Finals... or is there life after homework?

Wow... its been so long since I have posted. I don't even have the strength to come up with an excuse... I lost that during the Software Development Final Project. Anything clever I could come up with went away during the final days of Discrete Mathematics. All creative urges were stifled on my final art projects... I thought about being constructive but I used up those urges on my Web Engineering final.

Is their life after finals? Or is this the end?

...

I guess I still have video games... Oh wait a REAL life.

Another post coming... whenever I find the better part of myself again.

The Grrz Method... its about LEARNING

Here is a post from a programming blog I am required to keep up. I thought some of my readers might find it funny. I am discussing a rather difficult recent assignment. The Grrz method is supposed to be a great way to expand mental capability. I think its a way for the teacher to be lazy.

Sooooooo..... Four hours later I think I finally know what the Grrz method is. I think it is better put in comparison to the sink or swim method.

Take someone who cant swim. Put them in a helicopter, fly them out over the Marinas Trench, make sure there is no other form of rescue besides the helicopter, and push them in. Perhaps wieghts or restraints would be appropriate as well.Then from the air tell them to swim back to the helicopter.

That seems to be the Grrz method. At least with this latest assignment.

We are supposed to use the RandomAccessFile class to find an answer in little time... with no help other then the suggestion to search for dbf header format...

Well RAF can read and write. No document I could find could tell me exactly how this reading took place, only that it does. So I have no idea how it will parse...

Finally I figure out how to read the document in and make sure it splits correctly, readFully(byte[] b) but am still lost at the offsets so I hacked it...

Not really the coolest code to display... I hope we figure out a better solution soon!



On the bright side all the dbf files open and appear correct! So that is exciting. More on this as it develops.

Score 16 out of 100 (if the code reference counts :)

Updated sometime this millenia...

WOW way too long since I have been here... I don't even have an excuse prepared this time... DARN!

Oh well I bet no one will even notice. :)

UPDATE: I am now at college again! After an excruciatingly long six months of waiting I have made it back to my beloved campus at BYUI. I am moved in and started the first week of school which had surprisingly little homework... must be preparing me for the death load soon to follow.

I am making the critical error of taking to many major classes. I have 4 200 level classes, one 300 level and one 400 level class. I might die. wish me luck.

On a bright note I am taking an art class and I am pretty excited about it. I need the supplies I ordered to show up soon though. Or else I will have nothing to draw on. Maybe I should stop being a cheapskate and just get the art kit the university supplies. NAH.

Well got to run, but more is on the way. So stay tuned.

Stigmas proved true...

I love role-playing or rping whichever you prefer. The title of GameMaster comes from role-playing games where one of the players is the referee so to speak and and plays the part of the monsters and non-player characters the other players come across. It is a fun exercise of imagination and a great way to hang out as typically more talking than playing seems to get done in an average session. It is a great activity and yet it seems more stigmas are attached to people who play role-playing games than most activities I know about. Just because there are a few weird people involved in rping doesn't mean we all are psychos. Just because OJ Simpson was a football player doesn't mean all football players are murderous creeps.

One such terrible stigma is that all role players live in their mother's basement. Seriously how many gamers live in thier parent's basement... besides me... haha.

So its true. How Terrible. I could go through all my lame excuses like being a junior in college and still in college, or that I am poor in this terrible economy, but it would all be useless. How lame I am.

Hey it could be worse? I could be as oblivious as these gamers in this true following story...

(Side Note Ed is the Gamemaster and Eric is one of the characters)

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.

ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?

ED: (Pause) It's white, Eric.

ERIC: How far away is it?

ED: About fifty yards.

ERIC: How big is it?

ED: (Pause) It's about thirty feet across, fifteen feet high, with a pointed top.

ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.

ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo!

ERIC: (Pause) I call out to it.

ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo!

ERIC: (Pause) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?

ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!

ERIC: I shoot it with my bow (roll to hit). What happened?

ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.

ERIC: (Pause) Wasn't it wounded?

ED: Of course not, Eric! It's a gazebo!

ERIC: (Whimper) But that was a plus three arrow!

ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a gazebo! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a *)@#! gazebo!

ERIC: (Long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.) I run away.

ED: (Thoroughly frustrated) It's too late. You've woken up the gazebo, and it catches you and eats you.

ERIC: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining what a gazebo is. It is solely an afterthought, of course, but Eric is doubly lucky that the gazebo was not situated on a grassy gnoll...

So in closing I think I am doing a lot better than some people and that makes it alright... I think. I know elves and dwarfs are not real, and I cannot conjure any spells no matter how hard I try, so I have a good head on my shoulders despite what all the naysayers would have you believe. Well before I go... could anyone tell me what a gazebo is?

Portal

I have been trying a new game, and just recently finished it. It is called Portal. Created by Valve the makers of Half-life, I think it is the only activity that can make you enjoy being nauseated, and even make you try to become more so... because its cooool. Also for a puzzle game it has a great storyline.

As it starts out you are a test subject (volunteer perhaps? it never makes that clear) at the Aperature Science Enrichment Center which is supposedly helping enrich your mind and help you become a better problem solver, but it seems obvious your real purpose is to test the cool portal gun they invented. After a couple tutorial segments you have the portal gun which shoots out a blue and an orange portal. If you walk through one portal you come out the other. So does any other object. So you play through a series of fun puzzles which have rather awesome solutions involving these portals. They can also be severely disorienting. :)

However the computer guiding you through the challenges is acting rather strange. Sometimes it even sounds sarcastic and sinister. Suddenly on one level she informs you the challenge you were supposed to do is under maintenance and you will be placed in a military android testing area instead. Sorry for any inconvenience. The Challenges become increasingly... real, even with the Computer's assurances that everything is perfectly safe and following testing protocols. Then you find a broken section of the testing area inside which are scribbled messages calling for help the floor littered with empty emergency rations, and marks representing a long length of time. Something is wrong. I don't want to spoil the ending for those who want to play the game but I will leave one last clue. The Cake is a lie.

The music and graphics were excellent at creating mood, one thing Valve excels at. The gameplay was also original and very fun. In fact sometimes I would just play around and not complete the levels because goofing with the portal gun is super entertaining. Probably the only thing I didn't like was the length. It was really short in its storyline mode. It does include many bonus levels as well, but I would have liked to have the storyline be a little longer than 2 hours on my first try. I will give the game a 9 out of 10 Excellent job Valve. If you want the game I suggest buying the Orange Box set by valve, it is one of the best values for PC games including some of the best titles ever made for the PC for $30.

As another sample here is the trailer for the game it captures a good part of the gameplay. Enjoy!

First Snow of... Spring?

Its days like these that make people move to Florida...

Yesterday the 26th of APRIL it snowed. Heavy too. We received almost a foot of snow in several hours. I had to dig my car out to use it, and almost had to shovel the driveway! I walked into church in the morning and in the 20 ft walk to the door I was coated in snow and looked like Frosty the snowman really had come back.

Then suddenly as it had come it departed. I came home in the snow, took a nap and when I woke up it was green again. It caught me by surprise both times. In the morning it took my brain quite a while to figure out what was wrong about the snow outside. I kept thinking snow is normal... but for some reason I don't think it should be here... OH! WHAT THE...! After it was gone same story. I looked outside and a little snow remained here and there and looked like soggy toilet paper. I was trying to figure out who would TP our house, then suddenly recalled it had snowed that morning. (I was having some real problems waking up that day :)

Idaho really has some odd weather patterns. I wish snow in April, May, or June was a super rare exception, but it happens more often than we would expect. It usually leads to a late frost which really frustrates farmers. So much for Global Warming.

Final Tests...

oh Gads... Finals week at BYUI. I don't know if I will make it through the week so I better send out a good bye just in case.

Actually I am doing pretty well on my finals so far. A little worried about my programming test (I hate that teacher's tests!) and very worried about the second half of my discrete mathematics class. It is a hard class, and this time the tests are not multiple choice. I live for multiple choice. Probability wise your guessing is alot more likely to succeed. :)

Good news though I am done with all my assignments. I finished them up halfway through last week. and I am feeling good about that. Now just comes the endless studying for the last four tests I have tomorrow. Oh boy. Its funny how a few hours in a day can effect the rest of your life so much.

On the theme of final testing I have a funny video I would like to share a funny video I have recently come across that should spark some laughs. Talk about brilliance.



Well I hope you enjoyed the clip, I have to go bury myself in papers, but I will post more soon.

A Beautiful Story!

Well I have a beautiful story I want to share. I am a fan of manga and anime. I Love the expression of emotion and the grandeur of the stories. I discovered the genre during a time I thought we had finally run out of any good plot ideas here in the US, and it was refreshing to get some new ones. At least some old ideas turned on thier heads and spun around.

So here it goes my review of Chrono Crusade!

~Rosette and Chrono~

Chrono Crusade is an 8 Part manga authored by Daisuke Moriyama. Pictures from manga and anime, but don't watch the anime. Read why below.

The Story is set in the late nineteen twenties during the height of prohibition and the hedonism of the upper classes. Sin is rampant and it is leading to the surfacing of demons who would tear the world apart if it were not for the effort of exorcists working in the background to silently protect to masses from evil using ammunition forged with holy oil and prayers. One such group is the Magdalene Order which is headquartered in New York City. (The fact that Priests and Nuns are monster hunters might be offensive to some, but the story makes it clear this is fiction) The protagonists are members of this order, Rosette Christopher a teenage girl with a troubled past, and Chrono her demon partner allowed because he has a contract with Rosette. A contract formed years ago when Rosette was desperate for help to save her brother. Her brother disapeared and she was taken in by the order due to the supernatural nature of her brother's disapearance and 'gift'.
Contracts are a serious buisiness, and one doesn't form one for any reason. A contract allows a demon to feed off of the soul of the contractor. This feeding brings the contracter to lead a brief life often in pain. However this contract has two great differences from most. First it was formed for a good reason, and second the demon Chrono does not want to drain his contractor. He cannot entirely avoid this, buts slows the process forcing him to remain inside of a much smaller humanoid form until he fully unleashes his power. He too has a mysterious past being a demon with no horns, the source of a demons personal energy.
Rosette Christopher is a tomboy with a reputation for making turning even the smallest tasks into disasters. Whether it is wrecking convent cars, or crashing a ship into the statue of liberty she creates no small amount of frustration for Sister Kate the convent leader. She longs to find her brother and save him, but has no idea where he is, only hopes her current life will cross into his. She knows by her contract her life is limited, but is determined to live her her the best way she can, to help others and not waste even a moment. Often she falls short of the ability she needs to complete the challenges in front of her, but her spirited determination and sure faith pull her through and make her a character that is easy to be attached too. She has a deep trust in Chrono and sees the good in him despite the attitude of her leaders. Throughout the series she becomes more attached to him, fighting for him when no one else will.

Chrono in his human form

Chrono is well-trained fighter known as the demon that killed a hundred (or thousand in anime) of his own kind for the ferocious battles he fought a long time in the past. It is never said how long demons live but he has been alive for at least a hundred years. He is very silent about his past, He seeks revenge on another demon named Aion who is the cause of Rosette's bother's disapearance and his missing horns. He is very attached to Rosette despite the abuse she sometimes puts him through and on the outside is very patient and good willed. Rosette reminds him of someone he loved a long time ago, and so he desperatly tries to protect her and save her life force which he feels deep regret about taking. His anger becomes a great weakness for him through the storyline and often it is Rosette which saves him from his rage.

There are many more characters, I don't have the space to put them all in, but they are all extremely memorable and make for a great story. The real plot thickens when Rosette's brother Joshua surfaces in San Francisco and Chrono and Rosette take thier leave to face thier pasts in order to win back thier future. As Rosette takes more risks her clock runs low on time and the choices become more critical and friendships grow stronger. I don't want to reveal all the secrets. I encourage you to either buy, checkout, or go to either AnimeA or MangaOne to read online scans for free. Caution (Fan translation!, however even the professionals screwup :)

Near the end of the anime, always together

I love the concept and story, it is beautiful. A pure love story of impossible barriers that two flawed but determined individuals manage to breach in spite of heaven and hell fighting against them. The interaction between Rosette and Chrono makes a touching story with a bittersweet finish that will have you happy and crying at the same time. However the series is not without its faults some inherent of the manga scene. For one thier is alot of small minor subideas which pop up at the end which are confusing and try to change your whole perception of the conflict. Such as the author seems to try to turn the demons into aliens at the end which really throws off the rest of the story. (eg. Why do only holy bullets work?) However these little plots are easily ignored as the rest of the story is surging so powerfully it cannot hold you back. Secondly the author seems to have been extremely restricted by the publisher and occasionally crams entire story arcs into say a couple pages. Overall these do not take the beauty of the whole away from me, but could probably be distractions to others.

My final Comment is do not watch the anime. It is decieving. At first it seems they fixed the story arc flaws of the manga and lead you along a path to a horrifically mangled ending which leaves you so depressed that any suicidal tendencies would probably claim your life right there. It has many anti-climatic moments at the end, and characters do things that seem out of character, and on top of that the ending gives the impression God doesn't care and the devil has more power, on top of no matter how much good you try to do it is worthless. I don't think that was thier intention, but some careless script writing left a terrible taste in my mouth.

My end grade is an 8.5 Mainly due to some story-arc problems. I highly recommend the series for anyone in the mode for some occult action, or just a beautiful story.

And I think to myself...

I was looking at my header background and was reminded of the beauty of this world. That picture was taken in Idaho my home state. This beautiful state is home to all kinds of environments from sagebrush covered deserts to beautiful forests and lakes. I love the beauty of the west, such a dynamic landscape nestled in the Rockies.

I particularly love river valleys. and in the south central part of the state there is a beautiful region known as Thousand Springs. Where many many rivers that had soaked into the porous basalt foundation of eastern Idaho suddenly come bursting out of the ground as many springs and rivers twisting along joining the Snake river as it flows through the Snake River Valley.

Such a picturesque scene is a great source of inspiration to me, and helps to remind me of the power of God and his creations. Such beauty inspires the mind and frees the spirit, and I find it is in these moments my best work comes forth.

Perhaps I am being to wordy, but I couldn't help but share some thoughts that struck me. What a wonderful world!

Memory Dump...

Today I was reminded about the fickle nature of the device I love. The computer that is. It does exactly what you tell it too. So they say. As a programmer I really don't think it always does what I say. I mean I tell it to build a binary search tree and output some numbers. It says okay. I click run and BOOM!

...

Wait a minute... I thought I told you too... I... *sniff* Well we'll leave out the part about crying and throwing the keyboard and such, but suffice it to say its frustrating. I think I should go into a little detail on the exact nature of this conversation between man and machine.

Alright PC I have a little task for you. I want you to store these numbers for me and print them back out to the screen.

PC: Alright just input the numbers and compile the program.

Okay here they are... now compile.

PC: Your program compiled successfully Way to go!

Yeah thanks! Alright lets run this program and...

PC: THE PROGRAM DETECTED SOMETHING REALLY BAD WHILE RUNNING YOUR CODE IT LOOKED A LITTLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS.

XXXFdffdlkjkas9 qakljajkzxxxxxidaof xoxiohasdjiofjofoos xiosioadfiojfdsosdioaio
xoijioadjiofjiofjof xoisdiofdjiojofsjiosd fdiofjiodfjioadjioa jfofooiiofdiojsjojiosiodf
askjjkldfjkldfkld cxxxxxxxx090880 xxxxxxxx90908 xxxxxxxxxxxx098980

IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MAKING SUCH IDIOTIC MISTAKES YOU LOSER OF A PROGRAMMER. BETTER GO BACK AND PRACTICE YOUR "HELLO WORLD" PROGRAM LITTLE BOY!

Hey wait I thought we were friends!

PC: HAHAHAHAHA That comment has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.

-badooooooooooooooooommmmmmmm-

The following conversation is then proceeded by a couple hours until you find out a parenthesis was in the wrong place. Which begs the question. The computer can perform millions of calculations in less than a second... but it can't catch the intention of one parenthesis? Seriously I think computers should stop doing exactly what I tell them too and learn to anticipate what I mean for them to do. Wouldn't life be easier? Safer for that matter. FOOLPROOF internet filtering.

Hey I thought I would be going to semiDecentPriceShopping.com

PC: Nope bad advertisements and since I know you were looking for a new videocard I found a site with a better price and better setup.

Wow thanks PC

PC: Don't mention it.

Super Spelling checking. Gone would be the days of being able to type "Microsoft the Company should big improve their grammar checker" without a single error. In fact the PC would fix it for you. After all it knows what I am thinking. And of course Programming would be much easier.

Alright I am ready to go!

PC: Wait a minute, you need to add an & sign next to that variable or this program won't function.

Oh you are right! Good now it will work.

PC: Yep

It would be a good world. Sure there would be annoyances, sure there is the ever present danger of AI taking over the world, but at least it would be convenient. Oh wait... what about video games....

PC: And that is my 100th win in a row on Command & Conquer, Good Game owner

yeah... right...

Okay Maybe not... Maybe I need to be more patient and learn how to program more correctly the first time... Or maybe I just need to improve the strength of my monitor punching arm. hmm.

Speaking of punching I need to go do some programming so I will have to be back later. CYA

New Guy on the block

Well, Well... here I am, computer lover, lover of writing... and I don't have a blog. I feel left out. Alone. NO MORE! now I can say I have broken into the elite society of bloggers. No more can my mother brag she has done something on a computer I have not done.

Truth be told I forgot one little detail... You actually have to write posts... you have to do something to keep this thing going. Oh well it is a more productive time then beating Call of Duty 4 for the Upteenth time... actually come to think of it that IS time well spent. Bad example.

Seriously though I hope this will be an opportunity for me to keep a journal of sorts. Of what is going on in my life... (hopefully something) and the items I find cool. It will a good experiment to record these things down. And one day I will be able to remember what was going on at this point in my life. I am pretty short on time right now, but I believe this should do fine for starters.

I'll see you next time!