Will of the People

Review: Tazza d'Oreo

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The 500 is a decent way to get here, although it's an infrequent bus. Behind me is someone trying to scam someone else into a pyramid (actually, a MLM) scheme. I am tempted to walk around the neighbourhood a bit more, although I am also tempted to understand the scam so I can expose this guy as a fraud. It's funny how I could not reach out to another human being for social reasons but can (probably) avoid being shy to stop this kind of rubbish.

Update: Good for you! The woman said she might've been naïve enough for that when she was younger, but not now, and walked out after about an hour of listening to the guy's spiel. I didn't need to say a word.

My laptop is not better. It's less bad, but still very ill. Apparently,either the power subsystem in the laptop itself is busted, the connectorsare messed up, or Dell shipped me another AC adapter that's only slightlyless damaged than the old one. I can't trust my laptop, and it constantlyflickers between on-AC/off-AC mode, the screen brightening and dimmingas it goes. While jiggling the cord can put it back on AC, it quicklyflickers off again. Heat appears to be related -- when the system is off,if I can position it right, it stays charging for a few minutes before itstarts to flicker.. It is *very* frustrating, and if the eBay-suppliedAC adapters don't fix it, I may need to either ship the whole thing backto Dell for repairs, or look at getting a new laptop. Argh.

My Neuros arrived today, and I spent a good amount of time getting it working.It turns out that Positron, the neuros Manager thatI was pointed at, is badly broken, and despite my prodding at its sourcefor quite some time (it's written in Python, which I dislike, but can code inwhen needed), I was unable to fix it. I suspect that part of the problem is thatit was written for an older Python, and perhaps that Python 2.3 is itself amonstrosity. I found all sorts of strange behavior, including what looked likea perfectly sane file copy failing, the pyogg/pyvorbis packages segfaultingif you use them on more than one file within a script, and .. well, frankly Idon't understand why they felt the need to do their own filesystem-to-filesystemcopying anyhow. So, even if Python is to blame for it not working, the thing isa piece of junk to begin with. Instead, I went with a Java-based programcalled NDBM. Fast, easy, andwhile not as powerful as positron, it works (in fairness, the positronfailures only happened when I was dealing with OGGs). So, now that I have itworking, how is it? Answer: It's totally awesome! It can do all sorts of crazythings, it's reasonably attractive, has a nice interface, and is pretty fastwhen used as a disk. One note: while I've long scoffed at tagging my MP3/OGGfiles with author, genre, etc, the Neuros uses these things more than it doesfilenames, so I'm going to need to go back and either re-rip everything orgive things accurate tags (the latter necessary for things which I either nolonger have or never had the CD for). This may be a good opportunity to movea lot of my music into ogg format.. and for the rest of the stuff, I'll writea script. Wow, this thing is so cool. I can scoop the last of my data from myvoice recorder too, recording it right to mp3 on the neuros, finally mail itto its new owner (sorry for the delay, J).. and I can give my USB keychaindrive to someone new (I think I know who'd appreciate it the most). With 40Gof storage, I have plenty of room to store a lot more than music on my neuros..

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that a friend pointed me at a site where peoplecan pass useful things to people who want them.. here's an url that'llhelp you find a local branch. For Pittsburghers, I believe you'll want tojoin "theburghfreecycle" group. w00t!

Oh, two new TMBG CDs arrived in the mail today. Hurray!So yes, it takes a lot to cheer me up with my laptop ill, but I have enoughgood-ness to do it.

I just got back from lunch, having tried the Indica Indian Bistroat 257 North Craig. It was a fine example of the way more restaurantsshould be managed. Relative to CMU campus, it's a moderate hike, almostas far as India Garden. Set in what presumably was a house at some point,the atmosphere is very open, with very little dividing the waiters and thediners. They had a buffet, but I went instead with Paneer Kadai. The foodwas very good, although the sides wern't as described on the menu. The sauceon the meal was incredibly tasty, and I surprisingly didn't mind the peppersand onions that accompanied the Paneer chunks. Because of the layout of theroom, the waiters were able to tell precisely when my water needed refillingor when I had finished with each part, which was very nice. The place wasa bit upscale -- I'm glad I wore one of my decent jackets there. Menu selectionwasn't as wide as I've seen at other Indian places (17 entrees), but therewas ample variety, I suspect, for most people. Prices were higher than Inormally like to pay for a meal, so I won't be going there every day, but Idefinitely will be going there as an occasional treat. It's a good place.

While walking back, I read the following interesting paragraph from Trotsky'sbook..

The destiny of the state-appropriated means of production will be decided in thelong run according as these differences in personal existence evolve in onedirection or the other. If a ship is declared collective property, but thepassengers continue to be devided into first, second, and third class, it isclear that, for the third-class passengers, differences in the conditions oflife will have infinitely more importance than the juridical change inproprietorship. The first-class passengers, on the other hand, will propound,together with their coffee and cigars, the thought that collective ownereshipis everything and a comfortable cabin nothing at all. Antagonisms growing outof this may will explode the unstable collective.

Interesting.