More strange internet dealings happening that threatens the current web structure! Canadian ISPs have decided to put a hardcap on the amount of bytes people can use on the internet. They will offer tiered levels that give more space. What does this mean? This means that large downloads such as movie streaming or online content delivery (such as Steam) will be heavily less appetizing now. Furthermore, people just can't use the internet as freely as they want to!
Also people now will have a much better incentive to block ads to save bandwidth. What will this mean? Many free services will lose revenue that they otherwise would not be losing. This may be a huge issue in itself!
It is not unheard of for ISPs to block certain users for obscene amounts of data traffic (up in the terabytes). Comcast has gotten many complains about this from active peer to peer file sharers. However, this is the first time that an ISP has decided to cap the data flow at such a low level for everybody. This assumes that the outliers that actually affect the network are the common case which definitely is not true.
Yes this is not nearly as crazy as what is happening in Egypt right now but it certainly is quite a stir for the internet community. It may just blow over sometime soon but we'll see what happens.
Monday, January 31, 2011
3D movies and new technology
Does anybody actually like 3D movies and 3D TVs? The cost of buying these new devices are ungodly obscene. Movies also cost extra but are they worth it? The glasses just seem to fog up the color and vibrance of the movie itself not to mention that only about 20% or less of the content is actually "3D" for most movies. The magic just isn't really there. Until the day that we can watch such things without extra peripherals I'm going to keep my money out.
And what about the Nintendo 3DS? Gimmicky? Headache inducing? Probably. The angle that you can see the screen without having to adjust your head is about 1 tiny degree. Why is everybody pushing the need for 3D so much? As of now the content given does not seem to be useful at all but rather just a flashy technique for people to spend money on. However if somebody comes out with a holodeck like experience I definitely will buy it.
Augmented reality applications however are really cool. Especially with phones becoming so powerful and connected to the cloud, data can be (pre)processed and delivered on the fly. Have people heard of the Google Goggles? Image search recognition on the phone immediately. It is some really cool stuff that will definitely light up the tech world if it becomes prevalent. I will hold off on getting a smart phone for now though. Shouldnt be buying too many toys in such a short amount of time :)
And what about the Nintendo 3DS? Gimmicky? Headache inducing? Probably. The angle that you can see the screen without having to adjust your head is about 1 tiny degree. Why is everybody pushing the need for 3D so much? As of now the content given does not seem to be useful at all but rather just a flashy technique for people to spend money on. However if somebody comes out with a holodeck like experience I definitely will buy it.
Augmented reality applications however are really cool. Especially with phones becoming so powerful and connected to the cloud, data can be (pre)processed and delivered on the fly. Have people heard of the Google Goggles? Image search recognition on the phone immediately. It is some really cool stuff that will definitely light up the tech world if it becomes prevalent. I will hold off on getting a smart phone for now though. Shouldnt be buying too many toys in such a short amount of time :)
Sunday, January 30, 2011
XKCD 1/31/11
Randall Munroe could not have possibly been more right. Cept in the college life, there definitely should be a ramen box in there! I always tell myself that I should go and try to learn how to cook every now and then but I never get around to it. The main turn off is the few hours needed to go and clean stuff up afterwards :(
Migrating google accounts
If you're like me and made your gmail account in middle school and have been using it ever since, you may have a horrible address for doing real work. I've managed to acquire a respectable gmail account and I need to transfer all my data. Googling around found me this link: http://lifehacker.com/5602545/how-to-migrate-your-entire-google-account-to-a-new-one from lifehacker. We'll see how well it works.
Been away for a while
I'm not ready to go and start posting on the blog. Expect to see some programming material as well as some strategy stuff go up soon.
-Zack
Small status update
I'm getting a bit worried about the position of the blogspot right now. Every single blog has not even shown up on the searches. The last time Google has scanned them was on Wednesday the 26th! Is all this effort I'm putting in going to go to waste? Hopefully something corrects itself and puts the rest of the team up on the rankings. Right now it's just undergraduates competing from what I can see. I wonder how everything will change once the grad students come in? Or will they at all?
Save your eyes!
f.lux is a cool piece of software that adjusts the color warmth of your screen based on the time of day. If you notice at night, your screen can get really harsh due to the bright colors it emits. flux remedies this by "warming" up the colors to a more sepia-ish tinge. It really works!
Even if you have an ambient light sensor for your computer, the color difference can be seen even with the change in brightness. You can download it here. Help support these guys with this innovative piece of software!
Even if you have an ambient light sensor for your computer, the color difference can be seen even with the change in brightness. You can download it here. Help support these guys with this innovative piece of software!
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Egypt protests
Compiled video of the protests in Egypt. I honestly hope somebody steps up and makes sure the protestors get their voices heard...
Status update
Right now our Academia sister site is fighting for a top spot on Google. However, our blogs have not even penetrated the search results! This is getting kind of crazy and out of hand. I feel like Google has already trained their bots to give meaning to the word "rankmaniac" as spam. I wonder how this project will progress and what will come of it as we get farther and farther down the road.
China blocks Egypt
Okay now this is getting out of hand. China has now blocked content that contain the word Egypt due to the protests going on. I guess they don't want their own citizens to take an example?
--
China has blocked the word "Egypt'' from the country's wildly popular Twitter-like service, while coverage of the political turmoil has been tightly restricted in state media.
China's ruling Communist Party is sensitive to any potential source of social unrest.
A search for "Egypt'' on the Sina microblogging service brings up a message saying, "According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown".
The service has more than 50 million users.
News on the Egypt protests has been limited to a few paragraphs and photos buried inside major news websites, but China Central Television had a report on its midday broadcast.
China's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment Saturday on the events in Egypt.
--
Source
--
China has blocked the word "Egypt'' from the country's wildly popular Twitter-like service, while coverage of the political turmoil has been tightly restricted in state media.
China's ruling Communist Party is sensitive to any potential source of social unrest.
A search for "Egypt'' on the Sina microblogging service brings up a message saying, "According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown".
The service has more than 50 million users.
News on the Egypt protests has been limited to a few paragraphs and photos buried inside major news websites, but China Central Television had a report on its midday broadcast.
China's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment Saturday on the events in Egypt.
--
Source
Friday, January 28, 2011
Probability and statistics
I am so sad that our prob/stat (Ma2b) didn't have fun examples like this one!
Technology
People these days take technology for granted. We always expect to be able to turn on our laptops and check the web for updates (to this blog right?) without fail. But the event in Egypt has got me thinking of what can go wrong. A government can just decide on a whim to take away an entire country's internet is just plain ridiculous! I honestly hope more people look and realize how atrocious this is but also how dependent we are on technology to survive.
Also, I'm just going to hate it when my paper runs out of batteries.
Also, I'm just going to hate it when my paper runs out of batteries.
Ramble
I awoke to the phone ringing and even though it felt like I hadn't slept all that well after I got up and had some coffee I knew the 6 hours of sleep had really helped A LOT! I'm not saying though, that I won't tell you to f* off if you're giving me more information than needed.
Maybe Ill tell you about the fantastic evening I spent mostly alone last night. I was going to tell you about the The Back Facial..... which was soooo incredible you just can't believe it....... but I'm going have to save that for later. Sorry there was no post yesterday, but I spent all day driving up from L.A..... and by the time I got here, it was all I could do just to check my email! Last night when we got home I was so tired/bored that I just got ready for bed and listened to Sigur Ros until I fell asleep. When they ring the call bell two seconds after I was just in there and they want me to do something stupid like.... fix the blanket on their lap, I will ask them why they waited til I left the room. I was told i bird walk, it means like, talking about something, going off on a tangent and talking about something completely different, then going back to what i was talking about before like i havent been ranting about something else for the last 5 minutes.
I had the thought, in the middle of my spiky moments on Tuesday and Wednesday, that I've probably been on a wrong track in my general efforts, perceptible through this journal, to keep undue hopefulnes out of my daily round.
Maybe Ill tell you about the fantastic evening I spent mostly alone last night. I was going to tell you about the The Back Facial..... which was soooo incredible you just can't believe it....... but I'm going have to save that for later. Sorry there was no post yesterday, but I spent all day driving up from L.A..... and by the time I got here, it was all I could do just to check my email! Last night when we got home I was so tired/bored that I just got ready for bed and listened to Sigur Ros until I fell asleep. When they ring the call bell two seconds after I was just in there and they want me to do something stupid like.... fix the blanket on their lap, I will ask them why they waited til I left the room. I was told i bird walk, it means like, talking about something, going off on a tangent and talking about something completely different, then going back to what i was talking about before like i havent been ranting about something else for the last 5 minutes.
I had the thought, in the middle of my spiky moments on Tuesday and Wednesday, that I've probably been on a wrong track in my general efforts, perceptible through this journal, to keep undue hopefulnes out of my daily round.
XKCD 1/28/11
New XKCD from today
Tagline: But the windows! What if theres a voyeur watchi -- wait now I'm turned on too.
Tagline: But the windows! What if theres a voyeur watchi -- wait now I'm turned on too.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Response to Egypt's internet shutdown
I would feel exactly the same! But in all seriousness, this is a big deal.
Status update
Right now the highest website on Rankmaniac 2011 are websites on the Caltech domain. This is most likely since Caltech is a trusted name. Sadly, Wikipedia links now are all no-follow so spamming there will make no difference! I wonder what would be a good target then...
Project specifications
Our project is based off of SEO, or search engine optimization. We want to get as high as we possible can on the Google and Bing searches for the term "rankmaniac 2011". It's definitely much harder than it seems!
We need all of the clicks we can possibly get. Every one counts!
We need all of the clicks we can possibly get. Every one counts!
Handhelds getting out of hand
Anybody else catch the new release from Sony? The NGP, a QUAD-core successor to the PSP. Looks pretty neat and probably way overkill on processing power. And the size...? I don't think pocket systems have gotten any smaller these days.
Now about that 3DS. A headache inducing 3DS yes, more gimicky? Probably.
Edit: relevant
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Zero Punctuation - MineCraft
For the people that don't know, Yahtzee is a funny, fast talking, and absolutely brutal video game reviewer that records the Zero Punctuation series. Today's topic is Minecraft. Minecraft is a relatively new game that lets you build whatever you want using whatever you can gather. It is a virtual sandbox! People have built many cool things on Minecraft such as an 8-bit computer and various other fun stuff.
Rankmaniac 2011
Hey guys, first post to get started on this assignment for Caltech CS144 (Blog). We'll try to put as much fun content on this blog as possible! The people working on this site are:
Zack Gomez, and Ye Lu
Let the RankMania ensue!
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