Notes: Artificial Emotion

Once, me and my friend Joey were drinking at Mogwai Bar, and at some point in the night, some guy introduced himself to Joey. Then on that spot, something about the guy struck me, like a distant memory, but not so much. Almost instantly, I asked him if he was from Elbi (Our slang for our alma mater, UP Los Banos). Because I was so sure that he studied there. There was this familiarity, almost like home feeling to his face that I have related him to Los Banos. Or was it because I was in Mogwai, and Mogwai reminds me of IC’s and that told my brain that everyone that was in Mogwai was from UP, or just from UPLB.

Now the guy, I forgot his name, kept evading the question. He said almost inaudibly that he’s from UP Diliman, which I did not buy because I swear we were in the same dormitory. I was so sure that even though he has told me countless of times that he was from Diliman, I just shrugged it off, and by the end of the night I was happy because I have met someone who apparently lived in the same dorm as me 7 years ago.

I was wrong of course. The day after, I saw that same guy walking around my street. Then it all came back to me, 15/18 years ago, age six to nine, we were playmates - he is a childhood friend. I think he was my bestfriend when I was a kid. 

Flickr Lithe - Flickr Instant Search with Whimsy

[Link to FlickrLithe]

I've got to be honest, when YoutubeInstant creator Ferros A. got offered a job by Youtube CEO Chad Hurley himself, I instantly wanted to milk the proverbial employment cow of web-apps. I have realized that I can juggle post-grad and actual work, and these projects are good for flexing the practicing programmer muscle + entice jobs.

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education

How I wish I could go to one of these TED Talks. Really amazing thing about the Internet: a vehicle for change.

Google Image Search Effect

Today I'm going to mimic the Google Image search result effect. Google has been sporting a new look on their image search results for quite some time now. Notice that when you hover over an image, it zooms, making it stand out from a blob of image search results. The texts are cut to the minimum as well, showing only the hovered image's info.

A lot of people noticed the change, they even think that Google was threatened because Bing was the first to implement the image-only results. And I think that the rumors are true. Bing has a very simple yet really sophisticated user-experience. Image-> Hover -> Info. Google thought it was a good idea, why not make it better. Competition -> innovation.

Youtube Instant

I am completely blown away by the simplicity of Youtube Instant. Completely. It is so simple, yet whimsy and really mindblowingly innovative.

In a nutshell, YTInstant.com is a website that automatically searches for a video without you pressing enter, like an intuitive video search.

Hello World

Hi! I'm Rapi and after taking a Jung Personality Test 5 years ago, I was told by an arbitrary and impersonal computer program that I was of the "Architect" archetype. It said that I analyze things and plan on making them better. Apparently, it's true. And I am always mesmerized by what these nerds in the internet are cooking.