What we find changes who we become...

Recycler vos filtres Brita gratuitement

2011-11-02T21:27:00.003-04:00

Premièrement, avant même de recycler un objet, faut se questionner sur la relative nécessité de consommer l'objet lui-même. Je le mentionne car que n'ai jamais considéré un pichet Brita comme étant nécessaire... jusqu'à temps que je reçoive une missive de la Ville de Montréal nous informant que nous étions dans un quartier où les vieilles canalisations font en sorte que sont fortement recommandées les filtres pour eau potable dans les logis où se retrouve une femme enceinte ou allaitante. C'est notre cas depuis plus de 4 ans maintenant.

Donc si vous avez des filtres Brita chez vous, quoi faire avec s'ils dépassent la limite de leur durée de vie théorique ? Continuer à les utiliser ! Ok ok... juste un petit peu, disons, un ou deux mois de plus ? Du moins, c'est ce que je suggère, car je présume, peut-être à tort, que ces 'durées de vie' sont trop conservatrices.

Ok, mais après ? Au lieu de les jeter, nous avons une solution assez simple... le service gratuit de recyclage de filtres Brita ! Suffit de mettre les filtres dans une boite, imprimer et accoler l'étiquette d'expédition et mettre le tout à la poste. Tadam !

Quand même bien qu'une compagnie paye pour le recyclage de leurs produits, c'est malheureusement pas assez souvent le cas ! (en fait ça pourrait même être une obligation légale, mais ça, c'est une autre histoire)

Stressant la garderie ? Non !

2011-09-18T11:21:00.000-04:00

J'ai lu l'hiver dernier Par amour du stress du Dr. Sonia Lupien, que j'ai adoré, recommande et dont j'ai l'intention d'écrire un court résumé (ça devra attendre puisque j'ai passé celui-ci à un copain cet été). Cette lecture m'a menée vers le Mammouth-Magazine et plus spécifiquement leur numéro sur les enfants et le stress de la garderie, et l'analyse du livre "Le bébé et l'eau du bain" [pdf].

Pour les parents parmi vous dont les enfants sont ou vont être à la garderie, c'est une lecture très pertinente. Les conclusions que je fais de ces lectures sont les suivantes : la garderie n'est pas un stress pour les enfants, et constitue même plutôt un environnement et des expériences permettant à terme de réduire le stress des enfants pour la poursuite de leur développement.

Un des articles de ce numéro du Mammouth Magazine détruit efficacement les thèses du livre "Le bébé et l'eau du bain", car l'article montre à quel point les auteurs du livre du Dr. Chicoine et Mme Collard ont mal interprété les études scientifiques qu'ils citent. On se retrouve devant un beau cas des problèmes engendrés par la facilité de nos jours d'écrire n'importe quoi et de se faire publier, et pire, même d'avoir du succès à propager des analyses incomplètes ou parfois carrément erronées.

Book review: The Spirit Level - Why Equality is Better for Everyone

2011-08-01T15:51:00.000-04:00

Over a year ago I read the book "The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone" but it's only today I take the time to share my thoughts about it.

First, it's clearly a book anyone should read because of the importance of its conclusions. Some of those conclusions are probably wrong, but the core of them are probably right and it's serious work on a crucial topic for the future of our civilization. Sadly, the book has one major flaw: it's boring. Some writers have succeeded in writing about arid stuff in an engaging and exciting way. They haven't. That said, yes yes, read the book, or at least read the Wikipedia article about it:

The book argues that there are "pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, (and) encouraging excessive consumption". It claims that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment,obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.

And the first review on Wikipedia:

In a review for Nature, Michael Sargent said that The Spirit Level used "statistics from reputable independent sources" and was "a brave and imaginative effort to understand the intractable social problems that face rich democratic countries". He also noted that “The idea that income inequality within a society is more unsettling to health and welfare than income differences between societies has been hotly debated for more than two decades. In the past year alone [2009], six academic analyses have been published in peer-reviewed journals, four of which contradict the hypothesis on statistical grounds. Yet Wilkinson and Pickett do not address these criticisms in their book”. He went on to say, "How can inequality affect such a diverse set of social problems so profoundly? The authors make a compelling case that the key is neuroendocrinological stress, provoked by a perception that others enjoy a higher status than oneself, undermining self-esteem".

This book generated plenty of discussions and more research. If you want to dive deeper, you'll find a lot of documentation on The Equality Trust website.

And because you're probably curious to see how your own country fares, see this list of countries by inequality-adjusted HDI.

Chercher le courant : Hydro-Québec néglige les autres sources d'énergie ?

2011-02-20T12:22:00.002-05:00

La thèse émise par l'excellent documentaire "Chercher le courant" va comme suit : les nouveaux projets hydroélectriques d'Hydro-Québec, en commençant par le Projet de la Romaine en cours de construction, vont générer de l'électricité plus dispendieuse et dommageable pour l'environnement que de nombreuses alternatives.

Pour n'importe quelle situation, pouvoir jouir des multiples côtés de la médaille est nécessaire afin d'atteindre une compréhension la plus complète possible. Hydro-Québec a réagit dans un communiqué nommé "Chercher le courant : Hydro-Québec rétablit les faits". Ce communiqué explique et justifie en partie la pertinence de poursuivre le développement du potentiel hydroélectrique du Québec. Par contre, ce même communiqué semble avoir bien des trous et n'offre certainement pas toutes les réponses aux questions soulevées dans le documentaire. De plus, certaines portions du communiqué m'apparaissent trompeuses. Par exemple, dans le court paragraphe sur l'énergie solaire du communiqué, il est question uniquement d'énergie solaire photovoltaïque, alors que le documentaire se concentre clairement sur l'énergie solaire passive et thermique. Pourquoi le communiqué d'Hydro-Québec cherche-t-il à me mener sur une fausse route ? Même si certains chiffres avancés dans le documentaire ne sont pas tout à fait justes, j'ai bien l'impression que plusieurs des conclusions auxquelles ils arrivent demeurent valides : on doit considérer plus sérieusement les alternatives potentiellement plus rentables et moins dommageables pour l'environnement.

Pourquoi Hydro-Québec négligerait-il les énergies renouvelables ou tout simplement l'économie d'énergie au profit de nouveaux projets hydro-électriques moins rentables ? Le documentaire évoque les puissants lobbys. Avec les histoires récentes autour de la corruption omniprésente dans le milieu de la construction au Québec, c'est facile de croire à une influence indue des lobbys de la construction des projets hydroélectriques.

À peine revenu à Montréal, mon épouse m'a amené au cinéma hier après-midi pour visionner 'Chercher le courant'. N'ayant toujours pas de télé, je suis quand même bien content de savoir que le film sera au menu de la populaire émission "Tout le monde en parle" ce soir. Peut-être le débat social sur les priorités du développement énergétique au Québec prendra de l'ampleur ? D'ailleurs, Roy Dupuis et Nicolas Boisclair, parmi les chefs d'orchestres du documentaire, ont été interviewés par René Homier-Roy à "C'est bien meilleur le matin". L'entrevue de 10 minutes est disponible sur le site de Radio-Canada.

Un documentaire à voir et à débattre.

MISE À JOUR 2011/02/21 :
Un collègue de travail m'a informé aujourd'hui que l'équipe du documentaire a réagit aux communiqués d'Hydro-Québec, les voici : Hydro-Québec : le communiqué du 1er février est hors propos et Le gouvernement du Québec devrait mettre autant de vigueur dans la promotion et dans les incitatifs aux énergies vertes que Hydro-Québec met de créativité dans sa comptabilité. En jouant la carte de l'opacité au lieu de celle de la transparence, Hydro-Québec n'agit pas en sa faveur... Le Projet de la Romaine sera-t-il le premier grand projet hydroélectrique déficitaire et c'est les québécois qui paieront la note, comme l'affirme "Chercher le courant" ?!

Arithmetic, Population and Energy - A Must See Video

2010-12-29T12:03:00.000-05:00

Over a year ago, a friend invited me to watch some YouTube videos. The user that shared it audaciously named it "The most important video you'll ever see". I finally took the time to watch that 8-parts video, slightly over an hour long in total. This video won't tell you why you live, or what's your mission in life, but yes, it's my turn to strongly recommend it to you.

It's a course given by Dr. Albert A. Bartlett on "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy" at the University of Colorado. It clearly show why population growth and our energy consumption isn't sustainable, no matter how optimistic you are (I am optimistic, but I'm also a realist). The video explains the exponential function and why it applies to population and energy consumption. "Sustainable growth" is a contradiction. Real big changes are required. These changes will happen. Now the question is: do humans want to be part of the solution or simply endure the consequences?

Here are the 8 parts.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8:

Accouchement à domicile : deux faits étonnants

2010-11-28T10:28:00.000-05:00

Bien sûr, deux faits pris hors du contexte global sont sujets à être mal interprétés, cela dit, lors d'une lecture récente sur l'accouchement à domicile, je fus surpris de ces deux éléments :

De nombreuses études indique que "le taux de mortalité et de morbidité périnatales sont égaux ou légèrement inférieurs [lors d'accouchements] à domicile"
Aux Pays-Bas, une étude de 1996 indique qu'environ 31% des accouchements se déroulaient à domicile

Pour le premier fait, même si on pourrait croire "c'est aussi sécuritaire à la maison qu'à l'hôpital", ce n'est évidemment pas tout à fait le cas. Il faut comprendre qu'il s'agit d'accouchements à bas risques (le contexte de ces recherches), et que les accouchements potentiellement problématiques se déroulent à l'hôpital (e.g. jumeaux, présentation par le siège, état non-optimal de la mère ou du bébé). De plus, intéressant de savoir que les sages-femmes au Québec ont exactement la même formation que les médecins pour les volets des soins à la mère et au bébé lors de la naissance.

Pour le deuxième, je fus simplement surpris que presqu'un tiers des accouchements de ce pays se produise à la maison. Inimaginable ici !

Pour terminer, je ne peux m'empêcher de trouver paradoxal que la profession de sage-femme a été légalisé au Québec qu'en 1999. Alors qu'avant le milieu du 20ième siècle, les accouchements se déroulaient dans un contexte significativement différent de ce à quoi les parents de ma génération s'attendent pour eux-mêmes.

Gardasil: vaccin à éviter et les horreurs du pharma-marketing

2010-10-01T21:31:00.000-04:00

C'est quand je lis des articles comme celui-ci du Protégez-vous que je suis content d'avoir procédé à une vaccination différée et très sélective pour ma fille. L'article en question montre à quel point les mécanismes décisionnels de santé publique sont dysfonctionnels et que les victimes en sont nous tous (nous payons de nos impôts) et nos enfants. Attention, je ne suis pas du tout anti-vaccin, je suis pro-vérité et pro-décision informée et intelligente.

Je vous laisse lire l'article en question, en gros : vaccin très coûteux, efficacité non-démontrée, s'il est efficace, c'est seulement contre deux des nombreuses souches d'un cancer qui est généralement sans conséquence et qui peut être dépisté facilement (et ce vaccin ne réduit en rien la nécessité de dépistage du VPH), une campagne publicitaire pro-Gardasil financée par Merck et médecins payés pour en faire la promotion. Bref, comment pouvons-nous nous permettre cela?

Sur le même thème, voir mon court texte d'il y a 2 ans sur The Vaccine Book.

Review of 'The Hamster Revolution', or why mastering email matters

2010-08-12T08:33:00.006-04:00

You probably get and send at least 20 emails per work day, if so, this means you deal with over 5,000 emails per year, and if you're like me, you likely get much more emails than this. That's why it matters, and maybe even crucial, to take the time to enhance the methods you use to deal with email. And you know what? Most funny fact is that most of us never get any training on how to use and manage email. It is a wonderful and efficient way of communicating, but wrongly used, it can quickly become a burden and a source of dissatisfaction to you and your colleagues.

That's the main issue that "The Hamster Revolution: How to manage your email before it manages you" by Mike Song, Vicki Halsey and Tim Burress tries to hammer. In my opinion, the book fails to provide all the necessary ingredients to really improve how you manage emails, but it doesn't mean this book is useless or the topic isn't an important one, on the contrary. Despite my seemingly harsh critic, there are still very good concepts and suggestions in the book. The authors claim you can save weeks of your precious professional time every year by integrating their strategies into your workflow.

** The first strategy put forward by the book focuses on email quantity. In short, before sending an email, you have to answer a few questions related to whether an email is really needed (e.g. timely, relevant and complete), appropriate and targeted (carefully selecting recipients).

** The second strategy revolves around email quality. In short, subjects must be insightful and revealing, the body must clearly provide minimal background information and a summary of required actions, etc.

** The third strategy is about teaching and influencing your entourage to themselves send you better emails (quantity and quality).

** The fourth strategy is central to the book, and also its weakest part. This last strategy focuses on email organization and management. The authors claim their proposed COTA categorization scheme (COTA = Clients, Outputs, Team and Admin) is the one size fits all solution, while I believe it's actually one size fits none!

They clearly attempt to provide a solution tied to a single email software setup (namely MS Outlook), while not discussing the severe limitations of this software solution. Because of this, the powerfulness of some email software capabilities are not addressed at all, such as:

Instant intelligent email search results, such as provided by Spotlight
Smart folders (aka Saved search folders)
Email tags (aka labels), built in Gmail for example

Of course, you might end up not using smart folders or tags, but they may also become central to your preferred way of categorizing emails.

They oversee or ignore several elements of email management, providing little (in the annex) to no discussion on important issues such as:

Managing incoming emails and the inbox, classification of emails and items with required actions associated to it
Displaying emails as threads
Deleting emails, what to keep and what to delete (including in the sent mail folder)
IMAP vs POP3 email protocols: the main differences and why you should care which one you're using
Backing up emails
Plain text emails vs rich html emails
Addressbook: synchronization, smart groups, LDAP, tags, etc

I can't recommend the book because of the too many shortcomings, but this does not mean the topic isn't of major interest to our daily work, on the contrary! On the positive side, the book is short, only 106-pages and pleasant to read.

I don't think this book will significantly modify my own email workflow - it's already rather elaborate and I'm revisiting it regularly. Of course, I could dare claim that my email problems lie with my colleagues and relatives, not within my own way of doing things! ;-)

Related to the topic, you can read my previous review of 'Getting Things Done' and mention of 'Keeping Found Things Found'.

Radar météo et les partys d'été

2010-05-02T13:43:00.006-04:00

Petit truc pour les sorties à l'extérieur et une météo incertaine : les données de radar météo peuvent vous permettre de savoir si les orages et averses annoncés vous concernent ou non ! Utile pour savoir si on compte prendre le vélo, si on amène son parapluie, si on mange à l'intérieur ou l'extérieur, etc.

Le radar de McGill :

À l'échelle du Québec :

Naissances et pleine lune : c'est un mythe

2010-05-01T15:00:00.003-04:00

Lors d'une conversation entre amis, le fameux mythe des naissances plus nombreuses lors des pleines lunes est revenu sur la table. Mais est-ce bien un mythe ou est-ce actuellement vrai ? Après quelques lectures sur Internet, je me suis retrouvé sur Wikipedia qui offre une bonne quantité de références scientifiques et les conclusions de l'analyse de l'ensemble des études scientifiques réalisés à ce sujet sont très claires : il n'y aucune corrélation entre le nombre de naissances et le cycle de la lune.

Tiré de l'article wikipedia:

Psychologist Ivan Kelly of the University of Saskatchewan (with James Rotton and Roger Culver) did a meta-analysis of thirty-seven studies that examined relationships between the moon's four phases and human behavior. The meta-analysis revealed no correlation. They also checked twenty-three studies that had claimed to show correlation, and nearly half of these contained at least one statistical error.^[4] Kelly, Ronnie Martins, and Donald Saklofske evaluated twenty-one studies of births related to the phase of the moon and found no correlation. The scientific data "supports the view that there is no causal relationship between lunar phenomena and human behavior".^[4] (Diefendorf 2007:113)

[...]

In 1959 Walter and Abraham Menaker reported that a study of over 510,000 births in New York City showed a 1 percent increase in births in the two weeks after full moon. In 1967 Walter Menaker studied another 500,000 births in New York City, and this time he found a 1 percent increase in births in the two-week period centered on the full moon. In 1973 M. Osley, D. Summerville, and L. B. Borst studied another 500,000 births in New York City, and they reported a 1 percent increase in birthsbefore the full moon. In 1957 Rippmann analyzed 9,551 births in Danville, PA and found no correlation between the birth rate and the phase of the moon ^[5]

Reportage à Découverte sur mon équipe de travail

2010-04-08T16:55:00.006-04:00

Je travaille à la 'Section de la réponse aux urgences environnementales' du Centre météorologique canadien (Environnement Canada). Un des mandats de notre petite équipe est d'agir en tant qu'un des 9 'Volcanic Ash Advisory Center' (VAAC) au monde.

Voici un excellent reportage de l'émission Découverte qui résume en 15 minutes notre rôle en tant que centre VAAC et pourquoi c'est important de modéliser la dispersion de centres volcaniques.

Seréna - La contraception écologique

2010-03-21T10:04:00.003-04:00

J'ai participé récemment à la formation offert par l'organisme Seréna et désir partager mon enthousiasme face à l'approche.

Qu'est-ce que c'est ?

C'est une méthode "sympto-thermique" de gestion naturelle de la fertilité féminine. Cette approche versatile peut être utilisée comme méthode de contraception naturelle ou, au contraire, pour augmenter les chances de conception. Le principe de la méthode sympto-thermique est d'utiliser plusieurs signes complémentaires (e.g. glaire cervicale, température du corps, col de l'utérus) pour venir identifier avec précision les périodes d'infertilité relative, de fertilité probable et d'infertilité certaine au cours d'un cycle menstruel. Dans l'ensemble, cette approche se veut "efficace, écologique, économique, fondée sur la coopération du couple et appuyée scientifiquement".

Pourquoi l'utiliser ?

Notamment pour se connaître soi-même - la sexualité est un des éléments centraux de la vie de couple. Mais aussi parce que c'est une forme de contraception écologique, qui peut être combinée à une autre (e.g. condom) durant la période de fertilité probable. Écologique car n'implique pas de produits chimiques (e.g. pilules ou condoms). Il y a d'autres raisons bien sûr. Par exemple, certaines femmes supportent mal la pilule, et d'autres utilisent la méthode afin de mieux identifier le meilleur moment pour obtenir une grossesse. Ça peut également nous faire découvrir des choses sur nous-mêmes dont nous n'avions pas conscience.

C'est certain que ça demande d'investir quelques minutes à tous les matins ; pour la prise de température et mettre les informations complémentaires dans un registre - ce 'prix à payer' m'apparait valoir la peine. Évidemment, je pourrai mieux vous dire ce que j'en pense après quelques mois/années d'utilisation de la méthode !

Ecosia or The Myth of Eco-friendly Search Engines

2010-03-21T08:54:00.004-04:00

I've been invited to use Ecosia, a website you can use for web searches, will serve you ads and then give a share of the ad-revenu to the World Wildlife Fund. Ecosia claim you can save the environment if you use this tool. Let me share with you my serious doubts.

There's controversy regarding those tools. Some have been found in the past to be blatant frauds and some charge a significant amount of "administration fees", thus keeping for themselves a significant part of the ad-revenu to themselves.

I won't be using Ecosia myself, and here's why.

I'm blocking ads using adblockplus.org and AdBlocker, so I would not provide any money to Ecosia/WWF anyway.
I don't want or need a proxy to my web search, that actually means more data transfer on the 'net, and thus is by itself less ecological to use Ecosia than to access the search engine directly. In addition to more data transfer, the whole process will also eat up my personal time, waiting for Ecosia, a much smaller and slower server than Bing or Yahoo, to send me the search results along with content I don't need.
I'm not sure Ecosia are trustable, especially when considering they're a for-profit organization.
Ecosia uses Bing and Yahoo search engines, which arguably provide less interesting results than the Google engine. With Bing, I might end up needing to do more searches, loading more pages, thus making Ecosia less environmental-friendly than a accessing Google directly.

On the basis of those arguments, I claim using Ecosia is much worse for the environment than not using it.

In this critic of Ecosia, we learn "Kroll is just twenty-six years old, but this isn't his first attempt to get an eco-conscious site off the ground." and the conclusion: "Whether or not Ecosia is the greenest search engine on the web can't be verified, just as its claim of saving two meters per click on sponsored results can't be verified either. What is true, however, is that teaming up with WWF to raise funds for such a vital issue is important and respectable, so let's leave it at that."

In other words, I hate to be negative, but I think Ecosia is not part of the solution, I think it's an unnecessary proxy using resources (servers, bandwidth, time and human resources) that could be better used to the real benefit of the environment. As I mentioned, since I already block ads and plan to continue to do so, it doesn't make sense to use Ecosia since they won't make money out of me anyway.

What do you think?

PASS did not pass

2009-10-04T16:44:00.004-04:00

What matters is trying I guess. The PASS project I submitted to Google's Project 10^100 did not make it. Somehow not surprising considering there was over 150,000 submissions.

That said, I was surprised of the selection made by googlers. The 16 top ideas aren't that interesting to my eyes. So be it! I just hope Google will use the pertinent ideas submitted in a useful way. They can surprise us - they already proved they're able to contribute positively to society in various ways.

Getting Things Done App Reviews: OmniFocus, Things, Life Balance, ThinkingRock and Chandler

2009-07-22T20:59:00.005-04:00

Ok, I spent several hours over the last few weeks trying to seriously pinpoint the best Getting Things Done (GTD) app for my needs. The following is not a thorough review but might be useful to you, keep in mind your needs and tastes obviously differ from mines. Also take into account the timing: by the time you read this, it's probable these apps have been updated and may offer significant improvements. I tried five apps: Things, Life Balance, Chandler, ThinkingRock and OmniFocus. All the reviewed apps can run on MacOS X. I wish I could tell you I found the one app that fully fill all my needs, but it's not case.

First, why a GTD app? So many things I try or hope to accomplish in a diversity of overlapping contexts, I believe an app will help me keep track, thus not forget, the numerous next steps required to actually complete projects. A GTD app is also a mean to review ongoing and future projects and help me get the big picture of my life, personal and professional. Another expectation and intended goal is to reduce stress and frustrations.

At the moment, I use a combination of calendar events and reminders, a few flat to-do lists and inbox emails for organizing myself. To be honest, it works relatively well, but there's a lot of room for improvements. I feel I'm now ready for the next level: a dedicated GTD tool. Maybe I'll find out in the process that it doesn't help me that much after all, but I'm ready to try.

You'll find a lot of similar GTD app reviews on the Internet. It's worth reading many of them. It has been useful to me in order to identify the apps deserving review and providing clues about their general strengths and weaknesses. GTD apps require more than 10 minutes of exploration to get a good feeling of it and its ability to fulfill your needs and fit your task organization style. Screenshots and screencasts are never as revealing as actually trying the app for a few days.

Things

I evaluated version 1.1.3 of Things.

Good:
* The user interface is great looking and mostly efficient. That really matters.
* It's really easy to use. Easy learning curve.
* Things relies on tags, which are very flexible but require some appropriate organization (example).

Bad:
* Version 1.0 of Things was release at the beginning of the year, and as much as it's great looking, in terms of features, it shows.
* There is no way to export anything from Things to html or other sharable document. This is problematic to me since I work on Debian Linux and don't have access to MacOS X at work. This might be Things' showstopper to me - you see, I really want/need to be able to share the status of my work related tasks with my supervisors and colleagues. Highly probable that this is a feature that will "soon" be added to Things, but I'm not sure I wanna wait an unknown period of time. You can print groups of tasks to pdf, but that's a fairly limited workaround.
* Search is poor to the point of being almost broken. You can't use the search to find next actions related to two tags or more. This is a real inconvenience. Selecting tags in the top bar is the workaround.
* "Saved searches": you can't save a search (e.g. a user selection of tags) and add it to your left column. Since Things relies on tags, it would make sense to have automatically updated searches in your vertical bar.
* Missing: a web client to access and manage the Things database.
* No specific reviewing capabilities or easy why to set up automated focus criteria.

iPhone Things :
It's the iPhone/iPod Touch app that I could actually try, thanks to a colleague. Since there are no contexts in Things, you need to browse your next actions by "projects" and then filter by context tags: not the most efficient.

Final take on Things:
I'd like to choose Things, just because of its UI and tags approach. But you can't export to anything yet, making it impossible to share with colleagues at work, and you must systematicaly reselect the multiple tags to browse by context and projects or anything else (all represented by tags), which is a serious shortcoming in terms of efficiency. Sure, the developers will add these features eventually, but I don't think it's wise to go down that road not knowing when and if these missing features will make it. There is a Things forum, but it's strangely "hidden" in the sense that there is no link to it from most of the Things web pages. I'll keep an eye on Things' progress.

OmniFocus

I evaluated version 1.6.1 of OmniFocus.

Good:
* In general, offers many more features than all its competitors. This can quickly become important for many in the long run.
* The review mode. It's the only other reviewed GTD app (exception made of ThinkingRock) that specifically offers review mode capabilities. You can set next actions to be reviewed at a specific frequency, such as every week, every month or every year. Being able to review tasks every week without being distracted by long term projects that should be reviewed once every 6 months or so seems important to me.
* Tasks can be set as parallel or sequential, helping you focus on tasks you can accomplish now that don't require another task being completed first.
* Their "support Ninjas" are helpful and friendly.

Bad:
* Average user interface. Not bad, but average means there's obvious room for improvement.
* Contexts are exclusive. Despite the use of "perspectives" (which -must- be used for an efficient use of OmniFocus) to circumvent this limitation, this is annoying.
* Their implementation of "Contacts" is limiting. People are considered as contexts, and since next actions in OmniFocus can't have multiple contexts, that forces you to use perspectives, this too can be annoying.
* Missing: a web client to access and manage the OmniFocus database on the web. Hopefully, you can export subsets of your tasks to a beautiful enough html.

Final take on OmniFocus:
OmniFocus feels like a tool that has everything for me to start using it efficiently now. It meets my most of my requirements (such as exporting capabilities that provide a significant advantage over Things). It offers the most complete feature set of all GTD apps that I reviewed. OmniFocus is the tool I selected and will start using extensively.

Reading the comments in the forums informed me about what's coming in version 2, such as user-generated custom tags, so it should become even better later on but I prefer betting on a system and features I can use right away.

Life Balance

I quickly evaluated version 5.1 of Life Balance.

Good:
* I seriously considered Life Balance because it offers somethings the other GTD apps do not provide: a mean to help you spend more time on the things that really matter to you, not only a long list of tracked tasks. It prioritizes tasks to fit your goals, something you have to figure out without any help if you use Things or OmniFocus.
* Places, used as "contexts", are adequately designed: places can encompass multiple types of places, which is very convenient.

Bad:
* Nice colors, but overall, relatively poor user interface. Examples: (1) you can't move the events on the calendar by dragging them! (2) Entering a new task requires a lot of clicking on different tabs, moving sliders, etc., (3) search results are shown sequentially, no way to see all the results at once, etc. This is not efficient.
* No html export capabilities.
* No specific reviewing capabilities.

Final take on Life Balance:
Overall, Life Balance looks interesting, but the user interface annoys me. This, added to the fact that it does less than the other apps, has remove it of the realm of possibilities.

Chandler

I evaluated version 1.0.3 of Chandler, an open source GTD app.

Good:
* Open source, meaning free as in freedom. I can install it on as many computers as I want without having to wonder about licensing.
* Multiplatform. I will be able to used it at work (Debian Linux) as well as at home (MacOS X). This is a major plus to me and a real advantage over the other reviewed GTD apps.
* Web based too, meaning I can access it from work even if I don't/can't install the Desktop app. Thw web-based version is surprisingly usable, but miss a lot of features.
* Can send emails directly from the Chandler interface.
* Chandler web can be accessed from an iPhone provided you're connected to the Internet. There's also a free iPhone app, but it seems it only allows task entry, no task browsing.

Bad:
* It's a first version and it shows. Lots of missing features.
* No projects grouping or hierarchy, no contexts, only "Collections". This makes the browsing of tasks pretty difficult with only basic sorting capabilities, no filters. This can be a showstopper to many potential users, including me.
* Average user interface. No auto-completion, must drag and drop tasks to associate them with collections. No great MacOSX integration, such as with Mail and AddressBook.
* Limited set of features in regards to tasks: no way to set a start or due date, only a single date for the calendar display and alerts.
* No specific reviewing capabilities.

My final take on Chandler:
The great thing about Chandler being open source, you can easily try it for a long period of time to find out if it suit your needs or not. If you have some coding skills, you can even help by adding the features that you really need. However, at the moment, Chandler definitely looks like the least mature of these GTD apps - try it yourself!

ThinkingRock

I also took a look at another open source GTD app, namely ThinkingRock, version 2.2.1.

Good:
* It's also multiplatform but doesn't have a web-based client.
* It's pretty loyal to the GTD methodology.
* You can log and filter next actions adequately.

Bad:
* I personally don't like much the user interface (it's Java and far from being Mac-like) and the integration with other Mac apps such as iCal or Mail is poor to inexistent.
* I admit also not liking the fact that despite being fully open source, some modules are pay-for and syncing requires a yearly membership that can quickly end up more expensive than other apps.
* There is no iPhone app (one in the works).

Final take on ThinkingRock:
Overall, the ugly interface (that's subjective) and lack of a mean to sync between work and home makes me favor Chandler as an open source GTD app. Otherwise, ThinkingRock looks pretty solid (really) and may fit your needs, take a look at it.

Concluding remarks

Ok, I took a look at more than Things, OmniFocus, Life Balance, Chandler and ThinkRock, but they were the main competitors to me. For instance, I also took a look at the donationware iGTD2, which looks promising for a free app, but its development seems rather very slow (works with tags but awkward UI and no export capabilities at the moment, which seals the deal for me). You may also want to take a look at this recent comparison of GTD software.

What's was missing to help me decide is the ability to try the iPhone/iPod Touch apps for those software. It matters because I expect I'm going to frequently deal with my "GTD database system" directly on such a mobile device.

As you read above, I'm going the Omnifocus way, but I'll be keeping an eye to Chandler and Things. Things mostly out of curiosity, and Chandler because if it really gets improved over time, I could directly use it at work on Debian Linux (OmniFocus very likely staying a Mac-only app).

But I did not discussed the price? That's right. Whether it's free or 100$ is not a big enough difference to change anything. I want the best GTD for me and I'm ready to pay for it. Too bad I ended up selecting the most expensive of them, OmniFocus being 80$ (+ 20$ for the iPhone app), but it's not that a huge investment if you consider the importance that such an app can have on your life (big picture, reducing stress, not forgetting anything, etc). As an open source enthusiast, the fact that Chandler and ThinkingRock are open source gives them a real plus to me - they're just not mature enough yet.

Hope this was useful to you. Good luck finding the best Getting Things Done app for your needs!

Lecture de Competing on Analytics

2009-07-01T09:08:00.002-04:00

*Copie d'un courriel interne*
Ma dernière lecture d'autobus au cours des dernières semaines fut "Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning" de Thomas H. Davenport et Jeanne G. Harris.

Au lieu de vous offrir un sommaire, je désire seulement mentionner à quel point ce livre m'est apparu pertinent en général, et ce, même pour le genre de travail que nous accomplissons au CMC. L'idée centrale : utiliser à son maximum l'information disponible afin de prendre les meilleures décisions. Ceci s'applique à un paquet de contextes, par exemple la génération de produits pour des partenaires et clients, ça peut même aller jusqu'à servir pour l'optimisation des ressources humaines d'une organisation.

La description d'Amazon :
"You have more information at hand about your business environment than ever before. But are you using it to "out-think" your rivals? If not, you may be missing out on a potent competitive tool. In "Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning" , Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris argue that the frontier for using data to make decisions has shifted dramatically. Certain high-performing enterprises are now building their competitive strategies around data-driven insights that in turn generate impressive business results. Their secret weapon: Analytics: sophisticated quantitative and statistical analysis and predictive modeling. Exemplars of analytics are using new tools to identify their most profitable customers and offer them the right price, to accelerate product innovation, to optimize supply chains, and to identify the true drivers of financial performance. A wealth of examples - from organizations as diverse as Amazon, Barclay's, Capital One, Harrah's, Procter & Gamble, Wachovia, and the Boston Red Sox - illuminate how to leverage the power of analytics."

Home 2009 et Climate Wars

2009-06-10T09:36:00.004-04:00

Courte note pour vous inviter à voir le film "Home 2009" de Yann Arthus-Bertrand, l'auteur de 'La Terre vue du ciel'. Sans contredit un film visuellement superbe. Il est disponible gratuitement sur YouTube jusqu'au 14 juin, donc dimanche prochain, même en HD. Les thèmes '"environnement et changements climatiques" y sont très présents.

http://www.home-2009.com/fr/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/homeprojectFR

Dans la même veine, et sans doute encore plus proche de ce que nous faisons au CMC, j'ai visionné le documentaire en trois volets "The Climate Wars" de la BBC. Il s'agit d'un documentaire très intéressant sur l'histoire de la recherche sur les changements climatiques au cours des 50 dernières années. Une bonne partie du documentaire de 3 heures est consacrée aux guerres d'arguments et de vision entre chercheurs, compagnies et politiciens. Les trois épisodes ne semblent plus disponibles directement sur le site (ils étaient disponibles gratuitement il n'y a pas si longtemps).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00djvq9

Pour terminer, on m'a également recommandé le documentaire audio lui aussi nommé "The Climate Wars", mais de la CBC cette fois ci. L'exposé serait davantage centré sur le futur des changements climatiques au lieu de son historique. Ne l'ayant pas encore écouté, je ne puis me prononcer moi-même sur l'intérêt de celui-ci.

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/climate-wars/index.html

My encounter with Richard M. Stallman

2009-06-09T21:46:00.003-04:00

Here's some personal notes from the seminar given by Richard M. Stallman that I had the chance to attend with a few colleagues. I stripped from the notes large parts that are work-related.

Executive Summary (parts)

Richard M. Stallman, an internationally influential figure in software development since the early 80's, gave a seminar on free software for Canadian federal workers. M. Stallman presented his views on free and open source software in general, discussing free software ethics, development and use for all components of the society, including at the governmental and educational levels. [...]

What is Free Software?

Please refer to the full Wikipedia article. Basically, the software you have a copy is free if it grants you the following four freedoms:

The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
The freedom to study and modify the program.
The freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor.
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

Views shared by M. Stallman

Free software is more than a different business model, is has ethical aspects.

You can't know what's in proprietary software, it limits your freedom indefinitely.

The fact that free software is gratis should be considered as a bonus, what matters is the freedom that free software procures.

M. Stallman doesn't like the term 'open source' because, in contrast to 'free software', it removes the issue of freedom. Additionally, software that has its source code open doesn't mean it is free in regards to licensing.

Exclusively Free software should be used by governments, for reasons including:

Sovereignty, control and independence instead of being dependent on companies.
Return on investment: the government gets its money from the citizens, it's only normal to give back the work done to the citizens.
Security: free software allows you to know what the code does to you.
Liability: people liable for lines of code can be identified with free software.

M. Stallman prefers refering to Linux as GNU/Linux, because it correctly refers to Linux's historical source and philosophy.

Anyone can still make money from offering support for free software, training and related activities.

The LGPL license is a compromise, allowing free software to be directly connected with proprietary software (such as drivers and libraries), in order to encourage proprietary software developers to provide solutions compatible with free software.

In education, schools and universities should use free software in order to allow the understanding of the underlying code. For Stallman, proprietary software is the "enemy of the spirit of education". Proprietary software frequently donate software to educational organizations and should be considered as a first gratis dose of an addictive drug.

Free software is also about morale and ethics: it encourages transparency, sharing and communities.

Documentation should be free too, thus the Gnu Free Documentation License for 'functional works', i.e documentation required to do a job.

Free software enhance innovation by allowing everybody to use the best means to attain a goal, whereas proprietary software stifles innovation and competition by using copyrights to stop and block advances by other organizations.

Copyrights should expire after 10 years.
Remixing content should not be systematically considered an infringement.

M. Stallman don't like the term 'intellectual property', claiming it's an over generalization and confusing. Most of the time, 'legal issues' should be used instead.

By default, copyright laws denies rights to citizens, copyright holders must be proactive to free it.

"Non-free software don't contribute to humanity"

Stallman mentioned the improvements of the GPL v3, including Tivoization, the Creative Commons licenses, DRM and much more.

'Gettings Things Done' by David Allen

2009-05-21T21:43:00.005-04:00

I heard of it a few years ago but wasn't planning to read that book, until it somehow ended up in my hands and after reading its subtitle, "The Art of Stress-Free Productivity", was ready to give it a try. After reading Dalkir's Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice and Jones' Keeping Found Things Found, I guess I was ripe to get more things done!

For over a decade I've been trying to fine tune my way of actually accomplishing projects. Even if I don't think I'm bad at it, I know there's a lot of room left for improvements and that stress is a serious recurrent issue to me (added to the fact that I'm a father now meaning there's even less time available for personal projects). Obviously, no book you read can directly change your life unless you do something about it yourself and keep doing it. On the other hand, reading Getting Things Done can hardly do much harm, at worst, it will make you think about how you deal with your life: time, hopes, projects, priorities.

From page 18:

"Before you can achieve any of that, though, you'll need to get in the habit of keeping nothing on your mind. And the way to do that, as we've seen, is not by managing time, managing information, or managing priorities. After:
* you don't manage five minutes and wind up with six;
* you don't manage information overload - otherwise you'd walk into a library and die, or the first time you connected to the Web, or even opened a phone book, you'd blow up, and;
* you don't manage priorities - you have them.
Instead, the key to managing all of your "stuff" is managing your actions."

Later in the book, M. Allen reminds us that we don't do projects, we can only do action steps related to them.

The main sections of the book explain in detail the GTD methodology to go from the ideas to their realizations. It may be a little technical and one needs to adapt the proposed methodology to his liking, that said, there's still a lot of interesting bits to make these sections worthed. I wasn't rebutted, like I've been in other books, by Allen's discussion of how technology can contribute to our personal organization schemes - sophisticated and complex tools does not necessarily mean improved efficiency, often, it's the contrary.

The book, despite focusing on getting you organized from A to Z to get things done, also provides a pertinent discussion on the vertical integration of our goals and objectives in life - from actual ground-level activities to your contributions to the Grand Scheme of Things. Life is a journey, not a destination, and it's important to be able to see both the tree and the forest at the same time. The book can help you achieve this too.

Allen ends the book with the power of three key principles: (1) the collection habit, making sure we don't forget anything dear to us and that our mind stays free of disturbances, allowing us to fully focus on the present task, (2) identifying next-actions, in order to do small steps towards to completion of anything, we must clearly identify what's the next practical and physical action that must be accomplished, and (3), outcome focusing, making sure you don't forget the big picture and the smaller pictures of your personal and professional life.

Here's the Getting Things Done book at Amazon and the informative entry on Wikipedia, where you'll learn a lot more on the actual GTD methodology and associated principles than in my enthusiasm-sharing pseudo-review! This is a book I recommend for everyone. I haven't yet fully implemented my personal version of what the book proposes, but undoubtedly, it has already positively changed my attitude and way of doing things.

A Google Profile?

2009-04-26T19:34:00.001-04:00

Yeah, that's right. Too bad for privacy! There I go.

Champs électromagnétiques : entre désinformation et danger

2009-04-10T17:39:00.000-04:00

[en cette journée de congé, j'ai finalement pris le temps de compléter ce post rédigé il y a plus de 2 mois !]

Nouvellement abonné à Protégez-Vous, j'aimerais réagir suite à ma lecture de l'article de 9 pages sur les dangers potentiels des champs électromagnétiques présents dans notre quotidien. Il ne s'agit pas d'une étude complète et en fait, l'article ne semble malheureusement pas très solide (voir ci-après), mais on y apprend un paquet de choses intéressantes et peut-être même inquiétantes ! Quelle est l'une des plus grandes sources de champ électromagnétique pour notre corps dans notre quotidien ? Selon l'article : les lampes de chevet... même fermées ! Et le téléphone sans-fil de la maison, c'est logique et avantageux de le remplacer par un téléphone avec fil ? En fait, on apprend que c'est pas si simple, eux aussi dépassent les limites ! (la recommandation de l'article est de simplement limiter la longueur des appels téléphoniques) Sans grande surprise, parmi les premiers au banc des accusés se retrouvent les fours à micro-ondes. Au moins partiellement rassurant : leur brève étude n'a trouvé aucun endroit excédant les normes établies, celles-ci peut-être insuffisamment sévères pour préserver la santé publique.

Est-ce que Protégez-Vous serait en train d'être inutilement alarmiste et de participer à de la désinformation ? Peut-être. L'article du Protégez-Vous ne justifie pas bien les seuils qu'il utilise. Le seuil de précaution de l'article est 250 fois moins fort que la force du champ magnétique terrestre naturel ! (d'autres facteurs que la puissance entrent en compte, mais ce n'est pas du tout évoqué dans l'article) Les seuils sont basés sur les seules recommandations du BioInitiative Working Group (et je ne suis certainement pas l'expert qui pourra correctement juger de la validité et justesse de leur rapport de 610 pages), or, en cherchant à m'informer sur la valeur et la fiabilité de ce groupe, je n'ai rien trouvé de convaincant, plutôt le contraire ! Dommage, l'article m'apparaît conséquemment discrédité car s'appuyant sur des bases bien peu solides... Ayant été abonné de nombreuses années au magazine QuébecScience, j'ai été habitué à davantage de détail et de rigueur. À en lire les commentaires en réaction des auditeurs de Radio-Canada au sujet de cet article, je ne suis pas le seul à réagir négativement à cet article du Protégez-Vous.

Jusqu'à temps que l'on me montre des études plus sérieuses que celle-là, je vais donc continuer à mettre le dossier du danger des champs électromagnétiques dans la catégorie "controversé". Cela dit, mieux vaut adopter le principe de précaution et admettre notre ignorance ! Vous avez des informations complémentaires fiables ? Je suis à l'écoute !

Ce que je trouve encore une fois embêtant, c'est la difficulté de faire du sens de toutes les informations contradictoires qui nous sont disponibles. Je suis porté à croire que Protégez-Vous constitue une source fiable, mais clairement mes lectures des dernières heures font en sorte que je serai plus prudent lors de mes prochaines lectures d'articles de leur magazine... Ceci n'empêche pas que plusieurs autres de leurs dossiers demeurent très intéressants et pertinents tout en semblant moins subjectifs ou avoir de partis pris que celui-là.

La principale conséquence d'une désinformation efficace, c'est qu'on ne sait plus qui croire et qui dit vrai. Parmi la grande diversité de chercheurs scientifiques, devons-nous préférer croire les petits groupes de scientifiques marginaux qui ont parfois raison ou les groupes de chercheurs potentiellement mal influencés ? La réalité n'est sans doute pas si noire ou blanche, mais plutôt multicolore !

Web Trend Map 4

2009-04-10T15:38:00.002-04:00

This is pretty informative current 'map of the web'. As a bonus: it's a nice map too! :-) Here's the source.

Now on Twitter!

2009-04-02T22:25:00.002-04:00

Ok... trying the beast. I already spend way too much time in front of the computer, so I don't guarantee you'll see me often there, but if you somehow care, there I go... username slashgeo.

An Inconvenient Truth

2009-02-04T20:41:00.003-05:00

Saw it just recently on a plane to Phoenix. Nicer documentary than I thought. Great content and beautiful container. Convincing. Not that I needed to be convinced at all, but convincing and positively calling for immediate actions. I encourage everyone to see it. Really. Like in really see it and don't procrastinate again. Here's the 'An Inconvenient Truth' Wikipedia entry and here's the official website.

One thing I don't get though is why they don't provide the documentary online for free. The issue is larger and more important than the money they could make out of selling DVDs. I guess they have their hands tied by [insert any reason] but that's no good reason. That said - see it. It's well worth.

Science and Politics

2009-01-28T22:26:00.004-05:00

At work today there was a presentation and discussion about climate change, economics and politics. I can't resist sharing this winning cartoon: