Category: Graphs & Graphics

For those who require a graphical representation of concepts.

Smell Particles

Duncan Leave a comment

Olfaction is the means by which vertebrates sense whether or not something is delicious. Before we eat any mysterious food, we usually smell it to make sure that it’s not something we won’t enjoy. Some things have an appealing smell, like flowers, but their aroma doesn’t make us want to eat them. This is an obvious trick that nature uses to get us to eat inedible things. Mastering the ability to discern which smells indicate edibility is a lifelong process of trial and error.

There are also undesirable smells, like that of decaying flesh, which discourage us from ingesting their sources. What’s interesting about smelling is that it doesn’t actually prevent disgusting things from entering our body. Think about it, how could we detect the scent of rotten meat if no part of it was in contact with us?

Some have proposed that the particles which we detect with our noses are somehow different from the ones that actually comprise the source. These imaginary devices are called smell particles, and their invention is solely meant to conceal the fact that when we smell something, tiny pieces of that thing are entering our body. To more accurately understand olfactory mechanics, think of smelling as merely tasting from a distance. This might not seem like an important revelation, but the consequences can be alarming.

The thought of flower particles wafting into our nostrils likely won’t upset anyone, but when we imagine less pleasant fragrances, like those found in outhouses or garbage dumps, the gravity of the situation takes hold. Whenever we smell a dump, whatever kind of dump, particles of excrement and refuse are going inside of us. There is no enchanted smell particle that protects us from nasally ingesting these awful things, a fact proven by the damage caused by sniffing toxic chemicals. Thankfully, many of these potentially harmful particles are caught in our nasal passages before reaching vital areas. This realization, combined with cultural condemnation, should ensure that booger-eating is eradicated.

The use of air fresheners is a popular solution to stinky situations, but while they claim to neutralize odors, they only ensure that we are inhaling the undesirable particles as well as a concoction of unnatural chemicals. One popular brand contends that its product actually eliminates odors rather than covering them up. The company recently released a line of products that are completely odorless, which they see as proof of their product’s neutralizing powers. As the commercials illustrate, these products are able to make even the most filthy, unsanitary space smell fresh and clean. But even if an air freshener could completely remove all odors from the air, it doesn’t address the cause of such smells.

Things stink because they’re dirty, and dirty things need to be cleaned. When the garbage can stinks, it’s time to empty it; when the cat litter is foul, it’s time to change it, and when our body reeks of sweat, it’s time to bathe. The problem with a rotten smell is not our ability to detect it, but that something is rotten.

The reason people don’t live in filth is not because of the smell; it’s because humans have a disdain for unclean things. Although our ideas of cleanliness may differ, most would agree that it is not good to let things rot or decay. Our sense of smell is a tool that we use to determine whether or not something is clean, which also helps to determine edibility. By using air fresheners to mask or eliminate odors, we are effectively removing our capacity to detect uncleanliness through olfaction – as much a solution as plugging our nose.

But unlike plugging our nose, air fresheners don’t prevent us from taking particles of toxic or filthy things into our bodies. Even the air fresheners that claim to eliminate odor don’t actually destroy these buoyant fragments of filth, but merely inhibit our ability to sense them. Also, aside from distorting our understanding of cleanliness, these products discourage us from obeying one of the most fundamental childhood lessons: cleaning up after ourselves.

Of course, most of us still recognize when something is dirty, for we can usually see the evidence. But perhaps one day air freshener companies will release a set of goggles that make dirt and messes invisible, thus altering our reality to a more pleasant state. After all, it seems as though we are as much concerned with the perception of cleanliness as cleanliness itself. Or, if we can’t wait for such technology, we could merely make do with something more primitive:

Be careful, little nose, what you smell.

Aged Lamb

Duncan 1 Comment

Many North Americans enjoy the taste of lamb. Maybe it tastes so good because lambs are innocent and pure – they haven’t tasted the harsh cruelties of life – or perhaps because the meat hasn’t been sitting out in a field. Whatever the case, we can’t get enough roasted lamb, rack of lamb, lamb chops, lamb shanks or lamb tacos.

Everyone knows that lamb is an acceptable choice of meat that can be found at any supermarket, but why don’t we see mutton along side it? We eat both veal and beef, but in the world of sheep only the young are fit to be devoured, as if the meat becomes garbage once the lamb has a birthday.

A lamb becomes a sheep after one year and its meat can no longer be sold as lamb, instead going by the name hogget; after two years the meat is known as mutton. Obviously the quality of the meat does not immediately disintegrate once the name changes, so there must be another reason for the rejection of this legitimate food source. The answer is found in the question, “Why don’t people eat mutton?” Would you want to eat something called mutton? The word begins with derogatory slang for a dog and makes us think of dark, stringy flesh that smacks of mud and ash. Even hogget, which is not as familiar a term, would cause the curious to cringe after simply reading the label. So what’s the solution?

From now on the meat of any sheep past the age of twelve months shall be known as aged lamb. People like aged things, like wine and cheese, so they will be innately attracted to the idea of aged lamb. It offers the perception of a more robust, chiseled flavor, catering to those of us who prefer more refined cuisine. Now in addition to wearing their hair on our bodies and using their guts for tennis rackets, we can now fill our stomachs with our puffy, bleating friends.

Stop letting sheep off the meat hook and eat aged lamb.

The Age of Space

Duncan Leave a comment

While staying up late on a weeknight watching infomercials, you may have heard the term space-age to describe the material comprising the product being pitched. This expression is used to induce a tantalizing, futuristic association with the product, inferring that this product is far ahead of its time. Of course, these claims are not to be taken literally, for we know that these products actually came from the present and not from… wait, when exactly is the Space Age?

When someone uses the term space-age, they may be referring to one of several periods in history. It could be the launch of the Soviet satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, or the first journey of a human into outer space in 1961. Maybe they’re talking about the space race during the 60’s, or the lunar landing in 1969. Whatever the case, they aren’t selling you a forty-pound microwave made from solid American steel, but maybe they should.

Cogito

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“Cogito!”

From this point forward, that’s all you’ll be hearing when someone suggests a card game. Welcome to Cogito. Cogito [ko-jee-toh] a simple yet elaborate test of raw strategy. This game uses basic strategic concepts of aggression, passivity, anticipation, repetition and unpredictability to judge who is the more intelligent person. Here’s how it works:

To play, you will need a deck of cards, more specifically, two Aces, two Kings, two Queens, two Jacks and two 2s. Each player receives one of each of the cards. It’s best to have each set made up of cards of the same suit so that the teams are more clearly identified, and so the game is prettier. Each card has a rank, and based on that rank, they defeat lower ranked cards in combat. This works in a similar way to the game of War, but there is one exception to the ranking: a 2 will beat an Ace. Unlike War, however, the cards are not played randomly, but are chosen by the player and then placed face down until both players have ended their turn. Once both players have placed the card on the table, they flip them and the outcome of that battle is revealed. Since each player has five cards, there will be five battles in every match. The game shares its single card combat with War, its strategy for aggression and preservation with Stratego, and its requirement for layered anticipation of an opponent’s decisions with Rock-Paper-Scissors.

As in war, there are good victories and bad victories. Few things are more frustrating than flipping over an Ace and seeing your opponent reveal a card under five – what a waste! In that scenario the loser is often the more satisfied player. In Cogito as well, a good victory would be one where your card defeats your opponent’s card by a narrow margin, such as an Ace beating a King. A bad victory would be having your King defeat your opponent’s 2. The goal is to win more battles than your opponent, and to do so you must avoid bad victories.

In Stratego, players must choose where to place their power pieces, such as the Marshall, and where to place their loser pieces, such as the Scout. Although charging into a bomb and being blown to pieces may technically be considered scouting, it’s doubtful that the Scout had this  in mind when he accepted the position.  Anyway, placing your more powerful pieces in aggressive locations makes them vulnerable to attack, but can also pay off big by catching your opponent off guard. In Cogito, Players may play conservatively and choose a feeler card such as a Jack or Queen first, in order to get a read on their opponent’s strategy, but they will lose the first battle to a more aggressive strategy. Conversely, a more aggressive strategy, such as playing your Ace first, could either start things off with a bad victory or even the dreaded Two-over-Ace upset.

Rock-Paper-Scissors is a completely level battleground with each weapon having an equal chance at victory and an endless supply. Because of this, Rock-Paper-Scissors relies on only one method for creating a strategy: anticipating your opponent’s strategy. If your opponent has played Rock the past two games and was just defeated by your Paper, you should switch to Rock because he might think that you think he will do Rock again and choose paper, so he chooses scissors to beat your paper but is defeated by your Rock. If he does, by chance, choose Rock a third time then you will tie, which isn’t the end of the world. Cogito uses this theory of repetition and anticipation to help produce a solid strategy that takes into account your opponents previous choices and, therefore, likely future choices. If your opponent has opened with Jack King or Queen King the past two games you can make an informed assumption that he will either stick with the ‘feeler-killer’ strategy a third time or play an Ace out of the gate to take out your Queen or King that you would use to beat his Jack or Queen. In advanced Cogito strategy, players use cautious early games to bait their opponent into a more aggressive opening and then take advantage of it.

In tournament Cogito, players can choose to lay down more than one card at a time (up to all five) in order to throw off an opponents play style. A player may open with a feeler card, such as a Jack, then place two, three or  four cards face down on their next turn. When multiple cards are played, the game still takes place one battle at a time, but there are two sets of tournament rules which have differing instructions on how to respond to a multi-card play.

The first set of rules, commonly called Business Cogito, dictate that a player may respond to a multi-card play by laying down any number of cards. So in response to a four-card play, the player may play one card at a time, observing each battle before laying down additional cards. In the second variation, often called Thai Cogito, the responding player must play the same number of cards as his opponent.

Players who frequently lay down multiple cards are not welcome in some circles, since professional players are often frustrated by multi-card plays, especially from newer players. Sometimes the best strategy to combat multi-card play is abandoning single card strategy and going all in – placing all of your cards face down on the table.

Casual Cogito rules dictate that players must engage in one of two play styles: each player must either play one card at a time or lay down all five cards at the beginning of the game. This format reduces frustration with ‘cheesy’ multi-card strategies by focusing on the fundamental strategies of Cogito instead of optimizing player’s abilities to influence their opponents. When playing for money with friends or at the casino, Thai Cogito is the format of choice.

Here is an example of how an average game of Cogito might play out:

As you can see, you have won the game 3-1 with one tie. At Cogito tables in Las Vegas, players can bet on the bad-beat of Two-over-Ace or a certain number of wins or ties, similar to the side betting found in Blackjack. A 5-0 victory can pay big dividends for the casino player, but is virtually unheard of on the professional Cotigo circuit. With every card played, the options for each player become more limited and when each player has only two remaining cards the strategy is sharpened to pinpoint precision.

Try Cogito. You won’t like your friends as much afterward.

Click here to download Cogito for PC.

Click here to download Cogito for Android.

Comment Criterion

Duncan Leave a comment

“But it’s true!”

You’ve certainly heard this defense shortly following a blunt, discourteous or obscene comment. Most of us have a compass inside of us that tells us which comments are acceptable and which ones are not. Though we may have never noticed this compass, it is certainly there, ensuring that our feet remain far from our mouths.

There are members of society who seem to function without this important subconscious device. It’s possible that by some unseen force, genetic or otherwise, they are not equipped with this feature, or perhaps they simply disregard its direction. When a thought manifests in the brain of these unfortunate folk, there is no system of testing through which it must pass in order to exit through the mouth. Example: “Oh my gosh, Melanie, your eyebrows are so bushy!”

You know a person like this, and you can’t understand why they are unable to imagine how others will feel when they speak. Since these people can’t seem to tap into their comment compass, here is a chart to guide them:

This three-dimensional choice matrix illustrates possible conditions when making a comment, indicating whether or not it’s appropriate to proceed. The first dimension (x) represents the attribute being defined in the comment, which could either be positive or negative in nature. A positive attribute would be one that most would consider desirable, such as beauty or skill. The second dimension (y) indicates whether or not the statement is true. The third and final dimension (z) describes the gender of the target of the comment. Although the chart’s accuracy varies depending on cultural convention and expectation, this is undoubtedly an important component.

So according to the chart, telling a girl that she isn’t ugly is not a good idea, even if she’s beautiful, and calling anyone heavy when they are, in fact, overweight is unwise. Pretty simple, huh? Even for us normies, this is probably a good refresher, as our compasses have been known to malfunction now and again.

Now just print this out and keep it in your wallet, or better yet, have T-shirt made up.

Hose & Bucket

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If someone asked you to fill a bucket with water from a tap, your options for doing this are very limited. You must simply rest the bucket under the tap and allow the water flow into the bucket. But if someone asked you to fill a bucket with water from a hose, how would you do it? Basically, you have two options:

  1. Hold the hose above the bucket, allowing the water to fall a short distance into the bucket. This method can produce splash-back and there is potential for the water to miss the bucket entirely.
  2. Put the hose in the bucket. This method requires less effort, is less messy and does not require you to aim. Since the hose is inside the bucket there is almost no chance that the water will not land in the bucket. Also, since the water is not falling as far, there is little or no splash-back.

So the question is which is the better method for filling the bucket?

The correct answer is that everyone should sit down when they pee. Just because guys have a hose does not mean that the bucket should be filled any differently.

Another consequence of standing while peeing is additional noise. This method is much more audible than sitting and most of us would rather not hear that sound.

Standing also instigates the battle over toilet seat position, which has driven many relationships to ruin.

Just in case it’s not clear, here’s a comparison:

Come on, guys. Put the hose in the bucket.

Caught

Duncan 1 Comment

Humans are rational creatures that behave irrationally. We do many things that make absolutely no sense, and some of these things can even hurt ourselves and others. A great example of this is the common motorist’s compulsion to exceed the speed limit. We all do it, but why?

It could be a behavioral remnant from our ancestors to keep at the front of the herd to avoid being picked off by predators. It may also be that a cost-benefit analysis determines that the benefit of getting to our destination more quickly outweighs the cost of a potential fine or collision.

Some people say that increased punishment doesn’t discourage crime, since someone planning to rob a bank wouldn’t reconsider if they were to learn of an increase in the minimum sentence for armed robbery. This is because the cost-benefit analysis is usually skewed by emotion or simply doesn’t take place at all. Another example is that people play the lottery.

Increased punishment doesn’t discourage crime, but a serious lack of punishment, or enforcement, can encourage crime. For if the punishment for robbing a bank was a $200.00 fine, or there was only a 1% chance of being caught, it is likely that we would all reach for our sack with a dollar sign on it.

We can see here that the knowledge of likely and significant punishment does discourage certain behavior, to a degree. If, however, we were to graph deterrence and enforcement, the graph would be much more linear. This is because the threat of punishment is empty without enforcement. Likewise, enforcement is meaningless if the punishment is not significant enough to cause offenders to reassess their strategy.

The punishment for speeding is fairly well-suited to the seriousness of the offence, so an increased in punishment likely wouldn’t convince motorists to slow down. The failure is likely in the extreme lack of dispensation of punishment.

It’s true that police are constantly on the road enforcing traffic laws, but how often do speeders get a ticket? What is the ratio of our infractions to tickets received? Though the exact statistics are unknown, it’s likely that each of us breaks traffic laws dozens, if not hundreds of times for each time we’re caught. The solution? Self-policing.

Since police can only catch a fraction of infractions, it only makes sense to allow drivers to collectively dispense punishment on one another. Every person with a valid driver’s license could report other drivers for their infractions and, based on those reports, tickets could be issued. The system would be computerized, online and fully automated, allowing whistleblowers to upload data from their personal computer or mobile device.

The jerk in a big truck who zips past you in a school zone? Reported.

What about the grandma driving into oncoming traffic with her high beams on? Reported.

That guy who keeps reporting you? Reported.

Obviously, there are some difficult details to work out, but once in place this system would increase revenue from traffic fines, clamp down on rampant speeding and free up the police force to tackle more serious matters.

If you don’t like this idea, it means you’re a big smelly speeder.

The Loxley

Duncan Leave a comment

Ever heard of The Loxley?

If not, don’t fret. It’s no big deal, just the latest fad sweeping my bedroom.

In your travels you may have seen the occasional person sporting what is known as a tuque. These devices are often used to preserve heat inside the cranium, thus warming the brain. They also serve to identify with certain social groups. As a general rule, the tighter the tuque, the more angsty the group.

If you’re stuck somewhere on this graph, The Loxley can help you. The Loxley is merely an alternative way of wearing a tuque, inspired by a type of felt hat made famous by Robin Hood.

Above is a horrible drawing of a typical Robin Hood hat.

…It’s a feather.

So if we take the concept of Robin’s cap and apply it to a tuque, we get:

There are many claims that when people morph their tuque into The Loxley they feel more confident, more intelligent and more like a 15th century English thief. There are even rumors that The Loxley strengthens the immune system and improves sexual performance. Try it, you won’t regret it.

The Loxley – it’s gonna be big.