To compliment my traditional, 1920’s era window and door trim, I am replacing the baseboards. I can see rements of the original baseboards inside the kitchen cupboards. The same style is available at my local lumber yard, aptly call ‘traditional’. I’m as excited as anyone can get about baseboards. Baseboards are hard. After watching a number of ‘how to install… Read More »Getting to the bottom of trim: Baseboards
The Metaverse is the only thing people are talking about these days. Well, other than the pandemic, vaccines, masks, war, politics, inflation, NFTs, cryptocurrencies, oh, and global warming, equity, diversity and inclusion, house affordability and the cost of gas. But the metaverse. It’s either the next big thing that will solve many current problems or the next big hype that… Read More »Time to go to the Metaverse?
Predictions are, in the near future, we will each have a personal assistant with artificial intelligence (AI)1 that runs our life. It’ll order household items before we run out, book social engagements, reminds us of upcoming events and related purchases (like birthday gifts, a bottle of wine for the hostess, or a new outfit to wear to the party). More elaborate… Read More »AI Personal Assistants – The Death of Shopping as we Know it?
It took me five decades, but I figured out healthy eating: I stuff myself. All these years, I was trying to cut back what I ate, but I needed to do the opposite. Let me tell you what worked for me. It may not work for you, or it might, or it may give you some ideas. It does involve… Read More »A Recipe for Eating Well
Two factor authentication. Securing your account with email address, phone number and password. Seriously? When is it too much work to be worthwhile? We shouldn’t be asking how to make our accounts more secure. We should be asking what’s wrong with this system that we live in such fear of having our online accounts hacked. It isn’t bad enough that… Read More »Multi-factor Authentication Answers the Wrong Question
Time to start the seeds. I like to grow things, although the amount of effort that goes into it annually varies with what else is going on in my life. The last couple of years there’s been time and space to devote a lot of attention to the backyard veggie patch. It started with a new yard, with decent sunlight… Read More »Gardening Season is Open.
It may be nerdy, or controlling, or calculated, but I have an answer to ‘why am I doing it this way’ for everything. For every action I take, there are at least two ‘why?’s. This is how I get the most out of life. A few, off the top of my head, examples: Walk or bicycle anywhere possible. This one… Read More »The Leveraged Lifestyle
Corporations might be legal persons but they don’t have DNA. This expression ‘in our DNA’ is a thorn in the eye of my scientist’s sensibilities when it’s used to describe organizations. I know, it’s just an expression that means something fundamental to behaviour, beliefs or actions. Fair enough as a metaphor. But, I don’t like it. Because of my propensity… Read More »Is it really in your DNA?
Not content to conquer white painted trim, I’m moving on to stained wood. It’s like taking the training wheels off, or acrobatics with no net. One of the marvels of modern construction is caulking. Marvellous stuff for sealing gaps, keeping the cold and water out of where they don’t belong. And sealing gaps. Between the baseboard and the wall, if… Read More »Trim. No Caulking.
You know the list. The technologies, labelled creative destruction, that changed life as we humans knew it: Fire. Pasteurization. The assembly line. Washing machines. Email. Mobile Phones. Each of these had a dramatic impact on society, generally decreasing the effort required to do a vital human activity and allowing us to do other, more interesting things1. Should plastic be added… Read More »Destructive Creative Destruction