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mikejchin

63 karma · joined September 21, 2010

CTO at Boomerang (Baydin)
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mikejchin··on Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?
We've been experimenting with voting systems in order to decide where to eat. We weren't sure which system was the fairest, so we built apps that used plurality, probabilistic, instant-runoff, and preferential voting. It reached the point where we were voting on which voting system to use!

The system we settled on was a modified Borda count (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count#Modified_Borda_coun...). Our app isn't public, but I recommend this system, because it seems to have maximized happiness in our company!

mikejchin··on Email (let's drop the hyphen) (2003)
Our landing page is a bit silly (it was a hackathon project), but my company made Inbox Pause (http://inboxpause.com), which works by automating the creation and deletion of Gmail filters at scheduled times. If you aren't comfortable with installing an extension on top of Gmail, you can also try it on your own with the same filters manually.
mikejchin··on Inbox Pause - A pause button for incoming mail in Gmail [Chrome extension]
Oops, sorry about that. It looks like we forgot to include some error handling code. An error message was supposed to appear there.

I'm guessing that it's an issue with cookies. Do you have third-party cookies enabled? Try enabling that (or create an exception for inboxpause.baydin.com). If it still doesn't work, please email us at support+pause@baydin.com, and we'll take a look. Thanks!

mikejchin··on Inbox Pause - A pause button for incoming mail in Gmail [Chrome extension]
When we used window.open(), we ran into issues with Chrome's popup blocker. I think it's because we create the popup in an ajax callback. We'll take another look; there might be a workaround for us.

I just noticed that chrome.tabs.create doesn't require the 'tabs' permission, so that might be another option. Thanks for the help. We'll try to remove the permission in the next release. :)

mikejchin··on Inbox Pause - A pause button for incoming mail in Gmail [Chrome extension]
We use the chrome.windows module to pop up our authentication window. During installation, this permission appears as "access your tabs and browsing activity."

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/windows.html

mikejchin··on Colleges single out students by name for not donating to student-gift drives
As a Dartmouth '10, I'm glad that people are continuing to discuss this topic. I really did feel tremendous pressure to donate this year. While I probably would have donated anyway (and I admit - it did feel good to have the class united under a common goal), I now associate the act of giving with guilt and peer pressure. Those emotions might make me less likely to donate in the future.
mikejchin··on The $100,000 Twitter hitcher: How Baydin got Dave McClure to invest
Yes, we're still in business. :)