Category Archives: Rants

when i want to rant and rave.

Transparency is Better than Hiding

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I’ve been using FaceBook for a couple of years.  I like that it allows me to keep in touch with my various social circles whether that is family or geocachers or other folks I’ve met throughout the years.  What I don’t like is people that aren’t sure they want to be on FaceBook so they create a profile with a fake name.   I don’t want to be friends with your imaginary self, I want to be online friends with the people I know in real-life.

I don’t know why people use fake names either on FaceBook or online in general.  Anonymity is not a good social construct.   It never has been.   Drivers are rude because you don’t know them.  I bet you’ve never had someone you know cut you off.  People typically become less civil when they can hide behind an pseudonym.   Flame wars in online forums tend to happen because the combatants can hide behind anonymity.   Remove the anonymity and things get much more civil, even between rivals.

I am currently reading Jaron Lanier‘s You Are Not a Gadget.   I’m finding the book a little hard to read but I do agree with one of the tenants of his manifesto.   In the book Lanier makes the case that you should own your online identity.  He believes as I do that what you say on line should reflect what you say in person and for that to work you can’t be anonymous.   Couple this with another book I’m reading (okay listening to, multi-media for multi-purpose I suppose) Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom, by Matthew Fraser and you can see why I’m taking this position.

In Throwing Sheep the author cites a number of examples where people have not realized that the Internet has infinite memory.  What you say online never goes away.  That isn’t always a bad thing.   If you have a vivid enough online reputation it becomes incredibly difficult for someone to impersonate you online.  If you haven’t secured your name on sites like FaceBook or LinkedIn or elsewhere then someone else can.  There are a couple of famous John Robb‘s out there.  They secured their identities which means I need to assert mine to avoid confusion.  There are even companies that will manage the creation of your online profile.

Transparency is the key to ensuring you control your online identity.  If you hide behind a pseudonym someone can come along and pretend to be you using your real name.  Protect yourself, be yourself.

Email Bad Habit

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I received an email this morning and it was one line with two words – “Thanks, John”.  The email got me thinking.  I think I don’t do a good enough job of responding to emails.  I’m usually not bad when the email has an action item but I tend not to respond if there is nothing for me to do.  The problem with that is that the sender doesn’t know if I understood their message.

Going forward I’m going to try and send more confirmation messages so the receiving party knows I’ve “heard” them.

One Too Many Stop Sign in Cambridge

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There is a 3-way intersection near my house that has only one stop sign.  The Mead cul-de-sac that runs off of Spooner Crescent.  To me the logical place for the stop sign would be from Mead to Spooner.  The city of Cambridge thinks differently.   The City has the stop sign on Spooner Crescent where it meets Mead Court.   This means that there is a stop sign in the middle of the crescent.  That doesn’t make sense to me.

I did some research on stop signs and it turns out they are not good for the environment.  Politicians like to install stop signs as part of traffic calming measures but stop signs are not an effective traffic calming technique.   Drivers tend to exceed posted speed limits between known stop signs.  Myths 2 & 3 in this Ohio Department of Transportation PDF  highlight stop sign issues.

The City of Charlottetown is looking at removing some stop signs.  The City discovered that some stop signs were placed at the request of politicians and not because they were needed.   The town of Uxbridge is looking at reducing the number of stop signs for environmental reasons.

I’ve been in touch with the people at the City of Cambridge responsible for these kinds of things.  They are going to review the situation.  I doubt I’ll hear back from them but you never know.  I’ll post an update if I do hear back.

Thanks for the Advice Dad

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I was fortunate to be able to learn from my older siblings.   I was old enough to understand what they were getting in trouble for but young enough to not be tempted to do what they were doing.  This afforded me the opportunity to hear my dad talk (if you could call it that) with my siblings.     As I matured I got in to all kinds of different trouble that I hadn’t been prepared for but don’t we all?

Upon returning from Katimavik my dad started talking to me differently.  We started having conversations about how and why he did what he did as he raised us.  It was a chance for him to pass along some wisdom.  I won’t say my dad was a perfect parent but he did the best he could.

Now that I have children of my own I find that I’m putting in to practice the lessons my dad taught me whether he intended to or not.  I hope my daughters can look back as I am doing now and say that I did my best.

The talks I’d have with my dad now if only I could.   Thanks for the advice dad!

Because I Am A Girl

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To avoid any confusion I am not a girl.  Because I Am a Girl is a program of Plan Canada that is trying to raise the quality of life for girls in the developing world.   My friend Gina introduced me to this program.  I was amazed at what happens when you give a girl a chance.

Men hold almost all the power in the developing world.  This means that girls and women have fewer choices.  The latest issue of National Geographic pointed out that in some places women spend hours each day collecting water.  In some cultures women who let men carry water are regarded as lazy.  This leads mothers to leave their 4 year olds in charge of their younger siblings so their mother can fetch drinking water.  Some parents around here won’t even let their 10 year olds walk home from school.   So what really is the price of water in a society?

One of the keys to helping the developing world is breaking the cycle that prevents women from unleashing their true value in society.  Women are more than baby factories.

What happens when a girl gets a chance?

  • When a girl in lhe developing world recieves seven more years of education, she marries four years later, and has 2.2 fewer children
  • Educated girls grow into educated women, who – research shows – have healthier babies and are more likely to educate their children.
  • An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ future wages by 10 to 20 percent.
  • An extra year of secondary school boosts girls’ future wages by 15 to 25 percent.
  • When girls and women earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.

… and what happens when she doesn’t.

  • 70 percent of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth are girls.
  • One girl in seven in developing countries marries before age 15; 38 percent marry before age 18.
  • One-quarter to one-half of girls in developing countries become mothers before age 18.
  • Pregnancy is the leading cause of death among girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide.
  • Seventy-five percent of HIV-infected youth in Africa are girls.

I am a father of two girls.  I’m glad my girls live in a society where they are valued as a human and not just a woman.  Girls need a chance to grow up to contribute more of their brain power to society rather than their physical power.  Let’s let girls be girls.