On Egypt

The power of the People is phenomenal.  I must admit that I was skeptical, but seeing it in action in Egypt showed me that people can really rule the country, not just the statesmen.

Persistence, dedication, good reason, throw in some good portions of civility to get the global backing, and you have the foundations of a ripe revolution.  Not to mention some momentum, from Tunisia.  The Egyptian people have been at it for weeks now, and the movement is growing stronger now that public servants are on sporadic strike.  In effect, I suppose this is holding the country hostage, but isn't that what Mubarak was doing?

I'm not very much into politics or policy but this has really piqued my interest, especially seeing the sentiment of the global leaders.  Can they push to have a leader step down? Isn't this like a political takeover?

The way that everything came together, and the speed, is a sign of the times.  Here the internet, specifically Facebook of all things, was a catalyst to help mobilize and communicate the masses.  Then the government chops the internet (What??!) and so google allows a mobile phone app to continue the messaging.  Wow, now you have web companies starting to pick political sides..

Sign of the times - get with the programs.  Lets see how it all pans out, all the best to the Egyptian people.

The Paint is Dry!

Chalk up another line in the victory column - the paint is done, and the stickers are up!

We went for a "woodland animals" theme in the room, so we painted it a soft yellow, and i stenciled on some light green grass at the bottom.  And we went to town with some cool stickers of trees, leaves, birds, curious bunnies and funky-plaid porcupines.  Don't forget about the giraffe growth chart behind the door!

It looks great, and now its become our Fun Room!  Pics to come!

Time is ticking to Baby

We're expecting our first child in a few months, and while the original "shock and awe" has worn down, the subdued sense of panic and urgency is still there.  Everyone has said from the get-go that you won't have time for anything, and so very soon after we first learned about the baby my mind has been ticking about my to-do list.

One item that's been on my agenda was to do some wiring in my basement, or what my wife likes to call "the dungeon".  There aren't any sockets or lights down there (its a crawspace, fairly large but only about 4ft high).  Fiddling around with a flashlight is tedious, so I'd wanted to figure out a way to get some power in there.. either some sockets or lighting or whatever.  I started to get pumped up for my mini-project: electrical wiring!

In my mind I'm wondering, if I screw this up then could I create a fire-hazard? What if I overload the circuit?  Do I know what I'm getting into? There's tons of information online, and at HoDe by the way, so I read up and took it to task.  First step, finding an existing powerline, then from there make a socket, then a couple of switches.

The sense of accomplishment, the joy and the elation that comes from figuratively and literally turning on that switch is so illuminating.  Victory was mine! HA! Take that, home project - no outsourcing to an electrician this time.  I relished in the basking light of my new lights.

Next on the list: painting the baby room.

what it all means - get down to the mathematics

I'm reading this book about the biography of Zero, and for all the math-geeks out there its actually pretty interesting.  It talks about the evolution of math theory, and some of the politics along the way between science and religion (the "universal war" I suppose).

One of the main issues with Zero's adoption was the duality of nothing and infinity.  While we understand the concepts now, back in the day people couldn't grasp it - or wouldn't.  The book carries many stories about how math'ies started to develop ways to convince people to embrace zero/infinity. Lo and behold, one of the stories involves what is known as The Harmonic Series:

1/1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + .... + 1/n

this is the mathematical expression that is graphically shown in the picture at the top.  The question of the day was, what is the answer to this sum?  This was questioned by some guy Zeno who postulated that if Achilles ran twice as fast as a rabbit, who had a 1m head start, he'd never catch up because he's always 'just behind'.   Google it for details, but the short of it is that now we take limits and that clears up everything.  Errthing.

rolling with the punches

So the baby is on the way and everything looks fine and dandy on the outside, but a bit of a scare came from just a simple checkup on what we thought was nothing..

Nothing turned out to be a hectic day on tuesday, as we were eventually faced with a surgery decision: take a risk and potentially lose the baby, or take a risk and likely have a premature baby?  Gaa, one of the toughest decisions and not something we were planning to decide. Luckily we had multiple resources and multi-opinions from Dr consultant/friends that guided us to the right direction.  Whew.

This is the start of parenthood - one large, long worry. I guess its worth it!

my name is BioData!

The stigma of online dating is nearly gone - or is it?  This 'wildcat' is on the prowl.. grr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0iz3QT_cgY

Kickoff

Its done - officially the blog has begun, with the name of "nth harmonic"

Whats that?

Its a term that came to me randomly, but I thought about it and it piqued an interest.  Harmonics are waves that are multiples of each other - that means they are all independent, but at certain times they will all align, perfectly.  So I thought about it on a people sense.. we're all different, but somewhere along the way we are the same.  We all ride our own independent wavelengths, but we can all come together.  Living in harmony.