I originally wrote The Return of the Golden Age of Air Travel in April of this year and published it on May 1st. It was a visceral response to the early days of COVID-19. As the summer wore on, I felt that maybe the piece was a reflection of a relatively short period which was, for the most part, behind us. Sadly, that's turned out not to be the case. Things might already be worse than they have ever been. So I dusted off this stream-of-conciousness jumble of reminiscenses of travel gone by mixed with an argument that the nature of travel in the future is forever changed. Furthermore, future travel might well more closely resemble travel of the past. I hope you enjoy the essay and that it gives you pause to think about your own relationship with travel. Thank you so much for listening.
\n\nListen to the essay with the play button, above. The text can be found on Medium where it was published on May 1st, 2020. They key image for this episode shows passengers on a Trans-Canada Airlines DC-8 have pre-dinner drinks in the lounge. (image/caption: AirlineRatings.com)
Links:
Although it has been many years since I last wrote computer code ‘to save my life’ I still vividly remember the five basic phases of the Cost of Change Curve associated with software development projects. While the fine details are now dim and distant the basic idea is this: the cost of making a given change rises exponentially as we work our way from the first phase, Requirements, through the intermediate Analysis, Coding and Testing phases and then finally to the Production phase. Plot the costs on a graph and the main characteristic is the skyward-to-infinity spike as we get to the latter phases of the project...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode is of Pacific Electric Railway cars awaiting destruction on Terminal Island, California in 1956. (image credit: UCLA Library Digital Collections)
","summary":"Some thoughts on a failed Olympic bid and what it tells us about the shocking randomness of how we build our cities.","date_published":"2019-08-21T15:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/6ff31d7e-d95f-46a5-93d1-90b315369fbf.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":28853938,"duration_in_seconds":1202}]},{"id":"eb623ed9-773b-4e32-9943-1d8c0f6f141e","title":"Amy Johnson","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/047","content_text":"A remarkable life and the enduring mystery of her tragic death.\n\nThe late arrival of the inbound flight she had piloted from Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, prevented Amy Johnson from departing Prestwick, Scotland any earlier than 4.00 pm on that afternoon in early January of 1941. Darkness was already beginning to fall. The most direct route from Prestwick to her eventual destination of Royal Air Force base Kidlington, near Oxford, took Amy Johnson right over Blackpool where Amy’s sister Molly and her husband Trevor lived in nearby Stanley Park. The thought of a meal, spending time with family and a decent night’s sleep must have had a lot of appeal rather than slogging further southeastwards in thoroughly awful conditions and at night. She landed the Airspeed Oxford twin-engine trainer at RAF Squires Gate just south of Blackpool proper, and secured the plane for the night. It was just another ordinary day in her life as a ferry pilot working in the dark midst of World War II...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode is Amy Johnson at the controls of ‘Jason’ in Australia in 1930 at the conclusion of her record setting flight. (image credit: Ted Hood via State Library of New South Wales)","content_html":"The late arrival of the inbound flight she had piloted from Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, prevented Amy Johnson from departing Prestwick, Scotland any earlier than 4.00 pm on that afternoon in early January of 1941. Darkness was already beginning to fall. The most direct route from Prestwick to her eventual destination of Royal Air Force base Kidlington, near Oxford, took Amy Johnson right over Blackpool where Amy’s sister Molly and her husband Trevor lived in nearby Stanley Park. The thought of a meal, spending time with family and a decent night’s sleep must have had a lot of appeal rather than slogging further southeastwards in thoroughly awful conditions and at night. She landed the Airspeed Oxford twin-engine trainer at RAF Squires Gate just south of Blackpool proper, and secured the plane for the night. It was just another ordinary day in her life as a ferry pilot working in the dark midst of World War II...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode is Amy Johnson at the controls of ‘Jason’ in Australia in 1930 at the conclusion of her record setting flight. (image credit: Ted Hood via State Library of New South Wales)
","summary":"A remarkable life and the enduring mystery of her tragic death.","date_published":"2019-08-08T21:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/eb623ed9-773b-4e32-9943-1d8c0f6f141e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":42818373,"duration_in_seconds":1783}]},{"id":"1bb7a0a9-25cf-4f6e-9798-6d402b52eb00","title":"Champion of Something","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/046","content_text":"Dad did his fair share of dreaming big. Particularly when it came to his kids.\n\nOn a whim in the summer of 1976—no doubt in part because he wanted to drive his shiny silver Alfa Romeo on the twisty and dangerous road through the mountains—my father suggested I have a stab at the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada National Championships held that year in Calgary, Alberta. This was on the strength of some spotty success at similar local model airplane competitions. Dad did his fair share of dreaming big. Particularly when it came to his kids.\n\nFor my part, I thought it was a perfectly fine idea, and duly registered to compete in the ‘Standard Sailplane’ category. These were models of around eight foot wingspan, without any sort of motor, controlled by the pilots located safely on the ground and connected to their plane by radio link. The gliders were towed aloft by a winch which spooled up the towline and the small, graceful aircraft rose into the sky like a kite...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode Barron Shurn preparing to launch his model sailplane at a Seattle Area Soaring Society contest in June of 2008. This would have been very similar to the competition described in the essay. (photo credit: Bill Kuhlman / RC Soaring Digest)","content_html":"On a whim in the summer of 1976—no doubt in part because he wanted to drive his shiny silver Alfa Romeo on the twisty and dangerous road through the mountains—my father suggested I have a stab at the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada National Championships held that year in Calgary, Alberta. This was on the strength of some spotty success at similar local model airplane competitions. Dad did his fair share of dreaming big. Particularly when it came to his kids.
\n\nFor my part, I thought it was a perfectly fine idea, and duly registered to compete in the ‘Standard Sailplane’ category. These were models of around eight foot wingspan, without any sort of motor, controlled by the pilots located safely on the ground and connected to their plane by radio link. The gliders were towed aloft by a winch which spooled up the towline and the small, graceful aircraft rose into the sky like a kite...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode Barron Shurn preparing to launch his model sailplane at a Seattle Area Soaring Society contest in June of 2008. This would have been very similar to the competition described in the essay. (photo credit: Bill Kuhlman / RC Soaring Digest)
","summary":"Dad did his fair share of dreaming big. Particularly when it came to his kids.","date_published":"2019-07-24T20:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/1bb7a0a9-25cf-4f6e-9798-6d402b52eb00.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":25109860,"duration_in_seconds":1046}]},{"id":"0b880808-326c-485b-8511-cc7e894ecbad","title":"Alas, Kawhi, We Hardly Knew Ye","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/045","content_text":"The blessing and the curse of capturing lightning in a bottle.\n\nThe news landed with an apocalyptic shudder on an otherwise beautiful Saturday morning. Just 23 days after the Raptors handily dispatched the Golden State Warriors in six games, the enigmatic Kawhi Leonard announced he had signed a four year, $142 million deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. Predictably, the interstitial period became #KawhiWatch for fans of NBA basketball around the world. Nowhere more so than in Canada. Over the course of a single season, for Canadians, Leonard went from ‘say who?’ to being the leading candidate for pope if the position suddenly came available. We just couldn’t get enough of Kawhi which included, embarrassingly, chasing a lookalike in a black SUV through the streets of Toronto with a news helicopter. We were collectively transformed from diffident admirer to deranged stalker over the course of a little more than a week...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode is Pascal Siakam and Kyle Lowry double team Tim Frazier, then of the Washington Wizards, on March 2, 2018. (image: Keith Allison via Wikimedia)","content_html":"The news landed with an apocalyptic shudder on an otherwise beautiful Saturday morning. Just 23 days after the Raptors handily dispatched the Golden State Warriors in six games, the enigmatic Kawhi Leonard announced he had signed a four year, $142 million deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. Predictably, the interstitial period became #KawhiWatch for fans of NBA basketball around the world. Nowhere more so than in Canada. Over the course of a single season, for Canadians, Leonard went from ‘say who?’ to being the leading candidate for pope if the position suddenly came available. We just couldn’t get enough of Kawhi which included, embarrassingly, chasing a lookalike in a black SUV through the streets of Toronto with a news helicopter. We were collectively transformed from diffident admirer to deranged stalker over the course of a little more than a week...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode is Pascal Siakam and Kyle Lowry double team Tim Frazier, then of the Washington Wizards, on March 2, 2018. (image: Keith Allison via Wikimedia)
","summary":"The blessing and the curse of capturing lightning in a bottle.","date_published":"2019-07-10T14:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/0b880808-326c-485b-8511-cc7e894ecbad.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":26141801,"duration_in_seconds":1089}]},{"id":"e2a56844-8102-42b3-b1d4-826c5127b442","title":"Twitter+","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/044","content_text":"Some unsolicited—and probably unwelcome—advice on where Twitter should go from here.\n\n“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Mark Twain’s life did not overlap Twitter’s by nearly a century, but he still managed to provide the single best commentary of what Twitter is, and should continue to be. Brevity is Twitter’s essence and that should never change. Any idea which takes more than 280 characters clearly needs more work, a modern day Twain might have said. Twitter’s enforced brevity is not a constraint. It’s liberation. Forcing my verbose, disorganized thoughts into 50 words or less makes them better, not worse.\n\nApart from that one thing, however, almost everything else about Twitter needs to change...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode is Twitter Headquarters on Market Steet in San Francisco, California. (credit: Shutterstock)","content_html":"“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Mark Twain’s life did not overlap Twitter’s by nearly a century, but he still managed to provide the single best commentary of what Twitter is, and should continue to be. Brevity is Twitter’s essence and that should never change. Any idea which takes more than 280 characters clearly needs more work, a modern day Twain might have said. Twitter’s enforced brevity is not a constraint. It’s liberation. Forcing my verbose, disorganized thoughts into 50 words or less makes them better, not worse.
\n\nApart from that one thing, however, almost everything else about Twitter needs to change...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode is Twitter Headquarters on Market Steet in San Francisco, California. (credit: Shutterstock)
","summary":"Some unsolicited—and probably unwelcome—advice on where Twitter should go from here.","date_published":"2019-06-26T13:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/e2a56844-8102-42b3-b1d4-826c5127b442.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":27481199,"duration_in_seconds":1120}]},{"id":"22ff2e02-a1a0-4a28-bc63-87b7d0c98cdd","title":"Framing John DeLorean","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/043","content_text":"It’s a three-fer: biopic drama, documentary and the-making-of all rolled into one.\n\nThree cars were most likely to adorn an adolescent boy’s room in the early 1980s. The first was the brutish Porsche Turbo Carrera with its outlandish fender flairs and whale tail. The second was the Lamborghini Countach which, in its original and purest form, was a single, hard-chined arc from nose to tail. The third was the DeLorean. It might have had a model name but nobody knew what it was. With its unique stainless steel body and gull-wing doors, the car was unmistakable. It was the Potemkin-esque ‘concept car’ you glimpsed at the auto show, but made real and available soon on a lot near you. For a time, the public couldn’t get enough of it...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. Alec Baldwin as John DeLorean in _Framing John DeLorean (credit: XYZ Films)_","content_html":"Three cars were most likely to adorn an adolescent boy’s room in the early 1980s. The first was the brutish Porsche Turbo Carrera with its outlandish fender flairs and whale tail. The second was the Lamborghini Countach which, in its original and purest form, was a single, hard-chined arc from nose to tail. The third was the DeLorean. It might have had a model name but nobody knew what it was. With its unique stainless steel body and gull-wing doors, the car was unmistakable. It was the Potemkin-esque ‘concept car’ you glimpsed at the auto show, but made real and available soon on a lot near you. For a time, the public couldn’t get enough of it...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. Alec Baldwin as John DeLorean in _Framing John DeLorean (credit: XYZ Films)_
","summary":"It’s a three-fer: biopic drama, documentary and the-making-of all rolled into one.","date_published":"2019-06-12T20:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/22ff2e02-a1a0-4a28-bc63-87b7d0c98cdd.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":33894526,"duration_in_seconds":1412}]},{"id":"d36af38d-f294-4b05-8e11-a759a1738488","title":"The Tao of Kawhi Leonard","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/042","content_text":"His approach to the game is an example we need in these troubled times.\n\nI was furious. Not only had Masai Ujiri fired Coach of the Year Dwane Casey in May, now he had traded away DeMar DeRozan for some guy from the San Antonio Spurs whose name I didn’t even recognize. Along with some other guy whose name I didn’t recognize either. My fury was based, in part, on a very weird, very Canadian reason. DeRozan actually liked playing in Toronto and we liked him back for almost that reason alone. Surprisingly, that’s really important to us. Canadians have this unhealthy need to be liked. Particularly by Americans. DeRozan’s remarkable skills as a player didn’t hurt, of course, but we found it endearing that he did not appear to simply be putting in time until he headed south again...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is Kawhi Leonard in the game against the Charlotte Hornets at ScotiaBank Arena on March 24th, 2019. (credit: Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0)","content_html":"I was furious. Not only had Masai Ujiri fired Coach of the Year Dwane Casey in May, now he had traded away DeMar DeRozan for some guy from the San Antonio Spurs whose name I didn’t even recognize. Along with some other guy whose name I didn’t recognize either. My fury was based, in part, on a very weird, very Canadian reason. DeRozan actually liked playing in Toronto and we liked him back for almost that reason alone. Surprisingly, that’s really important to us. Canadians have this unhealthy need to be liked. Particularly by Americans. DeRozan’s remarkable skills as a player didn’t hurt, of course, but we found it endearing that he did not appear to simply be putting in time until he headed south again...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is Kawhi Leonard in the game against the Charlotte Hornets at ScotiaBank Arena on March 24th, 2019. (credit: Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0)
","summary":"His approach to the game is an example we need in these troubled times.","date_published":"2019-05-29T20:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/d36af38d-f294-4b05-8e11-a759a1738488.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":40561393,"duration_in_seconds":1689}]},{"id":"86e4b965-ce51-4211-81e0-374a92bab507","title":"Jack Northrop's Flying Wings","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/041","content_text":"An old idea for which the best years may still lay ahead.\n\nJack Northrop dreamt of aircraft where everything not absolutely essential for flight was eliminated. Leonardo da Vinci’s theoretical flying machines from the 15th century, Sir George Cayley’s Governable Parachute of 1852, the Wright Brothers’ Flyer of 1903 and virtually ever other flying machine all have one thing in common: they all have tails of one sort of another which are used to stabilize and control their flight. Northrop, contrarily, didn’t believe a tail was necessary. In fact, he believed anything other than the wing actively worked against the elusive goal of all aircraft designers: to find the most efficient means of getting an aircraft aloft and then keeping it there.\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is of the first flight of the all-jet powered YB-49 on October 21, 1947. (credit: AFFTC History Office)","content_html":"Jack Northrop dreamt of aircraft where everything not absolutely essential for flight was eliminated. Leonardo da Vinci’s theoretical flying machines from the 15th century, Sir George Cayley’s Governable Parachute of 1852, the Wright Brothers’ Flyer of 1903 and virtually ever other flying machine all have one thing in common: they all have tails of one sort of another which are used to stabilize and control their flight. Northrop, contrarily, didn’t believe a tail was necessary. In fact, he believed anything other than the wing actively worked against the elusive goal of all aircraft designers: to find the most efficient means of getting an aircraft aloft and then keeping it there.
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is of the first flight of the all-jet powered YB-49 on October 21, 1947. (credit: AFFTC History Office)
","summary":"An old idea for which the best years may still lay ahead.","date_published":"2019-05-15T22:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/86e4b965-ce51-4211-81e0-374a92bab507.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":43957521,"duration_in_seconds":1831}]},{"id":"ff1bfbcf-dcec-4131-b360-c2b10dc24efb","title":"RV-6","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/040","content_text":"A labour of love — and hate — 23 years in the making.\n\n“The baby is on the roof with an umbrella and he looks like he is about to jump.” My mother tells this story — undoubtedly embellished over the years — about a chillingly calm call she took from a neighbour to warn of the seemingly imminent, tragic death of her younger son. I don’t remember the event myself but if it worked for Mary Poppins, I must have reasoned, surely it would work for me. Besides, I had a backup plan: my satin-edged security blanket tied, Superman-style, around my neck. If Poppins didn’t come through then surely Superman wouldn’t let me down, would he?\n\nThen, in my pre-teen years, there was the control surface from a full-sized aircraft — it was an aileron, I think — which somehow came into my brother’s and my possession. After evaluating a few alternatives, we ended up duct taping it to the crossbar of my mustang bike...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode the RV-6 which is the star of the episode, when it was at Delta Heritage Air Park, in September of 2018. (image: author)","content_html":"“The baby is on the roof with an umbrella and he looks like he is about to jump.” My mother tells this story — undoubtedly embellished over the years — about a chillingly calm call she took from a neighbour to warn of the seemingly imminent, tragic death of her younger son. I don’t remember the event myself but if it worked for Mary Poppins, I must have reasoned, surely it would work for me. Besides, I had a backup plan: my satin-edged security blanket tied, Superman-style, around my neck. If Poppins didn’t come through then surely Superman wouldn’t let me down, would he?
\n\nThen, in my pre-teen years, there was the control surface from a full-sized aircraft — it was an aileron, I think — which somehow came into my brother’s and my possession. After evaluating a few alternatives, we ended up duct taping it to the crossbar of my mustang bike...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode the RV-6 which is the star of the episode, when it was at Delta Heritage Air Park, in September of 2018. (image: author)
","summary":"A labour of love — and hate — 23 years in the making.","date_published":"2019-05-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/ff1bfbcf-dcec-4131-b360-c2b10dc24efb.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":41662925,"duration_in_seconds":1735}]},{"id":"bed2b535-2c6f-408c-8945-562fb3b4f645","title":"The Return of Tiger Woods","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/039","content_text":"Thankfully, things didn’t turn out the way many expected.\n\nWhat caught my attention, and that of a few others, was a small article about an amateur golf phenom out of Cypress, California with the improbable name of Tiger Woods. He had just quit the economics program at Stanford University and was turning pro at just 20 years of age. I think I recall somebody saying “he’s going to regret quitting Stanford!” Now I think about it, that could easily have been me. At that time, however, Stanford was already known for churning out soon-to-be Silicon Valley millionaires. It seemed folly that even if Tiger was there a golf scholarship, he had still managed to get himself into one of the most prestigious schools in the United States. “He should stick it out for another couple of years just in case the golf thing doesn’t work out,” I remember thinking, enviously. I also remember somebody else, not me, remarked “do you suppose that he’s going to have a line of clubs called Tiger’s Woods?”\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is by PeetlesNumber1 via Wikimedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. The image has been slightly cropped to fit the Fireside format.","content_html":"What caught my attention, and that of a few others, was a small article about an amateur golf phenom out of Cypress, California with the improbable name of Tiger Woods. He had just quit the economics program at Stanford University and was turning pro at just 20 years of age. I think I recall somebody saying “he’s going to regret quitting Stanford!” Now I think about it, that could easily have been me. At that time, however, Stanford was already known for churning out soon-to-be Silicon Valley millionaires. It seemed folly that even if Tiger was there a golf scholarship, he had still managed to get himself into one of the most prestigious schools in the United States. “He should stick it out for another couple of years just in case the golf thing doesn’t work out,” I remember thinking, enviously. I also remember somebody else, not me, remarked “do you suppose that he’s going to have a line of clubs called Tiger’s Woods?”
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is by PeetlesNumber1 via Wikimedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. The image has been slightly cropped to fit the Fireside format.
","summary":"Thankfully, things didn’t turn out the way many expected.","date_published":"2019-04-17T20:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/bed2b535-2c6f-408c-8945-562fb3b4f645.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":31179881,"duration_in_seconds":1298}]},{"id":"bcc1bdda-c692-43af-8339-db5b3c3e9a53","title":"The Last, Best Reason for Newspapers","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/038","content_text":"The future of newspapers may lie in their past.\n\nI have not bought a hometown newspaper for a decade. I haven’t read a whole one in years. I do occasionally read the article which just happens to be facing up on The Globe and Mail abandoned at Starbucks while I’m waiting for my four shot American Misto. I rarely touch the paper itself. That’s not because I’m a germaphobe — although I do have tendencies in that regard — it’s a subconscious holdover from the days when the ink used to come off on my fingers as I hungrily turned the pages of the The Vancouver Sun on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. I am also struck by how small the pages have become — sub-tabloid size and not much larger than an 11 by 17 sheet of paper. More of a news flyer as opposed to a broadsheet of old. More colour, perhaps, but less colourful.\n\nWhen you think about them in the context of the all-digital, all-the-time 21st century, the mere notion of a newspaper is utterly absurd...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The exquisite key image for this episode is by Photo Kozyr / Shutterstock. The image has been slightly cropped to fit the Fireside format.","content_html":"I have not bought a hometown newspaper for a decade. I haven’t read a whole one in years. I do occasionally read the article which just happens to be facing up on The Globe and Mail abandoned at Starbucks while I’m waiting for my four shot American Misto. I rarely touch the paper itself. That’s not because I’m a germaphobe — although I do have tendencies in that regard — it’s a subconscious holdover from the days when the ink used to come off on my fingers as I hungrily turned the pages of the The Vancouver Sun on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. I am also struck by how small the pages have become — sub-tabloid size and not much larger than an 11 by 17 sheet of paper. More of a news flyer as opposed to a broadsheet of old. More colour, perhaps, but less colourful.
\n\nWhen you think about them in the context of the all-digital, all-the-time 21st century, the mere notion of a newspaper is utterly absurd...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The exquisite key image for this episode is by Photo Kozyr / Shutterstock. The image has been slightly cropped to fit the Fireside format.
","summary":"The future of newspapers may lie in their past.","date_published":"2019-04-03T18:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/bcc1bdda-c692-43af-8339-db5b3c3e9a53.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":26420789,"duration_in_seconds":1100}]},{"id":"01d4790f-6513-4d05-b1c8-00d6349a966e","title":"The Comet","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/037","content_text":"The MacRobertson Air Race of 1934 marked the beginning of modern air travel and the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Aviation.\n\nIt was a time when daring—or simply dangerous—aviation events were concocted for the slightest of excuses. In the case of the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race it was nominally to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the city of Melbourne, Australia. The sponsor for whom the race was named was provided this honour simply by putting up the £15,000 in prize money. Sir Macpherson Robertson—he preferred the more catchy ‘MacRobertson’—was an Australian confectionary baron who likely saw the unparalleled promotional opportunity for what it was: a means of getting his name, and subsequently his candy, on the lips of everybody from England to Australia and everywhere in between.\n\nMacRobertson would accomplish this purely commercial objective simply by being the title sponsor for a race where entrants would depart Mildenhall, England and, as fast as they dared, make their way to Melbourne, Australia some 11,300 miles away...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The exquisite key image for this episode is by Kev Gregory and is available on Shutterstock. The image has been slightly cropped to fit the Fireside format.","content_html":"It was a time when daring—or simply dangerous—aviation events were concocted for the slightest of excuses. In the case of the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race it was nominally to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the city of Melbourne, Australia. The sponsor for whom the race was named was provided this honour simply by putting up the £15,000 in prize money. Sir Macpherson Robertson—he preferred the more catchy ‘MacRobertson’—was an Australian confectionary baron who likely saw the unparalleled promotional opportunity for what it was: a means of getting his name, and subsequently his candy, on the lips of everybody from England to Australia and everywhere in between.
\n\nMacRobertson would accomplish this purely commercial objective simply by being the title sponsor for a race where entrants would depart Mildenhall, England and, as fast as they dared, make their way to Melbourne, Australia some 11,300 miles away...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The exquisite key image for this episode is by Kev Gregory and is available on Shutterstock. The image has been slightly cropped to fit the Fireside format.
","summary":"The MacRobertson Air Race of 1934 marked the beginning of modern air travel and the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Aviation.","date_published":"2019-03-20T21:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/01d4790f-6513-4d05-b1c8-00d6349a966e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":29293422,"duration_in_seconds":1220}]},{"id":"522930a3-d29f-4806-b8e1-cf16217a312b","title":"'F' for Freddie","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/036","content_text":"It wasn't supposed to end this way.\n\n\"Eye-witnesses to the crash told how F-for-Freddie's rubber dinghy dropped out, inflated automatically and landed, as neatly and naturally as though something had gone wrong over the North Sea\" so the local newspapers reported. Except it wasn't over the North Sea. It was in the middle of a cattle pasture and not far from a poultry farm on the prairie near Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was certainly nowhere near anywhere a rubber dinghy would have been of any conceivable use. It was also thousands of miles away from the hostile skies of Europe where this particular aircraft had flown a record 213 missions before the war there had officially ended just two days before.\n\nA few hundred yards away, what was left of the battle weary de Havilland Mosquito, nicknamed 'F' for Freddie, was still burning while the unimpeded prairie wind scattered the black smoke to nothingness...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously.)","content_html":""Eye-witnesses to the crash told how F-for-Freddie's rubber dinghy dropped out, inflated automatically and landed, as neatly and naturally as though something had gone wrong over the North Sea" so the local newspapers reported. Except it wasn't over the North Sea. It was in the middle of a cattle pasture and not far from a poultry farm on the prairie near Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was certainly nowhere near anywhere a rubber dinghy would have been of any conceivable use. It was also thousands of miles away from the hostile skies of Europe where this particular aircraft had flown a record 213 missions before the war there had officially ended just two days before.
\n\nA few hundred yards away, what was left of the battle weary de Havilland Mosquito, nicknamed 'F' for Freddie, was still burning while the unimpeded prairie wind scattered the black smoke to nothingness...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously.)
","summary":"It wasn't supposed to end this way.","date_published":"2019-03-06T23:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/522930a3-d29f-4806-b8e1-cf16217a312b.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":34607356,"duration_in_seconds":1441}]},{"id":"9e323604-2a04-44a5-8281-97dd2c4a8f85","title":"How Himalaya Should Spend the $100 Million","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/035","content_text":"They didn't ask me but here's what I think anyway.\n\nI had to reread the headline at least a couple of times:\n\nPodcast Platform Himalaya Raises $100 Million, Launches Apps With Tipping Function\n\n$100 million? What on earth is Himalaya going to do with all that money? Besides, of course, the oddly headline-worthy 'tipping function'? Then it occurred to me: The Oprah and LeBron Show. The two stars would richly deserve that money just so long as their deal includes three important words: Only on Himalaya. At that point, Himalaya is only two tweets away from over 80 million high engagement Twitter impressions. And that's the whole game, of course. Content really is king. If there is any doubt about that just ask Netflix.\n\nOn the other hand if all that's delivered for the $100 million is exclusive distribution deals with those who need no further introduction other than their first name, that will be a crying shame indeed...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is \"On The Air\" by Alan Levine (Via Wikimedia under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. Image slightly cropped to fit Fireside format.)","content_html":"I had to reread the headline at least a couple of times:
\n\nPodcast Platform Himalaya Raises $100 Million, Launches Apps With Tipping Function
\n\n$100 million? What on earth is Himalaya going to do with all that money? Besides, of course, the oddly headline-worthy 'tipping function'? Then it occurred to me: The Oprah and LeBron Show. The two stars would richly deserve that money just so long as their deal includes three important words: Only on Himalaya. At that point, Himalaya is only two tweets away from over 80 million high engagement Twitter impressions. And that's the whole game, of course. Content really is king. If there is any doubt about that just ask Netflix.
\n\nOn the other hand if all that's delivered for the $100 million is exclusive distribution deals with those who need no further introduction other than their first name, that will be a crying shame indeed...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is "On The Air" by Alan Levine (Via Wikimedia under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. Image slightly cropped to fit Fireside format.)
","summary":"They didn't ask me but here's what I think anyway.","date_published":"2019-02-20T15:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/9e323604-2a04-44a5-8281-97dd2c4a8f85.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":27302892,"duration_in_seconds":1137}]},{"id":"01632b46-bdeb-4cf8-b59f-4079abdb3d60","title":"Story First, Everything Else Last","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/034","content_text":"We need the willing suspension of disbelief to sell shoes?\n\n\"How is corporate storytelling different from other kinds of storytelling?\"\n\nI was stumped by the question. I have to thank the interviewer who found the bullet point in my LinkedIn profile and called me out on it. I hope his audio editor eventually eliminates 90% of the pause that followed so I sound a whole lot sharper than I guess I must be. I eventually replied with the only thing which came into my head at the time:\n\n\"It isn't,\" I offered, with a hopefully inaudible rising inflection. As the interviewer seemed to approve of my initial answer, I began to gain confidence in it: \"yes,\" I thought, \"corporate storytelling is just like any other kind of storytelling, right?\" That is, in the sense its ultimate effectiveness is related to its ability to transport us, the audience, to some other place or time - to have us willingly suspend our disbelief, as Aristotle put it. After that, anything is possible. We'll go wherever the storyteller wants us to go.\n\nIt just has to be a great story...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is a screen capture from the 2013 edition of the 'World of Red Bull' series of short promotional films. (credit: Red Bull)","content_html":""How is corporate storytelling different from other kinds of storytelling?"
\n\nI was stumped by the question. I have to thank the interviewer who found the bullet point in my LinkedIn profile and called me out on it. I hope his audio editor eventually eliminates 90% of the pause that followed so I sound a whole lot sharper than I guess I must be. I eventually replied with the only thing which came into my head at the time:
\n\n"It isn't," I offered, with a hopefully inaudible rising inflection. As the interviewer seemed to approve of my initial answer, I began to gain confidence in it: "yes," I thought, "corporate storytelling is just like any other kind of storytelling, right?" That is, in the sense its ultimate effectiveness is related to its ability to transport us, the audience, to some other place or time - to have us willingly suspend our disbelief, as Aristotle put it. After that, anything is possible. We'll go wherever the storyteller wants us to go.
\n\nIt just has to be a great story...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is a screen capture from the 2013 edition of the 'World of Red Bull' series of short promotional films. (credit: Red Bull)
","summary":"We need the willing suspension of disbelief to sell shoes?","date_published":"2019-02-06T19:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/01632b46-bdeb-4cf8-b59f-4079abdb3d60.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":29957351,"duration_in_seconds":1248}]},{"id":"a710967a-ded5-4ee5-b8c8-26555e0c6f95","title":"The Arrow","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/033","content_text":"The path not taken 60 years ago has a nation still wondering what might have been.\n\nOn February 19th, 1959 Wladyslaw \"Spud\" Potocki was test flying the sparkling white Avro Arrow RL-201 in the fair but chilly skies near Malton, Ontario. On that particular flight the World War II veteran fighter pilot was testing the Arrow's roll rates at Mach 1.7. While fast, it was still well below the nearly twice the speed-of-sound the sharp, delta-wing aircraft had already achieved on previous test flights. As aeronautical engineers like to say, the Arrow had 'flown off the drawing board'. The celestial expectations for the all new, Canadian designed and built supersonic interceptor were being met or exceeded with each passing day...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: The first of six Arrows produced on the near production ready Avro Canada assembly line in Malton, Ontario in the late 1950s.)","content_html":"On February 19th, 1959 Wladyslaw "Spud" Potocki was test flying the sparkling white Avro Arrow RL-201 in the fair but chilly skies near Malton, Ontario. On that particular flight the World War II veteran fighter pilot was testing the Arrow's roll rates at Mach 1.7. While fast, it was still well below the nearly twice the speed-of-sound the sharp, delta-wing aircraft had already achieved on previous test flights. As aeronautical engineers like to say, the Arrow had 'flown off the drawing board'. The celestial expectations for the all new, Canadian designed and built supersonic interceptor were being met or exceeded with each passing day...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: The first of six Arrows produced on the near production ready Avro Canada assembly line in Malton, Ontario in the late 1950s.)
","summary":"The path not taken 60 years ago has a nation still wondering what might have been.","date_published":"2019-01-23T14:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/a710967a-ded5-4ee5-b8c8-26555e0c6f95.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":35646629,"duration_in_seconds":1460}]},{"id":"6cea65cd-09d2-4a56-a8a4-56e2f8f52b5f","title":"Fat Kid with a Cello","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/032-fat-kid-with-a-cello","content_text":"Why you should probably make your child play a musical instrument.\n\nThe autobiography you won't read is the one I won't write because nothing short of Mitty-esque imaginings could make it interesting. I am vain enough, however, to know what the title of that pathetically thin volume would be: Fat Kid with a Cello.\n\nIn the fall of 1966, when I was just five years old, my parents enrolled me in what I just recently learned was an experiment in teaching five year olds how to play the violin. Noted professional violinist of the time, Elsie Persson, published an academic paper in 1968 describing how she \"undertook to organize a pilot group of ten children at Macdonald College of McGill University\" in Montréal. Turns out I was one of those ten children...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: The indefatigable Mrs. Elsie Persson conducts three members of the Macdonald College Mini Strings in 1966.)","content_html":"The autobiography you won't read is the one I won't write because nothing short of Mitty-esque imaginings could make it interesting. I am vain enough, however, to know what the title of that pathetically thin volume would be: Fat Kid with a Cello.
\n\nIn the fall of 1966, when I was just five years old, my parents enrolled me in what I just recently learned was an experiment in teaching five year olds how to play the violin. Noted professional violinist of the time, Elsie Persson, published an academic paper in 1968 describing how she "undertook to organize a pilot group of ten children at Macdonald College of McGill University" in Montréal. Turns out I was one of those ten children...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: The indefatigable Mrs. Elsie Persson conducts three members of the Macdonald College Mini Strings in 1966.)
","summary":"Why you should probably make your child play a musical instrument.","date_published":"2019-01-09T00:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/6cea65cd-09d2-4a56-a8a4-56e2f8f52b5f.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":23579502,"duration_in_seconds":982}]},{"id":"38670688-aed5-483d-8c7e-f8634cd1a33a","title":"Legalization","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/031-legalization","content_text":"I really hope this isn’t the one thing for which Canada is known.\n\nWhen travelling, and the answer \"Calgary\" to the question \"so where do you call home?\" draws the fairly common blank stare, there are two things which can usually be relied upon to locate my home town on Planet Earth. My first recourse is usually \"ever heard of the Calgary Stampede?\" If that doesn't work, which it usually does, then the next thing to try is \"remember the 1988 Winter Olympics?\" Still nothing? \"From Montana, drive north. It's just colder and has lower speed limits but otherwise it's more-or-less the same.\" Depending on how far south I am in the continental US, that's usually a good bet for finally getting the location pin to drop on the map in my travelling acquaintance's head.\n\nI'm expecting, however, that pretty soon all that is going to change...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: author)","content_html":"When travelling, and the answer "Calgary" to the question "so where do you call home?" draws the fairly common blank stare, there are two things which can usually be relied upon to locate my home town on Planet Earth. My first recourse is usually "ever heard of the Calgary Stampede?" If that doesn't work, which it usually does, then the next thing to try is "remember the 1988 Winter Olympics?" Still nothing? "From Montana, drive north. It's just colder and has lower speed limits but otherwise it's more-or-less the same." Depending on how far south I am in the continental US, that's usually a good bet for finally getting the location pin to drop on the map in my travelling acquaintance's head.
\n\nI'm expecting, however, that pretty soon all that is going to change...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: author)
","summary":"I really hope this isn't the one thing for which Canada is known.","date_published":"2018-12-17T14:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/38670688-aed5-483d-8c7e-f8634cd1a33a.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":24413958,"duration_in_seconds":1017}]},{"id":"570a9d25-7370-416f-9769-ad79ec36085f","title":"X-15","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/030-x-15","content_text":"Inspired by its feature role in First Man, a closer look at the first aircraft to fly into space.\n\nIn the annotated screenplay for First Man, author Josh Singer was asked “why start with the X-15?” for the gripping opening scene in the movie. His answer was simple: “we fell in love with the aircraft. The fastest and highest flying…ever built…[it] flew well over Mach 6 (4,520 miles per hour) and more than 50 miles high, well outside the sensible atmosphere.” Singer’s collaborator and Neil Armstrong’s official biographer, James R. Hansen, adds a fascinating historical footnote: the eponymous first man “really didn’t enjoy talking about the Moon landing, probably because that was all anyone ever asked him about. But ask him about the…X-15 and he’d talk a blue streak.”\n\nIt’s not surprising the famously taciturn pilot-first-astronaut-later Neil Armstrong was a chatterbox when it came to this remarkable aircraft...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: Air Force Flight Test Center History Office)","content_html":"In the annotated screenplay for First Man, author Josh Singer was asked “why start with the X-15?” for the gripping opening scene in the movie. His answer was simple: “we fell in love with the aircraft. The fastest and highest flying…ever built…[it] flew well over Mach 6 (4,520 miles per hour) and more than 50 miles high, well outside the sensible atmosphere.” Singer’s collaborator and Neil Armstrong’s official biographer, James R. Hansen, adds a fascinating historical footnote: the eponymous first man “really didn’t enjoy talking about the Moon landing, probably because that was all anyone ever asked him about. But ask him about the…X-15 and he’d talk a blue streak.”
\n\nIt’s not surprising the famously taciturn pilot-first-astronaut-later Neil Armstrong was a chatterbox when it came to this remarkable aircraft...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: Air Force Flight Test Center History Office)
","summary":"Inspired by its feature role in ‘First Man’, a closer look at the first aircraft to fly into space.","date_published":"2018-11-21T13:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/570a9d25-7370-416f-9769-ad79ec36085f.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":32732809,"duration_in_seconds":1363}]},{"id":"df5bd03d-d0cc-489a-8c1d-fe55a8bf5c03","title":"Dad Was a Traveller","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/029-dad-was-a-traveller","content_text":"Thoughts of my father on the occasion of his passing.\n\nSome say you spend your entire life preparing for the inevitable moment when you have to speak at your father’s memorial service. Today is that day and now is that time. Given that lifetime of preparation, I hope you’ll indulge me — grant me the luxury of a little of your time — as I take you on a ride through Dad’s life as seen from the perspective of his younger son.\n\nThe first really concrete, vivid, fully-articulated memory of my father was in 1969 when he came home and announced that instead of doing the sensible thing, and flying to a conference to present some of his medical research findings, we were going to drive there. He pitched it as a fun, family adventure. The catch? It wasn’t going to be a few hours to Ottawa or Toronto, and even an international junket to New York or Boston. No, all those destinations were strictly for dilettantes. The five of us, Mum and Dad and the three kids, were going to shoehorn ourselves into our brand new Dodge Dart — thankfully equipped with the relatively rare luxury, for the time, of air conditioning — and we were going to drive to... \n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: author)","content_html":"Some say you spend your entire life preparing for the inevitable moment when you have to speak at your father’s memorial service. Today is that day and now is that time. Given that lifetime of preparation, I hope you’ll indulge me — grant me the luxury of a little of your time — as I take you on a ride through Dad’s life as seen from the perspective of his younger son.
\n\nThe first really concrete, vivid, fully-articulated memory of my father was in 1969 when he came home and announced that instead of doing the sensible thing, and flying to a conference to present some of his medical research findings, we were going to drive there. He pitched it as a fun, family adventure. The catch? It wasn’t going to be a few hours to Ottawa or Toronto, and even an international junket to New York or Boston. No, all those destinations were strictly for dilettantes. The five of us, Mum and Dad and the three kids, were going to shoehorn ourselves into our brand new Dodge Dart — thankfully equipped with the relatively rare luxury, for the time, of air conditioning — and we were going to drive to...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: author)
","summary":"Some say you spend your entire life preparing for the inevitable moment when you have to speak at your father’s memorial service. Given that lifetime of preparation, I hope you’ll indulge me — grant me the luxury of a little of your time — as I take you on a ride through Dad’s life as seen from the perspective of his younger son.","date_published":"2018-10-11T18:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/df5bd03d-d0cc-489a-8c1d-fe55a8bf5c03.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":32269519,"duration_in_seconds":1312}]},{"id":"353015bb-7849-4bcd-b76b-43b29b2bf0c8","title":"The Third Third","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/028-the-third-third","content_text":"Notes from a life well underway but nowhere near over.\n\nI had breakfast with a friend of mine not too long ago and our conversation turned to, as it often does with those hovering around the 60 year mark, to the subject of retirement. That started with a passing comment about my father who had recently entered his 90th year, as he fondly and often tells us. “I sometimes wonder,” I said, “if my parents had known they were going to live this long if they would have organized their lives any differently.”\n\nMy grandparents were...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: “On The Beach at Newport, Looking West” by Michelle Klement)","content_html":"I had breakfast with a friend of mine not too long ago and our conversation turned to, as it often does with those hovering around the 60 year mark, to the subject of retirement. That started with a passing comment about my father who had recently entered his 90th year, as he fondly and often tells us. “I sometimes wonder,” I said, “if my parents had known they were going to live this long if they would have organized their lives any differently.”
\n\nMy grandparents were...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: “On The Beach at Newport, Looking West” by Michelle Klement)
","summary":"A conversation over breakfast about long-lived parents triggers some thoughts on a new life plan.","date_published":"2018-04-30T21:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/353015bb-7849-4bcd-b76b-43b29b2bf0c8.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":23981271,"duration_in_seconds":960}]},{"id":"1c6d4937-4082-4083-a686-e20ae075ccf1","title":"Plus 15","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/027-plus-15","content_text":"Building an off-world colony a few feet above the street.\n\nThe science fiction staple of abandoning a less desirable place for another, more desirable one has been around almost since the beginning of science fiction itself. After all, who can deny the appeal of a fresh start in a brighter, better place? It’s often a cautionary tale, the result of not having entirely thought through the consequences of environmental neglect or outright abuse. Lacking the ability, or will, to put that right it’s just easier to start over again in low earth orbit or better yet, another planet either real or imagined. This notion of the future was truly brought to life in Ridley Scott’s original Bladerunner in 1982...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: The CORE of the Plus 15 in Calgary, Canada, taken by the author.)","content_html":"The science fiction staple of abandoning a less desirable place for another, more desirable one has been around almost since the beginning of science fiction itself. After all, who can deny the appeal of a fresh start in a brighter, better place? It’s often a cautionary tale, the result of not having entirely thought through the consequences of environmental neglect or outright abuse. Lacking the ability, or will, to put that right it’s just easier to start over again in low earth orbit or better yet, another planet either real or imagined. This notion of the future was truly brought to life in Ridley Scott’s original Bladerunner in 1982...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: The CORE of the Plus 15 in Calgary, Canada, taken by the author.)
","summary":"In 1970 the city of Calgary, Alberta embarked on an ambitious plan to interconnect all of its downtown buildings into one integrated network using walkways elevated 15 feet above the street. The Plus 15, as it’s called, has shuttled downtown workers around the core for nearly 50 years to their considerable delight. It’s success, however, has been at the expense of the streetscape below. Some thoughts on the past, present and future of this ambitious project.","date_published":"2018-03-08T00:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/1c6d4937-4082-4083-a686-e20ae075ccf1.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":29394937,"duration_in_seconds":1375}]},{"id":"a5aa4cf0-bd8f-4b62-ab3b-d29d8b6a2932","title":"Gutenberg on Broadway","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/026-gutenberg-on-broadway","content_text":"Observations from the arrival of the Information Age.\n\nI had a part time job at the ComputerLand store on West Broadway in Vancouver, British Columbia in the early 1980s. Mostly it was to teach an introductory programming course in the BASIC computer language on Saturday mornings. Ironically, it was one of the few things for which you bought a computer back then — to learn how to program them. The store manager didn’t see any point in sending me home after the morning class ended and had me stooge around on the sales floor instead. I was typically assigned the enthusiasts who would, without fail, walk in and want to bend the ear of a so-called expert. Lacking any real experts, I was provided in their stead...\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: IBM Canada’s King Street Datacentre circa 1964. Photograph by George Dunbar, courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, ©International Business Machines Corporation.)","content_html":"I had a part time job at the ComputerLand store on West Broadway in Vancouver, British Columbia in the early 1980s. Mostly it was to teach an introductory programming course in the BASIC computer language on Saturday mornings. Ironically, it was one of the few things for which you bought a computer back then — to learn how to program them. The store manager didn’t see any point in sending me home after the morning class ended and had me stooge around on the sales floor instead. I was typically assigned the enthusiasts who would, without fail, walk in and want to bend the ear of a so-called expert. Lacking any real experts, I was provided in their stead...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: IBM Canada’s King Street Datacentre circa 1964. Photograph by George Dunbar, courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, ©International Business Machines Corporation.)
","summary":"I am grateful for the observation perch I had for the arrival of the most recent generation of the Information Age. I’m also grateful to have felt, first hand, the shockwave and the seismic tremor of its arrival, and to be smart enough to know what it was.","date_published":"2018-02-13T19:45:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/a5aa4cf0-bd8f-4b62-ab3b-d29d8b6a2932.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":21932924,"duration_in_seconds":1047}]},{"id":"d8d8a74d-5173-4180-827d-a483001e0529","title":"Listening to Diana Krall in Nizhnevartovsk","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/025-listening-to-diana-krall-in-nizhnevartovsk","content_text":"It’s surprising what connects you to home.\n\n“Why don’t you just go there and see for yourself?” my boss asked me, back in the Spring of 1998. I was working for an international petroleum well service company at the time.\n\n“What…go there?” I asked, first thinking it sounded like an incredible adventure. Then, I was filled almost instantly with an empty, black dread. “Sure, that sounds great,” I said bravely, “I’ll get right on that.” The IT guy isn’t offered that kind of trip very often. The branch office in Orange County to pull network cabling or training courses in Seattle, maybe. Lightweight stuff with predictable food, accommodation and television. Western Siberia to help decode the turbid electronic missives of the company’s staff over there? Nearly never....\n\n* * *\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: Nizhnevartovsk, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Western Siberia in December of 2007. credit: Evgeny Fedorov under CC BY 3.0)","content_html":"“Why don’t you just go there and see for yourself?” my boss asked me, back in the Spring of 1998. I was working for an international petroleum well service company at the time.
\n\n“What…go there?” I asked, first thinking it sounded like an incredible adventure. Then, I was filled almost instantly with an empty, black dread. “Sure, that sounds great,” I said bravely, “I’ll get right on that.” The IT guy isn’t offered that kind of trip very often. The branch office in Orange County to pull network cabling or training courses in Seattle, maybe. Lightweight stuff with predictable food, accommodation and television. Western Siberia to help decode the turbid electronic missives of the company’s staff over there? Nearly never....
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: Nizhnevartovsk, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Western Siberia in December of 2007. credit: Evgeny Fedorov under CC BY 3.0)
","summary":"In this episode, host Terence C. Gannon recounts his time as an accidental tourist in Western Siberia in 1998. It was a time and a place so far away, and so strange, he learned something about what connects us all to home.","date_published":"2018-01-20T00:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/d8d8a74d-5173-4180-827d-a483001e0529.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":17871134,"duration_in_seconds":848}]},{"id":"629b8163-b664-4da6-9cdc-cfc920a38c68","title":"The Future of Warfare is Lighter Than Air","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/024-the-future-of-warfare-is-lighter-than-air","content_text":"The airship hangars at Tillamook trigger a cascade of memories.\n\nMy family first visited the Oregon Coast in the early 1970s. My mother picked Rockaway, seemingly at random, from the motor club guide and we stayed at the Silver Sands, an old-fashioned drive-up motel on the beach. All five of us squeezed into a single suite, the most memorable thing about which was the mysterious Magic Fingers Relaxation Service. This was a box on the night table which if you put in a quarter made the bed vibrate in a way that made absolutely no sense to a 12 year old. “How on earth would you ever get to sleep?” I thought, obviously not yet fully able to understand that sleeping may not have been the point. Back then, it just seemed odd...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: \"Naval Air Station Tillamook during World War II\" credit: Tillamook Air Museum)","content_html":"My family first visited the Oregon Coast in the early 1970s. My mother picked Rockaway, seemingly at random, from the motor club guide and we stayed at the Silver Sands, an old-fashioned drive-up motel on the beach. All five of us squeezed into a single suite, the most memorable thing about which was the mysterious Magic Fingers Relaxation Service. This was a box on the night table which if you put in a quarter made the bed vibrate in a way that made absolutely no sense to a 12 year old. “How on earth would you ever get to sleep?” I thought, obviously not yet fully able to understand that sleeping may not have been the point. Back then, it just seemed odd...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: "Naval Air Station Tillamook during World War II" credit: Tillamook Air Museum)
","summary":"Both in the 1970s, and then again starting in the 1990s through to present, trips to the Oregon Coast have featured the magnificent airship hangars at Tillamook. This past summer's trip triggered a cascade of memories of what was, and what might have been.","date_published":"2018-01-11T00:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/629b8163-b664-4da6-9cdc-cfc920a38c68.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":21292495,"duration_in_seconds":975}]},{"id":"93c86614-eb4c-41e3-8519-b728712cf5eb","title":"Mexico City, 1969","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/023-mexico-city-1969","content_text":"While there is still time, take your kids on a long road trip.\n\nMemories are like roadside scenery glimpsed from a car hurtling down the freeway at 78 miles-an-hour. The driver sees the least, preoccupied by the task at hand. The passenger in the front seat sees a little more but not enough given she spends time looking at the driver, searching for signs of distraction or weariness. The passengers in the back have the opportunity to see the most because they are — literally — along for the ride, blissfully out of control and with nothing but time on their hands. The idle backseat passengers can best see what’s really close up, or really far off, and only then like freeze frame glimpses of washed out Kodacolor photos rescued from a dumpster bound shoebox...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: \"Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park\" by Diego Rivera, 1947.)","content_html":"Memories are like roadside scenery glimpsed from a car hurtling down the freeway at 78 miles-an-hour. The driver sees the least, preoccupied by the task at hand. The passenger in the front seat sees a little more but not enough given she spends time looking at the driver, searching for signs of distraction or weariness. The passengers in the back have the opportunity to see the most because they are — literally — along for the ride, blissfully out of control and with nothing but time on their hands. The idle backseat passengers can best see what’s really close up, or really far off, and only then like freeze frame glimpses of washed out Kodacolor photos rescued from a dumpster bound shoebox...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park" by Diego Rivera, 1947.)
","summary":"As my parents enter their late eighties and approach life with delicacy and deliberation, I am reminded of a time when they seemingly threw caution and good sense to the wind and took their young family on an epic road trip. They knew what they were doing: creating a vivid past for a then distant future.","date_published":"2017-12-21T00:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/93c86614-eb4c-41e3-8519-b728712cf5eb.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":20544041,"duration_in_seconds":960}]},{"id":"dd6b48f0-8ac3-4594-891a-2e1ec8760ff5","title":"Grand Designs","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/022-grand-designs","content_text":"The quirky charm of a British homebuilding show.\n\nIt seems to happen every time. The affable Kevin McCloud, host of British television’s Grand Designs, describes the house project he will cover in the upcoming episode, and fairly predictably I find myself thinking:\n\nThey have got to be out of their minds.\n\nWhether it’s the extreme locale the owners have chosen, the seeming folly of restoring and subsequently inhabiting a derelict theatre, for example, or the absurd expectations of time, budget or a combination thereof, the viewer is always left with a sense that — this time — it’s all going to hell...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published in July of 2016. (photo: The Northern Echo)","content_html":"It seems to happen every time. The affable Kevin McCloud, host of British television’s Grand Designs, describes the house project he will cover in the upcoming episode, and fairly predictably I find myself thinking:
\n\nThey have got to be out of their minds.
\n\nWhether it’s the extreme locale the owners have chosen, the seeming folly of restoring and subsequently inhabiting a derelict theatre, for example, or the absurd expectations of time, budget or a combination thereof, the viewer is always left with a sense that — this time — it’s all going to hell...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published in July of 2016. (photo: The Northern Echo)
","summary":"The shear number of home improvement shows on television — heck, there are entire networks dedicated to them — you would think it would be difficult to make out any signal coming through all that noise. For 17 seasons, however, Britain's Channel 4 has been cranking out Grand Designs hosted by Kevin McCloud—a home improvement show truly worthy of your time.","date_published":"2017-12-07T07:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/dd6b48f0-8ac3-4594-891a-2e1ec8760ff5.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":15764851,"duration_in_seconds":751}]},{"id":"2b3d189b-fdfc-489b-9ff6-e0fdd49a9033","title":"At Work in the Garden of Good and Evil","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/021-at-work-in-the-garden-of-good-and-evil","content_text":"It is time we realized there’s a little bit of each in all of us and in all that we do.\n\nI have a smoky old eighties sports car which I drive, usually too fast, for a few weeks during the shoulder seasons. Any other time of year I park it lavishly, luxuriously in a heated and cooled garage. Yet, I also lust after a brand new Tesla Model S and the solar panels with which to charge it. Weird, eh?\n\nWe recycle everything we can in our household. I was annoyed, though, when our nanny state, local government rammed through blue bins city-wide at taxpayer cost. It was as if I was being forced to take money for a blood donation which I had, for years, happily given for free simply because it was the right thing to do. Except in reverse...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published in May of 2016. (photo: ©Stocksnapper via iStockphoto)","content_html":"I have a smoky old eighties sports car which I drive, usually too fast, for a few weeks during the shoulder seasons. Any other time of year I park it lavishly, luxuriously in a heated and cooled garage. Yet, I also lust after a brand new Tesla Model S and the solar panels with which to charge it. Weird, eh?
\n\nWe recycle everything we can in our household. I was annoyed, though, when our nanny state, local government rammed through blue bins city-wide at taxpayer cost. It was as if I was being forced to take money for a blood donation which I had, for years, happily given for free simply because it was the right thing to do. Except in reverse...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published in May of 2016. (photo: ©Stocksnapper via iStockphoto)
","summary":"Having left oil & gas after 25 years, you might think I was either a passionate advocate for the industry—or maybe a rabid foe. Turns out that neither is true. While our quality of life is sustained but cheap and plentiful energy, I'm not blind to the its faults. The opponents of oil & gas have valid, compelling arguments, along with a few faults of their own.","date_published":"2017-11-23T07:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/2b3d189b-fdfc-489b-9ff6-e0fdd49a9033.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":16550717,"duration_in_seconds":777}]},{"id":"2bf5dc64-b18c-4588-8242-dcda979454d5","title":"Rosetta Stone","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/020-rosetta-stone","content_text":"An ancient idea that is more relevant than ever.\n\nThe metaphorical rosetta stone is better known than the real Rosetta Stone. In any explanation of how one critical document deciphers and unlocks the meaning of all others, that document instantly becomes the rosetta stone of particle physics or computer code or kaizen or astronomy or golf. With the irreplaceable information the metaphorical rosetta stone provides, that which we seek to understand is enlightened and flourishes in our imagination. It’s the single match struck in the stygian void. The light it casts instantly defines the dimensions and nature of our new world...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published concurrently. (photo: ©Hans Hillewaert via Wikimedia under CC BY-SA 4.0)","content_html":"The metaphorical rosetta stone is better known than the real Rosetta Stone. In any explanation of how one critical document deciphers and unlocks the meaning of all others, that document instantly becomes the rosetta stone of particle physics or computer code or kaizen or astronomy or golf. With the irreplaceable information the metaphorical rosetta stone provides, that which we seek to understand is enlightened and flourishes in our imagination. It’s the single match struck in the stygian void. The light it casts instantly defines the dimensions and nature of our new world...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published concurrently. (photo: ©Hans Hillewaert via Wikimedia under CC BY-SA 4.0)
","summary":"A journey from ancient Egypt to modern day as an exploration of language, understanding and a better way for us to communicate with each other.","date_published":"2017-11-09T07:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/2bf5dc64-b18c-4588-8242-dcda979454d5.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":26720855,"duration_in_seconds":1198}]},{"id":"533f7b7b-bb93-4cf1-b6a6-7585b687ca0a","title":"The Tyranny of a Happy Accident","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/019-the-tyranny-of-a-happy-accident","content_text":"Although I didn’t know it until now, how one great month in my early twenties pretty much ruined my career.\n\nFor one brief, shining moment when I was in my early twenties, the sun and stars and all the planets aligned and I was able to bill $5,000 in one month. In 2017, that’s the equivalent of over $15,000 or, if you prefer, $180,000 a year. Through what turned out to be a happy accident, I believed I had officially hit the big time.\n\nIt turned out to be a disaster...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on April 29th, 2017.","content_html":"For one brief, shining moment when I was in my early twenties, the sun and stars and all the planets aligned and I was able to bill $5,000 in one month. In 2017, that’s the equivalent of over $15,000 or, if you prefer, $180,000 a year. Through what turned out to be a happy accident, I believed I had officially hit the big time.
\n\nIt turned out to be a disaster...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on April 29th, 2017.
","summary":"You would think that success early in a career is a gift and a stepping stone to the big time. For me, however, it turned out to be a curse. Reflections on a career, candidly, that was not all it should have been.","date_published":"2017-10-26T00:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/533f7b7b-bb93-4cf1-b6a6-7585b687ca0a.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":11472973,"duration_in_seconds":569}]},{"id":"00b29b3c-45f7-4e70-ae57-bf7663c35b26","title":"Artificial Ignorance","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/018-artificial-ignorance","content_text":"Could machine intelligence enable our darker impulses?\n\nThe judge, even in traffic court, sits on a raised platform that ensures that you look up at him and he looks down on you. It’s majestic and intimidating. This was my impression as I entered the courtroom to fight a speeding ticket I had received a few weeks previously. It’s not that I didn’t think I had been speeding when I had been caught doing exactly that, but rather I wanted to test the notion that the state still has to make its case. They have to provide evidence, the absence of which means the guilty get to go free.\n\nAnd thus hung my entire defence...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on February 17th, 2017. (header photo, cover art and sound clips from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey)","content_html":"The judge, even in traffic court, sits on a raised platform that ensures that you look up at him and he looks down on you. It’s majestic and intimidating. This was my impression as I entered the courtroom to fight a speeding ticket I had received a few weeks previously. It’s not that I didn’t think I had been speeding when I had been caught doing exactly that, but rather I wanted to test the notion that the state still has to make its case. They have to provide evidence, the absence of which means the guilty get to go free.
\n\nAnd thus hung my entire defence...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on February 17th, 2017. (header photo, cover art and sound clips from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey)
","summary":"The artificial intelligence (AI) genie is out of the bottle and there is no turning back. Like other earth shattering technologies have been introduced over millenia, there has been the inevitable, well-intended discussion about using each only for good and not evil. However, we have a virtually unblemished record of never getting that to work in practice.","date_published":"2017-10-12T08:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/00b29b3c-45f7-4e70-ae57-bf7663c35b26.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":21899721,"duration_in_seconds":1032}]},{"id":"0034a49a-bfc7-4a5b-993f-ea6e7b4ac9f5","title":"When the War Came Home to Oregon","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/017-when-the-war-came-home-to-oregon","content_text":"A 75 year old true story of courage, atonement and forgiveness.\n\nNobuo Fujita was determined to bring his family’s katana with him 5,000 miles across the Pacific. The samurai sword had been passed from one generation to the next for over 400 years and accompanied Fujita on every important journey of his life. If samurai tradition was to be respected, he would eventually pass it down to his son.\n\nFujita had a different plan, however. He had been invited by the Junior Chamber of Commerce—the Jaycees — to the 1962 Azalea Festival in their home town of Brookings, Oregon. This was an annual Memorial Day event for the town on the southern coast just north of the California border. Nobuo Fujita eventually accepted the invitation, and then whatever difficulties there would be transporting the katana. It was essential to his trip because he intended to present the sword to the people of Brookings as a gift of peace and friendship.\n\nIf that plan didn’t work out, however, he would need the katana for another, equally important purpose: to commit seppuku, the hideous ritual suicide reserved for samurai who had brought shame on themselves...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on September 26th, 2017.","content_html":"Nobuo Fujita was determined to bring his family’s katana with him 5,000 miles across the Pacific. The samurai sword had been passed from one generation to the next for over 400 years and accompanied Fujita on every important journey of his life. If samurai tradition was to be respected, he would eventually pass it down to his son.
\n\nFujita had a different plan, however. He had been invited by the Junior Chamber of Commerce—the Jaycees — to the 1962 Azalea Festival in their home town of Brookings, Oregon. This was an annual Memorial Day event for the town on the southern coast just north of the California border. Nobuo Fujita eventually accepted the invitation, and then whatever difficulties there would be transporting the katana. It was essential to his trip because he intended to present the sword to the people of Brookings as a gift of peace and friendship.
\n\nIf that plan didn’t work out, however, he would need the katana for another, equally important purpose: to commit seppuku, the hideous ritual suicide reserved for samurai who had brought shame on themselves...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on September 26th, 2017.
","summary":"In the summer and fall of 1942, the submarine I-25 of the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a series of raids against the west coast of the United States. In September, air raids were launched from the sub. This is the surprising story of the pilot, Nobuo Fujita, and his relationship with the town near where the bombs were dropped.","date_published":"2017-09-27T11:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/0034a49a-bfc7-4a5b-993f-ea6e7b4ac9f5.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":25254995,"duration_in_seconds":1198}]},{"id":"b7612b21-4263-4172-899b-6a33c56e17da","title":"Return to Rocky Knoll","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/016-return-to-rocky-knoll","content_text":"The simple joy of slope soaring.\n\nWe had just about given up on a return to Rocky Knoll. Since our arrival on the Oregon Coast the wind had been blowing steadily from the southwest, which does not favour the slope which is about 10 minutes south of Yachats. But then, we were walking into the Green Salmon and looked up at their little wind turbine and — voilà — the wind had shifted to the northwest. After a short visit for their amazing coffee and baked goods, we packed ourselves and all the gear into the car and headed south. When we arrived, the wind was blowing in a perfect orientation to the cliff...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on November 11th, 2016. (header photo and cover art by Michelle Klement)","content_html":"We had just about given up on a return to Rocky Knoll. Since our arrival on the Oregon Coast the wind had been blowing steadily from the southwest, which does not favour the slope which is about 10 minutes south of Yachats. But then, we were walking into the Green Salmon and looked up at their little wind turbine and — voilà — the wind had shifted to the northwest. After a short visit for their amazing coffee and baked goods, we packed ourselves and all the gear into the car and headed south. When we arrived, the wind was blowing in a perfect orientation to the cliff...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on November 11th, 2016. (header photo and cover art by Michelle Klement)
","summary":"Sometimes you gain the most by taking the most away. Slope soaring model sailplanes is flight at its most minimal, enabled by nothing more than wind blowing up a hill.","date_published":"2017-08-31T16:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/b7612b21-4263-4172-899b-6a33c56e17da.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":9575566,"duration_in_seconds":428}]},{"id":"e3ee9e5b-c0d6-4456-a076-dc38418f3de0","title":"Mustang","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/015-mustang","content_text":"The burden of a name that has come to mean so much.\n\nThe word derives from the Spanish mesteño, which is defined as “wild; untamed; ownerless”. By letting the tongue dwell on the roof of the mouth you get to mestengo, a “stray beast”. From there it’s a small step to the word and an idea that has entered into our modern mythology.\n\nMustang.\n\nMustangs are wild horses which roam the North American southwest. These were initially descended from horses which escaped, were turned loose or stolen from...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on August 15th, 2016. (header photo and cover art: “Wild Horses in the Prairie” ©Giorgio Galano on iStock)","content_html":"The word derives from the Spanish mesteño, which is defined as “wild; untamed; ownerless”. By letting the tongue dwell on the roof of the mouth you get to mestengo, a “stray beast”. From there it’s a small step to the word and an idea that has entered into our modern mythology.
\n\nMustang.
\n\nMustangs are wild horses which roam the North American southwest. These were initially descended from horses which escaped, were turned loose or stolen from...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on August 15th, 2016. (header photo and cover art: “Wild Horses in the Prairie” ©Giorgio Galano on iStock)
","summary":"There are few names which conjure the same emotional response as mustang. Can it ever live up to our expectations of it?","date_published":"2017-08-23T15:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/e3ee9e5b-c0d6-4456-a076-dc38418f3de0.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":24985938,"duration_in_seconds":1156}]},{"id":"4a740e38-d67f-4db1-8472-e2d5c70d6eb7","title":"The Best Answer Ever","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/014-the-best-answer-ever","content_text":"The answer to a casual question at lunch, 35 years ago, taught me everything I needed to know about choosing a career.\n\nI knew my father’s cardiologist for a dozen years before my father needed him.\n\nIn the early 1980s the medical community was just starting to build applications for patient record keeping using the new personal computers coming on the market at the time. Through circumstances I am totally unable to recall I was introduced to an eminent cardiologist—I’ll call him Dr. Don—whose research work required him to collect data on his groundbreaking coronary angioplasty cases. I wrote a little code for him and it remained an entirely professional relationship except for the occasional lunch at the local tennis club. They were awkward discussions...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. This essay is the story which provided inspiration for The WorkNotWork Show, a podcast dedicated to finding and speaking with those, like Doctor Don, who are living their dream careers. A version of this essay also previously appeared on Medium on October 14th, 2016. (header photo: ©Jim DeLillo on iStock.)","content_html":"I knew my father’s cardiologist for a dozen years before my father needed him.
\n\nIn the early 1980s the medical community was just starting to build applications for patient record keeping using the new personal computers coming on the market at the time. Through circumstances I am totally unable to recall I was introduced to an eminent cardiologist—I’ll call him Dr. Don—whose research work required him to collect data on his groundbreaking coronary angioplasty cases. I wrote a little code for him and it remained an entirely professional relationship except for the occasional lunch at the local tennis club. They were awkward discussions...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. This essay is the story which provided inspiration for The WorkNotWork Show, a podcast dedicated to finding and speaking with those, like Doctor Don, who are living their dream careers. A version of this essay also previously appeared on Medium on October 14th, 2016. (header photo: ©Jim DeLillo on iStock.)
","summary":"All of us are searching for that career which provides happiness, fulfillment and will keep a roof over our head. Turns out that it's actually not that hard, if you keep one essential idea in mind at all times.","date_published":"2017-08-10T13:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/4a740e38-d67f-4db1-8472-e2d5c70d6eb7.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":9491002,"duration_in_seconds":410}]},{"id":"b3342fa1-22b7-4189-b85d-5f87d6995797","title":"Apple's Big Move in Podcasting","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/013-apples-big-move-in-podcasting","content_text":"An unsolicited prediction of what The Big A will do next. Well, even if they don’t, then they really should.\n\nDespite what you might think, not one second of Apple’s podcasts are actually hosted by Apple. “But how can that be”, you may ask, “when they ‘host’ hundreds of thousands of them?” It’s simple. When you download a podcast ‘from Apple’ what you are really doing is using them as an index — a pointer, if you will — to a file located somewhere else. That’s why you might find some podcasts really sparkle on iTunes, downloading quickly and streaming promptly, while others really stink. I know because I’ve done it both ways. Incidentally, not stinking is a great way in increase download counts, as I eventually discovered.\n\nBut I‘m ahead of myself...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium on April 24th, 2017. On June 10, 2017, Apple announced Podcast Analytics which will be launched later this year. This is very close to at least one aspect of what was predicted in this essay. (header photo: Shunichi Kouroki via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)","content_html":"Despite what you might think, not one second of Apple’s podcasts are actually hosted by Apple. “But how can that be”, you may ask, “when they ‘host’ hundreds of thousands of them?” It’s simple. When you download a podcast ‘from Apple’ what you are really doing is using them as an index — a pointer, if you will — to a file located somewhere else. That’s why you might find some podcasts really sparkle on iTunes, downloading quickly and streaming promptly, while others really stink. I know because I’ve done it both ways. Incidentally, not stinking is a great way in increase download counts, as I eventually discovered.
\n\nBut I‘m ahead of myself...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium on April 24th, 2017. On June 10, 2017, Apple announced Podcast Analytics which will be launched later this year. This is very close to at least one aspect of what was predicted in this essay. (header photo: Shunichi Kouroki via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)
","summary":"A fearless prediction of where Apple will take podcasting in the near future. They will not be able to continue to resist the temptation to monetize all those analytics for Apple Podcasts.","date_published":"2017-08-03T19:15:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/b3342fa1-22b7-4189-b85d-5f87d6995797.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":21293182,"duration_in_seconds":775}]},{"id":"ae24dbca-8122-4caa-a5d5-f90dee277e26","title":"Seven Tours: The Corrosive Effect of Cheating in Sports","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/012-seven-tours-the-corrosive-effect-of-cheating-in-sports","content_text":"I didn't realize what had been stolen from me.\n\nI was stunned to hear, a couple of days ago, that Chris Froome had just won his third Tour de France riding for Team Sky, which has won four of the last five. Stunned not by the achievements so much — although they are pretty impressive — but rather the fact that another Tour had come and gone and I had hardly noticed.\n\nThere was a time, not that long ago, when my years were marked by the annual rite of July which involved spending untold hours in front of the TV watching the rolling chess game play out over...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium on this date in 2016. In 2017, Chris Froome and Team Sky won the Tour de France again, making the totals in the article a little out of date. Thanks so much for listening. (header photo: Arrivée de la 2e étape du Tour de France 1969. CC BY-SA 3.0 NL)","content_html":"I was stunned to hear, a couple of days ago, that Chris Froome had just won his third Tour de France riding for Team Sky, which has won four of the last five. Stunned not by the achievements so much — although they are pretty impressive — but rather the fact that another Tour had come and gone and I had hardly noticed.
\n\nThere was a time, not that long ago, when my years were marked by the annual rite of July which involved spending untold hours in front of the TV watching the rolling chess game play out over...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium on this date in 2016. In 2017, Chris Froome and Team Sky won the Tour de France again, making the totals in the article a little out of date. Thanks so much for listening. (header photo: Arrivée de la 2e étape du Tour de France 1969. CC BY-SA 3.0 NL)
","summary":"At the end of July each year, I used to savour the memory of the great sights and sounds of the Tour de France. However, “I was stunned to hear, a couple of days ago, that Chris Froome had just won his third Tour de France riding for Team Sky, which has won four of the last five. Stunned not by the achievements so much — although they are pretty impressive — but rather the fact that another Tour had come and gone and I had hardly noticed.”","date_published":"2017-07-27T17:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/ae24dbca-8122-4caa-a5d5-f90dee277e26.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":12030563,"duration_in_seconds":540}]},{"id":"a3189f9c-5999-4996-a3c7-bc71fd8b4c31","title":"The Wicked Problem of Healthcare","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/011-the-wicked-problem-of-healthcare","content_text":"There will never be as much as we want to go around.\n\nTake any population, large or small, and imagine creating a spreadsheet with one row for each woman, man and child. Now, imagine the first column in that spreadsheet for a given row contains the amount of healthcare spending that person — or others, on their behalf — will want over a given period of time. For the purposes of this exercise, this first column is cost-no-object. If there the smallest possibility a given medication or therapy will help that person, throw its cost into column A for that person’s row.\n\nTo help with this exercise if you are doing it on behalf of your child, wife, husband or parent, think about what medication or therapy you would be prepared to forego in order to make sure there is enough to go around for everybody. This is a trick question: the answer is very likely zero...\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. Your comments about the podcast are welcome below and if you liked it, please share it with your social networks. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium on May 8th, 2017. Thanks so much for listening. (header photo: Florence Nightingale in the hospital at Scutari in 1856. Used under Wikimedia CC 4.0.)","content_html":"Take any population, large or small, and imagine creating a spreadsheet with one row for each woman, man and child. Now, imagine the first column in that spreadsheet for a given row contains the amount of healthcare spending that person — or others, on their behalf — will want over a given period of time. For the purposes of this exercise, this first column is cost-no-object. If there the smallest possibility a given medication or therapy will help that person, throw its cost into column A for that person’s row.
\n\nTo help with this exercise if you are doing it on behalf of your child, wife, husband or parent, think about what medication or therapy you would be prepared to forego in order to make sure there is enough to go around for everybody. This is a trick question: the answer is very likely zero...
\n\nListen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. Your comments about the podcast are welcome below and if you liked it, please share it with your social networks. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium on May 8th, 2017. Thanks so much for listening. (header photo: Florence Nightingale in the hospital at Scutari in 1856. Used under Wikimedia CC 4.0.)
","summary":"It’s been said that when you’re well, there is all sorts of stuff you want. But when you’re sick, all you want is to feel better again. This week, some thoughts on providing decent healthcare for everybody.","date_published":"2017-07-20T19:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/a3189f9c-5999-4996-a3c7-bc71fd8b4c31.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":17829778,"duration_in_seconds":720}]},{"id":"0d16d79d-b0b1-4935-b97b-86b24fd36e90","title":"We All Love to Travel","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/010-we-all-love-to-travel","content_text":"Eliminating the use of fossil fuels depends on kicking our addiction to just tooling around.\n\nThe absolute single best day—no, the single best moment—of my entire year is sitting in the parking lot waiting for the Starbucks® to open on the Friday before Labour Day. With a full tank of gas, a smooth open road ahead, decent weather and nothing but free time it simply doesn’t get any better. In a year defined by its constraints it is the instant when I feel...\n\n* * *\n\nListen, above, or if you prefer you can read the essay instead. Your comments about the podcast are welcome below.","content_html":"The absolute single best day—no, the single best moment—of my entire year is sitting in the parking lot waiting for the Starbucks® to open on the Friday before Labour Day. With a full tank of gas, a smooth open road ahead, decent weather and nothing but free time it simply doesn’t get any better. In a year defined by its constraints it is the instant when I feel...
\n\nListen, above, or if you prefer you can read the essay instead. Your comments about the podcast are welcome below.
","summary":"We all want to be good environmental citizens, but achieving that will require—at least for a while—giving up some things in life we truly cherish.","date_published":"2017-07-13T19:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/0d16d79d-b0b1-4935-b97b-86b24fd36e90.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":11036587,"duration_in_seconds":450}]},{"id":"360e5afb-80b5-456a-a3ed-44e3916fac0e","title":"Net Zero Hero","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/009-net-zero-hero","content_text":"Musings on Residential Solar\n\nAs I consider residential solar...I’m wondering—maybe for the first time in my life—if my early adopter shields should be up and whether I should let others pave the solar highway. There is a significant difference in this case: in my earlier, early adopter escapades I could at least be shown up as a rube in the privacy of my own home. There was only my wife providing judgemental looks of disapproval. Or pity, I’m not sure which exactly.\n\nWith the consideration of residential solar, however, there is the potential of subjecting myself to a much harsher brand of judgement: that is—yes—that annual select committee enquiry that is the neighbourhood summer barbecue. Because solar panels are so prominent, I am pretty much guaranteed a non-stop string of engagements with the opening number always being the same: “So how is that solar thing working out for you...”\n\n* * *\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.","content_html":"As I consider residential solar...I’m wondering—maybe for the first time in my life—if my early adopter shields should be up and whether I should let others pave the solar highway. There is a significant difference in this case: in my earlier, early adopter escapades I could at least be shown up as a rube in the privacy of my own home. There was only my wife providing judgemental looks of disapproval. Or pity, I’m not sure which exactly.
\n\nWith the consideration of residential solar, however, there is the potential of subjecting myself to a much harsher brand of judgement: that is—yes—that annual select committee enquiry that is the neighbourhood summer barbecue. Because solar panels are so prominent, I am pretty much guaranteed a non-stop string of engagements with the opening number always being the same: “So how is that solar thing working out for you...”
\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.
","summary":"With much of the Northern Hemisphere baking in the summer sun, thoughts often turn to converting all of that light into electricity. Yep, it’s time to talk residential solar. My biggest concern? Can it withstand a much harsher brand of judgement: the annual select committee enquiry that is the neighbourhood summer barbecue.","date_published":"2017-07-07T09:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/360e5afb-80b5-456a-a3ed-44e3916fac0e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":13350561,"duration_in_seconds":618}]},{"id":"ea3f80f2-9b03-4109-9b29-61157c55ff2a","title":"The Lethal Right Hook","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/008-the-lethal-right-hook","content_text":"Taking the bête out of urban cycling’s bête noire.\n\nIn a good month, I cycle 500 kilometres on city bike paths and roads. For that reason alone, you would think I would be thrilled the City has moved forward with an aggressive program of protected, green bike lanes adjacent to the curb. However, I have mixed feelings. Before them, I took the approach that as a cyclist amongst a lot of cars and trucks, I was like the kayaker in with the killer whales. While they may not intend to kill me, ‘killer’ is their first name after all...\n\n* * *\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.","content_html":"In a good month, I cycle 500 kilometres on city bike paths and roads. For that reason alone, you would think I would be thrilled the City has moved forward with an aggressive program of protected, green bike lanes adjacent to the curb. However, I have mixed feelings. Before them, I took the approach that as a cyclist amongst a lot of cars and trucks, I was like the kayaker in with the killer whales. While they may not intend to kill me, ‘killer’ is their first name after all...
\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.
","summary":"There are few subjects which can be as divisive as the interaction between cars and bicycles on urban streets. Cities around the world are proposing all sorts of solutions to make it safer. In my home town, however, it seems as though as well-intended as it may be, they have it “100 percent and 180 degrees wrong.”","date_published":"2017-06-30T10:30:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/ea3f80f2-9b03-4109-9b29-61157c55ff2a.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":12776782,"duration_in_seconds":574}]},{"id":"0495bf5a-0b21-4afe-91d0-889c06e3a37d","title":"The Other Bugatti","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/007-the-other-bugatti","content_text":"The star-crossed history of the most beautiful aircraft ever.\n\nThe prospects for the 1939 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe air race did not look good. Suzanne Deutsch de la Meurthe, the widow of the “Oil King of France” Henri, had revived the competition in 1931 in memory of her late husband...\n\n* * *\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.","content_html":"The prospects for the 1939 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe air race did not look good. Suzanne Deutsch de la Meurthe, the widow of the “Oil King of France” Henri, had revived the competition in 1931 in memory of her late husband...
\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.
","summary":"The star-crossed history of the most beautiful aircraft ever.","date_published":"2017-06-22T14:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/0495bf5a-0b21-4afe-91d0-889c06e3a37d.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":25620450,"duration_in_seconds":1085}]},{"id":"58fe278c-9505-49de-9f9f-9040c3dc8cd5","title":"The Unbearable Heartbreak of Coming Close","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/006-the-unbearable-heartbreak-of-coming-close","content_text":"What can you learn about life from a car race and a basketball game? Turns out quite a bit.\n\nAfter 23 hours and 57 minutes of the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, Toyota Gazoo Racing had reason to feel good about their chances of winning the legendary car race. They had been a contender throughout and led it, decisively, for the final four hours. Then, with just a couple of laps to go, their leading No. 5 car inexplicably...\n\n* * *\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.","content_html":"After 23 hours and 57 minutes of the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, Toyota Gazoo Racing had reason to feel good about their chances of winning the legendary car race. They had been a contender throughout and led it, decisively, for the final four hours. Then, with just a couple of laps to go, their leading No. 5 car inexplicably...
\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.
","summary":"What can you learn about life from a car race and a basketball game? Turns out quite a bit.","date_published":"2017-06-15T12:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/58fe278c-9505-49de-9f9f-9040c3dc8cd5.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":11882590,"duration_in_seconds":454}]},{"id":"c5a3f0fe-dda7-4eb1-92ac-38356f0588e0","title":"Self-Driving Cars: Have We Completely Lost Our Minds?","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/005-self-driving-cars-have-we-completely-lost-our-minds","content_text":"Imagine for a moment you get to the airport, boarding pass in hand and you line up at the gate ready to board your flight. You do the March of the Penguins down the centre aisle, find your row, take your seat, buckle up and don’t pay attention to the safety announcements. As usual. But at the end of all of that, the flight attendant comes on the PA, and says...\n\n* * *\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.","content_html":"Imagine for a moment you get to the airport, boarding pass in hand and you line up at the gate ready to board your flight. You do the March of the Penguins down the centre aisle, find your row, take your seat, buckle up and don’t pay attention to the safety announcements. As usual. But at the end of all of that, the flight attendant comes on the PA, and says...
\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.
","summary":"As intriguing as the new autonomous car technology seems, I fear we may be getting ahead of ourselves. Engineers working on this technology need to get out here, in the combat zone, for strong, black cup of reality.","date_published":"2017-06-08T15:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/c5a3f0fe-dda7-4eb1-92ac-38356f0588e0.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":15292713,"duration_in_seconds":628}]},{"id":"b3921400-54a5-4dc3-8ae3-751e31c859fa","title":"Who Will Be Our Fred Terman?","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/004-who-will-be-our-fred-terman","content_text":" Why Calgary (or your home town) will not be the next Silicon Valley. \n\nIn the Eighties I had an inflection point in my career—clear only in retrospect—where I had a choice. I could have set out for Silicon Valley not all that long after it started to be called that. I had family in the area who I like to believe would have...\n\n* * *\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.","content_html":"In the Eighties I had an inflection point in my career—clear only in retrospect—where I had a choice. I could have set out for Silicon Valley not all that long after it started to be called that. I had family in the area who I like to believe would have...
\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.
","summary":"Societies around the world are struggling with the disruption brought on by technological change combined with other factors. Calgary, Alberta, Canada has been profoundly impacted by the sustained collapse of oil prices and has been forced to reinvent itself. It's usually at times like these local government and business leadership call for us to be 'more innovative' and inevitably comparisons with Silicon Valley are invoked. Sorry folks, it just isn't that easy.","date_published":"2017-06-01T12:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/b3921400-54a5-4dc3-8ae3-751e31c859fa.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":11657027,"duration_in_seconds":434}]},{"id":"2c3a5a1c-6459-465e-9bb6-92a37c693766","title":"The Collapse of the Cornish Tin Mines","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/003-the-collapse-of-the-cornish-tin-mines","content_text":"Who would think it wasn't going to last forever?\n\nThe mines of Cornwall, England operated for over 4000 years. Then, after these four millenia of continuous human endeavour, the entire industry became extinct in little more than a single generation. When the end came, it was unexpected, swift and brutal...\n\n* * *\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.","content_html":"The mines of Cornwall, England operated for over 4000 years. Then, after these four millenia of continuous human endeavour, the entire industry became extinct in little more than a single generation. When the end came, it was unexpected, swift and brutal...
\n\nListen, above, or read the essay instead.
","summary":"In this episode of *Not There Yet* a cautionary tale drawn from the collapse of tin mining in Cornwall, England, after a period of continuous development extending back over 4000 years. Those navigating the choppy waters of today's energy industries would do well to take heed.","date_published":"2017-05-23T17:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/2c3a5a1c-6459-465e-9bb6-92a37c693766.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":13791445,"duration_in_seconds":578}]},{"id":"84b25cb8-f4a9-464d-88d2-c04323832586","title":"Where Did All Those Drones Come From?","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/002-where-did-all-those-drones-come-from","content_text":"One of my earliest memories — I must have been five or six at the time — was when my father decided it was time to pass along his lifelong love of all things that fly, and bought us a Guillow’s Javelin model airplane kit. My brother and I were absolutely not capable of assembling the delicate balsawood frame, not to mention attaching the diaphanous green and yellow tissue. So...\n\n(read the essay instead)","content_html":"One of my earliest memories — I must have been five or six at the time — was when my father decided it was time to pass along his lifelong love of all things that fly, and bought us a Guillow’s Javelin model airplane kit. My brother and I were absolutely not capable of assembling the delicate balsawood frame, not to mention attaching the diaphanous green and yellow tissue. So...
\n\n","summary":"In this second episode of *Not There Yet*, I reflect on the drone phenomenon which seems to hold so much promise. However, I fear the desire to make sure that it all remains safe has the potential of wiping out a significant, cherished part of my past.","date_published":"2017-05-17T12:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/84b25cb8-f4a9-464d-88d2-c04323832586.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":13031799,"duration_in_seconds":558}]},{"id":"98e2deb0-56da-4ad6-8f81-942659142577","title":"I Can't Wait to Buy an Electric Car","url":"https://www.ntyessays.com/001-i-cant-wait-to-buy-an-electric-car","content_text":"A couple of years ago I walked into the Tesla store in Washington Square Mall in Portland, Oregon and I was instantly and abjectly in love with the Model S. It sat shining — almost glowing — in the modern, minimalist showroom and attended by staff straight out of the Apple Store who were completely charming. Apart from being about $115K short of the $120K I needed...\n\n(read the essay instead)","content_html":"A couple of years ago I walked into the Tesla store in Washington Square Mall in Portland, Oregon and I was instantly and abjectly in love with the Model S. It sat shining — almost glowing — in the modern, minimalist showroom and attended by staff straight out of the Apple Store who were completely charming. Apart from being about $115K short of the $120K I needed...
\n\n","summary":"In the premiere episode of *Not There Yet*, I fall in love with a showroom Tesla and have a chance to think about the implications of owning an electric car. Alas, things are not what they first appear to be.","date_published":"2017-05-11T12:00:00.000-06:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/4a1870b9-d046-43eb-8119-f6649b6574fa/98e2deb0-56da-4ad6-8f81-942659142577.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":12729923,"duration_in_seconds":508}]}]}