Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

I Have An Exclusive For You Today

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I’m ridiculously excited to share something today, with you, my long-time readers and fans.

I have a novel coming out on April 7, the first of two (!) this year. [Insert squee noises] I’m revealing the cover here for the first time. Check out… Echoes of Another:

 

Here’s the plot:

In the groove. In the zone. A period of intense focus and high performance that feels effortless. Flow.

In a near future Toronto, a naïve young scientist named Kel invents a device to produce the mysterious state of ‘flow’ on demand, hoping to unleash humanity’s creative potential on our greatest problems. But the prototype she invents to record and then play back the neurological and physiological states associated with flow can be used to record other mind-body states. Her prototype is stolen, duplicated, and put to use for an astonishing range of causes, some good, and some very bad.

As Kel struggles to regain control of her device, it threatens to destroy her legacy and upend the lives of several others, until all uses of the technology converge on the most unexpected and unintended consequence of all.

Cool, yes?

It is available for pre-order right now as a Kindle ebook, and as a paperback. Annnnd…

If you’re on my advanced review team, you could be selected to get a free digital copy!

I’ll be giving away 10 digital copies of the book to readers who will give their honest reviews of the book on publication day. If you’re not on the advanced review team email list, you can sign up for that using the form below.

Of course, it goes without saying that I’d love it if you’d share this post on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media, or email it directly to any friends you think would like this book. Especially if you happen to know any book reviewers!

I look forward to hearing what you all think of it!

 



Mirror, Mirror…

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Mirror, Mirror
Image credit: Pixabay

They say truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes truth is created from fiction.

No, no, I do not mean the latest press releases from the US government or Britain’s Royal Family.

I’m referring to a system developed by a French company. It is a “mirror” that reflects the way you *might* look in the future.

The mirror is actually an LCD TV with a camera that projects your image on the screen. The rest of the system consists of a number of other cameras positioned throughout the house which help to record a ‘lifestyle profile.’ Special software will analyze the images and determine what you’ve been doing and then it will reprocess your current image to predict how you’ll look in a few years.

Too much time watching TV? The software will run the Add 20 Pounds Subroutine. Party every night until 3 a.m.? The system will run the Serious Eye Bags Algorithm. Sunbathing again? The image will be reprocessed with the Leather Skin Filter. I’m not sure if they’ve come up with a name for this program yet, but I’d suggest: DorianSoft.

Assuming this system is ever sold on a retail basis, there are three possible outcomes:

1. People will make more of an effort to stay fit and be good to themselves. (Hey, this is a humour column, right?)
2. The police will get a lot of calls from concerned neighbours. “Yes officer, he’s been shouting at a spot on the wall all morning. I swear he’s saying, ‘Oh yeah! Watch me eat this cupcake anyway!'”
3. The manufacturer of the system will get a lot of product returns; most of the cameras will have mysterious paint stains on the lenses or bullet holes through the casing.

Why won’t this work? Well for a number of reasons. First, if you want to consult something that remembers every instance of bad behaviour in your past and makes dire predictions about how you’re going to turn out, you can call your mother. Indeed, another good name for the software would be I Told You If You Kept Doing That Your Face Was Going To Freeze In That Position v2.0.

Second, you can’t help but be discouraged by the predicted image of yourself. For even if you avoid the sun, work out religiously, and sip water instead of scotch, you are still going to look, well, older. In fact, if this system becomes popular, I expect that after the initial sales rush, we’ll see a concurrent spike in the sale of those t-shirts that say: Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway.

The main problem, however, is that humans have a more powerful software application already installed called: Denial v409.7. We already know certain foods are bad for us, but we eat them anyway. We know we should exercise more often, but somehow we just never find the time. We play music too loud, and even though television programming reaches new lows every year, we still watch.

How do we break the Denial program? Well, one answer might be to turn over maintenance of it to a certain large software company famous for making operating systems. In no time, it would be full of spyware, Trojans, and security holes and would crash so many times people would stop bothering to reboot it.

Another way would be to design a system that uses positive reinforcement. Instead of watching for couch potatoism, it should make note of how many times you climbed the stairs in a day. Then it should project an image that predicts how you’d look if you climbed the stairs just a few more times a day. Accompanying the picture of the slimmer, svelter you could be a notice: Upgrade now, and all this could be yours!

Of course another way to improve yourself — and I say this hoping my children will one day read through my column archive — would be to just listen to your mom.

iWag the Dog

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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.