Timothy King – Page 42 – Mechanical Sympathy

ASU/GSV Summit

I went to the strangest education conference of my career this past couple of days. Wikispaces invited me down to attend and what a learning experience it was. Surrounded by a struggling US education system that spends more and produces less than our own, I found it difficult to follow the circumstances they’ve invented for themselves.

Being a stranger in a strange land I wasn’t necessarily trapped by the expectations of the other people in attendance, though I wasn’t the only one questioning what I saw. There seems to be a clear split in American education. There are the Common Curriculum fans (check out that webpage, ride the hyperbole!), and then there are parents & teachers who are questioning the value of such a regimented, testing focused approach to learning. Strangely, very few education technology companies seem to be questioning this approach, though they all appear quite interested in education.

The whole thing occurred on the surface of a conference that was more an educational technology trade show than an examination of sound pedagogical practice. That politics and the business that feeds it drives the US education system rather than sound pedagogy became more apparent to me as the conference went on:

The only time I heard someone actually refer to pedagogical practice, best practices in teaching and learning, was when Michael Crow, the ASU president, gave a thoughtful talk on how we adapt to technology use in changing times. Everything else was urging people to get on board with the common curriculum (and buy our system that caters to it). That educational technology in the States is so focused on the politics of testing rather than best practices should concern every Canadian who adopts American technology in the classroom.

I’ve got a lot of notes and ideas I want to chase down from this experience. In the next week or two I’ll write to them after mulling it over.

In the meantime, here are some photos of beautiful Arizona in bloom…

The ASU/GSV Summit Blog Posts:
Data Exhaust
Who Owns Your Data?
Dogmatic Digitization

Reassembly

The old bike is coming back together again. I’ve learned a couple of valuable lessons in the process:

a $30 toolbox should prevent $50 in lost parts, every time

1) Don’t take your parts to high school to get them worked on, they lose parts, don’t do the work anyway and it causes confusion and headaches when you’re trying to reassemble the thing.

2) I tried taking photos as I took the bike apart, which works well when you’re putting it back together, but with so many small fasteners and other odds and ends it pays to have a parts tray set up and labelled.

I’ve since purchased a cheap sectioned toolbox that will serve as a parts holder. I’ll use an erasable marker to label the parts as they go into each section of the toolbox. That should resolve future finding-the-right-fastener headaches.

In the meantime, after multiple trips to dealer to pick up bits and pieces, I think I’m putting this all down as lessons learned and moving on.

The geometry of the bike is coming back together, but I’ve still got some work to do. The rear brake went back on well, bled well and works perfectly. It even has good pedal feel. A concern in the rear is that the rotor suddenly seems out of round (it was fine before). I’m going to get it back on the road and see if it needs reseating – it’s a 20+ year old bike, so maybe I put the rotor back on the hub in a different way and it’s not happy.

The front end all went back together without problems, but the front brakes don’t seem to want to bleed to a tight lever. Fortunately CoG has a solution. After leaving the lever tied closed for the night the brakes are starting to come back. Another round of bleeding and I should have some sharp feeling front brakes again.

The bike is running rough, and I can’t tell if this is because it’s been sitting over the winter or it needs the carbs tickled. I’m going to have to look into it in more detail. A short run yesterday in double digit temperatures showed that the back end is back together perfectly. The beads are doing a wonderful job of keeping the wheels balanced and the new bearings and tires make for very smooth and quiet operation.

If I can get the front brakes finished up and the fueling sorted, I should be ready to go just in time for the roads to get rained clear of the sand and salt of winter.

Money Clouds

You hear a lot about the magic of the cloud these days. It’s linked to online integration, website optimization and the evolution of computers.

Integration and optimization involve encouraging users to put information online and making that data easy for aggregators to access. The modern, monetized internet is built around turning data into a commodity. The 2014 web is designed around encouraging you to put as much of your life online as possible because that data has value.

The idea of computers evolving from mainframes to desktops to laptops to smartphones appears self evident, but I’m not so sure. I’m starting to think the devices prompted us online and the evolution idea was set up afterwards as a marketing angle. Our devices might not be a response to market needs, but a push by the data bankers to get more people producing.

When you boot up a computer you’ve created a self contained virtual environment that is designed for and subservient to your needs. Within that machine you have security, privacy and administrative power over your data. It’s hard to argue that this is anything other than an empowering position for a user.

When you connect to the internet you surrender administrative control. Your virtual environment is no longer yours, your data is no longer internal and local, it’s no longer your data. Privacy is an antiquated idea you have to let go of and security is entirely at the discretion of hackers who are increasingly supported by big business and government. When you go online you have lost that private computing experience and thrown it wide open to many interested parties.

When you send in three one year old
broken Chromebooks you get one back, the
rest aren’t cost effective. If driving people online to
collect data is the goal, then the Chromebook is a
master stroke – disposable hardware that funnels you
into using a single browser – a branded internet.

Why have we stampeded to the cloud? Did our devices change to serve our needs or have our devices been designed to drive us online? Apple famously rolled out the ipad. At the same time they put together itunes, which not only dominates media sales but has also now come to dominate app sales as well. Selling an ipad is nice, constantly selling media is an exciting, never ending source of income.

Data as an income stream is at the root of our online migration. Microsoft made billions selling an operating system, but the data produced inside it was very much the domain of the user. Software we purchase for that environment had to also be subservient to the user. This is a lousy approach if you want to monetize data and enjoy the benefits of a continuous income stream.

Blizzard realized this with the move to online gaming. World of Warcraft was one of the first games to successfully follow the data=continual income model, charging monthly fees instead of a one time point of sale for the game. The end result is a gamer spending hundreds of dollars on a game instead of the single $50 outlay. If you don’t think it worked, check out how WoW compares to the other top grossing games of all time.

Google famously claims that it wants to organize the world’s information and make it available and useful. This is always dressed in altruistic nonsense, but this is a profit driven business that goes to great lengths to not pay taxes. Google is a data mining company, it always has been. The happy result of this data mining is a remarkably accurate search engine that also happens to feed the data mining operation.

Once the search engine was established Google went after traditional desktop based applications. Lite versions of word processing, spreadsheet software and other traditional desktop apps drew users in with the suggestion that your software and data could be wherever your internet connection was. This drove the expansion of the internet as well as the need for more bandwidth. Once the apps were rolling other data collection techniques like mapping and geo-location were added to the mining process. The more data that feeds the machine, the more ways it can monetize it.

Claiming to be free, these apps drive users out of their private desktops and into the fishbowl of the internet. Online apps feed data mining operations just like search engines do. This blog is written on Blogger, a Google owned web application that encourages information to be put online so it can be mined. Why do I use it? Because I want to publish my writing. In certain circumstances it makes sense to put data out into the fishbowl, but you don’t get to choose those circumstances on the web today.

The reason Google struggles with offering unmined online resources is because Google is a data mining company, it’s what they do. This isn’t necessarily evil or nefarious, but it behooves us to understand how online companies work, especially if we’re going to get all giddy about driving students online.

A lot of infrastructure had to be put into place for your personal computer to be built, but that infrastructure is minuscule compared to what is involved in creating an internet. The cost of building and maintaining a worldwide networking infrastructure is staggering. The only way to make it cost effective is to make the data itself pay. There are cost benefits to scaling up this kind of infrastructure, so online companies drive as many people into producing data as possible.

Any company that lives online can’t simply create something of value and then stand by it. The sand is constantly falling through the hourglass, it costs bandwidth to offer even a simple online service in this expensive, complex, cut throat infrastructure. The only way you can survive in an environment this carnivorously expensive is to make the data you’re attracting pay. You push to schools, to charities, anywhere you can to generate input.

There is no such thing as a free online app. The whole point of any online service is to get you producing data that can be mined. This data is valuable even if your name isn’t attached. Most privacy legalese attached to online services explicitly allows them to use your data as they see fit. Cursory efforts are made to hide your name because no name = privacy, but your data is where the money is, and it isn’t yours according to most online agreements. You surrender control of your data when you agree to use their data mining, um, nifty, online application.

Now that we’ve trained entire generations to ignore traditional media, this intrusive and invasive analysis is where market research has gone. Multinationals don’t spend marketing dollars on TV commercials for people under thirty any more, it’s wasted money. Instead, they drive the herd online, creating heat around exciting new smartphones / tablets / wearable computing – whatever gets people producing data to feed the network.

Again, this is neither good nor evil, but it is an evolution away from ideas of traditional advertising (which itself could be cast in a poor light). The questions we need to ask ourselves as educators are:

If we demand that students use online services that monetize the information they share, are we eroding ideas of privacy and personal security by demanding their online interaction?
Are we commoditizing our students’ learning?
Should that make us uncomfortable?

There are ways to bypass all of this, but that means turning away from the carefully designed, market driven future laid out for us. Education could adopt open source software that offers complete administrative control. Educators could require students to actually learn how to manage digital tools from a mastery learning perspective (instead of whatever bizarre kids-know-this-stuff-intuitively / digital native thing we’re doing now).

We could supply Tor browsers for students to use that would guarantee real anonymity and privacy. We could expect students and teachers to learn how to manage their own online spaces and develop their own tools with education as the focus and no hidden data mining agenda. We could leverage the sharing power of the internet to spread these tools around the world at little or no cost, but we don’t, because the future we’ve been sold is so shiny that we can’t think of anything else.

One thing is for sure, the future will be branded. Branded
information, branded thinking, branded learning?

At the Google presentation at the recent ECOO conference the g-employee asked the room, “why aren’t you all joining Google For Education? I’m not going to go on until someone can tell me why!” He was very enthusiastic in his hard sell.

In a less high-pressure sale situation I can formulate a response: I use Google tools, but I make a point of understanding what they are. I get the impression that most Google Certified Teachers are more interested in being unpaid sales reps than they are recognizing the complexities of cloud based computing. Any teacher who rushes into branding themselves with a private company’s logo makes me question their commitment to pedagogy. What’s more important, using the best tool available or using the best tool from your brand? It’s a big reason why the idea of brand specific computing devices will never get my vote.

We’re being led to the cloud by implacable market forces who have monetized our information flow. They offer ease of access, integration and a general malaise that many regular users of technology turn into ecstatic fandom. You don’t need to learn this stuff, we’ll take care of all that for you, just hook yourself up to this milking machine and it’ll all be OK.

Hook up students to the milking machine and tell them it’s for their own good. Edtech is preparing them for the future!

Setting the Stage

I somehow managed to fanangle my way into an Edtech symposium this week on the sustainable development of digital technology in education. Amidst former deputy ministers of education, board CIOs and other provincial education types I got to see the other side of the equation.

This year as head of Computers/IT has been good for this actually, getting my head out of the classroom context and seeing the bigger picture. I’ve been able to attend imaging committee meetings at the board level and gained an understanding of why everyone can’t have whatever they want. At this past meeting I tweeted that I felt like a sergeant from the trenches who suddenly found himself in a 5-star strategic planning meeting; it was engrossing.

From Hamilton-Wentworth’s awesome curriculum push into 21st Century Fluencies to what New Brunswick has been doing to get ahead of the game, I found the board and provincial interest in pushing ahead with our use of technology in the class to be… a relief!

During any battle to use digital technology in the class room (getting access, getting it to work, getting students over their jitters), I often feel like I’m losing ground. I’ll take one step forward in implementing a new piece of technology in a lesson or on a school wide basis, and get knocked back two steps by angry senior teachers who feel out of step with what’s going on, or lack of access to equipment, or failure of the tech, or OCT/board restrictions that seem panicky and unfounded, or the union telling of a horror story that seems to justify panicky and unfounded restrictions…

One of my preliminary thoughts before I went was to ask about how to beat the malaise of that feeling; how not to give up. I’ve heard from colleagues about how they burn out trying to push that envelope, and ultimately just disappear back into their classrooms and do their own thing. John Kershaw had an honest and helpful response to the question:

During his talk he spoke of a big set back where the winning party in an election used his one laptop per student policy as an example of government waste, and won on it, after telling him that they supported the program. This is exactly the kind of thing that brings idealists to their knees. His solution was pragmatic: work on your environment. Set the stage so that what you’re doing becomes a certainty, if not now, then eventually.

In the case of the laptop plan, he’d done groundwork with business groups (who were onside for more digitally literate graduates), the general public (who wanted their children more literate with technology), and the school system (who wanted to better prepare their students for their futures). That groundwork meant that even though the politics turned on him in the moment, the plan eventually went through, and he got what he thought was important; a New Brunswick education system that actually mattered in a 21st Century context.

I’ve been thinking over his for a few days now. If you’re on the right side of history, if you know you’re fighting a good fight, you’ve got to shrug off the knock backs. If you keep working to create the environment you’re aiming for, and you know you’re part of a wave of change, have some faith in the fact that the truth of what you’re trying to do will eventually win out.

Sea to Sky and Back Again

My son and I are two up on a BMW F800ST on our way out of Sooke on Vancouver Island’s south coast. It’s the last big stop before heading into the wild, and it’s not that big a stop. The road has met up with the rocky shoreline and I’m bending the bike left and right around constant corners, I’m seldom able to see more than a couple of hundred feet down the road. From the steep hillside down to the Pacific Ocean a deer pops over the barrier onto the road right in front of us. The BMW seamlessly comes to a stop five feet in front of the startled deer that tears off into the forest. I wait for the inevitable follow up deer and see it next to the barrier watching us. We pull away slowly and elect to ease off a bit and keep it under 80 kilometres per hour. Even at speed limit speeds this road is something special.

I’m supposed to be in class, at work, instead I find myself over four thousand kilometres away from home on a cool and sunny Friday morning at the end of May with a rented motorcycle, beautiful weather and three hundred kilometres of astonishing roads in front of me, sometimes life offers up nice surprises.

I’ve only been riding on the road for just over a year. I have my M2 license and I left an ‘07 Kawasaki Ninja 650R at home. The BMW is only the second road bike I’ve ever ridden. It’s amazing how different two machines that do the same job can be. The BMW is a bigger bike, with larger seats, it’s much more comfortable according to my pillion. The suspension is soft and supple compared to my Kawi, and the controls feel lighter. The clutch take up is smooth and the brakes make me think I need to do the front pads and bleed my Ninja when I get home. The BMW is a more mature bike in every sense. The redline is a sane 8000 rpm, and with the soft suspension and big seat it’s easy to ride for a long time. Other than the weird left hand/right hand indicators it’s an easy transition from the Ninja (one of the reasons I chose it).

The rider of this fine machine,
in his beaten up, old BMW
leathers was in his seventies!

We work our way down this increasingly empty coastal road until we stumble across the small town of Shirley and Shirley Delicious. We’d been told by the technician at Cycle BC where we’d picked up the bike that the temperature can drop ten degrees on the coast, and he wasn’t wrong. After a hot coffee warm up and the best sausage roll I’ve ever had, we bump into another BMW rider who is in his seventies. After some affable, Teutonic chat we are back on the long and winding road.

From Sooke to Port Renfrew,
endlessly entertaining

From Shirley we wind our way north west up the quiet coast of Vancouver Island. The east coast faces Vancouver and is as busy as anywhere in Canada, but the west coast faces the endless Pacific and remains largely unpopulated. From Shirley we saw only a couple of other vehicles as we chased the tail of this amazing road that clings to the side of mountains edged by ocean. The switchbacks that lead down to single lane bridges over mountain rivers look more like Scandinavian fjords than Canadian back roads.

We stop and stretch about forty minutes into the ride at a scenic lookout, which along with many provincial parks, dot the route. As we clear the straits between Vancouver Island and the mainland and begin to face the Pacific, tsunami warning signs and escape routes begin to appear. You really get a sense of being on the edge of the world here. The edge of North America, the edge of the former British Empire, facing half a world of ocean.

Port Renfrew is more an idea than an actual place; a few buildings scattered among the trees. We pass through it in moments and find ourselves on a rough paved road into Juan de Fuca Provincial Park where we hope to find Botanical Beach. We strip off the bike gear and stow it in the big Givi box on the back and head down the trail. The tide is out and an amazing beach full of tidal pools awaits.

We warm up on the long walk down and soon find ourselves clambering over black stone jutting into the ocean. The sea life is prodigious, with massive strings of clams, crabs and a million other things crawling on the rocks. The smell of salt and sharp, clean air is magical. We’re the only people we can see.

Jurassic Park has nothing on
Juan de Fuca!

We spend two hours wandering around the rocks, but I’ve only got the bike for the day and the sun is way past noon. A quick uphill hike back to the bike has us both sweating. I figure we should eat and the Coastal Kitchen on the way in looked like a good choice, but my son has a thing for chain restaurants and says he isn’t hungry (though he was). I don’t get to the Coastal Kitchen, one of my few regrets on this trip.

I’m looking at my watch and wondering how I can possibly get back to Victoria since it’s getting on for 2pm and we’re not even halfway around our loop yet. Lake Cowichan is halfway across the island. It’s only 63 kilometres away but this road is something else, you don’t make time on it. Around every corner (and there is always a corner) you find idyllic waterfalls, tumbling mountain rivers and absurdly beautiful alpine vistas.

Almost two thousand metres in elevation
changes, it’s as uppy-downy as it’s lefty-righty

The BMW is bending left and right over the patchwork surface of the road, the soft suspension soaking up the bumps. I get into a rhythm and lose myself for a while chasing this road.

Unlike the Ninja, I can barely feel Max back there until he uncharacteristically thumps into me as a I brake for a switchback. He mumbles that he’s ok, but we’ve been on the road since 9am, he’s had no lunch and he’s dopey, not a good combination. I push on to Lake Cowichan, now more worried about him than enjoying the ride. I really wish we’d eaten at the Coastal Kitchen before leaving Port Renfrew, we’re not putting that to a vote next time.

We stop in Cowichan and eat lousy fast food at an A&W. He perks right back up and we get back on the road quickly because it’s getting on to 4pm and I’ve got less than two hours to return the F800. But Cowichan marks the return to the populated side of the island and the highway out of it is the first 100 km/hr zone we’ve seen since leaving Victoria. In a flash we’re back to the Trans Canada in Duncan and, after a day spent virtually alone on twisting roads, we find ourselves in a traffic jam surrounded by box stores. We wait our way through the worst timed traffic lights ever in Duncan and finally get moving south towards Victoria.

Even a commuter road like this makes most roads in Ontario look sad. It’s smooth (it barely snows here and frost heaves are all but nonexistent), and the asphalt constantly snakes over and around mountains. Though very different from the west side wilderness, the highway ride back to Victoria was nice too.

At speed the BMW is surprisingly comfortable. The tiny screen on the front had me doubting its high speed comfort, but now I understand how wind to the chest can keep your weight off your wrists. At highway speeds you seem to lay on the wind, it’s remarkably comfortable. The minimalist aerodynamics on the F800ST do a surprisingly good job.

Once clear of Duncan we don’t see another slowdown until entering Victoria, and it isn’t a big slowdown. By five o’clock we’re pulling back into CycleBC’s downtown shop, tired but elated. The bike did the whole trip, over three hundred kilometres all told, on a single tank. It also cast some perspective on my Ninja.

The BMW’s suspension makes me want to look into the Kawi’s, but a 650R is a very different kind of bike than an F800. Given a choice though I’d take the BMW’s buttery, compliant suspension over the teeth rattling shocks on my Kawi. I thought the lack of a windshield would hurt the BMW but it was surprisingly good, and makes me question the turbulence I get off the aftermarket windshield on the Ninja. The weird switch gear on the BMW wasn’t convenient, but all of the controls were light and responsive, making the bike a joy to take down twisty roads. It all sounds like a slam dunk for the BMW, but there is one place where the my older Kawasaki leaves the BMW behind.

It’s pretty and capable,
but it has the heart of a tractor

After lugging that BMW engine around for a day I was happy to put it down. At best it chugged down the road, but most of the time it sounded agricultural. One of the reasons I fell for the Ninja was the sound of its engine, I’ve seldom heard anything happier. Whereas the BMW goes about its business with conservative, grim faced determination, the Kawasaki is an eager accomplice, with a soprano’s voice. While the BMW is grumbling to its redline something magical is happening in the Kawasaki. Happy up to 8000rpm, it dives to the 11,000 rpm redline with a euphoric banshee wail; the last half of the Ninja’s rev range is something wonderful. That it also manages to feel stronger than the BMW even though it’s a much smaller lump is also telling.

I enjoyed riding the BMW, but it didn’t move me. The good news is I now have much higher standards for control feel, brakes and suspension, but without that all-singing engine I’m just not smitten.

As for the trip, it was unforgettable. From sea to sky and back again, it was challenging, exhausting and completely worth it. Were I to do it again, I think I’d get the bike for 24 hours instead of 8 and stay over in Cowichan before coming back the other way down the empty coast. That road deserves two way attention, and I’d happily avoid the traffic in Duncan and the stress of trying to rush the bike back at the end of the day. It also eat lunch at the Coastal Kitchen, damn it. The days are long on Vancouver Island in the summer. If you left at noon on one day, you could meander up to Cowichan enjoy a 10pm sunset and be on the road well after sunrise at 6am the next day looking forward to retracing those mad roads back to Victoria – you’d also miss rush hour on both sides.

CycleBC is located in downtown Victoria right under the conference centre attached to the Empress Hotel. The staff are quick to get you on the road, know the area inside and out and offer up some great insider tips (why we ended up making a point of seeing Botanical Beach). They offer a wide range of bikes from the F800ST I was on to a BMW GS, Suzuki Vstrom, Kawaski KLR, Triumph Bonneville and various cruiser options. Everything looked to be in top form (they have an onsite technician), and the F800 was flawless for us.

If you get a chance to ride southern Vancouver Island, you won’t be disappointed. Next time I’m out there, I’m looking at a longer ride around more of the island.

Perfect Moments on 2 Wheels

Lexus has this ad about being in the perfect moment:

Other than the narrative (I find that I’m lost in moments like this, not narrating them in my head), I like the idea. I was editing footage from riding last week and had trouble finding a frame where I didn’t have a perfect moment look on my face:

Even pausing during the high speed sections of that video shows a series of very content micro-expressions. You might find a perfect moment once in every blue moon in your Lexus, but I find them almost constantly when out on the bike. I’m starting to get the idea behind the ‘you never see a bike in a therapist’s parking lot‘ saying.

The real question is: what is it about riding a motorcycle that causes this kind of continuous immersion in the perfect moment? (redundant perhaps, every moment is perfect isn’t it?)

When I ride well I find myself immersed in what I’m doing I lose myself in it. It’s only when conscious thought arises that my corners aren’t carved perfectly and my gears are wrong. Some of this has to do with the fact that I’m still relatively new to motorbiking and very conscious of improving my process, but the majority has to do with the immersive nature of riding a motorcycle.

I even look happy parking the bike at work!

Being in the wind means you are enveloped by the world you’re passing through. Your senses are alive to sounds, smells and the panorama around you. You aren’t seeing the world through a letterbox wind shield and smelling recirculated A/C. The sensual nature of riding, the wind tugging at your clothes, the sun on your back, goes a long way to making you the ride rather than you doing a ride.

If the sensual side of it isn’t enough (and it’s often overwhelming, ask any biker who has felt the temperature drop and smelt the ozone as they’ve ridden into a thunderstorm), there is always the mechanical intimacy of riding a motorcycle to make you forget concious thought and become one with the moment.

Unlike the hand on the wheel, one foot on the gas approach to driving, the motorcyclist is changing gears with their left toe, rear braking with their right, operating the clutch and indicators (and sometimes horn, lights and choke) with their left hand and twisting the throttle and applying the front brakes with the right. On top of that they are using both arms to counter-steer into corners and their whole bodies to manage those turns. Motorcycling is a viable and complex form of exercise for both the mind and body.

So what we have here is a mode of transport that is physically taxing, mentally demanding and sensual. On top of all that, if you do it badly it can very quickly become fatal. You very quickly want to be able to fall into the zone when riding. Peak performance and awareness it fosters isn’t nice to have but a necessity when operating a motorbike. Fortunately, getting to that state is fantastically rewarding. There are a lot of ways to get there but seat time seems to be the magic ingredient.

In a cruel twist, this morning I got the bike out for the short commute to work. The rain had stopped and the smell of water soaked plants filled the humid air, but my up-until-now bullet proof old Concours wouldn’t start, it had a dead battery! Maybe I left the ignition on? Maybe some water got into things? Maybe something broke? Suddenly that string of contented moments I was looking forward to became a morose push back into the garage after changing out of my gear. My commute turned from fifteen minutes of bliss to the tedium of driving. The bike is a wonderful form of therapy, except for when it doesn’t work.

In The Crowds: Scripted Experiences

I’m just back from my first trip to California. Having visited it so many times virtually, I was surprised at how different the place is from how it frames itself. Like a movie set, Southern California has a face that looks good while hiding a lot of things that don’t work.

My favourite parts of California were the real bits: the coast, Joshua Tree Park, Mount Palomar. It got dodgy for me the minute we wandered into the invented places, strangely also the most crowded places.

We’re all victims of our own childhood. My parents spent ours taking us camping. When we went to The States we visited family and hung out on the beach. In Florida we went to the Kennedy Space Centre, but never Disneyworld. This might have had as much to do with how much disposable income we had as it did with our interests.

Going to California for the first time, my wife, who has fond memories of attending Disneyworld as a kid, wanted to show me Disneyland. I’ve had a long personal history with Disney. It was what we watched as a family on Sunday nights on TV growing up. The first film I ever saw was Jungle Book. Being an animator at Disney was a long time dream. I’m anything but a Disney hater, but I’ve never had an interest in going to their theme parks.

Going on Christmas Day with thousands of giddy people in mouse ears felt like attending some kind of cult meeting. I don’t do well in crowds and this particularly day is one of the busiest the park has. I enjoyed various aspects of the park, but at the end of a hot, sweaty, crowded day, what it did most was clarify for me the difference between a shallow, scripted experience and a genuine one that offers depth of narrative.

I used to enjoy amusement park rides, but nowadays if I want a thrill I’ll scare myself for real on a motorcycle rather than sitting like a lab mouse in a centrifuge. I prefer a situation where my own skill dictates the quality of the physical experience. This also ensures that the experience will be mine instead of what is spoon fed to me. Two people on a rollercoaster walk away with the same cookie cutter experience. Two people riding motorbikes on a mountain road do not.

My son isn’t a fan of rides either, so we tended toward shows and entertainment rather than lining up to strap into spinning things. The Star Wars tour, Pirates of the Caribbean and various stage shows all offered a focus on entertainment rather than vacuous adrenaline. Disneyland tends to focus on immersion in the Disney ethos, so you can easily go to the park and not once get on a spinny ride. Having said that, we didn’t go on ‘It’s a Small World‘ because it would have taken two hours of lining up to see just how small the world is.

People get in their vehicles and sit in traffic to get to Disney World, where they line up to get into the park, and then line up to get on this ride where they then sit in traffic. Some people’s idea of fun is completely foreign to me.

Strangely, I’m more than happy to shift into a more passive mode and follow a narrative on the screen. Experiences that use digital technology to create interactive, sensory experiences are quite interesting to me. In our time in California we also went to Universal and did the Minion Mayhem ride, which is a great example of advanced digital media being used to create an experience, it feels like a roller coaster with a plot. Pirates of The Caribbean also was remarkably immersive with complex robotic tableaus that told a story. Star Tours was a nice mix of both, with a smartly done interactive line up that leads to a digitally immersive ride; I can get lost in narratives like those.

Now that I’m back in school I can’t help but consider these ‘amusement park’ experiences in terms of learning. There is such a strong emphasis on engagement at all cost that many classrooms have taken on the giddy quality of the spiny ride, complete with lineups to get on the digital tools needed. Any experience that comes out of it tends to be scrambled if retained at all, and the idea of patiently building deeper understanding doesn’t have a chance. The hook becomes the reason for the lesson rather than anything you can immerse yourself in and take away afterwards.

I’ve heard students talk about how they ‘did’ a rollercoaster – as though their interaction with it somehow affected the outcome. The rollercoaster did them, they didn’t do the rollercoaster. When students talk about video games designed to deliver you to a conclusion I feel the same way – the game played you, you didn’t play the game. When failure is never an option, you never get to succeed at anything. It’s the difference between real and not real experience. I’m willing to bet that, if surveyed, the majority of students would feel that their education was something that was done to them rather than anything they had a say in the outcome of.

When I think of those millions who press their way through Disney to see concrete starfish plastered on walls when real ones are only a few miles away at the beach, I wonder what it is we’re aiming at in terms of engagement. Giving people what they want is often pointless when what they want is empty.

A State of Constant Surprise

On the bike I tend to pay very close attention to people piloting the boxes around me, mainly because they can quite easily hurt me. That close attention has shown me that a surprising number of drivers (anecdotally more than half) are in a constant state of surprise. They jump when they notice someone walking down the sidewalk, they start when a light changes in front of them; they are permanently startled by everything around them.

These jumpy people must be exhausted when they get out of the car. I wonder if they are equally surprised by everything when they go for a walk. Perhaps their subconscious is just continually reminding them that this driving thing is a bit more than they can manage. Next time you’re riding or driving try to consciously register how often you’re surprised by events around you. It’ll say something about how well you’re doing it.

When I started driving I found that my mind wandered and I wasn’t always paying attention to what I was doing. After an accident (not entirely my fault, but I could have avoided it had I been paying better attention) I made a promise to myself to make driving the priority in my mind when I’m at the wheel. I developed a relaxed, alert driving style that allowed me to take in what was around me while also being able to respond to it quickly and smoothly. When I did something wrong or found myself in a bad situation, I’d consciously review it and ask myself how it got like that and try think of alternatives for the next time. It took me a long time, some advanced driving courses and some track time to get me where I wanted to be in terms of driving, but I don’t look surprised or start at everything I see like a rabbit in a field. I suspect most people are lost in thought when driving matters interrupt them, and if something bad happens embarrassment forces them to ignore it rather than critically review it.

Most drivers behind the wheel. Being freaked out is not the
same thing as being alert or responsive.

If you don’t make a conscious effort to develop a skill it atrophies. Practice by itself isn’t improvement. In many cases it’s just reinforcing bad habits, which is what I see every day when I’m closely watching the habitual people around me with years behind the wheel driving in a constant state of shock and awe.

When you consider that the last time most drivers made an effort to learn how to drive was when they needed to get a license, many of them are not only trapped in bad habits but have also forgotten what little they did pick up years ago. Bafflingly, insurance companies award these ‘expert’ drivers with lower rates. There is nothing expert about them.

People often say that riding a motorcycle on the street is a dangerous business and they aren’t wrong. Getting hit by a startled rabbit in a three ton metal box is gonna hurt no matter how startled they are. The trick is to see the rabbits and give them enough space to drive badly, it’s all they know how to do.

Post Election Rants (best of facebook)

10:12am, May 6: ‎61.4% voter turnout. Positive tax returns should be automatically applied to the national debt if voters can’t bother to do this simple thing.

11:15am, May 6: Wow, the conservatives even won our student vote. The future’s so bright, I’ve got to start building a post apocalyptic shelter!

Responses:

… the mob that elects politicians is only interested in their own affairs, they are incapable of looking at the greater good. We’re at the pinnacle of mob run society (call it democracy if you want to). In a thousand years, assuming there is anyone around to write about it, democratic capitalism will be described as the engine that (hopefully almost) destroyed human civilization.

Any society based on self interest and greed is doomed, it’s just a matter of time.

Nature never rewards mindless voracity, it seeks balance.

***

In response to “it’s better than if the NDP or Libs won it”

Go for a walking tour of Northern Alberta, you might think differently. Ask anyone one internationally connected how Canada’s reputation has dropped, especially over environmental misdirection.

Somehow, in the past 24 hours, 24% of Canadians have implicitly endorsed Parliamentary contempt. Perhaps we should just chuck the system entirely, if the ruling party ignores it, and the opposition parties are worse… Canadian democracy’s a sham!

Ive got to stop reading factual, science based books on climate change (http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.woa?b%3F9078791267844400000). No one else will care until it’s too late, they all want cheap gas and business as usual. Our business as usual is making slaves of our grand children. We’re not even intent on trying to find a way out, the majority just want things to stay the same.

Any aliens monitoring facebook? I”m ready to go back to the mothership!

***

May 3rd, 10:53pm: After another epic failure of the first past the post system in representing actual voter interest, think we have any chance of seeing a fair and representative system with King Stephen? I wouldn’t hold your breath. Can’t wait to see the voter turnout next time around. We’ve got to have one of the only democratic systems that actually encourages voter apathy.

More Responses (to it’s pretty much business as usual with a stable government, so why worry):

One in four people just voted for parliamentary contempt. In one riding a complete turd burger who openly lied to everyone got re-elected (nice one Oda). One in four Canadians have open contempt for our governmental system and support a party that does too (and now has a majority). If our democracy’s based on parliament, then it’s a sham.

Canada won’t become a dictatorship, but it will continue to be a shifty, lying international presence that says one thing, does another and makes slaves of future generations in the process.

Oh, and more than one in three Canadians couldn’t be bothered to vote at all. It’s not really a democracy, is it? It’s more like gangs of roving political interest groups in-fighting and self aggrandizing themselves (I say that about all of the parties).

Plugs, Calipers and Frozen Feet

The spark plug (bottom right) is easy to get to once
you remove the distributor caps mounted to the frame.

Yesterday began with a spark plug change on the Concours. There are two (for lack of a better term) distributor caps (CoG got me sorted, they’re coils!) in the shape of cylinders attached to the frame under the fuel tank. Removing these makes for a fairly straightforward spark plug swap. Someone had been in here before as one of the distributors wasn’t properly attached to the frame (the rear bolt was seized). With the unit removed it was relatively easy to free everything up in the vice.

I used to be pretty good at gapping plugs by eye, but I hadn’t done it in a while. I got better as I worked through the plugs and the last one only needed a minor adjustment. The plugs all came out without issue and the new ones went in by hand and then got torqued to spec (14Nm).

The two middle plugs are tucked in behind the radiator and don’t collect much road cruft. The two on the outside have a tougher life. Other than being filthy, the plugs didn’t show any internal issues.

With the plugs sorted and the under tank electrics cleaned and seated properly, I turned my attention to the rear brake caliper. I’ve got a replacement metal brake line, so the old rusty rubber one is going in the spares bin. The caliper came apart quite easily. The rear brake on the Concours has always been excellent, but was starting to whine as the pads got thin. With nothing seized and the main bits just needing a good cleaning, I think this will go back together nicely with new pads and brake lines. I’d meant to order a caliper rebuild kit from Canada’s Motorcycle, but my order got mixed up with a bearing puller I didn’t need. At least now I can tell you how good their return process is.

follow-up: I requested a return on January 24th and got a shipping label in a reply email a day latter (which I thought was good). I sent it off that day. I just got a confirmation email today (Feb 3 – 10 days later) saying it will be another 3-6 days before I see a refund… and I’m charged seven bucks for returning it. Compared to motorcycle-superstore.com’s over the top customer service (immediate, free returns, what can we do to prevent this happening in the future?), I’m left thinking twice about shopping on canadasmotorcycle.ca.

While I’m waiting on the rear caliper rebuild kit I can do the fronts, which is what I’m aiming to get done today. It’s officially frickin cold outside (-20°C overnight, -12°C now), and even with the thick rubber mats I’ve got down in the garage and the heater going, I still ended up with foot cramps from the cold at the end of three hours in there yesterday. Winter in Canada can get pretty tedious. This is one of those days. If someone called and said they could fly me somewhere warm to ride a bike next weekend, I’d be in heaven.

The two cylindrical distributor caps (COILS! bottom middle &
top right with the spark plug wires coming out of them)
are held down by two bolts. Once removed from the
frame spark plug access is straight forward.

A longer view of the spark plug.