On Cabaret, 50 years later

1972 was a very good year for film. Many of the films listed at that link are now seen as classics. One of them, The Godfather, is getting much of the focus this year for its 50th anniversary. While I’m glad people are revisiting and paying attention to that great film, another great film celebrating that milestone that people should also revisit is Cabaret.

Like The Godfather, Cabaret is a period film set in around World War II. Perhaps because of that, neither film feels dated / stuck in the 70s, the way a film like The Candidate might. You can watch them as if they were made in any decade. You can also watch and rewatch both of them because they remain great, half a century later.

To get a sense of what makes Cabaret so special, I recommend this piece: Cabaret at 50: Bob Fosse’s show-stopping musical remains a dark marvel. For fans like me, here are two pieces that allow you to do a deeper dive on the film and its background: 1) Is Bob Fosse’s Cabaret An Unfaithful Adaptation? | by Keith Schnabel | Medium and 2) That Controversial Cabaret Lyric Change – The Official Masterworks Broadway Site.

If you want to stream it but don’t know how, check this out: Cabaret streaming: where to watch movie online?

 

The Surprise of Rousseau (be surprising too)

Henri Rousseau is the Great Outsider. An outsider to the Establishment of the Art World, from the Salons to Picasso. Despite rejection and mockery, he persevered and painted and exhibited.

Recently the Guardian featured one of his masterpieces, Tiger in a Tropical Storm (also known as Surprised!). It is seen here. (That National Gallery link provides a nice interface you can use to zoom in and out of.) You can read more about the painting here. I highly recommend you check both of those sites out.

In some way Rousseau surprised his fellow artists. Artists like Picasso were fans but mocked him too. You can read about that here (Le Banquet Rousseau: Picasso and Rousseau’s Friendship) and here (When Henri met Pablo, The Guardian).

Keep Rousseau in mind whenever you are doing something you love with little encouragement and even mockery. You may not be making something great, but you never know. Keep going nonetheless. Surprise them.

 

 

 

On Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg is leaving Facebook/Meta. I used to think at best she was weak tea. Like Eric Schmidt, she was brought in to provide a degree of professionalism and organizational skill missing from their respective companies and leadership. And like Schmidt, she left when that missing skill was no longer needed or wanted.

I think Sandberg benefitted from having someone like Zuckerberg as her boss. The worst aspects of Facebook were associated with him, while whatever nefarious actions she was taking were unrecognized. This is not to absolve him or say that she was the one to blame. It’s just to note that many of the terrible things that happened on her time at that company should also fall on her.

Right now I think her legacy will change and darken over time. It will certainly  be less bright than it was in her Lean In days. But who knows: she may pull a Bill Gates and go on to be someone who spends her time and efforts in being philanthropic and charming.

Whatever her future, here’s some things I’ve been reading now in mid 2022 about her leaving:

On my recurring pandemic dreams

During the pandemic I had a recurring dream that was unique to me. It’s not unlike the recurring dream people have about showing up to class and realizing there is a test. In my recurring dream I am travelling somewhere and I know this because I am on a boat or at an airport or in the process of transporting from A to B. But I can’t get to B. Something in the dream starts to come undone: the transportation breaks down, or I don’t have my travel documents, or I have to go back. I keep trying to prevent the breakdown, but it continues until I wake up. Or in some dreams, I say to myself: you are having the Failed Travel dream again, it’s not real.

I wonder if others have had a similar dream or their own dream during the pandemic?

I wanted to record this in case I forget that this occurred.

On the great painter, Christopher Pratt

Last week the great painter and printmaker Christopher Pratt died.

I was going to say Canadian or Newfoundland painter — for he was that — but it is better to leave off the modifiers. His greatness can stand against any painter of any time or place.  I am especially drawn to his hyperrealist paintings of roads and boats and houses. How the light in them changes, how your mood changes as you absorb them. There’s an abstraction to them, despite clearly recognizable imagery.

I’ve been a fan of his ever since I read Jay Scott write so eloquently of him back in the late 80s, early 90s and which was captured in this book, The Prints of Christopher Pratt 1958-1991 by Jay Scott; Christopher Pratt – 1991.

Canada has had many great painters. While many people say Colville is their favorite — especially when it comes to east coast artists —  I have always preferred the work of Pratt.

Though he lived and painted in Newfoundland, for decades he’s been represented by the Mira Godard Gallery in Toronto. If you want to read more about him or see his fine work, go there.

(The image above, Summer on the SouthEast, is a link to the Mira Godard website. I can just feel the heat of the east coast summer as I look at it. I can hear the drone of flies, see the brightness of the sun. It’s perfect.)

 

 

On retiring my COVID-19 reporting (for now)


Recently I was reporting COVID-19 data daily. I wrote a program called covid.py that scraped the Ontario.ca Covid web site and and pulled out data for hospitalization and cases. It was a rough but useful gauge to see how COVID was going in Ontario, and I was able to get the information in a snap.

Unfortunately the information is no longer posted on the page I was visiting with my code. The data is out there somewhere in the datasets, but I think I will reconsider things before modifying my code. It is a shame that the data is harder to get though.

All these actions by government organizations to make it harder to get data is a bit frustrating. I read people say: you should track the pandemic and make good decisions. It’s hard to do that though when the information is hard to get.

For more information and data:  Government of Ontario data sets on COVID-19 are here. Government of Canada COVID-19 information is here. More on my code, here.

 

On Getting Things Done

The book and system Getting Things Done (GTD) has been around for so long that I used to assume that everyone knew of it and used it. Lately I’ve been reminded that is not true.

Well, if you haven’t heard of GTD and forgot about it, this primer on it may be just the things you need to (re)acquaint yourself with it.

I have issues with GTD, but if you are someone who feels like you can never get all the things you have to do organized and get yourself feeling productive, then get using GTD. You will get more productive, for sure.

On Davis Day, and other histories of Cape Breton

Today is Davis Day in Cape Breton. It’s now known as Miners Memorial Day, but growing up we honoured this day and thought about William Davis and all the sacrifices miners and their families suffered over the years as they struggled to live better lives. It was a solemn day. You can read more about it here: Miners Memorial Day: Davis Day | Museum of Industry. Here’s a good piece on how this day is still relevant in places like my home town of Glace Bay.

Over the last while I have been collecting these links regarding Cape Breton history which I thought worthwhile and you may as well:

(Image from a link and comes from the Beaton Institute)

The water works of Maya Lin


The last few days have been taken up with blogging about artists. Here’s one last one from Colossal: The Precious Nature of Water Ripples Through Maya Lin’s Sprawling Installations.

You may know Lin through her memorial work, but she is a brilliant artist as well. The image above is just a taste of her work featured in Colossal: you really want to go to that site to get the details.

After that, go visit her site for more fine work.

 

Six pieces on six fine artists


Sticking with yesterday’s them, here are seven good pieces on artists that I’ve read recently that are good and worth reading:

  1. Unlike the Basquiats, these art works of  Francis Hines really were found in storage and have been released to the public (hooray)
  2. This is a happy story:  Ernie Barnes’s Sugar Shack Painting Brings Big Price at Auction
  3. This is a sad one: Matthew Wong’s Life in Light and Shadow.
  4. David Shrigley is always interesting. I see his work everywhere on social media. You may have as well.
  5. Gilbert and George, here talking about their epic Covid artworks are also interesting, not the least because of their conservative views. Unlike most conservative artists, they’re brilliant.
  6. Last but not least,  Ema Shin. That beautiful image above is of her work. You can click on the link to see more of them and to learn what is the thought behind them.

On Basquiat and Recent Crimes

Basquiat has been in the news this week on account of two alleged crimes: theft and fraud. In the first instance, this “Brazen” Couple Tries to Walk Out of Manhattan Gallery With a Basquiat. Nice try, brazen couple.

The other alleged crime is fraud, although the owners of these works deny that in this instance: Is the Orlando Museum of Art Displaying Fake Basquiats?

All I can say is to anyone buying these “new” Basquiats: caveat emptor.

(Image from this tumblr, which has quite a few good images of the man, including the one above.)

July 1, 2022: update. Looks like the FBI have decided to step in and deal with the works at the Orlando Museum. You can read about that here and here.

The irony of the Nike’s new shoe, the NikeCraft x Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe

If this shoe was coming out from anyone other than Nike, I would just straight-up praise it. It’s a practical shoe. It will likely wear well over the months and even years. If you are someone who likes to wear the same shoe all the time (e.g. Birkenstocks or Blundstones) then these could be perfect for you.

Coming from Nike, though, which is famous/notorious for making rare and high priced shoes intentionally, the fact that they make these and portray these shoes as typical of them is …well, something.

To step back, Nike does make shoes for different markets. The Pegasus brand and the Air Force 1 lines are for mass markets, just like these are. Just like the Jordan brands and other high end lines are for different markets. It’s all just capitalism: they have a model for whatever you value and whatever your values are. For more on the these shoes, check out Uncrate and Yanko Design.

The solution to poverty and crime and homelessness is simple

And what is the solution? GIVE PEOPLE MONEY. Just give it to them.

Here’s what I mean. Case study #1: Liberia’s stunningly effective way to reduce shootings and other crimes.

Case study #2: The expanded child tax credit lifted 3 million children out of poverty.

Read and see. Over and over and over again, it’s always the same. You give people money, much of our social problems go away. Much? Most. All? Not all.

Shouldn’t we give them jobs? Jobs is a way to give people money. Good jobs are a great way to give people money. Crappy jobs, not so much. In fact, many jobs are an indirect way of giving people money, it’s just that people sit in an office for eight hours a day filling out online forms or sitting in meetings because someone has a sense that they are needed so that someone else can have someone give them money.

Where does the money come from? From people who have more money than they know what to do with. From programs we fund now to the hilt because we worry about crime. From taxes on people and organizations that harm our society, that pollute, that run their businesses on the assumption that it doesn’t matter that they treat people badly.

Won’t this cause moral hazards? It’s a good tradeoff to have.

In the future we will be harshly criticized for not doing the thing that is obvious to alleviate all our problems because of our inhumanity towards others. For allowing people to be homeless. To be hungry. To suffer needlessly. The obvious thing is to give people money.

Once they have money, then the next thing is to help them with the things they need to have a better life.

 

On being able to walk through your old home

Have you ever wanted to go back and go inside homes you once lived in? I have. I still have memories of places I lived in as a child, and I have a yearning to go back to them, go back to Minto Street or Borden Street, and walk through and touch the houses I once inhabited.

The last and longest place I lived in was 110 Castlefield. I can’t go back there, but thanks to that Youtube video above, I can virtually go through it. I can see all the changes that were done to it by me and others. I can have countless memories of it as the video progresses.

It’s true, I have hundreds of photos as well, and those are great. But I really love that video. I hope it never comes down.

November 1, 2025: Speaking of going back to homes I once lived in, here’s some recent photos of 26 Duggan Avenue (Lower). Seeing that made me wonder if there were any photos of 26 Duggan Avenue (Upper) where I once lived. Sure enough, there is.

Cool bamboo buildings at Colossal

Over at Colossal is a nice piece on this book: ‘Bamboo Contemporary’ which Spotlights 14 Designs Advancing Sustainable Architecture Around the World.

The house above is just one of the many featured there that you want to take a peek at.

Bamboo is an impressive material for many reasons. To see why, head over to Colossal and read that piece.

We need a better IKEA, or an IKEA alternative


That’s what I was thinking when I read these two pieces:

IKEA, for a large part, is DIY furniture. But for many reasons, there is a limited range of furniture pieces to choose from. I wish there were better alternatives to them that offered more thoughtful pieces, like the ones found in those Yanko Design articles.

Anyway, it’s likely not going to happen soon. But I think there is a market for it. We just need the right business leaders to build it.

(Image from the first article.)

Beef and chicken and pork, oh my. (My cooking interests for December to May, 2022


Yikes! Another too many months have slipped by since I last did one of these. October, February and now May has passed! I have a ton of good recipes and food links to share, so let’s get at it!  🙂

Beef: grilling season will be upon us, and smash burgers are all the rage, so make some advice on how to make those. Perhaps you prefer a steak? Here’s how to Reverse Sear Steak to get THE best result. If you just want a bit of beef, try these Garlic-Butter Steak Bites or this, Easy Beef Cube Steak With Onions and Mushrooms. If you prefer something fancy, go for this, Beef Wellington Recipe or Ossobuco alla Milanese Recipe/. Love them!

Pork: prefer pork? Then how about this recipe for juicy pork chops or this one for spinach mushroom pork chops? Pork Chops with Sherry Pan Sauce with Ras Al Hanout sounds exceptional. Pork schnitzel is also great. Here’s two recipes: Pork Schnitzel with Warm Potato Salad Recipe and this one.

There are so many ways to enjoy pork, from Grilled Korean-Style Short Ribs  to 11 Best Pork Shoulder Recipes. Or just make bacon. Anyway you like it, pork is perfect.

Chicken: how about the other white meat? Here’s how to make exceptional grilled chicken from smitten kitchen. For something a bit spicy, try Chicken Thighs with Burst Tomatoes Harissa and Feta or Nigella’s Slow-Cooker Moroccan Chicken Stew. You can’t go wrong with Chicken Piccata or this pairing of  Chicken Cutlets & Roasted Asparagus. Chicken Quesadillas? Why yes. Or for something you likely haven’t made yet but should, do this, Poul Nan Sos (Haitian Chicken in Sauce, seen below).

Soup/Salad:  Let’s move on to something lighter still, but still tasty. Basque Garlic Soup and Healing Garlic Tonic Soup can both meet that criteria. As can Zuppa Toscana. Go here if you want to learn How to Make Better Soups in general.

Pair up those soups with Roasted Citrus Beet Salad with Goat Cheese or Arugula Salad with Pears and Goat Cheese or the famous Jennifer Aniston salad.

Here’s some more salad goodness from Food and Wine: Yogurt Salad Dressing Recipes and You’re Not Adding Enough Vinegar to Your Vinaigrette.

One pot/sheet pan/slow cook:  these are three ways I love to cook. For example, one pot Greek Turkey and Rice Skillet and One pot puttanesca are both good. As for sheet pan recipes, try Sheet Pan Breakfast, Easy Sheet Pan Beef Skirt Steak Fajitas Recipe, Sheet Pan Roasted Vegetables and Chickpeas Bowl Recipe, Sheet Pan Italian Sausage Bean And Tomato Tray Bake, or Sheet Pan Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Arugula.

Slow cookers are actually great when the weather gets warm. Try these out:  Slow-Cooker Coffee-Braised Brisket With Potatoes and Carrot, Slow-Cooker Tuscan Pot Roast Recipe, Sweet and Spicy Asian Pork Shoulder, Slow-Cooker Asian Short Ribs, 4-Ingredient Slow Cooker Cola Chicken, or finally Lazy Crock Pot Chicken With Mushrooms.

Casseroles/dump dinners: I’ve been on a kick to make dinners easier, so I’ve been trying making more casseroles and other easy dishes. Here’s what I found: 6 Easy Steps to a Customizable Casserole  by Mark Bittman, Sauces vs. Soups for Casseroles, French onion macaroni and cheese recipe, Easy one-pan lasagna recipe,  and Modern Tuna Casserole. Related, here are the Easiest-Ever Dump Dinners and Chicken Tortilla Dump Dinner.

Cuisines (French, English, Eastern Europe, India): if you find yourself in the mood for something in particular, try these ideas from France: Pate en croute, How to Make Terrine Easy and Simply or La Buvette Terrine. Two sources of UK dining are roast dinners in the UK and UK food. From Eastern Europe, we have Pierogi Ruskie: Potato-Cheese Pierogi, Polish Potato Pancakes (Placki Ziemniaczane), Goulash and Eastern European Main Dish Recipes. Last but not least, Green-Lentil Curry Recipe from the great Madhur Jaffrey.

Sauces: here’s some sauces I like: Peruvian Green Sauce Recipe,  Simple and Delicious Homemade Brown Gravy,  Aioli, and Garlic Sage Brown Butter Sauce.

Pastry: If you want something sweet, try chocolate puddle cakes, Fast Easy Simple Everyday Basic Biscuits, Apple and walnut crumble, or Jumbleberry Crumble also look good.

In addition: none of these fell into a proper category but all are worthwhile, including this recipe for Roasted Red Pepper and Feta Frittata, Lamb Loin Chops with Red Wine Pan Sauce with Cumin and Chiles, and homemade merguez with herby yogurt.

Finally: Here’s some pantry ideas, plus these 31 Underrated Pantry Staples Every Home Cook Should Have.  Here’s how to Convert a 9×13 Recipe to 8×8. .  Here’s why ultra-processed foods have a calorie problem.  Here’s 31 Underrated Pantry Staples Every Home Cook Should Have.  Here’s The 20 Recipes BA Readers Love the Most.  Here’s a list 51 Valentine’s Dinner Ideas for Romantic Rendezvous and Date Nights at Home.  A good piece on Good cheap food. .  If you want to know the What’s the Difference Between Pastrami & Corned Beef? click there.  If you need to know how to light a Charcoal Grill click there.  This is a list of things to move out your fridge.  This is a fine piece on why Appalachia Doesn’t Need Saving It Needs Respect in terms of food.  For fans of Summerlicious 2022.   More pantry ideas . (I should have grouped these.)   On the indispensable rotisserie chickens.  On The Michelin controversy in Toronto.  How to Fry an Egg…Good advice.  Also good advice: Cook well spend less.  This was thought provoking: Who killed the great British curry house?   This was fascinating: Michelangelo’s shopping List.   If you want: Dry-Age Your Meats at Home.  Once the Bon Appetit test kitchen was flying high. Now we have people writing pieces on how their staff (Brad Leone) are causing people to get food poisoning.  Here’s a piece on the creator of fish and chips.  Here’s how to make a Toronto cocktail.

Allright: let’s go grocery shopping! (That’s Michelangelo’s list below.)

(Top image: theculinarycook.com. Bottom from Atlas Obscura)

The elusive spotlight (being a pop star as a career)


Pop stars have unique careers. For some of them, it can be like being an athlete: you do it while you are young and then you are done. That what came across to me in this piece: ‘That’s it? It’s over? I was 30. What a brutal business’: pop stars on life after the spotlight moves on | Music | The Guardian.

Then there are some artists — not as many — who go on and on and whose careers shift and they become more akin to academics (e.g, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen).

What happens after the spotlight shifts depends on the artist. Read the article and see.

It’s an interesting career, to say the least. All the power in the world to those that can make a go of it.

May is done. Here’s some of the highlights and some ramblings for May, 2022

Last month, I thought I needed to switch up this monthly missive of a quasi newsletter. Make it a bit more rambling, a bit less worldly and world weary. I decided to push down the pandemic stuff and look at some other things first. I hope you like it.

In Canada one of the big things last month was the streak that Mattea Roach had on Jeopardy. I swear everyone in Canada was proud of her. In fact, it was funny to read the news in Nova Scotia and Ontario, because both of them wanted to claim her for their own. I get it! She’s great!

She caught the attention of not only Canada, but the US too. Even the NY Times did a piece on her. Not surprising: she is newsworthy.

Speaking of the Times, they did two pieces this month that gave me some perspective. First there was this piece on why for tens of millions of Americans the Good Times are Right Now. That was somewhat hopeful. And this piece on the relationship between being happy and being rich was also good, perspective wise.

I mean let’s face it, if being rich meant being happy, then Elon Musk would be the happiest person ever. Instead, he is on social media all the time making a fool of himself. Not just due to his trying to buy twitter, but his opinions in general. If you want to read more about what he is/was up to at this time, you can read this or this. I think the less we hear from him, the better.

Speaking of rich, the whole NFT/ crypto/thingamabobs did not do well this month, with articles on their big meltdown all over the place. This says NFT sales are flatlining , but ‘flatlining’ is too kind a word. Finally, I think the Beaverton captured it perfectly . I love the Beaverton: a perfect blend of Canadian humour and perspective. A good counterpoint to all that financial madness.

Apropos of nothing, here’s news on the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Very cool.

Overall, May has been a month of transition, from the relatively new (Apple phases out the iPod) to the relatively old (Charles Gives Queen’s Speech at State Opening of Parliament in U.K.). The iPod is not coming back, but the Queen did, opening her new subway line, the Elizabeth Line, in London this month. My daughter was in London and I was encouraging her to ride it for bragging rights in the future, if nothing else.

The pandemic is in a state of transition too. Here in Toronto we have ended our pandemic emergency declaration after 777 days. Wow. That’s a long time and big number. Another big number is the number of Covid deaths in Canada, 40,000, and in the US, 1,000,000. For those who have lost loved ones, the fact that Canada managed the pandemic better than the US is cold comfort. It’s also astounding to think about, numbers wise. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been without vaccines.

I’m also curious to see what happens as people let down their guard. Lockdowns are over everywhere. Concerts and travelling are ramped up. People are still wearing masks, but less and less so from what I can see.

What’s next? Well, hospitals are in transition, if I read this piece correctly in The Atlantic . Also viruses on hiatus during the pandemic are coming back which is not great. Smart people like Bill Gates and others are thinking about how to prevent the next pandemic. I hope we can. We will need lots of effort, smart people and tools. Although I don’t think the metaverse is going to be one of those tools, despite what this piece says. (Wanted to throw a bone to the metaverse here….we used to hear about it all the time. Now, barely at all. :))

The provinces of Canada are in transition too. In Alberta Premier Jason Kenney stepped down after barely surviving leadership. I was surprised by that. Let’s see how Premier Ford does in Ontario after the upcoming election. Maybe he will be surprised too.

There’s been other things happening too, like the Roe vs Wade situation in the US, not to mention the horrible shootings there. Sadly, no transition for the better in either case. And the war in Ukraine still goes on, though sadly it has become less newsworthy.

Inflation has been bad and newsworthy, but I believe it is going to be transitioning for the better. It has been tough on people, though, leading to articles like this: How to put delicious meals on the table as inflation drives up costs. Inflation is good for people with large fixed debt, but bad for people barely getting by. Let’s hope it gets under control soon.

The weather is also transitioning, from cool to hot. That can make it tough to sleep at nights. If that’s you, consider some of the ideas here: 5 Cheap(ish) Things to Keep Your Bedroom Cool | Wirecutter .

That’s it for another month! Thanks for reading, you half dozen people who read these every month. I appreciate it. 🙂

Enjoy the nice weather.

 

 

What skateboarding can teach you (even if you don’t skateboard)


What or where is the value of skateboarding? If you read this, you might think the value is endless failure: Sisyphus, skateboarders, and the value in endless failure from Psyche Ideas.

Perhaps. But like many activities, the value that comes from any activity is dependent on the participant.

I think one thing I got from thinking about this is putting “failure” in perspective. For skateboarders, failure is irrelevant (barring injury). They just try and try again. They may eventually succeed occasionally at what they are attempting. They may even master parts of skateboarding.

I think this is a meta-lesson we could all use. When it comes to learning things, failure should be accepted and its meaning diminished. Set up a learning environment where failure has little cost, and get on with learning.

That’s a lesson from skateboarding that I get.

On Marvel Movies, and how Robert Downey Jr made almost half a billion dollars from them


Here me out. You might think this story about how Robert Downey Jr. made $450m as Iron Man would be boring.It’s not. It was a fascinating journey for both Downey and Marvel over the last 14 years. In 2008 when the first Iron Man came out, both the actor and the company were down on their luck. However bad luck turned into good, and both parties went on their way to become incredibly successful.

Disney bet big on Marvel, and Robert Downey Jr bet big on himself, and the bets paid off big. After all his years struggling with addiction, it was good to see.

It was not without some twists along the way, so read the piece to see how it went down. Or I should say, went up.

P.S. Also a good intro to how the movie biz works and how actors get paid.

(Image linked to the article)

 

 

It’s getting warmer. Here’s the perfect speaker / lamp to help you enjoy music outside

It’s nice to sit outside in the summer and have some music playing while you grill food or enjoy a fire or simply relax. Now thanks to this collaboration, you can: IKEA teams up with Spotify to debut the Vappeby, a $65 wireless lamp/speaker with built-in ‘Spotify Tap’

The nice thing about it is that it is not only portable, but that it looks just as nice inside too:

If having sound outside this summer is on your todo list, check out the piece in Yanko design, then head out to IKEA (or their website) and try and get one soon.

What’s new and what is old in Toronto, May 2022


What’s new in Toronto? Well we are getting a New IKEA downtown. That’s smart of IKEA: I am sure they got a good deal on rent in the Aura (great building, bad retail). Plus lots of condo owners can save themselves a trip to the ‘burbs to get their IKEA fix.

There’s also new subway stations and new U of T architecture soon to admire. There’s this year’s Luminato festival to take in.

There’s new restaurants to take in, such as Bouffe and the latest version of one of my favorite restaurants once, Beast Pizza.

There’s new ways of doing things, whether it’s this fancy new sidewalk that filters water and sustains plants or it’s this new approach to feeding people at the  Anarchist Café. Of course new isn’t always good, as Freshii found out from the outrage they received when they used remote order takers from Nicaragua in their stores.

Somethings aren’t new, but are interesting, like these recent stores on Toronto’s infamous Path system or this piece on how much more seedy Toronto used to be.

And finally some things are very old, like this oak tree older than Canada and the Canadians / Torontonians trying to save it . Given that Toronto has just declared the oak tree as its official tree, that makes much sense.

(Image link to BlogTo piece on U of T architecture.)

 

 

The occulation of Saturn is worth it

Someone posted this occultation of Saturn and I am taking a chance and sharing it on the blog because it’s too cool not to. (An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer.)

I say “take a chance” because I have so many broken Youtube links on my blog, rendering many posts useless as a result. (Word of advice: don’t post Youtube links of songs or movies.) I’m hopeful this one will stay up.

Basquiat 101

People in New York City have the great pleasure of having not one but two exhibits dedicated to him at the moment. (Not to mention his works being on display at MoMA.) If you are not familiar with him or would like to know how to better appreciate him, this piece, How to Look at a Basquiat in The New York Times is worth a read. It’s like Basquiat 101.

Better still, read it and then go check out the shows.

Things I wish were real: Braun wireless earbuds

Sadly, only a design concept, but I wish these Braun wireless earbuds were a real thing. I’m a big fan of Braun, and while I like my earbuds from Apple, if time came to switch, I’d love something like this to be for sale.

Let’s make it happen, Braun! (It likely won’t happen in such a competitive space, but I can dream. )

Changes on SNL, new and old

I’ve been wondering when this would happen, but finally some of the bigger names from SNL are departing next year, including Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Kyle Pete Davidson, according to Deadline. I’ve been surprised both by how stable SNL has been over the last decade and how big the cast has grown. It started off with less than 10, now it’s over 20.

Having a big cast makes sense in some ways. It means there is a deep bench of talent ready and eager to step up. It also helps SNL deal with the lack of diversity problem they had all too recently.

I’ve been watching more SNL recently, ironically because of Twitter. I say ironically because social media used to freak Lorne and company out. Now they feed the whole show via twitter on the weekend. I get to skip the ads, and I get to watch the best bits. It’s ideal for me. My rule of thumb is if Kenan Thompson is in a sketch, it’s probably funny. That’s likely why he is sticking around.

That piece above got me to this piece: ‘Saturday Night Live’: Actors Who’ve Hosted The Show The Most – Photos – Deadline. Several things to note there. In the early years, it was often people associated with the show, like Chevy Chase (although that is also true with Tina Fey in the later years). Later it was big actors who were just really good at being funny. For awhile Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were tied in appearances (there was even a bit where to win, Martin knocks out Baldwin, wraps him in a rug and throws him out the window!) Baldwin eventually ran away with it, not just for hosting, but by being a regular with his Trump appearances. (It probably helps too he lives in Manhattan.)

I have a sentimental weakness for SNL. It’s been on 47 seasons and I’ve been watching off and on since S1. I’m looking forward to it reaching S50 and beyond. Who knows will show up for that season. Tune in.

On the Smiths and those album covers

The Smith’s were (are?) great for many reasons. One reason in particular was their album covers. Looks like the folks at NME agree, because they put together

an exhaustive guide to each and everyone of their 27 single and album releases’ sleeves, and what they mean

You can find here. Fans of the band will enjoy that. I did.

Speaking of the Smiths, this piece by Doug Coupland, Morrissey will never be cancelled is worth a read.

Your desk needs an upgrade. This can help

If you’re like me, your work desk could use an upgrade. Maybe it’s too cluttered. Maybe your tech is looking a bit shabby. Either way, I recommend you go see these top 10 desk accessories to level up your work from home productivity over at Yanko Design. For example, the organizer above is a nice way to get things off your desk.

And this keyboard below looks like it would be an improvement on the one you currently have:

Hey, new stuff isn’t everything, but it could be just the thing to make you a bit more productive and happier when you sit down at your desk to work.

 

Friday night cocktail: a formula to make your own

Tonight you can be your own mixologist by heading over to the Food & Wine web site and reading this article: How to Make Classic Cocktails Without Looking Up a Recipe. Think about what you want: bitter, boozy, bubbly, tart,  or fizzy. Then use their ratios to make something new! If it’s good, name it after yourself and make one for your friends.

Worse case, you toss it out and head over to Liquor.com and make something they recommend (they have everything).

Cheers!

P.S. Hat tip to Dana McCauley who tweeted this.

How Many Close Friends Do You Need in Adulthood is a good question


How Many Close Friends Do You Need in Adulthood asked The New York Times:

One 2016 study suggested people who have six or more friends have improved health throughout their lives, while a 2020 study by Suzanne Degges-White, professor and chair of the Counseling and Higher Education department at Northern Illinois University, found that middle-aged women who had three or more friends tended to have higher levels of overall life satisfaction.

Hmmm.

Before you dismiss it — I see you, fellow introverts! — go read it. Not everyone needs the same number of friends, nor does everyone need the same type of contacts. But like other parts of our lives, if we neglect our friendships, it has a adverse health on us.

We all need friends. And like exercise, we have to work at it as we get older. When we are younger, it’s much easier to find and make friends. For proof of that, check out this: Who We Spend Time with as We Get Older from FlowingData.

It’s been hard for anyone, young or old, to make and keep friends during these pandemic. Especially in places like Toronto, which suffered numerous lockdowns. But the weather is getting nicer, so get outside (literally) and work on your friendships.

On the new Google Glass(es), 2022 edition

In 2013, Google gave the world Google Glass. While their high tech glasses seemed cool at first, eventually it was revealed to be terrible technology, and people sporting it became known as “glassholes”. Not good.

Google did not give up, though, and have unveiled a new version of there glasses. at their recent annual convention on all things Google:

After announcing a whole new catalog of products, including the Pixel 6A, Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, Pixel Buds Pro, Pixel Tablet, and Pixel Watch, Google gave us a taste of an AR Glasses prototype they’ve been working on (labeled Proto 29) that combines natural language processing and transcription to provide subtitles to the real world. Wear the glasses and, in theory, you can understand any language. The glasses pick up audio and visual cues, translating them into text that gets displayed on your lens, right in your line of vision. These virtual subtitles overlay on your vision of the world, providing a contextual, USEFUL augmented reality experience that’s leaps and bounds ahead of what the Google Glass was designed to do in 2013.

I know, they’re still a prototype. But it’s exciting to think about! I could see how they could even show you a potential response, just like they do when you use Gmail and they suggest potential responses. Quite an amazing tool for those who travel to places with different languages.

Among other things, this shows that tech still has ways to be innovative and useful in ways we haven’t even thought of. Good job, Google, for not giving up on this technology. Looking forward to the day when these go from prototypes to the real thing.

Today in good robots: reforesting drones


I’m often critical of robots and their relatives here, but these particular drones seem very good indeed. As that linked article explains:

swarms of (theese) seed-firing drones … are planting 40,000 trees a day to fight deforestation…(their) novel technology combines artificial intelligence with specially designed proprietary seed pods that can be fired into the ground from high in the sky. The firm claims that it performs 25 times faster and 80 percent cheaper compared to traditional seed-planting methodologies.

I am sure there is still a role for humans in reforestation, but the faster and cheaper it can be done, the better. A good use of technology.

A great article / repo to learn about Kubernetes, Terraform, IBM Cloud, Scripting, and more

If you are looking for a way to gain knowledge in a lot of different ways (Kubernetes including ingress, services, and COS as a way to holding information, plus Terraform and more) then I recommend this article.

It has a link to a repo you can use that had 2 issues at the time, so I forked a copy and in the meantime to fix the issues. You can get it here.

What’s nice about this is it comes with some shell scripts that use terraform to build and configure the cluster. It’s a good way to learn many things at the same time. Recommended.

How to use the motivation equation to get more motivated

On Saturday I wrote about how the motivation equation explains why you are or aren’t motivated. I want to write now on how you can use the same equation to get more motivated.

Here’s the equation again. Recall we replaced the I with F, for Friction

In short, to get more motivated, you need to:

  • Increase the chances you can do something (E)
  • Increase the value of doing it (V)
  • Decrease the things that make it harder to do something (F)
  • Decrease the delay in it occurring (D)

Remember, we all have alternatives (A) in terms of what we can do. And this is where context C comes into the picture.

Let’s take some classic examples to walk through this. I’ll underline the approaches you can take to motivate yourself and emphasize how it relates to the formula.

First example: lie on the couch or go to the gym and get in shape? V may be the same for both, but E is low and D is big for getting in shape. Plus there is hardly any friction F in being a couch potato. Going to the gym means getting ready, getting to the gym, dealing with people at the gym, washing up, and then going home. So much friction! If only you could motivate yourself to get off the couch and do something!

The way to motivate yourself with this is to reframe things. Change the context. That will help you change the equation and bump up the Vs and Es and decrease the Ds and Fs. If you need motivation for getting in shape, the question should not be: lie on the couch or go to the gym and get in shape? The question should be: 1) lie on the couch and feel bad later and sink into poor health or 2) go to the gym and feel good now and get in shape? In that context, V for #1 drops and V for #2 increases. Next, tackle the friction F for going to the gym. People do all sorts of things for that: find a gym near them, have a gym bag packed, find a friend to work out with, or skip the gym altogether and workout at home. There are lots of actions to decrease F. Likewise, if you focus on the short term goal of feeling good on the day you go to the gym,  E increases and D decreases and your motivation goes up.

This leads to my next approach: you need a plan. Plans help increase expectations E and decrease delay D. If you want to run a 5K or a marathon, if you want to learn a language, if you want do achieve anything worthwhile, it helps to have a plan. Plans help with E:  if you have an authority (coach, instructor) telling you that if you stick to the plan you will succeed, E goes up. Plans help with D too because now you can imagine/see D decreasing with every day that passes. Likely V increases every day too. Finally plans decrease F. Uncertainty of what to do is a source of Friction. A plan decreases uncertainty and thus F.

Planning is easier than you think. Can’t come up with a plan? Do this. Say: I will do this today and tomorrow. Or today and the rest of the week. After you do it, make a record. Write it down. Mark a calendar. Whatever works. After a week, tell your stupid brain: that was the plan, dummy…I tricked you because you were telling me I couldn’t do it and I did it and before you tell me I can’t do it again you told me I couldn’t do it at all and I did so I know best and I will do it! (It’s worth a shot). Don’t let planning stop you. Any plan, even a bad plan, will help. Here’s a plan: buy a dozen beer or Gatorade. Put them on a shelf. Plan to drink one every time you work out. Put the empties next to the full ones. Plan to finish them all. Voila! Who said you can’t plan?

Another way of dealing with expectations E (and your stupid brain) is visualization. Chances are you use visualization already, just in a bad way! You imagine all the reasons you cannot succeed. Now be like a professional skier or runner and imagine all the ways you can succeed. Whenever you imagine failing, imagine successful alternatives instead and practice going over them in your mind. You will see increases in E if you work at it.

Related to visualization is internal chatter. In sports, coaches will tell players on the bench to “talk it up!”. Why? Because it encourages teammates and defeats their negative internal chatter. You should do the same. When you motivate yourself to do something and you are done, what do you do? Do you just move on to the next thing? If you do, you are telling yourself: that didn’t matter. If a team scores playing a game, they get excited! They cheer! When a team is defending, everyone yells “Defense!” All of these things increase the value V of the thing they are doing. You need to do the same, and by doing so, increase the value of what you are doing or what you did. And when you succeed, you give yourself a cheer and your brain thinks: I can do it! And with that, the next time you try and do it, E is increased.

Another way to motivate yourself is overloading. If you aren’t motivated to go to the gym to get in shape, come up with several reasons to go. You aren’t just going to the gym to 1) get in shape. You are going to the gym to 1) get in shape 2) get out of the house 3) meet your friend 4) reasons of vanity 5) reasons of pride 6) etc. Give yourself as many reasons as possible. Brainstorm ideas. Ask friends. List them all out. Get as many high value ones as possible.

Related to overloading is overshooting. Didn’t do any of your hobby last month? Missed meeting up with friends? How about planning to do it every day next month? Twice on Sunday even! Imagine making huge improvements on your drawing or sewing or photography. Think about all the enjoyment you’d get seeing all your friend or just contacting them. List all the ways you could derive value V from that. Now after a month, look back. You likely didn’t do it all. (If you did, awesome!) But look at the improvements you made. As they say, you aimed for the stars and landed on the moon and that in itself is incredible. No doubt all the effort resulted in ways you learned to decrease friction F and improve expectation E. You will find you are much more motivated to do things by planning to overshoot.

Refuse to fail.This is useful if expectations E are low and is related to overloading and overshooting. So you and your friend skipped the gym but you had a good time and you needed a break and you went the next day. Or you didn’t create anything but you cleaned up your work area and made it easier to draw the next day. Sure you could beat Today You up for not doing the thing. But give yourself credit for helping Tomorrow You be more motivated by reducing the friction  For the expectations E for tomorrow. You don’t fail if you get up the next day. There is no timeclock.

If you should do good things for several reasons, do bad (or not so good) things for one reason. Don’t lie on the couch and eat cake and watch movies and talk with friends, etc. If you do, you are going to be very motivated to be a couch potato! If you are tired, lie on the couch. If you want a slice of cake, go get one (preferably as a treat…maybe after the gym.) Talk to your friends in person. You want to decrease the value V of lying on the couch. Heck, pile stuff on the couch (increase the friction F) or lie on the couch only after you do some other things (increase D) or only lie on the couch if you flip a coin and it comes up tails (thereby decreasing E).

Understand what does motivate you and apply it to other areas. If you still are struggling to motivate yourself, sit down and write down what you are motivated in doing and understand the V, E, F and D for them, Then look at what you are not motivated in doing and see how they are similar. Is there any way you can change the unmotivating ones to look more like the motivated ones. You should see ways to increase your motivation.

Keep a log for things you regularly struggle to find motivation for. Write down the V, E, F and D for the last time you did them. Maybe you are imagining F and D as being worse than they are. Likewise, maybe it was easy for you and you enjoyed some aspect and the value V and expectation E are higher than you imagine. If so, great! If not, keep logging and log what you changed to motivate yourself this time. Keep tweaking those values until you are doing better.

Choose the next best alternative. Can motivate yourself to go to the gym? Go for a good walk rather than lie on the couch. Can’t call that one friend you should call due to high friction F? Call someone else where the value V is high but F is lower. Can’t do the creative thing you think you should be doing? Do something else creative instead. Eventually you will need to understand your lack of motivation for not doing that one thing; doing a close alternative can help.

Lastly I want to mention two last things: Habits/Routines and Novelty. Habits/routines are very good at decreasing friction F and increasing expectations, E. But they can also cause you to feel a decrease in value V, because things get stale and boring and less enjoyable. That’s where novelty comes in. Novelty decreases expectation E (who knows what will happen) and increases friction F (because it is new), but can also increase V (less stale and boring) . If habits/routines are the main dish, novelty are the herbs and spices. You need both.

If you’ve read this far: wow! you were motivated! Good work! I hope the value V was high and the fraction F was low.

If you were wondering: why did he keep repeating those letters? It’s because I really think the key to motivating ourselves is to think in those terms: V, E, D and F. Repeating them helps reinforce that. Also there is nothing new here when it comes to approaches to motivation. What I think is new (at least to me) is applying them in light of the formula. I hope you found it the same.

Now go and do good things. Great things, even!

 

 

 

 

Tables and desks for people like myself that cannot get enough shelf space :)

I love all three of these pieces of furniture. First there is this table that also functions as a bookshelf:

Then there is this table /desk that has tons of storage:

A few years ago when I was making furniture, I made something similar. I could definitely see someone good at DIY/carpentry making the above two. As for this one below, I love that desk but it’s not for your typical DIYer! Fabulous though:

They remind me of the old telephone tables people used to have. They used to have a particular function, and they had special storage as part of them.

All three links lead to Yanko Design, where you can find out more about each of them. Worth a look.

How the motivation equation explains why you are or aren’t motivated

I was having a hard time getting motivated last week. I knew there were a number of things I needed to work on. For some of them, I had no problem tackling. For others, I really struggled. Why was this?

This simple equation, from this article, The motivation equation, really helped me. But I also felt it was lacking something:

For those who hate math, the “M” stands for motivation, “E” stands for Expectancy, “V” stands for Value, “I” stands for Impulsiveness, “D” stands for Delay.  E is the likelihood of getting something, and V is how much you value it. D is how far away it is, and I is impulsiveness. Let me walk through an example.

Let’s say it’s lunch and you have a choice of leftovers or something new. You value something new over leftovers, so all other things being equal, you are more motivated to eat something new rather than the leftovers.

Now let’s say there is a chance that the new thing you want to eat may be sold out before you get there. With leftovers, E is high: you know you can eat them right now. For the new thing, E is lower: it might not be there so expectation has dropped. To bring E up, you think: well, there are many new dishes you can try…one of them will be there for sure.

To further complicate things, let’s say it is 11 am and you are hungry but the place selling something new doesn’t open for an hour. The delay for something new is larger than leftovers. That means your motivation for eating something new may drop.

Finally, impulsiveness. I would like to replace that with F, for friction. Friction is impulsiveness and more. Friction is all those things that put a drag on you doing the things you need motivation to do. In this case, getting something new may mean having to go out in bad weather to get it. Bad weather is friction. Or you may not like the food court where the new food is because it is too crowded or noisy. Unpleasant atmosphere is friction. Or you may be hungry or tired or bored and want to eat right away. All those feelings are friction. The more friction you have, the less motivation you have.

Two other things to consider are A: alternatives and C: context. Sometimes we may be motivated to do something in one Context and not the other. On a cold day I may be motivated to have a hot chocolate. On a hot day I may not. The value of something can change in different context. Likewise, my motivation for something may change if there are alternatives. I may be motivated to eat a frozen dinner because the alternatives (make my own, get take out for the 4x this week) are worse for me at the time.

I recommend you do what I did this week and list some things you are motivated to do and NOT motivated to do and run them through the formula.

For a work example, I had two things I wanted to do on Friday, write a report and solve a hard technical problem. I worked on the latter. D E and F were the same for each. But for the report, I felt it had little value. I have to do it, but it was hard to motivate myself to do it because V was Low. On the other hand, V for the hard technical problem was High. I learned alot (which I value), I have more value as an employee because of what I learned, and I felt proud of this accomplishment. Given this, it’s not surprising I chose the hard technical problem. Now, if the expectation (E) of me solving it was lowered, then my motivation would have dropped too. Likewise, if I thought it would take a week or more (delay, D) to solve it,  motivation would have decreased.

For a home example, I have two chores to do: organize the basement and organize the living room. Both have a high value (V) for me. But D is higher for the basement: it’s much more work and will take much longer. E is the same: I can accomplish both. Also F is higher for the basement, since there is so much stuff to go through and move around. Naturally I am motivated to tackle the living room.

Finally, a personal example. I have several hobbies: painting and website design. D and E are the same, but V and F are different. I am good at web site work and poor at painting, so the outcomes are better for web site work than the outcomes of my painting. Likewise, for painting, there is setting up to paint and then cleaning up. For website work I just sit down at my computer: no setup and no cleanup. Painting has higher friction F and lower value V, so I tend to do it less.

Ok, Bernie, you say, that’s great. How do I deal with that to get motivated. That will be in part 2 of this, since this is already too long and you are likely losing your motivation to keep reading. (V is dropping, D is getting longer, E may be dropping too. Likewise you may have alternatives A that you are more motivated to do.) That will come out on Monday.

On “The Computer Girls: 1967” in Cosmopolitan


One of the great shames of the IT industry has been the push to marginalize women in our profession. As this 1967 piece shows ( The Computer Girls: 1967 Cosmo article highlights women in technology– ), women had a dominant role in the early days of the computing industry. I believe as long as the the 1980s, women were at least equally represented in the profession as men. Then for various reasons, IT became dominated by the boys and not the girls. That was a shame and it will only stop being a shame when women are at least equally represented. We still have a way to go, according to Deloitte and others. Until that time comes, read what used to be in Cosmo.

(Image from here, which is also worth reading: 10 women who changed the tech industry forever – The Daily Dot)