Not sure what to blog about

I'm not sure what to blog about, so I'm going to ramble. This isn't necessarily out of the ordinary, right? First of all, I've been thinking about some positive qualities I'd like to develop related to a quote in that Maryknoll magazine I mentioned for Independence Day about different ways of looking at people. Basically, the story was about a missionary priest of a village feeling obligated to do something to punish a parish member who had divorced or otherwise cheated on his wife for another woman. The rest of the community, although in no way approving of the unfaithfulness of the man, felt little inclination to ostracizing or otherwise punish "the adulterer". The priest learned that his parish members took a holistic view of the man, weighing his contributions to society over his personal shortcomings and spiritual crimes, while he himself was fixated on the negative. WWJD? Obviously, it depends on circumstances and consequences.

My take on this is more general. While pessimism is a terrible philosophy in general, optimism isn't necessarily the cure. The priests parish members didn't necessarily try to just look for the good in a person, so much as looking at the whole picture. To do that, one should merely control their emotions. If something about someone really bothers me, I tend to get fixated on it and allow it to irrationally dominate my impressions of him/her, masking positive qualities. And, having heard the Dalai Lama talk last Sunday, emotion, be it love or hatred (yes, strong word) cripples reason. My original hope for myself, however, was indeed to look for the best in people--to see their potential and help them realize it, even if they don't see it themselves.

SOURCE: Procrastination : /

I was fooled

iTunes for Windows Mobile 5. Well, at least I would have to replace my PocketPC before being able to listen to my m4p files and who knows when that'll be.

SOURCE: TUAW

FAKENESS 00:07 EST 9/29/05: A lot of people are saying this, but I trust PocketPC owners the most.

KTamas: 1. His phone is in Vibrate mode, so there is no sound, lol. Even then, he does listens to the music.

AND

brianchris: Perhaps another piece of evidence that it is a fake is the fact that the device is a T-Mobile MDA II ( http://www.pdagold.com/hardware/det...sp?DeviceID=154 ), YET is obviously running the Windows Mobile 5 OS (by the softkeys at the bottom of the screen). Very few devices are getting an upgrade to WM5, and certainly NOT the MDA II

AND FINALLY

Raphael143: Don't shoot the messenger, but the editor at msmobiles.com states that he knows a guy who knows the guy who did this and it's 100% fake. http://www.msmobiles.com/f/viewtopic.php?t=9816

SOURCE: PPCT

Weekly

Just a couple things I wanted to share from this week.

First off, as my meal plan got reduced from 285 to 210 to 50, as if there wasn't enough incentive to attend company infosessions, I'm scoping 'em out on MonsterTrak and going to as many as I can. Preferably late so I have an excuse to eat and not be dressed up. I did attend the third infosession in business casual because I had a meeting later in the day. That's a savings of like 30 meal-plan dollars a week. Heck, I'm earning my iPod nano back by eating dinner at infosessions.

Next, iPod news! Duke has apparently revamped their iPods in education pilot program to be less of a waste of money. While giving iPods to every freshman (which I heard only put them back $100,000) makes it possible for instructors to integrate iPods into their classes, not every class is going to need one. So, Duke is only giving an iPod to you if you a) don't already have one and b) you actually need it for a class.

More iPod news! My iPod arrived in a little cardboard box the next morning after I posted about the shipment. I didn't get to see it until I got home yesterday for Mid-Autumn Festival, however. I do report that it is delightful and cool, and everything. The first complaint is that to undock it from the computer, you have to take out the headphones as you won't be able to unlock-via-squeeze the connector through the adjacent headphones. My mom gave me a small zip-lock bag for the iPod as a temporary case and it's no less aesthetically pleasing. It feels small and compact, yet dense and substantial. I'm truly beginning to appreciate the interface and design--especially the play/pause button.

What else? I found a friend from high school taking a semester off from Cornell and he's taking classes at Rutgers.

Spin in place in style

Yesterday, I got a chance to ride the 1st generation of Segways. There was someone running around posting party cards (whatever you call them) at the bus stop riding a Segway. I had seen him before while tabling at the involvement fair and later regretted not asking for a ride. Upon seeing him again, I immediately asked and he agreed to let me take it for a spin.

By and all, it was an interesting experience. He told me to stand up straight and lean forwards to speed up or backwards to reverse. I wobbled a bit, but was able to stay still. There's a little wheel (?) around the left handle that controls turning and AFAIK, there's a zero degree turning radius. I didn't get to ride for too long, because I didn't want to keep him from doing his job, but it was fun.

This was another missed opportunity to photoblog due to my lack of having a digital camera.

SOURCE: Second chances

My (unpopular) nano has shipped

Just thought it was interesting that my iPod nano shipped direct from China. The service type says IP Direct Distribution, so maybe FedEx handles the entire distribution process.

On an entirely different note, Apple stock dropped around the same time this article was published. The bad news is that retail stores have sold only a fraction of the iPods they had in stock. It's suggested that Apple may have anticipated demand and simply shipped an excess of iPods to the stores, but they point fingers at the perceived contradiction of paying more for less capacity. Well, that certainly didn't matter for mini sales, which likely greatly surpassed Apple's original estimates. ANYHOW, I own Apple shares as I'll occasionally mention so that you can tell that my favorite parts of the article are not objective.

Oh, and my color choice is 7 times less popular than black.

SOURCE: TheStreet.com

UPDATE 5:41 AM EST 9/15/05: Whoa. SAME information, totally different analysis. Forbes reports that Piper Jaffray raised the price target to $60.

SOURCE: The Inquirer

(Why) is Google Talk better?

I looked at the 'About' information for Google Talk, and it seems that Google's using licensed voice technology from Global IP Sound. It gets better, because Skype, MSN, Net2Phone and tons of other companies use the technology in their products. I was at first naively disappointed, but it'd be quite absurd for Google to reinvent the wheel when it comes to VoIP. This makes interoperability seem more real and tangible (at least between Skype, MSN, and Net2Phone) if they're based on the same technology.

But, why did someone say that Google Talk's simply better? The difference might be due to the vast networks Google is supposed be superimposing over the internet that drives Web Accelerator. I haven't tried the voice features (!) but I think this is why Google still has a competitive advantage as more bandwidth + expansive network = better quality.

Lastly, here's some interesting insight from Jeff Maurone about who developed Google Talk at Google.

(UPDATE 11:22 PM EST 9/12/05: : / I forgot to factor in the fact that not that many people are using Google Talk, while Skype has tens of millions of users. I also forgot that Skype was started by the Kazaa people, and that it uses Skype users' computers to route calls over their p2p network. So much for that. So, while Google might be able to devote resources to Talk, Skype is efficiently handling much more traffic. Realized that after reading this interview with the SIPphone CEO. They also use the same underlying VoIP technology.)

Idle thoughts...

a) I don't cut in line because, well, I never really did it and it's really annoying when you're about to be late for work trying to get dinner and people cut in line.

b) The pepsi machines that have the bill slot, coin drop, and coin return in the middle are more fun than our old coke machines. Why? They don't just spit your money back when you press the coin return. They give you entirely different ones. Think of the potential!!!!!

No one should buy the shuffle (anymore)

Just marking this "breath-taking" moment. Keep in mind that it syncs calendar and contacts from Outlook.

SOURCE: Engadget.com

UPDATE 7:00 PM: Before you go rush in and get the 4 GB, just remember that the 20 GB is only $50 more ($40 with education pricing)...

UPDATE 11:39 PM 9/8/05: Win a free nano. All it takes is picking your 10 favorite posts at TUAW and blogging about it. I wonder how many I've linked to.

Economic insight of the day

My business chinese professor said that oil prices are high, not because of any change in the supply or production of oil. Instead, prices are being driven higher and higher by speculation. In other words, people think the price of oil will be higher tomorrow, so they're buying it up. This makes what my roommate Mike said make more sense, that there will be a burst of the oil price bubble, just as Greenspan warned about an eventual burst in the housing market.

SOURCE: Prof. Qi Yun Fang

UPDATE 9/3/05 9:05 PM EST: So, apparently, this insight isn't the be-all and end-all when considering the effects of an actual refined oil supply drop of 1.8 million barrels due to Katrina. See the linked Washington Post article about the oil situation.

Typing on a G5...

So, several things happened today. I went back to work and had a decently quiet shift and a good conversation with my co-worker. The buses weren't running when I left, so instead of calling the knight mover, I just walked/jogged home. That's the most exercise I'll get besides table tennis. Being that it was like after 5 AM when I got back to the dorm, I figured I'd get some breakfast at the 24-hour dunkin' donuts. Planning on getting as much sleep as possible until my second period class, I forwent coffee...

Unfortunately, I was deprived of my first lecture of the semester (Democratic Political Philosophy) because our professor couldn't make it to class. I was really looking forward to it because I liked the topics on the reading list. Partly because of the resulting free time, I exceeded the bandwidth limit and lost my access for a week. Learning how to bump locks was not worth it. NO LINKS ON THAT.

My second class Computer Graphics involves learning about the core concepts of 3D graphics, including modelling, rendering, and animation. Despite falling drifting off to sleep a couple of times during the lecture (which I always do, for some sinister reasons), I'm excited about the class. Programming assignments are worth 65% of our grade, and are to be completed individually, but I don't mind as long as I hand things in ON TIME.

What else... more work tonight, brother's windows died :/ Katrina hit hard... That's what I should be posting about...

SOURCE: The swirling void

Jordan's next book

Book 11 info at Dragonmount... and I still have to read Clash of Kings.

SOURCE: Amazon ad

Spoiled rich (or hardworking) kids

Students are sharing details of their Mac hardware/software setups on TUAW. They range from the humble 12" iBook to the Dual G5 PowerMac + Powerbook combos. Pardon my characterization of students using macs as the ones I know are mostly of the latter type, but I'm just jealous (deadly sin).

My mac 'rig' is a graphite iMac G3 400 MHz with slot-loading DVD player and 384 MB of I-don't-know-what-kind RAM with a puck mouse and no-name USB keyboard. It took me approximately 40 minutes to build Adium using Darwinports (Fink didn't have it) and it didn't even work for some reason. I'm pretty proud of it, nevertheless.

UPDATE 1:40 AM EST: After looking up the definition of envy and trying to convince myself that I didn't harbor resentment towards mac users (!), I feel bad about my generalization and do apologize. It's like criticising people who drive BMWs or otherwise nice cars. I think what I do feel resentment for is people who have everything but take it for granted. Like me in many ways, if I wasn't me.

DISCLAIMER: Even though I will not further edit the title of this post, I acknowledge that in many cases, possessing luxury items does not mean you are spoiled. Furthermore, I do not believe that Mac users are either hardworking or spoiled and rich. One can conclude, however, that I consider myself to be either not spoiled, not rich, or not hardworking.

There were lots of people at the MoMA

Today was another trip with Kathae into the city. She wanted to take me to the Museum of Modern Art even though she's gone a billion times. First, we went to eat lunch (first customers) at El Faro where we had tapas, which are small dishes of food, downed with a half-pitcher of sangria. I'm not a fan of red wine, or wine in general, but it was so diluted it was almost refreshing. My conclusion from the trip is that stuff is egregiously pricy... deli meat was priced by the half-pound!

Some of the most interesting exhibits for me was of course the floor with industrial design pieces including an EYE BEE 'M' print donated by the designer and, well, the iBook and iPod. I hesitate to comment on the other art we saw, but it was a fun experience basking in the artistic and often pointed accomplishments of our century.

Broken Google Desktop news...

Version 2 of Google Desktop Search is out. Now with Google Sidebar! Features include search as you type, and massive cramming of features into a sidebar reminiscent of a screenshot I saw of an old prototype Longhorn sidebar. Now, if only I had my PC set up.

SOURCE: MarketWatch

Panda baby

Check out the live feed from the National Zoo (or the mirror on Animal Planet). Hope it grows big and strong.

SOURCE: Washington Post

Packing sucks

I seem to have an emotional attachment to objects like plane tickets and movie tickets and letters, etc. I think it's because I'm so distracted and unthinking usually that things like objects trigger memory recollection. Anyhow, that's why it's so hard for me to throw things away. I forget things. I find things that help me remember. I don't want to throw them away and pack/file them somewhere. I forget. Unfortunately, these things rarely get reviewed and I might as well have thrown them away. All the while, I'm missing out on all the memory review I should be undergoing on a regular basis.

What doesn't help is that it all happens when you're packing at the last minute AND you have an irrational aversion to adding things to landfills.

Pre-wrap-up

Wow, that was a bad post. In any case, here's another. Came home for parent's anniversary (finally got a pay for dinner for once WITH CASH), used American Express Express Pay (now the name makes sense) at CVS to buy some cranberry juice (no signature necessary, but I forgot that I wanted to keep the magnetic strip immaculate because I'd already used it elsewhere). Said goodbye to david (is good with computers), Lori (email author), Cameron (who taught me how to floss), and Alex (who organized the paintball trip). Most of the rest of the goodbyes will be easier... My project partner will be at Rutgers and my new roommate (since Roy got his apartment) will probably be glad to be rid of me.

This is starting to sound like a Jehangir post. Anyhow, went to BN and added Freakanomics and Clash of Kings to my stack (My Life, Blink, The Right Man), had Apple stock hit another record high, got a crazy chance to see more opportunities in the company (for the first time, I can actually say gothank you, affirmative action), and oh, played some ping-pong/table tennis with Elande after work.

Will I ever organize this? Maybe not.

SOURCE: The swirling void

A day in the park

Last weekend I went to the picnic/BBQ Will McG organized and had a good deal of fun. After Mike B drained a couple (2?) of cups of water over my head (and conveniently over my shorts), Will McG splashed water into his crotch area in such a way that could only result from a real accident to show his solidarity with my wetted state. I did get Mike back by getting him in the face with a paper towel drenched with diluted sweat.

Noteably, I learned to play Ultimate Frisbee after being stuffed with a hot dog and three cheeseburgers. Volleyball stung, kickball was fun except for the man temporarily down part. Eventually, the day ended with a bathroom adventure into the CS building, or as Jehangir calls it an "inefficient trip around rutgers looking for an open building to use the bathroom". BTW, this was a draft post started at 11:44 PM EST on August 7, 2005. It will likely be further updated about 20 times.

Apple/Google iTunes rumor

I'll use a term I first heard used by my freshman year roommate... this is bull crap:

According to market chatter, Apple is set to announce a deal with Google (GOOG:Nasdaq - commentary - research) calling for Google to offer Apple's iTunes music store through its own site. The rumored deal would pair the nation's leading online music store with its leading search engine.

The most I could see happening (could be wrong) is sponsored iTunes links for searches for music...

SOURCE: Yahoo Finance

Movie reactions

So this summer, I've seen more movies than perhaps I did all last year. Today, I saw Bewitched at a discount place and damnit I ended up with a collection of small impressions that don't link up into a cohesive one.

Same thing with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. One of these days... more tomorrow?

UPDATE 8/6/05 11:49 PM EST: I guess that didn't make a whole lot of sense. I posted this at the end of a moderately long day from my pocket pc right before going to sleep. I guess, the point was top mark my wonder at the quantity of movies I'd seen (totally relative to my viewing history) and the lack of coming up with a proper reaction.

I can't really remember what I wanted to follow up for this post, but I can finish last sentence. 'One of these days', I want to be able to write a good movie review.