Capricious Me

Ok. I’ve finally done something with the cr-48. I’ve installed ubuntu on it. Why do I do this? It’s not as if I don’t already have a laptop and computer running linux. Well – here comes the exciting bit: In april, I shall be going to India for my friend Balaji’s wedding. To minimize the weight that I’ll be carrying, I’m going to bring the cr-48 instead of one of the macbooks. Because I still need to work on my dissertation, I don’t want to use the shell that comes with Chrome OS in case I don’t have reliable or trustworthy internet sources.

There are about ten bajillion posts out there commenting on how easy it is to do this and it is indeed incredibly easy, especially if you already have a linux machine running ubuntu. If you don’t, just get a live CD or use something like portable ubuntu or andlinux or use a virtual machine. (Which leads to a very Inception-like situation of a virtual machine within a virtual machine.)

Me, I SSHed into my workstation in lab and used remote x to handle all of this. The advantage of this method, as opposed to only using the linux partition, is that I can download the ubuntu ISO much much faster, and the processing power on that machine is way better than my laptop.

I followed Google’s instructions. And then I used this guide to help make the trackpad and keyboard more usable.

And voila – a tiny, light ubuntu laptop with built in SD-card reader (to upload the many photos that I’ll take) with great battery power!

Ghost Patrol this past weekend was so much fun. The little extra things the GC did really added up and made it my favorite Halloween thus far.

Having seen a lot of puzzles, ranging from great to terrible – I’m getting a sense of what makes a puzzle good. Hopefully this will help us in writing our puzzle in DASH 3… So what are key components to puzzles? In no particular order:
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Thanks to my awesome friends, I’m the proud owner of a 3G Kindle (grey). I’m extremely happy with it – I’ve been using the kindle app on my Android for some time now to read. Using the kindle itself is soo much nicer because there’s no glare and it’s about the size of a book. I got the lit cover, so my kindle is protected and is able to power its own reading light. :)

What I love especially are the screensavers. It seems to be an automatic thing – because the kindle doesn’t actually use power once it displays a page (oh the magic of e-ink!), it’s extremely battery efficient and so after a certain time of no activity detected, the kindle will automatically put itself to “sleep” by displaying an illustration. Usually it’s a picture of an author, but there’s old timey illustrations as well. It’s quite fun.

I’m currently reading “Wives and Daughters” by Elizabeth Gaskell and “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett. In the old fashioned paper book world, I’m rereading “I, Claudius.” I would be reading it on kindle, but amazon.com apparently doesn’t think Americans are cultured enough to warrant electronic versions, though they have no such reservations for the amazon.co.uk.

The majority of the books I have are from the public domain – I am a poor grad student after all, so why would I pay for books when there are so many good old classics out there? Among my ambitions are to pick up my French reading skills again. I’m going to reread Candide. I did it in high school, so let’s see how much I can remember.

I saw a jewelry store today called Pandora. Interesting name. Every time someone opens up one of the boxes, they’re opening a “Pandora’s box.” Do they mean to imply that the jewelry represents all the evils beset on humans, or was it just a cute name to them? Greed was one of the things to come out of Pandora’s box, and greed is what drives us to buy useless but pretty baubles like jewelry, after all. Maybe the owner of the store is a very cynical person who delights in satire.

Cambridge weather is unpredictable. It was sunny all day and then all of a sudden it was pouring. And then just as abruptly, it stopped.

I took a walk of the town and saw a few of the college grounds, including King’s College and Corpus Christi. And then I discovered the Grand Arcade – a small but well stocked mall.

I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect pair of creamy yellow shoes to go with my dark blue satin dress, and I came so close today. It was ever so slightly too big. And I was trying on the smallest pair there. Usually, 37 is my size, but not today…

What is it about Chinese restaurants being located right next to … shall we say, unsavory shops of a sexual nature?

I think I walked through the red light district today right after visiting a huge church. Location is everything, I suppose. I was walking through a street with a few Chinese shops and restaurants (Amsterdam Chinatown is in that area), when I noticed quite a few shops unabashedly advertising their wares. Turning the corner and then noticed that the uncovered windows had STOOLS by them. So I turned around and walked through an alleyway back the way I came. It was an interesting alleyway, with lots of similar windows and the occasional scantily clad woman.

Anyway. I started out the day with a visit to the Amsterdam Hermitage, where I saw lots of paintings by Matisse, Picasso, and their peers. Not much besides that… despite the size of the building. After that I walked to Waterlooplein flea market and got myself some fries with mayonnaise.

My next stop was the Dutch Resistance Museum, across from a zoo. It was a really awesome setup with lots of props and audio. Unfortunately, there were tons of little boys running around being loud and annoying. What’s interesting about the Dutch resistance, to me, at least, is that there was a lot of church encouragement from both Protestants and Catholics to resist and even to help hide the Jews. This is in stark contrast to the churches in Germany, according to the book I’m reading (Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust) in which churches actually protested when the Nazis wouldn’t let them use the swastika as a symbol anymore.

From there, I walked to the Hortus Botanicus, where I saw a butterfly coming out of its cocoon. Very neat.

Next, I headed over to the tulip museum, which was actually just one room recounting the history of the tulip. From there, it was a quick walk to Nieuwe Kerk, a huge church across from the Royal Palace (currently surrounded by scaffolding and construction and closed on Mondays). After that is when I started wandering around and found the red light district.

Finally, I went to the Anne Frank house. It was a pretty depressing tour…

Tomorrow is souvenir hunting! And then the day after is my day trip to Brussels.

It’s hot. and humid. I’ve never appreciated a cool breeze more… or guzzled down so much water without needing to make a stop every 10 minutes. Davis in the summer is nothing compared to Bangkok. But that’s about the only thing causing me discomfort.

Davis Thai food is forever ruined for me, because I’ve tasted the real thing (for a fraction of the cost) and I can’t go back. Seriously. Highlights include: roasted chicken liver, fried quail eggs with a dash of maggi seasoning and white pepper, slightly pickled guava, crunchy green mango dipped in a mixture of crushed shrimp, salt, and red pepper flakes, spicy catfish salad, and EVERYTHING from tonight’s meal.

The traffic is terrifying, though not nearly as chaotic as China. Motorcycles zip by without a care as to which lane they’re in, which direction traffic is coming from, and how many people are on the damn thing.

So far, we’ve wandered around some shopping areas, visited several temples and palaces, and made obligatory trips to the touristy areas. Bhume is an excellent host, and his house is amazing. It’s built in the Thai style (see here for an example) and is connected by small wooden gates to houses of several of his family members. Nearby is a cafe his sister and cousin own, his family’s gym, and his aunt’s restaurant (where we ate tonight). There’s a hospital literally across the street, so as a result there’s usually two street food vendors by the gate to his house. It’s understandable that people in the hospital would prefer that food to the Sodexo offerings in the hospital. Oh yes, Sodexo, as in the same awful caterer we have on the UCD campus.

There’s lots of rumors and apprehension regarding the Red Shirt rallies planned for this weekend. Military personnel are everywhere in the major tourist attractions and near government buildings. Some of the major areas will be closed starting tomorrow – including the areas we just saw today. Lucky us.

“Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.” (Found this on Wikipedia.)

The more you know…

Lyra’s not really a lap kitten. She’s more of a leg kitten, in that she doesn’t like sitting in your lap but she will sit and lie down on your extended legs, usually around the knees. She makes a great leg warmer. Back when she was younger, she used to climb on my lap and we’d watch nature documentaries together. Now, she mostly sleeps. And holds on by digging in with her claws.

Last night/this morning, I had a dream in which I was about to start eating a bowl of beef noodles at a table with some other girl and a guy. The details are hazy now, but I think we were talking about the dangers of using stims (I think this was a BSG referencing dream) on the job. Then the girl looks at my food disapprovingly and says, “You know, last year, when someone died, it wasn’t because of stims, it was beef noodles! All those carbs!” I retorted, “Are you kidding? How is a bowl of noodles more dangerous than your drugs? I’ll eat my damn noodles if I want!” And then the guy chimes in, “It is a lot of carbs…” and I reply, “well, I’d rather die early knowing that I ate stuff that tasted good!”

It’s no surprise that even in my dreams I would choose food. What does surprise me is the other characters hating on beef noodles.