eagerly hackable

[nibot]

So, I called Chris this evening to inquire about the status of our, er, my car -- specifically whether there was anything covering the (missing) window during our last few days of tremendous downpouring rain. No such luck, it's now a "car pool" for sure. Anyway, the plan is that we'll distribute 4-6 of us between this dilapidated vehicle and an Accord whose actual ownership is rather nebulous and we'll try to make the 400-odd mile drive down to Los Angeles. Somebody, please, pray for us.

In Orange County we hope to secure a door for the poor vehicle.

What else is new? Oh a few small things. But here is what you can think about:

1. Esperanto. I always kind of laugh a mocking laugh to myself whenever someone mentions Esperanto, and it's even more of a guffaw if they ascribe the "the international language" epithet. But really, there's this nifty online correspondence course in the language that really makes an offer you can't refuse:

   You can learn the basics of Esperanto on the Internet with a personal tutor free of charge. The Free Esperanto Course consists of ten lessons with exercises. You study the lessons by yourself, do the exercises and send them to your tutor by email. Your tutor checks your exercises and answers your questions. In the end you will receive a diploma.

   I'm doing it for the diploma. You know, in case I don't actually graduate from UC Berkeley.

2. IAESTE is some kind of exchange program for Engineering students which arranges jobs in foreign countries for anywhere between 6-52 weeks. Sounds nice -- maybe I could end up with a job somewhere nifty like Scandinavia or the Baltics. But the whole thing smells like a self-serving Business Student pyramid scheme: they charge $25 to apply, and if you read the fine print you see that "outsiders" aren't even considered until every IAESTE-member who wants an internship has been placed. Anyone got the skinny on these guys?

3. With everyone talking so loudly and incessantly on their mobile phones, and with all the general weirdnesses that compose Berkeley, anyone here is bound to observe or overhear funny things, which, naturally, ought to be preserved for future generations. Thankfully the web site In Passing is doing just that! My favorite section is ``Scenes.'' Now you may people-watch while hiding behind your unix terminal... I'm telling you, there is material here.

4. This, I suppose, is a bit more escoteric. We all know about TeX and LaTeX for typesetting technical text. But if you want to typeset mathematical/geometrical diagrams, the PSMath Tool is ridiculously slick. Programming in Postscript is already something I find delightfully devious, and the resulting illustrations are wonderful. Another package, ΕΥΚΛΕΙΔΗΣ is even more elegant, and eagerly hackable.

A special thanks goes to Emma (thecolorblue) for sharing her chinese food with me this evening. And to Jade for all the nifty clothing. And now, I shall sleep.

Comments

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting InPassing.org!! Someone mentioned it to me once a couple months ago, but i didn't remember the name of the site!

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

Hi! I'm just doing the "how the heck did you decide to friend me? (not that I'm annoyed, just curious)" thing here.

But apart from that, since you happen to mention esperanto, I'll get up on my soapbox and say that you should put aside the fact that it has so much hippie "international language of peace and understanding, man" spiel associated with it and learn it anyway because it's so fucking easy, and that, from the point of view of its structure and the literature it's accumulated, it is just such an amazing and beautiful language. I sort of laughed and snorted at myself for trying to learn it early on, but I feel less like doing so with every passing page I read in it.