Symbiosis

One day rolls into the next.  This is the beginning of term and I come home tired, wired, with a list of evening tasks, the majority of which have to do with feeding myself or the bacteria.  As I was walking back from the grocery store with a gallon of milk and a couple pounds of sugar, it dawned on me that I was solely carrying fuel for the bacteria.  They will eat all this, I marveled.  And then I will eat the product of their eating.  And then they will populate my body and help digest what I eat.  It is a peculiar symbiotic relationship that I hadn't thought about in quite that way before.  I help make them and they help make me.

Resident home (day 289)

The last day of the residency was June 9th. We toured the NFB StereoLab in the morning. They have a great setup with many passive polarized projection systems matched with SANDDE 3D drawing stations. That week they also happened to be testing out the Panasonic twin lens 3D camera. The Director of Photography didn't give it great marks mostly because of bad compression artifacts and poor performance in low light. When I saw the footage I didn't think it was that bad. They were just starting to work with it and it was a pre-production model so it is quite possible their opinion will change. But for $22,000 the expectations are high.
In the afternoon, Valerie Walker of Studio XX interviewed Leila and I for her radio show. She is a skilled interviewer and it was great to talk with her about the project. The interview will air shortly. I'll post a link as soon as it does.
The rest of the afternoon and early evening, we packed up the studio and transferred files.  We ended the day at Mochica, a Peruvian restaurant on St-Denis.  Great food as always.  I will miss the easy access to delicious food, the warm nights, and the street level terraces.  Such great sounds.

I finally got around to posting a partial documentation of the work done at Oboro. It doesn't include most of the sounds that we recorded, and that were used during the artist talk in a live mix. What it does show is a trio of lungs breathing at different rhythms, with distinct videos and breath sounds. The three breath sounds match the breathing rate. Anyway, here it is. I'll post more as it becomes available.


lung trio from Maria Lantin on Vimeo.

Bacterial Update:  It has been a while since I posted a bacterial update.  I was slightly worried about going away for almost three weeks but everything worked out fine.  I put the Kefir grains in a dormant state in the fridge with twice the amount of milk I would normally give them.  When I took them back out they recovered right away and I would say are going through a growth spurt.
For the Kombucha I started a new brew about 6 days before I left and just assumed that the brew would be ruined when I got back but that the scoby would be fine.  Turns out the brew was fine, quite fine.  It was a batch I brewed with Pu-Erh tea and red rose buds.  You can really taste the roses (yum!). I just started a new brew today, Pu-Erh tea and Chrysanthemum flowers.

A song for this post.

A day for repair (day 217)

Full blown cold now.  I haven't had a cold since September 08 so I'm not super resentful.  It's gotta rain sometime.  At least the four day weekend means I get to rest as much as I need to. 

I spent a large part of the day reconstituting a corrupted iTunes library file.  I'm not sure how it got corrupted but I don't recommend using Apple's method for fixing a library file.  It made things worse, renaming my files randomly to other song titles.  I ended up making a new library file (hint: press the Option key when starting iTunes) and reloading everything which means I lost all my playlists.  It's still moving files around.  The upshot is that if this ever happens again I'll have a backup.  I lost a few music files as I was rejigging everything but probably no more than 3 or 4.  At least I think so.  Who knows what was going on as I was moving things around.  It's a lot of wasted time on a problem that spontaneously appeared from iTunes.  I think it does not like having a library file stored on a NAS.  If the NAS is unavailable for whatever reason it automatically resets the media folder which I think is partially why the library file is getting corrupted.

I'm still really enjoying listening to the "You are not a gadget" audio book.  I agree with some of his points so far but it's hard to be as convinced as he is that web 2.0 is the wrong direction when I see so many great things that have come about because of it.  Still, I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a little while and see if I can glean a future that could be different but still have some of the same advantages.  I do agree with him about the insanity of the Singularity movement -- people that believe we'll be able to upload ourselves to the machine.  He had some interesting thought experiments about consciousness having to do with simulating brain processes.  Lately I've heard many people talk about how central the brain is to consciousness.  I don't dispute that but somehow I don't think that's the whole picture.  The assumption seems to be that everything else is easy to simulate or replicate.  It seems like a step backward to reduce consciousness to one of our organs.  I'm only on chapter 3 of 14 so I'll keep reporting here as I absorb what he's saying.

bacterial update:  I'm about to bottle another batch of kombucha.  The baby scoby on this batch formed amazingly well and healthy.  I have no idea why.  Three things were different than my other batches: 1. I used half evaporated cane juice because I ran out of white sugar; 2. I started with room temperature tea instead of warm. 3. I inadvertently made stronger tea.  This time I'm using a different kind of evaporated cane juice (not as brown) and starting with slightly warm tea.  I can't seem to be totally consistent but the process seems to allow some flexibility.  The vanilla secondary fermentation I did last time turned out very well if you like cream soda.  I'm not a huge fan so I probably won't try it again.  I still don't have chrysanthemum.  The weather was a little too crazy today to get outside and shop.

A song for this post.

One more night (day 204)

We just returned from the Cirque Eloize, the last Cultural Olympiad show we had tickets for.  I guess that's it, it's really over.  I managed to see the flame(s) before it went out on Friday.  I missed the Canadian Mint pavilion and the Aboriginal Pavilion.  I regret the latter especially.  I heard it was amazing and I recently found out a good friend had worked on one of the video pieces.  Many people have said they missed events that were 'right next store'.  It's a strange phenomenon, this propensity to put off things that are right in front of us, as if mistaking proximity for eternity.

The Cirque's show was called Rain and hit a minor key, probably meant for a late fall kind of timeframe.  This being so close to Spring, it was a little off cue.  But the performers were great.  I especially loved the giant hoola hoops they they used to roll around like spokes in a wheel.  That looked like a lot of fun.  The choreography was ok.  Sometimes it played on gender stereotypes mixed with slapstick in a way that I found uncomfortable.    There were no clowns which is really too bad.  I love clowns.  They ended the show by making it rain on stage which was fun and impressive.  Overall I really enjoyed myself.  I don't want to be too critical.  I would go again for sure.  It's nice to see actual human beings on stage, rather than stare at a screen.  That's the real 3D.

As I checked in to FourSquare at the performance I got two badges:  Explorer, and SuperUser.  Steve thought I said SuperLoser.  Maybe a bit of both.  These artificial badges remind me of the "jetons" (French for chips as in poker chips) that my parents used to incite me to clean my room.  I don't think it worked in the end but it was fun at first.  I was a sucker for the gold stars at school though. I keep checking in FourSquare because I want to see what else could happen.  I did make a new FS friend who noticed I checked in at the performance.  Perhaps competition will change things.

Bacterial update:  Just bottled another batch of Kombucha today.  I wanted to add Chrysanthemum flowers for the secondary brew in the bottles but didn't have time to get them from Chinatown.  Instead I cut two small chunks of vanilla bean and stuck them in two of the bottles.  We'll see how that turns out.  I'm also curious about trying cocoa nibs.
The Kefir grains are doing well and we are in a good rhythm.  They are growing very slowly which is good.  I don't need to get stressed out about what to do with them.

A song for this post.

A 3D you can lift (day 187)

bacterial update: I'm waiting for my tea to cool down so I can put the kombucha mushroom in it.   It's important not to shock the mushroom.  Usually I spend time worrying about things getting cold.  It's amazing how long it actually takes for things to cool down.  I've been underestimating all this time.  Next time I'll plan a bit better.  When I did a taste test today, I realized that I had to bottle the current batch before it went way too acidic.  So it was a bit of a mad rush around the kitchen to get everything organized.  I think this batch ended up with a bit too much yeast.  It's not as good as the previous one.  And the mushroom didn't form as quickly or get as thick either.  Hopefully this next batch is a bit more healthy.  I also realized that I need to buy a jar with a spigot.  That way I don't disturb the mushroom formation when I need to test the pH.  These used to be so popular in the early 80s because of Sun Tea.  You'd think they'd be a dime a dozen.  But a quick look at the Kitchen Store didn't yield any loot.  The Happy Herbalist does sell some containers with spigots but they are twice as large as what I currently have.  With the size of my kitchen I can't really fit anything bigger than a gallon jar.

I spent the day looking for portable stereoscopic 3D solutions.  They are harder to find than I thought.  Panasonic just came out with a twin lens solution but it's not really available yet and has limitations like fixed inter-axial distance.  Still at 6.6 lbs it's an amazing solution for quick field work.  Other than that, it's really a DIY market out there.  I love the little Iconix cameras but the issue with those (besides the steep price) is getting small diameter matched lenses.  It would be so great to have such small cameras to work with not just because of the lower weight but also to shoot in confined space or at close range.  Love knows no bounds and I will find a way.  I've also been looking the 3DFilmFactory rigs for smaller side by side setups.  The ideal setup would be a system where everything fits in a backpack, is less than 30 lbs and runs on batteries.   I remember seeing pictures of Ansel Adams and all the gear he use to lug up mountains in Yosemite.  Not sure how much weight he had but it probably wasn't much more than that.  I have to have some sort of defined shopping list by tomorrow morning.  I've put out lots of leads out there, hopefully some of them pan out.

A song for this post.

Seeing the sites (day 176)

bacterial update:  I think I nearly killed my kombucha scoby.  To brew the new batch I used the baby from the previous batch.  It may have been too thin when I put it in because when I looked at it on Thursday it was looking kinda strange (lots of tiny bubbles on the surface...kinda of like scoby acne) and the smell was intense, quite yeasty and vinegary at the same time.  Surfing a bit on the happyherbalist site I started  having a suspicion that the yeasts were taking over because there wasn't enough bacteria in my scoby to compete.  Luckily I had saved the momma.  Yesterday I did a switch.  Things seem much better now (for both of them).  Not sure what this means for the current brew or the new baby that will form.  Perhaps I'll keep brewing with the momma for a few batches until I build up two good-sized scobys. After things going so well the last time, I felt a bit brought back down to earth.
I offered some of my Pu-Erh kombucha to my brother and his brother-in-law (who brews his own beer and cider).  They both loved the taste but said the nose could use some help.  Perhaps the pH was a little too low because they both pointed to a slight vinegar smell.
And in other news,  I now have a few kombucha followers on twitter.  It's a little community forming.

It's hard to believe CODE Live closes tomorrow.  It's been such a huge success and I wish it would continue for another week (btw, I recommend seeing the CODE motion pictures online).  I did manage to get to the Vancouver Public Library CODE Live 3 site today finally.  I really loved it.   The video installation outside is a very interesting set up with low benches and logs and built-in speakers into a large wooden structure that also encompasses the screen.  Even though it was a bright sunny day I could still see the video and the sounds was excellent.  I watched about 20 minutes of fun quirky sport related videos before I went in to see the rest of the exhibition.  I had seen documentation of David Rokeby's piece 'Seen' but seeing it live was a completely different experience.  It was fascinating to see the patterns of movement and stillness in the library space.  To see the flow lines of people in and out even though it was really quiet when I was there.  I then went down to see 'Sacred Touch' by Ranjit Makkuni from India.  This may have been the most memorable experience I've had of CODE Live.  Maybe it was partially my state of mind or the fact that I was alone in the exhibit.   I was touched by the blend of spirituality and technology that was done in such a basic and grounded way.  Particularly charming was a rotating screen interface mounted on an embossed silver base.  As I walked around the post, rotating the screen,  a panorama of the Ganges was revealed with occasionally triggered snippets of text and video.  Having been to Nepal I was viscerally reminded of the prayer wheels and the ritualistic circumambulation of the temples.   The experience was varied enough on each turn that I did several full rotations.  There was another screen showing some textile and object interfaces to interactive media.  I loved the interfaces requiring prolonged touch of symbols embroidered or printed onto fabric.  There was also an egg-like object with buttons that was quite compelling.   The whole exhibit felt really embodied and I felt good as I left the Vancouver Public Library, as if I'd visited a new place.

Other highlights for today were seeing acrobat acts at the Quebec House, and going on a video bus ride as part of Paul Wong's 5 projects.  I'm still digesting the video bus ride a bit but the part that stood out the most was the juxtaposition of spectacles of real and imagined horror.  For example,  a mash-up of scene from "Snakes on a Plane" where Paul startles us with rubber snakes, followed by a news report of the horror of Tim McLean's death where Paul retroactively startles us by selling Nestea and toilet paper (the choice buys of the killer) before we got on the bus.  It ends with a video of the aftermath of a car crash with the sound of one of the car horns blaring for the duration -- a sort of anxiety inducing virtual rubber-necking.

A song for this post.

Blue jackets and red scarves (day 171)

bacterial update: I bottled the Pu-Erh Kombucha last night.  It tastes really good, like a nice sweet wine.  I'm still amazed that this transformation can happen.  I mean I love Pu-Erh tea on its own, but its transformation to kombucha is nothing short of a marvel.  I'm wanting it to carbonate a bit so I'm leaving it at room temperature for a while.  I'm a little nervous about bottles shattering or the tea shooting up to the ceiling after I open a bottle.   I might chicken out and open one tonight to test the level of carbonation and see how much longer I have before the gamble of one more day is just foolish.

I was part of a group strategic planning session today.  Interaction in a group is not my favourite dynamic but the facilitator was exceptional and I feel we got a lot done.  Still the day was long.  I left the school late and entered the GI zone.   Being hit by the Olympics group dynamic just about put me over the edge of normal social behaviour.  Suddenly everyone around me was wearing 'the colours', were on vacation, quite likely buzzed, and caught up in their small group universe.   Under normal circumstances I might have just weaved in and out of such groups but today I just wanted to pop everyone's bubble.  Bah hum bug.

I just ate.  I feel better.

I've never been one for team spirit.   I am committed to the groups I belong to but always lurking is a skepticism about mob behaviour.  I even have an aversion to Facebook groups.  We do silly things if enough unreasonable people are making it normal.   I wonder though, are the people that easily lose themselves in the team happier?  Do they feel like they belong?  Like they are surfing with the waves of the tribe?  What differentiates the people that can lose themselves in the team and those that can't?  I can't even picture myself cheering a hockey team genuinely.  Doesn't seem to be something that can be taught.  Yet I've heard that we are all subject to mob mentality given the right conditions.  Maybe I have an instinctive aversion to the likely conditions.  Not yet curious enough to experiment with this.

A song for this post.

Coming through in waves (day 169)

bacterial update:  The kombucha is ready to bottle.  I tested the pH and it's perfect but I found the sweetness still a little too high.  I left some for Steve to try and he loved it.  He had me fill one bottle for him.  He put it in the fridge and I later tasted it.  For some reason it didn't taste as sweet when chilled.  This is a bit puzzling but familiar too -- warm fruit juice also tastes sweeter.  Anyway, I think it'll be a nice compromise to bottle it tomorrow.
I fed some of the extra Kefir grains to my cat, and threw away the rest.  They are just multiplying so quickly.  Steve was starting to compare me to an old lady with 50 cats.  I got ruthless.
My friend Tara pointed me to this podcast about fermenters.  It's a good listen.

Today was a boring chore day.  The most exciting thing I did is try Kefir with Muesli (delicious).  But not wanting to spread the boredom I'll resurrect a piece of research that I find interesting, especially for the Breath I/O project, and perhaps for interface designers too.  

Apparently our awareness can be entrained to a rhythm.  Researchers at the University of Illinois discovered that you could induce awareness of otherwise masked stimulus by entraining with a regular rhythm and letting the masked stimulus fall where a beat would have been (details).  I'm now thinking that breathing rhythms may be something to exploit in this way.  Perhaps having usually undetectable visuals appear at a particular interval related to the breath.  I'm not sure of the limits of this study (they were using very fast rhythmic patterns, to the tune of 12Hz).  It's possible what I'm describing would be beyond the range of the effect they observed.  I'm also wondering about trance music.  Might we become more aware in a rhythmic trance?  Castanada can only be around the corner.

A song for this post.

Of meatheads and surrogates (day 164)

bacterial update: It's been a while since I did an update.  A few things have happened.  My kefir grains were going crazy so I had to radically cull them.  I have a bunch lying dormant in the fridge.  I can't keep them there for much longer.  May have to use them to make kefir charmers or something.  I discovered that part of the issue with the overactive fermentation is that I was using the continuous fermentation method (i.e. not cleaning the container between ferments).  I guess there was enough bacteria left in there to significantly speed up the fermentation.  The lesson is that if you want to be able to increase your milk to grain ratio, use continuous fermentation.  I needed to do the opposite so I am now cleaning the container between ferments.  I'm up to 24 hour ferments again.
The next kombucha batch is going really well.  There was a bit of a hiccup last week when it overflowed because of gas accumulation between the tea and scoby.  I guess it had nowhere to go because the scoby was right against the narrowing of the container opening.  The more gas accumulated, the better the seal, until it overflowed.  As I was cleaning up the mess, I took the opportunity to test the tea.  It was still really sweet but the pH was getting lower.  The taste wasn't very good but I didn't get too worried about it.  I tested and tasted again today and I have to say it is delicious.  Slightly more acidic, and with a sweetness of something like a Gewurztraminer.  In fact it tastes a lot like it too, oddly enough.  I'll let it go a bit longer to reduce the sweetness further.  Maybe test it again on Thursday or Friday.  I think it might be true what they say about Pu-Erh tea making the champagne of kombucha.

I watched the movie Surrogates tonight.   Another movie about avatars but this time a distopic view.  Everyone has a surrogate robot that they connect to.  The rhetoric is that you can be young, beautiful and invincible until you die.  I'm not sure how they deal with the issues of muscle mass and bed sores, but I suppose that's another movie.  There were a few funny moments where some surrogates are seen 'jacking' -- overloading their circuits with electricity for a high.  Or a fight between a couple where one surrogate just disconnects when things get uncomfortable.  I actually enjoyed the movie.  I seem to have an appreciation for watching machines die.  I got the same thrill by watching Terminator.  War looks kind of ridiculous when it's machines fighting machines.  Like boys in a sandbox with toy soldiers.  There's some lesson in there somewhere.

Increasingly I find the idea of an avatar appealing.  It would reduce the need for travel which I hate.  Well I hate air travel.  I might still want to do road trips.  But as with any technology I doubt our specie's ability to moderate.  Especially when it comes to avatars, a little self-hatred could go a long way towards being addicted to not being in the flesh.   There would need to be wicked hangovers to moderate the addiction prone.  May be best to keep our avatars virtual for now.

A song for this post.

Patiently getting better (day 156)

Bacterial update:  It was a good day for the scoby love.  Two things happened.  Steve and I went to the TenRen tea shop in Chinatown and I was able to taste a 10 year old Pu-Erh tea.  It was delicious, smooth, sweet, and interesting.  The woman serving us had asked if I wanted to taste the 10 or 20 year old tea.  I decided on the 10 year old because I didn't think I wanted to spend the money on the 20 year old tea which was more than twice as much.  But I became curious after tasting the 10 year old tea.  I asked her what the difference is and she said it's sweeter and more complex.  After some discussion I purchased the 20 year old tea and got the 10 year old for free.  Who knows if it was a good deal.  Bargaining is not a skill widely practiced in my usual circles.   I got home and immediately brewed a cup of the 20 year old tea.  It was as she described: a beautiful, smooth, complex taste of autumn in my mouth.  It may now be my favourite tea.
The second thing that happened is that I did a final pH test on the kombucha that had been brewing for  three weeks and it was at 3.3 which meant that it was ready for bottling - a minor miracle!   Sometimes delays are forced patience for the good things in life.  So I sterilized everything and bottled the kombucha.  I filled six of the Grolsch bottles.  They will now rest comfortably at room temperature for two days to promote carbonation.  I'm not sure how much carbonation I'll get since it doesn't taste very sweet at this point.  I thought about adding sugar but decided against it in the end. 
I brewed a gallon of the 20 year old Pu-Erh and added a cup and a quarter of sugar.  I'm just waiting for it to cool down before adding the scoby.  I separated the old scoby into two and I'm preserving one just in case things don't work out.
The Kefir grains are doing ok.  I had to remove some to bring the production down to something manageable.  So far I can't bring myself to eat the spare grains but soon the question will need to be called.  Either I eat them, give them, or flush them.

I came across a quite beautiful visualization of whale vocalization in the New Scientist.  I wondered if it would be something worthy of the label Smart Graphic.  The images are created through algorithmic means with an aim to clearer representation of the sounds.   I suppose the visualization could be labelled smart because a more precise tool was used to transform a sound into an image, but I think only if that transformation is useful for a particular aim.  Is beauty a sufficient aim?  Are the images more beautiful than the sounds?   Could the images provide a better way of classifying different types of whales like showing differences and similarities that would have been harder to identify with just the sound?  Perhaps if beauty is the only aim, the conversation stops short, and so does the Smart in Smart Graphic. 

A song for this post.

Brainful day (day 154)

There are so many worlds.  The world of kombucha.  The world of Pu-erh.  The world of wine.  You can immerse yourself in all those worlds and the nuances can be extremely enticing and confusing all at the same time.  Opinions, jostles, all out flame-wars, friendships, eloquence, it's all there.  I love to be seduced by all that.  I love to feel the consensus of a group and see if I can experience what they mean even in my novice state.

After some research I now know that I have a young Pu-Erh and that I can expect a more mellow but also more pungent taste experience with the aged Pu-Erh.  The consensus seems to be that 10 years is the minimum to be considered 'aged'.  Vintage would be 30+ years.  I am now intrigued enough to go back to the tea shop and buy a 10+ year old Pu-Erh (after I've tasted it).  Tonight I experimented with the young Pu-Erh with a few steeps, and steep times.  I'm not a big fan of the taste but only because it doesn't seem much different than green tea.  And I've had better green teas.

There is some good news on the kombucha front.  All the delays have permitted me to keep testing the pH of the current brew even though I had given up on it.  Tonight I tested it and it is definitely edging away from 4.0.  It would be a 3.7 probably.  The taste is also different, less yeasty.  Who knows, it may be salvaged yet.

Today at Emily Carr was a symposium called "Edge of Chaos" organized by Landon Mackenzie, a most enjoyable energetic talented artist/professor at Emily Carr.  The topic was the brain, neuroscience to be exact.  All the speakers were asked to speak about the relationship between art/culture and the brain.  I attended the afternoon talks and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Peter Reiner, professor at UBC and part of a national neuroethics group, proposed a thought experiment whereby he would switch nervous system with Landon, asking the question of what would happen to identity in that case.  I didn't think he went far enough with his experiment.  By chance I caught up with him in the cafeteria line-up and asked him to speculate on how long it would take for the Landon in him to become unrecognizable.  The conversation was interesting and my curiosity was piqued when we hit upon the comparison of organ rejection, but in this case not by the physical body but by the social body.   His body with Landon's nervous system would quickly be rejected by his wife, his friends, and his peers.  That in itself would provoke massive changes in the brain.  We also hit upon the clumsiness that would result from using his body with her learned behaviours.
Michael Krausz, a profession of psychiatry at UBC, spoke about art-making by individuals that are mentally compromised through trauma, addiction, or illness.  I thought his talk was interesting from the point of view of language and how sometime verbal language can be too restrictive to express felt experience.   The vocabulary of a language influences what can be said and how easily it can be said.  Art-making is more fluid and a language can be invented or manipulated on the spot.  It's definitely more error-prone in terms of dialogue but can also be a rich way into a dialogue that involves other communication methods.  It occurred to me that this may be something to weave into the Smart Graphics talk in June.

A song for this post.

Padding the bottom line (day 152)

bacterial update:  not too much to report.  I finally have Pu-erh tea in my hands.  I tried to purchase some from the Granville Island Tea Company but they were out and counseled me to get it from Chinatown regardless.  Apparently it's a specialty product that you don't want to just approach haphazardly.  Steve went to fetch some for me in Chinatown this afternoon.  The problem with Chinatown is that it's hard to know whether you're getting what you came for because of language and culture barriers.   It's always an adventure and I bet if you did it every week you could build up the right relationships.   What we acquired is a 4 year old raw pu-erh which I'm guessing is like buying a $20 bottle of wine.   It came beautifully packaged as if it was going to be a gift which I suppose is the reason most people like us go into the shop.  I did feel special holding the box and unwrapping the 'melon'.  I brewed a cup and it tastes fine though I was expecting a stronger taste and a darker brew.  It was pretty tough to flake off the tea leaves so perhaps I didn't use enough.   It tastes like an earthy green tea.  It's an odd feeling to not know whether you're drinking the real thing or not.  Like entering a foreign land and hoping you're not mistaking their version of McDonald's for fine dining.  I have a new goal to get myself to a tea shop that will serve genuine samples of Pu-erh tea.  For now I'll use what I have and hope that it'll be drinkable kombucha.  It's been said that a good Pu-erh can create the champagne of kombucha.
The Kefir grains are still dormant while I work my way through all the Kefir.  I give it another two days.

I made a deal with Steve that I would get to bed before midnight today so I'm running out of time to write much more.  But how about that iPad?  It certainly is the talk of the town.  I saw a funny article in the Onion where they portrayed Steve Jobs madly scrambling at the last minute to put together a tablet, finally deciding to just slap a bunch of iPhones together.  I suppose why not keep going with a good thing.   We were all expecting innovation in hardware but we may have received innovation in software and interaction.  I'll have to try it and see.   It's interesting that they didn't use e-ink technology.  They may not have been aiming for the e-book market and in their promotional video they repeat 'web browsing' an awful lot.

A song for this post.

Too much and not enough (day 150)

bacterial update: the kombucha tea got a reprieve because the Granville Island market was closed today.  It almost never closes but every Monday in January is a maintenance day.  I'd say 90% of us forget and still head over there to be disappointed and slightly dunce-capped for forgetting yet again.  I was saved the trouble by a friend who reminded me at the last moment.  Tomorrow I'll get the tea I need from the Granville Island Tea Company and start the kombucha process in earnest.  On a whim I tested the pH (never say die).  It's still at 4.0.  One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that the label on the store-bought kombucha says that it was brewed for 20 days.  I had a moment of hope but it has pretty much faded.  I've got my eyes on the Pu-erh tea and a new beginning now.
The Kefir grains continue to produce more quickly than is convenient.  It's as if they've found new vigour and I'll have to adjust.   It made practically no difference at all to switch to 3% milk, except for the luscious creaminess of the drink.  When I came home at 8pm, it was very ready to strain.  I am now overrun with Kefir so the grains will have to go dormant for a few days.  When I've caught up, I'll decrease the volume of grains.
Not a very triumphant bacterial day I must say.  But my momma said there'd be days like this.

Today I spent a full three hours catching up on email and I still didn't catch up.  I determined that I can do about 50 emails in an hour.  I even tried something new and said no to a few requests.  Who knows, I might even get my workload down to something manageable where I can have a few moments to think before I hit send.  

Sleep beckons...

A song for this post.

Seeing clearly (day 149)

bacterial update:  I had great hope for the kombucha tea this morning.  The pH reading was at 3.5 and I thought maybe just maybe I could get it down to 3 by evening.  But it was not to be.  It's hard to declare an ad-hoc experiment a failure because even if it had succeeded the amount of information gained would have been so low.  Still, I'm disappointed.  I even bought a bottle of commercial (live) kombucha to compare the pH.  It had a perfect pH of 3 (not to mention a really seductive apple cider taste).  Oh the sting.  Tomorrow I will dump mine out, separate the new scoby from the mother, and start over.  I've decided against the exotic sugars, and will just use regular old cane sugar.  Might as well start with the basics.  Here is some good news though.  Steve and I went to the recycling depot today and he spotted some nice green Grolsch bottles that will be perfect for bottling the kombucha.  There were eight of them.  The seals were a bit old but the iPhone directed us to the nearest wine making supply store and we were able to buy new seals,  some sanitizing chemicals, and a filler wand to go with the siphon hose we got from Canadian Tire. 
Today's Kefir took about the same amount of time to finish fermenting as the last batch even with the extra milk which is puzzling.  I ended up having to strain it at 8am.  I'm wondering if the shorter fermentation is because I've been using 2% milk for the last two batches.  Presumably it would have a higher proportion of sugar and could be causing more bacterial activity? To test this hypothesis I've bought 3% milk and hopefully we'll be back to the 24 hour schedule.  Otherwise, there will be too much chaos in the straining times and I'll be unable to keep up.  Adding more milk is not really feasible because I wouldn't be able to drink it fast enough.  I could also decrease the volume of grains.  One test at a time.

My friend Alex talks about FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out.  I'm not sure if she coined the term but it wouldn't surprise me.  She's clever that way.   She talks about it in the context of the impulse to check RSS and twitter feeds which both trigger and remedy FOMO, and has some insights about information addiction.  I see FOMO as a symptom of globalization.  Our biological senses are not evolving quickly yet we somehow need to sense what is going on across the globe to react appropriately.   The problem is that if we are not sensing at the appropriate graininess, we start to see patterns in randomness.  Nassim Taleb talks about this in his answer to the question "how is the internet changing the way you think?"  He talks about going on a "news diet" and seeing things more clearly.   I love how he says at the end of his short essay "I can feel harmony with my genes; I feel I am growing again."  It's worth a read.  There are also lots of other thinkers that have weighed in on the question.  If it's within your information diet, spend some time with this buffet of thoughts.

A song for this post.

Listen to the chattering (day 148)

bacterial update: I did manage to heat up the kombucha ferment with a hot water bottle and a cozy.  It may be too hot and I have no way of testing the temperature.  The only thermometer I have is a candy thermometer which will take forever to give me a temp and won't be accurate enough.  It's interesting how much anxiety this tea is causing me.  I'm paranoid about killing the scoby, contaminating it, having it at the proper temperature, etc.  Too much information combined with a long testing time requires a lot of calm, patient waiting.  I'm perplexed by the consensus that fermentation should take about eight days and mine has been fermenting for thirteen and is still nowhere near the pH it should be. Granted, I was not scientific with my starting proportion of tea/water/sugar but somehow I thought the process would be more robust.   I'm now preparing for my next batch in which I will use Pu-erh tea, honey and malt, and spring water.  I'm sticking with my deadline of tomorrow evening for proper pH for the currently brewing tea.  I did read that a tall jar such as the one I'm using could have a longer brewing time simply because it is exposed to less oxygen.  I will have better data with a measured start.
I ended up having to strain the Kefir at the 17 hour mark instead of the usual 24.  This probably means it was too hot or I didn't have enough milk.  Probably the latter.   I added more milk to the next batch.  The Kefir-Leban firmed up nicely.  I jarred it and put it in the fridge to mature a bit.  I'll taste it again in a few days.  I noticed that I had mistakenly left some kefir grains in the kefiran.  With some sorrow and a silent apology I ate the grains.  There was not much taste to them and the texture was a bit rubbery.  Not bad at all, just not what I would call a delicacy.

There has been some discussion lately about politics and social media.  Recently, the Minister of Industry dismissed the Facebook group against the proroguing of parliament as being irrelevant and populated by the elite and chattering classes (heavily paraphrased).    The upshot is that he does not want to use social media as a barometer for political sentiment in the country.   I don't even know what the chattering class is or if I'm part of it but let's assume that both it and the elite class are composed of Canadians of voting age.  On that basis alone neither should be dismissed by our representatives.  In actual fact, polls show that the FB group is mostly older engaged Canadian voters.  So again, no reason to dismiss.   I think what we are looking at here is a symptom of social media being perceived as a diversion from real life, a place where only idle chatter takes place.  "If the people are really upset, let them take to the streets or sign (physical) petitions" is the underlying premise.   I admit I had internalized this message until very recently when I starting thinking about transparency and non-violent communication.  As a Canadian, simply stating that I don't support prorogation should be enough.  And stating it in electronic form should be enough.   The Minister explained his statements later by saying that he was comparing it to the number of phone calls he received during the first and second prorogation.  Again, phone calls being given a higher priority than other forms of communication.  Escalating communication to protests is only needed because any 'easy' communication is dismissed as being 'too easy' to be meaningful.  When the bar of communication is set so high, it produces frustration and confrontational styles of communication.  I suggest that he broaden his views on how his constituents communicate.  We could all be happier.

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Go where the love is (day 147)

bacterial update: The kombucha scoby appears to have survived.  I tested the pH and it decreased a little bit.  I got a bit more brave (stupid?) and took the scoby out and added sugar.  It foamed like yesterday but then reverted to a normal state.  This is my last ditch effort at saving this batch.  I'd say if by the end of the weekend it's not approaching a 3.5 pH, I'll let it go.  I'm looking forward to starting from scratch.  It would be a bonus if I could get some tea out of this batch though!  I haven't even been optimistic enough to buy some bottles.  Many kombucha tea brewers recommend getting a heating pad.  I'm intrigued by this idea but I would rather do without mostly because I can't think of a location with a plug nearby that would also be appropriate for brewing tea.  I may try putting a hot water bottle near the brewing container and see if that helps.
The Kefir grains woke up with a new zest for life and I knew I was in trouble when I saw the fermentation was almost done as I was leaving for work.  There was no way I'd be back to strain it at the optimal time.  And I wasn't.  When I got home it had separated into a thick layer of curd with whey at the bottom.  So I decided to make Kefir-Leban, the kefir equivalent of "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade".   It's currently straining through cloth and should be ready in about 20 hours.  It can then be used like cream-cheese, or made into a harder more mature cheese.  I'm intrigued by cheese-making but not enough to make my apartment smell like a cheese factory.

I know that a few days ago I said that I would keep going to the Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference.  Now I'm not so sure.  I did come away with some new insights about stereo technologies but considering the cost of attending, it doesn't seem like a good trade.  For the same price I could go to SIGGRAPH and be much more satisfied.  It dawned on me that my interest in stereoscopy centres around two topics: the art of making stereoscopic movies, animations and artwork; and the hardware and software people are using to create these on the cheap.  In other words, I am interested in stereoscopy for artists and amateurs.  I don't think this will ever be a central part of the SD&A conference.  But it could be part of the new Stereoscopic 3D Centre currently being developed at Emily Carr in partnership with Kerner Optical.  In fact, I will make sure it is.  With that in mind, here is a piece of information I picked up at the conference.  Colby Systems has created a relatively inexpensive stereo video camera that records at full HD resolution.  The cost is $699 USD, plus an extra $99 for a camera stabilizer.  I will purchase one for the Breath I/O project and put a review on this blog once I try it out. 

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Rich life (day 146)

bacterial update: I've been away from the cultures for a while and in a way it was good for me to see the progress of the kombucha tea.  The daughter is almost fully formed.  While I was away the pH test strips arrived and I tested the pH this evening.  It tested at about 4.2 which means it's still quite far from being done, though the timeline may not be linear.  As I thought about this high pH I became paranoid about the sugar content not having been high enough which is quite possible because I basically just used 10 tablespoons which is just over half of what is recommended.  I was following the directions of the person who gave me the culture.  Now reading about other people's brewing methods, it all seems to point to me not having used enough sugar.  Anyway, I added a bit of dissolved sugar to the brewing tea, very carefully, with a straw.  This may have been a bad idea and it's still not nearly enough sugar.  If I don't get punished harshly for this by the kombucha gods I swear I will never need to do it again.  It would be a shame to have come this far and fall prey to my own impulsivity.  I keep reminding myself of positive black swans...sometimes you get lucky with accidents.  Though luck favours the experienced.  If it looks bad for my scoby, I'll just start another brew with the right amount of sugar.
The Kefir grains are indeed dormant after being in the refrigerator.  They seem to have done almost nothing in the six days I was away.  I took them out and hopefully they'll come to life nicely by tomorrow evening.

Having had a harrowing day of travel (I will never book connecting flights in LAX again), I'm really happy to be home.  Vancouver is warm and smells good.  I walked to school for a talk happening in the IDS, listening to more of Lords of Finance, my latest auditory obsession.  It was good to move after so much sitting and waiting.  As I walked, the war ends and Germany's fate is being decided by a peace committee.  Irrational behaviour prevails outrage at the treaty ensues, followed by general (expected) non-compliance by Germany.  Keynes resigned from the committee.  I was surprised to learn that he was part of it.  Though he was largely shut out of the discussions about reparations.   It's an interesting book full of little observations about the temperaments and characters at play.  I'm intrigued by the social moors of the time, particularly in relation to the ruling class and bankers.  I'm curious if it is similar today.  I'm aware that besides Entertainment Tonight and The Enquirer I don't have much of a window into the ultra-rich or ever super-rich day to day living.

A song for this post.

Celebration of perfect events (day 140)

A very quick post today.  I just got back from my friend Zeenat's Henna party leading up to her wedding on Monday.  It's a very small wedding with just immediate family and this was a chance for all her friends to come and celebrate with her and Chris.  My hand is henna'd and I'm exhausted.  It was a bit of a relentless week and tomorrow I leave for San Jose for the Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference.  It will be a nice change of pace.

Bacterial update:  yesterday's Kefir has ripened for 24 hours and I tasted it this evening.  It had perfect taste and consistency.  My version of perfect taste is sour like yogurt or a bit more, with nice tones of yeast.   Consistency was like buttermilk...maybe a bit thicker.  The fizz was minimal because I 'burped' it a lot while it was ripening.  I wouldn't mind a bit more fizz but it was a fine fine Kefir.  I added a little maple syrup and had a little piece of heaven in my belly.  I will try to reproduce this result when I get back from San Jose.  I've put the grains in milk and they will sit in the fridge for the week...hopefully go dormant in a pleasant way.  To recap, the way that seems to work is to do a pretty strict 1:7 ratio of grains to milk, covered but not tightly, paper bag covering the jar, agitated after 8 hours, agitated again at the 20 hour mark or so (more if I happen to be around) and monitored until very small pockets of whey start to form, then strained and put in the fridge covered but not tightly, agitated and burped a few times in the next 24 hours.
The kombucha tea is still alive and well as far as I can tell.

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This is not their war (day 139)

Bacterial update:  the batch of Kefir I was so giddy about yesterday was indeed the best so far but after 'ripening' the milk kefir at room temperature for another 24 hours, it turned sour.  I threw it out.  In hindsight, given the amount of separation of curd and whey after being strained, it had fermented slightly too long.  The batch I just strained this evening is again the best so far (better than yesterday's).  This time I'm ripening it in the refrigerator for a day.  So far the separation is minimal.  Ripening is said to increase Vitamins B (folic acid in particular).   It also changes the flavour.  We'll see.  The Kombucha scoby seems to be starting the creation of a daughter on its back.  For some reason I thought it would be on the belly.  When I get back from San Jose on Friday next week I'll have the pH testing strips to see how things are going.  By that time the brewing should be almost done.

Steve and I have been watching the Lord of the Ring trilogy.  We're almost done the third one now.  It's quite an epic.  Just like the first time, I can't help but feel sadness for the suffering of the animals in a battle that is not their own.  While I know that these particular animals were not harmed, it does remind me that animals were and are harmed in battles.  Horses seem to me such gentle animals.  To use them in battle must have been tremendously traumatic.   In the film they kill elephant-like animals as well as horses, dog-like creatures, and so on, merely for their supposed allegiance with evil.  Indeed the animals are depicted as having a will to kill beyond their human riders.

I recently had a conversation with someone about the next big injustice to be noticed and righted.  At the time we bandied lots of things about including, in partial jest, the injustice of a world made for early-risers.  Since that time, because of various sources and acquaintances, I've come to realize that it may be animal rights that become a focus.  Our inability to consider non-humans as having consciousness, worthy of freedom and respect no doubt stands in the way of us feeling compassion on much deeper level for the earth in general.  Julie Andreyev, Carol Gigliotti, and Karolle Wall are all faculty members at Emily Carr working with animals and ethics as subject matter.  Julie is currently building an interactive art piece (called *glisten) HIVE) for the Cultural Olympiad (Code Live exhibition) where text emphasizing evidence of animal consciousness will be rendered in real-time, responding to human actions in the space.  She is actively seeking textual input for the piece using Twitter (@glisten_HIVE).  You can tweet examples of how your animal companion shows their conscious relationship with the world.  Example questions she asks are: "how do you  know when your animal companion is sad/happy?", and "Is your animal companion ever conflicted?"

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May the light shine on Haiti (day 138)

Bacterial update:  I think this Kefir batch is the one.  The one that looks like the picture.  I decreased the amount of milk and left the lid ajar.  I also covered the jar for the last 5 hours of fermentation.   I haven't strained it yet but I'm giddy with anticipation.  My kombucha tea mother is not dead.  This is a small victory that accumulates momentum every day.  I bought some pH testing strip from a shop in Ontario.  The shipping was more than the strips.  I'll try to find a supply in Vancouver when I have some time.  Is this a giant distraction?  Yes, perhaps but sometimes following something thoroughly fascinating is a gateway for inspiration in other areas.

I took some time today to look at  pictures of the damage in Haiti.  It is much worse than I thought.  I am so stunned by the symbolic destruction of the palace.  It seemed so solid, so regal.  My friend Jer posted a visualization of why this disaster is especially sad -- hiting a country already weakened.  I donated to Architecture for Humanity.  I like what they stand for and I find their rebuilding message hopeful.  It may be too early to think in those terms but building better for the future is a worthy thing to be prepared for.

A song for this post.