Merry Christmas to everyone. All is well here. Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts. Be safe and think happily.
As promised: additional photographs have checked in at the gallery.
This particular breakdown in maturity was brought on by all the cookies, goodies, brownies, and similar badness that have saturated our FOB over the last two weeks.
Thank you to everyone for all of the presents and well-wishes.
That's me briefing Brigadier General Anderson (the #2 guy in the 82nd Airborne) on my scheme to boost power production and irrigation distribution at the Dur anta_Dam.
My finger is on the 'clinch' slide/poster, which shows how we can go from 8.5 megawatts to about 46 megawatts by making the dam higher. The extra height will increase both the hydrostatic head-pressure as well as the capacity of the reservoir, which will in turn enable more hydro-electric power to be produced. ....as ever, this particular scheme will cost a bit....but a great deal less than the other plans out there.
The question of the moment is: what is the most important invention of all time? i would very much like to say something like Penicillin, the Lateen Sail or maybe the Printing Press. But at this particular moment and time, for me, the most important invention of all time is the noise-canceling-ear-phone. Our FOB maintenance crew is running a very loud two stroke gen set right outside of the door to my hooch. I was on my way to a serious degree of frustration before it dawned on me to don the earphones. They are worth every last penny!
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....so that got me thinking (no laughing!). What is the greatest invention of all time? Google searches dont seem to do it justice. At a cursory glance, google coughed up:
i didnt really find much else on google. So Im little disappointed there, though to be fair i didn't look especially hard. But then, for something like this, one shouldn't have to search too hard. So I gave ixquick a shot, and got the exact same results. I'm beginning to think that no one really thinks about this stuff. What is really interesting, is most of the 'basic' stuff didnt make these lists: the wheel, the spoken language, the written language, algebra, clothing, the roof, harnessed fire, the hammer... This is probably because these folks are not (or can not) thinking outside of their own context. One of the lists deliberately excluded these things and chose to focus on 'Christian era' inventions; "...Only inventions after the birth of Christ will be considered. Otherwise we'd end up with a very boring and noncontroversial list". Perspective is everything. It is staggering how much we take for granted.
If you asked an average Afghan (if there is such a thing as an average Afghan) what the greatest invention of time is, he or she would not name electricity or plumbing...these are more like luxuries for the majority of these folks. They would probably name something that they already have. Something that currently impacts their lives. They might say, man-made-irrigation or something along those lines. And no matter what they said, they would not frame it within the 'Christian Era'.
Anyways....im not really sure where im going with this little post. Just thinking out loud i suppose...
Thus, I'm sticking with noise-canceling-earphones
For now the river is clear, true, and tame. But in the spring, this river will be saturated with an endless quantity of muddy mess and will swell to 15 or 20 times it's present volume; increasing to as much as 900 cubic meters of water per second. Much of the road pictured here will be underwater.
In the background you can see snow accumulating on the lower portions of the Hindu Kush mountain range. ...it is strange to look at snow while the vehicle is running air conditioning.
A few more pics in the gallery
I have done what was previously thought impossible. I have measured the exact length of 'forever'. Forever (which is closely related to infinity, but not quite) is exactly 320 days, 10 hours, 52 and a half minutes long. I have taken the time verify this as a fact. And there is no disputing it...the math is rock solid and indisputable.
[PAF + ((Deployment) (time)) / (Army + Air Force)]^3 = forever
So, now that I have formally published my findings in the highly respected math and physics journal: frantzworkshop.com , it is only a matter of time before I am contacted by the folks in Sweden for 'the Nobel prize for really really important but useless findings and stuff' (its a new category....they created it just for me). Pythagoras, eat your heart out!
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I have been away for 320 days, 10 hours, 52 and a half minutes
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....not that Im counting.