What is the story behind our smart phones? Phone Story retraces the production stages of our favorite products, showing us the dramatic working conditions behind their assembly. It seems like Apple didn’t like it: the game is now banned from the App Store.
Mass riots and frequent suicides shed a dark light on Foxconn, the company that assembles product for the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Afterwards, it became impossible to ignore the conditions of the workers that mass-produce contemporary tech gadgets.
Enter Molleindustria, the software house funded by Paolo Pedercini, responsible for a remarkable series of ferociously satirical, “serious” games (check molleindustria.org for more — it’s worth it). Phone Story takes us through an uncomfortable ride of funny minigames with classic, familiar mechanics juxtaposed to harsh vignettes: underage miners extracting silicon, suicidal workers jumping from the roof of the factory, and an army of Apple — pardon, “Pear” — fans taking a flagship store by storm.
Don’t expect a radical new gaming experience with Phone Story, but pick it up if you’d like to reflect on the process that brought you your mobile, while you’re
actually holding it in the palm of your hand.
Probably not. It has been misattributed to Einstein to explain his great intelligence. The idea being that if only we used more, we would unlock the powers of our mind, become mathematical geniuses, perhaps even become telekinetic. Unfortunately, even when we think we are being lazy, like sleeping, our minds are quite busy.
Is all hope lost? Are we stuck with the intelligence we have? Probably a good education does not hurt and cognitive scientists have identified two methods that can push our brains further. The first involves focus. By concentrating on a single task, you can use more of your brain and tackle those complex mathematical formulae. The brain is usually very distracted.
The second strategy is optimisation. It involves letting your brain find the optimal solution by stopping to think and considering many alternatives before jumping on one answer.
Creativity can use a totally different ball game. Sometimes it is best to let your brain wander and simply consider all alternatives. Our brain is too complex for a few basic strategies to apply to all situations.
“Of all animals, man has the largest brain in proportion to his size” — Aristotle. Dr Yves Muscat Baron shares his theory on how humans evolved large brains. The theory outlines how gravity could have helped humans develop a large brain — the author has named the theory, ‘The Gravitational Vascular Theory’.
Malta is involved in the creation of the largest telescope ever built, the Square Kilometre Array. The telescope will be composed of 10 million antennas, process petaflops of data per day, and cost 1.5 billion euros. When built the array will peer deep into space to see how the first stars were born and attempt to solve the riddle of our origin. Words by Dr Kris Zarb Adami and Dr John Abela.
I am writing this in a sports complex cafeteria, waiting to pick up my daughter from her ballet lesson. In the meantime, my eighteen-month old son tugs persistently at my sleeve — he wants to lick the froth off my capuccino and bang on the keyboard to make the screen respond. If this sounds familiar to you, then you may be one of those researchers who are juggling studies, work, and kids.
I am on the eve of submitting my Ph.D. dissertation. Since I started, there has not been a single birthday, Christmas, or ‘sick’ day when I was not at my laptop, working on my research. During the first year I found it difficult to concentrate. I was alone at home, with a lot of time on my hands, and there were days wasted on Facebook and eBay. Thankfully, I was brought back to my senses and managed to start focussing on my work.
Ms Michelle Attard Tonna
As the first year rolled into the next, my son was born. Perhaps this was irresponsible, but then again, one cannot put life on hold to achieve a degree. The pregnancy was not easy and even necessitated hospital admission for a short time. To complicate matters, I had an important exam in the week my son was meant to be born, so I spent many sleepless nights to complete my work in advance and take the exam earlier. Pregnancy even complicated flights, since I was refused airtickets when 33 weeks pregnant.
I usually work during the night, when the world is asleep, although this is not always guaranteed when babies share your habitat. I plan my work around their schedule, intensively writing while they sleep, and performing simpler tasks while they are running around the house and destroying every piece of furniture in the process.
Being a mum keeps me grounded. I now respect deadlines religiously, finishing early means I am able to spend more time with my loved ones. Kids can be very unpredictable — they fall sick at the eleventh hour, just before you are expected to email a chapter to your supervisors. A mother needs to attend school open days and sports days, stick holy pictures to Religion project books, and keep their hair free of lice. I either work on my research in every waking hour after I have satisfied mummy duties, or else have to compromise between family and studies. As far as possible, I do not let this happen. I do not have any superpowers and have never reached a work-life balance. I just make priorities. I may have laundry baskets overflowing with clothes waiting to be folded, but I prefer to take my kids to the playing field or watch a movie. I can do much more, of course, as a mother, and I do sometimes fail. When time is tight, to finish writing I can spend hours at my laptop with little interaction with my kids. Otherwise, it would be difficult to focus and to regain the thread of my thoughts.
For my studies, I need to visit campus abroad and to present at conferences. I usually take my son along with me. He’s too small to leave behind for more than a couple of days. Last summer I took him to Portugal for a conference and had to board three planes, a train and a bus. I am sometimes met with pitying glances, but very often people are helpful and understanding.
I may not be inspiring my kids to become researchers when they grow up. Indeed, my daughter wishes that I had taken up something more ‘glamorous’, but I believe and hope that my sense of diligence will rub off on them. That it will motivate them to chase their own dreams, as I am chasing mine.
The world is currently going through the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. To reverse the economic crunch, central banks lowered the rate of interest to reverse the slowdown in credit availability, a popular economic policy. Such approaches are based on solid economic theories. However, the unique crisis could have really changed how economies react.
Stephen Piccinino (supervised by Professor Josef Bonnici) analysed the relationship between inflation and interest rates in the euro area between 1999 and 2011. The economic theory called the Fisher effect defines this relationship, and assumes that if a central bank injects money too quickly into an economy it would simply raise the rate of inflation.
From January 1999 to August 2008, the Fisher effect held true and the rate of inflation increased with the rate of interest in a one-to-one fashion. While between September 2008 and March 2011, this relationship fell apart due to intervention by the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB lent retail banks large sums of money at favourable rates. It also removed limits on how much banks could borrow and reduced interest rates. These changes influenced the relationship between interest rates and inflation.
During this period, inflation rose faster than interest rates, which meant that money held in bank accounts had a lower return than in previous years. These findings mirrored the Federal Reserve’s policy interventions in the US between 1979 and 1982.
