Okay yes I know I've been rather behind on the whole blogspot thing. But I'm back atleast for now. Okay, as you may or may not know, you might consider me a gamer. Yes, I play games, fine. I find them fun, interactive, something to keep me focused on instead of being bored my entire life. And you also may or may not know that I have an executive board position in the gaming club here at Stevens, so yea, I do LAN parties. Sounds sad yes, but hey whatever. I love the club because there is barely any drama in there. The worst drama you would face is being shot in the head by someone in the game, but that's it...Or so I thought. I saw something the other day that made me just want to scream "Wow you are a loser!"
One popular game is "Left 4 Dead" where 4 survivors are left in a city full of zombies and must fight their way out. A very fun game I must say. There was this one...I guess...couple...if you can call it that, that were playing together alone with 2 other members. By the amount of screaming and cheering going on, I could tell it was close game. But then the guy in the couple began to become irritated. He starts screaming at his girl. He goes "You had one HP left and you sat there asking questions. Quit asking questions and pay attention!" I hear this and I'm like...wow...I know intense gamers are not looked too highly upon, and hell, I have an executive board member in that club, so in some sense, I am a leader of the people who aren't looked highly of, but this was just ridiculous. I mean the guy took the game WAY too seriously to the point where he would yell at his own girlfriend. Doesn't he realize he should be grateful to even have a girl here at Stevens? Okay fine maybe she was ugly as hell, but still. All the girl did was apologize too, and the guy responded with a "don't say you're sorry." Gosh sometimes people just need to calm down and realize its just a damn game. Its not life or anything. If you ever see me get like that ever, please just kill me.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Arggg
I wanted to write about things I was feeling right now, about how things are going in life for me, but then I remembered...I have a calculus final in two...or technically now, one day...So I'll get back to you guys on that!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Micro Expressions Day 1
Yes yes I know its been over a month and I have not updated. Okay so I may have lied a little back then, but I'm back now! Anyway let us get on with it. I have some extra time since I am waiting for my hair to dry before I head to bed.
So, on TV there is a show called "Lie to Me." Basically, this show has a group of "deception experts" that go around solving problems. In other words, they are mobile lie detectors. A friend named Ellen Yoon told me about the show. I occasionally take advise and do it on a whim, so I decided to do it for that. I went to Hulu and looked up the show. It was a new show that had only three episodes out. I gave the show a view. Normally, pilots of a series usually are bad, but Lie to Me had a pilot that was pretty catching. Apparently, when a person lies, there are micro expressions in their face that can hint that they are lying. I was intrigued so I did some further research. These micro expressions are so faint and quick that they only last at MAXIMUM a tenth of a second, so these expressions can be shorter. In the show, the deception experts looked for signs like these. There was something that I did not like about the show however. When the show would portray someone lying, they would either show signs on the liar that way too quick for the normal eye, or perhaps signs that were not even there, or they made the liar INCREDIBLY obvious that he was lying. I did not want to learn from a TV show, especially one that did a terrible job at portraying things, so I took matters into my own hands. I did some more research the day before yesterday about micro expressions and found a couple things interesting.
Apparently, micro expressions are different with every person. Some people will flutter their eyes, twitch their lips, lick them, blink a lot, the list goes on. Some of these signs are so subtle that they are nearly impossible to identify. Have you ever had that "gut feeling" that someone does not like you when you first meet them? Its due to micro expressions that you pick up when you first meet someone. I wanted to give this deception detection a try and decided to see if I could find any videos online of people lying/telling the truth on Youtube. I found a video of a person who did a project on micro expressions. He had a couple of people write five emotion driven facts about themselves. The thing was, three of them were true and two of them were false. He would identify the expressions as the video went on. During the last two minutes, he gave the viewers a test. An elderly man said five facts of himself. I was only able to get one of them correct. I wanted to do more exercises like that, but I could not find more videos. I decided maybe I should try this out on my friends.
Earlier yesterday, I got a few people into my friend Mae's room and asked a few people to write down five facts about themselves and make three true and two false. Long story short, I was only able to get one right on two of them and none right on one. It looked like I had a lot of practice to do. Eventually, we began to say facts right off the top of our heads so it kept the thinking to a minimum. I can say that I only got half of the guess right, but that was not good enough since statistically I am supposed to get half of them right, it was either true or false. Not only that, there were some people who messed around a little, and it would cause everyone to laugh or look away, so this interfered with my "research." Every single time I thought I found the micro expression that told me a fact was a lie was contradicted. I felt as if things were going no where, and I was on the verge of giving up.
I tried thinking of reasons why this was not working, but did not come up with anything. Eventually, I received another "test subject." Her name was Dawn and she was not in the room for most of the testing so I asked her a couple questions. The questions then turned into a "story" where she would answer multiple questions rapidly, like an interview. There was one thing that really caught my eye when she spoke. She said that her family was close together, but right at that moment, her eyes wandered to the left for a faction of a second. No one was even there in that direction, so she was not looking at someone. Later, I discovered that her family being close together was a lie! I began to wonder why I was able to clearly see it in her face when she lied.
That night and went home and thought of a conclusion. Perhaps the only reason why it was so hard to find lies on my friends faces and why micro expressions I thought I found contradicted was because my "test subjects" were aware of the experiment. The experiment was turned on me some time through the test, and I realized that when I was asked questions, I knew what they were trying to look for, so I would forcibly keep a relaxed face. I WANTED to fool them, and that was the ultimate goal. Perhaps that was what happened when I tested my friends. Perhaps they wanted to fool me because they knew what I was looking for. I came to this conclusion on Day 1 of testing.
Next time when I test for micro expressions, I need to look for random subjects, some that will not have that much time to prepare for this. I also have to keep what I am looking for a secret because if the subjects knew I was trying to catch deception through their faces, that could interfere with everything. Another error I had before was that I made people repeat what they said, to catch any other expressions, but this may have been a bad idea because the next couple of times the subject said it, it would be easier for them to make it look like the truth. What I should do is record the subject saying something and have them say it only once. This way I can watch over the footage as many times as I need. I can even slow things down frame by frame to look for expressions slowly.
This is only Day 1 of my "research" and I guess you can say I am a "noob" when it comes to catching lies...for now.
So, on TV there is a show called "Lie to Me." Basically, this show has a group of "deception experts" that go around solving problems. In other words, they are mobile lie detectors. A friend named Ellen Yoon told me about the show. I occasionally take advise and do it on a whim, so I decided to do it for that. I went to Hulu and looked up the show. It was a new show that had only three episodes out. I gave the show a view. Normally, pilots of a series usually are bad, but Lie to Me had a pilot that was pretty catching. Apparently, when a person lies, there are micro expressions in their face that can hint that they are lying. I was intrigued so I did some further research. These micro expressions are so faint and quick that they only last at MAXIMUM a tenth of a second, so these expressions can be shorter. In the show, the deception experts looked for signs like these. There was something that I did not like about the show however. When the show would portray someone lying, they would either show signs on the liar that way too quick for the normal eye, or perhaps signs that were not even there, or they made the liar INCREDIBLY obvious that he was lying. I did not want to learn from a TV show, especially one that did a terrible job at portraying things, so I took matters into my own hands. I did some more research the day before yesterday about micro expressions and found a couple things interesting.
Apparently, micro expressions are different with every person. Some people will flutter their eyes, twitch their lips, lick them, blink a lot, the list goes on. Some of these signs are so subtle that they are nearly impossible to identify. Have you ever had that "gut feeling" that someone does not like you when you first meet them? Its due to micro expressions that you pick up when you first meet someone. I wanted to give this deception detection a try and decided to see if I could find any videos online of people lying/telling the truth on Youtube. I found a video of a person who did a project on micro expressions. He had a couple of people write five emotion driven facts about themselves. The thing was, three of them were true and two of them were false. He would identify the expressions as the video went on. During the last two minutes, he gave the viewers a test. An elderly man said five facts of himself. I was only able to get one of them correct. I wanted to do more exercises like that, but I could not find more videos. I decided maybe I should try this out on my friends.
Earlier yesterday, I got a few people into my friend Mae's room and asked a few people to write down five facts about themselves and make three true and two false. Long story short, I was only able to get one right on two of them and none right on one. It looked like I had a lot of practice to do. Eventually, we began to say facts right off the top of our heads so it kept the thinking to a minimum. I can say that I only got half of the guess right, but that was not good enough since statistically I am supposed to get half of them right, it was either true or false. Not only that, there were some people who messed around a little, and it would cause everyone to laugh or look away, so this interfered with my "research." Every single time I thought I found the micro expression that told me a fact was a lie was contradicted. I felt as if things were going no where, and I was on the verge of giving up.
I tried thinking of reasons why this was not working, but did not come up with anything. Eventually, I received another "test subject." Her name was Dawn and she was not in the room for most of the testing so I asked her a couple questions. The questions then turned into a "story" where she would answer multiple questions rapidly, like an interview. There was one thing that really caught my eye when she spoke. She said that her family was close together, but right at that moment, her eyes wandered to the left for a faction of a second. No one was even there in that direction, so she was not looking at someone. Later, I discovered that her family being close together was a lie! I began to wonder why I was able to clearly see it in her face when she lied.
That night and went home and thought of a conclusion. Perhaps the only reason why it was so hard to find lies on my friends faces and why micro expressions I thought I found contradicted was because my "test subjects" were aware of the experiment. The experiment was turned on me some time through the test, and I realized that when I was asked questions, I knew what they were trying to look for, so I would forcibly keep a relaxed face. I WANTED to fool them, and that was the ultimate goal. Perhaps that was what happened when I tested my friends. Perhaps they wanted to fool me because they knew what I was looking for. I came to this conclusion on Day 1 of testing.
Next time when I test for micro expressions, I need to look for random subjects, some that will not have that much time to prepare for this. I also have to keep what I am looking for a secret because if the subjects knew I was trying to catch deception through their faces, that could interfere with everything. Another error I had before was that I made people repeat what they said, to catch any other expressions, but this may have been a bad idea because the next couple of times the subject said it, it would be easier for them to make it look like the truth. What I should do is record the subject saying something and have them say it only once. This way I can watch over the footage as many times as I need. I can even slow things down frame by frame to look for expressions slowly.
This is only Day 1 of my "research" and I guess you can say I am a "noob" when it comes to catching lies...for now.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
ABDC? No, how about just ABCD's
There seems to be something out there that really bothers me. On MTV there is a show that is called America's Best Dance Crew, or ABDC for the acronym. In my honest opinion, I feel that it is a such a waste of a television slot. Don't get me wrong, I still think ABDC is a good show, but the underlying facts make me disgusted at the overall show.
Let's start with the basics. The past seasons, ABDC has been making people's jaw drop with impressive moves and synchronized routines, but what is the point of watching the show when you know there will be always something better later? There have been three seasons so far, two with a winner. Each season, people have been claiming a certain crew as their favorite. But wouldn't you say that this process is just an endless cycle? Every season there will always be a favorite dance crew by each person, so by season "n," a person will have "n" amount of favorite crews. Here is some calculus. In that equation, let n = infinity. So basically, a person will have an infinity amount of favorite crews. Their "favorite crew" appetite will be insatiable.
Since some people only follow ABDC as their source of dance crews, a person will be limited to the crews that are shown in the show. There are many more amazing crews out there, but ABDC makes people lazy and only pay attention to crews on the show. It limits a person's knowledge of dance crews. Have you ever heard of the Rock Steady Crew? Rock So Fresh? Last 4 One? Rock Force Crew? Gamblerz? Vagabonds? TIP? Expressions? Break the Funk? Fantastik Armada? Probably not. Most people are only familiar with names like Jabbawockeez or SoReal Cru or Super Crew or even more recently Quest and Beat Freaks. The show, with their line of crews, make viewers think they know a lot of crews, but in reality, they don't. And because of that, viewers don't do any "outside research" of other crews out there. In addition, viewers don't look at other competitions out there, perhaps even better ones. A few include Red Bull BC One (one-on-one b boy tournament) , Battle of the Year (crew vs crew b boy tournament), and Prepix (crew vs crew hip hop tournament).
Whatever happened to the old saying, "dance to express, not to impress?" There is barely any expression in ABDC. Its all about impressing the viewers. What makes things worse is the fact that it isn't that hard to impress the viewers. A head spin or an air flare makes the crowds go wild. What happened to dances that actually had meaning to it? And not just a simple meaning, but a profound one? One example would be a video that can be seen on Youtube. Four men can be seen in the video. Two are on one side of a dividing line, and two on the other. The dividing line was the 38th parallel, the dividing line between North and South Korea. It was a break dancing battle, between North and South Korea, but after a couple rounds, the North Koreans and South Koreans danced together. This video symbolized the feud between the North and South, but in the end, both sides came together and unified representing a hopefully one day whole Korea. In ABDC, there is some expression and meaning to dances, but most of them are petty, like trying to look strong, tough, or sexual.
The next thing that irks me about ABDC is a reason that only applies to some crews. I am aware that some crews are not like this so I'm trying to be as unbiased as I can. ABDC may be one of the quickest ways to get famous. Note that I did NOT say EASIEST. Of course the process of getting to the top of ABDC is a challenge, and I'm not disagreeing with that. Yet, the fact that ABDC makes people famous is just the problem. Some crews only participate in the show for the fame. All they want is to get famous. Like I said before, I know this is not true for all crews, because some crews or participants of crews have their own reasons, like it is their only way to make a living, or is a childhood dream, or anything, but for everyone else, the underlying reason is really just to get famous. This leads to the next problem. With fame, lies money, with money, lies business. Every crew wants to make it to the top in ABDC or at least second place because they know that in the end, they will be overwhelmed with contracts to do commercials, appear at shows, or just have their own t-shirts. Every season, there are always those to feel that they "have to have" the winning crew's t-shirt which cost like $30. Every season, winning crews appear in ads. Every season, there is always a show that features the winning crew, selling thousands of dollars in tickets sales. ABDC is nothing more than just a business.
Why does everything today have to be about business? About money? About prosperity? About notoriety?. Society has taken something that was once pure, about having fun and just expressing, and corrupted it and turned it into a marketing strategy. Do the crews really want to dance or are they forced to? Aren't they pretty much forced to dance every week to satisfy the viewer? Since when did dancing turn into a CHORE? Now, there is no real proof that that is true though because the dancers never actually say "dancing is a chore." But look at it like this. If you had a week to learn a routine, under all that pressure, with so many viewers watching, and fame and fortune at risk and repeated the cycle for a whole season, would you TRULY WANT to dance? Probably not. Then wouldn't you say that ABDC is just a facade?
What annoys me the MOST about ABDC is the fact that ABDC makes people so arrogant. It makes it as if viewers know what they are talking about and that they are right. I'm not talking about a viewer talking about the difficulty of a move, or how to initiate a move, I'm talking about how viewers think they know the history behind crews and how blindly they compare other crews to crews they have only seen in ABDC. Here is a PERFECT example of what I mean. This just happened. A Prepix hip-hop dance crew recorded a video of a practice routine. This crew wore colored-coded gloves and shirt, and wore masks. This crew has been around for some time. The video itself is a couple years old. The performance was great, however, some of the comments did not agree. One comment caught my eye. As I read it, I was infuriated. He said, " Mask n gloves also? Hmm were have i seen that before?" Of course he was relating to Jabbawockeez. This arrogant fool thought that the crew COPIED the mask and gloves from Jabbawockeez! And his tone is just unacceptable. This crew has been around longer than Jabbawockeez. They have been doing the gloves and masks longer than Jabbawockeez. These guys have been around LONGER than Jabbawockeez. Jabbawockeez wasn't even known at the time. Thanks to ABDC, any crew out there that wears masks and gloves in their routines will be viewed by viewers of ABDC as a crew that copied Jabbawockeez. How more wrong can they be? What is even more unfortunate is the fact that this was only one of the comments. There were many more arrogant people who decided to comment on that video saying the same exact thing. And not only that, this is not the only video that met that fate. ANY dance crew's video out there on the internet that allows comments will have some arrogant punk's comment comparing that crew to Jabbawockeez or SuperC3ew. Just because the Jabbawockeez or SuperCr3w, or even Quest or Beatfreaks does something or has an idea, that doesn't mean it makes it theirs! People even compare crews on ABDC to other crews when the two crew's styles are not even the same! These people are so quick to assume that Jabbawockeez or SuperCr3w or any other crew on ABDC is better than any other crew out there!
ABDC will be a show that I will never enjoy at the state it is in right now. Yet, even though I feel strongly about my opinions, there are exceptions. There are a few videos of ABDC that are genuinely good, like the Jabbawockeez Micheal Jackson remix and not EVERY VIEWER is easily impressed by ABDC or arrogant, I did not mean to offend you. However, there are a vast majority of people who are. America's Best Dance Crew is a good show, but for all the wrong reasons and I would never consider anyone on America's Best Dance Crew to truly be the best dance crew. Bottom line, ABDC is overrated.
I know everyone will have their own opinion about ABDC. You may love it, you may hate it, you may be neutral about it, but it is evident that I do not enjoy the show. If you like the show, please, don't be so quick to assume that everything I wrote is blasphemy. Take what I said into consideration and look at ABDC from a different point of view.
Let's start with the basics. The past seasons, ABDC has been making people's jaw drop with impressive moves and synchronized routines, but what is the point of watching the show when you know there will be always something better later? There have been three seasons so far, two with a winner. Each season, people have been claiming a certain crew as their favorite. But wouldn't you say that this process is just an endless cycle? Every season there will always be a favorite dance crew by each person, so by season "n," a person will have "n" amount of favorite crews. Here is some calculus. In that equation, let n = infinity. So basically, a person will have an infinity amount of favorite crews. Their "favorite crew" appetite will be insatiable.
Since some people only follow ABDC as their source of dance crews, a person will be limited to the crews that are shown in the show. There are many more amazing crews out there, but ABDC makes people lazy and only pay attention to crews on the show. It limits a person's knowledge of dance crews. Have you ever heard of the Rock Steady Crew? Rock So Fresh? Last 4 One? Rock Force Crew? Gamblerz? Vagabonds? TIP? Expressions? Break the Funk? Fantastik Armada? Probably not. Most people are only familiar with names like Jabbawockeez or SoReal Cru or Super Crew or even more recently Quest and Beat Freaks. The show, with their line of crews, make viewers think they know a lot of crews, but in reality, they don't. And because of that, viewers don't do any "outside research" of other crews out there. In addition, viewers don't look at other competitions out there, perhaps even better ones. A few include Red Bull BC One (one-on-one b boy tournament) , Battle of the Year (crew vs crew b boy tournament), and Prepix (crew vs crew hip hop tournament).
Whatever happened to the old saying, "dance to express, not to impress?" There is barely any expression in ABDC. Its all about impressing the viewers. What makes things worse is the fact that it isn't that hard to impress the viewers. A head spin or an air flare makes the crowds go wild. What happened to dances that actually had meaning to it? And not just a simple meaning, but a profound one? One example would be a video that can be seen on Youtube. Four men can be seen in the video. Two are on one side of a dividing line, and two on the other. The dividing line was the 38th parallel, the dividing line between North and South Korea. It was a break dancing battle, between North and South Korea, but after a couple rounds, the North Koreans and South Koreans danced together. This video symbolized the feud between the North and South, but in the end, both sides came together and unified representing a hopefully one day whole Korea. In ABDC, there is some expression and meaning to dances, but most of them are petty, like trying to look strong, tough, or sexual.
The next thing that irks me about ABDC is a reason that only applies to some crews. I am aware that some crews are not like this so I'm trying to be as unbiased as I can. ABDC may be one of the quickest ways to get famous. Note that I did NOT say EASIEST. Of course the process of getting to the top of ABDC is a challenge, and I'm not disagreeing with that. Yet, the fact that ABDC makes people famous is just the problem. Some crews only participate in the show for the fame. All they want is to get famous. Like I said before, I know this is not true for all crews, because some crews or participants of crews have their own reasons, like it is their only way to make a living, or is a childhood dream, or anything, but for everyone else, the underlying reason is really just to get famous. This leads to the next problem. With fame, lies money, with money, lies business. Every crew wants to make it to the top in ABDC or at least second place because they know that in the end, they will be overwhelmed with contracts to do commercials, appear at shows, or just have their own t-shirts. Every season, there are always those to feel that they "have to have" the winning crew's t-shirt which cost like $30. Every season, winning crews appear in ads. Every season, there is always a show that features the winning crew, selling thousands of dollars in tickets sales. ABDC is nothing more than just a business.
Why does everything today have to be about business? About money? About prosperity? About notoriety?. Society has taken something that was once pure, about having fun and just expressing, and corrupted it and turned it into a marketing strategy. Do the crews really want to dance or are they forced to? Aren't they pretty much forced to dance every week to satisfy the viewer? Since when did dancing turn into a CHORE? Now, there is no real proof that that is true though because the dancers never actually say "dancing is a chore." But look at it like this. If you had a week to learn a routine, under all that pressure, with so many viewers watching, and fame and fortune at risk and repeated the cycle for a whole season, would you TRULY WANT to dance? Probably not. Then wouldn't you say that ABDC is just a facade?
What annoys me the MOST about ABDC is the fact that ABDC makes people so arrogant. It makes it as if viewers know what they are talking about and that they are right. I'm not talking about a viewer talking about the difficulty of a move, or how to initiate a move, I'm talking about how viewers think they know the history behind crews and how blindly they compare other crews to crews they have only seen in ABDC. Here is a PERFECT example of what I mean. This just happened. A Prepix hip-hop dance crew recorded a video of a practice routine. This crew wore colored-coded gloves and shirt, and wore masks. This crew has been around for some time. The video itself is a couple years old. The performance was great, however, some of the comments did not agree. One comment caught my eye. As I read it, I was infuriated. He said, " Mask n gloves also? Hmm were have i seen that before?" Of course he was relating to Jabbawockeez. This arrogant fool thought that the crew COPIED the mask and gloves from Jabbawockeez! And his tone is just unacceptable. This crew has been around longer than Jabbawockeez. They have been doing the gloves and masks longer than Jabbawockeez. These guys have been around LONGER than Jabbawockeez. Jabbawockeez wasn't even known at the time. Thanks to ABDC, any crew out there that wears masks and gloves in their routines will be viewed by viewers of ABDC as a crew that copied Jabbawockeez. How more wrong can they be? What is even more unfortunate is the fact that this was only one of the comments. There were many more arrogant people who decided to comment on that video saying the same exact thing. And not only that, this is not the only video that met that fate. ANY dance crew's video out there on the internet that allows comments will have some arrogant punk's comment comparing that crew to Jabbawockeez or SuperC3ew. Just because the Jabbawockeez or SuperCr3w, or even Quest or Beatfreaks does something or has an idea, that doesn't mean it makes it theirs! People even compare crews on ABDC to other crews when the two crew's styles are not even the same! These people are so quick to assume that Jabbawockeez or SuperCr3w or any other crew on ABDC is better than any other crew out there!
ABDC will be a show that I will never enjoy at the state it is in right now. Yet, even though I feel strongly about my opinions, there are exceptions. There are a few videos of ABDC that are genuinely good, like the Jabbawockeez Micheal Jackson remix and not EVERY VIEWER is easily impressed by ABDC or arrogant, I did not mean to offend you. However, there are a vast majority of people who are. America's Best Dance Crew is a good show, but for all the wrong reasons and I would never consider anyone on America's Best Dance Crew to truly be the best dance crew. Bottom line, ABDC is overrated.
I know everyone will have their own opinion about ABDC. You may love it, you may hate it, you may be neutral about it, but it is evident that I do not enjoy the show. If you like the show, please, don't be so quick to assume that everything I wrote is blasphemy. Take what I said into consideration and look at ABDC from a different point of view.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Creation
Ah I made a blog! I realized that many times I have long deep thoughts about certain topics usually when I am relaxing. I could never really tell anyone theses thoughts because...no one is usually there. When I finally have people around me, its usually the next day and I have already forgotten. So I thought, why not make a blog, a place to voice my opinion, write down my thoughts, and maybe improve my writing skills. I usually have a really deep thought maybe once a week, so you should check often. I would love to hear your opinions about anything I write and you never know, I might talk about something juicy. It is a bit late right now so I won't write anything more than this, but I will once I get the time.
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