Ode to Bonnie Dee

On the 10th of December, 2013 the world lost a great person. She didn't star in a Hollywood production. She didn't lead an army into battle. Not a famous person at all. But what made her great was that she cared. With a heart bigger than most she was one of the few people that strove to make the world a better place to be. Without a doubt she made a difference in my life.

Born in the Downriver area of Michigan on the 28th of May way back in 1954 she went through life like most of us do, just trying to get by. Growing up in the 60's and early 70's with people protesting war and the loss of a brother made for an open minded caring person.

I remember the day I met her, Timid as doe. She didn't say much to me at first. She was cautious around new people with good reason. My father was about to marry this women and I wasn't sure why. My father had two previous unsuccessful marriages and I was hoping that he wasn't about to rush into another. I was in the army, in Europe, at the time and had shown up for the wedding. My time was short and I hadn't been able to get to know Bonnie.

Upon returning home in 1990 I finally got a chance to build a relationship with my stepmother. Several times she went out of her way to help me out. I can't thank her enough for being apart of my life. She will be surely missed.

Open letter to the City of Calgary

Dear Calgary,

Congratulations on completing ¾ of highway 201. I'm sure it will improve traffic flow for citizens and visitors alike.

I am, however, disturbed by the brainless setup of the interchange between highway 201 and Glenmore Trail. Why are there lights here? Why is this not a clover leaf? The purposes of putting in a four lane highway is to reduce congestion; in case you were unaware.

What you have managed to do is increase congestion on Glenmore. You have industrial areas on either side of the interchange which support trucking companies who pull Long Combination Vehicles. These are nearly half a football field in length and you are requiring them to stop and start which is a slow process to begin with and half of them have to make their way to the left lane to make a left turn because very few will be traveling south.

Stop the madness. Fix this before the area gets too crowded. Please.

Langdon Returns

Robert Langdon, portrayed in hollywood by the charismatic Tom Hanks, is the
Indiana Jones of the art world. His knowledge of symbology is second to none.
In Inferno this is no exception. Dan Brown was brilliant in the way the story
was portrayed. While written in a third person omniscient it was still from
the perspective of sections protagonist. Throughout the book scenes are
repeated letting the reader in on bits of the secret at a time. This was
brilliantly done, leaving the reader as suprised as Mr. Langdon at the
outcome. This adds enough suspense to the story while not revealing all the
secrets that the reader continues to be engaged even though a scene repeats
itself two, three, four, even five times.

While as a story I found it an intriging commentary on the world population
problem. The solution presented, while distasteful, is certianly more
palatable then the those presented in Logan's Run, 1984 or Brave New World.

Unfortunately, the characters are so unbelievable that is distracts from the
story. All of them claim to have the worlds best interest at heart. Humans are
just not that altruistic. Everyone, and I do mean everyone has a selfish
motive for their actions. That selfishness is usually not admitted to publicly
but deep down, you know it's true. I think part of the issue was space. I'm
sure several thousand words were removed from the original work and it
resulted in a rush at the end that left the primary characters feeling a bit
hollow in their final motivations. Possibly, Mr. Brown was on a deadline and
had to rush it out. It seemed like many of Stephen Kings' works as of late.
Big build up and a lackluster ending.

I find this story engaging and satisfing to read, despite my misgivings of
character personalities. I would give it a 7 out of 10.

The Brave New World

I recently finished Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Surprisingly, I was never required to read it high school. Since I didn't spend a lot of time in college it never came up on a reading list there either. Like 1984,  it Disturbed me deeply. Unlike It Can't Happen Here, which was thick with political propaganda, BNW shows something that is fiction but looking where the world has gone since I've been alive. It could be close to reality.

The idea that we would "manufacture" people to be slaves is just disturbing. For some reason I am appalled by this more than putting normal people into slavery. The intentional dumbing down of a person seems awful. I can't help but think that is where we are headed. An article in the Vancouver Sun shows my fears to becoming true. Not allowing students to reach their full potential should be criminal. What Calgary schools are doing is dumbing down society. Alberta will be a population of slaves and left behind because the few people who have the potential don't have the opportunity to be the best that they can be. It seems they want everyone to be the same. A generic pile of blah.

Idiocracy here we come,  "Plants love electrolytes".

Critics are morons

SPOILER ALERT

Just finished watching the final episode of Dexter. While many claim it was horrible. In fact more than one person has complained about the entire eighth season. Claiming that Dexter Morgan has become wishy-washy. When the truth is, in season 8 Dexter thought he could have it all. Dr. Vogal warned him that was impossible.

The flip flopping Dexter performed was the emotional roller coster ride we took with Dexter. Him wanting to believe that he, a confessed serial killer could have a normal life. Season eight was that last desperate attempt to keep hold of both worlds. It finally cumlinated in the final episode when Deb had a stroke. Dexter concludes that everyone he touches gets hurt and decides to solve the problem by driving his boat into a hurricane, never to be scene again.

Personally, I believe that the we the viewers could have gone without the final scene. After all they never mentioned Deb's body being washed up in shore. They could have just left us with the mystery.

The Decline of the PC

The tech press is full of articles on the decline of the PC. The latest whipping boy is Windows 8. People claim that Windows 8's new "Modern" interface is too different and people balk at it. Really? Then why is the iPhone and Android phones so successful?  Their interface is nothing like the desktop counterparts yet people have no problem using them. I honestly believe the problem is convenience. Smart phones come with their own internet connection. A camera and applications to do work. Best of all, it fits in your pocket. The majority of people only need this. For sharing pictures, and communication with others a cell phone or tablet will usually do the job. If you're doing video editing, writing long form or crunching some serious numbers then a larger computer is required.

What the tech community fails to understand is the Windows 7 machines that were sold in the last couple of years do that exceedingly well. And from the business point of view office 2003 still does spreadsheets just fine.  So why upgrade?

Internet delete button?

According to an article in The Register  Eric Schmidt of Google fame suggested that we should have a delete button to fix problems people had as youths. This is just the start of the revisionist history found in 1984. I disagree, they made their bed, now lie in it!

The problem with Sci Fi

This morning as I contemplated getting out of bed, a random thought occurred to me. In 1995 there was a show called Sliders, it used a string theory premise of multiple dimensions. A worm hole could be generated to allow passage between the same space in different universe's. Based on current understanding this should be possible. And of course you have the unlikely possiblity that a grad student would come up with it in his basement.  In the pilot episode said graduate student has some pretty nifty looking equipment that sucks so much power it dims the lights.

Okay, I'm with it so far. It would take an exorbitant amount of energy to create a semi-stable rip in space-time, with me so far? 

What I can't figure out is how a tiny device could randomly generated new worm holes on pen light batteries and why don't they die? 

The power source he uses should be the real story!