CURRENT MISSION

Learning Arabic and hustling solar.

ABOUT ME

I'm from Alaska.
I have a degree in electrical engineering.
I run a little solar company, which is wonderful.
I'm a Christian, but I don't hate gay people, or judge people.

I like thinking an awful lot. Then talking about things to think about.

I think that there's always something to learn from anybody. One of the things I enjoy most is looking for that something in somebody new I meet.

==Note: Can't host at the moment 'cause I'm moving. Hopefully will be able to in the summer at my new place.==

PHILOSOPHY

I love it when people disagree with me or criticize me. If they do, they must be doing it for a reason, and that gives me a chance to learn about some flaw in what I believe. So, I love talking about things. Here are some other philosophical musings:

--History is the history of technology, and all social and political change depends on it.

--We have more opportunity than anyone else ever had. Therefore we should do more than anyone else ever could.

--I think that vast amount of philosophy and wisdom are locked up in other languages. So I spend a lot of time learning them.

--Commerce can and should be used for good; and it is the most successful system for improving the lives of people. It's also crazy fun.

--The Church is a form of Anarchist government. In it's purest form, it describes a curiously progressive pacifist political system.

--Humans are a kind of extremely complex machine. We can live a lot better when we find out how to connect ourselves to other machines.

--My MBTI is ENTJ. If you're one of those people who ascribes to these things, we'll probably have a lot to talk about.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

First by hosting. It's like travelling without going anywhere.

Second by surfing whenever I can. Couch Surfing seems to take mere trips and turn them in to adventures.

Third, by telling marvelous stories about Couch Surfing to all the people I know. Then by trying to explain why I let strangers stay at my house, and why I stay with them. Then by assuring them that it's safe and you can tell a lot about people from their profile. Then debunking their fears. Then I usually say that even though they don't understand it's still awesome.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Meeting marvelous people. Hosted people in Florida and Wuxi been hosted all over the place. CS has added new color to my life. Each new city is like an adventure and coming home at the same time. Here's where I've been. Lots of potential.
visited 14 states (6.22%)Create your own visited map of The World

visited 37 states (74%)Create your own visited map of The United States

Interests

People. Honestly, there's not much I like more than finding out what makes people the way they are. The more different they are from me, the better. Other, more conventional fare includes:

--Christian Anarchism and Radical Christianity
--Transhumanism, especially brain-computer interfaces, biohacking and polyphasic sleep
--Languages including Chinese language, calligraphy, chess, literature and history; Persian language, calligraphy and poetry
--Solar energy, and all the economics, science, geopolitics, technology and policy that goes with it
--Surrealist art, especially stop-motion animation
--Hiking, running and, since it's hard to do those two in Kabul, weightlifting

I tend to ramble when you get me talking about solar, China, or Anarchism. You've been warned.

• arts
• literature
• poetry
• coloring
• dining
• running
• flying
• technology
• movies
• chess
• traveling
• hiking
• surfing
• christian
• animation
• calligraphy
• economics
• engineering
• geopolitics
• history
• languages
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

I read this book once where the author put forth a theory about literature. I think it applies to other arts too:

He said that there is no good art and bad art. Rather if someone reads a book (or watches a movie or whatever) and they are moved by it, or compelled by it or excited by it, then it was a good book. Then the "goodness" really depends on the character of the person. But that's pretty abstract. Here are some specifics:

===Movies===
--Psycho, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,
--Her, Serenity, Avatar, Inception,
--Mary and Max, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, WALL-E, The Lion King
--There Will Be Blood, The Social Network, American Beauty, Good Will Hunting
--The Big Lebowski, The Lego Movie,
--Exit through the Gift Shop, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Inside Job

===TV Shows===
Adventure Time
Sherlock
Venture Bros
Breaking Bad
Firefly
Archer
HitRecord on TV

===Music===
I love music so much. Please be ready to tell me about all of your favorite bands. In the last year or so I've been listening to lots of: Hipster R&B, aggressive Electronic Dance Music, Americana (especially bluegrass), Indie Electro-pop, and Folk Metal

Favorite musicians include:
--Gogol Bordello, The Pogues, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Bomb the Music Industry, Flogging Molly
--Sigur Ros, Muse, Janelle Monaé, K'naan
--Gala, 万能青年旅店— (Omnipotent Youth Hostel), 左小祖咒;
--The pop hits of Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Bach
--Maria Callas and Birgit Nilsson
--Noisia, Bassnectar, Skrillex
--Trollfest, Finntroll, Chthonic, Nightwish, Mr. Bungle
--Nickel Creek and all their spinoffs, Miles Davis and Dave Matthews Band
--Five Iron Frenzy, Acappella, David Crowder Band, The Psalters
--The Tiger Lillies, Nina Hagen and Amanda Palmer

===Books===
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, Cryptonomicon, The Practice of the Presence of God, The Kingdom of God is Within You, A People's History of the United States, An Experiment in Criticism, Lolita, Codex Seraphinianus, Lamb, Watchmen, On China, Lolita, Midnight's Children, The Bottom Billion, Slaughterhouse Five, Mr. China

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I saw some incredible northern lights once. They were electric pink fading through white to green. Like a watermelon. A really bright watermelon. In the sky.

I had a red, white and blue trihawk for a while. I don't know if that was amazing, but it was ostentatious and fun.

I helped make a robotic plane that could fly itself for a project in university.

Teach, Learn, Share

I guess I mostly find myself sharing with people about technology and Alaska. I probably know more about making movies and Jesus.

"...or even a couple of items here that you might be able to share.":

(1) In orbit, things still feel the force of gravity. They appear weightless because they are actually falling around the planet.

(2) Solar panels and digital cameras work basically the same way. Einstein figured out how it should work, and published his paper on it in the same issue of the journal where he published his theory of relativity.

(3) The Bible's pretty clear that Christians are only supposed to judge other Christians, and not other people. Funny how that gets mixed up sometimes.

(4) There are a few things you can do to make video look like film. Open the aperture wide, and zoom in for a shallow depth of field. Reduce variations in brightness and contrast. Good framing and lighting do wonders, but they take practice.

(5) If you encounter a black bear in the wild, you should try to look big and scary and make a lot of noise in order to scare it away. If you encounter a brown bear, you should curl into a ball, cover your neck, and play dead. Praying silently probably wouldn't hurt. If you encounter a polar bear, you should have a powerful firearm on hand. Polar bears are one of two land mammals that hunt humans because we are tasty food.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Germany, Jamaica, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Korea, Taiwan, Tajikistan, United Arab Emirates

Countries I’ve Lived In

Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Lebanon, United States

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