Random Ramblings to 7 July 2009

Biomolecule
A molecule that can be produced by any organism. As would be expected, they make up much of the mass of organisms. The ones used in building a cell are glycerides (making up lipids (such as fat)), nucleotides (making up DNA and RNA), amino acids (making up proteins) and saccharides (making up carbohydrates).


Sucrose, a disaccharide biomolecule found in table sugar.

Network effect
A concept in economics that describes how certain goods or services become more useful the more consumers there are consuming it. Examples include operating system software (which allow greater compatibility between computer systems) and social networking facilities (where a single consumer can meet more people where more consumers are using it).

Queen's Counsel (QC)
Barristers in Australia are lawyers who specialise in presenting cases to courts. QC is the rank of barrister higher than junior and lower than Senior Counsel (SC). They are well known for their superior expertise in presenting such cases and the exorbitant fees they charge for this privilege.

Random number generator
Program code which allows a random numerical value to be generated. It is commonly used in programs to process instructions in random ways. In WoW, a /roll slash command runs the RNG to produce a random integer between 1 and 100. I use the phrase "Lady RNG" to evoke the concept of Lady Luck.

Scanning system (of a display)
A display's screen consists of a grid of cells (pixels), where each pixel's light output can be individually changed. The display would change each pixel by scanning from left to right on a single line, then from the top line down. An interlaced scan would scan alternating lines over two passes to render a full frame. A progressive scan would scan all lines in one pass. While interlaced scanning requires less information to render a moving picture (since only half of the frame is rendered in a pass), progressive scanning avoids interline twitter (where otherwise still objects seem to jiggle up and down). The i in 1080i implies that the scanning system used is interlace, while the p in 1080p implies that the scanning system used is progressive.

Stare decisis
The doctrine of precedent in as followed by courts. It translates from Latin to "to follow previous decisions". Under this legal principle, courts are normally required to apply the details of previous court cases to the current case if the facts involved are sufficiently similar. This provides for predictability for court rulings, but (by itself) does not allow judge-made law to change in accordance with changing values held by society.

(DSL line) Synchronisation
When a DSL modem is connected to a line, its clock is initially out of sync with the clock of the DSLAM upstream. Line synchronisation is the process through which each offset their clocks so their rhythms coincide with each other. The rhythm is needed for both the modem and AM to send and receive signals properly, since the electrical pulses are to be slotted in between the regular beats. During this process, the quality of the line is also checked. Line sync is the status of when the two are properly synchronised. Line sync can be lost when excessive interference enters the line.


The regime of a DSL internet connection.

Theobromine
An alkaloid substance which is most commonly found in cocoa and chocolate, having the chemical formula C₇H₈N₄O₂. It does not contain any bromine, but rather is named after the scientific name for the cacao plant (Theobroma cacao, of which the genus is Greek for 'food of the gods'). As is can be produced when caffeine is decomposed, it is a stimulant drug (increasing nervous system activity). It is infamous for causing poisoning in animals (in particular dogs) because they cannot digest it as fast as humans can.


A stack of chocolate pieces. The brown ones contain theobromine.

Playing the Blame Game

For many frustrated raiding groups, there are boss NPC encounters that stump them so many times. Those bosses might allow only a small margin of error; no matter how much knowledge and experience those players possess, a simple mistake made by any of them can snowball into a wipe. While still existing in all encounters, it is these ones that causation is most evident.

Simply, causation is the relationship between an event and its effect, such that the event causes the effect. Using this concept while diagnosing a raid wipe, the effect of the wipe can be credited to the event of a particular person's (or persons') misconduct (and therefore can be identified as something to avoid next attempt) if a causal relationship can be established.

Consider the following...
To demonstrate this type of troubleshooting, I will use a theoretic (though still plausible) attempt under the Archimonde encounter in the Battle for Mount Hyjal raid, the encounter in which causation may be the most evident. It would be important to note that, at level 70, the typical nontank health is ~7500. Archimonde has the following abilities:

• Air Burst; Tears of the Goddess. The affected will die from fall damage if the fall is not interrupted.
• Fear
• Doomfire
• Soul Charge/Soul Charge/Soul Charge; Archimonde casts one of these any time after he gains a Soul Charge buff from a player death.
• Grip of the Legion, producing a curse-dispellable debuff.
• Finger of Death and Hand of Death, which Archimonde cast to expedite the wiping process. (I have had my share of crude jokes about these abilities.)

Consider the following plausible scenario, where A is Archimonde, B and C are dps, H is a tank healer and T is the tank:

A casts Air Burst on B. B fails to break their fall (using Tears or otherwise) and dies from fall damage. Archimonde gains a Soul Charge (the silencing sort), which he immediately uses and cuts every nontanks' health by half. A then inflicts H with Grip, which C, who is the only curse dispeller in range, cannot dispel under the silence. A then casts Fear, making H run out of range of C into a Doomfire. H cannot heal through this much damage and dies. T is left vulnerable and A gains another Soul Charge. A uses it and kills both T and all melee dps. A starts spamming Finger of Death, eventually leading to a wipe.

Follies in diagnosing the raid wipe
The raid, diagnosing this wipe, would reasonably ignore all events after the tank's death and attribute the fault to the healer, who caused T's death by insufficient healing. (In the extreme case, T would be blamed for the wipe because they died!) Unfortunately, doing only this will not provide a full picture of the attempt. The insufficent healing was under extenuating circumstances, after all!

Diagnosing the raid wipe by buck passing

A buck and a set of playing cards used in poker.

H is now said to hold the buck. If H can attribute their fault to someone else's fault through causation, they are said to pass the buck, with such an action being called buck passing. Under buck passing between players, the buck will ultimately stop at a single player or group of people, who can be deemed ultimately at fault.

It would important to note that the effect of a preceding event is also the event of the succeeding effect. The following series of events can be constructed from the scenario, ordered according to reverse chronology and linked by causation:

1. There is no one in melee range alive after the second Soul Charge and, after A's spamming Finger of Death, the raid wipes.
2. T fails to receive sufficient healing and dies.
3. H suffers unhealable Grip and Doomfire damage and dies.
4. C is silenced from the Soul Charge and H is Feared out of range, so C cannot dispel H's Grip.
5. B fails to break their fall when A casts Air Burst on them and dies, earning A a Soul Charge.

From this, the following series of causation can be derived:

1. The raid wiped because the T was dead and not reducing A's damage to the raid in general.
2. T was dead and not reducing A's damage to the raid in general because H was dead and not healing.
3. H was dead and not healing because H suffered unhealable damage from Grip and Doomfire, which would have been healable if C dispelled Grip.
4. H suffered unhealable damage from Grip and Doomfire, which would have been healable if C dispelled Grip, because C was silenced by the Soul Charge from B's death, and by the time C could cast spells again, H was feared out of range.
5. C was silenced by the Soul Charge from B's death, and by the time C could cast spells again, H was feared out of range because ...

The series of events and causation can be merged into a chain of fault, which allows for a buck to be passed along it. By the time the diagnosis reaches point 5., the buck would have stopped at B, where B cannot blame anyone else. Here is where the ultimate fault rests, because if it were not for this player's action, the whole chain of events would not have happened! The raid would then consider this something to learn from and maybe would even discipline the player at ultimate fault.

Junctions of preceding causations
Could anyone along the series of events have introduced their own fault along the way, continuing the chain of events? If they did not introduce the fault, could the chain of events have terminated? Certainly (e.g. considering event 4., if C did not notice a 0.5 sec window of opportunity to dispel the curse from a H barely in range), but these can be ignored for any of the following reasons:

• The preceding causation would have made it unreasonable for this person to have acted properly, e.g. if C was too distracted at considering the Soul Charge that they did not notice said window of opportunity.
• A properly established causation can make said fault insignificant, and the chain of events would proceed the same way even if it did not exist.
• For all practical purposes, the possible said fault is unlikely to happen. Whether it actually does is out of the scope of ordinary World of Warcraft raiding and can (depending on disposition) be predicted by divination or actuarial science.

What if a proper causation holds yet the extra fault stays significant, if both (or more) were required for the series of events to continue? For example, considering event 3., there was in fact a second healer nearby (named J) which made the damage unhealable because they were not healing H? 3. then becomes a junction of two preceding causations: had C dispelled H's curse, J's healing would not have been needed, and had J healed H, C's dispel would not have been needed (at least for the meantime). Here, the buck splits into two, and they are passed up two separate branches of series of causation: while the raid figures out why Grip was not dispelled, they are, at the same time, figuring out why J was not healing H. The chain of fault then becomes a tree of fault.

Groups at fault
Consider causation 5. Say that B, while Air Bursted, was whispered to by another player D who was warning them (at the very last minute!) that they were airborne. This whisper distracted B so B ended up not interrupting their fall. There is then this following segment of the chain of events:

1. B fails to break their fall when A casts Air Burst on them and dies, earning A a Soul Charge.
2. D whispers to B about the Air Burst and B becomes distracted.

There is then the following chain of causation:

1. B fails to break their fall when A casts Air Burst on them and dies, earning A a Soul Charge because D whispered B about the Air Burst, distracting B from breaking their fall.
2. D whispered B about the Air Burst, distracting B from breaking their fall because D anticipated B to fail to break their fall when A casts Air Burst on them and die, earning A a Soul Charge.
3. B, as a matter of fact, fails to break their fall when A casts Air Burst on them and dies, earning A a Soul Charge because D whispered B about the Air Burst, distracting B from breaking their fall.
4. D whispered B about the Air Burst, distracting B from breaking their fall because D anticipated B to fail to break their fall when A casts Air Burst on them and die, earning A a Soul Charge.
5. B, as a matter of fact, fails to break their fall when A casts Air Burst on them and dies, earning A a Soul Charge because D whispered B about the Air Burst, distracting B from breaking their fall.
6. etc...

In this case, the buck is endlessly passed between B and D! This signifies that a group of people are at ultimate fault, where the faults of these people (in this case, B's and D's) are mutually dependent on each other. This is despite that the chain of events does have a definite beginning. Inspecting the series of events overall, it can be observed that if this group had not been at fault, the whole series of events would not have occurred! The raid would then consider this something to learn from and maybe would even discipline the group at ultimate fault.

Of course, another person or group could have caused said group to be at fault; the group does not need to be at ultimate fault. This would extend the chain of fault further.

Methodology
The person or group at ultimate fault is the person/group who started the chain of events, and had they not done so, the chain of events as it is known to have occurred would not have existed. To find this person/group under buck passing:

1. Construct a series of events from the wipe backwards. Each event should involve a single player's actions that make them at fault, and should exclude any actions beyond player control (e.g. the boss' behaviour).
2. Construct a series of causation, connecting events together using "because" or "causes". Note where (if at all) the buck seems to pass between the same people and deal with it (no pun intended) accordingly.
3. Merge the series of events and series of causation into a chain of fault. Analyse for any junctions (where an event joins several preceding causations) and groups at fault (where members are blaming on each other) and amend the chain of fault accordingly.
4. Pass the buck up the chain of fault. Where the buck(s) stop(s), the person(s)/group(s) holding it/them are deemed to be at ultimate fault.

Writing Cheques

A cheque is a written instruction by a person (the drawer) to their bank (or other financial institution) (the drawee) to pay cash to another person (the payee). It must not be subject to any conditions. While cheques are not commonly used these days, many drawers still enjoy the delay in its clearance if they consider the payee suspicious.

There are several markings made on a cheque, which essentially answer the following questions:

1. Should the cheque be cashable by any bearer of the cheque, or only by the payee named on it?
2. Should the cheque be able to be redeemable in cash at the bank counter, or should it be credited to a bank account?
3. Does the payee want to make the cheque payable to another person?
4. Should 3. be allowed to happen?

1. Bearer and Order cheques

• If a cheque is payable to bearer, the person who presents it to the bank counter can cash it for themself, regardless of who is named payee on it. A bearer cheque will have the words "or bearer" or no such additional words printed on it, such that, if the payee is named A.B., the instruction reads "Pay A.B. or bearer", "Pay cash or bearer" or "Pay cash".
• If a cheque is payable to order, only the payee has rights to cash the cheque. An order cheque will have the words "or order" or "to the order of" printed on it, such that the instruction reads "Pay A.B. or order" or "Pay to the order of A.B.".
• A bearer cheque can be made payable to order by crossing out the words "or bearer", such that it reads "Pay A.B.". An order cheque can be made payable to bearer by not stating a name or making it payable to either "cash" or a fictitious person (e.g. "I love you"). The instruction for the 2nd case would read "Pay cash or order".

2. Cheque crossings
A cheque is crossed when two parallel lines are drawn along the cheque's face. Doing this means that the cheque cannot be redeemed in cash at the bank counter, and so must be credited to a bank account. If the cheque is not crossed, it becomes redeemable in cash.

3. Indorsements
For a cheque payable to order, the payee (acting as transferor) indorses the cheque when they write instructions on the cheque to make it payable to another person (the transferee). If the transferee is named X.Y., it would read "Pay X.Y. {signed} A.B.". Since a cheque payable to bearer can be cashed by anyone, there is no need for any indorsement for them.

4. /NOT NEGOTIABLE/
A bearer cheque is crossed 'not negotiable' when the words "NOT NEGOTIABLE" are written between the parallel lines. Most importantly, this means that the payee will not be able to indorse the cheque. However, this also means that, if the bearer stole the cheque from another person, they do not have ownership rights to the cash. Both of these cases mean that:

• The bank is not obliged to cash the cheque for the bearer.
• If the bank cashes the cheque, the drawer suffers a loss and they can sue the bank for related damages.

Also...
"Cash" is not a true entity, but rather it signifies that the cheque should be payable to bearer. It may be baffling, but solace can be taken in the instruction's making grammatical sense.

It is interesting to note that any marking made reduces the rights of other persons to cash the cheque. For example, if "or bearer" is crossed out in a bearer cheque, it becomes payable only to the named payee, while a similar marking over "or order" in an order cheque keeps it an order cheque payable only to the named payee. When a marking is made (presumably in pen), the only way to void it is for the drawer to cross it out and sign it off. These schemes support the nemo dat rule:

Latin: nemo dat quod non habet
English: no person can pass a better title than they possess

Sir, there's a ghoul in my spreadsheet.

Gristlegut tries so hard to feed all his ghouls, but some of them end up being neglected. This poor soul soulless being, in its quest for BRAINS, ends up stumbling upon the tasty cells of a living being spreadsheet. The uni student working on this for their matrices assignment will be very frustrated indeed.

Random Ramblings to 19 June 2009

Body Mass Index (BMI)
A ratio which quickly indicates body mass. It is calculated by dividing the mass of the body (in kilograms) by the square of the height of it (in metres). A body's mass is considered normal under the BMI if it falls between 18.5 and 25; any less and it is considered underweight, while any more is considered either overweight or obese.

Foreign Currency Conversion Fee/International Service Assessment
The fee charged to credit card issuers by MasterCard and Visa respectively when a credit card transaction uses the global payments system to convert currency. For both companies, it is equal to 1% of the value of the transaction. Of course, the credit card issuer can pass this fee on (and add up to 2 extra percentage points onto it) to the cardholder.

Icosahedron
A solid figure with exactly 20 faces. In particular, a regular icosahedron is an icosahedron with faces of equilateral triangles. It belongs to a family of solids called the Platonic solids. A d20 die is in the shape of a regular icosahedron.


A model of a regular icosahedron made of toothpicks and Blu-Tack.

Pyrite
A mineral consisting of iron disulphide (FeS2). It has a lustrous brass-yellow colour and has been mistaken for gold (hence it it also known as fool's gold). Its molecules align to form an isometric crystal system. When struck against steel it creates sparks, hence its name's etymology of the Greek word for fire.

Res judicata
Translates to "something decided" from Latin. It is a principle in civil law stating that a single court case (in governments with a court system) may be heard and decided only once. It emphasises the finality in such litigation and avoids the problem of a defendant's being sued multiple times for the same matter. Criminal law has a similar principle of double jeopardy, where the defendant cannot be tried multiple times for the same crime.

Tragedy of the commons
A theory relating to resources that are freely available but can deplete (or "the commons", the British expression for open pastures). It states that such resources will continue to be exploited until it becomes fully depleted). It is a tragedy because the rational use of private cost-benefit analysis (where every individual has different of costs and benefits of using the resource) will produce such undesirable consequences. Hence support for the concepts of ownership and private property, in such a case cost-benefit analysis will be uniformly applied.

Random Ramblings

Small tidbits of information are always interesting. This regular feature will record much of the trivia I have presented to my guild in World of Warcraft. So far:

32-bit signed integer
A sequence of 32 binary digits which represents a positive or negative whole number. 31 of those digits determine the number, while one digit determines the sign (positive or negative status). A 32-bit signed integer can represent 2^31 = 2 147 483 648 unique positive values. The amount of currency a World of Warcraft character holds is stored on Blizzard's databases as a 32-bit signed integer, leading to the fabled currency limit of 214 748g 36s 48c.

Adverse opinion
An auditor is a person who provides a professional opinion on the quality of a business' financial statements. When they provide an adverse opinion on the financial statements (which is normally unheard of), they are saying that the financial statements are any combination of inaccurate and poorly prepared.

Black hole
All bits of matter are attracted to each other through gravity. The larger a mass is, the more gravity it will generate. A black hole is a mass generating gravity such that the escape velocity (the speed which exactly absorbs the opposing acceleration of the mass' gravity) is greater than the speed of light (299 792 458 m/s). Their namesake comes from the fact that not even light can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole, leading to their black colour.

Carbohydrate
An organic substance which stores energy for metabolism. They are made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, which, when a photosynthesising plant produces it, is come from carbon dioxide and water. Respiration breaks the carbohydrate down back to carbon dioxide and water, though some energy is released as well (which was formerly sunlight energy). Carbohydrates are composed of any number of saccharide units chained together. Monosaccharides (glucose, galactose, fructose, etc) are saccharide units in themselves, while disaccharides (sucrose, lactose, etc) are composed of two such units, and complex carbohydrates (starch, glycogen, etc) consist of many.

Diminishing marginal returns
A trend in the relationship between two values where the main value is (say X) increasing. At the same time, the other value (say Y) is also increasing, though its rate of increase is declining. It is possible for X to be large enough that Y can even be decreasing. In calculus terms, d2Y/dX2 is negative.

Fluorescent lamp
A light source that produces light through the fluorescence of phosphors on its discharge tube's surface. When it is operating, an electric current passes through the tube. Molecules of mercury (Hg) gas are excited by the current, which later release ultraviolet light. The phosphors then absorb this ultraviolet light, later releasing visible light. Fluorescent lighting is commonly used as backlighting for LCD monitors, explaining why many laptops are marked as containing mercury.

Induction motor
An electric motor which uses an alternating current to produce motion (namely in a rotating manner). A rotating magnetic field produced by the current pushes a set of magnets attached to a rotor. It is the foundation for all things that spin and use electrical energy to do so (fans are a notable example).

Natural law
Principles that arise from the workings of nature. As nature encompasses the entire universe, such principles are accepted to apply everywhere. Natural law is often used as a benchmark to judge the validity of positive law (law enforced by the authority of government) and is thought to inform a person's conscience.

Prisoner's dilemma
The problem that arises from the cooperation (or lack thereof) between two persons for a reward. If one person chooses to defect from the arrangement, that person will receive a higher reward than if they had cooperated, at the expense of the other person. However, if both defect from the arrangement, both will receive less reward each than if both had cooperated. Under these circumstances, both players are selfish, there is a limited amount of reward and defecting entails a certain cost (which the defecting person hopes that an increased reward from defecting will offset). The namesake arises from the classic scenario involving the silence/confession of two partners in crime.

Guildies, if there are any topic arisen you would like me to cover briefly here, just post a recommendation in the comments.

The First Post

Hi, and welcome to my first ever blog! I will be using it for the general purpose, that is, I will blog about anything that strikes my fancy.

I do intend the title of the blog to reflect the focus of its contents. While I will be reporting facts, the main focus in all my posts here will be in extracting meaning from them, leading the post to implications, alternate perspectives, etc. You may notice that the title is drawn from the NSW (Australia) Board of Studies list of standard key words, which they refer to when drafting exam papers. This is the intended interpretation of the phrase, if you were curious.

While this blog is general purpose, I do expect to spend significant hot air and brainwaves on posts related to hobbies. My current main hobby as of time of posting is playing Blizzard Entertainment's fantasy MMORPG World of Warcraft. I have also played RuneScape and Neopets, but I do not actively maintain my characters there as of posting. Of course, this does not inhibit the potential for analysis in their respects.

As a minor note, I also intend this blog to be a more permanent location for my contributions to my WoW guild Altitude of Frostmourne US. An advantage of relocating here is that I can receive constructive scrutiny on my analyses from a larger audience. In turn, the contents of this blog may even be helpful to persons external to both the guild and even WoW.

I am starting this blog with high enthusiasm. I am hopeful that it will persist.