Category Archives: Uncategorized

You can die from exposure in 3 hours, dehydration in 3 days and starvation in 3 weeks.

Always tell someone where you’re going and when you intend to get back.

On the wet Pacific Northwest Coast first priority is to protect yourself from hypothermia. Goretex is your friend. A poncho is great for keeping you dry.  Have a tarp,  a painters drop sheet or even a plastic shower curtain from a dollar store will do to protect you from the wind. Remember that snow makes a good insulation so you can make a tarp shelter and then shovel snow on the outside as an insulation layer. A smaller shelter will heat up quicker from body heat.

Have a few ways to start a fire; waterproof matches and a lighter. In the Rockies, the  lower branches on evergreen trees make good tinder.

Next up water – you can survive on a litre of it a day. Always have a few litres in your pack. I also like to bring a kettle a metal cup and a bit of coffee too.

You have three weeks before you’ll die of starvation – it’s pretty rare not to be found in that time.

This guy has made several youtube videos about making cedar shakes from beachcombed cedar logs on Lasquetti Island.  He has a couple of different usernames on Youtube; LasquettiSpice and LasquettiDude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn38ElGz2i4

How to make wood shingles using handtools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpOikUgdh4w

The government of BC issued a license to a second outlet for beachcombed logs in 2009.

http://leas.ca/BC-government-issues-licence-for-beachcomber-cooperative.htm

Here is the part of the BC Forestry Act that applies to beach-combing.

http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/ID/freeside/28_220_81#section4

Growing up in North America it’s hard not to internalize the dream of having power and the biggest chest of gold as being the ultimate. Al Dunlap a successful businessman might be the ultimate role model.

Jon Ronson (Author of Men Who Stare at Goats) writes about Al Dunlap in his book, “The Psychopath Test.” He argues that psychopaths share many of the qualities necessary to achieve the American Dream.

Dunlap lives in a mansion in Florida with his wife. He earned the nicknames Chainsaw Al and Rambo in pinstripes for his ruthless management style. His yard is filled with statues of predatory animals. The house has a huge picture of Dunlap with his wife and two dogs. Dunlap’s bodyguard joins Dunlap and his wife during the interview with Jon.

You can read more about Al Dunlap in this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_J._Dunlap.

Dunlap is the American Dream personified. Living in a big house, lots of money to spend on toys protected by walls and a body-guard from the outside world. A huge picture of himself to admire on the wall.

My image of the good life is not living in a castle surrounded by a moat and being able to buy everything in the store, even the store itself.

Even if I was super-rich I’d live in a small space. A big house means stress of keeping everything maintained and updated to the latest standards.

Shopping is not all that satisfying.

I like beach-combing, sitting in front of a comfortable fire talking with friends, skiing, brewing beer and fixing bikes at the Bike Coop.

Living in a Japan I was exposed to a different way of living that needed much less space tha I was used to. The Canadian dream is to own the biggest house possible, I prefer to live in the small spaces. Why?

The biggest advantage is you start to conscously choose what you put in your space. You need to focus on what’s important, choose. Rather than thinking I have this giant box that I can fill with as much junk. Leads to a different way of shopping. I can remember visiting my friend’s monster house in California. We parked in the driveway in front of his three car garage. Why don’t you park in the garage. HE said let me show you why. He opened the door and it was over-flowing with stuff.

A small space means less money for maintenance, heating and electricity. Less furniture to buy. Less time spent paying for all those.

Less time to clean the place.

Less time to mantain the space. Fewer weekends arguing with tradesmen unplugging the plumbing, trimming hedges, ….

Because it’s a much smaller space, you’re likely much closer to where you work, so you spend less time commuting. Instead of spending hours in a car, you can cycle or walk to where you’re going.

Because you’re active you are healthier and less stressed.

You have time to meet and interact with other people. So you develop a community.

You have more affordable rent so you don’t have to spend so much time working.

I live in an apartment complex with three buildings and over a hundred total units. Starting with nothing, over nine years I have a closet full of rarely used tools that I’ve purchased to work on my unit – a hammer, a plumbing snake, bike wrenches, socket wrenches power tools, level, square, mitre box. I have 3 different saws – a hack-saw, a buck saw, a coping saw and a mitre saw. In Ottawa I’ve accumulated a similar set of tools that resides in a dark corner of my parents’ basement.

Half the other people in the complex have closets filled with the same tools or most the same tools. What a waste! A waste for the environment because of all these duplicate tools, waste for each person because they have to pay for the tools that their next door neighbour has sitting around.

Why not have a tool lending library similar to the lending library for books.

Instead of buying the same tools over and over the community could buy better quality tools, or tools that we couldn’t afford to purchase individually.

Once the community started lending tools, they could expand into training people to use the tools, workshops, and bartering of services. This model would be better for the community and better for the environment.

How could I get started? Probably list a tool library on the coop web-site.

There are some organizational issues that need to be looked at – conflict resolution over tool scheduling, how to handle problems when someone breaks a tool, How handle tool maintenance. Also someone would need to chase down and get back the tools from people who don’t return them promptly. And we would need a place to store the tools with a spot identified for each tool. How would we handle liability issues –  perhaps a liability release form releasing the complex from any responsibility for injury due to negligence and so on.

Z= 2 x pi x f x L

where:
Z Complex impedance
f frequency 2.4 GHz = 2.4 x 10 ^ 9 cycles per second
L is the matching inductance (load coil) on my antenna

L= z / ( 2 x pi x f)

For a transmitter with a characteristic 50 ohm impedance
L = 50 / ( 2 x 3.14.59 x 2.4 x 10 ^ 9)
= 3.311 x 10 ^ -9

The inductance of the loading coil should be about 3.31 pico-henries to match a 50 ohm receiver.

For a transmitter with a characteristic 75 ohm impedance

L = 75 / ( 2 x 3.1459 x 2.4 x 10 ^ 9)
= 4.97 x 10 ^ -9

The inductance of the loading coil should be 4.97 pico-henries.

Inductance of an Air Core coil

L= (r^2 * N^2)/(9r+10l)

where:

L is inductance in micro-henries
r is the coil radius (inches)
l is coil length (inches)
N is number of turns in the coil.

Let’s make the coil diameter 1/4 inch, number of coils = 7 and solve for the length of the coil. Rearranging the formula above

5000 = (.0625 * 49)/(2.25 + 10l)= 3.0625 / (2.25 + 10l)
2.25 + 10l = 3.0625 /5000
10l = -2.25
l= .-.226

It looks likes the inductance is independent of the length and number of turns at high frequencies?

The WiFi band starts at 2.4 GHz or 2400 MHz.

The EMF wave travels at the speed of light. The length of a wavelength is the speed of light/frequency.

For 2400 MHz

(299 492 458 metres/second ) / (2400 000 000 cycles/second)
= 0.12491

A good choice for an antenna is a 1/4 of a wavelength or an odd multiple of a 1/4 wavelength. Let’s take 3/4 of a wavelength.

0.93685 or 9.37 cm should make a good length for the antenna.

http://www.instructables.com/id/WIFI-Antenna-Hack!/

The FM band is from 87.5 MHz to 108 Mhz, CBC Vancouver FM is at 88.1 MHz,

The EMF wave travels at the speed of light. The length of a wavelength is the speed of light/frequency.

For 87.5 MHz

(299 492 458 metres/second ) / (87 500 000 cycles/second)
= 3.4 metres

For 108.5 MHz

(299 492 458 metres/second ) / (108 000 000 cycles/second)
=2.8 metres

CBC Vancouver FM
(299 492 458 metres/second ) / (88 100 000 cycles/second)
=3.4 metres, the same as the start of the FM band

A ranldomn wire antenna is a length of insulated 12 to 14 average wire gauge (AWG) wire suspended high in the air.

A good length for the antenna is 1/4 of a wavelength. You want to avoid a length of half the wavelength or any multiple of a half.

For both the start of the FM band (87.5 MHz) and CBC Vancouver FM (88.1 MHz) 3.4 metres /4 = 0.85 metres = 85 cm would be ideal.

To cover the end of the FM band (108.5 MHz) 2.8 metres / 4 = 0.7 metres = 70 cm would be ideal.

Casanova tells the story of his 132 conquests in 6 thick double volumes called “History of my Life.” It begs the question, is a life filled with shallow relationships the good life? Was Casanova a disappointed romantic in search of the ideal woman or a flawed archetype of the the playboy?

The psychology of Casanova is very interesting. For Casanova capturing a woman’s heart was like a drug fix. And like a heavily-addicted drug user he spent most his free time planning how to procure his next fix.

On another level conquest and recording the details of the conquest became Casanova’s way of proving he was valuable. Instead of feeling valuable from using his talents to help his family and community, or following a career he found value in tricking women into falling in love with him.

Or is the Casanova complex a variation on Narcissism? Did he suffer from such low self-esteem that he constantly had to prove that he was lovable by seducing a never-ending string of women.

In a healthy relationship both participants get to know each other. But in Casanova’s relationships the woman is falling in love with a fictional character Casanova has created. He doesn’t reveal his authentic self. And because the woman has fallen in love with a phantom rather than his authentic self, the relationship can’t be satisfying to Casanova in the long run. He has to continuously maintain a character rather than being himself. That must get tiring.

Similarly the woman is not an individual who Casanova gets to know. He follows in love with his own fantasy image of what the relationship will be like.

Addiction is connected to low self-esteem and ultimately self-destructive. Many addicts hide stockpiles of their drug in case they ever run out. The alcoholic probably has a couple of bottles hidden around his or her apartment. Casanova had a collection of old flames and new relationships he was working on.

The addict will use treachery and manipulation to get his fix. We see this in spades with Casanova. He is insensitive to the consequences of his flings on his lovers, their families and society. He is only concerned with satisfying himself. In otherwards he is completely selfish.

Chasing women is often related to an absent or detached father. The son finds esteem by gaining attention and acceptance from his mother. Instead of winning attention from his father, siblings and peers he comes to rely on just his mum to satisfy his needs for self-esteem. When he becomes an adult and leaves home, he no longer has a source of satisfying his need

Casanova realized that women love to fantasize. So instead of being authentic to himself, he became adept at creating a satisfying fantasy around himself that would appeal to women. Even his name was made up; his true name was Giacomo Girolamo Casanova – but he gave himself a royal title. Chevalier de Seingalt.

To maintain the illusion he needed to avoid creating ties to the community that could trip him up. By not being authentic to himself, he lost his opportunity to truly live.

I met Timo at Coffee Ghosts. Coffee Ghosts is a meet-up group that get together every Saturday for an easy going Philosophy/life discussion in Vancouver, BC Canada. Timo has a degree in philosophy and makes a living teaching ESL online and managing a restaurant one day a weel.

When Timo got into teaching he asked his friends to warn him if he was getting too didactic or pedantic. Didactic when used in a negative way describes a person who tends to lecture ot teach even though he’s outside the classroom. A pedantic person tries to show off his knowledge and takes delight in pointing out minute mistakes in others knowledge or pronunciation. It’s easy for a teacher to fall into these traps. Timo manages to teach without being didactic or pedantic.

He has 11 online students who he teaches 5 days a week using Skype. Each lesson is only 25 minutes. “Teaching American Pronunciation” is his textbook of choice especially word stress, sentence stress and rhythm. An agent in Korea lines up the students and ensures that they know how to use Skype before setting up the first Skype call with Timo.

He gestures a lot – illustrating all his points with shrugs, question marks and large X’s written in mid-air. Even with the sound turned off you have the clear idea he’s trying to communicate something.

He uses a hearing aid. This was a problem when he taught in person in coffee shops because the background noise made it hard for him to understand his students. Teaching online is perfect because he can adjust the volume and equalizer settings on his headset to filter out the background noise.

He uses expressions like, “Can I tell you a story?” followed by a story about his neighbour’s dog. He says he likes to think he’s rational but he’s really just like his neighbour’s dog ruled by his emotions and the moment.

He likes to watch Youtube videos with his students and then get their reaction.

Another technique is taking 10 photos on his smart phone during his day and talking about them with his student. Asking the student to take some photos of his day to share.

He has conversational bits like the towel which sound like a Jerry Seinfeld bit. Why can’t I buy a decent size towel. I either have to buy a tiny towl or a huge bath blanket of a thing.

He warns ESL teachers to avoid getting into twenty questions – where every answer the student gives just leads to a new question. What did you do? And after that what did you do? The student just wants to end the misery.

He has views on student psychology. Some students are just trying to get through the class without doing anything or doing as little as possible. You phone them and their head is sticking out all to one side with huge bags under their eyes. When did you get up … 30 seconds ago.

Why major in Philosopht? When Timo was first going to university he thought of life like a chess game with some optimum strategy to discover. He took an approach like Bobby Fisher to chess only dumber. This approach to life only added to his misery. The only courses that appealed to him were psychology and philosophy so he ended up with a degree in Philosophy by default.

Timo’s version of Plato’s story about the cave is a theatre with a screen at the front with a movie playing, But there is no audience. There is just the screen. This understanding was a pivotal moment in his life. There is no audience. There is no “I” watching the screen. There is just the screen. i have to think about that some more. I think he’s saying the idea of ego is just an illusion. There is only the moment.

Timo turned away from a Western analytical approach to philosophy/life and adopted what he thinks is a more spiritual/live in the present/Asian approach. There is a contradiction in living in the moment because it devalues the imagination/analytical thought. Meditation can be a sort of negation of life. A person can spent his life trying to meditate instead of being in the world. This is based on a kind of fear of life.

I’m looking forward to our next conversation.