Getting to Comfy

Something for your struggles

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 26 Jun 2018 09:11:00 -0700

Treading water beats the pants off of drowning. Respect yourself for doing the work to survive. You are not to blame for your bad ideas. Feeling awful can be more actual work than feeling good.
Do not confuse your strengths for virtues, or your weaknesses for vices. It is just as important learning to live with our weaknesses, than learning how to use our strengths.
Knowledge only becomes wisdom after we have practiced it and made it part of ourselves. It is hard enough to see the paths forward, let alone being ready to attempt them. You can see the path up a mountain, but not have the strength or tools to climb it. Yet.
When we are on our hands and knees in the dark, the smallest obstacle can block our way forward. Uncertainty can lead to fear, and fear can lead to panic, making us make worse mistakes than staying still. The smallest effort can give us back some feeling of control, even if it's just pulling the blankets over our faces, or counting to three before we cry or scream.
The smallest positive action can be the glimmer of hope that gets us through to morning, when the thing we thought was blocking us reveals itself as something we just need to step around.
Our bad ideas don't go away, just because we’ve seen all the ways we were mistaken. Even when we’ve seen how we were wrong, it takes effort to resist falling back into negative thought patterns, and when we’re stressed sometimes that effort is too much. Don't beat yourself up for feeling bad and “knowing” you shouldn't. The effort you are making to keep your demons at bay would probably make the “strongest” of us weep.
It is possible to fall into the same holes in the road again and again, until we master how to climb out of them, then avoid them, and eventually, possibly take a different road entirely.
None of it is easy, but the old philosophers were wise when they said the beauty of one moment can undo the darkness of 10000 years. But so can the darkness of one moment, so know the demons you are struggling with are real, they are negative neural pathways in our heads. They don't just disappear when we've learned that they are wrong.
But if we are lucky, smart, strong, or just pigheaded, sneaky and stubborn, we can learn to recognize our demons, acknowledge them, even respect them in all their terribly seductive beauty and their fury. And then step past them, and get on with some kind of day.
They may never go away, but some of them we will tame, if only for a little while. We can hopefully turn them into butterflies, who remind us, like Death over our left shoulder whispering “None of this is forever” so do what you can, while you can and remember that the challenges we overcome, are part of the beauty of what it is to be alive. Stay alive.

Flossing might save the World

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 08:15:00 -0800

All of our wonderful technologies can't save us without a clear moral tool box for making the right decisions.

Advances in green technology make equitable choices easier - if we can bring electricity to new places while not enslaving the 'beneficiaries' then that changes the trajectory of human civilization - it tilts our searing landscape towards progress - but without the inner technologies - the ethical systems, philosophical rigour of acting justly - taking full responsibily for the consequences of our lifestyles and actions, they are useless.

'Humanity has all the technology it needs to live justly and sustainably'
The only technology humanity needs to live in peace is a stronger moral compass. If we all took 20 minutes a day to study philosophy or meditate - to quiet the fears and anxieties that drive our greed and selfishness, we could look around and see: oh we can stop climate change while redistributing wealth, strengthening democracy, and lifting billions out of poverty. The wellness of my neighbour directly increases my own health and safety and liberates all the resources spent on wars to lift humanity out of scrabbling and fighting in the dirt and upwards towards the stars.

Each of us needs to stare Death in the teeth, and floss. We're going to die, but we won't live in Fear, and when we pass it will be with a full set of chompers.

(image from Ottawa Dental Care)
So do not give into Fear. Know that we already possess the tools to build a better world and the moral, philosophical and spiritual systems to use them. And then act righteously.

Know that if you spend money on vanities we see you are insecure.

If you feel the need to dominate it's because you are too afraid to submit yourself to a higher purpose.

That humility, gratitude and effort opens yourself to life everlasting.

That anyone who has learned to not live in Fear has already found Heaven and immortality.

So stop being an asshole - we're all douchebags, from time to time, but we know we can do better.

Divided we fall? Does Regenerative Agriculture need a good dose of Marketing?

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 10:58:00 -0800

What if human civilization was wiped out because ‘Permaculture’ was a weird word?

What if the atmosphere of the planet burns off into space because the people who did know what needed to be done were squabbling over what to call doing it?

I am a babe in the Permaculture food forest woods – like some of you, I’ve always been interested in the natural world, came across Geoff Lawton’s videos, and ended up taking the Online 2014 Permaculture Design Course.

I’ve done my design, tried to explain Permaculture to a lot of people, and followed a lot of like minded groups on Facebook and other places.

And then was struck by the fact that as confusing a word as ‘Permaculture’ is – there’s about twenty other words, than mean almost the same thing.

Restorarion agriculture? Regrarianism? Agroforestry? Beyond Organic? Silvoculture? Agroecology? Biodynamic? The Amish version: Advancing Eco Agriculture. The list goes on and on. And these are only SOME of the English ones…

To reach the tipping point Geoff Lawton talks about for sustainable agricultural and food growing practices to go mainstream it would help if we could simplify the message.

In looking up the origins of these various strands of sustainable food growing systems I had to revisit the three ethics of Permaculture, which, as a newcomer, I’m not proud to admit I’d forgotten about.

Earth Care, People Care and Return of Surplus.

Earth Care – that the systems we design should not harm the Earth, but rather help all living systems.

People care – that our systems are designed to feed people, AND to provide safe, healthy places to live and meaningful lives within them…

And Return of Surplus – that in order to care for the Earth and it’s people, we must constantly return energy and materials to the environment to allow it to gain in fertility and abundance.

Now these ethics do distinguish Permaculture from similar, strictly technical food growing systems – but they are also a little hard to explain, and unfortunately, not something everyone is able to accept.

To my mind the overarching theme that unites permaculture and other sustainable food growing systems is: “Feeding people without harming the planet”. Already there’s an obstacle here for going mainstream because a lot of people don’t believe that industrial agriculture IS harming the planet. And like it or not, we may never convince them otherwise.

If our primary goal is keeping the Earth liveable, we might just need a little marketing to reach a wider audience.

And part of that work, might make a few people very uncomfortable.

We might have to set aside some of what is so near and dear to us about the ethical foundations of permaculture, in order to reach people who quite frankly philosophically and constitutively will never proactively accept people care and earth care as the same moral imperatives that we do.

In talking to a friend about the urgency of action on climate change to help people in countries at risk his response was: “But I have enough trouble caring about other Canadians”. And he’s a very nice guy. Generous, caring, etc.
So how can we get these people onside?
How about money?
If we can demonstrate that sustainable food growing systems are more profitable than business as usual, well then a whole extra tranche of people might suddenly become interested.

I know a lot of people will object to this, arguing, rightly to my way of thinking but not to everybody’s, that the pursuit of profits at all cost has gotten us into this mess.

And I will admit I’ve not thought about this long enough to think through all of the repercussions of what I’m proposing. I’m hoping this will trigger a debate on what I do think is a fundamental challenge to shift people towards sustainable food growing systems to avert environmental catastrophe.

We don’t all share the same motivations. The ethical motivations that attract some of us to permaculture might actual repel others from coming on board. “Too hippy, communist, etc.”

So what do you think?

Of naive Liberals and repulsive Conservatives

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 07:56:00 -0700

A conservative can no more help being repulsed by chaos and disorder than a liberal can inevitably fail to underestimate human perfidy. They are cognitive biases. Demonstrable tendencies to see the world in certain ways.

We all have them - they have likely been selected for by evolution and to some extent are inescapable.

But - a little self knowledge is a powerful thing.

Knowing our own biases, we can actively practice reassessing our first impressions. I need to actively rein in my desire to please everyone in order to conserve enough energy and resources for my immediate social group. I need to question my tendency to trust and think the best of people, with the reality that some people are selfish and take advantage. It is a rosy pair of glasses I get to wear, and I've told myself endless stories about how wonderful I am for finding everyone so swell, but it's a predisposition and no more 'accurate' than it's opposite.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

We would all do well to understand our differences, and to respect them - because they have likely proved useful in the past.

The conservative who is repulsed by the unknown is less likely to eat a strange fruit that may or may not be poisonous. And that cautionary instinct probably saved many of each of our ancestors.

The liberal who seeks to please strangers likely helped someone who ended up being of great assistance to the propagation of the liberal's genome.

It's life's rich pageant. Like every great cliche, the value of listening and trying to understand the opinions of others, is immensely adaptive. We each see the world in unique, yet statistically demonstrably common ways, and recognizing our blind spots - recognizing when and how we disagree, gives us access to contexts and perspectives that help us make better decisions.

Neil de Grasse Tyson and the Dangers of Philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 13 May 2014 07:08:00 -0700

The NdGT controversy I think comes down to the question of thinking versus acting. Of determining some form of balance

Neil de Grasse Tyson recently made some comments that have been interpreted as saying 'philosophy is useless' -- as a man of want to be action, usually navel gazing, I didn't look too deeply at them, but rushed instead to form an opinion.

I did in fact read part of a transcript from the nerdist here (I think) and thought NdGT's comments were not out of line.

They come down to the existential dilemma we face every day. Acting without thinking versus thinking without acting -- and how we must each find a liveable balance between the two.

For years I made the joke about how hard it is to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning because we're all going to die.

Which is an extreme form of 'where do I turn my spade?' - which was the phrase used in some philosophy course I took. When do I stop questioning and just do something?

Where we fall on the gradient between active and introspective is likely the usual combination of genetic and cultural influences. Look at some identical twins separated at birth raised in different cultures and see how they score.

I believe NdgT's point was that you don't want to spend your entire life 'just thinking'. Or just introspecting. He seems to have been saying that scientists look at the world 'out there' and see endless questions that they may be able to find answers to.

I know that I'm prone to doing ALOT of introspection, but over the years I've had help identifying some of the times when you need to get your head out of your ass and look around. Negative introspection, when you keep telling yourself bad things about yourself. Throw up a flag, and consciously change what you're thinking/doing. Endlessly pondering a decision - at some point you have to weigh the cost of delaying a decision against the cost of making a wrong decision. And sometimes the decision is between two good things so there's little downside to EITHER! So you have to ask yourself - in these cases the SOONER I choose, the better. Procrastination - all the instances of challenges, like doing the dishes, where the amount of work won't change, but the amount of enjoyment of that work depends on when you do it. Doesn't mean you can do EVERYTHING right away, but it's a mental tool to remind yourself - hey, if I do that NOW, then I won't have to do it later.

Anyway - now I have to stop ruminating and work. But I think MAYBE NdGT's comments have been blown out of proportion, by peoples overthinking.

Patterns and Power Laws

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 6 May 2014 06:39:00 -0700

In Geoff Lawton's Permaculture design course a lot of participants had problems with the video on patterns.

In it, he asserts that in nature, most if not all patterns in a whole raft of phenomena (river sizes, relative bone lengths, etc) occur in between 5 and 9 orders of size. ie there's a recognizable and limited number of classes of sizes of the object.

I've started to attempt to explain my take on it. I think, like on the video about entropy, he's 'onto something' but missing some of the explanation. And as both entropy and natural patterns are such big topics - we observe the phenomena and really want a good explanation for it - they can't be glossed over.

Draft the first - on Patterns in nature:

Patterns and power laws

What I take away from this discussion of pattern is that it is as a heuristic, or rule of thumb, when we observe natural patterns that they often show between 5 and 9 orders of size.

It’s not a “law” but a useful tool to use while looking for patterns. “Many” natural patterns show between 5 and 9 orders of size, so see if you can spot between 5 and 9 orders of size, before concluding the pattern you are observing has fewer or greater orders of size.

As for the scientific and mathematical rigour of the assertion …

A quick search came up with two links that might help understand “why” natural systems do this.

1) examples of the Fibonacci sequence http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emat6680/parveen/fib_nature.htm

2) a description of rank-size distributions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank-size_distribution

From the description of rank-size Wikipedia says :

"(The) rule “works” because it is a “shadow” or coincidental measure of the true phenomenon.2 The true value of rank size is thus not as an accurate mathematical measure (since other power-law formulas are more accurate, especially at ranks lower than 10) but rather as a handy measure or “rule of thumb” to spot power laws."

Which I paraphrase as "many natural systems exhibit similar recurring patterns because they are following some power law relationship (in the mathematical sense) ie surface area increases as the square of the radius (radius “to the power of 2”) while volume increases as the cube of the radius (“to the power of 3”)

And because many natural systems must contend with these types of interactions – the two dimensional surface of water being pushed by wind that contains a three dimensional volume of liquid – similar patterns occur.

This is a good description of natural patterns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature

And one of the “reasons” these patterns occur is because they are either energy maximizing (in the case of the distribution of leaves to capture sunlight) or minimizing (spheres are the minimum surface area to contain a given volume)

Natural selections favours organisms that use energy most efficiently, and physical and chemical systems follow the least energetic path (I.e water rarely flows uphill and products of combustion rarely reassemble into reactants)

"Greening" the green movement

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 08:58:00 -0700

In order to revolutionize global agriculture and help save the planet, the green movement has to demonstrate how in the short term farming smarter will put money in your pocket.

-----

"La tendance est au desespoir"

It takes a not inconsiderable amount of energy to filter out the bad news and find the good. Lately, faced with the seemingly relentless stream of catastrophic climate change reports, political ass-hatitude, etc, I began actively seeking out good news to, you know, curtail my drinking.

I had been following the Permaculture Research Institute's email newsletter for awhile, and when they started pushing their online permaculture design course I looked into it.

Permaculture is a term coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978.

"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system." - Bill Mollison [Mollison, B. (1991). Introduction to permaculture. Tasmania, Australia: Tagari.]

It's a tricky term to explain and needs some better branding.

In essence it is about designing systems to feed and support humans using natural processes that are self-regenerating and increase system fertility and productivity.

Farming smarter. Or S.M.A.R.T.E.R Farming - Sustainably Maximizing Agricultural Returns Through Ecological Resiliency. (I'm not so much a marketing guy...)

Modern industrial farming is very good at maximizing crop yields through the intensive application of chemical and mechanical inputs. i.e we throw a shit tonne of fertilizer and machines at a single species at a time and maximize it's yield per acre.

It works, it's allowed the world's population to explode, but it's carbon intensive and sucks fertility from the soil. As long as there's ever more land to farm, and fossil fuel in the form of fertilizer, diesel, etc, to throw at it, it "works".

But as arable land becomes scarce or impoverished, the costs of fuel and fertilizer rise, and the impacts of climate change increase, the tenuousness and fragility of stretching a few crop species to their limits become apparent.

Like a race car or professional athlete, you can achieve incredible things by pushing your capacities to the limits, but the risk of catastrophic failure or debilitating injury increase.

Minor perturbations can cause massive disruptions and almost everyone not being paid not to, agree we're in store for a few of those.

Now permaculture, and the various other names it goes under - regenerative organic agriculture [ used by Tom Newman and others, The Carbon Underground ], etc. create systems whose aim is to maximize yield and increase fertility through the intelligent design of interconnected ecological processes.

Every element in the system has many functions, and every function is supported by many elements. i.e if one part fails, other elements pick up the slack.

You maximize yield and fertility by acre by recycling all the resources available to the system - sun, water, wind, animal, vegetable and human waste streams etc, as many times as possible.

It's taking the most efficient energy and material converting processes on the planet - living systems, and arranging them to best serve our needs.

By returning sufficient organic material to the system, it builds resilience and increases yield with only the fertilization the system naturally provides.

...

I've fallen into the same trap I was hoping to avoid - telling people about the science instead of showing people the money.

In order for this "better" way to farm to be adopted, a number of options are open.

1) through force and coercion - people mount bloody revolutions or get their governments to enact policies that require better farming practices.

Not super likely.

2) grassroots activism and education - by spreading the good word, greenies enlist support and win over people to their cause

Generational - it's perhaps 'happening', but slowly

3) Money - Permaculture and regenerative organic farmers open their books and show the world how profitable smart farming can be.

While some of 1 may unfortunately occur, and some of 2 is to be applauded, "liked" and "shared" until our slacktivist clicking fingers are calloused and bloody, 3 - to me - is what could turn another "good idea" into reality.

If we can demonstrate, through audited financial statements showing yields per investment of time and money, that Smart Farming is better - everyone will jump on board.

If we can show small hold farmers all over the world that current industrial methods are expensive and impoverish the soil, while ecologically sound farming is cheap and produces greater yields, well then we're off to the races.

And I think this is the way forward.

As long as permaculture remains something we "should" do, or "could" do because it is "better" - it requires individuals to exert themselves to do it - either willingly, out of conviction, or reluctantly because they are coerced to do so.

But if the business case can be made - under current legislative regimes as overturning vested industrial agricultural interests will take some doing, then people will adopt these practices in droves.

It's a lot like exercise, eating healthily, tracking your budget. We can "know" they're good for us, but until we experience it for ourselves or see their positive impacts directly in others, it's just more shit we ought to do. Governments and proselytizers can encourage us, but the cheapest positive action is the one we take freely by ourselves.

So smart farmers - open your books, and show the world the "green" way forward.

Farming 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 09:52:00 -0700

I'm taking an online course on Permaculture with Geoff Lawton and the Permaculture research institute out of Australia. I've been trying to come up with an easy way to explain it. Here's a few that I've seen and a few I've tried to come up with.

Permaculture - an easy definition

Ecology, applied
Ecological Architecture
Life support systems
Abundance by design
The Design of Abundant Ecosystems for Humans

---------------

For 8000 years we've tried to extract the maximum food from our environment through pushing natural systems up to and beyond their breaking points. Using energy intensive chemical fertilizers, genetically modified organisms and pest controls, and relentlessly specialized crop and animal breeding programmes, we have created farming methods that are highly productive but environmentally unsustainable and dangerously unresilient.

Built on cheap energy and an ever expanding agricultural land base, we are now faced with fossil fuel driven climate change and a degraded stock of fertile territory. Business as usual will drive us off a cliff.

It's time for a reboot.

The aim of permaculture is to create abundance through ecosystem management and design. To feed and care for people through the intelligent optimization of natural systems via ever increasing soil fertility and biological interactions.

It's like harnessing "the power of compound interest" for your farm or garden.

Living systems remain the most powerful energy harvesters known.

Through the application of careful design principles, food systems have been developed that can radically increase the productivity of almost any area. By maximizing energy and resource usage and beneficial interactions within the system and reinvesting surplus biological materials and energy into the system future fertility and productivity is increased.

Resilient and robust, these systems favour complex self-reinforcing biological, energetic and chemical interactions, whereby every element fulfils multiple functions and supplies multiple products for use within the system and for the humans relying upon it.

As the web of interactions is dense, the system is dynamically responsive to outside perturbations such as extreme weather or pests, all the while building increasing fertility and productivity through the constant "reinvestment" of materials into the system.

By working to reinforce natural systems instead of attempting to exploit them for short term, unsustainable gain, more people can be fed with less land while drawing more carbon out of the atmosphere.

And by fostering dispersed, redundant, self-sufficient ways of feeding ourselves, we increase food security and empower citizens to make positive changes both for themselves and for the planet.

Life is order, entropy is chaos

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 20:55:00 -0700

Life is order. Entropy is chaos.

Life exists because it is more stable than random chemical elements heated by the sun.

Individual elements like oxygen and hydrogen gas (O2 and H2) tend to combine into water and release energy - under most terrestrial conditions water is more stable than the elements in their molecular forms.

Life exists because the chemistry of elements combining into molecules thermodynamically favoured a level of complexity where biological systems emerged with the property of being able to reproduce themselves.

Life uses energy to maintain order for a time, before returning it to the universe as heat.

The more life in a system, the less heat. While the sun shines relatively constantly on the planet, the more life there is, the more of that energy is captured and stored in biological structures, rather than simply heating the planet or bouncing back into space.

When a drop of water falls on a hillside it is carrying the energy from the sun that allowed it to evaporate into the atmosphere before condensing into a droplet and transferring that now kinetic energy to the hillside. It can either transfer some of that energy into biological systems, increasing order, physical systems by shaping the landscape via erosion, or release it's energy as the from friction as it rolls down the hill.

Grow Hope

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Wed, 9 Apr 2014 00:23:00 -0700

Inspired most recently by Shawn Atleo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dO5b_h7El6s

Shame on you for letting fear and greed into your heart. For thinking you could save yourself while others perish. Wilful ignorance, actively ignoring what you want not to be true is the ultimate cowardice, and through its practice you forfeit your dignity and self respect.

The path of evil knows no limit, no depravity becomes unimaginable, no excuse too banal. By ignoring the unpleasant you become as much it's cause as it's originator, sins of omission are a commitment to pretending to be blind.

There's a dead heat going on between climate change and adaptation; mitigation and demonstrating best practices are our ethical imperatives. The test of our times. Until you know you are leaving the world better than you found it, your path is clear - foster order, build complexity, lower entropy in all it's forms.

Grow - leave more life on the planet than when you joined it. Draw carbon out of the air and back into the earth. Waiting is petulance. Learn what living systems are around you and feed them. And in growing life you will feed your soul.

Il y a du place en mass dans mon jacuzzi - Quebec Election 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 8 Apr 2014 08:00:00 -0700

[I was going to link to Gens du Pays on You Tube, but the nastiness of the comment thread stopped me, I don't what to stir that pot...we need each other too much. So I went with Radio Radio]

It's time progressive Quebeckers start showing the world a better way forward.

The awful Quebec election that saw ugly nationalistic and cultural divisions flare up in a way we'd not see in almost two decades is over with a massive Liberal Majority and the all but collapse of the Parti Quebecois.

Pauline Marois and her advisers took Quebeckers down a dark path and she's been served her head. Thirty years of public service will now be forgotten.

I really didn't like her, I thought her fanning the flames of ethnic nationalism was evil, her arrogance revolting.

But I'm a progressive. And a federalist. And while I'm proud Quebeckers rejected this incarnation of the Quebec nationalist dream, Liberal business as usual is not acceptable and the question of federalism vs separatism, living together or living apart needs to be addressed head on. It's not going to go away and to let it fester is a recipe for disaster.

So there's work to be done on the ground.

I'm lucky - I live in Montreal in the middle of Projet Montreal and Quebec Solidaire territory. It's a bit like Fantasy Island

(google it, younguns) - a mixture of successional immigrant communities, artists and professionals. People inclined to try out new ideas.

I worry sometimes that it's an artificial island - that our collective good fortune makes our situation so different from other communities that initiatives that work here are not translatable elsewhere.

But you work with what you have.

I feel it's time to redouble our efforts to demonstrate what a vibrant, ecologically sound, culturally inclusive and politically engaged community looks like. What is possible.

The number of individuals and groups doing inspiring things is growing all the time. I've not started a local list, but I've started a global one. A jumping off point for hope for the future.

This election is a clarion call for action. Divisiveness leaves us weakened, and individuals and groups licking their wounds are not capable of taking the kinds of actions all human societies need to to confront the challenges of the 21st century.

So get planting, building, renovating, teaching, learning, playing together, whatever - find something to keep moving forward. Grow a garden on your balcony, do stand up at a senior's centre. And do not despair.

Practicing Gratitude and the need to take Action - Signing up for Permaculture Design Course

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Fri, 4 Apr 2014 10:03:00 -0700

(I've signed up for a Permaculture Design Course - check out their website for hope for the future)

Sure we tell ourselves stories, rationalize our choices, on a good day with ourselves the heroes. But I can trace a story that goes back to 121-43 Buell street - in grade four or five. When I made a rainforest in a blue tupperware that I wanted to enclose. A perpetual motion machine. I can't remember where the idea came from - maybe skylab or something in the space programme. It could have been Cosmos - I'll check the dates - but I got excited about the idea of a homeostatic (not my words at the time) self-contained system. Life everlasting. Those are Verna's words, speaking of her progeny...

The maple tree I picked out of Hampton park and planted in the tupperware is today in my parents' backyard. Taller than the house. The tupperware, knowing Dad, might still be kicking around - I'll adopt it if it is...but the story is:

I love life.

The process of life - and early today I got to thinking: there are two tendencies in the Universe - Order and Chaos. Life arises when the raw elements of the Universe combine, randomly, in ways that decrease Chaos and capture energy. Molecules arise because two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms are more stable together than apart. And the properties of chemistry - how molecules interact - emerge from this greater stability.

2H2 + O2 = 2H2O + ENERGY (572 kJ)

[origin of life animations]

And so - completely just because - because elements combine into molecules, and molecules combine into polymers, or minerals, and polymers and minerals and molecules and atom interact in ways that increase order and release energy, to the point where collections of inorganic materials find themselves contained in micro-environments that make their continued replication, locomotion, reactivity, [the other defining characteristics of life] inevitable.

Which leads to us who are able to stand slack jawed at the wonder of it all. At least for a few hundred thousand years until we start teasing out how some of it all works, and we realize our responsibility to choose. Do we create Order or wallow in Chaos?

Morning Robot Flight of Fancy

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Thu, 3 Apr 2014 09:41:00 -0700

So when you get the chance, day dream.

Found myself watching 5 year old playing with Zoob Blocks by Infinitoy. (affiliate links to Amazon ... Infinitoy Zoob Basic Set, 500 - Piece) The 3 yo was on lockdown for hitting so he had a few minutes to get ambitious.

Watching as he built a long robot arm I got to dreaming - wouldn't it be cool if it WAS a long robot arm? How would it work? You'd need motors in the socket that would spin the ball, just X and Y directions. You'd need some way to hold a position so grasping motors on either side.

Then why not make the stem a hydraulic piston so it can expand and contract?

How would you power it? Either each unit would have its own rechargeable power source or you'd have to wire them together in some way that wouldn't get tangled...either conducting through the balls and sockets or...?

And to control it? Each element would need a way to receive instructions - perhaps a firmware chip of some sort?

And I went off like that for awhile - just dreaming. The kind of dreaming you don't often get a chance to pursue. Now later I can look up actual roboticists doing such things, but today, a day off - with work lined up (otherwise I'd be the fretful unemployed) - I just went for it.

And did a little photoshop.

These are awesome toys - I've posted amazon affiliate links if you'd like to buy one, and kick something back.

or

One App to Rule them all and in the Day light bind us.

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 1 Apr 2014 12:30:00 -0700

{I know things like this are out there - please send links to the best...}

Our fragile little egos need attention. Sure we can aspire to zen detachment and transcendence, but in the meanwhile perhaps we can take a page from Facebook and Twitter, and capture this need in more constructive ways than likes and shares?

Like microdonations - ways to transfer money to charitable causes easily instead of indulging in an expensive latte or sugary treat? Little feedback mechanisms that let us brag about giving money, encouraging others to do so, while also pursuing some personal goal of not overeating, affecting a career change, etc.

[And it's got to be easy...like one click shopping easy...the tech exists for Amazon and iTunes, twice in the past 48 hours I was about to donate but it was X clicks too far. I was about to join the Green Party but then my info got deleted when I selected PayPal...if it's easy, it will take in WAY more money.]

A sponsorship system - we set ourselves a fitness or similar goal and collect sponsors who will donate to some cause as we work towards it. A way of offering support and encouragement to people living with disease or other challenges? Like metres for millions or readathons, but online and Facebook social.

Perhaps there's some system where we can elect a group of friends to vote on what goal we should pursue and then sponsor our pursuing it? Like submitting our top three goals for the opinions of others, then if we accept their verdict, we go for it?

LifeCoach the App - combining the need for external motivation and feedback, with social reinforcement...

The 'Hidden' Web - Mitch Joel on the Private Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:02:00 -0700

Mitch Joel gave an interesting talk on the ’hidden’ web at Creative Morning Montreal's March 28, 2014 event.

How a new batch of apps are offering privacy and the promise of impermanence. Snapchat, cyber dust , secret ...Cloak a reaction or antidote to our over publicized Facebook lives.

The kids are of course leading the way not wanting parents to pry etc. My first thoughts went to cyber bullying, and other nastiness, but it's not like that's not already happening.

His business is marketing, and the business takeaway is that privacy and 'hiding' is booming. It was very interesting. He's an accomplished speaker, relaxed, funny. Steve Jobs in a sports jacket. He told the little anecdote that wasn't an anecdote - about seeing a guy looking at Buckingham Palace under an umbrella wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, that has nothing to do with the presentation, other than that it's a slide, and the presentation is about anonymity...and got everyone laughing.

The hidden web - (not even the dark web where the real action no doubt is) it's all around us. Not surprising that people are starting to push back - looking for alleged anonymity after Facebook got over run by parents and uncles.

I wanted to ask about Luddites. How there will be increasing numbers of people who reject technology or never had any to begin with. What will their world look like? How will they communicate? Who will market to them?

Hand delivered cards? Telegrams? Messengers waiting for the message to be destroyed? Sin eaters? People who have taken vows of silence available to hear confessions for a fee? Like 'Brick' I expect the hipsters will soon be at least publicly entirely offline....

And how will our personas evolve? How predictable will our profiles be and how good will algorithms get at guessing what's between the lines? What will the psychic costs be of maintaining uber public (Facebook etc) and private personas? Will we get confused? Hell, managing more than one Twitter account almost gave me an embollism...

He mentioned how Facebook had guessed his high school, the sophistication of what we've already shared and what it says about us.

Will there be cleaners? Hackers skilled at erasing our tracks? Or will we just stop caring? Oh yeah, that's me, when I had a thing for sheep...

So 'chapeau Monsieur' - and thanks to the organizers and everyone who came out. What will the future hold? Will the genie ever go back into the bottle? I think more people will start to turn off, but then again I saw my first glasshole ....

Playback Online: You Tube Announces Canadian Collab Partners FEATURING @beavercanuck and @werytube

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 06:21:00 -0800

An article today in Playback Online's New publication for You Tube Partners Canadian Collab program. Featuring
a mention for WeAreYTube and links to BeaverCanuck's You Tube.

Beaver Canuck and We R Y Tube collaboration getting You Tube support

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 13:58:00 -0800

Beaver Canuck vs Stephen Harper

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 08:13:00 -0800

Check out Beaver Canuck's updated You Tube channel as he searches for Beavette and seeks vengeance against Stephen Harper

watch the process of updating the teaser trailer and artwork here

You won't believe what this Beaver wants for Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 11:07:00 -0800

@Beavercanuck's home was destroyed by oil sands

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 10:58:00 -0800

Listen to a story of a man named Steve SONG

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Mon, 2 Dec 2013 18:36:00 -0800

"Listen to a story of a man named Steve

Cut down a forest made a hobo out of the Beav

Spent all his life in the service of big oil

Doesn't give a French seal which makes my blood boil

What the ph....

Aimee Davison provided the voice of Beavette, and Scott Ryan provided the music and vocals.

Deb Grey is featured holding her autobiography "Mein Kramps"... And the young Steve Harper is shown attending the Wild Rose Public School. I've always found the name of this particular brand of right wing zealotry funny as I once interviewed at Wild Rose Productions...I wonder if there's any official connection?

The episode occurs after Happy Forest has been destroyed by tar sands development and it's the first we learn that Beavette was not killed by heavy machinery. She's clearly distraught, so we don't know if she lost the babies.

Working on the Jazz Amnesty Sound System Jazz Mass Movie

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 07:48:00 -0800

The week it was...

I probably *should* be looking for work. But instead, I'm working. Working on a project I've been calling my TOHOE in my SOHO - triumph of hope over experience in my small office/home office. It's a movie about a 'Jazz Mass' put on by Jazz Amnesty Sound System. My friends Andy Williams and Lew Braden, two DJs, who hosted 'the jazz illuminati' of Montreal to come and jam in St John the Evangelist's church while they 'conducted' from their turn tables.

You can watch the teaser here…

The genesis of the project was Lew asking me to help them film a demo of the event. I asked Bruno Goulard to help me with it and he encouraged me to shoot a little higher. So he brought together a professional crew and we shot a multi-camera live event, with multi track audio. So, you know, we got something.

Now we 'just' need to turn it into a movie. Editing, more interviews, etc. It's going to require some resources.

And it won't happen overnight.

So I AM looking for work - if you know of anything in the writing/directing/editing vein please get in touch (hepworks@gmail.com).

If you know anything about financing also GET IN TOUCH!

And stay tuned...

Related Posts:

Jazz Mass Questions
Jazz Mass Backstory
What is Art?

Jazz mass

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 09:30:00 -0700

I want to primarily bear witness to the event - capture the moments as they naturally occur.

But our presence will influence the participants

I am interested in the artistic impulse - the many reasons for making music, and in this case jazz.

Are the roots of jazz important?

Was jazz born from oppression?

Did jazz provide succour?

What is it about jazz that raises your spirits?

Does jazz offer something that other forms of spiritual music lack or does it expand and build upon other traditions?

What are the mechanics of jazz? What's a blue note? Syncopation? Swung note?

What does it mean if it doesn't have that swing?

Improvisation is central to jazz - so can a DJ play jazz?

JJ Johnson “jazz is restless, it won't stay put and it never will”

Can anyone learn to play jazz or will certain personalities never be able to handle it?

Jazz can challenge the musically less sophisticated - but at some point isn't the risk of pushing the form too far that it becomes noise?

What is art? An off the cuff approximation

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 17:53:00 -0700

What is art and why does it matter?

There's a great tension amongst many “artists” - between making what they want and need to make, and earning money. Inara Moloney, paraphrasing Aristotle often said “the good is what we do for its own sake” - and so, art.

We are living in difficult times. The “values” of our civilization are seemingly so confused, so short sighted, that people from all walks of life feel the psychic and spiritual disconnect between that which the market rewards, and that which has lasting value.

As humans - whose lives are short - it's hard to create a culture that values planning for anything approximating the long term - it's hard enough not over eating, over indulging, grasping the easy, greedy, wins, no matter the costs.

And so art -

Jumping ahead here as the preamble is not the punch line.

To make good art - to build a culture - is to strive for a form of immortality.

That's only part of it.

To aspire to beauty - even when it's ephemeral - perhaps especially when it's ephemeral - is to attempt to reflect into the world some iteration of our cosmic dance. To strive for grace -

Transcendence - as I understand it - is the acceptance of this short time we have for a gift of infinite beauty that can be fully appreciated in an instant. It is gratitude in the face of oblivion.

It is the painful awareness of our mortality that makes us rage to make each instant worthwhile. The beauty of each moment can be hard to take if we don't have some way of accepting and indeed revelling in the fact it might be our last.

And there are many paths that can take us there.

Our species is young - we are adolescents, childless, raging our way across this planet, and running fatally into each other, our own limits, and the bounded reality of the biosphere. We don't know, and we are very worried, to see what the future holds. Will our current problems be solved by some as yet undiscovered technologies? Or are the tensions mounting in the system - overpopulation, resource scarcity, environmental degradation - going to lead us to apocalypse?

These tensions fill us with fear, and fearful humans seek certainty, a sense of security, some inkling of being in control. So we turn tribal at times - reducing complex challenges into “us” vs “them”...

But we also seek communion and community. We love to be listened to, valued...our experiences are validated by a sympathetic ear.

I believe the impulse to art is this attempt to find connection. To overcome the fear of suffering and dying alone. There are few burdens not lessened by being shared.

Jazz images

noreply@blogger.com (Not Without My Slippers) — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 20:51:00 -0700

In no particular order some jazz images in preparation for the J.A.S.S. mass...

And their thematic arrangement at the end