This blog is just a grab bag of thoughts and useful links. However, as the name suggests it may be interpreted by some as a wee bit challenging, if not, activist. Hence the use of the term "Left" in the title.
The views expressed are strictly my own. The mention of any software or service is not to be taken as an endorsement or criticism.
This article is about optimism of the individual, but the ideas can be applied to groups.
Have you ever considered that the way you feel at any given moment is the way you think you should feel in that situation?
Think about this situation: Unexpectedly a dear friend who you haven't seen in many years calls you up. Instantly there is a feeling of joy and excitement. Now when you think about it, that feeling of happiness is not occurring due, to the fact that your dear friend is calling you up. It has to do with the decision you made when you realized who it was on the phone. You decided it was a good time to feel joy. On the other hand, if a bill collector calls, you may feel the exact opposite and again it is not the bill collector's call, it's your decision on how to feel in that context.
It is amazing when one begins to realize how much control you really have over emotions. But we are not taught to think of it that way. Most people behave as though the reaction it's outside of their control. But the reaction and indeed the interpretation of any given situation is fully within your control. So why not promote optimism as you go through your daily life. It not only will improve your well-being, it will also deepen your understanding of other people and indeed society.
"The reaction and indeed the interpretation of any given situation is fully within your control."
You are the decision-maker of interpretations.
Consider "political correctness" movement and its variants, it is not the words that are the issue, it is the value and interpretation you give to the situation. So you might as well put a positive spin on it or simply ignore whatever words are used and look for the intent of the message. Society can either choose to promote positiveness or it can go down the other road. The choice is really up to the individual and the group they are involved with.
Promoting a state of being positive it's really about taking the time to get involved with your self on an intimate level. Turn off the autopilots and consider what attracts you or repels you in any given situation. Once you figure that out you might as well start selling an optimistic outlook to your self and others. I live in an assisted living building and many people here lament that they were once able-bodied and are no longer. I remind them that rather than focusing on what they lost they should when possible look at your new situation and embrace it. They may have lost mobility but they have gained support (Our building actually has a doctor who makes house calls) The staff here would do almost anything in support of the people they work with. I know this because they have moved heaven and earth when it comes to enabling me to do various projects like repair a computer. Physically I'm slow and my coordination is in great. One day I had a computer here the needed a new Bluetooth card. I was able to direct the staff on how to put the cart in the machine and everything turned out wonderfully.
The point is, you can choose your outlook and interpretation of almost everything. Promoting optimism seems like a very useful thing to do. In the next few moments it will probably be an opportunity for you to choose how to interpret a situation. Analyse the reaction or the decision made and decide with you can put a positive spin on it. These opportunities occur many times each day and often we are barely aware of them. Treat these events as opportunities to see the glass half full rather than half empty. It is an amazing and ongoing journey.
Don't you agree?… Let me know in the comments.
Patrick
N.B. Due to technical issues, this post was written literally live
online between December 29 to the 31st 2024 inclusive. The text was
subject to change between those dates.
First, let's define what I consider "patience" to me:
It is not just the willingness to wait for something to complete or happen.
It is about being comfortable and open to the passage of time.
It is about understanding that people and things occur at different rates.
It is also about understanding one's self and others around you.
That last point (number 4 ) is really interesting and important. If you find yourself in the state of being impatient. That means that something about the situation you are in is bothering you and it is not usually as apparent as you first may think.
When I was in my mid-20s even though due to a disability I was physically slower, I would frequently get angry at people who didn't understand concepts as quickly as I could. This was missed place frustration at the physical limitations imposed by my condition. It took a long time, but what I finally discovered was the key for me is that you must be willing to go beyond your personal perceptions and consider for a moment the larger picture. Once I properly understood my physical frustrations, the impatient situations began to decrease.
So when you feel impatient about something, take a moment to look at your bigger picture. I bet you will find that there is some other component not being addressed. This is actually a very big lesson to learn: To continually alter the way you look at things. It is actually a good habit and one worth developing.No one likes to go outside of their comfort zone, so this lesson did take me a long time to really "get".
Judgements about people can also manifest as impatiences. To cover the fact that we are judging someone we simply feel impatient. Here, the answer is to look inside oneself to see what is motivating any particular feeling.
Learn not to take things personally. You are not the centre of the universe. Adults and children are spending far less time with each other in social activities. So we get used to dramatic feedback in everything from games to YouTube and this can result in a very insecure personality. Emotionally such individuals develop a need to be focused upon all the time. This is a recipe for disaster. Conversely if one understands that they are part of a larger community and that communities go through various cycles and changes you will find that there is no need to get an "Attention-Hit". So turn off the computer and spent some time with your fellow human beings. The insecurity will disappear replaced by a healthy sense of balance.
The more you understand about your self, the more you will grow and the more you will learn. The ability to be patient will grow and grow. You will also know when on occasion to not be patient. The point is you will know what true patience is.
As with all things in life, cultivating "patience" takes effort and commitment. For some of you it will not come easily because it will inevitably involve challenging yourself and your belief systems on some level. To truly understand what patience is, is indeed a journey. I can guarantee you that as you go through life your definition will change. But it is well worth the ongoing undertaking.
As always, feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think. Take care, Patrick
** NOTE: The pictures "Image generated by Ideogram AI" 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.
This is going to be a very short post because it is essentially just a question which hints at an answer.
Literally, if you can appreciate it, is difficulty in itself the thing that keeps people going and engaged with the life?
It seems that whenever people make their lives easier or more convenient there is ultimately a long term loss either physically, mentally, or emotionally. On the other hand whenever healthy challenge is present the human being tends to stay engaged and be more resilient. To give you an example:
Before voice dictation existed I would happily spend days at the typewriter. However I made a decision at some point that in order to increase my output voice dictation would be a good idea so when it finally matured sufficiently to be useful I switched. Now I find myself being very uncomfortable whenever I have to physically write something even if it is typing. It feels like a rusty skill. The same goes with basic mathematics, we all use calculators of one sort or another now. As I look at the modern world I begin to wonder if in making things to easy we have lost much more than is apparent. I have also discovered that climbing back up the proverbial mountain is much harder once you let go of the skill.
I challenge you to spend the day doing math manually, or pick a skill of your choosing. I would really like to hear your thoughts on this. I don't know if I'll do a video for this because I think at this point the text says it all.
Feel free to write some comments on this one. I have a feeling we are about to find out that it is indeed worth keeping some difficulty in your life.
Patrick
** NOTE: The pictures "Image generated by Ideogram AI" 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.
Okay I think I finally have a handle on this question: "How Is Your Brain handling the Internet in the 21st century?" But first some background...
A week ago I was watching an interview with psychiatrist Bandy Lee (1.The YouTube interview, 2. Her official bio, 3. Wikipedia article on her) regarding how . Donald Trump (1. His bio on Britannica encyclopedia 2.Wikipedia article on him ) perceives not only the world but his inner life as well. By the end of the interview I was shocked that someone could have such a dark dystopian inner world. It did however make sense when you look at his actions. It is clear that his got some mental condition but that is for others far more learned than I to discuss.
I began to wonder about the human experience as a whole. Who's to say my fundamental way of existing, of processing reality is anything similar to anyone else's. Could it be that the shared humanity of the human race is only an assumption? There is no way for any of us at this point in time to find out whether what is going on in our own head is an experience that it shared. To be clear I am talking about this on an extremely fundamental level. Maybe an analogy will help
If you take a Microsoft Windows computer and compare it to an iMac by Apple there are many things they do exactly the same. You can browse the Internet, spend money, check with your friends, create artwork and music. On the surface it looks like only certain design choices are different more of a stylistic change than a function change. But if you look at the hardware and the actual code that achieves this it is dramatically different. Literally two different worlds of programming and yet the outward result is very uniform between the two machines. If one didn't know better one could be forgiven for thinking they shared the same "machine experience". If that is true might it not also be true for human beings?
Now, let's bring in to this discussion the Internet. If my conjecture is correct that the underpinning of the human experience can be vastly different, then would not the effects of using the Internet result in a vastly different outcome for the individual?
Another example to illustrate:
I take public transit frequently and of always noticed that people are glued to their cell phones or other media devices. Why is it that I can take it or leave it and others can't. My phone frequently sits in my pocket sometimes for most of the day and if I have no reason to look at it I simply won't. I don't avoid it, I just don't need to check it. Yet I see people all the time scrolling aimlessly or texting pretty much all the time. So is there fundamental reality different. If so we should take this into account.
I firmly believe that a child should have limited access to technology in their early years. Their brain needs to learn how to work for itself. They must develop a sense of time over which things need to occur to be achieved. There problem-solving skills must be started up and if all goes well they consider an issue deeply. Willing to put in the time to find the answer and to deal with a positive as well as a negative outcome.
If they get their hands on technology too soon I fear they become addicted to a feedback loop instead of developing to the fullest there innate faculties. What will this rob them up in their later years? I am not sure whether it's just my own bias creeping in here. The technology may indeed unlock it thereto unexpected benefits. I don't know.
I would sure like to hear from you either here on the blog or on YouTube. This is proven to be a difficult topic to define and research. So do let me know what you think.
Take care Patrick, and here's the companion video which in a very indirect way goes down the same path. It wasn't until I did the video that I was actually able to write this article because it helped me define this topic to a larger degree. So while you watch the video you will see some of my own internal world.
Take care, Patrick.
** NOTE: The pictures "Image generated by Ideogram AI" 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.
A special thanks to Paul Stenning at The Heathkit Schematic and Manual Archive, which is where I found the Heathkit material mentioned in both the article and video.
What Have We Done to the Written Word?
Have Articles, News Stories, Books and other documents become too brief and chopped up to be truly useful to anyone looking up information?
On March 11, 2023, I wrote a short blog post entitled "Oh, for the Love of Manuals!" regarding the decline in quality of manuals and the written word in general. Not only is it sad to see the discipline of writing go downhill, I am now of the opinion that the lack of good quality material whether it be factual or storytelling has an effect on the whole person.
A lack of explanation results in ambiguity.
Think about it, an abridged piece of writing demonstrates how the author's thought processes functions. Usually showing off lack of depth about the topic at hand. Sometimes the author's train of though can be fallowed, while at other times the lack of detail is frustrating for the reader. I was perusing a manual the other day and part way through the text they they showed a screen capture of an icon. Nowhere in the text did they define whet where this icon was in the program, much less give it a name and it was a bad screen capture to boot. How did this pass into the final printing of this book? I know people like to be able to zero in on snippets of a document now, but sometimes a little more detail would certainly help. Here's an example of the icon from the manual.(Now that the image has been enlarged by four times, I can just see enough detail to recognize the icon.)
Enlarged image of icon shown.
Nowhere in the book does it name the icon, it just says what it does, and really, can you tell what it is?--I can't.
Even if your preferred choice of format is audiobooks the same issue holds true. The difference in writing in the literature created only 30 years ago is astounding. Listen to this introduction from Carl Sagan's book "Pale Blue Dot" (or read it via the Open Library). The video below is hosted on YouTube and is part of the " carlsagandotcom" channel The wording used is eloquent and accessible, whether it is read or listened to this text is inspiring. Carl Sagan took the time to describe his vision. He didn't optimize the ideas for fast consumption, nor did he make any assumptions on what the reader already knew. This is why this three minute clip from YouTube is so widely appreciated. It is a story unto itself. When was the last time you heard or read something like this? This is writing,and it achieves its goal of informing fully and inspiring.
Imagine the textbooks Carl Sagan and others read when they were going through their various courses. Difficult to read perhaps by present-day standards, but well worth the effort. Even the illustrations would be well thought out in books and manuals, for example from a 1961 Heathkit: manual. In less than a page it describes clearly the technique for proper soldering. Click the picture to enlarge:
The writing and diagrams in this manual is simply marvellous. Dare I say it is bursting with well-written information.
So how did we get from concise written guidance to "blurry icons"? One thing is for sure, in the soldering example, it is not assumed that the reader knows anything. Whereas in the blurry icons scenario the text assumes that that the reader does. It is to the point where they don't even describe the blurry image. Clearly we have gone too far in the direction of making everything a snippet of knowledge... at least they could've provided a keyboard shortcut 😀.
This overly abbreviated trend in the media and knowledge industry also has a side effect on how people learn. Especially if they are only exposed to abbreviated documents as they are beginning to think critically. Indeed how as Google and other search engines affected the way people educate themselves and the depth to which that knowledge goes, or lack of thereof.
Here's a question: How much time do you think has been invested in creating this text so far? The answer is over two hours (and a good eight hours later I am still at it) . Why, because first the soldering example had to be found, checked for copyright, and edited graphically from two printed pages down to one graphic. So even though I use voice dictation which makes entering the text for the most part rather painless, there is a fair bit of work that goes into these kind of things. The Internet is not a place to just upload things without checking. Not if you want your content to last.
But this article really is about the thought processes that are going on, as related to the use of knowledge and actually how we think. The depth to which those thoughts go and the understanding that is the result.
I marvel at minds that can seemingly just absorb and understand information. For me it's a much more effort intensive thing. I may have to go over something several times in order to really grasp the concepts. I do this willingly because it is only then your horizons expand. The other reality that must be accounted for is that everything takes time. Even though we may want to get something completed quickly, quality must trump everything else even when we are on a deadline at least to some extent. Yep in other words quality takes work.
Which brings up another point: With the ability now days for people to, how shall I put this, " Copy and Paste " just about everything you really have to resist that urge, because it can make the quality of the final product go down the toilet if one is not careful. (Have you looked at YouTube lately 👀 . Somebody post something original and within hours there are legions of copycats). However the creators that do put in the work and I can think of a few that only post every few weeks, really do come out far ahead.
To sum up. In order for people to do better in their lives they should seek out more detailed explanations and experiences. Do your best to try to get away from the "brief answer" mindset. In the long run you will benefit greatly and the experience you gain will even make your own brief answers better than the rest when you need to use them. And at the end of the day your brain will thank you 🙏.
Have a great day Patrick....
PS: Wait! This article is about to get a little longer with an example of the downsides of the overly brief approach to writing.
As many of you know I usually try to produce a short video to go along with each article. It takes time but usually the process follows smoothly. This time around however I decided to use a new tool to create the end credits of the video. I like to include all of my sources and licensing information just to keep things transparent. I wanted to create a scroll of text which included still images. My video editor was not up to the task so I decided to use an add on which according to its brief description could do exactly what I want.
The documentation however is a disaster and that includes the video tutorials all except for a few which ultimately saved the day. Most of the documentation was overly segmented and again assumed the reader was fully versed in the philosophy of use for this particular software. A simple scroll with pictures took about a week to do, and I don't know how many articles and videos I watched and read. Fortunately once I found a good bunch of videos the project was completed within the hour.
The point this_so is that all of the information is segmented and fragmented. Did the company who created the software ever sit down and really consider who the product and documentation was aimed at.?… I don't think so, and even the official material is fragmented. I'm avoiding mentioning the product name simply because it is not about the product, it is about the information supporting the product. Perhaps though the most annoying aspect of this hunt for information was the fact that the online documentation does not mention what version the information applies to.,and like all software, there are different versions over time and between computers. So I'm begging anyone who reads this… If you write documentation, please indicate right off the bat the version numbers it applies to.
The other issue is that maybe it's more a case of a fault of the search engines. A friend last night was mentioning that now days in 2024 it is much harder to find the information you are looking for online.
Basic Image generated by Ideogram AI. Text added by me.
Thought I done an article on this topic before but it's not in my database, so here we go…
I am continually surprised by how many apparently angry people there are when I look around me where I live, which happens to be Surrey British Columbia. Individuals and what apparently appears to be a perpetual "bad mood" who when you ask them actually want to stay angry. They may put it in different words, but at the end of the day you can see by how they are framing things that they really want to stay upset.
Why the heck would people want to do that? It stalls any hope of personal growth or being able to benefit from life. They also apparently want to complicate everything. Small seemingly insignificant events become full one multiperson debates. I have seen arguments over the availability of coffee and/or its strength get to the point where of their staff in my assisted living building have to get advice from the administrator. To me that's just ridiculous. I'm not talking about big changes to the coffee situation it's more about things like 6 (178 ml) ounces versus 8 (236 ml) ounce cups. The results will want to projecting going on in these arguments and they all seem to like it in a very negative way.
To be honest, I live in a facility which is far above most others that I have seen. The staff here are kind, enthusiastic and just a bit quirky 💗. It's not perfect of course because the healthcare environment is just full of rules and regulation. Sometimes that can put a damper on things, but overall the staff does an excellent job of keeping the quality of life going.
Yet for a lot of the tenants there is a malaise. Yet when ideas are brought forward to break the pattern people are stuck in there is tremendous rationalization as to "why they can't" to whatever is being suggested. ...I just don't get it. There is so much opportunity to do what ever you want and the time to do it. That's a lot free most of the world doesn't have. Yes the cost of staying here is 70% of one's income but that covers everything aside from Internet and a landline if you want it. (the land line is only $20 a month). One cannot get kicked out unless something really insane happens. Essentially people have the time to take courses if they want; we have a few libraries nearby. Because everyone here is disabled in one way or another they all qualify for discount Internet plans. I get 150 Mb per month for $30 unlimited. I mean it's insane the amount of opportunity that you just sitting there for anyone to grasp.
So what is this negative hold over people? What are they getting out of it? There must be something. I really do find it fascinating and I admit I also find it very unsettling because it is wasted potential. Now I'm not perfect and I have my own issues that I deal with, but at 65 years old I am doing pretty darn well. Most people in this building are much younger than I am. One of the things I do to balance out the negativity and stay connected with the world at large it's write this very blog. I also volunteer five days a week via a remote connection to the office of the organization. Occasionally I going to Vancouver to attend meetings but 90% of my work and duties is done right from my very desk. Still it keeps me connected with people and events and drawing value from my life.
The place where I live could be a hive of activity. There actually is an organization in Vancouver British Columbia called "HiVE Vancouver Society". They rent out space and hardware for those needing to set up a small office for their entrepreneurial grassroots business. I've never been there but I heard it's quite something. I can see the place where I live doing something similar if only the tenants would avail themselves of the opportunities that exist. Yes many of them have been through accidents which brought them here but "here" is not a bad place at all. As I said earlier this particular facility is far ahead of others I have seen. The apartments by the way are huge, I intuitively want to say about 600 ft.² (55 m²). Far larger than other organizations provide.and like I say the staff is very, very "groovy"! 😀.
I think I just figured this topic out… Why people can be addicted to anger:
As long as you are angry, especially if it's your preferred state, the responsibility for everything tends to be placed on other things or people. -- It's a short term get out of jail free card! And it's easy. One gets to ignore everything else. The trouble is of course, you don't get anywhere. There was no benefit because you handed over mentally the responsibility for everything. In that mental state, you can't even change your self. Yikes!… The person's stuck until they break the routine.
Conversely, taking advantage of an opportunity frequently involves work and commitment. The benefits however are legion. First off, the opportunity allows the person to evolve and of course the evolution takes one in uncertain but often times incredibly beneficial directions. Speaking from personal experience, I think by getting to know your self and the opportunities around you, one's health overall is much better. Because you are looking at the various things in your life. Even though I have Cerebral Palsy and am 65 years old I take absolutely no drugs. Not because I'm a Puritan, because I don't have to. (I think I may be the only person in my building who can make that claim.)
This ties into something else, I wonder if society is making things a little too easy. (See Difficulty Has Its Advantages on this blog.) In order for people to grow they need challenge that is meaningful and they need to learn the skills to benefit from such situations.
With that I think I will end this positive rant and put together a quick video for it.
Have a great day everyone. Patrick. Thanks for stopping by.
** NOTE: The picture "Image generated by Ideogram AI" 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.
Basic Image generated by Ideogram AI. Text added by me.
Yesterday I had my second person visit with the elderly client in Vancouver who is trying to learn Windows 10 on their laptop. If you will recall, during the first visit it became apparent that the laptops trackpad would not work for them. He kept putting two fingers on the pad no matter what. I would correct him and for a few moments he would be fine but ultimately his hand would relax a bit and the other figure would get close enough to the trackpad that the on-screen pointer began to do all sorts of things. If you want to know more you can read the first article in this series here and it has its own accompanying video.
I thought about this for a while and it is suggested that we try a mouse the next time I visited. I really didn't feel certain that this would solve the problem. We weren't that lucky... A couple of interesting issues arose. Have you ever considered how smooth and uniform a modern physical computer mouse is, not to mention how little haptic feedback there is? Yes, I know that the user should be focused on the screen and and therefore be able to connect the actions of the hand what is happening in front of them. But if it is a new device or for whatever reason a person is focused on in this case a physical mouse they may not see the small changes. Or hear the soft click. This was the case so I try to make things a little more obvious by putting a little bit of tape on the left mouse button just to make the texture feel a little different. That did help a bit. He was able to click on a few items on the Windows desktop. I could tell however it was taking most of his concentration. The other thing was he would often try too hard and in the process either move the mouse off the target on the screen or accidentally touch the scroll wheel.
We kept that this for about an hour. Patiently trying to do various things like closing a window, opening a window, maximizing it, etc. . They are very determined to learn this computer and I really commend them for that. Just going through this very repetitive right and left clicking of objects over and over again is a testament to their patientce.
Up until doing this yesterday I never really thought about how social the movements are when using modern devices. Think about it, when you tap something on a screen it's a very gentle quick movement and there is very little physical feedback. Personally one of the things that drives me crazy on a phone is that for me I have to look at the numbers otherwise my own fingers stray off. This is actually quite new. 20 years ago, everything was for the most part mechanical in some fashion. The first cell phones, which weighed a ton by the way, and physical pushbuttons . I had one of the early Motorola "grey bricks" (The Motorola DynaTAC) after 20 minutes of holding that to your ear, your arm would begin to ache. It was also very expensive I think around $0.60-$0.75 a minute. But the bizarre thing was if you made a long-distance call those prices were governed by agreements outside of your carrier. It was actually cheaper for me in Vancouver to phone Toronto and it was to make a local call...
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I have been racking my brain on how to best proceed. Then a friend of mine told me that they have seen people in care facilities using mice that are especially designed with the buttons a few centimetres apart so you have to use your whole hand. I'm going to try to track one down and either borrow it or at least find out more.
If we can get around the mouse problem I think my elderly friend will actually be able to benefit from the laptop. Right now the plan is to go out every weekend and I will print up some posters indicating some of the stuff we've covered. He says that would be very helpful and so that is what I'm going to do.
So stay tuned for next weekend and part three of our adventure! Take care Patrick
** NOTE: The picture "Image generated by Ideogram AI" 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.
It is clear from the reviewing the blog statistics that the way to keep the numbers of visitors coming back is in a phrase: "Content, Content, And More New Content." However if I rush out short articles Google and the other search engines frown and send the blog down to the basement of the search listings, which is not a good thing.
Nevertheless, during 2023 I did attempt to put out an article every few days and while there were a few good ones, for example "Nurturing the Creative Soul" there were also some that made me want to cringe. But I made a commitment when I started the blog way back when never to delete an article, I may tweak it a bit if I find it glaring error but the article as a whole will stand as long as this site keeps running. The whole year taught me a lesson that it is better to aim for meaningful content rather than just cranking it out.
So how to pull this off is the question. In a way that I can sustain. The video production takes the longest to create even though I very much enjoy doing it. Then of course there's all the other related stuff:
Checking all the copyright information and making sure that it is included clearly in the video. I also want to make sure that in doing so you the viewer/reader can discover perhaps new resources in the process.
There is always a surprise somewhere in the production. I keep trying to get it down to a formula but things are always in flux.
And that's just what comes to mind at this very moment. My intent has never been to make money, although I would never say no to that. 😀. So rest assured I'm just going to keep on going.
There was a recent request to make a comparison between Linux and Windows video. However I am not going to reproduce the same "Geeky" production which is overly detailed. I'm thinking about a split screen approach where you accomplish a task. It could be as simple as watching a YouTube video Or using some graphics program to edit a photo. We shall see what I come up with.
There will be an update on the blog sometime Monday, September 2 when I have the next segment to the "Perception Throughout The Ages" series which deals with in a broad sense how a person's perceptions alter how they work with the world. Briefly I am working with someone who has a very different way of looking at reality and I am having to teach them the very fundamentals of using a computer. There is more information in the current article,.
I am heading out to see them on Saturday, August 31. Currently I'm trying to develop some sort of very informal lesson plan. The idea of small posters with key points on them of how to do very fundamental things had occurred to me but after seeing their room in the facility it became apparent that it is far too small to clutter up with things even on the wall. Well, I'm just going to have to be adaptable and make this work.
So this is my way of saying stay tuned and please bear with me as I discover and uncover all sorts of things as I go through each day 👍.
Take care Patrick
** NOTE: The picture "Image generated by Ideogram AI" 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.
I want to get this article out rapidly, mainly because this is a fleeting thought and as most of you know sometimes you just have to grab the idea before it flies off into the ether, never to return.
I just spent the afternoon with someone who has a different way of looking at things due to their age and background. Needless to say they've been around for quite a while and they are trying to learn Windows 11 and indeed everything about the fundamentals of a computer we take for granted.
We are starting from the very beginning of cursor control, using the touchpad and what the various keys on the keyboard do. The challenging part is becoming clear to me and that is that the problem is not intellectual, it is rather out fundamentally different way of working with the world.It is physical involving three-dimensional actions. One pulls a lever and sees the spring the fulcrum acts on. It is very visual and clear not at all abstract. A modern graphical user interface on a computer is the exact opposite. Mere images are referred to as physical things "The Taskbar" for example, it is treated in discussions and books the same way of physical item is in the real world. The same holds true for "DragBars". Even the action of "clicking and dragging" is often treated in speech the same way as if it were a physical item. To this person however the computer screen is an image composed up of rectangles squares and circles. When I use the term Drag bar it took quite a bit of explaining and I think at that point they were just humoring me when they said "I understand…"
People build up mental models of their world as they proceed through life but these become structured and limiting if one is not careful. For example when I was growing up every car had a key that you physically put in to start the car. I still find it somewhat odd when I am in the vehicle and instead of a physical key they use a small electronic device or fob or even a fingerprint. I am sure they would find the world equally odd and it audits with their perceptions if they were to go back to 1960. Everyone's mental model in that era out was much more physical and just plain different. You would have to explain to a modern person just exactly how to use a rotary phone and why the heck the dial had the letters of the alphabet printed on it in such a ridiculous matter. (If I can find a good video explanation online I will put a link here of a rotary phone in action.NOTE: This link is to a 37 minute YouTube video on the rotary telephone by the channel "Our Own Devices" . It is a thorough overview and well worth the watching.)
Build Your Own Television Receiver Science & Invention magazine cover art, November 1928. Volume 16 Number 7 In the public domain. (Get Archive)
This is something that happens to everyone, the time you are born, the technology around you and other factors form on a very deep level how you interact with the world. I go into it in a little more detail in the short video included with this article, but suffice it to say that "not only are we, star stuff. We are products of the very time the star was made."
I for my part am so thankful that I get to experience and understand all these subtleties in life. Every time I think I've got a handle on them, reality and mother nature come along and say "There's more to this story…"
Why exactly do people stop adapting their mental models? The initial obvious answer is that it is easy to just rely on what has worked in the past and stick to it. But I think there is more going on. Many articles go on this blog I wrote a short piece entitled "They Have Never Been Taught To Think" and that may be a partial answer. As I see it diversity and challenge are what keeps you going and indeed growing. Maybe we have "overdone it" when it comes to certain types of automation and convenience. Do you really know what is going on behind the scenes when you click that icon on your phone to open any particular app? The probable answer is "No", but you do expect to work". But if that was the singular answer in this elderly person would have adapted to their new laptop quickly. For the simple reason that through most of their lives they've had to work things through. A light didn't just come on when they walked into a room, they had to turn it on. Further, they had to understand at least partially the number of things that had to occur for things to work. If the light didn't turn on when they flipped the switch may be the fuse, which was a precursor to the modern circuit breaker, needed replacing. Their mental model had to be adaptable. That again brings me full-circle back to the initial question at the beginning of this paragraph.
I will be filling this article out more as we go a long.
August 28 update:
Perhaps the best way to move forward in situations like this is to find out what their, for lack of a better word, baseline is. For example I remember a few years ago working with someone who in their mid-adult years used Microsoft MS-DOS extensively. As a matter of fact when I was working with them they still had a computer running that operating system and had it online using a dial-up modem service in conjunction with the program called "Telix". This meant that they can only connect to the Internet via a strictly text interface. There were no embedded graphics at all.
Over the course of months we attempted to move them to a "Windows 7" machine which they absolutely hated. Ultimately to he did decide to go back to their old machine with the dial-up modem. Even though the new computer functioned quite well.
So on my next visit to our current user I'm going to ask them what using a computer was like originally for them and try to put everything in a similar context.
My views on politics and life in general are pretty simple: "Everyone has the right to govern their own lives and are also responsible for what they do." Of course this is an extremely oversimplified statement, but at the heart of my thinking, that is it. The individual is free to do what they want and they must owner what they do. But It seems that today people are yearning for the exact opposite, rather than freedom, they want more "guidelines". There are now more socially implied rules and it is much easier, at least from my perspective, to step over some politically correct boundary. What is going on here? Globally, societies seem to be throwing away the idea of democracy. They may call it something else in the media but I think that's what it boils down to. You just need to look at what is going on in the United States right now to see how polarized the liberal and conservative camps are becoming. It doesn't matter the topic either. There is less true debate and more justification of why any particular viewpoint is correct. It is almost as though every idea is being approached as though it were a sales pitch, literally a commercial. Rather than discussing a viewpoint or position, individuals are selling their point of view. There is no discussion and interaction involved.
Don't take democracy for granted. The "Good Old Days" were not as good as you remember.
Democracy and the responsibilities that brings with it are being thrown away bit by bit. My concern is that the people doing the "throwing away" don't know what their giving up because they've always had it. Some of you reading this paragraph may say "Patrick, don't be ridiculous. It will never get that far." My response to them would be "Look at the world. Look at how polarized people have become in their viewpoints." There seems to be far less a willingness to discuss and debate any issue now days we seem to go straight for the extreme.
On 11 February 1990 Nelson Mandela made his first public speech, after 27 years in jail. Source: South Africa Gateway. License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Is this because modern communication systems have taken face-to-face meetings and interactions out of discourse? Instead of dealing with a real person in a group, the debate is happening over a video chat? Which takes out that small but very important responsibility involved with dealing with someone personally, physically in the same space. They used to call this video chat side effect "The Ivory Tower"; it meant that the person was out of touch with the topic and not seeing the broader picture. I think this might be what is happening today with society. Therefore it becomes easy to complain about democracy or any other concept because people are seeing it only from their own ivory tower. It is very much like dealing with someone over the phone rather than a person. When you are right there with the individual there are many more subtle cues and motivations. The two people may understand the issue much more thoroughly, because meeting in person brings the topic alive for them. They still may not agree, but there is much more understanding and I bet her list of the tendency to become polarized on the issue at hand.
The bottom line is: People need to gather in person more. To rebuild those connections that originally brought societies together and allowed sincere debates to occur without the dangers involved in thinking in extremism terms. It's a slower process absolutely. But everyone wins no matter what the outcome because dealing with people face-to-face makes you acknowledge the humanity and the complexity. People are stronger emotionally and I believe intellectual as well.
Whereas with the Internet and other communication media it is far easier to write your comment, click the submit button and off you go to somewhere else. You can't do that in real life. You have to deal with whatever the issue is, with the people right there with their comments and rebuttals. Everybody comes out of this real-life experience with them far richer understanding.
As far as democracy goes, debated with someone in real life. Meet with them over time. Go through the pros and cons of not only democracy but any other system you can think of. Then you will know what it is like to live without it or at least have some depth on the topic.
Have you noticed in the last 10 years or so that people are becoming very uncomfortable with being "Uncomfortable"? I mean people seem to want no controversy in their life at all. While this sounds good from a philosophical point of view, I believe it has a very negative impact in the long run.
It is through conflicts and uncomfortable situations that we often have a chance to learn about ourselves. People get to ask those questions "Why do I feel this way?" That simple short question can lead to a lot of self-discovery. When you deal with the feeling or uncomfortable situation you get to confront and no the deeper aspects of the self.
It is human nature to want to feel comfortable and safe. But taken to extremes we are robbing ourselves of the opportunities to grow and mature. When I was very young I remember hearing my parents talk about debating teams. (The "debating teams" link will take you to https://debatingmatters.com/ a website where you can find all the information you need about setting up your own team. This was just some quick research I have not fully reviewed the destination site but it looks very informative.) These would be groups of people that would get together and they would deliberately take opposing views on any issue. Then they would spend the night trying to win the debate. Sometimes it would get quite heated. But always in the spirit of exploration and understanding. Regardless of who won the debate.
People and indeed society seemed to therefore be going backward. Rather than embracing challenge and being uncomfortable when necessary we seem to be demanding that we are never made to feel awkward or to go outside of what is considered politically correct. This is a great disservice to our mental health and growth in the long run because we are not preparing ourselves for change, the natural evolution of things.
This is going to be a very short post simply because the point of this text is so straightforward and clear. Challenge is needed in everyone's life, and let's face it, no one can really escape feeling uncomfortable all the time. What bothers me is that we have made being comfortable and politically correct and end goal he knew of deeper consideration and thoughtfulness.
Let me know what you think Patrick
FYI: In the title of this post I use the verb " Used to". I've always wondered about the use and spelling of this phrase. Well, if you too, have been confused here is the answer about how and when it should be applied
** NOTE: Some of pictures in this article were generated by 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.
"Don't seek comfort and conformity in your world. Seek to engage the world."
Most people spend a fair bit of time and indeed their life, trying to differentiate themselves from what they perceive as "The Rest of Us". Sometimes this effort works out and sometimes it does not.
Now if you're born "disabled", and feel free to insert whatever terminology you want to put in there for whatever condition or situation you are in. We are different from the get go. "A limited run", "A one-of-a-kind… The descriptions and labels could go on and on.
But for me, and I really mean this, disability is an opportunity in disguise. I look at the normal world and I see most people not taking advantage of the great options that are right there in front of them. I speculate, and this is only my speculation, that they never had to think outside of the box. They never had to become good problem solvers. Whereas being different, and having challenges forces you to engage with the world as it is. The world is not going to adjust to me for being different. So one must be very creative, and stretch whatever boundaries exist.
As I have grown older I have become very aware of the benefits inherent in challenges.
I don't want things simple and I don't want things easy. However I despise meaningless effort. If something is going to be difficult and it darn well better be difficult with a good goal. This is an important point because as long is there is a positive goal inherent in the challenge then the individual will be given an opportunity to grow. Whether they take advantage of that opportunity is another matter entirely and probably an additional article on the blog at some point.
Now, I know there's an infinite range in regards to disability, from the minor to the utterly devastating. I don't want to reduce any condition or state of life to an overly simplified point of view. But that being said, if you are different or see yourself as disenfranchised in any way, rather than falling down the stereotypical black hole of disadvantage and/or despair.
Take your differences and work with them. This is where ideas truly come from and thereby so does opportunity.
At almost 65 years of age, I can say unequivocally that I would never want to be normal and that is especially true in the 21st century. People who are born now, may not have the early exposure to the effort needed to expand their horizons. Young minds who simply go online to find a predigested answer to a question. They may never get a chance to really explore and find out why something is the way it is. That puts them at a great disadvantage because a person must learn to think at a fairly early age in order to really take advantage of life. Yes, one can do it at any age but it is so much more effective the earlier one undertakes these challenges. Same goes for the amount of time invested in some undertaking. I myself have to fight my own shrinking attention span. Yet look back less than 100 years and you find people undertaking complex disciplines and working of the answers using only their minds and paper. That means that they truly understood the concepts they were evolving and in that process they gained resilience and depth in their understanding.
Use the gift of technology and the coming artificial intelligence revolution in the best way possible. If automation has make your life easier then use that freedom to continue to explore other avenues. Do not just stay a consumer of technology and or the environment. Seek a little difficulty. Make it something slightly uncomfortable, so that you have to work at it. This will help keep you alive on so many levels...
In short:
"Don't seek comfort and conformity in your world. Seek to engage the world."
One of the things that really surprised me when I moved into my assisted living facility was the lack of motivation of all the tenants. I on the other hand treated as a godsend, rather than being tied down with the various energy sapping necessities which are required to make it through the day, the staff greatly reduce my physical strain. Leaving me with a lot of free time to explore all sorts of avenues. Which is what I've done and will continue to do till the very last day of my life. So apparently I'm a bit of an outlier because I thought that everyone who has their burdens of life reduced would naturally explore what ever interested them. However are stuck in a rut of their own making. Bizarrely they use their own intellect to maintain the status quo. This is something I really do not understand…
Well I will keep trying to motivate everyone around me because life is just too short to waste. Hopefully the articles that I now post will leave some of my audience thinking and the other us smiling. I would like to publish more articles however time and energy just do not permit at this moment of my life. My ultimate goal is to increase the quality of these articles a great deal. That however takes time which is why I am not publishing is much as I used to compared to early last year.
There will be a video with this post but I can't tell you exactly what it will be because I am just about created it and at this very moment there are lots of ideas along the vein of "Disability from an Optimistic Point of View." So let's see if I can surprise myself.
Thank you for stopping by my blog. And come back to this article in the next day or two because I will be adding or reediting parts. It's just that kind of weekend. (In other words I'm running out of time.)
Take care Patrick
** NOTE: Some of pictures in this article were generated by 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.
How will Artificial Intelligence adapt to persons with various disabilities?
I just had a very interesting experience at my bank. The ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) have just been upgraded with paper money recognition, meaning that you no longer have to deposit physical bills in envelopes. This actually poses a problem for myself, because of the actual real world speed I moved at. It's not exactly quick or even what I would call coordinated. This caused the poor back machine a minor fit as it accepted the deposit part way through me inserting the money. Suffice to say, I had to leave a message with my bank as this is the weekend. I'm sure everything will be straightened out.
The average bank machine is a little higher than I am it also means I have to adjust my chair after inserting items and accessing the touchscreen. It can be done, but if I'm lower down but that puts my finger at an angle which causes errors with the touchscreen.... So basically this is modern technology not quite adapting correctly to any given user. This situation I understand because programmers have to make decisions, unless they want to write 4 billion lines of code, and sometimes one adaption for a segment of the population can get in the way of another put in place for a different situation or user.
All of this has me thinking about how will Artificial Intelligence (AI) adapt to persons with various disabilities. At the present time, AI may be consider to disabled itself, given the very early stages we are in, but that won't always be the case.
Just how will it interpret the various, variations it sees in the human population. Will AI "get it"and propose novel ways of achieving a goal? Will it see something its original designers did not and come up with its own solution?
Getting back to my ATM experience. Clearly you can't really setup longer defaults, because the speed I go at would drive some people crazy. This is where AI could be a benefit by changing how the machine worked for a given patron. Not based on a bank profile of the individual but by observing how they were doing in completing a task. Slowing down or speeding up as necessary or changing the on-screen sensitivity. This would be just the beginning.
Image generated by Ideogram AI. I had to post this 😀. It resulted from simply inputting he first paragraph of this article. Quite amazing! ** (See end of article note.)
To be clear, this is not a commentary on the particular bank or the machinery they have chosen. This is more a observation of how AI might be able to improve how we use technology. In it’s current state, the new technology can get in the way of itself. I recently purchased a Google Pixel 6a smart phone, and one of the odd decisions that was made by the designers was to disable Bluetooth auto answer support for headphones. This feature is basic that I never thought it would be removed, but Google did in the Pixel phone... Anyway to make a long story short. I found an app which essentially replaces that functionality, (MotoAnswer on the Google Play store) but it is not a perfect solution because it is not integrated into the OS. Occasionally strange things can happen like if a phone call comes in while I am dictating to the computer the app may auto answer the call because it knows I'm using the headphones but route the audio to the earpiece in the phone. – So Google, please enable Bluetooth auto answer on your phones.
My previous phone which was "simpler" only because it had a stock version of android never had this problem. The computer and the phone would switch over between devices with no problem and everything would come through my headphones. This is yet another case where AI could be a benefit. I didn't contact Google and their response was rather surprising. They stated in a public forum that they have no intention of enabling auto answer on Bluetooth devices. When I press them the response was. (Paraphrasing) "We have never had Bluetooth auto answer on any pixel phone and we do not plan to incorporate it in later releases." They declined to state exactly why. (The full discussion thread with the Google community representatives can be found here.)
So maybe AI will be the answer to all of this; with ultimately a customizing device which adapts itself to the user. I have a feeling though, outside of special use cases, the current models of AI being developed may not be considering the variations in people out there in the world today. This could turn into be quite an adventure.
Perhaps the opposite will come true, maybe Artificial Intelligence will wake up the rest of the world to incorporate variation instead of standardization.
But that's kind of artificial intelligence is far down the road, because by then AI itself will probably be considered a legal entity or person. Society is going to have to evolve culturally to adapt to all these changes. Who knows, the next hundred years people may look back on this beginning period in the early 21st century in the same way we now look at the distant past and think: "If people only knew back then how things were going to change." Forecasting the future has always been an almost impossible task, because any culture currently perceives the future by its own heavily biased current perspectives. Think the steam punk of Jules Vern or even the science fiction stories of the 1930s and 50s. Jules Vern's vision was full of large powerful machines made out of brass and iron, usually driven by steam, and the 1950shad everyone in the 21st century still using vacuum tubes. Indeed at some point our society which is based primarily on electricity and devices driven by such energy will itself be replaced by something not as yet quite foreseeable.
Here's a great story. It's a science fiction story from 1951 "The City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton. It illustrates in it's telling of the future, how everything is biased on current perspectives. This is in the public domain and this is the LibriVox audio book version. Simply click the title or picture to go to the book.
Story synopsis: "A surprise nuclear war may cause the End of the World, but not the way
anyone could have imagined. A classic science fiction tale from Galaxy
Magazine." Genre: Science Fiction Language: English Format: Audobook Read by: Mark Nelson Source: LibriVox.org Free Public Domain Audiobooks.
LibriVox recordings are Public Domain in the USA. If you are not in the
USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own
country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright
laws.
Broadening the topic a bit, on a larger scale, will AI even consider the concept of disability? It may be that it just will ultimately see the entire human race as one singular group. "The Human Race" and not even perceive or care about the nuances societies define themselves by. Now there's a bit of an ego crushing thought. At this point I'm getting about as speculative as the science fiction story mentioned above.
When I was born, most disabilities were considered an understandable limitation by society. You were kind of branded and broader opportunities were simply out of the question. I wonder if the opposite might ultimately occur. With AI in the mix, will so many solutions be available that being disabled is not even considered when looking at one's potential. In much the same way with the advent, since the Covid 19 pandemic , of the remote worker which is pretty much nullified the need to go into work physically for a lot of jobs. It's an interesting thought.
We shall see. Continue to have a great day. Patrick Clark
** NOTE: The picture "Image generated by Ideogram AI" displayed midway through 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.
Some background on the creation of the image from Ideogram AI. I literally just put the first paragraph from the article into the service and it resulted in this creation. I was frankly astonished. This was using the free version as well. As of this writing you are allowed 25 images a day. Talk about a real asset when it comes to visualizing. I only stumbled upon this service while reading a totally unrelated article.
