What is an Agent-Based Model, and how does it help us understand a pandemic?

Agent-based models (ABMs) are computer simulations capable of accounting for differences in individual (human or other organism) attributes. They can be used to predict how circumstances involving many individuals interacting with one another and their environment might unfold under a range of scenarios. Questions an ABM simulation might help us to answer include, How would motor traffic operate if we add a new road from one city to another?; How would people vote in an election if we spread misinformation over online social networks?; How will this virus spread through our city? 

How do these simulations work? What makes them capable of prediction, and what are their limitations? How are they applied to understand a pandemic?

For clarity, I'll place ABMs into the specific realm of social and human behavioural simulation. Each individual (real) person has unique cultural, behavioural, physiological, psychological and physical attributes. These differences all impact the way we make decisions, and the way we interact with the world around us. ABMs take these individual differences into account by explicitly representing an "individual" and the historical conditions it has experienced, as well as the local conditions it is currently experiencing. Here's a simple example... if I fell off my bicycle and my twin sister did not, I may develop a fear of cycling that my sister does not develop, even though our upbringing, genetics and environment may be very similar. I would then be expected to make different decisions to my sister following the bicycle accident with regard to my assessment of cycling safety. This would impact my future interactions with the world around me in various circumstances. An ABM would explicitly model these different circumstances within an individual "agent" that forms part of a simulation containing many such agents that interact with one another and their environment. The simulation is in effect a complete "virtual world" full of independent agents that make decisions based on their past, their present situation, and their goals for the future.

One way to think about an ABM is as a large computer game, such as Pacman, with thousands of "ghosts" and no player-controlled Pacman character. Each ghost is an "agent" in the software that has its own position in the world, and its own goals, direction of travel, colour and history of interactions, relationships, movements and experiences. Each ghost moves around the virtual world meeting other ghosts, making decisions about what to do when it encounters another, or deciding which way to turn at a junction in the road. The observer just watches the game unfold but can also establish and alter the conditions under which the virtual world operates. They might state explicitly key attributes of the simulation in response to questions such as, How many ghosts are in the world? What are their properties? How big is the world? How are the roads connected? Then, once the world is established, the observer can see circumstances unfold with some semblance to how they unfold in the real world. This can be used to test out ideas about how to improve the world, stop the spread of a virus, save more lives, save more jobs, or preserve a nation's economy.

An ABM for modelling human interactions in a city might be realised as a virtual world full of human agents and non-agent infrastructure such as transport networks, schools, workplaces and homes. To understand how a pandemic spreads we could set up our world full of human agents that have tendencies to wear face masks, or not; tendencies to socially distance, or not; likelihoods to catch viruses, become contagious, and pass on viruses to other agents nearby. The world can have virus agents too - these might only exist within the bodies of a human agent but be passed from human agent to human agent by close contact. Adult human agents in the virtual world might live in households with other children and adult agents of different genders and ages. They might go to work during the day, travelling on virtual transport networks and exposing them to situations where they come in close contact with agents from other households. This could put them at risk of catching a virus if the agent they meet is carrying one, but this will depend on how the two agents specifically handle the interaction - Were they wearing a face-mask during the meeting? Did they stay 1.5m apart? Was the carrier agent shouting or singing?

In building such a complex model, the modeller must always make decisions about what aspects of the real world can be left out. For instance, if eye colour is felt to be irrelevant to a pandemic, there'd be no need to worry about modelling it. Or if the clothing worn by a human was irrelevant, that too would not be modelled. The difficult trick is figuring out what must be included in the model, and what can be omitted. If a key feature of the world for understanding a situation is left out, the behaviour of the model will not bear a close resemblance to the real world system it is supposed to be modelling. For instance if the model doesn't include humans wearing face-masks, then we can't use it to understand what the difference is between a real world with face-masks and one without. Similarly, if we misrepresent the conditions under which a virus spreads (assuming it spreads by contact with droplets on surfaces instead of via aerosols perhaps), then the virtual virus will spread through a community in our model in a way differently to how it spreads in reality, making our model potentially misleading. Hence, our models need constant improvement as we come to understand more and more about the real world situation we are modelling.

ABMs are an extremely powerful way to help us understand the complexities of human interactions and disease spread. They require a lot of expertise to design, a lot of expertise to build and operate, a lot of expertise also to calibrate and validate against the real world. And their results need to be interpreted carefully by experts. They aren't a magic bullet, but they are proving extremely useful in the world's present situation. Without  computer scientists and epidemiologists, the experts constructing, operating and interpreting these models, it's fair to say we'd be running blind when it comes to handling today's pandemic. Sadly, when people ignore the science, well... the ramifications are distressing to say the least.

Extra reading: Here is an Open Access research article (I co-authored with some of the people leading Australia's current pandemic response modelling some years back) explaining an agent-based model, Synthetic Population Dynamics: A Model of Household Demography. This will provide some detail for those wanting to see how researchers use an agent-based model of human behaviour. ABMs are also valuable in understanding ecological interactions, here's a research article (work by an ex-PhD student I supervised recently) ABM simulating bee-flower interactions A-Bees See: A Simulation to Assess Social Bee Visual Attention During Complex Search Tasks.

How to review an academic paper

An inescapable part of being an academic, arguably even a PhD student these days, is the stream of requests to review journal articles, conference submissions, grant applications and book proposals. Leaving aside book proposals and grant applications for this article, please find below a list of things I consider important when I receive reviews of articles I have written, or when I solicit reviews for articles written by others.

0) A reviewer should always read the paper. Properly. Try to understand the paper. Properly. It is absurd that I would have to write this but I have read many reviews where I question whether or not the reviewer has read beyond the abstract, figure captions and conclusion. If you haven't time to read the full article properly, you should decline to conduct the review. Please don't say you will do it and then do a shoddy job. This helps nobody.

1) Cite me! Cite me! It is highly likely, even desirable, that reviewers of an article will themselves have published in the area where they are reviewing. It is of course not surprising that you, as a reviewer, feel your own work to be worth citing, and that therefore you would like to see its value recognised in the articles you review. In my opinion, this is fine. Ask for your work to be cited: if it is essential reading to provide background for the topic; or if it directly supports or counters a claim made in the article under review. Otherwise, please don't ask. If you do request a citation of your work don't harp on it, and please don't expect the authors to reference everything you have ever written throughout their article. Temper your enthusiasm for your own work.

2) Clearly articulate your requests. Clarify your arguments for insisting the authors make a change to their paper. Be explicit about what is wrong or in need of mending and make concrete, constructive suggestions as to how to improve it. This kind of criticism and information is the most helpful thing authors can receive. If you are a good reviewer, you will provide it.

3) Always be nice. Nobody likes to receive a "reject", but the least you can do as a reviewer is to be polite about it. Be especially sure you address point 2) above if you must reject an article.

4) Point out the strengths of an article. You might not find every submitted piece of research convincing, or well presented, or rigourously conducted. Even so, try to find something nice to say about it. Authors can build a good article and hopefully a worthwhile career from what you perceive to be their strengths. This is especially helpful for young or early career researchers. Be encouraging to those attempting to publish in your field. That is a great way to ensure your field welcomes new ideas and new blood, and it assists newcomers to understand how they can make a valuable contribution. Be a guide, not a gatekeeper.

5) Write the review you would like to receive from an expert if the article was your own and you had put a solid year or more of work into it.

Of course authors too have responsibilities. For instance they should proof-read articles carefully, write clearly and report on rigourously conducted research appropriate for their field. If authors meet their responsibilities the reviewer's role can be pleasurable. It is always frustrating to be asked to review an article littered with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and unintelligible turns of phrase. If you receive such an article and feel that it is beyond repair, please suggest to the authors they edit it carefully (or have somebody do this for them) prior to resubmission. Personally, I think this is preferable to asking a reviewer (even if that reviewer is yourself) to spend their time on an article that is not yet ready for review.

More suggestions beyond points 1-5 above are welcome. Happy reading!

What is a good abstract?

In this article I will discuss abstracts for scientific papers and articles on art and technology.

There are probably many people better qualified to write this post than me, but as a regular reviewer for journals, conferences, grant applications, books etc. I guess it really matters to some people what I am looking for in an abstract, even if I am only one of many reviewers, even if my opinions are unconventional (for instance in the arts). So, what do I think are the properties of a good abstract?

I think a good abstract is (i) informative, (ii) clear and (iii) succinct. Obviously these aren't mutually exclusive properties, they are closely related. To be informative, tell me what I need to know. More on that in a second. To be clear, avoid jargon and keep terminology simple. Avoid references to other material (keep that for the introduction/background). The abstract is not post-modern poetry. Please explain yourself as simply and clearly as you can to engage as many people as possible. If you want people to read your paper, you must be understood by them from the beginning. To be succinct provide an overview but no detail, don't waffle.

What is needed for an abstract to be informative? Tell me directly what you have done. Tell me why you did it and convince me that it is important. Then tell me how you did it - briefly! This is the abstract, not the method/approach so keep it short. If the technique you used is well-known just name the technique. If the technique is related to a well-known technique, just name the technique and say that you used a custom or previously published variant of it. Lastly, tell me your conclusions, but just the main findings. This isn't a mystery novel. The reader mustn't be kept guessing until the Results section. Please include this information upfront.

That's it. I hope that isn't too much to ask. I must remember these guidelines myself next time I write an abstract.

cycling and sponsorship - pinarello and specialized comparison

Cavendish has a personal deal with Nike, while Sky's kit is supplied by Adidas, and Cavendish prefers a Specialized bike but Sky has a contract with Pinarello. [cyclingnews] It is complicated when you have people paying you buckets of money to use their stuff, and other people paying to use different stuff. Its tough when you don't want to use the stuff you are paid to use because it is not right for you.

So what's a rider to do? I wouldn't know as I have never been paid to use bike equipment before (although of course I am expected to wear my club racing kit when I compete... which I do!) But of course I have been asked to do things, by my employer even, that I personally felt were against the best interests of that same employer. What's a guy to do? When personal ambition is involved – such as in your own pride in winning a race – or (in my case) in teaching a subject well, or presenting an idea clearly, we are left with a conundrum. Tough call. If I were Cavendish I would take the Pinarello! :-)

mary shelley's moonlit window

"In August 2010, Professor Olson, two colleagues and two students went to Lake Geneva to discover when moonlight would have hit the windows, and penetrated the shutters, of Mary Shelley's bedroom." In this way, and by looking up their astro. tables, they aimed to date the birth of her famous tale, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) [The Guardian].

"It was a strong effort of the spirit of good; but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction" – wrote the poor Doctor in Shelley's tale (chapt 2).

If Shelley had her way, perhaps there would be no field of Artificial Life. If we took her text to heart, should we all stop now? Perhaps, like nuclear physics, the potential to make a mess of things is too great? And yet, here we are, pushing onwards in an effort to create life. Ahhh... what would a girl in her late teenage years know about the future of the world anyway?

melbourne's classic cycling routes

A quick chat in the (miniature) bunch this morning with some friends got me thinking. What are our hottest spots to ride on the road around here? Obviously my views are limited since I usually ride on the Eastern side of the city. Still, here are a few of my favourites (in no particular order). Some are well know and possibly spoiled by rowdy riders or traffic. Others are less well known and still have the rural charm.

• The Dandenongs (Basin to Sassafras but also the countless roads over the back)
• Kinglake climb (St. Andrews to Kinglake)
• Mt. Pleasant Rd. (Eltham)
• Hussey's Lane (Park Orchards)
• Beach Rd. (Brighton to Mordialloc)
• Cottles Bridge - Strathewen Rd. (Cottles Bridge to Strathewen. Doh.)
  
• Yarra Boulevard (Kew and Burnley)
• Beverley - Banyule - Henty - Cleveland - Bonds - Old Eltham Roads (Rosanna)
• The Esplanade (Mornington to Safety Beach)
• Clintons Rd (into Smiths Gully)
• The Alps (Falls Creek, Mt. Buffalo, Mt. Hotham)
• The Great Ocean Rd. (It is long and almost entirely fabulous)
  

I am sure I have forgotten many, but that is a start!

bicycle headlight - moon X-power 500 review

I have recently taken to early starts at o'dark thirty as my previous post highlights. As I have been riding on unlit country roads, a proper headlight was in order. In my case, the Moon X-Power 500 – that's a 500 lumens headlight for a bike! I know brighter lights are available, but really, are they necessary for cycling? Perhaps for mountain bike riding in the dark?

The 500 is ample bright for unlit roads. So bright in fact that I have been riding it on its "standard" setting of 240 lumens (made from a selection of "Full after-burners engaged", High, Standard and Low) unless its really pitch black. The beam is a good design with ample reach and diffusion to provide a nice balance between seeing ahead at speed and around to give a sense of the space beside you. When the sunlight makes its debut, I switch to Flashing mode which, at a reported 380 lumens, is blindingly bright. Retro-reflective street signs flash at me from a kilometre away when I have this mode on. In pitch black, flash mode is disorienting. The whole world seems to strobe and the mode makes me dizzy.

The power/mode button is a flush press fit, not the best when wearing full gloves but manageable. I would also like a mode indicator on the light or a switch that shows by its position the current mode. It is hard to tell which mode you're in and since the battery life is reduced significantly in the brightest modes, I would like to be able to tell at a glance that I am in a lower intensity mode as I trundle along. The unit does flash red LED at you when it is running low on juice. Switching to a lower power mode can save you from complete blackout for awhile.

The mounting bracket for handlebar use is sturdy but the "quick-release" is not quick. You have to screw in the bolt and use the lever just to cinch it down. There's no way to get the quick-release to work as one since you can't get the clamping loop over the bars if the screw is in. Still, this is a minor quibble. The bracket clamps to my oversize road bars with no problems and the light is slid into place on (or removed from) the bracket with the press of a catch. The pitch and yaw of the headlight are adjustable easily.

A helmet mount (velcro strap and bracket) is included with the kit. I haven't tried it and I am unlikely to do so. There's nothing I hate more than a fellow cyclist looking me in the eye and blinding me with their head-mounted laser beam as they wish me good morning. I bet motorists hate it too. This system (IMHO) has no place on the road.

The light comes in a funky carry case with charger and USB cable. It charges okay in a few hours from computer USB or the wall USB charger provided. Only time will tell how many recharge cycles I get from the unit. It doesn't take a standard AA but instead a specially built NiMH battery enclosure slides inside the light. Hopefully a replacement is available when it comes time! Otherwise I would be really annoyed.

Be seen. Be safe.

august concludes with a ride in the dark

Wow! Its already the end of August. The days are getting longer and milder. A few days ago, in an effort to get out on the real bike (instead of an indoor trainer), I left at 5.30am for a couple of hours of riding down Melbourne's famous Beach Road. A few things I noticed that are worth considering when riding in the dark:

1. No matter how cool your favourite black kit is, don't wear it in the dark. Death wish?
2. At 5.30am on a Sunday the main roads are almost completely free of traffic.
3. At 5.30am on a Sunday the main roads are better lit than the back streets.
4. The new front LED lights are REALLY bright. Get one.
   
5. Riding in the dark in a bunch turns you all into part of a blinking flashing Christmas tree that can be seen for more than a kilometer. Good idea!
6. Its eery and lovely on a still morning down by the beach. Try it some time. I will see you there!
   

alexander calder

I just discovered online this image by Calder... Six Day Bike Race, 1924, oil on canvas, 30 by 30 inches, Calder Foundation, New York. Nice and seedy, just like the 6 day races. Was this a conscious inspiration for the work in Paris by Alexandre Ganesco, Les "Six Jours", 1930!? The two have a lot in common. Maybe that is just the subject matter. To do: attend smelly, noisy 6 day race in Belgium.

it must be time for the TDF

I was putting in a couple of hard laps of a local circuit when I spotted a woman on the footpath walking into the same blasted headwind that was hindering my progress. Her scarf was fluttering in the wind and her overcoat was blowing and flapping about as she moved. "That's really silly", I thought to myself. "What a waste of energy. Why would anybody dress like that for the Team Time Trial?"
Okay I admit it. I must have tour fever :-)

ERA journal rankings ditched!

[OFF-TOPIC] "There is clear and consistent evidence that the [ERA journal] rankings were being deployed inappropriately within some quarters of the sector, in ways that could produce harmful outcomes, and based on a poor understanding of the actual role of the rankings. One common example was the setting of targets for publication in A and A* journals by institutional research managers." - Senator the Honourable Kim Carr.

Really? Let me count the ways. And it took how long and how many dollars to be squandered in order to figure that out? For crying out loud. The only thing worse than the presence of the rankings was their application as a means to gain quantitative measures of research quality. To some very small extent my faith that commonsense sometimes prevails has been vindicated. Of course I am not so naive as to believe that this system won't be replaced by something more insidious. But until then...
[/OFF-TOPIC]

the chickpea and the stone

Once upon a time, many moons ago, I was enjoying some chickpeas when, CRUNCH. Ouch. That hurt. I bit into a stone that had somehow infiltrated my lunch!

Years have passed since that incident. I seldom eat at that restaurant anymore. Instead, I frequently eat sushi and Californian rolls for lunch. Today, I was happily eating a salmon roll when, CRUNCH. Ouch. That hurt. I bit into a chickpea that has somehow infiltrated my lunch!

So now I want to know, was that the chickpea I should have had in my lunch all those years ago? Why was it back? Was it trying to force me to visit the dentist first by its absence and now by its presence?

The world is a strange place. Eat carefully.

the ratchet

Like anyone who has worked on bicycles for more than the last few years, I have seen them change from machines equipped with bolts requiring a good set of spanners, to those that require a few allen keys and now, Torx screws. Whilst I am the first to admit that hex keys and Torx screwdrivers are portable — ideal for keeping in your jersey pocket in one of those pocket-knife like mini-tools — in the workshop I miss the tactile sensation of tightening and loosening bolts with a hefty set of spanners. That sensation has been eliminated apart from on the wheel nuts of my track bike.

The snug fit of a Torx driver is comforting, but turning it is not satisfying. I have never been a fan of allen keys. The bolts always feel to me like they will round out and the keys break, especially in the smaller sizes when operating stuck bolts. The keys themselves lack the solidity of a properly made spanner and operating them is fiddly and uncomfortable. Until now...

I recently acquired a 1/4" drive (square tip) ratcheting handle that takes the set of Torx tips and hex heads from my torque wrench. Where the torque wrench is slightly wobbly due to its two-piece handle (that releases when correct torque is reached), the new ratcheting wrench is firmly and sweetly made.

I can now tighten hex or Torx bolts with one hand, without needing to extract and reinsert the key tip in the limited space amongst the bicycle's many restricted working areas. The other hand can now be used to hold a cable tight, or to keep the bars from turning, or to stop the seatpost from sliding or to maintain seat level. I am a convert! Sure, I will revert to the torque wrench when working on carbon fiber. But for a real workshop experience, when I dig out the old steel machines, I can now enjoy the sensation as much as I like changing wheels on my track bike.

Happy wrenching!

insect mating

It is autumn in Melbourne. The days are getting shorter, the mornings frostier, but the weather has been glorious for cycling. It is also Preying Mantis mating season. I narrowly avoided one on the road this morning, bright green against the bitumen. The second I saw this afternoon as I left work had not been so lucky. It was squashed flat by a bicycle tyre before my arrival. If it was a female it might not yet have mated or laid its eggs. If it was male, it could not yet have mated or it would already have lost its head! (It hadn't.) It was probably too big to have been a male anyway.

Funny how sometimes I really need to look hard to notice the insects on my daily activities. This is true even when they scream at me from the trees (summer cicadas) or the grass (autumn crickets). At other times they are hard to avoid... such as last spring when dozens of pairs of mating ants fell from the sky to copulate un-ceremoniously on our deck table whilst I read emails!

bicycle naming conventions

So you have a new bicycle and are wondering what to call it? Or if you should call it anything at all? Some have said that to avoid the inevitable loss that accompanies a destroyed or stolen bicycle, you should refrain from loving the bike, just love the ride. I am not of this opinion and so I offer here some "guidelines" on how to name your bicycle.

1. Ignore all conventions including these. It's your bike. Name it what you like :-)
2. Follow convention 1.
   
3. A bicycle is not a ship, you do not need to name it by conventions for naming a ship.
4. Choose a name that somehow suits the bicycle's character.
5. Have a theme that you can carry through all of your bicycles from the time you are born to the time you die. For instance, mythological creatures, birds, insects, cartoon characters... just don't name them after cats or Apple may sue you.
6. Bicycles can be masculine or feminine. Look at the bike, ride it a bit. You can tell its gender if you listen carefully.
7. Take your time in naming your bicycle. The name is important.
8. When you are happy with your bicycle's name, head down to the newsagent and see if they have some Letraset transfers so that you can embellish your machine's top tube. Alternatively, a professionally made sticker, although expensive, can look terrific.
   

Here are some examples from personal experience. I have thus far named only a few of my bicycles:

• Reynolds 531c, custom road racing bicycle built by Doug Gould: Bandersnatch

This is a name taken from Lewis Carroll's poems and "Through the Looking Glass". Says the White King, "She runs so fearfully quick. You might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch!"

• Reynolds 853, custom road racing bicycle built by Kevin Wigham/Paconi (bright yellow and black): Wasp

The bike really is very black and yellow. A wasp was an obvious choice being a powerful insect with a nasty sting in the tail.

• Columbus EL Oversize, custom track racing bicycle built by Kevin Wigham/Paconi (deep metallic red): Vampire

A fascination with all things macabre, the rich paintwork, a jersey worn by Russell Mockridge and my plan to suck the wheels of the big guys before finishing them off on the line inspired this name.

• Pinarello, mass-produced carbon road bike (red, white and carbon): ???!

This bike, despite two years of consistent riding, still doesn't have a name. It is as bright as a fire engine, fast as a Ferrari, muscular as Mr. Universe and curvaceous as... well, you have the idea! :-) My wife has suggested "Maximilliano" but it doesn't quite ring true. I like the Roman approach though. Maybe "Lucilia" is better? Lucilia was the wife of Lucretius (the Roman philosopher). Apparently she gave her husband a love potion so powerful it destroyed him. Given the number of k's I have ridden on the Pinarello I suspect something similar has been slipped into my bidon!

Good luck in naming your bicycle, happy riding.

a selection of cycling's sunglasses and weirdness

Was there ever a more strange and ubiquitous item than the frames of eye glasses? They range from the minimal wires that hold the lenses where they need to be, to the extravagant eye-enlarging shades of the seventies and recent revivals. Fashion clearly has a lot to answer for. Some of my favourites are the sunglasses sported by cyclists since the 1980s. These are amongst the most ostentatious designs. Why would that be? Surely in the case of athletic eye wear function must take precedence over fashion?

Fortunately not. Whilst function may originally dictate the form, this becomes the fashion and from there the designers seem keen to push things to extremes, especially the Italians. Thank goodness for the Italians! Certainly there are an abundance of sleek visor-styled lenses that protect the wearer from glare and dust whilst smoothing the airflow over the eyes. But these are often so dull. The best designs make a statement that, despite (or perhaps because of) their weirdness, represent an era. These are to me the most interesting.

At the start of fast mechanised transport motorists, motorcyclists and aviators were certainly in need of eye protection. Tour de France cyclists' goggles resembled these in style. Of course when riding a bike things tend to fog up a bit. How long would it be before specialist eye wear was designed for this activity?

I guess it was somewhere in the early 80s that I first saw a pair of cycling specific sunnies — on the eyes, actually on the face, of Phil Anderson. At first glance these looked quite bizarre. But there was no discouraging a teenager mad keen to emulate Anderson. The wide field of view, the sweat band across the top, the large single lens, and the fact that Skippy himself was wearing a pair, all made these highly desirable. As far as I know, from these Oakleys springs the weird world of cycling specific sunnies.

There were various forms of these glasses and lots of imitations for the next few years. I know. I could only afford the cheap imitations :-(

As far as I am concerned it was the Italian Briko manufacturer that next defined an era... the 90s. Cipollini and Pantani, two of the most colourful members of the peloton at the time were both seen sporting Briko Stingers and Jumpers. The Stingers remain my favourite glasses of all time for both their visual appeal and functionality. Stingers transformed the clunkiness of the 80s into a very Euro-cool but equally bizarre, alienesque face for the times.

At one stage or another Pantani sported a pair of Briko Zen specs which are reminiscent of the earliest goggles, only with a much wider wrap-around lens. These were not as iconic as the Stinger but distinctive nonetheless.

And then nothing much happened for nearly 10 years. Various companies experimented with snap-in lenses, including many from Taiwan, but none was a notable or particularly distinctive design.

Maybe the last couple of years have seen the introduction of the next classic: the Oakley Jawbone. They are competing against Oakley's other popular design, the Radar which I feel lacks any innovative features over and above those offered by the myriad of other blade-style lenses. They just aren't wacky enough to make an impression.

The Jawbones also feature interchangeable lenses, but more importantly, the bizarre frame form with multiple components whose colours may be mismatched as garishly as desired might be just what is needed to define the next classic. Peripheral visibility is not nearly as good as the old Stingers. The lens quality is great though and they hug the face to keep out dust and debris. Slots around the side of some lens models allow for a little ventilation in steamy conditions, hopefully to keep the fog at bay. Will these define the era?

If the 2010 road race world champ sports the Infrared Jawbones... will they help the rest of us ride faster? No. But we can all look just as silly ^h^h^h cool!

The Grid and The String in Music

[Image of the Tenorions from synthtopia.com]
Yamaha has a pretty looking device, Tenori-On for fans of MIDI-triggering LED grids. I have been a fan of portable LED grids since I discovered Maywa-denki's Bitman in Tokyo. Tenori-On is a 16x16 grid... four times more little LEDs than Bitman ;-) OK, seriously now... The Tenori-On's LEDs act as push buttons, much like the buttons on the old Novation Nova synths, another favourite of mine. Incidentally, Novation have their own LaunchPad controller which also plays on the pixel grid idea. This has been a common theme in this area over the last few years. In the Yamaha product, the grid is used to control a sequencer in various ways. In some modes the hardware acts like a step-sequencer, in others more unusual metaphors are employed to trigger music events, for instance a bouncing ball metaphor is employed to trigger an event when the ball (a lit LED that moves across the grid) hits an edge for instance. The user then controls the distance the ball moves between bounces to shorten or lengthen the delay between triggers... in discrete steps.

And this is the thing about "the grid": Whilst beat-based, typically 4/4 music is so seductive, popular, easy to make and therefore marketable to teenagers with home studios and greying electronic music buffs alike, it would be nice if these new tools enabled the subtlety of a string on a fretboard when it came to placing notes in time. For experts maybe a fretless fingerboard is better... no need for the guidelines, place the notes in time by feel. But no, even after all these years of computer-hardware and software based music production the "new" instruments by the big manufacturers return us to our neatly discretised rhythms (and pitches). They can't afford to venture into the territory that brings us an instrument like a violin or the shakuhachi because these are just too hard to master. Even a recorder which, despite its regular finger holes offers the player a chance to over-blow, stutter, tongue, tremolo and shriek their way through a piece, merging notes, individuating notes with staccato punctuation, placing notes wherever and whenever they darn well like, is more subtle.

A drum-machine? Well, I absolutely love the new rhythms that have been moving into electronic music since Kraftwerk, through 80s synth-pop, jungle, drum'n bass, techno... right through the 90s and 00s up to the stuff so popular even on mainstream radio today. It has really transformed the way I think about rhythm. Most of it I could never have hoped to play live on a drum kit (even when I practiced). But a lot of it is just sampled old drum loops. I know this is a little tired. We have heard all this before. But every new instrument that comes out is a chance to revitalise electronic music. Every new instrument based on the grid is a chance lost. All the complexity of which music is capable is being missed by a generation of music makers.

The Tenori-On looks like fun to play. And don't get me wrong, I love a range of electronica based around the grid. But really Yamaha's sequencer/instrument is just another toy with a pretty pixel grid. Funny then that there is a pop-group (well, it is surely OK nowadays to call a group of 3 sexy girls who make music and dance around a bit on stage a pop-group right?) called the Tenerions. From what I have heard of their music it sounds pretty much like the product demos on the Yamaha website. Not particularly exciting.

Although I haven't played with my poor dusty synths for years, sometimes I am tempted to look longingly into my cupboard, dust off their cool metal surfaces and twiddle the knobs... analogue knobs. Knobs that spin smoothly and continuously. And then I remember that I waved goodbye to my last truly analogue synth well over a decade ago. Even the boxes I have with knobs are analogue emulations. The knobs might spin, but the values they represent are discrete. And so it goes. In the name of suplesse (a cycling term... grace? suppleness? elegance... on a bike) I have given up many things. Music-making was an early casualty. Who am I to complain about grids? Maybe count me as a concerned music-citizen who would like to hear the newcomers make something different, sometimes. I guess the best of them do and I should just listen harder and more widely. No disrepespect to the Tenerions. The fact that I have even heard of you means you must be doing something right!

the laser pointer and the cursor

For some years now I have wanted to comment on the "cursor". Now is the time! Having just sat through a conference almost entirely dictated by powerpoint-style slides (my own talk included) it was interesting to note the role of the laser pointer and its digital analog, the cursor. Once I noticed it, the pointer seemed to sit upon the surface of the content, hovering over slides like an invisible elephant hovers over a dinner table.

For many of the talks speakers employed the supplied green laser pointer, whether they needed to or not. This green dot-making device was brandished with abandon, sometimes on the side walls of the auditorium as speakers forgot to release the switch, once or twice into the audience, but most often, in a jumpy-skippy fashion across regions of the projector screen. It is very hard to hold such a fine point steady from a distance, a phenomenon which is made more apparent in large auditoria since here the speaker stands far from the projection screen. By and large the pointer was not needed for indicating details on the slides. Instead it was used as a crutch, perhaps giving the speaker something to focus on apart from the audience.

The worst case I saw was of a speaker using the laser pointer to hop from word to word of his bullet points as he read the text from his slide... "follow the bouncing ball and sing along". Oh dear. The talk was otherwise very interesting, but it was hard not to giggle at the invisible elephant. Was I the only one who could see it?

Of course slide presentation software typically allows the speaker to use the mouse cursor. A few speakers did take advantage of this. This technique has the advantage of allowing the speaker to position the cursor, then leave it steadily in place. However laptop trackpads can be a fiddly means of positioning this cursor under pressure. One amusing episode ensued when a speaker attempted to operate the controls of a movie player on the trackpad, whilst looking behind him at the large projection screen on which the movie was being displayed. It took him awhile to negotiate the reverse mapping and trackpad sensitivity!

The mouse cursor's continued presence onscreen after its relevance has been removed is seldom a source of frustration for speakers... although it should be! Some software has the cursor vanish after a period of inactivity. This can be helpful, or it can be problematic depending on the speaker's needs for a specific slide.

It is interesting to note people's ability to see "through" a cursor. A number of presenters had beautiful images to show, and they left the cursor positioned right in the middle of them, unnoticed. I have seen Skype sessions, artists showing their imagery, movies being viewed... all with the cursor smack bang in the middle of the screen. It is amazing how readily we are able to see past this visual obstacle. This is akin to my experience of (for instance) Melbourne's suburban and city streets — I can often see past the tangle of power lines, tram wires, advertising signage and other visual pollution to admire a "beautiful" street (see Robin Boyd - The Australian Ugliness). This experience is also the norm when viewing Japanese temples and gardens. They are typically surrounded by old rubbish, blue tarpaulins, pipes, taps, wires, fences and signs but tourists come to admire their beauty and manage to turn a blind eye to all of this.

"So smarty pants. What did you do?", I can hear you ask. Well, I just added slides with arrow markers pre-placed to highlight the sections of slide I wanted to discuss. These appeared and vanished as I hit the space bar on the keyboard — something that is easy to do in an instant, without error. It mostly worked. Except I once forgot to use the arrow and pointed with my hand. Then when I tried to progress to the next slide I of course made the arrow appear at the point I had just discussed... a glitch. But not catastrophic I think and worth the improved pointing I achieved elsewhere in my talk.

...thank goodness for selective attention. Without it we have already polluted most of the world's potentially "beautiful" views. Anyway, feel free to leave the cursor on my nose when you Skype me. I know that you can't see this invisible elephant :-)

moral sustainability and cycling - robert nelson

(Moral sustainability and cycling: an ecology of ambition for a hyperactive planet. Published by St. Andrews Sustainability Institute and Ellikon, Melbourne 2010.)

Although I was aware that the author of this text frequently commuted by bicycle and that he was an active art critic, the discovery of his new mini-book on the links between cycling and our current environmental predicament was an exciting surprise. In this essay Robert investigates the reasons many people make uncomfortable cyclists, in particular why many are unwilling to cycle-commute despite recognising its health and environmental benefits. So, why do people buy themselves a shiny new steed on which to commute to work, and then after a few days hide it in the spare room to gather dust and cobwebs?

As well as dealing with the obvious discomforts associated with vigorous activity in the outdoors, the author addresses a number of seldom considered aspects of the daily pedal to work. He reveals several reasons that have little to do with the availability of bike paths, the extra time that might be involved or the danger of mobile-phone wielding mothers in 4WDs. One reason explored was the disparaging high-speed, lycra-clad bunches of athletes and their portrayal in the media as “real” and glamourous cyclists. Cyclists outside of this context are perceived in the Australian psyche as inferior and sub-human. There are of course exceptions. For instance cycling helmetless down a country lane with a basket of bread, cheese and wine is acceptably Euro-romantic and a “simple” pleasure that even advertisers legitimise. Commuting when a car would do? Holding up peak hour traffic by occupying a lane? Never would cycling in this way be seen as desirable or marketable in our country.

It is here that I find one significant issue that the essay misses, the “fixie phenomenon”. Countless teenagers, university students and some alternative lifestylers here and in many major cities hostile to cyclists, have, in the last ten or so years, cottoned on to the New York bicycle couriers’ preference for track bikes. They carry messenger bags slung over a shoulder and hefty bike chains are worn as bodily adornment. Melbourne now has fleets of NY messenger impersonators heading brakeless into traffic. They run red lights, skid and skip their rear wheels through pedestrian crowds, before heading like bicycle salmon against the flow of one-way streets.

I have even witnessed a student at my university driving his fixie to a nearby hotel carpark, removing it from the boot and cycling the last few hundred meters to university. I can speculate on the reasons for this: (i) It is too far and too hilly for him to ride his fixie’s one gear from home to university; (ii) The fixie is cool, a geared bicycle is not. He would not consider riding geared; (iii) He saves himself the cost of the permit required to park his car at university and has the added bonus of impressing his friends with his lovely bicycle upon his arrival.

I have also seen a different student call out to another as he rolled past on his way to class, “Yeah, sweet bike. Fixie mate!” The bike was not actually fixed, it was a single-speed with a freewheel. It was not "sweet" either. It was a crappy 1980s ten-speed conversion. But these subtleties were lost in the excitement of the pedestrianian's proclaimation of his identification with the rider.

This phenomenon has made commuting by bicycle cool, even here in the motorcar’s second homeland. It contributes to providing a solution for the middle-aged commuter who understands the sense in having brakes, mudguards and panniers. I have seen cyclists aged between 14 and 80 riding fixed gear bikes, with and without mudguards, lights and panniers. The mere fact that a bike is fixed gives its rider the credibility that many crave. Maybe, just maybe, this removes a few cars from our roads. It certainly raises the visibility of cyclists on our roads. For this I am thankful.

As Nelson indicates, as soon as you can afford a car it is barely socially acceptable for you to ride. Our society is set up so that there is no prestige associated with making your appearance at the office bathed in sweat. Physical activity in this context is uncouth. Are you too poor to afford motorised transport? Nelson proposes the electric bicycle to be one machine with the potential to remedy these problems.

Unfortunately, as he notes, electric bicycles have one major drawback — they are seriously uncool. Whilst the fume-spewing 50 cc Vespa has euro-café-style and Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday sophistication, none of this washes off on the humble electric bike, despite its better environmental credentials. I agree with Nelson that these are marvellous pieces of engineering. But as he knows too well, they are not sexy artefacts. I am not sure how this might be rectified, if at all. Maybe a manufacturer could convince a supermodel to pose naked on one?

A valid engineering solution to a recognised problem may stare people in the face, yet it may be overlooked for purely social reasons. The consequences of this type of human stubbornness have often resulted in a needless struggle for survival. This has sometimes been followed by extinction of entire cultures. Colonial societies for instance have carried the ways of their homelands to new horizons. Rather than adapting their behaviour by mimicking the successful lifestyles of the locals, they have stubbornly clung to inappropriate agricultural practices, poor hunting and gathering choices, incongruous architectural styles and scarce but familiar building materials. The results include malnourishment, starvation, decimation of local ecosystems and, as Jared Diamond discusses in his book of the same name, Collapse. As a planet we are headed this way via our momentum-propelled reliance on fossil fuels and unsustainable population growth.

Nelson’s book is entertaining, slightly rambling but always insightful. This style suits me perfectly. A diversion exploring the eroticism of the bicycle saddle was amusing but, I felt, unnecessary. This tangent in particular seemed to confuse the book’s main drive to detail our relationship with the bicycle in all its engineering simplicity and marketed complexity, and to explore its socio-environmental credentials. In these latter respects the text is informative and original. It has stimulated me to think more deeply about why I ride so often and why I seldom commute.

soy-sauce fish

Declaration: I will not use any disposable soy-sauce fish with my take-away sushi if I am given the choice at the time of purchase. I have nightmares about an ocean choked with millions of these little red-nosed fish floating belly-up, empty of sauce. Wherever I sit down to eat I see the tiny little red noses peeking at me from between blades of grass, or scattered amongst the gravel beneath my feet. I will not contribute to this! We should be using packaging that is bio-degradable... or a large recyclable container of sauce at the point of purchase from which sushi-lovers can help themselves.