A Glimpse of Insanity

Summer Work

2007-08-06T15:24:00.000-05:00

Ok, my reason for not being so great on the posts in the last week is... summer homework stuff!

Basically, I have a chemistry packet due on the first day of school, so I've been working on that, leaving me with less time to make posts.

Also, I'm writing them right now so when I have a few done I'll get them out. Bear with me :)

Me! Me! Me! Me!

2007-08-02T20:05:00.000-05:00

This is the continuation of my previous post on egotism and selfishness in the 21st century.

Anyways, now for the causes of egotism.

This is actually fairly simple. It all started with the parents, like most problems in this world.

The beginning of it all was the "Everyone is Special" movement, combined with political correctness. These movements accentuated that "everybody is special in their own special way", focusing that everyone should be given equal opportunities and choices. However, this was later twisted by overprotective parents to mean that "everyone could achieve anything", quoting examples like Shaquille O'Neal and Babe Ruth.

What they failed to notice, however, is that not everyone can become an MLB player or a pro NBA center. We focus so much on those success stories (because they appeal more to our emotions) that we forget the thousands of kids who were given the same opportunities but failed. That's because everyone has their own potential, and for some it might be lower than others.

For example, there were days were kids once wanted to be construction workers, plumbers, mailmen, gardeners, etc. Nowadays, parents discourage that sort of behavior and make kids try to overachieve and become child prodigies. Let's face it; every parent wants their child to be the best, to be at the top, not for the child's benefit, but so that the parents can gloat about how good of a job they did on raising them.

Not only did this affect the way families and individual children behaved, but went on to affect the public school system as well. Parents demanded that their children be put ahead in "gifted" programs and "intensive" courses, and more and more emphasis was put on standardized testing because it "gave everyone the same chances". The mistake of doing that is that not everyone exceeds in 'gifted' programs, and those that failed may develop psychological problems in addition to be made believe that their "still special" by their parents.

The other mistake is that standardize testing refutes an individual's personal learning style and capacity in the effort to make everything "more fair". I have known many people who never were good at standardized testing, and yet were more intelligent than many other kids.

These are not the only problems that occurred in the education system. For a long time before the "You're special" movement, very few people went to college. Nowadays, a huge amount of pressure is put on kids to get into good colleges and universities, adding to the growing pressure to overachieve in academics, sports, and the humanities.

On the next post, I will discuss the effects that the "You're special" movement has had on this generation and the eventual consequences of its continuation.

Trialga: Breakfast of Champions

2007-08-01T21:39:00.000-05:00

... or something like that.

Anyway, I'm here today to talk about Trialga's story. It's been almost eight months since we first started up, and probably more than that since we began our plans for the game.

We've gone through a lot, lost some members and gained more, and recently we achieved 5,000 posts on our new forums. The new forums are doing well, and I am glad we started over... it's really helped.

Well, now for a story-

Trialga forums were started on December 8, 2006. We registered an Invisionfree forums and started our little project. We bought Realm Crafter and got to work. We had high hopes, and found that not much was getting done.

We had our ups and downs about staff, a teensy weensy security issue, blah blah blah.

We moved to a site that I bought (and of course still run), and put the forums on an IPB 2.2 board. We had a good time there, more or less. We hired a bunch of game staff at one point.

And then came the decision to stop production on the game, which pretty much had already happened. Not much was getting done at that time. Jeremy had become part of the team, and I decided to make new forums at one point, with him as a co-admin.

We made the new forums and after about a week of work unveiled them, warning that the old ones would soon be closed. Sure enough, we shut them down and redirected them to the new ones after a little while.

A month or two later and here we are today. I think we've done a great job, and that we're here to stay for a long while. I enjoy running the site and the forums, as well as expanding them.

We've added a few new forums from interest shown in particular things, as well as suggestions. We have a great team, and are always expanding.

We also have something coming up soon that I've been programming that I think you guys will enjoy, so keep your eyes open and keep producing your stories and artwork if you catch my drift (and if you don't, that's ok because it's probably hard to think of what the heck I'm talking about, but it'll be good).

Again, great job everyone... let's keep it up!

Guess Who's Back?

2007-07-29T23:04:00.000-05:00

No, not Ricky Balboa. I swear, I don't even know the guy. Seriously.

Yes, Pedro the, um, Mexican Jedi is back! With .... almost absolutely nothing to talk aboot...

Anyways, let's make this post worth it:

Generation Me: Self Indulgence a Vice?

Recently, many journalists have cited an increasing concern over the new egoistic orientation of Generation Y (meaning, anyone born in the 90s and mid-late 80s). They claim that such a selfish approach at life can be hazardous to the safety of the world in general, due to the supposed lack of empathy displayed by the generation.

First of all, one must decide wherever or not such egoism exists. This is relatively simple;

Notice today's popular websites? What are they like? Youtube, for example, is one of the most trafficked sites in the world. But think about the name and the site's name and motto; You-Tube, or Your Television (key word: Your), and "Broadcast Yourself". What does that tell us, subliminally? That this site was made for us individually, and that each and everyone one of us is "special".

Another example is MySpace. Again, the name is the key; My-Space. Mine, my own (my precious..... lol). The basics of the site is for individuals to create profiles showcasing themselves to the world at large, gaining "friends" and commentary on their profile.

Last but not least we have Time magazine, which nominated it's TIME person of the year for 2006; "You". This shows the growing trend away from individuals and towards the average person.

On the next post, I will discuss how this explosion of egoism occurred. Until then, goodnight everyone!

Computer: FIXED!

2007-07-27T21:45:00.000-05:00

Great news! My desktop computer is fixed, and I am happy!

This means I can go back to my dual screen ownage and all that good stuff. Plus my gig of RAM. So basically nothing in terms of my online time changes, but I'm on a better computer, and I'm happy :D

Short post today, I'll think of something to write about Trialga for the next post.

My Posts

2007-07-25T11:30:00.000-05:00

Well, taking a look at the list of my posts, I realized I don't really do that many posts a month. It's about one every three days, though, so I guess I'm doing ok. It's just that sometimes it's hard to talk about stuff because I would have not been doing much that day.

Anyway, it's just so hard to come up with posts sometimes. Maybe I can figure out some stuff for next month, or I'll just write entries ahead of time to make it easier for me.

Forum Front

2007-07-23T17:33:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone!

Today I'm here to talk about a project I've been working on with the two owners: Forum Front.

Forum Front is a website where you can create a free forum and have it hosted for free. We currently offer IPB 1.3 hosting and have plans to offer phpBB and SMF.

I am a server admin there (one notch below the top) and have done quite a bit. We should be going to beta with the IPB hosting tomorrow or so, so it's going well!

Come take a look: Forum Front

News to be ProudOf!

2007-07-21T11:37:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone!

I have news about my site, ProudOf.net today.

Recently I have been working on it quite a bit, and have almost completed the administration area, with one part left, which shouldn't take long at all.

Next up is finally the boards! I'll continue to update you as I make progress.

Webcomics

2007-07-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

Well this is a fun subject!

I love to read webcomics and if I find a good one I'll read all of it from the first to latest. I've been looking around and have quite a few that I read that are hilarious. I enjoy reading them whenever updated.

Recently I've been reading CTRL+ALT+DEL and Questionable Content, two that are pretty good. (Note that some content may be objectionable to younger children. Don't read it if you're a sissy)

Is there a funny comic you read? Do tell me, I'd like to check it out!

Sorry for the short post today, but I'm having trouble coming up with stuff to write about, so tell me stuff to write about as well!

Time Flies

2007-07-15T22:47:00.000-05:00

Wow... I was bored last night and thinking about the day, and realized: Trialga has been around for seven months already!

It's incredible that that much time has gone by already. We started as a small Invisionfree board, that actually had a lot of posts, though not much actual good discussion and all that. Now we have grown to a large forum with a lot of activity and good discussions.

I am very proud of what we have accomplished in this amount of time. We have grown a lot and I am glad we are still going strong.

I'd like to thank all of the members who have helped us achieve this, without you it would be nothing.

Hats off to Trialga!

AP GRADES!

2007-07-12T21:48:00.000-05:00

Well, the long wait is over. Finally, AP grades have come in the mail. Yes, the results from those terrible tests back in May are here.

AP exams are graded on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best. A score of 3 is passing, and pretty good in some exams, 4 is fairly good as well, and 5 is excellent.

I shall start off with the lower scores...

First off, government. I didn't really like that class, and didn't really know much of the material. And it shows in the scores. Unfortunately, I got a 2 on my government exam, although it's not something that really bothers me much.

In English, I didn't really understand some of the terms, and wasn't very good at rhetorical analysis, so I didn't do well in this exam either. I really would've liked a better grade, but all I got was a 2.

Now on to the better two exams.

In physics, I am happy to say I did pretty damn good for someone who struggled through the class the whole year. The AP grade I got? I received a 3, which I am damn proud of. That's pretty good considering how hard the exam is.

And the last exam...

Calculus was a fairly easy class. Well, I wouldn't say it was easy per say, but I did do well in it. On the mock exam, I got a 5, which did me well for the final exam, which it was part of. So what was the grade for the actual exam?

I got a 1...

JUST KIDDING! No, I actually got a 5 on the exam, which I am VERY proud of!

Well, that should be it for today's post. I'll see you all soon!

This will suffice

2007-07-11T21:23:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone!

For today's post, I've made the following page on my site:

Dissection of a Computer

Enjoy!

I'm Baaack!

2007-07-10T20:58:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone, just a short note today.

I am back from my trip and glad to be home. I will be doing some work at my old school during the day for the next few days or so, but I should have a full post sometime tomorrow or soon.

See you soon!

Mmmm stuff is good

2007-07-01T22:40:00.000-05:00

Ok, first off, sorry for the delay in posts, I couldn't think of anything to post about. Also, sorry for the horrible title.

Anyway, I've finally come up with some stuff.

First off, I've been programming a mod from a request and have finally finished the ACP part and I am now working on the public part. What's good is that since I am leaving for Atlanta tomorrow (technically today), I will have plenty of time to work on it, since we are driving. Hopefully I'll be done by the time I get back.

Second, my next project no matter what is a services request system I will be making for InvisionMint and will put on my site as well. I believe we will also have it for sale once I'm done with it. Meanwhile, Fuse is developing the shop system, so be on the lookout for some cool new things over at INVM. (http://invisionmint.com)

Finally, when I get back from my trip I will be assisting the technology coordinator at my old school. I will be helping him set up the new laptops they are getting in, as well as getting the old ones ready for use in the lower school. Basically, new laptops are going to middle school and old laptops are going to fifth grade. It'll be fun, he's a great guy. He's pretty much the reason why I got into web stuff pretty much.

You see, in middle school, he was the computer teacher, and he set up our own minisite off of the school's server that allowed us to make our own site in a sort of development environment he made. He was teaching us HTML, and had information about a bunch of common tags to help us learn it. It was great and I really learned a lot.

Since then I have come a long way, and have gone into programming with PHP, as well as Java (which I am learning in school). I am glad he did all that and gave me the opportunity to do all this stuff.

I think that's all for today. I felt I had to make a post since I hadn't in a few days and was going to be leaving.

Peace

Yay, comments!

2007-06-28T23:46:00.001-05:00

Well, I guess since you guys finally commented I ought to do another post today :P

Where to start... I guess I have to talk about my philosophical stuffsies or something like that. I'll get to it in a second maybe.

Anyway, I haven't done work on ProudOf in a little while because I am working on a custom mod. I'm not going to use its code for any lessons, because you have to pay for a license and what would be the point for me to release the code for free?

So, at Trialga we have a new thing coming up that will be interesting. Jeremy planned it and is executing it, so you'll see it ready soon :) It's a pretty cool idea and it should work out well. Go Jeremy!

Also, we've passed 50 members and are almost at 2,500 posts! (I have more than 600 posts lol) Yay for the new Trialga! Keep up the good work members :) We also have two new staff members that will help us out with the moderating stuff so we have more time to do our adminy things, as well as more people to thwart spammers and such. Good luck to the new staff!

I've been taking a lot more time to help out people at Invisionize. Part of this is because I now have a better understanding of IPB after working with it for a while, and part of it is because I submitted an application for Community Team over there. I think it would be really awesome if they accepted me, as I'd like to help out more and be a bigger part of the community. I've somehow managed to get 300 posts over there, so I guess I have been spending more time there than I thought. Wish me luck!

With all that said, let's get down to business. I'm going to tell you quite a bit about me, so here goes.

Obviously, I am 16. I am in the Computer Science magnet at my school and enjoy programming a lot. I also like to play video games, hang out with my friends, and I like to bike. Biking is good exercise and lets me relax. Usually, if you give me some sort of task to do, I will try and figure it out and finish it, provided that it challenges me in ways where I will enjoy trying to figure it out.

For example, in my computer class last year, we had at least one instance where we were required to write an algorithm for a program and then go write it. Being me, I went ahead and programmed it on my own, left with only the commented code to turn in. What I did was went through the code and took out the comments. This was quite a tedious effort, and I asked if I could just turn in the code itself. Our teacher wanted the algorithm (comments in my case), and suggested that I make a program to get the comments from the code.

Which, after a bit of work with file functions and string tokenizer (which I don't think anyone else did in my class), I completed. The source code can be found here: http://trialga.net/Commenter.java and can be used if you have the Keyboard class bundle ( http://trialga.net/Keyboard.zip ). So yeah, I'm determined if I feel like it.

In my free time I like to program, chat (send me a message, as long as it's not annoying and you don't send me eight thousand within ten seconds), and generally hang out. I pwn at SWAT in Halo 2, but only with my friends. I'd probably get creamed on XBOX Live, but I wouldn't know for sure.

Anyway, I guess I have to delve into more philosophical topics or something like that. Here goes that too.

Actually, that's too vague of a category. (That sentence almost had me cursing) So yeah.

I like good food. That's simple. Hispanic cuisine is good and spicy. I like Chinese food, pork fried rice and wonton soup. What would hibachi steak fall under? Chinese I guess? I don't know, sorry lol. Umm... yeah. I like Ramen noodles and the Cheerios vanilla yogurt blast cereal. You'll probably find me eating Ramen everyday in college, what with them being so damn good and cheap. It's like 17 cents for a package at Publix so yeah. You can get like 6 for a buck.

Anyway, I think I'll wrap up for today's post. Be specific in your comments lol.

Peace everyone.

A little more about me?

2007-06-27T02:03:00.000-05:00

Well since so many people comment on the blog... (Really guys, do leave a comment, it makes me feel good) I went ahead and picked what this will be about.

Music!

In this nice little entry I'm going to go a bit into my music tastes and their background.

Ok, to start, I like country music. Mostly newer country, because I haven't been exposed to much of the older (and I mean older) country. I still like the classics (Johnny Cash, etc.) however.

I like country music because it tells a story, and because of the rhythm and melody. I listen to the radio a lot and have a lot of songs memorized.

Some favorite songs of mine are Moments by Emerson Drive, Mountains by Emerson Drive :P, Lost in this Moment by Big and Rich, and a handful of others, but those are just the ones that are off the top of my head.

Oh, another good one is Stand by Rascal Flatts.

I like Emerson Drive, they're a Canadian band and have a lot of good songs, Rascal Flatts, Big and Rich, Brooks and Dunn, etc.

I like almost all of the songs that I hear. I'm not very picky when it comes to country, so I can probably find a CD that I'll like all the songs on, even though I may not have heard them before.

A bit about how I came to like country music, because it's certainly not from my parents...

My friends Dillon and Dan pretty much introduced me to country. Dillon and I would always sing Beer for My Horses and Dan had the radio on the country station at all times. So it stuck, and now I'm really into it.

That's basically all for today.

COMMENT ON THE BLOG AND TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO WRITE ABOUT.

Thanks :P

$h!7 Happens

2007-06-25T14:25:00.000-05:00

Well it certainly was a fun week. Much happened, much to blog about.

Anyway, in the beginning of the week we found out that my grandmother was in the hospital and wasn't doing so well. So, the plans were made for my parents to head up to Atlanta and for me to go to my other grandparents' house about an hour away. The night when I got to my grandparents, my parents called us and said that my grandmother had passed away, the day before they were heading up there.

So, they flew up and attended a nice memorial service for her. It's pretty sad, but at least she went peacefully, and I had a chance to spend time with my grandparents.

In other news, some of you may have heard about what happened to the forums. That really made me mad because so much stuff was being screwed up. Anyway, that has been fixed and is all good now.

On a lighter note, now that I'm programming more in-depth, I don't really feel like playing some games as much as I have been. I played Runescape for a little bit again and it wasn't much fun. I will go on occasionally, but usually just to do stuff to level my skills.

So it's a short post today, but I'll have more coding and stuff soon. Also, I do want to hear what you guys want to see me write about, so leave some comments if you have a desire to hear my opinion on something or whatever.

Peace.

Another Post, more coding!

2007-06-23T15:42:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone! I'm here again with another post, one that'll hopefully turn out to be longer than the last one :)

Anyway, this one will go a bit into the programming of the system for ProudOf.net. I'll talk a little about what I've done so far as well as describe some of it, but nothing about what's to come right now (muahaha).

I'm proud to say that I believe I just finished up the registration and login/logout systems on the site. I have tested them quite a bit and messed around with them, and they're finally done. I'll talk first about the registration, then login, and finally the logout, which is pretty short (and not done yet at the time I'm writing this paragraph, but will be done by the time I finish this post).

(Oh, by the way, I just finished the logout stuff)

Ok, the registration. First it checks if you are logged in via cookies. If you are, it returns an error. The way I've set up these classes is something I will leave for the next or another post. Anyway, if you're not logged in then it spits out the form, including a CAPTCHA image :) for added security. Once you fill out all of the fields and hit the button, it sends the data.

It then checks to make sure you filled out everything, and then it checks that your passwords match, the CAPTCHA code entered was right, and that your name and e-mail are unique. Finally, it stores your information into the database and sends the validation e-mail (yes, I made e-mail validation).

In the e-mail, you are given a link to click on that will validate your account. On the validation page, it checks to make sure that your validation code is correct and also that the account you are trying to validate needs to be validated. After checking all that, it updates a bit of information about your account and flings you to the login page.

With that, we're at the login area! First it checks if you're logged in, just like the registration page, and then prints out the form. Once you submit the information it makes sure you filled out everything and then checks to make sure the information you submitted is right. Finally it sets your cookies and sends you to the main page.

Now there's really a lot more to those two classes but most of it has to do with security stuff that I don't want to give out :)

Finally, the logout class. There's really not much to this one. Basically, it makes sure you are logged in and then kills your cookies. Finally, it sends you to the main page.

So far, I've been making progress on the system. With those classes done, I can expand to more advanced things.

(Ok, so I lied, I'm going to tell you a bit about what is up next)

Next on my list is probably the administration system, so that I can be in control of the content without having to edit source files. After that I'll start on the user system. I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me, and I'll be sure to keep you all posted :)

Until next time.

Just a few words

2007-06-22T10:02:00.000-05:00

Hello there!

Today I'm going to talk to you about my next projects.

First off, my two originally planned mods, Gauntlet and EZ Contests, have been put on hold for quite some time. I don't really feel like making Gauntlet, and EZC may come later.

Anyway, my next mod is in the planning stages and I am asking for suggestions on Trialga. It is going to be a video system, kind of similar to Youtube, but will be for IPB. I have a topic on the forums where you can suggest stuff for it, so please do so!

My next project outside of IPB is a site that I purchased and that I am developing along with Jeremy. It is called ProudOf.net, and will be a site where you can come and share your accomplishments with others, comment on accomplishments, etc. I really like the idea and think it has some potential. I think it will be a nice community.

I am developing the system for the site and Jeremy is making the site look nice. I will be posting some excerpts possibly from the code for the site to teach everyone about some stuff, so be on the lookout!

That's all for today, I believe.

Until next time,
Bryan

Ah... stuff.

2007-06-20T11:16:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone! I'm here again with some coding updates and stuff.

Well, My Videos version 1.2 just finished up. With this version I finally added more than just Youtube to the sites you could use videos from. I got a lot of suggestions for sites but couldn't figure out how they embedded it, meaning they didn't provide it easily, and I didn't care enough to go snoop around to figure it out. I figured if they didn't have a box to let me copy it, then it wasn't worth it.

Anyway, the two that I did add were Dailymotion and Veoh. So now when you submit a video you can choose which site your video is from. Another thing I added was instructions on how to get the code for each site. The code is crucial for the video to work, so I felt that my previous instructions weren't very clear, so I wrote up some and packaged them with the new version. Another thing I did was an excessively unnecessary way to write the version. I'll show you this code now (I hope this thing indents properly):

$version = $_GET['version'];

$i = 0;

$arr = array();

while ($i < strlen($version))
{
$arr[] = $version{$i};
$i++;
}

$ver_string = '';

$i = 0;

foreach ($arr as $v)
{
if ($i != 0)
{
$ver_string .= '.';
}

$ver_string .= $v;

$i++;
}

echo $ver_string;

?>

Now, when you go to this page, the URL looks like http://yourboard.com/forum/my_vids/index.php?version=120 (120 is for version 1.2.0). Instead of having to edit this file for each new version, I put this link in the lang_my_vids files right next to the version so I edit those two now. I'll now go over what this code does.

First off it gets the version value from the URL and sets it into the version variable. Next it makes a counter variable which will be used quite a bit. It then defines an array. What the while statement checks for is that counter variable versus the length of the version string. What happens next is the next open slot in the array is given the value of the version string at position i. So in the first pass, $arr[0] = 1 is basically what is happening. Then i is incremented to keep it going.

Now I make a new variable and set i back to 0. We're almost done! Now then, I love foreach because it is the best way to traverse an array (I think so at least). In this instance I have no need for the key so I just use $arr as $v. What happens in a foreach is for this type you do foreach (array as value), where value is the value of the array at that position. foreach allows you to go through associative arrays easily. So first off it checks if i isn't 0. If it's not (meaning that you're no longer in the first position), then it'll add a period before the number. Then the value is added onto ver_string and i is incremented. Finally, the version string is printed out.

Logic Process:

$version = 120;
$i = 0;
$arr = array();

WHILE
-$arr[0] = 1;
-$i = 1;
-$arr[1] = 2;
-$i = 2;
-$arr[2] = 0;
-$i = 3;
-3 is not less than 3

$ver_string = '';
$i = 0;

FOREACH
-IF
--0 equals 0 (body not executed)
-$ver_string = '1';
-$i = 1;
-IF (1 does not equal 0)
--$ver_string = '1.';
-$ver_string = '1.2';
-$i = 2;
-IF
--$ver_string = '1.2.';
-$ver_string = '1.2.0';
-$i = 3;
No more values in array

Prints out 1.2.0

That's it for that code! Yeah, pretty unnecessary, but whatever :)

Anyway, I plan on working on Signature of the Week version 2 soon. I'm going to completely re-write it so it'll look nicer, have comments, and should be more efficient. This will probably take a while, so be patient. Although really it doesn't seem as though people are crazy about it... It bothers me that in the competition for May on IZE that a mod that someone just updated and didn't even write themselves is doing better than mine, which I did all myself and was my first mod, and it's in the large mods category. Rawr.

I think that's all for today, I hope to make more of these kind of updates for those who want to learn some programming :)

Oh, and my tutorial is coming along, I just forgot about it for a little while, but I'll get it done.

Until next time,
Bye!

Hello again!

2007-06-17T02:26:00.001-05:00

Wow... I feel the love. Thanks guys for reading and commenting <.<

Anyway, I'm here with another post, so pull up a chair and start reading :)

I'll start with some mod stuff. Don't you love people who say there is something wrong with your mod even though it works just fine for you, and other people? Well, at least there are those who are appreciative.

There's been some oddities with My Videos, and for some reason the videos won't display for some people. I have no idea why this is so... it's quite odd. Anyway, I know it's not a problem with the mod because it works for me and others. So, there are some people who have had this error and are still appreciative of my work, and there is one person who is just being annoying. Oh well, can't please them all.

Anyway, I haven't really done much more work on the newer versions of my two mods, I've been shrugging it off to play Starcraft. Man do I love that game... it's possibly the best RTS ever.

Anyway, I've taken up a new project: my own forum system. It'll be fairly basic, and nothing near the likes of IP.Board or any other established forum software, but I'll feel proud when I've finished it. If anyone would like to help with skinning or images, etc. please let me know because I am terrible at that stuff. Thanks to Mikel who is already helping :)

Unfortunately I am not a master of PHP and don't know all of it... so I've been studying IPB and using a few things here and there (shame on me) although it's nothing big. If I ever actually finish it, I'll open it up for public use (when I get a bit more done I'll show it to people). Again, help is very much appreciated.

This is a side project, so don't fear the end of BoT mods!

Away from that, I have been sleeping so much lately what with summer being here. I went swimming today so I got some exercise at least and now I won't be a total fatty :P (That's totally not possible anyway since I weigh like 115 pounds... and I'm 5'6" =O)

So how is life for everyone else? Mine's going pretty well. I've gotten back to playing Runescape a bit more and made my first million gp, and I am now managing a crafting store under the Cosmic Company ( http://cosmic.ipbfree.com ) which is pretty cool.

I think that's pretty much all for now, if I think of something else I can always put it in another post...

Until next time, cya!

PS- Don't look at the time I posted this at...

Finally... another post!

2007-06-15T20:46:00.000-05:00

Well then, hello again everyone! It has been a while since my last post, and I think I'm ready to start blogging again.

First off, school is now over and it went pretty well. I got my report card in the mail and my final grades for the second semester are as follows:

Physics: C (meh, I'm not taking it next year so whatever)
English: A
Computers: A (DUH)
Calculus: A
VPS: A (what a waste of time)
Chemistry: A
Spanish: B (meh, I hate subjunctive)

So, I'm pretty happy that I did well, at least in the classes I care about. Now that school's over I've been sleeping... and sleeping... and playing on the computer. I really need to get outside some more. I'll probably go on a bike ride tomorrow. I bike for about 5 miles when I go, and it's nice because it's relaxing.

Anyway, another topic my blog will now cover is me programming my mods and other stuff. I'll post about certain issues I have, progress on my mods, and more about them. Also, I'd like to start working on projects that involve PHP/MySQL but aren't related to IPB, and I would like to create systems... but can't think of what to make. So here's your opportunity to suggest something for me to make, whether it be another IPB mod or not.

Before I go, I'll write a little about my mods...

Anytime you see [BoT], that means that mod is by me. BoT stands for Bryan of Trialga, because Trialga is my site (obviously) and I'm Bryan (duh)... I came up with it very quickly.

Anyway, I have two mods out and possibly two in production. The two out are my Signature of the Week mod, which was my first mod, and the My Videos mod. I am still working on them, upgrading them to have more features, etc. You can download them, receive support for them, and suggest features for them at my site (http://trialga.net). I have another mod that I'm working on called EZ Contests, which will make it easy to setup a posting contest. I'll post a bit more about it when I get more done on it. Another mod I have in production is currently top secret :)

Until next time, peace!

Pedro's Lists of... Fun Things

2007-05-06T19:40:00.000-05:00

Yes; to your much displeasure, I am back. And seeing that Bryan is too busy doing stuff (which I will not mention due to my strict code of ethics and the fact that you would probably run screaming to the nearest mental hospital as soon as I told you), I decided to take matters into my own horribly deformed and possibly insane hands and actually post something.

This time, it'll be a bunch of lists I found whilst looting through a garbage heap (of MADs). I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed writing them down one by one... but from that angle, I didn't enjoy myself at all.. but then again, neither did Bryan on Friday... well, heres the lists anyways:

The 8 Most Effective Medical Cop-Outs

"It's going around"
"It's all in your mind "
"It's probably inherited"
"It's too early to tell"
"It's too late to do anything about it"
"We'll run some tests"
"We'll run more tests"
"The tests are inconclusive"

The 9 Least Successful Pick-Up Lines

"Would you like to see my anaconda?"
"Is that a false nose?"
"You look just like the hooker I met in LA"
"I'm drunk"
"Would you like to come to a party in my tool shed?"
"I just threw up"
"You're ugly but you intrigue me"
"I had to find out what kind of woman would wear that in public"

The 7 Least Inspired Premises

The Lighter Side of Terrorism
Terminal Diseases to Match Your Career
You Should Know to Change Your Sex When....
Quantum Logarithms, Physics, and You
C++ For You++ (inside joke)
If Albanian Women Played Baseball
The Degenerates' Mother Goose

9 Names Not to Name Your Baby Boy

Atilla
Rasputin
Adolf
Darth
Ayatollah
Saddam
Ozama (wth a z!!)
Lucifer
Bryan

6 Surefire Ways to Break Up A Relationship

"I do karate chops in my sleep"
"I'm not into bathing"
"I collect dead bodies in my linen closet: do you have any I could borrow?"
"I start out the day with raw onions"
"I'm pregnant and I don't know who the mother is"
"My Uncle Vito and his capo want to have a word with you"

the 6 Least Comforting Pieces of Good New

"Be glad it's only your transmission"
"We only have to pull the front ones"
"We know who fire-bombed your house"
"At least they didn't steal the silver"
"He's alive- whats left of him"
"Don't kill him- just work him over"

And Finally:

The 10 Pieces of Flattery You Could Do Without

"You're a helluva good loser"
"You're really terrific- 15 medals of participation in a row!"
"You're lucky- most men would have lost both arms."
"You're brave- most men would have passed out from the horrible and excruciating pain"
"You have a way with taking insults"
"You may not be good looking, but at least you still have tw...err, I mean, one testicle left"
"You've been very quiet during this earthquake and... hey, what's that brown thing in your pants?"
"You've sure taken bankruptcy like a man"
"You never flinched when they shot at us, honey.... Honey? HONEY!!!"

And the Best of All:
10. "You only have half a brain? Hey, at least you're not Bryan; he doesn't have any brains"

Pedro's Political Paradox

2007-05-04T15:59:00.000-05:00

As you all may know, I just got invited to join the IWT(Actually, it was more like begging), and I came here to add something different, something unique to this blog. However, Bryan decided that a whole debate about pies and cakes wasn't exactly premium writing material, so I decided to do something political instead. Just remember that this is my opinion; not Bryan's or of anyone else's (Mainly because Bryan hates politics in the first place). But I digress.

Immigration: Problem or Necessity?

We all have heard of the increasing debate on immigration over the last couple of years. Some argue about how "Immigrants are taking our jobs" and how "they don't pay taxes", etc. I would normally give them credit for their opinions, but since their solutions are just preposterous (A 2,000 mile wall? Finding and deporting 4 million people?) and solve problems that don't exist, I decided to throw in my own two cents.

Here's what I'm saying; Immigrants (of any kind) aren't really that bad. In fact, we might just need them. Think about it:

We are a completely developed first-world country. There are advantages and disadvantages to that, a major one being that we have near equal birth-to-death ratios, with the number of births dwindling every year. Meaning: our population is going down. And if our job pool is getting larger and larger in fields like computers and technology, and we have less of a labor force, we need immigrants (not necessarily illegal ones) to fill in those shoes. In fact, California, supposedly the place to go if your illegal, has an extremely low unemployment rate for the largest state in the country. That's a lot of jobs to be had. So "taking up our jobs" is out the window.

Another point the anti-immigrationists bring up is that the immigrants don't pay taxes and use up our health care. The point on taxes is valid; most immigrants don't pay income taxes. They do, however, pay sales and property taxes. Even if they're immigrants, they still have to buy common needs and wants (Pablo needs his hair gel!). So they do, in a way, pay taxes, though not completely so. For health care, that one is simple; they can't qualify for it. All they qualify for are emergency room visits, but not for prescription drugs, pediatricians, and the like. And anyways, we don't even insure our own children, mostly because health care was completely messed up even before the huge influx of immigrants.

In the end, it all comes down to the fear of change. Would people care if illegal Canadian immigrants came to this country? Of course not! They don't have any ethnic groups we don't have ,any different cultures we don't have (this one is debatable), but most importantly, any different languages. Most of us don't like immigrants because they speak Spanish, and by bringing it over and using it, they take us out of our 100% English-speaking status quo. And that makes most people uncomfortable.

However, many others take a different approach; they don't seek to destroy their culture, but to learn it, and even accept it. Bryan is a prime example; he is one of the few people I know that doesn't completely butcher the Spanish language (or talk like a gringo, for that matter).

All in all, immigration shouldn't be a problem. They don't harm us at all, economically or physically (contrary to what the LA riot police says). Of course, I don't mean that we can go out and start throwing them green cards, but I don't accept kicking them all out either. I think that we should learn to live with them, and just accept the change that is coming. It will come eventually, no matter how much we struggle against it.

So just sit back, relax, and let Juan make you a nice glass of lemonade while Jose cleans your pool.

Pedro Rittner is a guest writer on"A Glimpse of Insanity" this week. His email is jedimasterpedro@hotmail.com

Yay Mock AP Exams... And the Real Things

2007-05-03T17:31:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone! I've decided to post again, this time about the fun topic of... school!

Yes, that's right, today is all about school. Well, I'll probably digress as I go along, but it will mostly (read: might) be about school.

Anyway, as you may well know, AP (Advanced Placement) exams start next week and go through the week after. I have four AP exams this year, and would like to do well on them. I have two next week, and two in the week after, so I've got quite a bit of studying to do. I'll probably have posts about each exam on the day I take it, and those ought to be good, as I'll either be half asleep because the exams are so boring or I'll be nervous to the power of pie (I do mean pie, as opposed to the number pi). So yeah, be sure to read those because they'll be filled with extra rambling.

Now to be a little more specific... Next week, I've got US Government and Politics on Monday. Now this is one I'm not looking forward to, because I don't really like government. While the teacher is nice, I just don't get half of the stuff because they make up words. Yes, some of the vocabulary was not in the MS Word spellchecker, which means they MADE IT UP! Stinkin' politicians... And of course, I did horribly on the mock exam that we took this week (2 out of 5, although she didn't grade it the AP style, even though it probably wouldn't have made a difference) (Oh yeah, that's how AP does it, your composite score is out of 5)

Next, on Thursday, is Calculus AB. This one isn't that bad, because we just took a mock exam like a week or two ago and I got a 5 on it (go me!). So hopefully I'll do well on it, because I understand it pretty well, and I like calc.

Next is... PHYSICS! RUNNN!!!! Can you tell I don't like physics? The problem with it is that you have to know so much stuff... and most of it is totally unrelated, except that it can be covered by the B R O A D category of physics. Hopefully I'll remember everything, although it will be quite hard to do. I'm going to be doing a LOT of studying for this one. Oh yeah, it's on Monday of the week after, so at least I've got the weekend.

Finally, I have English Language & Composition. This will be rather difficult, simply because I have never done incredibly well in English, although I've done fine (Mostly A's, but still, I don't get it). Rhetorical strategies and such are hard to remember, so hopefully I can do ok on it. This is the longest exam, so be sure to read its entry, as it will be most fun to write about the 4+ hour exam.

So, that's my exam schedule. I'll try to keep you all updated on it, so be sure to check back every once in a while because these posts will be worth reading, and will hopefully be a bit of fun.

Oh yeah, welcome Jeremy to the Insane Writing Team (henceforth known as the IWT, so I don't have to type out the name every time. Remember it, or I'll eat you (or your first born)), once he replies the invitation. I hope he can fill in if I miss a day or something. Oh right, I know I posted this the day after the last post, but don't expect them to be that close together usually, unless we get more writers. However, I'll try to keep at least 2 or 3 coming a week.

Peace,
Bryan

First Post and Stuff...

2007-05-02T17:12:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone!

My name is Bryan and this is my blog. I don't really know why I started this, but I did. I hope to post 2-3 times a week, with bits from my life. Hopefully this will actually be somewhat enjoyable, and won't be dreadfully boring for those reading it.

Anyway, right now it's storming, and quite a nice night it will be... not. Anyway, a little earlier, I looked out my window and everything looked yellow. It just was that way from the way that the sun was hitting the clouds. It really was quite eerie. Back to you, Bryan.

Thanks for the weather report, Bryan, even though we didn't want it. In other news, I'll now tell you a little about myself.

Obviously my name is Bryan, I am 16 and I live in Florida. I go to a very prestigious high school, and have a lot of hard classes. Currently I'm in 5 6.0 classes, 4 of them being AP. This of course means I have 4 AP exams in the next two weeks, which I will be posting about.

I am creating a game along with the help of a few friends, and a bunch of support from members at our forums. I really hope it will be a success, and I will post about it here too.

Other stuff... hmm... I'll post about random things that happen during school or whatever, and might have friends from school post. If you want to become part of the Insane team, let me know and I'll add you as an author here.

Thanks for reading! More coming soon!