One of the curiously difficult parts about changing your career midstream is having experience in life. Most people would consider having life experience to be a good thing but when you are starting at the bottom those experiences sometimes get in the way. My most recent turn at employment reinforced this fact. Life experience has taught me that I don’t deal well with martinets. Perhaps it comes from my stubborn disapproval of authoritarian figure or the fact that I was considered gutsy for not mentioning that I would like time off for a honeymoon and haven’t really forgiven that person or administration. Regardless of the reasons, I do not take well to those who attempt to micromanage my existence especially when I am doing a decent job to begin with.

The common term for someone who watches you looking for something to report is called “pillar peeking.” I don’t really care if someone pillar peeks me since I’m usually working. What bothers me is when the pillar peeking isn’t long enough to determine what is really going on. For example, I got yelled at for not working with ten minutes to go before lunch regardless of the fact that I just completed the task they gave me without really being off of my ladder the entire time (ignore Ontario regulations that state that doing so is really not good for you physiologically speaking) an with at a least five minute walk back to the lunch room via someplace to wash my hands before touching my food. Should we ignore the fact that I was also getting the evil eye for showing up “too late” at the end of the day because I was making sure that everything was locked up because as the highest ranking apprentice on site it fell to me to make sure that stuff was taken care of before I left for the day?

I know this sounds like I’m kvetching about my job but it has now been over a month since I was laid off, a story in and of itself, and I’m still ticked off at the whole situation. I know that I don’t work well under such an employer an no matter what I did to try and mitigate the situation it ended poorly.

This brings us back to the whole life experience thing. People who exist solely in the world of construction simply assume that this guy is an asshole. That isn’t the case. He truly believes that he will get his end of the project done if he enforces a strict discipline on his employees and while he may succeed in finishing throb he will do only that, he will get not one second, not one milliliter of sweat more than is required.

The Inernet is aghast that twitterites exploded into vitriolic racism when Joel Ward scored the winning goal in the Boston/Washington series. I am not. To be aghast would be admitting that I could not believe that people would think the “n word” much less use it in public conversation. I live beside and work in Toronto, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country if not the world. I hear those words, with their pejorative meanings fully intended, on the job site every day. People like to think that in 2012 we don’t use words like that. We do. And there does not look to be any end in sight. The excuse used to justify using these words is that rappers use them all the time. I’m not certain how that justifies terms other than the n word but that is the excuse.

What is probably a far more serious problem is that the people using these word know they shouldn’t be used. The words are said cautiously in new company and softly in public. Higher education seems to mitigate usage of these words but only to an certain extent. The further afield you go from the humanities the more likely you are to encounter them.

I’m not certain what we can do to stop this from happening. Legislating against this use of language has not worked. Condemnation in the media like we see over the Ward cars does not work. Perhaps we need and old-fashioned advertising campaign that lists these words and shows why they are hurtful. I remember growing up with anti-racism commercials brought to me by the government. It might be a good idea to show them again.

Though Valentine’s Day has past there still a certain feeling air that lends itself to amorous intent. Never was this more evident than this evening.

I generally pull into my driveway with a sense of caution. Our back porch serves as a gathering place for the neighbourhood cats. Our darling Sybil was a part of a colloquium one morning. When I opened the door to leave at 5 a.m. a dozen cats, all save one sitting in a circle, stopped what they were doing to give a look that clearly stated that they would be done in a few minutes if I wouldn’t mind waiting. Our loving ball of fluff was happily sleeping away further proving that she really is just a happy little creature with no worries in the world. She was surrounded by dominant males in what was clearly a fairly important meeting and was out cold. Unforgivably I had to interrupt  as my co-workers were waiting for the car pool. I simply told them as much before starting to walk across the porch. A few of them moved out of the way and the meeting continued in my absence.

Tonight I drove up to find a tabby sitting in my parking spot walking a fluffy grey roll around where my back tire rests.  I pulled close and braked expecting the two to scatter. Instead the tabby jumped on fluffy grey grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and, well, you know. I paused.

“Do you mind?” he said with his eyes.

I sighed, turned the car off, opened the trunk, grabbed my bag, closed the trunk and walked to the back porch. His eyes followed me but the expression never changed.

When Kate came inside later she asked me why I left the car in the middle of the freaking driveway. I explained. “That’s so bizarre it must be true,” she said. Accepting my answer she went back outside to move the cars while I ensured that the lima beans did not attack the stove with an army of foam bubbles. Just another night in our household.

As stated before, one of my new year’s goals is to read through a number of books which exist in my library because I really ought to read them at some point. The first book plucked from this collection is Utopia by Sir Thomas More. The text itself is not necessarily the current authoritative one. It was produced in 1964 using the Yale translation by a Jesuit scholar who does let his own beliefs creep into his textual notes.

This entry, however, is not about historiography. I read Utopia with the humanistic desire to be entertained and enlightened. I read the text for the simple sake of reading the text. The fact that I read it at Union Station in Toronto while waiting for transit instead of in the scholarly abode of a library speaks volumes on my desire to engage the text on a scholarly level. Nevertheless, I apparently have some scholastic muscle memory remaining which awakened about two thirds of the way through the book. The following are my thoughts on the book composed in the Dilworthian fashion* of point form bursts that may or may not be connected with one another.

Utopia not so much a critique of European policies and ideas; rather, it is one of the first instances of the “noble savage” in European literature. The land of the Utopians is seperated by the Atlantic Ocean and a massive desert from European civilization. It brings forth More’s point that knowledge, unassisted by European scholastic tradition, can indeed be discovered through the use the natural world and logic. Their “savage” nature is evident, not in their use of warfare since they hire mercenaries, but by their ready acquiescence to European knowledge that is entering their system through visitors.

It is doubtful that the Utopian idea of trade would be able to exist in an actuality because of the rapid devaluation of currency and trade imbalance that exists between them and their neighbours. By overpaying for simple things, simply because they have so much money, they through the economy of their neighbours into flux. Interestingly enough the Utopians, by eschewing proper European notions of commerce, are in fact the ultimate example of a mercantilist economic system. All the monetary resources are being absorbed by the Utopians.

Utopian follow More’s own ideas that women are to be taught but hold no positions of authority or influence.

Living in Utopia is meant to be a compliment, not an insult. More recognizes that the ideas presented in the work will be misunderstood or mocked by mentioning a number of other ideas that follow logic and natural reason in book one. These ideas for the governing of a country would be mocked or construed as hostile by a ruling monarch or his privy council.

Utopia presupposes that humanity is willing to act in accordance to the greater good of the whole over the greater good of the individual. Although the individual is given opportunities to live their own life by giving them certain freedoms, they are still bound by a rigid patriarchal system that controls all aspects of exisistance including the child’s career. In order to change apprenticeships another family must be found that will be wiling to take the child into their family in perpetuity.

The limitedness of possesions is not novel of an idea. In fact, one could make an argument that it coincides quite well with the beliefs in monastic poverty: the group owns the items used by the whole.

*those of you who studied with Dr. Dilworth will know what I’m talking about. His classes are some of those I truly wish I had a chance to repeat now that I’m “all grown up” and can truly appreciate them.

Reading the Amber series has me thinking about our position in the multiverse.

I do believe that there should be two ‘prime universes’ if only by shear mathematics. If multiverses are based off the idea that a new universe is spawned each time someone decides to pick B over A then there must be a place where everyone picks option A and all universes are essentially branches between it and the universe that picks B at every opportunity. A lot of multiverse fiction is based off of the idea that the two sides are science and magic. Within that group most like to believe that we live exclusively on the science end of the spectrum. My problem is that it removes any sort of mystical possibility on our end. I do believe that we’re on the science side of the coin but I don’t think we’re necessarily the prime universe (even though we are close to it). Why?  Because we can dream of magic. If we were truly the prime science universe we wouldn’t spend so much time talking about sparkling vampires. Deep down a part of us wishes that faerie rings were real. By the same token we have people who can dream about the science side so well that we are now living in the future. I could (if I could afford it) have a small box of plastic and metal that can deliver music to my ears, allow me to talk to people over great distances, and have the entire sum of human knowledge at my fingertips.  We are a world that can dream of both ways, both sides. To me, that precludes our being one of those sides. We need to have some small part of the magic side seeping through our collective unconsciousness in order to dream the way we dream.

Edgar Choueiri, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, has developed a way to play true three-dimensional sound recordings over regular loudspeakers, such as those found in televisions and computer laptops.

The technique may one day be used to allow 3D televisions to produce lifelike sound and to help people with certain types of hearing impairments locate noises. Segments of the video above incorporate Choueri’s 3D filter to demonstrate the phenomenon.

Prepare to be amazed by the fact that this works. I have no idea how easy or difficult it would be to implement but I can imagine that it would make for some interesting changes to media as we currently use it. The NFL experience for one would be changed. Imagine being able to hear the quarterback call an audible from his position and at the same time pick out a defensive back or a lineman yelling coverage instructions.

Every now and then Mark Twain delivers a beautiful statement that fits perfectly into life over one hundred year later. In this case, it sums up my professional relationship with the drywallers.

During this big rise these small-fry craft were an intolerable nuisance. We were running chute after chute –a new world to me– and if there was a particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure to meet a broadhorn there; and if he failed to be there, we would find him in a still worse locality, the head of the chute, on the shoal water. And then there would be no end of profane cordialities exchanged.
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi. Chapter XI.

This morning at break the Google Maps bike was at Yonge Dundas square for a photo op/media session. Afterwords a reporter from CityTV asked my opinion on the bike and whether I found it an invasion of privacy. I forgot my cardinal rule with the press — have something prepared the moment you see a camera on the off chance the blighters ask you something — and glibly spoke about how I liked the idea of being on Google Maps because it would make me popular. The following is a far more rational discussion that is far more suited to a blog than a 30 second or less tv spot.

In this age where every Tom, Dick, and Sally has a gizmo capable of capturing a single moment of time — with or without permission, context or purpose — it is failed assumption that we even have an implicit right to privacy. While most commentators worry about Big Brother invading their life and watching their every move, we should be far more concerned with the fourth cousin once removed snapping a pic on his phone. The perfect example is the “sleeping TTC worker” who has castigated by millions for napping during his shift in a booth. We now know that this gentleman was in said booth because he was trying to work while dealing with a condition that ultimately claimed his life. Instead of driving his bus and putting the lives of hundreds at risk he was a brave man fighting for life and dignity who was working with his employer to find some way he could contiue working. Where is the pilloring of the anonymous person who took his photo? Where is the mob crying out for so-called justice now?

Google maps taking my picture is nothing compared to daily exposure I face simply by living in urban North America. The google bike is noticable. If I want to hide my face I can do so with ease. If anything, the photos they take should be archived for future social historians so they can have a glimpse of what today looked like. 

Am I concerned about a camera invading my privacy? I wouldn’t be conducting an interview if I was.