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I officially have proof that brain cells can and do regenerate, despite what others may be saying. For the first time, I spotted more people reading on the train than were plugged into cellphones or MP3 players. Good job, humanity!
So I've been missing for over a month now, due to circumstances that I'll label with the blanket term "technical difficulties". Hosting my own server might have been a good option when I lived within a few meters of the computer, but when it's 650km in a different state, asking family members to crawl under the couch and reboot the server...
It's been a long month! The end of the academic quarter brings with it final exams, final papers, projects, and of course the usual insanity brewing on my floor.
Throughout the month, my friends and I have made a habit of scouting for trash PCs on campus. We seem to throw out perfectly good hardware with no good reason, which is great for us, since we can capitalize on those sorts of leavings. Among my friends' pillages have been some recent-looking Inspiron laptops, rack-mountable switches, vintage IBM Model M keyboards, and dedicated hardware firewalls, among other things. As for me, I...
On Mondays and Wednesdays, I've been having an interesting problem: two almost-adjacent two-hour classes that require me to run back to my dorm after the first class is over, so that I can recharge my laptop. Annoying? You bet.
I researched an extra battery but found out that one would run me $180, and I wouldn't be able to use my docking station with it. So I came up with this:
"This" being a 180-watt-hour battery pack constructed from two UPS batteries and a car adapter. Now I can run around for eleven hours without having to plug in - although my...
Those guys actually went around to pick people up, too.
Apparently someone that received one of the aforementioned handouts decided it would be a great idea to add insult to injury. The guilty party scanned the handout containing all of my contact information and posted it to the armpit of the Internet, 4chan's /b/ board.
It's amazing how long you can spend safeguarding your privacy, yet how quickly those barriers that you've erected can be broken down with one fell swoop.
Some wonderful people decided to hand out roughly 150 flyers containing my name, phone number, e-mail and IM addresses, and Skype name to various people on campus. Now that I'm receiving a deluge of phone calls and e-mails IMs and Skype requests, I figured I'd let everybody know that I may end up changing my phone number and e-mail address if things keep up like this.
Thanks a lot, world.
I don't know what's so hard about operating a microwave: turn the dial and, if necessary, add some water. Yet in two weeks my entire residence hall has been evacuated three times, due to someone not following the "1-2-3" directions on the back of their food, then leaving the microwave and letting the entire floor fill with smoke.
This will become commonplace, I take it?
Somehow I'm not at all surprised that everybody in the laundry room has a laptop on them.
Does anyone remember my giant Wi-Fi antenna? I think it's now safe to say that I no longer need it; there are Wi-Fi access points located every fifty meters or so. The only place I've been so far where I haven't been able to get a Wi-Fi signal is the parking lot - residence halls, dining commons, laundry room, everything has Wi-Fi. It's a welcome change from having to use an antenna just to get a signal in some classrooms.
I wouldn't think that a...
Here's a short list of things I've learned, considered, and/or regretted these past few days:
When someone pulls the fire alarm at 6AM, you should grab a jacket, NOT your computer. Rochester is cold in the morning.
Always take a towel to the showers. An embarrassing mistake I made my first day, I ended up drying off with a shirt.
I really should have finished my streaming server before coming here. Aside from WITR 89.7, the campus FM station, there isn't an awful lot of radio around here, and the WFNX...
And so begins my final full day in Boston for a long while. It's a feeling that I knew was coming since last year, but finally set in. I'll be making my last rounds around the city in the morning, and plan on finishing up the packing in the afternoon, leaving Saturday morning for the 6.5-hour, 400mi / 650km trip to college. Hopefully it won't take me all that long to get situated there so that I can come back and detail the move-out and move-in.
Anyway, the past few weeks have been rather eventful:
My rooming situation has been up in...
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