Evil Toddler Bike

I'm sat here at the computer, and can see the two little boys playing outside my window. They are probably about 5 and 2. The younger one's on a trike-of-sorts, with four wheels. A bit like this,
but the front wheels are further apart, and the back wheels very close together (and his is made of metal and painted red). Who designed this? I can't thing of one advantage to having the front wheels spread apart. As soon as he gets up any speed he falls off sideways. Forget cornering. It's clearly made for a child his size, but the bars are so wide that his arms are stretched right out to reach them, meaning any slight movement of his body or either arm causes a crash.
I saw one of them three-wheeled motorbikes in town the other day. I don't understand why having the two wheels at the front is better than having the two wheels at the back. Just to be different?
Do they even have a differential? Are they front wheel drive for that matter?

Hasn't been that long

... has it?
It can't have.
I'm certain that I wrote a post in January sometime, but it's not there.

It's been all much the same over the last few months though. Occasionally riding before work, sometimes riding on the weekend. Working.
Plenty of time, and plenty of things to be doing, but I don't ever seem to do anything.
I blame it on the internet. An in-exhaustible source of information, reading material and photos. And I blame Google, because information is useless without being able to find it.
Google is incredible. How does it work. Google store all there data on parallel 80 GB standard hard drives with ten times redundancy.
If I type "bike" into the Google search bar, I get:
Results 1 - 10 of about 125,000,000 for bike [definition]. (0.35 seconds)
How do they do that?
I don't understand.
We've got a good idea about how ranking is calculated (or at least what factors contribute, as the algorithm is secret, like Flickr's interesting algorithm), but how do they search so much information, and rank it and send us the results in such a short period of time? And with so many people searching at the same time?
I'm sure I saw a book once (or maybe I dreamt it) called something like "How Google Works", but even if the book was real I'm sure it wouldn't be about what I'm thinking of.
It's crazy how big Google (as a company) have gotten though.
Can you imagine how much money they must be pulling in to make Street View, Google Video and Gmail profitable?
Everything they come up with seems to take off.
Why?
A lot of people worried that when Google went IPO the company would change and loose the anti-corporate and network neutrality culture, but they didn't. Well at least they haven't yet, or it's not become apparent.
Will it happen? It's inevitable, isn't it? I think so.
A lot of people think that industrialization ruined the world, but I think it was agriculture, which caused settlement. Industrialization was an inevitable advancement. But I'm getting off topic - ha - this post was going to be about photography!

Which brings be back to the point (completely accidentally though, I admit).
This is why I don't blog as often as I would like - because it takes forever. Literally - because I'm never finished. I can't just write something about something. I have to open more browser tabs to check facts, add stats, research. I always wrote excellent essays in high school, often getting perfect marks. And one thought always leads to another, which also needs to be fully explored and researched, and I never get on to what I was going to write about, and if I do I change chunks every time I go back and re-read it, until it's perfect, which it never is.
So I end up getting bored, and not finishing a post, and if the writing doesn't have a point and isn't finished it I won't post it. I know it's bad, because it's not finished. It doesn't have and introduction, a hook, an argument, or a conclusion. It's missing evidence, and it's not to the point. It's just a string of thoughts, not a piece of writing, an article, an essay.
Why isn't this coming out like an essay? Maybe I'll have to start writing down a planning sheet - which was the only useful thing Mrs Taylor ever taught me, and it seemed that I was the only one that thought that, (that the planning was useful, not that Mrs Taylor taught us very little - everyone knew that).
But this is just a string of thoughts again. It's bad. Shall I post it anyway? Or should I scrap it and write an essay about why I haven't posted in so long?
Nah, I'm bored of writing now.

Valentine's

I don't like Valentine's day.
Insert "Created by Hallmark", and all that "bar, humbug" stuff here.
But I've finally finished the present* for Mum's birthday (which was in November), and after taking pictures and messing around with my home-made extension tube, the thumbnail of this one popped out at me in Bridge.
I would never make anything in pink or purple, or anything with hearts on. These are just purple with multi-coloured "blips", honest. I didn't mean them to look girly.
I can't put up any other pics until Mum gets them.

* I've noticed that here (North America) everyone uses the word "gift", whereas I've always called it a "present". It seems strange, when it doesn't have anything to do with the time between the past and future. But don't you love the internet:
–noun pres⋅ent

16.	a thing presented as a gift; gift: Christmas presents.

That makes more sense.

Something Strange

...happened this morning.
I woke up at 8:74.
Not only had I slept in, but I'd woken up at a time that didn't exist.
Even more strangely, I didn't realize this until I'd showered, dressed and was making my breakfast/lunch.
Strange.

After this I went to Thrifty's to get some groceries.
Three strange things happened here. Firstly, I bought cheese, which I haven't done in a long time. I'm not sure what to do with it now.
Secondly, I bought some Hobnobs. That isn't strange, but near the Hobnobs I saw some "reduced fat" Oreos. This is also quite normal, of course, as every food now also comes in a low fat version. But on the front they said "30% less fat per two cookies". I realize that a large portion of the population are mathematically illiterate, but where did this come from? Surely, one cookie has 50% of the fat that the two have in total, therefore if two cookies have 30% less fat than two regular Oreos, then each will have 30% less fat than each regular one. Or does it mean that two "reduced fat" Oreos have 30% less fat than one full-fat Oreo, and each diet Oreo has 65% less fat than the regular one. But that sounds more impressive, so why wouldn't they just say that? Am I missing something?
Thirdly, I thought I'd get some Chrismassy tea. I picked up the herbal one, because I only get the caffeine-free stuff. It tastes (and smells) of mint. I never associated mint with Christmas. I associate mint with lamb and toothpaste (not together).

I just wrote a sentence about how nothing strange happened at work today, but had to backspace, because this in itself is stange. Not a day goes by that we don't have a crazy customer that has a go at us because we only stock two types of video cassettes or that we won't knock 50% off the price of their laptop. Today was very uneventful. I'm caught up to within 48 hours for the first time in 10 months. No one tried to argue that virus removal should be covered under warranty, or that they woke up in the morning and their screen was cracked. None of my customer's cats knocked apple juice into the CD drive of their owner's laptops. No one managed to spill an entire bottle of tabasco sauce on the keyboard of their laptop while using it as a recipe book. I found no rotten flesh in desktops. No hard drives spontaniously combusted.
Strange.

The Mocha Conundrum

So I hate Starbucks. They were starting to grow on me after several enjoyable knitting sessions, but that was all undone when I took a break from work today.
I was cold at work, which is unusual as the tech room it a tiny, dust filled triangle lopped off the corner of the store, with a closed door and no ventilation, and 3-10 computers running constantly. It's always hot. In the summer it was the hottest place in the store.
But today I was cold. As I walked past the receiving bay to clock out, I saw the receiving dock was wide open, even though there was no truck at the door.
"It's you causing this cold Ben!"
"It's not me! There's a man here who was apparently sent to remove dead animals from under the dock."
Anyway, I wanted a warm drink (and I don't drink coffee), and the only food places within a minute walk from work are Starbucks, Superstore, a hotdog stand outside Superstore, Safeway, and the Starbucks inside Safeway. So it really had to be Starbucks.
"Can I have a medium hot chocolate, please?"
"Pre-made, or our Signature Series?"
"What's the difference?"
(There was some talking about syrups and brewing processes and organic milk or something)
"Pre-made"
"What size?"
"Medium"
"Tall?"
(reluctantly) "Sure"
She punched "Tall Signature Series" into the till, and charged me $4.25
What I got was a cup of something that didn't taste much like hot chocolate at all and had a load of white foamy stuff on top that ended up on my nose, and no lid (which makes me nervous about putting it down on the bench at work).

At Tim Horton's, if I ask for a medium hot chocolate, the lady says, "That'll be $1.12 please", and hands me a cup of hot chocolate that tastes exactly like hot chocolate tastes, it doesn't end up on my nose, and has a lid, and cost one quarter as much.

Tim Horton's was directly opposite us when I worked at Sneakers. When I'd got to get the guys coffee, Jeff would have a mocha. You know how I feel about all this coffee lingo. I'd watch the lady fill the cup half with coffee and half with hot chocolate. Why don't they just call it what it is rather than coming up with a fancy name?

But then I came to the Mocha Conundrum.
Mocha is an unnecessary word - common words can be used to say the same thing.
"Mocha" is one word; "half coffee and half hot chocolate" is lots.
It's easier to say "mocha", but it's easier to understand "half hot chocolate and half coffee".
I like simple names for things, but I don't like long names, so which should it be?
I think the beverage should be eradicated all together. Who'd ruin hot chocolate by putting coffee in it anyway?

Common Misconceptions

I was told by someone once again today that "It is a common misconception that...".
What is a common misconception?
When most people think one thing, and the person stating the "common misconception" (and possibly a handful of others) thinks the opposite, and despite the fact that the majority thinks the opposite, they think they are right, and that everyone else has been mislead.
Everyone that I have heard stating "common misconceptions" knows no better than everyone else. The wise people don't give advise in the form "They're all wrong, and I'm right".
I recently read on a web page "It's a common misconception that carrots are good for you, but...". By no means am I any kind of nutritionist, but that seems a bit weird to me. (You know what also seems a bit weird? The spelling of "weird" - it should be "wierd", shouldn't it?)
I'm not saying that I think that the majority is always right. We used to think that the sun orbited Earth, and that the earth was flat, (but then again, maybe we're all wrong - we thought Pluto was a planet until recently - ha). If I thought everyone around me was wrong and I was right, and I cared about what the others thought, I'd work on proving my theory, not telling them their beliefs were wrong.
While writing this, I ended up on Wikipedia's list of common misconceptions. A few stood out:
It is a common misconception that the human body can not survive the vaccuum of space.
It is a common misconception that a disproportionate amount of heat is lost through the head.
It is a common misconception that there are successful non-surgical techniques for penis enlargement.
It is a common misconception that security lighting deters crime.
It is a common misconception that lemmings engage in suicidal dives off cliffs.
It is a common misconception that Henry Ford invented the car.
It is a common misconception that french fries originated in France.
It is a common misconception that mirrors reverse left and right.
It is a common misconception that Wikipedia is a reliable source of information (okay, I added that one)

I'm not saying that I think these misconceptions are...ummm...misconceptions. I just picked them because I think they're... interesting. I doubt there is a successful non-surgical method for penis enlargement. I doubt that lemmings are suicidal.

(I think I'm about to wander off into a nearly unrelated thread...)
This kind of reminds me of the "Philosophy - Critical Thinking" class I had to take in my first year of university. The students were made up of the usual Arts/Philosophy/Theology types you'd expect, along with a handful of Engineers that you wouldn't. The prof put a mathematical "proof" up on the overhead projector one day. It was the classic "1=2" proof. The artsy ones found great joy in this, as it clearly "proved" that all that math stuff they didn't understand, and had caused their marks to drop in high school, was infact (one word or two?) flawed. Meanwhile, all the math dorks saw that dividing by a+b when a=b is dividing by zero, which falsifies the "proof".
What is the purpose of this "proof"? To show how gullible people can be? To show how easily people can be led to believe things?
People can be very naive. I'm always surprised by how easily some people's beliefs will completely change after reading an article or watching a TV documentary, or even a mini documentaries on YouTube. They're presented with one side of the story, and take every fact they're given to be accurate. It would be interesting to observe one of these people's opinions after watching a documentary presenting one side of the story, and immediately afterwards show him or her a documentary from the opposing view.

It's very difficult not to believe something everyone else believes, and is presented over and over as the truth (see comment above about the world being flat).
Which leads me to something I believe to be a common misconception (add contradiction to the list of reasons why this is a poorly written blog post, along with lack of cohesion).
I don't think recycling "helps the planet". I think it uses way too much energy to recycle stuff; transport it to a recycling plant, sort it, clean it, melt it down, and reform it. I think too much emphasis is put on recycling, when the emphasis should be on reducing and reusing.
But I don't really care about any of this to be brutally honest (which I usually am), because I think we're fucked. We over consume. And it's getting worse. The planet is over populated and can't support our (growing) population at current (growing) consumption levels. We're told to consume, and we use our time working so we can get more money so we can get more stuff. This has been this way since the invention of agriculture, and isn't going to change. I don't thing recycling is going to help, nor using re-usable shopping bags, or using electric cars or traveling by bicycle, because we over consume.
People think I'm green, and that I care about the environment, because I ride a bike rather than driving, I don't use plastic bags for my shopping, I re-use bags computers come packaging in as garbage bags, and generally have a low "carbon footprint" compared to others. But honestly - I'm not green, I'm just cheap. As it turns out, being cheap is quite green, and one can easily be mistaken for the other. I don't think nuclear power is a good idea, not because it's giving us all cancer (which it probably is), but because it's bloody expensive. Yes, once the plant is up and running, it's cheap. But how long does a plant last before it has to be "decommissioned", (or an uneducated night worker is left in charge and the whole thing explodes). Then you're left with a pile of reactive material that has to be disassembled by robots, and is ridiculously expensive to dispose of and contain.
I don't care about "the planet", not only because we're screwed anyway, but because I think we're going to kill our selves or something is going to kill us long before we "kill the planet". Biological war (or accident), nuclear war (or accident), a "big bang" or whatever killed the dinosaurs; I don't know - but I bet it'll happen.
We are very conceited (see comment about the sun revolving about Earth - we are the center of the universe). We think we have complete control. We build "earthquake proof" buildings and think we can control forest fires. We can't, which is fine - we just get proved wrong once in a while. Thinking we're smarter than nature is one thing, but we keep messing with it. Ever seen "Jurassic Park"? Or "The Core"?

I've definately gotten a bit off track.
Thinking too much does my head in. Best not to too often.

Interior Anti-Design

I was going to make a new year's resolution, not because I think making resolutions is a good idea - I don't see the point really - but because I though it would be a good way to make a blog post. I was going to write about how my resolution should be to stop procrastinating, but it's already the 24th of January and this should have been written on the first, so ... maybe not then.

Instead, I am going to make a resolution to make my apartment look less like I moved in an hour ago. Anyone that has been to my place will understand this. I've been living here over a year (I moved in on January 1st, 2008) and things are in piles around the edge of the room, as I've got no furniture apart from a desk and chair (neither of which I actually bought), and a glass table and two wicker chairs kindly given to me by Julia and Brian.
But this resolution isn't about buying some furniture, because I don't want any more. I don't want to be one of those people - you know the ones - them that own couches. What would I do with a couch? Probably just use it as a shelf and put stuff on it. I've got as many chairs as I've got mugs, which means I have got as many chairs as people I can have round at once.
I want to cover the walls with random stuff and get a load of shelves to put the stuff I've got on. I have been buying a cactus plant here and there, and have built up a little collection to put on my planned shelving unit(s). Mum said it would be okay to leave them outside on the planting table over winter, but I guess she wasn't expecting it to get this cold. Damn snow.
I was quite disappointed when the first one defrosted and went floppy. I haven't really got any good pictures of them pre-freeze, but I was planning on taking some good photos of them, just hadn't gotten around to it...
I like cactuses (yes I know, but "cacti" sounds too "I'm trying to sound clever") because they're unusual, architectural (mathematical?), widely varied, individual, ... weird.
I like weird stuff. I don't like everything matching and Martha-Stewarty. Why can't you get a load of things you like individually and put them in the same room? Because they're not from the same country/vintage/style/colour group? Bollocks.
I've been reading James May's Telegraph column online on and off. He's a motoring journalist and presenter of one of Britain's most popular programs, Top Gear. I like his writing style, and how he manages to be very entertaining while discussing a valid concept, and somehow managing to vaguely relate it to cars. He's honest and realistic and can't be bothered with the big things. Why, when he can write an entire article about putting cheese in a juicer? Anyway, his column from a couple of weeks ago (that I just read) discussed this matter (which I will call Interior Anti-Design). He describes his house as looking like "an upturned box of Lego". He's even got an orange and yellow stair carpet (alternating yellow and orange for each stair).
My sister was visiting my parents a few weeks ago (when this post was started), and they came down to see me one day. Emma has just moved into a new apartment and bought a load of furniture for it. She's doing it all in black and tan - throw cushions and everything. She even bought some matching "art" from Walmart.
I'd hate a place like that. My apartment will be anti-designed in an "eclectic" style, and will look like a clown threw up on it.
I've already gotten started on this project. When I built my computer, I spray painted the case orange. I've got a tissue paper pineapple, and a poster of a random downhiller. I bought a calendar of Escher prints and shoved them in dollar store frames, which I have hung randomly with pushpins on the wall to the left of my desk.
In high school I made mountains of origami - everything from 1000 unit modulars to Jun Meakawa's devil, but that all got thrown out when moving, and all I've got is a box of the half finished stuff, and stuff that I couldn't finish or came out rubbishly.
Emma brought me a kite back from Bali, so I've hung that in the corner. It's royal blue with a red dragon on - I like dragons.

I will keep you updated on this project.

Broken Waffles?

I need a screen name.

I've been trying to come up with one for about 10 years now, and have never got anywhere.
Everything is already taken. I like the same use name for everything, as I'd never be able to remember them all, and I don't want something I'd have to be adding numbers to because someone else already used that name.

I think I've come up with the solution. Two (or more) random, unrelated words.
So, off I go to Google to find a random word generator, and end up with stuff like this:
CauliflowerBridges
CompelledSpoon
ButteryClone
ChargingNail
ImportantFluff
NumbHumans
RabidEngineering
BrokenWaffle
BlueInduction
FlatResolve

This wasn't working. I really liked "brokenwaffle", but (according to Google), so did quite a few other people.
So I went the "Word of the day" route:
abrogate, sui generis, exculpate, xeric, bifurcate, hebetude, undulant, frigorific, candor, lollygag, confabulation

FlatUndulant
ImportantLollygag
FluffyAbrogate
XericClone
BifurcatedCharge
ExculpatedWaffles?

Any suggestions?

Starbucks

I've been spending a lot of time browsing Flickr's Explore page recently, and dreaming that one day I will be able to take good pictures. The Explore page is a random sample of a collection of the 500 most interesting photos on Flickr each day. The photos are widely varied and cover every style and subject, but I've noticed one particular subject popping up in Explore over and over, and the composition and style is always the same. It's a macro shot, with a "bokeh" background, (which, yes, is very fashionable anyway).
A cardboard Starbucks coffee cup.
Sometime in the summer, after the Cobble Hill cross country race, Amy Luck (one of Hilary's pottery students) invited some of us over to her house for a "girls night". Erica (another student of Hilary's) used to work at Starbucks, and we ended talking about the "coffee culture" in North America. This proves (well, strongly supports) Amy's theory.
Interestingness is calculated based on a secret formula, but basically, the more people view a photo, comment on it, and mark it as one of their favourites, the more "interesting" it is. Now, Flickr's a big place. As I write this at 12:30 am (of course, I'm going to bed at 11 today to catch up on some sleep) Flickr says that 7084 photos were uploaded in the last minute, and it's the middle of the night. To be one of the 500 most interesting is quite an achievement. Americans must like their coffee.
I say "their" as I am obviously not one of them. The smell of coffee makes me nauseous. I don't go to Starbucks unless with someone else (ie. not very often), because of this (and that I'm a cheapskate). But if I did want a cup of tea and didn't want to go home for one (ie. never, unless I'm with someone else), then I'd go to Tim Horton's (but their tea is horrible, so I'd have hot chocolate instead). I find Starbucks intimidating. The few times I have been, I've just gone with "chai tea late", because it's all I know. You can't even just have a hot chocolate - dark, milk, white? Cream, milk or water? Flavouring? (What flavours have you got?) Gingerbread, mint, caramel, ...? I'm culinarily ignorant, so you might as well just give me a Sushi menu. I know fish and chips, toad in the hole, cheese and beetroot sandwiches, roast beef, trifle, and Custard Creams. You could be talking Latin to me when you start ordering Hollondais sauce, mussake, foccaccia, chop suey, temaki, profiterole, tortillas, ... (but I know what Prairie Oysters are, thankyouverymuch). I don't know if I want a shinny or grande. I don't care what country the nutmeg came from. I thought "mocha" was a colour. Macchiato sounds like a martial art. I'm not even sure what makes the tea "chai".
Why is it this way? It's snobbery, surely. It's wanting to sound clever, be fashionable, cool (though I think I'm showing my age here - didn't people stop saying cool in the 90's?). It's like wine tasting - red with fish, white with red meat, "this fruity full bodied blend would compliment the aroma of the orange and mint blossom duck pate beautifully!".
But then what about shampoo? (shampoo?) My shampoo isn't "lemon" scented, it's "kiwi lime squeeze with lemon grass extract" (damn - I'm sure I'd gotten one with Ulang Ulang!). Who says "Oh, I'll get this one, because the kiwis and limes have been squeezed, and it's not got whole lemon grass, just extracts." My laundry detergent is Orange Mango Tango. My tooth paste is cool mint, as opposed to fresh mint, spearmint or cool ice (whoever heard of warm ice?). When I bought deodorant I had the choice of baby powder, spring fresh, shower fresh or summer breeze (but I wanted fresh breeze!). My dish soap is crisp cucumber melon spring sensations.
Why?
Soup is going the same way. I challenge you to find a can of soup that says "chicken soup" on the label!
So what's this all about? Marketing of course. (Isn't that what everything's about?) I suppose we (the consumers) are supposed to think that the more healthy/fresh/organic/clever adjectives they use, the more engineered we will think the product is - obviously, more research, product testing, and engineering has gone into "Bumbleberry and South African lentil, with crushed wheat grass and acai berry seed essence" scented dish soap, than "fruit". Then there's the "comfort and enjoyment" factor. The C&E factor was taught to me in a business course taught by Mr. Potter in high school. For an assignment in the advertising unit we had to watch a load of advertisements on TV and write down which of a list of advertising techniques were used. Comfort and Enjoyment is the only one I remember, probably because one of the boys shouted it out when the Preparation H commercial came on. C&E was when irrelevant things are used to summon thoughts and memories of comfort and enjoyment. Like the box for the tea I'm drinking. It's called "sleepy time", and has a picture on the box of a teddy bear in a night gown, slippers and stocking hat (with a pompom), sitting in a rocking chair in front of a fire. For some reason, I only usually drink this kind before I go to bed.
"Fruit" isn't a good blurb for dish soap. I wasn't at all surprised to read that there are people that write book blurbs for a living. Naming paint colours continues to hold the "dream job" title for me. I think I'd be good at it. I think my bedroom is "Glowing Pompleberry Espresso White" (what colour is my bedroom, anyway? I can't tell - I still haven't changed the light bulb, and won't likely do so, as it is a good excuse for not wearing matching colours). Am I getting off topic yet?

I didn't take the photos on this page. They're in the Starbucks group on Flickr. Yes, a group of photos just of Starbucks cups and chairs and stuff. My next sentence was going to be that there's no group for Tim Horton's, but there is. But it's crap.
So I'm going to have to either steal a Tim Horton's cup, or buy a cup of Hot Chocolate after work tomorrow and take some photos. Anyone coming with me? On me. Two word maximum.

Sunny Day

Today the sun is nice and bright and the sky is blue, not one cloud. That ticks me off.
Sunday was miserable, when I was off work. Monday was like today - perfect weather, but I didn't realize because I was at work in a triangle of dust and old air, without a window. I was off work Tuesday, which was horribe, but I put on my waterproof pants and went out to take some photos, but they seem to be "corrupted" and unreadable. Wednesday was horrible, and I was off work. I wanted to ride to Victoria, but it was pouring down on and off all day, and I ended up getting nothing done all day. I'm working today, and it's lovely.
I'm not impressed.

I'm sure it's somebody else's day off.
I'm sure he/she will be spending the day inside watching TV.

Electronic Banking Conspiracy Theory

I love Wikipedia. I don't take everything on there as truth, because it's editable (and written) by the public. I love the links though.
Sometime about two days ago I read something online that I wasn't familiar with, so opened up a new tab in my browser and copied and pasted it into my Wikipedia search bar. I don't remember what it was, but in any Wikipedia article are links to every other name, place, event, or whatever, that's mentioned. When I come across anything I want to read about, I right click on it, and click "Open in new tab". Of course, this is recursive - for each page opened, I will open several more pages while reading it.
I never close my browser (and if I do have to close it I save the tab list, so I can pick up where I left off when re-opening it), so here I am several days later with 32 tabs open (not at all uncommon), 18 of which are Wikipedia pages. I've got everything here from "Ku Klux Klan", "Exploding Whales", "Harold Shipman", "Pixar", and "List of Conspiracy Theories".

I love conspiracy theories. (I loved The Matrix, but that's another post). In high school I wrote a paper about the "Paul is Dead" theory. A friend and I came up with some crazy ones, including one about Princess Diana not being dead at all, but living on an hidden island in the middle of a lake in Manchester. There are some lesser known ones like Watchtower XVII, Tril, cheating by Deep Blue, AIDS being artificial, and the common ones, such as the JFK assassination, Global Warming, September 11th Attacks, Peak Oil, Area 51, faked moon landings and the New World Order.

The Electronic Banking Conspiracy theory is an extension of the New World Order, in which a group of people are planning to "take over the world", and control all world affairs by controlling banking. They plan to make money entirely virtual (all just numbers stored electronically, and assumingly volatiley), and then shut the electricity off. Apparently this process began with the Renaissance.
There are several criticisms of this theory. I mean you'd think they could come up with a quicker way. Seven hundred years is a lot of waiting. Seriously though, what's to stop a bank "loosing" our numbers. I've read Google has eight-times redundancy. Do banks keep good backups? Where (geographically) is the data stored? What if someone found out the server locations and destroyed them? What now?

Has anyone made a movie about this?

First Impressions

I went on a ride with Julia on Monday. We rode along Bell McKinnon and back along Richard's trail. Julia was saying that she thinks I'm a creative person, and that she didn't expect me to be, since my job really isn't.

"What do you do?" is one of them questions that follows "Is that an Australian accent?" and the conversation that proceeds. I suppose people ask that question (I ask it too) to make polite conversation. It's not personal, and it tells you a lot about a person.
Or does it? A job is something you do to make money. Knowing what a person does tells you approximately how much money they make. Whether they like their job or not probably has more to do with the people they work with/for.
When people hear the word "computer" or "tech" they think of geeks with greasy hair and thick glasses sat in front of desks in their parents' basements. Or do they just think boring? Compututers are boring - to people that aren't into them, just like listening to anyone jabber on about something you're not into is boring. But computer stuff seems to be different. I suppose one reason is that computers are ONLY about the technical details. I suppose if you're into computers, you are a person with technical aptitudes. Highschool computer science class was probably where "technical aptitude" (or more evidently, the lack of it) became aparent. Anyone can pass any course at the highschool level in the Canadian school system. If you're less inteligent or your brain isn't geared towards the subject, you will have to put in more time, but it's comletely doable. The line between intelligent and less intelligent was wiggly, and blurred by lazy ones and those who wanted to be clever. Effort and intelligence made up the marks, but not in computer science.
It became evident at the introduction of loop structures. With enough help, studying and practise, everyone made it through the IF statement, but people either got loops or they didn't. Computer science isn't something you can learn, no matter how much you practice and study. It isn't about the syntax, it was all about logic. Those with the logic will tell you computer science classes are the fly courses, guarenteed A's. Those without will tell you they were the hardest courses they ever took, and no doubt never got recurssion. The concept of calling a routine from within itself was baffling, and no amount of diagrams scribbled on the overhead projector or analogies would help. Of those that got it, half wondered why they'd never though of doing that before, the other half already had and not realized it. I was one of these - I'd used recurssion a year before to traverse a file structure without thinking about it.
But I don't get the artsy stuff. I can't see what makes something a work of art, while something else that I like just as much is just "good", or maybe not even that. In photography class I understood the ryule of thirds and can successfully put it in to practiise, and focal points, and silver rectangles, but they're just the technicalities. The reason the Mona Lisa is a work of art cannot be a compostition rule, or technical ability. Is it philosophy? Psycology? Isn't everything psycology?
I don't get it. I can't learn it. I don't get art - I'm technical (is it possible to be both?). So, does that mean I'm not creative?
Creative [adj.] - marked by the ability to create
As first year engineers we were required to get a C or above in Engineering Design. This course was a favourite. We worked in "teams" (as the word group implied several indivividuals making a unit, which was somehow not as good as a team) to complete various design tasks. The first was to design on paper a fense post remover, and then move around the room commenting on other teams' design. Each week's 3 hour class had a different open-ended problem to solve, from reducing the risk/effect of forest fires to designing an elevator controller on a bread board. The last project of the term was the "egg mover" project. A raw egg was placed on the floor by the prof, and without touching the egg, we had to get it over a "hurdle" (about like the ones in cyclocross), and we got more points for the closer it came to rest on the circle on the ground 2 meters the other side on the plank. There were catapults, fabric slings attached to the ceiling, robotic vehicles, leaky water counterweights, mouse trap cars that hit bumpers that moved scissors that cut strings that released pendullums, and in the briefing someone asked about the use of corrosive acid. It was like a giant game of Mouse Trap. During this last class, a group of art students passed through (no idea what they were doing on that side of campus), and gave us sideways looks in their Calvin Klein jeans and low cut shirts. They were cool - we had acne.
Coolness impedes creativity.
Why is creativity associated with art?

Distance: 21.9 km
Time: 1:08

Hallowe'en

More pics at Flikr.
I got my tripod on Thursday. Couldn't be better timing, so I went out straight after work to take photos. My batteries ran out 10 minutes later. I went home for fresh ones, and picked up where I left off. I saw loads of policemen - one stopped to ask me what I was up to.
I ended up at Hilary's, and consequently didn't get home until about 11:30. After taking photos of Ben, I followed her around with my camera while she was working. Because it was dark, I had the camera on the tripod, and was doing exposures between 1/20 and 6 second exposures using the two second timer to eliminate movement from pressing the "shutter" (what are we supposed to call it?) button. You'd think this would be fine for taking pictures of mugs, but it's "interesting" when they're being packed up for the next day's market. Spot the difference:
Hilary and I had an interesting conversation about Hallowe'en. She hates it. I do in principle. Just another excuse for retailers to sell us stuff. Decorations, costumes, candy, orange clothing, pencils with pumpkins on the end, cakes with orange food colouring in and plastic spiders on top. Bah, Humbug? I get the dressing up. I think that's fun. Although Hallowe'en wasn't a big deal in England (but kind of got merged into Guy Faulk's Night) we got dressed up for the village fete and gala in the summer and rode on floats in the parade. The way I remember it though, was that your mum always came up with the costume. There were no store-bought pumpkin outfits. You decided what you wanted to be: "the tin man from the Wizard of Oz", "a sea anemone", "Noddy", "a Viking", "a starfish", or in my case: "an alien", and your mum had to fabricate a costume from card board, old tights, tin foil, and net curtains. For my alien I had a green sweatsuit, tinsel wig, and suspended from each arm were three stockings, stuffed, with bands of fake fur left over from a lion costume or something, to imitate multiple sets of arms. I'm not sure what the wig was for. The other time of year for dressing up was the Christmas nativity, which saw everyone in bed sheet tunics and tea towels on their heads because, apparently, that is what people from Nazareth wore. There were variations on this costume: shepherds would get canes if they were considered well enough behaved, Mary would wear a blue bed sheet with a white tea towel, wise men would get a curtain (usually 70's style) for a robe, a self-made cardboard crown with sequins and glitter on, and a tea bag tin covered in foil. Sometimes bed sheet tunics would be replaced with dressing gowns (house coats for you Canadians) if the main hall was a bit drafty. The angels would have silver tinsel halos and white frocks, some with wings. The costume my mum made that got used as an all purpose angel/fairy/snowflake costume has lace curtain wings that were attached to the underside of the arms and the body, which was fine until I had to put my arms vertically above my head for the snowflake dance in Babushka on year.
The only reason (that I can see) for buying a costume off the shelf is for "cuteness", and laziness. Where's the fun and creativity in that?
Why can't everyone make costumes, get dressed up, mess around and have a party without the consumerism?

In My Opinion

While on a ride with a new(ish) friend recently (maybe it was a couple of months ago), he asked my opinion on some "big" things (eg. religion, the environment, human rights), and I gave vague or jokey answers, avoiding giving my true opinion. The friend very quickly got the impression that I was a shallow person, someone that thinks only about things that affect her directly, doesn't spend the time to develop opinions on the "big things". I'm definitely NOT saying being like that is a bad thing (note to self: write posts about Forrest Gump and present vs. past vs. future), but I'm not like that.
I have opinions, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) they oppose everyone else's. So what do you do when your opinions on the "big stuff" are wrong. Or they're right, but for all the wrong reasons?
You keep your mouth shut, shrug your shoulders, make a joke, letting the asker think you're one of those people, or you state your opinion (and back it up) and have him/her think you're one of them Satan-worshipers/human-haters/planet-haters/everythingelse-haters or just plain wierd and cruel (note to self: write post about Marilyn Manson (I actually really like him)), or end up offending someone, or get carried away in debate/argument, or get squelched.
I usually shrug/joke/mumble/change the subject, or I decide to go ahead and say it. I don't just say it though, I pause, then start sentances that I don't finish, choose different words and end up stammering, and then I say it.
Sometimes I don't even finish before I'm told I'm wrong. The other day (again, this was probably months ago), Ed gave his opinion on something (as he so often does), and when he'd finished I went ahead with mine (in a very neutral fashion), and before I'd finished my first sentance he started shaking his head (as if to say "you're wrong"), turned around and started walking away. I carried on talking, and he turned back and said, "Yes, you're 23 and you know how it all works. I'm 63 and I don't". That pissed me off. I didn't say it as if I knew it all, it was just my opinion. And just because he's older doesn't necasserily make him right and me wrong.
Sometimes I just get squelched. The other person comes back with his/her argument in a louder, more confident voice, and I back off, deciding the conflict isn't worth it. I don't mind debate, but how often is it just fair debate. Someone always ends up getting offended or something, and I don't get offended easily, so it's usually me upsetting someone else, especially as a lot of people take things personally. When I say "take things personally", I mean that some (many?) people can't differentiate between an argument against their argument/opinion and an argument against themselves, and take it as a personal attack or something.

At another point during this ride, I refered to someone else as being "very opinionated" as a flaw. He said that he considered himself to also be very opinionated, and saw it as a good thing. It has just occured to me that maybe there are different uses of the word.
The way I meant it:
obstinate or conceited with regard to the merit of one's own opinions; conceitedly dogmatic (Miriam-Webster)
Holding stubbornly and often unreasonably to one's own opinions (thefreedictionary.com)
Maybe he meant it to mean simply "forming or holding opinions strongly" or something, as that would make more sense with regards to the word itself.

Afterthought:
I stumbled across the website Opinionated.net while googling (note to self: write about googling as a verb) for definitions (It was fifth. Opinionatedlesbian.com was third). Their "slogan" on their banner says, "Opinions are like ass holes, everyone's got one." But I don't think everyone does (have an opinion, not ass hole). It takes time, effort and thought to develop an opinion. Not everyone bothers to. As I said above, I don't think there is anything wrong with this. After everything considered, does any of this stuff matter. It's not like having an opinion changes anything. Who does (or can do) anything about "big" stuff? Why should we care about stuff we can't change (and I honestly don't think we can change it. Don't say "we live in a democracy". My vote won't make the slightest bit of difference (especially since I don't vote), nor will recycling my pop bottles (especially since I don't drink pop). (Note to self - write about recycling and politics.) Do things like this matter anyway? Someone else wins an election, taxes go down one percent, no smoking within six feet of doorways - big whoop. Do other things matter more? Thing we can do something about? I'm starting to sound like the "motivational speakers" that made me want to kill myself in highschool. I'm also starting to wander again. This wasn't where I intended on going.
When someone describes someone else as having "not a care in the world", it's usually considered a compliment. It's also usually used to describe (happy) children. Forrest Gump only cared about the things that mattered. Wouldn't it be nice to live like Forrest? Forrest lived in the present. He didn't live in the past, or worry about the future.
I just got off the phone with Amy. She's been feeling horrible all day. When she told me this I thought she was still ill from yesterday's piss up, but it turns out she feels bad about calling in sick this morning. She wasn't going to come to the cross race tomorrow because she felt guilty. To be honest, I found this almost laughable. If you feel bad about it, don't do it again. You can't do anything about it now. You've got the day off, so let's go riding.
That's probably one reason I don't like Facebook. It seems people go on the site to see what people they haven't seen in years are up to. You don't know them anymore. Friends come and go.
Okay, so you often hear people (motivational speakers?) telling you not to live in the past, but then they say something like "look to the future". I know a lot of upset people. They all are either angry or upset about something that has happened, or are worried about something that might happen. Isn't that what "looking to the future" really means? Planning, predicting, worrying? It's a waste of time and energy.

So, to conclude, balls to the past - it's gone. Tomorrow never comes, so there's no point in giving it any headspace. It's always today, so that's where we should be, in my opinion.
Bollocks. This was supposed to be about NOT putting my opinions out. How did I get here? I'm going to have to start thinking ahead while writing these blog posts.


P.S. - What do you think of my new off topic avoidance technique (note to self: write post about my off topic avoidance technique)? I think it's working quite well, but I don't expect I'll have any idea what I was going to write about from reading my notes at a later date.

Comments and critisisms always welcome. (The angry ones are always the funniest!)

"Random Thoughts"

The first time I heard the term "blog" (contraction of "web log") was in my last year of high school in Mr. Dornn's computer science class. There were only two of us that wanted to take the course (and Jason wanted to drop it), so grades 11 and 12 were taught together. Well, Jason and I were given books to follow (think along the lines of "Visual Basic for Dummies"), and were given an exam at the end of the year. I didn't open my book once, and spent most of the semester writing a Monopoly game.
Mr. Dornn took a couple of days off for some reason and left us a "Mrs Taylor" assignment (the kind of assignment that required no work on his part). He gave us the web address of an article, and we were to write a two-page summary of the article. The article was two-and-a-half pages long. Anyway, the article was written about the emergence of blogs. There was a "linking sentance" that I remember: "And guess what? People actually read them." The first thing I thought was, "Guess what isn't a question, so it shouldn't have a question mark after it." Then I thought, "Yeah right! No one's going to read a stranger's journal." and I forgot all about them. Apparently they caught on. Apparently people do read them.
I do. I read blogs about cycling (mountain bikers, commuters, randonneurs, racers, utilitarian cyclists, product developers, and everything in between), origami, kiting, people visiting foreign countries, and anything that catches my eye. As the author is the master of his own blog, he can use it for what he chooses: ride reports, news updates, for sharing information and experiences, photos, or whatever. A blogger can write several times a day or once a year. Two lines or ten pages. Grammatically correct, structured, coherent, politically correct - it doesn't matter. No one has to read it. No one has paid to read it.
(Does it matter if anyone reads it? - exploring this thought may take me wildly off topic, so I won't... today.)

I don't like writing. I don't like writing fiction. Or poetry. Or answering questions about the last chapter of the ridiculously boring novel you had to read, ("What do you think Johnny was thinking when he killed the fly?"). And of course there is never a wrong opinion, as long as you justify it, (and it doesn't conflict with the teacher's). Essays or lab reports weren't so bad, as at least there was a "recipe", and I'd always get a good mark, but they'd take forever, (university physics lab reports took an average of 5 hours to write up, and were due at 5pm on the day after the lab).
One English assignment required I identify three instances of "literary devices" (alliteration, simile, consonance, anthropomorphism, hyperbole, oxymoron, etc.) in the essay I'd just written. I couldn't find one. "Yes, your writing style is very technical, isn't it?", responded Mrs. Taylor.
But I could write journal. For about a month, we had to write a couple of paragraphs of journal at the beginning of each English lesson. Others would sit there chewing their pens, while I could scribble away pages about nothing. Miss Bartley left a comment on one of my journal entries reading, "I enjoy your random thoughts!" I found this strange, as comments on my work usually said "Good Work" or "Well Done". They make stickers that say "Good Effort", but I've never seen an "I enjoy your random thoughts" sticker. If written by another teacher (eg. Mrs Taylor) though, this comment may have said "Lack of structure and coherence". Is it a case of "fine line between the two"? Is it about the mood/preferences of the reader? I want to say it's more about the context. Are "random thoughts" are allowed (welcomed? encouraged?) in journal, but out of place in other writing? Is that the point of journal? A string of thoughts? A tangled ball of kite line? Pick an end and keep following it and see where you end up? The entire tangle could be one long string, or you could only get a meter before you come to an end. You could pull to hard and snap the line, (this is walking away from the keyboard to get a cup of tea, and forgetting where the thought was going - the metaphor doesn't really work here, does it? See my "literary devices" deficiency above). You could knot all the short strings together, but no one wants knotted kite lines. While following a long string, a short one you've already detangled could (will!) blow away in the wind (I'd like to give an example of a short string here, but I've forgotten it).
Here lies my dislike for structured writing, (revisiting a topic started above - does this count as accidental coherence?). You choose (or are given) a place to end up (thesis), and have to provide a coherent way of getting there (and extra marks for literary devices). So really the kite is the introduction (a way of getting the audience's attention), the bridle is the body (strings leading from the kite, all meeting at...) the flying line is the conclusion (...just because, that's why). Oh, and literary devices are ... line laundry!

I think I've gotten off topic. Wrong string?