People I know. In a commercial: ATB has a series of 90 second commercials that highlight how they helped a family, an individual, or a business in Alberta. They are a decent enough series that I didn't give much thought to until I saw this one featuring a family I know from the taekwondo and jiujitsu crowd at Elite, and featured the ATB Arts & Culture Branch located in the CKUA building. That was enough for me take the whole series more seriously. Late-Stage Capitalism: Two more interesting pieces this week on the ails of capitalism. The first was from a 60 Minutes interview with hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio. The first quote is more optimistic or at least more favourable for capitalism than many others of late. Capitalism needs to be reformed. It doesn't need to be abandoned. (12' 23") The second quote specifically regarding American capitalism is much less optimistic, and more in line with other sentiments. "I don't think it is sustainable." That's pretty heady stuff coming from a hedge-fund manager worth $18 billion. The other source of negative sentiment towards capitalism was from the preface to the latest edition of Lapham's Quarterly. This issue is focused on Trade. The quarterly magazine is usually riddled with great articles, but typically my favorite part is Lewis Lapham's preface, and that was the case again in this issue.
Creativity as a Goal, not just as a way to make money: There is more value to creativity and talent than just padding ones wallet. Or at least that is one of the central theses from the Freakonomics series on Creativity. The second part of the series featured some wonderful quotes from Wynton Marsalis. The best were two pieces of solid advice he received from his father (22' 50" and 25' 55"): "All of everybody never does anything.” "Don't adopt my prejudices, develop your own." In other words, challenge those you make generalized statements, and experience the world for yourself before you decide what you like and don't like. Stellar writing about a Black Hole: Lots was said and tweeted about the composite photographic image released this week of the black hole. The best summary I read of the significance of the event was in The Atlantic by Marina Koren. The article, titled "An Extraordinary Image of the Black Hole at a Galaxy’s Heart" was filled with lots of facts - like the fact that this particular black hole at its center has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the sun - but it was extremely readable and it was easy to follow. Plus, checking out her Twitter profile revealed a great quote: "Views expressed here are like black holes: they don't reflect anything." Science humor for the win! New words: syn·dic [ˈsindik] NOUN
bark·en·tine [ˈbärkənˌtēn] NOUN
venerable (a word I had thought just meant "old") ven·er·a·ble ADJECTIVE
cf. (as in the notation used in literary publications) [ˌsēˈef] ABBREVIATION
from Latin confer ‘compare’. Kickstarters and fundraising for NFPs: I have been gung-ho into role-playing games lately, and I backed four successful Kickstarter campaigns in the last month - Witch+Craft, Snowhaven, Welcome to Tikor, and Humblewood. Humblewood was by far the most successful, raising just over $1,000,000 USD. Being immersed in Kickstarter project updates for the last several weeks, I am intrigued by the direct-to-supporter model and level of engagement in a Kickstarter. If I have a few bucks to spare but cannot decide between a traditional fundraising campaign for a foundation or not-for-profit ("Call in now and have your credit card handy!") and a cool project where I will help unlock new content and will be able to engage with the creators, I can't see any reason to send my limited money to a traditional campaign. Not-for-profits need to figure this out if they want to engage with potential supporters. A small company selling an add-on for an RPG can raise a million bucks, and that pile o' cash is cash and every other similar pile o' cash is money that the NFPs will never have access to if they maintain a dial-for-dollars mindset. New beers this week: The current tally is now up to 542 unique beers with the two additions this week. First, another new beer at Biera. The BRO is a brown ale, and I liked it more than most browns. Maybe a bit too much burnt nib taste, but it had a nice aroma and a great foamy head. (3.75 / 5) The only other new beer was the Hard Day IPA from Red Truck Beer. It had a lot of citrus, but I was distracted and didn't pay much attention, so it might have been better than I rated it. (3.25 / 5) NATO Phonetic Alphabet: For some reason, our family is often spelling things out with the "airplane alphabet", and we usually can't remember what U is (spoiler alert: Uniform). So here for reference and posterity, is the full NATO Phonetic Alphabet, courtesy of Wikipedia. Ron's Hockey Night in AHS: Ron Faryna is a neighbor and a co-worker who has sat about 50 paces from me since May of last year. He came up with the idea of playing ball hockey as part of the AHS 10 year anniversary celebration, which in itself is a great idea. Then he was diagnosed with cancer, and the great people at AHS pulled together a super fun event. Here are a couple tweets from the event. I'm not crying, you're crying.
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Interesting people: 60 Minutes interviewed Samuel L. Jackson. I would say I am a fan of Jackson ("Kong: Skull Island" excepted), but I don’t think I ever thought of him as a truly interesting person, any more than any other celebrity. The interview gave me three reasons to rethink that. First, Steve Kroft tries to call out his actions on campus in the 1960’s as part of student protests against the Vietnam war (6’ 20”). Jackson’s reply was a cool “That’s just one day in a life.” In other words, judge me by the course of my life, not by one moment that you see as a weakness. Second, he described his goal for his impact on the stage (13’ 27”): "You want to light it up to the point that when you leave, people want to go with you. I hope that's who I am when I show up.” Third, he desperately wanted to be in the Star Wars prequels, and would not have let ego or pride stop him from doing so, even if the role was only the chance to play a Stormtrooper running across the screen. Comics: IDW released The Highest House in March, 2018 and I only picked up the first two issues a couple weeks ago. The comic is beautiful, and the story is rich and deep. I special-ordered the remaining four issues, and I can’t wait for them to come in. It is also a larger-format comic, which provides more room for the art to shine. Fans of comics and of good fiction should check this out. Life lessons from comics: Speaking of comics, I finished “Atomic Robo and the Spectre of Tomorrow” (another comic from last March that I just got to now), and there is a brilliant quote that I plan on using. “One plan is nothing. Two plans is a plan.” Life lessons from business / self help books: Another great quote this week came from the performance coach, Peter Jensen, in his book, “Thriving in a 24-7 World”. “Focusing on everything is focusing on nothing." Good reads: I just read “Grounded” by Miki Dare, as part of the Tesseracts 20 anthology. Dare created a new world with new ideas with beings that weren’t human in an environment that was totally alien yet entirely relatable, all wrapped around heartbreaking emotion. That is great speculative fiction. New words this week: hi·er·o·phant [ˈhī(ə)rəˌfant] NOUN
whip·saw [ˈ(h)wipˌsô] VERB NORTH AMERICAN whipsaws (third person present) · whipsawed (past tense) · whipsawing (present participle) · whipsawn (past participle) · whipsawed (past participle)
(Whipsaw was used in an article about Trump, so yeah, it was the "cheat or beat / collusion" definition.) New beers:
Three new beers this week. First, two local brews from Analog Brewing. In Another Castle is a peach and mango IPA that I wasn’t a fan of (2.75 / 5). However, their Bull’s Strength strong ale was much more to my liking (3.5 / 5). Finally, the Javalanche coffee stout from Banded Peak Brewing was quite good (3.75 / 5). Reminded me of the Iconic Milk Stout from Stiuation. There were a few items of note this week - Podcasts, Tidal, Pencils, Beers, and a Zombie musical. Podcasts: Old guy syndrome hit with a vengeance this week, and I didn't cycle to work on Thursday or Friday. That has the nice plus of allowing me to listen to a podcast or two during the commute. I synced up the podcast app (79 episodes!) and listened to the Longform Podcast interview with Christie Aschwanden. People who excel at long form interviews are clearly underappreciated. Tidal: First, I'm back on with a streaming music plan, this time with Tidal. After the disappointment of losing my playlists, songs, and recommendations after Microsoft cancelled Groove (fka Xbox Music), I spent nearly 18 months without a streaming subscription. At first, I didn't notice the loss, but over time it became obvious that I wasn't finding new music. The last true new discovery was via my friend Trent and his recommendation of the hat-wearing, Danish blues guitarist, Thorbjørn Risager. But that was well over a year ago, and I wanted to find something to give me artists like Bombay Bicycle Club, Frightened Rabbit, and Broken Records magically appearing in my stream. I wasn't keen on Spotify after hearing Allan Cross's analysis of their business model a couple years ago, and options seemed limited beyond Google and Apple. Along comes Tidal, with an option to stream lossless FLAC level music or even MQA instead of more prosaic MP3 quality. For now, I went with a Premium (non-FLAC, non-MQA) family account and if I buy a good DAC and some better speakers for my home office, I'll probably upgrade to the HiFi (FLAC or MQA) level. Tidal Premium Family is less expensive than two yearly Groove subscriptions were, so that's a plus. The real test will be with the recommendations it gives me. After a week, it is still recommending Nicky Jam and Flume. Pencils: Ever wondered what is the difference between an HB, a 2H, and a #2 pencil? Wonder no more. New beers this week: Three new beers. Two local and one from Scotland. First, Old Jake's from Alley Kat. Dry from the hallertau, a fair bit of spice, and tasty. (3.75 / 5.0) Second, Saturday brunch at Situation for huevos rancheros paired with their Clean Bite DIPA. Definitely a sipper at 8.2%. (4.0 / 5.0) Finally, Gunpowder IPA from Innis & Gunn. The Scottish brewery is still my favourite outside of Alberta. (3.75 / 5.0) Beer stats: 534 unique beers logged on Untappd, and Saturday was my fourth anniversary on Untappd. That comes out to a new beer every 2.74 days for four years. A zombie musical?: Zombie comedies are a great movie genre. Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and Warm Bodies immediately come to mind. With those in mind, Anna and the Apocalypse seemed like a sure bet and for the most part it was. It was a bit darker than I expected it to be, but hey, it does have "apocalypse" in the title. For some added fun, listen to the upbeat song half way through the credits. Great stuff. |
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