Hello everyone,

Please welcome homelessllama to our forums. Not only is he a new member, but he is actually my brother, who has decided to join us here on the community. He's an awesome guy, and is great at graphics design, audio work, web design and programming, and various other venues in digital arts.

You'll probably see him lurking around, please be sure to say hi and make him feel welcome!
-Darth

We have a playstation 4 at our apartment and have spent quite a lot of time playing GTA. Between myself and my three other roomates, we made it through the game and spent a little more time than we should have getting through the levels. 

Five star police chases? Check. 

Every cheat code imagineable? Spawning trash trucks and outrunning the police? Check. 

Stealing cop cars to get away from the police? Check. 

Making millions of dollars, stealing junk cars, and upgrading them with color changing tires? Check. 

Stealing planes on the military base while in invincible mode (you can't die)? Check. 

Perhaps the craziest experience I had in the game was when I outran the police by getting stuck in the escape tunnels beneath the city. They looked like either storm drains or subway tunnels, wasn't sure which, but as hard as it is to escape the police on 5 stars, going through those tunnels will lose them hilariously fas.t 

It's a must have game, and is well worth the 60 dollar price tag. Who here has also played the game? What were some of your most interesting experiences?

This was a short work that I did for a class last semester. It's far from perfect, but I enjoyed the class quite a bit and figured I'd post some things that I did and see what y'alls thoughts are. I plan on taking some inspiration from this piece and turning it into a song. 

Quote:“This is bullshit” -- he exclaims.
“You’re not thinking straight. You’ve got three semesters left, you’ve already changed your major twice, and you’re not--” …
“Not what?”
“Don’t interrupt me.”
“Yes, but I’m not going to waste one more semester on the wrong major, not following my own heart.”

It’s late in the fall and the leaves have all changed colors. A little darker in the afternoon and the sun is getting ready to set, I turn around to the same architectural masterpiece that I had seen every day since I began this job. The walls were covered with windows as high as the ceilings themselves, and could see the sidewalks, the streetlights, and the campus right outside of the lounge. I’m here three or four days out of the week, making the same coffees and the same lattes every time. The job itself is mundane enough.

        “Honey… I don’t… I don’t know why you would feel this way. But you need to talk to me. You can’t let all of this stress get to you.” she responds.
        “You wouldn’t know stress if it fell from the sky with the passion of a thousand suns.”
“And you know what, stars will still fall from the skies, and you still have to catch them. This is your future here! ”
“That’s all my father had ever told me. And you’re here to burn that bush into the ground like everyone else.”
“This isn’t about your father! You are the first person in your family to ever set foot on a college campus. You are doing things nobody in your family ever did before you. You need to be so much easier on yourself. ”
“Yes but uh--” ...
“Um what? That you still feel your father is writing your life story for you? You are your own person, capable of chasing your own dreams. You have to light that flame for yourself and keep it lit. You are the only one who can do that for yourself. ”

        She pulls out her phone. Half eaten sandwiches from Chick-Fil-A and a mess of notes were scattered across the table. The art still hung from the ceilings, and the skies get a little darker as they became shaded in red.

        “You know what, let me look at these notes.” she says.
        “They’re right here. Still nothing.”
        “That’s fine, I understand. But we’ll get through this…”

I glanced over and saw six or seven different textbooks, a few loose assignments scattered across the table, and a mosaic of notes that seemed to correspond to more than a couple different classes. The table was undeniably an incoherent mess. He stood up, grabbed the nearest dry-erase board, recalled information from the latest exam and became visibly agitated.

        “I can’t do this, Sky. It’s all bullshit. It’d be easier to memorize Pi to the 1,000th decimal than to read one more page out of... -- ”

        She grabs his jacket aggressively in an attempt to grab his attention.

        “Listen to me. We can get through this. I’ve been with you since the beginning and I’ve always believed in you. But I need you to believe in yourself. Changing your major for the third time is not going to make the schoolwork any easier on you, and it will only set you further behind.”

I looked back towards the study hall, the skies now becoming dark, the halls becoming quieter and more clear, and the street lights illuminating the walkways for another evening. Inadvertently, they say if you’re ever unfortunate to get caught up in a rip current, that you’re best bet is to stay calm and to fight your instincts to swim against the current. Their conversations seemed much like this. His frustration was consuming him against a wall that would never change.

“Well I’m glad you believe in me. Nobody else did.” He responds.
“Not true. You’re just young and you are figuring yourself out.“

        She turns around slowly, and pauses to glance at two pictures that she had kept in her wallet. Then turns back, and says,  

        “See here. This rose. It represents what’s beautiful in life. It represents your dreams and your emotions. It represents your passion and your soul, and life itself. But the sword represents your doubts and your fears. It represents the things in your life that destroy you rather than build you up …”   

        She pauses. He nods his head. Suddenly you can hear the wind beating against the lounge walls and the weather seems to shift rapidly. A drizzle turns into a pour, and then into hail as the whether vehemently shifts the mood for everyone in the room. “It’s an odd time of the year for hail,” I thought to myself, but I suppose you never know what each day brings, and I head back towards my empty register. I realize that as my shift comes to a close, I’ll likely be stranded here for a least a few minutes longer.

        “That was unexpected” he murmurs.
        She merely nodded her head.
As the rain got louder, I could no longer hear their conversations.

And shortly thereafter, six o’clock arrived. My shift came to a close, the rain slowed to a drizzle, and I left shortly thereafter.
My slow walk towards my uninspiring vehicle left me with time to contemplate. I suppose the sword represents sabotaging the positivity in your own life. But what was the meaning of the rose? Is it better to look at the world through rose colored eyes, seeing the positivity in every situation, or with the pessimistic lens that prepares you for the inevitable in life, for the worst in any moment, or for the storms that will arise without warning?

The only real question in my mind was a matter of which lens I should view the world through. And as I caught myself being skeptical, I realized that in my heart was a little of both.

Personally, it was a 1997 manual Honda Civic DX. Had no tape or CD player, no tachometer (I know, it's a manual with no tach ), no cruise control, or anything else. Had a blown head gasket or something of that sort, but I drove it for about 20K miles and it was great on gas and never really gave me too many problems besides burning a lot of oil. $800 dollars was all I paid, it was very much an impulse buy.

What is the cheapest car you've ever owned (or known someone to own)? What were your experiences?

Here, we will archive boards that are no longer deemed worthwhile to keep on the forum index. The goal is to pull some of these threads out of the archive and into some of the active sections of the forum, but for the time being, posts will reside here, and still be active.

Moderators, if you see something that may fit better in another section of the forum, feel free to move the thread. 

These boards are still open for public view and for posting. You can still post in this section of the forum. 

Regards,
-Darth

The majority of last semester, I was binge watching Prison Break. I've made it about half way through the third season, and it's a totally addicting show. The first season is definitely the best though. 

But Micheal Scofield, that's my spirit animal y'all. 

Anyone else here watched it before? If so, I'm glad I've found another fan. It's a great show. 

So I decided to go back to school last year, and here I am, studying for computer science. I actually moved to a completely different city, left a great full time desk job, and moved back into an apartment, basically uprooting everything. I'll write more about my life experiences as time goes on, but for the time being, I'm planning, currently, just to get my bachelors and get a job, but the idea of getting a masters sounds good too. And I'm enjoying the college life a little, even though I'm a little older than most juniors. (Not by a ton. Not by too much. But maybe a tad. ) 

These days it's easy to get your feet wet and get your foot in the door without one. BUT, 1. With the degree, you get the experience of being in college and having the experience of a lifetime while you're at it. 

2, you have every opportunity under the sun to make great connections without having to fight an uphill battle. 

3, you have less to figure out on your own. As a part of your studies, you will learn advanced coding in advanced languages, various algorithms, how to write great code, etc. And it will force you out of your comfort zone and teach you many things you might not have brought on to yourself. 

And, 4, it looks great to employers, even if you get a job outside of the field. 

I'm not too terribly far off from graduating and I'm already beyond excited, and glad I made the decision to go back to school. What are your thoughts on getting a degree in the field?

As you've probably noticed, and as I'm excited to bring to you, we have our updated look and feel as of today! I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to unearth my hiatus and uncover the vaults of some CSS and HTML knowledge. Rather than do a massive update, I'm having a beta period where we update the site as we go during April. 

During March, some of the things that were added/updated include: 

• New look and feel (based on the old one with some improvements and brighter colors)
  
• Bug fixes on the forum index related to the most recent post. 
  
• New emojis (Click on "get more" in the post editor) 
  
• New sidebar with latest posts, today's top poster, quotes from the community, etc. 
  

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I am creating a new thread , to give the heads up out there in our community, for any feedback, ideas, and suggestions to improve the site, and the look of the site in any way possible ?

Thanks for your replies , guys !!

Never touched Python a day in my life before this semester. Been learning it for classes, and I think I already like it a lot better than most other languages I've tried. It is worlds easier than C/C++, a lot easier and cleaner than Java (disclaimer: coming from a novice Java programmer, but I did find Python a lot easier to learn), and, well, worlds cleaner (albeit a tad bit harder) than PHP. 

And PHP has its limitations and its strengths. It is so different from every other programming language that it's not even funny. Well, it looks like C almost. But the nice thing about PHP is it really doesn't complain about very much when it comes to your code. It makes it easy to jump into, and unfortunately, makes it easy for people to make simple mistakes when they are writing their code (using variables that don't exist in ways that aren't intended, or having habits that might lead to poor security practices, etc.)  

Python takes the ease of PHP almost, makes the code a tad bit cleaner (less brackets, forced indentation, etc.), adds a lot of great libraries that are clean and concise, and perhaps a little easier to get a handle on than Java, and, well, Python complains a tad bit more than PHP I've noticed. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But in Python, you can't just use a variable out of nowhere or index into an array where there is no index declared. Unlike PHP, you'll get an error, not just a warning. And if you try to cast something to an int when it can't be casted, you'll get an error and kill your program. In other words, you'll probably land more errors, but if your program works, you're less likely to have bugs of functionality and it's more likely to work as expected.  

Overall, I almost want to to do my web development in Python now.

That being said, still a relatively new Python coder and I have a ways to go before I've mastered it. Anyone else here have any experience with it?

Because I'm fairly certain I'm tackling Java next.