November 2015

Durham Regional Forest

Durham Regional Forest, Walker Woods and Glen Major

November 15, 2015 Travel

On a cloudy and cold November-14, I set out to hike a distance of about 25 km at the Durham Regional Forest , Walker Woods and Glen Major areas. I undermined the weather at a cost because in the adjoining forest area it had snowed the previous night, with a high temperature of only around 2ºC. I went easy on the warm clothes because the hike makes you sweaty after all. Also this was a fast hike where a consistent speed of about 5.5 km/h had to be maintained all throughout.

This hike was expected on a hilly terrain but not biking trails which meander endlessly up and down slopes. It makes a long hike challenging with the prevailing weather system. The fallen leaves hide tree roots invisible to naked eyes, and at a faster pace on the slippery leaves, one can could trip and fall. As I tumbled today while attempting a fast descent on a slippery, rocky slope that wasn’t even part of the biking trail. I landed on my back and my right thumb got smashed badly in the sudden fall. I was so stunned by the plunge over the slope that I wasn’t even aware what had happened until about a few minutes later. I think I should be doing okay in a few days.

At 12:30 PM, around the halfway distance mark we all settled on the dry grass near an old barn for a 10-minute short lunch break. We were looking to shelter ourselves from the cold winds but brief stops such as these make you colder in no time, while the Sun showed up only momentarily to brighten things up. Surprisingly while we were all focussed on our munching, a golden retriever came out of nowhere from the field, dashed towards us and started sniffing around the group. He obviously got a whiff of the meals and decided to have a share of it. We were only too glad to do the honours and he disappeared in the shrubs wagging his tail merrily. But reappeared minutes later with three of his doggie friends! He may have shared the news of some Good Samaritans beside the old barn offering free food. Unfortunately we had finished our lunch and were ready to hit the trail by then. It isn’t uncommon for owners to let their friendly dogs off-leash in these parts of wilderness. We continued meandering through the Walker Woods and Glen Major forest and the endless biking trails again. The serpentine trails would often break into forks at several places and Arnie, our group leader would look at the skies to decide on the direction to take. Thankfully at every few kilometres of the nature trail the park authorities have set up wooden masts with a unique number and a small map of the trail around which corresponds to our location and onwards – the map shows the unique pole numbers and the direction so the travellers could decide where they would like to go. The ever so indulgent group would collectively surround the measly shaft for a lengthy discussion on the next steps. The Sun outnumbered by the clouds wasn’t helping us much but the maps on the numbered posts provided stronger clues on the trail towards the parking lot where our hike was culminating. We were told to look for a pair of communication towers on the northern end of the trail from where the parking lot would be about 2.5 kms. When we saw the towers it raised my hopes and infused a new vigour to continue marching on with an even greater force towards the goal. Between washroom breaks and the odd humour, the group managed to keep up the pace and stayed together until the end of the hike. The sun never showed up afterwards and the cold wasn’t something to write home about.

Personally, my thumb episode took the focus and fun away from the hike. I couldn’t indulge completely on the trail then or the landscape which was the saddest part of the journey. The elevation wasn’t much although there were some hills but mostly biking trails. And the faster pace on the slippery leaves along the ever-changing terrain ensured limitless challenge for me. Despite everything this hike would stay a memorable one for me for different reasons.

Featured Photo Courtesy: © 2015 Bhooshan Pandya. Should Not Be Reproduced Without Permission.

Thompson's Travels

The Great Explorer

November 13, 2015 General

Had I not been watchful about the TV commercials, I would have completely overlooked discovering this great explorer of Canada (or should I say North America). It came as a total surprise to me that over his longish career Thompson mapped over 3.9 million square kilometres of North America and he was described as “the greatest land geographer who ever lived”.

The Beginnings
David Thompson was born to Welsh migrants on 30 April 1770 in Westminster, England. Through personal hardships including losing his father at age two he eventually graduated to the Grey Coat mathematical school where he was introduced to basic navigation skills. His studies included algebra, trigonometry, geography, and navigation using ‘practical astronomy’. This would form the basis of his interest in exploration and his future career. In May 1784, at the ripe age of 14, he entered into a seven-year apprenticeship in fur-trading business with the Hudson’s Bay Company and arrived in Churchill (now in Manitoba). He never saw his mother or England again. At Churchill he was put to work copying personal papers of the governor of Fort Churchill, Samuel Hearne, and then transferred to nearby York Factory, a fur-trading post. And over the next few years spent time as a clerk at Cumberland House, Saskatchewan and South Branch House before arriving at Manchester House in 1787.

Training and First Measurement
It was at Manchester House that Thompson had a serious fall breaking his leg and spent the next two winters convalescing. During which time he refined and expanded his mathematical, astronomical and surveying skills under the supervision of Hudson’s Bay Company surveyor Philip Turnor. It took Thompson a full year to recover but was left with a limp for the rest of his life. It was here on February 1, 1790 that Thompson recorded his first navigational measurement to gain the longitude of Cumberland House. Over the next 4 months he would also calculate the latitude for the same location at 53° 56′ 44″ N by 102° 13′ W. During this navigational training in that winter, Thompson was left blind in his right eye probably due to observing the sun without proper eye protection.

End of Apprenticeship and Surveys
Thompson’s apprenticeship was due to end in 1791. So he appealed the company to give him surveying instruments instead of a suit of clothes. He traveled to York Factory where he presumably took possession of his new instruments. With these new instruments he set out to find a new shorter route to the fur-rich Athabasca country by way of the Churchill River and it wasn’t until 1996 and several trips that Thompson could find a more direct route to that country. In the winter of 1796-97, unhappy with Hudson Bay Company’s strong emphasis on trade, Thompson left the organization to cross over to a rival company called the North West Company. It was here that Thompson was asked by his new employers on his first major survey to explore the territory west of Lake Superior and the 49th parallel, which eventually became the US and Canada boundary. It’d be interesting to note that his journals contained hundreds of pages, of not just mapped land but also the cultural and religious practices of the inhabitants. His maps provided complete records of more than 3.9 million square kilometre and dozens of First Nation bands. Thompson thus also contributed to the knowledge of the overall geography of the northern part of the American continent.

Later Years and Death
He spent the next 15 years at North West Company exploring various parts of North America the details of which are beyond the purview of this article. But in all he spent 27 years mapping the west and over his entire career he had travelled and surveyed 100,000 km by foot, canoe and horseback! Thompson was aware that much of the lands that he had helped put on the map would eventually become farmlands pushing the aboriginal people out of it. He moved to Montreal in 1812 so that his children could get formal education doing odd jobs to pay the rent and kept working on the maps he had drawn of the west. The Canadian Encyclopedia mentions that he couldn’t find a publisher for his maps eventually selling it to Arrowsmith, a London-based publisher for 150 pounds. Arrowsmith didn’t publish it in Thompson’s name to earn him credit for his work, instead used the maps to correct their own. Thompson died in poverty and obscurity in 1857 and three months later his wife Charlotte passed away. Their marriage had lasted almost 60 months. Both are buried side by side in Montréal’s Mount Royal Cemetery.

Conclusion and Legacy
David Thompson’s survey and maps delineated the boundaries we live with today. He’s also credited with envisioning Canada as a modern nation which included vast western territories. David Thompson’s effort to not just mapping the lands but also the aboriginal cultural and religious practices is commendable and invaluable. Of course I can also value his work more closely because I have an impassioned love for hiking and geography. Though I still can’t find a ready reference of a timeline of Thompson’s surveys, I’d continue my efforts towards making that list. The Canadian government issued a commemorative stamp in 1957 on the centenary of his passing away.

References:

Discovering Klondike

November 11, 2015 General

Much as Twitter is a wonderful place for sharing updates, I realized early on it’s also a wonderful place to make lifelong friends. Regardless of where you are or the timezone one can always round up buddies around a clever discussion, as I mostly aim to do there. At one such rather insipid chat with @Shadez today I was introduced to the Klondike brand (which I foolishly thought he was referring to the Gold Rush). But the inquisitiveness drove me to taste one these ice-cream bars. And trust me, they were yum!

Then @hiway joined us to reveal how Klondike Bar was mentioned in one of the acts by the famed ventriloquist Jeff Dunham with his Achmed The Dead Terrorist. And before I knew I was enlightened by another discovery of a great act of ventriloquism, quite by chance! This was one of my lucky days loaded with fun and learning, and I couldn’t thank my friends enough for this. Cheers mates!

Understanding Designers

November 11, 2015 Design Technology

I received yet another email today from a recruitment agency for a ‘UI Developer’ position, and lately I have begun to doubt the industry’s understanding of the difference between ‘designers’ and ‘developers’. It’s also discouraging when recruiters email you saying “Hey, I have this great position for you…”, only to be left disappointed when you go through the job description which clearly mentions programming skills as a prerequisite! Especially when my résumé or online job profile does not even mention the word ‘developer’ anyplace, I can’t figure out how those emails land in my inbox. Obviously there are some recruiters acting under professional compulsions and fulfilling a different criteria. But merely having an understanding or liking for a programming language doesn’t turn me into a developer. So I take this opportunity to explain about the Designers as I know them in some detail here. 

Designers imagine to create things, and developers engineer to make them work.

Designers apply visual talents in their methods to bring an idea to life while developers apply their mathematical acumen to make that idea work. Even if these roles appear to be similar for some individuals, it should now be clear from that simple description how their responsibilities and perspectives are poles apart. For instance, designers thrive on user insights, picking or rejecting ideas intuitively depending on what would and wouldn’t work for the product. Empathy comes naturally to them because without knowing who to design for they can’t begin to imagine and create visuals. Or even if they do create something just out of their imagination it may not work well with the intended audience in the market. This is quite different from the painters or fine artists who use their vivid imaginations, colours and forms on the canvas to express their inner feelings and thoughts. On the other hand when you empathize with your users you stand in their shoes to feel their physical and emotional needs and pains. Designers have an inbred mechanism which helps them translate those inert perceptions into tangible creations making use of design-thinking tools such as prototyping, iteration and design. When you remove these cherished elements from a designer’s inventory you risk losing the overall individuality of the product itself.

Why is a designer so important? Designers represent the uniqueness of the brand. They breathe, drink, sleep; basically exist emotionally with the brand while integrating it into their personality, and hence are able to imagine countless possibilities for the product. Having empathized with their product’s core value they are able to distill rationale through the quagmire of scrutiny. Good designers are an invaluable asset to the organization because they can transform a product’s narrative with their creativity and design leadership. So when designers are reduced to being just an ‘apparatus’ to fulfill short-term goals, it hurts the business objectives and sabotages the future growth of the brand conclusively. In fact, the best organizations in the world value the contribution that designers bring on the table. They are nurtured not just as employees but as the ultimate custodians of the brand’s ethos and sanctity.

Designers do not automatically become developers if they develop an understanding of how things work. In fact that signifies they are smart enough to cross over (empathy) and comprehend the challenges of the developers which is an advantage for organizations who are dealing with complex big-data and large IT transformational projects. It’s important to bear in mind that customers are no longer satisfied with systems that simply work, rather they are habituated to a continuous rush of apps offering delightful experiences. A user’s expectations to reach a certain level of gratification has already reached manic proportions which can only be delivered through a good design strategy. In a fiercely competitive industry riding on the theme of customer experience, designers are the only individuals who can technically connect the dots, unify the aspirations of product teams into a single sequence, and filter the undesirable perceptions to form a substantial product strategy. To expect them to do anything else but design is quite honestly, suicidal.

Drishyam

November 10, 2015 Movies

I hadn’t seen a taut thriller movie in a while and Drishyam fit that definition perfectly. Originally made in Malayalam by Jeethu Joseph and released in 2013, Drishyam (Visual) has now been remade in 4 other Indian languages, very recently in Tamil as Papanasam with Kamal Haasan and Gautami. The Hindi version which I thoroughly enjoyed has been directed by Nishikant Kamat whose earlier works I have enjoyed watching include his Marathi ventures the critically acclaimed Dombivli Fast (2005), and action drama Lai Bhari (2014), his Hindi action thriller Force (2011) with John Abraham, and Mumbai Meri Jaan (2008), a story about 5 characters in Mumbai and how their lives are affected by the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, which also won multiple Filmfare Awards.

A happy family in a serene Goan village, which includes the father (Vijay Salgaonkar/Ajay Devgn) running a small cable TV business called Mirage Cable Network, his simple, homely wife (Nandini/Shriya Saran) fondly looking after their two daughters, the older Anju, and the younger Annu. Apart from his lovely family Vijay has friends who vouch for his unblemished character, and he loves to watch all kinds of movies — you could see him glued to the TV set in his office all day and night, while his dedicated associate (José/Prathamesh Parab) goes around the small hamlet settling business. Then quite suddenly an incident occurs one stormy night and knocks the family into gloom and doom. It surrounds the bunch of happy campers into an unrealistic scenario with no sign of an escape from the inevitable. What happens next can only be described as an odyssey of plots and sub-plots and mysteries as Vijay goes from pillar to post to conceive a maze of mysteries throwing the police detectives, even the agile Inspector General Meera Deshmukh (another great portrayal by Tabu) in a tizzy, despite having an undoubted notion about the family’s undeniable involvement in the gory incident the police are sadly reduced to a gaping spectators! Under Vijay’s astute stewardship and shrewdness the family teams up to support the cause and overcome, what seems like an insurmountable challenge. But hang-on! It’s just when you think the movie is done and the cast has met its desired outcome, that the spine chilling climactic end is waiting to shock and raise your eyebrows even further. I can’t stop applauding the producers who have ensured the movie’s plot isn’t lost to the audience as it meanders from one sequence to the other ever so tightly, the sequences make you perch at the edge of your chairs, and if there was one movie where good music is used sparingly to provide relief from the ongoing tense drama, it’s Drishyam. It’s a brilliant plot, a brilliantly shot movie, and a must-see for movie lovers.