Swype logic

Bizarre and rather dangerous that Swype (gesture keyboard on my phone) keeps inserting the word "pussy" instead of  "post". 

the chattering mind

Woke up at 3am obsessing over a work issue.
Started writing it down, and had to compose it as an email to myself at work.
I hope that will put my mind at ease and I can go back to sleep. Then again, part of me feels like its time to go for a run (its 540am and the birds are starting to chirp). I'm going to overrule that impulse.
Now I'm getting hungry.

sigh.
The day ahead is not promising to be a good one.

Money and power

I've always known that money is power. What I've only just realized (in discussions with my parents) is that money only gives you power to the extent that you can choose who it its worth spending on. If you don't spend it, you don't have power.

posted from Bloggeroid

Addendum: This gives the "debt ceiling impasse" in the USA an interesting angle.

things better left unsaid

Wonder if G+ allows you to "hide" specific posts from a specific person without them knowing...

trapped by our possessions

Owning a house is kinda like owning a pet, housebreaking (ironically) and all:
There's always a chance of an "accident" requiring immediate attention, and you need to make arrangements for it when on vacation.

And the bigger it is, the more room for stuff and features; all the more trapped you are because something inevitably will break/not work as it is supposed to.

Which makes me think that to actually enjoy a fancy house, you need a custodian/gardener/housekeeper/maintenance guy 24/7.

double standard

I understand women often say that size doesn't matter, but nine months later...

why so tough on crime?

after many years of positive reinforcement, it could be that Canadians need (the government) to flex some negative reinforcement muscles.

but I can't help but wonder, since "it takes one to know one", what does that say about parties with a heavy law and order agenda?

commodity oddity

The planet is not able to sustain human life everywhere. Some areas have lots of oil, some lots of water, some lots of gold, some lots of people, some lots of big empty spaces. Commoditization (as much as it rubs me the wrong way) is a way of facilitating the exchange between trading partners who have too much of one thing and not enough of the other, and both (should) come out ahead. If you can't live locally off the land and you can't generate enough of what other people want to trade for what you need, perhaps you simply shouldn't be living there. Unfortunately, that philosophy isn't compatible with the UN philosophies of human rights and anti-poverty campaigns that required when you enforce borders and citizenship. Without commoditization and trade, there is an imbalance, and the resulting feeling of resentment creates political and thus economic stability and we're all worse off. In the end, that means that for the developed world to maintain its lifestyle, it is in our best interest to provide basic needs like water where it is needed, as a form of protection money for us to keep living the way we do. Question is, though, how sustainable can that be?

1. Came across an article that concluded that the human brain was not wired for reading. The brain is naturally wired for moving, speaking, relating, and strategizing, but we have to re-wire our brains to communicate through writing.

2. Schools are to society what fertilizer is to grass: to keep it strong, you have to keep investing in it to prevent the weeds from sprawling.

3. American (and likely Canadian too) politics are won largely by convincing the biggest number of rich people that you can win over the biggest number of peasants.

1+2+3 = Human beings are social animals. Democracy is unnatural.

Ottawa in Wonderland

"It's curious and curiouser,"
Colin Robertson, a former senior diplomat at Canada's embassy in Washington, now a senior fellow with the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute, commenting on recent issues between ottawa and washington:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/clintons-tough-diplomacy-stings-ottawa/article1517805/

Sounds like it might be something out of Alice in Wonderland. Then again, Ottawa's been compared to far worse.

what kind of disclaimer is this?

Seen briefly at the bottom of a TV ad:
"monetary exchange is required for the use of this product"

I wouldn't mind living in a place where that kind of disclaimer is necessary. At least, it would satisfy my curiosity.

on vacation

This is the first time we both take off completely between xmas and new year. Kinda nice to be able to drive around at the speed limit, and watch everybody else whoosh past me for a change, thinking somewhat gleefully they must be awfully busier than me. Is this what retirement feels like?

Could this be your rebox Christmas?

http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/content/column/design/could_this_be_your_rebox_christmas

...the creativity and variety of these Afrigadgets truly inspired me. I also realized that North Americans really weren't giving their 'reduce reuse recycle' brains much exercise.

Hmm. If necessity is the mother of invention, what does abundance breed?

the cultural divide

Was just downstairs in the caf. The lunchlady asked if I wanted onions in my salad to which I replied no thanks (I don't particularly like onions). A rather large man of questionable hygiene behind me said "non, ca fait siffler" (course not, it makes you whistle) and chuckled. It must have been obvious that I didn't understand at first, so both he and the lunchlady repeated it until I figured out that "siffler" might be a euphemism for fart. I really didn't care to eat my lunch at all after that. Even half an hour later I was still unable to shake that vision as I leaned over my takeout container. I wonder that was part of an experiment to test a new commercial diet plan?

(still) life imitating art

We all know what cherry-flavoured cough syrup tastes like. But eating cherries that taste like cough-syrup is a bizarre experience.

almost making the world a better place

Can you imagine how much better the world would be if only engineers knew how to talk so people understand?

who watches the watchmen?

the answering machine at the bank just warned me that my call would be recorded for quality purposes - twice in a row - which leads me to wonder, who assures quality assurance?

programming quality

Don't you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work.
  - Gallagher

what's the frequency kenneth?

my mental song dial is stuck between stations right now; i can tell there are a couple of songs competing in the background noise but its too vague and broken to be discernable. kinda neat.

this is NOT a "coup d'état"

from Google:

(Fr. "strike at the state") the sudden overthrow of a government by a small group.
www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/tignorterms.php

A sudden, decisive exercise of power whereby the existing government is subverted without the consent of the people, in a more or less violent fashion.
arabbox.free.fr/islamaphonia1/Muziq.htm
"without the consent of the people" - that must be why Conservatives are desperately trying to rally Canadians...

a sudden and decisive change of government illegally or by force
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
nothing illegal or forceful about this

A coup d’état (also coup) is the sudden, illegal overthrowing of a government by a part of the state establishment — usually the military — to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup d'état
nothing illegal about this

The sudden overthrow of a government, differing from a revolution by being carried out by a small group of people who replace only the leading figures
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coup d'état
for the record, wiktionary's big sister wikipedia defines it a lot better:
A coup d’état, often simply called a coup, is the sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government by a part — usually small — of the state establishment — usually the military — to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government.
there is nothing unconstitutional about this proposal, unless they go so far as to disregard an unfavorable decision by the Governor General...

So please, if you're ignorant, please feel free to continue calling this a coup d'etat.