Digital services tend to be an area where the US enjoys huge trade surpluses. If that pandora’s box is opened, it’s going to be really bad for the tech giants when retaliatory steps are inevitably taken. I thought this was why Trump was trying to keep the tariff war focused on material goods?

I know in Canada, FB stopped serving news when they refused to contribute to a government fund to help the struggling domestic journalism industry which they were scraping content from with reckless abandon. Personally, I’m happy to see one less stifling algorithm-fed echo chamber. It’s like a breath of fresh air.

Well I play violin in a Celtic bar band that mostly does covers, but back around the time of the pandemic when I was feeling super bored, I worked on a song I’m kind of proud of? It’s called Anticipation.

I just casually mentioned to our lead singer that I had some licks that almost seem to be coming together like a song? He was similarly goofing around in his basement and said show me what you got? Next thing you know, I was trying to write parts for accordion and other instruments we had at the time using GarageBand on my iPad while he came up with some lyrics. I was a total amateur at this kind of thing and couldn’t believe it actually happened! But we eventually got it recorded with each band member coming in at different times for social distancing. We still play it once in a while at gigs when one of the regulars requests it.

My wife and I get excited every time we come across articles about exoskeleton tech. Can we expedite this a little? I want a mech suit—not a fucking wheelchair—when I reach that age.

Also, a note to the designers: make sure you can use the toilet with it. Extrapolating current trends, I suspect this will become one of my primary activities.

Do you have to calculate it now though? I have to go let’s see, I was born in the year… It used to be innate knowledge.

Ah but you’re not really a proper old guy until you get a bidet and start bitching about how medieval everyplace you go is that doesn’t have one.

It’s interesting to me that I don’t see myself aging in the bathroom mirror…until I put on my glasses. Then it’s obvious. Also, I didn’t used to need glasses. But nature’s gaussian blur filter is awesome. My wife looks as good as the day I met her too!

Oh yeah right! Mod files. I remember thinking when pdf came into being, it was to postscript like mod was to midi. A pdf is ps with fonts and whatever else embedded in it so that you could render it in a self-contained sort of way. The mod file was midi + samples to make them self-contained as well. I don’t know how accurate that is, but that’s how I pictured it in my head.

I guess my very first exposure was my brother letting me use his university account over dialup. You really had to know your way around in those days or know someone who did. He showed me how I could go to umich (U. of Michigan) and a few other places that ran public ftp servers full of games!

Then I landed a job at a small company which had accounts on CompuServe. Around this time at home, I was playing MUDs a lot on a free local BBS, and at some point, the people running the BBS decided to have a go at becoming the first commercial ISP in town. (They’re still around, in fact!)

So I approached work about opening an Internet account, arguing that it was way cheaper than CompuServe. They reluctantly agreed. I was over the Moon but my superiors were not super impressed at first. They complained that they couldn’t find anything while CompuServe was much better organized. I eventually found Yahoo which, at the time, had a sort of CompuServe-ish vibe of providing this directory that categorized most of the more popular sites by topic and that placated them. You have to remember this was long before search engines and even the www itself was still in its infancy.

I was having a blast, discovering something new every week. Usenet was so cool when I learned about that! And I found out about some sort of MIDI file format with embedded instrument samples you could play to get electronic music in a super compact format long before broadband made mp3s the way to go. What were they called again? Soundtrack files? Something like that. I played them all the time while I was coding.

Yeah I agree. I came across the article as I like to read up on what’s going on with BRICS countries as that seems like something worth keeping an eye on. But the lack of confirmation is troublesome. Even something like a giant trade deal with China that would give them some standing to call Trump’s bluff would lend some credibility. It could be that this was threatened during negotiations and someone jumped the gun to say it’s now policy? If I see any more about it one way or another, I will update the post.

I think if there’s a silver lining to the 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs in North America, it is that it will hasten adoption of ebikes, which imo solve more problems than EVs in any case.

His point that ebikes replace cars—not conventional bikes—tracks for me. Mine has basically replaced our second car and I use it, as he indicated most people do, for commutes and short errands.

His point that an ebike has an energy footprint comparable to a 4000 mpg ICEV is an incredible metric. I wonder where he pulled that from? I know that my ebike battery has 1/150th the capacity of what goes into a Tesla. Granted, I wouldn’t expect a comparable range so there’s a bit of apples to oranges there. But if you then work in that EVs are already much more energy efficient than ICEVs, I guess you could arrive at a number like 4000.

Whatever the case, my experience with ebikes is that they are pretty close to free transportation in terms of operating costs. There may be a few unexpected expenses beyond the initial sticker cost of the bike in terms of accessories (particularly high quality locks) and some winter gear if you’re in a colder climate, but those are one-time purchases for the most part.

Yeah pretty much! They were in full dress with the red coats and boots and the wide brimmed hats and all that. No horses though. There was also a fair bit more security that day than usual with swat team-looking guys around the exits and stuff.

I remember attending a trade convention in Toronto where they were showcasing this block of pure gold around the size of a loaf of bread. It was surrounded by Mounties but they welcomed me to come forward and even asked if I wanted to try and lift it. My God that thing was heavy!!

Then as I was about to leave, they said “Hold on sir, show us your hands.” I did and they said I was good to go. I asked what that was about and they said some people try to scrape a bit off under their fingernails as a souvenir since gold is one of the softer metals.

I had a chat with my American relatives at one point which began with me asking why it seems medical malpractice suits have such soaring high settlements compared to where I am in Canada? They explained it to me like this. Say a botched procedure leaves you requiring constant medical treatments for the rest of your life. You have to sue for any treatments you would otherwise have to pay out of pocket. Where you have a public healthcare system, the state would cover that. You may still sue for loss of employment if you are no longer able to work, say, but settlements tend to be orders of magnitude higher because of those additional costs. Unfortunately, this leads to a proliferation of bottom-feeding personal injury lawyers who try to get you to litigate and overstate your injuries to get bigger settlements.

How’s this for an obscure reference? This reminded me of an episode of Max Headroom in which the wunderkind Bryce invented a robotic fly with a spycam that could be used to literally bug a room. They send it on a mission to uncover an evil plot and everyone is excitedly crowded around the screen and heaping praise on it. Then it manages to sneak into the evil lair where it promptly gets swatted, leaving Bryce shocked and devastated.

As a Canadian, my favourite thing about the American flag is there isn’t a lot of room for a 51st star on there. It would break the symmetry.

As to our maple leaf, I’ve had mixed feelings about it. As a kid, I thought it was cute and friendly as national flags go. Then later, watching assholes in Dodge Rams with the flag whipping around next to their Fuck Trudeau stickers during that aggravatingly endless trucker rally left me less enthused. But now with Trump threatening annexation, I’ve rediscovered its beauty!

We brought back a hamster for our daughter without realizing she was pregnant. After having a giant litter, we gave them all away…or at least we thought we did? A day or two later, I saw a wiggling in the shavings and out pops a head. Our eyes locked momentarily before she dived back down.

Definitely the runt of the litter. Had all sorts of paranoia and cowered under things for most of her life. She was maybe a year old when my daughter came running up. “Guys, you gotta see Hester!” We rushed over and there she was, hanging from the bars at the top of the cage and swinging arm-to-arm across.

We were so happy for her, finally getting past her inhibitions and leading her best hamster life. Then she was curled up dead the next morning.

I think this happens irl a lot when you have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gen immigrants trying to communicate with each other and this kind of hybrid speak comes out of that? I’m 2nd gen so it sort of comes naturally to me.

I know some people from northern Ontario who speak a kind of English/French hybrid and it’s more than just in the family though. They speak it fluently with each other, so it seems to have taken on a life of its own? I tried to google for an example, and the first hit I got was this tiktoker and he’s exactly what I’m talking about. People really do speak like this!

Ok yeah, here’s a translation:

That’s fabulous! My mother only spoke Japanese with me, but since she passed away, I feel I have forgotten a lot of vocabulary. Once in a while, I get chances to speak but there aren’t a lot of Japanese around here so I’m pretty rusty at this point.

gggggggggggggggggggggggggggb

I think she’s trying to say date a whole bunch of girls and one boy?

I’m having more trouble with that last part.

cxz c

cee-ex-zee cee

Sexy, see?

That’s subarashii! My haha only spoke nihongo with me, but since she nakunatta, I feel I have wasureta a lot of vocabulary. Tokidoki shaberu chances ga aru desu keredomo amari nihonjin are around here so I’m pretty heta at this point. (シ_ _)シ