Ideas meeting - 2016 Nov 2016

In attendance:

Sasha, Kris, Riz, Luke

General discussion

Intro round

Kris

  • Sewing station to repair items of minor damage.
  • Measuring the scale of your ideas.

Luke

  • Discussion topic: What do humbugs do for Xmas

Sasha

  • Wants to have 6 biological raps by the end of the year.

Sewing stations

  • MakerLabs
  • Fix-it collective
  • Repair Matters, but the main guy has moved away.
  • Luke suggests getting to know the local cobbler. A sewing machine that can sew shoes can sew just about anything.
  • Discussion of how sewing machines are often out of maintenance and thus, not well suited to public/shared use.
  • Sasha getting good at repairing her cell phone.
  • Riz is used to repairing things. Not repairing things is a culture of here. Trades are cheap in Pakistan but maybe.
  • Luke talked about repairing portable dehumidifiers, and how it might be a good idea to repair.
  • Kris: did 4 years of fashion and is pretty handy with sewing.
  • Has an old pedal-operated sewing machine. Now uses it as a laptop desk. Considering converting it to a pedel-powered generator.
  • Talking about mastery (via Toastmasters). 10,000hours to be a master at something (Malcolm Gladwell), but 22 hours to follow the experts and get “pretty good” at a thing.
  • East Van Shoe Repair
  • Comfort is the most important for shoes; beauty is pain

Measuring scale of ideas

  • Ottawa district (the Glebe) is the fancy part of town. However, entry level in Vancouver is more expensive than even the Glebe. If moving back to Ottawa, would move to the Glebe.
  • New rules for sub-prime mortgages are all around residential, doesn’t apply to commercial. Rules for residential are way stricter. Commercial is based on property income.
  • Talking to someone who’s been playing in this space.
  • Looked at a place in East Van that’s commercial/multi-use. E. Georgia @ Clarke.
  • Luke warned about investing in commercial real estate: talked about Doug Casey who has been warning for years about the dangers of the commercial real estate bubble bursting.
  • Discussion of Chinese commercial real estate is over-developed, and “smart money” is moving elsewhere.
  • Talked about getting this mixed use place and running it as a residence/café/board game place: [http://www.rew.ca/properties/R2119791/1324-e-georgia-street-vancouver]
  • Luke talked about this property and thinks he looked at it in 2003. Relayed his thoughts from 15 years ago.
  • Luke offered the cautionary tale about the cost of maintaining a property, especially an old wooden house in Vancouver.
  • BC and Alberta has a property manager registry, but in other provinces anyone can be a property manager.
  • Talked about a property for rent on E Hastings and setting up a members-only club for … board games?
  • Scale of the investment: why invest a little when you can invest a lot.
  • Luke ranted about the market of Vancouver about how it’s bubbly but always going up.
  • Kris talked about the Edmonton market, with a friend who just got a 4-dwelling unit there.
  • Luke: considering getting a piece of agricultural land on the prairies and rent it out to the Hutterites (the religious mafia of the prairies) and use it as a launch facility for space programme.
  • Things that have been exciting in the past: IdeaWave, Awesome Sh*t Club, a cocktail bar and real estate investment (and rush therefrom which matches hacking).
  • Luke related the story of a friend who goes camping in the same place over and over again (Pitt River Hot Springs) and if he has leftover wine in the bladder (from the wine box), he buries it and it stays fresh until the next year.
  • Day 2 of the conference this weekend: Tony Robbins’ son’s friend came out and tried to be all ‘A’.
  • Most of the room was wannapreneurs…
  • Booking on Saturday at CC: selling share in a golf course in Monte Christi.
  • Luke talked about Comfort Zone and how, to keep it from contracting, requires active effort.
  • How to get customers on a personal scale: talked about online dating again. Interesting what is the scale of your “reach”. One singles event a year, or hundreds of people in online dating. Why not get in front of a billion women?

Kris

  • Kris wants to talk about doing a friend who is taking 2 courses, but a perk is a bus pass. Wants to map out the $300/month Canadians are allowed to write off for learning. Could you work it so it’s a wash, when you include the bus pass, health care and other benefits.
  • Riz: Research masters programmes (which are rare) allow the candidate to choose the curriculum.
  • If and when organized religion ceases to exist, will we view the dark ages as having extended to that day?

Activities for Xmas humbugs

  • Xmas holiday season starts early.
  • Riz: lives away from family on the other side of the family, and not of this holiday culture.
    • Ramadan is great. Winter lunar holiday is great. In Karachi winter is cold, windy, foggy and wheat dusty. Eat peanuts outside around the teapot and play cricket.
    • There are 3 “Christmases”: Eid (after Ramadan), Second Eid (bloodletting), birthday of the Prophet.
  • Sasha: not wasting the “sacrificed” animal is so selfish.
  • “Pakistan means Land of the Pure which is sort of Nazi”
  • Sasha: celebrates Chanukah. Watches cheesy action films like Independence Day and Die Hard.
  • Kris: holidays creates challenging family times. A great reminder of how alone we feel. How to make it so there’s not a pressure to conform?
    • Luke suggest making holidays for the minority to whom it applies, as for Valentine’s Day.
    • Considering flying to Ontario to visit family, and maybe jump off to Cuba.
  • Riz: drinking and loneliness. This year will be in Pakistan, however.
  • Luke suggests going for a walk early Xmas morning, going to midnight mass, and also likes to get some crazy projects, such as parrot training to deep dive into over the holidays.

6 biological raps by the end of the year

  • Wants to make another statement a out the comfort zone idea.
  • Background: out of university for 18 months. Took the master of management at UBC (interdisciplinary: philosophy/biology).
  • Not an MBA program. Wanted to focus on writing. Wants to do experience-rich writing. Lots of traveling for family events. Working casual jobs to stay flexible.
  • Now a large amount of time taken as an advisor to other writers. Wants to work on finishing projects. Hence: biology raps.
  • Spent time in Haida Gwaii and wrote a rap about salmon reproduction. A local teacher wanted to use it in the curriculum
  • Still writing bio-raps.
  • Comfort zone: wanted to do a video for each song before moving on to the next video.
  • Nancy talked about audio-visual releases which is a new trend (see: Kanye and Frank Ocean). Suggests to start playing shows. Maybe get a publicist. Do one video very well and then get publicist to hit up existing popular YouTube videos. Suggests hitting up film school students.
  • Vancouver Battle Raps: Who runs the King of the Dot
  • Rap challenges online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWLleo7NKh8
  • Luke suggests attending the Freestyle Focus Group to level up the cypher
  • Also maybe talk to Trish at Hidden City Records as an industry contact
  • Luke talked about going to a show at a piano bar where a rap group was ignored. Got on stage with the band for the last freestyle jam and that got the audience really involved.
  • Kris talked about a CanSecWest event where they had a comedy show. The comedian started telling the audience IT jokes after calling them nerds. Turned into a train wreck. Second person even worse.
  • Luke talked about Will, who made a name for himself doing billingual children’s music.
  • Kris has a contact at Canadian Media Fund, who offers lots of grants for education.
  • Miss Gnu (Chelsea) who is a FOSS rapper. Kris to introduce.
  • Can introduce to Dave Tak Wei, who does beats for MC Frontalot.
  • Curiosity Collider. There were lots of scientific communicators who were looking for collaborations and creative partnerships.
  • Sasha usted out the salmon rap to the beat of “Lose Yourself”. Kris has on video, to send to Sasha

Luke

  • Offensive idea: paint an image of the Prophet in Vantablack (the blackest possible material) on the next blackest material.
  • Riz recommends Story of Maths (on Netflix)