Today’s job: fixing an ice dam. As you see here, we have a little ice buildup on our back window. However, enough heat leaks through the glass to melt the ice, resulting in a pool of water being trapped against the window, completely surrounded by ice. From the […] [Original post on hachyderm.io]

The big news story in Toronto today is that York regional police have arrested a whole group of police officers who were allegedly taking bribes in return for providing criminals with private information from their database, and conspiracy to kill a corrections officer. Details are still fuzzy […]

I just finished reading “City of Blades” by Robert Jackson Bennett, which is the sequel to his excellent “City of Stairs”. This one was also excellent. It focuses on one of the secondary characters from the first book, a disillusioned military general who is pulled out of retirement to do some […]

Yesterday, I attended the Alto high speed rail consultation at St Lawrence Market North. A project that's decades overdue. My latest blog post reviews the project and identifies a few bike related concerns to keep in mind. #BikeTO #ottbike #VeloMTL #cdnpoli www.twowheeledpolitics.ca/2026/02/all-...

I’m watching the new Muppet Show (with guest star Sabrina Caroenter). It’s exactly like the original Muppet Show, with somewhat better production values. I really thought there would have been more of an update (in the humour particularly). The main difference I noticed was humans in the […]

Ah, the delightful thundering sound of a thick layer of snow sliding all at once off of our rooftop solar panels. It took a whole week this time, there was so much. Usually it’s just a couple of days. Our solar inverter is pretty much encased in ice, but still working fine. #solar

I was just reading an advice forum, where a kind person giving advice used the metaphor “It’s like when a plane is crashing, and you have to put on your own oxygen mask first!” I don’t want to dunk on a kind person who is giving advice, but I do hope this person doesn’t work in emergency response.

The coolest thing I ever did in my life I did when I was about 13 years old. I was obsessed with robots after seeing Star Wars, and wanted to build my own, but we were poor and I had no money. I decided to make a robot that was self-driving and autonomous with whatever we had around the house […]

RE: https://mas.to/@transit/115963928623097176 February 8th of what year?

Someone just went past our house on skis. :-) #toronto #snowday

It seems the snowfall here is slowing down, so I did a second round of shovelling. We’ve had 60-70cm of accumulation in my neighbourhood, the largest one-day snowfall in Toronto in recorded history, I believe. Our car is effectively unavailable until further […] [Original post on hachyderm.io]

First shoveling of the day completed. Took about an hour; there was about 30cm/12in of accumulation so far, with no sign of it slowing down. Six more hours of snowfall to go. #toronto #snowday

Cold weather fun for this weekend: once it gets down around -20C/-10F or so there are some fun things you can try. One is to take a mug of boiling-hot water and throw it into the air outside. It will turn instantly into snow. (Well, not really. Most of it will fall to the ground, but enough of […]

[Heated Rivalry spoilers and possibly unpopular opinion] I really enjoyed Heated Rivalry, but I was struck by the stark contrast between the two love stories. Kip and Scott’s story is one of real courage. Kip is willing to walk away from his rich, famous, smokin’-hot lover because of his […]

“In London cyclists now outnumber cars in the City by 2 to 1. Paris, where they now outnumber motorists across the whole city, is catching up with Europe’s traditional bike capitals, Amsterdam & Copenhagen…In Copenhagen, bikes account for almost half of commuter trips to work/school.” @economist.com

When I was in high school, I was almost failing my history course. I was working really hard at it, too. I just couldn’t seem to impress my teacher. In the second semester we were studying China. As I was prepping for the final exam, I saw a chapter in our textbook about the Eightfold Path. We […]

[Starfleet Academy Episode 2 very minor spoiler] I’ve finally watched episode 2 of Starfleet Academy — I’m really enjoying it. But I’m a bit puzzled about the Betazoids. In this episode, they were referred to as “a race of empaths”. But canonically they were a race of telepaths. In TNG they […]

New rule: you are not allowed to say a TV show or movie is “bad” unless you can also clearly specify “for whom/what” and “based on what specific criteria”. Still allowed/encouraged: You may say “I don’t like it” or “It’s not for me” and you don’t have to give any reason whatsoever. There are […]

Normally I pay no attention whatsoever to royalty, but with Greenland in the news I saw for the first time some images of Danish King Frederik X and damn that’s one fine-looking king you got there.

Well, I finally watched “Tron: Ares”. The three Tron films sort of bracket my career; the first one came out in 1982, when I was just starting University. It was one of the films that inspired me to study computer graphics there. After I graduated my second job was working at Alias Research […]

Last night I went to see a play about the Labour movement here in Toronto – specifically about the 1872 printers’ strike. It was called “NINE HOURS NOW! The Battle for a Shorter Working Day”. The play was put on by the Toronto Worker’s Theatre Group, and we watched it at a Steelworkers Union […]

I can’t think of a better place to ask a Linux question than the Fedi, so here goes: I’m running some usability tests for a volunteer organization, and many of the test participants are using Linux (mostly I’m seeing Ubuntu). I’ve been using Zoom for teleconferencing and screen sharing, but […]

[Starfleet Academy ep 1 no spoilers] Damn, that was a strong start. Beautiful visuals, too. I hope to see more of Paul Giamatti’s character, he’s so much fun to watch on screen. I’m saving episode 2 to enjoy on another day. #StarFleetAcademy

I just finished reading the book “How to Change a Memory” by neuroscientist Steve Ramirez. It’s one of the most unique pop-science books I’ve ever read, because this book about memory is also (fittingly) a memoire. Ramirez tells the story of his thesis work on the neural basis of memory (using […]

So now I’m watching Tron Legacy (2010). At the start of the film, we see that two of the lead characters from the previous film have become the co-CEOs of the company, rewarded for their accomplishments. One had written a very popular videogame, and the other some infosec software. The third […]

I’m re-watching the original “Tron” probably for the first time since it came out in 1982. So much rotoscoping. The “bad guy” in the film is a big piece of software that can talk. It is going across networks and vacuuming up every bit of code and data in the world, making itself (it claims) […]

I made some mascarpone cheese yesterday, and it came out really nice. (I can’t buy it lactose-free, so I made my own.) There are a huge range of dairy products that are easily made at home, differing only in these variables: 1. Do you start with milk or cream? 2. Do you curdle it with acid or […]

RE: https://piaille.fr/@romain_leclaire/115848644361922674 Romain Leclaire has written a history of Mastodon and the Fediverse, and made it free to download. If you can read French, check it out!

I just finished listening to the audio version of Ed Yong’s book “An Immense World”, which I found endlessly fascinating. It’s an exploration of the science of the senses — most particularly, how animal senses differ from our own, and how basically every creature lives in a unique world defined […]

The Toronto Workers Theatre Group in Toronto is presenting a historical play about the 1872 struggle for shorter working days. The performances are on January 14, 15, and 16. Tickets are free, so if you need a reminder that working people can stand up to business interests successfully, this […]

I’m in the process of digitizing my late mother’s little hand-typed/written recipe cards to share with my siblings. Anyone want a recipe for Creamed Salmon on Toast?

I’m just assuming that Pierre Poilievre texted Mark Carney’s home address to Trump this morning after reading the morning paper. #canpoli

If you enjoy a year-end review to close out the past twelve months and set intentions for the next, YearCompass (https://yearcompass.com/) is fantastic and just published their 2026 version. It's a free resource that helps you reflect on your achievements and challenges. Doesn't even require you […]

New restaurant opening on the Danforth near me. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. #toronto

A conservative Catholic is someone who believes that a human being who was assigned female at birth can’t be a man, but bread can.

Keto cheesecake follow-up (now that I’ve eaten some): I need to increase the amount of liquid stevia. One teaspoon is not enough to substitute for 1.25 cups sweetener. I’ll probably go with 1.5 to 2 teaspoons next time. As expected, it was a little too dense. You are supposed to pull it out of […]

After reading some recent research about the effects of erythitol and other sugar alcohols on blood platelet “stickiness”, I thought I’d try my favourite keto cheesecake recipe using liquid stevia as the sweetener instead. (I used about a teaspoon of stevia to replace a cup of powdered […]

I just finished reading “A Memory Called Empire” by Arkady Martine. It’s a science fiction political thriller. The protagonist is the ambassador from a small republic on the edge of a sprawling galactic empire, who is trying to preserve their independence, when she discovers that her predecessor […]

Fun Friday Fact: (I learned this back around 1990 when I had to write a decoder for TIFF image files for the product I was working on.) The official format specification for TIFF mandates that the third and fourth bytes of the file are always the number “42”, which the spec describes as an […]

Hey #canadians: we support each other, we stand up for each other, and we show up for each other. Here is how we do that right now, today: https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7027 Even if you only read the petition, learning about what the Saskatchewan and […]

So happy to hear @thewaroncars.bsky.social has finally added a Toronto stop for their book tour! Let's be sure to give them a warm #BikeTO welcome when they arrive on February 5! #TOpoli #VisionZero

I watch Jeopardy most days, and it’s become clear to me that my knowledge of African geography is abysmal. So I made myself a tiny web app with a blank map to help me practice remembering where all the different countries are on the continent. Test your own knowledge! […]

I think if I were running a city, I’d hire Toronto City Councilor Holyday as a consultant, and then always do the exact opposite of what he recommended. I’ve been watching City Hall politics for years and I’ve never seen an elected official who is so reliably wrongheaded. #topoli #toronto

I enjoyed this podcast interview with city planner Brent Todarian. ( @brenttoderian.bsky.social) He’s got a combination of competence and bluntness that I’d like to see more of in public figures. What I wasn’t expecting (but was really valuable) was to hear a discussion about the most effective […]

I wish I was as optimistic as the person whose robocaller has called me every other day for the last five years to attempt to scam me in Mandarin.

Ok, fedi ... what do we like for an epub reader that works for iPhone? Happy to pay for it, don't want yucky ads or tracking. Would love if there was an easy way to connect it to Calibre. Lovely if it syncs across devices, and also totally okay if it doesn't. #askfedi

I really enjoyed the Corridor Crew’s latest video. It’s about how the LOTR crew were able to do forced-perspective shots with a moving camera, something that was previously believed impossible. But the video is much more than that — it gets into the tension and partnership between practical and […]

Degoogling phase one is complete! Four Gmail accounts eliminated, my domain now flowing through a privacy-respecting European provider, paid services cancelled. While I was cancelling, they offered me a much better monthly price to get me to stay. So it’s probably not a bad idea to threaten […]

Oh great. The “correct” DNS management interface is also broken. So while I can delete records no problem, adding new ones is impossible. Which I discovered after deleting my old MX record. On the bright side… having no MX record on my domain means that I won’t be getting any junk mail! (Or any […]

Degoogling progress: over the last two days I’ve deleted over twenty thousand unneeded messages in my Gmail account and downloaded the remaining ones onto my machine. I’ve opened a new mail account with a European provider that offers ad-free, no-tracking, privacy-respecting email with multiple […]