If you enjoy entertaining your self with trivialities and puzzles you will enjoy trivia, you will not only entertain yourself you will also learn a lot about your beloved country!

http://www.gozatelo.com/trivia/

You can access the site in English or in Spanish.

——–

Te queremos invitar al único sitio de trivia en linea dedicado a la isla de Puerto Rico.

Si te encantan los rompe cabezas y trivialidades, te encantará un juego que no solo te entretendrá pero te aseguramos aprenderás algo nuevo sobre tu querida patria.

http://www.gozatelo.com/trivia/

Podrás disfrutar del sitio en español o en inglés.

Let me ease the pain your feeling. School sucks! So don't feel bad.

I dropped out of junior high school in the 8th grade in Philadelphia, PA. Sadly, I should have been in the 10th grade, but how was I suppose to pass if I hardly attended. All I did at school was get picked on and fight to defend myself. Not to mention that the class clowns were many. When I did attend and it just happened to be on a day of an exam, I would pass. My English teacher (my home class teacher) would always scratch his head and tried hard, with the help of the math teacher, to get me to stay and attend more. I would look at him and say "I learn a lot more at home!"

I am not making this up! I didn't learn computer programming at school. I didn't learn the algebra needed for the computer programming I was doing at school! I learned all this at home with the help of an Atari 8-bit computer running at 1.77 mHz and books like Oh! Pascal!. Granted I was introduced to personal computers in school, but this was an after school program for an hour. Not much you can learn in this time, but was enough to get me started.

As far as history was concerned, LMAO, I got a better education watching PBS on channel 12! Most of the history text books provided in school were a joke when it came to this topic as well! My history teacher told us once that Hitler's body was never found and that no one knew what had happened to Hitler after the war. Having watched PBS I had already known that his body was cremated (partially) outside the bunker were he spent the last days of the war and that the Russians had found the bunker and not the Americans. Talk about the failures of public education. I also bought books on many of these topics at the time. My books were a thousand times better than anything the public schools had to offer. Public libraries were available to me, but I hardly ever visited them. Besides, I always wanted books by favorite authors, those who were knowledgeable in their fields.

As far as being alone? At least you have a father that you can sit down with and have a meaningful conversation with. I come from a long line of alcoholics. My dad is an alcoholic, my grandfather was an alcoholic, most of my uncles on my father's side are alcoholics. What can I say? This is what Puerto Rico has cultivated in my part of the island (sadly, I don't think my situation is that much different than most here–we just like to sweep it under the rug).

As far as searching out people here that can engage me in a conversation that has nothing to do with alcoholic drinks, the next dance craze, cars, or gossip, I am out of luck. Most of the time I keep to myself.

The only education you need in this world you will never find in a public school anyway. And that is economics. The irony of living in a capitalist society is that in its public schools you are never thought that all important education you need to make it in our society!

You have to find a way to educate yourself in this area because your government and its public schools will never teach you this.

Once you do educate yourself in this area and can tell the difference between when your government puts out a report on the latest jobless rate, and you know the real numbers are never reported, congratulate yourself because you have seen the light and are on your way to becoming a complete human being. But only you have that power.

Let's take the recent history of the computer revolution (as some have called it), I personally don't see the revolution–I see an evolution. Over the years I have been told about documentaries such as "Revolution OS," "Pirates of Silicon Valley," and "Triumph of the Nerds." I had seen "Triumph Of The Nerds" on PBS' affiliate station WHYY, channel 12 in Philadelphia years ago, I think it was 1997. But not the other two. Recently I got the chance to view all three.

I don't have a problem with "Pirates Of Silicon Valley" because it's a movie and not a documentary. All you have to do is read Steve Wozniak's replies to letters from people who saw "Pirates Of Silicon Valley" to understand that. According to him some scenes in the movie happened in different locations and at different times and with different people!

Not being an Apple fan myself I recently decided to find out more about Apple's history. The book I decided on was Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company. In this book I came across Jef Raskin. Now, according to "Triumph Of The Nerds" Steve Jobs was the father and luminary of the Macintosh computer. Hmm… not according to Jef Raskin, the man behind the Macintosh computer. Steve Jobs actually hated the Macintosh from the beginning and took the project away from Raskin after Jobs was kicked out of the Lisa project–no one there wanted him meddling in anymore. Jef Raskin, not happy with the so-called "factual" representation of the history of the Macintosh, wrote an elegant and insightful article which he titled "Holes In The Histories." That article you have to read, even if you're not an Apple computer fan, as it goes way beyond the misrepresentations of just Apple history.

I remember reading the book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by Steven Levy after it was loaned to me by one of my bosses in Philadelphia. I made an impression on him when I downloaded an Atari 8-bit emulator and was playing classic games like Pac Man and Frogger at my computer. Somehow he knew it wasn't the innards of an IBM he was looking at. After asking me and getting an earful of my Atari 8-bit days, he asked me if I had read the book Hackers, I said no, and he brought it into the office the next day and handed it to me. I took it home and read. I still remember many of the stories, especially those of John Harris as detailed in the book. John Harris actually refutes many of the so-called "facts" in the book, especially the personal ones. The one story that I remember most was when he lost the code to Frogger. According to John Harris he actually had backups but "those needed several weeks worth of redoing to make it current to the one he lost. So it was a bitter loss. " — According to Jack H. Lee, Feb 5th, 2000, in comp.sys.atari.8bit. But who's better to refute many of the so-called "facts" about John Harris in Hackers than John Harris himself in an interview that was published in the book Halcyon Days. The entire book was placed online for free in 2002 by its author.

I can go on forever with this post, but I will leave it here. I think this is enough detail to open your eyes wide open. There is probably a website detailing all the sloppy work that has been done documenting the computer revolution, but I didn't want to find one before I had a chance to write this post. I do use the word sloppy because even I have had a chance to e-mail John Harris, for example. He comes across to me like a very approachable person and extremely helpful. Why couldn't Steven Levy contact him before writing about him in his book? Why couldn't Robert Cringley do the same with Jef Raskin before labeling Steve Jobs the father of the Macintosh computer?

Puerto Rico has the bad habit of leaving us without electricity every now and then, and it is at this time that I always utter the following words in Latin "Hic jacet Nelsonius"–Here lies Nelson. Power failures almost always happen when I have nothing else to do except my work, which is rudely interrupted by the lack of power. So I take that time to sit down and start my Latin lessons.

Latin is not for the faint of hearts. It is one tough mother. The reasons are many, but mostly because Latin is an inflected language and does not confirm to the way we write and read modern languages. Take English for example. Where the subject is known by its place in the sentence–it usually comes first.

The cat scratches Paul. — The cat is the subject and Paul the object.
Paul scratches the cat. — Paul is now the subject and the cat the object.

Here is an example from the Latin for Dummies book–with my own twist. Let's assume in English that adding an asterisk (*) to a word makes it the subject and a percent sign (%) the object.

Paul* carries the bag%.
Paulus sarcinam portat.

The bag% carries Paul*.
Sarcinam Paulus portat.

The previous sentences all mean the same, that Paul carries the bag. Neat huh? Had I inflected Paulus into Paulum (making it the object) and sarcinam into sarcina (making it the subject) then the sentences meaning would be that the bag is carrying Paul.

This is not the only problems that you will face with Latin. There is also pronunciation, which one to choose? I enjoy more the classical (ancient) pronunciation, as oppose to the ecclesiastical (church) pronunciation (the modern pronunciation). In classical pronunciation the letter "v" is pronounced like the English letter "w," "video" is pronounced "wideo." The word "video" means "I see" in Latin.

I use the following books for my studies of Latin. Not only do these books teach you Latin, but they also introduce you to plenty of Roman history.

Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin is my favorite book. It is very easy to follow and with plenty of exercises based on an exciting and humorous text, set in a medieval monastery that is under threat of attack from Vikings.

• Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin
• Latin for Dummies
• Wheelock's Latin, 6th Edition Revised (The Wheelock's Latin)
• Collins Latin gem dictionary: Latin-English : English-Latin