2012 - Picking up the Pieces

I was just browsing the BBC website and it struck me what early 2012 will be remembered for. It's like a building has just fallen down, and in the rubble and debris is all the shortcuts, flaws and dirty secrets from the bosses desk. Firstly the leveson enquiry, a long drawn out affair, in which slowly but surely almost every paper and high ranking police officer is being shown to be unethical and immoral. Furthermore, people are beginning to see the massive bonuses that the executives have always paid themselves. The failings don't stop there. Structural problems and wasted debt shows us that actually, despite years of brilliant growth, the building of society was slowly being ebbed away by careless caretakers. 2011 was when it all fell, 2012 is when we have to face up to it and recognise what an almighty mess we are in.
It can only get better, I think...

Oxy Laundry Balls - Miracle or Myth?

Recently, my mother was given some oxy laundry balls. Link to product. This particular product is a rigid plastic ball with holes in it, inside are around 70 hard, rough 1 centimeter diameter balls.
It promises wonderful things, namely the ability to wash clothes without soap, using just this reusable ball. I was initially dubious about these claims, after all it is a bold. Naturally I wanted to know the science behind it. A google search unfortunately revealed a tangled mess of pseudoscience and hype, I had to search further.

My mother was similarly curious so used the balls to clean a few loads. The washing was surprisingly good, didn't smell of much at all. There were a few problems however as things like socks and armpits still had a faint smell. However, they appeared to be doing something. A solid explanation was needed. Some websites talked about raising the pH or turning the water alkaline. This gave me a few possible ideas. These balls could be an alkali and may dissolve slowly in the water to increase the pH. However, after a long test, I discovered they are not soluble in water, or atleast not in a way to significantly change the pH by entering solution.

The most compelling evidence of their use came from the name, the idea of oxygen. However much I believe in 'oxygens natural power of cleaning' I still needed more evidence or at least a reasonable explanation. Another google search revealed an interesting academic article on the affects of oxygenation of water. Please read it yourself but I will sumarise. 'scrubbing action' (turbulence on the surface) allows a large area for diffusion of air into the water. Obviously this will mean some oxygen gets dissolved into it. Water with a high amount of dissolved oxygen has some interesting qualities. Some metals and organic volatile compounds will oxidise and precipitate out.

The 'natural power of oxygen' is severly limited. Ruling out the supernatural, more higly oxygenated water is not enough to provide a complete wash. I can see no mechanism for the removal of fats or proteins that have become attached to clothes.

Verdict: there is insufficient evidence or even a plausible theory to suggest oxy balls could provide the same wash quality as soap/detergent, especially when dealing with fats and proteins. I suspect that normal water would acheive almost the same "oxygenated" results (tap water is naturally high in dissolved oxygen, even if it did make a difference). The burden of evidence is on the oxy balls to prove they work, rather than using fanciful scientific words which mean very little. IF water/balls for you achieves adequate results, perhaps the moral of the story is instead to use less washing powder.

Sources: myself (GCSE sciences, A level physics), Mountain Empire Community College

NB: if you notice a mistake, or can offer more information or expertise, please comment

The Fallacy of Your Own Way

We want our own way. Obviously this is not surprising, what is surprising is the fact that some people purposely put the needs of others infront of their own. Furthermore, it is surprising that some people push for their own needs so much that they make their lives difficult for themselves. The answer to these conundrums and a unification for this problem lies in the wise saying: 'there's no such thing as a selfless act'. Instead of selfless acts, there are just unwise acts.

Everything is ultimately motivated by happiness, we want our own way because it is the one that makes us happy. We serve others because there is a social responsability mechanism in us; it makes us happy. We only care for people if we see how it benefits us, even indirectly. This is why we feel patriotic, we reason that what's good for the country and its people is good for ourselves.

Equally, this reasoning can be applied to throwing tantrums: pushing too far for our own way. I started giving this thought when my niece once threw a tantrum for some trivial reason. I figured that the wisest thing for her to do was to compromise. This would have led to a more cohesive environment at home and she wouldn't have had to terrorise herself with fits of crying. Obviously I still think she's awesome, and I know she is only a child and incapable of complicated reasoning but such behaviour is also seen elsewhere. After writing all this it does strike me as an obvious deduction, although in my head at least, this behaviour makes a bit more sense.

Banksy - My Idea of Art

Art is a funny thing, it's just so hard to pin down and for a mathematician I find that quite difficult. However, if i stop bothering for a second about concrete definitions (God forbid), it becomes easy. Art is just something I can appreciate, maybe its elegance or beauty, maybe it can elicit an interesting symphony of feelings or perhaps even it tells me something profound. For me, the Mona Lisa doesn't cut it, connoisseurs of fine art may think me uncultured or juvenile but it doesn't elicit any of those responses. Something I would consider elegant and beautiful is maths, its predictability reminds me of a wind up toy, doing the same things over and over with a constant unchanging look on it's face. Like a dance of variables going on to infinity. Another example, Nineteen Eighty Four elicited an unparalleled symphony of feelings in my mind. The love story painted in childish but vivid colours against the dull world, with its faint odour of cabbage, is truly beautiful. As a love story on its own it was actually quite shallow, but like a candle in a dark room, it shone brightly.

I like a bit of street art, although not the rushed scribbles on railway bridges. I like the witty, jolly good side of graffiti, where there's talent and intelligence. Maybe it's the dry wit or the clandestine nature that appeals to me, or maybe it's just that it brightens up drab buildings. For me Banksy is sticking two fingers up to a depressed, efficiency driven culture that has chosen mediocrity. His choice of canvas is usually to find the most boring or ugly parts of the urban landscape and turn them into meaning. Adding beauty to the mundane is both a admirable and noble profession. Furthermore, his work courts controversy. Obviously this doesn't make the actual work better but it does provide a good comedy sound track. Ruthless art dealers grab at his work, grown men fight over it and rich people want it for their bedrooms. In all the rush, they appear to have forgotten the idea of it all, they are the exact people that Banksy is poking fun at. The horrible irony of paying half a million for what is essentially a picture of yourself, with the word "dick" printed underneath, actually makes for a funny mental image.

The Genius Myth

I'm sure we could all name a genius, how about Albert Einstein, Mozart or maybe that annoying kid that gets A*s with no effort. These people are the best at their games and we imbue them with mythical qualities, like gods of their fields. Tonight I was a student representative at a gifted and talented event talking to the geniuses, as a genius myself  (I'm not finished yet don't worry). We were top of our games, I coasted through GCSEs and to be honest I am coasting through my A levels. Contrary to expectations however, this isn't a ticket to academic stardom. If anything my ability makes me complacent and lazy. I have come to thrive on academic attention without any effort required. Everytime I talk to someone my academic acheivements almost inevitably come up. My ego may be huge but Shockingly, I am no genius.

Many clever people float through the education system and drop off the end, people with the potential but without the drive to prosper. Its to do with hard work and geniune enthusiasm. My coasting through academia actually means i'm anything but a genius. We tend to judge geniuses on their contributions to their field; being good and quick at soaking up teaching is anything but progressive. Advancing a field requires hard work, something I have yet to realise the value of. There are thousands of people like me, decent at maths, and with only a few spots on the genius stand, I've got to up my game.

My Nerdy Dream: Morality Systems

Morality systems in games are a new fad, and for the most part are frantically and badly implemented, for example Infamous or SWToR. Despite some of them being good games, the morality systems are usually one of the weaker aspects. The problem is that they make the childish assumtion that people are either good or evil. So bonus points for saving babies and puppies and evil points for wiping out people groups before breakfast. Even one of the most evil people in history wasn't that one dimensional. From a consequentialist point, what Hitler did is the same as killing random people in video games but actually he rationalised it to himself: he thought he was doing good. Anyone who knows they do evil is a psychopath, im fairly sure thats the definition. Added to this, you either have to be all good or all bad, you have to be either mother teresa or peter sutcliffe to get the fancy lightning or red lightsabre. I'm not a crazy conservative but that can't be encouraging good behaviour, most of all it really lets down the games' better aspects as it's shallow.

If I had my way (begins dreaming...) then I would overhaul the system. Completely get rid of the good-bad system, theres no need for such generalisations. Instead have several dimensions to a character, each with positive and negative directions. For example, generosity, all the way negative would be tight and all the way positive would be santa. Also it wouldn't just be determined by random gifts of kindness, perhaps a companion is dying and you give him food. Although not giving food to beggars wouldn't paint you as satans brother either. This would just be one dimension, others could be patient-short tempered, forgiving-unmerciful or strong-weak sense of right and wrong. This could then affect the way NPCs interacted with you, perhaps if you were seen as a pushover, characters would walk all over you or if the other extreme they may not confide in you useful facts. With this, players would be encouraged to engage strongly with issues of right and wrong, when is it right to lose your rag and when is it right to be calm.

Furthermore, the system could be on multiple levels. Firstly each mainish character would have an opinion of you based on all these characteristics, secondly each people group would have an opinion of you and lastly your worldwide legacy. Each of these added together for each character would make an interesting and complex world. After all in real life some people thing I'm a dick and others think I'm a saint. Different people and groups of people have had different experiences of me.

Finally, all that would be required is for lots of options during speech and lots of ethical moral dilemas. This would allow this complex and varied opinion of your character to be buit up. If games ever want to be considered as art, they must break away from the good-evil dimension and start modelling relationships as the complex things they are.