The "Gift" of difficulty.

 Much can be learned from the difficult things in your life. Don't shy away from them.

This is a topic that is worth revisiting, simply because it is so important in a person's development and perspective of the world. Every time you are faced with a difficult situation whether it be a decision, or something in which the correct answer cannot easily be found online (or by asking your favourite AI.)

The most amazing thing is, if a person faces their difficulty head on goes through whatever process entails, when they come out the other end there not only is a "solved problem" but they have demonstrated to themselves that they can handle the situation they just went through. This builds character and a deeper understanding of the individual. Challenge has a habit of doing that. You will always learn something.

The next time they face any type of difficulty they will benefit from a deeper reservoir of coping skills. You can't get this kind of knowledge by simply reading about it or watching a video. The person must go through the event themselves. Learning ahead of time can always help in coping with the difficulty, but nothing replaces dealing with the specific situation.

If you don't have challenge in your life then you will have less coping skills. As someone who's been on the earth for 67 years, I can tell you personally that facing difficulties always yields many more positive results in the long run.

A 1963 student in grade 7 making their  presentation about 
the discovery of electricity. (AI generated)

 Depicted in the picture above is a grade 7 student in the year 1963, presenting their a science experiment to the class. This was quite the common event and the details in the picture are not overblown. The student would've had to do all lot of manual research, and this is before, way before, the Internet. It would have been difficult for him. But the student would've gained so much insight and experience, not of the topic per se but of the process of doing the assignment. Gathering the materials, doing the research, and then putting it all together in the above panorama.I wonder how this compares with the current grade 7 curriculum? Take a look at the image again and imagine some of the insights the student would have gained throughout his project.

Learning to enjoy the difficulty itself

Image Credit: NASA. April 7, 2026. The Artemis II crew
Clicking on the image will take you to the NASA 
photo information page.

The most amazing thing about taking on a project of any kind where you are forced to stretch your self is that the difficulty can actually become joy. As one overcomes each problem, there is a sense of satisfaction and growth. Do this enough and you begin to look forward to the problems about to be faced. It can actually become quite intoxicating. This is why when you see photographs of researchers celebrating over an achievement they appear so ecstatic. Not only have they reached their goal, in the process they may have discovered something unknown. Months or years of work can have such marvellous paybacks.

 

The world is in constant change.

 Another important point is that you must be willing to change. Often times, what is perceived as a difficult issue isn't. The difficulty is that you are unwilling to change and sometimes that's all the difficulty truly is. People often get locked into routines and they become very comfortable in those specific environments. The world however is in constant change, and challenging you to adapt with it. In order to truly see difficulty as a gift, the first step is often identifying whether you are subconsciously insisting that the situation adapt to you rather than you adapting to the situation. Trust me, the correct answer in this situation is for you to adapt to the situation.

 

Personally, I have found writing this short post very inspiring and although it always takes much longer than I first envisioned it was indeed worth it. One cannot help but think back to all the accomplishments achieved in just a short time. The amount of effort which must've gone into each one is just dumbfounding… And yet someone began the undertaking, the initial first steps. You can't be afraid of difficulty, you must embrace the challenge!

There will be a follow-up video shortly to this article, so stay tuned.
Patrick 

I heard someone say "You should have three goals a day."

I heard someone say "You should have three goals a day." What a great way to look at one's life, I thought.

There are some many benefits to that single attitude:

1. It grounds you because you have to consider what you would like to do in a single day.
2.  It keeps goals attainable, and in doing so provides a sense of completion when the task is done.
3.  It forces you to think about what you're doing with your life in general.

 At first glance, it appears that everyone has an overwhelming list of things they need to accomplish every day. In truth there are the items which do indeed need to be addressed and then there are many things which can be de-prioritized. Many people don't like prioritizing because it takes consideration and effort. It is a first and essential step. You can't do everything and this critical understanding ensures that you focus on the attainable.

 If you find after consideration that a particular goal is not attainable in one day then you have the opportunity to reevaluate. This insight might not have occurred to you, if you had not taken the opportunity to consider what you wanted to accomplish in a single day. So it is very much a "win-win" situation. The three steps help you to consider the things you might've overlooked otherwise. The old saying "The devil is in the details." is very true in this case.

Keeping the number of goals to just three also helps to keep focus. You can comprehend, the beginning, the middle, and the end. In my volunteer work there is a very strong tendency to take on much more than just three goals in a single day. These three steps have helped me immensely. 99% of the time I find that the additional tasks can be planned for another day. That is to say to make them part of tomorrow's list of three goals.

Do you have an alternate way of approaching goals in your life? If so, please comment below.

This short post has been one of my three goals for today.

All the best for a great day everyone.
Patrick

May 27, 2026 - Grabbag of photos.

 

It is Wednesday and I have the day off. I promised myself that after lunch I am heading out, just to see what I can see and find what I can find. So the following is going to be the result of that :-) . Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

This post will literally lengthen over the course of this week. For now however at 8:09 AM this Wednsday morning I think I will start off with a few older photographs that for no particular reason I like and I hope you will enjoy as well.

Clicking on any photo will download a full high resolution version. 

Spring purple crocuses and yellow daffodils. (2002)

This photo was taken on March 23, 2002 as I was passing by someone's yard and the way the light struck the flowers just caught my eye. 

 

Japanese Pieris (Pieris japonica) (2002)
Download version enlarged to 6480 x 4320 pixels. PNG file

I remember, it was it down for in Vancouver and I still had to take the time to catch this photo. My Home St., West seventh in Vancouver. I don't remember much else but I remember this photo clearly.☔

Japanese Horse Chestnut tree (2026)
Download version enlarged to 5472 x 3648 pixels. PNG file 

Somehow, with the lamppost at the side of the image this chestnut tree looked even taller. I'm always amazed by how the ordinary things you see every day and look extraordinary if you just look at them the correct way. One of my goals this year is to take a lot more photographs of the things around us. People are always looking for the extraordinary things in life, the dramatic, the outrageous, but what I find interesting are those things that their only here for a short time. Then mother nature changes things up.

Elegant Roses (2026)
Download full size version 5472 x 3648 pixels. PNG file

 As usual, I caught sight of these roses completely by accident while wandering by a neighbourhood garden. Not only are the flowers spectacular, the juxtaposition of the powerline towers in the background really caught my eye. Just goes to show that in the middle of our technological world you can still find mother nature showing off her best.

A field full of buttercups! (2026)
Download full size version 5472 x 3648 pixels. PNG file

This picture was taken today out in Surrey. Something about it just screams a joyful summer. What more could you want a field full of buttercup flowers and beautiful trees in the background?😎

 

Vibrant mixture of wildflowers. (2026)
Download full size version 5472 x 3648 pixels. PNG file

 This is just the tiniest patch of wildflowers. I couldn't think of a way to describe it, so I ran it through AI and the AI thought it was an entire field complete with butterflies. That gave me an idea, this would be perfect if one could make all wall sized mural or even wallpaper, if the colours could be preserved. How a picture is framed really does affect one's perception. If I had moved half a meter in either direction the scene would've been broken. More pictures will be added to this post over the coming weekend, "so stay tuned" as people used to say.

Rhododendrons on the patio. (2026)
Download full size version 5472 x 3648 pixels. PNG file

One of the first rhododendrons to bloom on the patio. What a marvellous way to start the spring and summer seasons. The colours are so vivid, and yet so subtle. This is one of those photos where the standard JPG or 8 bit-colour PNG file format really can't do the image justice. You need a 16-bit format and a good monitor. However I have done my contest to bring out the colours for you.

Hydrangeas (2023)
Download full size version 5472 x 3648 pixels. PNG file

 Can't tell you where I was when I took this photo. Nevertheless it is one of my favourites. Something about the shadows and the vivid colours with the deep green leaves really resonates with me.

Tulips (2022)
Download full size version 5472 x 3648 pixels. PNG file

 

Okay, this picture drives me crazy, the shades of colour in the original photograph simply cannot be rendered accurately by the.jpg file format, and since my supper only outputs the PNG image using the same colour limitation I'm going to try something. Click this link to download the image in a TIFF file which does retain all the original colours. Be aware however that this file is much larger about 125 MB. If enough people request it I will start providing full download images in this file format.

NB:If you do try to download the large Tiff image of the tulips you may receive an error that the Google viewer cannot properly display the image and another error when you try to download it. Both of these errors are due to the size of the file but will not stop you from downloading the photo.
 

 

 A little bit of background on most of the new photos (2026) on this post. These images were created from what is called a "raw file format" which means that the camera does not do any post processing what you see is what you get. But this also means that the colour range is much higher than can be displayed on a normal monitor or standard PNG file. However even with this limitation, I find the images to look richer. One other side effect of this format is that sometimes visual distortion may appear because the camera does not correct for the limitations of the built in the lens and I have done my best to correct for this see the picture below for an uncorrected example. I think I have it very close but not perfect.

.Example of an uncorrected raw photo.

 The above the image is not the same photo. It does however illustrate the extreme distortion that modern cameras correct for automatically. However, it contains over 17 million colours. Compared to the normal 1.6 million colours found in a JPG phot or some PNG files. Doing the correction by hand rather than letting the camera do all the work frequently results in a much better photo when converting to PNG. Now you know how the small lens in that compact camera can get the photos it does… It's not the lens it's the camera performing some magic for you behind the scenes. 

The Retreat of Comprehension

The other day my boss at my volunteer work, gave me a document which detail a procedure for creating a website using only artificial intelligence (AI), and asked me to see how well it would work. (The document is: "Set up a context engineering flow in VS Code")  As I began to dig into the task, I found the AI almost addictive to work with. Even though I have a long history in building websites, once I had figured out the basics of the procedure it was very difficult to resist the temptation to skip the review code and just go with whatever the AI produced. To be clear I like looking into the details of whatever I am doing, but having such power to create something by simply talking about it then seeing a working website just appear has me concerned. Not about the job loss potential, but about the far-reaching effects.

You see I didn't have to think about how the website worked internally. I deliberately kept my requests in plain non-technical English. As long as I was careful about my descriptions the end result was awfully close to what I wanted., Additionally the AI filled in a few things I had missed. For example,I had forgotten to place a "back" button so that the visitor could return to the home page. The AI automatically placed a very nice looking button on all the appropriate pages.

Now, as you can imagine this would be a great benefit for creativity… But there is something serious missing. There is no comprehension of how, in this case the website code is working. Beyond the obvious issues of not being able to repair the website should it break. If we use AI on a larger scale what happens over the long term? Does our ability to comprehend important concepts begin to fade? 

I am old enough to remember the pre-calculator era, where you had to work things out on paper and in your head. This inevitably resulted in a deeper understanding of what ever task was being addressed. Whenever I watch a documentary on history or encounter some old information I am always astonished by the fact that in the past people undertook tremendous mental work and as a result they understood on a deeper level than I think is common today. In other words they comprehended what they were working on. They weren't just getting a result. It was the process involved that provided them with marvellous insights. 

Today this "Retreat of Comprehension" has me a little bit worried. It is human nature to always desire the easier path to the result. Indeed now that I have been using voice dictation for many years on the occasion where I have to write a paragraph by hand the activity feels foreign and I do have to work at it. At the same time though a lot is gained through this manual activity. It does feel more rewarding and I remember what I physically wrote.

AI is evolving extremely quickly. The course I took a year ago is now completely out of date. I signed up for the course initially because I was curious. Now I want to sign up for courses to keep my ability to truly comprehend a topic healthy. Because I know all too well that if I don't "Use It" I will "Lose It". The same can be said I believe but the rest of the population in this regard. If we don't take the effort to understand something on a deep level we will indeed lose that variability.

Let me know what you think about this short post and how you plan to keep your comprehension and ability to enjoy the sheer act of understanding and investigating a live and thriving.

Take care Patrick

 

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.   

The Quest to Be Unique… Maybe, You're Already There.

I attended the "CRAZY8S" gala last night which is an annual event and challenge for up-and-coming filmmakers. It was a marvellous time. The amount of creativity displayed  by people was incredible. Everyone at the venue was doing their best to stand out and there were no holds barred as far as glitter, colour and creation. This is a prestigious happening so all in attendance were doing their utmost to put on the show. And I must say it was great!

Coming home, I had a little difficulty boarding the Metro Vancouver public transit, SkyTrain. 

Fortunately, a fellow SkyTrain passeger was able to get my wheelchair unstuck and we began to talk about pretty much everything. At one point, they asked how I "got in my chair". They wanted to know the details of how I became disabled. I explained that my condition Cerebral Palsy was a lifelong and our conversation continued. The exact details of the dialogue are a little vague now but at one point I said, "That I would not want to be normal or cured. I enjoyed being different because there were so many different aspects to explore, which an able-bodied person might never have the opportunity to investigate. To be clear, some of that "investigation" is not by choice, sometimes you have to figure out a solution to a problem which doesn't normally occur for the rest of the world. An example would be, picking up a bankcard off the floor when you can't reach it. My solution for that one has always been dangling a long strip of scotch tape and with a little work the sticky side adheres to the card and you reel it in as though you were fishing. --That is really what I do :-). There are so many other examples… But the bottom line is being different can help you stay engaged with reality and thereby benefit from that extra awareness. Guess what?… You are already different.

 People seem to think that difference must be obvious to the outside world, I suggest that some of the most profound discoveries you will ever make will be from the subtle things. Events that no one else will ever see or understand. Tiny little opportunities grow. They happen all the time. So if you feel like you're an outsider, celebrate that difference. Actually now that I think about it at this very moment, all of the films I saw last night at CRAZY8S were about that very thing. They were all internal journeys of exploration and discovery. But I can guarantee you they weren't simple little trips down memory lane for the characters in the movies.

So as you explore your differences go ahead and be loud and proud, but don't forget those small powerful insights… Because one of them may be telling you "You Are There And You Are Fine. The journey ahead is up to you." 

Enjoy your differences everybody!
Patrick

Creativity and AI, Can They Coexist?

Image of a Tulip taken with a Kodak DX3900 in April 2002.
I just thought it looked cool 😲 for this post.

You may be tempted after reading the title of this post to fervently respond "No!..." , then articulate various reasons why. But hold on, before going down the gloom and doom rabbit hole, consider the following:

Let us consider image creation and here I'm not talking about the dreaded "Deep Fake" phenomenon, I would like us to consider the ability to create images by merely articulating an idea. This has quite a few benefits when used responsibly. 

1. If a person has a disability which physically impairs their motor function, AI can allow them to release their creativity like never before. As with, anything else it takes practice to learn how to prompt artificial intelligence correctly. That in turn means that the person must organize their thoughts and consider the various aspects of the image they want to create.I myself have found this very liberating. Often I take what the AI initially generates and tweak it to improve the presentation or context. In this situation, Artificial Intelligence allows the manifestation of creativity.

The image below of a fictitious RCA "Cathedral" vacuum tube radio from the 1930s is an example of what can be done by simply describing to an AI system what you would like created. The actual prompt (text) is in italics below the image. With practice just about anyone can create a pleasant useful image. It should be noted here that some understanding of how AI works is necessary when creating your request. In a nutshell AI in its current form statistically calculates the all odds of words in a sentence, maps that result to a meaning and then reevaluates. It does this for each word until it gets a high probability that the answer is correct. In the case of an image it may start by evaluating what shape is most likely being asked for. This results in billions of calculations and is the reason why it is so power intensive. 

AI generated picture from the service Ideogram AI. 

My prompt to the AI: "A beautiful 1930s RCA Cathedral vacuum tube radio sitting on a desk with the tuning knob marvellously lit in that warm incandescents light glow. The lighting should be warm and inviting in the room and the image should be photorealistic."

2. You're working on a problem and you reach an absolute dead as to the solution. This can be a physical situation or an abstract idea, but in either case, you've hit the proverbial brick wall. So you put the question to an AI chatbot, and even if it doesn't come up with a usable answer, it very likely approached from a different angle. That's just enough for you to get inspired and tackle the problem once again. Normally you would ask friends in this situation but sometimes, especially if you're stuck at two in the morning, this is the more appropriate way to go.

The above two examples are the benefits of artificial intelligence. In both cases the tool of AI is not detracting from the process of creativity, it is adding to it in a very beneficial way. Allowing the individual to explore more deeply their given situation. This is in stark contrast to another article I wrote several years ago " Learning and knowledge in the shadow of AI " which explores what happens when people use AI to circumvent understanding of an issue or topic. The above two points are almost the opposite of what that article is talking about.

To be rather blunt, the question is whether people will be wise enough to use this new tool to expand their understandings and opportunities to learn, or will individuals insist on taking the easy road and thereby reduce their opportunity to grow. Both situations will probably exist for some time but it is my hope that overall people will use this collectively as a society and individually as a person to grow.

In order to ensure growth means that when AI is used we must always not take it for granted, being involved with the technology only superficially. Society must understand what is going on and how AI mechanisms work and continue to evolve. Not to mention this is the only way to get the maximum benefits of this revolutionary tool. AI is not human and the current mechanisms used to create the manifestation of Artificial Intelligence can never understand the information it presents. That must be understood. We do not know however how this technology will evolve. There are many, many, ways forward. This means that society again must understand and be involved with the evolution of this technology. This is not a way to get out of school so to speak, this is another course in your curriculum of life. This is a technology we must continually grow with.

There is one final point - AI is an incredibly rapidly evolving technology. It should never, ever be blindly relied upon. One must always double check with other facts and research. In some ways this has a historical parallel. 

It was believed that the sun and planets revolved around the Earth since before the time of Ptolemy the standardized this idea in the Ptolemaic model. Even though there alternate ideas which challenge this model. It became the predominant one for hundreds of years. Until Copernicus published "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" in 1543, which portrayed the earth and other planets going around the sun. However, the Ptolemaic model was entrenched, for one reason it appeared to align with common sense. The compartment can idea was only accepted slowly however as we all know Copernicus was correct in his observations.

 In a similar way there is a tendency to automatically assume that whatever is generated by AI is accurate and to be taken at face value, even if it feels right.

Personally I find the very act of researching a topic on my own very rewarding. In some cases I find it intoxicating to follow little trails of knowledge to a larger concept which I have the satisfaction of understanding. This is something you don't experience with AI. It just gives you the answer which is different from the knowledge attained by understanding. As a matter of fact, yesterday I had this very experience, albeit in a subtle way.

A local library had one of their patrons come in complaining about not being able to access an online resource. It was one of those situations where because they were a member of the library the should've been able to access this streaming service by simply entering their library number and password. At one point the library and thought it might be a problem with the patrons email address, and so they contacted the place where I volunteer the Vancouver Community Network (VCN) which provides email addresses and other services to low income and seniors. One of the volunteers at VCN asked an AI about the issue and followed a number of steps, with the presumption that the email address the patron was using was the source of the problem. The next day I called the library back and had a long talk with the librarian hoping this particular patron. There were many details we found which indicated that the problem was on the streaming services and and not an email issue at all. Details which the AI had ignored in its analysis.

Even if the issue hadn't been solved, going through the mental exercise gave everyone deeper insights and that is something that no AI can provide. The lesson here then is, even when AI is the most efficient way to go, if one still wants to truly understand something they must do it themselves.

With that final thought I will wish you a pleasant day.
Take care Patrick

** NOTE: The picture of the RCA "Cathedral" vacuum tube radio is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.  

Useful Hardship

As I get older and continue to proceed through life build one consistent message I perceive is that one must continue to change and evolve, pretty much, at all costs. I've written about this previously on the blog and it bears repeating. From observation, it appears that there is a natural tendency in people to adhere to routine more and more as they age. I don't know if this is based in biology or is merely a side effect of the fact that in this day and age we can literally afford to do so. Where in earlier times the necessities of life required that we stayed engaged with the surroundings and the side effect was people stayed healthier.

When the necessity of this involvement is removed, mental and physical function begins to erode quite rapidly and if there are any underlying medical conditions they become magnified. I am seeing this nowadays all around me as I observe people. Sometimes it is subtle, but many times it is severe and very hard to recover from because the modern way of dealing with this is to remove even more challenges. This makes the person "challenge averse", which of course becomes a loop, speeding up one's decline.

"The Choice to Grow or Stagnate"

Although this situation may produce many diverse outcomes, there is one I see consistently. Negativity begins to manifest in the person and they hold on to this darker worldview. Defending it rather than challenging it. This behaviour then spreads throughout the group. I myself feel the effects and have to keep bolstering my defenses. The very activity I am undertaking writing this article is one of the means I used to keep engaged with life. Later today I plan to take a trip into Vancouver using only my electric wheelchair and minimal public transit in order to stay fully engaged with humanity. I am also doing this because next weekend there is a premier of the indie film "The Decision" and I want to show my support of the film's creator, Steven Cayer.

Trailer: The Decision

 "A sharp-witted 30-year-old man with cerebral palsy living in assisted care has his independence tested when his overprotective mother secretly enrolls him in a risky medical trial – forcing him, his girlfriend, and his neighbor to confront what freedom really means."

Showings:

 April 11, 2026 
The Centre in Vancouver For Performing Arts 
777 Homer St, Vancouver, BC.

(Part of the "CRAZY8S", an  annual 8-day short filmmaking challenge that provides support and funding to 6 emerging and mid-career filmmakers.)  

Steven Cayer Executive Producer / Writer

 

The way out of this negative downhill slide is a situation I call "Useful Hardship" finding the difficulties in life and challenging them, whether that be going out in inclement weather or undertaking a task which requires learning and growth. One cannot let their life become to easy or comfortable. Hardship must be dealt with and that keeps the person engaged in life. More aware of themselves.

The inner journey a person experiences as they confront the difficulties and find solutions is just as important as the external one. It is deeply personal and frequently requires a long commitment to improve what ever the individual's issues are. 

I can guarantee that there are many benefits to useful hardship. It will give you the insights required to know when you can change things versus when you must adapt to a new situation. You will continue to own the decisions which affect your personal and public life. Positive people around you will also see the effort being put in and they will stay engaged with you, seeing the wisdom gained throughout the years. There will be other benefits which only you will know about. That is for you to write about if you wish. 

All the best in your journeys.

Take care Patrick Clark

 

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.  

Completion Adversion

 

 

 

Have you ever collaborated on a project, either personal or for work, in which there is almost a resistance to getting the job done on time? 

The effort starts out simply enough with the concept and intermediate goals set out plainly. But as the project gets underway the goals keep evolving, meaning that a great deal of time is just wasted, because parts of the undertaking have to be redone.

I have seen the above scenario play out several times now with different groups, and persons. As a matter-of-fact my brother Tim who was very creative would often fall into this trap. His projects would grow, and grow. Eventually it was almost guaranteed that he would give up in frustration. Sometimes his undertakings would consume almost half a year. Thinking about my brother, I now wonder what was going on? To be clear, when he would undertake a task and get caught in this loop, it was not a pleasant experience for him. You could see the frustration build. What was once a weeklong project had become months long. What was preventing him from sticking to the original idea and timeline?

As I think back on this now, it is likely that completing the task was not the real goal, rather it was being "in the process", then nuts and bolts of the activity itself. In that kind of scenario, one would not want to reach completion because it would then be like falling off a cliff. There would be nothing left to do, and that would be depressing. So one way to avoid this would be to continually move the goalpost, a little farther ahead each time. But of course if one does not recognize what's going on and what is truly motivating the person, the result is built up frustration which would cancel out for the most part any beneficial effects of the experience.

Please feel free by the way to comment on this post if you have another point of view.

Speaking personally, I have a little bit of this behaviour, but I recognize it and can usually bring myself back to focusing on concrete goals. This took quite a few years of learning however. In my 20s and 30s I was notorious for starting projects that would quickly balloon into unmanageable situations. For me what began to break this behaviour was something that terrified me called a deadline. Now I am not terrified by imposed schedule because I learned that when one keeps things attainable, one benefits from success. In this case that "success" is the completion of a job or project. I'll be the first to admit however that it is always very tempting to go back in and add one more little adornment.-One more little future. Then I think about my dear brother Tim and common sense returns.

This is just a very short post to see if anyone out there has a similar experience. I also find as everyone gets busier in their daily lives, counterintuitively, there seem to be more people with a case of "Completion Adversion".

Have a great day and comments are always welcome.
Patrick

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.  

NEW DEVICES: When the "Out-Of-Box User Experience" Doesn't Work for the Disabled.

 

Should the hardware manufacturers be required to provide fully configured hardware setups for their disabled customers when supplying them with new equipment?

Recently myself and a volunteer spent several hours over the phone assisting someone with a severe vision problem set up their new computer. They had reached out to us after several weeks of back-and-forth with both the manufacturer and the store where they bought the machine.

As the discussion on the phone went on it became very clear that nothing on the new machine had been configured for those with vision impairments. And I began to wonder, why the heck did the store who knew the customer from previous purchases sell them the machine without some basic configuration? One might argue that in the modern machine and with the diversity of disabilities that there is simply is no single configuration which would fit all persons in a particular category.Being physically disabled myself, I beg to differ.

Addressing just vision impairments for this discussion, to keep things somewhat simple, the store could have delivered the machine set to low resolution so that things looks of much larger on the screen, instead of allowing the computer to go to the highest resolution the monitor supported immediately upon plugging the initial startup. Which effectively made the machine absolutely useless to the customer. They couldn't see a thing on their monitor. Computers are very flexible and I would be astounded if there was no way to customize a few settings ahead of time. At the very least they could've provided the customer with a few avenues to get the machine properly set up.

To be clear, the volunteers and I will continue working with this person until we get things in order. But I find myself rather annoyed that technology companies, when that they produce computers or phones or indeed some other devices don't take the initial set up into account.  Nor is it any good for a manufacturer to just put an "accessibility icon" in the corner of the startup screen… Because in this case the customer couldn't see it and probably wouldn't have recognized what it was even if it was within their visual range.

This isn't an isolated case either. I have seen it happen with, smart phones, smart TVs, and even some hardware specifically designed for people with disabilities. You would think that last group of product would be the exception. Nope. As a matter of fact it was a joystick, a $700 joystick, and it had the worst manual I have ever seen. Badly formatted and written in addition to being way too brief. My assumption in this case is that they assumed some technician would set it up for the client or customer and time. As a supplier of hardware one cannot assume that there will be a genius at the other end of the purchase chain to configure the device.

Now, we can't entirely blame the manufacturer and supplier. The customer must also take a good amount of responsibility. Unlike the general public, these devices are usually purchased to become an integral part of the person's daily routine and will be in use over a long period of time. I don't know the background in the above situation, but as a consumer you must take your time to fully review whether or not the device you are considering purchasing will actually work for you. This will mean, because I've done it personally myself,

1. After tentatively picking a product, there will be a lot of discussion as to whether it will work for a given situation. This means really looking at, in detail, how the device will physically fit in the chosen final environment. This may mean arranging a loaner device to test out whether or not it will work as anticipated. Checking to see whether the buttons are reachable, whether the screen is too bright or too dark, whether the pointing devices are calibrated to the person's sensitivities. Expect to take quite a bit of time on this initial stage. If the supplier is not willing to provide the time, then it is a good indication that this is not the right supplier. Seek a company that is willing to put in the effort.
   
   
2. No new device work exactly like the old familiar device, especially with technology. It will always change. Attention must be paid to in the case of a smart phone or computer aspects like: can some of the old software that is familiar be brought over to the new device. What replacements can be found for the items that cannot be brought over.
   
   
3. Plan ahead for the new device to change in some fashion. With software always being updated there must be a contingency plan in place should something like a new user interface be implemented by the company during an update and thereby moving or altering the position of all the icons. This can happen all of a sudden so arrange for this eventuality. Consider if applicable installing on the new device a Remote Desktop application and arrange for a friend or someone equally trusted to have the ability to remotely connect to the device to make the interface usable again.

These are just some ideas and thoughts I had for today. You could call it my Wednesday morning a rant. Have a good day everyone and of course feel free to leave comments.

Patrick

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement. 

Tied To The Internet: Could we cope without it?

What if, for reasons unknown, the Internet stop working permanently and for presumably other unknown reasons we couldn't replace it with any other technology? Just think up the number of things that would be immediately useless or incredibly limited. Your cell phone would for the most part be just a phone. I bet even text messaging wouldn't work because I am sure that somewhere embedded in the Short Message Service  (SMS) technology is a reliance on the Internet. So scratch one fancy phone. Your computer, aside from your home network, would literally be a standalone machine. No email, video calls, and definitely not know uploading and downloading. No streaming. You get the idea.

Just the removal of one component of our technological life… A technology that is so integrated into everything now that I'm sure almost no one has a grasp of the full impact of the loss, should it one day disappear. My wheelchair gets updates over the Internet. That right. that in itself, tells us how deeply intertwined this communication technology is. I don't think society could go back, actually when the Internet didn't exist for the average person. It is tempting to think "Oh yes, society could go back" but in all honestly I don't think that thought is realistic. Not only have billions of people grown up with having the Internet and have gotten very used to looking up anything pretty much instantly. (Here we are not considering the quality of the information retrieved, just the fact that it can be retrieved easily.)I can't see business reverting to the old ways of doing things either.

It is however, and intriguing thought experiment. The public Internet began around 1993 when the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) put the underlying software in the public domain, and yes I just use Gemini to look that little factoid up. Any links in this article will be my attempt to corroborate these statements. That small amount of "research" took all of 20 seconds. If however we were back in the year 1989 or so, what what I have to do to find the information?… My first thought would be a trip to the library, and I'm probably only thinking that way because I am 66 years old and can remember using a library. However how would someone in their 20s or 30s if they were put in such a situation find any information. A library may be a relic to them, something they will only heard about from their parents.

Let's say a city like Vancouver British Columbia Canada was put in this situation. Would people begin to rally to the challenge of a pre-Internet existence? To be clear I'm not talking about rolling the entire city back to the year 1989 or so, just removing the Internet itself. This might make a fascinating book or at the very least a video series. That may be even better because the viewer could see the impact of losing a technology so critical to our modern lives. 

False Creek, Vancouver BC Canada, circa 1980s
Click to download the full resolution image.
I, Patrick Clark, hereby place this image in the public domain.

This image was scanned originally from a "slide" (More information on what a Slide projector was can be found here,) which had faded and was corrected with scratch removal, white balancing, and slightly cropped because the original image was not aligned properly in the scanner. This photograph was originally taken by my father and scanned into a computer some years later running Windows XP. Restoration was done in 2026 on Windows 11 using Corel Paint Shop Pro 2023 by Patrick Clark.

 

 

I know the photograph of the Vancouver from the early 1980s is a little out of place with the topic at hand since at the time of the photo very few people knew about the Internet and it was still in extremely early development. But it does underline how much things have changed. I think cell phones were just becoming a thing and again they were expensive. But could the average person living today adapt to a world without Internet? I mean, my watch needs the Internet to set the correct time. There is no way to set it manually. So if the battery ever dies, that's it for the watch.

I have lots of old skills that would enable me to cope, and I do remember researching school essays by hand, raiding the aforementioned library. Or buying a physical book and reading the whole thing. These behaviours are sufficiently ingrained in me that I'm not even sure what skills I am using. Someone born in the 2000's however, would have their skills tied to the Internet. 

 

Socialization

This could be most difficult for people who grew up with the Internet. Without social media and text messaging this could be very difficult to adjust to. It would include discovering the lost art of conversation. And conversation is pretty much a lost art indeed in some segments of the population. Go on public transit and there is very little discussion among the riders. Everybody is glued to their devices. There is a lot of subtlety in being social: 

• You have to pick up on clues in the environment. 
• Know how to keep a conversation engaging. 
• Know when to not engage someone. 

 These are all skills that can take many years, may be months if you're only rusty at the particular task.

From my perspective social media has done more harm than good. It doesn't allow people to naturally mature emotionally because they can write or say something inappropriate online and then just disappear. Do that in real life and you would get an unavoidable reaction from the other person. People I think would have a rough time regaining old skills. Learning how to be in a larger environment and sociable is something humans start to learn when they're young and it is complicated to say the least.

When I was about 15 citizens band radios (CB) were all the rage and I was caught up in it. This is the first time we saw people say things and act inappropriately go off the air. You couldn't do that before. If someone said something rude the other person or a group of people would let them know right then and there that whatever they said was unacceptable.

My CB radio a RadioShack Realistic TRC 30A
Circa 1975

Society needs people with good socialization skills. It is fundamental in getting along. The question is and I know I'm repeating myself - Could people pick these critical skills in adult life? Would there always be something rough around the edges with these people or could they successfully master socialization? My goodness the number of questions in this article so far is rather surprising. From my initial perspective it looks like we really do rely on the Internet in a lot of areas.

On the other hand, there are many positives that being able to communicate rapidly and exchange information brought to us by the Internet that have benefited people. So like life itself there are no absolute good or bad in this discussion. 

I remember my parents absolutely freaking out whenever it was necessary to make a long distance phone call. The price was expensive and charged on a permanent basis. Now with just your browser, you can have a conversation with a friend on the other side of the world and the cost is negligible complete with real-time video. 

Would handwriting come back in to use?

This is a point I really find a mind blowing. The fact that they do not teach handwriting in school. Initially it makes sense since everything is done online. But consider the intimate connection of writing something on paper. It involves a completely different mindset and I wouldn't be surprised if it ultimately affects in a positive way one's cognitive abilities. Not just the mechanics of creating a written sentence, the way you are putting together the thoughts in your mind. It is much more intimate than typing on a keyboard.

I know from personal experience using voice dictation that a person speaks in day-to-day language very differently than they write. Presumably this is due to the fact that you have time to think while constructing a paragraph. Voice dictation on the other hand there is a tendency to write very informally. So if someone always had access to the Internet and did not learn handwriting the challenges they would face would be quite large. After all this was a skill which took time to develop. Never mind reading someone else's handwriting. Both my parents were in healthcare and my father had particularly bad, almost abstract, and writing. Very few people have to deal with this now.

And all that is happened is that one component, albeit a big one, has been removed in this discussion. "The Internet".

I am really interested to hear your comments. When time permits I will also add a YouTube video version of this article.   ... And here it is:

Have a great day!
Patrick 

 PS: This is the 200th post on this blog. I plan to keep on going😀.

 

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.