Hung Truong: The Blog!

Anime Nano, na no!

And now for a little “What I did during my Summer vacation.” Well, I’ve been brushing up on my ‘gramming skills. And I’m pretty much done with my first web app. It’s called Anime Nano. As in “Anime, na no.” I know, only two or so of you will get that.

Basically, It’s an anime blog feed indexer. There’s also a forum in there that I wrote in a day. Since its grand opening on midnight, quite a few anime blogs have joined in on the action.

For those who are interested, it’s written purely in Ruby on Rails. I learned the language, learned some css skills, and wrote the project in about 3 weeks. RoR is a cool way to produce web application code in an Object Oriented paradigm. I’m losing most of you, aren’t I?

My next web app is still a secret, but I’ll let you know when that hits. For now, visit AnimeNano at http://www.animenano.com and let me know what you think. Is it ugly? Is it cute? Is it teh suck? Perhaps all of the above…

Of Ancient Japan, Giant Enemy Crabs, Massive Damage, and Riiiiddggeee Racerrrrr!!!

This is probably kinda late, but I wanted to point out this video. It’s the Sony E3 Press Conference in 1 minute:

My absolute favorite part is where the guy is talking about how Genji 2 is based on actual historical facts. Being based in history, the game also has battles that actually took place in ancient Japan. Then he starts talking about “Giant Enemy Crabs” and causing “Massive Damage!” by attacking their weak point. Priceless!

There’s also Kaz Hirai who, by being a bit too excited for Ridge Racer, has become an internet celebrity! Oh, and he also announces the giant price of the PS3.

Speaking of Ridge Racer, I just got a PSP and I’ve been playing Ridge Racer. It’s pretty fun, but I need some more games. Anyone have suggestions?

The Sheep Market: 10,000 Badly Drawn Sheep!

If you haven’t heard of the Amazon.com mechanical turk, it’s a weird way of getting paid to do human things. There are certain things that humans can do much better than computers (like identify street names and buildings), so Amazon.com pays you to do this stuff at a rate of like, 3 cents per thing you do.

I used it a couple of times to earn like, $1 by identifying buildings before I got bored as hell and quit. Anyway, it looks like someone has finally put this to good use by hiring people to draw sheep facing left. 10,000 of them! I’m kinda disappointed that I didn’t know about this. I coulda been part of internet history! And been paid 2 cents!

If you click on the little thumbnail, it actually shows you the strokes that it took to draw the sheep. Pretty cool. At 2 cents per sheep, the whole project cost $200. Not too bad, really. Where else are you gonna get 10,000 pictures of sheep?

Thinkgeek Merch Awesomeness!

Thinkgeek.com is a crazy store just for nerds. Pretty much everything there caters to glasses-wearing people who got beat up in high school. Sometime their merch is kinda lame, but every once in a while, great things pop up there. While browsing their new stuff, I came across some awesomeness. So I thought I’d share:

Yoda Plush Backpack!

Remember in The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke is training and he carries Yoda on his back? I know you do! Here’s an official Yoda Plush Backpack!! I’m seriously thinking of buying this and finishing out my college career in style. Or badly beaten… Now all I need to do is get Frank Oz to follow me around and make grunting noises!

The Solution T-Shirt

I’m not what you would call a “chemist,” but I still think this shirt is pretty awesome. First off, it’s green. Next, it’s got nerd vocabulary on it! I’d get this, but I think I’d probably look like a poser since I hate chemistry.

Evil Genius Lab Coat

There’s just something about labcoats that makes people look smart. And cool! If it were socially acceptable, I’d probably wear a labcoat everywhere I went. But then people would probably be all, “hey, are you a scientist or something? Look at my mole!” And that’s just not what scientists are for.

American Red Cross Hearts Threadless T-Shirts

So I guess the American Red Cross had a contest going with Threadless. There’s three shirts which, when bought, will cause a donation of $5 to the Red Cross. Pretty cool, but none of these shirts are really bitchin’ or anything. The Florence Nightingale is probably the only one I’d buy if it were $10 instead… Have a look anyway, though, it’s for a good cause after all:

St.George VS the Dragon

Florence Nightingale

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