Of dorms, IRC and an old friend

I am currently experiencing a period of writer’s block. Okay, maybe this will be refuted by people who may point the frankly alarming increase in post frequency over the last few days. But to be honest, my inability to come up with anything substantial is of some concern to me. I mean sure, this is a personal blog and all, but a blog without impassioned accounts on current society and informative posts on how to do things regular readers don’t really care about isn’t really a blog. It’s an online diary. I mean sure, Operation “Soaring Eagle” is substantial, but I can’t quite get myself to write the next post in the series yet. Partially because I gave away my SAT Prep books and want one of them back to refer to some stuff so that I don’t accidentally mislead anyone. If there’s anything worse the writing drivel, it’s writing factually incorrect drivel.

But nevertheless, I shall persevere, brave the rotten fruit and <insert further courageous move of choice>. As I mentioned in my last post, the dorm choices continue to take up an inordinate amount of my waking hours. But I guess in a way it’s justified. Where you’re going to spend a substantial part of your first year at college deserves some thought. Thing is, once you eliminate most of the choices, you’re still left in a muddle.

For example, I can easily eliminate all of the apartment housing options on offer because of a couple of reasons: there wouldn’t be too many freshmen around, and it’s a bit important to get to know your fellow admits. Bunking in a freshman-dominated dorm is one such way. Also, the sticker price for CMU includes the rates for a standard double room. There’s a premium on all the apartments, which puts them out of reach anyway.

But even so, it’s not really easy choosing from among the on-campus options either. There are several factors which aren’t of that much significance to me : gender ratios, distance from campus main buildings. But then stuff like size of rooms, windows, does matter to me. Also, Dad seems to be recommending that we pay premium and get a single room, but I’m personally not too big on it. I’ve nothing against a single room, but somehow look forward to a roommate. The housing app does ask questions like “Are you a morning person or a night person”, “How often do you clean your room”, but those are just background questions in context of the bigger picture of what my future roommate might actually be like. There’s so much more to a person than the time he’ll wake up and all.

Also, some people set up a IRC chatroom at chat.freenode.net. #cmu2015 is the name of the room. If anything, it can get more social then chatting over FB wall posts or the Social CMU group that’s been set up. Agreed, there are a bunch of people with IRC clients just idling around, but once in a while you do get to meet some people. Am currently trying to use all possible channels to make some friends at CMU.

This sort of brings me onto another topic – friends. Well, of course, I’ll be retaining most of my friends from Delhi, but I also realize that there are tons more to be made at CMU.

EDIT : Friends encompasses passive acquaintances as well as the breed you keep for life.

Which raises an interesting question : how many meaningful relationship can a normal human being maintain. I mean sure, technology makes distances less meaningful, but how many people can you actually remain in touch with on a regular basis, remember details of their lives and whatnot. It may not turn into a full-blown research trial with lab-rats volunteers, but at least on a personal level, I’d like to make observations

Speaking of friends, want to bring up the last section of the title of this post – an old friend. To be honest, I’m referring to my old PC, Dick. He wasn’t necessarily the most reliable of PCs. Nor was the the fastest. But he’d been a good friend for the 4 years that we spent together. It started with a few hiccups with the display, which eventually turned into 3 full blown transplants (read RMAs of the display driver). Things continued to deteriorate. The fan on the motherboard chipset gave way. Then the IDE and SATA controllers started to develop minds of their own, the ROM chip disintegrated and eventually, there were intermittent systemic failures during which I watched the fans spin up expectantly, but the screen continued its display of nothingness.

Dick was eventually euthanized. Or so it would seem…

Of course, what happened next is not in the realm of normal death-successor sequences, at least in human life. I got Marvin, my next PC, but detained Dick’s cabinet. Which is a bit like saying you disembowel a corpse, fill it with new organs and expect a new person. It works for computers though. Dick was then confined to a large bag – all components were stored away for possible future use. Then at one point (18th September, but I forgot the real motivation), the motherboard was taken to Nehru Place for repair. Since it was already out of warranty, there really wasn’t any point taking it to the official service center. Instead, I’m fishing out this old picture I took that day, for reasons I can’t quite recall, except perhaps that I liked the lighting of the scene.

We took Dick to an underground repair shop (I do not kid you – it’s the computer equivalent of visiting a quack). But, this guy knew what he was doing. He could immediately identify the damaged CMOS chip leg which I was about to point out to him in case he didn’t notice it himself. After some rubbing alcohol, soldering and exchange of green bits of paper, Dick, it seemed, was back in commission. But, he was simply bagged again, for another day.

Today, that is…

I spent the better part of the morning cleaning out Marvin, inside out – including, but not limited to removing and cleaning the PCBs on the front door panel. It was a rather satisfying experience, but then I remembered Dick, lying in a bag, on top of some dresser. A quick inspection revealed that all pieces were intact. But unfortunately, a quick setup later, I realized that all was not well. After borrowing the graphics card from Marvin (again, not something that is valid for humans – you cannot borrow an organ), I realized that something was/is amiss. And the lack of a PC speaker only makes diagnosis more error-prone. So I think Dick will be going back into a bag for now.