Thoughts of -e^πi man - Tien Nguyen

Thanks for the bday present!

Since I’ve been home in the past few days I’ve spent a good amount of time re-playing old NES/SNES games, namely the Mario series and reliving that childhood nostalgia.

Each one has about 8-10 worlds to pass, and the best parts by far come from within those first x-1 levels, where ‘x’ is the total # of levels, right before you reach the final boss.

However in reaching Bowser and saving this princess who fails in not getting captured, the thrill is over, just like that.

One would think that with the sense of accomplishment gained by completing each of the previous levels/worlds would be magnified in completing the entire game, but it was the complete opposite of that.

It’s akin to that great movie you never want to end, or that perfect day at Disneyland as a kid, the most depressing part by far is knowing it’s ended, or even when it’s about to end. You leave satisfied but wanting more. You face withdrawal, which like any pleasurable moment eats you up inside like a drug.

Society tells us that the “American dream” is defined as settling down, having our 2.3-2.5 kids, buying the house + minivan and from there it’s all lollipops and rainbows.

However for those who don’t achieve any/all of this, they reflect back on life and think where did they fail, which is soon followed by feelings of cynicism and hatred of life.

It is my feeling though, that for the ambitious among us, that life becomes infinitely more depressing once our goals are reached.

It’s a catch-22 in the sense that the ones whose expectations far exceed those of a “normal” person’s, that they need more to accomplish in life. It is those who are never content with life that accomplish the most, otherwise, why try?

What is your ultimate goal? What happens when it’s achieved? You’re not defined in what you’ve accomplished but in how you accomplished it.

The piece of paper that says you have a Ph.D in nuclearphysioradioscience doesn’t define you, it’s those 4a.m. mornings you spent 8 days a week soaking up the material that did.

It’s  not the Super Bowl trophy that defines a player, it’s the 25 years of practices, training camps, 2 a days, and hours in the film room that define him.

There are even cases of people that are misdiagnosed with cancer for years, who get into deep depressions when they find out they didn’t have it, as that defined who they are.

And once you take away what it was that defines you, that’s taking away everything you have.

Give me back my Mario, give me more reason to live.

There are many similarities between your average relationship and owning a stock.

Inevitable are the many ups and downs that come throughout the course of “ownership”. There are the “bears” who are slow and resistful to move, and the “bulls” on the other end who move hard and strong. And there’s nothing worse than staying involved for too long after the fall-out and leaving when things have bottomed out.

In the mid 1990’s the US stock market was soaring to levels that was almost fantasical.

However in early 2000 the Dow and Nasdaq began to experience volatility unseen ever before. Swings of a hundred to several hundred points were becoming the norm, and not long after setting a record that would stand until just a few months ago, the Dow spiraled downward until bottoming out a thousand days later.

The investors who bought these once blue-chip stocks, much like the ones who invested heavily in housing more recently and saw their fortunes multiply overnight, found themselves in the doghouse not long afterward.

The ones who put their money in more boring options like government bonds, CD’s, or plain savings accounts saw their money grow much more slowly than others, but, as strange as the concept may be, actually kept the money they saw.

Even those who put their money under their mattresses were *much* better off than the people who lost entire fortunes in just a few short months.

The point?

Relationships are the same way.

Figure it out yourself.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009…orting-on-his-capture/

Earlier this week, New York Times reporter David Rohde escaped from a Taliban prison. He had been a Taliban hostage for the last seven months, but the general public had absolutely no clue. In a joint effort by The New York Times and Wikipedia, the story was kept quiet until his daring escape.

In November 2008, Rohde was captured and held hostage by the Taliban, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal. But until he managed to escape, most of the general public had absolutely no clue. To prevent Rohde’s value in the eyes of his captors from rising, the New York Times kept more than 35 major news organizations from reporting on the story. They believed that the publicity from reporting his capture would inflate the value of Rohde’s life, increasing the difficulty of negotiating for Rohde’s release.

This is an interesting conclusion to the story..I wonder how this parallels to the Laura Ling and Euna Lee situation, which took the complete opposite turn when it came to coverage, and whose situations grow more dire by the minute.

CurrentTV has kept completely quiet about it, but politicians and the news networks have tried all they can to keep the public up to date–but is it effective?

Does all the attention given to them simply raise the “value” of the journalists who are captured, making it that much harder for them to either escape, or negotiate an escape?

Are the news networks and politicians helping the cause at all by bringing all this attention to their cases and making the public aware?

Based on the situation above, and through common sense, I’m inclined to say no…holding candlelight vigils and posting links of Ling/Lee on Facebook may be nice gestures and all, but uh no amount of online signatures asking for their freedom is going to make the North Korean government go, “well gee golly there’s so many people on the internet who are against what we’re doing, let’s release them!”

I exaggerate only a little bit.

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/facebook-search-2/

Facebook is testing a realtime search engine for users’ news feeds that will challenge Twitter search, the company revealed on its blog today.

Say what you will about Twitter, but the Iranian situation has shown that its real time search feature is unmatched in providing live information just as it’s happening.

Not Google, not CNN, not Ron Burgundy can match it in reporting breaking news first, and first hand–and as the site continues to grow it’ll only continue to get better.  Let’s face it, it’s still very very underutilized as it is.

Imagine then if/when this becomes fully launched on Facebook. Currently we’re getting information overload from just 5-6 million Twitter users, of which it’s been reported that 10% of whom provide 90% of the tweets, so imagine what we can get via 200 million users (and still growing).

Even the almighty Google or Microsoft will have absolutely no ability to compete with them on any level, given FB’s current user base.

If implemented correctly, Facebook’s current valuation of $10 billion will be multiplied by many many times.

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: