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Today is the 4th
anniversary of the Columbine tradegy. In a somewhat interesting note, I also
saw Bowling for Columbine, the Micheal Moore film about Columbine and gun
violence in America, for the first time today. I didn't even relieze that I was
seeing it on the same day that it happened until about an hour before I left to
see it. Anyways, the movie is really quite good, and definitly worth seeing.
It's a collection of interviews and cutscenes asking why there is so much gun
violence in America as compared to other countries (something like 34 gun
deathes in Japan, compared to over 11,000 in the US) and what can be done and
tries to explain our gun culture. He definitly has a bias which has to be taken
into account, plus his guerilla interview tactics are a bit unfair, but he makes
lots of good points and raises some very tough questions.
It also asks what causes people to resort to violence, what drives kids over the
edge. Which leads to something I've done for the previous two years, which is to once
again bring attention to the living nightmare that middle and high school are to
a lot of kids. As the first in a series of 10 articles originally posted on
Slashdot, Voices
from the Hellmouth describes the life after Columbine for many kids still in
high school at the time. The other 9 articles can be found in the link above
from last year's update on this day, and they're all definitely suggested
reading. But as Matt Stone pointed out in the movie, there is life after
secondary school, and the sooner kids relieze this the better. It's just
unfortunate that it takes a major tradegy like Columbine to open the eyes of a
lot of adults to how school *really* is for many kids.
But in happier news...
At long last my 8-bit computer for my digital design class is finished! It was
about a 2 and a half week long project, that went fairly smoothly for the most
part except for the very end. But eventually I got all the bugs and kinks worked
out, and so now I have a simple computer with about 15 instructions, an 8-bit
datapath, and 1k of memory. It was a lot of fun to do though, and I really enjoy
the class, plus the board is just too cool looking. I'll have to upload a
picture whenever I get them developed next (which could be a while since I now
have two camera's to get through....)
Risk is a very
fun game. Playing it until 2 am on a Friday night is awfully nerdy, but that's
the fun of living in college :)
My closet looks really empty now. My
parents came up today to take home the fridge and some extra stuff, and now it
seems like there's a huge gaping hole in my closet. Maybe I should fill
it with a potted plant. Yes yes, a potted plant, like a fern.
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