Insanity

One definition of insanity, occasionally attributed to Albert Einstein (although I was unable to confirm this attribution) is as follows: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

Whether or not it was this great mathematician's original observation, or that of some other perspicacious individual, the world is remarkably well populated with persistent individuals who have yet to recognize the inevitability of this truism.

I actually wrote this lead in to a blog, without having any specific rant to follow it, and as I look back through my collection of pearls of wisdom, I can see quite a few where it might have been appropriate, but looking into the future with the help of my crystal ball and, of course, my rear-view mirror, I am convinced that a new one will pop up and bite me soon enough.

So for the time being, dear follower, I will just let you imagine for yourself, any appropriate story that this definition of insanity conjures up in your own mind.

Albert Einstein - (1878-1955) He of the theory of relativity fame, and also of the formula E=mc2.

At the first link you can watch a caricature of our genius actually being drawn on YouTube by Tom Richmond. Or if you prefer a Karsh photo  This link where you can you can enjoy the work of a genius in portraiture and photography.

Meantime, I'll go hunting through Google images for a (non-copyright) portrait of Albert E, while letting my own imagination run wild... perhaps about politically motivated policies that have failed time after time, and will no doubt do so again in the future, or perhaps about some alchemist's futile attempts to change base metals into gold, or the search by a mad scientist for the elixir of everlasting life.

Don't you just love rummaging around in the dark corners of your mind

Worried about catching a computer virus???

As a result of receiving yet another of these apparently helpful "pass it on to all of your contacts" e-mails the other day, I took it upon myself to check it out with a real computer expert. (Thanks Andrew) and while I was checking this one out, asked for a reliable way to find out about these things for myself in the future. Not unexpectedly, today's "Postcard virus warning" about a computer virus masquerading as a postcard from a friend or family member, did turn out to be just spam.

Along with this information, I received the following tried but true advice about how to check the validity of email warnings like this. "Ignore them, do not pass them on. Install a good anti-virus program that you trust, that gets updates daily from the mother ship. If you don't believe that they are keeping up to date with the set of viruses, replace it with another program."

This computer must be really really sick.

If still in doubt, check it out on the web at http://snopes.com. While on that website myself, I discovered a page of "urban legends" which apparently "compiles the 25 urban legends currently circulating most widely, as determined by frequency of access, user searches, reader e-mail, and media coverage". Very interesting.

I highly recommend this particular snopes.com site to the more gullible, so that they can avoid circulating any or all of these strange but untrue stories around the water cooler... or not, because some of them are at least good for a laugh.

And yes, the "Postcard virus warning" is once again on the snopes hit list, although it has been around as a number of variations for years... and never was as dangerous as it frequently purports to be.

Take care. It's a dangerous world out there!

There's gold in them thar hills

Somehow the shout of: "There's REEs, or rare earth elements in them thar hills" does't have quite such a dramatic a ring to it. But we'll be seeing much more on this topic, or more precisely, on the impending shortage of these really not so 'rare in the earth' minerals, in the news media over the next weeks, months and even years.

As I pointed out in my June 13th blog, only a couple of decades ago the US was the globe's primary producer of REEs, but was supplanted by China, whose many small processors (although the the main source of their minerals is actually one mine in Mongolia) undersold the one major US producer (California's Mountain Pass Mines) and thereby cornered the market.

A Miner 49er - back before helicopters, 

when men were men.

That California mine is now owned by Molycorp Minerals and is being brought up to environmental standards and modernized at a cost of $1/2 billion, before being returned to production - projected for 2011. Another mining corporation, Avalon Rare Metals is working on an apparently rich deposit of rare earth elements in Canada - the Nechalacho Rare Earth Element Project located at Thor Lake, Northwest Territories.

China has apparently been reducing its exports of REEs by some 6% per year for some time, and while some Chinese spokespeople have indicated that their exports will not be suddenly terminated, others have not been so optimistic about their future actions. The Chinese government has certainly warned that they will need an ever increasing portion of their production for their own national consumption, and it is also concerned about conservation of supplies for the future. World demand is currently estimated to be some 150,000 tons per year... and climbing.

Because of the long lead-time it takes to bring any mine into production, some experts have warned that there will be a shortage of REEs very soon, and that this might last for as many as 15 years. Rare earth magnets are required in many electronic products, and the elements are essential components of such diverse things as batteries for electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines, i.e. the new alternate, green energy products.

This creates a new quandary for the environmental activists to ponder, because they absolutely abhor mines. Obviously, without new mines the alternate energy, "green" industries will grind to a halt, and the world would remain totally dependent on oil and coal - what I refer to as the black energy sources.

I have little doubt that the ever pragmatic, political decision makers will be forced to concede to the miners on this occasion... as they have done so frequently in the past.

Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid!

Those who can remember when CKNW was "Top Dog"  in BC radio, and when Jack Webster was the king of talk radio with his unmistakable Glasgow brogue, will also no doubt recognize my headline. The misspelled stoopid, stoopid, stoopid... One of Jack's oft used expressions of derision. God rest his soul.

Sometimes government policies are also totally stupid, dumb, idiotic, and frustratingly inflexible, and if they were not 'GOVERNMENT' policies, they would be utterly impossible to believe.

My current parking pass is safely back on the rear-view mirror.

Today I encountered one of these really stupid situations, and I'm still shaking my head in disbelief.
I only wanted to renew my provincial government parks, parking pass, a couple of weeks ahead of it's expiry date. So I drove up to the little office at the Rathtrevor Park camp site gate where they are sold. I handed over the old (and not quite expired) pass together with my Visa card. So far so good. I'd pay my $25 and leave, not happily exactly, because I strongly believe that one of the other unnecessarily onerous provincial taxes should already have covered this service, but at least I'd be OK for another year.

But no! A rather officious young clerk had other ideas about that. She insisted on punching the new card, indicating an expiry date one month earlier than that on my current one, and no amount of logic would dissuade her from doing so. Apparently park service policy dictates that the critical hole has to be punched in the month of its issuance... without any consideration for the expiry date of the prior permit. I suggested that such things as drivers' licences, magazine subscriptions, insurance policies and passports are all renewed in advance, and are all made effective from their prior year's expiry dates... but to no avail.

By this time there were several of these enormous fifth wheel camper rigs lined up behind my little car - you know the ones that are too long for you to pass, unless you are lucky enough to reach an extra long straight stretch of highway. To make a long story short, I requested a Visa refund, because I was not going to sacrifice a month of paid parking. This refund process also took an inordinate time because the dear lady clerk had to look up the code which enabled that, and by the time the refund was completed, there was another "happy campers" in the lineup. I guess the government doesn't need the interest it earns on early payments, but then again this was not really about the money. Was it?

And guess what? I was not wished "a good afternoon" as I left. I only got an "I guess I'll see you again next month" - plus a self-satisfied, stupid stupid grin.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!!!

cc Hon. Barry Penner, Minister of Environment (Responsible for Parks), Government of BC, Victoria.

The big Five-O

Yes, yesterday marked my fiftieth - the big five O!

No, regrettably not my birthday, or even our anniversary. These milestones have long since disappeared over the horizon of time. 50 blogs since the first one on 28th March. That's 2 per week on average, and that's what I'm celebrating, and you dear follower are invited to join the celebration. Perhaps I'll buy everyone in the Flat Earth Society a coffee this morning, up at our regular haunt - the "Brie" coffee shop in Qualicum Beach. They'll certainly be rather surprised by this old Scotsman's generosity. My buddies might even accuse me of letting the entire Scottish nation down by breaking away from our national credo of "a penny saved is a penny earned". (P.S. Having followed through with my plan for the coffee shop celebration, I am now able to confirm that my worst fears about being ribbed by my buddies, were entirely justified.)

 The Big Five-O

But am I having fun yet? Well I'm glad you asked, dear follower, because actually I am having quite a lot of fun. And why is that? Hmmm! I'll have to give that question some serious thought, and it's much too early in the day for that. Perhaps it's that blogging gives me a feeling of power and glory, or freedom, or self importance and invincibility? No, surely it can't be any of those. Perhaps it is just that when my mind is deeply engrossed in yet another brilliant post, I don't have to worry about all the other items hovering around out there on my to do list. That's much more likely. Actually, the fact is that I rather enjoy writing, and unlike it was in the good old days of having to earn a living, when everything seemed to have a deadline, and I was always being pressured to get "it" done, whatever "it" was... now "it" only needs to happen when the spirit moves me.

But it is rather fun to express an opinion from time to time, to get something off my mind, or to research and learn something new which I've been curious about for some time. Even searching for the most appropriate words, or anecdote, or humorous comment to illustrate a point, can be fun, particularly without the pressure of deadlines.

So what's next you ask? Well it would be nice to know that sometimes a few more people were listening to me out there in the blogosphere, so please continue dropping in on "The Rear-View Mirror" because "Hindsight is 20 20" you know. And please do remember to use the comments box at the end of each post, so that I know I'm not out there alone, preaching to the wilderness. And do invite you friends to drop by also, by e-mailing them a copy of a blog from time to time - that's just a matter of clicking on that little envelope down at the bottom of each page.

Take care. There's a wonderful world out there... the world of bloggs.

Blogging - Syndication and subscriptions

To follow up on yesterday's blog, this tech-talk topic for non-techies will briefly explain a simple way to follow a blog, or for that matter, any favourite web news source. Most of the TV channels and major news papers now have their own blogs where you can follow up on the details of a report which has only seen brief exposure as a 20 second TV clip, or a headline and a column inch or two of print... and you can very simply arrange for these blogs to be custom delivered, free of charge, to your own computer, instead of having to go rummaging around the blogosphere for them. I know, some of you already know this, and much, much more about subscriptions, but many of my friends are somewhat technically challenged, so please be patient. And if any of you less challenged individuals want to add something to this discussion, please feel free to use the comments box below.

One half of this secret (if anything to do with blogging can be secret) lies in RSS, an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. On the URL line on my blog, i.e. the address line located at the top of your browser, there is a little orange coloured icon with radiating circles drawn on it. (See the screen clip below) If you click on that icon you will be invited to choose RSS or Atom. Select (click) RSS then select (click) add to Google Reader, and you are done, except that the first time (and only the first time) you do this you will be asked to open a (free) Google account, if you don't already have one. This process includes the usual user name and password rigmarole. (In fact that little RSS icon identifies the web page you are looking at as a blog, rather than any other type of web site).

The icons you need are outlined in red - Double click to enlarge the image

The other half of this secret is having a "reader" program on your computer - which almost certainly you already do, although perhaps you didn't realize it. Since my blog is hosted by blogger.com and that service is in turn owned by Google, and you guessed it - Google has a reader... Naturally, to keep things as simple as possible, dear follower, I have used these services as my example, although there are many others out there for the more adventurous to explore.

To make a long story short, the action of subscribing delivers the chosen blog, news service etc. right into your computer's reader program any time you are on line. If you click on your reader's icon it opens to show you the blog pages that you have not yet read... and just what could be easier than that? But there's one more little thing. For some obscure reason, Google hides their reader in a drop down menu labelled "other" on their home page, although there are ways to make that more convenient to find, like bookmarking the page onto the Google tool bar, as I have done. Refer to the above clip again.

And the real magic of subscriptions is that if you tire of one, you can unsuscribe just as easily - no permissions, acknowledgements or apologies required - it is gone from your computer...

Oh if only other actions in life could be undone so simply.

Oil spills - deja vu all over again

I suppose that by now every blogger in the bloggosphere universe has posted some sad, angry or otherwise derogatory commentary about the oil industry and/or the current BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

I know that I have, but a friend (thank you Larry) just e-mailed me a URL of a Rachel Maddow video rant which is too special not to pass on, especially as I have just figured out how to make video links on my posts.

So without further commentary, here's...   Rachel