mjb's recent activity

  1. Comment on Looking to "compile" some of my phone's videos into an .iso to send to family; I use Linux in ~tech

    mjb
    Link
    You should be able to just mount a USB drive and copy the videos to it directly, just as with any other mounted filesystem.

    You should be able to just mount a USB drive and copy the videos to it directly, just as with any other mounted filesystem.

    10 votes

  2. Comment on Email provider recommendations? (Privacy-focused, paid-for) in ~tech

    mjb
    Link
    I also managed my own self-hosted email server for many years until it just wore me down so I understand where you're coming from. For the past several years, I've been happy with Zoho's premium...

    I also managed my own self-hosted email server for many years until it just wore me down so I understand where you're coming from. For the past several years, I've been happy with Zoho's premium email service at USD $4/mo.

    Zoho also offers a full online office suite but I'm not interested in that. Still, the email service does include calendar and contacts. It also allows for domain mapping, extensive filtering, and S/MIME.

    6 votes

  3. Comment on Any offline bookmark managers (or similar software) you'd recommend? (simple and open source preferred!) in ~tech

    mjb
    Link Parent
    What's most useful to me is the editable metadata, such as a link description and, especially, tagging. Tags can also be hierarchically organized and are rendered in a tag cloud. I don't...

    What's most useful to me is the editable metadata, such as a link description and, especially, tagging. Tags can also be hierarchically organized and are rendered in a tag cloud. I don't personally care so much about the social aspect or the privacy settings, although I know these are important for others.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Any offline bookmark managers (or similar software) you'd recommend? (simple and open source preferred!) in ~tech

    mjb
    Link
    I use Bibsonomy, "the blue social bookmark and publication sharing system", which I found after repeated searches for an alternative tagged bookmark manager following the demise of delicio.us...

    I use Bibsonomy, "the blue social bookmark and publication sharing system", which I found after repeated searches for an alternative tagged bookmark manager following the demise of delicio.us several years ago.

    BibSonomy helps you to organize your scientific work. Use BibSonomy to collect publications and bookmarks, to collaborate with your colleagues, and to discover interesting researches for your daily work.

    It has browser extensions for buttons to easily add and manage bookmarks for web pages.

    BibSonomy is offered by the KDE group of the University of Kassel, the DMIR group of the University of Würzburg, and the L3S Research Center, Germany. Its open source repository is at bibsonomy.bitbucket.io.

  5. Comment on What webhost and software do you use for your personal website? in ~tech

    mjb
    Link Parent
    I've been using Zola on GitLab Pages with its CI/CD runner for a couple of years now. Having retired from software development, I no longer needed my Linode VPS where I had hosted a WP instance...

    I've been using Zola on GitLab Pages with its CI/CD runner for a couple of years now. Having retired from software development, I no longer needed my Linode VPS where I had hosted a WP instance for several years. I love the simplicity of a static site generator.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Aspartame may be declared a possible carcinogen by IARC in ~food

    mjb
    Link Parent
    I used to drink up to 6 litres per day but I'm now down to about 1 litre per week. ;-)

    I used to drink up to 6 litres per day but I'm now down to about 1 litre per week. ;-)

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Aspartame sweetener used in Diet Coke a possible carcinogen, WHO’s cancer research agency to say - sources in ~health

  8. Comment on Aspartame may be declared a possible carcinogen by IARC in ~food

  9. Comment on I want to learn programming in ~comp

    mjb
    Link
    As others have said, programming is a large field. You might consider narrowing your choices by leveraging your biotech experience with a career in applied data science, for which you will need to...

    As others have said, programming is a large field. You might consider narrowing your choices by leveraging your biotech experience with a career in applied data science, for which you will need to learn programming and/or AI technologies. The following is an introductory article:

    3 votes

  10. Comment on Why has Hilma af Klint, an overlooked pioneer been paired with Piet Mondrian, a jazz-mad Dutchman rebelling against his dad's religion? The answer lies in the spirit world in ~arts

    mjb
    Link
    Hilma (2022) is a good film by Lasse Hallström about Klimt's life.

    Hilma (2022) is a good film by Lasse Hallström about Klimt's life.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on A Dutch researcher named Frank Hoogerbeets had predicted the Türkiye earthquake two days before it had happened in ~enviro

    mjb
    Link
    Rebecca Watson (AKA Skepchick) posted about this today: NO ONE Can Predict Earthquakes!

    Rebecca Watson (AKA Skepchick) posted about this today:

    3 votes

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

    mjb
    Link
    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

  13. 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

  14. 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

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

  16. 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

  17. 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

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

  19. 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

  20. 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