Yesterday, Canada Post gave its delivery workers in Vancouver permission to refuse to deliver a paid advertising flyer that some of them found offensive.
This is a dangerous precedent, and one that should be reversed immediately. As long as the material is legal, Post Office workers should have no right to refuse to deliver it.
If individual posties can decide which mail is fit to deliver, we could see, for example, Muslim posties refusing to deliver ads for winemaking shops, Jewish posties refusing to deliver ads for restaurants that serve shrimp and pork, posties who are members of the United Church refusing to deliver ads for bottled water*...where would it all end?
The Post Office has a legal monopoly on mail delivery, making it a public trust that must serve all Canadians who have information to convey. It cannot be in the business of censorship, or allow its workers to determine what mail is fit to be delivered.
A few years ago our courts decided that a private business person in Ontario, Scott Brockie, had no right to consult his own conscience in deciding which organizations his company would work for. The decision was firmly upheld on appeal, at considerable cost to Mr. Brockie**. If that is the law for a private business -- which had plenty of competition waiting to accept the work it refused -- then surely it must also be the law for a public monopoly like the Post Office.
If the printed material itself is legal, then the Post Office must deliver it. Postal employees who refuse must be disciplined or dismissed. Nothing else meets the test of fairness.
(* When I posted this, the United Church of Canada was campaigning to get people to stop buying bottled water and donate that money to third world water projects.)
(** There is a lot of information about the Scott Brockie case on the web. If you have time to read only one article, see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/apr/04041604.html)
Friday, October 27, 2006
Saturday, October 14, 2006
A conspiracy or just a bug?
My son showed me that if you save a text file containing the sentence "bush hid the facts" (typed exactly like that, without the quotes), and then open it in Windows Notepad, all you see is a row of 9 rectangles. At first glance this looks like an "Easter egg", a surprise planted by programmers, like the flight simulator game in Excel 97. But hiding Easter eggs in a Microsoft program will get you fired these days.
It turns out that the explanation is more mundane, and there are many sentences that will do this to Notepad. It's all explained (to programmers, anyway) at:
http://dhilung.blogspot.com/2006/08/technotepad-facts-behind-bush-hid.html
What's really happening here is that Notepad examines every text file it opens to see if it was written in Chinese (or some other non-Roman alphabet). But text files don't actually contain anything besides the text -- certainly nothing that could indicate the language or font used. So Notepad simply assumes that if the order of bits in the file matches a string of Chinese characters, then that's what it must be. And if Notepad isn't configured to display Chinese, it displays a rectangle instead of each Chinese character.
Besides "bush hid the facts", here are some other sentences that behave this way in Notepad.
"this app can break"
"What are you doing"
"Matrix can not lie"
"Osamabin laden leading all terrorist"
and my favourite,
"We can blast Microsoft for a new bug"
If you're observant, you'll notice that there are exactly half as many rectangles as the number of letters in the English message Notepad should be showing. You can even make up your own messages that break Notepad -- if you can understand the instructions at the blog post linked above.
It turns out that the explanation is more mundane, and there are many sentences that will do this to Notepad. It's all explained (to programmers, anyway) at:
http://dhilung.blogspot.com/2006/08/technotepad-facts-behind-bush-hid.html
What's really happening here is that Notepad examines every text file it opens to see if it was written in Chinese (or some other non-Roman alphabet). But text files don't actually contain anything besides the text -- certainly nothing that could indicate the language or font used. So Notepad simply assumes that if the order of bits in the file matches a string of Chinese characters, then that's what it must be. And if Notepad isn't configured to display Chinese, it displays a rectangle instead of each Chinese character.
Besides "bush hid the facts", here are some other sentences that behave this way in Notepad.
"this app can break"
"What are you doing"
"Matrix can not lie"
"Osamabin laden leading all terrorist"
and my favourite,
"We can blast Microsoft for a new bug"
If you're observant, you'll notice that there are exactly half as many rectangles as the number of letters in the English message Notepad should be showing. You can even make up your own messages that break Notepad -- if you can understand the instructions at the blog post linked above.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
End of the line for camera makers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,1690893,00.html
This is a real tear-jerker. I remember how in the 1950s, getting into serious photography was a "rite of passage". And while there were all sorts of cameras, those that used 35mm film were the clear choice of photo enthusiasts and professionals alike.
It really felt like 35mm photography would be here forever. Originally created to take advantage of the low cost of 35mm movie film, 35mm cameras survived the rise and fall of Polaroid's instant pictures, Kodak's Instamatic format (size 126) which (despite the name) did not create instant pictures but only simplified loading the film, Kodak's Pocket format (size 110), Kodak's Disc format, the Advanced Photographic System (APS), and many other formats and innovations. Most of these were not really needed, but were created because market research showed that people took the most pictures in the first two years after getting a new camera. In other words, new formats were invented to help sell film, paper and chemicals -- and, of course, cameras.
And through it all, the skills we learned in our high school days (in the 1950s) about exposure compensation and darkroom work (dodging and burning, solarization etc.) were still valid and valuable -- until now.
But in just a few years, digital photography has decimated sales of film and traditional film cameras, and now after sustaining huge losses Konica-Minolta (the two companies merged just 3 years ago) has announced it is getting out of the twin businesses of making cameras (of all types!) and film, to concentrate on making photocopiers and its other "imaging businesses" that are still profitable. To see Konica-Minolta reduced to taking this action is a blow close to home, because back in the 1970s when our children were small and we took a lot of pictures, many of them were taken with our Minolta Hi-Matic F and our Konica C-35, little gems of rangefinder cameras that did everything well. So this announcement is a bit like hearing about the death of an auntie you were once close to, who spent her later years in "reduced circumstances" as the British say.
Oh, and I hear Nikon is also dropping almost all of its film cameras. Who's next? To borrow Alvin Toffler's phrase from Future Shock, the future has arrived awfully fast for some of these companies.
On the digital front at home, we recently got our second digital camera (a Canon 620) after our Fujifilm 2600Z (about 3 years old) suddenly lost its ability to focus. By today's standards the Fuji is obsolete, so it's not worth repairing. The Canon is vastly superior to the old Fuji -- some review sites call it simply one of the best digital cameras available -- yet it cost about the same as the Fuji did 3 years ago. I'm impressed by the Canon's solid feel, its even illumination on flash shots, its intelligent autofocus system that seeks out -- and marks on the screen -- the key objects it has decided to focus on, and the way it applies just enough processing to each picture that you could use it without retouching, but still have room to enhance it to your own taste. Oh, and the quality of the lens.
Still, in a sign of the times, although I got the Canon 620 at a rock-bottom price at a Boxing Day (December 26) Sale, I recently saw it advertised for $20 less than I paid for it just three weeks ago. I suppose in another three years it will be obsolete again. So although today's cameras are great bargains compared to camera prices in the 1960s and 1970s, over time today's cameras may cost us more than our 35mm cameras ever did.
This is a real tear-jerker. I remember how in the 1950s, getting into serious photography was a "rite of passage". And while there were all sorts of cameras, those that used 35mm film were the clear choice of photo enthusiasts and professionals alike.
It really felt like 35mm photography would be here forever. Originally created to take advantage of the low cost of 35mm movie film, 35mm cameras survived the rise and fall of Polaroid's instant pictures, Kodak's Instamatic format (size 126) which (despite the name) did not create instant pictures but only simplified loading the film, Kodak's Pocket format (size 110), Kodak's Disc format, the Advanced Photographic System (APS), and many other formats and innovations. Most of these were not really needed, but were created because market research showed that people took the most pictures in the first two years after getting a new camera. In other words, new formats were invented to help sell film, paper and chemicals -- and, of course, cameras.
And through it all, the skills we learned in our high school days (in the 1950s) about exposure compensation and darkroom work (dodging and burning, solarization etc.) were still valid and valuable -- until now.
But in just a few years, digital photography has decimated sales of film and traditional film cameras, and now after sustaining huge losses Konica-Minolta (the two companies merged just 3 years ago) has announced it is getting out of the twin businesses of making cameras (of all types!) and film, to concentrate on making photocopiers and its other "imaging businesses" that are still profitable. To see Konica-Minolta reduced to taking this action is a blow close to home, because back in the 1970s when our children were small and we took a lot of pictures, many of them were taken with our Minolta Hi-Matic F and our Konica C-35, little gems of rangefinder cameras that did everything well. So this announcement is a bit like hearing about the death of an auntie you were once close to, who spent her later years in "reduced circumstances" as the British say.
Oh, and I hear Nikon is also dropping almost all of its film cameras. Who's next? To borrow Alvin Toffler's phrase from Future Shock, the future has arrived awfully fast for some of these companies.
On the digital front at home, we recently got our second digital camera (a Canon 620) after our Fujifilm 2600Z (about 3 years old) suddenly lost its ability to focus. By today's standards the Fuji is obsolete, so it's not worth repairing. The Canon is vastly superior to the old Fuji -- some review sites call it simply one of the best digital cameras available -- yet it cost about the same as the Fuji did 3 years ago. I'm impressed by the Canon's solid feel, its even illumination on flash shots, its intelligent autofocus system that seeks out -- and marks on the screen -- the key objects it has decided to focus on, and the way it applies just enough processing to each picture that you could use it without retouching, but still have room to enhance it to your own taste. Oh, and the quality of the lens.
Still, in a sign of the times, although I got the Canon 620 at a rock-bottom price at a Boxing Day (December 26) Sale, I recently saw it advertised for $20 less than I paid for it just three weeks ago. I suppose in another three years it will be obsolete again. So although today's cameras are great bargains compared to camera prices in the 1960s and 1970s, over time today's cameras may cost us more than our 35mm cameras ever did.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Vegemite not emigrating
From Agence France-Presse
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Kraft assures Australians that Vegemite is staying put
Global food giant Kraft moved to assure Australians yesterday that production of the famous Vegemite savoury spread would not be shifted overseas...
Kraft this week announced it would move its biscuit manufacturing business from Melbourne to China...The announcement had sparked fears that Kraft's Vegemite would meet a similar fate.
First produced in 1922, the thick brown paste with a strong, salty flavour is regarded as an acquired taste and is accorded the same status in the Australian national psyche as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the United States.
- - - - - - - -
The Observer says:
Vegemite is a yeast extract, rich in natural glutamates that stimulate the "umami" or savory taste receptors on the tongue. Since it isn't synthetic like MSG, it doesn't contain the indigestible left-handed isomer that is thought to cause "Chinese restaurant syndrome" and may contribute to glaucoma in people who regularly eat foods containing MSG.
Personally, I find Vegemite to be too bland and prefer the original British product, Marmite, which is over 100 years old. They are both yeast extracts, but Vegemite is flavoured with malt, whereas Marmite is flavoured with carrots and onions. A little goes a long way: a teaspoon is enough to impart a rich, meaty flavour to a pot of homemade soup.
Marmite is made all around the world. Most Marmite sold in North America comes from the UK through the "official" wholesaler. But some Chinese groceries import Marmite from Hong Kong, and I get mine from the South African Sausage Company which imports it from Durban.
Although most Americans and many Canadians claim to dislike Marmite, they buy lots of ready-made snacks, soups, and meat products in which "yeast extract" is a prominent ingredient. Ironically, some of our popular brands of sliced roast beef are flavoured with "yeast extract" to make them taste meaty!
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Kraft assures Australians that Vegemite is staying put
Global food giant Kraft moved to assure Australians yesterday that production of the famous Vegemite savoury spread would not be shifted overseas...
Kraft this week announced it would move its biscuit manufacturing business from Melbourne to China...The announcement had sparked fears that Kraft's Vegemite would meet a similar fate.
First produced in 1922, the thick brown paste with a strong, salty flavour is regarded as an acquired taste and is accorded the same status in the Australian national psyche as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the United States.
- - - - - - - -
The Observer says:
Vegemite is a yeast extract, rich in natural glutamates that stimulate the "umami" or savory taste receptors on the tongue. Since it isn't synthetic like MSG, it doesn't contain the indigestible left-handed isomer that is thought to cause "Chinese restaurant syndrome" and may contribute to glaucoma in people who regularly eat foods containing MSG.
Personally, I find Vegemite to be too bland and prefer the original British product, Marmite, which is over 100 years old. They are both yeast extracts, but Vegemite is flavoured with malt, whereas Marmite is flavoured with carrots and onions. A little goes a long way: a teaspoon is enough to impart a rich, meaty flavour to a pot of homemade soup.
Marmite is made all around the world. Most Marmite sold in North America comes from the UK through the "official" wholesaler. But some Chinese groceries import Marmite from Hong Kong, and I get mine from the South African Sausage Company which imports it from Durban.
Although most Americans and many Canadians claim to dislike Marmite, they buy lots of ready-made snacks, soups, and meat products in which "yeast extract" is a prominent ingredient. Ironically, some of our popular brands of sliced roast beef are flavoured with "yeast extract" to make them taste meaty!
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Dumbing down the English language
It was C.S. Lewis who commented that the fashion, popular in his day, that writing should be "functional" had robbed writing of half its functions. I wonder what he'd make of the state of English in our day. One has only to read ten pages of Lewis' The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader and then ten pages of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to realize that the English language has undergone a significant decline in the 50 or so years between the publication of these two children's stories.
And J.K. Rowling is not the worst offender. My candidate for the worst influence on the learning of English is: school textbooks. This is fresh in my mind, as I recently took a position as a high school teacher and am trying to come to terms with the new generation of textbooks. Those I learned from in Central Africa in the 1950s and 1960s looked a lot like The Times - simple text laid out in sequential paragraphs, with an occasional headline or line drawing. By contrast, today's textbooks look more like People or USA Today - full of colour, profusely illustrated, and with fact boxes cluttering every page. I wonder how any student ever follows the topic, there are so many interruptions placed in his or her way.
And the English! I find that since I learned mathematics in the 1960s the word "percentage" has become extinct. "Express 3/4 as a percent" says the Grade 8 textbook, a grammatical blunder which would have brought a sharp rebuke from my math teacher had I made it in class. Likewise the word "subtract" has been lost in the mists of time, so that even Grade 12 students are likely to say "You have to minus the constant".
And it isn't just in the sciences that we face this crisis - for that's what it is - of the erosion of our language, which is our only means of expressing ideas to one another. Social studies textbooks talk about dictators being "driven by hate", oblivious to the fact that "hate" is a verb (I hate, you hate, he hates...) and that the noun required here is "hatred". If you use that word in a conversation today, there's a chance that you may be viewed in the same way as those old folks who still talk about a musical "record" instead of a "CD". Or, worse, you may get curious stares from people who think your grasp of English is so poor that you have begun making up your own words.
I think I'll go back and re-read my copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" to reaffirm my own sanity!
And J.K. Rowling is not the worst offender. My candidate for the worst influence on the learning of English is: school textbooks. This is fresh in my mind, as I recently took a position as a high school teacher and am trying to come to terms with the new generation of textbooks. Those I learned from in Central Africa in the 1950s and 1960s looked a lot like The Times - simple text laid out in sequential paragraphs, with an occasional headline or line drawing. By contrast, today's textbooks look more like People or USA Today - full of colour, profusely illustrated, and with fact boxes cluttering every page. I wonder how any student ever follows the topic, there are so many interruptions placed in his or her way.
And the English! I find that since I learned mathematics in the 1960s the word "percentage" has become extinct. "Express 3/4 as a percent" says the Grade 8 textbook, a grammatical blunder which would have brought a sharp rebuke from my math teacher had I made it in class. Likewise the word "subtract" has been lost in the mists of time, so that even Grade 12 students are likely to say "You have to minus the constant".
And it isn't just in the sciences that we face this crisis - for that's what it is - of the erosion of our language, which is our only means of expressing ideas to one another. Social studies textbooks talk about dictators being "driven by hate", oblivious to the fact that "hate" is a verb (I hate, you hate, he hates...) and that the noun required here is "hatred". If you use that word in a conversation today, there's a chance that you may be viewed in the same way as those old folks who still talk about a musical "record" instead of a "CD". Or, worse, you may get curious stares from people who think your grasp of English is so poor that you have begun making up your own words.
I think I'll go back and re-read my copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" to reaffirm my own sanity!
Thursday, August 11, 2005
It‘s appearance beautify
I've always been a fan of what used to be called "Janglish" - the type of English found in the instruction books of Oriental products. (Nowadays it's more often called "Chinglish", which probably reflects an improvement in English language instruction in Japan.)
One of my favourite examples came from a Panasonic portable radio sold in the 1960s. Clearly, the translator had studied Shakespeare. In describing the transparent plastic case, he or she wrote:
"The cabinet is painted on the within, to shine beauteously on the without."
What a difference 40 years makes! Yesterday I saw a little round pocket-size USB plug converter in a local computer parts store. No Shakespeare here - this translator must have used a service like AltaVista's Babelfish or FreeTranslation.com to get a result like this:
"When you are traveling. Do you bring the very more USB cable? Is it very trable? Now, you have the flying savcer[sic] No 1, the door is throw wide open to your.”
Update 2010-02-11: We just bought some mandarin oranges individually wrapped in clear plastic pockets, each printed with the message below, spelled, punctuated and formatted exactly as shown:
MingHua mandarin is Orange,contain
of protein,sugar,vitamin and inorganic
salts etc,sorts of composition,especia
lly contains rich maize element, Vc,Vp,
and carotene,Resistant to cancet,he-
alth spleen,moisten lung,relieve a co-
ugh,it‘s appearance beautify,juice sa-
vory,flesh delicious,Not only is nouri-
shing product,but also is preserve yo-
ur health.It is good foodsfor health.
of protein,sugar,vitamin and inorganic
salts etc,sorts of composition,especia
lly contains rich maize element, Vc,Vp,
and carotene,Resistant to cancet,he-
alth spleen,moisten lung,relieve a co-
ugh,it‘s appearance beautify,juice sa-
vory,flesh delicious,Not only is nouri-
shing product,but also is preserve yo-
ur health.It is good foodsfor health.
They are delicious!
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
The "dark continent" is now invisible
How does an entire continent remain invisible?
Check out any ad where a corporation claims to be "world-wide". See if they include Africa. For example, www.brother.com lets you click your region to go to its web page, but there's no button on Africa. I've also seen countless print ads where companies wanting to impress me claimed a worldwide presence, but left Africa out of their world. The last US company I worked for, which did have an office in Africa, divided the world into four regions including one called "EMEA" -- Europe, the Middle East, and oh yes, Africa. Now there's as unlikely a grouping of customers as I can imagine.
Despite Africa's huge size, its roughly forty countries together have only about a third of the population of a major nonwestern country like India or China. And with around 20% of all Africans HIV-positive, that number may well go down. So numbers are part of the problem.
Blame the rest on corruption -- though, as we've been finding out, there's plenty of that to go around, including the UN Oil-For-Food scandal in Iraq, Canada's sponsorship scandal (see the Gomery inquiry), and recent claims that top Israeli politicians leading the drive to hand Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority have foreign business partners who are already licensed by the PA to develop casinos on that land as soon as the homes there are bulldozed. Still, when most people think of Africa, their first thought is of corrupt leadership and chaos on the scale of Rwanda, Somalia and Zimbabwe.
Africa has a very small class of potential investors. I recently read that, not counting the top dogs with their numbered accounts overseas, the 100,000 wealthiest Africans have an average net worth of US$8-million, but there's a big gap between them and the average village dweller, whose entire possessions could be purchased with the average Canadian income tax refund.
Thirty years ago, countries in Africa and Asia had much the same GNP per capita as each other. Today, those Asian countries have 30 times the GNP per capita of the African countries. What did Asia do right, that Africa should have learned from? And how can Africa catch up now? There are enough resources in Africa that it ought to be wealthy. How can we achieve that in one generation or less?
Check out any ad where a corporation claims to be "world-wide". See if they include Africa. For example, www.brother.com lets you click your region to go to its web page, but there's no button on Africa. I've also seen countless print ads where companies wanting to impress me claimed a worldwide presence, but left Africa out of their world. The last US company I worked for, which did have an office in Africa, divided the world into four regions including one called "EMEA" -- Europe, the Middle East, and oh yes, Africa. Now there's as unlikely a grouping of customers as I can imagine.
Despite Africa's huge size, its roughly forty countries together have only about a third of the population of a major nonwestern country like India or China. And with around 20% of all Africans HIV-positive, that number may well go down. So numbers are part of the problem.
Blame the rest on corruption -- though, as we've been finding out, there's plenty of that to go around, including the UN Oil-For-Food scandal in Iraq, Canada's sponsorship scandal (see the Gomery inquiry), and recent claims that top Israeli politicians leading the drive to hand Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority have foreign business partners who are already licensed by the PA to develop casinos on that land as soon as the homes there are bulldozed. Still, when most people think of Africa, their first thought is of corrupt leadership and chaos on the scale of Rwanda, Somalia and Zimbabwe.
Africa has a very small class of potential investors. I recently read that, not counting the top dogs with their numbered accounts overseas, the 100,000 wealthiest Africans have an average net worth of US$8-million, but there's a big gap between them and the average village dweller, whose entire possessions could be purchased with the average Canadian income tax refund.
Thirty years ago, countries in Africa and Asia had much the same GNP per capita as each other. Today, those Asian countries have 30 times the GNP per capita of the African countries. What did Asia do right, that Africa should have learned from? And how can Africa catch up now? There are enough resources in Africa that it ought to be wealthy. How can we achieve that in one generation or less?
Saturday, August 06, 2005
You get what you pay for
For the past few weeks I've been trying to choose a PC for a small charity I volunteer with. I drew up a specification and began checking prices.
Option 1: buy the parts locally and build the computer at home. That way I'd know the quality of all the parts and warranty service would be local. Cost: $1,000.
Option 2: buy the "house brand" PC from a local retailer. This is like Option 1 except the retailer chooses and assembles the parts. Warranty service would be local. Cost: $1,000.
Option 3: buy a "name brand" PC. Their large turnover lets them buy parts cheaper. I finally found a Compaq that exactly meets our spec. Cost: $800.
It's obvious that Option 3 is cheaper, right? But to get warranty service we must ship the computer halfway across North America at our expense. If we want local service we'll have to add an "extended warranty". Cost: $200, bringing the total to $1,000. Can't get away from that number!
And if I choose the Compaq, before I can install the software this charity uses, I must spend up to two hours uninstalling all the unwanted "wrapware" (promotions, demos, games and low-end applications) preinstalled by Compaq. This factor alone would make Compaq last choice if I was being paid.
Option 1: buy the parts locally and build the computer at home. That way I'd know the quality of all the parts and warranty service would be local. Cost: $1,000.
Option 2: buy the "house brand" PC from a local retailer. This is like Option 1 except the retailer chooses and assembles the parts. Warranty service would be local. Cost: $1,000.
Option 3: buy a "name brand" PC. Their large turnover lets them buy parts cheaper. I finally found a Compaq that exactly meets our spec. Cost: $800.
It's obvious that Option 3 is cheaper, right? But to get warranty service we must ship the computer halfway across North America at our expense. If we want local service we'll have to add an "extended warranty". Cost: $200, bringing the total to $1,000. Can't get away from that number!
And if I choose the Compaq, before I can install the software this charity uses, I must spend up to two hours uninstalling all the unwanted "wrapware" (promotions, demos, games and low-end applications) preinstalled by Compaq. This factor alone would make Compaq last choice if I was being paid.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Watch your language!
Last month I read a newspaper article that referred to a handsome movie star riding a motorcycle with "a beautiful model hanging onto his waste." Yuk! Thanks to spelling checkers we no longer see many spelling errors, but more than ever we are seeing the wrong homonym used. Here are a few examples I saw just in the last month:
The church I currently attend has abandoned hymnbooks in favour of a digital projector, and those who type the words into the computer sometimes seem to be cobbling together a brand-new theology. One song said "I'm excepted by God", which brought to mind the ancient practice of selling indulgences. Another song confused nudity with infertility, asking God to cure our "spiritual bareness". After calling up dictionary.com I was able to persuade the operator to let me correct the spelling to "barrenness".
In fact, the hardest job these days is persuading people that errors like these even matter. Yet just go back and read that first paragraph again -- all the romance goes out of the mental image when that last, awful word arrives to wreck the sentence. And the yuppie intentions of the pizza flyer were completely deflated by the mental image of a fork-lift truck moving bulk pizza ingredients stacked on the wooden platforms they mistook for their customers' taste buds.
And when an error changes the entire meaning of the sentence it's in, it's no longer just embarassing but could be an expensive business problem. Of course, one could always put a disclaimer on every document; how about this one, which I've actually seen on a document: "errors and omissions accepted"?
* 2008 update: perhaps Ron reads my blog; "formally" has now changed to "formerly" on his sign.
- "School stationary" -- on the cover of a stationery catalog intended for, of all people, educators. [Should be stationery = that which comes from a stationer, whose original job was chaining expensive books to their station to prevent theft.]
- "This will please your pallet" -- on an elaborate glossy flyer explaining in upscale terms why Papa John's pizza is so much better than its competition. [Should be palate = part of the mouth.]
- "We don't have a special rate per say" -- in an e-mail from an upscale arts organization. [Should be per se = (Latin) "as such".]
- "[the car] careered round the harepin bends...and plunged over the cliff." -- from a famous newspaper columnist. [Should be hairpin = mountain road made up of long straight sections joined by sharp corners and thus resembling hairpins.]
- "Ron's Restaurant, formally Joe's and Flo's" -- expensively-painted sign outside local restaurant. [Should be formerly = in former (previous) times.*]
The church I currently attend has abandoned hymnbooks in favour of a digital projector, and those who type the words into the computer sometimes seem to be cobbling together a brand-new theology. One song said "I'm excepted by God", which brought to mind the ancient practice of selling indulgences. Another song confused nudity with infertility, asking God to cure our "spiritual bareness". After calling up dictionary.com I was able to persuade the operator to let me correct the spelling to "barrenness".
In fact, the hardest job these days is persuading people that errors like these even matter. Yet just go back and read that first paragraph again -- all the romance goes out of the mental image when that last, awful word arrives to wreck the sentence. And the yuppie intentions of the pizza flyer were completely deflated by the mental image of a fork-lift truck moving bulk pizza ingredients stacked on the wooden platforms they mistook for their customers' taste buds.
And when an error changes the entire meaning of the sentence it's in, it's no longer just embarassing but could be an expensive business problem. Of course, one could always put a disclaimer on every document; how about this one, which I've actually seen on a document: "errors and omissions accepted"?
* 2008 update: perhaps Ron reads my blog; "formally" has now changed to "formerly" on his sign.
The Incredible Shrinking Brain
Around 1959 I read an exciting Dell* paperback about everything that was newest and best in the world of science. The only chapter I remember today was the one about computers, which said that it was now possible to think about building a computer that would duplicate the functions of the human brain. The only catch was that the computer would be as big as the planet Jupiter.
As a bit of a solar system buff, I never forgot that claim, which is why I was startled about 11 years later (1970) to read that if a computer was built that would duplicate the functions of the human brain, it would cover all of North America and be several storeys tall. What had changed in the meantime? Vacuum tubes had been replaced by transistors, and transistors were just beginning to be replaced by the late Jack Kilby's invention, the integrated circuit.
Over the years since then, I've occasionally seen in the press further references to the size of the hypothetical computer that duplicates the functions of the human brain, and each one is smaller than the one before. As big as a city - as big as the Empire State Building - as big as a house - and a couple of years ago, the announcement that pretty soon it would be possible to build this computer and make it the same size as the human brain. Now that's progress!
But a few weeks ago, turning the pages of InfoWorld, I did a double-take at the implications of a headline there: "IBM to simulate accurate model of human brain with Blue Gene/L". Did you catch that? We no longer need to "build" an electronic human brain - we'll just write one as software and run it on an existing computer!
Mind you, Blue Gene/L isn't the sort of thing you buy at your local PC store for $499.95. No, Blue Gene/L is a supercomputer that will run (when completed) at 360 Teraflops. Nor is it the size of a human brain. But the significant point is the fact that the functionality of the human brain is going to be delivered as software. Once that is achieved, the software can be moved to successive generations of smaller and smaller hardware until it reaches any desired physical size. The day may come within the lifetime of some of my readers when you will be able to own a "brain" smarter than your own, the same size and price as a good Swiss watch.
How will our lives change when we're surrounded by "digital assistants" smarter than we are? Perhaps the best advice came from the late comedian and recording artist Allan Sherman at the end of his 1963 parody song Automation:
"When it sidled over and gave me a hug, dear, that's when I pulled out its plug!"
(* That's the Dell Publishing Company, not Dell Computers which didn't exist until 1984.)
As a bit of a solar system buff, I never forgot that claim, which is why I was startled about 11 years later (1970) to read that if a computer was built that would duplicate the functions of the human brain, it would cover all of North America and be several storeys tall. What had changed in the meantime? Vacuum tubes had been replaced by transistors, and transistors were just beginning to be replaced by the late Jack Kilby's invention, the integrated circuit.
Over the years since then, I've occasionally seen in the press further references to the size of the hypothetical computer that duplicates the functions of the human brain, and each one is smaller than the one before. As big as a city - as big as the Empire State Building - as big as a house - and a couple of years ago, the announcement that pretty soon it would be possible to build this computer and make it the same size as the human brain. Now that's progress!
But a few weeks ago, turning the pages of InfoWorld, I did a double-take at the implications of a headline there: "IBM to simulate accurate model of human brain with Blue Gene/L". Did you catch that? We no longer need to "build" an electronic human brain - we'll just write one as software and run it on an existing computer!
Mind you, Blue Gene/L isn't the sort of thing you buy at your local PC store for $499.95. No, Blue Gene/L is a supercomputer that will run (when completed) at 360 Teraflops. Nor is it the size of a human brain. But the significant point is the fact that the functionality of the human brain is going to be delivered as software. Once that is achieved, the software can be moved to successive generations of smaller and smaller hardware until it reaches any desired physical size. The day may come within the lifetime of some of my readers when you will be able to own a "brain" smarter than your own, the same size and price as a good Swiss watch.
How will our lives change when we're surrounded by "digital assistants" smarter than we are? Perhaps the best advice came from the late comedian and recording artist Allan Sherman at the end of his 1963 parody song Automation:
"When it sidled over and gave me a hug, dear, that's when I pulled out its plug!"
(* That's the Dell Publishing Company, not Dell Computers which didn't exist until 1984.)
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Time to replace your potato peeler?
Note today's date: it may be seen as a very important moment in economic history. China has taken the first step toward "unpegging" the value of the Chinese yuan from that of the US dollar. It's now pegged to the average of several of strong currencies.
This will mean prices for Chinese goods here will go up as the international value of the US dollar declines, which it must do as long as the US runs a trade deficit with the rest of the world. And the US will, unfortunately, run that deficit as long as it pursues a policy of "guns and butter" -- high military spending that isn't financed by higher taxes.
This can only get worse, as China is currently rebuilding its major cities from a European model where people live downtown and walk to work, to the US model where people must commute to their downtown jobs from the suburbs. China sees this as progress and a good stimulus for its fledgling car industry, but it is a major reason why China recently overtook Japan as the second-largest importer of oil, having increased its oil imports by 30% in one year. China's appetite for oil is a major factor in the recent global oil price increases, and this price increase is a double-hit on Chinese export products because oil is both the feedstock for plastics manufacturers and the life-blood of the transportation industry.
These trends mean that fairly soon now, our local dollar stores will have to become a $1.25 stores or close down. Several dollar stores in our area recently went out of business, and I've already noticed that the rest no longer carry certain items that were once common there; those items now show up elsewhere at $2. If your potato peeler is on its last legs, now might be a good time to replace it.
Story: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/07/21/china.yuan.reut/index.html
(2009 follow-up: Of the three major dollar store chains operating in our area - Dollar Giant, Everything For A Dollar Store, and Dollarama - the "new kid", Dollarama, was the first to crack; they now carry items priced $1.25, $1.50 and $2.00 in addition to their $1 items. Dollar Giant then raised everything in the store to $1.25. EFADS still charges $1, but it has registered a new name so it's ready for when everything is $2.)
(2010 follow-up: EFADS has now followed Dollarama in having multiple prices. And Dollar Giant, once "proudly Canadian", is now a subsidiary of the US chain Dollar Tree.)
(2012 follow-up: EFADS went bankrupt in October 2012. Dollarama's prices now go as high as $3. Dollar Tree is slowly converting its Dollar Giant stores into Dollar Trees and has stayed with the $1.25 price limit.
This will mean prices for Chinese goods here will go up as the international value of the US dollar declines, which it must do as long as the US runs a trade deficit with the rest of the world. And the US will, unfortunately, run that deficit as long as it pursues a policy of "guns and butter" -- high military spending that isn't financed by higher taxes.
This can only get worse, as China is currently rebuilding its major cities from a European model where people live downtown and walk to work, to the US model where people must commute to their downtown jobs from the suburbs. China sees this as progress and a good stimulus for its fledgling car industry, but it is a major reason why China recently overtook Japan as the second-largest importer of oil, having increased its oil imports by 30% in one year. China's appetite for oil is a major factor in the recent global oil price increases, and this price increase is a double-hit on Chinese export products because oil is both the feedstock for plastics manufacturers and the life-blood of the transportation industry.
These trends mean that fairly soon now, our local dollar stores will have to become a $1.25 stores or close down. Several dollar stores in our area recently went out of business, and I've already noticed that the rest no longer carry certain items that were once common there; those items now show up elsewhere at $2. If your potato peeler is on its last legs, now might be a good time to replace it.
Story: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/07/21/china.yuan.reut/index.html
(2009 follow-up: Of the three major dollar store chains operating in our area - Dollar Giant, Everything For A Dollar Store, and Dollarama - the "new kid", Dollarama, was the first to crack; they now carry items priced $1.25, $1.50 and $2.00 in addition to their $1 items. Dollar Giant then raised everything in the store to $1.25. EFADS still charges $1, but it has registered a new name so it's ready for when everything is $2.)
(2010 follow-up: EFADS has now followed Dollarama in having multiple prices. And Dollar Giant, once "proudly Canadian", is now a subsidiary of the US chain Dollar Tree.)
(2012 follow-up: EFADS went bankrupt in October 2012. Dollarama's prices now go as high as $3. Dollar Tree is slowly converting its Dollar Giant stores into Dollar Trees and has stayed with the $1.25 price limit.
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