Random Ramblings to 28 August 2010

Carriage return
A typed character that commands the computer to move the cursor to the beginning of the line in a word processor. It is created using the Enter/Return key, which also sends another character that commands the computer to move the cursor to a new line. It is named after the lever on a typewriter, which performs both functions on a typewritten document.

Random Ramblings to 24 April 2010

Cascading failure
A failure of a system where one component's failure causes a chain-reaction failure of other components. A system bearing a load is susceptible to this type of failure, where an overloaded component shifts its load to other components upon its individual failure. In an electrical grid, a cascading failure occurs when a transformer's failure requires the other transformers to bear the electrical load, increasing the chance that one of those transformers will also fail due to overloading.

Where the components are fully interconnected and handle a fixed load, the per-component load trend is a rectangular hyperbola. This signifies that the per-component load increases at an increasing rate as components fail. As a result, the chance of any individual component's failing also increases at an increasing rate.

A graph illustrating a cascading failure in a World of Warcraft boss encounter. The trend is a rectangular hyperbola.

Random Ramblings to 31 January 2010

Acetylcholine
A chemical in the body which transmits messages between a neuron and the nearby cells (a neurotransmitter). Its presence will signal muscles to contract. Nerve agents prevent its breakdown, causing muscles (including those in the heart and lungs) to contract uncontrollably. Atropine, the toxin of deadly nightshade and an antidote of nerve agents, prevents cells from detecting acetylcholine, causing muscles to relax uncontrollably at high doses. Its chemical formula is C₇H₁₆NO₂.

The skeletal formula for acetylcholine.

Random Ramblings to 17 November 2009

Acidosis
An increase in the acidity (or a decrease in the pH) of blood. The eventual state of highly acidic blood is referred to as acidaemia. The pH of blood must be kept near 7.4 (slightly basic) or the body will not be able to function properly. One type of acidosis occurs when carbon dioxide (CO₂) is not released through the lungs fast enough, causing a buildup of carbonic acid (H₂CO₃). Another type of acidosis (lactic acidosis) occurs from excessive anaerobic respiration, where instead of using oxygen to break down sugar to release energy, the body instead breaks the sugar down into lactic acid. The lactic acid itself does not cause the acidity, but rather the respiration process. This commonly happens when sleeping on an arm, which becomes numb and experiences a pins-and-needles sensation when blood circulation is finally restored.

Random Ramblings to 8 August 2009

Archivist
A person who maintains the material in an archive. This can involve collecting, organising and assessing the records. Among their skills, they show expertise in preserving the physical media on which information is contained. In WoW, Auriaya is the archivist for the secrets of Ulduar.

Information asymmetry
A concept in economics which suggests that buyers and sellers in a real-world market cannot find each other easily (lacking information about each others' presence). One needs to search for the other before a trade can occur. However, doing extra searching will come at a cost, so these costs should be balanced against the benefits expected in deciding which to do.

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.

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.