yahooza | blog

The kids are alright

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:10:27 PDT

m' friend's six year old is learning about email and the interwebs .... this letter is so sweet. whenever it ain't m' day (which is very often), i open and read it .... like taking a deep breath and exhaling .... things ain't so bad anymore ....

Searching for meaning.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:55:13 PDT

"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive."

— Joseph Campbell

songsincode

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:43:54 PDT

i contributed bits to the Twitter #songsincode trending topic. Check 'em out:

with (feet) { 
  this.inAir() 
} 
with (head) { 
  this.onGround();
}
try { 
  this.trick.spinIt(); 
} 
head.collapse(); 
if (it === "") {
  self.ask = function() { 
    self.mind.find(); 
  }
}

all.onload = function() {
  foreach(hands as hand) {
    hand.onGrab = function(e) {
      var t=e.target;
      t.setAttribute(t.children('all'));
    }
  }
}

with (you || !you) {
  ....
}

We just are.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:22:08 PDT

"I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything."

—Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

was Kovacs, now Rorschach

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:07:12 PST

Rorschach:

"Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.

This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.

Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world."

Quality, not quantity

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:35:57 PST

Caterina has a nice blog post on singletasking and work.

I am a big proponent of this philosophy. When you try to do everything, you accomplish 80% of you goals, because there is a finite amount of time and the ability to focus. Whether you're in a fast-paced startup or wading through the big-company project of fail, it's easy to lose focus on delivering something concisely awesome and over-deliver and overwhelm w/ lots of half-assed, hacked-up crap.

Scatterbrain process leads to scatterbrain products. It does a lot of a little for someone .... maybe.

Smokin' secession

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:42:35 PST

A Raptr co-worker and I are beginning our "Biggest Loser Smoker" challenge next Monday.

Here's how the competition goes:

There's a central pot o' gold.
Everyone starts contributing to the pot on day one, starting at $7, decrementing each day. At the end of 7 days, contributions are nil.
If a participant falls off the wagon, he pays $5 to the pot and resets to the $7 contribution, decrementing $1 each day as before.
Winner takes all at the end (whenever that may be)

Bring it!

Looking back, resolutions and all that malarcky

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:08:48 PST

2008 has been a darlin' year. As I continue the journey to middle age, the number of look-back regrets has dropped to zero. That's a good thing, as it's a personal barometer of success—less failures.

The best time is the eight weeks time-off in the early spring. I flew to Chicago for a week, relying on m' legs, friends' generosity and public transportation, including the train and BART to and from the airport. Kind of a hassle, yet really fun. I'm planning to do the same in spring 2009, after all that snow melts.

In the same period, I exercised daily—shooting hoops and swimming—and letting go a little of the Silicon Valley Developer Bee madness; it's a bipolar thing: I love the excitement of new technologies, but I hate it for consuming / absorbing a lot of everything else.

This year, I completed six months of independent consulting (actually four: see aforementioned time-off above), before joining Raptr in July. Contracting was fun, but not my cup of tea. The jobs are transient and the benefits are lacking—almost ten whole months w/o health insurance, can you believe it?

Another '08 mark of success has to be m' relationship w/ mom. We didn't fight as much nor did we engage in an epic battle. It has taken five years of progressive patience and understanding and it's a whole better =)

This year also marked a big milestone in m' arch-nemesis, the Big Bad Mortgage Monster, as I've broken the $300k barrier (owing less than that). Since winter 2004, I've cut ~23% of mortgage debt. Yes, I vehemently hate owing money and paying interest.

So let's press onwards towards 2009! Resolutions begin!

Quit smoking. Like many years before, it hasn't gone well
Get me a woman. Right now, if it happens, it will.
Exercise more and not just on the weekends. Growing old means one's health needs a bit more TLC.
Lower the mortgage loan by $25k
Cut down on fast food indulgences to twice a month. Man, I love buffalo wings, french fries and Popeye's fried chicken.

So there, there's enough for a year-long party for yours truly.

Also, I'm gonna hit Comic-Con in San Diego and thinking about taking a legitimate vacation to a resort w/ white sandy beaches and pina coladas .... these are worth mentioning but not within the context of a resolution list =)

So, cheers to a new year, to our new President Barack Obama and to mankind for not (yet) bringing the apocalypse! 2009: bring it on!

A Peek into Raptr

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:13:08 PDT

A couple of Raptr-lings cobbled these videos together ....

Welcome to the Raptr Office

Raptr: Timeline (2008) from yahooza on Vimeo.

The Raptr Now and Then Slideshow

Raptr: The Office (2008) from yahooza on Vimeo.

silly raptr, tricks are for kids! errr, yeah.

Y! Answerspedia?

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:59:33 PST

Yesterday, Techcrunch posted an article on a defunct Y! Social Search product, Answerspedia. Slated as a spin-off to Answers (Angel to Buffy), It provided a repository for extraordinary answers from the parent property. Though, an interesting concept project, it closed down a few months after the first prototype. I had personal doubts of its success, but you never know ....

The TC news team appropriately asked a question on Y! Answers: What was Answerpedia and why did it never launch?. I answered politely and am now mentioned in the article as an update =) yay!

I reckon, it's as close as I'll get to being on Techcrunch. Whew! =P

Behind the political curtain

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:02:56 PST

http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581

Newsweek has a nice one on the "little things" that happened during the recent Presidential run. There will be more juicy bits disclosed in future Newsweek publications ....

A few interesting ones:

The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and very disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that the crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle Obama said to a top campaign aide.

On the night she officially lost the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a long and friendly phone conversation with McCain. Clinton was actually on better terms with McCain than she was with Obama. Clinton and McCain had downed shots together on Senate junkets; they regarded each other as grizzled veterans of the political wars and shared a certain disdain for Obama as flashy and callow.

Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary's name came up in veep discussions, and Obama's advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, "Are we sure?" He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good. McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for the Democratic primary debates, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me ... answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

One aide estimated that she [Gov. Sarah Palin] spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Congratulations President-elect Barack Obama

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:54:26 PST

some people have "it" and he's got it.

i've met and befriended plenty of characters in m' life (as witness by m' 500+ friends on Facebook) and i can only recall a handful of friends who have touched m' life and shaped my being. among them, only a single person has that exceptional quality, the unequivocal balance of brilliance and humility, a blend of toughness and harmony, a person that seems to occlude the darkness and ease any anxiety .... i miss that friend.

not many people have "it", but the next President of the United States does.

Vote.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:42:23 PST

Tomorrow, you should vote. Vote, vote, vote if you haven't yet. If you are at the polls and are still undecided, then, golly geez whiz, stick that pencil up your caboose and squeeze really hard just like if you were constipated. you might experience an epiphany.

Raptr!

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:35:05 PDT

Raptr.com. It's alive!

Oh boy. it's finally living and breathing, hatched from countless hours of heads-down hacking and numerous weekends. It now stands tall and proud, roaring w/ excitement! Woo hoo!

Take it for a spin and leave feedback. Let us know how it does or doesn't work for you. And take a peek at the Raptr minions that produced this Frankenstein beast.

Check out the Raptr Card on my dashboard page. YOU can get one too!

I'm looking forward to building cool, new features and rocking the world. Let the games begin! (no pun intended)

A moment to breathe

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:09:19 PDT

Subversion, our code repository, is currently down, giving yours truly a chance to write some. It's been pretty hectic (in a wonderfully fun kinda way) at Raptr. Lots of work which will soon reveal itself shortly ....

I've wanted to write about the Dark Knight since seeing the stunning film weeks back. I'm a thinker of the 'grey', the cross-section of polarizing entities, that which provokes critical thought, rebuttle and careful listening. It's very easy to embrace the black and white, accepting the firm beliefs of those who stand by "I am such, like my colleagues" rather than putting a conscious effort to understand the debate.

That's where the film made me ponder the hero and villain dynamic: Batman, the vigilante creature who decides to tap the cell phones of all of Gotham (see Bush and his Patriot Act policy) for the greater good or the Joker, the master of chaos who tempts the city's citizens w/ ethical dillemmas, provoking thought and questioning themselves. I loved the Joker, not only for Nolan's portrayal of the infamous villain but because of who is: the anarchist who wished to break the status quo, to question self-being and not just being the arch-criminal, robbing banks, holding politicians hostage and painfully balancing the hero / villain levers. If I had to become a super-villain, I'd model m'self against Nolan's Joker =)

In the end, the Batman understands that Gotham City needed its polar forces and becomes the villain to uphold the upstanding and heroic legacy of the fallen Harvey Dent. It's sad that 2.5 hours of conflict and city upheaval lead back to the same black and white portrait: always a "good", offset by the "bad".

Dr. Horribly good

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:50:22 PDT

- http://www.hulu.com/watch/28343/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog

Dr. Horrible's Sing-along blog is now playing for free on Hulu. If you haven't seen it, ya gotta.

Joss Whedon and his Mutant Enemy friends used the free interwebs to distribute their wonderful work of art via Twitter, Myspace, Vimeo, Facebook, iTunes, Hulu, etc. Now, that's the power of the world wide web: enabling the little guy w/ the right tools to create and share, sans the big-bad money-hungry corps. And it's a lot better than the majority of crap from Hollywood studios.

So go watch it!

Favorite lines:

This is so nice
I just might sleep with the same girl twice
They say it’s better the second time
They say you get to do the weird stuff (we do the weird stuff)

Yes Captain Hammer's here
Hair Blowing in the Breeze
The day needs my saving expertise

Everyone’s a hero in their own way
Everyone can blaze a hero's trail
Don't worry if it's hard,
if you're not a friggin 'tard you will prevail

This is his dry cleaning bill
Four sweater vests

The hammer is my penis

the Rapture

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:43:26 PDT

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.

Depression as a symptom and not a disease

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:08:34 PDT

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.

Forthcoming media Linux server

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:15:33 PDT

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

Funny Buffy quotes

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:30:49 PDT

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

Look at me on the interwebs.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:26:05 PDT

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?

Seventy-one years young.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:18:39 PDT

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.'"

Buh-by!e Yahoo!

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:54:16 PDT

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/06/0619_yahoo/index_01.ht....

Where's MY mugshot and good-bye story?!?!

Last one out, turn off the lights.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:41:38 PDT

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*

More than bleeding purple

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:34:51 PDT

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?