Site Layout, Etc.

I haven’t posted in two weeks. There is a multitude of reasons for this. For one, i had a very important, and very stressful experience taking my only AP Test last Friday. The second being that my teachers decided that it would be imperative that I be assigned two tests a day for three days consecutively. Now I shall talk about more important things, which concern the Baron Banner directly.

I spent the last hour and a half changing the site layout for the main Baron Banner website. I started this because I noticed that galleries posted on the site attempted to tile pictures in columns of five,  which the site did not have horizontal space for. In an attempt to accommodate for these, I expanded the active width of the site by 40 pixels (from 960 to 1000). There are a few results, advantageous and disadvantageous from this. A wider website allows more viewing space, and accommodated for larger objects (pictures, banners, galleries) on the site. A disadvantage to this is that many people still use monitors with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. On these monitors, the background of the site (in light grey) doesn’t stand out as much. The galleries could still not fit 5 columns, but 4 column-galleries looked exceptional now.

I also spent a long, long time familiarizing myself with the wordpress platform. The site uses a professional wordpress template (known as premium news), which allows it flexibility while giving it a clean professional look. By using this however, we lost our eligibility (I think) for the NSPA award. This should not matter however, as the website was made for the students, and not for personal gain or titles. By losing our eligibility, we ensure a secure, working, and efficient website.

But looking at the template and the platform, I noticed that there was room for improvement, but there was no way to facilitate this. First off, the link to the PDF version of the printed edition is inactive, which I am in the process of fixing as soon as I get the files. Then, the website uses a separate (directly linked) php file to process the video segment (which links to the BBN). This makes it hard to access that section of the website. The main template allows you to control the look of the section that holds the video, but not the linking (and embed) options for the video. This is a large discrepancy compared with the rest of the site, where all PHP’s are found linked with their respective style sheet, which any administrator can edit.

My conclusion was that we need another managerial position in order to regulate standards across posts, fix broken links and embeds, and streamline (if not completely assimilate) the links between the Baron banner Website, the baron banner Blogs, and the FVHS main site.

I shall highlight the tasks and importance of this proposed position. The site layout managed would ensure that all elements of the site (including galleries, embeds, ads, banners, logos, external links, internal links, specific widgets and wordpress gadgets) would function accordingly and would facilitate their improvement. This differs from the web update manager, who must ensure that all posts are updated according to standards and regulations and show consistency in format. This also relieves the Editor-In-Chief(s), who previously would have held these responsibilities, as he (or she or they) would be preoccupied with more relative duties, such as editing final articles, and approving all final decisions. The site layout manager would have to work very closely with the editor-in-chief, the web updater, as well as the director (as access to the website’s ftp server needs to be very restricted and needs approval before use).

You may say that most of the above listed are one-time issues which do not need to be “managed”, or that very little work is involved. let me refute this by saying that manually changing the column count for every gallery published so far is time consuming and menial.

I believe that I am very fit for this position for a variety of reasons. i have extensive knowledge of working with CSS and the wordpress platform. i am also proficient with HTML, as I qualified to get a degree, but didn’t pull through because I had to leave for India the summer I learned. I have a lot of experience working with FTP as well as MySQL servers (but alas, no php. That shall learn that in time), as I was in charge of managing my uncle’s domain, and later, my father’s domain (which was given to another uncle for his golf club).

As this position doesn’t exist (yet), I shall take full responsibility for it (with everyone’s permission, of course). I shall show you some immediate and long term projects which I have planned to undertake, regardless of whether the people of the Baron banner decide that this position is important enough or not to be created:

• Creating a  print archive page to host all previous PDF files.
• Changing the template to make it wider.
• Make the video section bigger (310) pixels, and use a more reliable host to embed the videos (preferably Vimeo)
• Linking to all mutually maintained blogs (main blog index, overheard in fvhs, baron boom box, and hopefully more) using graphics under the side panel (I am experimenting with both stacked rows as well as boxes).
• Creating a dynamic logo changer to change the main site logo depending on the theme of the current issue (prom, bell game, summer, etc.)
• Making a dynamic page for “photo of the day” so that it doesn't link to the old website.
• Theoretical- Changing “FVHS in photos” to a CSS gallery/static image with a separate caption so that our photographers wouldn’t have to manually caption every single update to the school gallery.
• Theoretical- Changing the color scheme of the site to reflect school colors
• Theoretical- Creating a linking mechanism to the mutual blogs using wordpress pages. Wordpress is able  to read rss feeds to create xml files which would allow for “mirror pages” which may act as localized “carbon copies”.  This would allow quicker loading and uniformity of domain. This would be extremely, extremely hard to pull off. More like a summer project than anything.
• Theoretical- Eliminating the old baron banner site completely (as Google still quicklinks to it on quick search bars, which misleads people looking for the website)
• Theoretical- Migrating the server to the FVHS domain. Now, there are many logical reasons for this, which i shall explain. First off, having a separate domain ruins the uniformity of the FVHS website. Secondly, doing so would cut domain hosting costs (as we would only pay the difference between the original operation costs and the new operation costs). This may not be possible, as there might be a reason why we migrated away from this in the first place.

I would love your thoughts on this, be they blessings or criticism. I might actually have to talk to Dr. Poff, or Mr. Z about this next year. The reason I am posting this so late is because I have completely killed my internal clock over my last week for no apparent reason at all.

Anxiety and the Journal

I am writing this at 1:20 at night, and for reasons which I consider to be sane. AP testing is this week, but as a sophomore, this shouldn’t concern me much. I am unable to sleep for reasons which I say I can’t find, but the truth is, thee are any reasons, relevant and small, for why I can’t sleep tonight.

Whenever I am unable to sleep, I start noticing small quirks in my life I haven’t really caught before. The first of these would be my history with journals and diaries. As a child, my mother would tell me to keep a diary because it allows you to see another dimension in the existence of a human being. What one writes many years ago shows what almost seems to be the thoughts of a different person altogether. People exist not only as different physical entities, but as different chronological entities. My experiences this year, being the latest of them all, have probably affected my attitude toward life the most, for better or worse.

There are some changes so noticeable, that even I caught them. I have lost my ability to make other people laugh at anything I say which doesn’t insult something else. I have lost my sense of humor in that, although I still laugh very often, it comes out to be a hollow laughter which does nothing but acknowledge that I was listening. Although I pretend I was unaware of the many atrocities caused by humanity, I do notice that using reason and logic, they scale down to become nothing more than cause and effect charts. I do not feel the frustration I used to feel before, but I still retain my sense of sorrow, though unvoiced and unexpressed

And what purpose does all this learning serve? The class that has influence me the most this year is probably my history class. It is actually a very easy class, because the grades boil down to tests, and tests are more logical and less rote, something which I found out I have a knack for a long time ago. It is the fact that so much information can be compacted into so small a class that made me realize a few things. It made me realize why colleges don’t accept most AP courses for credit. It made me realize that there are people who take subjects, and indulge in self torture only to raise their GPA’s, which I am partially guilty for but do not regret in the least. History is basically a study of what caused human suffering, what prevented it, and what might stop it right now.

But back t0 the point concerning journals. I could never keep a journal as a child, and not because I disliked writing. I was unable to keep a journal because I found it very inconvenient to do so. My writing was messy, because it was a form of pseudo-cursive that was neither fast nor tidy. It also felt very awkward, as there was no guarantee that anyone, including myself, would read this in the future. And lastly, it was very inconvenient to do so. It felt as the time would be better spent doing something more important, such as staring out in space and reflect on my past and future, as I spent most of my childhood doing. Seldom did I ever “live the moment.”

And then, many, many years later, another opportunity came. Blogging became known as a very good way to get your voice heard or, at the very least, feel like others might actually care to read what 11 year olds think about. By this time, the rate at which I typed slightly exceeded that at which I wrote, albeit with many errors, most of which could easily be fixed with spell-check. But, I still felt that there was no point to this, as I was shy and kept my blog private, which contradicts the very purpose of blogging itself. Then finally, almost four years later, came another opportunity, which was much larger in scope and purpose than the first.

When I joined the baron banner, I was informed that every person was required to keep a blog, though they were rarely up-to-date. By this time, I felt much more emotionally secure, and was not afraid of what other might think of my insignificant life. I also felt that I had to take some active steps to get over my previous problems with journal-writing. My typing speed was almost 4- 5 times my writing speed, provided I had something to type. This also coincided with my dad buying a netbook, but alas, the netbook was rightfully given to my sister, who needed more elbow room and wanted her own computer. I still type longer posts on the netbook, as I am doing right now, because I type faster on flat keyboards than I do on standard ones.

As you can see, the netbook experiment wasn’t that successful either, as the frequency of my posts fell sharply after the first two months, and became less verbally substantive, thanks to my new fascination with Digital Art, which I shall talk about another day. After I read over what I previously wrote about changes, I wondered whether I was slowly turning cynical. After some more self reflection, and with some loose analysis, I figured that I was becoming more of a realist. My wild dreams of M.I.T. slowly started to turn into some curiosity about UCI. My aspirations to becoming an editor on the banner next year started to fade as some more experienced members started becoming more aggressive after Victoria stepped down. I am still thoroughly confused about career possibilities, and doubt that I’ll be able to finally decide before the time comes to turn in college apps.

On a side note, I found it quite insulting when Michelle said “According to what I heard from David (Mendoza), you can just write about your opinion just like any blog post, supported by facts.” No, it is not that easy. You cannot write about whatever you want, and expect it to get published. Probably the most restriction limitation of being on a school newspaper would be that everything has to come back to school somehow. This affects editorials the most, because seldom can a person write about petty school issues, “with facts” and expect it to turn out well. Not only do you feel bad because you are abasing the reputation of the school in order to get a few filler points, but the end argument comes out to be unsubstantial, and reading through the article becomes drudgery as a side-effect of negativity.

I finished at 2:20. How quaint.

Spring Break and Designing

It's been a while since I updated this blog. But, now I'm back with plenty of renovations. I spent most of spring break on Tennis and learning how to design using vector graphics. I spent a lot more time on the latter, learning the basics of programs such as Inkcape, Aviary's raven, and Adobe Illustrator. I think it paid off, because I was able to quickly design the background currently used for the blog. There were also some of the usual get-togethers and video game matches. Tennis was more painful than necessary. Some arm strains and injuries not related to tennis still hurt excruciatingly, and might hurt later. Meanwhile, here's some pictures.

Please click for larger, clearer pictures!

Here's a macro of my headphones, Yamaha CM500. I've had them for two years, and I really like them. I was just take still-life macros for the heck of it.


The button on my jacket has a high-detail engraving.Here's a little piece I did while I was experimenting with brushes. It came out pretty decently considering i spent around 30 minutes on this.

I would love some feedback on the new design of the blog. Maybe I should increase the opacity a little bit. I was also thinking of recreating the palms in the background.

Photography Just Isn't My Cup Of Tea

It's Friday. This means I have a few hours to waste before i come to the realization that I have more important stuff to do. In my childhood, I've always been intrigued by photography, but never got into it because I used to take horrible photos. My dad's experiments with macro photography convinced me that I could, perhaps, shoot some good photos. In my bout of excitement, I just crazily took a picture of the most random objects inside and outside my house.

What’s With the Hostility

A few days ago, I started writing my article on Twilight. I planned to write it as an objective observer who just noticed the polarizing quality of the book series. Apparently, people either love Twilight or Hate twilight, with a vast margin between their opinions. Very few people are simply “ok” with the book. Because of the massive popularity of the book, there are more people who would defend Stephanie Myer’s writings than go against it. This makes it ideal to cover the viewpoint of the minority, which, in this case, are the people who absolutely despise the series.

You may ask why I decided to take this perspective. Many people have argued that I shouldn’t write about a book or series which I have not personally read. My response is that by not having read the book, i can take the most objective stance writing the article. There have been many books which i started of loving, but have completely faded from my heart afterwards. Harry Potter is  a prime example of this, mainly because the series started before I could read and ended just two years ago. The enchanting quality the books had over me just faded over time. Now I am prone to laugh at diehard Harry Potter fans, though I do respect them.

Back to the point. Just the fact that I am covering this from a negative standpoint has caused people to get quite aggressive regarding very small points. Although people have been very modest about their accusation, they still treat me as if I already wrote and published some sort of blasphemous, untrue, and completely baseless editorial. This is false. First of all, I haven’t even submitted it. Secondly, it’s not an editorial because I am reserving any preconceived notions I had about this; don’t shoot the messenger! Thirdly, nobody should have to be that fanatical for anything they like, such that they are willing to shoot down anything against it before it exists.

This was a test post written using Microsoft Writer. To Zack: see if that helps you with publishing embedded object in blogger without messing with iffy code.

I wish I were poetic

If the body were a fortress
Sickness would be the siege at night
Murder, the treacherous within
Death, the trebuchet in sight

When the wall falls in the courtyard
There are none who care to rebuild
When the stones rain, severe and hard
No space shall be left bare, unfilled

This is not even poetry. I'll just consider this an extended metaphor.

My own criticism of this:
1) Blank verse is underrated, but needs meter
2) Overall rhyme scheme is skewed.
3) There is a syllabic pattern, but no meter.
3) The second stanza is a different tense from the first.

Reflections on Culture

When I moved to this country, my father and I used to talk about the culture of the United States, or more specifically the lack of. Coming from from a rich culture hearth with a defined concept of what life is supposed to be, my dad found American Culture quite artificial. He remarked at the little time parents spent with their children, the high divorce rates, the concept of early dating, and the lack of culinary prowess. He used to say their food was artificial in the way they compromised the bland taste with extra butter and oil, which was a metaphor for the culture itself, replacing sophistication and general decency for immediate comforts as a way of life.

Although I could not make a logical argument against his point, It came to me over time. The culture required its flaws to function. The freedom that gave birth to this country is the same that shaped its loose culture. Over the years, the stigma associated with doing anything "American" wore off. Although the general attitude was still that the culture "corrupts" because of the violence and sexism shown in the media. This stopped becoming much of an argument, as Indian media also took a turn for the worse. The key arguments now were that the ideals of our culture must be retained at all costs.

Thigns have changed a bit. I figured out that even the small difference in language between American English and International English allows American culture to qualify as a culture, though heavily homogenized. A small segment of an AP Euro lecture taught me that America stood for freedom fries, liberty, baseball, hot dogs, and brute military force. I used to frown on this before, but just chuckle lightly now. It stands for something more than that. It is freedom that has allowed this culture to boil down to past times, brand names, and food items, but also makes all of them stand for so much more.

Tea has some adverse effects on people.

The Pen And The Brush

I think that I shall post some of my photoshop/paint.net endeavors on this blog. I created this image from scratch to show you the first thing that came to mind when I thought of the name of the blog. I like making images in black and white because most of the abstract themes that pop into my head don't require color.

Why The Name?

"True, This! —
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! — itself a nothing! —
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —
States can be saved without it!"

-Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Honestly, I think people have used up everything funny or even slightly philosophical for the name of their blog. I decided to make this because the Baron Banner requires its staff to create a blog. I think I might use this as a blank canvas for brainstorming some of my deeper thoughts.