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edlea

126 karma · joined November 1, 2011

I make things for your mobile phone

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/edlea; my proof: https://keybase.io/edlea/sigs/Lp6_r5tzJU3gaWP9BZrP3xG0K9PeOL6L-5pSc_EvmHY ]

submissionscomments
edlea··on Architecting a Conversion Engine in Swift
This is basically llvm but for documents. Makes a lot of sense
edlea··on AI Company That Made Robots for Children Went Bust and Now the Robots Are Dying
So did I. Was the title changed?
edlea··on Chrome and Safari extensions to view AMP versions on the desktop
The timing of Google's AMP project is especially interesting considering the recent attention ad blockers have received.

By limiting the functionality of pages, AMP makes them load faster, but also allows publishers to include ads. The ads however, can't run JavaScript (or Flash) and so should be a lot less obnoxious.

There's no reason to only use AMP on mobile though - AMP content renders equally well, and fast, on the desktop. These extensions for Safari and Chrome will redirect to AMP URLs for content that has them.

edlea··on Show HN: Appsites – Beautiful websites for mobile apps in minutes
Unfortunately, it only seems to work for apps that are on the US app store. It doesn't create a page for apps that are, say, only in the UK app store.
edlea··on Bitbargain (UK) suspends withdrawals
tldr: Don't use bitcoind's "accounts" functionality

This is the first article I've read that actually details what the issue is and why it doesn't just effect custom Bitcoin clients.

edlea··on I got first class degree in CS, but I know nothing about computers
It very much depends on the employer. I've hired people who haven't studied Computer Science (or even a science or engineering degree) and found that they can be a mixed bag. Generally they can program, but the quality of their code and the way they approach problems isn't always as good as people who have been taught Computer Science.

Also, and please don't take this the wrong way as you were posting on HN, not applying for a job, but if you don't have a degree I'd expect you to be more than just a great programmer. The structure of your first sentence would ring alarm bells for me. It's not just your technical abilities that are important but all your skills, including communication.

edlea··on Are Apple 'stealing' Open Street Map data?
Looking at iPhoto "Journal", Apple probably decided they couldn't redistribute Google maps so switched to OSM. Just a shame they didn't do it within the parameters of OSM's license.

Hopefully this was a mistake rather than Apple thinking they either didn't need to adhere to a license or that they could just bully their way to what they want.

edlea··on Free micro-payments via phone. Big UK bank, Barclays, releases Pingit today
I'm assuming that most users don't know what root access is or the implications of having it
edlea··on Free micro-payments via phone. Big UK bank, Barclays, releases Pingit today
If your device is rooted you're more likely to have routes for malware to get onto the device. When money is being moved out of your bank account, malware is the last thing you want on the device
edlea··on Free micro-payments via phone. Big UK bank, Barclays, releases Pingit today
It's interesting to read some of the Android reviews for the app; an interesting insight into how users value convenience over security.

Or simply how little they appreciate security

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.barclays.apps.ping...

edlea··on Ask HN: We are a startup looking for ideas. What should we do?
Work in an industry, any industry, until you get a feel for how businesses currently operate in that space.

Find the things that are either repetitive or hard, or a different way of approaching the problems for these businesses.

Then you have your startup idea and know who your customers might be.

edlea··on Ask HN: How do I ensure that a real iOS client is using an API
This is something that the BBC did with iPlayer: http://po-ru.com/diary/device-discrimination-on-the-internet...

I've not quite worked out how to implement it though

edlea··on Kayak: We’re Very Sorry BlackBerry Users
If you're not familiar, it's definitely worth checking out WebWorks (https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/html5/). Even though it is advertised to work on BB5+ it's only really worth considering at 6+.

Also, definitely worth a look is bbUI.js (https://github.com/blackberry/bbUI.js/). It's still very much beta, but RIM are doing a lot of the UI hardwork for you; without it you end up with a white screen and have craft the UI yourself. It's a bit like jQTouch for BlackBerry.

edlea··on Show HN: My weekend hack project, Appload.io, get your app's first 1k users
I must be missing something. I've tried clicking on "Steamscope", billed as a free download, but it opens iTunes and lists the app as $0.99
edlea··on 10 minute Twilio hack to highlight O2 header issue
It's not pretty, but the code is here:

http://edlea.net/o2.js

edlea··on UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit
I've built a simple Twilio script that shows how easy it is to exploit this here: http://edlea.net/

Vistors on an O2 phone will receive an SMS on their first visit. An MD5 hash of their MSISDN is kept in memory to prevent multiple SMS being sent.

edlea··on Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name
I'm seeing something odd with the way you're building the results HTML - on Safari 5.1.2 text search doesn't pick up the majority of instances of a string.

For example, the term you're searching against is only showing up 4 times, when it appears over 1000. It works fine in Chrome 16.

It's useful for times when you see a name you like but want to find the reverse combination.

edlea··on Login to your Google account by scanning a QR code
If you're on an untrusted computer, the network is by definition also untrusted.

What happens if the computer has a hacker's self-signed certificate for https://accounts.google.com installed and the hacker sets up a man-in-the-middle style attack?

The hacker's browser asks Google for a QR code and it gets sent to your browser. When you scan the code and authorise from your phone, the hacker's browser would be logged into your Google account.

edlea··on Regular Payments in 20 minutes with GoCardless
Looks more like a UK alternative to Dwolla (https://www.dwolla.com/)
edlea··on Microphone turns any surface into a multitouch interface
I can't work out if that would be possible or not.

It might be possible to plot the location of a single point in 2D, but how would you differentiate for multitouch? If you have 2 microphones you might be able to calculate the distance from each microphone of a touch by timing how long it takes for the sound of the tap to reach each microphone. However, as the speed of sound in wood appears to be ~4000 m/s (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-speed-solids-d_713.h...) you'd need to be "listening" at 400kHz to get centimetre accuracy over a 1m square area.

I can't see how it would be possible to then differentiate between two points moving at the same time (i.e. a pinch gesture). I'm just assuming regular microphones are used as the article suggests - I'm not an acoustic engineer so hopefully I've missed something.