Geekery

Thought piece: Too much tech?

Posted on 13. Jul, 2009 by Jake.

A young fogey of my acquaintance put down his pipe and single malt just long enough to deliver this rant:

Two inventions are responsible for the contemporary inflation of people’s sense of self-importance: the cell phone and 24 hour news.

Everyone now takes for granted that they, at all times, need to be contactable and to know what is happening everywhere in the world the moment it happens. But unless you are a trauma surgeon or the president neither of these is likely to be true.

Seriously, do you need to know the foreign minister of Uzbekistan has moved house? More to the point, do you need to know it now? And because it has to be instant, the networks focus on speed rather than reliability. Because it’s all day, the focus is on impact rather than substance.

And everyone will have at least one experience of planning to meet someone and then running out of batteries/airtime/decent signal and getting completely lost. I say ‘plan’ in the loosest sense. In the pre-mobile era, you’d give clear, precise instructions: ‘meet me at the left side of the fountain at 11.15’ for example. Today it’s more like ‘I’ll be inside in the afternoon sometime, call me when you’re there’, inevitably followed by hours of confusion and frustration.

The world, and our social and intellectual lives, would only be improved if we switched off and tuned out.

My response might surprise you: I agree.

Sort of.

Except instead of less technology, I think we need more.

Yes, the language of texting leaves plenty to be desired. But it’s a symptom of an underlying problem, not the cause.

Look at how rich and sophisticated the more advanced Twitter users have become. Creating nuance out of 140 characters takes tremendous skill; there is, after all, an art to making more out of less.

Blaming texting for the illiteracy of the youth is like blaming the sonnet for junky teenage poetry. (There is, however, no hope for the cell phone novel.)

And social networking, as well as being a medium for posting embarrassing pictures of your friends, opens new ways of speaking, often to people you might not have spoken to before.

What we’ll do with these powerful technologies is another thing altogether, but here again I think freedom of communication triumphs.

Yes, 24 hour network news overloads us with schlock and awe, and every jerk with an opinion has his own website, but the flipside is that every jerk with the opposite opinion also has a blog.

And amongst the tumult, occasionally a fresh thought emerges.

More importantly, there is now oversight – or perhaps we should call it undersight -
with bloggers taking the mainstream media to task. Lazy opinions are scrutinized, partisan columnists are called to account, facts are checked.

FiveThirtyEight was the source some of the most informative, and accurate, polling data during the recent US election, and that’s basically some guy with a head for stats and a laptop.

And shoddy science reporting wouldn’t exist if there were more people doing what Ben Goldacre does.

Yes we might have delegated just a little of our decision making to our electronic devices (don’t tell my friend about SatNav!) but that’s our fault.

Anxiety about the effect of new technologies isn’t new.

It’s what we do with it that counts.

I look forward to hearing why I’m completely wrong.

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Uri Geller – Eat your heart out!

Posted on 25. May, 2009 by Jake.

Experiment One: Static Electricity

In this experiment, we will bend water with just the power of our minds. And a nylon comb.

You will need: the aforementioned comb (and applied brain power) and a tap.

Turn the tap on so there is fairly low water flow. Run the comb through your hair repeatedly. If you don’t have hair, ask your girlfriend/nephew/suitably hairy dog.

Move the teeth of the comb (the bit that was running through your Labrador’s golden tresses) towards the water.

Watch the water bend!

Alter the conditions in various ways: adjust the flow of water, run the comb through your hair some more, maybe use a different comb. Note the changes.

The effect is, of course, the consequence of electricity generated by running the nylon through your hair and then stored, as static electricity, in the comb.

We’re used to the effects of static electricity on solid objects: sticking a balloon to your hair, for example. But there’s something surprising about seeing flowing changing course – especially as there’s nothing even touching the water.

A charged object (in this case the comb) attracts small particles (as oppositely charged particles will attract each other). In this case, the molecules in the water are attracted to comb. More precisely, what’s happening is that electrons in your hair are collected in the vinyl comb, making it negatively charged. The positive charge of the water is then attracted by the comb.
Experiment Two: Telekinesis

As in the previous experiment, turn the tap on so that there is a gentle stream of water. Picture the water curving gently. When this causes the water to move, click here, to enter professional sceptic James Randi’s ‘One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.

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Cash to burn

Posted on 20. May, 2009 by Jake.

Ask a friend (to be safe, try make it one you don’t really like) to lend you a R200 note. Any note will do, but the R200 will produce maximum impact. Now set the note on fire.

If all goes well, the cash will set alight without burning. If not, well 200 bucks is a small price to pay for expanding the sum total of human knowledge

For this experiment you will need a solution of half water and half isopropyl alcohol. If your local Woolworths has run out of isopropyl alcohol, you can use ethanol instead, which is available at most chemists. But you may need to experiment on paper first to get the mixture of ethanol and water just right.

Most importantly, you will need a large bucket of water.

Soak the note in the solution. Hold it in a scientifically approved mechanism for handling combustible materials (I’m thinking braai tongs).

Light the note.

Allow your audience to gasp in amazement and then quickly douse the flames.   

Either bask in approval or run, depending on the outcome of the experiment.

What’s happening?

Alcohol burns at a lower temperature than the paper note, while the vaporisation of the water protects the cash.

Remember, you’re playing with fire so be careful! Like this guy:

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For your iPod only

Posted on 29. Apr, 2009 by Jake.

There are many keys to James Bond’s success as a defender of liberty and an international man of mystery. The freshly pressed tuxedoes, shaken martinis and villainous females with model looks all help, but it’s the gadgets that matter most. From an Aston with changeable number plates and grenade launchers to exploding watches, Bond is the gadget man’s gadget man.

Admit it, your space pen is cool, but don’t you wish you were actually using it from space, signing for a bottle of Bollinger (your credit’s always good at the intergalactic Norman Goodfellows) to share with Holly Goodhead shortly after defeating the dastardly Hugo Drax?

But Bond – from Connery and his humble Walther PPK to Craig and his computerised defibrillator – would scarcely last five minutes in the field without Secret Service gadget guru Q.

And to be realistic, while not too many of us have the moves for a career in global espionage, I have no doubt that plenty of you would be perfect to pick out the perfect kit for an elegant counter-terror mission abroad.

It just so happens that Britain’s MI5 spy agency is looking for a real life Q. So stop tinkering with your old mp3 player, and use those skills for fun, profit and world domination.

On the other hand, the UK job market is in a bit of a squeeze right now, so you might want to check out the South African Secret Service.

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Six and Out

Posted on 23. Apr, 2009 by Jake.

I’m really excited about the IPL coming to SA. I’ve always enjoyed going to watch live cricket, especially one day games, which are more action packed. So I can’t wait to check out the 20-20 format, which is mind-bendingly full of wild shots and athleticism on the field.

Purists sometimes complain about the technology in modern cricket: third umpire appeals, radars to check the speed of the ball, and so on. Not to mention the oversized electronic scoreboards and giant TV screens.

Maybe they don’t realize how much science was involved in the first place.

This occurred to me when I was reading an interesting piece on baseball catching.

Researchers noticed that the best fielders don’t sprint to catch an aerial ball. Instead, they adjust their pace as they approach the ball, reaching the spot as the ball lands.

During a study, players were asked to remain stationary and predict where the ball would land. Even good catchers made bad predictors.  

According to one theory, fielders use the acceleration of the ball in relation to his movement as a guide to the ball’s ultimate location.

The same principle applies to catching a slog off the boundary at Newlands.

The fielder is working out the acceleration and trajectory of the ball, not guessing or relying on instinct.

This reminded me of research by sport scientist Tim Noakes of UCT about how top batsmen ‘see’ really quick pace bowling. In fact, a Brett Lee delivery moves too quickly to be tracked with the naked eye. The batsman actually calculates the trajectory of the ball the point that it hits the deck!

Of course, we’re not conscious of any of this, and even the players will be oblivious to it. But next time you hear the blazers in the Long Room criticizing the modern game, you might want to remind them that the most powerful computer in sport remains the human brain.

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