Thanks to random stranger lady wearing a red ribbon. You made more of a difference than you’ll know.

I’ve decided to donate my day’s wage on 1 December 2011 to AIDS charities.

I realise this amount is a drop in the ocean compared to what’s required, but I find it important to symbolically support what I believe in.

I believe AIDS is a great threat to humanity… (still)… the latent disease mechanism is frightening and not well enough understood. And, poor people around the world suffer disproportionately from lack of education and opportunity to escape the disease. It shouldn’t be like this in the information age.

Keep the pressure on.

My legs hurt.

I can’t help but think this means that I haven’t been working my upper body hard enough.

Today’s excuse for not posting is that I’ve been using more of my free time to go to the gym ((also because I forget all the cool things I want to post by the time I get here))

I’m rather fond of the following gym concept: “what you gain in fitness, you lose in personality”. When I get into an exercise mode, I only want to think about that. And I find it hard to talk about anything else. Sorry everyone…

I’ve been genotyped, some time ago.

Today something exciting happened – I can look at this article on the BBC refering to a social gene, and I can easily find out which genetic group I’m in.

I am “AG” as they describe it in the article. Which means I am possibly less empathetic than average.

Bah.

I cycle past a Banksy every day.

Check it out

Banksy is a moderately famous stencil graffiti artist. The piece of art here appears to be a tribute to ‘Tox’, a notorious graffiti artist whose tag is absolutely everywhere on the London Underground.

Now, I like Banksy, a bit. (I like Tox more). The nearby Banksy at the bottom of Archway Road is quite lovely. It’s evolved over the years as it has become faded, damaged and edited by others. It makes me happy to cycle past.

But this new Banksy makes me cross. The owners of the building have covered it with a grotty bit of perspex and the whole thing looks gross. I’m not sure that the CCTV camera sign is still there but I don’t want to be reminded that I’m constantly being recorded under the assumption that I’ll do something naughty. It illustrates everything that’s bad about commercialism and materialism. The owners are protecting the value over and above allowing people to enjoy the art. I find it awfully sad.

The USA is recreating democracy. As we know, the US President is elected by an electoral college system – where each state has a certain number of votes depending on their size (and Washington DC has none).

According to basic game theory, this leads most states to allocate all of their college votes in one direction – a block vote maximising the state’s power. All but tiny and inconsequential Maine and Nebraska currently do this. The net result is that a few voters in highly populated swing states (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania) get to decide the election: while everyone else might as well burn their votes in a pyre. The scope of game theory is awesome.

Anyway, this system is really not very democratic. In 2000, the popular vote winner (with more than 50% of the votes) didn’t win the electoral college, because of how the votes were distributed across the country. An odd result, but one that will naturally happen on occasion. And it’s difficult to change the system – the electoral college is bound up into the US constitution.

So what can be done? Something very interesting is happening. Certain states are banding together and overriding this block voting to become more democratic. By… er… by block voting at an even higher level.

These states have legally agreed a compact, whereby as soon as the compact controls 50% of the vote, they will vote as a block – voting in accordance with the popular vote winner. This allows the compact to directly control the result of the vote, even though they may have to control it against their preference! To join the compact, a state must choose to give away its stately powers in order to benefit the democratic process. A state bound by this law might be forced to change the result against their interest. So, while it’s perhaps beneficial for democracy, it’s almost surprising that any state has agreed to this.

But right now, this compact controls 25% of the vote. They’ll do nothing about it until and unless 50% of the vote comes under their control. If that happens, the US Presidential election becomes (at least temporarily) run in accordance with the popular vote. Good luck!

I cancelled a one hour class tonight due to still feeling a bit grim from before. This puts me on 99.2% attendance for the academic year so far. Disappointing.

Then I won £4250, for knowing that nobody else would know that “I Want Love” was a top 10 single for Elton John. Or rather, I would have won that if I’d been on the television just now.

I went to the dentist this morning. As always, the dentist said my teeth are looking strong and healthy (I brush well), but my gums are could be looked after a bit better (I should floss more often).
The dentist illustrates this by flossing my teeth himself. As he goes around, the gums in a certain area of my mouth bleed, and he seems to take joy in this. “Look!!” he says, “you can see the problem here! If you floss every day, this should clear itself up”. But, I know that when I floss myself, my gums occasionally bleed: not there, but in other locations. I do wonder if he cheats this test somehow.
In any case, I will floss more regularly.

I invented a board game, as I sat in Starbucks today. I suddenly had an idea of how to make an interesting game where players had conflicting motivations to compete and collaborate with the other players in the game, with a bit of random luck thrown in, while keeping the rules simple enough (and the game short enough) for anyone to play. I play-tested it through with myself a few times, improved the rules and now I think it’s awesome.

It needs at least 3 players, to keep the competition/collaboration dichotomy going throughout the game. And it’s turn-based, so I’m not sure if it will work well on the web (if random players drop out mid-game). It seems like it would be more fun to play in person, because of the potential for friendly bitching. I suppose I’ll make a prototype game to play with friends and then think about making an app for that.

Woke up with vertigo. My bedroom was spinning, and spinning fast. I woke up and tried to get a grip on reality. After 10 minutes, everything was fine again. Then I vomited. This happened twice. Today I’ve been dealing with the after-effects… my orientation has been off-kilter. Now I’m feeling ok. I’m hoping this is a self-limiting illness.

I hoovered when I was feeling better. A Dyson is a lovely thing. I especially like being able to see exactly how much has been picked up.

Perhaps today was not the best day to start daily updates…

Here is a song and artist I particularly like, with a curious video: Sia – You’ve Changed

I am reading “Public Parts” by Jeff Jarvis. Public Parts encourages us to embrace publicness and reject privacy, and with good justification. I’m glad to be reading this book.

I talk about privacy a lot because it’s a concern of mine. But, when I was younger I used to enjoy living my life in a public way. I used to embrace the internet a lot more than I do now. And so, I realised by reading the book what irritates me about publicness today. Here it is: when I do give away private information to a commercial entity, it’s sold to the highest bidding advertiser (perhaps brazenly so, by auction), whereas I hardly ever feel it adds any significant value for me.
I really don’t think I get the value that I deserve for that private information – the commercial entity takes away all of the value of that information. I look upon that very negatively.

Today I realised that I’d like to be part of a movement to change that default way.

I am helping my sister for her exams, as her needs relate to my regular job. I try to treat my sister as a regular client. So, I try to insist that we behave as though we were in a professional relationship, just for the periods that I’m teaching her.

My sister doesn’t fully understand the importance of this, I think. She checks her phone while we talk, and gets distracted easily. And then, I push my sister harder than I would push a regular client. This is bad of me: since I deliberately push my regular clients exactly as hard as they can deal with successfully. So, I’m not sticking to my end of the bargain either.

This is a hard job, but I am learning how to improve.

My taste in music has changed since the 1990s. Or, perhaps it hasn’t, but I no longer have the time or inclination to seek out independent and creative music that I love. So, now I’m much more likely to listen to the same music as everyone else. This got much worse while I lived with a record company employee: I was surprised that she was quite intolerant of music she didn’t favour, and I felt uncomfortable listening to music that I liked but she did not. Hopefully I’ll discover more music again now.

I have to admit that I really like Adele. Her music is clever, thoughtful and musical. I might buy her album. This answers your question: “Who is still buying Adele’s album such that it’s still number 1?”

The weather in London is still marvellous. I loved cycling through Hyde Park today.