Living My Life To The Tune of Toto

Hey All,

So first off, I know this post is long overdue. Over the past couple months my life has been a fire storm of events, emotional ups and downs, and other such things. So with all that said, how about I give you and update as to what I have been up to.

First and foremost, the biggest part of my life has involved going to Africa twice this summer. The first time I went was for a scholarship program. A group of 6 students and two professors traveled to Tanzania (Specifically the island of Zanzibar) to film a documentary on an NGO (Non-Government-Organization) doing unique works to charity. Now you are probably asking: "Hey Nonberg, where are the sweet pictures of the pirate flag?) Well, to that I would say, it was impossible to take pictures with the pirate flag considering the airline lost my suitcase with the flag in it. I did not get the flag back until the airport. At that time my camera was out of batteries. I could write volumes on what happened in Africa, but hopefully I'll be able to share my documentary with all of you when its done in the next month or so.
My second trip to Africa was for a family vacation. For my parent's 60th birthday, they decided to give each other the gift of a safari (their life's dream forever.) I saw some animals I never thought I would ever get to see in person. If you guys are interested in seeing some of the pictures I took check out this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nonbergsinkenya2010
So that's my life in a nutshell over the past couple of months. Right now I am currently starting my second year at school and am now the new assistant coach here on the team. I can't wait to see everyone in a couple of weeks.

I'll Leave You With this

that's mt Kilmanjaro in the background. I'll be summiting that in January.

I'm in Bolivia!

Hey you all so I finally made it down to Bolivia. I guess I really never explained why I made the trip down to South America and some of you probably didn’t even know I was down here to begin with. Well I was offered a job to work for an alumn managing some stores he owns in Bolivia. I figured this was a once in a lifetime opportunity so I accepted. The job in itself is only ok. I work in a bookstore here in La Paz. We have a decent selection of used books that we sell at reasonable prices and we also sell different camping and hiking supplies like backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, pretty much anything you would need to travel or hike. To be honest it almost feels like I’m hustling out on the streets since I’m constantly bargaining for prices with our distributors and trying to get people to buy from us. Our sales have also dropped in the last few months since other stores that sell the same stuff have opened up. La Paz is also not the most attractive city, so I was amazed to see that the majority of our clients are tourist. From far away the city looks really cool since it’s surrounded by mountains, but once you get close it’s pretty dirty and poorly developed. Other parts of Bolivia are supposed to be really pretty so I may travel out some once I get my first paycheck.

I’m staying in an apartment that my boss has rented out for us and has subsidized part of the cost. My roommate is a Carleton grad from ‘09 who works with me and has been in South America for a while. He is pretty familiar with the city and the store so he has pretty much been showing me around until I get the hang of everything. We also went out with a group of his friends last weekend and I proceeded to get really drunk. To make a long story short altitude makes you get drunk faster and I blacked out got lost in La Paz, lost my phone, that I had just bought a few days ago, and got home at nine in the morning to find out that my boss had spent most of the morning trying to find me to help him get stuff from the market, so much for first impressions.

I plan on staying here in South America for a few months unless I get offered another job but I’m not holding my breath on that. I’ll most likely end up returning in May and start applying for grad schools and looking for jobs. This means I’ll miss the alumni meet, which kinda blows, but I might pass by Carleton in the spring. Also what is the deal with the Brocation? I really don’t mind if you guys plan it while I’m out here but lets get the ball rolling. Alright well I hope all is well in the states have fun at the alumni meet and will keep everyone posted on my trip.

Segway chief hoist with his own Segway

If you missed it, here's the tragic, but not really ironic story, and one of the many takes on the whole event. I thought there must be some sort of literary term for this kind of thing, but the closest I could come up with was the he was hoist with his own petard. But replace petard with some equally French word meaning complicated, expensive contraption that is really no better than the alternatives. But you can get around faster than walking without all the costs of driving a car! . . . Bicy-what-do-you-call-'em-now?

Anyway, I really just wanted to use this as an opportunity to post on my favorite world-revolutionary product that wasn't. And to post a bunch of pictures of people looking ridiculous on Segways:

Senior Year WTF?

This is senior year? Really? I've actually been here for 3 years? This is what goes through my mind every morning. Then, I think: "What do I have to do today? Hmmm I have work, then one class, and then like 5 meetings. Oh, and I should work on one of my compses, maybe. Or drink. Hmmmmm."

So, what's new about this year? First, I'm living in basement Memorial, otherwise known as The Pit, and it's amazing. Our common room isn't quite as large as the Stadium common room (it's hard to tell), we only have a half kitchen, but my room is gargantuan, nearly as large as the triple I lived in last year. We threw our first party last night, a triple-kegger (yes that's right) and it was a major success. I did realize that the Stadium carpeting made throwing parties sooo much easier, but we had a mopping party today and our room is as clean as ever. We also live down the hall from a pool table and a foosball table.

Secondly, comps. So I'm double compsing this term and next term, meaning that I only have 2 classes and subsequently, no class on Friday. This is awesome in terms of scheduling, but I have not been doing enough to prep for my Russian test in 3 weeks (case in point: this post).

Third: I've joined the equestrian team! Which means that I have an hour-long horseback riding lesson every week and I'll probably do a show sometime. I am very likely the only male on the team, but there might be another one. I decided to join the equestrian team because I felt like a bad Kansan because I'm not very experienced with horses and because I would like to live in southern Siberia next year, where horseback riding is a very useful skill. Maybe not so much jumping, but still.

Fourth, the FLOOD! So it started raining sometime Tuesday night and continued raining moderately hard until Thursday night. On Thursday, the fields surrounding West had already flooded and the Lakes had risen substantially. By Friday, the river had grown beyond its banks and inundated the entire town. Stadium and West were islands in a very large lake. The football field/track are destroyed. Allen house (and those other ones next to it) had to be evacuated. Froggy's was damaged heavily and the fire department was flooded. This is the worst non-tornado natural disaster I've ever been in.

So yeah, that's a glimpse of what I've been up to. Life is busy, but I've done that intentionally because I want to get everything out of this year that I can.

Hey guys

I haven't written in a while, partly because I've been busy studying for my prelim exam and the beginning of the school year. That and I guess I've just been too lazy to write to update y'all on the goings on in my life.

The prelim exam is a two day test, covering everything that I should have learned in 4 years as an undergrad and in my first year as a graduate student in physics. So: Electricity and Magnetism, Special Relativity, Classical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics, oh, and lots of math. All of the Ph.D. candidates have to pass the preliminary to continue on in the program, we generally get two shots in case we don't pass the first time. So about the last month of the summer I spent trying to be prepared for the exam. More than once during the process I was struck with the impression that I had learned too much, that the sum of human knowledge was too great, and that maybe solipsism would be a more tractable philosophy.

My New Theory of Everything:


Back to the point. The prelim exam kind of sucks, and it certainly isn't the best way to test our propensity in physics, but I guess I made some connections while studying. And--yes--I did pass, so that's what matters at this point.

So the day after the prelim was over classes started--as a grad student, I do miss having long breaks of not having to do anything school related. This term I'm taking Gravitation (General Relativity) which I think will be a fun course.

I have a light course-load because I've found a professor who actually has some extra grant money lying around and is willing to give me some of it to help him do his research. This part of grad school, I've found, is not always as easy as it sounds. Anyway, the professor that I'm working for has been researching granular materials, particularly their critical point where they transition between being liquid-like and being solid-like.

Starting out with a research group can be slow, and my first simulation seems to be... inconclusive at this point. But I can tell you about one aspect of my work that has been interesting. That has been learning how to do general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU). So what does this mean? A GPU is the primary component of the graphics card in your computer which carries out many of the computations necessary for displaying graphics on your screen. Compare this to the CPU (C for Central) which carries out all of the other instructions from the programs running on your computer. What you may not know about your CPU is that while your task manager or activity monitor tells you that you are running many processes, each of which are in turn running several threads (a single set of instructions) all at the same time, your CPU can only actually handle one set of instructions at a time. So it actually cycles through all of the threads, but does so so quickly that to you, your iTunes music plays simultaneously while you type your paper and search for distractions on the internet. (Many computers now have dual, quad, or multi-core processors where each core actually can run threads simultaneously with each other). What makes a GPU special is that it has hundreds of cores and can run at least that many threads at once. This was originally useful for computer graphics, especially in video games, where, for example, you might have some 3D object which you could represent with a large array of data. Then in order to figure out how to display the object on the screen, how to light it, etc., you need to perform some calculations on the entire array of data. While GPU's generally can't do a single calculation as fast as a CPU can, their ability to do many calculations in parallel can make them much faster at this type of calculation. So these types of calculations are offloaded onto the GPU greatly increasing the overall speed of the program and allowing programmers to make more detailed graphics.

Of course, computers are being used to handle very large sets of data for many more reasons today, including research. So it is only natural that researchers and others would want to get in on the power of graphics processors. One company that has made that possible is NVIDIA with their CUDA architecture, which is what I've been learning to use. They created a library extension to the commonly used C++ programming language that can be used with any of their graphics cards in production today. Learning to write programs in parallel has been interesting and difficult at times. I have to worry about things like two threads accessing the same memory which can make algorithms to do simple things much more complicated. But I'm finally getting the hang of it and pretty soon we'll see what kind of a speedup it can have on our programs. Anyway, I think it's kind of interesting stuff and it's a pretty safe bet that computers and computer programs will increasingly rely on massively parallel processors like GPU's in the future.

Finally, I realize that got kind of long and I don't know if it's really interesting to everyone else, so I'll leave you with the youtube video I've been enjoying this weekend:



Someone needs to mash this up into a debate between Phil Davidson and Basilmarceaux.com. I smell youtube gold! Get on that internet.

Behind the Scenes: A Look at the Statistics of Stadium 110

Right after I finished packing to return to Carleton, I began browsing the blog editing section of Blogger and realized that they added a wonderful new feature without me noticing. Once again displaying its tendency towards world domination and evil without being quite evil, Google has begun recording statistics about how many people visit Stadium 110. One can see how many people visited on a certain day at a certain hour, what OS they were using, which browser they browsed upon (through? is it a window into the internet?), and from what country they were surfing this complicated series of tubes known as the World Wide Web. These results are, of course, fascinating.

These statistics reveal the demographics of our pageviewers. While Stadium 110 has an obviously strong appeal to citizens of the United States, I must say that I was proud to see 7 pageviews from Russia. I believe that the most surprising statistics may be found at the bottom of the graph: 4 people in Latvia and 3 in India and Luxembourg have experienced the force that is the Ocho. If YOU happened to be one ofour international viewers, well done sir (or madame)! You have discovered a future cornerstone of American society.

Our viewership is also surprising Mac-oriented, with both Safari and OS X taking the top spots in the browser and OS categories. I must admit that I am surprised by the fact that Internet Explorer defeated both Opera and Chrome. If YOU use IE: SHAME! I am also interested in the fact that Android defeated iPod and iPhone. If I had to guess, I would say that the typical Stadium 110 viewer is an upper-middle class American who just can't use AT&T. Google can make a fortune on this info!

Another interesting feature of Google's statistics is that it reveals the search keywords used to find Stadium 110. As can be seen above, our blog has provided valuable advertising for Middlebury's Moscow Program, MSTRKRFT, and Guido van der Werve. It has also provided valuable information for those looking to find naked black men and Elliot Bartis. Dave showed a lucky person just how wonderful being funemployed can be and Tim brought it to Minnesota, while Alfredo didn't exactly answer the question regarding the safety of pajaretes but provided priceless information about milking cows for the sake of alcohol consumption.

I look forward to using this data to make Stadium 110 more user friendly and appealing to its viewership. With the help of Google, Stadium 110 is already one step closer to the oh-so-lucrative joy of Monetization. This post here already contains every single element that has made Stadium 110 a phenomenon that has taken 3 of Earth's continents by storm! My goal: a view from Antarctica by graduation.

UPDATE: At approximately 1:00 PM on September 11, 2010, Stadium 110 received a milestone 50 page views. This is unprecedented in the history of Stadium 110 and is a sign of the pageview potential of Stadium 110. A stock broker would be unable to handle statistics like this if we went public.

It all makes sense now!

So, the trailer to Megashark vs. Giant Octopus is no stranger around the Ocho, but I know that there have been questions about the validity of this documentary - specifically around the scene (which is shown in the trailer) that has mega shark jumping up and munching on a plane. Now I know for sure that Elliot and I have actually watched this fine film, and I recommend it for anyone who enjoys bad acting and great movie music. Because I've actually seen the whole thing, I, of course, do not question how such an act can occur.

For those of you, who have not seen it though, do not fear, let me calm your worries: Enjoy this explanation.

Back From the World of Russian

So, now that I'm allowed to speak English again, I figured it was time for a summer update.

Russian School was excellent, it was literally summer camp/school/partying in Russian 24/7. I hardly slept, but mostly because in addition to classes I sang/danced/played instruments in the choir, played soccer on the Russian school team, DJed two radio shows, and saw several films and lectures. Here is what I look like in traditional Cossack dress playing the drova (literally means firewood):

I also played the block (kindergarten all over again) and learned a few traditional Cossack dances.

Playing soccer was another major highlight of Russian school and made me seriously question why I ever started swimming in the first place. For those of you who know soccer strategy, I played stopper. Even though we only played together for 9 weeks, by the end of the season we really started playing like a team and had thoroughly mastered cursing at the other teams in Russian.

DJing radio shows gave me the opportunity to find and seriously listen to Russian music, and I have decided that Russian pop is unquestionably better than American pop. A few examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mACqXv0cWU8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFl7D1RqHeM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YqUhE9JZ3c&feature=related

I also discovered two fantastic Russian rock bands: Kino and Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine). Kino's lead singer is Viktor Tsoi, who is pretty much the Russian version of Jim Morrison, both in style and in following.

Perhaps the best part of Russian School were the people I met and the connections I was able to make. There are 3 Russian majors at Carleton. There were 140 people at Middlebury. Being surrounded by students with very similar interests was intellectually exhilarating and I loved every minute of it. In addition to other Russian/IR double majors, I met diplomats, businessmen, and FBI agents. I can honestly say that I spent most weekends at Middlebury drinking with FBI agents.

Middlebury also made me very thankful of my decision to go to Carleton: there isn't another Russian program in the US that is as well-rounded as the Carleton program. I often talked with students who were at Middlebury to receive their Master's, and found that in most cases I knew more about Russian lit/history/art than they did. I also learned that there isn't another Russian study abroad program in the US that travels as broadly as the Carleton program, or studies at a university as prestigious as Moscow State. I'm consistently surprised by Carleton, and this summer took my pride in Carleton to another level.

In the end, my Russian improved drastically at Middlebury. I am a fluent reader, my listening comprehension is between advanced and superior, and my speaking is on a grad student level. At the end of spring, I was deciding between accepting an internship teaching English in Russia and Middlebury, and I absolutely made the right decision in going to Middlebury.

After Middlebury, Anna Gallagher picked me up and I spent 2 nights at her house in Burlington. If you haven't been to Burlington, check it out if you're on the East coast. It's small but very cultured, I thought Church Street was a great little pedestrian road. We got to hear a MGMT concert while we were there, they pretty much sounded the same as they do on their albums. Anna left to see Louise in Boston on the second day (after a 20 mile bike ride, which was great), and I spent the rest of my time hanging out with her parents, who are some of the nicest people ever ever. Case in point: Anna's mom baked me a loaf of banana bread to take with me on the train.

Amtrak was a new experience for me. I arrived in DC early, which I didn't expect. The train wasn't even half full, it took 13 hours to get from Burlington to DC, but all in all it wasn't half bad.

In DC, I stayed with a friend from high school, Ashley, and we went to the Modern Art, Natural History, and American Art museums, as well as Arlington. I was fascinated by one work in particular at the Modern Art Museum: "The Day I Didn't Turn With the World" by Guido van der Werve. Essentially, it's a work of timelapse photography that is 8 minutes long. The artist stood on the geographic north pole for 24 hours, slowly turning in the opposite direction of the Earth. The camera stood still, and one can see the sun going in a circle around the artist. There's also a great Norman Rockwell exhibit at the American Art Museum.

I got back to Wichita yesterday, and I really have my work cut out for me this summer. First, I have a Fulbright proposal due on the first day of classes, and I have a good idea of my project but I need to write it out and get a letter of affiliation from Buryatia State University in the middle of Siberia. I also have my Russian comps test in the 3rd week of fall term, so I need to be prepped for that. That's a 6 hour long written exam on Russian history/art/lit and how they're all interconnected. I'm excited.

I had the Middlebury Radio Station music library open to my disposal this summer, so I've found some awesome new music. The three major standouts:

Charles Hamilton - Sonic the Hamilton

Sonic the Hamilton may be the best hip-hop concept album of all-time. It is told from the perspective of Charles "Sonic the" Hamilton, who after waking up finds that he is stuck within the Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog and has to play through it to get out. The sampling is top notch and the lyrics are much deeper than just following video games. Highly recommended.

The Glitch Mob - Drink the Sea

This is one of the most interesting electronic albums that I've heard in awhile. I think I can best describe it as: epic. The beats generally take the form of war drums, the bass is always rumbling in the background, and the melodies intertwine well with the beat. Very much a head-nodding album, but much more sophisticated than Deadmau5 or other house DJs.

Midnight Juggernauts - Dystopia

Think David Bowie vocals, Beatles/Beach Boys harmonies, and highly brushed 80's synth pop, and you'll have an idea of what the Midnight Juggernauts sound like. This album is not always the most complicated or dynamic, but every song is solid, well-produced, and well-constructed.

For you guys who obsessed over The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time like I did, I present you with The Ocarina of Rhyme. And if you like Explosions in the Sky, check out Four Tet.

Well, I have a lot more music that I found, but I don't want to take up any more of your time. I hope I see you all at the alum meet, or sometime in the near future!

Long Time No Blog

So I’m finally back from spending another in the woods. A great time to be sure, but it was more exhausting then it ever had been before. My position was the Teen Director, so I developed and implemented the three Teen Programs we have at camp, and then when not leading those programs, I oversaw the counseling staff and helped the other support staff members run the camp. I don’t know about whether I’ll return or in what capacity. The executive director hinted that as the camp buys more property and expands that he may want me part of that process. But who knows. All I know is that I feel like I’ve been working at 90mph since spring break and so I am excited to just chillax for a month before school revs up again.

I had originally thought that this month was going to be full of absolutely nothing, but things have of course come up. I had toyed with the idea of heading out East to see Elliot, Annie and my sister, but too much is going on. For one thing, my dad is trying to move, which means my room at his place needs to be packed up to look presentable for prospective buyers. That blows. This coming weekend is also when all my OP friends head back to their respective colleges, so we all getting reckless this week. Typical college drankin stuff. Also, Alfreddy and I are gonna meet up and chill too.

I also joined a last minute trip to West Virginia to go white water rafting. This group of friends of mine said that one of their crew dropped out and asked if I wanted to go. The drive, food, gas and the rafting will all only cost like $180, so I said what the hell – once in a lifetime opportunity. So I’ll be doing that Aug 24th – 26th. Toto, I don’t know if it’s the same place as you went. I then have a family reunion on my Dad’s side of the family during Labor Day weekend.

I head up to my house to move in and chill before classes start on the 1st as well.
Have I talked about my house? I feel like not really. Well here are the details:
I am living with Pete, Eric B, Louise and Erin H. A house full of swimmers and divers. It’s a nice house, but the seniors who left it after their lease ended in June left it in shambles. The Cormier Family to the rescue! Last week, Pete, Grace and their mom went up to the house and scrubbed the carpets, cleaned the bathrooms thoroughly and brought some nice furniture up. I think its going to look great. We’re pumped because we have a nice side yard, an awesome garage and this bitchin front room. BBQs, parties and good times are bound to be aplenty. Obviously guests are welcome, so stop on by for a weekend or whenever.

I’m starting to think about Jobs after school. I’m also toying with the idea of graduating early and pulling a Karin Brown and just doing whatever the hell I want during spring term. It would sav my parents and myself a big chunk of change and maybe they’d be willing to still pay my rent. If I did that I think I would spend my time traveling and visiting friends, while also spending the big weekends (progressive, oleball, spring concert, rotblatt) at Carleton. When I was in Northfield, I’d study for the GRE since eventually I’ll head to grad school for teaching.

BUT SPRING TERM IS A LONG WAY AWAY!
Gonna just enjoy what I have left of the summertime chi.

MOLSON OUT.

Boys Night Out

Awesome Video.