On the beautiful weight that holds you under

Before you take hold of the beautiful weight, you read the stories written and listen to the tales told of holding on to it. But life is short, and when you are offered it, you are more afraid of refusing it than you are of accepting it. You fear you will never get the chance again in your life, long or short, of having the beautiful weight. You see so many others, weightless and unbearably light and that seems worse than the load.

You step forward and shift the heavy beauty onto your back, and as you stumble forward, you experience the pride and panic of such a possession. The days and months and years will pass, and through each of them you will rise up and shoulder the weight throughout each hour, retiring it briefly each night. If you are lucky, you will have a string of Hercules who will shift it onto their shoulders, however briefly, giving you a moment’s rest. Many unfortunately know no such solace, and the sublime burden falls solely on their backs.

The truly unfortunate are unable to walk steadily forward and eventually lose their footing, stumbling off the path, into the waters. Unable to let go, they go deeper and deeper down into the water, struggling to keep their head above the surface as the weight submerges them.

Only those unworthy of the beautiful weight are able to slip out from under it. The rest get stronger from their struggle, or drown.

They say out loud that the beautiful weight makes life worth living. Afterwards they whisper something else.

There is an art to carrying the beautiful weight, and though it is the most important of the arts, it is rarely taught. They will learn as they go, they mutter, and either sink or make do. And many make do, while some struggle terribly and then float quietly beneath the surface.

This is my 3000th post on this blog. Some thoughts.

Hard to believe, but this is my 3000th post on this blog, smartPeopleIKnow. I’ve been writing to this blog since April 2007 – over 8 years! – and have over 860,000 views. It’s along way from the 10-12 views a day I used to get.

I never thought I would have so many people read my thoughts. Before blogging, the only way to get people to read your writing broadly was to publish a book, or appear in a magazine or newspaper.

While I write on pretty much any topic, the three top posts have had to do with fashion: Why I buy suits from Zara, How to wear brown and blue together, and
How to Set the time on a Phillipe Starck Watch. I can’t say for sure whay that is. I know that posts on how to do things get more views. Makes sense: people are always searching for how to do things.

It’s been alot of fun. And I still hope to achieve my goal of reaching a million views. Maybe in a year or so.

My list of 59 thoughts on privilege

I read alot about privilege. Reading about it, I end up considering the privileges I have that arise from being an educated, white, middle-class man in an affluent part of the world with a high standard of living. The flip side to that is that I also consider the priviliges I did not have when I grew up, as well as the privileges I had and no longer have. I tried to use that to write up a specific view point on privileges, but ended up with this list of thoughts on the topic instead. I have not come to any specific conclusion on the topic. If anything, the list points to the conclusion that I need to think further on the subject. That said, I think sharing the list is worthwhile.

Some people are interesting in certain aspects of privilege: white privilege, or male privilege, or the privileges of the 1%. I am interested in privilege in general, how it comes about, what effects it has, when is it good, when is it bad, and how to manage it in a way that leads to positive social action. That interest lead to this list.

With that all said, rather than sit on it any further, here’s my list:

1. Privilege assumes a number of things.
2. It assumes that there are at least two distinct groups: the haves and the have nots.
3. It assumes that there is a social good that one group has a surfeit in and one group has a deficit in.
4. It assumes that the social good is recognized as such by both groups.
5. Privilege is about access and the ability to acquire or maintain that social good.
6. There many small social privileges that aren’t noteworthy (e.g. the privilege of belonging to a certain club).
7. Likewise, not all privileges are universally or generally desirable.
8. Some privileges are held by a small number of haves. Other privileges are held by a large number of haves.
9. Some privilege we earn. Some we get randomly. And some we get from belonging to a certain group by default.
10. Rights differ from privileges, for in theory rights are not a social good that one group should have more than another. (In practice, this may be incorrect, but in theory it is)
11. Some privileges are fairer than others.
12. Fairer privileges usually involve things in abundance.
13. Fairer privileges are either random or universally acquirable for most in a society.
14. Unfair privileges are never random: there is a recognizable pattern whereby one group is perceived to have more access than the other.
15. Fair privileges are assumed to be accessible by method agreeable to most of society. For example, to go to university can be considered a privilege, but it can be earned in a way agreeable and accessible to most.
16. Privileges that are most unfair usually involve scarce social goods or rules that are slanted to favor a particular group.
17. Economic wealth is rare privilege. Having a home is a common privilege. Even common privileges are still privileges.
18. Higher education used to be a rare privilege. Now it is a much more common privilege.
19. The right to vote used to be a rare privilege. Now it is a right.
20. Health is not a privilege, until heath care is involved. Then it becomes partially a privilege.
21. Many would like to have the privilege of being wealthy.
22. Many would like the privilege of working for specific companies, belonging to certain occupations. being members of certain organizations.
23. Everyone has privileges.
24. It is worthwhile to consider your own privileges.
25. If you are reading this, you have quite a number of privileges, starting with the technology you are using to access this post.
26. Technology is a tool, and the ability to access tools is a social good.
27. Challenges occur when there are statistical variables associated with privileges. A white man may have a 10% chance of acquiring a particular social good, compared to a 1% chance for everyone who is neither white nor male. From the point of view of the white man, a 1 in 10 chance may not seem much of a privilege. For everyone else, his chance of acquiring the social good is ten times great than theirs and this increased likelihood is a significant privilege.
28. Being aware of your privileges can help you appreciate what you have.
29. Being aware of your privileges can help you understand the grievances of others
30. Thinking you do not have privileges means you have not thought about it enough.
31. Renouncing your privilege doesn’t necessarily result in greater fairness, especially when there are large number of people involved.
32. For some social goods, especially when there are large number of people involved, it is easier to redistribute privileges so as to be fairer.
33. For other social goods, especially when there is only a few people involved, it is less likely to redistribute privileges so as to be fairer.
34. Even social goods that seem meritocratic are to a degree unfair.
35. Social goods that are meritocratic trend towards being less unfair than others, but still have a degree of unfairness to them.
36. Not everyone can have access to every social good.
37. Meritocratic systems are based on rules, and those rules exclude people from certain social goods from the beginning.
38. Social structures reinforce privileges. Friendships and families can reduce the chances of some having access to social goods.
39. Geography reinforces privileges. Being born into neighborhoods and communities with poor or no facilities can reduce access to social goods.
40. Some privileges are more unfair than others. Privileges based on religion, gender, race, sexual orientation, age, body shape are just some of those.
41. Certain privileges we accept. Physical, emotional, and intellectual ability generally are accepted as fair, even though these are not common when the ability is very high or very low.
42. Certain privileges we used to accept we no longer do. It is less acceptable to build publicly accessible environments that cannot be accessed by people who need wheelchairs.
43. As peoples lower needs (as laid out by Maslow) are met, privileges arise in the higher needs.
44. Everyone has access to certain privileges and are barred from having other privileges.
45. Individuals and societies give some privileges higher values than others. This weighting of privileges shifts all the time.
46. Some privileges become undesirable over time. Other privileges become common. Having electric lighting was once a privilege. Now it is so common as to be no longer seen that way.
47. Some technologists believe it is possible to make all social goods abundant so as reduce priviliege.
48. Some privileges may remain privileges because the social benefits outweighs the social cost.
49. Other privileges need to be tackled and dismantled if a society is to consider itself fair and just.
50. One way to dismantle a privilege is to make access more common.
51. Making it more common is possible if a social good is not scarce.
52. If a social good is scarce, then one way to tackle the privilege is to make access to it random.
53. Another way to deal with a scarce social good is to make the criteria for accessing it fairer.
54. The challenge of fairness is judgment.
55. The other challenge of dismantling privilege is the desire of privileged groups to maintain their privilege.
56. The challenge of dealing with privilege is agreeing if fairness consists of access to opportunity or access to outcomes.
57. In achieving certain privileges, I may trade off other privileges.
58. When individuals within a group are encouraged or forced to trade off certain privileges, they may not be able to reacquire them, as others may not want to release their access.
59. Ideally a society can produce such a wealth of social goods that any tradeoffs individuals or groups make, they still feel overall good with their choices and that the society they live in is a good one.

When someone you love is dying of cancer, knowing what you might expect

It is hard to know what to expect when someone you love is dying of cancer. I know that was my experience when my mom died of cancer a few years ago. There is no What to Expect when you are Expecting books to give you an education or a perspective. Yet just like we need information for when loved ones are at the start of their lives, we need information for when loved ones are at the end of their lives, too.

Here are three essays that I believe can help you with this.

When someone you love is dying of cancer, your life becomes much more difficult. Knowledge can help with that difficulty.

On rejecting most criticism and giving license to the best criticism

We come into a lot of criticism in the course of our lives. Just on social media alone there is a lot. Some of it is directed at you, while other criticism comes at you indirectly. Some of it comes from people you like, while other critiques will come from people you barely know. You can be criticized for the things you say, the things you do, even for who you are: a man, a woman, a person of a certain race or financial class or nationality. Pick a trait you have and nowadays you can find someone saying something critical about it.

Given that you do have to deal with a lot of criticism, you can do take a number of actions. It’s not advisable, but you can run away from it. (For example, giving up on certain forms of social media, like twitter.) You can get into arguments with people. This seems like a good idea, but I often find it frustrating, endless, alienating, and the opposite of how you may want to be. You can learn to ignore it, though learning to ignore it is not always easy. Sometimes the criticism is invalid or worse, then it’s easy to ignore. But some of the criticism is valid and when that happens, it can get under your skin. It’s great if you are thick skinned, but if you are not, you need to do something else. You need to learn to manage criticism.

One approach to managing criticism is to use understand the idea of a license to criticize. This borrows from the famous Eleanor Roosevelt quote: no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. The idea of a license to criticize is that you should only accept criticism from a small group of people, regardless of how many valid and invalid criticisms you come across. A license is different from a right. As an adult, no one has a right to criticize you: you give them that ability. Even when you do give them the ability to criticize you, it is a privilege or license. It is a license you are free to provide or revoke. They do not own it, and you get to say when they can or can’t use it. You should treat that license as valuable, and you should only give it to people whose criticism is going to result in you and your life being better as a result of their criticism.

In your life you will want to accept criticism. Accepting criticism from people you respect and who have an interest in seeing you succeed makes sense. You become a better person and enjoy a better life from such criticism. Accepting criticism from people you don’t respect and who have no interest in seeing you succeed makes no sense. That type of criticism just makes you miserable and ruins your life.

The next time you are offered criticism, ask yourself:

Do you respect this person?
Do you respect their criticism?
Is the purpose of their criticism to help you succeed?

If you answer Yes to those questions, then you will likely want to accept and act on that criticism. Otherwise it is in your best interest to ignore it and look for someone who can make you answer Yes to those questions.

Finally, the number of people you should give license to criticize you should be a very small number of people. It should not be something given out to just anyone you know, never mind just anyone on the Internet.

The myth of waste: some rainy Sunday thoughts on awareness redemption imagination + love

Walking out today, I looked down and saw this leaf covered in raindrops. I thought how beautiful it was and how I should take a photo of it. Sadly, this photo doesn’t do it justice.

The way we treat many things in the world, including people, doesn’t do
them justice, either. It often has nothing to do with meanspiritedness. More often it is the case that we are not aware of them, or not aware of the goodness that they possess. Their goodness is wasted in that sense.

Or we lack imagination to see the goodness that is there or how we can appreciate it. In the physical world, I think the notion of waste indicates
a lack of imagination as to how we think of something. We throw it away and
become unaware of it any more, instead of reusing it or recycling it and
making it new and better.

If waste is a lack of awareness and imagination with regard to appreciating
the value in something or someone, love is the opposite. To love something
is to be aware of and see the value in it and to see good qualities
invisible to others. What may be to others a broken old toy destined for
the trash may be to a child the most valuable thing in the world. In
Citizen Kane, the most valuable object ever possessed by the wealthy Kane
was an old sleigh, long gone.

If you are a Christian, you believe in a god who loves everyone and who
believes in your redemption, regardless of your faults and flaws. And as a
Christian, you should aspire to that ideal yourself, regardless of your own
limitations. You should see the value in everyone, including the least of
your brothers. And you should acknowledge your faults and strive to
overcome them.

While you may not be a Christian, the ideal of seeing the value in everyone
is a worthwhile ideal to strive for. Not everyone has the same value, but
no one is without value. No one is a waste.

Likewise with things. There is nothing wasted, though we think it so. Even
the dead are transformed as they decay into something other than they once
were. The leaves become compost, the windfall of orchards become cider, and
the dead animals that fall through force or through nature feed others.
If you donate your organs, others may see things they love with your eyes, and feel your old heart in their chest quicken at the sight of them. Though much is lost, all can be transformed, everyone can be redeemed, and nothing need be wasted.

As always, thanks for reading this.
—————–
Sent from my BlackBerry Handheld to my old posterous blog November 14 2010, 12:09 PM

We long to be where we are not…

When we are sad, certainly. We long to be in a place where we were happy,
or where we will be happy. It may no longer exist, or it may not yet exist,
but we know that if we were there, a waiter would come by, and hand us a
drink and seat us and we would think: we have arrived at this place where
we were/will be happy.

When we are adventuresome, there is no doubt. When i was younger i listened
to old radios. Cities were painted on the front, and a slight shift of a
dial would take you from London to Dusseldorf to New York. I could travel
from one city to another with a turn of a wheel, and i could imagine being
in front of a radio in a parlour of a house in some great city. Such radios
are antiques now. Instead we travel the world with laptops and browsers and
high speed Internet connections. We scan photos on iphones taken in the
Mumbai dawns or the Palo Alto dusks. We can go anywhere, in a limited way.
We yearn to travel with the ease of the electrons that leave our computers.

Or we may look to the sky and watch planes go by and imagine us in them. Or
we may stand before rivers, stand at edge of oceans and seas, and see
ourselves setting out on boats that take us down stream. Always we are
departing, travelling.

From time to time we will arrive where we are happy, are content. We will
wish to stay there forever or else a very long time. We tie up our boats,
shelve our passports, leave our radios tuned to one station.

when that happens, the song of the Sirens will sing out to us and promise
us lands of even greater happiness. And friends will haul steamer trunks
past our path and speak of great travels they are embarking on. We will
recall that one trip we never found the time to take. That one friend, far
away, we must visit once more. That last pilgrimage.

When that happens, we will once again long to be where we are not. For only
the dead are settled.
—————–
Sent from my BlackBerry Handheld at September 15 2012, 10:50 PM to my old posterous blog.

On the doors we pass through

When you are younger, there are so many doors you can pass through. They
spread out in front of you. You run in and out of doors. You play with
them. Some doors lead to other doors. Some doors are easy to pass through,
while others need preparation. Yet all doors seem available to you.

Until they are not. Some doors close behind you, and you can no longer go
back. Others will not budge. Men stand guard over certain doors: those you
will never pass through.

You get up every day and pass through doors. Some you pass through often.
Others only once. You can never be certain when a door is one that you will
no longer not pass through. They seem to be ones you can open. Until they
cannot.

Then you get older and you realize that you will have less and less doors
to open. the doors become more precious to open, to close, to handle, to
wonder what changes as you go in or go out.

Doors transform us, identify us, protect us, shut us out. We can stare out
a window and be untouched, but to pass through a door is to make a change.
Even the doors we pass through all the time, for there can be a time when
we say: that’s’enough, i won’t go through there again.

To pass through a door is to say: i am going to do something. I am going to
be different. That is why we like doors when we are younger: doors are
Change. When we get older, we cherish doors because we think: things can
still be different. Or we cherish them because we say: no, things will
never be different despite other changes.

Thanks for reading this. To read it, you clicked on a link that took you to
this page. That link was a door, in a way, too.
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Sent from my BlackBerry Handheld at August 22 2012, 10:35 PM to my old posterous blog.

On the love we waste

We waste our love. We love the wrong people at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. We love people who no longer love us. We love people who never loved us. Crazy people. Calculating people. Frauds. We love them all, and more. We love people for what we thought they were, not what there are. We love shadows. And we love ghosts. Such good love, like gold, tossed into the sea, lost.

But love is not gold. Love is abundant. Like breathes and tears, sweat and blood, we are filled with a wealth of love. We may parcel
it out in a miserly fashion, but love is no more rare than heartbeats.

It is right that love is tied to the heart. If you use your heart, it gets stronger and beats harder and longer. Nothing the heart does is wasted. Even the most useless of exercise benefits the heart, and that strength makes your life better. So too with love. Every time you love someone, something, your heart gets stronger. Life gets better.

Love is never wasted.

Thanks for reading this.
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Sent from my BlackBerry Handheld. Originally posted on Posterous at September 29 2012, 3:56 PM

On avoiding the trap of political outrage

If you are associated with people who are political activists, you will likely be presented with events from time to time and you will be asked “why aren’t you outraged by this?” It can put you on the defensive. It can make you feel uncaring, selfish, or apathetic. You have to agree that a massacre or child abuse or great poverty is outrageous, and you feel at that moment that a) something should be done and b) you are somehow deficient for not doing something about it.

This is a trap. First off: is there something you can immediately do to stop this? If you can, then do it. Chances are you cannot. So outrage aside, you need to make a plan either to take action in the longer term, or not take action at all. But why would you not take action at all? Simply because there are more terrible things in the world happening than you can possibly tackle. Even if you were to devote your life to them, there would be many many more things you cannot do than you can. You need to have a plan to do what you can.

Feelings like guilt or or pity or outrage may spark you do something. But if things stop there, such feelings are self-indulgent. Instead, pick something that you are motivated to improve and work on.Can you do more? Do more.

Just avoid the trap.

(Originally posted at Posterous on April 24 2011)

The man who couldn’t think

The man came up to my son and I outside the theatre tonight and asked me about the hockey gear I was holding. I explained it was a gift to my son who would be playing hockey in May. No, the man said, hockey was ending. I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t. He listened very hard, and I could see from his eyes that he was trying to piece this together, but in the end he came back to telling me that hockey was done. He could not think through the additional information and work it into his understanding of the world.

When I was younger, I would have said that the man talking about hockey was deficient somehow. That he wasn’t normal. I believe now that this ‘normal/ not normal’ thinking is deficient and when I think that way, I am not thinking myself.

We are all struggling to understand the world we are in with the facts we have and the abilities we have. We all have varying capabilities to understand, and each of us has our own weak spots. I know I have sometimes been the man who couldn’t think. I have been the man who, when told sometime obvious, could not process it like others could.

We all think what we can, with the brains we have, the memories we retain, the facts we are given. There comes a time when each of us runs up against some limit of our brains, either temporally or permanently. There comes a time when we too become the person who cannot think.

Thanks for reading this

What computers are doing while you are sleeping

You may think that computers are doing little if anything while you are sleeping. While you are dreaming, you might think, if you think of it at all, computers are sitting mostly idle, running the odd screensaver program, waiting for you to return, your faithful servant.
Of course, some computers, like web servers, could be serving different people. Computers could be handling the requests from people around the world who are awake and working and reading and surfing the web. Some computers handle requests 24 hours a day, rarely having any time to themselves, to reboot, to load new software.They process requests until they are shutdown intentionally or fail dramatically.

But just like your body is resting and your brain is dreaming/sorting things out in the wee small hours of the morning, so too do some computers take the night time to get themselves together. While you are sleeping, they are running backups, processing files they don’t get to process in the daytime, defragmenting their disks, cleaning out their caches and buffers. Many computers have utility roles, doing a myriad of tasks you can only imagine. Plus for every set of computers handling your requests, there are entirely different sets of machines that check and make sure that the machines you use are working properly.
If the earth can be said to be automatic, so too can it be said of the many thousands of computers that are running while you are sleeping, running to keep the world running in the 21st century.

And I have thought of all this while I test run batch programs on a set of test computers during the graveyard shift, in order to insure that the real computers that we run can handle the volume of requests that the real (not test) computers will eventually have to handle. For in my case, what computers are doing while you are sleeping are helping me do my job successfully which will help you in ways you don’t even know (not only, but partially, because you are sleeping)

(Originally posted on posterous, July 21 2010).

Memory, space and time and the redrawing of a line

Tonight I went back and retraced activities in places from long ago. I went to the Annex in Toronto and walked around Harbord Street and Bloor Street, had a massive wiener schnitzel meal at Country Style and then went to see Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads great concert film, Stop Making Sense.

These are things I used to do often many many years ago, for the theatre that showed the film, the Bloor Cinema, used to play the film at least once a month in the mid 80s, it seemed. I lived near it then, and whenever I had nothing to do, I might grab some Hungarian food – for Bloor Street had a lot of Hungarian places then – and enjoy that film.

If you are wise, you will have places that are memory touchstones for you, places that you can revisit, that will be like a cache of good memories. Like any good cache, you can draw upon them as needed by going there whenever you needed to be refreshed and rejuvenated. I recommend you cultivate such places, places that you may not visit often but that are accessible whenever you are in need. A wise person also has such stores to get them through the leaner parts of life. Or perhaps you can look at them more optimistically and treat them like a rare wine cellar which you dip into every so often for that great bottle to enjoy and to remember.

Last week I watched a video of a line being retraced. As it was retraced over and over, each new line varied more and more from the original until the later lines were quiet different than the original. Still, there was that resemblance, that connection through time. So to tonight, when I was revisiting my old neighborhood, I could still feel some of the same things I felt many years ago, even though much has changed and I am no longer the same in many ways. For though much has changed, many more things in the places and the food and the theatre and the film, even myself…many things have remained the same. The line redrawn tonight had enough points in common with the lines I would often draw many years ago.

Memory is often thought of as a picture, or a storage cabinet, but memory may be like a flower. A flower, a rose perhaps, red, white, perhaps even tea stained, that opens up in the early morning just as you are walking by, walking in that distracted way we all walk when we are in a hurry to complete the ordinary, when out of the edge of our vision we see its
vividness and are drawn to come closer and soak up the smell of it and perhaps even mistakenly catch ourselves on its thorns. Memories may not be
passive things like files or photos. Memories may engage us and transfix and transform us, much like the rose that waves at us as we stroll by on what would otherwise by an ordinary day in our life.

We should cultivate the moments in our lives like the gardener cultivates her rose garden, for those moments will be our memories, our roses.
—————–
Posted on my Posterous blog at February 23 2011 via my BlackBerry Handheld.

The beauty of night rain (insomnia tales)

Since I was a small child, I loved the night rain. I was likely 3 and I
remember listening to car tires hissing on rainy roads, and I would wait
for the sound of my parents car to return from their night out.

In Dustin Hoffman’s “Tootsie”, Bill Murray has a great scene describing how
he’d love to have a movie theatre that shows films on rainy nights. I
thought then and I still think how perfect that would be. To be wandering
aimlessly in the night rain and to come across a theatre showing a great
film for a rare showing. The solace and shelter and beauty of the cinema on
a rainy night would be wonderful.

When I was in college, there we no such theatres. But it rained often in
Halifax, and I would wander through the rainfall and window shop tucked
away magazine stores and diners with warm and dry and well fed patrons,
none of which I was. There was no solace then, save that of the enjoyment
of the beauty of the night rain. But later on there would be money and
women to press against while huddled under umbrellas, and the night rain
would lend itself to the promise of love and happiness.

Much weather of all sorts can bring back memories, but rainy night, mild
nights, bring back the most for me.

Thanks for reading my insomnia tales as I try to fall asleep

(originally posted on Posterous, June 23 2011. Written on my Blackberry)

The myth of adult independence

When you are a child, you believe that adults are independent. That they can handle themselves. That they can deal with things. Manage things.

As you get to be an adult, you see this is mostly true. Mostly. Then there are those moments when you see adults in anguish. Adults struggling against forces they can’t handle. Can’t manage. Internal forces and external ones. Smart adults will seek out others to aide them. People they can depend on, no matter how much they prefer to be independent. Other adults, the not so smart ones, suffer in isolation and separation from others who might help them.

The other myth of adult independence is when as an adult you think you can provide all your own needs. That you don’t need much of anything from anyone. That you are self-sufficient. That what you have is enough, because to ask for more means depending on others.

The reality is that we are dependent on others, and there are things we can’t deal with on our own. If anything, being able to depend on many people makes us more independent, not less. For it is a myth that we are independent, when all through our day we depend on a countless number of people to provide us food and shelter and work and protection and human companionship.

The more we see the dependencies we have on each other, the better we can mutually change it for the better. By doing so, we increase our independence, not decrease it.

Just trying to work out sone ideas in my mind. Thanks for reading this.

Some thoughts on dealing with small difficulties

The problem with small difficulties is that if you get too close to them, they seem large. Like mosquitoes, even though they are small, with enough of them pestering you, you can find yourself entirely taken up with dealing with them.

With mosquitoes, you might endure them, and this is one way to deal with them if you have to. You can also endure your small problems and fight through them as if they were a swarm of mosquitoes. Or you might step back inside to a sheltered place. Stepping back is also a good way to deal with small problems. Step back and gain some perspective and see the small problems for what they are: small and insignificant in the bigger frame you view them from. You will still deal with them, but regaining that perspective reduces the irritation that they bring on, and helps you deal with them with great patience and equanimity.

(Via my iphone)

My 10 seconds of happiness exercise

I often struggle with how to get through the long, cold winter. If you do too, or are dealing with other difficulties that can make you sad and miserable, try this exercise that I find helps.

For a period of no more than 10 seconds, do something that makes you happy. It can be looking at something beautiful, enjoying a piece of music or a piece of food, or saying something good to someone you love. Choose the best thing you can think of. In that 10 seconds, don’t think of anything else, just that. Think about it before you do it, think about it while you are doing it, then think about it after you have done it. That’s it. That’s the exercise.

Now, maybe you think 10 seconds is too short and a minute or more is something you can focus on. Great! Do that then. Or you so enjoyed that 10 seconds of admiring the snow, or sipping you tea or juice, that you are going to move on and try the exercise with something else. Also great. Whatever you do, try the exercise and then try to do it repeatedly through the day, week.

Happiness is hard to define, and still harder to quantify. But I think that each of us, in our own way, can build up the part of ourselves capable of being happy and work it and make it stronger. The heart literally gets stronger through exercise. The heart figuratively can stronger through exercise, too. At least I think so. Try this exercise and tell me what you think.

Everything is amazing (late night thoughts)

It is an odd thing to conclude that everything is amazing, given that I am slogging through a quiet night with a miserable cold. But I looked at the gel cap medicine I was about to take, and I thought of the machines that can make such a precise thing as a gel cap. I thought of all the people involved in getting it to me, from the chemists that develop it to the cashier who sold it to me. The cashier handed me a debit device and I tap it with my thin plastic card and a transaction over many networks and devices all conspire to give my money to the cashier. We don’t think anything of it, but our entire landscape of high rises and subways and concrete and sewers, all of it, is sophisticated and unacknowledged as we make our way through the day. Or in my case this evening, as I make my way through the refrigerator, filled with containers from foods all over the world. We take it for granted that it will be tasty and consistent and safe to eat, no matter where it comes from, and that the fridge will keep it at the right temperature. Our houses are filled with such thing, and yet much of the time, they are anything but treasured.

I turned on a light and instantly I drew power from all over the province, into my house. People work through out the day to provide it to me and all I need to do is turn the smallest of switches to get it. I turned on my iPad, which is more powerful than computers that used to be the size of my fridge, and I checked my blog. Someone from Jordan visited it this evening. I can write something like this and people all over the world can read it. Once literacy itself was a rarity. Now we are striving to have everyone not only literate, but have access to sophisticated tech that a few years ago, only a handful of people had.

It’s not just that things are amazing, but people too are amazing. You are reading this using a range of technologies, from computers to wireless networks to the Internet to your browser. In the 1990s no one had this. In a short time we all have this. We have adapted these complex technologies into our lives with relative ease because of our intellect and our desire and our capacity to learn and improve and better ourselves.

When you finish reading this, at some point you can surf the Web and find videos from the International Space Station on YouTube or find still photography taken on Instagram taken by the Mars Curiosity lander sent to that planet from NASA. And after you see those photos or those videos, you can post your own. We don’t think anything of it, despite it all being fairly recent.

Later you can turn off the computers and the lights and just look at the stars and realize we live on this planet that is it’s own space station, and that you are a part of that.

Life can be mundane and difficult and frustrating, and yet if you are fortunate, you can catch it in your mind’s eye from just the right perspective, and when you do, you’ll see that everything is amazing.

Thanks for reading this.

Winter is for optimistic thinking

If I told you it was freezing outside, you would dress appropriately. You wouldn’t wear shorts and t shirt. Likewise, when winter comes, you should think appropriately. You shouldn’t think pessimistically: you should think optimistically.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking pessimistically in winter. It may feel Permanent, like it is never going to end. It may seem Pervasive, like it is dark and cold everywhere. And it can even seem Personal, as if winter has it out for you. Combine that with other negative forms of thinking and winter can bring you down.

If you think optimistically, much of winter’s overbearingness fades. If you think it is really only a short few months, then it doesn’t seem so permanent. The trick is to break winter up into short periods. The next thing you know, it is March and things are thawing and Spring will soon arrive. If you can find the chance to get away, or find ways to enjoy the indoors, then winter doesn’t seem so pervasive. Finally, if you think about it, winter hits everyone the same: it isn’t personal. If anything, if you learn to enjoy the time you have in winter, it can seem like the season for you, not against you.

Winter requires thought. Work to think optimistically about winter. When you do, it becomes the most interesting of seasons.

Everything is happening at this moment (late night thoughts)

Late at night, when it is quiet, it is easy to believe that nothing is going on in the world. The opposite is true. For every time zone that people are sleeping, in another they are waking up. All over the world people are being born and people are dying. People are making babies, having them, raising them, waiting for them to come home, wondering where they are. People are dancing in clubs, drinking in bars, sipping coffee in cafes. Some are wearing parkas while others are swimming in pools. Everywhere people are walking, drinking, lying down, getting up, working hard, resting. The world is filled with people active in some form. Everyone is doing something at this moment. Everything is happening now.

Your life is epic: you just don’t know it

If you were to ask most people if their life is epic, they would reply no. Theirs is no life of adventure, of quests, of heroism, they’d say. They do no awesome battles with great evils, nor overcome great obstacles. They might reply that they live ordinary and uneventful lives, just like you or I might, if we were asked.

Yet really, we all live epic lives. We all seek love, search out our fortune (however we define it), and set out on trips big and small into the dreadful unknown. What quests are more epic than that? What treasure could a hero in a story seek that is more precious than the true love we search for, or the great friendships we strive for? What grail could have more value than the achievements we put in so many hours to finally reach? If our aims are not famous, our reaching them are valorous and virtuous in their own way.

And ever day, in the work we do, the love we provide, the good words we say and the good deeds we do, we battle fear and loneliness, sadness and worry. Though these things are not material, they are evils nonetheless, and the things we do, however small, are great weapons in fighting such terrible things.

We all have our quests, our evils to battle. We all live epic lives.

We live in many worlds at once

We live in many worlds at once. The present world, of course. We live in the near future world, where the next choice we make creates the next present world. At the same time, we can be in old haunts, and in our minds, we now inhabit past worlds. Or our minds will imagine us living in worlds that don’t exist. Imaginary worlds. Worlds where we win the lottery, where we avoid past defeats, or we turn out different than we did. We live in worlds with fears and worlds with hopes, where the invisible things around the corner or over the hill shape our world even if we never encounter it.

We inhabit the world and the objects around us, but we live in many worlds at once. For our lives in the world are a function of mind, and with our thoughts we make the worlds.

Some thoughts on books as social objects

This week I was carrying this book around with me and managed to have two people initiate conversations regarding it in the same day. First a younger waiter in a restaurant told me the author’s name was similar to a favourite children’s book she had many years ago. Then on the subway, a man who appeared to be a gamer engaged me in a long discussion about war games, the US Civil War, and the Napoleonic wars.

Neither conversation would have happened if the book were an ebook or even an abstract cover, I suspect. The cover itself caught their eye, and that led to further conversation.

Books are great social objects. They tell something about you, and they give a topic for others to start talking to you about.

Both conversations were not really about the book directly, but ways for people to share something about themselves. This is a benefit of social objects: you can learn much more by taking the object out in public. With private objects, you have to do all the work: with social objects, people help you learn more.

It likely helped that the book was not controversial. Plus it was odd enough to catch people’s eye. The potential barriers to starting conversations were low.

It is difficult to say what makes an object more social than others. Much of that is random. I had been reading the book all week: that day was the first one that people talked to me about it. Certainly something people are passionate about helps. Even that is random, though.

Other objects can be social, too, but books can be both personal and impersonal at the same time. That dual quality makes them a good social object. Strangers asking about highly personal objects may seem prying and put people on the defensive. Objects like food are too impersonal and not easy to make an interesting topic to start talking about. Books are nicely in the middle.

In short, get down your quirky looking books from your bookshelf and take them out for a walk. Your social life may improve. Even in a big city like Toronto.

An additional note: I was walking down Yonge Street yesterday, and I stopped to admire a mosaic on a wall. While I was doing that, another man walked next to me and told me about the construction of it and his thoughts on it. It too was a social object, thought I created the context for socialization by stopping to admire it.

My assessment of the assessments of Healthcare.gov

From Paul Krugman (Obamacare Success – NYTimes.com) to Ezra Klein (Ezra Klein: Thus Far, Obamacare a ‘Big Failure’ | National Review Online) to the NYtimes (From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal – NYTimes.com) to Alex Howard at BuzzFeed (How The First Internet President Produced The Government’s Biggest, Highest-Stakes Internet Failure) there has been more and more assessments coming in for healthcare.gov, and most of them have been negative. How good are these assessments?

I would argue that at this point, the assessments of healthcare.gov are of limited value. For example, the NYTimes.com article has a good run down on the background of the project and the politics involved, but the analysis of the system is mostly based on insider and second hand information. The Buzzfeed article has a great analysis of the challenges of IT procurement in the U.S. government, but again, it doesn’t deal directly with the system itself in question. That doesn’t mean those stories are bad, for there is alot of interesting background information in them. But it doesn’t tell you much about the actual system that makes up healthcare.gov.

There have been some good attempts at an assessment from an IT perspective from the CTO of Huffington Post (Why The Experts Are Probably Wrong About The Healthcare.gov Crack-Up | John Pavley), Paul Smith over at TPM (A Programmer’s Perspective On Healthcare.gov And ACA Marketplaces), as well as from individual bloggers with IT knowledge (e.g., Too Big To Succeed and Is There A Problem Here?). Someone wanting a better idea of the technology and the design of the system would be better off reading those.

In all cases, the individuals doing these assessments have very little to work with. A proper assessment of an IT system can take a team weeks if not months with full access to the system and all the artifacts and deliverables that went into making the system. Most of the assessments I have read so far have been based on having little if any data and few if any artifacts. This isn’t a criticism of the assessors: it’s all they have to work with. (The only fault I see is with some assessors displaying slight arrogance in thinking they have nailed it in their assessment as to what is wrong with the system.)

Given the little to go with, the people who are assessing the system a success or a failure are basing it on a number of assumptions that they have which may or may not be true. I don’t see much value in those assumptions. For example, most of the assessments I have read so far seem to assume the system should be up and running with few problems, given the importance of this site and the money invested in it. (Klein in particular seems to be certain of how an IT project should go, which I find remarkable in someone with an non-IT background like his.) There is nothing wrong with that assumption, but that’s all it is. You may think it is a valid assumption, but that is besides the point.

At this point in time, the only ones that can assess if the project is a success or a failure are the key stakeholders for the project. If you are someone who could never get healthcare because of preexisting conditions and now, even with difficulty, you are able register for a get healthcare, you likely consider the site a success. Conversely, if you are an insurer who expected to get alot of applicants from the site and are getting none, you may consider the site a failure. Right now it is too early to weigh any of that: it will take time and further analysis.

The government seems to have a longer term view of the site than most of the analysts that I have seen so far. As the NYTimes.com story says, “Administration officials have said there is plenty of time to resolve the problems before the mid-December deadline to sign up for coverage that begins Jan. 1 and the March 31 deadline for coverage that starts later”. There is actually some benefit in launching the site now, well in advance of the December deadline. Sites with deadlines often experience the most traffic around the time of the deadline, and I expect healthcare.gov will be no exception. They have two months to resolve performance issues, better model usage patterns, fix critical bugs in the software, enhance the infrastructure, and improve the integration with other systems. Two months is a short timeframe, but it is feasible that they can resolve many of the obvious problems that the site is suffering now. As well, the proponents of the site should have enough data and analysis of the data to argue the success of the site.

Regardless of how the site is perceived then, anyone doing these assessments should have alot more to work with. In the future, if you are reading future assessments of the sites, things to consider are:

how much information about the site is the writer using in the assessment? More is better. Skip the ones based solely on anecdotes, or that ignores key stakeholders.
what is the criteria the writer is using for determine whether or not the site is successful? Is that criteria a valid one? Comparing it to other government or large scale commercial IT project is a good criteria. Comparing it to the roll-out of the latest iPhone is a poor one.
is the writer assessing the IT aspects of the site? How much IT experience does the writer have? You don’t have to be an IT expert to write about IT, but if you are talking about IT, you should have a basis for why your analysis is valid. If you are saying the architecture is faulty, you should be able to represent the architecture diagrammatically and say the architecture is faulty at points A, B, and C and here are the reasons why.

I am excited to see people discussing IT architecture with general audiences. I have been building and assessing IT architectures for decades, and it is a topic dear to me. I also know it is hard to assess the validity of what people are saying about it. That’s why I decided to write this. I appreciate any constructive feedback, and I will try and answer any that I receive.

(The above Flow Chart: How Health Insurance Exchanges Work is a representation of a health insurance exchange. I’ve included it to represent the complexity of any IT system that has to provide this type of capability.)

Some thoughts on power and empowerment

In reading on empowerment, the key assumption in many of them is the form a person’s power takes. I can see how this happens. If you believe that money is the ultimate source of power, then you would assume that empowerment has to do with controlling amounts of money. If you believe control and influence over others is a source of power, then how much control and influence you have indicates how much power you have. Or personal autonomy: you may assume that the more control you have over your life, the more power you have. There are other forms of power as well, but you can see just from these three how someone could be seen as both empowered and powerless. You could be wealthy, but a recluse struck with a terrible disease. You could be poor individual, but have all the freedom you want and great influence over others around you and beyond. The poor individual and the wealthy recluse both are empowered and powerless, depending upon the lens you use to examine their lives.

There are tradeoffs we all make in these areas of empowerment. I might work a certain job because it gives me greater power over some aspects of my life while restricting me in others. Same with being a parent.

Everyone makes tradeoffs to achieve the power they need. You may not respect their choices, you may find the sacrifices they make to be wrong, and you may not see the power they seek as one that is worthwhile. Despite that, they are trying to gain some form of power over someone or something to achieve a greater good. They are empowered or becoming empowered to achieve that. We can disagree that their goals are not good ones, but we cannot say they are not empowered. If they are on the way to achieving what they want, they are empowered.

Some thoughts on Miley Cyrus, Show Business and performers of her age

Having a daughter a bit younger than Miley Cyrus, I have followed her career and that of many of her peers whether I wanted to or not. I even chaperoned my daughter to a Jonas Brothers/Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana concert! So I have always been interested in what happened to them, if only because they have been part of her life and part of my life indirectly. Most of them shone on as stars for awhile and then faded (e.g,. Hillary Duff, some of High School musical gang). Some of them have crashed and burned (e.g., Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes). And some of them seem to be in the process of transitioning from kid stars to adult actors and performers (e.g. Miranda Cosgrove, Vanessa Hudgens). And some have been all over the map (e.g., Brittany Spears, who crashed and burned but now seems to be on the uptake, career wise).

Ideally all of them, because of talent, would mature and become successful adult performers (e.g., Jodie Foster, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Justin Timberlake). But that transition is difficult. First, because alot of them are in the Disney/Nickelodeon machine, and while they are in it, they are well managed and groomed, but once they are out of it, they are on their own. Unlike some of the other performers, Cyrus has an independent support network, and that seems to have kicked into high gear with the timing of the VHS performance, her video release, and the Rolling Stone cover coming one after another.

For those upset at how over the top it all seems to be, recall that she had a previous attempt at transitioning to performing as an adult and it was mocked and dismissed. She and the people she works with likely thought they would have to do something stronger to succeed. Hence the recent performances and appearances.

She does seem to be succeeding too, if you measure success by gaining and holding attention. That has always been the measure of success for American entertainers, and by those standards, she is succeeding. It would be best if she could gain that attention by the quality of her work, not by subverting her previously manufactured image of the stereotyped good little girl with the new stereotype bad girl, but I have seen her work, and it was never that good. For example, her show, much like the Jonas Brothers that came before her and many others like that, consisted of lots of costumes, dancing with other dancers, and generally doing a lip synced/over dubbed musical show while a bunch of middle aged dudes all dressed in black pants and T shirts played all the music in the background. (I imagine the star did play and sing, but the session type musicians in the background did all the heavy lifting, musically speaking, while Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers entertained the crowd.) That doesn’t mean she can’t sing and dance: she can dance, and at the end of the show, she performed a solo number, as if to show the audience that yes, I am real.

Did you know that Miranda Cosgrove recently did a series of rock n roll type concerts? No, you wouldn’t, because Cosgrove’s were pretty standard and very tame in comparison to Cyrus. She is comparable with Cyrus musically, and she has a ton of fans, who filled her shows. But unless there is a hidden talent she is holding back until a later time, she is never going to get on the cover of Rolling Stone or have people talking because of her music, fan base or not. To get that attention, you need to be either really good or really outrageous, or both.

Justin Bieber seems to get this. Or at least his handlers do. He should be fading now, but he manages to stay in the news with his behavoir these days. It too is a bad boy behavoir, though because of our patriarchial society, his bad boy behavoir comes across in a different way. It’s not bad boy behavoir compared to Keith Moon or Ozzie Osborne, but Bieber doesn’t have to be that bad to get attention. The same with Cyrus: she’s not Courtney Love nor Janis Joplin, but she doesn’t have to be.

A Show Business career, like alot of lucrative careers in the U.S., is a brutal business. Cyrus seems to know this and seems determined to succeed in it by whatever it takes to succeed. Mick Jagger once said that Madonna was a thimbleful of talent in an ocean of ambition. Like many quips, this is unfair and insightful. What is true is that Madonna would do what it took to stay on top, and has managed to do it for a crazy long time. That is her true talent. It looks like Cyrus has the same ambition, and she may decide to follow the same path to achieve a similar level of success.

The latest Rolling Stone has her interview here: Miley Cyrus on the Cover of Rolling Stone | Music News | Rolling Stone. I breezed over it, but she came across as pretty savvy here, which is not surprising, after I thought about it. She’s been in the business for along time, and she’s been a star for along time. Right now she is outraging people with her calculated behavoir, and the interview shows her dealing with some of the fallout for that. She is a professional, and that comes across in it. In a year from now, if a different set of actions will keep her in the news, I imagine she will tack in that direction.

It is possible she will crash and burn at some point. (The same could be said for Bieber.) I suspect she will not, and she will transform herself many more times over the course of the next few decades. Like Madonna, I suspect we will be listening to Cyrus for years to come, whether you like it or not. And like Madonna, that will be her true talent.

In the future, people will not make manufacture things. The question is: what is next?

As this article in the Wall Street Journal shows, advances in Robots May Revolutionize China’s Electronics Manufacturing. Here is some key parts of the article (underlining is mine):

A new worker’s revolution is rising in China and it doesn’t involve humans. With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor. A new wave of industrial robots is in development, ranging from high-end humanoid machines with vision, touch and even learning capabilities, to low-cost robots vying to undercut China’s minimum wage.

Over the next five years these technologies will transform China’s factories, executives say, and also fill a growing labor shortage as the country’s youth become increasingly unwilling to perform manual labor. How the transformation plays out will also go a long way in deciding how much of the electronics supply chain remains in China.

Now, I would argue that while wages are relatively higher in China, the idea of them soaring is very relative too. I’d also argue that even if the wages were stagnant, it would not matter, for the robots will become cheaper and more productive year after year. The question isn’t how will robots manufacture every thing, it’s a question of when will they manufacture every thing.

From there, the next question is: what will people do? Who will buy these products? There is a hint of an answer from the realm of software development. As more lower levels of software development were taken over by other software (e.g. assemblers, compilers, IDEs), software developers focus on higher level versions of software and bigger and more complex problems. This could also be the future of manufacturing. People who work in manufacturing will not make the things: they will design the things (e.g., robots and instructions for robots) that make the things and work on more complex ways to make things (e.g., how to take parts made in China, Kenya, and Canada and have them all come together in the same place and as little time as possible).

(Photo is of a concept robot from Delta Electronics).

Some thoughts on twitter, and blogging, and blogging again

I like twitter. Simply stating I have over 42,000 tweets should be enough to prove that.

I like blogging too. I’ve been blogging on this blog since 2007, and on other blogs since around 2005.

Like many bloggers, somewhere along the way I went from blogging alot, to a bit, to hardly at all. Meanwhile, tweeting has more or less stayed the same.

It hasn’t helped that a number of tools that I used for blogging and to make blogging easier have died off, but it would be wrong to blame the tools. It’s simply that tweeting is easier and writing blog posts, even simple blog posts, is much harder.

I plan to try and reverse that over the next few months, or at least make an attempt. I have been inspired by some people I follow on twitter, much better writers than I, who manage to tweet good stuff while blogging really good posts on a regular basis. While their tweets are fine, I get so much more out of the longer blog posts that they write. I don’t know if the same goes for me, but I hope that will be the case for at least a few people who follow me on twitter as well.

I also miss the “log” part of my blog. I always find something when I look back over older blog posts. Tweets, in comparison, just roll on. I hate the thought of losing the good things amongst the things I share. Blogging also forces me to think harder about topics, at least the ones I care about. Tweeting is conversational for the most part. Finally, I have gotten good feedback on some blog posts, feedback that has been rewarding and encouraging. I miss that too, and with some luck, I hope to regain it.

How some on the right wing distort the discussion on Health Care in the United States

First off, here’s Avik Roy’s recent article in Forbes, proporting to show how Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is terrible: Rate Shock: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146% – Forbes. I know about this, because I read Paul Krugman on it, here: We Are Not Having A Serious Discussion, Obamacare Edition. Between that and this piece by Ezra Klein, here (The shocking truth about Obamacare’s rate shock), you can see how the right uses distortions to argue against the ACA.

It is good to be skeptical and concerned about big changes in government programs. And despite what the left might say, there is sufficient waste to be gutted, such as these conference expenses, Report finds IRS spent $50M for conferences, according to House panel, not to mention things listed here, Government Spending Waste: 25 Wasteful Items – Business Insider. But critics should be honest and forthright in their criticism. That is in everyone’s best interest.

Healthcare is a complex topic. It’s important to get it right and to explain it clearly. I think that even with the ACA/Obamacare approach, Americans aren’t going to have the best system in the world. But it will be better than it is before, and the way to it improve it and keep it in check is with honest disagreements, not distortions.

Jaron Lanier is wrong again

Jaron Lanier has a new book out called “Who Owns the Future?” and like his last book, “You are Not a Gadget”, he is out promoting it. (Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class – Salon.com.) In this Salon article, you find this:

“Here’s a current example of the challenge we face,” he writes in the book’s prelude: “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 14,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?”

When I read this, my first impression is: wow! Instagram in combination with other forces destroyed Kodak and all those jobs. Impressions are deceiving. In fact, what destroyed Kodak was Kodak management. As early as 1997, Kodak was under fire from Fuji and doing poorly (WHAT’S AILING KODAK? FUJI WHILE THE U.S. GIANT WAS SLEEPING, THE JAPANESE FILM COMPANY CUT PRICES, MARKETED AGGRESSIVELY, AND NOW IS STEALING MARKET SHARE. – October 27, 1997). Indeed, while Kodak has gone down, Fuji continues to do well, as I point out here: In considering Kodak’s demise, it’s important to remember that Fuji is still going strong | Smart People I Know.

The problem with Kodak was Kodak. It couldn’t deal with Fuji or the Internet. But Fuji was smart enough to do so, and if Kodak was as smart, they’d still be a going concern and alot of Kodak jobs would still exist. If Lanier hasn’t done enough research to see that, I don’t know how much value you will find in his book. Maybe he gets alot more right and this is just a bad example, but I doubt it. Indeed, I blogged about him when he wrote his last book and how I thought that that book was troublesome: Jaron Lanier needs someone else to promote his new book, “You are Not A Gadget” | Smart People I Know. I’d expect more of the same from this book.

I don’t know what motivates him to write these books. He seems to get a pass when he does write them and the people who interview him seem to be impressed with his credentials and his appearance. To add to that, he is a well spoken individual, and I think there is even something in what he says. But I also think his writing is lazy and uninformed, and if you do wish to read authors critical of technology, I recommend you look elsewhere.

Some things to think about in between one work week and the next

If you find that you are feeling overwhelmed with work or the people at work, then you might find either one of these articles from the zenhabits blog to be useful: 13 small things to simplify your workday and 10 Ways to Deal With the Non-Simplifying Others in Your Life. If you read them now and then go on with your weekend activities, you may find that you have a plan to deal with these difficulties, come Monday. At the very least, knowing you have options can help you have a more relaxing weekend.

Good luck! Bon courage!

Ten truly great non-IT books for IT people* to read (*and non-IT people who like good books)

If you are an IT person or geek like me, chances are you wish you could read more non-technical books that still appeal to your technical side, but that also manage to go into areas that you are not used to reading. While it is easy to find lists of great fiction and non-fiction, there are not too many lists of great books that directly appeal to you as a technical person. I think this list might. I am not the best read person, but I think this is a good list of books to read. Furthermore, I have read each of these books at least twice, and some of them more times than that.

The ten books are:

1. Everything and More : A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace
2. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
3. Ficciones (English Translation) by Jorge Luis Borges, with translation by Anthony Kerrigan, Anthony Bonner
4. Inferno: First Book of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri with transalation by Allen Mandelbaum and illustration by Barry Moser
5. A Short History of Financial Euphoria by John Kenneth Galbraith
6. How Proust Can Change Your Life-not a Novel by Alain De Botton
7. Designing Freedom by Stafford Beer
8. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre by Walter Kaufmann
9. Lessons for Students in Architecture by Herman Hertzberger
10. Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941 by Ian Kershaw

Here’s the details, including book plates why you might like them, and what you might want to read next. (Note, I have included links to Amazon: you can click on the link and go and buy the book if my description sounds appealing.)

1. Everything and More : A Compact History of Infinity: David Foster Wallace: Amazon.com: Books
David Foster Wallace is one of the great writers of the late 20th century who also really knows mathematics. This book wonderfully illustrates the story of mathematics and Georg Cantor while telling the history of the concept of infinity in a way that only DFW can. How many hard science books are written by great authors? There’s one: this one. This book is singularly great: you get superb writing and you get to learn/relearn a lot about mathematics. I know some mathematicians complained about some of the math, but they missed so much by doing so. (Plus, I studied this in university and to my feeble undergraduate mind it looks ok.) I can’t recommend this book highly enough. This book is a gift for people who enjoy mathematics. And math phobes, give it a try.

If you like it, read more Wallace. Really, anything is worth reading. And there are other books in this series as well.

2. The Periodic Table: Primo Levi: 9780679444633: Amazon.com: Books

Primo Levi was a chemist, an Italian, and a Jew living during WWII and the Holocaust, and those parts of his life form a complex compound here in this book. Many of the chapters of this autobiography are named after elements in the periodic table, and the story in such a chapter (e.g., gold) is centered on the element. Levi’s love of chemistry and science comes through, and his writing is superb. Any field of science would be fortunate to have a such writer represent it.

After reading this, I’ve read more of Levi, and the more I read, the more I’ve appreciated his depth and profundity. This book has that, but with an accessibility that makes me recommend it over his other books. Read this, and if you like this, get his other books next. You won’t be disappointed. Every time I read Levi I take on some of his depth and humanity.

If you like Levi and are looking for something similar, start with Italo Calvino’s books or Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

3. Ficciones (English Translation): Jorge Luis Borges, Anthony Kerrigan, Anthony Bonner: 9780802130303: Amazon.com: Books

I joke that if science fiction is really good writing, then they don’t call it science fiction anymore. Same with fantasy and other genres. If believe that if you love those genres, you will love Borges. Like Kafka, there are few writers that imagine worlds the way he does. And like Kafka, his writing is superlative. I love science fiction, but I rarely have time to read anymore, and I often feel like I could be reading something better when I am reading it. I think this is a fault of mine, but that’s how I think when I read SF. Borges allows me to feel I am reading great writing and still getting my fill of science fiction and fantasy.

You may think I am entirely wrong and you may have a lengthy list of great SF writers that I have neglected. Read Borges, and if you think there are some that approach him in terms of writing, I will be delighted to hear from you.

If you like this, try Labyrinths next, also by Borges.

Margaret Atwood is another writer who writes SF but it isn’t called SF because she is a great writer. Try her next. And of course, you should go read/reread Kafka.

4. Inferno: First Book of the Divine Comedy (A New Verse Translation) (Illustrated): Dante Alighieri, Allen Mandelbaum, Barry Moser: Amazon.com: Books

There are a multitude of translations of Dante’s Inferno, so why read this one? First off, the translation is very detailed, and the notes in the back are worth reading as much as the translations themselves. More importantly, Mandelbaum aims to get the poetry into the English translation, and the result reads beautifully. If you can read Italian, you are in for a great feast, for the Italian and the English are across from each other on each page. Regardless, it reads beautifully in whatever language you can read.

To top it off, the Moser illustrations are frighteningly good. The superbly horrific illustrations give it feel like a graphic novel. Unlike a graphic novel, though, you get all of Dante’s writing, not just snippets. This book is a feast. I think everyone should read Dante’s Inferno, and if you agree, this is the one I recommend you try.

5. A Short History of Financial Euphoria (Penguin business): John Kenneth Galbraith: 9780140238563: Amazon.com: Books

With all the interest in bitcoin, it behooves IT people to learn more about economics. J.K. Galbraith has an entire book on money called “Money” that deals with the history of it. “Money” is a great book, but I love this book more. It is a slim volume covering all the manic moments in history regarding money and in particular, financial bubbles. It is written in a very dry and witty style that will make you smile as you read Galbraith eviscerate one historical figure after another who promises: this time it’s different. After reading it, you will be innoculated against bitcoin and all other future movements that again promise this.

If you like this, then there is alot of Galbraith you can read, including his essays. I find his ideas still fresh and provocative after all these years, and his histories hold up well. Just as importantly, Galbraith writes well and thinks clearly and skeptically. Even if you can’t imagine yourself reading anything to do with the topic of economics, I recommend you read this.

Of course you can also read Paul Krugman, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Milton Friedman, Karl Popper, and Joseph Schumpeter. Galbraith is funnier. Under no condition can I recommend that you read Ayn Rand, unless you are trapped somewhere with nothing else to read.

6. How Proust Can Change Your Life-not a Novel: Alain De Botton: Amazon.com: Books

I tried to cover alot of different types of genres, from biography to poetry to history. One genre that gets overlooked or looked down upon is the Self-help genre. While there are lots of terrible self help books — that is true of every genre — there are some exceptional ones, like this one. I also think this book is de Botton at his best. It’s not a “do this, do that” type of self help book. Rather, it is one that says: think about this, and when you have, your life will be improved. Read it that way, if you must. But if you read it with an open mind, you will get so much more, including a love of and a desire to read Proust. I think that is the Inception thing that de Botton has going on here: if you read this book, you WILL want to read Proust, size be damned. But before you do run off and tackle Proust, read this. It’s smart, witty, clever, insightful, and humane. I’ve ready many of de Botton’s other books, but this is the one that I’ve enjoyed the most. If for no other reason, read it for the part when Proust and Joyce get together. After you do, you’ll no longer bother to think “what would it be like for two great people to finally come together”?

This book is smart like an Oscar Wilde play, and just as effortless to read. At the end, you will be thinking long after you stop laughing to yourself.

Another great self-help book is Bertrand Russell’s “The Conquest of Happiness”. Read that next.

7. Designing Freedom: Stafford Beer: 9780471951650: Amazon.com: Books

Every year, the CBC in Canada hosts the Massey Lectures. The lectures are then published in book form like this one. The CBC has been doing this for decades, and the quality AND quantity is amazing. If you had to pick a series of books to buy, you could do no better than getting the complete Massey Lecture series. It is an education in itself.

One of my favorites is by Stafford Beer. He takes clearly about cybernetics and system design, but then uses it to talk about how to redesign establishments and societies. It says here it is from 1990s, but the lecture was given in 1973. Anyone interested in how IT affects society should read this.

Note: you may want to get the Kindle edition: the original looks to be a collector’s items and is over $100! (I have a copy…I didn’t realize how valuable it is.)

If you like this, any of the Massey Lectures are good. (e.g. C.B. Macpherson’s “The Real World of Democracy”).

8. Amazon.com: Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre: Walter Kaufmann: Books

Of course the authors in this anthology are great, but what makes this book particularly great is Kaufmann. Not only is he superb at selecting works to include in this volume, but he even does the translation (or re translation) necessary to bring the ideas across. You might think: that looks unreadable; trust me, it is anything but. You could read it just for the fiction included and you would be rewarded. For example, the passage from Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground is like nothing I’ve read anywhere. Or one of my favourite parts is Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism paper. (Sartre may have regretted it later, but it is a great lecture.) The entire collection is a masterpiece and a demonstration of the power of a good anthology.

More over, this is a book of philosophy that is highly accessible. Even if existentialism isn’t for you, anyone wanting to read great philosophical writing and thinking should give this a try.

I have other books of philosophy, but nothing approaches this.

9. Herman Hertzberger Lessons for Students in Architecture: Herman Hertzberger: 9789064505621: Amazon.com: Books

I think IT people could benefit from knowing more about architecture. Much of how architects think about spaces and how they relate to people could be borrowed by IT architects as they design systems for people. This isn’t a book about how to build STARchitecture. This is a book about how to make places for people to live, work, and meet. IT people can learn alot from this book. IT people would design better systems after reading this book.

Of course non-IT people can learn alot from this as well. You will see your world and the buildings you inhabit in a fresh and smarter way after reading this book. And anyone who has been in a building and thought: “why is this building this way?” would benefit from this book.

Again, I have other books on architecture, but most of them are historical or technical. The depth and breadth of thought here is what makes Hertzberger worth reading.

10. Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941: Amazon.com: Books

IT people should read more history. I am always struck by how little history IT people know. Even the history of their own industry, never mind history in general.

There’s a massive pile of great history to read, but my preference is recent English historians. AJP Taylor, Antony Beevor, and Richard J. Evans all write with a mastery and clarity that makes them accessible and worthwhile to read for non-historians. To that list I would add the name of Ian Kershaw. His “Hitler” is a masterpiece. However, I recommend this book because it shows how history is a volatile thing at the time it is being made and not some dry carved in stone set of events. Kershaw shows the decision to be made, shows how it was discussed, and then looks at what may have happened if an alternative decision was made. It will make you challenge any other history you read after you have finished this book.

If you like this, read the other authors that I mentioned. Taylor is my favourite, but some of his work is more accessible than others. I have reread his “Europe: Grandeur and Decline” so many times it has fallen apart. Beevor’s “Stalingrad” is over 600 pages and I have read it three times, it is so good. Evans is also great. I would add Margaret MacMillan and her “Paris 1919” to the list.

Thanks for reading this. I hope you find something you find worth reading and thinking about.

If you wear a white dress shirt, solid black tie and suit, you will look cool

And if you are already cool, it makes you look more so.

The Future is Physical: how the Internet of the future — including supply chain, manufacturing, and commerce — is physical and robotic (more thoughts on drones)

First, a couple of paragraphs of background. While I have written a little about drones, John Robb has a blog called Global Guerrillas where he writes alot about it and other topics. Well worth reading. In his blog he talks about something called Dronet (Drone Net) and it got me thinking about the idea of a network of drones and how it will interact with what we think of as the Internet.

That said, I expect there will be resistance to the idea of Drone Net. I also think even if it is built, it will pivot away from drones and warfare to something bigger and broader, just like the Internet pivoted away from ARPAnet to something bigger and broader. Drone Net will just be a part, a small part, of a newer and bigger Internet.

That brings me to the subject of this post: the next Internet.

This new and bigger Internet will be physical. It won’t be focused on just being threatening or military. It won’t be Skynet or Dronet. It will be called something neutral like Courier-Net or ExpressNet or simply the Net. Just like Apple evolves a device but keeps the same name, we too will do the same thing with the Internet.

Some of the ways the new drone enabled Internet will work are:

instead of businesses and other institutions shipping good and services via trucks and planes, they will send them via this new Net. Part of the new Net will be a network of thousands or millions of drones continually in motion. All supply chains will merge into the Internet. People will order Things, and the Internet will route drones to get those Things to People.
Instead of business manufacturing parts and goods in a factory, they will print them with 2D or 3D printers or maybe even bio-printers. (Iimagine printing something that looks like and tastes like and has the nutrients of an apple, but not an apple). Robots will do any pre and post work with the printed devices and then have them delivered to you via a drone. Non-manufactured goods (e.g. antiques) will be selected and packaged with a combination of people and robots.
You may have these printers at home for small things, just like you do now. But over time, there will be advantages to centralization of these facilities, so they will be centralized, though not necessarily in factories. There may be showrooms to convince you of the need of the product, with big printers in the back. Or they may be underground, part of our infrastructure, delivering up the goods we want, much like our current infrastructure delivers water and electricity and gas to us now.
People will have their own drones that are part of the new Net. For example, you may have a self driving car (which is merely a drone) that is connected to the Internet. It will figure out the best way to get your from A to B, just like Google Maps does now. Other drones will clean your house. (You have a bunch right now and you call them Appliances, not drones. Appliances are drones that are not very smart, aren’t connected to the Internet, and don’t move around.) Other drones will get rid of rodents and other pests (up to and including other drones). There will be entertainment drones, security drones, maintainance drones, drones you can’t even imagine having yet, though you will. (Teeth cleaning drones, for example.)
Drones will be relatively cheap. Look at your smartphone now. Think about how fast and better they have gotten even as they have become cheaper. That will be the case with drones. You will have butler drones to help you manage your drones.
IT companies always need new IT things to sell to you. Those things will be drones.
Just like you have appliances, in the future, you will just have drones. Unlike your current appliances, they will not stay in one place. They may not even stay in your house all the time (any more than your smartphone or your laptop stays in your house).
These drones will be part of the Net. Already Belkin makes switches that you can turn off and on from the Internet. This will soon be the case for all appliances. You will use a “remote” to talk to these devices, instead of the limited panels they have now. Or you will talk to a butler drone that does the rest.
Drones will be made attractive to people. Ever wish, after making a meal, that the kitchen would clean itself? Drones will do that. Ever wish someone would wash and fold and put away the laundry? Drones will do that. Put the cat or dog in and out? Wash the windows of your house? Paint a room? Drones will do all these things. People will ask: how did people ever live without drones in the same way people ask: how did we ever live without the Internet? Instead of asking Siri for the weather, you will ask Siri to make a soup for lunch.
Everyone will have drones, because drones will be everywhere. What will separate rich and poor people is how many powerful drones they can get at a moments notice. Everyone may have small drones, but not everyone will have a drone squadron that can build a 10 story building. (And yes, they won’t be called a Drone Army….it will be a more pacifistic term like Drone Squad or Robot Crew or Android Team.)
Speaking of Android, Google has shown how to market robots to be cute and attractive (just think of the robot mascot for Android). I would not be surprised to see a company that has brand names like Android and Nexus making drones soon. I expect no less from Apple and other IT companies.
Think of a thing you want to do. Drones will be capable of doing that for you. That’s the future of the Internet. That’s your future, too.
I used to think the future was Digital. Now I think the future is Physical.

The Canadian Justice System on the niqab in court: some thoughts

A close decision on whether or not a Witness may be required to remove niqab while testifying: top court (The Globe and Mail). The entire article and decision should be read, but a key passage is this:

In its 4-3 decision, the court said there are times when even a significant religious belief must bow to other social and legal concerns.

“An extreme approach that would always require the witness to remove her niqab while testifying, or one that would never do so, is untenable,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said, writing on behalf of several of the judges in the majority.

“The answer lies in a just and proportionate balance between freedom of religion and trial fairness, based on the particular case before the court,” she said. “A witness who for sincere religious reasons wishes to wear the niqab while testifying in a criminal proceeding will be required to remove it if (a) this is necessary to prevent a serious risk to the fairness of the trial, because reasonably available alternative measures will not prevent the risk; and (b) the salutary effects of requiring her to remove the niqab outweigh the deleterious effects of doing so.”

I believe this is a fair decision, though I am interested in knowing what others think. My thoughts towards the niqab is similar to what Voltaire said on free speech, namely, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. I think women should not have to cover themselves up, period. But I think they should have the right to decide to do so if they want to. I think there are better ways to fight for the rights of Muslim women that making them take off what to do them is a very important garb. Finally, I also think that Canadian courts can find a way to accomodate this right while not infringing on the rights of the accused. Let’s see.

Beauty and time (story fragment)

Her beauty was not his. The curve of her cheek would never rest in his hands. The curves of body, never fall into his arms. The hands that handed him his change, would never rest upon him. Her eyes would never transfix him, nor would her smile transform him. He would not lie and study the fineness of her face: the line of her brow, the colour of her eye, the thickness of her lips. All of these things were before him, but none of them were for him.

Her beauty was not hers. It was a different beauty, though in time it was similar. And the man at the counter too was young then, and she was young and beautiful like the woman with the change. And her cheek feel in his hands. And the curves of her body fell into his arms. The woman who looked through the glass at the man and the young woman, her eyes would transfix on him then, and her smile transformed him. And she would lie and study the fineness of his face: the line of his beard, the colour of his eye, the smile on his lips. All of these things were before her now, like the were then, but that was then and the man through the window was no longer him but an older version of the man then.

…..

Her beauty was not his. In time it would not be hers.

…..

The end of Work: the apotheosis of robots and the degradation of humans

I think this passage from this article, New Wave of Deft Robots Is Changing Global Industry – NYTimes.com, is key:

Foxconn has not disclosed how many workers will be displaced or when. But its chairman, Terry Gou, has publicly endorsed a growing use of robots. Speaking of his more than one million employees worldwide, he said in January, according to the official Xinhua news agency: “As human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.”

There you have it, in blunt language. Humans are animals, and animals are secondary to machine when it comes to making lots and lots of things.

Robots are only going to get better and better at making things. Alot of things. Not only that, but robots will get cheaper and cheaper as they get better and better. Add 3D printing to that and soon the need for humans to make anything will decline rapidly.

We need to rethink the notion of Work. The idea that everyone needs to Work, and that they can only have an income if they do Work. It will get to the point where it will not make sense for people to make many things, other than as a hobby.

We will have very efficient ways to make things without people, but people will still exist. If they have no income, there will be no one for the owners of the robots and machines to sell to.

Henry Ford brought in a new model and changed the way people worked. We need a new model.

“The Smurfs” is Gay, and other things I thought watching it today

I took my son and his friend to see The Smurfs today, full dreading it. And despite some good things about it – there are some good things! – it is terrible in alot of ways. Here’s some random thoughts:
* I thought it was positive that Neil Patrick Harris plays a straight father-to-be in the film. I’d like to think the days are gone whereby gay actors can’t come out of the closet for fear of losing straight parts is over, but I don’t think that is yet the case. (I am no expert here.) Perhaps with more performances by actors like him, audiences can forget about the sexuality of the actors and focus on the character they are playing. That would be a good thing. NPH is one of the good things about the film.
* I like Tim Gunn alot, but I didn’t like him in this. I can’t say why: he’s not a good actor, and he is not playing himself exactly. It just felt off, as if he was trying to channel Stanley Tucci from The Devil Wears Prada and doing a poor job of it. Then again, I don’t watch much of him, so I could be totally off base here.
* One person who is channeling another character is Hank Azaria. He seems to be trying to be a male version of the Wicked Witch of the West. Indeed, the movie seems to lift the storyline from the Wizard of Oz, with The Portal acting as the Hurricane and New York City acting as The Emerald City. There’s references to flying eagles instead of flying monkeys, and…well, there is probably more, but I was not exactly watching it all that closely.
* Thinking about that on the way home, I realized: there seems to have been a number of gay references in this film. However, I am hardly the best person to make that call, so I did a search on the way home and found this: Gay.net – Smurfs are so Gay which references this: The Smurfs – Gay Movies For Gay People – UGO.com. And they just touch on some of the lines and references in the film. The makers of the film are being coy about it, but I think it’s too obvious not to be anything other than intentional. If anything, knowing that going in can make the film enjoyable for the adults, in that you can watch it from a different perspective.
* Surprisingly the actors in the film are good. It’s what makes it watchable. Hank Azaria is too much for me, but if you are five, I am sure he was perfect. NPH is charming as usual, and he takes his role seriously (no small things, that). The voice actors, in particular Katy Perry and Jonathan Winters, do their thing well and breath some life into their little blue CG bodies.
* I wish I could say I was pleasantly suprised by the film and that I liked it, but alot of the dialogue in the film is so hackneyed that it just grated on me. There’s too many bad sitcom cliches that stand out like a blue thumb. I thought the overuse of the word “smurf” word get to me, but it was lines like “we’re having a moment here” or “no Smurf left behind” or…well, there are tons of them. The thing was written by four screenwriters, and that is never a good sign. Yet there is good stuff, too. I guess of the four writers, some were good and some were hacks. Sadly the stuff by the hacks overcame the good dialogue and made it hard for me to watch.
* As usual, the 3D part is a rip off. There are some scenes at the beginning that use it well, but for the most part, it was irrelevant. I can see why Roger Ebert despises it. I do too.
* Is there lots of product placement? Ha, you’re kidding, right?
* The Smurfs is not the worst kids film I have ever seen: that honour still goes to the first Chipmunks movie. It represents all that is bad about Hollywood now, however, and if you can distract your kids from it long enough, it may be out of theatres before they know it.
* I’d like it to be a success just so NPH could get some better offers and we could see him in other films. Overall, though, if you can avoid seeing it, do so.

Some thoughts on the new Apple HQ and how it reminds me of two IBM facilities designed by Eero Saarinen

I hadn’t thought of it, until I read this Iconic design for Apple headquarters could transform Silicon Valley landscape – San Jose Mercury News, and came across this comment:

San Jose architecture critic Alan Hess also questioned the function of “this huge circle.”

“How are people inside going to communicate?” he asked. “Are they going to be walking around miles and miles of corridors to get to a conference room or use an internal tram system? Maybe they will rely on computer connections.”

When I first thought of this, I thought, yeah, how will they do that. But then I remembered that IBM has two facilities, both designed by the great architect, Eero Saarinen, that have similarities to the new Apple HQ. The IBM facility in Rochester, MN, is very boxy, but it has great courtyards, just like the new Apple HQ has, and employees often go out into them to meet. The other facility that Saarinen designed for IBM was the T.J. Watson research center, and that is a big curve that also has similarities to the new Apple HQ (though it is a curve and not a circle.). Still, despite that long curve, IBM employees have no trouble communicating with each other at Watson, and hardly need a huge tram to meet.

I once read that Steve Jobs wanted Pixar to have one washroom area, for by having that, employees would bump into each other and be more likely to mix and mingle and share. I think the central courtyard in the middle of the new HQ serves the same purpose: employees will be bumping into each other all the time as they cut through it to meet people elsewhere.

I like the design of the new Apple HQ, and while it reminds me of the IBM facilities, it will be architecturally unique.

Some random thoughts on the wonderful Des Hommes et Des Dieux (Of Gods and Men)

This is a beautiful film, and a great one. It’s filled with gorgeous imagery (such as the one above), but it is also beautifully written and acted. It is not surprisingly a deeply spiritual film, and it certainly helps to have an understanding of Christianity, because the film seemed highly allegorical to me. But even without that, the film can be appreciated. If you only had a passing description of it, it may seem like something that would be a dull film, but acts early in the film put the Trappist monks in jeopardy and provides conflict and high tension throughout the film.

Speaking of allegory, what I noted was:

the main character being named Christian / Christ. (Interesting the character Luc was a physician, and Saint Luke is the patron saint of physicians.)
the Last Supper towards the end of the film
the army being the Romans and the terrorists being the Pharisees
the moment when Christian is in the garden in anguish reminded me of Christ in Gethsemane

I wasn’t paying attention to that so much at first, but towards the end, I noticed it more. I mention it here because being aware of this earlier may help you pick up things that I missed.

The film ends in an ambiguous way. I didn’t appreciate this until later, when I found there was uncertainty over the fate of the monks as well.

Very highly recommended.

A minor note: Lambert Wilson plays Christian in this film and can be said to represent Christ (to some degree). In the second and third Matrix films, he plays the Merovingian, who can be said to symbolize the devil in that film. Indeed, the actor comes across very differently in each film, and it took me some time looking at him in this film before I made the connection.

For a good review of the film, see ‘Of Gods and Men,’ a True Story of Monks in Algeria by A.O. Scott in the NYTimes.com