If you have an old computer you're a big ass hard drive and a tuner from a homemade DVR.

Ha! I have an old Mac clone and none of the necessary skills.

An old Mac clone probably wouldn't work. Old PCs are more the ticket.

Something like #9 [link] sounds good to me, but I don't know how old that post is or what other options exits.

Also, I'm not sure that GB knows what "oligarch" means, either.

There are plenty of people who would say we already have an oligarchy.

My gmail notifier is telling me I have an e-mail, but I can't connect to see it. That's just not right.

So, I haven't ever had to ask anyone in the building I live in to keep their noise down since I lived in the dorms in college. (When I tried it then the usual reaction was for the noise-makers to intentionally make more noise.)

Anyway, I think the person who lives below me is a crazy person. Usually once I'm asleep I sleep like a log, but Sunday night the guy suddenly cranks his stereo at 11:30 PM, waking me up. I put on clothes and was about to ask him to turn it down when he did it on his own.

So last night I go to bed with earplugs on. Then I still get woken up around 1:00 by loud music, which the guy turns way down after a few minutes. He also makes weird noises, such as random loud bangs and strange vocalizations I can't begin to describe.

So what's a polite way to tell him being loud late at night is simply unacceptable? Apparently no one was in my apartment for several years - maybe he doesn't know someone has moved in?

Something like [link] might be an option for you, aurelia.

Some public schools are great though. I think there is a really tough problem with schools. In general, where there is a good tax base there are good schools. It would be hard to fix that.

Now Gud, you're making it sound like weak Public Schools could be helped by throwing money at them. Everyone knows that isn't true.

You know, even though well-off communities seem to have good public schools with fully supplied and staffed small classes and poor communities seem to have an awful lot of weak public schools that are undersupplied and understaffed and have large classes its still true and everyone knows it.

So what's a polite way to tell him being loud late at night is simply unacceptable? Apparently no one was in my apartment for several years - maybe he doesn't know someone has moved in?

I think a simple "Would you mind keeping it down after 10?" would suffice. And if the problem persists, contact your landlord. Mine issued a memo reminding everyone of the Quiet Hours after he received a bunch of noise complaints about one tenant.

Also, if my new landlord asks me how things are going in my new place, should I tell him about the noise, or is it more polite/fair to ask the guy to be quiet first before telling the landlord?