Story of my life

 

Small things 24 Nov

• How to weird out your fellow commuters on the train / bus: Make vanilla pudding. Put it in an empty mayo jar. Eat in front of everyone.
• Is fake laughing with a customer a job skill worthy of adding to your CV? Asking for a friend.
• Wear a falconry glove to the off-leash park and frantically look up to the sky for a while. See how long it takes before the small dog owners leave.
• Yes, I’ll get over it. I just need to be dramatic first.
• I hate when people say I'm lollygagging when I'm clearly dilly dallying.
• Imagine how awkward it would be to attend your home-schooled class reunion being the only sibling who made anything of themself.
• Once you get old, there’s only 3 places a thing can be: carelessly set down and you can’t remember where; deliberately put somewhere specific and you can’t remember where; you’re holding it and you don’t even realize it.
• The Rocky Horror Muppet Show. I’d watch it.
• Elon has lost his wife, his kids, 40 billion dollars, and his spaceship crashed. It's a genre of country music that doesn't even exist yet.
• Isn’t it fun how perfect strangers will just wave to each other when one of them is on a boat? For absolutely no reason. They're not trying to communicate anything other than "LOOK! I am on a boat! Ahoy!" "Yes, I see you! On the boat! Hello!" [Thanks to Matt Dewald for the inspiration]
• Decades ago, young men put more thought, money and care into their car stereos than their actual car.
• Dumb guy thought the florist was where you went shopping for carpet and lino.
• The internet police should give you a massive fine every time you post something sarcastically without adding /s.

Shear life

 

Artists that debuted in 1982

Billy Idol

Aldo Nova

REM

Laurie Anderson

Asia

Flock of Seagulls

Adam Ant

Thomas Dolby

Don Henley (solo)

Michael McDonald (solo)

Janet Jackson

Culture Club 

Kenny G

Lee Aaron

ABC

Lionel Ritchie (solo)

China Crisis

Donald Fagen (solo)

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five

Glenn Frey (solo) 

Nina Hagen

The Nylons

Talk Talk 

Haircut 100

Robert Plant (solo)

Men Without Hats

Yazoo

The Fixx

Missing Persons

Strange Advance

The winter sun

 

Destroying creativity and incomes

[Excerpted and edited for brevity from Cory Doctorow’s book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation]

Google created Content ID, an "audio fingerprinting" tool that was pitched as a way for rights holders to block, or monetize, the use of their copyrighted works by third parties. YouTube allowed large (at first) rightsholders to upload their catalogs to a blocklist, and then scanned all user uploads to check whether any of their audio matched a "claimed" clip. Once Content ID determined that a user was attempting to post a copyrighted work without permission from its rightsholder, it consulted a database to determine the rights holder's preference. Some rights holders blocked uploads containing audio that matched theirs; others opted to take the ad revenue generated by that video. One big problem with this is the inability of Content ID to determine whether use of someone else's copyright constitutes "fair use”, which is legally permitted. A fair use determination, unfortunately not easy for a program to do. Computers can't sort fair use from infringement. That means that filters block all kinds of legitimate creative work, especially work that makes use of samples or Quotations.

A lot of creative work is similar to other creative work. Part of Katy Perry's 2013 song "Dark Horse" is effectively identical to a part of "Joyful Noise," a 2008 song by a less well-known Christian rapper called Flame. Flame accused Perry of violating his copyright. Perry eventually prevailed. But YouTube's filters struggle to distinguish Perry's six-note phrase from Flame's. Filters routinely hallucinate copyright infringements where none exist - and this is by design.

It's pretty trivial to write a filter that blocks exact matches. But an uploader could get around a filter by just compressing the audio ever-so-slightly, below the threshold of human perception, or cut a hundredth of a second off the beginning or end of the track, and this new file would no longer match. YouTube filters employ "fuzzy" matching. They block stuff that's similar to those things that rights holders have claimed. Rights holders want the matches to be as loose as possible, because they would want to stop someone from getting even a mildly altered song for free. Unfortunately, the looser the matching, the more false positives. Don’t even try to earn money from your classical music performances, because any performance of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart will sound too much like Sony Music recordings. Even teaching classical music has become a minefield and you’re likely never going to earn any money from it on YouTube.

How little libraries form

 

Things I learned lately 24 Nov

• Whataboutism: A term that describes a technique of deflecting criticism by pointing out flaws in the other side. It is often used in political or moral debates. For example, "You can’t criticize me for lying when you lie all the time. That’s whataboutism."3
• Sapiosexual: A term that means someone who is attracted to intelligence. For example, "She’s a sapiosexual, she only dates smart people."
• Tim Hortons opened in Singapore recently.
• There are only 45 hydrogen refueling stations in the entire US, most of them in California. It costs $2 million to build one.
• The average cost to refuel a hydrogen car is $80, which would get you about 400 miles of range.
• Ernie Coombs (Mr Dressup) once worked with Fred Rogers on The Children's Corner, the precursor to Mr Rogers Neighbourhood. Fred Rogers actually started what would become his famous American show in Toronto, as Mister Rogers. Ernie Coombs was on that show as well. When Fred decided to return to the US, Ernie stayed in Toronto and Mr Dressup was formed in 1967.
• In 2012, an Indian nurse looking after Kate Middleton, Jacintha Saldanha, was prank-called by an Aussie radio show pretending to be the Queen. This led to her revealing confidential information which was then broadcast on the radio. 3 days later, she committed suicide. The radio station suffered no consequences.
• Poland continues to ban or restrict retail shopping on Sunday.
• The summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire, has the worst weather. It holds the record for wind speed at 231 mph (372 km/h). Recently, it set the North American wind chill record at -108F (-78C). How about an average of 281 inches (714 cm) of snow per year?
• Christine McVie’s maiden name was Perfect.

Money..... it's a gas...

 

Small things 17 Nov

• Why do they even have directions on the box of KD? If you need directions at this point, you don’t deserve to eat it.
• When I’m just a few days away from retiring from my job, I’m just going to reply to every email I get with “What are you even talking about right now?”
• ME: *telling a joke*   SARA: haha   SARAH: hahah
• Rest in peace Pavlov. You would have loved notifications.
• One problem with fruit: it's inconsistent. Some apples are delicious, some taste bad. Sometimes blueberries are great, sometimes they are disgusting. Same with grapes. You know what's the same every time? Doritos…
• When you’re in a "randomized clinical trial controlled with a placebo", or as the doctors call it behind your back, "trick or treatment".
• We may find ourselves watching movies or television content, listening to music lyrics, or reading books from many decades past and cringe at the things that passed as acceptable. But remember, art is a reflection of the times. Don’t critique it, learn from it.
• History. Today I rewrote history.
• If baseball really wanted to be exciting, they’d let a celebrity throw the LAST pitch.
• KID: Dad, why is it called 2% milk?   DAD: The other 98% is for the lactose intolerant.
• The more expensive the house, the harder it is to find the kitchen garbage can.
• In the gummy universe, apparently worms are bigger than bears.
• Gonna ask my grandkids if they want to watch Game of Thrones and then show them “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
• If you’re cremated when you die, you can be put into an hourglass and maybe continue participating in family board game nights.

Me at the grocery store

 

We could do it if we wanted to

There’s nothing I love more than when a person with facts and experience deftly tears down all of the dumb arguments against making Canadian cities more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, and better transit too.

As an aside, did you know that Ontario destroys 175 acres of farmland per day to build more car-dependent suburbs?

The Germans are fighting again...

 

10 non commandments?

As part of the 10 ‘Non-Commandments’ Contest in 2014, atheists were asked to offer modern alternatives to the famous 10 Commandments. After more than 2,800 submissions from around the world, proposed “non-commandments” were evaluated by 13 judges. Note the absence of any “thou shalt” statements.

Behold, the “Ten Non-Commandments” chosen as the winners:

1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.

2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.

3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.

4. Every person has the right to control [of] their body.

5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.

6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.

7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.

8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.

9. There is no one right way to live.

10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

Milk

 

10 tactics of fascism

[Distilled from a video short by Jason Stanley]

The mythic past. This tactic tries to convince the masses that we used to be great. Our military used to be great. The dominant race from the past and lived a wonderful life is no longer dominant. Your dominance has been taken away from you by leftists and communists. They want to weaken our greatness and our military.

Propaganda. Based around a friend versus enemy distinction. My political opponent is a merciless threat to our existence and traditions. When ‘they’ are in charge, it subverts the nation. 

Anti-intellectualism. The declaration that science is only useful in so far as it strengthens the nation. Expertise, reality are a challenge to the leader’s ability to dictate what is right and wrong. If science helps the leader’s cause, that’s ok, otherwise, it’s a threat. Institutions that teach multiple perspectives on history can’t be allowed. 

Unreality. You’re not free if you’re being lied to. Nobody thinks the people of North Korea are free. They vote for ‘dear leader’ because they’ve been deceived. Equality requires truth. Political equality means that each of our voices matters the same amount. It also means speaking truth to power. If you want to subvert democracy, you get people used to lies.

Hierarchy. Racism is basically a big lie, insisting that one group is better than another. This religion is superior. This gender is better. Once you have instilled hierarchy as a moral framework, you can then scare those at the top of the hierarchy that everyone else is a threat and must be dealt with.

Victimhood. You can tell the people that they are victims. Whites are the victims of black equality, Germans and Christians were the victims of the Jews. Men are victims of feminism.

Law & Order. The minority group, once they accept their subservient role, are ‘law abiding’. The members of the dominant group, by their very nature, are law abiding. Under fascism, law and order doesn’t mean justice or equality, it identifies who is legit or not.

Sexual anxiety. Your women and children are under threat. You must fear LGBTQ+, they are trying to corrupt your children. The fascist leader says, “You may not like my ways or my behaviour, but I can protect you. You need someone like me in charge.” 

Sodom and Gomorrah. Urban life is full of elites, decadence, immigrants, criminality. The rural people are the real people, who work hard with their hands. They are the only ones who work hard. Urban work isn’t real work. 

“Work shall make you free.” The minority are lazy and they need to be made to work. Leftists are lazy by their nature. Labour unions are communist run and are trying to make things easier, subverting the nation. Hard work is a virtue. Disabled people are no longer valued because they can’t do real work.

Do you recognize any of these tactics in modern politics?

This picture shows every building in the US

 

Things I learned lately 17 Nov

• DoorDash warns Canadian customers that not tipping may result in a slower delivery.
• If you’re looking for virus data in Alberta, you won’t hear anything from UCP headquarters, but at least they have stats: https://www.alberta.ca/stats/dashboard/respiratory-virus-dashboard.htm
• According to the US Senate Intelligence Committee Chair and the Energy Committee Chair, the US is lagging 10 to 20 years behind Asia in commercialization of battery technology. China accounts for more than 75% of global battery cell production.
• There is a Tesla Model S 70D still on the road that has 725,641 km on it. The Model 3 hasn’t been around as long, but there’s one with 627,961 km.
• Nissan sells a very small Sakura EV in Asia that isn’t much bigger than a Smart car (but does have 2 rows of seats). It has a range of 180 km and a top speed of 130 km/h. It costs the equivalent of CAD$22,000 minus the CAD$5000 rebate Japanese get for buying a domestic EV.
• Before adopting the Roman word for April (Aprelis), the Old English word for this month was Ēosturmōnaþ (the month of Easter). Ēostre is a West Germanic spring goddess. During Ēosturmōnaþ, pagan Anglo-Saxons held feasts in Ēostre's honour, but this tradition died out, replaced by the Christian Paschal month, a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.
• Yule (also called Jul, jól or joulu) is a winter festival historically observed by the Germanic peoples. It was incorporated into Christmas during the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples.
• When you see English and French words that are similar, it’s because a very large number of English words were adopted during the Norman invasion, transforming Old English to Middle English.

To understand a Military Veteran

 To understand a Military Veteran you must know:

* We left home as teenagers or in our early twenties for an unknown adventure.

* We loved our country enough to defend it and protect it with our own lives.

* We said goodbye to friends and family and everything we knew.

* We learned the basics and then we scattered in the wind to the far corners of the Earth.

* We found new friends and new family.

* We became brothers and sisters regardless of colour, race or creed.

* We had plenty of good times, and plenty of bad times.

* We didn’t get enough sleep.

* We smoked and drank too much.

* We picked up both good and bad habits.

* We worked hard and played harder.

* We didn’t earn a great wage.

* We experienced the happiness of mail call and the sadness of missing important events.

* We didn’t know when, or even if, we were ever going to see home again.

* We grew up fast, and yet somehow, we never grew up at all.

* We fought for our freedom, as well as the freedom of others.

* Some of us saw actual combat, and some of us didn’t.

* Some of us saw the world, and some of us didn’t.

* Some of us dealt with physical warfare, most of us dealt with psychological warfare.

* We have seen and experienced and dealt with things that we can’t fully describe or explain, as not all of our sacrifices were physical.

* We participated in time honored ceremonies and rituals with each other, strengthening our bonds and camaraderie.

* We counted on each other to get our job done and sometimes to survive it at all.

* We have dealt with victory and tragedy.

* We have celebrated and mourned.

* We lost a few along the way.

* When our adventure was over, some of us went back home, some of us started somewhere new and some of us never came home at all.

* We have told amazing and hilarious stories of our exploits and adventures.

* We share an unspoken bond with each other, that most people don’t experience, and few will understand.

* We speak highly of our own branch of service, and poke fun at the other branches.

* We know however, that, if needed, we will be there for our brothers and sisters and stand together as one, in a heartbeat.

* Being a Veteran is something that had to be earned, and it can never be taken away.

* It has no monetary value, but at the same time it is a priceless gift.

By Bobby Robson

Do you live on this street, that street or the other street?

 

Small things 10 Nov

• Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to build a border wall with Canada. I can’t wait to see the wall needed to cover Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
• Your car will never make that noise for the mechanic. Your car is like "That's our special noise. I only make that noise for you."
• Midwest culture is putting your paper plate upside down in the trash, so you don't offend whoever made the stuff you didn't eat.
• Just wait until conspiracy theorists discover they're part of a conspiracy to use conspiracy theorists to spread disinformation via conspiracy theories.
• Nothing says you're older more than sending a text after a night out that says "Oh, here's that soup recipe I was talking about."
• Do crabs think that fish are flying?
• Trails look a lot flatter on the map.
• Getting old sometimes means waiting too long to have a good text comeback, so you forget about it, and have to wear the shame of not responding to your friends in a timely manner.
• If your favourite outdoor activity is getting your parcels at the door and bringing them in, you might need to get out more.
• How many grocery bags you thought to bring into the store is inversely proportional to how many items you finally bring to the cashier.
• I bet every ‘fast-paced, dynamic team’ you apply to work with turns out to be neither.
• I get my medical marinara at an Italian restaurant.
• Have you ever been driving the speed limit somewhere thinking to yourself, “They can’t be serious.”?

No geese

 

Do they think the geese can read?

Or would obey if they could?

Impressive self-driving

If you want to get a sense of how far the Tesla full self-driving beta software v11.4.7.2 has come, check out this real world video taken by a 2019 Tesla Model 3 long range owner. He’s right, the car is now capable of doing things it couldn’t do confidently (or at all) a mere 2 or 3 years ago.

This is because the neural net supercomputer network training this software learns from every instance when a driver takes over the car because the self-driving software messed up. Bear in mind, you still have to watch the drive just in case, but the reduction in full-time concentration and stress while letting the car do its thing is reported by all to be game changing.

Love the camera angles too. You get to see the left side mirror view to get a sense of what’s going on behind the driver side of the car as he's driving.

No like spicy

 

Name that song - multiple vocalists

There’s a well-known song from the 1970s where the first two lines are sung by one vocalist, the next two lines are sung by a second vocalist, and the rest of the song is sung by the main artist.

Can you guess the song?

Seaward

 

Things I learned lately 10 Nov

• The domestic vehicle market is in trouble. Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Jeep have way more inventory on average than any other brand in the industry and they don’t seem to be able to move it. They tried to increase their MSRPs to move into a higher grade of vehicle and it has backfired because their traditional customer base doesn’t have that kind of money or credit.
• Buenos Aires had a subway before Barcelona, Moscow and Tokyo.
• If you want to try instant coffee, there’s more available than just the mass market domestic brands. Davidoff, Monogram, Maxim, Kroning Gold, Rosso…
• A 1975 Playboy poll ranked Karen Carpenter as the world's best drummer.
• Data seems to indicate that Gen Z falls for more internet scams than Boomers.
• 56% of Japan’s 125 million people live in the 3 metro areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.
• Some Japanese traffic lights are red, yellow and blue.
• The Salar de Unuyi salt flats in Bolivia, at over 10,000 square kilometres, is 100 times bigger than the Bonneville salt flats in Utah.
• Switzerland consumes more chocolate per capita than any other country.
• Lake Maracaibo gets a lot of lightning. 140-160 nights every year, you’ll see an average of 28 lightning strikes per minute. These spectacles can last up to 10 hours.
• The Artist Formerly Known as Prince guest starred on an episode (S2E1) of Muppets Tonight on 13 September 1997.
• 5 of the top 10 best selling albums worldwide were recorded in the 1970s. Dark side of the moon; Grease; Led Zeppelin IV; Rumours; Saturday night fever.
• An EV is 19 times LESS likely to catch fire than a gasoline powered vehicle.
• A Tesla model 3 weighs just a bit more than a BMW X1.

Coffee prescription

 

Small things 3 Nov

• If your workplace runs out of parking spots, I’d say it means they have enough people. Time to move on.
• The mantra of every workplace: “We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”
• All those times I ate great food and had nowhere to post it because the internet didn’t exist yet…..
• Dear Coca Cola: Stop adding new flavours. There’s nothing wrong with regular Coke. Nothing.
• I have a few gender-neutral bathrooms at my house.
• Am I replaceable? You bet. But it will be a serious downgrade.
• Seen online: “Embrace failure. Be terrified about regret.”
• “A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” ~unknown
• In modern society, “I think, therefore I am” has morphed into “I believe, therefore I am right.”
• I love using a measuring cup for water. I’m like, you're still clean bud. You get to skip the wash. Go right back to the cabinet dude.
• Remember when we cared what time it was before we called someone in another area code?
• Pro tip: Keep cake moist by eating it all as soon as possible.
• Sometimes when I’m getting ready for bed, I think man, this is around the time I used to get ready to go for a night out…
• How to upset a Canadian: Claim that Americans invented poutine and that Canadians ruined it with cheese curds instead of mozza.
• In the era of the newest in smartphone camera technology, it amazes me that we still get offered yearly school photos. Family portrait studios are long gone.
• I want to go into a Starbucks and order a drink, telling them my name is Bueller. Then leave knowing hilarity will ensue.

R2tea2

 

Transport trucks of the future - battery or hydrogen?

We can now have a serious debate on whether the transport trucks of the near future should be pure battery electric or run on hydrogen fuel cells or hydrogen engines.

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle put out a great video giving us the facts as they stand today.

Crocodile tears

 

Waste of my money

As you probably know, Alberta spent a significant amount of money, public money, on advertising in other provinces in a campaign called “Tell the feds”. The campaign suggests "When Ottawa's proposed electricity regulations make electricity unreliable, the things you rely on won't work when needed. Your hot water. Computer. Washer and dryer. Electric car. TV. Lights. Mobile phone. Stove. Your heat in –30 C weather.".

I’ve been monitoring the response to these claims in this ad campaign in the news, on FB and Reddit and from other provincial governments, and I have to say, they’re not buying it. Quebec, who isn’t officially targeted by the ads, but know about them anyway, are laughing their asses off. The kind of greening the federal government is proposing is pretty much already a ‘fait accompli’ in Quebec and umm, while they do get the odd blackout, it isn’t because of how the electricity is generated and everything to do with how it is distributed. Remember the ice storms of 1998? By the way, the reason Quebec isn’t a target of the ads is because Alberta themselves said that it wouldn’t be affected negatively by any further greening of the grid. That speaks volumes all by itself.

Ontario meanwhile has made significant moves to green its grid, converting coal plants to natural gas plants and they are building more nuclear capacity, including building the first series of advanced small modular reactors (SMR). So if the people of Ontario aren’t laughing their asses off, the folks running the grid definitely are.

BC is like, “What are you even talking about right now?”, especially since they are almost as green as Quebec. The maritime provinces are basically saying “Just shut up already.”

So I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that was $8 million well spent. Just remember, this is coming from the brain trust that suggested that utility grade mass battery storage isn’t feasible, using data from over 10 years ago.

Here’s a little nugget for you to chew on. Alberta’s electric utilities are allowed to (and do) leave generating capacity turned off every day as a way of manipulating the supply and demand curve to maintain high electricity prices to maintain a profit. They even admitted as much. As I write this post, I counted, live from the ets.aeso.ca website, 28 gas generating sources turned off, 4 hydro sources turned off, 6 wind generating farms offline (not from lack of wind), and there are 7 energy battery storage stations waiting to bring standby capacity online. We are even buying electricity from BC and Montana at this moment while selling some to Saskatchewan. From a total capacity point of view, we are (at this moment) only putting online HALF of our generating capacity. Half! Oh but the coal plants are going full steam.

It’s embarrassing to live in Alberta these days.

Fill 'er up!

 

Things I learned lately 3 Nov

• The Habs’ Cole Caufield is the quickest player to score 6 OT goals in NHL History. Cole scored his 6th on 26 Oct 2023 in the Canadiens win against the Blue Jackets in just his 130th NHL game. The previous record holder was Brayden Point who scored his 6th OT winner in his 190th game.
• You no longer need to avoid Windows 11 if you’ve been informed that your hardware doesn’t meet the requirements. You can download an ISO file from Microsoft and install it without issue.
• Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are putting edible microchips smaller than a grain of salt into the rind of their 90-pound cheese wheels to monitor aging and combat counterfeiters. So in a way, ‘Big Parma’ is putting microchips into people.
• Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the birth of Facebook, or as it was known then, the facebook.
• The city of Hamilton ON banned outdoor stadium hosted music concerts after Pink Floyd’s show at Ivor Wynne in 1975.
• Low-key: A term that expresses a subtle or moderate degree of something, such as interest, emotion, or opinion. For example, "I low-key like this song. It might grow on me"
• The song "Great gig in the sky" from Pink Floyd’s Dark side of the moon album was used in a Dole banana TV commercial featuring the tag line, “If you feel it, peel it.” 
• The part of DJ Ruby Rod in the movie The Fifth Element was originally offered to Prince. But he declined due to scheduling conflicts. The part went to Chris Tucker, but Jamie Foxx was in the running too.
• China has a thriving EV market with their own brands. As an example, the BYD Seagull has a range of 330 km, has a 75 hp electric motor and can reach 130 km/h speed for a very affordable $12,335.
• Over 90% of first time EV buyers have no intention of buying another ICE vehicle again.