Tagged: Silas Barss Donham
The amazing tech required to pack on-line orders
I bought a lot of books on line in the run-up to Christmas, and I was struck by how much quicker Amazon was able to get them to me than Chapters. When I tweeted this observation, a fellow tweep chided me — of all people — for not patronizing local bookstores.
I like a nice bookstore as much as the next fellow. Who doesn’t enjoy wandering through the stacks at J. W. Doull’s, feeling the stairs creak underfoot, talking books with the marvellous staff he employs. But it’s no accident that John Doull can no longer afford the rent in downtown Halifax. Book buyers have voted with their feet, and Amazon is winning by a landslide.
Just as iTunes represents a much better way of buying music than the old customer-contemptuous, $20-album-in-a-record-store model, so Amazon beats the pants off the bookstore model.
That impression came early and easily to me, because I live in a bookstore desert. The nearest bookstore, a bedroom sized Coles, is an hour away, and rarely stocks the books I seek. So my normal bookstore experience is to drive an hour, go to an ill-stocked store where an ill-informed clerk will tell me they don’t have what I want, place an order, drive an hour home, and repeat the round trip a week or two later when the desired volume comes in, or fails to.
Or I can sit in my living room, tap a few keys on my laptop, and have the book delivered to my house a few days later, for less than I would pay in the bookstore. Sure, I’ll miss the creaky stores, and I’ll seriously miss the wonderful people who staffed these institutions. But I’m fine with the new method, and I get more books, quicker and cheaper, as a result.
On the Tuesday before Christmas, I heard an NPR podcast about a new biography of Leonardo of Pisa, aka Fibonacci, who revolutionized modern commerce by introducing Arabic numerals to Western Europe, thereby enhancing the computing power of ordinary citizens more than anyone before Steve Jobs invented the personal computer. This would make a great present for my math-inspired son, but I’d never be able to get it by Christmas,
I checked on line. Both Amazon and Chapters had the book, but only Amazon claimed the ability to delivery it by Friday, the last delivery day before Christmas, and only if I paid an exorbitant amount for special shipping. I bit, and at about 4:30, hit Amazon’s buy button.
The package was delivered in Halifax at 10:30 the next morning, This was a miracle on a par with the Dollar Store. I’ve been puzzling ever since about how Amazon (or LL Bean, or Zappos, or Staples) can manage these feats of order processing. Today, a new TED talk appeared that explains part of the mystery.
The TED talker, Mick Mountz, founded Kiva Systems, a material handling company that is revolutionizing warehouse management by replacing conveyors with little orange robots shown at the top of the page. In action, they look like suitcase-sized Zambonis. Instead of stock pickers wandering around the warehouse, looking for products to assemble into orders, the bots bring the products to the pickers, who pack them into boxes for shipment.
They do this by moving whole shelves around the warehouse, their patterns controlled by algorithms that learn as they go, so the process continually improves. In effect, it turns a warehouse into a massively parallel processing machine, not unlike a computer. Watch the video for the fascinating details.
Shreddies
The internet has some peculiar websites. This one comes from Wilsonville, Oregon-based SSI Shredding Systems, Inc., a company that claims to be “motivated by one recurring question: What Needs Shredding?”
You can sign up to receive the company’s Shred of the Month video. I particularly enjoyed the impromptu bowling tournament.
H/T: Silas
Shocking research: People with Down syndrome are happy. So are their parents.
When people learn that my son Silas and his wife Jenn Power adopted a pair of identical twins with Down Syndrome, they often say one of two things: “I could never do that,” or “You must be saints.”
I love Silas and Jenn beyond measure, and admire them hugely, but I can attest they are not saints. The explanation for their decision to adopt Josh and Jacob lies elsewhere.
As members of the L’Arche Community in Iron Mines, Orangedale, and Mabou, Cape Breton, Silas and Jenn have lots of experience working and living with developmentally disabled people. It’s what they like doing, and they’re good at it. Like most people who spend time at l’Arche, they describe the experience as one of blessings received more than bestowed.
This week comes scientific evidence they are not alone. Researchers at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and other centers carried out one of the largest surveys every conducted of people with Down Syndrome and their families. Respondents with Down reported overwhelming happiness with their lives, and family members said having a child or sibling with Down had been a positive experience.
The researchers published three studies on their findings in the October issue of American Journal of Medical Genetics. Their study sought to answer the questions most commonly asked by prospective parents of children with Down syndrome:
- What is life actually like for parents who have sons and daughters with DS?
- How many of them love their son or daughter with DS?
- How many of them regret having their child?
The researchers heard from heard from 2,044 parents of children with Down syndrome:
99% reported that they love their son or daughter; 97% were proud of them; 79% felt their outlook on life was more positive because of them; 5% felt embarrassed by them; and 4% regretted having them. The parents report that 95% of their sons or daughters without DS have good relationships with their siblings with DS. The overwhelming majority of parents surveyed report that they are happy with their decision to have their child with DS and indicate that their sons and daughters are great sources of love and pride.
They surveyed 822 siblings of people with Down Syndrome::
More than 96% of brothers/sisters that responded to the survey indicated that they had affection toward their sibling with DS; and 94% of older siblings expressed feelings of pride. Less than 10% felt embarrassed, and less than 5% expressed a desire to trade their sibling in for another brother or sister without DS. Among older siblings, 88% felt that they were better people because of their siblings with DS, and more than 90% plan to remain involved in their sibling’s lives as they become adults. The vast majority of brothers and sisters describe their relationship with their sibling with DS as positive and enhancing.
Perhaps most importantly, they heard from 268 people with Down Syndrome, aged 12 or over:
[N]early 99% of people with DS indicated that they were happy with their lives, 97% liked who they are, and 96% liked how they look. Nearly 99% people with DS expressed love for their families, and 97% liked their brothers and sisters. While 86% of people with DS felt they could make friends easily, those with difficulties mostly had isolating living situations. A small percentage expressed sadness about their life.
Longtime readers of Contrarian have encountered Josh and Jacob before, celebrating Canada Day with their rousing rendition of O Canaduck!, and on a fleeting moment when they were definitely not happy with their lives.
The experience of actual parents with actual Down syndrome is the best answer for those who say, “I could never do that.” They might not choose it, but when responsibility for someone with Down syndrome falls upon them, most people rise briskly to the occasion, and look back at the experience as positive and rewarding.
H/T: JP
An accidental sea
Los Angeles filmmaker and photographer Ransom Riggs made this short film about his favorite post-apocalyptic landscape, the Salton Sea. It’s quite a story.
H/T: Silas
Tick-tock: But I still love you
A line from Steve Jobs propelled Emory University student Ien Chi to produce a remarkable YouTube film:
Click here to view on a flash-impaired IOS device. (Impaired by decree of S. Jobs, that is!)
H/T: Silas
Why the other line always moves faster
And why single queues, like those at Sydney Credit Union branches and Empire Theatre concession stands, work better. The Engineer Guy explains:
H/T: Silas.
Bomber LeBlanc’s last act of defiance
Mary Cecilia “Bomber” LeBlanc, shown above with L’Arche assistant Mavis Mungai of Kenya at the 2007 Cape Breton Island Film Series party for l’Arche Cape Breton, died peacefully Thursday morning in her home at The Vineyard, a L’Arche residence in Orangedale, surrounded by friends and caregivers.
Death came six days before her 60th birthday, and, incredibly, hours before a provincial health bureaucrats were to meet to begin planning her involuntary removal from l’Arche, over protests of family, friends, and caregivers.
Mary was a small woman with a steely will and an outsized capacity for getting her own way—and then leading a chorus of laughter about the outcome. Deaf from birth and without speech, she was orphaned at age three and spent 30 years in institutional care before finding a new life at l’Arche, where she lived for the last 27 years.
In her eulogy at Sunday’s funeral, l’Arche Community Leader Jenn Power* described Mary as “a silent woman who spoke volumes.”
[C]learly, somewhere along the line, she made a decision: that she would not let the circumstances of her life define or limit her; that she would stand up to those who tried to keep her down and say, albeit without words, “You’re not the boss of me.” In the disability world today, there is so much emphasis on self-advocacy. Truly, Bomber was a self-advocate before her time….
Mary’s death was her final act of defiance. For some months now, we have been in discussions with the Department of Community Services about whether Mary’s needs would be better met in a nursing home. Her family and her community were strong advocates for supporting Mary in her home at The Vineyard. And yet, the process was moving forward. On Thursday, November 4th, Mary’s case was being heard, and it seemed obvious that she would be placed on a waiting list for nursing home care. Instead, on Thursday, Mary died — the first thing in her life she ever did in a hurry. A pretty powerful act of self-determination.
To the officials involved, this is, I am sure, a complex issue, replete with rules, protocols, standards, evaluations, criteria, and, no doubt, budgetary considerations. Yet the meeting that would decide Mary’s fate allowed for no participation by her family, her guardian, her community, or her friends—let alone by Mary herself.
Here is an issue where Health Minister Maureen MacDonald could show leadership by deliberating on some fundamental questions: Must every death be medicalized? Do Nova Scotians have the right to choose to die at home among those who love and care for them—even, and perhaps especially, Nova Scotians with disabilities?
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* Disclosure: As regular readers know, Jenn Power is my daughter-in-law; my son Silas, Jenn’s husband, also works at l’Arche Cape Breton.
How my family survived a highway crash
The five occupants of this 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan — my son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren — survived a head-on collision on the TransCanada Highway Thursday evening. I offer the following details in hopes that other families will find it helpful to understand the factors that decisively improved their chances of survival.
Shortly before 5 p.m, August 26, my family was westbound on Route 105 in Lexington, Nova Scotia, just north of the Canso Causeway, when a severe rain squall hit the area. Daughter-in-law Jenn had just slowed down when an eastbound car apparently hydroplaned and spun across the centerline into their path.
Grandson Jacob, age 6, suffered a broken femur. The others — Jenn, my son Silas, Jacob’s twin brother Josh and sister Maggie, 8 — were badly bruised and badly shaken. Surgeons at the IWK-Grace Hospital in Halifax repaired Jacob’s leg Saturday. Doctors expect all to recover fully. We are grateful to them, and to the EMTs and volunteers who responded to the crash.
The driver and lone occupant of the other car, Marlene MacDonald of Port Hawkesbury and Washabuckt, died at the scene.
I offer my sincere sympathy to Ms. MacDonald’s daughters, grandchildren, and siblings. Events like this cause those affected to reflect on counterfactual alternatives; since Thursday, our family and friends have thought constantly of the MacDonald family’s suffering, and how easily it could have been ours. I am sorry for their loss.
Death and injuries in car crashes result not from a vehicle’s collision with another object but from what’s sometimes called the second collision — that of the occupants with the inside surfaces of the car. The second collision occurs a fraction of a second after the first.
Here are some of the factors that made the second collision survivable in my family’s case:
- Jenn reduced speed to reflect driving conditions, lessening the force of the subsequent impact.
- In response to legislation, insurance company pressures, and consumer demand, automobile manufacturers have made tremendous improvements in the crashworthiness of their cars over the last decade. Modern vehicles are better engineered to absorb and dissipate the force of sudden impacts while maintaining the integrity of the passenger compartment.
- Jenn and Silas drove a 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan equipped with front and side airbags. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety gives this model a “good” rating (its highest) for “frontal offset” and “side impact” test results. You can check the crashworthiness of your car here.
- All the occupants were secured with optimal, industry-recommended safety equipment: the adults with standard lap-and-shoulder belts; the eight-year-old with a child’s safety booster seat held in place by a lap-and-shoulder belt; the six-year-olds by properly secured child safety seats appropriate to their size and weight.
The last point merits emphasis. For many families, child safety seats are expensive to purchase and tedious to install and use. After Thursday, the expense and inconvenience look pretty small to us, the benefits enormous.
Finally, a word of thanks to the numberless, nameless engineers, auto executives, safety advocates, insurance industry risk analysts, and legislators who helped my dear family survive.
Their survival is not a miracle. It is the result of considered steps by real people to improve highway safety.
