The Pirate Solution

Gaining Internet popularity for the last few years, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a religion presided over by a ridiculous bolognesey deity and followed by those who call themselves "Pastafarians". Perhaps you have heard of it. For the last few days, I have found myself thinking of one of the church's tenets, and its implications in the real world. The principle states that climate change is caused by a decline in pirate numbers, and is best illustrated with their official graph:



I'm sure most of you are aware of the story about the hijacked Saudi oil tanker that has been in the news recently. Could this "unprecedented" attack have more consequences and implications than one might initially think? The attack was said to be unusual, and the pirates operated out of an area far south to the known danger area. Given these facts, is it too much to assume this suggests an increase in piracy? If it does, His Noodliness be praised, I think we've got this global warming thing sorted out.*


BBC report on the incident


Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster


* - If only because $100,000,000 of oil is currently out of commission.

Imperfection

It's taken a while for me to face up to my blog and start writing again. Often people are afraid that since they cannot achieve perfection, it is better to achieve nothing than to achieve imperfection.

I have returned now and though my words may sometimes be laden heavily with blemishes, I am happy to wade towards perfect shores. In the style of that flamboyant, melodramatic artist-type, I felt nothing would allow me to begin better than to purge myself of the old, and so I have deleted fourteen of what I felt have been my weakest blog posts. Never has impoverishment felt so enriching.

There's still some chaff cluttering a corner here and there, to be sure, but I was happy to find that reviewing what I thought would be solely childish and badly-phrased works has actually been more like remembering old friends. Bizarrely, in my search I have found a nesting comment from a stranger, quite recent, complimenting my writing. My first, and it has made me smile a great deal. Thank you, Vevay.

Imperfect words are waiting to be written.

Whispered Words

They must have suggested themselves to me in passing, like a stranger's perfume curling over my shoulder from down the street. I did not notice them at the time, for I did not know that I knew them, but one day they rose like a fish from the deep and spoke to me.

Those words. Clinging like smoke to my attention. Growing stronger. As the days passed I found that they wouldn't leave me alone, and I pondered for what special purpose they might be following me.

Curiosity and consciousness welling up in me, I gave in and Googled it.

Lembit Opik. What the hell?

The Theremin Project

And now that the first coat of varnish is drying I will begin the tale of my theremin project.

A theremin is a completely unique musical instrument. It was the world's first fully electronic instrument (invented in 1919), and it's the only instrument contolled through empty space - played without being touched.* Its sound produces a rich, round tone (originally intended to imitate the violin), with inherent glissando (and sometimes tremalo)which has made it the champion instrument of "eerie sci-fi" soundtracks ever since the 1950s.

It is controlled via capacitive coupling between the body of the player and the aerial on the instrument. Most theremins have two aerials - one each to control pitch and volume - while some have only a pitch aerial. Capacitive coupling to the layman means that there's a difference in voltage between the instrument (connected to a mains electricity supply) and the player, who is grounded (0v). This means electrical charge is stored between the two, and how much of this can be stored (capacitance) is dependent on distance. So waving arms and other extremeties around the theremin creates changes in capacitance. Electronic wzardry detects the change in capacitance and creates the corresponding noises. The circuitry of the theremin is in fact nearly identical to that of a radio receiver. Under special circumstances I'm too lazy to look up, radios can act as theremins, emitting capacitance-dependent wails over the usual radio broadcasts.

These instruments can be bought and enjoyed by all, in preassembled and kit form. It just so happens I have recently been gifted the Moog** Etherwave theremin kit, and I have decided I shall be chronicling the progress of my work here.


* - I might make a note here about the thorn in the side of this grand proclamation that is the laser harp. The laser harp works via the interruption of laser beams to light sensors which approximates the plucking of a harp string. While it's true this doesn't require any physical contact with the instrument, I'm not sure it can be argued it's actually "space controlled" since playing the instrument involves blocking a discrete number of sensors rather than actually making use of the region around the instrument.

** - I've decided to save you all imminent ridicule by pointing out that the pronunciation of the word "Moog" is somewhat of an invitation to be sneered at by the elitists if you get it wrong. It rhymes with "vogue".

Buckingham Pi

My university career, it seems, has come like the tail-biting snake to finish exactly on the topic it began.

It began with Physics Foundations, and an overview of dimensional analysis, and the Buckingham Pi theorem. The first lecture I ever went to. I could say I've learned a lot since then, and I have in some ways, although not as academically based as the idealist might think. I could also jest that I've learned nothing except loathing for my subject, but that would also not be entirely true.

The close of the course on Chaos and Complexity, on my last day of lectures, was on dimensional analysis and the Buckingham Pi theorem. Perhaps this provides a unique poetic closure. Perhaps this means it is time to go. Goodbye university.

Scylla and Charybdis

I'm busy writing up the report on that final project of mine.

On reading the introduction to "Specific Heats at Low Temperatures" by E.S. Raja Gopal, I discovered the following claim:

"It has been a difficult task to steer between the Scylla of encyclopedic completeness and the Charybdis of shallow banality."

This is a fancy way of saying "I recognise that this book is not at all interesting. I'm trying to squeeze blood from a stone by injecting grandiloquent references to Greek mythology."

God. Even the professional physicists know their subject is boring.

The Soul in My Room

Every so often I'm in the middle of doing something in my room when suddenly I stop and leave the room, and I come back in like a ghost. I pretend I'm a stranger and I'm not allowed to touch anything, but I'm afforded a rare glimpse of somebody else's life - I see a whole soul encoded in its material arrangement - the clothes on the floor, the books on the shelf, the posters on the wall, the clutter on the desk.

And I love it. I'm so happy for all the dust and the patterns and the possessions and the thoughtfulness and the thoughtlessness that is still me even beyond my flesh and bones.

There's lots of red and black and white. That's my favourite colour scheme. That's the colour of the poster and the DVDs and the bed, and three delightful new juggling clubs in the corner. They are still in their wrappers - to preserve their newborn status - but they have already been used, and already the red one has a scratch on it. I am sure it is the sign of much fruitful use to come. On the shelf above my desk is the Frederic Chopin boxset and book an grammar that form my attempt at intellectualism, and my Shaun of the Dead DVD and Guitar Hero games that don't.

The whole place is littered with important looking books that try to make me seem a brainbox on subjects from quantum mechanics to meteorology. Even so, here on my desk is an old report I did where I've said something misleading, if not just wrong, about the Brillouin function. There are quite a lot of chocolate wrappers here and there. I should probably tidy up. There's a guitar in the corner that excuses have forbidden me from touching. There are some old grapes in here too, that I've been trying not to admit to for a while.

Amongst the failures are also the successes. In a corner of the room sits another report I wrote, with the most stunningly amazing mark on it I have ever received. My juggling balls are looking pretty tattered. I can do some amazing tricks now I couldn't do a year ago. Shoes, worn and comfortable, are resting on the floor in wait until the next time they have to take me out. A big, heavy book on life, the universe and everything has had an impressive two thirds of it safely partitioned from the unseen part by a beautiful shiny bookmark.

The best part of being a ghost in my own room is the fresh perspective it brings. As I regard the things around me I realise I understand more about them than any stranger could. I realise I've extended my soul into the space around me. I like my room. It's pretty cool.

Japanese Game Show

A bit of the ol' ultraviolence

It was due to a combination of weariness at hearing “I’ll never hear that song in the same way again” and a £3 bargain that I purchased and watched a copy of Reservoir Dogs.

It was a good film.

I always find there is a particularly strange dichotomy in my attitude towards violence. On the one hand, my moral philosophy is to act with the biggest amount of kindness possible, which should afford the greatest peace, considering that violence is abhorrent. On the other hand, I have never necessarily shied away from a bloody film or a good first person shooter. From my point of view, for me as a singular, a bit of violence in the media is good. Not too much. Just enough to curb my own psychopathic tendencies, as it were, to let the bad blood. I’m by no means heartless, but to deny that any human being contains the full spectrum, sinner to saint, child to mother, is unhealthy. An understanding and acceptance of our dark sides allows our virtuous selves to flourish. And yes, I know, “it’s all very well to say that’s why violence in the media is okay, but what about the copycats?” What about the people who gorge themselves sick on this violence and let it spill into their own conduct? Well, all I can say is that they’re not approaching it in a balanced way. I can’t say that that’s the conclusion to the problem, only that I recognise the immense difficulties in this area.

However, for the sake of all the balanced people and considering the output from the skill of someone such as Quentin Tarantino, isn’t it beautiful? All the thought and the richness tied up in it has had me thinking about layer after layer of elements of the story. For me, the theme here has been fallibility: errors of judgement, loyalty and betrayal, mortality, stupidity, bad luck, suspicion.

I got invited to see Saw IV tonight, but I’m afraid I felt no urge to accept after this film. Reservoir Dogs is to a fine, ripe Brie de Meaux as Saw IV must be to that “squezee cheese” that comes in an aerosol can. And by the way, the scene in question with “that song” wasn’t as bad as I believe people have made it out to be. I probably will think of it in the same way because I always did like it. It is a good song.

Jokes for the MTV Generation

Dear Youth-Of-Today,

I know how much you like things to be fast and straight to the point, so here are some jokes that are just that - cutting out that awful wordy middleman...


How many US presidents does it take to change a lightbulb?
1

How many emos does it take to change a lightbulb?
0

How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
3

How many DJ's does it take to change a lightbulb?
10

How many Irishmen does it take to change a lightbulb?
100

How many Italians does it take to change a lightbulb?
2

Bad Graph Day

I believe I just had what is quite possibly the worst day for graphs I have ever had (or will ever have) in my whole scientific life. Check these beauties out.





Super-bonus points to anyone who can identify my area of research.

As it happens, while I was a-projecting today, creating the monstrosities before you, I was quite taken with the iPod Touch of a fellow research student. I spent an age fiddling with a particular game on it called Evolution RGB.

Now, it would almost be worth describing this game except that it is nothing more than the poor cousin of another game that predates it, which I came across one day on the Big Bad Internet.

The Falling Sand Game is really a series of Java applets, each containing a different set of tools and materials, such as (but definitely not limited to) sand, water, fire, plant, oil, wax, napalm and the enigmatic but annoying "???". There is no objective other than to create marvellous interactive sculptures - it is really just an advanced virtual sandbox. My favourite version even features little zombies, which you can bury in the ground and watch as they attempt to dig their way out.

Come to think of it, my graphs do kinda resemble zombie-battered shelves of wax.

The Falling Sand Game

The Anti-Jon Story

It turns out, yet again, that happiness is a worthwhile pursuit. It has resulted in creativity!

Sctott and I were having a discussion a little earlier about a mutually disliked former acquaintance. His name is Jon, and for all his good looks, scientific prowess, grammatical flair and vast alcohol tolerance, he is an arrogant, disparaging, insensitive... person (RE my previous post: it's ok, I forgive him).

Jon likes to make known his written works, almost at the expense of others; he brazenly puts forward his efforts with the pretence of a self-deprecatingly modest genius ("Here's my submission to the magazine - I doubt it would make much sense out of the context of the book, but it's my best shot anyway. I'm afraid I can't come to the publication meeting.")

It so happens that Sctott saw Jon today, and within the context of literary creation too, as Jon was nosily trying to oversee Sctott's work on the aforementioned magazine, the society of which Sctott is the president. Neither Sctott nor I care much for Jon's work, reeking as it does of ostentatious self-assurance, since in the past he never cared to ever look at ours and pass any criticism, positive or negative. Thus it was decided that what we needed to produce was an anti-Jon story. This would be a story of Jon's made of antimatter, such that if he ever tried to get one of his stories near us again, especially in the context of a magazine submission, we would use the anti-Jon story to destroy it.

As everyone knows, when matter comes into contact with antimatter, both annihilate, resulting in a complete absence. As everyone also knows, antimatter has the property that it is exactly the same as matter except for a reversal of time symmetry. The effective result of this is that antimatter is regular matter travelling backwards in time. Obviously.

That's when we remembered that back in the first year Jon had had a sudden problem with one of his computer's hard drives and had lost a significant amount of his writing. And we realised that he lost it because our future selves had clearly written an anti-Jon story and sent it back in time. We had not written any such thing, however, creating the condition that unless we wrote an anti-Jon story there and then a time paradox would cause the universe to explode. So we decided to write one. The effort follows.



THE ANTI-JON STORY
by Me & Sctott, featuring the Housemate Third
All idiocies, grammatical or otherwise, are intentional (we promise).


Once abom a time (theabom was made of jelly and nitrogen and cumin and fire) there was a car-crash and it was really witty. The ombomniscient narrator died of StTurf maccarony. Therefore the story is therefore narrated in the 3rd person without a narrator. The story will be as deep as a ladies garter.

Won day, there wos a pirate whose name wos Won Jon Silver. He wos friends with a Jedi named Jobi Jon-Won Jon-Bon-Jovi Kenobi. I think we need speech marks now, "said the pirate." But not like that! Get them right, for Jedi's sake! "Ok, sorry" I'll stop now. "I should say so," said the pirate to me, "and stop speaking in the first person." Ok, the non-existent narrator will stop talking in the first person. And will stop mixing tenses.

Won Jon Silver and Jobi Jon-Won Jon-Bon-Jovi Kenobi were walking in a field when they saw a beautiful girl. She was cryin'. "What's the matter?" they asked.

"My dad is Bob Marley the Evil Rainbow, and he has forbidden me from being sarcastic and witty. I hope you like cryin' too."

"We don't," said the pirate and the Jedi, and so they left.

(Un)Happiness

Today I have been thinking about what makes people unhappy.

I think the answer is insecurities.

People get unhappy when they are unsure about things. Most importantly, other people. I think any situation in which people experience a negative interaction is 99% likely to be based on a misunderstanding. After all, I guess it is impossible not to misunderstand someone to at least some extent when all we have is the slight, subjective slice out of some unknowable greater reality. That which we do perceive is cut down and coloured by our own experiences and capabilities: eyes see only the "visible" portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Furthermore, biased eyes refuse to see anything but yellow (to paraphrase a paraphrasing, very popular with one of the most influential people I know).

The other 1% of negative interactions are fuelled by previous experiences which were built on what was 99% likely to have been a misunderstanding.

Misunderstandings proliferate freely and can breed insecurities, which can breed further misunderstandings. There is probably no immediate prevention for either of them. But people would be happy if there was a cure.

Is there a cure? A way to learn to be happy? I think so. I've been trying for a long time to keep myself cured, and for the most part the cure is successful. It would be wholly successful if it was permanent but, like everyone, sometimes I get sad. I believe with practice the cure can become permanent, at which point it is also the prevention.

I think the cure is acceptance. I do not mean acceptance in a resignatory sense: one is not "doomed to fate" but one can accept and understand one's own lot along with the almost limitless possibilities for change. This is the start of being able to cherish it if it is good, or change it if it is bad. Not everyone is in acceptance, however, and these are the people prone to insecurities and misunderstandings.

It cannot be expected that other people will learn to accept. Therefore if they behave in a manner fuelled by insecurities they must be forgiven, that is, accepted. When receiving acceptance they may learn to become more accepting themselves.

I hope that one day I will become permanently accepting. When that happens I will be like Jesus or Buddha, or some shizzle like that. Then let's have a party and be happy.

Danger Danger, High Voltage

"Are you busy?" calls Tim. He comes to me. "Because if you are, feel free to tell me to bugger off. I just need your help for a minute, if you could." Indeed, I have just finished what I was working on, so I go to help him out.

Tim is a lab technician. I see him every Monday and Thursday as I work in the labs on my final year project. He cusses and talks to himself. He grins at you madly when he catches your eye. He watches BBC news on the web at lunchtime, as he munches his way through an entire shopping bag of lunchtime goodies. He is enjoyable company.

I am not sure why Tim is where he is, exactly. He left school to work as a technician for the university. Work, that is, not study, but he soon decided he did want a degree after all, and is somehow now simultaneously a technician and a student of electrical engineering who doesn't really spend time around other students. It is his job to fix the magnetism department's machines and to build random electrical toys. Toys - I don't undertand either - like a ball bearing rail gun.

Or today's aluminium-disc-jumps-skyward-for-no-readily-discernable-
reason-or-purpose thing. He is adding more capactiors to it so that the disc can jump higher.

"Right," says Tim, handing me a stick of wood. "I just need you to be here in case anything goes wrong. It's highly unlikely, but it might, so I need you to be ready with that stick." I should point out that the stick is about 1 m long, 5 cm in diameter and completely solid. "Stand back in case anything blows up. If I electrocute myself you need to beat me with this stick until I let go of the electrics."

Sometimes I really love the occupational hazards of my subject.

Resolution #1

I have no more room in my life for pens that do not work. I'll give 'em a Good Scribble, lick 'em, burn the nibs, and if they still do not work after that then they are going in the bin.

Now, if only I could convince my brain to work by threatening it with spittle and fire. After my pens and brain are working I can finally write.

Dog:

Come, let us look at dog.

One Man's Junk

I have been watching a program called "Dumped" in which a certain number of people agreed to take on an undefined ecological challenge which, laughably, many at first just assumed to involve lounging about on some tropical island. But that wouldn't be much of a challenge, now would it? Instead, they have been asked to live for three weeks on a landfill site, living off only what they salvage from the dump, a basic supply of fresh food, and hot water.

I would so much love to try out this challenge. As a child it's the sort of thing I always dreamed of. I don't mean the smell or the rats or the dust, which are just disadvantages where any situation would have its pros and cons. What I mean is the chance to live by one's wits, making big bits from little bits, scavenging with an eye shaped with ingenuity and adventure in mind. I don't mean I'd like to live in poverty either - I want a good bed to go back to at night. It's just, I was always the child making tents out of blankets and chairs, dry grass and palm fronds into cool garden lairs. There's something magical about the art of learning to use what is around you for more than what is immediately evident.

And so, the challenge attempts to transform these wasteful British brats into people aware of the cost, ecologically as well as quite literally financially, of what they simply throw away. As is the way with these things, a lot of them seem to be selfish whiners. There's a woman who is asserting her right to build abstract art sculptures, squandering resources in the process, instead of helping people to build their settlement. There's another who uses all his underpants and socks as disposables: use once, throw away. There's the bitch clique, who sit in the shade complaining of how they have been sidelined only to ignore a suggestion by another participant so they may continue to be the undervalued minority, bitching at leisure. Then there's this man:

Program Advisor: So, you've all been quite lucky so far, because you have a steady supply of hot water. We will not take that away, but I think it will be a good challenge to see if you are able to harness the power of the sun to heat your own water.

Participant: Why is that lucky?

Program Advisor: One billion people on this planet have no clean water at all.

Participant: So? That's not lucky. I live in Britain. It's a developed country, so when you live there, there are certain things you expect, like hot water. I don't see why that makes me lucky.

Program Advisor: You really are a smarmy bastard, aren't you? I wish I could slap you, except that would get this pulled off air.

Participant: You're right, I'm sorry. "If you're not part of the solution..." eh? I vow to change my ways.


I may have made up either the first or last part of that dialogue, but not both.

Phone Photos

I am preparing to get a new mobile phone, and it is only with a reluctant neccessity that I do. You see, I am very much in fear of the possibility that to get a new bells-and-whistles type means to spend time being owned rather than owning. There are many other reasons I could choke out through my spittle, declaring my waxing hatred of phones, such as friends with other friends who spend time texting yet more friends instead of just enjoying the company of those actually present, blah blah. I shall however, for my sake and yours, refrain. My brick has served me very well. It contains photos spanning five years, and the O.A.P. that it is, the only way I can get them off my phone is to text them (at the last minute and at great expense) to my email account. This means I was selective, and rescued only those that remind me of the fondest times.

Just like the time I met that rockstar (unnamed) I wasn't supposed to take a photo of, but did anyway.



Or that time I sat in the Notre Dame of tents with a good friend of mine, constructing a face out of used midnight picnic goods.



Or that time our cat jumped in a roll of my mother's unfixed pastel drawings, and we had to bath her for fear that she'd lick the pastel off her and get ill.




Or that time I painted a guy in UV paints in a car park in Bath for his band.

Beware of Skidding

Some things will never cease to piss me off.

Coconut Verde

When your Friday night has ground to a bit of a halt, what more a restorative thing can you do than to hack open a green coconut and attempt to consume the fluids it contains? Mine was from Costa Rica.

Yes, well, I'm told it makes a popular drink in coconut-rich regions, and I am always eager to experience new things. So, after about ten minutes of huffing and puffing and molestation with a bread knife, I was granted access to the centre of coconut water and sipped at it delicately. Imagine if feta cheese was actually some kind of nougat, but not so sweet and without the pink bits, and then you drank the watery bit it came in... that's what it tasted like. Or, more literally, like one part coconut milk to two parts water. Yes. It was educational for the fingers and brain too, enabling me to guess well at how coconuts grow inside their pods.

Two thirds of the length of the coconut drained, and I started to encounter a texture in the drink more akin to mucus, and decided my education would be more suited to understanding how the nut (which is not a nut) responded to impacts, and with that, dropped it from the second floor window* onto the concrete step in the garden below. When I approached it I found not so much as a single honourary dent in its stubborn hide. I hurled it with all my might at the steps, whereupon it ran, with all the indignant fervour it could manage, to the opposite side of the garden. Concealed by darkness and shrubbery, I cannot help but think it would be licking its wounds right now, had it a tongue. And so, I believe it has earned a place in the garden. I shall call it... Estonia.

In other news, I have long thought my geography of countries fairly comprehensive until today I sought to test myself with this internet quiz. While I am still a long way more enlightened than the sort who think of Africa as a country, it is quite sobering to be unable to locate dozens of proud nations, many with land mass enough to easily eclipse that of my own.

I remain rather proud, however, of my ability to name some more obscure countries (not wanting to insult my non-existent international audience, I just mean, let's say, those out of the public eye) such as:
East Timor (because part of Splinter Cell:Pandora Tomorrow takes place there)
Bolivia (because it's where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid go)
Swaziland (because I simply have no excuse not to know where it is)
Chad (because megalomania and a lack of good international policy led me to decide to bomb there when I was about six)

* - In this respect I agree utterly with Americans. To enter a house at ground level means you have just entered the first floor. How could the floor above that be the first when if you go to it, it is actually the second level you have come across?