Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Weird Dream

So I had a dream that I was on a train recently..... that train decided to take off and started flying...
So odd!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Shocked!

I went to GMS last week and was quoted nearly 800$ to replace my shocks!!!

I checked out probetalk and found someone selling them in Toronto for 150$ for a set of 4!!! whereas GMS was selling them 279 for front and 279 for the back! excluding taxes!!

Anyhow, I'm just glad I found these! I don't have to waste more money unnecessarily!!

My girlfriend picked up a iMac yesterday. Although I'm a pc person, I can easily admit that the Mac is a much prettier machine, and a more elegant OS. HOWEVER, I can also say that you can simply do more with a PC... The PC lets you customize more and simply gives you more options... including more viruses and popups... But anyhow :-P

All that to say that based on my previous post on Flow, you can see how people will enjoy the mac experience better and how windows vista is slowly adding more animations, and visual elements to it's OS to include more of a Flow style. Mac does this and people simply eat it up because it's just so damn cool

Anyhow, I'm happy that my girlfriend is happy with it. Her mom mentioned that if it keeps her doing her work, then it's worth the price. I agree mainly because it's actually pretty interesting to have a mac and a PC in the same home. It lets us keep abreast in both technologies.

I'm sitting in the library at York right now with my girlfriend and my cousin Candice. I'm studying up on Java and other technologies, while my girlfriend is off looking for books for her class with Candice.

What's interesting in the news:
Why are mothers still dying in childbirth? More than 500,000 women die per year!!

Is the Era of American dominance over? Some say the global financial crisis is seeing the US fall from power! Read the interesting article for really great information!

Race relations issue over military pants worn by MTL cops? Not much to say, read the article for more obvious info.



Friday, September 26, 2008

It continues

The road is dark and I’m tired, however I cannot stop. At times, the moon, my only source of light as I ripped down the highway towards Toronto. My car, dark red, sleek and quick. The engine freshly rebuilt was revving at 4,000 rpms.

I had recently installed some new features on the engine to allow it to pickup speed quicker. A brand new supercharger as well as a large tank of NOS. I knew I would eventually need to use it, and sure enough now was the time. Behind me I see 2 sets of lights pulling up quick. We’ve all taken the time to watch in our rear view to identify the lights. I knew all too well that these were the brand new cop cars sent out in these types of situations. I had looked up the specs of these cars a few weeks ago and was taken a back. These beasts could leave a Ferrari in the dust!

By the time I was sure who they were, they were already 3 car lengths behind me. I hear a few gun shots as I downshift in hopes to escape them. I can't seem to pull away; they stay by my side and start shooting at the car. I turn off all my lights and flip on the night vision I recently installed. The shots stop and they try to pull in closer. I realize that I'm going to need to use all I’ve got to truly escape from these machines. I flip a switch above and to the right of me. It reveals a new panel with a few other buttons. I switch 2 of them on so the car can be a little lower to the ground. I flip the final two and hear the second supercharger flip on. A smile comes across my face as my eyes lookup to the rear-view mirror. I flip the final switch and watch oil spill behind me. Warmth comes over me as the gauge in front reads "READY". I floor the accelerator and watch as I accelerate from 160km to 260 in the blink of an eye. An intense rush comes over me as I evade and fly down the highway. The 2 cops cars slip and sliding, end up crashing into each other and disappear out of my site .


I must escape, I must show them that I was framed. How will I do this? I have no idea, but we will find out soon enough.

travel by metal wheels

I'm heading to toronto by train tonight... I'm super tired that I might take a coma when i get to my destination...

Exciting.... ?

In the news lately:

- Bad/tainted milk in china killing many
- oh and it seems to be spreading...
- Arctic ice is melting pretty fast
- US and Pakistan seem to be at war with each other
- North Korea wants to reopen nuclear facility
- Georgian conflict still around...
- Terrorists arrested on plane
- 700bn bailout plan
- Listeria in Canada

Overall, it seems to be a great year!

Oh, I'm getting a new engine... I guess that's positive? :-)

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Intrinsic Motivation

When people participate in a hobby or activity without external incentive.

ie: I'm taking up photography because I want to learn more about it and to master it.

How does one becoming intrinsically motivated?
  • Attribute their educational results to internal factors that they can control (e.g. the amount of effort they put in),
  • Believe they can be effective agents in reaching desired goals (i.e. the results are not determined by luck),
  • Are interested in mastering a topic, rather than just rote-learning to achieve good grades.
Source

Something I've noticed recently...

Flow

Recently, i've been reading and also noticing that flow is a vital component in our lives. In everything we do, we must have a flow. What am I talking about, you might be asking???

Take a look around at your everyday actions and you'll noticing a recurring pattern. Nothing transitions in an abrupt manner; Lights do not go from green to red.

Everything and every successful action usually involves a particular flow of some sort. For example look at apples UI interface, which uses flow to excite the users subconscious. Every action performed typically results in a fade or slide or zoom or collapse action. Each of these actions guides the users eyes or satisfy the users subconscious by showing them what is happenning.

I'm working on UI right now at my company and i'm seeing something very important that needs to be implemented, and that's flow. Essentially, web pages should not simply go from one page to the next, but instead smoothly transition to the next page. I'm not talking super fades or slide up effects... But subtle effects that excite the users subconscious and please the mind. Click a button can cause the button to slightly fade out slowly, while the page fades out in a smooth fashion and the new page fades in.

The same is said in everyday actions and in general on how and why we work.

When in a state of flow, we lose track of time, we are fully immersed in what we are doing. This is why breaking the flow causes the brain to think of other things and to have a hard time getting "back into it".

For example: You are playing a game that changes from one scene to the next. To keep the person in the game and fully interested, you will need to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible. I've seen this first hand, how a bad transition totally gets you out of your flow. I used to play Half-Life and would notice that during the transition scenes it would take several seconds to load the new scene. A "pause" would be presented on screen while it would load the next level. I went from fully immersed in the game, to thinking about other things I needed to do. Once the next level loaded, I saved my game, quit it and left to do other things.

How can you achieve flow in yourself?
1) You have to enjoy what you are doing to it's fullest extent.
2) You must feel challenged in a way that makes you feel positive.
3) You must feel skilled for what you are doing /working on.
4) You must concentrate on the "task" you are working on.

Focus strong enough and you will lose track of time, you will feel like you are in "the zone" in a sense.

This is where flow is important as once you reach this point, you can remain immersed and essentially feel a sense of happiness as you are working towards something positive that will ultimately reach an end goal that you desire.

Websites are slowly implementing this by having a nice welcome screen that shows pretty products. You want to click it and see what they have to offer. Once inside, the flow has begun and the site can now tease you and make you feel challenged to get more information on the product. Once you've reached the end point, you can be convinced that the final goal is to purchase the item, and if focused enough, you will.

...The more you know... :)

Wiki Focus


In lighter news...

Is this the best way to torment a telemarketer?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

A thousand soldiers don't want it

If a thousand soldiers currently in the military decided against the war and started a group about it, would you be curious what they are all about? Would you be surprised at the number? Probably not, but it's interesting to read either way.

Sure, Iraq has slipped partially off the radar recently, but that hasn't stopped the Iraq Veterans Against the War(IVAW) from remaining strong in it's effort to bring troops home. They're spending their own money to be heard and take action.

Read more


Engines....

The time has come... I want to keep my car... (1993 Ford Probe). I like my car oddly enough. ... Oddly enough I was never into the ford probe many years ago because I was more into HP/TQ. Now I'm more into handling. Not to say the ford probe doesn't have power. It has a decent amount for a car it's size.

However, this car now has 205,000 km's on it. It's in need of a water pump and a timing belt change. If I had my own place, then sure I would attempt this myself as a weekend job, but I don't. If I don't change it, the car will soon seize as the timing skips... if I don't, I run the risk of it happening to me at the most inopportune time.

Thus comes the bigger picture. Changing and installation of both parts involves MAJOR work on the car because the parts are difficult to get to. One quote estimated the job at about 800$ without replacing the water pump. Thus, roughly 1k for a timing belt job with new water pump.
Oh and I never calculated the cost of changing seals because I'm burning oil.

A new motor for this car is roughly 800$, and with installation comes to 1400$. Thus for 4-500$ more, I could have a new engine with only roughly 80k on it. The engine would have 40 more hp at the wheels and would have newer parts. Ideally this would offset the cost of the maintenance required on the engine itself from other possible problems. Note that this also includes an alternator and other parts... A total that would make the difference of the 400-500 more.

That said, this Friday is when this car gets a new engine! I thought about it over and over and over again and I firmly believe it's the best choice. Combine that with 250$ a year insurance and pretty good gas mileage on a V6 engine, and I simply cannot think of a better option. Buying a new Yaris for example would still put me in debt for 15k, while this one time fee would be roughly 1500 over 3 years (expected duration of car's life).

What do you think? Let me know!


Poke me, Poke 3

When I was 10-ish (maybe younger?), my mom went to see the doctor. I patiently waited outside in the car. I eventually got out of the car and started walking around. For some reason I ended up finding a needle near the garbage. I'm assuming it probably fell out of one of the doctors garbage bags. Being the intelligent child that I was, I gently brought it inside to show my mom. Everyone was rather impressed that even at that age I did not do anything stupid with it.

Unfortunatly the same cannot be said about this story where a child in school finds a hypodermic needle and pokes herself with it. THEN she pokes 3 friends!?!?!? How, why???

Link: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7496606&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.2.1

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Warren Buffet invests 5Billion in Goldman Sachs

WOW! Could you imagine a day when a SINGLE person donates 5 billion dollars to a large company? This is obviously one of the richest men in america, helping out an investment bank. It's just so hard to fathom, as it should obviously be the other way around.

They've Gun Missing...

I can't imagine how in this day and age we can lose weapons? Seemingly only 2.7% of 370,000 weapons made it "back". That's an incredible amount which has simply "vanished".

We have software that tracks anything and everything... we have RIAA tracking down illegal MP3 downloads, yet we cannot track weapons. Simply put, i'm in complete shock.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/23-4

Has the Shock Doctrine returned? (Wall street)

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/23-1

Just when you thought the Arctic was doing bad....

You realize there's a time bomb waiting to be released underneath it :-/

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1060041/New-global-warming-threat-scientists-discover-massive-methane-time-bomb-Arctic-seabed.html

It's amazing how much mother nature put up with.... What do you think?

Mitsubishi - a banking company?

Mitsubishi buying stake in Morgan Stanley?!? I never thought they could also be a large bank... What else does Mitsubishi do?!?!?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7629516.stm

Jane and Finch...

I've determined this to be one of the most dangerous corners/areas of Toronto. I'm reading news stories and all I hear are stories of crime and murder hapenning on this street and/or this intersection...


Link: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2008/09/23/6848926-sun.html

Murderer walks away from jail...

Only to turn himself in shortly after........ Interesting... I guess? Pretty sweet of him to actually come.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2008/09/17/6796621-cp.html

Detroit: We need 25 billion please....

Interesting. I simply cannot understand how a car company that's been around for the longest time is requesting 25 billion!

Moreover, the only reason is because they were supposed to be given this money because it's to aid in cars becoming more fuel efficient!

WTF???? Does anyone realize that trains have been running electric/engines for the longest time. Granted it applies slightly differently in cars, however why are we only starting to see this now? They now want money to make sure they can reach their target???

http://www.newsweek.com/id/159536?from=rss

$700 billion?!?!

It's impressive how much money the US has!

I mean... how how can they just help out these companies, seemingly so easily...

Anywho...

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/160367?from=rss

Monday, September 22, 2008

battles...

Dane Cook had a great joke about owning a pet monkey... I rightfully agree with him!

As he once said(kinda):

I would love to own a pet monkey! Imagine how cool that would be? you'd be at work, have a rough day... you get home and as you walk in, you're like: monkey where are you?!??! meanwhile the monkey is making it's monkey noises... you keep walking around looking for him. at this point with your sword, only to find it yelling out "over here". at this point you battle in the living room for hours! Though to your shock your monkey has learned english. You ask it how? It replies that it taught itself to speak.

I dunno... one day I'd like to have a pet monkey... Well.... I'd also like to have a pet skunk. They're supposed to be great pets. BUT I could not battle a skunk. That's what makes a monkey's possibilities so endless. Properly trained, it could maybe even do covert CIA missions!

I'm guessing the best way to battle a monkey would be with a Nerf sword. This limits both personal damage as well as damage to your home environment!

We could even wear some type of body armour! That would be sick!

In other news...

I haven't bball in a while. A friend told me today how he's running up 28 flights of stairs everyday as a bball workout. I was in awe. I ran up 2 flights of stairs and was out of breathe for 8 minutes.. j/k... I'm in decent shape.

anywho, tomorrow is a new day...


Endorphins

http://www.painandwellness.com/images/pain_management_1.gif

Complexities

The brain is a fascinating device.

The brain processes a number of thoughts and emotions every minute, every second and delivers an end result to you for you to work with. IE: a call received, sadness heard, sadness felt, brain processes, result delivered to you... you choose to see the person, or choose to console them, etc....

It's said there are 8 levels of consciousness... All having developed over the centuries:
  1. The Bio survival circuit: Basic survival instinct. Flight or Fight. Stimulated by Opioid.

  2. The Emotional Circuit: Submissive or Dominant (Activated when child learns to walk).
    Stimulated via alcohol. Seen as someone standing up tall to fight, or cowering as in flight.

  3. The Symbolic Circuit: Concerned with Logic and symbolic thought. deals with dextrous movement and handling. Stimulated via caffeine and other stimulants.

  4. The Domestic Circuit: Concerned with operating within social networks and transmission of culture. No drug is associated with this, however Endorphins are produced by the body.

  5. The Neuroelectric Circuit: Concerned with becoming independent. "Consciousness of abstracting". Essentially telepathic communication. Impossible to explain to the left-brained and those with active fifth brain circuits.

  6. The Neurogenetic Circuit: Allows access to the genetic memory contained in DNA. Connected to memories of past lives. Allows for essential immortality in humans. Stimulated by LSD.

  7. The Psycho-atomic Circuit: Allows the brain to access intergalactic consciousness. Associated with Ketamine and DMT.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-Circuit_Model_of_Consciousness)

I read that if a lot of people do not attend a large event, then those people have possible tapped into their unconscious. (their neurogenetic circuit). This can explain why there are empty seats at an event where the event sufferes a tragic event. People unexplainably cancel, or decide against going because of a "gut" feeling...

So... The next time you see a place half empty... stand near the door... just in case :-)

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Vista :-(

I finally reinstalled xp on my home pc... I don't think i've ever seen a computer crash so many times in my life!

I had Vista installed for roughly a year, hoping to give it a chance. BUT... alas.... no go! It's probably the worst operating system I've ever had the chance to use. Even BeOS was far superior! That said... Seemingly MS has managed a revenue increase of 13%!!

All that to say, i'm glad I've reverted back to XP. It's stable, quick, and so many less headaches! Finally my Internet Explorer no longer crashes! Or my Explorer... Or my.... well the list goes on.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/160064

Today... I sit in a library. I'm going to read up on The Embodied Mind. "Cognitive Scence and Human Experience"... While my girlfriend, sits in front of me blogging and also doing her school work.

I leave you with a random quote:

"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."
Tom Robbins
US novelist (1936 -


Thursday, September 18, 2008

Montreal - Toronto

I'm passenger in a car headed to toronto... that's a first... plus I don't get it.. but the roads are so empty today!

I'm passing south stormont... travelling a brisk 140km/hr :D

The sun is blinding, like opaque sun glasses. The lines on the road go on and on... the windshield wipers are moving now water is sprayed across the windshield. Interesting how it's an appropriate name... Wind Shield... I thank you for shielding me from the wind. However, you're name does not perfectly describe you as you also shield me from rain sleet and snow... Not to mention random eggings and bird poop.

I bought caffeine pills about a month ago to battle my tiredness which sometimes take over like a sheep dog let loose in the wild. Today i took 2 this morning to keep me awake at work. I took another 2 about 10 minutes ago. The bottle says to not exceed 10 pills per day. IF I ever need to take 1000mg of caffeine in 1 day then i have other issues i must deal with...

anywho... back to driving... err being passenger... woot! Toronto here I come, with all your fine roads!

It has begun

It’s dark. The sun has set and you are thinking about things you never thought of before. Why not? The road is empty; you see nothing for miles. You reflect, you think, you process. You can’t imagine what you just did. You chose to run away and rightly so as the police were right around the corner.

What are you going to do now? What you’re feeling has invoked a sense of fear. However, you know that you must push forward and make your way to the next checkpoint. You were given the game plan, now you must follow it………