand what makes them work, why people are buying, who is buying etc It just help train your mind to identify what matters when building a successful product

I have also started blogging, which helps me organise my research and past learning

</comment><comment><USER6> The interplay between CS innovation and computer games goes all the way back to the days of spacewar and Ken Thompson's chess programs.

With this in mind, I put together a free linux compendium of classic PC simulation games: [https://alternativeto.net/software/esports-for- engineers/](https://alternativeto.net/software/esports-for-engineers/)

This was a way of building up momentum to work on more serious projects.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think I am sort of similar. Most of my ideas are spontaneous products involving the combination of one or more disciplines and/or life experiences.

I would focus on hobbies and maybe look at combining it with software. For example, I think a beekeeper in Sweden created an app that can identify and count varroa mites on bees.

</comment><comment><USER8> > Ideas usually come to me spontaneously from some life experience, so it > doesn't seem like I can force it. You already have the answer. Relax. > Distract yourself temporarily with some gardening where you're not > concentrating on the main problem. Gardening is good for your health in many > ways.

</comment><comment><USER9> Entertain some hobbies. You'll find when you are fishing everyday that you start to have ideas on how you can improve the fishing experience for yourself and possibly others.

If you have a hard time finishing side projects, then work on a smaller or simpler idea that you can finish in a weekend or two.

</comment><comment><USER10> I studied many different things and read many books.

I'm about to put down my projects and work with some others on their idea. Maybe you too can find another's project to work on rather than starting one from scratch?

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe get a job. A job gives you two things: problems and a context in which people pay for solutions. You can then use these pains as ideas of problems to solve.</comment>


Ask HN: What 3rd party library do you wish existed? - <AUTHOR> What is some piece of functionality that you wish existed as open source?<p>* An iOS calendar plugin<p>* An Android port of UIActionSheet<p>* A serialization library<p>* Etc. <comment><USER2> A good IRC server, not client library - I want something where I can basically register channels and react to events in those channels. There's things like Twisted but it's very low level.

I've got a few applications I'd like to use it for, things like voip.ms's SMS. There are some extremely good IRC client and bot libraries, but nothing quite like I'd want on the server side.

I've been considering implementing it myself, but I keep bouncing back and forth about learning Rust first or just doing it in Python and calling it a day... Then I get big lofty ideas about a common IRC server being run by a daemon where other processes would connect to it via some IPC and have a nice client library where they could register channels and have control over just those channels.

<comment><USER3> Also push notifications, so i could write a lightweight client for mobile devices. I would so much love that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish there was a modern cross platform gui library with gpu acceleration (like QtQuick) with a permissive / non *GPL license.</comment>


A guy who runs his life with index cards - <AUTHOR> http://flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/sets/72157594200490122/ <comment><USER2> Becareful hackers, I don't think we want to see pictures on this site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't Trevor Blackwell once try something like this?

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess I am the 100% opposite of that person :-/</comment>


Digg launches Newswire - <AUTHOR> http://digg.com/newswire

<comment><USER2> For a bit more context behind what we've done here, we also have a blog post at [http://about.digg.com/blog/sifting-for-diamonds-with-the- dig...](http://about.digg.com/blog/sifting-for-diamonds-with-the-digg- newswire) .

I know a few of us read HN as well, and would be glad to answer any questions on the Newswire product or implementation (in brief: Redis).

<comment><USER3> All due respect, I couldn't gather from <http://digg.com/newswire> what exactly Newswire is / does / is different from. You can't rely on a blog post to explain a site feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looked at the link, and what do you know "Top N things something" is on the third spot of apparently notable news feed. I appreciate digg's efforts to stay relevant, but I'm sorry, this is not a _news_ wire.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope their user enjoys it. ;-).

</comment><comment><USER6> Give me something that opens my eyes.

All I see at the site is: "beautiful goat", "measuring beard", "10 year old hot model". That's a crap as one can get!.</comment>


France is working hard to avoid becoming a digital colony of the US or China - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-france-silicon-valley <comment><USER2> Era of Non-international Internet (or Non-worldwide World Wide Web) coming...</comment>


The Weak Link in Full-Disk Encryption (PDF) - <AUTHOR> http://citp.princeton.edu/pub/coldboot.pdf

<comment><USER2> Good article and I think you are doing some very interesting research.

My problem with this type of research though is the amount of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) it generates. Your attacks are viable if certain very precise conditions are in place i.e.:

[+] device has not been shut down for a period of time(you can probably advice what that is) [+] the attacker knows and cares enough to try a cold boot attack and recover keys from the DRAM, and doesn't have any other easier options available to them to get the data [+] they are able to take the memory out and store it in ultracool conditions [+] the user has not applied another level of encryption on top for really sensitive files e.g. PGP file / email encryption

I mean if I was the US, Chinese, Russian governments or organized crime and wanted something on someone's laptop I would just kidnap them or hold their family hostage and ask for the password. Although Truecrypt hidden operating system was designed as some mitigation to this type of attack

</comment><comment><USER2> I had a question on my blog: [http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/09/3-million- reasons-to-encr...](http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/09/3-million-reasons-to- encrypt-your.html)

Have you tried or are you aware of anyone sucessfully using a cold boot attack on Blackberry or other mobile phone memory to extract encryption keys?

</comment><comment><USER3> More than 2 years old... But I digress.

The real lesson here is that generally, physical access is ultimate access.

</comment><comment><USER4> loop-AES can apparently prevent this type of attack. See the paragraph about key scrubbing in their README file: <http://loop-aes.sourceforge.net/loop- AES.README>

</comment><comment><USER5> So it seems that the fix for losing data on hung PCs is similar to that for involuntary amputees: gather up the bits you need, shove them on ice and get yourself as quickly as possible to someone who knows what to do with them.

</comment><comment><USER6> What worries me about it is simply the fact that just a few single-bit errors can make the entire disk unusable. Backup, backup, backup!</comment>


Non-google sites send cookie requests through google search - <AUTHOR> http://16.media.tumblr.com/aVHUeXjsAk65h49ml7z1jlbLo1_500.png

<comment><USER2> This isn't news. Google will add a link tag and prefetch directive to links that it's confident you'll click on. There's a greasemonkey script that will identify prefetched resources:

<http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/38841>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Bigger image:

<http://inertcom.com/goog_cookie.png>

<comment><USER3> No, they're not doing that, it's Firefox's pre-fetching that does that. It's fetching parts of the linked sites, and in doing so, the site is trying to set a cookie.

Google has nothing to do with this.

<comment><USER2> No, Google is directing your browser to prefetch the linked site by inserting

        <link rel="prefetch" href="http://example.com">

for links they think you'll visit.

[http://tr.ashcan.org/2008/12/keeping-tabs-on-googles- confide...](http://tr.ashcan.org/2008/12/keeping-tabs-on-googles-confidence- with-greasemonkey.html)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_prefetching></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla is bleeding talent from its Autopilot division - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/08/report-tesla-is-bleeding-talent-from-its-autopilot-division/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion from yesterday based on the original WSJ article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15092139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15092139)

</comment><comment><USER3> Tesla marketed the dream of AI assisted driving and the people behind the tech are taking full advantage (read: cashing in) while they can.

What I wonder is how effective these individuals will be outside of Tesla. Are they greater than the sum of their parts?

</comment><comment><USER4> Already posted today.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where?</comment></comment>


Can Anyone Stop Facebook? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2237376/

<comment><USER2> I have one facebook account with a totally fake profile that I used once to view someone's photos. I'm done with facebook, but I guess my once-only fake account still counts towards the growing number of facebook users.

I am surprised by how pervasive facebook is. I insist that people post their photos on flickr or some other service because I don't want to use facebook. They in turn insist that I sign up to facebook just to see their photos.

No, I can't stop facebook but, I don't have to use it either.

<comment><USER3> You're in the absolute minority with your fake profile.

I've been a heavy fb user for 5 years and can't recall the last time I saw a fake profile.

<comment><USER4> I completely disagree. I have a fake facebook profile that I use to access useful groups / access content from organizations that use it.

I would absolutely hate to use my real profile as I find the whole 'incoming' side of it intrusive and desperate.

The last thing is need is to have to deal with all the useless drivel people would be expecting me to take part in with a real profile.

I would also say that at least 4 of my friends do the same.

<comment><USER3> Don't confuse how _you_ use fb with the overwhelming majority of users. We are not the average user.

Yes I have a few accounts too. But my mom, my sister, my hundreds of uni friends have incredibly personal stuff on their fb profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have to ask of that article, though, how many people are actively using Facebook nowadays (as in, how many login everyday and actually do something), too. It never mentions it like a lot of articles about Facebook do (although I suspect it's a lot). I ask this because my Facebook usage has declined greatly since graduating from college last year and it's really gone down since they introduced the stream and became more Twitter-like. I tend to sign onto Facebook maybe once every three weeks now. It doesn't help that my stream is populated by my friends' constant romps on Farmville or Mafia Wars and it just drags down the whole experience.

I've really left Facebook more as a living, breathing address book rather than anything else for now. I am much more likely to be on Twitter than Facebook. It also happens that I'll talk to people on Twitter and then eventually add them as friends on Facebook, but just continue talking to them on Twitter. It's even the case now where most of the folks from Facebook (and school) that I'd talk to on a daily basis have migrated over to Twitter and they're more active on Twitter than Facebook. We can't be the only ones doing that...

<comment><USER6> Well, that's highly anecdotal and as long as Facebook keeps growing your observation does not hold true for the majority of the users.

Everything goes in waves though, it lies in human nature to grow bored with sameness. Ten years ago there existed a community product in my country that had managed to capture 90% of all high-school students, and they seemed unstoppable. Now, the product is almost forgotten, they lost to other products, similar products, but people had just gotten tired of it and wanted something new, something cool, something different.

But ten years from now Facebook will probably be gone. It will be very interesting to see what replaces it though.

<comment><USER7> It depends if Facebook will be gone. Trust and reliance become significant things in stopping migration, I haven't changed from Google despite it being eternally the same because #1 I rely on it, #2 I trust it.

If facebook can get one, or both, of these from its 350 million users it has a significant chance to stick around. You also have to consider teen markets shift _much_ faster than adult markets. I know in my high-school a single thing could spread throughout the whole school, but when a new grade entered the viral spread had disappeared and they remained 'uninfected' by it. So any trend automatically lost 1/5 of its teen market if it didn't capture the new grade.

This happens less so with more mature crowds, who tend to be more loyal. You don't see people buying from the same car manufacturer time after time because it's an 'in thing', it's because they're loyal, which is in essence reliance and trust.

<comment><USER8> Google specifically avoids changing the user experience.

Facebook-today is, for my uses, much worse than Facebook-of-years-past.

In the past it was simplistic, elegant, and did one job and did it well. Now it is trying to be everything and is bloated, slow, and spammy. The signal-to- noise ratio is terrible and I can't find a way to turn off "Mafia Wars" spam.

<comment><USER7> > I can't find a way to turn off "Mafia Wars" spam.

On the notifications that display, hover over the top-right corner and an X should appear. It prompts to hide all notifications from the application.

Thankfully notifications are one thing Facebook is removing. Perhaps the signal-to-noise ratio will improve when they make the spamming more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Perhaps one day not long from now, everything on the Web will be a mere extension of Facebook." - a very optimistic view of the growth of FB , to put it mildly.

<comment><USER10> Sure. But remember that there was a time in recent memory where the notion that AOL would be a mere extension of the web was a very optimistic thought as well, or that some young upstart would knock AltaVista from king-of-the-hill in Search.

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."

<comment><USER11> +1, may be something new come and take it! It's just a luck for facebook that no other new startup screw them (Twitter is good, but too limited comparing to Facebook)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 2006: Can anyone stop MySpace? 1997: Can anyone stop Netscape? 1999: Can anyone stop Webvan?

etc. etc.

<comment><USER13> The first and last example never had anything close to the scale of facebook. Facebook is the first app of its kind to reach this scale. There was no lockin incentive with Netscape - quite the opposite.

I'm not saying facebook will last forever - just that it is easy to poke holes in your examples.

IBM and Microsoft are probably the best examples of decades long dominance that eventually began to decline.

<comment><USER14> Burger King gave McDonald's a run for its money sometime back in history. The person to "stop" Facebook will recognize that to beat Facebook, you can't me- too Facebook, and you have to provide something that Facebook can't duplicate either. Burger King offered a product that they touted as more sophisticated than the kiddie-image McDonald's. When McDonald's tried to follow suit, they fell flat on their face.

That said, I think there's more to be done in the social networking space than mere marketing differences. Twitter was just the first and probably simplest example of what you can do once you get away from the traditional count-my- friends social networking model.

<comment><USER13> Good points - but I have to say that the follower-count dynamic on twitter is totally uninteresting and unsustainable as a motivator for new users. It should have been hidden long ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Look at Facebook ... look at ChromeOS .... it's the same thing (only Facebook is further along). The business is data mining and advertising.

The issue will be who do you distrust the least.

Who is going to make it easiest to export my personal data to use somewhere else? Hopefully us geeks will keep pushing for this and then help everyone else follow.

Until then I feel like I'm just toying around with the flavor-of-the-month.

<comment><USER16> I don't trust any of them. That's why I don't have a Facebook page, I don't have a MySpace page, I don't use gmail or any of Google's services. I don't have a Twitter account. I do have an account on LinkedIn because my boss at my last job asked me to set one up, but I never update it.

<comment><USER17> I understand where you are coming from re: privacy issues, but aren't you also missing some real value?

I check Facebook 2 or 3 times a week to see what family and friends have been doing. With Twitter, I follow people into the same technologies that I am interested in, and I get a lot of interesting links.

re: gmail: I have never bought anything from a sponsored search link, but I do occasionally buy things from advertisement links on my email - also, sometimes I get an email from a customer asking me to help them with a problem and a useful link is on the right side of the customer email.

Sure, privacy issues are huge, but I think that people need to make a personal calculation of benefits vs. potential problems.

<comment><USER18> I have a very basic Facebook page, with just enough personal information so that people I've lost contact with over the years can find me if they wish to.

But I prefer to keep up with friends and family either in person, or via phone or email, and I don't update my own page more than once every few weeks.

I found Twitter to be far too expensive (in terms of wasted time) to be worth bothering with. It's not just the necessarily regular checking for new tweets, but the fact that this distracts me and breaks the flow of whatever I am supposed to be doing. I would guess that twitter users waste many hours per week (and possibly per day for heavy users) like this, in exchange for relatively few insightful comments or useful links.

I think it plays off people's desire for instant gratification, but the opportunity cost of using it is very high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As history teaches us, the answer is 'yes'. Personally, I think it most likely that Facebook will end up stopping Facebook, by failing to ameliorate ways that it currently annoys its users (or allows its users to annoy each-other) and by coming up with new and creative ways to annoy its users in the future. With one eye on recent history and the other on my crystal ball, I find it probably that future annoyances will come primarily in the form of privacy breaches.

Either that or I'll be the first up against the wall when Facebook becomes SKYNET.

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems to me the services facebook provides would be better provided on the operating system. It would have to be built in though - people don't want to download anything.

If Apple got into the business of social networking, they could fracture the community.

I stopped using facebook much when it got bloated and slow. This tends to be what always kills these massive sites. Someone will figure out a way to do better than them and the internet elite will jump shit and eventually there will be more than one facebook.

</comment><comment><USER20> Facebook's business model is busted. Costs are higher than revenue per user. The model has to change, become a search gateway, start selling products people want to buy, or cut costs features and charge high bandwidth users.

<comment><USER7> Facebook should be cornering its games market with online payments. Charge $5 for 450 'game points', basically you charge $5 for 450 real-world equivalent 'cents' that you can spend arcade style in whatever game you want.

No facebook game will ever get a payment from me while they're relying on third party providers. There's a slim chance they'll get my money through paypal (since I've had a paypal account longer than I've had a facebook account), but as the money you pay goes into solely one game there's no interoperability. Every developer is stuck developing their own way to implement credits using companies that have no reason to care.

People are going to trust facebook, but they're not going to trust 'cherry credits' or whatever suckass companies you know nothing about that you're signing your credit card information over to. Facebook is already trusted by its users (or they wouldn't be users), which gives them an unbelievable edge without them having to play unfairly against the other game credit providers.

<comment><USER21> _People are going to trust facebook, but they're not going to trust 'cherry credits' or whatever suckass companies you know nothing about that you're signing your credit card information over to._

Judging by the ridiculous amounts of money that social gaming companies are hauling in, this is clearly not true.

<comment><USER7> Actually the social gaming companies that are actually hauling any real money in (IE Zynga) sell their credits themselves. You either pay Zynga directly by credit card, or you can pay indirectly through paypal. Those are the only two options, but as for games on facebook the points are still only going into a single game and cannot be used in different games by one developer, or in games by different developers, like a facebook controlled 'currency' could.

Essentially, it would be if Apple didn't allow you to put money onto your account. You instead have to use your credit card to make a transaction on _every single song purchase_. It would be stupid, and Apple wouldn't make nearly as much money as it could.

> We've found once you get into these digital-only goods and services there's > massive opportunity for fraud. We couldn't find a single company that could > manage or solve that problem for us. We had to build the whole > infrastructure in-house. We had to go out and get relationships with credit- > card processing companies. \- Mark Pincus

Facebook would have a unique opportunity to step in and dominate this market. If Zynga cannot control these transaction companies, how can smaller developers? Like I said, tapping into this market could mean Facebook could not only boost revenues to many of these social gaming companies, but it could be taking profits off of every transaction. 5/6ths of Zynga's users are from social networking sites, meaning Facebook could easily take profits from 5/6ths of Zynga's users by being trustworthy. There are then plenty of other developers in the market, especially thousands of smaller developers, who could make Facebook hundreds of millions that they're not tapping.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Overview of Deterministic Database Systems (2018) - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> missing link?</comment>


We're Being Sued For Linking To Shopzilla - <AUTHOR> http://www.datadial.net/blog/index.php/2013/04/18/were-being-sued-for-linking-to-shopzilla/ <comment> grey-area I suspect datadial know exactly what they're doing here - as revenge for this alleged petty act by the lawyers they're now google-bombing the term shopzilla (by deliberately including so many refs to shopzilla in this new blog post), and hoping to teach them a lesson about who is in control of links. They're already on the second page for a simple search for shopzilla, and I'd expect them to move up closer to the top if this gets more publicity and links in from other sites. Does it deserve it?

A very strange attempt by Shopzilla in the first place to control links to them, so it would be interesting to hear their side of this story. I looked up datadial - they're a London SEO shop, and their original blog post is typical of SEO blogs - lots of links to random sites strung together into a blog post to boost their blog's ranking for that topic - ecommerce in this case. I have to wonder if this little storm in a teacup isn't more beneficial to them the more absurd it sounds and the stormier it gets - even if it dies down later the benefit will still be there for them.

It's strange to see the court of public opinion function on sites like reddit and HN - the more controversial and snappier the original post, the more traction it gets, and nuances and truth are lost in the rush to condemn based on a very limited set of facts.

<comment><USER2> I caught on to that about halfway through the article -- as I'd imagine most readers did.

It seems a bit much to me. Someone from Shopzilla responded in the comments with an apology and explanation of what had happened. Seemed good enough for me, mistakes do happen and I'd be surprised if this was started by Shopzilla with malicious intent.

<comment><USER3> > We flag up thousands of backlinks that are potentially spam

I don't know if this is good enough. Isn't he basically admitting that they send out thousands of C&D orders for linking? He's just apologizing for picking on someone with the means to fight back against this bullying.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that sounds like a pretty bullshit apology. He's admitting that this is standard practice for them, and apologizing for getting caught.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's a clever ploy to get some eyeballs out of a legal case that isn't worth the paper it is printed on.

But if some company is hell bent on suing you for linking to them and you want to get mileage out of it by going to the media with the story you're going to have to weigh your options carefully. Just remove the link, problem goes away no need for legal representation and you get on with your life.

Or you milk it for all it is worth, eventually go to court and you're vindicated in your laymans interpretation of the law. Or you find that the court - for whatever reason - sides with your opponent. Now you have a problem, and don't say it can not happen, there is no such thing as a slam- dunk lawsuit.

Pick your battles, carefully and make sure that you make the right choice.

In this particular case I think the plaintiff is dead wrong, they don't have a leg to stand on but it could still cost you a lot of time, money and effort to prove that and in the end it is _their_ loss not yours if they lose their link.

For more information:

[http://searchengineland.com/in-wake-of-penguin-could-you- be-...](http://searchengineland.com/in-wake-of-penguin-could-you-be-sued-for- linking-to-others-121449)

<comment><USER6> They're not actually being sued, are they? That part seemed a bit dishonest to me. It looks like so far they have only been served a particularly obnoxious cease and desist letter.

<comment><USER7> Indeed, that appears to be the case. It would be a hilarious irony if Shopzilla turned around and _actually_ sued them for libel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The hyperbole and tone of the article is difficult to read through.

Have you thought about writing a simple letter to the solicitors saying something like "Hello, you sent us a letter. Would you like to review our webpage here to see if we actually are infringing on your client's trademark? We seem to have been caught in some automatic system."

Be careful about 'no legal reason to take down an url' - there are a few. DMCA requests, anti-deeplinking causes in ToS / AUP, etc etc. See the Shetland Times vs Shetland News.

<comment><USER9> DCMA request in the UK???

<comment><USER10> It only needs the host, registrar etc to be hosted in USA. In this particular case their domain is registered at safenames which have a US location: <http://www.safenames.net/AboutUs/Locations.aspx>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Shopzilla probably has bad links that are driving down its SEO and page rank on Google and they are trying to get low quality sites to remove those bad links. It is totally OK for them to want to have links removed to their site, since some of them may be damaging their SEO and hence their earnings. Maybe the method used is a little over the top, but there is probably nothing wrong with their intentions.

If someone asks you to remove a link to their site in a post where you criticized them, I would feel uncomfortable with it, but in this case you and them are acting in good faith, just remove the link. That they used a lawyer just means they really want you to remove the link.

Edit: Uh oh, looks like this innocuous reply is not compatible with uncritical outraged HN readers looking to punish someone, anything for all the bad things Shopzilla has done to them and the world. Let the downvotes commence I guess.

<comment><USER12> It's OK for them to _want_ links removed. It's entirely beyond the pail to be able to enforce removal at lawyer-point just because it's damaging their SEO. Why should their SEO efforts be protected by law from random passers-by? The law isn't there to protect their profits.

<comment><USER11> Shopzilla just wants the links removed. This method has probably worked for them. They don't care if HN's never ending stream of daily outrage focuses on them for a short time (before moving on to a new thing to be outraged about tomorrow). They just want the links removed.

I'm not defending them. I'm just trying to make sense out of it.

<comment><USER13> People "just wanting" something without regard for the consequences to others are acting like sociopaths.

<comment><USER14> I'm sure the fear of being called a sociopath has scared many people from doing what they want...

If a business just wants something, can it really be sociopathic in the same way a person wants something?

<comment><USER13> Businesses can't "want" anything.

But if we, for our analytical convenience, pretend they are people and therefore can want things, then yes, they can be sociopathic.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious, from what you stated: what businesses would you consider to be sociopathic?

<comment><USER13> The most obvious category are things that have already been made illegal. Like Ponzi schemes. Or waste management companies that engage in illegal dumping. Or the Chinese food companies that were substituting melamine for edible protein.

From there you get more subtle categories. Cigarette companies are legal, but sinister. People making magnetic healing bracelets: Do they believe in what they're selling? Some do, but I'm sure some just ship whatever sells. There are many financial companies that I expect are effectively sociopathic, in that as long as they make a profit, they don't care what happens around them.

An interesting parallel is the charm and manipulative ability that people associate with sociopaths. In corporations, that's the advertising and PR departments.

<comment><USER14> Hmm, so in some sense all corporations (that at least have advertising and PR) can be considered sociopathic?

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't say that. Everybody is at least a little charming and manipulative, but that doesn't make everybody sociopaths. It's the lack of conscience and the focus on self-gratification.

<comment><USER14> So what is a person (or corporation) when they can clearly distinguish between right from wrong (has a conscience within their specific social context), but focuses on self gratification (or profit)?

<comment><USER13> I don't think being able to distinguish right and wrong is sufficient to say that somebody has a conscience. They also have to care. In particular, sociopaths are characterized by a lack of empathy and remorse, not by a lack of understanding.

Anyhow, if you tend a little in that direction, you're an asshole. A lot, and you're a sociopath. That's my view, anyhow.

<comment><USER14> Seeing this as your view, i think it is a fair assessment.

But there are some things that make me think a bit more:

[0]"They also have to care" [1]"sociopaths are characterized by a lack of empathy and remorse"

To establish one's caring ability [0], does one have to explicitly state that they care (to the public), or can that be a judgement coming from the massess from "whatever" basis makes up the moral code of their society that had been established by a relative minority group of people over time (which sometimes constitutes the tyranny of the majority)?

And again with [1], is this a self characterization, or an external one?

From the examples above by you before, it seems like sociopaths are more than likely in a position of power that was given by a group of people. If so, what does that say about the group of people (or massess) that empower the sociopaths?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is so absurd that it is probably a scam. You should make sure that "Fox Williams LLP" was actually the sender of this note and that they represent Shopzilla (you should contact them).

</comment><comment><USER16> First time I've seen a business not want to be given free advertising.

But instead of just giving them a call (it's not difficult, they're both UK based) they're going to Streisand themselves some negative PR.

I'll wait for the statement from Shopzilla's top brass, just to see if it's ran by 1000 monkeys on computers.

<comment><USER17> Obligatory Wikipedia link for people not knowing the "Streisand effect": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know a couple of the people at Shopzilla, and they're not idiots. However, it should be borne in mind that Shopzilla belongs to EWScripps who aren't idiots either, but do have the money to prosecute a case for a very long time indeed if they are so inclined.

Anyway, I'd recommend the same thing: contact them and see if the law firm does, in fact, represent them and isn't just 'Prenda Law'ing.

<comment><USER19> EWScripps sold Shopzilla to Symphony Technology Group a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It looks like they have already retracted, apologised and offered wine and chocolate via the comments.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think the real crime in this story is L0.80 for a Twix!

<comment><USER22> And yet people still think twice before spending £0.69 on an app…

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Amount of damages incurred from linking to ShopZilla in a post that praises the same company: Less than -$0. I guess they should send them an invoice.

</comment><comment><USER24> It is unfortunate, but the integration of a link inside a page may affect it's page rank in google search results. This is enough, in my opinion, to justify the concern of the link target owner and legitimate the request to get the link removed. However, the harm, if any, needs to be established and proven for a trial to be successful I guess.

<comment><USER25> So, company A writes something accurate about company B. Company A's site is relatively new and the anchor text is something like 'click here'. Under your 'theory' company B would be entitled to go to court to force company A to remove the link.

Two questions:

\- does that keep with the spirit of the web? \- what happened to the concept of electronic freedom??

Needless to say, I think you're dead wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This reminds me of a case where a (very large) law firm sued a news site for linking to them: [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/02/linked_out.single.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> Why did Datadial then remove the link in the original article if believed they are irrefutably right?

The jurisdiction is not even the litigant-friendly US, it is the UK...

<comment><USER8> > _The jurisdiction is not even the litigant-friendly US, it is the UK..._

There was a case about 'deep linking' (and maybe framing?) from the early www. One Scottish news paper was linking to another Scottish newspaper.

(<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deeplinking#Court_rulings>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Dear DataDial: Paragraphs. They're a thing. Please learn how to use them. Your content is all but unreadable right now.

</comment><comment><USER29> We REALLY need some tech folks to get in office and work on some legislation.

<comment><USER30> Too bad old age or disease is really the only realistic way to get most of these technophobe, computer-illiterate fossils out of legislature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Beyond mental.

</comment><comment><USER32> Some years back, I had a guy try to tell me that an ordered list of common website links on his site was copyrighted (and that he would be suing me in court because I had those same links on my site).

He even wanted a public apology. I, of course, ignored all of this and he went away.

It's ridiculous what people will try to sue you about these days...</comment>


Microsoft's Edge browser is in serious trouble - <AUTHOR> https://www.computerworld.com/article/3242165/microsoft-windows/microsofts-edge-browser-is-in-serious-trouble.html <comment><USER2> I tried to like Edge. I gave it a try because work pushes it. But it is so bizarre. I'm not sure who their customer is. There's no save as, no view source, no home button, favorites are screwed up.

These are basic functions. Chrome and Firefox have it figured out. Who is Microsoft building this for? Even IE plain is better.

<comment><USER3> Without exception, everything that Microsoft has transformed into UWP has been worse. I don't quite know what the UWP dream is, but it's horrible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like Edge in general but it is very buggy. Dragging a tab away to create a separate window only works 2/3 of the time. It often just freezes without obvious reason. And this is where I only visit a few simple standard websites whilst at work. Very disappointing. Oh, and sometimes it will not work correctly when ordering from the Microsoft Store and so I have to use Chrome to place an order for Microsoft hardware! Nice.

<comment><USER5> I second that. Edge is fast and efficient, in my experience. But when I use it, it crashes just a little too often. I've never been a Chrome or Google kind of a guy, so I was actually using Edge instead until FF57 was released. I think they could also improve Edge by making the browser frame and controls a little less plain and blocky in terms of design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use it on my small weak 8 inch Windows 10 Dell tablet because it works much faster than Chrome on the weaker hardware. I like how it now has all the same extensions I use on Chrome. I also like how you can just double tap, like Safari IOS, to zoom to a frame. I still use Chrome on desktop as I am just used to it.

</comment><comment><USER7> This makes sense, but for me the question becomes.. why would bot creators choose Edge/IE and not some other browser? Random chance?

As a sidebar, I really enjoy when authors throw interesting colloquialisms that I've never heard before.

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

<comment><USER8> Because its pretty much guaranteed to already be on their target machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If Edge dies, the web will be left with only Gecko and Webkit rendering engines... :-(

<comment><USER10> And nothing of value was lost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Was forced to use it for work, it was hell.</comment>


Adobe Flash to cross-compile code from C, C++, Java, Python, and Ruby to ActionScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/02/26/adobe-extending-flash-platform

<comment><USER2> Sounds a lot like pressure from Silverlight's DLR allowance for multiple languages, doesn't it?

If so, this is a good example of competition "waking-up" age-old platforms (like Flash).

<comment><USER3> No kidding. Consider that as of April 2005, a Flex license had a $29,000 price tag (I haven't been able to find more recent numbers):

<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/12200>

Then, two years later, they announced that the Flex SDK would be free and eventually open source:

[http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/26/14024...](http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/26/140241)

...which was within a month after Microsoft released Silverlight.

<comment><USER4> As far as I can remember, Flex1 was a "server". This (I suppose)was an excuse for the outrageous price. Users would upload their MXML and AS files, then the server would spit out '.swf' files to client requests. A compiled swf was cached until new MXML or AS files were uploaded. It was a "one licence" per company approach, rather than one licence per developer one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> HTML >> Flash.

Personally, I absolutely LOATHE flash/flex only sites. They behave horribly on the usability side, lack simple stuff like 'back button' and text sizing, and they task/heat up the CPU like you wouldn't believe (especially on a Mac).

Flash has a purpose on the web... you can use it for various widgets that are impossible to do in HTML (say, recording and playing video and playing back animations and audio). But I'd never use it as a general presentation layer.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hm. This may make flash suddenly relevant to me and many others. Actionscript itself is weird, so I've avoided it. But python or ruby, that's workable. I wonder if they're going to do it at the bytecode level for java? That would open up a variety of other interesting languages.

What I want to know is: what's the value of this to Adobe? It's been apparent for ages that they're trying to claim platform share. But I don't understand what this buys them. Sales of developer tools? That can't possibly be very much. I can imagine it being 'strategic', but I don't know how.

Perhaps this is why I'm in a cubicle, not a boardroom. :)

<comment><USER7> actionscript is derivative of ECMAscript, it wasn't that hard to pick up

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> how about flash that I can run outside proprietary adobe players? This move is unimpressive, unsurprising and totally self-serving. It's goal is to suck more code into vendor-locked adobe space.

</comment><comment><USER9> Adobe Flash is aiming to become the Applet of the 2000's. They very well might pull it off - except that Flash content is not discoverable by search engine crawlers (startup idea anyone?)

<comment><USER10> A web spider that's run by out sourcing work to China. We could have hundreds of thousands people going to flash websites and entering the contents into a database. Would work flawlessly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe I'm missing something, but what's wrong with ActionScript? I've never used it, so I don't have much to go on besides the fact that it's based on ECMAScript/JavaScript. Being a superset of JS can hardly be considered a bad thing.

You still get the prototypes, dynamism, and functional programming of JS with AS, right?

<comment><USER12> ActionScript 3.0 is basically Java. We're using it at work, and, compared to JavaScript (with a good library), it's pretty uncomfortable. They've made it (optionally) classical and static. Prototypes, dynamism, and FP are pushed into the corner. It's really gross. The modularity seems kind of nice at first, but then you realize they wrote a bunch of mediocre libraries instead of building a good lang. At least it has E4X, which is very nice, but then, I've found JSON to often be the better approach anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sandboxed C/C++ bytecode? I'll believe it when I see it.

<comment><USER14> Believe it. <http://blip.tv/file/408241> (It gets interesting at 4:50)

<comment><USER15> You should pay closer attention.

The game is a Far Cry (pun intended) from DirectX 10. The demo was also on a Windows machine. Let's see the same demo on Linux.

The original poster is absolutely correct.

C++ written for KDE is going to run on Windows now. Well, having worked at Adobe when I was just out of college, I can say that they have VERY bright people there.

Bright enough to get C++ code written for Linux to run on Windows? in a VM? Which itself would be in a browser?

I have to think that VMWare or Parallels would have done that already if it was doable. Or, if it is doable, and just hard, VMWare and Parallels will do it better than Adobe in any case. Be assured, with the value inherent in such a product they WOULD release their own versions.

I can hear the Flash VM talking now:

Scenario 1:

Oh C++ code . . . you want me to run some Intel vectorized math routines? No problem . . . those Microsoft templates you got there are REALLY cool . . . uhh . . . well let me just get this Objective C library here on this shiny new MacBook Pro and . . . Oh Wait? . . . Well . . . Maybe I can try this GCC library and . . . SLASH!!!

<Leopard kills Flash VM process, and drags carcass home to feed cubs.>

Moral of the story: Predatory cats always target the slow ones.

Scenario 2:

Ahh C++ code . . . I get it now . . . you want to use this really cool GeForce 9xxx series card to do instancing. That is AWESOME!!! Let me get started on that for you . . . uh . . . ahh . . . OK so I'm an OpenGL context and you want me to make a DirectX call . . . Oh OK no problem . . . ahh . . . . umm . . . OK so I'm on Linux, can I ask a quick question? Your developer didn't supply you with a software DirectX 10 implementation did he?

<C++ code makes sad realization that both developer AND Flash VM are idiots>

Moral of the story: Even intelligent things, C++, can be put in situations where it looks really stupid.

Scenario 3:

Oh mapped memory? SURE, I'll just go over here to this pool of unused hard drive space and . . . THWOCK!!! THACK!!! WOCK!!! WHACK!!!

<Flash VM realizes that VISTA is actually a Dominatrix, and he is now being beaten about the head, neck and chest with the interrupt controller he asked for.>

Moral of the story: Something like unused hard drive space, or cross compilation, may sound REALLY good . . . but make sure you know who has a claim on it . . . because she might be a REAL bitch. Or worse . . . Microsoft.

Scenario 4:

Oh . . . multicore . . . umm . . . why don't I go ahead and kill myself now so you can get to the blue screen faster.

<Single gunshot is heard from the other room, system hangs without getting to the bluescreen, because Flash VM had problems even managing to commit suicide. The bullet went through its brain, but its vital organs were untouched.>

Moral of the story: Actually test claims before you start making plans, a lot of the potential technologies you want to use, or potential spouses you will meet, will make claims of intelligence, but there may not be too much between the ears.

<comment><USER14> ...

I don't think you fully understand what Adobe is doing -- they are compiling down to AVM2 bytecode using LLVM. And DirectX is abstracted out of Actionscript, so you gain the benefits of DirectX when it's available, but the AVM will resort to other means when it's not.

That Quake II demo is a completely self-contained flash animation, and will run anywhere Flash runs (including linux).

Edit: It sounds like some people think Adobe is promising to run ANY C++/Java/Whatever application in Flash. They're not. Some C applications however, like Quake II, can be coerced to run in Flash's single-threaded platform-agnostic environment. The developer who gave that presentation at Max described the work he had to do to emulate threading in order for Quake II to run. It wasn't easy, but I'm sure it was far easier than porting the whole codebase.

<comment><USER15> WRONG.

There is no SUITABLE replacement for DirectX instancing under OpenGL that would be available on other platforms. To say that you will get the benefits of DirectX where it is not available is to be disingenuous. Microsoft goes to great lengths to make sure that, even with a VM doing the work for you, game developers will find it difficult to

"gain the benefits of DirectX when it's available, but the AVM will resort to other means when it's not" - as you put it.

Over the years 100's of millions of dollars have been spent to ensure that you CAN'T do that. If you talk to Parallels or VMWare they will tell you that they can get DirectX 8 to work at times, Direct X 9 seldomly, and then they will have a good belly laugh while pointing at you when you ask them about virtualizing Direct X 10. This is the way things are for now, until the requisite extensions have been developed for OpenGL.

This is not just me spouting off at the mouth. The entire gaming industry has grudgingly accepted this for quite some time. Steve Jobs has been looking for ways around it forever. If Adobe has people who can do this, they won't have them for long, because Steve is sending over a limo I guarantee it.

And what about proprietary templates? Adobe is going to translate all of those too.

Multicore programming? Gonna translate between the Intel multicore stuff and . . . say . . . the Cell processor stuff?

Taking it further, we all know that CUDA code will work beautifully if the machine you're on happens to have an NVidia card, but what if you have an ATI card?

Don't even get me started on some of these templates for mapped memory management . . .

RESPONSE TO PARENT EDIT:

Thanx for clarifying the assertions you were making.

<comment><USER16> You're right, it's unlikely anyone would create a DirectX wrapper for the ActionScript VM. But really, who cares?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Performance?</comment>


Adobe acquires Behance - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/20/adobe-acquires-behance/ <comment><USER2> As one of the first 100 on the Behance platform, I think this is a fantastic acquisition for both sides. When a large corporation acquires a company you love there is often concern, but seeing how the Adobe + Typekit relationship played out I'm expecting great things.

<comment><USER3> Or Adobe + Phonegap. Adobe seems to do acquisitions pretty well.

<comment><USER4> or adobe + photoshop, adobe + illustrator, adobe + basically any product you can name.

let's not talk about the macromedia acquisition, though.

<comment><USER5> It transitioned people to using the same suite of products, which I think is huge for the creative industry at large; particularly with making it easier to transfer files from person to person for collaboration, delivery, etc.. Remember when some designers used Photoshop, some Fireworks, and some Corel Draw?

<comment><USER6> Fireworks was/ is for vector based graphics. That is a different use case from photoshop.

<comment><USER7> Fireworks a hybrid between vector and raster. It's for web/interface design, which has plenty of overlap with Photoshop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great for Behance and Adobe both, I think. Adobe has immensely powerful capabilities and Behance has a great network of creatives. Combined they could go far (I hope).

It's good to see a company in my same industry make it this far.

</comment><comment><USER9> Haven't used Behance for quite a while, but it would be awesome if it got integrated into Creative Suite (think Kuler). Great news & congratulations all involved.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm hoping the acquisition will mean more rapid development of ActionMethod, a beautiful product with some good ideas that just hasn't kept up.

<comment><USER11> Have you checked out Trello? I haven't used Action Method in several years so I can't quite remember the details, but on the surface at least they look fairly similar.

<comment><USER10> I am a heavy Trello user. I would say it, Asana, new Basecamp and Flow have pieces of ActionMethod in them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a great move! I hope Adobe doesn't mess it up, its an entire community they've acquired. With power comes responsibility and hope they wont use it to monopolize the design industry altogether.

</comment><comment><USER13> show me the money! how much did they get?</comment>


Democracy does not scale - free-one

Just look at history. Look at foreign politics of US, Russia, CCCP, ... Also look at the inherent violence behind tax extraction. One must admit that trade is more p2p/distibuted and that scales very well... <comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps. See also: [http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/04/_trial_version.ht...](http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/04/_trial_version.html) (not an endorsement).

It's an interesting discussion to have but it may not be a good fit for Hacker News in general and especially not with the short prompt you've posted. Consider writing a more in-depth blog post and submitting to, e.g., MetaFilter or Reddit if you want to have this discussion.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you're focused on the inherent violence of tax extraction, you may need to look at what happens in anarchy.

Somebody (I don't recall who, but I suspect a Gilded Age robber baron) said, "I love paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." Civilization has problems, don't get me wrong. Democracy has problems. But alternatives have at least as big problems.

And if you are classifying Russia and especially the CCCP as "democracy", your definition is probably flawed.

</comment><comment><USER3> You may find "The Ringelmann effect" to be an interesting footnote to this topic. It states that group members become less efficient as group size increases.

I'd be very interested to see you point out a form of governance which does scale. Even totalitarian regimes start to buckle under large population sizes.

</comment><comment><USER4> What?</comment>


DIY Meteor-like Realtime Functionality Using Socket.io and RethinkDB Changefeeds - <AUTHOR> http://www.scotthasbrouck.com/blog/2016/3/13/using-socketio-with-rethinkdb-changefeeds-to-build-a-reactive-backend <comment><USER2> RethinkDB changefeeds are great for dealing with data streams which are common to all users, but changefeeds can get tricky when you need to deal with hundreds of thousands of data streams which are more or less unique to each user (or unique to many small groups of users) - This is particularly true when you need to scale your app beyond a single process/instance/machine.

The approach described in this article may not be suitable for a lot of use cases. It's fine if all users shared the same central collection of Fruits (E.g. a giant Fruit basket)... But what if users were divided into many small groups and each group had its own independent Fruit basket? It becomes extremely difficult to manage all these unique changefeeds on the backend (especially if you have to scale beyond a single machine).

The team behind RethinkDB is currently working on a project called Horizon (previously called Fusion) which should solve this problem.

<comment><USER3> What approach would you take to solve the problem you describe of individual fruit baskets that can scale?

<comment><USER2> The simplest way to implement this is using a client-side pub/sub engine and have a channel subscription for each resource on the frontend.

So for example, if you have a Fruit basket with id 123 and you want to get realtime updates when that basket changes (E.g. new fruits are added or whatever), you could subscribe to a channel 'fruitbasket/123'.

You would have a separate channel for every basket but because the backend treats all channels in a generic way, the complexity on the backend remains minimal (and is handled by your pub/sub engine anyway).

You need to make sure that your pub/sub engine is good at handling lots of distinct channels (and is designed to be user-facing - A lot of pubsub engines like Redis are only designed for backend use). There are user-facing pub/sub SaaS services which you can hook into your app but they are a bit expensive.

If you want a self-hosted user-facing pub/sub solution, there are only two popular options:

\- SocketCluster [https://github.com/socketcluster/socketcluster](https://github.com/socketcluster/socketcluster)

\- Faye [https://github.com/faye/faye](https://github.com/faye/faye)

Both Faye and SocketCluster are good at handling lots of unique channels - Based on benchmarks I ran, both can handle the same load of about 10k new subscriptions per second (per CPU core). SC makes scaling across multiple CPU cores trivial so if you have an 8-core machine, you can handle 80K new subscriptions per second with SC out of the box. You can also scale with Faye but it will require a lot more work to get working.

Disclosure: I'm the main author of SocketCluster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great write up! I wrote about this idea last month, although in a less detailed way. I've also included a repository in my article with a simple React and Redux front end that demonstrates some of these concepts.

[http://www.andrewcoelho.com/essays/rethinkdb-realtime- apps/](http://www.andrewcoelho.com/essays/rethinkdb-realtime-apps/)

<comment><USER5> Hi a small note, it's impossible to see links on your blog, make them easier to recognize.

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted, underlined them. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One thing that I've never understood is why websockets instead of server sent events?

<comment><USER7> Possibly Internet Explorer support. Even Edge doesn't support them yet[1].

With deployments of HTTP/2 increasing, I think we'll see greater adoption of server sent events. At the time of writing, HTTP/2 and WebSockets are two incompatible standards. For non-latency sensitive applications (i.e. not games) it is very easy to implement a WebSocket like interface over HTTP/2 using SSE (server -> client) and POST requests (client -> server) with very little overhead (thanks to HTTP/2's multiplexing).

[1] [http://caniuse.com/eventsource](http://caniuse.com/eventsource)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> meatier is this but less DIY.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps downvoters thought you were making a joke? [https://github.com/mattkrick/meatier](https://github.com/mattkrick/meatier) is very appropriate to this discussion.</comment></comment>


The Nordic region is becoming a hothouse of entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21570834-nordic-region-becoming-hothouse-entrepreneurship-if-doubt-innovate?

<comment><USER2> Unless things have changed recently, Berlin still has fairly low rents and low living costs going for it -- giving people a fair amount of marginal space: <http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html>

Alexander Young (of Soundcloud) speaking about Berlin: "The atmosphere and culture in Berlin is very unique. Since the costs for living are still low, people can afford to only work a few hours per week, and do the stuff they want the rest of the time." [http://blog.twingly.com/2010/05/18/from- stockholm-to-berlin-...](http://blog.twingly.com/2010/05/18/from-stockholm-to- berlin-interview-with-soundcloud-ceo-alexander-ljung/)

That can't be said about Stockholm nor Helsinki.

<comment><USER3> tl;dr BERLIN IS AWESOME!

I just came back from Berlin (awesome couchdb conf @ co.up co-working space) and must say that the energy in a place like Kreuzberg is pretty intense.

The area around Rosenthaler Platz and Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Mitte also seemed kind of interesting but more akin to what I'm used to here in Vienna (neat and tidy).

I only had five days to experience the city but I do have thought about moving there already!

But yeah living in Vienna is so damn comfortable that it really is a difficult decision to go anywhere else.

We have a lot of co-working spaces too and I often meet local devs at coffee shops by coincidence (another strength of a rather small place). So everything being so nice is both a good and a bad thing I guess.

Vienna #1 at quality of life: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Survey>

Bottom line for me though - the youthful vibes in Berlin are a very special thing and probably worth more than top comfort and beauty.

<comment><USER4> How necessary would speaking fluent German be to live/work in Berlin or Vienna? I've heard that most young people and tech people speak English, but that it can be a problem, if you don't know good German, to interact with the civil service, banking, business registration, and those kinds of things. But I have no personal experience there.

One thing that makes it easy to stay in Scandinavia is that I've been rather spoiled by how easy it is to do everything in Denmark in English. Official government forms are available in your choice of Danish or English versions, all my banking is in English, doctors all speak it, and every government office I've been to will switch once they realize you're a foreigner. Heck, even many public lectures at universities and museums are in English. The language is good to know for social reasons, but there aren't really any formal/official situations where you _have_ to interact in Danish.

<comment><USER3> There were certain areas in Berlin where speaking English seemed almost mandatory, especially in Bars and Cafes but that said I don't know how the situation is with gov institutions etc.

I would guess though that it can't be such a big deal as there seemingly are a lot of non German speakers everywhere (in the mentioned areas it felt like German native speakers actually were a minority) and consequently at least some of the local businesses were owned by non Germans too.

Vienna is definitely less pronounced international but telling from my experiences at coffee shops as well as the "Wien" subreddit at least there must be a thriving expat community.

Sorry for not having more info about the official lang requirements in Germany/Berlin but do check out the cities' corresponding subreddits:

<http://www.reddit.com/r/berlin> <http://www.reddit.com/r/wien>

<comment><USER5> Most expats I know here have done well, sometimes 5+ years, without ever properly learning German. So language is not an issue.

That said, you do need help when dealing with the bureaucracy. It can be complicated, and they often do _not_ speak English. But it's trivial to get this help from colleagues or expats.

90% of those I work with are German, and yet I can get by speaking only English as 1) they will switch to English, like I suspect most German developers can and would, and 2) our CTO and a few others in the office are not German either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two of my favorite products are from Sweden, my OP-1 synth and Reason.

I've often wondered if a social safety net, such as the one in Sweden, takes a risk burden off of entrepreneurs and therefore allows for more experimentation with products like these. They require more lead time to develop (years vs. months) and target music making, which isn't an obviously lucrative market. However, the companies behind both products seem to be doing quite well.

<comment><USER7> Linux would have never happened if Linus Torvalds didn't have a chance to "slack off" in Helsinki University with taxpayer money. The whole thing started as a hobby project.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#The_creation_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#The_creation_of_Linux)

Unfortunately, the times are changing in Finland, too, as politicians are pushing for legislation to force students to finish their studies within tighter time frames.

<comment><USER8> Do you happen to have a link to some writing on those proposed changes in legislation? Thanks!

<comment><USER7> There was a legislation about a maximum period of 7 years for doing both the bachelor's and the master's degree. This would mean a student could lose his permission to be enrolled in the university as a student and graduate:

[http://yle.fi/uutiset/seitseman_vuoden_takaraja_hiillostaa_n...](http://yle.fi/uutiset/seitseman_vuoden_takaraja_hiillostaa_nyt_ikuista_opiskelijaa/5742927)

[http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/kotimaa.shtml/opintoajan- rajaus-o...](http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/kotimaa.shtml/opintoajan-rajaus-on- vauhdittanut-opintoja/2012/08/1592019)

I couldn't find an English source for this, sorry. Perhaps Google Translate will help.

There is a caveat in the law, which is that universities can give extensions to the studies as they wish, and most students who request it do get it. But it's still a strong message from the government and there are ~400 students at the moment that have their studies interrupted because of this law.

Also Anita Lehikoinen from the Ministry of Education says that "funding to universities are partly decided by the amount of students who achieve 45 study points (points awarded for completing parts of the curriculum) in a given year" ( <http://ylioppilaslehti.fi/2010/02/pitka-ura/> ) So there is a clear incentive for universities to push students into graduating quickly.

edit: Found an English source, this is an instructional material of Aalto University for exchange students, mentioning the study right: [https://into.aalto.fi/display/enmasterarts/Study+right+and+t...](https://into.aalto.fi/display/enmasterarts/Study+right+and+the+duration+of+the+degree)

<comment><USER9> NPT

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The suit is back!

<http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> Any thoughts from people on the ground in those areas?

<comment><USER12> Running a software company in Stockholm, Sweden is a blast. It is a great place to live, plenty of good people to recruit, a decent domestic market, e.g. many big companies willing to try out services from startups. There is a vast number of small tech companies here, most of them completely unknown. Every week I learn about some cool new company doing their thing just around the block from us, without ever having heard of the people involved.

There are some major caveats: Income taxes are extremely high and tax rules makes it almost impossible to share ownership in a rational way, e.g. it is very hard to setup stock option programs etc. Also, the domestic venture capital market is extremely underdeveloped - a great opportunity for foreign investors!

I am a firm opponent of all government programs to stimulate entrepreneurship. My view is that the government should simply get out of the way. And in fact, except for the taxes, this is by and large what the Swedish government is doing. For example, there is very little bureaucracy around running a business, e.g. starting an incorporated company is now done easily over the internet, often the whole process can be completed in a matter of days.

<comment><USER13> Out of interest, do you think it'd be easy to get into the startup scene with minimal Swedish? My wife is Swedish and we have in the past considered a move to Stockholm but my Swedish is absolutely not fluent (although were we to do it I'd enrol in an evening course as soon as we moved).

<comment><USER2> Getting by in Stockholm won't be a problem: you can safely assume that people within the start-up scene are fluent in English. You'll be met with a slightly different kind of problem: as communicating in English is so effortless, you'll have few opportunities to really practice your Swedish.

<comment><USER13> Hah, yeah, I know the Swede's proclivity for English :) Just wasn't sure that it'd be acceptable to speak it in a business context. That's interesting for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> House cleaning as a tax deductible expense and employment perk? That I could get behind.

</comment><comment><USER15> Another recent story, on the startup scene in Stockholm: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv ([http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/20/why-tiny-stockholm-has- the-...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/20/why-tiny-stockholm-has-the-most- stunning-startup-ecosystem-since-tel-aviv/?pages=all)).

It was discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4813573>

</comment><comment><USER16> How is the immigration process in the region? I might not be able to get permanent residency soon enough in the US, and so it might be worth checking out other countries (I am also eyeing Canada). This is speaking as a graduate from one of the top 3 CS schools in the US, former "Big Company" employee and currently doing a startup.

<comment><USER17> It depends if you are a citizen of EU, a Nordic country or Switzerland or not. I assume that you are not so in that case you would need a job offer first, apply for a work permit, then come and work. The process is described here:

<http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work/>

If you are self-employed or moving with your company it might be trickier. Here at $MEGA_CORP we have hired tons of non-EU citizen, mostly Russians, and it seems to work pretty well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I helped host a delegation of Finnish startups that came to Bloomberg in NYC. The Finnish Consul throws networking events in his apt as well. Everyone appears very driven and there are some great startups coming from the country. A lot of ex-Nokia guys need something new to do... :)</comment>


A great best-practice guide for CouchDB - <AUTHOR> http://docs.ehealthafrica.org/couchdb-best-practices/

<comment><AUTHOR> I found this best-practice guide to CouchDB very helpful and thought I'd share it. Any thoughts, or maybe other guides?</comment>


The Cuttlefish, a Master of Camouflage, Reveals a New Trick - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/science/cuttlefish-camouflage-neurons.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront <comment><USER2> Understated here is that cuttlefish manage to match their surrounding's color while being color-blind, in the sense of lacking color receptors. It's thought that their pupils have such wild shapes because they can somehow use chromatic aberration blur patterns to distinguish colors. See [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/07/01/1524578113](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/07/01/1524578113)

<comment><USER3> I already thought cuttlefish were awesome but reading that they are using chromatic aberration to distinguish colors blows my mind! Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER4> TIL cuttlefish not seeing magenta is more interesting than many animals' not being able to see magenta.

<comment><USER5> Most aquatic animals see longer wavelength colors poorly because water filters out that light just a few meters deep. Below the surface everything looks shades of blue or gray.

<comment><USER4> * looks to us :)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F) came to mind

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On a nature documentary whose name I don't recall [1], they showed a great example of a cuttlefish disguising himself.

There was a larger than average male with a harem of females, and there was a smaller than average male that wanted to mate with the females, but was nowhere near strong enough to beat the big male in combat.

So the small male took advantage of his small size. He took on the appearance of a female, and approached the large male as a female would.

The large male was fooled, and accepted the small male into the harem. As the large male continued vigilantly watching for approaching challengers, the little male mated with all the harem females right under the big male.

[1] I almost certainly saw it on one of the Nat Geo channels, one of the Discovery channels, BBC America, or PBS.

Edit: a bit of Googling turned it up. It was in the BBC documentary series "Life" from 2009. It's this segment: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005bpsl](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005bpsl)

I misremembered a little. The large male only had one female, not a harem, when the small male joined.

<comment><USER7> I have it on my machine at home I'm quite sure, will post the name later.

<comment><USER7> PBS.NOVA.2007.Cuttlefish.Kings.of.Camouflage

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The cuttlefish is my favourite creature to come across while scuba diving. I've seen them settle down on the seabed next to some vegetation and just disappear. It turns green and fuzzy, and sends up little tendrils that look like seagrass and semi-translucent blobs of algae. Even knowing that it's there, it's usually impossible to see that it's a cuttlefish. YouTube videos don't do it justice; I've never found any videos that show the level of camouflage it can do. (The video in the article, though, is amazing in the level of detail shown.)

<comment><USER9> The best part is if you remain almost motionless, sometimes their curiosity overcomes their fear and they come up to check you out. I've been more struck by intelligence in an animal than with cuttlefish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cuttlefish are amazing -- tiny Cthulhus of the deep, as they drive their prey mad before devouring it ([https://youtu.be/YcpzubpIhtI](https://youtu.be/YcpzubpIhtI)). Learning more about their ruthlessly efficient means of camouflage and deception just makes them more awe-inspiring.

<comment><USER11> Ditto the rest of the cephalopod family, the ingenuity demonstrated by octopuses is well-documented but endlessly fascinating!

<comment><USER10> Octopus brains are _substantially_ different from mammalian, reptile, or even bird brains, having more innervation in its arms than its head, and no need for a brain-body map like we have -- and yet octopuses not only display intelligence, but social behavior that's recognizable to us as affection or hostility. An octopus will nuzzle the hand of a familiar, well-liked human with its tentacles, or squirt water at a despised human from its tank. If deep-sea creatures are the closest we've seen to aliens, then the behavior of octopuses suggests we _may_ be able to establish social common ground with intelligent extraterrestrials should we ever encounter them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Amazing. I knew they could change colour, but to think that they can even adjust the texture of of their skin to match surrounding coral... consider me mind-blown.

</comment><comment><USER13> Peter Godfrey-Smith also writes about this in Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness

<comment><USER14> Great read, highly recommend!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I saw this while riding the train to Boston with my daughter who is a volunteer educator at New England Aquarium. They have dwarf cuttlefish on display there now.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDwOi7HpHtQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDwOi7HpHtQ)

Here are True Facts about the Cuttlefish

</comment><comment><USER17> a recent episode of the "in our time" podcast discussed these creatures. and they are prominent in blue planet 2 as well.

</comment><comment><USER18> Off topic but cuttlefish bones can be used for casting jewelry/other metal objects.

<comment><USER19> Interesting. While we're off topic, they're also delicious. Slightly sweeter than squid and I find less prone to going tough. They take a little bit of preparation but you get quite a good size meal out of a single one. As a bonus they grow quickly so are a fairly low impact species to take.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I can't eat anything that smart, like this or an octopus.

<comment><USER21> Is it smart though? As in, is it actually thinking or is it simply acting on impulse/reflex/instinct?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think it's valid to point out that this reaction was caused by cutting one of it's nerves that controlled skin color.</comment>