A Simple Fix But With Problems

Posted on 20 October 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Sometimes the simple fix isn’t good enough.

In parts of the developed world, population growth peaked with the baby boomers. Now that they are beginning to retire, there aren’t enough people in the younger population to replace all of them in employment. Worse, as they get older they will need more health care and that will require more working people in the health care industry. As well, fewer people of working age means there is less of a tax base to pay for all the extra care.

Canada takes in a lot of immigrants. So Canadians saw an easy fix for this problem: approve more young immigrants for entry into Canada. This would be a beautiful solution if only the problem wasn’t more complex.

You see, the majority of immigrants to Canada settle in Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver. And why not? By settling in the big cities, you can keep some of the community you had in your old country.

My friend, whenever he wanted to mention an obscure place on the face of the earth, would use Bulgaria as an example. He didn’t know anyone from Bulgaria and I think the people he would say this to didn’t know Bulgarians either.

But sure enough, while living in Toronto during the World Cup of Soccer, one day Bulgaria won their game. Just like with every other ethnic group, when their team won, Bulgarians drove their cars around honking their horns and displaying that country’s flag all over the city. As obscure as Bulgaria is, there is a community of their people in Toronto.

Indeed, when the Martians wish to colonize Earth, I suspect that they will choose Toronto as the place to put their first off-Mars community. Toronto already has many programs to help newcomers set up there.

Montreal and Vancouver have similar stories and also attract many immigrants.

Some immigrants also move to the smaller cities. But not nearly as large a percentage as in Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver.

Small towns and rural areas get virtually no immigrants. I don’t blame the immigrants because these areas of Canada are most likely to be racist. Not everyone in rural areas is this way but in my experience it’s more prominent than in the other areas.

In my home in Kitchener, a mid size city, I think I am in the goldilocks zone. Enough young immigrants are in this region to replace our aging population and care for our elderly.

I’m not in Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver and thus don’t have to pay onerous taxes for more English/French as a 2nd language and other immigrant settling programs.

I’m not rural and thus don’t have to tough it out when I’m old and somehow care for myself when decrepit.

The future, for me, looks comfortable. Thank you half-assed, simple solution. I just happen to be in the right place.

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They’re Coming

Posted on 16 October 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Asian carp were introduced to the Mississippi over 10 years ago and have spread up that river and into most of its tributaries.

Asian carp are an invasive species that push out a lot of the native fish since they feed so fast and breed so fast. They’ve even pushed into the Illinois river. Why is this so important? Well the Illinois is linked by canal to the Great Lakes (Lake Michigan).

Now the Americans have some idea of what devastation such a species might bring to the big fisheries of the Great Lakes. So they’ve built an electric fence to stop the fish from moving further afield. But a problem with the fence could result in Lake Michigan getting infected.

The province of Ontario(which borders the other 4 Great Lakes) and some American states are talking about cutting Lake Michigan off from the other Great Lakes. This would make another barrier to stop the Asian Carp from spreading. So with two barriers, the spread of the Asian Carp to the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River should at least slow the spread if not halt it completely.

In reality, I think this species is so invasive that it will eventually spread to the Great Lakes. Although I don’t live on the Lakes directly, my city, Kitchener, is on the Grand River which flows into Lake Erie. So I will see this species close up and personal if it does manage to spread.

And after researching this species on YouTube, I’m not sure that everything about this fish is so bad. You see, it has 1 character trait that I kind of like. Boat motors freak out this fish so much that they jump 6 or 8 feet out of the water when they hear the engine. They’ve been called flying fish because of this trait. Electrical stimulus to the water makes this problem/advantage even worse.

Which brings up what a town on the Illinois has done. They’ve instituted a “Redneck Fishing Tournament”. That’s when fishermen on the motorboats don’t use a pole to catch the Asian Carp. Instead they try to catch the fish with fishnets as they jump out of the water. It looks like such fun. You can check a video of that here.

Because some of the fish are over 20 pounds, they can hurt you by hitting you. People worry about deaths from this but no one has been killed yet. Still, black eyes and other injuries are common.

When I first saw the leaping fish, I thought it would be fun to take a baseball bat on board one of those boats and try to hit the Asian Carp. But thinking it through that would probably be too gruesome and cruel. So I backed of that idea and now think it would be neat to be on one of those boats with a tennis racket for each hand. My only question then, is should I hit the fish back into the water or into a spot on the boat.

There are other videos on YouTube showing this stuff. Like the one that shows people trying to shoot the fish with a bow and arrow. If you want to nose around YouTube about this just try a search for Asian Carp.

And if the carp never reach the Great Lakes? Why then I guess I’ll have to do all my Redneck Fishing Tournaments on the Illinois River.

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Back to the Future

Posted on 13 October 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Usually I’m all for getting more for my money. However at times issues of quality raise their heads.

It was standard during the record era to have less than 45 minute albums. The maximum seemed to be slightly over 20 minutes that could be put on a side of a record. That changed with the more recent era of the compact disk. Indeed it was decided from the get go to make CDs longer because there was a classical piece that lasted about 70 minutes and it hadn’t been recorded in one chunk yet.

It was trend setting acts in the 80s like Dire Straits who put out albums with bonus songs or extended versions if you were to purchase them on cassette or CD. Brothers in Arms was a solid album to try this on – still I don’t like every track of that album both on vinyl and the longer versions. In short, I do not let this album play through although there are chunks that I like. This is the problem I’d like to talk about.

It’s rare enough to get a solid album at 40 minutes in length. To me the acts that have managed to do so are heroes. The prog rock acts were probably the best at this like Yes, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. All these bands have at least one album I will play through to the end. And believe me Yes and Pink Floyd heard the accolades and tried to make songs their maximum length (the side of a record) even though that was met with limited success.

Other bands also would put out the occasional wonder album. Like the Who (Who’s Next), Van Halen (1984) or even Men Without Hats (Pop Goes the World)

But the world was listening to Dire Straits in 1985 and by the early 90s it was standard to have a 60 minute album.

In my opinion the only acts to have a solid 60 minute outing were Pearl Jam (Ten) and Nirvana (Nevermind). I’m not sure if it’s my mind or the music, I’m usually done listening to these albums before they are over. Do I not have the attention span or does the music become boring in such quantity?

Plus, in the 60 minute era, there were a number of outings that might have been very solid 40 minute albums, that didn’t quite work at 60 minutes. Like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Blood Sugar Sex Magic), Alanis Morrisette (Jagged Little Pill) and the Smashing Pumpkins (Siamese Dream). Of course they would have to edit these albums the way I want.

So I found myself sitting up when I saw an interview with Chris Martin (Coldplay) and he had a post it on his keyboard that was pro- 45 minute albums.

In short, I’m expecting a shorter Coldplay album next time around. Indeed another newer act, Shinedown, released a pretty solid outing (the Sound of Madness) just over the last year. I discovered it because it had 4 songs as singles. It’s time is just under 42 minutes and I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll think it’s one of those album wonders.

Still, what’s driving this return to a supposed former golden age? It’s the backwards technology of that same vinyl record. Vinyl has reemerged in the recording industry and many of us now have turntables again. Vinyl has come back to the future and maybe that’s a good thing.

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Inches in Weight Loss: Ripe for Misdirection

Posted on 9 October 2010 by Larry Russwurm

There needs to be some standard for loss of inches during weight loss, because as it stands, this can be used for deceitful results.

There is no scientific standard in this type of reporting although it purports to be more of a real measurement than weight loss by weight or mass. The reasoning goes that muscle is denser than fat so if you’ve changed a lot of fat into muscle you could be slimmer but weigh more.

I was first turned off the loss of inches for a weight loss mechanism because you just simply added together losses from your arms and waist and other parts. Obviously differing body parts have different healthy states than each other so a straight forward addition to me is equating apples with oranges.

So let’s look at the first way measurement can be abused. Let’s say you’ve lost one inch off your waist and five pounds of overall weight loss. You can measure more than just your waist to add up the inches lost. Moving your measuring tape a width away from your waist also will give a measurement loss. Let’s say the two positions below and above give a ¾ of an inch loss. You can keep going. Perhaps there are two 5/8 of an inch and two ½ inch losses. In other words, from that 5 pounds or 1 inch lost on the waist there is nothing to stop us from adding up the fraction of an inch losses on the rest of the belly. So that 1 inch loss on the waist can become a 6 inch loss on the whole of the belly.

And we haven’t even said what we are losing with those inches. Perhaps we could take a female with really long hair. We could cut 10 inches of hair off her and lose a couple pounds of hair weight. That’s right we can claim she lost 10 inches and a couple pounds without doing a lick of exercising or dieting.

Be especially wary of losses that don’t involve any weight. “I lost 8 inches with no diet or exercise” could simply mean that the model is simply pulling in her stomach as tightly as she can.

Even more important is to give a wide berth to any adult male that says he lost a couple inches in only a few minutes of a program. Do not make eye contact with these males and try to stay disengaged. Just like with hair, inches can mean anything.

Posted in Humour, Mathematics, Pseudo Science, Science | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Supposedly 2nd Rate Symbols

Posted on 6 October 2010 by Larry Russwurm

It was common in the ’70s and ’80s to hear Canadians self deprecatingly speak of our national symbols as 2nd rate. A maple leaf was somehow less than an oak leaf . A beaver was a lesser beast than an eagle. The beaver isn’t a second rate symbol but I won’t bother proving that here. Instead I’ll focus on the maple tree versus the oak tree as a powerful symbol.

First when looking at the leaves of both trees, neither seems superior, just different.

One of those self deprecating looks I mentioned was Rush’s anti union song, The Trees. One line sets up the song: “The maples want more sunlight and the oaks ignore their pleas.” Presumably oaks are taller than maples and thus ‘win’ the struggle for more sunlight.

This may be true with the ornamental maples that some landscapers put on lawns. But maples have a robust branch on the evolutionary tree, and ornamental maples aren’t all there is. Have you ever seen a bush of sugar maples where the sap gets harvested? These bushes are as high as other bushes. In other words, maples can get to be as tall as oaks.

That’s right, the basic premise that Rush hung The Trees on, I feel is wrong. Perhaps the anti union stance is incorrect, too.

It’s also implicit in my previous argument that maples may be more robust and fill more niches than oaks in the world’s ecology.

Then there is the wood of each tree. Both are hardwoods. Some may prefer the oak, but the maple woods are less expensive. I call that a draw.

Oaks produce acorns as their other product. It is possible to eat this nut, however it’s best to put the nuts through a process first. Squirrels that eat this nut have evolved to eat it, unlike humans.

Sugar maples produce the finest tasting maple syrup and sugars. So much so that their high price doesn’t deter people from pouring it onto pancakes and the like. The process for creating the syrup from the sap of the sugar maple is just to boil away the excess water.

Maple trees also produce those ‘helicopter’ seeds that fall slowly to the ground, tracing out helixes. This allows the seeds to blow away from the tree parent. The maple seed can fall far from the maple. Plus they are wicked fun to play with when a little kid.

And lastly, maples seem to thrive in more northerly latitudes than oaks. That’s a great reason for choosing them as a national symbol for Canada. All in all I think maples are a better symbol than oaks would be because of this direct comparison. Those other, self deprecating Canadians? I think they just didn’t think things through.

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Almost Nazi Swastikas

Posted on 2 October 2010 by Larry Russwurm

I was surprised a couple of years ago when I saw this Boing Boing article about a Swastika shaped building in the US. In the article it was not even questioned that the offending shape must be changed even though it’s only obvious from the air that it is a swastika.

I was surprised because I once went to York University in Toronto. Every day I would pass the sculpture below, which definitely looks like a 3D swastika from the ends. This piece of art was there when I first began attending York in 1986 and still is there today (I only took this photo last week). In all my years at York, I would read the student newspapers and I never once heard of a controversy surrounding this sculpture. Still, looking back now, I think that is what the artist wanted was controversy. The artist didn’t exactly make a swastika. Also it’s not tilted 45 degrees like the true Nazi swastika. However it still easily reminds one of the Nazi swastika. I’m sure some survivor of the holocaust might feel the fear of World War II all over again upon seeing this.

But why does the controversy have to affect Jews the most? Wouldn’t it be more controversial if we got the artist to come back to his sculpture and destroy it in front of his face? Or, York University could say it no longer suits their needs, could we have a refund please. That too would cause controversy.

I also had a look in Scott Library at York to see if I could find the swastika study carrels I remember. I couldn’t find them so maybe they no longer exist. But I didn’t check every nook and cranny of the library (it’s huge). Since I couldn’t take a picture I drew what I remember them looking like below. The swastika is most visible from the top. Again, they were not quite Nazi swastikas because as I recall they were white. Perhaps York got rid of them or retired them or maybe at one point there was some outcry. I have more sympathy for these study carrels because they utilized floor space differently than normal study carrels. An interior decorator will tell you this would create a different flow and movement in the library than other setups.

But here, too, I wouldn’t mind never seeing these study carrels again. If they still exist on the York campus, it would be possible to retire them after a certain amount of use.

So you want to hear more about York University, this hotbed of possible racism or anti-Semitism. York University attracts lots of Jewish students by making Jewish holidays university wide holidays. York is in the city of Toronto, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. Go figure.

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Some See Ranges, I See Rings

Posted on 25 September 2010 by Larry Russwurm

It was with shock, a few years back, that I found out that anarchists are considered to exist on the far left of the political spectrum. You see, I just presumed that extreme right wingers were the anarchists, with their constant attempts to have less taxation. To me, minimal taxation meant no government.

I’ve heard of right wingers that go far enough and say the government should only fund the military.
But what if all the countries in the world had that system on largely a defensive basis? One brave country might decide to cut it’s military completely and when the others see there are no repercussions they might cut that off, too. Suddenly we have anarchy – i.e. no governments. Or, as might be more likely with extreme right wing countries, one might be able to militarily take over the rest of the countries. With no outside, there would cease to be a need for a military. Again, there would be no government .

So I suggest we see the political spectrum as a ring, where the extreme left and the extreme right meet in one of the least popular parts of the ring.

There’s another spectrum that I see as a ring: the university or knowledge spectrum. The sciences (physics, chemistry, biology and sometimes psychology) are usually seen as one side, arts courses are in the middle (by arts I mean geography, history, business etc.), and fine arts (music, visual art, creative writing, theatre arts) are usually on the other extreme end.

Fine arts and the sciences are usually seen as not meshing. But it’s creative to come up with a theory, spatial and visual skills are sometimes a must in science and it’s possible to think it a fine art to write a scientific paper.

On the fine arts end, music is very mathematical with both basic counting and the logarithmic nature of the basic scale, sculptures sometimes need the use of engineering and physics principles and creative writing can have as big a logic chain as things in the sciences.

Here, too, I see a ring.

There’s one more spectrum that makes me see a ring. It is, of course, the spectrum.

The light spectrum stretches from red to purple in the visible light part of the electromagnetic range.

But I like to see it in the painterly way. As all painters know there are three primary colours: red, yellow, and blue. In the spectrum, between red and yellow is orange. And indeed if you mix red and yellow paints you get the colour orange. Similarly if you mix yellow and blue paints you get green, the colour in the spectrum between blue and yellow.

There is one combination of primary colours left: blue and red. The only way to make it so there is one colour in between blue and red, the spectrum must loop into a ring. Now what colour is between them? Why purple which is the colour you get when you mix red and blue paint.

So I think the spectrum, itself, should be a ring. Now don’t I think that spectrum should no longer be used as the name of a range, that the dictionary should do something about this archaic definition?

Why yes, I do. I can see why it would be slow to happen, though. You see the spectrum and mixing colours is at the science and fine arts part of the knowledge ring. And definitions in a dictionary are usually considered to be an art. Eventually the arts might catch on and it’ll enter the dictionary properly.

Posted in Art, Business, History, Language, Mathematics, Music, Politics, Science, Stage and Screen, Wee Bit O' Humour, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

An RPG of Nerds

Posted on 21 September 2010 by Larry Russwurm

Perhaps you’ve heard of one of the English language’s creative sides. That of calling a group of the same animals by a specific word. Like a pod of whales or a gaggle of geese. Some of these can be quite funny, like a parliament of owls or a murder of crows.

As you can probably guess from the title, I’m proposing we apply these terms to differing groups of humans. For general groups you can have a ‘giggle’ of girls or a ‘prank’ of boys. How about a ‘bust’ of women or a ‘testes’ of men. Look, some of these are off the top of my head, if you have better ones please post them in the comments section.

Then we get to the stereotypes alluded to in the title. Besides that ‘RPG’ of nerds, we could have a ‘beat down’ of street toughs. Or a ‘snob’ of cheerleaders.

We could go by hobbies. A ‘drunkard’ of sports fans, a ‘vinyl’ of record collectors, a ‘metal’ of coin collectors and a ‘lick’ of stamp collectors.

But the one where I see the most opportunity for naming is by job or specialty. A ‘murder’ of serial killers (sorry crows), a ‘shake’ of seismologists, a ‘hoot’ of librarians (how come I always think of owls when I think about reading?), or a ‘study’ of researchers.

We could honour people by giving their name to a group in a specialty. How about a Mendel of geneticists, a ‘Wright’ of architects (that one sounds confusing considering ‘wright’ is a different occupation), or a ‘Davis’ of actresses.

But there is already a name for one group of people that I can think of. A ‘coven’ of witches. Does this mean that witches were just ahead of their time and forecast this article? Or that we viewed them in the past as being very animalistic?

I’ll leave you with the most groaneriffic of the ones that I thought of: a ‘puff’ of smokers.

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The Liberation Treatment

Posted on 18 September 2010 by Larry Russwurm

News of the Liberation Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) has been getting more and more press in the media I’ve been exposed to.

Dr. Paolo Zamboni found that 100% of the MS sufferers he tested had abnormal veins. These veins, between the head and heart, restricted or blocked the flow of blood.

The treatment is a surgery that inserts a balloon into each blocked vein and expands it, stretching the vein.

A number of MS sufferers from this country have gone overseas to have the treatment done. A large number have had improvements in their MS symptoms, some say the changes are major.

There has been resistance in the established MS community here to this treatment.

Firstly Zamboni says the vein blockages are the entire reason for MS. This is theory and hasn’t been proven as the established MS community has gleefully said. I’ll have to give them that, sometimes competing theories take a long time to show a winner.

My problem is another “defense” they take. They’ve said something that meant this: An anecdote is not science.

The Liberation treatment is not just an anecdote, it is a number of anecdotes all in the same vein*. And that, very often, can be solid science.

Now to be fair, I have no experience with the placebo effect which is known to muddy medicinal studies. But everything else is the science I know. So I suspect that the Liberation Treatment is not just a trick to get journalistic interest. It appears to be something that can help an MS patient.

Over here in Canada, it has been announced that Newfoundland(studies on people who get the treatment elsewhere) and Saskatchewan(actual trials) are going to start research for this new treatment. So at least someone in this country is saying let’s at least try the new.

MS is a terrible illness. Something that can alleviate some of the symptoms is both powerful and, I think, our duty to offer.

*Choosing this word is the only humour in this article.

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I Believe in Astrology

Posted on 15 September 2010 by Larry Russwurm

It’s certainly not the newspaper horoscopes that have me believing. I used to read the newspaper from start to finish and that included the horoscope. I spent years waiting for what was supposed to happen to my fortune and not once did I notice it worked.

So wait, you say, perhaps he believes in the more expensive, done by your actual birth date, with an astrologer you might actually meet, astrology. But here too I am soured even though I’ve never had this done. I would just expect the “accurate” astrologer to be even vaguer and more noncommital than the newspaper.

If not the horoscopes I believe in, maybe it is the zodiac and the symbols up there that represent things. It’s no to this, too. Firstly, the present zodiac includes the constellation Ophiuchus. In fact the sun spends more time in Ophiuchus than in Scorpius. Still it’s not part of the astrological Zodiac. How come? Well astrologers like to say that the zodiac was perfect some thousands of years ago. And it is this zodiac that they use.

As for the symbols, well are all Geminis twins? Are all Libras fair? Are all Sagittarii bow hunting centaurs? I know you’re thinking I’m taking everything too literally. But symbolically do all Geminis have multiple personality disorder? That’s a correct way to take the symbolism, too.

Alright then, you say. Perhaps it’s the effect of the stars, moon and planets on us that I agree with. Sadly this is not the case. I can see where the idea of astrology began. It was important in prehistory and early history to watch the stars to find when the year has started again. This can be done by watching the stars. It was also important to watch the moon to know the tides. From this I think the foundation of astrology was begun. But for the vast majority of things, I don’t believe the stars, moon and planets have any effect on our daily lives.

Then what do I believe in about astrology? Well I have had some luck matching the astrological sign’s traits with a handful of people I know the birth signs of. I know what you’re thinking, a handful of anecdotes do not a discipline make.

But I have some support in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. In it he notices the best hockey players have coincidentally early in the year birth dates. They are divided this way when they start hockey at the age of 4 or 5. Of course the early in the year birth date kids are significantly more skilled and able because half a year is huge when you’re this age. So these kids get sent to hockey camps and get grouped in more competitive teams, because they are “skilled”. These “extra” activities make them more skilled than they were and the gap widens.

We get put in school early on and that goes by the calendar year as well. It only makes sense that differences will appear depending on birth dates. And that, people, is why I believe in astrology. Well one part of it anyway.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said I believe in astrology, because of all the qualifying I had to do. Perhaps I should just say I believe in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.

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