Geek in Practice

23 years later, give or take few hours, and I haven’t achieved my first prime goal. That is to graduate .. After the hardest, yet most informative, semester one can endure, I can comfortably say that the worst is over. Let’s break it down to this, next semester I almost finish all my Physics courses and the following semester I finish all my core EE courses. And this leaves me to a freshman-like semester with only general studies (spring 2011, that is)..  Yay Me ..

Let this not take me off my focus. Quantum world, that is. This world is quite anti-intuitive it defies how we see the world. For example, there is nothing such as a certain momentum at a certain position. There MUST be some uncertainty between the two, if one is exactly and precisely measured the other would be as big as infinite. This world explains a LOT of what we see in this world. Why don’t stars collapse under its gravity pressure? why don’t, although mostly vacuum, tables and chairs don’t collapse into a dense cube of protons, neutrons and electrons? why can’t our bodies pass through solid material? The amount of material in a 100kg person,including heart, brain and bones, if all vacuum inside is removed, only build up into a cube of few millimeters long. Aren’t we all empty inside?

Quantum Mechanics is a field of physics that is concerned on miniature particles (electrons, protons and the likes).  We can thank the likes of Einstein, Pauli, Schrödinger among others for the brilliant discoveries of quantum mechanics.

Trivial up to now, huh? Let me get to application, according to an article in Scientific American, written back in 2001, 30% of the US gross national product is based on inventions that are only made possible by our guest tonight. Electronics? quantum mechanics. Laser? quantum mechanics. Periodic Table? quantum mechanics. Nanotechnology? quantum mechanics. Not only that, in the near future, there will be new technology that will change how the world is looked upon drastically. Quantum computing, cryptography and whole lot more. I’ll try to briefly talk about each of these subjects in a series.

As I have said in my last post exactly two months ago (wow it has been a long time!!), I will try out Gentoo Linux! And so I did. I loved the experience and I would definitely recommend it to all geeks out there! And trust me, it’s worth it! the speed of my machine was incredible!

What proved to be my experience’s demise is a hard disk failure. My 4 year old HDD decided to go AWOL on me! Shame, for sure it is! I bought a new one and I’m back to my old faithful operating system. (no not Windows, Ubuntu of course! are you out of your mind?)

But as I promised many of you to tell you about my Gentoo experience. It all becomes easy as long as you follow, in Rami’s words, Legendary Handbook. The hardest part would be setting the flags up and setting your video card proprietary drivers (Only needed if you’re going to look fancy or you’re a gamer, neither of which is lately me). The most fun part was playing around with portage. The most useful thing that I came out with from the Gentoo Experience is that I can understand Linux a bit more than I ever did before! Am I gonna explain a thing or two? No, I won’t it’s all in the Handbook but I will surely try to answer any question you have. Oh, and please don’t ask about masked packages, HDD didn’t give me time to figure them out!

On a totally different note, I have been having a super-crazy semester so far but, all in all, one of the most exciting. I’m currently taking the two most interesting courses I’ve taken so far; Quantum Mechanics and Digital Signal Processing. Highly geeky stuff.

Quantum Mechanics applications in the near (5-10 years, hopefully) future are just gonna destroy everything we know about computer efficiency and communication. I’m talking about Quantum Computing and Entanglement. Two application, though simple in concept, relatively anyway, that can change the world. In theory, a quantum computer needs only a week solve an equation that takes a super-computer two years to solve. We’re talking about nanosecond boot up and ready to use systems here. On the other hands, Entanglement gives the ability to communicate long LONG distances instantly, without even speed-of-light delight. Main problem in both cases, is how to keep these systems alive without dying so fast. All engineers need to do is to increase the life time of a quantum system to few minutes. It’s a long way to go, for sure, but physicists leaped a great deal researching these two items. (I might blog a post about them once I really understand what’s going on)

As for Digital Signal Processing (DSP), it is a course that forms the basics of any modern communication system. How to deal with input signals, how to receive an output signal and try to revert it back to the input signal to understand a message, so long and so forth. What’s exciting about this course isn’t the concepts we’re taking, but the applications we’re using them for. For instance, sound engineering cannot be possible without DSP and the effort those guys do to make a concert a success will forever be underrated. Digital cameras and camcorders are only a fraction of the almighty DSP can do! (again, I will blog about it once I’m in too deep).

Sorry, for the briefing out everything and the non-comprehensiveness but it’s been two months since my last blog and I can’t really chew them all at once!

Thanks for reading, and wish me luck!

So, about a month ago I installed openSUSE Linux on my laptop. Honestly, I liked what I saw but I felt some of the Linux privileges have been removed. Therefore, I’m saying sorry Novell but your system isn’t for me. What do now? I wanted to fallback to Ubuntu or maybe Fedora. A little push from my brother is all I wanted to try something completely new. As I said, openSUSE removed some of the privileges Linux offers hence I’m heading for the distribution which give me total control!

Go Gentoo! See you on the other side!

I was chatting with a friend today and I told her “What can I do? I’m a geek” in response to some geeky stuff that I said. So she answered me “Things like that shouldn’t be said in public!”. Well, honestly, people always tell me that but I, like most geeks, never stop saying it! Geekdom is more of a badge of honor we, geeks, carry on our chests. Yes, I’m a geek where is the shame on that? Usain Bolt is an athlete do you see him ashamed? Well, of course not, he’s the damn fastest man on earth! but my point holds! No use being ashamed of being what you are (Dr. Phil will definitely agree) just try to be the best at it! And that’s what the phenom did!

Geekdom is a lifestyle. It’s the interest you give to everything around you! That self-cleaning-thinner-than-a-hair polymer invented in Purdue University, that new MMORPG launched a month ago, the new features Sony-Ericsson’s new Xperia phone, just about anything related to technology. That doesn’t mean we don’t understand anything else, It’s just when like economists and financiers enjoy reading about what did Ben Bernanke do in the last Federal Reserve board meeting. Many geeks, unlike what people think, tend to know a little bit about everything and everything about what they like. The stereotype says geeks are anti-social which holds true to an extent. That extent stopped exactly before the internet was invented (which melted any sort of boundary anyway) I bet that the source that linked you here is over-saturated with geeks. Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Digg, younameit.com … etc they’re all geekdom utopias. They’re a part of everyone’s life whether you agree or not! Geekdom is not what it used to be in the 70s but the stereotypes stuck around till the new millennium and beyond!

It’s a good time to be a geek, go 1337s!

I’ve been Wondering if I ever been to a safari or not. Well, I haven’t and I can’t see I will ever be in the foreseeable future but, in anyway, Linuxing can be as intriguing as going to a safari. I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux ever since it was only a Dapper Drake (although either fictional or not living in a safari). I loved the operating system, society and embraced the concept and philosophy! I became an official exclusive Linuxer around Gutsy Gibbon when I gave Windows the axe and the boot out of my hard disk. That’s when the adventure started. When I decided to enjoy the mishaps of Linux. When I started to see the million ways The Gimp is better than Photoshop (you might argue it’s not, but embrace the philosophy and you won’t). Along the way, when I was upgrading and waiting for every 6 months for a Heron or an Ibex to come by, I was always thinking to wear a fedora or capture a lizard. Until it finally came, two months after introducing Ubuntu to my roommate, I was playing around with my Jackalope he decided to buy a laptop (Thankfully he didn’t need to pay the Microsoft Tax). He decided to try out three Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE). I thought I should move on too. I downloaded OpenSUSE and, here I am, loving the experience. What I like the most is that we have 3 machines in the room and each has a different distribution of Linux and nothing else to be found!

What I also like, is how all three of them are basically the same yet so different. I felt a bit lost at first then it clicked all of a sudden! Am I going to play with a Koala instead of my newly captured Lizard? Let’s wait and see! I’m only wondering why OpenSUSE is the dark side of Linux?

Exactly two days after my pleasant chat with a developer of Shaheen Blue Gene computer, the 14th most powerful computer in the world, I start a course in Electric Engineering department at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) called Digital Systems Engineering. It talks about the architecture of microprocessors and how to program them. Sounds fun so far, only thing is we’re gonna study the 8086 and 8088 processors which are, to computers, like dinosaurs to us. Now, one might argue that we should know the basics of microprocessing in order to understand more modern processors. My only question is, why, then, do we need to go all the way and build those old processors if we’re intended to use, learn and perhaps help develop much more modern processors? Why not know the simple basics and just move on?

I don’t want to start ranting about my Uni, I know I will not stop, but it’s something I noticed in KFUPM. They tend to teach some obsolete technologies for a reason I never figured out. Another example, there is a course that teaches Fortran language (Old and almost unused anymore language) and many departments require it in order to finish freshman year! Oh well, I hope one day someone with a little sense changes that.

After two good weeks in London, I think I had a good break. Is it good enough to start my mental engines again? I think not! But I’ll do it anyway! All in all, It was well needed and well deserved and I’m more relaxed now than two weeks ago for sure!

When I started this post I was still in London but for some reason, not even known to me,I didn’t continue my draft. I wanted to just have a look back at my trip to London. Luckily for me, I didn’t go all the way. On my way back, I sat next to some Englishman in the first row of a world traveler class on a British Airways Boeing 767. The guy turns out to be Andrew Wenfer, an IBM corporate senior employee. He was on the way to Saudi Arabia because he was on a mission to build a supercomputer. Wait, what? He is one of the developers responsible to connect and build up Shaheen Blue Gene/P in KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), the 14th most powerful computer in the world, in my homeland. Being a geek, I was so excited, of course! He showed me how a Blue Gene computer is assembled, connected, and ran! What got me more excited is that I knew already about Shaheen which operating system is Linux based (see: The Linuxologist and Top500.org).

This machine is so super it has 16,384 quadcore CPUs distributed to 16 racks, each rack has 1024 CPUs. WOW! To add more to the awe, each cpu is directly connected to 6 other ones forming a cube of CPUs around each and every CPU. The ones on the edges are connected to the other end so they form a full cycle (such system is called Taurus, developed also by IBM). And they all run together simultaneously, could run at NO TIME SHARING! According to Mr. Wenfer, it consumes 40 megawatts a day yet it’s still green in comparison to our regular computers! Also, they had a very sophisticated cooling system which keeps all CPUs on a relatively low temperature. I was, honestly, dumbstruck when showed me the photos of a Blue Gene computer he built, they look magnificent. He also showed me how it works, virtually. I wish to directly thank King Abdullah for the most powerful computer in the middle east.

Other than that, we talked about the regular Saudi-Westerner chat. Weather, Islam, weather, human rights,weather, women rights… etc. I always thought that, lately, westerners learned a little more about Saudi Arabia due the exposure we had in the last few years but turns out that they only know that women don’t drive around here, lol!

Yesterday was so eventful I can’t make it pass by without blogging. I attended Lion King musical and it was very nice. It brought me back to childhood memories so vivid that I was jumping inside. I gotta admit, it lives in me and you should admit also that  it lives in you! The only thing I wished that happened yesterday was me attending the Wimbledon final between Andy Roddick and Roger Federer (Congrats to the latter though). The other things that I did yesterday is attending my first 3D movie, that is Ice Age 3. What fascinated me about that movie is how simply a light polarizer can change that fuzzy 2D image to 3D.

From a theoretical point of view, it’s darn easy. But if someone knows a real director I’d be thankful if he/she asked if it’s easy to do practically. It’s all about how to create an illusion of depth as a third dimension. How’s that done? Easy peasy. All you need is two cameras set facing each other with 90-degree mirrors in between to bring in the scene in. Each camera will work as one of our eyes. Of course, for the cameras to work like our eyes they have to be in perfect synchronization and in identical shooting specs. The rest of the trick is done within our eyes and brain. Our brain will interpret each of the images seen in each eye as single three-dimensional image. I expect some geek somewhere in the world to pop up and say “Dude! That’s old school!”. Well yeah of course, I’m speaking to non geeks. Every 3d movie we see in the movie industry is created in some alteration of what I’ve just explained. Of course, it’s easier to do now that CGI is used almost in every movie there is in Hollywood!

To go more deeply, The nowadays used technology is based on polarizing filters that either linearly (90 degrees of each other) or circularly (right handed for one and left handed for another) polarize the two images and then superimpose them on top of each other. To depolarize the images (using cheap polarizing eyeglasses, almost same material in sunglasses),  is to let each eye see one image and trick the brain. For linearly polarized images we use orthogonal polarizers to see each image and for circular images we use same for same (right for right and left for left) polarizers. When we polarize a superimposed image that contains two polarized images (yes two polarizations occur, like encoding and decoding), each filter will only show one of the two images which is exactly what’s required for 3d imagery!

Pretty simple, huh?

Today after I had lunch/dinner with the family in the most amazing Persian restaurant*, a cousin called me and tricked me to go to Edgware Road in London (An Arab “colony”, for those never been here). He knew that I’ve never been there and he knew that I would never want to go there so he just told me the directions and I found myself there (being all new to London). Ok, I admit, there’s nothing to be ashamed of but I try to avoid my people here for reasons I’d rather keep for myself. Anyway, that doesn’t even relate to my subject, what I want to say is. He assured me why I should stick with my alias, geek in practice that is.

I know how geeky/nerdy I am, but I never looked eye-to-eye to people who call me a geek or a nerd. Let me explain a bit, when I’m in Saudi there are few people who I can debate with in few occasions. Mostly, it’s just chitchat and sport talk (read football, soccer for Americans). Hence, I usually keep my debatable thoughts for myself most of the time which leads us to my point, that is, how on earth do you know I’m a geek or not? However, when my cousin and I were talking we were exclusively debating about everything from society to finance to politics to engineering (of course to our extends of knowledge). We agreed on many things but I played a devil’s advocate just to enjoy discussion (I think he did as well, sometimes). I felt at the end of our evening that I am, actually, a geek in practice.

While I am pouring my thoughts into my keyboard, let me say something about us Saudis. We like to argue and we think arguing is debating but we lack the basics of any debate. We don’t see that arguing hurts others while a healthy debate enriches thought and diversifies minds. And at the end of the day, most of us believe that “debating” is unhealthy for our bodies, minds and souls and try to avoid it and consider some sort of “taboo”. Wait what? you read it right,we love to argue but try to avoid it most of the time but when we do engage ourselves in arguments we don’t respect our arguers. And that is exactly why sometimes I doubt my potential as a geek!

(*) Alounak, That’s for you Hish

Dear World,

You have tricked me, seduced me and kicked me in the butt! It doesn’t matter now. I’m planning some kind of revenge, revenge in my twisted sense of humor which only you, me and few others understand. I know revenge shouldn’t be funny nor fun but trust me I’ll make it fun, for me at least! Is that blabbering? no it’s not it’s part of the plan (That’s my story and I’m sticking with it ). You see here, I wanted to start a blog for a long time now and actually I registered some blogs. But this one is different, I can feel it! even if you can’t. What makes it so different you ask? Well, let me tell you something, at this age, one needs an outlet of the stress you give us all the time and it can’t be any better than blogging in a country like Saudi Arabia especially in a University like UPM. Now I don’t intend to blog about those two particular places exclusively but quite often I’m sure I will! I’m just blogging about my own life, everyday experiences and most importantly about photos I take every now and then! Now enough about me, let us talk about you. I love how you mix things up, a sunny day then a rainy day then a just cloudy day. I don’t like it when you be consistent like in Saudi Arabian summer. I wish you mix things up a little there as well! Along with this open letter I’m posting some photo I took today. It’s some lady you sent me today to play with. Shame it’s only a ladybug.  Here have a look:

Ladybug at St. James' Park

Shutter: 1/15 sec; Aperture: F13; Focal Length: 135mm

I have played with this ladybug for up to 10 minutes. These moments make me regret not buying a macro lens for my Nikon D80 . mental note: next thing to buy! However, I made an obvious mistake here I should’ve had a larger aperture to gain less depth of field and more shutter speed. A noob mistake I say. In my defense, I was shooting after a small nap in the park and I don’t see that it’s that bad. It’s not that shaky after all with a decent depth of field!

When I blog about photos I took I will mention the circumstances, theorize a bit and criticize myself. I will look forward for your critiques and I  I hope I haven’t bored you too much and I appreciate that you’ve read that long! post a comment .

Sincerely Yours,

Omair Taibah

Ps. Please add me to twitter (@amrush) and visit my DeviantArt gallery (http://amrush.deviantart.com)