back to index

who I am
what I do
about this page

projects

The Most Dangerous Game - an independent film

online video production projects

bluehue.com web design

online marine picture book

macOS8 winamp skin

more...

my work

school papers

programming in visual basic turbo pascal

internet/computing

killer apps

friends

shout outs and events

Boris Masis - About Myself

- check everyone's profile/away message every 30 seconds

- read slashdot and marvel at the discussions 

- follow the forums at anandtech and fatwallet

- take careful notes that I never read in class

- tap my feet to rhythms 

- download lots of DivX movies, but never watch the ones below seven as dictated by imdb. 

- keep a list of good ideas

- comment on potential filming locations

After starting and restarting this paragraph many times I've decided its hard to write about yourself. Who am I, and what am I doing? Well what I'm doing is going to school, who am I is the question that bothers me.

I am passionate about technology. I like computers because I'm good at making them do things. I love photoshop for allowing me to do cool things with images. I love fraunhofer for inventing the mp3 codec, I love DV revolution and the open platform pc hardware and software standards.

I am a perfectionist when it comes to doing things technology related. This is the area where I can hold my own. My position has also lead me to some observations.

I crave communication. Computers are a weak substitute for human interaction. It is my firm belief that our society is converging towards a fear and avoidance of face to face contact. I am a front runner in this convergence. Being here, realizing the problem, and having the potential to do something is my daily realization, not having done anything yet is my daily disappointment. People will not stop using technology, they will only do it more and more. Online communities must be aimed at promoting real physical interaction, not at replacing it. This is what I should be doing.

I didn't expect to be writing this at all. But the train of thought leads to that particular conclusion. College is a particularly interesting microcosm that happens to be well suited for an online community. People of similar age and interests are living together, and yet many are unfulfilled. If it will work anywhere, it should work here.

It's harder in the real world. Community is generally used as a lose term. Just because people live in the same town doesn't mean they even see each other. In the modern world their paths cross infrequently. We are closed up and self conscious, we drive alone in cars, our favorite form of entertainment is sitting silently in a dark room surrounded by other silent people.

This shows that while we enjoy the company of others we fear uninvited communication. Thus we use technology to create an even playing field. Looks don't matter, we have plenty of time to think out typed responses and can easily escape a situation we'd rather not face. These factors drive the boom of email and instant messaging. They also make the web a perfect medium for initiating the face to face communication we truly desire. Package this idea with a cute user-interface and you've got a winning product. Now who wants to teach me PHP?

Now that that's over..: (the easy-read section)
Some quickies about me.

Birthplace: St. Petersburg, Russia

Hometown: Durham, NH

School: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Favorite way to travel: Train, gotta love it... commuter rail is sweet

Favorite creative activity: Video production

Favorite films: Amelie from Montmartre, Memento, American Beauty, A Simple Plan, Run Lola Run

Favorite music:
Genres: rock, alternative, techno, jazz, pleasant :)
American Bands: 3 Doors Down, Guns N' Roses, Doors, Pink Floyd, Daft Punk, Beatles
Foreign Bands: Busta Flex, Joe Dassin, Patricia Kaas, Rammstein, Agatha Kritie, Bi-2, DDT, Gorky Park, Irina Bogushevich, Kino, Lube, Russkiy Razmer, Splin, Yury Antonov (see ftp://rsm:camp@ftp.borism.net)

Pet peeves: bandwidth, video quality, organization, netscape

TV Shows: Seinfeld, Simpsons, Blind Date :)

Sports: Ping-Pong, Volleyball, Tennis

Computer Specs (in no particular order):  

• Intel celeron II processor 633@800 mhz (ppga with tekram converter card)
• Tekram P6B40A4X motherboard (4 pci, 3 isa, 4 dimms, software bus speed settings)
• 384mb sdram
• 60gb western digital hard drive
• 80gb maxtor hard drive
• 15gb quantum fireball hard drive
• 19 inch compaq MV920 monitor
• 17 inch view sonic G773 monitor (dual monitor setup, wohoo!)
• Philips 12x8x32 cd-rw drive
• Toshiba 6x dvd-rom drive
• Yamaha GX 64 bit soundcard
• Epson Stylus 740 printer
• T3/Internet2 college connection
• Two 10mbit network cards, one for local network, one for the internet
• A pair of 25" stereo system speakers and an amplifier. (currently using yamaha ms30 system)
• Headset and Sony Stereo Headphones
• Logitech ITouch cordless mouse, logitech laser mouse, and keyboard with multimedia keys
• Logitech/AST infrared remote
• ATX mid tower case
• ATI All in Wonder Pro 8mb PCI video card (2d and 3d acceleration, svideo/rca video in, tv tuner, TV-out capabilities, hardware assisted dvd decoding)
• 3dfx voodoo3 1000 8mb sgram (for 3d)
• Intel pc camera usb pack
• Sony Hi8 camcorder for video capture and production
• Diamond Rio pmp300 32mb portable mp3 player with 32mb smart media add-on card
• HP 545 Pocket PC
• Umax Astra 1220P scanner
• Netpliance IOpener - modified with a 2gig laptop drive, win98se, usb to ethernet converter, usb hub, and microsoft intellimouse explorer optical.
  
  

This page has served to be my online representation since the mid 90's. It has morphed from a geocities site to virtualave, to mediaone, to wpi and now to an independent hosting provider. I use photoshop for the image editing and dreamweaver for the HTML. borism.net (pronounced bor-ism) should remain with me for the entirety of my life. Get to know it :)