But the challenge to find what was hidden in this picture intrigued him. He stared intently at the image. Someone on the IRC had heard rumors that terrorist groups encrypt secret notes in image files, ones that could be retrieved by opening the file in a different format. Running a text–editing program called Notepad, he opened the image and, sure enough, saw a strange string of words and garbage characters at the end: “TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS CAESAR says ‘lxxt>33m2mqkyv2gsq3q=w]O2ntk.’ ” Caesar, he knew, was one of the most ancient forms of encryption, dating back to Julius Caesar, who used the cipher to safeguard military secrets. It works by taking the alphabet and then counting down each letter based on a designated number (say, replacing letters with ones three letters down the alphabet).Cicada posted the first puzzle January 4, 2012. 2012 was also the year that the Mayan Calendar predicted the end of the world. Or the transformation of humanity into an enlightened state of consciousness. Obviously the world didn't end. So are we heading into an enlightened state of consciousness? Perhaps. Time will tell, like it always does.
2013, November 25 • Eriksson didn’t realise it then, but he was embarking on one of the internet’s most enduring puzzles; a scavenger hunt that has led thousands of competitors across the web, down telephone lines, out to several physical locations around the globe, and into unchartered areas of the "darknet”. So far, the hunt has required a knowledge of number theory, philosophy and classical music. An interest in both cyberpunk literature and the Victorian occult has also come in handy as has an understanding of Mayan numerology. Source HereRemember the Mayan Calendar.
There were more than a dozen (Cicada posters with QR codes), spread over four continents. The Street View images seemed random: a narrow street near the University of Warsaw, a parking lot on a busy intersection of Seoul, a country road on the North Shore of Oahu. One location came up in front of a prominent doctor’s house in a wealthy section of Seattle. (When RS called the doctor, he said that he had never heard of Cicada 3301.)The author claimed to be a military officer in an unnamed country. He warned of a Global Brain as another kind of God. Hmmmm.
Amid the fervor, an anonymous person posted a mysterious confessional. “I was part of what you call 3301/Cicada for more than a decade,” the anonymous author wrote, “and I’m here to warn you: Stay away.” Any portentously dire and anonymous message on the Internet could be bullshit or trolling. But as the skeptical solvers read the screed, the author seemed knowledgeable enough about 3301 to give them pause. The author said he had been a military officer in an unnamed, non-English speaking country when, after a year of being unknowingly vetted in person, he was recruited by a member of 3301. He described them as “a group of like-minded individuals, all incredibly talented and connected, [working] together for the common good: the good of mankind.” But over several paragraphs, he cautioned about their cultish beliefs, a conviction, for example, in “the Global Brain as another kind of ‘God’ ” – 3301 was nothing more, he wrote, than a “religion disguised as a progressive scientific organization.” He concluded by saying he had since found Jesus. Source Here
But researchers think this life cycle is all about tricking cicada predators — making sure that they can't sync up their schedules with the next cicada emergence. The cicadas generally follow an emergence schedule of either 13 or 17 years — both prime numbers. The schedule's indivisibility makes it more difficult for predators to predict the next emergence, research suggests. WHAT DO THEY SOUND LIKE? — One of the most noteworthy parts about a mass cicada emergence is the sound the swarms of cicadas emit. The screech of a cicada has been likened to an "alien-like wail" and "field of out-of-tune car radios." Source HereThis wasn't the only article suggesting that Cicadas have an Alien Like Wail. In fact, it was in a lot of them. And with five corporations owning and controlling the MSM information stream, the Alien Like Wail is something we need to take note of. Do I need to remind you of the sudden influx of UFO disclosure happening from the American Military? It's not a coincidence. It's also not going to be the main focus on this post, but it will be written about shortly in Flatten the Curve. So let's just hope the "Aliens" aren't the predators that we're hiding from. Although I am dying to say, I don't have time to bleed. Or. Get to the choppa.
The cicada symbolises rebirth and immortality in Chinese tradition. In the Chinese essay "Thirty-Six Stratagems", the phrase "to shed the golden cicada skin" (simplified Chinese: 金蝉脱壳; traditional Chinese: 金蟬脫殼; pinyin: jīnchán tuōqiào) is the poetic name for using a decoy (leaving the exuvia) to fool enemies. In the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West (16th century), the protagonist Priest of Tang was named the Golden Cicada.A decoy? I may have forgotten to include something about a decoy and the Cicada puzzles.
"WHOOPS Just decoys this way. Looks like you can’t guess how to get the message out”. Source HereClicking on the link takes you to a picture of a duck decoy. And anyone reading this series understands that we may be on the brink of WW3 with China over the environmental collapse that's upcoming, and that this war is also involving the race to AI supremacy, and that whoever controls AI, will now have dominion over the planet.
The earliest known fossil Cicadomorpha appeared in the Upper Permian period; extant species occur all around the world in temperate to tropical climates.Source HereWhelp. There's something happening here. But what it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a mask over there. A-telling me, I got to beware. I think it's time we stop. Children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down.
When a Jasmine Revolution sweeps away the brutal Communist regime, China transforms into the world’s first AI-driven Direct Democracy, ushering in a golden age of peace and prosperity unlike anything ever seen in its five thousand year history. Now when an economic shock brings terrorism and ultra-nationalism roaring back, the nation’s favorite son, Colonel Ju-Long, races to uncover the traitors in his midst before his beloved country explodes into another devastating civil war. Source HereAI Driven Direct Democracy. Sounds kind of like the AI World Government, doesn't it? Or maybe it's the opposite. Or maybe it's the same thing we have now, a Democracy that only works because it gives us the illusion of choice.
DANIEL JEFFRIES • Author, Futurist, Thinker, Engineer, Systems Architect, Podcaster, Pro Blogger. Science Fiction: Daniel is the author of four cutting edge sci-fi novels, including the popular nanopunk epic The Scorpion Game, which readers have compared to the early cyberpunk masterpiece Neuromancer. Pro BloggePodcaster: His massively popular Medium blog with over 50K followers, and his Daily PostHuman podcast covers a wide range of future tech from artificial intelligence to cryptocurrency. His articles have appeared in Bitcoin Magazine and he’s the number one writer for the popular magazine Hacker Noon. Engineer: For more than twenty years, Daniel created and implemented advanced tech solutions for early web companies and Fortune 500 companies, first with his own consulting company and later for open source pioneer Red Hat, using Linux, virtual machines, Docker containers and DevOps and now for the innovative MLOps AI startup, Pachyderm. Systems Architect: Daniel now designs cutting edge crypto and decentralized web platforms, starting with the Cicada concept project, and then rolling its ideas into stealth startups with gamified money solutions, decentralized IDs, reputation systems and advanced crytoeconomics architectures. Public Speaker: He’s also a well respected public speaker, having given talks all over the world on the future of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.That's the kind of bio that leaves you feeling like an underachieving peon, doesn't it? Kind of like the bio of Lance B Eliot, isn’t it? Well, not quite, but it's still impressive. But he's not an AI algorithm like Lance (at least I don't think he is) seems to be. So why did I include him in this post about Cicada 3301? Did you notice that in his bio there is something called the Cicada Concept Project? Yeah. Strap in and hold on, cause this roller coaster is about to start.
Oh yeah. I mentioned Cicada 3301. A lot of people have asked me over the years if I’m involved with that project or if I’m behind the mystery in some way? The answer is no. But it’s also not that simple. Of course, some asshole on Reddit will inevitably post this in the comments: Is Dan Jeffries behind Cicada 3301? TLDR. No. LOL. I just saved his lazy ass some time. He can cut and paste it. Source Here • (I strongly recommend reading his post. Make the time.)LOL! OMG, that's too funny, don't you think so too? Dan Jefferies the writer and Cicada 3301, give me a break! Don't be that a$$hole on Reddit and make unsubstantiated claims, ok Greek?
Jasmine Wars • In the story Cicada is a massive distributed artificial intelligence and nation-state operating system. She’s a voting and communications platform and a fantastic alien mind. In many ways she embodies the best of the human race, while mitigating the worst of our dark dual natures. She seemed like the perfect choice for a chunk of killer future tech so I set out to create an early version of her.Now let's do a little coincidence checklist for our New Normal reality.
2020, August 19 • Pachyderm Secures $16 Million Investment Led by M12 - Microsoft’s Venture Fund • Company raises Series B round on back of Fortune 500 enterprise adoption. SourceHereAh Billy Boy, you sure are one clever little bugger, ain't ya? I've said it before and I'll say it again, AI will be the savior that will solve the Pandemic problem. Eventually. Some day. Not soon. Definitely. Not. Soon. Why? Well the pandemic disruption hasn't reached the proper level of disruption yet, that's why. (And should I point out that M-12 reminds me of MJ-12, or, Majestic 12)
AI WORLD GOVERNMENT is sponsored by Microsoft as well.
October 18, 2019 • She noted that the number of people using the Internet exceeded half of the world’s population in 2018, with 80 per cent of Europeans having access compared to less than 25 per cent in Sub‑Saharan Africa. Almost half the world’s population remains offline and excluded from the benefits of digitalization. Source HereLess than 25% in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to internet. And now we have Operation New Normal happening in Africa. Flatten the Curve. Part 60. Source Here
Questions | Answers |
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What is a typical day in your life like? | I get up at 4:30. I watch some YouTube, do some email, work on my writing or similar. I head to the gym at 7, shower and start my day around 8. I work in my home office or shop/lab, code and work on stuff, throughout the day. I could be busy all the way through to 8-9PM if I'm wrapped up in something, but not usually that busy. |
the below is a reply to the above | |
You get up at 4:30 AM? Wow. Have you always been a morning person? Are other people on your team morning people so you decided to start early? I’m asking this because it seems like a lot of successful people wake up very early and work out before starting their workday. | No, I never was until my neck injury. While recovering I couldn't sleep more than about 4-5 hours max and just got into the habit. Since it was so productive for me, I just kept it up! |
the below is a reply to the above | |
Thanks for sharing. I wish you good health. | Thanks! |
Did you create Robocopy, or know who did? I use that very regularly and much more efficient than using the GUI. | The secret dirt is that Robocopy was first written by MS colleague Kevin Allen, and he started sharing copies around in 1994ish. From there, and after many iterations and heavy-duty real-world feedback, robocopy ended up in the Windows Resource Kit, and then later merged into the core Windows package. In the beginning, Kevin was a very experienced programmer, but new to the Win32 API; so robocopy was one of his projects to educate himself about Windows programming. Later on, ITG used robocopy to routinely transfer many gigabytes of data around MS global offices, every night; it became very robust and battle-hardened. It is a long time now since Kevin was involved in the robocopy source code at all; it is maintained by the Windows team. |
Did you create Microsoft Clippy? Will Clippy ever make a come back? | Noooo... but I was around at the time. We have Clippy now in the form of Siri and Google Assistant and Cortana, but there's no picture. That's all it was though, an early digital assistant. |
I read on a Microsoft devblog that when windows got ported to 64bit pinball 3d was not ported because of bugs and the developers not being able to understand the code/not having enough time. It's a shame, because it was such an awesome game and I spent many hours playing it as a kid. Was the code messy due to being ported from Sam and do you think it could have been ported given enough time and expertise? | Basically what I did when I ported it was to maintain the central code "logic" loop of the game unchanged so that it would play just as it did on other platforms, and then "hooked" functionality coming out of it and going into it. So I rewrote the drawing code that did the actual drawing, but not he original code that wanted to do the drawing, if that makes sense. I changed the how, not why. |
That meant, though, that at the very core of the game was a big bunch of code that we didn't touch or monkey with, because it 'just worked'. Apparently sometime after Vista, in 64-bit, there was a collision detection bug in Pinball. | |
From what I read, Raymond Chen looked at it and got the general idea of what was wrong but didn't want to touch the fragile old code. Raymond's one of the best debuggers I've met, so it wasn't a question of expertise but of time and resources. | |
Anyone on the team could have trivially fixed it I'm sure, but it sounds like no one "owned" the game anymore after I left, and it was more than just a random little bug to fix, it would have required a dev to be assigned to it, and there likely was no one free. | |
What is your favourite colour please? | Well, I have four cars with blue interiors and I'm wearing a blue shirt and a blue watch and blue jeans. So probably blue. |
If my son expresses interest in serious computer programming, where is a good place to start? C for Dummies? (I'm joking and I know terribly little about the topic, only enough to know backend is where it's at) | Python, then Javascript. Build a website! |
Hi! Just wanted to say, I still use MS-DOS regularly, on many of my older machines in my collection. Also Win3.x, Win9x etc How do you feel about computers becoming extremely dependent on 'cloud' services? I can still set up an old machine, install an old OS, install old software and have it all up and running within an hour or so, while modern software essentially requires cloud services for literally everything. What happens to that software once some random person out there decides that they don't want to support it anymore? Those cloud services go away? Are you concerned that future generations will not be able to experience anything from this era of computing? Considering computers were designed to be able to continually run the same software over and over as necessary, how can that apply if the bulk of this is lost when the cloud disappears? Or maybe this isn't a concern at all, and I'm just crazy...? | I already have hardware that refused to work because the cloud service that backs it has been abandoned or the company has gone out of business. |
I worry that things become dependent on externals that aren't reliable long term, and I know what you mean... but fortunately Windows, once activated, runs perfectly well offline forever, really. | |
I'm a fresh graduate with some experience and reading the knowledge you all have in the comments has made me feel very inferior. I only started coding in my university and I don't do it in my past time. Am I doing something wrong? I do enjoy programming but I try to keep a work life balance. Is that a thing in software development? Also did you ever approve a pull request by Bill? | No, as long as you DO enjoy it when you're doing it, you're fine. There's an entire "spectrum" of people in the world and some of us have "special interests" with which we're a little obsessed, and tend to "hyperfocus". I'm one of those people but it's by no means the only way to do it! |
I knew many great programmers who (a) didn't program in their spare time at home and (b) didn't continue to program recreationally after leaving it as a job. | |
If you can work regular 40 hours a week as a productive programmer, you'll be set! | |
the below is a reply to the above | |
Thank you so much for this! Are there any tips you'd like to give to fresh graduates like me? | If you get a job at a large company like Microsoft, and decide you're not happy, try moving INTERNALLY before looking for another job. You could work for 5 different companies over your career and they could all be Google, for example. Culture goes through and through, but every team has its own. |
the following is a later reply | If you can put in a 35-40 hour week of solid work, you'll be fine. There are three buckets: the obsessives, like myself, who work as much as they can. Then the solid pros, who can turn out a ton of quality stuff in 40 hours. And then you have the slackers who surf Facebook at work and read reddit when they should be coding. As long as you're not in that group you're fine, and a balance is important. It is indeed a thing the successful people achieve it. It's not about how much code you write, it's about how much MORE time you spend coding than you want to, and that should be zero! |
Lots of people are in careers they don't practice in their free time, in fact most. So it's a bonus if you're that way, but most people are NOT, so don't despair! You're normal! | |
If you're still answering, how much of the original Task Manager still lives in the modern Task Manager? Anyway, thanks for the AMA! You're a legend! | I don't know for sure, but from looking at the app, and not the code, I'd expect about 60-70% of it? |
Hopefully you’re still taking questions. I get a lot of crap by my peers about command line. Power shell is badass but I’m a cmd guy myself. I know we can do pretty much everything that cmd does in powershell and more, but idk. I like what I like, you know? Where do you stand on this? | Honestly I'd be a CMD guy as well, but I'm really starting to lean towards using bash under WSL. |
Have you ever looked the help for SET and FOR under CMD? It's where we put every piece of extra functionality, since you can't add keywords that might collide with people's script names, etc... | |
I didn’t use windows after windows 7 for about 5 years. Back in august 2019 I finally rebuilt and upgraded my old PC and installed windows 10. The task manager in windows 10 is so amazing and powerful. I would imagine it’s something you wanted to implement in the 90s but didn’t have the tools or time. Right? | Indeed, I'm a big fan of the current task manager and what they've done with it! I wish there was a Dark mode, I wish it handled file lock tracking, and I've always got wish lists, but they've done a great job with it! |
CIA_grade_LSD: Why does the file transfer time remaining progress bar start at like 15 hours and then drop to two minutes and then stick at 99% for five minutes? (An exaggeration I admit. I know you and your colleagues do your best, but I am curious why this hasnt gotten much more accurate over the years.) androidethic: Yes, we need a justification as to why the windows file operation estimations are so random/inaccurate! | They're the worst estimate out there, except for all the others. |
Mac is just as bad. It's a hard problem. I worked on it briefly, and to help solve it I kept track of the average time it had taken for a whole range of operations, like creating, moving, deleting, renaming a file, or moving a block of N bytes, etc. Then multiply by the number of those operations that remain. But even that can be wildly off in degenerate cases. | |
Do you ever get laid? | Not since your Mom kicked me out. |
Why has windows task manager never had a true force quit? | End Process is a true force quit. |
What was your team's opinion on linux at the time? And what's yours opinion too? | I like it a lot, I was an early adopter back in 1993-1994 and tried to contribute some code for parsing IIDs, though I don't know if it's still in there. I hope it is, becaue then I'd have code in Windows, Mac Office, and Linux. I'd be everywhere :-) |
Now that we have WSL 2, though, I do most of my Linux work under Windows! | |
How much of the original DOS code is still in modern OSs? | None whatsoever. In fact, the only commonality at all would likely be the PGM header on disk still traces its original layout to MS-DOS. |
But rest assured there's NO code from MS-DOS inside NT, for example. It was a complete clean-slate design. | |
Was it you responsible for the atrocious naming conventions in WIN32? | Your username is dhbt12 :-) |
What current developments in the world of operating systems are you watching with eager anticipation? File systems and LLVM seem to be the rage right now, at least from where I sit. | Containers are cool to me, like Docker! That's really the biggest development of recent years I think! |
the below has been split into two | |
* What's your compensation? | - Zero, since I'm retired and there's no pension. |
* Have you met Bill Gates? | - Yes, a number of times. When I was first hired he had me and a few other recent hires over to his house for burgers and beer and it was quite nice! |
What's your opinion of free and open-source software? Broad, I know. I saw your response about WinRAR saying you like to license your software, but do you hold a similar sentiment in tossing a coin to the devs of foss software you might use? | I love it, I just don't have any illusions that making a piece of code open-source somehow leads to higher quality. It makes it more available to me, which is great, but in reality, on a typical project there are going to be 1-5 people who really look at the code and then a dozen the sort of know it to make changes, and then consumers of the code who just call it. I don't see that those 1-5 people are any brighter than the people who'd be responsible for a product in a proprietary environment. |
Now at a certain scale, like the Linux kernel maybe, you've got enough eyeballs looking at it that it makes a difference... that I could see! | |
What's the idea behind SYSKEY? | As I understand it, its function is to encrypt something called the SAM (Security Account Manager) database. This database stores hashes of user passwords, and is used to authenticate users when they supply their password. |
Hey Dave, what do you think the future of the windows OS will be? Is a cloud-based OS possible, potentially limiting computer hardware? | As a total guess, I imagine our experience will eventually be just a UI device locally and everything else happens in the cloud on server hardware. So as you say, at some point your client hardware is "good enough" and then companies compete on the merits of their back-end services. |
Do you know Mike Toutonghi? , he used to work at Microsoft, now he started a new blockchain project called The Verus project. | By name and email but not well enough to recognize him at the mall today, I'd say! |
If you had to redo windows, what would you most like to change? What do you regret most? What do you like most? | The Format dialog needs to be redone! And Task Manager is likely my favorite... |
Android or iPhone? Beer or wine? Ginger or Mary Ann? | iPhone. Beer. Can't it be both? It's an island, after all. |
the below is a reply to the above | |
I figured the iPhone since you have Mac's in the lab. I figured beer also since you can't shift a 4 speed with a glass off wine between your legs. Nice garage BTW. However i wasnt ready for both, it's an island after all. Touche. I tired to compile my first bit of code from GitHub today. I failed miserably. It would install but wouldn't run. I'll keep at it. | Make sure you're in a clean empty folder. Try the code from Episode 11, I just used it so I know that works! Clone it and build it in PlatformIO with no changes, and that'll tell you if your dev environment is set up and working properly. |
I cant connect to my cloud, can you download it for me? | I'd love to, but I'm out of paper. Can you fax me some? |
What amazes you the most when you compare technology from the 90's to now? | GPUs! |
Is it wrong of me to only ever end task manager with itself? | Software Seppuku. |
Probably too many comments and very late to the game, but here it goes! I teach Comp Sci at an international school. Would you be willing to give a small webinar talk to my students? They would just be so happy to hear from you as would I! Anyway, regardless, thanks for the many, many hours of enjoyment! | Maybe after Covid, but I'm not a big fan of Zoom lectures! I just did one for the U of R, though, and if you check my channel there are two that I have done for the University of Regina that you might find useful for your students... |
You can email me at [email protected] with info about the school and what topic you would like, etc, and I can see if it's a good fit for schedule and topic! | |
What computers do you personally at home? Windows? Linux? Mac? | All three! |
Why are processes able to hang to the point that task manager is unable to kill them? | At that point there must be kernel corruption or something going on in a driver or well below the surface, I guess. If TM can't kill it, no one can, and it's truly hung. |
Did you ever meet the genius who wrote the Space Cadet Pinball theme song? | No, who wrote it? Matt Ridgeway? |
Hi Dave, loved the videos on task manager Do you have any thoughts on modern C / C++ replacements like Zig and Rust (respectively)? | I think its cool if memory access is indeed provably safe but you get code nearly as optimal as C, but I've got to learn more about them! |
Did you like the windows phone? | Never had one, started after I left, but I heard nice things about the very last one before it went away... |
Hi Dave, Why doesn’t File Explorer automatically refresh to show new files in a folder, such as downloads? Seems such an obvious glitch! Also, how do I get the login screen on Windows 10? I push space, esc, mouse clicks, enters... and nothing happens. Then poof, it shows up. Why is this so unresponsive? | It does. |
In fact I know it does, because I have a patent on some of it! | |
Not sure why yours wound't be working, your system might have a third party piece of software that has broken File System Change notifications. | |
Was the time on Microsoft fun? | It really was. I miss the people and the environment, and I especially miss lunch! |
i’ve found 15+ 0-days in the shell32 API when doing a vuln analysis of explorer.exe. You can read my work at https://hyp3ri0n-ng.github.io! What’s it like to write really buggy code :P? | I sense that high school was hard for you socially. |
I’m sure I remember owning the pinball game as a separate standalone title before it was in windows? Can you explain the deal with that? Or am I misremembering | Plus Pack! |
You're a legend, can't believe I missed this. I'll post this here, if you don't answer it I'll have a good copy/paste for later. What are your thoughts on the sethc.exe / accessibility exploit? It's worked as far back as XP, and still works today in Windows 10, last time I checked. Windows Server 2003 and 2008 as well. Is checking the integrity of OS files before they're executed just not a priority? | https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/222193/description-of-the-windows-file-protection-feature |
Why ctl+alt+delete? | An IBM engineer (David Bradley, I think) picked that combination to serve as a hardware reset. You can't fake it, you can't get around it. The PC knows it's really C_A_D when you do it. |
Why that particular combination, you'd have to ask him! | |
What's the furthest you've gotten into a project that ended up not panning out? Was it something you really wanted to get working or were you relieved to move on? I'm a student studying engineering right now and reading these answers is extremely motivational; your passion for computers is awesome! Thanks for doing this. | I spent about a year on an early prototype of Media Center that I was attached to but got killed. They did do a Media Center later, of course, but I had started 2-3 years ahead, but couldn't get funding. |
Why has the Windows she'll been so bad for so long? | I don't know, but I'll see you in he'll. |
Do you still work at Microsoft? Do you still use only Microsoft stuff? | No retired in 2003. I use a lot of MS stuff, but my main laptop is a MacBook and I use a Mac for video. |
Do you own any Apple products or use them for work? | I own all the Apple products except the new headphones, pretty much! I'm retired now though! |
Is the workculture of Microsoft at the time very different than now? How much does Bill Gates' leadership impact the company? What changes had his departure bring? | It is indeed very different under Satya than Bill, and the changes are widespread. But I left before Satya started, so I'm not really qualified to speak on them! |
What are your thoughts on the age old trick of "Opening Task Manager to stop programs from freezing or being slow", is there some merit to doing that or is it just a simple coincidence? | Total coincidence, honest! Task Manager, at that level, is just a windows app with a message pump. It's existence doesn't do anything that solitaire or paint would not also! |
No, but there's a great meme with the Star Wars general about how apps work better with Task Manager open because "fear will keep them in line". | |
It's purely psychological, though. TM doesn't do anything by running the calc or paint wouldn't also provide! | |
Did you work on Windows ME? If so.. What the hell happened to that OS that made it so terrible? I had kernal errors every week. | Nope! My work on the shell would have been backported to it, but I didn't work directly on 98 or M3, other than they used our NT version of the shell code by then I think. |
Did you make any contingency for when Task Manager stops responding? | Yes, lots! Check the video the "Secret Life of Task Manager" for more dirt, but there are MANY things it does to help prevent you ever being stuck with no task manager: |
https://youtu.be/f8VBOiPV-_M | |
If not asked yet If this is correct, as posted in Regina awhile ago iirc I saw a post saying you’re from Regina, Canada Is that true? If so that’s awesome to hear that someone from my local area made one of my favourite no internet game and the basic fundamentals of the most used OS for computers | Yes indeed, that's me! |
Why is the documentation for WPA so bad and scarce? I have to refer to Bruce Dawson's years old blog to decipher some of the columns names. Are there any plans to add a comprehensive manual for it? | Windows Product Activation? Columns? Sorry, are you using WPA for something else? |
Can I intern for you? | If you know how to write a Material-themed admin-style Dashboard in React, can consume a REST api in doing so, and have some experience with iPhone apps an Unity, then maybe yes! |
I was actually looking for an intern this past summer to write a phone and web app... | |
how did you assured code quality and readability? did you use static analyzers/ unit tests or what? | Check out the "Secret History of Task Manager" video for a description of "NTStress" and how we nightly tested, but there were professional testers, every line of code was code-reviewed, and so on. |
My understanding is it's quite different now, though! | |
When you say you worked on Windows activation, was it for more than a day? | That's an odd question. Can I ask why you think it might have just been for a day? Clue me in to what you're hinting at and I'll fill you in on the rest! |
Why do I need to press 3 buttons and 1 click to open task manager? | Because you choose to fail! |
You can do it with two clicks or one simultaneous multikey press! | |
Do you think WPA was a success? | I think so! It helped stem casual piracy, wasn't "cracked" for at least 18 months after we released it, and didn't unduly inconvenience users too often, I hope. |
We were really aiming for the 95% case. Trying to catch the 95% of piracy that is people sharing keys, reusing their own keys on too many machines, getting keys off the web, that sort of thing. I think it accomplished that. | |
How did you feel about windows 8? | Same way you do. |
Who invented the blue screen of death? | John Vert. He said: |
"Back in 1991 I wrote the original code for Windows NT 3.1 that put the video screen back into text mode and the routines to put text on it (and a truly gnarly bit of code it was!). I used the white on blue colors for two reasons. | |
* The MIPS workstations we were using for the MIPS port had firmware that presented a boot option screen in white on blue, so it made sense that the bugcheck screen would match. | |
* I (and many others) were using SlickEdit as our text editor and at the time its default color scheme was also white on blue. | |
I believe Mark Lucovsky wrote the original code that dumped a bunch of text to the screen. This was a bugcode and a stack dump, resulting in a bunch of useless hex numbers which product support would occasionally dutifully transcribe from the customers and include in the bug report. | |
There was no "typesetting" as we used standard VGA text mode on PCs. | |
I don't know the history of the Win3.1/Win9x blue screens, I think the fact they were the same color is just coincidence." | |
But can you make sick stick figure death match animations in QBASIC? | No, but I do a mean Bill the Cat ascii art! |
How could you? | Sometimes you just gotta say WTF. |
https://youtu.be/a0p7rJsYisw | |
What are you working on these days? | Mostly on programming tutorials and nostalgic "Windows War Stories" on my youtube channel: |
http://www.youtube.com/c/davesgarage | |
[removed] | That's me! Went to Miller high, worked at ISM and SaskTel during college, etc! |
Here is my question. Im a cuban teenager (17) and my dream is work is be a developer. What kind of mini works i can do for learn programation before University? | Do as many little program tasks as you can, and make sure you complete them, and SAVE them for the future so you can look back! |
Try writing a little program to convert back and forth between roman numbers and regular numbers. Or fund the next highest multiple of 32, or count the number of it bits set in a byte. Or the real difference in seconds between two dates, that sort of thing. Real problems that you have to solve will help a great deal as they act as sort of a "forcing function" to make you get to the very end. | |
Do you like macaroni & cheese? | Kraft Dinner all the way. And I eat with little packets of designer ketchup. |
Wait...you didn't built paint? I'm out. | Nope, sorry. But I owned calc for a while, back when we were adding infinite precision math to it! |
Hi, If Microsoft wanted to, they could make it impossible to activate a pirated copy of windows using 3rd party software. So why aren't they making it impossible? | Not sure what you meant by 3rd party software. Are you saying Windows can actually be activated even if pirated? That'd be news to me, but anything's possible. |
What was the criteria for “tilt” on space cadet pinball? I played that game for hours as a kid. | Spacebar would add a little "action" to the table, if I recall, and you could strike a balance of adding so much so often... but too much (ie: smash space too much) and it'll tilt. |
Did you ever have to interview anybody at Microsoft? If so, what types of questions would you ask back then? What was your interview like going into Microsoft? | Oh yeah, I've interviewed dozens or hundreds I'd bet. I'd like to ask "calibrating questons" like "Give me a funtion that takes a number and returns the next highest multiple of 32" or "count the number of bits that are set in it" to see how their basic coding skills were. |
Then I usually liked to give a problem I was working on to see what it'd be like to actually work with the person. | |
I interviewed three times, once as an intern, once as full time, and then once to move to the Shell group. Each as an all-day affair, and very arduous. You have 2-3 hour long interviews in the AM, then a lunch interview, then 2-3 more hour long interviews in the PM, then a supper thing, etc... it's a long day! | |
ImRandyRU: What have you done for me lately? Edit: it was a joke... dabigchina: NT is the foundation that all modern windows OS's build on, so a lot. Zeusifer: I guarantee some of OP's code still exists in Windows 10. | Most of it, to be honest. As a guess I'd say 75% still there. |
Hey man, I had a wicked dump this morning and now my toilet is blocked. Any idea's? | More roughage in your diet. |
It was so satisfying to push the 3x5 disks into the slot and have the button pop out, and make a vroom vroom sound. Ah, the old days. What's your favorite MS-Dos game from the 90s? | I actually came to the PC after MS-DOS, so I wasn't a DOS gamer... I suppose in those days it was primarily C64 and Amiga games. I do remember being fond of Sim City, like everyone, but also of a game called "Seven Cities of Gold"... |
Questions | Answers |
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I understand that people are always hesitant to answer this very specifically, but I'm always curious - given 7 million visitors, what your ballpark profit? And what's the ratio of the profit-to-expenses, which I assume is mostly server hosting costs as a one man operation? | Most of my profit comes from ads. I make around 5 cents for every hour someone spends in Photopea (on average). In 2019, people spent 5 million hours working in Photopea, so I made around $250,000. I hope it could be 2x to 4x more this year :) |
Photopea runs completely in your computer (after Photopea.com loads, you can disconnect from the internet and use it offline). I use only a file hosting, for which I pay around 50 USD a year. | |
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How is that possible to only pay 50 USD/year when you get ~7 million people in a month and your site is 1.8mb. That's around 12tb/month. I don't know of any host willing to do 12tb of data for $50/12 | I don't understand it either :/ I will ask my hosting provider. |
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Don’t! :) | I already did :) |
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I'm glad you have a subscription option. As a policy I don't turn my adblocker off, but I'll totally subscribe as your rates are quite reasonable! If you're around and don't mind answering, how many subscriptions do you have? | There are hundreds of people paying for Premium :) so about 0.01% of all users :) |
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How much do you think you're losing out because of adblockers? | It is hard to tell, maybe between 10 to 40 percent :/ |
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You should implement a donation feature as well, to offer more ways for users to support you. | People can already order a Premium. I think it is better to get something in return (removing ads), so anybody who wants to support us can do it :) |
First of all, thank you for making a great alternative. My question is, how would you compare Photopea to The Gimp in terms of features and interface? | The interface of Photopea is closer to Photoshop than GIMP (so it is more comfortable to Photoshop users). I think all you can do in GIMP you can do in Photopea, but with a different workflow. You can open GIMP files (XCF) in Photopea. |
There are many advanced features in Photopea, that are not in GIMP. The most important is probably the full support of a PSD format. | |
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Have to confess I'd never heard about this software until reading your post, but your mention of the PSD feature makes me want to check it out immediately. I admire your determination, dedication, and skills. | Thank you :) |
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Does it support vectors better than Photoshop? I don't like how limited it is in Photoshop. Even illustrator is annoying | Photopea can open SVG and PDF images better than Photoshop. Just try it! |
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Thank you for your program. I use it to make memes and do photoshopped things! | You are welcome! I am happy that Photopea is useful to you :) |
How did you learn how to make software? | I was interested in computers since I was 14. I was studying computer science at the university between 18 and 25 years of age. |
I studied theoretical computer science at the Charles university in Prague. Finishing the university was probably the hardest thing in my life (I do not enjoy learning as much as I enjoy creating stuff). But I also think it was the most valuable and productive part of my life and I am very proud of it :) | |
Here to say I've been using it, maybe the only white listed site on my ad-block. What was the hardest part to implement? | The advanced foreground selection was quite hard. It is used e.g. in MagicCut. I wanted to reach the quality of remove.bg (where you pay $2 per image), but it still does not work that well. |
Anyway, I think MagicCut works better than all other free tools and many commercial tools, so it can save you a lot of money :) | |
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You should look at U-2 Net https://github.com/NathanUA/U-2-Net a recently released paper with code that has amazing results | I know quite a lot about this research :) The problem is, that people use Photopea for free, so it would have to run on their computers. They would have to download a 200 MB network, and unless they don't have a $2000 GPU, they would have to wait for hours to do such foreground / background detection. |
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From the paper: "To facilitate the usage of our design in computation and memory constrained environments, we provide a small version of our U2-Net, called U2-Net† (4.7 MB). The U2-Net† achieves competitive results against most of the SOTA models (see Fig. 1) at 40 FPS." Unless there's something similar but better or they're outright lying, 4.7 MB sounds like an extremely reasonable memory footprint and it's pretrained so nobody's going to max out their GPU. You might want to give it another look. | Wow, that sounds great, I will put it into my issues: https://github.com/photopea/photopea/issues/2368 |
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Not 100% sure, but a GPU is needed to train the network (which can take hours) and the trained networks usually do things in seconds or even faster. Users would still need to download the network, but it wouldn't be very computationally expensive. | Such trained network can process the input in seconds on the GPU. If you process the input of the network on a CPU (even with multiple cores), it can take minutes or even hours. And training on a CPU can take weeks :) |
I use Photopea regularly when developing web sites. I don't have to fire up my VM or limit myself to GIMP or Krita. The third most popular tech magazine in the Czech Republic, Letem světem Applem, was developed with the help of your tool. Díky! My question: will you ever open-source Photopea, at least partially? | Hi, thanks a lot! |
A huge part of Photopea is open-sourced and available at https://github.com/photopea?tab=repositories | |
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I'm scared to even open that repo 😂. What hosting provider are you using that can handle 5 million users in a year? | I have a local hosting provider from the Czech Republic. It is just distributing HTML, CSS and JS files (no server-side computations like PHP or SQL databases), so it is not that hard. |
Hi! Two questions 1. Does photopea have support for RAW photo files of varying cameras? (.ARW for example) 2. Why do you think Adobe charges so much for their platform when your model is clearly fairly simple to produce (if one person can do it alone) and functions profitably? | Hi! Yes, Photopea can open .DNG, .CR2, .NEF and .ARW files :) |
There are programs that are much more expensive than Adobe products :) It is hard to tell, but I think it is because there are no reasonable alternatives, or the alternatives are not known very well. | |
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As a Fuji user, .RAF support coming at some point? | Hi, the .RAF format was invented by Fuji and has never been publicly described anywhere. I tried to ask Fuji to provide a description of their format, so that I can implement it into Photopea, but nobody replied :( |
I think Fuji does not want you to open their files in any other software than their software. | |
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I don't think fuji has their own editing software, most people use either Capture One or Lightroom, or Irident X-Transformer to convert into a DNG | Photopea can open DNG without any problems :) but it is a real pity they don't store it in DNG directly. |
I just discovered this software and it is bloody amazing. As a hobby animator, I'm wondering - Do you have any plans, or have you at least thought about, making an animation software in the same way you have achieved this? Something like Adobe Flash/Animate or Toon Boom Harmony. (I'm already sold on your idea for a video editor, since Davinci Resolve's free version has NEVER been able to render videos for me without crashing) There is a distinct lack of reasonably priced animation software that achieves nearly as much as these two ridiculously expensive subscription programs, without sacrificing something really important to animation. The closest thing to achieving what Animate or Harmony has is Blender's new 2d animate mode, and even then, you have to sacrifice convenient features like easy tweening. An alternative free (or one-purchase) animation software would make me - and so many other people happy. Now that I know this software exists, I'll be sure to donate to its production. | Thanks! You are not the first one asking for this :) I wish I could make so many tools, but I am afraid my life is too short for all that work :D |
If I manage to make a good team of programmers in the future, I would love to make such animation software. | |
Is there a comprehensive guide I can find for all the tools in photopea? I’m new to photo editing and still confused by the interface. | Photopea is an advanced editor and it is hard to learn simply by using it. I wrote a manual here: www.Photopea.com/learn . |
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You made documentation? What kind of unholy programmer from the abyss are you? Don’t let our bosses find out or we’re screwed. | I made it after several years of explaining people how to do things in emails, etc :) Now, I can simply send them links to my documentation. It took me less than a week :D |
I love using photopea! I open it almost daily. Is there a way to review the source and contribute pull requests? Have you thought about providing an offline or self-hosted release? | Thanks! The open-source parts of Photopea are published on our GitHub: https://github.com/photopea?tab=repositories . We provide a self-hosted versions for money, as it needs to be updated regularly. |
How would you compare it to photoshop? | Photopea has about 90% of features of Adobe Photoshop, but there are some features of Photopea that Photoshop doesn't have (e.g converting PDF, SVG, Sketch, XD, Figma to layered PSD documents). |
Also, only Photoshop and Photopea fully support the PSD format, so I think Photopea is the best alternative to Photoshop at the moment. | |
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What do you think about GIMP? | GIMP is great, but it can not work with PSD files properly. Also, the interface is quite different from Adobe Photoshop, and it is hard to use for former Photoshop users. |
https://www.facebook.com/photopea/photos/a.1703140446613703/2373211539606587/ | |
Do you pronounce it photo-pea, or photo-pee-ah? | I pronounce it Photo-pea, but most of people pronounce it photo-pee-ah. |
It is probably the most asked question in our subreddit :) /photopea. | |
EDIT: I did a quick search and here is what I found :) | |
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Good to know I got its pronunciation right :D I like photos and I like peas. What made you call it photopea? | I wanted it to be PhotoSomething, and I wanted a domain PhotoSomething.com . Most of domains were occupied, until I found Pea :) |
Not a question, but I just want to put this out there for all the non-developers, but the fact that Photopea was created by a single programmer is absolutely astounding. As a developer myself, I cannot fathom the productivity of this developer nor have I ever met someone that could be this productive. Teams of 10-20 developers could not match the functionality and feature list of photopea. And actually, here is a question after all, have you ever recorded or livestreamed yourself coding? I'm having a hard time imagining the pace required to be this productive. Do you have an estimate of the number of hours you have put into this? | Hi, thanks a lot! I think I put between 15 000 and 20 000 hours into Photopea :) I never recorded myself programming, but most of it is just staring into the wall thinking, opening Youtube or Reddit from time to time (to "relax" a bit), and I writing code once in a while :) |
Any chance your program can export files to work with a cnc machine? | Sure, just tell me what format does that machine accepts? Is than an open format? Can you use e.g. an SVG? |
Manufacturers often create their proprietary formats to make you dependent on their software. | |
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G-Code is pretty common, although I'm unsure as to what Z-axis information you would capture in an image format unless it was texturized somehow and interpreted that as topography? Maybe like the color coded images to show 3 dimensions in a planar view. I know lasewaterjet cutting and similar that do 2D operations typically ask me for a DXF file or equivalent. I've never used Photopea for this (or even tried) but typically I take a vector format and import into CAD software to generate a DXF for this purpose. I know my media guy can never get me a format I need to import a logo and such for mechanical design. A DXF or similar vector would be amazing if it doesn't exist already. | Hi, would you be able to write this into our GitHub? https://github.com/photopea/photopea/issues . And most importantly, would you be able to discuss it there with me, if I have any questions? I never worked with any CNC machine. |
Hi !! Can I know about your backend ? | There is a webhosting which stores one HTML, one CSS and several JS files. Photopea is written in Javascript and runs completely in a computer of the visitor. |
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Have you used any frontend frameworks? | No, I wrote my own Javascript, HTML and CSS. I usually prefer to use what I know, instead of learning how to use new tools :) |
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How do you handle users that pay for premium? There must be some sort of database right? | Yes, there is a database. I just wanted to say, that out of these 7 million people, the database is needed maybe for a hundred of them. |
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Not without dinner first | Take my upvote, too :) |
Are there any new browser features or HTML features that will make your code a lot simpler? | I would love if browsers let Photopea know, when Ctrl+T was pressed on the keyboard. People have been using the Ctrl+T shortcut in Adobe Photoshop for decades and almost every week, someone asks why it does not work in Photopea. |
At the moment, when you press Ctrl+T in any browser, it opens a new tab (panel), and a we can not do anything about it :( I have been personally arguing about it with browser developers for over five years. | |
"Fighting" with browser developers is quite a big part of my work, which is quite sad :( | |
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When in fullscreen Ctrl+T works in both Chrome and Edge, it triggers the transform tool. Maybe prompt the user to switch Photopea to fullscreen ? The website feels like a standalone app so it makes sense to get rid of the browser UI anyway. | I think the Ctrl+T should be usable even when not in the fullscreen mode. |
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I'm sure you must've researched this thoroughly over the years but maybe stackoverflow seems to have a couple good answers on disabling new tab shortcut keys. Maybe have a look? Esp these 2: 1 - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38442886/chrome-disable-ctrlt-shortcut - you could make your own extension and then make that extension do the "Free Transform"? 2 - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18625091/how-to-disable-firefox-new-tab-action-when-pressin-ctrl-and-clicking-a-link-wi I'm no good at js but maybe have a look... | I guess I could also just make my own web browser and ask users to install it :D |
How about a Desktop version? That'd be great! | You can go to Photopea.com and press More - Install Photopea. It will add an icon to your homescreen, which will start Photopea without the browser UI. But it works only in the latest Chrome, Edge and Opera. https://www.facebook.com/photopea/photos/a.1703140446613703/2120885974839146 |
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What Api does that? Seems chromium only but i wouldn't care. Never heard of that. | It is called PWA - progressive web apps, and the app can trigger the installing process https://medium.com/@dhormale/install-pwa-on-windows-desktop-via-google-chrome-browser-6907c01eebe4 |
What are your plans for the video editor, and how can I keep up to date on its progress? (video editor here that loves what you did with photopea) | I do not have any specific plans about the video editor yet. You can follow Photopea on Facebook or Twitter to know about the progress (links in my original post) :) |
You mentioned your income is through ads. Have you thought of other avenues for revenue sources or ways to increase your current revenue even more to be able to hire more employees? | Yes, I have thought about it, but I don't know about any ways, which could work better than ads. |
Most of the current Photopea user can not afford to pay for the software, so I don't want to make half of features available only after the payment. | |
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Would a premium version that's identical in features but without ads be an option? Unless this is already a thing? | It is already a thing :) You can hide ads for $10 for three months. Also, there is no subscription, you pay manually any time you want. Ads come back once it runs out :) |
What things does Photoshop do better than your alternative? | Photoshop can open almost all RAW image formats (in their Camera Raw program). I think Adobe pays the camera manufacturers, so that they allow Adobe to open raw files from their cameras. |
At the moment, Photopea can open only four RAW formats, which cover around 80% of the market. | |
Do you think that photopea has been a success? I use it for work everyday and I certainly think it is! | I think it is the most useful thing I made in my life so far, so it is a success :) |
Good stuff. Love a free image editor. Why is this already on the front page, with just 6 comments and 22 points? | I don't know much about the Reddit algorithm, but I think it is also about how old the post is. E.g. if you get 20 points in 5 minutes, you will be on top of a post, which received 50 points in an hour. |
What's your favourite video game? Also thank you the amount if complete trash I have cropped using photopea is immeasurable | I received my first computer when I was 13 and PC games seemed too complicated to me (and most of them were in English, which I did not know well). I never had a playstation or a gameboy. So I never played video games much. |
The first game I "understood" and truly enjoyed playing was Serious Sam :) I also spent A LOT of time playing Clash of Clans. | |
Will it stay free or is there a possibility that you're gonna put a price on that? | Photopea has been free to use since the first release seven years ago, and I would like to keep it free to use in the future, too. |
Love photopea, I use it all the time! Does anyone trouble you with any legal issues since it's basically an online photoshop? | Thanks! I think the similarity of the interface of Photoshop and Photopea (and other photo editors) is a good thing. Imagine if each brand of computers had a different layout of a keyboard, because they wanted to be "different". I am very happy, that I can simply take any keyboard and start typing on it right away. |
Maybe one time someone will come and say, that we have to make the background red, because the dark grey color is already used in their program. And we have to rename the Brush tool to "hair on a stick tool", because the Brush tool is already used in their program. But I hope such time will never come :D | |
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Please make an April 1st version with copyright-friendly tools, that would be awesome. Brush – Hair on a stick Bucket – Metal container Move – Relocate and so on. Edit: April Tools’ Day | That is a graet idea! :D |
How do you approach creating something that is intuitive? How do you know that your logic is universally understood? Are there any examples of tools, tasks, icons that you have had to change based on feedback? Thank you and great work! | The user interface of Photopea has been evolving for seven years and there were probably hundreds of suggestions from users, which I listened to and modified, to get what we have now :) |
Hi Ivan, I've used Photopea for a couple of years for basic editing. Congratulations - it's an amazing tool. The only feature that prevents me from upgrading to a paid version is the font selection interface. There are far too many fonts available, they load slowly, are all obscure and not represented well in preview. Would you consider curating/refining the available fonts? | Hi, thanks! It is completely fine to use Photopea for free, you don't have to pay for Premium :) |
You can mark some fonts with a star, and then, you can display only the "starred" fonts. You can use filters to see e.g. only "sans" fonts and hide "comic" or "handwritten" fonts. You can enable Latin-1 and other language categories, to see only fonts with many letters (only professional fonts support more than 200 letters). | |
Have you experienced any pushback/pressure from the bigger players? | No :) I have been in touch with people from Google, Adobe, Corel, Canva and other companies, evrybody was very friendly and helpful :) |
Thanks for making Photopea- I'm certainly loving it. Will there ever be an offline version? | Hi, thanks! |
A big challenge is, that Photopea can not use fonts from your computer, and it downloads fonts from our server, when you choose to use that font. So changing fonts would not work in an offline version (except of a couple of fonts we could pre-store). | |
I think the amount of time people spend using their computer offline is decreasing, and will be almost zero at some point :) | |
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If I use a font I have purchased, is it easy to implement, if you don't have that font on your server? | Hi, just press File - Open in Photopea to load a font (TTF or OTF file) :) |
Do you plan to keep photopea solely browser based? | Many people think that browser programs are slower or "less capable" than desktop programs, but it is not true in the last five years. So a "download and install" version of Photopea would not have many advantages. |
I could provide an offline version of Photopea, but at the moment, most of money come from ads, which would not work offline :/ | |
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You can try and make an Electron app, I know its essentially a browser but it would give that "native" feel to users. | Hi, you can already press More - Install Photopea in Photopea and use it as a PWA :) |
Great. Now can we please start working on a viable PDF editor that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars per year? | Photopea can already do it to some degree :) have you tried it? |
The PDF format was not meant to be edited further. But we are improving. | |
Thanks for developing Photopea. After your last AMA, I started using it. Is there a way for size of a new document to default to image dimensions on the clipboard? That's one of the handiest things in Photoshop so you don't have to either enter manually or overguess then crop down later. | The size of a new document should be set by default to the dimension of the content of the clipboard. |
But it works only in Chrome, Edge and Opera. Firefox did not implement the necessary standard yet. Don't know about Safari :/ | |
You mentioned you plan on making a video editor. Have you considered an Illustrator alternative as well? | Photopea already has many vector-related capabilities. It can open, edit and save SVG and PDF files. Somehow, I feel like a video editor would be more fun to make than an advanced vector editor. |
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Didn't know it supported editing SVGs. How does it compare to something like Inkscape? | The interface is a lot different than Inkscape. Just try it and see how it works :) |
I know this is a long shot, but any chance I can join on board with little to no knowledge so I can learn (for free of course)? 😁 It could be doing menial tasks for all I care. If not, any advice for someone like me wanting to change career path and code? I'm just tired of what I've been doing so I just recently starting some online coding courses but would like to learn more hands on if possible. Hoping to change career path for the future. | Well, if I spend time teaching you, I will have to invest less time into developing Photopea :D |
I have been often tired of what I did, I get tired of Photopea-related work from time to time. There is not just a bad job and a good job, there are many things in between. But whenever you have to choose between a simple goal and a hard goal, don't be afraid to go for a hard goal :) | |
How did you begin to scale up the workforce? What positions did you prioritise and how did the recruitment process go? I'm in an early process of starting up a web application and can see it being difficult going from working alone on a project to trusting people to share the same determination to grow it. Thanks | I do not have any team, I still work on Photopea alone. |
Hi. Great stuffs. I will definitely give it a try soon. May I give a suggestion ? I use GIMP for Image editing since I usually have to make some illustrations for my work. And GIMP provides me with the function of adding Text from another format, like LaTeX (to write math formula). Do you think this would be possible to implement in your app ? | Hi, is the LaTeX text rasterized to pixels after you insert it? Or you can modify it in GIMP? |
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the LINUX version of GIMP has a module in the Render section which allows me to type in the LaTeX code and product an image of the formula. I am not really used to the terminology of image like vector or raster image. But once the formula is produced, it is not modifiable. So if I messed up, I have to redo the process from the beginning. | We don't have such thing in Photopea at the moment. |
I used to write my masters thesis in https://www.sharelatex.com/ . You can also convert LaTeX to a PNG image here: http://latex2png.com/ (right-click the image - Copy Image, and paste it in Photopea). | |
Can it do animations? The only thing I use photoshop for at this point is it's animation ability, especially it's keyframe animations, where you can make a single frame last however many seconds you like. If it can do that, i can finally delete photoshop. | Hi, we do not have such animation capabilities as Photoshop. But there is a special mechanism for making animations from layers: https://www.photopea.com/learn/animations |
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This kind of animation capability is exactly what I was looking for. Does it allow you to view the animation as a preview before you choose EXPORT? | Of course :) Just drag-and-drop a GIF into Photopea and try to export it as a GIF, it will take you around seven seconds :) |
what was your eureka moment for photopea that whoa this is possible? | Sometimes, when I learn about a new algorithm or a method, I wonder how elegant and ingenious it is :) Like - the person who came up with it should have been really smart, I wish I was also that smart :D |
Have you considered using Patreon? Have you considered letting people subscribe for a fixed period if no ads? | Hi, we already offer a Premium account, where you pay and it hides ads for a period of time. I know about Patreon, but I feel a bit uncomfortable about accepting money for nothing in return. |
Is there a downloadable version available/in the works? | You can go to www.Photopea.com and press More - Install Photopea, to get an icon to your homescreen. |
https://www.facebook.com/photopea/photos/a.1703140446613703/2120885974839146 | |
i tried using it on my display tablet, there doesn't seem to be any pressure sensitivity? | Hi, try to update your tablet (drivers, browser, os, etc). But it works on the latest iPad and on my old Android phone (it tracks the pressure of my finger). If it does not help, try to report it to the tablet manufacturer (as it will not work in any website, not just Photopea). |
Is there support for sprite editing tools or just tools in general for game devs? | Do you mean generating sprites, etc? It can do most of things Photoshop can do, but if you need something more, you can always suggest it here :) https://github.com/photopea/photopea/issues |
What made you decide to create a free photo editor? | It was just an experiment of analyzing PSD files in a browser. I gradually improved it. I did not want to make a photo editor during the first two years of work. But at some point, I realised - hey, it should not be that hard to make it into a photo editor. |
How is this compared to GIMP? | Hi, you can read this article: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/photoshop-alternative-no-its-not-gimp/ |
But it is about Photopea from two years ago. Photopea improved significantly since then. | |
So is it WASM or just regular old JS + WebGL? I found this looking for a browser based paint.net alternative a while back and thought it was awesome, but the controls were a bit too advanced/inaccessible for my requirements. If you're serious about growing the dev team I'm a self employed engineer if you want to hit me up. | I wrote only JS and GLSL (for GPU processing). I use three WASM libraries, which I did not make. Thanks for your offer, but I would like to hire someone I could work with in person. |
I’ve been using photopea ever since your previous AMA a year ago. My question is: how often are do you AMA and how did it impact traffic to photopea? | I did only three AMAs with about a year between them. The traffic grows by about 10 - 20%, which lasts for a day or two :) |
How much time have you invested in creating this tool? Or what's your weekly time investment? | I never measured it, but I think it is about the "regular" 40 hours a week. |
Did you know most of what you needed before starting on Photopea or did you learn as you went along with adding new features? What unexpected difficulties presented themselves while working on Photopea? | It is like I knew how to use a chisel, but I never carved a statue that big. |
I learned many practical things (state-of-art algorithms etc), I used many things I learned at the university, which I thought I will never use :) | |
How do I start contributing to Photopea? | What would you like to contribute with? You can help us find bugs or help beginners at our subreddit: www.reddit.com/photopea |
I hope this hasn't been asked, but why haven't you made a downloadable/fully offline version of your program yet? I know that as soon as you load the site you can use it offline, but there are times when people need to edit pictures without any internet connection at all. | The online version makes it much easier to release new versions and do updates. I update Photopea about 30 times a week (with minor fixes). |
Also, it feels a little uncofmortable to imagine, that someone is using a two year old version of Photopea and is cursing me because of some bug, which I already fixed, and I can not do anything about it at that moment :/ | |
What technologies did you use to build this? | I used Javascript and WebGL :) |
It's really great that you're offering an alternative to Photoshop! I was wondering, what language or software did you use to write Photopea? | I wrote my code in Javascript, but in my opinion, the language is not important at all. |
The best language is the one you know how to use. Also, for me, it is important, that there is a way to execute my code fast, which is possible with Javascript in modern browsers. | |
[removed] | Hi, you should not use Auto-translate, as we have a professional Swedish translation. Just press More - Language - Svenska. You can switch languages without restarting Photopea. |
Photopea.com should be in Swedish the first time you open it, if Swedish is set as your main language. | |
What's your End User Licensing Agreement looking like? How is this licensed? I like to know before end users start requesting such as im sure someone now wants to install this in a corporate environment... | Photope works in your computer and it never sends any data outside your computer. It is just like buying the cheapest calculator and using it. You don't get a licence to use such calculator, the numbers that you enter into a calculator don't leave the calculator. |
Our terms of service are here: https://www.photopea.com/privacy.html | |
What's your opinion of the current state and direction of front-end development? | I think I don't know much about it. I write my JS code in notepad and that code is precisely the code which runs in the browser of a user (without any modification). I did not change the way I develop webapps in the last six years. |
the below is a reply to the above | |
Straight up Windows Notepad? Not notepad++ or Visual Studio Code or Atom or anything else??? | I use Notepad++ :) |
Are you planning in translating it? If so, I'd be glad to work on the italian version. | Hi, it is already translated into 40 langauges, just press More - Language - Italiano :) |
Hey Ivan, i'm very impressed by your work, but i'm an avid GIMP user. As you can imagine switching editors is always a hassle once you've got used to one. So can you give me some bullet points why it would be worth to switch from GIMP to Photopea? Thanks for the AMA! | Hi, I think you should stay with GIMP, since you already know how to use it :) And if there is nothing specific you miss in GIMP, you probably don't need such features :) |
Hey ivanhoe90 I noticed today that the pen tool behaves backward when clicking the second point and dragging. It's like the curve goes the opposite direction than anyone would expect. I almost filed a github issue on it but I just didn't have time. Is that a bug? | Oh, I am very sorry, it is fixed now. |
Hi, I wanted to know what's your story. That is your biography. And what did you study too get here? How did you get the idea for photopea? | Hi, I gave a talk about it in France a year ago :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZmaeC_Ma5A |
DUDE! Your program saved me in the final semester of my Masters. I needed to upload images and I don't have a scanner so I used my phone and fixed the colour and tones in Photopea. Bless you for your hard work. I guess my question is what kind of cheese do you like? | Thanks a lot! If you only knew how happy I am about such comments :) |
I like all cheeses, as I think they are all amazing, each one in a different way. | |
I love this software and I use it daily, Every time I think to myself "I wonder if can also do" the answer has been yes. I love showing my co-workers this software while working in Citrix, it always blows people away that this works. Question: Any change of seeing a feature that doesn't automatically export local files to the download folder? I would love to select where I want to automatically save them or just save as > location (The google drive system already amazing though) It's that one minor thing that makes me end up with File(17).png | Hi, thanks! The saving mechanism depends on the settings of the web browser. The browser usually handles the file saving the same way for all websites. So just change the browser settings - make the browser ask you about where you want the files to be saved (we can not do anything about it as a website). |
Do you think Photopea can have more active users than Photoshop? And why? | It is hard to tell. There are many features in Photoshop and other editors, which Photopea can not do. Even if Photopea has more active users, it does not mean it makes more money. |
Well I'm 9 hours late and maybe it was already asked and answered, but if you feel like responding... do you have to recreate stuff like puppet warp or quick select from scratch? Like you have to go back and read some old white paper on the algorithm, and then sort of reinvent the wheel? | Hi, that is correct, there are usually no free implementations of such algorithms, and if there are, they are not in Javascript or are not good enough :/ |
Actually, the Puppet Warp is based on a 2009 paper from Takeo Igarashi. I found a mistake in it and I wrote him an email, and it took me several emails to persuade him that he really made a mistake in his paper :) But many other authors refuse to look deep into papers they wrote a long time ago. | |
Who would you prefer Photopea being aquired by, and why? | I don't know. I am not looking for an acquisition at the moment. |
I'm getting into video editing. I'm a noob to photoshop and video editing. Are there any tools in this that can complement my video editing? I was thinking of being able to create custom graphics for the videos but what else are the capabilities? | I dont know much about video editing, but you can use Photopea for photo editing. I think the more time you spend learning a tool, before actually using it, the less time you will spend in total (e.g. doing something by "trial and error" in 3 hours vs. learning it in 1 hour and doing it in 30 minutes, because you learned how to do it). |
How were you able to acquire such a vast amount of knowledge about editors and programming? | I studied programming at the university for many years. Learning how to use Photoshop or any other editor is easier, but still can take weeks or months. |
the below is a reply to the above | |
I'm currently studying programming at uni too. Am I correct in assuming that the vast majority of the code for photopea is JavaScript since it's a web application? | Yes, I wrote my programs in Javascript :) But I did not have any Javascript class ever in my life. I think the programming skills are not related to the knowledge of a specific programming language. |
Could you comment on https://github.com/photopea/JS-guide a bit? I don't quite understand why you're against using syntactic sugar. Especially let, const, and strict equality. I'm not claiming to be an expert at all, but most of these guidelines are in opposition to modern day JS practices. So I was just curious if you could elaborate on your decision making! | I think it is up to you what you write. But I am used to writing as "simple" code as possible, and it just looks cleaner to me if you use "var" instead of let/const (and it has no impact on the speed). |
[deleted] | I think the knowledge is the most important. Also, it should be someone friendly, calm, rational, etc :D |
Hey, I don't know if this has been asked before but since you have mentioned that Photopea can run offline after it's been loaded (meaning that there is no server backend), have you ever considered packing the app into a desktop app (e.g. with Electron or nw.js)? | Hi, I think opening a website is faster and more comfortable than downloading and installing something. Also, the electron version would be hard to update (unless it is just an iframe with Photopea inside it). |
Have you ever considered making Photopea into a mobile app? | Hi, half of our users use Photopea on phones. It works quite well. If you look for "photopea" on Youtube, most of videos are recorded on phones. |
My Reddit client doesn’t have a comment search feature, but have you considered bundling an electron version for people to download? Seems like a quick win, and even gets around ad blockers. Or if it’s a premium only offering, is just icing on the cake | Hi, I was a bit lazy to maintain a separate version of Photopea. I don't see any advantages it would have over the basic version. |
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