Mystery Artist

As I walk to work over the last few months, I have noticed the appearance of spraypainted stencil art appearing along the way. The first few pieces that I noticed were quite impressive, and though the rate of production has increased recently, I'm of the mind that some may be a copycat production, as the skill of the designs has been declining. Here are some of my favorites.
















Whoever the graphic designer is has obvious skill. I'm of the mind that whoever designed them is painting them too, at least in some of the cases, because they are often situated such that at first sight they are at optimal distance. They are also placed in locations where they will be noticed, but not resented.

The question remains - whodunnit?

Locations:

"Adieu" - EPCOR power box at Garneau Towers, 86 Ave & 111 St (SW Corner)
"The Lady" - EPCOR power box at PC corp, 100 Ave & 109 St (SE Corner)
"The Man in the Hat" - Various; this one on High Level Bridge W sidewalk, S side
"Capitalist" - Various; this one at NE corner of intersection of 104 St and the alley S of Jasper Ave (by the parkade)
"Fresh" - NE corner of intersection of 104 St and the alley S of Jasper Ave (by the parkade)
"Shark" - Various; this one on E retaining wall of the S end of the Ribbon of Steel park, just N of High Level Bridge
"Eat More Fibre" - Various; this one on High Level Bridge W sidewalk, N side

The Pokia: Design Brilliance

And I thought today was just going to be another boring day. I was scanning through my news links looking for something interesting when Reuters.com's Oddly Enough section delivered. The Pokia!

Apparently some inspired soul in the UK has been custom modifying old landline phone handsets to plug into modern cell phones. He then sells them on eBay - so far they've gone for $40-$140 USD. (His site is http://www.pokia.com/)

I must say I am thoroughly impressed. First, from an intellectual standpoint, you've gotta give the guy credit - it's a brilliant idea. Second, if there's ever been a complaint that I had about the design of current cell phones it's that they are itsy-bitsy, finnicky, dainty little pieces of electronic junk. I always worry about losing or breaking mine, and they've never been particularly ergonomic. Now (but for the lack of $140 USD), I can cradle my cell on my shoulder, and the mouthpiece and earpiece will actually reach.

My hope in humanity is rekindled.

What If: The Physics of Selectively Stopping Time

It’s a standard sci-fi scenario – somehow, someone is able to bring time to a relative stop for everything and everyone except themselves. They then can move through the paused world, stealing valuables, looking up skirts, moving people into compromising poses, and otherwise taking advantage of the helpless and immobile masses. The mechanism through which this wizardry is most often facilitated is some sort of temporal field, which either protects the wearer from the time freeze or accelerates them until time’s ‘normal’ passage seems sluggish. The key, of course, is that the physical and mental processes of the affected individual seem normal to them, but are much faster than everything else. So what, I asked myself, should the user of such a temporal field be able to do?

I made a few assumptions.

First of all, the temporal field had better travel with its user, or else you don’t have a very interesting scenario – just some bored schmoe watching a frozen universe.

Second, the field should not only ‘fit’ the person using it fairly closely, but also be elastic – otherwise the user will have some severe mobility issues.

Third, time can’t actually stop: that is, the effect is relative, not absolute. The frozen world must still be experiencing time as normal, no matter how relatively slow it may seem to the accelerated individual. However improbable the whole scenario may appear, for it to be possible at all requires the effect to be on the individual and not on the universe as a whole, as the effect is to be generated from within the universe, using the energy of said universe. An effect on the universe as a whole would require a source of energy external (!) to the universe, which is somewhere I just don’t want to go philosophically right now.

Finally, I asked myself, to what degree would the temporal field be impenetrable? Mass transfer is unneccessary, and a complication. Assuming that the force field requires a certain amount of energy per unit mass enveloped to maintain functioning, a mass fluctuation would require a power supply that could fluctuate with it. Much easier to designate a mass to be affected initially. So mass transfer is out, though I will admit this is not a theoretical restraint so much as a perceived practical one. Another practical argument to make against mass transfer relates to events at the boundary. What happens as objects enter the temporal field? Does half a butterfly flap? Does half a heart beat? How about half of a waterfall – water can enter the field, but when it exits it will create a barrier to other water exiting. No, better by far not to allow mass transfer.

But would the field allow energy transfer? As I see things, it must. Since photons, for example, are already going lightspeed - which I will take as the theoretical maximum speed anything can go, regardless of ‘temporal fields’ - they are going as fast a an accelerated individual can go, and thus they effectively see no barrier. So light as a particle, at least, can pass. Additionally, since the field must be elastic, energy as a wave can act on the field which then acts on the contents of the field. Of course, low frequency waves will have negligible effect.

So, having set up the basis for what is actually a simple argument, I think maybe I’ve let my penchant for definition get the best of me. Here goes.

Basically, the faster an individual in a temporal field is going relative to real-time, the less they can interact with objects in real-time. Manipulation of real-time objects requires: applying force over time – tranferring momentum – tranferring kinetic & potential energy. Since an accelerated individual’s interactions occur over infinitesimally short time intervals, mechanical energy & momentum cannot practically be transferred. For example, given KE= ½ mv2, and v=dt, as t approaches zero then KE must also approach zero.  No posing of people like mannequins, and in fact, no motion in the air whatsoever once the relative temporal difference is large enough.

There you go – you’ve been geeked. Shady physics and broad assumptions, but that’s what you get for a brief thought at a lunch hour.

Best Place in the World

Okay, maybe not number 1. The UN Human Development Report came out today, and Canada moved back up on the Human Development Index (p. 153) to the number 4 spot from last year's dismal (?) 7th or 8th place.  The CBC is all over it, but I have to ask, does it really matter? Honestly, the people in the top 25 are doing pretty well. I'd feel a whole lot more like celebrating if the bottom third of the list was making more progress.

Last Week's Fascination: The Dvorak Keyboard

I can't remember what triggered it, but sometime last week I thought to myself "I wonder what the deal is with inefficient keyboards?". Keyboards in the data entry sense - not the musical. I knew there was an efficiency issue, because it always seems to come up as a classic example whenever social inertia with regard to technology is discussed. The story being, of course, that current keyboard designs are inefficient, a better one was once developed, and that it has been ignored simply because the standard was already set.

A quick net search turned up a name: Dvorak. The efficient keyboard design is the Dvorak keyboard. I soon happened across the home page of Dvorak International, which sounds like a pretty impressive organization, until you realize the sad truth is that it's the passion of a single man with a website - like so much of the web. All the same, he's done his homework, and the site has lots of good information. More importantly, it also has links to other Dvorak sites.

It turns out that, in summary, the story goes something like this... In the late 1800's, the advent of the typing machine necessitated the design of a data entry interface. Several designs were proposed, but best of them was the QWERTY keyboard and some derivatives thereof. Why the QWERTY layout? It's not the most efficient design from a typists perspective - the most commonly used letters are scattered all over the place. Apparently the mechanical design of the early typing machines was such that the levers that imprinted the letters would likely jam if adjacent keys were hit in rapid succession. Thus, it was designed specifically so that the most common letters would not sit next to each other. Eventually, these mechanical problems were solved, but the keyboard layout remained. Enter Dvorak.

Dvorak was a mechanical engineer by profession, and somewhere around the 1930's he got it in his head to design a better keyboard. He carefully studied both the english language and the motion of the human hand in order to create a keyboard that required the minimum of effort on behalf of the typist. Shortly afterwards, his layout was pitted against the QWERTY design to determine which was more efficient - from the perspective of productivity. Unfortunately, the debate got personal, the trials got illogical, and the QWERTY keyboard retained its dominance. Whether the Dvorak layout allows faster typing still remains to be proven.

However, the claim that the Dvorak keyboard is less effort to type on is generally accepted, and would certainly be logical. Considering that the QWERTY layout is designed to make keys harder to reach, a layout designed for ease of typing would certainly seem more likely to be most efficient.

Where does that leave us? The Dvorak debate reared its head again in the mid 90's, at which point Discover magazine published an article by Jared Diamond (coincidence, I swear!) extolling the virtues of the Dvorak keyboard. QWERTY, however, is still the format taught in schools, and is the layout your keyboard will be if you buy a new computer. That's not to say you can't switch to the Dvorak layout if you choose - MS Windows allows you to change to Dvorak in the Keyboard settings. You can also buy hardwired Dvorak keyboards. I myself haven't decided what to do. I've typed QWERTY all my life, and I doubt that my future employers are likely to switch to Dvorak for my sake. On the other hand, I'm a sucker for solutions that reduce the stress in my life. Maybe I'll just buy some stickers and try it out some time.

A Case Study in How Computer Games Give You Friends

I've always been a fan of Sid Meier's Civilization. After the original SimCity, it has to be have been my greatest addiction over the years. My father was none too impressed with my obsession, during the years that I lived at home. "There's so much more in life to do," he'd say, as I sat for hours after school conquering imaginary worlds. He was probably right. At the time, it was just me vs. the computer, locked in epic battles that didn't exist outside of Civilization II.

Upon arrival at university, I'd like to say that it all changed. But it didn't, at least not right away. Not until I got wind of the development of Civilization III. Hungry for information on the upcoming game, I went online - and found Civfanatics.com. Apparently I wasn't the only one enthralled by the game. The site had reams of information on Civilization, and it also had a forum. While I was there, the forum had approximately 20 000 members - of which maybe a couple thousand were active at any given time. And in addition to discussing the game, there were also off-topic discussions on current world events, history, politics, economics, and philosophy. Huzzah! Intelligent debate! Oh, well, yes there was plently of mindless prattle too, but... Intelligent debate! I spent a year or so there, arguing, learning, and listening. Eventually, the dynamic shifted, and now there isn’t much in the way of intelligent debate… or, rather, the noise level has become intolerable.

But, before that happened, several of the major players left and started their own forum – invite only. The Speakeasy was born. So now a couple hundred of the most interesting and least belligerent of us have a friendly space to bullshit and debate. We generally know each other well enough to harass and sympathize life’s goings-on.

Hence: Computer Games = Friends

... at least in this case.

Guns, Germs, and Steel vs. Current World Events

So I finally finished reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. An excellent book all around. Near the end, I came across the following passages:

… The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying kleptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs, just as do modern established religions. But the supernatural beliefs of bands and tribes did not serve to justify central authority, justify transfer of wealth, or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. When supernatural beliefs gained those functions and became institutionalized, they were thereby transformed into what we term a religion. Hawaiian chiefs were typical of chiefs elsewhere, in asserting divinity, divine descent, or at least a hotline to the gods. The chief claimed to serve the people by interceding for them with the gods and reciting the ritual formulas required to obtain rain, good harvests, and success in fishing. Chiefdoms characteristically have an ideology, precursor to an institutionalized religion, that buttresses the chief’s authority. The chief may either combine the offices of political leader and priest in a single person, or may support a separate group of kleptocrats (that is, priests) whose function is to provide ideological justification for the chiefs. That is why chiefdoms devote so much collected tribute to constructing temples and other public works, which serve as centers of the official religion and visible signs of the chief’s power. Besides justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized societies. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other – by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than genetic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others. At the cost of a few society members who die in battle as soldiers, the whole society becomes much more effective at conquering other societies or resisting attacks…

… there are also two other potential advantages inherent in chiefdoms and states. First, a centralized decision-maker has the advantage at concentrating troops and resources. Second, the official religions and patriotic fervor of many states make their troops willing to fight suicidally. The latter willingness is one so strongly programmed into us citizens of modern states, by our schools and churches and governments, that we forget what a radical break it marks with previous human history. Every state has its slogan urging its citizens to be prepared to die if necessary for the state: Britain’s “For King and Country,” Spain’s “Por Dios y Espana,” and so on. Similar sentiments motivated 16th-century Aztec warriors: “There is nothing like death in war, nothing like the flowery death so precious to Him [the Aztec national god Huitzilopochtli] who gives life: far off I see it, my heart yearns for it!” Such sentiments are unthinkable in bands and tribes. In all the accounts that my New Guinea friends have given me of their former tribal wars, there has been not a single hint of any tribal patriotism, of a suicidal charge, or of any other military conduct carrying an accepted risk of being killed. Instead, raids are initiated by ambush or by superior force, so as to minimize at all costs the risk that one might die for one’s village. But that attitude severely limits the military options of tribes, compared with state societies. Naturally, what makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to annihilate or crush their infidel enemy. Fanaticism in war, of the type that drove recorded Christian and Islamic conquests, was probably unknown on earth until chiefdoms and especially states emerged within the last 6,000 years…

It sums up a lot of my thoughts about religion, and the current world situation, quite nicely. Religion and Patriotism as tools for making the rich richer and providing them with armies... sounds a lot like Bush's christianity. Freedom Fries anyone?

Greetings, Me!

testing, testing, 1 2 3