BRAIN SPEED

This is a test... although I'm not sure how scientific.. that measures your brains speed. You have to discern two sounds played at normal first, then at increasingly closer intervals. Your job is to indicate the order in which the sounds occurred.

My speed was 31 Milliseconds... but i didn't save the screen... I'll try to take it again so I can post it.

Brain Game


HAVE FUN


**UPDATE**




I took it again to try to get my score so I could get the screen of it and I beat my score. My score is only 3 milliseconds slower than that of BlueGene/L. The fastest supercomputer right now. It is more than three times faster than the runner up performing 280.6 TF/s (Teraflops per second)
A Teraflop is A processor speed of one trillion (10¹²) floating point operations per second. So that computer ( An eServer owned by IBM with 131,072 processors) can do more that 280.6 of those in one second..... very neat.

so there you have it.. my brain almost outperformed the worlds fastest supercomputer.

GO, MY BRAIN!!! GOOOOO!!!!

this is dumb

I thought this was worth a look.. i watched the seal one like ten times... it made me laugh out loud

Pigeon Brotha'!! Pigeon!!

The following is my impromptu poem inspired by blogetryjt.blogspot.com:

Pigeon's Stool

There is a stool for commissioned pigeons
Amidst indifferent lowly coops
Above the lull of feathered minions
Stooled pigeons peer for new recruits

The stool, a prop to hold immune
From fiery darts, His elected
A resting place where two commune
A truth perch for Holy perspective

                       .-''-.
                      / ,     \             
                   .-'`(o)    ;
         COO-     '-==.       |
                       `._...-;-.
                        )--"""   `-.
                       /   .        `-.
                      /   /      `.    `-.
                      |   \    ;   \      `-._________
                      |    \    `.`.;          -------`.
                       \    `-.   \\\\          `---...|
                        `.     `-. ```\.--'._   `---...|
                          `-.....7`-.))\     `-._`-.. /
                            `._\ /   `-`         `-.,'
                              / /
                             /=(_
                          -./--' `
                        ,^-(_
                        ,--' `


Hope you like it :^)

oceans, lakes, and bodies of water

So I've decided that when I get my tax return this year I am going to spend it on something that any time before now I would have thought of as a luxury out of my reach. I'm getting my scuba certification and some basic gear (regulator, mask, octopus, pirahna). I've put it off too long. Part of my reason for posting it on this sight is so that I will have some accountability for actually following through with it. Feel free to ask me where I'm at in the process. As of today I haven't actually filed my taxes so thats the first step, but just you wait. Anyway, scuba diving b/c anyone that knows me well knows that one of my favorite past times is holding my breath and seeing how deep I can go. In college all of the lifeguards kind of looked at me funny when Id go to the diving pool (14ft deep) and spend time doing laps on the bottom. If you haven't ever been to the bottom of a clear pool, held your nose and looked up, your missing something in your life. Also, Brian Abrams told me he'd buy me dinner if I could bring up some sand from the bottom of Lake Murray. Think black and cold. His depth finder told me it was around 60ft after I returned to the surface with a wad of mud to prove myself. Too bad it was a $3.99 buffet dinner at CiCi's pizza. The best part was we saw Reg Taylor, the local weatherman ,with his family. I thought he might have been gay before that.
I digress. Something weird happens when you hit 20 ft. Intense cold. You'd think that as the water receives less and less sunlight that it would gradually become colder, but no. Its called the thermocline, where there is an abrupt temperature change in the transition to deep water. Its a shock at first but not altogether bad. Its better when you come back up because you get this intense warmth all of the sudden as you and your burning lungs search for the surface. In my childhood I would constantly be in the pool with my watch, resting my head under the ladder, trying my best to remain motionless. The only poster I ever put up in my room (besides my stolen Rushmore poster from the Russel House in college) was a pic of some dolphins from Scuba Diving magazine. Thats right, at 12yrs old I bought scuba diving magazines. Those and Nintendo power. Right, so why did I forget about it and not really pay attention to those desires before now? Its hard to say. Sometimes caution and setbacks and the feeling that those desires won't really accomplish anything for you in your life drown out that little voice. I'm slowly realizing though that the opposite may be true. In order to do ANYTHING in your life it takes the power of realized dreams to motivate you. Unaccomplished goals and snuffed out dreams create a sense of defeat and disdain brewing underneath the facade of contentment. Slowly, if you put them off, a sense of unconfidence in your abilities sets in and begins to cure around your feet....Leaving you immobilized. I see myself at a crucial crux where the exercising of dreaming is mandatory to my moving forward, its not an option. Without vision the people perish. Without dreams the soul stupors. It seems like every dream for me thats of any significance, spiritually or otherwise has some sort of body of water that I interact with, usually going deeper into it, never drowning and always calm, peaceful and alone. I like it. What do you dream about? Do something for me, think back to your childhood (if you are currently a child think back to the womb?) What got your heart running? What made your eyes big? Does it seem insignificant? Don't brush it off too fast. Maybe your like Jared and like to dig into textbooks, or Jessica and like to brush your hair and whine alot and be really good looking(I kid). Or Jordan and like to post really funny blogs and do the robot. Or like Chris Underwood, wanted all of your life to farm potatoes in the fields of Idaho (I'm not making that up). Act on it before its too late. Again, I love you all the same but in different ways.

My Kiev

Well, a little more about Kiev...
Ukrainians are a proud people who were often oppressed by the Soviet gov't. Stalin did some especially cruel things to this "bread basket" country...namely, he stole all of their food for several years by making them export it to feed mother Russia. Stalin left the Ukrainians to starve as a form of ethnic cleansing because he thought that the Ukrainians were too independently minded.

With that said, you can come to understand the culture here a little better. In the winter it can be a very grey place. It snows often (even yesterday...in the middle of freakin' march), and can get a little depressing. Though there are some soviet relics around, such as the tram system (it looks very soviet...if you saw it you would know what i meant) and some of the housing sectors, overall it is a very modern city.

They have big screen TVs in their main square, shopping malls, McDonald's littered throughout the city, and plenty of name brand stores. They also have Mega stores (think Sam's club, Costco) here as well. I was completely taken off guard when I saw these cause they are as big, if not bigger than those in the states. This struck me as very odd, b/c in the states you wouldn't see such real estate hogs so close to the city center...the land would be too valuable. Very out of place to my American eyes...

The population is about 3.5 million, which I think rivals LA. There seems to be a great disparity between the affluence of the wealthy and the poorer working class. You can see high dollar BMW's and Mercedes ride down the potholed streets of the suburbs right next to the ancient soviet-brand LADA's (funny looking cars...they still make them brand new, but the body styles are as if they were stuck in '82). It seems to be getting harder for the middle class here as prices for housing have been shooting up in the last few years.

The city itself has beautiful architecture...especially in the churches and museums. Ukraine is one of the most free of the Central Independent States (CIS) that used to be apart of Russia. Unlike Belarus just to our north, you can openly talk about religion and politics.

The clothing is a funny mix of hipster-Euro/American 80's for the young people and older men in soviet wool suits with their Ushankas (stereotypical Russian fur hat). Most people, however, don't wear very colorful clothes...at least not in the winter. Jet black, female mullets are not a strange site here. Somehow the Ukrainians just make it cool to have mullet.

The metro is crazy. People don't have the same concept of personal space. If you have to go on the metro at rush hour, you have to be prepared to squeeze incredibly close to the 6-8 people nearest you. People pack on to the car, and then just when you think that its full, there are about 3-5 more people that stand at the doors and push everyone in tighter so they can get in. I once had to stand off-balance, on one leg for 20 mins until the car cleared out a little. Crazy.

Another crazy fact that I was amazed about when I first saw it was that people on the mini-buses around the city will freely pass their cash to complete strangers in order to pay their fare. Granted, the "marshrutkas" can get very packed like the subway, but it is so foreign to me that you would just hand cash to people you don't know. I guess the Ukrainians have an honor code or something...

In a few weeks, there are going to be parliamentary elections. There are at least 10 different parties here and they all are campaigning very fiercely. These are the first elections after a political revolution that happened a year and a half ago. It was called the Orange Revolution and it was a peaceful sit in in the main square for about 3 months. Students and young people were the main contributors and they helped to oust a president who was a just a puppet for the Russians. The revolution helped to remove him and now he is leading one of the most popular political parties. If his party wins a majority of the parliament, they could have a lot of influence in turning the country back towards Russia...scary thought...now you know how to pray...

Needless to say, it is a very interesting time to live here and I am really excited that I get to be a witness/participant in such a pivotal point in this young country's history...

Prodigyl Daughter

Akiane Kramarik is an 11 year old girl, hailed as a prodigy, who began painting and writing poetry at a very young age. She also speaks three languages. I just wanted to let other people know about it. If you get the white dove newsletter then you already know but you should check this out.

This is a painting done by her at age 8 after the National Geographic photo entitled The Answer...




















And here is a poem she wrote to accompany the painting, still only 8 yrs old.

THE ANSWER
Poetry by Akiane


Trash is blowing on my face.
My day is bound. I cannot talk.
The time I breath, the time I race.
Tonight the wind begins to walk.

Who will touch me when I'm blind-
I will answer silence soon.
I wish this night was far behind
The shadows of the afternoon.

My sun-baked lips touch living voice.
Love quickly shakes the spears.
God knows where our last night was.
I cannot see my heavy tears.

Wisdom asks what I will be,
When I become a child.
I hold God's feathers... glass sees me.
I sit on icy rock awhile.

Far away no one sees my eyes.
I sing to frozen butterflies to stay alive.
Far away I hear someone love.
I will not leave until God's time...

Her story is very intriguing. She paints things from her dreams. She began talking to her mother about God when she was four. She told of the things He showed her in her dreams, eventually getting her atheist family saved. \/\/ O \/\/ !!

In her own words she has a "Daring Heart and a Cautious Mind."

You need to check out her poetry.. it really is amazing

i gotta do some more work now, but I am absolutely amazed.

Some Links:

http://www.artakiane.com/akiane_life.htm

http://www.artakiane.com/akiane_art.htm

http://www.gicleeart.com/akianegallery1.htm

http://www.artakiane.com/akiane_poetry.htm

SATURDAY: Greatest day of the earth!