Mike's Chaotic Mind

Warrants, the police and your (non-existant) digital rights

2014-12-11T16:28:00.001-05:00

Have you ever considered just how much information about you is available to someone who gets their hands on your smart phone? Its pretty substantial. Your location information, your private E-mail, most of your passwords and on-line posting history, your photos and contacts and possibly diary.

So how is it that the supreme court of just determined that these devices should not require warrants to search?

You should be at the very least confused if not outraged; you should almost certainly be calling or writing to your local media and politicians to complain.

And don't get me wrong -- this isn't about criminals. This means the police can, without a warrant, require you to give up every piece of information on your cell phone to them. Warrants exist to protect innocent people -- to keep law enforcement honest. They exist to make sure that procedure is followed before your door is kicked in or your office is rifled through. The troves of data accessible from your phone are not subject to that scrutiny now.

You are exposed and vulnerable and should feel violated in advance.

Getting technical with blogging

2014-10-24T23:26:00.000-04:00

I've had some form of web presence since 1994 when I was working for a small ISP in Sudbury and they gave out shell access and directories for personal home pages. Back then, people clamoured for whatever web presence was easiest, mostly on Geocities (see also a brief history of social media).

I started sharing links on del.icio.us when it came out, and photos on flickr. I began tweeting, then stopped again. I started posting on Facebook then basically stopped that too. I configured myself a blogger account (this one) and tried writing randomness down for interested people to read. I basically gave that up and began posting to my Google+ feed much more frequently.
In all that time, I've realized there are a few things I want to do online and that none of these handles all of them well. I want to share photos at high quality with family and friends of events and special occasions. Ditto for public photos of things I don't mind sharing worldwide. I want to also share random pieces of information I come across around the Internet with others, in the form of link sharing with brief summaries. I want to also host some of the software I've written myself, HOWTO documents I've created and some thoughts I've shared out loud for some reason.
The result of this is that I'd like to coalesce my current website + linkedin + flickr + blogger + Google+ experience into one website with proper interfaces for each. I'd like to be in proper control of my own content and rely less on third parties to host it for me. In the long run, I'd also like to make it easier for others to do the same.
At the present time, I'm replacing my beloved Zope2 based website with Django. Its a bit more modern and arguably more flexible, but I'm also irritated with third party app support so far. It feels like I'll be creating a lot of my own code from scratch.

Raising children to be themselves

2014-05-29T13:12:00.001-04:00

My daughter is much more athletic than I ever was. I enjoyed playing hockey and soccer but I have poor joints and asthma and didn't really like fighting through it as I got older and gave up. She, on the other hand, has spent years in gymnastics, plays basketball and is a red belt in Karate.

I was made more aware of how athletic she is when her mandatory school 'track and field' day happened and she had a very sore ankle she'd been nursing for days. She showed up and got the longest jump in triple jump ... something a sore ankle might normally prevent. I'm quite proud of her for learning to fight past the pain and her own asthma issues.

I like to think that as a parent, I have a choice to raise my child the way I'd want to be, or to help her become what she wants to be ... and that the latter is a much better option in as much as I can be of assistance. There's some humility involved as I've never been as fit as she is and don't have any good advice to give her beyond truisms but I support her and I suppose that's what counts.

Need for Speed (the movie) review

2014-03-07T11:12:00.001-05:00

I saw an advance screening of the new Need for Speed movie last night. My wife was given three sets of tickets so we brought friends and I was more impressed than I'd expected. This was obviously more DreamWorks and less EA Games.

First off, the previews looked terrible. My 12 yr old daughter didn't even want to go see a free movie because they looked so bad. Secondly, movies based on video games ... especially fluffy plot-less video games don't strike me as a good idea, so I was skeptical going in.

The movie actually had a story. It wasn't very deep or difficult to work out, but it was a story and it was interesting to watch play out. The car racing was pretty good; all done for real we were assured by DreamWorks -- no CG. It even had some really nice cars (although I felt a twinge of disdain at the Shelby Cobra being the big star of the first half of the movie).

I'm just not sure the movie was cohesive. It was trying to tell a story, trying present street racing with police chases like a video game while also being cringe-worthy and vicious. Many parts of the movie could be used by schools for anti-street-racing seminars. It both glorified and condemned its primary feature. It felt a bit confused. Just as you're enjoying a good car race, someone dies, or a bus full of school children gets in the way, or someone pushing a baby carriage ... it was enough to stop my enjoyment of the otherwise raw energy several times.

Should you go see it? Well it was a fantastic use of 3D filming with very little tearing or artifacts. I was quite impressed with the stunts and driving, but if you're not into loud cars (and the sound was fantastic), you'll find the movie pretty dull.

French chef doesn't want your help

2014-02-19T14:43:00.000-05:00

According to the BBC (themselves referencing France TV Info), at least one chef, Gilles Goujon doesn't want you taking photos of his food when you eat at his restaurant.
Given that he's from the same country whose press was upset about Google News giving free traffic to their headlines, there has to be a strange mentality I'm missing as a bilingual Canadian who has nothing against the French.
When I'm in a different city, I often pull up menu photos made by other food lovers to see what the options are near me before picking a restaurant. While I'm sure this chef will do fine without my business, I can't imagine I'm the only one ... and I do imagine it will catch on more and more with time as a way to choose destinations.
Granted, from an artistic perspective I can see where he's coming from -- he wants each user to have a specific experience when they sit down to eat, unspoiled by others offering them a preview ... just like Microsoft forcing you to trudge through that new Windows installation procedure.
In other words, I'm going to keep using Food Spotting (and there are others) to share photos of good meals and hope others do it too.

A little something to my wife ...

2014-02-14T15:27:00.003-05:00

I wanted to write you something romantic,

Something only you would get.

The inside joke of poems,

But then it made me fret.

What if she doesn’t like it?

Maybe she’ll think its crap.

I’d hate to put it out there,

And have it sent right back.

So then I thought about it,

And then I thought some more.

And when it finally hit me,

It knocked me to the floor.

In the end it doesn’t matter,

If the words even makes sense,

So long as they end I love you,

It’ll be the best poem yet.

Online shopping customer service

2014-02-12T12:31:00.004-05:00

I had an interesting customer service experience yesterday ... I've been looking for a piece of exercise equipment and become quite frustrated that it doesn't exist in Canada at as reasonable a price as in the USA, so I logged into the USA website and added the item to my cart. Sadly, shipping to Canada was not available, and when I looked up a Kinek address in NY for me to pick it up at I realized I would be double-dipped for taxes (NY state plus Canadian at the border). I left my order hanging and gave up ...

... then later got an E-mail from a Bowflex rep asking if there was anything they could do to help, as I'd started but not finished my order. I've left a lot of orders hanging over the years and even have a running Amazon.com shopping cart that I keep adding to accidentally until I realize I'm not on Amazon.ca and never been contacted by support. It was a little strange but quite welcome in this case. I quickly typed up the actual situation, explained my predicament and fired it off. Today I had the somewhat useless response of "if there's anything we can do to help, let me know." I've replied again, although I'm quite certain shipping terms will not be reached, its worth a shot.

The Internet's Infancy

2013-11-02T23:13:00.001-04:00

Most of the people who know me remember that I was on the Internet long before they were. Most of those people remember me as the only person they knew with an E-mail address back in the day, who was convincing everyone else that it was the next big thing. Every now and then, someone will ask me what it was like back then and I have to say its complicated ... the Internet was young, and there were so few of us on it and yet it was full of what we wanted at the same time.
We didn't have spam yet, we didn't have Facebook stalkers. We didn't have corporations trying to sell us anything or others trying to shut down the services we used. Then again, there was a lot less content, a lot fewer people and a lot less going on in general online.
Just under ten years ago I explained to a client that not having a website in the near future would be nearly fatal for a company. People of my generation already looked for them when doing business; those of the next would require it. Not having an online presence would be suicidal. It was hard to explain; the Internet was so young and new to so many people.
The problem is, the more I think of it, the more I realize the Internet is barely at its toddler stages. The Internet hasn't grown up, it has just barely begun, if you'll excuse a little anthropomorphism. If we compare the advent of the Internet to other major but less recent technical advances like the automobile or the telephone and where those technologies have ended up from where they started, we can see the Internet has a long way to go. In fact, both of those technologies are still maturing ... but I'd argue that maturity is slowing. The Internet's is just getting started.
When I pick up a telephone, any telephone, and try to call someone, I don't have to worry about what kind of phone they bought, or what kind of service they use. It doesn't matter if they have Bell, Verizon or one of the many European, Asian or African phone providers. I simply enter a phone number on my phone of whatever type, corded or wireless, and it connects me because there are standards bodies that have agreed to switching standards and encoding standards and everyone plays ball.
Along the same lines, if I get in my Pontiac and you get in your Ford and another fires up his BMW, we don't have to worry about which highways we can drive on, we don't have to worry that our vehicles won't work with local gasoline pumps (or diesel). The roads are standardized, so are tires, so are the nozzles on a gasoline pump.
On the Internet however, one person uses Facebook to talk to friends, another uses Google, another shares their information inexplicably with Bebo instead. Can I, using my Google+ account, look up a friend's Facebook photos from their trip? No. Can a Facebook user receive a private tweet from a friend on Twitter without their own account? No again. Can a girl on her Mac call her boyfriend on his Skype phone using her Facetime info? No.
No, with the Internet, with Internet features and protocols, we're still back in the stone age. We're still too excited about how we made a website full of friends' pictures at all to realize how horrifyingly incompatible it all is with our actual lives. Nobody should need two, three or four accounts to access their friends. And nobody should be forced to install a second, third or fourth chat program to talk to their old classmates. Why can't they get along?
Ironically, they could. Its not hard. Apple, Microsoft, Google ... a few others probably, could very easily agree on a standards body to enforce good solid communications protocols between people no matter which software they prefer. There's no reason Facetime can't talk to Skype or Google Hangouts users except the Apple wanted to lock their users in to other iDevice users. The same applies to nearly everyone else (kudos to Google for using the open Jabber protocol with Hangouts, at least for the chatting portion).
The only reason we don't have these standards, the only reason we are still in this wasteful age of multiple social networking accounts and multiple video game accounts and all that dreary KIK vs Skype vs FB vs Twitter vs BBM BS is that we've allowed these companies to do it to us. Its our fault. All of us. We don't demand that they talk to each other; we allow for it. We don't complain that Skype and Hangout users can't chat to each other; we expect it. We need to start complaining, it needs to stop being okay to lock our data into one company's cloud or another and start requiring that our devices, our software, our interactions be designed with interoperability in mind.
Some day, my grandchildren are going to ask me what it was like when the Internet was young ... and I'll explain that I had six different photo services and five different chat programs on my tablet and they'll laugh and laugh and go giggle about how stupid people were back in grandpa's day.

Officially trying out BBM

2013-10-30T00:25:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine with whom I chat fairly regularly via Google Hangouts and sometimes Facebook or SMS has essentially demanded that I install BBM. Why? Mostly because I've expressed my dismay at its existence and he wants me to actually try it before I judge I believe. I'm pretty good at judging things in advance, but we'll see now won't we?

12:15 Completed filling out sign-up info that it could've easily grabbed from my phone or a secondary account.
12:19 Finally granted a BBM number I have almost no use for.

First complaint (aside from slowness of the signup process): why doesn't the BBM PIN have a copy to clipboard feature? Why can't I highlight it to copy and paste it to friends? I'm using Android and it has a functional copy and paste feature set that I use almost every day. I expect to be able to copy and paste things, not to mention something I don't want to memorize like a PIN. Yes, I see the 'tell your friends now' button but I don't want to use any of the four pre-selected sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and G+). Fine, I'll write it down on the laptop and type it back out on screen to someone later.

00:21 Sent friend a message with my retarded PIN (usernames are so much better and easier to remember. Ever seen a randomly selected set of letters and numbers for a username on KIK?).

The BBM icon keeps disappearing and reappearing in my notification tray. I'm finding that annoying.

Taking a quick look at my running apps using a System Monitor, I see that Calendar uses 18M, Field Trip another 18, Kik uses 20, TuneIn and VEVO have 18M each as well and Skitch uses 19. BBM takes 27MB. That might explain the frequent deaths.

00:34 Bored of waiting for response from friend, I click the unlabeled icon in the top right and seem to be able to set my status and oh look, copy my PIN to the clipboard. Seems they bothered making that feature at all, but put it somewhere strange. Sigh. It would also appear that the Blackberry people don't use much Android software because they've included a 'Back' button at the bottom left of this screen when one is built into every Android device already. Alas.

00:47 BBM has stopped responding. My first ANR with the new app. Ugh. I even killed everything else to leave it room. Submitting.

08:20 The light on my phone is blinking that I have messages. I use my PC and respond to my Google Talk and Facebook messages with a real keyboard. Sadly, I have no choice but to use my phone to check BBM messages.

08:23 I've received no messages from my invite but my friend says he added me. I look through the icons on screen and click the 'invites' tab to find an invite back from him. I accept and send a message ... the message compose window has an emoticon button where the send should be and a whole second row of buttons below that taking up the screen. I feel like I'm using an old Blackberry with a 3/4" window of text at the top. Irony.

BBM and the proprietary chat problem

2013-10-23T09:49:00.000-04:00

The release of BBM for other platforms has led to some interesting discussions about its relevance. I find it interesting that over three million downloads have happened, although I strongly suspect these are some combination of curious people like myself and prior Blackberry users.
Its been said that I've been particularly harsh about this release. Considering its first failed release, and now the "please enter your E-mail and we might approve you" issues, not to mention the strange no-tablet restriction and the fact that Blackberry isn't even making money off it, I see no reason to be positive.
Sure, four years ago I suggested RIM (at the time) would be smart to release a client for other platforms to seduce their users, much like iTunes for Windows convinced non-Mac users to buy into the iPod craze, but at this point I see it as too little, too late. In fact, given that the Blackberry Messaging platform might be the company's only valuable selling point to most customers, I'd have certainly charged for it and not released it for free.

All that aside, I see no reason for BBM to exist in the western world any more. Its a hold-over from an era when text messages were overpriced and data plans didn't exist. Back in the 1990's there were a plethora of chat platforms, including AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and ICQ. It occurred to some forward-thinking individuals to create an open chat platform that would allow communication on any platform between anyone. The XMPP or Jabber platform was created in 1999. Google Hangouts (previously known as Talk) uses it, which allows any developer to add support for it on any device and is my preferred communication platform.
Sadly, we've recently seen the rise of all-new proprietary chat platforms like WhatsApp and KIK, not to mention short-sighted efforts like iMessage and FaceTime. Given that there are open alternatives that work, putting effort into locking users to one platform or another is incredibly sad for the industry as a whole.
I have people regularly ask "are you on KIK?" or "do you have Skype?" who expect me to go download another application that may or may not be available to me and don't see the problem because they've usually only been using a computer to communicate a few years now. In the recent case of BBM, they won't allow me to install it on the two devices I use most for chatting: a Nexus 7 and my PC.
From those of us who've been around the Internet since the early 90's and before, please stop supporting platform lock-in and communication protocols that aren't universal.

Toronto drowning in record rain storm

2013-07-09T01:38:00.000-04:00

What does nearly 125mm of rain look like in a couple hours? It looks a lot like a wading pool. In the streets.

I'm still a bit in shock, I live just an hour and a half away from Toronto and while we got a bit wet today, it was nothing like this.

I'm not jealous or anything, Peterborough has had its share of spring flooding, but this kind of sudden downpour is somehow more impressive without a spring melt to back it.

I'm trying to decide how long I would have given myself before I gave up and got out to walk.

At least the people in cars had that option.

Hopefully in the next days it will all drain and the cleanup can bring the city back to normal again.

Original post and photo credits: https://plus.google.com/103667648659294389419/posts/PxV421ZqQ5S

I bought another WaterField tablet case

2013-06-22T01:05:00.000-04:00

I don't review products often because it always feels forced when I read someone else's but I have to say, I really like and value my Tablet Ultimate SleeveCase which I bought to protect my ASUS Transformer Prime with keyboard.

On a recent business trip, I managed to pour half a large coffee on the case by accident. I quickly picked it up and shook it off and was thrilled to see the tablet was dry and safe still. The case also looks none the worse for the experience. I know they don't list it as water resistant, but that extra protective layer of ballistic nylon made a big difference.

Today I ordered my second WaterField case, for my Nexus 7 -- the City Slicker which includes pockets for my phone and external battery pack (and a pen, perhaps).

What is Google Plus?

2013-05-21T13:37:00.001-04:00

Google+ is a huge network like Twitter or Facebook that lets you create circles of influence or interests, whether its healthy living or cooking or actual friends and socialize with them or see their recommendations on things.

If you add a few people to your Google+ circles (as many as you like), you start seeing things like "Michael T. Babcock recommended this" when you browse apps on your phone or "Cindy Babcock +1'd this" (similar to Facebook likes) on websites.

One of the best Google+ features is just browsing plus.google.com and using search to find what other people are saying about stuff publicly. Whether you're interested in talking to other people about making gluten-free pizza or how to fix a car tire, you can find them by just using the Google search feature on G+ and be social.

Google+ is a huge social network about sharing thoughts, ideas, etc. without being about friendships or relationships.

Facebook is about people you know. Google+ is about stuff you want to socialize about. I use Google+ hours every day socializing with people about everything from computers to religion to politics and random world events. I only post on Facebook about my family. I can even link to my public posts on G+.

Google+ is also asymmetrical -- you add people you're interested in following, like Twitter, you don't "friend" people. They don't have to care about you back for you to care about their posts, which makes it excellent for celebrities (many of whom use it) and news makers who have no interest in following their fans but have things to share with them nonetheless.

Personally I say give it a shot -- you don't have to share anything at all, you can just sit around and lurk and optionally comment on other peoples' posts.

This was originally a reply to someone on Facebook and I re-posted it here for public consumption.

Why can't smartphone cases and mounts get along?

2012-01-17T14:17:00.001-05:00

I hate the modern cellphone mount & case market, I really do. Sure, while there are dozens or hundreds of choices of neat and colourful cases with a variety of features for most phones, and there are almost as many mounting systems for cars, stereo systems, etc., rarely do they cooperate.

Here's an example: lets say I want a nice protective case from Otterbox. Now lets say I want to mount my phone in my car. Does Otterbox also make a car mount for my phone in their case? No. Does anyone else? Yes, exactly one that I can find from Slipgrip, but it requires that I plug the phone in manually every time I insert it in the mount. Okay so what if I want a good mount that supports hard wiring to the ignition? Proclip makes some really nice ones of those, but I can't use them if I have even a half mm extra of thickness from a cover on my phone. Without a case on my phone, I can drop it into a Proclip vehicle mount and have it charging and auto-connected to my stereo but I can't use a protective cover.

With my last phone, a Dell Streak 5", I actually disassembled my Proclip mount from my previous HTC G1 (Dream) and epoxied it to my disassembled Slipgrip windshield mount I ordered for it. This let me mount the phone in a nicer position (something Proclip mounts are excellent for), but still didn't solve my wiring problem.

Now I have a beautiful new Galaxy Nexus. It has a three-pin connector on the side for auto-connecting to the associated vehicle and desk docking stations. This lets me drop the phone in and have it automatically begin charging and connect to audio but once again, prevents me from putting a case over it.

What I'd really like is to eliminate all such connectors on modern cell phones. I don't understand why we even have them. I expect any modern device to support built-in inductive charging with Bluetooth for communication. Between those two, my phone shouldn't need any external ports accessible at all while in its case, and still be just as functional and stay charged while docked. Alas, this is only true if you own a Nintendo 3DS.

Personal web presence

2011-12-02T10:35:00.001-05:00

In this modern era of social networks and blogging, I've realized how woefully out of date my personal website has become. I've had my own website since 1995, presently hosted on my own vanity domain http://mikebabcock.ca. When I started blogging (which I'm not very good at, as you can see), I also stopped maintaining my website the way I once had. Various pages are years out of date, although some are still referenced quite often by people looking for specific information from that era.

What is a modern geek to do? I don't like blogs as an end-all and be-all of web presence, they're too limiting in format. At the same time, a traditional website is a lot of maintenance work. Thoughts?

On quoting scripture

2011-12-01T14:36:00.000-05:00

I noticed this 'hot' post on Google+ today:

One of the many things I don't understand about devout Christians is that they seem to believe that quoting the Bible gives them credibility with non-believers. My general reaction when confronted with a line of religious scripture is one of "this doesn't make any sense" which is then further reinforced by the inability to explain why I should find the passage relevant.
In future, Christians of the world, I will respond in kind by quoting the ingredients list of the wrapper of whatever food product I have recently consumed. At least my response is likely to be based in fact even if is logically irrelevant to the matter in hand.

I responded:

Within any given worldview, any one person will end up citing references they believe to be relevant to the data at hand. A philosopher may quote Nietzsche while a scientist may quote Darwin. A Christian who cites the Bible is no different. Without context, without sharing a worldview, the citation is meaningless. Any intelligent and interested person would bother searching out the meaningful context of the quote no matter which of the above were cited. Singling out the Bible and religious people seems arrogant.

Excited and worried

2011-06-02T13:00:00.003-04:00

Have you ever been excited about something that worries you immensely? We're at that stage right now in our house.

My wife has an X-linked genetic disorder (which she's written about on her own blog) called OTC that not only makes her life difficult regarding diet, but means there's additional danger in child birth and the possibility of losing the baby shortly after birth.

The problem is that being X-linked, and male babies normally only having one X chromosome, the males afflicted with this condition do not survive past about 72 hours. Their systems build up with toxic ammonia that isn't properly scrubbed from their blood streams.

When my wife was pregnant with our first child, now a healthy nine year old girl, the hospital arranged for genetic screening of her and her affected family members so as to isolate the exact genetic anomaly. This done, they were able to then test the amniotic fluid and tell us for certain our daughter would not also be a carrier.

Unfortunately, our second child was not so lucky. First we found out he was a boy, which while normally exciting, left us with the concern he may not survive. Then the news came in that he was in fact a carrier. I've written briefly on that before, but basically it was terrible.

I must say in advance that I have nothing against animated features. I thoroughly enjoyed the Toy Story movies, and I both own and love Shrek, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc and Ratatouille, all of which are very well written and well produced movies. Now that that's out of the way, please don't waste your money watching Monsters vs. Aliens.

This wasn't a horrible movie, but it really wasn't worth paying to watch at all. Aside from the 3D gimmick, the plot is worse than most Saturday morning cartoons I've watched with an insanely silly choice of monster types and only a few well-executed jokes. In fact, most of the funniest material is the horribly blatant references to other source material which you only enjoy because those movies were good.

Despite its having an all-star voice-acting cast (who really did the best they could do with the material they were given), the movie was panned by the 'real critics' out there too, with an average score of 56% among respectable reviewers.

Moving back up to this week, we've just received the news back that we're having a boy again. The full genetic screening results are about two weeks away. The emotional levels in the house are indescribable. We're excited to possibly have a healthy baby boy. We're also concerned about going through the incredible pain of losing another child.

In some sense, we're reliving that pain already, because the memories are so strong.

Falling behind

2011-04-18T21:56:00.002-04:00

Have you ever put something off intending to get to it soon, then realizing hours, days, weeks or months later that it still hasn't gotten done?

If you haven't, good for you and go write a book on discipline for the rest of us. Today I realized I had some time, thought of playing a video game or something equally mind numbing and then realized I still haven't uploaded my photos from our visit to Ottawa and Montreal. That was a month ago now, and as I loaded the memory card to finally get to it, I see that I also forgot about my Auto Show photos from February. Oops.

So as the first few dozen upload, I thought I'd write this. This may very well be the least interesting bit I've ever put on-line, but yes, they're uploading. New photos. Lots and lots of car photos at the moment. Feel free to peruse over at my Flickr page.

Next, raking the leaves. Sigh. Maybe tomorrow :)

Mobile blogging

2011-03-26T01:28:00.001-04:00

Being able to blog from my phone isn't new, but I've thus far avoided actually doing it. No real reason; it just wasn't on my list of things to do.
That said, today Blogger for Android had another update in the Market and I figured I should either give it a try or uninstall it.
I must say I can't imagine having done this before Swype was available as it makes writing so much garey on a touch screen.
Swype, in case you're not aware is a program or app that lets you drag your finger around the on-screen keyboard instead of tapping on each letter of a word. To swype "hello" for example, I put my finger on the "h" and then drag it across the keyboard left to the "e", and without living my finger, drag it back over to the "l". Now there are two of that letter in a row so I do a little loop on it and then slide up a bit to the "o", lift my finger and the entire word appears.
Now there are occasions when multiple words have very similar Swype scrawls, and if it's not sure which to use, a pop-up list of options appears. In general, even with mistakes, it's much faster than screen clicking and still slower at least than my keyboarding. Much like good old fashioned curve writing however, you can develop a decent muscle memory for frequently Swyped words.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Dead trees vs heavy metal

2011-02-15T12:29:00.000-05:00

I was listening to a great piece on CBC Radio yesterday about the future of literature. Specifically they were discussing e-books and their physical "real" book counterpart. There were points made about how young people these days don't value paper books anymore, and while my daughter and I would disagree, we may be statistically irrelevant.

More interestingly there was the discussion on the future of books. The future where in a digital book world, readers and authors can interact in ways that resemble global book clubs, with global commentaries and long-term archived author responses available to future readers. Possible, but not yet available on the currently available e-book readers you're familiar with.

And while e-books certainly have some possibilities that good old fashioned dead tree books don't, the devices aren't universally accepted yet, nor as inexpensive as real paper books until you've purchased many many books.

The one feature of e-books that I think is most missing is that of open sharing. We pass paper books around between friends and within families, we borrow books from libraries, and with the exception of Amazon's share-it-once-and-only-ever-once system, this just isn't possible with e-books due to fear of piracy.

I'm not sure if the publishers noticed that we can have been able to photocopy books for ages and yet they still sell paper copies, but I dare say that in a digital world where we can purchase legitimate copies of books and share them freely, people who wish to purchase books would still do so.

That said, its an interesting point in history for literature. The Internet is divided along text and audio-video lines, text blogs vs. youtube vlogs and podcasts, and books still holding out against movies and television. I personally believe good literature will stand in some form for a long time to come, even on paper.

Vancouver's Deadly Luge Track

2011-02-09T14:25:00.000-05:00

There's been some talk in the media of late up here in Canada at least about the state of the Luge track in the Vancouver Olympics, because of the unfortunate death of one of the athletes during a practice run.

There's been talk of who knew what and when, and whether there was some foreknowledge that could've lead to the track being safer.

The CBC even tweeted:

Hear more about #VANOC and the deadly luge track design that killed the Georgian luger from Bob McKeown on #thefifthestate this Friday.

With all due respect to the family of the deceased, I'd like to point out that launching one's self down an icy path at speeds illegal on most highways in North America is not safe in the first place. Its amazing to me that we have as few injuries as we do in sports like luge and skeleton, not to mention downhill skiing.

The brief twit-chat continued as follows:

Myself: @CBCHereandNow love that unbiased reporting ... come on guys, the "deadly luge track" that ~everyone else successfully ran at the Olympics?

CBC: @mikebabcock If someone died on it, and others felt their lives were legitimately in risk, it's arguably deadly.

I have another response in mind today. Welcome to the new era of taxpayer-funded sensationalist hyperbole courtesy of the CBC. So let's see, one person died, and suddenly the track gets a label? By that token, I expect all future reporting from the CBC on Toronto streets to use the same term. That said, buses have killed people too, so I want to see "deadly Toronto buses" in future reporting too.

If the standard is a single death, we can have some real fun with this and label lots of interesting things deadly because one person has been killed by them. Considering water intoxication, we can call drinking water deadly too.

In other words, @CBCHereandNow, I expect you to label things with terms that describe their normal state. The average outcome from using a device or to use a term like deadly only when the statistically significant outcome of the situation is death.

The track at the Vancouver Olympics was fast. Fast is an appropriate adjective. Everyone described it as fast. I dare say however that if you want to go down the (excuse the pun) slippery slope of calling it deadly because of a single incident, even if preventable, you'll be using the term almost as frequently as 'Eh'.

My Son Colin

2010-12-18T11:45:00.001-05:00

I wish I had the wherewithal to write something better at the moment, considering this is the day ... but I don't. So here's a quote from my Wikipedia user page instead, minutely updated:

... my wife is an OTC carrier, a rare X chromosome linked genetic disorder. With our first child, we had an amnio done and received our genetic screening results back from Yale that said she (we already knew we were having a girl) was not a carrier. Natasha is now eight years old and a little princess.
With our second, we received word back that he was in fact a carrier -- he had the same markers as my wife, and as a result would almost certainly die within three days of birth.
We had already both decided that we would carry the pregnancy to term and enjoy the life we were given for whatever time we had, no matter the result. The results gave us time to come to terms with what would happen that December (right before Christmas, 2003). He (Colin Isaac Babcock) was born at Mt. Sinai hospital in Toronto, Ontario which has excellent facilities and where we'd had all of our pre-screening work done.
The doctors were incredible and very kind and compassionate. They were all inspired by our decision to have the baby and enjoy our time with him and allow him to enjoy his time with us. I said at the funeral for him that "he had a better life than most; he met his entire family, was held and hugged and loved for his entire albeit short life and never had to suffer the loss of friends or family the way we all will. He didn't know his life should have been longer and didn't suffer any more than any other dying person. We all eventually die, and someone eventually mourns our loss. At least he had an incredible three days, and we all got to enjoy him for that time."

This is a hard time of year for us. Its a hard time of year to go through pain, with everyone expecting joy. I do still miss Colin.

Medical experts

2010-10-15T11:35:00.000-04:00

The belief of some that medical practitioners are so much more knowledgable than the rest of us that they should be allowed to make decisons on our behalf without our consent is scary but popular in my experience.

Many people believe that doctors look out for their patients' best interests above all else, and while some do, it is ultimately your own health and therefore your responsibility to make sure you know what's going on.

My wife recently blogged about uninformed consent as well, and its scary to realize this is not the realm of conspiracy theories. Back in the early days of nuclear science, the American military shipped soldiers off to an island for a 'vacation' to secretely test radiation exposure. Years later they admitted to this, and while some would argue there simply wasn't good information at the time to hold them liable, how many other things is that true of today?

That is to say, why do civilians believe that the science of medicine has reached Star Trek levels? We still regularly discover new unrealized potentials (both good and bad) in old drug therapies. We have new drugs pulled from the market because of horrible side effects, sometimes known by the companies that sold them (certain heart pills, not to mention anti-depressants that caused suicides).

Being skeptical of what you're told by experts isn't how we're taught in school, and its something I try to instill in my own daughter. "How do they know? Do they have reason to lie? How much money is involved?" are all excellent questions to ask yourself, and others.

As a final example, I remember hearing a leading government doctor being interviewed on the radio about the flu vaccine one year. The interviewer pointed out that the flu variants in the wild in North America weren't the strains the vaccine had been designed to immunize against. But in response to the very valid question of why one should get vaccinated against a flu variant that you most likely won't even be exposed to, the doctor simply told listeners that it was still a good idea to get the vaccine anyway.

Why? I'm just guessing, but I'd say its because the vaccine was already paid for. The government of Ontario buys flu vaccine for all residents to get immunized, and taking a year off to say "whoops, this one won't actually help" might instill doubt in subsequent years.

Be informed, from multiple sources whenever possible, and bear in mind that anyone with billions of dollars invested in something is no longer a credible source of data.

The Percy Jackson series

2010-09-10T12:43:00.002-04:00

My daughter loves to read. She's eight years old and has really started to be able to plough through a good novel in a reasonable amount of time. Having finished the Harry Potter series last year and going through a variety of shorter youth books since, I noticed the Lightning Thief book at Chapters and let her have a look at the first chapter before deciding she liked it.

I have a basic theory that any book that gets turned into a movie is probably interesting enough in story to be readable. Having seen the trailers but not the movie, I bought her the book and hoped she'd enjoy it. After finishing it and begging for the next books, she let my wife borrow it and then me. Turns out, aside from some very silly plot elements making it very clear this is not a thought provoking book for adults, its a pretty fun story. Saturday morning cartoon fun, not Lord of the Rings.

Purchasing and borrowing our way through the next three books, my daughter wanted to see the movie. After giving my usual warnings that movies are never as good as the books on which they're based, we rented it just the other night. I must say, my warning wasn't stern enough even for myself. Had it not been for my daughter wanting to finish the movie, I might've returned it to the movie store as defective -- in content.

I'm not just saying its a rendition of the story, since that's pretty common with such book-turned-movie attempts, its also a pretty bad movie. We're not talking plot compression, but something more akin to stealing character names and places and then writing a whole new story set in a similar universe. I would go well over my word count if I were to list the things I disliked in the movie, so I won't bother.

With the movie now firmly brushed aside, we're all looking forward to reading The Last Olympian, but also sad another good series comes to an end and we must again do the hunt for good reading material for a young reader who enjoys books.

Racial profiling, literally

2010-09-09T11:25:00.001-04:00

Christian Rudder from OkCupid/OkTrends has posted an aggregation of some of their data on personal preferences from their over half million users (minor language warning due). The data is divided mostly along racial lines, although there's also some equally politically incorrect data divided along religious boundaries. I'll allow you to go read it for yourself though.

There are some entertaining tidbits, like "if a Latin dude tells you a joke, you should laugh" and how little in common white men and women have in common. That said, one of my first thoughts as I looked at the white male interests lists was "now I know why you're single" because, after all, this is a dating site's data. These are probably not, by and large, your happily-in-a-relationship people.

Despite not representing the population at large to any degree of error, it is still an interesting data set to have a look at. Before you read it though, can you guess what any of the top three words/phrases are for each race by gender? I didn't.