VT had a few months to fix the system before it was needed again during the tragic beheading that occurred in January of my freshmen year.  This awful event took place just feet from my dorm, occurring in the Graduate Life Center, right next to Vawter Hall.  This first major scarring event at VT left me feeling even stronger about my school.  VT is not defined by it’s tragedies,  but by how its students respond and react to these events.  They only make this school stronger.

Freshmen year passed without any further events, but of course within a week of sophomore year, there was a murder of two students at an off campus campsite.  I had planned on going camping a few days later and still managed to persuade my parents that I would be safe.  However, this was just a continuation of bad events here at VT.

Junior year passed without much of a hiccup.  However, this past summer there was the false alarm of a gunman on campus.  Now whether the person was carrying a banana under their coat or it was a real gun is hard to say, but regardless VT made it to headline news once again.    My boss’ boss at GE knew about the events even before I received a text message.  So it was no wonder one of my first thoughts after hearing the alert today was “It’s just another false alarm” followed shortly by “I wonder how long it will take for us to make the headlines” after I realized the alerts were legitimate.  Not to be condescending towards the victims of the tragedies, but VT has every spotlight in the world focused on any sign of trouble occurring on campus.  Obviously a result of the April 16, 2007 shootings, do we really need to be headline news for every murder that occurs on campus?  I’m saddened that we lost a valuable police officer today and possibly the other victim (depending on whether or not he was the shooter), but I do not believe we need to have every news station broadcasting our tragedy to the world.  These events occur and sadden us all, but the sheer media coverage all relating this event to April 16th is not necessary.  It’s hard enough getting over this tragedy let alone being reminded of the horrors that occurred on April 16th.

I sincerely hope this is the last major event that occurs during my time here at Virginia Tech and keep Office Crouse in your thoughts and prayers today.

“Traitor, see you later” – Me

“There’s something in Canada” – Me

“Stress from my girl, stress from work, stress to drive a man berserk” – Me

“Life is a playground for mistakes” – Me

“I don’t know which one is correct, I just know one of them is wrong” – Me

Click to Enlarge

I am writing this because I just finished my extremely long Facebook imitation program that was our required project in my introductory CS curse (this was an accidental misspelling but it seems fitting).  Starting this semester I thought the class would be extremely easy, and it is except for one aspect…the zhtml.  I thought zhtml would be simple, just like HTML, which I learned back in eighth grade, but of course it wasn’t.  Zhtml adds an enterprise version of “Ajax” capability to html (that I am sure not many enterprises use) on a special “zk” server.  It also allows you to call java code from java classes in your folder.  However, a lot of tags are added to zhtml and a lot are also removed from traditional html.  Zhtml does not allow much configuration as well.  Overall, I think zhtml is not a very useful language and creates a lot of frustrations.  They shouldn’t be teaching us a language that has no real world use and has many complications as well. Moreover, it gives 500 server errrors that are very difficult to debug.  Having worked with PHP for years, I am used to a web language giving me at least some indication or line number that causes it to fail, but the zk server gives you a message that sometimes helps such as the one below (which means you need to reset the session because your page is not compatible with older versions of the program you wrote before if you added attributes to a user.)

The zhtml changes standard html syntax.  For example, although technically okay, they make it so that there is no <center> tag.  Also they add a attribute to <div>  called visible.  Though typically in the css this now becomes  a normal attribute in the div tag.  This is useful for making certain areas visible based on a boolean return such as:

<div visible=”@{user.isFriend}”>This user is a friend.</div>

<div if=”${user.friends == 0}”></div>

The login "window"

Finally I finished this project on Friday night after several nights staying awake until 4:30 am…and now I am hoping I win the extra credit contest

While doing this project I discovered  many useful resources that enabled me to add features previously un-thought of to my application since our teacher had not given us the resources to utilize the full potential of zhtml.  These include the api to zhtml functions and official style guides.  They are linked below:

Today I woke up (at 11:30 after a long night of finishing my CS project) to a world of pearl white. It snowed here today, the first snowfall of the season. Whether this means we will have the annual Corps of Cadets versus Civilians snowball fight is still unknown, but it was still a nice (although brisk) day to go outside and wander around, admiring the beautiful snow on the ground and watching the various people build snowmen or throw snowballs.

Above is a picture I took of the bridge by the duck pong here, with the snow gracing the slopes leading to it.  Of course this snow also brought cold weather which was not pleasant, but the ducks at the duck pond seemed content.

As I said before, here at Virginia Tech, we have the annual Corps of Cadets versus Civilian snowball fight.  Last year, this took place at approximately 10pm during our first major snowstorm in March.  This was an unfortunate snowball fight because I only managed to throw 2 snowballs before I was injured in battle  by a rogue snowball thrown by a cadet.  The snowball hit e right in the left eye and I was half blinded in that eye for the night.  The swelling continued for a week, at which point I regained full 20/20 vision. Hopefully this year I won’t be injured as I pan to bring my chem lab goggles.

An official group open to all VT students on facebook has been created to an for this event: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=197223762093

[Update] After finishing this I decided to Photoshop a bride and groom kissing on the bridge so here is the new picture:

VT Desk Graffiti

Here you can view desk graffiti pictures submitted by various people.  I suggest you help collaborate and submit your own pictures by visiting http://vtdeskgraffiti.com/send-us-your-pictures/

I too was named for a reason.  My mother once had a small doll name “Bobby” and so I was whether I liked it or not named Bobby.  Since Bobby itself is not a first name, I was thusly called Robert.  And so names can have numerous origins.

Names are very important things, they define who we are. And when someone else mentions that you look like a “Peter” or a “Paul” you wonder whether you were named the right name.  However, as you start thinking about it, you realize that your name is perfect.  Why? Because for the last how ever many years that is the only name you have ever heard and responded too, of course it sounds right.  You can of course change your name, but the process can be reasonably tedious, requiring a petition and possible fee.

Your parents probably spent hours researching “baby girl names” or “baby boy names” on the internet or in books.  This is a painstaking process and requires many hours of dedication by parents and family.

So instead, why not have your parents play a game for your name, making it random, for the name does not define the person (besides they can always change it later right ).

These are possible steps for devising a name game involving more than 2 people:

1. Do research.  Find the best names.  Do a google search for baby names or simply go to www.babynames.com
2. Get prepped for the game.  Know your opponents.  Note: Game may be more enjoyable with the right drinks *cough*
3. Write up all the chosen names for the right gender on to cards.  The amount of cards does not matter, but try to keep above 30 cards minimum.
4. Shuffle and deal these cards out to the players.  If you prefer a name you can try little sleight of hand.
5. This game is a bit like “Apples to Apples” (rules at bottom).  Have the dealer begin.
6. Everyone but the dealer (the judge) puts a card into the middle face-down.  The dealer then picks up the cards and examines them, choosing the best name out of the ones in the middle.
7. The winner of the round takes his/her card back and puts it back in their hand.  The losers’ card goes to the discard pile.
8. The next person in the circle becomes the next judge. Repeat previous steps.
9. Play continues until there is one card left.  This card (the winner of the last round) becomes the name of the baby.
10. If this name is not desired by a majority vote of players at the end of the game, the game is repeated, possibly with an addition of more names. Note: This game is not intended to be actually played (unless you don’t care what your child is named). This was simply a fun idea I had.

Links:

www.babynames.com

www.namechangelaw.com/

Apples to Apples Rules

Year

When you meet someone new on campus you are always wondering what year of college are they in.  Are they a new freshmen? Or maybe they’re just lost because they’re a transfer student who’s really a Junior.  Knowing the year (Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Graduate) of a person is very helpful in knowing how long you will know them (not long if they graduate in that semester), how much you can inform them about the campus or college life, and if they are datable….jk lol Knowing the year of a college student is definitely important.

Major

Definitely one of the first things you find out when you meet someone on campus is what they are majoring in.  This can tell you a great many things such if they have the same interests as you, how sociable they by the stereotypical party Business major or the studyholic engineer, and definitely what they want to do with their life.  Of course, if you’re like me with no idea what to do with my life, knowing my major might not help with that.

Dorm

If you plan on becoming good friends with this person and spending a lot of time with them, you must find out where they live.  You will not want to be in the smelly dorm, but of course you will want to be in the dorm with all the attractive girls (or guys if girls are reading this).  Also, knowing if the dorm is the farthest from campus or not is a good idea.  Many things can be affected by where the dorm is, especially if you need to go there at 7am to get the homework you left there the night before for your 8am class.

So next time you are in a Campus Forum, be prepared with your YMD

http://www.shaunbrown.com/inventions.htm

Usually when my clothes come out of the dryer either they don’t smell good because the dryer sheets were bad or they were in there too long and got a burnt smell.  So I have always had to line the inside of my clothes with some form of deodorant to make them smell decent.  But recently I got some Axe spray.  When I did my laundry the other day I decided to put my shirts in the drawer like usual, but as soon as I finished I sprayed some Axe into the drawer and quickly closed it.  This got me thinking about “Axe Bombing.” I have frequently heard complaints, particularly by girls, that if sprayed way too much, like some guys tend to do, the Axe smells awful.  I have often had this experience when I was forced to take Gym class in High School.  The area surrounding the Axe sprayer smells putrid for a few minutes.  So what if you used it on enemies? If some guy in the dorm down the hall were annoying you, playing music too loud or smoking outside your dorm, you could take a Axe can and, assuming you knew how hard and which way it landed, you could have the Axe can erupt in their room, making the whole room smell like a can full of Axe.  I assume this would work if you threw it out the window at the sidewalk at that annoying guy smoking right below your window. I was browsing the web right before I posted this to see what other ideas have been done with Axe, and low and behold, poeple have made Axe Bombs and shown videos on Youtube.  See below.

Youtube Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcYwbjVvj7I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng1TiaHevN8

How to Make that Annoying Guy with the Sub-woofer Shut-up

A while back I was having a discussion with a friend, who told me a story about a friend who we’ll call Fred.  Fred lived in a dorm like everyone else and just like everyone else, he had that annoying neighbor who always had his sub-woofer going with some kinda deep bass music.  Fred would try to fall asleep at night, at about 2 am like normal college students, but that darn sub-woofer still went on.  Fred finally got tired of this a few weeks into college and he was already starting to miss his home.  So the weekend he planned to leave to visit home, Fred borrowed a sub-woofer for his stereo (because Fred had thought about the annoyances his sub-woofer would cause dormmates before coming to college and not brought his) and found the resonating frequency of the dorm.  He then turn up the sub-woofer and his stereo to full volume and left for the weekend.  Alas, when he returned, he never heard that darn sub-woofer from his neighbor again.

[Update] And now you can buy axe toys: