It seems to me that most political parties are conservative by nature. Not because of their policies but by the way they run their own campiagns. The most common strategy seems to be to get and keep votes by preaching to the choir. Their's is a path of least resistance treaded mainly by avoiding offense. The federal issue of the environment is a case in point.
The Conservative Party cannot bring itself to offend the big corporate polluters lest it loses the support of their moneyed base. The NDP talks a good game but always backs away because it's afraid of offending the big industry unions like the Autoworkers even though these constituents create heavy rusting products that spew massive amounts of hazardous emissions. Meanwhile in the middle, the Liberal Party is content to appeal to everyone all at once and couldn't achieve anything of significance with regard to the environment even though they were given consecutive majority governments with which to work.
The Green Party seems to be the only party that takes this issue seriously enough beyond just using it as a vote-begging plank in their platform. They however have very little experience governing and some of their candidates may be too green (in a bad way) to step up and run an administration. I'm encouraged by Stephane Dion's posture on the environment and also his cooperation with Elizabeth May in not running opposing candidates in their respective ridings. The best case scenario could be a close cooperation between these two parties.
The New Democrats would have been the natural partner for the Green Party but they've let a great opportunity slip from their grasp. They are in danger of becoming irrelevant and altogether collapsing because they're still supported by an outdated ideological framework built on a rusty base.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Prolly Probably
I've noticed on more than a few occasions that some young people have begun to substitute the word prolly for probably. There are of course many examples of words that have been shortened to save on the number of characters required to send a text message but this one really bugs me. It only saves 2 characters so you gain very little but you lose a lot.
The word probably rests on mathematical and statistical underpinnings. It signifies that something has a better than 50% chance of being the case. So by using it and knowing the root of the word one displays an understanding of certain concepts of not only mathematics but also of logic and epistemology. By using probably one doesn't commit to a certainty, one claims that given the facts at hand the statement is not certain but only likely. By using prolly it only implies a vague likeliness not based on any rigorous consideration. It could be based on such nebulous folk concepts as intuition (see Malcolm Gladwell).
I'm convinced that some kids think that prolly is the proper spelling of the word and are already alienated from it's basis in inductive reasoning. I know that words alter in spelling and occasionally lose their original meaning. Terrific originally meant terrifying but hardly anyone today associates the word terror with terrific. Likewise, prolly is probably on it's way to becoming one of those words which will one day in the future be brought out by a stickler like me and shown to have had a much richer past than it would have been assumed.
The word probably rests on mathematical and statistical underpinnings. It signifies that something has a better than 50% chance of being the case. So by using it and knowing the root of the word one displays an understanding of certain concepts of not only mathematics but also of logic and epistemology. By using probably one doesn't commit to a certainty, one claims that given the facts at hand the statement is not certain but only likely. By using prolly it only implies a vague likeliness not based on any rigorous consideration. It could be based on such nebulous folk concepts as intuition (see Malcolm Gladwell).
I'm convinced that some kids think that prolly is the proper spelling of the word and are already alienated from it's basis in inductive reasoning. I know that words alter in spelling and occasionally lose their original meaning. Terrific originally meant terrifying but hardly anyone today associates the word terror with terrific. Likewise, prolly is probably on it's way to becoming one of those words which will one day in the future be brought out by a stickler like me and shown to have had a much richer past than it would have been assumed.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Doc Soup
I just spent a couple of weeks working at the HotDocs Film Festival. I got to meet and hang out with some directors and producers, moderated presentations at high schools and even cut tickets, counted ballots and ushered at theatre screenings. It was very hectic and I've taken a couple of days to unwind. During the 10 days of screenings I watched about 20 documentaries. Some that I remember:
Girls Rock - A week spent in Oregon at a rock camp for girls 8-18. It goes beyond the music and touches on issues of gender and empowerment. A charming cast of quirky girls win you over as they learn to rock.
Super Amigos - Directed by Arturo Perez Torres and probably my favourite film of the festival even before I realized that I knew the producer. Five guys in Mexico City dress in Lucha Libre costumes and fight for their respective social justice issues. It made me want to don a mask and suplex a cause of my own.
City Idol - This is the second film by Torres and Heather Haynes at this year's festival. Canadian Idol is for people who look at rock stars and say, "I wanna do that!" City Idol is the opposite. It's for people who look at politicians and say, "What the hell are they doing?". A candidate is chosen to run for office from a contestant pool of dedicated and committed citizens.
Manufacturing Dissent - I spent some time with Debbie Melnyk who made this film with Rick Caine. It exposes the liberties that Michael Moore takes with the truth in his documentaries. She affirms that she is a leftist who really admired Moore until she uncovered some of Moore's distasteful tactics.
Kike Like Me - Jamie Kastner walks around "civilized" European cities asking questions about Jews while coyly not answering whether or not he is himself Jewish. The merits of this film was hotly debated in the lobby by viewers from the Jewish community.
Lovable - Alan Zweig explores why it's so hard to find love in the middle years. He interviews several single women and commiserates with them.
King Corn - Two guys move to Iowa, rent an acre of land and farm corn for one season. They are left to mostly oversee an easy automated process and end up with corn that cannot even be eaten until it is processed in a factory and turned mostly into high fructose corn syrup.
Last Call at the Gladstone - An historic Toronto flophouse is transformed into a hipster artsy hangout displacing the long-time residents. This seemed to be the crowd favourite.
Girls Rock - A week spent in Oregon at a rock camp for girls 8-18. It goes beyond the music and touches on issues of gender and empowerment. A charming cast of quirky girls win you over as they learn to rock.
Super Amigos - Directed by Arturo Perez Torres and probably my favourite film of the festival even before I realized that I knew the producer. Five guys in Mexico City dress in Lucha Libre costumes and fight for their respective social justice issues. It made me want to don a mask and suplex a cause of my own.
City Idol - This is the second film by Torres and Heather Haynes at this year's festival. Canadian Idol is for people who look at rock stars and say, "I wanna do that!" City Idol is the opposite. It's for people who look at politicians and say, "What the hell are they doing?". A candidate is chosen to run for office from a contestant pool of dedicated and committed citizens.
Manufacturing Dissent - I spent some time with Debbie Melnyk who made this film with Rick Caine. It exposes the liberties that Michael Moore takes with the truth in his documentaries. She affirms that she is a leftist who really admired Moore until she uncovered some of Moore's distasteful tactics.
Kike Like Me - Jamie Kastner walks around "civilized" European cities asking questions about Jews while coyly not answering whether or not he is himself Jewish. The merits of this film was hotly debated in the lobby by viewers from the Jewish community.
Lovable - Alan Zweig explores why it's so hard to find love in the middle years. He interviews several single women and commiserates with them.
King Corn - Two guys move to Iowa, rent an acre of land and farm corn for one season. They are left to mostly oversee an easy automated process and end up with corn that cannot even be eaten until it is processed in a factory and turned mostly into high fructose corn syrup.
Last Call at the Gladstone - An historic Toronto flophouse is transformed into a hipster artsy hangout displacing the long-time residents. This seemed to be the crowd favourite.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Please Stay on the Line
Thank you for continuing to exist.
Your presence is very important to us.
Please don't let go of the line.
Your presence is very important to us.
Please don't let go of the line.
| 08 - Let Go The Line |
Monday, April 23, 2007
If a Tree Falls
When I was in grade four my oldest sister had a friend who I thought was very nice. She was nicer to me than my sister anyway. One day I had nowhere to go so I tagged along with my sister to her friend's house. I remember thinking that this high school girl was so cool. She had her home's basement all to herself, played the electric guitar and had lots of cool records. That day she taught me how to play Smoke on the Water, which is still the only guitar bit I know how to play. I flipped through her vinyl records and saw artists like Lou Reed, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin.
I got to one album that I simply had to pull out because the name of the artist was so amusing to a fourth grader like myself: Bruce Cockburn. She noticed that I was studying the the record front to back and thought I had some other interest in it beyond the name. I had to stop myself from giggling much like I did when while reading a physics book I came across the name of Klaus Fuchs.
When we got up to leave on that summer day, she handed me the Bruce Cockburn album and insisted that I accept it as a gift. After some resistance I obliged, took the record and made my way back home, flattered by the attention, wondering what to do with this uncool music and anxious to have a laugh with my friend down the street about the illicit name on the record. I did try listening to it a couple of times but it just didn't catch the imagination of a restless 10 year old.
Years later in high school I heard this artist again who is of course a legend in Canadian music. He had released music that seemed quite a bit cooler to me at that time. This was an era in which I often wore surplus military khakis as a fashion staple, and I got that through a confluence of influence from Cockburn and The Clash. I became conscious of political issues mainly through music and my first thoughts on the environment were probably guided by the music of artists like Cockburn (with a shout-out to The Nature of Things scientist David Suzuki).
Some people have been sounding alarms for decades and most people hardly took notice of them. It finally took the efforts of a cheated presidential candidate to bring the mainstream on board. Suzuki once described our situation by saying:
Happy Earth Day
I got to one album that I simply had to pull out because the name of the artist was so amusing to a fourth grader like myself: Bruce Cockburn. She noticed that I was studying the the record front to back and thought I had some other interest in it beyond the name. I had to stop myself from giggling much like I did when while reading a physics book I came across the name of Klaus Fuchs.
When we got up to leave on that summer day, she handed me the Bruce Cockburn album and insisted that I accept it as a gift. After some resistance I obliged, took the record and made my way back home, flattered by the attention, wondering what to do with this uncool music and anxious to have a laugh with my friend down the street about the illicit name on the record. I did try listening to it a couple of times but it just didn't catch the imagination of a restless 10 year old.
Years later in high school I heard this artist again who is of course a legend in Canadian music. He had released music that seemed quite a bit cooler to me at that time. This was an era in which I often wore surplus military khakis as a fashion staple, and I got that through a confluence of influence from Cockburn and The Clash. I became conscious of political issues mainly through music and my first thoughts on the environment were probably guided by the music of artists like Cockburn (with a shout-out to The Nature of Things scientist David Suzuki).
Some people have been sounding alarms for decades and most people hardly took notice of them. It finally took the efforts of a cheated presidential candidate to bring the mainstream on board. Suzuki once described our situation by saying:
I feel like we're all sitting in a car heading at a brick wall at a hundred miles an hour and everybody in the car is debating about where they want to sit. OK, there are a few people in the car who are saying, "For god's sake, slow down and turn the car." Unfortunately, they're locked in the trunk.
Happy Earth Day
Monday, April 16, 2007
Care to Distance
When I was in University Peter Mansbridge came for a visit with a handful of campus student leaders. He explained to us how they decided the order in which the news was delivered. If an event has the potential to effect you immediately then it goes first. If it is distant geographically or culturally then it will go down the line and may not even make the cut unless it's enormous like a tsunami or massive earthquake. It seems to me that there is an inverse relationship of care to distance (geographically or culturally).
Then there is the editorial decision of whether or not to interrupt local programming to report a news item. Again, if the event is immediately endangering or has the potential to affect people close to us or is sufficiently large then we may be interrupted to be told about it. The mass murder in Virginia today was serious enough to interrupt the programming of the news channels but not of the standard TV channels - unless of course you happened to be in Virginia where it likely intruded on most local programming.
It was a horrific setting no doubt and the ramifications of the day's events will be felt by the families and friends of the victims for the rest of their lives. Far away on the other side of the world about a hundred people are killed in and around Baghdad every single day but over here it might only be mentioned in the middle pages of the newspaper with a paragraph indicating that "Baghdad Market Bomb Kills 130" Massive Tsunamis and earthquakes like the ones that originated in the Pacific and in Pakistan last year are reported but they are done so almost pruriently because of their freakish or record breaking natures. The fact that millions were left homeless to suffer the subsequent Pakistan winters was almost completely ignored by the western media. Perhaps they are too geographically or culturally distant from us.
Imagine the heartbreak and stress that the people in Virginia are feeling today or the people of Montreal after the shootings at l'Ecole polytechnique. Now imagine experiencing events like these everyday for several years running without interruption. This is the plight of the survivors who remain in war zones in which they or their families could become victims at any moment. We just don't seem to care as much about people in distant lands and cultures. We can't. We're just not programmed for that. We have a natural inclination to care first about our tribe or village. It might be overwhelming to extend that care to the whole world.
These days we have near instant access to information so we learn of these human disasters whether or not an editor chooses to inform us. At the same time the new media also makes it easier for us to find commonality with people of far away and distant cultures. Our tribes or villages are no longer just the people that are geographically near us. Our tribe now includes people of distant lands, religions and cultures and their value is more appreciated. As we come to live in an increasingly global village the suffering of our fellow villagers may become unbearable to us whether they live down the street or in Baghdad or in Darfur.
Then there is the editorial decision of whether or not to interrupt local programming to report a news item. Again, if the event is immediately endangering or has the potential to affect people close to us or is sufficiently large then we may be interrupted to be told about it. The mass murder in Virginia today was serious enough to interrupt the programming of the news channels but not of the standard TV channels - unless of course you happened to be in Virginia where it likely intruded on most local programming.
It was a horrific setting no doubt and the ramifications of the day's events will be felt by the families and friends of the victims for the rest of their lives. Far away on the other side of the world about a hundred people are killed in and around Baghdad every single day but over here it might only be mentioned in the middle pages of the newspaper with a paragraph indicating that "Baghdad Market Bomb Kills 130" Massive Tsunamis and earthquakes like the ones that originated in the Pacific and in Pakistan last year are reported but they are done so almost pruriently because of their freakish or record breaking natures. The fact that millions were left homeless to suffer the subsequent Pakistan winters was almost completely ignored by the western media. Perhaps they are too geographically or culturally distant from us.
Imagine the heartbreak and stress that the people in Virginia are feeling today or the people of Montreal after the shootings at l'Ecole polytechnique. Now imagine experiencing events like these everyday for several years running without interruption. This is the plight of the survivors who remain in war zones in which they or their families could become victims at any moment. We just don't seem to care as much about people in distant lands and cultures. We can't. We're just not programmed for that. We have a natural inclination to care first about our tribe or village. It might be overwhelming to extend that care to the whole world.
These days we have near instant access to information so we learn of these human disasters whether or not an editor chooses to inform us. At the same time the new media also makes it easier for us to find commonality with people of far away and distant cultures. Our tribes or villages are no longer just the people that are geographically near us. Our tribe now includes people of distant lands, religions and cultures and their value is more appreciated. As we come to live in an increasingly global village the suffering of our fellow villagers may become unbearable to us whether they live down the street or in Baghdad or in Darfur.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Shit Floats
It was 95 years ago today that the Titanic sank near the coast of Eastern Canada and 10 years ago this year that one of the most irritating movies of all time was floated into theatres.
Jack, you moron, let go of the girl's hand and find some flotsam to climb onto and Rose, you senile selfish twit, don't throw that priceless gem into the ocean. Sell it and use the money to save the lives of thousands of children.
Jack, you moron, let go of the girl's hand and find some flotsam to climb onto and Rose, you senile selfish twit, don't throw that priceless gem into the ocean. Sell it and use the money to save the lives of thousands of children.
Puzzling Behaviour
While spending time with some recent first-time parents I've noticed that on several occasions the parent would praise their child by saying something like "wow, you're so smart" and then immediately stop themselves in mid stride and change the praise to something like "wow, you did a good job". They were making sure to praise the effort and not the child.
My friend Michael linked me over to this interesting article about the talent myth by Malcolm Gladwell. It's mainly about business but it got me thinking about my childhood. Research has found that children who are praised for their intelligence instead of their efforts soon become reluctant to tackle difficult tasks and begin slacking off. This observation hit home for me.
I was an immigrant kid who was thrown into grade one after the school year had already begun. I so quickly learned to read and write this completely alien language that I was paraded around like a trophy. They also determined that I might be a math prodigy so in grade two I was sent off to the grade four class during math lessons. The head-swelling praise began there.
By the time I was in middle school and in the "gifted" program I was so full of myself that I was well on my way to becoming a dysfunctional underachiever. Most schoolwork came easy to me but if some task required real work I would dismiss it or completely ignore it. I started spending more time in the Principle's office or at home than I did in the classroom. I always passed with decent grades but only with the least amount of effort that I could expend. If people saw me working hard at anything then they might start to doubt my talents.
Later when the Rubiks Cube became a huge fad in the eighties I got my hands on one and played around with it for a few minutes. I was surprised to find that I couldn't immediately solve it and so rather than work at it I avoided it completely. I guess I was afraid that if I tried and failed then it would completely shatter my self-image, so I never really tried. I pretended not to care about that silly cube until the fad finally faded away. To this day I have never really tried to solve the cube. It's been my dirty little secret and it's bothered me ever since. I'm glad to finally get it off my chest (sorry, the skeletons in my closet are lame like that). I now realize that effort and determination are as crucial or more crucial than innate talents. Maybe those parents are onto something. I think I'll find a cube and solve it.
My friend Michael linked me over to this interesting article about the talent myth by Malcolm Gladwell. It's mainly about business but it got me thinking about my childhood. Research has found that children who are praised for their intelligence instead of their efforts soon become reluctant to tackle difficult tasks and begin slacking off. This observation hit home for me.
I was an immigrant kid who was thrown into grade one after the school year had already begun. I so quickly learned to read and write this completely alien language that I was paraded around like a trophy. They also determined that I might be a math prodigy so in grade two I was sent off to the grade four class during math lessons. The head-swelling praise began there.
By the time I was in middle school and in the "gifted" program I was so full of myself that I was well on my way to becoming a dysfunctional underachiever. Most schoolwork came easy to me but if some task required real work I would dismiss it or completely ignore it. I started spending more time in the Principle's office or at home than I did in the classroom. I always passed with decent grades but only with the least amount of effort that I could expend. If people saw me working hard at anything then they might start to doubt my talents.
Later when the Rubiks Cube became a huge fad in the eighties I got my hands on one and played around with it for a few minutes. I was surprised to find that I couldn't immediately solve it and so rather than work at it I avoided it completely. I guess I was afraid that if I tried and failed then it would completely shatter my self-image, so I never really tried. I pretended not to care about that silly cube until the fad finally faded away. To this day I have never really tried to solve the cube. It's been my dirty little secret and it's bothered me ever since. I'm glad to finally get it off my chest (sorry, the skeletons in my closet are lame like that). I now realize that effort and determination are as crucial or more crucial than innate talents. Maybe those parents are onto something. I think I'll find a cube and solve it.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Somethin Bout Yo Bidness
I don't watch a lot of TV but I do appreciate a quality show when I see it. Is it worth sorting through all of the mind-numbing, soul-crushing content on TV to find these little gems? No, it certainly is not. So I've devised a new strategy: Wait until the TV season ends, see where all the buzz is, then watch the whole season on DVD (or torrent download).
I've just finished watching 4 seasons of The Wire within a span of a week. This goes some way in explaining the dearth of blog postings lately. HBO is probably the best outlet for quality TV programming and The Wire had me hooked. It follows the inner city life of Baltimore, intertwining the efforts of drug dealers, the police who pursue them and the politicians who enable them and are enriched by them.
The series is generally praised for it's realistic storytelling and deep character development but I want to point out something else I noticed while watching The Wire. The character Stringer Bell is a crime boss and second in command to Avon Barksdale. Stringer is a highly intelligent man who spends his spare time pursuing a college business education. He attends macroeconomics classes and applies his higher learning to the operation of their criminal enterprise. Avon is very much like the CEO of their organization while Stringer is the Chief Operating Officer. When Avon is locked up Stringer starts applying business processes more and more to their operations. Some very humorous exchanges take place in a gathering which is essentially structured like a corporate board meeting, complete with a chairman that recognizes gang members before they are allowed to speak.
It is made abundantly clear that efficient business practices can be grafted effectively onto the operation of a criminal organization. Moving product is moving product, whether they are widgets or packets of heroin or cocaine. The landscape is the same and includes activities like the sourcing of inventory, making distribution agreements, dealing with the competition, and motivating and reprimanding employees. We see the mentoring of junior runners by the more senior corner boys, how supply problems are solved through partnership agreements, and how to maximize profit by expanding marketing territories. The entrepreneurial and managerial spirit pervades crime dramas like The Wire as well as that other HBO hit series The Sopranos to such an extent that we might consider it to be America's essential social principle.
Stringer does so well in applying business practices to his criminal organization that he begins to make "legitimate" investments by buying up large stretches of real estate and going into property development. Poor Stringer gets blocked and ripped off by city hall permit overlords, general contractors and a slick State Senator. He discovers that these guys might be better criminals than he is a businessman. So the lesson is that not only are business processes effectively applied to criminal activities but that business activities and criminal activities are really one and the same.
The players on the corners always refer to the game in which they're engaged. An acquiring CEO might ask the head of a takeover target not to take it personally since "it's just business". Likewise when Omar robs the drug dealers of their stash he often says "it just part of the game n!&&@h". A disadvantaged environment doesn't crush the American spirit. On the contrary, the corner kids are inspired by the same ambition that drives a private school kid to become a CEO or a Senator. The criminals are just working with the hand that was dealt to them. In a strange way we come to respect them no less and perhaps more than the politicians on the show since they seem be braver and have a stronger code of ethics. Whether it's corporate business or slinging crack on the corner, the game is the same, so we hate the game but not the playah.
I've just finished watching 4 seasons of The Wire within a span of a week. This goes some way in explaining the dearth of blog postings lately. HBO is probably the best outlet for quality TV programming and The Wire had me hooked. It follows the inner city life of Baltimore, intertwining the efforts of drug dealers, the police who pursue them and the politicians who enable them and are enriched by them.
The series is generally praised for it's realistic storytelling and deep character development but I want to point out something else I noticed while watching The Wire. The character Stringer Bell is a crime boss and second in command to Avon Barksdale. Stringer is a highly intelligent man who spends his spare time pursuing a college business education. He attends macroeconomics classes and applies his higher learning to the operation of their criminal enterprise. Avon is very much like the CEO of their organization while Stringer is the Chief Operating Officer. When Avon is locked up Stringer starts applying business processes more and more to their operations. Some very humorous exchanges take place in a gathering which is essentially structured like a corporate board meeting, complete with a chairman that recognizes gang members before they are allowed to speak.
It is made abundantly clear that efficient business practices can be grafted effectively onto the operation of a criminal organization. Moving product is moving product, whether they are widgets or packets of heroin or cocaine. The landscape is the same and includes activities like the sourcing of inventory, making distribution agreements, dealing with the competition, and motivating and reprimanding employees. We see the mentoring of junior runners by the more senior corner boys, how supply problems are solved through partnership agreements, and how to maximize profit by expanding marketing territories. The entrepreneurial and managerial spirit pervades crime dramas like The Wire as well as that other HBO hit series The Sopranos to such an extent that we might consider it to be America's essential social principle.
Stringer does so well in applying business practices to his criminal organization that he begins to make "legitimate" investments by buying up large stretches of real estate and going into property development. Poor Stringer gets blocked and ripped off by city hall permit overlords, general contractors and a slick State Senator. He discovers that these guys might be better criminals than he is a businessman. So the lesson is that not only are business processes effectively applied to criminal activities but that business activities and criminal activities are really one and the same.
The players on the corners always refer to the game in which they're engaged. An acquiring CEO might ask the head of a takeover target not to take it personally since "it's just business". Likewise when Omar robs the drug dealers of their stash he often says "it just part of the game n!&&@h". A disadvantaged environment doesn't crush the American spirit. On the contrary, the corner kids are inspired by the same ambition that drives a private school kid to become a CEO or a Senator. The criminals are just working with the hand that was dealt to them. In a strange way we come to respect them no less and perhaps more than the politicians on the show since they seem be braver and have a stronger code of ethics. Whether it's corporate business or slinging crack on the corner, the game is the same, so we hate the game but not the playah.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Being and Playing
Everyone's been guilty of exaggerating, misrepresenting or outright lying when it comes to description. I have known very few people who in their humility choose to underplay their assets. Most tend to overplay certain attributes, emphasize others, and completely fail to mention still others. If you've ever looked through Toronto real estate listings you might be left with the impression that everything west of Dufferin St. is "within steps of High Park". That is of course a true statement for any property. The question is how many steps: one hundred or one million?
It's hard to maintain such a fiction since the person will eventually walk through the house and realize the number of sole-wearing steps required to walk to High Park. The hope is that in seeing the house they will find other aspects to fall in love with and decide to buy anyway. Online dating services are similarly structured. You might lie a little about your height, weight or age just to get in the door hoping that they'll be unable to resist your ample other charms once they meet you in "real life". But is a digital layer even required for this approach? Consider how people behave when meeting someone in a bar. What kind of creativity have you seen on display?
But what if your created persona is never meant to transfer back to the real world? Services like Second Life allow people to create avatars completely from scratch. You can give them appearances, skills, possessions that may or may not have anything to do with your own first life attributes. No one needs ever to discover these shortcomings nor find them to be relevant. Digital technology makes it much easier to maintain such a fictional persona but is not necessarily required. You can create your own fictional persona in meat-space without ever having to turn on a computer. You can pretend you're an experimental electronic musician from Europe, complete with an unidentifiable mid-continent accent (as I once did at a university party) or you can go much deeper and create a character named Borat and then document his exploits on film, as Sacha Baron Cohen did.
Borat is the world famous Kazakhi journalist created by Cohen. It is an avatar that Cohen wears and plays within our first life world, albeit a stylized version of our world (cinematic space). It is interesting that a first life person named Mahir Cagri has mused about suing Cohen for ripping off his persona which was briefly famous in 1999. People familiar with both characters have noted the striking similarities. The truly interesting thing about it is that Cagri's persona is not a deliberate conscious creation like Cohen's is. The character that came to be know as that "I Kiss You guy" is not a put-on; it is Cagri himself. It will be difficult to litigate someone for ripping off such a persona because it will be said that this persona was not a creation at all and therefore not protected by creative copyrights.
Cagri is in the odd position that his case would be stronger if he wasn't being himself but merely playing himself. There is something amiss here. I can argue that we are the creators and puppet-masters of several avatars or personae that we control all the time. It may be the bat-winged hunchback vampire that you play in Second Life, or the hardworking cubicle-dweller that you play at work or the good citizen that you play on the neighbourhood committee, but these can all be seen to be avatars created by you to control within different environments. We have always had these powers and there is a fine line, if any, between being and playing.
It's hard to maintain such a fiction since the person will eventually walk through the house and realize the number of sole-wearing steps required to walk to High Park. The hope is that in seeing the house they will find other aspects to fall in love with and decide to buy anyway. Online dating services are similarly structured. You might lie a little about your height, weight or age just to get in the door hoping that they'll be unable to resist your ample other charms once they meet you in "real life". But is a digital layer even required for this approach? Consider how people behave when meeting someone in a bar. What kind of creativity have you seen on display?
But what if your created persona is never meant to transfer back to the real world? Services like Second Life allow people to create avatars completely from scratch. You can give them appearances, skills, possessions that may or may not have anything to do with your own first life attributes. No one needs ever to discover these shortcomings nor find them to be relevant. Digital technology makes it much easier to maintain such a fictional persona but is not necessarily required. You can create your own fictional persona in meat-space without ever having to turn on a computer. You can pretend you're an experimental electronic musician from Europe, complete with an unidentifiable mid-continent accent (as I once did at a university party) or you can go much deeper and create a character named Borat and then document his exploits on film, as Sacha Baron Cohen did.
Borat is the world famous Kazakhi journalist created by Cohen. It is an avatar that Cohen wears and plays within our first life world, albeit a stylized version of our world (cinematic space). It is interesting that a first life person named Mahir Cagri has mused about suing Cohen for ripping off his persona which was briefly famous in 1999. People familiar with both characters have noted the striking similarities. The truly interesting thing about it is that Cagri's persona is not a deliberate conscious creation like Cohen's is. The character that came to be know as that "I Kiss You guy" is not a put-on; it is Cagri himself. It will be difficult to litigate someone for ripping off such a persona because it will be said that this persona was not a creation at all and therefore not protected by creative copyrights.
Cagri is in the odd position that his case would be stronger if he wasn't being himself but merely playing himself. There is something amiss here. I can argue that we are the creators and puppet-masters of several avatars or personae that we control all the time. It may be the bat-winged hunchback vampire that you play in Second Life, or the hardworking cubicle-dweller that you play at work or the good citizen that you play on the neighbourhood committee, but these can all be seen to be avatars created by you to control within different environments. We have always had these powers and there is a fine line, if any, between being and playing.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
DrinkLife.com
My friend Jesse was just on TVO as a guest of Steve Paikin's Agenda. They had another guest from San Francisco named Justin who has been living with a camera on his ear for the last 16 days. He never takes it off as it captures every moment of his life and streams it onto the Internet. While watching the show I also logged onto Justin.tv and saw the inside of the studio from his perspective.
As I write this posting, another window is open and streaming video of what Justin is seeing as he walks around San Francisco after having left the studio. Before he left he visited the bathroom and yes he kept it streaming although he did aim his camera away as he did his business. Justin is using a technology by Ustream that makes it easy and affordable for almost anyone to stream their lives online. I am betting we will see more of this. A youtube-like service will be required for people to access the most popular streaming lives.
Years ago I was quoted saying that "in the next economy media will be as ubiquitous as water". We are nearly there. People like Justin are serving up their lives and billions of fans will soon be drinking it up.
As I write this posting, another window is open and streaming video of what Justin is seeing as he walks around San Francisco after having left the studio. Before he left he visited the bathroom and yes he kept it streaming although he did aim his camera away as he did his business. Justin is using a technology by Ustream that makes it easy and affordable for almost anyone to stream their lives online. I am betting we will see more of this. A youtube-like service will be required for people to access the most popular streaming lives.
Years ago I was quoted saying that "in the next economy media will be as ubiquitous as water". We are nearly there. People like Justin are serving up their lives and billions of fans will soon be drinking it up.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Thanks for the Mammaries
Children make all kinds of mumbling noises when they begin to exercise their burgeoning verbal skills. One of the first sounds they make is the one that indicates that they would like to be fed. The Greek mamme is an observed form of baby-talk similar to the Sanskrit ma which came over time to take on the meaning of mother in many human languages.
The gland that secretes milk is called the mammary because this is what the baby is hoping to score when it makes that sound. In vocalizing a need or hunger the babies of the ancients like babies today blurted out a sound that came somewhat naturally to them. Perhaps this is analogous to how the baby bird knows how to chirp in a certain way when it's hungry.
Human languages are open source, they ebb and flow and evolve in a complex swirl of positive and negative feedback loops played out in myriad ways. Several languages have a word that sounds like meh-meh that could mean breasts or baby food depending on the context and there are variations on that word that morph into words like num-num which may be a novel transformation of mama.
Some think that all of our languages are variations and extensions of only a handful of naturally occurring exclamations that over time evolved into the thousands of languages that have been spoken throughout history. One linguist thought that all of language derived from only four syllables: sal, ber, yon, and rosh. The variables and assumptions required are far too numerous and complex for us to confidently make such assertions but there is some intuitive truth to the notion that the animal chirps of our ancestors with the power of some very extensive collaboration allowed us to develop our human languages which are so wonderfully rich that they have the power to address themselves.
The gland that secretes milk is called the mammary because this is what the baby is hoping to score when it makes that sound. In vocalizing a need or hunger the babies of the ancients like babies today blurted out a sound that came somewhat naturally to them. Perhaps this is analogous to how the baby bird knows how to chirp in a certain way when it's hungry.
Human languages are open source, they ebb and flow and evolve in a complex swirl of positive and negative feedback loops played out in myriad ways. Several languages have a word that sounds like meh-meh that could mean breasts or baby food depending on the context and there are variations on that word that morph into words like num-num which may be a novel transformation of mama.
Some think that all of our languages are variations and extensions of only a handful of naturally occurring exclamations that over time evolved into the thousands of languages that have been spoken throughout history. One linguist thought that all of language derived from only four syllables: sal, ber, yon, and rosh. The variables and assumptions required are far too numerous and complex for us to confidently make such assertions but there is some intuitive truth to the notion that the animal chirps of our ancestors with the power of some very extensive collaboration allowed us to develop our human languages which are so wonderfully rich that they have the power to address themselves.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Facebook Blogger Dilemma
This has been the month of Facebook. Along with millions of others I have signed onto Facebook and now have another reason to strain my eyes for hours in front of the computer screen. I first signed on as Jake Jakob but it doesn't really make sense to use a nom de plume on Facebook if you want to be accessible to people who know you in real life, so I created another account with my real name.
I now have a split personality. On Blogger I'm known as Jake Jakob but that's not exactly my real name. I now have another virtual identity on Facebook that happens to share the same name as my meat-space identity. With that identity I socially connect mostly with people who have been in a physical space with me at some point in time, whereas my friends here on Blogger for the most part have only shared virtual space with me.
I am considering merging my two personae but I've been reluctant to use my real name on Blogger. I'm not sure why. Many of the blogs I read seem to use their meat-space names without incident.
I now have a split personality. On Blogger I'm known as Jake Jakob but that's not exactly my real name. I now have another virtual identity on Facebook that happens to share the same name as my meat-space identity. With that identity I socially connect mostly with people who have been in a physical space with me at some point in time, whereas my friends here on Blogger for the most part have only shared virtual space with me.
I am considering merging my two personae but I've been reluctant to use my real name on Blogger. I'm not sure why. Many of the blogs I read seem to use their meat-space names without incident.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Caveman Chronicles
I had just walked past the police station in my neighbourhood. As I approached an opening to a laneway I noticed that several pigeons scrambled out onto the sidewalk clearly avoiding some danger. I stopped just as I cleared the building to my right as a car came barreling through. It nearly sideswiped me and I was within inches of the driver who did not stop or even slow down as he drove down the ramp and entered the street. As he passed he did not even notice me while he continued an animated discussion on his cell phone which was balanced between his ear and shoulder.
I let out a customary "what the f#@k". This got his attention, he slowed down and gave me a dirty look like I did something wrong. This angered me some more and I let out what was probably another few choice words. He flipped something at me which was not quite his finger but perhaps his whole hand. I walked over to his passenger side window to explain that he had nearly run over my foot and that he needed to stop before driving over a sidewalk and entering the street. He didn't roll down his window and continued to shrug me away while swearing back at which point a feeling came over me with which I am somewhat familiar. It is accompanied by several tell-tale signs: flaring of the nostrils, a deep inhalation that expands the chest, a general tightening of the muscles as the eyes open wide and a growl that begins to be vocalized.
I used to have feelings like this more often in the past. But they have been very infrequent since I've given up caffeine and sugar and aged a little bit. These days their rare emergences can only be induced by the most severe traffic indiscretions, by instances of tortured logic, or by dishonesty. When such madness grips me it is usually in the privacy of my car or in the privacy of my audience with someone very close to me. But today was different. I was on the street in the middle of the afternoon, in full view of the world. Divided by a barrier of glass between me and my desire to communicate to this jerk why I was angry with him, his refusal to allow me my peace lit a match that set the fuse in motion. I clenched my fist and drew back my right hand. Once fully loaded at the apex the spring let loose and a forward motion began a collision course for my fist towards the passenger window of the car directly in front of me.
All of this happens in a fraction of a second and sometime soon after the spring is set off I notice that another familiar but altogether different feeling is taking hold of me: embarrassment. The rage is stopped in its tracks and I am able to pull back the punch. I think this must have emboldened him because he proceeded to get out of the car. He came over to me and we started an exchange that must have looked like one of Billy Martin's run-ins with an umpire. We didn't have enough dust on the street to kick at each others feet but something else occurred. He lifted both of his hands and he slapped them against my chest pushing me back a few inches. He had an advantage of at least 5 years and 50 pounds on me but that didn't play into it at all. I only consider the heft of an opponent to be a disadvantage that will only slow him down. I wasn't scared but my embarrassment was beginning to grow. I had a flash image of us, two grown men, fighting on the street like kids and instead of hitting back I bounced back forward into his face and laughed a little.
He encouraged me to go ahead and hit him back but he was somewhat puzzled by my amusement. Face to face and close enough to guess what we had eaten for lunch I noted the logo of his employer which was emblazoned on his shirt and his windbreaker. I said the following to him: "We're fifty feet from a police station, there are witnesses watching us right now and after nearly running me over you decide it's a good idea to assault me? I also have your license plate number and know where you work. You're one stupid mo#$@%f@3ker". Silence followed as his eyes darted around and he seemed to get an inventory of his surroundings.
Despite having trained in the boxing ring with heavyweights and studied Muy Thai and Jeet Kune Do I have not laid a hand on another human in anger since the 6th grade and my record is still intact. Over those years I have been in dozens of altercations. In each of these cases I would become a frothing menacing tyrant and in every case the other guy would invariably back down. This leaves me wondering what happened today. Why did he take it further and push me like that? Did he sense a weakness from my embarrassment and mistook it for fear? Or am I just getting old and the young lions can sense this and aren't naturally intimidated by me?
The incident deescalated greatly at this point and became somewhat bizarre. He hung his head and agreed it was pretty stupid but claimed plaintively that I had "scared him by coming out of nowhere and swearing at him". I reiterated what he did wrong and asked him why I shouldn't walk into the police station and report the assault, to which he replied that he was having a really bad day. We stood there in silence for probably a good minute. I broke the silence by saying how embarrassing this all was to which he voiced his agreement. I told him I would have hit him back hard if I wasn't so embarrassed. Then I shook my head and walked away.
I let out a customary "what the f#@k". This got his attention, he slowed down and gave me a dirty look like I did something wrong. This angered me some more and I let out what was probably another few choice words. He flipped something at me which was not quite his finger but perhaps his whole hand. I walked over to his passenger side window to explain that he had nearly run over my foot and that he needed to stop before driving over a sidewalk and entering the street. He didn't roll down his window and continued to shrug me away while swearing back at which point a feeling came over me with which I am somewhat familiar. It is accompanied by several tell-tale signs: flaring of the nostrils, a deep inhalation that expands the chest, a general tightening of the muscles as the eyes open wide and a growl that begins to be vocalized.
I used to have feelings like this more often in the past. But they have been very infrequent since I've given up caffeine and sugar and aged a little bit. These days their rare emergences can only be induced by the most severe traffic indiscretions, by instances of tortured logic, or by dishonesty. When such madness grips me it is usually in the privacy of my car or in the privacy of my audience with someone very close to me. But today was different. I was on the street in the middle of the afternoon, in full view of the world. Divided by a barrier of glass between me and my desire to communicate to this jerk why I was angry with him, his refusal to allow me my peace lit a match that set the fuse in motion. I clenched my fist and drew back my right hand. Once fully loaded at the apex the spring let loose and a forward motion began a collision course for my fist towards the passenger window of the car directly in front of me.
All of this happens in a fraction of a second and sometime soon after the spring is set off I notice that another familiar but altogether different feeling is taking hold of me: embarrassment. The rage is stopped in its tracks and I am able to pull back the punch. I think this must have emboldened him because he proceeded to get out of the car. He came over to me and we started an exchange that must have looked like one of Billy Martin's run-ins with an umpire. We didn't have enough dust on the street to kick at each others feet but something else occurred. He lifted both of his hands and he slapped them against my chest pushing me back a few inches. He had an advantage of at least 5 years and 50 pounds on me but that didn't play into it at all. I only consider the heft of an opponent to be a disadvantage that will only slow him down. I wasn't scared but my embarrassment was beginning to grow. I had a flash image of us, two grown men, fighting on the street like kids and instead of hitting back I bounced back forward into his face and laughed a little.
He encouraged me to go ahead and hit him back but he was somewhat puzzled by my amusement. Face to face and close enough to guess what we had eaten for lunch I noted the logo of his employer which was emblazoned on his shirt and his windbreaker. I said the following to him: "We're fifty feet from a police station, there are witnesses watching us right now and after nearly running me over you decide it's a good idea to assault me? I also have your license plate number and know where you work. You're one stupid mo#$@%f@3ker". Silence followed as his eyes darted around and he seemed to get an inventory of his surroundings.
Despite having trained in the boxing ring with heavyweights and studied Muy Thai and Jeet Kune Do I have not laid a hand on another human in anger since the 6th grade and my record is still intact. Over those years I have been in dozens of altercations. In each of these cases I would become a frothing menacing tyrant and in every case the other guy would invariably back down. This leaves me wondering what happened today. Why did he take it further and push me like that? Did he sense a weakness from my embarrassment and mistook it for fear? Or am I just getting old and the young lions can sense this and aren't naturally intimidated by me?
The incident deescalated greatly at this point and became somewhat bizarre. He hung his head and agreed it was pretty stupid but claimed plaintively that I had "scared him by coming out of nowhere and swearing at him". I reiterated what he did wrong and asked him why I shouldn't walk into the police station and report the assault, to which he replied that he was having a really bad day. We stood there in silence for probably a good minute. I broke the silence by saying how embarrassing this all was to which he voiced his agreement. I told him I would have hit him back hard if I wasn't so embarrassed. Then I shook my head and walked away.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Sunday at St. Stephen's
the sand leaks out
minute per minute
it mixes with ashes and dust
this hole in her soul
she tries to fill
with cigarettes and Jesus
minute per minute
it mixes with ashes and dust
this hole in her soul
she tries to fill
with cigarettes and Jesus
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Recent Viewings
Breach - I saw this for Chris Cooper. He pulls off another creepy/compelling character role as he did in American Beauty and in Adaptation (one of my all-time favourites). Ostensibly a spy thriller but really it's about a gifted and conflicted man who somehow reconciles deep religion, sexual perversity and the selling of state secrets to the Russians.
Fido - My cousin E is an ESL student so when I go to a movie with him we have to choose movies he can follow easily, so no My Dinner With Andre. I do have a thing for Zombie movies especially if they're funny (intentionally that is). This one is not as funny as Shaun of the Dead but not a bad effort.
300 - We snuck in to see this one after Fido. My cousin also likes movies in which many people are killed (strange for such a friendly guy) and many people are killed here indeed. The whole thing is preposterous, ridiculously historically inaccurate and seems to be a cartoonish exhibition of a homo-erotic parade of one washboard set of abs after another. Frank Miller's Sin City is better if you like this comic book stuff.
Last King of Scotland - Oscar loves spitting, spewing and yelling and if you don't believe me then I'll take a flamethrower to this place.
The Lives of Others - German film about a couple being bugged by the East German Secret Police in the seventies. Sure, there's some European seriousness here but efficiently oppressing your citizenry is a serious business.
The Namesake - That guy from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle here in a serious role. Not bad, a little weepy. Dramatic use of the name Gogol.
Notes on a Scandal - British tale of a creepy girl-crush by Dame Judi Dench on the cute Cate Blanchett. Boy-student on woman-teacher sex scenes also prominently on display!
The Queen - Another British movie. I know that it's employed as a way to highlight the person of the Queen but I still think there was too much about the death of Diana.
Smoking Aces - A whole slew of people are killed in Las Vegas by a series of eccentric assassins (a cousin E special).
Zodiac - A much better choice of a movie where a lot of people get killed. The story of the hunt to catch the Zodiac Killer set in 1970's San Francisco. The latest movie by the director of 7even. It's pretty good for what it is (read: perhaps not as good as everybody says).
Fido - My cousin E is an ESL student so when I go to a movie with him we have to choose movies he can follow easily, so no My Dinner With Andre. I do have a thing for Zombie movies especially if they're funny (intentionally that is). This one is not as funny as Shaun of the Dead but not a bad effort.
300 - We snuck in to see this one after Fido. My cousin also likes movies in which many people are killed (strange for such a friendly guy) and many people are killed here indeed. The whole thing is preposterous, ridiculously historically inaccurate and seems to be a cartoonish exhibition of a homo-erotic parade of one washboard set of abs after another. Frank Miller's Sin City is better if you like this comic book stuff.
Last King of Scotland - Oscar loves spitting, spewing and yelling and if you don't believe me then I'll take a flamethrower to this place.
The Lives of Others - German film about a couple being bugged by the East German Secret Police in the seventies. Sure, there's some European seriousness here but efficiently oppressing your citizenry is a serious business.
The Namesake - That guy from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle here in a serious role. Not bad, a little weepy. Dramatic use of the name Gogol.
Notes on a Scandal - British tale of a creepy girl-crush by Dame Judi Dench on the cute Cate Blanchett. Boy-student on woman-teacher sex scenes also prominently on display!
The Queen - Another British movie. I know that it's employed as a way to highlight the person of the Queen but I still think there was too much about the death of Diana.
Smoking Aces - A whole slew of people are killed in Las Vegas by a series of eccentric assassins (a cousin E special).
Zodiac - A much better choice of a movie where a lot of people get killed. The story of the hunt to catch the Zodiac Killer set in 1970's San Francisco. The latest movie by the director of 7even. It's pretty good for what it is (read: perhaps not as good as everybody says).
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Passages From An Unfinished Novel II
Back by popular demand (OK, two readers have asked for more).
From a work in progress described as your typical quantum physics, boxing, time-travel, psychological, mind-fuck love-story so common to the genre that I call Sci-Psy-Phi-Fi.
From a work in progress described as your typical quantum physics, boxing, time-travel, psychological, mind-fuck love-story so common to the genre that I call Sci-Psy-Phi-Fi.
...
The jab makes contact and Vito is about to unleash his combination when Ziggy senses this and moves even closer so that Vito cannot swing. The victim clutches the abuser in a clinch. Given another context this could be interpreted as an act of affection. As sweat channels down the centres of their bare chests these men seem to be friends in intimate embrace, their eyes closed, deeply inhaling and exhaling in a momentary respite from their heretofore pangs of loneliness.
The mouse which has been bashed around by a cat will eventually decide to run into the belly of its tormentor in order to win a fleeting moment of peace. The cat, happy to oblige, will sit staring ahead as the mouse pants in relief - confused by a comfort not unlike that of its mother's suckling belly - thinking that it is safe from harm. Seeing this in snapshot one might think that it's just a manipulated mis-en-scene for a cute poster found in the jarringly cluttered locker of a schoolgirl or for the pastel images of Heaven on Earth peddled by those clean but unstylishly dressed people who ask general questions and hand out pamphlets at your door on early weekend mornings.
...
The jab makes contact and Vito is about to unleash his combination when Ziggy senses this and moves even closer so that Vito cannot swing. The victim clutches the abuser in a clinch. Given another context this could be interpreted as an act of affection. As sweat channels down the centres of their bare chests these men seem to be friends in intimate embrace, their eyes closed, deeply inhaling and exhaling in a momentary respite from their heretofore pangs of loneliness.
The mouse which has been bashed around by a cat will eventually decide to run into the belly of its tormentor in order to win a fleeting moment of peace. The cat, happy to oblige, will sit staring ahead as the mouse pants in relief - confused by a comfort not unlike that of its mother's suckling belly - thinking that it is safe from harm. Seeing this in snapshot one might think that it's just a manipulated mis-en-scene for a cute poster found in the jarringly cluttered locker of a schoolgirl or for the pastel images of Heaven on Earth peddled by those clean but unstylishly dressed people who ask general questions and hand out pamphlets at your door on early weekend mornings.
...
Friday, March 16, 2007
Emergent Intelligence
An iron atom has certain properties that we can describe. A large collection of iron atoms crowded together in a 10 kilo hunk of iron has certain further properties we can describe on a more macro level. Likewise, a carbon atom has certain properties and a large matrix of them crowded tightly in a 1 karat diamond has yet further and distinct properties. If we mix a little carbon with some iron in a specific way we can end up with steel which has a whole set of different emergent properties.
A popular example is to show how the combination of two poisonous atoms like Sodium and Chlorine combine to create Sodium Chloride which is vital to human life. So by grouping together different elemental parts we end up with totally different things with different features and more complex conglomerations can come together to make such materials as plastics and other building materials.
A tree is a very complex conglomeration indeed. In a tree the matrix of atoms come together in such a way as to make discussion of the atoms mostly moot. When something attains a level of complexity as does a tree or any other living thing we assign it a whole other level of being complete with a whole new set of properties that we can describe. We can then appreciate a tree in a variety of other ways as a living thing and can more fittingly attribute such complex estimations as vigor and beauty.
Of course we can just cut down the tree and lower its complexity a great deal by reducing it to wood or make paper out of it. But when combined with steel, glass, plastics and other materials it can all come together to become the Toronto-Dominion Centre as designed by Mies van de Rohe, something I drove past a few days ago and marveled at how it manages to be so perfectly proportioned and beautiful. Here is a thing that celebrates simplicity while hiding its enormous complexity of design and function.
The most puzzling complex system of all is the brain of a highly evolved animal such as the human. It is not just the complexity of materials required to comprise a neuron that baffles but also the enormous complexity with which these neurons are organized. Once organized in such a matrix of atoms within cells within neurons this conglomeration has the category-busting feature of being aware of itself. Some will argue that consciousness is simply an emergent property of the complex system of the brain.
When you combine a grouping of human brains and discuss the properties that result what you end up with are disciplines like Sociology or Economics that attempt to describe the properties of large groupings of humans behaving independently but in a more complex system that begins to take on properties of its own. The internet allows the most efficient way to combine large groupings of human brains. The result is a bursting throbbing mash of information that may be displaying a feature set of its own that is likely too complex for us to see without the use of simpler metaphors.
The future progression of this trend will be greatly influenced by the mixing of human intelligence with the machine intelligence that we have been busy increasing in complexity. The internet is a precursor to what will become a vast array of information residing in a complex system made of human and artificial intelligence. What will result is anyone's guess. The emergent properties of such complex systems are perhaps as intelligible to us now as the brain is intelligible to a single brain cell.
A popular example is to show how the combination of two poisonous atoms like Sodium and Chlorine combine to create Sodium Chloride which is vital to human life. So by grouping together different elemental parts we end up with totally different things with different features and more complex conglomerations can come together to make such materials as plastics and other building materials.
A tree is a very complex conglomeration indeed. In a tree the matrix of atoms come together in such a way as to make discussion of the atoms mostly moot. When something attains a level of complexity as does a tree or any other living thing we assign it a whole other level of being complete with a whole new set of properties that we can describe. We can then appreciate a tree in a variety of other ways as a living thing and can more fittingly attribute such complex estimations as vigor and beauty.
Of course we can just cut down the tree and lower its complexity a great deal by reducing it to wood or make paper out of it. But when combined with steel, glass, plastics and other materials it can all come together to become the Toronto-Dominion Centre as designed by Mies van de Rohe, something I drove past a few days ago and marveled at how it manages to be so perfectly proportioned and beautiful. Here is a thing that celebrates simplicity while hiding its enormous complexity of design and function.
The most puzzling complex system of all is the brain of a highly evolved animal such as the human. It is not just the complexity of materials required to comprise a neuron that baffles but also the enormous complexity with which these neurons are organized. Once organized in such a matrix of atoms within cells within neurons this conglomeration has the category-busting feature of being aware of itself. Some will argue that consciousness is simply an emergent property of the complex system of the brain.
When you combine a grouping of human brains and discuss the properties that result what you end up with are disciplines like Sociology or Economics that attempt to describe the properties of large groupings of humans behaving independently but in a more complex system that begins to take on properties of its own. The internet allows the most efficient way to combine large groupings of human brains. The result is a bursting throbbing mash of information that may be displaying a feature set of its own that is likely too complex for us to see without the use of simpler metaphors.
The future progression of this trend will be greatly influenced by the mixing of human intelligence with the machine intelligence that we have been busy increasing in complexity. The internet is a precursor to what will become a vast array of information residing in a complex system made of human and artificial intelligence. What will result is anyone's guess. The emergent properties of such complex systems are perhaps as intelligible to us now as the brain is intelligible to a single brain cell.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Free Stuff
It's proving difficult to give something away on the Internets. A couple of days ago I offered a free subscription to a pretty GOOD Magazine to the first five people to comment on my last blog posting. The proceeds will be going directly to a charity of the recipient's choice.
So far I have had only 2 takers. Please take me up on the offer. You don't have to give it forward. Just allow me to do my share of giving and you can do your share of reading.
So far I have had only 2 takers. Please take me up on the offer. You don't have to give it forward. Just allow me to do my share of giving and you can do your share of reading.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Business for Good
We know that most print publications don't make much money from subscriptions. It's just a way to get more audited eyeballs looking at their content on a regular basis. This allows them to charge what they do for advertising which is where the meat of the money comes from. What if you could increase the number of eyeballs while also doing some good for the world?
Good Magazine is a print publication that focuses on issues around design, media, culture etc. They have hit upon an interesting way to increase readership. They charge $20 for a six month subscription but they will donate 100% of that money to your choice from a dozen different worthy causes hoping to raise $1Million.
My friend Michael offered to buy subscriptions as a gift for the first five people to leave a comment on his blog. I accepted his offer. I will now carry forward the gift and offer a free subscription to the first five people who comment on this posting.
Let me know which organization you would like to support with your gift.
Good Magazine is a print publication that focuses on issues around design, media, culture etc. They have hit upon an interesting way to increase readership. They charge $20 for a six month subscription but they will donate 100% of that money to your choice from a dozen different worthy causes hoping to raise $1Million.
My friend Michael offered to buy subscriptions as a gift for the first five people to leave a comment on his blog. I accepted his offer. I will now carry forward the gift and offer a free subscription to the first five people who comment on this posting.
Let me know which organization you would like to support with your gift.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Getting to Know the Real You
I host a discussion group/salon/think tank once a month at my house. This past meeting we discussed how mediating communication technologies are changing social relationships. It was hit upon early that the idea of mediation in communication may imply that there is some form of communication that is not mediated so therefore immediate.
Face-to-face interaction is thought to be the most immediate form of communication since there is no layer between you and your interlocutor through which your discussion is filtered or altered. There is no telephone, fax machine, email software, chat software or other platform through which you are talking so it is said that face-to-face is immediate.
I am of the opinion that every experience is mediated if not by external technological filters then through other filters. These layers of mediation may be such things as your body or your culture. If you observe teenagers at a social gathering they seem to communicate not just through words and ideas but through gestures, fashion sense, sexual tension as well as cultural affiliations some would say to the exclusion or at least the demotion of ideas and words.
A highly intelligent, sensitive and kind teenager can be cruelly left out of the social game if they are not exhibiting a few of these other intangible filters through which they send out their signals. Those who have met people online have suggested that they get to know someone more intimately that way. So what is going on here? How does adding another layer get you closer to "the real person".
The quick answer is that there is no "real person" at the core of a human being. The person is a jumble or basket of thoughts, ideas, events, experiences, body features, opinions etc. and we can only experience and get to know another through layers of mediation, be they technological, cultural or physical. When you get to know someone through their online persona what you are doing is removing several layers of mediation and inserting another. It just happens that this technological layer emphasizes words and ideas over other signals and it is the realm of words and ideas that most will agree are paramount to understanding what it is that makes a specific person who they are.
People often complain that they become involved in a sad series of relationships with others who seem in retrospect to have been completely wrong for them. Perhaps these people are jumping the gun and judging a potential mate without proper emphasis on the features that they would admit to being more important than those that are immediately apparent. There is no privileged perspective from which to see "the real person" but there can be a matter of emphasis. If you choose to emphasize ideas and words as being deal-breakers then there is probably no better way to meet a potential mate than through technologically mediated communication.
I would argue that face-to-face communication employs much more bandwith than present forms of online communication. This is precisely why robots and artificial intelligences can't yet come close to the processing required to adequately mimic human interaction. By communicating online we lower the bandwith significantly to emphasize what may be more important to you. Of course an online meeting of the minds will not necessarily translate into a successful "first-life" relationship if the so-called chemistry isn't there, but it can lay an important groundwork from which to proceed.
It seems to have worked for these two.
Face-to-face interaction is thought to be the most immediate form of communication since there is no layer between you and your interlocutor through which your discussion is filtered or altered. There is no telephone, fax machine, email software, chat software or other platform through which you are talking so it is said that face-to-face is immediate.
I am of the opinion that every experience is mediated if not by external technological filters then through other filters. These layers of mediation may be such things as your body or your culture. If you observe teenagers at a social gathering they seem to communicate not just through words and ideas but through gestures, fashion sense, sexual tension as well as cultural affiliations some would say to the exclusion or at least the demotion of ideas and words.
A highly intelligent, sensitive and kind teenager can be cruelly left out of the social game if they are not exhibiting a few of these other intangible filters through which they send out their signals. Those who have met people online have suggested that they get to know someone more intimately that way. So what is going on here? How does adding another layer get you closer to "the real person".
The quick answer is that there is no "real person" at the core of a human being. The person is a jumble or basket of thoughts, ideas, events, experiences, body features, opinions etc. and we can only experience and get to know another through layers of mediation, be they technological, cultural or physical. When you get to know someone through their online persona what you are doing is removing several layers of mediation and inserting another. It just happens that this technological layer emphasizes words and ideas over other signals and it is the realm of words and ideas that most will agree are paramount to understanding what it is that makes a specific person who they are.
People often complain that they become involved in a sad series of relationships with others who seem in retrospect to have been completely wrong for them. Perhaps these people are jumping the gun and judging a potential mate without proper emphasis on the features that they would admit to being more important than those that are immediately apparent. There is no privileged perspective from which to see "the real person" but there can be a matter of emphasis. If you choose to emphasize ideas and words as being deal-breakers then there is probably no better way to meet a potential mate than through technologically mediated communication.
I would argue that face-to-face communication employs much more bandwith than present forms of online communication. This is precisely why robots and artificial intelligences can't yet come close to the processing required to adequately mimic human interaction. By communicating online we lower the bandwith significantly to emphasize what may be more important to you. Of course an online meeting of the minds will not necessarily translate into a successful "first-life" relationship if the so-called chemistry isn't there, but it can lay an important groundwork from which to proceed.
It seems to have worked for these two.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
Who's on First?
The BBC conducted a poll to see which nations people perceived to have the most negative influence on the world.
Here is the resulting list:
Israel - 56%
Iran - 56%
USA - 51%
N. Korea - 48%
Now compare these two articles reporting the results. Big Brother lives!
BBC Online
Iranian News Agency
P.S. Canada was viewed most positively.
Here is the resulting list:
Israel - 56%
Iran - 56%
USA - 51%
N. Korea - 48%
Now compare these two articles reporting the results. Big Brother lives!
BBC Online
Iranian News Agency
P.S. Canada was viewed most positively.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Stillborn Postings
Remembering the past and envisioning the future occur in the same area of the brain.
Asimo the robot creeps people out only because he's so human-like.
The copper penny represents 1 cent of value but contains 3 cents worth of copper.
"We played good tonight." The adverb is endangered in America. Good grammar is for pussies or Englishmen.
Dictators use the framework of religion to move people in ways they're used to being moved.
With our excessive consumption levels we have all become fat savages.
It's sad that we have to justify biodiversity by pointing out that if a species were to become extinct we might miss out on a novel way to exploit it.
An ancient society with a zero footprint would have left no record of ever having been here.
Telescopes and televisions are time travel machines.
Digital clocks don't adequately reflect the physical events that mark the passage of time.
Canada should consider making a leveraged buyout of America.
Most frequently asked question when giving a DNA sample - "are you going to clone me?"
The most wonderful things in the Universe are those that are difficult to quantify.
We don't need to go away we just need to find a better balance. Rehab not euthanasia.
The emperor has no clothes. Russia, China and Iran now realize this.
Jesus-figures and other prophets are hackers who have entered the simulation.
So what's behind that next deeper level? It's turtles all the way down.
The fastest growing motorcycle producer is an open source collaboration in China.
Birth rates for girls are even lower in the wealthiest parts of Punjab because they can afford ultrasounds.
America is setting a bad example for Capitalism because they are forgetting Liberalism.
Binging behaviour is embedded in religious festivals like Mardi Gras which are based on more ancient feast and famine cycles.
Incompleteness theorem: So because you decide you can't know everything you decide that you know everything.
Second Life, afterlife, get a first life.
Asimo the robot creeps people out only because he's so human-like.
The copper penny represents 1 cent of value but contains 3 cents worth of copper.
"We played good tonight." The adverb is endangered in America. Good grammar is for pussies or Englishmen.
Dictators use the framework of religion to move people in ways they're used to being moved.
With our excessive consumption levels we have all become fat savages.
It's sad that we have to justify biodiversity by pointing out that if a species were to become extinct we might miss out on a novel way to exploit it.
An ancient society with a zero footprint would have left no record of ever having been here.
Telescopes and televisions are time travel machines.
Digital clocks don't adequately reflect the physical events that mark the passage of time.
Canada should consider making a leveraged buyout of America.
Most frequently asked question when giving a DNA sample - "are you going to clone me?"
The most wonderful things in the Universe are those that are difficult to quantify.
We don't need to go away we just need to find a better balance. Rehab not euthanasia.
The emperor has no clothes. Russia, China and Iran now realize this.
Jesus-figures and other prophets are hackers who have entered the simulation.
So what's behind that next deeper level? It's turtles all the way down.
The fastest growing motorcycle producer is an open source collaboration in China.
Birth rates for girls are even lower in the wealthiest parts of Punjab because they can afford ultrasounds.
America is setting a bad example for Capitalism because they are forgetting Liberalism.
Binging behaviour is embedded in religious festivals like Mardi Gras which are based on more ancient feast and famine cycles.
Incompleteness theorem: So because you decide you can't know everything you decide that you know everything.
Second Life, afterlife, get a first life.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Books I'm Reading (for quite sometime now)
I don't read or write enough. I have been reading the Globe and Mail six days a week in addition to the Sunday NY Times. Since I am not bound to any schedule but am mainly steered by the swerves of my random desires I found myself reading the papers for about two hours each day before anything else was tackled. Hours more are spent on the internets linking from blogs to links to wikipedia entries to videos to still more news sites. I don't watch much TV, about an hour per day while I'm eating at which time I may watch the Daily Show or yet more news, a documentary or the rare basketball game or boxing.
For someone who claims to want to be a writer I have read very little of other authors. When I was younger I had the stupid and naive notion that reading too many novels would unduly influence me and I would be unable to develop my own unique voice. That was a mistake. I now realize the importance of immersion. I hope it's not too late.
I have started several books but I haven't finished many lately. I resolve to read more good writers. I really have no excuse since I canceled my newspaper subscriptions this week and there are two small independent bookstores immediately beside my house. Here is a list of readings in progress:
Milan Kundera - The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts
A book about writing novels by a great writer of novels.
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
I saw the film nearly twenty years ago but had never read the book.
Orhan Pamuk - Istanbul: Memories and the City
He is the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature and here he writes about the history of streets and neighbourhoods of which I am distantly familiar having lived there for 5 years.
Lawrence Lessig - Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
An engaging book by a lawyer about intellectual property and the internets.
Lee Smolin - The Trouble With Physics
Director of the nearby Perimeter Institute in Waterloo writing about his misgivings about String Theory.
Jurgen Habermas - The Philosphical Discourse of Modernity
I read this stuff during my PhD research but am now reading it more charitably having found new respect for such left of center thinking.
Richard Healey - The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics
Another re-reading now that I have more patience.
Elliot et al - Relations, Transformations, and Statistics
A grade 13 textbook it is hoped will help me with the book above.
Primo Levi - The Monkey's Wrench
When I described by own novel writing (in progress) to someone they suggested I read Primo Levi. I just bought the book today from my neighbour the bookseller and do not yet see the connection.
Chris Mathers - Crime School: Money Laundering
A friend wrote this. He spent twenty years undercover working with drug lords and organized crime. He is also the father of two members of Hostage Life (see below).
For someone who claims to want to be a writer I have read very little of other authors. When I was younger I had the stupid and naive notion that reading too many novels would unduly influence me and I would be unable to develop my own unique voice. That was a mistake. I now realize the importance of immersion. I hope it's not too late.
I have started several books but I haven't finished many lately. I resolve to read more good writers. I really have no excuse since I canceled my newspaper subscriptions this week and there are two small independent bookstores immediately beside my house. Here is a list of readings in progress:
Milan Kundera - The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts
A book about writing novels by a great writer of novels.
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
I saw the film nearly twenty years ago but had never read the book.
Orhan Pamuk - Istanbul: Memories and the City
He is the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature and here he writes about the history of streets and neighbourhoods of which I am distantly familiar having lived there for 5 years.
Lawrence Lessig - Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
An engaging book by a lawyer about intellectual property and the internets.
Lee Smolin - The Trouble With Physics
Director of the nearby Perimeter Institute in Waterloo writing about his misgivings about String Theory.
Jurgen Habermas - The Philosphical Discourse of Modernity
I read this stuff during my PhD research but am now reading it more charitably having found new respect for such left of center thinking.
Richard Healey - The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics
Another re-reading now that I have more patience.
Elliot et al - Relations, Transformations, and Statistics
A grade 13 textbook it is hoped will help me with the book above.
Primo Levi - The Monkey's Wrench
When I described by own novel writing (in progress) to someone they suggested I read Primo Levi. I just bought the book today from my neighbour the bookseller and do not yet see the connection.
Chris Mathers - Crime School: Money Laundering
A friend wrote this. He spent twenty years undercover working with drug lords and organized crime. He is also the father of two members of Hostage Life (see below).
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Dance You Robots Dance
You know you're getting old when you hear a song on the radio and find yourself saying "Oh, I'm friends with the parents of the guys in that band."
Hostage Life: "This Song Was Written By Committee or We Simply Feed These Figures Into The Melodiotron And, Voila, An Instant Hit" – 2:32
Hostage Life: "This Song Was Written By Committee or We Simply Feed These Figures Into The Melodiotron And, Voila, An Instant Hit" – 2:32
Here are some of the other song titles on their 2006 Album Walking Papers.
- "Hostage Life's Legally Distinct Cola Commercial or You're Stupid And You're Gross But If You Drink This Someone Might Actually Love You" – 0:53
- "The Last Superman or Fall of The Ubermensch" – 1:43
- "Securing My Seat (On The Hostage Life Board Of Directors) or "Is That Blood On Your Collar?" "No, It's Lipstick, I Swear"" – 4:57
- "How To Die With A Smile i) Determine Whether Or Not You Wish To Depart ii) Set Date iii) Find An Exit Body" – 3:16
Monday, February 26, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Black History Month
This is from local Toronto band Death From Above 1979 from their album You're a Woman, I'm a Machine. I'm not sure why the song is called Black History Month but the title is apropos.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Are You Living in a Simulation?
Even if you discover that you are, it gets you no closer to understanding existence.
The same questions remain, they're just moved up one level.
The simulation could be terminated at any time.
So, nothing's really changed.
The same questions remain, they're just moved up one level.
The simulation could be terminated at any time.
So, nothing's really changed.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Passage From An Unfinished Sitcom
Bob: What makes you think she's coming on to you?
George: She laughs at all of my jokes.
Bob: Maybe she thinks you're a clown.
George: Say what you will about clowns but clowns get laid man. You think it's those pussy trapeze artists? No way, the clown gets the most... except for the bearded lady... she gets a lot of action too.
George: She laughs at all of my jokes.
Bob: Maybe she thinks you're a clown.
George: Say what you will about clowns but clowns get laid man. You think it's those pussy trapeze artists? No way, the clown gets the most... except for the bearded lady... she gets a lot of action too.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
They're Back
You might wonder why I recently purchased 31 boxes of cereal. I don't really eat cereal. So everyone that comes over to my house can leave with a bag of oats.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Ponzi Economics
Charles Ponzi is the namesake for a money-making swindle that was perpetrated in 1920. The so-called Ponzi Scheme involves promising very attractive payoffs to investors and then actually paying them off initially. Word-of-mouth spreads quickly and people soon come begging to invest. The subsequent investments are used to pay off early investors to fan the flames until it gets out of hand and the last ones to invest are left holding worthless paper.
The structure of this resembles a pyramid and similar ploys are called pyramid schemes. There are countless such examples which are often successful because it relies on human greed and general mathematical ignorance. There has been some talk lately that social security programs are actually legitimized Ponzi schemes. It is feared that by the time most of the present youth reach retirement there won't be much left since the ever surviving baby-boomers will have used up most of it.
I think such a scenario could very well play out but I would contend that much of the growth obsessed economics of recent years have been Ponzi schemes at heart. Corporate culture worships at the alter of growth. Stock values are based on discounted projections of future growth. If a company fails to project steady future growth then the stock of that company will drop even if it makes a healthy profit in the present. Someone once said that the view that infinite growth is possible in a finite world can only be held by a madman or an economist.
Ever larger populations are needed to fuel this promised growth. That's why it's not surprising that the Conservative friends of corporations are in bed with the Evangelicals and of course they're not using any condoms. Likewise gay marriage seems a complete waste of conjugal association to these people since it will not create any more consumers for us to peddle our sugar waters and SUV's. But to what end is this growth directed?
The Earth cannot sustain the vast Ponzi scheme that is presently under way. The West has enjoyed dramatic growth and reaped vast riches over the past century mainly by stripping the world of its resources and promising endless growth. Now that developing nations want to enjoy their own sustained growth we are telling them that there's no more resources left for them to exploit. They are the rubes at the bottom of the pyramid.
Fueled as it is by greed, it is unlikely that we can gain enough perspective to stand back and decide to change the game. Historically we have proved that there will not be any motivation to change until a crisis or crash occurs. Only then will we finally admit that unlimited growth may not be the best way to approach human wealth and begin to consider GPI over GDP.
When I was a child I remember being scared by a barrage of warnings about over-population. We never seem to hear that message any more because everyone is now addicted to growth. Our governments actually worry about our low birth rates because it keeps economic growth from being maximized. George W. Bush sides with increased immigration not because of soft-hearted altruism but because corporations demand it for continued growth.
Some people say that we needn't worry about over-population since Nature will eventually correct that. But that's precisely what I worry about because nature's preferred method of correction historically has been starvation. Make no mistake Nature will correct eventually but her plans might not include the human virus. I found an organization that advocates voluntary human extinction as the only path to save the Earth. While I wouldn't want to follow their approach I find it hard to argue with some of their logic.
The structure of this resembles a pyramid and similar ploys are called pyramid schemes. There are countless such examples which are often successful because it relies on human greed and general mathematical ignorance. There has been some talk lately that social security programs are actually legitimized Ponzi schemes. It is feared that by the time most of the present youth reach retirement there won't be much left since the ever surviving baby-boomers will have used up most of it.
I think such a scenario could very well play out but I would contend that much of the growth obsessed economics of recent years have been Ponzi schemes at heart. Corporate culture worships at the alter of growth. Stock values are based on discounted projections of future growth. If a company fails to project steady future growth then the stock of that company will drop even if it makes a healthy profit in the present. Someone once said that the view that infinite growth is possible in a finite world can only be held by a madman or an economist.
Ever larger populations are needed to fuel this promised growth. That's why it's not surprising that the Conservative friends of corporations are in bed with the Evangelicals and of course they're not using any condoms. Likewise gay marriage seems a complete waste of conjugal association to these people since it will not create any more consumers for us to peddle our sugar waters and SUV's. But to what end is this growth directed?
The Earth cannot sustain the vast Ponzi scheme that is presently under way. The West has enjoyed dramatic growth and reaped vast riches over the past century mainly by stripping the world of its resources and promising endless growth. Now that developing nations want to enjoy their own sustained growth we are telling them that there's no more resources left for them to exploit. They are the rubes at the bottom of the pyramid.
Fueled as it is by greed, it is unlikely that we can gain enough perspective to stand back and decide to change the game. Historically we have proved that there will not be any motivation to change until a crisis or crash occurs. Only then will we finally admit that unlimited growth may not be the best way to approach human wealth and begin to consider GPI over GDP.
When I was a child I remember being scared by a barrage of warnings about over-population. We never seem to hear that message any more because everyone is now addicted to growth. Our governments actually worry about our low birth rates because it keeps economic growth from being maximized. George W. Bush sides with increased immigration not because of soft-hearted altruism but because corporations demand it for continued growth.
Some people say that we needn't worry about over-population since Nature will eventually correct that. But that's precisely what I worry about because nature's preferred method of correction historically has been starvation. Make no mistake Nature will correct eventually but her plans might not include the human virus. I found an organization that advocates voluntary human extinction as the only path to save the Earth. While I wouldn't want to follow their approach I find it hard to argue with some of their logic.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
I'm it
Tagged by Sadia
HAVE YOU EVER…
nb. Orange = Done (My comments in brackets)
01. Bought a round of drinks in a bar
02. Swam with dolphins in the ocean (Mexico. I think they were Porpoise)
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Drove a Ferrari
05. Visited the Great Pyramids
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a bath with someone in candlelight
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Played elastic (not really sure what that is, but yes)
11. Been to Paris
12. Watched a storm on the sea
13. Stayed up all night to watch the sun rise
14. Seen the aurora borealis
15. Been to a large sporting event (Grey Cup, World Series Final, Canada Cup, Stanley Cup)
16. Climbed the steps of the St. Joseph’s Oratory
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg (drank iceberg bottled water)
19. Slept under the stars (and the stairs)
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Traveled in a hot air balloon
22. Seen shooting stars
23. Gotten drunk on champagne (maybe a little tipsy)
24. Given more than you could to charity
25. Observed the night through a telescope
26. Participated in a world record event (Completed the longest ever meme tag!)
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked directions from a stranger (despite my manliness)
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Yelled as loud as you could
32. Carried a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Climbed a sand dune
35. Run over an animal with your car (you mean accidentally right?)
36. Danced like a crazy person with no regard to who might be watching
37. Adopted an accent for a whole day
38. Felt truly happy, even in a short moment
39. Had two hard disks on your computer
40. Taken care of someone drunk (Got him home alive and he still told his parents that I got the booze for everyone)
41. Danced with a stranger
42. Whale-watched in the ocean
43. Stolen a street sign
44. Back-packed across Canada
45. Taken a road trip (Across Canada)
46. Rock-climbed outdoors
47. Sung a ballad on the beach at midnight
48. Gone paragliding
49. Been to Ireland
50. Had a broken heart for much longer than you were with someone.
51. Sat at a table at a restaurant with strangers and eaten with them.
52. Been to Japan
53. Milked a cow
54. Organized your CD’s alphabetically.
55. Pretended to be a superhero/ine
56. Sang karaoke
57. Spent all day in bed (lost count)
58. Played football
59. Scuba-dived (1 lesson in a resort in Mediterranean Turkey)
60. Kissed in the rain
61. Played in the mud
62. Played in the rain
63. Been in an open-air theatre (that's Amphitheatre, you cretin)
64. Been to the Great Wall of China
65. Started your own business (half a dozen times)
66. Fallen in love without suffering from a broken heart
67. Visited ancient monuments
68. Taken a martial arts class (Judo, Muy Thai, Jeet Kune Do)
69. Played XBox for 6 hours straight (Space Invaders or Tetris maybe)
70. Been married
71. Been in a movie (Stunt Work on Cinderella Man with Russell Crowe in the training scenes)
72. Organized a surprise party
73. Been divorced
74. Fasted for 5 days
75. Made cookies from a package mix
76. Won first prize in a costume contest
77. Driven a gondola in Venice (passenger?)
78. Have been tattooed (can't commit to something that permanent)
79. Canoed or kayaked
80. Been interviewed on TV (Various talk shows about emerging technologies)
81. Gotten flowers for no particular reason
82. Been in a play
83. Been to Las Vegas (left town with $300 more than I arrived with)
84. Recorded music
85. Eaten shark
86. Kissed on a first date
87. Been to Thailand
88. Bought a house
89. Buried one of your parents (In the sand at the beach?)
90. Been on a cruise
91. Spoken more than one language fluently (3 fluently, 4 more in varying levels of proficiency)
92. Raised children
93. Followed your favourite singer on tour
94. Cycled in a foreign country
95. Moved to a new city for a new life
96. Eaten ants (only accidentally)
97. Walked on the Golden Gate Bridge
98. Sang at the top of your lungs in the car without a care as to who might be watching
99. Had plastic surgery
100. Survived an accident you statistically shouldn’t have (Rollover on QEW when I was a teenager, my Renault was crushed to less than half its height)
101. Written articles for a large publication (Depending on what you mean by large. Does this blog count?)
102. Lost 40 pounds (Only if I had a leg amputated)
103. Helped an unconscious person (On Valentines Day years ago at a chic restaurant a woman passed out beside me. [not my date])
104. Piloted a plane
105. Touched a live (manta) ray
106. Broken someone’s heart
107. Helped birth an animal
108. Won money in a TV game show (My team won many times on Reach for the Top but no money changed hands.)
109. Broken a bone (collarbone, 6 out of 10 digits, some more than once.)
110. Pierced another part of your body other than your ears
111. Handled a revolver or firearm (Only in a celebration)
112. Eaten mushrooms you collected yourself
113. Ridden a horse (a pathetic broken horse at a parking lot carnival)
114. Undergone a major operation (Does ACL reconstruction count?)
115. Had a pet snake
116. Slept for more than 30 hours straight (A wise man told me that we sleep our whole lives through)
117. Been to all the continents of the world
118. Been on a canoe trip for more than 2 days
119. Eaten kangaroo
120. Eaten sushi (I try to avoid the raw ones)
121. Had your picture in the newspaper
122. Changed the opinion of someone with regards to something you’ve felt strongly about
123. Gone back to school (I got accepted to LLM Law School last year but didn't go. I may go back to finish my PhD next year)
124. Parachuted
125. Worn a snake
126. Built your PC from different parts
127. Sold something you created to someone you don’t know
128. Dyed your hair
129. Shaved your head
130. Saved someone’s life (metaphorically perhaps)
[Edit] I'm told I have to tag others so I tag Lisa and Amy
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Philosopher Kings
How do we encourage capable people to pursue a life in politics so we don't end up with the idiots that seem to be currently in charge of this world? My nephew is taking a first year course in Philosophy. They are studying The Republic by Plato. In this dialogue Plato describes a system in which children are generally educated until they are 18 years old at which time they are sent to 2 years of intense physical training not unlike a military stint. At this point the best are chosen to study 10 years of Mathematics and the best once again are chosen to study 5 years of dialectic. The best performers yet again are chosen to embark on a 15 year apprenticeship in managing within the political sphere. Those who successfully complete this long journey become the Philosopher Kings and are the ones who then become The Deciders.
Surely there's got to be an easier way. Maybe if we just stopped sifting through every speck of garbage in the past lives of anyone foolish enough to run for office, then maybe more reasonable people would not be afraid to run for office. It's not that the idiots in charge don't have skeletons in their closets it's just that they're idiots so they assume that they'll be able to get away with it.
America seems to have some kind of an allergy to intelligent leaders. Jimmy Carter, John Kerry and Al Gore have all been victims of being perceived to be too smart. As if being smart implied being effete, weak or heaven forbid being French. People seem more comfortable voting for the likes of a Reagan or Dubya because somehow it seems right that the person in charge of the most powerful machine on Earth shouldn't be any more intelligent than the guy who cuts your hair. Bill Clinton was highly intelligent but was able to cleverly hide it with his "aw shucks, I'm just poor folk from Arkansas" shtick.
The average parliamentarian in Canada is not that much more enlightened but it was refreshing to see who ended up on the last ballot of the recent Liberal Party Leadership Convention. We had a PhD Journalist and Political Science Professor from Harvard by way of Oxford going against a PhD Political Science Professor from Quebec against a Rhodes Scholar with degrees in Arts, Law and Philosophy.
It's equally refreshing to see someone like Barack Obama running for President in 2008. He's already hamstrung with the impression that he's an intelligent guy and opponents will surely somehow try to use this against him. It's still too early to tell what this guy's really like but his smarts combined with having experimented with recreational drugs will likely not be the last of an arsenal ready to be levied against him once all of his historical trash has been picked through and analyzed.
Surely there's got to be an easier way. Maybe if we just stopped sifting through every speck of garbage in the past lives of anyone foolish enough to run for office, then maybe more reasonable people would not be afraid to run for office. It's not that the idiots in charge don't have skeletons in their closets it's just that they're idiots so they assume that they'll be able to get away with it.
America seems to have some kind of an allergy to intelligent leaders. Jimmy Carter, John Kerry and Al Gore have all been victims of being perceived to be too smart. As if being smart implied being effete, weak or heaven forbid being French. People seem more comfortable voting for the likes of a Reagan or Dubya because somehow it seems right that the person in charge of the most powerful machine on Earth shouldn't be any more intelligent than the guy who cuts your hair. Bill Clinton was highly intelligent but was able to cleverly hide it with his "aw shucks, I'm just poor folk from Arkansas" shtick.
The average parliamentarian in Canada is not that much more enlightened but it was refreshing to see who ended up on the last ballot of the recent Liberal Party Leadership Convention. We had a PhD Journalist and Political Science Professor from Harvard by way of Oxford going against a PhD Political Science Professor from Quebec against a Rhodes Scholar with degrees in Arts, Law and Philosophy.
It's equally refreshing to see someone like Barack Obama running for President in 2008. He's already hamstrung with the impression that he's an intelligent guy and opponents will surely somehow try to use this against him. It's still too early to tell what this guy's really like but his smarts combined with having experimented with recreational drugs will likely not be the last of an arsenal ready to be levied against him once all of his historical trash has been picked through and analyzed.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Flowers, Music, Poetry
Flowers
If I were a painter
I would draw you the sun
shine it over meadows
and grow you painted sunflowers.
Music
If I were a singer
I'd sing to you about light
fill the silence with sounds
to compose a harmony of hearts.
Poetry
If I were a writer
I'd write for you
these letters of love.
------------
To those in love, have fun celebrating Valentines Day.
To those who are single, may you and your hand of choice have a lovely evening also.
If I were a painter
I would draw you the sun
shine it over meadows
and grow you painted sunflowers.
Music
If I were a singer
I'd sing to you about light
fill the silence with sounds
to compose a harmony of hearts.
Poetry
If I were a writer
I'd write for you
these letters of love.
------------
To those in love, have fun celebrating Valentines Day.
To those who are single, may you and your hand of choice have a lovely evening also.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Series of Tubes
Be very afraid. This guy is in charge of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation - the body that oversees the regulation of the Internets. Besides engendering a concern for Net Neutrality it just boggles the mind how people like this can rise to such heights. We've got to do something about encouraging capable people to seek political office again. The Stupid White Men have got to go.
Now watch this DJ remix.
Now watch this DJ remix.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Billions and Billions
"We live on a mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam."
Carl Sagan 1994
It has been ten years since Carl Sagan died. We could use someone like him today. Richard Dawkins is brilliant but he rubs some people the wrong way. Sagan was very persuasive without being condescending. As a child, watching the Cosmos series on PBS changed my life. I've got the DVD box set so when I have a free weekend I'll watch the whole thing again.
Since today was Darwin's birthday I've provided below a segment on evolution. Please pass this on to someone in the Kansas Board of Education.
Carl Sagan 1994
It has been ten years since Carl Sagan died. We could use someone like him today. Richard Dawkins is brilliant but he rubs some people the wrong way. Sagan was very persuasive without being condescending. As a child, watching the Cosmos series on PBS changed my life. I've got the DVD box set so when I have a free weekend I'll watch the whole thing again.
Since today was Darwin's birthday I've provided below a segment on evolution. Please pass this on to someone in the Kansas Board of Education.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Elderly Divorce
Very elderly couples when asked why they waited until they were in some cases over 100 years old to divorce, most commonly respond with "we were waiting for the kids to die".
Music for the Paranoid Schizophrenic
I came across this music by Brainsaw while browsing archive.org. If you don't know about archive.org you should definitely check it out. It is the place for public domain content. It is also home to the Wayback Machine which allows you to see how a web page looked on a given day as far back as 1996.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
M.I.A. Bird Flu
This is one of the coolest songs I've heard in a while. M.I.A. is the daughter of a Sri Lankan revolutionary by way of London. She just released Bird Flu a few days ago.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
De-Lurking the 95
When I used to run a technology company I became aware of the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule. Roughly 20% of our customers accounted for 80% of our sales. I have met business people who take this to be a high principle of metaphysics on par with the Yin/Yang Principle.
In the general spirit of the times we are experiencing an accelerated rate of change in these participation inequalities. Computer programmers have noticed that there is a 90/10 rule in which 90% of the time required to execute a program is taken up by about 10% of the code. A more exaggerated ratio is exemplified by Wikipedia of which 99.8% is written by 0.2% of its users.
Most bloggers have access to visitor tracking data so they can see how many visitors they've had on a particular day and from which part of the world their readers are accessing their blogs. I have some regular readers that occasionally leave comments but I have many more who never do. It is said that 95% of blog readers are so-called lurkers. These people read but never leave comments. Nearly 5% of blog readers occasionally leave comments and 0.1% of blog readers regularly leave comments.
I regularly read several blogs and I occasionally leave comments on a few of them. One of the bloggers I read asked why she had so many readers who never left comments. She wondered if they had a hatecrush on her and encouraged them to respond. The result was that many more of her readers left a comment. I'd like to do the same. So to those readers from Brooklyn and Barcelona, Melbourne and Mimico as well as all of you readers in Toronto I encourage you to de-lurk and let me know what you're thinking even if it's to tell me why you don't usually leave a comment.
In the general spirit of the times we are experiencing an accelerated rate of change in these participation inequalities. Computer programmers have noticed that there is a 90/10 rule in which 90% of the time required to execute a program is taken up by about 10% of the code. A more exaggerated ratio is exemplified by Wikipedia of which 99.8% is written by 0.2% of its users.
Most bloggers have access to visitor tracking data so they can see how many visitors they've had on a particular day and from which part of the world their readers are accessing their blogs. I have some regular readers that occasionally leave comments but I have many more who never do. It is said that 95% of blog readers are so-called lurkers. These people read but never leave comments. Nearly 5% of blog readers occasionally leave comments and 0.1% of blog readers regularly leave comments.
I regularly read several blogs and I occasionally leave comments on a few of them. One of the bloggers I read asked why she had so many readers who never left comments. She wondered if they had a hatecrush on her and encouraged them to respond. The result was that many more of her readers left a comment. I'd like to do the same. So to those readers from Brooklyn and Barcelona, Melbourne and Mimico as well as all of you readers in Toronto I encourage you to de-lurk and let me know what you're thinking even if it's to tell me why you don't usually leave a comment.
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