the blog: cause normal is for pansies

the Rapture

Date: 7/17/2008 11:12:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: no, not the forthcoming Rapture, but rather m' new gig, Raptr, a social networking, video games package of some sorts. Hell, I don't know how to fully explain it, but I sure know what we're building!

So yeah, it's m' first full-time gig in over eight (8) damn months! It's been awhile and I've been waiting patiently for the right "cause", picking up contract gigs in the meantime.

Why Raptr? Cause I believe the company can succeed and succeed tremendously. I haven't been as excited since starting Yahoo! Answers. I've this sixth sense of 'win' for Raptr.

There're plenty of start-ups in Silicon Valley, but many of 'em will crash and burn, some will succeed, only to peak and stagnate and very few will break that ceiling. (And, of course, there's Twitter which has captured the hearts of the web 2.0 nation and still has no business model. They are in their own category of 'yay')

Good things will happen. It's a gut thing. I just hope I'm not jinxing m'self and the company =) *knocks on wood*

Cheers to lots of long nights and dreams of success.
Labels: raptr, startup
Comments: 2 +add yours

Depression as a symptom and not a disease

Date: 7/09/2008 02:29:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/06/head_fake/

I think the article is a must-read for everyone. It details another theory / explanation as to how anti-depressants perform against the human body:
The effectiveness of Prozac, these scientists say, has little to do with the amount of serotonin in the brain. Rather, the drug works because it helps heal our neurons, allowing them to grow and thrive again.
So, it's not that the happy pills help release happy chemicals, but rather the happy pills assist to regenerate parts of your brain that have been abused by constant worry, anxiety and stress. Unforgiving boss, foreclosures, nagging wife, being too fat, having to little money, new kids in family: it all adds up.

It's no wonder that all the aforementioned symptoms are treated w/ same drugs. A pharmacist friend o' mine told me once that big pharma corps sell the exact same chemical as two different products, one for PMS and the other for smoking cessation.

M' grandmother, an old lady of over ninety years suffered from some mental disorder (I never heard exact diagnosys); quite the experience for m' relatives who care for her. The doctor prescribed Zoloft, an anti-depressant and shortly she regained focus and mental strength. Happy pills do more than make you happy, as the commercials would like you to believe.

What lead them to this conclusion, that happy drugs are more than Ecstacy lite?
One of the first cracks in the chemical hypothesis of depression came from a phenomenon known as the "Prozac lag." Antidepressants increase the amount of serotonin in the brain within hours, but the beneficial effects are not usually felt for weeks.
The lag period is your brain, your body healing itself.
In this sense, Prozac is simply a bottled version of other activities that have a similar effect, such as physical exercise. They aren't happy pills, but healing pills.
So constant physical exercise does the same for your body as Prozac and the other anti-depressants?

Interesting discoveries though I reckon the marketing for legal, instant happy drugs won't stop.
Labels: healthcare, psychology
Comments: 3 +add yours

Beyond the scenes

Date: 7/09/2008 10:23:00 AM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: http://www.techuser.net/microsoft-yahoo.html

So, from what I've gathered from the in-depth piece above is that Microsoft wants Yahoo! for patent-related reasons, namely '361 patent, intellectual property from the Overture acquisition. Otherwise, like I've said before, an acquisition or merger makes zero sense.

Basically, M$ wants to own the patent to 1) avoid paying royalties to Y! for its paid search product—M$ Ad Center—and 2) frack w/ Google who, years ago, had "settled" w/ Yahoo! on licensing such patent—probably paying a negligible amount.

No wonder Google has great interest in a free, independent Y! and why M$ wants to Y!'s search "assets".

Intra-corporate fiefdom politicking at its best =)
Labels: google, microsoft, politics, yahoo
Comments: 0 +add yours

Lively-ness

Date: 7/08/2008 06:35:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: I have as much confidence in lively as I did for Yahoo! Mash. I might consider playing only if I can wear an oversized raincoat and flash m' virtual compadres. Huzzah!
Comments: 0 +add yours

Forthcoming media Linux server

Date

7/08/2008 01:50:00 PM [permalink]

Author

yahooza

Entry

I've had it with Vista and I'm migrating m' power poo-poo server to Mythbuntu. My only wish is that I could refund m' Windoze (Hasta la) Vista license. A waste of a benjamin. You really, really suck, Mr. Microsoft.

The box is pieced from new parts (proc, mobo, memory) and bits from m' old Infrant ReadyNAS and an older Windoze 2000 junker. Here are specs cause I think it's cool:

Antec P182 Gunmetal ATX case
Antec Earthwatts EA380 380W ATX12V v2.0 Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz Socket AM2 Dual-core
ASUS M2A-VM AM2 AMD 690G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
2 * 80 gig IDE drives
4 * 250 gig SATA II Hard drives
4 * 2 gig RAM G.SKILL DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150 PCI Tuner Card

Comments

1 +add yours

Funny Buffy quotes

Date: 7/06/2008 11:15:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: Whenever I feel the blues, I reach for a little Buffy. Enjoy some of these good one-liners from quotegeek.com:

http://quotegeek.com/index.php?action=viewcategory&categoryid=621

"Okay, so you're a werewolf. No problem. But hey, three days out of the month, I'm not much fun either." —Willow

"I was just thinking about the life of a pumpkin. Grow up in the sun, happily entwined with others, and then someone comes along, cuts you open, and rips your guts out." —Buffy

"We saved the world, I say we party." —Buffy

"This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed." —Spike

"I didn't jump to conclusions. I took a small step, and conclusions there were." —Buffy

"You! All of you. Why couldn't you be dealing drugs like normal people?" —Principal Snyder

"Oh, no...I have to go take an English make-up exam. They give you credit just for speaking it, right?" —Buffy

"I have two words that are going to make all your troubles go away: Miniature. Golf." —Mayor Wilkins

"I like people. They're like Happy Meals with legs." —Spike
Labels: buffy, josswhedon, quotes, whedonverse
Comments: 0 +add yours

Look at me on the interwebs.

Date: 6/29/2008 10:42:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: How much can one infer from an online profile? Dunno, but Gumption has a good-read about interweb personas.
Again, I don't mean to equate Facebook with [online] dating, but I do think there are strong similarities. Perhaps the key differentiator, here, is that getting someone is not the same as getting along with someone.
Empty those mindless hot-or-not debates and think hard about any Facebook profile. Can you extrapolate a person from their favorite movies, fave books, friends, installed applications, photos, etc.? And is this representation fair and should one be worried? Is Facebook face value? Probably not. And what about lifestreaming services such as Friendfeed, Dipity or Mybloglog?

For m'self, I don't mind the intrusion. Never had a stalker (that I know of) and those who know yers truly, especially close friends, will vouch for m' sanity and righteousness. Hee hee. Frankly, I feel those that pass judgement w/o knowing and accepting the real deal .... well, they really don't matter in the grand scheme of living.

Knock on wood that nothing trapped within the petabyte crevices of search indices, I won't get m' ass handed to me for some silly tweet or Flickr comment o' mine =)

I posted a pic on Facestat.com, a community-based why-don't-you-tell-me-something-about-me-by-this-here-damn-photo website. So far, the results are more humorous than fair: I am an Asian male, btwn 25-29, looks like every other Asian celebrity (Chow Yun-Fat, Jackie Chan), married or dating, somewhat smart, average in weight and most likely listens to Rap music. Yep, not really accurate; however, fun nonetheless.

I do wonder what the 'yahooza' brand means / symbolizes to netizen "consumers" .... good? bad? ugly?
Labels: socialpsychology
Comments: 0 +add yours

Seventy-one years young.

Date: 6/22/2008 11:16:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080623/ap_on_re_us/obit_george_carlin

RIP man.

M' favorite quote from thee:
"The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.'"
Labels: death
Comments: 0 +add yours

Buh-by!e Yahoo!

Date: 6/20/2008 01:48:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/06/0619_yahoo/index_01.ht....

Where's MY mugshot and good-bye story?!?!
Labels: yahoo
Comments: 2 +add yours

Last one out, turn off the lights.

Date: 6/19/2008 10:34:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/19/it-gets-worse-for-yahoo-delicious-founder-leaving/

See! What did I tell ya? Joshua has cut the cord ....

Heh heh. Nah, I had no clue.

Yahoo! should have spun off del.icio.us, Flickr, Jumpcut and upcoming into Y! Labs or Y! Social Media or something. Give em the freedom, lots of resources, etc. At least they could have said, "hey it wasn't us who fucked it up."

another *sigh*
Labels: del.icio.us, yahoo
Comments: 0 +add yours

More than bleeding purple

Date: 6/18/2008 09:37:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: http://valleywag.com/5017424/stewart-butterfields-bizarre-resign....

Click it, read it. It's Stewart Butterfield's—Flickr co-founder—good-bye resignation note. Simply unreal and hilarious. I wish I had the cajones.

It's an appropriate metaphor for Y!'s 2005 ascent to its current cluster-mumbo-jumbo. It's rather sad because in early '05, Y! began to hire big guns, major frackin' talent. Flickr had just been gobbled up. Soon, upcoming.org del.icio.us and Jumpcut joined the ranks, and with 'em, some extraordinary peeps. Internally, the Y!UI library, YDN network sprouted wings both as critical platforms for Y! properties and external entities in the wide open web. Yahoo! Answers busted its nut in late '05 too, growing to 20 million unique users in 6 months and over a dozen languages. Hack day, Y! Teachers and Y! Photos shone brightly. Man, those were good times. We were all doing some good companywide.

But .... 2007 reared its ugly head and somewhere, somehow the egos and bureaucracy ate into that spirit. Panama's flop and a deteriorating stock price didn't help.

Y!'s bookmarking services is a prime example of "does anyone have a clue?" There's del.icio.us, Bookmarks, and MyWeb, all of which do similar things, but no one has a clue how to offer a complete service. And some of these were supposed to help Search results in the losing battle against the Big G!. Again, never happened. Most of the resources were allocated towards dinky and trivial features, including color changes / reskinnings—except for the del.icio.us Firefox and IE extensions which rose to awesomeness. Overall, if there's one product that persevered the hogwash, Flickr did it best. Best example? Its well-thought out approach to video; otherwise corporate would have probably demanded Youtube on Flickr. Ha!

It's really sad to see the top dawgs go, beginning early this year: Bradley, Ian, Zawodny, Leonard, Caterina, Stewart and many others. (Yes, I'm name-dropping) They're not just any ol' rank-n-files. They were the ones that made you work hard and feel proud at Yahoo!.

*sigh* Too bad.

At least, Joshua still bleeds purple ;) But for how much longer?
Labels: bureaucracy, del.icio.us, flickr, jumpcut, upcoming, yahoo, yanswers, ybookmarks
Comments: 0 +add yours

Firefoxy 3 - hot damn!

Date: 6/17/2008 10:33:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: Today, Mozilla released Firefox III, celebrating a rebirth of its browser. I mention "rebirth" because the innards have been drastically improved and performance—faster rendering and better memory management—has propelled it back to being 'teh awesome.' I thought Safari made great leaps, because Firefox part dos slugged web pages crashed far too often, but not anymore.

I reckon y'all should join the party, especially if you're stuck w/ that Microsoft Internet Explorer piece of crap. Seriously, it works and works well. Stable as tombstone.

Download Firefox 3 now!
Labels: firefox
Comments: 0 +add yours

Tag visualization

Date: 6/14/2008 05:18:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: wordle.net has a super dope tag visualization tool. Here are m' Flickr and del.icio.us tags all dolled up:

Click the pics to see 'em more clearly.
Labels: del.icio.us, flickr, tags, visualization
Comments: 0 +add yours

Finding good things.

Date: 6/11/2008 11:57:00 PM [permalink]
Author: yahooza
Entry: I hadn't heard of The Air I Breathe, an emotional, artsy-farsy indie starring the likes of Andy Garcia, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Forest Whitaker, Brendan Fraser and Kevin Bacon (cameos from John Cho and Kelly Hu), written and directed by Jieho Lee.
A drama based on an ancient Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones: happiness, pleasure, sorrow and love. A businessman bets his life on a horse race; a gangster sees the future; a pop star (Gellar) falls prey to a crime boss; a doctor must save the love of his life.
I really enjoyed the slow-paced Haggis-esque narrative, delving into four separate, yet interconnected, story arcs. It is intense—even for me—as emotions hit their peaks and ugly dips; however, for me, there was something missing. A lesson or a message in redemption or salvation, that I felt was ignored, especially from this genre film. Nonetheless, it's worth the rental.

I've also been into 100 Bullets, a comic series about the opportunity for retribution. What if you were offered the chance to seek justice, one hundred untraceable slugs—absolute, no-frills vindication— and the path to achieve it? The stories center around the right and wrong, challenging the reader's moral compass, painting life and the world as much grayer than the absolutes that human beings cling by.

The art is very dark and gritty, similar to Frank Miller's Sin City. The narrative, of course, follows suit: lots of four-letter words and violence. That's always a thumbs-up for me ;)

So two good bits to discover, The Air I Breathe and 100 Bullets. Do it, do it =)
Labels: comics, film, movies, sarahmichellegellar
Comments: 0 +add yours

My questions are wha?

Date

6/11/2008 10:11:00 PM [permalink]

Author

yahooza

Entry

Two of m' seemingly legit questions on Yahoo! Answers were removed recently. I don't understand why either.

Given a collection of long/lats, how do I get the rect. boundaries in Microsoft's Vistual Earth JavaScript API?
Are there any rumors on a new PS3 model?

Where's the love, man?

Is customer care still in the Phillipines? What gives?

Labels: yanswers