This is a test

I will be away for the next couple of weeks and, more importantly, away from land-based computers so I must resort to submitting "core dump" posts by email.

This is the first time I have ever tried this hence the test. Let me know if you didn't get this.

Starting Monday I will be crewing the ST LAWRENCE II from Kingston (L Ontario) to Port Dover (L Erie) and back. The first leg will be pretty light vrew-wise (6) so I'm praying for good weather and winds with any East component.

Going up the canal will be a challenge too. Still, wouldn't miss it.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

What Team Are You On?

In his book "Think Like a Champion" Donald Trump talks about the time, just after his show The Apprentice first aired, when Tom Brokaw tapped him on the shoulder and thanked him for the success of The Apprentice. Tom Brokaw did this, Trump says, because he is a team player, and NBC was his team, as was Trump. They were both on the same team.

This story got me wondering: What team am I on? It is a fact of human nature that we all want to belong to some group, either formally or informally. This is why there are countless clubs, associations, societies, yes even teams in the world. So what group do I see myself in?

In my work life I belong to my immediate work team; but I also belong to the department and company teams.

In my personal life, the smallest team I can belong to is the husband and wife team. But I also belong to my immediate family, my extended family, my church family. Beyond that it's a little harder to think of my city, province, country ... dare I say the human race? as my team.

The real question is: How big do you think? Do you think only in terms of the people you interact with? Or do you think in terms of a much larger community, perhaps your nation?

When people think in terms of, for example, their tribe/caste/race, it is easy to view members of other tribes/castes/races, but of the same nation, as enemies who deserve to be wiped out or enslaved. Their welfare is not your concern.

I believe the only correct answer to the question "What team am I on?" is "The Human Race". Can I think that big? I hope so. I shall certainly strive to. Will you join me?

Marriage

Apropos of nothing, except that I attended a wedding yesterday ...

It occurred to me that when people talk about a marriage breaking down or a broken marriage, it is not really the marriage, per se, that is the problem, and certainly has nothing to do with the institution of marriage. It is the two people in the marriage that is the problem. Either they have stopped caring, stopped trying, or grown too far apart. In short, they have stopped working on their relationship and are thinking of themselves as individuals rather than part of a whole.

A relationship (and marriage is just a formalized and sanctioned relationship), like any other living thing in the universe, requires work to maintain and grow. If you stop feeding a pet it dies. If you stop watering a plant it withers. If you stop ... what? ... to a relationship it dies. That is the question isn't it? What is the analog of feeding and watering for a relationship? What kind of things does one do to maintain and grow a relationship? Unfortunately, it is not that simple. A relationship is an enormously complicated thing, and the particular needs of a relationship will vary with the relationship. I can not give you any prescription. You must figure yours out for yourself - that's if you still care about the relationship, of course.

One primary ingredient, though, is communication. There must be open and honest communication between you and your partner. Once you have that, other needs of the relationship will make itself known.

35 Steps to Achieving Your Goals

I've always wanted to do a "47 Ways To ..." list. Trouble is I could never come up with 2, maybe 3 on a good day, of any list. Well, things are about to change! I have been thinking long and hard on not just goal setting, but goal achieving. What does it take to actually achieve your goals and have come up with a good-sized list.

How many times have we heard that just by writing down your goals you are a bazillion times more likely to achieve them? But, of course, that advice doesn't go far enough; it has been truncated. The missing part is what I want to write about in this post. But, for completeness I will present the entire process, including the first:

1. Write down your goals.

Most of us know this already but do we know why this is the most important step? Because most of us will believe what is written more than what is heard. The written word has a sense of permanency, a sense of legitimacy.

On the practical side, if it's written down you won't forget it. That's why students, reporters, doctors, and others take notes. Until we get the 16TB implant in our brains, paper and pen is still the best way to help remember things.

2. Create an action plan.

Ho hum... Most of us have seen this one before too. If your goal is the destination, your action plan is the map with your route high-lighted, like the Trip TIK's you can (still) get from the local CAA (or AAA for those south of the border). If you're too young to remember Trip TIKs think of them as the paper version of Google Maps Driving Directions (Map view). Like your goals, the action plan must also be written down to be really effective.

Still with me? Good, 'cause here come the steps that most people leave out when talking about achieving goals. They are crucial but actually super easy to understand and remember. So easy, in fact, I don't even need to write any explanation for any of them. You will note, though, that some of them are identical and I would say "how observant". The important thing, though, is the order. You MUST do them in order.

So, without further ado or, indeed fanfare, here are the remaining 33 steps:

3. G
4. e
5. t
6.  
7. o
8. f
9. f
10.  
11. y
12. o
13. u
14. r
15.  
16. a
17. s
18. s
19.  
20. a
21. n
22. d
23.  
24. d
25. o
26.  
27. s
28. o
29. m
30. e
31. t
32. h
33. i
34. n
35. g

That's all.

"It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich -- these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it."

-- Samuel Clemens The Autobiography of Mark Twain

There is a fine line between believing in your dreams and believing your dreams. In the former you believe that your dreams can become a reality. In the latter your believe your dreams are already reality; has already happened.

Most of us have probably experienced the power comes with the words "I believe in you". If someone, especially someone you looked up to, came up to you and said those words to you, you instantly become more confident, stand taller, have more determination to work through whatever challenges are facing you just so you do not let them down. Analogously, saying those words to your dreams give them the same power, so to speak. You give them validity.

The problem is, of course, that if you believe something has already happened you will not put any effort into making it happen.

Is God a simulation?

At the end of my previous post I said

"...in order to determine whether our Universe is a simulation either we must leave this Universe, or the Super programmer must enter it. I'm quite certain the former is not possible and can say nothing about the latter..."

Having thought about it a bit I believe I can, after all, say something about the latter; i.e. whether or not not the Super-programmer can enter our universe, and I believe the answer is "yes". Since we are, by definition, part of his universe he should be able to interact with us.

As an analogy, think about the popular Sims games. In these games the user control their characters' actions. But when not being controlled the characters (the Sims) seem to have a mind and personality of their own and can basically go about living their own lives. They will sleep, eat, go to work, wash, go out with friends, even die. In short, they pretty much live a "normal" life in their universe. The only difference between the Sims universe and the one we live in is a quantitative one: number of sims, complexity of the sims, the "artificial intelligence" of the sims, etc. Fast forward 50 years when our computers are 33 million times as powerful as they are today. How much more complex a "universe" do you think we can create?

As for the programmer interacting with the Sims? That's easy. You "inject" whatever you want to say into the Sim's "consciousness" (ever read "Conversations with God"?), or you create an "angel" to deliver your message. Or you locally change (or disable) the laws of physics to enable some event to happen - in short you create "miracles" for your Sims.

Perhaps the feeling

Life would be so much easier if only I had the source code.

isn't that far off base.

The only thing I don't like about this scenario is that it begs the question: Is the Super-programmer's universe in turn a simulation? And if so, how many layers of simulations are there? Is there, ultimately, a "real" universe? Who or what create that? Or does it, like fractals, go infinitely deep?

The mind boggles. Is this any harder to believe that the simple answer: "God created the Universe"?

Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Stop the Universe, I just want to check that computer over there...

Heard what I consider to be a truly novel idea last night on Discovery Channel's "Through the Wormhole: Is There a Creator?" The concept is not a particularly new one: that our Universe is, in fact, a simulation in some super (an entirely inadequate adjective) computer being run by a super (even more inadequate adjective) programmer, much like the Sims games. The justification (not sure I would even call it a theory) is a juxtaposition of Moore's Law and the, for lack of a better word, "grainyness" of simulations.

Moore's Law says that computing power would double roughly every 12 to 18 months. Actually, Moore originally, in 1970, spoke only of the number of transistors that could fit on a chip, and he predicted a doubling every 12 months (which was later revised to 24 months). Though Moore spoke only of the number of transistors, others have applied his Law to other areas, such as memory capacity, storage capacity, even the number of pixels on a display or in a camera.

So, while not new, Moore's Law does tell us that in, say 10 years, computers will be 30 times more powerful (if we use the more conservative 2 year doubling period) and in 50 years they will be 33 MILLION times as powerful. Can you imagine what kind of programs we could run with that kind of computing power?! We must be careful, of course, not to take these predictions too seriously since 50 years is a LONG time in the electronics business and we all know how difficult it is to predict things even 5 years down the road. (I can't even predict what I'm going to have for lunch tomorrow.) The point is that if in our own near future computers could become more powerful than the human brain, is it unreasonable to suppose there could exist a computer that is so powerful that it could simulate a universe as complex as our own?

The other part of the justification for the simulated Universe proposal is that a common characteristic of all simulations is that as one zooms in on any artificial construct, an image, for example, one reaches a point where one begins to see the "pixels" that make up the image. (We conveniently ignore fractals.) One reaches a level of detail where the basic building blocks become visible. The proposal says that we are now beginning to see the building blocks of the Universe in the form of quarks and the other sub-nuclear particles: that their existence points to the Universe as a simulation.

As I said, a novel idea.

I'm not sure how I feel about this yet but take comfort in the proposition that in order to determine whether our Universe is a simulation either we must leave this Universe, or the Super programmer must enter it. I'm quite certain the former is not possible and can say nothing about the latter, so as far as I'm concerned the question does not exist.

...

Now, what am I going to write about today...

Is it really "free"?

You know what really ticks me off? Someone sends you an email that looks interesting, and offers you a "free" report. From the title you think "That sounds like it might be useful - probably not, but you never know." So I click on the link and, lo and behold, there is a short video on the landing page that tells me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except to direct me to enter my email address to receive the report.

Now, I wasn't born yesterday, and have actually fallen for enough of these to know that over the next few days or weeks, I am going to get inundated with "follow-up" messages promoting other "useful" stuff that they know I will need and want.

I am sorry, but that does not meet my definition of "free". If what you are offering me is so great, I should be beating a path back to your site, and not have to be enticed back with "follow-up" messages. If your offering is not what I need at the moment, I DO NOT WANT TO BE PESTERED! Don't act like the salesperson we all dread: the ones that stick to you like gum on the bottom of your shoe the minute you walk in the store.

If you truly have a free offer, great! Give it to me (without expecting anything in return, including my email address) and go away. If you have what I need I will be back. Keep pestering me and I definitely will not be back.

By the way, I just "discovered" trashmail.net, a free service that lets you create disposable email addresses. It seems to be based in Germany and seems like a great idea for just these kinds of "free" offers. Unfortunately, I went to sign up and haven't received my confirmation email yet, so I can not report on their effectiveness, but I definitely like the idea.

How do you tip?

My wife and I have had a long-standing disagreement about whether it is better to leave a tip on the table, or add it to the bill. (Note that I am not touching the question of whether one should tip at all. Most wait staff make so little salary-wise I have no problem adding to the pot.) There are pros and cons for both sides and things seem pretty evenly matched. The major points are:

I think that adding it to the bill is just simpler. Besides, who carries cash around these days? Heck, you don't even need cash for Tim Horton's anymore!

My wife feels that leaving it on the table ensures that the waiter/waitress gets the tip. Of course, that may not happen if he/she doesn't clear her own tables.

Well, guess what? I am changing my mind, but with a twist. The other night we were out for dinner (New Year's Eve, in fact) and the waitress we had was just super. She had a genuinely happy smile and a "Happy New Year" for everybody. She made sure all her customers knew who she was and what she was doing about their order any time she walked by. If there was a delay she made sure the customers knew that she knew and was looking after it. In short she made the whole experience a very enjoyable one.

It occurred to me after we finished that neither adding the tip to the bill (even a generous one), nor leaving it on the table would do. This woman had to be personally acknowledged. So, from now on, any one who deserves a generous tip will also be thanked personally.

I am SO full

The other day my wife and I were in a local Tim Horton's (coffee and donut shop for you non-Canuks) with our great niece ("great" as in "daughter of a niece", who also happens to a great little girl) and I happened to look up to see, on the wall beside us, a poster imploring people to make the right nutritious choices when picking foods. It hit me, at that instant, how blessed we are to be living in a time and place where such choices are not only possible, but are taken for granted, like the air we breath. (Yes, it did also seem incongruous to have such a poster in a donut shop, of all places.)

I don't know what the correct statistics are but I would hazard a guess that 70% of the world's population do not have such choices. And I'm not just talking about rural China or Uganda or Afghanistan. There is a significant proportion of our own communities who ask not whether they've had enough carbs (or fiber or protein) today but whether they'll get any food at all today.

My intention here is not to make you feel guilty if you are one of the fortunate ones who have never felt the pain of hunger or the despair of no foreseeable way out of the hole. Your situation is what it is. It is not the issue. What I do want to do is to remind you that there are people who need help, and perhaps you are the one who can help.

I do not say you "owe" anyone anything. I do not even say it is anyone's "duty" to help, but you and I were put on this Earth for a reason and perhaps it is to help others, perhaps not. You must look within yourself to see what your life's purpose is. But while you're doing that, would it hurt to take a bag or two of groceries down to the local food bank or shelter? (If you don't know where your local food bank is drop them off at any local church. They'll know what to do with it.)

We need to work off some of that Christmas turkey, anyways, so why not haul a couple of bags of groceries to people who really need it. It'll do us both some good.

Process and (or is that "versus") Results

Sometimes I worry about my retirement years. Not about whether we'll have enough money to maintain our lifestyle (maybe even somewhat enhanced), but how long it will be before my wife either kills me or kicks me out of the house. (Actually, I'm only half kidding: she won't actually kill me - she couldn't even kill spiders, which she despises more than anything in this world, but she may very well kick me out of the house.)

See, we were both in our 30's when we met and married, so we were pretty much set in our ways. She has her ways of doing things and I have mine and we don't always agree. And most of the time we're each convinced ours is the only and correct way.

Don't get me wrong; we work wonderfully well together for the important things, but for little everyday things like making lunch we'll have a fight over. She prefers that things are cleaned up after each step so there's no "mess" at all. I prefer to get the job done first and clean up afterwards. (If you walked in the kitchen when I'm preparing a sandwich you could not be faulted for thinking I was preparing a 3 course meal.) In my mind the end result is the same: a clean kitchen, and it is the end result that matters. To my wife, the process is just as important.

After 20+ years of marriage I have finally come to realize (yes, I'm a slow learner) that it is far better for me to stay out of the way (and feel guilty about not helping) than to stay and have a small skirmish. After all, it is the end result that matters and my guilty feelings is a small price to pay for peace. Besides, the guilty feelings are completely my issue and is something I can work on.

How does this make sense?

Just read in the Hamilton Spectator this morning that city staffers are proposing that HSR fare increases be tied to property tax increases. My first reaction to this was "What does HSR fares have to do with property taxes?" As far as I can tell they are totally unrelated (or should be).

What's worse is that this is being proposed as a convenience for the councillors so they don't have to debate fare increases ever again! I'm sorry but that is unacceptable. Hamilton has apparently made poverty reduction a priority, but seem happy to automatically add to the burden of those most affected just so a bunch of politicians do not have to decide whether a fare increase is justified and can feel good about themselves because they're no longer arguing.

The article also says that "it will be the first policy of its kind in Canada". I can only say there's probably good reason no one else has thought of doing this: It makes no sense and is irresponsible! Being first is not always a good thing.

Granted this policy is only a proposal for now and Council must still vote on it. I just hope they vote the right way.

I Love Google Maps

Just found out today that another great feature has been added to Google Maps: The ability to find foreclosures in any neighbourhood in the USA (sorry Canada). I have no idea how long this feature has been available but I only found it today.

Here's how: Zoom in to any neighbourhood within the USA (yes, even Puerto Rico), click on the "More" box in the top right corner, then click on the checkbox next to "Real Estate". This will populate the sidebar with all for sale listings (but not including foreclosures). To get the foreclosures click on the checkbox next to "Foreclosure" in the Listing Type criterion (see screencap above), and voila! You can also refine your search by the number of bedrooms, the number of bathrooms and size in square feet.

Whether you're a real estate investor or just looking to purchase your own home, this is another great tool to help with your research. To get a closer look at any property, any where in the country, all you have to do is zoom in to get the Streetview view. Saves a lot of time and gas not having to drive around!