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mcu

296 karma · joined August 10, 2007

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mcu··on In the world of war games, Volko Ruhnke has become a hero
A fantastic "1960: The Making of the President" video review http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/v/review-1960-the-mak...
mcu··on In the world of war games, Volko Ruhnke has become a hero
We covered "A Distant Plain" on Shut Up & Sit Down last month: http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/review-distant-pla...
mcu··on Ask HN: Any Angels/VCs interested in a board gaming tech startup?
Twilight Imperium, Lords of Water Deep, The Settlers of Catan. Games that you would find at http://boardgamegeek.com/

Board gaming is a hobby that is innately social, we're building a mobile app and platform for board gamers.

mcu··on Ask HN: The YC Application "Check, Double Check, Silence" Pattern
You mean my 24 chickens? Yes, you may have them.
mcu··on Ask HN: The YC Application "Check, Double Check, Silence" Pattern
Maybe you could post your video and a link to your site? You Getting it out into the aether can help.

Also, I can't imagine that your wife is laughing at you.

mcu··on Ask HN: The YC Application "Check, Double Check, Silence" Pattern
It really isn't worth worrying about it or counting your chickens before they hatch. The YC app asks you to lay yourself bare when writing it, so applying to YC can be a bit more emotionally involved than other types of fundraising.
mcu··on Ask HN: The YC Application "Check, Double Check, Silence" Pattern
Thanks for the response. That's nice to hear.
mcu··on Ask HN: The YC Application "Check, Double Check, Silence" Pattern
Yeah, "activity" being any indication that someone is reading the app. (e.g. Clicking on links, downloading attached files, watching the video, etc.)
mcu··on Poll: Should we push the YC deadline back by a day because of the storm?
While we were gathering supplies I joked: "I'm glad that I got the YC app in, I want to enjoy my hurricane."

Supplies: https://twitter.com/mikeurbanski/status/263028329483997185

Best. Hurricane. Ever. https://twitter.com/mikeurbanski/status/263117753995644928

mcu··on Mono 3.0 is out
MonkeySpace was great! Especially that thing that was demoed that we can't talk about. You know... wink wink, secret hand shake...

Awesome things are coming!

I've been working with Mono for going on 8 years, I'm so glad to see that they were able to pull away from Novell.

mcu··on MMO in loving tribute to xkcd-1110
This is very beautiful.
mcu··on Twilio's Nine Values
I truly do not understand the value of "Corporate Core Value" statements. (OK, #5, "No Shenanigans", those are words to live by.)

Personal, Human core values. The things that keep us in line, help us to foster healthy relationships, and build civilizations are important.

But what are corporate "core values"?

I'm always a little unnerved when a company (spontaneously, or even worse, with the guidance of a "guru") feels the need to embrace this particular brand of corporate banality.

It's advertisement wrapped in altruism, and that's in vogue right now. While I'm sure it's well-intentioned, and I don't mean this as an indictment, it feels cynical.

Whatever happened to Mission Statements?

http://i.imgur.com/pvEkp.jpg

mcu··on The Heinlein Score
He wrote some fun fantasy stories.
mcu··on Choosing an API framework for Django
For me, the lack of documentation was a blessing!

When I first started investigating Piston I read almost every line of code that I was going to be using.

I'm glad I did!

Understanding Piston at the source level allowed me to create wrappers, mixins, and extensions that turned Piston into something that I was more comfortable with. I moved away from Piston (Piston lacks a few features that come baked-in by default w\ TP) to Tastypie, but, the experience was almost exactly the same.

I spent most of last week reading the Tastypie code and creating a tastypie_ext library that helps me do things my way and patch up a few of what I see as major issues (did you know that Tastypie will 500 by default if you pass it malformed json/yaml/xml? That is, client input can raise an unhandled exception on demand.)

As far as documentation goes, Tastypie isn't much better than Piston, and Django itself still has a few gaping holes in its documentation (I'm still waiting for better class-based view documentation before I adopt them completely.)

I tend to view frameworks and libraries as loaded guns... At the end of the day every person using a framework should understand how it works from top to bottom at the source level.

P.S. Thanks for django-uni-form (now django-crispy-forms)! I learned to use it by reading the source :D.

mcu··on Python MCU
mcu is a Python developer too...
mcu··on Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
This is what deal forums have done since time immemorial (1996-ish).
mcu··on Facebook buys Gowalla
One "also-ran" does not a "serious contender" make. Or break.
mcu··on 30 Austin tech CEOs headed to California in search of workers
I loved living in the North Loop/51st St. area!

About $600 for a nice one bedroom. Right by Epoch, Dragon's Lair, Great Hall Games, Austin Books and Comics, etc...

mcu··on 30 Austin tech CEOs headed to California in search of workers
Family.

They moved down after I went away for school. After being away from them for about 6 years during/after school, I went down the summer before my brother got married and ended up staying for a bit after meeting a girl.

This was well before I considered Austin or the others. I didn't intend to settle in Texas when I first got here.

mcu··on 30 Austin tech CEOs headed to California in search of workers
It's kinda dreary and worn looking. :)

The Hill Country is nice tho.

mcu··on 30 Austin tech CEOs headed to California in search of workers
Exactly! Milwaukee and Madison have huge pools of programmers that are largely ignored.

I'd try to recruit them in late November or early December...

mcu··on 30 Austin tech CEOs headed to California in search of workers
I moved from reasonably liberal parts of Illinois/Wisconsin to Dallas/Fort Worth about three years ago... I wouldn't recommend this.

When I decided to move from DFW to start a company I looked at Portland, Boston, San Francisco, and Austin. Austin made sense, financially. Texas has no state income tax (unfortunately the social services reflect this), jobs, and the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in other cities of its size. Also, winter is just another word for January here.

Unfortunately, Austin is still a reasonably small town surrounded by Texas.

I wouldn't have come here if I wasn't trying to sack away money in a town with a reasonable selection of 24-hour cafes and restaurants. While I know a few SF->Austin transplants who love it here, I'd rather be in San Francisco.

mcu··on This Woman Has $97K in Student Loans. Who's to Blame?
Here's my question: Why is an unsecured loan for education any different than any other unsecured loan?

Remember, these aren't backed by the federal government. These are variable rate loans, often with double digit interest rates, 10 year re-payment plans, and virtually no consumer protections (even bankruptcy.)

I'm lucky that I can make my $1,400 monthly payments. When I left school, I thought that I would be able to pay my loans off in 20-30 years. A few weeks after leaving school I was floored when I found out that I had to repay my loan in just 10 years. No negotiation, no other options. Pay what they ask or they ruin your credit.

Personally, I'm on the fence about including student loans in a bankruptcy. It's not an option for me, but should someone have to live their entire life in service to a bank because congress changed a law in 2005?

Should a bank really be making $100,000 unsecured loans to 18-22 yo-s just because someone in their (future) field has the potential to repay it?

OTOH: What are thinking going to schools that cost $40,000+ a year when we have no means.

At least this taught me the value of unflinching frugality.

Proposal to include private student loans in a bankruptcy: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.5043:

Exceptions to Discharge: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode11/usc_sec_11_0...

mcu··on Interviewing programmers: coding test results.
This is closer to how I would do it in practice.

        void condense_by_removing (char *z_terminated, char char_to_remove) 
	{
		char *next = z_terminated;

		while (1) {
			while (*z_terminated == char_to_remove) ++z_terminated;
			if (!(*next++ = *z_terminated++) ) break;
		}
	}
mcu··on Interviewing programmers: coding test results.
You're right, I should have left in 'int len = strlen(z_terminated);'
mcu··on Ask HN: Has your startup affects your relationship with your wife or girlfriend?
My girlfriend and I had almost the exact same schedule!

She's in med school (I would not wish this on my worst enemy) and I'm boot-strapping. Making dinner together and then sitting down to watch Brian Williams and Joepardy! is our most sacred tradition.

mcu··on Interviewing programmers: coding test results.
This is exactly why I contribute tens of thousands of lines to F/OSS projects.

Your mettle has never truly been tested until you have hundreds of developers, from around the world, pointing out your idiocy in an excruciatingly specific manner. After your ego has been throughly decimated, then you can improve.

This is closer to how I would do it in practice.

        void condense_by_removing (char *z_terminated, char char_to_remove) 
	{
		char *next = z_terminated;

		while (1) {
			while (*z_terminated == char_to_remove) ++z_terminated;
			if (!(*next++ = *z_terminated++) ) break;
		}
	}
EDIT: Fixed bug
mcu··on Interviewing programmers: coding test results.
My original snippet contained: "int len = strlen(z_terminated);"

I cut it before posting as I was going for compact code, not efficiency.

Nits have been throughly picked. :)

mcu··on Interviewing programmers: coding test results.
No. It isn't. There is only one iteration. It's O(n).
mcu··on Interviewing programmers: coding test results.
#include <stdio.h> #include <string.h>

void condense_by_removing (char *z_terminated, char char_to_remove) { int i, index;

		for (i = 0, index = 0; i <= strlen(z_terminated); ++i) { 
			if(z_terminated[i] != char_to_remove) {
				z_terminated[index++] =	z_terminated[i];
			}	
		}
	}

	int main () 
	{
		char dt[] = "Now is the winter of our discount tents";
		condense_by_removing (dt, 'u');
		printf ("%s\n", dt);
	}
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