Labour Day 2017: The Future of Labour

I booked this day off, and I’m trying not to think of work; I’m not doing that successfully. My weekend was loaded with enough tasks that constitute a full few days of putting chaos to order. Long story short, I was dealing with the results of electrical and steam pressure explosions, plus putting out fires in the floor below me. Add the shooting that happened down the block last Thursday, and it makes me think I'd be safer in Afghanistan. I exaggerate though. The electrical explosion was more like a humongous zap from the power supply in my 10 year old desktop PC, the steam pressure was from a weakened emergency release valve on an old pressure cooker I had, and the fire downstairs was a lapse in judgement from an elderly resident who left the building without shutting her stove off. The shooting, unfortunately, was real. Gang related methinks. I've been fixing everything around here including the kitchen sink, quite literally. The corroded drain fell apart, and on top of salvaging components, hard drives and data from my desktop, I was soldering screwing in and soldering pipes. I'm not really bitter about it all though. It was stuff that I should have done late last year/early this year: things that were already on my to do lists before my arm was injured. I welcomed the escape into doing something more logical and methodical with materials aside from just cooking and writing. 

My thoughts stray to the state I was in around time last year, and remembering the fears that I had about having complications from my surgery, and not recovering fully, with the possibility of rendered to a state where I’d be partially disabled. If this aspect of the past wasn’t enough to bother me, even though I recovered fully from it, thoughts of what the future possibly holds in terms of work and labour in general are sparking in my mind as well. These thoughts were also prompted from me perusing science and tech magazines and periodicals during my down time. Tinkering with and pulling the guts out of my old computer was a prompt too.

I also blame it on a program on CBC radio I was listening to yesterday for getting this all started, which was an interview with a leading intellect and authority about the very real possibilities and global impacts of the further exponential advancement of AI (artificial intelligence), cybernetics, and robotics in sectors the work force, where there are scenarios of human labour being rapidly rendered obsolete due to more efficient computers, the inexhaustibility of machine power, and the increasingly more intricate and variable operations that robots are being designed to perform. It is already making an impact now. White collar jobs are even no longer safe. There is a computerized AI ‘lawyer’ now operating in New York which can review and summarize law matters many times more faster and efficiently than any human attorney. Banks and investment firms are relying on computer algorithms more and on humans less to make many times faster than lightning quick decisions on where and how to invest capital. What does this mean for our economic system based on the need for humans to make an income to consume stuff, the distribution of wealth, and purposeful creation of services and resources to give our currencies value; our sense of welfare and job security based on employability and ridiculous standards of meritocracy, our standard of health and education and how they would radically change, our sociological and psychological well-being, or our remaining services that can’t simply be replaced by microchip loaded black boxes. What role is left for a human where the machine not only replaces the worker, but no longer is in control by a human being because of ever advancing AI? What does that all ultimately mean for whatever progress was made by the Unions and labour movement on behalf of human labourers?

Elon Musk, Stephan Hawking, and other intellects and innovators are already beginning to warn us about unchecked development and advancement of AI, and the approach of the singularity*: the point in our history, where as futurist Ray Kurzweil said, when all computer technology and their networks would be in a state of being fully integrated and able to operate autonomously. This leads to all sorts of scenarios, mostly negative, including the extreme of purposeful AI generated enslavement or extermination of human beings, like the futures in the Matrix or the Terminator movies.

There are too many questions with too many vague and abstract answers to these matters for me to entertain. If there are any positives that I’d like to see happen from the inevitable displacement of people by cybernetics it would be the following:

·         More time on our hands to create purpose in designing and building sustainable communities and environments

·         Less wasted and expended time and energy just for the sake of presenteeism

·         The reassessment of the value of the low-paying, yet intricate and essential jobs that a robot can’t do for people, like assisting sick and disabled people with heavy care needs.

·         Less accidents and injury, because robots replace humans in high risk work environments

·         More time to devote for securing and raising families better, the most essential job, instead of being divided from them all the time with commitments at work

·         A change in school curricula that teaches kids to behave like human beings, instead of preparing them to be just a bunch of hypercompetitive tools to be exploited (or exploiters) as they develop into their adulthood.

·         A radical change in a culture of elitism, with (hopefully) an implementation of UBI (Universal Basis Income) strategy to divide and distribute wealth generated by automatons.

Some of these things are just in the sky, others I’m probably looking upon naively, but whatever the case, I sense a great and massive upheaval in the very near future centred on this very issue. One that I haven’t even scratched the surface of.

*- Ray predicted that the level of technology that would allow this to happen will be available sometime between 2040 -2045, some pundits say it may happen even sooner. Whatever the case, there may be a chance that it will occur in my lifetime, thus there is merit into thinking about such matters and scenarios.

Post Summer Solstice Holiday Planning

It is Saturday evening of the first weekend after the Summer Solstice. The Jazz Fest is on, but 12 kilometres of running in today’s heat left me a bit too weary to check it out tonight. It’s still too hot to sleep, so I’ve been sitting outside trying to cool down with a refreshing libation, and doing some self-assessing. It finally feels like I’m at least approaching the threshold of my fitter self. I’ve made a stronger commitment to train for running and to eat better since this month began. Maybe I don’t yet look it, but I’m finally starting to feel leaner and a bit lighter. I was comparing notes of the way I was close to this time in the season last year in another entry with how I’ve been feeling now, and I suppose also to find and remind myself of some motivators (Re-Motivating for More Clicks). By their comparisons, I still have some more healing and work to do.

As it is now, one small thing of novelty that I’m enjoying, and that is motivating me while I run, is a new set of Bluetooth wireless headphones. I love them. I bought them with a gift card I won in a draw. Knowing that I got them for free also puts a spring in my step. Listening to my progress stats, podcasts, and music without a bothersome cord dangling and tangling all around me admittedly is a nice liberating convenience. The only other bothersome thing to lose that’s flipping and flopping in front of me is whatever gut and man-boobs that I have left that were starting to sprout up after such a miserably idle and crippling winter/spring. Sorry for that tidbit of TMI, but in another couple weeks at this pace they’ll hopefully be absent as well. The more pressing need now is the conditioning and improvement of performance of my lungs and heart. If I don’t get those back, all else is in vain. They do seem to be getting better though, thankfully.

My other technical indulgence that I’ve been really liking is my new tablet computer, which I’ve been noodling around with and using to write this entry. I don’t know why I didn’t think of getting something like this sooner. It’s weird that my non-tech-savvy parents have had one of these long before I did. It is that perfect thing for times when lugging around a laptop is too cumbersome, or when a smart-phone app seems too miniscule and straining to my eyes. I also really hate typing with my thumbs. The touchscreen stylus mode it has is quicker and easier for me to interface than typing. When I get too bogged down by the wretched task using of my hunt and peck style of typing it limits and impairs my flow of thought and natural expression. I’m amazed to see that this thing can even decipher my chicken scratch! I’ve tested it to the degree of trying to fool it with using special characters [$, €, ¢, £,] and it seems to know its shit. What it doesn’t register very well though is accent marks, like umlauts and various others (á, ä, å, â, etc.). It is exactly the gizmo I’d want to have with me should I ever wish to commit to exploring the other grand things I’ve been scheming.

The scheming I’m referring to is a result of a harsh realization. Last week, on a day reserved for cross-training, I took a long walk up to Nutana, and made time to rendezvous with my friend for coffee. The last thing she asked me about in our conversation was how I was going to spend my holiday time for the year. I honestly had no answer for her about that. I was embarrassed to admit that I had already cancelled some vacation time I had booked off to attend some other Union affairs. I started to get uneasy thinking about it. The whole downhill slide with my health has been no doubt due to a failure to look after my own interests and needs. Constantly sacrificing my personal holiday time and energy for fixing problems and other things I see as bigger than me, or not making an effort to do anything meaningful with time off is all part of the same pattern. I realize that even after a serious brush with something nearly fatal months ago hasn’t really smartened me up to make better choices and use of my free time. I suppose (know) I was trapped in a malaise of not feeling my personal best to really find energy and stamina to do other such things beyond work, but now as this is starting to change; so is my attitude. I already snuck into a couple travel agencies to piece together some sort of package for stuff related to the sorts of things I noted in The Dream Circuits entry. That’s for a long term plan; right now I’m trying to plan on something more immediate for a getaway.

Canada Day is coming soon, and I have a week off for holidays. Both instinct and desperation are telling me to hit the road for a while, even if it’s just a daytrip to some place novel, now that my car is fixed and more roadworthy. As tempted as I am to stay put and save up more money for a proper flyaway vacation, I realize that’s just another way of squandering away precious time.

As for now, my compass needle is still spinning. I still don’t know where it is that I’ll be heading to; I do know I won’t be crossing the border to the states. It also seems senseless to plan to do any camping up North with the fire bans and random evacuation warnings happening because of the wildfires. There is still no rain in the forecast for that week, so the risks are just increasing as it gets drier. There are plenty of other crazy little sight-seeing objectives to target within the province that I haven’t seen yet. However, they are scattered all about. So, it’s unlikely that I’ll know what my tour plan will be until the last second before I leave.

On the bright side, spontaneity always makes things interesting.

Leaf Cutters and Bitcoin. . .WTF!

It's only two days away from the solstice, and it aches my spirits knowing that so far almost every day off I've had since the first week of May, including today, has been either too cloudy/gloomy, or chilly, or rainy. The downpour this morning prompted the dog and I to go out only far enough for some of her relief essentials during her walk before she quickly dragged me back in; so she could then burrow and crawl back under my bed sheets to find that token warm spot she left. It was tempting for me to do the same thing, and just swear today off as another wasted, lazy, unenjoyable day for this season. Any day during the summer season when I can't start it by enjoying my breakfast and coffee on my balcony in the fresh air and sunshine seems like the beginning of a lousy day. I could have followed the dog's idea, but I have too much on my mind to allow me to rest. I decided to divert myself and escape from all that mental clutter and noise by writing here.

I sense now more than ever, after being so cooped up because of the dreariness and rain, how desperately I'm missing and being estranged from traveling, and just freely being able to walk around in nature and being bedazzled by brand new places. I realize that it's been more than a year since I just simply went fishing. I spent much of my evening last night in my armchair exploring destinations and favourable lodgings in Bing Travel and AirBnB. I also studied and tried to make sense of some literature on Bitcoin* and other digital crypto-currency movements that are happening, and all the unique options, securities, and freedoms they are allegedly supposed to allow when booking online and traveling abroad. More comments about that down the page.

With the setting being so gloomy and dreary for this time of the year, outside it seems almost too green. Normally, that wouldn't ever be a complaint from me around here (It's certainly better than when it gets too grey and white around here), but with the absence of sun, there has also been a sparseness of any flowers and blooms, making it look barren in another special way. Walking down the street under the canopy of thickly-leaved elms in the gloom and rain, I was struck with a special memory: of the insect nature, of all things.
 
More specifically, the verdant trees and the early day gloom triggered and took my wanderlust stricken mind back to a time when I was trekking through the rain forest, along some jungle trail that cut through some foothills near the coast when I spent time in South America**. On that excursion, something caught my eye on the trail. At the first flashing glance I had of the movement, it struck me that there was a little reddish-brown and green snake crossing the path slowly. However, on closer inspection with a clearer view, I discovered that it was really a dense column of ants carrying bits of fresh leaves on their backs. They looked like little surfers heading towards some beach carrying along their little green longboards, all in unison at a perfectly synchronized rate of marching in one direction to make them all look like one organism. This was my first encounter with leaf-cutter ants.
 
As strangely interesting and fascinating as they were to me at the time, I still didn't hold them in any special regard in the grander scheme of things that were happening in and beyond that jungle. I had enough of my own challenges I was going through in trying to adapt to that environment and the social scene of the nation I was in back then. However, later on I did gain some perspective of this creature's role in the interdependent symbiosis of that particular ecosystem. It turns out that this seemingly insignificant ant and its bizarre behaviour is greatly responsible for being a balancing component for keeping an entire forest system alive.

Most of us, who appreciate biology, are already familiar with the intricate role of honeybees, who work symbiotically as nature's reproductive postal workers/surrogate penises for flowering plants. The leaf-cutter ants are just as critical as an element of a life support system in a rain forest. The leaf-cutter ants act as a soil conservationist, habitat builder, gardener, and farmer. The leaf-cutters trim the leaves from select trees in the upper parts of the forest canopy. The consequence of billions of them trimming away these leaves is that it allows more sunlight to penetrate onto the forest floor so other smaller species of plants below can then photosynthesize and survive, and hence introducing more food and habitat, allowing more animal species to thrive in the middle and lower parts of the forest matrix. The ants take the fresh leaves back to their colony, where they are used not to directly feed the ants, but to nourish a specific type of fungus which is grown on the cut leaves. The fungi consuming the leaves is actually what the ants and their larvae feed on. The fungi also work in a copacetic union with other microbes to then accelerate the decomposition of the leaves which greatly helps to replenish nutrients and minerals the rapidly depleted/leeched topsoil on the rain forest floor. It's an intricate and sensitive system that has cycled for millions of years. Even though the ants have an important and integral role in it, they are not its most dominant force nor its weakest link. The system they interact in, without any one dominating power, is self-sustaining, interdependent and completely de-centralized. I reviewed this process, because it was supposedly important to know before I could try to get the gist of what the Bitcoin author was trying to explain.

By coincidence, the author of this Bitcoin book was trying to explain its workings by trying to use the life dynamics of these particular ants as an example. I was eager at first for the comparison, since I was indeed awestruck by them when I first saw them working, and I thought the author could actually somehow use these very same creatures as a relatable, comprehensible, and meaningful example to me to posit his analogy to the workings of Bitcoin. His leaf-cutter ant metaphor involved the establishing and creating a functional new digital currency, where there is no real direct intervention or regulation by any one national government authority on settling on what the value and potential transaction opportunities/limits can be for this type of crypto-currency, and the actual bottom-of-the-pyramid users generate and control this self-sustaining transaction system instead. Did you understand any of that? Who knew that social insect behaviour and digital currency macro-economics were so much alike? I sure didn't, and do you know what . . . I STILL F*&^%ING DON'T!!! I feel like my time was wasted now for reviewing something so bizarre, and I failed to anchor any of this crap to a workable concept that's meaningful to me. I confess that I'm no stranger to at least trying to study and attempt to understand some pretty wild esoteric ideas in a lot of fields, but the one that makes me want to gouge out my own eyes when I glance upon it is the subject of economics, and the words of people who think they have all the answers about it, and can't produce an intelligible and tangible example to explain so abstract. I don't know what qualifications you need to write a textbook explaining economics which now include more abstract computer coding for transactions and more esoteric tech-lingo, but after reading this stuff, I think it involves going to whatever school it was that Nostradamus went to, or whatever one the crazy old bastard who wrote the book Revelation did. I only got to wondering afterward about what it was, and much of it that he had actually smoked from some bong while he wrote that stuff. I don't intend to bash the guy who wrote this book too harshly: he did openly declare that it was his raw, unfinished copy, meant for more editing. I'll give him some great credit for daring to do his best to make describable a technical phenomenon that is itself changing very quickly in leaps and bounds as app development for it gets enhanced. It's still all gobbledegook to me. The comparison to Nature's ecology with human economics doesn't help me much either. I tend to think that Nature didn't account for human stupidity and human greed in her design, which the real workings of human economics is full of. Look how she is suffering now because of it. As a result, his example became nullified for me. Trying to follow any economic trend or related news just disturbs me, I can even see the result of doing it reflected by the quality of my own writing now. Rambling and discordant; lacking of a real central theme: just as I find regular discussions about the dynamics, theories, and policies in this field.

Between the two subjects of the ants and crypto-currency economic practice and theory, one had me a bit enthralled and interested; the other put me to sleep in my armchair. Hint: I didn't wake up with drool rolling down my chin, as if coming out of a coma, after reading about the ants. The subject of economics, especially as it is today, is all too cryptic, complicated, boring and nonsensical for me. It's all loaded with a bunch of cold and prickly theories which have more to do with making hyper-competitive businesses and corruptive governments flourish, and less to do with satisfying the real and current needs of the human condition. Google defines it as: the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth. It sounds sweet and simple, but it's a little too general, and it also has too much wiggle room to allow for doing perverse, greedy, and unethical things as options to gain wealth. My personal simplest, yet exact, definition of economics (or at least as to how I try to apply it in my own life) is: the knowledge, practice, and study of managing and transferring given resources, assets, energy and time in a responsible, practical, effective, efficient, and ethical manner. The inclusion of the words "responsible" and "ethical" alone to the definition of economics shows you just how screwed up this world is when brought to light in the way we are living in under today's current actual economic system realities (or I should say tyrannies). My idea of what economics should mean doesn't jibe well with that used by most of the rest of the world. Maybe that's why I've been a poor student of it, or maybe I'm just pragmatic, and don't want to really waste time learning any more about a convention that really hasn't been working well for us to begin with. 

When it comes to Bitcoin, I can see now how those in power in institutions that are too archaic to readily adapt to this (like most governments) being really scared of it, along with those who are without technical savvy. Black market activity is not as easy to do with Bitcoin as people think it is, so those who are trying to sidestep accountability and transparency will have even more difficulty doing it as the technology evolves. Those digits still leave trails. I wonder what other propaganda wars/changes will ensue as it becomes more established. Boning up on some knowledge of Bitcoin is something not I'm really doing out of real interest; I'm just regarding as a necessary labour/evil because I might someday be forced to use it and comply with its terms; plus I may at the very least need to learn how to avoid being screwed over by it.

If we already avail ourselves to use some sort shopper's card for collecting 'points' for discounts and freebies from our favourite retailers, a casino card, or some means for collecting Air Miles® or any facsimile thereof, we are already resorting to de facto alternative forms of digital currency with an arbitrarily assigned value. So, why should we really be surprised, or feel so threatened that such a thing is Bitcoin has come along? We already seem to not mind too much about blindly feeding our personal information and data about our shopping and consumption habits for the fungus that is the market researcher to gather and exploit whenever we use such points cards. Using Bitcoin may actually lessen some of this sort of intrusion. The threatening thing I suppose is that it's a lot more abstract and more technical than other forms of payment that we use, but that's the way money has already been constantly evolving through the decades and centuries. Money, in any form, will always be used in corruptive ways so long as greed, waste, and stupidity in people exist. People might actually have to try to be a little less ignorant, and make an effort to actually tune into markets, and learn how to read candlestick charts and conversion tables to protect their interests as this digital convergence with money happens. I can see how that is intimidating for some, especially those who just want simple. All I know is that: a. there will be a huge powershift that will arise from this, and b. that for now I'll be studying the degree of convenience, security, and volatility of the Bitcoin system a little more before I commit to changing my dollars to binary digits in a QR code.
    
*-The weird and seemingly unrelated imagery on one of the EPUB books I was reading about Bitcoin also no doubt compounded the thought-triggering (it was a picture of a leaf-cutter ant).
**- Cue in me mimicking David Attenborough's voice and accent here . . .
 

Crash Habits

I realized that it has been some while since I wrote here. Nothing eventful has happened between now and my last entry that is really notable except for the fact that I've decided to take a sabbatical from the long-distance running to let my bones and joints heal up properly. I'm substituting in more cycling for fitness. I opted out of the Saskatchewan Marathon this year, as well as the Bridge City Boogie that is scheduled for today. I'm stuck in the midst of the second day of trying to resolve computer problems, and today I took the radical step of doing a total overhaul of my operating system.
My Sunday so far has gone as follows:
Stage 1: Start reinstalling Windows 8.0 operation system, since all my free time yesterday was used in vain and wasted effort desperately using whatever help advice and fixes I tried to deploy.
0% installed . . .
Showering, hygiene and grooming . . .
10% installed . . .
Prepared and had breakfast (scrambled eggs with onions and jalapeños and salsa, hashbrowns and coffee; loaded and turned on dishwasher
25% installed . . .
Go for another walk with dog to kill time between software loading, get rained on, return home quickly. I'm kind of thankful for the rain to make me feel less regretful and having an excuse for being cooped up inside to attend to the configuring . . .
33% installed . . .
Cleaned kitchen and sweep floors . . .
54% installed . . .
Folding laundry, changed bedding, and cleaned/dusted/vacuumed bedroom, groom the pooch . . .
67% installed . . .
Made more coffee, chatted with my Mom for a bit on the phone . . .
89% installed  . . .
Start praying to Jesus, Buddha, and whatever other patron saints and deities there are for restoring system crashes who'd care to listen to my plight. Twelve minutes later, a successful installation occurs. On to Stage 2 of this soul-crushing operation. Ella pokes me with her paw to get my attention, and then jumps up on my lap to try to comfort me from my noticeable unrest from this irritating fiasco.
Stage 2: Begin downloading and installing the layer of Windows 8.0 updates necessary before I can ever tack on the latest Windows 8.1 upgrade (92 needed).
Start a new blog entry on desktop (this one) . . .
0 of 92 downloaded . . .
I unload my dishwasher and started preparing stuff for lunch. I then begin reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, by the late Douglas Adams, feeling about as useless, surreal, and absurd as the Electric Monk introduced in chapter 2 of the book through the flow of this process. A half hour has passed by, then I see . . .
0 of 92 downloaded!!! . . . <a myriad of expletives at this point> . . . oh wait, holy crap it finally took some action to install updates. Loading and configuration seems like trying to escape a Black Hole at this point knowing that I'm not even half way finished of what I need to do to correct all this.
I think the point of how aggravating I find post-crash massive scale installations has been made, and this is probably the main reason why I would hate having an IT career as a tech support worker. I couldn't handle dealing with the levels of livid pent-up frustration while talking myself through a task, I'm sure my impatience would only get worse when dealing with someone else. If I were tied to a desk incapable of hastening the process, and couldn't make the busywork, or anything else constructive or productive for things like what I just described to curb this aggravation, I'd be totally at my wits end.
It's my own damn fault that this has happened. A complete refreshing install once a year is what I would recommend for anyone who uses their system at my degree of usage, but I follow my own advice rather poorly. I haven't performed any maintenance like this since I purchased my laptop a few years ago.
Being that we are now so interlinked with technology, this all leads me to wonder if there could be an entirely new psychological profile inventory made solely based on a person's ability to organize, attend, adapt, and using time-passing habits through the tedious process of recovering from a computer system crash and other monotonous first world problems: much like the formal stages of dealing with the news of hearing that one is approaching their mortality in a short given time (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). It's being affronted by the irony of taking so much lagging time is used to set up things that are supposed to process all the other things in our lives in nanoseconds.
I forgot how long and agonizing this process is, and if I were more prudent I should be given myself more substantial things to multitask at while this was happening, like planning a manned mission to Pluto or something . . .

. . .It's now 3 days later, with one night shift, one migraine, two excruciatingly sore eyeballs, and cruddy weather within that time. I have my system up and running again. I plugged in the old apps I had (actually used), leaving the rest in the digital oblivion to prevent them from cluttering up my hard drive; one of them was probably responsible for this trouble to begin with. I also took advantage of rigging this baby up with the newest version of MS Office: to crawl out of the primordial ooze of what was Office 2007, and start crawling on solid ground with more cloud-capable features provided with Office 365. It's a hell of a jump, and I'm ashamed I waited this long to come to this point to do this enhancement, and I'm thinking more that my crash that forced me in this direction was a blessing in disguise.

I'm so far impressed with the new features. I'm testing Word's capability of uploading my entry directly to my blog, right now. Office 2007 had the same feature, but it calved on me for some reason ages ago, and I just didn't bother coming back to it. I like the fact that I have more formatting options and better correction utilities at my disposal now. Maybe someday I'll manage to actually get creative with them.

Pre/Post Birthday, Welcoming Fall

The best summer day I think I experienced this year was on this last Thursday evening. It's futile for me to struggle to find the right words for it: I can't describe perfection. The beach for the most part was great, the way the light hit the water on the lake as I was paddling around it made it both serene and surreal. The yellowing leaves along the shores reflected a golden aura around everything as the sun began setting. It was just a perfect way to close out another year of living, as it was the eve of my birthday.

The details of how I spent my birthday are too personal to share. I had quality time for solitude, and better moments with the company I did have. I was just happy to have the kind of time needed to do some navel-gazing that couldn't be impeded by any interference that remotely resembled work. Sitting still and giving myself time to think and reflect was about all I was capable of doing for a long while after the morning of that day. I tried to make some glorious (foolish) attempt that morning to break my all-time distance record for running; but the gaps between hydration stops were too large, and I was beginning to get some cramping and sciatic seize-ups. It forced me to limit myself to doing just a bit over a half-marathon distance. However, I did achieve my secondary goal of crossing all six bridges in this town. I'll need about another day from now to recover soundly after all that before I hit the trails again.

An Irish folk music band at the
Farmers' Market. Worth the
extra effort to shop locally.

The one thing I will comment about of what I gathered during my moments of sitting still and brooding on my birthday is just how much my tastes for some things have changed over time. Now, if I want an adventure, I seek something cultural or culinary rather than trekking on some weird expedition. I look at the value of objects with a more practical and larger-view attitude than with what their supposed monetary value is. Some pictures I took as I ambled around the Farmers' Market and Broadway Street Fair yesterday illustrate this point better.

My thinking today. . .a total
White Elephant.

For example, years ago, I may have been impressed and amazed to actually find a Lotus convertible, like this one shown here that I found yesterday, on the streets of this town. Now, my manner of thinking automatically comes to, "Someone has way too much money to waste on exposing and maintaining this lovely machine in the environs of this wretched climate." My attitude now is such that if you really want a sense of freedom and power, don't get a luxury sports car, or a palatial home, or anything else signifying ridiculous excess. Why get an over-powered car when you can only drive as fast as the idiot in front of you in traffic? A bigger home only compels you to waste time and energy filling it up with shit* you really don't need. I really can't be troubled with keeping up with the Joneses. Opulence and affluence doesn't really impress me anymore, I'm not sure if it ever really did. My idea of what real wealth is has changed radically, especially upon the realization of how the actual 'value' of money is established. I learned much while dabbling around the FOREX markets. It's completely arbitrary, and stupidly assigned and regulated through the means by which ultimately there is a shortage or deprivation of something for someone else, and is maintained by a system that keeps others in debt and impoverished. The drive for the super/hyper-accumulation of monetary wealth ultimately signifies one's willingness to take part in creating suffering of someone else and depletion of resources. The greed of an affluent few makes slaves and prisoners of too many.

Braised Beef Tendons from the
Mandarin Restaurant, my lunch after
my tour of the Farmer's Market.
Years ago, I wouldn't have been
so daring. This cured my aching knees.

The "wealth" I'm most impressed with and interested in now is that by which knowledge and resourcefulness is focused to use that which is deemed unusable, and puts it into a whole new light: quite literally in one case. For this instance, I was amazed by a Facebook post of a Chinese artist who took discarded drinking boxes, and created them into functional and aesthetically pleasing geodesic designs for lampshades. I've been totally enthralled, after reading articles, about the ingenuity of those eccentrics who can build homemade robots out of stripped down laser jet printers, and a crafty application of open source Arduino boards and Raspberry Pi circuits. These, plus those who can grow and produce actual foodstuffs, are the people I'll be seeking out when a global financial meltdown, energy crisis, or some other kind of apocalyptic collapse comes; not the buggers with the shiniest toys.
Gastronomically, I'm becoming more fascinated by chefs who are using entrails and offal and turning them into gourmet cuisine. I think I freaked my brother out a little bit when he phoned me to offer me a birthday greeting. Because he is a meat inspector, I presented the question to him as to where I could find a clean source of hog's blood for making my own homemade sausages**
I'm seeing innovation in what is simple and traditional (for others), and seeing the value of salvaging, and viewing those who squander and waste stuff with a lot more disdain. What I seek more of are truly Zen moments, like I had at the lake last Thursday. That's how I'm changing as I get older.

Along with this fall's harvest of fine fresh, and unconventional food, I welcome the prospect of discovering more unconventional, yet stunning, innovative ideas. I heard a rumour that there is a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) expo coming to town sometime this month. I hope I'll get a chance to check some of it out.


* - I love that observation made by George Carlin: something akin to . . . "Have you ever noticed that as you accumulate things that your shit is "stuff", and other people's stuff is "shit'?

** - Blutwurst, boudin noir, black puddings, kishka, morcilla . . .whatever foreign or euphemistic name you give "blood sausage", it's damn delicious, and lately I've been having weird cravings for it. I first sampled it in an Argentinian parilla joint in Valencia. I can't find a source of it around here, so I'm relegated to try making my own.

My Summer Reading

The sun is out, it's bright and the temperature is perfect. . . and yet I'm becoming disappointed. This is the first time it has felt really summer-like since this round of time-off began. The people I want to see this weekend are all out of town; given the lovely weather and dwindling days left of this summer, they would be crazy not to 'seize the day'. My time alone was spent just touring the neighbourhood on my bike, snooping around some of the yard and garage sales of this beginning of the end of the season for them. I'm using the remainder of today resting up from yesterday's excursion (and for tomorrow), and sticking my nose in a few magazines and books. Playing around with more puzzles and mathematics is making me veer towards subjects in science and tech. The material I'm reading is making me ache for having my own workshop or garage to use here.

Some of my light summer reading.

The lack of tranquility around the neighbourhood has been affecting me also. Today is the first day since my holidays began earlier this week that I've felt at ease and liberated, and with a clear enough mind to engage, challenge myself, and get immersed in some really cool projects - and now there is only today and tomorrow left of this stint of freedom. Another part of the disappointment comes from realizing that there is hardly enough time to completely follow through with any of the bigger plans and ideas I want to see manifested. I could try and rush to complete them, but all that does is add extra pressure, and defeats the purpose of setting the stage to focus on something intently to get into the zone of doing some really beneficial learning. When it comes to recreation, no one should have to feel rushed for anything. I really have to make it a point to take an entire month off for the next go around to accommodate for this.

The books I've been mentally chewing through with interest are:

Bicycle Diaries, by David Byrne - It's a bit surprising to learn that the former front man of the very successful 80's rock group, The Talking Heads, used, and continues to use a bicycle as his primary means of urban transportation, even in a city that's relatively hostile to cyclists like New York, where he currently resides. He shares some wonderful accounts and perspectives of the histories and cultural vibe he has experienced while cycling through various cities on this globe like Berlin, London, San Francisco, Istanbul, et al.

Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts - It's a book that lies between motivational reading, and practical survival guide for exploring the world abroad. It's a book for opening your mind to possibilities while on the road. It was interesting to peruse the biography, and to note that his beginnings were just as humble as mine were, and he turned his traveling experiences into his trade. It's a full of pointers about how to reach financial goals to allow yourself this freedom. It's not so delusional as to suggest how to escape work, but emphasizes having the kind of work that's meaningful to allow you to do this, and using to tie up lose ends. I currently have this book as a loan from the library, but I believe it's one that I'll end up buying.

Radical Abundance, by K. Eric Drexler - Don't let the title fool you. It's not one of those tomes about the Law of Attraction, Secret of the Universe, or other such airy-fairy material. The book is about the science and upcoming revolution of nanotechnology, and how it would radically change the world. I read Drexler's book, Engines of Creation, back in the early 90's, and noted his theories about what could be possible when we begin designing and building things from the atom and moving upward. Reading this book serves as a follow up to learn about what is actually happening in the field of nanotechnological R & D. The manipulation and fabrication of things on the atomic level, is akin to the development of the creative use and manipulation of bits and bytes in the digital information age, except there would be even more radical advancements if/when these ideas come into fruition. Be forewarned, it would help to brush up on some basic chemistry before you read this one.

Progressive Apps

I have no clue as to why I feel jazzed up today, except for the fact that I've been really nerdish and anal about getting a few more applications and organizational tools working for me in a good way, and having a few more 'Eureka!' moments and breakthroughs as I continue to pursue re-establishing some sort of order to my personal domain.

I'm still struggling to bend my brain around some of the more abstract portions of my learning modules in the programming manual. I suppose after comparing programming to all else which I construe as a bothersome problem to deal with, I've given these things a new perspective, and they now appear a lot less difficult to manage. Whether it's done formally or informally, I'd highly recommend it to everyone to learn some kind of programming. It's not just about sorting out variables and configuring data to be processed. It's also about understanding the flow of information, and having that flow and following it's momentum is what is needed to get out of a rut when blocked by a problem.

With gaining more knowledge and skill at programming and flow of information, one becomes more attune to the concept that any common problems are just forms of information that need re-processing. Circumstances never arise with any label of "good" or 'bad' attached to them. Circumstances only become problems whenever they conflict, clash, and interfere with whatever ambitions, goals, missions, or ideals of progress we've set for ourselves, and then get wrapped up in our own dramas that we build around them. Most of the challenge in dealing with them is just breaking up things into manageable sets and putting them in a much simpler framework. Keeping motivated, monitoring , and applying action is the rest of the job.

My iPhone is armed with these apps that I find especially useful. If anyone knows of one that creates good flowcharts and fish bone graphs, I'd love to hear about then. Here are a few productivity apps that I find especially useful when I'm mobile, and when I want to capture, analyze, compare, and chart ideas that strike me from out of the blue:

Simple Minds - What this app is for is mind mapping: taking a central theme and creating related offshoots to build upon the idea to provide options and enhancements. It allows one to follow through with some open-opened creativity. It's relatively simple to use, and the variable colours can be helpful for coding categories.

MindTools - A nice little compendium of productivity strategies, for helping me to get out of ruts for planning complicated things. The problem solving and the exercises to challenge assumptions are some of my favourite ones in this app.

PDF Reader - Generally OK to transfer PDF files to, but on the iPhone screen, even with expanding the view, details of the fine print on a letter-sized paper formatted document are a little hard to read.

Graphio (Lite) - A cool little piece of productivity software that makes diagrams and graphs for flowcharts and more. The only flaw it has is the difficulty in bringing up the keyboard to label the chart objects. This prevents me from bothering to upgrade to the full version.

OneNote - This Microsoft app is a very dumbed down version of the full MS Office OneNote program. There is a checkbox function for to do lists, a point form outline maker, and photo capture button, but nothing else really. The only saving grace it has is for collecting rudimentary material, which can then be uploaded to a desktop/laptop for more detail with colour coding and graph making.

Dropbox - This provides instantaneous picture sharing with all cloud connected devices from your pics and other files. Simply splendid for faster processing of shared photographs, and posting them on blog entries. The process of having to email them to myself first was very cumbersome in comparison.

Evernote - A very good note app for collecting tags and sharing with other wi-fi connected devices. Unlike OneNote, it will record voice and index your tags and categories for you.

Lift  - The newest one I collected so far. It is what can be termed as a positive habit recorder and monitor. You can pick from a shared list of, or create your own, habits that you want to include in your life and stick with. It's a checkmark diary of sorts, to monitor your progress and account for all the little things that will amount to greater goals. It will also link one with a support community, some of whom are monitoring the same things they wish to include in their lives as you, who can even give you props to encourage you.

Birthday 2012

It started as a cloudy day. I could never remember a time when my birthday was ever so cloudy, or showing any aspect of possible rain. There were cooler days, yes, but I’ve never noted it starting out with such a gloomy, somber looking sky until now. Thankfully, it ended up getting warmer and brighter for the afternoon.

I woke up this morning feeling like I’ve finally shaken off the last vestiges of the insomnia and spells of mental malaise/fogginess, and headaches that I get after doing a night shift. I feel reasonably re-energized; the problem is though that I don’t know where to direct such energy. I have a couple days off. As uneventful and unceremonious as my birthday has usually been, I try to make a point to not work through it. Conveniently for me, it usually falls on the week of the Labour Day holiday, and I use the stat time in lieu of a work day, or else the following day after. It has never been a big deal for anyone else to note while I was growing up, as the day falls in a time when folks usually are too involved with other business that occurs at this part of the year. It always coincided with the full swing of harvest season when I lived rurally, and during the beginning of the back to school season when the return to regular affairs becomes more of a priority.

With my energy renewed; I had no desire to spend the day cooped up indoors, despite the dullness outside. So, I packed up my laptop and went mobile. Since there was no coffee left in my kitchen, I scurried over to the Broadway Roastery where there’s Wi-Fi, to at least plot out something meaningful to do, if not to just simply reflect on things. The only gifts I’ve received so far through the day were a few pennies I found on the ground*, and some lotto tickets that were sent to me by mail, which were unfortunately losers. However, I did tie into a book that a friend of mine gifted to me much earlier in the year during the process of her move. It’s called Getting Things Done, by David Allen. It’s a book that I wish was available to me years ago. Even through a cursory perusal of it, I scribbled out and generated at least fifty questions afterward that I thought were relevant to me for which I thought I needed to have answered. It’s a massive project in itself to take time to find these answers. It was a significant book for me to read for today because of its heavy emphasis on a sense of mission and vision.

To turn another year older without any sense to become a better sort of person than what one currently is, in my mind, is absolutely foolish. I’ve already started taking some steps to accord with a personal advancement yesterday. I decided to do away entirely with services that I just find to be too wasteful, like my LAN line and cable TV. My LAN line number gets more telemarketer calls (despite being registered with the GOC do-not-call list) than personal ones. Why then should I pay for this hassle? As for my digital cable TV, I never find time to watch it, and when I do, even with an extra two hundred channels, I never find anything worthwhile to watch, or follow, in terms of a series. I have better things to do for myself than to squander away my time this way, even with the coming of winter. I did not miss it at all throughout the summer months, and I’m confident that I could do without it through this winter as well. I can select and catch up on news and programming on the web, and filter through the video of stories that may be of interest to me better, at a time of my convenience.

In general, I find myself to be over-inundated with media. I’m tired and sickened of all the bad news I hear. When that happens, we aren’t allowed to think for ourselves, nor do we become more genuine, authentic personalities when we are only given news stories that strike fear and loathing in us. The worst culprit is television, because it involves all your basic audio-visual senses: I can easily skip over the commercial advertizing in a newspaper, but I can’t with TV, not without having to peck at buttons on a PVR. I figured if I took the more of the visual stimuli away, more of my attention would be freed to focus on other tasks.

I’m on the search for meaningful interests, and things to set into skills and habits to use to substitute for that wasted time. I toured the SPL (Saskatoon Public Library) to do such a thing. I dragged home a huge pile of these primitive things called magazines**, some audiobooks to listen to at bedtime, and other non-fiction books of related to subjects of my curiosity. I can putter around home doing more validating work, or to craft other things, while listening to educational and informative podcasts as well.

So far, my work schedule still confines me to doing more solitary, introverted activities (God willing, that will soon change too). Along with continuing to heal myself, and finding more efficient ways to maintain a runner’s conditioning over winter without slipping and wiping out on ice (weight-training and treadmill running), the things I’d like to devote more attention to learning and improving on throughout the course of fall and winter are: programming, writing, woodcrafts, DIY home improvements, culinary skills, investment/fiscal management, advanced mathematics, language acquisition, playing guitar, and perhaps do some formal course work with SIAST.

The greatest gift I’m giving to myself for this birthday is the courage to gain some clarity of mind to attain my own standard of personal rectitude.

*- Gifts from God I suppose. I always pick up coins, even pennies, I find on the street. Not out of superstition, certainly not because I believe the few cents I find this way will make me wealthy, nor is it done out of desperation, but to keep me mindful that abundance is potentially everywhere, and to keep me hopeful that opportunities will appear someday to help serve me better.

**- Ebooks, web sites, and epub files are almost bringing proper paper magazine publications to the brink of extinction. My choices are health, science, and tech mags (Wired, PC World, Men’s Health, National Geographic, Popular Mechanics, and Popular Science

Crash, Non-Bucket List, FOREX

With the Ex finally packed away and out of the neighbourhood, I finally succumbed to the mother of all power-sleeps for the past couple of nights. It’s the last day of my summer holiday. I’m almost happy to see that it’s cloudy and threatening to rain this morning: as a day like this, with me being physically bent out of shape as I am right now won’t then be such a big loss*. Just to make me extra super happy today <sarcasm>, my desktop PC died (driver warnings for my video card, and then no power). If it can’t be repaired and resurrected, and if my automatic backups haven’t been working, I’ll be shittin’ kittens. I’m thankful for managing to salvage and save a few things that I didn’t keep on my drives. Thank goodness for Cloud networking.

These past few days did me no good at all for restoring my body, the vehicle I needed to use to refresh the other two important things of the personal trinity: the mind and spirit. I managed to accomplish one “bucket list” type goals (half-marathon), but not to my greatest satisfaction. I ran much better times for a half marathon distance during my earlier training for it.

I actually don’t have a formally written out “bucket list” of anything. Given the cloudy weather, and the lack of physical constitution to do much else but put ice packs on my hamstrings, and write, it might be a good day to chill out, put my tech worries behind me, relax, and dream up of one.* The things that would be on it would probably be too personal to share publicly; it would be far easier to divulge the things that definitely won’t be on such a list. To help organize a more interpretable schema for this, I consulted with a page I found called 525+ Ideas for Your Bucket List, on the Daring to Live Fully website. Some of these things of note for me are:

Skydiving: It amazes me how stupid some people are to put this as one of the first things, a top priority, to do on their bucket list. It should be the last thing to do since it’s something that presents a higher probability for them to kick the bucket sooner (or be scooped up and carried away in one if their chute fails to open). Para sailing would be different because I’d be able to see a pre-opened chute while safely on the ground, which I wouldn’t be so far off of it once aloft. Not so with skydiving. The only way I could be persuaded to willingly leap out of an airplane is if the damn thing was on fire and imminently going to crash; even then, I’d probably be desperately trying to blow out the scorching flames with my lips first if it meant I didn’t have to jump. If there was someone ever strong enough to manage unhooking my clawed adrenaline-locked fingers from the fuselage, I know my breathing would suddenly stop and all things gastro-intestinal in me would instantly liquefy. Once I’m dropped out of the aircraft, I’m sure that those contents would be automatically and volcanically expulsed from my body. It would be a scene of me rectally skywriting out a great big brown exclamation mark as I plummeted to earth, screaming and praying for my chute to open.

Eating Fugu: Seafood aficionados whine and complain about how inedible the world’s oceans stock of fish (especially top of the food chain species like tuna and swordfish) are becoming with all the environmental contaminants and pollution, yet some of the same such people who opt for the exotic will rave about daring to try dining on a species of fish which, if improperly cleaned and prepared, is poisonous enough to kill a person in seconds. Fugu, a Japanese delicacy, is a puffer fish, usually prepared in a sashimi style. Its gonads, liver, and other internal organs contain the powerful neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin, which induces muscular paralysis and pulmonary failure leading to death, even in trace amounts. It has no known antidote. It’s the culinary equivalent of skydiving. No thanks . . . pass me a maki roll instead.  

Fire Walking: I fail to understand how tramping across coals that are hot enough to be used to forge iron is supposed to make someone a better person. I wonder how often this new age gong show is attempted at some beach resort by some tourist that is willingly wanting to be ‘liberated’ and ‘enlightened’ by this experience, who probably just complained a few hours earlier about how hot the sand was along the beach. 

Becoming a Chef: My friend gifted me Anthony Bourdain’s book, Kitchen Confidential. It was an adventuresome behind the scenes peek at the subculture, big egos, and cut-throat competition involved in the kitchen activity and shenanigans of culinary services in the restaurants that he used to work in during his career. It was humourous, entertaining; it also totally dissuaded me from giving any further thought of trying to enter the stressful craziness that is the restaurant business as a professional chef. I have my Food Safety Certificate, and I like cooking fine enough, but have I do it on my own terms and my own pace. I’d have an extremely hard time taking orders from some jerk customer to make a steak somehow rarer, or trying to pander to some diner’s feeling about how something isn’t seasoned right, and being left at the mercy of their stupidity and vagueness of being unable to find the exact words about how it’s supposed to be for their liking. Worst of all, after making all this stuff with pride, I could be easily be insulted by watching some weirdo pervert it by slopping some ungodly and obnoxiously inappropriate condiment on it.**

Becoming a Vegetarian: I won’t ever consider a lifestyle of going totally meatless, despite developing more of a Buddhist perspective on things***. The reason why there was such a leap in human brain development during the last Ice Age was that humans consumed rich protein and animal fat. We eat, or have killed, animate life forms by even our most mindful patterns of consumption, and in turn we are being eaten by them right now by some microscopic form of them. That’s just reality of nature; any higher moral standing, health agenda, or sanctimony involved with not opting to eat meat, or trying to detach myself from the cycle of having sentient lives taken for consumption, doesn’t make me righteous enough for them to stop eating me. I’ve tested myself with eating no animal protein for a while. I can’t say that it agreed with me very well. Three days was the most I could tolerate. I see the most zealous of vegan maniacs preaching vegetarianism, who are still wearing leather, feathers and furs, a bit of hypocrisy there. I’ve made a point of cutting down a bit (mostly because of the cost) but not eliminating it entirely.

Learning Astrology: Oh geez, do I really have to explain this one? Predicting things with the stars is ludicrous, and it’s alarming to me just how many people depend on it to make major life/financial decisions.

Speaking of financial affairs, the other way I’ve been trying to force myself to sit still today was to re-acquaint/educate myself with the FOREX market, and the ins and outs of currency trading.**** I set up a demo account with a trading site; playing around with the equivalent of 50 grand worth of digital monopoly money to test my wits and technical analysis ability. My style is to put very little faith in fundamental analysis. I don’t who said it, but I’m inclined to concur with their quote stating, “If you take all the economists in the world and lined them up, they still wouldn’t be able to reach a conclusion.” Perhaps they rely too much on astrology.

*- Still doing some recovering after my masseuse finished ripping and shredding up all the muscle tissue between my scapulae and metatarsals.

**- Did you just put soy sauce on those perogies I just made? You ought to be dragged out into the street and shot! People salting, or overusing sauces/condiments on the food I cooked before they even try it, and then dare to express complaint or criticism to me about how it tastes, must have some sort of death wish as well.

***- According to scholars, the historical Buddha lived and died eating meat, thus I fail to see the reasoning why in some Buddhist circles that eating meat is so abhorrent given that the Enlightened One did so himself. It’s only in tropical regions blessed with having a year round plant growing season, like in India and Southeast Asia, where butchered meat can spoil quickly in such a climate, that eating flesh may be construed as repulsive, and vegetarianism gets to be a more natural and sensible dietary option for such civilizations developing in such regions: which get incorporated into the holy practices in faiths like Hinduism, Jainism, and then later adopted into monastic practice in Buddhism.

****- If there was a high –falootin’ career in the very abstract, yet analytical, in the realm of commerce/ economics that I knew I couldn’t fail at, currency markets and trading would probably be it. I’m not willing that great of a risk taker though, especially at brokering (i.e. gambling with) other peoples’ money.

Over-Training, The Ex, Cellphones

I shouldn’t be still awake writing this now, but the thought of relaxing outside on the deck by the light of the full moon of this rapidly passing summer appealed to me too much. That, plus some hydrotherapy and stretching of my pelvis and legs perhaps re-invigorated me as well. I’ve been enduring a notably bad training setback. The pain, weakening, and loss of flexibility in my pelvis and left leg appear to be due to a pinched, or irritated, sciatic nerve. Perhaps it’s due to a combination of over-training, and having more lapses of neglecting to use the proper orthotics that I should be wearing. Because it’s been so hot out; I’ve been opting more for cheap sandals instead. My 18 kilometer run last Saturday was followed by me not being able to muster any speed, energy, or endurance for a simple four kilometer run on the next morning. This is not what I need two weeks before my race. I’m now at the mercy of whatever results the chiropractic care I’m scheduled for can provide for me. I hope I have enough resilience and the kind of constitution that would allow me to get fixed up in time.

I’m restricting myself to lighter cross-training for now: like cycling, some core training, and I might even try some swimming, as per a friend’s suggestion. I’m a terrible swimmer; I honestly really don’t know how to do it right. I jokingly tell people that I swim like a drowning cat, but in reality, I’m so bad at it that swimming like a drowning cat would actually be an aspiration for me. I’ll be at a lake for this long weekend, so maybe I’ll be able to try this stunt, if the water out there isn’t too loaded with revolting weeds and algae blooms, or full of hungry leaches. I hope that sleeping on hard ground in a tent won’t irritate the nerve problem more.

Although I haven’t had a chance to do much of the long list of preparation and packing yet, I’m looking forward to this camping trip. I totally need to get out of this town for a while, and have absolutely no commitments. Unfortunately, I return just as the Ex would be getting under way. The extra night time bandstand noise, and throngs of more obnoxious hellraisers and hooligans circulating around the neighbourhood (drawing in the consequential blaring police sirens) get to be a pain in the ass; it’s enough that I have a real literal one to cope with now. It’s also the week of pure terror for Ella whenever the nightly fireworks shows start erupting for the duration of that time. The space underneath my bed becomes her refuge in which to hide, tremble, and whimper for the rest of the week as she is scared silly by the mortars and rockets blasting away, the weird and wild looking sky-born fires and flares, and the resulting percussive shockwaves slamming against the building. In my dog’s mind, this is the end of the world . . . canine Armageddon.

My big advancement is that I purchased an iPhone. I know the newest version of it will be marketed very soon, but I can't see the one I just purchased going instantly obsolete. I chose the iPhone because I already have an iTouch with a familiar interface, also most of my apps that I already see need for are purchased rather than using the extra time and expense of switching over to compatible apps with an Android model. My other cell phone finally calved after more than six years of use, and it's only because it broke down that I was led to replace it. The iPhone is about four generations ahead of my last cellphone. As much as I like technology in general, the cellular phone concept is one that I’ve grown least fond of. It doesn’t even make the top five of my favourite technologies list*. I just don’t want to be available all the time, but just because some people know you have a damn cell phone, some have expectations for you to be so. I call that a leash; not very appealing to someone who prizes independence. In my world, a cell phone (or any phone) is used for getting basic specific details, not for long chats; that’s what social visits, coffee shops and lounges are for. Except for with one close friend, I generally keep phone conversations short, especially on a cell phone. I sure as hell won’t permit a whole detail intensive conversation to be texted to me, nor will I ever allow someone to make me an object of their emotional drama over a phone, or with texts. The nice thing about most LAN line phones is that you can give them a nice hard, authoritative, cathartic slamming down to hang up on an irritating asshole, in the privacy of your own home, and most of these phones can endure it. Do that to your cell and you’ll break the damn expensive thing, adding to the extra embarrassment if you receive and react to such a call within the public eye as one could in this case. I watched some idiot once, freaking out with anger during such a call, after which he then threw down his phone on the sidewalk, smashing it to bits. May God smite me now if there would be ever a time in my life if I’d ever succumb to that degree of impulsive, childish stupidity, and failure of anger management in public. I have a hard time getting over the irony about today’s cell phones being light years ahead in technical superiority over a conventional LAN line phone, yet we expose them to greater risk, bizarre environs and hazards beyond our homes where this thing is more prone to being damaged, or rendered useless by lack of tower coverage, or incidents of losing battery life, or inconvenience of opportunity to recharge them.

Overly-teched out cell phones have made us a lot more socially witless in a lot of ways: the technology outpaces the etiquette to use it. What I hate most about cell phones is that some people think it gives them a free license to be obnoxious, like the example I described earlier. The loudest, most obnoxious people around are the ones with the most annoying blaring and vulgar ringtones, and are the personalities with the least inhibition to take calls in a public setting wherever consideration for silence and attention is demanded.

As much as I've ranted about a my general distaste for cell phones, I do appreciate some of the features I have now that my Wi-Fi enabled iTouch doesn't. Banking, with a visual of my statements, from anywhere now has its appeal. I have a means of GPS navigation should I ever need it, and with all the heightened likelihood of theft, vandalism, and other crimes in the neighbourhood during Ex season, I have a better means and chance of capturing photos and videos for Crimestoppers to collect some reward money. Other than that, the "toy-appeal" of a cell phone is totally lost to me, especially considering that service providers it seems are scheming to find ways to ding you with a charge of some sort for every button you push on them.  

*-In a real emergency though, it might rank number three.

Mendel Tour and Civilization V

The scale here doesn't show it, but
what struck me about this armour was
 how small the actual body size of it
 was, like pygmy size, compared to how
 large people are here today.
The samurai may have been little folks,
but they were tough and disciplined.
 (Photos from Mendel Art Gallery)

My comment about the samurai warriors in my last entry was somewhat coincidental. The day after, just for a hoot, as I was walking around the river trails, I went to the Mendel art gallery to check things out there. To my surprise there was an amazing exhibit there with arts and artifacts from feudal Japan, of the era between the 1600s to the late 1800s when European explorers and traders started to infiltrate this society that was isolated and closed itself off to foreigners for centuries. There were many splendid watercolours and woodblock prints that depicted life and culture of ancient Japan. If you are in Saskatoon and interested in historical art pieces from Asia, I highly recommend viewing the Edo exhibit at the Mendel Art Gallery while it’s still there.

It was a rest day for me yesterday from my running schedule, and not too soon either. My knees and feet have been getting a little too fatigued and joint pain and cramping is resulting. Even though it was a perfect day to be outdoors, I was relegated to chill out at home and occupy myself with more sit still activities. I had a restless mind though, and the afterthoughts of theme of the long Japanese isolation at the Mendel Art Gallery prompted me to I dig out a PC game that I haven’t touched in ages, which I became totally enthralled with as I played it, which is the reason my eyes are so sore today. It is the ultimate game for people, especially adults, who have a freak on for history/anthropology. The game is Civilization V (V as in Roman numeral five).

An authentic samurai sword, its scabbard, and tsuba (hand guards)
circa 1600. Perhaps this thing actually did have a soul.

For those who never heard of the Sid Meier’s Civilization series, created by Firaxis, the concept of the game is basically that of a “god game”: where you start out being given a tribe of Stone Age era hunter-gatherers, and through trial and error, using the environment they are subsisting in, you try to create a more evolved and advanced form of their civilization by means of discovered resources, trade and commerce, and variable degrees of war and peace with the other neighbouring tribes which are competing against you. The most dominant civilizations that have existed, or still do, in our history (e.g. the Egyptians, the Greeks, the English, the Americans, etc.) are the ones that are used as archetypes for opponents in the game. The first version of this game was the one which changed my attitude about video games not being educational, or just for kids. It came to my understanding that some teachers were actually using this game in their history classes as part of their curriculum. The wild thing about the game for me is that it always primes my head with questions as to what the world today would look like if there were courses of alternative history that consequently followed if someone in a leadership position zigged instead of zagged. Such questions include things like “what if. . .

·         The Japanese weren’t an isolated nation and actively explored the world?

·         Neither the Soviet Union, nor the United States was involved with the space race, but it was taken over by the Chinese instead?”

·         The Earth’s landmass wasn’t composed of mainly continents, but rather scattered little islands and archipelagos?”

·         The Aztecs or Incas had first contact with the Arabs instead of the Spanish?”

·         The Russians never adopted communism?”

·         Neither Judaism, nor Christianity, nor Islam existed as any one of the world’s major religions?”

·         The Zulus first discovered electricity and were the ones to create an Industrial Revolution?”

·         The world was drier and covered with more ice (like the previous Ice Age)?”

·         The Iroquois totally exterminated the European colonists in what is/was Canada?”

·         The Vikings continued to rule the British Isles?”

·         Only one giant continent (Pangaea) spanned across the face of the planet?”

·         The Romans became dominated by the Greeks, instead of vice versa?”

·         Australia was colonized by settlers from India?”

·         The Persians conquered all of Eastern Asia?”

All those examples of such scenarios, and countless others with their respective timelines could be theoretically played out and explored through the course of the game. The ultimate object of the game is to establish your own civilization’s presence within a given time span by means of scientific, cultural, economic achievements, and/or military force if necessary. There is an expansion pack available for it which I don’t have yet: Civilization V: Gods and Kings, which involves creation of religious factions and influence, and more political skullduggery in the course of the game play. I want to deal with religious and political matters as little as possible, so I think I’ll leave this one on the shelf.  

 I can hardly see this as being a game for children, it’s too educational! The nice thing about the game is that it in it is provided a built in civilopedia to help the players learn about actual historical facts and progressions in society. I don’t usually use more than an hour to fiddle around with console or PC games, but this one hooked me in for at least five. I was involved with creating an alternate history and empire for the obscure kingdom of Siam. I managed to discover electricity at the same time when some other civilizations were in their medieval period. My biggest problem is an enemy called the Songhai, an African tribe with an attitude of Attila the Hun, but I’m keeping them at bay so far with some good diplomacy.

Parents, if you are looking for a PC game that won’t warp your kids’ minds too much with senseless violence, will give them some savvy about the otherwise boring subjects of history and economics, and one which you could enjoy along with them, this would be the one to get. I believe parents have to be more involved with the interests of their children; many aren’t because they are far too estranged from the technology that their kids are using for entertainment and too damn foolishly stubborn to say so. Parents/adult guardians have to sit down and learn to play video games with their kids and enjoy the experience: to monitor the content and activity, to learn how to get comfortable themselves with new technology* and information/social media innovations that are going to be a major part of their children’s future.

Some video games are now developed such that they may be beneficial to your mental health. More and more studies are showing that brains actively involved in exercises of monitoring kinetic motion, using logic, playing music, creative problem solving and language skills, are less likely to be afflicted by geriatric mental disorders like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. All of those aforementioned activities can be engaged with and exercised in playing video games (in moderation of course).

If you were ever worried that video games were dangerous things, I’d like to share a thought from a man who is one of my modern day heroes. He is a fellow Canadian by the name of Frank Ogden, who markets himself and his consulting services as Dr. Tomorrow. Frank is definitely not a candidate for dementia or Alzheimer’s. Frank is a futurologist: a person who specializes in observing trends and studying what their possible impact may be in the future. Frank is well into his 90’s and still being an active pundit and keeping tabs on the latest in technology, resource management, and trends in education and media in the real game of civilization**. One of his quotes is "A bulldozer of change is charging over the planet, and if you're not part of the bulldozer, you'll become part of the road."

 From what I learned at the Mendel, Japan may have been a cultured, yet isolationist nation but in the real world game of civilization, it is winning with video games, thanks to their corporations like Nintendo and Sony. I hope that our government and industries in this nation gain this kind of spirit of adaptive prowess soon.

*- Are you listening Mom?

**- Interesting note: Frank was involved with the first clinical studies of experimentation with LSD here in Saskatchewan in the 50’s and 60’s, which occurred here first before it ever hit the scene in a place like San Francisco.