life – Page 57 – Cubey Terra

October 14, 2003

Sonnet #1: Shall I compare thee…

It has occurred to me that I don’t write enough poetry. To rectify this woeful situation, I have decided to compose a series of sonnets. I’ll stop at the first fatality.

Shall I compare thee to a stilton cheese?

Thou art more fragrant and more likely to melt:

Rough wax does bind the squishy lumps of grease,

And rounds of curds do fill the bloated belt:

Sometime too hot the oven glows,

And often is the pale complexion burned;

And other cheeses melt into wet floes,

By broilers or the bubbly pastas churned,

But thy eternal cheddars are not fatty

Nor lose the lovely waxiness thou ownest;

Nor shall Ronald use you on a patty

When in the line-up at McD’s thou groanest.

So long as cows do milk or goats can baa,

So long lives this, and this makes you go “AAAAA!”

October 7, 2003

Keeping tabs on you at the bar

Vancouver bars and pubs are collaborating to install a new database system that tracks the actions of individual patrons. Customers will be photographed and their driver’s license scanned, and a complete record of their purchases and behaviour will be recorded in a shared database.

Bar and pub owners are thrilled that the system helps them identify undesirable customers: staff can enter comments about customers that’s available to all participating establishments. Patrons are worried that it violates their right to privacy.

Once this system is in place, it will be impossible to meet friends at the pub without having the event recorded.

I have some questions about the system, such as:

If you don’t have a driver’s license or refuse to let it be swiped, will you be refused service?
If you don’t leave a large enough tip, will that lead to a bad rating in the system?
Who has access to the database now? And in the future, will the police and government demand access to your records?
If you refuse to participate as a patron, does *that* event get entered and forwarded to police?
If you visit (the fictitious) “Joe’s Pub” with a friend, then down the road it turns out that it’s also frequented by criminals, does that implicate you, because you were once a patron too?
When you can’t even visit the local pub without an organization tracking your movements, isn’t that a police state?

The fact is, the more information there is about people, the more it will be abused. The myriad bits of information that’s collected about you may be harmless by itself (after all, you’re not hiding anything, right?), but there are people who will intentionally or unintentionally use the information against you.

Facts can be misinterpreted. Wrong conclusions can be drawn from innocent data. Decisions can be made against you based on faulty interpretations of the recorded events in your life.

So the next time you’re at the pub with friends, if the serving staff asks to photograph you and scan your driver’s license, don’t do it. Their invasive system won’t work if patrons refuse to cooperate.

Link: High-tech targets bad bar customers

September 30, 2003

Premier agrees to allow logging in BC parks

I’m breaking my blog-silence to point out this appalling news: the premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, has agreed to allowing forest companies to log BC Parks. The excuse, for now, is that it will stop the spread of pine beetles.

However, Barry Dobbin, the forests ministry’s assistant bark-beetle coordinator, admits that logging won’t help fight beetle infestations, and Joe Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee feels that the premier actually wants large-scale logging operations in the parks.

This is about a year after the same government announced the “working forest” strategy, in which all forests in BC (except parks) would be “open for business”. Now, apparently, the parks — which include some of the last examples of untouched rainforest — are on the chopping block too. Or, more accurately, they’ll become chopping blocks and many other fine commercial products.

Here are the links. First, the pro-business perspective from Canada.com:

B.C. parks, forests ministry will combat bark beetles

And the independent media perspective:

Premier’s Agenda to Log BC Parks Shocks Environmental Community

September 12, 2003

Decay

burned-out house As I surfed the web last night, I head a tremendous crack and a thunk. No, it wasn’t my brain finally coming loose and hitting the floor. Across the road, the top of a tree blew down in the gusting wind. It landed in the yard next to it, missing the dog.

This is just another step in the decay of the abandoned house across the street. Almost a year ago, an arsonist set fire to the back of the house, which gutted it and badly singed the tree. Since then, the house has sat empty with wide-open broken windows. I’m astonished that nobody has torn it down or begun renovations. I’m also astonished that it hasn’t turned into a crack house.

Once upon a time, this was a lively, thriving residential neighbourhood.

September 11, 2003

Feeling the Burn

It’s here. The friendly neighbourhood postie just dropped off the much-anticipated hardcover copy of Adrian’s novel. In the words of the immortal Homer, “whoo hoo!”. And now, I read.