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  • PSA for @BlueJays fans. The game on Friday vs. the Angels is only on Apple TV+. On the bright side, it’s a late game and you can watch for free. Still, these MLB deals stink for the average fan.

    → 3:46 PM, May 25
  • Tried (and succeeded) in pulling the old Moen cartridge out. Pretty clear to me now that the new one is in that the plumber that installed this one likely melted the inside seals when he installed it. Never quite felt right to operate. Nice win to start the day.

    → 7:45 AM, May 25
  • Tried (and failed) to pull a Moen cartridge out of the shower faucet this evening. I’ve done these a few times before without trouble, but this one just won’t give up. Going to Home Depot first thing tomorrow to get a special puller tool. Last resort will be a plumber, I guess.

    → 9:43 PM, May 24
  • Will it ever end? I’m honestly starting to wonder why I would ever want to cross the border and visit that country ever again.

    → 7:01 PM, May 24
  • So many transport nerds. Oh to be a part of a day like this. Everyone truly chuffed to ride the new trains. www.youtube.com/watch

    → 8:02 AM, May 24
  • New transit lines opening is always a great day for a city and Toronto has quite a few substantial projects on the go (pardon the pun). Besides the Crosstown, there’s the Finch West LRT, Hurontario LRT, big GO expansion, extension of Line 2 eastwards, and the Ontario Line.

    → 7:56 AM, May 24
  • If I lived in London, today I’d be out riding the new CrossElizPurpleTrain or whatever Geoff Marshall has decided the line that isn’t a Tube line should be called. We’ll get our own #purpletrain moment in Toronto sometime in early 2023 when the Crosstown starts up along Eglinton.

    → 7:54 AM, May 24
  • It’s 7:15 P.M. and the random fireworks are already starting. Hopefully most people run out of them by 10:30 P.M. or so.

    → 7:16 PM, May 23
  • Nothing like trying to re-train YouTube on what you are interested in and more importantly what you aren’t interested in. So much crap, news, fake news, entertainment “news” and just straight up click-bait garbage content.

    → 10:19 AM, May 23
  • I drove through Uxbridge, Ontario today on the way home from some train watching. Damage from the storm yesterday is severe including damage to the York-Durham Heritage Railway, homes and businesses and the Trinity United Church. www.youtube.com/watch

    → 7:46 PM, May 22
  • Nice day today, other than that line of heavy rain and strong winds that rolled through this afternoon. Tomorrow I hope to be trackside to photograph some trains for the first time in ages. I’ll have the drone up if the weather cooperates.

    → 7:11 PM, May 21
  • Ballgame with the guys did not disappoint. Jays won 2-1. Romano came in for the save so we got the whole light show thing in the 9th. It was great to hang out again after a couple of years.

    → 11:15 PM, May 20
  • Work for a bit, then we’re off to the Blue Jays baseball game today. Looking forward to some in-person time with some of my co-workers. It’s been a long time.

    → 10:11 AM, May 20
  • Sometimes it’s the little things. We’re relocating our outside hose tap tomorrow from an inconvenient location on one side of our house to a far more convenient location on the other side. This is Toronto, so I’m thinking it’ll lead to a $30k increase in property value.

    → 7:04 PM, May 18
  • I had the desk, got the chair in the spring of 2020. Frosted the window and added the 27" 4K monitor in the summer of 2020. The personal MacBook came for Christmas in 2020.

    Then a Synology came along last summer and I scrounged up the little Samsung monitor (with an Amazon FireTV stick) for YouTube slow tv background visuals and noise.

    The storage units to the right are brand new this week and really helped declutter the space visually. Oh, and the LED light for some fake sunshine was an early 2020 purchase as well.

    If you asked me in March, 2020, how long I thought it would be until we returned to the office at least part-time, I would have said by the fall. Here we are 27 months later and the answer to that question is now “never”.

    → 12:59 PM, May 18
  • I need to paint still but after more than two years working remote, I’m finally making progress in my home office environment.

    → 12:53 PM, May 18
  • I did a big desk cleanup last week, and yesterday I put together a pair of storage units from IKEA to further remove clutter and make my office a bit more calming. For the first time in its life, my printer isn’t sitting on a box on the floor.

    → 9:50 AM, May 17
  • Speaking as a someone with 15 years in the business of domains and DNS, don’t use DNSSEC unless you have a really good reason why you need to use it AND also understand how it works (and how you can really break things badly). news.ycombinator.com/item

    → 8:41 AM, May 17
  • Sure sign that summer is not far away in Toronto: the roof is open for tonight’s Blue Jays game vs. the Mariners. First game under open skies this season.

    → 6:04 PM, May 16
  • Successful personal day. Got some expired IDs and such sorted for myself and the kid. Dealt with some banking tasks (old accounts cleaned up, etc.). Assembled some IKEA storage and tidied the clutter in my home office. Much better.

    → 3:54 PM, May 16
  • Instagram has a new app icon. I’ll reserve judgment until the rest of the internet tells me whether I should love it or hate it.

    → 2:30 PM, May 16
  • Contrast with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) here in my city which, for whatever reason, seems intent on linking accessibility with handicap or disability. That goes all the way down to using the wheelchair icon on the link to their Accessibility page. Removing barriers to transit usage is more than accommodating disabled riders. Step-free describes the removal of physical barriers beautifully and I wish the TTC used that term here.

    Accessibility should be inclusive of all barriers, both physical and non-physical. That could include things like financial barriers, language, wayfinding, safety and even where transit is provided in the city to ensure that all residents have equitable access to move around their city.

    → 12:10 PM, May 16
  • Also kudos to Transport for London (TfL) for the work being done to provide step-free access on more and more of the network. tfl.gov.uk/travel-in…

    → 12:02 PM, May 16
  • The British term “step-free” when describing fully-accessible stations on the transit network is so nice. It’s a brilliant description of exactly what the stations are without ascribing a specific use case or type of user. From the street to the train, there are no steps.

    → 11:58 AM, May 16
  • Finding myself rooting for the Penguins tonight, mostly because of Crosby. But I have the Rangers in my bracket so…

    (what a goal that was!)

    → 8:47 PM, May 15
  • Wow. Another epic first round collapse. Gotta love the consistency from the Leafs!

    → 9:48 PM, May 14
  • Planespotting Live Stream Slow TV

    My current YouTube jam? Planespotting live streams. There’s a ton of them and it’s a real nice slow tv option to put up on a second screen. It’s as much about the commentary as the planes, although watching the various airliners and liveries is always cool. SpeedbirdTV from London City today and maybe Airline Videos Live from LAX later.

    Like with railfanning, there’s a romance to thinking about the stories of the people and things aboard these trains and planes. Humans coming and going from places near and far. Goods in containers from China or natural resources heading from Canada to ports to go overseas.

    And of course, there’s the wonderment of considering how these monsters take flight or how two people can be in charge of a train that is miles long.

    → 12:41 PM, May 13
  • Leafs fans get a Game 7 vs. Tampa Bay on Saturday that absolutely none of them want.

    → 7:08 AM, May 13
  • Mayor John Tory proving he’s both out of touch, and also no fun. City Council in Toronto voted today to adopt his motion to NOT allow consumption of alcohol in Toronto public parks. Want to smoke weed in the park? Sure…no problem. Sip on some wine or have a beer? CALL THE COPS!!

    → 5:20 PM, May 12
  • Switched my Garmin over to an “analog” watch face from a digital one. Inspired by a section in this post from Douglas Adams in which he suggested that digital time was less meaningful than the analog (hands) representation. I’m giving it a try for a bit.

    → 4:03 PM, May 12
  • Notion All the Things

    I’ve really been digging Notion of late. I’ve started putting basically everything into my Notion now including notes, todo’s, writing, travel plans, journal entries and more.

    I find having my todo list for the week staring at me every time I go to Notion to be a good motivator. It’s great for quickly making a page to track things like quotes for a small plumbing project we need done, or to keep track of projects we’d like to tackle over the summer around the house.

    As a bonus, I can make certain pages or databases available publically so things like my running race log can be managed in Notion, but available as a page linked from my micro.blog.

    Because Notion is an enjoyable place to write, it’s drawing me in and I find myself wanting to write things down and organize my tasks and life.

    → 9:42 PM, May 11
  • I used WordPress for a long time but over the last few of years, they’ve lost me. Seems the rest of the world is starting to agree. It’s not good for building a site in the ways that site builders like Squarespace and Wix are. joost.blog/wordpress…

    → 7:19 PM, May 11
  • Hmmm. Got half way there…I can get it to fill the username and password now (the UX to link an app isn’t all that intuitive). But we use an OTP as well and it won’t fill that at the same time. It tries to do it in two steps.

    → 3:17 PM, May 11
  • 1Password 8 for Mac is awesome (been using it since the initial betas). One thing I can’t figure out is how to get it to fill Cisco Anyconnect VPN app. I suspect it’s something the Cisco app is doing and not 1Password? Ideas?

    → 2:55 PM, May 11
  • Highlight of my day at work? An anticlimactic deployment to production without a CR, Ops or anything. For years, we dreamed of this and now…here we are. Merge the pull request, deploy to PTE and all the tests run in Github actions and a little bit later it’s live on production.

    → 7:30 PM, May 10
  • Enjoyable Miami Grand Prix. Pity it was just a 10 lap race as the first 40 or so were a complete snoozefest. Thank goodness for a safety car near the end to make for some excitement to the finish.

    → 5:18 PM, May 8
  • Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.

    → 6:55 AM, May 8
  • Well…that went okay? Took way longer because network (it’s always network). But we’re back up and running.

    → 7:06 PM, May 7
  • Mentally preparing to do a pretty significant infrastructure move for our servers at work. We’ve done all the prep work, testing and a run-through. Our run-book is solid. We have a really good go/no-go point and a way to back out. But it’s still stressful as heck.

    → 2:13 PM, May 7
  • Some Digital Housekeeping

    I’m currently using a four-hour flight back to Toronto to get my Notion setup sorted out, and to do a bunch of thinking and writing about how I want to structure things going forward and to generally simplify and streamline my online world.

    In short, it’ll be less Twitter, more micro.blog. Less running blog, more micro.blog. It’ll also be more private journalling (in Notion) and more note-taking and capturing of thoughts, ideas and plans privately, but online.

    I’ve disconnected my Twitter from micro.blog and taken it private (and kicked a bunch of followers I didn’t either know or interact with). I’ll continue to use it as an information source but not as a place to post or share. Quite honestly, I don’t see a long-term future for the service if the plan is to start charging companies and journalists/news outlets to use it.

    Mastodon was a short-lived experiment that ended after about a week. The experience there is just a mess. Federation is not the solution. As I did in the past, I found Mastodon to be a whole bunch of people that I didn’t really want to interact with and who have different ideas and perspectives from mine. To each their own…no judgement…it’s just not a place for me.

    I’ve also decided to fold my running blog for a few reasons. Mostly I’m done training for a race for a bit and I don’t have much to share. Those who want to follow me as a runner can do so via Strava instead. I’ll archive off those posts and put the content into Notion for posterity-sake.

    Instagram will remain as I enjoy posting the odd photo there and also seeing the photos of my friends as they post theirs. I don’t follow brands or anything like that since in my mind Instagram is for personal photos not for advertising.

    That leaves this micro.blog which is really just a stand-in for a more formal personal blog. It’s a stress-free place to post short things or long things and to have a bit of a website too. If nobody reads it, that’s fine. If they do, that’s also fine.

    → 7:04 PM, May 4
  • Line up for security. One hour. Done. Walk to the gate. Line up for lunch at Carl’s Jr. After that it’ll be line up to board the flight. Then ljne up to get the train to line up for the other train.

    → 2:39 PM, May 4
  • If the West Coast Express was my daily commute, I’d be happy to head into the office every day. Beautiful ride along the water. 15F4F27B-D002-4420-A91D-8855B1E50FC9.jpg

    → 8:06 PM, May 3
  • Riding the West Coast Express out to Coquitlam today. My original plan was to take in a Vancouver Canadian’s baseball game at Nat Bailey Stadium but the weather is rainy so I’ll ride the rails instead.

    → 6:51 PM, May 3
  • Finally saw the barge at Barge Chilling Beach as well (on the run) and it’s bigger than I expected.

    → 7:03 PM, May 1
  • Marathon number 14 is in the books. Not the race I wanted to run, but I’ll take it. Battling injury for the last 5 weeks of training and that never ends well on race day. Thanks to the residents of Vancouver who showed up to cheer like I’ve never seen them before.

    → 7:02 PM, May 1
  • One of the Synology features I enjoy the most is the OpenVPN server. No need to pay for a VPN. I just connect to my Synology and route everything through my home internet connection. Bonus points for being able to watch the Leafs on Fibe TV even though it’s blacked out here.

    → 10:35 PM, Apr 29
  • Baseball games that start at 4:05 P.M. are another great part of life in Vancouver. Who doesn’t want to ease out of the day and into the evening with some Blue Jays baseball on the TV?

    → 7:10 PM, Apr 29
  • I honestly think this is what Airbnb has in mind for their service. Could they limit listings to lived-in homes? Maybe. It would hurt their bottom line though and that’s not really compatible with how investors expect them to run the business.

    → 9:40 AM, Apr 29
  • I’ve stayed in a few Airbnbs that are clearly vacant units that should be in the long-term rental pool in the cities they were in. In this case, the home owner uses Airbnb to supplement income and to enjoy a nicer lifestyle themselves.

    → 9:39 AM, Apr 29
  • I struggle a bit with using Airbnb because of the many negative impacts on cities and affordability, but the experience of living in a home instead of a hotel when travelling is vastly superior. Feeling good about this one as it’s the host’s actual home.

    → 9:37 AM, Apr 29
  • Chilling at the Yaletown Starbucks for a bit, catching up on things, posting to my blog. I haven’t done this in literally two years.

    → 5:03 PM, Apr 28
  • I should know better than to turn off the TV and go to sleep after the Red Sox scored four in the 8th. Of course the Jays came back with three in the 9th and then walked it off in the 10th.

    → 7:18 AM, Apr 27
  • Wow. The @bluejays have a player in Gosuke Katoh who can play a good first base (and anywhere else in the infield), can put down a bunt (a rarity these days) and who has Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” as his walk on music.

    → 9:26 PM, Apr 26
  • Today I did something I haven’t done that since December 30, 2020. I took a rest day and didn’t run. To be honest, I’m sitting here having an internal debate about whether I should just go out and run a mile or two. I won’t…

    → 6:59 PM, Apr 26
  • Broadcast vs. Discussion

    Community is what people look for online, and in real life. The big problem with Twitter is that there’s not an effective way for communities to section off and interact. It’s a loud stadium full of people of all interests, all trying (and failing) to effectively communicate. Broadcasters (literal and figurative) do well on Twitter because they are only interested in one-way communication. Think news networks or celebrities looking to easily push out information to the masses. Once the information is pushed, the broadcaster doesn’t care about the discussion. Show me a news Twitter account that interacts. They don’t exist.

    Mastodon attempts to solve for this shortcoming in Twitter by putting users into smaller interest-based communities, while maintaining the ability to participate outside of your chosen community through federation. That federation can feel like cross-talk sometimes, while at other times it can be more like an invasion depending on the sizes of the communities involved.

    Is there a solution to this? I’m not sure. Discord might be one, but it favours community discussion over broadcast and I think a lot of people are actually seeking out that broadcast type system (either as a broadcaster, or reciever).

    → 7:48 AM, Apr 26
  • Since @twitter is in the news today for reasons, if you are questioning where you might want to be instead of Twitter, the answer is micro.blog. Set it up on your own domain name, and syndicate to where ever - Twitter, Mastodon, etc.

    → 1:22 PM, Apr 25
  • Today is the 481st day in a row that I ran at least a mile (and 99.9% of the time, quite a bit more). But it’s also going to be the last run of that streak. With a marathon to run on Sunday in Vancouver, I’m going to prioritize the race and take a few days to rest and repair.

    → 1:20 PM, Apr 25
  • Hawaiian and Starlink Teaming Up for In-Flight Wi-Fi

    Hawaiian Airlines says they are adding Starlink Wi-fi to their planes. The timeline is a bit agressive (next year) given there isn’t a Starlink package for aviation and that kind of gear doesn’t exactly get created, certified and installed on aircraft overnight. newsroom.hawaiianairlines.com/releases/…

    I’d put this on the list with the tunnel to Dodger Stadium, full self-driving cars, the Cybertruck and humans on Mars by 2029.

    → 9:38 AM, Apr 25
  • So apparently Twitter is going to call Musk’s bluff and accept his takeover offer? I’ll wager $10 that he pulls a Lucy and says he’s changed his mind and doesn’t want it anymore.

    → 9:28 AM, Apr 25
  • This @bluejays team is a great bunch. I’m getting more and more excited about this season after another close game, and another win. Best team in the American League.

    → 7:09 PM, Apr 23
  • Finally got to playing with the panoramic mode on my DJI Mini 2. This is the site of a new development near our house that will transform some unused land into mid-density housing and parkland. www.skypixel.com/photo360s…

    → 7:47 PM, Apr 22
  • As my boss said today on Slack: “delete this day”. Yes please. But I also don’t want to have to do it over.

    → 5:23 PM, Apr 21
  • Ball game! Solid effort for the @BlueJays. Always good to beat a division rival.

    → 10:19 PM, Apr 20
  • Watching some baseball. Game two of 20 games in 20 days for the @bluejays. I approve of this schedule.

    → 8:14 PM, Apr 20
  • Atlassian Confluence is crap. It should make you want to use it to become a meaningful part of team communications. Instead I loathe opening a page and fighting with it.

    Notion has its quirks and frustrations, but when I want to write stuff down, I go to Notion, not Confluence.

    → 1:59 PM, Apr 19
  • Ouch. There is currently a grand total of zero Sunwing planes in the air as they deal with some sort of systems crash/outage. As you might expect, vacationers are not happy.

    → 3:02 PM, Apr 18
  • Curious that NASCAR is running a race on Easter Sunday. I always remember that and Mother’s Day as being “sacred” and always off weekends. Last time they raced Cup on Easter Sunday was apparently back in 1989.

    → 6:23 PM, Apr 17
  • It’s pretty clear watching the pre-game show just what Buck Martinez means to the rest of the @Sportsnet crew and to @BlueJays fans in Toronto, across Canada and around the world. Not great to hear he’s battling cancer and we’re all pulling for him.

    → 1:07 PM, Apr 17
  • It’s good to have @bluejays baseball back again for another season. I remember growing up when we got a TV game on Sunday afternoon and Wednesday evening on CTV. Then CBC added a Friday night game. Now? All 162 games live.

    → 8:21 PM, Apr 15
  • Every so often I check in to see how long my #runstreak has been going. It’s day 471 today. After the first few months, it became so habitual and after more than a year, even more so. I don’t even think about it anymore.

    → 10:59 AM, Apr 15
  • I’m all for this. A return to Web 1.0 when things weren’t so easy, but yet it was more accessible somehow. vhsoverdrive.neocities.org/essays/ol…

    → 8:49 AM, Apr 14
  • Elon is a troll. The worst kind.

    → 7:44 AM, Apr 14
  • Great ballgame. Always better when the @bluejays win and Vladdy hits three home runs.

    → 10:19 PM, Apr 13
  • Pro-tip: set your alarm and wake up extra early the day you travel home from a later timezone. You can kickstart the jet-lag recovery and feel a bit more sleepy by the end of the day.

    → 10:38 PM, Apr 12
  • A brief summary of the various places I ran over the last few days in Vic and Van. Really enjoyed that part of the trip! www.runnerjames.com/running-i…

    → 6:11 PM, Apr 12
  • The window seats are useless on this flight. Clouds the entire way across the country from Vancouver to Toronto. And we’re flying over a literal blizzard in the Prairies.

    → 5:23 PM, Apr 12
  • Nice long weekend in Victoria and Vancouver is coming to an end. The good news is that I’ll be back in 16 days for the @BMOVanMarathon with the boys. Already looking forward to spending more time here.

    → 1:09 PM, Apr 12
  • One of the many highlights of my 24km run this morning in Victoria, BC. 6BA3E94E-BD75-44CB-8AC5-E019EDA41ADB.jpg

    → 12:53 AM, Apr 11
  • Victoria, BC does not disappoint. UVic visited, neighbourhoods explored, trails hiked, beaches walked. Decision made. Off to Vancouver for a day and a bit tomorrow.

    → 12:25 AM, Apr 11
  • The @BlueJays win! I “watched” the game on MLB Gameday via in-flight wi-fi from the real @WestJet Flight Deck (aka a 737-800). I forgot how much fun this team is. Looking forward to a great season.

    → 11:08 PM, Apr 8
  • That thing where you track your own flight on @flightradar24 using the inflight wifi. #ws723

    → 7:57 PM, Apr 8
  • Long day coming up tomorrow with a full day of work, then a late evening flight to Vancouver to kick off a visit to Victoria and a tour of UVic with Lindsey over the weekend. Happy to be heading west again. I haven’t been out to BC in what seems like forever.

    → 7:38 PM, Apr 7
  • So yeah. I don’t understand TikTok.

    → 8:48 PM, Apr 5
  • Let’s face it. Elon’s attention span for this kind of stuff is so short, he’ll likely be bored with Twitter before he even attends a board meeting.

    → 2:57 PM, Apr 5
  • Week 14 of training for the BMO Vancouver Marathon is done. Suffice to say, I’m not thrilled to have a strained hamstring at this point. The #runstreak continues though. www.runnerjames.com/bmo-vanco… 🏃‍♂️

    → 8:05 PM, Apr 4
  • If you want to wreck a good thing online, add a way for creators to monetize it.

    → 7:10 PM, Apr 4
  • It strikes me that it wouldn’t take much for a few key tech influencers/podcasters to lead a good number of people from Twitter over to micro.blog or Mastodon. These are the same folks that crave the community that they had in the early days of Twitter.

    → 8:14 PM, Apr 3
  • The Web is Too Complex

    The web has become too difficult for the average person. The whole idea of self-hosting or easy publishing of your site or content is largely gone. WordPress is way too complicated to install and use. Proprietary site builders lock your content away into their systems. The cost of having your own presence is getting out of control and driving the average hobbiest away.

    I’ve switched over to micro.blog (using my own domain) as a way to take back some control. It’s $5/month, including custom domain mapping. The content is stored in an easy-to-export format. The templates are simple and easy.

    We need less of web3 and more of a return to the web that we had in the late 90’s.

    → 4:56 PM, Apr 3
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