I got a paycheck this week and want to splurge. Should I get lego, clothing, or food?
Photo by William Sun
Midwest Prep indeed. Miss my high school! p.s. you can see my dorm room on the left.
In high school, on the weekends, we’d volunteer to deliver meals to shut-ins and other people throughout the city. You’d think we did it because we were fine, upstanding young gentlemen who wanted to better their community through service. But really, we worked it out so that we did the deliveries in conjunction with two other all-girls high schools. So yeah, old people, I only delivered your meals because it meant that I could drive around Detroit with a car full of girls. One time, because I was semi-in charge of the program one year, I had to make a bunch of week-day deliveries. The other person in charge, and who coordinated the week-day delivery went to the fancy all girls school. She picked me up at school in a Jeep Cherokee. At the time, for whatever reason, I thought girls who drove Jeeps were the coolest. Then I got in her car, she started it, and this song came on. She lit a cigarette (I think it was a clove-why do high school girls love cloves so much?) and I was simultaneously in love and intimidated. Which is the best feeling ever when you’re dealing with a girl. I always wonder whatever happened to that girl who smoked cloves, listened to DJ Assault, and drove a bright red Jeep Cherokee.
This is so bizarrely relevant to my life I can’t even handle it.
(Source: Spotify)
A$AP Rocky - Goldie (Prod. Hit-Boy)
This has been on repeat in my room for three days. I dunno, something about it just tastes good. Available for download on pitchfork. That screwed voice… mmm.
(via nickelcobalt)
As a white, affluent, non-disabled, hetero-normative male with a steady family life and good university education, I have little to complain about except my own stupidity.
As part of the freshman engineering experience at Northwestern University, teams of 4 or 5 students are assigned problems to solve, commissioned by various clients in the Chicagoland area. Last quarter, my team was addressing the need for a sleek, more lightweight rollator for the elderly. And we chose to make it out of carbon fiber (well, parts of it at least). Here is more or less the process for making a flat Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic/Polymer (CFRP) panel. For making curved shapes, you need a curved mold (and negative mold) to squeeze the layers of fiber and epoxy. Without further ado:
Materials Necessary
Preparation
To prepare for the relatively fast-moving resin process, a fair amount of preparation must be made. Remember to wear gloves for this entire process—the resin/epoxy mix is a skin irritant.

Mold Process

Tip for clean-up: use a razor blade to scrape runoff resin from the polypropylene sheets before reusing them to ensure maximum smoothness.
To cut the finished panel, we suggest using a water cutter if you have access, but a bandsaw (followed by some edge filing) works well too.
And for the record, this youtube video is pretty darn good at explaining the whole thing.
I miss my lego collection in a very general sense… but with this contest, for the first time in a while, I really really REALLY wanted to be able to build something. Argh. I have no idea when I will be back home next. It might take a few years before I’m home for more than a weekend.
It’s now been a few days since I returned from Morocco, but I have some observations to share (à la Nick Gray). I spent a week in the country with my mother—Two days in Fès, about one and a half days in Marrakech, a day and a half doing on a “desert expedition,” and a day in Casablanca. It was a quick trip and included lots of transit, but I am happy with that, and my mom is as well—she is a Geographer and likes few things more than just observing landscape.
For reference, at the moment, $1 USD ~ 8 DH (Dirhams).
Some notes:
The country feels very european—that’s the French influence talking. Few things convey this better to me than seeing lots of roundabouts in the road system!
Yet, it is still a “developing” country. There are some problems that need addressing: namely, the absolute lack of a job market for college-educated people and the amounts of trash everywhere.
Large, old doors have two knockers. One for one family in the house, the other for a different family. They have slightly different sounds, and people learn to recognize them.
A riad is a “guest house” with a garden in the middle. A der is a “guest house” without a garden inside—just a fountain.
In general, a riad/der is an old-style house with an interior, open-air courtyard with surrounding rooms. They’re very consistent: marble floors, tile ornamentation (often with intricate zellij patterns), plaster walls, and wooden ceilings. This makes for good heat management in the hot months and cold, just by opening more or fewer windows/doors.
Fès is famous for its tanneries (smelly!) and its carpets. The carpets have two sides: one thick and wooly, for winter, the other tighter and more flat, for summer months.
“Petit Taxis.” Everywhere. Very noticeable by their red color. Taxis are REALLY cheap. A 20-minute ride cost us 16DH—$2. I’d suggest wearing a seatbelt, but you will really stick out as a tourist if you do so.
Also, this is where all of the old Mercedes 1900 and 2400s in the world are. They’re now “Grand Taxis.”
Fès has a nice amount of tourist infrastructure: enough so to enjoy the sights and be comfortable, but not enough to feel hassled by the locals. Marrakech, not so much; upon leaving I felt quite “milked” by the local economy for every penny in my pocket. Hustlers everywhere!
Casablanca, on the other hand, is a modern, slightly gritty, working city. No hustlers. Some big construction projects—private and infrastructure in nature—are going on, so I look forward to see it develop in recent years. There’s an imitation Rick’s Café there!
I’d never been to any Islamic-dominant country, and the difference when church and state are intertwined was noticeable. Hard to say how, but noticeable. The current king—Mohammad VI—is quite well-liked and is doing well. You’ll see his portrait around a lot.
Don’t walk on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is for storefronts and donkeys! And tourists!
People are friendly, but, as I said (especially in Marrakech), eager to sell. Everybody knows French and Arabic (both my mother and I have a working knowledge of French that helped us get around), and many know English or basic english too.
You have to pay for bathrooms. Well, not really, but otherwise the woman standing at the door will give you a nasty glare. They only ask for 1 or 2 DH usually. I only had to use a squat toilet once and most toilets allowed you to flush the toilet paper (!).
“We invented the siesta” — Our tour guide, Ahmed, in Marrakech
While less conservative than I expected, a woman’s life in Morocco is intensely private. “Men’s” trades, like tanning, metalworking, tailoring, etc. are done in public spaces or work cubbies in the souks (markets). “Women’s” trades, like carpet-weaving and basket-making, are done in their homes. It’s very rare to see women eating in restaurants.
Lots of restoration going underway, all the time. Large parts of Fès and Marrakech are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and they take their ancient pride seriously.
The Medina of a city, or the “old city,” is made up of the kasbah (walled city), the mellah (typical jewish quarter), and the souks (markets).
Esp. in Marrakech, there are unregulated motorized scooters EVERYWHERE. Watch yourself as they come flying through the tight spaces.
Cats are everywhere and very tolerated. I took around 400 photos on the whole trip—45 of which were just of cats. Hanging around, taking care of pests. They even walk around nicer restaurants.
If you visit Marrakech, go to Jemaa el-Fna. Perhaps the most tourist-ey place possible, but it’s quite a spectacle. Let yourself get wrassled into a stall by the shouting men, and enjoy the cheap and good food.
That said, FOOD. Expect olives and bread with every meal. A “Tajine” is a typical conical dish, used to cook and serve any kinds of meat or couscous dishes. Food is good. Food is cheap. Eat lots.
More notable in Casablanca—quite a bit of ethnic variation.
Camels are really uncomfortable to ride (especially as someone with male parts). That said, they’re also quite fun to ride, sound like Chewbacca (or maybe that’s vice-versa), and feel like a roller coaster when they stand up or sit down!
Schooling is optional for kids. Lots running around at all hours of the day.
You’ll hear calls to prayer broadcaster via loudspeaker 5 times a day. Actually a very good wake-up call!
There’s a level of local artisanship in the country that simply isn’t found in the U.S.A.. In the souks there are tailors, blacksmiths, tanners, tinsmiths, farmers, dye-makers, and more, simply doing their “artisinal” work, because it’s their work. I don’t quite have the words for how different this is from the industrial, business-driven world here (versus the individuals’ work there).
That’s about that.
Quick WIWT. $2 Thrifted Burberry’s shirt with french cuffs, Blackbird in-house brand green/black plaid tie, Rag+Bone for Barney’s trousers, Rockport split toe oxfords. The cufflinks say ‘Bros’ (from High School…) and the tie bar is off Etsy. The leather jacket is a new acquisition from the tanneries in Fès, Morocco—goat suede made-to-measure (and quite cheap).
First day of spring quarter. It’s going to be a good one, I hope.
I think I like math and art for the same reason. They’re both efforts to express ideas in basic elements—colors and forms for art, symbols and numbers for math.
Landed an internship in NYC for most of the summer!
Hopefully I’ll kick around Chicago long enough to attend Brickworld first though—dates aren’t quite set yet. Maybe some time at home with my own lego and video games too…
I’ll be making math models to explain growth in developing countries. I’m thrilled.
dr. dre - xxplosive
I think this is one of the best hip-hop songs ever. The beat is contagious.
I’m often poked fun at for liking hip-hop, especially of the dirtier/gangster sort… is it because I’m a relatively well-behaved skinny white boy? Probably.
I think what I like about some grungier hip-hop is in fact its blatant egotism and superficiality. Sometimes I want nothing more than a good beat and some surface-level wordplay… Nevertheless, seeing what was really meant by the words on rap genius is really neat.
Alternately, you can look at it as a business model.