Work is Difficult.

Work is not easy.  Maybe eventually, but overcoming the base inertia of not working is often the challenge. 

This post is a distractive example of not working, despite the fact that it takes work to do this.

I say distractive because I should be doing something else, and that something else is big and important to me and difficult and terrifying. So this blog is easy.

I hope that by starting something easy (easier?) to write, I will get on a roll or into the practice of spewing my thoughts onto the page. If you are reading this and you go go back and look at my previous, sporadic posts, you may notice a common thread. That thread is not in the content, but in the amount of push they had on my thoughts towards sharing them with the world.

The big work is my PhD dissertation. I claim that computers could model humour appreciation. That is, a computer program could express some "reaction" to something humorous by following a version of the way humans do. I'm not claiming it will have MY sense of humour, but rather it would have ITS sense of humour. Of course this would be based on how it is "trained" and how it stores and retrieves its context. 

That's what we do: we learn a bunch about the world ("training and context"), we experience something surprising (unexpected in some way), we resolve that surprise in a safe manner (it's not going to kill us...), and then based on that surprise, the time it takes to resolve, and additional context we will react (laugh, snicker, snort, eye-roll, groan, ignore, etc.).

This is a lot! It is difficult. It is hard (in both the conventional and the computational sense). It has even been said that humour is NP-Complete. I don't know if I could prove this, but that would be a perfect outcome of this project. Doesn't solve humour... but at least it sets the level of challenge and gives us some ways to make accommodations and compromises to approximate the solutions.

All things in, though. I think this is enough effort on this for today. I will now move on to the big work.  And come back in a day or two with some distilation of that big work in progress... maybe.

*sigh*

Brains.

A God for Atheists?

Agnosticism as a Spectator Sport

I watch the verbal sparring between theists (usually monotheist or some close variant) and atheists (usually the "don't believe" and the anti-theist variants) and as I sit on the agnostic bleachers (the "cannot know" variant), I find myself wondering about the interplay between the belief and the existence of any god or gods.

I lightly JP this process with some definitions:

• universe - the collection of all energy and matter to which we (potentially) have access
• exist - A thing can be said to exist if it can act or be acted upon. This includes, but is not limited to everything in the universe (as defined).
• god - An entity that can choose to control at least one aspect of the universe.
• belief - A mentally held construct of some truth, whether grounded or not. Not a knowledge claim.
• theist - An entity that holds a belief that at least one god exists.
• atheist - An entity that holds no belief about the existence of gods.
• antitheist - An entity that holds a belief that no gods exist.

Belief Without God(s)

Suppose no god exists -- the theist's belief is false and the antitheist's belief is true. 

This might lead to some paradox if we hold to a truly "free will". By the definitions provided, we could be considered a god and therefore would exist and invalidate this supposition.

Belief With God(s)

Suppose at least one god exists -- the theist's belief is true and the antitheist's belief is false.

The existence of a god being in concordance with a belief that a god exists does not make any other claims about that god; the breadth and limits of the control that the god may choose to exercise are another consideration beyond existing.

• One Omni-God - This one god controls everything.
• One Supreme God (with 0 or more lesser gods) - One god controls everything but may delegate to others
• Pantheon - collections of gods who collectively control aspects of the universe. A pantheon could be directed by a supreme god.
• Belief Begotten God(s) -  gods that exist as a direct result of belief. The gods that people believe in come to exist and fulfill the details of the belief -- the breadth and limits of control. A kind of collective force of will to shape the universe. (The core concept of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods"

Who cares?

From the human perspective, either way, we just go through life making (what feels like) choices. 

From a god perspective (if any exist), the god or gods will go on making their choices for their reasons. Perhaps these choices are made with our intercession, or perhaps our pleas are ignored.

The whole point I am stalking here is that if god(s) exist, is it only the us who believes? Does everyone need to be a Claude Hooper Bukowski? Maybe not, but if no god believes in us -- acts with regard to our persons -- we may as well be in the position of there being no gods since we are irrelevant to them. And maybe if there is at least one god, then at least one god believes in antitheists despite (to spite?) the antitheist position.

But what do I know? 

(These thoughts are subject to change.)

Baby Steps

The Problem

After numerous attempts to get council to follow its own Procedure Bylaw 6250 and the Municipal Government Act by making inquiries and politely asking for justification, City Council has moved in the right direction. 

A bit.

They have actually started to address the agenda in official agenda order!

They have started to adopt amendments to the agenda before acting on those agenda items.

And sometimes --sometimes-- they follow the MGA before moving into closed session.

Not today, though. Also at least one time in the previous meeting. So maybe 10-20 times in the last year.

It shouldn't be that difficult. Madam City Clerk probably even has the motion on paper in front of the Mayor.

So where do I turn?

I've tried 311. I've tried Mayor and Council feedback form. I've tried conversations councillors. This is still a problem.

So I sent a message to the Minister with some details and asking for advice on how to proceed.

Time will tell.

Q and A: The struggles of getting answers from Lethbridge City Council (Part 1 of ?)

I posted a question for @LethbridgeCity council on X. The response was, "Talk to 311."

I hit up 311 on the chat on the City of Lethbridge website with the same question. The response was, "Send your question to Mayor and Council using the online form." (Available here: https://www.lethbridge.ca/council-administration-governance/mayor-and-councillors/)

I sent my question via the form.

I waited.

That was February 7th, 2024.

While I was waiting, I had more questions. @LethbridgeCity on X.com referred me to 311 who referred me to the Mayor and Council Form where I submitted my seven questions and a request for an answer.

Your worship and council,

With regards to the proceedings of the February 27^th, 2024 council meeting, I watched the broadcast of the meeting (those portions that were broadcast) and I have consulted the published agenda and subsequent minutes. I find that there are discrepancies between what I saw and what constitutes the official record:

·         Council moved to go into closed session at 12:30pm before the meeting was called to order at 1:30pm

·         The motion at 12:30pm to go into closed session references 3 items that were not on the published agenda.

·         When the agenda was adopted the three additional items presumably discussed in closed session were added to the agenda. These three added items were the only noted amendments to the agenda.

·         On the item of the Consent Agenda, the chair stated that the items in the consent agenda were those that were published in the agenda package, but there were two additional items added (and displayed on the screen) that were not on the published agenda nor on the amended agenda.

·         The minutes of the motion by Councillor Crowson at 2:47pm to go into closed session have more specific wording different from what was provided on the floor to the public in attendance.

·         There was no motion for nor mention of an amendment to OBM 6.1 nor to passing it as amended, but the motion in the minutes differs from the motion presented on the floor and in the agenda package.

Given that the “Agenda means the items of business of a meeting and the associated reports, bylaws or other documents and includes the order of business and time for said meeting” (Procedure Bylaw s.5(d) ), and that “If the agenda has been published, a Member may present an item as Urgent Business at the beginning of a meeting for inclusion on the Agenda” (Procedure Bylaw s.107(b)), and that “If a Council Member wishes to make change to the order of the agenda at the Meeting, the Council Member may, before the Agenda is adopted, make any such alteration by General Consent” (Procedure Bylaw s.110):

1)      Which Council Member presented items 14.3, 14.4 and 14.5 as Urgent Business at the beginning of the meeting? What was result of the vote to allow those items?

2)      Which Council Member wished to change the order of the agenda to consider items 14.1 through 14.5 earlier in the agenda? Was there general consent?

3)      Which Council Member wished to change the agenda to move items 14.1 and 14.2 into the consent agenda?

Both the MGA and the Procedure Bylaw give clear direction about holding meetings in closed session. From the Procedure Bylaw s.131: “Before holding a Closed Meeting, Council […] must adopt a motion, in a Meeting open to the public, that part of the Meeting be a closed meeting and the Motion must include: (a) the title of each item to be discussed; and, (b) the applicable provisions of the Act and/or FOIP.” From the MGA “197(4). Before closing all or any part of a meeting to the public, a council or council committee must by resolution approve (a) the part of the meeting that is to be closed, and (b) the basis on which, under an exception to disclosure in Division 2 of Part 1 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the part of the meeting is to be closed.”

4)      Did council pass a motion in an Open Meeting at 12:30pm to go into closed session for the stated purposes? Was the wording on the floor the same as that in the minutes?

5)      Did council fail to follow the requirements of the MGA and the Procedure Bylaw at 2:47pm when a non-conforming motion was put forward to go into closed session, which motion was passed and acted upon?

Given that the role of the Chair of any meeting includes the responsibility to preside over meetings and enforce the rules of the Procedure Bylaw, and that all Members having committed to the Council Code of Conduct Bylaw:

6)      Will the Mayor (as Chair) and any other Council Members commit to following the Procedure Bylaw in “the spirit of fairness, equality, and common sense”?

7)     Will the Mayor and other Council Members hold each other accountable to the Bylaws in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Code of Conduct Bylaw?

I look forward to your timely answers to these seven questions.

Regards,  

Stephen Graham

Lethbridge Alberta

And I waited.

That was March 5th, 2024.

On March 11th, I had an online chat with 311.

On March 12th, I submitted some more questions. This time directly to the Mayor and Council Form.

And I waited.

On March 25th, I was on a chat with 311 and did a follow-up on my 3 outstanding requests for information from Mayor and Council.

And I waited.

On March 28th, 2024, I happened to be in City Hall so I enquired at the 311 desk about this. The person at the desk referred me to call 311. I did.

The 311 person on the phone forwarded me to another person. I left a voicemail.

And I waited.

On April 8th, 2024, I phoned 311, I was transferred to the person tasked with resolving my questions. She apologized for the delay but there were some internal things happening. She was working on it and had to confer with colleagues. It would be 2-3 more days.

And I waited.

But today, April 18th, 2024 at 7:54 a.m., I received an e-mail from 311 Inquiry Resolution:

That's it. Not answers, just thanks for being interested, your concerns have been noted and forwarded.

I wonder how long I will have to wait to chat with the Mayor, City Manager, or City Clerk about this?

Is my next stop Municipal Affairs? The Ombudsman? Court of King's Bench?

I'm beginning to think council and administration don't want to be questioned.

No More Virtual Meetings!

I was invited to another virtual event. 

I figuratively snapped at the invitation, "THIS IS A REAL EVENT! It just happens to be online!"

In these modern times of actual remote workers (telecommuters, we used to be called) let's just acknowledge that online interaction with other humans is real. It may just be the most real experience we get with our colleagues/students/families. It is different, but still real.

My Teaching Experience

Teaching is challenging at the best of times. I think I'm doing okay with my online teaching at Lethbridge College. I don't even know how anyone even teaches elementary school at all, never mind online! 

I log in to my [very fast sounding platform] class and sometimes I have a few students arrive before me. They actually chat about their day and their classes. It almost feels like a regular, in-person class. Most, however, have their cameras and microphones off. I do ask them to share A/V because it helps them connect with each other and with me, but I cannot make it compulsory.

I say that it helps me. I'm sure that any other teachers would agree that the micro-feedback you get from a student's face will alway help guide the pace and direction of a class. If I can't see you with a blank look, I can't know that you are lost. I absolutely cannot differentiate between stunned silence and "mute". I even miss the cues I get from the old "You must have questions at this point-- Ask away!". In person, I can see who is trying to formulate questions and who is playing tower defence. I miss it.

My Employee Experience

Coffee. Going to the copier. Going to the loo. Lunch. Moving between classes. These are all things that I miss. These are the ephemeral opportunities to build community, solve problems, share successes (and failures), and generally engage in human interaction.

My area has done a fair job of trying to emulate that with the Centre Coffee chat on [another platform that is closely related to my operating system]. The few times that they have the meeting when I am available, it has been great to just hang out in the same "room" as my co-workers.

On the other hand we have back to back meetings--the bane of my online work experience. Everyone assumes that since there is no travel time required, we can always fill in all the time with a meeting. On the surface this seems like an efficiency-nut's dream-come-true! The sinister side is that a flurry of meetings does not leave time for any decompression or introspection before the next thing crashes in. I fear it encourages us to do "other work" during meetings. And that is bad because it takes us out of the moment.

My Personal Experience

I had opportunity to attend a networking/recruiting event a few nights ago, and I was pleasantly surprised by the platform that HackerX used to host. It provided a main stage, break-out rooms, networking, and the ability for one person to perform the technical support. I want to use this to bolster our business networking and experiential learning components of some courses in our program.

Games night is also a big thing for me. With one of my gaming groups, we meet every 2nd Wednesday online using [a search-engine related meeting platform] and play a selection of games on BoardGameArena.com. I also play Gloomhaven with another friend with the board and bits set up on my table and the [speedy] app sharing the visual. Not quite the same as being there (with the billion little things to do), but it beats NOT doing it.

We've had some shared meals with family (less successful since we all tend to talk at the same time). We've had some shared drinks with friends (more successful since we can drink while others are talking).

Not the same as "in person", but in some cases that is a blessing ;)

My Opinion

The technology is still lacking. 

Internet bandwidth and availability varies wildly around the world, across the country, and even across the city. So many problems might be reduced if we had consistent throughput. And if we didn't have to share with everyone else trying to cram video up and down congested "last-mile" loops.

Not everyone has a laptop. (Although I think the last stats I read suggested everyone has 1.75 phones...) Getting the compute power to crunch the video (and/or de-crunch the video) is crucial for this new meeting space to be seamless and appear real-time.

I wish we could have concurrent audio. Something that would pre-process incoming audio streams and present some kind of aggregate in real time. Conversation is already difficult: we use verbal and non-verbal cues to meter our conversations. When our apps choose to garble or mute overlapping conversations, we lose some of those cues. Our brains seem to be surprisingly good at differentiating speakers (from each other), so maybe the software could let us do that?

Ultimately, all of these experiences and opportunities are real. They happened to me, with me, near me. They affect my life and the lives of my friends, family, students, colleagues, and beyond. This is not "The real world gone virtual". This is just "the real world with some still-fledgling communication tools".

TLDR: This is reality. It isn't virtual.

Just sayin'.

Lethbridge Performing Arts Centre

Worshipful Mayor and Councillors,

Communities — whole and healthy communities— need a balance of culture and sports that include opportunities for all us. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in much needed sports facilities in the past decade. These crucial investments have been disproportionate, and performing arts investments have been continually pushed to the back-burner to accommodate them. It is beyond time to balance the scales.

There are many financial reasons to continue to move forward with a performing arts centre in Lethbridge. There is direct employment benefit in the construction, and lasting economic contribution from the space. StatsCan Provincial and Territorial Cultural Indicators, 2017, provides an estimate of the GDP of sports industries at $828 million, or 0.2% of the Alberta’s GDP. The contribution of culture at $5.3 billion is almost 6.5 times larger than the sports contribution. 

There are also important social reasons to continue moving forward. The impediment to building the performance arts center seems to be a misunderstanding of who it’s for. The argument tends to be along the lines of “hockey players need ice to play hockey”. That becomes dancers need a floor to dance. The problem is a hockey player goes out and plays hockey for the sake of playing hockey. They’re out there to do the thing they are doing. If someone’s watching them, that’s great. If they’re out there just playing hockey to play with their buddies, that’s also great. When a ballet company is out there to put on a ballet, it actually matters if there’s an audience or not. 

Unlike sports, performance of any kind is almost all about interacting with the audience. Performers need the right space, the right equipment, the right auditorium to interact with the audience. The spaces are not about the performers, they are about the interaction between the performers and the audience. The audience needs to be there for the performance to take place. If there is no audience, there is no performance.

The comparison between an athlete and a performer is strong to the extent that they both want to do well and be supported. A performance without an audience is NOT like a hockey player without a rink… it’s a hockey player without a team. 

The focus on performance arts spaces is often on those perceived as using them… the actors, the dancers, the singers, the bands, the orchestras, the performers. However, that’s NOT who the primary users of these spaces is… it’s the audiences who come to see the performances. That’s who we’re really cutting off every time any performance arts space in Lethbridge is postponed. There have been no additions of any dedicated performance-only spaces in Lethbridge since the Sterndale Bennett Theatre was added to the Genevieve E. Yates Memorial Centre…. nearly 30 years ago. 

I challenge you to think honestly and deeply about these points, and I urge you vote to maintain the drive and funding for a new performing arts centre in Lethbridge.

In earnest,

Stephen Graham

Lethbridge, Alberta

Edinburgh - 5 days in

I'm not yet a local, but I do have a bank account and an account with Scottish power (so I can have electricity and heat and such). Ah! the minutiae of foreign student life. If nothing else, it will give me some more appreciation of what my foreign students go through.

The city appears to be slowly returning to normal... about 10% of the foot traffic from Fringe, and I'm beginning to see the buildings behind the hoardings and the truss-work. 

Tomorrow is a big day for me. I will (probably) get my student card so I can use the library and go into buildings and meet people. For now, however it is a bit of boredom... maybe I will go get a few more things for the flat...

...like a coffee press...and some coffee.