Kolas “Functionally” Extinct

The fires in Queensland Australia have burned 80 % of the Kola habitats, they are functionally extinct. It is a combination of deforestation, drought and bushfires, which has led to the destruction of Kola habitat. There is not enough food to sustain them.

Fires and deforestation continue in the Amazon, creating land for cattle and soy beans.

How crazy is it that we live a world that can not sustain Kolas. Of course the larger implication is that we will soon be living in world that can not sustain us – Us as in this house of cards we call civilization.

We have entered the age of the pyrocene. The planet is burning and here in Alberta it is business as usual¹ – supporting the God of Oil and Gas at the cost of the Environment, Education, Unions, Healthcare and anyone who says different just doesn’t understand.It is not the environment that needs protection, it is people than need jobs. Of course not realizing that in the long term it means the same thing.

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1. Land reclamation in Alberta means abandoning gas wells or creating showcase sites that amount to 0.1 % of land actually used. ↩︎

Haze

I woke up this morning to a haze. The sun sits in the morning sky as an orange ball. The air smells of smoke and nothing is clear. My hands smell like smoke after biking to my kid’s school and it only a 10 minute ride. Last year we were treated to air that looked like something out of Bladerunner. Is seems every year there is always a forest fire burning nearby. Two years ago we went camping to the west coast – there were forest fires in the fog zone – an area that is usually wet from the ocean mists – this area never gets forest fire.

This is our world now. Perpetual forest fires, worsening hurricanes, rising ocean levels. But the newly elected premier of Alberta, Jason Kenny tweeted that global warming was the flavour of the month. Meanwhile the Trump administration is neutering environmental policy, much the same way Harper muzzled environmental scientist and limited collection of environmental data. If there is insufficient data, there can be deniability of reality – except for the smoke in the air.

The world is burning and we are responding by sticking our heads in the sand. My son came back from school telling me how all his classmates were freaked out by the sky. At least the kids have the wisdom to be alarmed.

Lost Dog

Today my son and some of the other neighbourhood kids found a lost dog. He came in and asked me what I could do to help. I briefly thought about telling him to ignore the whole situation – I was lying in bed with the flu, so my altruistic tendencies were quiet low. However, I reconsidered since this would be rather poor parenting.

I went outside, to find the 5 or 6 kids gently herding a large, black lab and pitfall cross with a pink collar. She came readily to my calling and was very friendly. Justin, my neighbour from across the street lent me a leash. Other neighbours looked at Facebook for any posts on lost dogs.

The kids and I went up and down the street looking for the owners. The kids were quite helpful telling me that they were sure that this dog belonged to a certain house (nope the dog there was white) or there was a gap in the fence the same size as the dog.

We knocked on a few houses and talked to people in the neighbourhood. I was not sure of all the people in the neighbourhood. We have been in this house since it was built, but there is only one other family left from that time. The dog gave us the excuse to ring doorbells and interact.

Just as I was coming up ways to convince my wife to let me bring this rather large dog inside, my son managed to find the owners. They were not even aware that Sadie had disappeared from the back yard. It was a good day, I interacted with a few people, the kids felt good finally finding the dog’s home and the neighbourhood felt more like a community for a short time.

The Plague of Days

I just started reading “The Plague of Days” by Robert Chazz Chute. This novel is a zombie apocalypse story. But, it starts before the collapse.

North Americans had difficulty telling the difference between wants and needs.
They had more illusions to lose, so they held on to them harder.¹

I was not quite expecting this depth of commentary on our current society. The
main character is autistic with the ability to see auras. Once again not
really something I was expecting with the usual shallow zombie stories.

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1. Chute, Robert Chazz. This Plague of Days Omnibus Edition: The Complete
   Three Seasons of the Zombie Apocalypse Series (p. 34). Ex Parte Press. Kindle
   Edition. ↩︎

DVORAK Keyboard Layout Is Disabled By Gboard

IOs 10 allows for theDVORAK keyboard layout for external keyboards. This had been working for me till today. No matter what tried I could not get the DVORAK layout to work. But, then I noticed that predictive text was not working and the onscreen keyboad would not disappear. I was using Gboard as the software keyboard. As soon as I turned it off, I found I was able to use the DVORAK layout.

Arctic is 36 degrees warmer than Normal

The Arctic is 36 degrees warmer than normal. The Arctic sea ice that forms this time for year is not forming. Levels of sea ice should be increasing – it is not.

I suspect we have hit a point of no return, we just don’t know it yet. The full implications are not really known or understood. The importance of water levels, a productive Arctic and the implications for the rest of the planet in terms of environmental stability and ecosystem health are just not known. We will get a really good understanding of how Arctic Sea ice had affected our climate, in its absence.

Yet, as with all difficult things, governments will stick their collective heads is the sand and pretend that it is not happening. The creation of jobs, pipelines and more flavors of ice cream being more important than protecting the home that we live in. People can not or will not see the danger, because it does not impact their daily lives. But, life goes on as usual until it can’t.

Chinese hoaxes aside the thing about reality is that you can not chant, prayer, ignore or disbelieve it away. Science is our only way of rationally grasping what our limited sense and memory can not integrate. Ignoring reality as measured by our imperfect science is like sticking your finger in your ears and screaming.

Fountain Pens

I have been using a median tip Lamy Safari fountain pen for several years. I enjoy how the pen writes – the easy flow of ink is a delight to see as apposed to the hard push I need for the cheap ball points at work. I also like not having to throw plastic pens away. But, the medium tip flow of the Lamy Safari tends to produce a thicker line than I like. I purchased a fine tipped Lamy Safari. It produced a finer line and my letters were clearer but I always felt that pen was scratching the paper. I missed the smooth flow and writing was not so much fun. But, I persisted with the fine tip until I could not.

The other problem I have with the Lamy Safari series, is that the cap of the pen sits on by friction only. This is not good. There have been several times where the pen has fallen out of my pocket because the cap came off. Unfortunately, the last time this happened, the fine tipped Lamy Safari hit the floor, nib first. It was horrifying. No matter what I did, I could never fix it properly.

So I went on the quest for a new fountain pen. It had to be an inexpensive, because I do not live in a protected work environment. I noticed the TWSBI Eco . Secondly the price is right. Unfortunately was a little higher in Canada specially with shipping and handling. but, Wonderpens is an excellent company to deal with. They are a brick and mortar store in Ontario. Their shipping costs and prices are less than the store in town.

The TWSBI provided a delightful writing experience. The TWSBI medium tip pen creates a finer line than the medium Lamy Safari. I was pleasantly suprised with how the pen flows smoothly along the paper. The ink supply is much much larger than the Lamy Safari and as the body is clear plastic, the remaining ink can be seen at a glance. Filling the ink depot as a matter of priming the pump and then just twisting it all the way up. One concern I have is lubricating the pump when the time comes. The pen comes with silicon grease and a wrench. But the instructions I’ve seen online seem to indicate that this is a trivial matter.

With its smooth flow and secure cap, my current favourite fountain pen is the TWSBI Eco. The Lamy Safari medium tip in a favoured backup.

Udon miso noodles

By Keshava Sabanathan
 • 1 Tbs of miso • 1 Tbs of soy sauce

 • 1 Tsp of rice viniger

 • 1 tbs of honey

 • 1 tbs of oil

 • ½ tsp of salt

 • 2 packs udon noodles

 • 1 bell pepper

 • tofu

 • 1 onion

 • mushrooms

 • 1 shredded zucchini

Put oil in the frying pan. Add all vegetables and tofu. Put in the frozen udon noodles.Cook for 20 min. Stir in the sauce and add salt 

Comparing Dictation from AT2020 Microphone to ipod

I wanted to compare the new Dragon Dictate 5.0 using both the newly acquired AT 2020 compared to just an iPod. I spoke into the AT2020 as I normally would in a quiet room. I then held the iPod from my face and I spoke into it calmly, without any attached microphone. I was quite pleased with the transcription results. I compared the results to the same passage that I typed. I think that I had more errors typing the passage that I actually did have in transcribing the passage, with either technique.

I suspect, the improvement in transcribing is more likely the result of whatever changes in code were made to Dragon Dictate 5. In comparison, Dragon Dictate 4, using the same transcription file from the iPod, had an error rate of 7.1%. So Dragon Dictate 5.0 is truly much more accurate than the previous version and seems much more tolerant of microphone quality. However, the tendency not to show correction windows when appropriate is annoying.

Overall, I think Dragon Dictate five is a better product. I think Nuance was trying to achieve a lot with this version. The application no longer acts as an application but as as a service. It also seems more stable in my machine. Unfortunately, there are times when it does crash. But unlike the previous versions, I seem to be able to use Dragon for several days in a row without having to shut the machine down. In the previous version, the longer the machine stayed on, the more likely Dragon was clinical.I think the programmers also believe that their engine was much better at transcribing than the previous version. While I think this true, I also think the users would’ve been better served by having more choices in the correction window.

Errors from the AT2020

• possessive one’s was missed
• two commas were missed but this was user error – I forgot to speak them
• missed one dash
• spelt 10th as tent
• 3 errors/224 words or 1.3 % error

Errors from the iPod alone without a microphone

• possessive one’s was missed
• , instead of a dash (operator error ?)
• that instead of the bad
• spelt 10th as tent
• and instead of is a
• 4 errors/224 or 1.7% error

Dragon Dictate 4 with iPod alone with a microphone (same transcription file)

• One’s success
• of instead of are
• deeply instead of daily
• convenient instead of good in you
• Completely missed the last sentence: 12 words
• 16/224 or 7.1 %

Life as a Dictater… or Getting Dictation to Work

I have been struggling with Dragon for Mac for a few years.I was ready to quit Dragon after my initial frustration. I could not get the thing to work and I was mad after having payed over $100 for the software. But listening to the sound files I found that the Apple Router created interference with the Dragon headset. Placing the router further away from the computer saved my sanity. Dictation worked well enough but not enough that I would trust it. Besides, I “thought” with my keyboard.

At some point the headset that came with my Dragon software stop working. I upgraded to a Plantronics audio 628 exterior USB headset. It worked fairly well for a number of years. It was better than the original headset that came with Dragon and it was less cheaply made. But transcription never worked as smoothly as I thought it could. Afterc listening to the Mac power users, I was sure I could to better. One of the hosts , David Sparks had dictated serveral books. What was he doing that I was not .

I finally read the book by Monica Leonelle: “Dictate your book”. But I never quite believed it. I always thought that my Plantronics headset did a good job in terms of rendering sound. Then I listened to an interview Monica Leonelle on the Creative Pen Podcast . That gave me the impetus to replace the headset with an AT 2020 condenser microphone.

It has made an incredible difference in how smoothly the dictation occurs. My words seem to flow much faster and smoother. I no longer have to distrust my software quite as much. The equipment that I used:

• AT 2020 XLR version
• Blue icicle XLR to USB converter
• Dragon for Mac 5
• Microphone boom arm

The next mental hurdle is getting over the ingrained habit of thinking with the keyboard.