Will phasing-out coal fired plants prove measurably worthwhile from a health standpoint?

It is my contention that claims originating from a summary of research published by the Pembina Institute regarding a connection between positive health benefits from phasing-out coal will prove mostly unverifiable at best as coal-fired plants are phased-out: "an accelerated phase-out would bring nation-wide health, climate and economic benefits."

Even if every province were to install sensitive air monitoring equipment in some grid fashion at fifty kilometer intervals, and collate the nature of each and every hospital visit according to proximal relationships, finding a direct correlation between burning coal and ill-health would still likely prove difficult in my opinion. The way I see it, in a nutshell, such an approach is not unlike telling someone who has spent twenty years of their life working around dry-cleaning chemicals that their breathing difficulty is solely the result of their cigarette smoking habit.  

While it's been no secret for many years that coal related pollution is problematic in many ways, to nobly vilify emissions as having a direct impact upon the general health of a given population is somewhat ridiculous within the context of an industrialized world filled with all manner of perilously harmful toxins. 

Albeit that my position was formed prior to even reading the material, my general suspicions were at least partly confirmed by the disclaimers found in the appendices of the report. Though the contributors admit their estimates surrounding perceived health benefits are conservative, they also point-out that the data used to arrive at their premise borders upon being hair-brained. From the report:

The correlation between air contaminants and health impact may not be as linear as this analysis suggests.

As an academic nobody it is not my intent here to even attempt to properly refute the researchers' scientific methodology, but to encourage a more balanced and less politically motivated analysis of the relationship between particulate emissions and overall health. I say either narrow down a direct relationship, or abandon it altogether before championing inconclusive findings as an argument to speed-up the dismantling of livelihoods and prosperity.

Would not a tripling in the cost of residential electricity bills as a result of abandoning coal-fired power ultimately do more indirect harm to the average person's health than even living close to and downwind from a steady stream of particulate matter? In other words, it's hard to maintain good health if one is perpetually stressed-out about an electric bill biting into a basic food budget.

Would it not make more holistic and economic sense to vigorously pursue improved methods of efficiency relating to a proven, reliable, and affordable method of generating power that is already in place?

Idaho, Here I Come!

I wanna move to Idaho in 2021 or 2027.

https://soundcloud.com/richmath/long-black-cape

Powerful Fashion Statement - Electrifying Solar Garments

From pocket calculators and wristwatches to roof shingles and roadways, the integration and permeation of photovoltaic technology is ever expanding and becoming more sophisticated. Now, with the advent of Wearable Solar Capable Garments (WSCG), you can fulfill all your mobile energy capacity needs with just a jacket and a utility belt.

"The utility belt is intended for heavier applications," explains Matt Brunker, Senior Communications Officer of Photophlex Garments, "but it's optional, and you can enjoy the benefits of limitless energy with only the jacket and tablet-sized conversion interface. It includes two USB outputs, a utility belt connecter, and a five-way selectable DC output for cameras or other devices."

But how tolerable would it be to wear for long periods on hot summer days?

"It's surprisingly lightweight and breathable considering what it is, but we don't recommend it for really hot days," says Brunker.

And just how much energy capacity does it have?

"It depends on many factors, one of which being how many rechargeable battery packs you're willing to carry inside the belt. Without the belt, it will easily recharge an empty smart phone or tablet in under two hours. With the belt fully loaded, it will take around six hours to fully charge all the cells, and on a slightly overcast day, provide around eight to twelve hours worth of juice for a laptop computer once you're out of the sun."

Do we need more creative defense spending in Canada?

I posted this on the National Post's Facebook channel moments ago:

I'm no expert, but I'm thinking that committing to some solid defense spending now, will likely pay-off in the future. Like when NATO numbers come under scrutiny. We don't want to find ourselves scrambling for a deal at the last minute to uphold our sovereignty, and get ripped-off in the process.

Halloween Facebook Fright - Police Visit Man's Residence Over Posting About...

Today around 3:15 pm, my dad answered the door to a member of the RCMP looking to speak with me. This was a first, and of course being the law-abiding citizen that I am, I hadn't the foggiest idea what business they could possibly want with the likes of me. Was a friend in some kind of trouble? An outstanding J-Walking ticket from a bygone era? Was someone attempting to implicate me as part of an elaborate frame-job? 

At the officer's behest, I stepped onto the front porch for a word. He wanted to know if I had ever made a Facebook post relating to the purchase of uranium, and mentioned something about Edmonton. I vaguely remembered making such a post, and dismissed it as an insincere attempt at humour, which indeed it was.  Here's the stupid posting I made:

While it was somewhat unsettling in an Orwellian sort of way, it doesn't bother me that this matter was followed-up on two-and-a-half months after having left this post. To the contrary, I think it reflects positively upon the RCMP to display such vigilance in following through on a complaint in the interests of national security.

The member also requested government ID, and I rooted around for my wallet, but couldn't find it. I told him I'd be willing to bring it into the station, but he didn't seem too concerned. My guess is that he realized it was much ado about nothing.

What bothers me is that the complainant, whoever they may be, deemed it worthy of making a formal complaint. Does he or she honestly think that anyone who is seriously in the market for something so carefully controlled would want to draw attention to themselves by advertising their intent in a public forum? I'm inclined to wonder whether someone has a personal vendetta against me. If this happens to be the case, and you happen to be reading this, then I invite you to please engage with me directly through email: romancealberta@gmail.com.

I might as well take this opportunity to make clear that I am not now, nor have I ever been interested in getting anywhere near any radioactive elements whatsoever. My life is very much a peaceful life, filled with music, art, and learning, and I would like to keep it that way! 

The Twitter Experience

Thought I might document my recent suspension from the great Facebook. What would my life be without Facebook? Twitter.

Here's a glimpse of my Twitter experience as-seen from my computer's flat-panel display monitor.

I know. Funny right? Clever even? No interactions! Needs a hashtag or something I guess. My own brand simply isn't powerful enough to kindle viral outbreaks!

Pokemon GO and Political Dissidents

Would it be fair to say that the machinations of the geopolitical ebbs and flows throughout civilization only become more complex and unpredictable as populations swell and the rate of technological progress accelerates? I suppose such a relationship should be fairly obvious, and there's probably some formulaic expression that could be applied here, but I'd rather just talk about Pokemon GO.

I haven't tried Pokeman GO, and nor do I ever intend to - unless perhaps a complimentary version with more of an emphasis on STAY were released at some point. I do enough walking around without any incentive-driven prompting. My understanding of the game/platform is that it's essentially a 'geocaching' scavenger hunt with a score keeping system. The further you walk between 'known' locations of targets, the higher the point values become for 'capturing' these targets - graphical targets that are niftily superimposed upon the view of your mobile computing device's camera's view of the immediate surroundings. Or something like that.

Almost immediately possibilities began to occur to me: what if such a framework were applied to political dissidents instead of blobular creatures with quirky names? What if sophisticated robots equipped with weapons systems were introduced into the mix? What if the 'players' of the 'game' are really just unwitting, unpaid cartographers being used to fill-in spatial and informational voids that exist withing Google Earth 'street view'?

I foresee global Pokeman conventions, adaptive Pokeman specific technologies, and even Pokeman addiction support groups in the future.

Trump's Dumps

Obviously a man who need not really concern himself over something as trivial as bathroom tissue, Donald Trump takes conservation seriously, and pinches pennies whenever he pinches a loaf.

"There's simply no need to use fist fulls of the stuff if your technique is adequate. You know, some people, some people actually use so much they have to resort to a secondary preemptive flush just to get all that soggy paper down the drain," explains the Republican nominee.

Donald Trump claims he doesn't even use fancy tissues for sticky bum issues. "I mean, I do use two ply, but I find the grittier grade of toilet paper more effective anyway. It really is. Twenty squares tops is my rule of bum. Unless I had KFC earlier. Then maybe twenty-four to twenty-eight squares."

Jackpot! How would you spend nine million bucks?

I don't play the lotto, and it seems people who do, never count on actually winning a substantial jackpot. CBC recently covered a fellow from Cagary who won nine million bucks and posited "What would you do with $9 million" in their Facebook link to the article. Always fun to dream!

Of course the first thing any rational person might do is eliminate any outstanding debts. Many people claim an intent to give to the less fortunate. I would not give a single cent of capital to a charitable organization - I'd sooner found my own charity. Fortunately for me, I have no monetary debts.

First I'd buy a used Mercedes Benz in good condition. Nothing too expensive. The 1988 560SEC pictured below can be had for just $45,000. I prefer vehicles produced prior to the era of computerizing automobiles, and this unit has only 48,000 km on the odometer. I'd prefer it in black, but it seems like one heck of a deal.

Auto Trader

Of course I'd need somewhere to park my car, so I'd probably look around for a something with a garage. Here's a lavish pad listed for $2.25 million. Something that would easily accommodate a multimedia studio of my own design. With five bedrooms and five baths, having friends stay a weekend would never be an inconvenience, but the property taxes would likely be outrageous. It wouldn't surprise me if such a property included a safe. I'd fill the safe with precious metals and emergency cash. 600 ounces of gold, and around $20,000 in Canadian and US tender. Reasonable?

There's no doubt I'd need a serious income to maintain my new lifestyle, which is why I'd purchase a small liquor store. I'm thinking that even in the worst of years, a busy little booze mart could easily generate a net profit of around $70K - more than enough to cover my new home's utilities, maintenance concerns, etc... I think. Plus, I'd get a discount on spirits and wine which would be a substantial fringe benefit if you drink as much as I like to. I imagine the cash flow would be steady, but it's not exactly a license to print money, so finding a top notch manager would be a priority.

Next I'd speculate for a small parcel of undeveloped land somewhere in the northernmost part of the province. Why? I don't really know. It just seems like something that might come in handy some day. Something that I could fit a private runway on, because I would likely take-up flying. I wouldn't buy an aircraft until such a time that I felt exceedingly confident about my long-term financial resolve however.

Here's a rough outline of how I'd allocate a portion of the winnings:

All that, and I'd still have around $4.64 million in cash. This would be a splendid amount for a trusted financial guru to work with. I'd want it set-up in such a way that the principal is as secure as possible. I wouldn't know where to begin, but I'm guessing it's not unreasonable to expect such an amount could generate at least $50K per year through investment dividends, and even swell to double the original amount within ten years if provided shrewd and careful management. Only after an upward trajectory is clearly apparent would I begin to consider things like philanthropic pursuits or travel.

So there you have it. This is what I would do with $9 million. What would you do?

Poetic Musings of the Northwest Mounted Police

Whence upon the divine doth pondereth the divine;
Creators dwell upon thine own noble creations;
And all things bland and spectacualar alike under the sun doth reflect;
Yea, this Dominion of Canada can all but escape their purview.

                   - Constable Randall Kenneth, Northwest Mounted Police - 1881

Internet Silence - A New Approach To Cyber Espionage

I don't know a whole heck of a lot about how bits and bytes are funneled and exchanged by the quadrillions every millisecond across various cyber networks spanning the globe. I do know enough however, to know that all this cyber traffic can potentially be parsed down to the very last zero or one if need be. Binary systems are absolute.

Richard Fadden, the former head of CSIS, feels that Canada should get to have a kick at the cat in terms of cyber-sleuthing in a more offensive fashion; authorizing the DND to allow its operatives to go ahead and do some less-than-ethical hacking against our natural enemies - namely the Chinese and the Russians. I tend to agree.

Here's an idea all my own regarding Canadian espionage practices: we should deploy a bilateral communications equivalency scheme separate and isolated from anything that touches the Internet - apart from a one-way packet filter. Internet traffic could be filtered in, but nothing on the bilateral system could escape the confines therein.  An old-school approach to secretive transmissions of information. I'm not talking smoke signals and carrier pigeons (though such methods have proven effective, and shouldn't be ruled-out in a bind) but proprietary radio signals and unorthodox ways of passing bundles of information. It'd be like an intranet with no potential weak links for hackers to exploit. Something highly innovative and unique that is both reliable and entirely uncrackable from the outside.

If we had such a system in place, the DND could easily switch to "Internet Silence" mode while simultaneously monitoring and evaluating the ongoing bit stream flow in cyber space. Again, I'm out of my element here, but I'm thinking that the mere act of analyzing a remote transmission could possibly trigger an alert to the originator in a two way system. What I envision is a real cyber network that exists in a vacuum. Nothing that enters ever escapes.

 If such a system were elegantly designed and reasonably fast, it would perhaps become the envy of our allies and enemies alike. 

Tax Me, I'm Carbon-Based!

Next, at the risk of validating a straw man, we know that pricing carbon in Alberta isn’t going to solve climate change. - Andrew Leach

I think I understand what the professor is getting at. As much as I'd personally love to see Alberta take a defiant stance in the face of global pressure to make people pay more for everything, it's just not going to happen. Even if Alberta were to treble her emissions, the net measurable impact on the environment would, I gather, still be virtually negligible at a global level. Yet we're still expected to enact upsetting solutions to address what seems a non-existent problem, and we're told to give the bad medicine a chance...for a brighter future of course.  

Will not the adoptive and compliance costs, for both large and small enterprises to conform to the new carbon pricing schemes, especially in the outset, be challenging to say the least? I predict the mere adaptation to, and integration of the new regulatory frameworks could mean the difference between smaller more fragile business operators remaining in business, or folding-up the tent. Large scale industrial players will likely find the means to minimize losses and absorb administrative woes (if not somehow manage to cleverly use the new normal advantageously). I really have no idea, but I think it goes without saying that a carbon tax will force everyone doing business in the province, including average working/consuming Albertans, to streamline their budgets and seriously reevaluate spending priorities. I can however appreciate the sliver of a silver lining to such forced compliance... necessitating sleeker business models. 

Once upon a time, I worked on a casual basis for a talented independent plumbing contractor. He hired me not because I had a background in plumbing, but because I learn quickly and tend to err on the side of caution. Who am I kidding? The former may indeed be true, but I'm fairly certain his choice had more to do with my immediate availability (vulnerability) and low wage expectation... Anyway, the experience provided me with some insight into how services are contracted, and how easily cost overruns can rapidly accumulate. Here's a simplistic example I devised comparing rudimentary numbers between two independent electrical contractors:

For the sake of comparison, we'll presume that Jim & Steve both have impeccable reputations for workmanship, and scored identical contracts, valued identically, within the same week. Somehow, Jim manages to come out ahead. Why might this be? While any number of factors could contribute to Jim's higher rate of efficiency, notice that in Job One, Steve spends almost twice as much on labour, yet assumably completed the same amount of work as Jim. Jim also spent ten times less on incidentals, and half as much on gasoline as Steve did. Furthermore, it took Steve nearly twice as long to finish the job. What all this might indicate is that Jim is a far more careful planner: perhaps while Steve was in a scramble, traversing the city to gather required materials he'd initially overlooked, leaving his helper on-site to drink coffee on the clock, Jim was thoughtfully double-checking the blueprints for conceivable hurdles, and his helper was happily bending conduit and whatnot.

From the point of view of a casual labourer, I could say my own inability to command a high rate of pay, and always finding myself without much leverage to negotiate wages is an indirect outcome of my own lackadaisical and inefficient approach to life in general. A wait-and-see attitude if you will.

It's the stitch in time saves nine principal. Since you neglected to include critical parts on your materials list for a project requiring very specific widgets that now demand priority shipping, you've needlessly inflated your costs. If successive phases of the job cannot proceed without this key component you're now urgently awaiting, then you're also incidentally paying labour costs for little to no value. You've hit the hemorrhage zone. A disorganized inventory can lead to both time and gasoline being wasted cruising around procuring stuff. You get the idea. Failing to get your ducks in a row will result in cumulative and compounded deficits. The avoidable extra hours spent on a particular job could've better been spent wrangling new contracts or tying-up other loose ends related to your business. 

Of course such a comparison is small scale stuff in the context of the greater economy, but a greater economic sphere wouldn't even exist without smaller components; the inverse is probably true as well, considering certain economic sectors and services owe their very existence to the scalar realities of a global economy. Without going into a litany of snakes eating their own tail style hypotheses, basic efficiency speaks to the bottom line, regardless of whether you happen to be examining the financial forensics of a basic household utility budget, or a perplexing and convoluted YOY ROI of some multifaceted global corporation. Here's a very simplistic projection of possible year-end net totals listed by our two fictional contractors inferred from the sets of averages of Jim's and Steve's efficiency rates:

This tells us that despite Steve landing more (or more lucrative) contracts than Jim, he's still seeing less annual returns than Jim. $4700 a year is not a tremendous difference in terms of making a living however. Perhaps Jim has expansionist goals while Steve is content just rolling along and making a buck - secretly shaking his fist at Jim because Jim always seems to have more time off! At the end of the day, both contractors are doing respectable work, and creating a job for someone else to boot. It's easy to imagine, however, that the disparity in efficiency would become far more consequential were it applied to a mid-sized firm competing for major contracts that oversees the day-to-day of multiple contractors. It's also easy to see how the proceeds of Jim's cost-saving organizational advantage will be swallowed up by the new carbon tax scheme!

If you can't say anything nice...

...just write whatever crass invective you can conjure-up off the top of your head.

I've been at this public diary thing for several years now, and I guess I'd be flattering myself to think that my meager words could potentially have any meaningful impact, and yet on I write.

Politics gets me down sometimes. Left or right? I feel like I'm probably slightly left of center, but does anyone really know themselves? It's always tempting to jump into the social media fray wielding an opinion, but that's left me red-faced more often than not. Things are often not what they appear to be upon a first glance.

Computers have provided a healthy distraction. I think it's fair to say that diagnostics are what leads many an otherwise non-technical minded person into the world of binary sensibilities. Something doesn't work, and you need to figure it out. Down the rabbit hole you go, hoping to emerge in some antechamber of cathedral-like proportions where everything is crystalline, obviated. But there's an infinite number of forks in the road... or at least about nine hundred and thirty-seven billion forks.

Been playing more guitar lately. I've got a jam buddy who also has a little dog. On my way to jam the other day, two lovely young women were shuffling ahead of me along the avenue, each with a dog of their own. I was pacing away slightly faster than they were, and made a point of observing the basketball one was carrying as I passed by. Before you knew it, they'd invited themselves and their dogs inside my pal's place to listen to the jam. Nearly twice the average of their respective ages, it's safe to say we wouldn't necessarily have a great deal in common - at least in terms of cultural references (television and movies), but music is the universal language, right?

After a brief Q & A, one of the two ladies found the inclination to play my djembe along with the guitar rhythms, and seemed genuinely enthused to keep time. I sang a song and made them laugh a little before they continued on their way to shoot hoops. Rarely finding myself in a situation to fraternize with anyone, let alone millennials, I tend to form generalizations about who and what the post-X demographic represents, and how I'd expect they might conduct themselves around elders. These specimens were polite and in possession of a good sense of humour thereby shattering all my preconceived notions about most millennials being a disengaged and dour bunch of screen tappers.

I should mention that my jam pal is twenty years my senior, so I suppose you could say in regard to the instance I just described, my role became that of a generational bridge?



 

Latest High Level Bridge Project: Value Subtractive

You try and tell proponents of projects like this that there's got to be a better way, and suddenly you are an unsympathetic ignoramus who doesn't care about mental illness. Of course, the last thing anyone with a shred of decency wants to see is a fellow human being take their own life, but isn't this approach a little unfair to the 99.991% of residents who will never seriously contemplate jumping from the High Level Bridge?

Now you can't even take a picture from the middle of it without crap obstructing your lens. Worse yet, the surface areas of the pedestrian/multi-use lane ways have been reduced by about five percent on either side. The potential for collisions with cyclists is thereby increased by this squeeze.

I've crossed this bridge by foot, bicycle, and automobile countless times in my life. I think I once even skateboarded across. Whatever mode of transport you favour, it has occurred to me while walking alone late at night that I might be vulnerable to predatory individuals. Could not jumping into the river from high above be a reasonable last resort if the alternative is being badly beaten-up, stabbed, or shot trying to get home? I tell you, I'd sooner take my chances with a splash into the North Saskatchewan than a gang of toughies! 

If you ask me, this project was not only a tremendous waste of money, it's a waste of money that represents a value-subtractive net effect on Edmonton and the lives of Edmontonians. 

   

Oil, Wood, Gas. How should I stay warm?

Extreme coldness of climate is the only real disadvantage of northern living. Maybe you happen to be someone who finds themselves amiss outside of tropical regions - a sun worshiper as they say. Tropical regions are definitely not my bag babe. There's more than enough minor irritants in my life already for me to have to worry about nasty green reptiles and giant arachnids crawling into my shoes.

Northern living suits me fine, but it's costly to make a northern home cozily warm. Out west in western Canada, the most obvious choices to keep the deadly Jack Frost at bay are firewood and natural gas. Perhaps geothermal - something I know very little about, and you'll probably want to build a house around it rather than attempt it as an afterthought?

I find myself wondering whether geothermal output levels fluctuate. I imagine it would ebb and flow like everything else in nature.

I do believe the provincial government of Alberta collects royalties from the proceeds of natural gas.

Firewood is comparatively inefficient at a molecular level, and not by nature as clean burning. Wood retains moisture, and incinerating it will create greenhouse gasses.

But let's face it. Were not the Athabasca forest fires equivalent to about eight billion firewood burning homes burning firewood continuously for nine years? I just think it'd seem disingenuous to actually charge people for the 'privilege' of burning wood simply to avoid freezing to death. Or is there some plan to see us all move south?

I remember the oil-fuelled furnace in Ontario. Man. That's a dirty way of heating compared to elegant and gaseous natural gas. Not only is oil as a home heating fuel far less efficient than natural gas, there's a need for a tanker truck to make the rounds just to fill-up yer oil storage tank now and then.

Who has room for a big honkin' oil tank in their basement? Well... probably most people, but it's the size of three bungalow-sized hot water heater tanks. Point being, they eat-up valuable floor space if you don't live in some palatial intrigue. Other than that, oil is reliable and affordable. A fiscally prudent choice if natural gas isn't abundant, and modern furnaces are probably quite efficient.


I'm interested to know what you think.

Keep Yourself In The Hive

Ten years ago, instead of following a link affixed to a submission of gushing sentiment on Twitter and Facebook, most folks would've learned about the catastrophic event in Orlando through the front page of a printed newspaper.

My heart goes out to the victims and their loved ones. Really it does.

Cue the finger-pointing.

Agenda: Mainstream Media Blames Guns, Not ISIS, For #Orlando Massacre https://t.co/LHjjCGkRrk #2a #tcot #guncontrol

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) June 13, 2016

Cue the opportunistic political angling.

Rubio Contemplates Senate Run After Orlando Shooting https://t.co/QpKR7chG0I via @RollCall

— Mark Steyn (@MarkSteynOnline) June 13, 2016

Cue the false-flag conspiracy theories.

Cue the obligatory performances by high-profile celebrities to leave no doubt in anyone's mind regarding their solidarity with the victims.

Cue the Facebook avatar filters.

Without going into detail or providing point-by-point parallels in bullet-form, I do get the faint impression that the official  narratives emerging in the aftermath of mass killings in recent times almost seem to be outlined in advance of the events themselves. I will say that it's not inconceivable that motives are more easily obfuscated when the perpetrator ends-up included in the death tally. Of course, five out of seven people in the western world seem to have no qualms about cementing all manner of intimate thoughts and reflections online. Have you read my blog?

But are they really cemented? Are they not malleable after being written? If I can edit the words on this page whenever I want, what's to stop someone else from doing so, presuming they can access my account? Do these words I write, and images I upload appear the same on my computer screen as they would appear to someone in India? Would it not take a computer forensics specialist to properly ascertain whether or not my genuine submissions haven't been altered in some clandestine fashion?

I'll leave it to you, esteemed readers, to get to the bottom of whatever potentialities may or may not exist. I can promise it'll be a perplexing pursuit given the labyrinthine experience of attempting to research anything online. Conflicting agendas, spin, opportunism, memes, 'click-here'... it's a quagmire of confusion to be sure.

Until next time, I'll continue to avoid mass gatherings and simply experience the world from behind my pixelated 'reality' zone.

     

Alberta NDP: Very Very Very Proud

Feeling pretty smug over my decision to abstain from voting in the last provincial election. I don't think I'm alone in feeling dismayed over the state of Alberta politics in general today. As a regular Albertan, I'd be embarrassed to be affiliated with any of Alberta's political parties currently sitting in the legislature.

It's terribly bad form to draw flippant comparisons between genocidal policies of the early twentieth century and recent legislative changes enacted by the NDP. It leaves me to wonder whether the Wildrose Party aren't in fact a cast of method actors, playing from a script designed to distract the attention of the audience away from the ruthlessness of the NDP leadership.

Today I'll probably catch myself wincing as I sift through the CLIMATE LEADERSHIP IMPLEMENTATION ACT - mainly because I liken parsing codified language to debugging a computer program written in (almost) human-speak. What's the real intent? How will it affect average single parent households vs. medium-sized retail business?

I predict the only folks who'll find themselves immune to the negative impacts of this bill would also find themselves on opposite ends of a lifestyle spectrum: backpack toting, skateboard riding minimalists; and ultra wealthy titans of industry. I somehow suspect everyone in the middle will bear the brunt of paying for this enactment.

A simplistically sure bet, and I do realize some form of action is necessary to position Alberta ahead of the global paradigm shift surrounding climate. Were the Alberta PC party still in power, I don't doubt they'd be pushing a strikingly similar mandate. Still, all I see is a manufactured sense urgency to reduce carbon emissions worldwide. Maybe I'll be proven wrong some day, but I still have great difficulty with the belief that putting a price on carbon will somehow have any tangible or measurable effect on our Earth's atmosphere.

Subway Time Machine

[sound of squirrel chattering]
(derisive tone)
"Are you training that squirrel?"

(cutesy-smarmy tone)
"Yeah. I was making some pulled pork and it takes about five hours so I thought I'd kill some time."

While I'm paraphrasing here, this is the gist of the latest radio ads put forth by Subway. 

Wait for it, there's another one!

[sound of impact wrench]
(derisive tone)
"Why are you taking your car apart? Are you a mechanic?"

(cutesy-smarmy voice)
"Not really. It's just that I was making pulled pork and it takes about five hours, so I thought I'd keep myself busy."

They weren't amusing the first time I'd heard them, and after the umpteenth dozen instance of exposure to them, I couldn't resist the urge to pull them apart so to speak: who exactly is the target audience of these ads?

A bastardization of real food.

Confession: I'm not slow-cooking pork while I write this piece.

Nor do I have any intention of ever putting a quick-make brand pulled pork sandwich anywhere near my mouth.

Presuming Subway invests a considerable amount of research capital into their advertising campaigns, I'm guessing they'd expect their marketing team to spend more time on their ad campaign than it takes to prepare a batch of pulled pork. Why then are these ads so insulting to anyone who's not incapable of occupying their time with useful pursuits for a mere span of five hours?

A friend of mine, a bit of a hobbyist cook, invited me over one Sunday to sample his first attempt at pulled pork. If memory serves, it was ready to go about twenty minutes after I'd arrived at his place around 3:00 PM. This tells me he must have started the timer around 11:00 AM after a half-hour or so of preparation: seasoning; dicing onions; preheating the cooker.

I'm guessing he didn't watch the pot the whole time, so pray-tell, what did he endeavour to do whilst the meat slowly simmered? I'm guessing it didn't involve Pavlovian seminars with woodland creatures or impromptu large-scale mechanical projects. The pork was fantastic, by the way.

"Why are you training that squirrel?"

"I'm not. The squirrel is training me, you jackass."

"Easy there pal. I thought you were making pulled pork? Isn't it ready yet?"

"Go grab your impatient self a pile of ratshit and reheated onions on a bun from the sandwich counter? Have 'em chuck some banana peppers on it to disguise the bland mediocrity. Seems more your style." 

The idea being, I suppose, is that Subway is selling us a time machine, and only Subway can defeat the whole impetus behind pulled pork. But pulled pork is not a dish that's intended to be quick. Why would the play-doh fun factory of fast food places even bother?

"Why are you dismantling your car? Are you a mechanic?"

"Mechanical engineer to be precise. What are you up to? Still working at the career in sandwich artistry?"

"Yeah. I thought you said we were having pulled pork?"

"I guess I should've told you. Real food involves more than a microwave and a pair of disposable gloves." 

What pulled pork should look like.

Is A Private Company in San Francisco Akin To A Crown Agency?

Personalized threats issued over online media are nothing new, and it's not my intent here to diminish their seriousness.

Obviously this jerk is incapable of appropriately articulating the nature of his frustration without resorting to verbal thuggery.

While many like me appreciate the willingness of some senior level politicians making themselves available online through popular social media platforms, since when did Twitter become an officially recognized extension of the Alberta legislature?

At the end of the day, a Tweet is simply a bundle of indexed zeroes and ones shuttled across the information superhighway, and ultimately processed, archived, and redistributed by a private company in San Francisco. Some politicians seem to regard these private entities as though they exist to serve their political aims.

So what's it going to be? Shall we begin to deem Tweets as official government correspondence? Do our politicians have so much faith in these private entities that they are willing to deem them an acceptably trustworthy representative of a crown agencies?

I'm no expert on such matters, so I can only hope someone more knowledgeable than myself can pick-up the torch, and begin to examine the legal relationship between Twitter, the Government of Canada, and Her Provinces. I'm guessing the little graphic depicting a check-mark inside a blue octagon beside some people's Twitter handle might carry legal assurances or implications, but at the end of the day, I don't believe there is any legally binding impetus for a company like Twitter to accurately regurgitate the words politicians submit to their platform. What I mean is, is that we all seem to take for granted Twitter's track record insofar. But what if one day you were to "Tweet" something like:

But it happens to appear to the outside world like this?

   

S-Pen Entry

I'm literally writing this entry -using the stylus that comes sheathed in the Galaxy Note 2.

I wanted to test the practicality of the interface, and I actually find it somewhat unsettling - how keenly and accurately the interpolator interprets my chicken-scratch after only having scrawled a few thousand words or so.

I don't think I'd be alone in suggesting there's no match for
the standard PC keyboard with a full compliment of keys - especially if you're endeavouring to input code. That being said, it also wouldn't surprise me if an app existed to facilitate the entry of more cryptic notation.

In conclusion, as someone who's relatively new to the world of tablet computing, I'll remark that I find inputting text via the S-Pen input preferable to the touch-screen keyboard method.

Disenfranchise The Poor

Continuing to allow the penniless to vote in Canadian elections serves no good purpose.

In order to become eligible to cast a ballot, a citizen should first satisfy at least one item in the following list of criteria:

1. Show a credit score of at least 720. 
2. Show proof of assets reflecting a combined net value exceeding CDN $50,000.
3. Show proof of earning potential exceeding a net total of $35,000 / year. 
4. Provide written permission granted by a spouse who satisfies any two of the above qualifiers.

For Most Intents & Purposes, Microsoft Windows Rocks

I'm not a computer scientist, but as a drinker who spends a great deal of time messing around with computers, I think it's safe to say I know a thing or two about operating systems. If you're anything like me, someone who derives a certain amount of gratification from solving tedious little puzzles, then I don't expect you'll get much from this article.

Imagine, if you will, a sea full of zeroes and ones... just kidding. I'll spare you my attempt to wax philosophical for now, but try to imagine your computer/tablet/phone/laptop without an operating system. It just sits there, waiting for an instruction. Its BIOS is probably performing hundreds of unseen checksum routines every few milliseconds to determine what states have changed since its last check:

"Am I 8K?"; "Is the CPU still OK?"; "Anything new plugged in?"; "If everything checks-out, I should start checking again from the top of the checklist! If not, I'd better mark it down!"


LINUX

How much does Linux cost? 

Time.

If my computer is running Linux, can I still do Facebook?

Yes. So long as you don't mind watching the embedded video content your friends share without the sound... at least until after your resident computer genius has spent a few hours poking around under the hood.

On my Linux Box, Audacity recognized/employed
my Roland device. The rest of the desktop shit didn't.

WINDOWS

How much does Windows cost?
About $100.

If my computer is running Windows, can I still do Facebook?

Yes.


SOLARIS

I'll have to get back to you on this one.


OS X
Call your Linux friend if you need serious help with it.






  

Sackhammer | My First Working JavaScript Thing

Stack Overflow makes it quite clear that they frown upon the submission of questions exhibiting signs of spontaneity sans investigative effort on the part of the inquisitor, hence my reluctance to wade in there like some jackass who gets drunk and hits-up Twitter on a weeknight. Asking dumb questions can sully one's ranking on this particular website, so I intend to preserve my current good standing by waiting until I've got a real whack-a-mole of a hangup in my script before surrendering my work to expert analysis.

I know enough about coding to know that my code would be considered extremely inelegant and full of needless redundancies by any real acolyte, so prior to almost giving in with an "ask," I renamed the variables - thinking that perhaps such purposeful absurdity might soften the irritatingly pedestrian nature of my question. It was tempting to just ask, especially after hours of bumbling around between round and square brackets, careless typos, and fruitless sifting. In the end, however, I managed to refrain and finally managed to get something working on my own.

Not sure if it's safe to stick in the sidebar of this blog, but I'll try anyway. I present to you esteemed reader, my first triumph in writing JavaScript. Check out the Sackhammer!

Sedentary Meanderings With Purposeful Links

Are you spellbound by a media induced trance? Am I? I know it's easy for me to spend hours sifting through my Facebook feed, clicking off into unexpected tangents and reading article upon article, opinion after opinion. It's sure a heck of a lot easier to do that than to fill a page on this blog or take the dog for a walk.

I'm the sort of person who, if it weren't for personal computers, would fill most of my day with sedentary activities anyway, so it's not as though I feel social media is pulling me away from what would be an otherwise active sort of lifestyle. Of course, I'm also a curious minded person who appreciates a multifaceted approach to the familiar.

For example, I might say to myself something like, "Facebook is a customizable platform I find useful for bringing a blend of current affairs, opinions, and humour to my attention in a convenient fashion. It's easy to use, and it allows me to connect with friends or other ordinary people."

Does this not ring true? It does for me. I also realize however that Facebook is  highly advanced and complex system that uses artificially intelligent constructs to steer targeted advertising to the end user. I suspect it also tracks and tabulates every link a user clicks, and every word they type. Why wouldn't it? Does it bother me? Not yet! I posted this lame video on Facebook after punching around in OpenOffice Impress. It's an impressive piece of software that I managed to use in a very unimpressive way,
     
I could drive myself bonkers thinking about what sorts of data-based profiling initiatives may or may not exist in relation to my writing. Twitter's the same-same but different. It has a more linear feel to it. Recently I've gotten into some other websites like Stack Overflow and W3 Schools in my quest to learn how to effectively write code and get more out of my computing experience.

Another way to get news is through RSS feeds. I've always been aware of them, but only just recently have I begun to employ them as a way to browse headlines. I find that Mozilla Thunderbird, an email client, is great for processing the news feeds of my favorite media channels.

Or how about the Lynx web browser?

A GIF screen capture of The Lynx browser channeling
the CBC website on my Windows 7 desktop. 

It can all be a little overwhelming as there's really no limitations to the ways in which one can cross-utilize different applications to filter and manipulate internet traffic.

Kicking back with a piping hot cup of coffee and taking-in a videotaped introductory university lecture can open regions of your brain you never knew existed. Although I was a bit of a laggard in high school maths, I've always found numbers and their geometry fascinating. Yesterday, while looking into using the Octave programming language, it reoccurred to me how deficient I am when it comes to more advanced mathematical concepts, and I happened upon one of professor Edward Frenkel's classes after nosing around with Google. He's really good:

Why Not Start A Business?

It's fair to say I have a rather glum outlook when it comes to my own prospects in regard to employment. Given my dodgy work experience history, merely landing an interview would be a minor miracle.

This morning I was contemplating starting a business. Of course I'd need a business loan. That wouldn't be much of an obstacle in itself, considering a current initiative in our province to spur growth in the economy. 

I did some quick math based on a presumption that I could generate $200 per day in profits over and above associated operational costs. Working five days a week, that would total a sum of $52,200 annually before servicing the $90,000 in debt I incur with the borrowed seed money. Supposing that I paid myself a modest $24,000 per year, it'd leave me with $28,200 per annum to repay the loan. Barring any unforseeable glitches it'd take about three years before I'm running fully in the black. 

Of course, I'd be working nine hours a day, 260 days a year, and handling every aspect of the business for what would amount to a wage equivalency of about $10.10 per hour in the first three years, and $22.00 per hour thereafter - at which point, some unanticipated expense would surely manifest, and I'd be back at square one.  

Screw that shit. 

Upstart Capital vs. Preparedness

In all honesty, I don't yet feel ready for anonymous contributions. I'm getting there... still working on formulating some realistic dimensions to encompass my future media empire.

Unlike big bureaucracy, I'm reluctant to gamble with other people's money. A friend once slapped a CDN $20  note into my pauper's hand at a casino, and I was almost overcome with anxiety over the gesture. At his insistence, I tried my luck - but between you and I, I'd have rather spent it on whiskey!

I guess I'm someone who's grown quite accustomed to operating on allowances that would measurably equivocate to quantifiable boundaries spanning whatever breadth lies between perks enjoyed by modern-day serfs, and the pleasures afforded indentured slaves - call it my comfort zone. There's no pressure to deliver a return on investment.

If ever I have a financially winning idea, trust that you'll be the first to know about it!

I stuck a little PayPal donation link on the sidebar... just in case you happen to count yourself among the lucky who have more money than you know what to do with. If I were you, I'd probably just spend it on a fancy guitars or more RAMs for my desktop PC.


  

Drizzling Rain On A Concrete Stain

Felt it was time for a Blogger exclusive video. A little ditty I wrote yesterday morning. I just went with the first take I made along with the guitar, and then layered in some bass and harmonies.

Here are the lyrics:

When the best of the best lay their heads to rest;

The moonlit sky makes you ill at ease;

She whispers a word like a gentle breeze;

A song so long it isn't right or wrong;

Pain it comes and pain it stays;

Drizzling rain on a concrete stain;

Shoot the messenger, embrace the day;

Open your heart and close your mind;

Everything is ready for missing time;

Circumstance's ripe for fleecing you;

Bend over backward and dispense with the gin;

Overly cautious and underly paid;

Pressing the buttons on a pane of glass;

Mystical inserts and excerpts of truth;

Alberta's New SuperTax - What's The Downside?

"How will new new Carbon SuperTax affect life in Alberta?"

• It'll lead to consternation in what were once vibrant workplaces as managers seek to pinch every possible penny merely to remain competitive. 
• Expectations on front line employees will escalate. Workplace tensions between workers will become palpable in an prevailing atmosphere of desperation to cling to any thankless job.  
• Those on fixed incomes will be forced to choose between living in the cold, or living in the dark. 
• Stress and anxiety becomes the new normal, placing more of a burden on municipal services - property taxes will be hiked. 
• Average diets will adapt to rising food prices out of necessity, and many children will go without proper nutrition at best, and empty tummies at worst. 
• Ensuing financial struggles will result in foreclosures on homes, skyrocketing divorce rates, and waves of suicide.
• Uprisings, rebellion, and widespread chaos will make city streets menacing. Boutique retailers will shutter their displays.

The resultant chain reaction of exponentiating misery across the province is something the governing NDP sees as desirable; much to the delight of the public sector, the ensuing shitwaves will justify pouring even more money into unionized labour,

Elton John Impersonator Announces Plans To Cancel Fictional Bookings In North Carolina

Self-proclaimed Sir Elton John impersonator, Blake Mathews, does indeed sing sometimes while playing the piano, but he's never actually done so before a live audience. Oddly enough, he's made a point of announcing that he's cancelling pretend bookings in the state of North Carolina ahead of a non-existent tour.

"Everyone's doing it, and I sort-of felt excluded," he admits, "but just because I've never actually performed as an Elton John impersonator, doesn't mean I'm not an Elton John impersonator. I've done promotional stuff like photo shoots, and I might decide to take my show on the road eventually."

When asked about his stance concerning the so-called bathroom bill he tells me, "I've suffered from anxiety about using public restrooms since adolescence, so I can understand people's frustration. I never use them myself. I'll risk going behind a dumpster before I set foot in the men's room."

"Or the ladies room," he adds.

Phasing Out Desktop Computers

Pembroke, ON - In a bid to "streamline consumer electronics policy with environmental goals," Hon. Misty Dunfien, Minister of Science, announced yesterday the introduction of a bill that aims to see the desktop PC become a thing of the past in households across Canada. The announcement took place outside the St. Pierre Community Hall during a ribbon cutting for a new low-income housing co-op.

"These boat anchors demand considerable levels of electricity to power all their cooling fans and hard disk drives and whatnot. With the advent of clown computing and a general shift toward the remote provisioning of processing power, we feel that the average Canadian should have no need to continue running these energy hungry boat anchors in their homes."

Bill C-21, known as the "Green Computing Initiative" seeks to impose a licensing framework around the purchase and use of desktop computer components.

"Unless you're running a small business, do you really need a laser printer or a terabyte of disk storage? Most laptop computers today have more than enough internal storage for most home-based applications."

Professor of Mathematics Ray Khan expressed concern over the legislation, saying that it would present challenges for students who's course list includes data-intensive programs.

"It's worrisome. It seems counter intuitive that a minister of science would promote such an intrinsically anti-scientific bill," he laments, "for many students, desktop PCs provide the affordable customization needed for specific kinds of number-crunching applications. Not to mention their usefulness in web development."

The proposed legislation would include a one-time registration / licensing fee and a tariff on any electronic goods associated with desktop PCs.

"This bill will only affect a tiny segment of the population, but we feel it's the responsible thing to do if Canada is expected to take a leadership role in the reduction of greenhouse gasses," the minister said before concluding the Q & A. 

A New Life For Coal Fired Plants

In a bid to avoid public outrage over skyrocketing energy prices and the inevitable brownouts resulting from the planned decommissioning of coal fired power plants across the province, one Albertan believes he has a viable way to smooth-out the transition to renewable sources of energy.


Now a post-graduate student of economics at the U of A who holds a degree in Baking Technology Management (yes you read that correctly) from London's Southbank University, Stam Tollenwonk has been keeping a close eye on the proverbial egg timer of climate change since being slapped with a crippling fine of £3,200 for not reporting an addition of a wood-fired cake oven to his overseas bakery.

"If I didn't suffer from hemophilia, I'd have slapped myself," says the bushy-eyed champion of green alternatives, "I honestly should've known better."    

His idea is to substitute fiat currency and petro dollars for coal... literally.

"Of course it sounds crazy. Burning money? But when you really stop to think about it, all that paper currency wouldn't even exist today if it weren't for fossil fuels. If our aim is really to bury once and for all our dependence on carbon intensive energy, you might just look at burning petro dollars as some kind of poetic send-off,"

Many are skeptical. John McGroovinator, a senior public relations representative for Dugdone Investments based in Lockstock Minnesota feels that the burning of paper currency isn't without its merits, but questions the long-term availability of supply.

"How much paper money is currently available," he questions, "and have they factored-in the burn-rate over carbon output of that plasticized money they use in Canada?"

Stam counters that he has considered the plastic quotient, and looks forward to burning more money if his research grant application is approved.

"In terms of carbon dioxide output, money leaves coal in the dust."  

Terrorists Euthanizing North American Dogs

Innocent Animals Face Certain Death By Wood Chipper

Online analytic efforts have confirmed that a well-known terrorist organization have been adopting a questionable number of dogs from North America.

"There was a glaring uptick in the numbers. We wanted to know what they would want with so many dogs," says Brian Flibette, a senior trends researcher with the Fideletics Marketing group.

"It's not unusual for terrorist organizations to adopt all manner of pets, and dogs are often employed for security around their training facilities, but four thousand dogs a week? And we're not talking the sorts of breeds you'd expect like German Shepherds or Pit Bulls. There's Chihuahuas, Toy Poodles, Pommeranians. Not the sorts of animals well-suited to functioning in any apparent or useful capacity within an extremist environment," he explains.

We asked Muhammed Mohammed Mahmood, a former member of a well-known terror group who now helps anti-terrorist initiatives for various governments to investigate the reasons behind the unusual development. His findings were nothing less than heart-wrenching.

"They're killing them. One by one, they're tossing them into wood chippers and possibly feeding the K-9 pulp to prisoners."

Lollipop Follow-up

Finally! My ship has come in! I was beginning to wonder how long they were going to leave me in the lurch. 

I found a Facebook page disparaging Lollipop Agency's practices, and the testimonials therein generally fit their approach with me. In all fairness, they might have just gotten-off to a rocky start and fully intend to improve their acumen. I did notice they've put some work into their website since I last checked it out a few days ago.

How Many Licks Will It Take?

Admittedly, the reference to one of my less current works - one that I'd taken offline some time ago - did indeed pique my curiosity. In spite of the glaring lack of professionalism behind the correspondence, I decided that engendering a continuance of the discussion couldn't hurt:

Four days later, Paul writes back to inform me that he and Alex need to have a bit of a think over....

...which couldn't have lasted very long because the following arrived about an hour later without any prompting on my behalf:

Not wanting to leave Lollipop in the lurch, I composed the following in response:

Are you on the edge of your seat, esteemed reader? How long before the "takes money to make money" email arrives?

See? We Told You It Would Work!

The specter of climate change hyperbole is sweeping over the prairies, and it's incumbent upon the Province of Alberta to take meliorative action by making high income people pay more for using their refrigerators and furnaces. At least that's the crux of what I've gleaned from the Climate Leadership Report to the Minister.

People of Alberta, I think it's safe to say most of us are in favour of finding innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions - after all, lowered emissions would indicate one of two things: a reduction in overall output; or an increase in efficiency - the latter being the more favourable for what should be obvious reasons.

One might liken it to hunting for food in the wild - if a hunter believes they can ONLY eat the liver and kidneys of their game, then they're going to have to kill a lot more animals to survive than someone who realizes one can also eat muscle and fat too. Likewise, if we're spewing potentially usable energy where technologies exist to harness otherwise wasteful output, then we should embrace new methods.

I don't disbelieve the planet is in the midst of a warming trend. My issue lies with the new targets that the climate gurus (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have set out to achieve: "limiting global temperature rise to 2°C Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2030." Even my layman's mind can see the whole framework is disingenuous.


Why did the IPCC opt to use temperature as a goalpost? I think it's quite simply because it's easier to wiggle policy around an arbitrary measure, and the metric-tonne approach wasn't inclined to create a lose-lose situation for the end user of energy fast enough. The lords of the weather needed to instill a belief that we SHOULD be paying more, when in reality, the whole scheme was craftily concocted by globalist parasites. A scheme to make us feel as though we're being environmentally responsible and that the carbon taxes imposed are indeed justifiable.


I know horsepuck when I smell it, and I'd invite anyone to correct any misconceptions I may be under. I can wrap my head around reducing metric tonnes of methane or CO2 output, but to think that doing so will have a measurable effect on global temperature is like claiming we can move the Sun.


 Let's conveniently forget for a moment that China and Russia are outright refusing to believe that their industrial activities have a significant impact on global temperatures over time, and pretend the whole world immediately scrambles to reduce emissions to the point where IPCC recommendations aren't only met, but exceeded.


Alas, by 2030, data from weather stations around the world are STILL indicating an upward trend in global temperatures! Whatever shall we do?

 I see two choices for the big foreheads in such an instance:

1. Proclaim retroactive errors in the ways by which they've been collecting data, thus providing 'proof' that the temperature coefficient actually DID see a reduction, and our efforts weren't in vain;
2. Proclaim that their means of correlating global temperatures with industrial output are primitive by today's standards, and we need to sacrifice more of your money to save the planet.

If in this hypothetical situation of complete international compliance the global temperature data by 2030 is in fact trending downward, they can say, "See? We told you it would work!"

As I've pointed-out, I'm no expert in this field, and quite frankly, it's not a field I'm especially interested in becoming more familiar with. Plus, I'm too poor to have much of a carbon footprint, so I feel a sense of indemnification when it comes to 'doing my part' even if I don't believe it'd make a difference if I started using a diesel generator to power my life.

I do however believe it's in the best interests of both consumers and industry to take a progressive approach when considering their environmental impact from a waste-based perspective. It only makes sense. I simply don't agree with anyone who believes they can predict with any certainty what the average global temperature will be decades from now, irregardless of industrial output.