theoj

The main problem with building a custom ROM for the G2x is that NVIDIA will not release the Tegra2 GPU drivers to the community. So unless LG releases an official ICS version, there is no way for third party devs to get their hands on the custom driver. There are already ICS custom ROMs without GPU graphics acceleration for the G2x, and they don't work well. For example, when trying to use the browser, the screen will flicker and sometimes go black.

>> And how many users of those budget phones even realize that apps exist, or will be willing to buy yours?

You make some significant assumptions here:

1. Android 2.3 is only found on budget devices, and

2. Budget device users do not purchase apps.

I don't have any data on assumption #2, but I can tell you that there are a lot of high end phones from 1 year to 1.5 years ago which are not getting the update to ICS / Jellybean. I happen to own such a device -- the TMobile G2x. Dual core, all around powerful hardware -- more than capable to run ICS and Jellybean. Much better hardware than Nexus S, which currently has ICS / Jellybean. But the G2x manufacturer (LG) will not update the phone to ICS and everyone is stuck with Gingerbread on this high end phone. So Android 2.3 does not automatically imply cheap phone.

>> there is no reason to test on devices running Android 2.3 or earlier

Umm, not sure I buy this. Per article above (see Google dashboard image), over 55% of Android devices currently use Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and about 13% use Android 2.2 (Froyo). Your testing plan leaves behind 68% of the Android userbase -- which is kinda huge.

FYI, when I build apps for my clients I tend to support Android 2.2 and above.

>> Use the application manifest's compatibility features to prevent the Play store from showing your app to users running with unsupported devices

There can be unintended consequences to this -- such as for example greatly impairing your marketing message.

Nowhere is that clearer than at a launch event. Say your app is ready to launch and you want to hold an onsite launch event. Based on your Play store exclusions, 68% of the people in the audience will have an unsupported device. Now for the fun part: on an unsupported device, your app simply does not appear in the Play store listings! Zero, zilch, nada, no results -- it's like your app does not even exist to those users. You now have a frustrated event audience, with all enthusiasm drowned out by the cries of people asking you why they can't find your app in the store. Not good.

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Hospitals often bill 5x-10x actual costs to make up for the "discounts" that insurance companies force upon them. If you're uninsured and get hit by a huge bill, you need to negotiate with the hospital to bring the amount down. Doubly so, because hospitals have lax tracking of costs, and no one really knows how much your visit really cost. More about this from an actual MD: http://truecostofhealthcare.org/hospital_billing

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I have 1.5 years of experience working on Android apps, both large and small. I focus on building and shipping high quality apps and doing things the right way -- I am not a fan of bad code or sloppy UI. I have a proven track record, as you can see from my portfolio below: http://www.bricolsoftconsulting.com/category/portfolio/

Whether you need to build a new app or change an existing one, I can help. Let's talk about your needs and how we can build something together. theo---AT---bricolsoftconsulting----DOT---com.

So what's the innovation here? Applying minimalism (an established style from the 60's) to computers and phones?

Is that really worthy of patent protection? Asked another way, should I be granted a patent to apply minimalism to other objects all around me? Suitcases? Refrigerators? Etc?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism

Good points on the blind spot.

I wanted to add the range hood as well, but it turns out that was in the last 60 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_hood

>> Yes, a microwave is significant if you have only ever used a stove. But going from a live fireplace to the other technology he mentions is a major change.

I would argue that the microwave oven is a significant innovation because it's not based on burning fuel -- wood or gas -- as was done in previous stoves.

>> The 19th-century kitchen was built around a live fireplace, but then we rapidly benefited from electricity, water, and gas stoves. Then the past fifty years brought no major technological changes.

Ever heard of microwave ovens? Automatic dishwashers? Pretty significant kitchen innovations in the last 50 years.

>> if companies are continuously innovative

Those companies that are continuously innovative have nothing to fear from copycats... because they are always one step ahead of the copycats. Companies which want to prevent everyone from "copying" (going as far as saying that you cannot apply to computers the minimalist style that they didn't even invent[1]) do so because they don't want to innovate -- they want to live large off their past achievements.

>> Not some cheap ripoff.

A cheap ripoff is not even close competition to a well executed product.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism

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>> Whereas a general app purchaser isn't costing in their saved time (for business or productivity apps), since they don't view their mobile device as a work tool, and consumers don't usually care that your game is good because their are plenty of alternatives to choose from when it comes to wasting time on the internet.

I like the way you identify the costing "point of reference" for various segments (web/mobile and business/consumer). To add to that, it seems the costing point of reference for mobile is the monthly phone bill. In comparison with that $1 is negligible (in the ballpark of carrier overage charges), but $10 or $20 extra is a "major expense".

>> So as an example, a $100K salary, which corresponds to roughly $50 per hour working 40 hours a week, requires a freelancing rate of $56-58/hour to pay for healthcare and time off.

Cringe -- this is bad advice for setting your consulting rate. In the US, the full cost of an $100K employee is not $100K. It's $100K salary + paid vacation time + employment taxes paid by employer + healthcare + office space & pro-rated related expenses (like cleaning of said office space). This metric is called the "fully loaded cost" of an employee and ends up being 1.3x-1.5x of the salary.

But even this calculation fails to capture the flexibility advantages that your clients get from hiring short term. It ignores the fact that as a consultant you are hired only when you are needed and are 100% utilized, while a yearly employee may not be fully utilized every day of the year. Essentially, an employer that hires a full time employee agrees to "buy in bulk" and pay for time that may or may not be fully utilized. By necessity this means that your rate should be higher to account for the additional value provided plus provide cushion for those in-between project times when you are looking for work or doing proposals.

Two quick and dirty metrics I have seen for determining rate per hour are 1) yearly salary / 1000 and 2) 2x full time employee hourly rate. Both of these converge on about $100/hr. Un-official data from HN seems to confirm a median freelance rate in that range (about $90/hr): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420203

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>> The puzzles are there to watch people think on their feet

Genuinely curious: why do you consider spontaneity an essential trait in a programmer?

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>> The fastest way to complete two projects using the same people is to do it one at a time, sequentially. Trying to run two projects in parallel using the same resources introduces a large amount of waste

Is that always the case? I have seen freelancers handle multiple projects at once using a weekly breakdown of 3 days for one project and 2 days for another.

>> Besides, skill may beget product, but it doesn't necessarily beget process.

Oh boy, talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. For skill to beget a successful product, you must follow a process to get from nothing to product. So in the course of creating a successful product you have automatically created a process -- the process to build the product. That process may be used one time, or multiple times -- but it's still a process.

This quote is appropriate here:

Skilled people without a process will always find a way to get things done. Skill begets process. But process doesn’t beget skill. Following a recipe won’t make you a great chef – it just means you can make a competent bolognese. Great chefs don’t need cookery books. They know their medium and their ingredients so well that they can find excellent combinations as they go. The recipe becomes a natural by-product of their work.

From http://the-pastry-box-project.net/cennydd-bowles/2012-march-...

I think you are automatically limiting your audience with the high level of profanity on the site. Don't get me wrong, I like the functionality it provides -- but find a better way to grab the audience's attention. Look to Zappos and some other companies for friendly, engaging copy.

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>> I encountered a striking tendency in myself to want to neutralise colors. If I didn't know what color to make something, my default choice would be to desaturate it until it no longer offended my eye. On a fine level it works and you can solve a lot of individual UI "problems" this way. The problem is that as you accumulate these decisions you end up with a design that says nothing, has no motivation, fails to speak anything to the user.

Interesting observation... this is something I struggled with as well coming from a coding background and trying to do design -- at the individual element level the colors seemed great, but pulling back to the larger picture everything looked washed out. Did you ever come up with a solution for this?

>> The data does support the case.

Oh, it does? Let's look at the article together and see if we can find that data:

>> (The US rate is) 3.5 per 100,000: we would expect, if the Foxconn factories were no more dangerous than the average American workplace, 35 workplace deaths a year among those 1 million workers. Yes, each of those deaths, each of those injuries, in those aluminium dust explosions is a tragedy. But if we were being realistic rather than spouting nonsense over such matters we would not be using evidence of three or four deaths as evidence of how Apple, Foxconn or even China are ignoring worker safety in pursuit of filthy lucre. At a very minimum we would be looking at the total workplace death rate rather than cherry picking one specific incident.

The author's saying he's heard of 3-4 people killed... so how does that map to 7 in the infographic? Where exactly are the Foxconn stats coming from? Because the "data" offered in this article is "as-seen-on-TV". Is there even a system of reporting mandated by the national govt to collect data? In the absence of actual vetted data, how can you conclude that Foxconn manufacturing is 5-10 times safer than avg US manufacturing?

>> But why would they be hiding fatality stats?

If you are Foxconn, do you want people talking about Foxconn and fatalities in the same sentence? And if the govt doesn't require it, do you feel compelled to use your own internal resources to voluntarily compile and publish stats that make you look bad?

Careful with your data sources and assertions. Some of this "data" needs a serious dose of fact checking.

The data for: https://twitter.com/#!/nicepaul/status/163797296306331648/ph...

as indicated at the bottom, comes from: http://onforb.es/wj2Lt6

which maps to: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/01/29/the-apple...

If you look at Tim Worstall's (kinda op-ed) article on the second page, you can see that the author says that if the fatalities rate in Foxconn was the same as that in the US, we would expect to have 35 fatalities / year. Then he says that we only heard about 3-4 workers hurt at Foxconn, hence the rate is lower. That argument is flawed because what we hear on the news cannot be construed to represent all fatalities at Foxconn. I suspect that the fatalities rate at Foxconn is not publicized (because it doesn't have to be).

Another issue is that to determine the relative safety of the workplaces, the author is only looking at workplace fatalities. What about looking at accidents that leave the workers unable to work or maimed?

Bottom line, I don't think the incomplete data that we have supports the assertion that Foxconn is a safer workplace.

>> [Foxconn provides] a safer workplace than the average US manufacturer

Would really love to see some data that backs up that assertion.

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Depends where you get hired. This article seems to deal with getting hired at a company whose main line of business is not technology (say finance, which Dominic seems to recruit for). In that case, your employer will not care about your beautiful C++ code or super-efficient way to do X -- unless you can tie it back to the company's main line of business and making money for the firm. An internal squabble about the more correct way to do X will mean nothing to the non-technical upper management in a non-tech firm. Non-tech firms don't care about technology for the sake of technology because they don't sell technology -- the firm has other priorities and IT is just a side show to help get the firm's mission done.

Might want to refer to this:

>> Hack ones and zeros and earn our respect. But hack us and earn our contempt.

By you asking the question you have already earned the interviewee's contempt - now it is only a matter of how that is expressed. Some people express it openly, others are more diplomatic. The result is the same though -- a person who is not going to take your offer.

Bottom line: the question is manipulative, and everyone with a bit of self-awareness will figure that out. Nobody wants to work for a manipulative person.

Thanks for the answer. Sorry I wasn't clear... I was referring to this part of the article, in which you describe how the HTML / JavaScript communicates with Objective C on the iPhone:

>> We then make a request to a fake URI (forge://…) which we intercept in native code

Have you tried doing the same for Android? Do you have any numbers that compare the performance of this method with the JS -> Java bridge?