Mental Trackmarks
studying the visible trail of mainlined ideas

It is a funny twist of fate that leaves me with only twenty songs at my fingertips. Fate proves herself to have a cruel sense of humour when sixteen of those songs belong to a relaxation CD filled with new-age-whale-song-is-not music. The remaining four songs are

• Young Flare by Smothered in Hugs (currently playing)
• Passmore Radio by Smothered in Hugs
• Die Trying by ... wait for it ... Smothered in Hugs
• and Boneyard by Boxer the Horse

Because I am home from work and feeling like a well used handkerchief I am not filled with a great deal of energy. In fact, I am sitting with a laptop and a remote control that allows me to select from the aforementioned twenty songs. If I am not careful I end up listening to the rather ironically named relaxation music. I am now coding (when I am not writing this post) in 14:07 minute segments. If I work for longer I risk listening to music that makes me relaxed and nauseous at the same time.

I am now experimenting with variations in order and volume of the four songs to see if any allows me to create better code. Although somewhat befuddled by the September-goin'-back-to-school flu I do believe that this is going to be the best code that has ever been written in the recorded history of mankind. In my estimation, Smothered in Hugs and Boxer the Horse are the two best bands in the word when it comes to music in the background (and sometimes foreground when I get carried away with the volume) when writing software.

AAAAARRRRGG. I took too long to write this. I am listening to a whale bitching about his long swim to the feeding ground this year. Must ... find ... remote.

How did that happen? In the most obvious mixture of things that I like to come along in years I have remained stunningly ignorant. If Neil Gaiman was given the job of writing the Princess Bride (with more scary stuff that is less cartoon-ish) he would have come up with Stardust. Apparently, he took the job ten years ago. I missed that.

I like what he writes (a bit heavy on the supernatural for my taste but I always find myself brought around to his stories) and have since I read Good Omens, his collaboration with Terry Pratchett who is significantly less supernatural and significantly more satirical (albeit a bit silly in the doing--and I mean that in the best possible sense). So I am reading my way through Gaiman's catalogue and I bloody well miss Stardust.

Next, if you were to tell me that (like the Princess Bride) Stardust was made into a movie I would have been startled because I had not heard of Stardust (see the previous paragraph where I am an idiot) and I would not have cared. Then you would have told me that I should go and see it because it has a great cast. Pshaw I would day. Movies can have great casts and stink (I am still smarting from seeing Ishtar--there will be no link lest you find it too easy to learn more about the movie, become curious, and then watch it). Then you would tell me that Stardust is a love story. Thus knells the final bell at the funeral of the last hope of me going to see the movie.

Of course then you would tell me that it is based on a Neil Gaiman book and I would rush out and rent the movie and write this post.

The comparison to Princess Bride is (I think) fair but Stardust is a different movie. I will not bore you with whether the movie is better than the book because I still have not read the book. I will. It takes a good writer (screenwriter, director, actors, crew, etc.) to take a true-love-forever tale and make it new, particularly using many of the same conceits (see definition 5--of course I am likely personally guilty of most of the rest of the definitions) that have been driven into the ground by years of authors attempting to take a true-love-forever tale and making it new.

Summary: it is a good movie; watch it with your partner; how did I miss it?

I love this headline from the PEI version of the CBC: Corridor Resources suspends fraccing at Green Gables. Of course the term "fraccing" is defined in the article as "fraccing, where high-pressure water breaks up rock deep in the well in an effort to free up the gas." This is all lovely except that everybody knows that the correct spelling is "fracking" and the (true) definition makes the headline far more amusing.

May the headline writer know what he did and get a well-deserved promotion.

Time to start writing a little more. I am sure I have lots to say but mostly I saw this video and loved it. It is an animated version of Code Monkey and I love it.

On another topic ... I cannot wait for Max Payne.

I had an enjoyable conversation this weekend that eventually worked its way around to the relationship between the consumer and the seller. The discussion was unfortunately brief (my fault--I was far too tired) but did get me thinking about the effect "globalism" has had on the act of buying good s and services.

If a person lives in an area that is served by a single store then that person will, of necessity and familiarity, build a relationship between himself and the storekeeper. This was not so uncommon fifty or sixty years ago. I can remember my father telling me stories of the various corner stores of his youth. Even me, in younger days, can remember the store that was across from the school I attended and the store down the street from my home. Fast forward a decade or five and the landscape has changed from the captive consumer in a single-source world to worldwide selection laid out at the feet of consumers by sellers trying to be globally unique.

It is hard to have a personal relationship with a faceless supplier at the lowest price. My question (if, indeed, it is a meaningful question) is whether the relationship between buyer and seller matters beyond the financial advantages of having the relationship.

As an example, I buy quite a few books. I prefer to buy my books at a reasonably small (and I think great) bookstore in a strip mall in Cornwall. I like the guy who owns the store and he knows me well enough to suggest some books and occasionally have a chat about various and sundry topics. I buy a lot of books from him. I would like to buy all of my books from him but I do not because when I desire a book he does not have he must order it. He cannot order it cheaper than I can buy it at Chapters or Amazon. And I get discounts and rewards from the online sellers. They want my business too and try to make up for it by appealing to my sense of value. They also (facelessly) suggest books that I might like (often because other people similar to me like those books as well) and allow me to write reviews and lots of other activities that attempt to mimic the relationship I get from my local store. It does appear that some people are beginning to demand the perks of a long-term personal relationship with their sellers. Everybody wants to have the entire bar yell out "Norm" when he walks into his watering hole.

And there it is--the big guys try to be everything the little guys are and they are quite successful. Local stores contribute to the community ... and so do large corporations. Indigo just donated large amounts of money to local schools--that has to be a good thing, right? So, what is the argument to "buy local"? Wait, don't yell at the screen ... it was rhetorical.

The problem with "buying local" is that for most commodities (be flexible with the word commodity, okay?) the immediate cost of buying local is higher than buying global. Buying books is an example of this. If you consider food to be a commodity (I do not but many do) then the cost of purchasing food at the Mega-Super-Food-Depot is cheaper and easier than trundling out to the Farmer's Market early enough to get the limited supply of produce. Clothing is cheaper at Mega-Mart (as are many other things). Oil changes are very efficient at Super-Fast-Oil-Change-Place and so on.

If the immediate cost of buying local is higher (and I argue that the cost is higher, particularly when factoring in the convenience of purchase at a central location like the aforementioned Mega-Super-Food-Depot and Mega-Mart) then there must be some other argument for buying locally. Some of these arguments are also immediate: the food at the Farmer's Market is of a higher quality and the experience of going to get it is very pleasant. Many of the arguments tend toward the longer-term and (ironically) global reasons.

Locally grown food does not have to be transported as far and the timeliness to market permits the food to ripen more fully. Food varieties not well suited for travel can be grown and brought to market without the worry of their destruction on a truck. Some of the techniques for producing goods in other countries may involve practises that a local consumer may find offencive. Safety standards, child labour, and pay rate come to mind. The aforementioned shipping of goods is becoming more expensive and the environmental cost is being recognized. With low cost being the overriding discriminator, the quality of goods will often suffer (in addition to the possible shady production methods). And all of this production can be done without the seller ever having to look into the face of the consumer and accept the judgement for a good or poor product.

For me, the reason to buy locally is the ability to have a seller be responsible for the product being sold. I like knowing that my money is staying in the region but I must admit that this is a secondary benefit. Similarly the ecological and moral benefits are secondary. I would like to take credit for having a wider view of the world but I, and I suspect many others, remain quite self-centred when it comes to buying goods and services. I believe I can get better quality when I am able to hold the provider accountable for a good or service. When quality and accountability do not matter (a generic good from a reputable provider) my decision to buy locally must be based on the secondary benefits of local purchase and often a choice between cost and secondary benefits must be made. I do not always choose the secondary benefits.

One reason I do buy locally when I have the option of buying something cheaper from elsewhere is the relationship I have established with a local supplier. Sometimes it is just worth it to buy locally just to ensure that the option to buy locally is around for later. I want my (and I consider it mine) bookstore to stay around because I want to be able to go there and buy good books. I want the Farmers Market to remain open because I want to buy good produce. In the end it is selfishness that makes me want to establish a personal relationship with the people from whom I purchase goods and services. I get accountability and responsibility from the seller and they get my gratitude and the possibility of referral business. Even if it costs me a little extra, it is a good trade.

I do not appear to have much that is original to say these days. I may write up a bit about the trustee election; but, as time passes, I find that the entire process is an experience but not a particularly interesting one. I will leave this post with a very beautiful (as in "how much time would it have taken him to achieve this level of control" beauty) clip of a guy moving a crystal (or glass or polycarbonate) ball.

It has been a while since I have had a chance to post a little pop-culture. You may be of the opinion that anybody who simply mixes two songs together and calls it art is not in the premiere league of artists; if it is done well (as in the mash-up of "Sweet Dreams are Made of Seven Nation Army" below -- here is a link to the mp3) I figure it deserves consideration. My 80s heart loves the Eurythmics and Annie Lennox's voice is wonderful. The White Stripes are a good reincarnation of the 1980s in a lo-fi way. I say the mix works.

Here is another example; it mixes a video of folk dancing with a Run DMC song ("It's Like That"). The dancing is reported to have been taken from www.dancilla.com--I could not connect to verify this. Still, it is good mix.

UPDATE: This article from Science News agrees with my notions but it uses facts gained by doing MRIs on people driving in a simulator (and the author even reserves a special place in hell for multitasking drivers).

If there was a single idea or phrase that was drilled into me when I was a child it was "any job worth doing is worth doing right." There is my work ethic. This does not mean that I work all of the time; it just means that I take some pride in the fact that most of the jobs I undertake end in a way that makes me feel good about what I have done.

To ensure that I feel like I have done a job well is to give it my attention when I am doing it. I try very hard not to "multitask." I am not a computer. My brain does not operate on the same principles as the increasingly powerful processors that are used to control cell phones, automobiles, and personal computers. Even in these processors the switch between tasks is not free (in some it is quite expensive--even discounting the amount of human effort that it takes to ensure that task switching is appropriate). As a human, my brain is not "wired a certain way" and I cannot "multitask." These are analogies and they are only useful if they hold some semblance of truth. Just because a modern processor is capable of multitasking does not mean that a human is capable of the same thing because computers have a central processing unit and humans have a brain and these things are similar. In fact, it was the CPU-is-a-brain analogy that helped people understand computers in the first place, not the other way around.

But the dream of being able to do many things at the same time (with the unstated benefit that all of the things can be done without degrading the quality of any of the tasks) that has come from the equating of a brain with a CPU is a fallacy. We are humans and our brains are not CPUs.

The opening quotations from "The Autumn of the Multitaskers" in The Atlantic would give one the impression that modern man expects multitasking to be the norm and ancient man was only capable of doing one thing at a time.

I think your suggestion is, Can we do two things at once? Well, we’re of the view that we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
—Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, June 2, 2004 (Armitage announced his resignation on November 16, 2004.)

To do two things at once is to do neither.
—Publilius Syrus, Roman slave, first century B.C.

The article goes on to suggest that the multitasking of modern man is more of an illusion that is leading to a lower quality of work being done and a great waste of effort in switching between individual tasks. I agree. Is it really so bad to admit that a human being is unable to simultaneously manage the stimulus input from more than three sources at the same time? Maybe DaVinci would have been just as talented if he had been composing a sonnet while painting the Mona Lisa and building a water screw at the same time. But, again, I doubt it. It is possible to be variously talented and not employ all of the talents at the same time. Worse still, we should not be ashamed that we are unable to be simultaneously talented.

I continue to hear how people are proud of their ability to do many things at once. I even "failed" a job interview because I suggested that I was a very good planner and preferred to do a single task instead of trying to do many tasks at the same time. That is what my interviewers wanted. And the truth is that some people are better at this than others. There are thousands of people who think that they can drive a car and talk on the telephone ... and shave or put on makeup ... and have a snack ... and listen to the weather. With any luck they will be able to have just enough energy to dial 911.

What is wrong with doing a job well? The expectation of increased productivity resulting from less attention to individual tasks is a dangerous fallacy. Humans work better when they concentrate on a task. Humans need rest. We invented computing devices to do the unending menial tasks for us. We even made the devices able to do more than one task at a time. This was supposed to give us the chance to be more human with time for loftier pursuits, not make us jealous for the abilities of the machines we created.

I have spent the last few days working to be a candidate for the upcoming trustee election. This has meant getting people to nominate me for the position and then submitting the nomination papers and some personal information to the electoral officer for Zone 10 in the Eastern School District (where my children go to school). If you need to know your school district and zone you can use the Elections PEI District and Zone Locater.

Taking a quote from the election notice above,

The role of the school trustee is to oversee the work of the boards and ensure that standards and regulations are met. Trustees represent communities, participate in school board decisions and contribute to student achievement through the development of good public policy.

I have created a site where I can discuss school board issues and the upcoming election. This election is very under-represented in terms of voter turnout. We are hearing a lot about the school system; a school trustee has a voice in the operation of our schools. Make the effort to go out and vote and then make your views known to the people you elect to guide our children's education.

Money cannot buy happiness but apparently it can make you hurt less. Adding to the list of things that suck about being poor is the fact that chronic pain is a (statistical) consequence of poverty, at least in America. It makes sense that menial jobs would lead to more repetitive strain injuries but finding that people making less than $30k spend one day in five in pain is a bit of a shock. It is almost insulting that those above $100k, on top of being in pain much less, seem to welcome the pain as a result of exercise.