Forbidden Planet

I was laid off last Wednesday (27-August-2008) - for economic, not performance reasons. Not that I am upset or shocked or dazed and confused. It was a great company to work for, I was well treated and respected. I had no complaints (except that possibly the work was not always as stimulating as I hoped). It renders some decision making a bit easier. Clearly I will be moving to Montreal now, instead of Sofia coming to Ottawa. Sofia and my dad (especially my dad) seem more shocked by this than I am. My dad even dropped by on the weekend to try and cheer me up, gave me the "blessing in disguise" sermon. I don't believe in blessings in disguise. I don't think God plays mind games with people. "Oh look, you have cancer. Isn't that a blessing in disguise?" Erm ... no. Sofia is wondering what happened. "They loved you. You said the company was doing well. It is so cold and brutal." Well, yeah, they did like me and they treated me well. Yes, the compan...

but you will not exhaust all your foes. If you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain. - Nagarjuna , a Buddhist philosopher, c150-250 CE He that will be angry for anything will be angry for nothing. - Sallust, Roman historian, 86-34 BCE. When we reject people in anger, or turn on them with the aim of inflicting pain, we damage our souls even more. - Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, 121-180 CE (Meditations, Chapter 2) [For those who are curious where I've been ... erm ... mixture of a lack of enthusiasm, energy and time for blogging. But not to worry, I have had plenty of time to come down with Strep throat - twice. I am currently on my second round of antibiotics, apparently the first round wasn't wholly effective. Makes me wonder how 10 days was decided upon as the standard treatment duration because this is not the first time a round of antibiotics has failed to cure me and I have ended up going for a second round. I have also been busy reading about photograph...

Roswell is famous (or infamous) for the supposed crashing of a UFO there back in 1947 , from which there was apparently at least one alien recovered. The description of the "alien" has given rise to the familiar grey alien . I don't believe in aliens and UFOs any longer - I did when I was younger, but that is many decades behind (well, if 2 decades counts as many) - but there are better, more probable and less convoluted ways of explaining and understanding things. My take on it: (1) the crashed object was not a UFO, (2) it was a military test object, possible a style of plane or perhaps something along the lines of a balloon of connected to a balloon, (3) there was no alien recovered, (4) if a living being was recovered, it was human and very likely suffering from the genetic disease known as Progeria - characterized by accelerated aging, with death occurring in the early teens. Why would I come to this conclusion? Because people suffering from progeria look an awful lo...

it is many short races one after the other.” - Walter Elliot (1842-1928) Good advice for me. I have a tendency to look too far out and see that the final goal is seemingly unattainable. On the other hand, I have to work on reasonable short term goals. I find it easy to set trivial short term goals, unfortunately, achieving them doesn't satisfy; it is the difference between busy work and meaningful work. Also, I have a tendency to try to do too much, instead of just enough. For example, I might decide to reorganize my chemistry books (despite my best Hell paving intentions, my books have a tendency toward chaos), but I will end up trying to reorganize everything - possibly even catalogue them. Consequently, nothing gets done. Need to focus on just reorganizing what needs to be done and forget about the rest. Today's thought (no promise of thoughts tomorrow).

I don't know how many of you read the fine print when you sign up for things .. erm ... I generally don't. I used to, but always found them to be draconian terms of enslavement that that basically said they have all the power and rights and you have none, forever, in perpetuity. Recently I decided to read the Google terms of service , after all, I use Google to blog (Blogger is owned by Google), I have a gmail account, I have considered using their online office applications to store documents - leaving storage and backup to them (I reckon they are likely to be better at it than I am). Section 11 starts off promising enough: 11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. I own the rights to all the content (intellectual property) I post, store or transmit (e-mail) using Google services and tools. Then it goes downhill: By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a per...

"Would someone go to Wimbeldon to play one match? Become a heart surgeon just to do one open-heart surgery and then go back to his regular life? Would someone go to law school to try just one case in court? Or go through all the trouble of opening a coffee shop to stay open for one day?" - Heather Sellers, Chapter after Chapter My response is "Yes! I would" , it is who I am. Some days, I feel I really need to be more passionate about one thing, rather than interested in many things. You can read a sample chapter (chapter 7) here . It is a pdf, so you might want to right click and download it first (for Windows users, I have no idea how a Mac user would do it). Loved the second and third paragraph on the second page. [Updated 02-July-2008 @ 10:27: provided link to author's site selling the book (no, I don't get any commission). Also added paragraph and link pointing to sample chapter pdf].

Seeing as today is Earth Day and I am strapped for time, I am gently appropriating this post from Ingrid 's blog. I think it is a powerful message to reflect upon.

Earlier this week (07-April-2008), Forbidden Planet became a 3 year old toddler. Over a period of 1101 days, I have managed 556 posts (including this one). Not as prolific as some bloggers, but I think averaging one post every two days isn't too bad. My ground rules for posting are pretty simple: no more than 1 post per day (I have broken this rule 3 times, I think) keep the posts concise. My fictitious goal is 3 paragraphs avoid repetition leave the reader with something to think about I hope the approach I take to blogging is similar to what Lister Sinclair expressed about the way he approached the production of Ideas : (paraphrase) "I assume the listener is intelligent and very knowledgeable in all subject matters, except the one I am presenting." I think I have been reasonably successful. Some of my favourite posts over the past 3 years (there is no rhyme or reason to their selection, except that they came quickly to mind and I like them): Evolution of a Peeve What ...

Last week was a rather hectic as I commuted daily between Ottawa and Montreal (200Km each way or 1600Km in total or 120L of gas) because Sofia was in Brazil and that left me to take care of the kids (same thing happens next week when she goes to Panama). So opportunities to blog were rather scarce. This week, I have to play catch up at work on hours missed last week. I am not out of ideas, just out of energy to blog. bleh. Anyway ... I was in Chapters this past Monday and went to the magazine rack to look at magazines. I picked a glossy one ( Circuit Cellar ) and it was warm. It felt very nice in my hands and evoked a very pleasant emotional rsponse. I didn't have my infrared pyrometer with me (even if I did, I would have felt self conscious pulling it out to measure the temperature of the magazines, the shelving and lights), but I would estimate it at having been somewhere between 30C and 35C (based on measuring the temperature of my hands later on and remembering that the magaz...

As promised , side by side (well, top by bottom) comparison of the Fly scanned handwriting and my actual handwriting as it appeared on the page. The Fly and other digital pens require a special paper. The paper has a series of dots printed on it in a pattern. It is a sort of two dimensional barcode. According to Wikipedia , if the entire pattern was printed out, it would cover an area in excess of 4.6 million km 2 . Last weekend, 51cm of snow fell in Ottawa. As you can see, the backyard is filled almost to the top of the fence with snow. Which means the snow is close to 5 feet deep. More than 411 cm has fallen in Ottawa this Winter. There is more snow expected this coming week. We have a chance to break the 1970/71 snowfall record of 441 cm. I think less snow fell in Montreal. As you can see in this photo, the snow only goes about half way up the fence. Making it maybe 3 feet deep at best. A blood orange. The inside of a blood orange. The first animated film I have ever made (if you di...

Recently I purchased the Fly Fusion Pentop Computer , just because it looked so cool (and I had some spare money to spend). It is pretty cool. To get best handwriting recognition out of it, you do have to print in a fairly clear manner, which I can, though it is a bit of an effort and slows me down as I consciously try to form the various letters. On the other hand, the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology is pretty good if you print nicely. If you don't then it is a bit of a mess. Below are two samples of writing: one done in nice tidy print, the other in my usual scrawl. It does quite well with the first sample and horribly with the second. Obviously my normal upper case block printing is pretty hard on the OCR. And it certainly doesn't seem to like the way I prefer to form my letters. It may have helped to be sitting at a table rather than lying on my stomach on the bed scribbling away, but, then again, it is the portability I want. An interesting observation is th...

When does a difference in opinion, understanding or perception cross the threshold and become a mental disorder? When does confidence and certainty become delusion? I am reminded of the story of a woman many years ago on CBC radio, who told how her parents had her diagnosed as insane and committed as an adolescent because she was lesbian. While I may not agree with her and I believe her behaviour to be wrong (yeah, yeah, I am on the conservative end of the spectrum here), I certainly do not think she was insane. So what is the difference between being "wrong" and having a fundamentally disordered perception, understanding and experience of the world? To adapt a saying: I may not know what insanity is, but I know it when I see it . Principally inspired (bits copied verbatim from my comment) by a post on Barbara's blog .

Yesterday someone shared a useful tip with me: should you be the victim of a robbery in which you are forced to withdraw money from an ATM, by entering your PIN backwards you will send a silent alarm to the bank which will then notify the police. I restrained, but probably not entirely successfully, the urge to laugh. It sounds like a great security measure, unfortunately, it is impractical. Under normal circumstances I presume it is hard enough form most people to mentally reverse their PIN (it is for me). Under a stressful situation, I presume it would be pretty nigh impossible. Further there is the problem of people using palindromic PINs like 1111 or 2332 because they are easier to remember, this person replied, "Well, I guess you're screwed then." I also wondered why I had never been told or informed about this. The person answered back, "I guess they don't want it general knowledge so the criminals don't know about it." Uh-huh. If such a system wer...

What a wonderful word. A languid, viscous word proceeding out from the pit of chest distending the throat and smothering the tongue as it oozes out. It is a word that begs for exaggerated pronunciation, loo-oo-oo-goo-oo-oo-bree-ee-ee-us, yet it has a serious short coming: The meaning is all wrong. It means sad, mournful, gloomy, miserable, melancholic. Yet ... that is not at all what it sounds like. To me, it sounds like it should mean something thick, heavy, slow moving, plodding. I want it to mean languid and viscous, but it doesn't. I feel cheated, deceived and betrayed. (There are other words that fit in this category, where the actual meaning is not what I intuitively feel they should be, such as condone or vicarious, their meaning and understanding is a conscious effort.) I want to use it in sentence like, "He had a lugubrious moustache." and I want it to mean he had a large, heavy, drooping walrus moustache. I want to be able to say, "He was feeling lugubrio...

it's just that I wanted to live; to enjoy life in all its fullness." Rowan Yew, age 43, a first class dilettante and entrepreneur, lay in his bed, covered up to his chin, in his darkened bedroom. Attending him were his friends, Dr. Jason Reselda, the eminent pathologist, and Gabriel Malachi, the no less distinguished geneticist. While all three were super-achievers, Rowan led the pack; his power, opulence and extravagance a testament to his ability to seize opportunities and profit from them. He did nothing by half measures and never considered failure as a possible outcome. "That's good to hear, because dying is just what you are doing", said Jason. "Are you sure?" "I see no other outcome. The last sample I examined continues to show an expanding infection. In fact, you are more pathogen than man. You should have been dead long ago." "Then perhaps I am not dying." "You're dying alright. Shortly you will cease to be a ...

I was listening to Dispatches (with Rick MacInnes-Rae) on CBC radio recently and there was a segment on slogans in China. Apparently China is very keen on slogans - short aphorisms to instil good social and moral values and behaviour. Although, they are so widespread that people pretty much ignore them. When a Chinese man was asked about the Olympic slogan for 2008, "One World, One Dream" , he said he didn't like it. Why should there be only one dream. Why couldn't he dream his own dream? I agree with him. Image nabbed from here .

"A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, and triumph. Everything else we shall destroy." Adapted from George Orwell's 1984. The text was extracted and modified from a longer quote from 1984 that I previously posted. Properly marked up it would look like this: "Do you begin to see ... what kind of world we are creating? ... A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. ... The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, [and] triumph ... Everything else we shall de...

Today is Ash Wednesday and begins the 40 day period of Lent in the Roman Catholic and other Western Christian churches (Eastern churches start on a different day as do the Oriental churches. This year, Eastern Rite churches begin Lent on 10-March. It begins on Clean Monday and last 42 days. The Coptic Church begins Lent on 03-March this year and it lasts 55 days. For Western and Eastern Rite churches, Sundays are excluded from Lenten observation. In the Coptic Church they are not). It is a period of fast and abstinence. The ashes distributed on the forehead are a symbol of repentance from the Jewish tradition of using ashes and sackcloth to signify repentance. I am not aware of any official requirement to use sackcloth during the Lenten period, but I have seen a strip of sackcloth draped over crucifixes in church and a number of Catholics I know carry around a small piece. It is not part of my tradition and I do not participate in that manner. (I recall first observing the use of sackc...

One of life's questions.

I saw Metropolis about 15 years ago and then read the book about 8 years later. The book is better than the movie. As I grow older, the futile image of constantly feeding and tending the machines grows stronger in my mind. I recognized pater noster as Latin for Our Father (as in the opening of the Lord's Prayer) and assumed that Thea von Harbou's references to the pater noster machine were overt references to a machine that consumed and ate its workers (much like Cronus in Greek mythology ate his children – or perhaps Moloch, to whom children were sacrificed). I only recently discovered that a pater noster machine is a type of slow moving elevator invented in 1884 . Image nabbed from here .