3/31/2001:

And finally... the end of the Cybiko Saga. We've heard all sorts of reports from readers, some loved it, some preferred the random type strips from before. I know we're still experimenting with the best way of strip writing. Storylines are hard to begin to write. But then they get easier. I prefer random myself. Sil like stories. So... we'll continue to mix.

I think the idea of electronics falling in love is really funny. I don't know why. I never really anthropomorphized when I was a kid. Now, I name my Mac "The Beige One" and my PC "Traitor". My MP3 player definitely has no personality, while the PalmPilot is incredibly touchy about such things as neglect. Finally, the trusty TI85 (with Apple sticker) has put up with much abuse and has been pretty good about handling most everything I can throw at it.

My secret calculator shame... when I was in 8th grade, I was taking geometry, because I'd done Algebra already in nerd camp. Since I was taking geometry, I needed a graphing calculator, so I got the at the time top of the line TI82. When I got to high school, I was already used to it and so breezed through WiML's (math contests) with ease and the trusty Table function. However, every other freshman got TI85's which had more screen resolution, onscreen menus and, get this, lowercase letters. I liked programming that TI82. In fact, I had a blackjack game that I was pretty proud to have written. (I was not proud to have written this "guess a number from 1-100" program).

I drooled over those lowercase letters, which made my program seem pretty ghetto. Within weeks, a better one had been found on the Internet and was being passed around. I also lusted after the Arkanoid port that someone wrote in pure TI code, a pretty amazing feat. I mean the language is a couple steps up from BASIC. But I was stuck with my 82, who's only saving grace was the aforementioned Table function.

Oh happy day when I could finally convince my mother that the 82 had developed a bad screen (the sponge on the bottom slowly was creeping upwards due to extreme Wisconsin temperatures and blocking my view of the bottom results) and I finally got the TI85. Joyous joy. But you know what? I found that I missed certain things, like the twice aforementioned Table function. Also, the TI82 could remember the last 20 commands, while the TI85 only remembers 1 (which means that you can't write a ghetto function with a variable and then just modify the variable and reexecute. You need to actually input new values. It's annoying).

But the TI85 did have the majorly cool ZShell which allowed people to write amazingly fast assembly language programs. Necessary programs like... Tetris and Connect 4. I've never needed to get on the Gameboy bandwagon. I've got mt TI85 w/ Tetris! Tetris saved my sanity during NHS tutoring sessions when the kids I was supposed to tutor had no questions for me. My high score on Tetris 4.5 is still 6363, so if anyone has a higher score, please please email me so that I can get motivated to beat 6363.

So, last night was spent LAN partying with my brother and some of his friends. I wish it'd been more of a fragfest type LAN party. Instead, we played Starcraft much of the time. Not quit my cup of tea, but enjoyable nevertheless. The best people to LAN party with must be network engineers because any technical problem, BAM solved. Some things took a little longer but there was never any "Hmmmm, what do we do now?" That was refreshing. I just got to sit back and play, really.

The first week of classes has come and gone and I think I'm really going to like this quarter. No Signals and Systems or Physical Electronics... The only "broccoli" type class I have is Circuits. Necessary evil.

This has been a really geeky news blurb. Next strips go back to dealing with people, so less tech stories, promise.

-Kip