First, what IS steampunk? Steampunk builds off of the idea that mechanical things are cool. Before the age of electronics, machines kept getting bigger and more complicated. The first steam engine was small, they got bigger, more parts, more intricacies. The Victorian era had a sort of spell over it. Things were graceful, yet moving forward. The world was accelerating quickly, and there was a feeling as if the world was getting “figured out” and the next thing to do was to “master” the art of machines. If it is big, complicated, and preferably has tubes on it, its awesome. Wood was still the style of choice, yet metal plays a crucial role. Most importantly is the lighting. Its all about a soft light – either from the fires of coal or the soft glow from behind a Victorian glass lamp. There is a sense of sophistication. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

You Wouldn't Understand Steampunk

The Steampunk movement really has its roots in the Will Smith movie “Wild Wild West”. The entire movie is very steampunk. The problem, is that the world started getting smaller. With electronics the focus went on smaller machines, with less moving parts. Sure, they’re more efficient and practical, but way less beautiful. Let me simply show you some pictures to highlight my point.

This lovely Motivational Poster is something I am proud enough to have made myself in Photoshop. It is of President McKinley. To be fair, its not very good. But I think it does an ok job. To also be fair its a different vein of steampunk, which is that of militancy. The original is of course the infamous picture of lincoln with a cyborg machine gun arm. So I cannot say I’m being entirely original, but it is still cute.

Lots of people have done lots of steampunk funness. You can use vitriol to electroplate copper onto a tin altoids tin. People have made steampunk R2D2′s, computers in old wooden boxes, in fact, taking something high tech and putting into something that looks victorian is probably the essence of steampunk, although a simple love of edgy victorian style is probably also enough to be just fine.

If you go on ebay and search for steampunk, you’ll get a long list. I would also recommend you subscribe to the steampunk magazine, now on its 8th issue.

I encourage everyone out there to go share this picture with whomever. I’m giving up rights to it. Creative Commons! Yay!

P.S. I got some fun responses (or not so fun) about what the “tagline” should be from 4-chan. If you have any good ideas let me know. The best I got was “we built this city on steam and trolls”.

Thanks,
Guthrie

I am alive, lol, I didn’t die or anything, but after the last post, just to fill you in, I had finals that came up at AUC. So a bit of studying later, I was done, and BAM! I ran off to the UK, and I left Cairo. Our landlord screwed us over the security deposit, but thats another story I don’t feel like telling. I spent Christmas at some nice people’s house in Redding, England, and then I spent new years in London, which I should probably write about. It was awesome. I have pictures. But IDK when I’ll get around doing so. I had a fun time with Some lovely Spanish Ladies and these French People in Trafulgar Square.

I stayed at the Generator Hostel. Lots of stories for a different day. Hopefully I write them down eventually. I don’t feel like I could do it justice today. But, before I knew it, I saw Autumn, and then it was off to America! And the Madison!

I’m currently living on State Street with Colin, and so far things are great. Madison is a great city, and I’m having a damn good semester. Classes are pretty cool as well.

I’m just writing right now because I’m on spring break! I’m going cheap this year, so I’m visiting friends in Milwaukee (AJ and Hendrix) and then I’m off to Chicago to visit my sister! So that will be a fun time, I am sure. Until then, just chillin’. I really want to write more, but it just hasn’t happened because I’m taking 18 credits and I’m spending all of my smart whitty thinking on school work . Maybe the gumption will strike me.

I’m quite sure this blog will remain, and will get added to at some point, but for now this is all I really have to say.

I hope everyone is doing well, and I’ll write more when I can. Enjoy, have a great day.

Thanks,
Guthrie

Ok. Anyways, the Egyptian government is super freaked out about swine flu, so freaked out in fact that they decided it was necessary to cancel school — YET AGAIN. So we got another 5 days extra break tacked onto our already long thanksgiving/eieed kabeer (means big holiday) vacation. It just so happens that the big holiday and thanksgiving overlap this year so they’ve decided to combine them into one awesomeholidaynessfuntime.

Anyways, for those of you keep score at home, I haven’t gotten to travel a lot because I’m saving to do cool stuff in London when I get there. Anyways, I decided to vacation somewhere interesting and see some cool stuff. I wanted to go to the Sinai Peninsula (which is owned by egypt) and see some stuff, and someone offered to take a trip with me, so I was like “oK” lets roll.

The first day, we got bus tickets from cairo, and took a 10 hour bus ride from cairo all the way around to Dahab. We got in at like 3 in the morning, so we got a room, and crashed, slept for a while. Then, we spent the day checking out Dahab, which was cool. I really liked it because its a small beachtown resort thingy. The nice part is that its small enough to be able to walk around in if you want to. I was in shock though, because there were some many Europeans around! It was like… western… and people were doing western things… and holding hands and stuff. It was really kinda culture shock for me a smidgen. It was fun. The cool part about dahab is that if you look across the water you can see Saudi Arabia, so thats neat.

After walking around for a day and night and grabbing some food at 11 PM we got into a van and drove 3 hours into the desert to St. Katherine’s. This is Mt. Sinai (or Berg Moses as the Egyptians call it) — ya’know, Moses walks down the Mt. with the 10 commandments, and arguably, the place where Moses saw the burning bush. Though, it makes sense, if you walked into the desert with nowhere to go, I’d go back to my hometown.

So, apparently even though its a “jewish thang” the christians killed some people and somehow took it over, thats why its called St. Katherines instead of “the moses hilton and convention center”. St. Katherine’s is a monistery with monks and stuff. Anyways, there was a TON of security. It was really hard core. Lots of checkpoints. The good news is that as americans we get nodded in whatever we do.

Apparently there was a “chapel of the burning bush” (my friend Autumn informs me) but apparently sometime or another it turned into St. Katherines.

Anyways, its not built up at all, which is nice, and its a historical place according to the UN. Besides, you couldn’t build anything up out there anyways. Its a true desert. Its really cool landscape but totally inhospitable. Huge mountains jut out of the sand, but its dry and dusty and there are no trees, no animals, not even any insects. Its a total desert.

So we got there late at night, and then we started to climb the mountain! Its about a 5 km walk, and then you get to go up like 4000 steps, so its quite a climb.  For a part of it I was so excited that I just ran up the side of the mountain for a while. Our group got split in half, and I decided to use the opportunity to climb by myself. It was a really fulfilling experience. I was made for running up mountains. I think there is something to be said for all the hard hard hard work you put into climbing, and then you get rewarded by a sunrise. Of course the walk down is the worst, it takes forever too, but in the dark at night you can’t see how far you need to go… so the peak is always just a little bit farther… which is really great. It keeps you motivated. Of course, another perk is that if you don’t keep climbing you’re going to get cold. It was really cold at the top of that mountain. Really cold.

Read about the Mt. Here — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses

The view at the top is unreal. The mountain is almost a mile tall, so its up there. You can just see forever in every direction. Plus, there is the whole religiousness of the place because its so still, so calm.

One of the cool things I got to do was I got up before most people to the summit, and so I was talking with the people who live up there and serve hot tea and sell blankets to rent for the tourists every night. Its really impressive because I got to chit chat with these dudes in arabic and apparently, they spend a week up, and then a week down, but yeah, they’re just living on the top of Mt. Sinai. I thought that was a pretty cool job if you asked me. I don’t think they thought so, but still, if thats where you live, you can’t beat the view.

I could talk for a while about the view, but I don’t have the time. Class is about to start. So after we got down from the mountain we drove back to dahab, caught a bus to Sharm El Shay (realized we had lost a flashlight), and hung out in sharm on the beach for a day and a half and went home. The beach was cool because its coral reef, so you get to walk out beyond it and see all the fishies and stuff. Apparently the diving there is awesome, but we didn’t do it. I think if you wanted to blow a lot of $$$ sharm and dahab are good places to go. I personally didn’t like Sharm because it was huge, so you could only get around by car/taxi, and they were REALLY expensive (not even ripping me off, things were just 4x as expensive in sharm). The beaches are weird. Its a bunch of Europians, in fact they kick Egyptians off the beach (the egyptian owners kick egyptians off the beach, so its not like a racism thing). Our friend (egyptian) was told to leave by the staff.

I actually saw a chick tanning topless! Her boobs were just hanging out all over. I was like OMG… this is NOT Egypt, lol. And it was super Europian, so there were lots of old men, and everyone was in these tiny Speedos. IDK why that caught on, but w/e.

Then we caught a 9 hour busride home, and voila! Classes have started back up, so its back to the home stretch and then i’m done.

Thanks,

Guthrie

1. Radiohead — Hail to the Thief

This is the Album that started it all. I randomly stumbled onto a radiohead track on my iPod and decided I wanted to listen to some radiohead jams for a while, so I put them on. First, I’m not a big radiohead fan. I definitely respect them though because they continue to be original and be able to reinvent themselves every album. Out of all the bands I know, I think they give a very distinct sound to each album, so naturally, I’ll like one album more than others. I love this one. Every song is awesome. Their newest CD was OK, but this CD is solid solid solid. I can’t think of a bad song on it. Its chilling, but rocks hard. Very well put together.

2. John Mayer — Where the Light Is

This CD is Awesome. I really like John Mayer, but not for his pop stuff. He went off and did a blues tour which was really cool. He is kinda conflicted because he has a big fan base with those girls who grew up listening to Neon and Your Body is a Wonderland, so he’s got that side of him, but he’s really a blues guitarist. And a damn good one at that. So he decided to have this show right? Well, its cool because there are two openers, and then John Mayer. The cool part about this CD is that the two openers are John Mayer as well. The first is him doing the “singer/songwriter acoustic guitar player”. He covers an AWESOME version of Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty. Then the second set is another opener that is supposed to pump the crowd up, and its him just playing blues and Hendrix covers. Its a Trio. Finally, the last act is the big full band, where he does a lot of his Continuum stuff. The DVD is even better. Every track is solid, and if you really want to see a talented musician just do everything, this is a good CD. My favorite track is the 10 minute long slllloooooowww blues track. Nice.

3. Aretha Franklin — Amazing Grace

This may be my favorite album of all time. I have a heart of soul more or less. One part of my soul is probably Juno, and the other half is for sure like a deep south baptist choir. Oh man, this CD is good. So Aretha Franklin is a person who grew up singing gospel in church since her dad was a minister. Thats where she learned to sing, and boy, it obviously served her well. Anyways, its the mid-70′s and she really wants to go back to her roots, so she manages to convince the exects at her record label to let her record a LIVE CD at a real church. It was recorded twice (two concerts, on different nights with different songs), and then for the record release they picked the best 13 songs or so, but I have the full version, which is by and far better. It just has the two shows from start to finish. Its everything you see in the blues brothers and more. The crowd yells when they start to get the feeling, and the backup choir and band is really tight. Probably the closest I’ve become to converting is after listening to this album, lol, so all you people looking to convert, I’d use this as ammo. No one can sing like Aretha, and nothing lets the emotion come out more than with gospel music. Amen.

4. Mahler’s 5th Symphony

My favorite classical Symphony probably. I guess the firebird is up there, but it depends what version you listen to. Mahler’s symphony #5 is always going to be good, as long as you have a good orchestra. Of course some versions are better than others, and to that I’ll leave it up to ya’ll to decide which version of it is your favorite. However, its those first 20 seconds that are really great. Its a good CD to round out my top 5. If you’re in that sort of Clockwork Orange depressive classical dark mood its good. My favorite image in my head is Donté desending into Hell. Thats what it sounds like to me at least.

5. Justice — Cross

Brilliant Album. Its really original, really, it truly is. It is kinda a futuristic danceable decibel sound. It has a bunch of that awesome low cut bass that I like a lot. IDK… I just really like it. I can’t have all indi-rockers. I mean, lets be honest, Narrow Stairs by Death Cab for Cutie is a great CD — in my opinion their best — but I’d like to mix it up. But I think this CD will sound really good in like 10 years, basically like how the Clash made it big before their sound was popularized. Anyways, thats kinda the idea. Its super moody, but very futuristic. Guitar totally changed the way most music was created, and I think in the same way computers are of course doing the same thing. They’ve been experimenting since the 70′s/80′s with computer sounds, but I think the rise of the DJ is tackling some new ground, and this CD will be looked at as a turning point.

6. Coldplay –Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends + the Prospectors March EP

My favorite album of 2009, fairly easily. Man, its just a great album. The EP has a bunch of great tracks too. I was a coldplay fan, but honestly when X & Y came out I was kinda disappointed. A Rush of Blood to the Head was such a great album… I was looking forward to something awesome, and I thought it was kinda the same sound as previous albums. Then they came out with VVODAAHF and it was a great new sound that had pop and vigor with just the right amount of “coldplayness” that soars above and looks down below at you as you listen. It was only after hearing THIS album that I went back and listened to X & Y (and parachutes) and had, really, a new found appreciation for all their prior albums. I think I just needed to hear something different to contrast it to in order to understand.

7. Sigur Ros –Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust

You know you just can’t beat sigur ros… especially on this album. Fucking Brilliant. I mean… its just the Icelandic roots I suppose. For those of you who don’t know Sigur Ros, they are an awesome band from Iceland. They paint these beautiful landscapes of sound that just remind you of overcast and cold, but crisp and fresh, like your breath on a cold day. Those who don’t live far north won’t understand. But its just really really great. They do all kinds of cool stuff to get their “sound” such as playing guitars with viola bows, and the lead vocalist sings over the top of everything in kinda this falsetto sprightly godlike voice that wafts over everything. And its in Icelandic (or I’ve heard their own made-up language, but i can’t verify) so its very smooth and enchanting. They make Sufjan Steven’s soundscapes look like hot cross buns. Seriously, one of my favorite albums. In all truth… this was supposed to be my top 5 favorite albums, but I realized I couldn’t keep Coldplay or Sigur Ros off the list. Too damn good. I can’t guarrentee everyone who reads this and listens to Sigur Ros will like it, but you need to listen to it without interruptions, like just as you’re going to sleep or something. Its very very soothing. They also do a great job of being able to have totally different sounds on different albums, but I like this one the most. I’m not sure why, I think it all just comes together nicely.

Well, there you have it. If you’re curious, I recommend you check some of these out. Now, I picked my top 7 favorite based on what I like to LISTEN to. This is not the list of the “greatest albums of all time”. I think you need to add historical context into that one, and that changes the list a ton, I mean, what would the world be without Led Zepplin or the Sergeant Pepper’s? So this is purely what I like. There are lots of other close finishers, but I thought that some of these albums would go out of favor with me in a few years, like the band Tally Hall (which I love), and Narrow Stairs album by Death Cab for Cutie, or a few Rap Albums (sorry I couldn’t get one of those on the list), but I think that five years from now, my music preferences will change a bit, and I won’t like them as much, so they didn’t make the list. I’m about 85% sure that 5 years from now I’ll still love all of these albums, they are pretty timeless in my book (with the possible exception of Coldplay and the Justice album). So I encourage all of you to check them out, and enjoy.

Thanks,
Guthrie

Super Computers of course are massive rooms that are filled with endless arrays of processors with incredible bandwidth. There is special software that allows the computer to run special programs that can calculate some really cool stuff. For the most part, these computers are used for natural modeling, how do proteins fold, how does weather work, how do nuclear reactions happen, but its more than just a model, because these programs are simulating, often, what happens in an atom by atom process. If you couldn’t imagine, it takes a HUGE amount of power to do these precise calculations. Of course they are incredibly useful. Scientists can get a printout of the exact protein needed to cause X instead of playing a guessing game until the end of time.

The point is, coolly enough, the US Government has a lot of these systems, well, the USA in general. We lead the world, and while other countries are sneaking computers into the top 500 (the Top500 list is a list of the fastest computers in the world, compiled biannually) that used to be dominated by the USA, I am happy to report that since the Obama Admistration came onto the scene, with a lot of the Stimulus Money, a good chunk of that change is going towards building a few supercomputers that are going to blow all the other supercomputers to shame.

First, lets look at the current Top500 List: http://www.top500.org/list/2009/11/100

The Top computers on the list (which just got released this week) are:

1) Jaguar, which is a 1.75 petaflop machine at the Oak Ridge National Lab (US Nuclear Testing/Research Center)

For those of you who don’t know how they measure these things, a FLOPS stands for floating point operations per second. A calculator can run about 5-10 FLOPS. Your laptop probably can run maybe a few to a few hundred Gigaflops, depending on how new it is. A brand new super desktop computer maybe graces the teraflops range if its super nice (and if you count the processor AND the GPU). But then there are these beasts. 1.75 petaflops is crazy fast. Like crazy insanely fast.Peta is big. Really big. Like super big big. Take a look at these stats –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petabyte

My favorite is that the entire written works of every human since the beginning of time in all languages amounts to around 50 petabytes. Meanwhile google is processing 20 petabytes of data a day, and this supercomputer can run almost 1000^5 calculations per second. Yowza.

The second best is an IBM machine Roadrunner, which clocks in at just over 1 petabyte. It is, of course, at the Los Alamos National Lab (another nuclear site).

The list gets smaller from there, mainly US sites, though a few in Asia and Europe are sprinkled in. The exciting bits are the ones that are being built. Paladies is a computer being built by NASA at the Ames Research Center that currently sits at 6th on the supercomputer list. The thing is, though, that its only 1/6th of the way built. By 2012, it will be up to its full power, coming in at around 10 petaflops in 2012. Thats an entire order of magnitude in 3 years. Wow. Then there is the kilometer square array (SKA). Scientists have figured out that why keep building bigger and bigger telescopes when you can go for the gold? The plan is to build a ton of smaller antenna spread out over kilometers, and hook it up to a giant computer (the goal is to hit 1 exoflop, 1000 petaflops) and solve most of the vexing questions about the universe by being able to make incredible accurate calculations billions of lightyears away. Ok, thats cool. So the hunt is on to make a machine that big, and right now the computing tech just isn’t quite there, but in 5-10 years, the construction will be started. It’ll be a big project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Kilometre_Array

Next we have Sequoia, this is a planned supercomputer by the National Nuclear Security Administration set to be online by 2011. This machine will hit 20 petaflops, more than the combined total of all 500 computers on the Top500 list. It’ll draw 6 MW of power, roughly the same as a small city, but, to its credit, its 7 times more efficient at “calculations per watt” than its predecessors. Its being built by IBM.

Of course the current champ in the computing world is Folding@Home, which uses people donating their PC’s downtime, hooked up to thousands of other desktops via the internet. This project got a major shot in the arm after they put the program on PS3′s, which can do a lot of calculations. It currently sits steady at about 8 petaflops, dispersed over thousands of machines. I think that is a smart move.

So there you have it folks, my geeky side comes out.

Thanks,
Guthrie

I am in Egypt, but don’t be fooled, AUC is the “Harvard” of Egypt. There are a lot of tough kids, and though the classes are probably slightly easier than some classes in the states, it’s by no way a cakewalk. The first midterm I took here it was only “ok” like it always has been. But finally, in my Economic Development class I totally cleaned house with a 38/40. That felt solid. Then, in my other econ class I got an 88/100, which was great because most people apparently got like 44’s. So I felt really solid that I knew what I was doing. Finally! So I’m hoping this breaks the trend and I sweep through the semester with nothing but solid grades.

Things are very much busy for me. I have three midterms this week, and papers due. Its especially hetic because there are friends from all over the world converging on our appartment this week. We have 6 people for two bedrooms. So life is pretty intense, but never boring. Its actually really really great because I got to take a bunch of pictures at the pyramids which I haven’t gotten to do. They’re pretty cool. Keep an eye out for new pics! They’ll be coming. They are really nice because i got to use a super nice camera that i borrowed from AUC for my “project” in my photo class. A+ for duel uses.

Also, the Egyptians managed to pull off a 2-0 victory over Algeria last night. That was crazy. I wasn’t at the game because I probably would have died so I didn’t go to the match. I did watch it on a huge screen that got projected at a cafe near my apartment. Clutch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8358365.stm

A nice article about Algerians getting hurt.

The goal. Read about their 2-0 victory that forces a sudden death playoff match in Sudan this week — winner goes to the world cup. The thought “imagine if they cared about improving their country 1/10th as much as the care about football” came to mind yesterday.

Let me preface by stating that I like Plants. I do. I don’t care what anyone else wants to say, I like them. They are green. They grow. On occasion you can eat parts of them. There are other perks, for example they do this great thing where the take CO2 from the atmosphere and release O2 into the atmosphere. Its great for living. Other perks? They filter poisons out apparently too.

They are green, but they are old. In fact, in the entire history of the earth, plants have done a pretty awesome job of growing for basically forever. I mean… Just think about it. We bitch and complain about the dramatic changes that happen from decade to decade, but thats only because the human race is not a static concept. Thats the big problem. Plants don’t care. They don’t need to care. Their existence is one of passive acceptance. That is to say — there isn’t a root here in the earth, there is space, and dirt, and water, so naturally a plant’s roots will just take the path of least resistance. Its brilliantly simple. And its a winning formula. I mean, you can look at the wildcat offense, lets be honest, how long will that last in the NFL? Maybe a team will make a run with it for 4-5 years, but as far as winning formulas go, I’d go with plants. A few billion years is an impressive streak.

What nature so nicely demonstrates is the path of least resistance will lead to success. It doesn’t really matter what happens, as long as everyone tries their best, there will be a few winners, and a bunch of losers. Well,  you can’t argue that loosing is no fun, so what can we argue about? Human nature, and its reliance on energy. Here is the problem. Plants have had 3 billion years of failure. You know how many extinct plant species? Lets just say a lot. I think I remember someone telling me that 99.99% of all the species that have ever existed on Earth are gone. So what looks like a great winning strategy actually is riddled with failure. The great thing about plants is though even though each plant tries as hard as it can, there will eventually be a few winners and a few losers and some who draw. Plants don’t really worry about this. They gave it their best, and thats all they can do. If they didn’t make the cut, well, they don’t make it, and a different plant species will eventually arise. Of course some plants simply just change their form, and that is a great strategy too. The best are ferns. They are some of the planets oldest plants. Ferns are millions and millions of years old. Maybe a billion? I’m not entirely sure, and I’d do the research for ya’ll, but i’m getting really pissed off at internet here. I can’t quite get online atm, so it’ll have to be a curious musing. Of course some ferns have survived, and other types are gone. Now… if ferns were a species, would they be happy with the outcome? I mean… Imagine if the human experiment makes it another million years. When they look back, would they say that “humans” survived? Even if its some sort of weird branch with just a big brain and a tiny torso? Do we humans of today say, oh thats perfect?

Of course thats a stupid stupid question. That would be our great human ability to personify objects that really don’t give a shit, like ferns. Regardless, the point is this — humans only have one shot. Plants have made it, but only by a lot of failures. We humans only have one chance. There is so much that could go wrong. Astroids, killer virus, nuclear winters, solar flares, reversing of the magnetic poles, oh, the doomsdays scenarios are never ending. My personal failure is the giant volcano that is the size of Wyoming (yosemite), covering the entire US in ashes 3 feet deep. Thats a fun one. So us humans have one chance to get it right. We’re playing against tough odds. There is soooo much that could go wrong. So far everything has gone really peachy. I mean, think of the history of a species. There is always something that competes against it, eventually. Its only a matter of time until this nonstatic world of ours changes the status quo, or a newcomer shows up.

Of course there is the whole “last person on earth problem”, and I’m not sure it would ever come to that. We have some OK nuclear bunkers that humans could probably survive for at least a few hundred years I feel. Then of course they could repopulate the entire planet. There are many problems with this scenario, one of my favorites is that there would simply be a lack of genetic diversity. Human evolution is undergoing a massive acceleration due to the mixing of gene pools from separate groups around the world. Whenever isolated populations come together, evolution is speeded up. Of course there has been a bit of a danger of human extinction in the past. There is evidence to support the idea that at one point during the last ice age there were only 10000 humans left on the planet.

So, what am I suggesting? A lunar colony. I mean, just as an insurance policy. A mostly self sufficient lunar colony would provide some insurance against the majority of “game over” scenarios that threatens humans, like astroids. The game is a lot more fun on earth because unlike ferns, humans are rapidly changing the status quo on our own. So as we expand, we threaten ourselves just as fast as we can adapt. Its a never ending race, unless we have a lunar colony. Then if shit hits the fan on earth, well, its really not that big of a deal, we’ll survive.

BTW, to those religious folks out there, its up to god anyways right? If god wants to kill everyone, there isn’t anything humans can do about that anyways so ya’ll can’t object to trying eh? As my hero Sara Vowell once brilliantly said, there was this one man who basically started Rhode Island. He was a man so crazy and religious the Puritans kicked him out. Yet, despite the fact that he was a radical man of god, he started one of the most accepting and diverse religious colonies the world had every seen. How did he do this? Kind heart? No. He just knew everyone else was going to burn in hell for all of eternity. He thought that the gnashing of teeth and torture in the burning pit of hell for all of time was punishment enough, so why be unpleasant to people in this lifetime? As Sara said “I think that if we had a lot more religious extremists out there, the world would be a much better place”.

Sorry for the ranting, the next post will be better, I promise.
Guthrie

Its the size of Texas

Here are Three great examples.

1. Plastic Bags. I’m not exactly sure what it is about the idea that plastic bags make you “civilized”, but every time you buy anything  in this country they put whatever you bought in a plastic bag, and put that plastic bag in more plastic bags. Its amazingly wasteful. Any time you go and eat at most fast food joints (especially on campus), everything is covered in Styrofoam, and they give you tons of paper waste. A good example is a bean sandwich (its called fuul here), it costs 3 pounds, or about $ 0.40. For that they put it in a paper sandwich bag, which is great. But then they put that sandwich bag on a Styrofoam plate, and then put that Styrofoam plate on a tray that has a big paper place mat over the tray. Its silly.
2. Air Conditioning: If you have AC, you are really sophisticated, and rich. It was a status symbol, only the rich had AC and could stay out of the heat. The answer? Well, now that everyone has AC its everywhere, but its still a status symbol, so if a little cooler is good, a lot cooler is better. Its like wearing bling. Look at me, I can afford to make this room fucking 50 degrees F. OMG. A combination of bad room control, and a messed up methodology about coldness means that every room in AUC was about 60 degrees for the first few months. Finally, I think its subsided at least here on campus, but it was silly. Everyone is completely freezing with the WINDOWS OPEN, and the desert heat just coming in. Of course, like everything else here, its a bad cycle — they can justify the higher levels of AC installation because of the inefficiencies. I’ll have to write a blogpost about that later. Its taught me a lot.
3. Perfume. A little makes me westerny, so a lot must be better. They PUMP “perfume” into the bathrooms at AUC. A few that don’t get much use (aka, the doors don’t get opened and closed often) are unbareble. I remember this one on the third floor of some building. I basically came out completely high. I mean, you could taste it. It was stupid, and a stupid waste.

I’m writing a paper on water use in Egypt for my Development Econ class. Its funny. 86% of water use in Egypt comes from Agriculture use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Egypt

Of course they are going to run the Nile completely dry in 50 years, but they just don’t care. They have all these “amazing” 30 year water development plans, but really they have no way to actually address the declining water levels. Of course, as the water table falls it becomes more expensive to pump out water. The government heavily subsidizes water, which is apparently supposed to help the “people” of egypt, even though Human water consumption only accounts for 8% of the country’s water use. There are huge grand ideas to basically flood the desert, and make a “new” Nile Valley.

Here are some good sources –

African Water Supply Projects

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/suez/

there is a big water facility at suez

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/mansoura/mansoura3.html

graph of water supply in egypt vs. africa

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/mubarak/

Big project in desert.

http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/imr-ri.nsf/eng/gr114228.html

There is obviously a correlation to water use and economic development, but the real problem is that it has to be done smartly, or you’re just future income instead of actually making development progress.

Here is my idea of what’s wrong. This will probably piss some people off too, but oh well. Its my ideas. I think that the problem is religion. Yup. Its religion. Not that I have anything against Islam, but there have been two occasions now when religious ideas have snuck into places I didn’t expect. Both involved “natural resources”. The first was in my Intermediate MicroEconomics class. Instead of referring to Natural resources as — natural resources (surprisingly enough), my professor refereed to them as “Gifts from God”. Well (as I think I mentioned in a previous blog post), thats a damn problem isn’t it? If god has given you these things because he likes you, then the obvious answer isn’t conservation, its prayer! This stupidness was exasterbated when, for my water paper, i strolled onto the “Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation”. These guys surely are concerned about the future lack of water… right?

This is right on the main page. I’m serious, go check out the website if you want — http://www.mwri.gov.eg/En/index.htm

So the rivers are for people. Thats not smart thinking… Anyways, it may be that mentality is leading to lack of conservation at least in this country. Of course subsidizing things like water and gas only make people use more of it because they aren’t paying market prices and the Egyptian government is racking up some nice debt because of these programs, but w/e. Its their choice.

Thanks,
Guthrie

First, let me state that this… umm… not really software, but website service? IDK the word for it because I feel that software is something that is on your local machine, but this is more than a website.  Webware? If anyone knows the name for this let me know. Anyways, it is open source — of which I’m a HUGE fan. I strongly encourage everyone out there to go get the open source software Virtual Box. It was developed in association with Sun Microsystems, and now it kinda is its own thing.

Isn't it pretty?

Its a virtulization software that basically allows you to run any OS over any other OS. You don’t have to “reboot” or anything. It just sits on your computer in an open window just like solitare would, except its a different OS. Anyways, then go to Ubuntu.com and download the most recent release of Ubuntu (version 9.10) or get Kubuntu (Ubuntu under the hood, but with a “prettier” UI some argue).

These are 100% free, and can do anything windows can, and probably more. Basically if you want it to do something, you gotta go search in the settings. You probably can. Of course what makes windows windows are the endless drivers, so it might take some fighting, but you can do it. You should do it. Anyways, this is all me giving props to open source.  Kubuntu 4.3 basically looks like Windows 7. Minus the headaches. And if you have a netbook, both Kubuntu and Ubuntu offer “netbook versions” which are free, run FASTER than windows, have more features and get better battery life. Its easily the best for netbooks.

BTW, the pics are from the internet — sorry copyright gods. BTW, lets compile a short list of awesome Open Source Software –

• OS — Linux OS, for the personal computer you have Ubuntu and Kubuntu, which are my favs – http://www.kubuntu.org/ — http://www.ubuntu.com/
• Web Browser — Firefox, which in my book is probably a close second behind Safari for my fav. browser. Chrome is right behind it, and probably gaining. We’ll see who wins.  http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html
• Tor — hate big brother? Get in on this. These guys are an open source network of volunteers that ping your connection six times around the world before they connect you, ensuring virtually complete privacy. Its not a fast connection (because not everyone who volunteers has a uber fast internet connection), but its getting better all the time. If you are worried about privacy (especially when surfing online), check it out. Use their plugin with firefox for an easy “on/off”" connection button.  — http://www.torproject.org/
• Blogs — WordPress, obviously –http://wordpress.org/
• Knowledge – wikipedia.com duh… the first time open source really hit it big.
• Office Productivity Suites — Its called Open Office. It looks and feels and works exactly like Microsoft Office 2000, except its 100% free. And it gets better all the time. Once again, props to Sun Microsystems for helping out here.
• These are just a few of the thousands of projects out there. There are also non-code projects (like designing the car of the future, all open source). Basically for any computer program you have, its almost guaranteed there is an open source rival out there. Just keep your eyes out.

So on to wordpress. First of all, the code behind it is brilliant. It is very well thought out, and gives me a TON more options than blogger did. Especially if you know your way around code at ALL, you’ll instantly fall in love with everything you can do in here. There are simply more options than Blogger.com, and many of the things that you can do here feel more professional. Its all based on .php files, so everything is scalable, and fits together nicely.

Then there are the features that just make it shine. I would say the best is its ability to simply add widgets like crazy — but not just for the blog, you can add widgets for the backend too which is really handy. It also has its on analytics. Maybe not as good as google’s, but its close, and its set up automatically. It can also automatically import all of your previous posts from a different blog site — which I obviously have done.

Its made me fall in love with opensource all over again. I can’t wait to see what else comes out of Open source?

So I hope you enjoy the new digs — and now I’ll actually be able to see if anyone is actually reading my blog (and just so ya’ll know, people are). I’ve actually been getting some Ok traffic, which makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy on the inside.

Take care all — CHURCH!

As it turns out, that was a really good move. See, one of my roommate’s parents are in town so they are out on a Nile Cruise, and so if we had left there would have been no one in the apartment to stop the flood. Yup, thats right, the flood. See, because there are so many bad pipes in Cairo, there is a great invention in many of the bathrooms of a drain. The idea goes as follows: pipes will clog, and water will get everywhere, and therefore every bathroom should have a “master drain” that has an opening somewhere in the bathroom floor so that if anything ever clogs the water has a place to drain, instead of going all over your apartment. Quite a stellar idea which has come in damn handy when the door to the washing machine popped open and water flooded everywhere.

So you can imagine my surprise yesterday morning when I walked into the bathroom to find a mini-lake sitting in the bathroom. I thought to myself “this isn’t good”. However, there is a precursor to this story, because a few days ago, the same thing had happened. The lake was a tiny puddle, and at the time I thought nothing of it. Without my glasses on early in the morning I dismissed it as nothing more than water that dripped off my roommate after he got out of the shower. Well, I got a text from Andrew later that day asking if the bathroom was flooded when I got up. I found this strange, but I said not really. He said that it just sort of magically went away after a bit. So this was good news. I thought perhaps it was our continually troublesome toilet. Maybe the tank that held the clean water didn’t stop filling and started flowing everywhere. Thanks random internet for the pic of drains in Egypt (this one isn’t flooded).

So back to the story story thingy. I had to piss, so I got up and went into the bathroom. Naturally I was still groggy, and not fully with it, but was surprised to find my foot in about 3 inches of water. The only good news is that our bathroom isn’t quiet level, so the water was mainly only covering about half the bathroom.

Well, I turned off the water to the sink and the toilet. Or I tried. The problem is that our sink leaks 100% of the time, all day, everyday. The knobs underneith to turn the water off are stripped on the cold water, and doesn’t shut all the way on the hot water pipe, so there is no stopping the flow of water. Well, I didn’t think anything of it because I thought it was the toilet. There was no sign of water leakage from the sink, so it couldn’t be from there. I decided the best course of action was to start to scoop the water off the floor and then get a fan to dry off the floor. So I got a pot lid and started scooping into the shower. Well, after a good 20 minutes I realized that the water level wasn’t decreasing. This was strange. So then I decided to check that drain that was “supposed” to make the water go away. It obviously was clogged (otherwise the water would have drained). And thats when it clicked — all the water lines in the bathroom go to a central pipe (perhaps except for the toilet)! I did a little test, and sure enough, when I dumped a bunch of water in the bathtub, I could see the ripples of water come up OUT of the drainage ditch. This is a bad thing. I didn’t think much of it, perhaps it would drain by itself like it did with Andrew. The bowab was no where to be found (it was Friday morning, when everyone is at prayer, Friday is the holy day) so I though I’d go get some milk from the one store that was open and just wait until I could get my hands on a plumber.

I get back maybe 15 minutes later, and I see there is a problem. The water had started spreading. It was clearly advancing up towards the carpet of the hallway. In fact, it was only about 6 inches away, and getting closer. Something had to be done. The good news is now with the exasterbaited problem, I could detect the cause. There was a good 2 inches of water ABOVE the shower drain, and this was the clue I needed. The way the piping system worked under the tile floor came to my brain in diagram form. The only question was… where was it draining? Or supposed to be draining? In retrospect, its quite obvious that there was only a partial clog, so it clogged and filled up a little, but then that morning when I went out to get milk it entirely clogged, and the never ending flow of water from the sink came out of the drainage pipe into the bathroom. Regardless, I didn’t put that piece of the puzzle together until later. I got our big plastic garbage can out of the kitchen, woke up my roommate, handed him the pot lid, and told him to get scooping. The water was beginning to move into the carpet, not good.

I then followed the pipes. There is an interesting central shaft that is just open without a roof. It is there that the vents for the gas appliances and the water pipes run. You can get into this space by crawling through a window. Luckily we live on the 1st floor, so getting to our pipe was relatively easy. It was quite obvious there was a problem because water was seeping everywhere in this little space. Just as I was about to go investigate further, a guy came up, and I said I needed help, so we went into the bathroom, and started to use a mop to try and plunge the main drain in our bathroom. After some searching, we managed to find a plunger under the kitchen sink. After that there was progress. The clog partially dissipated, and the threat of apartment flooding was averted. It wasn’t draining great though, so it required someone to wade out to where our master pipe came out on the other side of the bathroom wall in the small space for all the apartment pipes. The pipe has an “oh shit” opening, basically so that if there is a clog downhole, you can plunge something, and theoretically the water has a place to drain out of (which it was partially draining). After some motivated plunging work, the clog was gone. The man asked for money. At the time I thought he was the bowab, who we pay to handle this kind of stuff, so I didn’t pay him much, but in retrospect, I think he might not have been, which means I was a real mean bastard for being a cheep ass, so I’m sure. Feel a little bad about that. Oh well.

Later I had to mop the floor to get the “dirty” water from a backed up drain off our floor. The smell wasn’t great, but after some good mopping, and the use of a fan for a few hours to evaporate the rest of the water, I think the bathroom is probably cleaner than it was prior to the incident.

And that my friends is why going to Alexandria would have been really really really really really really really really bad. Whew. Dodged a bullet.