Who am I?

I joined this university and am pursuing this degree as a left-brained individual who is trying to re-invigorate his right-brain.

In general, I’m an independent Gen Y’er who tries to pursue his passions and interests as he finds them. I don’t feel that I’m horribly creative, but I desperately want to be. I’m a logical guy working a logical job (IT) and following a sensible career and life path. But, I dream of bigger things, and being greater than I currently am. A stronger sense of creativity will get me there.

What do I want to say?

Before I can say anything, I very much need to find my voice first. For now, I take inspiration and words from others that I admire or respect. In time, I hope some life experiences give me the story or message that I feel I’m meant to tell. If I have one already, I haven’t realized it yet.

What do I want to learn?

I want to learn everything. There isn’t much that doesn’t interest me enough to at least look up on wikipedia. I live each day to take in new experiences and new information. I aspire to be a Renaissance Man and a jack-of-all-trades.

What am I realistically capable of?

My strengths are in my technical skills. I can pick up new technology and new programming languages. I’m a big dreamer and relentless researcher.

My weaknesses are in execution. I procrastinate and don’t manage my time as wisely as I should. For this project, I need to limit my ideas to something that is doable within the confines of my full-time job and busy schedule without compromising quality, content, and learning opportunities.

What do I love?

I love new technologies. I love being in the know. I may tell you otherwise, but I love keeping busy. I love to travel and experience new things. I love mixing things up and not following the same routine all the time. I love animals, music, and reality television.

Where do I want to be in 10 years?

This is always such a difficult question to answer. My mind would say to just be lounging in a big, modern house by the beach, with the sounds of the waves always within earshot and warm, temperate climate year round. But I could find that now, and in my heart, I know I wouldn’t be content with that lifestyle for a long period of time. In 10 years, I want to stop helping myself as much and start helping others more. I’m a fortunate individual even today, but I don’t do enough (even today) to help those in less fortunate situations. I want to be successful in my career by being valuable and a leader in whatever I’m doing. I don’t ever want to stop working hard and learning. I want to have traveled the world and seen every continent by then. Maybe I’ll end up relocating to another continent. I miss city life horribly and would love to at least be in the city.

Since no one reads this blog anyways, why create a new blog for my thesis project journal? I’ll throw it all in here so my one random reader every two months can see how little artistic and design talent I possess. I’m scratching my head how anything I come up with will be worthy of a Masters in Fine Arts in Computer Arts New Media. But hey, too late to turn back now.

P.S. Yes, the “Long Overdue Vacation” series will finish as well. I’m not giving up yet. I figure I have until February 3rd (exactly one month from when we returned) to document the rest of the trip before it all goes irrelevant. There’s Amsterdam, Brussels, and lots of video I’ve been too scared to even look at let alone edit and post. But it will happen.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gaming/the-cal-marching-bands-amazing-16%20bit-video-game-halftime-show-322662.php?autoplay=true

I can’t imagine how hard it is to make some of those formations. The precision required is kind of hard to pull off. I always fucked up the ambiguous amoebas my band made. I could never be trusted with making a Tetris shape.

Oh, and the pep band appears a few times, so keep a close lookout.

Here’s a fun drinking game:
Drink whenever I’m featured.
Drink whenever the band shows up.
Two drinks whenever I’m featured in the band playing my clarinet.

Link to BU Admissions Video Campus Tour
Direct Link

Saturday morning, I wake up to my alarm at 5:15AM. I don’t usually get up that early, especially after partying the night before, but I was taking a 7AM bus back home to visit the family. No more than a few minutes later, fire trucks start descending on Beacon St. I mean, that’s usually nothing out of the ordinary, but what I thought was a small false alarm and one truck full of firefighters probably hating life to be awake so early turned out to be about a dozen or so trucks. I took a picture on my way out of the apartment to the T stop.

There wasn’t an ounce of smoke or burning blaze I could detect that morning, but it ended up being quite a fire that ended up killing two BU students. . My prayers go out to them. It’s been a tragic school year here at BU, with this incident making four deaths total, three of which happening practically next door to me. No one, young or old, should take their life for granted. I hope this is the last tragedy for a long while here on campus.

On a happier note, a movie is filming here on BU’s campus. There are trailers and wires all up in the campus, I don’t think many students have that much of a clue either. To my knowledge, our Freep hasn’t really picked up on it, although they’re always slow to the news tap. The movie, titled “21″, is actually going to be based off the book Bringing the House Down. Honestly, it was matter of time before that book got turned into a movie, am I right? Here’s the IMDB info on the movie.

Apparently it stars Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and Laurence Fishbourne. Big deal, huh? Maybe these are their trailers below?

I think this is the eating/backstage/food area.

Honestly, I don’t think this is that safe.

My exuberant BU tuition is worth it purely on the amount of free software I get on the MSDN Academic Alliance Site. I definitely chose the right major for free stuff. I haven’t downloaded or upgraded yet, but once I get the time, maybe this weekend, I will be on Windows Vista and see what the complaints or hype is about.

This will only fuel my desire more to get a new computer, I’m sure.

The original list from somethingawful.com

SOCIAL DISORDER GUY

Avoided by everyone, this person possess a crippling social tic that goes completely unnoticed to him. If you’re unlucky enough to be identified by social disorder guy in public, you will be followed regardless of how much of a hurry you pretend to be in. You will be forced, due to social etiquette, to engage in a meaningless and awkward conversation that will be filled with characterizations of your self image. Social Disorder Guy is completely comfortable stopping on his way to work for fifteen minutes or half an hour to fill you in on one of two things: either his roommate is moving out again or he has a new job. You have no classes with him, and you never see him except for random times during the day around your campus, yet he considers you one of his best friends. You probably are.

FUCKING DISGUSTING C.S. MAJOR

Fucking Disgusting Computer Science Major is the reason that you don’t want to go to class. He bathes roughly once every leap year and wears the same “totally awesome” Japanese video game (the import version was so much better) shirt for half a semester at a time. No matter how far away you get from him, the stench seems to travel across the room and assault your nostrils. Fucking Disgusting Computer Science Major has no time for the English language, and he will often ask questions that make little to no sense and lack any sort of “grammatical structure.” He’s the only character that can actually give Silent Foreign Curve Destroyer a run for his money on the intellectual scale, but that’s only because he was probably born with knowledge of linear algebra and differential equations.

SILENT FOREIGN CURVE DESTROYER

Silent Foreign Curve Destroyer has nothing better to do than study. While the average of the rest of the class is a respectable 45%, Silent Foreign Curve Destroyer has approximately a 1351% in the course, thereby totally destroying any chance you had of passing the class. Silent Foreign Curve Destroyer can be identified by the fact that he will be in the library before you get there and stay far after you’ve left. He will almost certainly wear the same clothing throughout the entire course, and, while he may be human, it’s more likely that he’s some kind of magic robot.

MUSIC MAJOR

One of the more rare species outside of Music Classes, Practice Rooms, and University Symphony Concerts. The MM spends 50% of their time practicing, 25% studying hard/semi-useless classes which require an A to get accepted to their low-paying major, 25% at band practices, and 25% with their music Fraternity/Sorority…is that 125%? Doesn’t matter; MMs party so much that the high alcohol content in their bloodstream causes them to black out and loose that 25%. Tends to only date other music majors because “Only another MM can understand why they have to practice 3-4 hours a day”. Depending on the instrument, music majors are laid back, but complain that they are working SOOO hard to eventually get a salary of <$35K a year but that "I love music SOOO much it doesn't matter". Usually makes fun of the Drama Nerd for not being "Real Musicians" and has enough Classical CD's to fill up Amazon.com.

INTELLECTUAL SUPERHERO

Intellectual Superhero is neither an intellectual nor a superhero, but don’t tell him that! The Intellectual Superhero is easily identified by his complete inability to allow a class period to pass by without asking at least 654 questions designed to show how “witty” and “clever” he is. He will attempt to prove the professor wrong in every class with his inane bullshit, regardless of the fact that the professor has a doctorate in the field. If it’s a science course, the Intellectual Superhero will attempt to solve every problem using an alternate method, which is always incorrect. But don’t worry; he’ll still manage to waste 20 minutes of your life with his insane method of solving the problem. At least you’ll get to laugh at him when the professor proves him wrong.

THE GUY WITH INHUMAN HALO SKILLS

This guy doesn’t have “mad skills”; Instead, there is no word in the English language that properly describes how good this fucker is with a plasma rifle or pistol. He looks rather ordinary, with no unusual physical features, nor obvious personality quirks. But give him an Xbox, and a copy of Halo, and prepare to have many recurring nightmares of what you’re about to see.
You could swear that the The Guy with inhuman Halo skills has found a way to wire an Xbox to his brain, because there is no other explanation to how impossibly good he is.
He quite literally can chuck a grenade at a difficult-to-reach weapon, and the explosion will launch the said weapon straight at him, as if he was pulling it telekineticaly. He knows the location of every item on every map, and knows exactly when that item is gonna respawn.

STUPID UGLY FAT GIRL

Stupid Ugly Fat Girl feels the need to enter into every single class discussion, completely disregarding the fact that she has nothing of substance to add to the conversation. Stupid Ugly Fat Girl cannot construct a sentence without using the words “like” and “um” at least 12 times for every 2 other words. She always wears clothes that are too tight, and seems partial to gaudy rhinestone shirts with incredibly original phrases such as “Princess” strewn across the front of her sagging cow tits. The only way to actually learn something in a class with the Stupid Ugly Fat Girl is to distract her attention with a shiny object.

THE WANNA BE COMPUTER GEEK

They can be found in groups often discussing old internet fads while downloading songs and files from P2P networks. Often annoying to the people around them. Will shout out “LOL INTERNETS” at random times and you can hear some old techno songs in the background.

THE BLONDE ASIAN TAMER

Female in a science degree who probably shouldn’t be. However, due to chemicals she emits from her hair, holds sway over Silent Foreign Curve Destroyer or other male Asian students who do her beck and call. Part hive mind, part parasite. Identify by remarks like “This stuff is so hard, Haji, you’re so smart” or “What did you get for number 1?”. Usually a sub-species of Sally Sorority Chick

THE EDUCATION MAJOR

As a freshman, the education major parties excessively, because he or she knows in subsequent years, they won’t be able to have any more late nights out due to having to go to field experience at a local school. The education major finds themselves wishing they could sign up for an 8 AM class because it feels like sleeping in when he or she compares it to waking up for field or student teaching at 5:30 in the morning.

YOU’RE A LITTLE TOO OLD TO BE HERE GUY

Usually in the 28-32 year range, this species refuses to let go of the joys of college. Can be found on campus seven days a week, and is always present at EVERY SINGLE FRAT PARTY. Will give you some lame, shady excuse why he’s still in college, and will then befriend you so he can abuse the T1 connection in your dorm room to download porn. Most often has no friends his own age, is unemployed and still lives with his parents. Because he is older than everyone else, he will constantly criticize everyone for acting like children, but will then throw a tantrum when you won’t let him play a game of HALO. He loves crappy beer, joints and the cheapest cigarettes available. You can recognize him by his weird and outdated taste in clothing and his fondness for 80’s rock music. Usually very loud, obnoxious and opinionated in the classroom, with traits similar to that of THE EXAM BEGGER and THE INTELLECTUAL SUPERHERO.

Ran across this amazing story on Digg. A kid submitted a CD of child porn instead of a CD of his final project. Then, the dude sends an email to the professor upon realizing his mistake. I quote an excerpt from The Herald News article:

“Oh snap, I am sorry. I accidentally gave you my friend’s mixed music CD that I meant to keep here and install the music on my computer,” Erickson said in an e-mail to his professor. “I found the CD with the (final exam) on it. If there’s some way I could send it to you, that would be great.

“I am sorry about that, and hope it didn’t affect the grade at all. Again, if I could get that CD back so that I can install the music. Sorry for the mix up.”

A for effort, I guess.

The other day, I happened upon this story on ray tracing. I saw it on gizmodo and on digg. Basically, a guy managed to add ray tracing into Quake to make it more realistic. I thought it was already implemented in games, but I guess not because it is such an expensive process for the realism. Ray tracing is hard. It was my final project for CS 480, my intro to graphics class. You’d think rendering a freaking sphere is easy, but it’s not. And it gets much worse when you add a light on it, make it shiny, and throw in shadows.

Here’s what 20+ hours of programming and crying got me (and by me I mean our team):

As comparison, this is what I was shooting for:

Read about ray tracing in video games here.

I’m done with my second to last semester. And it’s been a long, exhausting one. I say that every semester so no one believes me anymore. I also always say that next semester, I won’t work myself to death. I got one more

For any minority students who are looking for not just an internship, but truly a career opportunity, I can’t fight for INROADS enough. To go from being a shy, quiet, unmotivated high school senior with no idea how to get a job much less a good one to having the opportunity to apply for an IT Leadership Program in a Fortune 50 company and to either way have an offer by October the latest…that’s extreme. Even more than that were the friends, the perspective, and again, the friends I made in the program. It’s weird that I won’t have a summer of forced training workshops to see everyone, but I know that come graduation, all of those people will be waiting for me, cheering me on.

These friends, besides being really the only truly diverse people I know, are smart, driven, and know how to have fun. Just look at this picture below. It’s the future class of CEO’s, I can guarantee it.