Apr
24
Posted in Business, Real World
Cash money is good. Why? Because it’s tangible. You know exactly how much you’ve got to spend, and you know exactly how much money you don’t have to spend (the latter being much more salient). Cash lets you better appreciate and, likewise, better appropriate your money: when your money consists of a bunch of numbers and dollar signs printed on a small 8″x3″ piece of paper (ala bank statement), you don’t really appreciate what you’ve got.
$50,000 on paper doesn’t look like much. But a stack of $100 bills adding up to $50,000 looks like a hell of a lot. A stack of $1 bills adding up to $50,000 looks like even more. The more your money is divided up in cash, the better you will budget your money. Which is precisely the reason why I keep a fat stack of $1 bills in my wallet at all times. People think I’m cheap, but heck, saving money makes money!
This is not to say that you should always pay in cash. You should try to establish your credit as soon as possible, especially if you’re still a young adult. There are a lot of times in life when you’re going to need some money fronted in order to buy something big (unless, of course, you’ve won the lotto). Buying a house is one such example. You’re going to need good credit to get a good loan. Buying a house is the number one easiest way to make cash, especially right now, at a time when the US housing market is at a low point. As the value of your property increases, you make money. Easy money. I don’t know many people who go around and buy houses (at least in this northern VA, where home prices are at least $1 million) with cash (in the form of a personal check). Establishing good credit will aid you in any situation where you need to take out a loan of any sort.
I do, however, suggest against excessive use of the credit card. The credit card is a weapon of mass fiscal destruction, especially for young adults. When I first got my credit card, I was extremely excited that I could finally go around spending money without having to run to mom/dad for a few more bills. I eventually got slapped in the face with credit card statements in the thousands per month, and have never spent a dime more than necessary since. I only use the AMEX for two main things now: gas and any large expense (needs, not wants). You’d be surprised how much money you’ll end up spending at 7-11 buying misc. things if you pay by credit card, just take a written log for one week (I’m sure this is cliche and has been suggested by hundreds of other people before me, but it really works).
My point is, avoid over-indulgence. Unfortunately, I hang out with friends who lack any sense of reality, fiscally speaking, due to the nature of the area I currently live in. Even over the age of 18, their parents continue to supply them with an unlimited supply of money to be spent however they wish. This is wrong. I am still a few months away from 18, yet I manage every dime I spend. Of course, that’s because I’ve worked hard enough to own and manage my own company, and have my own money to spend, but still, I have self-control and I rarely spend waste my money. I have friends driving around town with 2008 Audi RS4s, MB C63 AMGs, and even a few with Ferraris and various Lamborghinis. But I refuse to evaporate my hard-earned money in such a manner. And that is why I am successful. Not because I make a lot of money, no, I really don’t make that much compared to most entrepreneurs. But I save every penny. I refuse to live like a celebrity, for now. Remember, it’s better to make $100K a year and save $90K of it than make $200K a year and waste $190K of it.
Which is why my wad of fifty $1 bills comes in handy. I still reap the benefits of having a fat wallet, but I don’t suffer the consequences of reckless spending.
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Apr
16
Posted in Games, Technology
The technology that powers computers, such as PCs and consoles (they’re basically computers), has skyrocketed in power in the past few decades. We went from Pong to Crysis in just 35 years, while it took thousands of years of human ingenuity to get the ball rolling.
Just 35 years, from this:
To this:
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s incredible.
But that brings me onto the question - when will it end? All the game consoles released - ever - seem to have the sole goal of improving on graphics, with the exception of the Wii. The N64 existed to improve on the SNES’s graphics, which in turn existed to improve on the NES’s graphics. We’re constantly working towards one thing, though we maybe didn’t know it at first - realism. Some games are pretty close, like the aforementioned Crysis, but they are missing a few things - try pumping it out onto a 150″ screen, and it won’t look so awesome. Plus, the image is completely flat on the monitor or TV, which is not realistic.
Even games that are not meant to be realistic, like ones based on cartoons and anime, are trying to be realistic to the cartoon or anime show they’re based off. And cartoon-ish games that aren’t really based off anything cartoon-ish (like Zelda: The Wind Waker) are still trying to be realistic to the artist’s original ideas.
And it’s not just graphics realism we’re trying to achieve. The Wii, which I said before was not trying to achieve realism, actually is. The Wiimote is a controller designed to improve on realism - compare Virtua Tennis 3 to Wii Sports and tell me - which one is most like real tennis to play?
Obviously, the plateau we’re trying to reach is utter realism. It took us just 35 years to go from a dumbed-down, monochrome, blocky version of table tennis (or something) to a war simulator with near photo-realistic graphics, computer controlled enemies, and graphics rendering on-the-fly. Many of the boundaries have not just been crossed, but trampled - the leap from 2D to 3D, for example.
So all that’s left is holographic graphics (or pseudo-holographic, which has already been achieved - see here), realistic control methods and completely realistic graphics, and then we’ve reached the plateau. Considering what’s already been done, all that should take 15-20 years, at most, then another 5 for portable consoles to catch up. Once it’s indistinguishable from reality, what comes next? All similar games will look the same. Nobody will complain about games having blocky graphics, or praise games for near-photorealism.
Consoles and gaming PCs alike will come to a standstill.
Then, game makers will forget about graphics. They’ll forget about control methods. They’ll concentrate on what was most important all along - ideas and gameplay. That will mark the true beginning of the golden age of video games. Forget about the 16-bit battle between Sega and Nintendo, forget about Shigeru Miyamoto - the only way for a company to survive in this era will be to provide things that are more fun than anything before.
But what will happen, in a few hundred years, when all the ideas we humans can think of have been used? When all storylines are somehow similar to that ancient game released in the 2100s?
What do you think?
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Apr
9
Posted in Games, Internet
I’m not one to spawn rumors around the masses of the Internet for self-glorification and e-penis enlargement. But I did come accross some interesting (yet, based) rumor the other day: that Grand Theft Auto IV (for 360 and PS3) could possibly have the infamous “Hot Coffee” mod built-into it. And might not be so hidden, per say.
“Hot Coffee”, for those who don’t know, was a mini-game built into GTA: San Andreas, by the developers themselves. Originally created as an easter egg of sorts, “Hot Coffee” was never meant to be accessible by the public. The mini-game basically consisted of you [the player] controlling CJ [main character] while performing sexual activities with various female individuals in the game. A mod was released in 2005 that enabled the mini-game for public use on the PC, and eventually, on consoles.
Rumor has it that GTA IV will have various adult-themed scenes, or missions, in which you seduce prostitutes to perform various acts of sexual nature. Yes, more of the dirty virtual big pimpin’ that we’ve all grown to love!
To the left is a scene from the GTA IV trailer. To the right is the San Andreas “Hot Coffee” mod in action.
Even if this rumor is being interpreted out of proportion, it would be interesting in and of itself to see how Rockstar Games would depict sexual conduct, as per the likes of the “Hot Coffee” mini-game. in the next-generation of consoles. With tremendously improved graphics in the 360/PS3, we’re talking about a hell of a lot of more attention to detail. Better lighting, better textures, better everything.
Which brings me to another point: ESRB ratings are completely and entirely horse-dung . I don’t understand how a game like San Andreas, with the crappy, pixelated textures of prostitutes that it has, could possibly be rated “Mature” (pre-Hot Coffee publicity) when GTA IV, with its near-perfect representation of the nude female body, could be rated “Mature” as well. The idea of ratings are to establish guidelines for parents to prevent children from getting their dirty paws on games which might influence them in a bad way: in a way which stirs poor morals upon their young, innocent minds.
But GTA IV essentially is an entire game of “Hot Coffee”. The difference in the portrayal of nudity between San Andreas and GTA IV is like night and day. I’ll be damned if a bunch of flat, pixelated textures would have an effect on any teenager’s mind. As technology continues to improve and graphics in games consistently advance in quality, our perception of right and wrong continues to become ever-skewed.
If GTA IV were released five years ago, it’d definitely be worth the notorious AO (”Adults Only”) ESRB rating. Leisure Suit Larry, with it’s sub-quality graphics, was initially awarded the AO rating for “soft-core nudity”, why is GTA IV let off so easy, when it offers a 10x more realistic experience? Then again, I’m also not a proponent of stricter ESRB ratings (ala Jack Thompson), so who am I to complain?
My coffee’s getting cold, until next time…
Digg: http://digg.com/gaming_news/GTA_IV_To_Have_Hot_Coffee
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Apr
8
Posted in Real World, Technology
In a surprising chapter of events (or not so surprising, given how perfectly working things tend to fall apart on me all the time), my main desktop’s hard drive crashed on 4/4/08. It was a three-year-old Western Digital 160 GB 8 MB cache IDE hard drive, originally purchased for well over $150. At the time of purchase, it was one of the best available. Of course, it’s obsolete by today’s technology standards, and pretty much one of the only bottlenecks of my otherwise fast system (which I’ll cover shortly). I just never got around to upgrading the drive to something faster or bigger. Too much data, too much software, too much random stuff to potentially lose. Yeah, I could’ve backed everything up on a few DVDs. I could’ve done a lot of things to ease the transition from IDE to SATA. But I don’t like change. And I definitely don’t like surprises.
Well, I came home late Friday night expecting to turn on my LCD monitor and see a flood of AIM windows all over my desktop, as common when I leave for a period of time equal to or greater than 2 hours. Instead, I was surprised to find that my desktop was shut down. Yes, the system was OFF. Now for me, that’s a kinda big deal. My uptime has been nearly six months without a single restart or shut down on this particular rig (only restarted once to apply driver updates/BIOS tweaks). I have surge protectors, backup generators, etc, which keep my system protected and running. And I don’t have any applications that auto-update-restart ala Windows Update. So…
A quick detail about the rig: it sports an Intel Pentium 4 561 3.60 GHz running at a whooping 4.65 GHz. It’s been overclocked at that speed for nearly two years non-stop, up 24/7/365. Once upon a time, when I created/owned a phase change setup utilizing R134a HVAC gas, I was capable of overclocking this beast of a CPU to 5.4 GHz STABLE (that’s right folks, Super-PI stable, not just POST). Anyways, my point is, this was a heck of a solid setup I had, and a fast one at that. Considering I haven’t upgraded to any of the Core Duo/Quad mumbo-jumbo yet, I’d say I did a damn good job of keeping up with technology without buying new crap every year. I just tack on a few more MHz and call it a day.
Back to my story. I turned on my system and, much to my dismay, I heard five loud “clunking” sounds coming from my hard drive, followed by pause, followed by another set of clunking sounds, etc. Great. Clunking sounds are the universal “you’re screwed” noise that hard drives make. All jokes aside, the clunking sound I am referring to is the sound of the platters/head hitting each other. Somehow my hard drive managed to commit-suicide, as there was definitely no physical shock to the system.
My options at this point are limited. The only way to salvage the data is to submit it to a 3rd-party hard drive recovery facility, where they charge up-the-a$$ (I’m talking thousands of USD) to retrieve maybe a single Word document. So, that’s not gonna happen. All my 10,000 important emails I had downloaded to Outlook? Gone. Contracts, proposals, hand-coded websites, and hundreds of other Word documents? Gone! Gigabytes upon gigabytes of downloaded music, movies, and games? GONE! I don’t really care for the latter, because to me, the emails and documents, not to mention the many, MANY work-in-progress website projects (which I spent hundreds of man hours on), was an extremely monumental loss.
So here I am now. I’ve learned my lesson. I bought two new 500 GB SATA II drives, which are currently running in RAID 0, but I plan to switch things up to RAID 1 when I get the chance to go into the BIOS and reformat my drives (accidentally set it up as RAID 0 since I was so frustrated). Data loss is terrible, and I hope this never happens to me again. I still have a lot to catch up on. But the blog will go on… I promise…
Image brought you in part by MS Paint. Special thanks to Western Digital for losing my copy PhotoShop CS2.
Oh, and a word of advice. Western Digital’s slogan is “PUT YOUR LIFE ON IT”. Please, don’t put your life on it. Aside from the terrible one-year warranty that came with my last drive, apparently the quality is CRAP. Never have I ever had a hard drive just die like that. Things just don’t go wrong with hard drives unless they’re built crappily in a third-world country like Malaysia. I’m definitely not putting my life on any hard drives anytime soon.
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Apr
2
Posted in Real World
First off, I apologize for disappearing without notice. Some people even thought something could have happened to me (thanks for the caring emails, but I’m A-OK). Been quite busy lately with various Internet projects and startups. School has been very time consuming as well. Nearing the end of the semester, so I’m trying to crank out the best I can to get the grade I need. Anyways, I plan to continue my regular posting schedule as of now. I got a ton of stuff I’d like to share, so sit back, sip on your Red Bull, and get ready for some more of the action-packed life of Robert Afnani (third-person for the win)!
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Feb
22
Posted in Internet, Real World
Just under a month ago, there was a huge battle, of sorts, between me and Langley High School administrators on the legality of creating Internet-based proxies, outside of school time, on private servers. I was accused of being a criminal by assisting students in bypassing the school’s block lists and filters, and was punished on multiple levels for what I did: I had my computer access at school removed, threatened suspension if I didn’t bring down all my proxies, and defamed on a school-wide level.
But now, I have won it all back. With the help of masses of the Internet, through press on such websites as Digg.com and Fark.com, my school, Langley High School, has given me back everything they’ve taken away from me. My respect, my privileges in school, and most importantly, my right to create whatever I want on the Internet outside of school, without having to fear the government’s hammer cracking down on me.
As previously stated, I did nothing wrong. I, personally, did not use my proxies inside the school network, did not create them during school hours, created them on my own privately owned servers, and did not actively promote my service to others in my school. I was simply accused of doing wrong because other students discovered my proxy, and used it during school hours to access websites such as FaceBook.
With the help of some lawyers, who contacted me after the media caught wind of this abuse of power in FCPS, I managed to work up a case (not on a court level), and successfully settled (in my favor) with the school. I got my rights back. And I’m happy now. Thanks guys and gals, all the support was greatly appreciated (however overwhelming), and it’s thanks to each person that supported the case that brings me to where I am today: free.
Digg: http://digg.com/people/Student_Fights_Back_Against_High_School_s_Web_Restrictions/
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Feb
20
Posted in Real World, Stocks
This morning, I found myself stuck in some serious rush hour traffic, and being in a hurry to reach my destination, I was switching lanes constantly (not driving too aggressively, mind you), attempting to navigate my way into the fastest lane. However, I found the harder I tried to get past the traffic, the more I ended up in a mess, stuck in the lanes that were not moving at all. It just seemed like every time I tried to switch lanes, I was always a “day late, dollar short”. By the time I switched lanes, about ten other cars would have also switched into the lane, ultimately causing me to get stuck in a jammed lane, when the lane I was previously in would suddenly start moving, and the car that was once behind me ended up ten cars ahead of me.
It hit me that driving during the rush hour jam is a lot like trading in the stock market. If you’re trying to squeeze your way into the (at least what seems like) faster lane, you better act quick and decisively, otherwise you’ll be too late and you’ll just end up even more screwed then you were in the “long” lane. Same exact principle applies to day trading. In order to make money off high volume, ‘in the news’ stocks, you better get on the bandwagon before the stock reaches its high for the day, otherwise you’ll end up losing money you could have made had you held onto a less risky, solid growth stock.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and nobody cares if you’re late when your on the road, except yourself. Likewise, if you’re the emotional, indecisive trader in the stock market, nobody is going to try to help you when you start losing your hard-earned cash. Either take the risk boldly and cherish (or suffer) the rewards (or consequences), or don’t get yourself in the sticky web of chaos in the first place.
Well, there’s my rant for the day. Time to jump on some trades, so I don’t end up a dollar short like I was this morning. What does the stock market remind you of?
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Feb
19
Posted in Internet
Most webmasters nowadays are lazy. In fact, that’s usually the impetus behind why they want to become a webmaster in the first place. Nothing better than being your own boss, working at your own pace/time, and best of all, working from the comfort of your own home. But most web-”masters” are actually just web-”wannabes”. Everyday, I have to deal with a handful of people who ask me for help making money on the Internet. Most of them think the Internet is easy to master. Many of them think that writing a blog on WordPress, quite possibly the easiest CMS to manage in the world (as if CMSs weren’t easy enough in and of themselves), makes them an Internet entrepreneur. Almost all of them think short term and look for quick cash opportunities. Only a select few look long term, willing to invest a shit-ton of time and tons of resources into a project which may not reward a single cent till months down the road. In the end, the short term thinkers tend to call it quits in a matter of weeks; the long term thinkers end up with some serious money in the bank.
Nevertheless, there are still many ways to make cash online with minimal effort. Websites like online arcades, proxies, and file hosting services offer valuable services that millions of Internet users use daily. With such a large audience of users to cater to, there is generally a lot of room to take part in these niches. Though competition is fierce, and you’ll find yourself hard-pressed trying to game your SEO to the top of the search results, you can still make a good deal of money if you play your cards right.
Not to mention that these sites are largely autonomous: after the initial setup, you essentially don’t have to do a single thing to keep them running. No need to add content daily, no need to pay a staff to keep the site up to date, no need to even visit the site on a daily basis. They can run and grow on their own, just add water (ahem, just provide the hosting payments).
I, on the side, own a network of 30 or so online arcade websites. Among a few of the smaller ones are AllBestGames.com, ArcadeNoob.com, and BuffGamer.com. Altogether, the three of them rake in nearly $400 a month from Yahoo! Publisher Network and various CPM advertising networks. Do the math, and you’ll see that I earn mid-$X,XXX from the compilation of all the arcade sites that I own.
The best part? I haven’t touched a single one of the arcade sites since late 2006/early 2007, and they still are growing. Each arcade pulls in an average of 500 unique visits a day, with an average of nearly 2,000 pageviews a day. This is the definition of autonomous. Making money (if small in amount) without doing a single thing or spending a single cent on advertising. Word of mouth and viral marketing handled it all for me.
Of course, it took a few months for the sites to get going. Didn’t make a cent for the first six months I ran the network (didn’t have any ads at first so as to attract visitors). Most webmasters would give up at that point. But I held on tight to my portfolio of independent websites, and now, thanks to the likes of Google search referrals, they all receive traffic and make a pretty penny.
I also ran a network of over 50 proxy sites once upon a time. Names like DopeProxy.com, ProxySecks.com, and BRBProxy.com were among a few of the many proxy sites that I ran for a while. Theses extremely easy-to-setup websites made quite a lot of money (around low-$X,XXX a month for all of the proxies combined) for a few months, but as they expanded, server usage increased dramatically, and the proxies started to get blocked by the big name blockers (Websense, McAfee, etc), which decreased US traffic, making the ROI continuously worse as days went by (as advertisers don’t care for international traffic). Ended up shutting them all down, wasn’t worth the stress or the hassle (at least for me, I’m sure a lot of people would love an extra thousand dollars a month of spending money).
So, I conclude that autonomous websites CAN be worthwhile. I would not recommend making them the main focus of your “making money online” ventures, but sprinkled in between bigger projects, they can make be a nice monetary buffer and offer some good supplementary income for you to build off of.
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Feb
18
Posted in Business, Internet
Though I focus the majority of my efforts online in the intangible realm of advertising, there’s a huge market for online product sales, known as e-commerce industry, which exists. Companies that develop products or services and sell them/charge for them through the Internet. Rather than relying off advertisers to create revenue, their websites serve as portals for users to buy stuff: whether it’s a new computer or subscription to advanced feature’s that a website has to offer, the visitors pay the owner in order to make use of the site (or portion thereof).
Woot.com is one such example of an extremely successful e-commerce venture. The unique online store and community combination serves as a place where tech savvy bargain shoppers can browse for various goods. Each day, Woot.com offers one product for sale at a hugely discounted price (Woot.com negotiates with manufacturers for bulk pricing on overstocked goods in order to be able to offer the discounts) until the product sells out, or until the next day’s product becomes available, whichever comes first.
The structure of the website company entices users to visit daily (thus constantly pumping a continuous flow of traffic) to catch the latest deals. The message boards consist of thousands of bargain shoppers who love to interact, and various inside-jokes (or specials), such as the prized “Bandolier of Carrots” and the infamous “Bag o’ Crap” (a $1 “surprise” product that thousands of Woot! users order simply for the fun of it), make the community an incredibly lively, upbeat place to talk, even if the company’s only goal is to increase sales. How many times do you have users willing to give you money for random junk? Woot.com hit the jackpot.
Woot.com is only one example of e-commerce. There are many other ways to make money online without utilizing advertising. Some individuals specialize in selling their products on eBay to make money. Others resort to the shady gray-market of dealing legal drugs (think online pharmacies) to make their ends meet. And then others offer syndicated adult content for a monthly fee, which, not surprisingly, a handful of people on the Internet are willing to pay for. There are many other ways to make money online without relying on advertising; I may not be able to sum it all up in one post, but take some time to think if you can find a way to sell a product/service online. Maybe you, too, will be thinking “Woot!” when your e-commerce venture hits the limelight.
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Feb
13
Posted in Stocks
Day trading is a gamble, no doubt about it. But it’s also a test of character. It’s a combination of how fast you can react on breaking news, how confidently you can invest money, and how quickly you can execute the respective orders. People who waste time deciding whether or not to invest are the losers; people who jump on each and every opportunity for money are the short-term winners. In day trading, you’re not deciding who’s going to hold onto your money for months, or years. You’re deciding who gets the chance to hold onto your money for seconds. So you gotta make up your mind fast, or you’ll lose out on some real money making opportunities.
Today, however, I experienced something somewhat out of the norm of day trading. The ask price of a stock is almost always higher than the bid price, I mean, that’s basically the foundation of the stock market. Seller offers higher than what the stock is worth, and buyer offers lower than the stock is worth. Simple. There have been a few times during after-hours wherein the bid price has risen above the ask price, but usually it’s because of some kind of transaction error or stale market data, and whatever asking/bidding (selling/buying) that goes on does not reflect the stated price.
Ambac (ABK) stock is shown above. As you can see, between 15:31 and 15:33, the bid price suddenly spiked above the ask price. Keep in mind the stock was nearly stagnant for a good ten minutes before this happened.
MBIA (MBI) stock is shown above. Considering MBIA is also a bond insurer, and also suffering from the same CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation) mumbo-jumbo that Ambac is going through, the two companies tend to have the same ups and downs.
Anyways, I immediately called my TD Ameritrade representative and asked for assistance. Being as this is quite the anomaly in regular hours trading, I had to get to the bottom it. Meanwhile, I also purchased 300 shares of MBIA at 15:31:30, priced at 11.82, even though the bid price was 11.91. Wow, what a deal! I bought stock for lower than what other bidders are offering. So yes, I happened to be one of the two purple circle trade markers on the green ask price line on the MBIA chart at 15:31:30.
The TD Ameritrade representative wasn’t of much help, but she did get her supervisor to confirm that there were no errors in my transaction. I’m led to believe by the broker that I got stock for a bargain price because a handful of news was just released to investors. Therefore, there was not enough time for the sellers to adjust their asking prices, even though the bidders were successfully purchasing stock at the higher, anticipated price, and raising the bid value of their own shares. Talk about some news, Ambac and MBIA continued to rise till the end of the day and even into after hours.
I recovered a good portion of my losses from yesterday. Thank God.
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