The uncanny valley is a “hypothesis in the field of robotics… which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.” In other words, we get turned off by almost-but-not-quiteness.

Over the last 18 hours, since the delivery of the Prince Edward Island budget yesterday afternoon, I have heard members on the government side utter the phrases “low and modest income Islanders,” “new fiscal reality” and make reference, in interviews with TV and radio reporters, to “people like you and I” enough times to know that there are media-training puppeteers lurking behind the scenes with a carefully crafted playbook designed to help the goverment sell its budget to we citizens.

Members on the government side are not unique in this regard: media training is very obviously a part of opposition politics  as well. And its something — recall “Canada’s New Government” — that exists at all levels of government.

It’s hard to argue with the notion that politicians be trained to effectively communicate ideas to constituents: talking and listening is, in essence, their job, and being able to distill concepts so that we can all understand them is important if our collective pulse is to be gauged and reacted to.

But at some point “hewing to the playbook” crosses over from “effective communication” into a sort of trance-like ceaseless reptition of stock phrases and drains the humanity out of politicians to the point where they appear almost robotic.

Hon. Wes Sheridan, Minister of Finance, has, for me, crossed over this divide, and it’s his pronunciation of the word chasm — with a soft “ch” like “cherry” instead of a hard “ch” like “kiosk” — that’s taken him there. I’ve got nothing against the metaphorical chasm he’s referencing, it’s just that, now having heard him repeat the metaphor three times in various media in less than a day, I’m now acutely concious that he’s just saying the same thing over and over and over again.

“Low and modest income Islanders.” “New fiscal reality.” “The six provinces without resources in the ground.” “People like you and I will pay more.” 

Perhaps it’s unreasonable to expect politicians to be able to extemporaneously speak from the heart at every turn. But, as this is a trend that will only continue unless we offer feedback, I think it might be the time to suggest to our politicians that we’re not as much interested as being sold to as we are interested in gaining insight, and to gain insight requires that we help them out of the uncanny chasm and back into a less-well-trained, conversationally honest way of communicating.

Pretty well most of the time I’m in a state of readiness to drop everything and fly to Iceland on a moment’s notice. While this is something that, in practice, rarely happens, it’s always good to have the information about Icelandair flights handy-by. So here’s the 2012 Halifax to Reykjavik direct flight schedule:

And here’s the schedule for flights back from Reykjavik to Halifax:

Fares are very reasonable right now: you can depart June 14 and return June 21 for $614 return, all taxes included.

It’s even cheaper — $544 return — if you leave September 10 and return September 17.

We visited Iceland last in the fall of 2008 — the week before the financial crisis hit, as it turns out — and it remains one of my favourite trips; it’s a place everyone should visit if they can.

Every Friday afternoon for many years we’ve called up our colleagues at [[Yankee]] for a weekly review. We’ve experimented with various technologies for this call, from regular old telephones to our own VOIP system to Skype, using USB headsets and internal computer microphones.

Since we moved to the Reinventorium earlier this year two important things have changed: [[Johnny]] and I are now in the same office, making talking on headsets from our respective computers results in a confusing melee of feedback and echo; and we’re outside the Internet from our dedicated VOIP server, exposing our VOIP traffic to the vagaries of the network (rather than the vagaries of a single Ethernet cable up to the server).

The combination has a resulted, we have reports from Dublin HQ, in conference calls that, on their end, sound muffled and confusing. Not the best setup for getting business done.

So I committed to solving the problem, and test number one is a Jabra Speak 410 USB speakerphone, purchased on eBay for $95. It arrived yesterday. I did a simple test this morning, using the SoundCloud Mac App to record the same passage — the first paragraph or so of the Gettysburg Address on the Jabra 410, with my old and battered Nexxtech USB headset and with the internal microphone in my MacBook Air. Here are the results:

What a great resource Designers Toolbox is, especially this envelope reference. Want to make your own envelopes? Just print, cut and fold. Here’s one I just made:

There’s a magic transformation that happens once you fold along the dotted lines and what was once just a scrap of paper becomes a real envelope:

Not only is it 9°C outside with an expect high of 18°C, but here inside the Reinventorium it’s 21°C and 52% humidity, which, my humidistat tells me, is right in the middle of the “comfort zone” for temperature and “normal” level of humidity.  It’s shaping up to be the perfect day!

I appear to have entered the “printing inspirational quotes” phase of my life, as today’s letterpress project as a bright red “SET A GOAL.” Here’s what it looked like:

Here’s a brief movie I shot of the Golding Jobber No. 8 in action after the printing was complete (yes, I know, I know, the credits are as long as the video — what can I say, I like credits).

I’m setting a calendar for the month of May, and I need to know how many of each numeral I need to set the day numbers. So I figured it out, and here, for future reference, is a table of my count:

Prolific maker and friend of the blog Erin Bateman has a stall at the new Queen Square Market in the Murphy’s Community Centre and she is selling beanbags of two varieties, “heavy” and “light.” They are handmade on Prince Edward Island using genuine Island-grown beans for filler. I immediately bought one for the Reinventorium, as what office is complete without a beanbag?

The next step is to put the beanbag into regular office use. I can imagine  that [[Johnny]] and I can use it as a sort of “talking stick” during in-office discussions, and then, without missing a beat, break into intra-office squads for a quick game of beanbag soccer.

You can buy your own office beanbag from Erin every Sunday afternoon at the market.

Thanks to my sister-in-law [[Jodi]], I spent a good deal of yesterday afternoon and evening addicted to Draw Something. Not only did I help [[Oliver]] go toe-to-toe with Jodi, and with my mother, but I also had a dozen games going with anonymous strangers from the ether. My stunning tour de force, alas unsuccessful at causing my game partner to guess WINSLET, was this:

How you cannot guess WINSLET for that, I do not know.