Is C++ a Relevant Language?

This has been a nagging question to me for a few years now, and is part of the reason I stopped coding as much a few years ago, only to pick it back up again over the past two years: Just how useful is it to learn a programming language like C++?  No, I'm not talking about python wrappers for it, or C#, or something "similar" like Java (and no, they are not similar like you may think).  I'm talking about low level C++, down to the metal, with just you and your compiler (IDE optionally too).  Had you asked me 2 years ago, I probably would have said C++ is just for gaming.  Ask me now, and I'll tell you it is still one of the most relevant languages out there.  Let's go over a few things about why C++ is a big deal, and why you should learn it if you don't know it.

Photos of the Month - August 2014

A bit more delayed then I would have liked, but here are my favorite photos from the month of August!

A nice dinner one night!  I await the inevitable criticism of my cooking though XD

An icy cold warehouse, with ice forming in the warm 85 degree weather.

The mountains of Virginia!

Sadly no traveling for this picture, just a trip to Busch Gardens!

This upcoming month will prove to be challenging since my phone's camera is now destroyed.  Guess I'm gonna have to look into upgrade to an actual camera!

Photos of the Month - July 2014

The month of July was a rather crazy month.  For those who don't know, I got the chance to go to Mountain View California and interview with Google at their headquarters.  It was an insane experience, and while I still don't know if I got the job, I had a great time and got a ton of pictures!  So for this month's photos, here are a ton of neat pictures from California (With one or two from Virginia too)!

The Current World of Virtual Reality

For the past few months I've spent some time with the Oculus Rift, and have gotten to learn the basic ins and outs of how to make virtual reality applications, where the market for it is going, and some of the challenges that come along with it.  It's been quite a fun experience, and while I am no means an expert now, I feel pretty comfortable with my ability to use these technologies and develop applications for them should I ever need to.  While I plan to slowly add-on new features to Project Virtua as needed, there is not much more to do on it as of now, and so I've decided to start looking into other realms of technology to mess with.  This post is a quick summary of some of the things I've learned, as well as some of my views on where this technology should go.  While I won't be super active on these technologies, I will still post some things about them, so don't count me out completely.  Specifically, I have a few games I would like to code for it that I plan to start sometime over the summer if I can muster up the free time!

Photos of the Month - May 2014

Phew, it took me a while to get all of these ready to post online!  Many of these have been edited based on things I learned in my digital photography class last month, so I hope everyone likes them still! (Assuming people like them in the first place haha)

Game Systems - 8th Generation Current Status

Game systems are a very tricky business to read into.  While your favorite system may have all the games that you like, that doesn't mean that it is selling well.  At the same time, high sales for one console at the start might not mean that it will be the best selling in the end.  There are quite a few ups and downs specifically to the current 8th generation of game systems, each complete with coming challenges as well.

Please note that this was written prior to E3 2014, and so this is just my personal opinions and thoughts on the current generation of consoles before then.  I will be writing up a post E3 version soon.

Hack it! - A TV Show Idea

This was an idea for a TV show I had right before falling asleep one night. Unfortunately I don't have the ability to execute such a show, so I figured I'd share the idea online for those who do since I think it has a lot of potential.  If you are interested in picking it up, feel free to, though I'd love to help out where I can if possible, as well as some credit!

Chocolate-Covered Strawberries in Bulk

Recently I decided to make a friend some chocolate-covered strawberries for her birthday, and didn't have a whole lot of time to sit and wait for each one since the chocolate has to solidify.  I wanted to do about 10 of them and yet only had 15 minutes to do so.  Thus I managed to devise what I consider to be a pretty neat "life hack" in order to create a ton of them in bulk in no time at all.  This is a quick how-to for creating a ton of chocolate-covered strawberries in just a few minutes.

Photos of the Month - March 2014

Kicking off April, here are some of my favorite photos that I managed to take during the month of March!  Sadly I did not take as many as last month, but there are still a few good ones in here I think :)

A Rocky Beach Day - Taken on a trip to the beach one day.

Let the Games Begin - Taken at a Washington Capitols Hockey Game

An Afternoon Sunset - Taken on a trip to the James River for a friend's birthday.

My goal for this month is to take a ton more photos now :D

Kinecting Back to Blogging

It's been about two weeks since my last blog post, and so I figure I should make this particular post about what exactly is going on.  Back in December, I applied for the Microsot Kinect for Windows Version 2 alpha.  In February, I found out that I was accepted, and went ahead and got the sensor as a birthday present to myself.  Finally, when my spring break started two weeks ago, I got the chance to sit down and fiddle with the hardware, and I've got to say, I am impressed so far.

So for today's post, I'll be going over how to use the Microsoft Kinect for Windows V2 APIs in C#, and the process of making a simple application.  The code for this will be presented at the end of the article, so if you're just interested in getting the code, just scroll down to the bottom.  There's a bit to this project since we'll be using multiple data streams, but hopefully not too bad.  Before I continue on, I do want to stress that this is preliminary software and/or hardware and APIs are preliminary and subject to change.

Photos of the Month - February 2014

Many people might not know this about me, but I have developed a very strong interest in photography over the past few years.  Since coming to college, I've realized how much I want to have memories of everything I do, and so I take a lot of pictures.  Actually, that's become an understatement, because it's more than a lot.  It's something I've had a few people get upset about, partially due to some bad photos, partially due to the bulk.  In fact, I routinely have to go through them, or risk not posting the photos due to the sheer numbers.

This past year there were tons of photos that I never uploaded simply because of the time it usually took me to go through them.  I didn't (and still don't) have a nice camera, so I ended up using my phone, which means I had to manually go through each one.  With my recent Android phone, I can now do so much faster since they are automatically synchronized everywhere (privately of course, with the option to share).