Day: July 10, 2022

My Week Ending 2022-07-10

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. They’re posted to the blog daily under the title OTR Links.

Sunday

  • I think this is important – Our Ontario Provincial government seems to have turned their backs on COVID and reports – doctors are using the 4th dose. (I got mine)
  • OK, hardcore Apple Macintosh users – would you protect your computer with Microsoft Defender? Before you say no, remember that you love Microsoft Office

Monday

  • I think it takes a very special type of person to want to be a teacher anyway; here are some reasons why people don’t want into the profession
  • Air Canada is huge in the news and this adds to it with the cancellation of 9 500 flights this summer

Tuesday

  • I don’t know about you but I find Google Streetview simply amazing and it’s special when you see the car! Here are all the ways that the images are captured
  • Another chance to beat up on the Google Chrome browser and suggest alternatives for better resolution in Netflix

Wednesday

  • Long time Opera fan here and I liked this post, not as a reason to leave Chrome, but as a nice summary of Opera features
  • There’s a new mandate coming for school buses in Ontario. I think it’s sad that we continue to do this. Buses should have cameras and anyone who passes illegally gets a ticket. Period

Thursday

Friday

  • This is such a sad story – we’ve heard about the shortage of lifeguards and now there’s a shortage of officials for kids’ sports. It’s like the world is out against summer activities
  • The biggest technology story from last week was the outage of Rogers‘ internet and other services. Huge impact and the discussion continues

Saturday

  • There definitely is a need for a Plan B. I’ll bet the planning is either underway or it starts on Monday
  • The Simpsons fans may get a chuckle out of the history of the price tag on Maggie

Blog Posts on
doug — off the record

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

#FollowFriday – July 8, 2022

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

https://wke.lt/w/s/uT4O33

voicEd Radio

This Week in Ontario Edublogs is a blog post/show/podcast that features great writing from Ontario Edubloggers. Stephen Hurley and I use their writing as the basis for a conversation.

Featured Bloggers:

  • Melanie White – @WhiteRoomRadio
  • Arianna Lambert – @MsALambert
  • Will Gourley – @WillGourley
  • Michael Frankfort – @mfrank_76
  • STAO – @staoapso
  • Rolland Chidiac – @rchids
  • Vicky Loras – @vickyloras
  • Melissa Turnbull – @missmturnbull

This week’s show:

Opening Song:

Closing Song:

Technology Troubleshooting

My MacBook Pro 2013 edition is starting to show that its once top of the line specifications aren’t holding up given how I use a computer these days.

I grab it on Friday morning to do my “Follow Friday” posts because it had a much better processor for working with Tweetdeck which can be pretty processor intensive.

The problem is that the screen isn’t really big enough to handle what I want to do with it without scroll. Once you’ve become used to a 1920×1080 resolution, anything else pales. At times, I’ll grab my Linux laptop but it isn’t as light on the lap as the MBP is.

I’ve tried everything I could with the settings and have it set to as much as it can display but it’s not enough.

Then, I remembered some advice – don’t raise the bridge, lower the river.

I got away from the MBP settings and, instead, went right into Firefox’s setting and told it to scale the fonts less than 100%. 80% seemed to display everything I wanted without scrolling.

Problem solved. Coffee does help with the smaller text. There’s always compromises but this isn’t a bad one.

Look what I made

With all the Wordle craze, I of course blogged about it earlier but also created a Wakelet of all the Wordle clones I could find. Once created, I’ve been adding to it daily, it seems. I guess it’s presumptuous to think I could do it all in one session. It certainly has taken the online world by storm.

My collection is available here: https://wke.lt/w/s/BuvP40

Update – July 2: Up to 68 entries.

Video of the Week

I’m laughing a little too hard here.


Photo of the Week

We had to let these two out for some exercise. Immediately, they ignored each other and put their noses to the ground.


Thanks for reading.

Please join me daily for something new and, hopefully, interesting for you. I honestly and truthfully appreciate your few moments reading my thoughts. Time willing, this summary appears every Sunday afternoon.

Be safe.

dp

This blog post was originally posted at:

https://dougpete.wordpress.com/

Advertisement

Whatever happened to …

by dougpete, posted in OTR

… mercurochrome?

A long time ago and far away, a bunch of us saw a daredevil show at the local race track. Those stunt drivers did amazing things with their cars and we were so impressed. I remember walking home with friends planning how we could do our own stunt driving show with our bikes.

If you know what mercurochrome is, I’m sure that you can see where this is headed. My thanks to Alfred Thompson for the suggestion and the painful memories. This follows nicely in a medical fashion from last week’s post.

When we got home, we set up our own ramps on the street with some 2×4 boards and cinder blocks. We would take a run at the ramp on our bikes and fly into the air. The street we were on sloped downhill so we got added value by directing the ramp down the hill. Like the brave people we were, we took the ramp carefully at first and then revved up. My brother who didn’t want to participate was in charge of making chalk marks on the pavement so that we could challenge each other for distance.

The landing only counted if you landed on two wheels and were able to ride away. That didn’t always happen and sliding down the hill scraping arms and legs was not uncommon.

Minor scrapes and abrasions required a bit of shaking off but the major scraping and deep cuts required visits to our Doctor Moms. In my friend’s case, the prescription was iodine. For me, it was Mom making a trip to the medicine cabinet (which wasn’t the formal medicine cabinet and I’d love to talk to her to find out why) and mercurochrome. I’m told that iodine really stung and so you went as a last resource. Mercurochrome itself didn’t sting but the pressure of the little glass stick sure made you flinch.

Thanks, Dr. Fincham, https://ehive.com/collections/4339/objects/630920/c-b-mercurochrome-topical-general-antiseptic-for-wounds

I still remember that little ball on the end of the stick. To be honest, going and getting this treatment was always the last resort because it meant leaving friends behind. Usually, we’d just rub off the blood or lick it off if it was possible! After all, you have to eat a peck of dirt before you die.

In his message to me, Alfred noted that it was banned in a number of countries including the United States but that Canada wasn’t on the list. I did some quick research at our drug store and at Walmart and couldn’t see it for sale. Either we’re a safe place, it’s only available by prescription, or it’s banned in Ontario as well. We do have Canadian restrictions on anything that contains mercury – https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/canadian-environmental-protection-act-registry/products-containing-mercury-regulations-questions.html#q4 so maybe that’s why.

I can’t recall using it after those very young years. Now that I’m married to a registered nurse, we use other antiseptics for those scrapes and bleeding moments. With grandchildren, the magic of kissing it and making it better comes into play at times too.

For a Sunday, your thoughts …

  • Were you a mercurochrome, iodine, or another type of medicine family?
  • Can you name other things in society that, at one time, were based on Mercury and ended up getting banned?
  • Were you ever a daredevil with your bike as a child?
  • What could you do on the ramp to get even more distance on your jump?
  • What do you use these days to treat cuts in your household? (Has it expired like ours has when I checked?)
  • Mercurochrome was supposed to allow for healing without leaving permanent scratches. Head to toe for you, did it work? Not for me; I do have some permanent marks
  • Do you have any memories of wiping out on a bicycle requiring medical attention from your mom?
  • Just how does the science of kissing a boo-boo work and make things all better?

Prove that everyone is a doctor and give your diagnosis in the comments below!

This is a regular Sunday post around here. You can read all the posts from the past at this link.

If you have an idea for a post, please reach out with it like Alfred did. I get a kick out of topics and a chance to reflect on them here.

OTR Links 07/10/2022

by dougpete, posted in Links

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.