Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

LCD picture frames

Walking through a packed mall the other day, I actually saw a product that had not previously occurred to me but which was nonetheless quite appealing: electronic picture frames. They ran from about $150 for a 4 x 6″ frame to about $350 for an 8 x 12″ version. The latter is the size I would go for, if purchasing such a thing. It doesn’t make too much sense to show off photos at sizes smaller than that.

Basically, you put a bunch of photos on a memory card, put it in the frame, and see them presented for whatever span of time you like. So far, my intention to make some prints has not been fulfilled. This would be more portable and varied than a bunch of framed prints, anyhow.

The idea of an ever-changing photographic feature for my living room is appealing. My flat would seem a bit less impersonal with such an element. It is also true that the presentation of photos in an actively luminous way (slides or a screen) has advantages over prints that simply reflect available light. For one thing, the colours seem to look nicer.

Does anybody know which brands make attractive and reliable screens of these sorts?

Littera Scripta Manet

Emily and I have devised a scheme for mutual education: we are each to select five books that the other person will read. Each book is assigned the span of one month to be acquired, read (however challenging it may be), and commented upon on respective blogs. My comments will obviously be here; hers will be on eponymous horn (like me, she has ensured eternal confusion by having a title unrelated to her URI). Discussion can then occur between the two of us and other readers by means of comments.

The intent behind the scheme is to select books that are both educational in themselves and revealing insofar as they reflect the character of the person who recommended them. Indeed, books that played a substantial role in developing character could be ideal for this sort of exchange.

I am going to need to spend some time seriously contemplating what ought to be on my list. One virtually never gets the opportunity to make a claim on so much of another person’s time.

Which books would the varied and interesting readers of this blog select?

Snow falling on Milan

Walking home from work today, I was immersed in a light Canadian snowfall for the first time in years. During the trek, I decided that the combination of office clothing, Ottawa weather, and twenty minute walks to and from work is not sustainable without the gradual addition of wardrobe items.

It is not as though I don’t have the necessary gear to deal with wind and temperatures significantly below zero Celsius: I was well served by my layers of MEC outerwear through underwear when I was in Tallinn and Helsinki in December 2005. The problem is that such things do not integrate well with office clothes, making me look like a mountaineer until I transform in my cubicle into a diligent office worker.

As a true West Coaster, my experience with long woolen coats, scarves, and such is primarily the result of films and comic strips. Given my lingering uncertainty about how long I will actually spend in this place, I will continue to play the part of the temperate forest dweller assuaged and perplexed by startling variations in temperature.

Disgusting situation in Saudi Arabia

In case anyone needs to be reminded about the awfulness of some world governments, here is a story about a rape victim in Saudi Arabia being sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail for being in the car of a non-family member. The seven rapists received sentences ranging from one to five years.

This is the kind of thing that should produce serious and public condemnation from governments that are actually serious about human rights and the rule of law. The combination of theocracy, patriarchy, and vindictiveness that created and enforces these laws has no place in any legitimate society.

Quebec rejects corn ethanol

Having decided in 2005 to authorize a corn-fed ethanol plant in Varennes, the government of Quebec has now officially said that corn ethanol has no future in the province. While the future use of alternative feedstocks is not ruled out, the Quebec Minister for Natural Resources have said that this pilot plant will be the last of its kind. An article in the Montreal Gazette supports the idea that “[b]acking away from ethanol makes sense.”

This is a good thing for a number of reasons. To begin with, ethanol made from corn probably doesn’t have any positive environmental effects. It takes as much oil to grow the corn, make the ethanol, and distribute it as it would have taken to power the ethanol cars in the first place. As such, the effect of using corn ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions is negligible. Furthermore, intensive corn agriculture has problems of its own. Pesticide use peppers the environment with toxins – including persistent organic pollutants. Fertilizer runoff causes the eutrophication of rivers and algae blooms in the sea.

Wherever a sustainable future for transportation energy lies, it is not with ethanol made from corn.

Simple, tasty stir-fry

I made an unusually tasty stir-fry for dinner tonight, inspired by the culinary prowess of my cousins. Contained therein, in order of addition:

  • Olive oil (a good dollop)
  • Garlic (four cloves, diced)
  • Ginger (volume similar to a whole head of garlic, diced)
  • Tofu (firm, cubed)
  • Yellow onion (one large, chopped)
  • Red onion (one large, chopped)
  • Mushrooms (about 20)
  • Yams (2 small, pre-microwaved)
  • Green pepper (two, chopped)
  • Carrots (three large, chopped)
  • Soy sauce (about 70mL)
  • Olive oil (a few tablespoons)
  • Sesame oil (about a tablespoon)
  • Kidney beans (500mL canned)
  • Hot sauce (to taste)

The instructions are absurdly simple: add ingredients to wok in sequence. Cook at high heat until cooked. I chopped the garlic, ginger, onions, and mushrooms before starting. Three minutes of microwave pre-cooking means you won’t be waiting forever for the yams; the carrots should still be pleasantly crunchy at the end. The ingredients described above fill four medium-sized Tupperware containers and one hungry stomach.

The only ingredient I hadn’t used before was the sesame oil. It makes a big difference, both in terms of taste and smell.

PS. I was given twelve cans of chick peas as an early birthday gift. Any recipe ideas?

Back in rainy Ottawa

After an excellent weekend in Toronto visiting family and Tristan, I am back in Ottawa – reheating my apartment from its emission-reducing occupant absence chill. This is one of those calculations that is so difficult, when it comes to minimizing one’s carbon footprint: does it take less power to let your flat cool for three days and then heat it up again, or just to maintain the temperature across that span of time. I haven’t done the thermodynamic calculations, but my intuition suggests that cooling and re-heating is the better option.

Time spent enjoying the culinary skills of some of my cousins has encouraged me to buy some unfamiliar ingredients and see what havoc I can wreak before becoming competent in their use. The activity may help to offset the ever-diminishing prospects for cycling in this darkening city.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day is a fundamentally problematic holiday. On the one hand, it is meant to recognize the awfulness of war. On the other, it is meant to glorify those on our side who participated in wars. A truly pacifist holiday might be more easily palatable, but it would doubtless arise the ire of those who served in past conflicts and those who recognize the righteousness of at least some of them.

Wars can be divided into three categories:

  1. Those fought for reasons of immediate self defence (i.e. the Polish defence efforts when both Russia and Germany attacked at the outset of the Second World War).
  2. Wars fought for purposes that we can generally recognize as morally admirable now (the defence of the innocent).
  3. Wars fought for purposes we know consider immoral (territorial gain, the elimination of ethnic groups, etc).

What arises in response to this categorization is the question of to what degree those today can judge the wars on the past on the basis of contemporary ideas of morality. If Canada’s participation in the First World War was essentially in defence of imperialism, does our subsequent belief that imperialism is an unacceptable aim alter how we should feel about the war? Secondly, there is the matter of the individual evaluations of soldiers. If soldiers have no responsibility for assessing the rightness or wrongness of the war they are in, we are obliged to honour the Nazi machine-gun operator defending Juno Beach as much as the Canadians storming it. If soldiers are responsible for assessing the morality of the wars they participate in, we cannot simply honour them as a block.

When you move beyond crude patriotism to an ethic of equal human worth, it becomes very difficult to continue to accept war memorials at face value.

Brief post on the Alberta oil sands

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people.”

This quotation from James Katz comes from an article on the annoying use of cellular phones in public or at inappropriate times. It applies just as well to an issue currently being protested in Alberta as a new legislative session begins: the oil sands.

If oil companies had to bear all the direct and indirect costs associated with production in the oil sands, it seems doubtful that the industry would exist. Those costs include air and water pollution, the large-scale use of fresh water supplies, deforestation, soil contamination, the wholesale destruction and of large tracts of land, and heavy greenhouse gas emissions.. The Pembina Institute – probably Canada’s best environmental NGO – has a website devoted to oil sands issues.

With oil likely to hit $100 a barrel this week, it seems probable that ever more of Alberta’s northern boreal forest will be carved up for petroleum.

A ringing phone is a request, not an order

One behavioural tendency that I find odd is how people with whom you are talking in person often expect you to break off your conversation in order to answer any telephone call you receive. In some cases, people have told me they feel that they are being rude to the caller by maintaining your attention.

To me, this seems like a misunderstanding of both politeness and the nature of telephones. While phones are conduits for communication, their existence does not create an obligation to answer at all times. Indeed, when one is already occupied in an activity that should be the focus of one’s activities, it would seem that politeness decrees that the call be ignored.