The Andromeda Project: January 2012

There are alot of different rumours that surround the Infinite Socks Corporation. Extraordinary tales of massive underground fabrication plants, legions on gnomes that knit undergarments from raw thread fiber, vast international conspiracies reaching to the highest levels of government...

Most of these rumours are patently false (and rather ridiculous). That is not to say that Infinite Socks Co. are not very, very strange.

Not many people know that what is now known as Infinite Socks began as a 3-person team at Los Alamos in 1944, as part of the Manhattan Project. This team was tasked with overcoming a slew of difficulties in producing a viable Gas Centrifuge for enrichment of Uranium. Problems initially arose in the project due to what was described as 'Spontaneous Fission Dissolution', an effect where the total volume of Uranium extracted from the centrifuge was noticeably lower than the amount initially supplied, often being seemingly 'replaced' by a random quantity of hydrogen or helium. Late in 1944, the entire project was abandoned following an incident that destroyed part of the Los Alamos laboratory. Ernest Cerre, the project's lead scientist, was killed in the accident, although his body was never recovered.

Fast forward five years, and the two remaining members of the Los Alamos Team, Timothy Portford, Physicist, and Frank Veldt, Engineer, open the Port-Veldt Mismatched Undergarment Emporium. The name is misleading: It's a warehouse, and they sell socks. Well, not just socks, there are the occasional trolley of boxers, briefs, and bras, but over 90% of the place is stacked floor-to-ceiling with socks, and never in pairs, either. That was what set them apart, they only stocked individual socks. Sure, they did their best to categorise everything, and if you went there, you could easily find a matched pair (or something close enough to human eyes), but you didn't pay for the pair, you paid for each sock.

Despite their quirky business model, the business was instantly successful. A combination of very low prices and excellent bulk discounts kept people coming back, but the real selling point was the ability to purchase single socks to match an other-wise good sock. People hate lone socks, especially new comfy ones, and the irritation of losing one of the pair was often enough to drive the emporium's business. Cries of 'It's just like the one I lost!' became an all-too-common occurrence at the emporium. Eventually, the business expands to a point where a mere retail warehouse is not enough.

The Infinite Socks Corporation was formed February 5th, 1965, as a specialised garment service. While they still sold socks in bulk, the main portion of ISC's business came from so-called 'sock-matching services'. The idea being, you took a singular sock (or set of socks) to ISC, and they would (to the best of their ability) find you a matching sock, and provide it to you for a fee. No more endless scrounging around the house searching for them, no more spending $20 at the store to buy an entirely new pair, just 15 minutes, $2, and your lone sock is reunited. If you were really lucky, ISC could even find a match for your 50-year old handwoven wool sock, even if it was an heirloom from your grandmother and you're pretty sure it's the only one in the world, somehow, they would have another one.

This much is public knowledge. What the public at large does NOT know is that The Infinite Socks Corporation is far, far bigger than they let on.

The most unusual part of this story: why two ex-Manhattan Project scientists decided to set up shop as Sock Salesmen, is easily explained by what ACTUALLY happened at Los Alamos.
The secret lies in those initial experiments performed with Uranium centrifuges, for what was initially CALLED 'Spontaneous Fission Dissolution' was actually a byproduct of a far deeper problem. What they had discovered was a unknown quirk in Electromagnetism, that when applied to fast-moving metal cylinders produced minute spatial distortions, and eventually, macroscopic wormholes.

The official record states that Ernest Cerre was killed when an experimental centrifuge disintegrated, causing powdered Uranium stock to ignite, resulting in a massive explosion. The truth, however, is far, far stranger: Ernest Cerre was killed from intense radiation poisoning during testing of the first man-traversible wormhole, after stepping through into low orbit around Proxima Centauri.
This sort of thing happens when you don't wear a radiation suit.

In the subsequent five years, Portford and Veldt spent tens of thousands of dollars attempting to produce a viable, controllable centrifuge that could be used to transport a human being from one point to another, to no avail. It was eventually discovered that what was required was a metal cylinder, rotating at high speed, with the axis of rotation perpendicular to a large magnetic field. It took little time for Veldt to realise that a simple household washing machine would suffice.

Through further experimentation, it was discovered that there was a minimum range on the teleportation effect (of approximately 100 billion kilometres), and that without a centrifuge on both ends, the wormhole is highly unstable, typically only remaining open for a fraction of a second.
After two more years and almost a million spent, Portford produced a novel solution to the problem: If a washing machine is needed at both ends to keep the wormhole open, they would need to build a giant washing machine around another star. After securing a business loan for the fraudulent 'PV Transportation' company, Portman and Veldt commenced the difficult process of piecemeal assembly of a giant centrifuge in orbit around Proxima Centauri, using unstable and often unpredictable one-way wormholes.

The station was completed in 1948, and took three months to spin up to a point where a wormhole could be kept open to Earth indefinitely. Portman and Veldt quickly realised the power they had at their fingertips, and in a short amount of time, devised a method to pick out an individual centrifuge on Earth, and connect to it from their station, allowing them to, essentially, teleport anywhere on Earth. Shady deals were made, affording teleport access to government agents that needed to discreetly move all over the world, for a fee, of course.

Problems started arising about a month after that, when large quantities of socks kept appearing in the station's arrival chamber. With the station spinning continuously and offering a convenient connection point, natural wormholes that occur in normal washing machines were able to remain open for far longer that they normally would, allowing the occasional sock or undergarment to slip through. Recognising the opportunity for further profit, Portford decided to ship the arriving socks back to Earth en masse, and resell them. And thus, Infinite Socks was born.

So if ever you lose a sock in the wash and have no idea where it could have gotten to, now you know.

According to Wikipedia, 'Art' is defined as 'the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect.'

By this definition, Video games are art. I can think of many games I have played that have seen sensually, emotionally, and intellectually stimulating (as an example of each: Osmos, Braid, and Deus Ex). In fact, I would argue that the very point of a video game is to provide stimulation and entertainment to the subject, and by this virtue alone, would qualify as an art form.

The problem, however, arises with some of the narrower definitions of art, especially so-called 'true art'. Under these rules (at least according to what i've heard), True Art is only that which serves no purpose other than to be Art. Such a piece has no justification, no meaning, beyond 'Because Art'.

To me, at least, these are the most pointless of all creations. Most pieces of art have some sort of justifiability, beit emotional or intillectual stimulation, creating something that is aesthetically pleasing, expressing a message, or conveying meaning. Indeed, most everything that has been created by humanity is driven by purpose or justification. To create something that has no justification other than 'Because Art' is to create something that is ultimately without purpose.

An thus, we get to the real issue.
Can video games be art? Yes, in the same way that a movie of a book can be art, they stimulate the subject. Simply because they are interactive does not exclude them from this.
Can a video game be True Art? No. To qualify as True art, a game would have no pupose other than its own existence as art, which means it would have no other qualities. Games, by their very nature, are designed to be interactive, and entertain or otherwise engage it's subject. This alone gives them a purpose, a justification other than simply being art.

In fact, would a True Art Game even BE a game at all?

The Andromeda Project

Friday, January 27, 2012

Infinite Socks

Friday, January 20, 2012

Video Games and Art

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Initial Check-In