Posted by NightKev

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Considering the internet is effectively "the" route to information/everything now - hell, it's a key technology that's binding the entire world together - it kind of has to be.

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Half a century ago, information was primarily found in books--and even though "access to literature" has never been something as far-reaching as a "human right," I hardly think that that has stopped people, for centuries, from learning by the written word. In the same sense, Internet access need not be elevated to the status of a "human right," which in all reason should be something fundamental and essential instead of based on a transient technology that may very well be defunct in several centuries. The argument advanced in the New York Times article is cogent and sensible, and I find myself entirely in agreement.

I will be sure to let everyone know how my applications turn out.

As far as undergraduate applications go, all the University of California campuses used the same application. I found it to be fairly simple to fill out; adequate documentation was provided to clarify any vague wording. I did find myself slightly irked by their request for us to list out our entire high school transcript by hand, although given the popularity of the UCs it is somewhat understandable. It was, at the very least, much better than the quaint "ApplyWeb" system which public Washington schools use.

Posted by CyclopsCaveman

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Good luck to you, man! You're a fairly smart and dedicated dude, I hope you get accepted!

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Thank you, although I daresay that I am a lot less intelligent and dedicated than most people imagine me to be.

Posted by Celice

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Ah, I didn't know you had to do high-school by hand. I transferred into a UC (I'm at Davis ), and we did have to manually say our classes, but I'm guessing it was a teensy bit easier 'cause most UCs have the basic IGETC to compare classes from outside their school into their own. High-schoolers have a bit more 'splainin' to do :p

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The system that the UC system uses to classify high school classes is simply esoteric; I'm not entirely certain why they persist on forcing it upon everyone, particularly seeing as how the vast majority of applicants likely end up filling out the classes incorrectly anyway because they can't be bothered to read the extensive documentation on the matter. Moreover, the fact that they discount any "Honors" classes that were not taken in California seems exceptionally self-centered to me as well. I suppose, though, that being a public California university system, I cannot truly fault them for doing so.

Overall, though, it was not excessively irritating.

With regards to the revitalization of the board, an idea which occurred to me was that we could collectively attempt to learn a language, which would be decided through community consensus. It would spark discussion and camaraderie as skilled students helped weaker students in their attempts to master the grammar, and Skype or videochat sessions with one another for practice purposes would be a matter of great entertainment and fun, I would think. Of course, we would also be acquiring a new (and very useful) skill.

I propose that we collectively learn Mandarin Chinese.

We could always type characters, and regardless typing out the pinyin romanization along with the tone annotation would suffice quite well. Along with the the plugins which blackhole is now currently mentioning in IRC, I believe the board would serve as an effective medium for collaborative learning.

To start, I would personally recommend the purchase of some quality textbooks. After reading a fair number of reviews, I have purchased used copies of the following on Amazon:

Character Text for Beginning Chinese, 2nd Edition by John DeFrancis
Beginning Chinese Reader, Part I by John DeFrancis
Learn to Write Chinese Characters Johan Bjorksten

Of course, each person's learning style may differ. A resource I have found to be invaluable in my search for information about language acquisition is the How-to-Learn-Any-Language.com forum (http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/default.asp), which is populated by a fairly impressive number of polyglots and is frequented by one Dr. Alexander Arguelles, a notable polyglot and scholar of languages. There is a wealth of information available on that forum about efficient ways to learn vocabulary or to start learning a language, etc.

One approach with Arguelles allegedly uses is the passive approach with a technique he calls "shadowing." I believe the relevant posts are very easily found. He is quoted many times here under the alias of "Ardaschir."

Of the three books which I listed above, regardless of the method which one is using, I believe it would be essential to purchase the third. From what little I formally know, the writing of Chinese characters is a complex art and not at all a simple matter that can be haphazardly learned.

As an encouraging note, I believe it has been said that only a vocabulary of about four hundred characters is required to understand the majority of Chinese news publications. It will take effort on our part to reach that benchmark, but it will hardly take us years before we are capable of reading Chinese newspapers somewhat proficiently. I would think that an industrious student would be able to reach that goal rather rapidly, in fact.

As I am sure many here are aware, the book series titled The Hunger Games has been rapidly gaining popularity (at least here in America), and I believe the first book in the series is to be made into a movie. Seeing as how I have never read these books before, I was hoping someone might give me their appraisal of their quality; I was considering purchasing them, but considering my enormous backlog of books and miscellaneous items to read, I thought it would be best to ascertain whether or not their recent popularity is well-deserved.

Surprisingly enough, it has been gaining a lot of popularity at my high school. That it is so well-known among people notorious for doing no leisure reading whatsoever is a sign that I have found to not reflect well upon the quality of the literature itself (such as with Twilight, Eragon, etc.), but I have certainly not made my mind up about this series yet. At the least, the setting sounds fairly intriguing, if a bit contrived.

I am glad to be able to sincerely wish you a happy birthday today. You are a very talented person, and I wish you well in the years of your life yet to come. Indeed, it has been a great pleasure to know you for so many years of my life; your generosity and youthful eagerness coupled with your rationality have impressed and inspired me.

Happy birthday, NightKev!

I think I will look for a copy of the first book the next time I make a trip to the next bookstore. I will be sure to post a review after I finish reading! Might as well take a "leap of faith" and give it a try.

Does anybody have any experience with working long hours (12-16 hours a day)? I am considering pursuing an Amazon Finance Analyst internship, which lasts for the duration of six months and is a full time job (I would take time off from university, assuming I go to the University of Washington, to work) and pays approximately $19/hour for the first 40 hours each week then approximately $29/hour thereafter. The pay is good, and my income before taxes would be rather sizable: 32k for a 60-hour workweek and 46k for an 80-hour workweek.

My opinion on the matter is that it would be quite worthwhile. The money would help pay for the cost of college and if I worked only 60 hours a week, I could still be able to perform research in a lab on the side or take one or two graduate-level classes.

Could anyone with actual work experience give some advice? Limited social time is a non-issue, as I am a fairly solitary person, and I am fairly certain that I would be mentally capable of working long hours for six months. Moreover, it would have no adverse effect on my education--indeed, my graduation would simply be delayed by six months. The work is, allegedly, fairly simple, and is primarily done in Excel. However, perhaps there are things which I am overlooking.

Posted by Haz

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a tragic birthday thread is only fitting for kironide

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Suffering, indeed...

BOARD2 WILL NEVER DIE

BLITZENDEGEN

Have you finally forsaken this forum?

Why don't you ever respond to my Facebook messages?

Are you busy?

How's life?

I was so heartbroken, I only emerged from my half-catatonic, chronically-sobbing state moments ago.

Look at what you've done, blackhole89--you've made a cute girl cry. Are you proud of yourself?

i don't really see any pressing need to do anything

more staff is pointless because the board has low traffic

what exactly do you want anyway

it's not like blackhole not doing anything aside from hosting is some active barrier that stops other people from setting up community events

shutting it down is pointless, handing it over is pointless because it wouldn't substantively change anything, and the only benefit of archiving it is that people could download a local copy of the board's content or something like that, which hardly matters when you can just browse it right here

yeah and/or maybe people can think of a way to make some sort of inane, meaningless "point" about the lack of activity on the board that doesn't involve spamming it incessantly

Posted by HolyRomanEmperor

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Dude, blackhole89, why are you reluctant to accept Board2 is dead? I agree with everyone that you should have archived this place a long time ago. Yoy coukd have even become a Developer on Kafuka and maybe even have moderated the ROM Hacking forum.

Now, I'm saying more than just "move to Kafuka". This is place, Board2, is dead. Think of all the possibilities that there are on Kafuka. You can successfully post about your projects on Kafuka.

When boards come to their end, they should be archived. Like everyone says on here, the problem isn't that there needs to be more staff, but that this place is beyond just being "a bit inactive".

Now, I hope you won't delete this post because this is the truth: Board2 is dead but you can move on. Just leaving this dead place open will not bring back activity. It's time to accept that you need to let go of Board2 and move on.

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are you incapable of reading? nobody, least of all blackhole, is unaware of the fact that the board is practically dead. also, whether or not he personally wants to join kafuka is completely irrelevant.

what do you mean by "archived"? like, do you just want him to disable posting forever? i have no idea why that would be necessary or even helpful to anyone, it's not like the fact that this board continues to exist and is accessible is in any way a negative thing

???

please remember to think before you post

i don't see any reason to take the board down, removing a potentially useful source of information, even if it gets 0 posts a year

it's not as though the board is being constantly spammed; just go on irc and tell an admin