From the Dallas City Hall blog:

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a “white hole.”

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. A black hole, according to Webster’s, is perhaps “the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape.”

Other county officials quickly interceded to break it up and get the meeting back on track. TV news cameras were rolling, after all.

How stupid do Price and Jones have to be? And you’d think that after being educated on what a black hole is (and its common colloquial use) Price would have said “Oh… okay, my bad.” Nope, instead he stands by his opposition to black holes, and also throws “devil’s food cake” and “angel food cake” under the bus. Mr. Price, sir, are an idiot!

If you visit the city hall blog post and read the comments, you’ll see the overwhelming majority of folks angry at Price for being an ignorant windbag. Of course, you’ll see a few folks inexplicably defending Price, and then you’ll see a few idiots attributing Price’s ignorance too ALL black folks – and that’s obviously a gross error, too.

Here’s a few of my favorite comments from the town hall blog:

Price needs to learn the difference between a “black hole” and a “black a-hole”…the former is a figure of speech; the latter describes jerks like him.

It’s not like they called it a nappy-headed hole. Now THAT would be outrageous.

My goodness, it seems that Mr. Price needs sum edumacation vout the compression and densifications of stellar ojcectifacations. Go back to schoo; bozo and try this time to pass 5th grade science instead of making a career avout demonizing whitey

Bwahahaha! It’s like on the first Apprentice show when Amorosa got her nose out of joint when someone used the old expression “the pot calling the kettle black” that has nothing to do with race, but with someone accusing someone of something they are also guilty of. Beauty and color are only skin deep, but stupid goes all the way to the bone.

Sounds like Commissioner Mayfield is getting blackballed. He may even be blacklisted over this! This whole affair is a bonafide black cloud over Dallas politics. You might even say they’re suffering from a common sense blackout.

No, no ,no – the politically correct term would be “hole of color”…

Wait a minute… how can anything “black” be “of color”, since black is the absence of incident photons having wavelength in the visible spectrum?! People “of color” would actually be THE OPPOSITE – people WITHOUT color… while the lighter your skin is, the more diversity of photo-wavelengths are reflecting off your pearly sheen into the darkened eyes of others.

[if you can't see any sarcasm in the previous paragraph, don't respond - just kill yourself]

Price and Jones should apologize to Mayfield, then immediately step off the council pending an upgrade in civility AND in elementary science.

So what’s the deal with these lethal peanuts? Not to sound old and cranky, but when I was growing up there was never such a thing as a so-called “peanut allergy”. No student was ever punished for bringing a PB&J sandwich to school… and surely no school kid ever got charged a felony for cookie crumbing his classmate’s stuff. Neither was any airline being sued for serving the proverbial “in-flight peanuts”. What the heck is wrong with kids today? Is something wrong with mothers’ breasts that their milk is poisoning their kids’ immune systems? Perhaps the mothers are watching too much Oprah!

Being slightly fed up with hearing about this on the news (and feeling not-so-compassionate) here’s my pictorial ode to this problem:

After further thought I noticed that there are lots of “disorders” and “conditions” – unheard of when I was young – that are lowering today’s kids on the evolutionary totem… like ADD and all kinds of autism. So what gives? Something has changed, for sure. Recently on a discussion board I read a school nurse’s personal observation:

[My] first decade of school nursing involved NO kids with food allergies. In 1998 the first child entered our school with a peanut allergy. Now, 10 years later, we have dozens of children with increasingly complex food allergies.

I agree that there is something very serious going on with the health of our children and instead of looking only at treating kids with allergies, we need to be researching the cause. 1998 is the same year we had our first autistic child, our first (ODD) oppositional defiance disorder, and all degrees of (PDD) pervasive developmental disorders. We invented a whole batch of new diagnostic names that had never existed before during the next couple of years.

There are questions I want answered: Why were these kids so different from our previous children? What happened to the kids who entered school in 1998 that was new to the human experience? What compromised and confused their little immune systems; and why were their bodies confused about healthy foods? If you take time to examine the history, you immediately notice these were the first kids who got Hepatitis B shots as newborn babies in the hospital nursery. [...]

Ya know, that’s a good point. The more people I talk to who have really delved into the “science” behind some of these vaccinations, the more I hear about how much “junk” is in that stuff. Now I’m not trying to stir up a scare… or tell you not to vaccinate your infant. But there’s a lot of coincidences… and if you talk to medical professionals (I live with one) they’ll relate lengthy anecdotal evidence for reasons to be suspicious.

Then again I got ALL my shots… and by ALL I mean the Army jacked me up with everything. EVERYTHING. Not to mention in high school I immersed my entire hand in a beaker of mercury. And look at me… I’m perfect fine still breathing.

Now that I think about it… I could sort of feel all those extra curled-up dimensions tickling my toes.

You know… if you’re gonna’ be stupid, you gotta’ be smart about it.

I love one-liners, and the poetry of this one rang true in my ears as soon as it left my lips. I quickly Googled to see if anyone had ever officially said it yet (like Yogi Berra), and to my delight they had not. So I get to have my very own one-liner… my very own Yogiism. Well done me.

The event that stimulated this burst of reason was this – I was told of a group on the website Facebook (a social networking site similar to MySpace) that was entitled “Henry Mills sucks penis” [the name has been changed]. This group was started and joined by current and former members of a local Christian school… and the object of their wrath, Mr. Mills, is a well-respected official of that same school and church. The group’s Facebook page includes disrespectful and insanely inappropriate and infantile content that I won’t share here.

Now… how nervy do you have to be to create and/or join such a group actually using your primary Facebook account with your name and picture displayed for any school official or parent to identify… and to do this while having not yet graduated from the school?! While you’re at it why don’t you just set your diploma on fire right now?! And needless to say, once the school found out about this Facebook group just a few days ago, it was quickly put out of its misery.

So upon hearing this story I exclaimed, “You know… if you’re gonna’ be stupid, you gotta’ be smart about it!” There is harmony in this statement – it’s found in the mix of bumbling wisdom and denotative paradox. But as I pondered, I discerned some “deeper” force at work here. So I put my thoughts down in the form of a socio-algebraic law:

Mooradian’s Law of Multiplicative Idiocy

As the probability of an individual or entity to engage in an idiotic action increases, the faulty cognitive processes driving this increase also propend the same individual or entity to engage in further related idiotic actions, such that the original idiocy is amplified through a mechanism of synergistic multiplication. This described propensity incites a daisy-chain of idiotic action occurring independent of (and possibly in addition to) the coincidental succession of an individual’s or entity’s natural random idiocy as expressed by a Poisson distribution.

As a previous leader of soldiers, I truly saw this law in action. Anyone who’s been in the military knows soldiers and sailors sometimes have an affinity for mayhem. And certain sailors and soldiers have perfected foolishness down to a black art. Now, it amazed me how my soldiers would sometimes commit egregious acts of idiocy, and follow it up by recording their actions in photographic or audio-visual form – thereby supplying incrimination leading to their own demise!? That’s the law of multiplicative idiocy.

Recently, on a local blog, I was conversing with an argumentative and illogical fellow. No sooner had I soundly discounted all his faulty lines of reasoning, when a mysterious second fellow appeared on the blog and echoed the first fellow’s identical illogic. Little did “either” of them know that I’m an admin for the blog… and I could see that “both” fellows were posting from the same IP address! Upon greater inspection, a third and fourth troublesome fellow on the blog were also from this same IP address! When pressed for the truth, the original fellow claimed that the other “three” fellows were indeed real people (housemates) whom he shared his home computer with. Of course, he couldn’t then explain why when I tracerouted his IP address it routed back to a single-point external gateway for a local health insurance company (as verified by their IT security staff). That’s the law of multiplicative idiocy.

How about the lady who tried to pay for her Wal-Mart merchandise with a counterfeit bill? She used a bill of such a high denomination ($1 Million) that not only did the store have no choice but to examine the bill with such scrutiny as would certainly discover the fake… but the store wouldn’t have had nearly enough cash to even make change, anyway! That’s the law of multiplicative idiocy.

The robber who empties the convenience store cash register, but then pays for a soda with his credit card before leaving. The student who vandalizes school property, then brags about it to a teacher. The man who shows up to DUI court drunk. That’s the law of multiplicative idiocy.

Again, this post could have also been called: Al Gore Finally Won Something

And even before you read any further you should think about checking out Planet Gore.

Last night at the Democratic National Conven- err… I mean at the Academy Awards, Al Gore’s well-made yet scientifically shady documentary called An Inconvenient Truth won for best documentary (or something like that). I have trouble believing a guy who parades around the world on private jets to persuade people to “use less fuel”. While I’m at it why doesn’t Rosanne Barr invite me to Old Country Buffet to pitch me a low calorie diet.

Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’? — $30,000 utility bill
ABC News

Back home in Tennessee, safely ensconced in his suburban Nashville home, Vice President Al Gore is no doubt basking in the Oscar awarded to “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary he inspired and in which he starred. But a local free-market think tank is trying to make that very home emblematic of what it deems Gore’s environmental hypocrisy.

Armed with Gore’s utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president’s 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.

[...]

Gore is not the only environmentalist associated with “An Inconvenient Truth” who has come under fire for personal habits — and not all the criticism has come from the Right.

Writing in The Atlantic Monthly in 2004, liberal writer Eric Alterman criticized producer Laurie David for her use of private Gulfstream jets. David, he wrote “reviles the owners of SUVs as terrorist enablers, yet gives herself a pass when it comes to chartering one of the most wasteful uses of fossil-based fuels imaginable.” New Republic writer Gregg Easterbrook followed up, computing that “one cross-country flight in a Gulfstream is the same, in terms of Persian-Gulf dependence and greenhouse-gas emissions, as if she drove a Hummer for an entire year.” [...]

So why is it that über-wealthy jabber-jaws can get away with such insane hypocrisy? Why can Rosie O’Donnell say that no “normal” citizen has any reason to own a gun, yet she hires personal bodyguards who carry concealed firearms to protect her? Why can the president of Virgin Airways be stroked alongside Al Gore at environmental symposiums when his industry is “supposedly” the problem? It’s because none of this is about truth… it’s about image and agenda. Surprise, surprise.

Governments in rich nations are spending billions of dollars to buy a clearer conscience over climate change. Are they getting their money’s worth?

Enlightened individuals, those who stay awake at nights wondering what they can do to prevent the polar caps from melting, at least have a growing menu of choices.

Sydney-based Easy Being Green says it will mitigate your cat’s flatulent contribution to global warming for $8. The same company could also make your granny “carbon-neutral” at $10 a year, according to a report in the Australian newspaper last weekend. [...]

~ China, India Smile as West Overpays for Climate, by Andy Mukherjee

You can’t make this stuff up. In lieu of the “findings” that a huge portion of global-warming comes from bovine flatulence, the normal pet owner can now buy credits to offset their pet’s flatulent contribution to greenhouse gases. This is more like a sick dystopic sci-fi novel than reality… but inconvenient truth is stranger than inconvenient fiction, I guess. However, I did find an article that I think deserves serious attention – The Onion reports that the temperature of coffee is expected to rise nine degrees by the end of the 21st century!

Anyways, I’ll leave you with a little inconvenient truth about Al Gore’s personal conservation efforts:

POWER: GORE MANSION USES 20X AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD; CONSUMPTION INCREASE AFTER ‘TRUTH’
Mon Feb 26 2007 17:16:14 ET
www.drudgereport.com

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee through free market policy solutions, issued a press release late Monday:

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, [20-room, eight-bathroom] located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

For Further Information, Contact:
Nicole Williams, (615) 383-6431
editor@tennesseepolicy.org

I am utterly tired of hearing about so-called man-made global warming. Why? Not because I’m in the middle of a snowstorm. Not because of any weather pattern I’ve seen in my own lifetime. More than anything… I am sick of hearing about it because I firmly believe it is exaggerated to the extreme… and when I research into the politics and money-trail of it the smell intensifies.

The hoax of the doctrine of man-made global warming that is being foisted upon the world by decree, and the junk science that is manipulated to support it, represents a creeping fascism whose agenda to stifle open debate betrays the fact that climate change hysteria is a farce intended to crush freedoms and further centralize global power.
~ Paul Joseph Watson from a post at PropagandaMatrix.com

You see, there are mountains of evidence showing our climate to be driven by very, VERY large forces outside our control as a society. The sun’s complex cycles control our climate more than anything else combined times several orders of magnitude. The research exists… but it is boring, you see, because the reality of not having control of the climate renders politicians, militant environmentalists, and grant-hungry researchers powerless and cashless. Like anything else, simply follow the money.

There is something quite horrible about the complete failure of America’s journalists to even acknowledge there might be something terribly wrong about the theory of Global Warming. So far the published science that purports to support the theory has been severely challenged and even disproved to the point of having deliberately falsified data.
~ Alan Caruba from an article in the Canada Free Press

Now I know that climatologists can reasonably discern that over the short-term temperatures give indications of a slight increase in overall global temperatures… but they also know that temperatures follow many complex cycles that include “mini”-ice-ages and “mini”-meltdowns and such. We also know that the ice caps regulate some of this activity much the same way a buffer moderates a chemical solution. And while it is evident that people have an effect on the environment it is rather alarmist to assert that the current warming trend (which appears to be solar-related) is man-made.

Yet alarmism seems to rule the day, and hysteria drives big lies. The big problem with hysteria is that it is lucrative. Lobby groups and politicians use it to gain political capital. Environmentalist wackos use it to push a social agenda. Researchers use it to scare up big grants. The mainstream media uses it to drive big advertising revenue. Plainly… hysteria sells. In fact, it sells so well that anybody daring to disagree is immediately attacked by hysteria’s cunning benefactors. I’ve too often heard the term “denier” thrown about lately with regard to man-made global warming. I hold a viewpoint highly suspect whose supporters so venomously and irrationally attack the dissenting opinions.

All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true in itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.
~ Adolf Hitler as written in Mein Kampf

A great rule of thumb to follow is to not immediately believe anything you read or hear from people who benefit from your belief in what they are printing or saying. Did you get that, because that was a biggie. Ok, I’ll repeat it louder. A great rule of thumb to follow is to not immediately believe anything you read or hear from people who benefit from your belief in what they are printing or saying. Do your homework and use extra common sense, especially when something is being touted as “potentially catastrophic”… after all, how many pieces of mail do you receive that say “extremely urgent – open immediately” only to find out that it’s junk mail? Man-made global warming… yeah, that’s probably junk mail, too.

Two New Books Confirm Global Warming is Natural; Not Caused By Human Activity
Tue Jan 30 2007 10:02:32 ET

Two powerful new books say today’s global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.

Singer and Avery note that most of the earth’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth’s last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments, and layered cave stalagmites.

Unstoppable Global Warming shows the earth’s temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings. The book cites the work of Svensmark, who says cosmic rays vary the earth’s temperatures by creating more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that cool the earth. It notes that global climate models can’t accurately register cloud effects.

The Chilling Stars relates how Svensmark’s team mimicked the chemistry of earth’s atmosphere, by putting realistic mixtures of atmospheric gases into a large reaction chamber, with ultraviolet light as a stand-in for the sun. When they turned on the UV, microscopic droplets—cloud seeds—started floating through the chamber.

“We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons [generated by cosmic rays] do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei,” says Svensmark.

The Chilling Stars documents how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun’s irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth’s temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane, and the planet warms.

Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.

~ Matt Drudge

The GreenBleach founder is Patrick Moore and his entire article is linked here.

Nuclear Engineers have known the environmental superiority of nuclear energy as a large-scale, safe and reliable source of energy for decades. Most reputable scientists and citizens with common sense have also known this for decades. So why are the greens, who are supposed to be so-called “Earth’s defenders”, the biggest opponents of nuclear energy… a curious stance which cutely and ultimately enough hurts the very dirt they worship? Simple. Personal politics.

Nuclear energy, unfortunately, is synonymous with nuclear weapons in ignorant circles (like GreenBleach)… and of course to greens nuke weapons are the phallic tools of greedy white patriarchs seeking to starve all poor children and destroy all planetary animal life. Just using the word nuclear will send many a UC Berkley graduate into an epileptic fit worthy of an Amsterdam rave. Henceforth anything sounding nuclear becomes a Republican plot to make more money, and thus… no matter how much environmental scientific evidence can overwhelmingly support it… out of political fervor most greens will oppose it. But the honest ones are starting to come around.

This phenomenon, by the way, isn’t unique to the environmental issue… you’ll see it everywhere. There are some scientists who, despite the evidence for some intelligent design in nature and the grave problems with a purely naturalistic evolution model, will oppose the idea of design simply because (and they readily admit this) they refuse to face the philosophical and moral dilemma of a designer. In the same vein many oppose intelligent design (ID) not because they believe in evolution, but because evolution fits their worldview better. If you’d prefer to do what you like without the pesky guilt trip then you embrace existentialist claptrap and fight like the devil to keep anything resembling God out of view. This includes opposing ID in schools because they want to keep “Bible-thumpers” from re-writing their school curricula (a noble fear, I must admit).

But alas, I am getting onto a topic for another time. And in reality if there were such a thing as “green conservatives” I would probably be prototypical. So, as a nuclear engineer I applaud any green who decides to put common sense, science, and… *gulp* …the environment before politics. Let us pray for his ostracized soul.

Let us look at this phenomenon on a familiar micro-scale… the video game. In Wired’s article the economics of today’s larger scale games, specifically its MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, were examined for their effect on the mental captivity of their audience… the player. It was found that scarcity, not abundance, was a key ingredient to an engaging experience. Now, while every gamer loves a challenge, why would rich and fantastical environments with limitless resources not attract everyone who’s dreamed of making Trump Tower look like a taco stand? It’s not attractive because it’s not hard… and as it turns out, hard is fun.

Economics is loosely defined as choice under scarcity. After all, in the real world, there’s only so much to go around. You can’t always get what you want, and unfulfilled desires give rise to markets. But in a game world, there’s no inherent reason for scarcity. Game designers have given us plenty of utopias where we can have all the mithril we want, to buy whatever we want whenever we want it. Problem is, those worlds turn out to be dull. For example, the developers of Active Worlds made everything in the game free. Players built enormous houses – in which there was nothing to do. The game never quite caught on. That’s why today’s newer massive synthetic worlds make life hard. It’s why we have to scheme, fight, and occasionally beg for food, shelter, transportation, and great big flaming swords.
- Geekonomics, Wired Magazine – April 06.

Take a game like World of Warcraft… when you’re not fighting bands of enemies (or following the foolhardy Leeroy Jenkins into a deathtrap) you’re fishing, leatherworking, skinning, tailoring, or any of several otherwise mundane tasks. If you want choice armor and weapons you have to earn them. If you want a sweet ride of a mount you need to pay some mad duckets. And if you want the gold you have to earn it, lawfully or otherwise. It’s not easy, but this game is growing in players and servers every day. It’s hard, but it’s fun.

So why is hard fun? I’m not much for the rambling of psychologists, but a clue may be found in the seminal work of former University of Chicago psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He has a theory called Flow.

Flow is a mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
- Flow, en.wikipedia.org

While the full concept is no doubt complex (and not without its more dubious assertions) the basic premise is simple. Activities that possess “flow” usually share a few common characteristics: clear goals, focus, loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, distorted sense of time, direct and immediate feedback, balance between ability level and challenge, sense of control, and intrinsic reward. If we look at this list we can quickly see the parallels with successful online videogames.

More than just in massive multiplayer games, there are smaller bite-size examples as well. Recently a small Flash game aptly titled Flow (created by Jenova Chen for his University of Southern California thesis project) gained notoriety when word of it quickly circulated through the blogosphere. In true Digg or Slashdot fashion Chen’s thesis website was flooded with online visitors in just a few days. Why, you ask? Is this game some gargantuan leap of Flash ActionScript technology? Nope. It’s small, simple, and patterned after Csikszentmihalyi’s principles of flow… making it unquestionably fun. There’s no record of high scores (there’s no score at all), but more than a few curious surfers found themselves engrossed in the wonderfully entertaining and aesthetically pleasing world of a small sea creature. Diving deep into the ocean to nibble little bright wisps of nutrition while out-swimming competitors was never so much fun!

Economics in games… flow in games… what’s the point? In the safety of the video game microcosm the behaviors of people reveal themselves in ways applicable to the “real” world. The same flow theory principle of ability-challenge balance that buries a fast-money-MMORPG is the principle that makes games like World of Warcraft flourish. This is, consequently, the same entrepreneurial drive that powers real-world capitalist economies over socialist or communist structures. The same lethargic undertones of the government collection of resources and subsequent reallocation can stifle the creativity and ingenuity of a people just as easily as reckless riches can kill a game. Think this is all a stretch? Think again.

This classic risk-reward model has proved itself over and over. Who would argue against the fact that the drive to excel is greatest where there is much to gain through excellence and nothing to gain through inactivity? This gain can be in the form of needed bread and water or a fleet of luxury cruise liners. If you were getting free food, would you then feel the need to grow it? Of course not… not unless your food source was going away sometime soon. If you got unlimited free healthcare would you have any incentive to stay healthy and make good choices? Of course not… we’d have a whole society of Keith Richards competing in the X-Games. If you knew your report card would be straight A’s would you study as hard? Not likely. And If you knew your concerted efforts towards a lofty career goal were sure to gain you nothing would you reassess your goals and reallocate your efforts? Of course you would…and you’d be right to. It’s all about the balance… the flow… the scarcity of resources… the risk and reward. What we demonstrate in our virtual worlds only mirrors our real instinctual behavior… and flow will engage us regardless of the venue, digital or actual.

So the next time someone asks what things would be like if everything was free, cleave them in twain with your battle axe and take their gold… because hey, if you survive you’ve earned it.

• Geekonomics, by Edward Castronova, Wired Magazine – April 2006
• Flow (psychology), en.wikipedia.org
• World of Warcraft, en.wikipedia.org
• http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/

Well, in the meantime, I love to fill my head with sundry and sometimes excruciating concepts of the physical world. Here’s a few links to some migraines waiting to happen.

John Baez (not to be confused with Joan) from the University of California at Riverside Math Department has compiled a plotted graph of all the roots of all polynomials of degree greater than or equal to 5 with integer coefficients ranging from -4 to 4. [Link here] It’s intriguing to see the patterns that the computed roots follow when graphed. There’s is definitely inherent order and even art in the mathematics involved.

More directly related to art is a blog entry I was reading on Mahndisa’s blog. She was talking about a favorite music artist that composes and records music using the Just Intonation scale. [the what?] It is an alternate scale tuning in which the notes’ frequencies are related to one another with whole integer fractions. [what?] One reason this really hasn’t been successfully used since the Middle Ages (except in modern ethereal New Age music) is because of the terribly dissonant wolf intervals it can create. [the what?] Here’s a little tutorial (with a lot of math) explaining why we have a 12-tone diatonic note set and how standard tuning (Equal Temperament) differs from just intonation. So remember, when playing very old music a G# might be different from an Ab. [huh?!]

And if your head hasn’t spun off, just read up on the uncertainty principle found in quantum mechanics. Try grasping the implications of the EPR paradox on Einstein’s theory of special relativity, especially the implications caused by quantum entanglement where information is transmitted between distant particles instantaneously (read: greater than the speed of light).

Good stuff.