Monthly Archives: October 2016

Jeneral findings

Jeneral finds of the week: 2016-10-16

The start of the movement to make our devices less addictive,the terrible environmental costs still incurred when recycling smartphones, could a Donald Trump happen in Canadian politics, and Michelle Obama’s powerful response to the 2005 Trump video —on my Jeneral finds of this week: 2016-10-16

The movement to make our devices less addictive

Blackberry launched the first portable device with email in 1999, hooking the corporate and government world. Then when Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, the consumer market for smartphones exploded. In Canada and the US, over two-thirds of the population have smartphones and/or tablets, and growing. It is a massive technological shift in this generation, creating an explosion of new companies to make different software and social media applications for our digital devices. Combined with a generation of users trained to expect that content and services should be free, the measure of success for many of these companies are things like size of user base, time spent interacting on the tool, and the data freely given by users in exchange for the free service.

However, in the rush to adopt all the wonderful and exciting that these devices and services offer to us, we are slow to consider the all the ill-effects of the technology. These applications are purposefully-built to be more addictive in the attempt to win the competition for our attention. In addition to the consequence of the time we spend on social media and games, there are many, many secondary consequences that we aren’t aware of yet. (I highly recommend Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle to help illuminate these consequences.) And if we aren’t aware of the consequences, we can’t devise strategies to deal with them effectively.

In many ways it feels like the wild west, where the laws and regulations and enforcement to protect citizens are setup after the initial fray of competition. Perhaps now is the start of the movement to deliberately make the usage of our devices less additive. Should there be something akin to the Hippocratic oath for software product design?

Tristian Harris may well be an evangelical leader for this movement, as profiled here in The Atlantic, “The Binge Breaker” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-binge-breaker/501122/?. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on his progress.

What I learned about phone recycling from Samsung’s combusting Galaxy Note 7 recall

Continuing on the theme of smartphones, I mistakenly thought that recycling old smartphones can reclaim the precious metals for reuse. That is dead false. The best case scenario for your old device that you don’t want anymore is to return it to be refurbished and resold: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/galaxy-note-7-explosion-environmental-impact-recycling

Could a Donald Trump happen in Canada?

The election south of our border has me both captivated and horrified. I can’t look away and stop reading about it, even though it just aggravates me to no end. Thankfully I’m in Canada, but I know I can’t sit here smugly in the belief that someone like Trump could not rise in power in Canada. It already happened in Toronto with Rob Ford. This article in the Globe was an interesting analysis about the factors that may have kept the similar extreme-right sentiments at bay to date in Canada: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/growth/could-trump-happen-here-canadas-left-behind-workers/article32245715/

Michelle Obama’s speech on Trump’s comments: ‘Enough is enough’

I hate that I’m continuing with another item related to that man, but this one inspires and creates fortitude, instead of indignant rage and disgust. Michelle Obama has given some powerful speeches in the last few months. This speech in New Hampshire, days after the tape of Trump uttering his lewd comments in 2005, was devastating. She made the political personal, and her reflections of her own experiences with men who objectified her body mirrored our own. She demanded better from those who would seek to lead the country, as we all should.

~Jen

Celebrations, Rants and reflections

Things I am thankful for – 2016 edition

It’s a beautiful Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in Toronto, even as the temperature is starting to dip down. The leaves are starting to turn colours and there is a certain nip in the air. It’s a perfect atmosphere to stop and reflect on the things I am thankful for:

  • Laughs and high-fives with my best friend, confidante, and partner in this venture of life—my husband Tai.
  • That my daughters are funny, decent, curious, imaginative, book-loving little people. Most of the time i do enjoy hanging out with them. I know they are in the honeymoon ages now (i.e. between 6 and 12 years old) I hope I can still say the same thing when they become teenagers.
  • The smooth, round cheeks of my daughters that are still just perfect for kissing. Their bodies barely fit on my lap for long snuggles any more, their limbs poking out every which way like tree branches.
  • My health, and that of my immediate and extended family. Reading the memoir When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi made me contemplate my feelings about my own mortality, and I appreciate how my good health lets me plan for longer time horizons, years into the future. But, it’s a gentle reminder to appreciate the here and now.
  • The companionship and good humour of my friends. We continue to invest in time with each other, and make new memories. Although, the memories are starting to blend together, as the years add up. The bonus is seeing our children become close friends with each other as well.
  • Even after a year of growth at GrantBook, I still love my work and my colleagues in my current job.
  • The joy of watching beautiful dance, and reading many wonderful books this year. It feeds my soul, perhaps as an antidote to the stresses of the daily news. This upcoming year I hope to add some great theatre to the mix. Starting with…
  • Hamilton! Our friends C-squared were able to get us tickets to see the musical Hamilton in Chicago! For Tai and me, this is our 10th anniversary present to each other. Road trip!
  • That the federal election campaign period in Canada is typically only 5 weeks, compared to the nearly 2 year process in the United States. I’ve been horrifyingly transfixed with the US election campaign between Clinton and Trump. Thank goodness our federal elections and leadership races have never been this crazy. Our election a year ago seems so quaint in comparison. Is the Canadian political system is structured in a way that prevents a Trump happening here? I’d love to talk though that theory.
  • And the Jays made the playoffs!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

~Jen

Celebrations, Storytime

A decade of married love

It’s been 10 years since Tai and I held hands in front of our family and friends, and said the words, “I do”. That moment formalized something that I already knew for years – that Tai and I would journey through the rest of life together, hand in hand. jandt_yorkville

A decade of married love later, we are still best friends, still kindred spirits, and still deeply in love. We may have added a couple of kids, a few pounds around the middle, and a lumbering mortgage to the mix, but I still feel the same way with him now as when we first started dating all those years ago in university. I fall in love with him over and over again as he keeps demonstrating his character. Tai encourages me to challenge myself. He supports my different endeavors and schemes, and props me up when I am down. He laughs at my jokes and makes me laugh. He respects all of who I am, even the silly and frivolous sides of me.  He is an equal partner in parenting our two girls. He pays attention.

In short, Tai is a shining example to our two girls of what they should expect from any potential suitor in their future. Winning their love should not be easy. And to illustrate this point, I share the following story from our wedding day.

It’s a Chinese wedding tradition for the bride’s side of the wedding party to put the groom through some various obstacles before he can retrieve the bride to marry her. Because the bride is loved too much, her family and friends will not let just anyone cart her off. He must prove his worthiness to be her husband.

My beloved bridesmaids devised a series of challenges. They did not let me in on what their plans were. As Tai and his groomsmen successfully completed each one, my bridesmaids would let them come closer to finding me. One involved trivia questions about me and my friends. Another involved creating and performing a cheerleading stunt along with a cheer. Yet another involved bribes of cash payments in hong bao (red envelopes). Tai and his groomsmen breezed through these with good humour, until the final challenge: eating a package of nattō, or Japanese fermented soy beans.

Tai had never tried eating nattō before. He was quite aware of nattō though, particularly since he helped organize an Amazing Race-style fundraising event the year prior. The eating challenge station, that he manned, consisted of this particular item. I participated in this race with Team Buns on the Run, and Tai was there encouraging me while my teammates and I struggled to eat the stuff. The taste, texture, and smell all combine to be a truly horrible experience for the uninitiated. But he never did try it himself.

Until our wedding day.

It tastes like f33t and smells like @$$.

The entire time while Tai was going through his challenges, I waited in the bedroom of my parents’ condo, with no idea of what was going on. I could only hear groans and cheers and laughs, and some slightly worrying silence. I stood  in the room, pacing the floor in my white wedding dress, with equal parts of boredom, excitement and worry.

Finally there was a big cheer, and Tai burst into the bedroom, a little unsteady on his feet, the wedding party crowding in after him. He gave me a beany kiss, (ugh) and claimed his worthiness to be my husband! My hero vanquished* the nattō beans! Then after a few words, he went off in search of a toothbrush. We spent the rest of the day enjoying the merriment of our family and friends.

Tai, I love you more than my words can adequately describe. I’m so excited to face the next decade with you, hand-in-hand.

~Jen

*Well, technically he had help from his close friend and groomsman Cort, but details, schmetails. 

Jeneral findings

Jeneral finds of the week: 2016-10-02

An amazing example of storytelling to make space science relatable, discovering there are such things as Pun battles, and how your footwear impacts your comfortable temperature in the office, in this Jeneral finds of the week: 2016-10-02.

Wake Up Rosetta

This past Friday on September 30, the European Space Agency (ESA) satellite Rosetta finished its’ 12-year mission by completing a planned crash landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerisemenko. This was one of many huge milestones in this mission to study a comet up close. (and one that looks like a rubber duck) You may remember two years ago there was some news about its lander named Philae.  Philae didn’t land as expected, couldn’t get enough sun to recharge its batteries, and so had to go into premature sleep. You don’t remember?

Well I discovered this week that ESA has put out a whole series of short animated videos to help explain the mission. And I don’t know if it was because I was sick, but I really did get emotional from watching the last video. Yes, they anthropomorphized the satellite and lander and dramatically simplified the science and don’t mention the large costs of space exploration. But, it’s a really wonderful way to engage and educate the public about the space work, so we can care to keep supporting it.

This Globe article is also a more straightforward write-up about it: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/europes-comet-chaser-rosetta-concludes-12-year-mission/article32161181/

Good night Rosetta and Philae!

To joke is human, but to pun is divine!

I always appreciate a good pun, even if I end up groaning after hearing it. It’s one of the many reasons I love listening to CBC’s As It Happens, because they always have great puns in their intros or outros to their segments.

But apparently there are competitions out there where people can battle head-to-head in the linguistic art of puns! Like a rap battle, but for dad-joke nerds! Peter Rubin writes of his own pun battle experience in this Wired article, “ReflexLOLogy: Inside the groan-inducing world of pun competitions“. While I’m nowhere as linguistically nimble to compete, I would love to be in an audience for this one day. I can just picture my kids rolling their eyes in the future at how lame I am.

Gotta get a cozy for my feet

I’m one of those people who always feels colder in an office than most others. Apparently it may have to do with what I’m choosing to wear on my feet, according to this article “Why Shoes are the Key to a Comfortable Office Temperature“. Now I know what I’ll need to do this coming winter to stay warm in the office.

~Jen

p.s. The Blue Jays made it to the playoffs with home-field advantage in the wildcard game. It was kind of a nail-biter this last week, but it’s off to the playoffs now. Go Jays!