Tag: ramblings

The New Dark. A glimmer of good thoughts in a bleak time plus the usual ramblings (i.e. the December 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

It’s the time of year when it’s darkest in the Northern hemisphere. In my area the sun goes down before five o’ clock. It’s just getting started with Winter, as well. Not a hopeful time, but a time to do what we can. Likewise, I’ll try to do what I can and point out the bright stars in the night sky, so to speak.

When I started writing this not-a-newsletter newsletter in 2020, Trump was ending his presidency and the pandemic was starting. Four years later, the pandemic is done, and he will take over the White House and begin his second term as President.

It’s hard to believe he won. Many people tried to make sense of it, two examples being here and here. Did it matter that Trump is still an incredible liar? Nope. Did it matter that so many people talked about Trump being a fascist? Not enough. Maybe all that mattered was that voters wanted to punish incumbents everywhere over the suffering of the pandemic, and in this case, the incumbent was Joe Biden (and Kamala Harris). CNN seems to agree.

It would be some form of irony if after stomping out inflation due to the pandemic, Trump brought in new forms of inflation due to tariffs. My own belief is Trump will mainly use tariffs to shake down other countries and enrich himself, but one can never be too sure with him. (For more on tariffs and their effects, read this.)

It would be another form of irony if after vanquishing COVID due to vaccines, we suffered a resurgence of other diseases due to Trump and his disastrous pick, RFK Jr. (If you aren’t a supporter of or skeptical of vaccines, read this or this. Or read more on the addled thoughts of  RFK Jr. And by the way if you think Canada is immune to that form of thinking, read about how the town of New Glasgow is about to stop adding fluoride to water.)

RFK Jr. is just one of the many terrible actors Trump is raising up on the world stage. Elon Musk is another. In 2021 Musk was Time Man of the Year. In 2022 he bought Twitter, zombified it into X and his own personal megaphone, and now in 2024, after spending $250 million to help Trump, is being spoken of as co-president. I think this will all end badly, but that is going to be a way of describing the next four years in general.

Will Trump bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war? Will there be peace in the Middle East? Possibly, though I suspect Trump will be used as a tool by others to bring it about, if anything. Maybe crypto will return from the dead? Perhaps the US will annex Canada?? Anything is possible. (Though what is most likely is Trump will waddle back to Mar-a-Lago for golf and personal enrichment and partying with sycophants and leave the governing to others.)

Anyway, enough with focusing on the dark. In bright spots, since the pandemic began, we have seen inflation come down, unemployment go low and the stock market hit a 10 Year high. That’s all good. So is the investment Biden and the US made in infrastructure. And I would be remiss in noting that we mostly have forgetten about COVID-19 because while it is serious, it is manageable, like the flu is manageable.

In other bright spots, Mexico elected the first president who is Jewish and a woman, Claudia Sheinbaum. Rebels in Syria overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And despite all the fear mongering on the right when it comes to trans issues, Americans elected their first transgender representative, Sarah McBride.

2024 finally saw the end of Taylor Swift‘s ginormous Eras tour. The tour brought a lot of happiness to Swifties everywhere. It brought a lot of money to the cities it visited, too.

Taylor Swift was not the only female pop star excelling this year. Us Weekly asked the question: Was 2024 the Biggest Year Ever for Female Pop Stars? I think the answer is “yes”. Grab that bag, ladies.

Not everyone who grabbed that bag felt like a winner. Proof once again that money doesn’t make you happy is the news that despite winning $20 million for this, Mike Tyson still seems heartbroken following the Jake Paul fight. (Although Mike seems bleak, generally.)

Let’s be less like Mike, less bleak, and more optimistic about the future. There’s lots of darkness in front of us, but lots of starlight too. Let’s keep an eye out for that as we head into ….

The Fall. A time of change. Here’s some thoughts on what changes have occurred recently (and what stayed the same) in my usual ramblings for a new season  (i.e. the September 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)


It’s the Fall, a season of change. Let take some time and look at what’s changed and what hasn’t since I last posted.

The obvious thing that hasn’t changed is I am still writing newsletter.  Thanks for continuing to read these odd newsletterish posts of mine. I’ve been writing them since the beginning of the pandemic. There’s a certain pleasure in adding another link in the chain.

Olympics: Since the last newsletter, we’ve had the Paris Olympics. That was a nice change for many people. It was a bit unusual, as it used the city for much of the venue. But since it was Paris, the venue was beautiful. Speaking of beauty, here are some of the most beautiful moments of the Olympics. And here are some of the best moments.

While there were plenty of amazing stories coming out of the Olympics, This  one of one Olympic ahtlete who competed at age 61 caught my attention.

Pandemic: you might not think there is anything changing regarding the pandemic, but there was a spike in covid over the summer. (Get those fall vaccines when you can.) More on that wave, here.

The kids who were preschool age during the pandemic are now in classes and struggling. Just one of the many long term impacts of that period.

Inflation: lots of good change on this front. Inflation  is finally below 3% in the US. Grocery prices are finally falling. Dining out is getting cheaper, at least in the fast food industry, as this and this explain. All good to see.

Work: Some companies are trying to get employees to change their routine and stop working from home. Some, like Amazon, are forcing employees to return to office (RTO) fulltime. Are there also layoffs coming down the pike at Amazon? I am guessing yes. After all, weaponizing RTO is an easy way to shed employees. And while they might be able to get away with this in the US, they should expect legal issues in the UK.

As time progresses, who knows how many offices there will even be in the future? The Times has a good piece on how banks are quietly dumping  commercial real estate loans.

USA: it’s an election year in America, which should bring in much change come November.  If you want to understand who is leading in the US polls, read this.

A big part of the presidential election comes down to certain states. This piece on  swing states explains that for you and why it’s important.

Have you heard of sanewashing?  Poynter explains what it means. It will be interesting to see if journalists can allow Trump’s words speak for themselves, or whether they will continue the practice.

When it comes to supporting a presidential candidate, are the Silicon Valley elites right wing or left wing? As this piece explains, it depends. Some, like Peter Thiel, are very conservative to the point of being directly involved in sponsoring  JD Vance, Trump’s VP choice, among others.

As for American conservatives on the whole, they’ve had some big wins with regards to US supreme court term decisions lately. Here”s a good piece the dives deeper and assesses the radically right wing Roberts court.

With all these wins, what might conservatives in the US come after next? Possibly no fault divorce. And if you are wondering how conservatives are so successful getting their way legally, here’s something on how they game the US supreme court.

On last American item. I think the fact that  insurance companies are going to try to stop losing money because of  climate change is going to be a big thing politically and otherwise.

China: things continue to change in China. The government is struggling to improve  the  economy. The government is also concerned with Russia and North Korea getting closer. Perhaps that explains the big shakeup in the military. This has nothing to do with changes, but this piece by a Times bureau chief exploring his father’s time spent in Mao’s army was quite good.

The World: After winning a landslide victory, Labour in the UK is shaking things up there with plans to remove all hereditary peers from the House of Lords.

Like a lot of cities, Barcelona has had it with too many tourists. To change that, it is ending apartment rentals by foreign tourists. On the other hand, Oslo had a viral ad campaign that is meant to attract tourists.

War continues to shape the Middle East. Israel is now ramping up their attacks on Hezbollah to the north of them. For readers not familiar with the group, this is a good piece on what is Hezbollah’s role and influence in Lebanon.

Finally, people have been worried about AI disrupting the world. While all that worrying was happening, the computer company  Crowdstrike caused a massinve outage on computers all over the world after pushing out a change. Talk about disruptive. Not the type of change the world needs.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read these rambles. I appreciate it.

Hot town, summer in the city! Some cool ramblings for you as summer kicks off (i.e. the June 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)


Hot town indeed! Toronto has recently suffered through a heat wave as we head into the summer of 2024. We had tremendous thunderstorms, crazy wind squalls, and very high temperatures. And yours truly does not generally do well in the heat. Here’s to that heat subsiding somewhat, although, hey it’s summer, why should I expect?

Meanwhile, here’s a seasonal cornucopia of posts and articles I found worthwhile this spring. I hope you find it worth a read. Maybe they can help you cool off. 🙂

COVID/the pandemic: I should be cool about this, but one thing that gets me hot under the collar is the lack of acknowledgement of death that occurred during the pandemic. In Washington there was the temporary memorial of small flags, but it’s gone. I don’t know of any national memorials in Canada. We should have something national like the Covid heart wall in London, England. It is great that we were able to recover so quickly from the pandemic and get back to normal, but we should do more to remember the loss that occurred.

Besides lives, other things were lost. Students of the time suffered especially: the pandemic had a big impact on them during that time, as this shows. Some even created a delayed prom for the “pandemic class of 2020” that they missed out on during that year. Good for them in trying to recoup what was lost.

Other things from the pandemic soon to be lost are the ghost kitchens restaurants that had popped up. Not lost is the belief that COVID was the result of a lab leak. The New York Times had a piece arguing that for that. It’s persuasive, but not conclusive, in my opinion. More of a downsizing than an outright loss is Ontario’s groundbreaking wastewater testing program, which will be replaced by a significantly smaller federal program.

Indeed, most of the stories I’ve seen with regards to COVID seems to be about putting it well into the past. Perhaps the only way we will remember it is through such things as covid 19 related art.


(Image by Tatsuya Tanaka)

Inflation/crypto/work/office space: Meanwhile the ripples of the pandemic continue in the economy. As far as inflation goes, grocery prices are finally falling. Maybe that’s what is inspiring Burger King to offer a $5 value meal. Speaking of offerings, some Toronto office building landlords are offering free rent. Things are grim in New York too. (Some residential landlords might have to do that, as ‘no one’ is buying condos either.) The fact that it’s been proven over and over again that in office mandates do not work may not cheer up holders of said office buildings.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the death world that is crypto, where the hammer is coming down on  Binance’s CZ (Changpeng Zhao). Meanwhile, bankruptcy lawyers for FTX said customers of that cryptocurrency exchange were set to get all their money back, plus interest. At least someone is recovering from the crypto meltdown.

In world news:  The American election drones on with Joe Biden having a narrow path to victory. Speaking of drones, the war in the Ukraine continues with drones playing a big part. In other wars, the War in Gaza goes on, despite massive student protests in the US and elsewhere. The war on women continues in the US as well.

As an aside, one promising thing for American women has been the rise of Caitlin Clark and the related rise of interest in Women’s Basketball. As a basketball fan and a believer that women in sports deserve better, I was glad to see this.

In Canadian news: Some day Canada Post will be no more, based on that article. Some day has come for the Canadian journalist Rex Murphy, who recently died. I used to look up to him a long time ago. Also not doing well is healthcare in Ontario. The Ford government continues to underfund it. Remember when we considered healthcare workers heros? The Ontario government should go back to treating them that way.

The arts: a number of the great artists passed away this spring, Alice Munro being one of the most notable. (The Times has a collection of the  best of her work, here.) Another favorite of mine who passed on was Joe Flaherty. He didn’t get the recognition of some of his SCTV counterparts, but he was equally great and very funny. And I would be remiss if I did not note the death of another great Canadian, Donald Sutherland.

Not Canadian, but truly great, was musician David Sanborn, who is now playing in the great beyond. (Two pieces on him here and here.) Among other things, he was the host of the show “Night Music”, a show I adored and wrote about, here. May they all rest in peace.

Was I glad to see that Daniel Radcliffe won his first Tony award and then went on to a fantastic Tony awards after party? I was.

Finally: We had solar eclipse recently. Did Google searches for eye damage jump after it? Sadly in Ontario they did. Did this woman in Texas build a spa for squirrels to handle the killer heat? Apparently she did. The world is weird.

Let me close off with this link to the Lovin Spoonful’s “Summer in the City”. Enjoy the season! I’ll have another newsletter in the Fall, god willing.

Happy Spring! Here’s some thoughts and ramblings for the first quarter of the year (i.e. the March 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Happy Spring! Happy Easter, to those who celebrate. This is my quarter end cornucopia of things I found interesting and worth reading but don’t really fit into any specific category. It used to be monthly, but once a quarter is fine, don’t you think?

Pandemic:  It’s the 4th anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic and I recommend this piece in the New York Times on it. Related, the Times asked people: what is your earliest pandemic memory. No doubt you have your own. (I have so many photos of the time that I have saved them as highlights on Instagram. I revisit them from time to time: it was an extraordinary time and we should not forget it, though many have.)

The Times has always had great coverage on the pandemic. I recommend this piece, for example. Other good stories: people talk about things the pandemic ruined, and people talk about pandemic relationship regrets. Here’s a good piece on the precaution remnants of the pandemic. This on how the pandemic affected the economy in many ways is worthwhile. So too is this on how COVID affected people’s lives in the US, and this on how the pandemic affected people in the UK.

Finally, I like what Mary Ruefle had to say about the pandemic. It mirrors my thoughts:

Inflation: while inflation is a genie that is pretty much back in the bottle, food prices have remained high. If the Times can (recently) publish pieces like cheap food you should buy on sale and easy and cheap dinner ideas, you can take it for granted that the price of food is still a concern for people. Possibly enough to cause some sitting politicians to lose an election.

Work: since the beginning of the pandemic, things have been tough for America’s offices and the businesses that support them. (More on that here.) Unlike inflation, though, that genie is not going back in the bottle. Indeed, it’s been shown that RTO (return to office policies) doesn’t improve company value, but it does make employees miserable. And companies that try to force it by return to office punishments are finding that it is backfiring. Are empty offices a disaster waiting to happen? According to this, they could be.

Finally, here’s a good piece on who still  works from home. And here’s a weird story about how an employee who stayed on a company via a Slack slackbot even though he left the company.

Speaking of leaving jobs, Google spent two billion on layoffs severance fourth quarter earnings 2023. Cisco laid off thousands. Companies like Vice and buzzfeed sacked many as well (though Vice CEO Shane Smith did alright for himself).

By the way, this was a good piece on the new media’s rise and fall: Jezebel, an  oral history.

Canada: as for jobs in Canada, 70% of Canadians want to leave their jobs soon. Remarkable. Meanwhile Canada is struggling with the number of students wanting to come to study. Good stories on that here and here.

Also remarkable in Canada was the funeral of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who passed away this month.

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China: it can be hard to know what is going on in China, but you can see signs to get a sense of it. For example, affluent Chinese have been moving to Japan since the COVID lockdowns. Another sign is the rise of attacks from China nationalists on leading Chinese figures.

Perhaps the struggle of  China’s real estate giants tell us something. Certainly the fact that Chinese stocks have lost $6 trillion in 3 years is a sign of trouble. As is its inability to stem deflation. Even I know this is bad. More importantly, economists like Paul Krugman think so. When your censorship starts targetting critics of your economy, your government likely thinks so too.

Russia/Ukraine: Russia remains mired in the quarmire that is its current war. In a surprise to no one, Putin recently was reelected. What was a surprise was a recent terror attack. The follow on torture of the accused perpetrators was not a surprise, sadly.

USA: also not a surprise is the upcoming rematch of Biden and Trump over who will be the next President. Jamelle Bouie has a good piece here as to what is at stake.

Trump must be thinking that people are going to forget what his time in office was like, if he is asking Americans if they are better off now than they were four years ago. It may seem laughable to many, but it’s not entirely dumb. Trump is hoping voters focus mainly on grocery prices, which are worse due to inflation.

Speaking of Trump, due to his MANY trials (which the New York Times is tracking), we are finally getting a sense of just how rich he really is and what he really owns (a lot less than you think.) He could be a lot richer soon, based on the takeover of Truth Social by a SPAC…. or may be not? (For more on why SPACs are bad and why he may end up with much less, read this.)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention another war, this one on the Gaza strip. I thought this VOX piece was worth a read. (I can never forget the Israeli Plan that propped up Hamas. I suspect many Israelis cannot forget it either.)

Crypto: crypto was always dumb and now it’s practically dead. Sam Bankman-Fried has just been sentenced to 25 years in prison. The Winklevoss crypto firm Gemini had to return $1.1bn to customers.  And what’s left has been taken over by the big boys like Fidelity. I don’t know if I have much else left to say about it, other than point to this good piece by Dave Karpf who just eviscerated crypto’s Chris Dixon with this review of Dixon’s new book.

Culture: culture wise, Sydney Sweeney is having a moment, albeit not a good one, due to right wing misogyny. I suspect she will be fine. I suspect the Oscars will be fine too, despite this scathing critique of how fawning lechery and sheer inanity ruined the red carpet.  During the Oscars there was much talk about the film, zone of interest, although not nearly as much as Ryan’s Gosling performance of I’m Just Ken.

Social media: there was some social media backlash after Robert Downey Jr thanked Mel Gibson in a SAG speech recently, but my only thought was: who cares about social media backlashes any more? Perhaps body positive influencers who suddenly undergo weight loss, but I suspect no one else does. Indeed, the Times asks: has fashion cancelled cancelling?

Perhaps the inauthenticity of social media lends to it. So much of its content is contrived these days. Like the trick ping pong shots on tiktok or…so much else. All so people can have a modicum of fame. Not that anyone can have much control of that, since social media algorithms ‘flatten’ our culture by making decisions for us. I have pretty much trained Instagram to feed me reels of basketball, which gives me things like highlight reels of Antetokounmpo and Wembanyama and Jokic and it’s..ok? Services like Instagram are so hungry for your attention that they are constantly trying to feed you what you want, even if you want it only occasionally.

I was recently in New York and while I once enjoyed my time during the early pandemic in many ways, it is great to be able to travel and roam freely and eat in restaurants.

Enjoy life, however it presents itself. Life is a buffet: always go back for seconds.:)

Thanks for reading this. Enjoy Spring. See you in June.

I’m back and rambling into 2024 (i.e. the January 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

After missing last month’s newsletter due to being in the hospital with life threatening injuries, I thought I might just skip on writing my weird newsletter this year. But then I found some good things to share so I thought: let’s celebrate the end of January 2024 with at least one more.

As far as January’s go, it’s been a relatively mild one, other than one week of polar vortex weather. Indeed, there’s been much mildness all around.

Pandemic-ally speaking, it’s also been a bit of a mildness in January in terms of COVID, as you can see from the Ontario wastewater signal:

Before Christmas 2023 there was a lot of talk of the new covid variant JN1 and how it could overwhelm hospitals like those in Ontario, but if it did, I suspect that is subsiding now. If anything, we are now seeing states like California and Oregon break with CDC guidelines and tell people you don’t have to isolate so much any more. As I said last year, 2023 should be a transition year for COVID. It will always be with us, like colds and flu, but we will make less and less of an issue of it by and large.

As for inflation, it’s also looking pretty mild, as you can see from this graph from Reuters:

A remarkable change from the peak of the pandemic. We have been living through some wild years. We could use some more mildness like this and a return to the way it was before the pandemic.

This is not to say everything is going back to pre-pandemic days. Take work. While there has been some people returning to the offices, I am not certain staff will ever fully return. For one thing, workers are more productive working for home. For another, cities and landlords are starting to accept it. New York is in the lead here I believe, with their Office Conversion Accelerator Team. There’s already a pack of offices with conversions underway. I expect more cities to follow NYC’s lead.

A new trend at work is the annual January layoffs. Tech companies like Google and Microsoft went through another round of year beginning job cuts, though it wasn’t limited to those two companies. And layoffs weren’t limited to tech, as anyone in the media can tell you. It was a brutal January for that industry. And then you had inexplicable moves like Conde Nast folding Pitchfork into GQ. Weird.

Relatedly, this piece on the history of the website Jezebel is the story of media from 2008 as told through this one property, imho.

As for that other form of media, social media, there’s really only two platforms that seem to matter anymore: TikTok and Substack. (Sorry, not sorry, Elon.) Here’s two Tiktok stories: one on the sleepy girl mocktail and one on cleantok and performative hygiene. Ugh. As for Substack,  this and that report on Substack’s Nazi problem. Good lord. An overall sad state of affairs when it comes to social platforms.

I would like to say anything to do with web3, bitcoin, crypto, NFTs, etc is dead as a doorknob…but no. Like zombies, it’s coming back in the form of bitcoin ETFs from major asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity. Caveat emptor, people.

I had some links to share regarding Taylor Swift and Barbie, but honestly you can easily search for that with your favorite search engine. Heck, you don’t have to search for it: go to any major website and they will have a story on them. Three or four stories, even.

I greatly enjoyed watching the Netflix series The Crown during the last few years. Here’s something ranking  every episode of the series. A nice way for fans like myself to relive it.

One of my favorite films of all time is Moonstruck. The director of that film was Norman Jewison, who just recently died. The writer of the film, John Patrick Shanley, has a good remembrance of making that film with him, here. Highly recommended.

Last, here is an image of one of my favorite restaurants of all time, Prune, closed during the pandemic. I love the image of it below, and if you love it too you can buy it, here.

As always, thanks for reading this. See you in a month, I hope.

November! A month of cooling off in many ways. Of endings. Here’s what’s happening plus the usual ramblings (i.e. the November 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

November is a month of chills and cooling off. Not just literally but figuratively. So many things have been cooling off, dying off, or just ending this month. Many things, but not all things.

Dying: A year ago crypto exploded in a fireball. Now all that’s left are the embers. Last month the fraud / conspiracy trial of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was underway. How did it go? Well, not great for SBF. He was evasive under cross examination. His lawyers did not do well with their closing arguments. It didn’t help that so many of his coworkers plead guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. In the end it took the jury less than five hours to find him guilty on all charges. No doubt pictures like this couldn’t have helped his case:

What a mess.

If you want to read more about it all, this piece by Zeke Faux is good. Check out his book too. You can read the book Going Infinite by Michael Lewis as well, though this review which discusses how he fell for the antihero (SBF, not Taylor Swift) makes me wonder if I would bother, even though I like Lewis’s other books.

The other big player in crypto is Changpeng Zhao (CZ) of Binance. Is? Was. The SEC has been cleaning the Aegean Stables that is crypto and went after him and forced him to plead guilty and step down from him company.

In the end the only people I felt sorry for in all this  debacle was SBF’s parents. Do I feel bad for crypto investors? Well in April of 2022 the Financial Times sat down with SBF and more or less explained how SBF’s crypto yield farming was a ponzi scheme. If you had major money in crypto after reading that, then you got what was coming to you, I’m sorry to say.

Cooling off: after being heated in all the ways, China is starting to cool off. Last year China and Xi were at their aggressive peak, lecturing Trudeau and others with their wolf warrior diplomacy.

Well that’s gone, and Xi recently adopted a milder manner in this month’s meeting with President Biden. Wolf warrior diplomacy is dying off. No doubt some of that has to do with the many problem that China is suffering, from real estate problems to high youth unemployment to the decline of  their belt road loans program.

That said, while China seems to be backing away from invading Taiwan, they are still being very aggressive in dominating the South China sea, as these two stories here and here show. They are still aggressive at home, too, as this piece on China spies campaign shows.

It’s not all bad news for Xi and his country. This is good news, for instance:  China’s war on pollution has great improved air quality for their citizens. But things could be better. Will they be under Xi is the question. Read The New York Times piece on  Xi’s rule and decide for yourself. Don’t miss this piece by Noah Smith either. Smith thinks the Chinese leader is incompetent and he makes a compelling case.

Dying off: Culturally we may be seeing the dying off of the superhero movies that have dominated screens big and small for so long. The Marvels, the latest film from Marvel Studios just came out and it recorded the worst ever North American opening weekend performance of all those films. The Times put it simply: it floundered.

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This has all led Disney, the owner of Marvel Studios, to do some backtracking.  They are delaying  Deadpool 3 and other such films. TV wise, Disney is not doing great either, as their new series, Ahsoka shows.

Will bringing back the  X men help? Maybe fantastic four will do it? Or maybe it’s the beginning of the end of the superhero movies, as this piece examines.

On death’s door: well, that would be twitter. I mean it’s been dying all year since Musk took over. But his increasingly mismanagement of the site and his own terrible behavior has led to many companies pulling their advertising dollars from it. Not only that, but increasingly people I used to follow regularly have moved to sites like Threads and Bluesky. I am not sure when it will die off: Musk could keep it on life support for a long time. Dan Sinker’s has a good piece on the site known still as Twitter to read while we sit by its deathbed and wait for the inevitable.

Moving on, office work is also waning. A sign of this is wework going bankrupt. Some of the Toronto locations have shut down. That’s too bad: I am a fan of wework. In better news, in New York some financial district offices have been  converted into housing. Here’s to more of that.

Gone but not forgotten: I hadn’t realized that November is JFK season in the US. Or so says Mark Bittman in this piece: JFK season. Perhaps it always will be, until the last of the Baby Boomers in the US has passed away.  Meanwhile we get people still second guessing the JFK assassination. And RFK Jr is hanging around the current election, cashing in on his family name while he spouts his toxic views on disease and race.

The pandemic is not dying, but heating up in many places, including Nova Scotia, which reported 35 covid-19 deaths since august. In China there has been an increase in respiratory diseases in children. The Times has more on where we are in this article.

Wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine continue to burn on as well. Here’s to better days in both places and soon, though right now soon is no where soon enough. In the mean time I am going to the New York Times for news on the latest developments in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine and I recommend you do so too.

Speaking of endlings, that’s the end of this month’s newsletter. Thanks for reading it. May the next one be merry and bright.

It’s crabwalk time! Here’s some thoughts on how things are going sideways in many ways as well as the usual ramblings (i.e. the October 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Happy. Hallow’een! It seems many things have gone sideways this month, almost like a crab walk. Many things, but not all. Let’s take a look.

In Ukraine, people are worried that their counteroffensive against the Russians is struggling to go forward and is only going to be more so as the winter season arrives. Not that it’s looking good from the Russian side. No doubt Putin would like to see the US drop the amount of aid they give to Ukrainians, as some on the America. right are threatening. Whether or not that happens, we shall see, now that Congress has finally elected a speaker.

Another thing going sideways is COVID/the pandemic. It was surging in Ontario and other places, but I checked the New York Times and they record hospitalizations going down this week. All I know is the new XBB vaccine booster is out, so you should go get that, people. Get a flu shot, too.

 

 Remember inflation? It too continues to crab walk (see chart above). Same with Donald Trump. He continues to meander through various courtroom preceding in the US. He is currently participating in his civil trial in New York and is expected to testify. He also has a three other trials underway: the Washington Post has more on all that here.

In North America it’s been a summer of strikes starting and ending and that does not look like it is going to change this autumn. While the Writers strike in Hollywood has been settled, the Actors strike is still on going. The UAW in the US is expanding the autoworkers strike in the US, while the autoworkers in Canada settled their strike. In Ontario the workers at TVO continue to walk the picket line with no hope for a resolution.

Not everything is going sidewise. In the Middle East, Hamas forces from the Gaza Strip attacked neighboring Israeli towns, killing over a 1000 soldiers and civilians, and then withdrawing with over 200 hostages. In response the Israeli army has repeatedly bombed Gaza, killing 1000s more Palestinians. And that is just the beginning. Likely by the next newsletter Israel will move ground forces into the Strip, resulting in even more loss of life for their soldiers, Hamas fighters, and Palestinians stuck in the middle of the fighting.

As the world watches this unfold, people have been tying themselves in knots in trying to respond. And regardless of whether or not they have responded, they have been criticized. Former president Obama issued this statement on Israel and Gaza and the length of it highlights the difficulty on weighing in on the matter. Personally I don’t think commenting on social media is the way to go, and I wrote about that, here.

What happens next and how this plays out, no one can say. I suspect it will play out like one of the other Israeli wars of the last decade or so.

A year ago Elon Musk took over Twitter. It’s been a weird time for social media since then. It’s been zigzagging for the most part. Dan Sinker has a good run down of what it’s been like, here. I highly recommend that piece, as well as anything that Dan writes.

In terms of crypto and NFTs, they have more or less scuttled off to their demise. The only thing going on of note is the trial of SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried). It’s not looking good for him, as the Verge explains. We shall see. Anyone wanting to read more about the rise and fall of SBF and crypto should read Michael Lewis’s new Book, Going Infinite.

I wish climate change was only going sideways. Instead it continues to worsen. At the beginning of the month, New York was suddenly hit with crazy flooding that caught them unaware. At the end of the month Mexico was hit with a sudden CAT 5 hurricane. Bad weather from global warming is bad enough: surprising bad weather is even worse.

As always, thanks for reading this, whenever you are reading this. If you are reading this years from now, I hope things improved, and things went from going sideways to progressing.

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Happy Pumpkin Spice Latte Season to you! Here’s some thoughts and ramblings on the month (i.e. the September 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)


Happy Pumpkin Spice Latte Season for all that celebrate. While I love the season of Autumn, that drink is not one of the things I love about it. I love the fall leaves, the cooler weather, fall fashion and of course Thanksgiving, but I prefer my lattes straight up. 🙂

One thing I don’t love about this Fall is the resurgence of COVID-19. You see evidence of it everywhere, from performers like Steve Martin and Adele having to postpone shows due to it, to things like the COVID-19 wastewater signal in Ontario:

It’s been on the rise since the summer, and doesn’t show any signs of quitting. That’s the bad news. The good news is that vaccines are coming out soon and you can get one. For more details, see here, here and here. Make sure you get a flu shot too.

Also, make sure the spaces you are in are well ventilated this fall and winter. Ventilation is key when it comes to managing any respiratory diseases like COVID-19. While there are CO2 detectors you can get to measure that, you can also get this cool thing to put on your wall.

Like a canary in a coal mine, this mechanical bird stay high on its perch when the air ventilation is good and CO2 is low, and starts to “die” (fall over) as the CO2 levels get worse. You can read more about it, here.

As it was a year ago, the war in Ukraine slogs on. That country’s president was in the US and Canada recently trying to maintain support for their war efforts. Already that support is faltering in places like Poland, which is not a good sign. Not that Russia is having an easy time of things: it has to deal with the Ukrainian counter offensive and it sees itself losing influence over nations it once had a firmer grip on. At some point something dramatic might suddenly end the war, but for now I can’t see what that is.

Last year China was making noises about invading Taiwan. For many reasons that noise seems to have quieted. No doubt seeing Russia doing poorly had something to do with that. An economic downturn can’t help. Indeed, China is suffering from many issues these days, from youth unemployment to deflation to flooding to things like the Evergrande bankruptcy. Perhaps those woes will keep them from adding to the pile with a war.

Compared to last year, inflation continues to be on the retreat. Workwise, more Canadians are commuting and leaving home for work again. In the US, some companies like tiktok are even using tracking tools to measure the success of their RTO (return to office) strategy.

Meanwhile reading this piece in the Times on office vacancies, you can get a sense of the panic setting in as most workers continue to work from home (WFH).

I thought this was an interesting post pandemic fact: Toronto restaurants are suffering a decline.  It’s been a rollercoaster for restaurants these last few years, and perhaps after the lows and then the highs, they are coming into the lows again.

Remember NFTs?Acccording to the Guardian, the vast majority of NFTs are now worthless, as a new report shows. Meanwhile, SBF (Sam Bankman Fried) has been  sent to jail while he awaits trial. That’s all there is to say about crypto these days.

Remember that trucker protest in Ottawa? Well the leaders of that are getting their time in court. As for other protests, a so called “1MillionMarch4Children” protest was met by strong counter protests. I am happy to see such a strong counter protest.

Culturally, it has been a weird time. Stars like Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon have imploded for various reasons. Drew’s was due to her conflct with the actors strike, which continues to drag on.

Taylor Swift continues to move from success to success: the movie of her Eras tour has alread hit a presale record. More on it, here. Do you want to read about the most expensive outfits worn by her in her Eras tour? If so, click on that link.

I want to close on this good piece on the 20th anniversary of…the pumpkin spice latte. Have a good October, everyone!

It’s the end of year! Here’s some very good thoughts (especially at the end) and the usual ramblings on a new year (i.e. the August 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Hold up, you say! It’s not the end of the year! The year still has four more months!

Sure, fine, if you go by the Gregorian calendar. But if you go by the beginning of the (Canadian) school year, as I do, then the new year starts the day after Labour Day, which is the upcoming Monday. A new year is about to begin. The summer is winding down, and the cooler Fall temps are already sliding into our evenings here in Toronto. As someone who loves September and hates August, I am excited for all the new month and the new year brings.

As for this month of August, it’s been similar this year to last year. It’s not that things aren’t happening over the month, it just seems that there are less newer developments. The war in Ukraine is still terrible. Donald Trump, who is also still terrible, continues to be in so much legal jeopardy that New York Times built a special tracker! Inflation is at least slowing and hopefully is becoming less terrible. Even once hot AI is cooling off and grinding along like everything else.

What about the pandemic? While the pandemic is still dormant, COVID-19 the disease is seeing a resurgence. The Toronto Star has a story on the new COVID variance, BA.2.86 here as does the CBC. For American coverage, the New York Times has more on it here and here. Will this new variant mean we are heading back to lockdown days? I highly highly doubt it. But I would not be surprised to see people in hospitals and other areas at risk wear masks again. Let’s check back in a month.

Should I mention social media, crypto, politics or climate change? Perhaps the next newsletter. Those things will be here with us then, still.

Culturally, Beyonce, Barbie and Taylor Swift continue to reap the whirlwind, adding 11.5 billion dollars to the U.S. economy in the last quarter. Good news! Also good news for Swift fans in Canada: she is going to be coming for a six night stay in Toronto. It should be especially good for Toronto, which could use the windfall her tour brings to places.

Well, that’s it for the newsletter! Short, but sweet. No doubt as we head into the new year / Fall, new developments will pick up and there will be more material on my weird newsletter. Meanwhile enjoy the remaining summer days while you can. And enjoy the gentle Autumn days coming your way too. After June, September is my favorite month. I’ll be enjoy mine: I hope you’ll be enjoying yours too.

Barbenheimer! Beyonce! Taylor Swift earthquakes! And more, in my July 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter and assorted ramblings.

Last month I wrote about what’s hot and what’s not. Well it seems like everything is hot this month. Hot and humid. So we are going to gloss over serious subjects like Ukraine and Inflation and get light instead. Let’s go!

Summer Manias: It has seemed like a summer of manias so far. Sure, there was still stories about inflation, the war in Ukraine, and more such serious things. But the focus seemed to be on big time media sensations: Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Barbenheimer.

Barbenheimer, you ask? Well for those reading this years from now, it was “an Internet phenomenon that began circulating on social media before the simultaneous theatrical release of two blockbuster films, Barbie and Oppenheimer, on July 21, 2023, in the United States and several other countries” (that’s from it’s wikipedia page, no less). The madness was fueled by positive reviews, lots of think pieces, tremendous marketing and then strong ticket sales. Honestly, it was all good fun (at least as much good fun as you could have watching a film about the birth of the atomic bomb and McCarthyism. :))

To add to that, there was also the non-stop reporting on the Taylor Swift “Eras” tour.  It set all kind of weird records, like how it added $5B to the world economy. Or that fans at the show generated an earthquake (albeit only a magnitude of 2.3…but still!) Nothing can surprise me with a tour capable of generating $1B in sales.

Sadly for Canadian swifties, she did not announce any Canadian dates. Not even when PM Trudeau sent a personal message asking her to bring shows here. It was a nice try, but one fact I read was her shows play in stadiums holding 70,000 and the biggest arena in Canada holds 50,000. Maybe next tour.

Swift wasn’t the only one holding big shows. Beyonce has also been wowing audiences with her Renaissance tour, which also seems tremendous. You can read more about it here. Beyonce, Swift, Barbenheimer: it all adds up to people exercising their rights to party and enjoy themselves after too many bleak pandemic summers. I can’t say I blame them. Heck I took in Oppenheimer myself and enjoyed it.

Pandemic: there is nothing light about the pandemic, but there is something positive. It may not seem positive, but it is good news that the total number of Americans dying each day is no longer historically abnormal. So while people are still getting sick from COVID-19, we are back to “normal” in terms of causes of deaths. At least for now. The COVID waste water signal for Ontario is showing a slight increase this month…let’s hope it’s just a blip. And let’s hope that governments continue to fund this monitoring, as this piece argues. We need it.

While public health is back to normal, we still see the after effects of the pandemic. For example,  local government jobs are going unfulfilled for many reasons. Companies are quietly packing it in when it comes to them using office space, at least big technology companies in NYC (and I suspect elsewhere). Schools are struggling with chronic absenteeism. And covid the disease is still affecting patients. I suspect these ripples will continue to affect our world for the rest of the decade.

That said, any good news about that this disease is very good news indeed. There are worse things in the world than having too many tests warehoused because of the decline of this terrible disease.

Social Media: there was a big shakeup in social media this month when Meta announced Threads and it quickly rocketed up to 100 million users (including yours truly). It’s too early to know what this will mean, but if Elon Musk continues his idiotic ways and Jack Dorsey continue with his half assed ways, then Threads could become the dominant company in a place that Twitter once was. (One thing interesting is it seems to be vearing off in a different direction and avoiding politics and news. Could be a wise move. Read more, here.)

Nova Scotia: last month I was writing about people evacuating in N.S. due to fire. This month they had to evacuate due to flooding. Ye gads. I feel sorry for my family, friends and other Nova Scotians suffering through that extreme weather. You can read about it here, here, and here. Awful. Climate change and the terrible effects are starting to overwhelm us.

Donald Trump is still in the news, mainly due to (more and more and more) indictments.  Remember, the best way to keep up with all his legal trouble is by signing up to the newsletter indictment.fyi by Dan Sinker. The Times also has a big section on the documents case against him. I still think he will get off, but the legal traps are multiplying rapidly.

In other legal news, the founder of the Celsius cryptocurrency was recently arrested. Most crypto/blockchain/web 3 news these days will be about bankruptcy and jail.

To close out, here’s a story on how Adele warns fans about throwing objects at musicians. I’ve seen several musicians hit with phones, including Drake, Harry Styles, and more. It’s insane. Also insane are foot eating competitions. Do you think you have want it takes to win a hot dog competition? Are you sure? After you read this, you may reconsider it.

Thanks for reading, as always. I leave you with this, from Fanny Singer along with mom Alice Waters. They are talking about Fanny’s new cookbook that had come out at the beginning of the pandemic. Just wanted to include it here, as a reminder of how things were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summertime! And the living is easy? (some thoughts and ramblings for the June 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Summertime! We’ve moved on from late spring into the beginning of the summer season. For some folks, it’s the best of seasons. For me, not so much. But hey, there’s lots to love at least about this month. There’s nice weather (at least in June) and plenty of sunshine and flowers everywhere. I’ve been enjoying it myself so far.

I’m enjoying making this newsletter lately as well, though last June I wrote about giving it up. I’ve had a change of heart obviously. Some of that change had to do with positive feedback I’ve received. Plus I do enjoy going back and reading these newsletters. So you can expect more. Now let me see what was hot and what was not.

What’s was hot: well the forest fires raging out of control in parts of Canada were certainly hot. Though they burned in Alberta and Quebec and Nova Scotia, they impacted everyone, including yours truly. We had some bad days of smoky air, although nothing like what they had in New York. To see the extent of it, I recommend this photo essay in the Verge on how NYC was affected by the wildfire smoke pollution.

In Nova Scotia, they had more than smoke to deal with. People like my sister and her son were forced to mandatory evacuate their homes due to the fires. The fires were spread throughout Nova Scotia, and there was terrible stories of destruction here and here and here and here. It was bad.

The war in Ukraine is definitely hot. Ukrainians are going on the offensive and a quasi civil war erupted within Russia. There’s almost too many links to put here regarding that. I tend to keep abreast by going over the section the Times keeps on the Russia-Ukraine war.

The debt ceiling crisis in the US was also a hot topic for June. There was alot of ink spilled on who gave up more in the debt ceiling negotiations: Biden or the republicans. My take was Biden did well, but the whole thing should never have had to happen in the first place. For more on it, here’s a piece from the Times. More here and here. The Washington Post weighs in here.

Also hot in an almost radioactive way is Donald Trump. To keep up with all the indictments coming out against him I’ve signed up to indictment.fyi by Dan Sinker. You should too.

Would it be terrible if Trump became the next President of the US? Other than for him, yes. He needs to be president again to stay out of jail and to get richer. To see more about the latter, I recommend this: Trump’s real estate deal with Oman. Just off the charts levels of corruption.

Speaking of corrupt, it is interesting to follow the friendships of Supreme Court justices Alito and Thomas. That the two worst members of the Court are also seemingly in the pocket of billionaires is sadly not surprising.

Most of social media is not hot, with the exception being TikTok. And not in a good way.  So you have “titanic tiktok truthers“. You have influencers doing stupid things like promoting products like biore on the back of school shootings. In fact the whole thing about becoming a  tiktok influencer seems out of control. Perhaps they are looking at people like Mr Beast on YouTube and wishing that much influence and wealth. I dunno.

Due to the changes this year, I think baseball is hot again. This piece from the Upshot is worth checking out if you are interested on how the game is changing.

What’s was not: Well, the pandemic is no longer hot. In fact I’d say it’s dormant, if not dead. I’m still tracking COVID. So is the New York Times. As is Ontario Public Health. But otherwise, not so much.

In fact I’d give the Times lots of credit. They are still covering it, and still doing good pieces like this, on covid and lung damage. They also did this piece on what defined the pandemic that I thought was really good. Not so good was this piece on pandemic fraud waste (not the Times).

I used to associate these newsletters with the pandemic. Heck, it was born in the pandemic. Going forward, I am going to drop that association. I’ll still mention anything noteworthy on Covid though.

Inflation is also cooling, it seems. Good. On that topic, I thought these pieces on it were good: what caused the US pandemic era inflation; a comparison of costco vs loblaws food prices; a related piece on inflation, groceries  and Walmart.

Crypto is more ice cold than not hot, especially with the SEC out for one of the last standing exchanges, Binance. You can read about that here and here.

Pixar used to be hot, but not lately. CNN had a meltdown, so kinda hot, but also not.

As for social media, Twitter the company continues to circle the drain as their ad sales plummet. Not to mention them getting hit with a big music industry lawsuit. Fun. Over at that other company, Mark Zuckerberg explains the path forward for meta. Good luck with that, Mark. I mean, who needs the metaverse meet the people still living on second life? A valid question.

Could social media be better? Of course. Anil Dash explains how, here. Also, maybe we should just consider social media alternatives like going outside and touching grass?

In other news: Sports betting  is facing a backlash. Good. The US government continues to  mop up those that contributed to the events of January 6h in the US Capito. Also good.

Cormac McCarthy passed away. This is a fine piece on how unique and now impossible that was. Also this month the five people on the submarine Titan died when that vehicle imploded on the way to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. RIP.

Big companies like Google and Salesforce keep trying to get employees to return to office. On the flip side small tech companies are leveraging this by offering
remote work as a perk to get you to go work with them! Smart move. My expectation is that as leases start running out, remote work will become a hardened norm. Keep an eye out for that.

Enough about work. Summer is a time for relaxing. One way to do that is by reading. If you need something to read this season, the New York Times has your back with many recommendations. For lovers of pure beach reads, check out what indigo.ca has. If nothing else, a book will shade your face from the sun. 🙂

Enjoy the early summer! Thanks for read this too!

It’s lilac season, people! A May highlight! Here’s some other highlights (and ramblings) for this May of 2023

Happy end of May! We are in the back stretch of Spring and heading towards Summer. Sunshine and nice weather and flowers are everywhere. I used to say that June is the best month in Toronto — and it is — but May is a close contender with September as being the second best month. If you are coming to Toronto, any of those months are good ones for a visit.

It’s interesting to look back on last May’s not a newsletter / ramblings and see what’s the same and what’s new. A year ago Canadian Mattea Roach was piling up the wins on Jeopardy. This year she is back and came so close to winning it all in Jeopardy’s Masters Tournament. Congrats to her!

Also last year, then Prince Charles opened Parliament on behalf of the Queen. Now with the passing of the Queen, he is Prince Charles no more. This month kicked off with his Coronation. Needless to say, there was some Royal family drama. And not everyone was keen on it. But overall it went without a hitch. The rich and famous and other royals were all in attendance. Naturally there was lots of coverage in places like the New York Times and the Guardian.

All and all, pretty posh. All that poshness had some journalists writing pieces on the worth of King Charles III, here and here. For all the talk about a slimmed down Monarchy, it seems like the King has money to spare.

The pandemic is going out with a whimper, rather than a bang. The WHO ended  its designation of COVID as an emergency. Even Nova Scotia, that has been more vigilant than most, has ended weekly reporting. As for Ontario, I am still monitoring the weekly stats from the province, but the number of people in the hospital due to the disease is steadily decreasing. It’s both good and weird.

COVID-19 is still a threat. People are still dying of it and getting sick. People are suffering from long COVID. And people are still wearing masks somewhat. (Note: yes, this is a good thing, because, duh, updated evidence suggests that masks may be associated with a reduction in risk for SARS CoV 2 infection. Also water is wet.)

If you still want to keep on top of the disease, the New York Times and the Toronto Star are still tracking things.  And me! I post numbers weekly on twitter, for now.

This week I wrote about remote work, which has been a big thing that resulted from the pandemic, as we all now. As a result of this shift from offices to homes, there are now so many pieces fretting about “what is going to happen to all that commercial real estate?”, no doubt generated by people with an interest in said real estate. It’s funny, no one seemed too concerned about mall real estate when it was crashing. I suspect people with office buildings should look to that as to their future. And that future is not all that bad. Case in point, here’s a story of how this toronto mall is transforming a former sears into an east asian food destination.

Commercial real estate is not the only thing that took a hit because of the pandemic. So did companies banking on people staying at home. Shopify is one such company.

But you know who did benefit from this shift? Workers. As this piece shows, working from home gave canadians a big pay raise. If anything, that has helped most people deal with inflation, which is like a bad house guest who just can’t take the hint and go away.

One thing that has changed for the worse these days is social media. Elon Musk continues to generate case study after case study on how NOT to run a media company.  So we have his less than brilliant idea on how to monitize twitter blue checkmarks. His failure in making twitter a place of free speech (elon musk tech bosses are letting dictators censor what americans see). And, well honestly it’s just tiring to relate what a colossal failure he’s been. If you are still interested, here’s a good run down.

Now Musk has cratored Twitter. But other social media is doing poorly too. It seems like Meta is doing massive layoffs every month now (see here and meta here). Remember Clubhouse? Probably don’t. Which is why they are also doing massive layoffs. Substack? Not great. People are already  Over Being Real. As for Mastodon, I suspect people are still trying to determine how make mastodon account and join fediverse.

What about BlueSky, you plead. I mean sure, I guess, if you want to do “skeets” or whatever they are called. If you must know more, you can read this or  this. Remember, it’s run by Jack Dorsey, so that may be all you need to know.

I was chatting with someone on Twitter about this and I thought that maybe the “golden age” of social media is over. Clearly the IT crowd and the VCs have moved on to making AI companies. Remember, Twitter itself was always a niche: it has less users than Pinterest for gawd sake! 🙂 Young people today are too busy making TikToks to care about some old fashioned global texting service. Friendster and MySpace all withered away: perhaps Twitter and Facebook will do the same. Might be for the best.

As for me I will still be here at my blog, blogging away, recording the times and my thoughts on it. No matter how many or how few read it. Because this has become my mantra:

I recommend you consider doing the same. Plant that garden, paint that painting, knit that scarf. None of it really matters, and yet it can matter a great deal.

For those of you still reading, thank you! I appreciate you doing so.  Now go outside and enjoy those lilacs that come every spring.

 

 

It’s Summer! It’s Winter! It’s April in Canada! Here’s my highlights and ramblings for April 2023 year (a newsletter, in blog form)

Is April the cruelest month? It can be in Canada. This month we’ve had summer like temperatures followed by light snow and freezing weather. It’s kinda what we expect here.

Here’s 90+ things I thought interesting that I really believe you might as well. Something for you to read on a rainy/windy/sunny/who knows April Sunday.

Pandemic: Yes, I am still going on about the pandemic. Hey, whatever public health activity is going on where you live, COVID is still making the rounds. People are still getting sick and dying. There’s a new variant going around: it’s called arcturus and so far it’s just in India. But who knows what could happen with it.

Despite all that, President Biden signed a bill ending the US COVID national emergency. Doesn’t mean no COVID, just how the US is acting upon it. Thankfully the US is rolling out new covid boosters for seniors. We all still need to fight this disease.

In Canada, there is an expectation of a small COVID bump soon. Let’s see. In Nova Scotia, someone has forecasted Nova Scotia getting it badly. Sadly this may be due to how well they handled it initially.

If you still want good data on covid cases, the New York Times has it. Here is a grim reminder of just how badly New York was hit by COVID. No wonder they still track it carefully.

In my last newsletter, I talked about feeling a weird nostalgia for the early parts of the pandemic. I felt that again watching this old clip of the Roots and the cast of Hamilton on Jimmy Fallon performing “Helpless”. I wonder what people will think years from now when they see it?

Inflation: Live COVID, inflation is still a problem, and people are still suffering from it. For instance, due to the high cost of food,  people are shopping in salvage grocery stores now. Likely dollar stores, too. Though some towns are getting fed up with them popping up everywhere. I can appreciate that.

Will inflation come down? I think so. It is coming down,  but it has a way to go. VOX has more on why  inflation is so difficult to drop. The head economist who recently left the White House conceded the economy is not yet ‘Normal’. Or maybe this is the New Normal.

Banks seemed to have settled down since the flame out last month. Here’s more on the bank failures here and here: welcome to the superprime banking crisis.

Speaking of money, here’s how the wealthy use “Wash Sales” to reap tax savings. Also why points cards are bad.

Politics: I tend not to write about politics too much on this blog. I found these pieces interesting, though.

Ron DeSantis is in a weird culture war battle with Disney for many stupid reasons. Here’s a funny story on how  Disney has used a royal clause loophole to one up him. Speaking of culture wars, here’s all about the bud light boycott due to trans issues. Here’s a left wing  framing of the culture wars in cartoon format. The framing itself could be part of the problem.

Elsewhere in the US, guns continue to be a major problem. Here’s the story of one of the worst guns in particular: the A-15. That’s a good piece on a horrible device.

One good thing: in the US, there has been an emphasis on healthcare spending in the last budget. Happy to see that.

The UK continues to suffer from Brexit. The latest minor incident was  the  Orient Express cutting is London leg due to it. At least it hasn’t damaged the Good Friday Peace accord. I thought this piece on how parts of Northern Ireland has turned out due to it rather good.

China continues to be China. Here’s a story on these menancing police outposts they have in New York and other Western cities. As well, here’s  China harassing a bookseller in  Florida. On a happier note is this story, on a Chinese Village’s breezy new library. It’s really worth a look.

Not really political, but I liked this piece on how Japan has changed a lot in recent years.

Healthcare: there were a number of pieces on healthcare in Canada at the beginning of 2023. It could be because the provinces were in negotiation with the Federal government for more money. In the end, at least some provinces signed a health deal. I expect all will come around and sign.

In my province, the Ontario government announced a plan to hire more nurses. They also had this plan to make tuition for studies in health care free. All good initiatives.

However, people were anxious about some of their plans, like this plan to use for-profit care to reduce surgical backlogs. It’s not the only instance of their plans that have people anxious. To reassure people, they did talk about protecting access to Public Health Care. But then we heard about how a private company, Maple, was charging for visits above and beyond OHIP.

So it’s been a muddle, which is par for the course with this government. Some people, like the  prime minister, thought the province was being innovative. Others thought they were not spending enough on health care. Some complained Ontario is going down the path the province of B.C. went down, only to reverse course. Others complained they had Ontario’s Health System Into a state of crisis, while some were  not so certain. Whew. It’s a muddle, to put it midly.

Ideas: A good source of ideas is Ursula Franklin’s lectures on the Real world of technology. Austin Kleon was reading it and he reminded me of how good it was.

Not so good: How much is a Pulitzer Prize worth? For non-fiction writers, not a lot. Also not good but fascinating: how did two major innovations end up being so destructive, and what can we learn from that?

Are you a doomer? Some young people are, it seems. This piece, don’t be a doomer!, exhorts you not to be.

In the future,  Gartner has identified five emerging technology trends that will blur the lines between human and machine. I dunno. I dunno about the use of these gps trackers capable of being shot at a moving car, either.

I found this, on the great philosopher Peter Singer being challenged by a disabled person, very moving.

Likewise, I was moved by this story on a California prison artist who makes his own paints. This story on DC prisons and how Jan. 6 prisoners got relief is very instructive, and not in a good way. This was a better story:  South Carolina Reduced Theft Penalties While Safely Cutting Prison. Good for South Carolina. The US has had a  mass incarceration for some time. A reckoning is coming.

Cool: Nick Cave is cool, and the advice he gives, especially so. Recycling is cool. Here’s advice on  how to recycle everything.

This is a cool story of  how a narcissist fell out of love with himself and fell in love with something greater. Another such story is this, by Adam Shoemaker, a forty-old Episcopal priest, husband, and father of three.

More cool things: this ikea guitar built almost exclusively using products and materials from ikea; this desktop wallpaper; and these esquire covers.

Incredibly cool is the ending of the John Huston film, The Dead.

Not cool: not cool is Ricky Vaughn, who is finally going to jail. Also going to jail: Real Housewife Jen Shah has been sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. Add this guy to the mix: Mafia boss Matteo Denaro, who’s been on run for 30 years 
Perhaps going to prison: Andrew Tate. Not likely prison oriented, but here’s the scoop on Rod Dreher, a very weird American conservative.

Ok, that’s enough uncool and bad people.

Famous People: Some major axe grinding in this piece on Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston. I think they will all be fine, in their own weird way, whatever skeletons are in their closet.

As for closeted skeletons, there will be a documentary on John Lennon’s “lost weekend” in the 70s. More 70s skeletons: this is a story of three big Asian communist leaders of the 70s that I found fascinating.

Speaking of famous, here a story of how the liberal party has fared under Justin Trudeau. Relatedly, this is a story of his inheritance.

IBM used to be famous for annually breaking patent records. But it lost its Top US Patent Spot After Decades as Leader this year. Here’s why IBM is no longer interested in breaking patent records.

Fun: I found this device, The Mui Board, fun. (See it below.)

These ladders are fun. So is digits, a new game from the New York Times. If you are a fan of harry potter and le creuset, you might enjoy that. Fans of joe beef should read that piece. And fans of Campus FM radio will love that link. I thought the museumoffailure.com was especially fun.

And on that fun note, I’ll close off this newsletter and the month of April. As always, thanks for reading this and rambling along with me. I hope you found it worthwhile. Happy Spring. Now the good weather comes.

Love in the time of cholera? No, shockwaves in the time of COVID (thoughts and ramblings, March 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Happy Spring? We’re official through a third of 2023, the year of the New Normal, as I wrote about last time. I want to take the time to go over the shockwaves we’ve been experiencing as a result of the pandemic, as well as talk about what’s hot and what’s not, etc.

Shockwaves: COVID shook the world like an earthquake. And just like an earthquake, there were shockwaves that followed. One of those big waves was the economic shutdown followed by recovery. We have had shockwaves in the supply chains, but those seem to have recovered. Then we had high inflation. The shockwave from that has been taking some time to settle down. I suspect it will, but not yet.

The latest shockwave hit the banking business, with banks around the world suffering the shock brought on by high inflation and higher interest rates that has led some of them to collapse. It’s been shocking to watch and hard to figure out. One thing that helped me understand it better was this podcast with ezra klein and noah smith (there’s also a transcript for people like me who don’t listen to podcasts. :))  This has been an expensive shockwave, as these bank failures led to big wipeouts and the most vulnerable US banks losing 1 trillion in deposits. Needless to say, this led lots of people worrying about their own banks, including people I knew. Among other things, I was referring them to this list: bank report of most exposed to uninsured deposits.

One weird thing I learned from all this is that banks fail often in the US. Check out this failed bank list to see what I mean. It’s so common, everyone knows what happens, and the FDIC even have a playbook on how to take over a bank. For more on this, see this on why the FDIC and the Treasury Department shut down Signature bank. Stratechery has a good analysis on the the death of silicon valley bank (SVB).

Credit Suisse is another bank that went under. For those interested on that story, see: credit suisse unavoidably messy bank failure. This, on coco bonds at credit suisse banks was educational.

One thing to note: while it was bad these banks failed, it was not the banks most people worry about failing. Those banks, the Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) are here.

Crypto: Other things that have been collapsing: the crypto industry. There’s still embers there (see Binance), but it looks like winter is coming for crypto. It’s very not hot. More and more it looks like key players like Sam Bankman Fried are going to be going to jail for a long time (You can read about effective altruism and his relationship to it, here.) NFT also continue to decline. The big companies are bailing, like Facebook, who is calling it quits on its digital collectibles.

And people are not happy about it all. To get a sense, read about Ontario’s so called crypto king who was kidnapped and tortured. Bad.

One particular man has been at the center of all this badness: Peter Thiel. His fund wound down 8-year bitcoin bet before market crash. And he sparked the bank run at SVB. What a … guy.

Work: aftershocks have also been felt at at work. There are lots of tech layoffs, but workers still have a lot of power. Elsewhere Korea is experimenting with a four day workweek. (It’s explained here.) I think we will see more reactions to the impact of COVID as the months continue.

AI: If crypto is cold, AI is hot, and all the attention, money, and skill has shifted over to that. Indeed, some of the people I follow on twitter who were noted crypto critics have now become AI critics. That’s Twitter for ya!

I’ve been writing about AI on separate blog posts, since there is much to talk about. I wonder if it will be still hot, March 2024?

Elsewhere this month, the war continues in Ukraine. Sadly. There is the US presidential race shaping up. Unless either man dies, I think it will be a Biden–Trump rematch. China is making moves, but the daily news concerning it has dropped at least in March. The Oscars occurred. It was fine. Ted Lasso is back! It’s great.

I had more stuff to say, but I think I’ve rambled enough. Just remember, the pandemic is not over, even though it may seem that way. New variants have occurred. Hospitals are managing. People are getting vaccinated AND sick. It’s a tough time still.

However a weird nostalgic sprung up around the early lockdowns. I saw it pieces like this, maybe zoom parties werent so bad, and this, 3 years since Ontario declared state of emergency pandemic. I confess I have had such feelings myself.

I don’t want to feel too nostalgic, though. This link to a chart of confirmed death due to COVID is a sobering reminder of all that was lost. Not to mention people alive but suffering from long Covid. The knowns — and known unknowns — of long Covid, are explained here .

Still, we march on. Even though this grim winter, where people of Ontario just lived through its darkest winter in 73 years. And despite the gray and the snow this week, spring-like temperatures and sunshine is on the way.

Here’s to longer days, warmer days, and happier days. See you in a month.

 

In the time of New Normal, here are some thoughts on where we are and the usual ramblings at month end (i.e. the Feb 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)



It’s been a weird winter. Most of the time I’ve gone outside and had to remind myself it was February, a month I associate with bone chilling cold and excessive snow. We did get some of the white stuff and some cold this last week, but I suspect it may not last long. It doesn’t seem normal, but we live in a time of New Normals.

Part of what’s driving the New Normal is — you guessed it —  COVID-19. Are we in a pandemic, are we not in a pandemic? I think the answer depends on where you live and who you are. For example, if you live in Nova Scotia, you see the province keeping good track of what is happening still with this dashboard. The government of Canada has good tracking too. Meanwhile in Ontario, you can still find the data, but this page feels like the provincial government has moved on or wants to move on. (I feel that way when I see them lump COVID-19 and Flu data together, as if to say: COVID-19 is just normal now, like the flu is normal).

This doesn’t mean COVID-19 is going away: we are still seeing new variants occurring, for instance. But as we can see in things like the wastewater signal data, the disease is on something of a decline.

I’m not surprised: this wastewater signal data aligns with the hospitalization data I track each week too. For more data that confirms this, you can see a lot over at the Toronto Star, here.

So in the times of New Normal, COVID-19 is around, and it is a serious disease, especially if you get long COVID. (And yes, long COVID is a real thing that doctors are working hard on.) People are still dying from it. Yet despite all that, the behavior of most people is shifting towards the way things were before the pandemic.  We used to talk a lot about restaurants closing a year ago: that has really stopped since then. There’s lots of discussion about forcing workers back to the office: let’s see. There are still many of instances of people wearing masks, but it is more and more the exception, despite what some people may say on Twitter.

Speaking of masks, a badly communicated study from the Cochrane review came out and indicated that masks and other measures were not effective. I was glad to see that places like Vox took the time to show the problems with that study. That didn’t stop hair brained pieces from convervative writers saying mask mandates don’t work. Look, I don’t know what to tell you if you think that. Washing your hands, masking, avoiding crowds and vaccinations are all things you can do to reduce the risk from infectious diseases like COVID-19, influenza, and so much more.  If you want to live freer and incur greater risk of dying from a disease, by all means. But you are only kidding yourself if you think public health measures are ineffective.

I think you are also kidding yourself if you think people will/should continue to wear masks all the time and avoid crowds. Yes, it would cut down on infectious diseases significantly. I mean, the flu basically disappeared during the depth of the pandemic. But I just don’t see that happening, because people are …well, people.

As for me, I have my own new Normal. (Likely you do too.) I engage with crowds now, but selectively (restaurants, yes; cinemas and performances, no). I’ve mostly abandoned shopping in stores: I’m an online shopper now. I still haven’t got back to the gym: I need to figure out a better way to get in shape without getting diseases on the regularly from heavy breathing all about. I went into the office: I don’t felt like I missed much, though I enjoyed talking to my manager face to face and I found reading easy on the subway.

I hope we can all find new and better Normals. Perhaps it could be the four day work week. Or a decline in inflation, finally, eventually (I hope). Or an end to the war in Ukraine (now a year old). I’d like to make some predictions on when we get to these new normals, but I am terrible at predicting, so I will leave that to the Times, which has them for 2023. (Let’s check back next year to see how well they did.)

AI continues to be a hot topic, with countless articles being written about it each week. The opposite of hot is crypto, with the SEC in the US driving stakes through the hearts of whatever firms still exist. NFTs are also dying: a year ago they were so hot, now they are decidedly not, according to Google Trends. The latest loss they took was against Hermes.

Speaking of losers, Scott Adams continues to demonstrate he is one with his latest racist tirade that has caused newspapers to abandon his Dilbert cartoon. I don’t know what happened to that guy, but then again who knows what happens to guys like him and Kanye and even Musk.

On a lighter note, there’s been lots of talk last month about the owl Flaco who escaped from the Zoo in New York and who is now living apparently his best life in Central Park. Love that for him.

Celebrity news: The Grammy’s also occurred this February. Fans of Beyonce were saying she was robbed…I dunno. She seems to be holding up fine. So too is Rihanna, who dazzled at the SuperBowl but also left her fans thinking that they might NEVER see another album from her, which got them upset. People were also upset about Marie Kondo, who has admitted she has slacked off since she had kids. I say: good for her. Also, people, we need to stop getting upset. For instance, Kareem Abdul Jabbar did not get upset when LeBron James passed his monumental scoring record. Be like Kareem.

Finally, it’s easy to think winter is over, but we have a way to go, still. Try and get out and enjoy it while you can. I know that can be hard in parts of the country like Ottawa where the canal has not frozen over enough to skate on. Try and make the best of it. Dress warmly.

Soon the snowdrops will appear and spring will be following right behind. Stay well in these times of the New Normal.

 

Some very good thoughts (especially at the end) and the usual ramblings on a new year (i.e. the January 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

We finally closed the book on another pandemic year (2022), and have moved through the first month of 2023. Yay for us!  Is 2023 going to be a pandemic year as well? An endemic year perhaps? We don’t know. One thing for sure: compared to last January, this one has been much gentler.

I think in some ways 2023 may be a transition year. We continue to have transitions when it comes to COVID. We still have new variants like the Kraken (XBB.1.5) that has surged to 40.5% of all infections and rises in hospitalizations. But we take that as a matter of course now. Indeed, there is talk of having annual COVID and flu vaccines. COVID may be more serious than the flu in terms of illness and death, but we may end up approaching them in the same way. No one talks much of flu deaths, and perhaps other than places like Nova Scotia, no one will talk about COVID deaths either. For example, in my province of Ontario it is relatively easy to track hospitalizations related to COVID: it’s relatively hard to report on deaths.

I know because I still have been reporting on COVID hospitalizations every week on twitter for months. My last update was this one:

As I tweeted, the numbers have been dropping recently. Even the ICU numbers, which shot up due to the tripledemic, have declined as the tripledemic declined. Thank god: the pediatric ICUs in November were over 100% full for a time.

So we are transitioning in a positive direction. Good. And not just with COVID.  Everywhere you see spike graphs, like this one for unemployment:

To this one for inflation:

My expectation is that the annual inflation rate will continue to transition and decline in 2023, and interest rates will follow them. That is not to diminish the impact that inflation has had so far. Things have reached the point where people are stealing food and law firms are promising to defend them for free. That said, many, including the New York Times, expect inflation to cool this year. Perhaps it will drop back to where it used to be (i.e. below 3%). If you are skeptical, I recommend this piece in VOX.

Unlike COVID or inflation, not everything has the prospect of improving in 2023. Guns in the US  continue to be a major problem. There is no end in sight for the war in the Ukraine.  NATO is still supportive and continues to send weapons, although it seems like Zelenskyy had to clear the decks before that occurred. As for cryptocurrencies, it may not be a year of recovery for them as the trial of SBF and FTX unfolds. But who knows: maybe this rally will be a difference.

I suspect crypto will stay dormant for many reasons. One big reason is that tech is going to change its focus from Web3 to AI. Sorry Web3. (Sorry metaverse for that matter!) Microsoft alone is spending billions on it. AI will be all anyone will talk about this year. (No one knew what to do with crypto, save techies and rich people flogging NFTs. Everyone I know seems to be using ChatGPT and the like. That’s a key difference). I’ll be writing more about AI in standalone posts in 2023, there will be so much going on.

In 2023 I expect a continuation of the trend of people flooding back into cities after having left them, based on data like this: Annual demographic estimates census metropolitan areas and census. While residences have become scarce (and rents have become high) as a result, people have not been flooding back into offices. So much so that places like NYC are looking to convert office spaces to residential spaces. The problem with the pandemic is that the changes it has forced on society are more rapid than social systems can respond. But respond they will.

Then again, a new surge could reoccur in China. If that occurs, all bets are off. For now my bets are staying on the table.

Finally, thanks for reading this and anything else you read on this blog recently. I appreciate it. I am optimistic for 2023 in many ways. I hope you are too.

Keep wearing your masks when advisable. Get vaxxed to the max.  Try not to pay attention to Elon Musk or the fate of Twitter: that will all play out in due course. Don’t get too hung up about what AI is going to do: that will all play out as well. Continue to read newsletters. Watch streaming. Listen to podcasts. Most importantly: get out and about whenever you can.

There will always be bad people in the world, and bad acts occurring. Do what you can to prevent that from happening, but don’t rob yourself of your capacity for joy as a result. Be a happy warrior on the side of good. Joy is your armour.

Never forget: you have lived and possibly thrived through some of the most dramatically difficult times in history.  You deserve better times ahead.

Enjoy yourself. Live your life robustly. Whenever you feel lethargic, think back to those times of being locked down and unable to even go to a park and sit down.  Let’s go and get it. Here’s to a better year ahead. We are counting on you, 2023.

2022 is done. Thoughts and rambling on the last 365 days (i.e. the December 2022 edition)

Another year over. A semi-pandemic year, in a sense. Covid is still with us, but we did not (so far) get slammed with a bad new variant like we did last year with Omicron. Instead the pandemic is lesser than it was, but greater than the flu in terms of the sickness and death it brings. We still get vaccinated, though less than before. Schools are attended (though  affected),  restaurants are dined in, parties and special events are attended.

You could say things look….normal. But then you can look towards China: they seem to be struggling to deal with COVID lately. Who knows what 2023 will bring? More normal or more like China?

But that’s for 2023. As for last year and what was trending, we can look to  Google which has all its data. One place that was trending alot in 2022: China. China is struggling with both Covid and Xi’s approach to it, as this shows. As for the Chinese leader himself, it was a bad year for Xi, as well as Putin and other global bad guys, sez VOX. And it’s not just the Chinese residents that are having to deal with Xi and his government: Canada has been investigating chinese police stations in Canada. More on that here. I expect China will also trend in 2023. Let’s hope for better reasons.

Other trending events in 2022? Crypto. There was lots of talk about it and people like Sam Bankman-Fried after the collapse of his crypto currency exchange and subsequent arrest. We had stories like this: How I turned $15 000 into $1.2m during the pandemic and then lost it all. Tragic. The overall collapse of the industry has lead to things like bans on crypto mining. That’s good. It has lead to questions around the fundamentals, like: Blockchains What Are They Good For? Last, to keep track of all the shenanigans, I recommend this site: Web3 is Going Just Great. I expect crypto to remain a shambles next year. Time and money will tell.

Elon Musk also managed to trend quite often due to his take over of Twitter and more. He still has fans, but many are disillusioned. After all, his campaign to win back Twitter Advertisers isn’t going well. He was outright booed on stage with Dave Chapelle. (No doubt being a jerk contributed to this.) Tesla stock is tanking. Even his  Starlink is losing money. What a year of failure. I can’t see his 2023 improving either. Hard to believe he was Time’s Man of the Year in 2021!

Because of Musk, people are looking to join other networks, like Mastodon. (BTW, here’s some help on How to Make a Mastodon Account and Join the Fediverse). Some are looking to old networks, like this: the case for returning to tumblr. Some are looking at new ways to socialize online, like this.

Musk was not alone in trending this year due to being a bad guy. Let’s not forget that Kanye West trended as well due to his freakish behavior and antisemitism.

AI was another big trend this year, with things like ChatGPT and stable diffusion (here’s how you can set it up on AWS). We also had stories like this: Madison Square Garden Uses Facial Recognition to Ban Its Owner’s Enemies. Not good. What’s next for AI?  This takes a look. I think we may get an AI winter, but we have 12 months to see if that holds true.

For what it’s worth, Newsletters like Matt Yglesias’s are still going strong, though levelling off I think.

Trends and development aside, here’s some other topics I found interesting and worth being up to close the year:

Assisted death was a grim topic in 2022 in Canada. I remain glued to stories like this: We’re all implicated in Michael Fraser;s decision to die, and  this and this. It all seems like a failure, although this argues that assisted dying is working.

Here’s two good pieces on homelessness:  Did Billions in Spending Make a Dent in Homelessness? And ‘It’s a sin that we all had to leave’: Moving out of Meagher Park.

Need some advice for the new year? Try this: How Much and Where Are You Really Supposed to Tip? Consider this a good approach to  reading. Here’s a good approach to  slowing down, while here’s a good discussion on  Boundaries. Things to avoid:  the biggest wastes of time we regret when we get older.

Things I found interesting in sports this year:

Things I found interesting in general this year:

Finally, here’s some good advice to close out the year: Don’t Treat Your Life as a Project.

Thanks for reading this and anything else you read on this blog in 2022. I appreciate it. I managed to blog about roughly 3000 things on the internet this year. I hope you found some of them useful.

Happy New Year!

What was new in our crazy mixed up world, November 2022 edition

Yowza! It’s been a crazy month, this month, between surges in diseases, Twitter turning into a dumpster fire, crypto imploding, inflation hanging on, the war in Ukraine intensifying with seemingly more attacks on civilians, the US GOP becoming more Nazi curious….you name it.  Let’s take a look.

Pandemic: we are still seeing the effects of the pandemic rippling through our society. In Ontario the ICUs of our children’s hospitals have been slammed, with usage up to 108% at one point. Blame the pandemic on that. Other things to blame the pandemic on? Nursing shortages. In fact work shortages in general: long COVID continues to affect many people and has taken many of them out of the workforce.

In response, people are still wearing masks, though not many. Some people are carrying their own CO2 monitors to tell them when internal air quality is risky. Other people are even making their own. Fortunately new vaccines are rolling out, and you can still get COVID tests for free at some places, although that may be going away. Get that flu shot too, don’t end up being a flu statistic.

Will things gradually improve? I believe they will, but who knows. Some people thought worse variants would come along, but so far so good.

Social media: after years of something of a status quo, social media has entered a meltdown/transformation phase. This has been lead by Elon Musk, who has taken over Twitter. Initially people were wondering: will it matter? Turns out it mattered a lot. He started by firing lots of people. Then he told those left to either be “hardcore” and work under insane work conditions or quit. Not surprisingly, many quit. Other people quitting? Celebrity users. And most importantly, advertisers like GM. It doesn’t help that Musk has loaded up the company with a lot of debt. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, if it even can get better.

With Twitter in chaos, what can users do? Some people like me are considering moving on to other platforms, like Hive and Post and Mastodon. However, the alternatives have not really taken off yet, and in some cases, they are not keen for people like journalists to take their business there.  (Maybe they should have read these mastodon tips.) Who knows how it all shakes out.

One good thing about the twitter debacle: it has lead to some good essays. Like this one: Welcome to Hell, Elon. Or this one on the fraudulent king. This one by McSweeney’s was funny.  Also this. Last but not least, this piece with a rundown on how Musk is a terrible person.

If Twitter is quickly imploding, Facebook/Meta is slowly collapsing. Like Twitter, it has had its shares of layoffs. The whole Meta project seems to be failing or at least flailing. It has suffered security problems, too. Generally the company is seen poorly, as this piece by Om Malik shows. It doesn’t help that much of the popular content is trash on Facebook, though they have tried to clean it up. I’m not sure what will happen with this company either, so I’ll leave the last word on Facebook/Meta to Stratechery.

In other news, Trump’s Truth Social continues to be a dud. Tumblr is allowing nudity. And Youtube, which is kinda social, struggles with ad targeting. Just one dumpster fire after another.

How to consider all this? Maybe by reading this piece in Nature on collapsing social networks. I found it very insightful.

Crypto/NFTs: other things melting down recently is the whole crypto currency business. This was lead by Sam Bankman-Fried and his FTX company.  Not that the lunacy is limited to him: Peter Thiel had a new company that lasted three months.  Relatedly, NFTs are not doing well, but people are still flogging them. Companies are looking to incorporate them into TVs.  Into the restaurant scene. Even into famous paintings like the work of Hilma af-Klimt. Ugh. Crypto winter can’t come soon enough.

Christmas: speaking of winter, for those of you celebrating Christmas, here’s a few links you might like. Here’s some gift ideas for those of you on a budget. Here’s more gift guides you can use. I especially thought this would be a good gift for young and aspiring scientists. For people looking for cool decorations, check out that link.

Other Cool stuff:  I’ve recently got an Apple Watch and it is excellent for anyone worried about their heart. Here’s something on how it detects arrhythmia. I recommend the Apple Watch just as a health device. In terms of other devices, if you use a Kindle, I recommend Libby. This is also a cool plant device (shown below).

Inflation: Inflation is like a tenacious beast, hanging on. One place in particular that people are experiencing it is in food prices. Lots has been said about the cost of food these days. Companies like Loblaw have done quite well in turn. There has been some attempt by them to respond to this, despite these moves, I expect there will be more pressure on them in the months ahead. For one thing, the Walmart giant is waking up. Maybe more people will join me and get their groceries there. I’m a happy customer. Let’s see.

Work: workwise, things are still unsettled post pandemic. Wages aren’t rising, despite inflation. Some employees are returning to the office, but aren’t necessarily happy about it. Indeed, employees seem to be unhappy in general. It doesn’t help to be reading of layoffs in many places, even Amazon. Odd times.

Ukraine: the war in Ukraine slogs on. It could be a very tough winter for Ukrainians, though they continue to fight back in many ways. I don’t think anyone knows how to end the war. Either one side will collapse or it will be a stalemate. Zelenskyy wants it to end. The head of Turkey says Putin wants it to end. Let’s hope and pray for a quick ending.

Finally: for new fans of football watching the World Cup, here’s how to determine offsides. You’re welcome. 🙂

Thank you to those who have read this far. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you! Enjoy the last few days of 2022: here’s to a brighter 2023.

 

A ramble through what was new in the world, Oct. 2022 edition

Here’s a month end cornucopia of things I found interesting and worth reading but don’t really fit into any specific category. (I would have posted it yesterday, but I had that very important 12 foot skeleton post to submit. :))

As I’ve said before, I like posting these because I will be curious to see how they read in the next 5-10 years. I hope you find it worth reading now, though. And thank you!

AI and art: Artists and non-artists continut to make art and play around with AI. Microsoft is even going to incorporate some of the tools into their software. Where this goes, I am not sure. But here’s something on an artist in Amsterdam using it. Not everyone is keen on it: the Getty is banning it.

NFTs: speaking of the art world and new technology, they continue to flirt with NFTs, as you can see here: MoMA and NFTs. Also here’s a piece on what Christie’s is doing:  Meet The Artist Who Just Launched Christie’s New Platform For NFT Sales. This investment by museums does not seem like a good idea to me, as this shows: NFTs and art going bust. Not to mention that NFTs are tanking on Opensea and these six-figure NFTs are down 99%. That won’t stop people trying to make money from them, such as these private clubs using nfts. But there has been some payback: Kim K getes a fine for crypto flogging. NFTs have been terrible forever and that doesn’t look like it is changing soon.

Pandemic/Inflation: we continue to make our way through the pandemic as COVID remains a threat. Even though we also continue to try and live with it, the disease has brought big pandemic life changes,  Fortunately there are more booster coming out. Also a number of people I know are using  CO2 monitors to measure CO2 in indoor spaces. There is still some mask wearing.

In Canada there’s been some complaints about the cost of the arriveCAN system. It was expensive, for sure.  This piece breaks down the costs. Meanwhile, some jokers convinced some in the media it could be built for next to nothing at a Hackathon. This just tells me the media needs to get more tech savvy to such boasts.

One holdover from the pandemic is the rise of tipping for everything. I get it, but I also think it has gotten out of control. This piece touches on that: Why tip requests on touchscreen tablets are everywhere (and make us feel guilty.

Part of the problem is that everyone feels they have to cut back due to inflation, tipping and otherwise. So we get pieces like this from Consumers Reports on how we save money now . Or this on how inflation is costing lives. Relatedly, car prices are crazy right now, so you see lots of pieces like this  How to Negotiate With Car Dealers as Prices Keep Rising.

Canada: We’ve had some political changes in Canada. A new premier in Quebec. A new one in Alberta. The PM is promising money to the folks out east to recover from Fiona.

Meanwhile in Toronto we had an election with poor turnout and mostly incumbents voted back in, including the mayor. People in the city are worried about the fact that the city is cashed strapped and the mayor isn’t going going to do anything about it other than cut services like the Toronto Public Library. Grim. The Mayor was even mocked in this art installation called austerityTO.

Totally unrelated but not grim: the Canadian legend Mr. Dressup is getting a documentary! Nice.

Work: employers continue to struggle with remote work. The Times argues: Remote Work Is Here to Stay. Lean In Employers.. The flip side of that is we get many stories of employers tracking workers. It’s a strange new working world. Speaking of that, here’s a piece arguing for using AI to supercharge workers. As a long time automation specialist, I agree.

The World: In the US, here’s some pieces on the January 6th commision: Jan 6th and the Oath Keepers and Laws passed to prevent another Jan 6th. Lizzo played a historical crystal flute and racism broke out. Never mind, Lizzo: you sounded great. The right wing is morphing into something ugly in America, so you get things like this:  We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives. I think the word they are looking for is Fascist. Finally, here’s a piece on the US Supreme Court: Inside the law school chaos caused by SCOTUS decisions. More on SCOTUS .

In China, everyone was shocked by what happened to  Hu Jintao. More on Hu Jintao here.  Meanwhile, Noah Smith uses game theory to explain why he thinks an invasion of Taiwan probably means WW3. Yikes. In other news, China Delays the Release of G.D.P. and Other Economic Data. Never a good sigh.

Elsewhere in the world, the right wing leader is unusual to say the least, based on this: How Lord of the Rings Inspires Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. Ok. Meanwhile lots of speculation on the  Russian nuclear threat. Clearly a sign of how bad things are going for Putin. Speaking of going badly, we have the chaos currently underway in UK Strong and stable? Maybe maybe not.

Signs of the times: A weird chess scandal broke out recently. I thought these pieces in the WSJ here and here did a good job on assessing it. As did this piece in the Atlantic.

Cheating is not just a chess thing either. The Times had a story on the  Fishing Contest Rocked by Cheating Charges After Weights Found in Winning Catch. Lots of money and fame can bring the cheaters out everywhere.

Meanwhile, social media continue to dominate some people’s lives, based on this:  Want to Get Noticed by a Celebrity? Snag Their Username on Social Media. Speaking of social media, Facebook/Meta is tanking and Elon Musk took over Twitter. Oh well. Blogging is still going strong! As are you if you are reading this: thanks very much!

Happy Autumn!

What was new in the world, September 2022 edition

Here’s a month end cornucopia of things I found interesting and worth reading but don’t really fit into any specific category. Among other things, I like posting these because I will be curious to see how they read in the next 5-10 years. I hope you find it worth reading now, though. 🙂

China: China has been making noise about invading Taiwan. A recent visit by Nancy Pelosi especially helped stir that pot. Foreign Policy had some good pieces on it here and here. China has been threatening Taiwan with drones, although it will take much more than drones to accomplish it.

Other things to note that are happening in China are a Banking Scandal and a poetry contest that causes problems. For more on China, this talks about how China is dealing with Covid. This addresses how China’s Surveillance State is encountering public resistance. Businesswise, Huawei is running into problems. More stories on China’s entrepreneurs.  Last, this piece and this one address how good or bad Xi Jinping is as a leader.

Asia: in Japan, Chie Hayakawa imagines a Japan where the elderly volunteer to die. Bleak. Here’s a piece on how the Unification Church causes problems in Japan. Meanwhile, India scrambles to contain fallout over insulting comments about Islam.

Europe:  Mikhail Gorbachev recently passed away. Vox looked at his legacy. As everyone knows, the Queen also died. Here’s why VOX thinks monarchies are better than republics. As for the new king, some think that he could be an improvement, at least when compared with Charles I and II 🙂

The right is strong elsewhere in places like Poland and Hungary, though the paths of those countries have diverged. Indeed, as the war goes on in Ukraine, Polish pilots Training to fly the Bayraktars war drones. Meanwhile, The right is ascendent in places like Italy and Sweden.

The U.S.: While Biden and Trump are likely to be fighting to be president in 2024, others are looking to content. Politico looks at how Nikki Haley raises money. And Josh Barro dismisses Gavin Newsom . AOC ponders if she will ever be president. Some day. Maybe. Finally, here’s a piece on the DeSantis Martha’s Vineyard stunt. Odious. Speaking of odious, Ken Starr died. Politico properly assesses his poor legacy.

Canada: Here in Canada the Conservative party has a new leader. Let’s see how that goes. I’d like to pause for a moment to highlight the interim leader, Candice Bergen. She forced the previous leader out of Stornoway so she could move in. Then she retires. Nice. Have to remember that the next time the Tories complain others not being fiscally conservative. More on that  here and here.

It’s the end of August. This looks like a newsletter, and reads like a newsletter, but it isn’t a newsletter

Here’s a month end cornucopia of things I found interesting and worth reading but don’t really fit into any specific category. I hope you find it worth reading, too.

The pandemic is being memory-holed, unfortunately. Before people forget or try to gaslight us, here’s a piece comparing how Canada did in the initial 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic vs other places. And here’s where you can find information on Covid and Ontario . Who knows how long that will last?

Have you wanted to learn how to play chess? Check out this at the New York Times. Here’s a good piece on how to copy quotes from a library book. If you want to learn about ten classic polish films , go there.

Filmwise, here’s a sad piece on the decline of Bruce Willis . These pieces, on the death of a Minecraft Youtuber, a young influencer who dropped out of college, and a piece on Hope Solo struggling with addiction were all sad but worth reading. Also sad was reading about an old relative in the obits: John (Jonk) Raymond Melnick | Pierson’s Funeral Service Ltd.. RIP, Jonky.

Old movie trailers, even for great films, can be embarrassing. This link can help with that: Aliens modern trailer. Speaking of Sci-Fi, here a piece on the rise of Skywalker nostaglia.

Do you know if you live in one of one of the 49 Coolest Neighbourhoods in the World Right Now? You may be if your area appears on that list. Nothing for Toronto, though some for Montreal and Vancouver.

Speaking of cool, here’s a video of Night Music episode 121 from 1989 fearuring Robert Cray, John Hiatt, Nat King Cole, Tracy Nelson, World Saxophone Quartet. Night Music was always cool.

The Stones video of “Emotional Rescue”? Also cool:

Speaking of odd, here’s something on What Justin Bieber taught someone about fun things to do. Also odd, at least to me: How influencers get paid by affiliate marketing . If you were wondering why the Girl Explaining meme is all over your Twitter feed , that link will explain why. Odd.

I used to write often on newsletters. The newsletter boom has died down but the format isn’t going away. Crypto isn’t going away either, but this the SEC crackdown of it won’t help. Shame. Not.

Finally, here’s a twitpic I took a long time ago. Amazing they still exist.

The end. Here’s my last highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form, June 2022 edition)

Hey there! Yes, this is my last newsletter in blog form. My first edition of Highlights and Ramblings (a newsletter, as such) was in March of 2020, the beginning of the pandemic. When I started I wanted to provide:

a list of  random items I’ve been stashing away while working from home in this time of social distancing and the pandemic. Initially my goal was to create a newsletter, and perhaps I still will create one. Most of the newsletters I get, though, read like blog posts. That’s fine. But then why do I need to create a newsletter, when I can just post here. Plus, it will save you another thing to deal with in your inbox. Read when you have nothing else to read.

That was my goal. But pretty soon (as early as June 2020) these monthly posts transformed mostly into what was happening pandemic wise. In that month I noted it was…

…a weird time in the pandemic: in parts of the world, the worst is behind them (e.g. parts of Europe)

“The worst is behind them”. How little did I know! In fact, as the months passed, things grinded on with wave after wave of infections. But there was also progress, as I highlighted a year later in June of 2021 :

Canadians continue to ramp up on getting vaccinated. 30% of the population has been fully vaxxed, including yours truly. Well done!

And now it’s been a year later and most Canadians have not only been vaccinated but boosted. Some — like me — double boosted! And many of us — me again! — got COVID anyway. Got COVID and lived and stayed out of hospitals. Not great but good nonetheless.

Societally, we have shifted in our stances. From lockdowns to free travelling and association. Restaurants are full. People are still working from home (although some bullies like Elon Musk are telling staff that ‘remote work is no longer acceptable’). People are still wearing masks. Ottawa even announced the end of troubled COVID Alert app this month. All in all, it feels like the pandemic is over.

But it is not over.  COVID-19 is still out there mutating and people are still getting sick and in some cases dying. It hasn’t gone away, only our extraordinary approach to it has. I don’t know what will happen in the fall. No one knows. Many have beliefs. Some are wondering if and when will COVID-19 be endemic? We will just have to do our best and see.

With that, I think it is time to retire this “newsletter”. Truth is, I don’t have much news to share on a monthly basis that you don’t already know. I’m never go to get rich or gain a big following that way. It’s fine. And not having a monthly deadline is a relief.

Unless  the pandemic was to be medically and socially disruptive, it will stay done. What I do plan to do is just randomly writing my ramblings posts on general topics. We will see. In the meantime, a list of all my newsletters is here. If nothing else, it’s a somewhat interesting plague journal.

Plenty of things have happened in this period. The worst of people (e.g. Putin, Trump) did their worst and left unpunished. The better people (Biden) did their best, only to be unappreciated. Economies recovered, but inflation sprung up. With luck and strong action, in a year from now the war in the Ukraine and worldwide inflation will be positively resolved. One hopes.

Besides newsletters, the other fad of the pandemic  was cryptocurrencies, NFTs, Web3 and all that nonsense. Now with the coming of crypto winter, we may hear less of that. There was also Wordle. Some of you are still playing Wordle, though it seems less so. (if you are, click here to help your score).

We will go on. Thanks to all of you who have read these pandemic ramblings over these many months. If you want to continue to keep up to date on what is happening with Covid, I recommend this newsletter from Eric Topol called Ground Truths. As for me, look here for my (non-pandemic) ramblings and other posts. Take care. Stay well.

 

May is done. Here’s some of the highlights and some ramblings for May, 2022

Last month, I thought I needed to switch up this monthly missive of a quasi newsletter. Make it a bit more rambling, a bit less worldly and world weary. I decided to push down the pandemic stuff and look at some other things first. I hope you like it.

In Canada one of the big things last month was the streak that Mattea Roach had on Jeopardy. I swear everyone in Canada was proud of her. In fact, it was funny to read the news in Nova Scotia and Ontario, because both of them wanted to claim her for their own. I get it! She’s great!

She caught the attention of not only Canada, but the US too. Even the NY Times did a piece on her. Not surprising: she is newsworthy.

Speaking of the Times, they did two pieces this month that gave me some perspective. First there was this piece on why for tens of millions of Americans the Good Times are Right Now. That was somewhat hopeful. And this piece on the relationship between being happy and being rich was also good, perspective wise.

I mean let’s face it, if being rich meant being happy, then Elon Musk would be the happiest person ever. Instead, he is on social media all the time making a fool of himself. Not just due to his trying to buy twitter, but his opinions in general. If you want to read more about what he is/was up to at this time, you can read this or this. I think the less we hear from him, the better.

Speaking of rich, the whole NFT/ crypto/thingamabobs did not do well this month, with articles on their big meltdown all over the place. This says NFT sales are flatlining , but ‘flatlining’ is too kind a word. Finally, I think the Beaverton captured it perfectly . I love the Beaverton: a perfect blend of Canadian humour and perspective. A good counterpoint to all that financial madness.

Apropos of nothing, here’s news on the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Very cool.

Overall, May has been a month of transition, from the relatively new (Apple phases out the iPod) to the relatively old (Charles Gives Queen’s Speech at State Opening of Parliament in U.K.). The iPod is not coming back, but the Queen did, opening her new subway line, the Elizabeth Line, in London this month. My daughter was in London and I was encouraging her to ride it for bragging rights in the future, if nothing else.

The pandemic is in a state of transition too. Here in Toronto we have ended our pandemic emergency declaration after 777 days. Wow. That’s a long time and big number. Another big number is the number of Covid deaths in Canada, 40,000, and in the US, 1,000,000. For those who have lost loved ones, the fact that Canada managed the pandemic better than the US is cold comfort. It’s also astounding to think about, numbers wise. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been without vaccines.

I’m also curious to see what happens as people let down their guard. Lockdowns are over everywhere. Concerts and travelling are ramped up. People are still wearing masks, but less and less so from what I can see.

What’s next? Well, hospitals are in transition, if I read this piece correctly in The Atlantic . Also viruses on hiatus during the pandemic are coming back which is not great. Smart people like Bill Gates and others are thinking about how to prevent the next pandemic. I hope we can. We will need lots of effort, smart people and tools. Although I don’t think the metaverse is going to be one of those tools, despite what this piece says. (Wanted to throw a bone to the metaverse here….we used to hear about it all the time. Now, barely at all. :))

The provinces of Canada are in transition too. In Alberta Premier Jason Kenney stepped down after barely surviving leadership. I was surprised by that. Let’s see how Premier Ford does in Ontario after the upcoming election. Maybe he will be surprised too.

There’s been other things happening too, like the Roe vs Wade situation in the US, not to mention the horrible shootings there. Sadly, no transition for the better in either case. And the war in Ukraine still goes on, though sadly it has become less newsworthy.

Inflation has been bad and newsworthy, but I believe it is going to be transitioning for the better. It has been tough on people, though, leading to articles like this: How to put delicious meals on the table as inflation drives up costs. Inflation is good for people with large fixed debt, but bad for people barely getting by. Let’s hope it gets under control soon.

The weather is also transitioning, from cool to hot. That can make it tough to sleep at nights. If that’s you, consider some of the ideas here: 5 Cheap(ish) Things to Keep Your Bedroom Cool | Wirecutter .

That’s it for another month! Thanks for reading, you half dozen people who read these every month. I appreciate it. 🙂

Enjoy the nice weather.

 

 

It’s Spring (somewhat). Here’s my highlights and ramblings for month year (a newsletter, in blog form)


It’s spring, somewhat, here in Ontario. That means one day you can be out walking in the sunshine, admired all the blossoms, only to have a snowfall dump on you the next day. It’s a rollercoaster of a month. You could almost say that April rambles. Much like this newsletter. Here it is, once again! May you associate it more with sunshine than snowfall.

Pandemic: is the pandemic over? Well, the behavior of many seems to be, yes. I dunno. I still see enough hospitalization and deaths to say it is not. It seems we are in a state where most people can avoid the worst, but still get sick. Sometimes repeatedly, as this shows. And what happens as you try to move on? Well, as airlines have shown, the ones that dropped mask requirements are now suffering staff shortages.  Meanwhile, we are seeing soaring covid infections among health care workers. And places that did well during most of the pandemic, like Nova Scotia, are now getting walloped.

What should you do? Remember, you are more or less on your own now in the pandemic. I’d recommend sticking with masks and social distancing still. If you do still get COVID then here are two pieces on managing it yourself at home: this and this.

That’s for the short term. What does the long term look like? Well there’s this: Five reasons why COVID herd immunity is probably impossible, and this: Canada’s hospital capacity crisis will remain long after the pandemic is over. And then there is long COVID to consider. Not promising.

And let us not forget these things. A study in Nature says that COVID’s true death toll is much higher than official records. And when people say we should have handled things like Sweden did, here’s a reminder how badly Sweden did during the pandemic.

One last thing. I go downtown sometimes and see many places closed up. Like the many deaths that have occurred, there is a blindness to it, it seems. I find it throws me off, that we have gone through this terrible event and we are still dealing with it and yet there is a rush to act like it never happened and move on. It’s weird.

Ontario: In Ontario where I live, the province is gearing up for an election. The government is doing what it can to prepare to win the election, including releasing this budget and hoping it can win enough people over by things like eliminating some highway tolls. Let’s see. Meanwhile for those of you concerned about COVID in this province, here is the Ontario COVID dashboard to keep track of.

Ukraine: I don’t have to tell people that life in Ukraine continues to be grim. There are constant stories about it everywhere. Here is a snapshot that shows what life under the occupation by Russia is like.

Meanwhile Ukrainians fight. I support them and want them to be free and independent from Russia. There is nothing good about the situation, just degrees of bad. That’s why I find it is sad and remarkable with how many people in the West are war happy and get excited about shipping more and more weapons to Ukrainians. It may be a necessary evil, but it is an evil in the light of a greater evil.

As an aside, here’s what is happening to one of the few allies Russia has left: Belarus. It’s a place I am keeping an eye on. I suspect the last thing Putin wants is for stuff to go poorly there: he has enough trouble his hands (trouble he is solely responsible for).

USA: There is a weird thing happening on the right wing in the US with regards to moral panic. My belief is that it is a strong reaction on the right to the push on the left against transphobia and other such initiatives. Even Disney got swept up in all this talk about “grooming” and generally abusing kids. You can see part of it here and here . I have a theory that this is partly a blending of moral panic/bigotry and the rise of the Internet. In the days of early trolling there was this bizarre character that was used to accuse people and groups of being pedophiles. (Pedophile being the worst thing you could accuse someone of.) I suspect that right wing push, combined with Internet culture, has led to those accusations being used widely. Gotta love when the sewers of the Internet overflow into the general culture. (Not!)

The right in the US is also in some cases trying to restrict the use of abortion pills. These are all skirmishes on the broader culture war occurring down south, in places like Florida with its battle against “indoctrination” with things like this and this. All events to set up the governor of Florida as being the next Trump. That’s what culture wars stoked by politicians are about.

Speaking of Trump, the first family of corruption continue to make news with stories like this and this .

I had some other ramblings about the world, but frankly it is all too grim. Let’s change gears.

Elon Musk: yeah, no. The man is festering in attention as it is. You can get nonsense elsewhere.

Fun: I loved this: the museum of endangered tech sounds. We all know them! Speaking of sound, this is a very cool device.

Not fun but useful: do you have trouble finding a notary? It can be hard. If you need one, consider this. I also thought this piece on starling murmurations was great.

Finally, I think I need to switch this newsletter up soon. It has become too worldly, too worldweary. I appreciate you reading it: thanks for that. But you deserve better ramblings. I’ll try to do that. Meanwhile, enjoy Spring!

 

The pandemic is not done and neither is my newsletter. Here’s my highlights and ramblings for March 2022 (a newsletter, in blog form)

Spring is here. And with Spring, thoughts turn to getting outdoors. I understand the feeling. People want to enjoy themselves after a tough winter. But hey, if you have a few minutes, I hope you can take the time to read this, my latest newsletter.

Pandemic: Well Omicron rushed out as fast as it rushed in, at least in my part of the world. Just in time to mark the 2nd anniversary of the pandemic. It’s been so dramatic that people are willing to declare the pandemic is over. There’s been constant talk of returning to normal. But what does Normal even mean? I’m not sure, and I don’t think anyone else is either. As this post states, How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal? . There’s nothing normal to return to. Ask Hong Kong.  They are dealing with a  ‘preventable disaster’. They wish they could return to normal.

Nonetheless, in some parts of Canada, premiers are trying to get there somehow, even as they are cautioning that the pandemic isn’t over. And newspapers like the Toronto Star are reminding us that just because we are feeling done with covid, it doesn’t mean it is done with us.  This hasn’t stopped places like Ontario from removing restrictions like the mandatory use of masks, although you will need them in some places like subways.

Speaking of the Ontario Government, I was disappointed that the Minister of Health decided to stop posting COVID stats on twitter. Fortunately they can be found on a web page. So I wrote a python program called covid.py to scrape the data and output it. I then post it on twitter myself. (You can find the code here.)

As for what is in store for us as we trying to be Normal again, there is some good insight published here, here and here. Whether people are ready for potential new waves of the pandemic remains to be seen. Case in point:  Once again America is in denial about signs of a fresh Covid wave.

Finally, I recommend that you take matters into your own hands and keep an eye on things. For example, here’s data on Hospitalizations for COVID-19 (coronavirus) in Ontario. Also good data in general, here. CBC.ca is tracking information here.

Work: As for work life, people have been going into the office. If this will be you and you forget how to dress, then this (on dress jackets) or this (on no suit business attire) may help. It would be nice if the office you went back to looked as green and lush as this. Or they were as open to personalizing your space as Corbusier wanted.

Ukraine: things seem to be reaching  new phase in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Apparently peace talks are progressing. We shall see. I am sad to see such needless suffering has been brought on by the Russian government.  It is bittersweet that the Ukrainians have held out this far, thanks to their own fighting and the aid of NATO nations. Let’s hope for an end to it soon.

Unlike the pandemic, I haven’t kept too many pieces on it. However, I thought these two were worth reading: one from a socialist perspective and one from a military perspective. As was this: Xi’s China during the war.

Climate: Is it possible to write anything positive about Climate Change? Well this piece comes close: Global update: Projected warming from Paris pledges drops to 2.4 degrees after US Summit: analysis.

In other news:  I was in London last week and I saw the British Museum is getting into NFTs. Sigh. According to this, it’s not just them. (London was great btw. We had a week of sunshine and warm temperatures. It was a perfect vacation.)

Streaming is becoming a bigger and bigger deal. So what are these streaming platforms considering doing more of? Ads. Streaming also had its moment at the Oscars recently, as this piece shows. (What about Oscars and the Slap, Bernie? We don’t talk about the slap no no.)

Inflation is still a concern these days. One way companies are dealing with it is by shrinking the products you buy. Many products are too big, so this could be something of a good thing. Inflation is still a bad thing.

Twitter: someone made a twitter bot specifically to respond to brands posting their Ws during International Women’s Day. Here the story behind the Twitter Bot posting the gender pay gap of brands celebrating IWD . A nice bit of guerilla activism.

Electric vehicles continue to make progress. A new (to me) competitor for the Tesla is the Polestar . I like how their ads are mainly saying they are not Elon Musk’s company. Tesla’s shareholders should take note.

Thanks again for reading this newsletter. I hope someday it will be filled with things having nothing to do with sickness or conflict.  It’s good to be hopeful. See you next month.

 

The bleak midwinter is done! The pandemic is not! Here’s my highlights and ramblings for February 2022 (a newsletter, in blog form)

Well, happy (?) end of February to you. February has always been the toughest month for me in Canada. It’s too dark, too cold, and both Christmas and Spring seem far away. Perhaps this newsletter can distract you and I from the challenges of this time. Or remind you of them. Sigh.

Pandemic: Omicron came in with a roar and is now rushing back out again. Good. It was very contagious, which means most of us had it but then it was done. I hope that’s true.

For more on why it was so contagious, see this: Omicron’s Surprising Anatomy Explains Why It Is Wildly Contagious.

There are tons of people, including politicians, who want to declare the pandemic over! Especially since this is the end of the second year of dealing with it. Here’s a good piece on why being done with COVID is easier said than done. That said, I am hoping we are done with it, but here’s a good reason why we may not be: Discovery of New HIV Variant Sends Warning for COVID Pandemic.

Finally, here’s an interesting piece on how the two years of COVID have affected us physically: How The Pandemic Is Changing Our Bodies.

Russia: As I write this, Russia is in the process of invading Ukraine. In the short term this is catastrophic for the latter, but the pain of this will soon increase for the former. No one gets to invade a country and not pay the price. Putin may not think so, and perhaps he will quickly overrun the country and put in a puppet government that does all the dirty work. All the scenarios are hard to consider.

China: Russia seemed to have waited until the Olympics completed before moving on Ukraine. A sad transition from a joyless Olympic games. Perhaps a fitting Olympics for a joyless state, or at least that is how China seems to me. Here’s two pieces on them: George Soros: Investors in Xi’s China face a rude awakening and A Digital Manhunt: How Chinese Police Track Critics on Twitter and Facebook.

America: America continues it’s weird drift away from what it could be. States continue to gerrymander and their Supreme court continues to veer right so hard that even the Chief Justice, John Roberts, has lost control.

Joe Rogan: Everyone has been talking about this guy recently. I don’t have much to say about him. Certainly not much that is good. I certainly am not happy about how he has supported and help propagate COVID-19 misinformation right-wing myths. Not many others are happy about him either. For more on him, such as his other Spotify controversies, you can read this.

Trucker protests: Well after almost a month of shenanigans at the capital of Canada and elsewhere, the “trucker” protest has retreated. It took Trudeau using The Emergencies Act, partially due to some prompting from his critics.  Thankfully he quickly withdrew it. Like Joe Rogan, I don’t have anything positive to say about it either. This sums up the delusion of the protesters: The American Anti-Vax Fantasy of Canada’s “Freedom Convoy”.

Meanwhile, most truckers are vaccinated and doing their jobs. And a hard job it is, based on this: The Real Reason America Doesn’t Have Enough Truck Drivers.

Otherwise: the metaverse shambles on. Here’s a study on the hype of the Metaverse. Speaking of hyped things, here’s more on NFTs: New Study on NFTs Deflates the “Democratic” Potential for the Medium. Zero surprise there.

Finally, here’s something fun: The best Jedi. I liked this guy’s site: Kevin Basset. And for all of you into punk, here’s  Dystopia-core: what is the new pandemic-era punk look? You can see it below. It seems right for our time.

(Photograph: Broadimage/Rex/Shutterstock)

 

It’s the third year of the pandemic. Sigh. Here’s my highlights and ramblings for January 2022 (a newsletter, in blog form)

This is the third calendar year of being in this pandemic: 2020, 2021 and now 2022. True, the duration is technically less than 3 years (March 2020-January 2022) but heck it feels like three years to me. Likely it does for you too. I can assure reading this newsletter will go by quickly in comparison.

Pandemic: The last month has seen Omicron variant slamming into the world with  full force, including yours truly. After managing to avoid Covid-19 in all its variant forms, me and the people in my bubble (save my son) managed to get it within a day of each other. Fortunately we were all vaxxed and in some cases boosted. Likely because of that, we all felt sick and weak but nothing remotely requiring a visit to a hospital, never mind a stay. It sucked, and I missed some work in order to rest up (and frankly in the early days I slept most of the day while my body worked overtime to squash those bugs). We are now as healthy as we were before.

And it wasn’t just us. It seemed almost everyone had it. Partially because of all this sickness, we started to see impacts of it everywhere, such as the grocery stores. It seems like grocery stores running out of food, but this piece has what’s really going on. The stores are empty in many parts. But I suspect this will not be for long.

Other areas continue to suffer, such as travel. Case in point:  Air Canada ending flights between Sydney and Halifax in January. Also the  health care system. While Omicron is relatively milder, hospitals are still filling up with people due to the number of unvaccinated people. I am not sure if it’s true that our current health-care disaster could have been averted, but some believe it could have been

Meanwhile, speaking of the unvaccinated and the anti-vaxxers, in much of the West the walls are closing in on them. Let’s hope that leads to less and less unvaccinated people. Sadly, there is still a big convoy going to Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates. Idiots.

A milder form of protest is in the form of people whose livelihood depends on crowds. Restaurants for sure, but also the arts. It was stated here that  arbitrary shutdowns show that most Canadian leaders hold little value in artists. It may seem unfair, especially in light of sporting events going on. But to say that crowded venues are harmless is wrong, in my opinion.

Elsewhere, here’s two views on other parts of the world that are in the vanguard of dealing with the pandemic: Japan (What Japan Got Right About Covid-19) and Israel (How do key COVID-19 metrics compare to the early 2021 peak in Israel?).

It’s important thing to keep in mind the true cost of the pandemic. As this shows,  the pandemic’s true death toll is millions more than official counts. It has been a time of great tragedy and loss.

Business: the pandemic continues to impact business and the working world in many ways. Besides food shortages, we also have demand driven inflation.  Here’s a horribly wrong take on how to deal with it: What a Socialist Response to Inflation Should Look Like. While I am sympathetic to the impact inflation has on low income workers, price controls will not effectively deal with it. Income supports and other programs would be far more effective.

Besides that,  workers quit jobs in droves to become their own bosses. At least in the US.  Here’s how  millions of jobless Americans can afford to ditch work. As well,  distributed work continues to appeal. Companies are going to want to move away from that and back into offices. I am not sure how successful that will be.

Toronto: Meanwhile in Toronto we were hit with a big blizzard this month. it was so bad, people helped push a TTC bus out of the snow during it.  Meanwhile, our premier, who is trailing in the polls, decided to drive around Toronto and pick up people stranded by the blizzard. It did not go over well it seemed, as people mocked the whole thing as a stunt.

Crypto: it seems like there is an explosion of discussion with regards to digital finance. While there are many aspects to it, it seems to have centered around the term “crypto”. Here’s a good piece on it from Josh Barro: Why I hate cryptocurrency. Here’s an attempt at a fair assessment Crypto: the good the bad and the ugly.  I still think it is mostly bad. Even in areas where it is supposed to be helpful, it isn’t. Case in point: NFT art sales are booming. Just without some artists’ permission. I find the whole topic depressing to think about.

Speaking of depressing, here’s the dumb man’s idea of a smart man, Jordan Peterson making a fool of himself on the topic of climate:  word salad of nonsense: scientists denounce Jordan Peterson’s comments on climate models. This is grim: The return of the 10-minute eviction in the US. Also downbeat is how America can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to improving their country with programs like Biden’s Build Back Better. This article seems to think it will not go well for one opposing senator: West Virginia‚’s coal miners just made Joe Manchin’s life a lot harder. I’ll believe it when I see it. Of course we just can’t stand by and watch it happen. The American polity is cracked and might collapse. Canada must prepare. Sad.

Wordle! One good thing about the pandemic was the mass adoption of the game Wordle.  For those of you wondering or have forgotten, here are  your other Wordle questions answered. Also on the topic: Six Lessons From the Success of Wordle.

Finally and positively: In general, it is easy to get downbeat in the midst of winter during this seemingly endless pandemic. But it is truly incredible how quickly we have developed a vaccine and rolled it out (and continue to roll it out) around the world. Most people have worked hard to do the right thing and try and end this situation. It is too easy to focus on the bad parts like the antivaxxers and antimaskers, when at least in Canada the vast majority are provaxx and promask and supportive of good initiatives. Let’s focus on that for a moment. Meanwhile do what you can to stay well and help your community to do the same.

P. S. I took a drawing challenge this month: draw every day and post it on Instagram. I failed, but I failed in a “shoot for the stars, land on the moon” way. I didn’t manage to draw 31 images, but I managed to draw much more than I had been in ages. I was glad for that. Here’s one of those sketches: white conte on black paper.

When I lived on Castlefield Avenue I would often see the sky like this walking home late at night. It’s a good image and memory for me. Thanks to my friend and old colleague Karen Maxwell for the challenge.

Hey! Thanks for reading this. See you next month.

Another pandemic year is done. Here’s my highlights and ramblings for December 2021 (a newsletter, in blog form)

Happy New Year’s Eve to you! Raise a glass of cheer for another year of pandemic nonsense down the drain. Last month I said: it’s hard to believe we are in the pandemic, like it was about to be finished soon. Now what we got in December was almost a throwback to the beginning of the pandemic! Painful. I hope the reading of this newsletter brings something other than pain.

Pandemic: Last month I wondered what the Omicron variant would bring. Now I know: it brought us an incredible amount of sickness. Cases have shot through the roof and it seems like COVID, once preventable with reasonable measures taken, is less so. Worse, even with vaccines people are still getting ill. The one piece of good news so far is hospitalization seems to be manageable.

That said, Omicron has been hard on us.  Like this piece says, the week Omicron arrived was  the week that Covid sucker punched the world. Alot of our hopes and dreams have been dashed because Omicron is rewriting the COVID plan for 2022. Not surprisingly, across the world Covid anxiety and depression take hold.

But people have also been making an effort. People are getting test like crazy, and not surprisingly, this has led to test backlogs. The challenge here is sometimes the backlogs are due to overwhelming demand and sometimes it is due to underwhelming supply. People are assuming the problem is the latter, but even the most efficient supply chain can get overwhelmed by too much demand. That said, some places (Nova Scotia) are really good at distributing tests, while other places (Ontario) not so much.

Before omicron, the number of hot takes on COVID had seem to die down. Now they have fired back up again. Uncertainty provides fuel for all these spicy opinions. My boring take is that people should continue to mask up, avoid crowds, and get fully vaccinated as soon as they can. Heck wash your hands for 20 seconds still…it can’t hurt.

I get that people are sick of the pandemic. We all are! But pretending it isn’t happening is ridiculous. Unfortunately we have organizations like the NBA limping along because money, I suppose. I mean here are the Raptors with 10 of their players out due to COVID.  So we have these ridiculous events with 10,000 people in the stands to watch pickup basketball. No wonder we are stuck. I understand restaurants trying to get people into them: it’s do or die for many of them. The rich NBA? I have less understanding.

Christmas: it’s Christmastime, despite the pandemic. Here are three pieces on that time of year that aren’t necessarily festive, but are certainly interesting: first, here’s a story on how Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ helped U.S. fight fascism in WWII. This was interesting: Christmas and slavery: The holidays were the best time to escape. Finally, this was fun: Christmas shopping the IBM way: computerized gift selection in 1962.

Non-Pandemic: In the US, lots of people writing off Joe Biden due to Joe Manchin putting a pin in his Build Back Better legislation.  My take is: we shall see.  It’s certainly benefited Manchin in the short term. But the cliche that a week in politics is a long time is a cliche for a reason. Biden has time. He’s already achieved a lot, but it is hard to feel that. This article attempts to understand that and is worth a look.

Elsewhere in the US, unions are having a moment. So says Time. Time also says Elon Musk was man of the year. Meh to that. Every year brings my opinion of the man down a level.

Speaking of technology, there’s lots of talk lately about web3. Frankly I am highly skeptical of it. It seems like a bunch of overhyped schemes to make money. If I had to recommend one thing to read on it, it would be this.

The other thing people were talking about technology-wise were the multiple outages at AWS and the log4j vunerability. The former I was surprised by: the latter not so much. People do not realize how exposed we all are to the soft underbelly of open source: the log4j problems were a good reminder/wake up call.

Entertainment wise, I continue to avoid going to movie theatres, concerts or anything with crowds. I made an exception for television/streaming. While I rarely watch TV, there were a few things I did watch this December, including Don’t Look Up and Get Back. I thought the former was a hot mess. and this piece aligns with my views. As for Get Back, there was a lot I liked about it, including how it changed my  opinions of the band. Although a huge Paul McCartney fan, my opinion dropped of him after watching it. Same with George Harrison. My opinion of John and Ringo rose, as did my opinion of Yoko. I still love them all, but I was surprised to see my opinion still change despite all these years of being a big fan.

I also watched  some of American Crime Story on the Clinton Scandals. Bill Clinton does not come out well in it, however sympathetic you are to him. The women generally come across as human and multidimensional, which I liked. If you are into such drama, I recommend it.

Other things I enjoyed and continue to enjoy is the twitter account Canadian Paintings.  Whoever curates it does a superb job. There is such a wide range of art displayed and it is often topical. I love it every time the account posts.

Cooking-wise,  my new  favorite instagram account and web site is Salt & Lavender. Good RICH food. The account does not shy away from high fat ingredients and frankly, I love that. If you need to treat yourself, visit their website.

The other food person I follow is Carolina Gelen on IG. A very entertaining account with good recipes. She is a superb communicator.

Well that’s it for the newsletter. Remember, last year in January we were still waiting for the vaccine: we have made tremendous progress since then! We still haven’t put the pandemic behind us (I am a terrible predictor!) but I think we can soon. Hang in there!

Speaking of hanging in, if you got this far, thank you! I appreciate it! I hope you have a good and safe New Year’s Eve, and despite the challenges, you manage to have a good year next year. You deserve it. We all do.

It’s coming up on Christmas. Here’s my pandemic highlights and ramblings for November, 2021(a newsletter, in blog form)

Happy holidays to you! It’s hard to believe we are almost at the end of the 2021.  It’s also hard to believe at times that we are still in the midst of a pandemic, but we are. Let me reflect on that and more in my latest and relatively short blog newsletter for you.

Pandemic: The big pandemic news this month has been the rise of the new variant: Omicron. It’s all very new, as this shows:  WHO discusses new COVID-19 variant with unusual mutations.  As I write this there is still much happening to determine its impact.

Even before the new variant, there were problems. Another Ontario region had reinstated some lockdown restrictions amid surge in cases this month. I don’t know why, other than the cold weather has more people inside and that leads to more cases, perhaps.

To prevent this,  people like me have been getting boosters. If you can, get yours too. Lots of young people have been getting their first shots. When I got mine on Saturday, there were lots of old people like me and lots of kids with their parents.

While there is still so much to be done to vaccine all of the world, people are working hard to do so, as this story shows:  Drones Ferry Pfizer as Precious Deep-Frozen Vaccine to Africa’s Remote Villages.

Meanwhile, there are people in rich countries refusing to get vaccines, like the Chicago police. Fortunately when push came to shove, most people accepted vaccine mandates and got their shots, although some quit. At this point I have zero tolerance for hold outs.

Workwise, The Great Resignation is still ongoing, at least in the US. It will have big ramifications for business going into the new year (and already has is 2021.) Speaking of that, I suspect we will not be going into the office for at least until the first quarter of 2022. Indeed, nearly 80% of downtown Toronto office employees are still working from home . I can’t see that percentage dropping much.

As for me and my work,  I am still engaged on this:  Alberta launches app to read COVID-19 vaccination QR code. It’s good.

This story struck me: Cape Breton woman says CERB will most likely make her bankrupt . I can’t say why she applied for CERB when she was not eligible. I can say the government should not be so harsh in how it claws back the money. The pandemic is hard enough: impoverishing people is not a good way to fix things.

That’s the reality of the pandemic. In fantasy news, Royal Caribbean is offering a 9-month-long ‘World Cruise’ visiting 150 destinations . I think you need your head examined if you signed up for such a thing. Likewise, this call for a New Public Spirit in the US after the failures of the pandemic sounds nice and dreamy and won’t happen.

In other economic news, there are still shortages these days due to the pandemic and the supply chain problems it caused. For example, Ikea won’t be selling Christmas trees in Toronto this year due to shortage . My favorite example of this though is a Santa shortage! Despite all that, I believe the supply chain issues will clear up fairly soon.

Non pandemic: I thought this was a good summary of the bizarre age we live in: The Golden Age of Grift . I think such grift happens in any era when there is an abundance of capital and a spirit that compels people to capture it. In such an era you get things like this happening: A one-ton tungsten cube was just bought by a crypto cabal for $250 000 . And you get decadence like this socially, as well as a desire to punish it: Chrissy Teigen Is Catching A Lot Of Heat For Hosting A Lavish “Squid Game”-Themed Party. Maybe this decade is going to be more like the Roaring Twenties of the 20th century than I thought.

Finally: this video mocking the Metaverse and Mark Zuckerberg made the rounds this month and it was excellent: Introducing the Icelandverse

Last word: I hope the holidays are good to you. If you need help during this time, I wrote a number of posts on Christmas over the years. I think they are hood and helpful. You can find them here.

It’s Hallowe’en. Here’s my pandemic highlights and ramblings for October, 2021(a newsletter, in blog form)

Happy Hallowe’en to you. For those celebrating, I hope the weather is good and the night is sufficiently scary and enjoyable. Here’s my monthly newsletter and ramblings as the year passes the three quarter mark. Grab some candy and dig in.

Pandemic: the pandemic is not new and not as scary as it used to be, but it is still bad enough and still not done. Alas. Publications like Vox are wondering what the winter will bring, Covid wise. So far we have seen a decline in cases, but not near enough to zero. Even places like New Zealand have had to abandon their Zero-Covid ambitions. As I have said before, the pandemic humbles us all. If you run restaurants, this has been especially true. Ask Toronto celebrity chef Mark McEwan, whose restaurant and gourmet foods business filed for creditor protection, citing a cash crunch. Or the poor IT people from Ontario whose website to download Ontario vaccine QR code crashed on first day it’s open to all residents. The pandemic has been challenging no matter what you do or where you are.

It doesn’t help that if anything the virus may be mutating into new variants of concern, as this shows:  3 takeaways from the emergence of the Delta Plus coronavirus variant. Yikes. That hasn’t stopped people from yearning to go back to the office, though it seems employers are not communicating post-pandemic workplace plans. I am not surprised: COVID-19 makes it hard to plan anything. For example, some places are wondering how to deal with  the Great Resignation, although there is talk that the notion is over blown. Certainly you would think so if you read this: A worker in Florida applied to 60 entry-level jobs in September and got one interview. Sooner than later we will go back to the office. Some of you even missed the commute. If you have, then read this: The Myth of the Productive Commute.

As for me, I’ve been working with a great team on  Alberta’s Vaccine Passport rollout. I am happy to have contributed in a small but positive way to ending this pandemic.

Non pandemic: there has been much happening that has nothing to do with the pandemic. For example:

Facebook has been in the news much of late. Mark Zuckerberg has tried to shift the conversation to the new name and vision for his company. This piece talks a little about Meta, Facebook’s new name. I can’t help but think it’s a Second Life clone (Third Life?). Whatever you think of Meta, I think Vice sums up the venture nicely for me: Zuckerberg Announces Fantasy World Where Facebook Is Not a Horrible Company. And what is Mark Z and his team trying to get you to not think about? This: The Key takeaways from the Facebook Papers.

I don’t know what will happen to Facebook-the-company. I have long suspected Facebook-the-service has been in decline in all sorts of ways for years. Generally, we have long realized that much of social media is not good for us. Some people have likened it to smoking. I think this may be a better comparison: Social Media Has the Same Downsides As Alcohol – The Atlantic

Climate-wise, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference is starting today. What will come from it, I can’t say. We will know in the middle of November. Recently I have been somewhat cheered up by this piece that argues that yes there is progress but no it is not enough. A fair assessment. It’s not that there are not Climate change solutions, it’s that we can’t deploy them fast enough. My belief is that things will accelerate in this regard and we will get much further faster than many now think. That said, much will be lost and damaged in the meantime. I am cautiously hopeful though not naive.

China has much to say about climate change, and  Xi from China will be there at the climate conference, but how influential he will be remains to be seen. He has been withdrawn lately, as this shows: Xi Hasn’t Left China in 21 Months. Covid May Be Only Part of the Reason. Part of the reason may be that China’s government is starting to screw up. Still, the government has its supporters, such as  the patriotic ‘ziganwu’ bloggers who attack the West. The question I have is what will happen if China’s growth slows significantly? Or if big companies fail?How will Xi’s crackdowns affect Chinese society and his reign? We will see in 2022.

Russia has been in the news of late, and not for the best of reasons. As someone who values a free Internet, the fact that Russia is censoring the Internet with coercion and Black Boxes is a bad thing. There is talk that Russia wants to cut itself off from the Internet. It’s easier said than done if you want to be a successful country. Though they are trying. And the coercion doesn’t stop with Russians. Even American companies like Apple and Google Go Further Than Ever to Appease Russia. Not good.

Gee, Bernie, this version of your newsletter is bleak. What’s good? Well, this is fun: Cats and Domino. I loved this: Essential Irish Slang Everyone Should Know . This was interesting: Beat writers and bohemians: One woman’s memoir of 1950s Greenwich Village. Speaking of NYC, we should go to the Big Apple and visit  the 14 Most Iconic New York City Bars and Restaurants. That would be fun. Not fun, but fascinating is this story: The Medieval-like reformatory for ‚Fallen women on Riverside Drive, New York.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up some NFT lunacy. Here’s the latest gem: Our Lady Peace looks to the future by bundling NFTs with new album . Honestly I could fill my newsletter with this stuff. As for newsletters, it seems Newsletter Writer Fatigue Sets In . Ha! I am not surprised. They need to learn a lesson from Andrew Sullivan, who discovered this ages ago with his blog and ended up hiring staff for what became a publication disguised as a blog. Of course it helps to be pulling in serious money like he does: not many people can do that.

That’s it for another newsletter. Thanks for reading my ramblings! Winter is coming soon: enjoy the Fall while you can. It’s a season of colour and cornucopias. Soak up its wealth and coziness. In no time Winter and Christmas will be here, for worse and for better.

Last word:  I came across this fabulous infographic via this: Wes Anderson Films and Their Actors [OC]. Like Christopher Nolan, he likes to work with specific actors over and over again.

He has a new film out now: The French Dispatch. It looks fun. We could all use some fun! Go and have all the fun you can. Until next month….

 

September, 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

Happy Autumn to you. It’s the end of September, one of my favorite months. It’s been a good month for me, despite the pandemic. I’ve travelled to Nova Scotia and Montreal. In many ways, travel felt “normal”, save the masks and vaccine passports. If those things mean we get to get around and see the people and places we love, I am all for it.

Pandemic: It seems like a weird time in this seemingly never ending pandemic.  In many places there has been great progress. But there have been terrible exceptions. Generally wherever there are right wing governments with ideological commitments to “freedom”, people have lost out. For example, Florida. Here’s a story on how Florida’s massive Covid-19 spike got so bad .In other places like Kentucky,  schools overwhelmingly keep mask mandates even after Republicans scrapped state requirement. Not that Canada’s provinces are necessarily better: even the New York Times is writing about the failure that is Alberta. To make it worse, covidiots are still being a menace to society. Fortunately,the public is forcing timid governments to get tough with vaccine resisters. I am sure there are a small number of them are genuinely afraid of the vaccine. Mostly though you have fools who will take Ivermectin even though it doesn’t work and is meant for animals.

Governments aside, businesses continue to try and get back to normal, but many companies like Apple are throwing in the towel until January 2022, citing the COVID-19 surges. The fact that remote work may last for two years worries some bosses. On the other hand, who wants covid-19 outbreaks occurring when workers get together? That’s right: no one.

Not only are businesses having trouble getting back to “normal”, but many of them cannot find enough workers to do the job. In the restaurant industry, many former worker are tired of the job and are more than happy to say so. But it’s not just restaurants: lots of industries including the gig industry are losing out. Here’s a good analysis by Noah Smith on why that is. As for Canadian workers, most picked up side hustles during lockdown and plan to keep them.

Finally, it’s no surprise that people are a lot less happy during the pandemic. There’s plenty of data to back that up. And we may stay that way for awhile, if you take into account people are still burnt out from this terrible time. Some argue a 4-day work week might fix that. I’m not so optimistic. Sure, a 4 day work week would be good , but more is needed.

Non pandemic stuff: Here in Canada we just had a federal election and…not much changed. Just check out these charts and you’ll see.

Toronto continues to develop new buildings everywhere. There are so many signs for new developments that someone decided to have fun and came up with a  fake development sign trolling an area with giant tower in middle of Toronto park. Many were not amused.

Homelessness continues to be a problem being struggled with everywhere, especially in Toronto. During the pandemic there were encampments forming everywhere.  Eventually they were  driven underground with a wave of summer crackdowns  that supposed cost Toronto nearly $2 million. Sad, to say the least.

People continue to do crazy stupid things with NFTs because there is crazy stupid money involved. For example, this boy 12 made 290 000 pounds in non-fungible tokens with digital whale art. People are now working on NFT blockchain video games. Meanwhile, an Insider Trading Scandal Hits NFT Industry. Things are just insane, but whenever easy money is to be had, it’s not surprising.

Two of the most underestimated and successful politicians continue to make news. Angela Merkel is exiting the stage, while Joe Biden is suffering politically. I think Merkel will be one of those politicians that rises in stature historically, while Biden will recover from his current doldrums.

That’s it for this newsletter. Enjoy your Autumn all. It’s a time of harvests, and get togethers, but it is also a time of colour and beauty. Enjoy it while it lasts.

 

August, 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

I hope you are enjoying your summer and staying safe and well. Summer is the best time of the pandemic — it’s sad I can say that, but this is our second pandemic summer —  so enjoy it as best as you can. If you need something to read as you soak up the sun and sip a cold one, here’s my latest blog newsletter for you.

Pandemic: it’s a weird time in the pandemic: on one hand, most people in places like Canada are getting vaccinated. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, the Delta variant is causing death and devastation.  I once thought the pandemic would be receding, now I am not so sure. We have signs of normality like Via Rail bringing back Montreal-Halifax service. But there is also talk about the fourth wave. People are patronizing restaurants and  people are trying to avoid going to gyms. Places like Israel are struggling after early success. And while restaurants are open, restaurants are having a hard time staying staffed. (I can see that personally: my son works at Stock TC and he tells me they are struggling to hire and keep people.)

As for me, I am finally looking forward to doing some travelling to Halifax and Montreal in the upcoming months. I am going to be going to the east coast to accompany my son as he goes to university there. Then I am going to take advantage of my empty nest status to go to Montreal and partake in that great city and their wonderful views and food. Can’t wait!

It’s weird trying to arrange the trips. So much I used to do with certainty I do with great uncertainty now.

In non-travelling news, I’ve been going to some restaurants in Toronto and eating on their patios. Some patios are really great, others not so much. I love certain restaurants, but sitting on a busy street while cars and bikes whiz by is less than relaxing. Happy to patronize these restaurants, and looking forward to when we can all dine safely inside again.

Besides restaurants, other businesses are struggling to return to normal. My own employer is backing off having people return to the office, at least in NYC. The pandemic is going to have a big impact on companies in a number of ways. For example, there is much talk about preparing for the Great Resignation: 4 ways to be a better boss during the Great Resignation.

Olympics: During the recent Olympics, I expected that this sporting event could be cause of outbreaks. However, this piece argued that  Tokyo has shown the pandemic can be beaten Games health adviser says. That’s good.

Health: One thing that came out of the Olympics was a discussion of taking into account not just physical health but mental health. This lead to articles like this: Why We Need To Normalize Taking Sick Days For Our Mental Health. Speaking of physical health, I agree with this, that  COVID-19 has given us an opportunity to look at weight and what it means to be healthy. Our views of health change from generation to generation, but they should change dramatics because of the pandemic.

Denial: As with climate change, there are people who want to deny it is happening or that it is significant. That never ends well. For example: Oops. Canadian Province That Acted Like COVID Was Over Just Realized It Isn’t. (Yes, that’s Alberta). Some of those same people are using HIPAA as an excuse to not disclose their vaccination status. Those people need to read this: What Is HIPAA? Read This Before You Use HIPAA as an Excuse to Complain About Vaccine Requirements.

My last pandemic comment is this. You might be working from home for awhile, still. If some, here’s some good WFH furniture ideas from Simons. I may be checking it out soon. Regardless of buying new things, you may want to improve the look of your place. If so, check this out: How to curate (just about) anything.

Non pandemic stuff

Climate Change: there is so much news about climate change that I could easily fill the newsletter with references to that. Perhaps I will one day. One thing that stood out for me recently is this news: Hotter than the human body can handle: Pakistan city broils in world’s highest temperatures. The thought of parts of the world being unlivable is terrifying. My belief is that the way to turn it around is massive change on all fronts. So when I read things like this, I get concerned, to say the least: A Bill Gates Venture Aims To Spray Dust Into The Atmosphere To Block The Sun. What Could Go Wrong?. There is no silver bullet for climate change, and anyone who thinks so is wrong.  Climate change is overwhelming, and only overwhelming action on all fronts is going to stabilize and improve things.

Canada: It’s Federal election time in Canada. If you need info on that, go here.  If you need to see the latest polls, go here. I can’t predict what will happen: I expected the Liberals would win in Nova Scotia but the Conservatives ended up on top with a majority.

The US: for a time the President was on a roll in terms of success . His enemies and opponents like Lindsey Graham were struggling to stay relevant. But then he announced that the US was withdrawing from Afghanistan. Since then things have not been going well from him. I suspect over time it will work out for him and the American people. The occupation itself was never going to end well and it was best he declared this early in his presidency.

For some good insight on this, read this piece by Noah Smith: The Afghanistan occupation and the Japan occupation .

Still a thing: NFTs (Russell Simmons launches NFT collection to help pioneers of hip-hop), ransomware (Top 5 ransomware operators by income), and space exploration  (NASA looking for people to spend a year pretending they live on Mars so it can prepare to send astronauts to red planet). Newsletters also still a thing.

Fun: this was a fun thing to read: An Oral History of Adam Sandler Pickup Basketball Legend.

Finally, this is a great time to eat fresh fruit and vegetables. Not only are they enjoyable, it is also a great way to live healthier. So eat as many as you can while you can.

Stay safe. Stay well. Hang in there.

(Photo by Dan-Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash)

July, 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

Happy midsummer to you. We are halfway through the summer of 2021 which also means it’s time for my latest blog newsletter.

Pandemic: For some time now, as vaccination was on the rise, the underlying story of the pandemic was “this will soon be over”. Masks were coming off. Indoor dining was on coming back. Travel restrictions were easing.

Now the Delta variant has taken over the story and masks are going back on and cases are on the rise. More on that here. I suspect that for at least the time being, we are still going to be struggling with COVID-19 in its many forms/variants.

Some places are trying to just act like it isn’t happening. For example, Tennessee abandoned vaccine outreach to minors and not just for COVID-19. That bout of madness lasted only a bit of time before the wise folks of that state reversed things. But like the pandemic, that madness is going around. For example,  Alberta is going to try a similar route, ending COVID rules.

Here’s the problem with this, in my opinion: unlike poverty, politicians can’t ignore COVID. If you try and do so, cases rise, hospitals fill up, more people die. People get upset and promise to vote you out. There’s no getting around it. The only way politicians win in that case is when people ignore them and do the right thing. Even then, their poor judgment is going to hurt them come election time.

As for other provinces,  Ontario  is trying to open as fast as it can, but it has a good plan and it seems to be sticking to it. However, daily cases were in the 150/day range and have creeped up to over 200. The plan may not hold.

I’m still hoping Canada is on the way to post-pandemic status. Based on our vaccine rates, it’s possible. But who knows. The pandemic humbles us all.

In other pandemic stories, it’s important to acknowledge that all tragedy did not occur directly because of the disease. In Ontario, more young people died from effects of lockdown than of COVID itself. That story is a good reminder that making choices in a pandemic are never straightforward. The choice of lockdown, while benefiting many, harmed others.

The New York Times has had many a good piece on how the pandemic has affected us. Here’s another: The Year of Purchasing and Purging

Finally, many of you have been forced to work at home during the pandemic. Here’s a silver lining: Introducing a simplified process for claiming the home office expenses for Canadians working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Non-pandemic things :

 Olympics: It is crazy that the Olympics are going on during the pandemic. There is talk that COVID cases count spike as a result. We will see. As for the Olympics themselves, people are tuning them out. I am not surprised. I know why they weren’t cancelled altogher — a lot of money is at stake — but they should have been.

NFTs: Not much to say here. The fact that Coke is getting into the NFT game tells me that either they are becoming more mainstream or they are petering out.

US: In the US we have a tale of two presidents. The former president continues to be in hot water. First off, it looks like he will be forced to turn over tax records. As well, his actions during the attempted coup of January 6th are getting more scrutiny. Good.

Meanwhile this is what amounts to a Biden controversy: people are upset about his choices of ambassadors. That aside, Biden has a good chance that Congress is going to pass his bipartisan Infrastructure bill. That will be a big win for him.

Another big plus for his presidency is that poverty dropped considerably as a result of poverty aid programs. It’s a reminder that poverty and homelessness are a choice we make.

Finally there was the billionaire space race. I wrote about it here.

Ransomware: Continues to be a problem everywhere including Canada. It looks like Biden has expressed his unhappiness with things to Putin. I am not sure if this is a result of that conversation, but some of the people responsible for ransomware suddenly disappeared.

Lastly thanks for reading this! I appreciate it. Go out and enjoy the summer days while you can.

(Photo by Chris Galbraith on Unsplash)

June, 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

Wow. It’s the end of June and summer has started. Here’s my latest blog newsletter for you. Short and sweet.

Pandemic:  Canadians continue to ramp up on getting vaccinated. 30% of the population has been fully vaxxed, including yours truly. Well done! I have been impressed by the Federal government procuring the vaccines, as well as the distribution in Toronto. They even had a big event where over 26,000 people were vaccinated in one day at the Skydome/Rogers Center.

Not everything has been awesome. Take the response from the government of Ontario. The Globe has said it has been the worst of all the provincial governments. Hard to disagree with that assessment. Ford has tried to distract others from his performance by trying to shift some of the blame on to Trudeau. That didn’t go far…Trudeau shifted it back onto Ford big time.

While Canadians have generally been good in getting vaccinated, some pockets have been resistant. So governments like that in Manitoba have been offering incentives. Here’s to everyone getting it done this summer!

There has been some positive things to note regarding the pandemic. Crime has plummetted. Quarantine rules are changing for the better in Canada. So that’s good.

Businesses are trying to return to normal, but even the best of them, like Starbucks, are having a hard time getting supplies. There is still a labour shortage too. We are not out of the woods in terms of business.

Overall, this has been a tough time. As VOX argues, it has not been a sabbatical.

If you need more on the pandemic, the New York Times has a whole section, here.

Non-pandemic things I noted: NFRs are getting smarter, though there are still lots of nonsense. However at least  this time people like Sotheby’s are tying their value to the artist themselves. That’s a good thing. Another thing I keep an eye on is ransomware. Sadly, it’s getting worse.

In the US, the GOP are still focused on limiting who can vote in the US. They don’t want to change their platforms, they just want to stay in power.
That is obvious as shown here. Meanwhile, Biden seems to have their number, based on this.As for Canada, there has been a lot of focus on indigenous issues and in particular the residential schools. Here’s a good editorial
on it.

Try and go out and enjoy the nice weather while you can. Everything you can do to make the pandemic better is worth doing.

(Photo by Sofia Mejia on Unsplash )

May, 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)


It’s May, and it’s lovely in Ontario in terms of weather. Alas, the pandemic is still going on, as is my not-a-newsletter of highlights and ramblings for this month. Hope you like it.

Pandemic: Here in Canada we are rushing to get vaccinated. Over 50% of the population has at least 1 dose, and some Canadians have two (I got my second shot of AZ/AstraZeneca today). I am happy to see that the governments all seem to be working better again. The Federal government has been procuring them, the Provincial government has been distributing them, and the City has been setting up spots for people to get them. And get them they have. Kudos to everyone making efforts to get out there and end this.

It’s not to say there are no bumps in the road. Some provinces, like mine, ended up in a panic about whether or not to allow people to get additional AZ vaccines. Eventually Ontario relented and people like me signed up and got their jabs. Still, the experience has left people bitter, as this Doug Coupland piece illustrated.

Canadians don’t need much prompting to get vaccinated. This seems to be true down south for the most part, thought some states like West Virginia are offering savings bonds to encourage vaccination while Detroit was giving out $50 debit cards to ‘Good Neighbors’ to help boost lagging COVID-19 vaccination rate.  I encourage governments using any means at their disposal to get vaccinated. It’s too bad that people just don’t go and get it done. Get it done, people! I am hopeful by this summer most of Canada and the US will be fully open or close to fully open. Indeed the mayor of New York City says his city will be open this July 1. Let’s hope every place is.

Now whether we all go back to work right away is another thing. Outlets like the BBC are arguing the future of work will be hybrid. We shall see.

Since the pandemic is still ongoing,  you need ways to cope. One way people are coping is managing their time on Zoom and WebEx calls. Techies have even been inventing devices to hang them up. Another way people have managed is by developing routines. That’s been healthy. Or getting back to exercising. A less healthy way has been drinking too much. If that is you, you might benefit on reading this piece on ways to cut back. But back to healthy, a good way to help yourself is to get out from time to time. I hope to take advantage of Toronto’s outdoor cafes once they are open.

Finally, in case you haven’t read the best restaurant review of the pandemic…now you can.

US : it’s been weird to watch what is happening in the United States. On one hand, you have the Democrats working to deal with the pandemic and the effect it has had on the American people. On the other hand, you have Republicans working hard in places like Texas and many other places to restrict the vote of people for the next election. Not only that, but Republicans are also working to prevent any examination into the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

Here’s hoping for the United States to become a better democracy, not a worse one.

Meanwhile in Canada, we need to do better in many ways, starting with one that is fundamental to me: making sure everyone has access to clean water. I can’t believe I even have to say this.

Non-pandemic things: No new news on newsletters. They are still a Thing…just not as newsworthy. Good.

NFTs are still newsworthy.  For example, this piece is a good way to just see how weird and wild they are:

I still don’t think they make any sense, but I have been proven wrong on such things before.

A year ago: Last May we saw the “cancellation” of Alison Roman. Since then she pivoted to making her own newsletter and a YouTube video channel with over 100K viewers. She seems to have landed ok. Speaking of food, I wrote last May that people were already tired of making their own food. Ha! Still at it a year later.  For more on how the pandemic looked last year, here’s the newsletter I wrote then.

Finally:

Over a year ago we were all struggling to get masks and learn how to wear them properly. Now they are as common as shoes. Here’s a throw back to mask wearing tips from the City of Toronto.

Thanks for reading this! I appreciate it. Here’s hoping for a pandemic ending everywhere and soon.

 

April 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

The pandemic is still going on and so is this! Here’s my latest not-a-newsletter of highlights and ramblings and thingamabobs for this April.

Pandemic:The pandemic is a story of extremes this month. Some countries, like the US and the UK and Israel, are seemingly coming to the end of it. Meanwhile countries like India are burning up with cases and death. It’s terrible to see. For countries like the US and UK, being able to produce their own vaccines made a big difference. But it wasn’t the only difference (Ahem, going from Trump to Biden). For a deeper dive on just one country, here’s a good piece on how Israel was so successful

In Canada we model the world in some ways. For parts of Canada life is relatively normal and aims to stay that way. (I’m look at you up North and out East.) Then there is Ontario, where I am, which seems to have suffered a collapse in provincial leadership. The provincial government recently issued edicts to the province, only to have everyone from the police to the public health units to the people either ignore it or rally against it. Some newspapers are saying that’s the end for the premier.

I have some sympathy for the government’s plight. On one hand you have  hospitals halting non-emergency surgeries as COVID-19 patients fill ICUs, which is terrifying. On the other hand, you have businesses everywhere saying that they’re at risk of losing everything and need help. What you need is strong leadership at this point, but as the Globe and many other argued, we aren’t getting it. We have a panicked leadership seemingly refusing to do anything other than hope for the vaccines to rescue them for their inability to do more.

I’m too discouraged to say more. I’ll let the Toronto Star have the last word:  A 278-word timeline of Ontario’s COVID-19 response | The Star

Individually, the New York Times says we have all hit the wall and we are languishing. I agree. Some of us are getting vaccines, but the unequal distribution can make us feel guilty. Lots of difficult feeling to deal with. We just have to take breaks when we can and forge on.

Meanwhile for something completely different, pandemic-wise, check out this: Honeywell and rapper Will.i.am just debuted a futuristic face-mask with built-in wireless earphones at Yanko Design.

 Newsletters:last month I said newsletters are “still a thing”. What an understatement. If anything, they are now a Big Thing. So big that the New York Times is getting ready to go toe to toe with Substack.

It makes sense. There are likely some writers at the Times looking at Matt Yglesias and others generating close to a million in annual revenue and thinking: I want some of that. Money changes everything, and the amount of money newsletters are generating tells me that we are going to be talking about them for some time.

US : I am glad of two things in the United States. One, we no longer have to hear about the last president any more. (Although some writers still can’t give him up: he’s like an addiction they can’t quit). Two, they have a president who seems to be in a hurry. Awhile ago Vox argued Joe Biden should do everything at once. It looks like he has decided to do that. Besides Vox, two good pieces on Biden that helped me understand him better were this, Bidenomics, explained – Noahpinion,  and this, the radicalism of Joe Biden.

Other interesting things: I am looking to purge my basement and other rooms of things, so I found this piece on how to let go of any possession good. Post-pandemic, we are all likely going to want to live with less.

IKEA came out with this fascinating cookbook: IKEA ScrapsBook – Zero-Waste Recipes & Ideas – IKEA CA. Worth a look.

In the next few decades, I predict many brutalist buildings will be destroyed. Once I may have cheered this, but I have come around to appreciating them more. Articles like this helped.

Poor Orlando Bloom. He gave an interview on what his day in Los Angeles looked like and was widely mocked and ridiculed for it. I had to laugh as well. Then I came across this piece: California dreamin’ with Orlando Bloom, and other tales of only-in-L.A. obliviousness. It helps explain Mr. Bloom and L.A. in general. Worth reading!

Libertarians have been taking a beating during this pandemic. Understandably. Still, they make a good case for why libertarian principles are still useful during this time here.

Finally: I came across this site which I love: All the Restaurants in New York. It reminded me of the work of the late great Jason Polan, and his attempt to draw every person in New York. This gives me a chance to share some links I have of the beloved artist, including this piece in the New Yorker about his Taco Bell Drawing Club. The New York Times also has a piece on it. Finally here are two other sites showing their appreciation for him: ghostly.com and 20×200.com

 

May we all get through this pandemic soon and gather in large crowds again and be with everyone in New York and every place else as well. RIP, Jason. (Image via the NYT’s piece).

March 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

Yikes! It’s April 1st so I am a day late (and a dollar short?) on sending out my latest not-a-newsletter of highlights and ramblings since the one a month ago.Here’s a few things I’ve found noteworthy in March to share with you:

Pandemic:Right now the pandemic has been about the next wave (sadly) and vaccines (happily). It’s been a real roller coaster when it has come to vaccines. But with all the ups and downs, more and more vaccines have been distributed, thank heavens. The latest medical miracle is from Johnson & Johnson. This piece talks about how they work which I thought helpful. Also helpful is this piece from the site Our World in Data, which has some great stats on how vaccinations worldwide are doing. It gives me hope.

Locally, here’s how Ontario is doing: Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccination plan. Not bad, but not great. Somewhere through the pandemic the Ontario provincial government reverted to the idea that somehow being frugal during a catastrophe is a good idea. So we got things like this: Ontario rejected proposals to protect LTC residents, deeming them ‘too expensive’: documents, according to CBC News. Being conservative with water is a good idea, except when your house is on fire, but that looks to be the approach of the current Ford government. His team is not the only group coming up short. Toronto is struggling with a homelessness problem, and has lead to bad situations like this crackdown on tiny shelters. Meanwhile vaccine portals everywhere are failing. We all hoped for better. Meanwhile we all slog along. It’s tough.

A year into the pandemic, the effect on people is significant. Even people who have the luxury of working from home are struggling.  Artists in particular are having a hard time getting by, based on this really good piece in the New York Times on how 75 Artists On How They Spent a Year in Coronavirus . Even those who have been productive in the pandemic, like the famed art duo Gilbert and George, acknowledge that “this is an enormously sad time’ . So if you feel down on yourself, it’s understandable. But not hopeless, as this writer/runner shows. You may have given up on things, but you can start again.

Looking back, we were so cautiously optimistic at the beginning of the pandemic, making food and doing crafts. I was  using sites like this and also this to make zines. Others made chapbooks. And of course we all cooked a ton. Here’s an almost nostalgic run down of all the pandemic food trends, from Dalgona coffee to banana bread.

Post-pandemic: While the pandemic still rages on, with the rollout of vaccines, we are already looking forward to what the world is going to be like afterwards. For example, will vaccine passports be a thing? Will services discriminate based on that, as this piece discusses: Should Only Vaccinated People Be Allowed to Use the Gym?. Will our work places change? Will they feature things like this?

One thing I am afraid will happen is people will start arguing that all the sacrifices made and all the money spent wasn’t worth it. That we were duped. You can see the gaslighting already starting here: The Lockdowns Weren’t Worth It – WSJ. The thing to note in that piece is the total disregard for those who died and those who became sick. There is no accounting in it for deaths and illnesses that could have been avoided. Be on the lookout for that.

Meanwhile, if you are preparing to travel post pandemic, this is a good guide on how to visit New York City on a budget . And here’s a fun guide on how to go to concerts when you’re middle-aged because let’s face it you are going to want to do it all.

 Newsletters: still a thing. We’ve gotten to the point where they are so successful that there are debates about who is making money and what should be done about it. To see what I mean, read this: Why Substack writers are mad about money Substack is paying out – Vox.

US : I came across this article years ago concerning the Obama Administration:
Barack Obama is officially one of the most consequential presidents in American history – Vox. Funny enough, I think the Biden Administration took it as a challenge! They seem to be trying to outpace not even Obama but LBJ or FDR. It’s early days, but there is a sense Biden’s team will make great changes to the social contract in the US. Perhaps more and more people in America will be able to agree with Wallace Shawn in this essay he wrote: Why I Call Myself a Socialist.

Finally: if you can barely manage to make anything food wise these days, I recommend you read this: THE MINIMALIST; Three-Way Pasta – The New York Times. It’s a classic from Mark Bittman. I usually try to have a pasta dinner once a week. With that in hand, I have ¾ of the month covered in terms of what to make.

If you find working from home stressful, this might be helpful. How lo-fi artists make music perfect for work. (Or studying. Or chilling.) 

Perhaps in 2022 more of us will be working in fancy schmantzy sheds like the one below:

I for one would not mind. 🙂

(Image via that piece on how our workplaces will change in Yanko Design)

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

Hi there! Thanks for taking the time to read my latest  not-a-newsletter of highlights and ramblings since the one in January. (Well, it was off January, but it was out in February because of a slow start).

Pandemic: It’s been a year now since I last started writing these newsletters at beginning of the pandemic. Last February I was still going to restaurants, still going to gym, still socializing with people and working in an office. No doubt you were doing that too.

I was going over links from earlier in the pandemic, and it was interesting to see how things evolved. When the pandemic first hit, people were recommending we read The Plague, by Albert Camus to get a sense of reference. That’s something we no longer need after a year. (Still a great book, though read it for other reasons). Back at the end of last March, some were asking if the measures taken were worst than the disease. I doubt anyone is asking that now. A big thing back then was making sure you washed your hands thoroughly.Some hackers even proposed a DIY Hand Washing Timer. Now we wear double masks. In the fall, someone wrote that it was fine the virus was mutating. That’s no longer true.

We in Canada and other rich countries are now at the beginning of the end (I hope). I am keeping an eye on Ontario’s latest vaccine update and will go when the time is right. Meanwhile we have to get through it somehow, even if this winter is going to seem hard. I wish I had the gumption to
walk 20,000 Steps a Day like this person: some days I barely do 1000. I watch the case counts go up and down. I don’t think anyone knows why. I’ve lost faith in many Canadian leaders, especially when they do things like this or this. Mostly the premiers are trying to get to the finish line somehow, so they keep doing this because the alternative is too expensive, I feel. Even cooking has been affected by the pandemic, with butter no longer being as good as it used to be. Ah well, I need to lose The the ‘Quarantine 15’ anyway.

One silver lining is that the flu seems to have been all but wiped out this year, according to this. I hope that becomes an annual thing after the pandemic is over.

Things I used to write about: I used to ramble often on the U.S., newsletters and restaurants. I no longer feel the need to so. The Biden administration is more than competent, and it’s almost like Trump no longer was president. The sooner he fades away, the better. Restaurants have not faded away, but they have definitely faded. Happily most are hanging in. I remain cautiously optimistic. Newsletters have done anything but fade: they are bigger than ever.

New things: Clubhouse seems to be the next new social media thing. If you haven’t received an invite, chances soon you will. Like podcasts, Tiktok and other new social media, there will be a rush to it at first, and there will be some people who suddenly become famous as a result. It looks promising, and it likely will be a big new platform. At least as long as the pandemic is underway. One thing to point out, though, is there are concerns with how secure and private it is. Keep that in mind.

Another new thing I like that isn’t new at all: Jacques Pepin. I love watching his videos on Instagram. He’s on YouTube too. Here he is making an egg. I have more to write on him in the days ahead.

Fun things: for a hot minute after the Inauguration there were all these memes of Bernie Sanders dressed up with mittens and placed in all these unlikely settings. Someone even wrote a bit of software to let you do it yourself! You can find it here.

Instagram and Facebook: I deleted my Facebook account years ago, after my Dad died. I didn’t like Facebook the company: they have been an abuser of people privacy since the early days, and they continue to be morally shoddy. Once both my parents were gone, I no longer felt the need to be on that platform in any way.

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to pretend Instagram is different, even though Facebook owns them. Based on how the service is changing and becoming more and more like its owner, I am having a hard time keeping up the illusion.

I am still hesitant to delete my Instagram account. I like the people who post on there, and I’d miss them if I left. I am still there, but I archived my posts from almost a decade. It took a long time, to be honest; that may be a design feature of Instagram. It may be easier to delete your account.

If you do want to delete your account, here’s a piece on how you can backup your photos first.

Good things: finally here’s some good things I’ve read about recently, including this story about a guy who goes on walks and picks up garbage. Here’s some coffee scented candles to pick up your day. If you are feeling like you need to have a good moment right now, read this.

Until the next newsletter, let’s keep each other safe by doing what this illustration says.

pandemic advice

January pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form, a month late)

Hey! How has your new year been? Mine has not started great: January was both tough and busy. I kept trying to get to this, but somehow never had the energy or the focus to write it. Now I have found both. Thanks for dropping by and reading this, my latest not-a-newsletter of highlights and ramblings since the last one in December.

Pandemic: we are now in the phase of the pandemic where we are being told in Canada to hurry up and wait concerning the vaccines. It’s been slow to get them, and slow to deliver them. The rate of progress has been discouraging. To make it worse, more variants of the COVID-19 virus have appeared, variants that spread more rapidly. I feel like someone on the Titanic waiting for my turn on a lifeboat while the ship takes on more water. And I am lucky to be able to stay at home and stay healthy. Meanwhile doctors are hospitals are overwhelmed and hanging on. Barely.

Vox took time to try and figure out why Covid-19 beat social distancing, lockdowns, and “flatten the curve”. Reading that could give you some consolation.

Of course, everyone had their monocausal explanations for why we are still struggling with the pandemic. The premier of Ontario brought in another lockdown because he said people are traveling too much. That’s one explanation, but not the only one.

In the early part of the pandemic I felt governments were strong on taking actions. They were like sprinters at the start of a marathon. Then things petered out. For example, the Federal government funded a Toronto COVID-19 isolation hotel. They pumped big money into the economy. Provinces like Ontario provided pandemic pay for frontline workers fighting COVID-19. But I never felt like they tried as hard recently as they did initially.

That’s not to say it is easy and they aren’t trying. This piece explains why
it’s so hard to ramp up Ontario’s COVID-19 testing. Yet it still seems like things are half hearted these days.

It’s not all grim, though much is. We have adopted. Sweatpants for instance :). And we are trying to maintain some form of work-life balance, but as my head boss says,  achieving healthy work-life balance in a hybrid work environment ‘remains to be seen’. Some of us are making unique friends (Riding Out Quarantine With a Chatbot Friend: ‘I Feel Very Connected’).  Some people tried to get out of their old pandemic habits and live better by taking on a Dry January. Others have taken up unusual self help books, such as this: A working from home manual in disguise.

I believe by the end of 2021 we will have put this pandemic behind us. Perhaps we will see a Roaring Twenties to match those of a century ago. Let’s hope, and for those who pray, let’s pray. Most importantly, let’s get vaccinated. If you want to know more about vaccines  in Canada, go here. More on that here.

Last word on this subject. If you want to know how others are getting through the pandemic, this is good: The Pandemic Logs in The New York Times.

The US: finally, after much nonsense, the worst president the United States ever had left the White House. What a long terrible four years it has been for America and the world with him nominally in charge. Whatever else the new president does, the fact that he is at least competent and not corrupt will be good for that country. I am hopeful for America, and my American friends, and I am looking forward to things getting better for them in the years to come.

Restaurants: I was drawn to this piece that Bon Appetit did some time ago on the best restaurants in Toronto . I wonder how many will still be around when all this is over. Some of them have taken to becoming takeout places, like this Michelin-starred restaurant, but many have not. Even for those that did, it might not be enough to get through to the other side of the pandemic.

Gamestop: It has a bizarre time in the world of finance as several forces came together to drive stocks like Gamestock into the stratosphere, only to crash down again. In some ways, it was a bit of a mystery to me. Just when I thought I understood the story, so me new fact would come along. There was a number of good pieces on it. This one, for example: The GameStop Reckoning Was a Long Time Coming

Jeff Bezos and Amazon:  Jeff Bezos has left Amazon. No doubt he was not looking forward to more grilling from the government into his monopolistic practices. I don’t have much to say about him, other than he did  not seem to be a person you want to work for. Here’s hoping Amazon becomes a better place with the new CEO. Meanwhile here’s some markers on the man who ran that company. Like Larry Ellison and unlike Steve Jobs, I doubt he will be missed:

Quantity over quality : there is a great book called Art and Fear which gives lessons on making art. One of my favorite parts of it has to do with how a ceramics class was split into two: one group were given the task of making many vases (quantity) and another group of making one vase (quality). The first group would pit their best vase against the second group. In the story, the first group wins. The lesson: quantity beats quality. I love that story.

Sadly, the story isn’t entirely true. The details on that are here: The Credibility Is in the Details.

Recent blog highlights: here are some things I blogged about in January that I thought were worth reading:

Finally: here is an interactive web site where you can be a cat playing the bongos. Worthwhile! 🙂

And don’t forget…

Good news is coming. Meanwhile, thanks as always for taking the time to read this newsletter, and other things on this blog. I appreciate it.

 

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

Well well well, it’s the last month of 2020, and my last not-really-a-newsletter newsletter! I appreciate you taking a moment to read my latest not-a-newsletter of highlights and ramblings since the one in November.

I’m not sure if I will continue these here and in this format in the new year. Let’s see. Something for me to consider as the year closes. But for now, here’s things I’ve been thinking on since the last one:

Pandemic: It’s hard not to think about the pandemic. Since November, the pandemic has only gotten worse in many places. My town and province is no exception. Cases are up, deaths are up, efforts to flatten the curve seem to be going nowhere. My son’s school was shut down then the rest of the schools were shut down. As for leadership, it seems very reactive these days. A good analysis of that is here: With the pandemic surging, we need more leadership and less urging – The Globe and Mail. Also this piece: Why Doug Ford is stumbling during COVID-19’s second wave? Too often governments thought they could somehow manage the disease and open the economy. They couldn’t.

One of the reason deal with COVID has been so frustrating is well captured in this image:

Governments everywhere keep fiddling with the dial as if to find the right setting, and then find there is none. (Image from xkcd: Covid Precaution Level)

Some places have managed better than others, but even there it has not been perfect. Not long after this came out,  Living in Nova Scotia’s Covid-Free World – The New York Times, they had an outbreak in cases. Nova Scotia is still doing very well, but it is hard to stay perfect. (I’m looking at you New Zealand.)

Besides the health costs, there are the economic costs of the pandemic too. Articles like this come out every month in Toronto: Toronto rent prices are down 15% since last year at this time. Since that one, the rents have dropped to 20%. Meanwhile, places like The Gap are calling it quits in parts of the city: The Gap is closing its flagship store in Toronto

It may be a sad reality that many of storefronts will be boarded up  when the pandemic is over. Indeed, many are boarded up now.

And it will be over, this awful time. Vaccines are rolling out now. Here are places you can use to track it:

In the meantime, stay safe and try to stay healthy this winter. If you are in Toronto, consider this:  A New Way to Play: Recreation During COVID-19 – City of Toronto

Non-pandemic items:

The US: This newsletter is not just about the pandemic. It’s also time to send out a big Bronx cheer to the current president of the United States. I often argued that he was not the worst president in American history. I am wavering in that belief. Just the number of unnecessary deaths resulting from his inaction make him truly terrible. As we lift up the rock and uncover more about him, I think he will only seem worse. Meanwhile, here’s a good piece on his ending: Trump’s Final Days of Rage and Denial – The New York Times.

I would settle for Biden just being not-Trump. But he has a chance to do more. I hope he will. Here’s one way he could do it: Biden transition: How he could act fast and outrun Republican opposition to his presidency – Vox

The economy: One thing we are doing to hear a lot about is the deficits and debts now. This is not the time to do that. There is still much needs to be done for the world to recover. Not only that, but interest rates for some nations are essentially negative. See this for details: China Borrows at Negative Rates for the First Time – WSJ

One group in Canada you might hear banging on about the debt is the Fraser Institute. So here’s a reminder from PressProgress: pay no attention to anything the Fraser Institute says. Even if you are a right winger, at least find some source that doesn’t manipulate the facts.

Newsletters: they have become old hat now. So much so I think I will not comment on them any more. I would like to highlight one last one, though.  David Lebovitz has moved to Substack. Here is his.. He also has a great blog. He’s been an excellent user of social media for some time (not to mention a fine cook and author). Go check him out. Meanwhile, for anyone tired of turning bananas into banana bread, check out this: Banana and Chocolate Chip Upside Down Cake (Lowfat) – David Lebovitz

My blog: ICYMI, I wrote earlier on this blog about friluftsliv (a concept you should know), Ikea,  cardigans and why they are great, Betty Godwin and why she is great, various cocktails (and why you should drink them), as well as being moderately gifted,  being good  and being Paul McCartney.

Thanks for reading this, as well as anything else on my blog. I always appreciate it.

And for those celebrating it: