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vegashacker

1,421 karma · joined March 31, 2008

Email me at rob.hunter at Google's popular email domain.

I'm one of the two people at Focused Apps. We make Emoji Me and Hit Tennis for iOS.

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vegashacker··on Steve Jobs Has Just Gone Mad
Thanks. Sorry, I misread. And that's an interesting point too, because until now, an argument I commonly heard in support of Apple was, "At least the App Store is better than the console game environment."
vegashacker··on Steve Jobs Has Just Gone Mad
No, that's exactly what the terms are saying you _can't_ do. If you used something like GOAL, you wouldn't be starting out in Objective C, and thus you'd be in violation of the new terms.
vegashacker··on Steve Jobs Has Just Gone Mad
Yes, denying filesystem access (well, raw filesystem access--Apple gives you access to the "Documents" directory, etc), may be offensive to some, but for me this falls under the category of "sure, it'd be nice if it did more, but I'm not gonna be mad about it." The TI-82 programmable calculator didn't allow me to reprogram my keys or to redefine the built-in math operations, but that didn't make me love that device any less.

The "originally written" requirement is different because it's not something that Apple could restrict by means other than by telling us, "you can't do that." It's kind of like saying, "Don't program in a functional style", or "Use a model view controller architecture." Uhm, excuse me? I'll decide that for myself, thank you very much!

vegashacker··on Apple takes stance on consciousness
Probably, but, as the author notes, Apple doesn't define this.
vegashacker··on Steve Jobs Has Just Gone Mad
Sure I've had my moments of App Store frustration, but all in all, I haven't been as offended by it as a lot of folks. I think that's because I felt that Apple was giving me something that I couldn't easily find elsewhere (single point of distribution that everyone knows about, very few taps for users to install my apps, the ability to easily charge for apps), so I was okay if they were a little particular about the terms.

But this is different. Apple telling us programmers not to write source to source compilers, is telling us to ignore a totally fundamental technique in computer science. They're telling us not to be too clever, which us programmers don't take kindly to.

vegashacker··on Backward Steps by the WSJ and the NYT on the iPad
There's evidence (both anecdotal and numeric) suggesting that people prefer using an apps to the "raw" web. My mom says about her iPhone, "Safari is still kind of hard for me. So I always look for an app first." I suspect her usage pattern may be somewhat typical, and if so, it may make a lot of sense for these companies to build these apps--because they're what the users want.
vegashacker··on Daring Fireball: The Kids Are All Right
Seriously. I can't imagine the set of parents who buy an iPhone/iPad for their kid but won't spend the $100 to let their kid build with it is a large set--in fact, it's probably empty.
vegashacker··on Daring Fireball: The Kids Are All Right
But you can't install on any devices (even your own) without the $100 fee.
vegashacker··on Stop using Windows Notepad
The only excusable reason I can think of is a "one-off" edit on a foreign computer that doesn't already have your editor of choice installed.
vegashacker··on Walt Mossberg's Apple iPad Review
I hope Walt's right, but I just find that so hard to believe. Did you see Steve typing an email at the iPad keynote? It was so awkward that it was kind of painful to watch. And, as I recall, Steve even had an uncorrected typo slip by in the one-line email that he composed.

That said, watching Walt's video got me super excited about getting one of these puppies. :)

vegashacker··on Django powered flickr photo voting site
Also I believe that clicking on the photos has to take you to flickr.com, according to the TOS. At least that's what I remember. Clicking on the photo (from the detail view) seems to go to the same page.
vegashacker··on Germans Cringe at Hitler's Popularity in Pakistan
The photo in the context of the article's title is a little misleading. It makes it seem like these children are lighting candles in honor of Hitler.
vegashacker··on Ask HN: Rate My StartUp's Latest Application - Yunno.com
Seemed pretty solid. I'm not sure I believe there's a market, but there certainly could be. Has definitely viral potential as you demonstrated. I think you took way too long choosing a picture of pleading (that's not a comment on your app, just your demo video).
vegashacker··on Obama Nasa plans 'catastrophic' say Moon astronauts
The last man on the Moon, Eugene Cernan, said it was "disappointing".

I kept re-reading this and saying, what? He thought going on the moon was disappointing?? Ooooooh, "it" == "Obama's decision". :)

vegashacker··on Crocodoc (YC W10) Makes It A Snap To Share And Mark Up Documents
According to the article there's a version that companies can install themselves on their own servers.
vegashacker··on Yelp Hit With Class Action Lawsuit For Running An “Extortion Scheme”
Ah, I see. That makes a little more sense then.
vegashacker··on Yelp Hit With Class Action Lawsuit For Running An “Extortion Scheme”
The allegations are demonstrably false, since many businesses that advertise on Yelp have both negative and positive reviews.

I don't see how that demonstrates the allegations are false. It demonstrates that there must not have been an extortion scheme that every business paid into.

Update: see mustpax's comment. Yelp is making a statement about businesses which have paid them.

vegashacker··on CardPool (YC W10) Wants To Buy And Sell Your Unused Gift Cards
I think of the Hallmark things as "greeting cards", not "gift cards".
vegashacker··on -2000 Lines Of Code
For me at least, the main benefit by far of fewer lines of code is fewer bugs and maintainability. Code kilobytes rarely matter (though I concede "k" can be relevant on the web).
vegashacker··on Google Buzz
The difference is that I still don't really get what Wave's about, and I think a lot of folks agree. I still remember the first time I saw Google Maps--I got it instantly, and I was blown away. And the intial value proposition of Gmail (a gig of storage) was obvious too.
vegashacker··on Is Facebook a Brand that You Can Trust?
True. But that popup was pretty confusing. It took me a while to grok it, and even then I wasn't exactly sure what my settings were going to be after clicking Done. When I went to check out the new feature of "what my page looks like to most people" (whatever that means), I was very surprised to see that my fan pages showed up.

And apparently people who hadn't tweaked their default privacy settings before (which is probably most people), had the "Everyone" option selected by default. I'm not saying Facebook was intentionally doing something shady, but my reaction was, "Wow, a lot of people are going to be tricked by this."

vegashacker··on Uncommon - Custom design your own iPhone case
$39.95 to make your own. Not bad.
vegashacker··on Uncommon - Custom design your own iPhone case
Seems really cool. I clicked around though, looking for the price, and couldn't find it.
vegashacker··on Do you understand this first-grade child's homework?
It's funny, I just realized the way I do certain simple arithmetic is by actually counting in my head. 8 + 3 is 8... 9, 10, 11. But something like 6 + 5 I just have memorized. Maybe cause my brain has decided it takes too long to go 6...7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Or that I'd forget where I was without using my fingers or something. And now that I think about it, for 8 + 7 I use a third technique: I double 8, and then subtract one. Even though I'm pretty sure I have that one memorized correctly, I still seem to always do that check in my head. Ok, I think it's bedtime. Probably shouldn't admit any of this in a public forum. :)
vegashacker··on Ask HN: What do founders spend their time on, after their product launch?
That's a really good point. When early-stage founders aren't technical, the time/ability they have to "[build] what they should have made" is essentially constrained by whatever change budget is in the contract they have with their outsourcers. And in my experience, a change budget is set based on an (optimistic) estimate of the time needed to add a few unexpected features. It's certainly not enough to allow for major shifts in focus.
vegashacker··on Verizon Droid Quick Review Plus Comparison with iPhone
I was surprised by this conclusion: "I’d say [the Droid] is definitely the second best phone on the market..." It seemed to me that his points added up to it being better. The only one that was a solid win for the iPhone was the camera.
vegashacker··on How to get automatically rejected by an angel investor
On 5-year projections,

Oh wait, you say it’s a “conservative estimate?” No, the conservative estimate is that you burn through all your cash in nine months and start taking on consulting gigs to delay a return to a “real job” in corporate America.

vegashacker··on How should I monetize this post? 16,000 views a month.
You could experiment with donations. It seems you already have a decent amount of data on AdSense. It'd be interesting to see how, say, PayPal donations perform.
vegashacker··on Take A Trip into the Future on the Electronic Superhighway (1993)
Except you have to login.
vegashacker··on Google Wave Aha moment, with:public is Awesome
I feel like you already have to know what with:public is before reading this. I got 1.5 paragraphs in and stopped since I had no idea what was going on.
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