Fact of Fiction or Prediction: ZFT - Technological Manisfesto

Good afternoon my cyber friends! I hope that you have been enjoying the better part of your day and that it has brought forth many moments of laughter and joy. Recently, I re-watched the entire series of a television show called Fringe. Yes, I re-watched all five seasons for the second time within a year. This show quickly became one of my favorite TV series to date. I am a man of of many things and one of those that I hold dearest is being a Man of Science.

I love science; I love math; I love the Universe. I love knowing that the impossible can be possible and that whatever we can dream, we can accomplish. I will let you investigate the IMDb link above to find out more about the show but suffice to say it deals with all types of fringe science and paranormal activity. If extreme science intrigues you then this is the show for you. I highly recommend this series (Joshua Jackson does a great job; almost forget Dawson's Creek).

One part of the series that really interested me but did not get the in depth exploration in the series that I'd hoped was the manifesto of a terrorist group called ZFT. The ZFT Manifesto was drafted in response to the realization that technology was surpassing the ability of man to control and use and that at some point in the future there would be a catalyst event that would spill over into alternate Universes whose future's would hang in the balance of how we prepared for that coming conflict. While the reasoning behind the preparation can be easily disregarded if you're not open enough to the idea of alternate/parallel Universes, it is the idea of man being surpassed by technology that really garnered my attention.

Below you will find several excerpts from the ZFT Manifesto. Obviously the Manifesto is incomplete and partial, at best, as it was created in the mind of writer for the sole purpose of forwarding the plot of the series. This in no way takes away from the fact that the writer(s) hit upon a philosophical idea that could easily be relatable to the world in which we live....or are quickly moving towards. I am not sharing this because I think the machines will rise tomorrow or that our technology will grow too strong for us to wield; I am sharing it because I found it to be very interesting and because I it may not be that far beyond the realm of future possibilities. Here are some of the excerpts I was able to recover:

"Humanity is naught but the collection of it’s moments and the sum of it’s parts. That some may be used to counter others is as natural a selection process as the lion and the gazelle, Homo-Sapien and Cro-Magnon. In this there is comfort should it be needed. This is not a war of hatred and anger. It is a battle of survival."

"A black horizon approaches. Our scientific advancements have so dramatically outpaced those of the human soul that man, a creation...defined by passion and greed, now stands at the base of an in...pyramid of knowledge which expands heavenward with with no regard for the the frailty of its foundation. We will as a species, surely be

crushed beneath its weight."

"But we will not simply perish. The very fabric of our universe will be torn to rags." 

"...like an infant conducting the firmament, these technological trends will produce a cumulative impact far more catastrophic than the minds of its architects can possibly understand." 

Like children discovering nature for the first time, we are unaware and perhaps ignorant to the dangers that will meet us in the future as we venture forward.

"Against those men of science, whose grand investigations will usher...in the cataclysm, stand only a handful who can see beyond the horizon, Soldier angels who must watch over and protect us before...blind, thoughtless beast fed by thousands upon thousands of our...Pandora's force open the locks of Nature and compel her to spill...her precious secrets. Of all the beings considered for the gift of continuance, only those who qualify at the molecular level are to be approached." 

"...not their resistance deflect our intent. All rules of societal...behavior are void in the pursuit of the goal. Morality has no place......in the coming battle and those that hesitate will perish in the coming..."  

"table dec... generally understood (but...ine, and which this document..What we know as reality is ...of a larger multiverse." 

"...he advances of science which is supposed to expand our knowledge of the universe, will, if not carefully controlled, destroy the world as we know it..." 

Sound advice for anyone pushing the boundaries of science, technology and physics.

"Our technological ambitions have not only driven us to the brink of catastrophe, the catastrophe has already begun. What will the apocalypse look like? The answer, to use a term generally understood but the specifics of which you cannot imagine, in which this document will attempt to describe, is “warfare”." 

I particular am drawn to this entry. Our technology continues to grow exponentially; so fast and so far that it is almost a certainty that we have moved much further ahead than what we are told and what we are aware.

"We think we understand reality, but our universe is only one of many. The unknown truths of the way to travel between them has already been discovered, by beings much like us but who's history is slightly ahead of our own. The negative aspects of such visitations will be irreversible both to our world and to theirs. It will begin with a series of unnatural occurrences. Difficult to notice at first but growing, not unlike a cancer, until a simple fact becomes undeniable only one world will survive and it will either be us or them." 

I have been drawn to the idea of Multi-verses, parallel/alternate Universes for quite some time. It has always seemed logical to me that if we existed in a reality where there were more than one Universes that it would only follow that we should be able to travel between the two. This idea was also explored in an older TV series called Sliders.

"Our children are our greatest resource. We must nurture them and protect them. We must prepare them so they can one day protect us." 

That is all that I have been able to decipher from watching the series and researching the work of other people who also felt inspired by the idea presented in this fictional manifesto. I say inspired but I do not mean inspired in the sense that I am looking forward to this coming point in human history or that I am personally putting an effort forth to help arrive there; I am not. Personally, I'd like to see sunshine, lollipops and rainbows for us all but that seems like a pipe dream FAR into the future.

Why I am sharing it is because I believe we are reaching a critical point of this nature. Our technology continues to grow and expand and we as a species are having a hard time keeping pace with the development. Those children of tomorrow, the one's being born in the Age of Technology will have an easier time but even they will succumb to the massive exponential growth of technology. Imagine how fast it will be growing in twenty years time!

I am not afraid of technology, nor the future. I am afraid that we are not taking the precautions we should be to ensure that our technological developments, creations and inventions don't grow beyond our capacity to control or operate; that we do not overstep the boundaries of science without first having the necessary tools to halt on the path we are on to allow the opportunity to know and discover the outcomes and consequences to our research, development and growth. 

I look forward to tomorrow, to the near future and the distance coming world. What amazing scientific breakthroughs will we accomplish? What technological developments will we arrive at? Where will we be? What will we be? There is no doubt in my mind that whatever our future holds that we are now barreling down the highway at ultra sonic speeds in comparison to our historical record of advancement. We are growing, fast. Let us hope that it is faster than our technology and fast enough to control and understand it.

I want to thank you all once again for taking the time to read and share. It is good to have arrived at a point where I can now feel safe in saying: It's good to be back. I have missed my blog and I have missed the opportunity to share ideas, information and opinions. I am thankful for each one of my followers but more thankful to live in a world where technology has provided the opportunity for me to share so much with so many.

Smile.

Love Yourself.

Love Each Other.

Riders versus Ridership

Good day my friends from around the globe! I hope that today has found each one of you safe and sound. Woke up this morning to a very sunny day and though the clouds have since covered the sun and released their stock of accumulated moisture (it's raining), I am still having a rather sun-shiny kind of day. Today's blog entry comes courtesy of a discussion I was having with a co-worker in regards to Metro Transit here in Halifax. However, I am certain that some of this will apply to any public transit system anywhere. Let's get started!

I suppose the first place to begin would be by defining what I mean by riders and ridership and the differences between the two. I think that by defining them you should also get a general concept of the difference between the two. For this post, I intend to define riders as the actual people who use public transit; the individuals who ride the bus. I define ridership a little differently. Ridership, for  my purposes, is defined by the economic aspect of transit. It is the dollar amount of profit and volume of passengers on any given route, on any given day, at any given time. Ridership includes riders but riders does not include ridership. I hope that wasn't too confusing. On to the topic at hand.

As we were having a discussion on some of the shortcomings of public transit, my co-worker pointed out that it felt like Metro Transit was more concerned about ridership and not so much riders. This immediately struck me. First, I had never considered the differences between riders and ridership and second, because I had not considered this I also had not considered the impact that that could have on determining how Metro Transit operates.

When you take into consideration nothing but the financial side of the operation, the ridership, it is very easy to see how and why certain decisions are made. If a bus route is often empty or a route is not producing a high enough margin of recouping losses, it will most likely become the victim of cuts; either the frequency or the route entirely. Transit fare rates are most likely also determined based on ridership as well. If the volume does not justify the service there will be an increase in costs. This is all absolutely understandable when considering decisions as a business. But Metro Transit is not a business; it is a service.

There is a big difference between a private business and a public service and a somewhat finer line between private service and public business. Private business provides service to private citizens at a cost; public service provides public service paid for through taxation and minor fees; private service is similar to private business but offers an alternative to public service at a higher cost; and public business is providing a service to the public at a lower cost than private business. Transit, in my own perspective, is a public service.

A public service ought to serve the public for which it owes it's existence: both physically and financially. Metro Transit should be shaping and creating policy and decision making processes based primarily first on riders and secondarily on ridership; riders should always trump ridership. I can already here some of the more conservative of you out there and the opposition you are surely preparing to bring forth; that's alright. It's part of the process.

When you approach from the point of view of riders, you are looking at the system with people in mind. Residents who depend and require access to affordable, reliable and timely public transit. If the public transit system does not bring all these things to the table, it begins to fail it's citizens and they in turn, lose trust in the public service being provided.

By shaping the system to accommodate the rider, not the ridership, you will most definitely face obstacles and struggles in the onset. There will be losses; there will be mistakes; there will be growing pains. The end result however will be a transit system that works for the people who ride it and functions as an intricate and essential part of our growing metropolis of a city. People need public transit.

They need public transit to go to work, to go to school, to daycare, to recreational activities, to visit family, to visit friends, to support the city, etc, etc, etc. There are countless, inumerous reasons to provide a functional public transit system for ridership reasons but there is only one reason necessary to provide this for riders: people. People make up this city; people drive the buses; people work the jobs; people pay the taxes; people support the city; people make things possible. Let's take care of people, not profits.

While I don't have the answers, no one person ever does, I do have ideas; some of which I've shared before. One persistent idea that remains that I will continue to voice for is the hours of operation for our public transit system. Even in our country-style city, we live in a twenty four hour world. A twenty four hour world operating every single minute of every single day and we operate on a transit system that runs, at best, 16-17 hours a day. That number is for weekdays and decreases significantly in frequency and volume on the weekends which is odd because there is as much activity here on Saturdays particularly as there is on any given weekday. It is time to expand the hours in which Transit operates as just one example of changes in favor of riders versus ridership that needs to come.

I'm sure that there are things that I don't know about the operations at Metro Transit; rules, regulations and what not that I have no knowledge of that may affect the decision and policy making process but they can be changed. A public service should service the public and not the pocket book. While I am an idealist, I am not naive enough to think that such a system can exist without some recuperation via fares and taxation however I do believe that more is possible. Change can be scary and tough but it creates improvement and by improving our public transit system we entice and encourage more riders to jump on the bus, as it were.

Remember, you cannot have ridership without riders.

Thank you all once again for taking the time to read and/or to share. I look forward to having something else to share with you tomorrow. Today is rather exciting day for me full of real possibility and I hope that I will have opportunity to share a positive, end result to today. As always:

Smile.
Love Yourself.
Love Each Other.

Sunday Afternoon Poetry #23

Good afternoon my digital comrades! I hope that you are all enjoying this wonderful Sunday with a little bit of rest and relaxation. As promised, I am reviving my Sunday Afternoon Poetry blog series. I love poetry; writing and reading it and it bring me great pleasure to have a medium in which to share personal poems as well as poems that are personal to me. 

Today I am sharing a poem from one of my favorite authors growing up, Shel Silverstein. I really have to thank my father who brought home the collection of writings and poems by Silverstein in the book call Where the Sidewalk Ends. I remember reading many of the poems and short stories with glee and joy in my heart. Such simple words brought laughter to my soul and allowed my imagination to soar with open possibilities. Today I am going to share one of his poems from that book; I hope you enjoy. Please take some time to read some more Shel Silverstein here.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends

And before the street begins,

And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright,

And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

And the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And watch where the chalk-white arrows go

To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,

For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

The place where the sidewalk ends.

Love One Another.

Original

I hope you enjoyed this little poem and that you'll take the time to check out some more of his work. As always, I want to thank you all for taking the time to read and share. I'll be sharing one of my own poems in next weeks post so make sure to take some time out of your day of leisure to enjoy some poetry and reflection. And of course, as always:

Smile.

Love Yourself.

Love Each Other.

Previous    Next

Nurses

Good day my friends out there in Cyberspace! I started this blog post to keep as a draft to have one ready for tomorrow but when it comes to writing, I just want to share right away so today will be a double-header with blog posts as I've decided to publish this one today instead of waiting until tomorrow. I'm currently debating taking Saturday's off from blogging as I will be resuming my Sunday Afternoon Poetry series starting this weekend. Let's get to it shall we?

Not too long ago, the union which represents nurses here in Nova Scotia went, or tried to go, to the bargaining table with their employer, Capital Health. Unfortunately no agreement was met and as a result the nurses held an illegal strike which was quickly quashed by back-to-work legislation enacted by the province and denoting them an essential service. What's super important here is the "essential service" part of this. Yesterday, Capital Health announced that it would be dolling out punishment as a consequence to the wildcat strike (now that the nurses are back to work). You can read about that here before I get into things.

I've made a few attempts at trying to open this same discussion on my social media however people are either biased towards me due to my past actions/opinions or they are simply looking to engage in a controversial debate because most have missed the point entirely or just plain avoided it. Let me state what I am not interested in: I am not interested in if these nurses should or should not be disciplined. I do have an opinion on the matter but what has got me going is the suspensions themselves.

Approximately two hundred essential nurses are being suspended from work to punish them for not going to work...does nobody else see the absolute insanity of this? How is it that nobody is pointing out the glaring contradiction? The wasted time, energy and money to get these nurses forced back to work only to turn around and take them off the job? By far, this is one of the most counter-productive, counter-intuitive moves that could have been made to discipline the nurses for breaking the law.

The powers that be did their best to damn the nurses, as I'm sure the nurses union did to the government (unfortunately that's how these things still work). They told us horror stories of missed appointments, patients suffering, patients in duress, etc, etc, etc. They told us that the nurses were needed; that they were essential; that is was a crime to deny this right to healthcare to citizens; they told us the nurses were greedy. Yet, despite all the huffing and puffing about the damage done and the dire need to get them back on the job, dire enough to call MLA's together to pass a law to force them back to work, those same patients are no longer in dire enough need to require service from any of the two hundred or so nurses who will be off the job soon. Strange. I didn't realize that all those patients were suddenly of such good enough health that they no longer require the nurses services.

The nurses, of course, aren't taking this sitting down and will be contesting each individual case. You can read a little more about that here. Personally, I support the nurses in their efforts to have these suspensions overturned because, as I've stated and made clear, this move by Capital Health is completely contrary to providing an essential service to Nova Scotians.

I will take a moment to add my own two cents about this whole situation. Back to work legislation is no different than holding the muzzle of a gun to someone and telling them what to do; inversely, holding people at the muzzle of a different gun by striking is no less an affront against treating each other with decency and respect. Are all strikes good? No. Are all government back to work laws bad? No. I am not the judge of all matters nor possess the wisdom or knowledge necessary to make that call; what I am is a person and as a person I know what respect and dignity are and right now, those are both being ignored. The one's who suffer the most as a result? The patients; people.

So, I stand in solidarity with the nurses not because they are necessarily right but because the government is more wrong. I'm certain that the thoughts and opinions may fly, perhaps not here, but given that I've tried to express this opinion more than once and it has devolved into the argument of: should they or should they not be disciplined? Or: do they deserve it or not?

Thank you all for taking the time to read. A special thanks to my readers who have supported and encouraged me by sharing and engaging. I look forward to continuing to bring you new blog posts on a regular basis.

Smile.
Love Yourself.
Love Each Other.

UPDATE 5/26/14

Nurses are now being forced to write "confessionals". This is completely degrading. Capital Health, I have no words to express how disgusted I am with this. You can read the story here.

Apps 4 Android: SwiftKey

Good morning my fellow citizens of the Internet! I hope that the day has found you happy and healthy. As promised, today is the first in a series of posts on reviews of apps that I use for my Android based Samsung Galaxy S3. I must reiterate that I am not a salesperson or representative or technological guru; I'm just a regular mobile device user who has found some pretty functional and entertaining apps that I feel are worth sharing. Let's start with one of my favorites: SwiftKey (30 day trial).

What is SwiftKey (pay version)? SwiftKey is an app for your cell phone, or tablet (please note that they are TWO separate apps, TWO separate downloads and TWO separate purchases), that replaces your default generic keyboard that came with your device. What do you need an app for your keyboard when you already have something built in? Customization and ease of use.

Let us explore the customization side of this app. You will notice that there are a number of similarities between this app and the factory app and that is because there are. Things like typing texts with the swiping motion or rotating keyboards. While these are options available on most any similar app, SwiftKey goes beyond most other apps with a number of really amazing tools, options and functions.

SwiftKey allows you a number of options with your keyboard setup. If you are like me then you never have your phone horizontally, always vertical. Or maybe you like it rotated. SwiftKey has the capability to help improve your texting with different keyboard layout options either way. Besides the keyboard layout, you have options of changing color schemes, removing/adding arrow buttons, removing/adding special characters and a number of small but helpful choices. My color scheme is Pumpkin.

Another tool that comes with SwiftKey is the statistics. Have you ever been curious just how accurate your typing is or how many words have been auto-corrected? SwiftKey keeps track of all those interesting little statistics that you can review at any time! To add to this you can also see a heat map view of which parts of your keyboard you are using the most. While these have no practical use per se, it is definitely interesting to look back on some of those statistics once in a while. I enjoy seeing how far I've flowed. 

You may have noticed my stats are a little low. I decided to restore my phone and re-install my apps as I was having some terrible memory and battery issues. I have been using this app for over a year now. You might be wondering by now: So it's got cool features, but it's still not that different or better than the generic one. I was saving the best part of this app for last and as far as I am concerned it is this feature that raises it above all other apps and makes it very much worth the $3.99 for the app. That feature? Predictive text.

Now before you tell me you hate predictive text or don't use it, hear me out because I didn't use it either; mostly because it was never predicting the right words. Where your custom keyboard application has pre-defined, pre-determined and thus a select set of words to predict based on the letters you started typing, SwiftKey remembers the words you use. It personalizes YOUR language and YOUR words to work out predictive text based on your messaging. What's that? You don't really text but you use your phone for social media? No problem. SwiftKey offers you the option to link email and social media accounts to it. What does this do? SwiftKey goes through your posts and emails examining your language and building a dictionary of predictive text that is specifically geared to you.

As you can see, I have added all the possible methods in which SwiftKey can learn how I type, what I type and the sort of typing I do. After a few months I could almost text simply by clicking the predictive words that appeared on my phone. Yes, the app can grow to be that functional.

I realize that for the best experience with this app that you have to pay to use it but at $3.99, that's two cups of coffee here folks, you can significantly improve your level of communication on your mobile device when texting, emailing or participating on social media. You will have far fewer instances of grammar trolls or auto-corrected/predicted words that make no sense in a statement you've made. I would highly recommend this app to anyone who uses their phone or tablet on a daily or regular basis for anything that requires typing.

I hope that you enjoyed this first posting in my Apps 4 Android series. I'll be back next week with another app to share with you. Feel free to share some of your own favorite apps in a comment and I will go check them out and post a review based on my experience. I'm always looking for a new app to try out. Thanks for reading and as always:

Smile.

Love Yourself.

Love Each Other.

Special shout out to Brenden over at HalifaxBloggers for helping to bring local blogs and bloggers together! Follow him and BloggersHalifax on Twitter!