Month: January 2014

2013: The Year of Reading Copiously

Thanks to a long work commute I read a whopping (for me) 23 books in 2013, with a 24th finished in the first few days of 2014. 2013 was the first year I did not read any paper books. I still have a stack of them threatening to topple over (the stack is not that high, just poorly arranged). I have to admit I am thoroughly in like with being able to cart around a four pound Stephen King doorstop in an ebook reader that weighs a few hundred grams. And yes, I know I mixed imperial and metric there. I still can’t make myself think in kilograms for some reason.

2013 was also the first year I subscribed to the two magazines I read regularly in digital format. I find the 9.7″ display of the iPad works reasonably well but if someone handed me a larger tablet that didn’t weigh a ton I wouldn’t kick it out of bed, either (Samsung has just announced a 12.2″ tablet, actually, though like much of Samsung’s stuff it seems kind of plasticky and cheap, though it won’t be priced that way). The two magazines are Runner’s World and Writer’s Digest, by the by.

My favorite book of last year was probably the seven volume The Dark Tower series, which I gorged on in the last few months of the year. King going meta almost ruined it but he makes it work and the conclusion didn’t feel like one of his typical “well, I’ve run out story” endings.

I also quite enjoyed Vernor Vinge’s space saga A Deepness in the Sky and the quirky, quaint Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Sussanah Clarke. Rounding out my list of favorites was David Wong’s John Dies at the End, a very silly, juvenile and altogether enjoyable read.

I’m still working on reviews on some of the books I read in the latter half of the year and who knows, I may even update my sad and neglected Goodreads page. Stranger things have been written.

The first run of 2014

Average pace: 5:22/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce Loop, Conifer Loop and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.03 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 4ºC
Wind: light to nil
Calories burned: 399
Total distance to date: 2494 km

I had a simple goal in mind for today’s run: beat the sluggish pace of the previous run and get the new year off to a faster start.

As I’ve been waylaid by injury the past few winters I’ve not done a cold run in awhile but it was only 4ºC when I headed out early in the afternoon under sunny skies. Fortunately there was little wind but my hands still felt chilled even stuffed in my jacket pockets.

The jacket did not prove to be too much even after I warmed up but I was glad I skipped gloves because my hands were fine after a short distance and remained warm even on the walk after.

The run itself mirrored the pattern of the previous in that the first 500 meters was fairly zippy then my pace dropped precipitously and stayed fairly level for the remainder, ticking up slightly at the end. The major difference this time is that the pace leveled off sooner and came in at 5:22/km, 13 seconds better than the last run.

Surprisingly both feet felt fine right from the start. The Achilles tendon was feeling better than I can recall in quite awhile. The left foot showed signs of hurting after the run but never progressed much beyond that.

I could feel I was doing better once I got past the first km. I never felt winded or experienced any cramps. My biggest issue was probably how cold my butt was. Do you lose a lot of heat through your butt? It certainly felt like it.

Apart from that minor issue the run went well and I am pleased at the progress. It’s a good start to the year.

My next run will likely be my second attempt on the treadmill. I expect I will stop just shy of the next Nike+ milestone of 2,500 km, so I should hit that on my next “real” run during the coming weekend.

British Columbians: Now with more rudeness, addiction and less thinking

Steve Mossop of public research firm Insights West has an article on The Tyee that highlights 13 B.C.-related topics for 2013.

A Pollster’s Top 13 Insights From 2013

Here are my insights (it’s insights all the way down!) on a few from the list:

12. We have become less polite as a society.

Three-in-five British Columbians believe that we have lost our sense of civility, and practically nine-in-ten saw someone swear in public. Most residents blame apathetic parents and cold technology for the rise in unruly behavior.

I don’t know how much apathetic parents are to blame (maybe a little) but technology–in the form of the smartphone–is certainly a culprit. I see many people on transit, on the sidewalk, at school, everywhere, who are more interested in staring into that 4-5 inch screen in front of their face than in anything around them. I like smartphones. They’re useful tools and they’ve opened up the world to things that weren’t possible before. But you do not need to check your Facebook page on an ongoing basis.

Also, I’m pretty sure four-in-five British Columbians would say we’ve lost our sense of civility if they had exclusively polled transit riders. Having used transit since arriving in Vancouver in 1986, I can say unreservedly that people are for more impatient and rude on transit than ever before. From people standing in front of the doors on the SkyTrain platform (blocking the exit for people trying to leave the train) to the mad dash (an actual dash!) to get a seat, people have largely abandoned any attempt to be polite. boo to them, I say.

5. As a society, we believe in some pretty outrageous things.

April Fool’s Day and Halloween provided two opportunities to assess the beliefs of British Columbians. Most claim they believe that UFOs exist, almost half think ghosts and haunted places are real, but just one-in-20 believe Elvis Presley is alive.

I don’t consider believing in UFOs to be outrageous. A UFO is an unidentified flying object and plenty are seen every year. Pedantic? Perhaps, but this framing feels like more of the media’s attempt to marginalize anything it doesn’t deem serious or worthy of study. It is reassuring that only 5% believe Elvis is still alive, however. Actually, no, it’s not. You 5% are dumb. Cut it out!

1. Christy Clark won because voters changed their minds at the last minute.

Since the B.C. provincial election in May, there has been a lot of speculation and introspection about the state of public opinion polling. Our survey conducted immediately after the election found that one-in-five voters settled on a candidate on the last 72 hours of the campaign, and that 17 per cent of actual BC Liberal voters had window-shopped as NDP supporters.

Making up your mind on who to vote for at the last minute is not a good way to vote. It is, in fact, dumb. Stop being dumb, British Columbians. Think logically, rationally and carefully before casting your vote. Don’t be swayed by soundbites or clever ads because that is all BS where politicians (of every affiliation) say anything and promise everything. Do you pride yourself on being persuaded by BS? I suspect not. So think before voting and do so before the election, throughout the election and not just at the last minute because one side or other ran a slick ad. Thanks!

Leaving Fatville (don’t eat the wagon wheels)

In the last few months of 2013 two things happened:

  1. I stopped running.
  2. I started eating a lot of shortbread. Delicious, yummy shortbread.

In October at my annual physical I weighed in at 160 pounds. This was eight pounds more than the previous year. It was also ten pounds above my usual target of 150 pounds. This was bad.

On January 1st I stepped on the scale (it cried out) and saw these numbers: 174.6.

Yes, I was nearly 25 pounds over my target weight and more than 30 pounds over my low of 2012 when I tipped the scale at a mere 143 pounds during the height of my summer runs.

My size 30 jeans were no longer feeling comfy. I had to stand really straight to get a sort-of flat tummy in profile. I felt blah and listless. I kept stuffing shortbread into my face.

With the new year conveniently at hand I put myself back onto a weight loss regimen. As of this morning that horrific 174.6 number has changed to the slight-less horrific number of 172.2. It could be water, it could be a rounding error, the important thing is it’s going in the right direction and even though there is shortbread here right now, mere feet away from me in the kitchen, I AM NOT EATING IT.

I have been mostly snack-free these four days and the snacks I’ve allowed myself–a cube or two of Havarti cheese, some popcorn, a few carrot sticks–have kept me well under my daily calorie total. This is the hard part, the first week where my fat stomach says “I’m hungry, please continue to shove food into the mouth, okay?” and I must tell my stomach “No, you big stupid fat thing. You’ll have your two carrot sticks and you’ll like it!”

I’ll check in once a week or so to report whether my brain or stomach is triumphing.

Naughty would-be admins (all 125 of them)

One of the plugins I use on this blog is Better WP Security. Among its features it records any bad login entries. These are people and/or bots trying to enter the admin area of the blog by trying out various username/password combos, hoping to get lucky so they can do all manner of nefarious deeds once allowed in.

As you might guess, the most common username used in these attempts is “admin” and it’s why basic security has you change it from “admin” to anything else (I’ve done this, in case any bots are reading).

Sometimes the username entered is more curious than “admin”. For example:

Bernardo1133

Did Bernardo get misdirected or confused? Did he think he was signing into his own blog? What are the other 1132 Bernardos up to, anyway?

BroderickCrook

Oh, I just bet you are a crook, Broderick! Nice try, buddy.

creolened

Clever bot. But not clever enough.

DebWordenrfai

This one may have been trying to login to World of Warcraft.

What’s sad is the number of legitimate visits to the site is usually in the range of less than 10 per day, meaning the blog on average is more than ten times as popular as a potential hacking target than as something to read. On the plus side that less-than-ten number is still more people than ever read my paper journal.

Book review: The Kraken Wakes

John Wyndham’s 1953 novel The Kraken Wakes is at times quaintly British and outdated but still an intriguing portrayal of a truly alien attack on Earth.

Telling the story from the first person perspective of Mike Watson, a reporter with EBC, a fictional competitor to the BBC, the novel chronicles three phases of an alien invasion that starts with red meteors plunging into the deepest parts of the world’s oceans–a frontier that no human had visited back then (and few have visited since). For a time there is no immediate connection between the meteors and any kind of alien incursion. This changes when great quantities of sludge churn up from the deeps, suggesting an intelligence at work.

Investigation leads to unseen retaliation, as a bathysphere sent down to investigate is compromised and its crew of two killed. Britain responds by dropping a nuke into the deep but they have no way of knowing what happens. The aliens then disrupt shipping with unknown weapons that shatter ships apart in moments and follow by sending remote-controlled and/or organic “sea tanks” to attack coastal populations, snaring people and dragging them back to the ocean depths for unknown purposes (food? entertainment? both?) The tanks are discovered to be very vulnerable to explosives and are for the most part repelled.

This leads to the third and final phase, with the aliens warming the ocean’s waters, causing a precipitous rise in sea levels across the globe. The aliens clearly don’t want to share their new home with landlubbers.

The main characters of Mike and his co-worker and wife Phyllis, are witness to several events directly and their employer the EBC uses them to present stories covering the drawn-out invasion. The meat of the story takes the form of long monologues by characters recounting incidents or expounding on what can or must be done. This creates a bit of a distancing effect, in spite of the husband and wife team being intimately involved or witness to much of the action. It does allow Wyndham to recount various opinion pieces and the prevailing mood of the public and government, which lends a journalistic “witness to history” feel that somewhat compensates for the distancing effect of the monologues. A large part of the novel details the reaction of the world to the years-long invasion events, with public interest waxing and waning with activity and governments generally disinclined to take more decisive action. It’s somewhat depressing in how authentic the reactions and actions feel. Basically humanity waits until it’s too late.

The science is kept fairly low key and holds up credibly due to the vagueness–and the fact that nukes are the answer used most often. The most outdated part of the novel is the still-entertaining back and forth between the West and the Soviets, with the Soviets playing up the rhetoric against the fascist, capitalist West (and trying to blame every alien attack on them, while they only wish to preserve Peace with a capital “p”).

Perhaps my least favorite part of the novel comes right at the end. Wyndham paints an increasingly bleak picture of a world greatly depopulated and only just hanging on above the rising water and appears about to end the story on this depressing and uncertain note. Instead, a person delivers a message to Mike and Phyllis on their newly-made island refuge that the Japanese have created a sound-based weapon that kills the aliens dead and everything will be peachy after all (apart from the depopulation and newly terrible climate, that is). The revelation comes so late in the story that it feels like a deus ex machina, a happy face sticker to make the reader feel better about things.

Still, it’s not enough to detract from the overall story and it is clear the surviving people still have a long struggle ahead of them to restore society to something that doesn’t get regularly eaten by possibbly jelly-like beings living five miles below the ocean surface.

Also I don’t think I’ve read a novel where two characters refer to each other as “darling” more than this one. Maybe it was the style (of writing) at the time.

Predictions for 2014 (from 1964)

I came across another article about predicting the future purely by coincidence today. Or was it? (Yes, it was.) In this case it’s Isaac Asimov predicting the world 50 years hence during the World’s Fair of 1964. Asimov was a pretty smart guy so let’s see how he did on a few select predictions.

Full article on openculture.com

“[T]he world population will be 6,500,000,000 and the population of the United States will be 350,000,000.” And later he warns that if the population growth continues unchecked, “All earth will be a single choked Manhattan by A.D. 2450 and society will collapse long before that!” As a result, “There will, therefore, be a worldwide propaganda drive in favor of birth control by rational and humane methods and, by 2014, it will undoubtedly have taken serious effect.”

This is fairly accurate in terms of the numbers, though only China had the drive for birth control with its one child per family program. And while the population of the world is bulging, it’s currently 7.2 billion, which the world is sort-of managing (so far).

“Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica.”

“Direct dial”, heh heh heh. Otherwise this is a pretty good description of VOIP, ereader/tablet/Internet technology. This one is a bit of a gimme, though, sort of like predicting color photographs in 1910.

“[M]ankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014.”

This is half-accurate and half-old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn (which is to say, an exaggeration). Ennui and shallow over-stimulation are contributing to messed up people, young and old(er) alike, no doubt. In another prediction Asimov foresees automation and machinery leading to an excess of leisure time, suggesting these may be contributing factors to the above. Lingering high unemployment and the growing gulf between the wealthy and everyone else are just as relevant, probably. I wonder, too, what the psychological effects of living in megacities are over the long term.

“Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.”

Yes, Asimov disses robots. This prediction is not really accurate in 2014. Robots are common (in factories and on assembly lines) and are very good at the limited tasks given them. The SkyNET/take-over-the-world robots still have a ways to go. This means we still have time to prepare so I count it as a good thing.

I will conclude with a prediction for 2064:

Flying cars.

No, just kidding. Here’s a real one:

The world will not be using fossil fuels in 2064.

Now I just need to live to be 100 years old to see if it comes true. I’m feeling spry halfway there. I think I can do it!

It’s now 2014

Flying car joke goes here.

Meanwhile, gizmodo has an article from the January 6, 1910 edition of the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette featuring 41 predictions on what the world would be like in the 21st century. These were predictions made in good faith (presumably). The full list is at the link but here’s a few I liked:

  • Cure for cancer. [Sadly this remains elusive]
  • Discovery south pole. [This happened the following year,  in 1911]
  • Create living organisms by artificial means. [Artificial insemination!]
  • Phonograph records substitute for letter. [This never happened but we now have the even less bulky email instead]
  • Settle question of communication with Mars. Wonderful astronomical discoveries. [We called, no one was home]
  • Power of mind over matter a practical science devoid of superstitious elements. [Telekinesis would mean never having to look for the TV remote again but this remains the realm of fiction or all my telekinetic friends are holding out on me]
  • United States constitution rewritten, providing improved means for conservation of original democratic principles. [LOL?]
  • Produce rainfall at will. [Seeding clouds makes this sort-of true]
  • Roads of nation paved. [Dream big, 1910! The prediction today would be: Roads of nation re-paved.]
  • Cure for and elimination of tuberculosis. [Nope]
  • Movements for universal language, universal religion, universal money. [Esperanto, (none), Bitcoins. That’s 0 for 3.]
  • Construction largely of concrete and metal or newly discovered materials. [Yep, especially for large buildings]
  • Electricity will move world’s wheels. Later radio-activity may substitute. [I don’t think radioactivity means what they thought it means]
  • Terrors of war so multiplied by death dealing inventions, chances of war minimized. [LOL?]
  • Population of United States based on present ratio of increased, 1,317,547,000 at opening of twenty-first century. [Off by about a billion. Maybe if they had developed baby machines.]
  • Machinery largely substituting manual energy, will promote pursuit of finer arts and sciences; give ample opportunity for relaxation and amusement; emancipate wage slaves. Three-hour work day predicted. [This is charmingly optimistic. And horribly wrong.]
  • Photographs in natural colors. [Yes!]
  • Women’s political equality. [In the U.S. women got the vote in 1920]
  • Government control of corporations. [Got this one backwards]
  • Animated pictures in natural colors, transmitted by wireless. [TV and/or Internet]
  • Natural colors reproduced in newspaper pictures. [Yes, although newspapers themselves are kind of going extinct]
  • Reduction of elimination all forms of gambling, including stocks. [LOL?]
  • Moral, intellectual and economical awakening in dark sections of Africa, China a world power. [“Dark” sections of Africa? Racist! Good call on China, though.]
  • Due to universal education, with special reference to hygiene, doctors and drugs be largely eliminated; average age to be near 60 years; men taller, stronger, higher intelligence and morals. [This one is funny because after all the lofty changes they still only expect people to live to 60.]