Jibberish

Although I had to leave in the middle of the presentation, the speaker from Nepal got me interested in his country yesterday. Prior to his presentation, I had little knowledge about Nepal's geography, culture, history, government and technology. In fact, I thought Nepal was in Africa. This blog post will cover mostly about the country of Nepal, and not about what Manohar Bahattari talked about in his presentation.

Nepal is a landlocked country located between India and China. It is very mountainous, including the world famous Mount Everest, peaking over 8000m.

Multiparty parliamentary democracy was introduced by King Birendra in November of 1990. Then, King Gyandendra ruled an absolute monarchy since 2002.

The population of 18 million belong to dozens of ethnic groups. They are roughly divided into 2 groups: Hindu and Buddhist. The Hindus mainly live in lowlands while the Buddhists live in mountain villages close to the Tibet.

From yesterday's presentation, I saw some shocking photos that reveal the need of improvement in technology in Nepal. I saw a picture of a native climbing on a telephone pole to fix the lines.

Great websites that includes different facts about Nepal:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107820.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/country_profiles/1166502.stm
http://www.geographia.com/nepal/

After leaving the presentation, Matt Maisel and I went to Rec Hall to lift. As I was bench pressing, I thought about inflicting pain to myself to get stronger. I thought about "doing what I normally wouldn't do." Thinking this to myself helped me push myself. Thanks Professor Tapia!

I shared something interesting about myself to my friend, Matt Dinkel yesterday. I never realized that it was so weird. It might show a similarity of low-level Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) which I am pretty sure I don't have.

As I walk up and down stairs, I keep track of whether certain sets of stairs are even or odd and memorize them. I do this because I walk up and down stairs by 2's and if it's even, I will take them two at a time all the way through. If the number of stairs is odd, I will take the first one a single step, then the rest by 2's. I guess I do this because I don't want to take an extra step on the even steps. It's pretty weird, but may have to do with my mathematical mind. Some movies that are similar in this way but much more miraculous are Rain Man and A Beautiful Mind.

In Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman plays an autistic adult who has incredible counting and calculating skills. For example, he was able to accurately count a box of toothpicks when they fell on the floor. This movie is actually based on a real person, Kim Peek. In psychology class in high school, we watched an interview of him and he could actually calculate the day of the week of a certain date in a certain year, which is just miraculous.

Learn more about Rain Man: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095953/

In A Beautiful Mind, Russell Crowe plays schizophrenic mathematics professor John Nash. To tie this entry into technology, John Nash was a guru at encrypting in his mind. Encrypting is a huge part of Security and Risk Analysis. Nash had hallucinations that he was secretly encrypting data for the government and sent in his hard work in a mailbox. His wife found he letters and showed it to him, and he lost trust with everyone. He had to go through severe treatment, but could not fully recover. He would still continue to see the same imaginary people, but he would have to force himself to ignore them and pretend they are not there.

Learn more about A Beautiful Mind: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/

I recommend everyone who reads this post to watch these two films. They are very interesting and show a relation between mental disorders and mathematical skills.

I am an avid tennis player. I played the #2 singles position my senior year of high school, and was the captain of the team. I started playing in 6th grade (I guess that would be 11 or 12 years old) and took lessons in the Hershey Racquet Club. (I don't know why the spell check is correcting the word Racquet, because it is another way of spelling racket.) I joined Club Tennis here at Penn State, since I would have to be a God to play for the Intercollegiate team. Intramural would be pointless for me, so I found Club to be a happy medium. The plus side of playing Club Tennis is that members get to play on the Sarni Tennis Facility, where the Varsity team plays. The courts are extremely nice, as I played on them on Monday. I was happy to find that the other players were pretty good and about my level.

I also love to watch tennis. In professional tournaments, the courts the pro players play on have all types of technology. First, there is the device that clocks the speed of the serve. Also, there is a sensor on the net to detect if the ball nipped the net on the serve. Most of these two technologies are made by IBM.There is also what is called Shot Spot. When the ball is very close to the line, and a player thinks the line judge made a bad call, they can challenge it. Shot Spot shows the exact movement of the ball and re-enacts how the ball bounced on a large screen display. It is displayed in 3-D simulation by using an application called PointTracker which was created by IBM. Shot Spot works by using 4 high-speed cameras on each corner of the court stadium. This technology is also called Hawk-Eye, which was developed by Roke Manor Research Limited engineers in 2001. Another technology is the MacCAM which was named after the infamous John McEnroe, who always yelled at the chair umpire and line judges for bad calls. MacCAM is a system of slow-motion cameras developed by FastCAM Replay LLC and Del Imaging Systems LLC. Unlike Shot Spot, the footage recorded by these cameras are shown to viewers only, and cannot be used to make judgments.

An image of Shot Spot

John McEnroe

Links:
Shot Spot
MacCAM
PointTracker

My Sony Ericsson w600i Walkman phone snapped in half last week. I have discovered that the swivel system was not meant to last forever. The screws finally came off and the phone was detached. After going home, I traded with my mom since she does not use her cell phone very much. The Sony is still usable, but it is rubber-banded together so the keypad is not accessible. That leaves me with a pink Motorola Razr v3. Wow.

I ordered an orange housing for it the next day off of eBay. I didn't want a cover case that snapped over the phone, because it would make the phone bulky and the pink would still be revealed. The seller was offering tools as well, so I figured I could fix it up myself. I found a set of instructions and disassembled my pink razr yesterday. Then I put the orange housing on. I picked orange not only because it's my favorite color but also..who has an ORANGE RAZR?? no one.

Before the housing arrived to University Park (it was shipped from Hong Kong, and took about 9 days), stupid me bought a Sony Ericsson w810i Walkman phone from a friend for only $50. His phone was stolen and he paid $50 for a brand new replacement (of the same phone). Recently, his stolen phone was returned and so he had 2 w810i's. I really liked Sony's OS and interface so i bought it. It is an excellent phone, and can play music at a high volume without losing quality. It's very small and beautiful. I like the candy-bar style phones, instead of flip open, swivel, slider, or any of those other ones that break easily.

I will most likely sell the Razr, or give it back to my mom. I really do not like Motorola's cell phone user interface. The biggest flaw of their interface is that you cannot store multiple numbers to the same contact. For example, if I had John's cell phone and John's home phone numbers, I would have to store them into John Cell and John Home. How unorganized! The Sony's contact system is much more organized and multiple numbers (home, cell, work, fax, other) can be stored to a single contact. Also, the Razr is SO SLOW. It takes twice the amount of time to boot up, and if you do not use it for a while there is lag when pushing buttons. The overall look and font in the Razr's OS is also poor. The Sony Ericsson's has a much higher resolution screen. Finally, w810i has a lot more functions than the motorazr v3. The w810i can play music, record video, edit video, edit music, has an FM radio, much better games, photo editor, bluetooth remote control, a very bright light (I found this very useful in the dark when I had my w600i), and has software to transfer files such as music, video, and pictures.

The old phone: Sony Ericsson w600i Walkman phone.

Orange Razr, baby.

Yes, that is my hand.

baby got back.

Sony Ericsson w810i

2.0 Megapixel camera, 3 micro speakers, and dual LED lights

I took these pictures (except for the first one) in my room with my digital camera, and then uploaded them on Photobucket. It's a good way of hosting your personal pictures if you ever need the picture in the form of a link.

"Why Facebook Is the Future"
by Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine

Why is Facebook appealing? This article starts out by referring to the hacker Virgil Griffith, who unleashed the WikiScanner. This program scans Wikipedia entries and finds who is making changes to the entry. Author Lev Grossman goes into explaining the anonymity throughout the web and concludes that this is the reason why Facebook is appealing. Facebook's history was then given, mentioning how the network began in Harvard as a tool for meeting. Being formed from an Ivy league school could be why Facebook has such a classy or upmarket feel to it. Also, people usually use their own identity and do not misbehave on Facebook. If there was any annoyance, people could easily remove pests or hide themselves. The article ends with a good statement: "the most important function of a social network is connecting people and that its second most important function is keeping them apart."

This article was a basic and informative publishing. It does not go in-depth with facts or opinions at all. This would be a good article for those who do not know what Facebook is. I, however, happened to be a dedicated Facebook user. Reading this article was basically reading stuff I already knew. Grossman did mention a few facts I did not know, such as Yahoo! offering to buy Facebook for one billion dollars to get turned down. This article was written before Google bought Facebook, and Grossman mentioned that it would be a good move for Google to buy them. The article was fairly short, so that could explain the lack of details. It gives a reader the gist of how Facebook is changing the online world, and how it functions as a social network.

"Social Networking Goes Professional"
By Jessica E. Vascellaro, The Wall Street Journal

Michael Tomblyn, an oncologist radiologist at University of Minnesota Medical Center, was confused when treating a patient whose eye was coming out of its socket. He was not sure of what disorder this could be, so he sought for help on Sermo.com. Sermo is a social-networking website where 25,000 doctors log on to diagnose diseases. Other doctors suggested Tomblyn that it was fungal infection, which sparked Tomblyn's answer. The disease was a cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma. Social networking, popular among teenagers, is now starting to become useful in the business field. It is a good source for advertisement. Also, many professional workers can exchange contact information and other job recruiting details. There is also the need for communication to all workers, which can be used by online forums. A more personal way of business working is currently under way. Sermo is an example of one. People in the business field can have their own personal pages or blogs, share links to other users, send online even invitations, and instant message. Sermo and other professional networking websites are free to use and authenticate users.

I thought this was a well written article. The length was just right and it focuses mainly on social networking in the business field. It uses Dr. Tomblyn's example throughout the article, and refers to Sermo by using it as an example. I got a better understanding of how social networking can be used other than writing on walls and poking each other. Sermo seems like a very useful tool for doctors who don't know what they are doing, but for the most part I think it is not mainly a "professional" social network. Instead, I believe that it is more of a social network for people of the same profession. People of the same field can share ideas, opinions, and suggestions. Although it is probably a reliable source for medical answers, but people will not use it for that purpose. From the article, they made it seem like Dr. Tomblyn was relying on it, which is realisticly not the case.

CarDomain
CarDomain brings the same people of the same interest, cars, to the same place. It isn't about what kind of car you can get out there, but it's more about what kind of car you can turn yours into. Instead of boring stock vehicle parts and factory presets, car enthusiasts customize their car's engine, suspension, body, interior, paint, and wheels. CarDomain is a way for those hotshots to show off their works of art. It is also a way for them to see what other people have done to their cars. A way for people to find other people is by finding their car first. There is a browsing page on the home page where the car is narrowed down by make and then by model. To communicate with other people in CarDomain, people can sign other users' guestbooks. There is also a friend requesting system in CarDomain.

Features in CarDomain include Rides, Events, Groups, Video, Blog, and Store. The Rides section is used the most and it is the way of finding cars, view the top rated cars, the showoff of the week, the newest rides, and recently updated rides. To find the people with the same interest in a specific type of car (Import, Muscle, Exotic, etc.), there are groups made for them. That is a way to find other people of the same interest. To stay updated with car shows, the Events section is the place to go find out about them.

CarDomain is well-made and organized. Being a car fanatic, I like to just go on CarDomain to look at what people have done to their cars. I'm very interested in customized cars and CarDomain can provide pictures and specifications for those who are not even members. For those who are members, this social networking website keeps people proud of what they have done. Although it its purpose is not to find other people or keep people connected, it can be used that way. It would not be too hard to stay in touch with someone through CarDomain.

MySpace
MySpace is a fun and creative way for users to present themselves. On the profile page, users can list basic information such as interests, favorite music, movies, TV shows, books, and heroes. People communicate by commenting on their friends' MySpaces. There is also a private way of sending messages which works the same way as e-mail. Finally, another way of communicating is using the Bulletin Space. In Bulletin Space, users can post their thoughts, events, ideas, or anything they want to for all of their friends. Usually people post silly pass-it-on poems or stories.

One of the best things about MySpace is its Music section. The main Music page is the start place for those who want to navigate through MySpace browsing artists. There is also a search bar for those looking for a specific artist. Almost all famous artists have their official MySpace where users can add their songs, view tour schedule, see upcoming events/news, and potentially click on advertisements. There are still the basic MySpace functions, such as friend requesting, commenting, messaging, and the artist can post on the bulletin. The convenient part about having a musician MySpace is that any musician can sign up for one. That means local bands, solo artists, and general musicians can post their recordings online and try to be shown in the world. For example, the famous Jamaican pop artist Sean Kingston became a successful musician through MySpace. Other sections include Film, Mail, Blog, Favorites, Forum, Groups, Events, Videos, Music, Comedy, and Classifieds.

To find a person of the same interests or some type of similarity, users can join groups that are made specifically for that interest. There is also a browsing function in MySpace where people can find other people by narrowing down certain aspects such as age, sex, relationship status, what they are looking for, and geographic location. A way of finding someone you know is by using the search tool.

In my opinion, MySpace is more suitable for middle schoolers or young teens. It's way of meeting people and staying connected is not very organized or professional-looking. It is more of a way for users to express themselves and find interesting people, media, and general teen fun. It doesn't serve as a formal way for older people to stay connected. It also has a lot of media content and advertising involved, especially with the music section.

Facebook
We all know what Facebook is. Very few college students, especially ones in IST have never seen it. The main purpose of Facebook is to connect people within a school network (college, high school, graduate school), or a geographic location (Harrisburg, PA). It becomes very helpful for those who are distant from each other. It becomes easier to keep in touch than e-mail, IM, phone, or any other type of communication. It is also useful for people to contact each other who aren't really friends. For example, John and Jodie are in the same group for a project and need to meet at a place. John can contact Jodie and another members by messaging or wall posting. There are more functions and other ways of communication in Facebook that do not come in the form of a text.

From my personal experience, people do not "meet" random people on Facebook. Usually there is a connection between one person and the other through one or more friends. People can search for their friends, or find people in the same network. People usually add friends who they have talked to or share the same network. Friends are typically found by viewing current friends' Facebooks and seeing recognizable names. There are ways to meet random people of the same interest, birthday, major, political view, religion, activities, and other categories. Each field listed in your Facebook is a link that takes you to a list of other people who have listed the same item in the field. Names are also tagged in pictures, which also serve as links directly to their profile (if not private), or to the portable viewing page where you can add them as a friend.

The most used function of Facebook is wall posting. It is the primary communication function and is visible by friends of the person who's wall you write on. A more discreet way of communicating is messaging, which is not visible to people outside of the recipient(s). This is used to give phone numbers, private/personal information, or to large group members. A way of informing those who have not kept in touch in a long time is Poking. All it does is send a notification that you have been poked by so-and-so. It can get very intense and people engage in what are called "poking wars," which are just endless poking back and forth. A part of Facebook that I just started using is the Marketplace. It is a way of browsing or searching items for sale, put up by other Facebook users within your network(s). I started with this to look for Penn State Football tickets.

There are many optional applications that users can choose to add. They are required to use if you want to perform an action on a friends Facebook who has that application. They add more spice to Facebooking and tend to waste a lot time. An example of an application would be the Graffiti wall. In this add-on, you can adjust colors, brush size, opacity, and undo actions. It's fun to draw images on your friends Graffiti wall but can be very difficult at first. Most drawings are sloppy and writing is even worse. Some people are very skilled and do shading by adjusting the opacity. Another application is the iLike music application, where users can put up their favorite songs and dedicate songs to their friends. There is the SuperPoke! application where pre-configured funny actions can be performed in place of regular poking. The same goes with the X Me application except ANY possible action can be done.

In my opinion, Facebook is the most organized and formal way of social networking. It can be fun and silly at the same time with the optional applications. What makes it more formal than MySpace is the inability to change or customize your profile. It only allows you to change your information (contact info, personal info, education/work info) and add applications. In MySpace, users can play around with different themes and backgrounds and add auto-playing music. Facebook is far more organized in finding friends than MySpace, mainly because people use their real names in Facebook. Also, there are search bars within viewing a list of ppl, as opposed to MySpace where you have to look at a page of profile pictures one page at a time.

College Humor

I put this video up from College Humor after searching for videos that contained "penn state" in them. I saw this and just laughed, mainly because I just saw the Penn State Startrooper last night at Alpha Gamma Rho's costume party.

College Humor started out as a way for two high school buddies to stay in touch by sending videos, pictures, and links when they were separated for college. They would send funny links through e-mail and IMs originally, and thought of making a site to archive all the media. It is obvious that College Humor is intended for college students, hence the name. In fact, 68% of College Humor users are college students (information found in the About section).

There are different ways to share a specific video that is on College Humor. Below each video there are links which allow you to either post the video on Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, e-mail. Also it provides the embedded code and URL link for bloggers to post the video.

College Humor's long Terms & Conditions Use list restricts for the use of Connected Ventures Technology. In that section, College Humor co-founders list 14 distinct restrictions which include reverse engineering, decompiling, reverse compiling, translating, adapting, or disassembling or accessing the Connected Ventures Technology. Also, copying, distributing, displaying, transmitting or reproducing the Connected Ventures Technology or any part of it is restricted. This is only one small part of many restrictions of College Humor. Others include private, illegal, or any content that conflicts with their terms of use.

Since the site is heavily updated daily and viewed by millions of users, advertisement comes in to play. Besides the Home Page, there is an advertisement at the top of the screen and one to the right. The 2 ads are usually corresponding and coming from the same corporation. They are ads from College Humor's sponsors, which include Proctor and Gamble, Sony Motion Pictures and Home Video, Ford, Rockstar Games, Jose Cuervo, Virgin Mobile, CBS Television, Miller Brewing, Comedy Central, Paramount Theatrical and Home Video, Durex Condoms, Warner Brothers, MTV and others.

Dailymotion

I have heard of Dailymotion before because I have watched movies which can be streamed through Dailymotion. Dailymotion is similar to YouTube, in which users can upload videos they personally recorded or any video of interest. It can be used publicly to distribute videos and links to anyone in the world, or privately to friends and family. It is also a way for viewers to learn and enjoy their own interests or explore other subjects. Viewers can post their own opinions on videos and uploaders can get feedback. The most useful part of Dailymotion is the act of sharing videos and spreading them by posting on social networks, blogs, and personal websites.

Under the Terms of Use in Dailymotion, it is clearly stated that no child pornography, dangerous or illegal acts (violence), unlawful, obscene, defamatory or libelous material, images of rape, images of bestiality or any sexually explicit content can be posted. Dailymotion also does not allow copyright infringing and infringement of intellectual property rights and will delete any content and notify that such content infringes on another's intellectual property rights.

Stupid Videos

I was very impressed with this video. I was so impressed it made me laugh. This is what Stupid Videos does. It amazes users by showing funny and ridiculous videos. I remember looking at StupidVideos a long time ago, freshman year of high school during class. This site is for people who are bored and need a way to kill time. It is recommended for those who have a good sense of humor and enjoy laughing.

StupidVideos, located in El Segundo, CA, is part of a larger company PureVideo Networks. Its purpose is to give users a variety of different funny videos. Forget about Funniest Home Videos, StupidVideos has them all. Different video categories include Just Plain Stupid, Stunts/Crashes, Animals, Sketch, Comedy, Sports, Commercials, Song/Dance, Standup Comedy, Webcams, Science & Technology, Politics, Holidays, Video Games, and StupidVideo Originals. Most of the funny content is original and "home-made." Viewers can comment and upload videos onto Digg, Del.icio.us, Facebook, and StumbleUpon. URL links and embedded code are also available for bloggers.

With all the stupid possibilities that people can think of, StupidVideos is very careful about what users can and cannot put out there. The Terms of Service Section thoroughly explains what StupidVideos restricts. First off, they absolutely do not allow any user under the age of 18 to submit content without a parent/guardian's certification. StupidVideos does not allow not content that inflict emotional distress, humiliate, assault/threaten, enter private property without permission, and engage in any activity that may result in injury, death, property damage, and/or liability of any kind. If StupidVideos feels that any video display these characteristics, they will reject/remove the submission.

These three video sharing sites are very different, but are all used similarly. The type of content in each of these sites are completely different. Besides the content, the lay-outs, and organization of data slightly varies from site to site. CollegeHumor, compared to the other two is a bit more explicit. It has a "Girls" section and displays a "Cute College Girl of the Day." This is not organized in the other sites. Dailymotion is a more general video sharing site, compared to the other two which specialize in a specific type of content aimed for a specific audience.

The three sites are similar in the way they are constructed. There is a home page, a link/tab to the video section, different video categories, and a commenting feature. At the main Video section there is always a section of newly posted videos. All of these sites also allow users to share the video in different ways such as Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, and includes URL and embedded code. All of the sites include a few ads which can attract users when viewing videos. Members can join groups and communicate in forums/communities. They all also include a "featured" or all-time best category. All sites also feature a rating system (5-star) which can give users feedback and also help viewers find good-quality videos.