Harry Chen Thinks Aloud

BitTorrent is the most successful P2P system since the birth of Napster. “Movie studios hate it. File-swappers love it.” Wired.com has an in-depth article about the creator of BitTorrent — Bram Cohen. I think he is a genius.

“In April 2001, Cohen quit his job at MojoNation and entered what he calls his “starving artist” period. He lived off his meager savings and stayed home to work on the software all day. His pals were skeptical.”

‘What kept Cohen going, say friends and family, was a cartoonishly inflated ego. ‘I can come off as pretty arrogant, but it’s because I know I’m right,’ he laughs.”

“Cohen in fact has Asperger’s syndrome, a condition on the mild end of the autism spectrum that gives him almost superhuman powers of concentration but can make it difficult for him to relate to other people.”

Recently I joined the “sneak preview” of the Netflix Friends program. Thanks to mikek AT HackingNetflix.com.

I really like this kind of recommendation system based on the FOAF idea. Theoretically, this approach makes a lot of sense. However, whether it will work well in a real-world application is await to be seen.

Related stories:

NY Times Covers Netflix Friends List Feature


Netflix Launches “Friends List” Feature

BTW, if you are interested to join the Netflix Friends, email me (harry.chen [@AT@] gmail.com).

I’m looking forward to the product annoucements coming out of the next MacWorld expo. Rumors say that Apple may come out with a new “headless” Mac G4 desktop. Headless means an Apple-box without an attached monitor. The targeted consumers are Windows users who are interested to purchase a second desktop. I think that I fall under this category of people.

I tried to find blogs of people who live in Hong Kong. I want to read about people’s life back in HK. Today I came accross “cloudless“. It’s not really a great text blog, but it’s a great photolog (or photoblog).

Sunny, the blog owner, takes really good pictures of Hong Kong.

Xmas Lights @ TST

Today marks the official day of my new homepage going public. If you are a long time reader of my blog, you probably recognize the styles and images from the old homepage that I have retained.

To friends and family members who want to send me email: In the future, please send email to my Gmail address. If you don’t know my Gmail address, ask me.

Harry Chen’s Home Page

“Single or lonely Japanese men may get lucky this Christmas. One popular item for holiday shoppers is the `lap pillow,’ with skin-colored polyurethene calves folded under soft thighs — a comfy cushion for napping, reading or watching television.” This is one of the weirdest products that I have ever seen.

“Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from” — Al Franken.

It just seems to be coincidental for Halliburton (a company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney) to be

given more than $10 billion worth business in Iraq.