As Snopes.com says:
An uplifting social media rumor about the purportedly heroic actions of a security guard named Zouheir during the Paris attacks was largely inaccurate.
For the details, see Zouheir: The MUSLIM Who Saved Thousands of Lives? : snopes.com.
More and more, whenever I see something viral, I check Snopes.com.
If you hang around with or are involved in some way with IT people, you will come across individuals extolling the virtues of being a “Maker”. Making things (typically software or IT systems) is seen as a virtue, in some case one of the highest virtues, and the implication is that makers are virtuous people.
A well written critique of that is here: Why I Am Not a Maker – The Atlantic. If you consider yourself a maker or aspire to be considered one, you should read it. A key point is this:
When tech culture only celebrates creation, it risks ignoring those who teach, criticize, and take care of others.
This is true: tech culture sometimes places little or no value on other activities, such as the ones that the article mentions.
My main criticism of the article is that it has a blind spot for the middle ground. I know plenty of creative people whom I consider makers that also take care of others, teach, manage, administer…you name it. Often time the things they make are superior to those of people who devote themselves to being makers.
Being a maker is a virtuous thing, for the most part. But so is teaching, providing care, managing, cleaning, coaching and many other positive activities. Find the thing you are good at and contribute positively in your own way. If you can make some things along the way, all the better.
There’s two ways to tell who will be the next president of the United States.
In this case, at this moment, they are both in agreement: Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. Now, the election is so very far away, anything can happen, a week is a long time in politics, blah blah blah, but right now it is hers to lose.
If you ask me, ignore the pundits and follow the betters: the latter are rarely wrong. Read the pundits if you want to know why she is winning.
I’ve seen the squiggly versus straight line path to success in many places. It’s a great concept, and a handy reminder to keep close when things seem in a muddle and you wonder if you will ever progress. It’s also a good reminder to keep a log of your progress. A log will remind you that you are succeed, despite those bewildering times when things seem like you are getting nowhere fast.
For anyone starting out on the road to being an independent adult, the book Adulting (from Hachette) is a good guide to have. It is packed with tips – 468 to be exact – on pretty much any experience you are going to go through in your early 20s. If this is you or someone you love, this book will have an obvious appeal.
It’s not just for young people though. I think all adults could benefit from parts of the book, especially if you are having to start out on some adult experience that is either new to you or something you haven’t done for some time. It’s good advice, and good advice never goes out of date.
Even if you don’t need good advice, read it just for the humour. It’s a very funny book. (Note, there is a fair amount of profanity and references to sex, but if that doesn’t bother you, then you’ll be fine.)
Finally, if you want to have a better understanding of what life is like for that young person you know, this book can help you achieve that.
By the way, if you want a preview of it, you can check out the Adulting blog. Also very good.
I was killing time in a bookstore last night and I thought it looked good. I ended up reading it from cover to cover.
Do you ever get stuck in this loop?
If so, then the Atlantic has an article for you. According to this article, The Procrastination Doom Loop—and How to Break It – The Atlantic,
Delaying hard work is all about your mood.
And it goes on to talk about how to defeat this.
Seven additional suggestions I have on defeating this doom loop:
It depends on a number of factors, but if you want to decide solely on popularity, then you need to see this: The Most Popular Programming Languages of 2015 | ProgrammableWeb.
At the top you have some consistency, with Java at the top, and C, C++ and C# in the top five. Python, a language that I am becoming fond of and using to replace Perl, is up there at #4.
Following that are what you’d expect: PHP, Ruby, and Javascript, as well as some data oriented languages.
What is interesting, and not shown, are new and up and coming languages, such as Swift. I expect that to inch into the top 10 in the next few years.
If you want to focus on learning a programming language, and you have no other criteria, pick something from this list.
If you are trying to use iTunes on Windows and you can’t, you may have to disable your firewall. Seriously! I tried a number of things, and I finally came across this, Resolve issues between iTunes and third-party security software – Apple Support, as well as some other sites, and once I did that, I was able to get it to work.
If you are unhappy with that, your next best option is to methodically follow this and poke enough holes in your firewall to work. That’s the safer route, by far.
Over at Vox is your typical article critiquing multitasking: Multitasking is inefficient. Here are 6 tips for a more productive workday. – Vox.
If you do a search on the word multitasking, you will find similar articles. Like the Vox piece, they are all reasonable, and they all offer good advice.
What they all miss is why we multitask. I think there are three key reasons why we do, and they go hand in hand:
To give you an example of what I mean, consider your day. You likely have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Now let’s look at the tool you have at hand in an office. First, you have a computer and you use software like email and your browser. With email, you can start a number of tasks, but you cannot complete them. With your browser, you ask for information, then you wait for a response. If you are using a mobile device, a similar lag in request and response occurs. Now, you could just sit there and wait for a response to complete your task, but remember, you have too much to do and not enough time. As a result, you start other tasks. You are ….multitasking. You are maximizing your idle time while you wait for tasks to complete. Now you could just sit there, look out the window or go for a walk, but that would be ignoring the third point, which is that you will be penalized for not appearing busy.
If you are fortunate, you can focus on one task, complete it, and then move on to the next one. If you are like most of us, you have to multitask for the reasons above.
If you are serious about your music and you already have alot of digital music, you must read this before getting started with Apple Music: Apple Music is a nightmare and I’m done with it. If you don’t read it and proceed, you may find your music collection in shambles.
Maybe it will be better in a year from now. Based on iTunes, though, I seriously doubt it.
One way to enjoy a staycation is to visit neighborhoods you normally don’t go to and treat them like you would any neighborhood in a city you are visiting. If you are from Toronto and think this is a good idea, then BlogTO has a number of pages devoted to what you can do in many of this city’s neighborhoods . Here’s a list of some of them I put together:
This list is also great if you are a tourist and want to see what the various neighborhoods of Toronto offer. Toronto has more great neighborhoods not on this list, ones you have likely heard of, like West / Queen West, the Beach/Beaches, and Harbourfront. Add some of these neighborhoods listed above to round out your trip to this city.
I find it easy to forget to how to barbeque, since months go by without doing any of it. I am trying to get back into it and get better. If you are in the same position, Bon Appétit has some good advice for both of us, including
Here’s two views on Greece: one good, one glib.
I’m a fan of Michael Lewis, but this piece of his, Greece Saunters Across the Autobahn – Bloomberg View, is glib at best. It feels like he had to bang out a few hundred words on Greece or he had this Berkeley story he’s been itching to use and finally found a place.
It’s still worth reading, because he is a good writer and his thinking is likely what many people are reading. But don’t read it thinking you will get a better understanding of why Greece is in the state it is in.
After skimming that, read this: Europe’s Attack on Greek Democracy by Joseph E. Stiglitz – Project Syndicate.
It sums up what I’ve been reading by people who are more aware of what is happening in Greece. You will come away shaking your head, as you should. For what is happening makes no sense from an economic viewpoint. But then, much of Europe has been making poor choices with their economies since the Great Recession started., mainly for ideological reasons.
Are you thinking of getting fit this summer? Or do you like to read about people getting fit while you drink your favorite cocktail and sit under the shade? Either way, here’s a bunch of interesting links you’ll want to read
Runner’s World | What Will It Take to Run A 2-Hour Marathon: fascinating. Right now men are closing in on this number, but this article shows how hard it will be to achieve that time. Even people who don’t run marathons will find this worth a look.
Weight loss and habit forming — Let’s not pretend we have it all figured out — Medium. For those of you struggling with their weight, this will be of some comfort.
Your Body is All You Need: The World’s Oldest Training Method (and a 1% Workout) | Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do you think you need fancy equipment to get fit? Think again and listen to Arnold.
Take off that Fitbit. Exercise alone won’t make you lose weight. – The Washington Post. Not just for fitbit users, but anyone trying to lose weight. You need to cut back on eating to make gains (though with enough exercise over time, you can lose that way too).
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Eats About 821 Pounds Of Cod Per Year | FiveThirtyEight. On the other hand, here is an extreme example of what massive amounts of exercise can do to your diet. The Rock eats alot. ALOT. See for yourself.
The Rise of the Spornosexual. Finally, this post is a good one on anyone who wants to go from blah to fit. (The image above is from this piece.) It’s a spartan life to get that way, but it is within the range of the possible for anyone dedicated. Like you, perhaps? (And yes, they use a bunch of tricks to make the After photo look fitter than the Before photo, but still, the dude is fitter.)
Mashable seems to have taken Newt on staff to do tech reviews and here he is the first piece of his I’ve come across: Newt Gingrich reviews the Apple Watch.
I was surprised, but I found his review well suited for non-technical people who are wondering if such and such technology is worth it for them. If you fall into that category, you should get some benefit out of what he writes.
If you are highly motivated at work, that is excellent. If you are not, and need some food for thought that may help fuel you to be more motivated, I recommend this: On the Origins of Motivation at Work from The Book of Life.
Are here: 23 Brilliant Life Lessons From Anthony Bourdain – Airows.
Some are great, some are funny, and some seem particular to Bourdain only. Still, well worth a look.
This Huffington Post article may be just the thing:
Start A Garden, No Matter How Little Space You Have. Here’s How.
I found it because I was thinking along the same lines. After you read it, you will see you have alot more options than you think.
Easy: check out BlogTO’s great list of The Best Used Bookstores in Toronto. Two of my favorites bookstores are BMV books and Ten Editions, both close to each other. I highly recommend them. Even if you know of some of them, chances are you haven’t been to them all.
Toronto has alot of great stores for new books, but if you are looking for vintage or obscure books, this list is what you need.
(Photo via a link to BlogTO)
Here’s the curve (X is age, Y is a measure of one’s happiness)
As you can see, it is lowest for people in their 40s, then starts to improve past that point. To understand more about that and why you need to hang in there if you are in your 40s, read this: The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis in The Atlantic.
Two additional comments:
1) If you are in your 30s, you can expect this to happen, so take stock and think about ways to prepare for it.
2) Obviously this is a large generalization. Still, there is much merit in it, I believe.
You may want to become a vegetarian or vegan but you may also be reluctant to give up eating things like bacon or fish. If you are experiencing this dilemma, then this question might appeal to you:
“The most effective question we can ask is not how can we increase the amount of vegetarians and vegans,” he says, “but rather, how can we reduce the amount of meat consumed?”
If this appeals to you, then I recommend this article: Love Bacon AND Animals? ‘Reducetarianism’ May Be For You. Still interested? Then I also recommend this book by Mark Bittman: VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good.
You are stressed. You decide: I need to manage it. That decision alone can help bring down your stress levels.
Your next step it to take action. If you have no idea how to do that, start here: Make stress management as routine as brushing your teeth viaThe Globe and Mail.
Teeth brushing won’t cure cavities and simple stress management techniques like these won’t cure significant problems in your life that are causing you to be stressed. But just like teeth brushing can prevent cavities, simple stress management can help alleviate some stress.
Unless you have a carefree life, these stress management techniques are worth reviewing.
If you think your Internet connection is too slow, or you just want to upgrade it, you owe it to yourself to measure how fast it is. There are a number of ways to measure it, but I like using this: Speedtest.net by Ookla – The Global Broadband Speed Test.
Record both your upload and download speed. Ideally, do it at different times of the day, and do it for both weekdays and weekends. Once you have that information, you can decide on what services would be an upgrade to this.
Also, while speed is important, the other thing to consider when you are upgrading your service is what your monthly bandwidth usage is. Your current ISP should be able to tell you that.
Can be found here: 100 Tips to Improve Your Life – 99U.
I challenge you to go through this list and not find anything here that you could apply to your own life. You will likely find at least five. If you find none, maybe your life is already perfect. 🙂
The 99U is a great source of guidance on any number of topics. I have even written some articles there.
Do you beat yourself up for starting projects but not finishing them? Do you not even try to start for fear you won’t finish? If so, I recommend this article: Why Quitting is Perfectly Okay. — So, this is life. — Medium. It’s one thing I hope you finish. Everything else is optional.
Of course, finishing them is also good. Either way, you have something to gain by starting those projects.
And hey, it’s Sunday evening at the start of May: a great time to plan your projects for the week or the month. Give it a go.
Head over here: Spoonflower: Shop, design custom fabric, wallpaper & gift wrap and you can see how you can take your own images and designs, have Spoonflower print it, and send it off to you. Very cool.
I admire the work that Elon Musk does, be it Tesla, Space X, or other endeavours he takes on. I also had an opinion that the success he achieves is as close to a Given as success can be. I held that option until I read this article: Elon Musk Had a Deal to Sell Tesla to Google in 2013 – Bloomberg Business. This article shows just how touch and go it was for Musk and Tesla in 2013. Among other thoughts, it reinforced in me the notion that success in challenging areas is difficult for everyone, whether it be Elon Musk or anyone.
If you are trying to accomplish something difficult, and if you think that others have it easier than you, I recommend you read this article. I also recommend it to anyone who needs to be reminded that success is never a given, but with the right effort and focus and dedication, even the most challenging type of work can be accomplished.
I think these rules are about the best thing I have seen on how to eat: Simple Rules for Healthy Eating – NYTimes.com.
To make it even simpler, I would boil them down to:
1) Eat less processed food, and more food you make yourself from raw ingredients
2) Eat a variety of ingredients in moderation
3) If you have to drink something, drink water
I recommend you read the NYTimes piece, though. Really good.
If you are going to learn to code and you are planning to stick with it, then you owe it to yourself to read this: Why Learning to Code is So Damn Hard.
It’s well written, and it has some great graphs, including this one:
I think any area of learning where you get good initial training would look similar to this. I recommend you find some mentors to help get your through the desert of despair.
P.S. Yes, I realized they borrowed heavily from Gartner’s Hype Curve. 🙂
Grass died today. To read most of the pieces on him, you’d have a hard time imagining he was a great writer. So read this instead: The Greatness of Günter Grass in The New Yorker. It’s by another great writer, Salman Rushdie. It makes you appreciate the greatness of Grass.
Is Eleven Madison Park the best restaurant in NYC? If you read this, Restaurant Review: Eleven Madison Park in Midtown South – NYTimes.com, you’d be inclined to think so. Regardless, it is excellent and worthy of considering a visit.
But what if you want to experience the place without having to go through the tasting menu? Worse, what if you don’t have a reservation. Well then, you need this: How to Eat at Eleven Madison Park With No Reservation and No Tasting Menu — Grub Street.
I can’t promise that will work, but it is worth considering if you want to casually experience some of the best Manhattan has to offer.
If you know someone is physically injured, you apply First Aid to either repair the injury or limit it until you can get further help.
Likewise, I think of this list as a form of mental health first aid: Eponis | Sinope – Everything Is Awful and I’m Not Okay: questions to ask before giving up. It’s not meant to replace professional help, if you need that, but it may be the thing you need to get you through a rough patch (speaking from personal experience).
And by here, I mean this site: Startup Stash – Curated resources and tools for startups. It is an amazing collection of tools you likely will need, for one thing. Plus, it has a superb user interface that not only groups the tools well, but gives you a sense of all the things you need to think about if you are going to go forward and create your own startup.
If you aren’t seriously thinking about startups, but would like to know about new tools to make you more productive at work, then I recommend you check out this site too.
Kudos to the creator of the site. Well worth a visit.
Over at HisAndHerWine.com they have two great infographics on how to pair wines with pizza. I picked the one above because it focuses on specific Italian wines, but the other infographic and alot more info can be found here: 16 Best Wines to Drink with Pizza.
The best wine to drink with pizza may be the one open nearest to you, but if you want to be precise and have a better pairing, check out that site.
The 10 questions are from this article: The only employee engagement questionnaire you’ll ever need and it is the kind of thing a manager would ask employees. But really, they are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself.
I like the first three:
- Why are you still here?
- What would make you leave?
- Where would you be if you weren’t here? (What company would you really like to work for?)
The other seven are good too.
Anyone working anywhere should ask themselves these questions regularly.
Then I recommend you read this: Dental Services – free dental care – Mobile Dental Clinic – City of Toronto Dental Clinics) and see if that person qualifies for free or lower cost dental services that the city of Toronto provides. They have a mobile service which could be a great thing for someone who has limited mobility.
The NYtimes has a good piece on new dietary guidelines and why they are changing from what you were used to: Behind New Dietary Guidelines, Better Science – NYTimes.com. You will likely be surprised by some or all of it.
Some people have very serious and specific dietary needs, and if that is the case, consulting your doctor is the best thing to do. For others, the best advice may be the most common sensical, which is to eat a wide variety of food in moderation.
The NYTimes.com dips into the latest slang with this: Language Quiz: Are You on Fleek? It’s fun to give it a try: I got 9 out of 12 and I have no doubt most people can do better. If you do worse, well by the end of it, you’ve learned a few new common slang terms.
If you want a better source for translating slang, you might want to head over to a site like this. Or wait long enough until The Oxford English Dictionary folks add it to the latest and greatest version of their book.
My kids spent many years going to summer camps in Toronto. If you have to or want to send your kids to summer camps, you might find these notes useful.
The first two things you need to do: 1) get out a calendar and 2) determine your budget. Do this in February. Really! When you get out a calendar, you will likely see that the kids have 9 weeks off in the summer (for some reason I used to think there were only 8 weeks off for the kids). Next, get a budget, because you will need to account for camp costs as well as transportation costs and extra costs like if you have to pick your kids up late. When you have a calendar and a budget, your camp options will come into clearer focus. Also, you can start thinking about other things happening in the summer, like vacations, visits from family, work assignments, and other things that will affect you.
As far as organizations offering camps, the cheapest camps by far – by far! – are the ones run out of community centers from the City of Toronto. They also fill up really fast. By March, if I recall. Book those first.
North Toronto Soccer had relatively lower costs than most camps. Great if your kid loves soccer. Note: ask how much time the kids spend outside. That can be a very tough camp in the middle of summer. (Not just NT but any outdoor camp.)
My kids liked the film camp at NFB, and it was indoors and so good during some weather, but one year was enough. Also, doing it with kids under 10 was better.
If your kid loves to do art, the AGO camps are great. If you are thinking of becoming a member and signing up, do both: members used to get a break on camp costs.
Harbourfront had some of the most interesting camps. DD loved them, but DS did not. Also, Harbourfront has buses that take your kids to and from camp from various locations around the city. Saves time, costs money. Can be a lifesaver.
Hockey camps are the most expensive, some going for $600 a week. UCC had relatively cheaper ones, but they fill up really fast too. UCC has lots of good camps, and they are in line with camps at places like AGO and NFB, but the hockey ones always filled up right away. Sign up for those first! Also there were hockey camps at Larry Grossman arena that were good and not as expensive.
Another benefit of hockey camps: the kids spend alot of time in not hot facility. Great experience during the hot days of summer.
To save some money, put your kids in camps with long weekends. That one day can save 20-50 bucks
To save more money, take time off and spend time with your kids. Note: this may not be cheap, either. If you plan to take a week off and plan to take your kid to a different venue every day, you will see it will add up. If you want to do this to save money, your goal should be to find activities you both like that aren’t too expensive, be it going to the Islands, having picnics, bike rides, kite building and flying, etc.
Don’t be too dazzled by camp promises. You might think: wow, my kid will learn SO much at this camp. They will learn things. And they will likely have fun. But think of camp as really good babysitting/daycare. Camps are mostly run by teens, and alot of camp time is getting kids to and from locations, feeding them, tracking them, etc. My son hated that. Also some councillors are really great, others are just there to do the minimum. One week my son went to a hockey camp and loved it because the councillors were great. He went to the same camp a few weeks later and didn’t because the councilllors had changed.
See if you and your kid’s friends can go to the same camp. Talk to other parents and try to make this happen, especially if your kid is not extroverted. Camp can be stressful for introverted kids: having old friends can help. Some kids thrive on camps and love them. Others can’t wait to be old enough not to go.
Try to pick up your kids on time. Once camps are done, usually around 4, the councillors will likely round the kids up in one place and more or less have them sit around until you get there. It is super boring, and it will likely make it harder for you to send your kid to such camps in the future.
My kids were done with camp by about 11. I know there were camps that go well into the late teens, but that wasn’t for mine. Likewise, overnight camp was not really an option for mine. Yours may be different.
Keep receipts for all camps. Keep them in one spot. You should be able to get a significant tax break from them, assuming you are paying taxes.
I just cleaned up an environment I had set up in Amazon years ago for a client. (The client wanted to use Amazon, so we did.) In doing so, I wanted to make sure I didn’t leave anything behind which would cause me to continue getting billed even though I was no longer actively using EC2. I believe that the following checklist was useful in insuring this.
My EC2 cleanup checkist:
After following this checklist, my EC2 environment was cleaned up. Depending on how you are using EC2, you may have more things to delete. Checking your account balance will help there: if you left things behind, they may incur charges. An increase in your account balance will help flush them out.
One thing to consider: you may delete something, but it doesn’t show in admin console. If that is the case, logout and then in. I did that when I was having trouble deregistering my AMIs. I logged out and then in and when I checked them, they were now deregistered.
Smart People I Know 