mjb's recent activity

  1. Comment on King Charles III's new cypher is a design classic in ~design

    mjb
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    I love how the TTC logo is excoriated. :-) The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is renowned for its terrible design. I once took a tour of subway stations with Joe Clark, a vocal critic of TTC...

    I love how the TTC logo is excoriated. :-) The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is renowned for its terrible design. I once took a tour of subway stations with Joe Clark, a vocal critic of TTC signage and typography, about which he has produced a number of reports and presentations.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on QAnon protesters attempted to arrest Peterborough police officers over Canada's COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Peterborough's Mayor tweets a message to them: 'F--- off, you f---wads' in ~news

    mjb
    Link
    Here's another article, from the Peterborough Examiner, a video tweeted by witness lawyer/activist Caryma Sa'd, and another video documenting and ridiculing the whole affair.

    Here's another article, from the Peterborough Examiner, a video tweeted by witness lawyer/activist Caryma Sa'd, and another video documenting and ridiculing the whole affair.

    5 votes

  3. Comment on The last of the marsh Arabs in ~enviro

    mjb
    Link
    An adventure travel YouTuber I follow was there with those same Arabs a couple of weeks ago: Eva zu Beck: Living in the MARSHES OF IRAQ

    An adventure travel YouTuber I follow was there with those same Arabs a couple of weeks ago:

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Change in the implied meaning of "masked men" in ~humanities

  5. Comment on Attempting to use a software engineering approach to win at chess against my brother—and only my brother in ~comp

    mjb
    Link
    Very entertaining — and timely! Having recently retired, I thought I'd turn my attention to games and puzzles, neither of which had held much attraction for me, just to pass the time. Last week, I...

    Very entertaining — and timely! Having recently retired, I thought I'd turn my attention to games and puzzles, neither of which had held much attraction for me, just to pass the time. Last week, I off-handedly suggested to my 7yo Grandspawn that we could perhaps play an online game of chess and sent him a link to tutorials on lichess.org. Today, he challenged me to a game, despite not having looked at the material or ever before playing. I was happily surprised at how well he did, just playing by intuition and following the gameboard guidemarks for play. It's been 50 years since I last played and he had me pondering my moves as we played four matches in just over an hour. I'm not quite desperate enough to seek out an algorithmic advantage but I think I may have to study and practice on my own a bit more.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on What are some best anti-capitalist books? in ~books

    mjb
    Link Parent
    Indeed, I suspect Smith would be appalled by what capitalism has become. The Wealth of Nations was a socioeconomic critique of mercantilism as it was evolving towards free-market caplitalism....

    Indeed, I suspect Smith would be appalled by what capitalism has become. The Wealth of Nations was a socioeconomic critique of mercantilism as it was evolving towards free-market caplitalism. Smith's own views (esp. on rent seeking, etc.) are perhaps best understood within the context of his Theory of Moral Sentiments, which I recommend reading beforehand.

    2 votes

  7. Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books

  8. Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books

    mjb
    Link
    I'm reading The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley:

    I'm reading The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley:

    A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem the doomed characters.

    4 votes

  9. Comment on How do people run their personal blog? in ~tech

    mjb
    Link
    I used Wordpress for years, hosted on a Linode VPS, but I've never been a fan of PHP and grew tired of plugins breaking with upgrades. Also realizing that I really had no need of most of the...

    I used Wordpress for years, hosted on a Linode VPS, but I've never been a fan of PHP and grew tired of plugins breaking with upgrades. Also realizing that I really had no need of most of the advanced features, I opted to migrate to a static site generator. The real impetus was the demise of Google+ where I'd first post my content, which was subsequently pulled by and republished on my own blog site.

    Owing to an interest in the Rust programming language, I selected the Zola static site engine, which uses Markdown similar to Hugo. I must admit, though, that I really haven't done anything with it.

    FWIW, I also have a static site on github.io based on Sphinx, a Python-based generator, using the more powerful ReStructuredText format, rather than Markdown. It's not a blog site but I later found ABlog,
    a Sphinx-based blog site static generator that is quite nice.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on Population decline due to expected global crash in children being born in ~health

    mjb
    Link Parent
    In the Developing World, many poor people can't afford not to have children. Reasons include infant mortality; children contribute to the household labour pool; and grown children care for elderly...

    In the Developing World, many poor people can't afford not to have children. Reasons include infant mortality; children contribute to the household labour pool; and grown children care for elderly parents. The decline in the number of children has followed improvements in nutrition, healthcare, education, and empowering women.

    7 votes

  11. Comment on The history of Turkey until Atatürk in ~humanities

    mjb
    Link
    Thanks, I'll have to watch this for some context. I've been binge-watching Dirilis: Ertugrul (AKA Resurrection: Ertugral) on Netflix: It's a Turkish production with English subtitles. Somewhat...

    Thanks, I'll have to watch this for some context. I've been binge-watching Dirilis: Ertugrul (AKA Resurrection: Ertugral) on Netflix:

    This series is about the Turkish warrior Ertugrul from the 13th century, one of the most famous warriors of his time and also the father of Osman (the founder of the Ottoman Empire). He is an ambitious man who wants to bring peace and justice to his people. He is in a war with the Crusaders on one side, the Byzantines on another side and the brutally expanding Mongols who killed a lot of Turks on another side. In between this he is in a psychological war between his love and his so called destiny.

    It's a Turkish production with English subtitles. Somewhat melodramatic, like a soap opera with lots of sword-play and subplots, but the characters are well developed and the historical bits I've looked up check out.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Good domain registrars? in ~comp

    mjb
    Link
    I've been satisfied using joker.com for over 20 years since seeing it recommended by DNS & infosec expert Daniel J. Bernstein (djb).

    I've been satisfied using joker.com for over 20 years since seeing it recommended by DNS & infosec expert Daniel J. Bernstein (djb).

  13. Comment on YAML: probably not so great after all in ~comp

  14. Comment on What is a good free alternative to Wordpress that requires little coding? in ~comp

    mjb
    Link Parent
    Static site generators such as Hugo do not typically require any software to be installed on the server, unlike a conventional CMS (e.g., Wordpress). Hugo is installed on your local system, where...

    Static site generators such as Hugo do not typically require any software to be installed on the server, unlike a conventional CMS (e.g., Wordpress). Hugo is installed on your local system, where you use it to generate your website's HTML and associated files (e.g., stylesheets, images, etc.), which can then be uploaded to your hosting account into a directory accessible via its web server.

    9 votes

  15. Comment on What is a good gender-neutral pet name for my daughter? in ~talk

    mjb
    Link
    My daughter has endured 'Beast' for 35 years. :-D

    My daughter has endured 'Beast' for 35 years. :-D

    2 votes

  16. Comment on What are you reading these days? #20 in ~books

    mjb
    Link Parent
    Others that I'd recommend: The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian-Municipalism by Janet Biehl and Murray Bookchin, which lays out a model for governance for realizing the political philosophy...

    Others that I'd recommend:

    2 votes

  17. Comment on How do you organize your bookmarks? in ~tech

    mjb
    Link
    I have several topical folders in my Firefox bookmarks toolbar (e.g., Reference, SocialMedia, News, Personal, Business, To-Post, To-Read, To-View, etc.) for some oft-used or ephemeral links but I...

    I have several topical folders in my Firefox bookmarks toolbar (e.g., Reference, SocialMedia, News, Personal, Business, To-Post, To-Read, To-View, etc.) for some oft-used or ephemeral links but I use BibSonomy, an open social bookmark and publication sharing system, for managing a tag-classified archive of most of my links to particular material of interest. It is somewhat reminiscent of Delicious.com (when that site was popular before its demise and repeated failed attempts at being rebooted) but with added support for document citations. There is a nice browser add-on to easily save bookmarks or citations, with the option of posting either public or private entries.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on What are some genuinely good places online? in ~talk

    mjb
    Link
    Pluspora is a Diaspora pod inhabited largely by refugees from Google+, which is shutting down soon. I've long enjoyed the quality of content and discussion on Google+, and this has carried over to...

    Pluspora is a Diaspora pod inhabited largely by refugees from Google+, which is shutting down soon. I've long enjoyed the quality of content and discussion on Google+, and this has carried over to Pluspora.

    Diaspora is a nonprofit, user-owned, distributed social network that is based upon the free Diaspora software. It consists of a group of independently owned nodes (called pods) which interoperate within a federated network, part of what is known as the Fediverse. You can operate your own node or join an existing one. Notably, Diaspora supports long-form posts, rather than being restricted to the shorter content length found on most micro-blogging platforms.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on What is a favorite book of yours, and why should people read it if they haven't? in ~books

    mjb
    Link Parent
    It's been on my list to read for a while now. The 1950 film adaptation with José Ferrer is a personal favourite.

    It's been on my list to read for a while now. The 1950 film adaptation with José Ferrer is a personal favourite.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Theses on Libertarian Municipalism in ~humanities

    mjb
    Link
    Bookchin elaborates on this thesis in his book Social Ecology and Communalism, and further refined these ideas in collaboration with Janet Biehl in Politics Of Social Ecology, which deals more...

    Bookchin elaborates on this thesis in his book Social Ecology and Communalism, and further refined these ideas in collaboration with Janet Biehl in Politics Of Social Ecology, which deals more with the organizing model of Libertarian Municipalism.

    1 vote