ACCOUNT COMPROMISED!

Hello everyone,

Within the last hour (9-10PM), somebody decided it would be funny to hack into my Gmail account and send everyone on my contacts list (which goes way up into the hundreds) some website that is deemed unsafe by Google. Google has went ahead and disabled my email temporarily and most of your mailboxes should have blocked the email due to the suspicious content, but if you have received it, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK NOR GO TO IT as I did not send that email out and it is dangerous. I apologize for any problems this may have caused.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me below.

Thanks for understanding and sorry for the disturbance,

More proof on how social media is out of control

A little bit over a month ago, I wrote a post on how social media is taking control of our lives and how it’s insane on how much people share information and are stuck to their smartphones. Here’s more proof on how sad it gets:

http://www.nesn.com/2010/11/san-francisco-giants-fans-use-foursquare-for-world-series-riots.html

 

I mean, seriously. You don’t tweet about how you go apeshit crazy on the streets in the city during a riot. It’s the easiest way to get into the slammer if you really want to get into one. I heard San Quentin has a nice view…

100 Facts About me.

1. I am Russian, but it doesn’t mean I can “take it in” with alcohol. No. I’m also human, you know.
2. I am Russian, therefore I speak Russian. Я говорю по нормальному.
3. I am a musician. I play piano and drums. No, I don’t play flute or violin. Don’t ask.
4. Just because I was for prop 8, doesn’t mean I’m a homophobe. Voting for one thing doesn’t mean that I’m against something completely different.
5. My eye color changes a lot. Some days it’s blue, some days it’s gray, some days it’s green, and I swear I thought my eye was brown for a day. I know, it’s weird. At least it was never red.
6. I hate perverted jokes. I just don’t get them.
7. Speaking of not getting stuff, I hate subjects where it’s all memorization. Memorization is the most useless way of learning stuff. It’s about understanding and not memorizing at the last minute. That’s why I hated bio in my freshman year (and still hate it now).
8. I tend to lose things a lot. Not really, but still, I’ve been known to lose some stuff in the past.
9. I almost never sleep. My usual amount of sleep on a weekday is no more than 6 hours (sometimes even three or four) and on the weekends I sleep till noon or later.
10. I usually start working on homework past 10pm.
11. I just hate it when teachers tell me to go look it up myself. That indicates me that the teacher is a lazy person who can’t even explain something simple just once more.
12. I write too much. Hence, my blog is a pain in the ass to read.
13. I curse somewhat. I just try to moderate it. Robotics is an exception, though.
14. I’m a Windows user, not a Mac user. Don’t tell me to make an “iMovie” or an “iPhoto”. First off, those are applications. Secondly, I don’t have a Mac and will never get one. Better say “make a movie or a photo slideshow” next time.
15. A lot of the stuff I have to write is utter bullshit. I try to write quality bullshit all the time. Even in Facebook comments or Tweets.
16. I believe social media is severely overrated.
17. Hell, what is social media? It’s some time waster that makes your minds go flat and believe that you’re some elite jerk on the internet with no life and just spamming everyone.
18. I like to play solitaire on Windows.
19. I don’t play many games. I work too much.
20. I don’t do drugs. No. Or else I wouldn’t have a girlfriend.
21. I am not a wannabe, and I frown upon wannabes. They’re annoying.
22. Whenever I hear someone play piano without any soul, it makes me nuts. I just hate it when pieces are played like a train rolling through a tunnel.
23. I find modern music weird. It’s just…unnatural. Tchaikovsky FTW!
24. I sing hum in the shower.
25. I’m a nerd, I confess. But that makes me even cooler when I go to MIT or Harvard while you hipsters go to your Foothill community college.
26. My bowel is very unstable. ‘Nuff said.
27. I always make grammatical fixes in posts. Always. Even though it gets annoying, I just hate seeing elementary grammar errors. Grr!
28. Speaking of my bowel, that’s why I never go on roller coasters. Not because I’m scared of the speed and thrill, it’s just I’m scared of the consequences after a few too many G’s.
29. I HATE following instructions. They make me feel like I’m in prison or something.
30. I hate school projects, and especially group projects. They take up a lot of time and you don’t learn much from them.
31. I find “going green” a very annoying term now. It’s just that it’s EVERYWHERE, and whenever people try to save paper or something else, most of the time they’re doing it worse therefore wasting more paper. The thing is, quit making “half sheets” with the font three times smaller than you’re reading now.
32. I don’t eat much.
33. I don’t sleep much.
34. I work too much.
35. No, I’m not anorexic.
36. I hate it when people spell my name “sir-gay”. That “joke” was already old in second grade. Get over it.
37. I find paying $1.29 for a song overpriced. Therefore I never buy anything from iTunes.
38. Hell, I hate iTunes for all the shit they did to my iPods.
39. I’m an active member in the Paly Robotics team.
40. I usually drive over the speed limit, like 10mph max over the limit.
41. Not to be racist, but I’m scared of black people. I don’t know why, it’s just that I have this constant fear of them. Trying to get over it, I still fail to. :[
42. I have a wall consisting of 16 CDs that have burn-failed. I call them “crap disks”. One of them I even wrote “shit disk” as the fail that it gave me is far too severe to be called just a “crap disk”.
43. I have a problem with staplers. I always lose the only one in the household.
44. No, I’m not going to tell you how I got my software.
45. The server that hosts my site is located right next to my legs and feet while I sit down at my desk. Don’t be surprised if something happens (ie, site goes down) as I constantly kick it and usually trip over it.
46. I find liberals weird. There’s just something that’s giving some kind of “meh”-ish feeling about them. Don’t know what it is, but there is something in there.
47. Vegetarians who say “meat is murder” are idiots. First off, those animals are MADE for slaughter. Secondly, if you can’t take the fact that they are made to be slaughtered, just try setting them free. I think that’ll be more cruel than shooting them down for food because they aren’t adapted to the wild and need or human support in order to live.
48. The car I might be driving would be a Prius. Even though I said that “green” stuff is annoying, I’d get one just to save up on money on gas. Palo Alto already has too much green-ness in it that it’s already killing my eyes!
49. I just hate how bureaucratic schools get. I mean, what’s the point of the attendance office? The guidance office? The point of having four or five people doing the exact same job (ie, three vice principals, four councilors, etc.)?
50. I like to be organized. Only, I never really am.
51. I hate kids.
52. I consider anyone to live in at least a mobilehome or a townhouse to be rich. I live in an apartment. Actually, the same exact one or the last fifteen and a half years. Don’t call ME rich for having cool gadgets and stuff. Think about your house. That’s probably 1000x more expensive than all my gadgets put together.
53. I hate crying. I just hate the thought of that. That’s why I never cry. I find it pathetic to cry in order to get something that you want. If you throw a fit because you can’t have it your way, then suck it up. Life ain’t fair. If you want something your way, you have to fight for it, not cry.
54. I can’t stress enough on how much I hate “txt talk”. It’s annoying to read and it makes you sound like a thirteen year old.
55. I hate forced reading, such as English homework reading that’s assigned. Reading should be a leisure, not an assignment.
56. I love my girlfriend.
57. I like Asians. They’re smart, witty, and great people to talk with. Plus, my girlfriend is Asian. Making my respect to them even greater.
58. Technically speaking, I’m Asian too. My mother comes from the more Asian part of Russia, I eat a lot of rice, I go to Paly, I’m in high lane classes, and a lot of my friends are Asians.
59. My iPod is full of crap. Some of the crap I don’t even listen to. Some of the crap my friends put on there. Some of the crap I put on there. You know, just crap.
60. I find auto-tune funny. It’s also fun to play around with it when you’re bored.
61. The only computer game I probably ever play is Trackmania.
62. I also have a Wii, but I rarely play that anymore. Too much work! :(
63. I like to discover things by myself, such as when making a webpage and I want to make it look like something I have in my brain, but don’t know how. I just like to search for it first, then apply it to the code.
64. I rarely call for help. I don’t know if that’s good or bad…
65. I have a Motorola Droid at the moment, therefore I’m on Verizon. Suck on that, AT&T fanboys!
66. I hate AT&T too. Their service is terrible, and never really worked for us.
67. I lost my AT&T Internet connection minutes before Michael Jackson died on June 25th, 2009. That’s also the day when I switched to Comcast for the Internet.
68. I ski. A lot.
69. I like to swim, but I hate changing and showering afterwards. This is probably why I don’t swim at pool parties :[
70. I don’t own a laptop. Yet.
71. I used to rent an upright piano (A Wurlitzer I believe…) before my family bought the Kawaii RX-1 from Carnes Piano co.
72. I spend too much at Town & Country.
73. I like to blog a lot. If you don’t like it, your problem.
74. I’m not usually forgiving. If I “forgive” you, that means that deep in my brain I know you did something bad to me and will always remember that.
75. I’m sometimes  a pessimist. I try to look more optimistic, but my drowsiness drags my mood to the other.
76. My favorite drink is water. If you ask me what I’d like to drink, better bring a glass of regular water.
77. I hate leftover food. The thought of it is just gross to me.
78. I like to participate in competitions and Olympiads. It’s just that my schedule doesn’t have much room to cram them in :[
79. All or most of my videos are now shot in HD on my Sony HDR-SR12 camera.
80. I don’t watch TV that much really. Maybe it’s because I have limited basic cable?
81. I didn’t watch the 2010 World Cup. I was saved by the lack of channels from the Vuvuzela.
82. I like to keep my desk light on while I work rather than the room light that’s hooked up to the light switch on the wall. Reason being is that this gives me a warmer feeling of the room for some reason.
83. My room is a completely separate environment itself from the rest of the environment. It has its own smell, its own temperature, and its own sounds.
84. I hate “dead” YouTube channels. Whenever I try to see if a simple funny channel name is available, some dumbass had to make it four years ago and never once use it.
85. I’m a web developer. I hate Flash on websites.
86. I dropped out of my French 3H class to my French 3 class just to switch teachers.
87. I like dubstep. The bass lines are the most amazing there!
88. My favorite concerto of all time must be either Tchaikovsky’s First Piano concerto or Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano concerto.
89. My favorite symphony is Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony. But of course, my favorite symphony orchestra is the one I’m in- El Camino Youth Symphony! :)
90. I don’t know everyone’s name in my orchestra, I admit it. But everyone knows MY name.
91. Ratatat is amazing stuff to work to; therefore I work to it playing in the background. Of course I also play classical music a lot in the background too, but it’s good to mix things up right?
92. I prefer texting over calling. Although I do sometimes have to call, phone calls, with the uprising of Facebook, Twitter, Email, Texting, it becomes awkward a lot of the times.
93. Gloomy, cloudy weather reminds me of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge”
94. I read too little books. I need to read more than just the crap that the school issues.
95. I used to have stuffed animals. I still do have a few, but they’re just on display.
96. I’m sometimes too serious over things.
97. I can tell an American from a European easily. Hell, you can do it too. If anyone is a single parent and/or smiling constantly and/or with Ray-Ban Wayfarers, they’re American as apple pie.
98. I suck at chess. Not as much at checkers, but still not at a competing level.
99. I own an electronic drumkit, and not an acoustic one because I live an apartment.
100. I just used 2224 words to make this post. Have a good day!

Social Media is out of control

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Foursquare, Reddit, and many other sites are what is considered today as "social media." The current plethora of these social networking sites is getting out of control. Basically, our life today revolves around them if you think about it.
Just think about it ten years ago- when people gave away business cards, usually what would be on there is the name, phone number, physical address of the office, and sometimes even the email. Nowadays, business cards have nothing but a name and a Twitter username. I've even seen some sites that have a "made by so and so" as a footer, but instead of giving the link to the creator's personal site or email, it gives the Twitter page.
Maybe it's just me, but I think that Twitter has taken control too much. It's a sad realization that now people tweet about their daily life. My friend has described Twitter perfectly- it's like blogging on crack. I mean, I wouldn't really give a flying crap about how sunny the day is in your area or why is there a dead Pakistani on your couch. I think CollegeHumor has perfectly described how Twitter can get annoying and sad by sending someone to tell everyone in the world here.
Seriously, I've been to events even where on the nametags, instead of a full name, they wrote @[twitter username]. How sad is that when they can't even write out their name? Not to mention the handwriting is meh-ish, but I shouldn't be really talking either. Wasn't being on 4chan already sad enough? :S
What's sad enough, is that at Paly, you're not really considered a "Paly Couple" until it's Facebook-official. Yeah, that's how Facebook took over our social lives.
And another thing that really annoys me are social media blogs. I still don't get the point of them- it's like a web developer from the 90's ranting on some random application that allows them to talk to random people yet still doesn't know how to code HTML. Maybe it's just I'm used to reading normal stuff, but I find social media blogs hard to read. Not as in technologically hard to read, but just annoying to read. I just can't stand reading something that I won't ever understand for the life of me, and probably won't want to understand as it is complete nonsense in most cases, and, doesn't really help the rest of the world of the Internet.
What's bringing my attention to making this post, is that Apple has added a new social network to the crapload that already exists today- iTunes Ping. You know, I couldn't really care until I got the account. Now it's kinda bugging me whenever I open iTunes. I mean, iTunes is already bad enough, why make it worse? Why add a social network when nobody will really use it as their main account when Facebook and Twitter is already on the top of the line? And besides, iLike has been doing the whole concert update and artists liking for probably longer than Facebook has.
Now another thing I'd like to point out is the crapload of blogging platforms. It's so annoying when you're trying to subscribe to a blog and they can't give you it until you sign up for their blog system. Tumblr, LiveJournal, Posterous, Blogger, WordPress, and many others require their own login so that you can 'follow' or subscribe to them. Although they offer RSS, who uses that?
Also, not as if retweeting is stupid, but reblogging is probably the most dumbest shit ever. You're just technically copying someone's word and citing it without their permission. They know you reblogged it, but they have no control over if they want their content to be reblogged or not.

There, that's my rant for the day. Today was a bad, bad day. -_____-
Also, don't give me that "you're just beating a dead horse here." I know I am, but you can't tell me what to do now, right?


^perfectly describes my feelings towards Social Media power.