Matt Mazur » Uncategorized http://www.mattmazur.com Let's see what happens Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:32:51 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Be Right Back http://www.mattmazur.com/2011/07/be-right-back/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2011/07/be-right-back/#comments Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:34:43 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1711 Hey ya’ll,

This blog is going on hiatus for a few months while I take care of some other commitments.

I’ll still be available by email if you need to reach me.

All the best,

Matt / matthew.h.mazur@gmail.com

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2011/07/be-right-back/feed/ 1 Blog Posts by Category http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/12/blog-posts-by-category/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/12/blog-posts-by-category/#comments Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:01:07 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1568 AOL-Files

Design

Domain Pigeon

HNTrends

jMockups

Poker Bot

Preceden

Programming

Quotes

Startups

Misc

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/12/blog-posts-by-category/feed/ 0 The Universal Singularity http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/09/the-universal-singularity/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/09/the-universal-singularity/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:14:52 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1447 A good friend of mine, David Mangold, recently started an excellent blog called The Universal Singularity, which covers topics ranging from the implications of the discovery of water around carbon stars to ongoing efforts to build subaqueous human colonies.

Here’s a quote from his going series on his philosophy of existence:

“Cosmic evolution”, “biological evolution”, and “technological evolution” are not separate processes, but one in the same. This is central to the theory of Universal Singularity. While we necessarily create categories in the observed world to assist us in understanding it, they have little intrinsic meaning. Was there a fixed time at which cosmic evolution gave way to biological evolution? Or a time when suddenly biological evolution was replaced with technology? Of course not. Rather, the whole process is a continuum, a gradually changing system that tends to create pockets of ever greater organization and complexity. We humans, like the rest of the Universe, are the result of this process. Actually, “result” is the wrong word. We are this process. We are small bits of the Universe that through this process have gained a level of awareness that allows us to question our origins and our fate.

You can read more on his blog here.

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/09/the-universal-singularity/feed/ 0 Clever AIM Spam http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/06/clever-aim-spam/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/06/clever-aim-spam/#comments Sat, 26 Jun 2010 21:44:06 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1406 I received the following AIM message a little while ago:

TMorganDirector: hey i tried to send you a message but this stupid im freezes msg me on my other aim its Qtpiegirl8394 i can talk there easier lol

Curious, I responded back to Qtpiegirl8394. Here’s the transcript:

Kaon: Hi, you IM’d me?
Qtpiegirl8394: hey…
Qtpiegirl8394: hello?
Qtpiegirl8394: i’m sorry, i get forgetful sometimes, who is this again?
Qtpiegirl8394: what? i’m definately real i hate fakes
Qtpiegirl8394: are you a bot?
Kaon: you sent me an IM under your TMorganDirector name
Qtpiegirl8394: oooh,duhrrr,LOL, great to meet you!
Kaon: whats up
Kaon: yeah!
Qtpiegirl8394: so what are you up to?
Kaon: not much
Qtpiegirl8394: i’m just hanging out doing absolutely nothing today browsing the web…watching tv…relaxing
Qtpiegirl8394: could actually use some company =P
Kaon: how come your computer froze under your other screen name but not this one?
Qtpiegirl8394: well, it’s kinda fun to get to know what people look like live.Do you wanna do a video chat with me?
Qtpiegirl8394: I have a courtesy pass to my private video chat.if you aren’t too busy,it will be fun,k?
Kaon: how do i do that?
Qtpiegirl8394: well i’m pretty sure i have a courtesy pass for you to view would you like that?
Qtpiegirl8394: what? i’m definately real i hate fakes
Qtpiegirl8394: are you a bot?
Kaon: ?
Kaon: what’s a bot?
Qtpiegirl8394: k hold on let me check and make sure i can find you that pass hun
Qtpiegirl8394: yup! i definately got one for you babe
Qtpiegirl8394: that sound good?
Kaon: yeah!
Qtpiegirl8394: ok babe this is gonna just be me and u
Qtpiegirl8394: go to www.qtpiegirl8394.viewmycamshow.com and create a free profile its really easy to signup
Qtpiegirl8394: let me know when you have your username
Qtpiegirl8394: just put in all your details on this page, the cc or dc is for age verification, i had to do it too to try out the network. it makes sure they keep the kiddies out ok hun?
Qtpiegirl8394: what? i’m definately real i hate fakes
Qtpiegirl8394: are you a bot?
Qtpiegirl8394: ok let me know when you get your username so i can start the 1 on 1 video chat sweetie
Kaon: are you a bot?
Qtpiegirl8394: k did you get everything filled out?
Qtpiegirl8394: what? i’m definately real i hate fakes
Qtpiegirl8394: are you a bot?
Kaon: you are real?
Qtpiegirl8394: ok on the mainpage,
Qtpiegirl8394: click on live webcams at the top left hand corner
Qtpiegirl8394: i’m as real as they come baby 100% live in the flesh
Qtpiegirl8394: are you still there?
Qtpiegirl8394: why would u ask that?
Kaon: what’s 2 + 2?
Qtpiegirl8394: ok, scroll down to the row of pretty girls and find me. Im on the right, and my name is (babygurl109)
Qtpiegirl8394: See you in chat babe!
Kaon: 2 + 2?

I thought this was pretty well done for several reasons:

  • Most of the AIM spam I get is a simple “Hey click here to chat with hot girlz”, which is easy to identify as spam. With this, I got an IM from an official-sounding screenname (TMorganDirector), which asked me to contact another screenname due to technical difficulties.  Had it not been for the disparity in screennames (TMorganDirector vs Qtpiegirl8394), it would have been hard to tell this even was spam.
  • The bot, which asks me whether I am a bot, seemed to keep track of where we were in the conversation. It starts out with a hello, who is this, and little by little leads me towards the webcam site. Most of the responses are generic enough that they work regardless of what I am actually saying. For example, it said “who is this again?” I said “you sent me an IM” and it said “oh yeah!”, but it probably would have said “oh yeah!” regardless of what I actually said because it knew it had just asked me that question.
  • It also analyzed what I was saying because when I asked “are you real?” it responded “i’m as real as they come 100% live in the flesh”. Pretty good.
  • The URL that it gave me contains her screen name (good), but then directs me to a generic looking webcam site (you can replace her name in the URL and it still redirects to the same page). They’d probably do a lot better linking me to something that looks like a profile page that contains a picture of a beautiful woman, her screen name (taken from the URL), and a big green “Chat now!” button at the top of the page. They could even embed a video with a girl saying “Hello? Can you hear me?” which would fool a lot of people.
  • Another complaint is that it kept responding back to me even when I wasn’t saying anything (such as the “what? I’m definitely real I hate fakes” at the beginning). The whole “i’m sorry i get forgetful who is this again?” is a big red flag too since she allegedly just IM’d me–I wonder why the programmer included that.

Not bad though.

I bet the conversation rates on this method blow the direct-spam rates out of the water. They could do a lot better still with some calculating A/B tests.

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/06/clever-aim-spam/feed/ 2 Bitmap File Format http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/10/bitmap-file-format/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/10/bitmap-file-format/#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:41:29 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1184 I put together this chart showing the organization of a small Bitmap file:

(click to expand)

I used Wikipedia’s Bitmap File Format article in conjunction with UltraEdit and PowerPoint to analyze this 10 x 10 pixel Bitmap image:

Block

There are only two bytes unaccounted for: the 6B 22 at the end of the file. Anyone know what their purpose is?

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/10/bitmap-file-format/feed/ 0 Break http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/break/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/break/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:09:25 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1142

If I had 20 days to solve a problem, I would take 19 days to define it.

– Albert Einstein

I’m taking a break this month in order to brainstorm and figure out what to work on next.

I hope to start hacking away again sometime during the next few weeks and honestly I can’t wait; the idleness is driving me crazy ;)

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/break/feed/ 0 The Appearance of Accomplishment http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/the-appearance-of-accomplishment/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/the-appearance-of-accomplishment/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:54:17 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1138 Twitter made the news today because of CEO Evan William’s disclosure to employees that the company is valued at $1 billion.

Humorously, I also came across this today from the Editor in Chief of Esquire, David Granger, in the Letter from the Editor section of the October 2009 issue:

“We live in a culture that has begun to prize the appearance of accomplishment over actual accomplishment–it continues to amaze me that private enterprise and venture capital spend so much time and energy (not to mention cash) on “innovations” like Twitter and other forms of social blathering rather than marshaling the energies and talents of our engineers to create new industries to replace the ones that enabled the American Century.”

I admire Twitter for building such a seemingly simple product that appeals to so many people, but I can’t help but agree with Mr Granger: is this the best we can do?

Update: Sara Lacy posted an article on TechCrunch with similar sentiments.

edw519 responded to her article with the following comment on HackerNews, which, like most of his stuff, is thoroughly thought-provoking:

Investor: What are you building?Entrepreneur: Artificially intelligent software that automatically builds sophisticated business applications based on the enterprise’s business rules.

Investor: Your competitors are too entrenched. What can you do that’s simpler?

Entrepreneur: Small business software that ties all a company’s applications together.

Investor: You’ll never compete with Microsoft. What else?

Entrepreneur: Tiny apps that all kinds of people can use to run their stuff.

Investor: 37signals will kill you. What else?

Entrepreneur: Social software that enables your sales people to understand what’s happening in the global marketplace.

Investor: It’ll never work. Can you do something more practical?

Entrepreneur: An intelligent e-commerce system that guarantees the consumer the best value.

Investor: You’ll never compete with Amazon or Ebay. Got any other ideas?

Entrepreneur: Recipe software.

Investor: OK, if that’s the best you can do, we’ll go with it. Geez, I just wish you guys would dream a little bigger.

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/the-appearance-of-accomplishment/feed/ 0 Dinner with Raffi http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/dinner-with-raffi/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/dinner-with-raffi/#comments Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:00:14 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1127 This evening I was lucky enough to have dinner with Raphael Mudge, founder of the recently acquired proofreading startup After the Deadline.

This was a good week for him. On Tuesday Automattic announced they had acquired After the Deadline back and incorporated it into WordPress.  The announcement was immediately followed by a flurry of press coverage and widespread admiration of his success. As someone eloquently put it on HN, “It takes cast-iron balls the size of cantaloupes to make a product that competes against companies with six orders of magnitude more funding… and succeed.“

Raffi, as he is known on HackerNews, is easily one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. His optimism is contagious and his passion for his work is second to none. Smart too: did you know that After the Deadline uses a neural networks to identify errors? Yeah, wow.

Well done sir. Congrats again.

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/dinner-with-raffi/feed/ 0 Blog Layout Tweak http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/blog-layout-tweak/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/blog-layout-tweak/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:05:39 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1119 Frustrated with the growing length of the navigation bar on the right, I made some changes.

Before:

Blog-Image-20090908

After:

Blog-Image-20090910

This was largely inspired by Fred Wilson’s AVC blog, which was designed by Nathan Bowers.

I postponed writing the little bio snippet for a long time mostly because I had no idea what to say. Those 35 words, believe it or not, took about two hours to get right and knowing me, they’ll probably change completely within a week. I think the extra color adds a nice touch too.

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/09/blog-layout-tweak/feed/ 0 Philly Build Guild, Round 2 http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/08/philly-build-guild-round-2/ http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/08/philly-build-guild-round-2/#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:58:08 +0000 mattm http://www.mattmazur.com/?p=1102 The second Philly Build Guild meetup was tonight and like the first, we all had a great time.

One notable difference from the Philly.rb meetups is the higher number of entrepreneur-programmers who attend. There was a guy there tonight who talked at length about a Series A round his company was supposed to get, only to fall through at the last minute. Most of my knowledge of that realm is through Paul Graham’s essays and accounts on HackerNews; it was nice to meet someone who has actually gone through it.

One amusing stat which I forgot to mention last time was that someone asked “Is there anyone here who doesn’t have an iPhone?” and only 1 out of the 12 of us had that dubious distinction.

Oh and how in the world do you pronounce Django?  Duh-jango? Deh-jango? Jango? What a name.

]]> http://www.mattmazur.com/2009/08/philly-build-guild-round-2/feed/ 0