The Burger Lecture

I'm going to give today's topic to personal reflections since there's nothing all that noteworthy in the wake of the big Apple announcement. First of all, I'm totally thrilled that Misra, one of the most referenced people in CS, will be handling CS 336 in the Spring and Keckler is doing a section of CS 352 that I will do everything my power to get into. Anyway, Professor Doug Burger (of the famed TRIPS project) gave a great lecture tonight that he gives every year all about graduate school and I'm glad I went because I learned a ton from it realizing how little I actually knew before. For example, I had no idea that you don't actually pay for grad school. Instead, you can either get an NSF fellowship, a department fellowship, a research assistantship, or a teaching assistantship, which would cover your tuition as well as room and board. That knocks off my monetary concerns with regard to further higher education, so why not go straight into grad school after I get my Bachelor's? I think I'm just really itching for the industry and I've spent so long budgeting my expenses that it'd be nice to make a good amount of money for a while. That means I'll definitely have to set my sights for a job near a good graduate school and for a company that would be willing to pay for my fellowship, which would make me more likely to get accepted since the school wouldn't have to pay for me. It sounds like getting my Master's degree would be cost-effective, and I think I've decided that it has to be my M.S. because I'm so much more interested in learning more about C.S. that than in Business. Plans can change, of course, and I guess I'm just waiting to see how my job opportunities unfold. Taking the GRE is going to be the biggest pain in the ass it seems.

We haven't heard much regarding Vista for a while and now we have some leaked pictures from the upcoming OS once again showing nothing special. Maybe Bill Gates should spend more time on that than on touring the nation's colleges. It sounds like from UT CS seniors who are currently looking for jobs that there isn't the deluge of jobs that people like Gates would have you believe. Meanwhile, Google quietly hired the lead programmer on the Gaim project, likely to make Google Talk not suck and maybe quite possibly to throw more support behind Gaim. If you thought that this summer was hotter than it usually is, then you'd be right because it's the hottest year on record. I hope this trend doesn't continue, though I'm sure it will anyway. Lastly, there's a pretty in-depth article on video game aesthetics over here for those of you interested in past and current trends or if you want to throw something in the faces of friends who laud gameplay over all.

I'm going to start off here with rumor of a couple of sequels. The first is for Big Momma's House, which I have to admit was a funny movie although I'm not sure how a sequel would work exactly. The other one is also a comedy and is for the now classic Austin Powers series, though that one is much less certain at this point. If you want even more hearsay then there's rumblings that Michael Keaton is vying for the role of The Joker in the next Batman movie, but that does sound a little far-fetched. I think that Silent Hill may be the first really good movie for video game fans, and my faith is renewed based on some words spoken by writer Roger Avary who is an actual fan of the gripping survival-horror series. I also have high hopes for Jarhead, which is coming much sooner than Silent Hill and is an almost light-hearted study of a soldier during the Gulf War, but it seems to have some heavy themes. If you really want something to look forward to though the reviews are positive so far for Memoirs of a Geisha and it's not too far away. Lastly, here's a picture of Cameron Diaz just because she's hot:



Now for the 3x Thursday meme:

1. Can you handle confrontation? Do you get in there and get your hands dirty and stand up for whatever it is that you're arguing about, or do you back away? Why?
It really depends on the context of the situation. I'm more likely to confront someone who I know rather than just a total stranger.

2. If you have to confront someone about something, how do you go about doing it? Is it usually successful?
I usually start out nice but get rougher if they bite back.

3. What do you do when a confrontation goes sour? How do you handle the aftermath?
I walk away and let our heads cool off for a while.