Month: November 2024

Intel’s Pentium computer chip as Navajo woven art work

What does Intel’s Pentium computer chip have in common with Navajo textiles?
Over at the web site Colossal, they say:

More than you might think. For artist Marilou Schultz, the ancestral practice of weaving melds with an unexpected contemporary source of inspiration. Merging analog loom methods with the patterns found on computer processor cores, Schultz entwines the histories of the Navajo people and modern technology.

I love it. If you want to know more about this wonderful art work, see: Marilou Schultz Weaves Computer Processor Patterns in Traditional Navajo Tapestries at Collosal.com or the Pentium as a Navajo weaving at Ken Shirriff’s blog. I highly recommend it.

Bluesky is making social media fun again (and other thoughts on social media for Nov 2024)


Bluesky is making social media fun again, and that’s a good thing. For example, you have people developing creative new apps that show Bluesky skeets (posts) like the digital rain in the Matrix or firehose effect or a nightsky. All very cool.

It has some asking: is Bluesky the new Twitter and is that a good thing? Right now I would answer Yes to both parts of that question.

One thing for sure, people are paying attention and piling on. As the New York Times noted, Elon Musk and his swing to the right had much to do with people fleeing Twitter (ok, X.com).

What’s odd is that they are mostly going to Bluesky. After all, Bluesky is not the only game in town: Threads still exists. However Bluesky is rolling out features that are making Threads and X users want to move the butterfly app. And Threads has noticed and has started making changes. (While also trying to deal with their engagement bait problem.)

Will the changes at Threads be enough to keep Bluesky from surging to the lead? We will have to wait and see. Meanwhile I am interested in learning more about Bluesky and how I can experiment with it. If you feel the same, check out their documentation and read about the AT protocol.

Not everything about social media is fun and good. Over on X.com you have Elon making nazi jokes and spreading election conspiracies. Maybe he should spend less time doing that and more time on  X.com’s technical problems. I’ll leave Ed Zitron have the last word on Elon Musk (he has several words, and they are all rightly scathing). While over on visual social media, we have TikTok users spreading misinformation on melanoma. And famed YouTuber MrBeast being sued over ‘unsafe’ environment on upcoming Amazon reality show. Not good and all.

I once believed that new developments in social media were over. But the growth of Bluesky has convinced me otherwise. I’ll be curious to see how it grows over the next few years. Hopefully people like Musk and other fans of Trump (ahem, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz) stay away.
 

How to change your Bluesky handle if you have you own domain at netfirms

If you’re like me, you may have a domain name that represents you (e.g. berniemichalik.ca) and that domain name is set up with netfirms. You have decided you want that domain name to be your Bluesky handle. Great! Here is the process I followed.

First, you will want to start by following the process outlined by Bluesky here. As you are following their process, you will see a Change Handle screen like the one below. When you get there, write down or save in a file the Host information information (_atproto), Type information (TXT) and the Value information (did=…..). You will need that information when you log in to netfirms.

Once you have that information, you can do the following:

  1. Login to your netfirms account (https://secure.netfirms.com/secure/login.bml)
  2. Click on the word Domains at the top left of the screen. Look for the domain name you want to use and then click on the Manage button associated with it.
  3. Scroll down on the column on the left until you see the words     DNS & Nameservers and click on that.
  4. Look for the words DNS Records and click on that.
  5. Click on the round button with a plus sign in it to the left of the words Add DNS Record
  6. A box labelled Add New DNS Record will open. Fill in the input boxes you see.
    1. For Name, enter the host information: _atproto.
    2. For Type, it should equal TXT like it does about.
    3. For Content, enter the value information from Bluesky that started with did=…. (Make sure you enter all the information for the value.)
    4. For TTL, it should equal 1 hour.
  7. Once you fill in all this information, click the Add DNS button.

That’s all there is to it! If you follow their process successfully and make the changes in netfirms as I outlined, you will have a new Bluesky handle. Now anyone wanting to verify that your Bluesky account truly is you can check out your web site listed in your handle.

 

On the artist On Kawara

I was not aware of On Kawara until recently, and so I went down a rabbit hole reading as much as I could about him, as well as taking in whatever art I could find online. The following links I found helpful if you want to know more about this artist:

Thoughts I had:

  • To me he seems a fine combination of minimalism and conceptualism. That some of his earlier work was related to  minimalist Agnes Martin was also interesting.
  • While time is the focus of many of his work, secondary ideas come from that, such as scale and precision. Even location is there in the painting.
  • While the Date Paintings are minimal to the point of looking mechanical, they are actually produced by hand. Indeed there was significant effort by the artist to make one of the Date paintings.
  • Perhaps they could have been even more minimal by only using black and white, but there are color choices made for the paintings,  reflecting the part of the painter.
  • Like other conceptualists, Kawara had rules for his work, For example, “When Kawara was unable to complete the painting on the day it was started he immediately destroyed it.”

As someone fascinated by time and how it is measured and what that signifies, I was intrigued by the work of Kawara. If that appeals to you too, check him out.

When was the last time you refreshed your router? It could be time to do that

How long have you had your router in your house? Is it relatively new? If so, that’s good. However you might be like me and have a router that’s 3 or 4 years old. If that’s the case, it’s time to replace your router. Contact your internet provider and ask them if they can refresh your router with a newer one. (And if they can’t or won’t, consider switching internet providers.)

You might think: I don’t want to go through the hassle of that. That’s what I thought too. It turns out it was a very easy thing to do in my case. I suspect that will hold true for you.

Hassle aside, what I also noticed is that I started getting much better upload and download speeds with the newer router without having to upgrade my plan. You might find the same thing, and that’s a good thing indeed.

So if you haven’t refreshed your router in a number of years, consider getting a newer one.

PS it doesn’t have to be a new device. In fact, the upgrade cost might be free if it’s slightly older than new but more recent than your current router.

The importance of the Great Good Place

Cities need third places and citizens who live there need to fight for them. A book that makes the case for them is this one: The Great Good Place. As the blurb for the book explains:

In The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg gave the term “third places,” where people gather for the pleasure of good company and conversation, and explained just how important they are.

  • Discover the benefits of informal public and civic life and how it contributes to community health and individual well-being.
  • Explore how third places have been, and still are, vital to grassroots democracy.
  • Experience the power of third places and how they bring people together, fostering a sense of belonging and connection.
  • Allow this book to inspire you to create and revitalize your own third places, from coffee houses to community centers, and make a positive impact on your community.
  • Learn from real-life examples around the world, and see how third places have transformed and revitalized communities.
  • Gain a deeper understanding of the history and evolution of third places, from coffee houses to bookstores, and how they continue to play a vital role in our society.
  • Discover the power and potential of third places and how they can change your community and your life.

Reading that, it makes you want to send a copy of the book to the head of Starbucks, a company that’s been destroying third places in neighbourhoods by opening up coffee shops that have no seating. It’s not the only reason that the company has been doing poorly, but it no doubt contributes to it. Indeed, I walked by a new Starbucks last night with no seating and a Tim Horton’s with seating: the former was empty and the latter was not.

There has been a struggle to build better cities since the pandemic hit. Great third places are part of what will make cities better, but they don’t just show up. They need people like you to support them. So take the time to understand that and find out what you can do to help: talk to your local politicians, lobby community groups, share things with your friends, patronize good third places (and not grab and go food places). Perhaps read that book, so you can better express these ideas. If you want to get a copy, one place is here on Amazon: The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. Better still, go find if your local bookstore can get you a copy, for bookstores can be good third places, too.

It’s good to be disappointed because you learn what you value

It’s good to be disappointed if only because it can teach you what you value.

Take the breakfast order above from my favorite breakfast place, Boom. It was different from the way it usually came: the coffee was much smaller, the fries likely started out frozen, and the sandwich ingredients were meagre. My first thoughts seeing it were: this is disappointing.

Some days I would label something as disappointing and move on. But that day I asked myself why I was disappointed. I was expecting the coffee to be much larger, the fries to be big chunky home fries, and the sandwich to have larger amount of pea meal bacon and egg. I was also disappointed because it was not much different than something I could make myself. It was additionally disappointing because I felt I wasted my money. All in all, not a happy meal.

You could say I was disappointed because my expectations weren’t met. But it could have varied from my expectations and not been disappointing. The disappointment was the poor quality of the meal for what it cost. A certain quality of breakfast for the price is the combo I craved and this meal did not deliver on that.

Never let something disappointing pass you by, even if it’s a simple thing like an Uber meal. Take a moment to consider why you feel kicked to the curb and let it inform you as to what you value. Many people do not have an understanding of what they value, and they drift through life making poor choices and settling for less because of that.

Knowing your values and moving towards them is the way to a good life. Sometimes you learn that from something dramatic happening to you: sometimes you learn it via a Uber Eats 🙂

P.S. Is this somewhat goofy? Yes, it is. Sometimes the best way to get people to think about an idea is to come up with an angle on a topic that forces them to look at differently. Approaches to a topic that are goofy, ridiculous, preposterous or absurd all can do that.

On voting Against, as opposed to voting For


After an election, people may wonder: how could people vote for that candidate? Many people believe a vote is for a candidate, and someone’s vote means they favor that candidate.

I don’t believe that. I believe that for many voters, the logic they employ is this:

  1. has the incumbent done a good job in their last term in office? If they have, vote FOR them so they win.
  2. has the incumbent done a bad job in their last term in office? If that’s true, vote AGAINST them so they lose.

I believe this is why many incumbents hold on to power for a long period of time. Voters feel they are doing the job well enough and they don’t want to fire them from and take the risk of bringing in someone who can’t do the job.

It also explains why people can vote for someone who others think is a bad candidate. They are voting for the bad candidate because they want to vote against someone they consider a worse candidate. To them, the best way to defeat the worse candidate is to vote for the bad candidate.

The assessment of who is a good, bad or worse candidate will depend on how much information you bring into the equation. For low information voters, they might think candidate A has done a bad job managing the economy, so they will vote against candidate A by voting for a candidate who can cause the defeat of candidate A. If candidate B has the best chance of beating candidate A, they will vote for candidate B. They may dislike candidate B in numerous ways, but that is the candidate most likely to prevent candidate A from remaining in office.

Many high information voters will look at an election results and say most voters voted for candidates running on issues X, Y, and Z. That may be the case for a percentage of voters. Many voters, though, are not voting for a candidate, they are voting against a candidate, and they will vote for someone who can defeat that candidate, regardless of many of the issues.

P.S. I thought of this when I read many such posts like this on social media:

jamelle‬ ‪@jamellebouie.net‬ (on Bluesky -b):

Also, if anyone is looking for someone to blame, it should be focused on the people who looked exactly at what Trump was selling and said “yes.”

No doubt there were some percentage of voters who voted for Trump because they wanted to see him in office. Those voters said “yes”. But I think there were many more voters who wanted to vote against Biden/Harris and thought the best way to remove them from office was to vote for Trump. To them, Harris was the worst candidate to vote for, even if Trump was a bad candidate. I don’t agree with that at all, but I am trying to understand how some voters could vote for Trump without assuming they are simply terrible people.

On low information voters


High information voters believe that voters should understand many of the issues of an election and the stances of the candidates on those issues before they vote for someone. High information voters also believe that most voters should be like that.

I am a high information voter who believes something different. I believe that most voters are not like that and never will be. I believe most information are low information voters.

Low information voters vote for or against a candidate based on one or two pieces of information. This limited information could be:

  • Party affiliation: they vote for a candidate because they belong to a party they like. Or they vote against one candidate of a party they hate by voting for a  less hateful candidate.
  • One overriding issue: they vote for a candidate because that candidate supports the issue they care about more than any other candidate
  • Character: they vote for a candidate because they consider them the strongest or the least corrupt or the most forthright about matters.
  • Alignment: they vote for the candidate that is most aligned with them, however they see themselves. Or they vote for the candidate they see as most aligned with being a leader, whatever that is.

Once a low information voter has this information, they will make their choice.

As a high information voter, you might have a hard time understanding why someone chooses to be a low information voter. But there are many reasons why someone chooses to be this way, such as:

  • The voter votes on one issue because they feel that nothing is more important than this issue. Once they know how the candidates stand on this issue, they can cast their vote without discovering much more.
  • The voter votes for one party and their candidates consistently. They believe that  members of that party govern best.
  • The voter doesn’t have the ability to find out about all or most of the candidates. This is especially true of candidates for minor offices.
  • The voter doesn’t feel they have the ability to understand the issues at stake in an election. The information is at hand, but they can’t process it.
  • The voter has important or difficult things to deal with in their lives and so they lose their ability to focus on the issues.
  • The voter feels the responsibility of voting but they dislike politics and politicians and would prefer not to think too much about it.
  • The voter feels the system is wrong somehow and wants to limit their involvement in the system.

Of course there are a number of invalid reasons that low information voters vote, too, such as:

  • prejudicial or bigoted reasons (e.g. they only vote for white men)
  • silly reasons (e.g., they don’t vote for bald men or men that are short or wear glasses)
  • corrupt reasons (e.g. they vote for a candidate because the candidate buys their vote)

Regardless of what their reasoning is, this is how many voters vote and they will not be persuaded by a flurry of facts from a high information voter. Either they will not have the ability to weigh the facts provided, or they don’t think those additional facts matter to them.

It should be noted that low information voters are not uneducated or stupid. A single issue voter may be highly educated and decide that only candidates that support better healthcare. An intelligent voter may vote against a candidate because of a major scandal, even if they voted for the candidate repeatedly in the past. A vote is a limited instrument: what the meaning is of the vote is only known to the voter.

In the future, when you read a piece about the election (or rejection) or a candidate who stood for A, B, C, D, E, F and G on the issues, don’t assume that most voters voted for or against him/her because of the sum of A to G. Assume many voters voted for or against the candidates based on just one of those.

P.S. This was inspired by many things I’ve seen on social media that read like this:

‪Michael Hobbes‬ ‪@michaelhobbes.bsky.social‬

This is the whole ballgame for me: You cannot run a functioning democracy in a media environment where voters do not know basic facts about what candidates do and believe.

Voters are living in a post-internet world and legacy institutions have not kept up.

Basquiat’s Eyes and Eggs at The Broad

The Broad museum in Los Angeles has a fine collection of works by Basquiat, including the above, Eyes and Eggs (and many more). Indeed, it has a fine collection of modern art in general. I recommend you check it out, either online or — better yet — in person.

Found via this post: Austin Kleon — Horn Players – Jean‐Michel Basquiat “There was…

The last 200 days and the next 4 years in America


If anyone wants to know what happened in the last 200 days or what will happen in the next four years, then this is a good place to start: Donald Trump wins presidential election, defeating Harris to retake White House (The Washington Post). Specifically, when it comes to the economy, he promises this.

Trump did everything wrong in the campaign and Biden and Harris did everything right and none of it mattered.  The economy is doing great now but the economy has also been terrible for the last few years because of a pandemic. Beyond that, housing is simply unaffordable for many people, so having a job doesn’t necessarily make you feel good about your place, economically speaking. For those voters, the hope is Trump will fix that.

While Trump will have the Senate to make changes, he may not have the House. In terms of passing laws, that could provide him with difficulties. Difficult or not, it may not make much difference to him personally.  He will likely continue to use the office to get richer. And few if any of the charges against Trump will remain, so he will likely spend his time at the White House rather than a cell.

If anything, Trump will delegate governing to others, like Musk and RFK Jr and the Heritage Foundation. He’s not much interested in the job of the presidency, while others around him are. He’s content to be the Boss of the country and use it to get wealthy.

I suspect this is the end of Ukraine as a free country, though the rest of Europe may decide otherwise. I imagine things will only heat up in the Middle East as Netanyahu feels more impowered, but it is risky to make predictions in that part of the world.

It’s also risky to make any sorts of predictions about what will happen in the US, but unlike 2016, there’s more to base any prediction on. Generally, if you are a fan of Trump, you’re going to predict things will be great again. If you are a foe of the man, your predictions will be full of darkness and difficulty.

 

 

 

 

 

Your problem is actually a solution. And that’s the real problem. Which calls for the real solution.


Your problem is actually a solution. And that’s the real problem. Which calls for the real solution.

Let’s unpack that.

Many of the common problems we have are actually solutions for underlying problems we have. So if you have a problem with: eating, drinking, smoking,  sleeping, shopping, etc. too much, you need to look at those behaviours not just as problems but as solutions to underlying problems. You might be indulging in those behaviours because they solve your underlying problem of being anxious, bored, tired, etc. If you try and solve the problem of doing something too much like eating without dealing with the actual problem, you will have a difficult time. And you will have a difficult time because you will may have taken away the solution for the actual problem you were avoiding.

One approach to start dealing with this is get out a notepad and write down what problems you are struggling with and try to get underneath them and see if those problems are actually solving other problems. Then write down those problems and see what you can do to solve them. If you can make progress in solving the underlying problems, you might find that the other problems dissipate.

As always, talk to a professional if you think or feel that your problems are harming you. Take good care of yourself; get help if you can’t do it alone.

 

The oddness of the Al Smith Dinner

It was a no show for Kamala Harris at the Al Smith dinner in 2024. And while Trump was there, he wasn’t wearing white tie, as presidential candidate wore in previous years. Typically the candidates looked more like these guys:

Maybe Trump was trying to channel President Kennedy:

Who knows.

For those of us outside Manhattan, it’s truly an odd event. Perhaps it made more sense before the television cameras, but it seems strange for those of us outside of NYC to watch candidates dressed in white tie and hobnob with that city’s elite. Maybe that’s why Trump wore dressed down black tie. Or why Harris didn’t attend at all.

The pandemic put a dint in the Al Smith dinner. I wonder if we will see it restored to its former importance in 2028? Or maybe, like top hats and top coats, this event will become an anachronism.

if it starts to die off, that’s too bad. I like a good white tie event. 🙂