Richard Vuong | The Kid's Mind

The End?

2011-03-28T22:38:00.013-04:00

I've ran this blog for a little over a year now. As the proverb goes, "all good things must come to an end." Well, in this case, my blog was probably just a marginal thing, but I felt like it was coming to an end anyways. Lately I just haven't been as inspired to write about things as I was... say, about a year ago. This seems to be all too often a case for on & off bloggers- they fall into a slump of having nothing particularly interesting that they want to get off their minds and onto the internetz.

The standard path of a blog fallout seems to follow this: frequent and interesting updates, less-frequent and mildly interesting updates, occasional updates, and finally updates just because you feel like you need to. I was hoping this blog wouldn't take that line, but it felt like that was the direction it was headed in and I've decided to at least take a hiatus before that last part really kicked in.

Call me extremely lazy, but I also found that it's very hard and time consuming to write good, solid, paragraphs of thoughts for a blog. It's almost akin to writing an essay for school, and god knows I am more than over that by now. For my ones of followers and readers (I know you're out there!), I sincerely apologize for failing to continue providing you with mindless updates on here.

...that's what Twitter is for.

Is my youth disappearing before my eyes?

2011-02-25T21:40:00.007-05:00

Another year, another birthday. Just a couple weeks ago I wrapped up the long sought after age of 21 and finally turned 22. At this point, I'm pretty sure there aren't any more age-defining birthdays to look forward to, especially compared to some past ones. Relatively speaking, I am of course still "young", but definitely feel as if I've taken on a lot more responsibilities and independence than I imagined I ever would have at this age. Hell, my last night of being 21 was spent scrubbing the kitchen down when my sink decided to randomly overflow with other people's runoff water throughout the day. (I'm not going to get into why this happened or the mess that ensued, but just know that it was quite a depressing day.)

Well who cares, right? Everyone hates taking on more responsibilities, dealing with day to day problems, and all the other stuff I could rant on about when becoming an adult. However, being as I started a regular 9-5 job earlier on than most people probably would, I often wonder if I'm missing out on more things I could be doing while I'm still young. Should I have taken a year or two off to myself? Should I be studying more in school? Am I missing out on a lot more opportunities to do things at this age?

My biggest fear is to work a regular job for years on end and see my life just flash before my eyes. Realizing that 20-30 years passed me by and wondering where all the time went always scares me, especially if I didn't do enough in my life to feel satisfied. Particularly now at this age, I think it'd be best to keep an open mind and not be afraid to take on new opportunities as they arise.

But hey, what do I know, I'm still just a Kid.

Is the wrath of Rochester weather inescapable?

2011-01-29T13:15:00.012-05:00

I once believed that a perk of moving down south would be to get away from the depressing & snowy Rochester winters. I once believed that, but have since realized how wrong horrendously wrong I might be. Last year, the DC area got hit with one of the worst series of snowstorms it had ever experienced in decades. Just a couple days ago, a mythical thundersnow struck the area leaving 300,000+ in the metro area without power.

The storm itself wouldn't have been so bad in a city where people could actually handle it (read: Rochester), but inexperienced drivers in the area quickly turned this debacle into perhaps the worst traffic jam ever witnessed. I was sent home from work earlier than usual due to the weather conditions, with my 10 minute drive home tripling to half an hour. This kind of irked me, until I learned that some of my coworkers had only managed to crawl out half a mile from work within one hour. The combination of heavy snowfall, incredibly inexperienced drivers, and no readily available snow plows turned simple commutes into hours upon hours of gridlock. Even now I still can't fathom how some people ended up sitting in their cars for upwards of 12 hours just to drive a few miles home. Hell, I could've gone to Rochester and halfway back in that time alone.

To top it all off, a majority of households in the DC area lost their power that evening as well. Imagine sitting through an 8 hour commute to go 10 miles down the road, knowing full well that you would have no power at your place. If that is not the definition of depression, I don't know what is. I quickly realized how good I had it to have been home in only 30 minutes with my electricity staying on through the night. It almost felt guilty knowing that so many people were incredibly worse off- though I seem to have always lucked out in these types of situations.

The best part is, just about every school and workplace had already planned to shut down the next day- but of course I still trudged into work the next morning. Typical. Shades of Rush-Henrietta & RIT not believing in snow days have followed me down south as well.

I feel at home.

The last hurrah?

2010-12-30T13:48:00.006-05:00

It's such an odd concept to me having to earn vacation days now, whereas before I could just be done with a semester of college and have a bunch of time off. For that, I am envious of most of my friends.

Currently, I'm home on break for only the second time since making the move down south. The 7-8ish hour trip kind of detracts me from just driving home on any random weekend, so I really look forward to the longer vacations. Although Thanksgiving weekend only lasted a handful of days, it was great to see a bunch of close friends and hang out just like old times. This current 10-day break is even better as I've been able to see more familiar faces and plan out more things to do everyday (or just come up with spur of the moment plans).

When I catch up with people from home, it sometimes feels like we never missed a beat and I had never actually left for such a long time. The one thing that always gets brought up is where or what people will be doing in a year or two from now. This really got me thinking- is this one of the last times everyone I've been close to will be able to conveniently see each other at once? When everyone starts graduating and moving on into "the real world," I'd expect to see a fair number of people get out of the Rochester area like I did. The fact that most people are still around here for the holiday break is really a nice coincidence when you think about it, as things may never be like this again. Of course, I'm hoping that won't be the case, but it just goes to show that you should make the most of your time when the opportunity to see a familiar face arises.

Just something to think about as a solid year in 2010 comes to a close, and cheers to an even better 2011 :)

Where do all my monies go?

2010-11-19T18:03:00.019-05:00

To be honest, I'd really rather not think about why I don't see much of the money I make. Every month, I just hand one of my two paychecks over to my apartment and try to make the most of the other one. I would be lying though if I said I never played around with the numbers to try & figure out where everything goes. Here is a rough breakdown of what I usually end up concluding:

30% of my salary goes to rent
28% goes to taxes
7% goes to health insurance, 401K, and other deductions
10% goes to bills, expenses, groceries, & general spending every month
25% I (try to) save

The red percentages are what I consider the most useless/wasteful parts of my earnings. Yes, if you did your math correctly, over half everything I make gets siphoned out to my apartment and the government. Thank you, DC area.

The orange deductions are what I see as (hopefully) useful investments for my future benefit-health insurance, 401K, and other miscellaneous expenses. Although I've yet to see a doctor here, nor do I really care about retirement at this point in my life, these payments do at least bring me some peace of mind. And 7% overall ain't that bad. (I guess.)

Finally, we arrive at the money I actually get to see every month. Of course, there are day-to-day living expenses that continue to eat up my salary here as well. I began logging these daily expenses into a database in July, allotting approximately 10% of what I make every month to these expenditures. My ultimate goal was to use the database to track literally every out of pocket purchase I made, and aim to save "X" amount of money every month as a result. With 4 and 1/2 months passed, I am surprisingly still on target with my goal. It hasn't been particularly easy though-things can come up out of nowhere (such as a car breakdown) and really set you back unexpectedly. All in all, 25% of my earnings adds up to just a paltry sum that I keep to myself at the end of the day.

And unfortunately for me, I can no longer take down the World Series of Poker Main Event at the ripe old age of 21. [sad face]

I miss being an insomniac.

2010-10-13T01:05:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow I get to go into work ridiculously late.. we're talking 1pm or so in the middle of the week. Naturally, I'm going to stay up right now & do absolutely nothing in order to enjoy sleeping in tomorrow. I probably miss that aspect of my life the most now that I'm living in the post-college days. It used to be the norm to go to bed at 3am, wake up at 12, hang around, hit up some classes, and be done for the day. No structured schedules (aside from classes obviously), and just do whatever you feel like during the day.

I started working in July I'm only now beginning to adjust to a routine sleep cycle. It's almost kind of pathetic on my part. If I go to sleep before midnight(ish) I feel like some 45 year old, and anything much later than that and I wake up hating myself for not going to bed earlier. Quite the vicious cycle.

Recently, I've rediscovered the ancient kindergarten art of napping to try & balance things out. Sometimes, it works out well, or I just force myself to do it because I'm feeling exhausted after work. Most of the time though, it kind of fails because I can never get back to sleep afterward. Yet another catch-22. Can't we all just abandon the stigma of sleeping at work and embrace the new age of power napping on the job?

:::sigh:::
Probably not.

Rise of the R1ch_K1d?

2010-09-19T14:54:00.013-04:00

I've been playing poker on & off for about six years now. I consider myself a beneficiary of the "poker boom" which popularized the game back in 2003. At the beginning, it was all about small home games where noone really knew anything about poker but thought it would be cool enough to try out after seeing it on TV. Of course, not everyone could be winners playing the game, and after a few years most people lost interest and abandoned poker altogether.

Although my results weren't anything spectacular, I had been showing some signs of profitability and was still intrigued by the game. Since all the dead money had virtually dried up at this point, it started becoming more lucrative to play poker online than to get a live game together. (Additionally, I was not of age to be playing in local casinos..)

The differences between online and live poker were huge. You could basically choose any type of game you wanted, at any hour of the day, with stakes as low as pennies on the dollar. You also got dealt a ton more hands per hour than in a live environment (where cards have to be physically shuffled and dealt). This also meant that you would start perceiving more bad beats and unlucky situations than usual because of the sheer volume of hands that were being played (this drove many amateurs to believe that online poker was rigged).

In order to maintain any positive results playing online, I had to learn the art of bankroll management. Admittedly, this did not come easily at first. During college, I never really took the game very seriously, so my results were consistently inconsistent. However, the opportunity to make a couple hundred bucks on the side here and there (especially during school) was a pretty big incentive.

Just about a year ago, I decided to really focus more on poker and make an effort to put in a higher volume of games in order to reduce the variance of bankroll swings. The results definitely paid off. I've been on an enormous heater the past year, making just about $5,000 from grinding out relatively low-stakes tournaments (anywhere from $3 to $12 buy-ins). I will undoubtedly admit that I have definitely had my fair share of luck and "running good", but I'm also attributing the past year's results to playing a more skillful game and sticking to much more conservative bankroll management guidelines.

Moving forward, I've decided to really try and think less about the intrinsic value of the $ and rather treat it as a tool of units assigned to the game. This really helps to reduce comparing a significant loss to material things that the money could've been used for. (To be fair, it certainly doesn't hurt that I am working on a salary which really renders my poker results to be not-so-important in comparison.)

I just wished these great results had come along during the college years of poverty- when it would've actually made a difference.

You know what REALLY grinds my gears?

2010-08-24T21:49:00.016-04:00

Going from a suburban lifestyle to living a big city (in addition to being on my own) has created minor day-to-day nuances that I just felt the need to rant about. Granted, most of these things are trivial and wouldn't kill me or anything, but my life would be infinitely more satisfying without them. So without further ado, here is my list of Top 5 things that have started to "grind my gears":

5) Traffic - This one really isn't too bad, because of my apartment's proximity to work, shopping centers, and other places of interest. However, I can still head somewhere on the weekend or after work and get trapped in the ol' DC commute. Probably the worst feeling you can experience is when you're able to shave minutes off of your GPS's arrival time, only to hit a traffic jam and watch it all count back up and then some. Wasted time truly is a waste of time.

4) Buying Groceries - I guess this could almost be considered petty to complain about.. but christ, when did it become so easy to always run out of food? Whenever I do stock up and buy more groceries at a time, I have occasionally forgotten about it and let some stuff go bad. Buying food was much more simple back at home... and by "Buying food" I mean "Letting my parents buy food for me." The flip side though, is that I literally live across the street from a grocery store, so anything I ever need will be right there immediately. (This is handy because I almost always forget something or run out of something during the week.)

3) Cooking/Cleaning/Laundry - These 3 things fall under the "parents will usually do it for you" category when you're not living on your own. As far as cooking goes, I'd estimate that I actually make about 90% of all my meals, rather than eating out. The reasoning is pretty simple: it's cheaper and (usually) healthier. The big drawback of course, is how time consuming it is do all these things. Between cooking, cleaning, or laundry, one thing tends to come up after the next and any free time you thought you had just kind of disappears. I thought chores were a thing of the past, but apparently CCL is the new GTL.

2) Paying for Parking - Seriously? Paying to park somewhere? This is a concept that I would have ROFL'd at back in the day. Whether it be at my apartment, any place in the city, or even at work, there is a fee to be had in exchange for my car to sit on a pavement. What can really be annoying is when you just want to go pick something up or window shop for a while. Parking fees make it seem like your time is being taxed, and you only feel like it's worthwhile if you actually end up purchasing something. The best garages to scout out are those that have "parking validation"-where you buy something from an attached chain store or supermarket in exchange for an hour (or 2) of free parking. Not bad, but nothing to write home about either.

1) The Absence of GARBAGE PLATES - God damn you Nick Tahou, why did your invention of greasy awesomeness have to start in Rochester and not catch on across the nation? Seriously. Some days I just have the most intense cravings for mac salad, home fries, cheeseburger and a juicy red hot all doused in meaty hot sauce. Just describing this meal right now is a salivating experience. The next best food I can think of from upstate NY is undoubtedly wings, and while I recently located a Buffalo Wild Wings about 20 minutes from here, it is still a bit of a trek to indulge in the delicousness that is Asian Zing.

Don't get me wrong, life is pretty good here-work has been going great, I'm finally starting to save some dough on the side, and the weather should stay nice well into the fall (& maybe even winter) . Nothing I've listed is really going to make me worse off in any way, but I do like to think about how much more awesome my life would be if I didn't have these little inconveniences.

Who am I kidding-I want a fucking garbage plate right now.

Welcome to being an adult, self.

The Internet -Sent from my iPhone

2010-08-01T22:23:00.007-04:00

As I type up this post, I am currently receiving an internet connection via tethering from my (now ancient) 3G iPhone. The ironic thing is, I went for a little over a year without a data plan on this phone... but we won't get into the process of how I actually pulled that one off. Aside from what I considered a grossly overpriced rate for the plan, my main reason for avoiding it was due to the fact that there was an ever-increasing number of wi-fi hotspots available anywhere you went. For the most part, I found it quite easy to keep jumping from hotspot to hotspot, and I was only really dependent on a connection at school (RIT) and at home. Plus, it was kind of an interesting challenge to scout out free internet spots... or desperately try to guess wi-fi passwords and regularly failing in the process.

So why the hell bother with a plan now? Well for starters, working for the Gecko is some serious business (but still fun & interesting!- I'll go into more detail about the job sometime in the near future). The security at work is quite tight, so much so that there isn't a wireless network available in the building. As a web developer, I recently got my (nearly) full access to the web, but I've heard that some application programers only have access the to internal website and nothing else. Thus, having an outside connection to the Internet can really be a great convenience when you're looking to just quickly check up on something.

Additionally, I settled for the data plan on my phone because I got a bit unlucky with my internet setup when I moved down here. I was excited that FiOS was available in the area, but didn't realize that appointments for installation were usually pretty backed up-especially if you wanted it done on a Saturday. Luckily, I was able to jump on a neighbor's wireless connection for all of last month, but they moved out a couple days ago and my internetz went away as well. The appointment I had scheduled for the FiOS setup isn't until next Saturday, so I've been thinking up ways to get on the web in the mean time.

Thus we arrive at the data plan + iPhone tethering. It's a pretty unique concept to grab the internet connection coming from your phone and create a personal wi-fi hotspot or port it over to a computer via USB. Luckily for me there was a free app to do this with jailbroken iPhones, but unfortunately for others AT&T will charge you a $20 premium per month on top of the data plan for this functionality- a bit outrageous if you ask me. My only other gripe is that the plan is now capped to 2GB of usage every billing cycle, whereas if I had broken down & shelled out for it just a couple months ago it would have been unlimited (FYI if you had it then you get to keep it that way).

So here I am now-in the confines of my apartment blogging away on a tethered connection to the web. I can't really decide if keeping myself connected to the interwebs for the week is pure genius, or a result of the web developer in me being pathetically dependent on the internet.

Either way, I wrote my first rent check today and it was hopelessly depressing.
:D

Hello D.C.

2010-07-17T22:04:00.020-04:00

Well, it's been 3 weeks or so since my last post and I've been keeping myself super busy. I never really established a regular schedule for making updates, because I didn't want to force myself to write stuff when I really didn't feel like it. That being said, I also realize that many blogs tend to "die out" after a while, but this hiatus is definitely not a result of that.. I've just been pre-occupied since making the move down south.

So what's been going on? I came down to Maryland with my family at the end of June, which was kind of a rushed and somewhat hectic process. We stayed at a friend's place about 45 minutes away and made a couple trips to move my stuff from there, which was an extremely busy day of work. I actually have some boxes of stuff I still haven't gotten around to unpacking.. but this is totally due to the laziness that has set in.

My parents and sister also decided to do the whole DC touristy thing.. which was interesting because I haven't been to the National Mall since a field trip back in 8th grade.

(me just hangin out with Abe in the back)

It was a pretty fun time.. until the July 4th festivities rolled around. Don't get me wrong, seeing the fireworks in the heart of DC while sitting right in front of the Washington monument was pretty awesome-but the chaos that ensued afterwards was not. A swarm of thousands of people were making a mad dash to exit after the show, and probably a good 75-80% of them got there by Metro-myself included. The stations were so backed up that crowds of people were waiting in the streets just to get inside.. we were literally moving at a pace of 1-2 feet every 5 minutes or so. Add to that the particularly hot weather from the day (people were actually fainting in the crowds) and I began to question whether or not watching the sky blowup for half an hour was worth the 3 hours it took to get home (I only live about 15 minutes outside of DC). I guess I'll say it was worth doing it at least once for the experience.. maybe.

The last thing I'll touch on in this post is how outrageously expensive it is to live so close to DC (read: basically on par with NYC). When I came down to check out apartments with my dad last month I'm reminded of a complex which offered "furnished" units for an additional $1500 a month (totalling $3000/month for a studio!). Seriously? Wouldn't it be more plausible to spend $1500 once on your own furniture that you could keep forever instead? The cost of living is definitely nothing to shrug off here, but I guess I can say I'm pretty happy with my apartment's proximity to work (less than 1.5 miles away), stores, and a bunch of other interesting places. The fact that utilities are included doesn't hurt either.. as my floor to ceiling windows dictate that the A/C will pretty much be running continuously in the really hot weather. Here's to signing my life away and spending a good chunk of my salary on rental fees!

Is someone spying on me?

2010-06-24T00:52:00.007-04:00

My personal website, richardvuong.com, is monitored by Google Analytics along with a tracking page on the server so that I can look at interesting stats like daily traffic, the works in my portfolio that receive the most hits, and even how long a page is viewed for. (In case you were wondering, no, I don't drive hundreds or thousands of people to my site on a daily basis... these stats are just a fun thing to look at from time to time.) When checking out the visitor information recently, I've started to notice a TON hits from Moscow, Russia as well as random parts of Europe and India. Who are these mystery people? How did they stumble upon my site? Are they intrigued by my works?

The answer is probably no. The most logical explanation is that these are search engines simply indexing stuff on my site. I still like to think otherwise, however.. so if you're out there in northern Europe and like to surreptitiously view my site, your secret is safe with me. Well, except for the fact that I just put it out in the open and all... oops.

Goodbye Rochester: In T-minus 11 Days

2010-06-15T13:34:00.000-04:00

So, I really haven't blogged about what my plans were going to be post graduation- and truth be told, I had no idea up until a couple weeks ago. I had a bunch of options I was considering during my final weeks of school at RIT, and was in talks with a few different places at the time. Some of the dilemmas I ran into were:

1) How seriously are places considering me for a position?
I found this to be fairly difficult to guage amongst potential employers. I know that several places I talked to had interviewed or was going to interview a number of other students, so first impressions and skillsets would really have to set the tone on how I'd be presenting myself.

2) Do I think this will be a secure job?
Before the big "Industry Day" (creative job fair) at RIT, one of the professors in my program advised students that many creative ad agencies might be hesitant to recruit workers due to the state of the economy over the past couple years. Granted, I was looking for a web-development role that did not necessarily require joining a creative ad agency, but this kind of news did put me a little on edge.

3) Will the position fill out at least 2 co-op blocks with a strong potential for full-time afterwards?
As I mentioned in a previous post, I had finished all my classes and got to participate in the commencement ceremony, but technically still had two more co-ops to complete for RIT. Ideally, finding a full-time position was my goal, as doing just co-ops would likely leave me with a fairly uncertain future after the fact.

4) Is the relocation factor a big one?
Anyone who is anyone knows that upstate New York has some of the worst and most unpredictable weather ever. Although I've lived here for a good 12 years or so, I was seriously looking to find a place with either nicer weather or at least a more exciting atmosphere (San Francisco and New York City were both potential candidates).

There were other little details to take into consideration of course, but I can specifically recall one other major issue that would occasionally come up: A couple places would offer me a position that I just knew in the back of my mind I could not accept (likely due to one of the points listed above not being fulfilled). It was always an awkward position I found myself in when I had to reject an offer knowing that I hadn't secured anything else to begin with.

Enter Week 10 of Spring quarter at RIT. I'm sitting around in one of my final classes and receive an email about the GEICO headquarters in Maryland looking for a web developer. I decided to get in contact with them, and in just a couple of weeks I was graciously flown down to Chevy Chase for a more formal interview and to check out the surrounding area. Things went pretty well and I really thought I could see myself living in Maryland with the awesome weather they had there (albeit one crazy blizzard this past winter.. but let's just hope that won't be repeating itself anytime soon).

A couple weeks later, and here we are. I accepted an offer from the company and am looking forward to making the big move in just a couple of weeks. It's a pretty crazy thought to entertain, but I think I'll be happy to get out of upstate New York for at least a little while. The high cost of living (Chevy Chase is just minutes outside of D.C.) and the fact that I have yet to find a place to live at concerns me just a little bit, but I'm sure things will work out. For now, it's time to kick back and enjoy my final days in here in ye olde Rochester.

Are we too dependent?

2010-06-07T11:54:00.001-04:00

Yesterday morning I was awoken at 5:30am only to realize that the electricity had gone out. The alarm for our sump pump downstairs was going off, which meant the water in the basement had risen to a certain level- triggering the alarm to warn against possible flooding. Because it was pouring outside, my parents had to manually dispose of the rising waters until the power came back on. I went back to sleep.

When I awoke later a little past noon, the power had gone out again. This time I was a little more aggravated because I wanted to make something to eat, watch some TV, or at least browse the internetz. Realizing there wasn't much to do but wait, I once again slumbered back to bed entertaining myself with an iPod and texting some people to see if they were "in the dark" as well.

Fast forward about 8 hours later and I'm sweating Game 2 of the Lakers/Celtics finals. Nate Robinson explodes off the bench in the fourth quarter and there is about 5 minutes remaining in this tightly contested game. --flicker-- TV off, electricity out again.

F#$%.

This time, it's nearly 11pm so we literally were left in the dark. First I think, "oh man, how is this game going to end?" Then I realize I can't even see halfway across the room, but luckily my parents had broken out the candles and flashlights. Outside a window, all I could see was a pitch black neighborhood with a couple faint glows beginning to emerge in some windows. I began wondering, "What do other people do when their power goes out? Are they bored? Do they bother to try & entertain themselves? Are they just as pissed as I am that their power went out so many random times today?"

When you sit around in the dark for a while, you start to realize the little things that are taken for granted everyday. Even moreso, media such as television and the internet are so ingrained in our everday lives that we don't realize how much we depend on it to gather information. I was even helpless to go online and find out why there were so many blackouts today.

Even as I write this post, I'm dependent on Blogger's auto-save function for fear that the power may go out again this morning. What if the power went out for everyone and never came back on? Consider if cell phones were never invented. What would people do in a power outage with no line of communication? Would anyone be willing to go door to door and help people out? Or are we as a society so narcissistic nowadays that everyone would just sit still and pray for the lights to come back on?

I did it!

2010-05-27T23:50:00.006-04:00

I probably should have updated about this a little sooner, but now will just have to be as good a time as any. It's official-I graduated last Saturday and am now free from the confines of classes, grades, and institutionalized learning! For you nay-sayers out there, sure, I still have 2 co-ops to complete, but that's really an afterthought at this point.

Right now, I'm just trying to grasp the fact that I'm really "done." It's very weird to think about not entering another classroom, not having another brain-wracking project to complete, or never having to take another brutal end-of-the-semester(or quarter) exam. I honestly haven't even had a lot of free time this past week to let it all sink in (but what I've been up to can hold off for a later post..).

Nonetheless, I'm really looking forward to taking a mental vacation from all of this, whether it be short or long, to let my brain finally start forgetting everything it's ever learned.

(kidding.)

...somewhat

Why does Facebook suck now?

2010-05-16T15:59:00.008-04:00

Just a few years ago, MySpace was the champion of social networking-they easily had the largest network of users and anyone with an email and a fraction of a brain could join. Users would flock to the site religiously, hoping for "new friend requests!", "new comments!", and (the all important) "new picture comments!" knowing they would likely be greeted with none. Because users were given the option to insert custom HTML in their profiles, we basically witnessed a rebirth of the Yahoo! Geocities era which basked in the glory of blinking stars, animated GIFs, and perhaps most importantly, Comic Sans... COMIC f'ing SANS!!

After a while, people started to wisen up and look for a more uniform and privacy-mindful alternative. Enter Facebook. What started as an innocent little project for Harvard students quickly became a mild hit across college campuses when the user base allowed any student with a college email to join. These were probably the golden days of Facebook-allowing a sleek, simple, and clean alternative for people to network and stay in touch.

Soon, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder) realized the popularity of his creation and its potential to overtake MySpace. And that is exactly what happened. Facebook's user base was expanded to include anyone who had a valid school email, and eventually anyone with any email. Today, the social networking site is home to over 400 million unique users and growing.

What's Zuckerberg to do with 400+ million users and their personal data? Make it all public of course! To be honest, the guy is no fool. He realizes the money to be made in driving advertisement dollars to the site, and is now exploiting it by releasing personal data to companies worldwide to "enhance" your experience when visiting their sites. The other day I was on CollegeHumor and was a little more than creeped out to see stuff that my friends "liked" all over the page. Facebook had become the epitome of what it tried to denounce years ago.

Don't quite believe how much information is being shared? Just check out this little interactive graphic to see how your "privacy" has changed throughout the years. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not here to preach the deletion of your precious Facebook accounts (something that's buried deep in their site & impossibly hard to find) and God help you if you decide to "just deactivate" your account, because just about any sliver of Facebook activity will bring that sucker back alive.

My final thought (Jerry Springer style) is just to be mindful of the information you're willing to share online. Perhaps an open alternative (sounds like déjà vu from the reigning days of MySpace..) will spring up to take down the goliath that is Facebook today. Or perhaps Zuckerberg will begin his next phase of mind control after his 400 million+ minions commit to biologically registering their brains to their profiles.

Back to Blogging

2010-05-06T17:21:00.003-04:00

The past couple weeks consisted of some serious nose-to-the-grindstone work flushing out the finishing touches on the SociaLaser project. The final 48 hours leading up to Imagine RIT were probably the most stressful, as our team was trying to fine-tune stuff on the table and then found out that we couldn't even set up in the auditorium until the night before the event (we began at around midnight). However, the blood, sweat, and non-stop pulsating laser beams were well worth it as the project turned out to be a big success. We're currently looking to do a joint submission to Siggraph with last year's Sociable Table team, which would entail a trip out to LA if we won.

Thankfully, things have finally cooled off now- another week left of classes and I'll be completely free from the world of higher education (aka college). Graduation will be on the 21st and 22nd of May, and hopefully I will have commited to working somewhere by the end of the month.

If all else fails for me like it did for Conan O'Brien, I could just go on a national tour and promote myself through self-deprecating humor. Or better yet, write mindless blog posts that only a millionth of a fraction of people on the internetz will ever read. Oh wait.

SociaLaser!

2010-04-18T16:24:00.004-04:00

Okay, a bit of self-promotion here for my senior team project at RIT. Any student in the New Media program (Design & Imaging or Interactive Development) has to complete an innovative capstone project that takes up two academic quarters, ultimately culminating in an exhibition at Imagine RIT. The event is held on May 1st this year and my team of designers & developers are officially feeling the "crunch time" as there are less than 2 weeks left to get it done.

Our project, called SociaLaser, involves the construction of a multi-touch table that is hooked up to a laser projector allowing users to control a laser light show at their fingertips. We actually used the remains of the Sociable Table from last year, but have since improved it significantly by using high-power LEDs and two PS3 Eye cameras stitched together to better track a user's finger points.

If anyone is still interested in the technicalities at this point, we send the points from our finger tracking software (CCV) to Flash-where they interact with the visual user interface. Then, the points are sent from Flash to Processing (a program that lets us "talk" with the laser projector over a parallel port) and the laser light show commences!

We are about 85% done with this project, and I really should go work on it instead of writing this blog.. But anyone and everyone is encouraged to come out and experience it on May 1st at RIT!

What if?

2010-04-10T02:07:00.001-04:00

This week, I talked to a bunch of potential employers about web development positions post-graduation, many of which were located outside the Rochester area. It was pretty cool to network with new and big companies, and I readily told most of them that I'd be willing to relocate wherever-just to get away from the shitty Rochester weather. But now that I've had a little time to think about it, I honestly have no idea how prepared I am to potentially move hundreds (or thousands) of miles away and live on my own.

I've moved twice in my life when I was younger, both times relocating with my family. I've always been in their close vicinity, from grade school to college. Even when living on campus at RIT, I was only 15 minutes from home if I ever needed something. So lately I've thought about some what-if's..

What if I never chose to go to RIT?
What if I went somewhere even a few hours away from home for college?
What if I missed an earlier opportunity to explore living further away on my own?

Would I have been able to handle it? Would I have liked it? I have no idea, that's why I almost regret not doing something like that. Would it have been a benificial thing to do? Most likely yes. It would've certainly gotten me more prepared for any possible big move I'd be making now. Hell, I may be saying goodbye to Rochester and living somewhere across the country in a matter of less than 2 months..

But I'm sure everything will work out, I'm just having mind-f*** at 2AM right now.

:D

iPad, iPhone, iTakingOverTheWorld

2010-04-03T17:02:00.005-04:00

So the iPad was publicly released today, and the better than expected numbers of sales made me die a little inside. I don't really want to get into the specifics of the gadget's shortcomings (mainly no multi-tasking, flash, and the ludicrous notion of syncing it to a computer instead of having it run things on its own) but I just don't understand the hype around it. Sure, it will be "useful" for the uber-computer-illiterates who want a simple to use interface, but is it honestly worth shelling out the minimum base price of $500? According to hundreds of thousands of people today, yes.

Well, enough of the Apple-bashing, it's time to move on to the all important past time of Apple-product-speculation. Every summer since 2007 we have seen a new(er) iteration of the iPhone and this year should be no different. Currently, I am involved in a $50 wager with a friend over whether or not the new iPhone will be announced and available on the Verizon network within the 4th Quarter of 2010 (July 1st and onwards). Here are my predictions:

-Announcement in June: almost every Apple WWDC event has been held in June, with major announcements on products coming towards the end of the month
-Same processor as iPad: a faster device is pretty much a given, there's no reason not to speed it up
-A larger screen, probably 960x640: this is an inevitable move to keep up with other smartphones in the market.
-Front facing, high quality (5MP) camera: again, keeping up with standards, and giving the ability to video conference
-Multi-tasking: long, long overdue (except if you have a jailbroken device) technology that will make the phone much more useful
-CDMA network compatibility: it is definitely in development and also will inevitably begin to appear on other networks once the AT&T exclusivity contract runs out

But will the oft-rumored phone finally see the light of day on Verizon? My answer, is no. Verizon is really pushing the Droid (and soon other nice phones like the Nexus One), and to bring the iPhone on their network now would just destroy what they already have going with the other smartphones. A more likely scenario would have Apple putting their phone on Sprint's network (with hackers then possibly unlocking it for Verizon) and gradually make the shift to the big red in 2011.

But what the hell do I know, honestly? I just want to win my bet so I'm pretty much just praying that the iPhone does not go to Verizon this summer. Or if it does, it should happen before July 1st (very conceivable, as 2 out of the 3 iPhone iterations were introduced in June) and then I can still laugh my way to the bank on the bet :D

What is the ultimate Good?

2010-03-26T02:39:00.005-04:00

So I'm taking an introductory philosophy class (well, 2 actually, to finish up my gen. ed. requirements and graduate-still a scary thought) and we were asked to figure out what an intrinsic good could be. That is, something that is desired for its own sake, and not to be used as a means to get you anything else. Surprisingly, we found that almost nothing in life can truly be an intrinsic good, only instrumental.

Take for example, a general education class you are taking (perhaps one that you actually enjoy). Why are you taking it? Even if you enjoyed the class for the sake of it, you are ultimately in the course to satisfy an educational requirement. So, attending the class cannot be an intrinsic good even if you enjoyed it, because you are using it as a means to get you something else-your degree. Why then, do you want to earn your degree? Easy, you say-to get a job. Again, you may end up loving your job, but a job is ultimately a tool to earn you money. And then, why do you want money? Money isn't appreciated for what it physically is, but rather for what you can get with it. A nice car, a house, maybe even a family. Each of those things again are only used to get you somewhere further in life, and are all instrumental goods. Thus, we fall into a paradox of infinite regression.

So what then could be an intrinsic good? Why do we do all these things in life and what could it eventually lead to? Aristotle posits that the only thing we can truly desire for its own sake is happiness. Happiness is what he considers the end result of all instrumental goods, given that a person is striving for the Ultimate Good.

But what is happiness, really? It certainly isn't something tangible and most people would have a hard time measuring or determining how happy they actually were. Is it really practical to strive for happiness in the long run, when in the long run, we are all dead?

The perfect bracket

2010-03-20T15:25:00.002-04:00

Apparently the odds of picking a perfect March Madness bracket is 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1. Nine quntillion to one. That is quite an unfathomable number if you really think about it (we're talking a billion times 9 billion... and then some!). It's been said that you could win the lottery several times over before picking the perfect bracket... so why do we do it? Is it because of the unpredictable nature of the tournament that piques everyone's interest? Or for the shot of glory from winning a nation-wide pool and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars*? Or just the glory of boasting to your friends that they chose inferior teams?

Sure, several of my picks have already been ousted, as have millions of other people's picks in their own brackets. It's just the nature of the NCAA beast and what makes the tournament so interesting. #3, #2, and sometimes even #1 seeds will fall early to cinderella teams, leaving most people to let out a collective sigh while the crazy fanatic who chose the upset can celebrate in their own glory. If your bracket looks like there is no road to recovery, don't worry-it's just time to enjoy the road to the Final 4.

And if you really are trying to recoup your losses, you could always just make new bets on the final games :D

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*In case you ever did pick the perfect bracket and win a few hundred grand, you should try and look into requesting a $9 quintillion payday for your efforts... just sayin.

The art of blogging

2010-03-15T00:37:00.000-04:00

There was a time, back in high school, when I actually did blog quite frequently. For anyone that knows me personally, there was a golden age of "joint-blogging" between buddies, if you will. Some posts strived for comments and entertainment value while others were another daunting duty to complete just for the sake of not having posted anything in a few days. Looking back, I can now say that it was a strangely enjoyable period, that I will still occasionally go back to visit from time to time. Sure, the page looks like shit now (unless you log in) and all of the content is largely irrelevant to anyone, but the documentation of a few years worth of ridiculuos memories have forever been cemented in those posts. If you have no idea what I'm talking about and thinking "WTF, mate?" I will just leave you with this- Richy V, blasting into a new paleozoic era.

Live as a monster? or Die as a hero?

2010-03-07T13:50:00.000-05:00

Just saw Shutter Island last night... quite the intense psychological thriller. It's one of those films like Memento that will easily take a few viewings to really catch all the subtle hints dropped along the way. Although many people will say the "twist" was very predictable or even cliché, I'm pretty certain Scorsese had an alternative motive in wanting the audience to sympathize with Leonardo DiCaprio's guilt-ridden character and see how his circumstances came to unfold. The fact that the film ultimately leaves its resolution up to viewer interpretation will create chatter and buzz about its ending for quite some time. Good job Marty, you've impressed me again.

First Entry

2010-03-01T01:21:00.000-05:00

I just made a blog at 1:22am. There's something wrong with me.