Category Archives: Daily-Ink

Foot operated buttons

Crosswalks, elevators, doors, and kiosks are examples of things that we operate with our hands. They are frequently used contact points that can spread coronavirus. We see people using their elbows, car keys, or the bottom of their shirts to shield from directly touching these high use contact points. Soon we will see the level of these contact points lowered so that we can operate them with our feet.

It’s easy to push a door, door latch, or a button with your shoe. It makes sense that we use our covered feet rather than our uncovered hands to do this. I’m not sure if we will see hand-level options removed, or just foot level options added. To accommodate wheelchair use or impaired vision, it would help to have both options.

Also, design of these lower, foot-powered options will require significant durability improvements, people are far more likely to kick a button much harder than they would press one with their finger. And these buttons or push bars will need to be larger than the options for fingers and hands. But I think we will see these options, and automatically opening doors far more frequently in the coming year.

Water fountains are an example where this already started to happen and it makes sense that we will see this trend amplified.

What else will we see being foot operated in the future?

How do we get to ‘YES’?

I watched this Peter Hutton TEDx talk tonight and more than one part struck a very familiar chord with me and the things we do at Inquiry Hub.

The part of the talk I want to discus is this one:

“We have a saying that ‘Yes is the default’. So, the firth thing about that is if any staff, student, or parent has a suggestion or a request, the answer has to be ‘Yes’. Unless it would take too much time, too much money, or negatively impact on somebody else.” ~ Peter Hutton

My mantra over the last 8 years at Inquiry Hub has been:

“How do we get to ‘Yes’?”

The reality is that at our school the teachers are always trying to say ‘Yes’ already. Or, they are trying to guide students to a path where ‘Yes’ can happen. If it gets to me, there is already a reason for it to be a ‘No’, and it’s my job to figure out how do we get to ‘Yes’ when a teacher already couldn’t get there?

Here are 3 concrete examples:

  1. Students wanted to put our garden onto the concrete and not just in our courtyard. They were told ‘No’ by the district, because it would be in the way of maintenance vehicles. I had the students go back to the district and ask how far out it could go and not still be in the way? They didn’t get what they wanted, but the small encroachment onto the pavement was a win for them.
  2. In our second year one of our students wanted to grow hemp in our garden. We were a young school, still not fully developed, and our courtyard has no fencing, and is open to the public. I could only see bad (misinformed) publicity coming from this. I suggested a couple indoor plants and the student wasn’t interested. In the end, I could see a lot of downside beyond the project, and felt I had to say ‘No’.
  3. A student wanted to bring his Jeep engine block into the school to work on it. He had his own hoist and equipment. We don’t have the supervision and it would be completely unsafe, and would break all kinds of rules put in place to protect students. This was a hard ‘No’. So, we invited him to bring in anything he could lift without a hoist, and he could work on it with hand tools, or electric tools with supervision. We did have to have a few conversations about flushing gas/oil smells out of the parts he worked on before they came to school. But overall it worked out. We simply couldn’t bring items big enough to crush someone, or their finger or foot, into the school to be worked on.

Our default tends to be ‘Yes’, but that default doesn’t always work. When we can’t get it to work, then next question is, “How do we get to ‘Yes’? The answer isn’t always ideal, but it means something to our community for staff and students to know that we are all at least trying to get to ‘Yes’.

~ Also Shared on Pair-a-Dimes For Your Thoughts.

 

A step behind

I asked my daughter if she saw this new way of cutting a mango?

“Dad, you are so behind on your Tik Tok trends, I saw that ages ago.”

Yes, I’m behind. We all are in different areas of our lives. There is always a new tool, a new approach, a new technique that you will bump into.

The iPhone did everything with one button, now the new ones don’t have a button. People try to put gas in Teslas. Light switches you touch instead of toggle. Apps update, move things around, and add features you need to stumble on to know they are there. And now even the rules for social engagement keep changing.

No one is ‘caught up’, everyone is a step behind somewhere. These days, that’s normal. Things change quickly. Some would say too quickly. But things change, and we catch up.

We just need to give ourselves a little time. We just need to accept some ambiguity and unknown. We need to be unafraid to ask questions. We need to know that it’s ok to feel a little behind… as long as we aren’t stagnating, we are moving forward.

Fasting test

For a while now, I’ve been practicing time restricted eating, and it has really helped me control the amount of junk food I eat. It has also really helped me control my mood. I used to get ‘hangry‘… angry/upset when I’m hungry. It was so obvious, my secretary would tell me that I need to eat… she’d know if I missed lunch. Time restrictions forced me to find balance that I lacked, and this helped me level my mood.

I have not been doing time restricted eating over the summer and my eating has been out of whack! This has left me feeling low energy and lazy. I’ve been dealing with an upset stomach for quite a while. It had to stop. So yesterday afternoon I decided to try a longer fast, and I only had lemon and chilli powder water last night and today, other than small servings of maple syrup in my drink for dinner and lunch. Fasting with this drink wasn’t hard, and I’m breaking the fast tomorrow morning… but today my mood definitely went to hangry. My wife let me know that she really noticed it came back.

Now I need to cut out the junk and get myself back on track. I think after tomorrow I’ll stop eating breakfast. Or rather, I will break my fast later in the day. That’s what works to balance me during the school year, I’m sure that I can continue to enjoy my summer, and have delicious food, just start later in the day.

I won’t make long fasts like this a regular thing, but it has been a great kickstart to get me back into a healthy routine.

The energy of the sun

I’m sitting in the morning sun, feeling the rays warm my shoulders and back. I love this feeling. It’s not so hot that I feel I need suntan location, and yet it’s warm enough to bring the heat to my attention.

While energy can’t be created or destroyed, we know it can be transformed from one form to another. The rays of the sun initiate the process of photosynthesis, which creates sugars and gives us the mass of trees. What an amazing thing! But going further, when we say that energy can’t be destroyed, it certainly can be tapped and taken advantage of. There is an incredible abundance of energy in our world. While in a closed system the amount of energy stays constant, we do not live in a closed system.

We live about 150 million kilometres away from our sun, a blazing ball of energy that constantly sends a massive amount of energy our way. It actually sends that energy out in every direction and we get in the way of a infinitesimally small amount of it as the earth sits within gravitational equilibrium of this glowing fireball of power.

It is the earth’s battery, and it is the ultimate provider of light, energy, and life. We’ve only just begun to understand how to tap this power, and one day we will learn to store it in such a way that energy will be almost completely free. How different will our world be then?

On a small yet very significant scale, the poor will have light without kerosene, and formerly forested areas in places that now have scarcely enough wood could be allowed to grow again, without the needy scrounging for firewood. On a large scale, industry could pollute far less with the lack of need of fossil fuels to run machinery.

Imagine a world where energy is literally created out of thin air? Tapped from the power of our sun, and shared wherever needed. It would be a very different world!

My Monkey Brain

I understand that meditation isn’t about emptying my mind, that it’s about bringing my attention back to the present and what I’m doing, such as focus on my breathing. But sometimes my monkey brain just can’t stop. It’s like I’m chasing my own tail, going in circles and wondering why it’s always out of reach?

I go through a few minutes at a time where I can’t focus on my breath for two breaths without my mind bouncing around and being distracted.

Not. Even. Two. Breaths.

It’s like a bad dream where my goal is always just beyond my reach. I know where I want to go, I just can’t get there.

I think I need some tips. I’m open to suggestions.

Time with friends

We are camping with friends.

Weather doesn’t matter. It has been raining for 2 days. So what!

Time with family and friends is wonderful. It shouldn’t take a camping trip to come to this realization. Tell your loved ones you love them. Tell your friends how much you value them.

Don’t take the people you value the most for granted.

Limited shared reality

Have you ever thought of your bandwidth of sensory observation?

We can’t hear a dog whistle, but the sound is still there when someone blows one. We can’t see ultraviolet light. Our fingers can detect the location of a touch that are backs can not. Some people love cilantro while others think it tastes like soap. Dogs and other animals can smell things we can’t. Some of us see colours that others can not.

We are all, in our own way, like radio receivers, who can hear certain stations and not others. As we get older, our bandwidth decreases in what we are able to hear. But in keeping with the metaphor, that doesn’t mean the radio stations aren’t still playing.

We have limiting and limited senses with which to observe our world. We are only capable of witnessing and observing a narrow set of frequencies, because our receivers are limited… and imperfect.

Even within the scope of what we can mutually observe our shared reality isn’t fully shared. We see, hear, feel, taste, and smell things differently. Our cultures and upbringing influence this as well… some cultures can’t see/distinguish certain colours, some can’t pronounce certain sounds, some have vastly different tastes.

Our shared reality isn’t always as shared as we think. This invites conflict and miss understanding. It also invites the joy of seeing things from another perspective, and learning to appreciate our, and other’s, understanding of our world.

Let’s help each other expand our views of our shared reality. Let’s celebrate the difference and find joy in creating mutually appreciated, shared events.

Vitamin D could save your life

Let me start by saying I’m not a medical doctor and I don’t play one on the internet.

Now that’s out of the way, I’ve already touted the value of Vitamin D last September, and I’m here to do it again. Watch this clip of Dr. Rhonda Patrick on the Joe Rogan podcast: (full podcast here)


TLDR (Or actually Too Long Didn’t watch): Vitamin D has very significant correlation with reduced respiratory infections.

Will Vitamin D reduce your chance of getting Covid-19? Maybe. Jury is out, and while it may help prevent it, it is in no way a vaccine or a cure.

Will Vitamin D help reduce the consequences of Covid-19 after contracting it? Very likely!

Very likely!!!

Take your Vitamin D. Share the video clip above widely.

Wind in the canopy

The next time you are out among a cathedral of trees look up at the canopy above you. Watch how the wind moves among the tall trees, pushing on some while others stay still. Height, girth, distribution of branches, and location relevant to other trees, all factor into how the wind plays with them and how they sway.

It’s hypnotic.