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That’s Correct

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A position that is free from error which aligns with the facts is defined as being correct.  Truth is based on facts that can be proved as accurate and valid.

Therein lies the rub, facts reality and accuracy is subject to interpretation.  This means all facts can be challenged so that which is true in theory must be proven by logic to become a law. Unfortunately logic can be questioned.

The World is Round

Grass is green, the earth is a spherical shape, vaccines are beneficial; these are all examples of statements for which arguments relative to their accuracy exist and proponents and opponents exist for both the statements and their  opposites.

Regardless of the fact the majority believe these declarations to be true and proven facts the flat earth society, colour blind people and anti-vaccination groups exist and argue their fallacy, even though the logical enumeration of the facts is overwhelmingly supportive.

Consequences

Sadly, the different interpretation of the facts can be impactful.  I might choose to not circumnavigate the earth if I believe it is flat, limiting my travel options and associated potential joy.

Or I might decide not to reduce my chances of getting ill from a serious disease perhaps even leading to my death or perhaps infecting others, leading to their death.

The subjectiveness of arriving at the truth is an underpinning of human beings ability to think freely and is of great value but not necessarily without consequence.

Embrace the Whole

Differences of factual interpretation are real and should be encouraged.  It is not necessary to agree on the positions each of us may take but rather focus on the outcomes and finding ways to collaborate on positive consequences.

That is don’t argue the facts but rather work together to make the resulting outcomes better whatever you believe to be true.

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A little Disease Philosophy

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Disease is a fact of human life.  Logically precautions should be taken to avoid catching a disease and should these fail ways to mitigate the diseases impact should be deployed.

Currently we are have been an official World Health Organization declared pandemic for a little under two years.  The pandemic declaration refers to a disease which is prevalent around the world, in this case covid 19 and variants.

Mitigation

With the advances in communication and viral science the response to the covid 19 pandemic has been better and more effective than any other pandemic in human history.

This fact is often overlooked as the disease continues to spread and people continue to need hospitalization and a number have died.

However relative to other deadly pandemic’s given our advanced  technology and other capabilities to avoid getting sick the impacts have been well managed.

Although not everyone views this to be the case because they have no recent experience to compare to.

What’s Next

Predicting the future is always a bit of a perilous game but I will take a chance.  The virus has mutated to a more transmissible variety but the impacts are lessened.

Thus, the pandemic is posed to become just another disease among many and our mitigation practices will again revert to the standard before the pandemic began.

This is not to say the risk of catching covid and the associated impacts will disappear, rather just reach acceptable levels of likelihood and impact.

Spanish Flu

Considering the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 to 1920 as an example  I predict 2022 as the year the covid pandemic slowly becomes a part of history and the virus becomes categorized as just another illness.  Oh but what a fun ride it has been.

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Pandemic or Disease

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A pandemic is a disease that affects a large number of people over multiple countries. I wonder what is the metric defining a large number of people, thus determining a disease is epidemic versus just a day to day illness.

As more and more people around the world become vaccinated against the current covid pandemic, what is the point it becomes just another disease and extraordinary restrictions currently in place can be lifted?

Caution is Prudent

Personally I agree guarding against illness by cleanliness, distancing, masks, testing etc are all practices that make sense.  They  do mitigate (but not remove) the possibility of us catching a disease.

However, the question is what level of risk mitigation is appropriate when the likelihood and impact of the risk is considered.  Before the covid pandemic the practices most followed to prevent catching some illness were generally far less than current.

The level of caution around illness prevention has risen greatly over the last tow years.  This can be attributed to the increased risk of becoming ill (covid is very communicable) and the impact (covid can lead to death).

Acceptable Risk

A key question for me, of late, is what is the measure that will allow us to declare the temporary risk mitigation restrictions of the last two years no longer needed by society as a whole.

The rate of transmission and the severity of covid cases would seem to me to be reasonable measures.  The tricky part is what the exact metric would be, surely not  zero transmission and hospitalization, but if not that definitive than what?

My concern is not enough thought has been given to this measure or clear communication of the goal we seek.  Without drawing a bar we could just continue in pandemc mode for years or decades.  Does this make sense?

 

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Sycophant Bias

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One of the rarely acknowledged bias most of have to some degree is a preference for association with others who exhibit sycophant tendencies.

Those who behave with a tendency to serve others while improving their own lot (i.e., a servile self-serving flatterer) often do well in organizations often rising to senior leadership positions.

Those of us not subject to the flattering behaviour because we are considered to offer little to the persons self-serving side are usually not as enamoured.

How can they be in charge?

On occasion (more often  than you might think) I have interacted with the average competent person who has risen to senior leadership roles (or perhaps not even that competent) and wondered how this could happen.

Selection for key roles is merit based, is it not.  In fact personal bias to chose people we like is a very real factor when hiring or deciding to vote or support someone.

Lip service and perhaps some rationalization toward competency is applied but in reality the sycophant bias (liking people who suck up) plays an unconscious factor which many would deny, however it really can influence our decision making.

Tactical Approach

Selecting and promoting sycophants can be rewarding in the short term and as a tactical action somewhat effective.  Typically though longer term strategic expectations of leadership become very disappointing.

This result is reinforced over time by the self-serving nature of the incumbent.  You may like what they do but in reality it is not for your benefit, it is self serving and over time this becomes more apparent as they continue to thrive within the organization while you do not.

Caution toward acting on your personal bias to associate with people you like, it might not be the best approach.

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I think I can.

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A childhood story book that still resonates strongly with me today was “The Little Engine that Could” by Watty Piper.  A simple story of how obstacles can be overcome through the power of positive thinking.

The little steam engine of the story starts off being unable to pull the train up the hill.  Motivated by positive thinking ranging from I think I can, morphing to I know I can  results in success.

Persistence will be Rewarded

The moral of the story is not to give up even if success takes time and multiple attempts.  You can do it.  Of course this not always true, but by being persistent you will at least get you as far as you can go.

About six months ago I decided to implement secure socket layer (ssl) security for this website.   While it may sound simple, this was not the case.

My journey to Security

SSL enables viewers of the website to be sure of the owner and data transfers to and from the site are encrypted to ensure the information transferred cannot be intercepted.

To do this the web server needs to be certified by a trusted third party.  There are a number of ways to do this.  To make a long story short, six months ago I chose the simplest method and thus began my journey of persistence.

As is so often the case with technology the unexpected rears its ugly head and what should have been simple led me down a long path of encountering and resolving unplanned difficulties, lots of them.

However, finally I prevailed and not only is this site now accessed through https (i.e., ssl) my mail server is now a separate sub- domain (best practice) and all are using a content delivery network (Cdn)  called cloud-flare.

Persistence paid off, I can and did do it.

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Engaging Criticism

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From time to time I find that other people will express their disapproval of something I did based on my perceived faults or mistakes.

Being critical of other’s or perhaps even self critical is normal human behaviour; dealing with criticism effectively is however very difficult and in my experience relatively unusual.  Yet it is one of the key emotional intelligence attributes which I observe  in highly effective people.

Embracing Criticism

Being able to accept others ideas and suggestions, regardless of how hurtful they may be, can provide us with leverage to either improve ourselves or others.

Overcoming the instinctive emotional reaction of anger or annoyance is extremely difficult but conscious analysis of the critical information enables us to respond in the most effective manner.

Using Information to your Benefit

In this context accepting criticism is not meant  to imply agreement but rather acknowledgement that it exists and needs to be dealt with.

Ignoring the criticism without consideration or responding with an instinctive emotional reaction will typically not provide the best result.  Most often this leads to adversarial behaviour.

Embracing the critics and either adopting their suggestion or gaining their understanding and cooperation (i.e., support) for your actions is far more effective.  Albeit much harder to accomplish.

Avoid Antagonism

Most often criticism is the beginning of the end.  It leads to conflict based on anger and dislike.  Collaborating effectively with others requires the ability to use criticism (perceived or real) in a positive way to avoid going down a rat hole.

Those with high levels of emotional intelligence recognize criticism from others will always occur at some points in time, using it for benefit rather than battle s always the best approach.

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The beginning of the End

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The College Woods neighborhood in Riverside, Edmonton is made up of 115 homes built mainly between 2002 and 2004.  The neighbourhood was largley completed and occupied by 2005.

However, six lots or so were sold to independent builders and those houses were constructed from 2005 up to around 2014 with the exception of one lot which remained empty.

New Neighbour’s are coming

The empty lot was three doors south of our current home. Finally, I guess property values reached an acceptable point for the purchaser and the lot sold and building commenced.

Looks like our neighbourhood will, after 19 years, be completly built out.  This does seem to me to be a long time for an empty lot to sit and I am bit surprised the city did not encourage the owner to build, for the increased tax revenue.

Canadian Housing Markets Reasonable

There has been a lot in the news lately about the hot housing markets in Canada although given the large amount of available land in Edmonton, to mention nothing of Northern location, itis not really a hot spot.

We have noticed, as a personal anecdote, that houses in surrounding area that were sitting on the market for years suddenly sold this summer and our neighbours listed and sold their home within three months.

Pandemic Economy Impacts

Probably  the Spector of rising interest rates and higher inflation is at least one of the factors driving this behaviour, thus it is country wide albeit at different paces depending on geographic location.

For us this is the end of a era, that is an incomplete neighbourhood , but also this is likely a sign of the current economic state.  I wonder what is next.

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Living for the future

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Being focused and engaged in the here and now, that is being consistently present and mindful of each living moment is a desirable quality often recommended as a technique for mental health.  Don’t focus on the past or future, live in the moment.

While this sentiment does have merit and I would not ignore it, for me the bigger picture consists of the time periods surrounding the present, i.e., the past and the future, neither of which is easily dismissed.

Taking Control

The past cannot be changed, it out of your control.    Valuable lessons can be taken from the past to influence present and future actions but it cannot be changed.

The present, living in the moment, offers limited opportunities for control, that is to say most often occurrences are like a whirling vortex swirling around us for which we have limited control.

Our destiny lies in the future and fortunately that is pretty much a time period we can largely control or at a minimum plan for achieving maximum personal pleasure while limiting risk of unpleasantness.

Owning the Future

Each of us has full accountability and ownership of our futures.  We can treat the future as a surprise or plan for it, or some combination of these approaches.

Whatever method we adopt for living in the future it is a personal choice and our greatest successes are consistently achieved when treating our approach to the future as belonging to us and pro-actively and consciously embracing it.

The past is done, the present is here in your face, to control your life you must own the future.

 

 

 

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Answers begin with the Question, or do they?

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When we don’t have all the information we need or are not sure of it’s validity we will elicit additional information from other sources, that is human, virtual, experimentation and so on.

Hopefully this process of investigation will yield the answers we seek in response.  Sometimes the answers are not the information we seek.  This can be because the question is wrong, and there is the rub,

Question or Answer/ Chicken or Egg

Without some information we can not be sure what the question is and without the question information is lacking.  The question answer dance is founded on what we know when we begin.

Neither the initial question or subsequent answers is the starting point, rather, what we know about what we don’t know is the best place to begin.

Assuming questions are intended to gather things we don’t know or validate information we are uncertain of the beginning is not to seek answers or formulate questions but rather understand what it is you don’t know.

Understanding Requirements

The process of seeking information using questions as the prime technique begins with understanding what you seek.  Valid quality questions begin with requirement, that is defining what you seek.

Formulating the question is often best managed as a multi-step process building on the information uncovered during the journey for answers.  Critical to the success of this journey is the starting point, the first question.

Seeking Information/creating Knowledge

Asking questions and analyzing the answers will provide you with the information you need to create knowledge.  The value of knowledge to you depends on your requirements.

Asking questions is only of value when you have a solid understanding of why you are asking them.  What is the information you are lacking and why is it of value should always be the starting point of your interrogations.

 

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Celebration time

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For each of us, throughout our lives, there can be moments when we decide to take action and display our pleasure by engaging in enjoyable, typically social, activity.

For me, today I am celebrating a couple of weeks of technical activity cleaning up my home network, improving security, cleansing data and implementing a number of new features.

Updated Kerrzone Website

I mark the celebration of this milestone with a launch of an updated website for Kerrzone.com.  You will notice I have greatly simplified the interface and changed the content focus.

The work on my home technology continues with more enhancements planned for the future including adding SSL certificates for the websites, however,  modernizing kerrzone.com has been a goal of mine for awhile, so time to celebrate.

Hacking versus Managed Development

As I have engaged on my journey of technological improvement of my fairly extensive home technology I have really noticed the difference between development approaches.

In the workplace my experience had always included a high level of structured methodology while I would characterize my home development as more like hacking.

Methodology based technology starts with documented practices intended to be followed like recipes with check and balances to ensure that is the case.

Conversely my hacking journey begins with figuring it out (based on an underlying technical aptitude). In this case reference to documentation is only a last resort and even then a bit haphazard.

This of course is the higher risk approach but somehow I do seem to manage to figure it out in the end although some frustration might ensue while doing so.

Anyway, I reached one of my goals, so today I celebrate.