Kodi Arfer / Wisterwood

Crap, I'm literally running out of money.

Topic List
#001 | AzumarillMan |
After my latest rent and credit card bills go through I will have exactly 59 cents to my name.

This is why you don't live in Philadelphia. I bet I could get a place in New York for cheaper.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#002 | TheCheezBounce |
Wow, that stinks. I thought it was hard enough living on a college campus with only six dollars in my bank account (and only ramen and soup in the cupboard). 59 cents, man. Hopefully you get more money soon.
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Holy **** we're in the Matrix? - Willis
#003 | TheCheezBounce |
Then again, I have overdrafted my bank account, too, and I had to rely on my younger brother to pull me back out. Not fun. Not fun at all. By the way, I found out the hard way that they charge you overdraft for every single charge you make to your account. So, say I buy a pop and I've already been charged an overdraft for that day, that's another thirty dollars. For a freaking pop.
Yeah, Aman, be careful with that. You might want to get some money in your account ASAP in case something sneaks in a charge on your account.
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Holy **** we're in the Matrix? - Willis
#004 | AzumarillMan |
Well I'll get paid before those bills get out...if all goes according to plan.

Good thing is, I'm about to release a new iPhone app so hopefully I can pull in a couple hundred a week from that for a while.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#005 | HeyDude |
What will your app do?

Also: mytotalmoneymakeover.com. I suggest taking the FPU program preventatively, not after getting into a financial crisis.
#006 | HeyDude |
Wrong link... this is what I and Jess went through together: http://www.daveramsey.com/fpu/
#007 | Kodiologist |
Aren't you a grad student, AMan? Is the stipend you get from Penn stingy?

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"You blockhead!" -Cheez
#008 | AzumarillMan |
Alex: It's a Twitter client.
Kodi: I'm just a master's student. They don't give me anything. My parents are paying my tuition this year, which makes my problem more embarrassing.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#009 | Kodiologist |
Man, that stinks. I'll be applying to PhD programs this December, but I can tell that, at least in psychology and apart from a few specialized fields, people seeking terminal master's degrees are seen as second-class students.

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"You blockhead!" -Cheez
#010 | Jacehan |
I hope it's a good Twitter client, I haven't been too happy with the options out there.

Also, can one figuratively run out of money?
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"To truly live, one must first be born." ~ Evan [aX]
Paper Mario Social:
The Safe Haven of GameFAQs. (Board 2000083)
#011 | HeyDude |
I don't see how you can literally run out of money other than if you are in a house made of dollar bills and you leave the house quickly. Aren't (almost) all uses figurative?
#012 | Ocarinakid2 |
I've only overdrawn my bank account once. That same day, I found a job. I see good fortune in your future.
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Ocarinakid
#013 | AzumarillMan |
I think you'll like it, James. I've put a ton of thought and work into each individual detail...it's my baby. I'll put you on my beta tester list.

I do share your sentiments about the current state of Twitter clients. Which one do you use? To me, Twitterrific is the best one currently in the market. The official Twitter for iPhone app is usable but has some serious flaws, but then again I felt that way about Tweetie 2. Osfoora is a blatant clone of the official app. And then you have people who have no idea what they're doing behind the remaining five dozen.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#014 | TheCheezBounce |
I don't see how you can literally run out of money other than if you are in a house made of dollar bills and you leave the house quickly. Aren't (almost) all uses figurative?
Thinking deeper, I don't think you can literally OR figuratively run out of money. You can go deeper into debt, yes, but in the end, what the hell IS money?

...Ow, my head.
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Holy **** we're in the Matrix? - Willis
#015 | Jacehan |
I use Twitteriffic, which has gotten better, but also note that I'm using an iPad, not an iPhone.
---
"To truly live, one must first be born." ~ Evan [aX]
Paper Mario Social:
The Safe Haven of GameFAQs. (Board 2000083)
#016 | PaperSpock |
What features does your twitter app offer that the competition doesn't?
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I thought I saw upon the stair a little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today. Oh how I wish he'd go away.
#017 | AzumarillMan |
How is that relevant, Mark? Applications are pieces of art, not lists of features. It's like asking a painter when he's done, "How many strokes did you use?" The best application of any kind on any platform is quite often not the one with the most features.

It does, however, refine parts of the user experience that other clients are lacking in from a design standpoint. Unfortunately I have to keep everything under wraps at this point, but if you have an iPhone, I'd love for you to be a beta tester!
---
Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#018 | HeyDude |
AMan, some people are willing to deal with a clunky or ugly interface in order to be able to do something that other apps can't do. In fact, a lot of people are.

Don't pretend that "which use cases can it support?" is an irrelevant question!
#019 | PaperSpock |
Rather than be sarcastic and ask if you coded it in iambic pentameter, I'll say this:

I see any artistic value an app has as the icing, rather than the cake.


And if an iPod touch is sufficient, the notion of being a beta tester sounds interesting, and I'll give it a go.
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I thought I saw upon the stair a little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today. Oh how I wish he'd go away.
#020 | AzumarillMan |
AMan, some people are willing to deal with a clunky or ugly interface in order to be able to do something that other apps can't do. In fact, a lot of people are.

Yup. But usually, if a developer has put enough effort into the design of an app's user interface to prevent it from being "ugly or clunky," they have put similar effort into that app's functionality.

Don't pretend that "which use cases can it support?" is an irrelevant question!

Far from it. Not the one that was asked, though.

I see any artistic value an app has as the icing, rather than the cake.

But design is how something works, not how it looks.

And if an iPod touch is sufficient, the notion of being a beta tester sounds interesting, and I'll give it a go.

Sure is! I'll add you to the list.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#021 | Kodiologist |
From: PaperSpock | Posted: 8/30/2010 6:43:51 PM | #016
What features does your twitter app offer that the competition doesn't?

From: AzumarillMan | Posted: 8/30/2010 7:56:27 PM | #017
How is that relevant, Mark?

Man, Jordan, stay away from Emacs. You would hate it. You would probably declare it the worst piece of software you'd ever had the misfortune of trying.

No, seriously, I agree that the interface of a program can be as important as what it does, even though you and I have radically different ideas of what constitutes a good interface.

From: PaperSpock | Posted: 8/30/2010 8:23:26 PM | #019
Rather than be sarcastic and ask if you coded it in iambic pentameter…

Surprisingly close:

http://shakespearelang.sourceforge.net/

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"You blockhead!" -Cheez
#022 | HeyDude |
Well, you know that certain use cases require certain features, and that it's (in general) the question a user is putting forth when they ask about features.
#023 | Jacehan |
But icing isn't just about how the cake looks. It's an integral part of the cake, and very often the part that people want the most. However, people won't eat just icing: the need the substance the cake provides. My problems with Twitteriffic are with its cake, not with its icing.
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"To truly live, one must first be born." ~ Evan [aX]
Paper Mario Social:
The Safe Haven of GameFAQs. (Board 2000083)
#024 | Kodiologist |
I don't understand how most people think of cake. They seem to see it as merely a vehicle for lakes of too-sweet icing:

http://doiop.com/cake_anatomy

I say the icing should be thin and the cake itself substantial.

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"You blockhead!" -Cheez
#025 | AzumarillMan |
James, I'm not too familiar with the iPad version but I actually like it better than the iPhone version. The scrolling frame rate is a tad low for my tastes, but good luck getting 60 FPS with custom, gradient-overlayed table view cell that has to pull image data remotely upon becoming visible. But the UI is minimal and natural...I think they have something good going on. IconFactory are the pioneers behind this stuff after all; they were the ones who coined the word "tweet."

Actually, now that I mention image loading, here's a "feature" my client supports, but is really part of the user experience: everything that can be cached locally, is. Each tweet is cached as soon as it's returned from the API request, so basically within a certain limit a single tweet is never fetched remotely more than once. This makes timeline updates seem almost instantaneous; you'll see previously fetched tweets immediately upon seeing your timeline, since they're stored locally, and the API request will only specify tweets with IDs higher than the your most recent cached one.

Same goes with avatars. In most clients, when tweets are fetched their avatar URL is encoded but not the image data itself. The image is only downloaded once the user needs to view the tweet, then cached. So when you first load your timeline, most new tweets you see will have a placeholder graphic for the avatar, and then after a few seconds the actual avatar is loaded. Of course, once it's loaded for one user, it's loaded for all those tweets.

Still, that's not fast enough for me: I want all avatars to be immediately visible without giving the illusion that it has to load. I don't want the user to have to see that placeholder graphic ever (in fact, I just removed the PNG from my Xcode project). Instead, I'm fetching all the image data for avatars as soon as the user logs in on first launch, for their friends who authored the last 100 tweets in the timeline. This won't cover every avatar the user might see, so then, on timeline load, I note the tweets with users who aren't in this local list, and quickly fetch those images before the timeline displays. This makes logging in at first launch take a little longer, but it's a one-time thing. And once the user views the timeline, there's almost no loading going on. Should take just a few seconds on a good WiFi connection from the time the user chooses "Timeline" to the time when 130-ish tweets with avatars fully loaded are ready for viewing.

Things like that.
---
Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.