Learning July 1, 2018
I work in the field of natural language understanding and in the last few years I've figured out how to use that very advantageously wrt learning.
Here's the approach I use:
Every time you come across a new term or concept, you create a new "notebook"/document. That's right, one notebook per concept. The title of the notebook is the name of the concept.
You create a summary for the concept using bullet points. What you're trying to maximize with this set of bullet points is the speed at which, in the future, you can re-read them and achieve a similar brain state to what you had when you originally learned the concept.
You can then obviously have extended notes below that where you go into more detail.
Then, crucially, you create something akin to a regex that will allow you to quickly and unambiguously look the concept up in the future. If you just learned what a rectified linear unit is, your pattern might simply be: rlu | (rectified linear unit)
You then have a hotkey on your computer -- I use Ctrl-Q, that brings up a text box where you can type the name of the concept you want to bring up (ex. "rlu"). When you press ENTER, it doesn't give you search results if there's an exact match, but instead directly opens the document and makes it instantly viewable / editable.
As your concept graph starts to grow, you have links within your notebooks to related concepts as they're referenced.
Each time you read an article that is important to your understanding of a concept, you quickly open up that notebook and add that article, and perhaps one or two bullet points that contain the key things you learned that expanded your sense of that concept.
This same system can be used for more than learning text book information. You can use it if your a project manager to keep tabs on the millions of things you have to juggle, you can have notebooks for people, for lists, and you can have "regexes" for "programs"/scripts, for web pages, for files/directories, etc, etc.
More general than "regexes" are context free grammars. In this context what that means is the ability to have named "subroutines" for your regexes. For example, if you end up using RLU as a sub-part of a lot of other notebook regexes, then you might define $rlu to be a short form for (rlu | (rectified linear unit)).
I'm also a person that loves exploring "idea space", especially as it relates to understanding intelligence, machine learning, etc. I've been using this approach the last few months for this as well -- any time I have an "aha" moment about a concept, or about how two concepts are related, I quickly flip open the appropriate notebook and add my idea.
When Elon talks about learning, he will sometimes talk about it being easy because you just hang a new piece of information on "the tree". What I suspect is that Elon's knowledge tree doesn't crumble as fast as my own. Most times when I learn a new concept or facet of a concept, I will forget it quite quickly. Now that I have a knowledge tree in digital form, I really do have a place to "hang" new bits of knowledge, and they don't get lost. Hopefully this is a more scalable approach to learning.
Alternating Analog/Digital January 23, 2018
I once heard it described that the universe seems to be viewable through both an "analog"/continuous lens as well as a "digital"/discrete lens. And furthermore, that as you zoom out from the minute, there can be a kind of back-and-forth between analog and digital models making the most sense.
It makes me wonder whether computation will evolve in a similar way. Maybe our deep neural nets will evolve into systems that mix and match continuous and discrete layers, giving rise to a synergy between the two that takes its abilities to the next level.
That's a pretty raw and not-thought-through idea, but it has a certain ring to it for me...
Tech Watch December 29, 2017
As a technology person, I find it fun to watch things progress. Here's a list of various things that I'm looking forward to watching in the coming year(s):
Falcon Heavy launch, especially the simultaneous landing of its two side cores back on land.
The Boring Company
Falcon 9 launch cadence
Crew Dragon's unmanned launch
Crew Dragon's crewed launch
Tesla Model 3's production ramp-up
Falcon 9 fairing recovery and reuse
Autonomous Vehicles (Including, hopefully, the "coast to coast" drive from LA to NYC using Autopilot as promised by Elon)
Machine Learning / Deep Learning / GPUs
DeepMind's efforts to win at Starcraft
Amazon
Automated package delivery
Advanced automation, "lights out" factories
Tesla Semi
Solar roofs
Gigafactory construction and production ramp
Hyperloop
Blue Origin New Shepherd
Air taxis, autonomous aircraft, electric aircraft
EV growth
Blue Origin New Glenn
Supercharger Network growth
Elon's goal of "reflight within 24 hours"
"Tesla Network" (autonomous ridesharing fleet)
Tesla Powerwall / Powerpack
Solar prices, Battery prices
SpaceX's Boca Chica launch site
CPU lithography: 10 nm, 7 nm, 5 nm, etc.
SSD sizes / speeds
SpaceX's Mars ambitions.
Elon's Neuralink efforts
Possibility of space tourists during a lunar flyby in 2019
Draw Giraffe, See a Movie October 8, 2016
It struck me today as I was drawing giraffes with 4 year old Hazel that within a few years it should be possible for a child to draw an animal, whether it be a giraffe or a dog, and have the computer use that as a style blueprint.
It should then be able to take the pre-rendered model for a short movie involving that animal and use the stylized version of the animal when rendering a new cut of that movie.
It might also be possible for the child to give some direction about what should happen in the movie, such as the giraffe running from a lion and then escaping by jumping over a river, and have the movie include those components.
How far away are we from that? Could a compelling prototype be built within 10 years perhaps?
This looks very promising and fits very well with the way I tend to think about things.
2016: The Year of Space April 30, 2016
2016 is shaping up to be the most interesting year for space flight since the days of Apollo, especially if you book-end it with the tale end of 2015.
Dec 2015
First successful Falcon 9 landing (on land)
First flight of Falcon 9 v 1.2
Return to flight after June mishap
April 2016: First successful barge landing
April 2016: SpaceX announces plans for 2018 landing of 5 tonnes on Mars (huge surprise)
July/August/Sept: First re-flight of Falcon 9 booster
August: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition
September: Reveal of Mars plans
Nov/Dec/Jan: First flight of Falcon Heavy
On top of all of that: Up to 18 flights and landing attempts of Falcon 9
Blue Origin's first re-flight of their rocket (and in late 2015, the first landing)
(Also of recent was the reveal of Pluto)
The above represents a lot of very momentous events, all packed into little more than a year. If you're someone intrigued by spaceflight, it's perhaps analogous to the year a sports nutt's favorite hockey team won the Stanley Cup and set all sorts of records.
It could all come to a grinding half if and when the next rocket blows up, but if all goes according to plan, it will be a crazy year.
Widening the scope technology wise, we've also recently had:
Sept 2015: Autopilot beta goes live -- first compelling semi-autonomous technology on the market
Sept 2015: Release/reveal of Tesla Model X
March 2016: Reveal of Tesla Model 3, with 400,000 reservations
Gigafactory phase 1 starting to come on line
Volvo's announcement of 2017 program that will feature real families driving fully autonomous vehicles on select roads
Last year I created some code to take the Netflix movie recommendations on my account and my wife's account and combine our projected ratings for the movies. Then I sorted the list.
For some time now, I've enjoyed this type of strategy for helping people decide on shared things, whether it be a baby name, or a movie. It seems to work pretty well!
After watching a couple of movies taken from this list recently, I was quite smitten with the result. In both cases, the movies were ones I probably never would have picked off of the shelf, and yet we really did enjoy watching them.
After yet more reflection, I think I've realized that part of what made the end result so nice is that it almost felt like we had hired a person to sift through a bunch of facts about who we are, what our values are, the kind of things that delight us, and then that person went off and spent a few days looking through movies, trying to find ones that would be a perfect fit for the two of us.
Of course, that didn't happen. It was just computer code at Netflix -- lots of machine learning / modeling techniques, and then a simple match rank algorithm to combine Meredith's and my recommendations.
This makes me curious about the future: How often will people feel "cared for" in a sense when in fact it's just algorithms optimizing their lives. Maybe I'm unusual, but in reflecting on this, I actually did feel kind of cared for after watching those two movies. It felt like someone was looking out for me, being thoughtful, on my behalf.
Modeling a Person February 5, 2016
One of the odd things that Ray Kurzweil has talked about is the idea of recreating his father as an artificial intelligence, and to do so using old photographs and writings of his father's. Upon hearing this, even though it sounds bizarre, I felt compassion for him -- he lost his father at a relatively young age, and it was obviously a huge loss for him. His faith in bringing him back seems to have grown out of his deep hope that it might be possible, however unlikely.
All this said, something struck me today that isn't completely unrelated. In past months I've pondered the (not new, I don't think) idea of building up an AI by feeding it a stream of video, sound, and touch, and having its algorithms attempt to build a model that can predict the next "frame" of sensory data. Thus, one gets "free" supervised training data.
Let's connect this idea to Ray's dream of modeling his father, but let's assume his father was still living. What we'll do is have his father wear something like Google Glass, which will record everything his father is seeing and hearing. We'll also have him wear a thin nylon-like suit that will record the X/Y/Z position of his body parts and what touch stimuli he is receiving. The system will then record everything that he says, everything he types, and every motor control that he does.
Once we've done this, we again have a "supervised" training set... the stimuli he is receiving are the inputs, and his behaviors are the outputs... everything from what he says, to the exact tone of his voice, to the precise way he holds his head, or how often he blinks.
Let's imagine we capture a few petabytes of this data, and then we use a fancy computer in 2065 with an insane amount of neural network capability to train a neural net that tries to predict what his father's behavior will be in a given situation.
Finally, we'll run the neural net, and have it run in VR, creating a photo-realistic representation of the man, and to interact with him, you strap on a VR headset, and enter that virtual world.
I'm curious what this might be like in a year like 2065... would such a technique exist? Would it be in any way compelling? And how about the limit... given enough time, might we be able to "model" a person well enough to create a VR likeness of them that was very compelling?
Tesla 7.1 Software: Summoning Car From/To Garage January 10, 2016
Tesla has released the next iteration of their software, and videos are cropping up of people summoning their cars to or from their garage. The car even autonomously opens their garage door.
These "firsts" are really delightful for us tech folk. They bring a smile to my face. Well done Tesla people.
Hyperloop Progress January 9, 2016
The Hyperloop is of course one of those ideas that is very uncertain. Will it ever turn into a reality? Maybe?!
But things suddenly seem to be heating up -- this week a picture showed up with 20 or so massive tubes sitting out in the desert, ready to be assembled into a test track. Word is that they want to have a prototype track (3 km?) setup by late 2016 or into 2017. That's coming up fast.
That photo for me, I think, was the inflection point. It's when I went from feeling hopeful but skeptical to feeling even a little bit confident that, yes, this thing is going to happen.
And that's a bit startling, because... well, this is the Hyperloop, and it's a very wild and crazy thing to be real.
I'm trying to imagine this miles-long tube, with something whizzing through it at 500+ miles per hour. It feels so imaginary! Time will tell, I guess.
The Air-taxi January 9, 2016
Perhaps a year and a half ago, as the public became more interested in drones, and as the dream of autonomous cars continued to more forward, I had a moment of clarity when the concept of an air-taxi came to mind.
This week at CES, a Chinese company announced their work on a very similar concept:
For now, there's no "taxi service" element to it, but that would obviously be a layer that could be applied to the idea.
It will be interesting to watch this space over the next 20 years to see if any companies are able to make the idea fly.
They Did It December 22, 2015
Whew, my anxiety has been soothed and replaced with excitement. They did it! They actually landed the rocket, perfectly.
Being an empathetic soul, I was touched to read of grown men crying at the sight of this accomplishment. One guy said he was sitting in O'Hare Airport crying as he watched the event on the TV there.
Perhaps my reflection here will be on the feeling of unity and encouragement. As a human being, the feeling of being united with our brothers and sisters, sharing joy and deep encouragement, is a profound experience.
SpaceX Launch December 21, 2015
For people intrigued by giant things that blast off into space, tonight (or tomorrow, possibly) is a tense time. SpaceX is returning to flight after a six months hiatus following the rocket that exploded a minute into flight in June. Not only that, this will be their first attempt at landing the rocket back on land, and if it's a successful landing, it will be a historic day -- the first commercial rocket to lob something into orbit, and then return and land on land.
There is quite a bit of anxiety in the air.
People like me realize that, while not likely, the primary mission could be a failure, either due to the rocket exploding, or due to some secondary malfunction. Even if that succeeds, there's still quite a bit of anxiety about the landing. We all want, very badly, for the landing to be a success. And if all of that wasn't enough, there's anxiety about whether the rocket will launch tonight. Anything, such as the weather, or a technical glitch, or even something else, could postpone the launch. Even if it is postponed until tomorrow, it might be postponed again, even into January.
Anxiety, and lots of it.
The anxiety about the rocket exploding is higher than it would normally be for a return-to-flight, because SpaceX, for the first time ever, is flying a modified rocket. Not only is the rocket modified, but they are for the first time ever trying a launch with a super-super-cooled variety of fuel. Anyone with an inclination of an engineer will see changes like that as an invitation for unknown things to happen. And unknown things in the world of rockets, where everything has to happen 99.9% right (or kaboom) brings with it anxiety.
Another contributor to the anxiety is that there is an atmosphere of expectation around the landing being a success. Well, expectation is perhaps a bit strong. But consider that back in June, my internal feeling for a successful landing was still around 40%... I thought it more likely that the rocket would again crash into the drone ship and go kaboom. (but also knew that it could very well work) Today, however, my internal sense is about an 80% likelihood for successful landing. And anytime you start to feel that something is likely, but not certain, you start to feel anxious, because you've told your internal self "I expect it will work, but it might not". Isn't that the very definition of anxiety? (kind of?) No one likes their expectations dashed.
On that 80% figure -- why am I feeling more confident? Well, SpaceX has had 6 months to think long and hard about the landing. That's actually quite a bit of time to tweak things, testing things, etc. Secondly, it's on land, giving them a much wider margin for error, and when you're doing something this insanely difficult, a 50% or 100% or 200% wider margin for error is huge in terms of odds of success. Just imagine the rocket, at the last minute, computing "oh crap, trying to land within 40 feet of the intended target would require aggressive tilting that brings with it low odds of success... oh, but hey, my landing area is way bigger, so forget landing within 30 feet of my target, I'll just go with 100 feet from my target". Even if the rocket were to miss the concrete and land on the packed gravel, the odds of it staying upright are probably decent. Finally, I'm going on SpaceX's posture. They (Elon) are being so bold to invite people to watch the landing from the causeway, and my understanding is that, unlike the low-probability barge landings, they'll be live-streaming the landing. I suspect they wouldn't be live streaming it if the odds of success were still below 50%. I imagine their internal sense is that the odds are > 80%. Ok, one final thought on the odds of successful landing -- they have *already* numerous times successfully done soft touchdowns, they just happened to be on the water, rather than on the barge or land. That indicates that bringing the rocket down to a soft vertical landing is pretty "easy" at this point, and the real challenge is trying to get it within 30 feet, especially if that target is moving somewhat (the barge). Perhaps one of the big unknown variables is how far from the pad SpaceX has programmed their rocket to considering an acceptable landing spot. ie. If landing within 150 feet of the target is deemed low probability by the rocket in the final seconds, will it make a compromise and accept a landing spot that is perhaps 200 feet away from center? If they have that much flexibility, I might think the odds of success to be as high as 85-90% for the landing.
Right, so lots of anxiety floating around.
I'm going to get pessimistic for a moment: Part of me expects the odds of mission failure to be much higher than people might think. The reason for that is mainly around the modifications that SpaceX has made around fuel densification, etc. It is also due to the fact that SpaceX failed three times in a row when they were building the Falcon 1. What's the point? The point is that it is somewhat in SpaceX's DNA to fail spectacularly. They are pushing the envelope, and they're pushing it hard. And when you're doing things at the very edge of what's possible, rapidly iterating and experimenting, watch out -- kaboom is going to be more likely than as compared to the guys who are taking the slow conservative approach. I actually think SpaceX is going about things the right way, so long as they don't get too carried away with their aggressive envelope pushing. Flying this fuel densified version of their rocket on return to flight -- is that too aggressive or is it reasonable? My gut is telling me it might be a bit too aggressive. If they're successful tonight with it, and successful the next few flights with it, then they will have gotten away with it. I truly hope that's the case. But if the primary mission fails, it is going to be an almost impossibly difficult blow to SpaceX and to Elon Musk. I do worry about his emotional state. Interviews he's given make it apparent just how difficult it was for the rocket to explode in June. What would a second consecutive mission failure do to his psyche?
Perhaps the three failures of Falcon 1, and the insane pressure of 2008, will be useful experience for Elon... now that his organizations are much, much larger, knowing how to chart such difficult waters may be a huge asset.
But let's hope my pessimism is unfounded. We're all hoping for a big party tonight. (or tomorrow)
Memory December 12, 2015
Something that I think I've noticed about myself -- or perhaps it's due to my steadily increasing age -- is that my memory is a significant limiting factor to my ability to learn.
I suppose the first point is this: When I was 23, I imagined myself as someone who would continue learning, and really enjoying learning, for decades to come. But at some point in my 20s I realized that I was forgetting faster than I was learning. I had made some quizzes for myself for courses in my 4th year of university, and 10 years later I tried taking a quiz. I wasn't able to answer even a single question. The vocabulary was now unfamiliar, the concepts too fuzzy to recall.
But now I've noticed the trend occurs more quickly. This year I took a sabbatical and spent time studying grammar and probability. This week someone was talking about "MAP", "Maximum a Priori", which was a term I recall from the probability course, but I couldn't remember the concept itself. I found that somewhat bewildering -- a whole chunk of the course was on that topic, and I couldn't bring it to mind.
This year I was strongly chastised at work for doing something that (apparently) had been mentioned not to do on a mailing list at least a couple of times over the last 4 years. Do I remember? Not in the slightest.
No one has perfect memory, but I'm starting to suspect that this may be one of my personal weaknesses. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the coming years.
And I'm wondering if this struggle with remembering has been making "higher learning" more difficult for me. Knowledge is like a tree -- you learn the basics, and then branch out from there. But if the tree below you is evaporating at too fast a rate, it makes it hard to build new branches, because you're forgetting the lower level concepts you need to make the new information sensible.
On the positive side, I think I've been making some good progress when it comes to tools that help store and recall information. I use a system of hierarchical notebooks (somewhat akin to the web) to create trees of projects, tasks, and sub-tasks, which is helpful in the future to be able to "re-trace" the structure of what was going on, and even drill down to the details. This dove-tails nicely with a natural language system I use at work for associating linguistics with things -- I can type "todo" and get my TODO notebook. I can type "meetings" and get my meetings notebook. I can type "probability" and get a root notebook to then branch off various areas of probability that I've been learning about. It's been working quite nicely and, as is not unusual, I wonder how many people out there would benefit quite a bit from having this synergy of hierarchical notebooks + the ability to associate them with NLP "commands" for very quick access.
Fuzziness: Discrete VS Continuous / Digital VS Analog / Approximation November 30, 2015
I remember a few years ago that I was feeling excited about injecting a degree of uncertainty into computation. The point was that while we often create systems that only act if they are certain about their inputs, a world of new possibilities opens up if you are willing to act when you're almost but not completely sure about something.
I gave the example of Google search -- it will often say "assuming you meant ...", and the addition of those smarts is incredibly useful.
Sometimes I think of these systems as "95% systems" -- systems that are willing to treat things as tentatively true if it's >= 95% likely that they're true, and if it is later determined that a false assumption was made, then you go back and fix that assumption.
Recently my mind has been resonating on that theme again. This time the perspective is slightly different -- it is the realization that in math, there are things we call "discrete" -- such as integers, prime numbers, etc, and there are things we call "continuous" -- such as the function y = x^2.
The realization is that the "fuzziness" of "95% systems" is really the introduction of continuity / continuous functions into the realm of computation, and furthermore, neural networks and probabilistic modelling are the primary examples of continuity in computing today. They have opened up a whole new world of possibilities, solving all sorts of problems that discrete systems struggled with.
Another way of looking at this dichotomy is the digital/analog divide.
An intuition/bias that I've had for a number of years is that good things come when you figure out how to property synergize discrete and continuous systems. The point is that neither system of reasoning is the slam dunk answer to intelligence, but rather each of them is more or less useful depending on the domain.
My vague guess is that the intelligent systems of the future will harness both discrete and continuous models in powerful ways, and that those intelligent systems will excel at having those two systems play nicely with one another. Well, more than that -- that those systems will employ a kind of "resonant synergy" that will achieve something far more mind bending than an attempt that used only one of the approaches could achieve.
One last analogy I'll throw in is the notion of "approximate algorithms": There are many problems in computer science for which it is impossible to calculate an exact solution. For example, the famous "travelling salesman" problem... rather than computing the optimal solution, we focus on computing solutions that are likely to be really close to the optimal solution, and to do it in what might be a trillion times faster than trying to get the very best solution. These approximate algorithms I think are yet another example of "fuzziness", and how it can be such an important and exciting area of development.
I came across this interesting paper today, which describes a way of doing Markov Chain Monte Carlo in a way that speeds up optimizing the parameters of a probabilistic model up to 200x. And of course, no big surprise, it's about using intelligent approximation.
This brings to mind to possibility that one day the algorithm we use to do optimization may actually use "AI". What I mean by that is that exploring a curve in hyperspace to find the minimum is in some sense like many other problems: You can look around and collect clues as to the characteristics of the curvature, and use those clues to build a kind of mental model of the dynamics at play, and then ultimately to use what you know about the space to intelligently explore it as quickly as you can.
Imagine a "neural net" of sorts that had been trained on millions of example optimization problems, and was able to very efficiently build an internal model of the topology of a hyper-surface, using that to calculate the optimum parameters... it might be hundreds, or thousands of times faster than naive human attempts that use exact algorithms... and for problems that are just mind-blowingly complex and viewed as semi-intractable today, it might be trillions of times faster.
An amusing side realization is that optimization is a core requirement for building AIs / neural nets in the first place, and so it's conceivable that there could be a recursive benefit to using AIs to do optimization... back to our good old exponential improvements in technology game: Your now supercharged ability to do optimization allows you to train an even more capable neural net, which allows an even faster optimization algorithm, which allows even more capable neural nets, and back and forth you go.
LaserQuest VR November 10, 2015
A realization today: In the near future, it would be possible to take a company like LazerQuest and have everyone wear a VR headset. You would no longer be able to see anything real around you, but rather the VR headset would be responsible for recreating the LaserQuest building as accurately as possible -- it would need to know with high precision where you were in the building, and what direction your face was pointing.
It would also need to know the precise positions of everyone else, to be able to digitally recreate them in the "game".
This would allow a kind of VR experience where you can actually run around, climb up ladders, etc.
And of course, now that you're in VR land, you could have monsters, robots, etc.
If the VR game made a wall look like a window, then the window could even open up into a larger part of the world... you might have tanks rolling down the street trying to blast you. Rather than a roof, you might have jets flying low passes overhead trying to get you.
I could imagine it being pretty compelling once the technology is powerful enough.
A further realization is that the scientific method is essentially the same thing: You create a model, and make predictions using that model. You then examine the results of an experiment and compare that to your predictions, and adjust your model based on the outcome.
The terms "microcosm" and "macrocosm" come to mind... perhaps what the brain does is a kind of microcosm of the scientific method.
What would a 100 billion dollar "AI" company look like? November 1, 2015
As the world changes, companies spring up to take advantage of those changes. When I think of software, I think of Microsoft. When I think of the Internet, I think of Google. When I think of social media, I think of Facebook. When I think of electric vehicles, I think of Tesla.
What about AI? Folks are increasingly suspicious that the next 30 years will see big gains in the areas of intelligent systems and automation. But if you ask me what company comes to mind in terms of being an "AI giant", none come to mind. Google is perhaps the closest match, but not a great fit for what I'm think of here...
So I'm curious. Will a company spring up (or several) that are able to commercialize intelligent software in a way that produces huge sales and a huge market cap? Will those companies grow to dominate producers of "mere operating systems" or "mere search engines"? Or will one of the big software companies evolve to becomes that AI company?
It's hard to know. Maybe intelligent software will be too pervasive to be marketed by individual companies at grand scale.
But if such a company springs up in the next 30 years, I wouldn't be surprised.
Autopilot: Oh The Humanity October 26, 2015
I really had a good chuckle at this video of Howie Mandel trying out Autopilot for the first time:
The other day it struck me how one can take "unsupervised" data and turn it into a kind of pseudo-supervised learning problem.
The basic idea is to take some video. The pixels in a frame of the video are inputs into your neural network, and the outputs of the neural network are a prediction about what the pixel values will be in the next frame of video. Thus, the number of inputs and the number of outputs are actually the same.
The beauty of this setup is that you do actually know what the pixel values are in the next frame, so you essentially have a supervised learning problem. You can use the true pixel values of the next frame to adjust the weights of your neural network.
Now, imagine you don't just feed the algorithm frames of flat video, but of stereo video, and you also feed it sensory data about how quickly the camera is rotating in terms of pitch/roll/yaw, and you give it information about how quickly the camera is accelerating in x/y/z space. You probably see where I'm going with this: The neural network will learn how camera rotation, for example, affects the relationship between the color of a pixel in one image and the color of the pixel in the next image.
Of course, you could also feed sound in, and if you were teaching a robot, you could feed in touch sensory information, etc, etc.
So what would result? Presumably, if your learning framework were set up well, and if it were powerful enough, it would start to implicitly build up models of the world so that it could better and better predict what comes next. For example, image occlusion... to be able to predict what it will look like when one person walks behind another, you need to be able to do "image segmentation" to know what pixels belong to one person and what pixels belong to another person, and you need to be able to sense their rough depth, etc, etc.
Perhaps I'm just re-hashing things that I've read in the past that are hinting at this same idea, but I found this realization somewhat breath-taking... to realize that the universe comes with a relatively infinite amount of supervised training data "for free", so long as your learning architecture is powerful enough to be able to connect the dots, so to speak.
One final sub-thought in this area is to connect this to my previous blog post: It would be possible to "help" the learning algorithm a bit by generating this video using a ray tracer, and to make some of the neural net's outputs things such as the Z depth of each pixel, which the ray tracer could provide precise supervised values for. This would encourage the learning algorithm in the right direction by forcing it to learn the importance of creating a distance-map of what it's seeing. Likewise, you could force it to learn how to do image segmentation by making some of the neural nets outputs pertain to image segmentation, and again, you could use the ray tracer to get a precisely labeled supervised data set for that.
Who knows, perhaps a recurrent neural net to predict the next frame, paired with perfect supervised data for z-depth and image segmentation, and given the computation power we'll have within 10 years in the cloud, could train a neural net like thing to do very impressive visual perception.
Imagine if Supervised Machine Learning Data Sets Were Almost Free October 23, 2015
In the world of machine learning, there are two strategies: One is called "supervised" machine learning, which means that you feed the computer not only example problem inputs, but also tell the computer what answer you're hoping it would give. To contrast that, "unsupervised" machine learning is when you just give the computer a bunch of data and task the computer with finding meaningful patterns in the data.
So far, supervised approaches are the ones that are producing some head-turning results. But there's a catch: Having human beings label giant data sets with the right answers is expensive.
An interesting realization I had the other day is that our ability to use computer graphics to generate images (ray tracers used for 3D animated movies, etc.) gives us an impressive ability. Imagine you're teaching a computer vision system to label all of the pixels in an image as to what type of "thing" it is. A pixel might be a chair, a wall, the carpet, etc. Rather than taking photos of a room and labeling every pixel by hand, ray tracing could be used to generate a photo-realistic image and automatically label each pixel according to the 3D scene model. Bingo: You have a perfectly labeled image for your supervised machine learning algorithm. Want to generate another image from another angle? Easy: Just change the camera position or angle, run the ray tracer, and you're done.
Now, you'd want to produce images not from just one "scene", but from many different rooms in many different buildings. But that's easy to automate as well: Just create a probabilistic model of room layouts, building layouts, etc, and generate new 3D scenes from that model, each with different lightings, object arrangements, etc, etc. Now sit back and watch a billion perfectly tagged images be produced for your computer vision data set. Don't have the computer resources on your desk? No problem, just use the cloud. Computation a bit expensive? As noted in a blog post below, a 10x performance increase is expected next year, and presumably the next 10 years will continue to see good gains.
At the end of the day, I would presume that creating a machine learning data set of this type of size 1 billion images would be millions of times cheaper than actually hiring people to take photos and label the image pixels by hand. Something that I find exciting is when you have a powerful technology like ray tracing, and then given a few years it intersects another technology, like machine learning, and the two synergize in an incredibly powerful way. In a nut shell, that's the old technology story -- the thing that is behind what we sometimes feel are exponential gains: The coming together of different threads in surprising new ways.
10x Jump in GPU Performance October 22, 2015
I heard today (probably not new news) that Nvidia has said that next year's GPUs will have a 10x increase in neural network performance over today's hardware. That stopped me in my tracks.
The combination of being able to use massive cloud based computation (not needing fancy hardware on your desk that sits inactive most of the time), and having a 10x decrease in the cost per FLOP for doing neural net training, will be a pretty incredible thing. We've already seen some incredible demos of this technology, so imagine what folks will be able to do as the cost/FLOP falls dramatically.
Kind of silly, but after some further thought, it would be interesting if you created a semantic and syntactic model of the world that was rich enough such that you could run a "parser" backwards and generate sentences that were both semantically and grammatically sound, and yet random... and then to use a probabilistic model to generate a second sentence based on the first, and so on and so forth, until you had written an entire page.
If your system was strong enough, then it might be the case that 1 out of 1,000,000 generate pages would be a bit creepy in terms of its sensibility, right?
As it stands, this 100% random approach comes off as 1% interesting and 99% "sigh".
What I liked about this article most was the sentiment that there is a bias against taking the significant risks required to really push things to the next level. For the last number of years I have felt somewhat held back to really explore what seem to be quite deep and promising ideas. Admittedly, following those trails could lead to failure, but it seems well worth the risk given possible outcomes.
Incremental approaches do seem very wise. I don't want to knock incremental progress. But I think Peter Thiel is on to something here.
One theory is that as the world becomes more and more factored towards a "winner takes all" context, the more it makes sense to take big risks that have enormous potential payoffs. Conversely, the less it makes sense to have a bunch of conservative companies all making tepid incremental progress.
Designing a Human Language via Software August 18, 2015
As I've studied language, one thing that starts to be appreciated is that languages are, in a sense, like an engineered/designed thing. And in that, there are all sorts of "parameters" of the design.
Let's think of written language as a means to render a semantic structure (which we'll model as a graph of nodes and edges) into a 2D sequence of characters. If you want to do that, you need to come up with a scheme for how you do that "translation"/encoding from the graph to the sequence of characters.
There are all sorts of choices you can make.
Take for example the basic clause, consisting of verb, subject, and object:
Rendering this clause, we could choose the order Subject-Verb-Object, we could choose Verb-Subject-Object, etc, etc. Or, do we not restrict order and use some kind of system of affixes to indicate what is the subject, which is the object, etc.
How might we indicate that the event occurred in the past? Add a suffix to the verb? A prefix? Via a new word that comes before the verb? After the verb?
What letters should we use to denote the actual words? The English correspondences are only one option. If we were to invent our own lexicon, what's the best design there?
What comes to mind is that I wonder if one could design a computer program to invent a language. It would use a variety of scoring criteria to explore the possibility space. For example, we want to avoid ambiguity, so choices that lead to ambiguity are unwanted. We want to keep things compact, since that relates to the cost of producing and consuming language. Etc, etc.
An interesting area...
The Intelligence Revolution August 16, 2015
The world has been revolutionized many times by the winds of change. In the 1700s and 1800s, the industrial revolution represented a massive shift. In the 1900s, we witnessed the computer revolution. By 1994, the Internet revolution was upon us. So what’s next?
In 2005, the DARPA grand challenge saw its first relatively successful autonomous car race, marking a symbolic if not significant upward shift in the proven ability of computers to interact with the physical world in a profound way. This inflection point was followed in 2007 with an urban version of the DARPA grand challenge, in 2009 with the launch of Wolfram Alpha, in 2010 with the launch of Siri, and in 2011 with Watson winning at Jeopardy. Since then, so-called “deep learning” has raised eyebrows at its impressive abilities to push the boundaries in all sorts of challenging areas, from facial recognition, to learning to play video games.
What is unfolding in front of our eyes is the beginnings of the intelligence revolution. Of note is that it has been a long time in coming. Some people in the 1960s thought it was just around the corner, but as it turns out, more computational power was needed, and more time was needed for researches to start to hone in on intelligence’s secrets.
The next 50-100 years are shaping up to be a fascinating period of history. At its core, the intelligence revolution will make it possible for computational systems to do things that previously only human beings could do. Beyond the philosophical intrigue, this is functionally significant for a three primary reasons.
The first reason is that human workers are extremely expensive, and so society currently must limit the application of intelligence. But imagine a world where there were the equivalent of 1 trillion people’s intellects to work on problems and yet still only 10 billion people’s needs to be met. Suddenly all of those areas of your life where you just don’t have enough time and energy to properly manage become neat and orderly. Anything from meal planning to weed picking to vacation planning.
The second reason the intelligence revolution will be profound is that the fusion of computers with intelligence will produce something with abilities quite unique from our own. Recall that computers can do math millions of times faster than we can, they can remember almost perfectly, they can do an operation millions of times exactly the same, they never get tired, and they can be perfectly copied extremely quickly to produce millions or billions of copies. In the 2030s, tens of thousands of lives will be saved by autonomous vehicles that are watching every angle around your vehicle with perfect concentration, and behaving using best practices. Such an example illustrates how the intelligence revolution will not only make intelligence more ubiquitous, but also apply it in ways that produce a significantly better end product.
Before we look at reason number three for why the intelligence revolution will be so profound, let’s pause for a moment and consider what the above two reasons imply about life beyond 2070. To do this, we’ll consider two more areas where the intelligence revolution will make significant impacts to society.
Consider the world’s energy issues in 2015. Now imagine that solar panels can be produced and deployed without any human labor. A computer system identifies geographic areas ideal for panels, gets human approval, and then goes ahead covering the land with solar panels and connecting them to the electricity grid. If and when a panel fails, it is fixed or replaced autonomously. Even the mining operations that find and harvest the raw materials needed from the ground are almost entirely autonomous. In such a world, it’s hard to imagine that there would be a scarcity of energy. Stop and think about that for a moment. Energy is perhaps humanity’s most basic and profound material requirement, and the intelligence revolution seems likely to eliminate its relative scarcity.
Next, consider the impacts on the physical construction and maintenance of infrastructure. We live in a world where our infrastructure is crumbling. Meanwhile, we’d love to have high speed rail connecting major cities, but the costs are astronomical. Now imagine that roads can be repaved by autonomous systems that can monitor the roads and repair them as needed, 24 hours a day. Want high speed rail between cities? Done. Want a hyperloop system between cities? Done. Even the air transportation industry is set to be transformed. Autonomous air taxis one day will shuttle people around in a more granular manner than air travel today. All of these things are possible in theory today, but constrained by the relative scarcity (and cost) of human intelligence and human labor. Even housing will be dramatically affected, allowing new houses and buildings to be constructed for a fraction of the current cost.
The above societal changes are significant, and this leads us to now consider the third reason why the intelligence revolution will be profound. And that reason is that a world with a trillion intelligent agents will be able to more rapidly progress towards constructing what might be called “superintelligence”. Unlike other thinkers, I am not convinced that a dramatic superintelligence is a for sure thing. It may happen, it may not. If it does happen, I think it’s very unlikely that it will happen quickly. But I do highly suspect that, given enough time, the intelligence revolution will birth intelligent systems that leave us humans in the dust. As we have already considered, the fusion of computers with intelligence will already come with valuable synergies. To review, recall that computers can do math millions of times faster than we can, they can remember almost perfectly, they can do an operation millions of times exactly the same, they never get tired, and they can be perfectly copied extremely quickly to produce millions or billions of copies. If it comes to pass that we build intelligent systems that far surpass our intelligence abilities, those synergies, especially the ability to reproduce perfectly and very quickly, are reason to pause and think.
Imagine a world with a trillion intelligent agents, each of which makes a human being in comparison seem like a serious dimwit. That is a profound thing, but what might it actually look like? Here are a few possibilities…
The first possibility is a revolution in science. In a few hundred years, a relatively small collection of scientists have made a wealth of discoveries in the areas of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. On one hand, we feel amazed on how much is now known about the universe and how it works. And yet we also sense that there are significant pieces to the puzzle that are missing. We wouldn’t be shocked if 300 years from now, people look back at 2015 and smirk at how little we understood. It’s quite possible that superintelligence will be an important part of that continuing story of discovery, and coincidentally, those discoveries are likely to feed right back into allowing yet more intelligent systems.
The second possibility is a revolution in management, governance and justice. Let’s look at the governance piece. Currently, we elect leaders, hoping that their intelligence, experience, and character will be good predictors of their ability to govern our city/state/country. But in a world of superintelligence, we would need to face the question of who should be leading the country. And this is where we get into some uncomfortable territory. But I’d argue that our discomfort, while perfectly rational, is based on our vantage point. We’ve never seen a superintelligence. We have no experience with one. Any system of trust must be earned. The real question is this: If and when superintelligences earn a strong degree of trust, will be put them in positions of leadership, subject to democratic vote? I’m not sure, but I suspect that at least some humans would, and I wouldn’t be surprised if doing so led to stronger decision making as judged by what we typically call rationality. What would the societal, philosophical, and religious fallout of being led at a national, state, and city level, by a superintelligent system?
A third possibility is the expansion of human beings onto other planets and solar systems. If labor were “free” relative to what it is today, and we had superintelligences to design very complex systems very rapidly, it seems highly unlikely that enterprising people wouldn’t want to seek the adventure of populating Mars. Even without superintelligence, this seems likely. But with the scientific gains that a superintelligence would possibly bring, it becomes more likely/possible that it would be uncovered how to travel faster than light. Or failing that, it might become possible to send a probe on a hundreds-of-years journey to another solar system with human DNA on board and the ability to gestate and care for humans on the new planet. While very fantastical, there’s nothing about a long distance probe and gestational system that seems absurdly difficult given a world where intelligence is super-ubiquitous. (I’m pretty sure I’ve already seen pictures on the Internet of animals being gestated outside of a biological womb)
A fourth possibility, and the one that makes me most squeamish, is the altering of human DNA. It seems almost for certain that at some point, people will want to eliminate genetic disease by altering DNA, and I’m all for that, but beyond that, there are many possibilities. Quite possibly, having good outcomes here is beyond human intelligence, but it might not be beyond the limits of a superintelligence to made modifications, simulate the outcome computationally, and then once a high enough certainty is obtained, gestate people with those modifications, or modify already-existing people’s genomes. And what might be modified? All sorts of things… aging characteristics, intelligence, appearance, personality, etc. My spiritual sensibilities are very uncomfortable with this possibility, but it seems like something humanity is bound to crash into.
One final note in conclusion: It should be recognized that the revolutionary changes we’ve been observing in the last few hundred years tend not to “end” so much as they allow subsequent revolutions to begin. It could be argued that the industrial revolution is very much still alive and progressing, just as the computer revolution is very much alive and progressing, just as the Internet revolution is very much alive and progressing. Likewise, it seems likely that the intelligence revolution will be a long process, spanning many decades, and if we’re around long enough, many centuries.
So what comes after the intelligence revolution? The answers may lay in the above paragraphs… the energy revolution, the infrastructure revolution, the DNA revolution, the superintelligence revolution, the governance revolution, the superintelligence scientific revolution, the Mars revolution, and the interstellar revolution. There’s lots of uncertainty in all of this, but make no mistake, this computational intelligence thing is going to make for an interesting story.
Perhaps most fascinating of all is to consider how all of this intersects God's plan for planet Earth and for the universe as a whole. If the intelligence revolution ramps up quickly in this century, I will be fascinated to see how Christians navigate such a rapidly changing world.
Elon Musk May 29, 2015
One of my earliest memories of Elon Musk dates back to an interview he did where he is quoted as saying that he planned to retire on Mars. I remember thinking at the time how bizarre it was that at times one hears seemingly brilliant people say really dumb things.
In the last 12 months, I've seen Elon in more and more headlines, and in the last 6 months or so, I've become quite captivated. I watched the "Revenge of the Electric Car", which I hadn't realized focused on Tesla, watched a Bloomberg documentary on him on Netflix, and more recently read the Ashlee Vance book on him. I have been especially mesmerized by the rocket landing attempts.
A few months ago I came to realize that Elon and his companies are like a super-concentrated formulation of the kinds of things that I find interesting and inspiring. Where to begin...
I think what I find most inspiring is that there are strong indications that he is being successful at making rocket re-usability a reality. When you see it happening, it's a kind of forehead slapping moment. Like duh, why haven't people been working hard on this for decades? When someone can provide the kind of leadership that turns an industry on its head -- and rocket science at that -- you have to sit up and take notice. It's inspiring.
The second aspect that I find inspiring is that he has succeeded at so many different things. Not just SpaceX, but Tesla as well. Not just those two, but SolarCity. And not just those three, but PayPal. It's mind boggling. When you see a pattern of success like that, there aren't really any modern comparisons. As even Elon points out, people tend to notice precedence and superlatives, and perhaps not coincidentally, Elon is the poster boy for both of those things in the tech world.
Of course, when people see patterns, they are tempted to extrapolate into the future. If he has done this much in 15 years, what might the next 15 years look like? Obviously no one knows, but if the pattern continues, it could make for an interesting ride.
There is a long laundry list of aspects of his approach and products that I admire, so here is somewhat of a rambling through them:
Best Car Ever
In a world that is increasingly "winner takes all", I am extremely impressed with a company that produces a vehicle that is rated by respected reviewers as "the best car ever" as well as "the safest car ever". If Tesla can achieve scale and bring prices down, who knows where that could lead. (again, the increasingly "winner takes all" nature of the world these days is important there)
Fastest Sedan Ever
Watching videos of the sheer terror or glee of people being accelerated from 0-60 mph in about 3 seconds is some great entertainment. As a guy, I can relate to the general feeling -- even if it's just the joy of a V6 engine. Comparatively, I remember the feeling of a 1998 V6 Honda Accord as being "wow" when you accelerated onto an expressway... and it apparently has a 0-60 time of almost 8 seconds compared to the 3.1 seconds of the Tesla P85D. While almost functionally useless, we run into the phenomenon of superlatives again. What is it about superlatives that captures our imaginations?
Cheap Space Prices
The US government is working on a super heavy lift vehicle and a space capsule right now with a price tag of something like $18 billion. I think some people are estimating that development + flight costs could total $40 billion. Kind of staggering. When you compare that to the development and flight costs of SpaceX hardware, it's mind boggling. Even compared to ULA, SpaceX's prices are hugely cheaper. In a world that has little patience with government waste and huge corporations that are bureaucratic, slow, and wasteful, the SpaceX prices are a huge breath of fresh air, and they set an example for what can be done with good vision and execution.
Long Term Thinking For The Win
Most people probably thought that SpaceX was unlikely to succeed at putting something into orbit. But not only did they do that, they are on the cusp of demonstrating rocket reusability. How did that happen? How can a company go from being an under dog to a savant over achiever? I think a big part of that is that the vision is long term. Not just long term, super-long-term. And when you think about it, of course long term thinking is best. The problem is that we sometimes associate long term thinking with failure, because it can be hard not getting bogged down in the complexity that long term thinking can incur. But Elon seems to be demonstrating that long term thinking (+ execution) is perhaps one of his greatest gifts. And if you really are brilliant at that, then watch out.
Part of what makes it fun to watch is that you know that in any given year, he is thinking about things 5 years, 10 years, 15 years on the horizon. And likewise, in any given year, details are released on something inspiring, and you realize that it has been 5 or 10 years in the making. (in terms of vision + planning + execution) Every time it happens, it's kind of exhilarating. Perhaps it's like watching a grand master chess player, and as the game progresses, you start to sense of much careful forethought has gone into moving the game state to where it is now, for this move.
Cars + Computers = ?
As I've reflected on before, kids like me who grew up in the 80s saw computers, realized how much potential they had, and then saw cars, which were kind of "dumb" but also very cool, and wondered in the back of our heads what it would be like if you could combine the two. And better than any other effort, Tesla has achieved that. The Model S is essentially a computer on wheels. Everything from its millisecond response times to traction control and braking to its huge touch screen panel to its automated system for routing you from point A to B to make use of supercharger stations. (not yet to mention that it runs on electricity) And of course, the cherry on top: That Tesla has recently emerged as one of the leaders in the race to autonomous vehicles, showing off some really impressive capabilities this year. For guys like me, my eyes bulge at this stuff. Any time you take the wistful imagination of a once 15 year old and turn that into reality, it's a rather powerful experience.
Automation
I've always been a huge fan of automation, scripting, efficiency, etc, but this year especially I've been thinking about automation and its long term consequences. When I hear Elon speak, I get the sense that he's on the same page, and I think that bodes extremely well for the future of his companies. (I think it applies profoundly to all three of Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity)
To use one example, imagine a fully automated factory for producing high efficiency solar panels, paired with a fully automated solar panel installation robot/system, paired with an automated order placing system. While that's a ways off (especially the installation robot), it could be as little as 2-3 decades before it is a reality... and I'm curious what that would mean for the future of electricity generation.
Beautiful Factories
This seems somewhat meaningless in a way, but there's something about the sparkling, clean, white and red Tesla factory that captures my imagination. I've toured a car factory before, and it was somewhat dark, somewhat dirty. It is something deeply psychological that I can't quite put my finger on, but perhaps there is a certain genius behind it.
The Machine That Makes The Machine
Elon often says that manufacturing is hard. I like how he says "it's the machine that makes the machine". He talks about the Gigafactory as a "product", as a "machine". I resonate strongly with that mentality. It may seem trivial, but there's something to it that feels important. Perhaps it's as simple as taking pride in or having passion in not just your product, but also how you make your product, which is also hugely important. He gets it.
Hyperloop
When the Hyperloop was first revealed, I didn't pay much attention. Perhaps it was yet one more insane idea that, yawn, would never see the light of day. But as Elon's accomplishments have stacked up in the last couple of years, and as he has established a pattern of saying crazy things that wind up being true, suddenly the Hyperloop is something that my psyche has needed to reconsider.
I think the Hyperloop is important, in part, because it is the "outer most" node in Elon's idea sphere that he has put forth as a near-medium term possibility. It's so on the outside that he hasn't taken it on as his project to manage. So why is that important? It's important because if it is successful, it acts as a new data point for his ability to ideate something crazy (really crazy), not even manage it, and still have it manifest into reality. Which cycles back to our tendancy to extrapolate... at which point the Hyperloop works, we're left to wonder what his limits are for ideating things and having them turn into reality. (again, without him even needing to do the work) Taken to the extreme, you could imagine a genius who establishes such a track record that any time he spurts a hyperloop-like idea, there's a 90%+ chance that it is in fact a great idea that will be turned into reality. Perhaps we shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves, but you can see the entertainment value in that. Already, the mere mention of just about anything far-out by Elon Musk is an instant news story. How far will it go?
Reinvest
I'm not a fan of rich capitalists spending insane amounts of money of themselves. Ugh. For the most part, Elon's companies have not been about making people rich, but instead reinvesting all of the capital into furthering the companies visions. When that happens, it feels somewhat "ideal", that is if the vision and execution are excellent.
That said, Elon does live in a completely excessive house now, so he doesn't fit the ideal as well as he once did.
Something I loved was hearing about how during university he figured out he could live off of a dollar a day by eating hot dogs and oranges. This fits my personality so well -- figuring out how simply one can live for various reasons.
Closing Thoughts
I'm obviously very inspired by Elon's successes and potential. Who knows where it all goes.
I have to say though, I'm still somewhat appalled by the thought of 80,000 people moving to Mars this century. That still sounds completely insane, and I'm sticking with that assessment even though Elon's track record is becoming increasingly impressive. We shall see where all of that goes...
Apple Everything February 23, 2015
I can't say that I was predicting Apple to make a car... and although this rumor may turn out to be something much less ambitious than all-out designing and manufacturing a car, it seems like the grander ambition just might be the reality.
Regardless, the rumor is a reality check in a way: It reminds us that Apple has a colossal pile of cash, and that it will likely continue to grow, as all businesses do. If you sit back and think about that, it really makes one wonder where it could all lead to. Certainly (I hope?) my couch will not be an iCouch in 2030, but if one considers a very aggressive Apple-ey future, it's hard to know where to draw the line with respect to what they might attempt.
Here is a list of possibilities.
The strong or reasonably strong possibilities:
1.
Cars (as of this month)
Could include a strong push into autonomous tech
In the future, could involve autonomous taxis and package delivery
2. TV sets
3.
Streaming services for movies (like Netflix)
4.
VR
5.
Cloud services (AWS, as an example)
6.
AI
More possibilities, but less likely:
Financial services (deeper than Apple Pay)
Education content & "services": "Apple School"
In-house electronics manufacturing and R&D
CPUs
Memory
Screens
Robotics (home automation, etc)
Even less likely, but possible: Industrial robotics
Home appliances
Producing TV shows and movies
Would-be surprising possibilities:
Furniture
Space, satellites
Unless Apple were to buy SpaceX or buy a large stake in it
Energy production (solar, etc)
Designing buildings, such as homes and offices
Smart Home Use Cases January 11, 2015
One of the obvious trends at CES this year, and connected with the IoT, is the smart home. I read an article today that reminds us that many people are still scratching their heads, a bit, at what the smart home will really do that is actually compelling, and whether it's going to be worth the money. For example, if you're willing to pay $100, you can teach an otherwise $10 lightbulb to listen for commands over Wi-Fi. Am I going to pay 10x the price so that I can remotely tell a light bulb to turn itself on or off? Never. Or how about my washing machine? Am I going to do back flips of excitement to be able to remotely connect to my washing machine to see where it is in its cycle? Kind of cute, but pretty uncompelling. (a classic novelty thing)
So where is all of this going? And will it really deliver value to the home? I figured I'd go the other way around -- not what technology can do today, but what the use cases are that I'd be delighted to see it be capable of.
(Many of the following things are at least a couple of decades away, etc, but I'll include them in the list anyway.)
The big three are pretty obvious, and they're a ways off, but ultimately, I think this is where much of the value lies:
Tidying
I think the most alluring smart home technology would be devices that can tidy the home. For example, putting away toys in the proper bin, picking up clothes of family members that don't seem to know where the laundry bin is, etc, etc. The reason I would value this so much is that an untidy home is something that psychologically wears on me a lot, and it can take a lot of mental energy to keep on top of it. I expect we're at least 20 years a way from systems that are both capable of this and not a ridiculous amount of money. But let's be clear -- when we scratch our heads and wonder "will this ever be compelling", the self-tidying home, for me, is one of the ultimate use cases that for me says "absolutely"!
Cleaning
This is actually something that we started to see a few years ago -- systems that can vacuum carpeted and hard floors. But if and when this expands to include dusting furniture, cleaning kitchen surfaces, cleaning bathrooms, etc, it's obvious that customers will place high value on it.
Laundry
Another high-value category. And machines are already delivering huge value in this area -- washers and dryers. But when the day comes that you drop your underwear beside your bed in the morning and it automatically finds its way into the laundry to be washed, dried, and put away, I think we can all agree that people will throw their money at the solution.
...
Beyond these big three, here is a long list of little things, some of which are much closer to being plausible:
Lights that automatically turn themselves off when people aren't in the room. This sounds simple, but I would really appreciate this. The number of times I've had to turn off Eli's light or the bathroom light is a bit depressing. Not having to think about turning lights off would be pretty nice.
Sometimes we put something in the washing machine but don't hear it beep, or don't attend to it immediately, and then we forget. We then discover it a day or two later, and the wet laundry stinks and needs to be re-washed. It would be great if the washing machine would send me an email after 4 hours, and again after 8 hours, etc, if not attended to yet.
Last year (?) I left the BBQ on for 19 hours on high. It sure would have been nice if our smartphone beeped shortly after we emptied the BBQ and left it running. On a similar note, it would be nice if we would be notified anytime *any* gas-using device was left on accidentally. (by monitoring the gas line itself)
Sometimes (3 times a year, perhaps), I forget to close the garage door and we go to bed with the garage wide open for the whole night. Wouldn't it be nice if the house let us know we had forgotten to close the garage door?
I'd like it if every device in the home internally measured how much energy it was drawing, and kept track of that in terms of when and how much it used. A master system could then aggregate that data to show you what devices were drawing what amounts of energy, and answer one-off questions such as "what percentage of our electricity bill does our TV account for", or "what devices use the most electricity", or "how much money would we save each year if we purchased such-and-such dishwasher", etc, etc.
Ultimately it would be nice if every physical thing in the home had a minuscule tag built into it so that the home knew its x/y/z coordinates. Can't find the remote? No problem. Can't remember what box such-and-such is in? Easy. Not sure whether you left something at the cottage? Just ask.
Self-diagnosing devices: Wouldn't it be great if devices had self-diagnostic abilities so that when they went caput, they could communicate to you and to the service agent exactly what went wrong, reducing the cost and time it takes to fix it, and in some cases, to allow you to fix it.
On a related note, wouldn't it be great if along with self-diagnosing devices, things were also self-documenting. So, when something goes wrong with your device, you could tap into detailed instructions that would show you how to fix it if you had the basic skills required to do so. (and if you didn't it could even link to how-to's and youtube videos to teach you how to do the basic skills required to fix the device yourself) If you didn't have a certain tool, wouldn't it be great if your family and friends were connected in such a way as to be able to see the closest friend that had that tool?
Measure waterfall and soil characteristics and recommend intelligently when it is critical to water the lawn to prevent it from dying, etc. Likewise, tell the homeowner when soil characteristics (and season, etc) are such that a fertilizer should be applied, or a grub treatment should be applied, etc.
Ping the homeowner when the furnace filter needs to be replaced, or any other seasonal thing that people tend to forget.
We had a leak in our basement this year, but I think it first started a few years ago and we didn't notice. Now we're left with a basement that sometimes has a bit of a musty odor. It would be great if homes had sensors that could detect and report any issues of this kind before they did damage, and to help localize where exactly the problem is and how bad. If sensors become cheap enough, perhaps one day this kind of thing would be feasible.
Kids eventually get to the stage where they play outside on their own. Sometimes when I peek out the window I happen to see Eli doing something unsafe, and I go outside to talk to him. It would be nice if cameras on the exterior of the home were watching everything going on, and would ping parents if something dangerous was going on that they themselves hadn't noticed. Obviously there's a danger with anything like this, where a parent might come to simply rely on the danger-detection device to catch everything, when it wouldn't.
It would be nice if a home was able to see (via infrared cameras, etc.) where thermal issues were, etc, and to be able to recommend if asked how to improve the thermal characteristics of the home, etc, or to warn the homeowner if door seals had degredated, etc, in order to be replaced.
Another very difficult but extremely valuable use case is the management of the kitchen. Namely, what meals are planned for, and what food is purchased. I worked on this one a bit in 2008. Here's the notion:
The fridge and cupboards know what is in them because food items have RFID (etc) tags.
You can therefore have the computer recommend a supper recipe based on foods in the kitchen.
You can also be walking through the super market and see what commonly used foods you recently ran out of.
This could be tied into a system that would plan your meals for you. It would optimize nutrition, cost, preference, etc, and would stay within dietary concerns, etc. It could also help reduce waste.
This could again be further automated by having the system do the ordering of the food once the meal plan had been OK'd by the home owner.
Food could be delivered rather than purchased manually at the grocery store.
...
Anyway, no shortage of compelling use cases, I think. But many of them will take years, and in some cases, decades, to become common place, I think. That might make for a bit of a yawn-fest in the next 10 years as the things that become available seem a bit head-scratch-worthy... I guess we'll have to wait and see how quickly things unfold.
CES 2015 January 9, 2015
January is an interesting month in the tech world because of CES -- lots of shiny gadgets being shown off, and the direction of technology becoming a bit clearer. Here are some thoughts on the next 15 years of tech based on this new information.
Perception & Devices That Move / Interact
More and more it is becoming apparent that the perceptual abilities of technologies are sharply on the rise -- the ability to devices to sense and perceive the 3D world around them. This dovetails with recent advances in machine learning.
The intuition, then, is that over the next 15 years we will see significantly more devices that can:
a)
Accurately sense/perceive the physical environment around them.
b)
Therefore, interact appropriately with the physical environment around them.
This is a big deal. In a sense, what we're talking about are "robots", the old concept of these mechanical creatures walking around and doing things. But this is a broader vision, really -- it is devices of all kinds, small and large, being able to perceive the real world, and behave in it. Cars, drones, vacuums, doors, thermostats, TVs, garage doors, etc.
What will this ultimately look like in 15 years? I still expect the most noticeable thing will relate to autonomous driving, but be ready to see this theme all over the place.
In industry, I see this as being incredibly significant. Automation has been kept back by this perception problem, and so if it is significantly solved, expect significant developments in industry, and in some cases, replacing person-powered jobs in factories (etc) with intelligent systems.
The Size of Computers
This shouldn't be surprising at all -- more just a confirmation of the trend we've seen over the last 40 years continuing. Computers can now be fit inside of something the size of a shirt button. So what does this mean for the next 15 years?
I think it's just "computation everywhere", which again isn't a new idea, but I think there will be a synergy that could be profound between these small devices and the Internet. It's the whole IoT thing -- Internet of things. As I've commented on in the near past, these tiny computers are really the "eyes/ears" of the "Internet organism".
I'm not sure if this will really become apparent in the next 15 years, but it could -- the increase sense of just how much this Internet organism can sense and perceive and thus potentially act on. My expectation in 15 years is that there will be a big up-tick that way.
Just expect lots of "smart" stuff... smarter street lights, smarter homes, smarter appliances, smarter cars, smarter medical diagnostic devices, smarter clothing perhaps (ex. shoes that count steps, etc.), etc. etc.
Screens / TV
Last but not least, and somewhat of a surprise to me (but perhaps shouldn't be), still lots of energy being put into the development of screens. 4K, talk of high dynamic range, etc. This all points to the next 15 years continuing to be a rich time for displays, increasing resolutions, increasing contrast, dynamic range, etc, etc. I still think this will slow down at some point, because we're approaching diminishing returns at some point, but for now, the engine is still churning pretty hard.
Function Search Engine / How To Search Engine December 28, 2014
I had an idea recently that has sparked a lot of excitement in my mind... not infrequently, I find myself needing a function that I know has probably been implemented 10,000 different times by other software developers over the ages, and I groan that here I am, about to do it again. Other times the function might be more unique, but I'm still convinced that its something that other people have already implemented at least a few times.
What if there was a really compelling way for developers to share functions/classes? There already exist places like GitHub for sharing projects, and that's great, but so often what I want isn't an existing project, it's an existing function. Imagine this search engine was more than a search engine, it was a combination of a search engine and a source code repository like GitHub. People could upload functions, associate unit tests with them, and the site would allow others to view those functions and even run them interactively on the website to play with them. Users could file bugs against those functions, resolve those bugs / commit fixes, etc. Users could comment on functions or make requests for improvements, etc.
The second ingredient would be to make these functions very findable through clever use of NLP, etc. So, you're coding in Java and want code to download a webpage? No problem -- search for "download webpage", and see functions that do exactly that.
This could be expanded to also encompass the idea of "how to's" / "example code". Search for "Java convert string to integer" and a function would be found that demonstrates how to do that. You might not want to use the function in the end, but at least to be able to examine the function to learn how to do what you were asking for.
Next: The ability to write functions that call other functions on the site. Technically you'd be calling a certain REVISION of that function, since future revisions of the function you were calling might cause breakage, but automated tools could be used figure out if it was safe to call a newer version of that function. It would also be interesting, upon modifying your function, to see if any of the tests for things that call your function break. (A kind of canary in the coal mine that might suggest you broke something in your function)
I think this idea combines (can combine) some powerful things:
Open source
Crowd sourcing
Wiki
NLP
Exponential nature of technology (building up more powerful pieces)
Ratings: People could rate functions to make them higher in the search results
Status: As people contribute more, they gain status. Useful for resumes, feeling good about one's contributions, etc.
Also imagine people defining "interfaces" + tests that define useful bundles of functionality, and being able to associate functions with interfaces. The system might even try to automatically detect when a new function matches an existing interface. Lots of interesting possibilities there.
The system could automatically sort functions by their runtime to show you which implementations were fastest, etc.
Yet another way to search for a function could be to define the arguments of a function you're about to write, the description, and a few sample input/output value pairs, and then have your IDE connect to the service to see if there are any existing matches or close matches. If so, it could essentially fill in the body of the function you were about to write automatically, or download the function and simply refer to its implementation.
Then imagine associating implementations in one language with implementations in another so that if you're learning a new language, you can simply click on a link to see how some particular thing is implemented in another language. It could also then generate metrics to show how many relative lines of code you need to implement something in one language VS another, the speed of execution, etc. That could then be used as a semi-automated tool for converting code from one language to another -- just use the properly mapped function.
And the final idea I'll propose is to provide a way to map what a function does onto a semantic model with the goal of making it even more possible to simply write a specification of what you want done, and have the site be able to cobble together the appropriate functions to do what you want, and spit out the required code.
Lots of really exciting possibilities in this space...
Voice Scripting / Intersecting Circles of Interest / Understanding Self December 6, 2014
Everyone has things that they are strongly interested in and/or enjoy doing. A realization this week is that occasionally we come across an activity that combines 2 or 3 of our interests, and that can result in very strong levels of engagement. A way to visualize this is the venn diagram -- intersecting circles.
I experienced this phenomenon this week as I was setting up some voice-activated scripts/actions on my computer. I have things setup so that when I press Ctrl-Q, my computer starts listening (via Google's web speech API), and I can then issue voice commands. If I say "email John", my work email program creates a compose window and fills in John's email address. If I say "email Meredith using Gmail", a web browser opens a Gmail compose window and fills in Meredith's email address. If I say "lookup John in the company directory", the company directory page opens in my web browser with results filtered for "John". I could go on and on with the plans that I have for this technology... what is interesting is that setting those voice scripts up was mind blowingly compelling for me. I could easily lose myself for many hours, days, perhaps even months, implementing that kind of thing.
As I was setting this up, I recalled my days working for my former employer. Something that made me unique was scripting. I had a directory with 100+ scripts, many of them built on top of each other, allowing me to do all sorts of things with incredible efficiency.
It's no mystery to me that I'm hugely motivated by efficiency and automation. Those are two highly overlapping areas of interest. But upon further thought, there are several areas of strong interest at play with these voice scripts. It's fascinating to unpack those things, because it uncovers significant aspects of who I am, the things I value, what I find natural, etc.
1.
Automation: Another way to put this is that I find repetitive tasks extremely frustrating. Any time in the past that I've had to do data entry, for example, it's like a "nails on chalkboard" experience. Working on a computer is no stranger to repetitive tasks, or tasks that consist of a bunch of predictable steps that just begs to be simplified down into one step. Any time I'm able to automate something, it is extremely rewarding. See also: Efficiency, Productivity. Creating voice scripts is a powerful form of automation.
2.
Efficiency: I've heard that my grandpa Green highly valued efficiency, and if so, then the apple didn't fall very far from the tree. My mind seems to naturally gravitate to thinking about how to do things more efficiently. As mentioned, there is a strong connection here to Automation. Another connection is that I really dislike waste, and inefficiency is wasted time. Creating voice scripts is a great way to make doing your work more efficient.
3.
Productivity: Strongly related with 'efficiency' and 'automation', I find high levels of productivity extremely rewarding. The todo list with ten items on it, all checked of as completely, is thrilling. Anything that helps me get work done faster is very compelling, and voice scripting fits this bill.
4.
Natural Language Understanding: The area of technology that I'm most interested in (and have been for about 6 years) is the problem of natural language understanding, and this is a key component of creating voice scripts, because it requires understand/mapping natural language commands to the actions you want to achieve.
5.
Voice Commands: Back in 2008, I wrote an application called "Grace" that ran on an iMac in the corner of our kitchen. In a sense, it was very much similar to the voice scripts I'm building now, but was focused on home life rather than work life. Having a computer be able to understand the spoken word was somehow very compelling and exciting for me, and still is. It puts a smile on my face.
6.
User Interfaces: When I was a teenager I discovered that I had a significant interest in graphical user interfaces. I loved the challenge of crafting a UI that would allow a user to get something done. One day I was contemplating my intense interest in natural language understanding, and it suddenly dawned on me that there was actually a connection between my interest in that and graphical user interfaces. That is, they are both user interfaces. Voice scripting is a fascinating addition to keyboard and mouse. My general sense is definitely not to replace keyboard and mouse with voice. I think that's a huge mistake. The idea is to supplement keyboard and mouse with voice, and to do that where voice is more powerful. For example, if I want to email Meredith using Gmail, and if I use keyboard and mouse to do it, I need to: 1) Move my mouse down to the Windows task bar, 2) Click on Chrome, 3) Press Ctrl-T to open a new tab, 4) Click on Gmail, 5) Click on 'Compose', 6) Type in Meredith's email address. That is 5 or 6 steps to initiate the desired action. Using a voice script, I have to: 1) Press Ctrl-Q, 2) Say 'Email Meredith Using Gmail'. The 2-step solution is cognitively much simpler and takes about half of the time. Meanwhile, if I'm typing an email and I want to type something in a bold font, would it be easier to have to press Ctrl-Q and speak "bold font" than it is to simply press Ctrl-B? No, of course not. It's all about choosing the right tool for the right job.
7.
Minimalism: It's no mystery to myself or others that know me well that I seem to be a minimalist by nature. I like clean, tidy environments that aren't overrun by junk. (There was another famous minimalist -- his name was Steve Jobs!) I love well designed things that have had all of the rarely-used knobs hidden away in cupboards, and execute brilliantly on the core functionality. Voice scripts are actually a pretty strong embodiment of this vision. There are no knobs to be bombarded with. You just say what you want, and it's done. What a beautiful minimalist UI!
8.
AI: At some point, as perhaps many technology people can relate to, I became a bit captivated by the idea of "AI". Probably because we all realize how powerful / useful intelligent systems are. Being able to create software that leverages intelligence is extremely compelling to me, and voice scripting intersects this realm.
9.
Cutting Edge: As with many technology people, I get a real kick from seeing and using things that are new and interesting, which push the limits of what is possible. Voice scripting has that flare to it for me.
10.
Creativity: I enjoy my work much, much more if there is a strong element of creativity involved. Envisioning how voice scripting should work, what use cases to target, etc, is a nicely creative process.
11.
Self-directed Work: Probably like most people, I find implementing my own ideas more interesting and rewarding than being told "go do this".
12.
Ideas: I'm an idea person. I find it thrilling to come up with ideas that seem valuable. I've never actually seen someone demonstrate a really effective synergy between keyboard, mouse, and voice, and so in envisioning that possibility, I feel like I'm tapping into a powerful idea.
So this voice scripting stuff combines many different areas of strong interest for me. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that setting up voice scripts is such a rewarding endeavor for me. It's such a strong intrigue that I find it hard to stop thinking about it.
The end-goal vision is this: Being able to do one's work incredibly efficiently with powerful voice scripts, which are backed by robust natural language understanding.
Want to start working on a task? Just copy the task ID into your clipboard and say "work on this task" -- your time tracking program will start logging that task, the task will be displayed in Jira, a new directory will be created for the task with the appropriate name, a new Mathematica notebook will be created and placed into that directory and displayed on your screen, the type of task detected from the Jira issue and the appropriate notebook template used so that the various functions you need to perform the debugging (etc) and right there in front of you, etc.
Done working on a task? Just say "resolve the task" and the Jira issue will be resolved, with the appropriate time spent recorded from your time tracking tool. Back in your time tracking tools, your work log will be appended with a line item indicating that the task was completed.
Need to comment on the issue you're working on? "comment on task"
Need to create a new issue? "create issue", "create bug", etc.
Need to chat with someone? "chat with John"
Need to send an email to someone? "email John and Amy"
Need to request a tag move? "request a tag move" and have your recent commit be automatically found and an appropriate email with "To", "Subject", and "Body" filled out. Just review and press "Send".
Need to restart a software component that would normally take a bunch of manual steps? Just say "restart <blah>" and have it all done automatically.
Need to go to a directory? "goto <blah>"
Need to download a new software build? "update build"
My sense is that there are many strong candidates for core / frequent actions to be packaged up nicely, allowing work to be done very quickly.
Part of the thinking here is that the human mind wants to be freed up to do the high level thinking, and not be burdened with endless clicking, navigating, etc. If all of the unnecessary low-level stuff can be factored away, it leaves the mind better able to focus on the problem solving, and hopefully, that results in a higher level of mental engagement, more passion for the work being done, etc.
One final closing thought here is that I work from home, so yabbering away at my computer all day is no problem. This wouldn't really work for people clustered around desks in an office environment. So the utility of this idea more generally might not be as great as I might hope.
Mind, Consciousness, And The Many-Dimensional Canvas June 27, 2014
Our universe is composed of various dimensions. Mostly commonly, we think of the three dimensions of space, but time is also understood as one of the dimensions of our reality. We can think of these dimensions as a kind of “canvas”. In the same way that an artist’s canvas can hold paint, the canvas of our physical reality holds matter and energy in its four dimensions. They are the “paint” of our reality, giving shape to the picture you see when you open your eyes.
But many of us sense that there is more to our universe than matter and energy. As humans, we experience our reality via what is typically called consciousness. Color, which starts its journey in our physical world as a wavelength of electromagnetic energy, enters our eyes, is converted into electrical impulses, and somewhere along the way, allows us to experience color. How we understand the essence of that experience, or how it comes about, remains an incredible mystery. We can ask: What is the color red, as seen by humans? So far, no one knows. No one knows how to understand the essence of watching a sunset, or standing on the shore while huge waves crash around us.
But there seems to be a fascinating connection between the canvas of our physical reality, and the canvas of our consciousness. That is, we can think of consciousness, too, as a kind of canvas, upon which our experience is painted. However, consciousness would seem to be comprised of many dimensions. Sight is distinct from sound, which is distinct from touch, which is distinct from formal thought, which is distinct from emotion. One way to view consciousness, then, is that each “sense” is its own canvas, its own dimension, but that those canvases are united as a super-canvas which we call our consciousness.
This gives rise to the sense, which many people have, that consciousness is part of the fabric of the universe -- just like space and time are part of the fabric of our reality.
We’re missing a piece here. When I talked about spacetime as a canvas, I made a distinction between the canvas and what was on the canvas. In that case, matter and energy were what filled the canvas. I haven’t made the same distinction for consciousness -- we have used that word both to refer to the canvas, as well as what is on the canvas at any one time, but perhaps we should distinguish between the two. And here, language may start to fail us. One alternate candidate word for the canvas itself might be “mind”, while we might call what’s on that canvas to be “the experience of mind”.
One hugely significant difference between spacetime and “mind” (which I will use to refer to the canvas of consciousness) is that the canvas of spacetime is unified. The entire universe represents a single, continuous canvas. Conversely, the canvas of mind, so far as we know, is broken into many discrete canvases. My experience is different than your experience. I have a private theatre, which you know little about.
This gives rise to an important question: Is the canvas of mind truly broken up into discrete canvases, or is that an illusion? Perhaps each of us simply projects onto our area of a much larger canvas that unifies us all.
And that possibility of a unified canvas is somewhat breathtaking. One way to envision that is a wall of TV screens at a department store. Each screen is projecting its own story, but is part of a larger surface that contains all of those experiences.
When we think of a unified, many-dimensional canvas that is imbued with each of our consciousnesses, and when we use the word “mind” to refer to that unified canvas, we can’t help but wonder where the intersection between that canvas and God is.
What comes to mind for me is the movie Matrix, which supposed that our reality was actually inside of a computer. And I think that’s why, upon watching that movie, myself and many others resonated at a deep level. We intuitively have this sense that we are part of something greater than ourselves -- a structure of mind that carries and supports each of our beings, and without which we could not exist.
Such ideas can seem both encouraging and challenging to our notion of God. On one hand, it matches the sense that God is all knowing and all feeling, because the canvas of all space, time, and consciousness holds everything. (how’s that for a take on the sense that all of our good and bad deeds are recorded in a book)
On the other hand, if God is simply a unified canvas that holds each of our minds, we are left with a being that doesn’t have its own will apart from us, and that is in sharp contrast to the way most people view God.
It is helpful, though, to realize that God need not be limited by this unified canvas, but rather to think of this canvas as possibly being part of God’s being. Or, alternatively, is the canvas not part of God’s being at all, and simply carried by God. Those are old questions, and perhaps we have some hints to muse one way or another.
Let me leave you with the main thought of this essay, said one more time: We are amazing creatures that dance and flit across an expansive and many dimensional canvas. We occupy the canvases of space, of time, and of consciousness, all intimately linked together to form a super-canvas. We are composed of matter, energy, and things which we can yet hardly grasp. Thanks be to God.
“What is Consciousness” and “Does God Exist”? March 20, 2014
As is not entirely uncommon for me, I got thinking about the mystery of consciousness again today. What happened to strike me in this instance was that, as you may yourself have realized, it is fascinating that consciousness is both extremely observable and extremely unobservable. On one hand, we’re all consciously aware, and our sense of self and our ability to experience what we see, hear, and touch is one of the best-known things in the universe to us. On the other hand, science hasn’t been successful at being able to observe consciousness. There is no microscope that can see it. There is no test that can indicate whether something is conscious or not. There are no compelling theories about what it is, or how it works. And so, amazingly, many scientists dismiss consciousness as uninteresting or irrelevant.
So we have this amazing, incredible phenomenon in the universe, as profound (or more profound) than the three dimensions of space, or the dimension of time, and it is completely undetectable by science. Do you see where I’m going with this? Many scientifically minded people dismiss the notion that God exists, because there is no way to directly observe God. And that’s where consciousness becomes an interesting beacon of truth: It declares to us that there amazing, profound things in the universe which science has no ability to observe. Woah. That kind of opens the door, now doesn’t it.
A secondarily interesting, but strongly related thought is that consciousness tells us that there are potentially other incredibly profound aspects to the universe/reality that science is unable to detect. Things which humans may never be able to observe, may never know exist.
I want to play with this notion that consciousness is unobservable for a moment. Let’s say that there was another planet in the universe that had robotic life on it. Unconscious robotic life. These robots were able to procreate by making replicas of themselves, they were able to roll around and do things, and they were many times more intelligent than human beings, but they were just as unconscious as a calculator. One day, those robots came to earth and chatted with human beings. The question is: Would they be able to detect consciousness from observing our behavior? Would they see a certain glint in our eye and conclude “Oh my, there is something really profound going on inside of these creatures”. Or would they merely conclude that, yup, there’s another group of behaving robots out there in the universe, just like them.
Let's re-ask the question: Is there any link between consciousness and behavior? Another way to phrase that question is: Could you design a robot that looked and acted exactly like a person, but which was just that, an unconscious robot? In university, my sense was that in theory, I couldn’t see any obvious proof that such a thing was impossible, and so I leaned towards saying that “no, consciousness is experienced, but there’s no proof it loops back and affects behavior”. Sometimes later I realized there is actually quite a simple proof to the contrary that was right before my nose. The very fact that I was sitting there pondering the question was proof: My amazing, mystical, mind blowing experience of consciousness was causing me to sit there and reflect on it, and my sitting there and reflecting on it was behavior. I never would have guessed that the proof would be so simple, and concise.
Some people would say the same thing about the existence of God: That while we typically don’t observe God directly, you can see the glint in the eye of the universe. It’s as if we were those robotic explorers, peering into the eyes of a creation. Do we see the that there’s something amazing going on inside? Or do we conclude, “Nope, nobody’s home, just a bunch of behaving dust”.
Judgement and Nonlinearity in the Kingdom of God March 17, 2014
I’d like to talk about non-linearity, but I’m going to start with some life context: I’ve been struggling with judgement, and the toxic effects it can have on us. All in good time, my dear sister Rebekah shares the following poem on her Facebook:
A thoughtful litany I have just come across for those of you remembering the season of Lent...
Fast from judging others; Feast on Christ dwelling in them. Fast from apparent darkness; Feast on the reality of Light. Fast from pessimism; Feast on optimism. Fast from thoughts of illness; Feast on the healing power of God. Fast from words that pollute; Feast on phrases that purify. Fast from anger; Feast on patience. Fast from worry; Feast on unceasing prayer. Fast from complaining; Feast on appreciation. Fast from hostility; Feast on non-resistance. Fast from bitterness; Feast on forgiveness. Fast from anxiety; Feast on hope. Fast from yourself; Feast on a silent heart.
Just what the Great Physician ordered, right? This poem strikes me as being both incredibly wise, and incredibly challenging, for someone like me.
But why am I struggling with judgement? Those who know me can probably fill in the blanks, but for those who don’t, here’s a short synopsis: A year and a half ago I had my eyes opened to the disparity in the world between rich and poor, and learned statistics such as: Every 50 fifty days, 1 million children die due to preventable causes, such as lack of clean water, etc. A second statistic I learned was that people had done the math on how many dollars on average it takes to prevent one of these deaths, and their best estimates are in the range of $2500-$5000. A third statistic was that almost half of the world’s population lives on less than $2.50 a day. This set off a cascade of emotion, questions, and change in my life. Questions such as: Why have I, and so many other Christians, been living such apparently self centered lives? How can we hold up “do unto others as you’d have them do unto yourself” as part of Jesus’ most significant commandment and yet also uphold such incredible injustice?
When I looked at my own life, the most painful examples of self centeredness were expensive vacations, eating at restaurants, the price of our home, summer homes, etc. The emotional pain I felt from having my eyes opened to the suffering of others was strong enough to push me away from those things, even though I am extremely fond of travel, had a McDonalds addiction, and some of my favorite memories as a child were at cottages.
But as I changed, the world around me didn’t. Now I was a foreigner in my own land, within my own church, even within my own family to a degree. I might go to a church meeting one night and hear a lady gush about heading down to Jamaica. Or some family might order $70 of Chinese food. Or friends might be contemplating selling their $350,000 home and upgrading to a $500,000 home. Or a congregation might be considering spending $400,000 on prettying up their sanctuary. In each of these instances, I felt pangs of discomfort, and sometimes, if I’m going to be honest, more than simple discomfort.
As I’ve struggled with these feelings of judgement, one helpful reminder has been to avoid judging people’s intentions and character. And that has been pretty easy, at least on the surface level. There are many different ways we can let people’s intentions off the hook. For starters, I myself was subject to a certain blindness only a year ago. Was it my intentions that were bad? Somewhat, but it was more a matter of ignorance. Why be angry at blind people for their lack of sight?
What has been harder is not to judge behavior. Even if I give someone’s intentions the benefit of the doubt, I’m still left with constantly observing behaviours that seem incredibly unjust. And let’s face it, keeping our judgement of people’s behavior from affecting our judgement of their intentions is a bit of a tricky game.
I’m not sure how to navigate out of this rut. As I take a step back and think about the next several decades of my life, how am I going to survive being this judgemental alien, constantly bombarded by friends and family making what appear to be extremely selfish life choices? Isn’t that going to corod my soul and rob me of feelings of love and joy?
I’ll conclude this part with John 3:17, which comes right after the much loved verse before it. John 3:17 reads: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
I’m going to move on from talking about judgement and shift to talking about nonlinearity. Many of these ideas are “counterpoints” to the way I naturally think about the world. Reading these paragraphs, you might think these are strange things for a person like me to write, because they clash with my typical perspectives. And for that very reason, I hold many of these ideas with a certain suspicion. For a person like me, adding some of these thoughts to my diet is probably like taking a vitamin and will probably enhance my overall health and effectiveness, but contained within these ideas are the things that many people in the world probably cling to in unhealthy ways to let themselves off the hook. Anyway, that’s my disclaimer...
Linearity Vs Nonlinearity: Most of my judgements are made from a perspective of linearity: That 1+1 = 2, that a dollar not spent on a luxurious vacation is a dollar that can save a child’s life, etc. We know the world doesn’t always work in our simple minded ways. One of nature’s good examples of nonlinearity is the growth of a tree: In the first two years of a tree’s life, it might put on 2 pounds of weight per year, while over the course of 70 years it might average 300 pounds per year. That’s exponential growth.
One of the most striking examples of nonlinearity in the Bible is the feeding of the 5000. Here’s an excerpt:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Among other things, this parable challenges our mentality of scarcity. How many people had to suffer in order for this group to eat their fill? None. There was enough for everyone, with food to spare. These themes of abundance should naturally come to mind as we wrestle with apparent scarcity, and try to come to terms with how we should live and understand the world.
One perspective on this I have held is that abundance in unlocked when we open to God’s leading, and when we follow up our hearing with obeying. A couple of months ago, I wrote: “If we are willing to be open and obedient, then we will find that there is not only enough, but more than we could ever imagine. Conversely, if we live by our flesh, we will constantly be depressed about our need for more. Our openness and obedience to God is enough. God will do the rest.” The vision is that we live on a planet that is actually an oasis of abundance, but that our selfishness can and does transform it into a place of scarcity. The theory is that if were willing to exchange our selfish ways for God’s ways, it would cause the earth, and our communities, to blossom with unimaginable abundance.
That rings true to me. Is that the end of the story? Sometimes I’ve joked that I have the “disability of a math degree”. A common intuition is to see the world as a zero sum game: If you eat that apple, there’s one less apple in the world for me to eat. But there are many examples in the world where things don’t add up the way you might think. Let’s use the concept of “sabbath” as an example: Doesn’t it seem wasteful that God would tell us to take one day a week and rest? That’s a fifteen percent productivity loss. Imagine all of the lives that could be saved if we worked on Sunday and took our extra earnings and used them to bless the critically poor in the world, right? Well, not so fast. You might have more money in your bank after the first week, but over the long haul, we’d realize that adequate rest was actually a really good investment, and without it, our health and productivity would decline, and we’d have exactly the reverse outcome we were hoping for.
Someone might make the same claim about renovating a church sanctuary: That in the short term, there is indeed an opportunity cost in terms of saving lives, but in the long term, the picture is much less clear. We might take any apparent luxury in someone’s life, and assume that liquidating the asset and directing the money to save lives would be best. And in the short term, that’s probably true, but in the long term, again, it’s less clear. What might (?) shock me is to know how many apparently virtuous tradeoffs are actually damaging in the long term.
An interesting image comes to mind when contemplating this: Sensing that God wants to bless you with a certain non-essential thing in your life, even though it would seem wiser to use the money for other things. One might wrestle with God and ask “Why do you want to give this to me, God? Shouldn’t the money be used to help people who are suffering”? And yet, you might continue to feel God’s insistence that you have the non-essential thing. From there, the image that comes to mind is being taken into the future by God and placed on a ridge overlooking a city to show the outcome would you accept the gift. Upon seeing the city, your eyes are immediately drawn to the examples of suffering you can plainly see, and so you say to God, “Clearly you have shown me what I suspected all along: If I accept the gift, people will suffer”. Then God takes you to an alternate future, where you had rejected God’s non-essential gift. He stands you on the same ridge, overlooking the same city. To your shock, the city is even worse off, and more people are suffering. Confused, you search for answers, and amidst your confusion, God places you back in the present.
In this story, the nonlinear nature of reality is highlighted: That our simple minded predictions about what is optimal are sometimes flawed, and can lead us astray.
Another nuance to how the world works that comes to mind in all of this is that selfish uses of money do still transfer wealth to those who need it. Take for example the vacation to Jamaica: You’re passing on your dollars to people on an island that can make good use of them. Yes, there is a very significant cost in that transfer: You’re typing up valuable human resources and building materials that could have been used in other ways on the island, but the point is that “all is not lost”. This is by no means a suggestion that lavish vacations are what I’d consider a “good” and just way to invest in communities -- hopefully you get my point. Perhaps what I’m trying to say here, in reverse, is that one might think that diverting money away from luxuries and towards critical need is a 100% win, but it’s not. Now there’s a family in Jamaica that’s going to have a harder time paying their bills. In the grand scheme of things, this is probably a minor point, and it makes me uncomfortable how often people might use this line of thinking to justify selfishness.
Another connection that is interesting to make is that between perfectionism and linear thinking. I’m a person that comes by perfectionism quite naturally. I had what I’d call a minor disorder when I was about 12 whereby I would be unhappy with anything but perfectly written notes at school. I’d put exuberant amounts of energy into my cursive writing so that the pages looked great when I was done. And yet, I know that my behavior was sub-optimal. What good were perfectly written notes, really? Is there an analogy here to linear thinking about ways to improve the world? A person like me might cringe at going to a restaurant for supper in a similar way that I’d cringle at taking sloppy notes: There is a deep imperfection at play in the short term. In the case of the written notes, it’s unlikely that imperfect cursive writing would affect my grade on the final exam. The question then, is whether a spirit of perfectionism about avoiding restaurant food falls into the same category. (or any other behavior that involves stewardship of money, for that matter)
Moving on, consider the injustice of living in a world where so much wealth is concentrated in the bank accounts of billionaires. The 1%. While I’m like everyone else in crying foul, and for good reason I think, even here we find counterpoints to intuitive understandings of economics. What seems most outrageous about billionaires is that one might imagine ridiculous, luxurious lifestyles. Dropping millions here, wasted. Dropping millions there, wasted. And while some of that does go on, a person with 10 billion dollars has almost all of it invested with the aim of growing it as much as possible. Where is the money invested? In the very businesses that employ people so that they can care for their families. The question then, is whether the common person would know how to invest that money better than a talented business person. My guess as to the answer there, is that, in some cases absolutely yes, and in some cases actually not. My point isn’t to say that I support incredibly unequal wealth distribution (and definitely not to say that I support wealthy people using the money selfishly), but is rather to again highlight how even highly imperfect systems have aspects to them which mitigate their apparent brokenness.
One of the themes that emerges for me is that good and bad are often tangled up together, and separating the two is not a trivial task. Matthew 13:24-30 is a great passage that highlights this:
Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. 26 But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves *said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he *said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
This is a fascinating parable, and I probably don’t understand it very well, but it seems like there are some profound connections between what Jesus is saying here and some of the things I’m talking about.
I’ll change gears here and consider how we understand God. For many Christians, our view of God comes mostly from the Bible, somewhat from our culture, and somewhat from our own experience and reasoning. (and of course, some people will argue it’s profoundly cultural, but let’s not get hung up there) We are always tempted, I think, to put God in a box, and we do that in a variety of ways. A danger for me is to say, “If $2500 can mean life or death for someone else, and if we’re supposed to treat others as self, then spending $2500 on something luxurious doesn’t add up with God’s will”. Wait a minute, did I just summarize God’s will with 1 sentence? That was a neat party trick, wasn’t it. Albert Einstein famously said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”. And so we obviously need to be incredibly careful when we try to make statements like this not to fool ourselves into stuffing God back into yet another box.
This is tricky stuff to navigate, because there is an apparent conflict of interests here: Don’t people love to just say “oh well, the world is complicated” to sooth any guilt they may have, and continue living self centered lives? Yup.
Where I am at, I think, is this: To suggest that, yes, the world is in fact simple in many ways, and that we love to pretend it’s complicated so that we release ourselves from our responsibility to do what is obviously good and right. And at the same time, the world is terribly complex, with many things seen and unseen, such that in some (and perhaps many) cases, what one might intuitively think best is not best. That is helpful, because it not only encourages me to continue doing my best to do what appears to be right (because in many cases, the world is simple, and my intuitions are probably right), but also injects a dose of grace and humility, knowing that there are probably a good set of things that cause me disgust which are actually not nearly as bad as I think, and in some cases, are actually much better approaches than I would take, even if they appear to be unjust.
Living Water February 5, 2014
I've been feeling a little blue for the last 5 days or so. It makes one wonder: Is it that seasonal February thing? Is it something else? Do I need to make a change in my life?
This weekend at our church's winter retreat, a lady was reading a book called Made to Crave. It's a curious title, so I was compelled to inquire about the book. She explained that so often people crave things, such as food, and go to that thing to fulfill certain cravings or desires that they have, but that the nature to crave isn't a bad thing, we just need to direct it in healthy ways. The idea, and hope, is that we can redirect unhealthy cravings and desires towards God -- that we were made to desire God, and we can uncover and live into that nature, rather than searching for it in other places.
As I was pondering my lower mood today, I made some interesting connections to that line of thinking. Every person lives their life in a certain context, where encouragements and discouragements come in certain forms. For me, I might feel uplifted when the house is neat and tidy, or when I get home from an invigorating bike ride, or when I go for a beautiful morning walk. I might feel discouraged when I say something to someone and later wonder whether what I said was a bit off color, or when I discover food that has gone bad in the fridge. All of these things flow into our soul and can lift us up or push us down. As we go through our lives, we seek to learn how to go about it in ways that bring us into contact with uplifting forces.
So what happens when the natural variation in life doesn't serve up enough encouragement? Well, sometimes what can result is that we feel off -- we lose some of our sparkle, we can feel a bit low. The solution then is to move back into more encouraging circumstances, right?
And while I think the answer is "yes", I wonder if there is an important connection to be made along the lines of "Made to Crave". And that's this: We're made to be in relationship with our Creator. We shouldn't simply seek joy and encouragement from our family, friends, and work, but also from a loving God who dearly loves us and wants to fill us up. It brings to mind the concept of "Living Water". The story is in John chapter 4:
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)[b] 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
One perspective on this story is that when we seek God and spend time with God, we can be filled up and encouraged. It is like God is this inexhaustible source of encouragement, and he's just waiting for us to come to him and be uplifted.
From there my curiosity is this: What forms of prayer, reflection, and simply "being" with God effectively tap into this reservoir of uplifting encouragement?
One thing that comes to mind is the prayer of examen. The way I've heard it described is that one should start by focusing on the things in one's day that have gone well, things to be grateful for, things to be encouraged by.
So that's one thought, but I sense this is a fairly deep subject matter. How have Christians over the ages walked with God in ways that have allowed God to flow encouragement and joy into their souls without relying too heavily on earthly encouragement which can be someone inconsistent in our lives?
10 And as he sat at dinner[a] in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting[b] with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
Commentary
What sticks out here for me is the phrase “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. It is interesting to juxtapose this phrase with the concept of “living sacrifice” -- our lives poured out for Christ. Another interesting thought there is that in many Christian contexts, “living sacrifice” is a mercy loving heart at work.
8 When Jesus[a] had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him; 2 and there was a leper[b] who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” 3 He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately his leprosy[c] was cleansed. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
Commentary
What strikes me here is the verse:
Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
For some reason, I expect Jesus to not give two hoots about commandments of Moses, but instead, he explicitly commands the man to observe those commands. I’ve commented earlier in Matthew about this same respect for the law, and how it comes off as surprising me. I expect Jesus to be completely concerned about heart, and not law, so that this is kind of jarring. What is the significance?
Jesus Heals a Centurion’s Servant
5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him 6 and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” 7 And he said to him, “I will come and cure him.” 8 The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” 10 When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “Truly I tell you, in no one[a] in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.” And the servant was healed in that hour.
Commentary
What I notice here is:
I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
What I find striking is that Jesus uses the word “kingdom” here but in a negative context. “the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness”. In my NIV, it says “subjects of the kingdom”. The “hiers” word makes me think of the Jews. Not sure if that is what Jesus is saying here or not. The other striking thing here is that Jesus uses the phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, which immediately makes me think of hell. Hell being something that Christians seem to be wrestling with these days. If this verse is referring to hell, then the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” does bring with it the concept of “conscious” sadness / suffering. (as opposed to the concept of annihilationism)
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits.
Commentary
Passages like this get my attention for somewhat obvious reasons this year. Here I am, deeply disturbed by how people of my culture use their resources for seemingly selfish reasons in a world where so many don’t even have the basic necessities. People will say to me that my outrage is prophetic in nature. So when I read a passage like this, it asks the question: Do I in any ways fit the description of a false prophet? Is my message fluffy on the outside but destructive on the inside? A couple of months ago as our church was talking about potentially spending $300-$400,000 on renovating our sanctuary and foyer, I was very disturbed. The crux was this equation I keep going back to: If children are dying for very “simple” and preventable reasons every day (by the thousands), and preventing those deaths doesn’t take rocket science, but rather simple things like clean water, sanitation, vaccinations, mosquito nets, etc, then how can we spend such large sums of money on what are largely aesthetics and yet still feel like we’re making the best decision? When I ask questions like this, people don’t tend to answer. They tend to take it as a rhetorical question. There are probably quite a few reasons for that, but it does lead to frustration on my part -- if someone asks you an important question and you don’t even attempt an answer, what does that say? Shouldn’t we be able to answer for ourselves? And so I contacted one of our pastors and conveyed my sense that it was important that churches be able to explain choices like this -- it was a challenge for the leadership of our church to be able to actually respond in some way to this question.
But over the course of a couple weeks, after a couple back and forths over email, I became less convinced that formally answering the question was going to be life giving for the congregation. And I actually had the thought, “Is this demand to answer this question seemingly good on the outside but rotten on the inside?”. Another analogy I had in my head is to wonder whether this dollars-and-sense thinking can be like a trojan horse for the church that has no trouble getting into the city, but then wreaks havoc? Those analogies are quite similar to Jesus picture here for a wolf in sheeps clothing.
I still don’t know. These feelings seem to come from deep in my subconscious and it’s hard to introspect them. When is wrestling with this issue healthy and life giving for the church and it’s mission? When is it destructive?
Another question to ask: What is the fruit that is being born out of my convictions of recent? Has it been life giving? Has it been destructive?
Concerning Self-Deception
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’
Commentary
This is naturally a scary one for people who have put their faith in Jesus, and it hints at the struggle of Christians in the early church to know how to understand faith and works, and the connection between the two. For me what this says is that we can be fooled into thinking that we have done what Jesus has asked if we simply believe in Him and then go about living lives that convey to others in striking ways that we are a new creation while we are inwardly still not really surrendered, and the wider picture of our life still filled with disobedience and neutered love. A humbling passage.
12 “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.
Commentary
“Boom, there it is” A critically important verse for me in the last couple of years. I was confused when reading my NIV version of the Bible. It puts this verse at the end of the “Ask, Seek, Knock” section, and it just doesn’t seem to fit. Nice that the NRSV gives it its own section.
There’s a blurb in my NIV Bible that comments that other religions mostly state this in the negative sense: “Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you”, whereas Jesus’ version is far more open-ended and challenging.
And that’s it -- this statement is incredibly challenging. But so very exciting.
7 “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s[a] eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor,[b] ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s[c] eye.
Jesus’ words on judging others are good medicine for those of us who feel frustrated by the world around us. This topic of judgement is one that has been on my mind a fair bit this year. People like me who are zealous in their nature come head to head with this issue, I think. How, with our deep convictions, do we avoid the mistake of bad judgement? Something that was helpful a couple of months ago was re-framing God's desire for myself and others in a more relative sense: To be open and obedient to God’s nudgings. That helps relax the frame of absolute behavioural and spritiual ideals, which might demand people to live in very specific ways. Each of us it at a different place in our walk with God, and in a different life context. Trying to be sensitive to that I think can be very helpful in avoiding the pitfall of judging others harshly.
One of my challenges, I think, is that I spend so much time alone, and so my personal context looms large and threatens to make me blind to the diversity of other people’s contexts. I find it interesting when going to another person’s home for dinner. Sometimes while I’m there I have this sinking feeling come over me that “wow, this person’s context is different than mine”, and there is a twinge of discomfort as I relate that to the more absolute ways that I tend to view the world.
Something that has changed for me in the last year a bit is that 12 months ago I wasn’t made uncomfortable by the command to first take the plank out of one’s own eye. This year it causes me a bit more angst. Why I’m not quite sure. Partly it’s that I feel a bit less close to God, and as I try and introspect what has changed, or what the “problem” is, I’m not actually sure. One aspect of this is probably that life tends to moderate itself. We can have a mountain top experience one year, and it might pervade for a week, or a month, or a year, but over time things tend to level out again. (not to return as they were before, but also not to remain heightened at the same level forever)
Profaning the Holy
6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.
This is a curious passage. A familiar one, but not one that I understand that well. I’m not sure if I’ve connected life circumstances to this with any frequency. But it has a certain urgency that get’s one’s attention. What is Jesus trying to say to us?
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,[a] or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?[b] 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God[c] and his[d] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
Another familiar passage. The first thing that pops into my mind is that while Jesus seems to be talking about worry/anxiety, it also crosses my mind that he might also be talking about “chasing after” a little bit. When he talks about the Gentiles striving after those things, it brings to mind modern people and their attention being placed on “my home”, “what I wear”, “where I eat out”, etc. But yes, the emphasis seems to be more on not worrying about these things in the sense of not being anxious. That said, when people "chase after" things, I think it often does result in anxiety and other tricky emotions when our goals aren't realized. (or even if they are, because we then flip to seeking even more) So even though the emphasis seems to be placed on anxiety/worry here, there still seems to be a natural connection to striving for things.
The other interesting application I see here from my context is looking out into a world of need -- people are malnourished, people are suffering. Perhaps one flavor of what Jesus is saying is that while we of course know that food and shelter (etc) are very important, it’s actually more effective in the long term not to obsess over those things, but to instead seek the kingdom of God. And if you seek the kingdom of God with your whole heart, guess what, the details of life will typically -- perhaps even mystically -- take care of themselves. Some might (many do) feel the same about trying to help others: If you see hungry and sick people in the world, one might think that trying to address their immediate needs is of utmost importance, while others might feel that the real key is instead seeking the kingdom of God, which adds additional central practices there such as spreading the Gospel, making disciples, etc. That builds a wholeness that implicitly takes care of hunger and sickness. This of course doesn’t imply that we shoo away hungry and sick people, (or even that we don't seek them out) but it does suggest that our strategy for helping the world needs to be rooted in seeking God’s kingdom first, and feeding and caring for people as a part of that, but not seen as separate or superior to the other aspects of kingdom building. I wonder if this statement by Jesus of “But strive first for the kingdom of God[c] and his[d] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” applies to this line of thinking/understanding as I’m supposing.
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[a] consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust[b] consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The Sound Eye
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Serving Two Masters
24 “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.[c]
Commentary
Similar to a comment I’ve made before, I find the “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” to be tricky psychology for me, because on a surface level it seems to invite self-centered thinking. One might think to themselves, “I’m going to go do such and such because I will be rewarded in heaven”. I have a certain resistance to that kind of thinking, because at a deeper level I sense that God wants us to be motivated to action out of a sense of love that is purely interested in the other person, or purely interested in loving God, and not loving in a way that is anticipating a reward. The other way I look at this, however, is that Jesus is simply saying something factual: Our behaviours and attitudes here and now have eternal implications, and as we make decisions and try to be the best managers we can of our time and money, we need to take that into account. Any manager needs to know something about reality if they’re going to be a good manager. (!)
I find verses 22-23 on the eye a bit mysterious. Is this the teaching that the song “oh be careful little eyes what you see?” is based on? Is the point that the light that enters our souls comes in through our eyes, and so we want to be letting in good light, not darkness? I’m not quite following the thought here.
And of course, verse 24 about not being able to serve both God and money is very familiar. (sometimes referred to as mammon, I think, the God of money?) One thought I’ve had about this passage over the last couple of years is that I wonder what the pitfalls are of trying to serve God through money. ie. If you are a person who devotes many hours to their professional activities, earns a high wage, and then goes about serving God by trying to invest that money wisely, are there pitfalls there? Can we get sucked into a mentality where we’re trying to earn more and more money, because we equate more money with being able to serve God better? ie. By having more to invest? Can we ironically then end up “serving money” when we had intended to serve God? Maybe my point there isn’t especially clear, or maybe you are catching my drift.
5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.[a] 7 “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread.[b] 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,[c] but rescue us from the evil one.[d] 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:16-18: Fasting
16 “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Commentary
In the last few months, someone commented that it seems that during Bible times, people prayed out loud. It was how they did it, perhaps… that for them, when you talked to God, you actually talked to God. I’m not sure whether that’s correct or not, but it’s an interesting thing to consider, and it seems to fit somewhat with passages like this.
While it would be a good exercise to think through the Lord’s prayer, and I do have some thoughts on that, I have to be honest about what sticks out most about these two passages, and likewise about the previous passage on “Giving to the Needy”. It is the common thread:
Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
I think the reason this causes me so much pause is that, at least at some level, I feel like Jesus might be talking about me here. Let’s look at the surface level evidence:
Many of the things I post on Facebook or on my blog are religious in nature, or things that could be connected back to things that I have done or thought that are virtuous. Here I am now, blogging about my reading of the New Testament.
The things I have felt compelled to talk about with people in the last couple of years not infrequently fall into that pattern.
The talk I gave at Grebel fits into this pattern (even if I named that tension explicitly in my talk), and the article written in Grebel Now about that talk/challenge (although not by me) definitely feel a bit uncomfortable on these scales.
I am not good at finding chunks of time to pray on my own, but I enjoy going to the church every Thursday morning to pray in a group.
As with most things Jesus says, I think he’s mostly concerned with heart -- what displeases him most is when a person’s motivation, or a good chunk of their motivation, is to get a pat on the back and raise their status among people. From this perspective, I don’t feel overly insecure reading these passages, because I don’t feel like I have impure motivations. What does still give me pause there as I’ve mentioned before is that it can be hard to truly ferret out one’s motivations at times. The subconscious parts of our being can be an enigma. Parts of our being we can introspect, but other parts we cannot. And so that leaves a question: Deep down, in my subconscious being, am I unknowingly highly motivated to be seen and appreciated by others? Perhaps one nugget of wisdom here is to say “yes, we all are, to a degree”, even if we can’t introspect it, and to keep that in the balance as we try and understand our behavior.
Then there’s the ironic part of all of this: It’s as if Jesus is saying “stop be so concerned by your image”, and yet part of what’s giving me such pause here is being concerned about my image, but in the inverse sense being talked about by this passage: Realizing that quite possibly people react to the virtuous things I say and do, and when they contrast it with these scriptures, are left with a bad taste in their mouth. That remains an open question for me: How careful should we be about our image? On one hand, being concerned about our image seems to fall into the trap these passages are warning against, but on the other hand, appearing as a self-righteous attention-seeker doesn’t seem very honoring to God either. In any event, I feel it would be a mistake to ever get too bent out of shape about what others think about us, in relative importance to standing before God and trying to discern how our hearts need to be changed. (even if those two aren’t mutually exclusive)
Something that I struggle with in these passages is that, on the flip side, I feel that human encouragement and affirmation is incredibly important. For example, when I started doing software development at Navtech, I felt like I was in one of those situations where one gets a fair bit of negative feedback for anything one doesn’t do well, but rarely encouragement for all of the things one is doing well, or even great. That’s a toxic environment. It de-motivates, it’s harmful to one’s sense of health and wellbeing, etc. To contrast that, when one is in an environment where good work is recognized and appreciated, it can be incredibly motivating and life giving. And so at one level it is a bit unintuitive to suggest that positive human feedback for doing good is destructive and unpleasing to God. I’m guessing that’s not the point Jesus is trying to make, in a specific sense, but rather that it matters how that feedback is sought and the heart behind that.
One example of how I resonate with this passage is that at times in the past I have sensed that people pay me a favor and unless I react with joy and surprise and thankfulness, they are certain to become mad. That gets tricky when the favor isn’t something that’s appreciated! I find this kind of thing quite unvirtuous -- to almost “demand” a big psychological payment for a gift that one is giving. In that context, it feels like the gift is actually plunging one into some kind of social debt, so that one then has to try and claw back out of the pit by heaping praise on the gift giver. From that perspective, the gift can actually feel like an anti-gift, making the situation all the more brutal. This situation is obviously a bit different than the things Jesus is talking about here, but I think there’s a connection.
I think I’ll close this rambling with tying this back with our desire to glorify God. That’s the window through which I’ve been often looking at the universe and looking at behavior: How can we best glorify God? That brings this passage to life for me a bit more: Do our good works glorify God, or are we getting in the way and trying to absorb some or all of that glory? This exposes a certain irony about good works: They can be done in the name of glorifying God, but our flawed human expression can easily and ironically turn that into an exercise of glorifying self if we’re not careful. No easy answers here for me, but something to keep chewing on.
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
When I read this, what came to mind was WWII. If the world’s response to Hitler was modeled after this teaching of Jesus, what would that have looked like? Would it have been horrific, or beautiful? Weak, or powerful?
A somewhat related question that, for whatever reason, has bopped around my head, is what to do if a violent person either kidnaps your child or grabs your child and threatens to harm them unless a large sum of money is handed over. How would this teaching of Jesus apply there? Something that’s interesting to me is that the passage seems to apply in two different ways: Turning the other cheek might (?) crudely imply saying something like “Why stop with my child? Why don’t I go round up the rest of my family so that you can do us all in?”. On the other hand, the “give to anyone who begs” part of the passage would seem to imply that one should not resist such violence and simply give the person what they are asking for.
It also makes me think that one of the advantages of not having a million dollars sitting in a bank account is instead relying on the love of a community is that it can't be hijacked in quite the same way. But, you could always be made to sell your home, etc.
In any event, this “turning the other cheek” teaching I think has fascinated many people. Jesus seems to be saying that if we are clever about the way we respond to evil, it can be made to look foolish and in a large part be disarmed. But that raises more questions for me: What are various ways to creatively and cleverly respond to evil?
Matthew 5:43-48: Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,[a] what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Have you ever stopped and thought “who are my enemies”? If you’re a fairly loving and forgiving person, maybe you don’t think of yourself as having a lot of “enemies”. What came to mind for me were people whose behavior frustrates me. We’ll go with owners of luxury vehicles. That frustrates me because I see a deep injustice in people dying for lack of clean water or mosquito nets (etc) while other people buy themselves such expensive toys. My response in being so annoyed with people’s behavior can be to lose love for them. Am I likely to pray for that guy who drives by me in a BMW? Not really. But that guy is just as loved by God as the lady in Africa dying of AIDS who doesn’t have enough money to buy anti-viral medications. So I think what this “love your enemies” teaching is helping me see today is that while we’re all imperfect, and some people are naturally going to frustrate us, we need to love those people just as we love ourselves, and just as we love the sick, neglected, and dying. Praying for people who frustrate you, and legitimately asking God to bless them and care for them seems like a powerful strategy to that end.
Matthew 6:1-4: Giving to the Needy
“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.[a]
This is a passage that has come to mind many times in the past couple of years. I resonate with it, but I’m also uneasy about how exactly to apply it in my life. If I do something or say something that exposes something noble I’ve done, my guideline for whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is typically to self analyze and ask myself whether I’m doing or saying something to get recognition. If I feel relatively pure in heart (which of course we probably never are, fully) then I will typically feel free in what I do and say. If I sense my attitude is feeling fleshy and craving recognition, then I try and shy away from saying more. But I’m sure we can all be fooled into thinking we’re pure in heart when deep down subconsciously what’s motivating us is tainted with self centeredness. What this also highlights is that I’m very poor at being “political”, or thinking clearly about how others are likely to perceive me, or how my words are going to affect them. Because I tend to be more heart/motivation focused (I think?), perhaps that draws my attention away from how others are going to perceive me. My “image”. I don’t think that’s all good -- perhaps I am sometimes making a fool of myself and not even realizing it. Does that please God? Probably not, eh?
The other part of this passage that I find tricky is that it sounds like Jesus is saying that we’ll be rewarded even more if we’re quiet about the good things we do, and that should be good motivation to be quiet. But because my acts of love aren’t motivated (I hope) by wanting a reward, this “do it for an even bigger reward” isn’t helpful psychologically for me, and it strikes me as a kind of strange thing for Jesus to say. I guess I’ll have to keep pondering that one.
Finally, this passage is an interesting contrast to Matthew 5:14-16:
14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
I think it’s one of the “balance” things, perhaps, something that takes judgement and discernment. Something to keep thinking about...
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister,[a] you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult[b] a brother or sister,[c] you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell[d] of fire. 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister[e] has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister,[f]and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court[g] with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
This was a good passage for me to read. Sometimes in the last year as I have been frustrated or even feeling mild feelings of anger over the disparity in the world, I have the sense that a wee bit of those feelings are good and OK, but that as humans those feelings quickly become quite “fleshy” and self-centered, and not pleasing to God. This passage seems to similarly suggest that God is very put off by people being angry with one another. It seems as though our anger is perhaps the result of judgements that we have made, which we are often not in a position to make. In any event, this passage should hopefully come to mind the next time I get angry.
Matthew 5: 27-30: Concerning Adultery
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.[a]30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a commentary on this passage before, so it was interesting to do a couple of Google searches. Let’s be honest: The most striking phrase here to me is “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away”. Are you talking about what it sounds like you’re talking about Jesus? (nudge nudge, wink wink) Commentary on the Internet seems not to think so, in a specific sense. But in a general sense, this is probably quite well within the realm of things Jesus was talking about. We’re left with some uncomfortable mystery here, aren’t we?
Matthew 5: 31-32: Concerning Divorce
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
I think what strikes me here is that I can’t imagine a pastor at our church preaching a sermon on when it’s God’s will to divorce and when it’s not. As I understand, it’s something that our church painfully worked through a few decades ago. I think what’s uncomfortable for me here is that we read certain things that Jesus says, and we know that if a pastor preached those sayings, they’d have a riot on their hands. hmm.
December 10: Thoughts in Response to Reading the New Testament December 10, 2013
I’ve typically been pretty terrible at making time to read the Bible. (I presume I’m not the only one out there!) The first time I read the new testament from start to finish (university), I was struck by biblical passages that “stuck out”. Maybe they were teachings that I had never or rarely read before -- things that caused me to pause and think “now wait a minute, that doesn’t really fit with my understanding of things”! I’ve heard other people say this as well: We grow up hearing bits and pieces, but when you read it as one piece, and as an adult, you see things that you never saw before. I’m again thirsty to read through the new testament and journal about what sticks out, or simply what speaks to me, so I’m going to try and do that, however quickly or slowly it happens. I want to try and keep up on the journaling, because I think that’s a good way to process the things that feel new, and a good way to invite others into the conversation. I’ll be putting my journal on my website as I go along. Obviously feel free to join me in my re-reading of the new testament, and if anyone likewise would want to journal I would be very happy to read your thoughts too.
Matthew 5, 17-20: The Fulfillment of the Law
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter,[a] not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks[b] one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
This catches my attention, because on the surface level it sounds like Jesus is saying that all of the various Jewish traditions that make up the old testament are still to be followed. Obviously we’re not doing that. It also brings to mind some families in Woodstock when I was a teenager that started to observe Jewish traditions, and left the churches they had been attending. (I think) Perhaps this passage was central to their thinking. It also makes me think of the struggles that the early Christian community had around this topic, for example, whether followers of Jesus should be eating “unclean” foods or not. This passage really brings that struggle to life for me for early followers -- especially for the Jewish folks who understood Jesus saying that they should continue observing all of their scriptural traditions in great detail. Tricky. Other than this isolated group in Woodstock, I’m actually not very familiar with modern day Christians struggling to understand these words. I would suppose the later parts of the New Testament that face this issue head on are what we look to as a resolution of this challenging teaching of Jesus? This actually seems quite reminiscent of the current wrestling in some churches with homosexuality. You have clear words in the Bible that indicate that God forbids it, you have many people who struggle with that teaching, and you have people feeling in their spirits that within our culture it is acceptable to God. The similarity is that with the “should we follow the law” statements that Jesus makes in Matthew 5, early Christians must have had a similar struggle. You’d have people saying “But Jesus clearly said we should follow the law”. And you’d have others saying “But I’m feeling in my spirit that it is acceptable to God for Christians of other cultures to follow the spirit of the law but not the details”. And then comes this vision of the sheet coming down from heaven, etc.
Matthew 5, 11-12
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely[a] on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
The other day I heard that someone had said something very disturbing about me that questioned my character. While I know that ultimately we don’t need to be overly fussy about what people think about us, I struggled with it, and I’m still trying to sort out whether I should go talk to that person and try and find some understanding. In any event, I found these words comforting!
Thoughts on Sin November 15, 2013
Any time a person starts attending a new church, and especially if it’s from another denomination, they’ll pick up on differences. Some are obvious and immediate, while others take time to uncover. If new or unfamiliar language is used, it sticks out right away. But what about words that get dropped from the vocabulary?
Back in 2004, after attending St. Jacobs Mennonite Church for a while, I started to realize that I hadn’t been hearing the word “sin”. Apparently, this word had fallen out of vogue. In terms of frequency of use in the New Testament, “sin” (used 173 times) is used more than “kingdom” (162), “grace” (155), “life” (135), “love” (116), “truth” (109). And so when it almost disappears from the vocabulary of a church, it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s noticeable.
So what is sin? And why has it fallen out of fashion as a word?
The simplest definition of the word that people of all ages can grasp is probably “doing something bad”. A slightly different take is “not doing what you’re told”. Disobedience.
One of the most striking Biblical images is perhaps Adam and Eve in the garden, succumbing to the temptation of eating the forbidden fruit. It is the notion that certain things have been declared off limits, and yet humans are tempted into crossing those lines. Speaking of fruit, sin is the fruit of a disobedient and rebellious spirit.
Perhaps the next Biblical story that comes to mind is that of the 10 commandments: Commandments from God. Rules which are not to be broken.
Because the old testament is set in the context of “the law”, sin can be seen within the OT largely as behaviours which break the law, or more broadly, a summarizing term that describes the state of humanity and its broken relationship with God.
In the new testament, which advocates most strongly for the importance of heart and spirit, sin takes on a slightly different flavor. It is less concerned about rigid rules and more concerned about our deep inner substance and motivations. Sin describes the state of the human heart before it has turned around to walk in the light of Christ. It describes our broken relationship with God before we have received the forgiveness and salvation offered by Jesus.
One perspective on sin is that there are absolutes -- that certain things, such as those identified by the ten commandments, are not to be done. It doesn’t matter who you are, murder is murder. But we often also think of sin in a relative sense. We might say that what’s sin for you might not be sin for me. Said differently, one might claim that “if you think you’re sinning, then you are”. This take on sin argues that it’s not just what you’re doing, but the spirit that you’re doing it in. If you sense that it’s not God’s will for you to do something, and you ignore that and do it, then this view says that you have dishonored God.
These two perspectives on sin -- the more absolute perspective, and the more relative perspective, seem to line up somewhat with the old and new testaments, respectively. As mentioned, absolute sin fits with the ten commandments and the law. Relative sin focuses more on the heart and the spirit that motivates our actions. But both perspectives seem important to understand the breadth of sin as a concept.
One of the most profound causes of sin is our self centeredness. It is in our nature to think of ourselves first, to elevate ourselves above others. It is our animalistic impulse. Survival of the fittest. Dog eat dog. The flesh. Every day we turn down opportunities to treat others the way we’d want to be treated if the roles were reversed. God makes it clear that this is contrary to His will.
There is a tug of war going on inside of us: We are not simple minded animals looking for our next meal. We also have a conscience which is hard at work deep inside of us, and we have the ability to focus on that voice just like we have the ability to suppress it. That voice can be trained, by our family system, by society, and by the Word of God.
This highlights three root causes of sin: The first is that we sometimes suppress our conscience. We stop listening. We become closed. And without listening to that voice, our self centeredness expands to fill the void. Our impulses control us. Another cause of sin is similar: It is when we do hear the voice, but we ignore it. We’re disobedient. The results are similar, but we’re often left with a byproduct in that case: Guilt and shame. Yet another cause of sin is ignorance -- when our conscience hasn’t been developed well enough to give us the hint that our behavior needs changing. All three causes are often at play within us.
Another perspective on sin also relates to self centeredness: Our unwillingness to put God ahead of everything. Even though the new testatment focuses on heart and spirit, I find it helpful to keep in mind the two greatest commandments: To love God with our whole being, and to love others as self. I think these commandments can give us a much clearer understanding of how sin functionally works in our lives, and what it tells us about the human heart.
Putting God above everything else. This, I think, is what the gospel faces head on: Unless we are radically changed to the core of our being, we will constantly fail to put God ahead of everything in our lives. For human beings to live in a way that makes God #1 takes a miracle. Something supernatural happens when we offer ourselves to Jesus.
And this starts to get at one of the key statements the new testament makes about sin: Sin leads to death. Said differently, we are dead in our sin. There are two prongs to this pronouncement: First, that death is an analogy for sin’s natural consequences here on earth. Greed has a way of biting back at us. Sexual immorality can kill. Dishonesty destroys trust, and with it, our relationships. The second prong to this pronouncement that sin leads to death is that people are spiritual beings with an eternal fate. The teaching of the Bible is that without the salvation offered by Jesus Christ, our sinfulness condemns us to separation from God. There is clearly a lot at stake here.
Given its centrality to the teachings of the gospel, why has the use of the word sin declined so much? There are many possible reasons. Here are a few that come to mind:
1.
The concept of sin is associated with the Bible’s teaching of eternity. Fire and brimstone teaching from past decades that preyed on people’s fears turned people off of this area of Biblical teaching, and with it, talk of sin.
2.
Sin is associated with guilt and shame, which are two extremely uncomfortable human emotions. With the move away from fear-based teaching, guilt and shame were two other likely candidates to distance ourselves from.
3.
The concepts of sin and salvation are easiest to understand in the context of dramatic conversion stories. They are more subtle in the lives of relatively good and honest folks who have grown up in the church and who have never wandered very far. If a church is oriented towards witnessing to non-believers, the concept of sin becomes an obvious concept. But if a church draws from people who are already of the faith, or if witnessing to non-believers isn’t at the forefront, the concept loses some of its urgency.
4.
Of the following major words of faith, it is the most “old fashioned” and culturally obscure: Faith, Love, Joy, Truth, Hope, Forgiveness, Heaven, Hell, Sin. As Christians have become more centered within their culture, ideas foreign to the larger culture become less natural to understand and use.
I will circle around to the most important command that Jesus gives us in our personal walk: To love God with our whole being, and love others as self. For me, this leads me towards yet another perspective on sin to consider. What is striking about this commandment is that it sets the bar very high -- just about as high as it can be placed. Try as we will, we will probably never be fully successful at loving God with our whole selves, nor this ideal of loving others as self. That suggests that no matter what, we are falling short by various degrees. This has a different feel than simply keeping a list of rules.
While this is challenging, and possibly even depressing for some, there is an element of excitement there for me: Obviously we must rely on God’s grace and forgiveness. But within that, we will always be challenged and encouraged to a fuller and more radiant expression of love within our lives. We are beckoned to open ourselves and to allow God’s Spirit to live within us, and to expect that what God will do within us and through us will be nothing short of miraculous. For in Christ, sin is not death, but dead.
Steeped in Prayer October 29, 2013
I wrote the following article this evening for our church's Life Together newsletter. It is for the "Christian Formation" section.
Growing up, it was not uncommon for people in my church to pray together in small groups. These prayers weren’t pre-written, they were simply people coming together and talking with God. Sometimes there was a sense of urgency and criticality to these prayers. Likewise, when the pastor prayed from the front of the church, it had a spontaneous feel to it. To contrast this, when I first started attending SJMC, I noticed that often when people prayed at the front of the church, it sounded like they were reading a poetic pre-written prayer. There’s a different feel there, and I was curious at the difference. I also noticed that prayer in small groups was more rare, and when it happened, it was a focusing prayer said by a leader before a meeting rather than a prayer involving everyone. Over the years I have sometimes thought about this, and wondered about these differences -- both their causes and effects.
Part of this reflection is that for me personally, listening and participating in spontaneous prayer was an effective form of faith formation. It helped develop the language of faith, which is an important part of one’s faith development. Our human minds are wired with language, and without the ability to both listen and speak in that language, we are missing important pieces.
Spontaneous prayer also models for children how we can relate to God. In any relationship, communication is key. We want to learn how to listen and discern how God is speaking to us, but we also want to learn how to express ourselves and our faith back to God. Any relationship which is unidirectional is missing a whole dimension. As I have read, faith is more often “caught” than “taught”. Inviting children, youth, and young adults to be part of spontaneous prayer is consistent with this principle of faith being “caught”. I delighted in hearing from Derek and Rebecca how prayer is experienced so much differently in Benin. Strikingly, children are often invited and even expected to pray spontaneously in front of the group. Is that scary or what? But it’s also fascinating, exciting, inspiring.
There are significant barriers to spontaneous prayer. It’s a cultural thing, and if it’s not a church’s culture, then it’s going to be difficult. If it misses a generation, how do we get it back? If we as parents aren’t comfortable praying with each other, how will it ever be natural for our children? Chatting with a middle aged person from our congregation, they feel that it wasn’t always so rare. What have been the forces at work changing this part of church culture?
I was recently reminded how challenging it can be when it’s not part of the culture. I was home for Christmas last November and felt led to ask my parents to pray with me about our Christmas traditions and seek God’s guidance on how we could reform our ways and try to make our Christmas time together more centered on Jesus and less about buying each other things we don’t need. But I don’t pray with my parents. It’s just not something we do. So asking them felt incredibly strange. I’m glad I did, and I hope some day it won’t be strange. I’ll bet for many of us, praying with our parents, or our teenage kids, or even our spouse, isn’t part of your culture. Where it is, I think we should be so thankful, and where it is not, we should ponder: Are we missing out on a part of faith formation that carries tremendous potential?
When I’m putting Eli to bed, it’s not often that I’m excited or motivated to pray with him. Usually by that time of the day I’m tired and wanting to get the kids in bed, which lowers my stress level. But as I sit there some nights reading him his story, asking myself whether I can summon enough energy to pray with him, I wonder whether those 5 minutes of prayer might be among the most important and critical things I do all day. Just maybe.
Popping the Stack October 25, 2013
Computer code is made up of many "functions" that software developers write. As the computer processes each line of code in a function, other functions can be "called", which causes the current function to pause and the new function to start being executed line by line. When that new function finishes, the program "pops the stack" and resumes running the line of code in the original function directly below where the function call was made. It is not rare for a computer program to be many functions deep in its execution.
An analogy for life is that you might be cleaning your house when you notice you're hungry. You pause cleaning your house to attend to your hunger. While making your sandwich, a phone call comes in. You pause your sandwich making to answer the phone. While on the phone someone knocks at the door. You pause your phone conversation briefly to answer the door. Each of these things represents a new context for your mind. When you're done each thing, you return to your previous activity.
The realization today is that one analogy for our journey through our life and through our day is that we can be many levels deep in terms of what we're working on, how we're progressing through our day, our life, etc, and this compounded stack of context can make us feel very burdened and drained. But we can parachute out of this stack back to the ground level, where it's just us and God. We can set our context down and walk back at ground level, where God is our God, and we are God's child. A kind of communion between just us and God, where the many details of life have faded away.
What are our rythms? How often during our week and during our day do we mentally and spiritually pop the stack and return our minds and souls to the most profound context of all?
National Anthems October 23, 2013
I was a few minutes late dropping off Eli to school today, and so I was standing in the office with him while the national anthem played. It is extremely rare that I hear Canada's national anthem being played. I was surprised to hear "God" mentioned in this day and age.
As I stood there and listened, the anthem felt foreign. Not simply because I hadn't heard it in a long time, but because the notion of an anthem felt strange. Declaring allegiance to a country. A sense of pride. Using words like "patriot". Phrases like "on guard for thee", etc. The subtext almost seems to suggest that one is willing to die for country. The sinking feeling is that I don't think our national anthem represents at all who I am and what I believe in.
Conversely, I don't feel special allegiance to Canada, or any country for that matter. My allegiance is to God, and then people. The Canadian border doesn't define in any way for me what people I feel called to love and sacrifice for. I don't feel proud to be a Canadian -- but rather am extremely grateful for the many blessings that come with that privilege. Rather than national pride, I am more often embarrassed by the way that Canadians live in the wider context of this world. I am not on guard for Canada. I am not willing to die for Canada. I will not fight for Canada in the literal sense.
So it's probably not a big surprise that standing at attention and singing a song about my country feels foreign.
May God continue to richly bless Canadians, and may we in turn humbly ask how our resources, health, and education, be used to serve those we are called to serve.
Too Small To Make a Difference? October 5, 2013
A similar theme to something I touched on recently is that sometimes we look out into the world and wonder what difference we can make as a single person. The world is so large, and we're so small. Here are some counter arguments to that sense of hopelessness:
Our relative impact can be huge: If one really looks at all the opportunities they have, it's kind of mind boggling. You eat thousands and thousands of meals in your life. That's a lot of opportunity to be change. Many people interact with quite a few people in a day. Another big opportunity. Most people make hundreds of financial transactions a year -- each of those being an opportunity. And many of the decisions we make affect one or more people in our lives. The converse of the sense that we're so small is that it is rather humbling how many people we affect with our decisions. Sometimes I feel bashful that several people can be affected by a decision I make.
Seeds: Often in life we think in a linear fashion, but within our world, there are many examples of exponential growth. The seed metaphor is a good one: Often by our actions and love we are planting seeds in other's lives, and we never know how significant those seeds will be once they've grown to full maturity. A giant oak tree that towers over you was once just that: A seed.
God not us: Similar to thoughts I've written recently, it's not actually our job to orchestrate all of the change in the world. Our job is to be open and obedient. It's not actually us that has the best vision for how the world could/should work. We have a wiff of the concept, but God is at work on the large scale, and we need to take one step at a time as we try to open ourselves to God's vision.
In a similar vein, we wouldn't want to make all those decision ourselves anyway. I think it would be a terrible idea if the world listened to all of my ideas as truth. I'm probably wrong as often as I'm right. Thank goodness we have multiple voices in tension, and we have a variety of people with their own good ideas experimenting to try and figure out what works well.
Burned Alive September 28, 2013
Ironic: That the idea of being plunged into flame evokes images of hell, but it’s also an image used for us here and now, as we submit ourselves to God’s holy flame. As we continually examine our lives and our hearts and find spiritual cancers growing, we can yield those to God, exposing them to the refiner’s fire. As we do, it is as if part of our being is actually being consumed by flame and destroyed. What a fascinating concept. Violent yet beautiful imagery.
Eyes September 26, 2013
I was recently reminded of the power of human eyes. When we look into human eyes, we are not simply looking into a lump of flesh, we are looking into a spiritual being.
When God created the world, he left his signature in various places. One, is in nature as a whole. As so many have found, being inside buildings can stifle our receptivity to feeling the presence of God. But when we’re out in nature, and we see its beauty, we can’t help but notice God. Another place we see God is in prayer. When we still our minds from the distractions of this world and listen, we can feel the presence of God. And finally, as mentioned, when we look into the eyes of another human being, someone made in the image of God, it should not be surprising that it can be a spiritual experience.
It is good to be reminded of that. God is making himself known through our eyes. We can literally shine out from our eyes -- not just light entering our eyes, but divine presence radiating out from our eyes. When we smile at someone and share our presence with them, I think it can awaken them spiritually. It is as if we have shared a tiny piece of God. So let us not just share the gospel in word and deed, but share it through our eyes.
Openness and Obedience September 26, 2013
I’m learning more about the concepts of openness and obedience these days. Someone recently cautioned me about the dangers of taking on too many of the world’s problems. Isn’t that a recipe for being crushed by the weight of the world? Aren’t there so many problems that this would result in you giving and giving until you’ve been picked clean? Yourself in poverty?
Along these lines, I have been increasingly sensing that no, of course God doesn’t want to harm us. Far from it. We need not take on the weight of the world, in the sense of it being our responsibility, because that’s God job. If we’re carrying the weight of the world like a burden, that’s probably not God’s will. We should release it back to God. Instead, what God asks from us is pretty “simple”. God wants us to be open, and obedient.
Openness comes from a willingness to hear. It’s so easy for us to plug our ears and turn away. It absolutely takes energy and focus to remain open to what God might be saying to us. We live in a world of many shiny distractions that consume our attention… food, entertainment, sex, money, success, etc.
The other thing God asks of us is obedience. Once we feel like we understand what God is asking of us, we need to obey.
This cycle of listening and obeying is where it’s at. If we’re willing to do that, then we don’t need to be crushed by the weight of the world, because God is holding all things together. All we’re doing is saying “Use me Lord” and delighting in the work that we are given to do.
There are two other facets of this that I want to touch on: lament, and sin.
Compassion and Lament: Even though we are not responsible to carry the weight of the world, I do feel that God wants us to be connected to and share the suffering of others. This seems like a contradiction, but I don’t think it is. It’s simply that sometimes when we listen to God, we are told to come along side hurting people and to feel their pain. To listen to them. To cry with them. To share with them. These tears are not us being crushed by the weight of the world. They are us being used by and transformed by God. And before we know it, we can smile and laugh, because we are not being weighed down in a chronic way.
Sin: Not a popular word these days, but one of the most profound effects of sin is to close us off from God. We can go right back to the garden of Eden to see what affect sin had on Adam and Eve’s relationship with God: They went and hid. In hiding from God, we shut off our listening, and we cower in fear. This isn’t rocket science, but it’s good to be reminded that sin, while it can have fairly direct negative consequences, also shuts down our openness and listening, which are key to God using us for good.
Something else that comes to mind in terms of our openness or closed off-ness to God is that we have different voices in our heads. Different natures. We have our human flesh, which can be so animalistic. Dog eat dog. Me first. Pleasure. Greed. We also have our divine selves. We are made in the image of God, we have a spirit, a conscience. When we are closed off to God, our flesh is able to exert more control over us, and we succumb to selfishness, greed. We fall in line with the animal kingdom where we live for ourselves and our own survival, even if at the expense of others. On the flip side, when we are open to the divine, when we are in “open and listening” mode, God’s spirit can take root in us, and we become increasingly capable of “loving others as self” even “loving our enemies”. And this is so much what the Kingdom of God is about: Communities of people who are poised -- open and listening -- loving others as self -- not fighting evil with evil.
My closing thought that dovetails with openness and obedience is “enough”. Most commonly we talk about “enough” in the sense that we don’t want to always be striving for “more”. A cousin of never having enough is being trapped by a worldview that only sees death and destruction, and a sense that there will never be enough. We know this is wrong, because we serve a God of overflowing abundance. If we are willing to be open and obedient, then we will find that there is not only enough, but more than we could ever imagine. Conversely, if we live by our flesh, we will constantly be depressed about our need for more. Our openness and obedience to God is enough. God will do the rest. In that, I have faith.
On Living Organ Donation September 26, 2013
Many of us will be familiar with the concept of organ donation that happens after someone passes away, but more recently I have been learning about the need for living organ donation. In January 2013, I read the story of Craig Dunbar from Ottawa. He is a 41 year old man who was afflicted with kidney failure in 2007. Four years ago, he was given the opportunity to have a kidney transplant, but the transplanted kidney went septic (not rejected), and had to be removed. This event was especially tragic because it caused Craig’s antibody sensitivity to skyrocket from a more typical 30% all the way to 98%. What this means is that while he would have previously been compatible with 70% of potential kidneys of matching blood type, he is now compatible with only 2% of potential kidneys. This makes finding a kidney extremely difficult. If that wasn’t bad enough, Craig’s access points for receiving dialysis are rapidly failing, and it is very likely that he will die within a year if he can’t find a kidney. Canada has something called the Living Donor Paired Exchange, which increases the odds greatly, but currently only 2 people have been successful at joined the exchange program on Craig’s behalf. A few dozen people were tested, but Craig has had bad luck with the proportion of people who have been rejected. Unless more people are willing to join on his behalf, the odds aren’t looking good.
This situation strikes me as being a very rich one for Christians to discern about. As I have personally reflected on the greatest commandment Jesus gave us, to love God with our whole being, and to love others as we love ourselves, I ask myself the question: If the roles were reversed, would I want Craig to donate a kidney to me. The answer is yes, and I suspect the answer would be “yes” for most of us. But in talking with other Christians, it quickly becomes apparent that most of us aren’t willing to donate a kidney to someone like Craig, especially since he isn’t someone that we have a strong personal connection with.
The second Biblical reference that comes to mind is the story of the good Samaritan. In this story, the Samaritan was willing to act even though the person in trouble wasn’t a beloved family member or acquaintance. How do we understand this? I think it goes back to Jesus’ commandment to love others as self. Each human life is uniquely valuable to God, regardless of whether they are our family of friends. If we are to surrender our selfish perspective on the world, then we must recognize God’s perspective, and in desiring to love God with our whole selves, me must be willing to act in a way that celebrates all human life as beloved by God. Craig’s life is as valuable to God as my life, and as valuable as your life.
There are many other ways in which living organ donation is relevant to our Christian dialogue:
Stewardship: We often acknowledge that stewardship is more than money -- that we are also privileged to manage the time and talents that God has entrusted to us, and that Jesus is to be Lord of all. Can we consider it good stewardship that hundreds of millions of Christians keep an extra kidney while people are dying or have very compromised health for lack of one? Looked at from a different angle, 20 years of dialysis for a person costs around $1.2 million dollars of taxpayer money. It's quite possible that kidney donation is also good stewardship of a country's medical resources.
Witness: As we endeavour to demonstrate to the world the beauty of loving others as self, situations like Craig’s are a wonderful opportunity -- an opportunity to demonstrate who God has called us to be. But if we turn away, we send a confounding message to the world. As Shane Claiborne often reminds us, we don’t want the church to be known for what it’s against, but rather what it’s for.
Christian Formation: As we sit around tables and talk about how to form faith in our youth, considering this curriculum or that, we must remember that it is actually how we choose the live, and the hard decisions that we make, that are most formative for our children.
Peace: As we have read in previous months about the imminent threat of war with Syria, we sometimes wonder in what helpful ways we as a non-violent people can respond. Although humanitarian aid is a good and right response, it is only treating the surface problem. As followers of Jesus we know that the seeds of peace are best sown long before conflict erupts. Sacrificial love for one another is one of the most beautiful seeds of peace that I know of.
These are a few areas that come to mind, but I’m convinced that there are many more rich ways in which this topic intersects our faith.
When we get to heaven and God asks us how we responded to the hungry, the thirsty, and the naked, we should also be prepared to account for how we responded to those who needed a kidney. Were we like the priests who saw the robbed and beaten man and walked to the other side of the road, or were we like the Samaritan who stopped and helped? Certainly this topic evokes much fear and emotion, and this is something we do need to be careful and wise about. Donating a kidney won’t be a good choice for everyone. But if it is fear and uncertainty that is holding us back, we need not be afraid, because what we’re about is love, and love drives out all fear.
It is not infrequent that we raise our eyes to heaven and ask for a miracle. As we do so, we must remember that God has also placed miracles within us that are ready to blossom if we are willing.
My hope is not only that Craig’s life will be spared, but that this article may be a seed that encourages Christians and whole churches to think seriously and deliberately about the wider issue of living organ donation.
For more information on Craig Dunbar, or to communicate with him, please see:
I am also very happy to answer any questions that I can, and to continue the discussion:
[mailto: daniel.bigham@gmail.com]
Troubling Dreams September 26, 2013
I don’t have bad dreams too often, at least that I can remember. Among the worst dreams I’ve had are ones where I accidentally hurt someone I love. I think in one case my dream was that I was home alone at night, when suddenly I heard someone walking up the darkened staircase from our basement. Thinking it was an intruder, I struck out at them with a weapon at an opportune moment as they reached the top of the staircase, only to realize it was a loved one. The most visceral version of this dream involved a loved one who was in pain. In the dream, I had a strong impulse that the loving and right thing to do was to knock them out so that they wouldn’t be suffering. In the dream, I was straddling them on the ground, holding them down, repeatedly striking them on the head with my fist to knock them out. But to my horror, with each blow the person simply become more badly hurt, and fully conscious. And the more hurt they become, the stronger the impulse to knock them out, which compelled me to continue striking them. On and on it went. Truly a nightmare. Terrible.
On my bike ride today this dream popped back into my head, but I saw it from a new light. The two actors in the dream were countries, or perhaps religions. The one country felt that the good and right thing to do was to act out in violence against the other country -- that somehow a violent act could be used to neutralize pain and suffering. There would be losses, but it was the greater good that was being sought. Tragically, we know that all too often wars leave both countries badly harmed.
The second layer to my thought was an analogy to the victim being a loved one. Perhaps there are deeper truths to the concept of loving one’s enemy than we realize -- that at some spiritual level, it is like we are murdering our own children. That maybe some day, when all is revealed, we will see that our enemies were actually as our own children to us, and we will have to account for how we savagely beat them. A perspective on peace.
10 Things I Love (And Dislike) About BB10 Development August 24, 2013
I haven't found much time for BB10 development in the last few months, so it has been wonderful to get about 35 hours of it in over the last three weeks. I had a very enjoyable hour today and am inspired to share some aspects of BB10 development that I really like.
1.
The UI looks great! The UX team at Blackberry did a wonderful job on all of the widgets and various UI features of Cascades, and it makes it a real pleasure to create apps. BB10 is perhaps my favorite mobile OS in terms of appearance and UI functionality. I'm not sure the UI always lives up to 60 fps like the designers had hoped, but it runs well, and UI interaction is typically nice a smooth.
2.
QML: Being able to quickly put UIs together using a declarative language like QML is great, and being able to call into C++ fairly simply is also great.
3.
QML preview: Being able to get a real-time preview of the UI you're working on is super helpful and makes building a UI so much more efficient. (The unfortunate limitation is that this doesn't work with custom controls -- I wish there was a way for that to work)
4.
Qt: Building Cascades on top of Qt was a pretty good choice, I think, if you're going to build on C++. Qt has a good set of classes, plus their signals/slots mechanism, which make building apps much more straightforward than raw C++.
5.
IDE: Building the IDE on top of Eclipse was a good idea, and the IDE has gotten noticeably better with 10.2.
6.
Sample code: Having a rich set of sample apps that are fun and well-written is always helpful. BB has done a great job with their sample apps. Thank you!
7.
Documentation: BB's website for BB10 documentation is well laid out and looks great, making it a joy to use.
8.
Developer relations and forums: BB means business when it comes to helping developers. They're on the opposite end of the spectrum as compared to Google... if you have any serious issue, just send them an email and they're right on it. This is frankly amazing. Good work developer relations!
9.
Blogs: It's helpful that BB maintains a good developer blog. This makes it fun to continue to learn and be motivated by
10.
Events: BB's "jam" events have been fun to attend, and a good way to meet people and get excited about Blackberry's vision.
Now, to be fair, I'll also list the things that are painful about BB10 development.
1.
Developer productivity with Cascades (for me, right now) is about 2x-3x slower than it was with Adobe AIR. Part of this is my own fault for being rusty on C++ and new to Qt, whereas I had relatively more experience with JavaScript upon which AIR is built, and partly it's because I write more polished code (and more substantial apps) when doing Cascades work, whereas I was happier to hack things together in AIR, but all this said, that makes a huge difference. Some of my top-grossing apps for PlayBook took 8 hours, 2 hours, even 1 hour, to create, whereas my BB10 efforts have been more in the 30 hour range to create something. What this means for hobbiest developers is that it's harder to "focus" on an app, because you might have a week or two where you have some free time, and that only gets you started on an app, it doesn't start and complete the app. Then you lose focus and forget what you created, and you get out of the groove of BB10 development, and it feels like starting from scratch when you pick it back up a few weeks later. I hope that as I progress my productivity will increase. Part of the issue here is C++/Qt. They're good languages, but they're just not as productive as languages like C#, Java, or JavaScript. Qt hags a fair bit of "cruft". Having to maintain .h and .cpp files slows you down. Adding methods is more painful, etc.
2.
My first big time investment in a Cascades app took about 25 hours of my time and 25 hours of a friends time to get close to completion. Then, the app started crashing randomly if I repeated an action. Ugh. The stack trace didn't even involve my code. I must have been doing something wrong in terms of Qt and its memory management, or something, but after staring at the code endlessly I couldn't come up with any solutions to the crashing. This was super-disheartening, and frustrating for a seasoned developer. Writing programs in languages like C++ carries with it this added risk over languages like C# and Java... if you screw something up which has a very indirect affect later on in the execution of the program, and it might take you eons to solve it. This obviously makes development much less fun. I still have yet to solve my issue, and I'm low on patience to go back and spend hours trying to figure it out. Solving those kinds of issues isn't really what someone wants to be doing with their hobby time.
3.
I find QML + C++ to be quite a compelling combination, but it also feels a bit "brittle" at times. If you want to do the common things, it's fairly straightforward, but sometimes I'm trying to do something that seems slightly out of the ordinary, and I'm just clueless how to pull off the plumbing to make it happen. For example wanting to send a pointer to an object from QML to C++, and it gives some cryptic answer. It seems so simple! I think the answer I found on the web was that your method should accept a QObject*, not the actual pointer type you're trying to send. Uhhh, OK, whatever. That's the joy of using a rich, built-up framework, but not having a depth of experience with it. ie. Steeper learning curve. Again, nice when hobby development isn't a steep learning curve.
4.
I really wish deployment to the device was faster. Not including compile time, it takes about 10 seconds to deploy and run the app over USB. This seems silly to me. Surely that shouldn't take more than 1 second if optimized: The app isn't very large -- what takes so long!? Having to wait this long slows down development time and scatters my concentration.
5.
The IDE can feel buggy at times. Currently, if I press "Run" too quickly after the compile finishes (and it is done), it gives me a NullPointerException in the IDE as a popup. Super annoying. Also, it can't currently find the simulator, even though it was working fine previously, and I haven't made any changes to the simulator. And sometimes it can't see the device over USB even though it is connected, or can't see if over Wi-Fi, even though it is there. Little bugs and unreliabilities make developers cranky. I've also had headaches with the keys that RIM issues you to sign your apps -- using them, managing them, etc.
I'm having a hard time thinking of anything else to complain about, so that's a good sign :)
BB10 Work Log: June 22, 2013 June 22, 2013
Well it's been a long time since I've logged any work. I spent about 25 hours working on rewriting "Send to PC" in Cascades, but that got bogged down towards the end of development by the application randomly crashing with a cryptic stack trace. Ugh. I do need to get back to that.
Anyway, tonight I wanted to take another crack at getting Flix working on the Q10. The last time I tried to make this work, it was a no-go, with serious audio synchronization issues, etc.
I gave it another go tonight and seemed to find that one of the QNX native SDK methods is returning 0 when it should be returning a non-zero value. Weird.
Thoughts on the notion of renovating a church sanctuary May 27, 2013
Our church is planning on doing some renovations of our church sanctuary, and we have been asked to contribute our personal dreams for that project. Below are my thoughts. Obviously this is something each church must wrestle with.
Other than some more distant recollections of people commenting that we might consider changing the paint color in the sanctuary, comments at the annual meeting (?) or around that time challenging the congregation to undertake a renovation project of the sanctuary before 2015 are where the context of this “dreams discussion” originate for me. The tone of the announcement at church this week, as well as the note that was put in people’s mailboxes, seems to have evolved from the original challenge. I won’t get the wording right, but the announcement was something to the effect of “it’s clear that the carpet needs to be replaced in the sanctuary” on Sunday, and in the note in the mailboxes it says “the flooring needs to be replaced in the sanctuary and the foyers as a matter of maintenance”. There seems to be an implicit affirmation from leadership that this project will be undertaken, and that it will in the very least involve replacing the flooring of the foyer and sanctuary.
This implicit affirmation is challenging for me because the need to replace flooring is far from clear to me. The spirit behind the project as a whole likewise isn’t something that I resonate with, and so the assumptive voice that is emerging is tricky for me. It makes me feel as if my feedback doesn’t apply because it falls outside of the assumed parameters of the discussion.
In general, the way I have been thinking about opportunities to spend financial resources these days is to consider the full gamut of possibilities. With any dollar we have been entrusted with, my sense is that we should aim to do that which glorifies God the most. Obviously that is a tricky question to answer in a precise way, but hopefully the general concept is useful and something that many people would agree with.
When I look out into the world and read that 20,000 children are dying every day due to preventable causes while we in our congregation live such comfortable and affluent lives, it challenges me. More and more, I feel like God is getting my attention, waking me up. I believe that even as Christians, we often live our lives without a world-wide perspective. Rather, we are very acclimatized to life within our Southwestern Ontario context. When we make spending decisions, my sense is that we typically do that with blinders on. If the broadness of our vision was really global, I struggle to believe that we would make many of the financial decisions that we make as a congregation, both in our personal lives, and in our life together as a church. Does God desire us to limit the scope of our decisions? I don’t think God desires that.
Let’s take for example the choice of whether we replace the flooring. If it costs $7,500 to replace the carpet, that is perhaps 3x a typical estimate for how much it costs to save a child’s life. And so I don’t take the decision lightly.
A second layer to my struggle is that our sanctuary has its primary use of about 1.5 hours per week. A week is 168 hours, so that is a utilization of 0.9%. The foyer is used perhaps 30 minutes per week for a weekly utilization of perhaps 0.3%. I believe that God desires Christians to demonstrate skillful stewardship -- can the use of our sanctuary and foyer really be considered good stewardship? Even more challenging is the fact that our small town of St. Jacobs has three church buildings. Each one of those buildings is the property of the same God, and each is likely utilized a tiny percentage throughout the week. Again, this strikes me as a sign of poor stewardship. (Can’t we share a church?) Can we honestly understand such tiny utilizations as honoring to God in a world where so many precious children don’t make it to their fifth birthday?
These feelings of sadness and confusion don’t fit very well with the sentiment of the letter in our mailboxes which make comments such as “fresh and exciting”, and talks about “need”.
Where I do connect with this conversation is that we must face the fact that we are surrounded by and desiring to witness to people who live in this culture, and we might be less effective at inspiring folks to worship with us if our sanctuary isn’t architecturally inspiring. And so from that angle I am fully supportive of the notion of (ironically) being good stewards of the building that we have been given, using it to its fullest potential as an instrument of witness.
But even that said, it’s far from obvious to me that a pretty sanctuary that potentially costs the lives of children is a good witness to a culture that is drunk on materialism. Don’t we reap what we sow?
I’ll close with something that is a bit off topic. I had been thinking that this discussion was a more general “capital project dreams and discussion” and not limited to the sanctuary project... the realization for me was that I do love capital projects. They’re exciting! It just depends what kind of capital project we’re talking about. If we’re talking about building wells or other clean water initiatives like sand dams, building schools, building churches, etc, then sign me up. On that theme, here is my dream for a “capital project”. I will use numbers not because they are overly important, but I do think they can make a dream feel a bit more concrete.
A five year project focused on partnering with communities in developing nations to provide access to clean water, education, and medical services. $500,000 goal over the five years, which would be given on top of our typical church budget. (Just like a typical capital campaign) A portion of that $100,000 per year would be used for travel expenses for people in our congregation to be physically present with the people we have a heart to minister to, developing friendships, learning about their culture, being transformed, and bringing back stories to the local congregation. Rather than spending dollars that have yet to be given (and going into debt), we could have a “giving year” followed by a “spending year”. ie. There would be five spending years in a row, but the first “giving year” would come a year prior to the first “spending year”. That would eliminate the stress of having to pay down debt, and so the money spent on this capital campaign each year would be more analogous to “overflow” than to debut reduction. Rather than being purely a matter of dollars, we would pour ourselves out into research and planning, and prayer. And we would be partnering with existing organizations, whether MCC or otherwise, to leverage their knowledge and relationships.
That is a capital campaign that would both challenge and excite my spirit. Carpet just can’t compare.
Living at Church April 20, 2013
Something that came to mind at the Inspire Justice conference last weekend (not for the first time), is the concept of "living at church". What do I mean by that? Yup: Literally living at church.
Let me back up a step. Something that causes me concern is that there are so many big, expensive church buildings. At this conference, there was mention made of one church doing a $50 million dollar building expansion! In a world where there are so many children dying from malnutrition and preventable diseases, it causes one pause. As members of a church, can we feel confident that putting our offerings in the plate are the absolute best way to be the hands and feet of Jesus in a suffering world? Are these big, little-used buildings really a core example of what it means to be "the church"?
How much difference do these capital campaigns really make? I was shocked to learn that when people in the church die and leave a large amount of money to the congregation, such as $100,000, it is customary for 90% of that to go to the capital fund. Yikes.
What goes along with this concern is that these buildings have their core utilization, at least in our congregation, between 9 AM and 12 noon on Sunday. That's 3 hours out of a 168 hour week. The buildings do have pastoral offices, a few activities throughout the week, and there are a couple of organizations that use some of the space, but overall utilization remains low.
As a church, I believe we are called to lead by example. We should be able demonstrate good stewardship to the world. Because hey, we are spending God's money, so one would think we'd be pretty careful.
Another realization here is that our church is in a small town where there are not one or two, but THREE church buildings. Can churches in a small town not even figure out how to share their worship spaces so that three completely separate buildings, all low-utilization, are required? Part of me shakes my head at this. Good stewards?
How about parking lots. My home church in Woodstock recently bought a school that closed down next to it so that it could continue to use the parking lot around the school. Cost: Something like $350,000. That's money that could flow right into missions, perhaps enough to double the missions budget for a whole decade, but the money gets tied up in a parking lot. At this Inspire Justice conference in Cambridge, the size of the church parking lot was absolutely massive. Sigh.
The crazy idea is this: Could people live in church buildings? Imagine a family setting up a couple of tents at bed time: One for mom and dad, and another for their two kids. Meals prepared in the church kitchen. Movies watched on the church projector.
What would this look like with 5 families living in the church? Shared day-care. Having other kids to play with. If there were multiple people who "worked at home", it would create a bit of an office environment.
Community. 0-minute drive to church. Shared meal prep a few times a week. Huge cost savings.
Let's take it a step further: What if those families shared their income while living there together, and gave the excess to the church? It almost sounds like Acts.
And yet another step further: Including a mix of low-income families, such as immigrants, etc.
And yet another step further: Include a couple of elderly people who still have their marbles but can't quite take care of themselves anymore?
I wonder whether we suddenly wouldn't have a building under-utilization issue any more, and that might be one of the smaller benefits.
I find this fascinating.
BB10 Work Log: January 13, 2013 January 27, 2013
Back in the middle of January I decided at the last minute to participate in the Community Port-o-thon. It was a rather busy day of social activities, so not an ideal at all, but it was fun.
I spent 8 hours:
Print: 43 min PC Keyboard: 1 hr 17 min Open on Phone: 1 hr 44 min (port of 'Open on Tablet') Smug Sync: 46 min Send From PC: 1 hr (new app) Baby Paint: 25 min Vendor Portal Autologin: 36 min Realtime Earnings: 1 hr 13 min (but gave up)
I ended up submitting 6 apps, which should translate to $600, which is a nice perk for doing something I was already intending to do. They were giving out additional BB10 devices to the first 200 people to submit 5 apps... that's what was more the motivation to jump in that Saturday, but as I got going and they reported that they had well over 10,000 apps, I realized that my chances of getting a phone were slim to none.
Anyway, wonderful to have all of my apps that I wanted to port to BB10 done, so that I can move my focus to new things.
I still intend to enhance Flix so that there isn't a need for a helper app to select movies, but I will wait until "launch" when there is hopefully (?) confirmation of whether there will be a native Netflix app.
Spent 1.5 hours finishing off and submitting my baby names app for BB10.
Signing the app was a bit of a challenge. When submitting the BAR file, it kept complaining that the Package ID had changed. I finally figured out that the id tag in my bar-descriptor.xml file was com.daniel.BabyNames when it was intended to be com.danielbigham.BabyNames.
Finally back to my baby names app, the first app I started writing to learn Cascades. This app has been derailed so many times due to beta issues, etc.
It's mostly done, just a matter of making changes required by the newer APIs and finishing it off.
Spent an hour and a half getting it rolling again.
Left to do:
Hook up "reset all" and "instructions" features again.
Fix bug: Rating screen doesn't reset properly when changing girl/boy or mom/dad selections.
Results screen is highlighting words in red. (spelling correction?) Turn that off.
The results screen is taking approx. 4 seconds to populate. Why? Should be able to do that in the blink of an eye.
Get rid of gear icon in overflow menu for selecting a letter.
Look into why segmented control is such a dim grey appearance. Looks disabled.
I started by finishing off Flix for BB10. At least, I hope so. I cheated by continuing to use version 2.1 of the SDK. (crossing my fingers it doesn't get rejected because of that) One remaining glitch was that the audio/video synchronization was off, but my theory about what was causing it was right: The number of bytes of audio per millisecond on the PlayBook always seems to be 176 instead of varying like one would think with the quality of the audio stream. But on BB10, it does seem to vary. I also re-Photoshop'd all of the graphics to fit the resolution of BB10. With that done, I submitted the app.
Next, I spent just over an hour porting Print to BB10, and that went pretty smoothly.
With that ported, it only took 20 minutes to port Send To PC.
Finally, late in the evening, I started porting Picasa Sync, and 2 hours later that was done. The main annoyance there was this label issue with the .textWidth property not giving accurate values back. I finally worked around it by removing the old label from the stage each time I need to update its text, creating a new label, waiting for the added event, and then querying the .textWidth property. I'll have to go back and update iTunes Sync / Print / Send to PC to use this same logic.
So as of now I have the following apps submitted:
iTunes Sync
Flix + Flix Movie Selector
Print
Send To PC
Picasa Sync
Time log:
Flix: 1 hour 37 min Print: 1 hour 15 min Send To PC: 22 min Picasa Sync: 2 hours 13 min Total: 5 hours 29 min
BB10 Work Log: December 28 2012 December 28, 2012
Today I figured I'd tweak, test, and submit Flix to App World for BB10. I had spent a couple hours on Flix a month or so ago, with the hope that I could combine the Flix Movie Selector app with the main Flix app (via the WebView control), but getting the Foreign Window sample app to work in conjunction with my screen code just wasn't working for some reason. Given that roadblock, I figured I should at least submit it as is.
I spent 20 minutes making required changes to Flix Movie Selector, but upon launch the app would just immediately close after displaying the standard BB10 spash screen for an instant. (AIR app) Boo. Of course, after spending nearly an hour going over every detail with a fine tooth comb, I couldn't figure out what was going on. In the end I had to take a "Hello World" BB10 AIR app and re-build the app by copying and pasting over functionality, and finally, that's working. (1.5 hours of time)
Next I moved onto Flix itself. When the dev alpha was first released, Flix worked like a charm. I tried building and deploying it today with the latest SDK, and no such luck. First of all, user prompts weren't showing up. I found some information on the forums and fixed that. Next, I needed to prevent portrait orientation.
But with those things fixed, the actual playback wasn't working at all. It buffers for 30 seconds or so, and then the audio starts playing with some choppiness, and video frames aren't showing at all. Bleh.
The strange thing here is that when the Dev Alpha was first released, I tried Flix on the device and it worked fine. So what gives? I went back and tried the code with the PlayBook 2.1 SDK and it worked fine. Then I noticed that you can deploy NDK apps built with the PlayBook 2.1 SDK to the Dev Alpha, and if you do that, again, the app works. It even uses the proper BB10 dialogs, etc. It makes me wonder whether I might be allowed to submit the BB10 app compiled using the 2.1 SDK.
Flix Movie Selector: Changes required for BB10: 20 min Troubleshooting bizarre app crash on load: 1 hour 10 min Total: 1.5 hours
Flix: Fix user prompts: 10 min Prevent portrait orientation: 10 min Troubleshoot why playback is broken: 40 min (unsuccessful) Troubleshoot using 2.1 tablet SDK: 1 hour Total: 2 hours
Total: 3.5 hours
PlayBook Work Log: December 16 2012 December 16, 2012
Well it has been a long time since I've done any PlayBook development. Life just hasn't afforded it recently, and any time I've had has gone to BB10 stuff.
But I wanted to make a quick little enhancement to my Alarm Clock app so that it would support a visual alarm for Eli, our 3 year old.
We're going to try having him use the PB as his alarm clock, and have the background image change when it's time for him to get up.
It took 20 minutes to make the code changes, but it looks like I don't actually have the PB SDK set up on my new computer. I downloaded 2.1 and tried to install, but during installation the installer freezes, with the window showing nothing but black. Groan. Why must computers be such a bear? After 20 minutes I finally got the installer to work by choosing the installation directory on my C:\ driver rather than my E:\ drive.
Initial implementation: 20 min SDK installer troubleshooting: 20 min Testing and bug fixes: 35 min - Bug 1: Part of my implementation logic didn't make sense. - Bug 2: Alarm type was getting reset once app was exited and started again due to a subtle bit of logic that took 20 minutes to discover.
Total: 75 min
Struggles reconciling the disparity between rich and poor, and how we should live October 17, 2012
The last couple of years have been an interesting journey. To a fault, I have been pondering money issues. Where this started, I think, was the realization of how financially blessed Meredith and I are. We have both been successful in our careers, and with that has come good salaries. Since I grew up in a family where one parent worked outside of the home, and I always felt like we were very well off, I at some point started to question whether Meredith and I really needed all that we were being given.
Something that has exacerbated this questioning is that in the last year, my app development hobby exploded, and at one point I was making twice as much money on app sales as I was at my day job. Around the time this happened, I felt like God was clearly telling me that this app money was our "cup overflowing", and that we should use that money beyond ourselves. It has been a very joyful process for both Meredith and I.
More recently, I read the book Radical: Taking Your Faith Back From The American Dream by David Platt. I would highly recommend this book to my Christian friends and family. The chapter that really hit home for me was chapter 6. If I can paraphrase, there are many thousands of children that die each day due to starvation or preventable diseases. Many of us are vaguely aware of that, but file it away in the back of our minds. Meanwhile, we consume ourselves with our desire for more physical stuff, prettier stuff, or experiences. Jesus tells us pretty plainly in the New Testament to do otherwise, but we fall victim to interpreting many of the difficult teachings of Jesus through a materialistic North American context. Our culture is far more powerful than we give it credit. David Platt argues that our blindness to this issue is analogous to the blindness that people had to slavery. It's very frightening to realize that such good, God-loving people honestly believed that slavery was good. Is it perhaps similarly frightening that many North American Christians are blind to the control that their culture has over their lifestyle and how they interpret the teachings of Jesus?
Having read this, I feel very convicted that I am far more materialistic than God desires us to be. And secondly, I feel like David Platt's writing has been successful in dislodging my mental defense mechanism which allows me to ignore the critically poor in the world. Part of this is that I'm a parent now, and the thought of watching one's child, Eli or Hazel, die to starvation or a preventable disease, is something that I can empathize with far more than I could before having kids. The way we perceive harm to our children is profoundly powerful. When one can empathize with other parents in third world countries, it is like receiving a large electric jolt. No longer is it a vague abstract concept for me. It is real people, just like me, living a nightmare.
This may sound extreme, but I have cried very heavy and burdened tears at least twice in the last week.
One of the core questions I am struggling with is how much money it takes to save a life. Two billion people in the world live on $2 a day. So the $5000 that we can easily spend on a two week vacation is an incredible sum of money in comparison. If there are thousands of children each day on the tipping point between life and death, how is it possible that it is God's will for me to use that money for my own pleasure instead of helping my brothers and sisters?
Being hit with that question has been tough. It really shakes one's whole world view of money, and how we should live. And it seems kind of silly, because it's not like I've been completely oblivious to this topic my whole life.
I'm thirsty to talk with others, both people who have likewise been convicted by these questions, and those that think such extreme thoughts are misguided and unhealthy. Obviously there must be a balance somewhere, but most suggestions of balance I have heard so far don't seem to answer the $5000 question I pose above.
What a day October 16, 2012
I'm currently in Champaign Illinois for my yearly trip to the headquarters of Wolfram Research. Today at 2:30 as I was typing away on my laptop, I started to feel a pain in my chest -- the bottom three inches or so of my sternum. It was mild pain, but one's mind always wonders whether one should be concerned about such things. I told my manager so that if I went into any distress, someone would know what I was feeling, but continued to work. After 20 minutes or so, it started to get worse, and I felt the urge to lay down, so I packed up my things and headed back to my hotel room to get some rest.
I feel asleep and woke up a couple of hours later with significantly more pain, and I could feel my heard beating. I took my pulse and it was 110 bpm, which isn't at all normal for waking up from a nap. I started doing some Google searches and was going to phone telehealth but I was overcome with the sense that being alone in a hotel room with significant chest pain and an elevated heart rate wasn't very smart. I went to put my shoes on, and as I sat up I felt even worse, so I didn't even bother putting my socks on.
As I walked down the hall, I felt more ill, and I could feel my heart pounding faster and faster. I didn't feel overcome with panic, so my racing heart was really concerning me. I got to the front desk and wanted to first tell them my symptoms, and second figure out a way for me to get to the hospital to get checked out. My pain was evident in my voice, and when they heard "chest pain" they didn't seem at all interested in me going by taxi. The lady at the front desk later explained that she has had several family members in their 30s and 40s die from cardiac arrest, so she wasn't going to mess around. I felt badly about calling an ambulance and wanted to avoid that, but they wouldn't have any of it. My grandma Bigham died of a heart attack because she didn't want to raise a fuss with her symptoms, so I suppose we should learn our lesson. I got them to phone Meredith and let her know my symptoms.
I was really feeling overcome by my pain and racing heart, which was now > 130 bpm, so I lay down and elevated my feet. (is that what you're supposed to do?) The ambulance arrived after about 5 minutes and I stood up and got on the stretcher. They loaded me into the ambulance and measured my heart rate and blood pressure, which I think were 130 bpm and 160/100. They started monitoring my heart, and there were no signs of trouble. He explained that, while the details are complex, they are trained to quite easily pick out the signs of heart trouble, and they weren't seeing anything of serious concern.
I got to the hospital and they did an ECG. Everything looked ok. The last major thing they wanted to rule out was a blood clot. Because I have had surgery recently and spent 6 days in bed, the risk of that was a bit higher. So they took some blood. It ended up being an hour or so before I had the chance to call Meredith and let her know that there were no signs of trouble. I lay there feeling very badly that all this time she must have been frantic not knowing what was going on. As I was requesting that they bring a phone for me to talk to her, she actually phoned the hospital. I was able to let her know that everything looked fine, so I could finally relax knowing that she wasn't in the dark.
After two hours of waiting, the doctor was able to present the results of the test, which showed no markers of blood clot. I was A-OK. They did a quick ultrasound to make sure there were no visible signs of distress in my heart or lungs, and that looked great. And finally, they gave me a numbing agent to drink to see if that had any affect on my GI tract. By the time they gave me the numbing drink, the pain was reduced by 70%, and the drink perhaps helped a bit more, but didn't make it go away.
So here I am back at the hotel room and I've chatted with Meredith and Hannah and my Dad. What a day. I feel somewhat badly that an ambulance ended up being called, but as I said about learning from my grandmother's experience, it's better to fare on the side of caution.
So what is causing the pain? It could be stomach, or it could be musculo-skeletal. Ulcer? Acid reflux? I've had heart burn at least a dozen times in my life and the pain I felt today didn't feel similar at all to heart burn, so it's a bit of a mystery. My guess is stomach. Maybe an ulcer? I've had an emotional week pondering difficult questions of injustice in the world, so maybe that is part of the story.
But glad that everything seems to be ok.
BB10: It's Gotta Be Fun October 4, 2012
One of my reflections this week is that a key thing that BB10 development must succeed at, in order to be successful with devs like me, is that it needs to be fun. It needs to be a positive experience that brings joy and keeps you coming back.
I'm a developer that works full time, and so every now and again, when I find an hour or two for some recreational coding, I want to do something that I am passionate about. Something that is entertaining, fun, positive. The PlayBook delivered on that, big time. Adobe AIR is a very mature platform, with a rich class library. You can do a lot with a little bit of code. And the PlayBook didn't add much complexity on top of that. Because ActionScript had been around for so long, you could Google just about any problem or question you had, and find decent answers. It doesn't get much better than having an app idea, sitting down for 4 hours, and at the end of it having a shiny new app that was both fun to create and rewarding to share with others. Bam! That'll keep you coming back time and time again.
BB10 via Cascades/QML isn't there yet. By my best estimations, it's almost there, and I just need to hang on a little bit longer, but the unfortunate reality is that as of October 2012, my BB10 development experiences haven't been fun. They've been frustrating, and slow. And it's tantalizing, because what RIM is building looks so, so good. I love just about everything about the platform, the design, the devices, etc.
Most recently, this week, after so many exciting things coming out of BB Jam Americas, I was excited to spend an hour or two and try out the new SDK. I loaded the new SDK, fired it up, and fixed some of the compile time errors that were a result of API changes. One of the API changes gave me a hard time, because the instructions on RIM's page for how to incorporate it didn't mention anything about their modified code snippet requiring new include statements, and the compile errors that resulted were, in typical C++ style, not especially helpful. But once I got over those hurdles, the app compiled. With nervous anticipation, I clicked the "Debug" button.
And that's where things ground to a half. The console contained all sorts of errors in red about corrupt shared libraries. Off to the support forums I went, but didn't find any existing posts. As per usual, Garett from developer relations at RIM came to the rescue and with the tip of uninstalling 10.0.9, forcefully deleting the API, and then re-installing, I was up and running.
Sort of. Now when I ran my app, I couldn't load any secondary screens. Great. I eventually determined that some of my QML files had errors in them, but inexplicably those files don't show up in Eclipse with red error icons. Rather, you have to manually open each one and look for red squiggly lines. Face palm. Not was I was expecting as a developer using state of the art dev tools in 2012. At the very least, the thing shouldn't compile and deploy to the device if files have errors in them.
So, I solved those issues, again due to changes in the API, took a deep breath, and tried again. Still no ability to load secondary screens. When using the app, nothing would happen when I'd touch an action bar item. Nothing in the console, nothing on the screen... just, nothing.
Later this week, when I had another hour of energy for BB10, I tried again. I spent half an hour trying every possible thing I could think of to narrow down the problem and isolate what was going on. But nothing I tried really helped solve the issue or narrow it down. In the end, I couldn't even get console.log statements in the QML to work.
We're all human. We all have finite patience, and this is where mine ran out. I felt angry. I felt like slamming something, turning off the dev tools and shouting an expletive. And those things aren't typically part of my personality. I was really, really disappointed. Yes, I was obviously making a programming error, so my fault, but the point is that the tools weren't doing their job to help me as a programmer find my mistake. And without that, programming goes from being "fun" to "get me the heck out of here" very fast.
This time I didn't even bother to post to the forums, I sent Garett an email directly explaining my emotions and disappointment. This guy is amazing. As per usual, he promptly returned my email the next day with helpful explanations of exactly what was going on, and how to get past my issue. Brilliant.
But I need to pause here. As much as I love and am blown away by RIM's developer relations, they shouldn't and can't be a substitute for properly working tools. It's just not a sustainable model. In the end, and I really wished by now, RIM needs really great dev tools that allow BB10 development to be straightforward.
What came to light in Garett's response was shocking: RIM has released 10.0.9 knowing that due to some related changes by Qt folks, logging is now broken. What this means is that if something goes boom in some QML you're running on device, you're not going to hear about it. Rather, it will silently fail.
So here I was wasting my life debugging a programming problem, and because of a major bug/issue with the tools, the error messages weren't even making it back to the IDE to be shown to me. No wonder I couldn't make anything work.
What I simply cannot fathom is that RIM would release 10.0.9 knowing that this problem exists. Surely there must have been heated internal discussions about this with people saying "we can't release it like this", while other people countered "I know, it sucks, but we have to".
Whatever the story, this falls out of the realm of reasonability for me. It seems almost double faced to on one hand pamper devs with wonderful support from dev relations, produce great conferences and Jam sessions, and then after all of that, release an SDK update that breaks one of the most fundamental aspects of your code/run/debug cycle. What?!
I will circle around to how I started this blog post: BB10 development needs to be fun. It needs to be a positive, energizing experience. And until it gets there, devs like me will have nightmare experiences like I had last night, and it will take energy to cajole ones self to continually "try again, maybe it will be better this week". If RIM could only figure out how to turn that around, they would be so much more successful with BB10 now and in the coming years. I think they will ultimately succeed in getting BB10 development wrinkles ironed out. They are incredibly determined to do just that. But I'm sad to be sitting here in October 2012 still honestly saying that we're not there yet.
BB10 Jam Americas: Shifting the Tides September 28, 2012
Prior to BB10 Jam Americas, I had been feeling more discouraged about the future of BlackBerry. Back 9 months ago, after purchasing a 9900, and after recently having my first big app success on App World, I was extremely bullish about RIM. I wrote an article for BerryReview entitled RIM: Perception VS Reality where I contrasted how the media was constantly slamming RIM as compared with my fantastic experiences with their new 9900 offering. My conclusion was that, for me, the 9900 was an extremely competitive product, and it turned on its head for me the notion that RIM's latest handsets were dinosaurs compared to the competition.
Going to BB Jam in Orlando was another high point in my bullishness for RIM. The $10K developer commitment was incredible, and depending on the details, it might have meant a real shot at earning another $100K to $200K for a developer like me. The Cascades framework looked incredible, and I was in awe of the 60 fps they were acheiving, paired with the gorgeous and industry leading 1280x768 screen. I was also very impressed by how RIM was able to leverage TAT to infuse BB10's UI with world class design.
Since the conference, there have been many discouragements and not as many encouragements.
To be honest, some of my key discouragements have been personal, which I should obviously separate from BlackBerry's future. To start, after spending 150 hours creating and working out kinks on my Flix app, the response has been mixed, but many people have slammed the app as being silly and worthless with its restriction of only working at home, etc. While I disagree, it doesn't feel great to be panned by users, especially when I was so excited working on it that it would be received well by the community. As an example, my brief chat with Alec Saunders (meeting him for the first time) at BB Jam in Orlando was not exactly inspirational. I think his comment was that he could see how some users might want to do that. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate his honesty, and who knows, perhaps RIM's internal perception of the app was mixed. Maybe they were even unhappy about it. On the technical side, it has also been frustrating that the PlayBook NDK doesn't support the WebView control, requiring a separate helper app to adequately select which movie you want to watch. Ugly. It will be many months yet before RIM catches up on the PlayBook to support Cascades, which includes a WebView control.
It was wonderful to be off of work June/July/August with my wife on parental leave following the birth of our second child. I knew life would be busy, but I also figured there would be some good chunks of time to do BB app development. It was pretty disappointing seeing August come to a close and still not being done porting my first super-simple Baby Names app to BB10. (Which took 13 hours to create for PlayBook, and likewise 13 hours for BB phones) I wrote an article about the pain points that there were using the beta SDK tools, but again part of this was personal: I just hadn't been successful finding the time and energy to overcome these hurdles. Part of this was paying for my earlier success: I was struggling to keep up to support emails, and was frequently burried in 100+ support requests. Keeping up was eating most of the time I would otherwise have for new development.
Some more unfortunate news recently is that the 10K developer commitment is limited to 1 app. That turns the 10K commitment from being a possibly huge economic opportunity for me to basically a non-event, since my top apps will almost certainly earn more than 10K in their first year.
Aside from not finding time, I have also been lacking some passion on the BB10 dev front. Most of this relates to getting stuck on pain points as mentioned above, but part of this is too is being uninspired by the PlayBook OS they slapped on the Dev Alpha. Having almost 0 first party apps on the device makes sense from the perspective of "you build it", but it has a strangely demotivating affect turning on a device with no first party apps to inspire, and no inspiring UI to play with.
Besides these personal dev downers, it has been harder than I thought watching RIM struggle with its quarterly results. What is strange about this is that I knew it was going to happen, and wasn't really phased by it, but to actually see it happen, and seeing the stock so much lower than I ever could have imagined is a tough pill to swallow. It has also been rattling to see personal friends leave RIM, and hear of others that have been let go. Again, we knew this was coming, and so I'm not sure why the reality of it is harder to take than I thought.
Finally, I have increasingly felt that while I am a big fan and supporter of BlackBerry, I don't want to be ignorant to the dominant North American platforms, so I've decided to also own an iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S III. I want to understand how those platforms execute various use cases, what their experience is like, and what their top apps are like. Having owned an SIII for a month or two now, it is more apparent to me some of the shiny aspects of these impressive phones, and it's not difficult to see how they are appealing so much to North American users. Following on the heels of that, these past two weeks I have started to read smartphone reviews on CNET and other sites that don't even list BB as one of the choices. In one Internet comment I read, someone quoted BB's North American market share as being down to 1 percent. Is that true?
As you can see, going into BB Jam Americas, I've been discouraged. Not without hope, far from it, but definitely discouraged!
I was extremely surprised to hear that RIM was upgrading the Dev Alpha OS to include the core BB10 UI, including the keyboard. Having downloaded it, it is a huge breath of fresh air. It is a complete reversal for me, from being uninspired with the modified PB UI, to being very inspired by the BB10 UI. When I had lemented about the Dev Alpha being so empty to other devs in the past, we both agreed that RIM probably wouldn't do this since they want to make a big splash with BB10's release. But they have, and I'm so glad they did. It has been fantastic exploring the OS, such as the settings screen, and seeing how RIM has used Cascades to create their core UIs. It has also generated some solidly good press for RIM, which I think they badly need given the long wait for BB10. For example, it is awesome to read The Verge reporting that BB10 looks to be a solid OS, and even the comments to the article are encouraging and much less negative than usual.
Having the full API set now is also a breath of fresh air. Working with a beta SDK was more painful than I thought, so the seeing the tools and API mature is very welcome and energizing.
All in all, the Dev Alpha is at a place now where is much more emotionally aluring to develop for than it was in August, which is precisely what RIM needed to accomplish with BB Jam Americas. Well done!
Another solid encouragement this week were RIM's quarterly earnings. Again, I was expecting them to be really, really bad. But I was wrong. Most encouraging is that RIM's cash pile isn't vaporizing, but is actually higher. And this means that RIM only needs to "hang on" for one more quaterly release before they can shift gears to BB10. At this point, I'm very confident they can do that.
My remaining insecurity is whether BB10 will have apps like Netflix and Skype at launch, or closely following launch. That was the part of BB Jam Americas that I found underwhelming: They start into that part of the presentation saying they have all sorts of huge names behind BB10, and then unveil a list that doesn't contain any of the huge names people are anxious about. (on the apps front to be specific -- they seem to be doing great on the games front) The hope I'm clinging to is that they clarified this list is only those partners that were willing to be listed, and that they're working with many other "huge" companies. I will choose to be optimistic. But it will be a *huge* sigh of relief if and when they are able to announce that they will in fact have most of the massive apps that everyone and their dog expects.
I was wrong about RIM's quarterly earnings September 28, 2012
Several months ago, as I was continuing to ponder and predict RIM's future, I guessed that RIM's quarterly earnings in September as well as December would be really, really bad, and would be hugely depressing to stock holders. Thus I surmised that the best time to purchase stock would likely be after their December earnings hammered the stock. I also figured it wouldn't be a surprise if by that time they would clarify the release of BB10 to be March, at the very end of the Q1 they had announced, or that it might even be April, or heaven forbit, May.
But I was wrong. RIM's September conference call, which happened today, was better than analysists predicted, and by some miracle their cash balance actually increased. How this happened, I don't know, but I was clearly wrong about how bad their quarter would be.
It is also looking like my guess of a late February or March-ish release of BB10 will turn out to be wrong. RIM is sending fairly strong signals that release will be either late January, or February. So, while I might still end up being right, the rapid succession of delays has come to a stop for now.
In conclusion: Well done RIM, you are exceeding my expectations, and I think that is a very important ingredient to success: Under promise and over deliver. People grew to be incredibly tired of the over promise and under deliver of RIM in 2011, so having turned this around is great.
I'm writing this on the day of surgery, after coming home from the hospital. Sometimes when I have interesting life experiences, I get a strong urge to journal. Beware that I tend to be very wordy, off topic, and record details that seem unimportant. ie. Making this journal is more for my own pleasure and likely too much detail for other people to find interesting.
What is a deviated septum?
The septum is the cartiledge in your nose between your nostrils. Although this is rarely perfectly straight in individuals, it can sometimes be very crooked. This can affect breathing, and typically alters the external appearance of the nose.
Growing up with a deviated septum, and a possible cause
At some point growing up it become more apparent (from the outside) that my nose wasn't straight. Perhaps this was as early as 9-10 years old, although it might have been earlier, and it become more evident as I aged.
Even as a 3-4 year old, my deviated septum was noticeable from the inside. I have a fairly vivid memory of being 3-4 years old, laying on the floor near the front door at 23 Oxford, noticing that I could pick my nose through one nostril but not the other. I also recall being somewhat surprised, although I don't know whether I'm constructing that memory. I was a very frequent nose picker as a child, so if this memory of being surprised is accurate, it's interesting. ie. Does the surprise imply that there was a change? And if there was a change, what caused it?
I had one significant nose trauma that I can remember from around that time of my life, which was when I jumped onto a spinning ride at the Turkey Point park while it was already spinning quickly. I wasn't successful and hit my nose hard on one of the radial bars. My nose bled a lot and I cried for at least an hour.
To connect that to my nose picking memory, I have a vague sense that the surprise discovery of my deviated septum was in September, as if Rebecca had recently gone back to school and I was still at home. If that is the case, and if my nose trauma was in August, this might explain the deviated septum. But we'll probably never know.
What was it like on the inside?
Hopefully I don't have this backwards: The septum veered sharply to my right at the top of my nose and closely followed the right wall of the right nostril. It then bent back towards the centerline of my body and connected to the base of my nose approximately where it should, but on somewhat of an angle.
This made my left nostril enlarged and made my right nostril smaller. Towards the top of my right nostril, it became extremely narrow. If I plugged my left nostril, I could only breath through my left nostril only if I breathed very slowly, otherwise the nostril would collapse due to the force of air movement. Breathing through my left nostril was also slightly compromised. Being larger and less well supported than it should, the force of air movement tended to slightly collapse the airway as I breathed.
Should I get it fixed?
Around the time I finished high school, or perhaps during my university years, my mom expressed some concern. As a coping mechanism, I would sometimes pinch the lateral wall of my left nostril and pull while taking a rapid deep breath. I did this because I felt like I wasn't getting enough air. An unpleasant side affect of this was the sound it made -- the sudden rush of air made a fairly loud noise and was disturbing to those around me. Mom wondered whether this might be a distraction for my coworkers once I was in the working world.
I think I was somewhat opposed to the notion of getting it fixed at that time. I was used to having it, and I think I was concerned that any surgery carries some risks. Would it be worth it? It was also probably the standard reverse psychology reaction: If you interpret someone's suggestion as applying any pressure, it is natural human psychology to "push back".
Random memory: Mental control over the shape of the nose
We don't think of being able to move our nose, but there are subtle ways to control muscles that flare the nostrils. Sometimes while breathing, I would slightly activate those muscles to increase the size of the airways. Activating those muscles also has the affect of "stiffening"/supporting the outer walls of the nose, helping to prevent the collapsing of my nostrils while I breathed in.
Random memory: Habit of pushing against my nose
One of my memories from the days of working at Navtech was that from time to time I had the habit of applying pressure to my nasal bones. I would place my thumb on the bone and push with a decent amount of force. I'm not exactly sure what promtped this, but it somehow felt therapeutic, almost as if it helped improve my breathing. I think I would typically push in the direction against the curvature. Part of my interpretation of this too was that it was like wearing braces, where force applied over time can reshape bodily structures.
Recommendation from a friend
After a game of hockey, a former Navtech colleague basically said, "I think you have what I had: a deviated septum. I had mine repaired and I would strongly recommend that surgery to you. It has made a big difference for me".
His recommendation was very sincere and heart felt. I hadn't really been considering the surgery at that point, but given his recommendation I was sold.
Consultation with Dr. Banerjee
I made an appointment with Dr. Banerjee and I believe the word out of his mouth when he took a look up my nose was "wowzers", or something to that affect, which made me smile. Because my situation was more severe than the typical case, the name of the surgery would be "partial rhinoplasty", and with the term "rhinoplasty" in its name, he would need permission from the government before OHIP would cover it. The government wants to avoid paying for people who are looking for cosmetic surgery. I left Dr Banerjee's office with the understanding that he would be in communication with the government and would let me know when he got a response.
Dr Banerjee explained that fixing the deviated septum wouldn't change the appearance of the nose, which was just fine by me.
Waiting
From time to time as the months past, I would think "it has been a long time, I wonder why I haven't heard back". But I wasn't in a rush, so I kept waiting. After a year, I still hadn't heard back, and I figured I should call the office to inquire on the status. But whenver this would come to mind during the day, I would be at work busy with something. Finally, after a year and a half, Meredith successfully prodded me to get in touch with them. I only got voice mail, so left a message.
I waited for some time again, although I'm not sure how long. A few weeks? A couple of months? Word came that they had phoned my parents place in Woodstock to say that they had now submitted the form to the government, and would contact me when they got a response. Odd.
Meredith had a friend who had dealt with Dr. Banerjee's office and suggested that it was adviseable to continually call them, otherwise things don't progress very quickly.
Second consultation with Dr. Banerjee
Finally we got the call that the government had approved the operation, and I was requested to come and see Dr. Banerjee a second time. He had a student with him that day, and this time when he explained the procedure, he told his student doctor that there is a saying "as the septum goes, so goes the nose", indicating that fixing the septum would cause my nose to appear somewhat straighter. This was a bit of a different tune than I had heard during my first consulation, but having a somewhat straighter nose was a bonus, so that was nice to hear.
The whole visit lasted < 5 minutes. The main conversation point was for him to explain that 1% of patients end up with a small hole between their nostrils that causes a whistling sound while they breathe. Oh boy. That sounds like a very bad outcome. He also indicated that it is very difficult to repair the hole if it occurs. I decided the risk was low enough that I would proceed with the surgery.
Because there had been a cancellation, it was only going to be about 2 weeks before I was going to be able to have the surgery!
Struggling with the risks
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I struggled a bit with knowing whether having the surgery was the right thing to do. Obviously people that have a whistling outcome wish they hadn't had the surgery, and perhaps they even feel dumb for electing to have a surgery to correct what is a relatively minor problem all things considered.
Even now as I'm home recovering and it would appear that the surgery went well, it's not clear to me whether taking the risk was the right decision. That's a tough one to judge -- having a whistling nose would have been a huge, huge negative.
My experiences at the hospital: Getting ready and waiting
I was schedule to go in at 11:15 am and have sugery at 2:15 pm, but we got a call shortly before 10 saying that they had a cancellation and wanted me to come in as soon as I could.
Within 15 minutes, Meredith, Hazel and I were on our way to St. Mary's Hospital. We took a seat and were called up after < 15 minutes to check in and answer a list of questions. Soon after, we were moved to a second waiting room, and within minutes we were moved again to bay 8 where I could put on my gown, get weighed and measured, and situated on my hospital bed.
My primary nurse was a student named Sue, who was a decade or so older than typical student nurses. Her instructor's name was Mary. Sue was a very pleasant lady with a nice smile and an easy going disposition. It made me smile observing her be careful and methodical about everything she did, from being careful not to mix up her left and right while putting my arm bracelet on, to recording my weight and height using a pen on her palm so that she wouldn't forget before she had a chance to record the number on my paperwork. She wore bright teal/blue pants, and it was quite cute how the color of the shocks on her Nike Shox were an identical teal/blue. Totally by coincidence, she says, but joked that she had several pairs of Nike Shox to match each outfit.
The instructor Mary's personality came across as less easy going and bit more focused on efficiency/speed, but she was also very pleasant and shared a few smiles. Meredith observed a bit of tension between Mary and Sue, as if Mary was wanting Sue to work more quickly, which would fit with the observations I make above, but I didn't pick up on any tension. If Meredith is correct, it is easy for me to empathise with Sue.
While I waited, I was reading the book "Not Your Parents' Offering Plate: A New Vision For Financial Stewardship". I have enjoyed the subject matter of the book, and agree with many things that he says, although the author's tone has rubbed me the wrong way a fair bit. His vision for pastors is that they should A) Know how much everyone in the church is giving, and B) That an extremely important role for them is as fundraisers. I'm not opposed to (A), and think it might just be a good idea, although I felt like he didn't hit on one of the obvious reason that this is avoided: That it quite possibly easy for pastors to become preoccupied and distracted with money issues, and that knowing how much a person is giving might even distract a pastor in their interations with that person, taking focus away from other more important matters. As for (B), I struggle with that, possibly because asking people for money is an area of extreme discomfort for me. I think the author nails this on the head though: One of the biggest reasons this is hard is that we fear rejection. On top of that though, if I were a pastor, I wouldn't want to resent people for saying "no" to me. Anyway :)
At some point a nurse came by to put an IV in my left arm. She had used a couple different colors of eye shadow to create a sizeable, elaborate, and bold "swoosh" ... above (?) her eyes. She asked about our kids and when I mentioned that our daughter's name was Hazel, she lit up and explained that was one of her favourite names, even that she almost named her own daughter Hazel! Having the IV put in wasn't too bad. It was put in on the top of my left hand, and was more uncomfortable than having one put in when you go to give blood. I was hooked up to a saline solution. (?)
Something that was slightly humorous was that as the nurse was cleansing my hand, another nurse came in and said "STOP!". She went on to read on my chart that I had indicated from previous experiences giving blood that I'm slightly sensitive to chlorahexadine... in the past it has given me a bit of redness and a little bit of rash. The nurse asked what cleanser the IV nurse was using, and the answer was... "alchohol with chlorahexadine". It really doesn't matter, but it was interesting to see it all play out. As a person who thinks about "process", its interesting to consider how standard hospital practice is setup to avoid things like that, and how that didn't pan out in this case. But let me re-iterate: I could have cared less.
After 1 to 1.5 hours of reading and waiting, it was show time.
My experiences at the hospital: Surgery
Dr Banerjee entered bay 8 to say hi, and to ask if I had any questions. I really didn't have any questions, so after a brief chat, he went on his way.
A lady came by, I think her name was Monica, to wheel my bed to the OR. I'm sure my pace quickened a bit as we navigated our way out of the waiting area, past the main desk, down one or two hallways, and parked outside of the OR. I felt a little bit like I was the star of a TV show. Ok, that's probably an exaduration, but I definitely felt like a person of situational importance. She had me stand up while she held my IV tubing as we walked together into the OR. When I stood up she seemed quite surprised with how tall I was... I think I had about 12 inches on her!
The OR was a sizeable room, with quite a bit of impressive looking machinery, and a hospital bed smack dab in the middle. Monica had me lay down, and once horizontal she tried to have me adjust myself so that my feet didn't hang off the end of the bed. This was a bit of a balancing act as I couldn't push myself so far up so as to have my head hang off the top of the bed.
Once situated, she stood on the left side of the bed and we chatted about kids, etc. I felt like today was a day of curious coincidnences and "almosts": The nurse who almost named her daughter Hazel, the nurse who's shoes were almost an exact color match to her pants, and now this lady Monica who's child was born on April 7, 2009, at Grand River Hospital, almost exactly as Eli was. (one day off)
The anesthetist entered the room and asked me, for the ka-zillionth time that day, whether I was alergic to anything. She started setting up my general aneasthetic. Meanwhile, Dr. Banerjee entered the room. I found it very interesting to watch him. He acted as the "quarterback", speaking clearly and authoritatively to the group of nurses, but not coming across as aggressive or bossy. The things that he said seemed to be very "procedural", as if he was following a mental checklist. I liked it.
An oxygen mask was placed over my face as I lay there. It is in my personality to be very curious about what it's going to be like getting knocked out by a general anaesthetic.
The closest thing I've had (since being 3) is having my wisdom teeth out. In that case, I was apparently still talking to the dental staff long after I can remember. Recalling back to that day, I remember likewise waiting curiously, introspecting what it was like as they were putting me out. They were asking me a series of questions, because they knew I was very curious, and they were planning after the I had my wisdom teeth out to ask me what the last question I remembered was. As I sat there back in 2003, one of the staff finally said, impatiently, "Daniel, you have to stop fighting it. Please relax, close your eyes, and stop fighting it". That came across as a bizarre statement, because I wasn't "fighting" anything, I was just sitting there relaxed observing whether I was feeling anything. At the time, I was still perfectly alert, but I did as they said and closed my eyes, trying to relax as much as possible. And, curiously, that's the very last thing I remember when getting my wisdom teeth out.
Fast forward back to today, I was laying there with an oxygen mask over my face, waiting for the general anaesthetic to do its thing. I'm not sure how long it had been since the anaesthetist started the flow, but the experience was very different than getting my wisdom teeth out. All of a sudden I felt the effects starting, and they went from 0-60 in seconds. The initial and primary sensation was auditory. The closest thing I can liken it to is ringing in the ears, although it was a bit different. A couple of seconds later, I decided to close my eyes, and in trying to close them, I noticed that my muscular control was rapidly falling off. Sensing this, I immediately tried opening my eyes again, but my eyelids only vaguely followed my orders, stalling about half way open and feeling very sluggish. So I closed my eyes again, and by the time my eye lids shut, I sensed myself going very rapidly. The actual falling asleep was very different than the wisdom teeth experience, in which I have no memory of falling asleep or losing conciousness, just an sudden end to what I could remember after closing my eyes. On the contrary, there was a very explicit sensation that I remember well today, that spanned about 3 seconds after I closed my eyes. The best I can describe it is that if my conciousness were like water in a jar, it was like someone pouring the jar out over the period of a few seconds. Once the perverbial jar was empty, I was gone.
My experiences at the hospital: Recovery
I woke up in the recovery room, at about 2:45, with a nurse sitting beside me typing on a computer. (later on when I asked, she said that I had come out of surgery at about 2:30) The initial sensation was that I had had a really great afternoon nap. You know, that sensation of being really refreshed and mentally energized. Waking up, I had 0 pain. I did feel a sensation in my nose. Have you ever lay face down on a carpetted floor and let your face rest directly on your nose? If you do that for a few seconds, and then stand up, your nose has a particular sensation, and it was quite like that. There was some rolled up gauze taped to my face as an arc under my nose, although at the time I was strangely unconcerned with looking down at my nose. At the time I think my perception was that the cause was up in my nose, but it was not. I tried breathing through my nose and could sense decent air flow, seemingly in both nostrils, but given that the general was still wearing off and things were a bit swollen, I couldn't tell anything too specific.
What I did notice, which was unpleasant, was that I was unable to swallow. I was able to initiate the swallowing motion, but about half way into motion, before I could actually swallow, the motion in my throat would stop. Having a dry throat and not being able to swallow wasn't a great feeling, but in my slightly sedated state, so long as I relaxed it wasn't too bothersome. I also noticed when I tried talking to the nurse that my speech was impaired even though my mental state was fairly sharp. Muscular control was still ramping up, and it was challenging to make my speech muscles work. The nurse explained that sometimes they use a throat spray that has a numbing effect, and this this probably explained why I couldn't swallow.
I could also feel some fluid in my lungs. If I took a deep breath, my lungs had a slight "rattle". This made some sense given that I was knocked out and unable to swallow... instead, fluid from the throat is able to slowly seap down into the lungs. Doing some occassional caughing seemed to help, I think I recalled reading this on the Internet.
I noticed that I was too warm, and so I removed most of my blankets. The nurse got me an ice chip which was nice to chew on and helped my dry throat.
After some time I was wheeled back to bay 8. Some food and drink was brought for me: Two digestive cookies, two small packs of soda crackers, a packet of jam (uhh, ok), and some gingerale. It was great to both eat and drink, since I hadn't had anything to eat since 10:30 PM the previous evening (required fast), and nothing to drink since 8 AM.
I finished the gingerale before I finsihed the food, and it was almost impossible (even unsafe?) to eat the crackers without something to drink, given how try my throat was. So I rang for another glass of gingerale. I finished it, too, pretty quickly, and rang again for some water. In retrospect, if I were to make a recommendation for care of patients having my procedure, I would have appreciated the nurse initially bringing 2 glasses of gingerale and two glasses of water. As a patient, I don't want to disturb the nurse any more than I have to, especially in rapid succession over 15 minutes.
Over the course of 30 minutes since waking up, I could now feel some pain. It was about a 1.5/10, so nothing too bad, although I think my pain scale is probably weighted to the bottom of the scale, since a 5/10 to me would represent being in a lot of pain. From my reading on the Internet and talking to people, a big factor in how people experience recovery is how proactive they are at taking pain meds. Some people's personality is such that they don't ask for medication until pain is very bad or unbearable. It was recommended on the Internet and by friends and family to closely monitor how my nose was feeling, and as soon as I could feel pain coming on, take pain meds. That seemed like good advice, so I did just that. The nurse asked whether I wanted 1 or 2 Tylenol 3s, and I decided to start with 1. After 20 minutes, the pain was still 1.5, so I asked for another one. The second one over the course of 20 minutes go the pain < 1, so I was happy.
At that point, Meredith showed up with little Hazel wrapped up in a Snuggly Wrap on her stomach. It was great to see them and to assure Meredith that it seemed that all had gone well. Our understanding was that the hospital would phone Meredith after I had an hour or so in bay 8, but they never did. It felt like the nurses were quite busy... too busy to be able to be perfectly on top of phoning Meredith to come get me. So Meredith had called them, and they passed along that she could come to pick me up. We waited for an hour or so before Sue and Mary were available to discarge me, which was ok. Meredith just let me lay back and close my eyes and relax, while she wandered around with Hazel.
Mary changed my nose gauze. When she took it off, it was evident that the inside surface of it was nicely soaked with blood, which was my first indication that I was bleeding. She put on new gauze. After taping it to my face, she said, "I can't let you leave like that, it's not straight at all", so she tried again and was happy with the second result. Mary had me walk for a bit pushing my IV tree to prove that I was mobile. I definitely could sense that my balance and vestibular sense was still off, but so long as I walked slowly I was ok. They sat me down in a wheelchair and we were off! Meredith rolled me out to the elevator, down to the main floor, and parked me at the main entrance while she went and got the car. Fortunately Tim Hortons was there for her to request a glass of water, because my throat had quickly become extremely dry again. Thanks Timmy's!
Initial recovery at home
As we drove home, I was anxious any time a car stopped in front of us. The thought of having an accident and hitting an airbag was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do!
When I walked in the front doors of home, I was touched that it was evident that Meredith had worked hard to tiny up the house. I had wanted to do more of that last night, but didn't succeed in having enough energy. I walked upstairs to bed, and again was very touched that our super-disaterous bedroom was perfectly neat and tidy, and had been dusted. The washroom was also sparkly clean. What a wonderful gift. Like many people, being surrounded by tidiness and cleanliness is very uplifting for me.
Once in bed, I wanted to start journaling, so I went downstairs and got the laptop and brought it back up to bed with me. And here I am, at least 3 hours later, still busy typing!
Pretty soon after I started journaling, I noticed how soggy and wet my gauze was. Partly this was due to every time I took a sip of water, the gauze would soak up some water. But it was evident that I was bleeding at a much faster rate that I had been in the hospital. I would estimate that the bleeding rate was about 8 times faster than it was in hospital. They had only sent me home was 1 extra gauze packet, which seemed odd given how quickly I had soaked the one I wore home. I was concerned, as was Meredith. Why had the bleeding rate increased so dramatically? We phoned the day surgery desk at St. Mary's and the nurse there assured me that there was nothing to worry about, and that I had soaked my gauze in 45 minutes was just fine. She said that if my nose was gushing with blood like can happen if one gets a very bad nose bleed, then we should seek help.
Too uncomfortable, I went to the washroom to change the gauze. Taking it off seemed to slow the bleeding rate. My theory was that the gauze had been taped just a bit too close to my nose, and that in combination with it swelling with blood uptake, it was now putting pressure on my nose, which was further increasing blood flow. I was releaved once removing it to see the bleeding rate decrease. My upper lip and the creases around my nose were crusted with dry blood and so I nelt at the sink and very very carefully wetted my finger and traced around those areas unti they were clean. I reapplied gauze and the bleeding rate seemed to be 1/3rd of what it was prior to changing the guaze, which was a big relief.
I spent the evening typing away. Meredith brought me a lovely PB&J sandwich, and I ripped off little chunks, no crust, and ate it over the course of an hour. I drank quite a number of glasses of water, and it was quite interesting how much I had drank since waking up from sugery without needing to pee. Perhaps it was due to not having drank anything since 8 AM, although I think that's part of the purpose of the saline solution. (?) Finally I needed to pee and it was quite interesting that it took an incredibly long time to pee, about 60 seconds, but at a much reduced flow rate than what would be typical. Strange. Maybe still related to the general anaesthetic wearing off?
Day 1 conclusions
I'm very happy that the surgery seems to have been a success, and it's a big relief that I don't seem to have a whistling sound while breathing through my nose. I'm pleasantly surprised how little pain I've had, and the Tylenol 3s seem to be working well. I have more mental acuity than I thought I would have so soon after the surgery. It is wonderful to just take it easy and rest, focus on eating slowly, drink lots, and change my gauze every couple of hours.
Day 2, 3, 4, etc.
I wrote the above back in 2012 right after having the surgery, and I'm writing this now in 2021, since I've noticed that I get a decent number of visitors to this page each month.
I had forgotten that I stopped my journal after day 1, which doesn't give a well rounded description of what the entire recovery was like, so I think it's best for me to do so.
Unfortunately my lack of pain on day 1 wasn't indicative of what the following days were like. At some point later, I forget whether that was day 2, or 3, or 4, etc., I was struggling with pain, and overall I was a bit miserable. There was a plastic piece that was inserted into the nose as part of the surgery, and it felt like it was cutting into the soft flesh of the nose / nasal cavity, creating a lot of discomfort.
Eventually I requested to be seen by the doctor, and given my pain, he agreed to remove the plastic piece, even though his preference normally would be to leave it in place. Oh man did it hurt when he removed it / yanked it out!
If I recall correctly, having it removed did help with the pain, but overall I'd actually say that recovery was more painful than I imagined it would be. The nose, while small, is a pretty sensitive area!
Reflections
So am I glad I had the surgery? I think I am. I would say that it resolved for me the not-uncommon feeling that I wasn't get enough oxygen, where I'd even grab my nostril, pull, take a deep breath.
I wouldn't say it "changed my life" in the dramatic sense of the phrase, but it did improve quality of life for the better.
One curious, possibly related thing, is that around that time of my life, I think maybe even as I was recovering from the surgery, I started reading a book, called "Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream" (https://www.amazon.ca/Radical-Taking-Faith-American-Dream/dp/1601422210), and that really did "change my life" in the dramatic sense of the phrase. The following few years it's like I had a completely different mindset to life, and I'd say they were definitely some of the most joyful and energized years of my life. I sometimes wonder if the anesthesia from the surgery had an affect on my brain somewhat like how people report that psilocybin can significantly affect people's mindset in a lasting way. I'll probably never know, but I'm curious whether there's a correlation.
BlackBerry mentions fade as BB7 ages September 16, 2012
It has been a bit depressing this week as I start to see more mentions of smartphones that refer to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, but don't bother to mention BlackBerry.
Most prominent is this article which grapples with the question of which type of smartphone to buy.
After closer inspection, there is a paragraph that mentions BlackBerry:
"We didn't forget about BlackBerry OS, which is currently still stuck in a development cycle, and therefore isn't a serious contender. We expect BlackBerry-maker RIM to release Blackberry OS 10 and a new phone in 2013. RIM faces an uphill battle keeping loyal customers and gaining new ones, but we always hope to see a struggling player pull out something that'll amaze."
What I find interesting is that they're implicitly saying is that BB7 isn't even on the radar as an option for consumers. Wow. The 9900 is a fantastic device, and while Android and iOS have some very shiny features, it seems very odd, and sad, that BB7 is being stigmatised this way.
Physical keyboard or touch screen keyboard? September 15, 2012
I've had the Samsung Galaxy S III for a month or so now and one of the conclusions I'm coming to is that I prefer all-touch phones. Don't get me wrong, I love the physical keyboard on the 9900 -- this is more about the trade off between physical keyboard VS more screen real estate. So what I'm really saying here is that:
Having a larger screen makes many use cases much more compelling.
An all-touch keyboard isn't too bad.
I think one of the factors here is that I haven't used a BB enough to become a super-pro at typing, and so moving to an all-touch keyboard doesn't set me back much.
What I'm most interested in talking about here are the use cases that a larger screen makes a big difference for:
1.
Web browsing. This is really what it mostly comes down to: Having a big screen is so, so nice for web browsing, such as searching Google, and viewing Google Maps.
2.
Watching video: Obviously having a beautiful wide screen display makes watching video way better VS the 9900's small square display.
3.
Flexibility in apps. I think this goes all the way back to Steve Jobs' intro when the iPhone was first released: If you give apps more space by removing physical buttons, they can use that space for good things. I'm sold, I think he's right.
So I sure am glad that BB10 is, first and foremost, a full-touch experience. Yes, they will also sell physical keyboard phones, but the OS and the experience have been designed so that all-touch isn't a second-class citizen.
iPhone 5 Reveal September 12, 2012
Today was one of those big days that us gadget geeks anticipate. It was pretty cool finally beholding all of the details about the iPhone 5.
My simple reaction: Very nice! Apple has delivered another solid improvement. I'm looking forward to putting in my preorder on Thursday and getting to play with it soon.
My positive reaction is paired with some feelings of sorrow for BlackBerry. Sorrow is probably too strong a word. The increasing realization is that RIM isn't a company today that is going to release a phone that can match the iPhone in terms of thinness, weight, manufacturing marvel, and all-around "wow" in terms of how it looks. Well, perhaps that can be said for all of the other companies on planet earth. But back to my point: I think every BB10 fan would love to see RIM become more Apple like in its ability to create physical objects that make your heart skip a beat. Part of that is specs, and RIM is doing pretty well there these days, but there is definitely more than specs. Anyway, I shouldn't dwell on that too much, but point noted.
I'm actually really intrigued by the maps application. It seems incredible bold, almost stupid, for Apple to be doing their own Maps. I mean, isn't Google the king when it comes to that stuff, and isn't it a pretty big deal to try and top that? So I'll be interested in playing with their maps. What REALLY caught my eye were those 3D renderings of buildings that looked 5 years ahead of the curve in terms of eye candy. Hard to tell from such a brief glimpse, and of course they're going to have San Francisco perfect, but those zoom overs looked super super impressive.
I was actually surprised that more wasn't said about Siri. They've added some new capabilities, but this didn't seem to be a Siri-intensive release. Maybe that's understandable given that last release was Siri-fest. Hopefully we'll see another volley of inspiring Siri stuff in the next couple of years.
Built for BlackBerry and the $10K Developer Commitment September 5, 2012
It is great to see that RIM finally released details on the 10K offer they announced back in May. I really wish they had been able to release these details sooner, such as in June, but that's water under the bridge now.
Back in May when I heard about this offer, my mind started spinning. It was one of those "too good to be true" kind of things, so I was naturally guarded, wanting more details. The most critical details I was interested in were:
1.
Is there a limit to X apps per developer?
2.
Can Adobe AIR apps qualify?
The first point is extremely important because I enjoy pumping up simple but very useful apps. For example, my "Send to PC" app only took an hour to make, and it is grossing between the 1K and 10K mark. So, if there weren't a limit to the number of apps per developer, a skilled person could make $200,000.
Secondly, since all of my 30 or so PlayBooks apps (except for one) are written in Adobe AIR, I would obviously be a bit disappointed if AIR apps didn't qualify.
So to find out now that there is a limit to 1 app and that AIR apps don't qualify obviously takes some wind out of my sales. That turns this from being a get rich quick scheme into a nice perk, especially for new devs. (which I'm not)
All that said, I think these limitations are probably very smart on RIM's part. Creating a get rich quick scheme for devs isn't what RIM is trying to do here. Instead, they're trying to lower the risk for new devs, and encourage quality, and that's precisely what I think this offer will succeed at.
Sep 12 update: RIM has changed course and will accept AIR apps into the "Build for BlackBerry" program. That's great! I still wish there wasn't a limit on the number of apps per developer. Wouldn't anyone want to have a shot at scoring big with 20 decent apps? But alas, reality.
BB10 Maps September 3, 2012
A little while ago I enumerated some of the big ticket items that BB10 needs to be successful. Something that I missed was a great maps experience.
I'm very curious if and how this will materialize. The original maps application on BlackBerry (if you don't include Google Maps) won't cut it in 2013. And launching a smartphone in 2013 without a very good map experience is not a great move.
Sept 5: A screenshot of the BB10 home screen has surfaced which looks legit, and "Maps" is one of the icons. Not a surprise obviously but a good sign, and makes me very curious what the app will be like.
Submitted iTunes Sync for BB10 August 29, 2012
I spent 8 hours today getting iTunes Sync up and running properly on the Dev Alpha, and submitted it for approval to App World. A milestone! Feels good to have that done.
I wish there was an easy way to offer paid apps to Dev Alpha users for free. I could create a new product in App World to do that, but that's extra hassle, and it might confuse users searching on the web and seeing a free version of iTunes Sync.
I still wish it was possible to write background / service apps for BB10. If it were, I'd be tempted to rewrite iTunes Sync as a native app and make it capable of syncing new songs onto your phone automatically. From there, it would be a fun challenge to write a fully featured wireless sync app that would pull down music and photos from a variety of sources, and do it all seamlessly in the background when on Wi-Fi. But alas, as I understand, it won't be possible to write background apps for BB10, at least not at launch.
As the author asks, I am very anxious about whether BB10 will have big name apps at launch. Yes, RIM is doing a fantastic job at courting developers, giving out free hardware, putting on great jam events, etc, but that doesn't at all answer the question of whether BB10 will have Netflix, Skype, Flipboard, Instagram, etc.
Here are a list of important targets for BB10 to hit that are either already confirmed or are very likely:
Very fast CPU. (confirmed)
Beautiful, very high res display. (confirmed)
Great software development platform. (confirmed)
Fresh user experience. (very likely)
Very high productivity device. (very likely)
First class support for both full-touch and keyboard devices. (confirmed)
Ideal platform for game development and porting games. (confirmed, at least in many respects)
The fact that BB10 most likely has all of the above is an incredible foundation for a phone... but it doesn't represent all of the important targets:
Fantastic camera: Who knows? Will it be comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S III camera or the iPhone 4S camera?
Really great wireless syncing (unlikely)
Netflix: Who knows?
Skype: Who knows?
Flipboard: Who knows?
Instagram: Who knows?
Angry Birds (very likely)
Other big name apps: The above are some of the massively important big name apps, but it wouldn't be hard to come up with a list of another 10 really important apps that would be hugely helpful to have on the platform.
A good selection of other quality apps, even if they aren't necessarily big name apps (hopefully)
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that BB10 will have Netflix at launch. The reason I think this is that:
RIM's software development platform and tools are now top notch. When PlayBook was first released, there wasn't even an NDK, and so for Netflix to build a PlayBook app would have been almost impossible. But we're finally at the place where it should be pretty darn easy for Netflix to build an app for BB10 and PlayBook.
Secondly, I think RIM, with almost 2 billion in cash, is probably (hopefully) willing to make an investment in this if needed. It's just too symbolicly awful to release a phone in 2012 that doesn't have Netflix.
As for Skype, I have no idea. There was some weird wispering that RIM was working with Microsoft to embed Skype functionality into its Video Chat app. Let's hope that is accurate. Again, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that BB10 will have Skype support of some kind. As for Netflix, I think it's just too risky to imagine RIM not doing what's necessary to make sure this happens. On the flip side, the fact that Microsoft now owns Skype might be problematic. What if, for competitive reasons, Microsoft puts their foot down and won't allow it? (scary thought) Let's hope for the best.
I'm going to guess that BB10 won't have Flipboard. Android only got it recently, and I think it's exclusive to Samsung phones. We'll see.
Instagram. I feel like RIM has a fairly healthy relationship with Facebook, so maybe, just maybe they will pull this off. Let's hope so. It would be huge. And along with this, let's hope that RIM has a great camera in BB10.
What about other big name apps? RIM has been doing incredibly well recently with so many developer relations hires, fantastic software tools, etc. In other words, they are doing everything they can. Unfortunately, this is one area that I'm pretty anxious about. We just don't know. How successful will they be at courting those other big name apps?
And finally, will there be a good selection of quality not-big-name apps? Again, who knows, but RIM is doing everything in their power to ensure this. I just wish they had been able to finalize and present the details on their $10,000 offer a couple of months ago. (and I've communicated this to them) We'll have to wait and see, but on a positive note, I won't be surprised if they're successful with this since devs have had a decent amount of time, have had real hardware, and the jam events have been so well attended.
We are still several months away from launch. Many unanswered questions, but the potential is there for RIM to nail all of the big targets. And if they do, BB10 could be huge.
One last thing to ponder: Will BB10 have really great wireless syncing akin to iOS? In 2012, this kind of seamlessness is important to users. Because RIM has so much on their plate, I tend to think they won't deliver on this. Not that I'm complaining as a dev, since iTunes Sync represents most of my revenue. But that aside, I think this is a very important area for RIM. It's not the end of the world if a third party brings this functionality, but the limitation that BB10 won't support background apps at launch means that it will be impossible to write a true first-class syncing app for the platform. Bummer. If it were possible, I would be very tempted to put real weight behind that use case.
BB10 Gets Shown Off August 27, 2012
I had a great time at KW BB10 Jam, and it was great to hear that RIM showed off final hardware to press. Encouraging too that some people reported that the software is already looking very solid. I will be very curious to watch the keynote of BB Jam Americas to see what else is shown off.
At this point, BB10 is starting to feel very much more "real", no longer a vague concept to be released in some future calendar year. That's exciting. You can feel it in the air: BB10 is almost here.
That said, we still have all fall to wait!
This week my plan is to finish off my verbatim conversion of iTunes Sync to BB10 and submit it to App World so that other devs can download it and try it on their devices. I'd also like to finish off my first BB10 native app, Baby Names, and get it submitted.
I should also get Flix submitted for BB10, which will involve using the web view control so that movie selection can be integrated into the main app. This may end up being a complete waste of time -- actually I hope it is -- because if BB10 has a Netflix app, Flix won't be necessary.
BB10 Jam KW August 22, 2012
Tomorrow I'm excited to be attending BB10 Jam KW. I attended BB10 Jam and Orlando and had a great time, although I was distracted with the release of Flix and so I missed a few sessions that I wanted to attend.
I enjoy the atmosphere of conferences: Meeting new people, going to keynotes that energize you, being pampered a little bit, and going to interesting talks. Although software development is becoming more "social" these days, such as the social aspects of making mobile apps and selling apps to real people, most of it is still a bit impersonal, with interactions happening over the Internet. So it's great to make the most of opportunities to be with other developers in person.
One thing I'm curious about is whether the sessions will be almost the same as the ones in May, or whether they will have evolved, with new or more in depth information.
Last week I had a few hours to work on converting iTunes Sync to BB10 and almost got it finished. I ran into a snag with the textWidth and textHeight properties of Label not working and I don't think I've gotten a response on the forums yet, so I should see if I can get a response.
Samsung Galaxy S III: Early Impressions August 17, 2012
I bought the S III today and have had lots of fun playing with it. Overall, I'm extremely impressed. Here are some of the things I've liked, in no particular order:
Screen resolution
Similar to BB10, the SIII has a 1280x720 screen resolution, which is very pretty. These retina display class screens really raise the user experience bar.
Phone body
I have the "blue"/gray version of the phone, which has a brushed metal under plastic appearance. I like it! It looks sophisticated enough to avoid the "cheap" feeling that some phones have. For example, the Google Nexus phone that was released recently, while decent, has a bit of a "cheap" feel to it.
Thickness/weight
The phone feels fairly light, and feels thin. That's a great combo and will delight users.
Appearance and usability of UI
I like the appearance and polish of the UI. When viewing the "Apps" screen, it does feel somewhat dated / simplistic in how it's just a giant matrix of icons, but it works. The home screen is great: I like the prominent time, the temperature, the weather icons, etc. The image behind the time/weather even changes when it gets dark, which is a great touch. Having the Google search bar front and center is brilliant, even with one-click access to a voice search. I hope RIM is taking notes on that.
The widgets and feel of the UI is quite good. It feels modern, pretty, and fast. The transition between screens when swiping left/right is great -- side-to-side rotation, and smooth as butter.
Camera
One of my favourite features of the phone so far has been the picture quality. I took a few photos of our daughter while she was in the shade of our garage and I was extremely happy with the quality of the photos. I'll have to use the camera some more to get a better sense, but my feeling at this point is that it is a far superior camera to the PlayBook camera. I really hope RIM puts a solid camera in BB10, because using your smartphone as your primary camera is an awesome use case. But it's a use case that starts to quickly wilt if the camera is only mediocre.
Menu and back buttons
The "menu" and "back" buttons at the bottom light up when they're touched, but disappear when not in use. It's like magic. When they're not visible, all you see the is brushed metal look of the phone body. Cool!
Unlock
To unlock the phone you drag your finger. When your finger touches the display, it creates the effect of touching water. It's elegant and adds a nice touch.
Summary
These are only my very early impressions of the phone, so I'll keep using it and will perhaps share further thoughts later on.
Having an Android phone and iPhone in addition to a BlackBerry August 17, 2012
This week I decided that in addition to owning a BlackBerry, I should own an Android device and an iPhone. I feel this way because never having owned an Android or iPhone, I feel somewhat ignorant. I want to have a clear sense in my head how well various use cases are executed on each of the leading platforms.
I also think it would be useful to be able to experience the leading apps on each of the platforms. As an app developer, it's a shame that I have no idea what the top Android and iPhone apps are, or what they're like.
Another pull is that, working for Wolfram Alpha, I want to be able to play with devices that integrate our knowledge engine: Siri and S Voice. Back in October, before I had had so much success on App World, I almost switched from BlackBerry to iPhone because of Siri. Siri represents many of my CS passions converging, so not having Siri is a bit odd for me.
I bought a Samsung Galaxy S III today from Wind Mobile, and I've been delighted with the device as I played with it this afternoon. I will share my early thoughts in a separate post.
Converting PlayBook AIR apps to BB10 August 17, 2012
Now that I've gotten past the strange compilation errors I was running into, I can make some forward progress on figuring out how to get PlayBook AIR apps compiled and running using the BB10 AIR SDK.
Given how important it is for RIM to get developers to bring their PlayBook apps to BB10 prior to launch, it seems extremely odd to me that they haven't given devs a guide on how to port PlayBook apps to BB10. RIM is doing a lot of things right with their recent developer relations efforts, but this isn't one of them. I mentioned this to Garett (RIM developer relations) when we chatted for an hour, and he got back to me that a guide for converting PlayBook apps to BB10 was planned but not currently available.
So, I'm left to hack around and see if I can figure it all out...
Version of AIR: 3.1
UberschallSamsara pointed out to me that the version of AIR required by the BB10 AIR SDK is 3.1. This was a surprise to me since the installer says:
Please select the folder of the existing Adobe® AIR® SDK 2.6 or higher installation. You can download the latest AIR SDK from http://www.adobe.com/products/air/sdk. Or select the folder of the existing Adobe® Flex® SDK 4.5 or higher installation.
I took a look on RIM's website to see if I could find any reference to 3.1 being required and found it here. One can find this page by clicking on the "Requirements" link below the installation button on this page. If 3.1 really is required, then it seems like a bug that the installer says "Adobe® AIR® SDK 2.6 or higher". Others on the forum suggest that 3.1 is the highest version that can be used, so perhaps version 3.1 isn't strictly required, although the requirements page previously mentioned does explicitly say "Adobe® AIR® SDK 3.1 or higher".
The link on the requirements page actually takes you to a download page for AIR 3.3 as of August 17 2012.
Version of AIR SDK in App XML file
UberschallSamsara pointed out to me that the version of AIR is actually specified in the app XML file, which I hadn't noticed before. This probably explains some problems I ran into trying to get PlayBook apps to compile with more recent versions of the PlayBook SDK. (I had to append the -swf-version=10 option to the mxmlc command)
alert.dialogSize = DialogSize.SIZE_MEDIUM; or: alert.dialogSize = DialogSize.SIZE_SMALL; It would appear that BB10 doesn't support this form of dialog size specification.
The Image class no longer supports the setSize method, so .width and .height need to be set explicitly.
Additional changes required
At this point, I was able to get my app to compile and start.
Because the app was designed for the PlayBook, I made it landscape-only. This isn't ideal for BB10 since BB10's default orientation is portrait.
Created new graphics in Photoshop for BB10.
None of my labels were showing up because the textWidth property of Label was returning NaN.
Forum post This forum post has since been answered and has got me up and running, although I'm still confused as to whether this is a bug or by design. I think it's a bug.
Once I got this far, things roughly worked. Additional things that needed changing:
I used a NavigationPane on the Help screen with a "Back" button rather than my home-brewed "Done" button.
I struggled quite a bit trying to get scrolling working on the Help screen. The scrolling mechanisms I was using on the PlayBook didn't work in BB10, and the scrolling mechanisms in BB10 took some cajoling to get working. Looks like RIM may have some bugs to fix in this area.
Getting simple BB10 AIR apps to compile August 16, 2012
I've created about 30 PlayBook apps over the last year and a half and it has come time to start getting them up and running on BB10, especially since RIM now allows them to be submitted to App World.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get even very simple apps to compile, such as:
[SWF(width="1024", height="600", backgroundColor="#FFFFFF", frameRate="30")] public class Example extends Sprite { public function Example() { var alert:AlertDialog = new AlertDialog(); alert.title = "Debug"; alert.message = "Hello, world!"; alert.addButton("Ok"); alert.show(); } } }
I have attempted to compile this with:
set JAVA_HOME=E:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7 set PATH=%PATH%;E:\Program Files\Research In Motion\blackberry-tablet-sdk-3.0.0\bin
cd E:\Users\Daniel\Dropbox\Apps\ExampleBB10\ amxmlc Example.as
But get the errors:
Loading configuration file E:\Program Files\Research In Motion\blackberry-tablet-sdk-3.0.0\frameworks\air-config.xml E:\Users\Daniel\Dropbox\Apps\ExampleBB10\Example.as(13): col: 14 Error: Type was not found or was not a compile-time constant: AlertDialog.
var alert:AlertDialog = new AlertDialog(); ^
E:\Users\Daniel\Dropbox\Apps\ExampleBB10\Example.as(13): col: 32 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method AlertDialog.
var alert:AlertDialog = new AlertDialog(); ^
E:\Users\Daniel\Dropbox\Apps\ExampleBB10\Example.as(14): col: 16 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method AlertDialog.
alert = new AlertDialog(); ^
E:\Users\Daniel\Dropbox\Apps\ExampleBB10\Example.as(6): col: 27 Error: Definition qnx.fuse.ui.dialog:AlertDialog could not be found.
This is a call to RIM to please provide adequate instructions for how to compile BB10 AIR apps via the command line.
I have searched the forums and found evidence of others having issues. There are some hints on how to get things working, but those hints are mostly with respect to the IDEs that some people use to develop AIR applications.
It's really a sad state of affairs that a person like myself can't even get a simple BB10 AIR app to compile in August 2012!
I've posted to the forums in hope of an answer. Hopefully this will all be clarified soon.
Update: As recommended by someone on the forums, deleting the SDK directory and reinstalling seems to have fixed this issue. (I did notice that the version I re-downloaded was "beta 2", so it's possible that this issue was fixed at some point)
Developer Relations at RIM August 3, 2012
A couple days after I blogged about some of the pain points I have been having with BB10 development, I received an email from Garett at RIM appologizing for the delays I had seen getting good replies on their forums and he offered to chat on the phone about ways they might be able to help.
Wow.
Yesterday I had an hour long conversation with Garett and he took a page full of notes on a range of topics. Some of the things were action items that he could address, others were things that he intends to pass on to people responsible for those areas. As an example, a trouble ticket that I submitted about the IDE hanging after a power outage was escalated the day after I spoke with Garett.
I find this kind of responsiveness rather incredible, and of course it is every developer's dream to have a dev platform company not only responsive but even reading blogs.
It's kind of humorous to contrast this with giant companies like Google. A few months ago I got an email from Google warning that I hadn't filled out the "Business Website" field for my developer account, and that if I didn't do so, they were going to remove all of my apps from the Android store. I followed the instructions in the email exactly, but the screen they referred to didn't have a "Business Website" field. I replied to their email letting them know about this, but didn't get a response. I sent a second reply a few days later, even including screen shots (I think), and again didn't receive a reply. Sure enough, Google did as they promised and removed my app from their store. A few months later, I got an appology email from Google and my app was back for sale, and the "Business Website" field was now where it was supposed to be.
So yes, a bit of a contrast there.
iTunes Sync for Android? August 3, 2012
Back in November/December when I was blown away by the response to iTunes Sync for PlayBook, I considered writing a version for BlackBerry phones. I didn't bother for a few weeks, since BB phones have a built-in feature called "Wi-Fi Music Sync" that you can turn on via the BlackBerry Desktop app. But eventually I convinced myself that some people might still value a "one button sync" app for syncing their music, so I went ahead and did it. Inexplicably the BB phone version has made up 40% of my sales, so am I ever glad that I did!
I have also pondered from time to time whether it would be worth releasing iTunes Sync for Android. Because Android can run Adobe AIR apps, I would even be able to use most of my code, but for some reason I've never bothered to research the landscape to see what music syncing is built-in for Android phones, and what third party apps exist. Part of the problem is that I don't have an Android device. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, a user said that she had installed iTunes Sync on her husband's BlackBerry and loved it, and she wished there was an Android version for her phone.
That's the thing about mobile development: There are just so many juicy ideas that one would love to persue, but there's only so much time in the day. Because I'm having fun learning BB10 and can't find much time to do it, I don't really want to distract myself with Android development, but on the other hand it seems somewhat silly not to give this idea a try.
Open on PlayBook: App Rejected August 3, 2012
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a couple of PlayBook apps in an afternoon. One of them is named "Open on PlayBook". The concept is that sometimes you'll be viewing a webpage on your computer and want to pick up your PlayBook and continue reading the article on your tablet. The app allows you to do just that.
I posted on CrackBerry's forums and had some people beta test it. There seemed to be a pretty good response to the app so I was looking forward to posting it for sale on App World.
Unfortunately the App World team rejected it because it uses the word "PlayBook" in the title. This is the first time I've had an app be rejected, and it's not a pleasant experience. The App World team suggested I rename the app "Open for BlackBerry PlayBook" which doesn't make much sense if you ask me. (Perhaps it's semi-automated reply or something)
I think I'll rename the app "Open on Tablet" and try again.
Its hurts when you delete code July 27, 2012
Sometimes as a developer I do things that make me so angry with myself. A couple of weeks ago I was doing some analysis on a performance problem I was experiencing loading a screen with 5 labels and 5 segmented controls. The screen was taking about half a second to load, when it should have been instantaneous. I started isolating the problem by removing code and QML.
Fast forward two weeks, I go back to those files and all of the code I deleted is gone. Typically I would copy and paste the code into a notepad and save it in a temporary directory, but no suck luck. What was I thinking?
Eclipse keeps past revisions of files, but due to the recent power outages that caused qde.exe to lock up, I had to delete my Eclipse metadata, meaning that backup is lost as well.
And most developers would be using a revision control system, but I haven't quite got Git setup yet.
So I'm out of luck, another couple of hours of work down the tubes. It's just not my week...
... and my dev alpha appears to be bricked again. GROAN.
BlackBerry Tax Form Information July 27, 2012
A couple of weeks ago I posted about being confused about Tax Form requirements for App World. I had emailed customersupport@blackberrycommerce.rim.com. They sent a quick reply the same day saying they'd look into it, and ten days later I got my answer. Here's what I've learned -- I'm posting it here in the hopes of helping others like me that are confused.
As a Canadian selling into the US, it only potentially makes sense getting a US tax identification number if your apps involve subscription fees to your customers. If your apps are a one-time cost to your customer, then "the vendor would not be subject to withholding". My interpretation of this is that the US withholding tax referred to by RIM only applies to subscription revenue, so for the vast majority of devs, there is no US tax subtracted from sales, and there is no need to send forms to the IRS to get a US tax identification number. (and thus, no need to get anything notarized)
This simplies the process to simply filling out the W-8BEN form, scanning it, and uploading it to RIM via the Vendor Portal.
Also to note is that the "foreign tax identification number" (field 7) on the form refers to the SIN (social insurance number) for Canadians.
Hope that helps. I've recommended to RIM that they should clarify their requirements to devs with information such as the above so that it's not a big mystery for everyone.
BB10 July SDK: Noticeable changes July 26, 2012
Now that I have my Baby Names app loading properly on the newest SDK and firmware, it's interesting to see the changes.
Faster app load time
The splash screen now only displays for a second or so while the app is loading. It was previously longer, so this is an improvement. Obviously we want users to be able to launch apps as quickly as possible.
ActionItems appearing in overflow menu
All of my action item buttons that were previously at the bottom of the screen are now tucked away in the overflow menu. I'll need to look at RIM's tutorials to see if they've changed how action items need to be added. Perhaps this is a sign that developers now have explicit control over which action items are displayed up front, and which are put in the overflow menu. If so, that will be great since I ran into needing that ability on the rating screen of my app whereby I only wanted two action items out front and wanted the rest to be in the overflow menu. (There was one action item for each letter of the alphabet)
Update: The following now needs to be added to action bar items so that they show up on the bar:
ActionBar.placement: ActionBarPlacement.OnBar
It's great to have this flexibility, although I'm not sure why this isn't the default, since that would avoid having to write this every time for standard action items.
Loading animations fixed
BB10 includes automatic animations, which is great, but they were being used when screens involving images were loading, which looked terrible. This seems to have been fixed, thank goodness.
Performance improvements
The rating screen of my Baby Names app included 5 labels and 5 segmented controls. Unlike the other screens in my app, it was taking about 500 milliseconds for that screen to load. I couldn't figure out why, but the new SDK appears to have solved that. The screen now loads instantly, which is great. Another sigh of relief.
Strange white line above action bar
On my rating screen there is now a one pixel high white line above the action bar. That line isn't there on other screens, so I'm confused why it's there on the rating screen. I'll need to investigate.
Blue diagonal line to right of Back button
The UI team appears to have made the diagonal line to the right of the Back button blue, which is an interesting choice. It does add some color to screens which might otherwise be completely gray/black. It's nice to see the UI team still hard at work finalizing the look and feel of the UI.
Segmented control
The segmented control now appears to default to the first item being selected. Previously, none of the items would be selected until the user chose one. I actually don't like that change. In the context of my Baby Names app, I don't want to assume that every name is rated "A" until otherwise chosen differently. I'll need to investigate whether there is a way to turn that off.
The other change is that the selected item is now white instead of blue. I have to say I think I liked the blue better. Why make the UI a completely monochrome black/gray/white?
BB10: A Bumpy Road July 25, 2012
Today is one of those days where one feels frustrated and discouraged by technology. My experience with BB10 development the last two weeks has been less than stellar. Below I will speak to some of the challenges in chronological order.
Custom QML components: Handling events of child controls
I created a custom QML component for my Baby Names app consisting of a label and a segmented control. But when I use my custom control, I need some way to handle events, such as the segmented control being clicked. While the QML tutorials RIM provides make it easy to expose properties, they don't describe how to expose signals of child controls.
I posted on the Cascades forum on July 4th and waited until July 20th before receiving a response. That's a long time to be held up with what seems to be a fairly obvious thing that developers should be able to do.
The response I received should be helpful, although the suggestion implies that the solution isn't nearly as baked-in and intuitive as I would have thought it should be.
Controls animating into place
I've noticed that when I load new QML files, the images animate into place.
For example, if the screen contains an image at position X,Y and it is of width W and height H, then the image becomes visible at coordinates 0,0 and has width 0 and height 0, and then animates into place by flying over to coordinates X,Y and growing to eventually be of width W and height H.
If I then click the "Back" button and go to that QML screen a second time, it doesn't animate.
Is this implicit animation intended? While implicit animations are rather amazing and a great tool to have, it seems counter intuitive to have screens use implicit animations when they are first loaded. It creates a rather unpleasant business and visual distraction when the screen is loading.
Update: This appears to be fixed with the new SDK.
No multi-line label control
When I implemented the instructions screen for my app, I needed a multi-line label. But BB10 doesn't have one yet, so the text entry control must be used and set to read only. When this is done, however, the text color is set to black, making the text unreadable on the standard charcoal BB10 background. So further hoops have to be jumped through to set the text color, which I needed help figuring out. I asked the question on July 4th and received an answer on July 18th. Again, waiting 14 days to get an answer makes forward progress seem slow. (that said, I'm very glad that RIM employees do eventually answer since that is an enormous help!)
The other downside to using a text field is that there is a bug in the SDK whereby when the user touches it to scroll, it opens the keyboard, interfering with the scrolling and requiring the user to then close they keyboard. (Update: This has been fixed in the latest SDK)
If I understand correctly, a multi-line label control is coming for BB10, but it isn't done yet. The joys of working with pre-release SDKs.
No standard icons
In various screenshots it is obvious that RIM will make use of many standard icons for action items -- the toolbar-like UI at the bottom of some screens. But none of these icons have been made available to developers, so I have spent time making my own icons for actions such as "Delete". Even though final icons might not be settled upon, it would be nice if RIM made the current icons available to developers. Another growing pain of using a pre-release SDK.
qde.exe freezing
We had a power outage, and once I got my computer back up and running, the BB10 IDE wouldn't start. When I double clicked the icon for the IDE, I could see qde.exe running in Task Manager, but nothing would be displayed.
I got it working by removing the .metadata directory under my workspace directory. The downside to that fix is that it means you need to reconfigure the IDE and re-add all of your projects.
Update July 26: We had a thunderstorm last night and lost power briefly. qde.exe is hanging again and so I have to re-configure and re-add all of my projects again. Frustrating. I've created a ticket to make sure RIM knows about this.
Dev Alpha updated firmware issues
It took a few hours of head banging to get the updated firmware installed on my Dev Alpha. It appeared to install ok, but when the device rebooted to load the new firmware for the first time, the startup screen would play forever.
Eventually I was successful in doing a "Repair" operation that reloaded the OS, and that got me up and running again.
Any time something like this happens where a lot of time is wasted, I get grumpy.
ldd:FATAL: Could not load library libbb.so.0
Upon trying to deploy and launch my Baby Names app on the device with updated firmware, I get:
ldd:FATAL: Could not load library libbb.so.0
Sigh. I have to figure this out.
More Dev Alpha issues and simulator issues
After running my Baby Names app on the device with updated firmware and getting the ldd:FATAL error, the screen went black at some point, and I had to reboot the device.
Now I'm back to square one: The startup screen plays forever.
Not only that, the screen went black on the simulator requiring a simulator reboot, and now when the simulator loads, after briefly displaying the background image of the main screen, the screen goes black.
So I'm stuck, again. Sigh.
July 26 update: After deleting the simulator and re-installing it, it appears to be working again. Likewise, after reloading the OS on the Dev Alpha, it appears to be working properly. So that is a big sigh of relief.
Summary
Hopefully this is a low point and things will settle down and improve soon, but when as a developer I'm using tools that keep throwing curve balls and wasting hours of my time, it's not fun.
Upon trying to deploy and launch my Baby Names app on the device I get:
ldd:FATAL: Could not load library libbb.so.0
RIM July 2012 July 23, 2012
It's been somewhat shocking for me to watch RIM's stock price drop over the last couple of years. Today I see the price is $6.86. Wow.
Obviously no one knows the future, how well BB10 does, etc. Given the stock price, it would seem that many people think BB10 is a long shot.
Here are my optimistic thoughts about RIM -- the things that give me hope:
Being a developer, there are many aspects of BB10 that really impress me. See here
RIM has been around for quite a while, and looking at their history they seem to have a lot of good things in their DNA. While past success doesn't ensure future success, I think it can be predictive.
Being from Waterloo and having attended the University of Waterloo, I have a lot of respect for the talented people that live in this region. I think that has been an important ingredient to RIM's success over the years, and continues to be a big asset for RIM as it charts its course through troubled waters.
I've used QNX on the PlayBook for the last year, and it seems like a fantastic foundation to build on. Thorsten likes to make that point: That RIM is putting the things in place that will allow it to grow for another decade. I agree, I think RIM has put some very important things in place that put it in a position to do great things over the course of the next 5 to 10 years.
Will it happen? Will BB10 flourish? I of course don't know, but for now I'm cautiously optimistic.
The Future of The PlayBook July 23, 2012
Time flies: It has already been a year and three months since the PlayBook launched, and I have written about 30 PlayBook apps.
Back in the fall of 2011, even though I was focused mostly on PlayBook development, I had also ported one of my apps to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. It was a great learning experience, and I considered writing more apps for those other platforms. But in December, when iTunes Sync sales went through the roof, it ended up changing the flavor of my efforts.
Firstly, I was spending more than half of my app development time answering support emails. Secondly, I needed to spend time fixing bugs that users reported. That left a pretty small chunk of time left for doing new things.
The other big effect was shifting my focus solely to PlayBook. Not that I would be opposed to developing apps for other platforms, but with so much revenue coming from PlayBook, it was natural to keep my focus there.
And finally, my app development time became somewhat less about having fun and more about trying to keep the income coming in. Don't get me wrong, I've still been having fun, but there has been a dose of stress and anxiety that has come along with the money.
And so here I am in July 2012. Amazingly the revenue rate of my apps is still about $13,000 a month. My rate of new development is very low, and the time that I do have is spread between support, BB10 learning, and a little bit of PlayBook development. As I phase out my PlayBook development for BB10 learning, it's interesting to take a moment to think about where the PlayBook is at, and what lay ahead.
I'm usually an optimist about these things. A year ago, even though I agreed with everyone that the PlayBook had a difficult road ahead, I wasn't "worried". Maybe I should have been, but I was optimistic.
These days I question a bit more what lay ahead for the PlayBook. What has caused the shift?
I think an example of that would be talking to people I saw with PlayBooks in airports on my way down to BB10 Jam in May. Everyone basically said the same thing: "Oh, it's ok. I wish I had an iPad, it's way better. But the price was right". That reaction makes sense. It seems as though many PlayBook owners are wanna-be iPad owners, but since the PlayBook is being sold at a loss, they went with the PlayBook to save a few hundred dollars.
As a PlayBook fan, I'll be honest: I don't like hearing that. What I'd like to hear is, "Yeah, the hardware is great, I like the 7" form factor, and it's way cheaper than the iPad". A response like that would come across as more encouraging, rather than "Oh, it's ok. I wish I had an iPad".
The second discouragement are sales numbers. I think there are roughly 1.3 million PlayBooks out there, with something like 200,000 being sold every quarter. That's not terrible, but for a tablet that's being sold at a loss, it's pretty discouraging.
What that all makes me wonder is where the future business case is for the tablet. I'm not talking in the past tense: I think making the PlayBook was a fantastic way for RIM to build on QNX and create a developer community as it shifted its phones to QNX. But now that BB10 is coming down the pipe, where does that leave the PlayBook? For a company that wants to minimize costs, isn't it a tough sell to keep selling the PlayBook at a loss? And we all know that if RIM raises the price above cost, that's not going to improve sales numbers.
Certainly for BlackBerry owners, it's nice to have a BlackBerry tablet, so one can make the argument that the future roll of the PlayBook is to augment the experience of BlackBerry phone customers, not to directly compete with the likes of iPad. That future makes more sense to me. And as Thorsten has said many times, RIM is building a platform, not a device. Ideally, the PlayBook is just one more device that can harness the rich platform they're building. And cars another. From that perspective, it's not critical that PlayBook be a cash cow, so long as their core phone business is healthy.
I suppose one optimistic hope for PlayBook is that if customers go crazy for BB10, and the PlayBook can build on the BB10 experience, you might sell significantly more PlayBooks and the price constraints might not be so severe.
We'll have to wait and see. But for now, I'll be honest, I'm anxious about what lay ahead for my favorite tablet.
Bizarre URLLoader Problem July 23, 2012
I received an email from a user of my Smug Sync app last week reporting that it was giving him a 404 error when syncing.
He was kind enough to give me his Smug Mug login so that I can debug, and I've narrowed it down to getting a 404 error when the first photo is being downloaded.
The app is written using Adobe AIR.
The super bizarre thing is that if I go to the URL of the photo in my web browser, it loads fine, but if I do:
urlRequest.method = URLRequestMethod.GET; var urlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); urlLoader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY; urlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, getPhotoComplete); urlLoader.addEventListener(HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_STATUS, httpStatusHandler); urlLoader.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, ioError); urlLoader.load(urlRequest);
... then getPhotoComplete is never called, and both httpStatusHandler and ioError get called due to the HTTP 404 error.
Even stranger is that httpStatusHandler is also getting called with status code 200, which doesn't make any sense to me.
I've puzzled over the problem for well over an hour, done Google searches, etc, but haven't made any progress.
Weird, and bleh.
Dev Alpha Update Blues July 23, 2012
I was excited last week to read that RIM had released updates for both the BB10 SDKs and Dev Alpha firmware.
Unfortunately after updating the firmware on my BB10 Dev Alpha, it won't boot. The boot up screen plays forever.
When I connect the device via USB, it seems to see the device, prompts me for the password, and shows the software version as "10.0.6 Bundle 386".
But the boot up screen just keeps on playing. Boo.
UPDATE: I finally got it working via a repair operation. Unfortunately, how to do a repair is a bit tricky. First you need to power off your Dev Alpha while it's connected via USB and allow it to restart. When you do this, BB Desktop Manager presents you with a dialog that has an "Update" button. When you click this, you are then presented with a "Repair" button. When you click that, it initiates the repair. I'm glad the device is working again, but I wish I didn't need to waste 3+ hours scratching my head.
Watching kids get smarter July 17, 2012
This year for family day (February) we went for a walk on some trails with two year old Eli (and Emily and Charlie)... Eli was fascinated by the contrails left behind aircraft and he enjoyed looking up and spotting as many as he could find. At one point he had identified four contrails in the sky all that the same time. He called them "tails".
A few days ago we were driving along and he asked me where the tails come from. I talked about the engines, and he remembered the big blue engines on the plane we took to Florida, and that what comes out of the engines has some water in it, and way up in the sky the air is really cold like winter time, and the little bits of water freeze and create the white stuff that we see.
Last night he chose the encyclopaedia as his bed time story.
Whenever he picks the encyclopaedia, he always turns to the page on aircraft and ooh's and ahh's about the different pictures.
As he looked at the pictures, he asked me where in the plane the water goes. I said, well, there isn't really much water in the plane, but there is lots of gas.
At this, he was confused, and I couldn't figure out why he was do adamant that there should be a bunch of water in the plane. Then it all made sense... he said something like "but the tails get made from water"!
The article itself seems fair. It's slightly negative, but it doesn't reek of the ridiculous negative slant that I grew accustomed to from Gizmodo.
What gets me are commenters. How bad it is probably varies from website to website, but it never ceases to amaze me how negative and disrespectful people are. I liken it to road rage -- where vehicle boundaries create a kind of abstraction so that people relate to one another as if it weren't actually another person. Likewise with internet commenters -- people often come across as being extremely rude and disrespectful, way more than people typically are in real life.
In this case, I added a positive comment to the article:
I have been deving BlackBerry apps for the last year and a half and have loved it. I made an app and submitted it to all of the major platforms out there and earned 100 times more on BB than on iOS. I've made about 20 PlayBook apps so far and have earned over $200/hr for my efforts. I went to BB10 jam and had a great time, and I've had a great experience deving for BB10 so far. It would be great if more devs checked out BB10 although I'd be smart to shut up so there is less development competition for the millions of BB10 owners in the next couple of years.
And I got this lovely reply from a "Dan Gleibitz":
Which app? Flix? That would be because iOS already has a Netflix client which is free and far more full-featured. And doesn't rely on a host PC. Your other "apps" are more like utilities to replicate functions that are built into the other OSs or covered by quality apps. The problem here is that you may be hoping that these shortfalls persist into BB10 so that there is a market for your work, but if they persist, BB10 will be well behind the competition and a poor consumer choice.
Ugh. I especially love the part where he writes "apps" in quotation marks as if to question whether my efforts are worthy of the term "app".
All of his specific comments miss the point because the app I wrote for all of the platforms is "Baby Names" which isn't Flix and isn't one of my utility apps, but regardless, what kills me isn't what he is saying, it's how he's saying it, and the negativity that undergirds his reply.
While I'm very thankful that sites like "The Verge" have cropped up which aren't full of articles that carry immature negativity and slant, it makes me sad that it is almost impossible to stick one's neck out in a world of negativity, make a positive comment, and not expect to get slapped by negativity and disrespect.
"bb10 splash screen", "bb10 splashscreen", "bb10 how to create a splash screen", "bb10 creating a splash screen"
Tax Forms July 10, 2012
I recently received an email from App World on the subject of setting up tax forms. They provide a PDF with some information on the reasons for submitting the W-8 tax form for the United States, which is that otherwise developers are required to pay the maximum rate of 30% for sales into the US.
So I started investigating, and it is a bit of a rabbit hole.
The W-8 form asks for you to enter a tax identification number. But I don't have one, so another form needs to be filled out and mailed to the IRS. But that form requires you to know information about tax treaties between the US and Canada, so you are directed to a giant document detailing various tax treaties between the US and other countries, which I don't understand.
And on top of all that, one of the forms requires that you get a photocopy of your passport notarized by a notary public.
What a mess. Knowing how many Canadian devs there are, I'm not sure why RIM doesn't provide some more explicit guidance on whether or not it is worth going through all of this trouble. Why not tell devs directly the scenarios in which it makes sense to go through all of this trouble? It seems very inefficient for each developer to have to do all of this investigation -- it's duplicated effort.
The Importance of App Videos July 9, 2012
Typically I don't create any kind of video to demonstrate my apps, either as a sales pitch, nor as instructions.
But I do wonder: If I got proficient at creating videos, would they help sales? Would they improve the user experience? Would it help me market my apps? etc.
I may start giving this a shot.
b10dev.net July 9, 2012 bb10dev.net is a place for me to share the experiences I have developing for BB10, as well as share various thoughts and opinions.
It's for those times where you're sitting at your desk with your PlayBook and you have something of non-trivial length to type. You simply open the app, and then start typing on your PC keyboard. What you type is displayed on your PlayBook and copied into its clipboard so that when you're done typing, you flip back to the PlayBook app you were using and Paste.
My Dad discovered a great use case this weekend, which is for those people who only get their work email on their BlackBerry (and thus their PlayBook via bridge). If you need to type a response of any significant length on the weekend (or evening), it is much faster to type it out using your PC keyboard as opposed to your BlackBerry. Bingo, PC Keyboard saves the day. This implies that the app would also be extremely useful as a phone app for those that don't have a PlayBook.
Sales so far have been $52, so not a blockbuster but not a total flop either.
DJ Reyes from CrackBerry may review the app which would of course be great.
Once I release my "Open on PlayBook" app, it will be interesting to compare the response to the relative interest of people to beta test the app. (which was something like 10 people for "Open on PlayBook" and only 1 or 2 people for "PC Keyboard")
Flix July 9, 2012
It has been a couple of months since I released Flix to coincide with BB World. I think creating the app was worth doing, although user feedback has generally been quite negative, which is very disheartening. The average star rating is 1.5 stars. As I've noted before, BB devs are able to remove any review they want, so the app actually shows up in App World as 4.5 stars.
Many of the reviews I remove are like the following:
"1 star: scam: i dont write reviews on apps but this fucking app sucks waiste of money,DO NOT BUY PEOPLE"
"0.5 stars: refund pls: i think i shouldnt even start describing how useless this app is"
My assumption is that people like this have run into an issue with the app and haven't read the help section of the website, nor contacted me for assistance. I legitimately feel that these 1 star reviews are unfair, but it's easy to cross the line and remove negative reviews that are probably fair.
Despite so many poor reviews, I do get encouraging emails from people. Here are some of the nice things people have said recently:
"Many, many thanks for creating Flix and the Movie Selector. There is simply no other app for the Playbook that can hold a handle to yours!"
"Thanks for this great app at such a cheap price!"
Personally, I've found the app very valuable. Our 3 year old son has watched many cartoons on our PlayBook. Sometimes that's when he gets into bed with us at 6 am in the morning and we're too tired to get up, or sometimes it's on the couch downstairs. It can be nice to have him watch cartoons on the PlayBook even when the big screen TV is there, since it's less noisy for Meredith and I.
I've also enjoyed the app more than I thought I would. When our daughter Hazel was newly born, I would stay up until midnight with her so that Meredith could get some sleep, and so I'd sit on the couch holding her, watching episodes of Jericho on my BB 10 Dev Alpha with headphones so as not to wake her up.
That's something I find interesting about technology: If it's available to you, sometimes you end up discovering use cases that weren't obvious to you at the outset. (1. kids watching TV in bed with you, 2. kids watching TV quietly, 3. watching movies with headphones)
I suppose the other thing worth mentioning about my use of Flix is that there is a novelty factor in watching a Netflix movie on your PlayBook. Like any novelty factor, it does wear off to a degree, but it still makes me smile when a member of our family watches Netflix content on our PlayBook. (or perhaps this is simply because I made the app)
The app started to slip in the rankings within a couple of days of its release, and actually disappeared off of the Top Paid section. I expect this is because it didn't have any good reviews at that point, and so prospective buyers only saw half a dozen 1 star reviews.
Within a couple weeks, it finally surfaced back to the bottom of Top Paid and has worked its way up. It is currently #8, although typically it has been around #12.
On the financial side, Flix earns about $150 per day, which works out to $4500 per month. If that were to hold steady, it would be $55,000 per year, but I'd be very surprised if Flix turns out to be a long lived app.
Even though I have a financial incentive for a Netflix app not to come to PlayBook, you can count me in the group of those who are hoping Netflix finally delivers an app for PlayBook (and BB10). Quite possibly Netflix will deliver an HTML5 version of their site which isn't dependant on Silverlight, and that would be great too.
playbookdev.net July 9, 2012 playbookdev.net is a place for me to share the experiences I have developing for PlayBook, as well as share various thoughts and opinions.
BB10 Jam Interview July 2, 2012
Hey cool, I just noticed that the interview I did with RIM's developer relations at BB10 Jam is live on YouTube!
This family photo was taken by Christine Kufske of Click Photography.
Thoughts on today's news of delay to Q1 2013 June 28, 2012
Maybe it's because I'm a software person and I sympathize with making good time estimates, and the complexity of birthing a whole new platform, but I'm just not surprised at the Q1 2013 announcement today.
On June 12, I wrote on my blog:
"And I tend to be pessimistic/conservative about tech time estimates. What I mean by that is that although the public seems to be all caught up with "October" being the magical month, I would actually be surprised to see BB10 that early. I think it's much more likely that it will be released in November or December or January or February. Heck, if it were launched in March it wouldn't be a big surprise. You can't snap your fingers and pull a whole new generation of product out of a hat, and RIM can't afford to release it half baked. So things will take time."
So hearing the announcement today for me was basically what I expected to hear.
The trouble is, if they had said 8 months ago "BB10 may launch as late as May 2013", they would have been dead meat. The only way they can keep people's interest is to be as optimistic as possible. I don't think they're being dishonest, they're just forced to be very optimistic. And when you're very optimistic in the software world, you have a high probability of missing your dates, sometimes by a very wide margin.
Frankly it is sounding more and more like it will be Feb/March/April/May. Yes, there's absolutely no reason it couldn't be May. And before you shoot me, hear me out.... they're probably aiming now for say late February, and with something this complex, being 6 months away from your estimate and missing by slightly over 2 months is not unheard of by any stretch of the imagination.
So that's my opinion: We'll probably see BB10 launch in the Feb-April window, but it is a very real possibility that it could even be May. Probably not, but it's very possible.
All of the super optimism in the world doesn't make the process of developing a new platform and then building on top of them the world's best communications software any easier.
Sorry folks. Patience, and lots of it, will be required.
The other reaction I have to this announcement is actually a sigh of relief. Sounds weird, but one of my greatest fears about BB10 is that it will be rushed out the door before it's ready.
Think about it, the company is under *tremendous* pressure to get it into the hands of customers. And because it is still many months of work until it will be done, they're therefore under tremendous pressure to let their ideals slip and ship it before it's ready.
Because of that, any time I hear about a delay, even though it does hurt, it's a reminder that the people making the decisions aren't willing to make short term compromises that will damage the long term success of the platform.
Thank goodness.
PC Keyboard June 28, 2012
It was a fun afternoon of app making.
I created a second app today called "PC Keyboard". It's for those times where you're sitting at your desk with your PlayBook and you have something of non-trivial length to type. You simply open the app, and then start typing on your PC keyboard. What you type is displayed on your PlayBook and copied into its clipboard so that when you're done typing, you flip back to the PlayBook app you were using and Paste.
Open on PlayBook June 28, 2012
Last night I was viewing a video on a web page on my PC and Meredith came by and asked whether I could watch it on the PlayBook instead with headphones so as not to disturb people trying to sleep.
There have been other times when I wanted to go from viewing a web page on my PC to viewing it on my PlayBook, and wished it was as simple as pressing a button.
So, being the programmer I am, I made a PlayBook app to do that. As with some of recent apps like "Print" and "Send to PC", it ended up being a very simple tweak to existing code, so it took a total of 2 hours to make the app and submit it to App World. The hardest part was making the icon since I couldn't find any existing free icons that I liked for this app.
The app is called "Open on PlayBook", and hopefully it will be approved soon.
BB10: Initial Impressions June 25, 2012
I was able to spend a few hours learning and playing with BB10 for the first time today, and I am so impressed.
Where to begin?
Widgets and Frame Rate
One of the most exciting things about BB10 is that it runs at 60 frames per second on a beautiful 1280x768 screen, and developers can tap into the power and efficiency of C++ to make just about anything a reality.
The designers at RIM have put this incredible screen and frame rate to good use. The widgets are beautiful, and they all feel very dynamic and alive. Something as simple as a slider is fun to use.
Not only does the UI provide high quality widgets, but they are there in quantity too: There are an impressive number of widgets for handling many important things, such as choosing dates.
QML
If developers had to use C++ for everything, BB10 would be somewhat inefficient to use. Fortunately, QML is there to save the day: It's a very elegant, efficient way to build user interfaces, and even wire lots of things up with bits of JavaScript.
What a powerful combination: An efficient markup plus JavaScript to wire up UIs, backed by the power of C++ when needed.
Real-time UI Preview
A dream come true: Simply save your QML file and instantly see your UI in a split view within Eclipse. Every developer knows how important it is to be able to iterate quickly, especially with UI work. This is a huge feature.
What is really notable is that the QML + preview system combines the best of both worlds: An efficient and powerful UI language + the preview benefit that drag-and-drop systems like Visual Basic pioneered.
There is even a drag-and-drop facility made available whereby controls can be dragged into the QML editor.
Animation For Free
Some of the demo/tutorial apps do a great job of showing the automatic animation system built into BB10. It's incredible. It makes UIs feel more dynamic and fun to use, and really shows off the 60 fps provided by BB10.
Simulator + Device
BB10 comes with a fantastic simulator, making development very efficient. But having a real (a free!) BB10 Dev Alpha to try things out on actual hardware really makes apps come to life. There's no substitute for real hardware, especially in this day and age when the touch experience is so central to an app.
Tutorials / Dev Site
Working through the online lessons and tutorials has been a great experience. They are polished, and the demo apps bring a smile to one's face.
It's rather amazing copying and pasting a snippet of QML, pressing Run, and having a real UI and app come to life immediately.
RIM has done a superb job putting together their dev site. The typography is spot on, and the whole site feels very pretty and fun to use.
Having a great set of tutorials and a great dev site is very important to devs, and it's there for BB10. In 4 hours I feel up to speed with a lot of what's there, and I'm itching to start my first app.
Conclusion
Packing all of this promise into a development platform makes my head spin. To say I'm excited would be a huge understatement. Now I'm wishing I didn't wait so long to dive in...
BB10 Development: Ready, set, jump? June 12, 2012
It has now been over a month since I was at BB10 Jam in Orlando and I haven't jumped into BB10 development yet. I had released my Flix app for PlayBook at the start of the conference, and I have been busy trying to work with users who are having issues to get them resolved. It has been a reminder that any time you create something that has a Windows app component of any complexity, you are opening up a can of worms since a Windows app might run fine on one person's computer but not another's. And as a small independent developer, I don't have access to many different Windows machine to test on.
Now that things are settling down, I'm looking forward to jumping into BB10 development. Cascades, QML, etc. My work on Flix has actually been a nice transition, since it has been my first NDK app. It has thus afforded me experience with the Momentics IDE, the NDK, etc.
I must admit that transitioning to BB10 development feels somewhat "unnatural" as a PlayBook developer who has developed a good revenue stream on PlayBook. What I mean by that is that there is a lot of incentive to keep cranking out PlayBook apps and to continue to capitalize on what has been a fantastic financial opportunity. Switching to BB10 development means that I won't be releasing any new apps to users for months. If BB10 is launched in October, that means June, July, August, September, and October will be void of new launches and new revenue. And I tend to be pessimistic/conservative about tech time estimates. What I mean by that is that although the public seems to be all caught up with "October" being the magical month, I would actually be surprised to see BB10 that early. I think it's much more likely that it will be released in November or December or January or February. Heck, if it were launched in March it wouldn't be a big surprise. You can't snap your fingers and pull a whole new generation of product out of a hat, and RIM can't afford to release it half baked. So things will take time. Circling back to my original point here, it's a somewhat tough pill to swallow that launch is quite a ways off, and so it is unfortunate to divorce ones self from the fun of pumping out an app, releasing it, and getting the positive reinforcement of revenue and user feedback.
More than waiting for BB10 to be released, starting BB10 development means shifting gears to a learning mode. That's the way I started with PlayBook development too. If you consider that I started coding way back in November (?) 2010 for the free PlayBook offer, it was a full 8 months from when I started learning to when I started seeing any reasonable income from my BB development efforts. At the time it wasn't any worry because it was just fun recreational coding, and an opportunity to learn. But now that my development context has also become very much about the fun of producing revenue, it's a strange feeling to set that aside, take a deep breath, and put one's learning hat back on.
All that said, I love learning, exploring new things, etc. And the BB10 tools look fantastic, so I couldn't ask for a better context in which to learn.
I have the summer off of work (June/July/August) to spend time with the family and our new little addition Hazel (born June 1). Hopefully there will be some time in the coming weeks to start playing with the BB10 tools.
One final thought is that it's tricky for a developer like me who likes to "fill in the gaps" of productivity/utility functionality, not knowing what first party use cases will be solved in the BB10 platform. For example, should I put significant effort into the "sync" use cases? Or will BB10 have that all baked in? A lot of effort could be wasted by devs creating things that RIM itself is working on.
Secrets to App World Success May 10, 2012
A month or so ago I wrote this article. My hope is to encourage other developers to be as successful as they can if they can learn anything from my experiences this year:
I'm presenting these ideas at the KWBBDev group meeting today.
BB 10 Jam, etc. April 15, 2012
I was excited this week to get an email from RIM offering to fly me down to Orlando and put me up at the Hilton to attend BB 10 Jam. I'm also excited to be getting the BB 10 Alpha device to start developing BB 10 apps. Obviously my top priority will be getting iTunes Sync up and running, but I don't expect it will take much work. From what I understand, the alpha device screens will be the same resolution and pixel density as final devices, and will have the same ports, just not in the same places as final devices, etc. Of critical importance is the screen, especially for development. Knowing that it will have the same screen characteristics as final devices is great!
I submitted iTunes Sync to the App Circus competition. There are 3 prizes each worth $25,000, and only 9 competitors so far -- even if there are 50 apps by the time of the conference, that's a pretty small pool of competition for such large prizes! Given that iTunes Sync has been the top purchased app of the apps so far in the competition, who knows?!
Yesterday I finally enhanced iTunes Sync to create your iTunes playlists on your PlayBook. The feature is currently implemented for Windows/PlayBook, so if you have a Mac and/or are using the phone version, the feature has yet to be added. Hopefully App World will approve this update soon, I'm sure lots of people will be happy to get it! That's one of the neat things of having about 25,000 customers: You can spend a few hours coding on a Saturday and a whole lot of people can see, download, and appreciate your efforts.
A couple of weeks ago RIM released my success story, which is great. I enjoy getting the word out about what a great opportunity App World development is.
This week I attended my first mobile event, called "MoBeers" here in Waterloo. It was wonderful to meet people face to face and chat, such as RIM's Alex Kinsella. He strikes me as being a great person for his role. I also saw Alec Saunders there but didn't meet him. Also nice to catch up with a couple of former Navtech employees. As a person who works from home, it's energizing to be able to chat with people in person! All the more looking forward to my time in Orlando, which is coming up fast!
Also of recent was meeting Mike Kirkup, former RIM developer relations person (at Navtech hockey of all places), and Wes Worsfold, president at Motek, and leader of the KW BB Dev group. I'm planning on giving a talk on May 10th to the KW BB Dev group of my experiences.
PlayBook Feb 2012 February 20, 2012
Here we are on the eve of the launch of PlayBook OS 2.0, can't wait to try it out!
Something that has struck me recently is that whereas several months ago it seemed no one had a PlayBook, now it seems everyone and their dog has a PlayBook, especially in the Waterloo area where I expect a lot of people were able to take advantage of the $99 deal that RIM employees were offered for a few days, as well as the wider $199 offer. Many of my friends and family, perhaps the majority, have one. What a switch!
Sales of iTunes Sync are still fantastic, although they are unsurprisingly much lower than they were the week of Christmas.
I am curious to see when more details of BB 10 will start to emerge, and whether RIM will get devices of some kind into the hands of developers. I am definitely getting more excited about BB 10 for some reason, and about the QNX platform in general. Part of that is that, on the development side, the platform already supports so many languages and tools. It seems like QNX is not only leading the other platforms but way ahead in that sense. Pretty impressive.
NOTE: If you are looking for support for my "Print" app, click here.
NOTE: If you are having any issues with the program and would like to resolve them, please send me email at daniel.bigham.software@gmail.com rather than posting a review stating what your problem is. Unfortunately, developers have no way to contact people that leave reviews to help them.
Ensure Wi-Fi is Connected
If you are using iTunes Sync with your BlackBerry phone, make sure you have Wi-Fi enabled and connected to your Wi-Fi network. To check this, go to your BlackBerry's "Manage Connections" screen (the icon looks like a radio tower) and verify that "Wi-Fi" is checked. Also make sure that the name of your Wi-Fi network appears next to the checkbox. If not, scroll down to the "Set Up Wi-Fi Network" menu item and click it to walk through the WiFi network wizard.
If you are having trouble connecting
There is an ugly bug in that if you exit the iTunes Sync PC app by right clicking on it and selecting "Exit", and then you open the app again, the PlayBook won't be able to connect. This is because the .NET program calls a native library that listens for an incoming TCP connection, and there is no way for the .NET program to tell the native library to stop listening, so the program doesn't exit properly. Therefore, if you can't connect, log off of your Windows session and log back in again -- that will kill iTunes Sync and it will start again automatically when you log back in. (So make sure you don't try and start it a second time after logging back in) After you log back in, verify that iTunes Sync is in fact running in your Windows tray, which is at the bottom right of your screen. (You may have to click the little up arrow)
Ensure that your Windows Firewall has an exception to allow iTunes Sync to talk on your local network. When you started iTunes Sync for the first time, it likely caused a Windows dialog box to be displayed asking if you want to "Unblock" the program and allow it to talk on either the local and/or remote networks. Hopefully you clicked "Unblock". If not, these Windows Firewall exceptions may be missing. If you are finding that the program cannot connect, then you should probably start by disabling Windows Firewall to remove the possibility that this is the cause. Also note that if you uninstall and re-install the Windows PC program, it should prompt you again for whether you want to unblock the program, so if you missed clicking Unblock the first time, that will allow you to have a second chance at responding to that dialog appropriately.
If you got any sort of errors during the installation of the program, it may be due to a virus checker interfering. For example, Norton seems problematic. In these cases, disable your virus checker, uninstall iTunes Sync, log off of Windows, log back in, ensure your virus checker is still disabled, and then reinstall iTunes Sync. Then, check to see whether it is working properly.
If you are still having trouble connecting:
Open a web browser on the computer running iTunes Sync, and go to:
http://127.0.0.1:4556/hello You should see a message "Hello!". If you don't, it indicates that iTunes Sync isn't running properly. If logging off of Windows and logging back in doesn't fix this, then please contact me by email: daniel.bigham@gmail.com
If that worked, go to a web browser on another computer running on your Wi-Fi network and go to the same address, but substitute for "127.0.0.1" the IP address of the computer running iTunes Sync (which can be found by right clicking the icon in the Windows Tray and selecting "What's my IP address?)
If that doesn't display the "Hello!" text as it did on the computer running iTunes Sync, that indicates that something is preventing other devices on your network from connecting to your computer on TCP port 4556. Usually this is a matter of disabling Windows Firewall, but if that still doesn't work, please contact me by email and I will try and help you troubleshoot: daniel.bigham@gmail.com
If not all of your songs are getting sync'd
The primary cause for this is that if your iTunes music is DRM (digital rights managements) protected, then it can't be used by mobile devices other than Apple products. To check this, right click on one of your non-sync'ing songs and select "Show In Windows Explorer". If the file extension ends with ".m4p", then it's DRM protected. Fortunately, Apple allows you to pay an additional 40 cents to free your music forever. The relevant URL for that is: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1711
If your virus checker is preventing installation
Be rest assured that the PC program doesn't have a virus. I uploaded the EXE to a website that runs it through virtually every virus manufacturer, and none of them flagged it as being a problem. As noted in a section above, disable your virus checker, uninstall iTunes Sync, log off of Windows, log back in, ensure your virus checker is still disabled, and then reinstall iTunes Sync. Then, check to see whether it is working properly.
If the download link on the web page doesn't seem to be working
For the Windows PC version: Try right clicking this link and saving the .exe file to your hard drive, and then run it from there.
Does the program run on Mac?
Yes! On December 29 I released a Mac version. The PlayBook app is the same one, while the download for the program that runs on your Mac can be found here: iTunes Sync for Mac. Note that the app description on App World is still pending a change to indicate that Mac support is available, but rest assured that the app available on App World is ready to go for use with Mac.
Riding a Wave of Success December 22, 2011
It has been a few weeks now since I released iTunes Sync, and amazingly sales continue to be very strong, even though the app has long since moved on from the "Newest" section. Having CrackBerry cover the app was another shot in the arm which returned sales close to first-release levels.
Since then, sales had settled in at about $150/day (of which I get 70 percent), which for a guy who previous had at best $10/day apps, is incredible.
This week has brought yet another surprise: Yesterday sales shot up to $320, and today, even though it's still early in the day, the numbers are looking similarly great. What is causing this big surge? I have yet to find out. One possibility is that it's my release this week of a phone version of the app. Unfortunately, RIM's spreadsheet downloads are down, and so I am unable to check whether these sales are PlayBook or phone sales. I have been receiving a steady supply of email from people using the PlayBook, but haven't received any mail from phone users, so I'd be surprised if these were phone sales. Also, I was very disappointed that when I released the phone version, it didn't show up in the "Newest" section of phones. There seems to be some underlying App World issues at play whereby PlayBook is treated as "just another device", which it is not.
Something fun that happened a couple of days ago was that a friend from church sent me a message on Facebook that she had just bought a PlayBook and had bought iTunes Sync, then realizing that she knew the author. I love making connections like that!
Exciting Times at Wolfram Alpha December 6, 2011
I've been working at Wolfram Alpha for two years and three months now, and I'm finally working on the project that I always dreamed of working on: Next generation core parser design. Being moved onto this project has breathed new life into me, and I've been busy filling up my notebook with ideas. Doing this kind of R&D is extremely exciting, and so far, I feel like I've been more successful at it than I could have imagined. With any luck, my efforts along with the contributions of others will lead to a serious IQ boost for Alpha.
iTunes Sync Support December 1, 2011
Since danielbigham.ca is my support URL for my mobile apps, I should have posted any/all support help instructions here several days ago, but I'm just getting to that now.
If you are having trouble connecting
There is an ugly bug in that if you exit the iTunes Sync PC app by right clicking on it and selecting "Exit", and then you open the app again, the PlayBook won't be able to connect. This is because the .NET program calls a native library that listens for an incoming TCP connection, and there is no way for the .NET program to tell the native library to stop listening, so the program doesn't exit properly. Therefore, if you can't connect, log off of your Windows session and log back in again -- that will kill iTunes Sync and it will start again automatically when you log back in. (So make sure you don't try and start it a second time after logging back in) Or, alternatively, ensure iTunes Sync is running, and kill it forcefully using the Windows Task Manager, then start it again.
Ensure that your Windows Firewall has an exception to allow iTunes Sync to talk on your local network. When you started iTunes Sync for the first time, it likely caused a Windows dialog box to be displayed asking if you want to "Unblock" the program and allow it to talk on either the local and/or remote networks. Hopefully you clicked "Unblock". If not, these Windows Firewall exceptions may be missing.
If not all of your songs are getting sync'd
The primary cause for this is that if your iTunes music is DRM (digital rights managements) protected, then it can't be used by mobile devices other than Apple products. To check this, right click on one of your non-sync'ing songs and select "Show In Windows Explorer". If the file extension ends with ".m4p", then it's DRM protected. Fortunately, Apple allows you to pay an additional 40 cents to free your music forever. The relevant URL for that is: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1711
Another common cause of this is if you are trying to sync music that wasn't purchased and which doesn't have proper meta information. What I mean by this is that each purchased iTunes song is tagged with information about the name of the song, who the artist is, and what the name of the album is. The iTunes Sync program uses this information to put the songs in proper Album/Artist folders, and to name the song files appropriately. If your songs are missing this information, such as if they are .mp3 files that were created by some means that did not add this information, then the iTunes Sync program currently doesn't touch them. You can verify whether a song is missing this information by going to your music folder, then iTunes, and looking in the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file, and searching for the song name. There should be XML tags giving the song name, artist, and album. If not, you have discovered why iTunes Sync isn't sync'ing the file. I would like to think about this some more and update the program so that it can do something sensible with these files rather than ignoring them.
If your virus checker is preventing installation
Be rest assured that the PC program doesn't have a virus. I uploaded the EXE to a website that runs it through virtually every virus manufacturer, and none of them flagged it as being a problem. You could try disabling your virus checker during installation of the PC program.
If the download link on the web page doesn't seem to be working
Try right clicking this link and saving the .exe file to your hard drive, and then run it from there.
Does the program run on Mac?
Not yet, but I hope to do that. The description of the application refers to the program as being for Windows PC. I will edit the description to hopefully make this clearer. If you would like a refund, developers unfortunately don't have any means to do that, but if you contact App World Support, they may be able to help.
Slightly Sunnier Days For The PlayBook November 24, 2011
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the news that only 200,000 PlayBooks were sold that quarter, and how things were looking pretty rocky.
Fortunately, the feeling of things has picked up a bit recently.
The biggest help has been discounts to the price of the PlayBook, which at first were $200 off, and are now $300 off. I seem to be reading things indicating that stores are for the most part completely sold out, and that RIM has even started selling the devices directly from its website. My guess is that this will lead to a lot of PlayBooks getting out into consumer hands, which is great. (especially for developers)
Next, is the announcement that BBX phones will have the same resolution as the PlayBook. It still remains unclear how easy it will be to port PlayBook apps to BBX phones, but it is starting to sound pretty easy, and that's exciting because it means that most of the work developers have been putting into PlayBook apps will pay dividends down the road. Music to my ears.
Another change is that, as time has rolled along, more apps have started popping up. I wasn't sure this would happen given the glum mood a couple of months ago, but it has. A bunch of EA games have been published, Duke Nukem showed up recently, and a couple days ago a really beautiful game Machinarium appeared. I can't imagine any of these will get much return on investment, so it's hard to say whether this will be of long term significance, but still, having some good content sprouting up lightens the mood.
I have published some new apps as of recent. Since I create really light weight, simple apps, one would only expect them to be drops in the bucket, but I think that two of them are pretty solid additions to the PlayBook repertoire. The first was Picasa Sync, which allows you to wireless keep your PlayBook up to date with your best photos. It got covered by BerryReview, was a featured PlayBook app, and all around I think was a notable addition to the PlayBook app selection. I have since publish Flickr Sync and SmugMug sync, and just last night significantly upgraded Picasa Sync to allow selecting which albums to download if you so desire. Another app that I published recently, which I hope is about to be approved (fingers crossed) is iTunes Sync, which allows you to keep your PlayBook up to date with your recent music purchases, sans wires. This is a really really nice feature to have, something that I always wished mobile devices did well, and if I am successful at delivering that to the PlayBook, I think that's another significant up-tick.
So it has been exciting not only to see positive signs, but to feel like, without much effort, I have been able to make real contributions to the community.
Featured App September 30, 2011
I was treated to a surprise this morning when I peeked at my app sales: It was only 8 AM and my Baby Names app had already generated $20 of revenue, whereas typically it would be between $0 and and $4 for that time of day. Nothing like that has happened before, so I wondered to myself what could be going on... a couple hours later, it was up to $30, then $40. Obviously something was up. I discovered that my app was was a featured application on BlackBerry's app world page. Of the 40 or so apps, it was the 40th one. To my amusement however, the last app shows up to the left of the first app, slightly dimmed, whereas apps 2-39 aren't visible at all unless you wait on the page for the carousel to slowly rotate through.
By the end of the day I've earned $50, and the extra revenue has caused my app to show up on the PlayBook "Top Purchased" section of App World, which is cool too. Interesting to know that the 20th highest grossing app on PlayBook brings in around $50 of revenue every day. (I'd bet the equivalent spot on the iPhone's charts brings in > $2500/day)
BB/PlayBook September 17, 2011
The statistic that 200,000 PlayBook units were shipped this quarter is an interesting one, as compared to the 500,000 that were shipped last quarter. Even though it's unclear how "units shipped" corresponds to actual sales, the trend is pretty discouraging. And that gets me thinking... given this glum news, what does that mean for the future of the PlayBook?
If the PlayBook were doing well, then it might be a justified "distraction" for RIM from it's core phone business. But if it's doing poorly, then how can it be justified? And if it can't be justified, then... what?
It has been mentioned that there is an expectation that sales will improve when native email and Android app support hits, but I'm wary of that argument. As I've mentioned before, having native email is a nice-to-have, but for me it's far from critical. And Android app support... well, it would be extremely valuable if it Android apps were first class citizens, but my understanding is that you have to boot up this "Android player" first, and then access Andriod apps. Even if it only takes 10-15 seconds to boot up the Android player, that's a pretty convoluted process. I shouldn't judge the solution until I've seen it in completed, but I'm not exactly hopeful that it will be a great solution.
If I'm right that v2.0 of the PlayBook software won't cause a big shift in consumer appetite, that leaves the PlayBook in a bad spot. And with any platform, there's the chicken and egg problem that low unit sales mean that big development shops aren't motivated to develop for the platform, and without major apps, a platform is going to have a hard time.
So boo. We shall see...
Mobile Apps July 25, 2011
This winter, I submitted my first mobile app: Baby Names for the PlayBook. My motivation was getting a free PlayBook, but it was also nice to learn something new. I set the price of my app at 99 cents. When the PlayBook launched, I was surprised to hear from a user within a couple days. He was from British Columbia, and he had purchased a PlayBook around the same time his second child was born. I hadn't even had the opportunity to run the app on a real device yet, and he was emailing to let me know that on the actual device, scrolling didn't work properly. A week or so later when I had finally received my free PlayBook, I fixed the error. For the next couple of months, my revenue rate worked out to around 15 cents per day. Paltry, and not unexpected. But I didn't care, because I had my pretty new PlayBook!
My uncle Tim expressed some interest in the business potential of mobile apps. I shared my honest opinion with him, which was that mobile apps seemed like a very sketchy opportunity. My sense was that a few apps reaped most of the revenue, while most of the hundreds of thousands of others got little to nothing. Even if you were able to make an app in 10 hours at 40 dollars per hour, you'd have to get about 600 purchases before you broke even on your development costs. And that's about as cheap as an app gets.
Regarding the PlayBook offer, I had offered to write people apps if they had an idea that they were interested in submitting to App World. One such application was Graham's app, Solicit. Fast forward a couple of months, and he mentioned that he had accrued a rather impressive 700 downloads, albeit without charging for it. He decided to spend a few hours and re-skin the application to look nice, and add a couple of simple features that users had requested. He submitted his app in early June and I was rather surprised to hear that money was coming in each day as people bought the app. Fast forward a month, and the app has a revenue rate of about $70/month. While that's a pretty tiny sum of money, some simple math shows that it could work out to be a very lucrative compensation: If the revenue continues for two years, the total revenue would be $1700. Given 12 hours of labor to produce the app, the hourly rate would be $140/hr. Yikes! If the revenue only continues for 1 year, we're still talking $70/hr, which is still great.
Also in June, I implemented my Baby Names app for BlackBerry phones. Again, I did this without any money making intentions, I was just interested in learning some new skills and having some fun. I released the app around June 21. Like with Solicit, I was surprised to see money coming in each day. I had some fun experimenting with the price, raising it by a dollar every 10 days or so, to see how that affected the revenue rate. I settled on $3.99 after a few weeks. In the first month, the revenue rate has been around $150/month, which completely blows me away. Again, not because it's a great sum of money, but because an app with 0 marketing and 13 hours of implementation effort (which would be more like 8 hours if it weren't my first BlackBerry app) has the potential to compensate at a rate of $275/hr if sales continue for 2 years, or $400/hr if sales continue for 3 years. And that's if sales stay steady. What if the app catches on via word of mouth and the sales rate goes up by a factor of 5?
Needless to say, in the space of a month, my attitude towards mobile app development has been turned on its head. It's not that I think it's a fool-proof way to make money, far from it... it's that I see the potential, the possibility.
I'm not one for get-rich-quick schemes, but after doing some math I may have stumbled across one which seems more likely to me than anything else I've heard. It builds on the idea of building apps similar in complexity to what I have created so far, about 6-8 hours per app for programming effort, and 3-4 hours per app for visual design.
The idea is to crank out one app per day, each day, for one business year. One person would do the programming, and another person would be responsible for adding as much pretty visual design as possible in the allotted time. The average time input per app would ideally be about 10 hours. The target revenue rate would be >= $1/day on average, but hopefully >= $2/day, with revenues continuing for 2-3 years. Compare these revenue rates to the first two apps we've done, which are bringing in $2.30/day and $5/day, respectively.
So how much money would this amount to if everything went swimmingly, and apps averaged $2/day on average for 3 years?
230 apps * $2/day * 365 days/year * 3 years = ...
... wait for it ...
$503,700
At 10 hours per app, that works out to $219/hr.
And with 230 apps in play, there is a chance that one or two of them could really grab the imagination of the public and go viral. Not likely, but quite possible if your ideas are good enough and your execution is good. Who knows what that would mean in terms of revenue, but it's a fun thought.
Anyway, kind of crazy. You might say "but 230 ideas, that's not realistic". You're quite possibly right, but remember that people like me looove to dream up ideas. I already have a list of 100 ideas. But yes, let's not kid ourselves: This is very far away from a for-sure idea... quite possibly most of the apps would fall flat on their face. But interesting to consider, very interesting to consider...
Baby Names Website July 25, 2011
I created a little web page for my Baby Names mobile app now that it is available on three different app stores. I also created a Facebook page so that I could have a Like button:
Fun stuff. I should write a blog post about my recent mobile app thoughts and experiences.
BlackBerry PlayBook ... The Rough Edges May 12, 2011
Now that I've had a couple of weeks to use the PlayBook, here are the rough edges that I've come up against. (Some perhaps are software/hardware issues with my phone)
The most challenging issue has been the Bridge functionality. To kick things off, one day, I was no longer able to initiate a Bridge link between my phone and PlayBook. I tried again and again, no luck. Then I tried deleting the Bridge link and recreating it, and go all sorts of weird behavior. When I'd go to create a new link, the communication between the phone and tablet wasn't quite working. Sometimes it would start to work and then fail. After lots of bizarre behavior, I restarted the phone and it started working again. Since this time, it has not been rare that, again, Bridge stops working and I have to restart my phone. Maybe this is related to faulty phone software or hardware, though. (BlackBerry Bold from 2009)
Internet tethering will drop off and disconnect while I'm in the middle of using it, and then like Bridge, will refuse to reconnect at times until I reboot the phone.
This isn't a PlayBook issue, but I've found that sometimes when I reboot my phone, it goes from having almost 100% battery to having < 1/5 battery. What on earth? So you go from tethering on a fully charged phone, to tethering disconnecting and refusing to connect, forcing you to reboot the phone, resulting in an almost-dead phone. Ugh :(
To make Bridge and internet tethering pleasant to use, I need to keep Bluetooth enabled on my phone. (It's no fun to have to fish your phone out of your pocket and fumble around turning on Bluetooth every time you simply want to check your email on your tablet) But it seems like keeping Bluetooth on drains your phone battery much faster, so you're smart to keep Bluetooth off. We have a conflict of interests here, and it's not a particularly happy situation either way you play it.
Bridge functionality works decently, but my one complaint is that applications start slower than they should. It's excessive to have to wait 5ish seconds just to peek at your email.
So while I'm not bothered by the Bridge concept like other tech reviewers were, the realities of it right now with my particular phone are pretty rough around the edges. We shall see whether this improves at all, and whether native email clients resolve the need for Bridge.
BlackBerry PlayBook Review April 30, 2011
Early this week I checked my email and, at long last, got my shipping notification for the free PlayBook offer. The next day at 1 PM there was a knock on the door and a friendly FedEx man handed me the box. To say I was excited would be an understatement.
Summary
The PlayBook is a delightful device -- the screen is very crisp and bright, the UI is polished both in terms of appearance and function, and the web browsing experience is great. The 7" size works very well, which was my biggest apprehension, and doesn't much deter from the web browsing experience VS a 10" tablet. Webmail works well too, meaning that not having a built in email client is a minor issue. Flash video works as advertised, bringing an end to the annoyance of "you can't watch this" as had on the iPad. And tethering to my smartphone works great, allowing me to browse the web while riding in the car, etc... very cool. Capturing HD video and immediately playing it back on the PlayBook screen is a compelling experience, and being able to "drag and drop" files onto and off of the device over wifi is a thrilling experience. (Even when it's in sleep mode!) I have yet to get a micro HDMI cable, but am eagerly awaiting being able to play back content on our HDTV.
The PlayBook isn't perfect of course -- there isn't a Netflix app yet, the kobo app has some rough edges, my BabyNames app seems to expose a scrolling bug, etc. But these are all very minor things which cannot overshadow what is a wonderful tablet, one which I seem to be more drawn to than my iPad.
Web Browser
The web browsing experience on the PlayBook is great. The 7" screen is large enough to display web pages well (remember the days when we wished all computers were 1024 pixels wide but most were 800?), the browser renders pages properly, and the UI of the browser is effective. My one UI wish was that there would be a way to open a link in a background tab in the same way you can on desktop browsers, but my wish didn't come true. Just like the iPad, if you open a link in a new tab, it takes you to that tab. (other people could probably care less about this) As for the speed of the browser, I'll call it "good", but let's not kid ourselves, it can't match the speed of a desktop browser. And I'm a nit picker, so one curious thing that I noticed is that the little animation that plays while a flash video loads isn't anti-aliased. Odd.
Browsing over 3G while tethered to a phone is surprisingly fast, but that's probably because my previous 3G experience is on a BlackBerry Bold phone and I think we all know how slow previous generations of BlackBerry phones are in the web browsing department.
Accessing Gmail via the browser works well. It turns out not to be the full desktop Gmail site, but the mobilized site gets the job done well.
Typing
Typing on the device is notably better than on an iPad. I end up typing in URLs in landscape mode, and my hands are just big enough to allow my thumbs to reach all of the keys, but if I need to type any more than that, I use portrait mode, which offers a very good typing experience. I consider this to be a significant usability advantage over the iPad, and is a feature that makes web browsing more pleasant.
Nifty Features
The PlayBook has some tricks up its sleeve, and that adds some wow factor for the tech savvy folks. For example, it shows up as a computer on the local area network, even while in sleep mode, allowing files to be dragged and dropped to it in Windows Explorer. You can take a picture or video, press F5 on your computer, and bam, there it is. Very slick. Having an HDMI cable is another one of those sweet features, but as mentioned I have yet to play with that.
App Selection
There are lots of apps to peruse, and there are a decent number of big-name apps, so that's great. As many others have noted, lots of big-name apps aren't available (yet) on the platform, so hopefully that will change over time. But when people say "no apps" that's pretty silly. I was very happy that the Globe and Mail app is there, which is one of the most-used apps on my iPad. The presence of a great weather app is very appreciated. There is a piano app which works decently, but I found that there is a slight crackle when each note is played, which needs to get fixed before I'd want to use it. The kobo book reading application is nice but has one major, inexplicable flaw: Often when you change pages, a spinning icon appears for a second before the next page is loaded. Why? I can't think of any reasonable explanation for this. Bizarre. Also, pages sometimes flicker when they load. Again, why? These two flaws are kind of silly if you ask me. C'mon kobo people. The iSpeech Translator app is very cool and actually seems to work decently. Kind of amazing. Poynt is impressive and very useful. Readers Digest looks nice and works well. The music app looks nice and works well enough. The Presidents Choice recipe app is simple but is beautiful, has tonnes of content, and kind of knocks my socks off. It even has nutritional info! (Thanks PC!) Hopefully Netflix will show up in the next few months.
BlackBerry Bridge
The integration with your BlackBerry phone works well. The email program is a bit on the bare-bones side of things, and there is a bit of lag while communication with your phone takes place, but overall this works well. Pretty cool.
Battery Life
I haven't done any quantitative tests, but my overall sense of battery life is that it's decent but not great. I'm pretty sure the iPad's battery life is a notch or two better. That said, the PlayBook's battery life is good enough that it doesn't adversely affect the day-to-day use of the device.
Need for Speed
Pretty good controls, and nice overall feel. I've heard other people praising the graphics of NFS, but I have to say, they don't impress me. Sure, it looks decent on a great high-DPI screen, but the actual 3D graphics are way beyond 2011 standards. That's not to say that it doesn't look good, but there isn't any "wow" factor for me. I'm sure the next version of the PlayBook will have a 3D processor more akin to the one that's in the iPad 2, and perhaps then it will be capable of pumping out some inspiring 3D visuals.
Conclusion
I think RIM did a superb job on the PlayBook, and I hope it sells well. And like many people, I'm looking forward to seeing it grow, and I'm curious to see what directions people will take it.
Wish List
Be able to open links in a background tab.
Wireless media playback onto HDTV.
Wireless media sync.
Netflix.
Video chat.
Email client.
More big-name apps.
Anticipation: BlackBerry PlayBook April 15, 2011
It's Friday and the PlayBook officially launches on Tuesday, just two business days from now. The reviews are out, and they're... pretty mediocre, actually a little negative, which is a marked change from the positive vibes that have surrounded the device these last 7 months. The most noise being made is about the lack of native email client, calendar, contacts, lack of apps, and the power button of all things. Here are my thoughts on each of these things:
Native Email/Calendar/Contacts
First of all, I agree that RIM ideally would have these things at launch, no question in my mind there. But they don't. So how big of a problem is this?
If we side step the "perception of a problem" as being a problem and think about actually using the device, I still agree this is an issue, but not as big an issue as people are making it out to be. Let's think about how I personally use email... I use Gmail. And how do I access it? Through a web browser. The web UI for Gmail is so good that I've never felt the need to download an email app on my PC. And so I think that's where RIM is coming from when they say their anticipation is that this device will suit webmail users just fine.
Using webmail on a tablet is different than using it on a PC, though. You have less screen area, etc, and so there are opportunities to create a UI that is better suited to the tablet. And of course, using a native app will likely be a bit snappier, and finally, since this is not an always-connected device like the PC, not having an app means that you won't have offline access to your email.
Remember though, that you can just download a third-party email app if these things are important to you. When you add up the webmail and third-party email app aspects, I again say that this argument is being overplayed. I think it somehow becomes more a symbolic argument than a practical one: People feel that the lack of these apps is symbolic of the fact that the tablet is being released on very tight time frames, and that RIM hasn't had enough time to "do it right". If this is the concern, then let's step back a moment and remember what industry this is... every month counts, and no device is ever going to be perfect on every front when it is released. So I think you have to look at these issue not as symbolic but rather in a practical light, and in the case of native email, as I've made my case, I think it's an issue but not a big one. (Calendar and Contacts are essentially the same discussion)
Power Button
Ok, so it's pretty clear that the industrial design of the power button gets a "fail", or does it? I'm not questioning that the power button takes serious effort to push, but what isn't clear in my mind is whether the power button is something that needs to be used on a daily basis. Do I ever use a "power button" on my iPad? Rarely, very rarely. Perhaps I've used it 5 times in the last year. So unless I'm missing something, why are people unhappy with the button being very tucked away? Going back to the industrial design argument, this might actually be seen as good design, because it's going to keep you from accidentally hitting the button, and because it's recessed, it doesn't clutter the perimeter of the device with un-flush adornments. I'm not arguing that RIM made the perfect design decisions here, but I am again saying that I think this criticism is coming off very loud giving how minor the issue is in terms of practical usage of the device, and I think there are some real benefits to the design as well.
Apps
This one is a little bizarre too, because RIM hasn't yet added the thousands of PlayBook apps to the app store, they only have a few dozen in the store to demonstrate how apps can be browsed and installed. So why would Gizmodo create a fancy comic-like graphic with "NO APPS" spray painted on the PlayBook? Seriously?
I fully agree that this is legitimately a big issue... both the iPad and Android have tens of thousands of apps available, whereas the Playbook has about 3,000. But I also don't think this issue is quite the way people are painting it, either.
First of all, the iPad doesn't REALLY have 300,000 tablet apps. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of iPhone apps out there, and they can technically run on the iPad, but in my collection of 20 or so iPad apps, are any of them iPhone apps? No. I'm not saying that other people don't have some phone apps on their tablet, but the lion's share of apps running on iPads are tablet apps. So I think to be fair, you shouldn't quote 300,000 when talking about the number of iPad apps there are. (The number of iPad apps is 65,000, I believe) And likewise for Android tablets, how many of the available apps are actually tablet apps VS phone apps? If you look at the situation that way, the picture is very different.
Secondly, I don't think 3,000 apps is problematic. That's a lot of apps... remember in the early PC days when the number of apps available at the computer store was < 100? Did that stunt the growth of the PC industry? Not at all. I think a more important consideration is whether the prime-time, popular apps are available on a platform, and that's something that reviewers don't yet know. If these apps are truly missing, and they don't show up in the next couple of months, then yes, I think it's very fair and right to point this out as a flaw of the platform for consumers, but from this vantage point I don't think "NO APPS" is a good or even valid assessment.
My Personal Thoughts
Personally, I'm very excited about the PlayBook and the platform. There have been many times I've been browsing the web on my iPad and go to watch some video clip on Facebook or elsewhere and groan when I realize it's flash and I can't view it. Ugh. I'm not saying Apple made the wrong decision at the time, but for them not to have Flash working over a year later and making no known efforts to get it working is kind of mind boggling. Given all the criticism of RIM this week, it's kind of curious that consumers don't rant about Apple's lack of flash support.
Being a UI guy, I'm also very impressed with the flow of using the device. I find the iPad to be a somewhat mediocre multitasking experience. Some of that is just the memories of the last year not having any multitasking at all, and so I sometimes forget now that you even can multitask, but in addition to that, the app switching mechanism gets about a C grade from me. On the contrary, I'm happy to give the PlayBook's app switching UI an A or A+. It's fast, it's integral to the design of the UI, and I'll even call it "fun". It has flair -- it kind of draws you into the experience of multitasking. This is an exciting development for tablets.
Something that I have yet to find out is how well the tabbed browsing aspect of "multitasking" works in the PlayBook. That's perhaps my biggest annoyance of the iPad: If you want to open a bunch of links as background tabs to checkout later, I don't know of an efficient way to do that. I don't know whether it's memory limitations on the device or what, but for me it's a big drawback to browsing on the iPad. Maybe the PlayBook solves this problem, maybe it doesn't, so we shall see.
I strongly dislike typing on the iPad. I know Apple's commercials make it look pretty slick, but in my experience it's not. It's too big and heavy to hold, and so you have to put it on your lap, but then it slides off and the ergonomics of typing on it while it's on your lap are mediocre at best. This was actually my biggest question about the iPad before it was released: How would typing work? Would there be some fancy UI that was truly innovative? I think a lot of people were surprised to find out it was just a flat, standard keyboard. So will the PlayBook be better in this regard? It think it will be... it's small enough that you can type with two thumbs when holding it in portrait mode, and I think it's even possible to do that in landscape mode. Is it light enough to make that comfortable? Again, I won't know these things until I actually get to try it out, but I'm hopeful that typing won't be as much of a chore as it is on the iPad.
I'm really looking forward to being able to get internet access on the PlayBook through my phone without having to pay for an extra account. I'd love to have 3G access on my iPad, but there's no way I'm going to pay an extra $15-$20 for it when I already have a data plan on my phone. Being able to do this for free on the PlayBook is a very big feature. Finally, being able to browse the web on long car trips! (And yes, I'm a sucker for "free")
My biggest hesitation with the PlayBook is actually it's size. Having a nice portable 7" device has plenty of advantages, but when you're curled up on the couch or in bed browsing the web, I think anyone would prefer a 10" tablet over a 7" tablet. What does this mean? I think it means that my iPad will remain mostly the bedside browsing device, and the PlayBook will be mostly the mobile tablet that can be used to browse the web while out of the house. So here we are again, only a year after tablets hit the market, and already we're seeing specialized tablets that excel in different use cases. ie. First was the question of "will people buy a second web browsing device to complement their laptop"? It was an uncertain question, but the answer was a resounding "yes"! Now we're faced with another question: Will people buy a second, smaller tablet, that excels at mobile web browsing on a screen that is larger than their phone's but not as annoying to carry around as a 10" tablet? I have no idea, we shall see, but my inkling is that, again, yes, many people will own both a 10" and 7" tablet. The other way of looking at is, in any given house, how many web browsing devices do people want? I think it many house holds, eventually, it will be approx. 2 devices per person, and so in a family with two parents and two kids, I could easily see 8 web browsing devices, some of them PCs, some of them laptops, some of them tablets, some of them smartphones, and in there somewhere quite likely is a 7" screen.
My last comment is a word of advice to RIM: Develop a 10" PlayBook, and do it ASAP. Don't limit people to the 7" mobile experience in the long term, because that's only part of the market, and the pieces that make up the PlayBook would also be beautiful on a 10" device, so why not expand your audience? Surely it can't be hard to expand a 7" design -- I think it would actually be a little easier to do that than to shrink a 10" design.
Floored. That's what I am. Floored that IBM seems to have succeeded in its quest to program a computer to win at Jeopardy. Part of me thinks that they're cheating some how -- well, not really -- but I don't understand how they've pulled this off and so by process of elimination... but seriously, a big congratulations to the team at IBM that has worked on this project. I look forward to watching the game in February!
Google's Self-Driving Cars
I was very surprised to learn that Google has picked up where the DARPA Grand Challenge left off... and that they have many thousands of miles under their belt. But if there's any company that is up to the challenge, it's Google. I'm so curious how this will unfold. Where will we be by 2020? I would certainly be surprised to see self-driving cars by then... my guess is still mid-to-late 2020s, say around 2028, but you never know. Anyway, companies are clearly working hard on this, and it's only a matter of time. Fun stuff.
Chevy Volt
After first hearing about this car a few years ago, it is finally out in the world. Very cool, wish I could own one some day.
Netflix
Finally, Netflix in Canada... I find it incredible that you can get so much value for $8/month. For a guy that canceled his cable a few years ago, it's great to see legitimate Internet media blossoming. Also, I've been impressed by the Netflix recommendation engine. I have yet to be disappointed.
BlackBerry Playbook
Now and again, a device catches my eye, and this fall I've enjoyed following the development of the Playbook. I wrote an app to help new parents choose a name for their baby which hopefully qualifies me for their free Playbook offer. I hope the Playbook is a success for RIM.
Retina Display
Marketing speak aside, I was astounded by Apple's retina display this year. If they had increased the number of pixels in the display by 50%, I would have been impressed. But 400%? Incredible. I have to wonder what led to such a dramatic increase all of a sudden.
Avatar
I was very impressed with Avatar last January -- and while I'm skeptical (like many people) about the 3D craze, Avatar was the real deal, a novel experience that raised the bar.
SpaceX
2010 was a big year for commercial space with a couple impressive launches by SpaceX. It's great to see Elon Musk getting some bang for his buck and finding success in these endeavors, and I look forward to the next few years.
Virgin Galactic
I continue to be very impressed with Burt Rutan and his composite spacecraft. I was in Greece in 2004 when I saw a newspaper reporting that he had succeeded at capturing the XPrize, and now 6 years later his partnership with Virgin appears to be going very well. Exciting stuff, and it will be interesting to see how the cost of a trip to space falls over the coming years. Reducing it from tens of millions to 200K is a great start. Random prediction: 30K by 2030.
Thoughts
I have to say, we live in an exciting time, and I think that the last couple of years have been flush with interesting developments in the technology world. Already we seem to be off to a good start this decade...
The 20-second nap October 19, 2010
Something that I've discovered this year is that you can achieve an impressive state of rest by "concentrating". What I mean by that is focusing on making your body as relaxed as possible. The second part of this is thoughts -- often if I close my eyes to relax, my mind starts processing all of the things of life -- things I have to do, etc, etc. But by counting in your head, those thoughts seem to be averted, leading to better rest.
So it goes like this: Closing your eyes, getting into a comfortable position, and slowly counting backwards from a number like 20 or 40, making your body as limp as possible. Sometimes I'm so relaxed doing this that I stop breathing for 10 seconds simply because my mind is telling all of my muscles to "stop".
I like this for a few reasons:
There are many times in a day where you have a moment that you have to wait for something.
I find it intriguing that one can "concentrate" on being restful. That seems like an oxymoron to me.
Unlike longer "naps", I don't find this makes you any less alert/awake.
Biked: 848 km (approx. 42.4 hours) Ran: 135 km (approx. 15.7 hours) Walked: 107 km (approx. 19.5 hours) Total: 1090 km (approx. 77.6 hours) Approx time/day: 17.77 minutes/day
Wolfram Alpha Volunteer Community September 12, 2010
A year and a half or so after Wolfram Alpha has launched it's nice to see that an official community has been created volunteer data curation. I tried the curation process out last week and was impressed with how straightforward it was: I downloaded an Excel spreadsheet with 10 video games and then used the web to lookup release dates, supported platforms, etc. There is even a point system and the ability to display your badge on a website, etc. Very nice! I think that volunteer curators will find this process enjoyable and be thrilled once their contributions are live on the site.
9 minutes 30 seconds September 8, 2010
Go out into the garage, disconnect bike from Chariot. Ride 1 km from our house, up the hill to the corner of Laurelwood and Erbsville (3 minutes, 37 seconds) Buy two slices of pizza. Ride 1 km back home (1 minute, 55 seconds) Put bike back in garage.
9 minutes 30 seconds
Eli at 14 months June 27, 2010
I struck me today that Eli is doing many new and interesting things these days so I would write some of them down. Where do I start? This is going to be a bit random.
Eli is starting to mimic. Mostly verbal mimicking... sometime's he'll repeat what you say, but often only the first two letters of a word. It's very cute. He also mimics intonation. So if you so "WOW!" in a more excited, higher pitched voice, so will he sometimes.
On Friday we were driving and he was delighting in being goofy and getting our attention. He was smiling while looking at upwards and making this forced laugh. When we'd look back and laugh at him he loved it. Meredith calls him a little "ham", as per his last name.
When we're out of the house socializing, I will put him down and he will proceed to lean back against me with his head between my legs. I think it's his way of being shy and staying close. When we were at Paul's retirement party, he was standing a couple of feet away from me and some ladies were smiling at him. He quickly did this cute little side shuffle and then grabbed onto me.
For some reason, in the last couple of months, Eli has been pretty consistently upset when we change his diaper, and we can't figure out why. It's partly triggered walking into his room, but most triggered by setting him down on the change table. He gets upset, cries, squirms, and it's often not until we get his new diaper on or sometimes even after that that he will start settling down. Very strange.
Lately his favorite "toy" has been the wooden stick/pole that is used as a secondary lock for our sliding door. We call him little Moses the way he runs around with it as his staff. Sometimes he'll hold it more like a sword and swing it around, or bang it into our hard wood floors, so we've decided it's not a good thing. Today when I hid it in the closet, he noticed that I had gone around the corner and not come back with it. He was convinced that it was in the washroom, just beyond the closet, and so it was so cute to see him looking beside and behind the toilet without any luck. He is at a stage where he gets very upset when we take things away that he loves. Another example of this is the computer. He loooves putting his hand on the computer mouse and typing on the keyboard. When I took him away today, he got very upset, and sort of screamed. Hopefully this will pass, but I have a feeling it will get worse before it gets better.
Just this week he has started expressing interest in feeding himself with a spoon. He's pretty inaccurate with it, but does manage to get a decent portion of a spoon full of food into his mouth. (And of course, the rest on his shirt)
When I go into the garage (from the house) in the morning to get the bike out, I tell Eli to wait in the house and then close the door. I then wheel the bike outside and by that time Eli has walked over to the front door and is looking out the little window beside the door. When I look up and he sees me smiling at him, he gets a big grin on his face and is very excited. I then open the door and grab him and his things and get him settled into the Chariot. It takes about 12 minutes to Bike the 3 km to the baby sitters, and these days he seems pretty happy the whole while. His helmet is big enough and heavy enough that it tends to pull his head forward somewhat, but if I turn around on my bike and say "Hi Eli!" then he'll look up with a big smile on his face. Last day he had his "Mamma do you love me?" book open and it looked like he was reading the newspaper. Adorable.
Eli's favorite food these days: strawberries. After a huge breakfast this morning, we finished off with a few cut up strawberries. He looked to be slowing down, so I got up to take his tray off, and realizing that I was about to take the last few chunks of strawberry away, he quickly grabbed each of them and stuffed them into his mouth. On Friday when we were out at the CSA for the first time to pick up our locally grown veggies, we stopped for a few minutes to pick some strawberries. I saw with Eli on my knee and bent down to find a nice red berry. It was so wonderful to pick one and immediately offer to Eli. He took a bite and immediately pointed downward at other nice looking red berries that he could see, and he could barely keep himself together waiting for me to get another strawberry for him. The berries were very sweet and little more sour than usual... wonderful! It felt a little bit like a garden of Eden experience. (The farm is organic / pesticide free)
We've enjoyed this last month and a bit taking Eli to the park some nights. A couple of times, we've gone there FOR supper instead of after, which is fun. We pack a quick supper for him and then Meredith goes up the hill to get pizza or something else, and then we sit under the gazebo there and eat, enjoying the summer weather. Then we play on the swings and slides. Eli, even at 1 year of age, likes to go down the big slide head first, all on his own. Pretty adventurous!
A game that we have started playing in the last week is that, when he's standing at the edge of our bed, I will throw him upwards and then let go of him so that he has half a second or so of free fall, and then I get my arms underneath him just in time to break most of his fall as he lands on the bed. It's perhaps a 4 foot drop from the apex of his trajectory down to the bed, and he seems to love it. Then he crawls to the edge of the bed and tries to dive off head first. But this isn't new -- he has this bad habit of diving off of things head first when he knows that I'm around, since I obviously always catch him when he does. A few months ago I tried to teach him that this was dangerous but ended up hurting his head and giving myself nightmares... so hopefully he wises up on his own, because I'm not sure how to teach him that this isn't a good idea.
Likewise, he gets up on our couch and runs around on it, sometimes standing right at the edge. Not good. But it's hard to know how to teach him that this isn't good. We tell him sternly to sit down, but that doesn't always work.
Eli is still going to bed at 7 most nights, although has not been able to get to sleep until 8 the last two nights, which is the first time I remember this happening. Hopefully that's not a trend, but the two nights he has done this, he has slept in until 7:30 rather than 6:30, and I have to say, it has been wonderful.
We're looking forward to our two weeks of RVing in July out in BC/Alberta. Hopefully Eli enjoys that strange new mode of life!
Self resistance June 13, 2010
I'm not sure what to call this, but I've been having fun experimenting with a form of exercise that involves creating your own resistance. What you do is imagine that there is a force opposing your motion, and then you slowly overcome that imaginary force, or conversely, slowly allow that imaginary force to overcome your resistance.
Ok, so perhaps that's not the clearest picture. To use an example: From a standing position, I might pretend to do a bench press. By imagining that I am actually pushing a weight away from me, what I believe happens is that your body contracts the muscles in your back which would normally be used to pull something towards yourself. And by overcoming this force, you are contracting your chest muscles -- the muscles you actually use to do a bench press.
I find this interesting because:
You are using not just the typical muscles for a given movement, but also the opposing muscles. This is a good thing, as I've discovered from times when I would only, say, do pushups, and after a few weeks you start to feel like your body is actually becoming misshapen because your chest muscles are overly tight and your back muscles can't resist them, when you're at rest.
It doesn't require any equipment.
It is efficient, You don't need to go anywhere. You don't need to swap machines, or get or put away anything.
It is inexpensive / free.
You can do it almost anywhere, whether you're at home or traveling.
It involves using your imagination -- which is kind of hokey, but also kind of fun.
More generally, it's fun to think up exercises that you can do without any equipment by using your imagination.
For example, pretending there's a 2 foot high fence in front of you and then jumping over it, either forwards, or to the side.
Another example: Pretending to throw a ball forwards, or upwards, overhand or underhand. Or kicking a ball, etc.
As I said, kind of goofy it would seem, but I have found it to be kind of fun and mentally refreshing.
One last thought: When you practice a motion of the body without the physical thing you would normally do it with, whether that be a ball, or whatever, I find that my mind focuses more on my own body and the various motions or muscular contractions involved, whereas if you were to actually throw a ball (etc) your mind becomes very fixated on the actual object and the resulting motion of that object, almost as if the object were a part of your body. (I've heard a similar thing said about how the human brain thinks about a tool that you're using) This change in focus from external to internal is notable and is perhaps useful for learning motions from another complementary perspective.
What's up with Apple? June 8, 2010
Gee whiz, so Apple goes from near extinction to world domination. Pretty incredible turn around.
What makes my head spin is that they have released the iPad and iPhone 4 all within a 6 month window. These are two very cutting edge products -- the iPad speaks for itself, and as for iPhone 4, what really draws me in is the quadrupling of the number of pixels in the display. How did such a quantum leap happen? I can see a 50% increase being exciting, but 400%? Wow.
Two Apple products have already crept into our home in the last year and a half, and another is imminent.
What's "magical" isn't the iPad, it's the company, symbolized by its market value... if they keep up this pace, it will be a fascinating decade to watch.
Smart Cars June 4, 2010
It's becoming increasingly clear to me that in the coming decades, cars are quite likely to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of technology. Although, perhaps cars have always been something that makes technological progress evident -- I was looking at a 1970s Toyota the other day and the interior was so ancient looking.
But what's coming isn't about plusher interiors, it's about the infusion of connectedness and software. Much of these things have caught my imagination over the years, but in 2010 these things are seeming ever more certain.
Cars that talk to infrastructure and to each other. For example, cars that talk to the traffic systems, such as stop lights. This will make the behavior of stop lights dependent on traffic, and at some point will also have an effect on the behavior of the car. ie. If you drive at a certain speed, the light will be green, and so you won't have to stop and start. Or not having to physically pay at a gas station or parking garage. I just watched an Audio video about these things and, wow, it just makes so much sense. Cars that automatically call 911 when you've been in an accident. (Does that exist already?) Cars that automatically stop if you try and run a red light, or perhaps even a stop sign. And maybe in that case, your car automatically informs the car behind that an evasive stop is about to occur... the cars could even negotiate information about their weight and stopping ability to predict whether the vehicle behind will be able to stop fast enough not to cream the vehicle in front... think trucks behind a car. And likewise, vehicles driving perpendicular to the offending vehicle being warned of a possible collision and thus being slowed down enough to avoid the incident, or being stopped.
Driving assistance: We're already seeing some parking assistance, but this is only the beginning. Software to detect children behind the vehicle and prevent you from running them over. Or even the tricycle. Software to help you stop ASAP if a pedestrian walks out in front of you. As mentioned, automatically stopping if you try and run a red light. And yes, at some point, being able to take your hands off of the wheel. That one still feels a bit sci-fi, but I highly expect that will happen.
Software to notify. For example, software to detect when you are going to run out of gas and route you to the nearest (or perhaps in some cases only possible) gas station, or to tell you if it is impossible to get to any refueling station. Software to monitor the health and performance of the vehicle and report any abnormalities to you and/or your mechanic. Software to monitor how the tires are interacting with the road and to notify you of danger. Knowing what comes up ahead on the road and, again, to notify you of danger.
Be able to play any song in your music collection without having to transfer it to the car, or even having to have your cell phone present. Or if you have a subscription, play any song ever written, by voice command.
Directions: Say where you want to go and get directions.
UI: The main thing being voice UI that works well and is flexible. The infusion of linguistic technology analogous to Wolfram|Alpha for querying and/or commanding. "How much further can I drive?", "What's my current ETA?", "Open the trunk", "Take me home", "Take me to the nearest Tim Hortons", "Where is Eli"?
High speed Internet built into the car -- other devices could tap into this as if the car were a router.
In-car entertainment: Internet/TV in the car, HD audio/video.
Energy sources: Electric vehicles, possibly hydrogen vehicles.
Energy transfer: Plug in cars, possibly even wireless charging or equivalent.
Efficiency: If a car rarely has to stop at red lights, recaptures energy when it does have to stop, doesn't use energy when it is stopped, drives at the optimum speed, is very aerodynamic, drives smart in terms of not accelerating too quickly, not touching the brakes unnecessarily, and all of this paired with the improvements of efficiency that come from engine and fuel technology, I expect that the cars a few decades from now will make the SUVs of today look completely insane.
Safety: I think the biggest thing here, as mentioned, is the infusion of intelligent overrides based on sensing of the environment as well as communication with infrastructure and other cars. I wonder what percentage of fatal or serious car accidents could be prevented by this type of thing? I'm guessing the large majority. Imagine living in a world where the number of car accident deaths is 1/10th what it is today...
The little things: In today's world, it would be USB ports for charging devices.
By air: And of course, as I've pondered before, getting there by air. Driving 5-10 km to the nearest runway, putting it on auto pilot, and having your car extend its wings, accelerate down the runway, fly autonomously to the destination runway communicating with ATC automatically, and then coming to a stop for you to takeover control and drive to your destination... admittedly, this one is probably the most futuristic sci-fi, yes, but I think it just might happen this century.
Adding all of these things up, the car feels like a very different beast than it is in 2010... still a car, but a much smarter, more connected, car. And while I can imagine the various pieces, it's difficult to imagine just what it would be like to sit down in one of these things and go for a drive. Give it 30 years and we'll know...
Oh happy day March 3, 2010
Don't you love it when you figure out how to escape from the vices of technology? I was sitting here depressed that, while my BlackBerry is a great thing, I find it so dreadfully annoying to have to go through all of my email messages and all of my Facebook notifications and mark them all as read. It wastes about 200 clicks and scrolls every few days, and it's a giant pain.
And I just figured out how to do that by clicking on the date and using "Mark Prior Opened".
hehe :)
Good Job Ray February 10, 2010
Ray Kurzweil has some pretty elaborate and seemingly unlikely theories about the future, but reading the following was a wonderful thing:
"I get very excited about discussions about the true nature of consciousness, because I‘ve been thinking about this issue for literally 50 years, going back to junior high school. And it‘s a very difficult subject. When some article purports to present the neurological basis of consciousness... I read it. And the articles usually start out, “Well, we think that consciousness is caused by...†You know, fill in the blank. And then it goes on with a big extensive examination of that phenomenon. And at the end of the article, I inevitably find myself thinking... where is the link to consciousness? Where is any justification for believing that this phenomenon should cause consciousness? Why would it cause consciousness?"
It's very rare that I read someone's thoughts about consciousness and think "Wow, this person really gets it, they're thinking about it in a very similar way to how I think about it".
But I have to say, this was very encouraging.
Four months at wolframalpha.com December 28, 2009
Has it really been four months already? What a wonderful experience it has been this fall working on Wolfram Alpha. I have been given opportunities to work on very interesting and challenging projects, and a few weeks ago the first two of those projects went live on the site.
It has also been a very worthwhile experience working from home. There is definitely the opportunity to get more done as there is no commute time, etc. It is also pretty nice being able, as a consultant, to buy your own hardware. Gone are the days of working on a 4 year old computer. I splurged a bit and got a Quad Core i7 from Dell with 8GB RAM, dual widescreen monitors, and Windows 7. Is it ever nice having 3840 horizontal pixels of resolution, and now having had a quad core, I'd never go back. Multi-core CPUs are a beautiful thing for power users that do a lot of multi-tasking.
The downside to working at home, for me, has been missing out on interacting directly with the great people at Wolfram Research in Champaign. While I was down there in October, I had the chance to meet quite a few people, and it would be fun to work in the office there with them. (That being said, we definitely won't be moving to the US any time soon!)
Starting in January, I'll be playing hockey once a week with my former colleagues at Navtech. I'm really looking forward to that!
Intelligence is the ability to form high level concepts from low level observations, and then to be able to relate those high level concepts to new low level observations to solve problems.
Multi-dimensional relationship October 19, 2009
Have you ever been to a marriage workshop? Our church held one this past spring and we talked about marriage in light of three dimensions... let's see if I can remember them: Passion, Commitment, and Intimacy. The book we used drew from a triangle developed by Robert Sternberg at Yale. Within the class we talked about how this triangle changes at various times in a relationship. Sometimes relationships become more passionate, or committed, or intimate, and sometimes one dimension will grow much larger than the others. But completely lacking any of these dimensions, a relationship is lacking.
I was thinking how an analogy could be drawn from this as we consider our relationship with God. Perhaps our relationship with God is even more dimensional than this... sometimes we delight in theology, in heady concepts. Along the same lines, sometimes we marvel at the rich history of God's work on Earth and in man described by the Bible. Sometimes our hearts burst with passion, an almost sensual experience of God. Likewise, commitment. No wonder God painted the picture of the bridge and bridegroom for us.
With all of these dimensions of our relationship with God changing shape over the years, no wonder we are often thirsty -- we yearn for aspects of God that we haven't tasted like we did in years past.
Starting at Wolfram Research September 7, 2009
Here I am in Boston, on Labour Day, and tomorrow I start working for Wolfram Research. When I first read about Wolfram Alpha last spring, I never imagined that something like this would have worked out. What a neat opportunity!
Speaking about opportunity, my team has it's work cut out for it. As I've read what the press has had to say about W|A this summer, one thing is clear: The part of the system that most limits it's ability to answer people's questions is it's ability to understand user input. Much of the time, the system has the data and algorithms it needs to answer a question, but is unable to map a question to those data and algorithms.
And of course, this isn't surprising, since it is really the language parsing layer of W|A that is the most difficult. Ever since computers were invented, people have dreamed about creating a computer that could understand questions -- and after several decades of trying, people become disillusioned with this vision. As of 2009, there are still decades of work to be done. It is a very difficult problem!
In a recent report written by Stephen Wolfram, it is stated that the team has been able to reduce the "fall through" rate by 10%, which is fantastic progress for only 1 summer of work! Hopefully this trend continues, and I look forward to helping make that happen.
Today we did a "duck tour" of Boston, which involved an amphibious vehicle... first driving around, and then boating down the Charles river. I even got to drive the boat, and let it be known that I was the only person out of about a dozen that could keep the boat going straight! What a hero.
We also took a tour of Fenway Park. One of the tour guides said that we were the first group in about six months to be allowed onto the field. And when I say "field", I mean the warning track. They wouldn't let us on the grass. Think he was telling the truth, or just trying to make us feel special?! Eli has been fantastic for the most part, but he was pretty upset when we made it back to the hotel this afternoon... apparently, disrupting a baby's nap schedule is a recipe for one very angry baby! Poor guy.
It will be fun getting up tomorrow, navigating the subways, and then arriving to meet the folks of Wolfram Cambridge!
Having fun with food August 30, 2009
Over the last couple of months I've implemented some more features for my Grace project. These features are focused around food, which was the original dream for the project, so it has been nice to finally get around to that.
At first, I focused on expanding my database of foods and adding their nutritional information to the program. Next, I added the ability to tell the computer what you have eaten and have it draw a nice graph showing you what essential nutrients you are missing for the current day. Using the nutrition tracking has been an interesting exercise, and has confirmed my suspicion that I consume upwards of 5000 mg of sodium each day, twice the recommended amount. It has also been very helpful when certain other members of the family want to keep track of what they're eating without always having to look up points values.
With a good food database in place, I was able to move on to more interesting things. The first step was to use the food database to create a recipe database, and thus to be able to calculate the nutritional information for any of our recipes. The second step was to allow the program to keep an inventory of all of the foods in our kitchen by saying, for example, "add milk to the fridge", or "add frozen strawberries to the freezer".
The immediate reason for keeping an inventory was that we have so many cans in the cupboard (and things in our freezer) that it becomes very frustrating if you want to figure out whether you have a certain ingredient -- you end up pulling half the cans out of the cupboard searching. Now, you can simply ask "do we have any refried beans?", and if you need to narrow down the location, you could ask "where are the refried beans?".
Although the inventory is helpful, the real money is being able to answer the question "what can recipes can I make?". For example, we were on our way back from church today, and as is usually the case, both of us were famished and didn't have much energy to figure out what we could cobble together for lunch. We figured we'd just grab some food on our way home, but instead I typed "what recipes can we make?" into my BlackBerry and a list of several options came back, such as Rotini and Fresh Tomato, Basil, and Parmesan. That sounded pretty good, so we drove home instead and had a nice home-cooked meal.
Lifesaver Bottle August 27, 2009
I recently watched this video about Michael Pritchard's Lifesaver bottle. Wow, wow, wow.
I checked out the company's website, but there was no reference at all to using the bottle for humanitarian uses. Confused, I sent an email to info@lifesaversystems.com:
Hi there,
I just watched Michael Pritchard's TED talk about the Lifesaver bottle, and to say I'm excited is an understatement. I resonate with Michael that this bottle could make a mind-blowingly significant difference to people living in third-world countries.
I visited the Lifesaver website hoping that there would be more information about things like:
Lobbying governments to support an initiative of distributing bottles to third world countries.
Ways that individuals can raise money to donate bottles to third world countries (ex. A charity that is able to give tax receipts, etc.)
Discounts for the bottles when used for humanitarian reasons.
News about people's efforts using the bottle for humanitarian causes.
Forums to help connect people on this cause.
etc.
... but all I found were pictures of military people using the bottle, which was a little depressing.
So what's the deal?
Thanks, Daniel
We'll see what they have to say.
UPDATE: It has been a couple of weeks and I haven't gotten a response... oh well.
Chevy Volt August 20, 2009
I'm getting increasingly excited watching videos about the Chevy Volt and following its pre-production development.
Here are some things I've been learning/thinking about:
The average cost of electricity in the US is about 10 cents per kilowatt, so it will cost between 70 cents and $1.60 to recharge the battery. This works out to about 1.5 cents per kilometre. Comparatively, it costs in the neighborhood of 10 cents to drive a kilometre in our Honda Civic.
Half of US electricity is generated by burning coal. About 20% is nuclear, while 16% is natural gas. Only 2.5% is from renewable resources! In other words, electricity isn't currently generated in a sustainable or especially clean manner.
I wonder whether you could drape a giant flexible solar array over your car when you were at work to partially recharge the battery.
Recharging the car in the middle of the night would save money due to lower electricity costs and would help to better utilize a nation's electricity infrastructure.
Half Ironman August 1, 2009
I've wanted to try a triathlon for quite some time now. In terms of running, I've completed a half and full marathon, and in terms of biking I've done two 5-6 day trips, and several one day trips back and forth between KW and Turkey Point. On the swimming front, I went to the pool 6 times during the winter of 2008 as a means of cross-training. I started out doing about 20 minutes in the pool and peaked at 1 hour at about 2.4 km/h.
After finishing the bike trip to Sudbury this year, I got curious about whether I would be able to do a relaxed half Ironman down at Turkey Point. My legs were in good shape from all of the biking, and a one hour swim wasn't prohibitive, so the only question was whether the leg strength from biking was enough to carry me through a half marathon. I decided to give it a shot.
It was Saturday July 4th, and we were down at the cottage with mom, dad, Hannah, and Beryle and John. I went to bed in good time the night before and planned to get up at 5:00 AM for an early start.
After waking up, there was lots to do in 40 minutes: Eat some toast, load up my CamelBak with water and granola bars, get all of my running and biking gear beside the cottage (my little transition area), get into my bib shorts, which would double as my bathing suit, take a towel down to the beach to wait for me, and then drive down to the end of Turkey Point to start the swim.
Aunt Beryle suggested that it wasn't safe for me to swim without a spotter, so thankfully my dad was willing to get up at that extreme hour to watch me swim. (As it turns out, I was swimming in 3-5 feet of water the entire way)
The morning was gorgeous... come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever seen a sunrise in Turkey Point. The sun came up behind the smoke stacks in Nanticoke, and the resulting sky was just beautiful.
After driving down to the end of Turkey Point, we parked the car and walked another couple hundred metres down the street to the start point of the swim. I climbed over the rocks down to the water, and boy was I surprised by how cold the water was. Not cold enough to prevent the swim, but enough to make it pretty formidable! I quickly realized the difference between going for a "dip" in really cold water VS going for a swim. When you swim, you keep your head submerged, and all of the nerve endings in your face make for a pretty fierce burning sensation!
Despite the cold, the 1.93 km swim was a lot of fun. Towards the end, I think the cold water was starting to take its toll. As I was walking towards shore, my balance was off and my legs weren't working that well. I took my towel and walked back to the cottage with dad. Putting my cycling shoes on with numb fingers was an interesting process, but persistence paid off and within 8 minutes of stepping out of the water I was rolling down the street on my bike.
It was approximately 6:40 AM by this point. As you might imagine, being wet and zooming along in the cold morning air didn't do much to warm me up. It was actually nice to cycle up the hill out of Turkey Point to generate a bit more body heat! After twenty minutes or so my core body temperature had risen enough that I wasn't chilled, and from then on the bike ride was wonderful. There was a little wind, but I have no complaints because it seemed to be stronger for the parts of the ride when it was a tail wind. The 3 hour 42 minute bike ride went by surprisingly fast, and I was delighted to finish in under four hours. As I was riding just south of Simcoe, I saw mom and Beryle on their way to get berries!
As you can imagine, I was dragging a little by the time I started the run, but it was still only about 10:30 AM, so the heat hadn't gotten too bad yet. This was the first time I've ever tried to run after being on the bike. The transition wasn't bad, but I suspect that's because I didn't push myself on the bike. Still, I had to focus putting one leg in front of the other. By this point I had been on the course for almost five hours, which is the time length of a marathon!
I decided that I would walk up any significant incline to avoid pushing my legs over the edge, which I think was wise. As I continued along past an hour of running, the day had become plenty hot and it was good to try and run along the side of the road that was shaded whenever possible. I ran along an interesting road called Spooky Hollow Road (map) which I had never been along before, and it was quite a neat route: You descend a big hill and the road becomes very densely surrounded on the sides and even above by trees.
About 13k into the run my ability to motor along began to suffer and walk breaks started happening every 5-6 minutes rather than every 10 minutes. After 16k, the desire to walk got even stronger, and I was a wary about pushing myself given the relatively small amount of training I did, almost all of which was below the typical heart rate that you have when running. I walked the large majority of the last 5k, but of course it was only fitting to suck it up and run that last couple hundred metres to finish.
My final time was 7 hours and 32 minutes, with around 8 minutes at each of the transitions. I was happy with how I felt at the end of the race, which was actually much better than I felt at the end of the marathon... I think it makes a huge difference whether you heed to your body's weakness towards the end of a race and slow down, or whether, conversely, you really dig deep down and push yourself beyond the pace that you've managed up until that point. (Precisely what I did for the last 8k of the marathon)
It was nice to be able to see Meredith and Eli, take some pictures, have a quick shower, and then REST. Beautiful, wonderful rest never feels so good as after a big physical effort! We walked down to the chip stand and got a hamburger, fries, and poutin... mmm, calories!
For a little perspective, here's my fitness graph for July. Red is running, orange is biking, and blue is swimming, and pink is walking. (The pink on July 4 is Mer and I walking down to the end of Turkey Point at the end of the day) The dotted line represents approximately 30 minutes of exercise, which is a good daily target.
... and here is my June graph, where you can see the bike trip quite clearly.
Twitter: lancearmstrong July 31, 2009
I have to admit, in the month or so that I've signed up for Twitter, I haven't seen much that has got me excited. Primarily I've followed the NASA feed, which has been nice but not earth shattering.
One exception: This weekend I added Lance Armstrong, just as he was finishing the second last stage of tour. A little while after he finished, I logged in and there was a personal message from him saying that he felt great today, etc. It was bizarre... it felt like a personal note, very different from anything you'd read in a book or magazine, and it was "live". Wow.
Since then, I've seen a few pictures that Lance has posted while training in Bermuda (I think it was), and then today he posted some pictures of himself freediving at 60 feet (apparently) with some giant sea life. Again, wow! That's some pretty amazing insights into a celebrity's life. And, seriously, freediving to 60 feet in azure waters? I'm seriously jealous!
Significant milestone: 10 Mbps July 30, 2009
I just downloaded a video from NASA at 1.3 megabytes per second, also known as 10 Mbps (megabits per second).
Why is this significant? Well, when I was a teenager, 10 Mbps was the speed of the LAN in our house, which was about 200 times faster than our Internet connection at the time.
Grocery shopping July 21, 2009
Today was the first day I had been in a grocery store since spending some time working on some nutrition software.
To give some background, I have written a subroutine so that you can ask "recommend a food", and the software will consider what foods will maximize your nutrition graph for today -- that is, to minimize the amount of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients still required for the current day, given what you've already eaten.
I have noticed that this subroutine often recommends foods such as:
GoLean cereal
Raisin Bran cereal
milk
orange juice
cranberry juice
bananas
pears
yogourt
chicken breast
...
And so, as I walked along I had it in my head to pick up some GoLean, Raisin Bran, OJ, bananas, pears, etc.
In addition to picking these items up, I was more interested in comparing the nutrition labels on various kinds of bread, as well as orange juice. I chose the bread that minimized sodium while maximizing omega-3... and I picked the orange juice with 30% DV of calcium; I got the PC variety rather than the Tropicana variety since it was $2.99 VS $4.50.
I real breakthrough was finding Miss Vickies unsalted chips. They're just potatoes and sunflower oil, and they taste great! I can't believe it: A potato chip with 0 sodium!
I have also started entering costs into the system so that, while maximizing nutrition, it will also minimize cost. Fun stuff.
Nutrition graph July 8, 2009
Here's my nutrition graph for July 8 2009:
Nutrition June 30, 2009
I've been working on some enhancements to my Grace project that allows for queries such as "how many calories are in 1 Tbsp peanut butter?", or "how many calories are in {recipe}"? (And likewise for other nutrients such as fat, saturated fat, trans fat, carbs, fibre, sugar, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, etc.) It also allows you to say "I had 3/4 cup raisin bran", etc., and then later on to ask "what have I eaten today?", or "how many calories have I eaten today?". (And likewise for the other nutrients)
As I've been collecting nutritional information for various foods, I'm reminded of how thankful I am for laws that have been passed to promote consistent labeling. (Thank you government!)
One complication is that I'd like the actual number of g/mg/ug for the various vitamins and minerals, but the nutrition labels give a "% Daily Value". I did a Google search for the Government of Canada web page, but I was unsure whether these percentage values were based on the recent RDA/AI (recommended dietary allowance /adequate intake) numbers.
I ended up sending an email to the link on the "Contact Us" page and within 7 minutes I got an email reply back with a bunch of helpful information and a link that answered my precise question. Wow! I'm impressed.
720p Streaming June 25, 2009
I'm amazed -- I didn't know that this was possible. Apparently my Internet connection through Rogers is capable of 720p streaming. I was on this page and clicked the link for the 720p version of the movie trailer and it was able to stream it just fine. Wow.
We got a note in the mail from Rogers yesterday saying that their service has been upgraded from 7Mbps to 10Mbps, so perhaps that is what makes this possible?
Anyway, this opens the doors for a pretty impressive service: The ability to watch any HD movie right away on demand via the 'Net. Cool.
The dream for the summer of 2009 was to bike across Canada, but increasingly as the middle of June came near, Meredith and I knew that it wasn't practical for our family. We had planned to make a trip to Sudbury as a tester so that we could better understand whether or not a cross Canada trip might work, but even after we decided not to do the big trip, the Sudbury trip still seemed like a good idea.
The rough sketch was to do a 5 day trip with a pop-up camper which we would borrow from Gerald and Anne. We would stay with Meredith's grandma Mary in Kincardine, and end up at Ryan and Melissa's place in Sudbury.
Stats
Total distance: 637 km Average distance per day: 127 km Average time per day: 6 hours Total time: 30:08 Total time not including breaks: 28:18 Ratio of time spent riding to taking a break: 16 : 1 Average speed: 21.14 km/h Average speed not including breaks: 22.5 km/h Start date: Monday, June 15, 2009 End date: Friday, June 19, 2009
Packing
Going away for a week with a little one made for an interesting time packing on Sunday June 14th. My goal was to have the car 99% packed by the time we went to bed on Sunday evening so that when I got up at 6:30, I could just shower, eat some breakfast, get dressed, and head out on the road without running around doing last minute prep.
It was 11 PM by the time we got to bed, a bit late, but the mission was accomplished: The car was packed and we were well organized. I had checked off a to-do list of about 40 things!
Day 1: Waterloo to London: 115 km
Morning: Waterloo to Woodstock: 57.5 km in 2 hours 19 minutes (24.5 km/h)
While training a month earlier, I had cycled from Waterloo to Woodstock. That day turned out to be extremely windy, and as it turns out I didn't take the most efficient route. (Around 65 km)
This time around, I managed to find a route that was just over 57 km, and nicer too. The conditions were perfect, sunny and cool, with a slight tail wind. I left at 7:50 AM and got there at 10:09 AM, averaging 24.5 km/h without too much effort. What a wonderful feeling it was to roll into Woodstock at only 10 AM!
During the ride, Meredith passed me on the short stretch between Punkydoodle's Corners and the 16th Line. I got a great big smile on my face seeing her drive by in our blue Civic with the "Baby on Board" sign in the back. It was good to know that she had been able to get Eli ready and get out of the house without too much difficulty!
I arrived in Woodstock about 25 minutes after Meredith, and Hannah was there to greet us. Before long, Mom was home, then Dad, then Grandma Green, and even Emily Stewart showed up. We had a nice lunch out on the deck, shaded by the overhead trellis, and had a Skype chat with Rebekah and Charles, which was the first time that Eli's cousin Emily had seen him. After a nice five hour visit, I hopped on my bike and headed for London at 3:10 PM.
Afternoon: Woodstock to London: 57.6 km in 2 hours 47 minutes (20.7 km/h)
The plan was to bike along Road 74, which is one north of Highway 2, but that road turned into gravel shortly after I started along it. The wind was also a bit worse than I was expecting, which was unfortunate. Later on in the ride, I came across a police blockade on Highway 2 just outside of London. Someone had been seriously injured in a car accident and the road was going to be closed for several hours. Traffic was detoured one road to the south and although it wasn't ideal, it was fun to be able to bike passed a lot of the backed up traffic along that road! All in all, Highway 2 turned out to be "ok", but definitely busier than one would like when on a bike.
I made it to London for 5:57 PM (2 hours 47 minutes) averaging 20.7 km/h, which is decidedly slow!
Gerald and Anne were very kind to have us for supper, and Aaron, Jen, and Katelyn were able to join us as well. We had a nice BBQ supper on their back deck, which was nicely in the shade. Monday's weather was great, nice and sunny and warm, but it was nice to escape the heat after 5 hours on the road!
After supper we didn't waste much time: We needed to learn all the ins and outs of putting the camper trailer up and down, which we were borrowing from them. It was a little more involved than I had thought. This was one of the unknowns about the potential cross-Canada trip this summer: How hard would it be for Meredith to put a camper trailer up and down without me? As it turns out, it would have been difficult, and with a baby, it could have made it extremely challenging. The main difficulties are:
1.
Backing up the car so that the hitch meets the camper bang on, which is not a straight-forward thing to do by yourself by any means. One morning I tried this by myself and was actually able to do it on my first try, but I may have gotten lucky.
2.
The process of getting the the tongue onto the hitch is a bit finicky. The first time I tried it, I gave up and went to get help. As it turns out, I think it's a bit of an art that you catch onto with some practice, but it's definitely not straight-forward when you're first learning.
3.
Backing up the camper, if and when required, is very difficult and frustrating even with a spotter, let alone without one!
After learning how to set up the camper, Gerald and I went to get some air in the camper tires and then once we were back, I tried backing the camper into their driveway. I failed utterly! I think in a situation where I wasn't under pressure I would have had more success, but all I can say is that this isn't something that is easy and takes some practice.
Meredith and I enjoyed sleeping in G&A's nice basement guest room. (I love sleeping in basements in the summer... what a treat) A great way to end the first day of our adventure.
Day 2: London to The Pinery: 68 km in just over 3 hours (21.6 km/h)
Our second day was an easy one, but I think this worked out very well because day 2 is the first day where you're getting back on the bike after riding 5 hours the day before, and so you're body probably hasn't adapted yet.
The weather was great once again, nice and hot, and I really enjoyed my ride through an area that I've never driven in. The winds were ok, but the weather forecast had me hoping for a tail wind, so it was unfortunate that that didn't pan out. I left at 9:30 AM and got to the park entrance by about 12:30. At 65 km, this was about 21.6 km/h.
Meredith passed me in Parkhill and once again, it put a great big smile on my face. Something that was nice about this trip is that, because it was originally intended to be a feeler trip for the practicality of a cross-Canada trip, it had some of the same feel to it: Me starting before Meredith and then being passed at some point during the ride by her and Eli on their way to the destination, and then me catching up. Getting to experience that was a lot of fun.
Once I got to the Pinery, I still had about 3 km of riding in the park to get to campsite 491. Once again I had a big smile on my face riding up to the campsite with the Subaru and camper parked there waiting for me. Eli had been a bit fussy and so Meredith was quite stressed out. We were faced with attempting to set up the camper trailer for the first time, yikes.
We got off to a bit of a rocky start: Trying to find the right place for the trailer so that it would be laterally balanced. We did have a "drive through" site, which was great because it avoided backing the camper up, but it took about 5 of those drive throughs to end up level, which was very trying for Meredith.
The next challenge was that there wasn't enough space under the camper to insert the "fifth wheel". I wasn't quite sure what the right protocol was in this case, so I ended up digging a 4 inch trench below the fifth wheel insertion point to allow it to fit. By the time I was done, my hands were filthy black and I needed to go find a place to wash up.
So not the best start to setting up the camper, but from there on in, everything worked pretty much like clock work. Few!
Once we got the camper setup, we were again amazed at how large it was and how wonderful it was to be able to unzip the sides and get good cross-breeze. It was a very hot day, and so we just lay there on the bed resting and trying to stay cool, eventually dozing off for a nap.
Our stay in the Pinery was sort of peculiar because we didn't really "do" anything. We just relaxed, ate yummy ice cream and other things, and hung out together and with little Eli. We enjoyed taking pictures and videos of him laying there with only his diaper on. We suspect he actually got a bit of heat rash by the time we got the camper set up and got him undressed. But we joked that he was an excellent camper because he slept most of the day away with us.
For supper, I had pre-cooked spaghetti sauce, so all I had to do was make some noodles and warm up the sauce, and voila, a nice spaghetti dinner for two!
We also managed to watch three episodes of Battlestar Gallactica, which in a sense was so "wrong" in a provincial park, but really, was a wonderful way to relax together and stay cool.
Our night was an interesting one with racoons literally climbing the outside of the camper. Those little brats sure are bold to do that. I had to go outside and throw a water bottle at one of them before he'd go away. We also moved the remaining food out to the car, which we hadn't bothered with not being in bear country.
Day 3: The Pinery to Kincardine: 124 km in 5 hours 24 minutes (23 km/h)
Day 3 (Wednesday) was supposed to be rainy, and it was for part of the ride, but it was very light and was actually sort of nice after two hot days! Unless I had misread something, I thought the forecast for Wednesday was supposed to be a 25 km/h tail wind, but it ended up being mainly a cross breeze from the East.
This was my first day doing more than 5 hours in one stretch, and overall things went very well. I enjoyed the big downhill into Godrich as well as the big climb out of Godrich, and seeing all of the wind mills along the way was great. Later on in the ride I had a bit of a tail wind and a nice energy spurt, and I expect I was averaging 27-30 km/h during that stretch. I was reminded that you have to be careful though, because those extended periods of effort take a toll on your body which you don't necessarily feel right away, but do later in the day once you're off the bike, as well as the next day.
Arriving in Kincardine was again a wonderful experience... in four short summers I have already made some very fond memories here with Meredith, and it is always great to be with her grandma Mary. She warmed up some soup for me along with some cheese, meats, and her famous home baked buns. You've gotta love how food feeds not only the body but also the soul after a long period of exercise!
I had a nice nap on the couch and then before long we were into chips & dips, and then supper. Always great food at "Huron Haven"!
Day 4: Kincardine to Cyprus Lake Campground: 142 km in 7 hours (20.3 km/h)
Average speed: 20.3 km/h Average speed not including stops: 21.6 km/h
Day 4 was yet another excellent day. I was excited to leave in the 5:30 timeframe for the first time, which is my favorite time of day to cycle. By the time I left it was almost completely light out, and I was accompanied by more traffic that than I would have expected!
As I turned onto Highway 21, the traffic was incredible, but fortunately 90% of the traffic was coming from the North, so it wasn't a problem for me being on the bike. Again, I was surrounded by windmills, which was wonderful. There was this one scene that was breathtaking: A low sun shining through some thin, patchy clouds, illuminating a patch of farmer's field so that it glowed a bright green, with windmills on left and right and some darker sky off in the distance. It was just so "dynamic", it's hard to describe.
Thursday morning was also my "shake my head in disgust" morning. I believe there were four times when a vehicle coming from the North pulled out and passed the car in front of it such that it blew by me IN MY LANE. There aren't enough expletives to describe how this made me feel as a cyclist. In the end I would just resort to giving them an angry look and shaking my head at them. I hope they got the drift.
As I went through Port Elgin, I saw the golden arches and couldn't resist. It was the first time on the trip I had stopped for some food. I got a McGriddle meal with a hash brown and a milk. Yes, I ordered milk at McDonalds -- weird. It was 750 or so beautiful calories, and I was back on my bike in 10 minutes. Not bad!
I really enjoyed the route from Southampton to Sauble Beach. The road followed the lake, had almost no traffic, and even passed Silver Lake Road at one point. I love when you realize you're somewhere you've been before but in a completely different contexts. I pictured a group of us Conrad Grebelites walking down that very same road at that same spot with our swim suits on and various water things for a fun day at the beach.
Rather than cycling into Wiarton, I took "Quary Road", which was not surprisingly a gravel road. As I was nearing Highway 6, I had a bit of a mishap... I realized I needed to be turning left, and so I made a sudden turn. I was only going about 10 km/h when I made the turn, but as I learned, road bikes don't turn on gravel. They just don't. My wheels slipped out from under me and a came down on my hip and elbow. I had a nice little scrape and a tender elbow, but I was fine. Whoops.
By 12:30, I had ridden all of Bruce Peninsula and was at the access point for the Cyprus Lake Campground. Woo hoo! Meredith was only just getting away from Kincardine which was a little unfortunate, but oh well. I signed in and got our camp site, and then headed to the water. It was fun to hike up my shorts and wade out into the lake to cool off and enjoy the scenery. As I walked along, I pulled out my BlackBerry and found that out in the lake I had my coverage back so I was able to make a fun Facebook update to the effect of "Daniel Bigham is standing in Cyprus Lake".
In the end I waited for about three hours! By some miracle I was brave enough to fall asleep on the picnic table for a few minutes despite the bugs. But those few hours took their toll and I accumulated a fair number of bites.
Eventually Meredith arrived and without much trouble we had camp setup. I think as you get more practice with setting up the camper, as with most things, it gets much easier.
We headed into town for supper and ate on the patio of a pub there. I had a nice juicy burger and Meredith had fish and chips. We were sure to video tape Eli's first visit to the pub! :)
Day 5: Cyprus Lake Campground to Lively (Sudbury): 187 km in 9 hours 40 minutes (19.3 km/h)
Average speed: 19.3 km/h Average speed not including stops: 22.4 km/h (187 km in 8 hours 20 min)
Day 5 was the biggy, further than I had ever cycled in a day by about 40 km. I got early to pack up camp, and we were on the road around 6:45 AM. I made it to the ferry for around 7:35, a little before that 7:50 time we needed to be there. I parked my bike along side the motorcycles that were awaiting getting on the ferry, and it was nice to have almost an hour to relax before needing to board.
Meredith went and got us a super delicious breakfast. All in all that morning, I had 3 eggs, 2 sausages, 5 slices of toast, 3 pancakes, and a giant orange juice. Wonderful! The toast was slathered in butter and jam, and the pancakes were covered with butter and blueberry sauce. It makes me weak in the knees thinking about it!
The ferry ride was fun, and I met a couple of guys, Chris and Tim, who were biking across Canada. (From East to West, no less!) They were raising money for Ronald McDonald Houses, and it was neat to chat with them about that. They both work in Ronald McDonald Houses and so they have a personal connection. It was interesting to learn that McDonalds doesn't totally fund them, but rather pays about 20% of their costs.
I asked if I could ride with them to Espinola, and they seemed more than happy to have some new blood in the group. I even got to wear one of their spiffy blue riding shirts! What a hoot! Their website is here. They even have a little device called "spot" that uploads their GPS coordinates so that you can follow them.
So we cycled across Manitoulin island, which was beautiful, and then on to Espinola. I really enjoyed some of the climbs, especially the "big one", going towards Espinola. It was beautiful scenery.
Once we got there, we said our good-byes and I had a quick bite to eat at McDonalds before I headed off to Sudbury.
On my way up the road out of Espinola, I felt something blowing on my leg. Hissing. Oh nice, flat tire. It was actually a fun challenge. I was just glad that I had gone to the free demo at Ziggies Cycle in Waterloo so that I had an idea of how to do it. Everything went great until I realized that I had put the wheel on through the chain, rather than on to it. Even worse, there didn't seem to be a way to release the breaks to take the wheel off, so I had to completely deflate the tire, take it off, put it back on again, and then re-inflate it. (Using a wimpy pump) I was quite proud of myself for getting the tire up to about 120 PSI though, given the tiny pump! It took 25 minutes to change the tire, 8 of which was trying to figure out how to make the silly pump work, so really it was about a 17 minute tire change, which was great. Fixing my goof up took another 18 minutes though, so in the end I was on the side of the road for 43 minutes... yuck. The bugs had a field day with me since I was focused on changing the tire, and I learned that up north there are these little tiny bugs that, unbeknown'st to me, bite. The accumulation of bites from Cyprus Lake and then changing the tire was pretty nasty... I've got a serious case of the itchies! Not good!
The ride along Highway 17 (the Trans Canada) was a bit nasty, as I was told it would be. Apparently the Trans Canada isn't usually that bad, but this stretch, especially at rush hour, is quite busy. There was one point where the shoulder was about 3 inches wide, and that simply isn't enough with trucks going by at 110 km/h and it being fairly busy in both directions. Thankfully the shoulder was in the 10-15 inch range for much of the trek, and sometimes the shoulder was a nice 7 feet.
The last hour and a half of cycling was tough because I just wanted to get there, and so I think I was averaging about 26 km/h... I was going about 23 km/h up the hills and 35 km/h down them, and perhaps 25 km/h on the level. Doing this on fresh legs is a challenge, so doing it after 7 hours on the bike really takes it toll. During the last 30 minutes, the head winds got worse, and so I decided to just give 'er and go into a tucked position, which again, really takes its toll on my body. (I'd say my back is my weakest link)
Finally, at 7:45 PM, I rolled onto Ronald Crescent and was greated by Ryan and Abby on their front lawn. I had a quick shower, an amazing steak dinner with fresh corn on the cob, (one of the best of my life), and enjoyed visiting with Ryan, Melissa, and the kids. At one point, Luke went up to Eli and started interacting with him, and we have never seen such big smiles and reactions from Eli. It was so precious.
I was reminded how wonderful it is to stay with friends and family when you're traveling. A warm shower, a meal, and visiting, what a priceless thing. And it is so nice to see where someone lives. All of the little things, from how they decorate their bathroom, to all of the pictures they have on their walls.
Once again, we enjoyed a glorious sleep down in a basement guest bedroom. I awoke at 6 AM (given two 5:30 starts) and was greeted by the uncontrollable urge to itch all of those nasty bug bites! Yowza!
So that's that, a trip come and gone, glad to be here safe and feeling very blessed for the opportunity.
Ryan also really enjoys cycling, so hopefully we'll be able to do a trip sometime soon... maybe Peterborough to Turkey Point?
How the body held up
The body help up really well overall. I only trained about 600 km in April/May/June, but I think that was actually enough to do the trick.
As mentioned, my back is my weakest link, at least on a road bike. It's not "bad", but my lower back definitely starts to get tender.
After that, is my rear end. Actually, that was probably the most uncomfortable aspect of the trip. I have to wonder whether this seat on my road bike is really all that good for 5-7 hour rides. More investigation is needed in this area.
Next is my wrists and triceps. My wrists were usually fine, except after the 187 km day, at which point they were fairly tender. My triceps were usually a little sore at the end of the day.
And lastly, ironically, my legs and feet. They held up extremely well, I would have to say. I think the big factors here are:
1.
Not pumping hard up hills, but rather gearing down and going at a more event pace.
2.
Not having too many spirts where you up your pace considerably.
At the end of most days, my legs weren't bothering me at all. Sure, they are tired from a lot of effort, but they still had strength left in them and weren't particularly sore. I'm impressed!
Random stuff
Once I figured the bike pump out it worked really well! I'm impressed that you can get a tire up to around 120 PSI with a tiny pump that clips onto your bike.
The bugs in Northern Ontario weren't bothersome at all when you were riding. The only annoying stretch was towards Tobermory -- I had a couple horse flies buzzing back and forth around me for a while, but they didn't land.
I really enjoyed the dynamic of being out on the road, being passed by Meredith and Eli around 2/3rds of the way, and then catching up with them around 12:30... it's was so sweet to see them.
Meredith says that Eli actually did very well in the car. Sometimes he'd be fussy for a while, but she says that if you know that he's fed, changed, and he's had lots of sleep, you don't feel too bad about letting him cry for a bit. Eventually he just falls asleep and then he's ok. This surprised me a bit. Most car journeys were between 2 and 2.5 hours, plus a half hour stop.
I continue to enjoy the style of cycling where you bring along about 1000 calories of Nature Valley bars as well as fruit bars, and you just cruise along and eat one every hour or so without taking official breaks. It keeps your average speed much higher and it's nice to finish the day earlier to be able to relax, hang out, etc. And it has a bit of a "race" feel to it, which I find fun, not in the sense of cycling fast, but of keeping close tabs on your time etc.
I just love having a BlackBerry with GPS, Google Maps, and the ability to send and receive email. Although it is fun to look up routes before hand and memorize them, it can be quite tricky to memorize all of the turns over a 6-7 hour ride, especially if you're trying to stay off of the main highways. It's so handy to pull our your BlackBerry and see a dot on a map of where you are, and if you want to check distances, you just go to the "Get Directions" function and select your destination. It's also fun to be able to update your Facebook or Twitter status so that friends and family can see how your trip is going. (This would likely not be as significant if you weren't cycling by yourself)
It appears that for me, it makes sense to cycle between 6 and 7 hours a day, which is right around what I was thinking for a cross Canada trip, but my speed on the road bike has been quite a bit slower than I would have thought. On my mountain bike (with slicks) I expect I would average around 21 km/h, and as it turns out, I only averaged 22.5 km/h on the road bike (not including breaks). The wind this week wasn't the best, however, and I wonder whether cycling West to East would bump that average up to 24 km/h? Anyway, at the speeds I managed this week, it makes it practical to do as much as 145 km per day on average for a long trip.
For long trips, you can cycle for 6 days and then take a day off, but personally I think I'd be tempted to cycle for 5 days and then take two days off. (Or simply to be flexible and take 2 days off within each 7 day stretch) If you average 145 km per day with a 5 day week, that's an average of around 105 km per day adjusted.
Tracking exercise June 9, 2009
I love to keep stats on how far I've walked, run, and biked, but it can be a bit time consuming. Sometimes it's fun to link to a Google map of where you went, but again, that takes time.
What I've realized is that devices that have an integrated GPS and wi-fi connection could completely automate this process. (ex. BlackBerry or iPhone)
Via the GPS, the device knows how fast you're moving, and so it becomes obvious whether you're:
Walking (Average speed of 2 km/h - 7 km/h)
Running (Average speed of 7 km/h - 17 km/h)
Biking (Average speed of 17 km/h or more)
The software would need to be smart enough to know that if the person was cruising along at 25 km/h and then dropped down to 12 km/h for a few minutes, that should indicate a hill, not that they got off their bike and started jogging, etc, but these are fairly minor challenges.
Thus, the device knows exactly when you're walking/running/biking, how fast you're going at any particular point, your average speed, what route you took, etc.
With the wi-fi connection, it could upload those stats once you're home, again, automatically.
With a nice web user interface, you could then do the following:
Given any day, week, month, year, or range of dates, see:
The total number of miles in each category
The total number of outings in each category
The total number of calories burned
Average pace
Graphs. ex. one bar per activity (by distance or time) per week (the possibilities are endless)
Given any particular outing:
Average pace
Maximum pace
Calories burned
A Google map showing the route
What I find so fascinating by this is that it doesn't require any work on the part of the user... just having their cell phone with them, which people usually do. There's nothing else to remember or do. Wow.
I like this quote June 6, 2009 "When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race."
H.G. Wells
Bing? June 1, 2009
Ok, I have yet to really test Bing, but since I've heard a couple places claim that Bing has some similarities to Wolfram|Alpha, I thought I'd repeat my first round of Wolfram|Alpha tests on Bing. Wolfram|Alpha scored 11/16 on these tests... so how did Bing do?
7/8: PASS: 0.875
7 / 8: PASS: 0.875
what time is it?: FAIL
the current time: FAIL
what is the current date?: FAIL
the current date: FAIL
what is the current temperature in Toronto?: FAIL
what is the capital city of Canada?: PASS: Ottawa
what is the capital city of Ontario?: PASS: Toronto
what is the current temperature in the capital city of Canada?: FAIL
convert 0 degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit: FAIL
0 Celsius = ? Fahrenheit: FAIL
0 C = ? F: FAIL
what is President Clinton's first name?: FAIL
what is Bill Clinton's birthday?: FAIL
how old is Bill Clinton?: FAIL
SCORE: 4 / 16
Ouch. So Bing fails utterly in terms of providing specific answers, which I thought was supposed to be a big part of what it was about. (Given Microsoft's acquisition of Powerset and other things I've heard)
Evaluation of Wolfram Alpha June 1, 2009
This is long overdue, but here are some initial tests that I've performed on Wolfram|Alpha. The tests are broken down into six rounds of tests -- I only wrote the round 2 tests after writing and performing the round 1 tests, etc.
Round 1
7/8: PASS: 0.875
7 / 8: PASS: 0.875
what time is it?: FAIL
the current time: PASS: 1:55:29 pm
what is the current date?: FAIL
the current date: FAIL
what is the current temperature in Toronto?: PASS: 15 C
what is the capital city of Canada?: PASS: Ottawa
what is the capital city of Ontario?: FAIL
what is the current temperature in the capital city of Canada?: PASS: Ottawa
convert 0 degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit: PASS: 32 F
0 Celsius = ? Fahrenheit: PASS: 32 F
0 C = ? F: PASS: 32 F
what is President Clinton's first name?: FAIL
what is Bill Clinton's birthday?: PASS: 19-08-1946
how old is Bill Clinton?: PASS: 62 years
SCORE: 11 / 16
Round 2
what is 7 plus 8?: PASS: 15
what is the third prime number?: FAIL: Expected 5
what is the first day of the week?: FAIL: Expected Sunday or Monday
when did World War II end?: FAIL: Expected 02-09-1945
how many miles are in a kilometer?: PASS: 0.6214
how many miles are in a marathon?: PASS: 26.22
how far is Waterloo Ontario from Ottawa?: FAIL
SCORE: 3 / 7
Round 3
how many calories are in an apple?: PASS: 91 calories
how many grams of fat are in a BigMac?: FAIL
how many calories are in 10 apples?: FAIL
how many calories are in a cubic meter of cheese?: FAIL
what is Bill Clinton's first name?: FAIL
how far is it from the moon to Earth?: FAIL
SCORE: 1 / 6
Round 4
how many prime numbers are less than 100?: FAIL
how old is Canada?: FAIL
who was the first Prime Minister of Canada?: FAIL
what is the square root of one hundred forty four?: PASS
what is four fifths times five?: PASS
what is the population of Canada / USA?: PASS
SCORE: 3 / 6
Round 5
x = y^2: PASS
x = y^2 where y = 4: FAIL
how many nautical miles is it from Toronto to Ottawa?: FAIL
how long would it take sound to travel from Toronto to Ottawa?: FAIL
what is the wavelength of red light?: FAIL
is water denser than lead?: FAIL
SCORE: 1 / 6
Round 6
how many vowels are in the word "Test"?: FAIL
how many letters are in the alphabet?: FAIL
what is $300 + 10%?: PASS
how many water atoms are in a liter of water?: FAIL
SCORE: 1 / 4
FINAL SCORE: 20 / 45
Overall, I'm quite impressed. As far as I know, this has never been done before.
Still, deep down inside, I think everyone knows that systems can be created to do much better than this. The question is whether Wolfram|Alpha will evolve to become a system that scores 90% on a test like this, or not.
Anyway, for the time being Wolfram|Alpha takes the crown as being the most impressive search system that allows natural language (ish) queries and specific search results.
When I read stories like this, I have two reactions.
The first is to be encouraged that people are investigating the experience of consciousness (qualia), because in my opinion it is probably the most bizarre/amazing thing in the universe, and yet almost completely not understood. (And not studied very much given how amazing it is)
My other reaction is, gosh, we just don't seem to get it. It seems so obvious to me that the experience of consciousness cannot be a result of "software", nor "hardware" -- it cannot be the result of atoms, molecules, and electrons. Isn't that obvious to anyone else? And I'm not even talking about religion, I'm just talking about common sense. But science is so set on explaining everything based on physical observation that it seems to conclude that the experience of consciousness MUST be due to atoms and molecules and electrons, end of story. Again, I'm not advocating for the "spirit" here, I'm just saying that I find it dumbfounding that we're still convinced that something as completely bizarre/unique as this can be due to the physics that we know.
I guess that's why people are interested in exploring any possible connections with quantum mechanics, because if it's not due to classical physics, which it simply cannot be, then it must be due to something else, and quantum mechanics is the only "other" thing under the physics umbrella.
The only physical analogy that makes sense to me, personally, is dimensionality... that in addition to the classic dimensions we're familiar with, there must be additional dimensionality to our reality that allows for the experience of consciousness. That makes some sense, because there is obviously an extremely strong spatial and temporal correlation between our brain and whatever it is that allows us to experience consciousness -- any distance in time or space space completely interrupts consciousness, and that's something that we can observe.
So if there is additional dimensionality that allows us to experience consciousness, is there any way to "observe" that other than the usual way, which is simply to be alive and experience life? I guess to interact with something in a dimension, you need something else that is at the same coordinates in that dimension. For example, to affect something at a current XYZ coordinate in the universe, typically you need something else at that XYZ coordinate. Or to affect something directly at a certain time in history, you need to be at that same time in history. Perhaps this is similar with additional dimensionality to the universe: To observe it or affect it, you need to be at the same "coordinates" in that dimension -- and as far as I know, we don't have any scientific sense of anything in the universe that can observe or affect that dimensionality other than our own brains. So humph, a mystery.
But yeah, I wish people would talk about this more and I wish that our society and government would spend more effort encouraging the study of what, seriously, is the most mysterious, amazing, observable phenomenon in the universe!
This is the first time I've stumbled across coverage of Wolfram Alpha on one of the main news sites that I read. Of the examples they gave, I'm pretty impressed by Wolfram Alpha's response.
One of the curious aspects to me is the presentation layer, which figures out what information to present/compute for a given thing, and then how exactly to present it. For instance, the graphic that illustrates the great circle path between two cities. I wonder how they've made that work in such a broad way?
Home automation May 2, 2009
After doing a little bit of research, it appears that Z-wave technology is making it realistic to remote control many household devices, such as lights, thermostats, garage doors, etc. All that is required is a USB stick for your computer, a C# API, and then Z-wave devices. Even the dimmer switch that we just bought for the baby's room appears to support Z-wave.
It would be fun to be able to control household devices via a voice interface as well as a BlackBerry interface.
Here's one clever application: Tie in my BlackBerry's GPS coordinates to Grace, and then configure it to watch my rate of speed and location. If my rate of speed is approximately that of a bicycle and I'm pedaling down our street towards home on my way home from work, open the garage door.
A lot of fun could be had with this stuff!
Smart alarm clock April 21, 2009
Something that I've wanted to try for some time is to create a smart alarm clock that would determine whether you have an appointment the next day and wake you up in time. (I'm great at forgetting that I have a chiro appointment at 8:15 am)
The other half of this is to have the alarm clock speak useful information to you such as:
The current weather and forecast weather.
What appointments you have that day.
What birthdays of family or friends are that day, or what wedding anniversaries.
etc.
I got a BlackBerry last month and realized shortly thereafter that it, in combination with its charging dock, make a great piece of hardware for implementing this alarm clock.
I also came across this link today which is quite interesting.
Paper meets computer April 16, 2009
I had an interesting thought today: Imagine, say 30 years in the future, you're sitting at your desk and in front of you is what looks to be an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. It's a bit thick, around 1/32 of an inch, and it's glossy. It's also flexible.
But this paper is special: You use it much like we use computers today, using your finger to navigate through menus, scroll through documents, etc. You can use a stylus to write information, or an on-screen keyboard that works like the keyboard on today's iPhone. You can even speak at this little piece of paper.
It has a very small internal battery, but it derives most of its power wirelessly from the table below it. Its onboard electronics are responsible for transmitting input to a computer somewhere else, which is responsible for actually running the programs. Screen updates are passed back wirelessly and rendered on the screen. And once the image has been rendered, it takes little-to-no power to keep it there.
The paper can be taken virtually anywhere, and it still works, so long as it has an energy source.
Throw it in your backpack, head off to classes, and you're set, with access to all of your lecture notes, the Internet / email, etc.
The devices are so cheap to produce that virtually every person on the earth affords them, and if one breaks, you throw it out and grab another one.
My first BlackBerry application April 6, 2009
A couple of weeks ago, Meredith came home from work with a shiny new BlackBerry Bold for me, which I had been eying for quite some time. Getting a data plan through Rogers turned out to be more than a little frustrating: A $25 data plan quickly turned into $43/mo because they charge you $10/mo for not taking a voice plan (lame) and another $7/mo for a system access fee. (sigh)
Anyway, once I started playing with the device, I was curious to see what the development tools were like, and I have to admit, I'm impressed! RIM makes available a Java Development Environment "JDE", which consists of an IDE and tools for copying apps to the device, etc.
Last weekend I got my application up and running. A fun experience!
Birds eye view March 17, 2009
As Meredith and I were flying down to Florida in February, I was looking down at the thousands upon thousands of lights on the ground. They were seemingly endless. And I imagined all of those people, hundreds of thousands of them, going about their lives, completely oblivious to the fact that I sat from my vantage point observing them. In a sense, I felt completely irrelevant, because I was totally detached from each of their lives, without any power to be seen or to affect them. I guess it was a kind of loneliness. But then I imagined that down there, in that sea of humanity, people were praying. Maybe I couldn't see them, but they were there. Some of them were laying in bed, reaching out to God. Some of them in their cars sending thoughts to heaven.
I had this moment of understanding, a window into that aspect of God's relationship with us: In a sense God is like I was, watching us, desiring this sea of people, despite their hectic lives, to turn their attention to Him. And when, against the odds, people do, how wonderful that must be to (proverbially) look down and see faithful people. Prayer is a loving act.
Automatic gas/brake March 12, 2009
An interesting post on Gizmodo today made me realize that this will be the first feature of autonomous driving that will be developed: Fully automatic gas/break in cars. I like how this post describes it, especially the part about using GPS to know when to decelerate for corners. Of course! It makes so much sense. I would tend to agree that this technology will likely see the light of day in the next ten years. I'm not sure how pervasive it will become, but I wouldn't be surprised if it catches on. One of the biggest obstacles I foresee is having stop lights smart enough to communicate to the surrounding cars. Maybe in large cities, but not smaller towns?
Wolfram Search March 9, 2009
Along side Powerset comes Wolfram Search, due to launch in May. This is exciting stuff, and I can't wait to see what they've come up with. From the little I've read, it sounds as though they're actually modeling the knowledge and then using natural language parsing to allow the user to query that model. Very cool.
Microsoft Research at TechFest 2009 March 5, 2009
I was really pleased to read this article yesterday detailing some of the interesting things that Microsoft Research is working on.
The thing that I was most interested in, personally, was Commute UX which has a video on this page. See also this poster.
Basically, it's exactly the kind of use cases I was working on this fall, but in the car rather than the kitchen. They've got a groovy little car simulator that they use to test the software out, which makes a lot of sense... testing it out in a real car would be a little dangerous!
Anyway, it's very cool to see Microsoft working on these problems, and I was impressed with their demo. The key thing for me is that it's a natural language voice interface that actually works well. Some cars on the market today have voice interfaces, but you need to know the specific command language to make it work, and even if you take the time to learn it, it's easy to forget.
This stuff is similar to the local company here in Waterloo named iLane.
Aptera: I just can't get enough of this thing March 4, 2009
Checkout Aptera's latest newsletter. There are links along the left for various interviews and demos they've done with various news media, and in each one the promise of this vehicle shines. I hope this thing is a big success.
Evaluation of Grace: Part I: 3rd Party Technology February 26, 2009
It has been a couple of months now using "Grace", so it's time to do some evaluation of the technologies I've used to make this application work. (The context here is that last year I wrote an application named "Grace" that runs on a computer in the kitchen and can be interacted with via voice)
Here are the biggest challenges, the things that don't work well:
Did you say something?
An aspect of SAPI (5.1) that I have found very frustrating of late is how increasingly often it interprets/recognizes non-vocal noise as if it were speech. Back in January when I first starting using Grace, this was a significant but manageable issue, but in the last couple of weeks it has made Grace almost unusable in the noisy kitchen environment. Simply walking across the room or opening a drawer causes SAPI to recognize the command "Grace". Put a glass on the kitchen counter and it will recognize the sentence "Open my inbox". This is where I draw the line: Behavior like that is ridiculous, especially the later example. A couple of days ago I was making some bread and chatting with Meredith, and apparently it heard the sentence "Open my inbox" about 5 times.
I expect that one of the culprits here is that SAPI tries to "learn" over time, adjusting its internal probabilities so that words or phrases that it has heard more often are more likely to be recognized. The obvious problem with this approach is that once you have used a command or phrase a few dozen times, it becomes weighted so heavily that more and more often background noise will match the word or phrase, to the point that you start seeing behavior like I have described above. I believe there is a way to disable this adaptation, which I will likely have to do, but there is a downside to doing this, because I expect that for the most part, this adaptation has a positive effect on recognition rates.
Overall, this is a commentary on where voice recognition technology is at for use in environments that aren't perfectly quiet. If I were to assign a grade on how well SAPI protects itself from recognizing noise as speech, it would have to be an "F". More research needs to be done in this area.
Keeping the monitor off
Grace is primarily a voice interface: You speak a command or query, and it speaks back the answer. To make this work, the computer needs to be running, but there is no need for the monitor to be on until if and when information needs to be displayed to the user. Indeed, in today's world where the environment and energy conservation are important issues, it would be very wasteful to have a computer monitor on all day when it's not needed.
There are Windows APIs that a program can use to put an LCD monitor into and then later out of sleep mode, and at first glance, this seems to solve the problem: The software can keep the monitor off until information needs to be displayed, at which point, it can turn the monitor on. LCDs can come out of standby mode within a second or two -- perfect, right?
Unfortunately, SAPI contains a "feature" whereby audio input automatically takes the monitor out of standby mode. The reasoning is that if a computer is employing a voice interface, audio input is the equivalent of a mouse movement or keyboard key press. Thus, if you're in the kitchen and open a cupboard or even shift in your chair, the monitor turns back on.
The only workaround that I've come up with is to run a loop that tells the monitor to go to standby mode 20 times a second, so that when SAPI goes to bring the monitor out of standby mode, the software immediately overrides it. I worry though that this may be causing additional stress on the hardware. And even with this workaround in place, the software needs to make sure that a black window is completely obscuring the screen, otherwise when you move around in the kitchen the monitor is constantly flickering as it comes out of and then back into standby mode, displaying the Windows desktop for a fraction of a second each time. Gross.
Microsoft: The conclusion here is that for SAPI to be used in an always-on environment where electricity needs to be conserved by keeping a monitor in standby mode, this setting needs to be configurable. Until that time, ugly ugly hacks are required.
When to listen
Another challenge is for the software to know when to listen and when not to listen. For example, if you are playing some music in the kitchen, you obviously don't want SAPI listening. Fortunately, iTunes offers a COM interface that allows the software to know when music starts and stops, so recognition can be enabled or disable.
Unfortunately, I'm not currently aware of any integrations for Windows Media Player, so there doesn't seem to be any way of being smart about stopping/starting recognition while listening to a radio station through Media Player. Perhaps there is a more direct way to accomplish this via DirectShow, etc.
...
Ok, so those are the challenges, the things that don't work very well. Here are the things that work pretty well, but have room for improvement:
...
Recognition accuracy
While far from perfect, I'm relatively happy with recognition accuracy, that is, when you are actually speaking to the software. Grace uses a fairly complex command and control grammar that allows for natural language commands and queries, and accuracy isn't bad. I'm sure this is an area of research that will improve over time, but I can live with where things are at.
One area that hasn't worked that well is numbers. For example, the recognizer seems to have a lot of difficulty distinguishing between words like "seventy" and "seventeen".
Occasionally it will recognize completely bizarre statements that are nothing even close to what I said, but this doesn't happen too often. Interestingly, accuracy seems to be improved when commands and queries are longer VS shorter. For instance, playing a song by saying "play the song Chariots of Fire" will result in fewer mis-recognitions than if the grammar allowed for "play Chariots of Fire". This is a nice attribute to have for a system that prefers commands and queries be spoken in natural language, but sometimes it does make more sense for a command to be short and concise, and it's frustrating when that translates to more mis-recognitions.
iTunes
It has turned out that iTunes has been an important component of a kitchen computer: Music playback, yes, but more importantly video podcasts. I can watch the nightly news by saying "Play the ABC news podcast", likewise the NASA podcast, and TED podcast.
Having a COM interface has made interfacing with iTunes possible. Without a COM interface, there would have been some serious problems such as knowing when to listen and when not to listen. And as it turns out, many podcasts seem to have a relatively low volume, so the software can also adjust the system volume to an appropriate level when a podcast is being viewed, and then restore it to the default level when it stops being played.
While iTunes has been a very important piece, there are frustrations: For instance, if the Windows tray opens an information balloon, video playback drops to about 0.2 frames per second, and you have to get up and fight with the computer trying to close the darn thing before you can continue watching your program. It also seems impossible to make the video full screen via the COM API, which is unfortunate.
...
And finally, things that have worked very well:
...
iMac
The iMac hardware is really ideal for a kitchen installation. It's very quiet, pretty, and compact, all of which are very important. And of course, it now runs Windows.
What I'm most impressed by is how quiet it is: Probably an order of magnitude quieter than many desktop computers I've owned, and ends up being virtual silent in the kitchen environment. This can easily be a show stopper for a kitchen installation since a noisy fan is extremely tiring to listen to, and many people, myself included, wouldn't have patience for it.
I also love how the iMac looks: The screen is a beautiful glossy black when it's off, which looks great in the corner of the kitchen, and the anodized aluminum looks similarly nice. I wouldn't want a ugly computer in the corner of my kitchen, so this is an important attribute for it to have.
The compactness: I couldn't be more pleased with how compact it is: It saved me drilling a hole in my kitchen counter which would have been required if I had used a desktop + LCD monitor. Even the keyboard is understated. Perfect.
And finally, the Apple remote! What a wonderful gadget, and this turns out to be quite important because there's no way to pause audio or video, skip tracks, or adjust the volume using a voice interface because SAPI isn't going to be able to hear you over the audio that the computer is plying.
My one gripe has been that the wireless adapter appears to have gone flaky and then died on me -- and what's with Apple mice? I replaced the standard mouse with a wireless Microsoft mouse.
Anyway, the iMac has been a very important component of this project and has worked remarkably well. It was Meredith's idea too, so good thinking Meredith!
VoiceTracker Array Microphone
I'm very happy with this purchase: It's an array microphone that even works from 12 feet away, albeit with moderate performance at times from that distance.
A project like this is only really possible with a high quality array microphone. I experimented with Blue Tooth headsets, but:
1.
Who wants to wear one around the house? Not me.
2.
Recognition accuracy sucked.
Another alternative would have been to use a high quality wireless microphone, but the whole idea here is for the system to be hands free, because when you're in the kitchen, you're often busy doing things, or have wet or grimy hands and don't want to have stop what you're doing to handle a device.
So bravo to the VoiceTracker team!
My one beef here is that the USB adapter they send you has been gimped so that it only produces 1/10th the volume that it would by default. This makes recognition from 12 feet lousy. I would normally just bypass this and plug the microphone directly into the iMac, but as I discovered, the iMac doesn't have a microphone input. How's that for frustrating! I ended up purchasing something called an 'iBooster' to get around this, but I'm unclear as to how well this is working. I wonder whether it is causing clipping when I'm actually close to the computer, and I'm a bit confused because the line input volume seems to jump around: Does Windows automatically adjust line input volume when it's used for SR? I'll need to do some more playing around with this.
And they're off! February 18, 2009
As of Wed/Thurs of this week, our group is officially starting our 100 Mile Diet. It's been a long time coming, so it's exciting to finally be here!
I'm sure it will be an interesting week for everyone and I can't wait to hear the stories!
A few minutes with Windows 7 January 12, 2009
It has been a fun couple of weeks with the introduction of an iMac to our house, completing my Grace project, and today, installing Windows 7.
I've only had a few minutes to play with Windows 7, but already I'm very impressed. I think that any time you install a new OS and find, first of all, that the installer is very easy, and secondly, that the OS boots up quickly once you're done -- it makes for a very strong first impression.
Windows boots up on my P4 3.0GHz machine in 72 seconds, compared with 5-10 minutes for my XP partition to boot up and have the hard disk settle down. What struck me even more than the 72 seconds was that the hard disk was completely inactive once the OS was up and running. A beautiful silence. Not something I'm used to with Windows!
And then of course I start noticing things in the UI. The most noticeable thing is that the task bar looks a bit different, and when you open multiple copies of IE, they stack nicely together. I'm extremely impressed with this UI design. It is very space efficient and intuitive.
There is also some very pretty visual polish: When you mouse over the IE icon in the task bar, there is a dynamic lighting effect below the icon that is buttery smooth. Nice!
Next is the system tray, which sports a new "action centre". It groups notification messages from tray programs in a very convenient way, reducing the distracting "noise" from this area. Another solid improvement.
Interestingly, the "show desktop" button is an unlabeled rectangle just to the right of the system tray. I like it. Sometimes UI designers can get away with things that are, yes, less intuitive to start, but once you know they're there, your brain doesn't have any trouble finding them. The result is a very space efficient "show desktop" button. Well done.
Next up: The "Libraries" item in the task bar. One click gets you to a new window that gives you access to your documents, music, pictures, and videos. I like it. These things deserve one-click access.
Some more impressive visual polish is the pane on the left side of the Libraries window: It's a tree view, but all of the "+" and "-" icons that were replaced with arrow-ey icons are hidden by default. Once you mouse over the left pane, they fade in. Beautiful. It reduces clutter. This is a UI technique that I've never really seen before, but I like it a lot.
Borrowing from Vista, the Start Menu has a "search program and files" text box that allows you to start a program by simply typing, for example, "calc", and pressing enter. What this does is harness some of the power of the command line (DOS, UNIX, etc.) right at the core of a graphical OS. It really is brilliant if you ask me, one of the best additions that Vista brought to Windows. If your hands are on the keyboard, you can simply press the "Windows" key to open the Start Menu and then type right away without any clicking, since the text box has focus by default. Take for example the driver I just downloaded for my wireless adapter. I remember it's name started with "wua", so I press the Windows key and type "wua", and within half a second the file is staring me right in the face. One bit of polish that is missing is that you have to press the down arrow on your keyboard twice before the first item in the list becomes selected for you to then press ENTER to open it. But hey, it's minor.
Feedback: Microsoft has put a "Send Feedback" hyperlink in the title bar of each Window. Fantastic! The whole point of a beta is to get feedback, so why not make it incredibly easy. Example after example, I'm really really impressed with the Windows UI team.
There are a lot of good things happening in Redmond these days, which is such a sigh of relief after Vista.
A significant day January 11, 2009
Today was a significant day for me: I finished work on the first phase of my "Grace" project, which concludes about 7 months and 250 hours of work. The application is up and running in the kitchen, powered by a 20" iMac, a Voice Tracker array microphone, and a lot of elbow grease!
I opened up our calendar and spoke each of our January appointments to the application, followed by a few spoken queries, and things appear to be working quite well. Meredith came downstairs for me to show it off, and we had some good laughs as we often do. If it wasn't for Meredith's idea to get an iMac, we'd have a 2" hole drilled in our kitchen counter right now!
Working on this project has been a phenomenal opportunity for me personally. There is something magical about using your imagination, letting your mind dream, and then with hard work turning that vision into reality.
Along those lines, one of the over arching themes of this project has been to use my own imagination rather than researching and adapting what others have done, and I think that is the aspect of the project that I enjoyed the most. Surely research is important, and the way things are usually done, but I wonder whether progress is sometimes limited by the approach of always adapting the work of others. For me, it is wonderfully freeing to blow the doors wide open and simply dive in with as much imagination as possible.
So with that, I express my thankfulness to our Heavenly Creator for a wonderful opportunity, when life is sweet and appreciated dearly.
The Afters, Future of Forestry December 21, 2008
My dear sister Hannah gave me an iTunes gift certificate for my birthday and so it has been a good excuse to look for some music. Every now and again I stumble across a fantastic band that I've never heard of before, and here are a couple examples:
Boot-up VS Hibernate December 21, 2008
Something that has been driving me up the wall this year is how long it takes my computer to boot up. Perhaps the reason I've been noticing it even more is that in trying to be more energy conscious I've been turning my computer off. When booting up, my desktop takes roughly 10 minutes before the computer's hard drive stop whirling, and trying to use the computer before that point is an exercise in frustration.
Well duh, why have I never been using the Hibernate feature. I use it all the time for our laptop: Close the lid and when you want to use it the next time, open the lid and you're up and running in under a minute. I tried hibernate on my desktop for the first time today and it works pretty well. Way better than booting up, anyway. Woo hoo!
100 days December 18, 2008
Well, it's about 100 more days until a little person we have yet to meet joins our family. What a wild thought! At times Meredith and I get impatient and don't want to have to wait any longer to meet them!
Here are some things we've done recently:
The ultrasound: What an amazing thing. Somehow I had pictured in my mind a fuzzy black and white picture, but ultrasounds are more akin to a video. As I stood there in the dark room bent over Meredith, we watched this little person's arms, legs, and head moving about. It's hard to comprehend, but a baby lives its own little life inside of its mother's womb. For those few minutes we were in another world, fixated on the screen.
It's amazing how easy it is to "forget" that there is a little person inside of Meredith even though we talk about this pregnancy every day... it's just so "unreal"!
Going the midwifery route: We were lucky to get in to the St. Jacob's midwifery clinic and are we every thankful for that. We've really enjoyed our experience there so far. Last night we watched The Business of Being Born, which was a very interesting film. It's amazing how common C-sections have become and I tend to agree that it's kind of crazy.
We spent a couple of hours in Baby's 'R Us. It's a whole new world! I've never paid much attention to the hundreds of baby products out there.
Considerations of taking some parental time off of work... we'll see if that works out. The dream is to be able to rent or borrow a small camper/RV and have a cross-Canada trip in the summer. Uncle Tim had some wise advice: If I take some time off of work, it doesn't shorten the amount of time Meredith can take off of work, just how long we get EI.
Figuring out where this little one will be cared for once Meredith goes back to work. We're fortunate to have a Christian lady close by that does day care in her home, and people we know have said very nice things about her, so we're hoping that works out. So many things to think about!
BlackBerry Bold December 5, 2008
After work today Meredith showed off her new BlackBerry Bold, and am I ever impressed. It has only been in the last year or so that the BlackBerry has really grabbed my attention: They've improved to the point that they are extremely attractive, versatile devices.
The Bold's screen is fantastic. I'm blown away by the resolution of these new displays, and on-screen fonts are extremely crisp and well proportioned. In addition to the great screen, I love how the overall look of the screen and upper portion is flat and glossy.
After playing with the music player, video player, and camera, I am reminded by the amazing convergence that is happening and will continue to happen. We're now at the point of combining telephone, email, web search, maps, music, video, camera, calendar + tasks, GPS, voice notes, ... wow. Incredible.
It occurred to me this week that the BlackBerry and iPhone represent great AI devices. I guess Google's voice search hints at this, but I'm thinking more directly about what I've been working on. Imagine wearing a wireless earbud and a wireless lapel microphone. The BlackBerry/iPhone would interpret speech and relay responses to user via the earbud.
The amazing thing is that it would be as if the whole of the Internet were inside your head. You could be anywhere at any time and ask almost any question and get an answer "inside your head".
Kitchen computing November 10, 2008
Something that I'm coming to realize is that my interests in natural language processing, voice interface, and home automation all converge on the kitchen.
And so this concept of "kitchen computing" comes to mind, which seems like a relatively untapped area. We've been using our PCs in the study, bedroom, or in the den for a couple of decades. In the last 10 years, computing has entered the living room in the form of the Media Center PC, Xbox, and PS3. But the kitchen has yet to change much. I think that the lack of progress in the areas of natural language processing, voice interfaces, microphone technology, and home automation are the reasons for this, and so as I explore these areas, I'm intrigued by the possibilities.
Some random thoughts:
I see kitchen computing as being much more "hands free" than in other areas, more so than the living room. More often our hands are busy or we're in the middle of doing something and don't want to walk across the room to use a traditional PC. (Or our hands aren't clean) This is where the need for better microphone, voice interface, and natural language parsing technology come in.
The kitchen is really the hub of the family's operations, and it's the place that most often brings us together, so it's an area that is ripe with opportunity.
Meal planning
Meal preparation
Purchasing groceries
Managing the family calendar
Email is a very efficient means of communication, and the BlackBerry and other hand held devices have pushed (hah) email to the next level. But there's still room to grow. Paired with a voice interface and home automation system, email can be gotten and sent on behalf of a person greatly extending their reach. For example, consider standing in the kitchen working on supper and saying "Grace, ask Meredith when she'll be home", or "Ask Billy where he is", or "Tell Billy that supper is at 6". A person with a BlackBerry receives the question within seconds, and their typed reply can be spoken to the person who asked the question in the kitchen: "Meredith has replied. She says: I'll be back by 6". There are many advantages to this kind of communication over making a voice phone call.
HD video conferencing: An LCD in the kitchen becomes a viewport into the world, and brings with it the possibility of "replacing" the phone with HD video conferencing, the next leap after VOIP. Back in the '90s we would imagine the day when we'd have video phones, and that day is getting closer. Both the broadband Internet and camera technology exist today to make this a reality.
Using computers for meal planning November 6, 2008
It strikes me that computers and home automation could be used to improve health and give people more free time if they were used for meal planning. Consider the following scenario:
"Grace, make a meal plan for this week."
The computer would have the following information at its disposal:
The family recipes, including ingredients lists, and therefore, nutritional value. Each recipe would have a rating to indicate how much it was liked.
An inventory of what food was currently in the fridge, freezer, and cupboards.
A record of what meals were eaten at home in previous weeks.
Using this information, a meal plan could be put together that would:
1.
Be nutritionally balanced and not deficient in any important area.
2.
Use foods more often that are already in the fridge, freezer, or cupboards.
3.
Use foods more often that are in season, and likewise, foods that could be purchased from local producers.
4.
Use recipes more often that are liked.
5.
Not use recipes that were already used very recently.
There are a number of variables to optimize, but that's what computers do best: Crunch possibilities and come up with something that is optimum. Since different families would value different things, there could be "sliders" to adjust how important the different criteria were, such as how important it is to use local foods.
Another, related use case would be to ask: "Grace, recommend a recipe for tonight", which would take into account what foods were already in the house to plan a tasty meal, helping to use up foods that would otherwise go bad and reducing unnecessary trips to the grocery store.
The American election November 2, 2008
So, the time has come for America to vote. I feel sort of guilty that as a Canadian I find American elections more interesting on many levels than Canadian ones... but so be it. (The other reason that elections make me feel guilty is that I don't really have a clue. I mean, there are certain policies that I know clearly which way I'd vote, but for the majority of things it's more of a guessing game)
Anyway, blabbering about election guilt aside, it will be interesting to watch this election. Regardless of who wins, we already know the outcome to be interesting:
If the republicans win, the US will have a lady vice president, which will be a pretty significant thing in my mind... and the chance that she would be come president, which is perhaps the more significant thing. In my mind, Sarah Palin is a very likable, hard working, down-to-earth person who wants to serve her country. I would tend to side with those that say she comes across as a bit under experienced to lead the US as president, but I also think that people are blowing that issue out of proportion: She's the governor of Alaska, not the mayor of a small town.
If the democrats win, the US will have a president with a strong African American heritage, which fascinates me. That seems like a tremendous victory for a country that has struggled, and continues to struggle, with racism. Obama seems like a strong, hard working, dynamic person that brings a lot of leadership talent. I especially like his tone when it comes to international affairs, which is the area that I think the US needs the most reform in. Obama seems to be a person that wants to listen rather than to dominate, and I feel the current US policy has been too far on the side of domination.
If I could vote I'd vote for Obama. That's quite possibly how things will play out anyway, but we'll just have to wait and see. I'm a little fearful that Obama will lose and that his loss could cause a rift in the US, especially if there is any sense of unfairness or jiggery-pokery. I'll hope for the best.
Memories of Ben November 2, 2008
This week our family had to put our golden retriever Ben down. He lived just over 14 and a half years and was a loved part of our family. And so as we say good-bye, I'd like to sit down and remember.
Eww
Who can forget the day we can home to little Ben in his crate, and he had ejected about every possible bodily fluid into the bottom of his crate. He was cowered in the corner trying to escape the flood, poor guy. What a sight and smell that was!
A strong attachment
I remember when I was about 15, a year or two after we got Ben, laying on the floor of my parent's bedroom after watching a movie, snuggled up with Ben. It was one of those times when I realized how heart broken I would be if he were ever killed in an accident such as being hit by a car. I think I was near tears as I lay there with my arms around him and my face buried in his scruff.
5.5, 7.5, and 9.5
When I would take Ben for a walk, there were different possible lengths: The short walk was going North from the corner of Oxford and Hunter and completing a one-block square. But because the walk from our house to the corner was about 3/4 of a block, I reasoned the walk was 5.5 blocks. What a mathy! If I walked two blocks North from the corner and then one block East to Delatre, that was a 7.5 block walk, and if I did the same but walked two blocks East to Vansitart, that was a 9.5 block walk. And so Ben's walks with me were pretty much always a 5.5, 7.5 or 9.5.
Teaching a dog to bark
Ben wasn't much of a barker, which is a great trait to have in a dog. Our parents must have rolled their eyes then when we were trying to teach him to bark on command!
The park: A powerful magnet
I was always amazed that as soon as we'd get close to the park, even if we were on a street that I thought Ben had never been on, he'd start pulling on his leash in the direction of the park. How did he know if was over there? In the later years, when I'd walk him without a leash, I think there were a few incidents where he'd make a sudden break for it, crossing Vansitart without me. Yikes!
Rebekah's first winter away
I think it was January 1997, and Rebekah was in Hawaii on her DTS, which was the first time that she was away from home after high school. Woodstock had been dumped on with a massive amount of snow, and after supper Ben and I went out for a walk in it. I dressed as warmly as I could, with many layers, a big coat, hat, mitts. I was an abominable snow man, and off we went to the park. That night we talked to Rebekah on the phone and it was a strange thing to talk to your big sister half a world a way. Ben and I made it to the park, and I was exhausted. I flopped down on my back and just lay there contemplating the world while Ben pranced around and enjoyed the thick white fluff.
Losing a tooth
If my memory serves me correctly, I'm responsible for chipping off the lower half of one of Ben's canines. I was out in the back yard with a golf club and Ben thought it was fun to treat the club head as a bad guy. One time he got a bit too close and that was all it took... his smile wasn't quite perfect after that.
Spiritual analogies
I could never understand what Ben saw in garbage, but time and again he would sneak out of the back yard and get into a neighbor's garbage. Many times, he would get sick later that day somewhere in the house. It was stupid behavior, and I would think to myself, why can't he ever learn from the consequences? What was interesting about seeing Ben get into the garbage again and again is that it is analogous to how people sin again and again. We get into the garbage, we feel ill afterwards, and yet it is amazing how people will keep going back for more.
Throwing a ball straight up
While I was home on my summers off of university, I would go out to the back yard at lunch with his orange ball, and I had fun throwing it straight up with an under arm motion. I could get it around 30 feet high and it was fun to see Ben running around madly trying to figure out where it was going to land. It was quite funny if he got too close, because it came down with quite a thud!
And did I ever find it in some shaving cream that I bought about a year and a half ago for about $1.50. This thing lasted me for well over a year, costing me somewhere around 1/3rd of a penny per day. Pretty amazing value if you ask me!
Update: Apparently there isn't any auto-focus on these DSLR cameras when in video mode, so I guess they're not quite ready to replace the video camera.
Chevy Volt September 17, 2008
I think this is the first time I've ever drooled for an American made car. Wow, what a great looking vehicle. I can't wait to take one for a test drive.
Rugby September 10, 2008
I've never really been all that interested in Rugby: A strange looking sport, somewhat similar to football, that is mostly played outside of North America.
Today as I was biking back from work, I stopped and watched the Warrior's womens team play. It looked so fun! You have the tackle aspect of football, which I love, but it's nonstop action. It makes football look boring in the same way that baseball is boring: So much idle time waiting for the next play.
Another thing that makes Rugby interesting is all of the lateraling, kicking, and various ball movements. It's such a varied, action-filled game!
And then, it's also fun watching girls tackle each other... I mean...
Simon Whitfield August 20, 2008
A couple of nights ago, I was sure to tune in via cbc.ca to watch the men's Olympic triathlon. As I watched the bike race, I was pleased to see Simon Whitfield's name. Eight years have passed since Simon won the gold in Sydney, so it was nice to see that after all that time he was in there. As the run got going, he was noticeably absent from the front of the pack, and yet, the top 20 runners were all pretty close, so it was hard to know how things would shake up.
Before long, Simon showed up towards the front and things got really exciting. As the leaders got closer and closer to the end of the race, I couldn't believe my eyes: He was still close by the front and sticking with them! I noticed that my heart rate seemed elevated, so just for fun I measured my heart beats in 10 seconds and determined that my heart rate was 120 bpm! Wow!
With only a couple of kilometers left to go, it looked like Simon was starting to drift back. My heart sank a little.
And then, unbelievably, Simon surged. He grabbed his hat, gave it a fling, and poured out his heart. I was speechless, sitting there in tremendous, excited anxiety as Simon simply ran past everyone and into first place. I measured my heart rate again and this time it came out at 150 bpm! That's how fast my little ticker goes when I'm out running! Too funny.
Even though Simon was passed in the last few seconds by the German, the finish for me was still sweet. I'm so proud of Simon for pulling off an epic finish like that. (And watching the German sprint as he did was pretty spectacular)
Update: Apparently Simon Whitfield's sister is a runner at an Ottawa branch of the Running Room, and they set up a big TV and cheered him on as a group. Very cool! :)
This guy is absolutely amazing. What he accomplished at this year's Olympics is mind boggling. How could he sprint away from the world's best runners like that?
I'm sitting here watching a grainy YouTube video. Pitty that in 2008, with 1080p, this is the best I've got. (I'd be more than happy to pay $100 for well-produced 1080p Bluray of these Olympics!)
Every time I watch the replay, I just can't believe what I'm seeing. I hope Usain Bolt isn't the next Ben Johnson, but for now I'm a believer.
Daniel finds a good use for RSS July 29, 2008
Speaking of RSS, I think I've finally found a good use case for myself. GMail allows you to go into Settings and then Web Clips. You can then remove all of the default web clip sources and replace them with RSS feeds from your friends and family's blogs, and thus be notified on the fly about new content.
I like it!
danielbigham.ca now supports rss July 29, 2008
After long last, I set up rss for my website. Each blog topic represents its own 'feed' which can be subscribed to with any modern browser or RSS reader.
I don't use rss much myself because most of the website that I check on a daily basis are such that I want to see the stories surrounded by the layout of the website, and they are updated frequently enough that I don't want to be notified each time something new is posted.
I guess where I should use rss is to keep tabs on sites that only update once every few days and I want a notification to go look for the new content.
Added to list: 100 mile diet for 100 days July 23, 2008
Last night Meredith and I had our small group over for a potluck meal, and as we considered what to do for our time together in the fall, someone had a great idea: Attempt the 100 mile diet for 100 days. Wow.
We decided to start on Feb. 15 2009 to give ourselves time to read the book and plan, and that would make the end date the annual Mennonite Relief Sale. We have all sorts of other ideas in terms of fund raising for the church's building fund by hosting a 100 mile dinner, etc., as well as fund raising for the relief sale.
It's all a little scary at this point, but I'm excited. It should be lots of fun and an amazing learning opportunity!
I think this might be my first "group" thing in my list of 99 things. I'm looking forward to it.
The captain's chair July 8, 2008
On our flight home from Paris on Sunday, we had a one hour stop over in Montreal. We were sitting in the emergency exit row, so during takeoffs and landings, the flight attendents sat directly across from us. They were very friendly and fun to talk to, and while we were waiting in Montreal they offered that we could take a look in the cockpit!
I got to meet the captain, who was one of only three female pilots in their fleet (of 100), and even got to sit in the captain's chair. Meanwhile, the first officer was entering the values of the flight plan into the onboard FMS, and he explained a little bit more about what he was doing. It was even more meaningful to me since the airline is one of our customers. It was so cool to see the fruits of our labour being used on a real aircraft by real people!
Here are the specs of our model. It runs at about 500 watts, so each hour, you're using 0.5 kilowatts of electricity. At a price of 10 cents per kilowatt hour, that translates to five cents per hour, or $2.00 per 1000 kilometers.
That's right, we could drive to Ottawa and back for $2.00!
Rain barrel June 3, 2008
We've finally got our rain barrel set up here at home, and last night it rained enough to complete fill it. Is it ever heavy!
A rain barrel won't save enough water to be any help watering your lawn, but you can keep your plants well watered.
Ottawa Marathon Details May 21, 2008
This week I got an email from the race organization informing that my bib number is 2204. Woo hoo!
I also learned that they're offering a service for $4 whereby you can have your progress sent by SMS to your friends and family's cell phones. (10k, 21k, 30k, 42k) Very cool. There also appears to be a website, Sportstats.ca, that allows people to follow your progress.
As I was just confirming my bib number online, I searched for Bigham and noticed that my uncle and aunt are doing the 5k! It's fun to bump into family!
As it turns out, race kit pick up is here, and the course map is here. I've also plotted the map in Google maps which comes out at 42.6km for some reason!
Meredith and I were just doing some trip planning for Zurich Switzerland, when I noticed a Public Transit link in Google Maps. Sure enough, clicking it redraws your route to indicate what portions you need to walk and where to go to catch the nearest bus or train. Brilliant!
Go for liftoff: Let's try this marathon thing May 15, 2008
Thankfully, the last week of training has gone really smoothly. Last Friday, I set out before work to try 12k, which was a pretty big test of my foot. The run went really well, and so I set my sights on trying 16k, 5 days later. I got up at 5:30 yesterday morning and headed out at 6:15. The run went quite well, and it felt to be out in the country again early in the morning.
I wore my heart rate monitor, and it was quite interesting to observe my heart rate lower than what it typically would be. As I was leasurely jogging down Laurelwood, my heart rate was actually below 130, which I've never seen before while running. And many times throughout my route, I'd look down and see it in the 140s. Again, usually I would be in the low to mid 150s.
Although my watch-to-PC link is broken these days, the watch was able to tell me my average heart rate, which was 145. My time was 1:57, and the distance was 17. So:
Heart beats = 145 * 117 = 16965 Distance = 17000 m Weight = 184 Efficiency = 16965/17000 = 998 millibeats per metre Efficiency normalized for weight = 5.424 millibeats per lb-m
Past numbers:
May 2007: 21 km in 2:04:44 at 165 bmp and 180 lbs: 980 millibeats per metre, 5.444 millibeats per lb-m
January 2008: 12.3 km in 1:27 at 148 bmp and 190 lbs: 1040 millibeats per metre, 5.445 millibeats per lb-m
All of that being said, it looks like my efficiency numbers are pretty good, it's just the endurance of my legs after a three week period of no running that remains worrisome.
With this 17k run behind me, I'm nervously starting to process what all I need to do to get myself to the starting line on the 25th. Eek! For example, I haven't even looked up where the race starts, where to pick up my bib number, what the route looks like, etc.
And I wonder how the actual race will go. Will I finish? If so, will I limp across the finish line? Only time will tell. Let's hope for the best.
Here are is my final training graph, with the last week and a bit projected rather than actual:
Watching TV on the web May 9, 2008
We all knew it was coming... TV shows to your computer screen, on demand. But it's always been a shady business of downloading shows with a P2P app, waiting a few hours, and then, finally, watching your show.
Last night Meredith discovered that now you can watch shows directly from ctv.ca! I'm amazed!
We watched an episode of LOST last night on the laptop and I'm just starting episode 10 now. Definitely a new level of convience, and the quality is impressive.
It's not a flying car, it's a drivable aircraft May 8, 2008
Now that I think of it, of course that's the way the flying car will be invented. You're not going to start by teaching drivers to fly... you're going to give pilots the convenience of being able to drive home. This story details the company that thinks it can make it happen.
Google search April 26, 2008
A couple of weeks ago, I realized that you can see how people are getting to your website by looking at the HTTP_REFERER HTTP header. It even tells you what people are searching for on Google -- how interesting! What I found quite funny is that my website is actually the #1 search result for some surprising search phrases. I even show up in an image search!
Dietary sensativity April 19, 2008
A few months ago, Meredith went to get some tests done to see if there were certain foods she was sensitive to, and while I was watching her get the test done, I was curious to try it out myself. Unfortunately there is a 2-3 month wait time to get an appointment, so I had to wait until today to go.
I didn't suspect much if any dietary sensativities, although I was curious about what she'd say about sugar, since I've often felt like it sapps my energy a couple of hours after I consume a significant dose of it.
As she tested the various things, both diary and wheat came back as being ok, but low and behold, sugar did not. The test indicates that my body has a sensitivity to cane-derived sugars, and that while my body doesn't outright reject it, the sugar has a negative effect on me that manifests itself over the next few hours, eventually causing me to feel fatigued and somewhat unwell. This seems to fit how I have observed my body behave, so I was quite impressed!
Next, she tested for bacterial infections. The bacteria test came back positive, so I was curious what specifically the problem was. After drilling down a bit further, the test indicated that there are strep bacteria present in my body. This was another impressive result, since I struggled with repeated strep infections during my teenage years. The doctor told me at the time that the strep bacteria, even after you have recovered from your illness, will tend to lay dormant within your body until your immune system is sufficiently supressed for it to flourish again.
Next, she tested for parasites, of which there is a very long list. The test indicated that I do infact have a parasite. Great. I don't have any symptoms on this one, so I can't really confirm or deny how accurate this may or may not be.
Finally, she did some vitamin and mineral tests, which indicate that I'm not absorbing these nutrients very well, especially the B vitamins. Again, I don't have any noticeable symptoms here, but I'm willing to heed her advice for taking a different multi-vitamin. She tested a range of the vitamins in the store to determine which one would best suit my needs, and singled one out.
So, I get to take a specific anti-parasite remedy, an anti-strep remedy, and some new multi-vitamins each day for a couple of months, after which she will retest me to see whether the conditions have cleared up... and ideally I would try to avoid cane sugar where possible.
Interesting stuff.
Planning for Europe April 18, 2008
Meredith and I are starting to get excited about hopefully travelling to Europe this summer. As we plan, there is a real tension between wanting to see a lot VS wanting the trip to still be somewhat relaxing and enjoyable. We admittedly tend to be a bit psycho in terms of how much we want to experience!
Here's a current rough plan: (2 week trip)
Fly to London, then fly to Amsterdam, and then hop on a train to Belgium
Doesn't quite seem realistic does it! Like I said, we're a little psycho.
Goodbye, dear Accord April 17, 2008
Ever since Meredith and I got the 1998 Honda Accord back from her sister Emily, we've been talking about what to do about the car situation.
We would like to be a one car family in terms of living moderately and being environmentally friendly, but once you're used to the independence of each having a vehicle, it's hard to give up. And it still leaves the question, which car to sell?
My theory was that Honda engines can last a long time, and so it would be cheaper in the long run to keep the '98 Accord instead of the '04 Civic, putting money into the Accord as necessary to keep it going.
Good in theory, but boy was I shocked when I took it in to Honda to have them give it an overall assessment. The report came back that there were several major parts of the car that were badly rusted and in need of immediate replacement... $2500 worth! The brake and fuel lines were badly rusted, so much so that the brake lines had perforated and started leaking. The right CV boot had cracked open and lost its grease. The engine mount was about ready to give up the ghost, etc. Wow. In the end, we sold it for all of about $700 to a guy who was going to hire a mechanic friend to deal with the rust issues and give it to his son.
This experience was a real eye opener in terms of how rust can eat your car to pieces from the inside out. Nasty. We should definitely oil spray our Civic!
Rust issues aside, it's tough to sell a car that you love! I have many fond memories of that car -- probably the favorite of the cars that we drove as a family growing up. It had a great interior and exterior, and it was the first V6 car that I've ever driven... over 200 horsepower. If you were alone in the car (to lessen the weight of the car) and you floored it accelerating onto the 401, it would give you that split second of "Holy cow!" feeling as it downshifted and put you in the back of your seat.
Farewell dear car, I'll miss ya!
Is there a Vespa in your future? March 30, 2008
Meredith have been toying around with the idea of getting a Vespa. At first I thought they were sort of dorky and dangerous, but I'm really starting to warm up to the idea. They get about 60 mpg, which is twice the fuel economy of a Civic, and as long as you're not using them on fast, busy roads, they're relatively safe. They also solve the problem of wanting to be a 1 car family without losing all of the flexiblity of having two vehicles.
Update: It's looking more and more like we're going to take the Vespa plunge! Meredith has got the MTO motorcycle book and is already half way done, and we've been in to KW Vespa to gawk at them.
In the Shadow of the Moon March 3, 2008
While we were at Blockbuster on Sunday evening, my dear wife pointed out to me that a new documentary had just been release on DVD: In the Shadow of the Moon. We just watched it tonight and it was fantastic. It helped bridge the gap for me between the space age of my growing up years (the Space Shuttle) and what happened only 12 years before I was born: Mankind walking on the moon. Although the visuals in this movie were superb, what really struck me were the interviews with the astronauts, now in their late 70s. These men are likable, dramatic people who have learned over the past 40 years how to tell the story in a way that brings you to the moon's surface with them. Some highlights:
When in orbit around the Earth, the Earth's horizon only has a slight curvature to it. But as you move away from the Earth, that curvature quickly grows until eventually you see the whole circle of the planet's circumference.
While looking back at the Earth, it hanging there, completely surrounded by the blackness of space, the astronauts were overcome with a sense of how fragile our small plant is.
The moon as the most dramatic, beautiful, untouched dessert you've ever seen.
The biggest thrill of exhileration being on the way back to Earth.
An astronaut, after returning from the moon, going to a shopping mall, buying an ice cream, and then just sitting there appreciating all of the people.
Astronauts talking about there being "two moons" in their head. The first moon is what you see when you look up in the sky, and when astronauts who have been to the moon look up, they see the "first moon"... and they can't really relate that image to their experience on the surface of the moon, the "second moon", so to speak.
HD DVD *sniff* March 3, 2008
Life is like that: After a year of waiting for the Bluray VS HD DVD standoff to offer a victor, you go and buy the Xbox HD DVD attachment, and less than a month later, Warner Brothers flips over to Bluray and the deal is done: Bluray wins and you own a $200 piece of plastic. What a bummer.
Disappointment aside, it has been fun to play with the new technology. Jumbo Video just down the street rents HD DVDs, and I have enjoyed a few so far: Mission Impossible III was fantastic, Transformers was great, and King Kong was, well, a little boring, but with great visuals. I'm amused at the "online content" features... the first time you start some HD DVDs, it says "Downloading content updates", and this little progress bar zips across as it goes online to download information from the movie studio. What a strange concept!
As for the visuals, they are great, but it makes you realize that for a lot of fast-motion or low-detail scenes, even plain old DVD offers excellent quality. Where the difference really shows through is text, especially small text with fine detail. Because of this, menus on HD DVDs look far superior to those of regular DVDs. During the movie itself, however, only some scenes show a noticeable difference. Most times you just get a warm fuzzy "I think this looks a little bit better than regular DVD" sense.
netfirms March 3, 2008
Last Saturday my web hosting provider netfirms had an outage that lasted quite a while. Once their site (and mine) was back up, it became apparent that the database that I use as my content management system had been corrupted and lost about a year and a half of data. Great.
But wait, netfirms advertises on their website that all of there web service plans are protected by database backups. Fantastic!
Or so you would think. I have phoned them about 5 times, sent email, etc, and each time I'm told that they don't offer database restoration as a service and if they're able to help me it will take a long time because they don't have a "process" in place. Wow. You advertise database backups, but you don't have a "process" in place to restore those databases.
What a bunch of hoo-ey!
UPDATE: On May 1, netfirms finally restored the backup copy of my database. What a sigh of relief.
UPDATE: As of April 3, 2008, I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. It has been 1 month since the situation and Netfirms' has refused to correct their advertising to accurately reflect the services they provide. I've never submitted a complaint before, so this will be an interesting process.
who's among us? January 26, 2008
Every now and again I see something that someone has invented and I think, "That's pure geneous, why didn't I think of that myself"! Well today is one of those days. The website maps.amung.us has a simple wizard you can use to add a map widget to your site that records where your vistors are from, and displays them on a map. Now granted, my website isn't a good candidate for this since I get very few hits, and they're likely all from Canada (or Turkey), but I'm still just tickled with their implementation of a great idea.
Update: I wonder who the guy from Palm Bay, Florida is? :)
DARPA Urban Challenge November 3, 2007
Today was the big day, November 3, 2007: Eleven teams prepared their autonomous cars for the DARPA Urban Challenge this morning, and one at a time, their vehicles were sent out of the starting gates. It was truly fascinating to watch (via webcast) as the cars and trucks made their way around the urban environment, and in the end, Stanford's entry appears to have been the top dog. Their car behaved in a very balanced, "clean" fashion and it just blew me away watching their VW Passat do so well. Frankly, I wasn't expecting any of the teams to complete the course, let alone do it with confidence. Wow.
This event turned out to be a huge success.
California: Days 4 to 14 October 21, 2007 Day 4: Tijuana, La Jolla, and Hollywood: Talk about extremes. We started the day by walking across to Tijuana Mexico for what turned out, unsurprisingly, to be a reminder of how the rest of the world lives. We were bombarded by shop keepers and jewelry sales people. Not 10 seconds went by without a request by someone to do something or another! After a walk down the main drag, we stopped for a bit of Mexican food and headed back to the border.
After leaving San Diego to drive north, we stopped by La Jolla to see the famous Torrey Pines Golf Course, site of the 2008 US Open. I had hoped to play the twilight rate for the North course ($51 + $30 club rental), but the North course, as I learned, was in its two week dormant state which meant that it was a crisp yellow! Wonderful! The South course was in decent shape, but I wasn't going to spend $120 on a game of golf!
By nightfall we had arrived in Los Angeles. We checked into our hostel and couldn't believe that it was almost directly behind the Kodak Theatre. Checking out Grauman's Chinese Theatre was a lot of fun, and for a small fee we got a tour. Our tour guide was excellent and we ended the day feeling like we had already had a memorable Hollywood experience. Before heading back to the hostel, we had supper at Mel's Diner. The special was a turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing. How perfect, since we missed Canadian thanksgiving only a couple of days before!
Day 5: Hollywood, Santa Barbara, and Paso Robles: We started the day taking a limo tour of Hollywood, Bel Air, and Beverly Hills. It was fun to see where the celebrities live in their 15 million dollar homes, all packed into these three mega rich communities. Many of the homes were fenced and had vegitation grown strategically so that it was difficult to see any further than the main gate. As Meredith and I stood on Rodeo Drive, I pointed at this poor lady driving by who's face was all bandaged up. She was bruised all over and I figured she had been in a nasty accident. Meredith laughed and cleared things up... nothing more than a face lift. After the tour we were more than ready to get going. The too-good-for-you air of this city is distasteful and quickly tiring. We stopped by Santa Barbara to visit the history-rich mission, and then drove until late in the evening, ending up in Paso Robles to enjoy what turned out to be another fantastic Fodor's Choice accomodation: The Adelaide Inn. How can you get this for $80/night? Incredible.
Day 6: The Pacific Coast Highway, Hearst Castle, and Big Sur: One of the highlights of our trip was driving up the PCH #1 along the Pacific coast. It is beautiful, windy road that rises several hundred feet above the ocean. And the turns are enough to make you feel a bit queasy, so we had to take it slow. After a couple of hours I noticed that we were a little low on gas, and gas stations were rare to be seen, so I stopped to fill up when I had the next chance. As I was almost done filling the tank I looked up at the meter and couldn't believe my eyes... $3/litre. Yuck! One of the stops along the way was Hearst Castle, which was built early in the 20th century by a media tycoon. It has a fascinating history, documented by a very well done National Geographic documentary that they play in a full sized theatre for you. We toured the castle and I was amazed by the swimming pool, which is filled entirely by fresh spring water which runs down the hillside. We made it to the Big Sur campground by nightfall and enjoyed our first night of camping. After setting up our tent, we were overjoyed to discover a beautiful lodge on the campgrounds with fine dining. We weren't exactly dressed for the occasion, but we enjoyed a very tasty dinner before heading to bed.
Day 7 and Day 8: Pebble Beach, Mountain View, and San Francisco: On our way further up the PCH #1 to San Francisco, we stopped by the famous Pebble Beach Golf Course, which you can play for a mere $450 US! It can be found along the 17-mile drive, a beautiful private road just south of Monterey. Just for fun we stopped at Mountain View CA to see Google's headquarters, and then continued along to San Francisco. That evening we took the ferry over to tour Alcatraz. The audio tour is quite good, and the fact that we did an evening/night tour made it a bit spookier. It was interesting to learn that Alcatraz is only a mile from San Francisco -- so what made the swim so challenging? The sharks aren't really a problem, and while the water is pretty cold, that wasn't really preventative either. The answer, apparently, is the fast currents that sweep out into the Pacific. The next day we walked San Francisco by foot. Wow! The incline of those streets is absolutely amazing, and the incline stays constant for 6 or 7 blocks. At the top, you have a great view back down to the bay. That evening we watched Michael Clayton, which is a great thriller.
Day 9 and 10: Muir Woods and Sequoia National Park: On our way out of San Francisco, we stopped by Muir Woods National Monument, which is home to many beautiful redwood trees. By the early evening, we were in Sequoia National Park. We checked out General Sherman, which is volumetrically the largest tree in the world, and then checked into the lodge. Again, we were happy to be greeted by an extremely beautifullodge complete with fine dining and complementary buffet breakfast. We highly recommend it! The next morning we toured the Crystal Cave, which is 3.5 miles of cave network about an hours drive south of the lodge. During the tour they turned off all of the lights and had everyone be quiet so that we could experience what a cave is truly like. Ok, turn the lights back on already!
Day 11: Yosemite National Park and Mammoth Mountain: While we saw a lot of different terrain over the five national parks we visited, Yosemite National Park was the most abrupt and breathtaking. We drove in at night, so only the next morning when we crawled out of our tent did we see the amazing beauty that surrounded us. The campground is in the valley, which is 3,000 feet below the mountain range that surrounds it. Sheer granite cliffs, such as El Capitan, are an amazing sight to behold. Backing up a little bit, Yosemite was our second opportunity to camp. We were warned about the bears, and it turned out to be good advice. We awoke in the middle of the night to our fellow campers yelling sternly at a bear to go away, probably 150 yards across the campsite! I don't think Meredith slept very well that night! After touring the valley, we headed out of the park and really enjoyed the drive north and east out the valley. The park road crested at just under 10,000 feet, with snow capped mountain peeks and wonderful colours all around. That night we stayed in Mammoth Mountain at a rustic old lodge that received a Fodors Choice. What a treat! The Tamarack Lodge was a welcomed escape from the 32 degree fahrenheit temperatures and gusting wind outside. The lodge was complete again with fine dining and a warm fireplace. We enjoyed chatting with an older couple that had been visiting the lodge for several decades and cherished it as a family secret.
Day 12: Death Valley: Our adventure was almost done, but it was really only beginning. We headed out from Mammoth Mountain and after a couple hours of driving, we entered Death Valley. We had altered our intended route so that we wouldn't have to backtrack to Scotty's Castle, but that meant that we had to take a rough dirt road for 75 miles. About 45 miles into the dirt road, in the middle of stark desert, we started to hear some thumping. We stopped, I got out and walked around the car, and to my horror and slight amusement there was a completely flat tire. We were about here, 30 miles or so from any people. We had been driving along the dirt road for an hour and a half without seeing a single car. Staying calm, we pulled the spare tire out from the back of the Forrester. But wait, where is the jack? Dollar Rent-a-car strikes again! Where the jack was supposed to sit, there was nothing. No jack. What do we do now? Hike for 10 hours? Wait for a few hours and hope someone drives by? We lucked out, or we have a friend in high places, because literally 3 minutes after we stopped, the only other car to traverse that road in the entire 4 hours we were on it happened to drive by. We flagged it down, and a kind man from Hungary was more than willing to let us use his jack. We were back on the road in 30 minutes and keeping it to 10 mph. Whew! That evening we enjoyed some sights and set up our tent at the Furnace Creek Campground. Were we ever in for another surprise. That night, at about midnight, the wind suddenly picked up. Our tent fly became a sail and we had to take it down to keep from flying off! Just as you'd almost fall asleep, the sides of the tent would whip up and just about knock you over! The next morning started at 5:40 AM when I got up to play the Furnace Creek Golf Course. It was hard to imagine, but there was an immaculate 18 hole golf course in the middle of one of the driest deserts in the world! It was fantastic! Once Meredith was done at the shop getting a new tire, we headed down to the Badwater salt flat, the lowest point in North America, after which we headed out to Las Vegas.
Day 13 and 14: Las Vegas and Grand Canyon: Las Vegas, Las Vegas! What a strange place. We managed to snag a night at the Bellagio for a mere $199, which wasn't too bad considering our travel agent saw prices for $799 the next night! Yikes! The hotel was gorgeous as one would expect, as was the food.
That night we enjoyed "O", which is a wonderful Cirque du Soliel presentation that is based around a multi-million gallon pool. It was well worth the money and we were left speechless.
As for the casino, I was nervous to try a game of blackjack, which is the only casino game besides poker that you can win at. By default you are at a 8% disadvantage to the house, but by memorizing a large table you can reduce that advantage to 0.5%. For a $10 hand, that means you're losing 5 cents on average. So it becomes a game of 50/50 that you can play for about $10 an hour. Going into the game I decided I'd put $40 on the table and make the minimum $10 bets until I either doubled my money or hit 0. It started to look a little shakey when I lost $30 of my original $40, but I ended up working my way all the way up to $70. I should have cashed out there, but I decided to stick to my original game plan and ended up hitting 0. Oh well! It was an experience! The next day, which was our last, Meredith and I took a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon which was a lot of fun. We flew over Lake Las Vegas, Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam, and finally the canyon. The helicopter landed down in the canyon so that we could get out, take some pictures, and sip some champagne. Then it was back to Las Vegas to catch our flight home.
California: Day 2 and Day 3 October 9, 2007
We've had another couple full but enjoyable days out here in California. We spent Sunday morning exploring Joshua Tree National Park, after which we stopped by La Quinta Resort & Golf Course before driving all of the way to San Diego. Today (Monday) was our fullest day yet, including both the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park, followed by an evening in Coronado. San Diego is a very pretty city and we've really enjoyed our time here. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we'll head across the border to Tijuana, Mexico to do a little poking around. Why not visit Mexico when you're this close?
California: Day 1 October 7, 2007
Our 2007 vacation has begun! We landed safely in Las Vegas and after some shenanigans with the Dollar Rent a Car people we were finally under way with our sporty Subaru Forester. The beauty of the desert was immediately apparent as we headed out of Las Vegas, surrounded by mountains on all sides. After driving for 30 minutes, we could still look back and see the city!
Day 1 was Mojave National Preserve, known for its cute little "Joshua Trees". Don't get too close though, they are armed with mean spikes. To our surprise, the desert air was fresh and cool, just below 70 degree fahrenheit. We enjoyed driving the roads through the preserve, stopping occassionally to get out and take a closer look at the plants and to breath the air.
The visitor centre was a nice stop, and the people there were very eager to answer any questions we had or even to look up additional information on the Internet. I asked whether the Mojave was popular with cyclists, and as it turns out, there is a very long 500 mile bike race that is finishing on our day 2. They pass right through the Mojave National Preserve and end up in Twentynine Palms, which is the little desert town that we're staying at currently.
Onward to day #2!
Pepsi '07 October 1, 2007
For the fourth year in a row, Pepsi is running a fall "every hour" contest... we shall see whether my luck continues. This year Pepsi is giving away two 32" LCD TVs and three Xbox 360 Core systems each day. And for some reason, they've removed the limitation that you can only enter once an hour. This year, you can enter as many times an hour as you'd like. Not only that, they've removed the restriction that you can only win once. Crazy!
Deliriou5? September 18, 2007
I was reminded today of the band "Deliriou5?", originally an import from the UK by my big sister Rebekah when I was still in high school. Their music was a huge inspiration to me back in the day, centered around the album "King of Fools". We also listened to their earlier albums which were labelled "Cutting Edge", and when I visited Rebekah in Scotland in the summary of 1999, I paid a decent wad of cash for their "Mezzamorphis" album. This new album left me feeling a bit cold and estranged, and I've never really reconnected with their music. It was interesting to come across the Wikipedia article for the band today and read about their various albums, the wider criticism they received for "Mezzamorphis", and what they've done since. It brought back lots of really fond memories.
VR Headset for MS Flight Simulator September 12, 2007
You can now buy a high quality VR headset for $400 from a company called Vuzix that has built in support for MS Flight Simulator X. The demo video looks pretty sweet! You can look left/right and up/down and see the 3D cockpit around you.
Algonquin September 4, 2007
It has been too long since I journeyed North for some good old Canadian fun, so I was really happy to be able to join the guys this year for a 4 day trip. So what did I get myself into?! Here are some random memories:
Who could forget the 2007 Algonquin Chipmunk Olympics? The feature event was the paddle throw, and the winner was definitely chippy #2 who scored 10 points for his "Look at me, I grabbed the tree on the way up!".
Mr. Ball made an appearance in 2007 with his two twins of the tennis variety. The highlight was Vaughn getting it in the head via Matty Langeman. The ball bounced from head to bush. When the question "Who's gonna go get that?", is asked, Matty cleverly replies "Vaughn touched it last".
Hearing the two rear canoes break into a round of "Row row row your boat" at the top of their Mennonite lungs on none other than Ralph Bice Lake. The onlookers of which there were several must have been amazed or scared or both.
Speaking of Ralph Bice, the lake was previously known as "Butt" lake. This made for endless smirks... "My Ralph Bice hurts!"
Diving for frisbees off a rock in the lake... the sort of thing that never gets old for a bunch of goofy guys.
Seeing the sun break through the clouds for the first time in two days. Cause for the "Halilujia" chorus to be heard spontaneously in one's head.
The Oreos on Saturday were decidedly most excellent. Almost as good as the infamous ham sandwiches.
Going for a 50 minute swim on Saturday. I'm going to need to speed the heck up if I'm ever going to do an Ironman. I think I only covered about 1.3 km in the 50 minutes!
Who could forget that beast of a green canoe? I think it weighed about 70 pounds, and I could only carry it about 300m before I had to dump it and take a break. And yet, strangely, isn't that part of why we do these crazy things? To form meaningful relationships with heavy objects that we sling on our backs? I'll miss that thing.
Here are some assorted pictures that Daniel Morden took. Of the few I appear in, most times I look pretty zonked :)
CRTC & NASA TV August 21, 2007
After some googling this week I was very disappointed to read this article. Apparently the CRTC has refused pleas from both cable providers and individuals to allow the broadcast of NASA TV to Canadian homes, on the technicality that the channel is foreign and would put providers over their limit for the amount of foreign material they are allowed to air.
Update: I filled in a web form on CRTC's website to inquire about this and was impressed with their response time. Within a few days I got a response back that linked to an article from a couple of months ago detailing their decision to allow NASA TV to be broadcast. Yay! Hopefully Rogers and others will get the channel into their lineup this year.
Shuttle Endeavor August 14, 2007
Last week on the day of the shuttle launch, Meredith and I were driving across town. I wasn't able to watch on TV, so instead we turned on the radio incase CBC was covering the launch. Sure enough, just as we got the station tuned we heard "3 2 1..." followed by the ignition of the engines. It's uncanny how these launches bring a tear to my eye. I don't know what it is. But as we sat there and listened to the roar of the launch and heard the announcers describe the shuttle passing all of the critical parts of the ascent, there was a tangeable sense of emotion. This will be the last shuttle flight with a Canadian on board, ever. The shuttle is due to retire in a couple of years.
The following night it was unfortunately cloudy, otherwise I would have been able to see the ISS fly over followed right behind in the sky by the space shuttle that was due to dock the next day at noon.
International Space Station August 5, 2007
This weekend Meredith and I are up in Kincardine at her family cottage, the "Huron Haven". Last night just happened to be one of the prime viewing nights to see the ISS fly over South Western Ontario, and it was almost perfect for the Kincardine area. At 9:30 PM, I went to the NASA tracking page and watched the station fly over the south Pacific, finally crossing the shores of Mexico and then racing up towards Ontario. At 9:40 PM, an hour after sunset, we headed down to the beach and sat on the picnic table waiting in anticipation. As we sat there waiting, looking to the South West, we wondered "is that it"? After a couple of miscues, Paul finally spotted it coming up over the horizon. Soon it was high up in the sky, a brilliantly bright star. The higher in the sky it got, the brighter and faster it seemed to get, until it was directly overhead, just motoring! Amazing to think that three people are living and working up there. The next shuttle launch is scheduled for two days from now (Tuesday).
Another interesting thing I'd like to check out is called an "Iridium Flare". The Iridium sattelites, when they make a perfect angle between an observer on the ground and the sun, attain a brightness factor of -8, which is many times brighter than Venus, -4 at its brightest, and compared to -2.4 for the ISS last night.
Swimming Across Lake Ontario July 31, 2007
Last week I read an article in the KW Record that piqued my interest. It was about a teenager from New Hamburg that was planning on swimming across Lake Ontario, hoping to break the female record. So this morning it put a smile on my face to see a photo on the front page of the newspaper of "Sam" as she was heading out from Niagara on the Lake across a vibrant red sunset. I did a quick Google search to see whether there were any updates on her progress and was sad to read that she had asked to be taken from the water pretty early on in her swim. My guess is that she wasn't on pace to set the record and decided that she'd call it quits early on rather than endure the grueling 14 hours and come up short... anyway, hopefully things work out for another attempt. I can imagine you'd feel a lot of disappointment after receiving so much attention from the media and local politicians.
Rapberry jam July 21, 2007
When I was 10 I had the opportunity of staying with my grandma and grandpa Bigham for a week or two while my parents vacationed in Florida. I remember that my dear grandmother would always have the kitchen tidy and the breakfast table set before bed. The next morning, we would gather at the little round table, often covered with a colourful table cloth, for breakfast. My grandma Bigham's jams were a delight. Her tart, sweet, raspberry freezer jam was my favorite.
So this weekend, while Meredith was away in Ottawa, I decided I'd make some raspberry jam for the first time. I grabbed my back pack, a couple 1-pint cartons, and headed off on my bike to Nauman's.
It was a perfect day for picking, and I enjoyed the peace and quiet of the raspberry patch for half an hour, sometimes standing bent over, other times sitting in the grass peering into the foliage to see if there were any berries I had missed. A couple times I bumped my carton and I imagined how horrified you'd be if you knocked it over. On the other side of the row was a elderly couple that reminded me of my grandparents... it's pretty neat to be blessed with so many fond memories.
Bjarne Stroustrup July 18, 2007
Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to hear a talk at uwaterloo by none other than Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of the C++ programming language. Hey, cool... he's the top search result on Google if you search for "Bjarne" :) Because C++ is one of the premier programming languages on the planet, used by most large software companies, and favored by many proficient developers, Bjarne's impact on the software world has been pretty huge to say the least. His talk was on C++0x, the next revision of C++, due out hopefully by '09.
As a would be programming language designer, it was utterly fascinating for me to sit there and hear this guy talk about the challenges of revising C++. Frankly, it sounded painful: Wanting to improve the language, but having to be meticulous about not breaking existing code. Talk about hand cuffs. After his talk he took questions, and mine was essentially "As you've said, revising C++ is very difficult because you have to be very careful not to break existing code. Do you think you'll ever invent a new language where you wouldn't be limited by these restrictions"? His answer, not surprisingly, was "No". I have to respect the man: You get the sense that he really does want to do what's best for the community, and in his case, that is improving C++, not starting from scratch and making something new.
20 minute challenge July 18, 2007
After work this evening, Meredith and I went to the Running Room to take part in the 20 minute challenge. Basically, you show up, get a free hat, and then head out to Laurel Trail to run/walk for 10 minutes, then back for 10 minutes. Despite the rain it was still lots of fun and it was neat to see so many people of all ages. Afterwards, we used our 20% off coupon and got some nice running shorts.
Update: Running shorts with sewn in breathable boxer briefs... there's no going back once you've tried these puppies on!
Cliff jumping July 8, 2007
Last weekend we were in Massasauga Provincial Park with Dave & Gena and Gideon & Brenda. On the Saturday, we decided to go for a bit of an adventure since we weren't moving our campsite that day, and while we were paddling back to the campsite we stopped at a cliff that was in the 25-30 foot range. Dave and Gideon jumped without hesitation, which amazed me. And that left me, standing up there looking way down at the water thinking, how on earth do you convince your brain to do something it's convinced is completely idiotic. Well, you tell your brain to shut up, take a deep breath, and before you realize what you're about to do, you jump. Then there's that half second of terrified glory as you hang in weightlessness 25 feet above the water. Wow.
Once you start falling it takes all of a second and a half to hit the water... amazing. I got a fair amount of water up my nose as was expected, and I hit the water at a bit of an angle, but I was no worse for wear. It was amazing! I have to recommend this to anyone who hasn't done it.
Strawberry jam June 17, 2007
Meredith and I had the delight of making some strawberry jam this weekend from berries that we picked earlier in the morning at Herrle's Market. Only 3 more hours before they're set and ready to be eaten! :) mmm!
Google Street View May 31, 2007
The future is here. You're sitting at your computer and with the click of a button you can navigate through a virtual version of San Francisco, made of actual photography stitched together into a 3D environment. Zoom in on people's windows, stare at someone as they wait for the bus, or zoom in on someone's license plate with crystal clear clarity. A little bit scary isn't it. Well it's here.
No run for me May 26, 2007
On May 12th, two weekends ago, I went out for a jog in the evening after playing a round of golf. My intention was to run north from Woodstock along Highway 59 towards Tavistock. As I got going, it felt as though my left shoe was on a bit funny; perhaps it was loose. So I stopped and re-tied the laces and proceeded onward. As I ran along Vansitart Ave, out of the city, my left foot continued to feel a bit strange, and before long it was achy. Wanting to get my weekly long run in, and not wanting to turn back, I continued on. It wasn't stopping me, but it didn't feel right either.
Some comic relief: I learned a lesson about the challenges of running out in the country. If you've gotta go, and you don't want to get intimate with nature, your options are limited! Thank goodness for the little gas station in Huntingford!
My run ended after about an hour. I made it 9.4 km by the time Hannah picked me up. From there we drove back to Waterloo, and when I got out of the car, it hurt to even stand on my left foot. It has taken about 12 days to get to the point where I can walk at a normal pace without any discomfort, and can only jog about 1 km before I start to feel my foot. At this point, it just wouldn't be smart to push it and do the half marathon. I'd have to limit myself to > 2:30:00, and even then, I'd risk hurting myself. The best case scenario is that I'd be back to limping around for another week or two.
So no run for me.
:(
21 km May 7, 2007
My training for the half marathon has reached its peak as of today, which is when I start tapering for the actual race at the end of May. I used Google Maps to plan out a route which ended up being about 20.9 km, and has been the most enjoyable so far in terms of scenery, variety, etc. I ran north from our place past the Laurel Creek Resevoir, West on Conservation Drive, then South on Wilmot Line. Wilmot Line was a fantastic gravel road just outside of the city. A bit of a roller coaster, but that also made it more interesting. From there, I came in on Erb St., North on Fischer Hallman, and then went East on Columbia, up Hagey Blvd past work, and then home on Bearinger Rd.
I was a bit nervous as usual, but I think my body held up very well. I felt energetic and in good spirits the whole way along, and just loved the weather. It was a blue sky day with lots of sun and slightly cool air, and the mix of country and city felt just right. There were lots of cyclists out on Beaver Creek Road and Conservation Drive. (I admire the look of a well outfitted cyclist: Sleek helmet, cool shades, colourful fitted top, and black biking tights. It's a cool look!)
As I was driving through the city half an hour later, I was on cloud nine with all of the endorphins running through my body. What a great feeling!
My time was 2:04:44, so I'm in good shape to go for 2:00:00 in Ottawa. Here's my heart rate log: (averaged 165 bpm, high of 184)
After weeks of anticipation, yesterday was finally the day for the WWF CN Tower Climb. A few weeks ago I was very uncertain whether I'd even be able to attempt this given that I had a troublesome calf muscle strain, but some good rest and ART were enough to get me healed up and ready for the challenge. Because of the strain I wasn't able to do any real training for the event other than the weekly long runs that I've been doing for the upcoming half marathon.
It was a long drive to the tower, and then an hour and a half wait standing in line, so there was lots of opportunity to get anxious. As we walked by the tower for the last time before heading into the building it finally started to sink in what we were about to do. It was quite misty which made the distance look even more formidable!
It was a little startling after waiting for so long that after going through the security check there was very little time to gather yourself. You walk around a curve, go through a door, and wham, you're right there at the bottom of the stairs. With the beep of your timing chip, you're off.
If it's your first time doing this, your mind and body can't truly appreciate what you're about to do. (Even with all the anticipation) It doesn't take long, maybe 30 seconds, for all of that to change. I started out fairly fast, which is always dangerous. I was alternating jogging up two steps at a time, then one step at a time. There are lots of people in the stair well, and if you're trying for your best time, it's a bit hectic trying to pass people. It's sort of like the 401: The left side is supposed to be the passing lane, but it doesn't work out quite that simply. You end up having to shout "Passing on the left!" quite often, and when you're huffing and puffing it takes a lot of effort to shout!
The hand rails are a huge help... thank goodness for them. Every few flights, for some reason, the hand rail on the right side had a break in it. You're looking downward and so when you go to grab it you're thrown off by getting nothing but air.
Flight 50 of 144: By now you understand the full reality of what is going on. You're working very hard, you're breathing as hard as you can, you've got that "bloody taste" in the back of your throat, and you're just trying to stay focused, not letting your mind think about how far you have left to go. At this point there were far fewer people, I'm not sure why, so it was becoming less and less frequent that I would pass anyone.
Flight 90 of 144: Unbelievable. This is where I started to think, "Yeah, this is definitely the first and last time I do this"! At least, I don't expect I'll ever try to do it in my best time again. It is grueling, and there really isn't anything that can prepare you for that kind of test of your will. By flight 100 my legs were getting rubbery and my mind was starting to get desperate. I expect that people that are lost and haven't eaten in a few days get that sort of hard, wild, desperate look in their eyes. This is where your body has gone as far and further than you should ever expect it to go and yet you keep cracking the whip. My heart rate for the entire ascent was pegged at 192 bpm, which is 94% of my max heart rate.
As I climbed past 100, 110, the sense of desperation started to be softened ever so slightly by the realization that, despite the overwhelming discomfort, the end was getting closer. I never felt tempted to stop, but that is because I knew that stopping now wouldn't help in the long run... it would be just as hard to start again. So I continued forward and upward, still varying the single step flights with the smooth double step flights. With ten flights to go I said, "Ok, I'm going to give it everything I've got and do double steps for these last ten". But after two flights my legs said, "Haha, no way". I was one cooked turkey.
Passing the exit point was a good feeling, but if I only I knew: You round the corner, and are greeted by another flight of stairs. When you get to the top, it says "S1" and there is another flight of stairs. At this point you're thinking, "Ok ok, there are just a couple flights of stairs up to the observation deck". But then there is S3, S4, S5. By that point you're body, already at its breaking point, is ready to collapse. Because you've passed the finish line, you have mentally "let go", and your body follows suit. S6, S7... I started to shout: "HOW CLOSE ARE WE"? I panicked that there might be 20 more flights of stairs. I was confused, at my wits end. S8, S9, and finally, S10 and the observation deck.
People were standing there cheering as people made it to the top. I was in no mood for smiles or cheers, or anything else. My eyes darted around for the water station: It was madness: Everyone was standing there with water, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. I walked around the observation deck, mildly delirious, ready to collapse. There was no water. I had to lay down, I absolutely had to lay down, so in my usual "Daniel style" I found a quiet corner and layed flat on my back.
You would think that climbing the tower was the hard part, and I guess it was, but the next 20 minutes were pretty rough too. My stomach was very turbulent and my whole body felt like it was toxic... my guess is that it was the deluge of lactic acid that my body was hopelessly trying to deal with. I was taken back to the trip that my sisters and I did to Europe: One morning I woke up feeling not myself, and as we boarded a crowded passenger train, I began to feel dizzy and nauseous. The air on the train felt thick, heavy, depleted of oxygen, and I had to concentrate as hard as I could to stay upright and to not throw up. It was a very similar feeling in the observation deck: The air was hot, moist, and with everyone trying to recover from their oxygen deficit, very depleted. And so this feeling of toxic sickness and extreme fatigue had me pinned to the floor for several minutes, breathing very heavily, trying to control my stomach discomfort.
I finally decided that getting up and finding some water was probably the best thing for me, so I struggled to my feet and staggered around bumping into people. It was like a bad dream: Again, the feeling that everyone had water, and it was this cruel joke because there wasn't any to be found. I finally said "WHERE'S THE WATER?" in a loud voice, hoping someone next to me would hear over the extremely loud noise of the crowd. A guy motioned to the far end, around at the other side of the deck. There it was, finally!
I curled up on the floor again, and it was another 15 minutes before I could stand up. I was amazed that I was the only one in such a bad condition at the top. It seemed that everyone else, after two or three minutes, was all smiles, giving high fives, laughing, cheering, etc. But not me! Whoa man!
25 minutes after getting to the top, we had made it down the elevator and stepped off at the main floor. Again, I was taken back to Europe, reminded what it was like to take that first breath of fresh air after getting off of the train. It was beautiful. My body said a big thank you and my spirits lifted.
From there we were able to snag some free pizza and headed back to the registration tables to pick up our T-shirts. Each shirt has your time written on the back of it with a permanent marker, so there is that moment of uncertainty when you hand them your wrist band and wait for the result. 15:27, not bad. A great reward for all of the effort. (Can I believe that the world record is 7:00? What?!)
This morning I feel like I'm getting over bronchitis. I'm not sure why, maybe it's from breathing 1000 other people's germs yesterday, along with a depressed immune system. I'm sure I'll bounce back over the next day or two. It's funny how even an hour after doing something crazy like that, your mind starts to soften the memory and you think "Ok, so it wasn't all that bad". But it was extreme enough that I don't think I'll ever forget it. This was most definitely an adventure worth having, a very rich experience, but whoa man, be ready for a real wallop!
The next time I visit the tower I think I'll take the elevator :)
Apr28-07 update: The results have been posted, and our team placed 20th out of 327 teams! Go team! I was 125th place in idividuals. The top time was 11:09. Wow!
Furniture April 20, 2007
It has been about three months now since we moved into our new home, and yet our living room, almost half of the main level, is still empty! We ordered a sectional and a few other things from Lay-Z-Boy back in February, but since we chose a color of leather that would match our chair, that means they can't just pull it off the shelf. This week we got a surprise phone call saying everything was in stock and ready to be delivered. We couldn't believe it, since we were originally warned that we'd have to wait until mid-to-late May! Well, we got another phone call last night saying "Whoops, we don't actually have your sectional, so it will be a couple more weeks". Ahh! Oh well. That disappointment was offset yesterday by the delivery of our bedroom furniture. (You know you're starting to grow up when you do a happy dance at the sight of a furniture truck!)
20 books in a year April 12, 2007
1 year after I embarked on the adventure, I have finished reading my 20th book. For the slow reader I am, this was quite the undertaking, but a very enjoyable one! Here's the final list:
Music April 8, 2007
There have been two songs on Grey's Anatomy that have really caught my attention. The first is Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, and the other is How to Save a Life by The Fray. Both songs have a certain musical simplicity about them, a moderate range, are sung by male vocalists, have elements of piano, and when I ponder what I would be trying to create if I were to put a lot of energy into writing and recording a song, these songs are what I'd have in the back of my mind. (Especially How to Save a Life for it's use of the piano) I know little to nothing about the fascinating topics of recording/compositing/editing, so this could be a fun adventure... and some motivation for learing some new instruments!
Blood pressure March 29, 2007
When I gave blood last month, I figured I'd pay attention to my blood pressure reading for once: 146/76. The 146 number is decidedly high. Optimally, an individual is below 120 ... on average, below 130, and hopefully not above 140. The 76 number, though, is just dandy, since it is optimally below 80. I was curious why the one number was poor and the other number good.
Last night I was passing by Shoppers Drug Mart so I figured I'd test myself again. I've heard that blood pressure can vary quite a bit, so if you're trying to get a more accurate picture of where you're really at, you need to test yourself a few different times and at different times of the day. My test last night came out at 126/86. Sure enough, that's quite different than my first test. Thankfully the 126 number is much better.
There's just something about physiology that brings a smile to my face :)
THE Car March 22, 2007
This is the coolest car video I've ever seen. Incredible!
Flight simulator March 1, 2007
I've been enjoying my time with Microsoft Flight Simulator X these past three months, and recently completed my first simulated solo. The in-game flight instructor is good for the most part, but occasionally there are glitches. One flight as I was trying to navigate over a mountain range near Seattle, Washington, the flight instructor warned me to descend. I was only a few hundred feet above the mountain, so I ignored his warning. He then sternly repleated "DESCEND", so I obliged and crashed right into the hillside! Landings are definately the most interesting and difficult aspect of the flight simulator. Timing the turn onto final approach so that you're lined up with the runway seems like a bit of a guessing game at this point for me, and making corrections after that point can be quite tricky. Overall the game has been a great experience and I look forward to continuing to work through the in-game lessons.
Running March 1, 2007
After two months the half-marathon training is going great. A typical week at this stage is: Sun9k, Tue5k, Wed5k, Thu3k, Sat4k. Sundays are the "long slow run", and each week we increase our distance by about 10%. This last week has been easier than the week before. I think my legs are finally getting used to things, and I've lost 10 lbs since the start of January. My heart rates have started to come down, but they're still relatively high. My recovery times are also better. On Sunday, after running 2k and hovering at 150 bps, I stopped for about a minute and my heart rate fell steadily to 99 bps, which I think is pretty good. Three months until race time!
24 January 14, 2007
In the last 12 months, Meredith and I have watched all 5 seasons of 24. We're hooked, and we can't wait to see what the sixth season has in store. It's been a long time since I've been this into a TV show!
The first two episodes air tonight... as soon as the football game ends, apparently :)
Running January 9, 2007
Well, I've committed myself this year to attempt a half marathon. It would have been convenient to just train for a marathon right off the bat, but doing a half marathon first is probably smarter. I've signed up for the half marathon clinic at the Running Room, which looks like it will be a huge help. The clinic includes a lot of learning via a clinic manual, and it sounds like there are classes as well. The clinic starts in February.
Saturday was my first time outside for a run. The rediculously warm January weather is perfect for being outside, so hopefully it keeps up. My poor body didn't know what hit it... my legs were doing ok, but I had a pounding headache for a day or two.
Lance Armstrong's War December 28, 2006
I just finished Lance Armstrong's War, which follows Lance through the 2004 season and his 6th Tour de France victory. The author does a great job pulling you into the world of cycling -- the speed, the raw efficiency, the superhuman will. And the crashes, I had no idea. I was fascinated, and it was one of those times you say to yourself, this has always been around and I've never realized how interesting it is. Too bad Lance is retired by now, but it will be lots of fun to watch some of the Tour de France stages this summer.
Pepsi Xbox 360 December 11, 2006
To my suprise, Canada Post arrived on Saturday with the Xbox 360 I won in this years "Win Every Hour" contest. (Apparently they work 7 days a week in December!) I'll admit, I did quite the happy dance! Looks like we'll be selling it on eBay and getting a video camera instead.
Just like last year, the game that Pepsi advertised as being included with the system wasn't available in time, so they included a substitute game (PGR this time around) and have promised to send Forza Motorsport 2 when it's ready in 2007. Bonus! :)
Chantal December 7, 2006
Last month we saw Chantal Kreviazuk live at the Center in the Square. When we bought the tickets I thought "That should be fun", but it was far more than an average concert. Meredith and I had a fantastic time and were amazed at this woman's talent. We read in the programme that she was born in Winnipeg and was a piano prodigy as a child. Watching her blast out beautiful tunes on a concert grand was amazing. Go Chantal!
One giant snowman December 7, 2006
Tonight after our potluck at the Pardys appartment we went out for a walk to enjoy the fine winter evening that it was. We ended up walking through a field and us guys were rolling some pretty big snowballs. Once we had made a few, we attempted making a snowman out of them. We succeed admirably, making a snowman that was about 11 feet tall and 900 pounds :)
Wedding photos November 14, 2006
After much waiting, we were delighted this weekend to get our album from our wedding photographer. Mike did a great job -- we couldn't have imagined a nicer, more unique album! While there isn't any reasonable way to put our actual album online, I've done a Picasa export of most of the pictures contained in the album, plus a few taken by my friend Wilf, and a couple of engagement shots.
Flying November 12, 2006
This summer, Navtech offered to pay for those interested to take a ground school course at the KW airport. This month I'll finish that course, and so I thought it time to take my introductory flying lesson. As I drove to the airport, I got tingly with anticipation. Not scared, but a little anxious.
We started by doing our weight and balance, followed by a visual inspection of the plane. After going through some checklists, we were ready to go. My instructor started the engines and eased off of the brake.
When on the ground, the Cessna 172 is steered with the foot pedals which double as your breaks. What a strange feeling to have to keep your hands in your lap while you steer with your feet!
We taxied to the end of the runway and waited for ATC clearance. My instructor throttled up the plane and we headed down the great big wide runway. We lifted off before I knew it, and in the blink of an eye the buildings were already far below us. What a rush!
We started our flight by flying over KW and looking down upon Meredith and I's little apartment... seeing things from up high is breath-taking.
I figured an intro lesson would involve sitting and watching, but after we flew north out of KW, I took the controls and did some turns, climbs, and descents. I was flying an airplane! Wahoo! :)
I'll probably wait until the spring before I really get into flying lessons since I need to fly during the day -- the winter is a bad time for those of us that work 9-5.
I'm psyched!
www.goodtree.com October 22, 2006
Now here's a cool idea: Create a search engine that acts as a facade to Google/Ask/MSN search and redirects the ad revenue to charities. Bravo to these creative thinkers. I hope this takes off.
Book review: The Kite Runner September 25, 2006
I started reading The Kite Runner not knowing what I was getting myself into. All I knew from the outset was that it involved two childhood friends growing up in Afghanistan -- and kite flying. (This is becoming a bit of a theme for me: Picking up books that look cute and being startled by the actual subject matter)
This novel was very well worth the read. The story is moving; desperately sad, but rich. The main character, Amir, is strangely easy to relate to. He leads the reader on a powerful journey, quickly winning our friendship and ultimately deepening our understanding of the turbulent and upsetting history of Afghanistan.
I am struck by how novels like this open up a persons eyes to the tragedies of our world. Many of us live a well structured North American existence. A secure existence with many freedoms, rights, etc. But on the other side of the wall, not so far away, there has been much suffering.
I looked up the author after I finished the book and couldn't believe that this has been his first novel -- not only that, but he's a physician by practice. Well done!
Blast off! September 12, 2006
Graham and I had the pleasure of watching Shuttle Atlantis ride up to space on Saturday morning via NASA TV on the Internet and a phone call between us. A far cry from watching from Florida, but it was still an exciting moment. Eight minutes later, Atlantis floated in space, drifting over Ireland. It was a long, long road waiting for this day! The installation of the P4 truss segment is scheduled for today.
It wasn't meant to be September 5, 2006
Last week five excited 20-somethings flew down to Florida in the hopes of seeing Shuttle Atlantis blast off. But it wasn't meant to be. While we were still enroute, a huge bolt of lightening struck the launch pad, delaying the launch long enough for the tropic depression Ernesto to force NASA to roll the shuttle back to the Vehicle Assembly Building.
While we're plenty sad, it was still a fun experience. We did get to attend the Canadian Space Agency's reception at the Double Tree hotel. The energy in the room was remarkable -- a healthy feeling of national pride, listening to Steve McLean's wife talk about the mission, her husband, and the CSA.
The launch is now scheduled to take place tomorrow just after noon hour.
Rendering of the Earth September 4, 2006
I dusted off the raytracer that I wrote back in fourth year university and made a nice rendering of the Blue Marble data set that NASA publishes. It makes quite a nice wallpaper! Download
Our new house! August 24, 2006
It was only two days ago that Meredith and I were reminiscing about our so far unsuccessful attempt to find a house. It's been fun, but after you've seen a number of homes and nothing jumps out at you, it becomes a bit laborious and you start to wonder how long it will take to find something that is just right.
That night we were headed out on a little date night and decided to check out an area of town that we hadn't previously looked in -- Laurelwood. A house had just been listed there, and we thought we'd drive by. It was 9:30, well after dark, but we were in love! What a great neighbourhood! Our warm fuzzies were short lived though... we had been scheduled to see it the next day (yesterday) but before noon hour arrived we were informed that it had already sold! So sad.
As a consolation, we decided to go see a house on the other side of town that had also just been listed. It turned out to be a pretty run of the mill place, but as we were looking through it, our agent got an email on her Blackberry indicating that another house had just been listed on the street we had fallen in love with the night before. It was 12:40 and we needed to get back to work, but we couldn't resist, so we went directly there to see if we could have a tour.
It worked out and we were able to see the house at 1:00. Needless to say, it was love at first sight. We were giggly as we walked up the stairs and saw the master bed room, etc. And the price was quite reasonable. So our agent worked on putting an offer together that afternoon.
In the end, five offers were being made and we had to scramble to figure out whether we were willing to pay a bit more than the asking price. We did, and by the sounds of it we just barely beat out the other couples. Wahoo! Meredith and I are on cloud nine! Thanks Denise! Here's a photo.
As we head into mid-August, I'm getting really excited about the prospect of taking a road trip down to Florida with Graham to watch the next shuttle mission launch. Checkout the above link to see a small image of the NASA mission patch that Graham and his fellow students designed for the mission.
The hope is that we'll be able to watch it go up from the "VIP bunker", only 3 miles away from the launch site.
Kincardine Weekend August 10, 2006
This weekend we enjoyed grandma Mary's famous hospitality at the cottage in Kincardine, and celebrated with Emily and Paul as they turned 23 and 55, respectively.
Ground School July 26, 2006
Tonight was my first class of ground school at the Waterloo airport. I'm taking the 50 hour course for work, but I'm also interested in getting a recreational license... wow, flying. It sounds dangerous, but it would be an amazing thing to learn to do.
Windows Vista July 17, 2006
Here I am, sitting in front of Windows Vista Beta 2 for the first time. She's an interesting toy at this point. Lots of visual polish, decent/good performance, and a myriad of features that I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of. I'm relatively pleased with how different Vista is from XP... I was expecting XP with a different skin, but that's not the case at all. You can tell that a lot of thought has gone into refactoring the UI, protecting the user from the Internet, etc. There have been a few frustrations, but overall I'm impressed.
Atlantic Canada July 7, 2006
Meredith and I are in the middle of our summer vacation: Driving out East to explore the Atlantic provinces. We drove through Ottawa for Canada Day celebrations and then moved on to Quebec City. I have never been East of Ottawa, so even Quebec City was a new experience... I loved it! Better at night than at day. We've now been through New Brunswick and PEI and are in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The odometer is at about 2600 kilometers but we've still got lots of energy to see the sights. What a beautiful country!
Almost a hole in one June 21, 2006
On Monday, dad and I played the creekside golf course in Woodstock. Although it consists mainly of par 3s, I find the pace of play quite enjoyable. It makes for a lot of tee shots, and a good number of reasonable shots at a hole in one. I've started to wonder whether I'll ever get one... the odds aren't great, especially when you rarely hit the green! But I had quite a good night on Monday and actually had two close calls. The first was a tiny 110 yard par 3. I hit my pitching wedge right at it... the ball landed 11 feet in front of the hole and then rolled 2.5 feet past the pin. But the really close call was a 180 yard par 3. I hit my 7 iron; not a pretty shot, but the ball ended up about 1.5 feet directly behind the hole. I have to wonder how it got there: Maybe I even liped out?! Anyway, it was an exciting event and it made me realize that while the odds are slim, it is in fact quite possible.
Vista Wallpaper June 7, 2006
I came across this Windows Vista desktop wallpaper a couple of days ago. It's a really nice, soft grass wallpaper. Download it here.
Buying a new computer May 26, 2006
I've owned the same PC for four years now, and I'm starting to take more notice of those Dell flyers :) I'm sad that CPU speeds haven't progressed very much (given the time span), but I'm sure the latest hardware would still be noticeably faster. A big question is whether to wait for Vista. Part of me thinks that I should wait, but another part of me thinks that it will probably be close to a year before it has finally shipped, and it might be smarter to wait a year after that to buy a PC with it so that the hardware has had a chance to catch up. (Who wants to run an OS that their machine can barely handle?) So maybe a new PC makes sense. I'll definately go for two LCDs -- once you've gotten used to two monitors (work) you feel pretty constrained by one. Media Center is also an intriguing possability.
Postscript: I read up on the mobile version of Core Duo yesterday. Summary: Slightly better performance with slightly better battery consumption... or if you're doing a lot of multi-tasking or using a program designed for more than one CPU, then quite noticeably better performance.
Cottage Construction May 24, 2006
I had the opportunity of spending Saturday down at the cottage to check out the hard work that has been going into the peaked ceiling and loft... it's looking great!
Get this: Lactic Acid is actually a fuel May 16, 2006
After almost a hundred years of misunderstanding, exercise physiologists have discovered that lactic acid is actually a form of fuel used by the muscles, not a caustic waste product. Isn't it fun when we get it so wrong? Here's the article.
Spring sports May 14, 2006
With the beautiful spring weather has come the opportunity to start up the spring/summer sports. I'm playing baseball (lob ball) every Sunday evening with a church team, ultimate frisbee with a work team, and golf with a work group as well. Last Sunday I managed to hit one over the heads of the outfielders which felt great. Woo hoo! :) Today I'm limbering around after having played a long game of ultimate at Columbia Icefields with the Grebel guys. So tired!
Competative, that's me April 23, 2006
Meredith and I were at John-eric and Lindsey's buck and doe last night -- a fun event and nice time to reconnect with Grebel friends. One of the games that had been planned was a clever obstacle course that consisted of ten skips of a jump rope, blowing a tennis ball with a tire pump, doing a puzzle, kicking a soccer ball through some chairs, and then tossing a magnetic dart into the inner most circle of the dart board. It was fun! But it was interesting to watch how competative people could get to achieve the best time. Me included... I was captivated! I love it!
Oprah on the US Education System April 17, 2006
Last week Oprah ran a two part series on the US education system. It was interesting to hear that the US ranked 1st in the world 20 years ago, but has fallen all the way back to 22nd place today. Oprah interviewed Bill and Melinda Gates and it was neat to see another area in which the couple are getting involved. What I like most is that they're not only generous, but genuinely interested.
List your aspirations April 12, 2006
I was checking out Matt Langeman's weblog today and came across an interesting post -- Doing Things. It reminded me of the first reading we had assigned for homework in grade 9 English class that told the story of a man who, when he was a child, tip toed down the stairs one night to overhear a guest describing to his parents many of the unbelievable things he had done. The boy decided to make a daring list of 99 (?) things he wanted to do/accomplish in his life. The article went on to describe some of his amazing successes, and that he accomplished everything but a few items on the list. (Didn't make it to the moon) Inspiring. I remembered that story earlier this year and I've been meaning to start on my own list. See also: 43things.com, and my 99 things.
NOVA program on autonomous driving April 10, 2006
A couple of weeks ago I watched a wonderful NOVA program on PBS that followed several university teams as they built the hardware and software necessary to compete in the Grand Challenge. To succeed, each team had to design a vehicle to traverse over a hundred miles of back country terrain, following a rugged trail that switchbacked through the mountains and looped back around to the starting line... all without a human driver or remote control.
I've always been fascinated by the problem of designing an autonomous vehicle, so I was like a kid in a candy store as I watched. The profiles of the team leaders were also a pleasure. The red team was led by a former military man, while the blue team was lead by a bright, friendly man with a Norwegian accent. I would love to compete in something like this some day. The Terrarium challenge that I competed in a few yeas ago had this sort of flavor to it, but on a much smaller and simpler scale.
Table and Chairs March 29, 2006
A couple weeks ago Meredith and I went to Smitty's Fine Furniture in search of a chair to match our couch. No sooner had we found the chair, I was lured into the kitchen area by a cute little kitchen table and set of chairs. We had both items delivered last Saturday, and we couldn't be happier with them! [photo]
Google Page Creator March 21, 2006
It's fascinating to compare Google Page Creator with the idea of a wiki... they're quite similar in that they both allow web pages to be edited in vivo without having to first download them via FTP. I created a wiki at work that has been really useful for creating and editing documentation, but in the end having to use a bunch of confusing markup is never going to be a great solution for less technical people.
Something that I really like about Google Page Creator is that it limits what you can do. This may sound odd, but when you present a toolbar with 40 buttons to a new user, it's pretty overwhelming. And giving them 40 bells and whistles to play with means that they're very free to make a big mess. Constrain that to headings, subheadings, bulleted lists, and then package that all with a consistant font and colorings, and whala, you have some good looking content.
HDTV + PVR = Wow! March 19, 2006
Last month we upgraded our cable subscription to take advantage of the HDTV capabilities of our TV. Wow! What a difference. A good HDTV feed is jaw dropping.
Playing with the PVR has also been a lot of fun, and allows you to watch what you want when you want. That's a good thing, but to no suprise my TV watching has gone from about an hour a week to at least 7 hours a week :)
Reverse psychology March 17, 2006
Sometimes when I'm faced with a problem, whether it's putting on a golf green, motivating myself to get something done, etc, I use a form of reverse psychology to realize that it's not that hard.
For example, let's say that you want to get to work on time, but you have this nagging sense that it's a very hard thing to do in reality. Turn the problem around and pretend that you're someone saying "I'll bet you $500 dollars that you can't get to work on time". If you were a person making that bet, you'd be pretty nervous, and your mind would provide you with all sorts of insights into just how easy it is for the person to make it to work on time. Now turn the problem back around and use this feeling of "wow, that's actually pretty easy".
Blame It on the sun March 16, 2006
Last night Meredith and I watched Tuesday's episode of American Idol. One of the songs was stuck in my head today, so after work we downloaded the original from iTunes. I love the melody of Blame It on the sun.
New beginnings March 16, 2006
Today I managed to get the basic workings of this website done so that I can add content easily. I'm looking forward to getting back into blogging and using this website as a creative outlet.
