That, is an attention-grabbing title.

I'm often mildly disappointed with our education system, because it fails to teach a lot of the scientific literacy that is needed in order to understand some of the concepts that science is discovering today, and to appreciate just how cool some of this stuff is. Today, we're talking about light, the speed at which it travels, and the closest thing to a time machine we'll ever actually see.

Let's start with the speed of light. Light is a funny thing. Einstein realized, and then proved scientifically that no matter how fast you're travelling, no matter which direction you are moving in, you will always measure light as moving away from you at 300,000 km/s. This speed is referred to with the constant c. This is counter-intuitive to the way we humans think. Let's say I'm standing still, and my friend Davey runs by me. Let's say I measure that he is moving away from me at 10 km/h. Now, in scenario two, I'm running at 5 km/h in the same direction as Davey. When he passes me and starts to move away from me, I will measure him as moving away from me at 5 km/h, rather than the previous 10. This is because I am moving foward at 5 km/h myself, rather than standing still.

Here comes the counter-intuitive bit - in both of those situations, if a beam of light travels past me and starts to move away, I will always measure it as travelling away from me at c (300,000 km/s). Interestingly, the scientific experiements and evidence collected also shows that this is the theoretical speed limit of the universe. As far as we can tell, nothing can travel faster than this speed.

Okay, we're past the first bit of math.

Let's get into the time travel I alluded to in the title. Because of the rate of speed at which light travels, most of us think of it as travelling instantaneously. That is to say, you turn on your desk lamp, and the light doesn't travel to light up your desk, it's just there. This is a convenient way to think about light on a day-to-day basis, our daily lives do not involve interacting over distances greater than 300,000 km. However, once we start to talk about the stars in the sky, things get a little bit different.

The thing about stars in the sky is that they are very, very far away from us. Sirius, one of our closest neighbours in the galaxy, is about 9 light years away from us. Light years can be a bit of a confusing term, because they contain two concepts: distance and time. A light year means this: The distance that light can travel in one year. So, even though the name includes a notion of time, a light-year is always really a distance measurement, and one light-year will always take one year for light to move that distance.

What this means is that if Sirius the star were to suddenly dissapear from the universe and stop producing light (this is highly implausible, but will work as an example), it would take us nine years before we had any idea that this had occurred. The coolest thing about this is that when we look up and see the star Sirius in our night sky, we are actually seeing it as it looked nine years ago. Remember, it takes nine years for the star's light to reach us.

So, we've got the speed of light down, and we've talked about Sirius. Let's take things up to the next level and talk about stars that are much further away from us. Astronomers these days have some incredible tools at their disposable. The Hubble space telescope is able to look at stars that are billions of light years away. This is incredibly far, but not only that, it means that we are looking back at light that was created and sent on its heavenly journey billions of years ago. This is the most incredible part, and the most difficult for many people to wrap their head around. The further away from us that astronomers are looking, the further back in time they are seeing the state of the universe.

Perhaps some ascii art to help clarify?

1. (Sirius) * ---light travels 9 light-years---> * (Earth)

2. (Starry McOldey) * ---light travels 10 billion light-years---> * (Earth)

The most important thing to remember here is that once light has been emitted from a star, it doesn't matter what happens to the source of the light - the light itself will continue to travel on its path, eventually reaching us.

I've got two helpful analogies too! Think of a really powerful sprinkler: the sprinkler shoots out a blast of water, and then changes its position and shoots a second blast of water. The first blast of water is still travelling in the original direction, regardless of the fact that the sprinkler has now changed its orientation. Analogy number two - imagine two cities that are separated by 1000 km. The first city sends out a messenger to the second city, and it takes him two weeks to get there. By the time the messenger arrives in the second city, the information he's bringing with him is two weeks older. For the sake of this analogy, you can think of light as acting like a messenger from a star (though a messenger that has done an insane amount of steroids).

So, I, and possibly you, think this is pretty cool. By looking into deep, deep space, scientists are able to see the universe as it was when it was very young (most astronomers, through scientific evidence, place the age of the universe to be roughly 13.7 billion years old). They aren't really traveling back in time, but they are able to see a universe from an earlier time.

Interesting stuff right? No? Whatever. If you like reading about this kind of thing, you should check out the Bad Astronomy Blog. Phil Plait, a widely-known astronomer in skeptic circles, runs the blog and mixes things up with the latest cool astronomy news, reviews of bad movies using bad science (his review of The Core is pretty good), and skepticism regarding things like the Moon Landing Hoax. Worth a browse!

The e-mail warning me about inadvertently smelling aether cleverly disguised as a free perfume sample has just landed in my inbox again, and that alone is a good enough reason for today's post.

Today I've got a really jazzy little number put together by the Australian government: The Little Black Book of Scams. I don't have any particular details regarding how the government distributes this, but that's okay - this is an incredible resource.

The guide is laid out well, which makes for easy reading, and the information is solid. Also, this is produced for Australians, so there are some references that may not be directly relatable to us over here in the North. However, the specific cases can almost all be abstracted up to the general. Even if you just browse through this one, you're doing yourself a favour!

The guide, in it's entirety, can be found here.

Some things to note: If you start reading this and the first couple of suggestions seem obvious to you, don't switch off. Research and history has shown that even the most intelligent of us are able to fall victim to simple scams and common frauds. Use it as a chance to remind yourself of what to look for.

Some of this advice seems like it would be immediately obvious to you when presented with a scam. "There are no guaranteed get-rich-quick schemes".

"Of course", you exclaim, "Everybody knows that!".

Thing is, it's not always easy to spot a get-rich-quick scheme. I remember going to an Amway meeting and they kept repeating "Make no mistake, this does require work. But [pause] YOU [pause] WILL [pause] GET RICH [applause]". Wrong. Loads of people lose money in Amway annually, a few people get ridiculously rich, and that's all based around the idea that as long as you can put in the initial work to get people involved, you will get rich. Repeat: There's no such thing as a guaranteed get-rich-quick scheme!

-- Update --

Davin just sent me a similar link that someone wrote as a way of explaining to his Dad what is happening. I find the guy's tone a little bit acerbic and arrogant, but I'd be a hypocrite if I complained about that too much. Said link is here.

Lately, I've been ranting endlessly about how annoyed I get when companies punish the very consumers that buy into their products.

I love good TV shows, and when I find a show that I really like, I can watch it over and over. I like to study the details, the humour, and the minutae, and really figure out why the show compels me. Is it the timing? Why is that particular line so funny? How come I'm willing to accept it when George Costanza does one thing, but I absolutely despise it when Ray Romano does the same thing?

Given this mini-obsession, I own a sizable DVD collection, and push those DVDs into the player fairly frequently. It is a constant source of irritation having to sit through three different warnings and a host of advertisements, everytime I turn on my TV to watch the DVD that I have legally purchased (they've done us the service of disabling our skip functionality now so don't accidentally skip over the whole warning). Most ironic of all is that the three warnings are all sledge-hammering into my face that it is a crime to pirate and illegally copy the DVDs. Come on people! I frickin' bought the DVD! Can't we just relax a little and at the very least let me fast-forward through this junk? Especially frustrating is the fact that I can just go online and download the entire season without any of this chaff added in.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the ongoing attempt by companies to lock down digital content, and prevent us from doing things like copying music files. There are two schools of thought on this: One, that you need to stop people from illegally copying your intellectual property (eBooks, music, movies, tv shows), and, two, that you don't have the right to stop people from making legal backups of the media that they have legally purchased.

I'm not a fan of DRM, as I think that it takes an approach that attempts to lock down and repress what the changing technology is becoming capable of doing. What we really need to do is shift our paradigm and develop new ways of thinking about technology, intellectual property, and the ownership of that property. The digital world is an approximation of the analog one, but that does not mean that our laws governing one can be neatly shifted across and overlayed on the other.

One recent example of Microsoft (commonly criticized, but fairly - they're a large proponent of DRM) boning people that have legally bought music from their online digital store can be found here. The long and short: people that have legally purchased music from Microsoft's online store have until August 31, 2008 to finalize the five computers that they wish this music to be playable on. Once that date has passed, no new computers can be added, and no media can transferred. What does this mean? Well, for one, if you upgrade your computer, your music is gone. For another, if you want to upgrade to a new hard-drive, you're losing your music.

Just one more example of the DRM people getting things wrong, and in the end, disenfranchising and alienating the consumer base that supports them. This isn't unprecedented, and is in fact just one more item in a long list of bung-ups. Recently consumers have reported problems with Windows Vista, whereby the expensive monitor that they bought won't play at full resolution, because Windows Vista cannot confirm that the device falls in-line with its DRM-policies. As a result, it downshifts the resolution and plays a crappier image. See below for a more complete explanation of what is going on here.

DRM sucks. I agree that artists, authors, and other people generating creative content deserve the right to some kind of ownership of that content, but the manner in which this is being implemented seems entirely driven by companies that don't have a whole lot of affiliation with these people (if you know anyone that actually records music, ask them how much money they gotten back from the levies that we pay on blank media here in Canada), nor with the consumer's that they are punching in the sexy bits.

The up-side to all of this is that there will always be mavericks out there that create media players that ignore consumer-boning rules like this, decrypt media files and allow you to convert them to open formats, and that do not do things like downgrade the quality of the video. The only real result is that Vista and its ilk make the consumer work harder to play the files they've already paid for.

* Once you move content from an analog format (TV's, for example, up until recently) to a digital one, you make it much easier to grab and manipulate that content. Typically the way to prevent people from making copies of digital media (illegal or otherwise), this has been restricted at the level of the media player you use to play your content, as well as the file format that it is stored in. If you can encrypt the media file, and then make it so that only your special media player knows how to decrypt that file, you've got a pretty decent way to stop people from copying your data, because now you can also add a requirement into your media player that it only play this video if it's on machine X.

There's a new wrinkle involved though. Typically, once the special media player plays our special encrypted media file, the unencrypted digital signal is then sent to the monitor, which displays that signal. Horray, I've got a movie - I bet you I still have to sit through some bullshit guilt-trip about my kid stealing because he saw me stealing cable. Because the output that goes to a digital monitor is unencrypted, I can theoretically take a device that tells the computer that it is a monitor, but is really just a box that records that unencrypted signal. Now all I have to do is play my video using the special media player once, capture the output with my magic box, and then save that new file. Now I have an unencrypted file that I can transfer to any of my other computers, store for backup, or, give to my friends. In order to counteract this, Windows Vista will downgrade the quality of your video when you are outputting to monitors and other devices that it does not recognize and know as "following appropriate DRM policies".

Pac Rim

I'm relaxing at home after a long weekend playing squash. This weekend marked what is typically the end of the squash season, as the weather starts to turn for the better, and people have less desire to stand in a small glass box getting a schvitz on with another dude. And now for the segue... I think that that description would be a good candidate for getting squash into the Olympics. The introduction paragraph is now complete, and I will move boldly onwards.

Hello, and welcome to the first paragraph of the body of this entry. First up, the results. I had a disappointing loss in my second game of the main draw to Cam Burnett, a great guy with a good broad australian accent (I'd probably be willing to forgive someone taking my wallet if they did it with a sweet accent). Cam went on to win the B draw, so that offers some consolation.

As I was worried about, the typical mental block I suffer from re-emerged to claim my brain for the three quick games we were on the court for. I've been trying out a number of things this season with gradual success, and the only approach is to continue adapting and until I resolve it.

Having said that, I'm pretty happy with how I've fared this season. I feel like I can play an A-level game without embarassing myself, provided I am able to hold in my head that I am, in fact, capable of that. It's without a doubt that it is the battles that makes us stronger, so I can always try to hold in my head that this is a challenge to be triumphed over.

If anyone has their own tricks to share, I would be interested to hear them - leave a comment.

The tournament was precluded with Stu having to go to the hospital, which cast a bit of a pall over the whole thing. However, Dan received good news on Sunday, and it really speaks to the strength of the community that the event was still a huge success and a really great time. Rather than focus on the negative, it's the positive parts of the tournament that I like writing about.

There were a ton of old friends in town that I haven't seen and hung out with for quite a while, and it was great reconnecting with a bunch of them. Everyone has improved, and the squash was really great. The open draw this year consisted of a couple of friends, Thomas, Jarryd, and Ryan, along with some other familiar faces. And, to round it off, Sarah Fitz-gerald, the former world #1 female open player.

Jarryd and Sarah played first round, which was an interesting match. There was some contention about whether or not Jarryd was playing too roughly, and he received two warnings from the refferee about this. It looked to me like Jarryd was just making every effort to the get to the ball, and I was skeptical as to whether or not the same warnings would have been given out if Jarryd was playing another guy. Oh well, not a big deal.

Viktor Berg won the event, although I think that was mostly a foregone conclusion. Sarah came in second, which was interesting - I think most people didn't really know what to expect of her, and whether or not she would be up for it, but she certainly was. I had to play my own game for the final, but I heard that Viktor was fairly in control the whole way through.

The partying was pretty great - we kept things rolling throughout the weekend, and there was the perfect amount of beer flowing - not too much, not too little.

Lessons Learned

One thing this tournament gave me an opportunity to do was practice adapting my pace. I haven't really done this at all for a long while. If I think about it, most of our lessons are done at a fairly high pace, so it's not something I've thought about. However, three of the four opponents I played against this weekend were weakest (in my opinion) against a slower pace.

Cam played a good all-around game, but Bevan confirmed my initial hunch when he said that he loved to hit pace. Slowing things down against Cam didn't win me the match, but it definitely was the right path to head down. Anytime you can take your opponent out of their element, you introduce a little bit of uncertainty to their mindset.

Next up I played a little dude from England called Alex. Alex was 13 and definitely precocious at times, but he was pretty cool and I enjoyed playing him. He played a damn good game, especially for someone that only just came up to my torso (I guess that's why he's ranked 7th in England for his age group). The juniors that I've played have typically learned pace before they've learned playing soft and slowly. It takes a little more patience to play, and that's always something that I find improves as I age. There's always exceptions to every rule, such as Tyler Olsen in this case (who almost won the A's - big ups the T-dot massive).

Alex adapted reasonably well to the shift in pace, but playing high took away a lot of his power, and it's pretty hard for a little guy to volley early due to their height. Still, it was a great match, and I got to play the villain (playing against a cute 13-year old kid with a British accent is the ultimate introduction and setup for the villain in any squash-related super-hereo movie).

The last opponent I played was another junior who loves to hit the ball hard. Taking that ability away from him removed his ability to let out his frustrations (and this guy definitely gets frustrated with himself). I played softly and patiently and essentially let my opponent beat himself.

MVPs

Dan and Jocelyn are without a doubt MVPs for the weekend, largely carrying off the whole tournament themselves. There's a million of other people that contributed in their own ways, and that's pretty dudical too. At the center of that all, though, these guys were definitely at the nucleus.

Wrap up

So, the squash season is drawing to a close, but what a great tournament to end on. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the Sun and Surf tournament in the heat of the West Coast summer, and seeing how everyone has developed.

Two of my friends, Jarryd and Thomas, are moving out here for the summer, and that is likely to be a pretty good time. I see tacos and patios on the horizon..