Brexit, Elections, and population in 2016

Define: “effective political unit”

If politics is the name we give to a group of people making decisions that affect all the members of that group, then we can use “effective political unit” (EPU) as a catch-all name to reference that group.

Your household is an EPU. Your local sports team is an EPU. Your neighborhood and your city are both EPUs, as is your country, and each of your online communities.

We can get a rough feel for the relative size of an EPU by adding the search term "population" and hitting the "I'm feeling lucky" button on google:

EPU	Size (million people)
UK	65
California	35
Scotland	5
Quebec	8
London (England)	8
London (Ontario)	0.5
You	0.000001
Me	0.000001
You & Me together	0.000002
USA	320
North America (*)	580
Singapore	6
OECD (*)	560
China	1350
Eve Online	0.4
Alberta	4
New Zealand	4
Islam	1600
World	7500
Tokyo	14

(*) The OECD includes all of North America, so as with any "I'm feeling lucky" google search, the error bars are large.

A natural question to ask: "Given each Effective Political Unit is a group of people making decisions, what size of EPU is the most successful?" It's hard to pick an exact number, but like many trends associated with people, it's increasing over time, and the rate of increase is increasing:

EPU	Size (million people)	Year
Toba Catastrophe	0.07	70,000 BCE
Nomadic tribe	0.001	prehistory
Ancient Greece	5	400 BCE
Ptolemaic Egypt	7	300 BCE
Han dynasty	57	2 CE
Ancient Rome (peak)	60	160 CE
Mayan city	0.1	700 CE
Walmart Employees	2	2015 CE

2016

A vote for a protectionist like #Trump favors smaller (USA, 320) over #Clinton's larger (World, 7500).

A #brexit vote favors smaller (UK, 65) over #remain's larger (EU, 500).

A #califrexit (California, 35) is even smaller still.

Which brings us back to the core question of this blogpost: What size of EPU is the most successful?

Historically, every EPU has had a maximum size, once it extends past that point, it is doomed to collapse. At the same time, history is filled with EPUs that were too small, and were out-competed by slightly larger EPUs which were more effective.


It's a classic value judgement.

As social animals, we weigh the perceived risks and benefits between larger EPUs and smaller EPUs, and make a call, then find a post-hoc rationalization for our decision.

What I find fascinating is the schism between younger voters and older voters. If you look into the various exit polls around the world, a clear trend starts to emerge: Older voters seem to be favoring the 10MM-50MM range, while younger voters seem to be consistently voting in support of larger and larger EPUs.

What does it all mean? At the risk of rampant speculation, do younger voters have more confidence in technology to enable larger and larger EPUs? Do older voters have more hands on experience with large EPUs getting out of control and collapsing? I really have nothing to back up either of those statements, but it sure is fun to make sweeping generalizations :D

Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below!

Cheapest 3D Printer

My latest obsession is trying to build a 3D printer for as cheap as possible.

Partly it's because I believe 3D printing is a disruptive technology. The lower the cost for making a 3D printer, the more people will have access to the technology, and sooner the disruption will take place.

And partly, it's because I'm just really really cheap.

Low Cost

What does low cost really mean? One obvious way is to look at the price of something if we were to buy it new in a shop. If we only source new parts and new materials, we're going to have a difficult time creating something truly low cost.

My strategy is different. I'm going to try and get as many of the source materials as possible for "zero dollars."

Consider old car tyres. Any time you can recycle the rubber from an old car tyre into a seesaw or a swing, or into building materials or to protect a wharf, then the cost of that rubber is effectively "zero dollars."

That's why the core design elements of my 3D printer are going to be fishing line and lego. Two very cheap substances if you source them the right way.

Fishing Line

Nylon fishing line is an amazing substance. It's strong. Durable. Inexpensive. It's readily available everywhere around the globe. And if you need small quantities, you can often obtain it for "zero dollars". You probably already have some.

Lego

Lego is an amazing substance. It's available everywhere. It's manufactured to extremely high tolerances. It's consistent across time and place. It comes in a variety of colors. It's durable.
While lego might not be cheap, you can often *borrow* lego for "zero dollars" by using the magic words "I'm trying to make a 3D printer out of lego."
Once your print run is complete, you can simply disassemble the lego and return it to it's previous state.

Calibration Problem

When I look at the designs for existing 3D printers, one of the biggest design considerations seems to be finding out where the extrusion point is in relation to the "bed". Existing designs carefully measure the motion of the motors, try really hard to make the frame rigid, and then have lots of complicated software to try and calculate where exactly the filament is being deposited.

Ack, too difficult.

Why go through all the calculation, when you can measure directly?

My plan is to use the camera on an Android tablet to see where the bed is, and, at the same time, to see where the print head is. If it needs to move to the left, well, the tablet will keep the motors spinning until it lines up. Too far to the right? no problem, spin the motors the other way until it matches. Checkmate calibration problem!

OpenCV

Oh, and remember our lego? We know exactly how large a block is in the real world, so we can measure off distance in our 2D camera space by placing a known lego calibration object made with a few different known colors.

This way it doesn't matter if our fishing line stretches during the course of the print, or our lego gets bumped half way through, or the ambient temperature changes which make the layers a tiny bit thinner.. no problem, the camera on the android tablet sees all.

And how much does it cost for an Android tablet? "zero dollars." You just have to use the magic words: "Can I borrow your Android tablet to make a 3D printer?"

Next Steps

I've already starting on version 1 of the prototype. Watch this space.

Random

Lately, I've been tuning the "Drop-Rate" of pickups in Scooter Boy.  It's actually a lot like handing out candy at Halloween.

Allow me to use this handy diagram to explain:

Too little Candy	Too much Candy
Not enough candy to go 'round - some people walk away empty handed.	Everyone is all full of sugary goodness, and they don't want any more.

But that's not actually what I wanted to talk about today.

I wanted to talk about Pigeons.

The Pigeon Food Dance

There was a famous set of experiments back in the '30s that revolved around withholding candyfood from pigeons.  In one of these experiments, the amount of time between successive drops was random. It turns out that each of the pigeons developed a (unique) ritualistic food dance. In happy pigeon land, it was the completion of the dance which caused the food to appear.

Now the curious thing was, the time it took for the pigeon to complete the dance was slightly longer than the average time between drops.

So when the pigeon completed the dance, there was a better than 50/50 chance of getting food.  And if not, well repeating the dance a second time would surely do it!

(Have you ever timed how long it takes to reboot your computer when you've got Tech Support on the phone?) 

Random Drop Rates

For most of Scooter Boy's development,  I've been using random drop rates.  Power ups would appear, seemingly at random.  Sometimes you'd get lots, and sometimes you'd go ages without seeing any.

Worse still, changing the drop rate, by changing the percentage of a drop, was very clumsy. You'd double or quadruple the drop rate, play the game, and the results would be... well ... random... There was no way to tell if your change was making the game better.

In short, random drops, just aren't fun!

A Drop Rate Schedule

I'm in the process of changing all those drop-rate percentages into times. 30±10 seconds between drops.  Or 120±60.  It's so much more measurable. And it turns out, it's a lot more fun too.  As a player, it feels like the powerups are rewarding your effort.

So down with Mathematical Randomness! Lets make the game match the player's expectations. Lets put the fun first!

The Compressed Reconstituted Potato Container Dilemma

  There's a particular brand of compressed reconstituted salty potato snack that comes packaged in a distinctive cylindrical container.  It appears to enjoy a certain popularity amongst the kids these days.

  I mention it, because it neatly divides the human population into two mutually exclusive groups.

• Those whose hands are small enough to reach inside the container to retrieve a salty snack.  

• Those who are unable to reach inside the container to retrieve a salty snack.

Small hands, Group A.

When there are only a few salty snacks present in the bottom of the container, those with small hands can reach deep down inside to obtain one more.

Delicious!

Large hands, Group B.

By contrast, when there are only a few salty snacks remaining, members of Group B must steady the container with one hand whilst simultaneously securing the container's mouth with the other.  They then gently tip the container so as not to risk undue spillage.

The Paradox

I can't reach!

  Consider what happens when two friends of the same group attempt to share when there is only a few salty snacks remaining in the bottom of the container.  Friends belonging to Group A will proffer the container at a slight angle, allowing their compatriot the opportunity to reach inside and obtain a satisfyingly tasty morsel.

  Likewise, friends belonging to Group B will pass over the entire container, to allow their compatriots the use of both hands to regulate flow control, minimizing spillage.

  For sharing involving purely Group-A, or purely Group-B, no conflict will arise, so let us not consider such cases any further.

  The paradox occurs when a member of Group A and a member of Group B attempt to share a container. 

In this instance, the container will be alternately tilted or passed, causing dissatisfaction, confusion, and lamentation for both participants.

The Dilemma

The paradox is readily observed and thereby quickly resolved in the case of the almost-empty container.

But consider the case of a freshly opened cylindrical container of compressed reconstituted salty potato snacks.

Here we have a much more subtle problem of etiquette :

• Group A members have the expectation that the container will be offered at an angle.
• Group B members have the expectation that the container will be passed to them.

When the container is full, both the member from Group A and the member from Group B are able to obtain snacks using either technique.  And yet each will be subtly offended by the other (being alternately greedy or lazy with each exchange), with neither knowing why the other is indulging in such bizarre counter-intuitive behavior in such a trivial matter.

Indeed, even in principle, it is not possible for such a mixed group to discover the cause for the dissatisfaction until some fraction of the salty snacks have been consumed, the first observable behavioral differences arise, and the damage has already been done.

The Designer

I see this happening all the time in Game Design. A designer will come up with a system based on their personal approach to gaming.  They might be a Group A, or a Group B.  It doesn't matter.  They'll take their design to focus testing, and these preliminary results will show, unanimously and unambiguously, that the feature is working as designed.  But I know differently.  I can tell when I'm watching the focus test in progress.  Half of the respondents will have this one particular twitch that I've come to recognize signifies something isn't quite working the way they expect, but they don't have the language to report the dissonance.  And the other half will be fine.

Occasionally, when the two groups are of vastly different sizes, and the designer is a member of the minority, I see it on the faces of all of the respondents.  But the feature invariably makes its way into the game.  And why not?  After all, it's been focus-tested and there were no problems reported.  What more can a designer do?

(As an aside, if you ever try to dissuade a self-righteous designer based on a few observed facial tics, you'll learn just how quickly you can lose credibility... even when your initial observation is subsequently confirmed independently.)

The Perils of Focus Testing

Has this happened to you? A feature focus tested without problems, but gets slammed in the marketplace?  Why not tell me more about it in the comments below.