Welcome from 53.5° north latitude, where I wasn't for the majority of the week. We were fortunate to be able to escape to the mountains for a few days. Being out in nature was a great refresher, and the weather was fantastic which made it even better. Back in March, I posted an article about the Goldman Sachs prediction that the US economy would decrease by 24%. I was thinking about that post as I listened to the Planet Money episode from July 30, entitled "GDP -32.9%???!!!" (emphasis theirs). As it turns out, the 24 % / 32% decreases are a bit misleading. The Planet Money episode describes how the GDP prediction is how much the economy would shrink if the current performance was extrapolated out for four consecutive quarters. In fact, the US economy shrunk by 9.5% in the last quarter. Seeing a decrease of 9.5% is far less dramatic than seeing -32.9%, but it is still most likely the worst quarter in US history so the impact should not be overlooked. One economist on the podcast speculated that a lot of that decrease would come back once restaurants, bar, sporting events, and other social events return to previous levels. However, I still question how soon that will be. Bill Gates was quoted in a recent Wired article that he suspects we still have between 18 and 30 months before we have a consistent semblance of pre-COVID normalcy in our societies. And that makes me feel like, for the rich world, we should largely be able to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end of 2022. --Bill Gates If Gates' prediction is accurate, then the temporary nature of the GDP decrease starts to become much more permanent. In other readings about the impact of COVID on society and industry, the New York Times had an interesting long article on how COVID crushed the fashion industry, and interestingly how it was already imploding over the last few years. I had not realized how much venture capital influenced the fashion industry, but apparently the toxic mindset of needing quick profits and immediate results was a crushing blow to several small fashion houses. Added to this was the collapse of traditional retail channels, and the fashion industry was ripe for failure just as COVID came along. It is an interesting article as much about bubble economies as COVID. New Music: I highlighted the band Dead Horses in last week's entry, and mentioned that I was looking forward to checking out their February release of the EP entitled "Birds". After a few listens through, I definitely enjoy the album but I do not find the personal connection that I did with "My Mother The Moon". Still, they are a good duo with good music. That is it for new music this week. So much time was spent outside that I did not have much time to dig into anything new. New Beers: Even though I was on holidays and even though the weather was super warm for most of the week, I only had two beers. The first was a great hot weather beer, and the other was unfortunately something that would have been better in cooler weather. The first beer was the hot weather hit, the Big Chutes Lager from Freehold Brewing in Calgary. This is a very good lager, which is a style I tend to dismiss fairly consistently. Big Chutes was clean and very drinkable and is definitely worth keeping around the house, even on less than blisteringly warm days. (3.75 / 5) The second beer was the Parkway Porter from Folding Mountain Brewing. I was sitting 200 m from the brewery and taproom when I drank this, which is always a nice way to enjoy a beer. It was really hot when I drank it, and a porter is not really a great beer for the heat. I will have to have it again when it is cooler to check my rating. (3.25 / 5) New Words:
I picked up a few new words this week, and as you can see, they are all words that are outdated or archaic, which speaks to the setting in the story I was reading at the time. scuttle [ˈskədl] NOUN
ague [ˈāˌɡyo͞o] NOUN
counterpane [ˈkoun(t)ərˌpān] NOUN
logorrhea [ˌlôɡəˈrēə] NOUN
ruction [ˈrəkSHən] NOUN
slaver [ˈsla-vər] INTRANSITIVE VERB
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Hello from 53.5° north. It was another amazingly intense week, with meetings, deliverables, and reviews conspiring to consume the days faster than I care to acknowledge as we approach the launch of our new system in November. The work is good, maybe even great to be honest, and the support I get from the organization is amazing. It's just the sheer intensity of the hours that leaves me spent by the end of the day each Friday. But as I am fond of saying, if the worst thing that happens to me any day is that I have too much work, it is still a pretty good day. Family Reunion: We spent most of the weekend at a family reunion. The common ancestors were my wife's mother's father's parents, so my daughter's great-great-grandparents. It wasn't a huge amount of people, 60 maybe, but it was a good time. We went to Vermilion, which I was the only one of our family that had ever been there. On the way home, we stopped to see the pysanka in Vegreville, and the ... sausage ... in Mundare. It was good to connect with a bunch of family, and it resparked a lifelong interest in genealogy. And we got to see ... the sausage. (I mean, seriously, what is up with that? ) Plus, we got some seriously good Lobby Waffles at the hotel. Reading Pile: This week's reading pile was focused on finishing "A Choice of Gods" by Clifford Simak. Who is Clifford Simak, you ask? If you don't know, then you are in the same situation as me. As the Wikipedia entry on Simak indicates, he was a masterful science fiction author, and was the third individual named as a Grand Master of Science Fiction after Robert Heinlein and Jack Williamson (again, who?). Reading science fiction from 1972 caused me some trepidation because the science could have been simplistic, naive or outdated. However, this was a story about human transcendence and the meaning of our relationship with our planet. It just also happened to have some robots and deal with travel into space. It was pretty clear that Simak deserved the accolades and the title of Grand Master since this story was incredibly readable 47 years after release. I was struck by Simak's empathy to the "Indians", as he called him. Their desire for a life connected to nature was never seen as a weakness or a sign of inferiority. Rather, it was a choice to be connected to the earth and to nature as partners and not owners. The Indians were able to reconnect with nature after the Disappearance of most of the human race, and they were clearly better off for it. We had only a few hundred years of the white man’s way and they had been far from good years. We never fitted in, we never had a chance to. It was a relief to shuck off all of it and go back to the flowers, the trees, the clouds, the seasons and the weather, the running water, the creatures of the woods and prairies—to make them a part of us again, more a part of us than they’d ever been before. We learned something from the whites, that we can’t deny—we’d have been stupid if we hadn’t. And we used these white man’s ways to make the old way of life an even better life." Simak also offers a subtle commentary on the human need for technology that seems like it was written for today and not 1972. But we no longer are a technological race. We lost technology when we lost the manpower and the knowledge and the machines broke down and there was no one to start them up again and no energy to run them. We don’t mourn that lost technology, as I think you know. At one time we might have, but not any longer. It would be a bother now. We have become competent observers and we gain our satisfaction from our observations, achieving minor triumphs when we are able to reach some solid understanding. Knowing is the goal, not the using. We aren’t users. We have somehow risen above using. We can rest content to see resources lying idle; we might even think it shameful to try to use or harness them." And later, a less subtle commentary on technology: A technological civilization is never satisfied. It is based on profit and progress, its own brand of progress. It must expand or die. You might make promises and be sincere in the making of them; you might intend to keep them, but you wouldn’t and you couldn’t.” Knowing is the goal. That is a pretty remarkable sentence of a mere four words. I'm really happy I read this story, and really happy I have discovered a great author. Some of Simak's earlier works are available at Project Gutenberg, if you are so inclined. I know I am. Other Media: The Freakonomics episode "How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War" was quite thought-provoking. The thread was from World War I, to the creation of the supermarket, to World War II, to industrialized meat production, to consumerism as a vital propaganda tool against the Soviets, but then with a less laudable outcome of obesity and even to the use of corn to create ethanol for vehicles. There is a great quote in the episode about the need to "make agriculture green" which is ironic, funny, and depressing all at once.
Finally, some good news on the new music front. The Tidal weekly mixes are really starting to bring in some great music, and it is easy to get down a real rabbit hole for hours on end. Last week, I came across "A Song For Our Grandfathers" by Future Islands, which is probably my favorite song of 2019. I am playing it endlessly. So much good music, so little time. New Beers: It was a busy week for new beers. I found a collaboration pack from Parallel 49 that had a number of unusual offerings. There was a habanero peach gose (a very surprising combo), a brut made with yuzu citrus that was quite good, and one brewed with gin botanicals that I wasn't really a fan of. In addition, I had the West Coast Pale Ale from Granville, which was also citrusy without being overpowering. That added two badges on Untappd - Fields of Gold (Level 4) and The Great White North (Level 85). New Words:
All of the new words this week came from "A Choice of Gods", with the exception of horchata which came from a Vampire Weekend song. horchata [ôrˈCHädə] NOUN
exaction [iɡˈzakSHən] NOUN formal
cant [kant] VERB canted (past tense) · canted (past participle)
scriptorium [ˌskripˈtôrēəm] NOUN
overmuch [ˌōvərˈməCH] ADVERB
supercilious [ˌso͞opərˈsilēəs] ADJECTIVE
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