Opinion
Page 4 Daily Nebraskan Friday, March 30,2001
£to//vNebraskan
Since 1901
Editor Sarah Baker
Opinion Page Editor Jake Glazeski
Managing Editor Bradley Davis
“Lincoln, Nebraska, is becoming well
known in the world of scarab research.”
Andrew Smith, UNL graduate student, on
one of Lincoln’s burgeoning areas of notori
ety
“It wears me out constantly playing soli
taire - or participating in my Oprah chat room
when I should be writing a paper at four in the
morning.”
Columnist Tony Bock, on his addiction to
Vegas draw-three solitaire
“It's not expensive, it's loud music, and it's a
good place to go and see something that is a
little bit different”
Lincolnite Tim Nathan, on the value of the
Mueller Planetarium laser-light shows
MHe doesn’t eat anything with any fat. It’s all
nutrition crap.”
NU nose tackle Jon Clanton, on Ryon
Bingham’s devotion to building himself up
for die team
“I used to preach the evils of pop music to
my oldest litde sister, a girl who routinely calls
me on the silliness of my crusades.”
Columnist Nick Tarlowski, on his shame
less sell-out
“Dadisi Sanyika is here to reveal the depths
of African American culture and why it is rele
vant. We are here to find ways to help students
go deeper.”
Ron Bowlin, director of the Artist Diversity
Residency Program, on the visiting
artist/philosopher/organizer visiting as part
oftheprogram
“Unless something drastic happens in the
next six years, men’s college gymnastics is
doomed."
Men’s Gymnastics Coach Francis Allen, on
the future of his sport
“I have become someone who I never
thought I could be. I have found talents inside
myself that I never thought I had."
Former ASUN President Joel Schafer, on
his experience within the association
“This whole process has been very disturb
ing to us. It has been poorly handled by the
administration and basically turned into a
horrible experience for all of the swimmers.”
NU swimmer Barrett Brandon, on the
recent cutting of men’s swimming from the
athletic program
“I’m glad I’m graduating because I couldn’t
afford to drive next year.”
Senior business management major Carly
Reese, on the increase of parking permit
price tags
“We made the atomic bomb, put dozens of
satellites into orbit and mapped the human
genetic code. Solving our energy crisis should
be a snap."
Columnist Seth Felton, on the ability to
solve large-scale energy problems
“This place doesn't have any pretensions.
Sometimes I view this as an alternative ver
sion of a soup kitchen."
Scott Brewer, an anthropology major at
Nebraska Wesleyan University, on the atmos
phere at The Coffee House
It s just unendingly interesting. I’m never
really tired of it”
UNL history professor Gary Moulton, on
his work studying handwritten diaries docu
menting Lewis and Clark’s epic journey
Editorial Board
Sarah Baker, Jeff Bloom, Bradley Davis, Jake Giazeski,
Matthew Hansen, Samuel McKewon, Kimberly Sweet
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MeaganCody/DN
The Internet's coming of age
Editor’s note: This col
umn is the first of a two-part
series.
The past few years have
marked a transition for the
Internet
While it has made the
journey from press buzzword
to common lexicon, I've sort
of stood back and marveled at
the growing ubiquity of the
Simon
Ringsmuth
Internet (if s accessible on cell phones, palm pilots
and even interstate rest stops) and technology in
general while becoming more and more frustrated
with the entire scene. *
In the early 70s, computing technology was a
taboo for pop culture. It was a realm entered only by
those brave enough to wield soldering irons while
having the patience of a saint
The first home computer, the Altair, was little
more than a box with blinking lights that you had to
assemble in a garage. It did nothing useful, and users
could only tell it which lights to flip on and off. The
Altair was cool only to a few strange individuals, and
the garden-variety geek was bom.
All that was way before my time, though, and I’ve
come to learn about it because of a vicious curiosity
for anything techno, and I don’t mean music.
My family got a home computer around 1988.
Uncle Tony was selling his Macintosh 512K-E for
around $2000, if I remember correctly. The 512K
meant it had that much RAM, whereas today most
computers come with 65536 or 131072 kilobytes (64
and 128 megabytes, respectively). It was almost top
of-the-line back then, with a black-and-white screen
and virtually no software.
A few years later, my brothers and I saved up
enough cash, which was matched in some sort of
weird parental subsidy by Mom and Dad, to buy
another top-of-the-line Mac: an LQL
This computer was far more than a box with
lights that went on and off and much better than the
512K-E It was a true machine of computing sturm
and drang, with a 33 MHz processor, 4 megabytes of
RAM, and a whopping 80 megabyte hard (hive. I
believe that was around 1991 - the same time ILM
was making James Cameron the most popular direc
tor in Hollywood with the morphing effects in
Iterminator 2. Now those same effects can be seen in
video games and screen savers, and the stately T
1000 is all but forgotten.
As I entered
the eighth grade, my big brother purchased a 2400
baud modem for die LCD, and my true inner geek
began to sprout and grow. If Napster would have
existed bade then, it would have been downloading
songs at a maximum speed of .24 (read: point two
four) K/sec. Not too shabby, if you asked us.
We used it to dial up local computer bulletin
boards and play weird text-only games like Legend of
the Red Dragon, Usurper and Ttade Wars 2002.
Quake wasn’t invented yet, and the precursor to
Doom (a game called Wolfenstein, where you shot
Nazis while trying to get out of a prison) took so long
to download from a bulletin board that most people
didn’t even bother.
MP3s, online gaming, voice-chatting and video
conferencing were dots on the horizon. My brother
and I reveled in this newwodd of possibilities, even
going so far as to attempt to set up our own comput
er bulletin board with the infamous HyperCard appli
cation. Eventually, my brother ditched his modem in
favor of a 28.8, only to be followed soon after by an
ultra-fast 33.6, which set him back more than $200.
The Internet we know today was in its infancy
back in the ’60s and was designed to bea way to trade
information between universities and military bases.
In the event of a cold war and subsequent nuclear
strike, it would still remain functional because no
single computer housed all the information.
When I was in ninth grade, the only way to use
the Internet with pictures and a mouse was with a
program called Mosaic, the precursor to today’s
Netscape.
it was extremely slow and buggy, and no one was
really sure what to make of it Legions of geeks across
America, shunned by their peers, receded to their
bedrooms at night and chatted away while playing
text-only games on local bulletin boards.
We knew of the Internet and a few Web site
addresses (the only search engines were Webcrawler
and Yahoo, and neither were that good), and we
occasionally accessed the Internet with a text-only
program called Lynx to find files or games to down
load. Before I turned 15,1 had my own e-mail
address, unheard of for kids my age back then, and
my brother and I were beginning to hear whisperings
of a coming Online Invasion.
We had no idea it would be so massive.
Much like our counterparts bade in the day with
their Altairs, no one understood our obsession with
computers. As geeks, we had our own little world in
which to revel. We felt safe and secure knowing we
had our own version of high school sports, Friday
night dances and cruising down O Street. We were
geeks, we knew it and were proud of it, and
no one could take that away from us.
Alas, in the mid- 90s, the Internet
began to seep over into the lives of
the everyman. My brother’s 33.6
modem found its place in
die trash can alongside
dot-matrix printers
(with the edges you
had to tear off the
, paper), giving way
to speedy 56K
(56000 baud)
modems and inkjet'
printers. Early
Internet paranoia
gave way to mass
acceDtance as AOL
gave out bee trials by the truck
load.
As geeks, we were witnessing the
end of an era. The days we feared
most had come upon us. Millions
of people who had virtually
no idea wnat me internet
was were now gaining
access to it and invading
our precious kingdom of
nerdiness. The Kingdom
that Geek built was being
overrun, and we were
powerless to stop it
The naked
truth about
women
Guys,
women manipu
late.
Not 24/7, but
much more than
we ought to.
This should
not come as a
shock to anyone.
Every time you,
go to the grocery
Betsy
^everin
store, it screams at you from women's
magazines on the checkout racks: “Ten
Outfits That Will Drive Him Crazy,” “Get
What You Want in the Boardroom and
the Bedroom,” “Flirting Tips from the
Experts."
(As a side note, who the heck are the
flirting experts? Is this something you
can go to school for? Who would want
to be referred to as an expert on flirt
ing?)
Even though the fact that women
manipulate isn't exactly rocket science,
we women don’t generally acknowl
edge the fact in our day-to-day exis
tence. It’s simply ingrained into our
psyche. We know what motivates guys
and we use it to get what we want
For example, we know that guys
have a need to be heroes, and we appeal
to it by acting helpless.
Recently, I was with my friend,
Steve, at one of those huge gas stations.
You know, die kind that are off the inter
state with a restaurant and a souvenir
shop and gas pumps and an art muse
um built right in?
Well, I’m buying a candy bar from a
machine, and die candy gets caught on
the spirally thing and won’t come out,
so I want Steve to shake the machine to
get it loose. I say, “Steeeeee-eve, the
machine ate my money.” Pout, pout,
pout Steve shakes the machine around
until the chocolate bar falls loose. And I
say, “Aww, thanks Steve. You’re my
hero."
Gag. Couldn’t I have just said, "Hey
Steve, die candy won't come out of the
machine. Could you please help me
out?" Why didn't I?
We also know that guys are turned
on by what they see. Do you really think
girls wear halter tops, tube tops and
backless shirts because they’re com
fortable? If you listen closely, the mes
sage we’re really sending is, “I’m willing
to walk around half-naked if it will
make you think I’m attractive.”
It gets worse. If we manipulate our
male friends and acquaintances, don’t
think for a second we treat the guys
we’re in relationships with any better.
We flirt with and date guys we know we
have no future with. And when we are
dating guys who we think pretty highly
of, we try to trip them up.
Ladies, you know the story. You tell
your boyfriend you'll only go so far with
him. You draw the line. Then, in the heat
of the moment, you do everything in
your power, short of explicitly saying
"Go for it,” to entice him to try and cross
that line, wherever that line may be.
If he does, you either say “No," or
“Well, so much for good intentions." If
he doesn’t, you get frustrated. “What’s
die deal, isn’t he attracted to me?” You’d
rather have your boyfriend be so
attracted to you that he can’t help him
self than have your boyfriend respect
you. (Note to guys: Not all girls are like
this, and rape is never justifiable.)
Guys, we do all these things because
we’re insecure. Women will do every
thing from flirting with a guy we would
never date to posing nude for Playboy
in order to convince ourselves that we
are attractive people.
If we are convinced we are unattrac
tive, we will run the other direction.
We’ll change our attitude, and perhaps
even our appearance, to make sure
people never think “cute" when they see
us. We’ll develop a thick skin and
squelch anything vulnerable in us. And
we’ll skip right to trying to find our
security within.
We believe if someone finds us
attractive, we will be secure. All will be
right with the universe. But it’s not
enough. When a guy does tell us we’re
attractive, we demand, “How attractive
am I?" Or we think, “Well, what does he
know, anyway?" Or, “He’s only saying
that because he wants something.”
So perhaps we learn not to find our
security in guys and try to find it within,
instead We become control-freaks. But
we can’t control everything, and we’re
back to feeling insecure.
So there you have it guys, die naked
truth about women. Some of you will
use this information to manipulate
right back. I hope others of you will use
it to help us women get beyond these
filings and not be that girt I don't want
to be that girl
Obviously, die only thing left to do is
end with a rewrite of an old Willie
Nelson song:
To all the guys I’ve manipulated
before,
Who traveled in and out my door,
Tm sorry, / was wrong.
I dedicate this col-umn
to all the guys I've manipulated
before.