Jeremy White's Weblog

I just want to say web designers are underpaid.

To have to make a web site that displays reliably for hundreds of platforms of different browsers, systems, displays, and outputs (from printers to projectors)… that is sheer insanity.

I can… uh… get my site working for… uh…. my screen.

:]

*that was the sound of a hundred web surfers crying out in pain every minute for clicking on my web-page *

I have a ton of trouble finding an easy way to share the music I post online. To that end, I’ve tried out virb. That is, I’m putting my music on virb now… a very small subset of it. Hopefully it isn’t too painful to listen to… and actually, they DO kill the quality by an incredible degree (imho). Still, see what you think:
Mah new Virb page

So, I got an REU to do webcomics for my data structures class.

I’m going to have to make the website myself… here’s my set of resources:

ONE: database on a SQLServer, version 2000
ONE: webserver running ASP with .net and VBScript
LOTS: of free time (not!)

So, I’m going to opt out of vbscript in favor of XML queries and AJAX. I’m currently building some nutty queries, and they somehow work, and then I splurge the results into SPRY (an AJAX framework), and then display the data in a myriad of fashions.

I’ll have links and news as it develops

Scholarly rant # 2.
Expect mildly plausible parables to compel your intellect to expel digestive juices out your nasal cavities.

Well, this semester ended with a bang. Apparently I passed all the courses I thought I wouldn’t. And the course that I was kinda sure I’d get at least a passing grade… I uh… well… snap… flunked it with a capital F. It’s amazing… I think I’ve taken this class three times now… I know it in and out. I am fairly certain I could write half a book on it… but so help me, I fail the tests miserably. Maybe if the tests didn’t have to be written by computer geeks (no offense… I’m a computer geek too… it seems we write out stuff okay, but when it comes to asking questions, it’s like the ostensible purpose is buried under a league of jargon and juxtaposed adjective/adverb clauses that make you feel like you’re trying to paddle a monkey with a toothpick in a grease house. And it doesn’t help that they don’t want you to answer the ostensive purpose in plain english, but rather purport the answer in a similar manner… like mimicking someone who doesn’t know ebonics with the same ebonics that you don’t understand, even if you do understand it, and all the time you’re really talking about British English. I swear, these tests make me want to punt a kitten out a window *anger anger, frustration frustration*).

example question:
Which direction is up if you were lying on your back parallel to the Atlantic coast of the US, given that your feet point towards the nearest point along equator.

My answer:
North.

WRONG!

Correct answer:
Since the US is in north america, and north america is designated as north to the equator, chances are that your feet will point toward cuba and thusly your head would point north. Because people generally assume up to be along a vector that is perpendicular to ones eye-level and also pointed away from one’s feet, the direction of up can be associated with the cardinal direction of north.

Of course, 9 times out of ten, when I try to write this stuff out, I make a mistake somewhere near the third time I have to repeat myself, and so while 90% of the time, I repeat the same thing over again for them, there’s this 10% that I misspell something or mislead or state something flatly. Having done that, then it follows that the ten percent eats up about 60 to 70 percent of my credit on an exam. In the end, have a series of answers that are somewhat understandable, and the professors tell me I’m correct, but I wasn’t specifically correct, and so the credit is null.

I love it.

*shrug*

Oh well.

To be honest, I’ve never felt better. If I can’t produce the answers people want within a time limit, then I gauge myself as okay. In fact, I want to live the rest of my life having my own voice. The last thing I need is repeating myself, or my colleagues, in order to help them develop lazy ears that need repetition and generally promote the inbreeding disaster that normally plagues graduate level thinking (the idea that people shouldn’t get all their education in one place, because any university will always have one way of thinking). And besides, tardiness is my style when it comes to academia (yes, that was a corny double-entendre)…(although using the word ‘retard’ in any sense immediately renders this blog politically incorrect and offensive, I’m sure). I think I’ve made many people cry with how silly and blatantly optimistic my writing and programming is.

I guess being a realist is necessary for good engineering. Hahahah, then I’m going to be the worst engineer ever under those terms.

*bows and exits the room*

Well then, a friend has been keeping my spirits up by giving me youtubes of a great show. Some of the skits are pretty lewd and therefore dull, but otherwise it can be rather hilarious. Just thought I’d share a two choice episodes:

Pre-taped call in show

America will blow up the moon

This is a rant. Just so you know.

ARRRGH!
*feeling better already*
So, besides hating computers… I’m feeling mighty bitter about my current set of circumstances. Nothing new, but wow. I have three things due tonight… and I’m flipping out over it. Cannot believe the horrors. Why am I typing this, then? I have to clear my mind. I simply can’t accomplish anything when I’m mentally blind.

I have three papers, basically… a revision, a project, and a research essay. All three of them remind me why it’s unwise to procrastinate. But dude! I got some incredible arting done recently. I’m so proud! And I also recently got some ideas on some animation scripts for two friends of mine. They have really cool characters and me? I love animation and 3d animation is something I want to get heavily into. On top of that, I’ve been trying to work out an independent study that would be next to impossible for anyone who had a life (lucky me! ). And yet, dude… I cannot do anything when I have all these papers. And I know that once this weekend comes around, I’ll be so busy with doing sound for the local ministry (I’m a sound guy for a church nearby. I’m amazed they’d let me. Not a day goes past that I don’t pray to God that I won’t do something like test the sound system with fart noises or something. I totally want to do it… but I know those people would KILL me with a capital K! And oh man… polka music or some cruddy old-school breakbeat music would rule! Mwahahah… I’d fall under the spirit of awesomeness for that kinda junk! But no sir… these people are deadfaced when it comes to that).

I really love the church people. They’re all so kind to let me walk around in my uber minimal attire (don’t ask). I think if I could one day get the money, however, I’d want to start my own youth church which would be pure electro worship. With emphasis on ‘old’ styles of sound, video game chip music, and crisp or overcompressed breaks (the jazzier side of breaks would be awesome, however… and it’d be fun to do that with as few fx as possible). And really… it’s not about the music, you know. But lord knows, people love to escape. As long as it’s nothing crazy expensive or elaborate, and as long as no one has a conniption if we go a day or two without sound (I’m all for silent worship services too! *fist-pump*).

But all this falls at the heels of this awful pile of work. Oh man… if I had the time, I’d be filling this place up with music and 3d animations like you wouldn’t wanna shake a stick at. *sigh* Oh well. Back to filling reams of paper with meaningless content.

*turns up the crappy breakbeat radio… wistfully*

How awesome is this? That republican candidates would stand before us on youtube and discuss all sorts of good questions. I’m really happy to see this is possible and being done. Check it out, and remember to vote:

http://youtube.com/republicandebate

Why is it that amazing stuff gets dropped at my feet when I’m supposed to be working?

Well, everyone knows that animes are a little weird. If you’ve heard of “dragon ball Z”, then you know of its overt ‘power’ theme, that people and critters of all sorts can wield the ability to fly, conjure massive blasts of energy from their fingertips, right? Well, in one case, a character in the anime series who had really red lips (I forget the details here, people), apparently offended someone as looking racist. and that spiralled into someone blacking the anime character’s face out and giving them super red lips and captioning the image “Shoop da woop”. Well, in the anime, as I said, the power theme took over, and within a little time, people had drawn the anime character shooting laser beams out of its mouth (with the black face, bulging eyes, and red lips).

Fast forward a little time, and apparently now the fad is to black out someone’s face, put a gaping mouth with red lips on them, and bulging eyes… shooting lasers. All this from an anime that offended someone because they thought it looked racist. The hilarity is how well someone has abused the fad, producing two animated shorts that left me paralyzed in laughter, and completely blew my research time out of the water. I’m now staggering around, wondering how I’m going to finish this paper because I had to research this all out instead… I wish I had done “4chan” as my rhetorical analysis project… but please, for the love of all things holy, don’t ever go to 4chan unless you want to be more than offended. I refuse to link 4chan, as well. I simply am not going to ruin your mind. But the youtube videos rule.

Here’s the videos, for the curious:

Lazer collection: part one

Lazer Collection: part two

The videos are surprisingly hilarious, but realize they are noisy, so turn down your speakers. The first video ends with the green anime figure that started the whole thing. I have no idea why it’s funny.

I think it goes back to why the kitty cat song (warning! that link is also very noisy!) is funny.

I want to teach a course on internet fad and meme history. I think it would be so hilarious, most people would go catatonic after experiencing the wealth of silliness.

So, I have been hammered so bad I can’t do church stuff tonight.

I’m supposed to be doing a 10 page paper right now. And I just finished a project early today. I have 2 minutes to submit a review of my lab partners. And I did a paper revision on Tuesday. I also have a presentation tomorrow, and I’m going to be working nonstop on getting up to spec with my data structs assignment which is due soon too.

Please. Shoot me.

So… I walked into data structs on Monday. About 15 minutes late, because I thought it was a normal day. Yep. How wrong I was. Everyone was buckled over in their chairs, doing the second midterm. I sorta slipped into the room… did a modest “Yea, I completely forgot about this” audible cough. And then split the paper in two with my mind. And by split, I mean “scrawled across it with the grace of a madman”.

*sigh* Every semester, I do this at least three times on several exams. When will I learn?

Also, I did art for my wiki entry on data structures. I guess I’ll post those.