I ♥ Over-analysing Minutiae

Today i saw a minivan with a tiny little "I ♥ Europe" bumper sticker.  (If your browser choked on that last sentence, that's "I <heart> Europe.")

• I don't really understand how people decide to put on bumper stickers.  Sure, there was a time when it was common for a station wagon to have a collection of stickers chronicling the family travels.  Today you don't often see that, but occasionally you'll see a car with, say, one lonely Niagara Falls bumper sticker.  I can't figure out what inspires those people. There you are in the gift shop at Niagara Falls, looking at the snow globes and Inuit sculptures, and then you say to yourself, I think I'll immortalise this day with a bumper sticker.  But more amazing is that you don't change your mind on the way to the car.
• Why would you buy such a vague sticker?  It's not, "I ♥ Luxembourg" or whatever country he actually went to.  No, it's commemorating that he likes the whole continent.  You can't even find people in Europe who like the whole continent.  And I don't remember any "I ♥ North America" bumper stickers at Niagara Falls. 
• Part of the great tradition of bumper stickers is to commemorate road trips.  It helps to explain how they get on the cars: permanently telling everyone you went to Rock City may seem like a good idea when you've just been there, but not so much a week later when you're back home.  But this guy must have bought the sticker in Europe, flown home with it, then at some point hiked out to the garage to stick it on the minivan.  Meanwhile, I can barely be bothered to put the license plate stickers on my car.
• I can't believe they have bumper stickers in Europe.  Don't they get sucked off the car on the autobahn, or vandalized by Dadaists or something?  Though that would explain why it was a particularly small - to fit on their tiny cars.

What's Powering That i3? Don't Ask

I thought I'd continue my theme of German environmental stories.  Today a newspaper article caught my eye.  Germany's government shut down half its nuclear power plants two years ago, after Japan's earthquake/nuclear accident.  And in those two years, CO2 emissions have gone up both years.  This comes in spite of the fact that Germany - where the Green party is a major political force - has generally made progress on greenhouse gasses.

See, it turns out that eliminating nuclear power doesn't cause the spontaneous creation of windmills and solar panels, nor does it cause people to suddenly use less power.  Instead, it forces utilities to replace that power supply with the quickest cheapest thing available.  That's coal, and it produces more CO2 than any other major power source.

For the last freaking time, environmentalists, you've got to get over your fear of nuclear power.  Yes, I know, it's expensive and technological, and - worst of all to the activist heart - not the perfect solution.  But it's the only workable, non-disasterous solution we can get now.

And remember, it's "right now" that's the important point here.  To illustrate, the German Green party's energy plan would move to 100% renewable energy by 2040.  Yes, in the teeth of environmental catastrophe, they're going to take decades to implement the ideal solution, all the while pumping out CO2 from coal plants, apparently.  Is that really any better than the suburbanite who's hanging on to his SUV right up until the day they can make the recharge-in-a-minute, thousand-mile-range electric model that will allow him to keep his lifestyle without any compromise?

i3, Me Too

BMW has made headlines by announcing their new i3 electric car.  It seems pretty nice.  They've made it mostly out of plastic and carbon fibre, so it will weigh even less than normal cars that don't have to haul around hundreds of pounds of battery.  The styling is a bit chunky and boxy, with side windows and mouldings taking random turns up and down the body; So now I understand why BMW usually just goes for plain and minimal styling.  Though I see that have used their traditional "double kidney" radiator grille, even though it's not actually a grille on a radiatorless electric car.

The price starts at $41,350(US) which is par for the electric course.  But with this being a BMW, it seems to be a little easier to stomach.  If BMW were to build a compact crossover, it would probably cost almost that much anyway, so I'm guessing it will be an easier sell than say, Nissan selling an electric compact for $30,000.  And BMW is trying to make it even more appetizing by selling them "cellphone style," paying a monthly lease rate that will slowly pay off the car along with paying for servicing and charging equipment.

Though personally, if I were a BMW customer, I think I'd be inclined to save up to buy the $70,000(US) Tesla S, and be able to drive a car that's more the size I'm used to.  So I still say that Tesla has the best approach for taking electric cars mainstream: forget doing accounting gymnastics to get the average consumer to buy an electric car that's twice the price of a normal car.  Instead, sell luxury electric cars while evolving the technology to make it incrementally cheaper.  But whatever the business strategy, this seems like a significant step closer to a practical electric car, even if we aren't there yet.

No Urge To Merge

Lately a lot of people on Twitter have been discussing the idea of merging Kitchener and Waterloo.  It's an idea that stays around even though there's not a lot of support for it.  And indeed, the Tweets seemed to be against it too.

Personally, I think it would be a good idea.  Usually the fear expressed by those against the merging is that Kitchener and Waterloo have different cultures, and we shouldn't mess with that by unifying them.  I certainly agree that the two cities have distinct cultures, but I would posit that it has nothing at all to do with their separate governments, and everything to do with the fact that Waterloo has two universities and an economy built around insurance and technology, compared to Kitchener's no Universities and blue-collar background.

The fact is that all cities have distinct areas, and it's rare that their governance is what causes that.  As an example, let's look down the 401 at London.  If we were to arbitrarily cut the northern third of the city off and call it a separate city - let's call it "Elba" - we'd have to conclude that it has its own distinct culture.  But that would be in spite of it having always had the same government as the rest of the city.  Instead it would be because of the presence of UWO and a bunch of middle class and higher neighbourhoods, and suburbs expanding into small towns.

I've noticed that when the topic of merging comes up, people make the assumption that its all about cost savings.  Really, I doubt the savings would be significant - they'd be mostly in the form of eliminating politicians, high ranking civil servants and buildings and other things that get taxpayers mad but don't really make up a big part of the budget. 

I think the bigger reason for uniting is in decision making.  As an example, take development.  Both cities have committed to not sprawling any further than their current boundaries, but that commitment is going to be tested soon, because Waterloo is almost out of undeveloped land.  The sensible way of dealing with this would be to encourage more development in Kitchener, which still has lots of land.  A united city would probably make that decision, but Waterloo probably won't: once the fees from developers stop flowing in, the anti-sprawl agreement will be quickly forgotten. 

But the merger won't happen any time soon, since the two cities value their cultures, feel superior, and don't want to take on each other's expensive projects (RIM Park and Kitchener's downtown.)  And the region does elect some Conservative MPPs, so Hudak won't be forcing it on us as a cost cutting measure.  Instead I'll dedicate my energies to preventing them from changing the name of Kitchener back to Berlin.

iPatience

I keep seeing reports getting on Apple's case for not having introduced any major products since Steve Job's death.  Of course, you know everyone was just waiting to say this.  Truthfully, it hasn't been that big of a gap, but people have been wondering if the company can survive without him, and this is an opportunity for people in the press who don't understand technology of the tech industry to sound informed for once. You know they're just waiting for a full-scale round of told-ya-so's.

I wonder if these people have even been paying attention:  Do you really remember Apple under Jobs?  Did you get the impression that they were releasing new products every week?  Because here's how it actually happened:

• iPod - 2001
• iPhone - 2007
• iPad - 2010

The truth is, part of Apple's secret is to not release too many products too quickly.  They've always been careful not to rush products out without thinking them through (Hello, Windows 8!) or make a bunch of quick cash-in products.  That keeps the brand strong, and maintains the reputation that leads to business reporters having unrealistic expectations.

As you can see from their product releases of the past, they really aren't behind schedule when it comes to releasing some new line.  So the one thing the current Apple management had better have learned from Steve Jobs is: don't be afraid to be stubborn.

Knees Of Fire

I was relatively late in going from a desktop computer to a laptop.  So even as the world moves on to tablets and smartphones, I'm still getting used to the laptop.

For one thing, the heat this thing generates is really noticeable this time of year.  It takes away from my heating needs in winter, but if you actually want to use it on a lap, it can get uncomfortable this time of year.  I notice that fashionable lengths for shorts have increased with the popularity of laptops.  Coincidence?

And then there is the seating position.  If you're going to sit with it on your lap, you're limited to sitting there, legs together, facing forward.  No crossing the legs or slouching.  At least we'll be promoting a generation of good posture.  Though one of these days I'm going to dislocate my thumb reaching for the touchpad.

So how will tablets affect us?  Aside from a return to 70's short shorts, we'll be able to tolerate much more heat in our fingers.  And they'll discover a new form of wrist injury caused by trying to reach for the middle keys of the virtual keyboard without dropping the tablet.  Maybe they'll name that after me.

Damn You Zdeno!

I found a store selling hockey pucks as Canadian souvenirs.  Yes, there are lots of examples of embarrassing origins of souvenirs, but it's not often that it's something as distinctly Canadian as a hockey puck:

Aiming Low

One day you’re walking down a city street, when you notice the camera from the local TV station is pointed your way.  You take it as a compliment - they’ve picked you out as TV-worthy - but then you notice that the camera is too low.  You start to warn the camera man, excuse me, I think you need to adjust the tripod, I don't think you're going to get my head in the shot. Then you realize with a shock: they’re filming you for a story on obesity!  You're going to be one of the headless overweight people they show while telling viewers about the latest stats on poor nutrition!  You berate yourself, why did you let the gym membership lapse, why did you have to wear your distinctive Blue Oyster Cult T-shirt that all your friends will recognize?

At least I’m assuming that’s how it happens.  Or maybe they just take stock footage of people walking around, edit together all the overweight people, and crop it so you can't see the heads.  But I’d like to think that they have to go out and intentionally film from the neck down.  That means that occasionally someone must notice the camera, get angry and attack them, leading to bizarre, neck-down fight footage.  I’m off to find it on YouTube.

Geekdom Is The Mother Of Strange Internet-Fellows

To me, the fascinating thing about the vastness of the Internet is not that it covers every topic you could possibly want, but that it also covers just about every combination of topics you could want.  Interested in Lego and the art of Roy Lichtenstein?  Here you go.  Want to see Star Wars mixed with 1980's teen movies?  No problem.

Of course, in those examples, the constituents are partially or totally geeky.  So I wonder, can you find combinations of things that are not at all geeky on the Internet?  Let's try it:

• Two and a Half Men & Limp Bizkit - nothing, though it turns out Fred Durst signed a deal to star in a sitcom.
• American Idol & Barbie - There is an American Idol Barbie (no surprise) though that probably would have happened without the Internet.
• Starbucks & Adam Sandler - A fake Adam Sandler Twitter account mentioned Starbucks once, but that hardly counts.

So there you have it.  There is once aspect of the Internet that we geeks still control: bizarre pop-cultural mash-ups.

Chuck Jaeger

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this past weekend's movies, in which Pacific Rim debuted in third, behind Grown-Ups 2, with Despicable Me 2 in first, despite being in its second week:

• There was a movie about men confronting their age after they move back to their home town.  That was the dumb movie compared to the movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters.
• Here's how bad sequel-itis has gotten: Even when we produce a movie that's nothing but special effects, explosions and fighting, it won't succeed.  People will prefer a half-assed comedy, as long as it's a sequel.
• The same weekend the giant monsters movie comes out, the science-fiction speciality channel - the one that made Battlestar Galactica serious and thoughtful - will find a way to make an even dumber movie.
• I had worried about the use of the word "jaeger" to refer to the giant robots in Pacific Rim.  Specifically, I feared that when we finally make giant robots, they'd end up called "jaegers," rather than "mechs" as they're called in most anime.  Turns out I shouldn't have worried.

A Sudden Serious Turn

Honestly, I was all set to write a post about Sharknado, when the not-guilty verdict in he George Zimmerman trial came out and that all seemed quite meaningless.

I posted a link on Twitter explaining the verdict.  That page was actually written before the verdict, but predicted that Zimmerman would walk.  Basically, the argument is this: the accused is innocent until proven guilty, and it's hard to prove guilt when there are no witnesses.

In general, I can buy that concept.  I'd rather know that some guilty people go free, than know that some innocent people are going to jail.  Really, the problem I have is in the thought experiment in which a black vigilante confronts and shots an unarmed white teenager.  There's no way the black Zimmerman goes free, and I doubt he'd even avoid the death penalty.

One comment I saw on Twitter was that regardless of anything shown in the trial, the fact is that had Zimmerman just stayed in his car instead of confronting Trayvon Martin, none of this would have happened and Martin would still be alive.  That's the particularly sad part of this case.  Even if we don't know the details, we do know that the incident was produced out of nothing: Zimmerman approached Martin thinking him to be a criminal; whatever Martin did to Zimmerman was in response to that, and possibly shaped by his anticipation of what Zimmerman's intentions were.  So essentially it was a crime produced by the expectation of crime.  

That produces quite a danger going forward: regardless of whether Zimmerman was a perpetrator, a victim, or a bit of both, the fact is he made a very bad decision, and that decision has been exonerated by the courts.  We can only hope that this verdict is not taken as an endorsement of aggressive, proactive self-defence.  Innocent or guilty, that strategy didn't work for Zimmerman; hopefully others will realize that.

Learning About Leadership

In the aftermath of the Lac-Mégantic train crash, people have been talking about the appearance by Edward Burkhardt, CEO of the railway involved.  Pretty much everyone is agreeing it was somewhere between "unhelpful" and "disasterous."

This is something that I find interesting about business.  We tend to mythologise business leaders, seeing them as transformative leaders akin to politicians.  But the more I've learned about business, the more I find that many people high on the corporate ladder are not the inspiring, charismatic type.  Some are more about management, numbers and efficiency.  It's possible to get to the CEO's office with public speaking skills that would embarrass a candidate for junior-high treasurer.

And I think that's the case here.  I doubt Burkhardt is as hard-hearted as he comes across, he just seemed to express everything in the wrong way.  My guess is that:

• He missed the Business School class on how to handle tragedies
• As with many business leaders, he spends so much time in the business world, that he's not used to the idea that you can't use money as a catch-all explanation.

Toronto The Not-That-Bad-Actually

I gave up on Toronto in the early 2000's.  First there was SARS, in which the city seemed to freak over its tourism business, with little concern for the actual people dying.  What do you do after something kills 44 people in your city?  Hold a concert to celebrate!  On the other hand, journalists comparing it to 9/11 didn't help.

But the final straw was the big blackout later that same year.  You may remember Mayor Mel Lastman requesting that Toronto get priority as Ontario's weakened power grid was turned back on and rolling blackouts were a possibility; his reasoning being that the province depends on Toronto as it's economic engine. 

I didn't think much of this; in hindsight I would describe Lastman as being like Rob Ford but without the intellect.  But I was truly shocked when the Toronto Star ran an editorial endorsing his request.  I wrote them a letter to the editor pointing out that by that reasoning, we in Canada should give priority to the U.S. in the power grid restart, since we depend on their economy.  They didn't print it.  With all parts of Toronto's political spectrum apparently united in the idea that they were above the rest of the province, I declared the city (outside of its sports franchises) dead to me.

So this week, as Toronto suffered a freak flood, I was expecting more of the same attitude.  I braced for ridiculous comparisons to the larger Calgary flood or demands that we in the rest of the province donate our electricity and water to areas where the Toronto utilities were shut down.  But I have to admit, I've been pleasantly surprised.  Not only has none of that happened, but I keep seeing and hearing Torontonians humbly pointing out that they realize how fortunate they still are given the hardships of Calgary and Lac-Mégantic.  Even Mayor Ford seems to have acquired an extra seriousness for this issue.  So congratulations, Toronto, you are back in my good books.  I will visit again as soon as I can afford your parking.

I'm With Humid

Sometimes people argue about the use of humidity in temperature prediction.  Specifically the question is whether weather forecasts should give the temperatures with the humidity taken into account.  The argument against it is that the humidex isn't the "real" temperature, so we're only making it sound hotter than it is.

To me, that makes no sense.  My reasoning is right there in the way the meteorologist reads the temperature: "The high is 27, but it will feel like 40."  But obviously, how it "feels" is what I want to know, so just tell me it's 40.  Another way of reading the temperature would be, "The high tomorrow will be a beautiful 27 degrees.  Though it should be noted, if you happen to be a carbon-based life form, it will feel like 40.  But the main story: the majority of objects in the universe would experience tomorrow as 27."

This strange treatment of humidity leads to Canadians' odd understanding of temperatures.  We'll be like, "Man, today was hot.  I like the summer, but this was too much.  What's the weather going to be like tomorrow?  27 Degrees?  Perfect, sounds like a beautiful day."  Completely oblivious to the fact that it was 27 degrees today as well, and tomorrow is going to be just as hellish.  Humidity is sort of like The Silence from Doctor Who: we are terrorized in its presence, then forget about it while we're not experiencing it.

Maybe I Should Sign With A More Popular Blog

So Daniel Alfredsson has signed a contract to play his probably-final season in Detroit, and not in Ottawa where he has played the entire rest of his career.  The reason - as it so often is for athletes whose best earning potential is in the past - is because it gives him a better chance to win the cup that he's never won during his career.

Generally, fans support this sort of thing if it's a veteran declining team with no chance of winning.  It's a bit of a slap in the face given the teams' near-equal records last year, but Detroit's generation-long run of success makes it somewhat understandable (the last time they missed the playoffs was before the Senators existed.) Usually I'm one of the people willing to endorse the move-to-get-a-chance-at-a-cup end-of-career move.  But I'm starting to wonder.  For one thing, this doesn't work an awful lot of the time.  Even if you assume that you could get signed by any team you want, what are the chances you could pick the next year's winner a year ahead of time when they haven't even done with free agents yet?  Maybe one in ten?  Is a one in ten chance at a cup really better than going through your career with one team and an unblemished record as the face of the franchise? 

Furthermore, what are the ethics of parachuting into an already-good team for the express purpose of winning a championship?  I realise that it's not like he'd be a parasite - the veteran newcomer will contribute to the team as much as anyone.  But at what point does moving to a team because it's already good become a greedy strategy?  In a sport that puts such an emphasis on character, it's strange that no one ever questions a player for this decision.

My Enemy's My Friend

In London Ontario there's much weirdness in the London West by-election.  Specifically, the Liberal candidate will be Ken Coran.  That's weird, because Coran led the high school teachers' union during the recent bitter battles over the latest contract.  Battles, that is, with the Liberal government, which tried to pass legislation limiting the union's ability to strike.

What's surprising about this is how not surprising it is.  What other party would he support?  He's not going to be running for the Conservatives; given half a chance, they'd go Wisconsin on the teachers' unions.  Given that potential permanent damage, he'd also be unlikely to consider the NDP; unless he thinks Andrea Horwath can put the party into contention for victory, it would be an expensive principled stance.

It's a great example of how far the strange mixture of realpolitik and idealism in our world has come.  You can be fighting tooth and nail with someone, yet still consider them your closest political ally.

Grown Up vs. Blown Up

I'm getting tired of big-budget blockbusters.  Don't get me wrong, I like quarter-billion dollar CGI explosionfests as much as the next person, but it is getting tiring when another one comes out every week.  I know, you think it's just because I'm getting old.  Well I'm sure most teens can't keep track of whether the giant robots are attacking the White House or Metropolis, or just blowing up London again.

It wouldn't be so bad if these movies ran the half-assed cliched comedies out of the theatres.  But somehow, Grown Ups 2 is finding a few thousand screens this summer.  You'd think that no-effort movies from stars on the downside of their careers would have been pushed back to February releases to make way for the films the studios spent big money on, but no, they found room for both kinds.  So now our summer movie choices are just the latest in special effects, or comedians from twenty years ago.  Or to put it another way, it's either movies that try too hard, or movies that don't try at all.

Now what's the deal with new stars getting caught up in these comedies?  You can understand Sandra Bullock being in a cookie-cutter flick: she's done the blockbusters, won the Oscar, now she's moved to that point in a celeb's life where they're just paying for whatever expensive hobbies, children, ex-spouses, or addictions they've acquired in their career.  But her co-star Melissa McCarthy is supposed to be a rising commodity.  Surely she has something better to do while waiting for Kristen Wiig to finish writing Bridesmaids 2.

And Andy Samburg taking a bit part in Grown Ups 2 is really disappointing.  He looks like he's skipping straight from promising SNL grad to career decline without any stardom in between.  I thought he'd be the next Will Farrell, but apparently he's the next Jon Lovitz.  Lovitz, by the way, is also in Grown Ups 2; take note, Andy.

Not So Amazing

So this Snowden NSA leak thing won't go away.  Surprising, since , as I said previously, the story doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know, nor could have guessed.  A mixture of technology and post-9/11 paranoia greatly increased government surveillance. 

Even some of the claimed effects of the leak are hardly dramatic.  We've been told that terrorists have changed their behaviours based on the information about how surveillance has apparently worked.  For instance, they've stopped using Skype since it was mentioned as a company that worked with the NSA.  Don't worry: any terrorists that assume any communications medium is safe unless they've heard otherwise are not worth worrying about.  Among the things we didn't learn from Snowden's revelations is any evidence of new technology that we didn't already know about, so terrorist with a reasonable knowledge of information technology was already avoiding the media being monitored.

 

The most interesting aspect of the story has been the strange bedfellows it has produced:

• Republicans have had to come to the defence of Obama and big government, lest they be seen as soft on terror.
• Democrats have had to defend the War On Terror, because Obama can't afford another scandal.
• Europeans have fallen out of love with Obama, after seeing him come to the defence of the U.S. government's us-vs.-them attitude.
• People who are critical of government surveillance have been quick to throw Snowden himself under the bus upon seeing the public's largely negative reaction to his actions.

Really there have only been a couple of new things that came out of the leak:

• We're having the public rescission about surveillance, privacy and security that we should have had a decade ago.
• Privacy advocates are learning just how far they have to go in winning over the public.