Category Archives: UVA

Slow blogger

This entry was posted in General UVA on by .

I realize that I’ve been really slow about blogging lately, so I’ll try to give a quick update and then give some more detailed posts soon!  I’ve also given in to Twitter (@seancolyer ) if interested.

It’s my last semester and I’ve been really busy between finishing projects (and my thesis!), trying to enjoy Charlottesville before I leave, and trying to travel a bit and visit friends from other schools. I’ve taken a job in northern Virginia working with a small software consulting startup. The team seems like a really good group, and I’m excited about the opportunity.  I don’t start working until August, which leaves me some time to do some interesting stuff, notably an epic cross country road trip that I will discuss in future posts..

Foxfield. Those within the UVA community immediately have a preconceived notion of the word.  Foxfield Races are horse races that draw a huge portion of students together for a day of socializing. The event has become a signature of Greek organizations around grounds. The emphasis is on socializing more than horse racing, the running joke has become whether spectators even see horses (the course is large enough it’s possible and in fact often true). Presumably from the association with horse racing, Foxfield has also become well known for people wearing their southern Sunday bests; but this often just results in varying levels of seersucker and crazy pastel color combinations. I went for the first time this year, I figured I should partake in the UVA event once in my four years here.

Anticipation surrounding the races were significantly dampened with the prediction of thunderstorms all day. However, the rain held off for virtually the entire day, with the worst rain before most people even arrived.  Additionally, the weather provided a bit of an advantage over some other years where the temperatures often shoot quite high which combining with sun can be quite uncomfortable (I’m told). I had a good time, it was a unique experience and I happened to run into a surprising number of people I didn’t expect to see.

Keep your eyes peeled for new posts..

Life

This entry was posted in General Pictures UVA on by .

As you can see I haven’t written anything in awhile, but there has been quite a bit going on.

I started working on a little project we were talking about in my algorithms class, I dubbed the implementation ImageShrink. I don’t really plan on doing any development towards but it creates a really cool visual effect that you should check out. It’s interesting how much information our eyes have to deal with and what gets indicated in our brain as being not the important. Mostly, your brain notices edges, so if you get rid of space that isn’t an edge you don’t hardly notice.

I’m giving a presentation in my E-Commerce class on some security issues with SSL/TLS in its current state. I made a video demo of some attacks that are relatively easy to perform and users tend to know little about: Sidejacking and Man In The Middle attacks (I use ARP poisoning). I’ve attached my slides (with notes as required..) and videos. Sorry if you wanted to look at the PowerPoint and don’t have the new 2007/2008 it repeatedly crashed when I told it to conver to old style. Never would have guessed 😉
Also, I’ve fixed GAMVL to work with YouTube again, I’ll post at least some code for that soon.
(more…)