Monthly Archives: October 2020

On the greatness of wearing black

Earlier in the week, I wrote about the importance of wearing red. While red is great, there’s much to be said for wearing black, and Grace Dent says it so well, here. As for me, I’ve argued that if a man has to have only one suit, it should be a black one. Gray and navy are great colours for suits, but black is best. After all, if you wear a white dress shirt, solid black tie and suit, you will look cool .

You could do worse than look as cool as this:

It’s the weekend: here’s something good to read and something good to do


Congrats! It’s the weekend! You made it. Perhaps you want to relax. If so, here’s a list of books you might be interested in reading: 2020 books: Feel-good reads with guaranteed happy endings – The Washington Post

Hey, it’s the pandemic: you could use some more upbeat reading material.

If you are not the relaxing type, why not check in on that friend you haven’t heard from lately and drop off some soup. Need convincing that it’s a good idea? Read this: Soup for a Friend | A Cup of Jo

Obviously homemade soup is great. But if you live in Calgary, consider getting some soup from my friend, Carmie. She’s a great cook, and you can order soup from her company, SpoonFed. Get some bread or crackers, too.

The weather is getting cooler and the days shorter. Good soup can help you and your friends.

(Top image from the Cup of Jo blog post. Bottom image from the SpoonFed site.)

Finally some good news for 2020: the McRib is coming back!

Yaaaas. At least in the US, the McRib sandwich from McDonald’s is coming back in December, according to this. I hope and pray it comes to Canada, too. I love that sandwich: saucy, porky, with pickles and raw onions and that bun. Perfection.

Almost a decade ago I came across an intriguing theory as to why McDonald’s sells the McRib only at certain times. I wrote about it, here.

Friday night cocktail: the shaken martini (with guest appearances from Bill Murray and Google Trends)

You might think, how much can be said about a martini, shaken or not? Well quite a bit if you are David Lebovitz. I recommend you check him out and then get out your cocktail shaker.

Need more reasons to drink one? Well, you can be cool, like Bill Murray, here  drinking one in his new film, On the Rocks. 

Based on Google Trends, people must drink martinis mainly at Christmas. So save this post until then. Or be a trend setter and start having one now.

Toronto’s Annex grows up

The Annex in Toronto is growing up, literally. First there are the new condos going in on the corner of Bloor and Bathurst. Now the other end of it, at Spadina and Bloor, is getting the same treatment.

A mid-September application submitted to the City of Toronto seeks Zoning By-law Amendments to permit a 35-storey mixed-use condominium tower at 334 Bloor Street West, above Spadina subway station in The Annex.

For more on this, see:

35-Storey Condo Tower Proposed at Bloor and Spadina’s Northwest Corner | UrbanToronto

I think these are good developments. The character of the area remains, but more people can live there and enjoy it. Perhaps some day I will get to as well.

Two good pieces addressing racial inequality in tech


Here are two good pieces addressing racial inequality in tech

  1. If Toronto wants to be a global tech hub, it needs to nurture Black talent | TVO.org
  2. Racial Justice Open Source Projects – Call for Code for Racial Justice – IBM Developer

In my humble and limited opinion, tech has many gaps when it comes to who works in the industry, especially when it comes to women and when it comes to black and indigenous people. Any efforts to address these gaps are a good thing.

(Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash)

Hey man. Wear more red

Men don’t wear enough red, in my humble opinion. That’s too bad, because red is a great color to wear. Especially so in the cooler months, when men’s clothes tend to go towards darker and neutral colors.

If you are interested but unsure how to proceed, then check out this Guardian article. It has the tips you need. (The above picture is from there. The red shoe laces are really great. Consider getting a red watch band or a red scarf too.)

Meanwhile, here are my rules for wearing Red, written in 2008. They never go out of style:

  1. Bernie’s Rule of Wearing Red | Smart People I Know
  2. Bernie’s Rule of Wearing Red Revisited | Smart People I Know

Why you really are procrastinating

It’s not likely laziness. As LizAndMollie illustrates above, it’s likely due to

  • feeling inadequate
  • fear
  • not knowing where to start
  • being stretched too thin
  • perfectionism (or for me, not wanting to mess up)

So give yourself a bit of a break when you feel you aren’t getting things done.

P.S. Follow LizAndMollie for more great illustrations to help you get through this pandemic and more.

Three sets of rules to help guide you

  1. Marcus Aurelius: 3 Rules For Life – Darius Foroux: a good set of rules to govern your life. Stoics and stoic wannabes, take note.
  2. Wells’s Rules, annotated – Macleans.ca: a good set of rules on governance. These are aimed at Canadian politics, but really can apply anywhere.
  3. A very simple rule – Austin Kleon: finally one simple rule which is where the top image comes from

The first thing on your todo list this week? Deciding what you are looking forward to

You are putting your todo list together for the day, the week, who knows…but it likely has a quite a few things for you to get through. Now make another list of things you are looking forward to. It could be taking a coffee break. It could be going for a walk and admiring the leaves. Or catching up with a loved one. Perhaps doing something creative, like knitting or painting or making a nice meal. Whatever these things are, make sure you list them and strive for them. Because life is harder if you don’t have things to look forward to.

I thought of this often recently. I would look at my todo list and feel unproductive. Then I started approaching it from the viewpoint of what I will look forward to once I start and finish the tasks. I’d think: what positive things can I look forward to as a result of doing this? The more I thought this way, the more I found it easier to get things done.

Try it: you might find you get more done too, the more you look forward to things.

For more on this topic, see this: Something to look forward to – Austin Kleon

P.S. When the thing you are looking forward to happens, make sure you really take the time to appreciate it. For example, there was a messy part of my house I recently cleaned. I was really looking forward to it looking good again. Now it does, I take the time every day to appreciate it. I now find anticipating fixing up more of the house so I can enjoy that same feeling of satisfaction. You will too!

(Photo by Alexis Fauvet on Unsplash)

Dreading the idea of the pandemic in colder months? Some thoughts.


If so, then you need to start thinking of what you need to do to get mental and physically equipped for it.

Mentally, this article might help you get ready: Human hibernation: the restoring effects of hiding away in winter | Life and style | The Guardian.

Physically, it might be good to stock up on food. Here’s two articles that can help with that:

Hey, you might want to take up bread baking (again) during the winter months. Why not grab a few big bags of flour? If not bread, here’s some ideas on having a winter cooking goal.

Winter, like the pandemic, will be over soon enough. Try and make the most of it.

If you need more advice, I recommend this piece by Kottke.

If you want your home to help with the winter blues, read this. One good idea: get flowers that bloom in winter.

Alternative materials for buildings homes (concrete) and furniture (drywall)

I thought both of these pieces were interesting. First this one, on the home of artist Sue Webster (shown below)

and then this piece on drywall furniture: Drywall? Dry Furniture Takes On the Issue of Affordable Furniture (shown below)

Not sure I’ll ever warm up to furniture made of drywall or homes with that much concrete, but it’s worthwhile considering them and what it would be like.

Some of it reminds me of the houses and furniture that Frank Gehry used to build.  Perhaps we will all live in such houses in the future.

 

On how care leads to love and how it relates to having more by having less

I have been thinking of this post by Austin Kleon, how caring for something leads us to love it, which leads us to care for it more. I think this is true. It’s a virtuous circle.

I have found this myself during the pandemic, when I purchased house plants with the expectation that they wouldn’t live long. I was wrong: because I was around them more, it was easier to care for them, and because I cared for them, they have thrived, and I loved them more and have cared for them more. Now I have more plants than I ever did before.

It’s tempting to try to stretch this virtuous circle, and you can, to a point. The limiting factor is your ability to pay attention and the needs of the things you are caring for. If you have something or someone that requires much attention and care, you can’t have multiples of those things without exhausting yourself. You need to strike a balance.

To strike that balance, you need the right level of things to care for. Chances are, you have too many things that requires your care. I think you and I need to find the right level and pare down the rest.  Give those things to people who need things to care for. By doing so, you end up caring for and loving yourself. You are the root of all this love and care you are providing. Take care of the root, and the love and care you have for other things and beings can branch out and spread.

P.S. If you are having a hard time paring down, take the advice of either Marie Kondo (keep only things that spark joy) or William Morris (see below)

(Imagine via mylightbag.wordpress.com)

Vestiges of New York: the taxi light

All cities have vestiges, things that once made sense but over time became obsolete, yet still remain. In my former house I had a small door and nook near the main door where milkmen would once leave milk. Across Toronto you can still see coal doors at basement level, where coal delivery people would shovel in the coal for the coal furnaces.

Elsewhere, here is a great story about taxi signs across New York City that were once used to hail a cab if you needed one. In the days of Uber and Lyft apps, these seem quaint. Just like those apps will seem years from now. Great story, though.

I love the blog that story comes from. It’s full of odd bits of New York, written with love. Well worth diving into.

If you want to get started doing coding and you don’t know anything about coding, then do this


If you want to get started doing coding and you don’t know anything about coding, then do this tutorial: How To Build a Website with HTML | DigitalOcean

I say this for a few reasons:

  • It’s a thorough step by step guide to building a website. You will learn quite a bit about HTML by the time you are done, but you shouldn’t feel overwhelmed or that you are missing things.
  • This should be approachable by anyone from age 10 to 110. (Maybe 5 to 115…I don’t know. You get the idea.)
  • You will also learn about developer tools, in this case, Visual Studio Code. A text editor is fine too, but learning new tools and how to effectively use them is better.
  • If you go here, you will learn how to host it using Digital Ocean and Github. So not only will you build a website, but you can show it off to your family and friends, too 🙂
  • Lots of good practices in here including in this tutorial. Always a plus.
  • Once you know how to build a website, you can use this as a basis to go on to learn more about HTML, CSS, Javascript and more. Building a web site is a good set of foundational skills if you want to get into coding.

Give it a try. Even if you already know a bit of HTML: you might find your skills much increased by the time you are done.

(Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash)

Virtual Travelling: Sinner hotel, in Paris

I won’t be going anywhere any time soon, but if I could, I might go and stay at this boutique hotel in Paris, just to stay in that bed.

The hotel, in the Marais district of Paris, is a stunner. You can find out more about it, here, or by visiting their website, here.

Once the pandemic is over, I think there will be an orgy of travel. And what better place to stay than a place called Sinner? 🙂

P.S. This suite is nice, too.

What do you get when you combine mindfulness with hygge?


You might get something like niksen. At least that’s what I thought as I read this article: I tried niksen, the Dutch are of doing nothing. We all need more of it. – The Washington Post.

Key quote from the article:

So when I heard about this Dutch concept of doing nothing, or “niksen,” I was willing to give it a shot. Apparently it’s about as straightforward as it sounds: You can actually actively engage in doing nothing — like looking out a window for a few minutes — and not feel guilty as if it’s a waste of time. Lots of studies have shown that daydreaming and letting your mind wander increases creativity.

It might be just the thing to help us get through the pandemic. For more on it, click this Google search.

(Photo by Sid Leigh on Unsplash)

Just how short a workout can you do and gain benefits? Would you believe 4 seconds?


You might find that ridiculous, but if you read this, you might change your mind.

I have been doing what is known as “greasing the groove” while working at home during the pandemic. I have noticed getting stronger. As well, I stretch at least once a day, and I have found I have become more flexible too.

You will not get in the same shape as someone who works out 30-60 minutes every day. Get yourself some weights or even some heavy objects. Or go over to a site like darebee and get a 1 minute workout. After doing it for a few weeks, you will achieve more than you imagined.

Give it a shot.

(Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)

One way to backup your files is to the cloud


I haven’t tried this yet, but I am seriously considering it. I already use AWS for other things, so it might be time to see if I can archive old files that I rarely use but don’t want to delete. I don’t feel like getting more hardware, and I don’t have much confidence in Apple’s iCloud. So this might be the solution: ​How to Use Amazon Glacier as a Dirt Cheap Backup Solution.

And if I go that route, I will need tools. This article should give me the information  I need for that: The Best Tools for Uploading Files to Amazon Glacier – Digital Inspiration.

(Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash)

On pantry cooking with Melissa Clark

One of the better things that came out of the pandemic is this series of recipes published in the New York Times and written by Melissa Clark: From the Pantry – The New York Times.

I loved how each recipe is really a cooking lesson more than a step 1-2-3 recipe. By the time you made a dish, you can already imagine making it a dozen different ways with the suggestions she provides. That’s especially good for people who are not comfortable changing recipes around. If you are one of those people, you’ll be much more confident improvising with ingredients after you have made a few of these meals.

I also liked that the recipes really cover a range of meals, from breakfast to dinner, from salad and soup to dessert. Now that there is quite a few recipes listed here, you can pick and choose what suits you.

Finally, I like that the Times didn’t firewall off this content. Anyone can see the recipes: you don’t need a subscription to the Cooking section of the paper/website.

I highly recommend these recipes. Go use some and become a better cook.

(Photo by Nadia Pimenova on Unsplash)

It’s the weekend. You need to stop wasting it. Here’s how.

It’s the weekend and chances are you are using it up doing 1-5 of the things mentioned in this article. Don’t. (Or at least do one less). I especially liked the tip on laundry. But read the article and see what I mean. Carve out your weekend for more Me time.

(Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)

On capsule wardrobes, or minimalism in the closet

If you are transitioning your clothes from summer to winter, you might be asking yourself: why do I have all these clothes? Do I need so many pieces? What can I do to pare down?

One option is to aim for a capsule wardrobe.  Here’s a piece on how to create one.For more on this, see this.

As for me, I am a failed minimalist, and I would likely fail at this too. But I feel the need to do it.

P.S. These guides are directed at women’s wear, but people who wear traditional men’s clothing can easily adapt this.

Everything you want to know about COBOL, but were afraid to ask

Here’s 13 links to get you started learning more about COBOL. It’s got some old school stuff and some cool cloud stuff, too.

  1. Here’s a good piece that should convince you to get into COBOL: I Took a COBOL Course and I Liked It
  2. As is this: Don’t hate COBOL until you’ve tried it | Opensource.com
  3. Convinced? Try this: Build your first COBOL application – IBM Developer
  4. Or if you are an AWS fan: toricls/cobolambda: Serverless COBOL on AWS Lambda.
  5. More COBOL in the cloud: Learn how to run COBOL in a cloud native way – IBM Developer
  6. This site has tutorials….COBOL Tutorial – Tutorialspoint
  7. …and syntax information: COBOL – Basic Syntax – Tutorialspoint
  8. Here’s some useful source code: IBM/kubernetes-cobol: A Code Pattern to teach how to run a COBOL program on Kubernetes
  9. Here’s some perspective: On the past, present, and future of COBOL – Increment: Programming Languages
  10. More source: 3 open source projects keeping COBOL alive and well | Opensource.com
  11. More courses: COBOL Programming Course
  12. More on COBOL: Open Mainframe Project Helps Fill the Need for COBOL Resources – Open Mainframe Project
  13. Now you’re skilled, get yourself a mainframe! Get hands-on COBOL development experience with IBM Z software trials – IBM Developer

Send me a link to your Github repo once you are done and I’ll add it here!

P.S. Here some bonus links:

If the pandemic has you down, watch: How To Be At Home

This lovely short film, How To Be At Home, by Andrea Dorfman, and provided by the National Film Board of Canada, reunites filmmaker Andrea Dorfman with poet Tanya Davis to provide timely guidance on how to get through the pandemic, and other such isolation. Highly recommended.

 

 

On Philip Guston

I had some other things to say about Philip Guston until this  article came out in the Times, saying:

Last week, a handful of museums decided to postpone a retrospective of the painter Philip Guston over concerns that Ku Klux Klan imagery in his work, intended to criticize racism, anti-Semitism and bigotry, would upset viewers or that the works would be “misinterpreted.”

I was disappointed, to say the least. Fortunately I am not alone. The article goes on to state:

On Wednesday, a letter drafted by the art critic Barry Schwabsky addressed to those museums — the National Gallery of Art in Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Tate Modern, London — and signed by nearly 100 artists, writers and curators, was published by the Brooklyn Rail, protesting the postponement. To date, more than 2,000 names have been added — young and old, Black, Asian, Persian, Arab, L.G.B.T.Q.

So I am collecting a list of sites and pages on Guston, because he is an artist people should get to know more about. Especially if they were to simply mindedly misinterpret his work and think he has anything but abhorrence for the KKK. 

I am also doing this because I am a fan of his courage as much as I am of his work.  He made a big break from abstract expressionism late in his career and suffered for it. I don’t know many artists who have done such a thing. I think he needs to be more well known.

I also find it surprising to think people were surprised by this big break with AbEx. The elements he reintroduced were there from the beginning. And the cartoonish nature of his work is parallel to the drawings he was doing of Nixon and others. He needed to break from AbEx and went with the tools he had.

If you want to learn more about Guston, here is some links I have found that are useful:

Another watch: the smart watch from Timex

Besides the classic digital watch I wrote about earlier today, Timex also makes some smart watches that are very affordable for a smart watch.

For example, this one, the iConnect Premium watch:

This watch does a lot of the fitness work that other smart watches do and for a very good price.

Timex has many watches like this, and while this one is rated well, others are not. So buyer beware. But if you were thinking of getting a watch to help you with fitness, this could be the one.

A digital watch that is also a classic

Apple Watches are cool. I love them. So do many others.

But if want to have have a cool digital watch that is also a classic, you want this, I think:

It comes in silver and gold. You can order it, here.

On turning an old Windows laptop into a Chromebook for my son’s virtual school

For my son’s virtual classroom, most of his work is being done using Google’s cloud services. I’ve decided to take an old T420 laptop that was in the basement and turn it into a Chromebook for him to use. So far it’s going ok.

If you are interested in doing something similar, I found this article on PC World very detailed and good for all skill levels. (I’ve read a half dozen pieces and the ones I reviewed all pretty much said the same things.) All you will need is an old PC (or maybe an old Mac), a 16 GB USB stick, and some patience. 🙂

I haven’t wiped the Windows OS yet: I booted up the 420 and told it to load the OS from the USB stick. (This part will differ from machine to machine.) With the 420 it’s easy: just hold down the blue button on top of the keyboard and let it go into setup mode and then follow the prompts.

I can’t say that the user experience is fast. It’s….not terrible. Still slow. But once things come up, it should be good.

More from me as new results come in.

Oct 19: so far so good with the Chromebooks. I ended up wiping the old OS and installing the ChromeOS on the disk drive. One odd thing: there is no notification that the installation is complete. So I recommend you start it, leave it for 30 minutes or so, then reboot the laptop. It should come up with the new OS.

One nice thing about it is that my son has Chrome settings (e.g. bookmarks) specific to his Gmail account. So when he logs into the Chromebook, I can set up the bookmarks specifically for his e-learning (e.g., I have links to all his courses on the bookmark).

The other thing I like about converting old laptops into Chromebooks is that the screen and keyboard is often better than most Chromebooks. For example, I turned a T450 into a Chromebook and I love typing on it.

Finally, old laptops are relatively cheap. You can get T420 for under $300, and T450s for around $350, which is cheaper than many (though not all Chromebooks). Better still, I bet many people have an old PC lying around doing nothing. Make it into a Chromebook and give it to someone who could use it.

Dec 28: It looks like Google bought the company that made the software I used. I am not sure what this means, but one thing it could means is that Google shuts it down. If you were thinking of doing this, best do it sooner than later.

 

 

Canada Post wants you to send more mail. You should take them up on it by going to these sites.

First off, here’s is some tips on how you can get started letter writing (and if you celebrate Christmas, now is a good time to start thinking about it): Write here. Write now. | Canada Post

Second, if you need more info, including how to get personalized stamps: Picture Postage

Get your pen out and get going. Thank you! 🙂

October pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

Welcome to Autumn: a season so nice they named it twice (Autumn/Fall). Thanks again for reading one of my kinda/sorta/not really newsletters containing things on my mind since the last one in September. Let’s jump in:

The Pandemic – bad: well the pandemic seems to be going pear shaped all over the world. Places that have kept their numbers down have suddenly dropped the ball and have seen their numbers increase. There are a few exceptions, like New Zealand and the Atlantic provinces in Canada. But they are few and far between and likely in isolated places, I believe. As for Canada overall, I think this is a very good analysis of where we currently are with the pandemic: Opinion: With winter coming and the virus spreading, a feeling of dread is setting in – The Globe and Mail. I am afraid it will get worse.

The Pandemic – good: Not everything is gloom and doom, though. Some fun and joyous things have happened. For instance, the night of a thousand wines. One of the fun things that happened in the pandemic is the night Susan Orlean got drunk and then took to twitter. The results were
unintentionally hilarious. You can read about them, here. (She feels no shame, so I do not feel bad sharing this. Hey, it happens.)

One of the nicest things to happen recently is the viral video of the guy skateboarding while drinking cranberry juice and listening to Fleetwood Mac. Here’s more on that: Millions of Views Later, Nathan Apodaca Keeps the Vibe Going – The New York Times

Another one of the more positive things to come out of the pandemic: Gay couples take over the hashtag #ProudBoys to drown out the hate group – The Washington Post.

Dealing with discomfort: I wrote this three years ago, on how to think about living with discomfort. I think it holds up and is worth reading if you are suffering.

New Newsletters: Last time I hadn’t thought of any newsletters worth mentioning. Not this time. First up is this one from Laura Calder. It’s monthly and is packed with lots of good things to read. Highly recommended. For people who like a thoughtful political newsletter, there is this one, from Siri Agrell: Loss Leader.

The U.S.: well, not long now before the U.S. election.  Thank god. Here’s hoping for a change in the leadership. Both America and the world needs it. But remember, whatever bad things you think about Trump, he is STILL not the worst president ever. This guy is.

Restaurants: up until now restaurants have been getting by with patio service and by coming up with new ways to serve their customers. To see what I mean, here’s an innovative way to provide food by a place in Toronto. Elsewhere, here’s a good story of how restaurants are changing to meet the demands put on them from the pandemic: Tom Sietsema: To weather the pandemic, restaurants reinvent themselves, again and again – The Washington Post. I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture. It’s been a brutal time for restaurants.

Personal News:  Here’s the recent obituary for my uncle: Obituary of Pat Hall, Glace Bay. RIP, Pat. You were a good man.

It is an odd feeling to see your life reflected in a web page, but this one does.

My mom is referenced in that obit. When she died, I thought about this artwork often.

 You can find more about it here.

IBM: Big shake up coming for my employer: IBM, Seeing Its Future in the Cloud, Breaks Off I.T. Unit – The New York Times. I don’t have any great insights into this. It seems like a wise move. Then again, it seemed that way when John Akers did it. Time will tell.

Meanwhile I celebrated by 37th year at IBM this October 3rd. For someone who was surprised to not have to go on the “pogey” after a year, it’s been a long and rewarding trip. I wrote a long piece about it 10 years ago. (One thing I like about my blog is going back in time.)

Google Assistant: I have become a fan of Google Assistants over the last while. I now have three devices for this: a Google mini, my Sonos speaker, and this Lenovo Smart Clock (which I wrote about). I have found it has made my life better. I use it to play music, get the time, get the weather. The one in the kitchen is especially great because I can do so much just by talking to the mini. I highly recommend them.

Cooking: I wrote this a while ago about how to make French fries. If you love french fries, you should read it. It will change your life (or at least have you making fries more :)). And it is also the season for sheet pan cooking. Here’s some good advice I found on that, here.

Exercise tips: if you are like me, you need to exercise. Here’s some tips!

Pandemic – funny: this is almost funny, if you like dark humour. Here are some pandemic predictions I found recently from March, 2020. Needless to say, much of this is wrong: Coronavirus going to hit its peak and fall sooner than you think.

Not that I am one to gloat. Here is me from October 2015 predicting the next American president!

Finally, it is thanksgiving here in Canada. I am thankful and grateful for many things, despite this trying time. I hope you are too.

(Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash)

If you have gotten to here, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time to read this.

What’s this? Just some beautiful cabins to imagine escaping too

Like many of us, the people at Dwell have been thinking of escaping as a form of dealing with the pandemic. They have gone from fantasing about it to compiling this amazing list of cabins for us to drool over. The above is just one of thirty five amazing places, all of which you can see, here: 35 Magical Tiny Cabins to Pin to Your Mood Board Immediately – Dwell

On Agnes Martin

Regardless of how much you know about the painter Agnes Martin, I recommend this piece on her: 35 Odd Jobs Celebrated Painter Agnes Martin Held Before She Became an Artist – Brain Pickings.

The title is odd, but don’t let it put you off. Martin is a fascinating person, and a great artist. I find her work challenges me like no other.  But it rewards too. I hope you will learn more about her and feel the same.

P.S. Since I wrote this, I found some other good links on Agnes Martin. Here’s a list:

How complicated is the brain?

The brain is a complex organ. Even in something as small as a fruit fly (whose brains are mapped in the image above). Yet…

Scientists from Google and the Janelia Research Campus in Virginia have published the largest high-resolution map of brain connectivity in any animal, sharing a 3D model that traces 20 million synapses connecting some 25,000 neurons in the brain of a fruit fly.

The model is a milestone in the field of connectomics, which uses detailed imaging techniques to map the physical pathways of the brain. This map, known as a “connectome,” covers roughly one-third of the fruit fly’s brain. To date, only a single organism, the roundworm C. elegans, has had its brain completely mapped in this way.

It’s a fascinating story of both biology and computer science. (It takes a lot of computing power to do this). For more details, see: Google publishes largest ever high-resolution map of brain connectivity – The Verge

What to get the book lover in your life? The Little Black Classics Box Set from Penguin

As a book lover myself, I have coveted the collection of books above from Penguin. As they say:

This spectacular box set of the 80 books in the Little Black Classics series showcases the many wonderful and varied writers in Penguin Black Classics. From India to Greece, Denmark to Iran, the United States to Britain, this assortment of books will transport readers back in time to the furthest corners of the globe. With a choice of fiction, poetry, essays and maxims, by the likes of Chekhov, Balzac, Ovid, Austen, Sappho and Dante, it won’t be difficult to find a book to suit your mood.

Sounds great! For more information, including how to order it, go here.

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Hobbies, or how to start drawing even if the idea terrifies you


Yesterday I encouraged you to take up a hobby. If you haven’t decided on one yet, I recommend drawing. You may be terrified or at least put off by the idea of taking up drawing. It’s ok. Many people feel that way. To help you, here’s some good links to get you thinking at least of taking up drawing.

Lots of good advice there in those links. As for books, I highly recommend the book above. It is superb. It can be hard to find, but these folks seem to have it.

This is a test post of a new plugin

This is a test post of a new plugin, blish.

The pandemic ain’t going away soon. Maybe you need a hobby. This can help.

I am sorry to (not) break this to you (since you know it already) but the pandemic is not going away soon. That’s bad. What’s good is it may be the right time to start a hobby. Here’s two links that can help:

  1. CrossFit, ceramics: 10 people on how much they spend on their hobbies – Vox
  2. How to Find a Hobby – Smarter Living Guides – The New York Times

The New York Times piece can help you find a hobby. And the Vox piece can give you an idea of what it might cost.

A hobby is a good thing to have and no one argues this better than Austin Kleon. To see what I mean, check out his writings on hobbies.

(Photo by Margarida Afonso on Unsplash)

On that London coffee shop charging $64 for its premium coffee

Kudos to Queen’s of Mayfair for getting CNN to write up the $64 “cup” of coffee they are serving.

You might think it is the most posh and ridiculously expensive place in the world to visit. Well it is posh, but as this blog post shows, it’s also charming and affordable.

I won’t be travelling soon, but when I do, I’d like to go there. But not for the $64 coffee. Anything else on their menu, though.

(Image is a link to the blog post).

It’s my IBM Anniversary

Every October 3rd I mark my anniversary starting working at IBM. Back then, I took a 1 hour commute via the “Red Rocket” to 245 Consumers Road in Willowdale (now Toronto) to start work in the tape library (which looked a lot like the photo above).

What else was happening with IBM back then? Only the advent of the IBM PC. Here’s a story on it here.

If you have big projects you have been struggling with…

If you have big projects that you have been struggling with, I recommend these two pieces:

Sometime you need to gain a big of perspective in the daunting face of what seems is an overwhelming effort. Those pieces can help you.

(Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash)