Felocity

There is an odd way with how our campus handles possession of our intellectual property. It varies from department to department, and there is quite a bit of confusion regarding possession after one graduates. I had a lengthy discussion with Dan when driving back from San Jose a few days ago (looking at shiny Apple computers). At least between the computer science and video production majors, there appears to be some disparity over what happens to your work when you leave the school. After reviewing the lab policies and capstone requirements, here is an overall synopsis of what we could determine.

The first and most important thing is that CSUMB revolves around Outcome Based Education. As a direct result, for your final project, you must create something. It varies from a paper to a multimedia presentation, but the end result is still a complete product. The university requests a copy of the completed work to be submitted in your final academic portfolio, and if you have a copy, you get to keep your product. However, this is where things get very confusing.…

I'm done. It's been some 16 years of schooling, but I'm done. I have a full time job with benefits, a house I am renting, and a reasonably steady income. My bills are almost cleared, my savings is slowly rebuilding. I'm almost done with my debt to college. At the Sardine Factory last night, my parents handed me a small envelope. In it was the pink slip for my car. Kyo is now officially my car- I can call it mine... my name is on the actual slip. I'm looking around my room, and it still doesn't feel real. "Congratulations, this is day one of the rest of your life." I'm done and while I am still very afraid of the day after tomorrow (which mind you, thankfully never comes), but it feels just a little easier to put one foot in front of the other.

I'll have pictures and stuff as soon as possible.…

In case you missed it, there is a wicket OS X exploit out there. It's the stuff other not-quite-so-good systems are made of mostly. Anyway, you want this tool that allows you to disassociate help:// links, disk:// links, and telnet:// links. The short of the exploit is that someone can run remote code on your computer. The non-technical ramifications are that if you click a link your Mac will do everything from mounting a remote .dmg file, running ANY command on your computer, and (related to that last point) DELETE any file you have permission to delete. Since many Mac users run as their "root" account, I'm sure you can guess where this is going. (Update:http://bronosky.com/pub/AppleScript.htm provides proof of concept test using the "disk usage" command. This is just an exploit demonstration site.) Scary shit. Very scary shit.

Speaking of things that are scary, I have to present my capstone in the morning. I'm nervous, but coping as only I know how: reading everyone's blogs.…

This is a handy dandy graduation announcement. If you aren't coming, that's spiff, but I am so VERY exited and nervous... thus sharing a bit of it with you! I really am graduating, and I really did do it in 4! Apparently, here at CSUMB, this is a rarity.

Rudolph Jakob Heuser is a candidate for the Bachelor of Science in the field of Telecommunications, Multimedia, and Applied Computing Ceremonies are to be held Saturday, May 22 2004 Freeman Stadium, CSUMB 10:00 am - 12:00 pm…

Just got back from Chris Russo's Bonfire. I was tasked with building the fire. If it was two life skills I gladly flaunt as an Eagle Scout, it is the ability to set things on fire, and the amount of knots I know. Yeah, there was some leadership stuff, and some project planning stuff, but I mean the really useful stuff. Anyway, given some nice wood from the OSH dumpster, we made a beautiful fire. Chris did the honors and made the blaze become an eight foot pilar of orange glowing heat, and we partied the night away. The best part is, we have no more finals really. Michelle took pictures, so hopefully I will be able to get those up once she develops the film. I'm tired, covered in sand, and smell like fire smoke, but it was a lot of fun.

And we made smores. The smores made it all worth it.…

I don't get what powers the con-in-a-box mentality nowadays. People seem to envy those of us in California because we have Anime Conventions everywhere you turn. It's a curse; if you need to call it anything else, I prefer the word plague. Before I go on, let me define "con-in-a-box". It is a convention, on a weekend, at a hotel with:

• Anime! (duh)
• Panels with guests
• A masquerade
• Hall Cosplay
• Karaoke, Concerts, "Opening Ceremonies"
• and a Music Video Contest

That's it. Fanime does this, Anime-Expo has been doing this, Ani-Magic is doing this, and these pieces have found their way into Comicon and a few others as well. "Con-in-a-box" isn't anything revolutionary, and now congratulations everyone, we have saturated the market so badly that we have exceeded the price-point of fandom. California has not 4, not 5, but no less than seven conventions this year! Anime Overdose, RECCACon, Fanime, Pacific Media Expo, Anime-Expo, San Diego Comicon, and Ani-Magic. Even if there is 15,000 fans, just how many shows do you actually think they will be attending this year? I'll even answer that one for you: they will attend about three. More than three conventions would strap anyone for cash, and convention fans are no exception. If you offer the exact same show as everyone else, people will go based on their friends and its location. Everyone and their cousin's small con has Maiyu performing, and both the California "big" conventions have Nami Tamaki performing, and everyone has the same dealer's room. The only way you could become more like each other would be to print the same badges.…

I was excited about Movable Type 3.0.

Until I discovered that it would cost me $70 to use it. This killed 100% of my enthusiasm. The idea of published pages has been nice, but if I ever needed a reason to switch blogging software, it just showed up. Courtesy of guest blog entries, I have more than three authors, and thanks to the "mini-weblogs" I keep, I meet exactly five blogs. The author requirement locks me in to a situation where I am unable to upgrade because to do so would mean deleting authors, and that would mess up content.…

In case you missed it today, you were supposed to Skip Lunch and Fight Hunger. Thankfully, I am usually not very hungry around noon if I keep myself busy, so I sat down and did some serious work at-- work of all places. Come about five in the afternoon, I could feel the hunger set in, but thanks to sleeping in a bit in the morning, I continued to work to make up for lost time. It's now halfway through my System Administration class, and I have so far managed to keep with the goal of today. I donated 8 dollars (rounded up).

I also just won a gmail account. Yes, I do feel it was worth the investment I made, and I really do want to see gmail in action. Nobody around here has an account, so I suppose I have to be the local test dummy for it.…

Something isn't quite adding up. The Internet is more quiet than it usually is, certain aspects of the day to day life feel colder, and I feel real uneasy. Call it a hunch, but I'd wager all three of those are somehow connected.

I spent the first part of my Monday making sense out of an insane tasking, and the later part of my Monday making sense out of powerpoints and system administration. On the down side, I feel very mentally and emotionally exhausted. On the up side, George and Nathan's presentation is looking to be very impressive and worthy of the capstone they did. I think these last few weeks / days / eons have taken their toll though, I am longing for a vacation and a chance to just be done with everything. Anyway, let's steer away from angst lane.…

I haven't seen Van Hellsing yet, actually, but from what I have heard it is either long, but good or long, and bad. Either way it was long, which was the entire basis of this analogy. See, the CSUMB Spring Formal was tonight, and I knew I couldn't go with Tessa since she had work. So, I decided to bring the formal to her. Before I go too much further, allow me to deviate a bit.

I am a sucker for affection, and I like being romantic. It isn't so much the romance as it is the reaction. It isn't the 11 roses you give someone, it is the 12th they find after they have forgotten they got 11 before. It isn't the first song you play on your three month anniversary, but the third song which is the same song you first played for her. The reaction is the sign of genuine appreciation; it's the reason I do it. It is pure coincidence that the ideas often take on a romantic slant. Anyway, back to the blog and away from the introspection. Exit is on your left.…

Please care about your validation when you decide to completely redesign your page three weeks before the con.

Your design is monochromatic, and I like what you did with the pink. Your choice of teal is better suited to any other page but this one, and your two-column layout destroys anything that isn't a normal web browser, and I feel very sorry if someone came with a text reader. Though I am thankful you didn't try and use images to convey important information, your failure to provide many of the documents on your site in any format other than word will leave a good majority of people in the cold. For having taken the time to implement PHPbb and an online registration system, your lack of a "feedback form" is somewhat shocking. The last thing I expect people to do is open an email client under these circumstances.…

It's gotten bad, my mind is churning with ideas and there is no worthwhile way to express them currently. I have wanted to make things happen on Gaia, so badly wanted to get some decent RP going, but there is too strong of a desire of the people on the damn forums to create a world that is anything but Gaia. I don't want to play in Pern, I don't want to play next to WaiWai!Duo_Kun69, and I don't want to be surrounded by fifty clones of the same lame uninventive idea. I want to help mold and create a tangible anime/fantasy roleplaying world, which from everything I have seen about Gaia was its original intent. With time, its intent has faded away and now I don't think anyone knows what it is. Gaia aside though, I have been craving decent RP time badly. I have written up several memorable locations, created a half dozen NPCs that tickled my fancy, and all I haven't done is touched character sheets for them.

It's official for those who missed it-- I am a nerd to the core. I am also a nerd with currently too much creativity and no means of expression. I don't draw, I don't fanfic write. I tend to design, and I tend to create, and currently I have nothing to direct this energy towards. I have been investing so much energy into my project (which is thankfully done) that I didn't have any side projects. I finished Chrono Trigger, finished felocity.org's redesign, finished writing stuff for Gaia (which I will probably not use), and am now trying to sort out what exactly is left.…

VERSION 0.3.1 OF SENIOR PROJECT COMPLETE! OFFICIALLY NOW IN PUBLIC PRE ALPHA!

And now all I want to do is pass out. Or get drunk.…