rant and rave

This is where ranting and raving occurs. Venting. Blowing things out of proportion. That kind of thing.

US bond yield curve

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According to CNBC, the US bond yield curve has inverted, a significant indicator of a slowed economy.

Now I’m no professional economic analysis expert by any means – but is it not just as simple as knowing that the industries and, indeed, industrial models you’ve relied upon for “growth” all this time have started to fail because they should?  Did the steam engine not get replaced by the Diesel?  Then the Diesel-electric?  Did stone houses not make way for brick, then wood, then steel & glass?

Is Alberta not suffering now because people have a poor idea of the reputation of oil sands?  Lethbridge, for example, has an enormous amount both of sunlight and wind.  Isn’t the writing on the wall stating that, within 20 years or so, oil will seriously on its way out?  Now I’m not getting on the Liberal bandwagon and saying we should all convert farmland into solar panel land.  …  Then again, you’re building huge advanced greenhouses to grow pot.  Good for you.  (There’s a facetious tone to my remark, by the way, in case you couldn’t hear me.)

Instead of looking at this as a doom-and-gloom thing, this seems to me to be a sure indicator of the need for innovation, changes to the status-quo, advancement of “alternatives” (as though oil is the benchmark and everything else is an alternative).  In short, the stuff you’ve invested in is losing ground.  Stop trying to prop it up with make-shift measures.  Let it die.  Move into something else.

And Trumpy wants to open up more coal mines and “put Americans to work again”, as though going back in time will save us all.  Fool!  And you’re dragging everyone else down with you.

the flow

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I am reading a book called You Are a Badass.  It’s about having good intentions, good thoughts, good vibes, for lack of better explanation.  “The Universe will match whatever vibration you put out.  And you can’t fool the Universe.”

“Can I get a name?” Starbucks staff asks when I order an Americano.  “Allan.”  (Yes, you already knew that – but she didn’t.)  Why a name?  Because many people might order an Americano.  So the woman after me, after being asked her name, said, “No.”  …  Uh … “Okay, I’ll just leave it here for you.”  Is the world this concerned with privacy that she can’t leave a name?  Maybe she should say, “Esmeralda” or “Lapodopolis” or even “Steve” or “Jesus”.  Sorry, but I have no tolerance for people like that.

By the way – her coffee sat there and waited for her, exactly where the barista said it would be.  The woman was miffed.  <puff, pant, huff, snort, throat clearing, cough>  Good fracking hell.

I met a Canadian in Korea who refused to walk with the crowd.  “I’m going this way, not that way.  I don’t care if people are on this side of the sidewalk.”

I know – I used to be this person, a million years ago.

HTML vs. Moodle, WordPress, etc.

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Okay, so this isn’t 1990 anymore.  Websites are dynamic, not static.  No one uses .html (hypertext markup language) anymore.  Instead, modern websites use https, .asp, databases, interactivity, splashy advertisements and pictures that fly across the screen, areas of the page that stand still whereas others move around … all that is terribly impressive.

But, after fidgeting around with with WordPress, Moodle, Joomla!, add-ons to those, databases from MySQL and Microsoft SQL, and various other CMS packages made for teachers & students & school admin, I’ve decided they all suck.

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Surface Pro 4 replacement parts

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I had to replace the pen on my Surface Pro 4.  I lost it.  Don’t ask me where.  Somewhere between here and the college, I suspect.  I’m a boo-foo.  $120 for a pen.  Wow.

Then came the power supply.  It packed it in somewhere in Manitoba.  The only way to charge it was with the car charger.  Luckily, the machine works on 12VDC, not some weird number like 18 volts or 21 like one of my old laptops.  Why not make 12 volts a standards?  Oh, wait, it already is.  Then why not use that standard?  I tried ordering a new one from a computer shop.  No go.  Online only – that is, if I didn’t want to pay double.  Finally, long after returning from Manitoba, it came.

Then … the machine quit.  Well, it didn’t really quit.  The keyboard (Type Cover, they call it) stopped working.  Several hours over several days chatting and talking with Microsoft later (once actually being transferred between and chatting with seven different people), they found out several things were physically damaged on it, making the type cover and USB useless.

So, the long and the short of it is, everything but the keyboard is actually replaced.  <sigh>  What a world we live in.

To combat the idea of disposable electronics and dwindling world resources, I made a cover out of jeans.  I can see that I am winning the war against waste.  Yay.  …  Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek. 

goodbye Firefox, or on Edge

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I’ve given up on something I’ve used for … a long time.

Firefox.

I have my replacement Surface Pro 4 tablet and am setting it up the way I want it.  I installed Firefox ver. 64.x.  It stole half an hour yesterday and 45 minutes of this morning’s time out of my life to figure out why Ctrl + Tab and Ctrl + Shift + Tab was not working.  I went through the web trying things like nVidia / GForce, antivirus, and other software that this tablet does not have.  I finally found a blog somewhere that said I needed to go back to an older version of Firefox to get this feature back.

Well why the hell did they change it in the first place?

Good bye, Firefox.  Last straw.  I’m on Edge now.

a pretty good attempt

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I received an email from “Apple”, or “iTunes” a bit ago.  I have to admit, this is one of the better looking spam emails I’ve gotten.  They even took the time to encode each character so as not to be recognized by Yahoo! Mail as being crap.  However, there is an error.  Can you spot the error?

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NGM Bible hunters

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I got an email today from National Geographic.  They have a series called Bible Hunters.  Some investigative journalism on the history of the Bible, I guess, which is all well and good.  It’s a pretty well-known set of texts (if not accurately known).

But I was also watching a YouTube video produced by National Geographic called The Bible’s Buried Secrets National Geographic Documentary HD.  I very rarely see such bias ‘journalism’ from reputable names like yours.  My comments:

This video begins interesting but not too much later gives a poor impression. At 12:00, the video loses ground (no pun intended). Genesis chapter 8 states the rains lasted 40 days & nights. It says the water subsided, not the rains, after 150 days. These are two different concepts. One sentence states it rain, and one states the waters started receding. As well, it clearly states that first a raven was sent out and then, later, a dove. Why is this contradictory? It seems to me that it isn’t. I thought this documentary would rely on ‘documents’ (“documentary”?), but so far it doesn’t hold water (again, no pun intended). It’s like someone saying, “I ate eggs for breakfast and pasta for lunch,” and someone else saying, “Well which is it – which did you eat – eggs or pasta?”

So forgive me, NGM; although I have thoroughly enjoyed your magazines, have a collection of them in paper and electronic form, and have a library of your videos, your journalism shows your true colours.

National Geographic Magazine collectoin 20181216_145317.jpg
National Geographic Video Collections DVD set 20181216_145439.jpg
National Geographic, 109 Years of National Geographic Magazine on CD-ROM 20181216_145407.jpg

not funny … not at all

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I watch a show or movie to relax, have fun, be happy.  I don’t want more violence.  While watching New Girl S1E12 (comedy on Netflix), a guy in a parking lot pulls a gun and threatens people with violence.  Funny?  Sorry, crossed the line.  Too much s*** like that.  If that’s comedy, then I don’t want it.  Not in my house.  American culture, perhaps.  Not mine.  Last weekend a guy in the States killed 11 people at a synagogue.  Think family members would think this episode is funny?  I cancelled my Netflix account.

 

privacy policy needed, apparently

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I was about to put another entry onto the ongoing letter.  I got a message from WordPress, the software that runs my ongoing letter, saying that I should probably have a ‘privacy policy’.

Personal Data and Privacy

Personal Data Export and Erasure

New Tools have been added to help you with personal data export and erasure requests.

Privacy Policy

Create or select your site’s privacy policy page under Settings > Privacy to keep your users informed and aware.

Bloody hell.  I clicked to view the next page.

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cannabis legalization

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Happy Cannabis Legalization Day, Glenn.

My brother, Glenn, had always been an advocate of this.  I really can’t say when he first started using it.  Near the end of his life, though, he quit for some reason.  He quit alcohol, too.  He continued to smoke cigarettes though.  Nonetheless, ‘pot’ had always been an important part of his life.

It’s hard to know what impact this will have on everyone out there.  I think there are more important concepts for newscasters to cover, but this is the big topic everyone is talking about.  Mom is no longer taking medical cannabis, but she still has a prescription for the next month or so.  No, she won’t start using it again.  She used it for 3 weeks.

I personally will continue to defend my right to clean air.  This basic right overrides any pot smoker’s rights.  If I have a glass of beer, the person next to me won’t get drunk.  It’s contained.  Pot smoke is not, not is cigarette smoke or diesel fumes or farts.  Some things we can’t help, some we can minimize, and some we have to regulate with laws.  The same with noise or light pollution – there are rules.

I was with MV, FM, & their two kids at Waterton, AB, a while back.  There was a guy smoking pot on the beach maybe 150m away from us.  I walked toward to guy and politely asked him to not smoke that here.  “I’m here with a family, with kids.  I don’t want that here.”  “Seriously?” he said aggressively.  “You want me to stop?”  “Yes.”  I stood there while he thought about what he was going to do.  He was twice my size, but right doesn’t care who says it.  Right is right.  That’s it.  There are kids here, and you’re not going to smoke it.  After a few minutes, he and his partner left.

Too bad you’re not around to enjoy this day, Glenn.