2020-06-07 – doug — off the record

My Week Ending 2020-06-07

2020-06-072020-06-07 by dougpete, posted in Just Rambling

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.

Information about COVID-19 and its spread has been shown in many ways. Google does it here.
Los Angeles releases its plan for opening schools. Teachers and school districts should be learning from all that are sharing their plans to help get things right.
Lovers of drive-in theatres will be looking for news about theatres opening in their world. Here’s Port Elmsley.
I like the advice here. When a conference moves to being online, it shouldn’t be just a talking head in a Zoom window.
Apple stores have been hit hard by people breaking in to them. That free iPhone that they just got may not work for them though.
I like the fact that online conferencing software is evolving. Here’s a summary about the “new” Google Meet. Will people actually use the features though?
I can’t imagine that too many parents will be jumping for joy to bring their kids back to a school of uncertainty.
You know that your processor is moving into the big time when Linus Torvalds embraces it. Success for AMD.
Personally, I find dark mode so easy on my eyes and increases the amount of time that I’m comfortable working on a computer. So, the darker the better for me.
This will be me. My mid-2010 MacBook Pro cost a lot of money and yet still works well. Apple will be calling it “obsolete” soon.
I’ll admit that the end of the year classroom cleanout is always emotional. COVID has cleaned out students already.
I applaud this Canadian approach to the Group of Seven. Any country that attacks another doesn’t deserve our support.
Dentists will be happy to get back in business and having an income, I suspect. Like everything else, it’s going to be different.
If we ever get fast enough internet access to stream television here, Roku looks interesting with even more channels added.
Sadly, this reinforces that there are rules sand then there are rules and they aren’t applied equally.
Looks like you may have to open up your programming game – even if it means going Rust-y.
Well, this is a waste of a brand new car.
It would be nice to get a haircut. If dentists are allowed to open, surely hairdressers can’t be far off.
This is really, really important. If you pass a computer off to someone else, you don’t want them having access to any of your details.

Blog Posts on
doug … off the record

My daily contributions to this blog. If you’re looking for a week in review for doug–off the record, you came to the right place.

Sunday – My Week Ending May 31, 2020
Monday – The #t4conf
Tuesday – Browser games
Wednesday – Bizarre crashing
Thursday – We all need to take 21 seconds
Friday – This Week in Ontario Edublogs
Saturday – National Indigenous History Month
Sunday – Whatever happened to … possums?

#FollowFriday – June 5, 2020

https://wke.lt/w/s/8AlZGA

voicEd Radio

This week on voicEd Radio, Stephen Hurley and I chatted about authenticity, nuance, fathers, mail, and badges.

This week’s show – https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/nuance-and-authenticity-in-a-covid-19-ontario/

Intro Song:

All of the podcasts are archived here.

Blog posts this week came from:

Deana Gordon – @dgdocfree76
Amy Bowker – @amyebowker
Lisa Corbett – @LisaCorbett0261
Patt Olivieri – @pattolivieri
Chris Cluff – @chrisjcluff

Technology Troubleshooting

One of the pains of rural life is getting mail.

In our case, we have a mailbox across the road and, once again, it got clipped by a snow plough this past winter. The town gave us a loaner and wanted it back.

So, it was time for a new one.

A mailbox, 4×4, 1×6, anchor later and we’re now receiving mail again in our new mailbox.

At least until next winter.

Video of the Week

Last night at my Computer Science Friends Beer, my friend Michelle (who was having a glass of wine) shared this video about Stacks and Queues. It all makes sense!

Photo of the Week

Fortunately, the town was by to trim the weeds and we now have access to the fire hydrant across the road. May we never need it.

Thanks for reading.

Please join me daily for something new and, hopefully, interesting for you. Time willing, this summary appears every Sunday afternoon.

Be safe.

This blog post was originally posted at:

https://dougpete.wordpress.com/

If you find it anywhere else, it’s not original.

Whatever happened to …

2020-06-072020-06-05 by dougpete, posted in Just Rambling

… possums?

Stay with me. It will make sense.

On This Week in Ontario Edublogs, I stumped Stephen Hurley who was not aware of this classic Brad Paisley song.

This spring, we’re certainly aware of ticks around here. In a normal spring, Jaimie and I would be out on the Greenway trail sniffing our way around. This year, we’ve been pulling back. It wasn’t uncommon to come home and have to pull some ticks off him. (me too, occasionally) Fortunately, we have a tick key to help and he takes flea and tick medication. Yet, there still is something creepy about those many legged parasites.

They seem to be bountiful this year. I also attribute it to neighbours who cut their grass once a month whether it needs it or not. (it needs it) As we were discussing out disgust pulling off the latest, we noted that we haven’t seen any possums all winter. Normally, we see some out at the bird feeder or, sadly, hit on the road. As my pictures will attest, they’re around here both in the summer and the winter.

I can’t recall the last time we saw one. There are some things to like about them. According to the article, one possum can kill 4 000 ticks a week! Therein lies our problem, I’m sure.

As a bit of trivia, I’ve always called them possums although I think the official term is opossum. I blame it on the Clampetts.