The Dog Of Small Things

I've mentioned that I'm not a dog person. But I have learned some interesting things about dogs. I've always found it interesting that we created all the breeds, and wonder what that says about us. It's also interesting that in some cases the breeds have become so extreme that they're causing medical problems. Some kennel clubs have gone as far as changing what they look for as the ideal in breeds to try to discourage the creation of unhealthy animals, and avoiding a future where shar peis are just a big pile of folded skin.

But it's worse than that. The selective breeding that creates and maintains breeds is essentially inbreeding on a huge scale, and they cause all kinds of invisible health problems. Well now one dog owner has a controversial solution: genetic engineering. That may seem extreme, but preventing a dog's suceptability to disease could be a simple as flipping a few genes, and the new CRISPR process makes it much easier.

This stood out to me for a couple of reasons. One is that this could be the onset of a gene-hacking culture. I'd heard lots of predicitons that genetics would be the next area that would see a fast, semi-chaotic string of innovations the way computing has for the last couple of generations. I'd always been skeptical of that simply because computer and software innovation has been fuelled by the low cost of entry; you can start a company in your garage, while genetics can only move at the speed of Big Pharma. But if a guy is hacking his Dalmatian in his garage, then it's next stop mutantville.

The other aspect that caught my attention is the quote that I saw passed around social media. It's the dog-hacker's main arguement in favour of allowing genetic manipulation of dogs: “I think it will be easier to teach dog breeders CRISPR than it will be to teach dog breeders why pure breeding is a bad thing.” It may be extreme, but I'm sure he's correct. But more importantly, that seems to sum up our entire age: astounding technology is easy; convincing people to use it responsibly is not. So we just hope we can invent our way out of problems faster than they arise.

Of course, the statement isn't entirely true. Teaching dog breeders about the dangers of pure breeding isn't difficult. After all, I learned it, and I don't know anything about dogs. But really, in this case my lack of connection to dogs is, paradoxically, an advantage to understanding this. Not being a dog person, I don't have any vested interest either way. But if you have preconcieved ideas about dogs, you'll be reluctant to change your mind. Really, it's convincing owners that's the problem. Or, just convincing them that the health of the animals they claim to love is more important than their pursuit of arbitrary and often quite silly ideals. And again, that's a symbol of our times. Spreading information around is very easy, but conveying the importance of things is next to impossible.

Passing Quickly

Recently, there were reports of a man who bought a new Ferrari, then destroyed it in an accident just one hour later. I know I once wrote an article about how hard it is to write-off expensive, limited-edition sports cars, but I think this guy may have done it. I'm also amused by the description of the accident, "The vehicle left the road." To my knowledge, Ferraris do not have any sort of self-driving technology, so the car didn't leave the road without some guidance. "It suddenly burst into flames." I'm sure it happened "suddenly" in the sense that it wasn't on fire one moment, then the next moment it was. But "suddenly" implies a lack of obvious cause. In this case, it likely had something to do with a low-sitting car being driven through a farmer's field at high speed. So that would be like saying, I drove head-on into a brick wall, and suddenly the car was shorter than it used to be.

Fortunately, his injuries were limited to cuts and bruises. Well, that might not be so fortunate; his injuries are in the laugh-without-guilt range. It might have been worth it to him to break a wrist or something if it deterred people like me from writing about it.

But he didn't, so here we are, wondering what causes a person to destroy a car in the first hour of ownership. I figure there are two types of people in the world: given something expensive and powerful, there are the people who want to see its limits right away, and those who ease their way into it. I'm definitely in that second group. I'm not saying we would never drive the car fast, but we would want to work our way up to it over the course of a month or twenty.

That may seem like a waste: driving a fast, powerful car so conservatively. But I think there are other ways to get joy out of a high-end sports car. See, the other day, I was passed on the highway by a minivan going about 140, in the far right lane. Of course, I was hoping that he'd think about the oddness that the guy with the slowest car was going the fastest. But I'm sure that was too subtle. It occurred to me that this would be a good time to be driving an obviously fast car: someone speeds by you in an SUV. Then you honk, and flash him an incredulous look while gesturing at you car, with the unspoken message, "Really? You, a schmuck in a Hyundai Santa Fe feel the need to go faster than a showoff in a Ferrari? "

Negativeland

There have surely been many news stories lost in the United States in the midst of the Trump tumult. Different aspects of the main story are in danger of getting lost; what hope is there for other news?

One story that should be noted is the shooting of an innocent Australian woman in Minnesota. Of course, there have been many stories of innocent people killed by police in recent years. But this event is different.

Strangely, what sets it apart is not what happened, but what didn't. Police didn't defend their actions or deflect blame - the chief even resigned. The media didn't demonize the victim.

I'm sure you can see where this is going. In this case, the victim is white. Observing it is infuriating: it's provided confirmation of just how differently blacks and whites are treated by American police, media and politicians. So really, it's a big story, but only in the negative; the story here is that there is no story. Even if the media had both the inclination and space to report on it, it's hard to point to the absence of events.

And even if you are paying attention to it, it's hard to know how to take it. Seeing what's going on now might be anger-inducing, but it's important to remember that it's not the treatment this case is receiving that is the problem - after all, this is how it's supposed to be. Let's not forget that this woman's death is still a tragedy.

The situation is similar to that of Trayvon Martin. Defendant George Zimmerman was found not-guilty in large part because of lack of evidence. As I mentioned at the time, really that was the right verdict; the frustrating part was not that, but the knowledge that a black defendant would never have received the same allowance.

These inverted news stories are an obstacle for anyone trying to get the message out about poor treatment of African Americans. In order to really illustrate it, you need to call attention to these nothing-to-see-here-folks incidents. It takes some effort to try to demonstrate to a skeptical audience what is happening.

I Saw The Sign

One result of the LRT construction here in Kitchener-Waterloo is that it's forced people to take new routes, and see parts of the city they might not know about.  For instance, I've had to drive miles out of the way to avoid closed roads every time I return to the city. And that's introduced me to a new pet peeve in the city's notoriously confusing roads.  Take a look at the sign showing you how to leave the expressway to take Highway 7 to Guelph:

That looks nice and simple.  The right two lanes just branch off and head to Guelph.  Now here's what the roads actually look like:

You have to take one exit into the collector lanes (they have collector lanes for two exits, isn't that adorable?) Then take another exit from there.  That doesn't turn into Highway 7, or even go to Highway 7.  It just dumps you on a side street beside a nail salon, and you have to take a left and a right to get onto Highway 7.

Self-Busting Ads

It seems that the in thing for TV ads is calling your own bluff. Old Spice is doing it with their latest ad which essentially uses a dog like some sort of latter-day Spuds Mckenzie, to personify their over-the-top ads, and hiking mothers to represent the overwhelmed viewer. I have to give them credit, I liked having the dog promise things like “free wi-fi” like some out-of-touch exec trying to sound cool. That cut a little closer to their own bones that I would have expected. So Old Spice has gone from ads aimed at your parents, to ads aimed at your kids, to ads making fun of themselves. I have no idea where they go from here.

I'm trying to imagine the thinking going into this.

“It’ll be ironic. You know how those millennials love irony.”
“I think that was Generation X, actually.”
“Close enough.”

And then there's the Charmin Bears. In their most recent ad, they finally acknowledge that their family-wide love of soft toilet paper is a little weird. It's the sort of ad that wins over the costumer by demonstrating that the advertiser knows what the audience is thinking, and understands where they're coming from. Or at least, it would if the ad had run five years ago, which was when the rest of us started getting creeped out by adorable bears that have a semi-sexual toilet paper fixation.

Okay, I just went to Wikipedia to double check that I had the correct brand, and discovered that:

• the bears have names
• the bears are used in 70 countries
• they’re colour-coded based on whether they’re emphasizing softness or strength (never noticed)
• and most alarming of all, they replaced George “Don’t squeeze the Charmin” Whipple

But back to the point. Seeing ads crack jokes at their own expense just emphasizes how behind the times they are. You can’t really get on the audience’s side by being self-deprecating, because the audience has already torn them to shreds years earlier. Saying that the Charmin Bears are weird is like doing a joke on a trend that everyone’s forgotten about: it actually makes you seem more awkward than taking yourself seriously.

Big Hands, I Know You're The One

For non-obvious reasons, baseball has seen an epidemic of blister problems for its pitchers. Having not spent much of my life throwing baseballs around, I could never wrap my head around the idea that you could throw them enough to cause blisters, but it's been an occupational hazard through the history of the sport. But this year, it's suddenly worse, and affecting pitchers who hadn't previously had such problems. You may not realize it if you're just following one team, but it's been widespread.

Why would this be? Is not clear, but people are putting it together with the other thing we've seen an explosion of this year: home runs. The increase in home runs is sudden and widespread, so a drug-based explanation seems unlikely. So if the players aren't juiced, the assumption is that the balls are. Officially, there has been no change to the design and manufacture of balls, but that would explain both phenomena.

Well, I hope someone figures out what is going on and fixes it. Partly, that is of course because the Blue Jays are particularly hurt by blisters, with young ace Aaron Sanchez just placed on the Disabled List for an incredible fourth time this season, all for blisters. But even worse than nuking my team's pitching rotation, I don't think I can take another description of blisters.

I'm used to hearing commentators and journalists giving dry, medical descriptions of injuries, using vague, bland terms. But now I'm hearing talk about skin and blood. Yes, I realize that most sports injuries are far more painful than a blister. But most viewers have never torn a ligament, so we can listen all day to talk of anterior this and medial-collateral that. But get into nails and pus and we're squirming.

So I guess we all owe hockey an apology. Many have ridiculed how hockey teams try to protect their players from exploitation by reporting injuries as vaguely as possible. Usually you get no more that "upper body injury" or "lower body injury." Now, I guess that's no so bad. I'd hate to imagine detailed reports of hockey injuries.

Also, medical science needs to get to work on better treatments for blisters. It's kind of weird that elbow problems can be fixed by now-routine Tommy John Surgery. Perhaps they can develop a procedure that makes you blister-proof. Just think, years from know you'll hear about pitchers needing Aaron Sanchez Surgery.

Ripley, Believe It Or Not

So far, here's the reaction I've seen to Doctor Who announcing the first female Doctor:

• 25% people happy about the new casting
• 12% people saying “it’s about time”
• 5% dudebros complaining
• 30% people eagerly anticipating the dudebros complaining
• 20% progressives complaining she isn't also black, Muslim, gay, etc. 
• 5% arguing whether she is now a “Time Lord” or “Time Lady”
• 3% fans trying to correct newcomers ("You call her 'The Doctor,' not  'Doctor Who.'" “Oh,  I get it: it’s only the show that’s called 'Dr. Who’” "No! you have to spell out ‘Doctor!’”)

As you can see, I was pleasantly surprised by how little complaining there was.  Of course, social media is not a representative sample of opinion on anything.  But there are people who were perversely fascinated by especially sexist criticism, and they seemed to be having trouble coming up with particularly extreme examples.  So I’m assuming they didn’t have much to choose from.  Of course, that could be because they’ve been burnt by past campaigns against women in science fiction.

But on the other hand, I’ve been surprised by how many people are acting like this is completely unprecedented. Trekkies are off to the side, waving their arms to get our attention and point out that they did have a female captain for seven years. It’s like when Wonder Woman opened, and people were talking about how this was a new era with a female-led action franchise, there were a number of memes showing Buffy, Xena, and Katniss looking miffed at that. To be clear, I’m not denying that women have been tremendously under-represented as characters in these genres, I’m just curious as to why we keep forgetting the previous steps we’ve taken.

It reminds me of something from the music business. I remember years ago someone pointed out how, at the end of the year, when they’re writing their retrospect stories, they always seem to declare this the Year of the Woman, that this was the year women finally asserted themselves in the music industry because of the success of singer X, singer Y, and Madonna.  And yet, things never seemed to change much, and popular music continued to be male-dominated.

I’d always assumed that was because the music business has women in visible positions, but not powerful positions.  There are lots of women singing songs written by men, being produced and promoted by men, with most of the profits going to men. So we’re constantly overestimating how much real power women have in the industry.

But now I’m not so sure. Maybe we do have a problem with shifting our perspective in response to incremental progress. That’s not too surprising, really, since our ideas about the state of the world are deeply ingrained. And humans are notoriously bad at noticing slow, steady change. So I guess the lesson here is to revisit our assumptions more often.

How Do We Stand When Our Pants Are Burning?

This week, The Guardian had an article about how the post-truth era will come to an end because Elon Musk is building the world's biggest battery. Huh? See the battery is going to be part of the power grid in the state of South Australia, so they can store electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind. And the article makes the case that this will be the final nail in the coffin for dirtier energy sources like coal: the costs of renewals have gone down, and now they'll have reliability on their side too.

Keep in mind that Australia has lots of coal, and has made lots of money selling it to China and other countries that need to ramp up their energy supplies quickly. Thus, Australians have been torturing logic and ignoring reality to convince themselves that coal isn't really that bad.

Personally, I don't think that a compelling case for renewables will be enough to stop post-truth discourse. There are lots of forces pushing people to believe falsehoods, and convenience is only one. There's also the need to save face; people have invested their reputations in arguments, so they won't just admit they were wrong and go away. And of course they've invested plenty of money too. Coal companies and their hired guns won't just give up when there's so much money at stake. And then there's tradition. There's plenty of inertia behind the way things are. Just look at how Donald Trump scored points by promising to bring coal jobs back. That energized people in a way that promises of growing future technology never could.

But still, this article does bring up a point that I - and I'm sure many others - had wondered about: what is the post-truth endgame? I mean, you can pretend all you want, but eventually reality asserts itself. Another great example of that came up recently, and it's also from Australia. (What is going on down there?) Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was discussing encrypted communications, when he said,

“Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,"

Of course, this has lead to a global lambasting online. But the point is that however ignorant he and his laws are, at some point the rubber has to hit the road. The fact is that the only known way of breaking modern encryption is by time-consumingly impractical brute force methods. Eventually the government will be faced with the alternatives of changing the laws or attesting people for not doing the impossible, like a scene from Kafka or Italy.

Of course, most post-truth situations are less immediate. On, say, global warming, you could picture the deniers hanging on to their beliefs all the way down. Long-term trends can be easily ignored, and there will always be an excuse or alternate explanation for noticable things like sea levels. And in the case of competing power sources, people can always invent excuses why our past experience isn't representative ("If they'd just use the best way of burning coal, it would be better") or create unverifiable reasons things aren't as they seem ("the government is covering up the facts.") So I don't think anyone is going land a knockout in any post-truth argument, at least not by simply overwhelming the opponent's ability to delude.

Don't Follow Me...

The license plates here in Ontario display the slogan, "Yours to Discover." 

Older folks will remember that they used to say, "Keep it Beautiful" to encourage respect for the environment.  But in the early 80's, they adopted the province's tourism slogan, "Yours to Discover." Ontario has had other catchphrases, but I guess none have had the same kind of emphasis, since they haven't made it onto the plates yet.

I'm not sure how far an ad campaign would have to go before they start putting a new slogan on the plates.  I'm kind of worried about this, because the latest tourism campaign have been focused on a kind of cryptic phrase.

As an ad phrase, it gets attention and is distinctive, even if it doesn't have a strong message.  But whether it works as an ad campaign or not, I have to point out to our government that it would be particularly bad on our license plates.

Baby You Can Be My Car

I recently saw someone online mention the 80's Saturday morning cartoon Turbo Teen. It was about a kid who could turn into a sports car. I only vaguely remember the show; I can really only recall the weird way his hands warped into tires in the transformation scenes. That and the admirable job the animators did of designing a car that looked a lot like a Firebird but without getting sued.

Anyway, the reminiscer in question brought up a point I hadn't considered: what good is transforming into a car? It doesn't really give you any powers beyond that of a person who merely owns a car. I guess that's true. And it certainly takes me back to my high school days to think that owning a car is the equivalent of a super power.

Then later, I was watching a cheesy technology program from one of the kinda-science cable channels, and they were exploring the implications of a future where you can upload your consciousness to a computer. You could of course, create any sort of robotic body you wanted to occupy. But rather than assume you'd choose a Scarlett Johansson super-cyborg, they mentioned the possibility that you could use any kind of machine - such as a car, like KITT from Knight Rider. The talking head experts didn't think there was much merit in that idea, but the narrator (Lawrence Fishburne, appropriately) thought that would be pretty cool.

So that got me thinking, if I could be a car, what kind would I want to be? Supposedly when Paul Newman did a voice for the original Cars movie, his one demand was that he got to choose what kind of car he played. So I guess he'd already thought about it. But for me, I'm not really sure.

Many people would choose a supercar, but their many limitations would be a problem, like not going over speed bumps. Really, they aren’t that super. I figure that if Superman can do all the things that normal people can do in addition to flying etc, then supercars should be able to do all the things normal cars can do. But no, they’re like, “Wanna see me fly? Okay, carry me over to the window.”

I think you'd want to be a car that has the widest range of abilities, rather than incredible abilities in just one area.

So here are some ideas:

• Subaru WRX STI - a souped-up compact that's the prototypical multiple-ability car. And it's always seemed like the automotive equivalent of the 98 pound weakling who took the Charles Atlas course and is now back for revenge. But at the same time, its many wings and vents look like someone trying to hard to be cool. I suspect it would be like someone walking around in a cloud of Axe body spray.
• BMW 7 Series - great all-around cars, but being a BMW would be like being trapped in Tommy Hilfiger clothes that you can never take off.
• Mercedes Benz S-Class - as above, but with Ralph Lauren.
• Any truck - again, useful, but people would make assumptions about you. And let's face it, I'd go off road about as much as your average truck driver.
• Camaro- the closest thing today to the Firebird that was the basis for KITT. But I'd want to be a vehicle that gets good mileage, otherwise it would be like being hungry all the time.
• Tesla - certainly capable cars, and they’re likely to be the first cars with enough computing power for you to download your consciousness. The problem is the recharging. If you’re driving a car, you don’t mind plugging it in for hours when you aren’t using it. But that’s really inconvenient for the car - it’s stuck in the garage, and you know you’re going to get a party invite just after you plug in.
• Mazda MX-5 Miata - It’s famously the answer for everything, but I don’t think it works here. It would be fun to be a sporty, good-looking little car, but you’d have to keep explaining to everyone else that it’s okay that you only have a little four cylinder, no I don’t mind not being able to go as fast as you, yes I’m confident in my masculinity. You’d probably just end up as a loner, hanging out with Honda CRX’s and Lotus Elises because they’re the only ones that get you.
• Volvo - as the best at surviving crashes, they'd be the Wolverines of the automotive world. That would be worth being the dorky one.

Tweet Dreams Are Made Of This

You've probably seen Apple's current ad campaign where they show people holding up oversized tweets.  The narrator then tells them how their problems will be solved by getting an iPad. Some of them are kind of entertaining, though they're no "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" or "1984".

But I noticed that the tweets they hold up have actual Twitter handles on them.  So I thought I'd look them up. I figured they would be too smart to just use random names that might belong to real people.  They'd probably create Twitter accounts for each of the characters in the ads, to make sure no one else takes those names. And Apple is an inventive enough company that they might do something fun with the concept,  like have fake Twitter feeds for each of these characters.

What I found was quite surprising:

• These are all real people, and the Tweets are real.  But...
• The people in the ads are not just actors, but in most cases they're totally different from the actual people. For instance, the gothy teenager who hates everything is actually an African-American woman who doesn't seem particularly nihilistic. 

So I'm wondering what exactly the point of this campaign is.  I can understand you might want to involve real people, that will get you viral guerilla marketing tactics to access key influencers and other buzzwords. But if you're not going to use the actual people, why not just make up the Tweets as well.  Instead of trying to associate your product with some random kvetch, why not give yourself a nice convenient set up. @who_needs_MSOffice says, "I wish my tablet weighed 0.17 grams less." "You're in luck..."

So really, using real Tweets is just a creativity exercise for the ad creators. They say sometimes you need to give yourself arbitrary constraints to get the creative juices flowing; taking a bunch of Tweets as the starting point is just their way of seeking inspiration. 

My Country Right And Wrong

Here's a little post-mortem on Canada's sesquicentennial.  In the middle of the Canada 150 celebrations, there has also been some dissatisfaction. Indigenous people have been at best nonplussed by the celebration. That's understandable, and it's left thoughtful non-native Canadians in a quandary about how to - and whether to - celebrate.

This article by Professor Idris Elbakri explains it pretty well, acknowledging Canada's faults while also revelling in successes. Ultimately it calls the country a work in progress. You could call that a cop-out, since it's essentially saying we've been bad, but I'm sure we'll get better, so yay us!

Reading about the anniversary from liberal intelligentsia, I found similar sentiments, once I dug through the too-cool-for-school detachment. I also found a few descriptions of the 150 celebrations as having fizzled out. I didn’t really think so; I’m taking that as further evidence that modern media is slowly making us all disappear up our own intellectual asses. Anyway, the interesting point people brought up was that much of what Canadians today value about their country dates back only to the sixties, with our tolerant, friendly, health-carey country built on top of a staid, kind of backwards country.

Now I know Canadian conservatives bristle at the idea that liberal/Trudeau values are Canadian values, but that's not really the argument I'm making here. For instance, the old Canada wasn't a leading proponent of free trade. And the new focus on individual rights is hardly a liberal monopoly; see Diefenbaker and his Bill of Rights.

This is an interesting line of thought. During the War of 1812 bicentenary I mentioned Canada's problem with having an origin story that doesn't mesh with today's values (it was essentially one of blind loyalty over freedom.) But this takes it much farther. It is essentially saying that we've built an entirely new country over top of the old one. And this new vision of Canada is only maybe fifty years old. It still isn't entirely concrete, nor has its actions caught up with its principles, as with the treatment of indigenous people.

So this is a fairly positive idea in the end. The idea of an unfinished country holds out hope that traditional patterns can change, and we won't necessarily rotary the cycle of abuse forever.

But ultimately, this is about the most Canadian thing I've seen in this oh-so-Canadian year: hand-wringing over whether it's okay to celebrate, followed by a grudging admission that yes, I guess it's okay as long as we don't get too full of ourselves. And then that most stereotypical of slogans. Canada: It's a Work In Progress. I say we get that translated into Latin and start etching it on our coins right now.