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LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back
Tuesday, 3 December 2024 12:07 pm🌈
Please see https://juliaserano.substack.com/p/lgbtq-people-are-not-going-back for lots of encouragement, especially for Americans, to contact their representatives to tell them we are not going to settle for any backsliding on LGBTQ+ rights!
#LGBTQNotGoingBack
Please see https://juliaserano.substack.com/p/lgbtq-people-are-not-going-back for lots of encouragement, especially for Americans, to contact their representatives to tell them we are not going to settle for any backsliding on LGBTQ+ rights!
#LGBTQNotGoingBack
Via Rail Canadian trip from Toronto to Winnipeg
Thursday, 20 July 2023 09:34 pm
I want to provide some clarifying information to supplement what I've found elsewhere, about the Via Rail service on Line #1, The Canadian, which stretches all the way to Vancouver. But there is really contradictory info online. So I can at least clarify end-to-end what my trip was like. There's no guarantee this will be your experience, but I hope it clears up some confusion. [Edit to add: I suppose your milage may vary; perhaps literally!]
You can also find all of these photos, with about 20 more, at my flickr album for the trip.
Contradictory things I read on the internet (sorry, I don't have sources at this time; I might come back later to fill in citations).
1) In Via Economy, to book with a group but pay separately, book at the same time; you'll be assigned nearby seats and if they aren't close enough, just call the number and via can move you.
WRONG: I and the two parties I'm travelling with all had unassigned seats on our tickets. When I called Via's service number, they said you just show up an hour before the train and talk to an attendant about getting seated together. And that's just the way Route 1 travel works.
This turned out to be correct. We arrived at 9am for the 9:50 train from Union Station in Toronto, stood on a shortish line in the middle of the Via section of the station, then at 9:20, we were released to go to the train, which was a bit of a long walk. Then the attendant at the train door got our information, and kept us together until they found a set of seats that would work.
We were put in a set of 4 seats, then two sets of two seats behind them. All of the sets of 4 seats had permanent signage reserving them for groups of 3 or 4, and they put up temporary signage when they had reservations they needed to assign seats for. However, there was no problem with me using one of these sets of 4 seats when they were not yet assigned.
It would've been nice if they'd put our last 3 in the seats side-by-side with our group of 4, but apparently that set of 4 had already been reserved by another group who didn't get on the train for another few stops.
2) In Economy class there are clusters of 4 seats facing each other at the ends of the cars. Or, seats can be turned around as pairs, so any seats can become pairs. Or, half the seats point forward and half the seats point backward.
CORRECT. All of these can be correct; at different times. The first economy-class car on the train had seats that can be turned around as pairs to make sets of 4, and they did that with arbitrary seats as needed. I saw it done by one of the attendants. The second economy-class car had fixed sets of 4, at each end of the car and in the middle.
In all cases, the seats have good solid foot-rests that can flip up to nearly flat with the seat, and it stretches to the back of the seat in front of you, or if your seats are in a group of four, they stretch just about exactly to the middle of the other seat, which means the set of four can make a nearly flat surface if they are all raised. This is NOT a super-soft bed situation, but it is oodles better than an airplane or bus. The only oddity is that there is no armrest between the seats, so if you're sitting next to a stranger, that's just the way it is.
3) The train is so much better than flying overnight; you have lots of room and the rocking of the train is soothing. Or, it's cramped and you won't sleep much at all.
CORRECT for the first one, mostly. The weirdest aspect was the lack of armrests. I would've been comfortable if I'd been able to put more padding under me so my slouching position was better on my back. Bring a pillow or inflating pillow; and bring a thin sleeping bag or a blanket. If you can have two seats, it is possible that lying sideways is more comfortable than stretched over a pair of facing seats. At least I thought so.
4) There will be lots of food choices. Or, almost no food choices.
CORRECT for the first one, mostly. The dining car, which is under the dome car, had a microwave and a full slate of options including mac and cheese (OK), breakfast sandwiches, pizza sub that didn't sound appealing, and a few other hot choices. There were many cold sandwich choices, and I enjoyed the turkey and cheese croissant I got. There was a good breakfast omelette. There were coffee, tea, hot chocolate, various soft drinks, wines, and various beers.
Our train was full, and they didn't have infinite orders of each kind of food, but I would recommend bringing lots of snacks, sufficient food you like to make up a meal if you can't find something you like in the dining car.
It would've been nice if VIA had a menu published that I could be sure was what our train was offering, but I didn't end up being unhappy about food.
5) There is an observation dome car. Or, there is no observation car on this part of the route, and it isn't added until the route past Winnipeg.
YES there was a dome car. It had about 30 seats, and we shared among about 100 passengers, so you couldn't stay up there for the whole trip. But it was a lovely change in scenery.
Overall, the scenery was beautiful. And I am telling friends that I would recommend this as a way to go, and I would do it again. We shall see when that happens! Because it's seldom that I feel I can take an extra two days for travel! (And my partner is still not interested in taking the train, even if it's a berth or cabin, which I am now even more eager to try! Some time!)
Right to Repair finally wins a major battle in New York State
Wednesday, 18 January 2023 09:45 pmRight to Repair is big news. Change is finally coming this July, and I'm sure more changes will follow.
This is a good podcast (and transcript!) interview with the founder of iFixit. I really want to see electronic repair shops everywhere, and a hell of a lot fewer electronics with only minor problems shipped off to to be broken down to base components!
First Person Podcast interviews the CEO of iFixit
"Governor Kathy Hochul of New York signed the country’s first broad right to repair bill into law. What will that law change for me as an average consumer?
"The New York law says that starting in July of 2023, all new products have to have those fundamentals — service information, parts and tools available. So if a manufacturer has a repair network for a product — if Apple is running Genius Bar repairs, if Samsung has a repair network for their devices — then they have to make available that same parts, tools and information to the rest of us.
"The environmental impact of manufacturing the things that we have is significant. The phone that’s in your pocket, which weighs like eight ounces, took over 250 pounds of raw material dug out of the ground to make. If every American were to use their phone just a year longer, it would be the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road. And so to have a world that is disposable — like, you’re talking about literal mountains dug out of the ground every year just to keep up with our gadget habit.
"What if we could just save the world through sheer laziness? It is actually a lot of work to get a new phone and transfer your contacts and your apps over and everything else. If you could just — like, if you drop in a new battery in your current phone, it will feel like a new phone. So that’s my counter. It’s like, let’s spend our time doing other things rather than configuring new technology all the time.
"And so let me be clear, the right to repair does not mean that you have to fix all of your own stuff. It means that it should be possible for you to get it fixed somehow, whether you have a friend who is tech savvy or excited about opening things up and wants to do it, or if you want to take it down to a neighborhood repair shop. You think about — what is the nexus of a small town America? You have a gas station, you have a grocery store, and a car repair shop.
You should probably also have an electronics repair shop. So I think we have an opportunity to create the neighborhood that we want to live in. And so I would encourage people, whether you fix something yourself or not, think about spending a little bit more money on repairs and less on buying new things."
This is a good podcast (and transcript!) interview with the founder of iFixit. I really want to see electronic repair shops everywhere, and a hell of a lot fewer electronics with only minor problems shipped off to to be broken down to base components!
First Person Podcast interviews the CEO of iFixit
"Governor Kathy Hochul of New York signed the country’s first broad right to repair bill into law. What will that law change for me as an average consumer?
"The New York law says that starting in July of 2023, all new products have to have those fundamentals — service information, parts and tools available. So if a manufacturer has a repair network for a product — if Apple is running Genius Bar repairs, if Samsung has a repair network for their devices — then they have to make available that same parts, tools and information to the rest of us.
"The environmental impact of manufacturing the things that we have is significant. The phone that’s in your pocket, which weighs like eight ounces, took over 250 pounds of raw material dug out of the ground to make. If every American were to use their phone just a year longer, it would be the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road. And so to have a world that is disposable — like, you’re talking about literal mountains dug out of the ground every year just to keep up with our gadget habit.
"What if we could just save the world through sheer laziness? It is actually a lot of work to get a new phone and transfer your contacts and your apps over and everything else. If you could just — like, if you drop in a new battery in your current phone, it will feel like a new phone. So that’s my counter. It’s like, let’s spend our time doing other things rather than configuring new technology all the time.
"And so let me be clear, the right to repair does not mean that you have to fix all of your own stuff. It means that it should be possible for you to get it fixed somehow, whether you have a friend who is tech savvy or excited about opening things up and wants to do it, or if you want to take it down to a neighborhood repair shop. You think about — what is the nexus of a small town America? You have a gas station, you have a grocery store, and a car repair shop.
You should probably also have an electronics repair shop. So I think we have an opportunity to create the neighborhood that we want to live in. And so I would encourage people, whether you fix something yourself or not, think about spending a little bit more money on repairs and less on buying new things."
On inspiration and "Small Self"
Wednesday, 28 December 2022 06:39 pmI've just re-read an article I saved from the first pandemic winter; there is a lot here that is going to be helpful for me this winter as well.
"How to make this winter not totally suck, according to psychologists"
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/10/14/21508422/winter-dread-covid-19-pandemic-happiness-psychology
"Rather than fixating on our inner worlds and woes, we can strive to promote what some psychologists call “small self.” Virginia Sturm, who directs the Clinical Affective Neuroscience lab at the University of California San Francisco, defines this as “a healthy sense of proportion between your own self and the bigger picture of the world around you.
...
The practices involve cultivating different states — social connectedness, a clear purpose, inspiration — but all have one thing in common: They get you to focus on something outside yourself."
Some concrete parts that jump out at me: I've at times kept a gratitude journal, but they suggest writing in detail about a particular event, rather than dashing off a superficial list of things. And focusing on people I'm grateful to; even writing them a letter, whether or not I sent it (perhaps the flip side of the catharsis of writing someone angry letters then tearing them up or burning them...)
"How to make this winter not totally suck, according to psychologists"
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/10/14/21508422/winter-dread-covid-19-pandemic-happiness-psychology
"Rather than fixating on our inner worlds and woes, we can strive to promote what some psychologists call “small self.” Virginia Sturm, who directs the Clinical Affective Neuroscience lab at the University of California San Francisco, defines this as “a healthy sense of proportion between your own self and the bigger picture of the world around you.
...
The practices involve cultivating different states — social connectedness, a clear purpose, inspiration — but all have one thing in common: They get you to focus on something outside yourself."
Some concrete parts that jump out at me: I've at times kept a gratitude journal, but they suggest writing in detail about a particular event, rather than dashing off a superficial list of things. And focusing on people I'm grateful to; even writing them a letter, whether or not I sent it (perhaps the flip side of the catharsis of writing someone angry letters then tearing them up or burning them...)
art installation: ceramic propeller destruction
Saturday, 3 December 2022 05:29 pmThere was an open house at Globe Studios around the corner from where we live. We were entranced by the ceramic art made by Isabel Ochoa and James Clarke-Hicks and Isabel very kindly spent quite a while showing us how the clay 3-D printer works.
I was hanging out in the space for Trevor Waurechen (who has really cool LED neon-esque works) and playing with "Snap Circuit" electronics with Trevor's 8-year-old, who has a great mad-scientist flair that I appreciate.
Somehow, between the three of us, we came up with 3-D printing propeller blades that were light enough to fly off the motor they were sitting on, which would be helpful if they were made with regular plastic, but really cool if they were printed as light-weight ceramic, as a single-use artistic installation. They fly up... and then down with a *smash*. We wanted to see it making a political statement, perhaps relating to drone warfare.
If you do something like this, please let me know :)
I was hanging out in the space for Trevor Waurechen (who has really cool LED neon-esque works) and playing with "Snap Circuit" electronics with Trevor's 8-year-old, who has a great mad-scientist flair that I appreciate.
Somehow, between the three of us, we came up with 3-D printing propeller blades that were light enough to fly off the motor they were sitting on, which would be helpful if they were made with regular plastic, but really cool if they were printed as light-weight ceramic, as a single-use artistic installation. They fly up... and then down with a *smash*. We wanted to see it making a political statement, perhaps relating to drone warfare.
If you do something like this, please let me know :)
getting your phone an eSIM when you travel
Friday, 17 June 2022 10:38 pmAnother instalment in the sporadic series of "Daniel Discovers Things."
Today's post: "get your phone an eSIM when you travel."
Today's post: "get your phone an eSIM when you travel."
I'm mostly writing this because I haven't seen any related posts from internet friends. I think this is tech that has sort of snuck up on us in the last few years. If you travel somewhere that your phone will switch to expensive data roaming, and you have a phone newer than about 2018, there's a good chance an eSIM can save you a heap of money. Such as from one provider: $4.50 USD can get you a gig of data good for a week in the US; US travellers, $7.50 USD can get you a gig for one week travel in Canada; $90 can get you 20 gig of data good for 180 days across the globe. It's not a scam or security headache, and honestly easier than I expected. And also, a few providers have referal discounts so "your first one is cheaper" if not free. (In the last paragraph and the link below I mention a referal discount, but I would be writing the same post without the last paragaraph if I didn't have a discount code. Though, honestly, I might have chosen a different provider that DID have a discount for the first trial!)
I'm also writing because this may be useful for anybody trying to trim cellphone costs. See the next-to-last paragraph for those details.
A few words about "what's a SIM." A SIM is a tiny card provided by your phone service provider (Bell/AT&T/etc) that physically inserts in your phone; it's essentially the key that connects your phone to the provider. If you swap SIMs with someone, you've swapped phones. Your phone will ring with their number and you will use their data and minutes. And theirs will ring with your number and use your data. You could pay for monthly service with two SIMs and some phones will accept both physically inserted at the same time, two phones in one. Or, you could have a phone with no SIM, but from what I've read, even CDMA providers such as T-Mobile use SIMs these days? I think? But that's getting lost in the weeds for this post.
Years ago, I had a travel SIM, which I switched every time I travelled. It was OK. It gave me a prepaid plan with a local phone number, cheaper data, though it was a bit fussy because I didn't want to break or lose either SIM or the tiny doohicky to do the swap.
When we went to the US the last time, on my Canadian big-three discount phone plan, my roaming cost about $13/day including tax. And they have switched from "24 hours" to "calendar day" and it got tricky keeping the damage to only two days of data on a long weekend. Never again!
This time, the day before we travelled to Michigan, I bought an eSIM from airalo.com, followed the provided step-by-step instructions, and my iphone "just worked." It showed me two stacked bars for reception. It let me set a default plan for voice, a different one for data, and when I crossed the border into the US, the eSIM network started carrying data, at 4g network speeds, just a LOT cheaper. I paid $4.50 USD for 1 gb, which lasted the whole trip, and when I made a few phone calls I used Skype over data. Even nicer for a first trial, they have a $3 referal discount, so I actually paid $1.50 for this experiment.
So, what's an eSIM? It's an embedded SIM, built into the phone, re-programmable to record a SIM's details and supported by your phone's software. For iphones, and most Android phones, it acts like a second SIM. There are decent apple instructions here with screenshots: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT209044 (I don't know enough about the Android ecosystem to find a good comparable guide; maybe someone else will put one in the comments?)
For the eSIM provider I chose, there is a decent list of what devices support eSIMs, here, including the Android world: https://www.airalo.com/help/about-airalo/what-devices-support-esim
I did a few hours of research online about esim providers. I'm happy to provide details, but the most important pieces are: the inexpensive providers I found offer eSIMs only for data, not voice or text messages. You can also find providers if you want a phone line, but I think they're all an order of magnitude more expensive (such as T-mobile, which offers regular North American phone plans with eSIMs). There are dozens of eSIM providers who have come up in the last 4 years. You can google for comparison lists, but the one I chose, airalo, is generally described as having good customer support and instructions, and reasonably cheap prices, if not the absolute cheapest. They are headquartered in Singapore, but that seems to have no impact on the service. In the US they use AT&T and T-Mobile networks, and in Canada they use Rogers network. They have an app to reload your eSIM data plan after the interval has expired, or order additional SIMs for different regions, if you need.
I think these eSIMs are likely to change the cell market, once it takes off for people who aren't travelling and want cheaper data. I think anyone who's paying more than $40/month for a cell phone plan, with light data usage (less than 6 gig a month?), could probably use an eSIM within their own market for significantly less cost, keeping their existing network for phone calls and text messages but dropping data. I am wondering if this would make sense for the absolute cheapest data plans: say, $15 per month on Public Mobile with no data, plus a prepaid eSIM that is another $2-15/month for data. The main factor is having a newish phone that supports the eSIMs.
I also wonder if this would make sense for remote areas? If you have only Rogers towers and not Bell or Telus, you could use airalo (which uses Rogers). I think perhaps eSIMs could be helpful if you wanted to have access to a second network: you can set your phone to dynamically pick whichever one works better- I suspect this might be useful in fairly remote areas with both Rogers and Bell networks, to automatically hunt for better data without having to have a second physical telephone. Hmmm...
Lastly, since this post is getting too long already: if you want to try this out with airalo, don't create an account before following a referral link. You can either google for a random person's $3 referal discount, or you can use mine: ref.airalo.com/CdaF (or manually enter discount code DANIEL5398). You will get $3 on your first eSIM and I will get $3 credit. The credit will sit there until you buy a SIM, and the SIM will sit there with no charge until the first time you use it (starting the validity countdown which is often 7 or 30 days).
I haven't received a reply to my email requesting cancellation from Harpers Magazine after 15 years, but I got a letter from their subscription department this week thanking me for my loyalty.
This feels like a good time for another followup, cc'd to the VP Subscription and the 2nd at the magazine under Rick MacArthur. Couldn't find MacArthur's address. Hope that's good enough for action.
Dear Shawn Green, Subscription Department, and Ellen Rosenbush,
It has now been three months since I sent my cancellation request in response to Rick MacArthur's appalling statements on the CBC in September. I have never received a reply. I do not want to receive another re-subscription letter from you. I am not a "loyal subscriber." My original statement on September 29 stands; I do not want to see the magazine in my house. Once again, please advise as to the resolution of this issue.
/s
This feels like a good time for another followup, cc'd to the VP Subscription and the 2nd at the magazine under Rick MacArthur. Couldn't find MacArthur's address. Hope that's good enough for action.
Dear Shawn Green, Subscription Department, and Ellen Rosenbush,
It has now been three months since I sent my cancellation request in response to Rick MacArthur's appalling statements on the CBC in September. I have never received a reply. I do not want to receive another re-subscription letter from you. I am not a "loyal subscriber." My original statement on September 29 stands; I do not want to see the magazine in my house. Once again, please advise as to the resolution of this issue.
/s
three loosely connected things make a post
Sunday, 2 December 2018 11:25 pmFor a while I worked for a company called "Openflows" which did consulting on open-source for non-profits and leftist organizations. It was satisfying work- and I only stopped working for them when the University offered me a full-time job in 2004. Their founder in Toronto, Jesse Hirsch, has been a tech columnist for the CBC for 25 years. He just had an interview with Jesse Brown on Canadaland podcast to talk about his possibly last broadcast on CBC, in which he asks "why CBC continues to promote Facebook after we've seen what that company has done to undermine democracy. CBC refused to post the segment online, raising questions about what you can and cannot say on our public broadcaster." It's a compelling listen, and makes me wonder how to react to the morally awful behaviours at the top of facebook.
Before I worked for Openflows, I was self-employed and in a partnership doing web consulting, from 1996 onward- while I was still in my last year at University. To tell you how early this was, we registered the domain name coder.com. Last November I was approached by a startup based in Austin, TX, looking to buy that domain name. I had really stopped working on those projects after starting working at the University, so it made the most sense to accept their (I think very fair) offer. I just looked them up. Their project is in public alpha and appears to be a success. "It's like google docs for programming." You get a web-based IDE and a virtual server, hooked to all sorts of useful things you can easily install. If you want to run more projects, or you want to harness 96 virtual servers at once for really quick compile times, you'll be able to pay them $5 a month. I expect the most exciting part comes with what more tools they might hook to the back-end for their subscribers. They just raised a cool $4.5 Million from venture capital, so they are doing OK for themselves. I sort of wonder whether they will incubate some kid's project that will replace facebook... I will say that I have no regrets about the path I took out of school. I was never interested in working startup hours, or risking my half of our mortgage on a dream idea. Especially since these big dream ideas often turn into crazy nightmares, don't they?...
On Tuesday, I'm giving a talk at the University's annual tech conference, WatITis, titled Perspectives on co-op employment and user-centered web-application development. This will be interesting. I'm motivated to do this because I really like my job right now, which is largely project management and supervising co-op student programmers. This is certainly a shift from what I was doing a decade ago, which was solo programming and sysadmin work. I'm keen on programming things that make academics' lives easier; and on giving student employees the real-world experience as we do this.
I'm very curious what the people who come to my talk will be looking for. I wish I could ask them in advance.
Before I worked for Openflows, I was self-employed and in a partnership doing web consulting, from 1996 onward- while I was still in my last year at University. To tell you how early this was, we registered the domain name coder.com. Last November I was approached by a startup based in Austin, TX, looking to buy that domain name. I had really stopped working on those projects after starting working at the University, so it made the most sense to accept their (I think very fair) offer. I just looked them up. Their project is in public alpha and appears to be a success. "It's like google docs for programming." You get a web-based IDE and a virtual server, hooked to all sorts of useful things you can easily install. If you want to run more projects, or you want to harness 96 virtual servers at once for really quick compile times, you'll be able to pay them $5 a month. I expect the most exciting part comes with what more tools they might hook to the back-end for their subscribers. They just raised a cool $4.5 Million from venture capital, so they are doing OK for themselves. I sort of wonder whether they will incubate some kid's project that will replace facebook... I will say that I have no regrets about the path I took out of school. I was never interested in working startup hours, or risking my half of our mortgage on a dream idea. Especially since these big dream ideas often turn into crazy nightmares, don't they?...
On Tuesday, I'm giving a talk at the University's annual tech conference, WatITis, titled Perspectives on co-op employment and user-centered web-application development. This will be interesting. I'm motivated to do this because I really like my job right now, which is largely project management and supervising co-op student programmers. This is certainly a shift from what I was doing a decade ago, which was solo programming and sysadmin work. I'm keen on programming things that make academics' lives easier; and on giving student employees the real-world experience as we do this.
I'm very curious what the people who come to my talk will be looking for. I wish I could ask them in advance.
We visited friends and their tv was streaming time-lapse container ship videos by jeffhk. They were mesmerizing. The video linked ranges from watching the stars and clouds wheel across the sky, watching other ships go past on the major shipping routes, intense weather, and being berthed and watching the cranes unload and re-load the ship.
We agreed that a video game based on the mechanics and logistics aspects- with the eye-candy of that video- would be pretty cool. Jordan noted they have to load the containers planning for some number of port stops ahead, like chess.
I looked. People seem to mostly have panned both "Ships 2017" and "Transocean game." Apparently designing this game well is difficult. It should be a solvable problem! Anyone want to design this for us?
We agreed that a video game based on the mechanics and logistics aspects- with the eye-candy of that video- would be pretty cool. Jordan noted they have to load the containers planning for some number of port stops ahead, like chess.
I looked. People seem to mostly have panned both "Ships 2017" and "Transocean game." Apparently designing this game well is difficult. It should be a solvable problem! Anyone want to design this for us?
