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(02/27/15 10:41pm)
App of the Week: Threes! may be the unluckiest app of 2014. Developers Asher Vollmer and Greg Wohlwend spent almost a year and a half developing the mechanics of their addictive swipe-and-combine gameplay. However, its gameplay was copied within six days of release on iOS by free clones that quickly outsold Threes!, which costs $1.99 to download. The first clone, 1024, advertised itself with the line “No need to pay for Threes!”
(02/24/15 4:15pm)
After years of letting my high school Spanish wither away, I decided to give it a boost with Duolingo. The app has a great deal of critical praise and popularity for being an easy way to learn a new language.
(02/24/15 1:58am)
As the new oak trees were planted at Toomer's Corner on Valentine's Day, generations of Auburn fans gathered around them to see tradition being planted. Edna Fellows Christmas is 101 years old and calls herself one of Auburn's oldest fans. "I saw them cut the trees down, and I wanted to see them put them back up," Edna Fellows said. "I was so proud to see them go back up. I think they're gonna be great." Edna Earl Christmas, her daughter, said everyone in her family except Edna Fellows had attended Auburn University, though Edna Fellows said she may as well have gone to Auburn from all the time she's spent around it. "It's almost like good overcoming evil," Edna Earl said. "It's showing the Auburn spirit is not to be denied. We're going to stay in there as a family and make it work." Laura Champion and Shy Slaton, parents of another Auburn family, said they have ties to the University and hope their children will attend the school as well. "We're really hopeful they go to Auburn," Slaton said. "That would mean a lot to us." Slaton said she hopes Max, 5, and Lucy, 3, will appreciate being present for a major moment in Auburn history, even if they are too young to understand it. "If they grow up here and they end up going to Auburn, they'll look back on this," Slaton said. "How many kids can say, 'I was there the day the old trees were rolled the last time, and I was there when the new trees were put in?'" Champion said even if their kids go to the University of Alabama, their kids will still have been present for a major moment in Auburn history.
Frost Rollins, adjunct professor of architecture, said her children were less interested in the new oaks than they were in Aubie and the chocolate ice cream she bought for them. Rollins said her twins, Rose and Farryn, 4, have a warped sense of other Auburn traditions. "When we won the Iron Bowl, they went out on the field after the game," Rollins said. "Rose was asleep, but Farryn was dancing around like crazy. So now, after every football game, they think that's what happens. They don't understand that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing." Rollins said she appreciates how well the University has turned around Toomer's Corner with the new oaks. "I think they've done a great job of turning it into something that invigorates everyone," Rollins said. Champion said she appreciates the tradition above all. "For us, it's all about family tradition, and the Auburn Family is an extension of our family and always will be," Champion said. "To be able to pass that onto (our kids) so they can have that kind of love from the beginning of their life -- it's important, at least to us."
(02/17/15 1:00am)
When Bassma Abdulrahnan came to the United States in 2012, she said the culture shock was tough. She had to leave behind her friends, family and everyone she knew back home in Kurdistan, Iraq.
Abdulrahnan was studying for her doctorate in civil engineering at Auburn. After a trip home to visit her family, she said she walked into a pet store on a whim. When Abdulrahnan saw a small 10-week-old Netherland Dwarf rabbit, she took him home that day and named him Oreo.
Her friends said the two were inseparable.
"(Abdulrahnan) treated him as her son," said Suning Zhu, graduate student in business and friend of Abdulrahnan. "Oreo is a part of her life. I think she cannot live without him."
However, Oreo and Abdulrahnan are currently separated by more than 6,000 miles.
Abdulrahnan, who came to the United States on a Fullbright Scholarship, had to return to Iraq without Oreo.
Haitham Eletrabi, post-doctorate student in civil engineering and Abdulrahnan's friend, said he and Abdulrahnan spend a month researching a way for her to fly home with her pet rabbit. But there were no options.
Eletrabi is running a campaign on Indiegogo.com to raise $1,400 to send Oreo home to Abdulrahnan through an animal shipping company. He has raised $428 so far. The campaign ends Feb. 22.
"The cause itself might not be as strong as, say, a dog that has cancer, but the point is that the pain of the separation is real for the rabbit and for Bassma," Eletrabi said.
"Other stuff might be proclaimed as worth more, but this is big for both of them. Think of it as being separated from a family member."
Eletrabi said Abdulrahnan and Oreo were like family when they were together. Abdulrahnan would keep the door to his cage open, allowing the rabbit to wander freely around her apartment.
According to Eletrabi, Oreo would usually use his freedom to follow Abdulrahnan everywhere.
"This is really close, even for a rabbit," Eletrabi said.
Abdulrahnan said she even took Oreo to the park on a leash and let him run around, though Eletrabi said Oreo would stick close by Abdulrahnan.
With his old owner gone, Eletrabi said he's been doing his best to take care of Oreo.
He said this task has its own challenges, as Oreo has grown into a rabbit with a great deal of personality quirks.
Eletrabi said the rabbit has different moods and refuses to play except on its own time. It is also a picky eater and will not eat carrots, though it loves snacking on exposed wires.
However, Eletrabi said he can only take care of Oreo until he has to leave the United States in December.
He hopes to ship Oreo back to Abdulrahnan before then.
"I hope the Auburn Family will help reunite Oreo with his mom again," Eletrabi said.
"He was her family here, and I'm sure it will be great having him back home. I can feed him, I can be there for him, but I can't love him as much as she does." Abdulrahnan said she hopes to achieve her goal of bringing Oreo home with her. "I wasn't aware of animals' value until I had Oreo," Abdulrahnan said. "Oreo taught me really how precious they are."
(02/16/15 10:00pm)
Sometimes an interviewee says something that leaves me speechless.
I was interviewing two members of an organization at Auburn. The organization was putting on an event involving a lot of people, and I was previewing it.
After asking basic questions about the event, Person A mentioned safety concerns. I asked two questions about what they had done to ensure guests' safety. Person A gave two vague answers. I finished the interview because they wouldn't say anything.
After I turned off my recording equipment, Person A stopped me.
"Don't ask those kinds of questions," they said. "If you do, this interview is over."
I had no idea what to say. After several awkward seconds of staring at each other, I stammered something resembling an apology. Person B watched us and said nothing.
The next day, Person A emailed my boss and alleged that I hadn't prepared for the interview and had not gathered enough information -- both of which are false. Neither Person A nor B told me they did this. The whole incident baffled me because the questions I asked weren't even that difficult. Asking, "Why did you add these rules?" and "Were people getting hurt?" is hardly a cutthroat interrogation. This was an event preview story, not Watergate.
I can't help but think the organization's real problem with that interview was that I did not ask the questions they wanted. Instead of running a safe, boring story that advertised their event, I wanted to find an actual story about the event's safety. From a journalistic view, this was the right choice.
Investigating safety issues is journalism. Unquestioning event coverage is advertising.
Advertising is public relations, and that is not our job. If you are an Auburn resident who wants to send a public message, student media organizations, such as The Plainsman and Eagle Eye are not your PR firm.
Eagle Eye and The Plainsman staffers work incredibly hard every week to produce good journalism about Auburn. Giving someone -- anyone -- space to talk without challenging them is not good journalism.
Good journalism checks facts, double-checks assertions and finds the truth, even when it's not what someone wants to talk about. Student journalists don't always live up to that standard. As intrigue editor, I've seen pieces run that were more advertising than journalism, and I regret that.
However, failing to meet our own standards does not mean we should abandon them and let anyone use student media as their own personal megaphone. It means we in student media need to work harder to live up to those standards.
Those standards mean that when Eagle Eye airs a package or The Plainsman publishes a story, viewers and readers know the content isn't dictated by outside parties.
Student media organizations are not your PR firms. If you want advertising, buy an ad. We'd be happy to sell you one.
(02/11/15 9:00pm)
Facebook is creepy.
This may be the understatement of the year for a company that experimented on its users to see if it could affect their mood by showing them happy or sad posts (it could), but it's no less true.
I keep my Facebook account to stay current with old friends, participate in groups for work and because everyone else has one.
The best way to use Facebook while limiting the site's spying ability is to use Tinfoil. Like the name suggests, Tinfoil is a Facebook app for the paranoid, for people who would rather not enable location services for Facebook's app.
The app is minimalist, providing a basic wrapper around Facebook's mobile website.
Tinfoil downloads content from Facebook within the app; preventing the kind of shenanigans Facebook on Android is prone to pulling.
For whatever reason, Facebook's Android app has never been great. For years it used super-slow HTML5 code.
Then it forcibly downloaded an app called Facebook Camera onto Android users' phones without asking permission, and it was un-installable until users protested.
Then it removed messaging from the app and forced users to download a separate app until they protested.
Speaking of permission, check out the list of permissions the official Facebook app requires in order to download on Android.
It knows what apps the user has downloaded, what email accounts are on phone, as well as their contacts, calendar, text messages, location, camera, microphone and device ID.
Facebook's Android app is great for a business based around collecting information and using it to sell ads. Don't let Facebook gather so much information.
Use Tinfoil, because it provides a perfectly functional Facebook experience with a fraction of the permissions (pictures and location, the latter used only with your permission).
The worst thing about Tinfoil is it's entirely dependent on Facebook's mobile site. If Facebook changes something, Tinfoil can't do anything about it.
The app could also stand to be updated more frequently.
Tinfoil's source code is posted on GitHub.com and can be checked by anyone for shady behavior. It's far more trustworthy than Facebook, which is closed source.
Tinfoil adds a couple features on top of the basic web wrapper functions. Users can open a menu by swiping in from the right with options such as jump to top and refresh.
There's even a kill button to close the app completely when you're done with it.
Tinfoil is free on Android through the Play Store. It is not on iOS, but iPhone users can do the next best thing by pinning a bookmark to their home screen.
Open Safari, go to Facebook.com and press box-and-arrow icon.
Select "Add to Home Screen" and "Add." I tried it and got a blue "F" icon on my home screen linking straight to Facebook's mobile website.
Though it's not as convenient as having a dedicated app like Tinfoil, using the mobile site is the best way to browse Facebook without giving it as many hooks into a phone.
For the Facebook user who can't delete Facebook, use Tinfoil or a home screen bookmark.
(02/24/15 1:07am)
"Papers, Please" is the best boring game I've ever played. It is a game about doing repetitive, mind-numbing work, and it's fascinating.
The player takes the role of a lowly border guard for the fictional 1980s communist nation Arstotzka. They have to let in the legitimate immigrants, while barring spies, terrorists and criminals from entering the country.
Gameplay is simple. The player buzzes his or her station to call the next traveler in line. They hand over their immigration papers. The player quickly checks their passport and visa to make sure they're valid and looks for fake IDs.
The player is paid by the number of visitors processed, though income is docked for letting too many illegals through. I found myself racing against the clock, trying to process as many immigrants as possible without letting through a human trafficker or terrorist.
Saving money is important too, as the player must pay a mounting set of debts or the game ends. I often had to choose between feeding my virtual Arstotzkan family or giving them heat for the night. Earning the most money means processing immigrants as quickly as possible while still trying to check every detail.
This is the real point of "Papers, Please" -- forcing the player to make uncomfortable choices.
One woman visited my booth and asked me to let her into the country to see her sick son who needed her help. Her papers were wrong.
I thought about letting her through, knowing it would mean a citation. I considered detaining her -- the guards get paid per the detainee and split the profits with me. Throwing this old lady in jail might buy my Arstotzkan son medicine for his own illness.
Dilemmas such as this force the player to confront awkward choices about what is right. The most moral decision isn't always clear in "Papers, Please."
The moment-to-moment gameplay of swiping papers around the iPad screen and checking details is secondary to the greater narrative of trying to survive in an oppressive country where doing the right thing is severely penalized.
"Papers, Please" is available for $7.99, only on the App Store for iPad.
(02/06/15 7:00pm)
Camren Brantley-Rios, senior in public relations, said he made tacos Jan. 30 slightly different from how most people do it. He took taco shells, added taco seasoning, lime, grilled onions, avocado queso fresco, refried beans, salsa and wax worms.
"It didn't taste bad at all," Brantley-Rios said. "It was just the fact that I was eating worms was a little weird."
Jaimen Perez, one of Brantley-Rios' friends and senior in economics, said he tried the same tacos and was surprised by them.
"I couldn't even really taste the worms," Perez said.
Brantley-Rios said his whole diet for the next 30 days will be a little weird. He's challenged himself to eat every meal with some kind of bug or insect-based additive to raise awareness about bugs as a food source.
Brantley-Rios said he researched cultures that consume bugs before starting his challenge. He said his findings challenged some of his previous beliefs about bugs.
"I've always associated them with vermin for so long and being pests," Brantley-Rios said. "I was never an outdoorsy kid who played with bugs and ate worms because I was dared to, so I think I'm just trying to get out of that."
According to Brantley-Rios, his challenge began Jan. 30 with an omelette seasoned with mealworms. Although he said he was nervous, he managed to eat the worm omelette.
"I ate it, and then I started jumping up and down because I was so delighted," Brantley-Rios said. "It was a big relief because it tasted like popcorn and had a buttery taste, so it wasn't that weird."
Not all of his meals have been as easy to eat, Brantley-Rios said.
"I'm not gonna claim to be used to it," Brantley-Rios said. "I start off and think, 'Oh, this is fine.' I start off and I try to gauge the flavor and the flavor's never bad. Halfway through the meal I start thinking about it. 'Yep, these are bugs. You're eating bugs.' I kind of get grossed out, and I slow down. It's a work in progress right now for sure."
Brantley-Rios said he's found it easier to eat Exo protein bars, made with cricket flour, because they taste similar to regular protein bars.
He said he also plans to make his breakfasts by blending bug-based ingredients into smoothies.
For now, Brantley-Rios said he has to order bug foods from online stores. Food made from insects is more of a specialty item, something he said he hasn't been able to find locally.
Two people interested in his challenge, Brantley-Rios said, were Scott Clem, second-year master's student in entomology; and Simon Gregg, senior in biosystems engineering, who talked to him about buying locally grown bugs.
Clem and Gregg said they were thinking about raising insects locally before reading Brantley-Rios' blog announcing his challenge.
"(The blog has) really given us more motivation to make something happen," Gregg said.
According to Gregg and Clem, bugs are an untapped market of food creation, something people will eat in the future if they can get over what Clem calls "the ick factor."
Clem said eating grasshoppers, which consume grass, is no more "gross" than eating shellfish, which feed at the bottom of oceans or rivers.
"For thousands of years, humans have been eating insects," Clem said. "They're loaded with protein, they have calcium, they have good nutrients."
Clem said most people already eat insects without realizing.
"The USDA allows a certain amount of insect matter into our food," Clem said. "It's a very minute amount, but it's impossible to (make) things like grain and avoid having insects mixed in somewhere. It's there, we're already eating [it] and it doesn't harm us at all."
Brantley-Rios, who is mixing more than minute amounts of bugs into his food, said he hopes to change people's minds about bugs' potential as food.
"You gotta just look at it and say, 'This is just food,'" Brantley-Rios said.
(02/02/15 7:00pm)
Many people play video games, but Auburn University communication and journalism instructor Joshua Hillyer is helping make one.
"I think it's one of the most exciting forms of media," Hillyer said. "Video games are an area that I want to affect positively."
Hillyer said he is aiming to affect video games with a two-dimensional action game "Neon the Ninja." The game follows a renegade ninja as he rebels against his clan.
"He's very punk rock," Hillyer said.
Hillyer said players traverse a two-dimensional world, fighting enemies and hunting down eight different bosses like in the classic Mega Man games.
The game's website advertises it as a "Quentin Tarantino-v.-Saturday-morning-cartoon take on video games."
"It definitely has a comedic tone," Hillyer said.
Stuart Phelps, the game's programmer, artist and original creator, said he got the idea from an episode of "Samurai Jack" where the main character hides within a neon billboard.
Hillyer joined Phelps and soundtrack composer Chris Sinnott in July 2013. Phelps had been developing "Neon the Ninja" for approximately one year.
Sinnott said Phelps found him through a forum.
"I was pretty much onboard immediately because it looked so promising," Sinnott said.
Phelps said he found Hillyer through Facebook while he was posting about a new game he wanted to make. The two knew each other from playing in the same punk rock scene 10 years previously.
"He's a really cool guy, and his band was cool people," Phelps said.
Phelps originally hired Hillyer as a writer to write the in-game story, dialogue and promotional materials, but Hillyer has since become involved with design decisions as well.
Hillyer said he places non-player characters within the game and writes cutscenes to convey the plot.
"I'd like to make a game that feels great to play, has a story that makes people laugh, but [the story] doesn't get in the way," Hillyer said.
Although he writes the plot, Hillyer said he writes content for games with a light touch, adding cutscenes and other story elements that take away gameplay time only when necessary.
Hillyer said his favorite part of writing "Neon the Ninja" is creating each boss.
"Villains have always interested me," Hillyer said. "They're all so bizarre and yet understandable. One (villain) is a deranged Elvis impersonator. Though he is a crime lord, you see how his life could have turned out differently."
Hillyer said his least favorite part is the sheer amount of time involved in creating a video game.
Phelps, who has been working on "Neon the Ninja" since fall 2012, said finding time to do the work has been the hardest part of development for him as well.
Phelps said it can be difficult to choose between spending time working on his main job as a web designer, finding freelance work on the side, spending time with his girlfriend and working on the game.
Hillyer said writing comes after his day job as well.
"I've always looked at my role as a writer as a secondary thing," Hillyer said. "There's not a lot of work for indie game writers."
Hillyer said he, Phelps and Sinnott plan to fundraise for "Neon the Ninja" on Kickstarter in late 2016 to early 2017 for release on Steam and Wii U. The funding they receive will determine the final version of the game's complexity.
"I have a lot of great plans for this game, but we'll see," Phelps said.
(02/01/15 10:00pm)
I am a forgetful person. If I don't write something down within a few minutes of hearing it, it's as good as gone.
Thankfully, Evernote has alleviated a lifelong habit of scribbling notes on whatever paper is at hand.
Evernote is a better way to take notes. Users sign up for a free account and download the app, which is available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and web browser. After that, creating notes is easy, just open a new note and start writing.
The use of Evernote lies in its organization and universality. I can write myself notes from my iPhone to check later on my MacBook, or bring them to meetings on my Android tablet. It also means I can't possibly lose my notes, barring a natural disaster destroying Evernote's servers.
Users can file everything into separate notebooks and add tags within the notes for further organization. For example, I added an "ideas" tag to my note of story ideas for The Plainsman and my note listing blog post ideas.
Evernote is also smart enough to recognize contexts and offer related notes. When I start composing a note listing movies on Netflix I still need to watch, it starts suggesting my note of movies I plan to watch with friends.
With all this, Evernote can become a catch-all productivity tool. I can compose stories for The Plainsman on my laptop in Evernote and not worry about hard drive crashes since everything is synced to the cloud.
I can also keep checklists of items within notes, making it even easier to keep track of sources to contact and interviews to pursue.
I also like that Evernote is free. Users can upgrade to a premium account for $5 per month for storing large files in notes, annotating PDFs and searching within scanned images, but most users won't need those features. They seem mainly aimed at corporate clients.
Evernote has a lot of useful features, but sometimes it veers into unnecessary complexity. Options such as location-tagged notes are a bit much for users who just want a way to jot down notes on the go.
For someone who wants a simpler note-taking app, Apple's built-in Notes app (iOS, Mac) or Google Keep (Android, Chrome) are faster and easier to understand.
(01/28/15 10:00pm)
When Lucy Banks, freshman in psychology, moved off campus, she said she did it to enjoy her freedom and live with her boyfriend at the time.
"I really liked having whoever I wanted come over whenever I wanted," Banks said.
Banks said she lived on West Glenn Avenue, a five-minute drive down the road from her parents.
Banks, who grew up in Auburn, now lives with her parents, citing a better environment for her cat, Theia, money and greater focus on her schoolwork.
"When I lived by myself, I wanted to party a lot," Banks said. "(My mother) keeps me in check, but gives me my space."
Banks is one native Auburn resident who chose to attend the town's university while still living at home.
Corey Spicer, senior in interdisciplinary studies, said he doesn't mind going to college in the same town where he grew up.
"I always tell (people), when you graduate Auburn High School, you know Auburn in one sense, but when you go to Auburn University, it feels like a whole different town," Spicer said.
Spicer lives in a townhouse his parents bought for his older brother, who also attended Auburn University. He said he pays rent to his parents, who are "super reasonable" about costs, rolling rent and utilities into one bill.
"I'm super thankful for that," Spicer said.
Nathan Coker, senior in fine arts, said he lives in his parents' Auburn home to save money for graduation.
Coker said he wants to save at least six months of rent before moving out.
"Until I graduate, I'm just trying to focus on school and not paying the bills," Coker said. "The benefits are so good with the financial situation I'm in, I can't argue with the downsides."
Coker said the biggest downside for him, as a musician, is not being able to play guitar late at night -- though he said that restriction is "really not that bad."
Banks said she also lives with restrictions in her parents' home, mostly about who she can invite over to the house and at what times.
However, Banks said she appreciates living rent-free and somewhere that will also let her keep her cat.
Banks said she plans to move out later this year to somewhere with a yard for the dog she said she plans to own. She said her mother has started encouraging her to look into moving out.
"She didn't want me to move out, but now that I've moved back in, she's asking me to go look at apartments," Banks said.
Coker, who said he also plans to move out after graduation, said he wishes more people knew about the benefits of living at home.
"It's not a big deal," Coker said. "It's actually a huge convenience."
(01/25/15 8:30pm)
Letterpress surprised me. I'm not much for Scrabble, Boggle or other word games. Letterpress changed my mind with its addictive approach to vocabulary ability-based multiplayer games.
Letterpress is a hyper-competitive, one-on-one version of Scrabble. There's a board of letters. Players score points by stringing them together into words, the longer the better. Picking a letter makes it that player's color; picking an opponent's letter changes its color and takes their points away. Any letter surrounded by the same color does not give the other player points for using it.
The game is easier understood in practice than it sounds.
With all the rules in play, Letterpress becomes a game of choosing long words to surround one's own letters while taking away letters from one's opponent. The extra layer of tactics atop basic vocabulary testing adds fun.
Unfortunately, what should be a basic vocabulary test often becomes cheapened when someone starts using Google. It's easy to feed letters into Google and find playable words. Since Letterpress isn't played in person like Scrabble, one has no idea if the other player is playing fair.
For example, one opponent beat me by playing "fynbos," which the University of the Western Cape said is a shrub from the Western Cape of South Africa. Either that player has an impressive knowledge of South African shrubbery, or he or she looked it up.
There's plenty of time to look words up during a match since Letterpress is played asynchronously. One player makes a move and waits for the other to react.
I rarely played a game in one session, instead making moves between classes every hour or so. It's good for a quick 30-second hit of entertainment in the Starbucks line or while waiting for class to start.
Letterpress is free on the App Store, but not available Android's Play Store. There is a $1.99 in-app upgrade for multiple simultaneous games and seeing the history of every word played in a game. I'd recommend it to any word game fan.
(01/20/15 5:00pm)
The Orion space capsule blasted into orbit atop a Delta IV heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Dec. 5, 2014.
NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers collected data for testing during its four-hour flight, according to NASA's website.
Jeff Hampton, systems engineer for Lockheed Martin and Auburn alumnus, said the flight tested how the capsule would perform at 85 percent of its potential speed when reentering Earth's atmosphere.
Orion flew 3,600 miles into space, farther than any craft capable of carrying humans has flown in more than 40 years.
"Our heat shield's got to meet that criteria to survive reentry at that speed," Hampton said.
Hampton said he helped the Orion teams work together.
"One of my main tasks is to make sure the hardware guys are talking to the software guys, and the software guys are talking to the hardware guys, and everyone's talking to the lab guys," Hampton said.
Hampton said he also did a compatibility analysis for Orion's software to ensure the ship's computers could handle the data it collected.
For his work on Orion, Hampton received a program manager's commendation and a Silver Snoopy.
Beth Schulze, software team lead at Lockheed, said the Silver Snoopy is a prestigious NASA award that is "not easy to get."
Schulze said she helps direct Hampton's team in Houston from her office in Denver. She said Hampton is a talented worker and "very brilliant" even by the standards of rocket scientists.
"We consider Jeff to be one of our big-brain kind of guys," Schulze said. "He understands a lot. He's good at putting together small parts into the big picture ... It's not always easy to find people who can do that."
Hampton graduated from Auburn University in 1990 magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in computer science.
He originally attended McNeese State University for a year and a half where he "burned out" before dropping out and moving to Alabama.
He lived there for a year to establish residency and applied to Auburn.
Hampton finished his undergraduate degree at Auburn and graduate studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
As a student he worked at Auburn's veterinary school and co-oped to support himself.
"It was persistence that got me through," Hampton said.
After graduation, he tried to fulfill a lifelong dream of working at NASA, even getting an interview. He did not get the job, instead signing on at Lockheed Martin.
In 2008, Hampton began to pursue a position on the Orion team in Houston. From his position at Sandia National Laboratories, he knew recruiters within Lockheed and convinced one to take his resume to Houston. It worked.
Now Hampton helps put together the nitty-gritty details behind Orion's launch. He said it's a dream job.
"Ever since I was a kid, that's what I wanted to do," Hampton said. "I wanted to be on a project like Apollo. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime programs."
After last December's test flight, Hampton said his team is already planning ahead for another test flight in 2017-18.
Hampton said the work makes time fly. Beating the clock is Hampton's other goal. He said he hopes to see humanity's next big steps in space.
"If I could be alive when man sets foot on Mars, I would be happy," Hampton said. "It's my hope and my dream that the work I'm doing gets us closer with every test flight."
(01/18/15 9:00pm)
I finally updated my phone to iOS 8 to get rid of that annoying notification badge on the Settings app. iPhones now supports a cool feature no one is talking about -- custom keyboards.
iOS 8 opened the door to different keyboard apps, something Android users have enjoyed for years.
The best third-party iOS keyboard to try is Swype, which pioneered gesture-based typing. Instead of rapidly tapping letters on your virtual keyboard, the user can finger between letters to form words.
Swipe typing seems pointless until you try it. Then it becomes amazing. Drawing words feels faster and more efficient than hunting and pecking on the regular Apple iPhone keyboard.
The app feels like a natural fit for the small iPhones (5S and older). You can hold the phone in one hand and type far easier with Swype than with the basic Apple keyboard.
The app also supports everything one would expect from a keyboard app. There is text prediction based on what the user has typed before and a personal dictionary that learns a user's words.
There is also a small collection of themes for the keyboard. Think it's too white? Swype is happy to sell you a dark theme for another $0.99.
One catch is Swype's performance. Whether the culprit is Swype for making a bad app or Apple for a buggy version of iOS, Swype performs poorly. The keyboard often doesn't appear when you tap a text field. It seems less responsive than the Apple keyboard.
To try it, download Swype from the App Store for $0.99. Switch to it using the globe key on the normal keyboard.
(01/09/15 4:03am)
Steffi Ledbetter, junior in theater, was featured in Thursday's, Jan. 8, episode of American Idol. Ledbetter performed a cover before judges Jennifer Lopez, Harry Connick Jr. and Keith Urban.
"When you're singing, it feels like it's inside of you," Lopez said to Ledbetter. "It's not coming out of you. Having said that, you are a really talented vocalist."
Lopez and Urban voted yes, sending her to compete in Hollywood at the next level of the competition.
"I really do believe I can do this," Ledbetter said. "I know I can. I really do... this means everything to me."
(12/30/14 8:30pm)
Zac Hawkins said he hit rock bottom one night during his freshman year outside Dowdell Hall. No matter how hard he tried, his ex-girlfriend would not come down from her room to talk to him.
The two had broken up earlier that night around 8:30 p.m. on the steps outside the RBD Library. Hawkins said she wanted to establish herself, to get more involved with her sorority and make friends at Auburn.
"I was kind of the opposite," Hawkins said. "I wanted to hang out with her all the time."
According to Hawkins, his life at this point consisted of going to class, hanging out with his then-girlfriend and playing video games.
Hawkins said he played an "unreasonable amount" of video games. At one point he was ranked number one on the global Gears of War leaderboards, playing 9-10 hours every day.
"It was like a job," Hawkins said.
When his girlfriend -- one of the biggest parts of his life -- left him, Hawkins said it hurt.
"I sat [outside her dorm] for 15 minutes, crying, hoping," Hawkins said.
At that point, Paul Stephens, then a senior in mechanical engineering, was passing by and saw Hawkins sitting alone on the steps in the cold. Stephens invited Hawkins to visit the Hill to accompany him and a group of other students who attended First Baptist Church in Opelika for their prayer group.
"I was desperate for friendship, for community, for something," Hawkins said. "So I ended up hopping in the car with this random stranger and going up to the Hill."
While the others played ping pong, Stephens spoke with Hawkins. Stephens gave Hawkins a piece of advice, something Hawkins said changed his life.
"It just hit me, this girl was not a problem," Stephens said. "It was his relationship with God."
Talking to Stephens made Hawkins realize he needed to take his religious faith more seriously. He described his faith as more casual until that point, something he and his family did because it was expected.
"We just went to church because it was the Southern thing to do," Hawkins said.
After his night with Stephens, though, Hawkins said he placed his faith before relationships with other people. Despite dating all through middle and high school and his first semester of college, Hawkins remained single until his senior year.
Instead, he went on mission trips, attended church at First Baptist Opelika and tried to lead a Christian life.
Hawkins said the charitable work helped him socialize more easily with people. Whether he was taking care of someone's kids or fixing a roof, the work pushed him out of his shell. Even if he only said 5-10 words at one time, it was a start.
One of the people he met on a mission trip to Port St. Joe, Florida., was his future wife Carmen Johnson, now a senior in elementary education. Hawkins and Johnson said their conversations on the car trip there helped revitalize Johnson's faith as well.
"Zac has really taught me just what it means to live so selflessly," Johnson said.
Joe Hwang, an Auburn graduate at whose wedding Zac served as best man, said he is glad Hawkins became more active in his faith.
"I can't say too much about his life before he started following Jesus other than that he was lost and living for himself," Hwang said. "I am very blessed and thankful to have a brother in Christ like Zac."
Four years after his conversion, Hawkins is living in Denver, with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Auburn and a new apartment. He and Johnson plan to get married Jan. 3.
Hawkins said he doesn't miss his old life. Though he plays video games against his brother occasionally on visits home, he abstains for the most part.
"I'm sure I could get back into it," Hawkins said. "I've been invited to go play MLG, which is Major League Gaming, in Dallas, Texas; and in Chicago. It's kinda crazy to think I could have spent my whole life playing video games and making money off the sponsors."
(12/21/14 7:00pm)
For college students, Auburn can be a tough town to live in when the University isn't in session. It can be hard to stay behind after all your college friends leave to go back home.
That's why it's important to keep finding things to do in Auburn, even over the break. Don't lock yourself up in your room to binge Netflix. You owe it to yourself to get out there and explore Auburn. There's a surprising amount of things to do, even when no one else is in town.
The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art stays open for some of the break. It's running an exhibit called Rembrandt, Rubens, and Gainsborough, and the Golden Age of Painting in Europe through Jan. 4. You can always drive down South College Street to check out some of the finest European paintings ever made, all through break. The Museum will be closed Dec. 22-25 and Dec. 29-Jan. 1 for Christmas and the New Year.
You can also take advantage of the reduced crowds to see this year's slate of Christmas movies. Imagine how much more you can enjoy films like "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" and "The Imitation Game" when you're not fighting anyone else for the good seats in the theater.
If you're not in the mood to stay inside, Auburn always has some fun stuff going on outdoors. Chewacla State Park stays open during the break. Even when it's cold out, the park is always good for a brisk hike. Don't try renting one of the canoes or kayaks, though. It's definitely too chilly for that.
The only bad part about visiting Chewacla is the couple dollars it charges for entrance. For a free outdoors experience, try the Davis Nature Preserve on North College Street. It offers a nice set of hiking trails for free. I've hiked the park before, and it's a nice experience. The trees aren't as lush in the winter, but it's still a way to get out of the house.
For those more interested in a sports experience, the Auburn men's basketball team keeps playing over break. They have a game against Texas Southern on Dec. 23 and one against Middle Tennessee on Dec. 29.
You could also give back some this Christmas. The Lee County Humane Society always appreciates volunteers who come by when the place is open (8 a.m. - 5 p.m.) to walk the dogs and let them work out some of their energy. It's free, you get to play with dogs and do something good all at the same time.
Similarly, you can always volunteer at different charitable organizations. The holidays are always a busy time for charities. Doing some good and making someone else's Christmas happier can be the perfect way to spend the holidays. Volunteering for something like The Food Bank of East Alabama is as easy as walking in and asking to help.
Regardless of what you choose to do, there are still things to do in Auburn over break. It's just a matter of pushing yourself to find them.
(12/20/14 8:30pm)
Five Nights at Freddy's tries to do something different than most apps -- scare you. Where other apps try to be beautiful, useful or simply entertaining, this odd horror game just wants to make you jump.
(12/19/14 5:00pm)
This week, The Plainsman focuses on music you listen to when your exams are done. These are the jams you turn on when you finally leave campus exam-free and without the burden of knowing how you did on those exams. To listen to the playlist, follow The Auburn Plainsman on Spotify.
(12/05/14 1:00pm)
It was Thanksgiving break, but 64 college students stayed in Auburn. They took no time off, continuing to work 24-hour shifts between 48-hour breaks.
The 62 men and 2 women who participate in the city of Auburn's student firefighter program don't take vacations.
"It's a pretty unique program," said Deputy Chief John Lankford. "No one else in the United States has a program like we do."
Lankford said after passing 10 weeks of fire and six weeks of emergency medical technician training, students work as fully fledged firefighters.
While other stations might limit how much students can do, Auburn student firefighters perform the same duties as their non-student counterparts.
Lankford said student firefighters' duties for an average day begin at 7 a.m. when they arrive at the station and relieve the last shift.
The students sweep, mop and vacuum the station. They check their equipment and make sure it's ready for use. At 8:30 a.m., they pause for breakfast.
After that, every day is different. Stephen Jackson, senior in building science with five and a half years experience as a student firefighter, said he enjoys the variety.
"I've had shifts where I do everything," Jackson said. "Fire, wreck, medical calls all day long. You really don't know what you're going to get."
Students go out with the rest of the firefighters, who respond to calls ranging from elderly people who've fallen to house fires. Lankford estimates the department receives 10-15 calls per day.
"We go do just about anything," said Alan McGinty, freshman in nursing. "It might not be the first thing you want to do at 12 o'clock at night, but you at least helped somebody."
McGinty, who graduated from firefighter training Aug. 15, said he enjoys having the opportunity to go on calls and help others.
Some days, the station gets a fire call. Jackson described fighting a fire as "intense." McGinty called it "an adrenaline rush."
Steven Barnes, master's student in public administration and student firefighter, said firefighters enjoy those calls -- even with the danger.
"I think anyone who goes through the training to become a fireman enjoys fighting fires," Barnes said. "I think we all have that same need for adrenaline."
McGinty said he relies on his training when he's on the scene of a fire.
Jackson, the five-year veteran, said training is the difference between safety and the very real dangers of fighting a fire.
To prepare, Jackson said the firefighters often perform drills and training exercises.
Between drills and calls, the student firefighters do chores around the station. Between chores, they do schoolwork.
"If we're not running anything at the moment, we're in that office or this office doing homework," Jackson said.
Barnes said the job has helped him procrastinate less. With 24-hour shifts, Barnes said there is little room for delays.
"You develop very good time-management skills," Barnes said. "It just becomes a balancing act that you just learn to cope with."
Student firefighters also have to balance their work against attending class. Though shifts are 24 hours, Lankford said students are allowed to leave to attend class without needing someone to cover for them.
According to Jackson, the flexibility compares well to other jobs.
"You can't find a job while you're in school or even out of school that works with you as much as Auburn works with us," Jackson said.
Jackson said the flexibility is one reason he's worked as a student firefighter for so long. He said he also appreciates everything he's learned on the job.
"I honestly thought it was fun at first," Jackson said. "It is fun, but it's also extremely valuable work. We get exposed to people at their highs and their lows. If you can work with that, you can work with anything."