Fifth anniversary

It was on this day five years ago that Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist of RUSH died after having suffered brain cancer for three years.

RUSH music definitely holds a place in my heart.

Mork from Ork

Can you believe it has been ten years since Robin Williams died?

It is sad that he took his life after years of depression, especially considering his on screen persona being of such energy and excitement.

I was quite young when he played Mork so I do not have much memory of those TV episodes, but, from his filmography there are four that I'd like to call to mind:
1. Good Morning Vietnam - in this one the director/producer/writer left Robin on his own to improvise his on-air scenes, and you really get a taste for his skill at putting words together.
2. Mrs. Doubtfire - such a touching story.
3. Dead Poets Society
4. Good Will Hunting

He managed to perform extremely well in his stand up comedy performances and comedy roles in movies, while also doing an amazing job in his more dramatic roles.

I do not believe there was anyone like him before he arrived in this world, and I am doubtful there'll be anyone like him in the future.

Na-Nu Na-Nu!

serendipitously lost

I am disheartened, frustrated and disappointed with my provincial government's absolute refusal to assist public transit agencies in my province with any operational funding of any kind citing that this funding is fully a municipal responsibility.

I read in news media that the options our municipalities have are few: raise the public transit fee of annual car registrations, raise a gas tax devoted towards public transit, raise public transit fees or cut public transit service.

The first option would cause an uproar for all of the entitled car owners

The second option would be diminishing as fuel cars gradually get replaced with EVs

The third option would put the poorest of transit users into more difficulty

The fourth option would begin a public transit death spiral, for as service is cut, fewer people will use transit, and so transit service will be cut again, and so on. This would have the effect of putting more cars on the road creating way more congestion.

The provincial transport minister asked why should all Quebecois pay for the shortfall of Montreal transit agencies and others? I found this Wiki page that shows there are transit agencies all across the province, so the provincial government could provide funding to all of them at a per capita rate. Given there are transit agencies in so many different towns and cities, it is more meaningful that most Quebecois live in a place that has public transit and so it makes sense for the provincial government to assist.

In other news Ontario has just received an enormous investment from Honda to build electric vehicles, the batteries that go into them and other supply chain needs to the tune of 15B CAD from Honda, 2.5B CAD from Ontario and 2.5B CAD from the Federal government. The existing facility in Alliston will be upgraded to have EVs built and two other municipalities will get additional Honda facilities. This is a generational investment as it will mean for decades these facilities will be used to produce EVs for all of the North American market.

Of course I am pleased that EVs are being built to replace ICE cars so as to clean up the emissions and that it will create reliable jobs in Ontario, however, as Canadian cities become more urbanized, I am convinced that it is much better for the environment and for the efficiency of moving people that people ought to cease owning personal vehicles and that transit gets improved to be both fast and frequent.

taste the bar stool

Who would have guessed that Huey Lewis and the News song Jacob's Ladder would have topped the charts on this day in 1987?

I for one, like some of their other songs better.

I want a new drug
If this is it
Heart of rock and roll
Hip to be square
Heart and Soul

book the slush, flush the cook

There is a news article in the last few days about Florida having had approved the ability to buy prescription drugs from Canada as it is less expensive to do so as compared to their American or other suppliers.

Canadian officials are clear that they have the means to control exports of drugs such that the Canadian supply is not affected in a way that would curtail the needs of Canadians. This leaves open the door for export of any drugs to which we produce in excess.

I do not see why the government does not see this as an opportunity to invest in our drug producing capacity in order to meet the needs of American states - I heard on the radio this morning that Florida was the first state with approval, but others are lined up.

If it was up to me; I would definitely see about ramping up production in existing facilities, and building new production facilities in medium sized towns throughout Canada. I would also of the list of drugs that could be produced, avoid the production of any opioids given the crisis of these within our own country.

I don't know anything about what is required to manufacture drugs except perhaps that the facility likely needs to be clinically clean. I do know that as much automation as is possible would be used to have high production values.

Anyhow, this is my thought on a snowy Saturday morning. 

box kite and flip switch

Perhaps it is the media at the moment that is having many ads from local charity organizations for food drives as we are in Christmas season, or all of the reports of homelessness that are pervading many Canadian and American cities.

I am getting the sense that there are many things considerably wrong with the structural way that our western society operates. 

• The number of homeless people has grown significantly in the last year as home and rent prices have skyrocketed. Should not being housed become a fundamental right?
• As mentioned in the opening, food has become more expensive putting more pressure on food banks. Why should food banks even exist? Ought sustenance not be fully provided as a basic right?
• Health care systems world wide are running short of nurses and doctors, rural areas are particularly hard hit. A new poorly reviewed Alberta health system change and a less clear Quebec health system change are imminent; will either of them make it better for the people in those provinces to get the health care they need?
• How the climate crisis is exacerbating all sorts of problems for the most marginal globally, and so many people across Canada with the wild fires that affected almost every part this past year
• More locally as evidenced by my recent blog posts; I have become frustrated by the Quebec government's antithesis towards finding new, imaginative and progressive methods of funding and expanding public transit province wide and most specifically in my city
• A colleague of mine at church works at Walmart as a greeter and I chatted with him today about his job and he mentioned that he has caught 3000$ worth of shop lifting in the last two weeks, mostly of really poor people trying to get something they need for their family, like baby formula
• There is a worldwide epidemic of loneliness that once used to be strictly an elderly problem, is now becoming a considerable problem with gen-z who through their childhood and teenage years had mobile devices and now as they graduate out of education find themselves friendless
• Of course there is war with Russia's illegal invasion into Ukraine and the Israel/Hamas war instigated by Hamas' Oct 7 attack; the former causing a worldwide impact given Ukraine's world breadbasket 
• COP28 and ADNOC's president being one and the same; so many fossil fuel interest lobbyists trying to continue the omittance of the term 'fossil fuel' to appear anywhere in a final COP document

One of the yTube channels I follow is called 'Second Thought' where the creator speaks often about socialism; not the kind that people in South America would protest heavily against, but about the more practical theoretical kind to replace Capitalism where instead of having capitalists with few owners focus production solely on profit, a socialist democracy would have the people be owners and decisions made democratically where profit may not be the primary goal, but rather, the health or job satisfaction of the employees.

There seems to be so little I can do to effect any change that is structural in nature. I can make donations to local associations that help with the homeless and destitute in terms of providing paths to housing and warm meals. I can write to my local, provincial and federal members of government to let them know my dissatisfaction with the the structure of the running of our society.

swallowed by a chemistry bird

Listening to the radio this morning I learned something new to me; it is called the 'Liking Gap'. Wikipedia gives it clearly:

The liking gap is the disparity between how much a person believes that another person likes them, and that other person's actual opinion. Studies have found that most people underestimate how much other people like them and enjoy their company

So if I meet a new person and we have a good conversation, the gap is that I do not think that person likes me as much as compared to how much that person likes me. The researcher on the radio show had done a study that was based on earlier studies, to determine if or how the liking gap is changed for people who speak English as a second language. The actual experiment had people give ratings from 0-100, for example, how well do I think I did in the conversation, and how much I feel the person I spoke with liked me.

There was a 15 point gap on average that was measured, so I would think you like me 15 points below how much you actually like me. The study that included the English second language component also showed there was a bigger gap for women.

when it is caught

I read an article in Lapresse a few days ago; that is a Quebecois newspaper. The reporter had done an analysis about the transit agencies operational costs as the transport minister who is refusing to give the full 75% of deficit coverage being asked for, and instead, is giving 70%.

Bus drivers and what the reporter described as everyone else being called non-Bus drivers, all earned on average some amount a little over 100,000$. This as compared to an average income in Quebec seems excessive, and yet these drivers and non-drivers are unionized, so there isn't a lot that can be done to reduce their salaries. However, if the bus frequency or bus routes gets diminished to make up for that 5% difference of funding from the government, this would require fewer hours from the bus drivers.

A point raised in the article was asking the question why some buses are still running that are perpetually empty and in a suburb during non-rush hour. This makes it a stress free bus ride for the driver with very little income due to the low number of passengers. From my own experience riding the 201 and the 203 buses somewhat regularly, both suburban buses, often times the total number of passengers on it can be counted on one hand. So I understand the point that the service is exceeding what the funding allows for.

I am still torn about this, however - for the dire emergency that the Climate Crisis is, we desperately need to get individual car ownership off the road and the only way to effectively do this with transit is to make it fast, affordable and frequent. Reducing service now, even if there are some bus routes that are not busy, is the wrong direction to be going.

Also, reducing transit affects mostly the people who are already the most marginalized or least well off and as a social democracy we can't be letting these people suffer any more than they already are.

The transit agencies desperately need a new source of funding so as not to continue to rely on the government to cover deficit spending; and the agencies need to increase and improve the service, incrementally, every year, so as to get a service that really does make a difference in removing cars from the road.

done won fun

Trump is being arraigned in Florida today for roughly three dozen counts of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the retrieval of said documents from his Florida resort home.

It is a Federal Court that is managing this, though, with a seemingly Trump favouring Judge. It has been said that he could run for and even be elected as President from prison and that if he was elected, he'd have to be extracted from prison to run the country. I am guessing he would go back into prison after his presidential term is over.

Of course I am hoping that if he is in prison, that will allow his republican opponents more media attention to hopefully raise their likelihood of winning that nomination.

Living in Canada this all has very little to do with me, of course.

Here in Canada a man named David Johnston stepped down as special rapporteur; he had planned on holding a Public Hearing into the matters of Foreign interference in elections in Canada. Opposition leaders were against him, as he had ties to the Trudeau family, and what he wanted (a Public Hearing), and instead were pushing for a Public Inquiry. Now it is up in the air as to what happens next.

Provincially, the forest fire situation is beginning to get better as more rain (though not enough) is falling in the areas where the fires are, among other areas. There are also some contentious laws that have either just become law or are close to becoming law. There is a strengthening of the French Languages act both Federally and Provincially that puts in question the rights of an English minority in Quebec. And there is a new Landlord / Tenant law coming in that has both groups dissatisfied with what is planned. Landlords having to appear at the tribunal if the tenant doesn't agree to an eviction, and tenants no longer able to sublease which had been used previously to keep a low rent low by not following a proper change of tenant path.

Locally, summer is approaching with the F1 race happening this weekend, with the Jazz Festival around the corner, and then the National Bank Open in August. This year the men play in Toronto and the women play here. There is a homeless group of about 50 people that have been living underneath the Ville-Marie Expressway for years and they have become a community. However, the expressway itself is in need of repairs and Transport Quebec has been pushing to have these people move or be relocated for months. In court motions this has been delayed numerous times, however, it appears that June 15th is the last day they are to be there.

Personally I came across an ad on my mobile device for ePlancul about a month ago, a matching site for people who want more than friendship. It was free to join, however, it costs tokens to send messages, and tokens cost money. I was surprised that after having created my profile (which was free to do) I immediately had some women approach me through the site. Not knowing how any one of them would work out, there are now four that I have chatted with regularly, with a fifth in Saguenay that I started chatting with since I am going there on vacation in July. The cost of the tokens has been significant, so I have given the four local ones a deadline (the bomb I dropped recently) to actually meet in person within this month. I said that if that meeting doesn't happen, I will be compelled to abandon them. I can't keep paying for tokens, especially if we could be chatting through SMS for free. So far none have picked a date/time, but there are still 17 days left in the month.

barking up the wrong bungee cord

Persona non-grata tit for tat between Canada and China.

I suppose it could have been worse; instead of dispatching the Canadian delegate out of China, they could have just put the person in jail like they did the two Michaels.

Electric bus manufacturer here in Quebec just got a big order for electric buses, many of which will come into my city. This is good for our environment, and also good for our economy since the buses are being made here.

Activists made the news from my local town - a forest upon whose land is owned by a land development company is under threat of development and the activists want to put a stop to this to 'Save Fairview Forest'. I am torn about this; while keeping the forest is good ecologically, the forest is right up and abutted against a new REM station. I believe that building super high density housing connected and adjacent to a REM station, with mixed use development, can reduce dramatically the number of cars that would be put on the road by the population moving in. I suspect this would have a much bigger impact on reducing GHGs as compared to saving the forest.

There you have it, national, provincial and local stories.

bring in the lawn ornaments, it is getting windy

With more tumultuous weather happening in 'red' states, hopefully this sways at least a few people who are somewhat less hardened to now understand that anthropomorphic Climate Change is a real thing.

With Donald Trump indicted in the first of three or four cases against him he is to present himself to court on Tuesday this week. This first case is the pay-off Stormy Daniels case; the remaining ones include illegal election influence in Georgia, inciting a riot on that Jan 6 and the hiding or denying about confidential documents held in his Florida home. Media reports that NYC, where his first court case is, is ready for any and all MAGA people that come with violence in mind to support Trump.

I've read a few different articles about Joe Biden's regretful approval of what is known as the Willow project, the opening of land in the Alaskan Arctic circle for oil drilling and production. This Willow announcement came two weeks after the release of the latest IPCC report where Antonio Gutteres said unequivocally that all current fossil fuel business needs to wind down and all plans for new ones need to be canceled.

In more local news the Quebec government released its annual budget and to my disappointment there was only the shoring up of public transit; there was no meaningful announcement of measures to change the funding method, or plans for expansion. With more and more cars becoming electric, especially here in Quebec, the gas surtax that helps fund public transit is diminishing. As a transit user I do wish more was done.

In less local news the Canadian government also released its annual budget. Among new social and cost of living investments (dental care, improved GST rebates, etc.) there is a big push to invest in a very targeted manner into 'green technologies' that are homegrown here in Canada. This I am in support of, but what I felt was missing was any mention of addressing the housing crisis. We are receiving hundreds of thousands of new Canadians every year through immigration, and who can blame these people for choosing Canada? Where will they live? What is upsetting about the housing crisis is that the majority of people are housed and so for them this is not a primary concern. It is the minority of newcomers and the destitute, the marginal people who are suffering the most. Given this majority's relative indifference to the problem, there isn't the political will to do enough about it.

With respect to my job, there are four weeks left to the personal tax season, and so the crazy busy period has a light at the end of the tunnel. As of April 1st I am getting paid 3% more in terms of annual salary, so that is good, though not matching what inflation is doing these days. I also received a bonus based on the company's 2022 performance. I only received 2/3rds of what I'd otherwise have received as I only started with the company in May 2022 and so wasn't there the full year. On March 28 my manager sent a message asking people, in order of seniority, to put in for their summer vacations so as to not have everyone off at the same time. I have already booked a trip to the Saguenay in July and bought day event tickets to the National Bank Open in August; hopefully nothing prevents these two vacations from happening.

Sensationally moderate

On Thursday this past week I went to my regular blood donation place to do a plasma donation. I go roughly every two weeks and am getting to know the nurses and staff there. It takes time because they have their own varied schedules and so I don't always see the same people on my Thursday evening visits with them. My next scheduled donation is on December 22 and I plan on buying some chocolates to bring as a Christmas gift to the nurses and other staff there.

On Friday evening I went to book group; I hadn't gone in a few months. The book we read was 'At the Water's Edge' by Sara Gruen. I quite enjoyed reading the book, but with respect to discussion it did not generate much. In past book groups I had prepared questions that I thought of while reading and I forgot to do this for this book. I will try harder on the next book. It was nice to see all of my book group friends again, though there were three or four missing. Also, the only other guy in the group wasn't there, so I was the lone male.

On Saturday morning I met with Luke whom I met in our Discord Kurzgesagt group, I had to awaken early to catch the 6h56 211 bus to get to the Peel base of Mount Royal for 8am. I had published this event in the group but only Luke replied. We had a nice walk/talk, though it was about -10c and windy. He works in IT support at the MUHC and has an a-hole of a manager so his intention in 2023 is to look for another job. As we were leaving the mountain on our way back to the metro he asked me to join him for breakfast, and then offered again and that he would pay. I was torn as I had over eaten the previous night and wasn't at all hungry, but could see that this would be helpful to him. I still ended up refusing and perhaps this wasn't the best decision.

A few weeks ago, perhaps last month, my manager sent out a poll to ask which night would work for us to get together and that ended up being Saturday night (last night). Unfortunately not all of my team (10 of us) were available, however, seven us did show up. To get there was a long commute:

I took an earlier than was absolutely necessary 211 bus because I was going to unfamiliar places. I knew at Bonaventure station where the South Shore bus terminal was as I had passed it many times, but I had never ventured into it. It turns out there is a south and north bus terminal and the 45 bus I was to take was in the north one. The 45 bus is a terminal to terminal, going from Bonaventure to Panama and had departures every 10 minutes. I skipped one because the 132 bus I was to take was only departing Panama terminal some 35 minutes later. Fortunately at the Panama terminal there was a heated indoor area to wait. Also fortunately, if ever we were to do this again the REM will be open with an REM stop more or less adjacent to that restaurant.

I am already usually socially awkward outside of one-on-one interactions, but this event had the bonus of a language/cultural barrier, with four of us Francophone Quebecois, two of us Francophone Algerians and then me, the lone Anglo. As much as I had a difficult time with this, I wouldn't skip a subsequent equally difficult work event because our manager was one of the attendees and so through conversation I got to learn some things about our department and the future of it.

I found out that most likely sometime next year, we will be closing down our incoming phone line; our customers are already being advised that email communication will get higher priority and eventually the phone line will be close altogether, to match my employer's global support policy. We as tech support can always call a customer if the problem/question they have is complex; but the reverse will no longer be true. I am pretty pleased about this.

About having met my coworkers in person for the first time, I have determined that it is both a blessing and a curse that this job is 100% WFH. It is a blessing that I do not need to be put in that awkward cultural difference situation every hour of every day of every week by having to go to work, but a curse that by not doing that I don't have the opportunity to learn and get better at these situations.

The last thing about meeting my coworkers in person that I'll mention is that our team is made up all of men except for one pretty, charming, young (~26yo) woman who was present at this event. I feel safe to say, as it is doubtful she or anyone from my work would ever come to this blog, or this post, that having her present provided eye candy which made what otherwise was a somewhat dreadful experience slightly more palatable.

On the walk from the restaurant to the 90 bus that took me and only one other passenger from the Chevrier parking station into the city I caught my first view of the Orion constellation. I was happy to see it but did not try to photograph it as it was cold and windy and I know that for this kind of photo I would need a tripod to hold the mobile device steady.

Today is Sunday and I went to church this morning, as I do every Sunday morning. The best part of this experience for me is that for the half hour before mass begins, I am a greeter at the entrance of the church with another volunteer, and the two of us have become friends getting this weekly reliable interaction. The rest of the day for me is to be a lazy oaf and watch NFL.

Tomorrow is off of work for me, I'm taking my last vacation day of 2022. I've got an appointment at 11AM with Maria at Montreal Nuru Massage. I've been meeting with her once a month, missing one or two months, for a year now, so even though this is a transactional relationship, it has been nice for us to get to know each other. Following that I'm going to see the movie 'Devotion'.

To terminate this post, I've been watching a show on Disney+ called Limitless with Chris Hemsworth. One of the recent episodes I watched was all about fasting and that reminded me that I have done this in the past with moderate success. Doing this is all in the hopes that processes such as autophagy and ketosis take place within me, with the idea that these processes help to provide me a healthier longer life. So, after the Pulled Pork Poutine I had at 3 Brasseurs last night, I've decided to fast for some indeterminate amount of time. Chris (and a longevity doctor with him) did four days on the episode I watched. I'm not certain I'll go for four days, but at least 24 hours and probably more.

When torpedoes smell like

If you read this post about my latest plasma donation I can safely tell you that I made my 119th donation this morning using my left arm and it went without a hitch.

If you hadn't read that post, the donation still went well.

I failed to notice that there was an octopus in a large glass container filled with whatever quality of water the octopus needed on the bus I took to get home until I went to disembark and found her sitting in her glass container in one of the rear seats. I wonder how the octopus decides which tentacle is to be used to flag the driver for her stop.

My table tennis partner had gone away for an 18 day period and returns the day after tomorrow. He will have arrived from India, so I will wait until the weekend or perhaps early next week before I see if he is up to playing again. He has to cross time-zones equaling 9.5 hours; that kind of jet lag isn't so easy to deal with.

On the job front, I have preliminary recruiter phone calls today at noon and at 13h30, another one possibly tomorrow which hasn't been fixed yet, and one on next Tuesday. I've had a hiring manager interview at one job last Friday and was told I ought to hear early this week if they have decided to make me an offer. As of the writing of this sentence I have not heard yet.

I suppose I would be remiss if I did not mention, at least once, for the purposes of being able to come back to this blog entry at some time in the distant future, talk about Vlad Putin having his large army invade Ukraine. On February 24th, after months of building up forces and equipment on all of the Russian and Belarussian sides of Ukraine, the invasion began with much ground based shelling and air based shelling. Early on there were satellite images of a many km long road of stopped Russian tanks and armoured vehicles; explained by faulty supply lines where the ones in front ran out of fuel and the ones in the middle and back eventually did also. More recent events include the bombing of many civilians and their infrastructure, the sieging and willful destruction of Mariupol, a seaside important port city and urban warfare in places like Mariupol, Kiev and other places. Many pundits have indicated that Putin expected a very quick occupation with little to no resistance and with a Russia-friendly puppet put into leadership. This did not happen and Ukrainian army as well as men who remained behind as their families have fled are putting up a strong resistance even if vastly outnumbered and outgunned. The last thing I'll talk about is the refugee situation, with trains running nonstop from Ukraine to all of the Western European countries and Poland in particular. As at last count, over 3,000,000 have fled. Here in Canada we are receiving some of the refugees but at a trickle at the moment as the rigmarole they have to go through for the purposes of 'security' creates a bottleneck. There is more I could write about this, but I'll just list a few of the topics:

• Ukraine president asks for a no-fly zone over the country
• NATO refuses to protect the no-fly zone for fear of dire escalation
• Putin raises false flag that Ukraine is developing bio warfare; which may mean Putin will have his army use bio warfare
• Putin saber-rattled his use of nuclear weaponry should NATO forces get involved

After that heavy part of the post I'll return to yet another instance of SLI that happened earlier this week as I walked home from the bus late at night and one of the parking lot lights went off as I passed beneath it.

I'll end this post to say that the number of pairs of socks in my regular rotation is a lower number compared to the number of underwear articles that are in my regular rotation.

In other news, abstract realism was used to lengthen the shorted short such that the highest low would be the least generous of the selfish. Upon writing the last word of the previous sentence the author was stuck by the word either being sel-fish; something about a fish, or self-ish, something about the self.

If you've read this far in this post, you will have read this far.

WKRP

I loved this show as a kid and I have managed to find a way to watch all of the seasons of it and have been binge watching it. What about you?

two times two times two times two

Had trouble with the buoyancy chapter today.

No worries, I pushed ahead anyhow.

Got scenario one taken care of; now just have scenarios 2-5 to take care of. I really hope this works out better than how the previous delivery of this course was received.

I will have to work this weekend to get it all done.

Oh, and there is the Superbowl on Sunday.

Oh, and the Australian Open (tennis) starts on Sunday; though, the course I am teaching is Mon-Wed so I don't think it will be a good idea for me to stay up all night to watch the tennis.

I am really liking working from home, it allows me to have a nap when I want to have one.

reciprocity and the leg worm

Arguing with yourself about which road to take to get to the destination that is made of cream cheese: not the best use of your time.

I can think of other situations which are arguably even less useful use of your time. For example, imagining the idea of writing the letter 'J' six thousand two hundred and thirty-two times, alternating between a lower case 'J' and an upper case 'j'.

I haven't gone bowling in quite a number of days. I do not believe I bowled in the year 2019, and I certainly haven't in the year 2020. It has been so long I can no longer remember if I prefer uphill or downhill bowling.

I have been watching NFL games since the beginning of the season. There was an amazing game winning/ending catch made by DeAndre Hopkins from QB Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals. Who knows how long a u-tube link will last:

Pantomiming like a leap frogger is nothing like cutting your finger nails and toe nails only on days that have a prime number as their date. I should know.

I have succumbed to Wish and have ordered a number of items, each of which will arrive as soon as it does, but no sooner. I'll think of it all as a Christmas gift from me to myself as I am hoping most, if not all of what I've ordered will arrive before or by December 25.

Souvankham Thammavongsa won the Giller prize this year for her short-story collection 'How to Pronounce Knife'. I may consider obtaining this book and reading it. I am not certain what else I would do with the book if I was to acquire it; I suspect reading it would be the most responsible and appropriate thing to do.

It seems that the pharmaceutical companies out there are slowly coming up with phase three successes in their vaccine testing. This is looking more and more like at least by the end of next year, and possibly sooner, that a vaccine induced herd immunity will slow to a crawl the COVID-19 infection rate allowing for our society to return to normalcy. I'm looking forward to going to movies again. So it could be on this date next year, it is all in the past.

I ordered a large pepperoni and bacon pizza and a steak & pepperoni submarine from my local pizzeria for supper tonight. I ate the sub, my girls will eat the pizza.

uphill bowling

There is movement, early to tell if it will be at all effective, of breaking up the tech behemoths.

I can see FB being broken of Insta, and perhaps FB Market being broken away from FB. I'm not really an FB user so I don't know what else could be done.

I can see Amz being broken into a video streaming service, a market, a separate distribution system and a separate web services company.

I can see G being broken into a search, separated from it, an ad company, separate from it a market for software (gmail, android, g-office, etc.), separate from it a product company (pixel) and of course u-tube separates.

I can see apple being broken into physical products (mobile devices, macbooks), separate from market for software (ios, app store, etc.). I'm not familiar enough with apple to know how else it could be broken up.

The argument is that the will to innovate diminishes once monopolies form and focus more on obtaining 100% market share. If these tech behemoths are reduced from four companies to twenty smaller ones, this would allow for deeper competition with other smaller players where then consumer choice would pick the winner, rather than the behemoth offering only what they have.

U-Tube following

I am currently subscribed to 38 U-Tube channels, of them, I will list the top 22. Within parentheses after each channel name are the current number of subscribers as of the time of posting this blog. The channels are ordered from low to high subscribers.

Roadster Tracker - Ben Pearson (3720) Ben has really interesting videos about the space industry. He hasn't many followers, and his videos aren't very slick, but he does good research and brings to light information about the space industry that I would likely have a hard time putting together.

zentouro (9590) I just came across this one recently. The person making this video is quick speaking and has very insightful short episodes that mostly deal with the climate crisis.

Cruising Off Duty (32300) A couple who live in the Ottawa area who are planning to retire in a catamaran but at the moment have a sailboat ported in Kingston.

Gilles pis La P'tite (59700) I heard the two women in this channel interviewed on the radio and when I started watching their videos I was awed by the friendship they have with each other.

The Sailing Frenchmen (103000) When I first started following him he was a solo sailor, recently he has switched to focus more on sail-racing.

MJ Sailing (127000) Can you tell I am interested in sailing? Here's a couple that have been doing a great job of filming/editing. Soon they'll be building a catamaran from a kit.

Kurtis Baute (174000) Kurtis is an environmental activist on the west coast of Canada. He has built a plant watering machine that drops one drop of water whenever he gets a subscriber. One of his videos went viral and it ended up flooding his plant area.

Ghost Town Living (180000) I found his channel from Digg; he lives at Cerro Gordo and is planning on turning this ghost town into a tourist place. It was deeply saddening when one of the most interesting buildings in the ghost town burned down. Fortunately, he has the original architect plans and he intends on rebuilding as close to how it was as possible.

Sailing Uma (275000) Another sailing channel, their boat has a Canadian flag.

Adam Bobrow (325000) Adam travels all over the world to play table-tennis with different people; I find this a very entertaining channel. I miss playing this game and wish I could play it on a regular basis.

Julie Nolke (593000) Julie makes comedic videos that she is usually the principal and also the secondary characters. Her videos are slickly edited.

Cheddar (663000) This channel has a number of different presenters; they have sections like 'Cheddar Explains', 'Cheddar Explores', 'Cheddar Examines' into a variety of different topics. Their videos are very crisp and well explained.

Lindsay Ellis (1010000) Lindsay is an author and she takes on current affair issues, sometimes from a literary perspective.

Jelle's Marble Runs (1260000) I learned about this channel from 'Last Week Tonight' and have enjoyed watching the races.

Physics Girl (1690000) Dianna does such an amazing job of bringing Physics to light; she is super enthusiastic and excited about sharing Physics with everyone.

Rick Beato (1800000) While I haven't any music background whatsoever, Rick's videos are a delight as he is so into presenting the songs. I especially like his series called 'What Makes This Song Great' where he dissects a song to really share with us what it is about the song that makes it a great song.

Simone Giertz (2270000) Simone just has a special way about her, in how she delivers her videos, all charming and odd. Her reaction at the Tesla truck reveal was really telling.

OffTheRanch (3800000) In particular I binged on the 'Abandoned Mansion' playlist where he has bought an abandoned mansion and is fixing it up.

Seeker (4530000) Has a number of presenters and is mostly science based.

Vox (8640000) From their own description: Vox helps you cut through the noise and understand what's driving events in the headlines and in our lives.

ASAP Science (9420000) Two Torontonians who present some really slick science videos. They are a great team and have really fun educational and interesting videos.

MrBeast (43000000) Mr Beast has so many subscribers that he has managed to accumulate tons of money that he mostly just gives away. In particular, I enjoyed him giving money to online gamers.

Perhaps some day, a few months from now, or maybe next year, I'll revisit this list and see how the subscriber counts have changed; or, if there are any that I've dropped off this list, or any new ones that I've added.

Back to school

This is the week that all three of my progeny has their first day of school during this new 2020/2021 pandemic school year.

The younger two (aged 11 and 15) have in-class sessions on a full schedule like they would have had in the past, with a few changes: masks required and students to remain in same classroom for the entire day and for the entire year, with the same class mates. A few exceptions to this (phys ed classes, for example).

The oldest one (aged 18) has all of his classes on-line, however, he will have to go in to school to do some of the lab sessions he has in some of his science courses. Some lab work simply can't be done at home.

Very much appreciated, my sister made a whole bunch of masks so that I won't have to launder them on a nightly basis; they can each wear one and bring two with them so they can switch during the day, and the next day, repeat. By then I'll need to wash, and so every second night I'll do a load of mask laundry. We'll have to see how that goes, and maybe I'll be able to make it every third night.

I will continue to work from home during this pandemic, though, I received a survey from my company's HR asking what our intentions were with respect to heading into the office as of October 1st to the end of the calendar year, with the company's recommendation still being to work from home. I responded to say that I think I would like to go in to work on Wednesdays, just to get a break from being home all of the time, and also, to support the local restaurants that I used to frequent pre-pandemic.

I heard on the radio today that there are already at least three companies that the Canadian Government has signed contracts with to produce the millions of doses of vaccine for COVID-19 that will be needed once any of them have successfully passed the Phase 3 trials. Given already there are some of these that have started the Phase 3 it could mean that we'll have a vaccine in early 2021. It will be interesting to see how society (schools and work in particular) manage the situation where at some points in time, some of the people will have been vaccinated while others haven't been.

I suppose what they could do for the schools is to do the vaccination in the school - this is the surest way to immunize everybody that attends that school. I can also envision my workplace doing the same thing; though not all workplaces would do this. Then all that's left is what to do during the commute to/from work/school where it isn't at all clear who has been vaccinated, and who hasn't.

brock bock lock

I've been watching the Toronto Raptors NBA team through the last few games of this delayed season as well as most of the first round games against the Brooklyn Nets. Kyle Lowry, one of the key leaders of the team, sprained his ankle in the first quarter of the last game. Fortunately there was a break between that last game and when the first game against the Boston Celtics would play to give him the opportunity to heal. If the severity of the sprain is low, it is possible he would be able to return to play during the second round.

Then, four days ago, a Black Man named Jacob Blake was shot in the back by a police officer in Wisconsin. He did not die, but the most recent report I have is that he is now paralyzed from the waist down in addition to having other internal injuries. Yesterday, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to exit their locker room at the time their game was supposed to start, as an athlete protest against police brutality. The NBA then decided to postpone all three of the games that were scheduled that day.

The WNBA and MLB as well as at least one prominent tennis player all paused their league play or dropped out of the tennis tournament to also indicate their support for Black Lives Matter.

There are media reports that Toronto's first game of the second round, scheduled for today, may not happen as the postponement of games yesterday by the NBA could persist into today. There are further talks that the remainder of the NBA playoffs ought to be scrapped.

I, of course, fully support any action that can help bring about change such that we would no longer need to have a BLM movement, but have instead, an All Lives Matter movement.

If the second round of the playoffs for the Raptors does get pushed, or the playoffs cancelled, this will give Kyle Lowry more time to heal his sprained ankle.