re: New video on Texas A&M bonfire tragedy

I watched it and I don’t think he made a spectacle of the situation. He basically informed the audience.

It was mentioned he was loudly speaking in what is a memorial but there were no visitors he was interrupting nor was he being loudly disrespectful.

I myself did not know much about the bonfire tragedy, I knew it took place but did not know how it happened so it was informative to me and from the sounds of it quite the sight along with the photos it seemed like a very robust project with all of the machinery used to build the bonfire.

It mentioned that when it was built like a teepee, the fire would last for 4-6 hours but when they built it wedding cake style it only lasted for around an hour or so. The 4-6 hours sounds like it would have been an awesome sight and would have allowed everyone to come by and check it out.

I am not an Alter

Pio is an alter

On a side note, what if Google had been started at Texas A&M? It could have been. Before Google and Yahoo existed, my roommate who was getting his Masters then PhD at A&M would work on the side. He was Whataburger's first web hoster. He also did a few other companies. We stayed up waiting for GPS coordinates to become available in order to put up the first commercial map for Whataburger on the web. Same with credit cards for a wedding planner client. He had a server hosting free email addresses as soon as anyone else on the web. He had pretty much all the early stuff on the web as soon as it came out. I told him I'd quit school and be his sales man as well as help him with the programming, but he just wanted to get his PhD and teach. Other things he'd toy with for his thesis topics is AI and self-driving cars, but that wasn't anywhere close to coming to fruition.

When Google came out, we even talked about when IT companies would start trying to choose who became President and predicted 2020.

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My class was the first class never to participate in Bonfire. I wanted to be involved so I was on the Bonfire Steering Committee that was formed to basically figure out what happens next. LOTS of emotional meetings. Ultimately what we learned was that A&M, especially as a public entity would never be able to afford the optics or cost of insurance to cover such an event, assuming they could find a carrier that would give them a policy in the first place. I have serious doubts a University-sponsored Bonfire will ever burn again.

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I can’t imagine how emotional that room must have been. I also hadn’t considered the insurance aspect which must’ve been through the roof.

Like I said I know the whole bonfire experience actually started early in the semester. That’s part of what made it special for the students, that so many had a hand in it. Hiring an engineering company to build it may keep the event itself alive, but sucks away a lot that made it more personal. Just an excruciatingly tough situation.

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On a side note, what if Google had been started at Texas A&M? It could have been. Before Google and Yahoo existed, my roommate who was getting his Masters then PhD at A&M would work on the side. He was Whataburger's first web hoster. He also did a few other companies. We stayed up waiting for GPS coordinates to become available in order to put up the first commercial map for Whataburger on the web. Same with credit cards for a wedding planner client. He had a server hosting free email addresses as soon as anyone else on the web. He had pretty much all the early stuff on the web as soon as it came out. I told him I'd quit school and be his sales man as well as help him with the programming, but he just wanted to get his PhD and teach. Other things he'd toy with for his thesis topics is AI and self-driving cars, but that wasn't anywhere close to coming to fruition.

When Google came out, we even talked about when IT companies would start trying to choose who became President and predicted 2020.

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I'd have loved to meet your roommate, since I live in the technical world. I don't believe in the adage that those who cannot do, teach. Teaching is a skill set in and of itself and your roommate sounds like somebody that could do both. My favorite part of my job is presenting to large crowds, even though I also work with smaller groups. I believe in practical application as well as theory. And I know some incredibly intelligent people through the years of doing this with the same mindset as your former roommate. They just tinker with stuff for fun on the side. I've encouraged some of them to go work for Anduril, Palantir, MS, etc ... and provided them a reference.

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Go there and experience the memorial but no need to make a big production. Take your phone camera, get whatever B roll you need for your followers, and narrate at home. It’s a memorial and should be considered a pastoral setting, not opportunity stream you walk around explaining loudly how everyone died.

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Dude, people do this everywhere now. Negative things sell, generate clicks whatever. I’m not saying I agree with it, but pretty much any major disaster or tragedy has been documented to death by these types. Some people find it interesting in a non-insulting way.

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I'd have loved to meet your roommate, since I live in the technical world.

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I've been trying to get ahold of him, but haven't.been successful. My son currently is deciding between A&M and Mizzou and wants to start off in engineering. He asked me which engineering, and I'm partial to the biomedical engineering because that's what my roommate, Mark was doing. In addition to all he did at A&M, Mark was getting royalty checks from a heart valve he was a part of before coming to A&M. I met some very bright people at A&M.

Another odd bit of trivia, the first person to upload a nude photo on the internet was at the A&M campus. She was wise to make sure she hid her face.

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I'm a network architect now but went to school to be a veterinarian

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Opposite way around here. Did the Engineering. Did the IT. Now am Dentist. Had fun in all that. Dental is by far the easiest. I heard that A&M did away with their exotic veterinarian medicine. That's where I took sugar gliders when I got them in the 90s. Too bad, it was a great clinic but I guess the guy heading it retired.

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Go ask Ricky Williams who the real rival was?

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Been saying since the Ags left for the SEC that the aggie rivalry is just as important as the Oklahoma rivalry. It's different, but matters just as much. I don't care what anyone on either side says.

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Is that guy-Lamont at Large, an ex felon?

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I don’t think so but he definitely seems to have been exposed to the trashier side of Los Angeles growing up