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MISC.
Best...Super Power...Ever!
I have thought of the best super power ever conceived by man! Presenting...
HEISENBERG MAN!
With the awesome power to make the probability of any event occurring equal to 1!
It may not sound like an awesome power, but just think of all the possibilities! Want to walk through walls? Make it 100% guaranteed that your atoms would pass through solid objects! Need to fly up into the air? Set the probability that you spontaneously grow wings equal to 1! With this power, you could make ANY seemingly impossible event happen, JUST BY SAYING IT WILL!
I'll admit my knowledge of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is rather limited, but what I DO know of it makes my super power possible. If it's not, let me know how and I will promptly eat my (proverbial) hat!
EDIT: Dammit, I was thinking of Schrodinger, not Heisenberg. Oh well :/
Last night was another one those nights.
I went outside to lock up the cars for the night. A regular routine on a regular evening.
The truck was locked. I paused.
Something was...amiss...
...
It took me a moment to register what exactly it was that felt "off". It was everything! Everything was off. Nothing stirred in the dark, aside from the chirping of nocturnal insects. It was only midnight, but I couldn't see any of the regular vehicular or foot traffic that I would have expected to be out and about. A few cars snuck by on the nearby cross-street, but otherwise it seemed as though everyone had been swept off the face of the planet.
It would have been eerie if I hadn't been enjoying the silence.
...
Only six days before I leave?
Fuck.
I don't have much to say here, other than LOOK AT ALL THE PRETTY COLORS! After far too many months of white, black, and brown, I've decided to go with something a bit easier on the eyes. With some help from Jonas and Gelo, I was able to find a color scheme of blue with green accents that I thought would be easy on the eyes and a layout that was simple enough so as to not overwhelm the rest of the posts.
Speaking of posts, the layout of each has changed a bit. As you've seen, the title, date, comments link, and tags are all located at the top of each post. It's an unorthodox layout, but I like having everything consolidated at the top because it means less moving of the page and mouse to comment on something I've written.
And in honor of the fact that I'll be in Japan for a year, I've included the name of this blog in Katakana so that if any of my foreign friends make their way here, they'll have an idea of how to say it!
That's it for now. Posts may be sparse now, but once I leave for Japan on July 2nd, expect lots of new material!
Oh, that reminds me! To entice readers to read my blog, I've been advised that my posts should have some kind of hook, a unique angle that will set them apart from the many other "LOOK AT ME I'M IN JAPAN" blogs. That's why I'm inviting you, loyal readers, to throw some ideas my way as to how I should present new posts. Do you want me to focus on technology? The Tokoy nightlife? Japanese culinary culture? So long as its legal, I'll do my best to provide all of you with interesting tales and pictures that follow the themes you send my way. Help me give you something interesting to read; pitch me an idea!
Well, the school year's officially over. All that's left now is to pack and go home. The reprieve will be short, however, as on July 2nd I head off to Japan for a year-long study abroad! Exciting, huh?
In preparation for my upcoming adventure, I'll be revamping this blog. At the very least, I'll make some cosmetic changes and revamp the picture gallery; at the most, I'll switch out this old system for an entirely new one. I haven't decided which path I'll take, I guess you'll all just have to wait and find out!
That's all for now. Have a good weekend : )
I indulged in a gluttony of technology purchases within the last week. Last Friday, I picked up a Casio Exilim Z1080 digital camera for the low, low price of $195; I bought Mario Kart for the Wii on Saturday for $53; and today, I bought a 160GB Western Digital Passport drive for $75.
It's all justified, though; the camera's for my trip Japan (it's got image stabilization! I have a hard time holding a camera perfectly still for 1/600 of a second and I'll be damned if I come back from Japan with a bunch of blurred images), Mario Kart is fun, and the Passport drive will probably replace my current Passport drive, which will then keep all my important files at home while I'm away on my study abroad in Tokyo.
Gotta be prepared! ; )
I've discovered recently that I get a lot more work done when I listen to music through headphones. Just having the music playing out loud isn't enough; for whatever reason, I'm able to focus better when it's pumped directly into my ears. Go figure.
Work on WormholeFTP will continue tomorrow or Friday. Bugs keep coming in via friends on MSN, so the list of fixes keep growing. Right now, I need to fix a file size bug that crashes the program when files over 100MB are uploaded, and figure out how to handle Passive FTP connections. On top of that, I'm reworking the UI to allow for multiple upload locations to be configured and accessed.
This will be the weekend for advertising, too. The support framework is up, the EXE is in a stable, working condition, the price is right...Download.com and the SH/SC thread on SomethingAwful will be my primary targets for spreading the word and gaining widespread adoption!
Also Iron Man on Friday...that is all.
P.S. Yahtzee's updates on Wednesdays have me salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs
Sometime in the next week or so, I'll have an announcement so big it'll knock your socks off! I don't want to say anything more now, but if you just hang in there I'm sure you won't be disappointed :)
My new Vostro 1500 came in on Friday, four or five days before it's estimated arrival date. I really need to get into the habit of including pictures when I review, so I'll leave the lengthy discussion of the pros and cons of the system for when I'm not smack-dab in the middle of scholarship essays. Suffice to say it kicks a lot of ass.
Parting Note: This makes me sad. Just as I'm getting ready to go to Japan, the dollar has to drop like a mafia informant who sold out to the police...
Just a quick heads up, for the next week or so I'll be permanently AFK. I sold both my tower and my laptop to finance some new technology for Japan, and they just so happened to sell within three days of each other; the tower's gone out the door, and I'm typing this up on the recently formatted laptop that's due to go out in the mail tomorrow.
On the plus side, I have a shiny new Vostro 1500 being built for me by the "wonderful" employees working for Dell. Last I checked, the estimated ship date is the 29th of this month; with three-to-five day shipping, I'll probably be back up and running by next Monday.
Until then, it's lots of reading and face time with my DS. See you all in a week!
P.S. Autistic Mode has nothing to do with autism; it's a term used in Ghost in the Shell to indicate that someone has turned of wireless communications in their cyberbrain.
You're not too old, and people DO still listen to you, Moby!
The annual UC Riverside HEAT concert went on yesterday night. Now, I'm not too keen for the concerts held here because a lot of bands playing are of the rap or R&B variety, and I just don't enjoy that type of music. This year's concert was very kind to me, though. This year, Moby came to UC Riverside and he ROCKED...THE...HOUSE.
Moby is a DJ who specializes in techno, house, and electronica music (don't ask me the difference between the three, I can hardly tell). Seeing him live in-concert is like talking tech with Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, cooking alongside Emeril Lagasse, or doing some reps alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. I had an entire hour and a half to rave it up to some of the best DJ'ing I'd heard in a while, and I took advantage of it.
Surprisingly, I heard none of the material I'd heard before; it was refreshing to see that he didn't fall back on the songs he's famous for and can keep his mixes interesting and unpredictable. And to think I wanted to stay home!
BTW, Richard Melville Hall was nicknamed Moby shortly after birth in honor of his great-great-great-great uncle Herman Melville (author of Moby Dick). Don't believe me? [CITATION SUPPLIED]
No tech post this week. Instead, I've been quite busy these last few weeks taking care of some important paperwork for EAP and trying to find time to get a new application of mine online to sell and pull in some side-income. The aforementioned paperwork has been submitted, so that leaves the whole online commerce affair to sort out.
The hardest part of the site, the secure downloader system, is 90% complete; now I just have to figure out how to automate purchases to allow people to download my program as soon as they purchase it. Luckily, PayPal has a system in-place that allows me to verify purchases. Once I receive notification of a successful order, my system will place the order into my download system and offer the purchaser an opportunity to download the program right away. Quick and painless, and most of all completely automated!
Yeah, so that's it. More updates as they develop!
I finally figured out a round-about way of disabling FKCEditor plugins based on the page the editor is being used on. As I mentioned earlier, I installed an autosave function that will preserve my new posts until I post them onto the front page; the problem I was having was that if I wanted to edit an existing post, the AutoSave would save that post's content over the saved new-post's content. What I needed to do was disable the auto-save script on the Edit Post page.
It turned out to be a fairly easy solution. Basically, I grab a GET variable related to the current page's function from the page's URL and load the AutoSave only when that variable is set to a specific value. On any other page (i.e. the Edit Post page), the auto-saver is not loaded. In the case of this blog, it was a rather small bit of code:
var windowCode = parent.window.location.href.split('specific_GET_variable=')[1] .split("&")[0]; //(multi-lined because it broke the layout) if(windowCode == 1) { //Load Plugin }
I have to call parent.window because FCKEditor is loaded into a frame. I also learned that if I want to grab the current page's URL as a string, I need to call window.location.href as opposed to simply calling window.location; window.location is an object, and it contains much more information than just the URL. After grabbing the URL, I split the string into an array using the GET variable I want to read as the point where I want the string divided into separate array elements. Then, I perform another split on the second element of the first array. The second split is performed to single out any other GET variables that may appear in the page's URL. I can then grab the value of the desired GET variable, which is stored in the first array element of the second split.
It's a simple yet elegant solution, if I do say so myself :P
Forums are great. BBCode in forum posts is great. BBCode in a blog backend is not so great. For almost a year, I've used a from-scratch BBCode system as the primary means of formatting the many posts I make here *cough cough*.
In any case, FCKEditor will now handle all the backend post composition. I came across this free rich-text editor at work during brainstorming of a new CMS system. The project flopped, but I learned a lot about how the editor works and decided that it was exactly what I needed to add some much-needed power to the whole posting process.
FCKEditor has it's fair share of plugins, including one I installed that functions as an AJAX auto-save system. Now, every 30 seconds (or whenever I hit the save button), whatever I've written in the FCKEditor window is backed up to a database and restored next time I pull up the "Create a New Post" page. This feature addresses one of the issues I had with writing posts, namely the fact that I didn't have a lot of time to devote to sitting down and writing these. Now, I can work on a post in parts and continue whenever I have a free moment. My upcoming year-long trip to Japan motivated this upgrade, as I wanted everything to be ridiculously simple for me to use when I'm abroad; I'd rather spend my time seeing the sites than spending a large amount of time writing new posts or trying to figure out why my BBCode interpreter is freaking out.
Speaking of freaking out, I'm going to tweak the CSS so that posts work a bit cleaner with the new editor; if you go back to a post before this one and the formatting looks all off, you now know why.
And before I forget, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!
Will and I went bike riding again yesterday, this time around the quite mountainous areas of San Marcos, California. I, being the ambitious and most gung-ho of the two of us, decided that the best place for the both of us to start would be a monster hill leading into the back roads of the city. I mean, it didn't look that bad from the bottom and hey, there really isn't anywhere around here that ISN'T hills...
What I failed to take into account was the fact that neither of us had really gone on any long-distance bike trips in over two months. Long story short (and to get to the best part of the entire ride) we both made it to the top, all two miles or so up, when we both said "screw it" and proceeded to head down the hill. Well, Will headed down the hill, and I sort of just threw caution to the (rather biting) wind and cannonballed it down.
36 Miles per hour. On a bike that weighs no more than 25 pounds. Man, it was one of the single most craziest moments of my life, a mix between "oh-shit-shit-please-don't-hit-a-bump" and "fuck yeah, just a bit more and-oh, there we go, broke my record!" Before yesterday, the fastest I'd managed to go was 34.5 mph, and I know I could've gone faster yesterday if I wasn't wearing a sweatshirt during my descent.
But that's a record to be beaten on another day.
Also, grades came in, two A-'s and two A+'s...one more quarter conquered and thrown onto the pile. Bring on Winter quarter!
And lastly, The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés. My personal favorites are 183 (and it's corollary, 184) and 190.
Man, this week has been one of the worst weeks in terms of free time. Why were my leisure hours in such small supply? Here's what happened in the last 7 days:
- I spent last weekend studying for a chapter test for Japanese class; I took that test on Monday and received an 87% (not my best but also not bad considering the fact that I neither took nor used [much] Japanese over summer).
- I had a midterm in Psychology yesterday that I studied for from Monday till Thursday. This involved catching up on the reading and defining a list of over 70 key terms...well, I managed to narrow it down to 60 or so, since some of the terms were pretty obvious (*DUR* WHAT IS AN INDEPENDENT VARIABLE? *DUR*).
Well, that was basically it. I'll spend today and tomorrow studying for an Entomology midterm on Monday, but after that I'm home free for the next week or so!
My birthday's coming up on Sunday the 21st, and I must say I'm looking forward to it. No more will I be a "teenager", for I will have transcended into the roaring 20's! I managed to get a bunch of friends together and we're going to go celebrate at Raxx, a restaurant that has some of the best ribs I've ever had, putting it into direct conflict with Tony Roma's and vying for second seat as my favorite restaurant right behind D.Z. Akins in San Diego.
My Golden Sun collection is now complete (again) after purchasing another copy of the first and arguably best line of fantasy RPGs for the Gameboy. It's sequel, The Lost Age, surpasses the original Golden Sun on so many fronts; that's not to say that one should start with the second, since The Lost Age continues the story from Golden Sun. I think I'll play through it again over the next week or so, for old-times sake.
The Orange Box launched! It is AWESOME! Portal had one hell of a twist, Episode 2 answered a couple questions while raising a few more, and Team Fortress 2 rocks my proverbial socks! Here are some score tables from a few games I played a couple days ago:
I used to hate Pyros, until I figured out hot to kick ass with them B)
Nothing like a medic with ubercharge and a heavy with a fully-loaded chaingun to take down three fully-upgraded turrets; CRY SOME MORE indeed!
Annnnnnd I'm spent; now where did I put my DS...?
College is starting back up. Sophomore year...wow, it's already my second year? My, how time flies!
I moved in to my new dorm last Monday; it's set up to be more like an apartment then a true dorm, which means I get my own room! I share the apartment with three other guys, two of whom I know from last year and one new guy I'd never met before. Everything's worked out so far, and hopefully we'll all be able to live without incident; a year is a long time for something to NOT go horribly, horribly wrong!
I've decided to take up cycling. After a summer spent pedaling back and forth from work, I grew quite attached to my bicycle; as a result, I've decided to practice and improve my stamina for some long-distance riding. Will, of Wolfram Studios fame, and I biked over 60 miles in two runs; our first run together clocked in at exactly 25 miles, while our second run took us on an interesting 37.5 mile run of the nearby back roads of North County. I completed another 20.5 miles yesterday; to my dismay, my right knee started acting up the ride! I'll have to take it easy for a couple days and see if it'll mend on its own.
Work on my new super secret project is going very well. I can't divulge any of the juicy details until I get closer to release, but suffice to say that it will contain a large degree of social networking.
Classes start in three days...I need to bone up on my Japanese! Of all the classes I'm taking, Japanese worries me the most; I hardly used it over summer, so I'm sure there will be a lot of stuff I've forgotten.
Aye, so much to do, so little time to do it in.
I'm in Colorado for the next two weeks, visiting family. You'd think posts would become more frequent now that I have a bit of free time...huh, funny how they don't.
More in a few!
First off, thanks to EER for taking the time to write about his (disconcerting) experience with 3D Mailbox. We all know I'm terrible at writing anything, or, when I DO write something, keeping with the technical theme I'd set out to follow all those months ago.
Ugh, this is frustrating. As I write this, I'm waiting for three other tabs to finish loading other Unleashed Creativity pages. For the last month or so, the site has gone through a few too many intermittent periods of slow or non-responsive navigation; I've narrowed the problem down to a MySQL database problem, although I doubt its something as simple as that: when the site fails to fully load, I can see the Tags and Last 10 Entries, but the main content (the actual posts or admin section) fail to appear on the screen. The page will continue to show as "Loading..." in Firefox until I close the page.
I've contacted my host about the problem, and they're looking into the cause. Hopefully, I'll hear something back from them early next week.
And yeah, that's pretty much it; I could tell you I've been doing since school got out, but to be honest, I wouldn't even want to read about it...it's been that boring, sadly.
In any case, stay tuned; I'll find something to write about in the next couple days, I promise!
A week has passed, and the adventurer pauses to get his bearings.
He looks down, and is pleased to see the progress he's made during his ascent of Mount Finals. The old man at the base of the mountain was a strange fellow and the first challenge; he spoke of nothing but double-declining balances and warranty liability and would not let the adventurer pass unless he answered the stranger's questions...
That was behind him, though; if he hoped to reach the top in time, he would need to face forward and focus on navigating the unknown and unforgiving terrain.
He tightens his safety line and climbs ever higher, every step bringing him closer and closer towards the sound of the taiko drums...
Week 10 has but started, and already Finals Week billows on the horizon, glistening banks of onyx against a sapphire sky. The brave adventurer pushes on, intent on completing his task by week's end. He knows he will have to venture into the unforgiving storm, but he fears it not, for he has worked too long and too hard to be turned down by something so trivial.
He adjusts his hat and continues up the mountain...
The honor society that I'm a member of hosted a beach bonfire last night at Corona Del Mar and though I am not one for beaches, I still had a great time. The bonfire was a bit lacking, as we had brought some wood but forgot to bring any kindling; a real bonfire requires AT LEAST two pallets, but someone forgot to pass along that memo.
In any case, there were 12 or 13 of us, not a large group but enough to make it interesting. The beach was, according to the members who'd been there before, quite busy for a Friday evening, but someone had gone on ahead and secured us a fire pit, so we were able to bust out the hot dogs and s'mores and go to town! Things got a bit interesting when a group of us ventured off to walk along the jetty. The friend I'd dragged along and I scampered ahead of the small group, jumping from rock to rock and generally going a lot faster than we should have, especially since I was only wearing sandals; the situation would have had me reconsidering heading out if I hadn't discovered my ability to be really, really good at climbing/crossing dangerous terrain a few years earlier.
As the night wound down, I met some people from UCI who were friends of the honor society president. I found out that one of them, David, was finishing off his second year and was preparing himself to head out to Japan in July for a year of studying abroad...sound familiar? I requested he stay in touch, and he obliged, so I'll get a chance to talk to someone who's experiencing what I HOPE to experience during the 2008-2009 school year. Exciting!
How did all of us finish up the night? After a quick bite to eat, we partook in that most famous of Japanese past times, karaoke! Apparently, Westminster has quite the Asian population, including many things Japanese. Needless to say, it was one hell of an hour! Seven or eight of us, crammed into a small room, singing songs from every genre, all of us off-key by at least one scale...it was a blast! By 2:00AM, all of us were wiped out and ready to venture home. My friend and I made it back to our dorm 45 minutes later and I crashed, hard.
And tomorrow, I'm going to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the first time ever! Think of a Disney Land that is owned by Warner Bros. and is dedicated to some of the most gut-wrenching rollercoasters conceivable by man and you'll have an idea of what I have to look forward to!
Its late now, so I'm going to wrap this up. I owe you guys another rant, don't I? Hmm, that may have to wait until the 18th; final exams loom on the horizon, so I'll be busy studying my butt off!
I'll leave you today with a few PSA's from around the world; all of these are horrifying and put any of the ones you'd see in America to shame. Enjoy. (NOTE: NSFW):
First up, Australia (Courtesy of Australia's TAC)
Christmas Driving
Just 10 KPH Less...
Every K Over is a Killer
Bush Telegraph
Ireland really knows how to drive the point home:
Speeding Kills - THINK!
After watching all of these, I must say I'm VERY disappointed with the anti-drunk driving PSA's I've seen on TV over here in the US. Compared to the ones above, they're quite timid! Case in point:
Pizza Delivery
See what I mean? Humor might get a *guffaw* from the viewer, but it doesn't affect viewers as much as realistic violence; I think the reason the foreign commercials succeed is because they show the horrible reality of DWI accidents and don't sugarcoat it in "cuteness".
Those videos should keep you occupied for the next day or two; I have another rant waiting on the wings, so look for that sometime next week. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and if you're a fellow America, have a great Memorial Day and never forget the sacrifices of those who came before us. Our freedom came at a price, so take a moment tomorrow and thank those who died fighting to preserve our liberties.
Me thinks its time I pick up a new hobby. Any suggestions?
There are only a couple things more annoying than not being able to remember where you put something, especially if it was less than 12 hours since you had that something in your hands.
Take my keys.
After going out with some friends for a Saturday evening of food and fun, I returned back to the dorm and partook in some Super Smash Bros. Melee with a couple more friends. I know for a fact I had my keys with me then, because I used them to open the file cabinet that houses my more expensive goods (several hundred dollars of software, blank checks, and my Gamecube games and gear). I brought my keys with me when I went to play SSBM, and afterwards I grabbed them on my way back down.
This is where the "fuzzy" part of my mind kicks in and I can't remember 100% what I did with my keys. I know I made it back to my dorm room with them, and I remember using them to open the locked file cabinet again, but after that I don't have any idea what I did with them.
I scoured my room for them, looked in all the usual places, but still no keys...my dad's coming up tomorrow with some bolt cutters and a new lock, and probably a slap upside the head for being such a bonehead, so after we have lunch I'll find out for sure if my keys are in there.
In other more pleasant news, Starcraft 2 has been announced, and after watching all three gameplay trailers and the cinematic trailer (btw, Blizzard, how hard is it to offer up files for HTTP download, eh? I'm sick and tired of torrenting everything), I have to say I'm very "meh" about the whole thing. I've never really been much of an RTS guy, so I see a game like Starcraft and think, "wow, those are some pretty awesome graphics"...I'll try to get into it like I do with most RTS, but I'm just not sure I'll find the fun in this that many people who can handle micro-micro-management games will find.
I WILL, however, derive great pleasure from the new Super Smash Bros. Game that's coming out for the Wii. Super Smash Bros. Brawl promises new characters, levels, and items while retaining the familiar Gamecube control scheme we've all come to love. Nintendo announced its decision a year ago, as quoted from Joystiq's article back on May 10th, 2006:
Quote:
And before you ask, no, I don't have a Wii now, but a recent scheme came across my doorstep that, while sounding just a BIT too good to be true, also sounds plausible enough that I want to give it a try. Basically, it involves GameFly's referral program; right now, GameFly has a promotion where if I can get 5 friends to sign up for their paid service, I get a free year of GameFly or a Nintendo Wii. The cheapest GameFly plan is $8.95 for the first month, so all I have to do is give five friends $10 and have them sign up for a month of the service. Once I get my voucher for the free Wii, they all cancel, I get my Wii, and everyone's happy...except for GameFly. I have the five friends, I've scoured the TOS for any possible loopholes/catches, all I need now is to find a bit of free time to coordinate the whole ordeal. Its a bit risky, but hey, you don't get ahead in anything if you don't take chances!
The few changes to the front end also accompanied a few changes to the backend. I've recently become a validation Nazi (I coded my work portfolio using valid XHTML 1.1 markup, the strictest of doctypes!), so it brings me great pride to announce that I've eliminated many of the bits of code that were not validating according to the rather lenient XHTML 1.0 Transitional doctype. I suppose this is more of a note for myself, since most of you won't notice the changes unless your the kind of person who enjoyes poring over HTML and spotting all the invalid code (or if you have a Firefox extension that does it for you [thanks HTML Validator!]).
There's also a new "Link to me!" page that has HTML or BBCode you can use to link to this site. Look for the link to that page underneath the Affiliates box.
And its come to my attention that a friend of mine is looking for a reason to get my server dugg into the ground; if you have any ideas for worthwhile articles, let me know and I'll get to posting.
And here's a schedule of things to come, subject to change because I'm lazy like that:
1. I FINALLY figured out how to do a proper fluid-height 3-column layout
2. I had the craziest dream involving teleportation and John Candy...its MORE twisted than it seems!
3. Whatever else I can dredge up from my otherwise mundane life
And that reminds me, I need to take more pictures...its a damn shame my life revolves around edu-ma-cation, or else I'd probably be going to myriad parties and cavorting with all calibers of women and SNAPPING ALL SORTS OF PICS OMG LO-[END TRANSMISSION]
This is one of those weeks, and I mean that in a good way!
First, payday was yesterday. Can you say cha-ching? Not only has my new job as a student programmer for my university's IT department provided me with some interesting "job site" training, its proven to be quite lucrative as well; I've made 150% more money in two weeks of work than I did in a month at my old job. I also received a check from a friend who screwed up her webhosting six ways to Sunday.
Second, I kicked ass on two midterms this week. On Monday, I had a Statistics midterm, and on Tuesday I had a Japanese midterm. I earned a 96% on my Stats midterm, and a 94% on my Japanese midterm! I'm so jazzed about the Japanese midterm because I bombed my first chapter test (78%) and was worried that I might not do as hot this quarter grade-wise as I did last quarter.
Third, I got a lot done on my PocketPadlet application. PocketPadlet (for those who don't know) is a set of applications I created that allow owners of PocketPC's to use their devices as touchpads for their PC's. Before today, functionality was limited to moving the mouse cursor around using the stylus. After a bit of inspiration, though, I was able to program in left and right clicks as well, inching the program closer to being a viable alternative to a computer mouse. There's still a lot of work to be done, as the program has quite a few rough spots when it comes to clicking; namely, whenever I tap the screen to signify a left-click, if I don't tap the EXACT same spot as the first tap, the mouse jumps around and the double-click isn't registered by Windows (liken this to jiggling the mouse around when you're trying to open up a document; too much movement and Windows doesn't register the double-click as operating on the intended file). Other than that, though, I'm very pleased with the results.
The last thing that will make this week all the sweeter will be when I finally get my new bike this weekend. My previous bicycle was stolen from a locked on-campus storage area on the 31st of December, during my winter break. Needless to say, I was devastated and have had to endure an entire quarter a half of walking...it may sound insane, but I love biking and the independence that comes with owning a bicycle. When that bike was stolen, a big part of my self-sufficiency was destroyed; I'm brutally reminded of that day every time I see someone riding a bike back to their dorm after class or chaining it up to a rack.
And that's a wrap. I'm off to study some more Japanese and hopefully get to bed at a decent time...only time will tell if I'm successful at both endeavors. Cheers, mates!
So apparently the AACS gave away its biggest secret...but how?
http://digg.com/tech_news/IP_Version_6_with_128bit_IPs
http://digg.com/apple/Sixteen_Hexadecimal_Digits_Screensaver_for_Mac_OS_X
- (http://www.newcleardream.org/screensaver)
http://digg.com/programming/The_best_mathematical_riddle_you_will_see_today_Period
- (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/191/480556169_6d731d2416_o.jpg)
http://digg.com/tech_news/d1af2e56517a7202a1cc087a69c4e296_md5_of_some_random_hex_values
- (http://www.quasarrising.com/md5.txt)
Stuff found on Facebook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9HaNbsIfp0 (Song featuring the process key)
http://ucr.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2338184677 (Facebook Group supporting the key)
What does this all mean? Are all HD-DVD's from here on crackable? Can the process key not be reset? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
I'm not perfect, nor will I ever claim to be. I have my own strengths and just as many weaknesses. To forget that is to set yourself up for failure; if you leave even the smallest chink in your armor, there will be someone who will find that weak spot and exploit it for their gain and your loss. I have many philosophies that I embrace, and tonight was a night of refreshers, or reminders of who I am and what I believe in.
A good friend of mine and I spent a good hour or so talking about everything and nothing. The topic? Its a bit difficult to categorize every aspect into neat, well-defined boxes, so its pointless to even try to classify what we did. Suffice to say, it was free-flow, stream-of-consciousness. I was asked, "why do I always strive for something? Why don't you hang back and let things happen on their own?" It was an interesting question, the kind of inquiry that would catch most people off guard; it was also a question that I've known the answer to for years. I responded, "I'm always striving and moving forward because the moment I stop, the world and all of its opportunities will pass me by."
An interesting response? Perhaps, but its a philosophy that I've come to embrace after years of being "in the right place at the right time". I've had my shares of ups and downs, times where things could not get any better and times where it feels like I could not have screwed things up any worse. I'm not one to simply move on with things, rather I'm one who is ALWAYS looking for a lesson. Was I too forward with this individual? What exactly did I do for this to fall into my lap? I've learned what works and what doesn't work through years of trial-and-error, and my philosophies reflect that. How do I know the world will pass me by if I give it the chance to? Because I've had a habit of general indifference to time, a laziness that has cost me some very unique, potentially beneficial opportunities. I won't go into much detail here, but there were a few times where if I HAD motivated myself to reach that goal, then I would have hit paydirt.
What else do I believe in? I believe in searching for as many answers to as many things as possible. Large religious bodies have somewhat contributed to this outlook. I was born Christian, and I found religion at an early age thanks to my grandparents, but for most of my life I've been separated from organized religion. As time passed, I came to embrace science as my belief system because I recognized that most of life's mysteries were answered in a system of irrefutable calculations. Science offered facts and physical relationships, and religion embodied a lack of initiative and curiosity. I have a natural predisposition to seeking answers, so I accepted science into my life. I have not rejected the idea of the presence of a god; if anything, I've always believed that he created the universe and stepped back from it all to give existence a chance to sort itself out. Some people have a hard time believing that, and I'm fine with that. I don't try to imprint my beliefs onto anyone, and provided those same people refrain from calling me a "devil worshiper" or condemning me to Hell, then I usually get along with everyone.
What motivates mankind? Its simple, really: people do things to make themselves feel good. There's no such thing as a truly selfless individual. Even if there is no physical reward for an act of goodwill, the personal feeling of having done something good is enough of a reward for those that give their time to help those in need. As a race ruled by our emotions, it is important to realize that if charity work didn't make anyone feel good after doing it, there would be no one helping the homeless or saving animals. I'm not downplaying the benefit that many hard-working individuals have on such ventures, I'm merely making the observation that behind every selfless act lies an individual who's trying to get their emotional fix.
Where am I going with this? If you have to ask, you've missed the point. I'm not trying to get to a destination, nor am I trying to get you to believe what I believe. I am simply stating those things which define who I am. I suppose putting some of my morals into writing will help to remind me who I am should I get lost in the hustle and bustle that is life. I don't have too many moments of intellectual clarity, but when I have a chance to let everything go and play a passive role for one fleeting moment, I come to see my place in the grand scheme of things. Oddly enough, I also feel compelled to write and make myself heard. The audience is small, but perhaps if I make the message loud and strong enough, I will gather some more people open-minded enough to my beliefs.
The special effects were really something. The landscapes were all bluescreened in; the work done on the various backdrops did a great job of creating the proper environment for the situation. Long expanses of plains laid out in front of the Spartan warriors as they at the began their journey, and desolate beach scenes arose when the Persians stormed the small band of warriors.
300 was based on the events of the Battle of Thermopylae. The location, the enemies, all of them existed and played their part in 480 B.C. There was some lore thrown in for effect, making this movie a historical-fantasy-type movie, but not enough to detract from the believability of events.
This movie gets a 10/10 in my book, and when it comes out on DVD I plan on adding it to my collection of really awesome war movies, right next to Saving Private Ryan. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I IMPLORE you to go see it in theaters and then buy it when it comes out. Its just that good of a movie!
P.S. Because I'm so infatuated with the movie, I created a couple of avatars. You're free to use them, just don't hotlink or claim you made them, as either of those make me really mad! Here they are, all two of them!
How many Ritz crackers can I fit in my mouth at one time?
Wow, I feel accomplished!
[EDIT] Here are some movies for you to...*ahem*...snack on:
First Food-Related Video: Pockey and Peach Rings:
Second Food-Related Video: Puttin' on the Ritz...IN MY MOUTH!
If that doesn't get me into Hell for the sin of gluttony, I don't know what does...
And here's something entertaining to pass the time as you scarf down copious amounts of not-cake:
They planned their dating system for this day, I'm sure of it! In any case, happy March 13th, Europe!
The quiz told me that I'm a "High-Level Nerd. You are definitely MIT material, apply now!!!"
Stupid quiz, I DID apply, and they didn't take me...but if the quiz recommended that I was MIT material, and if we assume that the quiz thinks I would get accepted, then because I wasn't accepted, the quiz is WRONG :O
EDIT:
Holy crap, its the 100th post! Congratulations to me on managing 100 sometimes mundane, sometimes informative posts! Here's to 100 more! :D
In the case of Linux, the old adage "you get what you pay for" is the order of the day.
Its been seven months since my last foray into Linux, and yesterday I found myself sacrificing my laptop to test out Kubuntu 7.04, code-named "Feisty Fawn". For those of you who don't know, Kubuntu is the same OS as Ubuntu, except it uses an alternate desktop environment, KDE (instead of Gnome). Part of my motivation to test out Kubuntu originated from many articles I'd read on Digg.com about how easy Ubuntu is to upgrade to, how much better laptop-hardware support has become, and how nice Ubuntu looks after installing and configuring Beryl/Compiz. With Windows Vista's recent price tag set at around $400 (plus or minus $20), I figured, what the hell, why not see if my less-powerful laptop (compared to my tower) can survive on a steady diet of Linux; if Kubuntu received my seal of approval, then I could save myself $200 (OEM is SO much cheaper than Retail!).
Lets start off with installation. Getting Kubuntu onto my laptop was, for the most part, hassle-free. I hit a couple snags installing from a 6.06 Live CD, but the installer did warn me that I was using a beta Live CD installer, so I worked through it and managed to get the OS installed.
A quick reboot later, and I behold! It booted! I proceed to log in, hooked it up to the internet, and played around with all the shiny (literally, the icons were incredibly reminiscent of any Web2.0 company's logo) programs.
I soon noticed a program telling me that I needed to upgrade, and upon clicking the notification, I proceeded to wade through the > 380 files I was told I needed to download. Not wanting to actually read them all, I just hit update and sat back to watch the magic happen...
...for TWO HOURS...
And that was just to download them all! Needless to say, I didn't sit through the entire upgrade process, but by the third hour, all the updates had installed, and I could move on with the experience.
Now, I'm using a copy of Kubuntu 7.04, the version of Kubuntu that comes out...after...the next version of Kubuntu...which isn't out yet...
Go figure.
To cut this (literally) 12-hour-long story down to size, I'm just going to bullet point everything else. Yes, I know its a lazy means of writing an article, but I'm sure you won't mind saving a few minutes:
> Automatix2 is a program designed to easily install MANY Linux programs, including MP3 SUPPORT and DVD PLAYBACK! I got it installed, but it wouldn't run because I wasn't running Ubuntu...that fact STILL confuses me, because as far as I know, Kubuntu IS Ubuntu with a different desktop environment.
> MP3 support had to be installed! I thought there were some freely-available DLL's that one could install for MP3 support, but are all of those in violation of some kind of patent for the MP3 compression algorithm? That could be the case.
> Wireless support for my laptop was non-existent after installing AND upgrading, which was one of the breaking points for me. If I can't move around with my laptop and still get internet, then I can't use the OS, simple as that.
> There is no safe-mode if you screw up the video driver. I learned that the hard way after installing the proprietary ATI driver. Luckily, I knew my way around the console enough to get back into the config file I modified and remove the modification, thus restoring my desktop.
> I had read an article talking about running Windows applications side-by-side Linux apps, something akin to Parallel's Coherence mode for Apple laptops. This was one of the features of Linux that intrigued me, since it held the promise of being able to work with some of the Windows applications I use on a daily basis (Web coding in Webuilder 2006, for example). Unfortunately, after attempting to set up three different virtual machine programs, Linux freaked out (I am almost certain it was because I canceled an installation script half way through the install procedure) and wouldn't install any other VM program I tried. I could have gone in and fixed the problem, but I was at 12th-hour and was too annoyed to proceed much further.
I'm sure there were a few other things that turned me off of the idea of migrating to Linux, but those were the major annoyances. Perhaps I was simply too spoiled with the ease at which I get things done with Windows, or maybe I went into the whole experience expecting not to get anything done. In any case, I reinstalled Windows, upgraded it, and installed the basic list of programs (Gaim, Windows Live Messenger, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, IZArc, Foxit PDF Reader, Comodo Personal Firewall, AVG Anti-Virus, and some hardware drivers)* in about two hours.
Two hours with Windows[/b] and full hardware usability[/i]...or [b]12 hours with Linux and [i]more time needed to get everything working...
If only I'd know this yesterday! But as those crazy French say, sest la viyay! I mean, c'est la vie!
*All of these programs are freeware, enjoy!
In any case, I finally got around to adding the gallery to the site. So far, you can see all the pictures and diagrams I've taken and created for the various posts here. There's quite a bit to see, surprisingly, and its sure to grow if I keep up my posting.
Gallery navigation is sorely lacking, so for now you'll have to rely on that nifty button I call the "Browser Back Button" (+10 for alliteration) to jump back and forth between the different albums.
And I've changed servers, too! I went back to 1and1 after one too many screw ups with my last host caused me to lose a potential customer. Its a bit more expensive, but the reliability of 1and1's servers is worth it and will probably pay for itself as soon as I get some more work going.
Also, check out the new look for my KaleNet Web Design, at http://www.knwd.us. Shiny, eh? New branding, new layout, a cleaner and more browser-friendly HTML structure (XHTML 1.1 no less, the strictest of site specifications!) means a more professional atmosphere and, hopefully, more customers.
I have nothing more to say for now...go, shoo, move on! There are greener pastures elsewhere, but don't forget to come back and pay me a visit!
Feinstein Speaks out on U.S. Atty Firings - http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002349.php
Senator Feinstein speaks out against the unwarranted firing of several US Attorneys across the US. The firings are not based on misconduct, but instead utilize a clause introduced into the PATRIOT Act when it was reinstated last year...now, the president can instate his cronies to preside over several upcoming cases dealing with corruption at a politician-level. Firing US Attorneys is within the power of the president, but what has changed is the time limit that interim attorneys are allowed to remain in their position; before the PATRIOT Act, interim attorneys were allowed to serve for a maximum period of 120 days, but recent changes to that policy give interims an infinite amount of time in their position.
Keith Olbermann's response to Bush's new plan for Iraq - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16583889/
Keith Olbermann tears into Bush, chastising him for being a complete and utterly incompetent president. Words can't do justice, so just click on the link to see Olbermann's response.
-----And on a technical note-----
Why upgrading to Microsoft Vista may be a smarter choice than purchasing new - http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2082979,00.asp
Here's an interesting article about Windows Vista and its upgrade procedure. Apparently, the installer for Windows Vista is leagues ahead of the installer that Windows XP is based off of, so upgrading from an existing install of XP appears to be a feasible option. After reading this article, I've reconsidered my stance on Vista and am now considering saving $150 by purchasing the upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate...there's still a bit of time until Vista's release, and even more time until I make the jump to Vista, so I think I'll wait and see how other people to this new OS.
That should keep you guys and gals busy until I get to tomorrow's post. A hint for tomorrow, I've tested VirtualBox's now-open-source virtualization software, so look out for my review!
I'm all for website usability, but this ridiculous...
There's an image of the entire form the above image was taken from if you click it.
Reminds me of something you'd see on the DailyWTF...
That question plagues me every time I sit down to write a news post. The posts I've made recently have been droll affairs, short and succinct due to a general lack of time. College has been a mixed affair, some of it good, some of it bad...I find myself getting distracted easily in an effort to divert my attention from work and matters that must be taken care of, and in my distraction I fail to make progress on things that would be interesting. The internet is a constant bane to my education, providing boundless expanses of information, and just as many distractions. Unfortunately, I get lost in the distractions and find myself reverting to my old tactics of waiting to the last minute to get things done. Its a nasty habit that I have yet to break, and it frustrates me every time I find myself in the same situations as I did during high school.
Where is my magical transformation into a mature young-adult? College is supposed to be a time of maturation and self-growth, but yet I find myself acting very much like I did last year. Am I wanting things to happen faster than they will happen? Perhaps I'm expecting too much of myself, but then again...bah, I paused mid-rant and lost all the angsty steam that was fueling this rant.
In any case, I'm still alive and bitch-I mean kicking, and it really sucks that the IB-style of learning I experienced during middle- and high-school didn't prepare me for test-taking. End-of-the-year projects and presentations doth not test-preparation strategies make. Now, its back to studying!
1000 words or more...
Current Word Count: 210
Like I said, one of those nights
I am so annoyed by the DRACONIAN restrictions the school has put on my internet usage. I pay $10,000 for housing, can't unrestricted internet come with that?
I know there's more stuff I can prattle on about, but 2 hours in a hookah bar really frys your brain, even if you don't partake in it. Look for something better tomorrow (later today).
In other news, I've decided to redesign my main site (found at http://www.knwd.us) because the hosting switch I just went through left me starting from scratch. I couldn't bring myself to put my main webdesign site back online until I cleaned up the layout, and it was basically just a portfolio of my work, so I've taken it upon myself to learn some Photoshop in the hopes of making a presentable come back and hopefully stirring up some business.
I found a few good tutorials for designing website layouts in PS, and I've started one or two to improve my skill. I'll get the site layout nailed by Sunday, and the actual translation into an actual webpage shouldn't take much more than a week, taking into account school work and whatnot.
Ooh, and you know what tomorrow is? Black Friday. And you know what happens on Black Friday? Shopping spree at Fry's.
Awesome...awesome beyond words.
Have a good weekend.
Ever wanted to run your own railroad? Become a free tycoon today!
I played around with Railroad tycoon for a bit, but to be honest, I've never really been that good at micromanagement games or real-time strategy games so I failed horribly...I have a hard time keeping twenty things going at the same time, something about a broken X chromosome or something...in any case, there's the link if you're interested, and enjoy!
I got UC back up first since its my pride and joy (that, and I wanted to see how easy it would be to restore the site in the case of a hypothetical server screw-up), and I'll spend the next day or two getting the rest of my content up and running.
And I have to say thanks to Citriczip (the guy who owns Visfx.net) for hooking me up with all sorts of things I didn't pay for, like unlimited e-mails, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited sub-, addon-, and parked domains, and unlimited FTP accounts...I can finally start selling some of my hosting space to friends and family and hopefully offset the TREMENDOUS cost of running these sites! :D
And a FAMILY sitting next to us brought their 7- or 8-year old daughter to see this movie. This movie was so graphic and intense it had me, a 19-year old, jumping out of my seat. The little girl next to us started crying AT LEAST three times during the movie, and not once did her parents take her outside of the theater...
At what point did "lets take our pre-double-digits-old daughter to go see a rated R movie" sound like a good idea? I'm going to assume that both parents watched the first and second movies in the series, so they knew what they were going to see in that theater...makes me sick to think that there are kids being brought up by irresponsible parents who would traumatize their kid for the sake of a movie night.
The first snafu appeared when I tried to find replacement/equivalent courses that I could take while studying abroad that would give me the same credit as the classes I would take if I studied here next year. The Education Abroad Program (EAP) site has a "course finder" that you're supposed to use to plan out your tentative classes. After playing around with it for a while, it appeared that the university I would be attending (Kyoto University) lacked in some of the fundamental science classes that I needed to take during my Sophomore year. I was all prepared to talk to my EAP adviser about what to do, but first I figured I'd run all this information past my academic adviser, to see if she had any objections.
The talk with my academic adviser didn't go as well as I had hoped. From our meeting, I learned that with my major it was nearly impossible to travel abroad and just as impossible to take a minor in a foreign language. All 180 units I need to graduate from college (regardless of major) are rigidly structured for ANY engineering major; if I were to miss one of the classes I was supposed to take for a particular quarter, my entire schedule would be pushed out into a fifth year because that one class would be a prerequisite for another class a year later.
Basically, I'm crushed. I started college with two goals in mind: 1. to travel abroad, and 2. to minor in a foreign language. Here I am, now, in a major that allows for neither. There's a problem with this picture, and it took the better part of three days to figure out some kind of alternate game plan. It was a hard decision to make, but what I've decided to do is switch to Business major. I've held a business major as my backup-plan-major, and pictured myself as getting into international business (an ambassador of sorts) if I did switch into the business program. I went over the requirements for the first two years of the Pre-Business program, and not only does it allow for a more flexible sophomore year, when I'd want to travel abroad, but it also PLANS OUT three quarters of foreign language.
There's still a lot of people to talk to, papers to fill out, and schedules to set up, but by next quarter I should be all set to start the pre-business program and get back on track to accomplishing both of my goals. I suppose now I'm a statistic of people who changed majors away from engineering. For the record, though, those things never divulge whether people moved on because the curriculum was too difficult for them, or if they moved majors because of the inflexibility of the schedule. I'd say I fall into the latter group.
I suppose you want to know what the title is all about. You do, don't you? Well, good if you said yes, and too bad if you said no, because here I go!
The UC system has a very strong Education Abroad Program that features summer-, semester-, or year-long courses to many countries, including England, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Mexico, and Japan. I went to an information session to learn more about getting some time over in Japan, and I was surprised to find out that they had a year-long program. I jumped on that so fast it would have made your head spin! How awesome would that be, to go live in Japan and learn at one of their universities for an entire year? Sure, its an entirely new culture and language, but I've always been fascinated with the Japanese way of life. After a report I researched about the differences between business culture in Japan and America, I've had a strong desire to perhaps get into international business with Japan, or at the very least minor in the Japanese language here at UCR.
I told a friend about my plan to try and get to Japan for the next school year, and he was interested in going, too. So now, the two of us are tag-teaming the application process and supporting each other on our quest to learn abroad. The academic requirements are tough, but I think we can both meet with the minimum 3.0 GPA by the end of the year AND come up with the money we'll need to fund this little expedition.
Other than that, not much to report on the business-end of things. I do have a couple projects that I'm currently working on, and web work has once again started to trickle my way, so money is coming in one way or another. I'm sick of EER and Thales and Metche and a few other people being the only readers, so I'm going to try (once again) to get some kind of focus down. I know it'll be some kind of tech- or web-related theme, but I haven't decided which would give me more things to write about.
Now that you're back, Yay! Its my birthday today! To celebrate, and in case you couldn't tell, I've NOT removed the site's stylesheet.* Why? I believe the real question is, Why not?
Have an awesome-tastic weekend, I know I'll try to.
*I actually did remove the stylesheet, but I talked about UC on a new forum so I've opted to keep the style sheet on; I don't want to drive away potential new readers...
Server Transition and I'm sure I'll think of something else
I've just been informed that everything will need to be moved one server to another, so I'll experience...DUN DUN DUN...downtime! I'll be available by MSN or AIM for those of you privy to such information, but I suppose if you're reading this, then there's nothing to worry abuot.
Couple of exciting things to keep you coming back:
First, I joined up with UCR's division of ACM, and I'll be spearheading a project that will allow people with Pocket PC's to use their device as an input for their computer. I can't really say much more, so take it as I give it and I'll keep you posted when something big happens.
Second...hmm, I suppose its my birthday tomorrow...happy 19th to me! I managed to get this weekend off so I could spend it with my family and a friend or two who are still in the area. Nothing like an In-n-Out-and-Fry's-Electronics-run to signal the 19th year of my life. Maybe I'll pick up Weird Al's new CD, I love his work! I'm sure you've seen his White and Nerdy music video, but if you haven't, there's the link.
Enjoy your weekend, everyone! I know I will be!
On a NORMAL network, you can access computer A's files from computer B by typing "\\
So I went into the Resnet office to ask the people responsible for the in-dorm network why I couldn't access my desktop tower from my laptop. I explained to them that I wanted to be able to access my personal files on my computer from anywhere on campus, citing a hypothetical instance in where I'm on the other side of campus and I don't have the time to go back to my dorm to access a file I would need. Of the two people in the office available to offer advice, one said that what I wanted to do was considered "hosting files" and that I'm not allowed to do that. I explained that you can only access the computer's files if you have that computer's login, meaning MY login since I'm the only user on my desktop computer. He basically repeated that I'm not allowed to do that since its the same thing as offering files for people to download. The second guy suggested I buy Symantec's PCAnywhere, but I politely said "F**k that s**t" (using acceptable euphemisms, of course) because I KNOW that what I want to do doesn't require anything BUT WINDOWS.
So now I have to go back in when their boss is in and try to talk to him, because they weren't 100% sure that what I wanted to do was indeed considered file-sharing under the EULA.
Way to go Resnet...way to be too god-damned anal about LAN TRAFFIC...I mean, I see why they limit WAN file-sharing on account of most of it being illegal and using up bandwidth, but LAN networks aren't limited by bandwidth restrictions and what I want to do can be easily adjusted to prevent files from being accessible by everyone on campus.
Is it worth maintaining? Perhaps, but a purpose is needed
Oh, and the tags don't work...for SOME as of yet unknown reason, the TABLE CONTAINING THEM went missing.
*POOF*
Gone.
Do you require proof? Besides the text in the "Tags" sidebar to the left saying
Quote:
there's also this screenshot I took of my CPanel announcing the news:
So yep, I have to figure out what the hell happened there, and then restore the tags database if it can't be recovered...well, at least its not because of something I did!
Oh yeah, and I check out http://www.anappaday.com/. The creator is creating one C# app a day for 30 days, and he offers all the programs he makes for free on his site. Don't expect complex, COMPLETELY USEFUL programs, but check them out nonetheless; some of them are VERY unique and informative. The Software Jedi (as he's come to be known) chats on his IRC channel whenever he codes, and he's set up a WebEx for people to log into and watch him as he codes. It's a very neat and unique setup, so go check it out!
Oh! I attended a couple student organization meetings yesterday, one for the BioMedical Engineering Society (BMES) and one for the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). I've joined up with BMES because of my BioEngineering major, and I hope to make a lot of good connections with other like-minded individuals, and potentially get an internship at a biotech company. ACM interested me because its basically an organization for Computer Science majors. I haven't joined yet because of the $20 membership fee, but I probably will just to hang with some people who are learning the programming aspects of computers. If things work out, then I might be able to pick up some programming without having to sneak into classes and pretending I'm a CS major.
College is expensive, so to make ends meet, I've found work in the nearby cafeteria. On Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, I work, keeping the salad bar clean or handling dishes. Its not the most glamorous work, and I'm sure they're not paying much more than minimum wage, but its better than sitting on my duff, pretending to get work done, and not getting paid.
That reminds me. If you know anyone who needs a website done, send them my way! I could use the work! And if you have an idea for a simple program I could dub as my new C# project, let me know; I haven't forgotten about my SUI, but I'd rather start over on something less ambitious before I go back and tackle that. And if I get a decent program idea and get it done, I'll offer it up free for download!
And with that, I'm out. I could keep writing about my adventures over the last two weeks, but then I'd run out of time, the most precious of commodities here at college...right after pizza.
When: Today @ 6pm
Where: Foxhole
What: Counter Strike 1.6 Lanparty
Sixteen five-man teams enter for a chance to win one of three awesome prizes, a gaming mouse for first place, gaming headphones for second place, and a gift certificate to Best Buy for the third place team. Resolution is set at 1024x768, with stock Dell mice and user-defined mouse-sensitivity.
So its my first lan tournament, and I'm on a team. You would think I'd be happy, except for one thing: I SUCK AT COUNTER STRIKE 1.6! :O
I've been practicing, and I realized (again) why I hate 1.6:
1. In 1.6, its OK to shoot through walls; if the game lets you do it, its technically not cheating, right?
2. The bigger the weapon, the more damage it MIGHT do, unless its the AWP, in which case ONE SHOT TO THE RIGHT ARM KILLS YOU (true story =\)
3. Full Armor and Full Health? Not after three shots are put into you with an AK...its a shame I wasted $1000 on RIOT GEAR; was it too much to expect it to do ANYTHING in the way of stopping bullets? I guess so...
That's all I can think of at the moment. I'll let you guys know how it went sometime later tonight. Wish me luck!
Life
Medium: Bits on Glass Platter(Matt, 2006)
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE SYMBOLISM? THE WAVE REPRESENTS THE INEVITABLE CASCADE OF ADULT RESPONSIBILITIES, DARKENING A ONCE BRIGHT AND CAREFREE CHILDHOOD. THE OCEAN REPRESENTS THE REST OF LIFE, WHICH WHEN COMPARED TO THE SMALL SPIT OF LAND I AM STANDING ON, IS FAR GREATER THAN ANYTHING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED. The lightening just looks cool :P
Life is catching up to me, and I've been preparing for the last 18 years. I have the rest of my life to prove that I can handle anything thrown my way, and when the going gets rough, if I can keep my head above water, then I can make it through anything.
To be honest, for thirty minutes in Flash, I don't think its all that bad an image. True, it lacks detailed shading, or character development for that matter, but this was very spur-of-the-moment. It turned out a lot better than my initial pen-on-paper sketch, thats for sure!
I move into my dorm on Sunday, so look for the inevitable waterfall of photos the day or two afterwards. College, here I come! Are you ready for me?!
Pure Nerd78 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 13% Dork
I consider myself a geek, so obviously a "test" stating otherwise must be wrong. But how can I defend my position that I'm a geek and not a nerd, as the "test" claims I am? Looks like it time to employ facts to back up my claim (gee, what a concept!). Now, some people might be confused as to what exactly a Nerd or a Geek is. Lets turn to the internet, shall we?
According to a Dictionary.com search, a "Geek" is:
Quote:
While a similar Dictionary.com search on the word "Nerd" states that I would be:
Quote:
Now, a geek I most certainly am. I've made a business out of my knowledge of computers, and I would never deny my geek roots. A nerd, though? Lets take a look at myself. Am I obsessed with computers? No, not really. The time I spend on my computer is spent either browsing the internet, playing games, or working on websites. I don't think any of these things constitute an obsession, so that's one hit against my Nerd status. I also enjoy few-mile-long bike rides, and I've played baseball for the last 13 years, along with the my involvement with my city's Traffic Commission as a full-time Commissioner for the last three years. Obviously, most of my hobbies involve people, but I do enjoy a bit of alone time. Strike two against Nerd-dom.
Oh, and I have had girlfriends, so my social skills aren't lacking at all ;) That's, what, strike three?
Taking all this into account, and the fact that Nerd struck out three times when I tried to apply it to myself, I can say without a doubt that this test is obviously faulty. I am and always will be a geek, and may a disk crash happen to anyone who says otherwise >:D
So Angry and I squared off in Jaykon Bacon: Source today at approximately 5:00pm PST, and boy, what a hectic hour and a half it was. We were neck-and-neck every step of the way, and we each had an opportunity to pull a win out from all the sneaking and sniping.
Round 1: Deathmatch
Winner: Angry
The first round was played in the eternally dark map hl2jks_svm_assault. Angry won this round, but not after getting spanked by me in the first 10 minutes. Once we figured out each other's tactics, though, the game's intensity increased and we were constantly at each other's throats. He'd snipe me, I'm obliterate him with my heavy machine gun, and he'd come back around with his insane-range-shot gun. He laid the final blow with a sniper from the opposite corner of the map.
Round 2: Deathmatch
Winner: Matt
The second round was played on the sunny-day map hl2jks_svm_aztec. This time around, Angry got the lead, but the real excitement was at the middle of the round. The map broke and started spawning us in the exact same area each time we died. Needless to say, we spent a good 5 minutes racking up seven or eight kills each. I laid the final twentieth blow with my trusty heavy machine gun, and it was off to round three!
Round 3: Snake V. Monkey
Winner: N/A
The last round was a game of Snake Versus Monkey. Basically, it was a game of keep-away with explosives and cardboard boxes. But these weren't your average boxes, no, these were cardboard boxes that made you invisible if you crouched under them. The goal of the game was for the snake to steal a pile of stuffed turtles. Don't ask me why, that's just how it works. Anyway, Angry admitted to being paranoid several times during this round, and I couldn't blame him: when your enemy can turn invisible and run faster than you, you have to be paranoid. Each role was well-balanced, though, with the Snake having a silenced pistol, flashbangs and the hide-box, and the Monkey armed with an SMG, sniper rifle, pistol, and several types of explosives. We were both convinced that this mode of play would be more fun with more Monkeys and Snakes, but we'll see where that goes :D
All in all, trash was talked on both sides, and in the end...I ultimately came out the winner, with my FIRST win yesterday ;)
Final Score: Matt 1 (1), Angry 1
[EDIT] Apparently, Angry has no sense of humor, so I modified the score to make him happy :P