Brettia

I really shouldn’t be writing this. It’s 9:15 on the Sunday before I return to school for a final eight weeks. I’ve just gotten home from Los Angeles. There’s probably unfinished homework somewhere that I could be working on. But no, I am here at this forsaken computer, typing yet another entry, one that could easily be three separate entries, as I have much to say.

I’ll try to do this chronologically. Friday, of course, was a great day. Probably the second-best day of the year, after the last day of school. It was a half-day, a Friday, and the last day before spring break. What more can you ask for? And so I happily played computer games. All night. And over the weekend. I don’t know what came over me. It was this sudden need to play, an uncontrollable urge to give in to the computer (as if I haven’t already). And all those plans of developing some awesome PHP application were gone, and all there was were the games. They weren’t even good games. Except for Red Faction, which I rented from Blockbuster (for Playstation2) and Chrono Cross (Playstation) which I bought for $20.

I may as well say right now that this was not a good week for my coffers. I easily spent fifty dollars on various items and expenses, many of which were probably not worth it. More on that later. Anyway, Sunday the horrible game craze was broken when my brother and I were enslaved and sent off to work for an elderly neighbor who wanted his tree trimmed. Though I was unhappy at leaving my game at first, I found the work to be satisfying in a way that writing PHP or doing schoolwork cannot.

With code, everything is virtual, not real, not tangible. With schoolwork, one has the conscious feeling that what one is doing is not worth it. Only major projects that turn out well ever leave a sense of accomplishment anymore. I’ll only be happy to graduate high school for the escape it will give me, not the satisfaction of making it through our flawed education system. So this manual labor was good for me, in a way, and I now appreciate it. After voicing this to my father, I was given the extra task of coming back on Thursday to weed and clear the backyard. My brain was disgusted, unhappy, rebellious, while my body screamed for exercise. A virtual tug of war between different selves.

But before this tug of war could be resolved, Monday came, and I was invited by Jim and Dylan to come with them to a movie (Hidalgo) in the afternoon. We arrived at the theater at about 4:00, and, three hours of previews later, the movie finally started, and it wasn’t bad. I found it somewhat lacking in some areas, but it was good overall. And, of course, it had Viggo Mortensen (spl?) in it, the actor who played Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (I thought I’d clear that bit up in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last four years).
After the movie, we spent a whole two hours in Barnes and Noble (and we felt nerdy about it, too) just looking at books and marveling at their stupidity. I mean, come on, why is there an Idiot’s Guide to the ACT Test? We also contemplated buying Mein Kampf, The Art of War, and The Communist Manifesto, but all 90 billion available editions were quite pricey. We chuckled at the thought of carrying Mein Kampf around Desert Ridge, though, just to see if anyone would stare.

After BN, Dylan called his mom to pick us up, and we walked over to Ultimate Electronics while we waited for her. We marveled again at the garish home theatre and stereo equipment, and then we left when the snooty-looking employees became annoyed after we turned on the horribly loud “Bose Theatre Experience” (scientifically engineered to improve sound by forever damaging your eardrums).

The next stop was OfficeMax, where we played immaturely on the office chairs (they’re pretty fun, until a mean lady starts glaring at you). We finally crossed the vast expanse of parking lots at Desert Ridge for the last time to meet Dylan’s mom at In-N-Out Burger. After eating, it was decided that we would sleep over at Jim’s house, since I had never been there (in three years of being his friend) and we all felt like celebrating spring break by staying up late.

“Late” is an understatement. We never went to sleep. The night was mostly computer and video games, a D&D-like game called Mordheim, and the occaisional pillow fight between Dylan and I. Eventually Jim was elected High Inquisitor, and he used a torturously bright lamp to make us confess our sins. (That’ll keep you awake, constant fear of being blinded.) In the morning we flopped on the couches in the living room and finally went to sleep.

Couches were not a good idea; my neck is still sore from that. We also acted like we were drunk, and I was voted best impersonator for my rapid Japanese and my drunkard voices. (Voices never to be heard again, I assure you.) Three hours’ sleep was enough to get us in the mood for a swim in Jim’s 70-degree pool. It was cold, to say the least, but it felt warmer as my appendages became numb.

I finally got home that day at about two o’clock, ready for a nice, long nap. Unfortunately, I was denied that pleasure. My mom had come home early to take Zach and I bowling, and she hadn’t thought about the fact that I would be feeling as if I had a hangover when I returned. Despite my ungrateful protests, we went anyway, my strength bolstered by an Icee and several Dr. Peppers.

Bowling was fun; I did better than I have done in a long time, and I actually won the first game, even though I was tired. It seems that I bowl better when in a state of exhaustion, because the second game was bad (I ended up with an 83). After bowling I was awake again and ready to do something productive when I got home. I’d already been working on a new site for Brettia over the weekeng (between games), and it was almost ready for posting. A few finishing touches, a failed attempt at a library script, and it was done. The whole thing took about 15 hours. My employer would be appalled (his opinion is that all websites can be done poorly in Dreamweaver in five minutes, rather than perfectly by hand in several hours). Then again, the new Brettia site is by no means perfect, but how many other sites have rounded corners? (Technique credit: Fedora Core)

So I’m happy to have that out of the way. Sadly, I didn’t get anything else accomplished. I know that Mr. Trapani is probably running out of patience by now, since I haven’t really done anything for him since December. I have several school sites to work on, and he’s depending on me to take over his network next year, but the lack of time is just not allowing me to do everything I want to do. I’ll make it up to him in coming weeks, hopefully.

Tuesday turned out to be a good day, and Wednesday was the same, since I went to the eye doctor and was told that my prescription hadn’t changed in four years. That’s always good news, especially with my insane computer usage. Thursday was all preparation for the main highlight of my spring break, a family trip to Los Angeles. I also downloaded Fedora Core 2 Test 1, but one of my install CDs turned out to be corrupted. On the upside, Windows got six more gigabytes of space after the Linux partition was deleted.

Friday was the long drive out to California (six hours, to be exact). I started a new book, Angels and Demons, one that I bought from Barnes and Noble on the night I was out with my friends. It’s the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, and it’s better, in my opinion. I won’t give the entire plot away, but it’s about a college professor who becomes caught up in a plot by a Satanic organization called the Illuminati to blow up the Vatican with a new weapon called antimatter that is very much like an atomic bomb. There are all these religious implications as well, as well as chase through Rome after an assassin hired by the Illuminati to kill four Catholic cardinals. I won’t say anything more except that it is worth reading.

The first stop in CA was the beach, and then dinner at a nice restaurant that proved to have bad service and bad food. (I’m rushing now because I have to go to bed.) Saturday was the best day of the trip: Six Flags Magic Mountain, home of just about every extreme roller coaster in the world. I must admit that I was somewhat nervous at first, having always had a fear for roller coasters (especially those like Goliath that drop 255 feet and go 85 miles per hour!). But after the first one, Viper, it was all downhill, literally. I ended up riding on five different coasters, one twice.

This may not sound like much, but the wait times for many of the coasters were upwards of two hours. So we couldn’t ride too many in an eight-hour day. However, we did have this thing called FastLane, which allowed you to go through a much shorter line on four rides of your choice. This proved quite helpful; otherwise it is likely that we would have only ridden three or four times instead of six or seven.

Finally, today, Sunday, was the ride home. I must go to bed now; I’m being threatened with death, so I’ll elaborate tomorrow if I can.

Eggplant Parmesana

I’ve been wondering lately about the future of Organon and what I want to do with it. I’ve got two ideas which seem somewhat creative (I haven’t seen any other blogs using the same techniques), so it will probably be a choice between those. The only issue is that both techniques would be harder to maintain and would most likely take up more time than I have set aside for blogging. And I’d have to spend some time over spring break redesigning for the new format, time that would be better used getting the rest of the Brettia network up to speed (brettia.com has a really crappy stylesheet, brettepps.com displays a PHP error, and new.brettia.com has been inactive for two months).

Anyway, these are my ideas, and please don’t use them on your own site (if you have one) because I’ll hunt you down and murder you gruesomely. The first is to blog in a “voices in my head” format, which would be much like normal but with occaisional commentary from other entities, such as body, mind, spirit, etc. It could be interesting, since I find myself thinking like that most of the time anyway.

The second option, and my favorite of the two, is a newspaper-like format where I can post in different sections (Sports, Money, Life, etc.) fake articles about me. This was inspired by the entry from a week or so ago where I reported my current school situation as if it were the economy. So I dunno. I might just stay with the way I’m doing it already, but I could use something new. And who knows, maybe this is the next level for blogging: a jump from a single point of view to a kind of surround-blogging. Hmm.

While on the subject of blogging, I discovered a nice PHP blogging application called WordPress recently that is fully W3C standards-compliant (or so it says) and is generally stable. Now, I’m building my own homegrown blogging system (which, I admit, has not been going well recently), and I decided to take a look at some of the WP code just to see how a few things (such as multiple sub-categories) were done. I was appalled, to say the least, when I found disorganized code build around a library of global functions, most of which were poorly commented and hard to understand. There was only perhaps 500 lines of object-oriented code in the whole thing.

Okay, time for a quick PHP tutorial, since I know a lot of people don’t understand what I’m talking about. Here’s an example PHP script:

Above is the classic “Hello World” script. All this does is show the phrase “Hello World!” on the browser screen. Not complicated. Now, for something a bit more complex:

function hello_world($number) {

echo('Hello World');

echo($number);

}

?>

This is an example of a very simple function. You can define functions in PHP so that you can reuse code without having to copy and paste it over and over again. This also allows you to change the code in one place rather than in multiple scripts. The above function takes one argument, which is a variable called number. Then the function echoes the phrase “Hello World” and the value of the variable called number. For example:

This would output “Hello World42″ to the browser. You could put in other numbers to get similar results, even decimals or strings of text that aren’t even numbers at all. (The name of the variable doesn’t control it’s value.) Now for code that is object-oriented, a standard that is gaining strength among PHP developers.

class hello {

    var $message;

    var $number;

    function hello($message,$number) {

        $this->message = $message;

        $this->number = $number;

    }

    function print_all() {

        echo($this->message . $this->number);

    }

}

$hello = &new hello('Your head is large.',42);

$hello->print_all();

?>

Now, don’t worry if you don’t understand the above code; I’ll go through it step-by-step. First we define an object, or class, called ‘hello.’ A class can be a container for several functions or it can do even more advanced things. After defining the class we define two variables, $message and $number, which are owned by the class. Then we define a function called ‘hello,’ which is known as a constructor because it shares the same name as the class and is meant to perform any steps needed to initialize the class. The hello function takes two arguments, $message and $number, the values of which are transferred to the object’s $message and $number variables.

With the constructor taken care of, we define another function, print_all(), which takes no arguments and will display the values of $message and $number in the browser window. Now that the class is finished, we call it by assigning it to the variable $hello. We also provide the message, ‘Your head is large.’ and the number 42 as arguments. Finally, we call the print_all() function to output the values of the two variables to the browser.

Does it make a bit more sense now? Again, don’t worry about the code, just the concept. The first two examples are called procedural code because each instruction follows in order and no part of the code really interacts with other parts. Also, should the code need to be changed, the first example would not work well if it were used in the code repeatedly. The last example is object-oriented code, meaning that it is organized into an object. An object-oriented approach makes the code easier to read (once you’re used to it) and it makes it easier for other programmers to use your objects in their code, because they can use those objects without actually looking at the code inside them, providing that they have good documentation or comments to help them.

That tutorial probably didn’t help much, did it? That’s all right, you can try PHP Freaks for some decent tutorials on PHP, if you’re interested in understanding the language better. Also, SitePoint (one of my dailies) has some wonderful books on PHP and on HTML, so you might check them out. Mr. Trapani recently got me a two-volume set of books called the PHP Anthology by Harry Fuecks (wouldn’t it suck to have that name?), one of SitePoints main writers. It’s been very helpful and enlightening, but I’d recommend “Build Your Own Database-Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL” by Kevin Yank (yet again, not exactly a desired name). I downloaded the first four chapters free, and it was all I needed to really get started with PHP and such.

Someday I’ll write up a tutorial describing how to install PHP, Apache, and MySQL on a personal computer for testing, since I know it would be helpful to those just starting out.

Eh, there’s so much more I should write, but I’ve lost the will suddenly. I’ll write again over spring break, I promise.

Obfustication.

Yeah! Weekend! That’s good! Look ma, a weekend! Phew, finally, an end to a hectic week of tests and horrible project assignments. Yes, that’s right, tests and projects. You thought they’d been wiped out, that they’d been exterminated in the last round of vaccinations against them back in December. Well, now, three months later, they’re back with a vengeance, and they’re not going away anytime soon.

First of all, some of these project are naught but pseudo-projects, placed in the future to strike fear into the hearts of the masses, one of which is the dreaded genetics research paper for biology.

Yes, biology, which has made a substantial recovery since hitting rock bottom around mid-January, is trading down in the extended hours session after reporting that GPAs would come in light for the third quarter. Homework revenue is uncertain, and it seems the entire class may be heading toward collapse as hired specialists such as Mr. Tluczek, an ardent politics debator have been teaching in the place of embattled CEO, Karel Drechsler.

And what would an educational earnings report be without English? (Well it’d be in a different language, at least.) But seriously, Honors English, after trading in the middle of its 52-week range and just above its 200-day moving average for the past several weeks, is now in serious danger of falling to a new low after sell-offs in the English sector this week.

The stock got a quick pop on Monday, when Eppco released the terms of a new agreement with Kulinski Petroleum Corporation, of which Eppco holds a 2% stake. Under the agreement, Kulinski will provide Eppco with educational services worth over 45 minutes, allowing Eppco the time it needs to partner with Trapani Labs in developing the next killer app.

Now, however, Honors English stock has lost 20% of its value after repeated assignments and new books to read battered investors senseless. A small recovery is taking place after hours as investors recoup their losses over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the mathematics sector as a whole has seen minor gains, thanks largely to Tuesday’s blockbuster earnings report, when Eppco reported profit gains of 4-5% in emerging markets such as the Ghetto. These gains were supplemented on Friday by good homework news, but only after the biweekly quiz grade came in below estimates, causing a small dip in share prices.

The Spanish index, after four straight up weeks, recorded a loss for the week of March 5th, with experts saying that a slightly homosexual project skit was to blame. And at the other end of the spectrum, the government-owned Federal Department of Physical Education, which is not publicly traded, put investors in an uproar after comments by Federal Reserve Co-Chairpeople Gerry Labelle and Julie Young suggested a lowering of percentage grades and a move into track and field sports. The newly created Track and Field Program has not been successful, as weather and whining have kept the corrupt federal government from executing their plans. Protests outside the Department of Physical Education offices in the Blue Gym (similar to the White House, but not as well furnished) have garnered sympathy from Chairwoman Young but no mercy from Chairman Labelle.

And finally, the social studies sector, which has been on a tear since new Eppco-backed legislation changed several key tax laws, has moved steadily higher in the past few days as Eppco, Costello Holdings, and Hannah Li Brands (the three largest industry players) publish their quarterly earnings reports. Positive test grades reported as part of Friday’s SPI (Student Point Index) helped to push Eppco’s 15% stake in Fogey Mark to a value of over 70 minutes.

That’s the educational report for this Friday, March 5th, I’m Brett Epps for EGN, Eppco Global News.

After weeks of stagnation, it seems that everything is changing.

First, I’m experiencing a miniature coder’s block. I broke the blogging application long ago, and I’m trying to fix it as I OOP all over the place. I keep thinking that perhaps I’m too much of a beginner to be trying to use an object-oriented approach to my programming, but how many years does it take to go from beginner to expert, or at least advanced? I’ve been programming PHP for a year and a half now. I should be at a higher level than I am now, right?

But I’m not. I’m just waffling around, treading water, etc. I thought I had broken out over Christmas break, when I first devised the blogging system and actually was able to make it work. Then, come February, I realized how crappily I had coded it, and then it was time for some refactoring. The problem is, I was unable to rewrite features without breaking other features, leading to large-scale object failures and general frustration. Now the script has disintegrated into little pieces, each following a different model and using different objects. For example, I changed the name of the configuration object from ‘conf’ to ‘config’ resulting in failure in every part of the application because they were all trying to call ‘conf.’ That means going through every file and changing ‘conf’ to ‘config.’ Why did I even risk tampering with it in the first place?

So now I must write some standard coding guidelines for myself, something to make sense of the carnage. Here’s a few:
1) Think object names through before using them, and never change them later.

2) Follow a strict API allowing for internal changes without external modification.

3) Have some kind of roadmap or plan for completing the project.

4) Don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken.

5) Minimize database queries. Dump commonly used information into associative arrays.

Hopefully I’ll remember to follow them. Then I can finally get the thing running again, and perhaps Mr. Trapani will happily accept it when I tweak it a bit to apply it to the news website. Which reminds me, I need to get a design going for that. Actually, I need designs for the brettia root website and for the CSHS website as well. I am going to be very busy in the next few weeks.

Note that the title of this entry is ‘Changes,’ not ‘Change,’ so there’s more. You can stop reading if you want. But keep on going, instead, just because you’re curious. Yes, keep reading. Or not. I don’t know why I’m writing this paragraph. Anyway…

My attitude toward school had changed as well. I used to be the diligent student, meticulously logging my assignments in my agenda book, doing every worksheet, every little scrap of busy work we were handed. Now, my agenda lies empty except for Computer Fund projections and doodles. I actually have blank worksheets in my folder! I don’t take notes, in any class (though I never did, so…). And yet, I have the following grades:
PE: 99%
English: 98%-ish (?)
Math: 99%
Social Studies: 96% (participation points hurt my grade)
Biology: 100% (is this even possible?)
Spanish: 97%
Why? Why am I unable to fail? Why would I want to fail in the first place? Am I insane? I hope not. My grades were actually worse at the beginning of the quarter when I was doing my work. Then again, I suppose my definition of “slacking off” differs somewhat from the regular student’s. I freak out if I lose 2% on a class grade. I don’t accept anything below a 96%. But then, as I was told a few weeks ago, percentages don’t really matter.

Yes, you heard me, there’s no longer an incentive to strive toward higher percentage grades except for personal improvement, which is an excuse for trying harder that I am beginning to tire of. Why has this incentive suddenly disappeared? Because, whether I get a 90% or a 107%, both count as a 4.0 on my report card. Some teachers don’t even export percentages with their grades. So no one will ever know that I did 17% better than that other kid who also obtained a 4. That sucks.

I was originally under the impression that GPA was calculated at CSHS in the same way it was done at Sonoran Trails: by taking the percentage score and dividing it by 25 for each class, and then averaging those numbers to get the total GPA. This seemed to be the method used, since I’d get a 95% and a 100% and end up with a GPA of 3.9. (Equal to 97.5%) This seems quite fair. But I see no logic in the high school method, unless I am missing something or failing to understand the method correctly.

I brought this issue to my parents, and they concluded that perhaps GPA was shown on transcripts but percentages were used to figure out who would be salutatorian and valedictorian at the end of the year. But if not all teachers export percentages, how can percentages be used? And if GPA is used to determine class rankings, will a tie not occur eventually? Perhaps the administration is assuming that no one will ever get a tie because the probability of that is so low after four years of classes. I dunno. I need more information about the grading system, but I’m just too lazy to go to the trouble of contacting a counselor or someone else who would know.

I think I’ve hit on two changes now: lack of will to work and my little programming debacle. I’ve got two left, I think.

Lately, my friends have been increasingly near breaking up. I’ve hung out with the same group since 6th grade, and we’ve always gotten along well together. Until now, when it seems that we’re beginning to grow apart. I don’t have a great number of friends, and I’m fine with that, but when my tight little group of friends starts to split apart, there is cause for alarm. Here is how the situation stands:
Tyler
I met him on the bus in 6th grade. He filled me with nonsense about the discovery of some new world and all this other stuff I can’t remember. All I know is that I was so befuddled by his general lack of sense that I befriended him, and neither of us looked back. We rode the same bus, as I said, and he introduced me to the Redwall book series, which we have now both outgrown. Eventually I sat with him at lunch, which is where I met my other friends.

He’s always been a cool kid, someone I could talk to, play video games with, etc. But lately he’s started to hang out with other kids, whom I nor my other friends think very highly of. In some ways I can’t blame him for drifting away, since my other friends and I often make fun of him for his height (he’s not really that short, just short in comparison to me) and the idiotic comments he makes. Now he seems to have completely broken away; he doesn’t even chat during lunch anymore.

Jim
Jim was a bit strange in middle school. He had this hair thing…I don’t think I can describe it. He was nicknamed the “quail,” if that helps any. But, as it turns out, he’s become quite popular, at least more so than me or anyone else I hang out with regularly. I don’t have much of a problem with this, as long as he still finds time to hang out with me and Tyler and the others, but everyone else seems to be taking it a bit hard. So, in a way, he’s drifting away too.

The major difference here between the situation with Jim and the situation with Tyler is that I talk to Jim about nearly everything, from politics to friends to school to life to philosophy. We don’t always agree, but we can at least accept each other’s opinions. Sometimes one will convince the other that they are right, but that doesn’t happen often.

Nowadays Jim thinks Tyler is immature, and the conclusion we reached in PE on Friday is that Tyler is simply desperate for friends and attention. He was used to being the center of attention in middle school because of his wisecracks and jokes and funny comments. But now that he isn’t as funny as he once was, he’s resorted to petty insults against me or Jim or our pseudo-friend, Adam. Most of the time this just results in Tyler looking bad, and the rest of us insulting him back.

Dylan
Dylan and I are most alike in our situations in our group. We both are in between Tyler and Jim, torn between the two. Dylan is leaning toward Jim, I think, as am I. Dylan likes golf in the same way that I like computers, and this takes up much of his time. So we are alike in that respect. And recently Dylan has started to think Tyler immature just like Jim, though I don’t know if Dylan thinks this because Jim does or because he really does feel that way.

Me
Now I find myself torn. I could stay with Tyler, my friend from the beginning, and hope that he and Jim can find some kind of peace, or I can go with Jim, whom I respect more. Right now I’m hoping I can just wait it out. Jim says that people change and that I should just let Tyler do what he wants, but it’s hard to think of not talking to him anymore or not doing things with him. (Though I barely do anything with anyone anyway, but…)

I think if Tyler could just be a bit more mature and less freaky, Jim would be happy. And if Jim would just accept Tyler the way he is, Tyler would be happy. But it’s like watching peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians: no one shows up. Sure, it’s only been three days since things really seemed to be falling apart, but it’s never been this bad before. I’m afraid of what may come of this.

I could elaborate further on what is going on, but I have no time and this isn’t too bad of an explanation. I’ll keep you updated.

And now, the fourth and final change, which is hopefully the easiest to explain.

Tuesday, my English teacher, Mrs. Kulinski, proposed that I change to an independent study program where I just have to come in for a little while each day and get my homework and lesson rather than spend an entire period. I forgot about it several times, and finally remembered to tell my parents Saturday. They seemed to be all for it, as long as I kept up with my studies. Great. Now I just have to figure out whether I want to do it or not.

The biggest plus to come out of this is that I would get second hour (most of the time) to work with Mr. Trapani. Yes, he is teaching another class at this time, but I can still help him out somehow. There’s always something to be done, as long as he realizes I am there. I would go to Kulinski in the morning instead of Trapani, adding about 30 min. to my time with him.

But then there’s the question of whether or not I can handle the extra workload that may come with this change. It may end up that I’ll have more work than I would have had if I stayed in the standard honors class. Kulinski did tell me that I’m a good writer, a good student, etc, so I know that she thinks I’m worthy. I just hope I won’t let her down.

I’m going to accept the proposal, and hope I do all right. I usually do. I feel it would almost be rude to refuse, anyway.

One last bit:
I completely forgot that I needed to bring a baked thing for a Literary Magazine bake sale tomorrow. I’m such an idiot. Perhaps I can do something Monday night and bring it in Tuesday. I’m going to bring some extra books for the the book sale to hopefully make up for my stupidity. *bangs head on keyboard*
Sorry if I made any typos. I had to prune a gargantuan bouganvilla bush today, and my fingers ache. It’s also cold in the office right now. Yeah.

Eggplant.