Tim King's homepage with images and writing about technology, education, visual art and motorcycles!
Single digit temperatures make for a brisk ride. This one was down to Guelph Line before coming back home and warming up again. All photos taken with a Ricoh Theta 360 camera set to fire automatically every 6 seconds, attached to the rear view mirror using a flexible tripod. Here’s a walkthrough if you want to try it yourself.
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This post originally published on Dusty World, Thursday, 18 July 2013
Royan Lee’s Spicy Learning Blog (it’s in my list of favourites on the side of Dusty World), asks some hard questions as digital technology matures and reaches mass appeal…
“How are we going to do this, folks? How will we foster critical mindsets of what it means to check that I Agree button, especially in regards to students that are in our charge but not our own children?”
My response…
There is something about mass adoption that shifts a market from focusing on literate early adopters to the willfully ignorant masses. When the herd finally adopts a technology it becomes a race to reach the widest range of people (including the lowest denominator).
When they started manufacturing automobiles in the early 1900s each one was hand crafted, almost unique and required either your own personal mechanic or you were the mechanic. As automobiles became more popular, the landscape changed, systems became synchronized, the car became a cookie cuttered piece of mass assembly designed in more complicated ways to ask less of the driver – the only sense of individuality was found in the frantic marketing. The technology itself matured into operator simplicity in order to get even the most incompetent people behind the wheel.
Sound familiar Microsoft? Google? Apple? Fanboy/girlism is one of the clearest signs that we’ve moved past the early adopter stance on digital technology and are now catering to the main stream (I say that in the most derogatory way possible) where marketing dictates sales because the majority of people have no idea how the technology works. It’s in this environment that giant legal documents creep in to user agreements and business finds more insidious ways to make use of the ignorant consumer.
If you look at owner’s manuals from long ago they were full of technological information on how the product worked (so you could fix it). Nowadays you get legalese and idiot diagrams designed to hide the inner workings. The machines themselves are even put together intentionally to prevent you from repairing them.
The only real way to save yourself from the vapid consumerism and accompanying ignorance that drives mass adoption is through the hacking ethos of maker culture; this has never died. Cars are being stamped out for the unwashed masses by multi-nationals but there has always been a thriving underground of maker/hackers who ignore the rules designed for the ignorant and come to relate to the technology in a direct, more complete way.
If you want to save yourself and your students from this ignorant, consumerist relationship with technology then find their inner hacker! Get into the nuts and bolts and bend technology to your will. Using your hands and your head to get inside the machines sold to us frees you from the consumerist trap. Freedom is only a hack away!
Some reading to save your mind:
http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/ a brilliant, modern attack on consumerist thinking and the power of your hands to save you
… and the follow up: http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/new-page-1-1/
I used to have links to the maker manifesto here but evidently it’s been turned into a book and isn’t available online any more. That says something about the current state of the maker movement…
Don’t give up! Just don’t follow the road more travelled, even if it’s paved for you by people determined to monetize you…
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| MediaSmarts: Battling Consumerism |
1997 Honda CBR900RR parts, but I’m buying too many online when I’d rather buy them locally. For someone who would rather support local business, I’m frustrated at the lack of competent parts people. Canadian Tire needs to do better.
Fram oil filters:
The oil filter for the CBR is a fairly common filter – but the big Canadian Tire in Guelph didn’t have one… or anything else I needed. It’s things like this that force me online to purchase when I’d rather just purchase locally.
Strangely, the Walmart across the street, the only place I can find the Mobil 1 oil Triumph calls on for the Tiger, had an oil filter for the Honda. Not a great weekend for Canadian Tire. You can’t really brag on having 200,000 parts if your sales rep can’t find any of them.
Winter flushing oil:
This is what I’m going to put in the Honda over the winter as it gets sorted. In the spring I’ll do a flush and go with Mobil 1 synthetic.
The only place I can find the Mobil 1 is at Walmart – it’s the only time I usually go there. Since I’m already there for the Tiger, I’ll go for 7 litres and do the Tiger and CBR with the same super-oil. Running the Mobil 1 in the Tiger has stopped any oil burning in it. It’s good stuff.
K&N Filters for CBR900:
https://www.knfilters.ca/honda/cbr900rr/900/1997
The HA-9092-A air filter is a strange thing – I thought the filter element would pop out of the plastic, but it’s a single (expensive) manufactured piece. Finding these is tricky. You can find cheap, paper filters for about $40 a go, but I found the K&N on Amazon for $120CAD, so that’s going in and getting cleaned regularly. That should pay for itself within three changes.
I’m not in a place where I’m going to put the front end back together again and pop in the replacement LED when it comes in this week. With the replacement carb from NCK Salvage in hand, I’m going to try and rebuild as much of the Honda as I can over the long weekend (it’s Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada).
The Strange World of Dash Bulbs:
12v 1.7W wedge dash light is the warning light bulb needed for a ’97 Honda CBR900RR. These are hard to find – Canadian Tire was no help and the girl at the parts desk in Guelph couldn’t remember the numbers for parts, so I gave up on trying to find them. I want to buy locally, but with that kind of floor help, it just isn’t happening.
I found LED replacement lights that should last better and use less electricity in the process on Amazon.
This light search led to a crash course in bulb sizing. The dash lights on the CBR900RR are T-5 Wedge 12v 1.7W bulbs. T5 means it has a 5mm base. In this case they’re 1.7cms long on that 5mm base. The LED should be cooler, use less electricity and be brighter.
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Baseline photography for this 1971 Triumph Bonneville restoration project:
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Having never had on-bike storage before, or a bike designed to cover big distances, I’m thinking about what I could leave in the bottom of the panniers to keep us on the road.
Here’s the short list so far:
A bike specific multi-tool, this BikeMaster metric device covers a lot of bases in terms of general usefulness.
$16.18 from canadasmotorcycle.ca
300g
Puncture Repair Kit. Many moons ago I used to do this at Canadian Tire, so plugging a tire is nothing new, and if I’ve got the bits I need on the road I’ll be able to get us going again in short order.
$~20 from Canadian Tire
200g
Yukon Steel Multitool. I use a generic one at work all the time. They work well and I don’t need a fancy brand to somehow validate my handiness.
$30 from Canadian Tire
325g
I’m also going to grab a lightweight nylon tarp. You can get tough, camping ready ones that only weigh about 500 grams and fold up into the size of an envelope. Along with a little roll of duct tape, small hand pump, some nylon string and a mini wd40 can, I’d have a very light and small collection of handy bits and pieces that would keep us moving if we ran into a problem.
Deerhurst Resort to Algonquin Park and back again, chased by the rain.
Algonquin Park in the rain at the height of autumn colours. The Theta 360 camera held up but I eventually pocketed it when the deluge become too heavy. The camera is mounted on a ball mount on the handlebars and set to fire automatically every 10 seconds. Photos captured in the Theta camera app and then modified/enhanced in Photoshop.
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| This is the raw photo out of the camera. The fixed lense doesn’t collect a lot of light, so on a dim, rainy day like this the image is quite muddy. I brought up the shadows in Photoshop and the result (with a bit of cropping) is the same photo above. |
If you’re curious about how to put together on-bike photos, check this how-to out. It’s also available on Adventure Bike Rider Magazine’s site here. You can pick up a simple 360 camera for a couple of hundred bucks. Fully waterproof ones (which I obviously need) start a bit higher.
Post from RICOH THETA. – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
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If you’re up in the Muskokas, this is a nice ride. It’s about 60kms through Canadian Shield/lake of the woods on some very non-southwestern Ontario windy roads. It started off overcast but then the sub broke through and painted the already incredible October Ontario fall-colours with a nuclear paintbrush.
The Concours and I managed it in about 90 minutes from Huntsville to just outside of Port Carling. The road is in reasonable condition (for Ontario) and it’s never dull. The initial bit on Muskoka Road 3 is a nice warmup, but it’s the 632/7 from Rosseau to Highway 118 that really pops!
It sure is pretty in October…
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More notes from Phoenix, along with some editorializing:
Education is an analogue, non-linear, complex, biological process because we are non-linear, complex, biological organisms. Data and the technology that produces it are none of those things. Data might point to a vanishingly small piece of this complex puzzle, but it will never explain, justify or encompass education, no matter what vested interests might tell you.
Digital technology is turning our thinking binary. How do you feel today? A) good B) bad By participating in this data gathering process you have reduced your complex mental state to an absurdity. Every question is reductive, every piece of data a feathery abstraction of a deeper, more complex meaning. Every time education acts on this reductive logic it becomes less a form of human expression and more an act of compliance with digitally limited technology. There is a branch of thinking that suggests that this is simply because technology hasn’t become fast and vast enough to manage the data, but even at its best digital technology will always be limited to how it works. Even at near infinite speeds with infinite amounts of data you’re still reducing reality to ones and zeroes, which it isn’t.
Mastery is the result of genuine experience. No one ever gained mastery from taking a test.
The answer to that one is obvious: it’s cheaper and easier to manage if we grossly simplify learning to the point of abstraction. Of course, that kind of hypocrisy and self-serving nonsense provokes awkward questions:
It’s on this year and this time it’s a four event season! If you’re anywhere near Ontario hop on your bike and come along for a great day of riding: Sunday June 11th, Saturday July 22nd, Saturday August 19th and Friday October 13th. Pick your day(s)!
Last summer my motorcycle buddy Jeff and I did our first long distance motorcycle scavenger hunt/rally, it was a blast! We spent an exhausting, hot, August day covering more miles than anyone else. Our lousy trip planning skills aside, we had a great day seeing all sorts of hidden spots we’d never seen before. I just found out that Lobo Loco is back for 2017, and bigger than ever!
Last year Jeff and I decided to ride out of the cities because neither of us really like riding in the urban pall. We rode along miles of country roads through scenic little towns all the way to the shores of Huron before working our way back to Brantford, arriving with three whole minutes to spare.
through the back roads of Southern Ontario stopping to take pictures of some of the most bizarre roadside items, signs, or places… things that will make you say, “WTF?!”| The stop in Lucan had us wanting to return to get some garage art… |
| Over an hour on sand and sand covered pavement getting to a single stop on the shores of Lake Huron was our biggest navigational error (too much time for too little reward). Even then, it helped get us the iron butt high mileage award and it was all part of the adventure. |
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Originally published on Dusty World, March, 2014.
The Google Apps for Education (GAFE) ‘Summit’ is this weekend. I’m not there and I’m comfortable with that. There is nothing in Google that I haven’t been able to figure out on my own and I use Google extensively, they make good products.
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| Last week’s Elearning Ontario Presentation |
Last week I presented at elearning Ontario on how to create a diverse digital learning ecosystem. You’d think that educators would want to get their hands on as wide a variety of tools as possible in order to not only provide the best possible digital learning support for their students but to also increase their own comfort zone in educational technology. In the mad rush to digitize the vast majority of people want as little expertise to accompany it as possible, they would much rather find a closed ecosystem in which they can develop a false sense of mastery.
If you hyper focus on one thing you tend to get an inflated sense of your abilities. I wouldn’t trust a mechanic who can only work on Ford brakes or a teacher who can only work out of Pearson textbooks, I’d have to assume they’ve learned by rote rather than developed mastery. I know it’s hard work, but becoming fluent in digital tools requires some time, some curiosity and some humility and that’s ok.
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| A colleague showed me this last year and it has been on my mind ever since. |
The idea that you get a qualification under a single brand and have somehow become a master of digital learning is misleading. But the limits of evangelizing a single digital learning ecosystem go well beyond questionable professional practices around branding teachers with private company logos. There is also the question of how these technologies are mining education for profit.
If you live within a monopolistic education technology environment you can never be sure what they are doing with the data they are managing for you ‘for free’. That data is worth a lot of money. Even if it’s being stripped of names, the ethics of exchanging student marketing data for a ‘free’ digital learning environment has to be questioned. In a monopolistic situation that questioning doesn’t happen. Only an open, fair digital learning environment allows us to demand higher standards from companies who are otherwise singularly focused on making money in any way that they can.
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| Wouldn’t an opensource hardware model that allows us to teach all technology platforms be a nice idea? The Learnbook |
Some links to consider:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2014/04/google_amends_its_terms_on_sca.html
“Google would not answer questions about whether its data-mining practices support the creation of profiles on student users.
Google also confirmed to Education Week that its general terms of service and privacy policy apply to student users of Apps for Education, a stance contrary to the company’s earlier public statements.”
http://www.osapac.org/cms/sites/default/files/Memo%20-%20Contract%20Addendums.pdf
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| OSAPAC has worked out a deal that doesn’t sell off Ontario Students’ data, but it’s a secret, and each board has to implement it themselves. The mysteries of information in the information age… |
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23gafesummit&src=typd&mode=users
Tweets on this weekend’s GAFE summit in Kitchener/Waterloo… the koolaid tastes good.
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