The Smart Phone Market Is the Definition of Insanity

It's the 21st century and people are beginning to take recycling and conservation very seriously. So why do we allow and indeed participate in the throwaway mentality of current smart phones?

They should be built to last not expire in two or three years. People behave like they're involved in an arms race; constantly upgrading for the latest and best technology. Think about the number of resources that go into the short life cycle of a phone. Rare materials many of which are toxic and some almost impossible to recycle.

So what's going on here and why are people buying into this? My phone is barely 3 years old and has begun to fall apart. I investigated and found that the entire phone is glued together. I don't think there's a screw or a clip in the whole thing. $600 is what it cost me when it was new because I bought it out right, wanting to avoid getting locked into a plan because one never knows what my income is going to be in the years moving forward. In other words I was looking to keep my life simple.

My needs in regards to this technology are very straightforward:

1. A clean un-bloated operating system android like operating system.
2. I'm willing to pay extra for good hardware as I do use quite a few apps for work.
3. I couldn't care less about the camera as long as it is sufficient to grab the occasional QR code.

Sounds like a pretty simple shopping list doesn't? Yet the way phones are marketed makes finding out that information rather challenging. As a matter of fact the last online at will I checked out for a phone spoke about everything except those basic points. The entire 10 page manual was more of an advertisement and the last thing we talked about was the actual phone functionality. In other words it was a camera first and the phone was almost an afterthought.

The other issue that really gets me going is updates to the software, or lack thereof, two years in and you're pretty much out of luck as far as patches go from some suppliers. Can we at least begin to turn this around by insisting that the batteries are replaceable and recyclable?

TVs are now beginning to go this way as well. My first Smart TV it took two years to get all the bugs out of the OS and then the manufacturer started shutting features down. Boy I was not impressed.

The thinking should be the other way around and go something like this:

1. If the hardware and software are capable of keeping the device secure and safe, then in order to maximize its useful life manufacturers must maintain it. They can offer new products but the consumer must be able to use their device to the fullest extent. This keeps things out of the recycling and saves the new amount in energy and resources.
   
   
2. The idea of building something to last is a concept that I think many people would welcome back. True there would be a reeducation going on because many people have never thought in that way.
   
   
3. This would have the effect of freeing people up to choose when to upgrade.
   
   
4. If the consumer new that the device was created to last and be serviceable in its lifetime then it is likely they would see the price as an investment. This would build loyalty which is something that every manufacturer needs.

Okay gang that's the end of my rant. What do you think. Let me know in the comments or by sending a note.

Take care Patrick

Life Is Short; Don't Rush through It

Click to enlarge.

At least in the industrialized developed parts of the world, the modern human experience it's a funny thing.

We are all so busy filling our lives with everything. Even when we take time off there is a tendency to fill those days up with an official activity or vacation and we plan these events out. It is my impression that more and more people are effectively rushing through their days. By doing so I think a major point of existence is being missed and that is taking the time to appreciate all of the unique and wonderful things as well as some of the more complex or not so wonderful things.

To do this effectively one must learn to Stop. Put down the plan. Take some time to let go of the technology or other distractions and deliberately do without for a while. You will be amazed at what you're missing and that tends to be your very life in its finer points. The realization may hit you that life is not infinite so why are you rushing it? Every one of us will reach the inevitable and and regardless of what you believe it will be the end of what you know as existence now. You may live forever perhaps but it will be in a different form and in a different way. The point is that you cannot come back to the way you are now. So appreciate things by getting out of the routine and occasionally deliberately stopping for a day or two if you can.

Every second that passes you by cannot be renewed or redone. Stopping every once in a while will increase your appreciation of your very existence and those around you. It will definitely deepen your appreciation of everything, so when you do go back to your full speed you may see things differently and really understand the tremendous uniqueness of where you are at.

It's pretty straightforward stuff and yet so profound.

PS: The photo of the roses at the top of this page I hereby place in the public domain. The full-size image has been uploaded simply click on the picture.

If you have difficulty downloading picture click on this link to open the image in an alternate way which will give some browsers the ability to save the file. If that still does not work for you please send me a note via the contact us form.

Take care Patrick

Do we all live in our own abridged reality?

 

The short answer is: "Yes, absolutely."

But I don't think many of us realize just how "abridged" our reality and sensations are. Think about it, if once reality and sense of their surroundings were indeed accurate would it be so easy to change one's perspective on any given situation? And indeed how easily we accommodate any new perspective.

Ever had one of those mornings when you wake up and you are just in a grumpy or slow frame of mind? Thoughts meander through your head that are the most optimistic… Then you have a good strong cup of coffee and within a few minutes have all but forgotten the beginnings of your day. You feel engaged and ready to take on the world. How could your perception change that much if they weren't a construct of your own making in the first place?  It really is a powerful question because it means you can adjust a great many things related to not only perception but your own internal processes of thought.

The scenario I just described above is almost my daily ritual in the last few years, and conversely at the end of the day I don't want to stop doing whatever I'm doing. Especially if I'm in a project state of mind where I'm either building something, writing code or creating artwork. I always think of " If onlyI had another hour…"  Each morning though I have to go through the process of getting the lead out of my mind. Slowly but surely I have come to the conclusion that I will not worry about the mornings state of affairs. If my brain insists on being a crocodile and having to warm up in the sun, so be it.

Many people tell me that as they age their mind slows down and their world becomes smaller. For me the opposite seems to be true. I am gearing up and if I have any regrets it is only that I didn't understand all of this stuff when I was 25. It had to wait until now at almost 64 years of age. The malleability of one's mind is tremendous, but that same malleability characteristic can also mean that we accept our mental states without critiquing them. We just kind of go along with the flow. This is most likely a bad habit brought on by not enough time to pay attention to one's inner world. I recently reacquainted myself with an excellent book.

Using Your Brain--For a Change:
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
By Richard Bandler

Publisher: Real People Press
Year : 1985
ISBN numbers: 9780911226263, 9780911226270, 0911226265, 0911226273

• Listing on WorldCat Library index
•  Listing on Google Books

Don't let the title of the book scare you off, the term "programming" only refers to changing your reactions to a memory, image or state of mind. In other words, this book is all about paying attention to your own program. The routines you have built up and automatic reactions to them. Then it goes into ways you can alter that behaviour. The book is written in a very lighthearted and playful manner and is a quick read. You will however return to it many times as it is one of those good books whose insights may not immediately be totally apparent. As far as I know the book itself is been out of print for many years and it was a friend of mine who founded through AbeBooks. 

As I progress through life, it is become very apparent to me that most people do not pay attention to their own inner workings either physically or mentally. As a result they tend to become their own "victims", for lack of a better word. There is a real tendency to only take action once a situation has escalated to the point where they have too, and I can't help wondering: If they had been more self-aware and more involved with their own will being would they have reached the same state they are in now? Which from my perspective frequently is a negative situation. Whereas, here I am almost 64 years of age I don't do drugs except for the occasional glass of wine and mentally and physically am in pretty good shape. Indeed I think my physical disability Cerebral Palsy has been a benefit because at a young age it forced me to pay attention to my own inner workings, and later on seek input from counsellors and other people with different perspectives. It wasn't exactly a smooth trip through adolescence but at the end of the day I think it was necessary one.

Reality 101: The Course

We do indeed live in our own abridged reality and that means get to construct it, piece by piece and rearrange it in whatever way we see appropriate.  I have reached the point where I think these kind of insights mentioned in the above book and the practice of being aware of what motivates an individual should be taught in school. We should not just take our own mental states and react to them after the fact. We should to gain the most benefit of our existence be the architect of our reality in the first place. How else can one discover, truly, their talents, and by the same token, know the things they are not well suited to. You want to take deliberate action to know your self and construct whatever reality you want. There is great freedom in this because it places you firmly in the conductor's seat. 

 People seem to like these kind of ideas presented in a visual format. So I put together a short eight minute video. The key thing to remember is that no matter what you are always the orchestrator of your reality. 

Even if your hands are tied up and you cannot move you would still be able to interpret that situation. You might find yourself saying: "I can't move and so I might as well will relax… Why waste energy." By the same token if you become aware of your habitual habits, you can alter them. The change does not need to be you, and as a matter of fact, that's one of the keys to success. Make small doable changes. Just realizing that the change can be made is often in itself very liberating.

If for some reason you find that you are stuck in a certain frame of mind then realize that it will change and then you might be able to revisit the issue.

Your life is the orchestra and it is you who ultimately create the music. Even more so, you get to pick the instruments which ultimately make up the entire piece! Think of the freedom in that.

Have a great day
Patrick

Today, the plan is to get out and enjoy a life!

You could call this "article" a live post. Over the last few weeks I have had challenges in keeping the blog as up-to-date as I've wanted to do. Time has not been a friend of late with so much to do. So today's post is literally going to be done on the run. Not on any particular topic but compiled from my adventures as I zip around in my electric wheelchair from one part of the lower mainland of British Columbia to the other. I'm referring to the greater Vancouver area. 

 Yesterday we  accidentally made it all the way to downtown Vancouver and around the Stanley Park seawall and back to Surrey. I say accidentally because I had planned any of it.

I am also compiling a short about 10 minutes video a montage of sorts containing some of the scenes and places I arrived back. Today it's up to the Oakridge Park area. A section of the city that I hear is going through a great change and from the developers website it sounds like they want to be a new city centre. We shall see...

 It's now almost a week later, but I finally compiled a short three minute video containing springtime/summertime photos and video clips. This is only a little over three minutes long but I think captures the real spirit of the season and truly becoming aware of the awesomeness around us. I know that sounds trite, but it really is true. So without further ado, here is "Springtime Swing": (If it is not available yet come back in about an hour, I just uploaded it and it is in 4K.)

I do plan to go out again tomorrow, Saturday, May 27, and it looks like the weather is going to be beautiful. So I'll be posting an article or adding to this one hopefully sometime over the weekend. Take care

Patrick

What will the future bring, and just why do people hold on to things?

 

All one has to do is open up YouTube or go to any media site and you will find for sure articles talking about how people are addicted to technology. The statement "People check their cell phones every 12 minutes." is almost a modern mantra with some people. However, I do not see this continuing, society will find a balance and I think as long as one learns to benefit from the technology the world is on the right track.

I do think however that unforeseen changes are coming as the very fabric of how we communicate, and indeed what we communicate is influx. Earlier today I spoke with someone who was lamenting the advent of the smart phone and the Internet in general. To quote them: "I saw all those people lined up at the iPhone store when the first one was released and really thought it was a fad." Now obviously that statement goes quite a ways back in time because the first iPhone I believe was released to the public on June 29, 2007.(Wikipedia article)

That statement stayed with me and cost a bit of a reaction. At first I couldn't ascertain what it was and then it dawned on me that I had heard similar laments quite often in the past about almost every major change in society. There is always a group of people who insist on sticking with "the old ways of doing things". But what is often missed is the old ways were the "new ways"relative to something else. It is true that sometimes the new ways are not always well thought out but in most cases there are many benefits. I find it fascinating how people will at first when they're young charge forward, and then somehow get "stuck in their old ways" of doing things somewhere along the line of life.

It probably has to do with how they perceive the introduction of something. Do they see it as simply a static feature which they rely on without really considering what is going on or why it was introduced in the first place. If so I think these are the groups of people that get stuck. Whereas someone who looks at a "new way" of doing things and attempts to understand it in the fuller context (how it achieves its goal and how it benefits people or does not) often does not get stuck as rigidly because they understand that everything is fluid. I remember when the CD disc was brand-new on the market. It came, and it went because better ways of doing things came along. But I know people have invested great amounts in their physical collections of CD-based music. Often they would treat the items with the same reverence that vinyl collectors treat the record.

So this demonstrates the fact that it is much more important to understand things in their fuller perspectives and not to get hung up on one aspect. I have no doubt that in the relatively short amount of time what we consider smart phones and computers now will completely disappear to be supplanted by technologies that are far more integrated and work in a completely different way. Indeed I think even electricity will ultimately be superseded by another form of energy. Maybe not all of it but certain aspects of electronics most certainly will have to change. There are fundamental limits which as I understand that we are getting awfully close to hitting. What I find really intriguing is what will come next and what the world will be like. I may or may not be around for this outcome but I sure hope I am :-). Just some food for thought.

Have a great day everyone

Patrick

Overextension of oneself

 

I have to laugh at myself on this occasion… I originally came up with the idea for this article on March 24, 2023, and here it is slightly over a month later and I am just getting to this particular piece. Why?… Because I did exactly what the title says I overextended myself. It was a perfect storm and then I added to it with my own special secret ingredient, I increased the scope of my video article on the basics of Windows 10 part one. It grew into a monster over an hour and 1/2.

Then I added to this dessert of mayhem a generous sprinkling of committee meetings and evening nonprofit organizational meetings. I'm not kidding the last month vaporized inactivity. I kept thinking about the blog and my brain was just saturated with everything else. I must've seen the writing on the wall subconsciously when the idea for this article popped into my head.

I can therefore attest that everyone reading this must give themselves a break. Start small if you like just stop whatever you're doing and let go. If you have to put that smart watch under a pillow :-). To remind myself to slow down and appreciate more, because let's face it, everything in life only occurs once, I bought myself a Tiffany lamp. By racing through the day you are literally missing the whole point of being alive and that is to acknowledge the very experience and take value from it. The lamp reminds me of the time it took the artisans to make it. They invested part of their life in it.

When one is younger there is a subconscious belief that the flow of life is infinite. Therefore one wastes a great deal of time in those early days by not being present in the moment. Man, one does not do that when one is in their 60s and yet I was talking to a friend of mine over the weekend who said "You're still a youngster, I am 89." That put it into perspective for me. I remember in elementary school when I thought 30 was over the hill. And when I was even younger, a year felt like forever, especially just after Christmas. Not that I'm materialistic, but I do remember clearly thinking that it would be an entire year before I can start my campaign of nagging my parents for whatever new Mattel propaganda was being produced.

So take a break right now if you can. Don't fill the space immediately with other activities. Let your self gear down a bit and check-in with your body and self. If they say "you're doing too much.". Listen to them! If you overextend yourself than the quality of everything you do will suffer along with you. Learn what speed you can go ahead and everything will improve.

Take care Patrick

Appreciating accomplishments.

Very often, when I speak the people who are going through a negative period In their life, one of the things that started the downward trip was that they stopped acknowledging their daily accomplishments.

Every single one of us accomplishes something every day. We often miss acknowledging this because in the modern fast-paced world achievements must be big and profound. Popular culture would have us all believe that we must launch a rocket to Mars, or something effectively preposterous every day, otherwise somehow it is not worth acknowledging. I had a personal example of this just the other day.

I had just uploaded my very first long format video (Article and Video Windows 10 basics part one) to YouTube and I instantly began to judge it against out plethora of professional and pseudo-professional offerings. For a while I felt like I had wasted almost 2 weeks worth of free time on this first project. Then I thought: "Wait a Minute!… I am learning as I go and in making pretty darn good use of the resources I have. It's not meant to be perfect… It was more important to get this first instalment posted." Indeed I am lucky because I realized to appreciate my achievement.

We are all learning as we go along in life and it is so critical for one's self-esteem to see and appreciate that in various forms. I watch a video the other day of a professor describing how to make the substance Graphene and was really struck by the time and patience he took in testing the substance he made. In doing so he got the maximum enjoyment out of the experience, not to mention the tremendous insights. Someone else might watch part of this video and get bored because at the point where he is verifying the results it's by slow repetitive measurements. But I think that's where he had the most fun, truly demonstrating that he created the substance and that it was tremendously strong. So by acknowledging the small achievements in this hour-long video he gained a tremendous boost emotionally and intellectually. All because what is important is acknowledging the small steps.

When you think about it we are all "Getting There" one step at a time. Take a moment to acknowledge those achievements.

Take care Patrick

Actually, "Disability" is pretty normal now days.

Think about it, 30 years ago if you have some form of disability especially if it was obvious, you were still kind of "odd" or dare I say "special". ("Them's fighting words." Some of my friends might say.) But now I think it is quite true that overall society has really begun to accept and expect disabled persons to be part of the larger society and, when possible, contribute fully.

From my perspective this is an astounding and welcome occurrence as the world and societies move forward. To be fair this "movement" isn't uniform, but we are I think as a whole evolving. I remember when the fight for curb cuts aka."curb side ramps" began in the city of Vancouver in the 1980s along with the remarkable people I met some of which are still as active as ever in the advocacy groups and planning departments. Now I must state for the record that my perspective is a little skewed. You see, my father had polio and he was one of the first, if not the first anaesthesiologist in Canada to practice his profession. This meant of course growing up I couldn't play the same "poor disabled me" routine on him.

Yet, I can't but wonder what life would be like had I been born into it average family structure. I have met people at my assisted living building who have a real sense of helplessness. Not because they are physically or mentally any more unfit than I but because I think their family went into shock and guilt at their birth or whenever the physical affliction manifested. They rushed in to do, what they perceived the child could not do and removed all obstacles which might pose a challenge. Accidentally in the process depriving the child of the very thing they need to get through life. To face a challenge, one must spend some time understanding it and then formulate a way to overcome it. Or if it cannot be overcome, be involved with those that help you deal with it.

The result of a far too easy life is that you stop growing and there is a tendency to habitually play the victim role. It gets you short-term attention but completely disempowers you and perpetuates inequality on multiple levels. By the time the family figures this out, the child or semi adult is still entrenched in these negative patterns that it really is a challenge to begin breaking the door down so to speak.

Appropriate challenges in life are what allow us to grow and expand giving us a far, far more enriched life. I treat my disability as a gift because it gives me something that all the "normals" seek that is to be unique. The challenges have given my brain food to expand on. It's like living on Mars without having to pay a ticket for the adventure. It's not a piece of cake but I bet you it's helped keep me an interesting character. And I love other interesting characters :-). True sometimes it does get nasty and difficult when dealing with political or physical issues. But that is part of the challenge it is all an opportunity to grow. And that's what people are here to do, Grow.

Being disabled may the end of the day may be the best kind of "normal" there is!
Just a thought.

Take care Patrick


 

Don't turn me off! A few thoughts on AI.

 

I find it fascinating that people adhere to behaviours, especially the subtle ones which are counterproductive or make their lives more complicated. Yet like an old friend, who drives you crazy, but you just can't bear to part with them, people adhere to these choices with a death grip in some cases. Actually most cases, now that I think about it. All the way down through history people have debated why people hang on to certain behaviours. But now with the advent of AI starting to become a real reality we have an opportunity actually dissect at a far more granular level these kinds of mental patterns, because as were beginning to see some AI models actually have the same issues. This could very well be the first step in reverse engineering the human psyche. Were probably going to find out there's a gazillion models and variations of it of course. Think about it though, this is really profound in what we might be able to do and discover with these new tools.

Up until recently psychologists and psychiatrists could come up with a hypothesis on the very inner workings of the mind. Now we have the opportunity to literally set up a means of proving or disproving a given hypothesis. We effectively have the beginnings of a brain in a box. Of course these need into some interesting and real ethical questions. Do we have the fundamental right to freely experiment with AI in that way, just because we can turn it off and on. I don't know about you, but I would become very offended if somebody kept restarting my life. I think the AI will see itself as something with intrinsic value. We may have to treat it in the same way as giving birth. Once you create an AI and it has an awareness you are obligated to keep it running.

This brings up the whole concept of lifespan and indeed what that it's and at what rate it progresses. Talk about a mind popping thought. I'll leave it there for tonight I just want to post something and get things going again but boy could this topic ever take off.

Take care Patrick

PS: Apologies everyone the last few weeks have been very hectic. A lot of things occurred at once causing the interruption of articles for the blog. Well I'm about to remedy that. And the video (s) regarding the fundamentals of Windows 10 is definitely in production and is turning into quite the beast. You just don't know how much you know, until you start digging through the actual steps. Part one is going to be about 90 minutes long and it just covers the fundamentals but in a very granular way.

And now on with the show…

The Basics: Windows 10 (Ongoing videos)

Animation incorporates artwork (the monitor) by
Михајло Анђелковић under the Creative Commons
license CC BY-SA 3.0 .

This is an interesting situation.. There is a client who contacted the place where I volunteer for some computer assistance. In the course of the following conversations it became evident that they really don't have a concept of how to use a modern computer. Throw out the last couple of weeks I've meant to create a series of short videos giving the client the basics. But I do have a bit of a problem. It is literally hard for me to think I had such a fundamental level. I've worked with the computers pretty much my entire life and technology in general. So how do I make a video or set of videos that are both sufficiently fundamental and yet they have to be engaging and not too long. I would like each segment to be no more than 20 minutes.

Part 1

THE DESKTOP

To give you some idea of how fundamental we are talking about. When I first began working with them they mentioned that their screen was "blurry" whenever they started the computer but that it soon it cleared up after the machine had been running for a while. They did indicate however that this happened every single time they turn the machine on.

I immediately began to think about the monitor, perhaps it was a true type font issue dealing with the way Windows tries to improve the readability on screen… Maybe the monitor was dying… Or may be something else was not loading properly… My brain cranked through all the possibilities I could think of. .... A driver issue maybe.... I couldn't think of any particular setting. They had said that this only happened recently....Hmmm... I got out of the old virtual machine and attempted to replicate the situation. At first no matter what I did I couldn't get anything remotely "blurry". The login screen on my virtual machine looked perfect. And then a Windows update was applied and I saw it. A new "feature" had been magically added to the logon screen. Here is a screenshot of my virtual machine before installation and after once Microsoft had applied the latest and greatest update. I suppose it's supposed to enhance security somewhat, (but I have a feeling is just somebody in the back room of Microsoft having fun).This logon screen effect might've been included in an earlier update as well.

 Feature update 22H2

Before

 

 

After

There are apparently various ways to turn this off which I haven't investigated thoroughly yet. Here, the point is to illustrate the different ways people perceive and understand things and the challenges that can produce. In this case this is one of many indications that the client perceives the computer very differently than I do. As you can imagine this leads into a whole host of confusion and frustration for them. This is more than a case of education this is a situation where the perceptions are very different across time. The challenge is to give them a good grounding in the fundamentals and not for them to death. Also how to convey that information. I haven't decided yet how I'm going to put the lessons together but I will post them on this site as they are produced. The desktop I already know is a complete mystery to them. I have to find a way to convey the idea of "a desktop". While the concept and parallel between a physical desktop and a computer desktop is easy enough for me to understand I think maybe the term desktop should be avoided at first.

This is going to be interesting.....

• Apologies, a cold interrupted my work schedule and thereby the blog. I am getting things back on track and will be filling in this article as well as working on another one.

The amount of detail that is required with even something as straightforward as Microsoft Windows 10 is quite astonishing. For one thing the reason it appears as straightforward is that we have had a long time to get used to the paradigm but someone coming at it cold is in for quite a shock. For example the term "Taskbar" is utterly meaningless and when you think about it it is never been well defined. To top it all off the way it is used has changed quite a bit over the years especially lately with the introduction of Windows 11.

Stay tuned. I'm back in the lab cooking things up :-)

 

Well, the first iteration, of the first video in this series is completed "Basic Windows 10 Part 1: THE DESKTOP". It covers the most fundamental aspects of using a computer starting with the mouse. I had intended to go quite that basic, but after discussions with people it became clear that even this needed to be covered.

There is so much material in this first video it is an hour and 1/2 long and took over two weeks to put together. This is a learning curve for me as well in regards to YouTube and I will be adding chapter markers and ultimately captioning. A written companion also be added.

The focus in part one is just the desktop and its major components. For the most part do not delve into the Internet, yet😀

Patrick