The E-Blog

For the third and final VIS 40 project we had to make a Machinema video (using a 3D-environment and characters instead of real people, the word comes from Machine + cinema).

This was a group project, so I worked with two other guys on this one. Luckily, my teammate Sam is a director at SRTV, and he was good enough to let us use their recording studio. My other teammate Joe is really good with sound editing, so between the 3 of us we had the makings for a great project.

The final project can be seen here.

We used 2 xboxes linked together with a LAN cable, with one Xbox for the camera and the other for acting out the scenes of the film. Sam did the camera work, I controlled the character Deuce Bagg and Joe controlled Chip Clydesdale. The third character was controlled by one of Joe’s friends who came by to help us for a little bit.

As far as voice acting, Sam did the third (nameless) character, and Joe and I swapped our previous roles with him providing the voice for Deuce and me doing the voice for Chip. It doesn’t sound like me because we modified it so that Chip would sound more jittery and crazed.

The movie is full of inside jokes and references to other games/movies. I don’t remember who’s idea it was to put the Bill O’Reilly thing at the end, but I’m so glad we did! Overall, I’m amazed how well this project turned out and couldn’t be happier.

The second project for my VIS 40 class was to make a piece of “Musique Concrète”, which is basically music made from sounds that you find in everyday life rather than music made from traditional instruments.

Unfortunately I’d never worked with any music editing software before, and so I needed lessons in GarageBand. Luckily Mike was willing to help, so we spent the afternoon recording random sounds around his house and then mixing it together.

Oddly enough, I guess the sounds ended up being pretty representative of Newport (adding machine, golf club swing, car Engine, and jet plane).

Listen to the final thing here.

Special thanks to Mike for the Garage Band lessons and the random noises. Also thanks to my Aunt and Uncle for pointing me in the direction of the iPod microphone.

This past week I’ve had to design a piece of “net art” for VIS 40. Net art was something that was cool from about 1994 to 1999, and it involved making a piece of art from html.

I was at a loss for how to go about this project until yesterday, when I was thinking about society’s obsession with computers and how they are “revolutionizing” everything. True, computers have changed the way we go about many things, but they are a far cry from being a solution to all our problems. That was the focus of “Life OS”, which can be found here.

I was not parodying Vista because I’m trying to say it doesn’t work, but rather because it’s easily recognized as an OS =P. I don’t know if this qualifies as “net art”, maybe I’ve missed the concept entirely. The prof said it was a piece of interactive art, usually humorous, that can only be experienced in html. I think this fits those qualities…

I’m not that happy with how it turned out, but this was made by coding html in the command line using vim. I used absolutely no tools like Photoshop or Dreamweaver. (I was going to, but the bookstore was sold out…) On top of the fact that I spent only about 5 hours putting this together, I suppose it turned out fairly well. I just wish I had had more time + the proper tools to do a good job.

Today we had to put down our family dog of 14 years. She had been having a lot of problems with her back legs due to a slipped disk in her spine, and it was getting very difficult for her to walk. It was a hard thing to do, but she seemed to be in pain almost constantly and we decided that it was time for her to be at peace.

She had been around for a solid majority of my life, and she was always a very happy dog. It’s not going to be easy to go back home and not have her there, she would always run to the gate and wag her tail when any of us would come home. I will miss her a lot.

1994-2008

For the last year or so, my hair has been on what could best be described as a “quest of self-discovery.” I’m really not sure where it’s going at this point, but it’s interesting to look back and see just how much it’s changed. Here’s a photo journey through the many phases of my hair, starting in 2006 when I had just gone to Japan and ending close to a year after I got back.

September 2006

February 2007

April 2007

July 2007

April 2008

I think the last transition is the most striking, because that’s close to a year of growth and the color has changed too. No, I did *NOT* highlight my hair, it has lightened up over time.

Typically, Winter Quarter has been my worst quarter each year that I’ve been at UCSD. I think it’s been a combination of being enrolled in difficult classes (CSE 12, CSE 30) and the fact that I’m not much of a cold weather person. This year was different, despite having CSE 100 to deal with. Winter quarter was actually very manageable and enjoyable, which might be because I only took 14 units (CSE 70, 80, 100 and HIEA 113). However, winter quarter used to be the one quarter a year that I would hold on for dear life and pray it would be over soon.

On the flip side, Spring Quarter has always been my favorite quarter each year. The weather starts to get nice, I can wear shorts and sandals, and Summer Vacation is getting close. Also, Spring Quarter has my birthday and the Sungod festival, so even if I take hard classes it usually turns out to be a fun quarter. That was, until this year…

This quarter I’m taking Japanese 150C, CSE 101, 140, 140L, and a 198 which I’m (thankfully) taking for 2 units. I can’t remember ever being so miserable in school before, not even with CSE 12 when I didn’t know C, or back in High School when I had to study for 5 AP exams. The one class that is causing me trouble is CSE 140L, which despite being a 2 unit course takes around 15~20 hours of my time a week. The labs are ridiculously long, poorly defined, and the TAs are limited on how much they can help us. What’s worse is that it’s in a programming language that no one in the class is familiar with, so most of the work is spent trying to figure out how to make the language happy rather than to actually do what the lab is trying to teach us. The professor also has no problem with continually assigning homework for 140, even the day *after* a midterm, so there’s always something else we have to worry about.

Unfortunately, this class is causing a negative impact on my other classes as well. I haven’t done much of anything for the 198 ngIRCd project, I’m a few days late for my JAPN 150C composition, and I barely had any time to study for my CSE 101 midterm. These classes should only amount to 16 units, which is supposed to be a typical quarterly workload at UCSD. However, 140L takes the time of a 6 unit course, so it feels more like 20 units.

Even though there are only 2 more weeks left in this quarter, I’m at a loss as to how I’m going to get through them with decent grades…

I don’t exactly know how it happened, but somehow now I’m the most sports-savvy person in #sdcolleges.

Yesterday a bunch of us were at Scott’s place for a party, and someone pointed out that the TV was made by Visio. Of course, this made me think of the ads for the Visio sponsored by LaDainian Tomlinson, running back for the SD Chargers. Yet when I pointed this out, I was met with blank stares.

“C’mon guys, LT, LaDainian Tomlinson!”
“….I don’t know who that is.”

I suppose it’s not surprising that #sdcolleges doesn’t know about football players. After all I barely know any of them myself, just the really famous ones. If you had asked me who Peyton Manning was a year ago I wouldn’t have had a clue. Funny how much one’s life can change in a year.

So, anyways, for those of you who don’t know, LaDainian Tomlinson is the awesome running back for the Chargers. (Also, he wears jersey #21 and wears an eyeshield, so he pretty much IS Eyeshield 21). He won the MVP and Man of the Year awards from the NFL in 2006 and is currently ranked 3rd in the NFL’s all-time rushing touch-downs list. In addition to being a great running back, he is also really, really good at catching passes.

I don’t know if this is the first of many “football players you should know” posts, but at least now you have gotten to know one of your local Bolts. =D

I’m sure everyone has seen those black beetles running around campus lately. They’re just about everywhere, even inside Price Center East, which unsettling for those of us who aren’t the biggest fans of large bugs. I can never recall seeing them in years past either. It seems like they showed up out of nowhere, and now I’ve seen them in both SD and Orange County so it’s not an entirely local phenomenon. I was very curious as to what these beetles were and where they came from, so I decided to do some research.

It turns out they’re caterpillar hunter beetles, and they’ve been in Southern California for a long time. The only reason we’ve noticed them now is because they have an immensely larger population this year. They look a lot like stink bugs, but they’re much faster. Evidently they’re also good for the environment, because instead of eating crops they will eat common pests like caterpillars and insects that do damage to plants and crops in So Cal. They can bite, but probably won’t unless you’re really asking for it.

So if you see one of these beetles running around, don’t despair. It’s probably off to eat other pests that you don’t like, and the last thing on its mind is bothering you. If one gets inside your house, just trap it and put it outside. Instead of stomping on them outside, give them a high five for helping out the environment (well maybe not literally).

Image is from OC Register

I’ve realized lately that I’m lacking a place to share my thoughts on life and/or rant about things, hence, the blog is back. =D This time around it will probably focus on CS related issues rather than my adventures in Japan, though there may the the occasional entry written in Japanese.

Ali on showing proper respect:

me: “She gave us 8 programs to write in 2 weeks, such a stupid bitch.”

Ali: “You shouldn’t talk about her like that! You should say she is a crazy bitch.”