April 3, 2005 Rideau River Walk >

A Day at the Human Zoo

The Billings Bridge Plaza was a zoo yesterday. I'm not just talking about the throngs of people pushing there shopping carts of wailing children into each other. I saw a live horn snake, a python, a tarantula, a hedgehog, an american kestrel, a russian bear mouse (?), a pot belly piglet, turtles and a pair of lop-eared hares. Many of these animals were not even in cages or terrariums. The snakes were wrapped around the arms of men and women who were part of the zoo , the tarantula ran freely upon and down one man's arm. A lot of young children were peeking behind their parents terrified and fascinated.

There were a lot of other displays related to outdoor themes (funny that in a mall). I learned about the Rideau Trail that stretches from the end of my friends street to Kingston. I also learned that you can trademark simple geometric shapes, like this isoceles trinagle that represents the Rideau Trail Association . I better get out there and trademark the circle before someone else beats me to it. There was also info about the Forêt la Blanche not far from here, in Quebec.

Despite all of this I can't handle crowded malls for very long, I always feel like I've stepped into a living advertisment world or consumer theme park. So I got what I needed and fled back out into the drizzle and grey of a rainy day.

Looks like the rain has finally stopped. The tree outside my window is full of pudgy cheeping birds still round with winter fat. Time for a long walk by the river.

Rainy Night in Ottawa

It's been raining for what seems like days. Luna goes out pees and runs back in. At least it's washing away all the dirty snow and muck on the streets and sidewalks. We watched a couple of Japanese movies this evening. Dolls, which was a story about broken hearts, love and poking your eyes out. Actually it was quite interesting. It's hard to tell what the cultural signification of things really mean. I came home and read that the Pope died. It's a strange headline in the Globe and Mail "Shock, Sorrow in St. Peter's" The sorrow I get, but where's the shock. The shock is that he didn't die ten years sooner. Come on the world has been on a death watch for the last week. No bookie worth his salt would have taken a bet on JP chomping the wafer this weekend. No disrespect intended but the man has been a living museum of human ailments since the mid 90's. God bless him, but he was just a man.

Late Night After the Bar Rant

In Italian the word Schivao mens slave. I've been biting my tongue for the past few weeks while the world (read U.S.a.) goes mad about the fate of Terri Schiavo. Then this morning I see, side by side, the Pope and Terri on the front page. Not as parallel articles but as one big front page image.Have a point to make, do we? What is this "Culture of Life" crap? As if there is a "Culture of Death", as if the life and death aren't part of the same bloody thing. Ah yes, eternal life and damnation. Imprisonment in this mortal coil as a vegetable surely is better than paradise. There is something wrong with the thinking here. Oh, I know. There is none. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Epilogue: Why don't people think about what it means to drop bombs on people in their homes half as much?

April Showers and Hoaxes

I just remembered that it's April Fools. Sorry no gags. I never really liked this day. Not that I don't like jokes, and I have been known to play the odd person for a fool with my tall tales (like the one about the Toronto woman who went to Florida and lost her leg to an alligator. Ask Anna. Or how about my party, alter ego in the good ol' days, Shecky Sharmane). Somehow though April Fools Day seems to bring out the cruel streak in some people. It always seemed to end with someone crying. The old adage "It's fun 'til someone loses and eye comes to mind." In any case from the Museum of Hoaxes, the Top 100 April Fools Hoaxes

Here's another appropriate and trite saying for the day "April showers bring May flowers." Given the weather since yesterday evening, I'm expecting a floral paradise come May. The ground smells, earthy and the cedars smell like...well like cedars, and I will stay indoors and listen to Astral Weeks and drink mint tea while the wind whistles through the houses and the dog sleeps at my feet at my feet. Cozy as hell.

Guilty?

This morning I was walking Luna when she picked something that only a dog would find appetizing up off the ground. "Drop it." I said in my 'I mean business' voice. "Drop it!" I looked up and saw two scruffy looking men with long hair. They had boxes in their arms and stood frozen in their tracks looking back at me over their shoulders. It was quiet awkward. I muttered "dropit Luna" as if to say 'I meant the dog, not you guys'. They moved on their eyes fixed on me as I passed. I wonder what was in those boxes? or in their thoughts.

Mr. Roboto

Where are the roots of the Japanese obsession with robots that replace human function? Why for instance is it deirable to create a machine that emulates flute playing with the innefficient means of artificial lips and hand movements when it would be easier to create a synthesized sound that would be self generated? Why would it be a good idea to have a machine replace a human to take care of children? What would that mean for childhood development? Clearly machines are useful and necessary to our way of life but where is the efficiency in creating incredibly complex humanoid machines that interact in social mimicry? There seems to be something more than utility behind the drive to create this sort of humanoid robot. This article from the Globe and Mail summarizes a variety of robot types that have been produced:

Musician

Toyota has developed robots that can play instruments using artificial lips and hands to mimic human musicianship. At the World Expo, a band of the robots playing trumpet, tuba, trombone and drums have been entertaining the crowds with, among other tunes, When The Saints Go Marching In.

Babysitter

This little guy, nicknamed PaPeRo and produced by NEC Corporation, interacts and plays games with children (it even recognizes their handwriting) and can send signals to worried parents via cell phones or the web. But will it ever match up to TV's Supernanny?

Carrier

The i-foot, invented by Toyota, is designed to take riders anywhere they want and, unlike Doctor Who's nemesis, the Daleks, it can even climb stairs. It bends down so you can easily climb on board and it's controlled by a joystick.

It also has a cousin, the i-unit, works with wheels and has two modes: upright and inclined. Think of them as mechanized mobility suits.

Trash collector

If you're fed up with taking out the garbage, Fuji Heavy Industries Inc. has some good news. The company has a new robot that identifies a full garbage can, picks it up and replaces it with an empty one. No word on how it tackles the recycling.

Companion

This bright yellow, one-metre-tall bot, Wakamaru, is designed as a family companion or to care for the elderly living alone. To be produced commercially by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries soon, its built-in camera allows relatives to monitor granny, or watch over an empty house, via the web; it reminds her to take her medicine and calls emergency services if it detects a problem. It can identify several owners by face recognition.

Conversationalist

Robisuke, produced at Waseda University's famed Human Robotics Institute, takes us closer than ever to HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It listens, speaks (in English and Japanese) and moderates its replies based on what it gleans from a speaker's tone of voice. More amazingly, it can carry on group conversations using face- and voice-recognition technology. And it's polite -- Robisuke turns its head and looks at whomever it's talking to.

Soccer player

Nobody can bend it like VIsiON, a walking, passing, shooting robot created in a joint project by companies and universities in the Osaka area. A group of these robots, which use advanced CPUs and motion sensors to play the "beautiful game," represented Team Osaka at last year's RoboCup (a World Cup for footballing bots), and took home the trophy for the humanoid league.

Security guard

The ALSOK Guard Robo, which has a computer screen for a stomach, can autonomously patrol an area and beam to a command centre pictures of intruders and or fires it detects. The robot, made by Sohgo Security Services, can also squirt burglars with paint and remove suspicious objects.

Long Phone Call

Oodles of Doodles

When I bought my cordless phone last fall I changed my phone habits considerably. Where I used to draw unconsciously on scraps of paper at my desk while I talked, now I walk around, water plants, scrub the counter, put away dishes , whatever. Last night however I was at my desk and when the call was over I realized that there were some doodles on my paper. What intrests me is that they are very symmetrical. This is something new in my doodling world.

Silhouette

Last night I was walking Luna (how many of my posts start this way) when we passed one of the old manors that overlook Strathcona Park. I saw in the window, all outlined in a dim orange light, the silhoutte of a woman with large frizzy hair. She reminded me of Patti and Selma from the Simpsons, but spookier. She moved in this strange bobbing way.
As I got closer I realized that it wasn't human! How can I be sure? Well, I don't think giant poodles are human. Technically it might not have been a poodle, but it was a huge frizzy haired dog that looked like a poodle. Or maybe it was a woman who looked like a poodle after all and likes to press her face against the window.

Happy Birthday Jeanne!

Goodbye Ice, Hello Decomposing Organic Matter

The Rideau has thawed it's considerably smaller than the ottawa where the ice is on average 2½ feet thick. Last week they were dynamiting the ice to keep the river from backing up and flooding. This is a practice that goes back to the early years of Bytown as Ottawa was originally known.

They do the same on the much larger Ottawa river also using a machine called the Amphibex which can go on land and water as it's name suggests.One side effect of the warmer weather though is the smell of fertilizer that wafts down the canal. I don't know if it's the smell of rotting vegetation being exposed to the sun or if the wind is carrying the smell from the Experimental Farm. All those tulips and flowers have to feed off something after all.

Addendum: Somehow I shouldn't be surprised but the animal of the month at the Experimental Farm is a Border Leicester ewe.

Since Leslie liked the chocolate so much I found her these swiss 'chocolate' sheep.

Fly Guy

This is a very cool little flash world that you can explore. If you've ever had dreams that you could fly you will enjoy this.

This link is for Cacoa. Montezuma's Luxury Hand Made Organic Quality Chocolate from the Sussex Countryside.

Happy Easter

Out Like an Antelope

March did come in like a Lion with the nastiest snowstorm of the season and as it should it is going out like a Lamb¹.The world is coming alive again. You can smell the soil as it warms in the sun, the birds whistle, twitter and caw in the budding branches of the trees and the air is gentle, Someone is cooking up a big easter dinner next door. I could smell the potatoes and roast and buns flavouring the air. On my way out and again when I returned. I don't even like roast but the smell was delicious.There's usually an emotional component to odours and this one was filled with family gatherings of my past. I wish I was home today. Nonetheless it's a remarkable spring day and the sun is pouring in the window.

1 Well, another winter is almost over and March true to form has come in like a lion, and hopefully will go out like a lamb. At least that's how March works here in the United States.

But did you know that March behaves differently in other countries? In Norway, for example, March comes in like a polar bear and goes out like a walrus. Or, take the case of Honduras where March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a salt marsh harvest mouse.

Let's compare this to the Maldive Islands where March comes in like a wildebeest and goes out like an ant. A tiny, little ant about this big.

[holds thumb and index fingers a small distance apart]

Unlike the Malay Peninsula where March comes in like a worm-eating fernbird and goes out like a worm-eating fernbird. In fact, their whole year is like a worm-eating fernbird.

Or consider the Republic of South Africa where March comes in like a lion and goes out like a different lion. Like one has a mane, and one doesn't have a mane. Or in certain parts of South America where March swims in like a sea otter, and then it slithers out like a giant anaconda.

There you can buy land real cheap, you know? And there's a country where March hops in like a kangaroo, and stays a kangaroo for a while, and then it becomes a slightly smaller kangaroo. Then, then, then for a couple of days it's sort of a cross between a, a frilled lizard and a common house cat.(John Belushi: Saturday Night LIve

My Easter Pig

I'm thinking a lot about life and therefore death this weekend which also happens to be Easter weekend. Easter has never been a significant holiday to me, but is somehow deeply appropriate this time around. Of course there is the intense media attention around the Schiavo case. I rarely watch the American news channels but caught some bits of the insanity and egocentric pontification that is going on around this.
It seems to me that there is this bizarre attitude in our society that rejects death as a natural part of the universe. There is a certain kind of Christian based belief that resists nature and I am convinced it exists to fend off fear of our mortality.

The idea of the immortal and eternal nature of the individual soul surely has something to do with this. Earth was created as is. No evolution. No change. Things are the way they appear. Good/Bad.The Bible is the literal word of God. That's all. They don't live in the world. Analysis is a dirty word. But nature will have it's way like it or not. It does at every moment.

People die all the time. There is a continuous flow of energy that recombines in a multitude of forms as a star, as a flower as you and me. But we arrive and we leave. It's not about right or wrong. It's not about how we would like it to be. It's not about justifying beliefs that comfort us. The universe goes on and on changing it's state. Stars burn out, petals wither, you and I vanish, just as the millions before us who had these same thoughts are gone. A molecule of water from uncle Joe flows through a tree that grows an apple that you ate. You get the picture.
But they frame it and hang it on the wall and call it eternity.

Bad Day. Blah.

I don't know what I was thinking. It's a four day weekend, my sister's birthday, my niece and father have birthdays coming up, it's Easter and I thought I should stay here to get work done. What I didn't factor into the equation is that no-one else is working or expects me to be working. Not only that but I finished what I had to do. Crap.

One Hour later...The news just got worse. It will take some time to process this. Shit.