Created by The Institute for the Future, Superstruct is more than a game. It’s a collaborative problem-solving exercise. And it’s an experiment. I learned about it from this week’s episode of Spark, where Nora Young interviews Jane McGonigal, the game designer. I was immediately intrigued. The goal of the game is to create possible solutions for the likely threats of our near future. It’s designed to be realistic. While making accurate predictions isn’t always possible, the game gives us scenarios extrapolated from humanity’s current global situation. Watch the videos for each superthreat; they sound very plausible.

As McGonigal explains, the game’s serious. It’s designed to get people to think about issues we might not otherwise consider in our daily lives. By focusing on the environment as a game, one in which people are rewarded for their efforts and participation, the IFTF is drawing upon a whole pool of people who might not otherwise provide input.

I think about the future and possible solutions to problems all the time. But I‘m not always in a position to effect change or even necessarily make my voice heard. And I love hearing the ideas of other people, not only on what the future will be like, but what we can do about it. Superstruct was made for me!

The website itself suffers from several design flaws and technical issues that make me less inclined to participate. However, I’ve joined the game, even created my own superstruct. The game only runs until November 17, at which point it will be frozen and archived for future reference. So if you‘re interested, don’t wait. Join now and start inventing a better future.

Oh, almost forgot: following the lead of other SEHIs, I also have created a Twitter account for my 2019 self.

The four candidates were Brendan Hughes (Green), Bruce Hyer (NDP), Don McArthur (Liberals), and Bev Sarafin (Conservatives). Naturally I‘m biased toward the left, and this presents me with the question: if I think the Green Party or the NDP would do a better job than the Liberals, should I vote for one of those candidates instead of voting for the Liberal candidate, thus splitting the Liberal votes and enabling the Conservative to get elected?

Watching the candidates speak, I was able to get a sense of how they’d do in the House of Commons, as well as their stance on the issues. All were articulate; all tried to emphasize their personal connection to the region and their commitment to being our voice in Ottawa. Great. But what good is a voice unless it says what I want it to say on my behalf?

After opening statements and two prepared questions, the moderator (Doug West, a professor of political science at LU) opened the floor to questions. I asked the third question:

Copyright reform has received much attention since the introduction of Bill C-61. Critics of the bill point out that there has been a lack of open, public consultation and that the bill may be unenforceable without raising privacy concerns. The bill’s emphasis on technological protection measures has wide-ranging implications. For students and teachers, it may interfere with access to materials for assignments and lessons. What can you do to provide fair and balanced copyright reform?

Each candidate had two minutes to respond to the question. I was unimpressed with the responses. For the most part, I think that my question was unanticipated, especially coming from a student-focused debate. But that’s good: these people should be able to improvise on the spot. Otherwise, they’ll be eaten alive during Question Period.

• Bev Sarafin essentially said that if she gets elected, then she’ll be willing to discuss which parts of the bill (she called it “Jim Prentice’s bill”) I find dissatisfactory. Apparently she missed the day in school where we learned that you tell people how you‘re going to fix things first, then you get their vote. Not the other way around.
• Brendan Hughes was the second to respond, confessing a lack of knowledge on the bill but expressing a desire to learn more about the issue. I applaud his willingness to learn and understand that not everyone can be intimately familiar with every single issue, but it does seem like he was unprepared to answer my question.
• Don McArthur actually addressed the question, calling for provisions that enshrine fair use in law. He specifically cited that Canadians should be able to copy music from a computer or CD to an iPod (a practise that, right now, isn’t actually legal). For a two-minute response, I suppose it was fair.
• Bruce Hyer was the only one who seemed to have a prefabricated response at the ready. I’m not surprised, since the NDP has been on the ball with copyright from the beginning. However, since it was a prefabricated response, it was heavy on the NDP and light on the Hyer. He denounced Bill C-61 and praised fellow NDP member Charlie Angus, telling us to refer to his website. While it’s good that he was prepared, I would have liked to hear more than a party line.

I’m still not certain for whom I shall vote. I liked Brendan Hughes; he spoke well when it came to clarifying that the Green Party isn’t a one-issue party. They simply take the environment into account in all their policies, not just as a separate issue. I thought that was a good point. However, I don’t know if I like Elizabeth May. The more I think about it, the more Stéphane Dion seems like the best of the current choices for prime minister.

Maybe the English-language debate tonight will help me decide. Election Day is October 14. We shall see.

I took French from grade 1 until grade 11 in school (this was before the provincial government postponed mandatory French until grade 4). It’s only compulsory until grade 9, but I liked my teachers, and the courses were interesting and academic. Plus, being able to speak another language is a plus. Except I can’t really speak it now, can I?

Part of me thinks I don’t have an ear for languages. I excelled at reading and writing French. However, even at the height of my proficiency, I was never too hot at pronunciation or comprehension of spoken French. Nevertheless, I feel bad that I live in a bilingual country yet I only speak English. There’s this whole other culture that’s an integral part of my country’s history and current events, yet I ignore it. I feel like an elitist anglophone snob!

This week’s episode of Spark includes a segment about the French-English digital divide. That’s what got me thinking about this, although it was also tonight’s French-language debate amongst the federal party leaders. I recorded it, even though my French is rusty. Luckily I was able to catch the gist of what I watched—I didn’t watch it all, because it is rather long, and most of the issues will be covered again in Thursday’s English-langauge debate.

Of course, no amount of wanting my French to improve will magically make it improve. I‘d actually have to do something about it. My chances of doing this in my free time are virtually nil. Maybe next year, if it’s offered, I’ll take Lakehead University’s Elementary French course—it accepts my grade 11 French class as a prerequisite, and that will provide the classroom-directed motivation I need to re-engage myself in French. I guess I could also try reading for leisure in French. Maybe some Camus? I wonder if I could get my hands on Douglas Coupland in French…. :P

For those of you who speak multiple languages, what was your experience in learning languages other than your first? If you went through immersion (either in school or just by living in a different country), did you find that conducive or challenging?

1. Establishment of a Minister of Technology. I agree with Mitch Kapoor. We have a Minister of Health, a Minister of Industry—why not someone in charge of the country’s technological infrastructure?
2. Better copyright reform. Bill C-61 has demonstrated that many Canadians care about copyright reform. Even if one is in favour of the copyright protection measures outlined in Bill C-61 (I am not), critics have pointed out numerous flaws that make Bill C-61 a poor piece of legislation. I want our government to have open consultation with the public to craft viable, enforceable copyright legislation that balances intellectual property ownership with the need for access to information.
3. More competition in the telecommunications sector. I am not a capitalist, but a lack of competition does mean that consumers have less choice. Here in Thunder Bay, we have one choice for cable TV service: Shaw. Until recently, only local TBayTel provided home phone service; now Shaw does too. Only TBayTel and Rogers provide cell phone service. That doesn’t leave the consumer much choice when it comes to negotiating contracts. On a national level, a lack of competition stifles innovation and growth.
4. Nation-wide improvement to technological infrastructure. Broadband penetration. We need it. Not just fibre-optics right to homes (which would be nice), but also coverage in rural areas. Bring Canada into the 21st century.
5. Access to government databases. Putting publicly-available data online should be a priority. People need to be informed; an online presence is virtually a requirement for any organization. The government has already made good progress, but it can still go further and think bigger.
6. Government adoption of open alternatives to proprietary formats. The Quebec government was recently sued for buying proprietary software. While I don’t know if I’d go that far, the government should explore alternatives to proprietary software. Otherwise, businesses like Microsoft and Apple have unnecessary leverage.

Technology advances too quickly for a mechanism like government to legislate in real time. Like any social fad, once a technology becomes mainstream, it pretty much stays until rendered obsolete by newer technology. Rather than trying to create legislation about specific technology, the government needs to establish a framework that encourages the development of technology along certain trajectories.

Part of my comment on that entry was included in this week’s episode of Spark. It’s also got an interesting tale from Bill Parry, an intriguing new service from Nathan Eagle, and a discussion on the French-English digital divide.

First, the bare essential backstory. We currently have an exhibit up from the Canadian Museum of Nature called “The Gee! in Genomics”. As the name implies, it is a genomics exhibition. The exhibition itself is reminiscient of a science centre; there are lots of buttons to press, videos to watch, matching games—it’s pretty cool. And I’m quite excited about it. Genetics is a science of increasing importance in society. We‘ve mapped the human genome. We’re developing genes that allow us to prevent congenital defects or cure hereditary diseases—but that’s another blog post.

Today, orders came down from on high that we (the front desk staff) were not “enthusiastic” enough. To be fair, this is probably true—at least in my case; in my coworkers‘ defence, they are pretty enthusiastic, or at least amiable. It’s likely that the level of expected “enthusiasm” is higher than even their typical output. However, that raises the question: how does one quantitatively measure enthusiasm anyway?

I’m just not built to work in the customer service industry. I think I would do very well as the stereotypical cafeteria lunch lady (minus the lady part). You know the one I mean: gruff, monosyllabic attitude. She serves you the same unidentifiable meal, day after day. If you ask for pie, she just says, “Eat. Move on.” That’s me. When people come to the gallery, I give them what they want, then hope they go away and stop bugging me. Now, I think that often this is what people want. Let me be clear: I am not rude—at least, I try not to be. I‘m simply brief. I detain people for as long as necessary to communicate the essential rules and information, then I allow them to go. If they want to know something else, they are welcome to ask me questions.

However, I’m getting the sense that more is expected. Apparently I‘m supposed to talk people to death as well as take their money. In addition to being gracious and informative, I’m supposed to extol the virtues of the gallery, the current exhibitions, art in general, and human civilization for the past three hundred years. After politely informing patrons of the exhibition in each gallery and reminding them not to touch the art, I should be thrusting an infinite series of pamphlets and newsletters into their hands.

Maybe some people enjoy being schmoozed. Many probably expect, or at least understand and recognize it (especially if they are schmoozers themselves). But how many really want it? How many just tolerate it because it’s the social norm, not because they’re wired to thrive on it? I recognize that some people genuinely thrive on greasing the wheels on which society turns—all the more power to them.

I have trouble faking enthusiasm. I’m plenty enthusiastic about this current show—ask me how I feel about genomics, and I’ll speak volumes. However, I don’t always volunteer my enthusiasm unless people express interest in knowing. Maybe that makes me a bad front desk attendant. Maybe that makes me defective. But on the flip side, it also means you can be sure I am always sincere. If I am listening, I‘m interested. If I’m talking, I‘m either completely serious or being facetious, but I don’t dissemble.

I was driving home today when I saw this. It just struck me as funny: we cut down trees and clear land so that we can erect large, tree-like objects. Yet no matter how much we clear nature away and try to leave our mark on the Earth, nature finds a way to reclaim the land.

I took some other photos, including a picture of my socks and running shoes (in case you wondered what I wear when I’m not wearing socks and sandals):

That’s not to say that I’m having bad days. I try not to start off my day dreading what is to come; it seems like the wrong attitude. Nevertheless, I do feel the pressure of a continuous flow of activities. I wake up, go to class, do homework, maybe read if I‘m lucky. I’ve been working a lot. To reduce the stress and impose some order on this managed chaos, I‘ve tried to establish as much of a routine as possible. Of course, things crop up that don’t submit to that routine, and those throw my day off.

I try to consciously stop and recognize those moments of stillness that happen between each scheduled activity. This afternoon I listened to Brahms while solving differential equations, and that was quite relaxing. Really, it was. No one else was home, so I existed alone in this pocket of classical music and mathematics (which are related, of course!). I knew that stillness could not last, unfortunately—I had to go to work. Worse, I had to work late, which means I had less time after work to 1) watch House and 2) do more math. Work did not last as long as it could have, fortunately. House was excellent—Felicia Day seems to be popping up everywhere since I saw her in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. But now the night is over for me.

Hopefully I’ll be less tired toward the end of the week and next week. I wish I could stay up and work on ring theory, but I have an 8:30 class on Wednesday, and if I don’t go to bed, then I won’t get up in time. I’m already going to regret waking up at 7:30 anyway.

A prime number is any integer that can be divided by only itself and one. Two is the only even prime number. Others include three, thirteen, and twenty-nine. The largest known prime number would fill over 3,000 pages. It’s two to the exponent 43,112,609 minus one. Yeah, that’s big.

What’s the big deal about prime numbers? Surely they have no application in the real world! Those silly mathematicians are too lazy to do work, so they just sit around making up numbers all day! You might have been right, once. Then someone came along and built computers, and prime numbers now have purpose!

All integers (whole numbers) can be broken down into a unique combination of primes. For example, 10 is the product of two prime numbers, 2 and 5. Factorization is the operation of finding a number’s prime factors; you probably did this in school. It’s relatively easy for small numbers. With large numbers, it becomes harder and takes longer.

I imagine that most of you have bank accounts. If not bank accounts, then Facebook accounts, email accounts, etc. What stops hackers from getting into those accounts? Prime numbers! Prime numbers are an integral part of cryptography and securing computer systems. One way to encrypt data is to take two huge prime numbers and multiply them together, producing a larger number. To decrypt the data, you need to know the prime numbers.

As computers get faster, we need to find larger and larger primes with which to encrypt data. If quantum computing ever becomes viable, it would have great implications for current cryptographic methods, since a quantum computer would be able to factor numbers in a fraction of the time it takes current supercomputers. Bye-bye bank account! Fortunately for cryptographers, quantum computing is in its infancy.

As you can see, prime numbers have real-world applications. Our ability to find larger primes and calculate prime factors has ramifications for the security of your data.

Computing prime numbers is an excellent test of computing resources, too. Incidentally, most of the largest known prime numbers have been found using a distributed computing project called GIMPS, or the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (Mersenne primes are a special type of prime, and they are often the easiest to find). You can run GIMPS software on your own computer and help contribute to the search for primes! There’s even prize money involved.

Of course, most of you aren’t running supercomputers at home, so your computer isn’t finding primes all by itself. It runs tests over months on a number, reports back to the mothership, and continues running tests. As the GIMPS website states:

A single test will take approximately 3 years on a Core 2 Duo computer. Your chance of success is roughly 1 in 2,000,000.

So don’t hold your breath.

I‘ve been reading Scott Adams’ blog since its inception on TypePad. I enjoy his wit and his unique perspective on both mainstream and esoteric issues. Much of what he says is designed to get a rise out of people and provoke them into calling him a stupid lemon-eater. Some of his favourite subjects include intelligent design, the workplace, environmentalism, and of course, politics and the economy. I was not surprised to hear that he had commissioned a survey; it’s just the sort of thing he would do.

So how about those results? Lots of Democrat econimists—it must be biased? Well, I love math, but statistics are not my favourite type of math. I‘m in the camp of people who thinks the survey is an inconclusive indicator of which candidate would be best. I doubt that either of the candidates truly has a plan for the economy. They’re stating positions on issues, but whether or not they would follow through after being elected is doubtful at best.

The economy has been a hot issue of late, what with the uncertain financial markets. What about here in Canada? As always, the economy is an election issue. Harper is playing down job losses, stating the there is a net gain of job creation. Dion and Layton are jumping on the child-care bandwagon after the Tories tried to sway voters by claiming that if they weren’t elected, the government would cancel Harper’s national child-care plan (since I don’t know much about the child-care plan, my opinion is embryonic at best). And let us not forget Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and his Anything But Conservative campaign. The ABC campaign has its roots in an economic issue: the removal of nonrenewable resource revenues from the energy equalization formula.¹ Harper broke this promise, so now Williams wants to encourage voters to elect a non-Tory government.

What about Dion’s crazy carbon tax and “Green Shift” plan, eh? We‘re all going to be driving to work in outboard canoes with seven layers of sweaters as we go back to living in igloos because we can’t turn on our furnaces, eh? This bit of environmentalism is just the latest consequence of an increasing social conscience toward “green” policies. The question is not whether this carbon tax makes sense, it’s do voters want a more environmentally-friendly government? If that is the case, then there’s two steps: 1) elect a government that will implement environmentally-friendly policies. This is probably ABC.² 2) Lobby your local MP to support environmental initiatives until the government implements something that works. Dion’s shown that he can be persuaded to modify his Green Shift plan. That may have just been election fever talking. But I mean, if it doesn’t work out between us and him, we can just dump him and call another election, eh?

I digress. Personally, I try to ignore the economy as much as possible. It gives me a headache. But I must admit that when it comes to voting, it’s an important issue. All politicians will screw up the economy; that’s a given. What you have to decide is: who will screw it up in your favour?

• [ 1 ] Newfoundland and Labrador have offshore oil reserves. Removing the nonrenewable resources from the calculation of revenue owed to the federal government would generate a huge amount of money for the province.
• [ 2 ] The Greens still have a snowball’s chance in hell—and soon, if we don’t implement green policies, the phrase will be “a snowball’s chance in Whitehorse”.

I’ve been back for over a week now, and I’m enjoying it. This is my easy term; I only have five courses: Foundations and Issues in Education, Educational Technology in the Classroom, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra I, and Ring Theory with Applications. Yes, two education courses and three maths. I love math.

Of the education courses, the technology one is online. I knew going into it that it would be easy, but as it stands right now, it’s rather inane: for the first four weeks all we have to do is read, then we get a test. Then we have to work in groups to create a blog about teaching technologies, theories that apply to these technologies, etc. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that the reading material is full of typos, passive voice, prepositions at the end of the sentence—I‘m very glad that I don’t have to buy a textbook, but this is almost torture. Spellcheck, please!

My other education course looks like it’ll be more interesting. At least it’s mostly discussion-based. That makes it easier to sit through those hour-and-a-half classes.

Did I mention I love math? The university atmosphere works well for me. I like when someone who knows more than I do challenges me (i.e., with an assignment), then I go and teach myself what’s required to figure out the assignment. If I have trouble, I ask for help. I know that many people don’t learn this way, so the lectures are helpful too. However, I‘m glad that university gives me the opportunity to learn in the way I want to learn.

Of my three math courses, linear algebra is the easiest. It’s basically computation: vectors, matrices, and of course, linear systems. Differential equations are slightly harder. I ordered my textbook from the United States in order to get a cheaper price, and it still hasn’t arrived. That will make doing this first assignment problematic.

Ring theory interests me the most. We haven’t started discussing rings yet; last week we covered divisibility and prime numbers, and this week we are working on modular arithmetic and congruence classes. Rings are in the next chapter. This area of math fascinates me because it involves constructing the basic operations of math from scratch, allowing us to define new mathematical systems (presumably to tackle certain problems). That’s rather exciting. And there’s nothing quite like the feeling I get after figuring out a nifty proof.

I’m trying to blog more regularly—not once a day, but at least a couple of times a week. I‘d planned to blog over the weekend, but I was very tired. I found that the major reason I wouldn’t blog (other than being tired) is that I had no compelling idea for a post. Now I’m keeping a list of potential topics in Todoist, so that should generate more posts.