Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

iWag the Dog

by Leave a Comment

dogs-430192_1280

With the cure for cancer still on the distant horizon, a group of students at MIT has decided to create a digital dog collar. The project was for a MIT Media Lab class in which they were asked to come up with user-friendly computer tools.

Called SNiF (Social Networking in Fur), the collar had many functions. First, onboard sensors would record a dog’s interactions with other dogs equipped with SNiFs (as opposed to other dogs equipped with sniffers).

Further, the owner could press buttons on a leash to tag the interaction as being friendly or unfriendly. These interactions were recorded on a secure web page, where an owner (or perhaps the dog) could look up the dog’s walking and interaction history. A sample history (which, if you had a retriever, might be called a lab report) might look like this:

October 31

Encountered: Rover

Dog Type: Jack Russell

Duration: 3.4 minutes

Tag: Friendly

November 2

Encountered: Patches

Dog Type: Miniature Chihuahua

Duration: 1.2 seconds

Tag: Owner stepped on Patches. Patches no longer in database.

November 3

Encountered: Muffin

Dog Type: Pit Bull

Duration: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Tag: Painful. Stitches coming out on Friday.

November 4

Encountered: Yorks

Dog Type: Yorkie

Duration: 20 minutes

Tag: Bark worse than bite.

November 5

Encountered: Goober

Dog Type: St. Bernard

Duration: 1 minute

Tag: Wet

When out on a walk, the collar would display various light patterns to tell the owner if they were approaching a friendly former acquaintance or a foe. Obviously, this provides an excellent backup system in case your dog’s sense of smell ever fails, his tail falls off, or his bark disappears.

A spokesperson for MIT, Emily Pallamore, was quoted as saying: “The SNiF collar would make it possible for the dogs to get together with their chums without my having to set up an inconvenient and possibly socially awkward play date.” To my mind, this statement brings up several issues:

  1. Given that dogs sniff each other’s patoots by way of greeting, exactly what qualifies as a “socially awkward” play date in the dog world?
  2. Somewhere in the world there are people who, in all seriousness, not only set up play dates for their dogs but worry about the possibility of social awkwardness during same.
  3. Whatever Ms. Pallamore was paid for saying that, in public, with a straight face, it wasn’t enough.

To be fair, in addition to helping you deal with dog socializing stress, the collar had a potentially very useful lost dog function. Assuming your dog was still wearing his collar, you could attempt to track down your pooch by checking what other dogs he’s interacted with since his escape. In this case a sample history might look like this:

November 5

Encountered: Missy

Dog Type: Poodle

Duration: 10 minutes

Tag: Very friendly. Puppies on the way.

November 5

Encountered: Sasha

Dog Type: Poodle

Duration: 10 minutes

Tag: Very friendly. More puppies on the way.

November 5

Encountered: Powderpuff

Dog Type: Poodle

Duration: 10 minutes

Tag: Very friendly. Still more puppies on the way.

Actually this brings up a point: what happens when the dog and the owner disagree about how to judge an encounter? Clearly, your dog would judge interactions with Missy, Sasha, and Powderpuff as being tops, but I’m thinking you’d like to avoid the owners of these dogs – else you’d be looking after the results of all that poodle canoodling.

And just how secure will the collar transmissions and web pages be? Will other dogs be able to dig up dirt on their playmates? Fetch data on who has been seeing who? Will Fifi get hot under the digital collar if Fido doesn’t show any fidelity?

I’m pretty sure she’d have a bone to pick with him. And you know what they say: every dog has it’s day.

 m here does not imply her endorsement or warranty.

Free Email Updates
Get the latest content first.
We respect your privacy.

Sing a Song of Sixpence (Or More)

by Leave a Comment

Sing a song of sixpence

Some time ago, a handwritten lyric sheet — a piece of paper — for “All You Need is Love” used by John Lennon in 1967, sold for $1.04 million.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Historically, there has always been big money in music — as witness this list of groups, albums and the revenue earned from their biggest hits in days gone by:

Aelfric and the Thanes: Damn Those Normans — 1.2 million denari

Paucar, Paullu and Maras: If I Had an Incan Hammer — 1500 llamas

The Sex Derringers: Queen Victoria Ain’t Amused — 3.4 million pounds

The amount of money at stake explains why the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other similar organizations went as far as to sue grandmothers and five-year-olds for downloading music. And if that warm and friendly approach failed to protect their interests, music media manufacturers put anti-copying protection on CDs. Given the number of MP3s and copy protection cracking tools already out there, this was kind of like closing the barn door after the horse left, got a job in the city, raised a family in the ‘burbs and retired to southern France.

Why is there so much money in tunes? Perhaps because music is such a fundamental part of our biology. Children learn to respond to music by clapping and dancing usually before they can walk and talk. I’m not sure I understand why we evolved this way, as it seems to me that the ability to run away from, not dance for, a sabre-toothed tiger would have been a more useful survival trait. Never mind.

Maybe music is important to us because the life cycle of a tune can be said to mimic the stages of human life:

Birth: Song is an underground cult favourite
Teen Years: Hits the Top 40 charts, played endlessly
Twenties/The College Years: Song disappears from active, productive life, is a drain on finances while publishers pay to keep it listed in the catalogues
Thirties: Song suddenly becomes cool again on retro radio stations
Forties: Song now only played on ‘adult contemporary’ stations, elevators.
Fifties: Regains some of it’s former coolness when golden oldies stations play it.
One hundred plus: Becomes a classic simply because it hasn’t dropped into complete obscurity after one hundred years.

If the comparison between songs and the human lifespan is valid, that means three things:

1. All the world’s a clock radio, and all the men and women merely sound bytes.
2. Given enough ink, time and decent wine, your average columnist can come up with comparisons which sound plausible but which really are complete nonsense. The difference between opinion page columnists and humour columnists is that we admit we’re talking through our hats.
3. There’s an outside chance that a song performed by Britney Spears may become a classic because of all the media attention her various relationships get. Please, prevent this from happening by allowing her to fade into dignified obscurity before the retro stage.

It’s also possible that music is highly valued because it’s intimately connected to our emotions, although I’m not sure why that’s the case either. To be overly sensitive to certain combinations of sounds makes us very vulnerable. Heavens, what if the sabre-toothed tigers had evolved the ability to sing the blues? They wouldn’t have had to hunt us so much as depress us, using music to manipulate us for their own evil purposes, much like advertising jingle writers do today.

Whatever the reason for music’s importance, I just wish I could cash in. Perhaps if I set this column to music? Would this piece someday be worth $1.04 million too?

Nah, I didn’t think so either.

Photo Credit: Geralt / Pixabay

Married (And Travelling) With Children

by Leave a Comment

plane-102456_1280

Erma Bombeck once said that when you look like your passport photo, it’s time to come home. It’s good advice, but if I’d followed it, I think I’d have done a u-turn about an hour into our first major trip.

You see, we made the trek from our home in Canada to the south coast of England. And I did it with a toddler in tow.

Don’t get me wrong: my son behaved wonderfully. It’s just that he’s was a one-year-old.

It started out with a train ride to the airport. First, we had to reassure him that the huge metal thing that just came thundering into the station was not as scary as it seemed. Then came the baggage and baby ballet – a complicated dance which involved A) whisking our child out of the stroller B) folding the stroller C) swearing and hopping up and down because the stroller had mashed a hand D) grabbing the 10 kg bag of our clothes and toiletries, the 20 kg bag of laptops, my purse, the stroller, and the 450 kg bag which contained my son’s toys, diapers, food, clothes and books and then E) heaving them all onto the train while holding our toddler and F) whimpering our way to our seats, having destroyed most of our back muscles.

Next came the train ride, which was to take about three hours. This went something like:

ME: Okay, let’s get out the shape sorter.
HIM: Ga! [Sort, sort, sort, FLING!]
ME: Okay, how about the stacking ring?
HIM: Ya! [Stack, stack, stack, FLING!]
ME: Right. Okay, how about I read you this book?
HIM: Again!
HIM: Again!
HIM: Again!
HIM: Again!
HIM: [FLING!]
ME: Okay, right then what about this?
HIM: [FLING!]
ME: And this?
HIM: [FLING!]
ME: Dear, how much further?
HUBBY: Oh, I’d say we’ve got about another two hours and fifty minutes.

This is not to say my husband didn’t do his fair share. He took our son for frequent walks up and down the carriage, a task from which he has yet to recover. This is because our son currently walks on his own with help, and that means my husband had to bend at awkward angle to hold wee little hands, trying to maintain his balance as the train swayed over track that hasn’t been repaired in twenty years. I’m still amazed they didn’t end up in the laps of the passengers in row four.

From the train we had to get to the subway. Unfortunately, we arrived in Toronto in late afternoon; thousands of cubicle workers were making their daily dash to the commuter trains. To say it was difficult to get three people, four bags and a stroller through these crowds would be an understatement. I now sympathize with those salmon that have to swim upstream.

From the subway (heave, push, shove) to the bus (struggle, grunt, wheeze) and at last, the airport. Here, having arrived the prescribed two hours before boarding, it took … five minutes to get through security. Please note there are exactly zero things for a one-year-old to do in an airport lounge. We resorted to walking him around the lounge to try to wear him out (“please sleep on the plane, please sleep on the plane…”). Thirty circuits later, we were exhausted; he was just getting warmed up.

And finally, the flight. Apart from the bad food, poor air quality, tiny seats and zero leg room, things were great. The best part was when the pilots misjudged the timing of turbulence. Just as we were in desperate need of a diaper change, they told everyone to buckle up. So we waited… and waited… and nothing happened. Off came the lights, and we dashed to the restroom. And *that’s* when the turbulence hit. For those of you eating lunch just now, I won’t describe what happened.

Only one thing spoiled our joy when we finally arrived at our destination: The thought that we’d have to it all again to get home. So I have just one thing to say to the scientific community:

Will you *please* hurry up and invent those transporter beams?

 

Rent

by Leave a Comment

for-rent-148891_1280
If you’re doling out any sympathy this week, please spare some for landlords everywhere.

Hey, hey, HEY — I know this is a humour column, but that line wasn’t meant to be funny.

Okay, look, I know there are plenty of landlords out there who are bad. Okay, awful. Alright, fine, there are some landlords out there that are evil, mean-spirited and nasty. And yes, I know you still haven’t gotten over being evicted on that Christmas Eve during the blizzard of ’78.

But consider for the moment that they didn’t start out that way. That maybe, just maybe, they started landlording with the best of intentions —  you know, as nice, compassionate humans who wanted to invest in something solid, to provide decent accommodations at reasonable prices and who hoped for a modest return.

Now cut that out. That part wasn’t meant to be funny either.

Yes, in case you hadn’t guessed it by now, I have been a landlord. My spouse and I didn’t set out to become landlords; we had to a few years ago and it’s a “life experience” from which we may never recover.

Let’s start with finding tenants. Simple, right? Place ad in paper, take phone calls, screen potential candidates, fill vacancy.

Except that city newspaper ads are *expensive* and renters hardly ever read the paper. As the weeks dragged on, I found myself feeling a surge of hope every time the phone rang. It’s like waiting by the phone for a date, only worse, because the bills are piling up.

Eventually we clued in and plonked a $10 “FOR RENT” sign out front. Within a few hours, we had five calls. Hooray! One early mistake, but the rest would be smooth sailing. Except…

APPLICANT 1: So like, I don’t have a job yet, but, like, I could just move in right? And like, pay you when I get work?
ME: Like, no.

APPLICANT 2: Hi. [puff]. So umm, [puff] yeah, I’m employed. [puff] I can get you pay stubs [puff] and stuff.
ME: Are you aware you just set fire to your trousers?
APPLICANT 2: [Extinguish] Bummer, man. [Puff] Heh-heh. That happens a lot.
ME: That’s not tobacco you’re smoking, is it son?

APPLICANT 3: [ROWRF! ROWRF!] And here’s my driver’s-[ROWRF! GRRRRR!] BANDIT! For @#$%^!’s sake, shutup! [ROWRF!] Bandit! What the @#$%!^! did I just say to you? @#$%ing dog!
ME: Hey, ah, isn’t that one of the dogs they just banned?
APPLICANT 3: [GRRRRR!] SHUT UP BANDIT! @#$%! No, she’s only a half-breed. I got three more that are purebreds though. Hey [ROWRF!] BANDIT! You’re not going to avoid renting to me because of my dogs, are you? That’s discrimination! My brother just happens to be a lawyer, and I’ll sue!

Eventually we found a few tenants that seemed like reasonable, normal people. Except…

TENANT1: Yes, hello, the tenant upstairs is playing music.
ME: It’s 2 a.m. Why are you calling me? Go ask him to turn it down.
TENANT1: I can’t.
ME: Why not?! It’s that loud?!
TEANANT1: Oh, no, it’s not very loud. But it’s the Backstreet Boys, and I really don’t like that band. You’d better fix this. I’ve got this cousin who’s a lawyer, and-

Or…

NEIGHBOUR: I’ve got a bone to pick with you!
ME: It’s 3 a.m. This had better not be about the Backstreet Boys. Who is this?
NEIGHBOUR: I live next door to your rental property. Your tenant is a real problem.
ME: Why?
NEIGHBOUR: He *stepped* on my *lawn* two days ago.
ME: You don’t say! This is much too big for me. I’d say the police should hear about this.
NEIGHBOUR: Fine! Be smart. But guess what? My uncle’s cousin’s daughter is a lawyer, and-

At least I can take comfort in the fact that everything else works well. Tenants always pay their rent on time, and never do anything like flood the entire upstairs unit, or abandon their apartments and leave strange things like a box of skunk pelts (I don’t know), or a leather bullwhip (I really don’t *want* to know) behind. Yes, the rest of it works just fine…

Except…

Photo Credit: Open-Clipart Vectors / Pixabay