Sunday, August 26, 2007
Moving Back In
I guess I forgot to mention that I'm in the process of moving back into Austin and doing NSC stuff, and with classes starting on Wednesday just keep your eyes peeled for my next post. I'm sure it'll be very soon.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Superbad
Before I get started here, I have to say that I hate Sprint. I called them to activate my brother's old Treo 650 for me, and they were rude and ugly the whole time. If you can help it, don't use Sprint. Anyhow, I saw Superbad today so I felt that a brief review was in order. It was a pretty entertaining movie, but quite crude. Maybe not quite on the level of Clerks 2, but still pretty heavy on cursing and gratuitous innuendo. If you can look past all that though, it's quite funny. The last portion of the movie is definitely the funniest, but it's pretty evenly sprinkled with what-the-hell humor. I guess I laughed so much because I could see the inner perv that every, and I mean every, guy experiences for a couple of years following puberty, cut lose on the big screen in the character Seth. What makes this movie so funny is that the casting is spot-on. I just love every character in this movie; they're perfect. Keep in mind that this is a comedy, not a drama or anything, so good acting means good delivery and believable caricatures. There were a few scenes where I had to look away because the scene was so shocking or I felt embarrassed for a character; that's what good acting is in a comedy. Anyhow, I give it a B because it was rather crude, but worth seeing if you can appreciate juvenile humor. You have to basically try to not be mature about it or an adult and realize that it's all just for fun.
This is truly amazing: so Google decided to refund customers of Google Video in Google Checkout credit when they shut down their video on demand services, but people were pissed. However, they actually responded and are additionally going to refund people's credit cards of purchase as well now! That's really quite an impressive response from Google. They're even going to extend the life of the videos by 6 months! This is how customer service should be.
Oh, they're also allowing you to embed Google Maps, handy for web pages and blogs and such. Very useful, I imagine. By the way, while I'm on Google Maps, have Houstonians noticed that we have Street View now?
Remember yesterday how I reported that Paramount and Dreamworks went HD-DVD only? Well, it turns out that they were paid off to do so, according to a Viacom insider, which doesn't make them look too good. What does it say about Toshiba that they have to pay studios to want to use only their format? Ouch.
Wal-mart has jumped on the DRM-free bandwagon at higher quality than typical protected content from UMG and EMI. Again, another solid step for DRM-free music since Wal-mart is such a big player, but I just hope that this pilot doesn't fail horribly, or that they don't misread it as increasing piracy but rather see it as a way to trust their fans and hope to bring back their business after all this alienation of lawsuits and DRM.
One of the greatest, if not the greatest, torrent-sharing site, Supernova, is finally back online after quite a long hiatus. The Pirate Bay took over to get it back online, and it looks like it's here to stay. It's too late to say if it's back to its original capacity, but it's still looking good.
Lastly, this is a good read for the casual Linux user. It's just some commands that no Linux user should be without knowledge of.
In movie news, I only have a couple of trailers to talk about. The first is for Cassandra's Dream, which is a Woody Allen movie, but I have no idea what's going on in that trailer. If you've actually decoded it, please do comment and fill me in. The other trailer makes more sense: it's a rockumentary from Martin Scorcese about a Rolling Stones concert from 2006 called Shine a Light. Both are low quality because they're on YouTube, but the latter is cool to see.
Let me show you guys a cute picture before I close off of my brother's dog enjoying a jog on his tredmill:
Now for the Tuesday Twosome, on canned meat:
1. Do you check your email once a day or more? Explain:
More, because Gmail is always on for me. Now that I have a data plan on my phone though, I'll probably check even more often!
2. When you receive SPAM emails, do you just delete them or take the time to mark it as SPAM? Explain:
I mark them as spam, but it's pretty rare with the Gmail filter in full force.
3. When a friend/acquaintance emails you a “forward” email like a joke or chain letter, do you forward it to your friends or just delete it? Explain:
I never forward those things unless they're either extremely important or extremely funny. I hate forwarding stupid stuff.
4. Who are two people whose emails you look forward to receiving? Explain:
Pretty much just my girl. I don't know of anyone else who sends me any good personal e-mails.
5. Do you believe that email has completely replaced other forms of communication?
Not at all. People don't use it near enough for that. However, I think that text messaging and IMs have gained power quite quickly in recent years.
This is truly amazing: so Google decided to refund customers of Google Video in Google Checkout credit when they shut down their video on demand services, but people were pissed. However, they actually responded and are additionally going to refund people's credit cards of purchase as well now! That's really quite an impressive response from Google. They're even going to extend the life of the videos by 6 months! This is how customer service should be.
Oh, they're also allowing you to embed Google Maps, handy for web pages and blogs and such. Very useful, I imagine. By the way, while I'm on Google Maps, have Houstonians noticed that we have Street View now?
Remember yesterday how I reported that Paramount and Dreamworks went HD-DVD only? Well, it turns out that they were paid off to do so, according to a Viacom insider, which doesn't make them look too good. What does it say about Toshiba that they have to pay studios to want to use only their format? Ouch.
Wal-mart has jumped on the DRM-free bandwagon at higher quality than typical protected content from UMG and EMI. Again, another solid step for DRM-free music since Wal-mart is such a big player, but I just hope that this pilot doesn't fail horribly, or that they don't misread it as increasing piracy but rather see it as a way to trust their fans and hope to bring back their business after all this alienation of lawsuits and DRM.
One of the greatest, if not the greatest, torrent-sharing site, Supernova, is finally back online after quite a long hiatus. The Pirate Bay took over to get it back online, and it looks like it's here to stay. It's too late to say if it's back to its original capacity, but it's still looking good.
Lastly, this is a good read for the casual Linux user. It's just some commands that no Linux user should be without knowledge of.
In movie news, I only have a couple of trailers to talk about. The first is for Cassandra's Dream, which is a Woody Allen movie, but I have no idea what's going on in that trailer. If you've actually decoded it, please do comment and fill me in. The other trailer makes more sense: it's a rockumentary from Martin Scorcese about a Rolling Stones concert from 2006 called Shine a Light. Both are low quality because they're on YouTube, but the latter is cool to see.
Let me show you guys a cute picture before I close off of my brother's dog enjoying a jog on his tredmill:
Now for the Tuesday Twosome, on canned meat:
1. Do you check your email once a day or more? Explain:
More, because Gmail is always on for me. Now that I have a data plan on my phone though, I'll probably check even more often!
2. When you receive SPAM emails, do you just delete them or take the time to mark it as SPAM? Explain:
I mark them as spam, but it's pretty rare with the Gmail filter in full force.
3. When a friend/acquaintance emails you a “forward” email like a joke or chain letter, do you forward it to your friends or just delete it? Explain:
I never forward those things unless they're either extremely important or extremely funny. I hate forwarding stupid stuff.
4. Who are two people whose emails you look forward to receiving? Explain:
Pretty much just my girl. I don't know of anyone else who sends me any good personal e-mails.
5. Do you believe that email has completely replaced other forms of communication?
Not at all. People don't use it near enough for that. However, I think that text messaging and IMs have gained power quite quickly in recent years.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Copowi is Cool
Well there's no single important piece of news recently, so I thought I'd just use my main topic today to heap praises on Copowi, a new ISP that has promised net neutrality no matter what legislation gets pushed through. They're at the mercy of the existing telcos though as they obviously don't have fiber of their own out there. Of course, they have higher prices as well, and they're banking on the audience of users who aren't taking price into consideration. Heh, an interesting policy, right? Still, I think enough geeks may care about this cause to give them support. Are people really happy with their current broadband connections? I know I have unexpected, unpredictable outages, often at peak times because the connection is just inundated with users since Time Warner and Comcast and such are such cheap, greedy bastards. I think people would definitely pay a premium for quality service, and net neutrality would then just be an added bonus. There are certain niches where brand loyalty is important, and I think we don't have that in ISPs mainly because everyone hates them. If you change that though then you may have something to really run with.
This is interesting: Microsoft is licensing its audio watermarking technology to a small company in Seattle making its money off of similar technology. The idea? Free, ad-supported music. I'm not exactly sure how it would work, but it sounds like the watermarking would provide some targeting, and would likely bring up privacy concerns. I'm not going to cry foul until I see some solid use cases here.
In a very interesting move, Paramount and Dreamworks have decided to ditch Blu-ray for just HD-DVD, depriving the Sony-backed format of such titles as Transformers and Blades of Glory. Definitely not good news for Sony, but since HD-DVD is still playing catch-up, it isn't near bringing us to a definitive winner.
The Silicon Valley has decided to bring social networking to adult entertainment in the form of Zivity. It sounds nuts, but I'm genuinely intrigued by the concept (note that I didn't say this is the first Web 2.0 porn site, but it's quite different from Suicide Girls). They're going to give you high quality, free pictures of girls clothed, and you can pay to take the clothes off, and then you get a certain number of votes to give bonuses to the models you like best. This is strange because it's pretty racy and it involves significant investment, but it sounds like it tries to reward models and photographers appropriately, at least.
An MIT spinoff is trying to manufacture a chip with 64 processors involving the mesh architecture being researched at UT Austin by Dr. Doug Berger and Dr. Steve Keckler, both brilliant guys, in TRIPS. Can someone shed some light as to how they were able to fabricate this chip so quickly? In any case, I bet that TRIPS will come out with something even more powerful, but more useful for research than the mainstream.
There was only one piece of movie news I really wanted to bring up today, the teaser trailer for Harold and Kumar Go To Amsterdam where they're really running from the law as they're mistaken for terrorists. I'll admit that it's better than I would've thought, but it still leaves me skeptical.
Now for a bit of Monday Madness:
1. How many desktop computers in your home?
Just one, but I have on in Austin as well.
2. How many laptops?
None
3. What kind of internet service do you have? (i.e. phone modem, dsl, etc.)
Cable
4. Do you tend to use more than one email account regularly?
Yeah, Gmail and utexas, but both are controlled via my Gmail.
5. Do you use email as a main source for communicating to your family and friends?
Not exactly. I use IM or Facebook more frequently for family/friends my age, and the phone otherwise. I still use e-mail, just not primarily.
6. What kind of computer monitor do you own (flatscreen, or other)?
A 19" CRT in Austin, a 17" LCD in Houston.
This is interesting: Microsoft is licensing its audio watermarking technology to a small company in Seattle making its money off of similar technology. The idea? Free, ad-supported music. I'm not exactly sure how it would work, but it sounds like the watermarking would provide some targeting, and would likely bring up privacy concerns. I'm not going to cry foul until I see some solid use cases here.
In a very interesting move, Paramount and Dreamworks have decided to ditch Blu-ray for just HD-DVD, depriving the Sony-backed format of such titles as Transformers and Blades of Glory. Definitely not good news for Sony, but since HD-DVD is still playing catch-up, it isn't near bringing us to a definitive winner.
The Silicon Valley has decided to bring social networking to adult entertainment in the form of Zivity. It sounds nuts, but I'm genuinely intrigued by the concept (note that I didn't say this is the first Web 2.0 porn site, but it's quite different from Suicide Girls). They're going to give you high quality, free pictures of girls clothed, and you can pay to take the clothes off, and then you get a certain number of votes to give bonuses to the models you like best. This is strange because it's pretty racy and it involves significant investment, but it sounds like it tries to reward models and photographers appropriately, at least.
An MIT spinoff is trying to manufacture a chip with 64 processors involving the mesh architecture being researched at UT Austin by Dr. Doug Berger and Dr. Steve Keckler, both brilliant guys, in TRIPS. Can someone shed some light as to how they were able to fabricate this chip so quickly? In any case, I bet that TRIPS will come out with something even more powerful, but more useful for research than the mainstream.
There was only one piece of movie news I really wanted to bring up today, the teaser trailer for Harold and Kumar Go To Amsterdam where they're really running from the law as they're mistaken for terrorists. I'll admit that it's better than I would've thought, but it still leaves me skeptical.
Now for a bit of Monday Madness:
1. How many desktop computers in your home?
Just one, but I have on in Austin as well.
2. How many laptops?
None
3. What kind of internet service do you have? (i.e. phone modem, dsl, etc.)
Cable
4. Do you tend to use more than one email account regularly?
Yeah, Gmail and utexas, but both are controlled via my Gmail.
5. Do you use email as a main source for communicating to your family and friends?
Not exactly. I use IM or Facebook more frequently for family/friends my age, and the phone otherwise. I still use e-mail, just not primarily.
6. What kind of computer monitor do you own (flatscreen, or other)?
A 19" CRT in Austin, a 17" LCD in Houston.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Goodbye, Summer 2007
Alas, my summer is almost done now. Before I get to the retrospective though, I'd like to share some pictures from last week where I was pre-occupied taking in the city with a very special, beautiful girl:
The flowers in Pike's Place are really beautiful this time of year, and the sunflowers are ginormous.
The Japanese Garden at the UW Arboretum is breathtaking. I love the little island in the middle there.
There was even a Tea House!
Sunset on Elliott Bay is truly something to enjoy.
The Pacific Science Center was fun since the both of us are such huge science geeks.
Butterflies!
Golden Gate Park is perfect for a late afternoon picnic. You can't jump in the water, but it's still a sight to behold. I love how the sky almost looks like a blue texture I just painted on there.
The Seattle Aquarium was really awesome. They had a giant circle for the jellyfish to swim in since jellyfish have to swim within currents.
Nemo!
The river otters are soo cute!
We had sushi at Maneki and it was awesome! Mmm...California Rolls...
I got a good picture of the skyline from a harbor cruise.
So as you can see, I've been too busy to post. Sorry about that. I wanted to talk real quick about my thoughts on how my summer went. If you don't care, then just check back tomorrow for a real post.
This summer felt like an exact opposite of last summer. It was almost creepy. Fun-wise, last summer was probably my best ever. I meshed very well with the Rapscallions, our little group of interns, and we had pool parties and pick up basketball games every week. Plus, that was where my interest in Salsa began. However, work became rather pedestrian. I felt like a real member of the workforce in that on Sunday night I always felt like the weekend flew by and I didn't want to wake up for work in the morning. This summer, it turns out that I was actually slightly sad some Saturdays that I didn't have to go to work that day! Of course, in July, I actually fulfilled my whim and went to work on Saturdays, in the interest of spending time last week with my girl seeing the city.
Anyhow, Amazon was a lot of fun. It was good and bad. It was bad in that it wasn't quite what I expected. It wasn't as glamorous as Google or anything like that, but it was still fun is what's fun. In fact, at first, I wasn't really all that excited about my team. They just seemed like all business, whereas last summer I hit it off immediately with my mentor and the other intern's mentor on our team. Over the summer though, I definitely grew to like all of them. They were actually a fun bunch, and extremely smart. I don't know if I'll ever get over how smart everyone is there and how attached they are to getting work done for the good of the company. Now that is the power of loving where you work: when you care about doing what you do. At TI, the morale didn't seem as high. The HR people hyped it up as being high, but I saw it as more of an Office Space environment. At Amazon, it was a plain environment, but very open and friendly all the same. Plus, there's a wonderful view everywhere in PacMed (and in TCC, as well, I'd imagine). Yeah, free food and chocolate milk would be nice, but free tea and hot cocoa packets are still good. Plus, two monitors! The only drawback was the big plus of Dallas: I didn't have as much fun outside of work. I didn't mesh as well with the interns this summer as last. Not to say they weren't cool or smart, they were, I just never felt as close to them. Plus, I missed home terribly, especially my girl.
As for the city, it's freaking gorgeous. As happy as I was to be back in Texas yesterday, I hated getting off that plane and looking outside to see ugly. There's nothing pretty about Houston at first glance. Yeah, it has hidden gems, but Seattle's beauty is so overt that you'd have to literally be blind to not see it. Plus, it was so humid here! A 20 degree jump really sucks. The biggest problem with living there for me was not being able to get around by car because I lived in downtown. I guess the actual big problem with going there is the high cost of living and the insane prices for real estate. Amazon would compensate appropriately, so I could probably still spend sensibly, but it still requires saving a lot of money. I'd love to settle down there though. It just seems like a wonderful place to raise a family, it really does. There's just so much to do with kids, and so much to do for a date, as well.
So would I move there? It's funny, I've said that Seattle isn't Austin, but Austin also isn't Seattle, and that's the best way to sum up my current predicament. My mom wants me to move to California, but I don't know that I can make enough out there right out of school to afford to live there. Austin is a fun, smaller city with some natural beauties of its own and its close to other places in Texas, especially my family. Plus, I have a lot of friends there, and it's a great city for a bachelor should I find myself in that predicament come next fall. However, Seattle is a wonderful big city, and it's surrounded with lots of fun stuff to do, including Vancouver and skiing. Plus, the weather is much better there. I don't know what I'm going to decide, to be honest. I loved Amazon, and I think I'd genuinely enjoy working there full time, but that's not to say that I couldn't find just as fun a job in Austin. I really am not sure what I'm going to do right now. Then there's my girl, who I love like crazy, and I want to be included in whatever I decide.
Well, I have the fall to look forward to. I get to spend it with her, most importantly, and I have to decide my future. It's scary in a lot of ways, because my first job will pretty much make or break my career. I have to go somewhere that gives me a diverse skill base, gives me a solid career track for advancement, compensates me appropriately, is in a vocationally fruitful location, and where I'd really enjoy what I do. Definitely not easy, but Amazon is definitely in the running.
The flowers in Pike's Place are really beautiful this time of year, and the sunflowers are ginormous.
The Japanese Garden at the UW Arboretum is breathtaking. I love the little island in the middle there.
There was even a Tea House!
Sunset on Elliott Bay is truly something to enjoy.
The Pacific Science Center was fun since the both of us are such huge science geeks.
Butterflies!
Golden Gate Park is perfect for a late afternoon picnic. You can't jump in the water, but it's still a sight to behold. I love how the sky almost looks like a blue texture I just painted on there.
The Seattle Aquarium was really awesome. They had a giant circle for the jellyfish to swim in since jellyfish have to swim within currents.
Nemo!
The river otters are soo cute!
We had sushi at Maneki and it was awesome! Mmm...California Rolls...
I got a good picture of the skyline from a harbor cruise.
So as you can see, I've been too busy to post. Sorry about that. I wanted to talk real quick about my thoughts on how my summer went. If you don't care, then just check back tomorrow for a real post.
This summer felt like an exact opposite of last summer. It was almost creepy. Fun-wise, last summer was probably my best ever. I meshed very well with the Rapscallions, our little group of interns, and we had pool parties and pick up basketball games every week. Plus, that was where my interest in Salsa began. However, work became rather pedestrian. I felt like a real member of the workforce in that on Sunday night I always felt like the weekend flew by and I didn't want to wake up for work in the morning. This summer, it turns out that I was actually slightly sad some Saturdays that I didn't have to go to work that day! Of course, in July, I actually fulfilled my whim and went to work on Saturdays, in the interest of spending time last week with my girl seeing the city.
Anyhow, Amazon was a lot of fun. It was good and bad. It was bad in that it wasn't quite what I expected. It wasn't as glamorous as Google or anything like that, but it was still fun is what's fun. In fact, at first, I wasn't really all that excited about my team. They just seemed like all business, whereas last summer I hit it off immediately with my mentor and the other intern's mentor on our team. Over the summer though, I definitely grew to like all of them. They were actually a fun bunch, and extremely smart. I don't know if I'll ever get over how smart everyone is there and how attached they are to getting work done for the good of the company. Now that is the power of loving where you work: when you care about doing what you do. At TI, the morale didn't seem as high. The HR people hyped it up as being high, but I saw it as more of an Office Space environment. At Amazon, it was a plain environment, but very open and friendly all the same. Plus, there's a wonderful view everywhere in PacMed (and in TCC, as well, I'd imagine). Yeah, free food and chocolate milk would be nice, but free tea and hot cocoa packets are still good. Plus, two monitors! The only drawback was the big plus of Dallas: I didn't have as much fun outside of work. I didn't mesh as well with the interns this summer as last. Not to say they weren't cool or smart, they were, I just never felt as close to them. Plus, I missed home terribly, especially my girl.
As for the city, it's freaking gorgeous. As happy as I was to be back in Texas yesterday, I hated getting off that plane and looking outside to see ugly. There's nothing pretty about Houston at first glance. Yeah, it has hidden gems, but Seattle's beauty is so overt that you'd have to literally be blind to not see it. Plus, it was so humid here! A 20 degree jump really sucks. The biggest problem with living there for me was not being able to get around by car because I lived in downtown. I guess the actual big problem with going there is the high cost of living and the insane prices for real estate. Amazon would compensate appropriately, so I could probably still spend sensibly, but it still requires saving a lot of money. I'd love to settle down there though. It just seems like a wonderful place to raise a family, it really does. There's just so much to do with kids, and so much to do for a date, as well.
So would I move there? It's funny, I've said that Seattle isn't Austin, but Austin also isn't Seattle, and that's the best way to sum up my current predicament. My mom wants me to move to California, but I don't know that I can make enough out there right out of school to afford to live there. Austin is a fun, smaller city with some natural beauties of its own and its close to other places in Texas, especially my family. Plus, I have a lot of friends there, and it's a great city for a bachelor should I find myself in that predicament come next fall. However, Seattle is a wonderful big city, and it's surrounded with lots of fun stuff to do, including Vancouver and skiing. Plus, the weather is much better there. I don't know what I'm going to decide, to be honest. I loved Amazon, and I think I'd genuinely enjoy working there full time, but that's not to say that I couldn't find just as fun a job in Austin. I really am not sure what I'm going to do right now. Then there's my girl, who I love like crazy, and I want to be included in whatever I decide.
Well, I have the fall to look forward to. I get to spend it with her, most importantly, and I have to decide my future. It's scary in a lot of ways, because my first job will pretty much make or break my career. I have to go somewhere that gives me a diverse skill base, gives me a solid career track for advancement, compensates me appropriately, is in a vocationally fruitful location, and where I'd really enjoy what I do. Definitely not easy, but Amazon is definitely in the running.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Creating a Niche
I ran into a couple of interesting things today that I figure I could combine into a good topic: creating a niche. Something I never really gave much thought to until today is that the big bucks out there really come out of making a niche. It makes sense in a lot of ways since the rule of thumb is that the more specialized the field you study is the more money your liable to make since you're probably in short supply. A direct example of this is David Elsewhere, who is actually the guy from some of the iPod ads and that cool Pepsi commercial with the dancing jeans and some others. His niche is crazy dancing, like he's made of rubber. No one can do what he does, otherwise they wouldn't superimpose people's faces on his body for some of these ads. If you don't possess a natural talent like that, then you can try creating something totally different like these three Berkeley grads who have come up with a high quality video compression technology for high-end e-Commerce clients. As far as video quality goes, there's no one above YouTube that has really picked up. I really like Stage6, but it hasn't really gone anywhere, and I think DivX has gotten a lot of bad press. These guys have the opportunity to become the YouTube of car companies and medium-sized businesses and the like. I know, it's not user-generated content, but its a video platform that doesn't really exist right now. It may not sound like much, but it has Steve Wozniak and Red McCombs backing it, which is pretty big. Moral of the story: find a niche, and build your business on it.
Ars Technica put out one of their great product reviews, this one for the new iMac, and it sounds like what I thought. It's an improvement, but the keyboard doesn't feel right. Why did they make it so low and flat? Anyway, still a solid machine, and I guess the glare isn't as obtrusive as one would presume.
New ground has been broken against the RIAA: an Oklahoma attorney brought in testimony from a computer security expert claiming that the RIAA cannot use IP addresses to identify litigants because IP addresses just aren't unique. They can be masked, shared, etc. I can't believe that no one used this argument before. Anyway, I can't imagine the RIAA winning this battle, so it should be interesting.
Is the iPhone set to get games? The Download Squad has snooped around iTunes's localization strings (I'm guessing these are some internal configuration settings used by iTunes in other countries) and found some strings that appear to confirmation messages for whether you want to remove a selected game from your iPhone. It could just be garbage, but doubtful. They already have games on iPods, after all, so this would make a lot of sense.
Beware of sites bearing pricey gifts and promises of robust file-sharing. uTorrent is prepared to file suit against one such fraudulent site trying to sell uTorrent, a freeware application. That really boils me: to profit solely off of someone else's hard work, and so blatantly. This site looks really authentic, so definitely beware of these sorts of schemes.
I know it defies the theory of evolution, but ever wonder if computers preceded us? Because if so, then our creation was probably something like this.
I have a few movie items for today. First off is a trailer for Lars and the Real Girl, a dramedy from Craig Gillespie featuring Ryan Gosling about a guy named Lars who pretends that a mannequin is his girlfriend to fill the void. The trailer actually looks really cute, I think this has the makings of a really interesting character study.
Speaking of characters, someone who saw Heath Ledger on the set of The Dark Knight had only good things to say about his portrayal of The Joker. I don't think he saw any dialogue, just his demeanor, and it sounded very true to the original villain. If I keep getting pumped about this movie, I may explode before we even get a real trailer.
Usually, I say that direct to video (DTV) movies aren't very good, but a part of me wonders if Return to House on Haunted Hill is the first movie to get it right because it takes advantage of being at home. How? It lets you choose your own path through the movie (I'm pretty sure this is only for high-definition formats), almost like a video game I suppose or those books when you were little that would have you turn to different pages depending on the path you chose. The trailer is pretty creepy, so I'm definitely not prepared to write this one off.
Lastly, I'm not a big Hitman fan or anything (though I think its story is one of those that is easily lent to a movie, unlike Halo), but I like the looks of this teaser poster:
Now for the Thursday Threesome:
Onesome: Swimming-- along? Do you swim? Can you swim? Do you like to swim? Do you have a place to swim? I'm drowning in questions here!
I can swim, but I don't often enough. At school, our gym has a cool Aquatic Complex, but I have never had the time to actually use it for exercise. I was sure glad I knew how to swim when I went rafting!
Twosome: Pool--? ...or billiards? Have you played either one? ...or would you like to learn?
Yeah, I have, but I'm not very good. I'm one of those people who makes key plays purely out of luck, not skill.
Threesome: Pump--ing iron: is that in your reps? ...or does the thought of that style of working out just do you in? Inquiring minds and all that...
I try to work out 6 days a week, but I'm a guy and so obviously muscle mass is probably of inflated importance to me. Hey, having a better physique sometimes correlates to bigger salaries because you're perceived as being more dedicated. I personally do it because I was overweight when I was younger and I feel obligated to keep myself in shape as a result.
I have a very special visitor coming tomorrow, and I'm dedicated my free time over the next several days to her, so don't expect a post from me for a week. Sorry to have to do this again after just coming back from my last hiatus, but stuff happens! I'm sure you'll all understand.
Ars Technica put out one of their great product reviews, this one for the new iMac, and it sounds like what I thought. It's an improvement, but the keyboard doesn't feel right. Why did they make it so low and flat? Anyway, still a solid machine, and I guess the glare isn't as obtrusive as one would presume.
New ground has been broken against the RIAA: an Oklahoma attorney brought in testimony from a computer security expert claiming that the RIAA cannot use IP addresses to identify litigants because IP addresses just aren't unique. They can be masked, shared, etc. I can't believe that no one used this argument before. Anyway, I can't imagine the RIAA winning this battle, so it should be interesting.
Is the iPhone set to get games? The Download Squad has snooped around iTunes's localization strings (I'm guessing these are some internal configuration settings used by iTunes in other countries) and found some strings that appear to confirmation messages for whether you want to remove a selected game from your iPhone. It could just be garbage, but doubtful. They already have games on iPods, after all, so this would make a lot of sense.
Beware of sites bearing pricey gifts and promises of robust file-sharing. uTorrent is prepared to file suit against one such fraudulent site trying to sell uTorrent, a freeware application. That really boils me: to profit solely off of someone else's hard work, and so blatantly. This site looks really authentic, so definitely beware of these sorts of schemes.
I know it defies the theory of evolution, but ever wonder if computers preceded us? Because if so, then our creation was probably something like this.
I have a few movie items for today. First off is a trailer for Lars and the Real Girl, a dramedy from Craig Gillespie featuring Ryan Gosling about a guy named Lars who pretends that a mannequin is his girlfriend to fill the void. The trailer actually looks really cute, I think this has the makings of a really interesting character study.
Speaking of characters, someone who saw Heath Ledger on the set of The Dark Knight had only good things to say about his portrayal of The Joker. I don't think he saw any dialogue, just his demeanor, and it sounded very true to the original villain. If I keep getting pumped about this movie, I may explode before we even get a real trailer.
Usually, I say that direct to video (DTV) movies aren't very good, but a part of me wonders if Return to House on Haunted Hill is the first movie to get it right because it takes advantage of being at home. How? It lets you choose your own path through the movie (I'm pretty sure this is only for high-definition formats), almost like a video game I suppose or those books when you were little that would have you turn to different pages depending on the path you chose. The trailer is pretty creepy, so I'm definitely not prepared to write this one off.
Lastly, I'm not a big Hitman fan or anything (though I think its story is one of those that is easily lent to a movie, unlike Halo), but I like the looks of this teaser poster:
Now for the Thursday Threesome:
Onesome: Swimming-- along? Do you swim? Can you swim? Do you like to swim? Do you have a place to swim? I'm drowning in questions here!
I can swim, but I don't often enough. At school, our gym has a cool Aquatic Complex, but I have never had the time to actually use it for exercise. I was sure glad I knew how to swim when I went rafting!
Twosome: Pool--? ...or billiards? Have you played either one? ...or would you like to learn?
Yeah, I have, but I'm not very good. I'm one of those people who makes key plays purely out of luck, not skill.
Threesome: Pump--ing iron: is that in your reps? ...or does the thought of that style of working out just do you in? Inquiring minds and all that...
I try to work out 6 days a week, but I'm a guy and so obviously muscle mass is probably of inflated importance to me. Hey, having a better physique sometimes correlates to bigger salaries because you're perceived as being more dedicated. I personally do it because I was overweight when I was younger and I feel obligated to keep myself in shape as a result.
I have a very special visitor coming tomorrow, and I'm dedicated my free time over the next several days to her, so don't expect a post from me for a week. Sorry to have to do this again after just coming back from my last hiatus, but stuff happens! I'm sure you'll all understand.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
The Missing Mac
There's always been this gaping hole in the Mac lineup that some people like to ignore. It's called a business Mac. A blog post from the CEO of a startup got me thinking about it. I think it was Molly Wood who asked Steve Jobs yesterday about Apple's intentions, as in where they're taking their computer business, and his response was kind of a bland "we want to build the best machines." Whoopety-doo, Steve Jobs wants to build pretty machines. It's not always about that. It's like my favorite two lines in Pirates of the Silicon Valley:
"Steve: We're better than you. Our software is better.
Bill: Don't you see? That doesn't matter!"
They're not doing their best as disseminating computers by virtue of the fact that companies aren't adopting Macs in large numbers. There's no enterprise-level Mac. My supervisor loves Macs so much that he bought a MacBook Pro for work, but he still has his trusty Dell laptop in his office, though he tries not to use it. Amazon doesn't support Macs, so if you want to use one you're pretty much on your own. They need to fill this space. They need to start making deals, and they need to start marketing more to businesses. In my opinion, it's one of the biggest reasons Apple isn't doing better at grabbing market share from PCs. Until they make this move, I can't imagine them ever coming close to taking out PCs.
Interesting news from Google: they're giving Linux patent protection from their patents in exchange for use of some patents from the Open Innovation Network. While I agree this is a good move, you have to admit that it's kind of ballsy. I mean what if the Linux camp flagrantly copies Google on something? I guess there's a lot of trust involved though, as it should be.
One of the more attractive things to me about Amazon is the opportunity to work with massive amounts of data and learn about scaling and performance. So naturally I have to plug this article about the Digg architecture and how it deals with lots of data. It's kind of amazing that a site as simple (to the eye, I mean) as Digg requires 100 servers.
I heard this on Buzz Out Loud and had to report it: this NBC reporter Michelle Madigan tried to go undercover at Def Con 15 and catch hackers admitting to illegal things and then catch Feds there doing nothing about it. The idea of the convention is to share knowledge about security to serve the greater good and let your guards down so that you can talk about things you did in the grey without having to face the consequences. I don't know how she thought she'd outsmart hackers, but they found her out and there's a clip on YouTube of them playing a prank on her of sorts in inviting her to another conference where the secret point was to expose her to all the hackers.
Now for a few one-liners. This is a pretty big, awesome list of web development resources, so check it out. This is a great guide to being smarter about using torrents. I saw this site on an ad and just thought it was too funny:
I just want to touch on a few movie news items here. Michel Gondry has come out with a new movie: Be Kind Rewind. It looks pretty cool to me, and it stars Mos Def and Jack Black. They run a video store and all their tapes turn blank, so they film their own versions of movies. Gondry is definitely pretty creative, so I want to see what he does with this one.
Jessica Alba is going to do another comedy, but this one with Mike Myers called The Love Guru. I'm skeptical, but Mike Myers is really funny so you never know. I don't know why Alba wants to get into comedy now though. I guess it's because her acting could need some help so she wants to try lighter stuff.
We have a couple of Southland Tales pictures, and they're not much but they're something. I'm still stoked to check out this movie, despite early reviews from Cannes.
Now for the Wednesday Mind Hump:
List ten random things in your refrigerator.
Too easy: Turtles (like the candy, not the animals), sparkling water, an onion, milk, chocolate syrup, lunchmeat, strawberry jelly, ketchup, bread, flour tortillas, and some potatoes.
"Steve: We're better than you. Our software is better.
Bill: Don't you see? That doesn't matter!"
They're not doing their best as disseminating computers by virtue of the fact that companies aren't adopting Macs in large numbers. There's no enterprise-level Mac. My supervisor loves Macs so much that he bought a MacBook Pro for work, but he still has his trusty Dell laptop in his office, though he tries not to use it. Amazon doesn't support Macs, so if you want to use one you're pretty much on your own. They need to fill this space. They need to start making deals, and they need to start marketing more to businesses. In my opinion, it's one of the biggest reasons Apple isn't doing better at grabbing market share from PCs. Until they make this move, I can't imagine them ever coming close to taking out PCs.
Interesting news from Google: they're giving Linux patent protection from their patents in exchange for use of some patents from the Open Innovation Network. While I agree this is a good move, you have to admit that it's kind of ballsy. I mean what if the Linux camp flagrantly copies Google on something? I guess there's a lot of trust involved though, as it should be.
One of the more attractive things to me about Amazon is the opportunity to work with massive amounts of data and learn about scaling and performance. So naturally I have to plug this article about the Digg architecture and how it deals with lots of data. It's kind of amazing that a site as simple (to the eye, I mean) as Digg requires 100 servers.
I heard this on Buzz Out Loud and had to report it: this NBC reporter Michelle Madigan tried to go undercover at Def Con 15 and catch hackers admitting to illegal things and then catch Feds there doing nothing about it. The idea of the convention is to share knowledge about security to serve the greater good and let your guards down so that you can talk about things you did in the grey without having to face the consequences. I don't know how she thought she'd outsmart hackers, but they found her out and there's a clip on YouTube of them playing a prank on her of sorts in inviting her to another conference where the secret point was to expose her to all the hackers.
Now for a few one-liners. This is a pretty big, awesome list of web development resources, so check it out. This is a great guide to being smarter about using torrents. I saw this site on an ad and just thought it was too funny:
I just want to touch on a few movie news items here. Michel Gondry has come out with a new movie: Be Kind Rewind. It looks pretty cool to me, and it stars Mos Def and Jack Black. They run a video store and all their tapes turn blank, so they film their own versions of movies. Gondry is definitely pretty creative, so I want to see what he does with this one.
Jessica Alba is going to do another comedy, but this one with Mike Myers called The Love Guru. I'm skeptical, but Mike Myers is really funny so you never know. I don't know why Alba wants to get into comedy now though. I guess it's because her acting could need some help so she wants to try lighter stuff.
We have a couple of Southland Tales pictures, and they're not much but they're something. I'm still stoked to check out this movie, despite early reviews from Cannes.
Now for the Wednesday Mind Hump:
List ten random things in your refrigerator.
Too easy: Turtles (like the candy, not the animals), sparkling water, an onion, milk, chocolate syrup, lunchmeat, strawberry jelly, ketchup, bread, flour tortillas, and some potatoes.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Apple's Summer Event
Apple had a special summer event today at their campus for the press, and it was strictly about the Mac. I've read all that coverage and even watched the tour of iLife, so I feel pretty qualified to give some thoughts on it. They basically just gave the iMac a makeover and beefed up the hardware. The rest of it was trying to pitch the new iLife and .Mac. I don't know that the changes to .Mac were significant enough to save it since I can't use it, but I loved the changes I saw to iLife. I don't know that there aren't other products out there that wouldn't create movies as quickly and easily as the new iMovie, but it's still really awesome. I loved watching the demo for it, and I also really enjoyed the iPhoto demo, which seemed to be pretty smart about organizing photos into events and it was cool that you could hover over albums to skim through its pictures (same for clips in iMovie). These are both products that set the bar for how making movies and messing with your photos should be. They're not perfect or anything, but they still make switching to Mac really tempting. I don't know why the new iMac has a shorter, thinner keyboard. It doesn't look very comfortable, but at least Jobs is getting over his key phobia and loosening up a bit. I like how they wrapped up with a Q&A session that told us nothing other than that they've also upgraded the Mac Mini, and we'll see Apple TV news soon. All in all, not a bad little event, though nothing especially exciting came out of it.I was temp bted to make today's main topic about hiring because of this article, but decided not to because I've already said a lot of what I want to say on this topic, and I just spoke about recruiting yesterday anyway. But I strongly agree that it's key to spend more money on expert programmers than to slack and hire average or sub-par programmers. The weak links on a development team become sore thumbs pretty quickly, and it really does become kind of a sink or swim environment. The good recruits should never sink given good management (not just an MBA who thinks he's hot shit, they need to be technical).
I'm really exhausted, so I'm going to close up here with a couple of one-liners. If you're not sure the best way to IM, then you'll waste plenty of time at this list of Instant Messaging tools. I probably didn't know about more than 20 or 30 items on that list (I personally love Pidgin and Meebo). The Guardian has a great lesson in history: technology's 10 greatest legal battles. This is the kind of stuff your kids will likely learn in social studies (or their kids, at the least).
However, I was intrigued enough by the international trailer for Beowolf that I figured I'd plug that.
Now for the Tuesday Twosome:
1. Two places you go to for relaxation (spa, beach, etc.)
The gym and the lake.
2. Two activities you do to relax:
Sleep and listen to music
3. Two people who are able to calm you when you are stressed-out:
Myself and my girl.
4. Two songs that always make you feel better:
Yellow (Coldplay) and Can't Help Falling in Love.
5. Two people/pets that you miss the most when you go on vacation/holiday:
My brother and my girl.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Out-Recruiting Google
Has anyone noticed the irony of the ads on the Forbes site about how the Fake Steve Jobs has been revealed? Anyway, what's more interesting is an article that Forbes is running about how to beat Google in recruiting the best tech talent out there. Being a student who has been through two recruiting seasons now (I don't count Freshman year), I figure that I'd offer my point of view. Google is like this magical fruit that's just out of reach, and I've begun to resent them almost as much as National Instruments. That's right, NI, your interviews are lame and your representatives are arrogant. On the other hand, Google just brags about their perks (they literally do no publicizing for their company nights and pack the room) and pays for the fancy O's food (overpriced crap, but use of the nice auditorium only allows their food), then goes nuts on the interviews. They emphasize way too much on math, and are still using brain teasers. One of my friends had to endure a month of phone screens to get an offer, and by that time he already had an offer from Amazon. This is what really pisses me off about their recruiting: they recently sent out a sneaky e-mail to Amazon interns (they just rope in one to tell his friends) behind the backs of Amazon's HR to get them to come to a recruiting event in Seattle. That is sleazy. They do this for normal employees, too, as I understand it. I wonder if they realize that they can't compete with Amazon in compensation (not speaking out of my ass here). Anyhow, it's fairly simple to undermine Google's recruiting: be fast, be inviting, and don't be so bloody selective. There are people with GPAs below 3.5s that are still brilliant, you know. Take the time to conduct thorough, balanced interviews rather than doing 8 of them (not an exaggerating comparison to Google). The best thing you can do, above all, is sell students on the company culture, environment, and management structure. That's what the good students will really care about (aside from type of work, that is).
There are a couple of U.S. Senators I feel I should applaud for actually being awesome: they're threatening SoundExchange to not try to strongarm Internet radio stations into DRM technologies in these recent negotiations. Not sure if they can follow through on these threats, but I think we all appreciate the effort and support.
The problem with taking a hiatus from blogging is that you miss out on things like Apple having a special event tomorrow, which is supposedly Mac-focused. Mac Rumors put up that fan art picture, which I kind of liked, though I can't imagine that they'd do a touchscreen iMac. Now if the touchscreen was just an extra feature that didn't affect elemental functionality then I maybe impressed. Still, the iMac needs an update, so that's a likely candidate for tomorrow's event. There's also strong speculation of updates to .Mac given that the service is to be down for the duration of the event (like how the Apple Store is usually closed during these events).
Nissan is showing off some technology akin to Volvo technology that I had reported on a few months ago regarding safety improvements. It provides collision prevention (braking when collision is imminent), lane departure prevention, and bumper sensors to assist in the sportier models from normally severe crashes. I'm skeptical on braking for suspected collisions because of false positives, but maybe it only does this if it's like 100% sure or something.
Wired usually doesn't put up ill-conceived editorials, but I have to slam this one about opening up social networks. First of all, Facebook is not totally closed. Besides the obvious API (which, I'll admit, is still limited), you can share pictures, among other things, with users outside of Facebook's realm; I have done this several times before. Another problem is the fact that I don't think people really care about opening up all these social networks. As made apparent by the clamoring we saw last year in response to the mini-feed addition, the Facebook community is pretty avid about privacy concerns, so this is a terrible idea. At the most, if you really want to open up people's data, it should be a private RSS feed or something. Lastly, they recommend mashing up your own Facebook via other social networking sites, but this defeats the purpose of Facebook, which is to unite all your social networking needs in a single convenient place. Zing.
One liner: to all you Firefox haters (*cough*my brother*cough*), go here.
Before I get to the trailers today, i thought it was interesting that Ridley Scott has decided to make a Monopoly movie. That's right, the producer who brought you Gladiator and Hannibal has decided to base a movie off of a board game. Wow.
Since I've been pimping Amazon so much I figure there's no harm in plugging their exclusive trailer for Reservation Road. I think this is their first exclusive movie trailer, and the video quality leaves something to be desired but I'm glad that they're starting to get into this business. They're clearly using their acquisition of IMDB to help beef up the page, and I hope they'll do even more with these pages in the future. The trailer isn't bad, but I'm just not interested in it. You know too much of the plot right off the bat (it's about a guy trying to hunt down a hit-and-run driver who killed his son, but the trailer reveals the killer).
MySpace is hosting the trailer for Amanda Bynes' next flick, Sydney White, a movie that makes me literally cringe with disgust. It's about this "hot" chick (Amanda Bynes is really not attractive) who doesn't get into a sorority so she leads a band of 7 geeks to shakes things up. I don't know what I hate more: this promotion of geekiness in a completely superficial (and, what I consider offensive) way or the idiotic plot itself. The comments on that video speak for the quality of MySpace users.
Lastly, IGN has the exclusive trailer, an interesting horror thriller detailing an archangel's battle against fallen angels in a fight for souls. Yeah, doesn't sound too compelling, but it still looks like it could be fun.
Now for some Monday Madness:
1. What ONE thing would you like to accomplish before the end of the day?
A full guitar practice session.
2. What one goal would you like to attain before the end of the month?
Getting the NSC site back up and running at full capacity.
3. Are you a "to-do list" writer? If so, do you stick to your list and cross things off as you complete them?
I write less-organized to do lists if I actually have a bunch of things to do, usually in my planner during the school year. Currently, I hack up Outlook calendar for this.
4. In general, how organized do you feel you are?
Reasonably organized.
5. How many piles of papers/junk mail/etc. do you have laying around your house?
I think four, but that's only because I have no bookshelves or storage space in this apartment because it's temporary.
6. Which ONE surface in your home
This desk? I don't know what that means...
There are a couple of U.S. Senators I feel I should applaud for actually being awesome: they're threatening SoundExchange to not try to strongarm Internet radio stations into DRM technologies in these recent negotiations. Not sure if they can follow through on these threats, but I think we all appreciate the effort and support.
The problem with taking a hiatus from blogging is that you miss out on things like Apple having a special event tomorrow, which is supposedly Mac-focused. Mac Rumors put up that fan art picture, which I kind of liked, though I can't imagine that they'd do a touchscreen iMac. Now if the touchscreen was just an extra feature that didn't affect elemental functionality then I maybe impressed. Still, the iMac needs an update, so that's a likely candidate for tomorrow's event. There's also strong speculation of updates to .Mac given that the service is to be down for the duration of the event (like how the Apple Store is usually closed during these events).
Nissan is showing off some technology akin to Volvo technology that I had reported on a few months ago regarding safety improvements. It provides collision prevention (braking when collision is imminent), lane departure prevention, and bumper sensors to assist in the sportier models from normally severe crashes. I'm skeptical on braking for suspected collisions because of false positives, but maybe it only does this if it's like 100% sure or something.
Wired usually doesn't put up ill-conceived editorials, but I have to slam this one about opening up social networks. First of all, Facebook is not totally closed. Besides the obvious API (which, I'll admit, is still limited), you can share pictures, among other things, with users outside of Facebook's realm; I have done this several times before. Another problem is the fact that I don't think people really care about opening up all these social networks. As made apparent by the clamoring we saw last year in response to the mini-feed addition, the Facebook community is pretty avid about privacy concerns, so this is a terrible idea. At the most, if you really want to open up people's data, it should be a private RSS feed or something. Lastly, they recommend mashing up your own Facebook via other social networking sites, but this defeats the purpose of Facebook, which is to unite all your social networking needs in a single convenient place. Zing.
One liner: to all you Firefox haters (*cough*my brother*cough*), go here.
Before I get to the trailers today, i thought it was interesting that Ridley Scott has decided to make a Monopoly movie. That's right, the producer who brought you Gladiator and Hannibal has decided to base a movie off of a board game. Wow.
Since I've been pimping Amazon so much I figure there's no harm in plugging their exclusive trailer for Reservation Road. I think this is their first exclusive movie trailer, and the video quality leaves something to be desired but I'm glad that they're starting to get into this business. They're clearly using their acquisition of IMDB to help beef up the page, and I hope they'll do even more with these pages in the future. The trailer isn't bad, but I'm just not interested in it. You know too much of the plot right off the bat (it's about a guy trying to hunt down a hit-and-run driver who killed his son, but the trailer reveals the killer).
MySpace is hosting the trailer for Amanda Bynes' next flick, Sydney White, a movie that makes me literally cringe with disgust. It's about this "hot" chick (Amanda Bynes is really not attractive) who doesn't get into a sorority so she leads a band of 7 geeks to shakes things up. I don't know what I hate more: this promotion of geekiness in a completely superficial (and, what I consider offensive) way or the idiotic plot itself. The comments on that video speak for the quality of MySpace users.
Lastly, IGN has the exclusive trailer, an interesting horror thriller detailing an archangel's battle against fallen angels in a fight for souls. Yeah, doesn't sound too compelling, but it still looks like it could be fun.
Now for some Monday Madness:
1. What ONE thing would you like to accomplish before the end of the day?
A full guitar practice session.
2. What one goal would you like to attain before the end of the month?
Getting the NSC site back up and running at full capacity.
3. Are you a "to-do list" writer? If so, do you stick to your list and cross things off as you complete them?
I write less-organized to do lists if I actually have a bunch of things to do, usually in my planner during the school year. Currently, I hack up Outlook calendar for this.
4. In general, how organized do you feel you are?
Reasonably organized.
5. How many piles of papers/junk mail/etc. do you have laying around your house?
I think four, but that's only because I have no bookshelves or storage space in this apartment because it's temporary.
6. Which ONE surface in your home
This desk? I don't know what that means...
Sunday, August 05, 2007
How Bad is Flash?
I saw this blog post a few days ago, but it has taken me a bit to respond to it. It largely claims that Flash sucks, and a part of me agrees but a part of me is nostalgic of first playing around with Flash 4 (or maybe it was 3, whatever was out in 1999). Way back then, it was this revolution for the web because Java applets looked gaudy and the support for Javascript wasn't nearly as widespread as it is now. That blogger hates the navigation Flash-based sites provide, but I think that's too harsh. For small sites, namely movie sites, Flash can be great. It lets you have a little fun, which is what you're there for in the first place. No serious business should have an entirely Flash-based site, mind you, but it can still have its uses for multimedia, especially when you want to make it harder to download the content in question. I know, proprietary formats are bad, all that jazz, but sometimes they really are necessary. You can't write off proprietary formats just because they get big; why does Adobe need to give away what they've worked hard on? What's in it for them to give people carte blanche access to their formats? My two biggest gripes with Flash though are really that it's lagging behind in 64-bit support, and Flash-based advertisements are ridiculously annoying, and they just feel like a breeding ground for viruses, whether or not that's true. I believe Flash already has safeguards to prevent such things, but it seems too flashy (no pun intended) to be 100% safe. I don't think it's going away anytime soon, especially since people were pissed that the iPhone wouldn't support Flash, which means their brand recognition must be amazing, but I am curious to see what advantages Silverlight will come up with (the fact that it has a toolbar for IE but not Firefox is discouraging).
I actually got an e-mail about Amazon Flexible Payments Service on Friday but I totally didn't know that it was going into public beta that same day. The message sounded like it was an internal beta, but I guess not. Anyhow, it's basically an API that Amazon Web Services (about 4 floors above my office) is providing to add an easy, affordable payments system to small businesses' websites. It sounds pretty huge and extensible, but will it be able to take over what Paypal provides? That's very hard to say, but Amazon's brand recognition likely surpasses Paypal, and is maybe even more trusted (I have nothing to back this up other than anecdotal bad press for Paypal), so it definitely has a chance. After all, remember how S3 really took off?
I neglected to report on this a while back, but AT&T had hidden away in its terms that it had a $10 DSL plan, which it was obligated to offer as a result of losing some lawsuit, and now they're covering it up by saying that there was no demand for it. Do these people take us for total nimrods? No duh there's no demand, it's hard to demand something when you don't know it exists. Are people really happy to pay them for overpriced, low-quality Internet service?
If you're stuck without a TV, like me, then you may be entertained by LikeVid. It provides totally legal television channels available online, some of which are Internet-only, and it's a fun way to kill some time when you don't want to do anything but sit back and absorb.
Lastly, if you know nothing about torrents, you may find some value in this article explaining all about it. I'd say that it's a worthwhile read if you don't know what that word means seeing as how it has become a rather important idea to understand.
In the box office this weekend it should be no surprise that the big winner was The Bourne Supremacy at over $70 million, which is nearly 3 times as much as the opening weekend for the first movie in the series. I thought it was impressive that The Simpsons Movie managed $25.6 million, which is a pretty heavy drop, but it's in 2nd place and I'm sure it cost much less than $128 million to make so I think they'll be doing just fine. It's also amazing that Transformer, despite being a month old, is still #8. Passing $300 million in a little over a month is pretty crazy.
It looks like the World of Warcraft movie got a greenlight from Legendary Pictures, which is interesting because I have no idea what they're going to come up with for a plot. It's obviously just a cash cow, but the fans will go and see it so it's really probably a brilliant move.
Now for a bit of bad news: neither of the Grind House film DVDs will include the interstitial trailers. How greedy is that? Obviously, they're pre-planning a double dip, which is a bit cruel considering that you're not just keeping special features from the fans but you're actually tearing away a vital part of the experience. For shame, Weinstein Company.
The trailers for Superbad had me interested, but this clip on YouTube has me even more determined to see this movie. It's sure to be crude, but as long as it's as funny as this clip I really don't mind.
Now to close out with a couple of trailers. The first is for Lions for Lambs, which looks like a thinly veiled critique of Bush's politics. I'm not happy about the war, but a fictional movie about it isn't going to change anything, and it sounds too preachy to be received well. The other is much better: We Own the Night. It's Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg playing two brothers, club owner and a cop, who ally together to stop some bad dudes. I can't really explain it without it sounding lame, so you're going to have to just watch the trailer to understand why I like this movie so far.
Yesterday was the Amazon.com Company Picnic, so here's a couple of pictures from that:
And now, it's finally time for some Unconscious Mutterings:
I say ... and you think ... ?
I actually got an e-mail about Amazon Flexible Payments Service on Friday but I totally didn't know that it was going into public beta that same day. The message sounded like it was an internal beta, but I guess not. Anyhow, it's basically an API that Amazon Web Services (about 4 floors above my office) is providing to add an easy, affordable payments system to small businesses' websites. It sounds pretty huge and extensible, but will it be able to take over what Paypal provides? That's very hard to say, but Amazon's brand recognition likely surpasses Paypal, and is maybe even more trusted (I have nothing to back this up other than anecdotal bad press for Paypal), so it definitely has a chance. After all, remember how S3 really took off?
I neglected to report on this a while back, but AT&T had hidden away in its terms that it had a $10 DSL plan, which it was obligated to offer as a result of losing some lawsuit, and now they're covering it up by saying that there was no demand for it. Do these people take us for total nimrods? No duh there's no demand, it's hard to demand something when you don't know it exists. Are people really happy to pay them for overpriced, low-quality Internet service?
If you're stuck without a TV, like me, then you may be entertained by LikeVid. It provides totally legal television channels available online, some of which are Internet-only, and it's a fun way to kill some time when you don't want to do anything but sit back and absorb.
Lastly, if you know nothing about torrents, you may find some value in this article explaining all about it. I'd say that it's a worthwhile read if you don't know what that word means seeing as how it has become a rather important idea to understand.
In the box office this weekend it should be no surprise that the big winner was The Bourne Supremacy at over $70 million, which is nearly 3 times as much as the opening weekend for the first movie in the series. I thought it was impressive that The Simpsons Movie managed $25.6 million, which is a pretty heavy drop, but it's in 2nd place and I'm sure it cost much less than $128 million to make so I think they'll be doing just fine. It's also amazing that Transformer, despite being a month old, is still #8. Passing $300 million in a little over a month is pretty crazy.
It looks like the World of Warcraft movie got a greenlight from Legendary Pictures, which is interesting because I have no idea what they're going to come up with for a plot. It's obviously just a cash cow, but the fans will go and see it so it's really probably a brilliant move.
Now for a bit of bad news: neither of the Grind House film DVDs will include the interstitial trailers. How greedy is that? Obviously, they're pre-planning a double dip, which is a bit cruel considering that you're not just keeping special features from the fans but you're actually tearing away a vital part of the experience. For shame, Weinstein Company.
The trailers for Superbad had me interested, but this clip on YouTube has me even more determined to see this movie. It's sure to be crude, but as long as it's as funny as this clip I really don't mind.
Now to close out with a couple of trailers. The first is for Lions for Lambs, which looks like a thinly veiled critique of Bush's politics. I'm not happy about the war, but a fictional movie about it isn't going to change anything, and it sounds too preachy to be received well. The other is much better: We Own the Night. It's Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg playing two brothers, club owner and a cop, who ally together to stop some bad dudes. I can't really explain it without it sounding lame, so you're going to have to just watch the trailer to understand why I like this movie so far.
Yesterday was the Amazon.com Company Picnic, so here's a couple of pictures from that:
And now, it's finally time for some Unconscious Mutterings:
I say ... and you think ... ?
- Voices :: Hearing
- Have to :: Eat
- Machine :: Maniac
- Seventh grade :: Sucked
- Beach :: Ball
- Roommate :: Apartment
- Cyclone :: Twister
- Theater :: Movie
- Pregnant :: Baby
- Phoebe :: Buffay
Friday, August 03, 2007
Amazon Takes Over Your Den
I'm a bit tired tonight, so this will be a short one, but I wanted to put something up. Obviously, I'm fond of my bread and butter, Amazon.com, so I thought it was cool to see this article from last100.com about how Amazon is taking over the living room. I think it's still a bit premature, but I believe it, nonetheless. From talking to an undisclosed individual at Amazon, I think the same train of thought clicked in my head. Amazon would love to go past just your shopping stop from your study or bedroom and move into your living room. It makes sense: DRM-free music, Unbox, Tivo downloads, the rumors about Netflix, and let's not forget about IMDB, the place you turn to when you're sitting in your living room confused or forgetful. They've even already made the move into on-demand DVDs with those DVDs you can order with specific news events, and it's unfortunate that Your Media Library because that's just another example of them trying to catalogue what's in your living room to share and build on. I'll admit, Amazon isn't there yet. They still have a ways to go. However, their chances are pretty good. They really have some smart people running these teams, and trust me when I say that they have some top-notch managers and SDEs. I have no material information about any of what I've just talked about, it's just a result of what I've seen (like you guys) and what I've experienced in their working environment.
The Pirate Bay is looking to revive the long-dead Suprnova.org, which was the de facto search engine for pirated torrents before they lost in court. The owners of the domain handed it over to The Pirate Bay, and they're looking forward to putting it back online very soon.
If you haven't seen the Dark Knight teaser then behold. It's awesome.
I have to say that this is pretty sad: a 19 year-old girl was arrested for recording 20 seconds of Transformers to show her little brother. I don't know what's more disturbing, the fact that it was only 20 seconds or the greed over a movie that's already made buttloads of money. It's not the studio, it's the movie theater, but this is still sick. The example they're setting is that they're dumbasses, not that they're strict.
I'm going to end here with some one liners: another great list of freeware applications lie here. I can personally vouch for the awesomeness of nearly all those video editing ones. If you have issues trying to track all your bills and you have room mates, you'll get a kick out of Billshare.
The Pirate Bay is looking to revive the long-dead Suprnova.org, which was the de facto search engine for pirated torrents before they lost in court. The owners of the domain handed it over to The Pirate Bay, and they're looking forward to putting it back online very soon.
If you haven't seen the Dark Knight teaser then behold. It's awesome.
I have to say that this is pretty sad: a 19 year-old girl was arrested for recording 20 seconds of Transformers to show her little brother. I don't know what's more disturbing, the fact that it was only 20 seconds or the greed over a movie that's already made buttloads of money. It's not the studio, it's the movie theater, but this is still sick. The example they're setting is that they're dumbasses, not that they're strict.
I'm going to end here with some one liners: another great list of freeware applications lie here. I can personally vouch for the awesomeness of nearly all those video editing ones. If you have issues trying to track all your bills and you have room mates, you'll get a kick out of Billshare.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Demo Day and The Simpsons Movie
Guess what? I'm back! This won't be a standard post though, because it's too late for me to do one of those. I didn't think it would take 11 days for me to post again, but apparently I was wrong. Yes, I was actually working all those days, even in the evenings, and I used my spare time mostly to rest and work out. It all paid off though as today was my day to present to the organization include our VP. Check out the view from the meeting room:
The room was packed; people were even standing up. We had 10 intern presentations to get through in under 2 hours, and mine was third to last. I spent a good part of yesterday working on it, and practiced it this morning to the point of memorization. For those of you who don't know, my project was to add predictions to Amazon's logs for geographical location and then use that to visualize our traffic and revenues geographically with various dimensions and filters and such involved, including per capita and relative percentage views. So it was a huge amount of effort, and went right down to the level of state maps. I wish I could show you guys, but I'm 99% sure that I would get sued for that so I'm not going to. I had planned out the entire demo so that everything I showed has a use case on the side of marketing and advertising groups, and the crowd seemed to love it. I worked in as much humor as I could (my favorite was viewing trends in Women's Swimwear because I know nothing about women), and I got more laughs than any of the other interns did. It was scary and exciting all at once, then just a flood of relief when I was done. All the blood, sweat, and tears (literally) really paid off when I got to this point:
I won most creative solution! That's very exciting because that means that people higher than my manager were impressed with my work, which is a really humbling experience. Plus, the audience seemed really engaged with my demo, and fortunately I did not suffer demo-itis. Now that it's over I can take a breather and get back to playing guitar and such and prepare to see my girlfriend again very soon, which is even more exciting than all this.
Enough about that though, I also saw The Simpsons Movie tonight (UT intern event), and so I thought I'd go ahead and give my thoughts on that. I was quite impressed with it. I assumed it would because the show had taken a turn for the worst in recent years and making a movie seemed like they were just trying to exploit the series. The basic plot is that the pollution in Springfield has reached critical mass and Homer ends up foiling a clean-up effort, which leads the government to put a big bubble around Springfield and eventually destroy it. This is actually one of the few comedies nowadays where they don't put the best scenes in the trailer, so there's still plenty more to enjoy when you see the film. The humor is witty as in the old episodes, and almost never takes things too far, unlikely some of the more conventional comedies nowadays. The only drawback is that some of the characters are strange from how the series used to be (like Bart being sentimental all of a sudden), but that's not really a big deal. The animation is crisp and even better to look at than the series is, so no issues there. I highly recommend this film with a B+ just because I feel hesitant to give an A to a movie that had little substance an was more about jokes than anything else. There's nothing wrong with that, but an A movie it does not make. If you're a fan of the series, definitely run out and see this.
The room was packed; people were even standing up. We had 10 intern presentations to get through in under 2 hours, and mine was third to last. I spent a good part of yesterday working on it, and practiced it this morning to the point of memorization. For those of you who don't know, my project was to add predictions to Amazon's logs for geographical location and then use that to visualize our traffic and revenues geographically with various dimensions and filters and such involved, including per capita and relative percentage views. So it was a huge amount of effort, and went right down to the level of state maps. I wish I could show you guys, but I'm 99% sure that I would get sued for that so I'm not going to. I had planned out the entire demo so that everything I showed has a use case on the side of marketing and advertising groups, and the crowd seemed to love it. I worked in as much humor as I could (my favorite was viewing trends in Women's Swimwear because I know nothing about women), and I got more laughs than any of the other interns did. It was scary and exciting all at once, then just a flood of relief when I was done. All the blood, sweat, and tears (literally) really paid off when I got to this point:
I won most creative solution! That's very exciting because that means that people higher than my manager were impressed with my work, which is a really humbling experience. Plus, the audience seemed really engaged with my demo, and fortunately I did not suffer demo-itis. Now that it's over I can take a breather and get back to playing guitar and such and prepare to see my girlfriend again very soon, which is even more exciting than all this.
Enough about that though, I also saw The Simpsons Movie tonight (UT intern event), and so I thought I'd go ahead and give my thoughts on that. I was quite impressed with it. I assumed it would because the show had taken a turn for the worst in recent years and making a movie seemed like they were just trying to exploit the series. The basic plot is that the pollution in Springfield has reached critical mass and Homer ends up foiling a clean-up effort, which leads the government to put a big bubble around Springfield and eventually destroy it. This is actually one of the few comedies nowadays where they don't put the best scenes in the trailer, so there's still plenty more to enjoy when you see the film. The humor is witty as in the old episodes, and almost never takes things too far, unlikely some of the more conventional comedies nowadays. The only drawback is that some of the characters are strange from how the series used to be (like Bart being sentimental all of a sudden), but that's not really a big deal. The animation is crisp and even better to look at than the series is, so no issues there. I highly recommend this film with a B+ just because I feel hesitant to give an A to a movie that had little substance an was more about jokes than anything else. There's nothing wrong with that, but an A movie it does not make. If you're a fan of the series, definitely run out and see this.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Busy
Hey guys,
I'm sorry to say this, but I have to take a break from this blog. Today was probably the worst day I've had since my car accident, and so naturally my heart isn't really into blogging right now. Aside from that, I'm going to be working every day for the next 11 days to get my project for work done by August 1. I'm not saying that I'm taking a break for that long, but I'm warning you guys that I'm just going to be insanely busy and I'm just not feeling very good right now. Maybe I'll feel better in a few days, maybe in a week, who knows.
This is not a cry for help. I'm not sick or dying. I will be just fine. Since I'm sure many of you will ask me what you can do I'll tell you right now: enjoy your life =P Don't worry about me. I've already talked to the people who can help me, and the only other people who can help me are obviously my teammates at Amazon. I'm just feeling stressed out of my mind right now. It's not Amazon's fault, I still love it there, and I'm convinced that I will not fail them, but that prospect scares me enough to make me work 11 days straight.
This is NOT the end. I will return. I just need a break. Oh, and in case any of you are getting the wrong idea about this: no, my girlfriend hasn't done anything bad to me. She's a phenomenal person, and I still love her very much, and I'm pretty sure that she still loves me. I'll leave you all with a few pictures.
I'm sorry to say this, but I have to take a break from this blog. Today was probably the worst day I've had since my car accident, and so naturally my heart isn't really into blogging right now. Aside from that, I'm going to be working every day for the next 11 days to get my project for work done by August 1. I'm not saying that I'm taking a break for that long, but I'm warning you guys that I'm just going to be insanely busy and I'm just not feeling very good right now. Maybe I'll feel better in a few days, maybe in a week, who knows.
This is not a cry for help. I'm not sick or dying. I will be just fine. Since I'm sure many of you will ask me what you can do I'll tell you right now: enjoy your life =P Don't worry about me. I've already talked to the people who can help me, and the only other people who can help me are obviously my teammates at Amazon. I'm just feeling stressed out of my mind right now. It's not Amazon's fault, I still love it there, and I'm convinced that I will not fail them, but that prospect scares me enough to make me work 11 days straight.
This is NOT the end. I will return. I just need a break. Oh, and in case any of you are getting the wrong idea about this: no, my girlfriend hasn't done anything bad to me. She's a phenomenal person, and I still love her very much, and I'm pretty sure that she still loves me. I'll leave you all with a few pictures.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Microsoft Screws Over Linspire
Sorry about missing last night, but there wasn't even much to talk about, and there isn't a whole lot more now. There is still the story of how Microsoft is being a jerk to Linspire. Basically, they came out swinging saying that Linspire was violating some patents, despite being covered under the GPLv3 license, then forged an agreement with them, and now they're saying that some new software from Linspire is violating said agreement. They've done the same thing to Novell in the past, but Novell was the reason for GPLv3, which restricts companies from getting involved with Microsoft in cross-patent agreement because you cannot make agreements with companies in the business of selling software under v3, which Microsoft naturally hates so they've been chopping at Linspire, who did settle with Microsoft under much litigious pressure for the name "Lindows" and now are screwed again. I really try to not rag on Microsoft like every other geek does, but I just can't help it. Microsoft, you are retarded. In my opinion, this is really really bad press. Maybe I'm being too optimistic here, but will this not get out into the mainstream? This is evil. They're using scare tactics to get Linux distros to double back on GPLv3 and come to the dark side. I'm no legal expert, but if these guys are covered under GPLv3, and didn't steal technology from Microsoft, then aren't Microsoft threats pretty empty? After all, they're not even citing the specific patent violations. Anyhow, the culture of ownership in this country is extremely annoying, and no one brings it out better than Microsoft.
NetworkWorld has a rather long article about the 12 IT skills employers can't say no to. It's annoyingly spread over several pages, but most of those skills really are pretty important, as I've found out. Networking, open-source experience, UI experience, etc. are all pretty attractive skills. If you're looking for a tech job, you should probably look that over.
If you want to be a stalker, then you should try tracking someone down geographically using the first six digits of their phone number. It's an interesting little Google mashup, but I can't imagine it's all that accurate with cell phones. However, it was almost dead-on with my parents' land line. Anyway, an interesting tool to add to your stalker toolkit.
I didn't know that Suicide Girls had male columnists, I always assumed it was just a softcore porn site for geeks or something, but Will Wheaton put up a pretty good editorial about his experience spending a weekend unplugged from the Internet. Personally, I think I'd feel kind of bothered spending a weekend without access to a computer at all. I guess I'm just that addicted, but I suppose if I was planning a romantic getaway with my girlfriend or something, I'd do it so I could give her my full attention. Otherwise, no dice.
There's this program I discovered yesterday called Jing (strangely enough, that was the name of my prom date, but prom wasn't very good) that basically allows you to take pictures and videos from you computer screen whenever you want and upload them instantly. I like that idea because I often find myself e-mailing screenshots manually, and doing videos would be even better. Unfortunately, I can't try it from my work computer, so try it out and let me know how it is!
You knew it was coming: the Apple news. If you have an iPhone and you want to use SSH from it (I know that sounds stupid, but geeks like me salivate over that ability), you should check this out. It's probably not all that secure, I'd imagine, but still awesome for your home Linux machine or maybe one at school or something. The other Apple news is that Best Buy has expanded its Apple pilot program to more stores and has fancy displays to go with it. I'm curious as to how much money Best Buy makes off of sales of Apple computers? Given that Apple controls its pricing, it can't be that much, can it?
Lastly, I just have to point and laugh at this video game about your e-mail. This may be the stupidest idea for a video game I've ever heard, and it even has a trailer to go with it. It's all about horribly drawn half naked women poolside. If gamers want that, they'll get Leisure Suit Larry, thank you very much.
M Night Shyamalan somehow got John Leguizamo and Mark Wahlberg to star in his upcoming movie The Happening. It's amazing that big name actors are still willing to work with Shyamalan even in the wake of his last couple of movies facing harsh criticism, and I just hope that this movie ends up being good, at least.
The Wolverine spinoff movie finally has a director, and it's actually acclaimed South African director Gavin Hood. That's a lot better than most of us would've expected, so this should be interesting, to say the least.
Kevin Smith's next film is called Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and it takes a detour from the View Askewniverse, but he did manage to get Rosario Dawson to play Miri, which is a part he wrote for her. Aside from the title, no idea what it's about, but Kevin Smith is pretty pleased with the script he churned out and he's pretty funny so I'm hoping for good things.
Now for some multimedia. Yahoo Movies has a couple of clips from The Simpsons Movie, only one of which is funny, but something is better than nothing I guess. The other clip is for I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (what's with all these unnecessarily long titles lately?), and it's actually good for a chuckle. My opinion of this movie is starting to turn for the better, but I probably won't end up seeing it opening weekend.
By popular demand, I'll leave you with a picture from work:
Now for the 3x Thursday meme:
1. Do you believe that we as humans were meant to have just one person we are paired with for life? Why/why not?
Yeah, I think I do. I know it sounds crazy, but I really do believe that God has a plan, and I think that plan involves one person that we each belong with. Call me a crazy romantic, I guess, but that is how I feel.
2. What do you think about famous people who have huge egos and/or are general not nice people? Do you think they have any right to behave as such? Are you able to ignore them and still enjoy their work, or does their attitude just kill the experience for you? Why/why not?
You mean like Russell Crowe? I don't really care for that. I don't know that it makes me boycott their movies, but I'm less likely to want to see their movies just subconsciously.
3. Do you believe that our happiness may be all about how we handle life's changes and curve balls? Why/why not?
Definitely. I think that being happy is predicated on how well you can handle your life when things get rough. If you dwell on the bad too much, how can you be happy? Fortunately, my girl keeps be happy, even when I'm down, and I feel blessed for that.
NetworkWorld has a rather long article about the 12 IT skills employers can't say no to. It's annoyingly spread over several pages, but most of those skills really are pretty important, as I've found out. Networking, open-source experience, UI experience, etc. are all pretty attractive skills. If you're looking for a tech job, you should probably look that over.
If you want to be a stalker, then you should try tracking someone down geographically using the first six digits of their phone number. It's an interesting little Google mashup, but I can't imagine it's all that accurate with cell phones. However, it was almost dead-on with my parents' land line. Anyway, an interesting tool to add to your stalker toolkit.
I didn't know that Suicide Girls had male columnists, I always assumed it was just a softcore porn site for geeks or something, but Will Wheaton put up a pretty good editorial about his experience spending a weekend unplugged from the Internet. Personally, I think I'd feel kind of bothered spending a weekend without access to a computer at all. I guess I'm just that addicted, but I suppose if I was planning a romantic getaway with my girlfriend or something, I'd do it so I could give her my full attention. Otherwise, no dice.
There's this program I discovered yesterday called Jing (strangely enough, that was the name of my prom date, but prom wasn't very good) that basically allows you to take pictures and videos from you computer screen whenever you want and upload them instantly. I like that idea because I often find myself e-mailing screenshots manually, and doing videos would be even better. Unfortunately, I can't try it from my work computer, so try it out and let me know how it is!
You knew it was coming: the Apple news. If you have an iPhone and you want to use SSH from it (I know that sounds stupid, but geeks like me salivate over that ability), you should check this out. It's probably not all that secure, I'd imagine, but still awesome for your home Linux machine or maybe one at school or something. The other Apple news is that Best Buy has expanded its Apple pilot program to more stores and has fancy displays to go with it. I'm curious as to how much money Best Buy makes off of sales of Apple computers? Given that Apple controls its pricing, it can't be that much, can it?
Lastly, I just have to point and laugh at this video game about your e-mail. This may be the stupidest idea for a video game I've ever heard, and it even has a trailer to go with it. It's all about horribly drawn half naked women poolside. If gamers want that, they'll get Leisure Suit Larry, thank you very much.
M Night Shyamalan somehow got John Leguizamo and Mark Wahlberg to star in his upcoming movie The Happening. It's amazing that big name actors are still willing to work with Shyamalan even in the wake of his last couple of movies facing harsh criticism, and I just hope that this movie ends up being good, at least.
The Wolverine spinoff movie finally has a director, and it's actually acclaimed South African director Gavin Hood. That's a lot better than most of us would've expected, so this should be interesting, to say the least.
Kevin Smith's next film is called Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and it takes a detour from the View Askewniverse, but he did manage to get Rosario Dawson to play Miri, which is a part he wrote for her. Aside from the title, no idea what it's about, but Kevin Smith is pretty pleased with the script he churned out and he's pretty funny so I'm hoping for good things.
Now for some multimedia. Yahoo Movies has a couple of clips from The Simpsons Movie, only one of which is funny, but something is better than nothing I guess. The other clip is for I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (what's with all these unnecessarily long titles lately?), and it's actually good for a chuckle. My opinion of this movie is starting to turn for the better, but I probably won't end up seeing it opening weekend.
By popular demand, I'll leave you with a picture from work:
Now for the 3x Thursday meme:
1. Do you believe that we as humans were meant to have just one person we are paired with for life? Why/why not?
Yeah, I think I do. I know it sounds crazy, but I really do believe that God has a plan, and I think that plan involves one person that we each belong with. Call me a crazy romantic, I guess, but that is how I feel.
2. What do you think about famous people who have huge egos and/or are general not nice people? Do you think they have any right to behave as such? Are you able to ignore them and still enjoy their work, or does their attitude just kill the experience for you? Why/why not?
You mean like Russell Crowe? I don't really care for that. I don't know that it makes me boycott their movies, but I'm less likely to want to see their movies just subconsciously.
3. Do you believe that our happiness may be all about how we handle life's changes and curve balls? Why/why not?
Definitely. I think that being happy is predicated on how well you can handle your life when things get rough. If you dwell on the bad too much, how can you be happy? Fortunately, my girl keeps be happy, even when I'm down, and I feel blessed for that.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Beautify Your Landing Page
I love talking about usability. I was talking about it today with my manager with regard to my geographical visualization tool (I'd show screenshots, but it's backed by sensitive, proprietary data, sorry) and how to best display options to mess with it, and he brought up the good point that we're dealing with an technical user (Amazon business units) rather than your average person, who would have different needs and intuitions and such. Anyway, today, I wanted to talk a little bit about this article on how to make the first page your users see of your site a lasting experience for them. When it comes down to it, the sites you get pumped to come back to or talk about are different and fresh and fast and dynamic. I recommend browsing that post, and allocate like 20 minutes for it because it has some really fun links. Basically, the core concepts are that your site is user-friendly, it's fun to navigate, it's unique, and it communicates well on a visual level. That's what that entire article boils down to. When it really comes down to it, I think all web designers should sit in the driver's seat and figure out how likely you'd be to keep visiting the site and whether you actually enjoy using it. I think sometimes people get too caught up in little things and don't realize that using technology and navigating the web should be enjoyable!
Remember how SoundExchange decided to ease up on internet radio regarding those royalty hikes? Well, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and the price internet radio has to pay is DRM. That's right, they have to actively fight against streamripping, which basically will end up limiting how users can get to the streams since they have to be clients that support DRM (like Windows Media Player). I guess it's better than losing internet radio altogether though.fees to the winner.
On the bright side, Capitol Records lost a lawsuit and had to pay like $60k in attorney fees to the winner! The is the first time someone has won money from the RIAA in one of these lawsuits, and let's hope that it starts a trend!
The Apple rumor mills are hard at work with word that we'll probably see an iPhone-like iPod as soon as next month or as late as January 2008 due to a contract for touchscreens won by a Taiwanese company. I suppose that this could be for the iPhone, but they're not having supply issues with the iPhone and so they probably wouldn't need a fresh contract for that. I think next month would be too soon for a new iPod, but I'd guess for October maybe. Speaking of the iPhone, this is probably my favorite iPhone rant. It's NSFW, but still hilarious.
Google is really pushing its Street View thing with a whole fleet of Chevy Cobalts ready to hit some big cities. Ok, that's making an assumption, but what else would they do with 30 brand new cars with vertical extensions attached to their hoods?
Speaking of cars, if you text when you drive, then you're an idiot. If you're in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I can maybe understand, but come on! If you need to see this sign to know to not text while you drive, then you don't deserve to drive:
Lastly, this thing is freaking hilarious. If you've ever been in the industry, you'll definitely appreciate it. Hell, even if you haven't, I'm sure you'll find it amusing. It's a list of ways to know your software project is doomed, and it's quite accurate.
I don't watch much anime, though I can respect it, and I like the teaser for The Five Killers, which is from the makes of Afro Samurai. The only other thing I have is the trailer for The Last Legion from The Weinstein Company and featuring Bollywood star (and the wet dream of a lot of Indian dudes, I'm sure; I only dream of my girlfriend, seriously, so I wouldn't know). The trailer isn't particularly amazing, but it's still interesting subject matter (first leader of Rome and stuff).
Now for the Tuesday Twosome:
1. Two nicknames that friends and family call me:
My girlfriend calls me tiger, and some of the guys here call me Ford/Fjord.
2. Two items of clothing I would never get rid of:
The tie I wore to my brother's wedding and the kurta I wore to his Roce.
3. Two movies that I can watch over and over again:
Donnie Darko and Pulp Fiction
4. Two people that have influenced me the most:
My father and my brother
5. Two goals/dreams I hope to fulfill in my lifetime:
Marry the girl of my dreams and create software that really changes the world
Remember how SoundExchange decided to ease up on internet radio regarding those royalty hikes? Well, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and the price internet radio has to pay is DRM. That's right, they have to actively fight against streamripping, which basically will end up limiting how users can get to the streams since they have to be clients that support DRM (like Windows Media Player). I guess it's better than losing internet radio altogether though.fees to the winner.
On the bright side, Capitol Records lost a lawsuit and had to pay like $60k in attorney fees to the winner! The is the first time someone has won money from the RIAA in one of these lawsuits, and let's hope that it starts a trend!
The Apple rumor mills are hard at work with word that we'll probably see an iPhone-like iPod as soon as next month or as late as January 2008 due to a contract for touchscreens won by a Taiwanese company. I suppose that this could be for the iPhone, but they're not having supply issues with the iPhone and so they probably wouldn't need a fresh contract for that. I think next month would be too soon for a new iPod, but I'd guess for October maybe. Speaking of the iPhone, this is probably my favorite iPhone rant. It's NSFW, but still hilarious.
Google is really pushing its Street View thing with a whole fleet of Chevy Cobalts ready to hit some big cities. Ok, that's making an assumption, but what else would they do with 30 brand new cars with vertical extensions attached to their hoods?
Speaking of cars, if you text when you drive, then you're an idiot. If you're in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I can maybe understand, but come on! If you need to see this sign to know to not text while you drive, then you don't deserve to drive:
Lastly, this thing is freaking hilarious. If you've ever been in the industry, you'll definitely appreciate it. Hell, even if you haven't, I'm sure you'll find it amusing. It's a list of ways to know your software project is doomed, and it's quite accurate.
I don't watch much anime, though I can respect it, and I like the teaser for The Five Killers, which is from the makes of Afro Samurai. The only other thing I have is the trailer for The Last Legion from The Weinstein Company and featuring Bollywood star (and the wet dream of a lot of Indian dudes, I'm sure; I only dream of my girlfriend, seriously, so I wouldn't know). The trailer isn't particularly amazing, but it's still interesting subject matter (first leader of Rome and stuff).
Now for the Tuesday Twosome:
1. Two nicknames that friends and family call me:
My girlfriend calls me tiger, and some of the guys here call me Ford/Fjord.
2. Two items of clothing I would never get rid of:
The tie I wore to my brother's wedding and the kurta I wore to his Roce.
3. Two movies that I can watch over and over again:
Donnie Darko and Pulp Fiction
4. Two people that have influenced me the most:
My father and my brother
5. Two goals/dreams I hope to fulfill in my lifetime:
Marry the girl of my dreams and create software that really changes the world
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Reinventing Modern Computing?
PC Magazine is running an article on what they claim are the five ideas that will reinvent modern computing, but I always take their articles with a grain of salt. Their first one already has me suspicious: IMAX at home. It sounds cool and all, combining a bunch of $1000 computers to simulate IMAX, but who cares that isn't rich? What does this reinvent? I'll give them the quantum computer and the midair mouse though: those are both things that could be big. We wouldn't need pointers for presentations and such, just the same mouse you always use. The quantum computer could theoretically break RSA encryption, so that's a massively huge deal. I also like the idea of extreme peer-to-peer: like BitTorrent for servers or even home networks. Interesting, but complicated and hard to fit in one's head. Much easier to fit in your head is simulating the human brain, about which there's actually a course at UT, and it's a ridiculously large project. I personally don't know that I believe that a computer, even with thousands of processors, can simulate a human brain, but one of my most respected professors believes so, so I'm sure it is theoretically possible. Still, how close are we to attaining than? And when we do, what will we do with it? I don't know if these are the top ideas reinventing computing, but I'd say that four of them are valid.
Microsoft's DRM has been cracked in an interesting arms race between a hidden hacker and Microsoft. He keeps releasing new versions of FairUse4DRM, which strips DRM from .wma files, and he's done it once again to crack Microsoft's latest patch. What stuns me is that one of the richest companies in the world cannot attain the identity of one dude so they can sue him. Kudos to this guy for being great at hiding, and I hope he keeps it up. He's sending a great message: DRM will never be unbreakable.
There's no doubt that Firefox is a great browser, but could it be better by taking lessons from Safari? One blogger is pointing out several things it should take from Safari, and I think I agree with spawning windows from tabs, draggable images, highlighted text fields, and better bug reporting. I'm not convinced that page rendering is noticeably faster in Safari (please comment with benchmarks if you have them, I'm not saying it's not possible), and these are rather nit-picky things. Safari is still a second-class browser compared to Firefox. Plus, if you care so much, write an extension for it (for some of these things they already exist).
Now for the rest of the news: Apple stuff. If you're getting your first Mac then you'll probably find this site helpful, which is filled with articles to help ease the switch. What I love about this site is that it's not fanboy dribble. Just check out this article and see for yourself.
This is really a really interesting rumor: Jay-Z may be starting a label with Apple since he's reportedly been interesting in leaving Def Jam to start a "superlabel" with Beyonce. It sounds crazy, but it may be profitable for Apple, though I imagine they'd be control freaks so not sure if this will pan out. Still, could mean very interesting things for Apple to get involved with music production, though may spread them a little thin, in my opinion.
Now for some one-lines. iPhone users can also check out this site for more great iPhone apps in an iPhone friendly format, no less. If you're looking to hide your iPod or iPhone from crooks, you may want to protect it inside a brown Zune. That thing is so ugly no one would dare want to steal it. I love that they noticed the idiocy of the "squirt" term as well.
Harry Potter did predictably well in the box office with $140 million grossed since its release. It underperformed its predecessors over the weekend, but made more money in five days than they each did in a week, so that's pretty good money. I should probably go see it, huh? Transformers came in second with an impressive $36 million, and Ratatouille was close behind with exactly half that. Those movies both have some great legs on them, and are slaughtering Die Hard with its unnecessarily long title.
Yay for Dark Knight news! Despite previous intimations, it looks like Two Face will, in fact, be in The Dark Knight! I hope they don't try shoving too much in this film with so many villains. And alas, check it out, spy pics of The Joker!
I don't usually dig romance movies, but I think I'm interested in Feast of Love. I don't know why, but I really dig the trailer. It has Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear after all, so it has to be at least somewhat good.
We have an early review of Rush Hour 3, and it's just as I suspected: not as good as the first two. Disappointing, but that's what happens when a franchise becomes a cash cow, I suppose.
Last, but not least, we have rumors about the plot of Indiana Jones 4 about the Soviets wanting immortality. It's too involved for me to even summarize, so just go read it for yourself.
Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:
I say ... and you think ... ?
Microsoft's DRM has been cracked in an interesting arms race between a hidden hacker and Microsoft. He keeps releasing new versions of FairUse4DRM, which strips DRM from .wma files, and he's done it once again to crack Microsoft's latest patch. What stuns me is that one of the richest companies in the world cannot attain the identity of one dude so they can sue him. Kudos to this guy for being great at hiding, and I hope he keeps it up. He's sending a great message: DRM will never be unbreakable.
There's no doubt that Firefox is a great browser, but could it be better by taking lessons from Safari? One blogger is pointing out several things it should take from Safari, and I think I agree with spawning windows from tabs, draggable images, highlighted text fields, and better bug reporting. I'm not convinced that page rendering is noticeably faster in Safari (please comment with benchmarks if you have them, I'm not saying it's not possible), and these are rather nit-picky things. Safari is still a second-class browser compared to Firefox. Plus, if you care so much, write an extension for it (for some of these things they already exist).
Now for the rest of the news: Apple stuff. If you're getting your first Mac then you'll probably find this site helpful, which is filled with articles to help ease the switch. What I love about this site is that it's not fanboy dribble. Just check out this article and see for yourself.
This is really a really interesting rumor: Jay-Z may be starting a label with Apple since he's reportedly been interesting in leaving Def Jam to start a "superlabel" with Beyonce. It sounds crazy, but it may be profitable for Apple, though I imagine they'd be control freaks so not sure if this will pan out. Still, could mean very interesting things for Apple to get involved with music production, though may spread them a little thin, in my opinion.
Now for some one-lines. iPhone users can also check out this site for more great iPhone apps in an iPhone friendly format, no less. If you're looking to hide your iPod or iPhone from crooks, you may want to protect it inside a brown Zune. That thing is so ugly no one would dare want to steal it. I love that they noticed the idiocy of the "squirt" term as well.
Harry Potter did predictably well in the box office with $140 million grossed since its release. It underperformed its predecessors over the weekend, but made more money in five days than they each did in a week, so that's pretty good money. I should probably go see it, huh? Transformers came in second with an impressive $36 million, and Ratatouille was close behind with exactly half that. Those movies both have some great legs on them, and are slaughtering Die Hard with its unnecessarily long title.
Yay for Dark Knight news! Despite previous intimations, it looks like Two Face will, in fact, be in The Dark Knight! I hope they don't try shoving too much in this film with so many villains. And alas, check it out, spy pics of The Joker!
I don't usually dig romance movies, but I think I'm interested in Feast of Love. I don't know why, but I really dig the trailer. It has Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear after all, so it has to be at least somewhat good.
We have an early review of Rush Hour 3, and it's just as I suspected: not as good as the first two. Disappointing, but that's what happens when a franchise becomes a cash cow, I suppose.
Last, but not least, we have rumors about the plot of Indiana Jones 4 about the Soviets wanting immortality. It's too involved for me to even summarize, so just go read it for yourself.
Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:
I say ... and you think ... ?
- Situation :: Room
- Theme song :: Human Giant
- Kelly :: Clarkson
- Club :: Music
- Swerve :: Cologne
- Couch :: Potato
- Bigfoot :: Chupa Cabra
- Arbitrary :: Random
- Inventor :: Device
- Blazer :: Blue
Friday, July 13, 2007
Musical Patents
News is kinda slow today, so I figured I'd just briefly talk about a couple of related patents, one from Microsoft and one from Apple. The Microsoft one is to pay their users for "squirting" music. Ok, first of all, that is the stupidest technical term I've heard. It's what Microsoft is calling sharing music with your friends via your Zune. Were they high off their minds? Anyway, basically you could buy the music your friend has without involving the Microsoft servers, and the "squirter" would sync later with the server to report the purchase and get credit for it. It's not a bad idea, per se, but flawed in execution. How can you tell pirated from legal? Maybe it's simple, but I don't know how PlaysForSure is implemented. More importantly though, where's the demand for this? Apple is filing a much better patent, in my opinion: they're doing something similar to Zune with regarding other wireless devices with the iPod, but you can also buy music from a server in the patent. That's a better idea, really. Why do I want to buy music from my friend when iTunes has most everything I'd want already and doesn't have to be physically in front of me?
Internet radio is saved, for now. SoundExchange will not be collecting on the new rate hikes yet and are instead going to continue negotiating with online radio. I don't know why they're so hellbent on this. Why not just budge? Everyone hates them for doing this to internet radio, which clearly has a big audience for it to elicit such a response.
If you ever need to store files online, here are some free alternatives. Very handy for getting large files to friends since most major online e-mail services have caps on attachments.
Now for some one-liners. Now you can get more smileys in Pidgin. Actually, they're the ones in Yahoo/MSN, but still cool. Also, there's a new version of uTorrent out that supports Vista and is full of other little usability fixes.
I'm too tired right now to talk more about this, but ever wonder what happens to programming languages that don't make the cut? Well, you can read all about it here. Though I disagree about Haskell, it still has great academic value.
None of the movie news is really interesting, so here's Friday's Feast:
Appetizer
What is your favorite fruit?
Probably bananas for their versatility. They're easy to carry, great with peanut butter, pivotal to the banana split, fun with nuts when baked in bread, and the list goes on.
Soup
Who is someone you consider as a great role model?
My father, definitely. He's the embodiment of what it means to be a man: puts family first, good work ethic, talented, confident, etc.
Salad
If you were to spend one night anywhere within an hour of your home, where would you choose?
Considering home as Austin, I plead the fifth =P Those who know me best should know, anyhow.
Main Course
Name something you do too often.
Blog? =P I guess drink tea. I drink like two cups a day.
Dessert
Fill in the blank: I really like ___________ because ____________.
my girlfriend / she's sweet, kind, encouraging, beautiful, and smart =D
Yep, I'm pretty lucky! Have a good weekend everyone!
Internet radio is saved, for now. SoundExchange will not be collecting on the new rate hikes yet and are instead going to continue negotiating with online radio. I don't know why they're so hellbent on this. Why not just budge? Everyone hates them for doing this to internet radio, which clearly has a big audience for it to elicit such a response.
If you ever need to store files online, here are some free alternatives. Very handy for getting large files to friends since most major online e-mail services have caps on attachments.
Now for some one-liners. Now you can get more smileys in Pidgin. Actually, they're the ones in Yahoo/MSN, but still cool. Also, there's a new version of uTorrent out that supports Vista and is full of other little usability fixes.
I'm too tired right now to talk more about this, but ever wonder what happens to programming languages that don't make the cut? Well, you can read all about it here. Though I disagree about Haskell, it still has great academic value.
None of the movie news is really interesting, so here's Friday's Feast:
Appetizer
What is your favorite fruit?
Probably bananas for their versatility. They're easy to carry, great with peanut butter, pivotal to the banana split, fun with nuts when baked in bread, and the list goes on.
Soup
Who is someone you consider as a great role model?
My father, definitely. He's the embodiment of what it means to be a man: puts family first, good work ethic, talented, confident, etc.
Salad
If you were to spend one night anywhere within an hour of your home, where would you choose?
Considering home as Austin, I plead the fifth =P Those who know me best should know, anyhow.
Main Course
Name something you do too often.
Blog? =P I guess drink tea. I drink like two cups a day.
Dessert
Fill in the blank: I really like ___________ because ____________.
my girlfriend / she's sweet, kind, encouraging, beautiful, and smart =D
Yep, I'm pretty lucky! Have a good weekend everyone!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Life at Amazon
If you've come here for corporate secrets, then too bad, I'm not cracking! You'll just have to wait and see what Amazon is working on when they release it. Instead, I'm going to give a look at the working environment because I've been asked about it and I know I would've liked more information when I was looking for internships. Working at Amazon is almost exactly as I had pictured a place I wanted to work at. The culture really is great and welcoming. Really, Amazon isn't paying me to say this, I'm just enthused about being here. The people in my organization are extremely smart, and the team I'm on seems to have a great management structure. I'm only 3 levels away from an SVP, who reports to Jeff B. Speaking of the management structure, it's actually fairly flat. When I see superiors in the hall, I may get a little nervous because I figure I should be, but the other employees have a great opinion of them and even joke about them in a good way. Even though I technically have two bosses, my manager and my TPPM, they're really more of guides to keep me on track than anything else. It doesn't feel like red tape or bureaucracy in the least. My TPPM is more technical, more hands-on, and more of who I keep posted directly about my progress and sometimes get advice from. My manager is like the team's spokesperson to the business units, has a good idea of what our customers want, sits in meetings so we don't have to, but it a computer scientist at heart, as well, and still very much has a technical understanding of what's going on. In fact, our VP used to work on an Ada compiler back in the day, but he's still a phenomenal leader.
The thing is, if there was no management, things would easily fall apart. Let's face it, SDEs are bad at estimating, often misguided in planning, and not likely to prioritize the business necessity of projects but rather are more likely to prioritize what they think is more fun or more cool in their mind. Even then though, management manages to be fairly unobtrusive, but very much in the loop. Our scrum meetings in the morning are for everyone to answer what they did yesterday, what they're doing today, and if they're blocked on something then what is it so the TPPM (the scrum master) can help with that, and that's really cool, I think. There's always a sense of how we're doing in the sprint and it gives everyone on the team accountability. Last summer, at TI, I really didn't have that. People weren't motivated to get things done. At Amazon, people are just extremely smart and very self-motivated. It's incredible. It's like the difference between high school and college: people genuinely want to be there. People don't think it's perfect, and they're not blissful, because work is work for a reason. They're satisfied overall though, and the work environment is really laid back. No one checks on you, if you take breaks no one cares, there's free tea/coffee/hot cocoa, you can bring your dog, you can wear practically whatever you want (within reason), you can bring your nerf gun, you can request another monitor, etc. Amazon will do whatever they have to if it makes you more productive, though they still have a policy of frugality. So the prices on the site you get are seriously as low as Amazon can make them. They do not have money fights or anything, they just pay top dollar for top talent, and it shows. If you're trying to compete with Amazon then you're going to need a miracle because the people here strive to be on top, are proud of it, and are ridiculously talented. Everyone fits together like a nice little puzzle, and everyone supports each other, and it's just a very friendly community.
As for the internship program: my project is great. I love that what I'm doing really has a business impact (adding geographical data to our logs and producing a visualization for the business units with this information), and that I picked the group I would work with. It gives you a lot more control, and makes you responsible for what you do in the summer. I'm treated like another member of the team, and though I'm sure I've annoyed my co-workers with a lot of confusion for the first several weeks, they've been pretty nice about it. Plus there's the company picnic and intra-company sports, which even Jeff B sometimes plays (I hit an SVP with a dodgeball ball two weeks ago). The only intern-only events are rafting, Mariners game, a dinner, and then there's a couple of UT intern events (lunch and dinner). Rafting on the Skykomish was a ton of fun (I'll share when I get high res pictures), and our raft actually hit a rock called Fly Paper sideways and flipped over. It was scary being under the raft for like 10 seconds but our guide flipped it back over and 5 of the 6 of us got right back on (the other guy was picked up by a support kayak). It was a very well planned trip, I just wish we'd have one or two more of those. Plus, my recruiter is really cool. So overall, I'd totally recommend Amazon as an employer. The downsides are few and kind dumb to even mention (little company discount, offices not consolidated on one campus, not enough intern unity), whereas the benefits are much better (subsidized housing for interns, two computers and two monitors for work, very competitive pay, great management, smart co-workers, etc.). I seriously have sometimes woken up on Sundays and been like, "oh man, I'm not going to work today!" The biggest drawback for me though is not being with my girlfriend, and so that's the only reason I'll be glad when this summer is over. The experience has been amazing though (working with different design patterns, MySQL, BDBs, more Linux, being in a scrum, hard lessons of design/planning, etc). I'm very grateful to be here.
Should I even bother with real news today? I guess I'll go over a couple of things. AT&T has taken the route of deep packet inspection and will be aiming to throw "pirates" off their network, but we're not sure what their stupid algorithms will considerate a pirate so it's really a horrible idea.
Do you remember what the web looked like in 1994? This video is an awesome look back at the good old days of picture-less Internet. We didn't even get the Internet at home until 1997, and the Internet didn't really become popular until 1996 (maybe late 1995), so you can imagine how far back that is.
Rumors are abound that we'll see a Beatles-inspired iPhone loaded with the Beatles library in time for its release on iTunes, a full month before competitors. It's a fun rumors, and that's why I'm blogging it, but quite unlikely, in my opinion. Why would Apple Corps even give Apple, Inc temporary exclusivity? I'm more interested in the faux SDK one developer is making for the iPhone by way of a little markup language. Thumbs up to him: it looks pretty dandy. His site is getting slammed so the demos may take a while to load, but they're impressive given the simplicity of his project (make your window small and pretend you're on an iPhone viewing them).
This is almost unbelievable: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix managed to rake in nearly $50 million, more than a fifth of which were late Tuesday showings (mainly midnight). That's actually a record for a Wednesday opening, so any bets for how much it'll rake in by Sunday? I imagine it'll be between $150 and $200 million.
The only upcoming fantasy movie I want to see is The Golden Compass, so I just thought I'd share the new posters.
Lastly, we have a few trailers. The first is for December Boys featuring Mr. Potter himself (Daniel Radcliffe), and I think it could actually turn out to be a good movie, but I'm worried about it getting caught up in being a feel good movie and getting corny. The other trailer now on Yahoo Movies is for Death Sentence, and it really doesn't look good. Does Kevin Bacon no longer care about his career? Lastly, there's the trailer for The Dark is Rising which is a really kiddie fantasy movie. It's based off of actual books, but why does it feel like a hack of Harry Potter to me? (UPDATE: Whoops, The Dark is Rising actually came out long before J.K. Rowling even started writing, so she actually stole from Susan Cooper. Thanks to Charles for the info!)
Now for the 3x Thursday meme:
1. Do you treat people you're extremely close to (S.O's, ex's, best friends, family, etc) the same as you would regular friends and people off the street? How so/how not?
Well of course. I think everyone does. I don't mean I treat strangers like crap, but there are certain things I wouldn't say to certain people because they could be easily misunderstood, like when some of my friends and I make jokes that are intentionally mean to point out how mean people who say things like that are. Anyway, it's a longer story for a short answer: yes =P
2. What is it about knowing someone fairly well, or very well even, that seems to give us a license to say and do whatever we want/think/feel sometimes? Do you think it's right? Why do you think we do things like that?
I don't think it's ever whatever you want, I just think you trust those people more. I think this is natural and totally understandable. We do it because we all have our zone of comfort.
3. Do you tolerate being treated a certain way by someone (good or bad)? How so/how not? Why/why not?
All I ask for is a little respect. I don't tolerate people treating me like crap, and I'm not at all afraid to show it. My brother and I are both a bit headstrong in that respect, I guess. We get it from our father =P I guess we're just overly confident at times.
The thing is, if there was no management, things would easily fall apart. Let's face it, SDEs are bad at estimating, often misguided in planning, and not likely to prioritize the business necessity of projects but rather are more likely to prioritize what they think is more fun or more cool in their mind. Even then though, management manages to be fairly unobtrusive, but very much in the loop. Our scrum meetings in the morning are for everyone to answer what they did yesterday, what they're doing today, and if they're blocked on something then what is it so the TPPM (the scrum master) can help with that, and that's really cool, I think. There's always a sense of how we're doing in the sprint and it gives everyone on the team accountability. Last summer, at TI, I really didn't have that. People weren't motivated to get things done. At Amazon, people are just extremely smart and very self-motivated. It's incredible. It's like the difference between high school and college: people genuinely want to be there. People don't think it's perfect, and they're not blissful, because work is work for a reason. They're satisfied overall though, and the work environment is really laid back. No one checks on you, if you take breaks no one cares, there's free tea/coffee/hot cocoa, you can bring your dog, you can wear practically whatever you want (within reason), you can bring your nerf gun, you can request another monitor, etc. Amazon will do whatever they have to if it makes you more productive, though they still have a policy of frugality. So the prices on the site you get are seriously as low as Amazon can make them. They do not have money fights or anything, they just pay top dollar for top talent, and it shows. If you're trying to compete with Amazon then you're going to need a miracle because the people here strive to be on top, are proud of it, and are ridiculously talented. Everyone fits together like a nice little puzzle, and everyone supports each other, and it's just a very friendly community.
As for the internship program: my project is great. I love that what I'm doing really has a business impact (adding geographical data to our logs and producing a visualization for the business units with this information), and that I picked the group I would work with. It gives you a lot more control, and makes you responsible for what you do in the summer. I'm treated like another member of the team, and though I'm sure I've annoyed my co-workers with a lot of confusion for the first several weeks, they've been pretty nice about it. Plus there's the company picnic and intra-company sports, which even Jeff B sometimes plays (I hit an SVP with a dodgeball ball two weeks ago). The only intern-only events are rafting, Mariners game, a dinner, and then there's a couple of UT intern events (lunch and dinner). Rafting on the Skykomish was a ton of fun (I'll share when I get high res pictures), and our raft actually hit a rock called Fly Paper sideways and flipped over. It was scary being under the raft for like 10 seconds but our guide flipped it back over and 5 of the 6 of us got right back on (the other guy was picked up by a support kayak). It was a very well planned trip, I just wish we'd have one or two more of those. Plus, my recruiter is really cool. So overall, I'd totally recommend Amazon as an employer. The downsides are few and kind dumb to even mention (little company discount, offices not consolidated on one campus, not enough intern unity), whereas the benefits are much better (subsidized housing for interns, two computers and two monitors for work, very competitive pay, great management, smart co-workers, etc.). I seriously have sometimes woken up on Sundays and been like, "oh man, I'm not going to work today!" The biggest drawback for me though is not being with my girlfriend, and so that's the only reason I'll be glad when this summer is over. The experience has been amazing though (working with different design patterns, MySQL, BDBs, more Linux, being in a scrum, hard lessons of design/planning, etc). I'm very grateful to be here.
Should I even bother with real news today? I guess I'll go over a couple of things. AT&T has taken the route of deep packet inspection and will be aiming to throw "pirates" off their network, but we're not sure what their stupid algorithms will considerate a pirate so it's really a horrible idea.
Do you remember what the web looked like in 1994? This video is an awesome look back at the good old days of picture-less Internet. We didn't even get the Internet at home until 1997, and the Internet didn't really become popular until 1996 (maybe late 1995), so you can imagine how far back that is.
Rumors are abound that we'll see a Beatles-inspired iPhone loaded with the Beatles library in time for its release on iTunes, a full month before competitors. It's a fun rumors, and that's why I'm blogging it, but quite unlikely, in my opinion. Why would Apple Corps even give Apple, Inc temporary exclusivity? I'm more interested in the faux SDK one developer is making for the iPhone by way of a little markup language. Thumbs up to him: it looks pretty dandy. His site is getting slammed so the demos may take a while to load, but they're impressive given the simplicity of his project (make your window small and pretend you're on an iPhone viewing them).
This is almost unbelievable: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix managed to rake in nearly $50 million, more than a fifth of which were late Tuesday showings (mainly midnight). That's actually a record for a Wednesday opening, so any bets for how much it'll rake in by Sunday? I imagine it'll be between $150 and $200 million.
The only upcoming fantasy movie I want to see is The Golden Compass, so I just thought I'd share the new posters.
Lastly, we have a few trailers. The first is for December Boys featuring Mr. Potter himself (Daniel Radcliffe), and I think it could actually turn out to be a good movie, but I'm worried about it getting caught up in being a feel good movie and getting corny. The other trailer now on Yahoo Movies is for Death Sentence, and it really doesn't look good. Does Kevin Bacon no longer care about his career? Lastly, there's the trailer for The Dark is Rising which is a really kiddie fantasy movie. It's based off of actual books, but why does it feel like a hack of Harry Potter to me? (UPDATE: Whoops, The Dark is Rising actually came out long before J.K. Rowling even started writing, so she actually stole from Susan Cooper. Thanks to Charles for the info!)
Now for the 3x Thursday meme:
1. Do you treat people you're extremely close to (S.O's, ex's, best friends, family, etc) the same as you would regular friends and people off the street? How so/how not?
Well of course. I think everyone does. I don't mean I treat strangers like crap, but there are certain things I wouldn't say to certain people because they could be easily misunderstood, like when some of my friends and I make jokes that are intentionally mean to point out how mean people who say things like that are. Anyway, it's a longer story for a short answer: yes =P
2. What is it about knowing someone fairly well, or very well even, that seems to give us a license to say and do whatever we want/think/feel sometimes? Do you think it's right? Why do you think we do things like that?
I don't think it's ever whatever you want, I just think you trust those people more. I think this is natural and totally understandable. We do it because we all have our zone of comfort.
3. Do you tolerate being treated a certain way by someone (good or bad)? How so/how not? Why/why not?
All I ask for is a little respect. I don't tolerate people treating me like crap, and I'm not at all afraid to show it. My brother and I are both a bit headstrong in that respect, I guess. We get it from our father =P I guess we're just overly confident at times.
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