How the WorldWeb has fallen..

This artist's work reminds me of something that could've fallen from Dan Simmon's mind...

New Cooling System for Data Centers

Reuse existing resources - free outside air
Reduce cooling costs -> reduced operating expenses -> greater margins or cheaper services on the same profit margin. Cheaper services -> more customers -> more profits.

She could've been a spabe

The Borg Queen had some cool concept art. If only HR Giger could've done the art design for the Borg...

To make myself use this thing

In order to make myself use this thing, I'm going to stop using google reader for shared items. Instead, I'll be posting cool things here.

Status of things

First, a bit of light reading to set things in motion here

COMIX

Its been a long while since I've updated this bloody thing.

1. I'm working at GWU full time, going to school part time. There is an interesting story to that. Changing your engineering major your second semester junior year is probably not the best thing to do. It will be a posting at some near point in time.

2. My senior thesis project is drawing to a close. The project, File Encryption and Transmission system, FETS for short, allows users to connect a black box to their computer and securely transmit files from one location to another location using the telephone network. Its an FPGA based project, which will warrant a couple postings highlighting what the project is, and how it was implemented.

3. Life has been crazy the past year; musical addictions and a myriad of things I had no idea I was going to be getting myself into. All will be revealed in time.

Arson out

ps. still aint eated pork (willingly) in the past year

Rebirth & Ramadan

I've decided to take back my blog here, a rebirthing as you will. I'm doing this because I've decided to observe Ramadan this year, 2007, and possibly in the future as well; I wish to document my observance and observations.

This summer I picked up a pair of classic literature pieces: John Milton's Paradise Lost and The Koran. Since I'm writing of Ramadan, you can guess which I worked on more during summer (comments on Milton will be forthcoming).

Many non-Muslims may be familiar with the word Ramadan; their Muslim friends end up fasting for a lunar month, abstaining from food and drink during the day, only to eat their meals before sunrise, and after sunset. The fast acts as a deeply personal prayer to Allah. One could draw an analogy to the practice of Lent, where people give up something important to them for a period of time. This month is also accompanied by an attempt to live with more pure thoughts/deeds, as well as a time for greater study of the Koran.

I've never met a non-Muslim that has gone through Ramadan, from beginning to end.

Nor have I ever met a non-Muslim that has ever fasted during Ramadan in observance of this.

I am not a Muslim, but I want to make it through the whole month. Generally when people find out, I do not receive much of a response, much like how no one questions their Jewish friends for observing Roshanah this weekend. Few have asked me why, knowing that I am not a Muslim. Discipline is a nice thing to gain, as is knowledge and the experience of partaking in the month. However, when I tell people that I simply want to observe the month because I want to do so...people get puzzled looks. No college kid just gives up eating during the day. Mabye there is more to my desire to participate than I realize, but I am observing, and will not tolerate derision in my quest.

Anyhow, I woke up this morning at 05:15, and had a small meal of olives, water and cheese. Fajr was at 5:34, I'm not versed in prayer, so I read from the Koran instead. I started reading Abraham this morning. I didn't make it to Trader Joes last night, I need some juice and some fruit available in the morning.

Maghrib is around 7:20 tonight, and the GWU MSA is hosting an Iftar dinner tonight, like they will every Monday through Thursday at Mariam's Kitchen. I'll be there.

home

so far...
home is the most boring place in the world
on the other hand
its really relaxing to be away from work and get nice homecooked meals.

so..all my friends are either too busy working or with school stuff to hangout...last night a friend forgot that we were going out...

am i just forgettable or is this some paranoia perceived by me?

i'm going to go and do crypto type stuff

Roller coaster

Sometimes I use a roller coaster to describe my life. Earlier this summer, it was all fun and what not and now it feels like things are pettering out. There is still plenty of time to save summer though!!!

I'm going home august 11-16th. My parents foiled my plans of not having to go home again until christmas. They had planned to bring my siblings and themselves over to DC in August, but decided not to (they had enough traveling in China); so they offered a cunningly crafted invitation that left me no room to decline. Its not that I don't like my family, but I really like being independant here in DC. Here, I have to do stuff for myself; there, if I go to do something, someone else does it for me. Its rather frustrating. But, I'll be able to see the few people back there that I actually give a damn for (you know who you are, if you're reading this. Everyone else from 2004 can fall off the face of the earth).

I got myself a new machine built. Foxconn NF4K8MC-ERS(mATX mobo), Athlon 64 3000+ Venice, 1gig PC3200, 2x160GB WD Caviar SATA drives, NEC ND-3540A DVD burner, Winfast PX6600 GT THD Extreme edition video card; all packed into an Aspire X-Qpack case. Its a beauty, and runs Doom3 on high mode like nobodies business even anti aliased.

Work has more or less ground to a halt. Bar exams are done, as are summer classes at the law school. No more laptops, considerably lessened useage of the computer labs...life is sweet..but spending my day here is still about as exciting as looking at the horizon while stranded in the ocean. I really like doing stuff that'll challenge me. Thats the only downside to this job, little I do here challenges me. At ISIS, as least I had to fix mechanical systems, swapping out parts to make reciept printers and their POS brethern work, digging through technical manuals that were 15 years old to figure out if a NCR board is compatible with a certain style of tube gun assembly (The joys of dumb terminals, none of this putty emulation crap). I do lots of reading here, lotta technical and news stuff. I've been slowly working on Lolita, which is almost too good to read...I can only read so much of it each day.

But I"ve taken up DVD authoring at home. I've got tons of Divx/Xvid movies/episodes/cartoons that I want off my harddrive but in a readily playable format. I finally got chapters to work yesterday, I'm not too concerned about menus. I'm done with writing now.

Independance Day

Watching the fireworks over the national mall last night was amazing. CI is almost over, one more round to go. Class is done. Computer is ordered. MythBox should be coming along later this month. Biking should be getting into better gear soon [hurt my ankle 2 weeks ago]. Hurrah.

Summer begins tonight [or how Md has liqour sales]

Calc is done as of tonight. I've got my final at 6pm [not too psyched about it but i've got alot of time to study for it]. Last night me, Matt, Ben and Rich went to Bethesda, in Montgomery county, Md to buy booze. Why, you might ask. Montgomery county is liqour controlled, the county determines pricing across its bounds. One thing goes on sale, its on sale everywhere. The list has 18 pages of stuff....it makes it well worth the trip to Md. Hypnotiq, Alize Wild Passion[i don't remember if it was Wild or Red, the bottles and color are so strikingly similar], some more Jack [can never go wrong with the bourbon whiskeys], some Southern Comfort and Kahlua Especial. Similar runs will be made in the future, ultimately culminating in a serious liqour cabinet.

So CI has been going okay. I like to do the volunteer work with SEAS, and meet some of the incoming freshies. There are 80 incoming biomedical engineers in a class of 187 at SEAS. They don't know what they're getting themselves into. Soem people are doing rotc+biomedical engineering. Its insane, these people are taking 20-21 credit hours their first semester of college; I can only hope they make it but damn, I had enough trouble with my 15 [granted, I was partying a bit, but that is definitely what the first semester is for].