Michael Robert Dyet's Blog, page 67

RAINY DAY YEARNINGS OF A NATURE LOVER

“For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.” Greek Philosopher Aristotle

Hmmm, where shall I find the patience to wait out a rainy Saturday when nature calls so imploringly for my attention?

Rainy Saturdays in summer put me in a restless state of mind – particularly when the weather during week that led into it was picture perfect. It seems like the fates have a personal grudge against me.

I know that I should heed Aristotle’s wisdom. It is just one of the 93 days of summer that only officially arrived yesterday. Perhaps my impatience is subtly nudged by the fact that the days in the northern hemisphere begin to get shorter, albeit by small degrees, after summer solstice. It seems like the countdown has already begun.

“Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”  Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda

I think I’m of the same frame of mind as Neruda when it comes to June. I tremble with impatience and flutter nervously like a butterfly as I wait for the chance to indulge myself in summer’s excesses.

I so desperately want to set my eyes upon a Great Spangled Fritillary – one of the most striking of the butterflies that make themselves at home here. Golden orange as if reflecting back the sun. Painted by the Maker’s hand with black scallops, eyespots

and eyebrow like squiggles. Perched for effect on a spiky purple wildflower.

June is the season of Clubtail dragonflies. The Unicorn Clubtail, with its distinctive gold claspers and yellow arrow spikes running down the tail, is already entering old age in the short lifespan of dragonflies. I really would like the opportunity to tip my cap to it before its days are over for this year.

Painted Lady butterflies should have made their way north across the Great Lakes and arrived here about now. In my mind’s eye, I see their fast and erratic flight across the fields. Imagine tracking one to where it perches and waiting to watch the wings open with a crescendo to reveal the gaudy mix of orange, pink, black and white.

Perhaps this is the summer I’ll finally see the legendary Dragonhunter with its striking yellow thoracic stripes. The Field Guide tells me it’s a huge dragonfly with powerful legs and that it seems immune to the effects of certain wasp stings and to the toxins in the Monarch butterflies it eats. What a shame if one should wander into one of my favourite summer haunts and leave again before the weather clears.

Such concerns may seem foolish to you. But to me, the sight of these creatures is a moment of joy seized from the wheel of chance. Each one is a metaphor for the mystery and pageantry of nature that calls to me and brings peace to my soul when I’m surrounded by it.

Fortunately,18th Century British politician, philanthropist and scientist John Lubbock reaches across the centuries and assures me that I am not alone.

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – mAn Internet-enhanced www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog . Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

 

Technology, Aldous Huxley and Bus Shelter Shopping

“Technological progress has merely provided us more efficient means for going backwards.” ~ Aldous Huxley

Hmmm, have our technological wizards lost their way in the quest to invent the next big thing?

I’ve always been a bit equivocal about technological advancement. I don’t dispute that on many fronts it has exponentially improved our lives. But more and more these days, I’m seeing the equation from Huxley’s perspective.

Three new technology leap-forwards came to my attention today. They seem both intriguing and frivolous at the same time.

Technology Leap-Forward #1: A new e-book company called “Total Box” has developed a pay-as-you-go reading model. Their technology tracks your reading progress so you only pay for the portion of the book you read if you decide you don’t like the book.

“Total Box”  representatives claim “it takes the pressure off readers when it comes to book buying decisions”. Some authors are calling it “the work of the devil”.

As a writer myself, I suppose I should be upset as well. But instead I find myself thinking: Really? You’re a technological genius and this is the best you’ve got to offer?

Technology Leap-Forward #2: “Points” – An intelligent street sign built to display a flexible range of data that apparently can monitor your tweets and, based on their content, point you to a restaurant in the area that you would supposedly enjoy.

But wait! There’s more. It can be programmed to change based on the time of day (i.e. are you hungry for breakfast or dinner) or the needs of a particular setting (i.e. sports scores at a stadium). Intriguing, yes. But, is where I’m going to eat tonight really such a burning question that someone needed to spend years developing technology to help me decide?

Technology Leaf-Forward #3: Walmart and Proctor & Gamble have launched mobile stores inside 50 Toronto bus shelters. You can scan QR codes on your mobile device to order Pampers diapers, Tide detergent or Crest toothpaste and have it delivered to your home.

Well, that’s a huge weight off my mind. I’ve been lying awake at night worrying that I might run out of detergent or toothpaste before I have time to go to the store to replenish my supply. I’ll sleep well tonight knowing I can drop by the nearest bus shelter to place my order.

Is it just me or are our technology saviours getting a little bit off course? I can think of a few areas where their time might be better spent. Finding a cure for cancer. Developing ways to feed starving people in third world countries. Minimizing our impact on

the earth we live on so the next generation won’t have to live with the consequences of our neglect.

The wheel is one of the oldest metaphors for the advance of technology. But it seems like the wheel has begun to turn backwards or, at the very least, is taking us down side roads that lead to nowhere.

A GPS device that points these technology wizards in a more productive direction – now that’s a technology leap-forward we would all appreciate.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog . Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Lessons Learned from an Olive-Winged Drake Mayfly

Hmmm, is the delayed arrival of summer meant to teach me more than just patience?

I’m bubbling over with impatience as I wait out this cool and wet start to the season. Delving into my store of nature photos helps to pass the time. Forced to live variously through them for now, I find greater depths of beauty in them than I might otherwise have discovered.

Horace's Duskywing

I learn from this photo that it’s not always the beauty inherent in the creature itself that is so striking. Sometimes it is the chance intersection in time and the layers of fine detail that paint the picture. This unspectacular Horace’s Duskywing had the good sense to perch on a bright yellow sunflower.

I notice now the mirrored, arrowhead shaped leaves pointing north-south like the needle of a compass. Next, the east-west facing leaves that balance the subtle symmetry. Finally, the ten golden yellow petals lovingly cradling the mottled brown skipper butterfly as it feeds and cross-pollinates in the process.

Great Blue Skimmer

The lesson in this photo – fortune often has a role to play. The blurred, three-sided frame of marsh reeds focuses the eyes attention on this Great Blue Skimmer posing oh so patiently as if it knows the exquisiteness of the moment.

The detail is all by chance. The spiky spines of the legs grasping the reed. The bulging turquoise eyes. The lacework of black veins in the wings accentuated by dark streaks at the base and curving at the wing tips. The smoky blue segments of abdomen. I’d like to say I waited twenty minutes to capture it all. But the truth is it happened by chance in the moment.

Olive-winged Drake Mayfly

Here I learn that sometimes it is all about shapes.  This Olive-winged Drake Mayfly photo is all about curves, angles and textures against the understated chaos of shades of green.

The Mayfly, with its almost impossibly long scissor tail, seems to have contorted itself to match the curve of the leaf on which it perches upside down. The branch angling to the left and the arching leaves, with the arcing veins within them, all seem to be pointing and beckoning to the Mayfly which is itself a perfection of curves and arches and too easily overlooked symmetry.

I can’t shake off the impatience for summer to finally take hold. But as I wait, I learn that each creature is a metaphor for beauty in a different form – the interplay of colours, the exquisite details, the symmetry of contours and profiles. Lessons learned that will make me appreciate summer all the more once it finally arrives.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog . Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

 

Blood in the Water While Oklahoma City Mourns

Hmmm, how many important news stories will be relegated to page two before the Rob Ford controversy runs its sordid course?

Try a Google search for “top news stories” at this very moment. It is pretty much a sure thing that one of the top 10 will be the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of beleaguered Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

For my readers from other areas of the country, you need to know that Rob Ford is a shoot-from-the-hip, unapologetic local politician who attracts criticism in much the same way that road kill attracts vultures. A simple Google search of his name currently delivers 399,000,000 hits which vaults him into cult status.

Ford is one of those guys that is either passionately loved or thoroughly despised depending on which camp you land in. (Personally, I abstain from picking a side. I choose to be apolitical wherever possible.) He has an ongoing, no-holds-barred battle with a major newspaper which never passes up an opportunity to put his face on the front page below a screeching headline.

What does raise my hackles is the fact that the media seems to believe that his situation deserves the top banner headline, or lead story on the evening news, ahead of other more pressing stories, such as:

Nine people killed and 75 injured in Oklahoma City, after multiple tornados and thunderstorms swept through Friday night at rush hour, before the dust had even settled from the F5 tornado that hit the Oklahoma suburb of Moore on May 20.

The crash of an emergency services Sikorsky helicopter in Northern Ontario in which two pilots and two paramedics were tragically killed.

High winds and severe hunderstorms which knocked out power and flooded two rivers near Quebec City making it necessary for firefighters to evacuate 51 homes and rescue 68 people.

Two days of anti-government protests in Turkey which saw police using tear gas and pressurized water to disperse demonstrators.

Sadly, I don’t see any end in sight to the Ford headlines. Ford’s supporters are rapidly abandoning ship putting enough blood in the water to keep the media sharks circling for some time yet.

Truthfully, I don’t feel much sympathy for Ford. I think he fancies himself as a shark in his own right. His love for the spotlight and his adversarial bent make him his own worst enemy. But I do feel bad that his term as mayor will be remembered mostly for his shark fights with the media.

I doubt that Ford set out to become a metaphor for sharks fighting sharks. But that’s what he has become – a Great White Shark surrounded by ravenous Hammerhead Media Sharks in a blood feud where all parties lose. One thing is certain. There will be a lot more blood in the water before his name is retired to the media archives.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

 

Shadowfax Racing the Wind at First Light

Shadowfax was the Lord of all horses . He was a descendant of Felarof , of the race of the Mearas , the greatest horses of Middle-earth . Shadowfax was capable of comprehending human speech and was said to run faster than the wind.

Hmmm, is the answer to our misplaced loyalties to be found in Middle Earth?

I’ve been watching Part Two of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Gandalf the wizard has just summoned Shadowfax – the Lord of all horses. Treebeard the Ent has rescued Merry and Pippin. King Theoden is near death because his mind has been poisoned by Grima Wormtongue. But Gandalf draws the evil out of him.

I’ve seen these scenes many times. In fact, I’ve watched all three movies in the trilogy on numerous occasions. They seem timeless despite the fantasy realm of Middle Earth in which they are set.

I believe a large part of the reason I’m drawn to them is that the epic battle between good and evil seems so much more compelling than much of what passes for important in our 21st century world. I wish that Gandalf the White could jump off the screen, gallop in on Shadowfax and rescue us from our silly preoccupations.

Perhaps Gandalf could talk some sense into the loose cannon that hold the mayor’s office in Canada’s largest city. Or at least call off the media “weasels and skunks”, as one justifiably irritated radio personality refers to them, who seem determined to bring him down at any cost.

A wave of his mighty staff might be what is needed to banish the endless, innuendo laden scandals that plague governments at every level. MPs might not have to step down for accepting perks which they somehow did not know they were not entitled to.

The major theme of an election campaign might be redistributing wealth, to narrow the ever widening gap between the have’s and the have not’s, rather than whether the Liberal Party candidate is riding on his famous father’s coattails.

Perhaps the appearance of those mythical Middle Earth figures would open our hearts and our eyes to the real injustices around us. We might learn to have faith in, and to reach out to, those who seem beyond hope as Frodo does to the tortured creature Gollum.

We might learn true loyalty from Samwise Gamgee, the nature of courage from Aragorn son of Arathorn, a true sense of pride in our cultural history from Gimli Son of Gloin and how to take pleasure in the simple joys of life from the innocent and fun loving Hobbits.

The battle between good and evil is as omnipresent in our world as it was in Middle Earth. We have our Lord Saurons and our corrupted Sarumans. But we too often let ourselves be distracted by silly bickering, political posturing and the endless blame game.

I like to think of Shadowfax as a metaphor for the triumphant return of fundamental values and a new vision of what our world could be if we reawakened to the things that truly matter.

Look to my coming at the first light of dawn on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the east.

Gandalf issues this proclamation to Aragorn. So I’ll look to the east each morning hoping to see nShadowfax racing the wind with Gandalf the White returning in glory. And, perhaps, an Elf Lord, a Dwarf Warrior and a brave Hobbit following in his blaze of light.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make nMe Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To”

instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Random Act of Metaphor: Exquisite Snapshots from a Spring Day at Presqu’ille

Hmmm, if it were not a slow birding day at Presqu’ille Provincial Park, would I fully appreciate the exquisite snapshots that Mother Nature slips into my field of vision?

Snapshot #1. Lighthouse Point seems to offer only the usual suspects this morning. Yellow Warblers, Warbling Vireos, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak or two. But my birdwatcher’s radar picks up the characteristic, buzzy be-bz-bz-bz.  A Golden-winged Warbler! Seldom seen and always a delight.

I locate it first in the tree-tops and track it to a better vantage point at eye level. Golden yellow cap above the black eye patch and black throat. Diagnostic golden wing bars. A standout even among the showy warbler family. And enthusiastic to a fault – flitting about and calling constantly as if to say: Look at me! Look at me!

Snapshot #2. The Presqu’ille marsh seems unoccupied today. Not much to stop me as I stroll the boardwalk. But experience reminds me to scan the expanse of reeds with my binoculars.

And there it is, in its best you can`t see me pose, an American Bittern. Standing rigid amidst the reeds, beak pointed skyward, in its

camouflage garb of yellow, beige and brown. I watch for a few minutes to see if it will flinch. But it is truly patience personified.

Snapshot #3. Rather quiet in Jobe’s Woods today other than the tireless zee-zee-zee-zoo-zee or trees-trees-murmuring-trees of the ever present Black-throated Green Warblers. Perhaps I should turn back and try another trail.

The flash of shocking red snaps me to attention. A Scarlet Tanager! It glides in and perches in a dead tree giving me a perfect view. Scarlet red from head to tail with contrasting black velvet wings. It looks around nonchalantly as it rests as if it is just another average bird in the woods. Can it possibly be unaware how strikingly beautiful it is?

Snapshots of the beauty and diversity of avian life – random acts of metaphor to remind me that the diversity and beauty of nature is always on display if I’m patient enough to linger in those quiet moments instead of rushing on to the next trail.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Big Data: Walmart, Twitter and a Hummingbird’s Wings

Hmmm, how big is big data and where do I even begin to get my head wrapped around it?

Big data. It strikes me as rather ironic that this short phrase, which rolls so easily off the tongue, refers to “a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications”.

Since I earn my keep in the marketing profession, I felt compelled to try and get a handle on this concept. So, of course, I turned to Google. I learned that we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day – so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.

So what the heck is a quintillion? Another Google search. The sequence, it seems, goes from million to billion to trillion to quadrillion to quintillion. I get that there is a factor of five involved. Beyond that I’m lost. Let’s try another angle.

Big data sizes, I learn, are a constantly moving target, ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many petabytes. Petabyte? Isn’t that one of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park?

Back to Google for another round. The smallest unit of measure for data is a bit. Now here is terminology I understand. I’m a little bit hungry. But apparently I still don’t understand. A bit is a single binary digit. A byte is 8 bits. A kilobyte is 1,024 bytes. Megabytes… gigabytes… terabytes… perabytes… all the way up to exabytes.

How many exabytes are there in a quintillion? Or is it quintillions in an exabyte? I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Or eschew, for that matter.

I need to put this in a context I can wrap my mind around. Back to my friend Google for some real-life examples of big data:

10,000 payment card transactions are made every second around the world. 10,000 every time I blink. No wonder the debit card system was slow when I paid for my groceries tonight.

Walmart handles more than 1 million customer transactions per hour. Per hour? I think I need to buy a terabyte of Walmart shares.

340 million tweets are sent per day. That equates to 4,000 tweets per second. Dare I ask how many bytes are there in a tweet?

I’m spinning my wheels and getting a perabyte of a headache in the process. Let`s take one more run at the equation:

Decoding the human genome originally took 10 years to process. Now it can be achieved in one week. And yet, they still can’t cure the common cold. Something doesn’t compute.

But it’s May and the migration is in full spring. This weekend I might just see the first Ruby-throated Hummingbird of the season flapping it wings up to 80 times per second which equates to 4,800 times per minute. Now there’s a metaphor for big data that I can appreciate. And frankly, I really don’t care how that translates into gigabytes.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Intoxicated by the First Exhale of May

Hmmm, is it just the impatience bred by a restless, worrisome world or is the first exhale of May even sweeter this year?

Spring has finally taken hold as a cool, grumpy and rainy April dissolves into the more welcoming graces of May. The impatient trees and bushes, barren but for a few optimistic buds a week ago, have burst out into chartreuse abundance.

The shrieks and squeals of children filter through my window. Apartment dwellers emerge from their winter hibernation to take leisurely evening strolls. And, near and dear to my heart, the spring migration – half-hearted in the fickle moods of April – kicks into high gear.

I find it difficult to concentrate on the same old, same old routines of work as Second Marsh beckons with the promise of a resplendent May weekend. The paths I know so well, every twist and turn, every looping side path, are etched into my brain.

First a check of the wet fields behind the parking lot in hopes of flushing a Snipe, with its improbably long bill and striped head, into its zigzag flight.

Ducking up under the rope fence for a stroll up the cut grass trail. Butterbutt yellow-rumped warblers will be plentiful with their loose, excitable trill. Tail-bobbing Palm Warblers are a safe bet low in the bushes or on the ground with their telltale chestnut cap. And perhaps the first sun-cloaked Yellow Warblers with their rusty streaked breasts.

A minute or two up the trail brings me to Jim`s Pond where I must pause to scan for ducks. Mallards for certain and likely some gray backed, black-rumped Gadwalls. And, if I`m quite lucky, the regal garb of a Green-Winged Teal – the distinctive white bordered, green swatch against a chestnut head.

A glance sideways at the swallow nest box. Any Purple Martins cavorting with the ever present Tree Swallows? Perhaps not yet. A mental note to check on the way back.

Moving on up the gravel trail as it splits and circles around the Crabapple Trees. The emphatic tee tee tee, tew tew tew confirms that the tireless Ruby-crowned Kinglets are in their usual haunt in the Cedars where the trail splits again.

Left at the split into the second growth woods. Listening for the zee zee zee zoo zee of Black-throated Green Warblers and the languid warble of the drab but untiring Warbling Vireos. Remember to check the brambles and thickets for skittering Winter Wrens.

Around the bend to the marsh which will be high this year with the heavy rains. Great Blue Herons stalking the shallows on their stilt legs. Perhaps a snow-white Great Egret or two for contrast. Gregarious Coots with their bobbing heads on slaty, chunky bodies. And there, a pair of Blue-winged Teals with the male’s unmistaken Nike white slash in front of the eyes.

Doubling back through Cool Hollow where I would be quite content to lie down and sleep if not for what still lies ahead. The slow, sweet trill of Swamp Sparrows along the marsh trail. Scanning the far side of the marsh for spike-billed Mergansers. A smattering of warblers in the clumps of trees and a quick detour to scan for a shy Green Heron on the storm pond.

Climbing the viewing tour to scan for Little Gulls which I’m unlikely to see anywhere else this spring. Too early for their black caps so I’ll have to look for the blackish underside of the rounded wing.

It’s still only midmorning at this point. So much more lies ahead. But I must linger a moment and revel in May’s loving embrace. May is my never failing, always thrilling, faithfully repeating metaphor for renewal and regeneration.

I am born again each May and eternally will be. Thank God for May!

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

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Random Act of Metaphor: Eye-Tracking, Eavesdropping Webcams

Hmmm, are we approaching the day when we will be under surveillance every time we turn on our computer?

Less than two decades ago, the first commercial webcam – a video camera that feeds its image in real time to a computer or computer network – made its debut in an Apple Macintosh computer. Shortly thereafter, a Microsoft Windows version was launched.

The inventors of that nifty piece of technology may now be lamenting “It seemed like a good idea at the time” as they learn the use to which their invention is now being put.

Marketers are struggling these days to find meaningful metrics for their online ads. Click-thru statistics aren’t good enough anymore. The new buzz words are phrases like “opportunity to see” and “likelihood to see”.

Now comes word that a U.S. company has applied eye-tracking technology to webcams. In a nutshell, this technology can use the webcam in our computers to track our eye movements, while we’re online, to determine which ads we looking at and for how long.

So that innocuous little dot on your laptop could soon be spying on you. I can only begin to imagine the nefarious uses to which this invasive technology could be applied.

Webcam eye-tracking technology – a random act of metaphor for the 21st century incarnation of Pandora’s Box. Big Brother just took on a whole new meaning.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog . Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To”

instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Recalculating the “Progress Equation” Before It’s Too Late

Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go, Where everybody knows your name,  and they’re always glad you came…” ~ Theme from “Cheers”

Hmmm, is the wheel of progress spinning out of control?

The lyrics from the theme song of the popular 80’s TV sitcom “Cheers” pop into my head more and more often these days. Yes, it’s partly because the series ran for a decade and the catchy song is imprinted on my brain.

But it’s also because it seems somewhat paradoxical. “The world today” described in the song was thirty years ago. I look back now on those days and wish life was as simple now as, in retrospect, it seemed to me it was back then. Then I look into the crystal ball and cringe at the prospect of how complex and taxing life might be thirty years from now.

I’ve come to believe that there is no more ironic word in our language than progress. There is no disputing that tremendous progress has been made on many fronts in our lifetime – none more so than the frontiers of technology. However, to quote Martin Luther King, Jr:

“All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.”

The progress that has been made in technology has made us heavily dependent on that technology and slaves to the pace of life it breeds. We’ve had to ramp up the speed of our brains to keep pace with it. Yes, our brains are capable of that speed. But moving at that speed 24/7 takes a heavy toll.

It has also multiplied the output capacity of each individual. One person can do today what it took three people to do thirty years ago. But that means that each of us is competing to be that one person to keep the paycheques coming in.

The same equation applies to companies. One company today can supply what three companies could thirty years ago. So now we’re competing to be the one person in six that keeps the paycheques coming in.

This ever tightening web of competition, combined with the exponential growth of complexity and the breakneck RPMs we’re required to rev our lives up to, is worrisome to me. I have a difficult time conceiving of it as progress.

A wheel that keeps getting smaller and smaller, and spins faster and faster, is the reigning metaphor for progress in our lives today. But we’re dangerously close to the day when the wheel controls us instead of us controlling it. We need to recalculate the progress equation before that happens.

In the words of novelist and poet C.S. Lewis:

“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the mean who turn backs soonest is the most progressive.”

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views LiteraryAwards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog . Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.

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