here's life

Today I had a discussion with a guy at work about following the crowd. It started out with him saying that Toyota was the second largest automaker in the world, so Toyotas must be the best value for the money. It's the "so many people can't be wrong, Donkey-Donkey" idea. I tried to explain that often the masses are steered by less stellar ideals than finding the best car. That advertising has a big influence. That just because most people think something is a good idea, doesn't mean it is---I can't vouch for their motives and criterion. Couldn't get through to him. And I couldn't think of anything that the masses did, that he would think was stupid too. He contended that if you are walking one way, and everyone else is running the other way, you should think about turning around.
Actually he is right, the majority often gets it at least sort of right. Maybe I have these illusions that by staying from the beaten path, I will get non-mediocre results. Maybe I need to not just pretend to be different from the everyone demographic, but actually be different. Although I do have a good start. Oh, well.

This evening I peeled about 5 medium-to-small potatoes, schredded them with a grater, and fried them up with some oil. I figured that I could eat what I had left over for lunch the next day. Some grated cheese topped it off. Then I ate it all. It was good with some spices.

My FTIR project is coming along slowly. I've got a piece of glass behind me with a few LED's stuck to it. The webcam was having trouble picking up the light from them. Maybe once I get the infrared filter the camera will work better. Fjord pretty much has the software done. When I touch the glass and allow the light to excape, the webcam will pick up the spots, and his program will find them, and move the cursor on my screen to the location mapped by my finger. With other light sources I have gotten my cursor to move by moving a light, or bright piece of paper. Mostly we are waiting on me getting this hardware built. I got the idea from these guys. I think I need to adjust the current to the LED's so they are brighter.

I removed the part of my car that was making the whine/roar. The front tire now has a shimmy, and when I run my hand over it, there is a depression down the middle of the tread in one area. Good thing I've got a spare donut.

Well, seems like most people are sleeping at this point in the day/night cycle, so I think I will too.