Hey. I'm not really sure how to approach this community or what it's all about. In fact, the first impression I have of this community is the apparent effort with which newbies approach the introduction thread ("Look at me, I'm a quirky nerd with skillz!"). Anyhow, I stumbled upon the place while searching up on Battle.net bot technology and Battle.net chat documentation (I just found out that the bnet-gaim (Pidgin, now) project is still active, and so was trying to see if there would be any way for me to contribute). I read a couple of threads, and it seems that despite the usual nastiness, arrogance, and pretentious rank and order that manages to manifest in all internet communities, there are some genuinely knowledgeable users here that I'd like to learn from.
As for me, I'm just an "IB" high school student engaged in a thriving (although a bit kinky) romantic, polyamorous relationship with language, philosophy, and my computer. I play some video games, but I'm not particularly great at anything. I have something of a first-person-shooter skill deficit, as when I was a child my parents disallowed me from playing violent video games, but I do enjoy real time strategy games and an occasional round of two of Counter-Strike or Tremulous. I'm an active member of the FOSS movement, despite my lack of experience as a programmer and lack of time as a student. I've been a Linux user for a few years now and a Gentoo user for around a year, although I'm waiting to throw it on this computer until 2008.0 comes out, because I can't pass up an excuse to procrastinate.
I enjoy a lot of music, but very little modern and popular music. I tend to be a fan of folksy music, particularly Irish folk, hardcore punk-rock and other punk variants, and alternative rock, but I occasionally venture into rap/hip-hop, country, and even pop, and I'll probably listen to anything once. I have a
Last.FM (formerly Audioscrobbler) profile if you're interested at all. I'm currently studying French, so if anybody wants to practice speaking or writing it, I don't mind playing with you.
I maintain a few blogs, as well.
- The Free Thinkers' Club at my local high school. Originally a reaction to religious clubs on campus, under (my) new leadership this year, it has grown to become the school's philosophy club and ethical thinktank, if I'm feeling arrogant.
- Sing, my personal writing blog and a favorite hobby of mine (the actual act of singing as well as posting to the blog). It's more or less the biohazard bin for my teen angst with some occasionally good writing.
- /dev/pxc, a cheesily named technical blog of mine, still in its infancy (only a single post).
I'm an active member in FBLA and again, an
IB student at my local high school. I host biannual LAN parties for around eighteen of my friends or so, where we play Warcraft III, Starcraft, Counter-Strike: Source, and occasionally Tremulous. One of my buddies is the lead Dystopia (Half-life 2/Source Engine mod) developer, so we'll be adding that to the list, soon. With the recent release of Nexuiz 2.4, that will soon be added to the list.
As a side note, for my IB mathematics project, I have to do something involving statistics, and I'll be setting up my own PvPGN (Battle.net emulator) server in a week or so and use ladder statistics from Warcraft III/Starcraft games (I'm currently considering analyzing game economy: the efficacy of early expansion, how much money should be invested in defending an expansion before it's not worth it, what population is optimal for a defensible society that also has a strong source of income, etc). If you're at all interested in participating (you just have to tell me a few things about yourself, and use one account for each strategy you choose to employ), contact me.
PS: I also occasionally (and by that I mean rarely, as I have no constant source of income) play WoW.
Edit: Ah, yes!
1337 Skillz (braggery):
I have some experience with programming, although most of you would say it's with a woman language (Java). In that I have taken two college level courses. I've additionally taken a course in networking at DeVry (sponsored by Cisco--hey, it was free), and one in Linux/Unix system administration (introductory level, mostly BASH scripting). I also made a Tetris clone one time. Yay me.
Recently, I placed at a national competition with FBLA in Network Design. The winners from the 2007 NLC are posted online, if you're interested (I don't particularly care to give my full name out, though). You can look it up if you want to.
--Patrick C.
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