Featured Links - November 18, 2025

Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The Scarborough Bluffs

• Loeb’s 3I/ATLAS “Anomalies” Explained. It's weird, but not 'that' weird. (I would love to be proved wrong on this, but I'm not holding my breath).
• Review: Playing the Short Game. How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. Review by Geoff Hart, technical writer/editor and author. 
• We could have healthier, more affordable lives through renewables and electrification. "Vested interests are spending $billions to prevent this."
• A Chinese AI model taught itself basic physics — what discoveries could it make? "A tool called AI-Newton can derive scientific laws from raw data, but is some way from developing human-like reasoning."
• The Big Shift in Cardiology to Atheroma and Inflammation. 'One A.I. company's tag line: "Creating A World Without Heart Attacks"'. This ties in to the idea that COVID-19 is a hematological disease that just happens to have a respiratory component.
• Workplace Surveillance Is Here, Counting Your Mouse Clicks and Bathroom Breaks. "Remote employees are being tracked and punished by invisible systems. Some workers are refusing to play along."
• Inside Canada’s shadowy crypto banking system that makes it easy to facilitate ‘an unlimited amount of crime’ (gift link). "Reporters went undercover to expose a growing crypto-to-cash industry that is openly flouting anti-money laundering measures."

Photo of the Week - November 16, 2025

I took this week's photo at Bluffer's Park in Toronto earlier in the week, right around noon. For some reason, my normally reliable Pixel 8 completely botched the exposure, and the resulting picture was underexposed and had no contrast. So I started playing around with it in Google Photos and came up with the picture below. It looks nothing like the original, or the actual scene, but I rather like it. (I do wish I had been shooting RAW, though). 

The beach at Bluffer's Park in Scarborough

Saturday Sounds - Pearl Jam - 2025/05/18 - Pittsburg, PA

This week's musical treat is from Pearl Jam, a band I've enjoyed listening to for many years but have never managed to catch live. (I did see Eddie Vedder driving down Kingston Road in a classic car one night when they were in Toronto for a concert).

The concert is from Pittsburg, PA on May 25, 2025. Unfortunately, it's blocked from embedding, so you will have to watch it on YouTube. It's a fan-shot multicam video but the audio is a soundboard dub. Enjoy.

We're Toast 64

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. 

Winter is coming

The planet has entered a ‘new reality’ as it hits its first climate tipping point, landmark report finds. "As humans burn fossil fuels and ratchet up temperatures, it’s already driving more severe heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires."

The Caribbean has a super-hurricane problem. "Caribbean nations face an increasing threat from super hurricanes, which can cost a significant fraction of their GDP. Climate change is expected to make the strongest hurricanes stronger."

World’s oceans losing their greenness through global heating, study finds. "Researchers say decline in phytoplankton suggests weakened planetary capacity to absorb carbon dioxide."

They were drilling off Oregon. What they found could shake all of California. "Scientists have uncovered evidence that megaquakes in the Pacific Northwest might trigger California’s San Andreas Fault. A research ship’s navigational error revealed paired sediment layers showing both fault systems moved together in the past. This finding hints that the next “Big One” could set off a devastating one-two seismic punch along the coast."

This Week in Space 185: Gutting Goddard. "Dismantling a NASA Center." The war on science continues. 

Vaccine Skepticism Comes for Pet Owners, Too. "Anti-vaccine sentiment is spilling over into veterinary medicine, making some owners hesitant to vaccinate their pets, even for fatal diseases like rabies." Rabies is fatal to humans too. To quote Jerry Pournelle: "Think of it as evolution in action."

The pandemic next time. "How President Donald Trump’s administration has undermined efforts to develop vaccines and drugs for the next viral scourge." People, perhaps millions of people, will die because of their stupidty. 

VLC Is Getting Dark Mode

I generally use VLC for media playback but it's been a struggle because it doesn't have dark mode, which with my vision problems is essential. Well, it does now if you download the latest nightly build, version 3.0.22. 

The current stable version seems to be 3.0.20, which the  Check for Updates option says is up to date. Version 4.0 is in development but I'm not going to try that one for now..

Instructions on downloading it are in this blog post by Gordon Glas. Note that Windows Defender will probably give you a warning about installing it, but considering it's coming from the developer's website, you can ignore that. 

Given that the build is still under development, it may not be stable, but so far I haven't noticed any major issues. The dark palette could use some tweaking for better contrast in places like the Help > About dialog and the playback buttons , but it's still far easier on the eyes than the previous version. 

Featured Links - November 11, 2025

 Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Model of the Edmund Fitzgerald at the Shipwreck Museum in Michigan

A Ghost Fleet of Tankers Is Keeping Russia’s War Machine Afloat. The West Can’t Stop It. "How Putin outsmarted the oil sanctions."

Still Haunted by the Edmund Fitzgerald. "50th Anniversary Tribute". Seems appropriate that we are getting our first winter storm on Sunday. 

 Google Docs Gets Smarter. "Audio narration, AI help, and 40 new templates." Many of the new features require an AI-enabled plan, but there are some, like document tabs, that could be quite useful for longer documents.

The Florentine Diamond Resurfaces After 100 Years in Hiding. "A legendary jewel of the Hapsburg dynasty — not seen since 1919 and thought lost, stolen or recut — has actually been safe in a Canadian bank for decades." This is quite a story. 

‘Frankenstein’: How Close Is Guillermo del Toro’s Film to the Original Novel? A Mary Shelley Expert Answers Our Burning Questions. "So, just how well does del Toro’s version stack up against Mary Shelley’s original novel? We asked Julie Carlson, an English professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and an expert on the British Romantic period and the Wollstonecraft-Godwin-Shelley family, for her thoughts." I enjoyed the movie, though I did find it hard to watch in places (many very dark scenes). 

Find cancer clinical trials in Canada. "Helping people living with cancer and healthcare professionals navigate cancer trial options." It's good that Canadians have an alternative to looking in the US for information. 

New laser treatment could stop blindness before it starts. "A new laser treatment may halt dry macular degeneration by using controlled warmth to trigger the eye’s self-repair mechanisms." Of course, it will be years before this becomes widespread, assuming it works. 

I’m never going back to Microsoft Word after mastering this open-source self-hosted tool. "Enter HedgeDoc, the open-source web-based collaborative markdown editor that has changed my writing setup. By running it on my server, I achieved true data independence that Word could never offer." Ten or fifteen years ago, I would have jumped on this, but at this point in my life, I just can't be bothered.

Photo of the Week - November 9, 2025

Here's another fall photo, this of a neigbour's burning bush. I love the red colour. Taken with my Pixel 10 Pro. 

Red autumn leaves