Coffee from a Reusable Ceramic Mug

I have been having a problem with my computer for months now. The fan in my Sony laptop has been so loud it has been driving me crazy! I had taken it to a repair guy in town a few months ago, and he basically said he wouldn’t replace the fan for me. I thought it was strange of a repair guy to refuse to repair a computer, but tonight, I learned why. It just wasn’t worth his time. Wise man. I, however, am not a wise man.

After finding a couple of nice pictorial descriptions of taking apart a Sony Vaio, I got the courage to do it myself. The part arrived this afternoon, and I spent about three hours tonight doing what felt like open heart surgery. Luckily, one of the Star Trek movies was on TV tonight, so I had something stupid to distract me when I needed a break.

So, what I learned was that in order to get into the fan, you have to remove EVERYTHING from the laptop. It is on the back side of the motherboard! If the back panel of the stupid laptop were removable, you could simply pop it out, but NO, not with a Sony. So, I had to dig down to the fan from the top. I had to remove the hard drive, the optical drive, and the LCD on my way down, and I have to say that I didn’t quite get that last bit back straight. I may have to adjust it again, but I am tired now. Aside from that, I seemed to have put all of the pieces back together properly. It was fun. It’s kind of like putting together a big puzzle, and since I don’t own a crappy old car that I can experiment on, this was a nice project. You can imagine how happy I was when the laptop turned on after I put it back together.

The sound of silence obtained by the endeavor is priceless! A silent computer once again!

My assistant Matthias took a few photos to document:

Sometimes I hear things that really stick in my brain. A few days ago, I heard an interview with a man who lost his 23 year old daughter in the Oklahoma City bombing 15 years ago. Before that, he was always against the death penalty. After a year of recovering from his daughter’s murder, he once again came to find that he did not support the death penalty even for the murderer of his daughter. In his words, Timothy McVey’s death ‘would not contribute to his healing process.’

That was interesting, but what really made me take pause was what he said about Mr. McVey’s father. The man being interviewed had met McVey’s father, and he believed that the tragedy of the bombing was even harder for McVey’s father than it was for him. He said that he speaks publicly about his daughter and losing her, and in doing so, he keeps a part of her alive. He had compassion for the suffering of McVey’s father who also lost a child but was not able to publicly share the positive memories and stories of his son.

I had never really thought about the sadness of McVey’s parents until that interview. It is amazing to see the depth of compassion that some people develop through the processes of recovering from profound pain.

Just a random thought about a very painful day for many 15 years ago.

Does anyone know about connecting with locals in Regensburg who know a bit about Cocoa programming? Looking for resources and tips on learning the language.

Hi out there. I know that in my mind, I think only friend/family read this blog, but every once in a while I meet someone who I don’t know very well, and they say, “Hey, I read your blog.” It is still strange that our lives sound interesting enough for strangers to read. Once in a while, a complete stranger comments on the blog too, so there must be more than 10 people reading this.

Anyway, I am looking for some information, and I’d figure I’d tap the pool of potential strangers who read this to see what kind of wisdom is out there. I have been helping a nice man named Remo who published the book in the image there (feel free to click to buy). His German Yoga book is quite popular at the moment, and he is looking to bring it to the US market.

He contacted me more for my English and Yoga knowledge (for translation help) than for my knowledge of publishing, but I have been hitting up every potential publishing/Yoga contact I know about breaking into the US market. Long story short, I am over my head and can’t really help him. Does anyone out there know anything that would be helpful about finding a literary agent or publisher looking to take on an English version of the book?

In case you were wondering, a little video here and an interview with the author of “The Story of Stuff” on Stephen Colbert inspired the name change on the blog.

One of the things about living overseas is that some of the American ‘Holidays’ kind of slip by without realizing it. So, really, is it Superbowl Sunday? If it is, who is playing? Does anyone know if you can watch it online anywhere (for the commercials, of course)?

Did you hear that Apple finally invented a new device? Impressive.

I don’t mean life without the country of China. Every once in a while, I come across news stories that get very little press about some horrendous acts carried out by the Chinese government against it’s people. It goes beyond internet censorship that does get a lot of press, interestingly, to the point of what I would call mass murder. Often women are bear the brunt of these harshest of these acts. I won’t go into details here about the stories, but these stories usually touch me deeply every time.

Fast forward to my perfect little life (compared to, say, the life of someone living in rural China). I look at the bottom of my coffee cup to the inevitable stamp “made in China.” From clothes, to dishes, to furniture, so much of it is made in China, and my consumption, in some part, contributes to suffering of the Chinese people. I can’t do much about the top-end politics of how my countries interacts with the emerging super power, but I can do something about my habits of consumption.

I am somewhat aware of where the stuff I buy comes from. I have a mix of things that were a bit more expensive because they were made in Germany or Western Europe with explicit mention about the conditions in which they were produced, and I also have a lot of things made in China. I’d like to decrease that second part until I can live with the idea of contributing to the government of China. I also realize that things are less black and white than painted here (as Chinese prosperity grows, there may be more chances for people there to win their freedoms, etc), but I still want to cut back on consuming Chinese made products.

Any ideas out there? I find that, generally, buying less stuff is a good start, and when I have to buy stuff, I have to read really carefully. I used to think that sticking with major brands helped, but it doesn’t anymore. That little ‘made in China’ stamp has a way of sneaking in there when I thought I have bought something from elsewhere. Has anyone had success in this? It would be nice if they had something similar to ‘conflict-free’ diamonds for Chinese products.

As an aside, I saw a headline about some video the Glenn Beck is promoting about the ‘truth’ behind communism. Apparently, he thinks it is a big secret that Stalin was probably the worst mass murderer in history and the Che Guevara was an actual violent revolutionary. Long story short, from what I saw, the video kind of implied that communism is really bad and that the liberals (AKA Obama and elitists) have been trying to spread lies that communism is great and that Stalin is a hero!!!! OK, that last bit may just be my cynical extrapolation of where the video goes, but you get the idea. Anyway, I was thinking about the people this video was marketed toward (I suspect I am not one of them), and I wonder if the video will inspire them to take a similar stand against Chinese products since China is the largest communist regime ever. Will crazy-eyes Beck try to raise a boycott against Wallmart and most other discount retails who thrive off of Chinese imports? That would be an interesting twist. I suspect it will most likely be blamed on Obama and no one will be asked to sacrifice their cheap stuff, but it could happen.

I was just thinking about statistics in the context of the Amazon.com consumer ratings (we are looking for a coffee grinder). They recommend thing based on the average consumer rating, but mentioning the median might be more useful. I notice that some of the less expensive (often knock-off) brands have an almost bimodal distribution of ratings than some of the more expensive brands. Then, I saw this comic.