Thoughts of -e^πi man - Tien Nguyen

My ability to use my hands is as inconsistent as a certain Los Angeles professional basketball team–one minute I’ll be getting putting together Ikea furniture like on one’s business, and the next I’ll slice my finger open peeling a cucumber with a butter knife.

My desire to display my handiness is impeccable however, I’ll spend hours messing something up and hurting myself before I dare pay someone to do what amounts to probably 5 minutes of work, which, unlike my clumsiness is something I got from my dad who never believed in paying for anything that can be done for free.

When I swiped the side of my car against a mailbox then, cracking the rear view mirror into a thousand pieces of glass, I was ready for the challenge at hand.

Curious as to what it could potentially cost me, I called a body shop for an estimate, and was quoted “around $200-$300 for the mirror, plus labor costs”.

Yeah, right, I thought. It’s an expensive habit to be inept in this world, as me and my wallet have certainly learned..

So, after exploring some of my options, I ended up at an auto parts shop that was within walking distance of the Tijuana drug trade, where I was able to swipe the mirror I needed for a mere $30.18 after taxes. Step one was complete, and I couldn’t help but feel a major victory over the “man”.

Then came the installation *gulp*

I immediately went on Google to figure this shit out, (Youtube first actually, videos are so much easier to follow) and given the lack of any sort of decent step by step descriptions with full pictures at hand, that, for people like me would be hell, I decided to craft my own guide together here below.

First things first then–remove the two screws at the bottom of the panel. They’re in hex shape so if you don’t have one, an adjustable wrench, or even pliers as in my case, work just as well.

Then we want to remove the piece right on the door handle, it should jiggle and slide right out.

Do the same for the piece right above it that contains the lock/window buttons (it should slide right toward you). Unplugging the buttons is optional, but it might be more convenient to do so.

Also remove the hex screw on the top right.

And voila, with a little effort, the whole side panel should slide right off, giving us access to the bolts attaching the mirror.

The bolts can be tricky since there’s such a small amount of space in there. It’s a 7/16″ hole so grab that particular wrench, and with a little improvising as seen below, you can gain a bit of much needed leverage to unscrew it.

Rinse + repeat 3 times for each bolt.

After the bolts are removed the mirror should fall right off, allowing you to connect the new mirror on, and attach on the bolts again. Whoo I  can see myself again!

Finally attach the wiring to the mirror so you can use the electric controls from the driver’s side.

Do everything again in reverse mode, and once again you have a shiny new mirror at hand.

As an astute one can see, the project started off with plenty of sunshine, but by the time I was done it was pitch black and the wolves were calling outside.

In other words, it should take an average person ~15-20 minutes to complete everything.

Tip of advice: be sure to take your keys out before you forget they’re in there while you’re playing with the autolocks button on the other door, thereby locking yourself out.

Obligatory reflection of my one year in San Diego:

A year ago I left a safe haven, a home in which I’d lived in for all of my childhood and briefly after finishing college–still being looked after by my parents, “it’s 8:10am, aren’t you going to wake up for work?”, or, “what time are you going to be back tonight? Okay, just be safe.”

It was a world where I had no responsibilities other than to get to work on time, not screw anything up, and make sure our weekends weren’t too crazy.

It was all routine, it was all seemingly too easy, this “adulthood”–it was almost like high school all over again. Other than cleaning the house and doing the dishes a few times a week (okay even that’s an exaggeration), all the major bills/mortgages were taken care of, every meal was accounted for, and even our fridge was continuously stocked with ice cream and peanut butter. What more could a 23-year-old ask for?

Life was in a word, simple–no, simpler than simple. I was an adult who just finished living hundreds of miles from home completing a degree all on my own, and I had just ventured through a far off continent managing not to be kidnapped, and my responsibilities, and what was expected of me was no greater than it was when I was up late at night bullshitting papers on Beloved and learning derivative rules.

Stay on course, demonstrate some level of ambition, and keep out of trouble, and all would be well in the world.

Then came the day where in a mere 8 hours, I was 480 miles away from my comfort zone, into a new city I’d been to a total of 4 days previously, moving into a house with 3 random roommates that I’d never met before, into a business that I was only beginning to learn about, and *gasp* had to become accountable where each meal would come from every night.

And as someone who can’t tell the difference between a spatula and a cheese grater, that wasn’t easy.

A month following the move I wrote a brief reflection, something I wish I had done more often now–and in it I wrote:

I feel like I’ve gone through weekends that have lasted longer than this past month has, and I have little doubt that I’ll wake up tomorrow, look at the calendar and realize it’s 2010.

And while 2010 is slowly sneaking up on us, the past year has certainly come and gone much too fast. My sentiments from 11 months ago still  remain, the work-hours of the day still fly by, it still rarely ever truly feels like “work”, and dull moments are surprisingly still hard to come by.

Most importantly the 4 of us have yet to have any desire to kill each other, and the threat of running off with all of our company funds some 20 miles south to the border has, um, unlikely crossed any of our minds…yet.

I’ve certainly grown as much as I have over the past year than at any other point in my life, but to say that I’ve changed much would be false. It’s a college style life where flip flops and shorts are the norm, weekends are mostly blurs, and spontaneous Vegas trips are aplenty…but with the slight added responsibility of actually, running a business on the side.

I can still stand to put off growing up to a later date…

All within the past couple of days or so, save the Oakland cops situation:

Five children reported dead after dad’s suicide
Gunman Kills 3 Police Officers in Pittsburgh
US police hunt for clues after immigrant slays 13
Yahoo Engineer Kills Five Family Members in Murder-Suicide
Three police officers killed in Oakland shootings
2 Mass. sisters, brother who killed them mourned

Freakonomics (I think?) tried to argue that crime rates aren’t affected by economic conditions–but uh I call bullshit on that.

This post was brought to you by Happnews.com

I was defending it for a while, but it truly sucks:

Very interesting topic here most of which I agree on..

Why is one greatly shunned more than the other as being a vain, shallow thing?

No one “needs” anything more than a $25k car to drive to work in, anything else is mostly excess, and done for the sake of their ego..I’m certainly no exception.

So how is a guy spending $40-50k+ on a “cool” car to improve one’s image (let’s face it, most people aren’t spending extra money on safety features, or performance/horsepower/handling, a majority are doing it for the image) different than say enhancing his jawline or fixing his nose.

Is it because the latter is reserved strictly toward the ultrawealthy, since you can’t really finance a tummy tuck as you can a car? Or because it’s seen as “misrepresenting” yourself by getting your appearance brushed up?

Do ugly, successful people not have a right to look good or improve themselves–just as they have a right to drive around in a chic car to impress some girls?

Last time we checked in we were ranked #7..but currently, the tides have changed quite dramatically, as seen here:

So now it’s:

V

WHO YA GOT?

What do they all have in common?

(left to right: Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft; Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google; Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple)

They were all probably beaten up in school, which probably lead to their secludism in which they made friends with the only thing that didn’t beat them up–computers and did amazing things as a result.

The moral of the story then is, if you want your kid to be a successful billionaire, get them beaten up in school…or just beat them up yourselves.

That’s what I plan on doing.

You’ve heard it here first, ad retargeting is going to be the next biggest step in internet advertising since the advent of the banner ad itself–and a company that’s struggled to monetize its 175 million member base is sort of jumping on that bandwagon.

Arrington puts it best:

One of the reasons ads perform so poorly on social networks is because they are the worst place to show someone an ad. People on social networks tend to be in a socializing mode instead of a shopping or information-gathering mode. But if you show the same people an ad on another type of site (say, a clothing ad on a fashion blog), and you can target that ad based on their social profile (you know their age, gender, and where they live), that in theory should be a formula for better response rates.

Having worked in online advertising, I still claim to the belief that unsolicited banner ads are pretty much worthless 92% of the time, but with specific demographic data that should lower that to about 90% useless..then again if you want to advertise clothing, a fashion blog should already be high on your list, and demographics needn’t matter all that much.

Then again, if you’re advertising on a site like say CNN, which has a somewhat more diverse demographic, this could prove to be a fairly useful model.

There are many simple formulae for creating quick and easy buzz that is sure to spread like wildfire, but few are as simple as the one I’m about to show you today.

Over the past few weeks the topic of how Facebook can give you cancer/kill you has generated plenty of buzz and popularity, and it’s quite easy to see why.

The author of this “research”, Aric Sigman, actually acts as a consultant for PR-based research, so the basis of getting this “study” out was based as much on getting his name out there as it is to generate shock value and, on much lower level, cause people to stop and think about their actions.

The formula then is as follows:

1) Take a popular subject, something as popular you can think of and that everyone uses.

2) Generate something that resembles a “study”, and instead of going into it hoping to extract a conclusion as a “normal” study would, have your conclusion in mind BEFOREhand and push as hard as you can to make the conclusion make even a modicum of sense. And oh yeah, have the conclusion be something as outrageous as you can–e.g. DEATH.

As a result, 1 + 2, or in this case, Facebook + DEATH = BUZZ!

One thing you can credit Mr. Sigman for is being consistent, as the second Google result for his name yields an article titled: HOW TV IS (quite literally) KILLING US (I SUPPOSE STEP 3 CAN BE TITLE YOUR ARTICLE IN ALL CAPS). After all Facebook is the new TV, and history has shown us that the subject of DEATH and KILLING will always catch our attentions.

It isn’t at all surprising then, that when a “reputable” publication, the Washington Times discusses the virtues of social networking, in a much more scientific, objective way that looks at both sides of the equation, that it gets much, much less buzz and attention, meaning that one requires both parts of the equation to be successful.

Again, looking on the other side of things, an article that discusses how having an online presence CAN MAKE YOU UNEMPLOYED, which therefore leads to poverty and probably DEATH at some point, is good enough for the front page of the Sunday edition of the New York Times.

Other ideas for studies that can be done include:

LISTENING TO JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE CAN LEAD TO BRAIN TUMORS, AND DEATH
SUPPORTING OBAMA CAN LEAD TO ALZHEIMERS, AND DEATH
DRINKING ALCOHOL CAN CAUSE LUPUS, LEPROSY, AND DEATH
READING RANDOM BLOG ENTRIES CAN CAUSE IMPOTENCE, AND DEATH
…