L   A   Y   A   ! [ e L e t t e r  f o r  A m e r i c a n  Y o u n g  A d u l t s ]         h t t p : / / w w w . l a y a . c o m <<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>> VOLUME III    ISSUE 3    MARCH 1998 T A B L E  O F  C O N T E N T S . . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT - THE EVOLUTION OF A LIFESTYLE (PART 2 of 4) - THE EMPHASIS OF PUNCTUATION - WHAT IF MICROSOFT BUILT CARS - POLITICALLY CORRECT WAYS / STUPID L A Y A ! looks best when viewed with 10 point Arial font. <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>     A  W O R D  F R O M  T H E  P R E S I D E N T <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<> Hello! You may have already noticed that we have a joke in this issue entitled, "What if Microsoft Built Cars?" Well, the funny thing is that they're getting there. Microsoft has these neat little computers that control your car's CD player, GPS unit, etc. Personally, I'd love to drive one of those around. Well, except for the imminent danger of the computer freezing and thus causing a car crash. If collision rates suddenly rise around the third quarter of 1998, don't say I didn't warn you. We know what happened. The one happy result of this is that Apple doesn't and probably won't come out with a car computer. If Apple did come out with one, we'd only be able to operate the engine when the gas valve was off (think: can I print while editing documents on a Mac?) The one other thing I was thinking about is the huge potential of Microsoft's OnNow (in Windows 98, one can supposedly turn on their computer instantly). Hopefully an automobile's PC will support this feature. It would be a huge drag to have to spend a minute booting up a car before using it. I keep wondering, is this a good thing or a bad thing? As they say, only time can tell. Anyhow- Enjoy the issue! Robert Chin robert@laya.com <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>  T H E  E V O L U T I O N  O F  A  L I F E S T Y L E <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<> PART 2 of 4 Over the decades, life as a teen has changed dramatically (to say the least). From Flower Power to political correctness, from "when I was your age…" to "kids have it too easy nowadays." On the contrary though, many parents of current teens NEVER say, "When I was your age, I went to bed at two in the morning," or "When I was your age, I had to do community service to graduate from high school." As a matter of fact, a number of parents haven't even heard about this new-fangled "community service." For as long as technology's impact on life increases, student's lives will become more and more complex. Computers, calculators, and spell checks will dominate, homework and community service requirements will expand, and social lives will flourish. Therefore, it is only logical that sleeping time will be condensed as time goes on. As I progress through the schooling required for every American kid, I find that the homework scene continues to bewilder me. And don't forget the community volunteering "requirements," which are even more confusing. In kindergarten, I was perfectly happy when coloring pictures of pink bunny rabbits or when using building blocks to create my version of the Statue of Liberty. Even for the next six years in elementary school, it was satisfying to complete the latest school project, whether it was drawing a map of the United States (in scale!) or dressing up like a famous historical personage. But when I found myself baking cookies for history, building toothpick models of Greek temples, or utilizing my coloring abilities in any way, begin to wonder just how much I've progressed in the institution of knowledge over the years. And although I admit that I love art and everything relating, I am not devoting all four years of my high school life to it, only to find myself being deducted points for not coloring the Pacific Ocean blue. After all, aren't teachers attempting to stress student creativity? Isn't that why I kill myself (figuratively) in order to finish every single useless group project? (In which one person ALWAYS ends up doing all the work...guess whom?) I understand that the latest trends in teaching are the interactive activities that supposedly prepare us students for life after school. That means less memorizing and more "hands-on" work-like community service. Isn't volunteer work supposed to be voluntary? Pardon me, but I don't seem to be capable of grasping the concept of required volunteer work. True, colleges look for excessive community service hours in order to find and recruit those who lack social lives, but for high school graduation requirements? For example, at Los Altos High School, each and every freshman must complete an hour of community service per month from November through May. But somewhere along the line, one needs to do a few extra hours in order to meet the total of ten hours. I know, I know. The school's trying to improve their image by making its students become "more involved in the community." But for some reason, this makes me feel like someone who has committed an extremely petty crime and is sentenced to a ten-hour service penalty. Overall, I'm not telling every teacher out there to retrogress back towards the once popular "lecture and note-taking" learning method. But as food for thought, perhaps it's time that everyone recognized today's teaching strategies as tomorrow's future workplace ideas (watch out, Dilbert!) By: Serena Chang    serena@laya.com <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>   T H E  E M P H A S I S  O F  P U N C T U A T I O N <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>     Have you ever stopped to think about how punctuation affects a writer's work?! How much it changes the 'emphasis' of a sentence, the 'feeling' it gives to a story...? Through punctuation, we can _convey_ a sense of completion.  We can also leave a question open for suggestions..? Or, we can give a list and have it continue on into an abyss... The sentences of today are filled with commas, quotations, parenthesis, etc., and other delimiting marks that give a piece its own feeling, sometimes totally different from what a writer may intend!!! Why do we want to -bother- with punctuation?!! Because a good writer can use punctuation to his or her 'advantage'... That previous question may have been an *excellent* question, but an even *smarter* question would be: why did I even write this article?!! For what purpose does it serve...? As a matter of fact, this article serves no purpose at all! Believe it or not, enjoy the punctuated equilibrium while it lasts! This comical humor(!) will not last long(?).     I can almost guarantee you that the <previous> paragraph was the most jam-packed paragraph with question marks(?), exclamation marks(!), and periods(.) you've ever seen. Enjoy! By: Robert Chin    robert@laya.com <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>   W H A T I F M I C R O S O F T B U I L T C A R S <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<> If Microsoft built cars... 1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car. 2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart, and drive on. 3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too. 4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT." But then you'd have to buy more seats. 5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads. 6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower. 7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light. 8. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years. 9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and auto fluids, but the packaging would be superb. 10. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt. 11.The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before inflating. 12. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened. 13. They wouldn't build their own engines, but would instead form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have sixteen cylinders, multi-point fuel injection, and four turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so that you could use Model-T Ford parts in it. 14. There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads. 15. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM and play Microsoft cassettes. Unless, of course, you buy the upgrade to use the existing stuff. 16. Microsoft would do extremely well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free-including IBM! 17. If you still ran old versions of cars (i.e. CarDOS 6.22, CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster-and on more roads! 18. If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friend's-and then copy it. 19. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganize the ignition for a few days before it worked. 20. You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on motorways next to each other. <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>   P O L I T I C A L L Y C O R R E C T W A Y S / S T U P I D <>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<> 36 politically correct ways to say someone is stupid: A few clowns short of a circus. A few fries short of a Happy Meal. An experiment in artificial stupidity. A few beers short of a six-pack. Dumber than a box of hair. A few peas short of a casserole. Doesn't have all his cornflakes in one box. One taco short of a combination plate. The cheese slid off his cracker. Has an IQ of 2, but it takes 3 to grunt. Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel. He fell out of the Stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down. An intellect rivaled only by garden tools. As smart as bait. Chimney's clogged. Doesn't have all his dogs on one leash. Doesn't know much, but leads the league in nostril hair. Elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor. Forgot to pay his brain bill. Her sewing machine's out of thread. His antenna doesn't pick up all the channels. His belt doesn't go through all the loops. If he had another brain, it would be lonely. Missing a few buttons on his remote control. No grain in the silo. Proof that evolution CAN go in reverse. Receiver is off the hook. Skylight leaks a little. Slinky's kinked. Too much yardage between the goal posts. ====================================================================== ====================================================================== L A Y A ' s S T A F F . . . Robert Chin President robert@laya.com Daniel Cheng Layout & Design daniel@laya.com Chris Lin Perspective Editor chris@laya.com Serena Chang Editor/Lead Writer serena@laya.com ********************************************************************** If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please e-mail "info@laya.com" ********************************************************************** SUBMIT AN ARTICLE! E-mail "submissions@laya.com" with your article. If this article was not written by you, we'd like to know who wrote it and what their e-mail address is. If it is your article, please include your name and your e-mail address. Your article may also be published anonymously (please tell us this in the e-mail). 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