ROBERTWMARTIN.COM
  • Show Notes (Archive)
  • Gaming
  • Long Form
  • About

Show Notes - Week of September 9, 2019

15/9/2019

0 Comments

 
Greetings from 53.5° north latitude, where summer has finally arrived. Other than the arrival of some nice weather, the week was largely similar to previous weeks. Still good momentum on reading, lots of intensity at work, plus a great outing with some friends. Onward.
Bring Your Dice To Work Day:
Wednesday was our regular (to be honest, only semi-regular at present) lunch hour D&D game. We actually prepared via email over the previous few days, which was great because we were able to get right to it. Things were going pretty much as planned, and then Andrew, who is playing our extremely spiritual cleric, caught sight of the boss and hammered him with level 2 Guiding Bolt for 21 damage, which is pretty significant at third level. This was completely natural for the cleric to do, but completely unexpected, at least by me as a player. Andrew was complaining that his cleric was out of the action, and he timed his entry into the front lines of the battle perfectly. 

Some people might complain that he didn't stick to the plan and now we have to improvise. That would seem to miss the point of a role-playing game though. We had a friend roleplay a character for probably 30 sessions with a consistent internal burning hatred of those who cause suffering. As the boss walked out of his tent, Andrew had the opportunity to unleash his anger and fury directly at the source of so much suffering. It was like the cleric said, "Payback time, asshole!". We now need to figure out what happens next as the lunch hour expired as the Guiding Bolt spell exploded onto the boss's back. Looking forward to Wednesday. 

One last thing - one of our group pointed out that sending emails about "attack plans" on "September 11" might not have been our best move. No visits or inquiries yet at least. 
Picture
Kaleido:
Edmonton is home to 
many festivals and one of our favorites is Kaleido. With the summer weather we had this week, meeting up with some friends on Alberta Avenue was a great time. Alberta Avenue is a long way from our home, physically and metaphorically, which means Kaleido gives us a great opportunity to see people, cultures, and a community that we don't necessarily interact with very often. 

The highlight of Kaleido this year, beyond the friends, food, and shopping was undoubtedly the performance of Circus Kalabente. These performers are insanely amazing to watch and are great people to talk to as well. Positivity, energy, athletics, music, signing. What an amazing show. Check them out if you ever get the chance. If you are in the Edmonton area, they will be at the Arden Theatre in St. Albert on April 28. 
Picture
Reading Pile:
Before I get to the book I read this week, here is a picture of what I picked up at the local Find store (Find helps fund individuals and families getting furnished housing.) Pretty amazing for five bucks.
Picture
I was able to start and finish "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" by Jaron Lanier this week. It was a timely read as I have been debating doing exactly that for a while now. Here is what I said on this site earlier this summer about my personal move from social media sites:
This blog, even if no one reads it, is my response to microblogging like Twitter or Instagram, and is based on the need to say what I want to say in a way I want to say it. If I want to write 1,000 words about the podcasts I listened to, then that's what I'll do, but not with ads inserted by some algorithm. If there is content I want others to know about, then I'll post it here. Do I need to collect entire profile data sets of everyone that reads what I write? What would I do with that? I'm not an advertising platform like Google or Facebook, so I have no need for that. I suppose at some point the need to pay for the infrastructure becomes enough of an impetus to start to look for ways to "monetize". However, maybe the old tip jar model from years gone by or the patron model that is popular these days will be enough. Even if that ever becomes the case, I still can't see what benefit either I or my readers would get from them sharing a full profile of their personal information with me. ​
Lanier picked up on my sentiment when he talked about how social media turns us from individuals feeling and thinking as Self and instead thinking of the Pack. Classic us versus them thinking ensues - the other must be wrong, because we are undoubtedly on the side of good and right. Lanier says: 
​Collective processes make the best sense when participants are acting as individuals.
In other words, let's all participate on the Internet and help push the world ahead, but let's do that as thinking individuals and not as a Pack that is fed a stream of "news" curated by some algorithm. 

Lanier then discusses the need to write, express, communicate even if it is for a handful of people. There is value, he argues, in doing that for oneself even if you will never be considered a social media influencer. 
Picture
What if listening to an inner voice or having a passion for ethics or beauty were to lead to more important work in the long-term, even if it measured as less successful in the moment? What if deeply reaching a small number of people matters more than reaching everybody with nothing?
Finally, tying this book back to what I have written around capitalism, Lanier sums up how wrong it is that the social media giants are using data we give them to make bucket-loads of money while then forcing the gig economy and financial insecurity on to the masses. 
What we call AI should never be understood as an alternative to people, but instead as a mislabeled new channel of value between real people. The business plan of (social media) is to sneakily take data from you and make money from it. ... I think companies should get rich if they make things people want, but I don't think you should be made less and less secure as part of the bargain. Capitalism isn't supposed to be a zero-sum game. 
Picture
(And since I have not yet deleted my social media accounts, I couldn't help but tweet this out as I sat down to dig into the book.)

New Beers:
Two new beers this week. One from arguably one of the best breweries in Canada, and the other from arguably one of the best breweries in Canada. First was the Saint of Circumstance from Collective Arts. ​Clean taste, nice citrus. (3.75 / 5). That got me the Rising Steady (Level 57) badge on Untapped for beers with less than 5% ABV, and the Hopped Down (Level 32) badge for beers with an IBU under 20.

Second was the Five of Diamonds pilsner from Blindman. If you have ever gone fishing in Canada, chances are you used a lure from Len Thompson out of Lacombe, which is down the block from Blindman. The Five of Diamonds lure is the quintessential Len Thomspson lure, and I probably have a half dozen of them in different sizes and color combinations.  In fact, I even wrote about this lure previously on this site. Blindman and Len Thompson partnered up for this pilsner to raise money for fish restocking programs. As far as the beer goes, I quite liked it, and I'm not a pilsner fan. Really good stuff once again. (4.0 / 5)
Picture
New Words:
Only two words this week, and at least one is a repeat.

synecdoche
[səˈnekdəkē]
NOUN
  1. a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland's baseball team”).

censorious
[senˈsôrēəs]
ADJECTIVE
  1. severely critical of others.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019

    Categories

    All
    Afro
    Alberta
    Autobiography
    Beer
    Beers
    Birds
    Book
    Books
    Canada
    Capitalism
    Censorship
    China
    Climate
    Club
    Coffee
    Comics
    Covid
    CRISPR
    Cryptography
    Cycling
    Data
    Daylight
    Disaster
    Drawing
    Drugs
    Economics
    Edmonton
    Equality
    Family
    Festivals
    Fire
    Fishing
    Food
    Freedoms
    Fundraising
    Games
    Gaming
    Genealogy
    Goals
    Healthcare
    History
    Hockey
    Holidays
    Humanism
    Hunting
    Idiot
    Information
    Innovation
    Intelligence
    Internet
    Interviews
    Introvert
    IT
    Kickstarter
    Knowledge
    Language
    Law
    Lawsuit
    Leadership
    Lego
    Life Lesson
    Longevity
    Morals
    Movies
    Music
    Nature
    Negotiating
    Nuclear
    Philosophy
    Phonetic
    Podcast
    Politics
    Prediction
    Pride
    Privacy
    Quote
    Quotes
    Racism
    Ramen
    Reconciliation
    Reddit
    Religion
    Research
    Retraction
    Russia
    Satire
    Science
    Security
    Skills
    Sociology
    Space
    Speaking
    Star Wars
    Stream
    Surveillance
    Tea
    Theory
    Throwaway
    Tour
    Transit
    Us
    Vacation
    Volunteering
    Vote
    War
    Weather
    Wisdom
    Word
    Words
    Work
    Wrestling
    Writing
    Youth

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Show Notes (Archive)
  • Gaming
  • Long Form
  • About