TekEmpire.net

I moved back Friday. The apartment did not save enough time to justify the expense.

I am obsessive about the organization of the files on my computer. Apple does not understand my organizational system, and I do not understand theirs. On the operating system drive, I leave the files how OSX put them. On my removable media, Apple should leave things as I put them. So I wrote two files to allow me to “umount” properly.

To make this work by just typing “umount /Volume/<VolumeName>”, I added “export PATH=~/bin:${PATH}” to my “~/.profile” and put the following files in “~/bin”.

If you read this far and do not know what I am referring to, you probably should stop reading here and find something else to do. Otherwise, let me know if you have any problems with this technique, or a better solution.

--- Begin ~/bin/umount ---
#!/bin/sh
# File: umount
# Author: Brian Lindsay
# Purpose: umount a volume from OSX (calling uncruft first).
# Usage: umount /Volume/

uncruft "${@}"
diskutil unmount "${@}"
--- End ~/bin/umount ---

--- Begin ~/bin/uncruft ---
#!/bin/sh
# File: uncruft
# Author: Brian Lindsay
# Purpose: Remove OSX cruft from a filesystem volume.
# Usage: uncruft /Volume/

# MCP
main(){
	clean "${@}"
}

# All known sources of cruft in OSX
osxcruft(){
	#Files
	#echo "._AppleDouble"
	echo "._*"
	echo ".DS_Store"
	echo ".VolumeIcon.icns"
	#Folders
	echo ".fseventsd"
	echo ".Spotlight-V100"
	echo ".TemporaryItems"
	echo ".Trashes"
}

# Forcibly remove cruft
clean(){
	cd "${@}"
	osxcruft | while read cruft; do
		rm -rf ${cruft}
	done
}

# Run program.
main "${@}"
--- End ~/bin/uncruft ---

Recently I have been spending a lot of time thinking about getting clean water to underprivileged people. This is probably due to the fact that I now live in a desert. Nevertheless, it seems important, so it stays on my mind.

If you could only do one thing to help prevent the spread of disease, it should be to supply clean water, because nothing else has such a dramatic impact. Perhaps more importantly, however, is that a steady supply of clean water permits the irrigation of crops, which creates a stable food supply. You know what happens when your village no longer spends all its time worrying about its next meal and surviving the next outbreak? Industry. Well, not immediately, but it permits the possibility.

So the important part of the idea. How do you get freshwater to the desert with no streams or aquifers? On a much smaller scale, the Romans had some plumbing that did not require power. Aqueducts. We could use something like that to transport water for the highest places in Africa to all of the smallest villages. The initial expense would be enormous, but if you build it with local materials, you would not have to maintain it. As a passive system, it would require very little maintenance anyway.

The really hard part is getting the freshwater to the highest points in Africa to begin with. I like the idea of selling sea salt from the Atlantic ocean to the developed world, and pumping the distilled water uphill. I have no idea how much salt would need to be sold, nor at what price to make this possible, but I have heard little discussion about it, so I thought I would start the conversation. Anyone interested in a business venture?

As of March first, I have moved into an apartment much closer to the U of A campus. This is a temporary arrangement for the rest of the semester. Apparently five classes is more than I can handle. At least when three of them are math, and the other two computer science.

I have been toying with the idea of rewriting my website again (the previous versions were short-lived publicly) through google’s appengine. This would allow me to organize messages with respect to topics. That way people interested in my personal life would not have to read about my grand ideas for bringing freshwater to Africa (e.g.), and vice versa. For now though, I think it is better for me to just post everything I want public on this blog until I have time to learn python (a necessary step to move to appengine). In the interim, you can expect a little more frequency here, but less relevance.

Dearest <you>,

So I live in Arizona now.  Officially I have lived here since 2009-08-13.  That is when I got my local driver’s license anyway.   I am what the locals are calling a “live-in care-taker” for my grandmother.  If that were not the case, you see, I would not be allowed to live here.  My current residence is within a retirement community with a minimum age of, I believe, 55.

While I was visiting my grandmother, shortly before I got the license, she had a bit of a fall.  I think it was due to drowsiness from some medication.  The cause is hardly the issue however.  The point of the matter is that it was bad enough that I ended up taking her to the hospital, albeit a few days later.  I thought someone should stay with her, and called my brother to discuss it.  Since he did not offer to sell his house, quit his job, and leave his girlfriend, it was decided that I should make my visit permanent.

I am currently majoring in Computer Science at the University of Arizona.  I am taking a few extra math courses this semester, and plan to add Math as a major before I graduate.  At this point I believe I am a Junior, but I honestly have no clue what I need to graduate.

The purpose of this weblog is to reduce the burden of telling several people the same set of things.  It is a lot easier to write a general synopsis of my days here, than it is to answer real letters and electronic mails asking what is going on in my life.  I still enjoy a good letter now and then, but I am getting too busy to respond properly.  Not that I normally would respond properly, but now, I am also unable to do so.

Feel free to ask any specific questions if they have not been adequately covered.

Sincerely,
<me>.