Assess Your Needs Ahead of Time to Keep Dorm Room Clutter Under Control [College]: "

Thousands of students are preparing to go to college next month and most of them are hauling an astounding amount of stuff with them. If you're one of them, you can cut down by realistically assessing your needs.

Trent, at the frugality blog The Simple Dollar, found a bunch of pictures of his college dorm. Reflecting on that time he realized he had a lot of crap. Stuff that he didn't need, but at some point had thought he would need, might possibly need, could possibly need, and so he hauled it into his tiny dorm.

What I saw was a lot of clutter. A fridge I rarely used. A robe I think I used once. A big rack of rarely-watched videos. Way more clothes than I ever needed. Lots of little tchotchkes that just took up space.

When I was first planning for college, I had little idea what I was doing. I read lots of 'here's how to get ready for college' articles and vacuumed up the suggestions like a Hoover on overdrive. I spent the entire summer collecting and buying things I'd need for college.

I could, with small variation, have written the same thing—the photo above is my freshman dorm room the night I unpacked all my stuff.

He goes on to say if he were to start all over he'd arrive at college with nothing but a generously-sized backpack, I myself have often said if I knew then what I know now, I'd have taken nothing more than a basic military foot locker. It's easy to over-pack for college. You're venturing into an unknown territory, leaving behind the comfort of home, and bringing lots of stuff with you is a way bring part of your previous life with you. Most of the time 90 percent of it goes unused and you just waste space and spend time cleaning around it.

How can you avoid ending up in a 12x10 foot room with 15x15 feet worth of stuff? Ask yourself some simple questions when packing:

• Is there a smaller version of this? Do you need a full-sized computer tower or would a laptop do?
• Is this thing replicating a service available on campus? Why bring shelves of books if you have a large campus library?
• What function does this thing serve? Do I actually need that function? Can I make do with less?
• Does the importance of immediate access to this thing out weigh the inconvenience of going out to find it? Do you really need a photo printer if there is a Walgeen's with a photo kiosk a quarter mile from your dorm?
• If you haven't purchased the thing yet: Is this thing so unique and so immediately useful that I don't want to risk being unable to purchase it once I've moved in?
• Am I bringing this because I need it or because I think it says something about me and I want people to see that?

The last question might seem a little overly philosophical, but it's an important consideration. I lived across the hallway from a guy who had a longboard surfboard in his room despite our dorm being not only in land-locked city but over a thousand miles from any good surfing beaches. It was perpetually in the way and his room mates hated it, but it was a giant fiberglass monument to his identity as a surfer and he wouldn't budge on removing it.

Whether you're packing for college as we speak or reflecting on a Freshman year long gone, what absolute necessities would you take with you and what could be—or should have been—left behind?

Dorm Room Clutter: What Do You Actually Need for College [via TheSimpleDollar]

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this is just disgusting.

Thief Steals Laptop, Taunts Victim Using Her Facebook Account [Crime]: "

Not content with stealing a UK woman's laptop, iPhone, Nintendo DS and handbag—a shithead burglar has logged into her Facebook account, leaving messages like "on my new laptop", "listening to music on my new phone feels so good."

The illiterate low-life went on to mock:

'I have the laptop, phones ok but a bit scratched itll do, tv was rubbish so I left it , ds was a bonus, now to the porn shop, thankyou toshiba is my favourite make'.

The sick scenario is a cautionary true tale to think twice about what data you store on your laptop, and a reminder that you should use some basic security to protect it. [Telegraph via TechRadar]

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What Is This? [Image Cache]: "

Is it an alien desert crop circle made from cars and campers? Some kind of ancient civilization uncovered by freak dust storm? Truth be told it's neither, actually:

It's Burning Man 2005!

Giz reader Dean sent in a slew of aerial photos from the event four years ago after reading our post on the retro rocket being erected in Nevada this year.

These pics are cool because, as many of you know, we dig airplanes here at Gizmodo. And Burning Man, it just so happens, has had its own fully functional airport since 1999.

That's a good thing, believe you me, because it gives us some nice bird's eye shots of this immense event:

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really pissed that blogger still hasn't upgraded it's photo handling capabilities.
it really detracts from it as a platform for blogging, even with it's tight integration with picasa.
as a whole, this is one of the main reasons i've stayed away for so long.


so i'm in korea now, in case anyone cares or doesn't know.
and i went to bukhansan national park today with a couple of lecturers from the ISC program and a former student assistant.
this is definitely one of the "must go" places but i wouldn't recommend it unless you have a good guide.

it's really hilly, and it's more of a mountain range than a park.
the scenery is really beautiful, but most of the time i was too busy wondering if i would survive the climb to really take it in.

first i didn't pack a pair of shoes that were suitable for hiking, instead only wearing sneakers.
secondly, i'm not in terrific physical shape.
thirdly, it' s been drizzling non-stop, making the ground really wet and slippery, especially the rocks which are so smooth that they offer almost no footholds at all.

combine these factors and i'm lucky to have survived at all

but why am i complaining?
i had fun right?

true.
i took loads of pictures, got some much needed exercise, had really good gimbap (a korean version of sushi, rice and condiments rolled in seaweed, which i think is superior because it keeps really well) and i am still alive.
nothing like a NDE (near death experience) to remind you how precious life is.

my work/study area, a mishmash of odds and ends, a melange, a gallimaufry..... I'll miss it.

my dumbell, and the phone that doesn't work anymore (right under the curtain)

my shoes, which i leave anywhere that my feet happen to leave them

The time has finally come to move out.

I've gotten so attached to this room. It's my confidant, my friend, my fortress of solitude, my batcave.

Now as I'm stuffing my bags full of stuff I didn't know I still had (oh, so that's where my other sock was! etc.)

I don't know how you can describe the feeling of packing, it's like systematically deconstructing your identity, without realising it, my room has become an extension of personality, a part of how i define myself.

Restoring my room to its pristine state is like tearing down part of my life. I just can't continue writing.

This post is dedicated to the memory of my room, may you never have to be neat again.

Living in a hall can be fun, or it can suck.
usually it lies in between the thwo extremes, but tends to swing to the sucky side a bit too much for my liking.

One of the things you can't control is the people you live with.

Just at dinner today, the guy living in the room next to me runs out and asks me to help him remove a bug in his room.

picture this, a guy in his early 20s, needing help to remove a bug, an insect not even a quarter of a tenth of a hundreth his size.

turned out the bug wasn't even poisonous, just a leafhopper that got in by mistake (to a room on the 5th floor! no less, must have been a really high jump for a leafhopper)

oh, did i mention he was studying environmental science?
and that he mentioned that he did a vivisection of a grasshopper just the day before?

forget women, i'll never even understand men......

seriously.

wow, 3 months just flew by.

i haven't been committed to updating this blog, hence the dearth of posts.
it's not that i have nothing to blog about, rather i have too much to feel, too much to think about, but not enough resolution to put finger to keyboard to document my thoughts.
what a loss for posterity huh?


speaking of resolution, youtube now supports HD uploads of videos, and it just so happens i joined a TV club that makes movies.
we don't have the equipment to shoot in HD yet (come on, student outfit what)
but animation is another story altogether.

this is an animation i spent about 20 hours on, it's our opening credits, kinda like the ones you see whenever you see a film by 20th century fox or dreamworks.
yet for all the time i put in (20 hours, i'll be mentioning this figure for some time to come)
the final product is only 30 seconds long.

20 hours=30 seconds.
how does that even equate?

so anyway, bringing up that point about youtube being able to display HD videos now, i uploaded it to youtube for your viewing pleasure!
in HD!
remember to watch in HD, doesn't look good in low resolution.


please tell me what you think in the comments.


btw
this is a good indication of what i'm doing with my time for those of you interested in such things.