jonw's blog

I rarely post about politics. It was a nice thing that we ruined. But occasionally I see interesting things.

Like Alberta’s Wicked Witch of the West indicating she is going through the process to get security cleared so she can be briefed on foreign interference. It’s notable to me because that’s the smart thing to do and she’s not in my mental list of smart people. It also demonstrates to Baby PP how adults handle things rather than making wild claims about being muzzled. Nenshi is behaving like an idiot, though. Can you imagine if politicians decided who could get security clearances?

Speaking of babies, little PP has somehow become several degrees less odious since the con leadership convention. I secretly think Harper had a chat with him about his massive incompetence as party leader, loosing easy election after easy election, including his own seat. He’s MP of Pity Junction, Alberta these days because his Ottawa riding didn’t like how he sided with convoy idiots.

Speaking of convoy idiots, I see that the Feds are appealing the ruling that its use of the Emergencies act to clear that shit show was unconstitutional. I’m not entirely sure that the Feds care if they win, or if it’s more about finding out if the law is even constitutional at all. Or, a second option, the law is constitutional but its use in specific that case was not. Either way, if the ruling goes against them that’ll be a strong indicator that the law needs refining to be applied properly.

That’s it. Happy weekend!

I’ve been out on my motorcycle a few times this year but not the e-bike. It gets stored a little bit more than the motorcycle so it takes deliberate effort to pull it out.

Still chilly but it’s February which is tons of snow and ice right now on the other coast. I do not miss it!

Some of my family is coming to visit and booked a place down by one of the many marinas that I hadn’t seen before. So I took a boot down there to send them a video. Looks nice which is no surprise because everything right on the water is always nice.

Social Media

I’ve been slowly weaning myself off all social media. I left everything but Facebook last year and today I finally dropped Mastodon (properly called “the fediverse”). I don’t think I can drop Facebook totally because it’s basically a utility now. But somewhere along the way I lost the doomscrolling addiction so it’s not too bad. When I’m not on mobile I’ll remove the link here on my blog to my now defunct Fedi profile.

Ferries

Mrs jonw took a Hullo ferry to Vancouver today. I live on Vancouver Island so ferries are a pretty common way to get around. The provincial ferries (BC Ferries) can take cars as well as people and they’re the ones that service all routes, even the non-profitable ones and they do a great job.

On top of that, there is a private ferry that is seating only, no cars, and goes from Nanaimo to Vancouver in a little bit over an hour. When I used to work in offices, my commute would always be an hour but more boring. I haven’t taken the Hullo ferry yet but she tells me it is hella fast and smooth. As we were both in the Navy once upon a time, her asessment of the ride holds a lot of weight. I’m basically jealous now and am looking for opportunities to take that same ferry soon.

And yes, now that I’ve dropped social media basically entirely, there will be more mundane posts like this 😬

My very first recollection of anything computery is my Dad taking me to work at York University when I was 6 or 7 or somewhere around there. At that time computers were massive things that took up rooms and didn’t have keyboards. You’d program them with punch cards and the punch card machines were fuuuun! I couldn’t type or program but wow I loved the sound those machines made.

I didn’t touch a computer again until I was in junior high (middle school, to some). My school brought in a card reader (yes, 5 years later) and we spent a week or two in social studies playing with it instead. Mr. Wareham is one of the very few teachers I remember and I think this behemoth card reader was one of the reasons. We learned that computers would only do what we tell them and that started my critical thinking engine about how, precisely, we do everything.

That same school got its hands on 3 Commodore PET computers, stuck them in a closet and called it a computer lab. That’s where I discovered BASIC and my world changed forever. My parents bought a Commodore Vic 20 for the house and I became a full-on computer recluse. A friend down the road had a Commodore 64 with acoustic modem and that’s where I learned about BBSes.

This all happened while I lived in Ontario. We moved to Alberta at the end of junior high and I didn’t touch a computer again until I was in my 20s. They had changed a lot and I was now learning how to install Windows 3.1 on 6 x 3 1/2 inch floppies (not so aptly named), and the older 5 x 1/4 drives were still very common and many computers of that age had both types of drives in them.

Thus began a computer career, such as it was in the 90s.

Several years ago I bought an old Texas Instruments TI4/99 to play with. I’ve never really used it but I get nostalgic periodically and set it up to play with. It’s a fun reminder of a time before the internet industrial complex pitted us against each other and stole all our identities solely for the sake of profit over people.

Moving across country isn’t just about the move. That’s a huge logistic challenge for sure, but once you’re settled the move is the gift that keeps on giving. I’d say if the move is to another province and one you haven’t lived in before, it’d take the entire year to be settled. Kind of like marriage and death, you have to get through every milestone and season to be fully ready.

One of my challenges is my scleral contact lenses. They’re different from regular lenses. First, they’re rigid gas permeable (aka “hard” lenses). While that’s not unheard of, hard contacts generally fell out of favour when soft contacts and even daily disposables came into existence.

The thing that makes scleral lenses different is that they suction to your scleral (the white part of your eyeball). And, because that would obviously dry your eye out, they’re filled with saline fluid.

( Read more... )