Articles tagged with: blogging

Games People Play

Are you a board game player?  Personally I am not.  However I understand there is a huge board game community out there. These game enthusiasts meet in small coffee shops and attend large gaming conventions. I read that 35% of Americans say they play board games several times a month. Think about how many board games you may have laying around in your own place, even if you’re not a hard core gamer.
Recently an avid board game player sent me an email asking if I was aware that there several mining related games. That was a surprise to me. Who would create a board game about mining and for what demographic market?
Curiosity took over and I had to check out the links sent to me on the Board Game Geek website. Here’s a few of the games and what they do.   Now that Germany may be moving back into coal, the first three games may come back into fashion.  The 4th game listed is a bit of a head scratcher.

A few of the mining board games

Game 1: Haspelknecht: The Story of Early Coal Mining (2015)
This game is part of a coal-mining game trilogy created by Thomas Spitzer in Germany. The players take the role of farmers with opportunities to exploit the presence of coal in the Ruhr region of Germany. During the game, players acquire knowledge about coal, extend their farms, and dig deeper in the ground to extract more coal.
Players must select the correct tasks while being mindful of quickly accumulating pit water, for it can stall efforts and prevent extraction of coal.  The game info link is here.
Game 2: The Ruhr: A Story of Coal Trade (2017)
In the second game of Spitzer’s trilogy, you are still in the Ruhr region in the 18th century, at the beginning of the industrial revolution. The Ruhr river presented a transportation route from the coal mines. However, the Ruhr was filled with obstacles and large dams, making it incredibly difficult to navigate.
The players transport and sell coal to cities and factories along the Ruhr river in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the beginning, players have access only to low value coal but can gain access to high value coal. The players also build warehouses, locks, and export coal to neighboring countries in the pursuit of the most points.
The info link is here.
Game 3: Schichtwechsel: Die Förderung liegt in deiner Hand (2021)
This game may still be in German text only. Players are the administrator of a coal mine, and experience competition while living through a piece of Ruhr Valley history.
They bring coal and overburden from underground to the surface, let the miner go through a “shift at the colliery”, produce coke, or build the typical colliery settlements.
The info link is  here.
Game 4: The Cost (2020)
This game takes on a more negative view of the mining industry. It is described as “A bold take on the economics in the brutal industry that is asbestos.” The game players assume the role of a global asbestos company.
Players make their fortune in mining, refining, and shipping. Whoever ends the game with the most money wins. The last part of the description is the gem “When players mine or refine asbestos, they must choose to either maximize profits for short-term gains or sacrifice their hard-won money to minimize deaths, thus sustaining the industry.” That’s every mining executive’s dilemma; profits or deaths.   The info link is here.
Some of these game boards look more complicated than the actual industry. To find other games you can go to the Board Game Geek website and search for different themes. Most mining games listed there are not realistic but are more about dwarves mining gems or they just have an activity called “mining”.   Here’s one called Copper Country.

Free Excel Mining Game

In 1983 my brother, at the age of 10, got his Commodore 64 computer and was eagerly learning to program in BASIC. He was always looking for ideas on what he could write programs about. I had graduated from McGill in Mining Engineering a few years earlier, so I suggested he write a simple computer game about mining as his project.
I provided him with the logic and in no time he had it written and functioning. That game is long gone, likely at the bottom of a landfill stored inside the chips of his Commodore 64. Some 40 years later, my brother is still coding as a software development manager. I guess I managed to convince him the mining industry wasn’t a career path.
Over the last few months I decided to learn VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). VBA is a programming language the works with Microsoft Office products, mainly Excel.
I always enjoyed programming. In university we wrote FORTRAN programs using stacks of punch cards to feed the machine the code. I had also learned the BASIC language, from my brother’s VIC 20 and Commodore computers.
A good way to learn something is to watch a few pf the many tutorial videos on YouTube. An even better way to learn VBA is by taking on an actual coding project from scratch. So, what worked 40 years ago, would work again. Rather than write something useful, I decided to re-write the mining game from 1983, albeit enhanced with the Excel application capability and more years of personal mining experience.
This coding process would force me to learn how to write code, figure out logic, create loops, if-then statements, and handle debugging. Already knowing Excel makes the entire process easier.  Combining Excel functionality with VBA delivers capabilities that would have been difficult to do in BASIC alone.  Note: It appears that BASIC is no longer in use, having been replaced by Python as the preferred programming language.

Download it.. if curious

If you are curious about the capability of VBA, the Excel mining game can be downloaded. A descriptive overview of the game is included in the PDF file at this link.

Junior Mining CEO game screenshot

The very simple game is called Junior Mining CEO. The object is to find gold, raise the share price, and not go bankrupt given the pitfalls that often befall the mining industry. The input parameters have a lot of optionality, although I have protected the macro code itself for this edition. You can borrow money and issue equity to fund your mining activity.
The Excel file can be downloaded at this link. The was written using Excel 365 but it may also work on older versions of Excel.
You will first need to save the game to your computer to run the macros. Since there are macros, many computers will disable such Excel files because they can contain viruses. You may need to toggle the file Properties in File Explorer to unblock the file to allow the macros to run.
Is there a junior mining corporate sponsorship opportunity here? Sure. For a small fee, I will add your company logo to the game and pre-set all the input parameters so that everyone is a big winner all the time.

Conclusion

As mentioned in a blog from a few months ago, “ A Junior EIT Mining Story” some gamification of mining may help introduce and educated people on the industry. Augmented reality (AR) and Virtual reality (VR) are both technologies that can be used to help reach out to the younger generations (I’m not talking about investor outreach).
How about a new board game that does to mining what Monopoly did to real estate investing? Look at real estate prices today, no doubt being influenced by everything we learnt playing Monopoly as kids.
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A Junior EIT Mining Story

We know the mining industry is having trouble attracting talent in all sorts of disciplines, including operations, technical, and supervision. Industry people have no shortage of ideas (right or wrong) on how this issue can be addressed in the future. Myself…I don’t really have any good suggestions.
Not long ago I was speaking with a 2020 graduate mining engineer (EIT = Engineer in Training). During our conversation, I was curious to know what attracted him to the industry and if he had any advice on how to reach out to others in his age group. I asked if he was willing to share his thoughts on my blog site. After all, who better to hear from than a recent graduate. He said “yes”, so for your interest, here is his story and his thoughts. (I decided to leave his name out of this article although he was not insisting on anonymity.)

So here’s the story (in his words)

Mining has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Being born in Sudbury, many of my family members have been, or are currently involved, in mining through a variety of occupations, including my father who I idolized. However, I never knew my true interest in the industry until my 11th-grade technology class. I had a teacher who was passionate about the mining industry, and he created a project that involved developing a very basic mine design.
Once I started the project, I realized that I enjoyed the design work, as it requires problem-solving which constantly stimulates the mind. After the conclusion of this project, I started doing my own research to expand my knowledge and realized that the financial side of mining had great interest to me as well. This led me at age 16 to start investing in the mining sector, which I continue to this day.
With this developed interest, and my family’s mining history, the decision to study Mining Engineering at Laurentian University was an easy decision. It allowed me to support my hometown and will allow me, given my career ambitions, to put this small school on the international map.
Before my first year of university, I had a summer job tramming at Macassa Mine in Kirkland Lake Ontario, which has been in production since 1933. My mentality was to get the boots on the ground and get the job done, whatever it took (with proper safety precautions of course). Using rail systems, dumping ore cars manually, jackleg drilling, etc. gave me the perspective that mining was archaic, mining was rough, and mining was only about the ounces.
Therefore, when I started the Mining Engineering program at Laurentian University in 2016, I already had a (somewhat negative) preconceived notion of the mining industry, but as my short career progressed, my opinions morphed into something different, something more positive.
Now that I have graduated and been employed for a couple of years, my perspective has changed. However, I feel that the perspective of the general population has not. People within mining have a (positive) bias and realize its importance in our everyday lives. This is showcased in the famous saying “if it is not grown, it is mined” and I believe that to get the industry to progress at an even faster rate, we need to get everyone on board.
It cannot be an industry that just takes from the Earth, it needs to be seen as one that values sustainability, supplies the world with required goods, and creates jobs with high employee satisfaction. Although this has started with companies taking more of an interest in stakeholder value and employee job satisfaction, based on my limited years in the industry, there is still lots of room for growth.
To change the negative view around mining, I believe the main focal point should be electric equipment and the ability for remote operation/work. With all this newly developed technology at our fingertips, I know that future operations will be safer and more sustainable, which should be better portrayed.
The battery-electric equipment will surely increase employee satisfaction since I know firsthand that one of the worst feelings as a worker is to have a scoop operating in a heading that is already 25+ degrees. It will also create more sustainability since the industry can transition from being reliant almost solely on fossil fuels.
In addition, I believe that remote equipment operation is not being used to its full capacity or explained to the younger generation. Right now, there has been equipment running in Canada that was operated in Australia. What is stopping mines from having equipment operators all over the world in urban office spaces or out of their own homes? I believe that for a company to visit a high school, or even a trades school, to sell the idea that you can operate a massive piece of equipment from the creature comforts of home, almost like a real-life video game, would be quite compelling to this audience.
Even creating a mining simulation video game where you can run through a story of being a manager, excavator/scoop operator, truck driver, etc. would get the thought of mining brought into the coming generations at a younger age. This would increase the talent pool from the more typical operator because more and more youth are getting skilled at remote operation through video games due to their increased screen time.
Not only equipment operators, but technical staff could be made fully, or partially, remote. When I describe my job to my (non-mining) peers, many are interested since mining is a fast-paced, stimulating, and rewarding industry.
But as soon as I describe the remote nature of the work, many young professionals, or high school students, get turned away. Therefore, showing teenagers, through school presentations or workshops, that a technical career in mining can lead you down so many avenues (scheduling, ventilation design, drill & blast, etc.) would pique their interest, but I believe adding the ability to work remote, with some occasional travel, would drive the point home.
InternPeople get comfortable and people are afraid to leave home, so selling a career that allows for boundless flexibility in job tasks and constant stimulation while living wherever you desire could allow a shrinkage in the current technical gap.
Overall, the mining awareness and outreach (approach) is still old school. Getting to youth and teenagers through various media streams could be the key to getting engagement from not only the current mining towns but larger urban centres as well.
I mentioned a mining simulation video game previously, but what is stopping us there. Many of my peers, and youth younger than myself, are entering the professions of doctors, lawyers, finance, or criminal investigators.
I might be wrong, but, intriguingly, these are industries are the base professions glorified on TV. Why not develop more TV shows based on mining? I know that there would be some population interest considering many people ask me if the gold we mine underground looks like what comes out of the pans in Yukon Gold Rush.
So do I think the mining industry is archaic…. not anymore.
Do I think the mining industry is rough… somewhat.
Do I think it is only about the ounces…., yes, since a mine will not run any other way.
However, I believe that there has been more importance placed on employee and stakeholder satisfaction. So, with more time, and more engagement from the public of all ages, I think this industry can have a bright future ahead.
END

Conclusion

Firstly, I would like to thank this engineer for taking time to write out his well formed thoughts, and for allowing me to share them.
Many of the mining people I meet are following along in family footsteps. No surprise there. However, the industry cannot rely on that farm system alone. It should be reaching out to broader society, although that may require some out-of-the-box thinking. People’s attitudes and personalities are different today than they were 20 years ago.  Many different doors are being held open as career options.
The discussion above has some interesting ideas from a person who would be the target of outreach efforts. It likely will take more effort than simply telling people “Hey, your iPhone uses metal, therefore mining is good, and you should work in mining”.

 

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Does the Mining Industry Employ Interns?

employing interns
Over the couple of years I have been working on a side project in the tech industry.   One of the things that struck me was the hiring of interns, both paid and unpaid.
I’m now aware that interns are being hired in other industries such as legal, politics, journalism, and marketing.  However I have never come across the use of interns within the mining industry.
Intern

Why hire interns?

I was recently talking to a marketing consultant about tips on tech marketing and one of the suggestions she made was to hire an unpaid intern.  They would do much of the legwork of finding sales contacts and establishing contact with them.
My first question was why would anyone work for free?  There are  three main reasons:
  1. For school credit; as part of a course credit in college or university where an internship is part of the program requirement.
  2. For experience; it is difficult to get a real job without experience and so the internship teaches, builds  experience, and establishes a portfolio of work.
  3. Networking; building up industry connections can possibly lead to permanent work down the road.

Its the right thing to do

At first I was taken aback at the thought of asking someone to work for my company for free.  Are we that cheap?
Thinking about it further, if you are paying someone a salary the expectation is that they should be somewhat skilled at their job.  I have come to realize that the internship may actually be a win-win for both parties.

Its a win-win

The company gets a chance to learn about potential employees and also gets productive service from them.
The intern gains employment experience and learns about the realities of the business world.  Students have already paid the schools to teach them.  Now businesses can help teach them more, but at no cost.   It’s a win-win for both.
So how did our unpaid intern search go?  We posted a free ad on indeed.ca.  Within 72 hours we received over ten replies, of which only 2-3 came close to meeting the actual qualifications.  Some of the applicants had no relevant experience at all.
Possibly in today’s job market people are willing to work for free on the hope that they can get some experience, which will hopefully lead to a permanent job in the future.

Conclusion

The question is whether the mining industry can make use of interns in the areas of geology, engineering, marketing, presentation graphics, websites, etc?
There may be many students or recent grads looking for an opportunity and are willing to do whatever it takes to  advance their careers.
Even if your operating budget can’t afford the cost of hiring another person, you may still have a chance to help out someone new in the industry.
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Windshieldink – New Smartphone App

license plate messaging
During the recent years, the slowdown in the mining industry has given me time to pursue a few side interests. Writing this mining blog was one of those interests.
The other was developing a new smartphone mobile app called Windshieldink. The tag line is “it’s the new way to leave a note on a windshield”. The website is Windshieldink.com
Windshieldink image

Here is an overview

Windshieldink’s messaging platform allows anyone to anonymously assign an email address to a license plate.  Others can send messages to those vehicle owners  using the mobile app and the vehicle license plate number.
Registering a license plate with Windshieldink is free. The app provides users the options of receiving their messages via e-mail and phone texts. You also have the option of receiving app push notifications, or attaching contact information, or attaching a GPS location within the message.  There is also an in-app chat functionality.

Stats Canada reported 23.9 million motor vehicle registrations in 2015

Based on personal experience, the desire to be reachable in an emergency via my license plate number was recognized as far back as the mid-1990’s.  Its becoming even more recognized as new vehicles, driverless vehicles come on to our the roadways daily.
Windshieldink logoPrimarily businesses, such as fleet operators, delivery services, city maintenance services can register thousands of their plates and assign a safety office email or dispatcher to each.  The public can then provide feedback on problem drivers.
The Windshieldink messaging platform will function globally.  However our primary focus is North America due to our limited marketing capacity.

Its Free!

The app is now free to download from Google Play Store and App Store and hopefully simple to use.   Learning how the tech world operates, has been an eye opener for someone who has working in the mining industry their entire life.
Here is a video on how the app works.
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Blogging and Spam

blogs and spam
This is a short non-mining topic but it’s something I found interesting when writing a WordPress blog.  Spam and bots are everywhere.
I started this little WordPress blog a few years ago and enable the readers to comment on each blog as well as subscribe.  Well lo and behold it didn’t take long for the spam to start arriving.  Both the commenting and subscribing are affected

Commenting Spam

The image below shows the typical spam that I would get in the comments section.  Even though commenting requires one to enter an email address in order to post, this type of spam still sjows up.  It took a few weeks for it to start but at times I would be getting 5 to 10 of these spammed “comments” each day.  It’s not like my blog has a lot of followers or comments, but it still ended up a target to the bots or spiders or whatever else that is roaming around the web.

Example WordPress blog spam

The first solution is to turn off automatic commenting to prevent comments from being posted immediately on-line.  I switched to moderated comments whereby each comment needs to be manually approved by the administrator before being posted live.  However after being continually asked to approve a lot of pending spam comments, it got tiresome.  The next solution was implementing the CAPTCHA (see image below).

 

Example of a Captcha

WordPress has various plug-ins designed to limit spam.  One of the simpler solutions is to add a “captcha”, which is the little box where you need to type in a word or number.  This is designed to hinder the automated spam-bots.  CAPTCHA is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”, a great acronym.
After five days of using the captcha, I have received no new spam and weeks later still none.   However this won’t stop any manual spamming, so that will be the next thing to wait for.   It’s interesting to see how much unproductive technical energy is being expended out there in cyberspace.

Subscribing Spam

The next thing I noticed was that my subscriber list would grow enourmoulsy.  These new subscribers were all pending, meaning they did not confirm their subscription via a return email.  So it seems some bot is creating accounts, possibly sending out request-for-confirmation emails to people who never signed up. For a while I shut off the subscribe box, but recently re-started it to see if it continues.

Conclusion

What’s the reason for this specific spam that I am getting?  I understand it’s not for virus or malware purposes but part of search engine optimization (SEO).  Google search will rank websites higher on the search page if that site has many other websites linking (pointing) back to it.   So creating web links for a website on various people’s blogs will improve that site’s rank.
I also heard that if Google detects numerous phony links on my website, they will downgrade me as punishment. Unfortunately there are lots of bots and spiders crawling around the web looking for things to attack.
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