Nice Sunday

Pretty nice day all around.  Relaxed pace, a long nap, lunch with family - very good.  Had lunch with my parents and brother-in-law again - second time since Friday we've shared a meal.  Managed to use my iPhone to show him Rowan Atkinson's sketch "Welcome to Hell".  That and a bunch of Arrogant Worms tunes he didn't know, so a very hilarious lunch with lots of Canadian content.  Well, Canadian musical content anyway.  

Well, I wanted to rant, er discuss, er.. well rant was right I guess.  Kimota94 has a post about non-interviews that I really relate to.  Many times there are pseudo-articles, elaborate advertisements, that try to focus the reader on particular aspects of a product, but miss the point entirely.  I have to remind myself to be wary of such things and try to apply some basic reason, but I can almost forgive them because it is their job to sell things.  Another more serious version of the same issue is when a complex technical issue is being addressed and the emphasis is placed on the wrong aspect of the item.  For example, the idea of fully online applications, ones that reside entirely on the Internet.  When mentioned, what is stressed is that all you need is a browser and an Internet connect and you can have 24-7 access, implicit upgrades, no hassle, etc etc.  It leaves out things like who is maintaining the infrastructure?  Where does the work take place, locally or on a server?  Who has access to the server?  How can I be sure that my private information isn't processed through several servers in different places?  What happens if that company disappears?  What happens if the servers have a problem - where is my data?  These are items that I'd be worried about, because I'd want control over my data, not just access.  

The same sort of pattern happens around programming languages, where some esoteric feature in one language is hailed as the new "right way", ignoring the fact that many paradigms have come before and more will come.  That just means that one solution doesn't fit all problem, one paradigm doesn't describe the perfect framework.  Anyway, enough ranting for this evening - I'd like to increase my internal relaxation level and decrease the rant level.  For now.

Careful...

Got to be careful not to go into deep-rant mode tonight.  Don't really want to spend a long time going on and on about some topic, probably because it could take all night and there is more than one thing to rant on about.  We're getting closer to that time at work where we discuss money and goals and the coming year.  Since many things have happened between evaluation time and epic monetary meltdown, er, now, this will be an interesting set of discussions.  It also has me thinking about my current financial state and getting my income tax done.  One of those yearly chores that needs to get done, but I simply haven't got to yet.  I'm hoping that I get a bit of a refund this year - I usually do get a little something.  The question of what to do with it weighs though.  The simple answer is always "pay down debts", which I cultivate through a line of credit.  Whenever I think of money like this, I realize I could do better and I should really get to where I can save by default instead of reduce debt by default.  I'm still pining for a nice big TV, but it doesn't make sense right now.  Anyway, money is a never-ending rant, so I'm going to move on.

Today was mail day on The Current, so I listened to people rant on about the things they heard this week.  Some mail was about a piece on fertility, centered around the 60-year-old woman who recently gave birth to twins.  Some of the letters line up with my personal opinions - people over a certain age will find it difficult to raise young children because they don't have energy for it.  One letter in particular noted that they were considered strange by other parents when they had a child in their 40's, but now it is far more common.  I think it's not a great idea, personally.  If having children is that important, why can't you sacrifice a little when you can handle things best.  Put another way, you should have kids before you're old enough to realize how much work it is.  The older the parents are when the process begins, the more likely they will have a single child that is coddled/treasured/bubbled.  If it took until you were in your 50s before you could have a child, that represents a huge effort and you'd like to protect that effort.  How will you ever be able to let go?  How will you be able to give the child the distance to let them grown on their own?  When you're younger, I think it is easier.  Bill Cosby would say that when he got in trouble, his father would say "I brought you into this world, I can take you out.  And don't think I won't because I make another just like you."  Good detachment, little be too heavy on the discipline, but you get the idea.

That is only the warm-up rant on the assisted fertility topic however.  The letter that got to me was from someone who pointed out that fertility treatments are a for-pay enterprise that costs a good deal of money.  A single course of IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) treatment costs about $10,000.00.  The author of the letter thought that the government health plans should cover it, comparing this to knee replacement surgery.  The comparison was "If someone can get a knee replaced so they can go running, I should be able to get IVF."  That's paraphrased - I'm working from memory here.  First of all, the analogy is very, very poor - it implies that a person selfishly gets knee replacement surgery to continue doing something that will damage their knee and IVF is less selfish and less burdensome on the healthcare system.  Each successful IVF treatement brings additional load on the healthcare system - a new person.  There are no guarantees that the treatment will work, so often several treatments are necessary to achieve a successful birth, another large load.  The knee surgery person is hurting only themself.   The next part of my argument is a not as fully worked out, so I apologize for any incoherency.  Maybe there is a system reason why a particular couple can't conceive - systemic in the natural system sense.  Maybe there is something about those two people, the time, the place etc that makes it impossible for them to conceive in the regular (fun?) fashion.  Considering how important new life is to species, that says something.  I don't mean that IVF technologies are inherently wrong and I don't believe that it is "fate".  What I mean is that we do not know very much of how our bodies operate on the whole, so the living whole may be sensitive to things we don't currently understand or recognize now.  What bothered me the most about this letter was not the suggestion that fertility issues should be covered by our Canadian public health care system, but the insistent tone of entitlement.  The author implied their right to proper life were violated because the gov't won't pay for them to special treatments to conceive.  Why do they need to have the same life as all their friends?  Does their best friend having a child mean they need a child to complete them?

Now I'm getting petulant, so I'll move on.  I can't know what motivates their need for a child, so I'll continue on and say that I think it would be a good idea for the public health care system to support fertility treatments in some way.  An expert came on to help talk about the issues in the letter and he indicated that some treatments are covered by the system now, but IVF is not covered.  He mentioned that some countries in Europe will cover IVF for the implantation of 1 embryo, and will not do it for women past a certain age.  This tied back to the 60 year old woman who had IVF treatment and birthed twins - she had the treatment done in India.  I think IVF should be covered, but it should be provided in a system like the organ doaner system - patients are triaged and served in the order of some list.  Devising the rules for ranking of that list would be difficult.  I would use age as a factor, but there is obviously more parameters to consider.  However I don't think that the private option should be removed - if you have the money to pay for the treatments, have as many kids as you like.  Obviously you have money to support all these treatments.  Free-market thinking has huge holes, as octo-mom in California proved (my wife's term).  The woman who recently gave birth to octuplets in California is single, no job, has several kids already but somehow afforded the treatments that resulted in the octuplets.  Anyway, I suspect we'll find in the future that the natural methods are the best - most robust, safest, most reliable.  We shall have to wait and see.

Day 11 - Prime time!

Titles are hard, so I figure a weak numeric joke is better than nothing today.   My wife brought up an idea - that "carbon offsets" are equivalent to "papal indulgences".  I thought it was an excellent idea, and something that I should think about entering in a CBC contest "Canada Writes."  After talking around the topic a bit, we both recalled hearing this proposition before, but it is still an interesting thought.  I figured I'd expand the ideas a little farther, branching out to the more general topic of "global warming" and what people think about it and are doing about it.  Like most things, it's probably a good idea to practise composing such a piece, so I'm going to write up some of my ideas here and enter the contest later with something more coherent.  Or less - I'm not sure what they're looking for ;)

Anyway, the papal indulgences vs carbon offsets is a very strong parallel: you get to sin all you want and use money to erase the sin.  The money paid goes somewhere that's not exactly clear and whatever your theological grounding, what gets done with the money to fix the sin is rather murky.  Some examples are the planting of various trees in different parts of the world to offset that plane trip you took from New York to Lake Tahoe to go skiing.  Everything comes down to the "leave it the way you found it" idea I was given growing up.  You can mess things up all you want if you spend the time to clean it up.  Doing all the messing up followed by all the cleaning leaves you in a pickle - the mess becomes like compound interest.  Messing the mess results in more clean up effort than mess-cleanup-mess.  And when we're talking the environment, the "leaving it to the end" is equivalent to "leaving it until I'm almost dead", at which point you've done very little cleaning up and a lot of messing up.  These lessons lead one to try and create less mess and clean more frequently.  This works in the kitchen and in the tar sands - there is a minimum mess necessary to accomplish something, but after that, it should be dealt with.  Economically, once you've made the money, that's the time to do the cleanup, not years later when you've gone bankrupt.  Well, that's what companies do because the gov't (that's us) has to come in and clean up.

Every now and then there is a back-and-forth about "global warming" - it's important to act now, the data is flawed, the science wrong, someone is manipulating the media, etc etc.  The first step is to try and get every person to reduce their daily impact on the world around them.  Next, the impact of their general lifestyle.  A lot of progress can be made through technology and now is the time to pursue them.  Some propose huge projects to fix things, but those smack of desperation and is wrong-headed.  Humans are very adaptable and getting the humans to change is easier, cheaper and more predicitble than trying to bend the planet to our will.  The latter has always been thwarted, never working out as planned or even in a predictable fashion.  So let's get on to working small and building up from that.  Use less water, less electricity, less gasoline.  All these things will be cheaper for you as an individual and then you can look to the things you buy and decide how to select things that are better.  Eating food that is in season near where you live is cheaper and it has to travel less.  It keeps the farmers near you going and it generally tastes better too.  Generating power more locally would save creating huge towers everywhere with lots of cables susceptible to ice and wind and so forth.  

Anyway, that's enough ranting for tonight.  I'll have to look into some more potential topics for the Canada Writes topic.  Everyone that reads this post will know my main problem will be keeping any submission to 200 words.

A new year - a time for...

I guess it is time to write up something here. I find it hard to believe that it was August when I last posted. Then again, maybe that isn't so hard to believe. We've started a new year - 2009, last of the 'oughts'. Probably it will be a year of reflection (I aught to have done this, I aught not to have invaded Iraq, I aught not to have create a fiscal device which crashed markets around the world). Hopefully that kind of thinking won't weigh on consciences too heavily. What I aught to have done was write more. Gonna try and change that here - 'tis a simple habit, but a tough one to keep up. Well, some seem to have an easier time than others. Kimota94 even had to branch out to 2 and even 3 blogs. I have trouble keeping up and I'm jealous that I can' t even compare to that output. Then again, I always wished I could write like Isaac Asimov at 90 wpm on a manual typewritter. There was a mind that could make things work the first time through, on the fly.

Well, the new year brings renewal - hope, possibility and some third thing which I'm not going to tell you. Maybe later. When I get into writing as a habit. Always seems so easy during the dark cold months of the year when I'm on vacation. When I stop talking to so many different people, I guess I have more to write about. The experiment comences!

Happy New Year! Remember, the media likes to say a lot of things, but that doesn't always reflect what is going on. The stock market crashed, but it hasn't erased a large portion of the jobs. Statistics Canada's latest unemployment numbers (check out this chart) show Canada's unemployment rate at ~6.5%, lower than the 7% in 2005. This means the economic crises is no Great Depression, at least not yet. On the other hand, all the frank discussion that claims that my spending (as a consumer) is responsible for keeping everything going, seems like a pretty asinine thing to base wealth and species success off of.

Stupid pesticides

So my wife has this thing about wasps. She hates them. Something about her parents deck and perpetual nests, I'm not exactly sure. Frankly it doesn't matter - she doesn't care for them. So when I spotted a growing nest outside our kitchen window, action had to be taken.

Since I was taking a day off work, I headed down to the store. My youngest decided he had to come with me, so packed him in the car and headed to the local Home Hardware. Of course my son fell asleep before the first corner, so I was browsing the wasp "solutions" with 37 lbs of deadweight in one arm. Nothing like a good aerobic workout!

Found Raid Max Wasp & Hornet Bug Killer. Looked like it would do the trick - plus it was on sale! Headed home and re-read the directions, specifically the one that said "wait until evening." Excellent idea! So I waited. Well, had dinner and played CounterStrike: Source until it was after 10pm and then headed out.

The can claimed a 2 to 2.5m foaming distance. So I inserted the straw (applicator wand sounds like some kind of hygiene product) into the nozzle and spray. Foam everywhere - on the wall, on the window, but not really on the nest. Now I have to find the straw in the dark. It did its best foam impression by shooting off the nozzle immediately. Without the straw to focus and accelerate the contents of the can, there would be no 2m reach. Off to get the ladder and start again. Get back to find some dazed wasps crawling on the window ledge, trying to figure out why it was so hard to focus. "Dave's not here man" they said. They looked cold so blanketed them in foam. I think they like it - they went to sleep right away and stopped moving. Then I covered the nest from 0.5m.

Brilliant idea from the directions - I decided to "insert the [straw] into the nest opening and fill it" (still can't call it an applicator or wand). Found the straw and stuck it under the foam. Squeezed the trigger and the straw shot out and nearly hit my eye. Cursing (softly - still don't know the neighbours that well), I headed to the nearest tap to rinse my eye. After rinsing my eye, I read the first aid directions and found out the 2 minutes of rinsing was not nearly enough and that I should spend FIFTEEN MINUTES rinsing. Nuts to that - there's more foam left in the can!

Discovered the extra second round of foam had increased the weight so much that it had fallen off the nest entirely. Foamed up the nest, lightly this time and fetched the hose. I figured that this stuff is so awesome that it would probably turn my wall interesting decorative colours if I left it alone. Rinsed off the wall and window, leaving the nest covered.

So the product was effective - killed about 5 wasps and 1 human. Well nearly - I guess I'm technically not dead. However the foam doesn't seem to be that important. Other products will kill the bugs on contact and work from longer distances, so you can just soak the outside of the nest and kill any that come to investigate directly. I guess it is much the same as CounterStrike - guess they aren't really that different after all. But I can hardly recommend this foam spray stuff. Get something that will actually spray the distance. By "actually" I mean one that doesn't require a straw to be attached before it works as advertised.

Winning friends and influencing nations

Listened to The Current today on the way to work, as I often do. Listen that is. And work too - I guess I do both pretty often.

Anyway, the topic I caught was about the plight of civilian contractors in Iraq, working as interpreters etc. First there was an interview with someone who was an interpreter and had to flee Iraq because of threats on her life. Not that they weren't common but that they became more direct - mentioning her by name. She was trying to emigrate to the US after helping them in her native country, but it was a long process. The second part was an interview with Kirk Johnson who has setup something called "The List: Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies".

Mr. Johnson had done some aid work in Iraq and saw how hard it was for the people who were helping the US to try and rebuild their country. These were the people who volunteered because they felt the US was improving things. These same people are targets for others who don't want the US there, so some are killed and all are threatened. When they feared for their lives so much they wanted to leave their birthplace, the US told them "there is nothing we can do".

Mr. Johnson setup the "List" because the treatment of these volunteers will form the future reputation of the US in the middle east. These are the people that like the US the most and if they don't get helped - if they feel used and abandoned - no one will ever want to help the US again. Currently there is no give and take. Sure they may be paid well, but these people aren't mercenaries, risking their lives for money. They are working to make where they live a better place. If the US wants win more friends, they can start by being a friend to their helpers who are being threatened with death.

The first interviewee mentioned that when the Danes find out that one of their interpreters is in danger, they get them to Copenhagen within 24 hours. The Americans direct their helpers to leave Iraq illegally and then go through a series of interviews over the course of 18 months (or more) and maybe they'll permit them to attempt to emigrate. Wow - what courtesy. What gratitude. Maybe they'll get a handful of peanuts for the trip too.

The slowness of the process is attributed to Homeland Security, who apparently want to be careful they don't give easy access to potential terrorists. Mr. Johnson pointed out that all the interpreters have to pass a security clearance, work and eat with Americans on bases and in the green zone. Some even carry sidearms (that's a fancy word for "gun") while traveling in convoys. Plus they risk their lives just going to work. Moving to the US means they have to leave their birthplace under threats of death, leaving extended families and everything they have known. I guess they're still a threat...

I was talking with my neighbour tonight about a problem in their house. The builder was reluctant to change anything, but when asked "If this was your house, would you leave it like this?", the builder answered "No". If someone who lives half a world away, doesn't know you, isn't related to you risks their life on your behalf, does that prove their mettle? Sounds like a soldier to me, except these people aren't being paid to risk their lives. I think that should carry some weight when deciding how to treat them.

This is not a call to abandon process, but maybe the process could be done from within the US. Maybe a little quicker. According to Mr. Johnson there are many citizens who would vouch for these people.

Well, the ranting has sent me off course a bit, but the key thing is that people are watching how this is handled. If all you see is a rich country, coming in and looking after itself, will you like or dislike that country? Coming in and using the local resources, human or otherwise, and dropping them when they aren't useful isn't neighbourly. It's provocative. The people that help are the ones that have the strongest positive opinion of the US - using them up and leaving them to pay with their lives for helping the US is not going to encourage strong support of US anything. They need to show these people respect so they can earn respect. Hopefully it will be recognized before the dividing lines are too clear.

"Surviving" holidays

Read Kimota94's post about Christmas Survival and it got me thinking. First that he's lucky to have so many consumable gifts (and how they have been processed in a unidirectional fashion), but more about survival.

I've heard many people comment on "surviving" holidays, but I think it is poor word usage. Survival implies some kind of struggle, something epic and memorable. Existing or persisting or muddling or crawling through is closer to the mark. Holidays can be a lot of work, but struggles with the holidays tend to mirror the other aspects of modern life. People complain of having no time, not enough time in the day not enough etc etc etc. Time can be created, or tasks removed, whatever suits you (see: Agile Methodologies). Personally, I am generally late for things (my wife claims my name should be "Chief Running-late"), so I understand the problem. Intimately. Padding estimates and better planning improves the entire situation. The worst case that I see is that some things get missed - like forgetting that special yam-pudding for dinner at Aunt Freida's or not remembering a gift for that last-minute Christmas invite. Everyone is busy and has many things to remember. Like what people want for Christmas, what parties to go to, which relatives one should simply not talk to.

Point, point... I know I had a point in here somewhere... Here it is! Seems to me that a better approach would be to make some solid (read: simple) plans in advance, stock up on and deal with things as they come. Works on so many levels for some many things it is scary. Or right. Oh, and I am right - something I've discovered over the past few years. All the people I've met that have used this approach are generally relaxed people that can handle anything that life throws at them. I think they tend to die quietly in their sleep, not screaming in terror like their passengers. People that fret over every detail are rarely happy about the results, no matter how good the outcome. My mother (and my aunt) are both fabulous cooks, but they always warn us that something is too dry or not done right, when it is absolutely perfect for me. Fortunately they worry about the meal but let other things take care of themselves so they don't blow a gasket on a special day.

This is not to say that there isn't a lot of work to be done - it's the hurried, resentfulness so many bring to it. Your work is brining some sort of solace to some one you know and (hopefully) like, so why can't that be it's own reward? Rhetorical question, but I can answer it. It's the same reason that people can't walk out on a cold clear night and gaze at a darkened sky and sense the peaceful calm of existence.

Maybe I'm just ignorant of the whole problem. The pressure can be tremendous and it can be overwhelming. Knowing what I could be dealing with instead of relatives, presents, late nights and culinary disaster removes the pressure for me. My wife and I developed a theory of "constant worry" - that the average person has to worry to some measurable mark. During the Great Depression, the things that one had to worry about were simple and basic - will I still have a job tomorrow? Will my job give me enough money to buy bread on the way home tonight? Do I have enough food so I won't die during the night? Move ahead to the 1950's and people worried about Jimmy swearing and whether their telephones will give them polio. Western (affluent) society cares little about the day-to-day realities of food, shelter and survival because they are trivially handled. Society invents problems (or perhaps the media suggests problems and society accepts them). Things like whiter teeth or car navigation systems. I suppose that some worry excessively about Christmas because they need to raise their worry level and move their yearly average up to social norms. Maybe it's really a sign that things are okay, that everything is going exceptionally well for all concerned.

I just wish people would enjoy themselves a little more and worry less. It's easier to get along with happy people. Merry Christmas.

The edge I've been pushed over

Finally I broke down and started a blog. I couldn't take it any long. I was going to post a link to the original source, but I was not sure. Not supplying all the information is part of the problem so go read the original post here. In a separate forum that I'm a part of, the following comment appeared:

Of course, their limited world view on understanding exactly what Islam is, and what a Muslim is. And, what a Christian is. Kinda like this person needs to really do a little soul searching and self education.

Read on for what I couldn't keep in
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But but that means they're willing to change! That just can't be - that means they could be wrong! I mean if I see a name and rearrange the letters, convert the numbers to letters - oh - I see it again - 666! The beast!

I'm not shocked any more, just increasingly disappointed at the ignorant stupidity or blatant manipulative attempts. No middle ground, no quarter given, nothing but sun or shade. And they sit at their computers decrying a civilization that existed before theirs, while a zone of chaos swirls through a land 5000 miles away, worried that "those people" are bringing them down. Oh jeez, I guess they're dying is harshing your buzz. I suppose "those people", you know them - they wear different clothes, have different fanatical beliefs, they're in your city, pointing guns at you. Oh, you mean they *may* be in your cities, *may* be planning a protest, er bombing, er something.

You know, it's been more than 5 years North America hasn't seen any more deaths... But 10 or 100 times as many people in places have died as a result. If people from far away showed up were I lived, I'd have to take up arms and fight to the death. People that complain of "threats" and "possibilities" should stop and look around. The streets seem devoid of foreign soldiers and there isn't any gun play. They have a computer, electricity to power it, coffee to fuel their idiocy and navel-gazing.

A strong person, one deserving of respect, is someone who can admit they made a mistake and move on. Those who invent further calamities so they don't have to change their position are not deserving of respect.