Day 84 – June 8, 2020
Recently (May 22ⁿᵈ, in fact), I wrote about my way of learning… how difficult I find it to just memorize something… how I actually have to learn it and understand it. And the flipside of that… how if I actually manage to memorize anything, it sticks with me forever…. I suppose because of the way I learned it; to some extent, I understand it… it’s not just a jumble of words.
Such is the case with my favourite poem of all time, one I learned over 35 years ago. A classic and a favourite, written about by countless students over the years. I learned it back then, I and I still know it… and next time we’re having a coffee or a beer or whatever, call me on it… I’ll be happy to recite it for you. And if you want a far better version, check out Bryan Cranston’s reading of it on YouTube. It’s incredible.
“Ozymandias” – by Percy Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
OK… great poem. Fantastic imagery. You can totally see it… and the symbolism and message is pretty clear. Some very powerful king, thousands of years ago (it’s understood this was Ramses II, who was Pharaoh around 3,300 years ago) built these colossal cities, huge monumental cities that will survive forever. And in the middle of it, a huge statue of himself, proclaiming to the world how great he is, fear him, worship him, etc. And… today, it’s all gone, except, ironically, for this shattered remnant of all that boasting. Look around at all my awesomeness… but there’s nothing to see. It’s all been swallowed up by the desert.
The conventional analysis has to do with us, 3,300 years later, softly chuckling to ourselves at the colossal ego of this guy, thinking his stuff would last forever. Ha Ha, silly pharaoh, don’t you get it, nothing lasts forever, ha ha, you narcissistic, pretentious ego-maniac. If you read my report, and those of my fellow students… and those of thousands of others who’ve had to analyze this poem, that’s what you’ll get. Every variation on that theme; the poem is about hubris, period.
I learned this poem when I was a kid. I thought about it when I started my first job, about how I was building a colossal city… for someone else. I thought about it a lot over the years, building my own cities, knowing full well that I’ll get to enjoy them while I’m alive and so will my kids and close friends and all that, but, of course, one day it’ll all be gone, or, better put — transformed into something else. Ozymandias’ empire crumbled to literal dust — the very sand from which it emerged. I’m now wondering about the present-day versions of that. What will become of these words… things that barely exist… ones and zeroes, which, in the right order — mean a lot, but scramble them a bit and you have nothing. And stuff… the house, the cars, whatever. All transient. Just stuff. And it made me realize something recently, after 35 years of thinking about this poem. That maybe Ozymandias wasn’t such a short-sighted inward-facing fool after all. Maybe what he’s proclaiming to the world is the opposite… it’s like, look around — all of you — everything you are doing today — for what? It’s all going to crumble. Look at me, and everything I built! Gone! All gone! Now there is something to despair about. He wasn’t throwing into our faces how awesome he was and how immortal he was… he was saying… jeez, people… look… if I can’t build something that’ll last forever, what chance do you have? None! It’s all for nothing. That is what you should despair about.
I wish I could go back to grade 10 and present that. Get a serious “wow” look from the teacher, who I would hope would see the genius in that interpretation and give it the A+ is deserves. As opposed to the C I got because, you know, “Mr. Kemeny, I find your effort lacking”.
What’s also lacking in effort, and arguably missing in action, is leadership south of the border. I’ve been bashing Donald Trump, and his response to this pandemic, for a while now. With good reason, in my opinion. I had thought it’d be the crisis that would define his failure as president. That’s going to be a smaller part of the story, as it turns out. Never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, he perhaps could have had some redemption in the proper handling of what now, no doubt, will become the defining issue of his presidency.
The masterful reading of that poem by Bryan Cranston is him speaking in relation to his character, Walter White. If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad — you’re lucky, because now you get to experience what’s arguably the best TV series ever made. Queue it up. Go watch it. Walter White starts off as a pretty normal high-school teacher. Then, you could say, he gets into drugs. And, over the next few years, things change dramatically. And, no spoilers, but… you could say, things don’t end well. Things crumble.
Donald Trump has literally built the sort of empire that’s meant to crumble. Towers, casinos, golf courses. Similar to those towers and ski hills and fake islands in Dubai… all will be swallowed up by the sand one day. And none of that matters. Nor should it. History will not judge him on how awesome his (now bankrupt) casinos were. It’s everything else. I look upon his mighty present-day works and despair. Fortunately, one day, every aspect of what’s defining this presidency will crumble, and the U.S. will come out of it in better shape than how things were when it all started… not because of this particular president, but in spite of him. And the students of the future will have plenty to discuss.
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Day 83 – June 7, 2020
Air travel has obviously been radically affected by this pandemic, but before everything went all to hell, it’s interesting to note that typically, there are so many planes (tens of thousands) flying around at any given moment, that it’d actually be impossible to ground them all; there’d be no room to park them. We caught a glimpse of that post 9/11 when, for a week, all air traffic over North America was stopped. Airports turned into giant parking lots — YVR was one of them, the taxiways and runways littered with an eclectic collection of livery. Another one of them was Gander, Newfoundland… a town with a population of around 10,000 people… and an airport that’s well-suited to emergencies, being the closest point between the U.S. and Europe… so when the call came in to every plane, “Get down now… anywhere… closest airport… NOW.” — every plane over the Atlantic, headed to the U.S… or every plane that had just departed, heading East… all of them set a course for Gander. The population of Gander almost doubled, for a week, when 38 planes carrying 6,700 people suddenly showed up.
And for a week, the air was clear — far clearer than it’d been for many decades, and it was an opportunity for scientists to gather data… to gather data that otherwise would never have been available. That was a very steep price to have paid for that data, one nobody would have wanted to pay. But since the opportunity presented itself, it obviously made sense to take advantage of it.
There’s the old saying… today is the first day of the rest of your life. And these days, until there’s a cure for this virus, today is also always the beginning of these rolling “5 to 14-day windows” where we get to see the after-effects of our activities.
We’ve come to learn a lot about the transmission of this virus, and how enclosed spaces for prolonged periods of time are a much bigger issue than being outdoors, being distant, and picking up the virus off a contaminated surface. Not to say that some of those things don’t pose a risk; they all might, but it differs… and effectively, the more exposed you are to the virus, both in time and volume, the worse it is.
The numerous protests going on around the world are a good example of these rolling windows, and everyone is keeping a close look at the outcome. It’s not an ideal experiment, but there’s plenty of data that’ll be made available; possibly very expensive data, as per the post-9/11 air quality numbers. In this case, the guinea pigs aren’t air particles… they’re human beings who decided to throw caution into the wind. While there are Covid-responsible ways of protesting… masks, outdoors, socially distanced… many people said to hell with it. We’ve of course seen many maskless crowded protests already anyway, so what’s the big deal?
Well — there will eventually be answers to that rhetorical question. George Floyd was murdered on May 25ᵗʰ, coming up now on two weeks. It’s hard to judge what effect the protests around the U.S. (and Canada) have had, especially south of the border where numbers weren’t slowing down to begin with. So, to be sure, they’re still rising… but are they rising faster than they otherwise might have? And to throw more variables into it, openings have been taking place in many different cities and states; how much is that contributing? Washington State was doing pretty well, but they had a significant spike a couple of days ago… a week after many new openings. Coincidence? Just a spike, not a trend? Time will tell.
Around here, time will tell as well — for now, it’s two straight days without real data… tomorrow’s update will backfill Saturday and Sunday.
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Day 82 – June 6, 2020
No new local numbers to report today… so… how about that thunderstorm early this morning…? 4:30am, I thought there was a photoshoot going on outside my window… then you do the “count the seconds” thing to see how far away it is… 3 seconds per km. or 5 seconds per mile. “One steamboat, two steam…” Ka-Blam!! Ohhh… ok, let’s not go outside. But eventually I did, to the monsoon… because thunder and lightning and rain aside, that is always the crispest, freshest air on earth.
After that, I lay awake listening to it… and guess what, there’s a word for that…
Chrysalism: the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
Then I fell back to sleep and hod some seriously weird dreams. Well, I often have seriously weird dreams… but these days, who doesn’t… no doubt they’re being seriously influenced by the events surrounding us all. If anyone wants to try to analyze, it was this… I was riding a motorcycle (I’ve never ridden an actual motorcycle) inside a mall — like the third floor of a luxury mall (I really dislike shopping). The mall was completely abandoned, but most doors were open and the shops were all in perfect condition… so I was driving through these ultra-luxury stores.. fashion, shoes, purses, etc… never stopping… and at some point, the luxury stores turned into more normal stores… a hardware store, even a pet store, with lots of full aquariums. “Who’s feeding the fish?”, I wondered in my dream. And that was pretty-much it.
Interesting thing, back in the day of computer programming… computer memory (RAM) was a valued resource, and good programming meant keeping the memory load low, especially if you had to be sharing it with other tasks, and the operating system. This was back in the day when memory addressing had a limit… an actual physical limit. An 8-bit CPU with only 16-bit addressing can, at most, address 2¹⁶ bytes — 64K of RAM, like with the famous Commodore 64. These days… for example, this Mac has a 64-bit CPU and 64GB of RAM… exactly one million times as much memory, the vast majority of which never gets used. And, for what it’s worth, the CPU powering this Mac is probably idle 99.9% of the time.
But… back when memory management really mattered, a good operating system would have implemented in it a sort of “garbage collection” — where it would go around and find snippets of memory that had something in it, but that was no longer being used… and would free it up . These little fragments of memory could then be consolidated into bigger chunks of free memory, which could then be used by other programs. All modern operating systems still do this.
It’s been said that dreams might be some sort of garbage collection where the brain, while we’re quietly sleeping, goes around getting rid of fragments of memory you no longer need. And possibly, before turfing it into oblivion, you brain consolidates it all into one big pool, which by then of course will be a jumble of disjointed, unrelated thoughts… and combines them into something that your brain then interprets into the craziness that you wake up from thinking… “what was that??”
Given the state of the world, I guess it’s no big surprise that our heads these days are full of a lot of thoughts, a lot of emotion, and a lot of junk. Great ingredients for some crazy dreams.
Today is also the anniversary of D-Day — 76 years ago, the best that America, Canada and the U.K. had to offer… stormed those five famous beaches of Normandy, and embarked on a campaign that ultimately led to Victory for the good guys. It’s ironic that the same U.S. army that played such a key role in liberating the world of an oppressive maniacal tyrant… may now be called upon to suppress its own people, by a “leader” who applauds authority via violence, be it the military, the police, or just protesters whose views align with his. For him, that violence is ok. For those protesting that sort of oppression and violence… not so ok. A “leader” who forgets that we’re all supposed to be on the same side, fighting for what we know is right. Kind of like those guys 76 years ago. Or, these days, kind of like how we’re all fighting this pandemic. There was no confusion back then. There should be no confusion today. We are in this together.
So, on that note… here’s a another word for you, this one of Japanese origin:
Kuebiko: A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.
How very on point. How very appropriate. A word for an emotion that we’re all feeling these days… despair/anger/exhaustion/resignation/tiredness… all fused into one convenient word that our brains can process in one chunk. A word that is probably pervasive in all of our dreams.
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Day 81 – June 5, 2020
My list of top-ten favourite movies has evolved over the years, but since 1994, the number-one spot has been held by a title that’s unlikely to ever move from that spot. The movie is “The Shawshank Redemption”, based off a Stephen King novella by a similar name. Stephen King movie adaptations are very hit-and-miss, especially as SK is known for giving movie rights away to aspiring film makers for $1. The good ones get proper treatment though, and it doesn’t get any better than this one. If you haven’t seen it — just do. Don’t Google it, don’t preview it, don’t research it. The less you know, the better it’ll be.
I’m going to talk about one particular scene… and don’t worry, this doesn’t spoil anything. In this scene, which takes place in Shawshank prison, a particular prisoner gets hold of a record player and some vinyl. The record happens to be from Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro”. He starts playing it, and quickly realizes he’s in the same room from where the P.A. system for the entire prison is operated. He flips on all the amps and starts blaring this beautiful duet to every corner of the prison.
The movie is narrated by a character named Red, played by Morgan Freeman, and he describes it like this:
“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't wanna know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”
I had the experience of seeing this opera in Italy, and experienced something I’d never seen… after this particular aria (an aria in this context is a little song within an opera), the applause was so thunderous that it brought the performance to a halt. The applause turned into a standing ovation, and the chants of “Brave!” — side note, the plural of Bravo is Bravi — but when it’s feminine, like if you were applauding a single female, you’d say Brava!, but the plural, as would be appropriate in this duet sung by two women, is Brave. Anyway, the chants of Brave turned into “Encore!”. Typically, of course, an encore comes after the performance, not during it… but technically, in French, “encore” means “again” — and that’s what the crowd wanted. And that’s what the crowd got, much to their rapturous delight. The performers and musicians turned back a few pages, rewound 4 minutes, and did the aria again. Very powerful.
The aria (“Canzonetta Sull’aria”) comes along at the perfect time in the movie, and its effect on the audience is similar to what Red describes in the prison. Again, very powerful. Red doesn’t know what the aria is about, but I do, so I’ll tell you… these two women are scheming… one of them is a Countess, and she’s dictating a note to her maid… because, as it turns out, the Count is sort-of into this maid, and the Countess is trying to catch him cheating. So, she’s dictating to the maid, a note… a sort of “Meet me later tonight out by the bushes” sort of thing… where she (the Countess) intends to dress-up like the maid and catch him red-handed. Good stuff — not anywhere near as pure and powerful as Red may have interpreted it, but at least it’s intriguing.
And that’s sort of what this is about… when Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, “The medium is the message” back in 1964, there was no Internet. People’s present-day information came from 4 sources.. TV, radio, print and word-of-mouth. The stakes back then were much, much higher. The words of Walter Cronkite were gospel; indeed, he was known as “the most trusted man in America”. Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Anarchists…. whoever — they may all have vehemently disagreed on many things, but they all listened to the same source. And perhaps that’s the fundamental issue; broadcast news went from boring to entertaining when competition came in… 3 major networks (and 2 here in Canada) were the critical mass… “real” news could survive in that environment. But beyond that, if you wanted to grab those advertising dollars, you’d better have had a competitive product… and that’s clearly when things went downhill… down to where we are today, where it isn’t news that people are after; it’s easily-digestible content confirming what they already believe, or want to believe, disguised as news. And the social media platforms welcome those clients with open arms, spoon-feeding them curated “news” that’s right up their alley… click-click-click… $-$-$.
The education that’s necessary that I spoke about yesterday… it has to begin at an early age, and it has to begin with critical thinking. Someone who can’t think for themselves will welcome the spoon-feeding that comforts them. I don’t want to think, I don’t want to change my mind… I’m happy with my beliefs, and look, a lot of other people think the same way. We can’t all be wrong. Gimme gimme gimme. Feed me. Om-nom-nom.
In the movie, Red is a convicted criminal with a grade-school education. He’s touched by something he doesn’t understand, but at least manages to guess the language correctly, and knowing full-well he can’t understand a word of it, comes up with an interpretation that suits the moment. There’s a huge difference between “this is what it says” and “this is what I hope it says”, and knowing when and how to apply that difference… that is the key for an educated, peaceful and harmonious future.
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Day 80 – June 4, 2020
I had a whole thing written out today… but it’s taken a sharp turn… and I ended up pulling the plug on the latter half of it. It might not surprise you to learn that I have a lot to say about all sorts of topics, and sometimes my personal opinion perhaps clouds my judgement… or let’s just call it objectivity. I have a pretty clear idea of what I think is right, but that’s never stopped me from trying to put myself in someone else’s shoes, to see how things look from their point of view. Everyone has their story, as incongruent as it might be, so let’s hear it. I might learn something from it.
I’m going to get a little technical for a moment. There are two techie things to understand: A Virtual Machine and a VPN. Feel free to skip the next two paragraphs if you know what those things are.
A Virtual Machine is basically a computer running inside a computer. A host computer runs the virtual machine, and the virtual machine (and everything running in it) thinks it’s running as a stand-alone computer. For example, this is being written on a Mac, my primary computer (and host computer). But off in the corner, at the moment, I have a tiny VM… running, of all things, Windows XP. I need to do this because I have some hardware that needs controlling and for which there’s no current software; the old stuff runs fine, so rather than having a whole computer dedicated to it, I have this 20-year-old operating system running inside a VM that makes it look like 20-year-old hardware. That operating system thinks it’s running on a computer with a Pentium 4 chip, 512 megs of RAM and a 5GB hard drive. Minuscule numbers for today, but they work just fine for the purpose.
A common use for a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is to establish a location different than where you actually are. Typically, VPNs are used to grant access securely to some remote resource, but people quickly figured out a convenient by-product… that often, those VPNs are based elsewhere. From there sprung-up a whole industry for people trying to bypass local controls. For the most part, a website can only tell where you physically are from the IP address you’re using. It’s a big no-no in some places in the world to connect to a VPN… like everywhere that the government controls access to the internet, because many VPNs allow you to select the location you want… be it a country, state or even city. Around here, people mostly use VPNs to watch US-based Netflix. When you connect to a VPN, you can “be” anywhere in the world that you want.
So a while back, I created a completely clean VM — like a brand-new installed operating system. I then set that VM to always connect through a VPN, in what we would all call a very red state. Serious MAGA country. Then I signed up for a new fake email address and then, Facebook. That FB profile had a fake name and fake credentials… no pictures of me… just many of American flags, Donald Trump, etc.
The intent here was research. I had no intent on engaging with anyone. I just started “Liking” lots of different groups, friending lots of American patriots, to see what my feed would look like. What would show up, and, more importantly, what “news” would show up? I just wanted to see what this world looks like from a very different lens… and you’d be surprised… slick and professional. Totally believable… so much so, a few times I had to go back and check other news sources to compare. What actually did happen today?
Near the end of the experiment, I made the mistake of engaging, because I was getting frustrated at all the crap I was seeing, and the same non-questioning, non-critical-thinking RaRaRa MagaTrump etc… there was such misinformation being posted that it begged asking… so I sent this blurb to a few people:
“I am curious about something — are you propagating misinformation on purpose? Are you just blindly copying/pasting information because it aligns with what you hope is reality? I apologize in advance if this comes off as a personal attack; it’s not meant to be. I’m just noticing a lot of people taking information that can’t possibly be correct and reposting it because it agrees with their version of reality, as warped as it might be. What you posted — do you know it’s bullshit? Do you not expect to get called on it? I’m genuinely curious.”
The result was what you’d expect, but far worse. It became impossible to manage.
I ended up shutting it down. I closed the FB account, closed the email, dragged the VM to the Trash. The whole fake identity no longer exists. Unfortunately, the reality with which that identity briefly interacted — it’s all still there.
I am desperate to see real change in the word, but I am incredibly discouraged by what I experienced. There is a whole block of population that simply can not understand, doesn’t want to understand, is unwilling to understand… it doesn’t matter how you word it. There are people who will post something so outrageous that it’s literally impossible for it to be true, yet they will defend it to the death. There is no logic that can be applied to convince them otherwise, because they don’t want to be convinced. They have their truth. So if you can’t convince someone who seems intelligent and educated… that their COVID-19 numbers, claiming a death-rate that would require the US population to be 15 billion people — are bullshit, how far do you think you’re going to get with more subtle, reasonable arguments… be it the pandemic, politics, racism, whatever. Their minds are made up, and nothing will ever change them.
As per the first sentence of this post… I’m cutting it here. My intent here is not to insult people, just inform… be it facts, or simply my opinion.
I talked recently about it being a steep uphill, but this looks like a vertical rock face. I do have my ideas, and perhaps I’ll eventually get around to sharing them… but honestly, at this point, I’m open to suggestions. It has to start with education… but how?
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Day 79 – June 3, 2020
They say you can tell a lot about a culture by how many different words they have for certain things. The classic example is the Inuit people, having 30 or 50 or even 100 different words to describe different types of snow. When something is important to you, potentially hazardous, a bit of detail is called for. It’s not always life-or-death… but the ability to be a little more descriptive than usual is always helpful.
It was amusing while reading about this topic to find that the English language has 40 different words for the word… “different”… like alternate, dissimilar, eclectic, mixes, varied… and so on. I also found that English has over 300 different words to describe… drunk.
Sometimes, something doesn’t need lots of different words… but just a single word that captures a lot of meaning. You can certainly learn a lot about other cultures as well, when they have certain words to describe something oddly specific… such as German, and their famous word “schadenfreude (n): pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune”
You know how sometimes, as a joke, you like to tap someone’s shoulder while standing behind their other shoulder? There’s a word in Indonesian for that: “mencolek”
You know the people who sit around coffee shops for hours on the laptops, using up the free WiFi and not really buying anything? The French have a word for them: “seigneur-terraces”
You know that feeling you get when your haircut is finished, and you sit there, looking at the mirror… in horror, because it’s nothing like what you were hoping for? The Japanese would call that “age-otori”. I suspect many of us will be feeling that in the coming days… I don’t know about you, but I’m really enjoying this full-on fro I’m presently sporting.
You know the feeling you get when you’re sitting on a barstool, and it starts to tip over backwards? Well, turns out there’s no word for that, but there should be. We’ve all felt that particular instant fear/horror/panic induced by that experience.
So, here’s a good word… and I remember the most powerful experience I’ve had of this emotion… Monday, March 1st, 2010… at around 9pm, I stood in the middle of the intersection of Burrard and Hastings. There was not a single car or person visible in any direction…. talk about eerie. If you’re wondering, it was the day after the Canada/U.S. gold-medal game; the day after the 2010 Olympics. It as all over and we were all Olympic’d out I guess. Downtown was a ghost town.
The word for that is: “kenopsia (n): The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.” This is something we’ve all felt at one point or another in the last couple of months… and if you’ve felt it… and/or if you’ve felt the emotion of my bar-stool example, I’m just here to state the obvious; you’re not alone. We’ve all felt it, but perhaps we didn’t have the word to describe it. Words are important. Being able to talk about it is important. And as recent events have shown us, even when we haven’t been vocal about it, we’re all capable of feeling the same thing. Let’s keep adding new words to our vocabulary… because we have a lot to discuss.
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Day 78 – June 2, 2020
One day, the COVID-19 pandemic will be gone. Because of our great efforts… or perhaps, in spite of them. There will be treatments, there will be a vaccine, it’ll burn itself out. One way or the other.
Other virulent infestations, society has shown us, will never go away on their own… the sorts of things that take education, understanding, compassion… and a concerted effort and buy-in from everyone. It’s a long road and it’s a steep uphill, but it’s a journey that’s long overdue.
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Day 77 – June 1, 2020
One of my all-time favourite movies is “Inception”. Christopher Nolan’s film-making and story-telling won many awards, and deservedly so, but above and beyond that is one of the fundamental concepts of the movie, and it’s a fascinating one. Its importance plays out in the world continually. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, that basic idea is easy to understand… the difference of a thought, and its origin, and how different you treat a thought, depending on whether you came up with it yourself, or whether it was suggested to you. And how you might act completely differently, depending on that.
The simplest example… I tell you to think about pink elephants. Now you’re thinking about pink elephants… but you know it was me that made you think of them.
A better example… after dinner, you realize you haven’t done the kitchen cleanup all on your own in a long time, and decide you’re going to be a nice person and do everyone a favour. “I’m going to wash the entire kitchen”, you think to yourself, happy and proud to be a helpful and appreciated part of the family.
Compared to… you thinking that, but before you get a chance to announce it, someone says… “Hey… you haven’t done the kitchen in a while… go do it”. The end result of the action you ultimately take might be the same, but you’ll be thinking about it very differently.
In fact, you might have been mere moments away from announcing your intention, but now that someone else suggested it to you, it completely reframes it… and you probably feel differently (and not as good) about it. So much so that you might be tempted to say, “Hey, I was going to do it, but if you put it that way — forget it. You do it.”
The magic would be, from someone else’s point of view, if they could plant that thought into your head. They want you to do the kitchen, but they want you to come up with the idea. When you own the idea, you feel a lot differently about it, and… more importantly, you’re far likelier to take responsibility for it.
Throughout my life, I’ve been on both sides of that… well all have… professionally, personally, whatever… there’s no technical solution to Inception, as in the movie, with fancy (and presently non-existentent) technology… so in the real world, the closest thing would be social engineering — not in the sinister fashion of trying to extract login or bank info from people, but by simply interacting with people in a way that guides things in the direction — and ultimately, conclusion — that you’re hoping for.
From one point of view, this can happen when someone has managed to surround themselves with excellent, intelligent people… but because of corporate hierarchies, they’re the one in charge, and the decisions and responsibility fall on them… yet the real brains may be “below” them. Nobody down there wants to be responsible; it’s better for those people if the boss comes up with the idea… so while they won’t come right out and say it, they know exactly what needs to happen… and will dance around it until the boss says, “Hey! I have a great idea!”. “Great!”, they will reply… knowing exactly what’s coming.
The other point of view… well, as a parent, you quickly learn that there comes a point where telling your kids what to do… doesn’t work. As per above, “Do the dishes, now!” isn’t often met with the success for which one would hope. But here’s what does work… “Hey, we want to try to start watching the movie at 8. Try to get everything you need to get done… out of the way by then.” They know they have to do the dishes; you don’t need to even mention it. And, now the power is entirely in their hands. It’ll be their idea of “Oh… better do the dishes”.
With respect to this pandemic, I’ve spoken about the difference between having a doctor instead of a politician in charge. And that even though there are politicians involved, they’re deferring to her order, and the messaging is clear. There is one voice…. but… Dr. Henry isn’t really telling us what to do. Like an excellent parent, she’s transparently presenting us all the facts, but to a great extent, letting us figure out for ourselves how to act. She’s never said “Don’t travel this weekend.” — but she’s hinted as to why it’d be a bad idea and suggested against it… yet left it in all of our collective minds to consider… to the extent that if you did, or if you’re not socially distancing, or if you’re not wearing a mask when you really should… you’ll actually feel a little guilty about it. You’ll actually have taken ownership of the decision… and I think our high compliance numbers and resulting success are a great testament to that one simple fact… a fact that has even bigger implications these days; great success can be found by educating people, and arming them with enough knowledge that it allows them to reach correct conclusions on their own.
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November 13, 2020
Out of the top 20 worst countries to be in, with respect to this virus, there is only one that can claim less than 100 deaths per one million of population. For comparison, as per the attached data, U.S. has 750 and Canada has 283.
But India, a country of 1.4 billion people and widespread poverty and overcrowding and nowhere near enough infrastructure to handle the medical catastrophe this could be if it got out of control — they’re doing surprisingly well. Their number is 93.
They are second in the world for number of total cases; only the U.S., a country with a quarter the population of India, has more. But while 250,000 (and counting) people have died in the U.S., that number is only 130,000 in India. Even Brazil, a country with less than one seventh of India’s population (and a leader as despicable as Trump), has more. So… what’s going on?
Perhaps it’s better testing? But it’s not. The U.S. has tested about 500,000 per million. India has tested 89,000 per million. And through that testing, the U.S. has learned they have 33,000 cases per million, as opposed to India’s 6,300. There are presently almost 4 million active cases in the U.S. There are less than half a million in India.
No… the answer is actually pretty simple. Following the rules…. and masks. There have of course been lockdowns and a level of somewhat sophisticated and targeted Unlocks in different regions… but what has made a big difference is national buy-in with respect to masks, where 90% of the population believes they should be mandatory. There is a fine for not wearing a mask, around $20, but 40% of people think that fine should be increased.
For a while, a couple of months ago, it looked like India might spiral out of control. Their graphs looked a lot like what you see here… except they managed to get it under control… and it starts with people doing their part.
On a related note… Diwali this year begins tomorrow.
Diwali is the 5-day Indian festival of lights. I’m not familiar with the intricacies and symbolism, but the celebration part of it… I think if you change Diwali to Chanukah and the 5 to an 8… it’s pretty close. The whole family gets together, you eat … [Continue Reading]
November 12, 2020
Today’s update is about numbers, because I’m looking at them… and they’re not great. At all. Dr. Bonnie is not pleased. B.C. has just gone over 20,000 cases. By tomorrow, Manitoba will have gone over 10,000… and Ontario over 90,000… and Quebec over 120,000.
And the U.S… wow. They blew through 10 million cases recently, but every day their growth is increasing sharply. Today’s new-case number of +164,878 is by far their biggest ever.
The pictures reflect all of this better than the words. Those are steep ramps everywhere, and even the logarithmic graphs are slanted upward… the U.S., Canada, everywhere. Around the word, daily, 10,000 people are dying.
Here are two little examples of exponential growth:
Imagine a chessboard… put a grain of salt on the first square. Put 2 on the 2nd square. Put 4 on the 3rd square… and so on. By the end, you’ll probably have a pretty big pile of salt, right? Enough to fill the room? Enough to salt the road from here to Whistler?
Well… after a couple of rows of the chessboard, it’d be about 3lbs of salt. Not a big deal.
At the end of the next row, you’d have enough to coat the floor of a big room. Hmm… perhaps more than you thought. I’ll cut to the chase… by the end, you’d have 18 trillion dollars worth of salt, and you’d need a box a mile long, wide and high to store it all.
Here’s a better one, and a chance to make some money! Imagine a piece of paper… you fold it in half. Fold it in half again… no big deal. How thick would it be if you could fold it 20 times? The answer is… 1km. Crazy, eh? You can’t come even close. Not even halfway close. So here’s a challenge… send me a video of you folding a piece of paper successfully in half 8 times… that’s it, just 8 simple little folds… any piece of paper you want. But it has to be in half every time, because that’s true exponential growth. Do it successfully and I will send you $1,000. Go for it.
That’s the thing with exponential growth… it’s simple and dismissable to begin with, and suddenly, it hits a tipping point, and it’s drastic. The latter half of the … [Continue Reading]
November 11, 2020
On the 11th day… of my chronicling this pandemic… March 27th, 2020, I wrote this:
“…The thing to do is what you’re doing. Stay home. What else are you going to do, anyway… it’s rain for the next several days. Yay Vancouver weather!! That’s it. It’s not too much to ask. You’re not being called to charge Vimy Ridge. You’re not being called to storm the beach at Normandy. You’re being called to sit on the couch and watch Netflix. I have all the faith in the world you’re up to the task.”
The 11th day thing is a nice coincidence, today being the 11th day of the 11th month… and several hours ago, it was the 11th hour that marked the end of The Great War, in 1918. The War To End All Wars.
World War I didn’t end anything, for too long… because, at every level, history has a way of repeating itself. World War I ended exactly 102 years ago. March 27th was only 229 days ago. Wars keep going on; there are more than 40 active conflicts in the world today. And the advice/strong suggestion/orders from late March; we’re back to that as well. Things may have changed in the meantime, but we’re right back to it. Whether it’s 102 years or just several months; round and round we go.
Those 40 conflicts will all eventually end, or morph into something else. The same can be said for this pandemic. And, interestingly, it was that great pandemic of 1918 that helped end WWI.
Those heroes – the ones who actually did charge Vimy Ridge and storm the beaches at Normandy – they did it so that we, today, could enjoy the sort of freedom… that ironically allows us to be idiots who don’t wear masks and social distance. As we well-know, there are places around the world that aren’t so free, where the rules aren’t just suggestions; they are the law, and not following the law has serious repercussions. Dr. Henry has gone on the record saying there’s not much point mandating certain things, because people who are inclined to break the rules will do so anyway. This isn’t North Korea or China. You and your family will not be arrested, exiled or executed for walking into Costco without a mask.
November 10, 2020
The KGB (today known as the FSB) is well-known for their “honey pot” traps. A foreign official shows up in Moscow and is treated to the finest food and the finest wine. And, through some clever social engineering, some of the finest women enter the picture as well… whose duty to Mother Russia is to seduce the target. This is all very-well thought out in advance, the who/what/where/when… which allows all of the activities to be secretly monitored and recorded. The victim is then told about (and possibly shown) the footage, and their cooperation is assured. Textbook blackmail.
But… it doesn’t always work out that way.
In 1945, Indonesia secured its independence from Dutch colonial rule. The first president they elected, a man by the name of Sukarno, fiercely loved his country. And women too, a fact that was well-known to the Soviets when Sukarno visited in 1960. It was quite a coincidence that a whole crew of attractive air hostesses was staying at the same hotel as Sukarno. Of course, it was no coincidence at all… and, of course, they weren’t actually stewardesses… they were all spies. Sukarno picked his favourites, and then, yadda yadda.
I wasn’t there to record the aftermath, but from what I gather, the conversation before the next day’s official meeting went something like this:
Soviets: “Mr. President, before we begin the negotiations, you should know that last night’s activities – all of them, including your time with Valentina and Natasha in your hotel room, were recorded on film. But as long as you…”
Sukarno: “What?! You filmed that? All of it? Like… everything…?!”
Soviets: “Yes, Mr. President… but if you…”
Sukarno: “AWESOME!! Hey, do you think you could score me a couple copies of that film!? They’re going to love this back home!! High five!!”
Sukarno thought he’d be a hero, going home with evidence he’d conquered some Russian beauties. The reception back home to his cavorting is not known, but given he had 9 wives throughout his life, many of the overlapping, it probably wasn’t a big deal.
In 2017, a British spy filed 17 intelligence reports, one of which outlined Donald Trump’s activities back in 2013 when he was in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant. There is apparently a video, recorded in the Presidential Suite of the Ritz-Carlton… and nobody … [Continue Reading]
November 9, 2020
Tonight… November 9th, marks the 82nd anniversary of an event known as “Kristallnacht”. If you don’t know what that is, here’s a brief summary:
On the evening of November 9th, 1938, the mobs took to the streets in Nazi Germany. Jews were assaulted, beaten, and dragged from their homes… which were then ransacked. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were looted and destroyed. Hundreds of Jews lost their lives, many by suicide. Over 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.
The word “Kristallnacht” literally means “Crystal Night”, named for the piles of broken glass left behind. Indeed, if you were to try to find a “kick-off’ event for the Holocaust that ultimately claimed the lives of 6,000,000 Jews, this was probably it.
The German police stood around and did nothing to stop it. German citizens not participating stood around, many of them horrified at what they were seeing… but also did nothing.
Historians have been writing about, discussing and analyzing this event (and what led up to it, and what came from it) for decades. And every year, it is commemorated… with events where those who were there talk about their experiences, what they witnessed, how it affected their lives. Every year there are fewer of them… but it is important to remember it, to never forget. Those events are happening tonight, like they do every year… except, this time, via Zoom.
I was at one of these events four years ago, and it was more sombering than usual. Donald Trump had been elected the previous evening, and for many people, it was hitting a little too close to home. Nobody knew what lay ahead. Those historians were nervous; they’d seen this before.
Four years later, here we are… and I can assure you, the tone of this piece would be far different had we seen a different election result. I am not saying another four years of Trump would have led to something like that, but if something like that were being led to, we were in the midst of what it would’ve looked like. I’m sure we can all agree that if Hitler had been “un-elected” four years into his term, Kristallnacht, and everything that came after it, almost certainly wouldn’t have happened.
As ridiculous as they looked, dancing in the streets of Charlottesville … [Continue Reading]