For those that know me, they also know that I have a tendency to entertain moving into different fields.  This desire for change is probably an indication of deep seeded contentment issues but it is hard to say even with my vast depth of no psychological training.

My first foray into career exploration was looking into becoming a chef.  I enjoyed cooking and baking although I was admitedly not the worlds greatest master.  My thought was simple, go to school and gain a great skill to cook.  Seemed simple enough even though I will still simply exploring.  After interviewing with the Culinary Institute I was rejected because I didn’t know if I wanted to be a chef or not but I did know I wanted the training.

Moving ahead, I have recently taken up photography.  Personally, I enjoy it as it is a way to be a creative outlet.  Once again I wanted to try for some education in order to potentially get to a professional level.  The city has an art institute which has an excellent digital photography school.  Today to fill the time I called them up to arrange a tour.  The gentlemen was very polite and once again I was told that unless I really want to go full time into professional photography then the program wasn’t right.

During the conversation the term accreditation came up several times meaning all prereqs were required.  My question is simply at what point did education become so elitist?  Instead of allowing people to take classes to learn and expand it is required that you become a professional in the field.  It is quite sad that you cannot take classes just because you enjoy it.  Thank goodness we have community college who enjoy teaching not reputation.

For today’s image I have included a very interesting look at a chess piece.  One of the things I most love about photography is its limitless ability to make us see the same world we always in totally new ways.  From taking it all in from a landscape to focusing to a single object it is amazing how one point in time can mean so much.

So last year we tried the 30 day challenge.  I made it a whole 3 weeks then tripped at the finish line.  At the end of the day the total goal was to make $10 with a sales pitch online.  By the 3rd week most people had finished successfully making a zillion dollars where as I was just trying to get some visitors.

So for this little experiment I am going to attempt to simply post something each day.  The goal is for each post to be something substantial which means at least a few times you will see a post that consists of “This is my post”.  A for effort though.  The main theme of these posts will be a look into a month off for a workaholic like myself.

Now a week into my sabbatical and I have totally stopped being able to tell what day of the week it is.  This time lapse is probably due to the fact for 8 days every day is completely open.  Below is a picture that was taken at an bird sanctuary which has apparently reclassified donkeys as flying creatures.  Getting creative I took a wide angle show up close getting a fun big nose shot.

Something came across my email months ago. It was during a time when I was certain that amazon and its web services would be my meal ticket to being rich. After a few weeks of reading, studying and programming I gave up due to a serious case of A.D.D.. I know many have this issue and I share your pain in the struggle to see something through.

Alas, I digress. What came across my desk was the little known Amazon Web Service S3. I didn’t think much about it but basically it is an extensible storage service. The kicker is the new service Amazon is offering in beta called Amazon EC2.

To summarize the marketing babble it is basically where you can upload a server image to your profile. Then blow it out to new instances in times of need giving you the flexibility to grow instantly and only pay for what bandwidth and instance count you need. They even have api’s so that the system can monitor itself and turn on new instances with no human intervention whatsoever.

The uses for this service are limitless but a good example would be the recent over-popularity of the thirtydaychallenge. Most of the daily lessons are either podcasts or videos and to top it off the forum with thousands of active users is running on the same servers. So between those two things the servers are red lined with traffic and processing. In this instance participation was just a larger than expected response which is an extremely common problem, as seen by anyone who accidently ended up on the front page of slashdot.org with a page being served by your old pentium computer running linux.

If the video/blog portions of the system had been on a platform like EC2 then the moment the servers started complaining 2 more could be brought online. Once the initial 9am release time downloads had ebbed they can be shut down saving money. This process would eliminate the problems of traffic spikes as well as stop the need for costly extra servers and hosting fees.

Of course, this is still in beta but these solutions have been around in some more primitive forms for a few years. Such extensible architecture is great for redundancy and flexibility.

One would need to weigh the costs between the two options with a couple factors:

Bandwidth: Hosting a server with a bandwidth cap or the constantly linear cost of a per gigabit model of pricing. In a hosting model you would be alotted a set bandwidth cap which can be likened to a water pipe. You would only be able to push so much water through that pipe at any time, however you would not be charged for how much TOTAL water you push through the pipe over time. In the scalable service model the water pipe is as large as you want but you are charged for every drop that passes through. If the service is really spurt based with spikes of traffic and processing then the S3 model may be more cost effective as the client is only paying for the bandwidth they used instead of paying for a set pipe size 24 hours a day. Otherwise if the traffic is high constantly the per Gb charge could add up to a substantial amount of money.

Server Hosting: Servers vs Service. With hosting your own servers there are some upfront and lingering costs. 1 server is an average of about $3k (I know some like db servers are closer to $9k). This cost is just for the server itself there are also fees to store the server in a facility if you do not wish your hall closet to play host to your computer rack. The hosting fees include just keeping your server at the location as well as the additional fees of bandwidth described above. Finally, there is the cost of buying beer for your best geek-friend to come actually setup and maintain the servers you do purchase. These fees are almost in consequential as for the EC2 service is simply $0.10 an hour per server instance with no setup fee (at least none on the pricing page) plus the storage fee also applied.

Below are resources including the pricing structure. Google even provides a calculator to determine your monthly cost for service.

Resources:

Service Cost Calculator

EC2 bandwidth

Instances
$0.10 per instance-hour consumed (or part of an hour consumed)

Data Transfer
$0.10 per GB - all data transfer in

$0.18 per GB - first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.16 per GB - next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.13 per GB - data transfer out / month over 50 TB

S3 pricing: Storage

$0.15 per GB-Month of storage used

In wars of old communication was limited.  For many years of mankind’s history in order for the great generals to get a message to the front line of an army it was required that some poor target on a horse was handed a message and sent to say hi personally.  The major downfalls of this plan are easy to see.  First, it can take days of riding for the message to get to where it needs to go.  Second, if for any reason Bob the delivery guy gets shot then 100% packet loss occurs and no one even knows what became of him.  In fact through history many battles have occurred AFTER the end of a war simply because the commanders of the armies just didn’t get the memo that they were friends now.

Now, fast forward to about 20 years ago.  A new technology was starting to emerge.  The cellular phone was still in its infancy, mainly due to the fact it was like talking on a small weather satellite in your hand.  The battery packs were huge dubbing it “the brick phone”.  Still, it allowed many drivers the convenience of a car phone. Still in its early days the signal was unreliable and the phone cost almost as much as the car it was installed in.

As time has passed the cell has grown up.  It has become smaller and more feature filled.  Now days a phone can do more than the room sized super computers of old but they now present a chocking hazard as they are so small you can accidentally swallow them.  A whole society now wanders around with the phones that are simply mobile communication stations.  Even more entertaining is when they use the head sets in stores making themselves look like mental patients talking to their invisible friend Harvey while on a call.

In modern day life there are many good uses for a cell phone in both the personal and business world.  I simply want to know at what point did we become chemically dependent on these modern day telegraphs. To explain lets go through the different phone annoyances:
1. No one can hear me while I am on the phone: How many times have you been in a public place and can totally hear a person’s private conversation.  Somehow the cell phone brings a very false sense of security.  Its like the average cell user doesn’t realize that just because they WANT the conversation to be private, doesn’t mean it actually IS private.  Thanks to this oversight I know that there is a some guy named Johny who cheated on his girl with Naomi who is a total prostitute and Sally is really upset.  Besides the overriding fact that I really don’t care I am not sure the 90210 love triangle wants the patrons of Best Buy to know this about them.

2. I want to be cooler so my phone has the new JayZ ring tone at high volume:  In a quiet work environment your peace is disturbed by the latest hip hop song.  I personally have nothing against hip hop other than personal hatred towards almost all of it.  Still in general this example could be anything really from Kenny G to the crazy frog.  Every phone has a vibrate mode so why must everyone have a slice of MTV blaring when people call.  The most interesting part is that it is always the same person and they ALWAYS look totally surprised as if they didn’t pay $5 for it.

3. Excuse me while I take this:  There are 2 types of these people.  First, are the ones that always walk out of meetings or dinners to get the call.  These are also the most popular people on earth.  I receive a few calls a day whereas it always seems that these lucky few have the whole British Parliament needing to talk to them.  The second and equally annoying ones like this are those who don’t leave.  They simply sit there talking while everyone else waits.  The real confusion here is that out of all of the calls I get in a day almost all can wait.  Granted, I am not very important but still voicemail was invented for a reason.

These are just a few examples.  In 2 decades we now are completely dependent on these things for communication.  Instead of having peace we allow the whole world a method to shatter our quiet times.  My favorite is that  20 years ago we just allowed people to call and we would get back.  Now we are incapable of being out of touch.  We feel lost and disconnected as if our self worth is tied up in who uses our personal phone.

Please forgive this post wandering a bit but hey that is what many blog posts are. Well class lets start off with a little science lesson. Most high schoolers and extremists have heard and thought about Darwinism. Darwin was a scientist in the 1800’s that traveled to the Galapagos Islands and saw many species of animals. He realized that over centuries of isolation from the outside world they actually mutated to be able to survive in their surroundings. Everywhere he looked he saw evidence of these mutations like monkeys with telepathy, birds that can control the weather, and fish with adamantium claws. Anyway, like any good scientist he slapped his name on this discovery and called it, creatively enough, Darwinism. Boiled down to its basic level Darwinism says that the strongest will survive (i.e. Natural Selection).

Fast forward several generations and lets look at Darwinism today. Besides sparking the debate between Creationism and Evolution it has given rise to several corollaries. My favorite iteration is Social Darwinism which is in societies and nations the strongest will survive and thrive. Oh can you imagine. If this theory actually worked in industrialized nations then the following things would not be around:

• Hair Dryer Warning: Do not us in shower. (Who is in this big of a hurry)
• Do Not Eat warning on the silica packs in stereo equipment (Lucky day a subwoofer and a pack of chiclets)
• Woman suing McDonalds because her “Fresh, Hot Coffee” burned her when she spilled it in her lap
• “We Will Rebuild” signs after the same house has been knocked down by a hurricane for the 10th year in a row

Lets look at this in a Hollywood perspective. Specifically super models and Miss America. A few years back Budweiser had a commercial out where the final 3 contestants in the Miss America pageant were answering the “Pretend to be intelligent” question. After the first 2 girls gave completely idiotic answers to the question of “What would you do to save the planet?” the third girl responded with “*giggle* Which planet?”. She of course was crowned as the supreme American beauty.

This commercial was hysterical and absolutely terrifying at the same time. It is almost a social commentary on how we protect and even idolize beauty over smarts. In nature beauty is important as it attracts stronger mates and allows that individual’s genes to propagate to the next generation. HOWEVER, we are not in nature. In fact living in a desert city I have not seen a naturally occurring tree in months, our wildlife consists of domesticated pets, and many days I am unable to see the mountains due to a layer of pollution. As our society has grown more sophisticated we have actually slipped backwards in our priorities.

Lets consider a situation where a group of people are dropped in the middle of the wilderness. Who would survive? a) A 12 pound super model that can actually be used for a high school lesson on the human skeletal structure. b) A beauty pageant contestant who probably would try to pet the first bear she saw c) Average looking, semi intelligent citizen.

An even better example of this is the show Survivor. I remember getting excited about this show when it first aired thinking how cool it would be to watch a group of normal people survive. I watched in disbelief as the contestants “survived” by firing rocks at a plate to see who gets the steak dinner for the night. There is a significant portion of the population who can’t afford steak dinners EVER and these people are just surviving? Then I watched in horror as they voted each other off the island. I remember similar things in high school. So basically your ability to survive is directly related to how much you piss off your fellow players. In real life, if I was stranded, I wouldn’t care if the leader woke me up each day by kicking me. The guy who can find food and water will never be voted off.

In essence almost everybody our society idolizes is actually the opposite direction in a Darwinistic point of view. A super model couldn’t survive long enough to find food before collapsing from lack of energy and most pageant contestants wouldn’t survive without their non-fat sugar free latte. In fact an overweight person would probably stand a better chance of surviving as they would have a day or two of reserves. So let us take a moment and marvel in our fabulous lack of Darwinistic Priorities. Also, the next time you see that overly popular girl or guy who is basically as intelligent as the clothes they are wearing, salute them and say “I agree we should save the planet by giving puppies to every little boy and girl.” That is, if our science people figure out which planet we are trying to save.