Here's a short list of things I've learned, considered, and/or regretted these past few days:
- When someone pulls the fire alarm at 6AM, you should grab a jacket, NOT your computer. Rochester is cold in the morning.
- Always take a towel to the showers. An embarrassing mistake I made my first day, I ended up drying off with a shirt.
- I really should have finished my streaming server before coming here. Aside from WITR 89.7, the campus FM station, there isn't an awful lot of radio around here, and the WFNX Boston streaming site is only 96kbps.
- Don't forget your camera; there are plenty of shots I'd have liked to take by now.
- People inevitably bring loud stereo speakers. Don't worry about this because they end up overdriving them and blowing them out while they're drunk.
- Bring more cables than you think you'll need - in my case I forgot a coax and a power cable.
- Halo 3 is always more fun when played 4-player with the guy that brought the 32" LCD HDTV.
- People like the IBM Model M more than their fancy backlit gaming keyboards with the LCD screens and knobs and whatnot, and will ask you where they can get one.
- Someone on your floor will inevitably run Ettercap, so encrypt all traffic humanly possible, and VPN when necessary.
And finally:
- Semi-autonomous robots driving around the campus with humans in tow, sitting on a couch, are perfectly normal.