CUDA with NVIDIA

CUDA by NVIDIA is a new C language environment for developers to solve numerical processing problems on Graphical Processing Units(GPUs). The speedup of certain problems in astronomical such as an N-body problem can get up to a 100x faster. The GTX200 has 1.4 billion transistors and can reach 1000 GFLOPS as opposed to a quad core Xeon which reaches 96 GFLOPS. The reason is the difference in architecture. The CPU is designed for minimum latency, not throughput, something a GPU excels at and number crunching is essentially a throughput problem.The speaker Jonathan Cohen believes the scientific community and their problems are ideal for the GPU architecture. A few interesting features of the GPU include 240 processors split into groups of 8 to create shader multiprocessors(SM). Each SM has 6 SPs, 2 SFUs and and a DP. Note that Double precision (DP) processors are not needed for graphics/games and included for scientific reasons. The SFUs are optimised for sine/cosine/sqrt/exp operations, all common in scientific computing.

One application is transferring the cloud microphysics subroutine from WRF into CUDA and John Michalakes at NCAR reported a 1.3 speedup. This shows that it might be possible to build much cheaper clusters with more powerful GPUs and run climate models faster and for far less. Cohen is building up to a ROMS-like system for GPUs. A group in Italy built a computer with 8 GPUs (8 TFLOPS) for $6000. Think of the possibilities...

Journal Club MTG6: Global Change and Ozone Air Quality

This week we delve back into organic chemistry with an article on ozone quality over the United States. Titled "Effects of 2000-2050 global change on ozone air quality in the United States" by Shiliang Wu et al (2008), the paper looks at various changes in climate and anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors using the GEOS-Chem model. Looking into the sensitivity of ozone to climate events, one can see minimal changes in the southeast, but large increases in ozone as the cyclone tracks change and don't protrude inland as far as presently occurs. The anthropogenic emissions are looked at under the A1B scenario from IPCC and has a decrease in emissions in the US and as a result a significant decrease over southeast. The final consensus is that the emissions cap currently in place at 40% needs to be increased to 50% to take into account the effects of climate change by 2050.

An interesting question at this point is, given that decreases are going to have different effects in different regions, should we have one solution at a federal level(in the US) or a state level?

Fading to Winter

Winter is steadily approaching Ann Arbor, but Autumn is putting up a fight. Today is a bright sunny day and the trees are showing off the last of their vibrant colours. Walking to the bus this morning I passed the tree in the picture on the right. I'm going to miss the yellows, oranges and reds in the next two weeks when the first snows are forecast and the last leaves fall.

Obama prevails

The votes are in, the country has spoken and the winner by a landslide of electoral votes (not popular vote) is Barack Obama. We all sat glued to screens as state by state the polls closed and CNN started projecting winners from exit polls. This map became our whole life for the evening: CNN Results. People had to explain the electoral vote system to me, but I got there in the end. McCain gave a very nice concession speech, one that was both gracious and appreciative of Obama's methods, a change from his usual rhetoric. Obama's speech was one focused on the people, not himself and his wish to be the president of all, not just the Democrats, which I hope the Republicans appreciate.

I would just like to point out that this is the starting point for Obama, not the finishing. He has arrived at what could be the dawn of a new America and I hope he can carry through with his promises. The rest of us (the world) will be watching and hoping.

Election Fever

I am surrounded by wannabe politicians who debate the pros and cons of every candidates policies and standpoints. I wish the whole thing was over and done with and I can go back to turning on the TV or read a paper without seeing the latest stupid thing Palin just said or the new terrorist they found in Obama's past. Its truly scary being here right now, everyone has election fever, and somehow when the results comes out on Tuesday night its not going to end, they'll start debating what went right/wrong. Its also interesting to see the incentives shops are giving to citizens to vote. I've been accosted to register since I arrived and that finally ended with the registration deadline, but now shops are spamming facebook, email etc with offers of free coffee, ice-cream etc when you've finished voting.

However, if you are following the election with equal fervor as the American people, look at:
Barack Obama for president: Endorsement by the Times and their endorsement history. Its actually quite interesting to read. And I realise I just lost the battle to stay neutral in this debate and have become a social liberialist. Or perhaps I always have been?

Halloween Party

Undergrad parties rock! I had forgotten just how taxing an undergrad partying is. The place was packed and smoky and loud. I dressed up as an African fairy.

Happy Halloween

Today has been an education. I hadn't bought an outfit for Halloween and my housemate nobly drove me to Halloween USA to look at things. I am now going to be a fairy of some description. On the drive there we saw the children of Ann Arbor trick or treating downtown dragging their parents along for the ride. I saw Buzz Lightyear, Spiderman, Darth Vader, princesses, a duck, a transformer, a ladybug, a Tigger. They all carried their prerequisite pumpkin basket to collect candy. I almost wish to be little like that and go trick or treating. Its seems so much fun. The students, who were brave, wore their outfits to class and campus including 1 nurse in hot pink which I saw. Tonight the students are throwing parties of various levels of debauchery, an update to follow.

Journal Club MTG5: Urban Parameterization for CCSM Part II

The paper this week is "An Urban Parameterization for the Global Climate Model. Part II: Sensitivity to Input Parameters and the Simulated Urban Heat Island in Offline Simulations" by Oleson et al. The paper builds on the previous paper and looks at the sensitivity to changing parameters within the model. The split the parameter types in 3 categories, morphological, radiance and thermal. Each category was combined using every possible combination within its own category. The results of this highlight that previous surfaces, or the lack thereof, greatly influence the latent heat available and the sensible heat is very sensitive to both the morphological and radiance parameters. The paper moves on to simulating heat islands and compared this is Oke(1981) who derived a logarithmic equation based on measurements of heat islands in US and European cities. The model simulates the increased diurnal cycle and temperature difference between urban and rural environments. The sensitivity studies also real that parameter uncertainty mainly effects the amplitude of the diurnal cycle and not the phase. Overall the paper has a few confusing parts and many graphs that could be simplified or removed, but I felt this study did a much better job than some sensitivity studies of other areas in the past.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu visits Michigan

Desmond Tutu is being honoured today in Michigan. Tutu will be awarded the Wallenberg Medal and deliver the 18th Wallenberg Lecture in honour of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (U-M graduate) who saved thousands of Jews in WWII. It turns out that Tutu is the second South African to receive the medal, Helen Suzman being the first.

The press conference in the afternoon was jammed full of reporters but I managed to talk to the organisers and was allowed to sit in on part of it and be introduced to him. Apparently someone forgot to mention that Michigan is cold in October as Tutu arrived with summer suits. The organisers had to scramble to find him a coat and scarf to keep warm.

The Wallenberg Lecture itself was packed, all 3500 seats filled and an overflow hall set up. Archbishop Tutu spoke about the award going to all the people who made the end of apartheid possible. He has an incredible sense of humour that shines through on lighter moments. He encouraged the youth to dream and keep dreaming of peace and freedom globally. He critised Darfur and how rape has become a weapon of war. He finished his address with a metaphor. That an eagle should be taken and nutured and then set free from the mountain tops to soar.

Pumpkin Carving

Cristina organised a postgrad pumpkin carving evening in the SRB lounge last night. I cut off my lid at an angle so it doesn't fall in when it is returned to the pumpkin and scraped out the insides with a spoon (I know its cheating but I promise i did get mucky hands later). I was instructed in the art of tracing patterns onto pumpkins (i made up my own way after a while cause i couldn't see the tracings from their way) and learnt that you can buy actual pumpkin carving kits! Most of the grads were surprised I had never carved a pumpkin, I had to explain that Halloween is not a big thing in SA. After tracing my pattern (a cat and pumpkin), I proceeded to drill holes in the spaces to be carved out so that its easier to cut. You can tell who is pro at this, they were halfway done before some of us even started. After carving my pumpkin we collected them and put the candles in and warded off the evil spirits.

Halloween Open Dance

Finally a themed ballroom social! With Halloween fast approaching, many a place is decked in various Halloween decor. Open dance happens every Sunday and we all came kitted out in costume. Some notable costumes included Cat in the Hat, Poison Ivy, Tinkerbell and the assortment of nurses etc. It was nice to see nearly everyone dress up, though it made me miss UCT Ballroom socials. I dressed up with my limited resources as a Hawaiian girl, though I think I ended up more tribal given that my sarong is covered in elephants. Oh well. Some of the team did the Thriller dance, very funny to watch and I managed to convince people to start a Congo line. That was fun, lots of people joined in.

Phoenix Mars Mission Talk

The seminar in AOSS this afternoon included preliminary work and results from the Phoenix Mars Mission. The speaker, Professor Nilton Renno, reviewed the mission goals of the Phoenix Mars Mission and the procedures involved in selecting a landing sight. Never trust interpolation of images was the take home message, an apparently flat surface from satellite imagery contained 10m diameter boulders. He went on to show some of his students, notably Manish Mehta whose doctoral thesis investigated the effects of the lowering rockets on the surface dust of Mars. Pretty cool work. Renno proceded to show some of the images from the Lander (inset picture) and explained some of the experiments run. It appears if you look at the images closely that there is sublimation happening on the legs of the lander with saline water settling on the mud kicked up from the landing on Mars. Apparently not everyone in the program which is shared between JPL, University of Arizona and Locklead Martin Space Systems. It is going to be interesting to see what research is published and what happens when NASA releases the data to the public in February next year.

Journal Club MTG4: Atmospheric Feedbacks

The article today was "Atmospheric / vegetation feedbacks: A mechanism for abrupt climate change over northern Africa" by CM Patricola and KH Cook. The paper discusses the sensitivity to the latitude of the desert border in the Sahara and the atmospheric feedbacks in the African easterly jet (AEJ). The idea is that if the desert border is located below 17.9N the climate becomes sensitive and the summer precipitation and a weakening in the AEJ. There are a few concerns with the paper as they use prescribed soil moisture and do not discuss the land cover model used.

Google Earth Scientific Applications

Day one of the Scientific Applications with Google Earth Conference was interesting in that I have never looked at the features of Google Earth in any depth. The first speaker Tim Killeen from NSF explained that less than 10% of all data they had was ever viewed and a system is needed for people to view this data in a simple environment. The two highlights to take away is that "data to knowledge" is key and "big uncertainties remain" wrt climate and understanding. So nothing new. He did however touch on new projects such as the NSF Ocean Observatories Inititiave , the final design of which is due in December.

The next speaker Dan Atkins from the University of Michigan and NSF spoke on the "Role of Data in the National Science Foundation Cyberinfrastructure for 21st Century Discovery". He touched on data stewardship, curation, federation, openness(over the long-haul). He stated that providing information a geographical-based entry to data is natural and compelling as we all have an inherent geographical frame of reference. I learnt a new word: nomenclature. Not sure I will ever use it though. Three project he reviewed were interesting:
TeraGrid: an integrating infrastructure
Blue Waters - look into tech specs
nanoHUB

The third speaker and possibly the most compelling was Michael Weiss-Malik from Google. He is a KML Product Manager and explained the design of Google Earth and the need for it. To use the analogy "to most users, the interface is the computer" he pointed out that with any paper we read the figure is the thing one remembers most and so the philosophy "to most viewers the presentation is the data". Something definitely worth remembering. KML is a standardised format derived from XML that encodes the Google Earth files.

The last two speakers, Sean Askay and Trey Smith, are both users of Google Earth to represent scientific data and presented a series of KMLs already developed that emphasized this point. The topics ranged from Appalachian Mountaintop mining to Geothermal resources, the global climate temperatures to Google Moon. The coolest thing I learnt about was actually GigaPan. Definitely worth viewing.

After lunch we split into Working Groups, mine was Climate Change and we heard from Lisa Ballagh (NSIDC) and John Bailey (University of Alaska) about climate KMLs and Virtual Globes. The group talked about various research endeavours that would be favourable for Google Earth apps and I realised I could present my seasonal forecast stuff in GE eventually. After reviewing current KMLs we found various things we wished were possible in Google Earth such as being able to switch off labels on load or preferential loading of data and user notices to know what to do. The last thing we discussed was who owned data and what happens when you pubish papers with GE images and supply online KMLs. Google have written a guideline specifically for this and is available at: http://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html

Historic Walk

I walked through the Historical District of Philadelphia. I think I learnt more in the walk than I did in school about American history. I saw the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. I walked past the US Mint and the National Constitution Center. I visited the Freedom Center and walked through the Franklin Park.

Walking back to City Hall I went through Chinatown and the Reading Terminal Market for lunch. The market is a huge room filled with a collection of various countries authentic food. It was packed and loud. City Hall is huge and the meeting point of the city roads in the gridded road system. The fountain at City Hall is pink for the Breast Cancer Awareness month. I wonder what they put in the water to make it pink like that? I walked away from City Hall and towards the Science Museum and came across a South African flag. Of course I had a picture!

Manhattan rush

Michelle, Tom and myself tried to go to MoMA but the queue in the cold weather just put us off, instead we ventured down 5th Ave and saw enough designer stores to make your credit card cringe just window shopping. We queued to go to Abercrombie and Fitch club. Its a store designed like a nightclub and has music pounding through the store and glass cube lit stairs. The Apple store is very cool, its this giant cube made of glass that you descend into the floor to the store below.

After a major rush and running through Penn Station to get to the bus I boarded a Megabus to Philadelphia. Very pleasant ride with minimum of fuss. Arriving in Philadelphia at sunset was beautiful.

I started my Philadelphia experience with authentic Philly cheesesteaks. Heavy on the cheese from Geno's. I think I could get to love them. My second day dawned cold and clear with a trip to the Pumpkinland at Linvilla. Rachel and I matched by fluke and had photos with the pumpkins. Our haul included a baby pumpkin for Rachel and a large pumpkin for Kim and Steve.

The afternoon was spent in the Franklin Institute Science Museum and the Real Pirate exhibition from National Geographic. The exhibition included real pirate treasure from the Whydah ship. I thorougly enjoyed it and did the rest of the museum which included an electricity exhibit and an air exhibit. I missed the planetarium but I'm not sure if I missed much.

The city that never sleeps

Getting to NYC took some doing but I am glad I did it. I successfully navigated the subway and arrived in Brooklyn Heights only slightly weary. My first outing was a walk along the promenade to view the Manhattan skyline. Its very pretty but I hate to think what the electricity bill per building is when they are lit like that all night. I'll post a picture once I'm back on my own computer.

My next day started at 8.30am. For those who know me well, this is very early but I survived. I walked across Brooklyn Bridge which has an amazing view of the river and Manhattan. The bridge is a steel wire suspension bridge, the first of its kind. Walking along and looking up feels like you are in a giant spiderweb. The bridge ends at the bottom of Manhattan right next to the courts. I think walked past the supreme court and criminal court. The architecture of the buildings in spectacular.

Walking along you start to realise the scale and height of the buildings. You cannot feel the sunlight at ground level, there are just too many buildings blocking the rays from ever reaching it. I started my exploration of the area in earnest in Chinatown and its confusing, I'm not going to lie. I think I circled the same block about 3 times to find what I was looking for. Everyone is very welcoming and the array of foods and goods is quite unreal.

Finally navigating my way out of Chinatown I managed to miss Little Italy on the way to Soho. Not quite sure how but I think I was expecting an Italian version of Chinatown and it turns out its not. Soho is weird and wonderful and has a number of nice shops. I was stopped and asked if I support Developing Nations, some charity for uplifting poverty in Africa. What a laugh, after their whole spiel about poverty etc I finally had to point out that I'm South African and hence live in the place.

Next on my list was Greenwich Village which seems less spectacular than I imagined. I made an effort and deviated from my target of Central Park for the Empire State building. The queue to get up to the observation deck was 1.5 hours. Not a chance! I decided I didn't really need to wait that long to pay $30+ to see the city from above.

I browsed Macy's but I didn't find anything that fitted within my price range :( The One Day Sale is on today and I think that will be true chaos. I ended up in Old Navy and I have to say I could quite happily spend a fortune in there.

My walking tour back on target I wandered around Broadway til Central Park. Central Park is gorgeous and still very green. Coming from a riot of Autumn colours in Ann Arbor it seems weird. The park as a beautiful tranquil feeling going for it, despite the activity in it. The Besthesda Fountain doesn't quite measure up to the hype but the lake itself is well worth the trek. There was a couple having their wedding pictures taken with the lake as their backdrop. I sat and absorbed the quietness after the noise of the city and then headed out to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At $10 for students I appreciate the London ethos of free entry in museums. The museum is huge and you really do need the map they provide. The Chinese scrolls on display are worth the visit alone. I also enjoyed the Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian section which was rescued from the threat of submergence when the Egyptians built a new dam. I'm sad I didn't have time to do the Design and Photography section, I think that would also be worth a perusal.

Once back on the street, I ventured into the subway and down to Times Square. My god, its noisy and busy and an overload of screens. Started in ToysRUs which has a ferris wheel in the store and then went to TGIF for dinner. Next stop chocolate! The M&M store is huge and filled with every flavour M&M available. The Hersheys store added yet more chocolate to the list.

The last stop of the day was the Rockefeller Building which provides a view from above without the long queues to get in. The Empire State Building was lit up in purple and orange for the night as part of the Cat Fanciers Association Conference.

The end result of my whirlwind tour is bruised feet, lots of photos and a lot more information than I can possibly remember. My feet will hopefully recover enough to do Philadelphia :)

Bad music

The dance workshop over the weekend was informative, but one thing that stuck was the saying "There is no bad music". As a dancer you should walk onto the floor and dance to the song played even if it is the corniest rumba in the world or you are talking to the animals :P I know I've done this in the past, criticised a song played or tempo. I know have to make an effort to like all dance music.

I'm off to New York City in the morning and then onto Philadelphia over the weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing all the sights.

Real Men Need More Ballroom

I love this t-shirt that one of the Michigan Ballroom team dancers designed. Its definitely worth smiling at when you see it. Any takers?

Collegiate Ballroom Workshop

I attended a Collegiate Ballroom Workshop with the Michigan coaches and students from Michigan and Penn State. The workshop ran over three days and included lessons on a number of dances and performance techniques.

The welcome night was an opportunity to meet the students from Penn State and learn some fun dances, the Hustle and the Paso Doble. We also learnt a Polka mixer. Girls start on the right of the guy holding his hand. Both take 3 walks forward starting with guys left, girls right. Tap foot. 3 walks back, tap foot. Separate with 3 sidewalks, tap and clap. 4 sidewalks back in. Do 2 full polka rotations and start again. The tricky part is doing this in a circle, when you come back together for the polka, the girl has to move to the guy in front to do the polka steps.

The actual workshop was from 12.30-8pm on saturday. This was tiring, we covered waltz, tango, quickstep, chacha, rumba and samba. In the ballroom we learnt ways to start in the middle of the floor, along the long side or from a short corner. All techniques needed when you have many couples fighting for space on the floor. We also learnt floorcraft, a technique often left out in classes. These included check steps, change of directions and promenade positions.

Latin however took on a rather unusual form. As a bronze/silver workshop, we have a set syllabus we can follow in competitions, however rumba started with an open routine to lose whatever modesty we might have had. Grinding into a guys crotch while clinging to him will do that :) The routine starts with a beckoning from the girl and a game of playing hard to get. The goal we found out is to translate a fancy routine story into a simple routine with the same story in syllabus steps. Same thing for chacha. I hope to get the routines on camera to bring home.

For those of you who often laugh at the ratio between girls and guys at ballroom. We had 4 more guys at the workshop than girls, quite a change from the usual surplus of girls. Now imagine the guys doubling up to learn the open rumba routine. Funny times.

Today is the competition preparation lesson which will probably take a lecture form. I'm hoping so at least as we still have social dancing this evening and my feet are killing me. They are battered and bruised.

Intervarsity 09 countdown begins

The ballroom committee was voted in yesterday in UCT. The new committee is

Chair - Chris Warner
Vice Chair (VC): Lara Milne
VC Intervarsity: Hayley Mc Intosh
Treasurer: Zandile Makgatho
Socials: Chris Louw
Orientation Week: James Hu
Medal Tests: Adrienne Daniels
Intervarsity: Andrew Martens
Formal: Richard Parry
IT: Jonathon Page

This means I get to organise Intervarsity 09 hosted by UCT. I will be roping friends in to help over the year, so be warned! 303 days and counting...

Journal Club MTG3: Ozone Interannual Variability

Today is yet again journal club day. We are reviewing a paper by S Koumoutsaris et al. "Influence of El-Nino-Southern Oscillation on the Interannual Variability of tropospheric ozone in the northern midlatitudes". It is a rather long and figure intensive article that documents CO and O3. The author used the Goddard Earth Observing System Chem (GEOS-Chem) model to explore the correlation between El-Nino and O3. The model accurately captures the sensitivities to biomass burning and the meteorology for CO but not completely for O3. The study is conducted at 4 x 5 degrees that disregards the regional features. It is important to note that the article explains the shortfalls in capturing all the O3 from stratospheric dynamics and intrusions.

Down and Out

I have been sick since Friday, not an enjoyable experience but I suppose being sick never is. I attended the Ballroom Team BBQ against my better judgement, it was literally across the road, but stayed maybe 15 minutes. Long enough to have my picture taken and get hit by a volleyball, meh.

I felt marginally better on Saturday and went to the football match between Michigan and Illinois. Michigan lost, badly. I left in the third quarter when the noise from the crowd made my headache worse. I dragged Oswald (the other UCT exchange student) along to the game.

In other news, I was shown what has got to be the nerdiest landscaping in history: A wave field, the ground is a 3D sinusoidal wave. We took our research group photos there



.

Journal Club MTG2: Urban Parameterization for CCSM

As part of the journal meetings we are reviewing "An Urban Parameterization for a Global Climate Model. Part 1: Formulation and Evaluation for Two Cities" by KW Oleson et al. The paper reviews efforts to capture land use change in urban areas and the effects this has on the atmosphere. The global models currently divides the world into a grid and each grid cell is further divided into various plant function types and wetland, urban etc. Each is dealt with separately however there is no scheme for urban areas. This paper presents an "urban canyon" solution that supposedly captures the urban climatology. There are separate energy balances and surface temperatures for each canyon facet. I really appreciate the added heat sources from waste (air conditioners) and traffic. A 1D heat conduction is solved numerically for fluxes in and out of surfaces. The paper then describes an experiment looking at two different cities areas, Mexico City and Vancouver. The results suggest an increased understanding of fluxes but says that the timing is off in the model, but note that no one has perfected the urban diurnal cycle. I want to note that the observations are rather sparse though. The paper also states that implementing this system globally might be problematic as no urban map yet exists categorising urban types. Something to look forward to in the future. Lastly a relevant question is, at what resolution does this actually matter? Perhaps a global view is not the answer but maybe regional is.

Maize Out!

Michigan vs Wisconsin turned into a much more nail-biting game than anyone anticipated. Michigan won, just. They were losing for 3 quarters and suddenly they won. The visiting team brought their Marching Band which I have to admit were good, did a showcase of Ladies in Rock. The Michigan Marching Band did a skit called Cody Martin's Day Off based on Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Bit arb but then I have never seen the movie. The total crowd attendance topped last time at 109833! This is bigger than we building for a world cup soccer stadium. In fact its almost double the one we are building in CT.

In dancing news I am still doing foxtrot and chacha. I suck as body sway and gapping. One the plus side, I've borrowed a pair of Supadance ballroom(standard) shoes to practice in from the ballroom stash and its remarkable the difference dancing in them makes. I'm hoping no one will notice if I never give them back.

And they say SAs has lions in theirs backyards...

Being in Ann Arbor is somewhat amusing on occasions. It is a student town and a largely built up but very green. I have in the past few days come across a racoon, a skunk and a squirrel in the backyard of the house and possum crossing the road on the way home from dancing. To top it off, the bus had to stop for deer crossing the road the other day, and they say South Africans have fauna issues.

Engineers in Ballroom

I've been doing a sort of mental count of the number of engineers in UM ballroom. I think its roughly 70% or more and I don't mean just guys, I mean overall, girls as well. I found myself chuckling after hearing one girl patiently explaining to her non science dance partner that leading is like equations, if you put one thing in you get an answer which is different to putting another factor in. I must add as a side note, computer science is an engineering subject here.

Journal Club MTG1: Atmospheric Chemistry

I attended my first ever Journal Club today with my supervisor here and fellow officemates. The topic: Atmospheric oxidation capacity sustained by a tropical forest by Lelieveld et al. Interesting paper from Nature that explores a theory which opposes known science in atmospheric chemistry. The idea is that OH is recycled through some mechanism in a low NOx environment like a rainforest. The paper is not great, requires a lot of supplementary material but it has jumpstarted my organic chemistry understanding, last attempted in high school. It also started to fill in the gaps of knowledge I have about various plugins in global climate models. However unless you are an organic chemist or have one handy (my officemate Ahmed very kindly spent an hour patiently explaining things) don't bother.

Watching from across the pond

I'm slightly disturbed and very worried about the political state back home. I realise the transition is peaceful and will not bring about conflict or war but the shear numbers of ministers resigning is worrying especially given some of the positive actions during their term. Sitting in a foreign country I am sure I am not getting the full picture. I am looking at the political situation and hoping I return to a decent administration and all the decisions made by, for example, the science minister are still carried through. I think Trevor Manuel resigning is a sign of bad things to come. This is not a move that will encourage investment before the Soccer World Cup. Someone over here suggested that this is a far to speed up the transition or push it forward so the situation is stable by 2010. And being in a foreign country, I'm hoping the exchange rate improves so I can actually buy things here. But thats a very materialistic view :)

Google Android

Google is doing a series of talks and workshops over the semester as well as a recruiting drive, I attended a technology talk about Google Android, a collaborative agreement between the manufacturers, developers and marketers to provide an open handset tool for information sharing and access. Android is a part of this, built on a Linux kernel and with swappable components, the technology looks solid and exciting for mobile developers, especially with the SDK being released within the next few months (Beta is available). Check it out at:
http://code.google.com/android/

In the coming months there is a workshop on Google Earth and an initiative to create scientific applications for it revolving around data visualisation and communication. They have working groups in both Weather and Global Climate Change as well as economics, astronomy, urban planning and science education.

Symphonies and Secrets

I attended the University Symphony Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's Symphony No 7 and the Metropolis Symphony. The first was magnificent, you could really feel the dance theme throughout and calibre of musicians was phenomenal. The second symphony was a bit weird. Commissioned to commemorate the Superman comics, it is split into five parts each to do with a character or place associated with the comic. I'm not sure I liked it, certainly different.

My evening ended at a house party hosted by my dance partner and his housemates. No Pants party, you had to remove your pants at the door almost literally. I missed the memo that went round the ballroom girls as they all showed up in black underwear, white shirts and stockings/boots. The party had a very lingerie feel and apparently everyone shops at Victoria Secrets.

UofM Ballroom Team Tryouts

I participated in team tryouts today for the competitive ballroom team here and made C team which is bronze/silver level. There are 8 couples on the team and 6 couples each on A and B. The standard of dancing was very high, apparently higher than usual, which means the Ohio Star Ball is going to be fun. I messed up slow foxtrot which isn't surprising, but ever so slightly annoying. I'm looking forward to my first lesson, I think it will be an experience.

VAT

So I walked into a store yesterday that proclaimed 50% off all items. Looking at the price I thought it was a bargain until I remembered that everything is price + tax not included in the shelf price. Everything, bar a few food places, advertise goods at a price and then add tax at the till. I still find it weird to order food from a menu and then calculate + 6% tax to pay.

But is it Art?

I have been doing the typical touristy thing and walking around campus with a camera for the last few days. Its amazing the amount of sculptures and building decorations around on North Campus (engineering campus). I came across these weird half sunken robots next to the computer building and a beautiful 42 number plaque. However there are some truly bizarre sculptures that have no names and a few nicknames. The coolest one has to be the rotating rubix cube on both north and central campus.



In other news, I am trying out for the UM Dance team on Saturday. This means doing each of the eight dances in heats and then being taught a sequence and they mark you on how fast you learn in. I must note, I go to another country and I still get a Kevin as a dance partner. I am also meant to dress in competitive clothes, but that is just not happening atm.

Dancing American style

I have officially been introduced to the more bizarre dances available including Swing, West Coast Swing, Hustle, American foxtrot and American waltz. I'm not sure I like any of them, well maybe swing.

I've been to two dance sessions now, one with the UofM Dance Team (like o-week beginner lesson and then social dancing) and a social dancing session with the UM Ballroom Club (like PWP with only 3 quicksteps). These are two different clubs but if you are on the team you get free membership to the club. I found out that to go to team practices you have to have a partner to tryout with which is a slight snag in my case. I have been looking and have potentially found a guy to dance with but I'm not sure if I want to do this much dancing while I am here. Its 4 hours of lessons and then another 8 hours outside class to practice.

What is weird is that most of the team don't know anything out of syllabus dances like Meringue, Salsa etc. Its quite weird. I'm going to be out of practice when I get back.

Wearing Maize and Blue

I have survived my first football match only slightly sunburnt (yes I had sunscreen).

The day started at 8am with a tailgate opposite the marching bands practice grounds. Its was actually really interesting to watch them polish lines and be instructed on baton twirling and the correct way to march on a curve.

Tailgating consisted over two cookers with French toast, sausages and cheesy potatoes, fruit and cookies. We were well fed by Kevin who hosted last weeks and this weeks. We played Corn Hole and tossed a football around. I officially suck at Corn Hole. Two kids joined later and beat a few of my officemates.

The game started at noon, so we arrived at 11.30 a half packed stadium. The stadium is divided into sections and the students get a quarter, alumni/fans a half and the opposition the rest. You can tell where the students start, its almost mandatory to wear Michigan merchandise or at least their colours, something the alumni don't. There is a seating hierarchy that puts upperclassmen closer to the field and freshman at the back (top). There were 106,724 people at the game. The stands seats 110,000 i'm told.

There are a fair number of people involved on the field. You have the football team of about 80 (60 if you're travelling to another college), about 30 support staff, 12-16 dancers, 30 cheerleaders (plus about 10 for the other team), 3 game referees and then the Marching band. The Michigan Marching Band has over 300 people. They have flag wavers, baton twirlers(2 girls, 1 guy), 1 head marching guy and 3 conductors. I must say, the conductors were awesome, they stand on ladders and conduct the band and flags. One permanently conducts during the game supporting the cheerleaders with music. There is even music for "You Suck". The half time music was a rendition of boy bands. The pick a theme for each game, this one included NSync, Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block. Highly amusing. Though I have one question, how does a guy become a baton twirler for a large football loving college and survive?

The game itself was very stop and go. The guys I was with apologised for how boring it was but if it had been any more involved I would have been more lost. The guys tried their best to explain the plays, touchdowns, down rules, moving yards, but I must admit, a LOT looked way to much like run a few metres and take a flying dive to the ground. Cool aerobatics in the process though.

There are numerous chants that the cheerleaders lead throughout the game. One is called "Key Play" and everyone gets out their keys and shakes them. Cool effect. There is a war cry that starts "Hail to the victorious and the ....". You may have noted I never quite learnt the words though I can do the clapping. I'll try learn it to bring back for IV09.

We won, Michigan 16-6 Maimi Ohio. Their mascot is the Redhawk, couldn't get a picture of it, but the costume was quite cool. Their quarterback is apparently better than ours, but that didn't seem to help. Quite the change from last weeks loss. I'm tempted to get tickets to the Homecoming game at the end of the month, I might actually understand more of the game by then.

Festifall

UMich has a similar concept to O-week. Festifall. A day that all societies and frats advertise on the Diag for students to find out more details about them. Its huge and crowded. There is some weird stuff, ice sculpture, computer users, climate people. There is even a society to feed the squirrels!

I successfully navigated the Briarwood Mall today. Sears has lots of nice clothes (I didn't buy any, everyone be very impressed with my restraint) and bought a bed set. Very pretty and on special.

I have another tailgate this saturday. We're doing breakfast cause its a noon game. I have a ticket to this game. Should be interesting, we're playing Miami Ohio. I'm going to have to buy Michigan supporter gear now. They even have these cute M earrings.

Immigration Check-in

I survived immigration check-in yesterday without harming the speaker. It is generally presumed that all people coming to the US have almost zero knowledge English so the International Center here speaks in slow even tones like one would do to a small child or a stupid person. After over two hours of this I was ready to crack.

I feel like a prisoner, or maybe the Jews who had to always carry a ID (passport in my case) incase I get stopped and asked. They also think that everyone should apply for Michigan IDs (even more paperwork and more money). Apparently even international drivers licenses are not recognised here.

I now need to sign up for Health Insurance at $89 a month (no dental or eye care) or prove I have sufficient cover in SA to be granted a waiver. I think there is a legal issue as well that I can't hold more than one insurance at a time. Weekend problem.

I move in tomorrow, so I have to go shop for bedding and groceries. Apparently one of my housemates is a final year Economics student. Haven't met the others yet.

What would you stand for?

I've been walking around campus today getting my computer login, turns out my papers were submitted to the wrong people so I have to wait a few more days for my MCard, the student card that lets you do everything in town, including ride the city buses for free. They cost $1 each way otherwise.

I have found a room in a 5 bedroom house on Packard St. I move in on thursday, will post pics then. This happens to be in between all the sorority areas and the main party street come game days. Should provide endless entertainment!

So what would you stand for? This is the chalk signs on the sidewalk all over campus. Just below is an address www.umdm.org Pretty catchy phrase. Its the marketing technique for the ballroom dance marathon here. I've also seen people sized posters of dancers all over. Apparently its popular. mmm...

Labor Day

Today is a national holiday in the US, one of 5 unlike SA's 12. I'm sitting in one of a few open places and it has turned into an apple mac convention. Its seems most students have mac's and even the university IT system is mac. Its a nice change from UCT and their unsupported tech thing. 12 of 15 laptops open in the coffee shop are mac. Go Apple!

Go Blues

I have now been in Ann Arbor 2 full days and have had rain and today hot and humid. I think CT has a rival for PMS weather. Today was the start of the Football season. Go Blues! Nearly every UM student was out maize and blue to support the team. The activities start around 9am for a 3pm game with tailgating, a tradition of barbecuing in parking lots while drinking and discussing the chances of the team. I attended a tailgate with other atmos grads across the road from the marching band practice. The marching band has over 300 people and they wear these weird hats which in my opinion look like naval hats with feather dusters stuck in them. Whatever floats your boat.

One the way to tailgating I passed the sororities and fraternities tailgating. lots of alcohol, loud music and very little clothing is all i'm saying.

A weird advertising system seems to be used here, chalk on the sidewalks. Its ecofriendly, colourful and different. Seen something similar in Oxford but not to this extent. I'll take pictures when I find a super cool one.

Turbulence in excess

My plant trip to the states was filled with turbulence from beginning to end. My flight went via Dakar to NY and we had maybe 2 hours total of the 18 hours turbulence free. My trip from NY to Detroit followed this pattern. I have arrived in Ann Arbor and tried to my admin out of the way, seems my paperwork has yet to go through and I have to wait til after Labor Day on Monday to get anything done. Tomorrow is the first football match between the Michigan Wolverines and Utah Utes. Don't ask, don't know. Today is Michigan day and everyone is meant to wear Michigan colours: Maize and Blue. This school has a lot of pride and a lot of branding, UCT could learn a thing or two about school pride from this crowd.

Intervarsity ballroom: UCT Kicks butt

UCT returns victorious from PE after winning the ballroom and latin intervarsity. I have to say the social the night before sucked and the schedule was choatic to say the least but overall NMMU did a fairly ok job. I hesitate to say good, they could have improved on a lot and charged much less. Well done to everyone who received medals and a special well done to the UCT beginners who shook their booty nicely.