Runaway Future

1.11.2011

Reflections on music by Chuck Klosterman

— forbes @ 15:27
  1. Nothing is completely authentic. Even the guys who kill themselves are partially acting.
  2. Music that skews inauthentic is almost always more popular in the present tense. Music that skews toward authenticity has more potential to be popular over time, but also has a greater likelihood of being unheard completely.
  3. In general, the best balance seems to come from artists who are (kind of) fake as people, but who make music that’s (mostly) real. This would be people like Bob Dylan. The worst music comes from the opposite situation, such as songs by TV on the Radio that aren’t about wolves. If the singer is fake and the music is fake (Scott Weiland, Madonna, Bing Crosby), everything works out okay.
  4. Normal people don’t see any of this as a particularly pressing problem. They do not care. A few critics do, but that’s about it.
  5. The most telling moment for any celebrity is when he or she attempts to be inauthentic on purpose, and particularly when that attempt fails.

Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman

The eight dilemmas of time travel by Chuck Klosterman

— forbes @ 14:55
  1. If you change any detail about the past, you might accidentally destroy everything in present-day existence.
  2. If you went back in time to accomplish a specific goal (and you succeeded at this goal), there would be no reason for you to have travelled back in time in the first place.
  3. A loop in time eliminates the origin of things that already exist.
  4. You’d possibly kill everybody by sneezing.
  5. You already exist in the recent past.
  6. Before you attempted to travel back in time, you’d already know if it worked.
  7. Unless all of time is happening simultaneously within multiple realities, memories and artifacts would mysteriously change.
  8. The past has happened, and it can only happen the way it happened.

Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman

Listening to their customers via social media?

— forbes @ 13:03

As dedicated fans of the blog (*snicker*) may remember, back in the spring, I complained about MapMyRun sending me an email the day after I went out for a run, encouraging me to get off the couch and run more often. Here’s the post.

Anyway, the post was commented on by a Community Manager from MapMyRun and then we traded a handful of amusing emails back and forth.

So over the past few weeks, I’ve only been periodically running. I play dodgeball on Mondays, curling on Wednesdays and thus haven’t had as many opportunities to go out running as I’d like to. Therefore, I’ve gotten another email, only this one has changed dramatically:

Hi friend,
You haven’t been back in ten days and your workout log is dying to get updated!

Your last workout was logged on 2011-10-21. Don’t lose miles, calories or reps. You can log your past workouts and keep your training on track. You can also sync up directly with devices like Garmin, Polar, Nike+, and more…

Log Your Workouts

Do you find logging workouts hard?
If you’re like a lot of us, it can be really hard … That’s why we make it really easy! With the simple my home quick-add log and our start-stop mobile tracking technology it can be quick and fun!

Have you checked out our Challenges to be eligible for prizes for all your hard work?

Did you need some help logging your workouts? Check out some of our tutorials.

While You Were Away…
This may sound like a guilt trip but the MapMyRUN Community has been busy since your last workout:
- Total Miles: 2, 943, 104
- Total Workouts Logged 256, 878
- Total Calories Burned: 97, 273, 671
- Total Routes: 334, 797

It’s not too late to get back on track!

Stay fit,
The MapMyRUN Team

Now I’m not going to say that I was the catalyst of change, but the refinement of the message (hell just merely saying “This may sound like a guilt trip…”) is pretty much exactly what I was joking about before.

MapMyRun definitely gets it.

31.10.2011

On last words

— forbes @ 12:35

So it came out yesterday that Steve Jobs’ last words were ‘Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.’

Hardly eloquent stuff, but I’m sure the fanboys will try to decipher much from it (good joke I heard already: “Oh Wow was the name of his childhood sled”), which I guess is the point of last words. Usually, they aren’t great bits of insight into the character of the deceased or particularly meaningful.

I always assume that my own last words will be something along the lines of “I’m done with this pudding” and I really hope that at the time, someone misinterprets that to be extremely deep.

But I spent the morning looking over WikiQuote’s Last Words page and it’s an interesting mix. For every quote that is sweeping and grand, there’s just as many that are simply asking for water or saying goodbye to someone. The distinction between the two doesn’t follow any lines of greatness or wealth. With death being the great equalizer, leaders and heroes are just as likely to say something ordinary as criminals are to say something profound. It’s a thought that’s actually captured in someone’s last words:

  • You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper.

In any case, here’s some of my favourites:

  • I did not get my Spaghetti-O’s, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.
    • Who: Thomas J. Grasso, d. March 20, 1995
    • Note: Executed by injection, Oklahoma.
  • Maybe they only had one rocket
    • Who: Lawrence Beeter, WWII British soldier who was taking cover in a bunker after they were hit by a rocket. A second volley destroyed the bunker and Beeter was killed.
  • Nobody shot me.
    • Who: Frank “Tight Lips” Gusenberg, American mobster murdered as part of the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre.
      • Note: In response to a police officer who asked “Who shot you?”
  • Why should I talk to you? I’ve just been talking with your boss.
  • This isn’t Hamlet, you know. It’s not meant to go into the bloody ear.
    • Who: Actor Laurence Olivier supposedly said this when a nurse, attempting to moisten his lips, mis-aimed.
    • Note: In Shakespeare‘s play Hamlet, the title character’s father is killed when poison is dripped into his ear while asleep.
  • Why, yes, a bulletproof vest.
    • Who: Domonic Willard
    • Notes: Willard was a small time mobster during the Prohibition. Just before his death by firing squad, he was asked if he had any last requests.

These two are notable simply because Farley tried to emulate Belushi so much.

  • Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.
    • Who: Chris Farley
    • Said to a prostitute as she left his hotel room following a weekend-long drug and sex binge. When she turned around, Chris Farley had collapsed.

  • Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!
    • Who: Karl Marx, asked by his housekeeper what his last words were

26.10.2011

An Evening with Michaelle Jean

— forbes @ 0:48

On Monday evening, I attended the first annual Alex Fountain Memorial Lecture at King’s College. Kicking off the series was former Governor-General of Canada Michaelle Jean who was there to talk about social change.

Ignoring the obvious technology shortcomings that plagued the show (a key video that apparently would have served as a powerful focal point in the middle of the presentation failed to load, leading to a 20 minute break before the decision was made to forge ahead without it. As I’ve learned from our own events at work, always have guaranteed means to deliver the video (ie not streaming off the Internet)), I came away disappointed with Jean’s presentation.

She started by talking a bit about herself, which is a strong story for sure. A refugee from Haiti, she rose the ranks as a journalist in Quebec before being named to the post of Governor General.

But she made a misstep by offering a glossed over look at Nova Scotia’s own history, while trying to herald the province as the starting point for social change and political action throughout history in Canada. One folly was saying how the local indigenous people welcomed European explorers and than settlers with open arms, a statement that seems to ignore the infamous Edward Cornwallis’ scalp bounty during the so-called Father Le Loutre’s War. This is hardly an event that has been lost in the history books. In fact, it still lives on in present day with a junior high school in Halifax formerly named after Cornwallis opting to have their name changed over the summer.

Another historical oversight was talking about how Nova Scotia welcomed Loyalists to their province during the American Revolution and she made a strong effort to mention that this included Black Loyalists. Coming from the South Shore of the province, and growing up not far from where the Black Loyalists settled, it’s troublesome to watch that particular bit of history be misrepresented and I felt that the struggles that Black Loyalists faced (though not slaves, they were hardly welcomed into the homes of Nova Scotians) when coming here.

All in all, the speech didn’t resonate and it never really grabbed a tight hold onto what the actual topic was aiming to be about. I was expecting something meatier than just “get out and vote” and “write your local political representatives about your views.”

As can be expected, with the topic of social change and the state of the world today, she was asked about the Occupy movement which has captured the attention of many around the world. Her answer was measured in a way that could even be considered condescending. She called the movement “healthy” and said that utilizing the right to protest is “productive”. She formerly represented the Queen in our government, and while a safe and self-censored answer to that question could be expected, I had again hoped for something with more substance.

Unfortunately, that’s how the whole evening felt. I would have been interested to hear the story and the passion of Michaelle Jean, the former refugee who worked hard to become a noted journalist, not just in Quebec but in Canada as a whole. Instead, it was a very safe talk by Michaelle Jean, former Governor-General, taking considerable care to not say anything to controversial.

A shame.

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