To quote Dinosaur comics, what are the haps my friends
What I've been up to lately, in no particular order:
- Read "The Design of Everyday Things" and was fascinated how fundamental ideas of how humans interact with objects could be applied in interesting ways to video game creation, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, business and many other things besides.
- Read "Blink" the bestseller about instant intuitive thinking. It had some interesting ideas but largely was flash over substance. Oh well.
- Got offered a job, to help me get more experience in my path to grad school. Probably will start next month. I get paid to do science! Sometimes this seems too good to be true.
- Got absolutely hooked for life on the new Doctor Who. (10th Doctor ftw)
- Voted (today) for Obama in the primaries. Voting was at Howard High, which has had substantial renovations. It's like a totally different school. I'd thought it'd be mildy nostalgic being in the old school again, but it was just strange.
- Discovered I still had half of my savings bond stashed away. Since I'll have to start paying taxes when I get paid, my mom suggested I cash it in. No problem.
- I spent half of it and bought an awesome little laptop. (Asus eee 4GB Surf White) I also picked out a nice inexpensive but sturdy bag for it so we can be pals.
I spent most of the first day with it just fiddling around with it, trying to get it customized. Amusingly I inadvertently got a crash course in linux, now i can do simple things like add repositories and install some software. Unfortunately since it runs on a customized Xandros, you mostly have to install Debian builds and hope for the best.
I'm happy to say I got Kyntt and Kyntt Stories working under wine. At first it ran really slowly but after some tweaking I got it to run fine. I don't know what it is about this game, it never gets old. I mean, i liked fl0w a lot too, but you don't see me still playing that. (Now if i could play the shiny ps3 version it might be a different story)
I also got Urquan Masters/Starcon2 running. It takes a little tweaking cause the screen is small, but it runs great. It'd be a great way to pass time on the bus i think. Mine a few systems, fight some bad guys and then tackle traffic on the way home. :p
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I'm also finally doing something about my book problem. It was kinda amusing at first, i mean too many books? It's like complaining the air is too clean and the grass is too green. But now the books are pushing 800+ and I just don't have the shelf/floor space. Plus i'm done reading a lot of them already so why keep em? Most of them are manga, which I read like popcorn anyway. I'm putting 45 manga into the mail tomorrow and trading away another 10. I'll probably sell the ones that are worth anything.
Speaking of manga, I read Jiro Taniguchi's Ice Wanderer and other stories the other day. It was easily one of the best graphic novels i've read all year. It has an amazing amount of depth to it. I gotta say graphic novels, manga and otherwise are good at what they do but it's a rare one that sticks with you and you find yourself still thinking about it the next day.
That's all that comes to mind at the moment. Going to sleep. (This post was brought to you by cynthia's awesome little laptop which doesn't have a name yet)