Starting 2021 with a legend...

This is just going to be a very brief post to kick off the new year.(All links open in a new tab or window.)

Well I had planned to post something on January 1, 2021 but do a slight mishap with my router, and that's an understatement, things were postponed.

I was looking around for something unique and I ran across this painting. It resonates with me for some marvellous reason. Based on "The Accolade", by Edmund Blair Leighton. 

"The Accolade", by Edmund Blair Leighton.

This is a reprint obviously and possibly a reimagining, I am not familiar with the original painting, by an artist known as M. Dam. So I bought a print through a company called  "Displate".

Perhaps it is because it harkens to those romantic and powerful characters of legend. A queen bestowing some great honour on one of her knights.

I believe these prints come all the way from Poland and are done on mental. So it is going to take some time for the shipment to come through. What a marvellous way to start the new year.


Happy new year everyone! Take care Patrick Clark

What makes up a person's outlook on life?

 No doubt about it, the year 2020 is about to go down in human history as one of the most unusual periods of time, and not only because of Covid 19, but in the myriad of ways people have reacted to the various aspects of the previous 12 months, it seems to have amplified, or perhaps a better word would be delineated, our behaviours. Personally, I have seen some people remain positive, while others steadfastly hold onto their negative behaviours, and the third group who are… What's the word… Indifferent. All this has me thinking, what exactly is it that maintains a person's outlook on life? Are we simply creatures of habit, blindly following  routines? I don't think so.

In recent years I've become very aware that my own personal outlook on life remains overall very positive. Even when I perceived difficulty, my tendency is to immediately go into problem-solving mode. When I cannot control something, and I am becoming more aware of this as I grow older, I tend not to expend energy on what I cannot alter. Sometimes going as far as making a silent agreement with whatever the event is to "let bygones be bygones for the time being". There may be a mental note made to revisit the issue later on, as opportunity an change present themselves. Indeed I am usually thankful for the event regardless of it being positive or negative because it is an opportunity to be aware.

While writing this very text I have  suddenly become cognizant of the answer to the question posed by the title of this post "What makes a positive outlook on life possible?". It is two things:

1. Awareness of the moment or situation.
2. Engagement, undertaking to influence or decide what to do.

 Above all, not to pretend that the situation doesn't exist. Even if the engagement is the decision to make up one's mind about the issue later. But make the action of deferment on your decision sincere make sure to come back and deal with it.

One is not separate from the situation regardless of what it is. There will always be some aspect under a person's control. And of the two points mentioned above "engagement" is the most important. That means being involved with whatever is happening in a very active way. Not being passive and waiting for the answer to come to you. Like everything else in life, it works best when you strive outside of your routines and habits.

Overreliance on habits weakens one's ability to challenge and adapt to new experiences. One begins to take things for granted and slowly loses their connection to the joy in life. In short keep changing when something is too easy find something just a tiny bit scary and undertake it.

I understand now, that in many cases where people are apathetic they are often times holding on to the behaviours rather than spending energy on either being aware or affecting their situation. Simplifying their thought processes down to habitual routines. This cannot have a good effect on any aspect of the person, because over time one would effectively shut down their own cognitive abilities. The self-induced, but very real, extremely mild, coma like state. The result would be someone who never explores and always looks for the familiar, the routine, so they just don't have to think about anything. Regardless of belief system, one must to knowledge that, I wore life as we know it is very brief. Life is a unique experience in that each day cannot be repeated and the future is always full of mystery if one is aware, so let's not waste it.

Here we are again back at the Matrix (opens in a new window) movie parallel. And of course, just like in the movie, if one misses the opportunity to be aware of their situation and be engaged in the same they become prime targets for manipulation. Because someone else has to do for them whatever they are not doing themselves.

Egad I have just scared myself, because I know quite a few people that fit into that matrix category. They seek only what is already established. Never looking for that new experience, that colourful paintbrush if you will. Moreover they tend to be very reliant, if not needy, on other people. Constantly asking and deferring all responsibility for action. They want the new smart TV set or other gizmo. But when they get they rely on others to set it up, because sending something new up involves the very thing they don't want-The New Experience.

Oh what a bizarre situation... Well I am very glad that I love new experiences :-)! I hope this short little article inspires all who read it to be aware of their surroundings and involved in their own lives. Because when you are you realize there is opportunity and magic every time you become aware of your surroundings.

Continue to explore everyone and see you next year in 2021!
Take care Patrick

A Thought about Thinking

Image modified (text added) based on drawing
by MithrandirMage. Creative Commons

Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

I volunteer in the technology sector. That is, building webpages, figuring out problems with computers (usually older ones) and pretty much handling a wide variety of issues over the phone. I can safely say there's never a dull moment.

One would think they'll that with all the tools we have at our disposal to save time, that the average person would be far more efficient and able to focus on the task at hand. But the opposite appears to be true, at least from my perspective. The various services we have to organize our lives seem to each have their own way of doing things and one is constantly switching between one thing or another. That in itself is inherently inefficient and to further add to the recipe of chaos the concept of detailed instructions seems to gone out the door in favour of icons and "relationships". So one is faced with the undesirable task of having to figure out the designer's perceptions.--This is where a well written manual the most beneficial. Now doing this on occasion or when one has a real mystery to solve is downright fun, but on the other hand when your goal of the day is to achieve something well done this gets to be a real impediment.

I find myself thinking about the thought processes of various modern-day developers. Indeed how well do they know themselves when you come right down to it. Because if you don't know your own motivations and it is hard to know exactly what drives your own designs and creativeness and things can get out of hand and the new application being created ends up being boxed in and more limited than its predecessor. A real world example of this is the new upgraded app which controls my smart lights. It seems to have far less functionality, for example you can no longer dim the lights on a timer for the whole house, you must set each individual room which means more time spent. And day help section is more of a philosophical explanation of why "you" the user will find this new app so wonderful. But as to what slider does what, well one has to spend some time playing around with it. And if one's way of using the app does not coincide with the philosophical instructions then it isn't so wonderful after all.

I just wonder about the mindsets and how people are thinking and indeed about their various thought processes. What will the machines think of us when they finally do "wake up" at the singularity? Just how well do we know our own thinking?

There is a silver lining

Photo by Keven Law. 
CC Share Alike 2.0 Generic Licence

Apologies to everyone for not updating my blog in the last several months. I have been very busy and of course the pandemic has changed a great deal on how we do things and as I'm sure everyone knows by now, when you work from home there is a tendency to keep working. No longer do you have the separation, it's just "one more thing", followed by "one more thing…" after that… On and on and, on it goes.

One thing I have noticed in the past few months is a sharp polarization of various viewpoints. No longer are there debates on whatever topic might be at hand in discussion, rather people seem to be digging their heels in. I think this is mostly due to an anxiety response. We all have an innate desire to change and control things. When an event happens which is global in scope there is a tendency to feel helpless and therefore you hold on to whatever you can even harder. Be it a behaviour, or an opinion. The line is drawn deeper in the sand. And just maybe this is had an unforeseen positive impact in that people are once again learning to speak up. The world is a little rougher and a little more uncertain… Some of the cushions have been taken away.

With the current protests and social actions which are so reminiscent of the 1960s in their scope and sincerity, have taken place to the same extent if the pandemic had not occurred. I think for people worldwide this is help the knockoff the "apathetic shoes" we were all wearing. This event is far from over and only time will tell how everything will play out. 

But globally I find myself feeling a little better knowing that people can stand together and take action. I was beginning to lose hope a tiny bit in the human race. But this is proven people still can do great things for those around them, as well as the larger community of humanity.

There is a silver lining. And it is nice to see.

Patrick

Question: How to Deal with an Upload Bottleneck with ADSL?

From Needpix.com
Used under Creative Commons Zero - CC0

Okay my geek audience out there, I have a classic bottleneck problem which I need some feedback on.

Here are the gruesome details:

• I have a network storage device with about 1 TB of information which is due to have its drives replaced.
• I have 2 TB of storage on Google Drive.
• My home Internet connection is an ADSL (I bet some of you can already see where the problem is going to emerge) with 25 Mb upstream and 75 Mb downstream.

Many of the files and folders I need to upload are large in the multiples of gigabytes range, therefore some take hours.

The primary problem:

Regardless of how I try to upload the files, the upstream saturates at full speed, which brings my whole connection down because it is asynchronous. The solution of course is to limit the upload speed by either bandwidth or QoS settings, neither of which my router has. Tried to use the Google Chrome browser Developer Console (Control + Shift +i) to limit the bandwidth, but this proved to be unreliable. The console has a tendency to just shut down after a few hours.

The secondary problem:

Found out that Google Drive has a problem with certain file extensions. They upload correctly but when you tried to download the folder they are contained in instead of Google Drive downloading them as a single zip file a downloads a zip file all rights but then also downloads files with presumably random extensions. Very strange behaviour. My solution, I thought would be to use WinZip 24 Pro edition to put everything in an archive and then upload it. But WinZip appears to have no settings for limiting the upload speed and so again my network saturates.

I have emailed WinZip technical support but they don't seem to grasp situation. I just get form letters in response asking for more information. I think I may know more about networking than they do. And that's not much!

Thought I had the answer the other night when I found some freeware called "TMeter" along with his site completely explaining how to properly set it up to limit your upload speed on a per application basis. But… WinZip apparently launches another process to do the actual uploading and tracking that down is proving to be quite the frustration.

So if anyone out there has any ideas on how to limit one's upload speed so as to not saturate an asynchronous connection please let me know!

I find it very surprising that WinZip with all their current focus on cloud storage has not addressed the situation and surely since most home Internet accounts are also asynchronous (meaning that if you overload the upload side, you also kill your download. Which effectively knocks you off the Internet.) It would vastly improve the program. All you would need is a setting that would allow you to indicate the maximum upload speed you wanted to use. Thereby saving your connection from disaster.

By the way every time my connection fails due to the situation I have to start all over again since I don't know exactly where the upload aborted.

I have spent many days and gigabytes of traffic trying to solve this problem. I know Google Drive has some desktop software which does have the appropriate settings, but it only allows you to upload pictures and well-known file formats. Since I'm trying to backup an entire hard drive containing ISOs archives in a wide variety of other things that solution did me no good.

Take care Patrick and any help would be greatly appreciated or even a guess.

Internet School

Vladsinger the copyright holder of this work, release this work
into the Public domain. This applies worldwide

Because of a recent break-in in our building, I am putting together a course for my fellow tenant's on how to use the services available online rather than getting documentation and cheques through the physical mail. Part of this course will cover "Internet safety"

My rough thoughts are being put in the following article so that you the readership can make comments and therefore influence the results. The Internet is incredibly dynamic and so should be the ways of accomplishing various tasks.

My first thought is, and will use Google as an example, when a person first sits down in front of a monitor displaying Google, what thoughts and relationships are they forming? Are they approaching it like I would, being very technically savvy and pondering which search terms to use, or are they looking at it from the perspective of a table of contents in a printed book? The answers to these questions greatly changes how the information should be presented to the various people in the course. I have a mandate in that the course cannot be excessively long or detailed but rather (hopefully) a bulleted concise list of things that can be remembered and comprehended quickly. Just how the heck am I going to put the Internet in a bottle?! And of course it must be interesting in order to be remembered.

The scenario is this:

• Adult audience
• Most are casual Internet users.
• Familiar with Facebook to some degree.

I'm going out on a limb, (this is my own personal opinion which may be terribly wrong) but I would say there is a tendency among most people to implicitly believe whatever they read in the search results.- EEEK!

So stay tuned… I will be updating this hopefully every day. Tuesdays and Thursdays are rather difficult as I have other things to do. But feel free to share any Internet learning experience in the comments.

To get the discussion going...

Questions to ask people:

• What do you use the Internet for?
• What do you find most frustrating about the Internet?
• What would you like to learn (be specific)?

"Thinking" Is Not "What One Thinks"

The Thinker in The Gates of Hell
by Auguste Rodin..  Used under CC 2.0.License.
Photo by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra.

Over and over again, I find myself wondering if the human species really is capable of independent thought, or is it just that we create the illusion for ourselves, when in reality we are rearranging pre-existing information and calling it something new?

This is definitely not the case for researchers on the cutting edge of technology, one needs only look at the astounding achievements in the various fields over the last few years. What was once science-fiction, is not only fact but often we have gone beyond it. (I always find myself giggling when I look back at the original Star Trek series on TV with the character "Uhura", played by Nichelle Nichols, with the large communicator earpiece.)

But for the most part in our day-to-day lives do we really think independent thoughts? Are we really considering what we are hearing and seeing before we make a judgement? I think the answer is "No". We hear snippets of information all throughout the day and connect them together to create a temporary narrative which usually fits our preconceptions and is comfortable in some way, then we move on to the next item or distraction. But there is no real consideration. Even writing this short little article, there have been several interruptions of various sorts and side ventures occurring within a mere three paragraphs.

Nichelle Nichols as "Nyota Uhura".
This work, identified by PublicDomainFiles.com,
is free of known copyright restrictions.

The photo of Uhura with her earpiece turned into a quest when finding a photo which was copyright cleared, at least for editorial purposes. While I'm confident that this article meets all the appropriate requirements, to be absolutely certain probably would've taken hours of research plus some legal advice. So I did what most people do now days I skimmed the surface of knowledge, but at least I thought about the issue. My mental processes were engaged. Which is probably closer to independent thought that a lot of people get in their busy daily routines.

I think what concerns me most is that over time the human species may actually lose some of our cognitive thinking processes. It would be the old story: "If you don't use it, you lose it." And the voices taught me one thing it is that such things can happen quickly. The brain will reorganize rapidly to suit whatever environment it is in. Many years ago, I was in a body cast for six weeks. When it was taken off, my brain had forgotten how to move my legs. It was a remarkable experience, because of course you don't command your legs to move, they just do when you want them to. There is no internal language in this desire to move, at least not on a conscious level. Not only could my brain remember how to move my legs, I couldn't even tell you what I forgot. I just knew my legs weren't responding to my desires. Then an orderly moved my legs a few times, and in the space of a few minutes I reconnected and was back to normal.-But I still couldn't tell you what I relearned. Clearly learning and thinking happen on a much deeper level than we are normally conscious of. It was a remarkable experience. And I definitely understood how easy it would be to lose these abilities and that I really didn't understand what thinking was-and, still don't.

This is one of those times where I wish I had a time machine and could go back a few hundred years or maybe even less to observe how people actually engaged in the thinking process. With less automation, and thereby more "hands-on effort" by the brain I have a feeling it would be discovered that peoples cognitive thinking level was higher. How many people reading this text today have actually solved an arithmetic question in their heads in the last week or two. Less than 50 years ago everyone had to do some basic math in their head every day, whether that was counting money or just assessing something else.

Are we beginning to lose the very ability to truly think something new because we are so busy getting distracted?  There is literally no time to sit down and ponder ideas or concepts. I have been going to a small little cappuccino place for about the last year and in all that time I have not seen anyone with a book or piece of paper or even a device focused on a single goal. What I do see is people with a tablet, laptop, or even several phones switching between screens and presumably tasks. Your mind needs time to form thoughts to truly embed them in one's conscious reality. Google and Alexa have replaced this for the most part.

When I found the photo of the "Thinker In the Gates of Hell" at the top of this post I tried to imagine what it would be like for one individual to go through all the stages of creating a tremendous sculpture. Even if he had a team of assistants it is truly a mind-boggling and awe-inspiring undertaking. Could anyone do this now in the 21st century without relying on the augmentation technology gives us?

"Thinking" is not so much "what one thinks" it is the process of" how one thinks", and I think the important point there is that it is a process we need all to exercise. Maybe that is why I enjoy complexity in mystery and problem solving. I like the messy stuff. I don't like to use Google for everything despite what I had to do to write this short little article regarding the copyright issues for Star Trek related photo.

😉 Now I have an urge to go out and find a debating team😀
Until Next Week, Take Care Patrick Clark

Caravan of the Books

Photo by Alexandre Boue
licensed under the Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

I was watching a program the other night "Caravan of the Books: Kenya's Mobile Camel Library" (click the updated link for one minute preview) and was struck by the fact that this is happening in the 21st century. It is a marvellous and hopeful program, but North America and the developed world are planets apart. I felt guilty when I thought about demanding rights for this item or that item in the modern world. My electric wheelchair is not only computer-controlled but reports back to the company twice a day with complete diagnostics and has a huge range of features, all aimed at one thing-making me feel comfortable.

In our modern world of multitasking and distracting ourselves the message in this show was clear-at least to me-"How about we raise up the rest of the world allowing them to have opportunities and access." That leads into the question of what sort of things make societies separate. Is it just human nature to be tribal and unique at any cost? And when we arrive at an answer is the purpose of the "answer" just to make the affluent feel better?

I will expand on this in the coming weeks as more thoughts occur to me. My first is yet another question, "now that we know the past is not as simple or romantic as we'd hoped how do I do we change our present behaviours so that cultures can benefit from advancements while keeping their identity and uniqueness in any way they wish?

Patrick

They Have Never Been Taught To Think

This is a spontaneous rant… I am really astonished…

Recently, I have met a number of people who when faced with any obstacle, be it physical or anything requiring fundamental problem-solving effort just immediately give up. With "That Didn't Work…, I Don't Know…, You do it for me…, I can't…" (And the list goes on). What has happened to our modern culture's mindset. These people seem to have no desire to explore, and more importantly enjoy and grow from the experience. This seems to be especially prevalent in those that are 30 years old or younger.

It's as though they have never been taught to think. They just run programs in their head and when an obstacle is encountered which hasn't been explicitly given the answer to previously the person just fractious out coming to a dead stop. This is the exact opposite to how I look at the world, I enjoy challenge and mystery. The act of finding out what is not knowing yet. There is so much joy in discovering something new.

Yet when one tries to encourage people with this modern mindset to go beyond their boundaries, then their brain kicks in with the thousand and one reasons not to, and I suppose that's a good sign it a way, as it means their "mental ship" isn't entirely sunk. But I swear if I meet one more, "can't do that… Help me…" Person today I may go entirely Daffy Duck, even if it means getting my bill shot off!

I hope, you will enjoy challenge and exploration in your daily life. If things are getting a little mundane, please do scribble outside the lines or take that chance to grow. You will be certain to find joy. If something seems initially, hard take that as a good sign and do it anyway. It may not be important whether you succeed or fail, but what is important is that you keep expanding your horizons. You will benefit in the short run and throw tremendously in later years.

When you think about it, all creative minds come from stretching the boundaries, reinventing what is normal along the way. It is a process that never stops. Thank you goodness!

I feel so much better now. Let me know your experiences with people nowadays. Do you love challenge? Are you that creative sort that doesn't quite fit in? If you are you are in good company and glad that you found my little blog. Do stay in touch. Sincerely

Patrick Clark

"Reality" is what you make it.

Click image to enlarge.

One of the most frequently read articles on this blog is "What is being sentient like for you?", It is consistently one of the top 2 posts. Briefly it deals with the idea that each individual's experience of self may differ quite a bit from one person to the next, much more than is generally perceived by society. I don't think the universal human experience exists, and further each person's "reality" is what they make it, moment to moment.

The intriguing aspect is, we all get caught up in our own realities and there is a tendency to just follow whatever storyline is created. For example, if someone is in love, then their reality is beautiful. That's situation is easy to see and it usually brings a smile the face of the onlooker. However, usually unconsciously the onlooker has just adopted the other person's reality in some aspect. It is usually short-term, but one always goes away after meeting someone who's in love feeling just a bit better.

Now, why is it that some realities people create are just short-term while others last four months if not longer? These longer-lasting perceptions and realities which people adopt I have noticed tend to be in the more negative realm. We all know a "Mr. Scrooge" who has a perpetually dark outlook. No matter what you say, or indeed what happens, somehow (and I often find this amazing that the human mind can be so bright) they find a way to see a negative aspect. It is much rarer to find someone who makes light in the darkness. Who takes a negative and spins it positive, although many such people do exist and I have had the joys of meeting them.

If it's at we as a society are not taught to be aware of how we think and relate to ourselves, but because the modern world has such a focus on external distraction, people just go with the flow? I think the answer to the question is "Yes". I wonder if a formal study has ever been done of cultures which have some form of, for lack of a better term, "personal self review" as opposed to those which are externalized has ever been done. Cultures cultures which employ the practice of meditation as opposed to those which do not might be an interesting study indeed.

I can see how people can get stuck in a reality which is not good for them, we are all so busy nowadays. Speaking personally the last year I have been so busy with various projects and events that I gave up trying to get to the end of the perpetual to do list. This was the realization when maintaining the list itself became an item on "the to do list". That was a bizarre situation indeed…

The other thing is which is not worthy is the fact that statutory holidays in Canada don't seem to be adhered to for the most part anymore. More businesses and people work on these holidays regardless of what they are. The corner store which stays open, and the big franchise operation which undoubtedly will have appropriate sales on those days. This I think is a backward step, because holidays are meant to allow people to step back, and out of, a reality. "You are not working today. So there is no reason to adopt your business routine." This should be a chance for people to change their "reality". And I think that was the original point of some of these holidays. To have a chance to change the mode we are in. It is a skill which we should get back to.

So now that you're done reading this, take a moment, take a break, take stock and change a reality. Whatever mode you are in feel free to play with your own emotional gearshift. If that happens to be an automatic mode, made this short little article encourage you to make your own reality right now :-)

Sincerely Patrick Clark. Have a wonderful day!

PS: I just took a short stroll to the local watering hole and coffee shop where I saw something quite remarkable. The usual cruel people were there, all oblivious to everything around them except for their caffeine fix etc. when some guy dogs in training along with their handlers walked in. In an instant there was discussion and because the dogs were young and inexperienced they reacted, much to their handlers dismay, all the training promptly went out the door and the dogs did what they normally do, barked happily tails wagging and kind of a joyful chaos ensued amongst the canines. This went on for about 10 minutes altogether then the dogs and their handlers left and almost spontaneously the group of coffee aficionados switched back into the regular modes of oblivion. I wondered how many of them had even noticed the change in their realities and how profound it really was?… At least it was a hopeful sign that humanity can indeed spark back to life and it made my day actually. The adventure continues…