+++ Snowshoeing +++
2024-12-26
Well we ended up with about 25cm of snow, quite the white Christmas
after all. My wife and I did get out for some snowshoeing. We went
while it was snowing - so there was no one else on the pristine
trails. I uploaded some images of the snowy scene:
TEXT Continued...
+++ Vacation, Snow and Recent Reads +++
2024-12-24
I'm on an extended break from work, through New Year's Day. I
typically space out my vacations, but for some reason this year in
early December I found I had a couple of weeks to use up. It seems
the end of the year snuck up on me! I'm not one who likes to
rollover or be paid out for unused vacation time. I always use all
of my accrued time off, every year. It keeps me sane.
TEXT Continued...
+++ More on the 2024 US Election +++
2024-11-06
So my gut was wrong [0], and the Orange Menace won. It seems the
impact of Roe v. Wade was not enough to tip the scales in the swing
states. I think Harris actively lost the election by, as I put it in
that post, being a "more of the same" candidate. The Democratic
establishment just can't seem to realize that people want meaningful
change. It was a repeat of 2016 - but worse, as it appears Harris
lost the popular vote as well.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Commentary on the 2024 US Presidential Election +++
2024-11-04
Nothing scientific, just a gut feeling, but I think Harris will win
the presidential election tomorrow, and that exit polls will show
overwhelming support from female voters. I think prior polls are
underestimating just how pissed off American women are about Roe v.
Wade being overturned. The sad reality is that some women have to
pretend to support Trump when in front of their husbands or friends,
so they have to keep their votes secret, and we won't know about the
effect of these votes until after the election.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Move and OTR +++
2024-08-27
The last month or so was rough with the long-distance move, but
we're slowly settling in to a new house in a new province, and are
content to not move again for the foreseeable future. This was the
longest move we've ever done - 13 hours by car - but not the most
difficult, which would have been our move to Canada from the
States. Moving to another country is one of those once-in-a-lifetime
things, or at least it should be. If you're already a citizen of the
country you are moving to and alone, it's not too bad, but throw a
family of non-citizens into the mix, and it gets complicated
quickly.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Bad AI +++
2024-06-30
We're planning a long-distance move, and had one moving company
insist on a virtual walk-through for the estimate. The idea was that
just before the scheduled time, they text a web link, which opens
a video call. During the call, you walk around your house holding
up your phone, and the person on the other end takes screengrabs.
In my phone conversation with the salesperson beforehand, he made a
point of saying that they use an AI to estimate weights of household
items, and that the AI had proved accurate to within 5%.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Response to Jirka, Gmail and Web Apps +++
2024-03-16
Jirka talks about gmail killing their basic HTML interface [0] - I
did prefer that interface, both back when I used my own gmail
account, and when I worked for a company that used google apps. I
can confirm, it was much faster than the default interface.
TEXT Continued...
+++ 2600 Finally Offering epub and PDF Subsciptions +++
2024-02-10
I've talked about 2600 magazine briefly, years ago [0], about their
PDF digital archive issues (basically annual compilations). It took
a while, but 2600 recently started selling DRM-free epub or PDF
subscriptions of individual issues direct, after being fucked over
by Amazon, who has discontinued magazine subscriptions.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Congrats and Response to Tomasino +++
2024-02-08
Just want to congratulate Tomasino on his former citizenship [0]. As
a US expat for eight years now, I can confirm that the US's tax on
worldwide income is a pain. Not that it results in double-taxation,
if you live in one of the countries that has a tax agreement with
the US (Canada does), but you still have to do your taxes every
year, along with an FBAR, which details all of your bank accounts
and their balance. Further, the US managed to impose requirements on
foreign banks to report your foreign income to the IRS, and as a
result, those banks ask about your foreign citizenship, and require
your US social security number before they will open an account.
Some banks refuse to give US citizens an account due to the
reporting requirements.
TEXT Continued...
+++ New Year and Media Messes +++
2024-01-27
Happy New Year fellow gopher and smolnet denizens! It's been a
sub-par winter here in the Great White North, with temps far above
seasonal and a decent share of wet snow, ice and even rain. Not that
those things are unheard of here, but they're more frequent now in
traditionally really cold months, and that is affecting outdoor
activities. Hopefully things improve soon, but for now it's an icy
mess.
TEXT Continued...
+++ The Best Way to Have a Phlog Discussion +++
2023-07-07
There is an interesting discussion on Lemmy [0] about the methods
for replying to phlog entries. My thinking on this has changed over
the years, generally now I think replying on your own phlog or
sending an email are the best ways to get a conversation going.
TEXT Continued...
+++ On Reading and Ebooks +++
2023-06-24
I used to always finish books once I had started reading them,
unless a book was really, really bad. I can think of only two in
decades past that I started but did not finish.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Republic Migration, New Admin +++
2023-02-20
As of this morning the Republic has been fully migrated to a new
hosting provider, with a new admin. I launched the Republic in 2018
[0] as the second circumlunar.space outpost, and for just over four
years I have been the lone owner and sysadmin. I had been feeling
some burnout, however, due to the demands of my real-life job as a
sysadmin and some pending changes I knew I had to make. The FreeBSD
version I initially installed (v11) was past end-of-life, and I was
no longer able to install security or package updates. The hosting
provider (Tilaa) had, at the end of January, given me 30 days notice
that they were raising my monthly VPS rates by 80%, and were not
interested in working with me as far as a more reasonable rate. The
Republic is a small VPS, and the rates they were quoting were well
above industry standard rates. Customers have little power in these
circumstances apart from not being customers in the first place, so
I'll just say here that you should avoid Tilaa as a VPS hosting
provider. Thankfully, there are lots of alternatives that are
cheaper and easier to work with.
TEXT Continued...
+++ New Circumlunar Transmissions Released, Republic Update +++
2022-12-20
Thanks to republic user Joneworlds for grabbing the proverbial bull
and getting a new issue of circumlunar transmissions [0] edited and
out the door. Jone also has a neat project called 'three gophers'
that combines random text from republic phlogs [1] and updates every
15 minutes. Take a look!
TEXT Continued...
+++ Vacation & Bradbury +++
2022-08-21
I'm just coming off of a one-week vacation. We had relatives visit
for the first three days of this past week, so it seems like a
shorter vacation than it should have been. Still, we've had some
decent weather and have been able to get out for a hike and several
bike rides. I'm not looking forward to the hundreds of emails
awaiting me at work tomorrow.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Lawn & Garden +++
2022-07-10
We have had a garden for many years, some years more ambitious than
others. This is one of the less ambitious years. We have a few
vegetables - tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach and hot
peppers. and those are in various sized containers. Most of the
in-ground garden itself we let go wild, with a large wildflower
patch and a half-dozen sunflowers. We also have two small apple
trees that are just beginning to bear fruit.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Pandemic Update +++
2022-07-05
Quebec lifted their mask mandate for indoor public spaces (except
for hospitals and clinics) at the end of May. I think that was a
mistake given the transmissibility of the virus and its ability to
mutate, not to mention the affects of long COVID which are becoming
more apparent. We still wear an N95 mask when out in public, but not
many here are doing that now. Wearing a mask is such a simple thing
TEXT Continued...
+++ Walks +++
2022-04-10
I try to go for a walk every day, a few kilometers at least. I've
been doing that for about five years now, and am well into my second
pair of walking sneakers - it would probably be more if not for the
necessity to wear boots six months of the year in Canada. Now that
it's a habit, I actually feel physically bad when I don't get a walk
in at all, or if it is late in the day and I haven't yet gone for a
walk. It's probably more noticeable since I work in IT and
(obviously) sit all day in front of a monitor.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Buying Books and Used Bookstores - Response to Tomasino +++
2022-03-09
Tomasino talks about buying books [0]. I had to login to my old
Amazon account which has order history back to 1997. As I recall,
Amazon was selling just books back then, and my order history shows
that (the first thing I bought that year was 'The Forever War' by
Joe Haldeman). I remember that it seemed amazing at the time to be
able to order almost any book at a discount - even including
shipping costs it was cheaper than the big bookstores.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Canadian Citizenship Ceremony +++
2021-12-08
Well it took a bit longer than we had anticipated, but my wife was
finally sworn in as a Canadian citizen last week. IRCC still
continues to run virtual ceremonies, via zoom. They have a decent
system down now for that, the whole thing ran very smoothly and took
about 90 minutes total. There were about 50 participants.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Response to Rak, an Option for Free COVID Testing for Canadians +++
2021-11-13
Rak mentioned the security theatre at the Canadian border [0]. I
agree, the current policy of requiring tests for fully vaccinated
travelers, even for short trips to the US, is absurd. But I wanted
to mention that there is a free COVID testing option that works even
for day trips to the States. While the rapid antigen tests are not
accepted at the border, nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT)
are. One such test is the "ID Now" test, offered by Walgreens in the
US. While they advertise results within 24 hours, my experience has
been that the test results are sent to you within 1-2 hours (they
are sent by email).
TEXT Continued...
+++ Resp to Oldfolio and Canadian Housing +++
2021-10-16
Oldfolio thanked me for my instructions on Palemoon and the
OverbiteFF extension. You're welcome! I'm glad that was useful to
someone. As far as old browsers not working on today's web, it makes
me appreciate gopher's lack of TLS even more.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Silence +++
2021-09-26
I'm a bit behind in updating my phlog, as I've had the link up for a
while on the gopher homepage, but the latest issue of the
Circumlunar Transmissions zine, issue #2, is live [0]!
TEXT Continued...
+++ Gopherly Reply, Palemoon, Canadian Citizenship +++
2021-07-19
I enjoyed Visiblink's vignette about Gopherly and Geminiville.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Holiday Weekend +++
2021-05-23
It's a holiday weekend here in Canada, most people have Monday off
for Victoria Day (in Quebec of course they have to be different and
celebrate Patriot's Day). We're still seeing nice weather, although
it's a bit dry here with no real rainfall in about three
weeks. Hopefully that changes next week - but as I mentioned in my
last post, the weather has been nice for bike riding, and I was able
to get out for a ride yesterday and today.
TEXT Continued...
+++ New Circumlunar Space Zine, Quebec Updates +++
2021-05-16
Today you'll see a new link on the Republic gopher [0] and gemini
[1] homepages, to the inaugural issue of "Circumlunar
Transmissions", a community zine created with input from circumlunar
space users. Thanks to mieum [2] for taking on the mantle of editor
and putting all of the submissions together in a great format.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Resp. to Muto - Internet Suicide +++
2021-05-08
Muto talks about internet suicide [0]. On the Republic, several
people have done what we here in the greater circumlunar community
call claiming their civil right - the right to be forgotten. When
users claim this right their account and all content associated with
it is deleted. I'm sure others have considered this as well.
Everyone should have the right to end their (personal) digital life
summarily and absolutely.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Unknown Gophers +++
2021-03-28
I like searching for lesser or unknown gopher sites. Usually I begin
the search by starting at floodgap's [0] or SDF's [1] lists of
sites, then pull up random sites and look for links to other gophers
within those sites.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Spring In Quebec, Latest Read, Republic Update +++
2021-03-13
Spring in Quebec is iffy - you get some beautiful weather followed
by sub-freezing temps, wind and snow. The inevitable mid-march cold
front plus snow came in last night, and is here for a few days
anyway, if the forecast is to be believed.
TEXT Continued...
+++ A New Circumlunar Outpost is Born! +++
2020-12-16
Just a quick note to say congrats to KatolaZ on bringing up the
third circumlunar colony "The Mare Crisium Soviet Socialist
Regency", or Soviet for short, which is now open for user signups
[0]. It's OpenBSD-based, and fully integrated into the circumlunar
'verse via email and console bbs (and IRC in the near future).
TEXT Continued...
+++ Republic Update +++
2020-11-11
We're nearing the two-year anniversary of the Republic opening to
user requests [0]. I'm happy with how things have turned out,
FreeBSD was a good choice in retrospect, it just runs without issues
and is easy to administer, something I think is key for a
non-commercial, volunteer effort. Not that one of the Linux distros
would not have been stable, but I'm leery of ongoing trends around
systemd and creeping complexity of the big Linux distros in general.
TEXT Continued...
+++ A Bit More on the 2020 Election +++
2020-11-02
Just a bit more on why I think Biden is going to win in tomorrow's
election. In 2017, I talked a bit about Trump [0]:
TEXT Continued...
+++ Commentary on the 2020 US Presidential Election +++
2020-11-01
If I were still living in the US, I would have voted for Bernie in
the democratic primaries - not that it would have done any good.
It seemed like no matter what, Biden was going to be nominated.
The democratic establishment went to great lengths to protect and
push Biden's nomination forward. Consider that Trump was impeached
not because his regime kidnapped infants and children and tortured
asylum seekers, but because he tried to smear Joe Biden.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Modern Tech Woes +++
2020-11-01
I've been offline a lot this Summer and Fall, spending as much time
as possible away from my computing devices. Part of this is that I
spend so much time staring at a screen during work hours, that I've
come to dread spending even more time there when I'm not
working. Work itself has been busier than ever, but hopefully things
will settle down after the holidays.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Freedom +++
2020-08-08
If you choose not to wear a mask when around other people, because
you think that this is somehow an expression of your freedom, you
have fallen into a trap.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Replies on Emacs and Hosting +++
2020-08-06
I see bradmac is learning Emacs [0],[1], a worthy endeavor! I've
been an Emacs user for many years, but have for some time wanted to
do the opposite - a deep-dive into vi (and other classic Unix tools
like ksh and awk), partly for something different, also partly to
keep my brain active. It's also just fun to learn new stuff. Five
years ago I wrote the SDF Emacs tutorial and cheatsheet [2][3][4],
which I hope some might still find useful.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Handling TABs in vi/vim or Emacs +++
2020-07-10
codysseus@sdf laments Emacs inserting spaces in place of TAB
characters [0].
TEXT Continued...
+++ Return To Cynicism +++
2020-07-03
When the pandemic started I had a thought that perhaps it might be
good in the long-term, despite being horrific in the short-term for
many. Here is what I was thinking (these apply to the US and/or
Canada, the two countries I have lived in, but I suspect these
observations could apply to many countries):
TEXT Continued...
+++ Gemini Launch +++
2020-05-26
Thanks to Sean of The Boston Diaries [0], who sent me an email about
his Gemini server GLV-1.12556 [1], with a link to the page that
lists the other known Gemini servers. After some research, I decided
to install Solderpunk's Molly-Brown [2], which was a fairly easy
setup as Go along with the required libraries were already installed
on the Republic. So Gemini hosting is now live there [3].
TEXT Continued...
+++ Lots of New Users, Gemini Hosting +++
2020-05-22
We've had a flurry of new user signups here at the republic in the
past few weeks, I think due to the Hacker News article on Gemini
[0]. I've added four new users to the moku-pona feed [1] for your
reading pleasure.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Quebec Pandemic Update +++
2020-04-09
Canada's PM said today that return to normalcy won't happen until
there is a vaccine. This is 12-18 months away. The modeling released
today also assumed smaller outbreaks over the next year after this
initial one is contained. Each outbreak would require strict social
distancing measures. I'm thankful for the honesty - we've heard all
this before in various places, but it is nice to hear it
"officially".
TEXT Continued...
+++ Comments on DNS-over-HTTPS +++
2020-02-29
Thanks to zlg [0] for the note on disabling DNS-over-https. I
routinely use ssh-tunneled socks proxies to route my DNS and web
traffic through, so for me DoH is pointless. Even if it wasn't, I
would never rely on DoH through a central provider like
Cloudflare. I do use Firefox though - even with its issues, I think
it is still the most configurable browser when it comes to my own
use-cases and privacy in general. But yes, I agree the web is a mess
and it's frustrating how essential it all is to modern life.
TEXT Continued...
+++ Comments on the Pandemic +++
2020-02-28
TildeCow brings up the pandemic [0] - I think it's pretty clear now
that it _is_ a pandemic, even if the WHO doesn't want to label it as
that. Here is the quote that caught my eye:
TEXT Continued...
+++ Comments On Ditching Linux +++
2020-02-10
Sparcipx mentions ditching Linux for good [0]. I think this is a
wise decision at this point, although I'd be interested in hearing
his reasoning. I've been a Linux user since 1995, but have been
dissatisfied with 'mainstream' Linux for at least ten years. In 2009
I wrote about my misgivings and how Slackware kept me interested in
Linux [1].
TEXT Continued...
+++ Linkulator now on the Republic +++
2020-01-16
Hot on the heels of cmccabe's annnoucement [0], I've installed his
link aggregator linkulator2 on the republic. It works great and
users can run it now as 'linkulator'. It's a neat little program,
thanks to those who worked on it. Now we just need users to submit
more links!
TEXT Continued...