http://me

Srividhya Srinivasan, from India, is an MSc student at the faculty of Architecture. (Photo: webcam)

“It makes me realize how old I am when I have to talk about the effect of computers and internet on my life. My initial experience with the computer was at my mother’s office: I’d wait for the lucky Saturday when I get the big air-conditioned computer room all to myself. Half a day of pacman and nibbles projected on the wall was worth the trouble of finishing all my homework by Friday evening. And look where we are now,” Srividhya reminisces. “I was one of the first in my school to have a home computer. It finally paid to have an older sister in the house, as she did the hard work of convincing my parents. It came equipped with an 8 GB Hard drive. Today my USB stick is 16 GB,” she says, smiling. “After the first few weeks of yahoo and ICQ chats, you finally started to explore the real internet world. It helped me in always being one-up on my assignments during school days.

Today I cannot imagine an hour without the internet. It’s almost like I have a parallel e-existence. I’ve grown to use the internet more for the ‘information exchange’ that it facilitates. I started blogging many years back. I like sites like poem-hunter and similar blogs which encourage everyone to share their thoughts.
Being a designer, I’m in search of inspiration all the time. Sites like archdaily and dezeen keep me updated with recent designs and technological developments in the architecture and design field. I also love politics and current affairs. More than just reading the news from the different websites, I’m interested more in the analysis/critique you can find on the internet. With the elections in the United States, what better than Jon Stewart to end the day with. Internet makes the world so much more accessible. Google reader is a Godsend, helping you to be regularly updated on the feeds from so many interesting blogs, articles and analysis on all ranges of topics without having to spend much time on browsing.
And of course the many file share websites that gives me access to millions of books, TV series and movies. I hope the anti-piracy laws are sensible, because otherwise the internet would be nothing. Finally, it would be unfair to finish without thanking the many chefs and other enthusiastic cooks who share their recipes online. I cannot count the many emergency situations they’ve helped avoid.”

My favorites:

• earthsky.org
• opensimsim.net
• deseen.com
• coffeewithanarchitect.com
• sanjeevkapoor.com
• vahrehvah.com
• whatay.com