Pokito A Poko

One Shot Pics

2008-04-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

Not So Important =)

2008-04-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Note: This was an April Fools joke .....

Hey Everyone!!

It has been a tough year but my family and I (with the help of my attorneys) finally managed to acquire entry visas for my fiancée and her family. So, it is with great excitement that I can finally announce that our wedding will take place on May 24th 2008 in Alpine, NJ!!

For questions regarding the bachelor and bachelorette party please contact Luke Hakkinen and Daniel Morse respectively. If you have any security questions or require extra protection please contact Mr. Sherman

If you think you are invited be on the look out for the official invitations coming by snail mail to a postbox next to you! Until then, if you are unsure what to get us please check out our wish list setup at Athena's By Alison as well as at Linens-N-Things

We look forward to seeing you at our wedding.

Sava Kostadinov

P.S. Please do not stress out about the attire, however due to Bulgarian traditions please learn the steps to this dance!
----------------------------------
Edit: Surprisingly enough a lot of people believed this ....

RFID

2008-03-25T13:22:00.001-07:00

Abstract: We have all heard of the hype behind RFID. It is after all one of the “newest” technologies that will simplify our lives. Not surprisingly we have also heard that it will inflict on our constitutional penumbral right to privacy. (Neither the constitution, nor the Bill of Rights ever use the word privacy hence penumbral, i.e. derived from multiple Amendments) So do the benefits of RFID outweigh the negatives? You decide!

The Technology: You've probably never seen an RFID tag (or if you have, you didn’t care), but chances are there's one within 10 ft. of you. An RFID tag--it stands for radio-frequency identification--is a tiny device consisting of a very small chip attached to a very small antenna. The chip is no great shakes, but it doesn't have to be; it just stores one very large number. When the RFID tag hears a particular radio signal, it responds by broadcasting back the number in its chip. That's its entire purpose in life, to respond to a reader with a number. Some prototype RFID tags are about the size of a grain of ground pepper (told you they were small).

Some RFID Background: There really is not anything new about RFID technology--its history can be traced back to World War II, when the Allies used a similar principle to tell friendly aircraft from their dreaded enemies. But RFID did get a massive boost in the late 1990s, when two MIT (yes I did say MIT sorry RPI) professors hit on RFID tags as a way to help robots "visualize" the “real”/physical objects around them. That's the coolness of RFID: “it's a way to make the ordinary physical world of people and objects visible to the virtual world that computers inhabit. It maps real space onto virtual space, so the two worlds can talk to each other.” In some cases they can even help tell us what we want! Some other historic uses of electronic tags were to be attached to the ears of cattle 30 years ago. They allowed ranchers to track the movement of their herds and the animals' mating habits. By the 1990s, millions of chips were being attached to or implanted in livestock, fish, pets, and racehorses. These chips are attached to car windshields today to allow drivers to pay tolls automatically, and they are also found in "contactless" credit cards that users simply pass in front of store readers. In 2006, IBM received patent approval for a device that uses RFID-tagged items to identify and track people. One purpose of the new device is to collect information about where people move through stores or other areas. When someone enters a store, a "sniffer" scans "all identifiable RFID tags carried on the person" and compares that information with sales records to determine the individual's identity. Then a device called a person tracking unit (PTU) assigns a tracking number to the shopper "to monitor the movement of the person through the store or other areas." The patent makes clear that the invention could work in other places as well.

RFID Uses & Problems: More and more Americans are being “secretly” tracked by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips. Right now, the chips primarily keep track of the products people buy. RFID chips are tiny, sometimes no bigger than a grain of sand. They can be hidden in the folds of clothes or between layers of cardboard or molded in plastic. When a customer picks up a product, the chip sends a signal to a "reader" in the store. The reader knows the product has left the shelf and is about to be purchased. By combining that information with a credit card number, the store can create a list of what the customer buys. Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot all use RFID. RFID technology does more than help stores sell products. Chips help scientists track wild animals, such as migrating birds or whales. Chips are also useful in medicine. Implanted in a human, an RFID chip can send a patient's medical history to a hospital's reader. The chips can also be used to find lost pets.

In South Korea, an entire city is being built to make use of RFID technology. Chip readers will monitor all products and services in New Songdo City. Homes will have medical stations that monitor people's blood pressure. Readers will keep track of kids so parents know when they're at school (talk about obsessive parenting). Builders are considering using RFID to track trash and recycling.

According to Dan Muller, president of AIM Inc., a national association of data collection business, "[w]e're probably still just scratching the surface in terms of places RFID can be used." The idea of New Songdo City horrifies some people. To them, an expansion of RFID technology means an end to privacy and to people's right to do as they please without being spied on or tracked. They worry that chips on clothing, toys, or electronics will expose consumers to later invasions of privacy--some envision powerful radio gear reading the tags from a distance to see what's inside a house. One solution might be to disable them at the checkout counter, although that would keep the technology from benefiting people at home. Refrigerators armed with readers could send an alert when the milk is getting old, and a washing machine could scan the clothes in its tub and set the best wash cycle. "Red clothes no longer would bleed on white clothes," Presto! No more pink underwear.

Google’s Benefits – adSense on Steroids (or RFID): Last month, Mini USA began erecting billboards in four U.S. cities for a volunteer pilot program. When a Mini Cooper passes, the RFID in the driver's key fob is picked up, and the board displays a personalized message like, "Motor On Jim!" The Texas-based company Media Cart Holdings is set to begin testing its shopping carts--which sense RFIDs on shelves--in a handful of supermarkets. Roll by the milk section, and you may see a silent ad on the cart's digital screen for cookies. The cart will also locate items on your shopping list. "We know basically--to the foot--where these carts are in the store," says Media Cart CEO Steve Carpenter. This is all but miracle for companies who cannot wait to copy Google’s adSense technology in the real world. Yes we will send you the wrong ads sometimes, but oh my G*d are we going to be able to custom tailor every single newsletter you get. In all reality it will be little less different from the “loyalty” cards that we currently have for many of the stores, which from what we see is not that well utilized.

Total Recall: It is exciting that you can be mapped but also a bit scary for anyone who doesn't want to be. It's not hard to imagine Orwellian (In reference to George Orwell’s privacy-less novel 1984, aka Big Brother) scenarios, in which prison inmates or even immigrants would be tagged with RFID implants to make it easier for the government to monitor them. Bizarre as it sounds, these ideas have been floated seriously enough that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger--possibly flashing back to the tracking implant he had in his nose in Total Recall--formally banned the forced implantation of RFID tags in humans in the state of California.

End Result: At this moment in the development of RFID chips, the technology follows a pattern shared by most revolutionary consumer technologies. Evangelists unload fluffy tales of bliss, and naysayers make Orwellian proclamations about the loss of privacy or some long-revered tradition. But, what usually happens is that the technology is introduced anyway, and the results prove to be far less stark than the naysayers predicted as well as more interesting than the predictions of the cheerleaders. We have heard of various tales from the late 1990s that online shopping was going to create a digital paper trail for our transactions that hackers would be able to access, while simultaneously destroying beloved mom-and-pop stores across the country. Fast-forward five years and consumers have happily embraced online shopping, and mom-and-pop stores have flourished thanks to auction sites like eBay or the used-book service of Amazon. Something comparable is likely to happen with RFID: Embedding billions of tiny chips in an entire universe of commercial objects might well end up empowering consumers more than snoops and marketers. It may change the very nature of consumerism.

Works Referenced:

Johnson, Steven. "Smart-label revolution: tiny talking identification tags could change the very nature of consumerism.(EMERGING TECHNOLOGY)." Discover 25.3 (March 2004): 24(2). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. 24 Mar. 2008
.

LaGesse, David. "They know where you are." U.S. News & World Report 135.7 (Sept 8, 2003): 32-36,. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. 24 Mar. 2008
.

"Ads Made For You.(Brief article)." Newsweek (March 5, 2007): 12. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. 24 Mar. 2008
.

:"Chipping people.(Inside Track)(radio frequency identification tags)(Brief article)." The New American 23.17 (August 20, 2007): 8(1). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale 24 Mar. 2008
.

Grossman, Lev. "Tag, You're It.(Life; Nerd World)(radio-frequency identification tag)." Time International (Europe Edition) 170.18 (Nov 5, 2007): 40. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. 24 Mar. 2008
.

:"Invasion of the spy chips: useful tools or destroyers of privacy?(DEBATE)(Radio Frequency Identification)." Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication 107.18 (Feb 25, 2008): 7(2). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. 24 Mar. 2008
.

Edit: Some "opinionated" parenthesized comments have been removed.

Sava = Sick

2008-03-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I do not feel well today. My head feels like it is going to explode. I hope that tylenol helps, nonetheless I will not be able to make it to class today.

Going National: Wafaa Bilal

2008-03-07T21:39:00.000-08:00

Well not going to lie it seems as the school is handling the case the worst way possible. Instead of presenting an united front when confronted with the issues regarding Mr. Bilal's work we have the Arts department + Bilal against everybody else. Recently the story was picked up by the Washington Post. Is this the image we want to present to the prosperous RPI students? The faculty senate was not enough of a "divide" between the faculty and the administration now we need to make everything national yay!! Remember how I said that we need to be very careful how we handle the situation. (Maybe it would have been better if the people who didn't attend the lecture had attended it, and those who did, reviewed it badly (i.e. said it promotes terrorism) --neither happened)
Sava

The Bear and the Pirates

2008-03-03T02:37:00.000-08:00

So I was watching Pirates of the Sillicon Valley and I really liked the idea of the "wrong enemy." There was Steve Jobs thinking that his enemy was IBM when it turned out it was M$. Well now lets apply that to the current situation. The US thinks that their enemy is al Qaeda (nothing new there), this country has been going after them since 2001. Meanwhile our cold-war friends over at Russia are kicking back and reeking the profits of the US stupidity. For those of you who are still not following ..... the US is fighting the wrong enemy!! So far all the Russian presidents before Putin have been a threat to themselves and Russia/USSR now the situation is a little different they are actually turning Russia into the world power it used to be. So while the US is fighting the war in Iraq which has massively lead to people refusing to join the army/navy/marines/air force the Russians are rebuilding their military and resuming military test flights and trainings. I think its time for this government to reasses the situation and maybe find a proper target.

And thats my 2 cents of the day.

The Rise and ____ of MySpace

2008-02-26T11:07:00.000-08:00

Myspace one of many "social" websites has dominated the scene since 2003. Why it has become so popular is a question we need to answer, the question we need to concentrate on is: how much longer it will be around, and who will use it. First I would like to start with a look at Facebook which started off as a website accessible to only college students. I personally quickly switched from myspace to facebook as soon as I started college. Why? Because I wanted to run away from all the spam, bands, and the 18- population. I found that a lot of my newly acquired friends had done the same. I did not question their choice. And then IT happened, facebook opened its doors to everyone! And then I started to think how it all started. If my memory serves me right it all started with an IM, one of my buddies asked if I had a myspace and I said what the hell is that (circa Spring 2004). And that is when my eyes "opened," actually not really. Unlike most of my friends I perceived my house as my personal space, the only controlled moments were times when I had to clean my room. I saw myspace as a medium where I can meet (stalk) people. I was technically free to do anything I want, but I think what I liked about myspace was the fact that I did not have to promote it, it promoted itself and best of all it was free. My co workers, and friends used myspace for similar reasons, one of them was invited to a tv show, and the other met his girlfriend on myspace. So what did myspace do for them it promoted them, it bridged the gap between different "communities", between people who would have not met in real life due to distance or social reasons. But I have digressed, let's get back on topic. All those experiences lead me to believe that no matter what myspace can be useful and that it invites millions of users. Furthermore, the idea that it can help you achieve your 15 minutes of fame is something that will keep bringing people to it.
Do I think that myspace will be forgotten? Eventually everything is, however I do not think it will be soon unless parents/the government start regulating it. I.E. they say that people under 18 cannot use it. Until then myspace will continue to attract more teenagers who will willfully waste 3-5 hours a day making it look "nice" (whatever they think nice means"). So the title of this article is The Rise and Domination of myspace (not the fall as you thought).

(This post requires further writing/research at a time when my head is not all over the place)

Brain dump: Project #3

2008-02-21T14:00:00.000-08:00

Proposal for Project #3

Research paper focused on exploring "exploits" to the open media . I.e. privacy vs freedom of speech. More specifically stalking "celebraties" through twitter , mms etc. Damage control: Regulation vs Let it be? Moderation?
Title? Civil rights in the era of open media?

Build it and they will come (if you are still there)

2008-02-14T19:42:00.000-08:00

When you create something the first questions you ask yourself is: what is this, and who is it for? We often do not care how big it is, but we do have to analyze its impact on the people who will utilize it. Usually when you think of a building on a college campus the first thing that comes to mind is: oh it is for the students, a place for them to learn (lally,sage,troy,dcc,west hall,carniege,greene,amos eaton, jrowl, walker labs,CII(Low), read books (folsom library), or pray infront of computers (vcc), and then there is EMPAC a place where students can ?(please post a comment if you know)? Well it is my understanding the students will not be utilizing the EMPAC building from previous conversations it turns out that there is not even 1 classroom inside that multi million dollar building. So we know it is not for students. Well RPI is an research university so it must be used for research right? Yes and no, according to Brian Holmes who recently went on a tour of the EMPAC building there is a possibility that the building will be used by Homeland Security, the building will be unaccessible to students weeks at a time (because of various projects) and the technical teams are way too expensive. But not to worry we as students are paying for them! Oh by the way EMPAC stands for The Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center, so it has to be a place where you can "experience" Art. Supprisinly enough we had the honor to see it illuminated in blue,red,green and other colors every single night for a week - not going to lie it was cool but wasteful. But once again Christo's orange gates were a lot more expensive and pointless. But I have digressed. Lets recap EMPAC is a cool building, that was plopped in the bottom right hand corner of the 'tute. The building will not only NOT benefit students, but students will have to pay for the people who use it (told you it was cool). So while our tuition hikes 10% every single year to accomodate "research," and Shirley's salary and all the preps she gets, all we get to do is sit back and say OMG the EMPAC building is BLUE! (and as of right now still not finished)

Oh side comments: I don't know but I usually think that instead of spendind a lot of money on a building you can hire professors who can and love to teach (at least that will help us (the students) out)! And honestly I do not think that EMPAC has increased the recognition of the name Rensselaer

Episode 2

2008-02-14T00:43:00.001-08:00

Hey guys, here is episode 2 of my podcast. Unfortunately I cannot be present today, I have a long and busy weekend in NJ and due to the weather + that I have a presentation @ 8AM + workshop @ 1PM I will try to get to NJ before 6PM on Thursday. Have a great V-day and please post some comments with what I missed. The quality of the podcast is horrible because I used my cell phone to record the call and it turns out the recording software misbehaved and I didn't feel like making DJ Russ Harris redo this painful interview : )

C'ya around

Sava

Youtube Diving

2008-02-13T18:25:00.000-08:00

Well guys I decided to do some dumpster i mean youtube diving and ran across a Bulgarian song. And then I remembered how i had stated that bulgarian pop-folk music (i.e. Bulgarian term: chalga) is crap. I have provided two videos here the first one is of Anelia - Vsichko vodi kum teb (everything leads to you) and the second is Elitsa - Voda (Water). Enjoy

I invite you to listen to at least 45 seconds of each song and tell me which one sounds more generic (i.e. which one is more commercial) and which one you prefer.
All I have to say is that one of the songs made it to Eurovision and that same song presents at least a little bit of what traditional Bulgarian folk music sounds like .

Proposal for Project 2

2008-01-29T18:24:00.000-08:00

So for the 3 piece segment I was thinking about creating an audio podcast which will reflect on the latest trends in house music. I know that sounds too broad so I am trying to narrow it down more specifically. For my first piece most likely I will do a brief history on the House music genre, talk about various songs and what's good about them what I really am trying to accomplish currently is get a hold of various European and American DJs and create this weekly 5 minute interview w/ a DJ who has a "hott" track out. So far I have heard from two out of 4 Djs I e-mailed and we are working out the details of the interviews. The idea is that anyone can make a mixtrack with the hottest songs but actually hearing what the DJs had in mind when they made the track is something that you can on the radio. Besides talking about the songs part of the interview will most likely include a 30 seconds piece on how the social networks have helped promote them etc. So brief concept:
1.Brief intro (15 sec)
2.Talk about a song I liked, why I liked it + more information on the guest DJ (1 min)
3. Brief interview with the DJ (4 minutes)
4. Closing remark
5. Inviting listeners to post their questions for the next week interview and announcing who next week's guest DJ will be.

--------------
I really want to see if it is possible for a regular person to get a hold and conduct phone/voip interviews with "famous" musicians.

Goals of the project:
Promote house music
Try to get people to listen to something they usually would not
Figure out what house music is : )

---SaVa---

Edit: Here is the feed to the podcast

Broken Promises

2008-01-26T11:28:00.001-08:00

Youtube Comment: Dude, i am american and let me tell you that all the casualties we casue are by mistake we didn't go into this thinking "we going to kill all those fucking Iraq people" we were trying to protect ourselves after we got a FUCKING BOEING 747 SHOVED UP OUR ASS ON SEPTEMBER FUCKING 11TH

Well after we forget how many times this person cursed we need to look into the fact that this video is about the war in Iraq. Last time I checked we went there because of weapons of mass destruction not because of 9/11 but OK. But anyways that kind-a goes to show how much we care about our international affairs and how much the "MAN" twists and turns. I would like to point out the following:
----
1. The main person who caused the attacks on 9.11.01 As presented by the American government aka the leader of al-qaeda aka Bin Laden still has not been apprehended by the American government
2. As of today no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq
3. The middle East is still not stable
4. We are not any safer than we were before
5. Some of the major funding for these terrorist organizations come from within the U.S.
6. The war in Iraq is not beneficial to anyone
7. We keep losing our liberties because we are afraid that we might get bombed again.
---------------
I have written multiple papers saying that the day we are lead by fear is the day we are going to destroy ourselves. So I am sick and tired of repeating it! I believe that the only winner of this whole conflict are the people who want to live in 1984

Quick question: Does being 'american' mean I am ignorant?

Delicious Slideshow

2008-01-26T03:52:00.000-08:00

Slideshow

Collaborative Project Apology / Proposal

2008-01-24T18:11:00.000-08:00

Preamble: The following statement has not been proofread, and was written by a person who has not slept for over 48 hours so please take it with a grain of salt.

Dear Colleagues,

As I am not really an arts student, I decided to look at this project from the IT side and maybe that is where I went completely off. And I apologize for that. I stand 100% behind Joe’s blog post stating that this class project adds some minor value to the class. I furthermore believe that what is expected should be forwarded to either the IT department, or created by professionals (that does not mean that IT students are professionals, nor that arts students are not professionals).

So on that note since such a portal should be created as it is not that hard (in general) to setup Drupal (For more information please visit http://www.drupal.org) and add couple of modules to it. I am more than willing to set it up I just want to know what we are going to need.

Some of my ideas broken down by feasibility:

100%

Blogger module for each user

Document Repository /Image Gallery /Dynamic Video Content

80%

A back end group that will manage the look / content of the main website and add content that is separate from the artists’ profiles (i.e. interviews / pictures etc.)

Google Maps with little pushpins with the location of each artist showing a brief summary about them

20%

Google Maps showing connected pushpins resembling the authors contacts (i.e. other artists that have their work posted on the website)

Project cost: around $60 per year if hosted outside of the RPI network

If you want more details about each idea let me know. I believe that our class can play a vital role for the “backend” group that adds content to the main page.

Yours Truly,

Sava Kostadinov

Fair Use?

2008-01-23T05:22:00.001-08:00

MPAA is wrong, what else is new?

2008-01-23T05:10:00.000-08:00

Finally the MPAA has admitted that they had made a mistake in their statistics. More specifically the fact that 44% of piracy is due to college students (according to their revision it is 15%). I do not know about you but I believe that 29% is a pretty damn serious error! After all that study is being used to push new laws! I think that the MPAA, as well as the American government should get their facts straight (or at least double checked) so we do not have another WMD "mistake."

Participatory Culture: The Jenkins Way

2008-01-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

In "Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture" Henry Jenkins discusses participatory culture and its effects in great detail. He outlines how much the internet has evolved throught the times and how the audience (i.e. the viewers of the BIG media") are no longer just viewers or consumers but rather active participants. We no longer have to sit back and listen we can express ourselves and the media is somewhat forced to listen to our opinions. I do not agree with him that everything started with the xerox machine I rather believe it started with the printing press, and the argument that it is expensive does not fly look at the prices of xerox / copy machines when they came out. However the internet is a really cheap, almost free way to express yourself. And if you find people who agree with you, a very powerful medium. We live in a world where a video shot on a cell phone call be seen around the world (Virginia Tech Massacre) in less than 5 minutes from being shot. Media is embracing the concept of the new media at least CNN is. Instead of bashing bloggers, CNN actually has 5 minute sections where they show how bloggers (i.e. the average consumer) feels about what is happening right now."The most commercially viable of those practices are then absorbed into the mainstream media, either directly through the hiring of new talent or the development of television, video, or big screen works based on those materials, or indirectly, through a second-order imitation of the same aesthetic and thematic qualities. " Participatory culture allows us to live the American Dream, dream that some day we are going to be famous. And well it works look at the super bowl commercials few of them were created by the average viewer, or look at the gmail video, or wikipedia. Although none of them are perfect they are all a step in the right direction, where each one of our opinions matter.

Kyte.Tv

2008-01-17T04:47:00.001-08:00

De-Form-ed nature

2008-01-17T03:52:00.001-08:00

In the beginning there was nothing, or was there? Our historical accounts do not date that far back but does it really matter? No matter which story we believe the truth of the matter is that G*d and Evolution (the two beliefs I am referring to) both started with the basics, and adapted as they saw fit. Many centuries later Pythagoras presented us with the idea that life is numbers, few centuries later that it is. Life today revolves around bits of data being transferred left and right, being shaped, reorganized, beamed across the world and out in open space to control objects or forms humans have created.

How many of us can go two or more days without checking our e-mails, or not talking on the phone? I sure can’t. Ninety percent of our current communication takes place over ones and zeroes, little magical pulses that create or destroy what did not exist in the first place. Phone calls, the Internet, E-mail, AIM are all various examples of the “future” way of communication. Verbal communication is starting to get lost, PowerPoint is not helping either. All these technologies shape our lives, and most of the times none of sit down and consider what it would have been if they didn’t exist. Well In reality you really do not have to sit down, you can take a “vacation” to a land without those “extras” and you will understand. But is life without technology so bad? Is technology going to solve the world hunger problem? I am yet to find someone who can eat c0d3 cereal for breakfast. Not only is technology not solving most of of out problems it turns out that the technology we created to improve our lives is in fact destroying the planet, and what do we do, we introduce more technology to analyze the problems it created in first place. I know I am generalizing technology but I like simplifying broad concepts. But at the end, technology’s effects on nature could have gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for technology.

But let’s not forget that if it was not for technology Britney Spears and eighty percent of singers that are popular today would have not been bearable to listen to. So it turns out technology replaces more than verbal communication. Even though new genres are being created by technology, those new genres are replacing what was seen as magnificent for over twenty centuries, such as operas and classical music, to a repetitive sound to white noise created from a keyboard down to walking in the park. Making me ask myself yet once again how would this world have had been shaped if it was not for our destruction?

Sometimes I wonder why there are seven continents, what if those starving places were not 10,000 miles, but 1000 miles away, would they still be starving? If one assumes that the technology that exists on Earth today existed on the planet Earth before the continents split; and that the violent part of history did not take place one would soon reach the conclusion that the world would have not been shaped the way it is now (even if you exclude the violent part). I am not saying that the world will be a happier place, but I believe (considering people did not eliminate each other) we would have been more cautious of our surroundings. Or if people had eliminated each other who would be in charge? Nonetheless we are never to know what caused the separation of the (presumed) one big continent, and what it could have been.

A reason why the world might look like what it looks like today can come from aesthetics. We do not usually see a painting with a blob in the middle of it. I guess nature follows that principle. The various shapes and general diversity that shape our everyday lives are somewhat to look at from far away.