A Tall Order

It seems like more stores have those height charts just inside the door.  The idea, I guess, is so that employees can easily estimate the height of a thief running out of the store.  I don't think they've thought this through:  Sure, it makes it easier to catch a criminal, but you have to weigh that against how many customers you scare off by convincing them that the store is in a bad neighbourhood.

I don't really know if they even work that well.  If someone is running out of the store, and probably trying to duck to avoid being seen too, can you really check their height very accurately?  Really, they probably have to go back over the security camera footage to try to estimate the perp's height.  So why have such an obvious height chart?  You could have something more subtle that doesn't remind everyone of crime.  Like put the screws in the door every three inches.

Anyway, the reason I'm thinking about this is that today as I left a store, I noticed something unusual about the height chart.  A possible nominee for that  "You Had One Job" meme:  If you're installing a height chart, the one thing you have to do is put it at the right height.  But as I passed it, I saw the six-foot mark at almost eye-level. I'm five-foot-seven soaking wet, and granted, I was wearing boots, but I don't think their soles are ten inches thick.  So that store should be really easy to rob, since they'll be looking for someone exceptionally tall.

Do You Like American Music

There are days when I don't know what to blog about, and then there are days when someone names the favourite musician for each U.S. state.  Okay, it's not the favourite artist, but the most distinctive artist.  That is, the artist who's popularity in the state most exceeds their national popularity (for instance, Alan Jackson is the distinctive artist for New Mexico, since he is the 45th most popular artist there, but only 425th nationally.

There's a few oddities about it:

• There aren't that many obvious selections.  I mean, Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey is the only "No, Really?" choice.
• Indie props to Alaska, whose artist is Ginger Kwan, 33rd in the state but 12,062nd nationally, and so obscure that she doesn't even have her a Wikipedia entry.
• Rush in Delaware?  Of course, Delaware has so few people that it could be thrown off by only a few big fans.  And I'm betting Joe Biden is one of them.
• Sufjan Stevens is famous for his tongue-in-cheek attempt to make an album dedicated to each of the fifty states.  He's only done two of them, but one was for Illinois, and apparently that meant a lot to the state.
• Tegan and Sara in Idaho?  Okay, I guess I don't really know what I should expect from that state.  The only mental picture I have of them is people farming potatoes while dreaming up trick football plays.  But from now on, I will also assume they are singing "Closer" to themselves as they go.
• The Virginias went with Matchbox 20 and the Dave Matthews Band.  I didn't see them as being the laid-back states.
• Rhode Island is America's enclave of grunge.  Wouldn't have called that one.
• Looking up some of the names I wasn't familiar with, I find that many of the musicians that are popular in their own state are folk or hip-hop artists.  So apparently those are the most regional genres.

Go West, Life Is Peaceful There

There's been a recent wave of anti-gay laws in Africa. It's a strange phenomena, given that gay rights in the west has been accelerating to a pace I never thought it would achieve.

To make things even weirder, it turns out that a lot of the impetus for African anti-gay bills comes from western organizations. Further, their current laws against homosexuality are mostly vestiges of colonial (usually British) laws. Ironic, given that Britain is now one of the more gay-friendly countries.

So these African countries are taking laws imposed on them by the west (but not actually used by the west anymore) and expanding them on the advice of westerners (who are no longer welcome at home.) And that's what I don't get about this: Africans have become understandably sceptical of western advice over the years, so why are they so quick to take western advice that the west doesn't follow?

One explanation is that they see our adoption of gay rights as a western taint on the concept. Rather than see homophobic laws as western ideas so bad even the west has left behind, they're seeing it as evidence that gay rights is part of western decadence.

Another, more sinister explanation is that this is nothing personal against gays, they're mearly an easy scapegoat. If western religious nuts are going to come in and demonize a group at their own expense, then that's a great deal for a government who could use a convenient enemy to distract their people from the state of the nation.

Books To Get Excited Over

On the Internet, you can find lots of lists of Top 100 books, or books everyone should read.  At Modern Library, they have provided a list, and also made a list based on reader's votes:

Their board of authors' list has the usual suspects, but the top ten of the readers' list shows a great example of what produces passion among readers:

• 4 Ayn Rand books
• 3 L. Ron Hubbard books
• 2 books that are commonly assigned in high school
• The Lord of the Rings.

So that's what literati stuff the ballot-box for.  I have to admit (at risk of losing my nerd card) I've never read The Lord of the Rings.  But I probably should, as it's the only book in the top ten without religious/philosophical connections, and that the readers weren't forced to read.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About The Future, #11

You'll buy a sandwich of shaved steak on flatbread with sriracha sauce, and for some reason you'll think of this as a "sub."

Vive L'Écosse Libre!

Scotland is going to be voting on independence later this year.  As a Canadian watching from abroad, it's fun to watch for the similarities to Quebec's sovereignty struggles.

The campaign seems to have come to the point where the separatists' promises of an easy independence are hitting the brick wall of reality.  It turns out an independent Scotland wouldn't just automatically get to use the British Pound, nor would they automatically get into the European Union.  In fact, they'd have to do all the boring and expensive things any independent country has to do, not just fun things like giving Mel Gibson honourary citizenship, and staring trade wars with Canada over Irn-Bru

Do all separation efforts run this same con?  I know, it's inevitable that the supporters of any political initiative are going to put a positive spin on the results.  And they're going to gloss-over the negatives.  But when it's something as big as creating a new country, you'd think that the potential ramifications would be so big that they can't be ignored.  It's pretty ridiculous that Scots would just assume that the rest of the UK would happily continue giving them a say in control of the Pound.  And yet the British government has to point that out.  You'd think that even the most starry-eyed Scottish nationalist would have assumed this, and come up with a counter-move ahead of time.

But for some reason, it seems that separatists on both sides of the Atlantic have the common fault of believing their own claims, to the point that they actually seem caught off-guard when reality imposes itself.

I've Got A New Complaint

You know I'm a fan of independent media, take an interest in technology, and am a child at heart. So it will be no surprise that I've jumped on the bandwagon of the burgeoning indie video game scene. That is, if you were aware that indie video games are a scene, and that they have burgeoned to the point of having a bandwagon.

So it's a disappointment to see the news about Flappy Bird. If you haven't heard, it's a simple game created by Dong Nguyen, a solo programmer in Vietnam, that became a breakout hit. And if you further haven't heard, he withdrew the game from app stores at the height of its popularity because of the stress its success had put on his life.

Some reaction to the end of Flappy Bird

That's kind of troubling when you combine it with the experience of Phil Fish. He created a cool game called Fez. It was popular and critically-acclaimed, but in the middle of creating a sequel, he abruptly stopped and retired from the business.

One starts to wonder if the Internet's underbelly of anonymous anger might be curtailing individual work. A company can avoid a lot of this vitriol - the company itself attracts the attacks, and that imaginary person doesn't have feelings to hurt.  But an individual has to take the Internet's firehose of criticism all by themselves; it's an awkward middle-ground in a world where most of us are safe because of either wealth or anonymity. 

So perhaps future businesses will be more anonymous, if creators decide that avoiding the catcalls is more important that getting personal credit. That Bitcoin guy may be on to something.

Bearing Up

I'm sick right now, so I don't have much to say.  Instead, I'll leave you with this thought:

• Many flavours of Halls cough drops contain eucalyptus oil.
• Koalas' diet consists mostly of eucalyptus leaves.
• Therefore, koalas taste like Halls.

Henderson Has Scored For Canada, Or So I'm Told

This may seem surprising, but it was only recently that I finally saw Sidney Crosby's gold-medal-winning goal from 2010. See, I was so sick of the jingoistic hype about Canada's Olympics that I skipped the final.

So why would I assume that I would have seen a goal in a game that I purposely avoided? Well, for a person interested in sports, you would think I'd have seen such a momentous play several times over the course of a few years. I've seen the Paul Henderson goal several times as parts of retrospectives and top-ten lists. Heck, a sports fan probably sees that clip of a guy running through the outfield wall at least once a year.

But the Crosby goal is absent in the sports-highlight-osphere. Yes, the copyright protection on that telecast is so strong that the closest we get is stills of Crosby's celebration after the goal.

On the one hand, I'm glad that the immovable object of Olympic copyright protected me from the irresistible force of Canada's hockey ego. But on the other, this was a big moment that meant a lot to Canadians, but they can't relive it. And what is this legal taboo for? I guess to help CTV sell Olympic DVDs. And also to preserve the value of selling the rights to anyone willing to pony up. In this case, that would be Air Canada, which is why I first saw one of the most celebrated moments in Canadian sport as part of a commercial.

Don't Worry, Ignorant Americans, I Got Your Back

You may have seen a report out about Americans' knowledge of science.  It's been reported with headlines like:

• One in four Americans 'do not know the Earth circles the Sun' (The Telegraph, UK)
• 1 in 4 Americans unaware that Earth circles Sun: poll (News.com.au, Australia)  They also used the teaser link, "Finally, proof Americans are not very bright?"
• One in four Americans unaware that Earth revolves around Sun: poll (New Delhi Television, via Agence France-Presse)
• 1 in 4 Americans doesn't know Earth circles sun (USA Today)
• One in four Americans do not know the Earth circles the Sun and fewer than half know humans evolved from earlier species (Daily Mail, UK)

Wow, even Fox News piled on.  Well, I went to the study itself (following a link in the first article) and found the chart from which they got all that statistic.  Here it is:

After reading that, is "Americans are idiots" really the first thing that comes to mind?  The South Koreans were the only ones to beat the Americans by any significant amount.  The U.S. did better than the Japanese on almost every question (not the evolution one, of course.)  And the Europeans were the worst on the signature astronomy question.  Their number even came out at a nice headline-friendly one-in-three, yet that never got mentioned.

But good on NPR.  According to stereotype, you might expect them to feast on stories of American ignorance, but they were the only ones who noticed that other countries were worse off.

You Need More Sports You've Never Heard Of

After a week of the Winter Olympics, I've got some ideas for new sports:

Downhill Biathlon

The biathlon is interesting, but it would be nice of it was faster. It would also be better if you don't stop to do the shooting. Think of the challenge of shooting at targets as you go by at high speed. Unfortunately, it would be too dangerous to have any spectators on site.

No-Landing Freestyle

This kind of goes for gymnastics too. It's so disappointing when someone does an impressive jump but fails to stick the landing. That's especially when the difference between winning and losing might be some minor thing like keeping their feet together. So let's have a class of freestyle where there's no judging on the landing. It's full marks for quintuple spinning cartwheel, even if you face-plant right after.

Long Short-Track Speed Skating

That is, speed skating on the long track, but with the short track's rules (or lack thereof.) To put it another way, short track is like a stock car race, so this would be like a super speedway race. Oh, and we should have banked turns, like a velodrome.

"Skate" Boarding

When it comes to the "sliding" sports, we've already covered the idea of going down hill on your back, feet first (luge) on your front, head first (skeleton) and seated (bobsled.) Any other combinations would just be silly (say, head first on your back.) The only other possibility I can think of is to go down the track standing on the sled. It would be like a skate board, but with actual skates. At the very least, Shaun White won't think slopestyle is dangerous anymore.

Universal Skiing

There's already a sport called Nordic Combined, in which competitors do a ski jump one day, and cross country skiing the next day. I say, let's take it even further by including downhill skiing. And let's take it even further than that, by having the competitors do each leg one after another, like a triathlon. You cross-country ski up the mountain, then turn and ski down the mountain, and so a jump off a ramp at the end.

A Valentines Proposal

Now this may come as a surprise to you, but Jesus probably wasn't born on December 25th. No, this isn't some atheist rant accusing Christians of hijacking pagan holidays; even Christian scholars basing their work on the bible agree it doesn't sound like the gospels are happening in early winter.

Some people will be upset by this idea, but I think most Christians would agree that celebration of Jesus and his teachings is the important thing, not whether it's on the correct date or not.  Which brings me to my proposal: if we agree that Christmas isn't really at the right time, and we agree that it isn't a problem, then why not move it to a more convenient time?

The unfortunate thing about the timing of Christmas is that it comes at the start of the winter. We get the most joyous part of winter over with just as the worst of the weather is about to hit. That's especially unfortunate given that we have turned Christmas into a two-month holiday. Wouldn't it make more sense if those two months were over the most depressing weather of the year, brightening our darkest (literally) times. Once we have the letdown that Christmas is over, we'd have spring coming up.

So I think Valentine's Day would be the best time for Christmas. No one will miss Valentine's Day - singles hate it, the in-love don't need it. So switching it with Christmas shouldn't be a big problem. We just need the Catholic church's okay. So come on Francis, give it a go.

Phony Beatlemania Has Bitten The Dust

This week was the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' appearance on Ed Sullivan. I would have written about it earlier, but it was also the 50th anniversary of the introduction of GI Joe, and I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea of both those things happening the same week.

But now that the Beatles anniversary is over, I have to say it wasn't as big as I expected. Granted, I avoid the media outlets that might hype it. But still, there was little more than a spot on the news and a TV special opposite the Olympics.

Some folks on the Internet passed around a collection of bad reviews of that first performance from establishment figures like William F Buckley. But I feel sorry for those guys being raked through the mud now, and it offers a hint about why the anniversary wasn't that big.

(Fun fact: the keyboard interpreted "figures" as "fogies.")

Disclosure, I wasn't there; I wasn't born until after they broke up. But there's something about the Beatles that everyone seems to gloss over: for the first part of their career - including the Ed Sullivan performances - they were a bubblegum-pop band with a fanbase built on their looks. I'm sure if I had been there, I would have been watching a different channel and not imagining they'd ever go on to do anything profound. Most of the songs people reminisce about now are from later in their career.

And that's the paradox of the Beatles: If it hadn't been for their last five albums, their music wouldn't have nearly the staying power it has now. We'd remember them as a 60's counterpart to ABBA: someone who made catchy, fun songs, but didn't change the face of music. On the other hand, if they hadn't had that first half of their career driving teenage girls wild, they wouldn't have gotten the attention to be widely remembered. They'd be known only to hipsters arguing if they were as influential as the Velvet Underground.

So the Beatles were the result of a pop-cultural perfect storm, as the rare teen idols that developed great musical skill. Unfortunately, these two sides of the band have been conflated into a false narrative in which we kid ourselves that those screaming girls in Ed Sullivan's audience are turned on by the idea that their songwriting prowess will eventually lead to Sgt. Pepper.

And that's the problem with the Ed Sullivan appearance: it doesn't really mesh with what we remember about the Beatles. Worse is what it does remind us of: Justin Bieber, and all the hormone-fueled idols before him. If anything, the Beatles' appearance in America does a disservice to their reputation. So for anyone who wants to reminisce, it's much better to wait a few years and make a big deal when we can say, "It was fifty years ago today..."

Some C_mplai_ts Ab_ut T__hnol_gy

You used to know how fast a computer was, just by using it. Sure, my old 386 took a second to render each frame in Doom, but I knew I could depend on it always being slow. But today's computers can be impressively quick, or they can grind to a halt.

For one thing, more of the devices we use are essentially computers that have been programed to do one thing, rather than a bit of electronics designed from the ground up to do one simple task.  For instance, thirty years ago you could change channels quickly with a remote control that was little more than three transistors in a plastic box.  But my cable box/PVR is really a computer that's particularly fast at processing video.  Unfortunately, this means it boots up about as fast as a computer.  For the first minute or so, it recognizes maybe half of my button presses.  I type in one of the long modern channel number, but it misses half the numbers, so who knows which channel it's going to send me to.  At least, that's my excuse how it got on that station.

It's also because most computers are multitasking. If something electronic is unresponsive, it's probably because that gizmo is doing something behind the scenes. Just about everything is connected to a network, if not the Internet, so it will have to occasionally tend to matters of communication. I think that's a reassuring way to look at it: these machines aren't slow they're just distracted. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you just press a button? I was just... Wait, give me a minute."

I'm assuming that's the problem with the self-check-out machines.  Today I tried typing in the code for hothouse tomatoes, and it took so long to notice when I typed the first digit, that somehow it registered the second digit first, then the first digit.  So I had to clear it and start again, but of course that forever too.  And this was probably because it was getting updated on the price code for those new flat bagels while it was accepting my input. 

Or maybe technology just hates me.  I don't know why, all I've ever done is use it to complain about it.

Keep Calm and Reuse Memes

I have more Keep Calm spoofs for more countries.  The last time I tried this, it fell victim to my problems getting graphics to work on this blog, but those are fixed now.  So if you want to finally see topical humour about the U.S. 2012 election, go ahead.  But here's some new stuff:

Egypt:

Ukraine:

Russia:

Who's Your Embarrassment?

Richard Florida is an urbanist and author of The Rise of the Creative Class, and Who's Your City? Like previous star of the urban planning literati, Jane Jacobs, he is an American who had chosen Toronto as his home. So you can imagine that Rob Ford is a disappointment to him on many levels.

But that disappointment became especially apparent in a recent tweet, in which he said,

Canadian friends used to ask me if I was embarrassed by George W. Bush, I am far, far more embarrassed and disgusted by Rob Ford.

I found that shocking, though I'm not sure why it should. While it's true that Bush did more real damage than Ford, that's really only because Ford doesn't have access to an army. If he did, I'm sure he would have found a reason to invade Hamilton by now.

This brings up something I've noticed: while we hold most of our politicians to very high standards (too high, I'd argue.) We give municipal leaders a pass on so much. Yeah, I know, there's the angry suburban taxpayer, writing letters-to-the-editor crying poverty over sub-inflation property-tax increases. But for most people, there is little known about what the local leaders do. And it seems to be a matter of faith that local leaders are inherently better than the more distant politicians at higher levels of government. Turn-out for municipal elections is consistently lower than other levels.

As I claimed earlier, Ford's conservative credentials are not as good as his supporters think they are.  But the same is true of Bush, what with his unfunded extension of Medicare. When you look at it, there's no question that Bush is a more pleasant human being. Both put on an intentionally dumb façade as a way to connect with gullible voters, though I suspect Ford's public face is closer to reality than Bush's. While Bush will be forever linked with a war started on flimsy evidence, I have no doubt that Ford, in that position would have left the truth far behind. Speaking of which, Ford is willing to play much dirtier: I don't see even Karl Rove accusing a journalist of being a pedophile out of nowhere.

So I have to agree with Florida: on almost any measure, Bush is preferable to Ford. And I, too, am guilty of being soft on local politicians.

Turns Out Very Little News Is Fit To Print

In today's paper, there was an article about the new sport of Team Figure Skating. I'm not much of a fan of figure skating, but I'd heard a brief mention of this team event as one of the new sports at these games, so read the article to learn more about it.

So they talk to some of the skaters involved, who say they're looking forward to it, mention that Canada is expecting to do well at it. Yeah, but what exactly is it? You say men, women, and pairs are involved, but are they all on the ice at once, or separately?

The article talks about how well the skaters involved have been doing this season, and how that bodes well for the team event. Yeah, but what about the event: if they do compete separately, is it based on just the performance for their usual events, or do they do separate routines for the team event?

Then they point out that the event is open to only the top ten countries, and only the top five counties in the competition advance beyond the short program. That's nice, but do all the skaters participate in the short program? Do they get to choose which ones? And what about the ice dancers? Are they involved with this?

In the end, I gave up and Googled it. One of the first results was a page from the Canadian Olympic Committee, which explained how it works. That leaves me wondering: if I can't get the information I want from the newspaper, and have to go to the source, what do I need the newspaper for?

Redefining Canada

Last week I made a map of Canada based on Google searches of province names.  That was inspired by a similar map of the U.S.  Well I've seen another American map going around the Internet.  In this one, they searched Google for "Why is <state name> so" and put Google's top autocomplete suggestion on the map.

So I did the same thing for Canadian provinces.  I've included all the suggestions I was given.  Unfortunately, there was no suggestion for, "Why are the Northwest Territories so" regardless of how I played with the awkward pluralism in that phrase.  Once again, the title is the suggestions for "Why is Canada so":

Notes:

1. Somehow, for B.C. it suggested the rather formal, "Why is B.C. so named?"
2. For Manitoba, it left a blank, suggesting the koan, "Why is Manitoba so?"
3. That is, the only suggestion for P.E.I. was, "Why is P.E.I. soil red."

Take Me To The Place I Love

BBC World had been doing ads where their reporters talk about the cities they're from. They end by saying, "<insert city> is my city."  I guess they're trying to seem really international, emphasizing their intimate knowledge with major cities around the world.

I'm not sure about the woman who ends it with, "Dubai is my city." Is there anyone who can really say that? Even if you're one of the hundred and fifty people who has lived in Dubai for more than twenty years, the current urbanism amusement park that is Dubai is hardly yours.

Me, I could never make a "this is my city" statement like that. My birthplace of Woodstock didn't reflect what I want in a city. While my current home of Kitchener-Waterloo is far more to my taste, I still don't feel that sense of ownership.

KW does have many things that I appreciate. A few years ago I got a pamphlet in the mail from the Perimeter Institute (of theoretical physics) telling everyone of their opening. It hit me: I just got junk mail from a physics institute - that doesn't happen in normal cities.  That geekiness that comes of two universities is nice, as are other quirks like the insane road system, German and Mennonite heritage, and the odd collection of neighbourhoods created by three cities slowly colliding.

But there's also negatives: a big constituency of commuters who don't care much about a community they only sleep in. An old guard that still sees the region as the collection of small towns it once was.

Then there's London (Ontario) down the road. It's about the same size as the combined size of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. Both cities seem to be struggling culturally between a conservative small-town heritage, a bland suburban present, and a cosmopolitan urge coming from our age of communications and globalization. So I've always thought everyone in both cities would be happier if we just had a big trade of citizens. Send all the forward thinking, intellectual techie yuppie hipster types to one city, and they can have their light rail and sushi and bike sharing. The white-bread keep-it-like-i-remember-it-as-kid crowd can have all the power centres and mini-mansions and tax freezes they want. 

Changing Clothes

Apparently the 90's are back. I noticed a months ago when I passed a clothing store and realised it was completely day-glo. This after all the day-glo material in the world had disappeared, except for that little bit the Seattle Seahawks have on their uniforms. So congratulations, Seahawks, you not only won the Superbowl, you've also lived out the male fantasy of keeping clothes long enough for them to come back into style.

And I recently saw an article about the Hypercolor shirts, the ones that changed colour depending on their exposure to heat. At the time the workings of the shirts was a mystery to us all, but now such secrets are just a web search away. What old mystery will the Internet ruin next, showing us how The Noid was animated?

Hypercolor shirts weren't that great. They really just looked like moody tie-dye shirts. Of course, now that I write that, I suppose it was apropos for the times. But it seemed kind of disappointing for the latest in clothing technology. About the only time you saw the shirts do anything interesting was when you could see the outline of a chair on someone's back when they stood up. I suppose you could have done some interesting things on conjunction with the Magic Bag which came out around the same time, but we weren't that clever.

Here's the question I did have about Hypercolor shirts at the time, and I would have asked on my blog then if such things existed: why would you want people to know how warm you are? You pay money for deodorant so that people won't know that.

A Second Act In An American Life

As you can probably guess, I have mixed feelings about Bill Gates. I admire the great philanthropist Gates for his tremendous generosity and willingness to bring new approaches and enthusiasm to efforts that had become moribund and cynical. But I hate the businessman Gates, with his mediocre and over-marketed products and business strategies of questionable legality. But we don't have to worry about the latter, now that he's retired and the founder's company founders.

The philanthropist Gates released his annual letter recently, in which he makes the case for aid to the developing world. It's a refreshing read, not just for its optimistic tone, but for the practical approach he brings to the subject. He doesn't fall into the rigid ideologies or extremism that dominate current politics, and faces it with intellectual honesty.

One might be tempted to see his pragmatic approach as a product of his background in software. But I find that many people from science and engineering are actually quite ripe for the picking by simplistic ideology. The exact-science nerd is used to intellectual discussions that don't have a lot of vested interest at stake, and trends to have an unrealistically simple view of human psychology. Thus they fall prey to neat and tidy political ideas that are not rooted in the real world.

So I think gates does deserve credit for his humanitarian work, in which he makes me feel like they're is some how for the world.  I never thought I'd feel the developing world has a brighter future than Microsoft, but somehow he's done it.