Some pretty famous people believe we are part of a computer simulation

The idea that we are all living in a sophisticated computer simulation, à la Matrix, is not a particularly new one. The modern exposition if the idea can be said to date to the work of British philosopher Nicholas Bostrom back in 2003, and the general idea goes back much further than that. What I hadn't realized, though, is that no lesser mainstream personalities than Elon Musk and Neil DeGrasse-Tyson are believers in this apparently rather outré idea.
The theory goes that, given how far computer gaming technology has progressed in a relatively short time - from Pong in the ealy 1970s to Crysis and Assassin's Creed today, for example - it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the technology, and new technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality, will further progress to the point where it will be essentially impossible to distinguish between reality and simulation. If you accept that, then it is not too much of a stretch to accept that maybe we are part of some advanced future civilization's hyper-real simulation.
But surely this is still a pretty radical and kooky idea, the province of mavericks and crackpots. Well, Elon Musk may be a bit eccentric, but he's probably not a crackpot, and he certainly seems to be sold on the idea. DeGrasse-Tyson is even less of an odd-ball, and he gives the idea a 50-50 chance of turning out to be true.
I guess we will never be able to prove the issue one way or the other, so such a claim may be relatively safe. But I was, nevertheless, a little taken aback that two such established, successful and popular figures were willing to entertain such an extravagant and controversial theory.

Trump ignores his security advisors - again!

Donald Trump has difficulty holding onto national security advisors (it looks like HR McMaster is next for the chop). But it makes you wonder why he even has security advisors. For example, when they explicitly advised Trump not to congratulate Vladimir Putin after his recent sham election victory, of course he did it anyway.
It's amusing to note that the White House National Security Council put "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" in all-caps, kind of like you would remind a schoolkid, "DON'T FORGET YOUR LUNCH-BOX AGAIN!" But, nevertheless - dang-it! - he must have forgotten, and called his buddy up anyway!
Preductably enough, Trump is outraged that a confidential press briefing was leaked to the press, but people are understandably fed up with his antics. Democrats and Republicans alike sighed wearily - again! - and publicly chastized the man. But what difference is that going to make. You just know he's going to forget that lunch-box again tomorrow.

Death by self-driving Uber car puts all autonomous vehicle research in jeopardy

Uber has called a halt to its driverless car testing after a woman pedestrian was killed by an Uber car operating in autonomous mode in Tempe, Arizona.

Uber had already suspended its self-driving car tests once before, after a crash - coincidentally, also in Tempe, Arizona - about a year ago, in which, miraculously, no-one was hurt. In that case, the Uber car was not able to react to another car unexpectedly failing to yield, despite the presence of a human in the driver's seat who could theoretically take over the controls when needed.

In this latest case, it is not yet clear exactly what the circumstance were, although police have said that the victim had "not been using a pedestrian crossing", i.e. she was probably jay-walking. Nor is it clear why the "driver" was not able to intervene. But it is nevertheless tragic, and also embarrassing for the whole driverless car program, which is being aggressively pursued in several states by several companies including Ford, GM, Tesla and Waymo, among others, as well as Uber. All of these companies are now looking hard at their own programs (Toyota has already suspended its own tests), and the USA is in the process of drawing up national safety guidelines for such cars.

In the meantime, organizations like Consumer Watchdog, which has been warning for years that the technology is being deployed before it is ready, and that such an accident was just waiting to happen, are saying "told you so", and calling for a moratorium of the testing of all self-driving vehicles on public roads. Autonomous cars may seem like a relatively straightforward technology and already well-tested, but it seems it is no match (yet) for the vagaries of human behaviour and the sheer number of possible situations that might arise in the real world.

The Center for Automotive Research is counselling perspective, and saying that this single fatality should be taken in the context of the 37,000 vehicle deaths (including 6,000 pedestrians) that occur in the United States every year. But their voice is a lone one in the wilderness, and this could be enough to drive a final nail into the coffin of autonomous car research.
A death by self-driving car seems somehow qualitatively different from a regular vehicle death (even if it shouldn't). Part of the problem is the hype that has built up around the technology, and the excessive and unrealistic promises that autonomous vehicles will one day eliminate all road fatalities. Even if it is actually a safer mode of transportation, its road to acceptance has just become that bit harder.

The best Trump speech Trump never made

Comedian Candy Palmater offered a wonderful off-the-cuff improvised impression of a Donald Trump speech during this week's edition of the (almost) always-funny Because News quiz on CBC Radio:

"I'll tell you what, some have them, some don't. It's going to be good, or it could be bad, it could be good. I'll tell you what, it's tremendous. Also it could be bad. It's sad, I feel sad. This is good. Thank you."

Well, maybe it doesn't look so funny out of context, but trust me, it was funny. More specifically, it was in response to Trump's recent briefing about that damned wall:

"The problem is, you have to have see-through. You have to know what's on the other side. I mean you could be two feet away from a criminal cartel if you don't even know they're there ... So, we're looking at the walls where you have some see-through capability. If you don't have some see-through, it's a problem ... Who would think? Who would think? These are, like, professional mountain climbers. They're incredible climbers. They can't climb some of these walls. Some of them they can."

So, no, no-one does it quite like Trump, but full marks to Ms. Palmater for at least coming close.

The Cold War in the age of Twitter

The Russian Embassy's Twitter goading of British PM Theresa May in recent days can only be described as Trumpian.
In response to May's expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats over the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, @RussianEmbassy tweeted: "The temperature of Russian-British relations drops to -23, but we are not afraid of cold weather". Oooh!
This, and other jokey and sarcastic tweets in recent days, comes in stark contrast to the official response from the embassy, which, while full of outrage and righteous indignation, was at least serious, terse and measured.
I still can't really believe that governments, embassies and politicians are using Twitter for official and semi-official pronouncements. It may or may not be a reflection of technological progress and the modern Zeitgeist, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a totally inappropriate medium. Donald Trump was not the first politician to use the platform for official business, but he has been almost single-handedly responsible for dragging the tone of worldwide political discourse down into the gutter. Now, everybody feels obliged to slum it down there too. What a state of state affairs!

Checking emails less often will make you a nicer person

Being constantly connected via your phone really does increase your stress levels. It's no longer just anecdotal or commonsense arguments that show that. A study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior a few years ago now followed the reported stress levels of two groups of office workers, one of which was allowed to check their emails just three times a day, the other group being allowed to check whenever they wanted. The group that only checked emails three times a day was noticeably more relaxed. However, in order to show that it was the phone-checking that was actually causing the stress, and that this was not just a false impression created by a particularly stressy group of people, the two groups then switched over and, sure enough, the previously relaxed group was now the anxious and stressed group.

So, what can be done to ameliorate the problem? A Globe and Mail article today offers five simple practical steps that can be taken to cut down obsessive phone-checking for business people:

1. Delegate some of the checking to a trusted assistant who can alert you to any urgent messages, but free you up to get on with the rest of your job.
2. Use a real old-fashioned alarm clock to wake you up in the morning, so that you are less likely to check emails and texts first thing in the morning.
3. Similarly, and for the same reasons, use a watch to check the time, not your phone (you'd be surprised how often you do it during a day), or leave your phone on airplane mode so that you can check the time without getting caught up in emails and messages.
4. Set specific times to check emails, say once an hour or even less frequently, and limit the time spent checking to say 15 minutes so that you can at least deal with the urgent issues on a timely basis (trying to keep your inbox empty is likely self-defeating, because every email you answer will probably trigger another response).
5. Take yourself a bit less seriously: the world will keep on spinning regardless of whether you respond to an email immediately or not.

Sound advice, I'd say, and although it is mainly aimed at the busy business person or entrepreneur, much of it also translates to the regular Joe or to a student.

The coywolf in Toronto

I watched a coyote stroll through the park in front of our Toronto house early this Sunday morning. Really, it was more of an easy trot than a stroll, but it was certainly in no great hurry; seemed perfectly comfortable and at ease in this city park by the beach.

This is the coywolf, or eastern coyote (or just coyote), big cousin to the more common western coyote. First identified in the early 1920s in the southern part of Algonquin Park, this "new" hybrid of the western coyote and the eastern wolf (now extirpated in the area), with a bit of domestic dog DNA thrown into the mix, the wily and adaptable eastern coyote has been extremely successful, and in recent years has started moving into the cities of Southern Ontario, where it can make a good living from the plentiful small mammals in ravine parks (as well as the odd domestic cat or small dog).
So, if you see a scruffy wolf-like large dog in a Toronto park or even on the city streets at night - grey/brown, with erect ears and a bushy, often black tipped tail - it's probably a coywolf, or eastern coyote. Keep Tiddles out of sight, and please don't feed it; just let it go about its business.

Boycotting the Russian election will achieve nothing

For what it's worth, the Russian people go to the polls to vote on March 18th (with a second round three weeks later in the unlikely case of no absolute majority winner). Or at least some of them do - many opposition supporters are calling for a boycott of the election, on the grounds that Putin had stacked the odds in his own favour, and any results will be marred by irregularities and fraud.
As usual, Vladimir Putin holds all the cards. Popular opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was gunned down under suspicious circumstances three of years ago. The current de facto opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been disqualified from taking part in the election due to a 2014 criminal conviction that his supporters say was trumped up by the Kremlin in order to sideline him and his threat to Putin's re-election. A late challenge by society gal Ksenia Sobchak, a popular figures but a political lightweight and family friend of Putin, is widely seen as a Putin-inspired play to split any remaining opposition.
Unfortunately, election boycotts just do not work. Perhaps they are a nice idea in theory: it gives an immediate message to human rights groups and the world at large that there is an unresolved issue, and they may conceivably help the protestors to obtain some minor concession. But in effect, the withdrawal of opposition votes just give the offending party an easy ride - it goes on to win legitimacy with minimal effort.
According to a major 2010 analysis of 171 recent cases, boycotts have just a 4% success rate. Examples across the world, from Egypt to Venezuela to South Africa to Lebanon, have drilled this point home.
Boycottting, the so-called "third option", is no option at all - it just throws away a vote, and voids the collective voice of dissent. How could it be otherwise? I don't have a good solution to the current impasse in Moscow, but I'm pretty sure an election boycott is not it.