raminf

One day I came across it and started noodling. Pretty soon figured out you could program the calculator to do the main calculations for my job. What was supposed to be an all-Summer project ended up finished in less than two weeks! (I still got paid for the whole work. Thanks Dad!)

That was my first taste of how programming machines can save time.

A few years later I bought myself an HP-41C with a card-reader attachment and then discovered 'synthetic programming' (one of the earliest versions of 'jailbreaking').

These were all gateway drugs. Have been hooked on programming ever since.

Thanks for bringing back all kinds of fond memories.

If you subscribe to the 'presumed innocent' premise of the law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence) then the burden of proof is on the inquisitor.

Either you believe in presumed innocence or you don't. Pick one.

I was surprised to see it say "Thanks, expect an email from us first thing in the morning!"

I can't find a way to cancel the request. Hopefully it'll be in the email. I understand the need for rapid on-boarding but this was a bit of a surprise.

Comedy gold!

I reformatted it so it would justify right like the original but for some reason Pastebin likes to reflow things.

It turns out the single-character tokens 'u' and 'w' were not being used so repurposing them for the #defines leads to a saving of 46 characters at the cost of an extra line. There are a few other recurring tokens but you hit a point of diminishing return.

One should not, however, lose sight of what an awesomely clever hack the whole thing is. Reminds me of some of the text-flow layouts in old illuminated manuscripts, or the more modern variations here (like the one with the light-bulb): http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/11/award-winning-new...

#define rt return

Then replacing the corresponding inline tokens shaves off another 25 bytes from the source without affecting the output or (arguably) the readability.

Sorry, my inner obfuscator couldn't resist :-)

Beautiful bit of coding, btw.

For example, any typical RSS reader, alternative email clients, specialized browsers, or any dev tool that shows page previews using a webview. These all have to max out the entitlements so they don't break down the line.

It seems like it would be much more useful to make entitlements be a dynamic system instead, so apps can request extra privileges at runtime and asking the user to confirm instead of statically baking it into the app envelope. Same goes for the iPhone.

The main issue was communication and being able to have high-bandwidth face-to-face meetings to clarify what was needed. Extensive use of iChat and Skype didn't seem to help.

Some apps have detailed specs and a lot of upfront work has been done in reducing the ambiguities. Those are probably better candidates for outsourcing. But if the design is fluid and things need to be worked out as-you-go, that seems to be where outsourced projects go pear-shaped.

I personally think there's enough work to go around all over the world, but for certain types of apps you need to have someone you can meet and have a dialog with so you can iterate the design efficiently.

Obviously, each app is different and situations vary so YMMV.

Deleting and reinstalling it from scratch seems to solve the problem. Nice looking app.

In the mobile world the {product}app.com convention is pretty prevalent and has opened up some choices. You could always start a new convention for web-based products.

I personally don't think a single product needs to have its own unique domain. Most browsers nowadays have the combo URL/search field feature (or the search field is right next to the URL). Someone typing in the product name will likely find it one way or another.

But there are a few other ways to look at it:

- Chaotic vs. orderly. - A pile of laundry vs. neatly folded - Unfiltered vs. filtered - Amateur vs. professional - Unedited vs. curated

Pick whichever way you want and your perspective might be different. It's really in how you define the context.

As far as I'm concerned the app store is a shopping mall and the proprietors have chosen to limit what kind of businesses can open shop there (no head shops or brothels). There are shoppers who are happy to go there and those who don't like the brand-name selections. There are businesses who are prospering happily and those who are struggling.

And then there are those who like to stand outside with pickets and complain that the management is squelching free speech.

Comparing it to dystopian nightmares and totalitarian regimes is quite a stretch.

After installing Parallels tools and running one of the sample apps the screen froze with no way to get back in. Currently reinstalling. Will try it again this time without Parallels tools.

As for the emulator, unless you want to invest in a large set of devices, it's the only way to test against different screen sizes and device profiles. Even though it's nice to have a device for debugging, you'll need to make peace with the emulator to make sure your app doesn't go all wonky on devices other than your exact model.

If only I had waited.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/for/2202131748.html

This is going on my wall of inspiring quotes.

Godfather says, "Yes, but not buying from me might expose you to harm in the future."

Grocer says, "It's OK, I'm not worried. Besides, who would want to hurt me?"

Godfather comes back the next week and shoots him in the kneecap. "See, I warned you someone might come in and hurt you."

s/Godfather/Microsoft/g

s/Grocer/Motorola/g

s/Deli Meat/Android/g

Wonder how much fight the next, um, Grocery store will put up.

My one suggestion is if you want to expand your age/experience bracket and get these people to apply, you may want to address issues directly relevant to them. One suggestion is to relabel the investment to something more like a 'stipend' and explain clearly that it's not expected to cover salary and life expenses, but only to help defer company expenses. That way, people know that they need to set aside enough savings to cover their family.

The other is to spell out clearly the policy of working on outside projects (to bring in some money) during the YC 3-month period. Leaving it ambiguous keeps out people who need a part-time gig to bring in some money but could spend the rest of their waking time working on a cool product.

I know people who work as consultants and make $10K-$25K in a month. To these people, the YC 'investment' is more of a deterrent. The main attraction would be to get wired into the network and tap into the experience YC and its alumni can offer. It would be good if you could clarify whether it makes sense for them to apply or not.

Overall though, a good write-up with a decent level of detail. Thanks for putting it up.

:-)