Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

When one goes to a conference targeted at computer security professionals it stands to reason that one will hear a lot of keynote speeches about trends within the security industry and where it thinks it is going. At this years 2008 RSA Conference this trend held true with two notable exceptions. First was Al Gore’s keynote on global warming and technology, which the press covering the show was banned from attending. The second was a far more interesting keynote given that had wide ranging implications and very little to do directly with computer security. Jeff Hawkins, the founder of Palm and Handspring and now founder & CEO of his newest company Numenta, gave that keynote. Image: Jeff Hawkins gives his RSA 2008 keynote D. Spisak

In his talk, Hawkins went over problems that Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers have struggled with, and through trials and tribulations, had grudgingly concluded were if not impossible to solve, extremely difficult at best. One of the problem domains Hawkins examined was visual processing. For example, if you were presented with a series of photos of dogs and cats and asked to classify the animal in each photo, you could do it easily, but a computer using traditional AI techniques would fail miserably.

Hawkins then took a quick tangent through the neural mapping of how monkeys see as a way to introduce the audience to the concept of hierarchical temporal memories. Think of a Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) as a pyramid; at the lowest level you have the greatest number of neurons processing visual input in a very basic way and passing up the hierarchy a reduced set of information that encapsulates the input seen. The other key aspect of this system is the temporal aspect of input processing; we don’t just see what is happening in the present—we have a memory of what things looked like in the recent past as well, which helps us process the massive amount of visual data coming in every second. This process happens at each level: at each step the amount of information and speed of its flow is reduced. Crucially, information can pass bi-directionally between different levels of the hierarchy. It is this bidirectional communication that allows you to see a photo of a cat, recognize the shape, color, and other aspects passing them along to your brain, which then processes this information and recognize the photo as a cat.

Now, why is all of this important? With this enhanced understanding of how information is actually processed it’s possible to try and build an electronic model of an HTM. This is where Hawkins’ company, Numenta, comes into play, creating an electronic HTM development platform for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms called the Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing or NuPIC. (You can download it here.) NuPIC has its own language and syntax, affording developers near-limitless flexibility to build HTM based applications. To help users new to this development platform see what is possible, Numenta has created a demonstration HTM application called Pictures. This HTM application takes in as input a set of photos scanned in at multiple angles and then builds up an ability to start recognizing these photos, even when the images are obscured with noise.

In Hawkins’ talk, he showed recognition results for the Pictures HTM application under different kinds of visual impairment (i.e., static noise, dynamic noise, etc) that were surprisingly good. As the amount of visual noise became denser and more complex the HTM’s accuracy did decline, but was still significantly useful. According to Hawkins, based on Numenta’s experience with creating and enhancing the Picture’s HTM application he predicts that the computer vision problem of asking a computer to ask if a picture is of a dog or a cat could be solved within the next two years. Hawkins also showed examples of photos the Pictures HTM recognized as certain types of objects, like cars or boats when the application had been trained with photos of those objects and then given a set of random photos to try and determine what they are. This demonstration of the power of HTMs is but scratching the surface of what is possible.

Hawkins is keen to caution that HTMs are not a cure-all solution to all kinds of AI/computer learning domain problems. HTMs assume your problem domain can be expressed as a spatial-temporal hierarchy. This is a technology that will have far-ranging implications once it starts to get into the hands of the truly imaginative and creative developers out there. While Hawkins technology currently doesn’t have immediate implications within the security realm, it is easy to see how one might apply the technology to age-old problems within the industry. Natural applications for an HTM could be processing log data from IDS and firewall systems, better face recognition systems, ability to identify dangerous objects in photos or videos.

These are just a few of the applications that this writer can think up. There are likely far more out there that I haven’t thought of that could be just as important or better. Year after year we hear about new security products and services from the industry aimed at businesses and solving their security challenges, but the process has become an incremental one. This was evident at this year’s RSA show. What is needed is something revolutionary, not evolutionary, to help the industry. Perhaps HTMs will turn out to be something these security companies will add to their arsenal and turn into useful tools and solutions that we need.

(Originally posted at TechRevu)

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

These days the devices we carry with ourselves are getting smaller and smarter. Smartphones are becoming more popular both in the business place as well as in the consumer space thanks to the success of the likes of Research In Motion’s Blackberry Smartphone platform and Apple’s iPhone. The designers of these devices are forced to compromise somewhere in order to come up with something that people can still put in their pocket and use. These compromises tend to come in the form of the input options available to users of the devices.

Designers have had two basic options previously, a phone number style keypad with predictive text input or somehow shoehorn in a small keyboard for users to thumb with. With predictive text input systems a user can deal with short messages, but anything longer than an SMS-length message is usually out of the question. On the phones with a built-in thumb-style keyboard there are different consequences of this design choice, usually resulting in either smaller screen sizes or keyboards too small to be useful for long emails. Of course, when the iPhone was introduced the third option, a virtual keyboard was revealed to everyone. All of these approaches have their tradeoffs and some work better for people then others.
But is there a better way to get input for your Smartphone while on the go? The Eleksen Wireless Fabric Keyboard is a worthy choice for all power Smartphone users to consider. You probably haven’t heard of Eleksen, a UK-based company that specializes in touch-sensitive interactive fabrics for wearable consumer electronics garments. Its main technology is ElekTex, an electro-conductive fabric touchpad optimized for the creation of flexible, durable and rugged fabric touch screen interfaces. Eleksen took this technology and mated it to a small Bluetooth module to create a wireless keyboard out of fabric that could be rolled up and fit into your pocket.

The Eleksen keyboard has a QWERTY layout comparable to a full-size keyboard, minus the numeric keypad in a series of five rows of keys. The keys are also color-coded by modal use of the SHIFT key as well. Due to how Eleksen’s ElekTex technology works the keyboard doesn’t support multiple-key chording, which only slightly alters how one uses the unit. To enter a capital letter for example, one would tap the SHIFT key followed by the letter key in question instead of chording the SHIFT key with the letter simultaneously.
The keyboard itself takes some getting used to as tactile feedback from keys is non-existent, however a user’s Smartphone can play a beep for each registered keypress as part of the Eleksen Smartphone driver to provide some feedback to the user. Eleksen provides drivers for practically all Smartphone platforms including Windows Mobile 2003/5/6, Symbian S60 v2/v3, UIQ, PalmOS, Blackberry OS4.1+ as well as for Windows XP. Previous versions of the keyboard had issues with staying in place on smooth flat surfaces, but Eleksen has placed strips of non-slip surface on the back of the keyboard so it will stay in place and this works well. In extensive use of the keyboard the only real aspect of it that requires time and training to get use to is the response characteristics of the spacebar. If you are the kind of typist who is used to just nonchalantly tapping the spacebar while typing, you may find that you have to use a bit more force when hitting the spacebar on the Eleksen for the keypress to register.

While the Eleksen keyboard is not perfect, considering the advantages of the unit’s form-factor for both portability as well as ease of typing it greatly offsets its minor shortcomings making it a strong competitor in the mobile accessory space. This performance, combined with its average street price of $75 makes it a great value for the money and a recommended buy.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

Since the beginning of Feburary 2008 I have been in the unique position to both own an imported Nokia N82 Symbian-based smartphone as well as have access to the beta trial for a new application and website that utilizes the platforms hardware and software potential and is called Qik. Based in San Mateo, CA the start-up currently creates software for Symbian powered mobile smartphones from Nokia, with plans to expand their client to other capable smartphone platforms like Windows Mobile in the future. Qik enables these advanced mobile smartphones to stream video using their built-in camera to the Internet, live, while receiving feedback in real-time from viewers on the Qik website. Qik also enables users to easily share and upload their videos to other video-centric websites like YouTube, Seesmic, and Mogulus while offering integration and notification to Pownce, Twitter, and Blogger.

Think about that for a moment there. Live video to the web, with viewer feedback. Real-time.

Video taken from RSA 2008 keynote using Qik and Nokia N82, handheld

This is the kind of use for advanced technology that allows one to talk about enabling citizen journalism on a massive scale without getting laughed out of a room full of journalism majors, or worse, broadcasters. However, one point that established media types will bring up is the concept of GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. People used to watching news on major broadcast networks have a very high expectation of quality when it comes the the finished video product. Conversely, people who go to video websites like YouTube have a much lower expectation of quality because they don’t see it as competing with television or other traditional broadcast networks.

What does this mean for something like Qik however? It means that if people are going to use this application for something more serious then the more trendy lifecasting applications there has to be a concerned effort to work at improving the quality of the video output to Qik both in content and in raw video quality also. Improving the content of Qik videos is something that is outside of the scope of this article, but improving the raw video quality from Qik is not.

The biggest problem with getting good video out of these phones comes from the fact that they are, in essence, phones. There are camcorders that take better video, cameras which shoot better quality pictures, in essence these phones are technological compromises albeit getting less compromised with each revision. One of the biggest complaints about video quality however arises from Jerky-Cam(tm) a.k.a hand-holding the phone and not holding it steady enough. This has a two-fold effect on the video due to compression being done on the video. First, the video becomes more and more garbled as the codec struggles to keep the output video within the boundaries of the bandwidth limits its settings. Secondly, this additional movement causes the codec to spend more bits encoding movement leaving less bits available for detail in the scene.

The easiest way to combat shaky-cam is to mount the camera onto a tripod, yet this introduces some issues that are unique to the mobile video world I suspect. Chief among these is portability, after all we are talking about taking a small phone and now having to lug around a tripod that is many times the size and weight of the phone itself. More important however is the fact that the phone manufactures havent seen fit to add a standard 1/4″ screw thread mount point to their cameraphones, making use on photographic or video tripods more problematic then it should be.

Partially extended Manfrotto 682B monopod

After looking around the market for solutions to this problem I had a brainstorm and came up with the following solution that I think is a good first step towards getting better video out of Qik and other video applications on the cameraphone in the future. Manfrotto is a well known and respected manufacturer of tripods, monopods, and other gear for photo and video professionals. As it turns out they make a self-standing monopod, the 682B, that lets you have a free-standing monopod. While this is not as stable a platform as a traditional tripod would be it is significantly lighter, smaller, and more portable then others. Using this as a platform for a Nokia N82 for use in Qik is a good compromise between size, weight, and stiffness. However, even using the monopod we still need a way to mount the cameraphone on. This is where the Nokia DT-22 universal tabletop tripod comes in. It comes with a screw-tight clamp that fits most all N series phones and easily detaches from the tabletop tripod and will screw onto a standard 1/4″ camera screw. If you wish to point the camera at various angles you will want to invest in an inexpensive ball mount for the monopod like the Manfrotto 484RC2 mini-ball head with quick-release plate mount.

View of N82 from the front of the Monopod

However, we still have some other issues to address that are more difficult to handle with a mobile phone device. These devices are not equipped with the kinds of designs or battery life that enable them to take video for long periods of time, say and hour or more. Most of these phones would be bricks within the inside of an hour of doing live streaming video to the Internet. Because of this we also need a portable power supply to help augment our phones internal battery. This is where the PPC Techs Lil’Sync USB battery power supply comes in. It’s a 4400mah rated Li-Ion battery and it charges via mini-USB and can charge one device via a regular USB port. Combine this with a Nokia CA-100 USB to DC charging cable for your N series Nokia phone and you now have a way to keep the battery lasting longer for video recording.

Velcro backing to hold Lil’Sync to Nokia DT-22 clamp

Now once you have assembled all these parts you may still have one important hurdle left to jump over if you live in the United States like I do, bandwidth. Unless you are using a Nokia N95-3 or N95-4 model designated for North American usage you will have imported a European GSM phone that has support for 3G networks only on European GSM frequencies and at best will only have access to an EDGE class network for streaming your video over. This means that any attempt to stream video, even if on lower quality settings and a 320×240 resolution in Qik will result in instant building delay between what users on Qik.com see verses what you are seeing in real-time with your phone. It also means getting user feedback will be greatly delayed or nonexistent as well. Short of having an N95 with support for North American 3G networks you will have to rely on WiFi networks for streaming. This works in fixed known locations, but not on the road in random places. For these situations there is a final part to this solution made by a company called Cradlepoint.

Cradlepoint makes EVDO to WiFi bridge routers, specifically the PHS300 or Personal Hotspot. The PHS300 has a built-in Li-Ion battery for 2-3 hours of use without having to be plugged into an outlet. Using an EVDO USB adapter or a EVDO ExpressCard/34 combined with an ExpressCard/34 to USB adapter along with a subscription to a subsequent EVDO unlimited data plan you can provide a WiFi signal to your Nokia with sufficent upstream bandwidth to support full real-time video streaming.

Nokia N82 with Lil’Sync and CA-100 USB Charge Cable

At this stage I have assembled all of the parts mentioned in here except for the Cradlepoint PHS300 which is my next step. I may have to machine a custom mounting plate to hold the PHS300 and the Lil’Sync onto the camera ball-head mount. I will report back once I have acquired the unit and looked into integrating it into the monopod.

Ultimately however, there are still some issues with the phone as a streaming video platform. Namely, when someone calls you! When using Qik, if you get an incoming phone call your video will stop streaming and you wont be able to restart your video stream until after you get off of the phone, unless you are using WiFi for your streaming connection from what I have seen. The Qik client itself is also undergoing frequent changes and the company and its main coders are rather open to suggestions and enhancements to the program which is great.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

FEAR IT!

All of the information can be found on the Evite which is here:

Evite for Dan’s 32nd Birthday Party!

The important thing to remember is that it is THIS WEEK on SATURDAY. I have email addresses for a lot of you people, but not all of you so I have posted this on MySpace where a bunch of you are as well as on my main blog, Vox, LiveJournal, and Twitter.

Hope to see you all there!

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

I know I haven’t posted in a while here but that is going to be changing soon. Life has been pretty busy, but this is for good reasons. Things are getting done and progress has been made. After all, I did graduate! In the meantime, the Nonmundane.org server has moved to new hardware and a new OS. It’s now hosted on a custom box I built running FreeBSD 7 and it seems to be just fine. Sadly however, in the process of moving from the old and busted server (good riddance!) to the new hotness there were some bumps in the road. Namely, my entire Gallery 2 photo database and picture gallery is 7 different kinds of screwed up due to some demolished MySQL tables.

You may also have noticed that the blog is now running WordPress 2.5 and this has caused its own set of headaches. Namely, dealing with broken plugins, semi-functional Wordpress themes and general digital decay and cruft. Most of the blog is working but you will see some parts are, shall we say, running at reduced capabilities.

On top of all of this I am also attempting to figure out where I am having my birthday party still. My real birthday was April 12th which has come and gone and I was unable to celebrate at the time due to working in San Francisco running a show for work. I had a place in mind to have a party this Saturday evening on the 26th, but that fell through. My other alternate in mind wont work either since I know the person will be out of town in the mountains for the weekend. This leaves me with two remaining options, one in Marina Del Rey but I’m not really sure how many people would be able to make it or want to drive all that way or try and figure out yet another possibility. In any case, if you’ve got any ideas I am all ears.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

This year I am hanging out with some friends of mine up in Marina Del Rey for New Years Eve. In case some of you folks dont have plans already or were wondering what is going on then this post is for you. If you are going to show up then give me a call or IM me at docwho76 on AIM or one of my other IM accounts. Here is the info for the New Years Eve party at their apartment in Marina Del Rey starting at 7PM. Here is a link to the Google Maps address of the location:

http://tinyurl.com/2hsxpl

It’s Apartment 204 in Building 6. Right now the Building 6 elevator is broken so you need to park closest to the Building 7 elevator and someone will let you in the door. To park take the small traffic circle and drive down the ramp to the bottom level parking structure. There will be a phone on the left, dial 262 for the apartment for someone to buzz you in. Park as close to the Green Building 7 elevator as possible. You might have to park a ways down the structure depending on how crowded it is.

It’s a pretty big apartment, lots of room. Booze and food will be there, but as usual if you want to bring some beer or food that is always welcome. There will likely be some kind of console gaming going on either Rock Band or Guitar Hero III or the like. The apartment also has a pretty huge outdoor deck as well for all the smokers.

Anyways, let me know if your going to make it or not. Hope you all have a great New Years!

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

Okay everyone, this is the day none of you have been waiting for! I finally got my grade for my last quarter at UCI and I passed all of the classes!

What this means is that barring any bizzare unforeseen circumstances (i.e. I owe the uni money somehow, I turn out to be a figment of my own imagination, etc) I should be officially graduated from UC Irvine with my bachelors degree in Information and Computer Science.

So what does this mean for you, the non-existant reader who cares about this? Well since UCI only does commencement once a year it means I wont walk until June 2008 roughly, and tickets for commencement go on sale sometime in March I am told. It supposedly takes the university about seven weeks to process the paperwork to certify and print a degree at which point they either mail it to my permanent mailing address or notify me that its read to be picked up.

I already have a job as a consultant which I am now going to be working for full-time basically with benefits and other nice things which should help me out a lot with my stupid money troubles finally. The plan so far is to spend some time paying off my small remaining debt and taking car of a few things on the car I have had to put off and then getting a decent amount of cash saved up before moving out of the parents house.

Now as far as celebration of my graduation goes, frankly I have no idea when it will happen or what shape it is going to take. This is complicated by the fact that basically I am already working full-time and have some big projects in the works already for CES (which I am going to again to work) and some other stuff. I would like to have a party with all of you people that could/would want to do such a thing as soon as I can figure out a good time for it. Odds are sometime the weekend after CES or in Janurary sometime since everyone is going crazy with holiday events.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

Disclaimer - Don’t be drinking anything when you scroll to the last photo in this list.

I saw the below photo while scanning through Digg while waiting for some software to finish compiling. I think it is pretty telling as to why it seems so many people these days who are watching the various news networks are not as well informed as they once were. In a nutshell we can blame the proliferation and boosting of importance of fluff/celebrity “news” pieces. Oh yeah, and commercials for making sure you dont die/your dick feels big enough for your ego/buy a SUV/etc.

Next up we have a high altitude photo taken from a NASA chase plane of the Space Shuttle Columbia taking off from Cape Canaveral

Here we have a graph of US national debt as a percentage of GDP. Notice the difference in spending patterns of the “new Republicans” verses the supposedly spend-fast Democrats. Just goes to show that sometimes parties change their mantras without people really realizing it. After all, GWB was supposed to be a small government Republican when he ran back in 2000. If we only could have had things gone differently.

I thought this piece of work was interesting because I have seen it used for both sides of debate on wether or not God exists. Atheists look at Nature and marvel at its complexity and beauty that it forms out of the natural laws that man has discovered and began to learn over the course of time. On the other hand, proponents of the existence of God look at something like this and point to it as proof that nature, reality and the whole of being must obviously be the work of a creator.

Ok, last but not least is this riotously hilarious photo from The Onion. I nearly choked on my drink when I saw this and simply had to share it with everyone. Don’t say I didn’t warn you earlier!

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

I finally went ahead and upgraded to Wordpress 2.3.1. I ended up having to uninstall the Bad Behavior plugin because, well, it was behaving badly. Namely when I tried to login to the admin page of my blog from home it thought my home IP address was a known bad IP address which sounds pretty wrong to me. So I went ahead and logged into my server via SSH and tried to login to the admin page using Lynx on the console and Bad Behavior then had a conniption fit about being connected to from localhost which in my book was the last straw. You should *ALWAYS* allow localhost to connect to you dammit, you damn dumb POS overblown PHP script. A quick rm of the Bad Behavior directory got things back to normal thank god.

While I was at it I also updated all of my plugins and tinkered around abit with the backend scripts for the Redoable WP theme I am using in an attempt to get some annoying MySQL errors to stop when I am in the administrative interface with some luck. Apparently the  author of the theme is swamped with real work and uni studies so I can understand their predicament. In the meantime I might go check out the K2 theme people and see where they are these days. Last I looked it was at a point where you had to sync with nightly SVN updates which I thought was rather ridiculous a thing to have to do for a bloody WP theme to work reliably.

More updates to come.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

I just needed to share what I just learned because I myself can’t believe it. Long story made short, I had not received a license renewal notice from the DMV for my cars tags which expired near the end of this month. So, being the bright person I am I try to look into the DMV website to see what my fees are for the BMW.

Except, if you go to the DMV website and try to lookup your fees online you have to have a RIN number to enter in along with your license plate number for their system to show you your registration fee information. But I never got a renewal letter from the DMV, so I have no RIN. So no online help there.

Some perusal of the DMV site does net me a 800 number to call. I call it and am immediately in voice menu jail, however the system wasn’t designed by Kafka so after about two minutes I was able to navigate to the “Talk to carbon-based lifeforms” option. After waiting on hold for about another minute a decently nice guy comes on the phone to help me out. I explain I had gotten no renewal notice and that I know my registration is probably due ASAP. The man then tells me “Oh, well the computers here are confused because it shows the title for your car was transfered in 2005″

WHAT? THE? FUCK!?!?!?

I talk to the man some more and ask him “What is the name of the person it was transfered to?”. He tells me “I can’t give that to you, its a conflict of interest.” So I try a different tactic “Can you tell me exactly when the transfer supposedly happened?” He says Janurary 16th, 2005. “Wait a second, I got a license renewal notice for 2006! How come that one got mailed to me if the title was supposedly transfered to someone else?”

“Dont know” he says.

“If I come into the DMV office will they be able to tell me the name on the transfer?” I ask him.

“Yes”

“How come I never received any notification paperwork from the DMV at my permanent mailing address, which has never changed since I’ve had a license in CA?” Getting pretty fuming mad by this point wondering if this was some kind of aborted ID theft attempt or something.

“I don’t know sir, you’ll have to talk to someone at one of the field offices about that”

Gah….so now I know how much my registration will cost me (way too much thanks to 4 old parking tickets now totaling $572 dollars, thanks County of Los &*^&*^%# Angeles) and have to smog the BMW and go into the DMV office to find someone to talk to/yell at for this title nonsense. Le sigh.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

I just finished uploading photos from Rich and Michelle’s wedding last week to my server. There were a lot of chunkers in attendance and overall it was a lot of fun for everyone involved. One funny thing that happened was the priest presiding over the marriage forgot to conclude the ceremony at the end (the part where they go “By the power invested in me by the State” etc) so when everyone was at the reception at the Mile Square Golf Club he pulled the couple out onto the dance floor and completed the lines there.

Richard and Michelle’s Wedding Photos I took 

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

Wait, isn’t that redundant?

Apparently something pretty massive went down at the 365 Main colocation facility in San Francisco at around 1:30pm-ish. More importantly however, this looks like there was a power outage in a large portion of the SOMA district of San Francisco that affected somewhere between 30,000-50,000 people. From what some friends of mine told me there was a total of 6 different blackouts over the course of the last few hours. No word yet on what exactly caused any of this still. Blame chocolate covered manhole covers or the like.

LiveJournal is down! Netflix, down. Craigslist, down. Yelp, down. Technorati, down. Vox, down. TypePad, down.

Yet this is supposedly a AAA-class facility with plenty of online generator backup. Yet all of these major internet websites are down. Why? What the hell happened up there? Did a major transformer in the facility blow or something? Did dickless turn off the containment field or something?

What is even more HILARIOUS is this press release claiming 2-year long continuous uptime just 90 MINUTES before the colossal clusterfuck began. Just to add to the hilariousness of the situation the Onion News Network did a spoof news piece on something similar to this happening that you should all view!

This is why I host my blog and photos on my own server that I have control over and just push updates out to these services. Sometimes even the big guys fuck up their contingency plans.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

So for the past month I have been paying for my Yahoo! Personal’s account in an attempt to see if the service had gotten any better or see if there were any actual real people using the service. I’ve been keeping track of the numbers and results so far and today marks a full month since starting this experiment of mine. So in total, in the past month since I started using my Yahoo! Personals account here are the results:
—
1 Spammer
14 Contacted over a month ago, 2 of which deleted their profiles since, of which 12 never responded back with so much as a “not interested”
1 Of which said not interested
1 Who said they had just started dating someone

1 Who contacted me spontaneously (from Riverside)
1 Who IM’ed me spontaneously (from Alabama, see below)

1 Whom I contacted, they wrote back, I responded and they responded back, only to not hear anything from them for 3 weeks since. So not sure what to think. She seems nice and interesting and said she was on vacation at the time of her last response but that was three weeks ago so I sent her a quick note asking what had happened to her. Maybe she just got busy with life, who knows.

The one who contacted me from Riverside seemed nice but Riverside is just too bloody far away from everything I do. School, work, you name it not a single lick of any of it takes me out to Riverside. So that’s just not workable for me. After all I have to be practical about what I am capable of dealing with time-wise and distance-wise and I know Riverside is just too damn far.

Now the one from Alabama who spontaneously IM’ed me. Oh boy, that one has crazy written all over her. She talked to me yesterday and it was the most singularly weird conversation I have had in a long while. I tried to be nice, but I’m not sure this woman got the point that I am not looking to start a long distance relationship anytime soon. Just check out this chat log from yesterday and you will see what I mean. And remember boys and girls, I get to pay Yahoo! $24.95 a month for the privilege of talking to people like the one below. Sweet Baby Jesus.

7:22:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Hello…..how are you doing today,? my name is Joyce , just wanted to IM you if we can chat together or what do you think!!!!!….
7:23:26 PM doctorwho21: Hi there, who is this?
7:23:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: sorry my name is Joyce from Yahoo Personals
7:23:59 PM doctorwho21: oh ok! Sorry, was just a little confused
7:24:08 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Oh….okay
7:24:15 PM jen.lasweetbaby: my name is Joyce
7:24:21 PM doctorwho21: Hiya Joyce. I’m Dan
7:24:35 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and am new member on there , just wanted to Im you if we can chat sometime
7:24:42 PM jen.lasweetbaby: nice meeting you Da
7:24:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Dan
7:25:17 PM doctorwho21: Yeah its ok, I dont mind
7:25:27 PM jen.lasweetbaby: okay..thanks
7:25:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: how old are you ?
7:25:41 PM doctorwho21: But you profile says your in Alabama?
7:25:46 PM doctorwho21: I’m 31
7:26:27 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes , i just like to chat with someone long way , coz i dont know where we cpuld meet if God to let Us to each other better
7:26:40 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Or dont you want to talk to me since am in AL?
7:27:11 PM doctorwho21: It is nothing personal, but I have done long distance relationships before and I have found out that they have not worked for me in the past.
7:27:37 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Oh….i think god dont want you both to meet each other
7:27:58 PM jen.lasweetbaby: well i do believe in Gods word and i like going to church
7:28:28 PM doctorwho21: Ah ok, well I am not very religious I’m afraid.
7:28:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: afraid of what !!!
7:29:04 PM doctorwho21: I was just saying that I am not religious
7:29:36 PM jen.lasweetbaby: oh….okay got it
7:29:53 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so dan do we think if God can let Us we gonna be togther
7:30:04 PM jen.lasweetbaby: am just alone nobody and i need someone to make me happy
7:31:19 PM doctorwho21: Right, uhm, I hate to sound down here but I really am in no place to be doing a long distance relationship. I am looking for someone local Joyce.
7:31:56 PM jen.lasweetbaby: well if you say so
7:33:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so what do you wanna talk about now?
7:33:54 PM doctorwho21: I don’t think you understand. I am working on a degree right now and have little time for much beyond work, school, and possibly starting a relationship locally. If I was going to be getting into a long distance relationship I would need to be done with my degree and in a better position financially.
7:34:20 PM doctorwho21: Whatever you want to talk about is fine with me
7:34:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats okay by me and if you think we can ever meet then
7:34:51 PM jen.lasweetbaby: what are you really lookingfor
7:36:11 PM doctorwho21: Well I am looking for someone I get along with and can talk to along with a dash of physical compatibility as well.
7:36:26 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats cool
7:36:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so can you tell me more about you sometime
7:38:17 PM doctorwho21: I guess, but I really dont see how we would possibly ever meet up?
7:38:40 PM jen.lasweetbaby: how and why do you say such thinggs?
7:40:24 PM doctorwho21: Because its how I see things? Your on the opposite side of the country. I have no idea where I will end up when I am done with my degree but there is a good chance I will remain in California. Hence my prefrence to try and find someone locally.
7:42:01 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so are you saying we cant never meet in person ?
7:46:14 PM doctorwho21: I’m saying that I dont see how it would happen since I am in no position to travel anytime soon. I also hardly know you, not to mention since your profile isn’t complete it makes it difficult for me to know if we are physically compatible either. This whole conversation sounds like someone asking me if I might ever go 2000 miles to buy milk from the store instead of going across the street to the local store, sight unseen. I also mentioned I’m not a religious person, nor am I likely to change my stance with regards to that anytime in the foreseeable future. While I am sure you are a nice person, you are coming on sort of strong and I know very little about you. I would prefer to take my chances locally where I have the ability to easily make plans to meet with someone verses trying to invest time in a long distance relationship that could very easily end up not being what either person wants.
7:47:54 PM jen.lasweetbaby: ohh….
7:47:58 PM jen.lasweetbaby: can i add you?
7:48:14 PM doctorwho21: I thought I already authorized it?
7:48:24 PM jen.lasweetbaby: No
7:48:26 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i dont think so
7:48:28 PM jen.lasweetbaby: you havent
7:49:04 PM doctorwho21: I just allowed it?
7:49:17 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay
7:50:32 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so what are we gonna talk about now
7:50:59 PM doctorwho21: Whatever you want, you caught me in the middle of reading for one of my classes
7:51:28 PM jen.lasweetbaby: lol….well i want to know what are you really looking for
7:51:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and what type of relationships are you seeking for on here
7:52:25 PM doctorwho21: One second
7:52:48 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay
8:01:50 PM doctorwho21: I’m looking for a woman I am compatible with, ideally someone to date and maybe develop into a more serious relationship if I feel comfortable about that.
8:02:29 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats nice
8:02:39 PM jen.lasweetbaby: when did you joined this site?
8:04:11 PM doctorwho21: a month ago
8:05:47 PM jen.lasweetbaby: oh….
8:05:57 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and you never met any lady so far /
8:06:04 PM doctorwho21: nope
8:06:13 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay then
8:07:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so tell me more fof you
8:07:42 PM jen.lasweetbaby: or what doy uo wanna know about me
8:08:39 PM doctorwho21: Why did you decide to talk to me?
8:09:09 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i think you’re looking for a serious relationship right ?
8:09:36 PM doctorwho21: eventually, yes, but I’m not going to jump right into one. I want to get to know someone first
8:10:05 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes thats what we’re doing
8:11:09 PM doctorwho21: right, but I prefer to meet people in person to make those kinds of determinations. I have had experiences in the past where people online were not what they represented themselves to be.
8:12:04 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay,,,,then
8:12:16 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i think we have to add this then
8:14:59 PM doctorwho21: add what?
8:15:24 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i mean end this
8:15:41 PM doctorwho21: the conversation you mean I assume?
8:15:52 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes
8:15:58 PM doctorwho21: Okie dokie
8:16:38 PM doctorwho21: Good bye
8:16:46 PM jen.lasweetbaby: its okay

Seriously, I just want to meet someone relatively normal-ish who is local and whom there is at least some kind of spark with.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

So my friends are what you might call the perfect storm of planning r-tardation sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I love them like family but sometimes they do things collectively that are at the same time completely awesome while being totally retarded.

Case in point, this past 4th of July it looked like no one had any kind of group activity planned. No BBQs, no parties, no get togethers, hell not even a trip out to go see a new movie. In other words, pretty damn bleak. There had been a potential prospect for a party to go to, but my friend whom knew the people throwing it decided not to go and I wasn’t one to try and worm my way into a party where I didn’t know anyone.

So starting on the 4th of July I get an invite on MySpace for my friend Jim’s birthday, to be held on Saturday the 7th in the evening. Good, right? Well my friend Jason Bender had gotten a hold of me like a week and a half previous and let me know his birthday was going to go down the same night at The Edison in Hollywood. Conflict, right?

But wait, theres more! The next day, the 5th I get another invite to a birthday party for my friends Alia and Irene….on the same day and time. Great, so now there are four birthdays spread across three different locations on the same night. At which point I talk to Adrienne and she tells me that my friend Rich who is getting married is doing some kind of party that same night!!!! Whom I then ask about what is going on, only to find out that event is cancelled.

Except the next day I then get an invite for Rich’s birthday dinner on….you guessed it…the same freaking night. So we now have five birthdays in four different locations, three of which are in Orange County and the last which is up in Hollywood. So I decide to stick it out down in OC and hit all the parties I can so I can see people I hadn’t seen in quite a while. It was sort of like a bizarre triathlon of some sort, but overall it was a fun experience.

Now, onto the photos from the parties and other events recently!

Everyone who made it to Rich’s 31st  birthday party at the teppan house they picked in HB. All the July birthday party photos are here.

On Friday and Saturday I spent a few hours getting tanned/lightly sunburned while getting some photos of surfers and hot surfer babes from off the HB Pier at Main St.

Friday’s photos at Huntington Beach

Saturday’s photos at Huntington Beach

Last but not least are some older photos I had neglected to upload. First we have a few shots I took at sunset near the Seal Beach Naval Weapons base not too far south from home here. I really like how the colors in the sky came out that particular day, just awesome light.

Finally we have photos of the Friday night Big Bang fireworks show at Angel Stadium in Anahiem from back in early May when I went to see the Angels kick the White Sox a new one. I didn’t have my tripod with me so I was having to hand-hold these shots so they didn’t come out as good as I wanted them to, but it gave me some experience working on my handheld technique. This particular photo however I thought turned out not half bad:

In movie related news I can recommend anyone go see Transformers, especially if you are a big fan of the show. Michael Bay somehow managed to make a truly kickass movie with my childhood franchise memories. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should do yourself a favor and go out and see it right away.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

I’m going to go see the Transformers.

And for those you you playing the home version of our game, apparently none of you people did a damn thing today.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

This must change. If you know of something going on, be it BBQ, party, gathering of awesomness…. WHATEVER. Reply back and let me know, or IM me, or call my ass 562-331-1603.

If I don’t hear of anything I may just head out to the beach for some sun.

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

So last week I went and saw the new Live Free or Die Hard movie and I have to say it being rated PG-13 had been a concern of mine. Turns out that fear was unfounded as the movie turned out to be a total blast! Lots of action, lots of shit blowing up and lots of bloody John McClane kicking ass and taking names. For the hacker types out there, there are some obvious Hollywood shortcuts to how computers and networks work in that silly thing we call reality. However its not so bad that it stopped me from having fun watching the film. Also cool was that the audience definitely was rooting for the good guys at times with a fair amount of audience participation going on which is nice to see these days!

Later in the week on Friday night I went to see Sicko with Trina and Matt which was a very interesting look at the American health care system. Most people I have talked to tend to get fixate on Moore himself and lambasting him without even watching the film, or latch onto the whole trip to Cuba aspect of the film which doesn’t even take up a majority of the films time from what I recalled.

As it turns out CNN went ahead and did some fact checking on the movie and their results seem to indicate that Moore didn’t try to spin things one way or the other. I would be curious to see what the side effects of the British or French system are, beyond the obvious of increased taxes. Or should I just expect knee-jerk reactions?

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

Last night on the way home from Culver City down back home I had to stop and take photos of what was causing a ridiculous amount of traffic at Sepulveda and Venice. Turns out that the 7-11 store that was at the corner there was one of the 12 selected to be converted into a “Kwik-E-Mart” convenience store as part of the marketing push for The Simpsons movie coming out on July 27th.

Overall it was pretty badass, you could buy a copy of Issue #1 of Radioactive Man comic books, Krusty-O’s cereal, Buzz Cola, and get “Squishee’s”. Sadly, there was no Duff Beer since the movie is only rated PG-13 and the movie execs apparently didn’t want to associate beer with the movie which is understandable. I took these photos around 9:30PM on a Sunday night and as you can see, the store was packed. It was bananas!

More photos are here

Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.

Almost forgot to mention, I managed to do decently this last quarter:

WORLD SINCE 1870      HISTORY      21C      B-      4.0
ADV COMPUTER NETWKS     COMPSCI     133     B+     4.0
INTRO ARTIFCL INTEL     COMPSCI     171     B-     4.0
PROJECT IN HCI & UI     IN4MATX     132     A+     4.0

Units Attempted:       16.0
Units Passed:           16.0
Grade Points:           50.8
Units Completed:     16.0
Term GPA:         3.175

And with that I now have to get going to my classes!