this is when i need a xbox

Closing Comments
Games like Mass Effect 2 don't come around often enough. Look at any aspect and you can be sure it's great. It's incredibly personal while still retaining a sense of epic sweeping scale. The combat and mission design are outstanding. The visuals, voice acting, soundtrack, and direction are miles ahead of the competition. Perhaps most impressively, Mass Effect 2 manages to fulfill its incredible ambition while only suffering from very few technical hiccups. The only real caveat I should mention is that some of the revelations and plot twists won't be quite as powerful if you haven't played Mass Effect 1, but that isn't any reason to skip this fantastic videogame.

- IGN

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Heaven Can Wait

Blood Red Summer - Coheed in Cambria

I hear tremors

I believe

- Success comes from being the best person one can be.

- Talent is for geniuses. Acquired learning can be achieved by anyone.

- Stretching oneself physically, emotionally, and socially.

- Being smart is overrated. People often mistake me as smart, I just try a lot.

- Everything comes at a cost. All accomplishments and failures are at the expense of something else.

- In failing often and quickly. And more importantly, never making the same mistakes again.

- Surrounding oneself with the most positive people possible.

- In letting the masses show you what else to learn to appreciate.

- In always asking why and never taking the norm for what it is.

- If you try your very best, you will have no regrets.


I actually hope someone would find this post insightful enough to change. But chances are the world will stay the same.

Avatar Vs Modern Warfare 2

Passion Pit - I've got your number

& if all else fails then the ship won’t set sail.
God forbid but I guess the both of us will bail
But as far as I can tell I think things will be swell.

Have you seen me cry tears like diamonds
Down and down they fly, faster and faster
Like the speed of our love
Batting a thousand, but a homerun crack at love
This is where I tell you that,
I know love's what I need to work at

China 1 - Google 0

This is big. Google China may very well RIP.

For those who don't know, Google has decided to uncensor their search engine in the country. And that basically means it will be locked behind the Chinese firewall soon.

My thoughts are Google China will and has always been be a losing proposition. It's simple, the Chinese government will not let a US company dominate the Chinese internet. The internet is way too influential in our society -its not any different than how China chooses to curb all foreign kid animations in its country.


This is game changing.

Risk

I was reading one of Paul Graham's essays earlier this morning, he mentions that persistence is the right balance between being strong-willed and disciplined.

The essay made me realize what had gotten me into my rut lately -too much discipline. In terms of my analytical thinking as an entrepreneur, I've leaped and gained tonnes of insight over the past 2-3 years; I feel I have what it takes. But that knowledge and acuity has made me a non-believer. I don't see any straightforward risk-none-existent paths to success. To simply put it: Given the odds, expected success is low.

Without strong-will, such as belief, ignorance, and the gut to stick it out, an entrepreneur will not make progress.

Stop hedging, I should count on giving something my best shot.

Once in a while when Music fails

there is always basketball.



I will always be a student of the game. It's funny how the older I grow, the more ridiculous my previous notions of the game are.

Intramurals this week to keep me pumped.

Thesis Crunch Accomplished

Counting 72 pages. done.

That was 08 and 09 working. Next Christmas I will not be working, period.

Supercar - Be

Found a list of interesting Japanese bands...

Bleach
Mono
Zoobombs
Heart Bazaar *fave*
Supercar
Art School
Cornelius
Wakusei
Wussy
Love Psychedelico
Soulsberry
Uinona
Straightner
Nananine
Suneo Hair
Peelander- Z
Drumkan
KISERU

Woot! Passion Pit are playing a block from my apartment next week

Knicks game earlier this month. Seats up front are wicked!

Peggy 2.0

Been looking into building an audio equalizer with one of these... sigh, LEDs are expensive!

3 days into my thesis crunch

Haven't written lyrics in a long time

Our world spins on two planes
The kingdom gates open so slightly
Its a smiling state
We believe its going to come around

I waited, I waited, the stars are angles out
The strings come in view
Our clouds weather pastures of gray
Half phases slowly molding memories

So I waited, I waited, its a lover's ride
If I hold you, I will keep you
But maybe we will invert minds
Fate has shown how we are in the dark

I've never felt so at ease
The constellations sync like synths
We've all lived our doldrums
Let your love grow in meadows

Someday we'll see, I know serene
Between shadows I have no worries
It will be the same
Just a thought
We will see
We will see
We will see

Sexuality - Sebastien Tellier

Sexuality is the third studio album by French artist Sébastien Tellier, released on February 25, 2008. The album was produced by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who is best known as one of the members of Daft Punk.

- wikipedia

I swear the upcoming google phone stems from android engineers troubled with HTC making their OS look silly. People don't think about the G1, G2 like its a HTC phone running the Android. They call it the google phone period.

Google probably has the last laugh on this one. They got free developers working on the open source Android and they got phone manufacturers to test their OS before they get into phone hardware themselves.

RGB Multicolor Monome

A RGB Multicolor Monome was originally my 'make anything' final project.

Sparkfun.com, an electronics vendor, is giving away $100 worth of goods per customer on Jan 7th 2010. I'm going to take advantage and buy everything I need to make one.

Side Note: Sparkfun.com is giving away $100,000 free stuff -how ballsy of a marketing move. I'm happy to help them spread the word.

Commonsense Reasoning: Fall 09 Final Project

Abstract
EmpTwit gauges market sentiment via Twitter streams. With the aid of the common sense knowledge base, Open Mind, and affect extension of Wordnet, EmpTwit sets out to abstract variation in public mood and investor sentiment via Twitter updates. By using natural language parsing techniques to extract significant concepts in tweets, EmpTwit sets out to capture more accurate sentiment beyond simple keyword matching techniques employed in the field.

The goal of EmpTwit is to correlate the variation in public mood with stock market behavior. The idea is that EmpTwit will measure investor sentiment before the market fully adjusts to it. The motivation of this project stems from various psychological evidences of a strong link between weather and sports outcomes with investor sentiment and market behavior.

Can't say more, its still WIP.

Highly Recommended Entrepreneurship Books

How to make (almost) anything - Assignment 11 & 12

Assignment 11 was about networking and communications. I honestly don't know how it all works, but its basically an internet zero board that acts as a server and communicates with another internet zero board to update a webpage.





Assignment 12 is my final project. I outfitted drumsticks with an accelerometer and RGB leds. The LEDs change color based on which direction you swing the sticks. I also added an overdrive button that makes the LED rotate through all the colors.



Maybe I'll do a postmortem on this course someday. But I don't want to hear about it anymore right now.

My course page
Class page

Thesis Schedule

I've been thinking about doing a thesis crunch course. The goal is to write 8 pages of my thesis for 10 straight days. Its going to be work (which is pretty much inevitable), but I'll be a very happy person at the end of course.

I think I'll start on the 21st of this month.

Nothing to look forward to. I only see work, work, and more work.

I need to get some traction.