A year ago, I wrote of my frustrations in finding others who were hungry or wanting to take over the world.  I couldn't put my finger on why I was stuck in the situation (and still am).  I thought perhaps it was a generational gap, since my social circles mainly consisted of people who were often more than 8 years older than me when I was in middle and high school.  At other times, I thought it was perhaps society degrading overall and becoming more flakey, passive.

I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I just don't belong on the west coast though, or at least in the bay area.  I've been reading more about the east coast (and just other places in general); this article, for example, mentions how ambition is often shunned in the bay and that really hit home for me as that is the treatment I get from most my peers:
http://www.therejectionist.com/2011/09/all-things.html

Likewise the herd mentality to do what's cool or trendy rather than find something...[More]

The Flow of Water by Denny Schneidemesser

Just got my Mycestro this week and have to say it's very impressive.  The first questions I had when I read about it was its comparison to Leap Motion.  They're very different devices.

For Leap Motion, you must remain near the device and there's a learning curve to pointing and "clicking" efficiently.

For Mycestro, you can be anywhere in the room and control the mouse.  There's no pointing needed.  It's actually easier to just rotate your wrist or tilt your hand to move the mouse as opposed to doing any waving.  Clicking is done by just actually pressing the tactile buttons with your thumb.

I'm really...[More]

Useful plugin for preventing Google Hangouts from timing you out if you're not there to check in every hour or so.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/131680

Pocket drones are finally here.  Bahaha

Unfortunately I missed the pre-order deadline, so I'll have to wait until summer probably to get one.

Most interesting piece to read in a while.  They pretty much ruined Satoshi's life now though, if the article is accurate about how much he values his privacy (and assuming it's actually him).  Absolutely no shame in the media these days.
http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html

The problem with many people is they're waiting for a train but when some old bus comes along, and they see the train so far away in the distance, they go ahead and take that bus, even when it's going the wrong way.

A short summary of the skills I've accumulated throughout my life, almost all of which are self-taught (school only confused me and made up names for things I was already doing <_< ).  Much thanks for the support from online gaming communities I was active with in 2003-2007 back when the internet was much smaller.  I have been programming and making games since I was 12, creating short films and composing music since I was 14, and trading stocks since I was 18.  My latest projects and activities can be found at my creations page.

Technology and Multimedia
• Programming: HTML/CSS, PHP, (My)SQL, Java(Script), AS3, C++/#, Hadoop, Ruby, Python
• Video/Photo: After Effects, Premiere, Encore, Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator.
   - Post,...[More]

To the Moon by Kan Gao

Found the best view for New Year's Eve fireworks on top of my apartment in SF, which overlooks the Bay Bridge and Ferry Building.  Now I got to get my camera skills back up to par.

Before I even speak, they walk away... A string of unthrown surprises, never to see the light of day.

I totally agree with a recent article here about many "ambitious" ventures nowadays being rather small in vision (or not really world changing as the author describes it):
http://www.mercurynews.com/michelle-quinn/ci_24582668/quinn-startups-lack-ambition-but-may-save-world

The article nails what has been bugging me ever since I moved to the bay area. The hard part about describing this is that technically these projects are ambitious since they're already going outside the set career path and all, but it's like doing the bare minimal community service hours to claim you volunteer actively.

It's hard to tell if it's a Bay Area thing or something trending amongst society as a whole. My hope is that it's just a regional thing, or else my moving away to start over will be in vain. Yet where do you move to find people who actually want to take over the world (as opposed to just making some app to help you find a taxi -_-)?

Windows 8 is pretty fast and streamlined compared to Windows 7, despite all the negative hype on its Metro screen and whatnot.  You can disable the Metro screen and restore the Start button by downloading Classic Shell.  With Windows 8.1, you can use the 8.1 start button to bring up the classic start menu as well.

Battle for Immortality (for Houdini SFX Reel 2012) by VideoHelper

Can't wait to use this.  Sounds just like "Multivac" from The Last Question if you've read it.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2063500/ibm-to-offer-watson-supercomputer-as-cloud-development-platform.html

Anyone want to partner up and code for it when it becomes available?

Jack of all trades? Maybe if I were a master of none and each of my trades alone were not better than your mastery of one.

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

We started on a planet once located in the Asteroid Belt, but that exploded.  We came to Mars, but the atmosphere blew away.  Finally, we came here but hit our heads and called ourselves Earthlings.

Last of Us Cover by Elspeth Eastman

     Just had the trouble of accidentally going the Custom > Format route for upgrading my Windows computer.  It ended up formatting and erasing my old existing Windows before installing the upgrade.  Unfortunately, that meant the upgrade key was not supposed to work anymore.

     An easy way to resolve it is to just leave the key blank so that you can use Windows for 30 days.

     Once logged in, create a folder "Windows.old" in the C:\ drive.

     Then go to Control Panel to activate your Windows copy.  The upgrade serial key will work fine.