dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: February 2010
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html
Tuesday, February 9, 2010. Reading Vali Nasr and Pondering US Policy. Few books, recently, have prompted me to question my own mindset more than Vali Nasr's The Heart of Islam. Yet along with that understanding, I have to say there are aspects of Islamic culture that strike me as simply wrong. The example of the hijab. The choice of whether to wear the article of clothing was removed from the person. I believe that this imposition is an injustice - I believe something should be done about it. Essentially...
dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: Prepare for Takeoff
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/prepare-for-takeoff.html
Sunday, August 22, 2010. As predicted, my determination to blog every week or so collapsed soon after I landed here in Cairo. Now I'm faced with the task of representing all of the past few months in a few brief paragraphs. It's a daunting challenge. The funny thing that I'm conscious of just how little of Egypt I've actually seen. It's is not a large country compared to the United States, but out of all the places I potentially could have gone -. I've only left town to see Alexandria. Subscribe to: Post...
dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: January 2010
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html
Thursday, January 7, 2010. Facebook and the Inner Soul. Full Size Image HEAH. I'm not claiming that everyone in the world goes home and cradles themselves because of a yawning, bottomless void of self-doubt haunting their subconscious. I'm just saying that people, all people, experience insecurity from time to time. Every once in a while when I read a biography, listen to an interview, or read a great comic (http:/ boxbrown.com/? Full Size Image M'YAH. It's not too sinister if you're ok with the idea of ...
dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: Musing on Procedural Generation
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/musing-on-procedural-generation.html
Tuesday, December 25, 2012. Musing on Procedural Generation. Wow - this blog is still here. It's been a while since the last post, and it's going to be of an entirely different character. I'm writing this blog mainly as an exercise to flesh out some thoughts I've had tonight about coding. Suffice it to say that in the time between Cairo and now, I've founded an indie game studio ( Send More People. And started to get into the language C#. The Gist of It. Minor segue: games like Escape Velocity. Mass (Flo...
dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: March 2009
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
Monday, March 30, 2009. Indie Games meet Global Politics. I'm always surprised when my two biggest interests, international conflict resolution and video games, collide. Usually the result is some sort of World War 2 first-person-shooter, which is fun but generally fails to actually, you know, promote international conflict resolution. I've just ran across an independent game that seems to take a different take on the idea. It's called Storytron: Balance of Power in the 21st century. I had a bit of fun w...
dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: How to bring Gmail (and other Chrome apps/bookmarks) to your Windows 8 Start Menu.
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-to-bring-gmail-and-other-chrome.html
Saturday, January 19, 2013. How to bring Gmail (and other Chrome apps/bookmarks) to your Windows 8 Start Menu. As an early adopter of Windows 8, I've been a little disappointed with the utility of the operating system. One of my major frustrations is the inability pin a website to the Start Menu. (Well, strictly speaking, that isn't true - there's a technique to do it with Internet Explorer. 1 Open Chrome and go to the "New Tab" menu. 3 Create a Desktop Shortcut. It's an imperfect system. Even if you...
dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: February 2014
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2014_02_01_archive.html
Wednesday, February 5, 2014. Figuring out what's next. About a week ago I had my 27th birthday. In some respects turning 27 wasn't all that different from turning 25 or 26 - each time I felt the same before and after. But this time the day itself fell when I was on a business trip in Erbil Iraq, and I was arranging a workshop for 100 NGOs and Technologists to train them on how to use technology to fight corruption. The thing is I realize that this next. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). 160;project. In his...
dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: December 2009
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html
Wednesday, December 23, 2009. Complex Respect for a Power Figure in Iran. Of NYTimes.com often has some really fascinating material on current events in Iran. Yesterday's post was about senior opposition cleric Grand Ayatollah Youssef Sanei and his recent troubles with the Iranian government. Yet I find myself less worried about this Iranian cleric who, in the youtube video above, denounces suicide bombers and the nuclear bomb in more or less secular terms. Sanei on nuclear weapons:. The nuclear bomb des...
dereksepicblog.blogspot.com
Epic Thoughts!: Getting Around, Speaking Arabic, Kids and Cairo
http://dereksepicblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/getting-around-speaking-arabic-kids-and.html
Sunday, June 27, 2010. Getting Around, Speaking Arabic, Kids and Cairo. As academic life heats up in Cairo, my time/desire/energy to blog effectively has declined. But I've had quite a few experiences in the past few days and I'd feel guilty if I didn't at least mention them here. Until someone points me over to a boarding bus. I end up spending about 10 LE per day on transport - not too shabby. A lot of typing done today, and not much Arabic homework done. Time for an anti-climactic and sudden stop.