6 Mar 2012 - Credit card sized computer

Today I was reading The Age online and I discovered an article about a computer that had been invented that was the size of a credit card, and cost only thirty-five American dollars! The Raspberry Pi is the name of the computer, and it sold out it's first ten thousand stock in just minutes from when it was made available. I thought the idea of this computer was amazing because I had learnt at university about Moore's Law of computers, which states that a computer chips density will double every 18 months, but I never really imagined that we could have a computer that small. If you think about it, the Raspberry Pi is currently the size of a credit card, and although it is a little slow, in roughly 18 months time, according to Moore's Law, it will be twice as fast as it is now, so eventually we could be looking at our household computers being as powerful as they are now, but only the size of a credit card. This got me to thinking, what use would I have for a computer that is the size of a credit card? I have enough trouble keeping track of my phone, I don't really need a computer that I could easily lose around the house!

As I read further down the article I realised that the purpose of the computer was not for me to be able to eventually downsize my computer at home, it was actually designed to make it affordable for children who might be interested in computer coding who might not able to afford to buy one. The Raspberry Pi is easy to program, cheap enough that anyone could afford to buy one and small enough to fit inside a backpack. The Raspberry Pi Foundation, who invented the credit card sized computer, states that they are "about teaching kids to program, not making a computer," and are now looking to launch their product into schools. I believe however, that as with the Ouija board (see post 4 Mar 2012), that this product may become more famous for a different purpose than that which the creators intended.

The original article was on The Age website.

5 Mar 2012 - Children unaware of origins of food

Today I read an article on The Age website about Australian children's knowledge of the origins of food and other materials. It turns out that 75 per cent of year six students and over 40 per cent of year ten students believe that cotton is derived from animals. Also 27 per cent of year six students and 13 per cent of year ten students think that yoghurt comes from plants. The article presented these facts as a problem and stated that it was the agricultural industry's task to fix this problem. I admit that I was concerned that the next generation was lacking fundamental knowledge, but then I thought about why I was concerned and I realised it wasn't actually that this fact concerned me, it was the way the facts were presented in the article and the tone of the article that incited my concern.

When I actually thought about it, I couldn't remember how old I was when I learnt about the origins of yoghurt or cotton. The more I thought about, the more I couldn't decide whether these facts were really even a problem. Is 13 per cent of people in Australia not knowing about the origins of yoghurt by the age of about 16 really an issue? Some people are just not that interested in the origin of things, and I will say what everyone is thinking, not everyone is that bright! It is also fun to have a good laugh with your friends later in life when you realise that you didn't learn something in school, that everyone else learnt. An example is that I recently found out that a friend of mine didn't know that the term 'kilometres per hour' actually meant, how many kilometres you will travel in an hour, so didn't know how to guess how long it would take to get to a destination based on the approximate speed of the car, and the distance remaining to the destination. Me and another friend of mine had a great laugh when we learnt this about our mutual friend. I think this highlights that these figures are not really a problem because if everybody knows everything about the origins of food and other facts by the time they leave school, then people are going to be deprived of laughter and simply put, nobody wants to live in a world where you can't laugh at the lack of knowledge of others!

The article was on The Age website.

4 Mar 2012 - The Ouija board is only a board game

I was again watching QI and the fact that is discovered tonight is about the Ouija board. If you are unfamiliar with the Ouija board, it is a board covered with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers zero to nine and the words yes, no, hello and goodbye. I have only ever seen this board used in conjunction with a seance or something supernatural, where sombody is trying to communicate with the spirit world. However the Ouija board is just a board game, which was released in 1890 by Hasbro, who also owns games such as Monopoly, Cluedo and The Game of Life and was never intended to be used as a seance tool. The game's original premise was that you would learn things by asking questions of yourself. To do this you would place your fingers on a small heart shaped piece of wood, called a planchette, and concentrate. The planchette would move around the board and answer the questions posed to yourself. It was expected, as with most board games, that you would have fun playing and not take the game too seriously. Somewhere along the line, around  World War I, the paranormal community adopted the Ouija board as a means of communicating with the spirit world and thus changed the perception of the board's purpose. In essence a game that was supposed to be harmless fun was actually made more famous as a tool of the occult.

I find it funny how products can be created for one purpose, however the intended purpose is often not what makes the product famous. One example that comes to mind is elastic (rubber) bands, or, as they are often referred to in Australia, lacka bands. These bands were originally invented so that kids in school could flick them across the room at each other, which would cause the recipient of a direct hit to feel a sting. However now they are used in offices across the world to hold stacks of paper together or to keep a scroll from unravelling and many other uses. At least that is how I think the sequence of events happened, maybe it was the other way around. In any event, when you think about it, you would be surprised how often a product that is invented for a specific purpose can find more widespread use fulfilling another role.

3 Mar 2012 - Ponce de Leon

Today I was reading my book '365', which has a different historical fact for each day of the year. Today's fact intrigued me as it was about the Fountain of Youth and Ponce de Leon. I had heard the name before but had never really known who he was, so I was intrigued to know more. Ponce de Leon was a Spanish explorer in the 1500s, he became the governor of modern day Puerto Rico, and whilst he was there he heard about the legendary Fountain of Youth. On the 3rd of March 1513, Ponce de Leon, and his band of explorers, set sail in search of this fabled fountain. Apparently his information lead him to the area which he named 'Pascua Florida' which is how modern day Florida in the United States got it's name. Unfortunately he never found the Fountain of Youth because whilst searching Florida in 1521, a number of years after he set off on his quest, he was killed by an arrow when his exploring party was attacked. Not a happy ending for a man who was looking to live a long life using the waters of the Fountain of Youth!

I found this story interesting, mainly because Florida is now known as the place where many Americans go to retire. I wonder if maybe it is every American's dream to live forever, and they set aside the later part of their life to go searching for the Fountain of Youth. I have been told that when people retire they need to replace work with some sort of hobby, otherwise they get bored. I think searching for the Fountain of Youth is a great hobby. In light of this new information about the Fountain of Youth, it really makes sense that so many retirees head to Florida, because they are obliviously continuing the quest that Ponce de Leon started so many years ago.

2 Mar 2012 - A Venetian Gondola must be black

This evening I was watching QI again and I discovered that there was a decree passed the stated that all gondole (plural of gondola) in Venice must be black in colour. I was intrigued by this fact and I wanted to know more, such as why? I Googled, as I am want to do, and discovered a website called Life in Italy. On this site there was an article about the Gondola. It turns out that in 1562, the Doge (chief magistrate) in Venice passed a decree stipulating that 'only gondole in the service of transporting important personages could be coloured.' So the reason why the decree was passed was because important people wanted to stand out in the crowd and they wanted everyone else to travel in drab vehicles. The article I was reading went on to say that due to this decree people further developed the shape and form of their gondole in order to make them more stylish, so that the colour was no longer what made their gondola stand out in the crowd.

I thought this was quite amusing, because if you look at important people nowadays, they all choose to be driven around in black limousines and other black vehicles. The president of the United States of America, always seems to have a cavalcade of black vehicles driving him around. When you watch any awards ceremonies on television, you see people arriving in black limousines (although the level of importance of these people is debatable). It is amusing to think, that a decree was passed to ensure that all ordinary people's gondole are required to be black, in an attempt to make important people stand out, however this decree in turn actually spurred people on to spend more time designing sleeker and more beautiful designs for their gondole. It was probably the stylish designs of these black gondole which have contributed to the notion that black cars these days are more stylish. Hence why unimportant people nowadays choose to be driven to important events in black vehicles, and why important people choose to be driven to any event in a black vehicle. A book I once read stated the law of unintended consequences, for each decision you make, three consequences that you have never imagined with occur as a result. I think this relates well to this situation, because I am sure that the Doge would not have imagined at the time when he passed his colourless decree, how a modern gondola would look at a result, or that he might influence others to adopt colourless transport modes as a result.

You can read more about Gondole on the Life in Italy website.

1 Mar 2012 - Phones replace credit cards

Today as I was walking to lunch with a friend of mine, she was telling me about how she had forgotten her purse, but if she had that payment thing on her phone, it wouldn't matter. I had no idea what she was talking about, so she expanded a bit further, enough that I could understand the concept but without knowing all of the details, and the concept piqued my interest, so I decided to do a little research. I found an article from May last year on The Age website about "Google Wallet." It turns out that Google has launched, in the United States, an application for Android platform phones, that allows uses to pay for products using a MasterCard PayPass terminal. Instead of tapping your credit card on the PayPass terminal, you tap your phone! This would enable people to leave their wallets or purses at home and only take their phone out with them.

This technology is actually quite scary, we depend on our phone so much these days, for all of our contacts, appointments and directions. We use it for our entertainment, to play games and music. We also set reminders in our phones so that we remember to complete tasks. Not to mention the fact that we carry them around with us so that people can contact us at any time. As it is people are devastated when they lose their phone, which happens often, without having the option to rely on their phones to hold money as well. I think this might be a step too far for me. I am the type of person that likes to rely less on my phone, rather than more. I like having a separate MP3 player, so that I can go jogging without my phone and I like that my money and credit cards are separate, so that I can nick down to the shops without taking my phone. Basically I like to leave my phone turned off or at home as often as possible. Although I am a fan of technology making my life easier, I just don't feel that I need to have one piece of technology that performs every task for me. In regards to my phone, I think that I have reached the level where I am happy with what tasks it can perform.

29 Feb 2012 - Rich people more likely to lie, cheat and steal

I read in The Age online today that a study was completed, by the University of California in Berkeley, that concluded that richer people were more likely to lie, cheat and take things that are meant for others, aka steal. When I stop to think about this, I realised that I was not surprised that this was the finding. If you take for instance Hollywood, over the years many movies have come out of Hollywood where rich people are the villains. Cruella de Vil  in '101 Dalmatians' was a rich person who stole people's puppies in order to get what she wanted, a Dalmatian fur coat. Goldie Hawn played a rich woman in 'Overboard', who ruthlessly pushed a poor carpenter off her boat and refused to pay him even though it was her fault that his work was not what she wanted. There are a number of other movies where the rich people are the villains and this can't be because people have vivid imaginations, most people who write do so drawing from their own or other's experience, so if we are finding many characters in movies who are rich and who lie, cheat or steal from poorer characters, then this is probably because people in real life have had similar experiences.

Now I am not suggesting that all rich people lie cheat and steal, and the study didn't conclude this, it only concluded that they were more likely to commit these offences than poorer people. I do however find it interesting that public perception of poorer people is that they are likely to lie, cheat and steal. I mean in Australia, we have the concept of a 'dole bludger', who cheats their way through life, rorting our government assistance programs. People on these government allowances make very little money per week, and by restricting the system to reduce the amount of dole bludgers, we make it harder for the genuinely poor people to get a break in life. I find it interesting they we don't have a similar term for those rich people who avoid paying taxes that would benefit out nation. I would say, obviously with no specific facts just a feeling, that if we looked we would find that of the percentage of dole bludgers in our country is a much smaller proportion that the percentage of tax avoiders. Also it seems to me, that we go to greater lengths in terms of legislation and process to restrict the dole bludgers than we do to minimise the tax avoiders. However we probably stand to gain more from making the tax avoiders contribute, than from restricting the poorer people on government allowances.

The original article was on The Age online.