Angelo’s Notepad

… that’s the first Ferengi Rule of Acquisition.

Some years ago, when I heard this I thought about all those rebates I’ve done. I’ve done quite a few, and my experience has been mixed. I’m not exactly sure how the decide which people they’re going to attempt to deny (even with legitimate rebates). I’m fairly certain that they are not simply careless because the rate at which I’ve been denied at least the first time has been about 50%. That’s way too high to be coincidental considering that it’s never happened even once through all the other mailings I’ve done like paying bills where I’m actually sending them money.

So yes, I would say that they are following the first Rule of Acquisition:

Once you have their money, never give it back.

I got up this morning to drive to the hotel Melisa was staying at in Gaithersburg. It was a beautiful day, not too hot but still sunny. I decided to stop by to bring her something for breakfast. I stopped by a french bakery to pick up a few breads and some breakfast cheese.

I entered the hotel in the quiet residential area. I knocked on her room door and waited for her to come. I smiled when I saw her beautiful face. Melisa was happy to see me and surprised that I brought her breakfast. We lazily stayed in her hotel room and relaxed as we shared our breakfast. From her window of the hotel room we could see the lake that was next to the shopping and entertainment area near the hotel.

After breakfast when we were ready, we went downstairs and walked to the shopping area nearby. The day was still beautiful and comfortable, and it was a nice walk, as we proceeded to walk on the trail around the lake opposite of the more busy areas. We held hands as we walked through the geese that had gathered from the lake stretching across the trail. When we got to the other side of the lake, we went to the shopping areas nearby. We got some ice cream and walked around the different stores. In particular, I think Melisa enjoyed going into the bookstore.

After a while, we decided to have a late lunch. We went back and we drove to get sushi. The place was almost empty because it was after lunch. The sushi there is always good, fresh, and cut well. In addition to sushi I ordered a fried tofu with fish flakes, because I wanted Melisa to try it. When we were sitting there, I thought about how easy it is to get along with her and how lucky I am.

In the afternoon we decided to go back to the hotel and rest. While at the hotel, we looked at the movie schedule for the theater near the hotel, and also the one near the steakhouse that I was planning on taking her for lunch. I think the one near the hotel is a much nicer theater, so I decided we should go there, but it would mean that we need to eat dinner first. So Melisa took a nap.

We had to drive a little way to get to the steakhouse. It is a western, kind of cowboy, style place. It was nice to show Melisa some kind of native food here. I think she really liked it, but didn’t expect that we ate so much. The steaks are so big compared to what she is used to. “Maybe tomorrow we can order salad from a place near the hotel,” I told her.

When we left the restaurant, the night was cool and comfortable with the smell of rain in the air. We drove back to the hotel area for a movie. The movie was nice, but I really cared more about being with her. It was just good to have her here, and I was happy that this was a special day. I really hope she was having fun.

After the movie, we took a walk around the lake again that night. This time we walked more slowly, and we enjoyed our time together. As it grew darker, we could see the stars appear. On the far side of the lake from the buildings, we sat on one of the benches around the path. I gave Melisa a hug, and sat close to her. I could tell we were both feeling something. After a little bit I kissed her, and whispered, “it’s not illegal here”–about something only she would understand.

After that, we went back up to the hotel room. I could tell Melisa was tired. I gave her a little massage as she relaxed and watched some TV. We spent a little time together, and before I left, I made sure to tell her “happy birthday.”

* shaking Melisa to wake her up *

I got my XO laptop from laptopgiving.org today. I plugged it in and waited the whole day, but I think it was already charged. There’s no way to tell if it’s done charging or not (I think).

It’s interesting. The keyboard is exceedingly small, and the keys are like those flexible keyboards. But I guess it wasn’t meant to teach typing skills. Also it has a touchpad mouse with two mouse buttons: X and O (of course). It has 3 USB ports, a headphone jack, a microphone jack, a rotating screen, built-in speakers, a built-in microphone, and what appears to be a built-in camera.

I posted some pictures on Picasa:

XO

I managed to surf the net with it a little bit and investigate:

• Memory is just under 256 MB
• 1 GB disk space
• Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
• processor Geode AMD 430 MHz w/ 128K cache

The final word on this review: this laptop is great for kids.

Updates

I’ve been getting questions about it, so I’ll answer them as they come in.

• Is the display black and white? It does support color, but it seems to have a lot of black/white/gray as a base color.

Today I noticed this article about how shipping services are done in the US.  I understand and totally agree with the sentiment.  It’s the same problem any time someone needs to actually come out to your home for anything:  e.g. cable installation.  “Yeah we’ll be out there sometime between 8 am and 4 pm.  Have fun taking a day off of work and waiting for us.”

What I really don’t understand is how this can exist in the US:  isn’t capitalism and competition supposed to fix this kind of thing?  I mean I literally live up the street from an auto repair shop and I still have to have my friend drive me to work when I need my car fixed because they only work from 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday.  Really?  You only work during the times that other people are using the thing you’re trying to fix for them?  Retards.

The only reason I can think of for this is that there really isn’t free market competition.  In the case of UPS deliveries, there is probably too great a barrier to entry into the market these days, and the little guys probably all got bought up.  In the case of the cable company, the physical lines are a community shared resource which they have control over.  (Hopefully improved wireless technology will provide the kind of competition we need so we’re not still paying $50+ per month in the US for high speed Internet, while some eastern block countries ironically enjoy about a $20 per month price.)  I still haven’t figured out how the car repair places do it without having a competitor just work on the weekends and off hours to get all the business.

And there’s something else implied in the article that I can attest to:  the service in Japan is excellent.  I stayed a night in Tokyo on my recent trip to Indonesia in October.  I flew on Japan Airlines, and while I didn’t notice the difference in service and culture when I was experiencing it, I definitely noticed after I came back and had to deal with people here.  People here have horrible attitudes in the service industry–almost as if they all hate their jobs and they’re going to take it out on you.  It’s not every industry and it’s not every region, but there is a marked difference between here and Japan.

First of all, people in Japan act polite and happy to serve you.  They don’t passive aggressively project all their personal frustrations on you.  And they take pride in their job and their work.  I never felt uncomfortable or out of place while I was in Japan.  And even my friend Taka, who I visited while there, was willing to talk to and help other strangers who had just arrived at the airport.

When I got back to the US, the first thing I noticed was how unaccommodating the airline stewardesses were.  In particular I remember one of the legs of the trip I had been up for nearly 48 hours, and asked for help to find a place to put my bag on the plane.  (I only had a very small bag, but of course the plane luggage was nearly full because the airlines here –in this case American Airlines–don’t feel the need to enforce any fair treatment of their passengers, and the bins were filled up quickly.)  The stewardess acted like it wasn’t her job to help me find some space, and that if I don’t see anything I’ll just have to put it under the seat so I can have even less foot room.  I guess that’s their way of rewarding passengers who travel light and don’t impose on other passengers.  I explained to her that I had been up for 48 hours, and she just responded with some kind of defensive remark to the effect that there was no way she could help me.  I didn’t expect her to find a spot, just help me look.

Sadly, all of this boils down to the quality of life being better in Japan.  In general I think the US needs to fix a few things:  the society as a whole is much more concerned with the bottom line than it is with quality of life.

… except of course any involving requests I’ve made.

One of the rules for not being considered a spammer is to let people unsubscribe from your mailing list. I have tried to unsubscribe from Priceline’s list(s) three times now (a generous allowance only because I actually signed up with them). From now on, every unsolicited email I get from them is going to be marked as spam.

And guess what? That’s all that really should matter to them. In fact, spam isn’t a science and it isn’t a legal definition. I’m not sure that they’re doing anything illegal, or simply just playing loopholes (or maybe they’re just plain too stupid). They could have 100 mailing lists, and I could be on every one of them, and it may be perfectly legal for them to expect me to opt out of each one.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is the receiver’s opinion of what they’re sending. If people start marking their mail as spam, then the spam filters will start blocking it. Not really a good policy for a company to have.

I came up with a technique for making money off of school books on amazon. Find a recent book that you have for which a used version doesn’t go below a nice price. So let’s say people are selling it for $40 used. I’ve noticed that if you try to price war with them, they often lower their prices to match you. You can lower your price to say $20. The risk is that someone comes and snaps up your book for $20 which is bad (you might want to gradually lower it). But if they don’t and another seller lowers theirs to 19.95, you can immediately buy their book, put yours back up to $40 and then sell their book later when you get it.

This won’t work well for popular books because it will get bought fast. This will only work well if you can find books which are being sold by inexperienced amazon sellers that just want to sell their stuff, and won’t buy yours from under you.

Ok, maybe it’s a lame idea.

The new Pope has indicated that some old style masses are now okay to celebrate again as Catholic mass.

From Wikipedia:

Pope Benedict released the document after “much reflection, numerous consultations, and prayer.” In the document itself, he stated that the Tridentine Mass and other pre-Conciliar forms of the sacraments were “never abrogated” and that “a priest does not require any permission” to celebrate them. The Pope authorized celebration of a Tridentine Mass in parishes on Sundays and feasts where such a desire “exists stably,” along with weddings, funerals, baptism, penance, and the Anointing of the Sick. However, only the diocesan bishop may administer Confirmation according to the pre-Conciliar Pontifical.

Reference:   Summorum Pontificum

After playing Blacman, here are a couple of games that will help you become more diplomatic and probably politically correct.

The first one is A Force More Powerful which is a strategy game in which you use diplomacy in order to avoid conflicts. Unfortunately, I bet this kind of thing doesn’t sell very well and it does come at about $20. Maybe after a while you’ll find it in the discount bin at your local tech store.

AFMP is a single-player, turn-based game in which the player takes on the role of chief strategist in a nonviolent movement against the opponent in one of ten pre-packaged scenarios. As the player takes charge of the movement’s materials and human resources, recruits new members and builds alliances, the player also learns the value of strategic planning, and the careful formulation of goals and tactics.

The second one is Food Force which reminds me of Team America World Police. This one sends you on a mission to aid starving people in India. And best of all it’s free.

A major crisis has developed in the Indian Ocean, on the island of Sheylan. We’re sending in a new team to step up the World Food Programme’s presence there and help feed millions of hungry people.