2015 April | AndFarAway

Welcome to the “We Have No Water!” Club — Tips to California from One of the World’s Driest Countries

On April 28, 2015

Hi, California. Welcome to the “SHIT, WE HAVE NO WATER!” Club. It’s not a very happy club, but you must do what you can.

I’m responsible for introducing new members to club rules.

I know what you’re thinking. I too wish that our club rules are all about guest cards and lower charges for family members under the age of 21, and not about water days and how to brush your teeth. It sucks, ask me. Jordan’s been in the club for decades. We’re almost the leader, with one of the lowest levels of water-resource availability, per capita, in the world. We’re sort of like stars of the scene.

I’ve been reading the news and how you’re really sad about all your backyard pools. It’s cute. Ha. Backyard pools. You’re a lucky bitch, California, that you have that concern at all. When I was a kid, the closest thing we had to a backyard pool was a big bucket that my mom used to place in the bathtub when we wanted to take a shower. Oh, you’re not sure what I’m talking about? Yeah, I suppose people with backyard-pool-problems wouldn’t relate. Okay, so water was so scarce at some points in my childhood that my mother had to go nuclear. She would fill a little bucket with clean water, and she would pour it over our heads with a plastic cup, to conserve water. Backyard pools! Ha.

Shit, I’m talking too much, right? Sorry, sorry. I’m just really eager to get you on the right foot. Implications could be disastrous, otherwise.

Here’s a printed copy of the club rules, please keep it. I’ll read them out for you, too, just in case you’re the kind of person who’ll shove these rules in the nearest trashcan the minute I turn my back. Let me know if you have any questions.

1. Club members must observe stringent water conservation measures at all times when practicing personal, daily sanitation. (I know that’s a funny-sounding rule. It’s like the person who wrote this shit is a dainty little girl who doesn’t want to say “BATHROOM!” I’ll tell you what it actually means though, so don’t you worry! One, when you brush your teeth, turn off the damn water between wetting your toothbrush and rinsing your mouth. Two, when scrubbing your body or washing your hair in the shower, turn the water off. Three, when you’re washing your hands, turn the water off when getting soap to lather. You get the idea, I’m sure.)

2. Install appropriate aerator faucets across all sinks in your home or office. (You can get those from any hardware supply store. They just add bubbles to the water coming out of the faucet, and they’re cheap and fantastic.)

3. You have two weeks to apply the club’s lawn and plants guidelines, attached separately. (This one sounds tough at first, but don’t panic, you’ll be fine. Ahh.. what do you mean what about your automatic sprinklers? I’ve never seen automatic sprinklers in my life. Seriously, stop being so dramatic. Get a good, solid water hose with a built-in sprinkler, and use it once a week. Yes, I know your grass won’t survive watering only once a week. Let it die and plant something that doesn’t need as much water. Stop being a sissy, California! At least we’re only talking about your stupid lawn. Did you know that in Jordan, we get water supplied to our homes only ONCE a week? There’s a water day for each area from the government. My family’s water day is on Monday. Water days are a big thing in our culture — it’s when we water the garden, wash our clothes, and clean the house. Yes, I’m dead serious. So shut up and stop being dramatic.)

4. Club members may extend invitations to guests. (I gotta warn you here California, this rule is pretty tricky. For the most part, you can only extend invitations to two kinds of guests: those who will spend a shitload of money on tourism, or those who are the water-conservation academic sort coming in from other countries, or states, I guess, in your case. Ah, yeah, I guess you wouldn’t be familiar with those kids. Don’t worry it’s not too bad, some of them are really great people actually. They will poke stuff into you, and and they may be really arrogant about their degrees and knowledge, but in general, they’re very nice, especially the Germans.).

5. Members with greywater installations in their homes get extra benefits.

6. Baths are strictly prohibited, and showers should not take more than 10 minutes per day. (Come on, that’s not too bad. Did you ever try filling a bathtub? It takes forever. Such a waste of water.)

7. Replace household appliances that waste water, especially toilets, with more water-efficient ones. (Want a trick from an old-timer? Put a water bottle inside your toilet tank, and you’ll automatically get a free WaterSense).

8. Reuse your towels.

Okay, I’m getting tired of reading this list. I think the rest of the stuff aren’t as important, and you get the idea. One thing to keep in mind: always worry about the water.

Grrr… STOP COMPLAINING! At least the drought in your case appears to just be a temporary stunt.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s forever.

Rana Dajani and Why She Teaches Evolution in Jordan’s Universities

By Roba

On April 26, 2015

In Geek Culture & Tech

Refreshing article on Nature by Rana Dajani, Assistant Professor at the Hashemite University in Jordan, on why she teaches evolution

In teaching, I offer a detailed explanation of the natural evolution of plants and artificial breeding. Later, we discuss antibiotic resistance, influenza vaccines and the development of HIV drugs. After these discussions, most students are willing to accept evolution as a mechanism for the emergence of all species except humans. Many quote evidence from the Koran that is interpreted to mean that Adam — and so humans — were created spontaneously. Human evolution remains taboo because the students are not ready to relinquish the concept that humans were created differently. I remind them that Muslims are warned against arrogance, and that humans are only part of creation.

[…]

My take, as a Muslim scientist, is that the Koran asks humans to observe and contemplate the world while celebrating the pursuit of knowledge. It does not validate scientific findings. Science allows us to question and discover how the world works and the Koran provides the moral guidelines for doing so. If an apparent contradiction arises between a scientific finding and an interpretation of the Koran, then we can turn to both science itself (which is evolving) and the interpretation of the Koran (which is not impartial, because it is a human exercise) to account for the discrepancy. This is an ongoing and fluid process, and is part and parcel of the purpose of life for Muslims.

[Read All]

The Making of AndFarAway’s Red Converse

By Roba

On April 26, 2015

In Pop Culture, Roba

As a part of the world-wide #MadeByYou Converse campaign, I was invited to customize a pair of white Chucks.

Glaring white… I can’t keep them white, of course.

I started out with a sketch on Illustrator. It’s so hard to “think” without using software. A paper and a pen are great, but I’m so used to CTRL+Z.

I sketched the illustration with a pencil and a Sharpie.

Afterwards came the colors, and tools I haven’t used in years and years.

I started filling in…

Starting to look good!

And starting to get messy…

The Ingeniousness of the Aluminum Can Design

By Roba

On April 23, 2015

In Geek Culture & Tech

Wow.

Music Video: Dahab, by Kazz Alomam

By Roba

On April 22, 2015

In Arab Culture, Art, Music

With a special appearance from my brothers :)

Self-portrait: My Red Converse Shoes

By Roba

On April 21, 2015

In Roba

I was just a few days shy of my 19th birthday and my second year in design school when I decided to start AndFarAway. It was 2004.

Being the smart-ass nerd I’ve always been, I thought I knew most of what I should know about branding and design. In reality, I had just started learning how to use Photoshop, and all I knew about branding was from the vast amount of random and completely irrelevant reading I did.

I knew one thing though, as I sat and looked at Blogger’s “Upload Profile Picture” field on the “Start a Blog!” page: I had to choose my profile picture wisely, and I couldn’t just add a random one. I had a feeling I will be stuck with whatever I chose forever, because that’s how brands work.

Thank goodness I knew that much at least.

That week, I used a paper and a pen to decide on what I wanted my blog’s brand to be. I had initially meant to blog anonymously, so I couldn’t use a picture of myself. I wanted a very specific object with a specific color, something that anyone could recognize and remember. I wanted the object to be unique but generic at the same time. It also had to be something long term, that I wasn’t going to grow out of in a couple of years. I ended up with a list of things I could use as a brand:

– A hot water bag, known in Arabic as “Erbeh”, because I wanted my blog to be my therapy

– A black pencil, because I was in art school, and I thought I was going to grow up to be an artist (of course!)

– A picture of Amman, because I had just moved to Amman and I was exploring the city a lot

– A camera silhouette, because I loved taking pictures and I thought I was SO GOOD at it

The last item on my list of potential blog brands was what I ended up going with: shoes, as a tribute to one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite authors, J. R. R. Tolkien, in one of my favorite books, The Lord of the Rings: “All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.”

Shoes, wandering machines. They may not glitter, but they get you places. My shoes were helping me discover my new city. They were my companion in my own personal coming-of-age journey. Plus, I had already decided to call my blog “AndFarAway”, as a tribute to one of my favorite bands, Led Zeppelin, who have a song called “Over the Hills and Far Away”, also as a tribute to Tolkien. A lot of tributes, as you can see :)

Hard to believe now, but Converse hadn’t yet made the comeback to mainstream “coolness” in 2004. Converse was grunge, it was underground, and it was vintage in a time when blingy hip hop was mainstream. It was Kurt Cobain, it was Eddy Vedder, it was Green Day.

It was PERFECT for my new brand.

I know, that’s a lot of thinking for someone who had just turned 19. I told you I was a smart ass.

I found a picture of a red Converse, I uploaded it, and I published my first blog. This is what it looked like:

Not much of a design, as you can see. I just used the shoes as a profile picture. At that point, I was new to Jordan and I wasn’t yet aware of the general perception of shoes as being something dirty, insulting, and offensive. It was years later that I realized that people thought it was funny that I used a pair of shoes as my profile picture, and that I was referred to as “Em Boat” (Mother of the Shoe) by readers who did not know me personally.

As the years passed, I got better at design, and my brand evolved.

my blog

Its been 11 years now and my brand is still the red Converse. Random people are very likely to stop me and ask me if I’m the blogger if I’m wearing my red Chucks, and not as likely if I’m not. I use them as an image on everything, from my personal business cards to my CV. They are my canvas, my identity, my self-portrait.

Today, I received a package from Converse Amman: a shiny, bright white, new pair of Chuck Taylors. They came with an invitation to “leave my mark” and “express myself” by customizing them.

I will do that, of course, because I love scribbling.

But my real self-portrait is my first ever pair of red Chuck Taylor’s, which I still wear occasionally. I wore them every day for many, many years. They’re ripped in several places, and have green paint that never washed off from my graduation project. I scribbled over them once when I was bored at Syntax. They took me places around the globe, and they were my steady partner across different events in my life, pecan-picking seasons, winters and summers.

Here’s what I’m thinking: How can anyone get so emotional over a pair of shoes?

Well, whatever.

Converse are having an event on April 25 and 6:30PM, at Taj. It’s an open invitation.

Red Bull and the Power of Good Arabic Copy

By Roba

On April 18, 2015

In Pop Culture

As someone who has to work with words, design, and social media on a daily basis, I really appreciate good work from others.

This invitation from Red Bull is a perfect demonstration of Arabic copy used really, really well.

Let Moore’s Law Blow Your Mind

By Roba

On April 16, 2015

In Geek Culture & Tech

Moore’s Law is pretty simple.

In 1965, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, observed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the circuit was invented. He predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future. This prediction came to be known as Moore’s Law.

This is a perfect visualization:

Dan Hutcheson says:

In 2014, semiconductor production facilities made some 250 billion billion (250 x 1018) transistors. This was, literally, production on an astronomical scale. Every second of that year, on average, 8 trillion transistors were produced. That figure is about 25 times the number of stars in the Milky Way and some 75 times the number of galaxies in the known universe. The rate of growth has also been extraordinary. More transistors were made in 2014 than in all the years prior to 2011.