Month: February 2024

omg lol

Yes, I did it. Did what? If I listed everything, we’d be here a while, and while I love lists, I don’t know if I love them that much.

What I did four days ago, though, was secure the following:

https://stanjames.omg.lol/

If you click that link, you’ll see this:

Why did I do this? Now I can do a list!

  • It was cheap (they were having a sale that turned out to be 42% off).
  • It intersects nearly perfectly between tech/geek and silly for me.
  • My name was available (Creole Ned is not, you may be shocked to learn, my real name).
  • It’s like having a little box of nerd toys to play with.

It has to be renewed every year, so I’ve got 11 months, 3 weeks and 6 days as of this post to decide if I want to keep it or not. In the interim, it’s play time. I’ll have more on this in the next week.

(Also, the status you should see in the right sidebar is courtesy of omg.lol)

Birding, February 16, 2024: All the owls we never see

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Centennial Beach (Delta), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, cloudy late, 7-11°C

The Outing

A rare-ish weekday round of birding, thanks to sunny weather. We hit Reifel first and soon discovered that school was out today, as the place was chock-full of kids. They were fairly well-behaved, though.

We got off to a nice start with a pair of Anna’s hummingbirds sharing a drink at a feeder.

Surprisingly, there was a thin patina of ice on a lot of the ponds. I suspect most of it melted by mid-afternoon, but we did see one wigeon land on the ice, then sink into it as it waddled forth. This apparently displeased it, as it then flew just enough to land ahead where the water was clear. We also saw some shovelers hanging out like cool kids on the ice (geddit?)

And speaking of shovelers, they were all over the place and in large numbers, save, oddly enough, in one of the spots they usually hang out. We saw what seemed to be a couple of scruffy-looking juveniles.

And speaking of juveniles (I am master of segues in this post), we saw a bunch of juvenile bald eagles circling overhead multiple times. One pass apparently spooked some of the shovelers and they took off, only to land back where they’d flown from a minute later.

The Chickadee Empire was somewhat in retreat, as we saw fewer than normal, and the ones we did see seemed even less interested in sitting still for a moment.

Herons were dotting the landscape like broody sentinels, and we got to see the Sandhill cranes before exiting. Several of them even flew overhead, giving us a chance to behold their gangly forms in the air.

We even saw a common goldeneye, which I don’t think we’ve spotted at Reifel before, though I only got a single shot of it, as it flew away almost as soon as we saw it.

On the way out, an older man told Nic about all the owls we never see. He was still going on and adjusting the onion on his belt as we left. We did not see any owls, alas.

Next up was Centennial Beach. We actually didn’t see many birds here, but the tide was out, so we strolled offshore and took photos of Mt. Baker. We did some gadwalls, more herons and golden crowns. And Nic got a lot of heart points.

With the sun setting at the late hour of 5:34 p.m. we had enough time to visit Piper Spit. By this time the clouds had moved in, so the light went from good to so-so, but you work with what you’re given. Fortunately, the bufflehead was back and diving all over the place. The seagulls that have been occupying the land mass near the pier were completely gone, replaced by hundreds of crows, preparing for their nightly mini-migration. There were making a lot of crow noises, which complemented (?) the blackbird noises.

After seeing no wood ducks at Reifel and only a single coot (or two? It was only one or two), we saw plenty of both at Piper Spit. But mostly it was crows, crows and more crows. And the bufflehead. And actually, a lot more scaups than I remember normally seeing here.

In all, a good outing, even if the clouds made the shots at Piper Spit a bit more challenging at the end.

The Shots
Soon™. But here’s a shot of two hummingbirds as a start:

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Fox sparrow
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • House sparrow
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • American wigeon
  • Bufflehead duck
  • Canada goose
  • Common goldeneye
  • Dowitcher
  • Gadwall
  • Great blue heron
  • Green-winged teal
  • Mallard
  • Night heron (sort of)
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveler
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup (Lesser and Greater)
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow (a billion or so)
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle
  • Northern harrier

Non-birds:

  • Assorted and somewhat chonky squirrels

Eek, my mouse!

A shot of the Logitech G703, my current and now slightly malfunctioning mouse.

It seems that the switches on my trusty Logitech G703 mouse are finally starting to go, particularly those under the left button, as it is starting to register double-clicks, no clicks or some random combination of the two.

I can’t remember when I got the mouse, so I suppose I’m not too upset, but, unlike days of yore, I’m not looking forward to looking for and getting a new mouse, I’d rather one that worked just magically appeared on my desk.

Sine that seems unlikely to happen, what I may do instead is switch to one of my backup mice (yes, I have multiples) and use one of those in the interim and begin a search for a new mouse. I could also swap out the G703 with the G403 currently on the Mac (they are the same mouse, the G403 is the wired version). That would likely mean using a wireless mouse on my Mac, which would be bad because they kind of suck (unless you use Apple’s mouse).

I checked Logitech Canada’s site and the G703 is still available…for $129.99. I must have bought mine on sale or in an alternate dimension because I know I didn’t pay anywhere near that for it (nor would I ever pay that much for a mouse).

Time to start some research!

Something you don’t expect to see under “The good” in an Ars Technica review

In service to our great AR/VR future, Samuel Axon tested the Apple Vision Pro outdoors and in public settings. My favourite part may be that he opened the Music app and placed the window in a neighbour’s yard, then had to leave it there, because you can’t easily take windows around with you (to be fair, this is not something you should normally expect to do with the Apple headset)1.

  1. And yes, technically, you could argue this is not a review. But you could also have a chocolate chip cookie instead, and you would enjoy that more. ↩︎

Run 851: The wind beneath my cell reception

Brunette River, pre-run.

I missed Monday’s run because I spent most of the day working on time-sensitive stuff. This meant I had four days off between runs, and the casual observer might think, “That means you should be well-rested and do great!” But what it really means is it puts me right on the edge where my fitness level starts to dip just a bit because I’ve taken too long between workouts. That’s right, your body punishes you for getting too much rest by making your next workout feel harder! This is why people give up on New Year resolutions.

But I was undeterred. It was milder than Friday, the sun was out again, and again due to time, I opted for a run on the river trail. I hit a complication even before I started. One of the last things I do before a run is check the temperature and humidity. When I went to do this, my iPhone 12 reported no cell connection. I have no idea why. Power-cycling the phone1Really, any time you have a tech problem, always try turning it off and back on first. It’s a meme, but it also fixes a surprising number of issues! fixed the issue, and I was off.

I had opted to wear two layers because it was 5C when I headed out and this ended up being a good call, because, as a change of pace, it was windy and in mid-February, the wind is still pretty cold! The humidity was also much lower than normal, around 40% or so. This had no real effect, other than my lips being very slightly drier than normal.

There were two minor issues on this run:

  • At one point, I threatened to develop a stitch. It resolved itself in a few seconds, though. (Stitches usually mean I’m running too fast.)
  • At another point, I felt a bit of a kink in my right knee. This seems unrelated to my knee issues last year, I think it was just an artifact from stretching or something. It was very intermittent and didn’t affect my pace.

Overall, this was a pretty good run. I had a good pace, solid BPM and no dogs off leash!

Brunette River, post-run.
Run 851
Average pace: 5:44/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 11:09 a.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 28:52
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 7-8ºC
Humidity: 43-40%
Wind: moderate
BPM: 152
Weight: 171.6
Total distance to date: 6145 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (280/517/797 km)

Something that really was better in the olden times

Merriam-Webster defines nostalgia as:

A wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.

This definition is kind of depressing! But it captures the main things I’m interested in when it comes to nostalgia:

  • yearning
  • sentimentality
  • wistfulness

When I get nostalgic, it’s usually because I’m thinking about something pleasant from my past, and not recent past, but a time long enough ago that it feels good and gone now. An irrecoverable condition, one might say.

However, if I start chipping away at a particular bit of nostalgia, the imperfections of the past reveal themselves. I see the things that were less than ideal, the stuff we’d think of as archaic or even unacceptable today.

But are there things that really were better back in my youth, which was primarily in the 1970s and 1980s? When I came up with the premise of this post, I didn’t have an answer, I wanted to start writing and see if something obvious came to mind.

Nothing has so far. I remember the overall feel of my childhood, which was relatively safe, pleasant and uneventful. I have oodles of good memories, and the bad ones–and there are bad ones–have been blunted by time, and most of them were not that bad to begin with. Fights (verbal, never physical) with friends over stupid things. Having a crush and being thus crushed. Sometimes they were more tactile: finding out what happens when you ride a bike with no feet and hands (you crash).

But what about something specific, something where I can say, “This [thing] in 1975 was way better than today, in 2024”? Also, good lord, that’s almost 50 years. I feel a little better knowing I still hadn’t hit puberty in 1975, at least.

The more I think about it, the more I come to realize it wasn’t something that existed back in the 70s or 80s that was better than today, it’s the opposite–the absence of something. And the most obvious one that comes to mind is social media.

I appreciate the irony of writing that on a blog.

There are lots of great aspects to social media, but its ills form a long and well-known list. For the moment, leave aside the potentially addictive nature, the negative effects on culture and specific peoples, the things we all know are bad about social media.

When I cast my mind back to 10-year-old me in 1975, what did I do during my free time after school or on the weekends? I’d hang out with friends, playing board games, or the very first video games (yes, including Pong), riding bikes, play-acting (usually based on some current TV series or movie). I’d draw comics or write stories, or listen to music. Sometimes I’d just read a book or magazine. And it’s when I think of that last category–reading–that makes me appreciate the difference between the world back then and now. News came in slower. I learned about contemporary issues and ideas through magazines. There was TV, too, but even that was restricted to a handful of channels.

And books! I would spend hours just quietly reading, lost in imaginary worlds, or being enthralled by breathless “non-fiction” covering the nonsense I loved as a kid–monsters, ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot1I’ll grant that not everyone will see these things as nonsense. Heck, even I’m still not sure what’s up with UFOs.. And the thing about reading was the sense of quiet. The world moved, but the pace felt deliberate (also allowing for the difference in how time is perceived when you’re a kid).

That quiet simply doesn’t exist in 2024, unless you make a concerted effort to isolate yourself or head to a place where you can be reasonably confident you will be left alone, just you, your thoughts and a smartphone that can’t get reception.

So that sense of quiet, that’s something that was better in the olden times. I’m not sure how well I’ve explained it. I may revisit this post later. I’ll make a note2Seriously, I’m adding it to my reminders app. In olden times, this would have gone on a slip of paper that I would inevitably lose..

Scrivener has me interested again*

*Technically not Scrivener, but a new writing app from Literature & Latte, the company behind Scrivener. This is kind of old news, because the post I’m quoting from is from October 25, 2023, but I only found out about this yesterday.

(Full post)

Not Scrivener then: something new. But not entirely new. I’d long been toying with the idea of an alternative, more minimal take on Scrivener. This was a chance to create an app pared back to hone in on the principles on which Scrivener was originally built:

  1. Work on a long text by splitting it into smaller sections.
  2. Use an integrated outline for an overview and easy restructuring.
  3. View research alongside writing.
  4. Export or print with the option of changing the document’s appearance.
Description of the new writing app

Unfortunately, it sounds like syncing will once again be tied to only a single service–iCloud–which is only marginally better than Scrivener using Dropbox, and not exactly a logical choice for the planned Windows version.

Still, it holds the promise of offering a lot of what I like in Ulysses (simple, text-focused, but allowing for organization), but in a cross-platform format and (hopefully) without a subscription attached. Ulysses is a good program, but I feel it’s gotten a bit directionless lately, adding somewhat dubious features to justify its sub. And it’s Mac (and iOS) only, which is not optimal for me, since I spend most of my time working in Windows.

I am cautiously hopeful about Scribbler1Not the actual name, probably. It’s allegedly coming out this year, which may seem improbable given previous release date projections, but they claim it’s been in the works for three years, and it is a simpler program, so…maybe!

All the clothing we leave behind (not a U2 album)

I am mildly fascinated1Can one be mildly fascinated by something? I say yes. by how often when I go out birding or for a walk along a trail, I will find a random piece of clothing–a cap, or a glove (almost always just a single glove), a shoe (yes, usually a single shoe, too), sometimes a jacket and occasionally, a pair of pants, any of these, stuck to a branch, or laying on the ground. And I wonder, how did these things get left behind?

With some clothing, I can imagine various scenarios. For example, you might take off a glove to do something a glove interferes with, like using a smartphone, so you take it off, set it down, then wander off while still using the phone. By the time you remember the glove, you’ve travelled far enough to ask yourself, “Is it worth going back for?” and decide no, it isn’t. And so the glove stays in its new home, until it gets absconded by a crow or returns to the earth (in 500 years or something).

I am less certain about how pants get abandoned.

But here is a photo of a glove left on the railing of the 1001 Steps staircase in south Surrey, taken on February 10th. I converted it to black and white to artsy it up.

How much can a person change?

I have been thinking about this. When I apply it to myself, I think of things like:

  • Weighing in at 187.5 pounds and resolving to lose weight by changing what I eat. I lost over 40 pounds over the following six months (this particular one is a war, not a battle, and it goes on forever).
  • Deciding (well, being told) I need exercise, so I started running in 2009. I have now tracked over 6,140 km of running.
  • I pretty much gave up on drawing something like 20 years ago, then started again and now have hundreds of sketches, comics, doodlings and art to show for it.
  • I didn’t want to stay single, so I started dating again. I’m now 14 years into a relationship.

I could go on, but you get the idea–these are all self-improvement type things. I did change by getting slimmer, healthier, and all that. But as an actual person, the stuff that makes me me, have I changed? Like, if I was always horribly mean to, I don’t know, boll weevils1I am not, nor have I ever been, horribly mean to boll weevils, am I still horribly mean to them today? If I was, could I change that?

It’s one thing to say, “I will no longer consider donuts a food group”, it’s another to vow to be kinder, nicer, or even just mellower. I could achieve some of this more ephemeral stuff through certain techniques–yoga and meditation come to mind–but even those would require a change first. Meditation requires you to be still, to quiet your mind. My mind doesn’t like being quiet. It blares all the time. My brain has opinions on everything that passes through it and shares all of them with me all the time. But if I really dedicated myself, could I break through the noise and find the quiet? And if I did, would there be add-on effects? Would I become more focused? Would I feel calmer? Appear more thoughtful? Stop asking so many questions?

I don’t know.

But I do know that I want to try.

Take this post from February 4th, An airplane up in the sky. It seems innocuous. It’s exactly what it says on the tin–a photo of a plane I took flying overhead. What you don’t know is that the original version of this post was completely different–a short, snarky comment about how we didn’t have enough reports on Apple’s Vision Pro headset2For those reading in the far future, the Vision Pro had just been released and was getting a lot of coverage. I included the modified Apple press image I made (which, to be honest, still amuses me). I hit the ol’ Publish button in WordPress and sent it out to the world.

Then I thought, “What does this bit of snark bring to the world? Is it especially clever or cutting? Will it make people laugh? Will it make people roll their eyes? What would someone do to a boll weevil after reading this?” And I decided it was just a piece of negativity that added nothing and had no reason to be. I could have deleted the post, but felt it would be better, or more fitting, to take a recycling approach to it, and keep it, but change the title, the content and the image. So, everything. And I felt better when the plane went up in its place.

I want to be the person who posts planes before snark. Can I be that person?

I’ll try.

Efforts on this will be documented here later as either inspirational pieces or object lessons in what not to do.

Have a random bird

Specifically, a juvenile bald eagle, which still looks big enough to grab me and drop me off into a volcano.

The original photo was nearly a silhouette, but thanks to the wonders of shooting in raw, I was able to reveal the eagle hiding in the dark.

This is from my set of bird photos from January 26, 2024. I swear I’ll post the full gallery soon. Soon!

Pretty soon.