Computer science

"To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer." I love computers and technology. I spend more than 60% of my free time in hearing range of my computer, so I can rush back at the first blurb--or quack, depending on the program--signalling an instant message. There's just so much out there on the Internet that amazes me. Even if I don't referred to interesting sites (like the ones in the linkblog to the left), I can entertain myself by reading the news. Or listening to music. Or looking up how to do something I've always wanted to do (how to make mochi, how to start a fire with a coke can and chocolate, etc). And then blogging about it all. But I have this love/hate relationship with computers. For everything I enjoy doing, there is a flip side. I have to watch PowerPoint presentations in Biology lectures. I have to deal with the troubles that the not-so-super "supercomputing cluster" gives me for no reason at all. Even just doing word processing is a major headache. Would society be better off without computers? Or, let me rephrase that, since "better off" is pretty ambiguous. As Ms. Goebel would ask, "Has the proliferation of computers eroded the simple life, as advocated by Henry David Thoreau?" Of course, this is one of those "pointless" questions that I was uninterested in discussing in AP Lit, AP Language, and Wells Seminar. Since I never read "Life in the Woods" (sorry Ms. Gregg and Ms. Goebel!), I don't really know, haha. Perhaps I don't like these questions because I don't have a strong answer for them, or perhaps there really is no answer, and I'm bored because nothing sheds new light on these questions. I realize that computers have simplified tasks. Powerpoints can be boring, but equally uninspired chalkboard lectures would be worse. Letting the computer figure out the Schroedinger equation beats working it out by hand. And with typewriters, actual tape is needed to copy and paste. Even Thoreau converted his family's factory from making pencils to helping to re-ink typewriters. And keeping a physical journal doesn't have the appeal of updating a weblog ^^;; ...this is random, but I wonder where that Internet emoticon (^^;;) came from. I learned it from Pat, so maybe it originated from Starcraft multiplayer games? [EDIT: see next post for info on emoticons]