I think you're too hard on people. Not every conversation has to be some deep and meaningful meeting of minds. There's lots to be said for a night of crude jokes and chasing women. I'd argue that it's a lot more human experience than deep conversation. It really sounds like you need to relax.
Meeting people on the internet is no substitute for honest-to-goodness human interaction. Also, it's a good idea to have lots of friends that you have nothing in common with. The perspective you get is invaluable.
Hi frederiksen. I think I do probably need to relax a bit. I'm trying to take life less serious :)
I am looking forward to getting out in the real world and engaging in human interaction once I graduate. But I think the Internet is a useful way to meet others as well, and possibly make friendships.
I also agree that having friends of multiple backgrounds, personalities, and interests provides great value. But to me it seems like doing this is much more difficult. People seem less willing to let people into their circles or lives if you have different interests or perspectives. Listening seems to be a highly undervalued characteristic these days. These are just my observations, though.
I heard of a guy who modified his friend's .bashrc to contain a sleep command with a variable time limit. Every time the .bashrc got run, the sleep command would run for a second longer. The first couple of times it was unnoticeable and after a few weeks he would log in, then go grab a sandwich before he could do anything. Subversive!
This article was terrible. Staying fit is easy if you can have a great time doing it. I work out with friends and try to play as many sports as I can with people whose company I enjoy. The self-discipline with respect to eating can be tough, but he's right, if you can keep your intake low for a couple of weeks you won't find yourself wanting to eat so much all the time.
Like schtog said, I think python is a great choice. You can easily write programs that actually _do_ things without having to get too deep into the ugly details.
Most of all, write programs that are fun. For my third year software engineering class we wrote a 3D implementation of bomberman. It was a blast to write and I still hack on it now and then to add crazy over the top powerups.
Also, it looks like you've found a good place to get your news from. Being aware of cool new projects / languages / ideas is always a good thing.
Meeting people on the internet is no substitute for honest-to-goodness human interaction. Also, it's a good idea to have lots of friends that you have nothing in common with. The perspective you get is invaluable.