mfn

Just out of curiosity, and if you don't mind answering, are these offers $150k base? Or is that the value of the whole compensation package, including signing bonuses and stock options?

Regarding the idea of using an old laptop as a dev server, have you run into any issues as a result of having the laptop on all the time (such as overheating)?

Also, how would you set it up so that you can log in to your laptop from outside your LAN? I have a few old machines lying around and it would be great if I could put them to use as servers.

This set of slides goes over how some astronomical measurements were made hundreds of years ago:

http://terrytao.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cosmic-distance-...

One of the things you could do is try and intern at a tech company during the summer. The main benefit is that you'll be able to see how different technologies are usually put together to make a product, and will also learn some useful professional software development practices along the way which may become handy in the future in case you ever decide to do a startup.

Since you're not in college yet this may be slightly difficult, but as long as you have put together a portfolio of interesting things you've worked on (which you clearly have), it shouldn't be a problem.

Just wondering, would these still apply if the app developer was in a country other than the US, but the apps were being downloaded from an app store by US citizens?