Here’s a summary of some of the things I learned and published this week.
Readings
You can follow my daily readings as they happen here. Below are a selected few, with commentary, from the past week.
- Two thoughts on this – first, haven’t we flogged this horse enough? second, if we haven’t, it’s good that there are people still talking about it.
- For those afraid of boldly going where no one has gone before or actually some have and got burned.
- A half dozen is a pretty good start but I’m sure that, with a little more effort, many more could be banned. What are the rules though?
- I wasn’t really surprised when I read this. Collaborations always have some friction between those who work together. More important than the process in times like this are the results. And, they’re pretty darned good.
- I checked my calendar to see if was actually April 1 all over again. But, it’s a new law that will make Maple Leaf, Senators, Raptors, Argonaut, Red Black, and Tiger Cat fans happy, I guess. Hopefully, it doesn’t extend to elementary school soccer games.
- It would be interesting to compare this list with what your local library already offers. Maybe they need to up their game!
- Flight Attendant of the year.
- This may well be the biggest science story of the year. Decade? It will be interesting to see what this knowledge gains society.
- I don’t know if the Linux desktop will ever gain mainstream. Not that it isn’t good. From my experience, it’s much more stable than the other alternatives and certainly isn’t as intrusive with updates. For the most part, to play in that market you have to pay the Microsoft or Apple tax and then do your own installation. Even then, I still hedge my bets and dual boot.
- I think this is a great move on the part of Facebook. Yearly, when my uncle’s name pops up as having a birthday when he has passed is a little uncomfortable. People need to be good about turning them into memorial pages.
- These really are spectacular colour photos of the Holy Land. Worth enjoying and then bookmarking, to be sure.
- So, this is Google’s alternative to its recently shuttered Google +. Will people use it even if they might get burned again?
- Wikileaks was big in the news toward the end of the week. We immediately think of Hillary Clinton’s email but here are some Canadian things that were leaked.
- If you’re concerned about people spying on you, use this to spy on yourself and then make choices.
Blog Posts on doug … off the record
My daily contributions to this blog.
- Sunday – My Week Ending April 7, 2019
- Monday – Make your own
- Tuesday – Need to know more
- Wednesday – Where did the cool kids go?
- Thursday – Blog posts that should be written
- Friday – This Week in Ontario Edublogs
- Saturday – @voicEd #twioe Playlist – Weeks 116-120
- Sunday – Whatever happened to … the Pink Panther?
#FollowFriday
Here’s who I tagged as “Active” last Friday morning.
voicEd Radio
My on demand radio page can be found here.
Opening song this week:
The latest #TWIOE show features blog posts from:
Technology Troubleshooting
There was an interesting story that I read earlier this week.
B.C. man guilty of using mobile while driving, even though it had a dead batteryNow, I’m not guilty of text while driving although I will admit that there really is a curiosity when you get a message on your phone while driving. You know what they say about curiosity and cats and all that. As a dog walker, I see people on their phones all the time as they go whizzing down the roads here. One of the roads that we walk has a speed limit of 80 km/h and the other 60 km/h because it’s a school zone.
As a matter of habit, I will try to make eye contact of the driver. As a fallback, if that fails, I keep my eyes on him/her just to see if they are paying attention to what they’re doing. I don’t want to get hit by a car and I most certainly don’t want Jaimie too either.
I don’t know what the answer is to those who use their phone while driving except for the increased penalties that we now have in Ontario. I think my reaction to the title above was a little strong in the beginning because it sounded bizarre. And yet, I totally understand the logic. I really do.
What do YOU do when your phone is unresponsive. You probably put more attention to it to see if you could find out what’s wrong. I think it’s just human nature to want to have a fix. Of course, if you’re like me, you do the insane thing of thinking that if I press harder, somehow it will fix it.
I’ve had people swerve on the road as they’re passing so I can testify that distracted driving really is a thing. It naturally follows that trying to debug or fix a problem would fall into that category.
I don’t ever want to get a ticket or the fine involved.
My new driving habit? I put my phone in a jacket pocket and zip the pocket. It’s a habit that’s worked well over the winter and the spring when I’m wearing a jacket. I’ve always hoped that, if I ever got stopped in a traffic stop or blitz, that it would be enough to convince an officer that I’m serious about not using it while driving. Now that the warmer weather is on the horizon, I’ll have to come up with a new technique.
Video of the Week
Photo of the Week
I had a “what the heck” moment when I saw this while walking the King’s Navy Yard. Tulips are always a nice sign of spring and our town’s garden by the river is pretty good.
I decided to call this crime “Grand Theft Tulip”. There are lots of squirrels in the park. Is the fattest one the guilty party?
Please join me daily and I hope that you check in next Sunday for a summary of my week.
Thanks for reading.
dp
This blog post was originally posted at:
https://dougpete.wordpress.com/
If you find it anywhere else, it’s not original.
doug --- off the record 