Bears, Backache and Books

The word of the week is bearable.

Jan 6 - Easing Pressure

The knots in my back have eased a little bit this week.

Maybe it's a latent reaction to the time and effort I put in on my Dark Crystal submission, or perhaps it's just much of the same thing reacting to help busy works been, but I've been a little tense. Not overly so, but just enough to be uncomfortable for a few hours a day.

Thankfully it's nothing like the shoulder-ripping tension I suffered through my last job for years, so that overall it's actually a relief by comparison. The New Year's shaping up rather well, as I'm not worrying as much day-to-day about finances but instead concentrate on the things I want to do, instead of the things I have to do.

That's an excellent way of putting things into perspective, I think.

Jan 7 - Quaking In The Cold

I'm really glad I'm not living out east right now.

The massive cold wave, or Polar Vortex, that descended on North American this month brought record low temperatures not seen in decades to millions of people. Heating costs skyrocketed as energy output spiked to keep people from freezing and huge ice structures formed at Niagara Falls:

While it was no Day After Tomorrow event, the similarities are eerie and the sudden widespread cold caused another rare event: frostquakes. I've never heard one myself, despite living for decades in Ontario, so I'm a bit jealous… but nowhere near enough to move back on the off chance of hearing one. I'll stick with the earthquakes here in BC, which are interesting enough on their own.

On a related note, I highly recommend reading a funny article over at Wired Magazine regarding how the Empire failed in its attack on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back - it's quite amusing to see how the perspective is changed around by the author. Bonus: some of the comments are incredibly witty replies!

I'll leave you with this wonderful winter photo that someone put together of Star Wars toys, taken in natural lighting without any touchup - I wish I'd had a camera as a kid to take shots like these:

Jan 8 - Sci-Fi Best of Books 

Just a brief mention here about a fave subject of mine: reading.

As a boy, I read a lot, which many of you know already. Every one of those books helped form the person I am today, as well as my creative streak. My formative years were well-rounded when it came to reading, with many of the classical science fiction and fantasy books lining my shelves in one form or another. Not to mention the many others that I borrowed from the library too.

There is a fascinating article over at io9.com, asking people which science fiction classics are the best ones to read before the age of 18. I spent quite some time browsing through the comments that people posted in response and I was very pleased to see that I had read most of what was suggested before I had turned 18 myself. Although it's arbitrary age, I think it's accurate in terms of having read enough by then to definitely have a major effect in shaping a person.

Jan 9 - Anti-Vaxxers

There is a disturbing trend that's growing lately: anti-vaxxination.

It seems that the wondrous power of the Internet has been used for evil, or at least stupidity, when it comes to the ignorant spreading their opinions and not facts. Led led by former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy, the 'anti-vaxxers' as they're called, have been spreading a wave of misinformation and ignorance regarding the life-saving medical miracle known as vaccinations.

In a nutshell, vaccination means that people around the world no longer have to fear dying or being crippled from fast-spreading deadly diseases. In fact, dozens of the worst diseases have had vaccines created to fight them, which coupled with widespread use has seen the effects of said diseases dwindle so that millions no longer die each year from their effects.

And that report, I might add, has been widely and officially outed as fraudulent.

Yet for some reason, ill-informed people insist on spreading their non-fact-based opinions around on the Internet to the extent that thousands of parents have withheld vaccines from their children, many of those in the first world such as Canada and the USA. Their reasoning, if you can call it that, is based not on science but on misinformation spread by the likes of Jenny McCarthy… which puts the lives of thousands of children at risk.

It annoyed Penn and Teller enough to devote an episode of their show to it. WARNING: Explicit Language and some mild nudity at the end, to make their point about the absurdity of the anti-vaxxer stance...

I could go on at length about how much this idiotic stance irritates me, but I won't bore you with that here. Unfortunately, there's still no vaccine to prevent stupidity… and even if there WAS, anti-vaxxers would be against it.

 

How stupid is THAT?

Jan 10 - Just THINK!

Sometimes I wonder.

Not often, but I do feel concern sometimes about how EASY it is now with social media for people to see something, react to it and move on.

Myself, I'm skeptical of most things I see and half of what I read, which is good. I prefer to think about what I see and hear before I react, but I'm finding that this is not the way people are going right now.

See, Click to Like, and move on.

With that methodology, it's FAR too easy for someone to see something from a site like TheOnion.com, which posts satirical articles as 'fact' for their reader's enjoyment... and take it as literal fact. For example, there's this image that's floated around online the last few days:

It's from TheLightlyBraisedTurnip.com, which is a satirical site. That didn't stop people from spreading the pic around, with no links to where it came from and so breaking the chain of legitimacy quite easily to fool many people. Easy to do, in the age of Photoshop.

Think before you Link or Like.

Jan 11 - A New Duet?

Something new's caught my techie eye, and it's a Transformer.

Not the large roboty-kind, but rather a new offering from ASUS in the same line as my old Android tablet the TF101 - which is getting rather long in the tooth after 3 years or so.

Replacing the tablet with a laptop is not what I want to do, as I don't need something too powerful to lug around; I have a desktop for all my fancy / fast gaming needs. Nope, what I want is something to carry around with me, powerful enough to meet my immediate needs but not blow the budget on. Power it on, write or game or surf at need and then power it off again instantly; no wasted time. Is it possible?

Enter the Transformer Duet, a neat little tablet / laptop hybrid that can run BOTH Android AND Windows8 - how cool is that? Useful, too; I have several tasks I prefer to perform on one system or the other, so having both in one unit is great. 

As with all new tech, the Duet isn't cheap, but I'm hoping in a year or so I can pick one up for a reasonable price. I really don't want to lug a laptop around, as I've become rather used to the convenient, portable freedom that my old Transformer TF101 has given me.

Jan 12 - Little Things to Bear In Mind

Today I was the focus of a random act of kindness.

On my way to work this morning, I got outside to see someone had attached something to my bike's handlebars in the night:

I was totally flabbergasted… and delighted! For no particular reason, someone had decided that they would cheer me up with a tiny cute stuffed animal to greet me in the morning under gray rainclouds. I probably stared for at least half a minute before I took the bear out of the cup holder and checked him over. To my surprise, he wasn't a 'found' toy that someone had randomly discarded but instead was in perfect condition and not even damp from the weather under the walkway roof where I store my bike.

If things like this are what 2014 has in store for me, it's going to be a fantastic year!

My three days off this week turned into 1.5 days, what with helping my parents purchase their new cell phones Tuesday and getting called into work on Wednesday. I've the same thing scheduled for next week, so I hope I'll be able to relax a little more and get some writing done.