The human mind is fascinating in so many ways. I often like to invision the brain as an input/output machine with some internal loops to self-reflect and generate its own internal inputs. Inputs to the brain come from our senses – what we see, hear, smell, touch. Those inputs will physically modify your brain as […]

When looking at how automation, robotics and AI will change the future of how people work and what jobs they will have there seems to be two main camps of thought: Capitalistic/Free Market view that looking back at the history of economic transitions have shown that each time we faced productivity improvements there were always […]

Over the last couple of months I’ve been giving some thought to how the manufacturing business works, specifically in Canada. It’s been driven partly from things that I’ve been trying to buy, partly from wanting to try my hand at small scale production of something in the garage and also because it’s such an important […]

Our ability to be productive is the most critical metric that determines quality of life. It’s a fundamental measurement of how the economy is doing, identifys where we are stagnating, and shows where the biggest gains are. There are many factors that go into improving productivity – capital investment in tooling, factories and better software, […]

In business, when talking about writing a business plan, or when a consultant evaluates a business, sometimes a vision or mission statement are things that get discussed. For a long time I have looked at these kind of things as fluff. It’s a bunch of people wordsmithing a document that will never be read outside […]

I have 3 big ideas. The kind of legacy making change the world ideas that are big and bold. These ideas are things I would pursue if I had the means to execute on them but it requires vastly more capital than I have access to, or that others would put me in charge of. […]

For a while now I’ve been finding my thoughts a little more frazzled, and less focused. This is perhaps a little bit to do with having so many projects in the air at the same time. Nonetheless, I want to spend a bit more time getting writing down my ideas and taking the time to […]

The wave of tech disruption has been picking off industries one after the other since the early 70’s. Until today when it’s hard to think of any remaining sector of the economy that hasn’t gone through, or is in the process of being converted into a software driven market. The current biggest industry that is […]

Over the last several woodworking project I have been having a hard time dialing in the accuracy of my cuts. Increasingly the things I want to build are demanding tolerances approaching 1/1000 of an inch. It’s tricky to accomplish this level of accuracy, because it’s not always perceptable until assembly that a cut isn’t straight, […]

When we moved to Ottawa one of the things I had on my mind was to get another motorcycle, and I did. I bought a 2012 Kawasaki Ninja EX250R. It’s an entry level sports bike, enough for the highway but not enough excessive power. Over the last few years it had moments where I got […]