The IT Student Blog

Two identical souls walking the face of the earth, coexisting in the same dominion of chaos. What will happen if they shake hands?

-The fourth dimension will collapse upon itself. You stupid bitch!

The apocalyptic movie Southland Tales gives a picture of how the destination of our current digital culture will look like. It is a world with highly complex technology and incredible possibilities. Clone machines and alternative energy sources are a fact, but unfortunately also economical crisis and extreme surveillance. There are soldiers on rooftops everywhere, with loaded machine guns and laptops connected to a watchtower. Up in the watchtower sits an evil woman with red lipstick, spinning her chair watching all the screens around her as she is stressfully chewing gum. This is not particularly popular amongst the rebellious neo-Marxists. Moreover, a porn star, named Krysta Now, is trying to (sort of) save the world with her new reality show. Because on top of all this: it is the world war three.

WW3…

…and a million other details.

(But I won’t spoil the whole movie for you guys, because I really recommend you watching it. Not just because Justin Timberlake is in a starring role.)

When having seen this extraordinary dystopia, I wonder:

• Is future technology threatening our existence?

It appeared as though my computer didn’t die (completely) after all.

You can never know with Windows running on a PC! And you learn something new every day.Today’s lesson: Always expect the unexpected.

Or rather: Don’t rely on computers. Sooner or later they’re all doomed to die. Just like ourselves. My old French teacher once said, “Life is a disease that no one survives”. Pretty depressing… However, this is true for computers as well. Maybe you can put it like, “Windows is a disease, no computer survives”

…but I guess, “Cia is a user that no computer survives”, is more likely the case.

Sometimes I actually wonder whose fault it is.

What do you think is most likely?

a) The user is stupid
b) The computer is stupid
c) They’re both smart, but something happened on the way…

And another question:

How come violence can revive a PC? I mean, you would never hit a Macintosh, but beating on a PC just makes it work even better?! -It sure is a mystery.

Never forget to do backups.

Never.

I just found out that my dear computer has taken its last breath. All my music, pictures, work, received files… gone. I know, I’ve been told before to do backups, but I never seemed to care. Well, actually, I didn’t care. I was more like: never store your life in a computer! But hey, that was obviously what I was doing; piling up my life story in a computer. And now, my life is gone. (Not entirely, but it certainly feels a bit empty).

My old computer had so many viruses that the anti-virus program stopped working. I couldn’t download new software, since it lacked Service Pack 2. It didn’t react to any external devices. Not even to my red memory stick. Pop-ups were jumping up my screen even though I hadn’t opened the browser. And it was always this woman in carnival clothes who told me I could win money without even touching my wallet. Tempting, huh?

I decided to do something about it. Disk defragging! But my disk defrag refused to cooperate. What the…?!

After weeks of ignoring my computer; I tried to start it. But to my surprise, it was as dead as a zombie. Sort of half-dead, with the fan sounding really angry and the screen just pitch black. Bloody hell.

Suddenly all the people who constantly have been telling me to do backups: YOU WERE RIGHT. (But please admit: you knew this would happen!)

To all the people out there… DO BACKUPS!!

The question you’ve probably heard all too many times by now. Well, maybe it surprises you to hear that this is something you’ll learn in the LAD-course, taking place in the 2nd term of the SEM-program.
LAD is the abbreviation for Logic, Algorithms & Data structures. But could also stand for:

• Long Agony Death
• Lucky Adamant Determination
• Life Affirming Decision
• Lethal Anxiety Disorder
• Likely Axiomatic Disorder
• Long Axis Delight
• Love And Despair
• Life Annihilating Destruction
• Long Awaited Date

I was cheerfully copy pasting everything that my class mates came up with as personal messages on msn. The nearer the exam we got, the more creative abbreviations they came up with.

Btw, I need to warn you all: The matrix is just a simple table with data.
…
I know. It’s the harsh reality.
No binary numbers in neon green. IT is nothing like the matrix. It’s like in the real world.