The Middle of the Beginning

I feel like I need to write about something - anything, really. Something creative or meaningful.

I keep losing myself in these what-if situations lately. What if I had handled things differently? What if I was 6-10 years older? What if I was a secret agent? (Chuck is a big influence on my subconscious). It's sort-of like an allergy, actually, brought on by specific interactions. Different what-ifs crop up around exposure to different situations in life, and each what-of has a different effect on the following minutes, hours, or even days. Also, I frequently desire the source code for my brain so that I might be able to modify it to avoid such thinking. If I had the code, I would totally open-source it. It would totally be the most popular project on Google Code.

I have a lot of things I haven't admitted to people. Not deep dark secrets or anything, just silly things that I think about. Things I'd love to talk about and gossip about like I was back in 8th grade. Thoughts that surprise or frighten me often have no place in normal conversation regardless of how often they pop into my mind. My own overactive thought production makes me wonder: how does everybody else deal with this? I just sort of cover them up and put them in a pile to ignore with extreme prejudice. I am intrigued by other solutions to this overabundance of non-socially-acceptable thoughts. I refuse to believe I'm the only one that is this specific brand of crazy.

In other news, I graduate in 4-ish weeks. Does anybody want to rent my apartment? We need to get rid of it for June or else we have to pony up for an extra month. We forgot about the whole 60-day notice thing, and apparently 49 days is not quite enough. A $300 mistake wouldn't be the most expensive screw-up ever, though, so I suppose I will live. At least the internet isn't in my name and there are no utilities to cancel - I'm not doing real well on the whole "responsibility" thing right now. It's senior design, I swear: I spend most of my weekends in the lab working (I2C still doesn't work and I have absolutely no idea why), and Wednesday/Friday mornings are spent there as well. In addition to those blocks, I have the trickle of emails to keep up with: I cemented myself as the point of contact for all external correspondence, so I have emails from all over the place asking me for information and responses. I wish I could log that time to make myself look better, but at least my team appreciates it. And now we have presentations coming up: at least 4 in the next 4 weeks starting tomorrow. Then Friday for the practice show, then the next Friday for our sponsor / my future employer, then two weeks from then for the real thing. It is both scary and exciting. I do get to wear my suit a whole bunch, though, and that is never a bad thing.

What happened with the Microsoft Kin? I was psyched about it - ready to accept it as the successor to the Sidekick, the latest and greatest featurephone/smartphone hybrid aimed at on-the-go youth. I wanted it to be an awesome platform and to gain users and grow and mature and just generally succeed. Except now it won't. Why? First off, the hardware and software are lacking. Both Engadget and Boy Genius Report commented that the devices are quite lacklustre, even frustrating to use. Not a good sign. The more damning problem, however, is the plans: Microsoft expects people - keep in mind this is a device aimed at teens and early twenties - to pay for standard voice and text ($40 min) in addition to a full smartphone data plan ($30 min). $70/mo for a poorly-designed featurephone? Honestly, at this point I hope it fails. The Kin started out as an awesome idea, but Microsoft dropped the ball and ended up with a shoddy product that's not even worth the price of admission.

Reddit has been down since around 4pm today. It has completely thrown me off my normal routine of idly clicking through to stories and scrolling through the comments. The front page hasn't changed in hours since they suspended all accounts and made the site read-only while they try to fix the slowness/503 errors. I haven't been an active redditor for too long, but already I've worked the site into my daily routine. I'm going through withdrawal - I even stooped so low as to return to Digg, albeit temporarily. It was awful.

I wish somebody could tell me exactly what my net wages will be. I would also like to know how much I will spend per month on rent, utilities, insurance, and other niceties. I just want to know that I'll be making. It's greedy, I suppose, but I more want to know just to have an idea. I'm going to try to start up my spreadsheets early and keep them updated. I want to be a fiscally responsible adult. I want to pay down my college/car debit as soon as I can without sacrificing too much. I want to be independent. I'll get there soon enough.

I've been trying to figure out what I want to do about telecom stuff. What I really want is Verizon FiOS, but that's not available. ATT U-Verse would be awesome, but it, too, is unavailable at my home. I'm stuck with ATT DSL or Time Warner Cable, neither of which is a terribly good choice. What jackass decided that home users only need 768k of upload? I'd gladly sacrifice some downstream for 1 or 2MBps up. But I am stuck. I could always get Clear 4G (cue laugh track). At least I'm not getting stuck with Comcast.

Speaking of the internet, you all need to take a minute and read this article. The FCC is taking some awesome steps toward ensuring the future of the internet. Net Neutrality is a hugely important topic for everyone these days, and it is important that you understand what it going on. It may seem like some esoteric thing especially for geeks, but it will affect you in the near future if the telecoms have their way. Feel free to chat me up if you need more details. I'd be more than happy to explain the ideas behind net neutrality.

And with that, I should probably wrap up this scattered blogpost. Farewell.