Rampid Byter

For the last year or so I’ve been taking a vested interest in the design and development of some electronics kits. Nothing super fancy just trying to understand how to program and understand electronics. After two degrees I’ve come to understand that I really like the community environment of a classroom to pall around with other people doing like minded things. I’ve bought a few off-the-shelf learning kits here and there, but I really wanted to get serious with learning more about electronics.

That got me started looking into the local community colleges to get into a basic robotics class or even a pre-engineering setup where I’d get exposure to circuit design and analytic with lab focus. Little did I know apparently NO local community college in the area even comes close to offering anything computer or electronics related. The closest I could get would be computer support specialist (glorified tech support), or a few classes in networking or graphics.

My options were between UC Raymond Walters College, Brown Mackie, Wilmington, and Thomas More College. There were a few other ‘online’ only programs, but they’re all repeats of the same lame program offerings of these other colleges. There are tons of criminal justice, office automation, medical billing, and other degrees like ‘websites’. I just don’t even know what to think, but all those stories I see popping up on Hacker News about college being a waste is suddenly making a whole lot of sense.

The problem is I am not close to the major institutions, I am not a day student anymore, and I’d be doing this for fun instead of college kid needs a job sacrificial mindset. I have to admit I was really hoping to find a college program because while I am in it for the passion I also want to make sure I align myself for the paper backing in case it becomes a career calling. Still makes me wonder what the job market can handle with all the influx of these criminal justice and computer support specialists.

College

I was in a Chinese buffet today near my new work, and whenever a worker walked around to refill my drink the expression on the waiter’s faces was one as if they’ve just been to a funeral. It wasn’t just a single waiter. I’ve never seen such an unhappy brood of workers in my life. That struck me in that every single Chinese buffet I’ve been in I don’t think I can ever recall even a single smile on anyone’s faces. I think the only time I’ve even seen a hint of a smile was when cashing out to leave when asked whether everything was alright.

Is it me or is being a waiter in a Chinese restaurant the most depressing job in the world?

Offbeat

Really perturbed by the recent move of AT&T to change data plan structure of the iPad 3G. I am about a week into using the 3G service after having signed up for the now defunct “unlimited” plan just last week. I’m still using it off-and-on while at work to listen to Pandora. I even hit the 606MB mark today.

The thing that bothers me the most about the plan change is that the allowed usage dropped significantly per month with more reoccurring charges in the event of exceeding the usage limit. That is complete and utter bull fecal mater. At thirty dollars a month I was still on edge after considering using the service, and the availability of the “unlimited'” plan being the ONLY selling point for me going 3G over the iPad WIFI only model.

For a device touted as the new way of doing portable computing and portable entertainment the sudden loss of a “unlimited” plan, zero alternatives to AT&T, and the increased reoccurring costs of using my portable data device  makes the device a novelty to be used occasionally at best. Frankly with that in mind FUCK YOU AT&T. Also, Apple, fuck you too buddy. Apple, you stuck us with AT&T. I don’t care for them one bit, but I bought the iPad 3G because I COULD get an unlimited plan at an OK price. For doing nothing more than streaming some music for a month by the months end with the new plans I'd have spent more to access the internet through a crap network than I do through my awesome Time Warner Roadrunner Business Class connection. Seriously?

Now I’ve seen a few other people rant and rave about how AT&T isn’t the culprit, and how AT&T is just trying to recoup for the overly consumed “cheap” network usage. I’d like to point those individuals to the fact that the US is decades behind on upgrading our networks. The US is seriously lagging behind countries like Japan, South Korea, and Finland who are spanking the US’s butt on broadband speeds. Why? Because we’re stuck with legacy outdated telecoms so far removed from quality of service that the entire country is held behind because of their cold almost dead hands strangling the pipes.

Bah, and here I was starting to think PC was becoming more and more “Professional Computer” instead of “Personal Computer” because of my newfound Appledom. PC I’m sorry I doubted you buddy.

iPad