I imported all of the posts from my old Blogspot site, chrishaum.blogspot.com, so they are now all nice and accessible in one convenient location (i.e. the ‘archives’ bar on the right).
The hacker theme got boring quickly, so we’ll see if this theme sticks.
If you are interested, feel free to peruse the archives. I was really into photography from May 2005 to January 2006, unique photography. Stuff like this:
The eyes are the window to the soul – unless you don’t have one.
Carnation power.
A foiled human sacrifice.
That's right - a huge penny.
I’m off to bed now, but I’ll be back soon with the latest and greatest things from my life.
For the uninitiated, the linux command “sudo rm -rf /” means, “as root user, forcedly and recursively delete from the root directory,” or in other words, completely destroy your operating system. Don’t worry. Reading my blog will neither destroy your OS, nor require working knowledge of the command line…. unless I convince you to install Ubuntu.
Come on, do it already. Open-source, free, stable, intuitive, reliable. Did I mention free?
As far as the blog is concerned, I got tired of the previous theme, so I went with something more… plaintext.
In other news, the summer internship is going great because it gives me opportunites to program – a delight indeed. I am looking for ideas, though:
Does anyone have any suggestions for software I could attempt to write to improve my programming skills while simutaneously making something really cool?
I was very distracted the last two days as I anxiously awaited my MIT application decision. After getting tired of checking my email every ten minutes, I started forwarding all of my emails to my cell phone (I had not tried it before, but it is awesome). Well, I got a notification today:
Dear Transfer Applicant,
I am sorry to tell you …
Sincerely,
MIT Transfer Admissions
That was disappointing.
Nevertheless, I am already at a great institution that has many resources I’m not utilizing yet. Hopefully I will take this failure not as a reason to give up, but as a wake-up call. It tells me I need to study more effectively, master material better, get higher grades, and get to know my professors better.
Anyone who knows me closely can attest that I am a master of lofty goals … and not following through with them. Well, I’d like to change that.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Share them in the comments or email me.
The good news: I received a substantial grant that will cover my summer living expenses. Go Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program!
Sorry for the three-month hiatus! School has been as busy as ever, with tutoring in Harlem, working on a research project here at Columbia, developing the test preparation site, and trying to do well in all of my classes! Finals begin in two weeks and I feel confident about all of my classes (except physics). I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when registration for next semester’s classes begins. I’ll be loading up next semester on mathematics and computer science classes (calc IV, discrete math, advanced programming, and data structures) if they will let me.
I never mentioned it on the blog, but I have applied as a transfer applicant to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); I’ll find out in May whether I have been accepted. Either way, at MIT or here at Columbia, the prospect of completing my breadth requirements and getting into the major is exciting. I’ve been constantly thinking of ways to apply the skills I am gaining in computer science to entrepreneurship and creating value (and thus profit). Below is one idea I had recently:
On-demand foreign language recordings
Problem:
Pat wants to learn Ukrainian independently over the Internet or through a CD/DVD course. Unfortunately, Pat lives in Podunk, Missouri, where Ukrainian speakers are rare. Even if Pat knows one, she does not want to bother him, or is too shy to ask for help with pronunciation.
Pat’s Internet/CD course has sound recordings of general-interest words, but if Pat wants to know how a native speaker would pronounce any arbitrary word from the dictionary, she is out of luck.
Solution: On-demand foreign language recordings
Pat comes to my website, where she enters the words she wants to hear pronounced (”Ой, я, молода, на базар ходила я”).
Pat pays $0.25 for each word (a total of $1.75, in this case).
*hidden magical business process*
Voilah! Pat gets an email with a link to my website, where she can download an audio recording of a real, live native speaker of Ukrainian saying, “Ой, я, молода, на базар ходила я.”
Pat can now sing part of a Ukrainian folk song! Yay!
What do you think about this idea? Please leave comments to this post and/or complete the survey below!
Chris
[Update: Removed the form for aesthetic and performance reasons. It's here if you are interested.]
Well, it’s about time I posted again. I have really good news:
I got engaged!
Just kidding. The real news is a bit more mundane, but still very exciting, for me at least. I contacted a large number of website owners with offers to purchase their websites. One of the owners was not ready to sell his website, but agreed to form a partnership with me in which I would improve the website (focusing on increasing revenue) and we would split the revenue 50/50.
That by itself is not so shabby, but I am an entrepreneur, so I am looking not only for income, but also equity. So I emailed him last night offering to become a partner not only for website development, but also for the business as a whole. It was a bit gutsy, but I believe my argument was sound. Now I am waiting for his response.
This is the most exciting thing I am doing right now. My classes and the New York nightlife are fun, too, but for the first time, I am actually BEING an entrepreneur and not only talking about it.
I’m back to school again, and am pretty pleased with how the semester is shaping up.
Best course I am taking: Object-oriented programming with Java. Yay!
Worst course: Gateway engineering lab. Freshman have to endure this course almost as a rite of passage. I’ll try to make the best of it.
In other news, I have found an investor who is willing to provide capital (and assume the risk of losing it) for one of my business ideas: buying, renovating, and eventually reselling websites. Strictly speaking, I don’t need an investor, but I would rather have 0% chance of losing money that should be used for tuition, at the expense of 35% of the profit. After my first successful website sale, I will be able to provide my own capital.
So the real question is: Will I have the time during this semester to learn and do everything necessary to succeed at this? That is the question I am asking myself.
I started writing this post as a comment in response to Stephen Taylor’s comment on my last post, but it got pretty long, plus I thought others might be interested to know this.
It’s funny that you mention Legend of Dragoon. I played a lot of video games from about 4th grade through 8th grade, so the summer after 8th grade I was totally engrossed in Legend of Dragoon. I was a big fan of using the Game Shark and other methods of cheating, despite the fact that using cheats quickly removed all fun from the gameplay. Well, after school let out for the summer, I began playing nearly non-stop, probably 12 hours a day, at least. Since I was using cheatcodes, the game slowly became less and less fun, until I realized one morning that I was wasting my life, with nothing to show for the previous two weeks. I immediately stopped playing video games and have never since had any interest in them whatsoever. The only exception is Tetris. I still dig Tetris, but I can only play for about fifteen minutes, and that only every few months. I would say that eliminating video games increased my happiness at the time. I have also seen (not so much here at Columbia, but especially in high school) how much of a distraction video games can become if someone does not wisely regulate his or her video game intake. It really did not matter too much in elementary and middle school, but by the time someone is in high school or college, the time and attention spent on video games can become a significant impediment to fully achieving one’s potential.
In response to your statement that you “found no extra happiness or productivity” from reducing time spent on the computer, I will say that I can see your point of view. Personally speaking, I immensely enjoy the time I spend using the Internet. Facebook and email are just the start. What is so engrossing is the information I can find. ANYTHING. If I want to learn about something, chances are that, somewhere on the Internet, I can find a well-thought-out, clear delivery of that information. That simple fact by itself is not only miraculous, but incredibly powerful. The potential for learning, communicating, socializing, and growing are immense.
The benefit of immediate access to any information comes at a cost, however. Allowing myself to look up something on the Internet at any time, even in the middle of another task, can be detrimental to my attention span. This too-often interruption of my tasks puts me in a distracted state where I am unable to concentrate on anything. My studies, homework, and grades suffer. Distraction is part of the cause, but even that is not all. Surfing the Internet, like any gratifying activity, can become a habit. If not controlled or directed, it can begin to take more and more time, until other aspects of life suffer. I openly admit that I have let this happen to me. During the previous semester I probably spent 7-10 hours per week on the Internet.
The unfortunate thing is that this is time squandered. I do not deny the merit of using Facebook, emailing, or doing research online. Aimless browsing, however, wastes time, concentration, and energy; for me it can decrease both my self-control and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Thus, I stick with the goal I mentioned in the last post. Perhaps I should refine the goal, though: I do not need to reduce time spent goalfully researching, studying, or communicating using the Internet. What I will continue to deny place in my life is using the Internet for mindless entertainment. It is not the place to go when bored.
Please share comments, ideas, stories, whatever in the comments!
I had the idea this morning to try a little experiment. For thirty days I am going to find alternate ways to spend my time. Here are the details of my experiment:
I will check my email twice a day, for no longer than twenty minutes at a time, including writing any email responses.
I will also write updates occasionally on this blog (perhaps once per week, if that), spending no more than thirty minutes.
No RSS feeds (good night, Google Reader).
No Facebook.
No Youtube.
No reading blogs.
No etc.
Well, that’s about it. Class resumes on Tuesday, so I will have plenty to do. I’ll keep you updated on the experiment as it progresses.
Also, has anyone reading this tried cutting back on computer use? Perhaps it has never been a distraction for you? Please share your opinions and comments below.
Let’s say, theoretically speaking, that I could contribute $4,000 per year to a Roth IRA that has a 100% allocation of investments in the S&P 500 index. OK. According to this post at the Get Rich Slowly blog, the S&P 500 has averaged long-term returns of 10% annually since the thirties. I made a little spreadsheet to see what this could mean for my retirement if I chose to invest $4,000 for the next four years. I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves. View the spreadsheet here:
Interesting. Some people question whether the stock market will continue to grow in the future as it has on average over the last seventy years. Past results do not guarantee future performance, but even at a lower average yearly yield, money invested early makes the most growth before retirement.
Have you ever dreamt that you lived in a tiny house? OK, maybe it’s just me. I have this recurring image in my mind of a small (like 200 square feet) mud home lit by a small glassless window with a curtain drawn across it. There are very few items in the home: an oil lamp, wooden bowls, a low wooden table, and a rolled-up mattress.
I could live in a house like that. It’s not that it is poor or that I dislike wealth or fine things; what appeals to me is the emptiness, the simplicity.
When my living space has too many things in it, my life feels cluttered. Each thing requires some portion of my attention and time. Really, the clutter irritates me, so I either ignore it, organize it, or eliminate it – all of which require time, effort, and concentration. As a result, my desire to accumulate posessions has been slowly decreasing.
Isn’t it crazy to think that, even with the recession, Americans are among the richest people on this planet? How does the gluttony of consumption affect our happiness?
My brother Chandler basically got rid of nearly everything he owned. Perhaps I will do the same myself.
Please share any thoughts or comments in the comments below.
