Gaga Rigs http://www.gagarigs.com/site Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:01:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 The new East. Armenian Diocese website, just peachy http://www.gagarigs.com/site/528/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/528/#comments Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:59:24 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/?p=528

I consider myself a somewhat sane and tasteful person. I am not proclaiming that I am better than anyone, in anything. That said the new website of the Eastern Armenian Diocese of America produces such disgust and biter taste in my mouth, that I could not hold back. Hence I contacted the two parties responsible for this schijten.

The website in question is armenianchurch-ed.net and below is what I wrote to them.

Hello,
i don’t even know if this contact works, since the subject selection does not a indicate a subject.

I am contacting you in regards to the website that the diocese has managed to make.
I know that the diocese is not the one who made the website, nevertheless the blame is shared equally between the maker (bluefountainmedia.com) and the client.

I do not know what had pushed the diocese to change the old website nor do I know what/who had persuaded to use bluefountainmedia.com’s services.
Nevertheless as a user and a member of the Eastern Diocese I would like to share my opinion.

In websites user opinion is more important than the client’s or maker’s. Because ultimately it is the user who uses the website. not the maker. Unfortunately the new website design, color layout typography information architecture, is not just unwelcoming, its tasteless, disgusting, sickening and totally unspiritual.

I am not suggesting that I know what it should be, i do not have this right. However I am confident is my taste and there is nothing tasteful in this website.

Cheers
vache asatryan

And the maker of armenianchurch-ed.net is bluefountainmedia.com and below is what I wrote to them.

http://www.armenianchurch-ed.net/
I am just sharing my opinion as a user and as a servent of the Armenian Easters Diocese.
Firstly I am not a genius designer nor a virtuoso programmer. That said, a blind men is lucky, because he would not have to see such a disgusting website. Its just unpleasant, for one it does not feel spiritual, nor does it feel welcoming. It produces a feeling of sickness and tastelessness. The word tasteless defines this website.

I would just like to congratulate you on a job well done, you guys are A ok in my book of idiotic designers and second rate programmers.

Cheers Vache.

PS maybe you should have looked at the western diocese site first

http://www.armenianchurchwd.com/

Please tell me I am wrong, tell me that this website is beautiful and that I am crazy.

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/528/feed/ 1 Thank god I am not the only sane person in the world : “Blockbuster 4: The Same, but Worse” http://www.gagarigs.com/site/thank-god-i-am-not-the-only-sane-person-in-the-world-blockbuster-4-the-same-but-worse/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/thank-god-i-am-not-the-only-sane-person-in-the-world-blockbuster-4-the-same-but-worse/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:45:40 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/?p=520
New York Times’s A. O. SCOTT would be my best friend if i could be his friend. Scott writes the truth about summer movies, nothing but the truth, hope you can handle the truth. “Every year it’s the same, and every year it’s worse than ever”.

This is particularly true about when one is bombarded with “darn sequels”, like The – magical mystical - Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

After watching the first two movies I was certain the third would be worse , well Mister Scott agrees.

Blockbuster 4: The Same, but Worse
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: June 13, 2010
The steady production of repeatable movie franchises provides both evidence of Hollywood’s cynicism, and also an excuse to wax cynical about Hollywood.

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/thank-god-i-am-not-the-only-sane-person-in-the-world-blockbuster-4-the-same-but-worse/feed/ 0 The Golden Age of the Internet has ended or it had never started, begins the Age of Immaturity http://www.gagarigs.com/site/the-golden-age-of-the-internet-has-ended-or-it-had-never-started-begins-the-age-of-immaturity/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/the-golden-age-of-the-internet-has-ended-or-it-had-never-started-begins-the-age-of-immaturity/#comments Sat, 08 May 2010 16:24:02 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/the-golden-age-of-the-internet-has-ended-or-it-had-never-started-begins-the-age-of-immaturity/
It may be unwise to proclaim that there is such a golden age at all pertaining to the Internet, even more to say that it has ended and the future is lost thanks to our immaturity. Immanuel Kant answers the question, “What is enlightenment”?, “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity”, in An Answer to the Question:What is Enlightenment?1784. To make this proclamation I must establish that there was such a Golden Age for the Internet and that the current and future path is leading to a degradation of the Internet as a fundamental whole due to “self imposed immaturity” by the user (Kant).
The Internet is a computer network established to provide services such as e-mail, chat and information from computers in education institutions, and government agencies, it is accessible to the general public via links, it is a “network of networks” (Wikipedia: Internet). In theory and in its early stages it provided unprecedented collaboration continentally in America and eventually internationally as the network gained more networks, silly it may sound but that is the core structure behind the Internet (ISOC: Brief History). As consumers, we did not have access to the Internet as it was for its first 20 years, until the emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990s (Wikipedia: World Wide Web), we missed out (Lovink). The golden age of the internet is not a very concrete phase, there are several phases that can be considered for it; the Dotcom Boom or the dot-com bubble (Wikipedia: dot-co bubble) or the current Web 2.0 phase (O’Reilly, Tim) are two examples. The concept term ideology Web 2.0 has many disagreements as to what it means but it is fine to say that where as the dot-com bubble was a heavily commercialized phase, the Web 2.0 phase is an application centric era, that started around 2004 few years after the dot-com burst of 2001. But neither are an intellectual golden age, there is no enlightenment other than commercialization and application integration that leads to eventual commercialization. It should be noted that Wikipedia is one of the only web giants that is not commercialized, instead it has become a commodity that can not be bought or sold that is free (Sidener). I have noted Wikipedia so there would not be a long discussion about its presence as a source of enlightenment hence for the purposes of this paper Wikipedia is an anomaly.
The commercialization of the Internet started early as “dozens of vendors were incorporating TCP/IP into their products because they saw buyers for that approach to networking” in the early 1980s.  (ISOC: Brief History) For all purposes this was the end of the Golden Age if there was one, it has become our “nature, [we are] fond of this sate and for the time being [are] incapable of using [our own] understanding” (Kant). Nevertheless its not true to say that there is a direct correlation between commercialization and immaturity in internet application platforms such as applications on the World Wide Web. Though an example application, the Twitter website, became a spam filled medium before it even attempted to become a profit driven venture (Pontin). The main problem with commercialization is the endeavor of customer satisfaction, the customer in this case is docile and immature. It is not the Internet’s fault, like the movie and music industry, the content becomes a bargaining tool for selling a product leading to users that are “harnessed” to the Internet. Kant was more positive, according to him the “public can attain enlightenment slowly” yet in the past 30 years the Internet has become a leader of monopolies and media conglomerates all concentrated in maximum profits. If there is such a stage where Internet applications will enable users to strive for enlightenment, that stage is not now, as many perceive it to be. (Sterling)
Unlike Kant, I am not optimistic about current Internet technologies. The massive globalization of popular applications such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media has not yielded equal or partial collaboration or other per se enlightenment activities. Everything worthy of consideration is too minor compared to the swarms of Internet users too docile to pause their unsatisfying hunger for degenerate entertainment. The user is becoming a producer, I am not objecting that, Internet technologies are allowing the user to produce self authored content (OECD) but this does not mean that the content is exemplary.
The current “guardians”, the Internet moguls, who have like in the past, “taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous” (Kant). The guardians now tell us to “argue as much as you want and about what you want”, they don’t even say “obey”. They provide us with tools to argue like video and image publishing, comment sections, easy to create blogs, and tools to share our creations and findings (Wikipedia: user-generated content) but the users continue to be materialistic. Following the rules of consumerism most of these tools are being used to review, showcase, promote products; for example endless customer review videos on YouTube and other video websites, Kant did not have this problem.
It is wrong to label all Internet users docile and unable to produce productive content but the phase of user creation as an enlightenment is ending. The technologies that once required formal education to use, such as early computers, have become oversimplified, due to customer demand. Their oversimplification has allowed illiterate users to gain access to once an exclusive environment. Cheap access points to the Internet have enticed global audiences to join the racket; web applications such as Facebook Twitter YouTube all have mobile versions allowing for cheap instantaneous access. (Giridharadas)
Facebook being so massive is an easy target, its faults are not its own, but of its users. As a platform, Facebook is great for communication and other social activities creating a semi virtual public space. However Facebook users participate in time wasting
“fun” activities ignoring the noble uses that Facebook offers. Users create and join all types of groups, such as relief, petition, political, education but they do not engage in these groups. Facebook users follow peers as they are invited to join and participate endless supply of groups and pages all with causes with or without validity and sanity, yet hardly any of the joined users participate in a productive manner (Davies). Most of the participation on Facebook is done in few arbitrary words such as “lol”. Unlike other Internet applications which provide anonymity such as 4Chan, where tasteless behavior by users is the norm, (Bilton) Facebook’s users are individually identified hence you would think they would use caution when participating, on the contrary Facebook users not only provide mostly factual information about themselves (Bower) but they also provide pictures and such where in many cases are incriminating (Perez).
Why would Facebook users participate in productive activities ? Why would any user? Its not the question of the user, its the provider. Facebook like other applications facilitates the user with an environment honed for “fun” (Nakamura). In such an environment meaningful engagement or collaboration is harder if not impossible. Facebook can not stop user generated content that is not worthy, its welfare is dependent on user generated content regardless of the contents value. Several decades ago such freedom, of speech would have been a blessing but the past generations did not envision the inelegant behavior of the users.
Kant predicted that the ways “for men to proceed freely in this direction [were establishing] and that the obstacles to general enlightenment” were diminishing, this said the obstacles have diminished greatly in the last 300 years and many had hoped that the Internet would be the safe heaven for intellectual prosperity. The Internet was and is such a place, a place for public discussion and interaction, only very few use it such. The user has imposed on her/him self an incapability for enlightenment and unfortunately the Internet services are indirectly aiding to this self imposed immaturity.
Fundamental functionalities of the internet such as direct networking have been replaced by services that provide a type of networking but with constrain and control. Facebook and Twitter are applications that adhere to the concept of networking, communication between users, but they also force the user to follow their rules and regulations. Where as early Internet users where free to network without constraint, they are now urged to use these applications, devoting their allegiance to virtual communities that are or will eventually be controlled and influenced by mega conglomerates. Facebook is already influenced by Microsoft (Ante) through advertisement that Microsoft provides on all Facebook pages. Once again the user falls under influence of a commercial giant, in this case Microsoft. Means in theory Facebook does not have to provide tools that help or support public discussion or a public sphere, it only needs to convince users to stay on its pages longer hence look at more advertisement. Luckily users are willing to spend “over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook” (Facebook Statistics) without any benevolent propositions from Facebook.
Its not all bad, there are internet applications that attempt to facilitate niche communities with engaging and meaningful collaborations; for example Open Source communities like WordPress or Canonical’s Launchpad. Though alternatives are present the overwhelming choice of Internet users is to engage mindlessly browsing on YouTube Facebook Twitter and such (Alexa.com). So its safe to say the user chooses to be immature, even when given the choice of an alternative activity, hence this is why I say the Age of Immaturity has began. The Internet is doomed not because of the lack of compelling applications that are engaging and supportive of collaboration but of the users that are lacking the assertion to choose to engage and collaborate.
Bibliography
Kant, Immanuel. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?. 1784. web link http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html
Wikipedia. Internet. weblink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
ISOC. Brief History. weblink http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
Lovink, Geert. Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture. 2002. MIT Press. paperback
Wikipedia. dot-co bubble. weblink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
O’Reilly, Tim. What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. 2005. weblink http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
Sidener, Jonathan. Wiki technology allows anyone to write, edit reference articles. 2004. San Diego Union Tribune. weblink http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041206/news_mz1b6encyclo.html
Pontin, Jason. From Many Tweets, One Loud Voice on the Internet. 2007. The New York Times. weblink http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/business/yourmoney/22stream.html
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 2007. weblink http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/14/38393115.pdf
Wikipedia. User-generated content. weblink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-generated_content
Giridharadas, Anand. Where a Cellphone Is Still Cutting Edge. 2010. The New York Times. weblink http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/weekinreview/11giridharadas.html
Davies, Tim. Facebook groups vs. Facebook pages. 2008. weblink http://www.timdavies.org.uk/2008/02/18/facebook-groups-vs-facebook-pages/
Bilton, Nick. One on One: Christopher Poole, Founder of 4chan. 2010. The New York Times. weblink http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/one-on-one-christopher-poole-founder-of-4chan/
Nakamura, Lisa, Digitizing Race. 2008. University of Minnesota Press
Ante, Spencer E.. Has Facebook’s Value Taken a Hit?. 2008. Businessweek.com. weblink http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_33/b4096000952343.htm
Facebook Statistics. weblink http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/the-golden-age-of-the-internet-has-ended-or-it-had-never-started-begins-the-age-of-immaturity/feed/ 0 the times square bomb incident was probably for something else http://www.gagarigs.com/site/the-times-square-bomb-incident-was-probably-for-something-else/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/the-times-square-bomb-incident-was-probably-for-something-else/#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 00:31:34 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/the-times-square-bomb-incident-was-probably-for-something-else/ times-square
my take is that it was a distraction for another crime
blocks of buildings were evacuated, i might be a little hollywood high here, but if i am a thief this is one good distraction
buying real explosives would have left trails, and this way the police would burry the case sooner or later because they would not find anything, since the car was bought with cash and the materials in the car were shit, and i am guessing the police did not find any prints, because thief are good at cleaning them

if not a robbery, than a setup for another terrorist attack, based on this attack the culprits would have times and movements and procedures on the police and other forces, this was a stake out of the proceeding that would follow a suspected bomb

if i was the authorities, I would do checks of the buildings, or surrounding areas,
we can all be certain this is not organized terrorism, terrorists are usually good at googling things, and any kid can find the materials needed for a good old nail bomb, or something of the sort

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/the-times-square-bomb-incident-was-probably-for-something-else/feed/ 0 Poly wants to get rid of Club hour http://www.gagarigs.com/site/poly-wants-to-get-rid-of-club-hour/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/poly-wants-to-get-rid-of-club-hour/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 03:31:48 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/?p=502 here is my response to their bollox , their survey is attached on the bottom

I went to a high school that had club hour, when i told friends in other schools that we had club hour, they would be very very envious. Its not the “free” time, its the opportunity to interact with my classmates. When i came to Poly I was told that the interaction with my classmates would be my best education. Without club hour Poly would be even more boring than it is now. I don’t know where you guys spend your time, but poly is a pretty boring ass place, without club hour you would be shooting yourself in the leg. We do not have fancy Gyms, and facilities like NYU, the only thing we have is Club hour. You better be joking. There is no need for another petition, we the Students have already made our Petitions, for the past month, we have singed a petition, there is no need for this survey, we have been heard. If your decision is anything other than keeping club hour, I am certain, no I warn you, that the students will be pissed.

here is a screenshot of my submission

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/poly-wants-to-get-rid-of-club-hour/feed/ 0 vitamovie.com new interface user test session http://www.gagarigs.com/site/vitamovie-com-new-interface-user-test-session/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/vitamovie-com-new-interface-user-test-session/#comments Sat, 17 Apr 2010 22:56:42 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/?p=485 Website interface and function rebuild
Vitamovie.com serves to a small community of asian movie enthusiasts. The community is compromised of mostly non-American visitors; the Alexa.com lists United Arab Emirates and Singapore as the top sources of visitors additionally Google Analytics lists Singapore, Philipines and Great Britain as the top 3 sources. Additionally the majority of the 1,530 registered users the majority are female.

Vitamovie.com has not served content according or specialized for a specific user demographic or country. The interface has been experimental and the overall attitude of the website has been closer to a hubby than an internet business.

In its current state it receives on average 1,233 users per day producing 2.8 clicks per user and an average 36.2 minutes spent on site per user. Additionally it has an average of 2 registrations per day who generate 5 comments per day.

Our original intention was to develop a search /review interface in replacement of the traditional star rating system: using emotion icons a.k.a smiley faces picked by the user/viewers to describe their emotion after watching a film allowing a searcher to look for films via emotions. We had envisioned the emotion rating system as an addition to the current interface at Vitamovie.com.

Emotion smiley face survey and set
We developed the smiley faces from a survey we conducted asking Poly students to name a recent film they had watched, describe the emotion they had after watching the film, draw the emotion in the provided circle and say how close they think the drawing is to their emotion. The surveys were scanned and the “best” smileys were traced in Adobe Illustrator. The films from the surveys were imputed to a spreadsheet under their corresponding emotions. The smileys were given different transparencies according to their “popularity”: the smileys with the most films had 100% alpha and the next one had 2 less hence 20% alpha and so on.

A new interface was designed of the website for the user test. The emotions were presented next to each other in a 6 per row from with all the films from the survey displayed below the emotions. The intent was for the user to click on a smiley face activating a rearrangement of the movie listing showing only films with that emotion.

User interface test
The interface was build using Adobe Catalyst ( it provided rapid object oriented building), nevertheless the interface was not complete, only the first page of the website was ready for user testing. Since it was not complete, we asked the users to give their opinion of the interface and to suggest any inprovements or companinets that they might have. Luckely the user test session was susssesful at producing many sugestions.

user #1:
Confused about the color od the displayed emotuions [the smilyes are all black and white with different treanparancies]
Wants the ability to choose moultiple smileyes at once, with the results displayed in a most matched to least manner.
The smileyes are hard to recognise, would want color, atleast 3, to be present in the smileyes.
Would want to be able to adjuest the dgeree of the emotion when revieins the film.

user #2:
Confusied about the transparancies of the smileyes
Commnets availbe below the film on the single fiml page
Presence of colors in the smileyes
Is not sure about the black and white
would want smileys to continue to have descriptive text
would want a pentagon chart to display the degree of the emotions on when reviewins the film, allowing the user to set emotions degress when searching.
wants a top 5 emotion listing.
ability to repost wrong emotion, [a spam review]

user #3
wants more visible interaction with the smiley buttons
asked if the films are displayed in a netfilx or youtibe fasion and was happier with the youtube interface
ability to

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/vitamovie-com-new-interface-user-test-session/feed/ 0 MSNBC Spectra Visual Newsreader http://www.gagarigs.com/site/msnbc-spectra-visual-newsreader/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/msnbc-spectra-visual-newsreader/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:18:11 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/msnbc-spectra-visual-newsreader/

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/components/spectra/spectra.html

News aggregator visualization. In color, detects color. Cool design and lots of fun, but not truly useful, unless the content delivery medium is interactive itself the content looses its purpose. Marshall McLuhan ”preached” studying media separate from content. The the Spectra is a prime example, it aggregates content, but the delivery is a content by itself. Personally I think its cool, but not truly useful.

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/msnbc-spectra-visual-newsreader/feed/ 0 cool font aggregator! http://www.gagarigs.com/site/cool-font-aggregator/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/cool-font-aggregator/#comments Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:24:34 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/?p=479 http://pentagram.com/what%2Dtype%2Dare%2Dyou/

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/cool-font-aggregator/feed/ 0 vitamovie.com http://www.gagarigs.com/site/vitamovie-com/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/vitamovie-com/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:01:46 +0000 Vache http://www.gagarigs.com/site/vitamovie-com/ Re-design, layout, updating wordpress and its plugins.

This is the third time I have worked for vitamovie.com, and their latest redesign.
The site utilizes wordpress MU with buddypress to host and stream asian movies.

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/vitamovie-com/feed/ 0 nystech.net http://www.gagarigs.com/site/nystech-net/ http://www.gagarigs.com/site/nystech-net/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:00:47 +0000 Vache http://localhost/gagarigs/?p=136 Products and Services information website implemented using WordPress.

Design and logo done by Anna Sargsyan – annasargisdesign.com

]]> http://www.gagarigs.com/site/nystech-net/feed/ 0