Thoughts, opinions and fascinating discoveries by Elliot, a student at USC
Having a computer in my room reminds me of a huge phase of my life which I’d almost forgotten.
Before I used AOL (I think), I used Prodigy. It wasn’t even an internet service - it was their own Prodigy software and their own services and content. It had online games and stuff. I used to use it all the time - I loved the different puzzles and stuff that it had.
So I’m now on a new computer with XP SP2 (from CD). Interestingly, it never asked me for the product key. Anyway, here are the updates since SP2. I hope they’re safe to install.
I’ve finally put a computer in my room. We’ve got tons of computers (about 12) lying around. The one I’m using is a Dell PowerEdge 400SC server. Bought it almost a year ago for $199. 2 GHz Celeron, 128 MB RAM. Still, a great deal for the price.
My Uncle Ted visited today. He’s amazing - went to MIT and Brown, worked for Apple, and now he works for the OSAF. One thing we talked about was how it doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, where you go for college. What matters, when you go out to make a name for yourself, is how well you do your work.
Top 11.
11. Ornithotakuphobia - Fear of having a bird fly into your house and take a crap on your Anime figurines and toys.
10. Hypnojediphobia - Fear of being victim of Jedi Mind Tricks.
9. Rectoriaaphobia - Fear of being financially ruined by an file-sharing lawsuit.
8. Seplopizzaphobia - Fear that the year-old pizza that’s decaying in the corner will become sentient.
7. Chrometoramophbia - Fear of spending too much money on RAM.
6. Megaduophobia - The fear of any number other than 0 or 1.
5. Codexplodaphobia - Fear that the one line of code you changed will completely screw up the program or entire application.
4. Wipadiskaphobia - The fear of erasing your holiday photos from the camera before you copied them to PC.
3. Scrudbywinnaphobia - The fear of Windows crashing before get a chance to save.
2. Russophobophobia - In Soviet Russia, phobias fear you!
1. Botanophagophobia - Fear of eating vegetables or plants, unless they’ve been deep-fried beforehand.
so, about two months later, I finally get my order from freeipods.com. order shipped 10/15/04 from China via fedex, arrived 3 days later on 10/18/04. I might post the obligatory pics later. worth nothing is that most of my completed referrals (if not all) came from people I don’t know in real life. these were all internet buddies. that brings me to another point. over the course of my life thus far I’ve probably talked to well over 1,000 people on AIM (just an estimate). and yet I still know relatively few people in real life. very few, in fact.
This preference pair describes how we naturally approach life. Judging students seem to have built-in clocks and are able to plan out their work and work their plan. Perceiving students live more in the moment, taking a spontaneous approach to life. They are not lazy or irresponsible by nature. Instead, they understand that being flexible opens opportunities.
Taking a break from figuring out routes I was skiing along on a spring day I saw an acorn sprouting. I asked him what his expression would be when he grows up and he said: “Gee, I’m a Tree”. Fine mathematician, I thought. Upon rounding the bend I saw some old clothing like stuff floating in a pool. Sure enough it was Algae Bra. (Don’t ask any Trig. questions). I then stopped and listened to some trees telling jokes. Something about some nerdy guy with Square Roots. Their laughter in unison was so moving that they got a good Logarithm going. (They say that global warming doesn’t affect the brain, but you couldn’t prove it by me).
Excerpt from Infinity’s House by Ellen McLaughlin
But we don’t need the thing to win the war. We’ve as good as won the war already. And as for saving the world, well, what comes to mind is Alfred Nobel thinking that when he invented dynamite he was going to end human warfare - I know you think that’s an unfair analogy - Oh, Robert, I just - you’re so much more hopeful about mankind than I’ve ever been. It’s something I love in you but I don’t entirely trust. I don’t think you’ve ever had much to do with mankind. I mean, aren’t you the man who didn’t know about the stock-market crash until Lawrence told you about it a full year later? And that goes for all of us, we’re all at least somewhat removed from the rest of the world. But it’s particularly true of your people. I heard that the average age at Los Alamos is twenty-five. And these aren’t even normal young men. We’re all boys who spent our childhoods in basements, playing with radios, fooling with chemical compounds, always smarter and younger than any of the other kids around us, never at home in a group - until now. Now we’re surrounded by people just as strange and obsessive as ourselves. It’s this little hothouse of hybrids in the middle of the desert. Children. And all of us fascinated with gizmos - build a bomb by using the principle of fission? - Yeah, I could do that! I could do that! - and then we go off in a corner and tinker. That’s what we do best and we love doing it, get such a charge out of solving these problems that we forget what it is that we’re in fact bringing about. We behave as if this is just another gizmo, and, God, by far the most incredible one yet - satisfying on so many levels. But, in fact, we’ve never lived in this world we talk so much about. I don’t think you’re very familiar with human nature, really, and I don’t think you know much about mankind, Robert. Forgive me.
in the “townhall format” it seemed to be a better format overall due to the flexibility it offers the debaters.
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