Toluu : Brian White

Brian White

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My vote for the best iPhone App so far is Flashlight, which costs $0.99. It’s not best for reasons of utility or value–there are said to be 4 or 5 other flashlight apps, at least one of them is free. It’s the best because it was probably ridiculously easy to code, and it was accepted by Apple for inclusion in the store, and the early adopters seem to be buying it.

For the uninitiated, a flashlight app puts up a blank white screen, and if you aim it around a dark room, your iPhone suffices as a really nice flashlight.

This app has a whopping 1 of 5 stars in the reviews section. There are 73 reviews thus far. Some choice quotes from the App Store reviews:

You could just take a picture of a sheet of looseleaf and bring it up in the dark for cheaper. That’s a pro tip.

0 MEGS!!!

A blank screen for $1?

You could open up Safari…and go to a blank web page and you got a free flashlight to use with less than 3 taps!

This app managed to crack the top 25 paid apps, so either 1. people need flashlights and found this one first or 2. longshot, but the app gamed its way onto the list (which would suck).

Sometimes though, you have to sit back and admire “Pet Rock” p

IronyJuly 4

I’ve got this trick to work out if something is ironic or not. I think I picked it up from a college professor. I recall it as thus:

Imagine that a driver dies in a car accident, and the driver’s seat has a seatbelt.

The person dying, despite the availability of a seatbelt which was not worn, is not irony.
The person dying, despite wearing the seatbelt, is not irony.
If the seatbelt turns out to be the cause of death, that’s irony.

Amazing Firefox Search Engines SelectionJune 10

A friend expressed his annoyance at not being able to search for YouTube videos in Firefox via the search box in the upper right. One can click “Manage Search Engines” at the bottom of the search box dropdown to add search engines that may be missing from the default list. To my friend’s chagrin, YouTube was not among them. I dug around a bit to try to help him.

I quickly found the Mycroft Project at Mozdev lists a bunch of custom search engines you can add to Firefox (including Firefox 3) to fill your needs, with one click.

I’m assuming people are hunting these down historically as they’re missing from the defaults. The latest Mycroft stats page from the end of March shows the popularity of Search Engine plugins as thus:

YouTube
Dictionary.com
isoHunt
The Pirate Bay
Mininova
Thesaurus.com
IMDb
Google Images
Youtube + Google Video

Lo and behold, my friend’s need for YouTube search happens to match the top downloaded Search plugin. One click and he was happily searching YouTube from Firefox.

Didn’t find what you were looking for in the top 25? There’s a search interface to find a huge selection of search engine plugins.

It’s also interesting that those I listed conform to A9’s Op

Google Street?June 2

My header image shows a Google street sign. It’s real, but we don’t have a Google Street–it designates the driveway at Huff and Charleston as Google HQ to help people navigate, I suppose.

It’s not reflected in this StreetView image, but it’s roughly at the corner:

Update: Since I wrote this post, the lamppost has appeared, but without the signage.

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Prosper.com Two Years InJune 2

Two years ago I threw a couple thousand dollars at Prosper.com as I thought the concept was cool. Over two months I loaned money to 16 different people. I didn’t have much of a strategy, but made micro-loans on gut-level intuition. After funding those loans, I felt like I was putting too much time into finding loans, and let the ones I funded ride without re-investing the proceeds.

Two years in, I have 75% of my money back, but half of my loans have defaulted or are in collections. I made a decent amount of interest before a few of these defaulted, as some had APRs of 25%. Judge me as lending at loan shark rates if you wish, but these people were doing things like getting out from under 100% APR “Payday Loans” schemes or trying to establish credit after an ex-spouse trashed their combined credit.

I estimate I’ll reach mid-2009 making about $100, which is better than losing money (which can still happen). But it has been a fun learning experience, and I’m just taking the proceeds out and not re-investing. It’s pretty risky, the lack of repayment makes me angry, and it takes too much time to do research.

I learned something interesting from one of the people at Prosper who I met along the way. Affinity credit cards, like a Stanford or Berkeley credit card (powered by Visa or Mastercard etc) tend to get paid promptly at a much h