Category: I Think …

Hogan’s Hero

Hey, you know me – right? I mean, if we were to bump into each other on the street you’d be able to say to yourself that you know me. You may not know all about me, but you have a general sense of who I am, right? Now what about if you were to be hired by my employer tomorrow, and we bumped into each other in the hallways in Richmond? Would you feel as confident that you know me? Or would there be a niggling doubt that perhaps, just perhaps, Kirk at work is not like Kirk at all.

Some people really do act differently at work, both in how they approach people and problems. Some people pride themselves on being able to have two disparate personalities: the work Kirk and the home Kirk. I imagine salespeople must do this or they’d be shunned from society permanently – but I digress.
Continue reading Hogan’s Hero

Polaris Music Prize – Awards Based On Merit? What The?!

As a Canadian I am aware that we hold the annual Juno Awards to reward the top artists in Canadian music. However I have to admit that I am often puzzled by the nominees for the Junos: they always seem to be big names in music with the little names getting a brief spotlight as up and comers or some such. The music is typically radio-friendly and bland. Frankly I don’t bother with the awards at all – they seem far too “ersatz“. But what is the Juno Award replacing, or standing in for?

Well, finally Canadians have an answer to this question – The Polaris Music Prize. Their mission statement:

The operation of a not-for-profit organization that annually honours, celebrates and rewards creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music by recognizing, then marketing the albums of the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history, as judged by a panel of selected critics and experts. (link)

Whodathunkit? A music award based on artistic merit? What will us crazy Canucks think of next?!

Dear Internet: Oopsie! Love AOL.

Earlier this month AOL released to the public a sizable chunk of data. The data was in the form of the verbatim search queries submitted by AOL subscribers from March to May 2006. Their intention was purportedly to aide academic researchers in creating new search-based tools by providing them with some real-life data to work with. AOL knew they did not want to violate their subscriber’s privacy so they changed the identifying information in the log lines to unique numbers. So kbridger could become, for example, user 3402937.

What they failed to realize – and this is a major stumbling block in artificial intelligence today – is that there is some information in the context of the data as well. For example look at this “anonymous user’s” search history:

17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer
17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop
17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people
17556639 killed people
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 dead pictures
17556639 murder photo
17556639 steak and cheese
17556639 photo of death
17556639 photo of death
17556639 death
17556639 dead people photos
17556639 photo of dead people
17556639 www.murderdpeople.com
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 decapatated photos
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crashes3
17556639 car crash photo

Continue reading Dear Internet: Oopsie! Love AOL.

Artificial Sperm – The Next Step, But Towards What?

We’ve all heard the joke about how medical breakthroughs in medical genetics and reproductive technology will eventually make either men or women (depending on who’s telling the story) obsolete. Funny most of the time – until you hear about how they have now successfully created sperm cells that were grown outside of a male body, implanted into a female, and produced viable offspring. Suddenly the term artificial insemination takes on a totally new meaning.

In all honesty I’m sure not everyone is surprised about this. It really is the next step, and a preliminary one at that. The offspring suffered, with one dying before reaching adulthood. As the article notes:

“There are currently many things we don’t know about how sperm are formed let alone why it sometimes goes wrong and leads to infertility in some men.

But he added: “It is more difficult to say whether artificial sperm produced this way could ultimately be used as a new treatment for male infertility. There are many technical, ethical and safety issues to be confronted before this could even be considered.”

At this point in reading the article I stopped and mentally noted that not a single person voiced the first question that came to my mind: Should we? Certainly they make all sorts of sabre-rattling efforts, claiming that various aspects of ethical, cultural and societal impacts need to be assessed along the way. I can hear the white-mustached man clearing his throat, lowering his bushy white eyebrows and declaring that analysis needs to be done. Hrumph, harumph, we’ll do this right!

And yet, I believe we need to look at things a little differently. Just because we can, doesn’t necessarily mean we should. That’s my personal belief.

Many people decry that we are messing with God’s work here, creating life in a way that should never be done. I think these people often follow this experiment to its natural conclusion: same-sex couples being able to have biological children together. Then the scientists step in and say that God’s desire is to have humans grow and stretch ourselves – that if s/he hadn’t meant us to do this we wouldn’t be able to do it.

I find these arguments rather pointless, as beliefs are not universal and really can’t be used as a cultural solution. But I do think we should ask ourselves why this is needed in today’s world, what the ramifications will be, and whether we really do need to follow this path to its completion. These questions may result in ‘yes’ – who can say? Nobody’s really ever figured it out.

Another example of science leading society down a road it may not even be aware of, let alone be thinking about critically. What does that road means to the culture, society, and people on the trip? Do we even care anymore? Is it progress for progress’s sake?

Thanck Goodeness Fore SpelChequers

These tools are so very useful – can we really live without them?

I quote:

Eye halve a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I’m shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it’s weigh,
My chequer tolled me sew.

Putting The Squeeze On The Tooth Fairy

I always wondered what happened to my teeth once the tooth fairy took them away in the dark of the night. Eventually I just figured that the most obvious and practical option was the most likely – the fairy takes the teeth down underground somewhere and melts them all down into molten teeth. The fairy then purifies the molten teeth, whitening them and removing all that nasty discolouration. Once the liquid is pipping hot it is poured into silver metal moulds in the shape of unicorns. Once cooled the new tooth unicorn statue is added to the “Unicorn Garden” – a growing pile of pristinely white statues spreading wildly over a simple green lawn.

At this point things get fuzzy, because I’m not sure if the unicorn statues come to life every Hallowe’en, sadly watching costumed children (in who’s mouth the unicorns once dwelt) traipse about collecting tooth-rotting candy from strangers, or if the fairy uses them in demonic rituals, animating them as grotesque creatures who’s sole desire in life is to bring the world to a thundering, shattering, enamel drenched end.

But I digress.

Scientists in Edmonton have miniaturized a device that will allow a tooth to be regrown from a root – how cool is that? Forget false teeth! I’ll just regrow my missing/broken/chipped tooth! It only takes a few months. Combine this new device with an interest in using stem cells to create new teeth and we have a brand new way of growing teeth. What used to be something we experienced only as children can soon be relived by all of us – well, all of us with the cash to pay for it.

So now the Unicorn Garden may start to grow a little faster – people will be jettisoning teeth throughout their lives not just as children but repeatedly as adults as their teeth grow old and fall out or get bashed about by flying pucks. So either the garden will have to be expanded beyond the underground lair (how cool would that be?) or the fairy will be doing more demonic rituals. Could this mean a return of the unicorn to modern day zoological references? If so, does it mean we should see them only on Hallowe’en, or is this simple Edmontonian discovery a harbinger of the end of the world?

Want To Speak With Someone At The CRIA?

Defective By Design, a rallying site for people opposed to DRM, is having a one-day “call the big wig” event they’re calling “Freedom Rings” today. When you sign up they give you the contact information for some of the big names in the recording industry associations in various countries.

The idea is that you can then call this person and speak to them directly to let them know that DRM is simply not a good idea. It’s an interesting approach to ‘protesting’. Many people think you should just stop buying CDs labelled “Copy Protected” as a means of protesting, but it has been shown that the recording executives are perceiving any drop in record sales as attributable to piracy. This is an opportunity for those of us who really oppose DRM to simply tell someone that should be interested in hearing from us.

If you sign up there is a number for a fellow at the CRIA – Canada’s version of the RIAA, so we can all call Graham Henderson, apparently the president of the CRIA.

Electronic Media and Our Children

I’m in the middle of reading a great book titled Consuming Kids by Susan Linn that addresses the issue of advertising and marketing to children. I can’t say enough about how good a read this is, but here is a quote to give you an idea:

The problem is that while parents are trying to set limits, marketing executives are working day and night to undermine their authority. For parents raising children who are innately more impulsive, or more likely to take risks, the stakes are even higher. These are the children who are eager to explore the world and who are more likely to test limits – which means that adhering to the advice of “pick your battles” is difficult even under normal circumstances.

She examines how psychologists today are employed by marketers to make sure the advertising is as effective as possible – trying to create a loyal consumer from the cradle to the grave, as they say. She adds this sad fact to the discussion:

The 1992 Ethical Principles of the American Psychological Association include one titled “Social Responsibility,” which stated, among other things, that psychologists should “apply and make public their knowledge of psychology in order to contribute to human welfare.” I was dismayed, however, to discover that in the new version of the principles, effective June 2003, the APA eliminated that sentence – and the entire Social Responsibility Principle – from the document.

Continue reading Electronic Media and Our Children

A Hypothetical Thought and Question

Let me paint you a picture – I want your input on this one.

Let’s say I was able to offer my knowledge to others for a price – I know, not hard to imagine for anyone who I’ve already helped. For completeness let’s just say I had my own business that helped people fix their computers when they broke down. I was able to remove virus infections, diagnose hardware problems, install and upgrade components – that kind of thing. To me these things are fairly easy, but to others they may seem daunting. That’s the great thing about knowing people – I don’t need to be able to do everything. Not everyone needs to know how to install a CPU, or to flash a new BIOS version to their video card. I can do those things. That’s the service I offer – my knowledge of how these things work and how to make a bad situation better. One could call me a professional I suppose.
Continue reading A Hypothetical Thought and Question