asdf

// posted by // rally // February 25, 2008 @ 10:10pm EST // comments () // link //

StephP135 (11:48:48 PM): i have a new motto for us
StephP135 (11:48:58 PM): "if you're not having a bad week, then you're not in a good start up"
Vertical Dizzy (11:48:48 PM): HAHAHAAH
Vertical Dizzy (11:49:03 PM): i... um...
Vertical Dizzy (11:49:15 PM): i don't know whether to say "good, we have a good startup" or "i hope you never have a good week"

// posted by // rally // September 03, 2007 @ 11:50pm EST // comments () // link //

Quote of the day: "Whoa, it's a big penguin." - Steve

(trust me, this sounds much more entertaining in the middle of a computer lab after 2 hours of mindless tape capturing)

// posted by // rally // August 28, 2007 @ 11:24pm EST // comments () // link //

Yeah, so I haven't updated this in a while...

- Optix Productions is up and running now. It's tiring, time consuming, but a lot of fun.

- Job hunting season has started. I'm actually kind of looking forward to applying for jobs... just to see what happens.

- Biomedical engineering is pretty fun. I like my classes. They are pretty bio-based, with a dash of technical stuff. Perfect for what I want, I think. And I love all my classmates (fellow M. Engers). It's kind of like being premed, minus all the competition.

- I'm broke. Very broke. Living on credit card right now. =)

// posted by // rally // August 24, 2007 @ 3:58pm EST // comments () // link //

Tax free weekend in Texas this weekend. =) Katy Mills trip!?!?!?

// posted by // rally // August 17, 2007 @ 01:23am EST // comments () // link //

Today was the last day of my internship. So sad! I spent most of today hanging out with the other interns (had lunch with two of them) and around 4pm they had a cookie and ice cream "party" for me, so the interns got another excuse to mill about and not work. =)

Next few days are going to be hectic cleaning up and packing up to move out of this horrible sublet. And then 1 week cruise with the fam, 5 days in Houston, and then back to Cornell!

// posted by // rally // August 03, 2007 @ 01:01am EST // comments () // link //

SlashDot published an article today about using Google and other high-traffic search engines to start saving power for the world.

When I first read it (even before visiting in depth the links that the article was using), I already knew what they meant. Sad. I'm a nerd. I also read SlashDot. -_-

Anyway, if you want a warm fuzzy feeling, go use Blackle. It's the energy saving version of Google. =)

// posted by // rally // July 27, 2007 @ 2:02pm EST // comments () // link //

Why Tuesday?

This certainly is an interesting question...

// posted by // rally // July 19, 2007 @ 2:51pm EST // comments () // link //

My take on Sicko

Working at Arts Engine this summer, coming across Sicko and all the ins and outs about it is an inevitability. Michael Moore has transformed the documentary world, putting it smack next to some of the biggest Hollywood hits and really bringing credibility and attention to that sector of the film arena. I just posted his documentary to our database and wrote up the entry to spotlight him on our website. Many people in our company have seen the film.

But, all the voices sound the same. They say the same thing. They agree on the same points. And in some ways, it's impossible to say something to the contrary right now. Public sentiment is so loud right now, it's impossible to hear the minority voice.

So, here's my chance. But first, a disclaimer. 1.) I have not seen the movie yet. 2.) I have never been on the short end of the stick in terms of health care vs. insurance companies. 3.) I skew slightly in the Republican ideals... in most respects. There's no point to go into details about that right now. This isn't the place.

Okay, that being said, there is one more disclaimer that should give credibility to what I'm about to say. I used to be pre-med, but since I applied to med school and did not get in, I have changed my life goals and plans. So, despite getting shafted and denied by the field of medicine, I am going to defend them. Looking past the personal issue right now, here is my overall opinion.

Everyone keeps talking about the movie because it compares our "private", "capitalist" medical system to all of the "socialist" systems of Germany, Canada, etc. Aside from the counter-arguments about wait times and decreased quality of care, I'm surprised that no one has stopped to analyze it a little more holistically. Nobody thinks about it from the point of view of the doctor, who in this case seems to be painted the "villian", but in a completely unjustified and incorrect way. The doctors are not the ones out to gouge you for money and make profits. They are not the ones denying healthcare to their patients. It is the insurance companies that control all of this. When a doctor looks the patient in the eye and says "I can't treat you", it's because the HMO said they couldn't.

Next, why does healthcare cost so much? Because of all the bureaucracy that watches over this country. (This is neither a stab at the Republicans or the Democrats.) Think about the process that goes into developing the technology and drugs that we enjoy today. First, there is the scientist salary, which is relatively high because the cost of living in the United States is higher than most countries. Second, these scientists must apply for grants from the government before they can do their research. This grant money implies an overhead cost from the government, and further an overhead cost for the hospital administration and all the in-between that exist between the scientist and the actual cash. Next, you have the cost of health assurance and safety. The amount of money that goes into keeping sterile conditions is expensive. The amount of money and time that goes into filing paper to assure those sterile conditions is expensive. The paperwork needed to pass drug tests and get approval is expensive. In short, the final product is extremely expensive and cost-bloated. But we enjoy the security of the process and the benefits of the final product that has been extensively tested and (in most cases) proven to work.

Third, health critics credit the United States (at least) with the highest quality of healthcare, albeit the most expensive and least accessible. So think of it this way: American healthcare is a Coach purse, and not everyone can afford a Coach purse. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just trying to point out that you get what you pay for, and in America, we pay for the flashy, ooh-ahh best. After America designs the next cool Coach purse, other countries start to manufacture along that innovation... and the fake Coach purses start to appear. They look just as good, and cost 1/100th the price. But let's ask the question... someone had to make the first genuine Coach purse. How come in the retail world, we don't compliment all those copy-cat fake merchandise dealers, but in the medical world, we applaud the health technology followers?

Fourth, the training and discipline it takes to become a doctor in the United States is steep. Four years of college. Four years of med school. Three years residency. Plus additional years for specializing. No other profession has such a steep entry curve. When Michael Moore pushes for the country to move towards socialized healthcare, they are degrading the value of our doctors. Doctors in Germany make the same average hourly wages as Mcdonald's workers. This isn't because they are paid the same salary, they just have to work so many additional hours to cover the country's healthcare needs that their average hourly wage goes down. And what does that say to the doctor? That we just don't value your knowledge or your time, just work until everyone else is happy except for yourself. But why in the world would someone in Germany be a doctor then? Because they care, about the people and the work that they do. In the end, a socialized medical system punishes the doctors, but leaves the insurance companies and governments unscathed. They will still make their money somehow. It's always the ones at the bottom of the food chain that suffer the most. (Think company layoffs.)

But that's entirely unfair. No other profession in the country relies on the self-drive of the worker to make things happen. The Mcdonald's person doesn't work longer hours because he cares. He gets overtime. The engineer doesn't work longer hours because he "cares" about how his company fares. He gets overtime. So why not pay the doctors overtime? Then the cost goes up, and you might as well go back to the top of this essay and read it all over again.

I'm not saying the US healthcare is better. I'm just trying to ask all the critics and sheep-who-watched-Sicko to think before they make judgment. Sicko may be right, but that isn't to say the other side is necessarily wrong.

// posted by // rally // July 11, 2007 @ 6:18pm EST // comments () // link //

Haven't posted here in a while... stay tuned for another 2-week update of NYC events in the next few days, I think? Hannah scraped the bottom of her memory and managed to remember everything we did every single day from the past 2 weeks. I couldn't remember what we did two day ago.

This is an exciting week coming up. =) Thursday day, I get to go on my first video shoot! And then Thursday night, Election Day is going to be the closing movie for the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. It's going to be a big event for our production company and I've been working on the outreach/publicity for this screening for over a week now. It's gonna be a fun day. =)

And then Friday, I'm heading up to Ithaca for the weekend to meet up with Steve and help Eric move in. (seeing how half of the stuff to move is mine)

// posted by // rally // June 25, 2007 @ 02:42am EST // comments () // link //

I realized today that now that I am no longer in a small town (re: Ithaca), I can go get the in-store pickup option for a lot of the online shopping that I want to do. Oh my... what a horrible revelation. Now I'll be shopping like a maniac online. (And boy are there some SEXY deals online!)

// posted by // rally // June 18, 2007 @ 00:58am EST // comments () // link //

The Work Diaries: Arts Engine

Day 1 -
One of the first things they asked me to do at the office was to go return some P2 tapes to a rental company because they had just finished a shoot. What is a P2 tape? I looked it up because I was curious, too. P2 tape is 4-16GB sized disk (non-moving, non-volatile parts... basically compact flash like) used in HD (high definition) recording. The recording ratio is 1GB = 1 min. In other words, those tapes only held 8 minutes worth of footage before they had to be unloaded. The P2 cards are shaped like wireless cards for PCs. The idea is that you can slide a P2 card into the PCI slot for wireless cards on laptops, and it reads like a hard drive on your computer. Then you copy the footage onto your computer, erase the P2 disk, and it's ready to go again. (Probably explains why they had two P2 disks to return.) Nifty and boldly inefficient, right? Price tag per tape: $1700. That's right... $3400 total for 2 tapes. Luckily they only rented the tapes for a whopping $250. Geez. $250 tape rental?

Next, they had me creating props lists for a new production they are making. It's pretty fun doing something new like that. I rarely have scripts written out to begin with (and seeing the level of detail that they write their scripts in - not very detailed - was also an educational experience), and I have NEVER made a props list before I go on a shoot. The main person working on this film is Julie Pimsleur, the daughter of the Pimsleur family that invented the Pimsleur language learning method. Cool, huh? I hope I get to go to the second shoot which happens at the end of June!

Day 2 -
Changed movies now... started doing outreach for an up and coming movie Election Day. Got to see how far the rabbit hole goes with the social justice hubs and networks. It's quite a different monster trying to publicize in the social justice world, and every step I take has been in a media or channel that I've never thought to use before. Also, I got to have a great conversation with two of my "bosses" about website improvement and what-nots. It's fun that they ask me for my opinions even though I'm a day 2 intern. Better yet, it's even better that they give me whole assignments (the outreach thing is all up to me) on my second day on the job. Also, one of my "bosses" asked me to do some stats research on felon disenfranchisement (the stripping of voting rights from ex-felons) before she went on her radio show interview later that night. Got to learn some interesting things about that. Things like, even though Texas is all Republican and tight-ended and stuff like that, the state with the worst felon disenfranchisement is Virginia and Kentucky. And Florida has relaxed the rules and returned voting rights to about 80% of their ex-felons.

Day 3 -
Changed departments... moved over to programs and tech (as opposed to production). Worked on uploading movies to their movies database. The best part was having to watch the movies to determine which tags they belonged under in the database. After that, they let me into the "command center" of the database and I got to edit some things. Worked on Election Day outreach some more, too.

That's all. Stay tuned for more days! Tomorrow is Intern Day where the interns do no work because all the different departments present to us what kinds of work they do, etc. Should be a fun day. I also don't have work on Fridays... yet.

// posted by // rally // June 14, 2007 @ 02:13am EST // comments () // link //

Life In New York: Week 1

So, I'm going to attempt to document every significant event that happens during Hannah and my stay in New York this summer. We try to go out and do something every day instead of going to work and then coming home to bum.

Since I didn't blog regularly in the previous week, here's the compressed version. Hopefully, later weeks I will be able to keep up better!

June 1-3 - Atlantic City

June 3 - Move in, exploring the neighborhood, shopping at Duane Reade for the first time (CVS of New York)

June 4 - Visited Manhattan Mall (34th St. Herald Square), found a K-Mart (you have no idea what a blessing that was... also on 34th St.), watched Pirates 2 (again, because Hannah hadn't seen it yet. Now, we can go watch Pirates 3.)

June 5 - Visited Chinatown (Canal St. and Broadway), went to that famous ice cream factory in Chinatown, bought fresh fruits!, watched Casino Royale (meh, I still prefer high tech special effects)

June 6 - hung out at Bryant Park (42nd and 6th), ate dinner with Jess at Simply Pasta (41st and 6th), reminisced over old videos taken over the past year at Cornell

June 7 - Hung out at Union Square (14th and Broadway), shopped for half-price book at The Strand book store (12th and Broadway), ate at University Place Restaurant (12th and University), visited Chinatown again, bought a Chinese Chess set

June 8 - woke up at 5:30am to travel down to Rockefeller Center Plaza (50th and 6th Ave.) to watch the live taping of the Today Show and listened to Rihanna perform live, breakfast at Au Bon Pain, headed down to New Jersey for the weekend, bowling with Rodney and Jess, watched Ocean's 13 (FREAKING GOOD MOVIE)

June 9 - ate lunch at Point Pleasant Beach with Jess' parents, shoped at Jackson outlet mall, played Mahjong and listened to Jess and Hannah sing karaoke

June 10 - did laundry for the second time since arriving here, met a very talkative Los Angeles i-banked named Henry Wong who raises money for the Asian American Film Festival in LA, watched Spiderman 3 (OK movie, AMC 25 in Times Square), cooked our first meal instead of eating out!)

June 11 - ate Burger King in Times Square, ate at Pinkberry (32nd and 5th Ave.), visited Manhattan Mall again (briefly), watched Pixar Cars (GOOD MOVIE... so good that I've seen it like 6 times now)

June 12 - got out of work a little late, missed the dinner with Jess and Hannah at Joe's Shanghai (Pell and Bowery), visited The Strand book store again to buy more books to read on the subway, visited Whole Foods (Union Square, 12th and 7th), ate Ben and Jerry's (104th and Broadway), played weird version of Chinese Chess (and game variations) with Hannah, who degrades to the mentality of a 5 year old when we're playing these games...

Okay, so that's everything to date. Quite a lot of things failed, such as the opera concert in Central Park that we were supposed to see today. And we were thinking about watching Beauty and the Beast on Broadway tomorrow night, but we might end up watching a movie instead (Shrek 3?).


Tomorrow... I will attempt to document three days of working experience. I hope to keep a good blog about that, too because the experience is absolutely incredible. I'm so happy!

// posted by // rally // June 13, 2007 @ 02:03am EST // comments () // link //

Just got back from a weekend in Jersey. Getting away is nice, even though I haven't even been in the city (or this apartment) for that long. Barely a week! Work starts tomorrow. =)

Being at Jess' this weekend made me realize how much I really miss home and family feel. It was pretty fun to watch the single-child dynamic. I think single-child families are a lot closer to their parents and share a lot more of the happenings in their day to day lives, as well as their thoughts and feelings. (And more willing to talk about their naughty/bad drinking experiences. =P) And they argue a lot differently, too... without a sibling there to back up the other sibling, or hurt the other sibling by taking the parents' side. It really just comes down to one versus one. Hmm... interesting. And Hannah brings up a good point: there really aren't that many single-child families around us. Nice to know that America is keeping its population levels relatively same (compared to Japan).

// posted by // rally // June 10, 2007 @ 4:58pm EST // comments () // link //

Internet's pretty flaky in the apartment right now (stealing wireless). It's kinda hard to work like I used to (getting whatever program I needed at the moment off bit torrent, or downloading a movie, or watching youtube, even!) but I supposed I'll manage. Guess that means I won't be chatting online that much. =) Makes it kinda hard to pass data up to the phuzzymath server through FTP, too. (Maybe I'll live in Starbucks for a few hours every day.) On the other hand, it's not like I get that many exciting emails anymore. As Hannah puts it, the only emails we get are facebook notifications. -_-

// posted by // rally // June 05, 2007 @ 09:02am EST // comments () // link //

Well... sure haven't written here in a while. The past month has been dedicated solely to hanging out with as many people as I could, moving out, graduating, and hanging out some more. Now that it's all over though... man, what a ride it has been! Slowly, one by one, everyone left Cornell, until it was just me, Jimmy, and Greg left (oh yeah, and Eric!). And then it was just me, Jimmy, and Eric. And now...? I'm on my own. Sigh. Farewell 312 roomies! It has been a wonderful 3 years...

Currently moved into the sublet in the city. It's pretty tiny, but I think Hannah and I have worked out the housing situation. It's in a pretty nice, quiet neighborhood, although I sincerely wish there was a Target or Walmart nearby. There are plenty of Duane Reads and deli/grocery stores, though. Broadway (the street!) is just 2 blocks away and the subway stop is only four blocks away. Work doesn't start for another week, so I have a whole week to myself to figure out where things are in the city. My own mini-vacation because Hannah, Jess, and Steph are all working folks now. I'm the only bum around. =)

Looking forward to this summer's of work. There are too many things I need to/want to do this summer: figure out who I want to be my biomedical engineering adviser for next year (which also determines what my research topic is going to be), work hard at my (unpaid) internship, launch the new phuzzymath blog (finally!), and start up my new business idea (Optix Productions, a video event coverage company).

// posted by // rally // June 03, 2007 @ 10:25pm EST // comments () // link //

I'm trying to fill out the ECE Senior Survey right now... and one of the survey questions is this:

16. Do you feel you will be able to continue your education through self-instruction throughout your life?

16a. Continuing my education through self-instruction is important to me (rate 1-5)

16b. My Cornell ECE training will allow me to continue my education through self-instruction (rate 1-5)


All I can say to this is... now we know they do it on purpose. -_-

// posted by // rally // May 17, 2007 @ 2:09pm EST // comments () // link //

From a recent email correspondence I got from an old friend:

"Do what you love, Albert, and the money will follow...

-Carla Carick
(ex-ESC advisor that moved to Cincinnati)

// posted by // rally // May 16, 2007 @ 4:47pm EST // comments () // link //

I haven't written here in a while, huh? Maybe after finals...

Happy birthday, Jess!!!!

// posted by // rally // May 09, 2007 @ 05:24am EST // comments () // link //

Things to look forward to when this 476 final project is over... (and some things that happen before the project is over)

1. Apple Insomnia Photo Festival - April 27, 2007

2. ECE Video Contest - May 8th, 2007

3. JTBMP Recording - Who knows when


--------------

I'm gonna be in NYC this summer! =) I got my (dream) internship with Arts Engine, a non-profit documentary film producer working half-time as a productions intern and half-time as a tech intern working on their websites and server programming!

// posted by // rally // April 26, 2007 @ 6:42pm EST // comments () // link //