Physics Geeks need only apply

The noise of the day is discarded for this evenings entertainment. Tonight , perhaps, something of a change. A play of words, no less, to entertain the weary traveller from a far. A beam of encoded electrons and light particles encircle the globe. Guided on their path by a myriad of exotic devices. Dance through the atmosphere, dive under the sea and traverse vast continents. Quantum in nature, relativity considered. Where ever you are it is very very far.

These thoughts transmitted thus will not bring enlightenment unless, of course, the perceiver is agile. But it is not my duty to cast disparaging remarks upon my witness so read on and find what you find. Will alone will convey reward and a due amount of perseverance will help.

So onto this tale with no meaning or track. It started way back at tick zero and has grown bit by bit till now but definitely without linearity. A googolplex of possibilities positioned and searched. The solution has been found with lowest immediate potential and very arthrotropic in nature.

The law converged with no villain in site but many have since emerged, but not the Amoral. Arrogance abounds in we the observer but why else would the answer be just so? Computing in qubits or is it measuring in cubits? Emergent characters us all. Existing for now in a frame made of time with space. Lumpy bumps exist and that’s for sure. Zero point, cosmologically constant at a all time high but still with room to expand faster. Infinite predictions, please ignore our ignorance, just cancel that out.

But back to the computer running a complier, coded by monkeys, in a space-time like armour. Each random jibber discarded. Each gem of run to the end. Beauty and symmetry but not the weak, just a little, and the correct amount of right hand tweak.

Now all this leads somewhere, please be patent. It’s just where it was that is at issue. Small scale vector representing truth wildly swings not settling on agreeable things. Simple and concise this story should be but a hundred actors with no logic confounds me. I feel the truth I see the light it is just the formulation we can’t get right.

Simple and concise the answer will come. It will fit on a page, or better a line and I am betting my soul it wont say “God was here”.

Hot in the city

I work in the CBD of the greater metropolitan area of my city. Me and a million others wake, brush out teeth and set of for the morning traffic jam. Lunchtime in the city streets are awash with people scurrying around. As night falls the we retreat back to the burbs leaving the underlying inhabitants to their various nocturnal activities. Twilight marks a changing of the guards. The anomalous people come out. I guess they are there during the day but the cacophony of humanity anonymizes even the most determined display. A thousand to hold the fort till dawn.

At night you will also find congregations of young suburbanites in the city, future suits, all grouped together securely in the pubs and clubs to perform ancient mating rituals in hopes of attracting a partner to fulfil the suburban dream. They seldom interact with the true inhabitants of the city and will actively avoid them. When they do make contact it is often to procure some illicit substance, activity or sometimes to become prey.

A few suburbanites will make the transition and a few will give the produce of their suburban dream to the city dwellers. The city will take them all. If they are strong they might survive. A lifestyle not for the faint hearted and almost purpose built for the ill prepared.

More primal and immediate than a suburban retreat and much less up front effort.

I have junk therefore I am

Sometimes it is hard to let go. My darling is often after me to get rid of junk. Junk that I know is of no real use but it is mine. Some bit of software from 1989 that just might come in handy, to bad I haven’t got a machine that will run 5 ¼ “ floppies. Marbles that I won or bought or traded when I was 10! Lecture notes from university (and the text books). All this stuff and more. Stuff that is of little real value.

Boxes of paper backs that I might one day read (and I still can’t find my copy of I Robot). Mind you, my son is an avid reader; he might like them sometime in the next 10 or 20 years. Books and books. Well I am not so bad with them now. I tend to recycle them through the second hand book shop but I still keep the ones I loved. I even parted with my collection of Scientific Americans (hmm, that title is starting to sound like an oxymoron).

I have a pile of tools, 12 different sorts of hammers, a bunch of measuring and levelling instruments, dozens of screwdrivers. Actually I will stop there, tools are different. It is handy being able to use the right tool for a job and there aren’t too many that don’t get used over the course of the years. Ditto for my CDs.

And there is a whole ensemble of other things that don’t fit into regular categories that don’t get touched from year to year.

The thing is I like my stuff. Each item contains some memory. Some bit of me. My history. When it is time to do a clean out I often pick an object and reflect on the time and place it belongs then put it back. Sometimes I can get ruthless but that is rare (or I have lost the connection with the item). I guess when I am dead and gone most of it will just be junk but while I am alive it is part me. Mine I tell you!

I must admit that I have some of my fathers junk. Seemingly useless things. Thing that shared an experience with him and me. I know they are inanimate but they are more that what they are. The photographs I have of him don’t hold the same quality; the ability to bring me back to a place and time in his living years. A time when he was my father.

My junk is precious, but only to me.

I’m listening

I have/did have poor eyesight but it wasn’t diagnosed until I was about 8 or 9. So until that age, while my peers were learning all about facial nuances, I would only pick up on gross clues. This made me tune into vocalised intonation more closely. I have retained this heightened awareness of words and tone rather than the overall delivery.

While the experts pontificate that a large percentage of verbal communication is non-verbal I tend to miss the non-verbal clues. It is a weakness that I am aware of but it is also an extra layer of insulation for my delicate nature.

When I listen to music I can’t ignore the vocals. The lyrics and delivery of them dominate my listening. Songs that my musician friends would ignore I may love. Pink Floyd’s, The Great Gig In The Sky, from dark side of the moon is not a good example (great musically and vocal performance) but if you know the song you will get my point. For me the female vocalist delivers perfect meaning and a story using two words repeatedly; ooh and ah. It moves me deeply. Another example might be two versions of the same song, say flame trees by Cold Chisel – fair , flame trees by Sarah Blasco – brilliant.

I wonder what it would have been like to have good eye sight when I was young. What differences would it have made to me. What did I miss out on before I got glasses? What did I miss out on once I had them? I know that I would have missed out on having LASIK corrective eye surgery a few years ago (and that would have been a good thing). Would I have still been a geek? If I wasn’t would I have ended up doing some crappy job?

One thing I do know is I am here now and that is fine with me.

It's a free market

I was randomly reading blogs the other day using the Next blog option, have a look in the top right corner of this page. After a few pages of autonomously generated advertising blogs (splogs?) I came across a guy whose ‘about me’ bit included the terms Right, United States and screaming capitalist. Fair enough, so I settled into my lunch hour eager to get into the head of an alien.

The first entry ‘screamed’ out at me. It was a rant about big oil ripping of the average Jo. He was so assertive that the Majors were colluding to fix the price of crude oil (and subsequently fuel) by fixing the market while the lazy regulators let them get away with it. I saw red. It was just wrong and stupid (I know I should never read politically motivated stuff generated by or for low IQ red necks). I had to vent. I know it was a waste of a lunch time but here it is, cut and pasted, so its not relay a complete waste ……


It is a free market. Entry to oil production is relatively straight forward. The entry fee is bidding on an exploration permit, hiring the seismic team, drilling a hole, then production and shipping facilities and your are in business. The risks are huge but it fits neatly on the standard risk reward curve. There are literally thousands of independent oil producers in the world. I am not sure of how big oil has or can manipulated the market. They are only taking advantage of a market condition

Maybe you don’t understand how crude oil and other energy commodities are traded. (or maybe I have got it wrong, if so please explain how the energy markets and not open and fair). The price is made by the market. Companies and traders buy and sell on marginal advantage. OPEC used to control the market but all members are currently producing well above the cartel agreed rates or at there maximum capacity – even Saudi Arabia. The majors are all producing at there maximums as well – trust me on that one.

I used to take exception at how crude was traded but that has been largely fixed in recent years. The last example of market manipulation I can think was at least 5 years ago and that was in the Singapore market (please exclude Enron – I don’t follow local politics).

All players play the futures game and this is where it has become unstuck but not for any devious reasons – you are generally buying physical crude on some margin above or below the marker (west texas or brent) at a point when you take delivery – this can be months after the trade. During this period you are exposed to fluctuations so you hedge which every way you think is prudent – at the moment the arrow is pointing up due to uncertainty (read IRAN, etc).

Big oil grabs the headlines but they actually only control 25 or 30% of all hydrocarbon production. As a rule they have overstated there reserves, as have many of the nationalised oil interests (have a look at the Shell debacle or proven reserve figures for the middle east countries year by year – notice that big rise between 1985 and 87). Big oil plays the share holder game just the same as any other listed business. At best there long term planning might stretch a few years out. They are as trapped by the short term nature of share price as any other enterprise. Sure there are fun and games lobbying to prevent legislated green house gas reduction or mandatory fuel minimum fuel efficiency but on the whole they are public companies which are easy to pull apart and have a look at.

Now you mention follow the money. Unfortunately most of the estimated $20/bbl premium on crude can be traced back to the recent actions of the US administration. As for price gouging on finished product, would it be fair to force a private company to give away product for below the cost that it can be unloaded elsewhere? I understand there was price gouging in the aftermath of Katrina by individual retailers but on the whole the Majors were subsidizing product in that region (and hopefully they will get a tax credit for this action).

I was only going to write a few lines but, well, I can’t help it. Please read more widely there are lots of sources of reliable information out there.

Work

Here is an interesting happening in my working life. I am currently sitting in the offices of a company that I did some work for a couple of years ago. I noticed a poster on the wall for one of the projects I had worked on. It was one of those ‘look at what a great job our team did’ type things. I felt a little annoyed that the company I was with at the time didn’t rate a mention. This is quite amazing for me given that we ran the job from concept through detailed design and procurement. We co-ordinated the civil, structural and piping contractors on behalf of the client as well as performing the E/I, control, process and mechanical engineering.

I ran the E/I and controls for the whole job took up the process engineering components for the latter half of the project. Basically six months of my working life.

This isn’t the first time this has happened and I guess it wont be the last. Just a cog hidden behind the clock face. Sometimes I whish I worked for one of those clock where you can see the cogs.

Glamour Gran

Speaking to a few more people around the suburb on the subject of local curiosities revealed yet more local anomalies. The two who caught my attention were Glamour Gran and Carrot Bum. While the Carrot guy is fairly self explanatory you really need a video of my friend doing the walk to appreciate carrot bums style. Glamour Gran, on the other hand, deserves a bit more detail.

You see she wears the latest ‘80s styles and rides a bike, although this is in dispute by my two eye witnesses. My partner has only ever seen her riding on the bike and my friend has only seen her pushing the bike (he lives near the top of one of those long bike killing hills). One thing that was agreed on was that she has stunning legs. Now I can’t vouch for this myself but from a distance this lady (who may or may not be riding a bike) is worthy of a second stare. Nice legs, shapely figure and all the ingredients that catch a male’s eye.

The illusion starts falling apart as she gets closer all dressed up in her Olivia ala physical outfit. Somewhat like a scene from one of those movies, where the beautiful youthful character transforms, her age becomes apparent. She is old. Not just a bit old but old old, at least 80! Her overly made face is deeply lined and there is just too much extraneous sun leatheried skin hanging below her arms. Well I guess she must be fit (and she knows it).

Snow White and Ruby Red

On a similar subject there was a pair of ladies that used to catch the bus a lot from the suburb where I grew up too the local town centre. I used to catch the same bus quite often myself to get to school or into town. They were known by every ones as Ruby Red and Snow White, an elderly mother and daughter combo. They were legendary, not for there exploits but for their appearance. Always seen together, both shortish, both overweight and both with very bad make up skills. I can remember some older ladies laughing while discussing the pair.

Remember this was in the days well before the Goth thing and even predates punk. Snow white would use the whitest foundation (or what ever) with blue eye shadow and red lippy. Ruby red didn’t go with the white but preferred a red circle of rouge on each cheek. And the red lippy ( I can’t recall the eyes). I would best describe the over all effect as one degree away from Clown.

There were constant and consistent. Every one new of them but not about them, no one, that is, except the intellectually challenged person that used to live next door to me. As he got older (he was a few years older than me) he eventually got a job in one of those non-profit places that recycle clothes to rags, put letters in envelopes and other simple repetitive tasks. One day he told me he worked with Snow and that her mum took her to work every day.

To Dance the Suburban Surrender

Suburbia is a strange and challenging environment with many ecological niches. The one of interest today is the local anomaly. That person who appears regularly on the street scape of ever suburb across the world. That person whose presents can not be ignored, not because of lairy or loud behaviour, but by a more intangible uniqueness.

Weirdo is too strong a term. These people, who are mostly harmless, only make their presents felt by there constant odd) and consistent appearance. I am not talking about the local who has decided to get fit and dons the Nikes or the old couple who walk the dog every day (although they can make the transition) or even the pretty young lady who walks past every day to the bus stop. Most I suspect are the victims of some aliment (physical or mental) and should not be the subject of any derision.

I am referring to those individuals who, like clockwork, make there way down the street at a given time each day. But they are more than that. They usually have some mark that makes them individuals, some characteristic that makes them stand out in the foot traffic. They are persistent, not a flash in the pan and every one in the street knows them.

Slow boy

At my current address there is this tall thin young man who walks by very slowly and deliberately with his head bowed. Every evening at about 5:30 he makes his progress along the verges on my side of the street. There is a foot path on the other side but for some reason he treks the verges. I first noticed his solemn trudge while he was still at school or university when the walk past was a bit earlier. Now his walk often coincides with my arrival home. I see him at various stages of his progress down the street. All ways the same gate, always the same beaten pose.

Over the years I have smiled and waved to him but I suspect his internal conversation hold his attention. I know where he lives and even a little about him. His house is close enough to mine that the ebb and flow of gossip along the street brings the occasional bits of information. I was not remotely surprised to learn he lives with an aunt and works in IT. I guess I would have preferred he remained just an anomalous figure in the street. The aesthetic of his street art was spoiled by too much information.

Skeletal Lady

In the last street I lived the human land mark was ‘Skeletal Lady’. Again a slow walker but this time more delicate and shuffling than a trudge. She always carried a bag, I think it was one of those woven grass types, and wore a floppy oversized hat. She was painfully thin. Most times she wore long sleeves but on occasion she would be wearing something more revealing. The degree of her emaciation would rival anything you have seen on those German concentration camp films from WW2.

Her progress down the street was always slow and her age was indeterminable, somewhere between 30 and 60, but very old for her age. As with slow boy, and most people I see regularly in the street, I smile or gesture. One time when I was working at the front of the house, she walked past, I smiled and gestured. She stopped and spoke with me for a while. The spell was broken, mystery revealed and she was a person.

Bent Lady

One of my friends who lives a few blocks away has never heard of, or seen, Slow Boy but he has Bent Lady. A slow moving elderly woman who drags one of those old two wheel shopping bags in her wake. He dubbed her bent lady for obvious reasons and with great detail explained the angle of her spine and the painful slowness of her shuffle. He was amazed that I had never seen her. He assured me she is just as much a part of his street as Slow Boy is, or Skeleton Lady was, of mine.

His spell was also broken. One day he saw Bent Lady out of his front window in obvious distress. It had started raining and she was stalled. His caring nature took over and he was out the door to her aid. He asked her if she needed a lift, and in very poor English she accepted his kind offer. After some effort she was in the car and they were of. He asked her address but her command of English was not up to delivering the directions.

And so after much hand gesturing and a few runs up and down the local secondary highway she was delivered home. He told me of the poor state of her house and that she offered him a cup of tea, which he accepted. It turns out she had lived in the same house for 30 or 40 years. Her children were all busy elsewhere and she had no one to take care of her in these final years. All of a sudden the living land mark became a human, a person in need, no mystery remained.

I love these people. Their slow and deliberate progress (or lack of it) marking the time of day by their appearance. I believe if I could transport myself 50 years into the future there would be a tall, thin slow moving old man walking past my place at 5:30. They are part of the greater thing of suburbia. But, like so much in life, the spell can be broken by too much knowledge. Celebrate these suburban celebrities but don’t ask too many questions. It will spoil the performance.

May be, perhaps, if you are so afflicted you to might find a never ending groove and succumb to the long slow dance of the suburban surrender.

Feed the world.

So we have 416,000,000 people with no money, no future to plan for, who will die young and don’ have a lot to do with their time. Is there a problem with this picture? Isn’t it obvious people with out much to live for are going to be just a little pissed (assuming they can think about anything apart from where the next meal is coming from)?

Of course they are going to be easily lead. They have no or little education and chances are superstition already rules their life. They are going to be angry. They are going to believe anyone who promised a better future – even if the delivery date is after they die. Generating hatred of the West and the US in particular easy in that environment.

Now imagine if the billion dollars a day that is being spent occupying Iraq was distributed amongst the poorest fifth of the worlds population. Imagine if it was ‘no strings attached’ – Give me your name and I will give you a dollar a day. Spend it on what ever you want. A daily gift from friends in the West spread out so thin that big time corruption would be difficult.

Imagine the impact of this influx of cash to these countries. Money circulates – it buys things. Sometimes it buys things that can create more wealth or provide education or health. Sometimes it buys misery and death in the form of weapons. Select individuals from these countries will become much richer. Good, hopefully they would spend their money on local goods and services before buying imports.

I guess it would all fall apart for dictatorships, left or right, where the poorest of the poor live. I can’t see any obvious solution for those places.

I Think Therfore I Write

I like thinking thoughts and writing is the best way to find out if what you are thinking is crap. The premise is that if I can express it in a logical way then it is a good thought.

I find it is easy to convince myself of something without considering all the holes in the idea. It is called the Dopeler effect; the faster you come up with an idea the more likely it is wrong. Expressing something in words forces you to put the hand break on and fill in the detail. If you can’t put together a cohesive argument in text give it up, even better, sometimes you find a greater truth along the way.

As I write this I am thinking of a thousand ways in which my original point is wrong but this only convinces me that the thought was correct. Strange, I don’t think I have ever used a circular negative to prove a point before. Interesting…….

Statistics

Last years UN Human Development Report quoted that the worlds richest 500 people have a combined annual income equivalent to the poorest 416 million! Think about that for a while. A group of people who would struggle to fill the lobby of a six star hotel have same income as 416,000,000 people, whole countries full!

Excuse all the exclamation marks but this is remarkable. This stat forced me to do a bit of research on income distribution. A fifth of the worlds population survive on less that US$1 a day. 40% of the worlds population divide 5% of the income between them while the richest 10% have 54% of the cake. One fifth of the worlds population wouldn’t think twice about spending $2 on a cappuccino. One fifth of the world goes hungry on a regular basis, and not for reasons of weight loss.

Here is an exercise. Add up your family income, divide by the number of people in your family, divide by 365 and convert to US$. Think about supporting that many people on your income.

I know inequality is natural but may be it is just a tad too unequal at the moment.

Feed the world.

The End

Phil Morris had done it all twice. He was old and jaded. All his life experiences boiled down to one certain fact. People are assholes, and he didn’t exclude himself from the pack. He sat in his comfortable chair cleaning his gun. His most prized and reliable friend. The days newspapers carefully arranged to one side. His various gun maintenance paraphernalia, three spare clips and a box of ammo laid out just so.

He looked across at the front page of the top most paper and there he was staring back. Beside the less than flattering half page image of himself there was a small image of the now familiar blast ‘that shook the world’. He had been exposed. His life of service ended. A routine mater, a small piece of propaganda gone horribly wrong that had spun until all the fingers pointed his way.

The spineless agent who had spilled his guts in supposed revulsion of his mandated act. Such a simple task so badly done. The paper trail found Phil. Phil the hero, our man Phil, Phil the dill. He wouldn’t let the side down.

And so he assembled the weapon, loaded the clip, placed the barrel in his mouth and fired himself.

No one mourned Phil but a few were very relieved.

Dumb Luck

Terri Ali sat in the yellow minivan with one of his countries enemy by his side. Trying for all the world to look like a bored workers. The setting sun blasting heat into the cabin. His mission delivered, planned and executed within the past last week. It seemed such a waste, he was progressing in his original objective, only a few more months. Well orders are orders. He regretted his brag to the designated contact. Obviously they paid attention and maybe knew more than he did.

They were parked just a few hundred meters from the target. The plan was simple. Spot the mark, drive into the lobby and BLAM. Of course he was to get out before the action started. The very carefully constructed IED sat between them wedged into 500kg of mixed fertiliser and diesel in the back. He new they would not be stopped at any of the three road blocks they had crossed to get this far.

He went through the instructions again. “Drive up, you must be in first, keep moving. Hit the switch when the front wheels are on the concourse”. Mohamed was in a distant place and appeared not to listen. “repeat the instruction”. Mohamed acted out driving, down shifting to first and then actually hit the switch. “Fuck!”, Terri blurted in english, grabbing at the device, fumbled, regained his grip and flung it out of his window. Blam, 2 kg of high explosive detonated on the verge beside the van.

Terri regained consciousness with the barrels of three guns and one camera in his face.

Ambition

Fortune was with Ishmal. From humble beginnings in the East side of London he had worked his way from dirt poor to corporate high flier. All that met him new he was special. Sharp, good looking and just a great person to be around. He brought out the best in people and was respected for his business acumen. He had focused on work until his 40th year when he met Sylvia on a business trip to Jordan. The romance was brief and torrid in the best Hollywood tradition, long nights in the desert, trips to exotic locations, you get the picture.

He knew he was in love and that she loved him and so they declared their never ending partnership. Ishmal didn’t have any living relatives he knew about and Sylvia’s folks would never condone a marriage to an infidel, even a rich one. The arrangement worked and Sylvia became pregnant. At about this time he was offered the leadership of his companies Middle East operations. He could not refuse. The position was just two steps away from his goal.

Sylvia hated the country. It was evil, mean and just stupid but she had the new child and for four years she spent her time caring for the boy, watching satellite TV and accompanying her husband on the frequent trips back to head office (which she loved) and to the various despotic countries within her loves domain (which she hated but tolerated for her lover). She always made a point to dress as closely as possible to the local women, particularly the fashionable ones, and so she had accumulated a somewhat exotic if not eclectic wardrobe.

They were running late. The local team had arranged a special dinner for the regional boss and his lovely family. They pushed through the hotel doors into the ridiculous heat of the city street, Sylvia literally dragging little Rami behind. Ishmal noted the rather hot and bored looking camera man looking at him quizzically and paid no more attention. They were nearly an hour late already.

As they headed down the street to Ishmal caught a flash out of the corner of his eye.

Good fortune

Sam Turner sat at a stylish café sipping his espresso carefully while surveying the other customers and the equally stylish pedestrains. This was the high life. He had spent the better part of his career in “shit holes” and now the years of crap and horror had paid of nicely. He reflected on the “anonymous” tip that had lead to his fortune. “Be at the Rehas in an hour… and wait”. And so with out much anticipation he waited, as he had done a million times before, for something to happen.

He stood on the hot street, camera ready, he saw familiar face. Not a person he knew personally but a face he had memorised for this tour. The man walked by with a woman in tow. She, in turn, was pulling a reluctant child behind her. The man wore a smartish western style suit, the woman, the local garb. He decided to give his camera a test run, the auto aperture had been playing up lately, he should have had it fixed weeks ago.

Manually pulling focus while in tight zoom on the back of the mans head and then gently widening shot. The exposure control was working perfectly. BLAM. His professional instincts took over, hold steady, wait for the dust and debris to dissipate, look (good I am not hurt). It was a messy explosion. His attention was drawn to the shape of the child sitting on the road side many meters from the initial blast, lower left field but still in shot. He zoomed in as the boy fell to the road.

Syndicated on fifty networks across the globe, Single frames on hundreds of front pages. His agent had done magic. Two weeks later and he was a rich (relatively) and independent (most definitely) man. The accolades were nice but the cash was much much better.