Category:

Uncategorized

I was in a situation where I was calling a method that was calling a method that was calling a method that: Was calling dispatch_async and scheduling the start of a network request Doing all manner of low-level networking code on various threads Completing all the low-level stuff and executing a block all the way […]

Continue reading

31 Jul 2010, by

Revenue Sharing

Problem If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know that revenue sharing is mostly evil. Everyone who has ever held an iPhone has an idea for an app that will (in their mind) make them millions. The number of people who can execute on those ideas, on the other hand, is exceptionally, vanishingly […]

Continue reading

I discovered the weirdest behavior *ever* today. For some bizarre reason, this line of code works fine as long as you are drawing into a “screen” context (e.g. one set up by drawRect). If you are drawing to a bitmap context (e.g. UIGraphicsBeginImageContext), it will for some random reason set the stroke color to transparent […]

Continue reading

This is, more or less, how I taught myself x86 assembly. By reverse-engineering Skype. http://www.secdev.org/conf/skype_BHEU06.pdf It wasn’t quite that difficult back in the 90s. And these guys got way further than I ever did. But a lot of the binary protection (polymorphic checksumming, dynamic calling, a really clever packer, RSA verification, etc) is close or […]

Continue reading

Just for fun, I’ve thrown together a quick&dirty landing site for Timely from some templates.  I’m interested in seeing whether having a high-quality landing page causes an uptick in sales as well as whether AdWords is profitable for a decent niche iPhone app.  Will report back with results. In other news, my consulting landing page […]

Continue reading

You know what sucks?  US Broadband.  More specifically, caps seem to be getting more and more popular. Now I have nothing against caps, in theory.  Charging by usage works fine for electricity and water.  The problem is: Growth.  Data is one of those resources that you keep using more of.  GMail has solved this problem– […]

Continue reading

Due to hardware problems, I’ve managed to lose quite a bit of data. My most recent full backup was from 2009. If you know me, you know I have a very ridiculous backup setup, with stuff stored on multiple continents and pretty much instantly restorable going back years. Unfortunately, Sealed Abstract was not part of […]

Continue reading

17 Jul 2009, by

New host

I just moved this site over to a new VPS. Should be a little snappier.

Continue reading

I ended up accepting a part-time  research position here at LeTourneau University.  I’m also doing some contract iPhone work, and working on my startup.  I think this turned out to be the perfect mix of interesting, fun projects that let me work from my room on my own equipment, pay well, and feel really rewarding. […]

Continue reading

Powered by WordPress