Category: Uncategorized

Prius Stuff

Out of curiosity, I pulled up the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s safercar.gov web site to compare a 2001 Toyota Prius, a 2005 Toyota Prius, and a 2004 Subaru Forester side-by-side. The results are interesting — the 2005 Prius is only slightly less safe than the Forester and an obvious improvement over the 2001.

What brought this on? A 2001 Toyota Prius has been on eBay for the last couple weeks under a couple different item numbers, first listed at $11,980 (item #4555762203, Buy it Now price) and now listed at $11,480 (item #4557663223, Buy it Now price). The recommended MSRP is much higher — around $17,000 for that particular vehicle (the auction says $16,000, but I’m being a bit more generous and tagging on an extra thousand).

So here’s the question looking at those auctions inspires for me. The car has roughly 92,000 miles on it, but I’m curious whether that kind of mileage should be a negative when considering purchasing full hybrids like the Prius. On a normal ICE, I wouldn’t dare go anywhere near that car with a 25-foot pole. However, since Priuses are gasoline/electric, there isn’t as much wear and tear on the gas engine, so it seems like reliability would be just as good as if the car had roughly 50,000-60,000 miles on it. No proof to back up that wild guess, but it would be interesting to see data on this.

caeryn Updates

I’ve been working on restoring caeryn to operation (my home server), since she’s been down for the last few days. Turns out, the IP address on our DSL line changed, rendering her inaccessible. So that problem’s fixed.

I’ve also uninstalled my manual install of SquirrelMail on that machine and installed it via RPM for easier updating. She’s also now getting a much-needed update:

116 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 removed and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 130MB of archives.
After unpacking 21.1MB disk space will be freed.

She should be back to normal soon. Gotta love Fedora Core 3-based servers.

Graduation Application and Evaluations

I went in and turned in my graduation application today. The woman at the Registration and Records desk knew why immediately, asking me whether I was applying for a BS. The answer is essentially yes, though it’s actually the BA and BS combined. The requirements for that are 225 credits with at least 90 of the final 135 earned at Evergreen, which include 72 credits of science, math and computer science, of which at least 48 are upper division. At the moment, I have 22 upper division credits, only 8 of them in computer science. No biggie — I stand to get an additional 48 upper division computer science credits through Student Originated Software.

Thus, my BS is obviously in Computer Science. I’m sticking with the idea of having my BA in Writing, since I’ve done enough of it within the last four years. That’s an easy argument to support.

I also went in and had the second part of my evaluation appointment. I should be getting 4 upper division writing credits out of the 8 credits total for that contract. Cool.

Only another year left…

Fall 2005 Class Debate Over

I decided to go with Student Originated Software, though I admit to still being worried as to whether that’s the right choice. We’ll see what happens. I’m really interested in being on more of the executive side of computing or business, but I figure that having a computer science degree will help with bridging the gap between business and technology.

My dad made a point — programmers today are a dime a dozen, and much of the glory of being a programmer is fading. That’s not really why I’m taking the program, though it is heavily software development — the process inherent in software development can be applied in other places, and bridging disciplines and differences is inherent in Evergreen’s Five Foci of Learning. I think I can use what I learn out of this process within a business environment quite successfully if given a chance.

I paid both summer tuition and my Spring 2006 graduation fee today. I’ll be dropping off my graduation application for a combined BS/BA the next time I’m on campus (sometime next week). The BS will obviously be in Computer Science; I figure that the BA will likely be in Writing. Neither of these will actually be on the degree, but I can make the argument with my summative eval that I have enough experience in writing to pull it off.

The Fall 2005 Class Debate

So now I have to decide which program it is that I want to take for
Fall, and it’s giving me a bit of a headache. I can see pros and
cons for taking either one. I reverted back to something that I
did when I was selecting colleges and started typing up a pro/con list
for taking either program. Right now, it doesn’t feel like either side
is winning. On the one hand, I really enjoy business and I like the
idea of focusing more on business ethics after my experience a couple
years ago. On the other, I also rather enjoy computer science, but I’m
not at all sure of whether I could succeed in another computer science
program after my rather frustrating experience with Data to Information
last year. The clincher here is that the only part of Data to
Information that really gave me heartburn was the Discrete Math
component — I did well in and really enjoyed all of the other
components of that program. Student Originated Software has no math.

One of the other big tripping points for me is that I know that what I
graduate with, in the short term, will control what jobs I can get. I
have also considered applying for a dual degree if I take Student
Originated Software, since I definitely would have enough credit to be
awarded both a BS and a BA (and, in fact, dual degrees are why most
people stay a fifth year). If I did that and decided I didn’t want to
do computer science, I’d have the BA as a fallback, but it wouldn’t be
in business. I guess what I’d love is a BS in computer science and a BA
in business, but I’m fairly sure my credits won’t support that by the end.

Here’s my pro/con list for both programs as it stands:

Reasons to Take SOS

  • All-year program focusing in Computer Science
    would allow for application for dual BS/BA graduation with computer science and another possible arts topic (writing?)
  • Challenged to succeed and defeat previous beliefs regarding strengths in computer science
  • Opportunities for practicing oral presentations
  • Upper division science credit for BS in Computer Science; closely related to second bullet
  • Strengthens work with databases
  • Real-world opportunities for practicing oral presentations and leadership skills with a chosen software client (likely the Writing Center, unless assigned to another project)
  • No math component

Reasons to Take Business in Society

  • Reviews and strengthens an area I am already strong in
  • Focuses upon business ethics, a topic of interest to me
  • Higher confidence in business and business management than in software development
  • More opportunities for writing to strengthen possible degree focus in general writing
  • Confident of success in the program
  • Opportunities for practicing oral presentations
  • No initial problems with staying for full program

Reasons Not to Take SOS

  • Not confident of succeeding in the program
  • No strong math background to back up computer science degree (though this may not necessarily be a negative)
  • Not sure of remaining for all three quarters, which could be problematic depending upon the project

Reasons Not to Take Business in Society

  • Two-quarter program, no further coverage in business currently planned for Spring according to catalog
  • May not be satisfied in the end with my own effort to overcome challenges by not taking SOS

Wrong-o, bubby!

Me: “Why, hello, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Other Tutor: “Your beliefs are wrong!”

– Me talking to a friend of mine after a tutoring session.

He has now been dared to walk into a church and scream that from the pulpit.

Jobbiness

It’s not official yet (shhh…), but I’ve been hired at the Writing Center for 10 hours/week this summer, with the possibility of adding on more hours as the summer goes on. This is good in that it at least gives me some sort of job, but obviously, the hours are a bit lacking. The problem being that any other work needs to come from off-campus resources due to the fact that institutional positions are limited to 19 hours/week by law.

Not to worry — bosses to the rescue! The Writing Center director is a very cool woman. She offered to put some feelers out to some resources she has in the community, including a design firm that might be willing to take me on for summer employment. She might also be able to send some design accounts my way.

Uber-cool.

On a semi-related note, I submitted an electronic copy of my résumé to Paguirigan, a branding and design firm with an office downtown. They aren’t hiring, but I figured it was worth a shot anyway. That and the domain name they use is just too attractive to me!