Generally Recognized As True

Imogen Heap - Half Life

2009-11-06T22:51:00.005-05:00

I've posted this before, but it deserves repeating. A very good song from Imogen Heap's recent "Ellipse" album, called "Half Life". There's a lot to discover here, and even the variable use of reverb on the piano as the song progresses adds a new dimension.

Pretty much the entire album is very good, but this is one of the stand-outs.

Lyrics:

I knew that I'd get like this again
That's why I try to keep at bay
Be a hundred percent when I'm with you and then
The perfect heart's length away

The stickler is you've played not one beat wrong
You never promised me anything
Even sat me down and warned me just how they fall
I knew the odds were I'd never win

Yet here I am

It's a half life
With you as my quarterback
A daft life

My self-worth measured in text back tempo
It's been two days and 8 minutes too slow
Well there may well be others but I still like to pretend
That I'm the one you really want to grow old with

Got a schedule to stick to, got a world to keep sweet
You're so much to everyone all the time
Will you ever slow down? Will I ever come first?
The universe contracts to sigh

It's a half life
With you as my quarterback
A daft life

It's a half life
With you as my quarterback
A daft life

Hold me
Darling, please

Hold me
Darling, please

You know you'll never be lonely, no you'll always be loved
And maybe you never need more than that
But for the surplus that loves, what's to become of us?
Does it even register on your conscience?

Long for one last showdown from a box in a crowd
Air compressed tight to explode
I'm clenching my ticket to the only way out
As you disappear in a puff of smoke

It's a half life
With you as my quarterback
A daft life

Lyrically, it's like the counter-part to John Mayer's "Man On The Side":

Additional comments on local shopping at independent stores in Georgetown

2009-11-06T15:43:00.003-05:00

In addition to my previous post, I am all for supporting local businesses if all things are equal, but not if local businesses exploit the do-gooding nature of residents by overcharging and offering inferior products to those of cheaper retailers that may not be local and instead put their money into "buy local" campaigns.

The music store I mentioned in my previous post is a local store, but I did not buy my own music book from them because it was not only unavailable and would have to have been ordered in with a wait time in terms of weeks, but it was also more expensive than the one that was imminently available on Amazon and didn't include the accompanying CD that the latter's copy did include, despite the local store being more expensive.

They could not even sell me my instrument: I told them the exact instrument that I was looking for -- and it was of a brand name that is carried in their store. Their reply was simply that they didn't have it and they couldn't order it in for me (I was told the latter before even having a chance to ask). They didn't offer any additional explanation or option. I therefore bought it in Mississauga from a chain music store that also did not carry it, but was willing to order it in. The local store could not even sell me a MIDI cable when I asked about those, despite the keyboards they are bothered to carry having MIDI options. As a result, I don't even consider them an option anymore.

Most of my shopping experiences for non-commodity items from other local stores have been fraught with similar complications -- stereo systems, bicycles; even childrens' books.

In the case of childrens' books, I once went to the childrens' bookstore in downtown Georgetown looking for Christmas gifts and picked out a few books. I inquired in the store as to what age range the books I'd chosen were suitable for, to make sure that I hadn't over-reached. The woman behind the counter responded with a completely irrelevant yardstick -- that her son was of a certain age and had read all of them but that they would probably be suitable for the age I was looking for -- an age older than her son. This was an admittedly isolated incident -- I have since returned to the store and been helped in a much better manner -- but chain stores seem much more reliable and you may not even have to ask because they do far more to equip you to help yourself where possible. That is one of the ways in which they are able to lower their prices. Doing otherwise is akin to my experience in university residence, where I was forbidden to change my own lightbulb because there was a union contract for such work. I had to fill out a work order and wait for it to be changed. When it was changed while I was out at classes, my dorm room door was then left partially open and unlocked after the work was done.

And when I bought my bicycle in town, the owner didn't have the bike I was looking for but was quite helpful and willing to order it in. When it arrived a few weeks later and I went to pick it up, I witnessed him treating a customer in a very rude manner. Of course, I don't know the whole pre-text but there seems to have been no excuse for such treatment. The customer had apparently taken a bike in for a repair estimate and then decided not to go ahead with the repair for some reason. No rudeness had apparently been involved on the part of the customer. While both I and the customer and his young son were waiting to be attended to and the customer was looking at bike helmets while he waited for his bike to be returned from the back room, the man (who seemed to be the store owner) shouted to another employee across the small store to go and help the man and his son with the bike helmets in case they scratched them. There was no obvious cause for concern. I did buy my bike from him because that was my purpose for being in the store -- to pick up the bike, for which I had left a deposit -- but I will never go back.

At the stereo store, I was undersold. Despite my obvious interest in a high-quality system and having made no mention of the price I was willing to pay, in the end I was sold something less than what I had wanted to buy. There also seemed to be an inherent misunderstanding on the part of the salespeople -- that the price of speakers was somehow correlated with the size of the room they were to be installed in and that a small room demanded cheaper speakers, despite two differently-priced pairs having the same capacity to handle power. This was one rare occasion when I thought that a local store would be a better choice than somewhere like Future Shop because I was looking for some genuine advice. In this case, Future Shop would have been worse, but if I had gone there then I would have anticipated that and gone in knowing exactly what I wanted. And, of course, the return policy of the local store is almost non-existent whereas it would have been generous at the chain store.

To summarize my experience: if you know what you want and it's not a commodity, they can't help you because they probably don't have it and if you don't know what you want and try to let them help you then you will end up with something that is inferior to what you had in mind. If you know what you want and they have it on the shelf, however, they have no problem selling it to you at a higher price than you'd pay for it at a non-local or chain store.
There are some grand exceptions. I have always found Young's Pharmacy to be helpful. McMaster's Deli and Foodstuffs are also very good. They sell things that are unique in town, yet at a reasonable price. And there are undoubtedly many more that I haven't yet visited.

Based on anecdotal evidence, I also suspect that the local market for services is better and I have made no judgement about that. I will test that theory at some point.

Frank Furedi on the crisis of adult authority, with implications for our crisis of education

2009-11-06T10:52:00.009-05:00

Regarding the crisis of adult authority, British sociology professor Frank Furedi, as usual, has a lot to say and is usually right.

'All the big debates about pedagogy – how children learn to read, whether English literature is superior to media studies, whether history teachers should focus on the Napoleonic wars or the Holocaust – all these are really secondary issues’, says Furedi. [...] Today, we have an inability to give meaning to education because we struggle to give meaning to adulthood.

[...]

The struggle to give meaning to adulthood is expressed in a number of familiar ways. From parents struggling to know how to tell a two-year-old to behave to teachers feeling threatened by ‘violent’ four-year-olds and politicians threatening parents of truanting teenagers with jail, discipline is one area of life that used to be taken for granted but has now become an endless source of conflict and anxiety.

A related trend is that which Furedi terms ‘socialisation in reverse’. Socialisation, he notes, ‘is the process through which children are prepared for the world ahead of them’. [...] Today, however, this intergenerational responsibility is being usurped by a new breed of professionals, so-called experts ‘who transmit values by directly targeting children’. Parents will be only too aware of the way that children now come home armed with advice for their parents about how to eat healthily and recycle their rubbish correctly.

[...]

One result of the devaluation of adult authority is that ‘the proper relationship between education and society has been turned upside down’, and ‘education is used as the site where the unresolved issues of public life can be pursued’. As adults are infantilised and children are treated as mini-grown-ups whose voice must be expressed and heard on every matter from the content of the curriculum to the attributes of their teachers, education becomes viewed as a place where political debates can and should take place.

It's been awhile since I've read one of his books but I am about due for another visit, I think. He is becoming a fine successor to Neil Postman, now that the latter is no longer with us.

In these times of non-violent coercion that we presumably picked up from our participation in the Cold War -- where political and social pressure is used in an organized and concerted way in lieu of physical force -- public education is in some ways becoming a racket in that it occasionally exhibits a violation of the public trust and an illicit misuse of education where the child is used as the violent social weapon of strongly implied but ostensibly optional enforcement.

I was sitting in the waiting room of a music store a couple of weeks ago and overheard a young girl quietly chastising her Dad for not buying her music book from the store where she also did her lessons. "But if you buy it here then [the store] will get the money," she said. "So you have to buy it here, OK?". You could hear the wife in her voice. It was calm and collected with a strong insinuation that you'd not be spoken to for a long time if you didn't act appropriately. The Dad stood there in near silence, seemingly unsure of how to handle the situation. He made a few uncertain comments about the books at the store being expensive and in bad physical condition.

It makes me wonder if children are also being told in school that they have to support local businesses. Is the Chamber of Commerce giving talks in elementary school now? I don't really know. But, she was not of an age where she would have reached this conclusion herself.

The child, however, likely does not comprehend such detail. I have written at greater length and with more detail about this problem of child indoctrination by the public school system in the past.

Forget what I said about Tori Amos and "Midwinter Graces"

2009-11-06T09:32:00.003-05:00

Forget what I said about not buying this album. I have had a chance to preview it and it is actually very good and I will be buying it.

I was also wrong about it sounding as if it came from the same session as "Abnormally Attracted To Sin". I had only heard a very brief preview before, but having heard it in greater length it sounds quite different: the piano is back in front in a few songs, and there are a few of those piano textures that stick in my mind long after I've finished listening to the song. There is nothing raunchy here and it is quite a warm-sounding album.

But despite efforts to make it appear otherwise, it is clearly a Christmas album, though mostly an agnostic one. One thing I appreciate most about it is that she messes with some of the familiar twists and turns of the traditional Christmas songs that are included. This prevents it from being predictable and also from becoming quickly annoying. For this reason, you would be able to hear elevator Christmas music in discount department stores all season and still be able to come home and listen to this album.

She also adds some original songs that don't break at all with the character of the traditional songs. It's a very even album and uncharacteristically restrained -- she does not normally select songs so carefully. This also makes it a rather short album in comparison to most of her recent work.

If I had to compare it to her previous albums, I'd say it has the most in common with "Scarlet's Walk".

So, it comes out on November 10 and if you have any interest in her work then you should probably buy it.

Mid-series comments about "Jimmy's Food Factory"

2009-11-04T15:21:00.003-05:00

Not long ago, I posted regarding my interest in the new British series, "Jimmy's Food Factory".

I have since seen a couple of episodes and I find it quite refreshing. In contrast to many other food-oriented documentaries, there is a noticeable absence of preaching and moralizing. Even though I am heavily skeptical of the health of industrial food products -- regardless of what the nutrition label says -- I still find the leading style used in many food documentaries to be distracting and tiresome. To be honest, I had expected preaching and hoped to be able to overlook it in the way I overlook most website banner advertising. Instead, I found a good attempt at presenting the facts, with very little (if any) browbeating thrown in.

For that reason alone, it is a refreshing addition to the genre. It simply presents the industrial processes used to produce many common industrial food products and leaves you to come to your own conclusions with very little leading, few ominous sound effects, and no heavy-handed implications.

Very good series, so far.

A selected walking tour of Georgetown, from a walker's perspective

2009-11-04T14:37:00.003-05:00

In contrast with my previous post, I want to describe the suburban environment that accompanies my walks. I will write specifically about my corner of Georgetown, Ontario. This is important because I think it is one of the reasons that walking is unappealing at a subconscious level, though I think it applies in some parts of town more than others.

Georgetown is roughly divided into the older North and the newer South. I have little experience walking in the South, but from my car travels through it, I assess it to be a thoroughly unpleasant habitat for walking. There is very little visual variety. Most if not all of the houses look the same because they are of the same archetype, built by the same builder, and most are hidden behind up-front garages. So, even if they claim to be different "models" that by code can't be placed within 3 houses of other identical "models", the lower level of detail is lost because the abstract is the same and this overrides everything else in terms of the impression you are left with. There is a lot of asphalt and concrete in these neighbourhoods because this is the model on which Georgetown South is built: drive-in houses fed by asphalt roads where the only place for kids to play safely is on the concrete sidewalk.

The trees are token gestures that may never grow to mature size and nature band-aids are everywhere, as if they make up for the terrible layout. If you look at Oakville's Glen Abbey, you can see how these places will look in 20 years' time: the accents will have faded, the vegetation won't out-scale the poor scale of the buildings, and the asphalt and concrete will suffer from poor maintenance because there are so few houses to provide so little property tax to pay for so much maintenance. Aside from this, there was never any serious intention that you would see these places from the perceptive perspective of a pedestrian, but rather from the standpoint of someone travelling 50km/h in an automobile.

The contrast with somewhere like Georgetown's King St. is significant. In some places, towering trees arc over the sidewalks and make it an overall pleasant place to walk, although this is only sporadic. There is some unfortunate rental conversion on the street, where cheap buildings have been put up, or haphazard "improvements" have been made with income generation as the main consideration. I live next to one such house myself, where an ugly wooden staircase has been bolted to the outside of the house so that the upstairs and downstairs can house different tenants. But all of the houses are different. Some are large, some are small. Some are clad with brick and others with siding of different composition and widths. Some houses have Victorian flourishes. Some have modest front steps and others have grand porches but there are no midget porches that are de-facto for decoration only because they are not of a scale that makes them comfortable to sit in, as you see in the newer developments. Some buildings that look as if they used to be corner stores have been converted into rental housing -- there is no commercial property remaining, perhaps because of the more recent style of zoning that makes it illegal to put shops near houses. It is a street in transition to somewhere worse, I think, but it has had a chance to "cook" and find its place. It has character.

But, overall, the outdoor landscape in urban Georgetown is bleak wherever anyone born in the last 60 years has had anything to say about it. The downtown area is of traditional design and is a pleasure to walk through but, as is common with many towns these days, it is preserved in a cocoon -- as if it was a thing of the past and we couldn't imagine a way to reconstruct something so nice in the present day. I'm not sure why this is done. If we like downtowns and their human scale so much, why can't we build more like it? Why do we "ooh" and "aah" over downtown and then give permission to put up acres of space junk like what passes for housing and "community" in Georgetown South? Because the fire truck can't do a donut in the middle of it?

It is unfair to restrict criticism to Georgetown South, though. Highway 7 is in the North, is unfriendly to pedestrians, and is filled to the brim with strip malls with in-front parking holding the most miscellaneous things -- pizza joints, fry pits, submarine sandwich shops, tattoo parlours and "adult" boutiques (in contrast to their name, aren't they quite childish?), the occasional ugly, flat-roofed apartment building, and the odd refugee building from the past which for some reason wasn't demolished and has been "preserved" and inhabited by a modern business (again, the assumption is that if it was knocked down, there would necessarily be crap put in its place and that we couldn't control ourselves into putting a nice building there).

There is also the old Dominion Seed House land in the North, and what has been done there is also somewhat of a travesty. This development bumps right up against Mountainview Rd, separated from Mountainview's sidewalk by an iron fence, a thin landing strip of grass, parking spaces, a road, and an assault of vacuum-packed houses. The houses are virtually on Mountainview itself but the strange appearance of it makes you think that there must have been some rule preventing them from facing directly onto Mountainview, so they put another road in between and gave it a different name. Some of the driveways on these houses are comically too short for what pass for automobiles these days, and the front nose or back bumper of the cars stick out into the roadway -- sometimes by a considerable amount.

When you walk through this neighbourhood, the houses are packed so close together and look so similar that the attempts by residents to differentiate their patch look kind of sad: many have turned their small patch of grass in front of the doors into horticultural experimentation areas with no over-arching sense of integration or common sensibility whatsoever. Walking past the side of one backyard, I noticed that the entire yard had been mulched over with wood bark mulch. On top of this, all of the garages have the electrical and/or gas meters on the front of the houses at eye level and in plain sight. With so many houses close together, it almost looks like a concentration camp type of effiency, where the goal above all else is for you to be "processed" as quickly as possible by pedestrian meter readers. With the close proximity of the houses and the fact that the parking is all private and all in front of the houses, the main thing you notice looking down the street -- even when the vegetation is in full bloom -- is the cars themselves, making it look like an abandoned scrap yard where seeds have fallen through the cracks between the cars and trees have sprouted amongst the rubble. Combined with the experimental and chaotic nature of the "front-yard" vegetation -- some have grass, some have mulch, some are giving the "native plants" thing a go -- it looks almost like a posh trailer park and could hardly look worse if you astroturfed the whole lot and put down some false plastic flowers.

So, this is a partial perspective of a walker of reasonable pace through Georgetown. Over time, it has made me more and more convinced that these places are not meant to appeal to pedestrians at all. They are meant to appeal to the property owners themselves first, and drivers travelling past them at considerable speed second. And when I say that they are designed for the latter, I say this only because the implication is that they will not notice what is being done to their urban habitat. In other words, it is designed for them because it is designed for people that will not complain.

I think that the remaining valuable public places are slowly becoming vehicular destinations wherein the endpoints are dressed up for their guests and the automobile passageways between them are neglected or handed over to economic market forces. Simply because nobody is looking at them.

On the transition to an almost car-free existence in the transitless suburbs

2009-11-04T12:58:00.006-05:00

Even though I live in a transit-less and distant suburb of Toronto, I have so reduced my use of the car that it is now perfectly feasible to get rid of it and rent a car when needed. Since I have not yet taken this step -- I will probably keep it until it needs to be replaced and then not replace it -- I have now found myself in the position of having to take it out for "walks" now and again so that it doesn't succumb to a flat battery or just rust into place and cease to be mobile.

Though I don't find it particularly clever, here is how it's done. It won't work for everyone, but it will work for a lot of people who say it won't work for them:

Take transit to work: this gets rid of the main legitimate reason for having private transportation
Establish a walking routine: decide for yourself that it's good for you to get out for a walk at least a few times a week
When you walk, make it count: rather than walking in big circles or a circuit, walk somewhere useful. This is not brilliant. It is the simple act of running errands, except that you do it on foot.
More frequent trips make lighter work: I am now in a position of being able to do all of my grocery shopping by foot. Doing this all in one trip would not be possible on foot without a lot of pain, so I go at least three times a week. This can be combined with other errands.
Rent a car for longer trips, and make that count, too: if you have to make longer trips and they are not that common, you can get by with renting a car. But when you do rent, make it count: make a plan of everything you need to do in the car and do it while you have the rental. This might include large grocery items, or other bulky or heavy things

That's about all there is to it. If you have the gift of being totally honest with yourself, you can tell whether it's really practical or not or whether you are just lazy. If you already have a car, why not use that backup as a way of trying out the above? There is no consequence. If you happen to be in a rush one day, you can use the car. But if you can't be bothered at the end of the day, it is amazing how quickly you get over that when you get outside. Habits take a few weeks to form and become normal.

After slowly becoming car-less over time, I had one weekly trip that I had been using the car for, which was about a 5 kilometre trip. It seemed too far to walk but, after trying it, it really isn't that bad. It takes about 40 minutes each way when walking with a concerted effort, whereas it took about 10 minutes in the car with all of the traffic lights and stop signs in the way. So, yes, that is an extra hour. But it's also exercise and you can listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks while you walk. That is the reason my car had gone unused for more than 3 weeks, as it was my last remaining regular car trip.

I don't know what it will be like in the winter. I have bought some good-quality winter boots and will continue to try it. To be honest, I am more concerned about the summer than the winter as the former will be far less comfortable and has the risk of severe thunderstorms. You can dress for winter.

In the spring, summer, and autumn, you also have the option of a bicycle. In my case and in my experience, it takes about the same amount of time to do groceries by bike as it does by car when you consider the startup time of the car, the shortcuts you can take, and the fact that you can park your bike right by the supermarket door and load your groceries directly into your backpack at the self-checkout, which eliminates the parking/loading/cart return process. My grocery trip that takes 1 hour on foot (2.5km walk to, time spent in store, and 2.5km walk home) takes about 20 minutes by bike.

There are some people, I'm sure, who drive about the same distance and then go into the gym attached to the supermarket, exercise for 30 minutes (and not only pay for that privilege but also burn electricity doing it), and drive home again. Pointless?

I also find that I am less likely to over-buy when shopping on foot or bicycle. I always consider that I have to carry what I am buying. And list-making is much more important. Sometimes I will go only to buy one or two things, if that's all I need. Because the main purpose is to go for the walk.

Anyway, none of this is special or revolutionary. I am simply explaining how my mostly car-less existence in the transit-less suburbs (amongst neighbours no older than middle age and with no children, but who seem to take 3-4 car trips a day) came to be. I used to drive to work and to my weekly appointment and do all of my shopping within the context of those trips, and I went for regular walks but they were shorter and they were on a circuit that didn't go anywhere in particular, except maybe to the library or post office once in awhile. Now, I take transit to work, go on longer walks that are almost always with a purpose other than exercise, and have to take my car for a walk once in awhile to keep it healthy.

There are possibilities and feasibilities that you may not have considered.

An interview with an Open Space facilitator

2009-11-01T06:28:00.003-05:00

It came to me in a dream.

Facilitator: Before we start on our journey together, I must have your government-issued credit card number and expiry date. And I should inform you that I bill by the word.

[ I pass my card across the authoritative-looking table free of all objects. He looks at it for about five seconds and passes my card back to me. He seems to have committed my credit card number to memory! ]

Facilitator: Let's begin. I must now guide you.

[ At this point, the Facilitator placed a two-foot-long stick of incense into a soil-filled terra cotta plant pot and ignited the end. I had to wait a couple of minutes while he composed himself. ]

Interviewer: So, what is this Open Space all about?

Facilitator: What we do here is create Open Space. We facilitate the creation of Open Space. In order to arrive at a consensus in a complex world, we need to create an Open Space so that consensus is free to waft over and take up residence in the space we create.

Interviewer: But doesn't open space already exist?

Facilitator: If it does, you need my skills in order to see it. When you think you see Open Space in front of you, you have to really ask yourself if you are just deceiving yourself or whether there is really Open Space there.

Interviewer: But what if we need to arrive at a conclusion -- something actionable? In other words, what if we need to fill that open space with something we can use?

Facilitator: Actionable items are just a social construct. Let's discuss what you really mean by that. We need to achieve consensus. My job above all else is to create Open Space. If there are ideas and objectives in place, this clouds our judgement. My goal is to free you of objectives and any preconceived accomplishment you may have entered the room with. If you have built something, we must knock it down. I need to have complete Open Space to do my work.

Interviewer: [getting tired] Well, let's move on. Why do you folks have an affinity for aboriginals and pagans?

Facilitator: Aboriginals and pagans worship the Open Space that nature provides. If you build a building, there is no Open Space. If you accomplish something, there is no Open Space. We seek to provide Open Space in order to build on it with future sessions.

Interviewer: But don't trees interfere with open space?

Facilitator: It is all about perception. When I see trees, I see Open Space.

Interviewer: Can I have my credit card back?

Facilitator: I have already given you your card back, but this does not end our relationship. We have much more to discover together.

Interviewer: Can you please forget my credit card number, then?

Facilitator: What you fail to understand -- and it is common amongst the people I facilitate -- is that this information is the foundation of our journey together. Without a foundation, you can't build something that will last. If the foundation crumbles then everything atop it also falls to the ground. If not today, then some day in the future. We must keep the foundation in place so that we can build on it together in the days, months, and years to come.

Interviewer: [obviously distracted from his train of thought] But I thought you said buildings interfered with open space?

Facilitator: When I see buildings...

[ At this point, the Interviewer remembered that he had to make a very important phone call. ]

How big is the green movement, really?

2009-10-28T15:16:00.003-04:00

The #1 book on Amazon UK in both of these categories:

Environment & Ecology : Waste Disposal
Environment: Waste Management

...is a book called "Can I Recycle My Granny?: And 39 Other Eco-dilemmas".

The Toronto Star presents an incomplete picture of child-oriented cereal

2009-10-27T11:35:00.007-04:00

More critique of the Toronto Star is on the way.

Today, they present a story about how the least nutritious breakfast cereals and those containing the most sugar and sodium, and the least fibre, are the ones most likely to be marketed to children.

First of all, this is not news. Who would think otherwise?

But, beyond the obvious, I struggle to find meaning in the story: I struggle to find out what they mean by "nutritious". Although they present a table of the "Top 10 Least Nutritious" showing the percentage of sugar in the cereal, and comments in the text about high sodium and low fibre content, as far as I know, sugar, sodium, and fibre are not actually nutrients. So what do they mean?

Most cereals are artificially fortified with nutrients -- iron, B-vitamins, and others. Nothing about this is mentioned.

And, if it was mentioned, I would still be concerned. Because if you cross-reference with other information, such as this article in The Economist, you see that added nutrients are not necessarily benign at worst.

In the above article, they contrast the government requirement that folic acid be added to grains and cereals with the finding that the liver is only able to convert a set amount of folic acid into folate in a single day. Beyond a certain threshold, apparently, folic acid circulates in the blood unmetabolized and this may exacerbate certain types of cancers. Folic acid is unconditionally added to refined grains and cereals because the natural nutrition in the germ and bran is stripped from them in order to improve malleability and increase shelf life, and folic acid is important for the healthy development of a fetus. Since women don't know when they will become pregnant, it is added across the board for insurance with the assumption that it wouldn't negatively affect those that don't need it. This may be a false assumption.

It also says that a single serving of some breakfast cereals may have twice the amount of folic acid that can be metabolized in a day. Contrast with the Star story, which says that many children eat two servings and not one, and you have the makings of a question unanswered.

When you consider the general principle that the body may be able to process nutrients only within limits, what else might this apply to? Is this why variety in our diet is important? From my own experience, I know that I can't completely metabolize the caffeine content of a cup of coffee in one day. If I drink one cup of coffee daily for a week, there is an accumulation that leads to a strangely wired feeling by day 4 and I have to have a break. It's as if there are some cycles in the body that take more than 24 hours to complete.

Another reason to avoid white flour? Whole wheat flour, having its parts intact, is usually not fortified. Although I have seen whole wheat pasta that does have artificial nutrition added to it.

The top cereal in the Star story is "Kashi Puffs - 7 Whole Grain Puffs". But how do puffed grains come to be? By extrusion -- by heating under pressure at very high temperatures, which probably destroys much of the natural nutrition and may cause some components to be mildly toxic. There is certainly a debate to be had and it seems as if the quality of the extrusion process is important, but I have no idea of the quality of each manufacturer's process or the effect of extrusion on the particular ingredients used in different cereals -- heat affects different ingredients differently.

My conclusion? Pretty much all boxed cereals may be bad for you, and you are better off eating the box (I don't post this in complete seriousness -- but it is interesting). And artificial vitamins might be bad for you, too. How about dry, rolled muesli instead? That's what I've settled on for cereal at the moment.

So, Toronto Star, you have let me down once again. And if I were to read only your paper, I would act in this world as if lobotomized.

[ note: a site accompanying the report that the Star story is based on can be found here. The full report is available here. ]

I am confused about the severity of H1N1

2009-10-27T11:02:00.007-04:00

I am now confused about the actual severity of H1N1.

The number of deaths -- about 5000 worldwide -- is not alarming. We are being encouraged to get the flu vaccine, but for no apparent reason. Why should anyone get the H1N1 vaccine if they would not normally get the flu vaccine that has become available every year for the past few years? The deaths seem to be in line with what you would normally expect from a normal flu, with the peculiar aspect that an unusually high number of casualties seem to be younger, healthy people.

A 13-year-old boy dropped dead on Monday afternoon and his father was told by a coroner that he had died as a result of H1N1. It is still not clear whether the boy had other health issues. This was not in today's newspaper. A 15-year-old boy died a couple of weeks ago from the same.

Also given a rather substandard mention is the fact that a pre-teen Cornwall girl died of H1N1 on the weekend. Even more confusing is that this issue is not on the front page of the newspaper. Instead, we have a story about the Bank of Canada governor apparently trying to dictate behaviour to world banks, a story about the environmental footprint of dogs, a story about full-day kindergarten learning going ahead despite budget concerns, and one about a mom that needs a lung transplant. There is a very small cue to flu vaccine availability on the bottom-right of the page.

Particularly interesting, though, is this segment of a story about halfway into today's paper:

People queuing in Whitby didn't need convincing. Not everyone showing up was at high risk.

"I called the department of health line," said Anne Robertson, a dental clinic nurse. "I didn't really fall into the (priority) category but they said nobody would be turned away."

The clinic felt like a natural disaster emergency centre. Workers in bright vinyl vests hurried about carrying megaphones, and weary-looking people sat in waiting areas while children's wails filled the air.

Isn't this important information? Why is it buried so deeply into the newspaper -- halfway through, at the end of a story at the bottom of the page? There are no images accompanying the above sentiment, whereas newspapers are usually fond of using images for dramatic effect. Why are sick people going for the vaccine, anyway? It doesn't do much good if you're already sick, does it?

Another aspect of H1N1 that worries me a bit is that we have created a culture where we can't have an honest discussion of priorities in a true crisis. Do we help the young first, or the old? Is that now a human rights issue? Is it first-come, first-served? What are our goals in the face of a crisis that can't be dealt with using universal treatment because of resource constraints? Who gets priority? Do you give the vaccine to people who are saddled with many other ailments and can be presumed to have a short life expectancy, anyway? Or do we prefer someone who has no health issues and offers a higher return on vaccine investment? These have always been issues in past pandemics.

At the moment, I don't worry about it. But I am definitely confused in light of the above. This is where we need journalists to inform if it is really serious and offer a big picture.

I don't intend to get the vaccine. I don't think it is unsafe and I don't distrust the system, but I generally don't take medication unless it's absolutely necessary. As a result, I haven't taken medication -- including over-the-counter -- for more than 10 years. I try to eat well and not be too lazy in the hope that this is good enough most of the time. And, at this time, based on the information before me I see no reason to get it.

[ update: the National Post provides some illumination. Maybe I should be subscribing to that one instead! ]

Attacking the sacred dog in the environmental debate

2009-10-27T04:53:00.007-04:00

Who would have expected this from the Toronto Star? Today, they ran a story referencing a new book written by Robert and Brenda Vale which says that feeding a medium-sized dog for a year has twice the environmental impact of driving a luxury SUV for 10,000 kilometres. Dogs ownership, therefore, is an environmental hazard.

A typical medium-sized dog "requires the produce of 0.84 global hectares to sustain him for one year", much of which is required to provide the 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereal consumed in a year. Proportioned appropriately, our planet has 1.8 gha of useful resources available per living human being. So, your dog uses half of your fair share.

And why is this an important story? Because many environmental activists like animals far more than they like people -- so much so that many need to have their own private animals and aren't content to simply congregate with those that exist naturally. They also like the planet far more than they like people and when you hear them talk, you can imagine that they empathize with Gaia. And this is on full display with an undoubtedly easily-acquired quote from one of the creators of the "ecological footprint" concept:

"If we want to do that, it's far more significant to measure how many children these people have, rather than pets," said Wackernagel, executive director of the Oakland-based Global Footprint Network.

So: children bad; pets not so bad. We should have less children so that we can have more dogs. I suppose becoming a child murderer is therefore an environmentally-friendly career choice. A serial killer of adults even better. Although, it'd be better to just abort the baby in the first place -- for the sake of the planet, you understand. I am admittedly going to an extreme, but you must imagine that this way of thinking silently cheers at Gaia getting her revenge when any natural disaster causes a massive loss of human life.

Dogs are an accessory of human life. Most serve no legitimate purpose and would not exist if not for the market demand generated by their owners. The fact that many environmentalists like them does not make this any less true. They are people with the same motivations as everyone else, but with different private interests.

There's always this point of view:

UBC psychologist and canine expert Stanley Coren laughed at the idea of shared pets. He says the physiological and psychological benefits of pet ownership offset any environmental downside.

A psychologist and canine expert? What would you expect him to say? That there were no psychological benefits and that canines served no purpose?

Overall, I think this is the kind of thing that environmentalists will just pretend they never read. Don't mention it, and it'll go away. And it will. As with contrary evidence to man-made global warming.

Jimmy's Food Factory: an interesting addition to the tiresome food documentary genre

2009-10-25T11:34:00.007-04:00

There are a lot of "exposition" food documentaries coming out these days, especially now that the sinister "foodie" movement is trying to get everyone to pay more for their food. A lot of these documentaries are not very good.

But a new documentary-ish food series called "Jimmy's Food Factory" looks like it might be interesting. It is done by the same fellow who did the "Jimmy's Farm" series a few years ago, where he documented the pros and cons of starting your own rare breed pig farm and explored different ways to make it financially viable by opening the farm to the community and marketing directly online.

"Jimmy's Food Factory" seems as if it will take an aspect of our day that revolves around food -- the first episode tackles "breakfast", and the second deals with "the sandwich" -- and look at how many common types of foods used to prepare these meals are made, including the setup of his own prototype food production line to show how it's done in the supermarket and factory.

It's early in the series yet, but it's an interesting way of presenting the information. I am not expecting total honesty -- I think "Jimmy's Farm" had a strange reality-TV flavour to it and a lot of things were overemphasized for dramatic effect, leaving you to wonder the true state of things -- but I am expecting to learn something. The show also had an under-emphasized but obvious premise -- he had the platform of a regular national TV show, produced by the production company of his friend Jamie Oliver, and startup money loaned to him by the same when the bank would not go near it.

The new show, however, is about something more objective. I am looking forward to seeing how it evolves.

Windows 7 came out today, and I found someone willing to sell it to me without a PC attached

2009-10-22T15:34:00.002-04:00

Windows 7 came out today.

But I think I've known for sometime that Microsoft Windows isn't really a retail product anymore. It wasn't always this way: Windows 95 received huge promotion. Shops opened at midnight to sell it, and customers were greeted with people in dancing software box costumes. There were line-ups at these events. But that was almost 15 years ago.

Windows is now an industrial component. It is the software that gets loaded on PCs that allows the hardware to do its job. So, when a version of Windows is released, the big story isn't how many copies it will sell but how many computers that contain it will be sold.

And that's pretty much what I saw today. I took a 15-minute walk up to the Yonge & Dundas Future Shop, hoping to buy the 3-license "family pack" edition of Windows 7 Home Premium. I wasn't sure if this particular 3-license edition would be available in-store, and for the past few releases I've always bought the new edition of Windows online, but I thought I'd have a look anyway.

Well, to my surprise, there wasn't much about Windows 7 anywhere in sight. A small sign by the escalator mentioned that you could get PCs with it. At the top of the escalator was a small display -- about 3 x 4 software boxes in size -- that contained only the upgrade version of Windows 7 Home Premium. That was it. No "family pack" edition, no "Professional" edition, and no "Ultimate" edition. Most of the human traffic was over in the notebook section -- presumably to buy notebooks with Windows 7 pre-installed.

I suppose it makes sense to some degree: if a new notebook with Windows 7 pre-loaded can be bought for $500 and a Windows 7 software upgrade costs $130, why not spend the extra $370 and get a new computer along with it? Well, I can think of lots of reasons, but I'm sure none of them are relevant here.

As an aside, I don't understand the layout of that downtown Future Shop store. Space is presumably at a premium for that location, being at one of the busiest downtown intersections, but the store is so spartan and airy that you feel like there is an incredible amount of wasted space. The ceiling height is massive. This is the same building, though, that contains an AMC movie theatre that requires you to go up about 4 escalators to get to your screening theatre.

So, I didn't find what I was looking for.

But then I thought I'd try Staples. There is one buried in the underbelly of Yonge & Adelaide -- much closer to me than was Future Shop, but I was hoping to get in a decent walk at the same time. Although the Staples website gives a physical address for this store -- 1 Adelaide St. East -- there is not actually anything at that address other than a big anonymous building. But I am sufficiently familiar with Toronto's downtown pattern language to correctly assume that it would be at the bottom of an escalator inside the non-descript building -- underground, on the underground walkway. And there it was. And the Windows 7 display was right by the entrance, containing all editions including the one I was looking for.

Mission accomplished.

Now I have to install it.

The utility of hats: a quote from "The Merry Gentleman"

2009-10-22T09:30:00.003-04:00

From "The Merry Gentleman":

Her: "How long have you had that hat?"
Him: "A long time."
Her: "If that hat could talk..."
Him: "I'd have got rid of it by now."

More trawling for meaning in the Toronto Star comments section: boys-only classes in school

2009-10-21T11:21:00.004-04:00

Some days, you can get the Toronto Star readership to agree with you. You have to use the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach. In this case, you can criticize segregation (bad thing) while also criticizing the feminization of society (good thing) and some of them will side with you on the premise that they are choosing a lesser evil.

To demonstrate, I posted this in response to a story about a school that will offer boys-only classes in an attempt to lower the dropout rate for boys, and improve their take-up of the curriculum:

On the other hand, I think that comment makes a mockery of the agree/disagree option. There is far too much to atomically agree or disagree with and that system of judgement is more geared toward concrete statements like "I like money" than to any kind of constructive discussion. Do they agree that Ritalin is a problem? Do they agree that boys are being raised as if they are defective women? Do they agree that boys-only classes may reduce the use of Ritalin on boys because they will be allowed to behave as boys?

Who really knows? But they agree with me, and my self-esteem gets a boost.

The Toronto Star readership is mostly insane

2009-10-19T18:17:00.003-04:00

More Toronto Star-related insanity was in evidence today, as the online readership sat in judgement of my comment that, if tobacco was to be banned indoors in private apartment and condominium buildings, then marijuana should also be banned indoors. As shown below, everyone who reacted to my comment disagreed:

Oh, to be a Toronto Star reader: one gay lifestyle trumps important world events in Pakistan, and multicultural drug gangs

2009-10-18T10:45:00.009-04:00

Today, the Toronto Star saw fit to put the dangerous situation that has escalated in severity in Pakistan throughout the last week on its front page. Yesterday, it had more important issues to table: both the issue of Toronto Maple Leaf hockey game ticket prices and an anecdote about an allegedly well-adjusted adopted son of two gay couples (he wanted to be a ballerino) made it to the front page while a story on Pakistan was pushed four pages into the newspaper.

The article that was pushed four pages into the newspaper included the recognition that the US is hard at work trying to determine how safe Pakistan's nuclear weapons really are in the face of an encroaching Taliban threat, and also that "tensions have never been higher -- a bold statement considering Pakistan's history of military coups, assassinations and general political instability." This is not to mention that Pakistan's health is central to the outcome of the NATO mission in Afghanistan and therefore to the health and morale of our troops there.

So, on Sunday -- I assume Saturday was a slow news day when viewed through the peculiar tint of the Star's sunglasses -- they put the story on the front page. Sunday is also perhaps a low-traffic day, readership-wise, so there is no danger toward alienating readers by putting real news at the forefront.

What else? The impressive Danielle Smith won leadership of the Wildrose Alliance party. A small story that you could almost overlook four pages in about an emerging Albertan political party that has already taken a seat provincially and threatens to change the face of Albertan politics -- or perhaps maintain them in the face of a directionless Conservative party that is setting the province adrift. Is this maybe more important than the front-page story about shipwreck hunters looking for a French warship that sank more than 90 years ago in the Great Lakes?

It is an everyday fight to justify my subscription to this newspaper.

Something else that caught my eye today was a story about the affiliation between Canada and Mexico as concerns Mexico's drug wars. It is apparently now not so easy to ascertain whether a drug gang is related to a certain group based on the ethnicity of its members: "Toronto Police have seen no sign of Mexican gang activity here", the story says. But then: "British Columbia has suffered a spate of killings some refer to as 'Mexico-type' gang violence". However, you'd be silly to think that things were so simple: "Much of the bloodshed has involved members or associates of the so-called United Nations gang, centred in B.C.'s Fraser Valley."

I believe this is called multiculturalism.

The decline of Tori Amos and the new album I'll be avoiding

2009-10-14T23:32:00.004-04:00

Ever since Tori Amos got a facelift (and came out of it looking a bit like a fembot), I think that the music just hasn't been the same. And it's not necessarily the music itself, although the previous album was unnecessarily raunchy and was accompanied by a concert that will probably leave a bad taste in my mouth indefinitely. But it's almost as if a tablecloth has been haphazardly pulled out from underneath her entire work. Somehow, I got the impression she would be OK with ageing gracefully; what, with all the talk about female empowerment and the measured tones. She came across as someone grounded and at peace with the natural cause of things. But now it's apparent that it wasn't true and that the image trumps all.

She has a Christmas album coming out in November. This will be the first of her albums that I will skip entirely. I will not buy it. And I like Christmas albums, but I don't want this rubbish infecting my holiday; I don't want to be reminded of her turn for the worst when I listen to it; and I don't want to be reminded of the generally unclean feeling I got from attending her concert earlier this year. I've heard a preview online, and it is many moons apart from the great interpretations she used to do. It sounds like it came from the same recording session as the last album. It's hard to believe that this is from the same musician that produced this classic.

What Tori Amos has now become is not compatible with the Christmas that I want to have.

This post was originally going to say "This blog is now closed." -- Survival Guy style. Maybe next time.

Blackmore's Night - "Rainbow Eyes"

2009-10-06T18:47:00.003-04:00

Once in awhile, Blackmore's Night breaks from their purpose of Renaissance music to do something a bit more "pop", with good results. As below (this is "Rainbow Eyes"):

Dixieland jazz and mindless YouTubing

2009-10-04T18:29:00.005-04:00

I was listening to some Dixieland jazz today and it kept reminding me of this scene from "Extras". In this scene, Maggie is worried that she might be a racist, even though she is trying to attract the romantic attention of a black actor on the set. To prove she's not, she overcompensates in her dislike for all things "black":

And then, for no apparent reason at all, I couldn't leave YouTube without looking for this. Even though it's been a long time, I still can't quite get over his voice!

And one of their best songs:

Why you have to read Theodore Dalrymple

2009-10-01T14:19:00.002-04:00

Here are three reasons why I like Theodore Dalrymple, and why he is probably my favourite non-fiction writer. Every time I read one of his essays, I normally:

Learn something about culture
Learn something about history
Learn something about the English language

And that is quite apart from having understood what he is trying to say about what is normally a current topic not particularly focused on providing any of the above. There are not many other non-fiction writers writing about current topics -- in fact, I can't think of any -- who provide the same.

For someone of my own generation, for whom there seems to have been an institutional interest in diverting our attention away from all three of those things, he is required reading.

Here is a link to his latest essay on inflation.

The Toronto Star and the poor, helpless Indians

2009-09-28T20:25:00.003-04:00

The title of this post is meant to be offensive because, although they seem to care, the Toronto Star continuously paints Inuit as helpless and unable to survive without the assistance of white man's industriousness. I am embarrassed to support this paper with my money sometimes. Not because they disagree with me (I would pay them to do that), but because they are so thin on analysis and critical thinking much of the time.

One of their favourite whipping boys is the cost of food in remote Native communities. Not long ago, they were trying to raise shock and awe about the cost of a litre of milk or a loaf of bread -- $5.99 as I remember. In an article today, they are troubled by the fact that a 12-can case of Coke costs $27.47, a 2-litre bottle of milk costs $8.99, a 700-gram box of Minute Rice costs $6.29, and a small tin of Maple Leaf Vienna sausages costs $2.59.

First, a very simple premise: since these things are probably delivered by small plane, weight and volume are premium products.

Let's talk about the $5.99 loaf of bread first of all, which is the price for a loaf of Wonder Bread. That is a high price, of course. It is likely expensive because it is perishable and has a short shelf life, even with the preservatives they add to it. It also takes up a lot of space because there is a lot of air in bread. And much of that weight is the moisture content. Do you know what is in bread in its most basic form? Mainly flour and water, with small amounts of dry yeast, sugar, and salt. Assuming water is available locally, most of our problem is solved. Negligible amounts of sugar and salt are involved (teaspoons and tablespoons), and yeast has a long shelf life if kept cool and dry. The other important point is that white flour has a long shelf life -- a year, easily. Whole wheat flour has a lesser shelf life, but is still given in terms of months. But wheat berries can last many years. The article also complains about unemployment. If bread is costing $5.99 a loaf for some of the lowest-quality bread imaginable, what are the chances that a small bakery operation seeded with a wheat grinder and oven, and served by annual or semi-annual deliveries of wheat berries and yeast, would not only yield cheaper and more nutritious and unadulterated bread, but also jobs for the community? Is a $5.99 loaf of Wonder Bread really so preferable -- less healthy, more expensive, somewhat stale, and providing no jobs?

So, that's bread considered. How about the milk? Well, again, I assume that the chief problems are perishability and weight: liquid is very heavy, and milk does not last very long. Is dried milk not good enough? Not only is it very light and takes up relatively little volume, but it also has a much longer shelf life than fresh milk. The nutrition is retained.

A 700g box of Minute Rice costs $6.29? Well, a 700g box of Minute Rice costs about half that where I live. But why would anyone eat Minute Rice at that price when a 10kg bag of standard white rice -- more than 10 times as much food -- could be bought for maybe twice the price? Isn't that a basic question to ask?

After the above, I assume you know what I would have to say about the canned Vienna sausages. Or maybe you don't. But I know the Mennonites in Waterloo make summer sausage that hangs in my kitchen for months, unrefrigerated and not perishing, and is comprised of meat cured with salt and smoke (and small amounts of sodium nitrite for safety). Why are canned Vienna sausages required?

Are we meant to just take this and not say anything? That is a pretty outrageous price for a 12-can case of Coke. But why does anyone need Coke, and what would it cost if only the syrup was sent, the water provided locally, and machines used to carbonate the water on demand, as they do in virtually all fast food restaurants and movie theatres? Failing that, why not Kool Aid? Or any other drink in powder form? A dry powder that you add to your own water stores more easily and for longer without going bad, and is much cheaper to transport, taking up less volume and weighing far less.

What else? What about dried beans? Do you know how much lighter and compact a 2kg bag of dried chick peas is when compared to the equivalent amount in cans, when the cans have not only their own weight against them, but also the weight and volume of the brine and the chick peas themselves, having absorbed so much water by being pre-cooked?

A favourite meme in the thinkalikers that bask in the glow of stories like this is that alcoholic drinks costs less than milk in some of these communities. It is often said with incredulity, sometimes connected with a hint of "no wonder they are drunk all the time" (though this is not actually said). But let's not forget that alcoholic drinks have a very long shelf life, and milk has a very short one -- especially if unrefrigerated. And we're not supposed to say that this alcohol may come to town via Native bootleggers. Being non-perishable, it is an ideal product for the slow and casual supply channels of bootleggers.

I once confronted someone in person about the milk-is-more-than-alcohol meme with the added suggestion that maybe they could raise their own cows rather than depending on other people to provide milk for them (this would admittedly be difficult in Nunvaut due to the weather conditions -- cows do not tolerate cold well, but it was just to make a point, and the context of the discussion concerned Ontario reservations). In response, I didn't receive any objections to the practicality and was simply told that they used to have buffalo but we wiped them out. Notwithstanding the fact that they could once again raise buffalo today without interference, he had got the wrong Indians -- it was the Indians that once inhabited the Great Plains in the US that kept buffalo and it had nothing to do with the Canadian situation. But what's the difference between Indians, I guess? They are just poster children for those who have problems with Western civilization -- all of them, without distinction, apparently. And these people don't like stereotypes?

The Inuit in Canada are treated like Africans are treated in all the world -- they are used when convenient to win political arguments, but when you try and find out who really cares by their actions then you struggle to find anything at all. And they are treated with the racism of unspoken low expectations -- that they can't do better because they are who they are -- by those who always seem to decry racism the most.

And this doesn't even consider the fact that these people -- the Inuit -- live separately from us and in places that we would not find tenable because they ostensibly have a unique way of life that makes it possible for them to survive in these places. If that's not the case, why are they separate from us? The article quotes a need for ATVs, snowmobiles, guns, and bullets in order to hunt caribou. Presumably, they manufacture none of these things themselves. So, why, again, are these people living separately from us, within a dependent, unsustainable and cartoon caricature of the lifestyles of their ancestors?

I don't get it.

Moving during a crazy housing market: not a good idea, especially if trading up

2009-09-28T15:25:00.004-04:00

The way I see it, if I wanted to change my living status -- to sell my house and move somewhere else -- I would have no other prudent option than to sell and start renting. I could not in good conscience sell and buy a different house. The reason is that the market is now saturated with low-money-down, high-amortization mortgages which skew the housing market higher in price. If you want to buy a house today and you want to do it responsibly -- that is, with a large downpayment and a 25-year-or-less amortization -- you are competing against people who have no regard for good value and will therefore pay far more for a property than it's worth. If you are putting little down and take a 35-year amortization, you have no regard for good value because you pay mostly interest in the first 10 years and all you receive in exchange is a slightly smaller monthly payment.

You could come up with a counter-argument to mine which asks why it matters. If I am selling, won't I get a high price for my own house which therefore eliminates the concern about selling and then buying another house. But this isn't quite right. Let's say I sell my house for $250,000 and the house I want to move to costs $350,000. And let's say that I expect at least a 15% correction when the dust settles on this housing catastrophe. In that case, it would knock at least $37,500 off the value of my own house, but would knock $52,500 off the value of the more expensive house. I would therefore lose $15,000 -- plus interest paid on that amount over the life of the mortgage -- by making the move now rather than later. That is more than 6 years worth of mortgage payments at my current pace.

So, it's not as simple as saying that you can move up without consequence. If you expect a drop in value in the near future, the greater the drop in value, the greater the loss.

[ 2009/09/29 update: I should also add that, if you sold your house for $250,000 then you have investment opportunity with that money if you are renting and not putting it back into another house. Even at a modest 5% return, you would return around $1000 per month and on top of that you would have no maintenance or property tax expenses (the latter being at least $200/month) ]

My value, in a few words

2009-09-28T08:31:00.003-04:00

After a week of vacation, it was disappointing to be once again sat on the train this morning -- an economic unit being railroaded into hellfire.

Oh, well.