Hung Truong: The Blog!

SOCHI Google Android Design Challenge

So the SOCHI group at Michigan had a fun Google Android Design Challenge thingy last week. SOCHI is the student organization for computer-human interaction. I guess I should’ve capitalized all those words… Oh, and Android is the OHA’s new mobile development platform.

Basically, we all had a brainstorming session with ideas for fun new mobile apps. There were a lot of cool ideas thrown out. Afterwards, we all got into smaller groups and developed some app ideas. Our group came up with this sensor that tells you if you’re in close proximity to someone really often. I believe there was some study done where people wore these RFID things and it turned out that they were in close proximity to complete strangers very often (like at the bus stop or grocery store or something). So the app could say, “hey, you’re together often, maybe you should be friends” or something.

The coolest part of the meetup was that it was partly sponsored by Google, which means there was free pizza, drinks, and most importantly, Google cups. They were the same as that one red Google cup I got as my consolation prize (the grand prize being a job at Google). I picked up one of each color (blue, green, yellow and red) since I didn’t know if they’d go to waste afterwards. I guess SOCHI just sorta stows them away until another Google sponsored event. Oops!

Writing this post is also a way for me to procrastinate on my business plan which is due tomorrow for my entrepreneur class. The business? A software development company specializing in mobile applications on the Android platform. Which it wasn’t at the beginning of the semester, but that’s a whole other story…

Yahoo Guest Speaker: Bradley Horowitz

Today there was a guest talk by one Bradley Horowitz over at the Computer Science building on North Campus. The title, “Innovation and Evolution -How Search, Social Media, and New Ideas can Shape the Next Web,” intrigued me enough to compel me to check it out.

Much of the talk was devoted to Flickr, and how lots of useful information can be extracted from the inherent metadata of tags, traffic, and geodata of the photos on the site. For example, Flickr can make a list of “interesting” photos, figure out correlations between tags and photos (it can semi-distinguish between photos of love between two people, love as a symbol, and love as puppies), and figure out the location of Route 66.

I was vehemently unimpressed by an earlier Yahoo talk this year, but today’s was neat. Probably because the speaker knew what he was talking about. Fun fact: the speaker is VP of the Advanced Development Division at Yahoo. Or ADD. Apparently the name was not an accident. He mentioned quite a few interesting things like their “Brick House” incubator, and a few products of it like Pipes and something called Kickstart.

Kickstart seems to be something of a mix between Facebook and LinkedIn. Or something. I had to sign up for a Yahoo account to use it. Minor tangent: I hate Yahoo because I can’t get the login info for all of my old usernames (because I don’t use them anymore) so whenever I want to use something Yahoo, I have to sign up for a new account. And since Yahoo has so many users, no sane usernames exist anymore. It took me like 30 minutes to come up with escargoal (like a cross between escargot and goal)!

I’m not sure how many social networks Yahoo wants… They’ve got that Yahoo 360, Mash, Kickstart… I guess an alternate strategy to buying Facebook could be diluting the social network market…

But anyway, the talk was pretty cool, though somewhat high level for a crowd of CS kids (and SI kids, I suppose). Where was the talk of computational complexity and algorithms in Flickr!? The talk has at least rewarmed my interest in looking for a Summer internship at Yahoo, possibly in the ADD…

Jazz Song Currently Stuck In My Head: Stella By Starlight

So currently, I’ve got Stella By Starlight stuck in my head. It’s mostly the Chet Baker version that appears on “The Best of Chet Baker Plays.” I’ve got a few other versions that are pretty good, like the Bill Evans one.

My friend David always likes to point out how bad the words for this song are. They really are probably the worst lyrics to a jazz standard ever:

The song a robin sings,

Through years of endless springs,

The murmur of a brook at evening tides.

That ripples through a nook where two lovers hide.

That great symphonic theme,

That’s Stella by starlight,

And not a dream,

My heart and I agree,

She’s everything on this earth to me.

Does anyone know what a song that a robin sings through years of endless springs sounds like? Or a murmur of a brook rippling though a nook? And Stella by starlight is a vision, not a sound, right? Couldn’t we say something about Stella herself, rather than babble endlessly about stupid rhymes (brook and nook make me stabby)?

If you can look past the shitty lyrics, the melody is really nice. Plus this song has the distinction of having some unique changes that I can’t really say sound like any other song. Off the top of my head, at least. The tune works well uptempo or as a ballad, too.

If only I had my Real Book with me and some kind of trumpet practice mute so I don’t bug (and by bug, I mean serenade) the neighbors…

$10 Holiday Sale at Threadless!

There’s another $10 sale going on at Threadless. I think the quality of Threadless shirts has kinda been waning in recent months. There’s a few fun shirts, but I’ll wait on ordering since this sale lasts until December 16th. Especially funny is this “November Was a Good Month” shirt. Going to a (sort of) library school, I think I’m starting to think more and more like a librarian. So I kind of find this shirt more interesting than I really should. But yeah, maybe I’ll hit the jackpot with a round of good shirts sometime between now and December.

Pachebel’s Greatest Hit: A One-Hit Wonder

While waiting for the TMBG concert, I killed some time at the Borders across the street from the Michigan Theater. Apparently this is the headquarters of Borders, though it isn’t the first Borders ever. Originally it was located above the State Theater. Anyway, I was in the music section, and came across this cd entitled “Pachebel’s Greatest Hit.” Yes, greatest hit. Singular.

The cd consists of a bunch of different versions of Canon in D. If the inherent repetitiveness of the song (it’s a fucking canon!) wasn’t enough for you, now you can listen to it 8 different times! Next up, “Variations on ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat!’”