Word's Master Documents Don't Work with OneDrive

When I was working as a technical writer, I had to use Microsoft Word for some large, complex documents. Word has a feature called Master Documents that is supposed to be useful for that situation, but I didn't use it, as Master Documents were notorious for corrupting files and losing your work. (I have heard that some writers used them successfully, but they had complete control over document templates and formatting; that was not the environment in which I was working.)

You would think that given how much Microsoft is pushing OneDrive, that it would be compatible with Master documents, but you'd be wrong.  

The feature handles the master and sub-documents moving location well but only if they are local folders on the computer.  Assuming all the files are in the one folder (a very wise move), you can move all the files to another folder.  Open the Master Document and you can see the sub-document links like this.

 Move those document to another folder on the computer and Word will change the links for you.

But watch what happens if we move those same documents to OneDrive (strictly, moved to the \OneDrive\ folders on the local computer).  Word completely loses track.

Apparently, it's been this way for a long time and Microsoft hasn't shown any indication that it will be fixed any time soon. 

My solution was to create a container document that used REF fields to pull in the subdocuments. It was more work to set up than using the Master Documents feature but reliable as long as I was careful. I did write a guide for our other writers and developers and perhaps I will publish that here as it may be helpful to some. 

Surviving the Broligarchy

I've come across yet another newsletter to subscribe to. Given the craven capitulation of the mainstream media to the autocratic regime in the US and the general alt-right trend almost everywhere else, newsletters are becoming the best way of getting untainted news and analysis.

Carole Cadwalladr is a journalist who has been writing for The Guardian and it's magazine, The Observer, for more than 20 years. Sadly, The Guardian seems to be moving rightward and she's losing her position in April. She's decided to start a newsletter and podcast called "How to Survive the Broligarchy", a term she coined in 2024 to describe the fusion of right-wing autocratic government with the new tech industry.

Just after Trump’s re-election in November 2024, I wrote a column headlined ‘How to Survive the Broligarchy’ (reproduced below) and in the three months since, pretty much everything it predicted how now come to pass. This is technoauthoritarianism. It’s tyranny + surveillance tools. It’s the merger of Silicon Valley companies with state power. It’s the ‘broligarchy’, a concept I coined in July last year though I’ve been contemplating it for a lot longer. Since 2016, I’ve followed a thread that led from Brexit to Trump via a shady data company called Cambridge Analytica to expose the profound threat technology poses to democracy. In doing so, I became the target: a weaponized lawsuit and an overwhelming campaign of online abuse silenced and paralysed me for a long time. This - and worse - is what so many others now face. I’m here to tell you that if it comes for you, you can and will survive it.

This week represents a hinge of history. Everything has changed. America and Russia are now allies. Ukraine has been thrown to the dogs. Europe’s security hangs in the balance. On the one hand, there’s nothing any of us can do. On the other, we have to do something. So, here’s what I’m doing. I’m starting a conversation. I’ve recorded the first one - a scrappy pilot - a podcast I’ve called How to Survive the Broligarchy and I’ve re-named the newsletter too. This first conversation (details below) is about how we need a new media built from the ground up to deal with the dangerous new world we’re in. That can only happen, in partnership with you, the reader. The days of top-down command and control are over. Please let’s try and do this together.

I enjoyed the discussion in the podcast and will continue to read and listen to her as they come out.  

Featured Links - February 24, 2025

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

Model train layout at Ganaraska Railway Modellers show in Port Hope

Cuts to U.S. weather and climate research could put public safety at risk. "Firings and budget cuts could slow emergency disaster response and weaken resilience efforts." This will also affect weather forecasting and climate modelling in Canada.

In 1177 BCE, Civilizations Fell Apart In A Mysterious Simultaneous Collapse. "What caused the late Bronze Age collapse?"

The Smarter AI Gets, the More It Start Cheating When It's Losing. "A recent study by Palisade Research, a research group studying AI safety and ethics, has revealed an unsettling trend: newer AI models can find and exploit weaknesses in cybersecurity on their own, bypassing safeguards and using shortcuts to complete tasks even when they're not technically allowed to."

The Grateful Dead: What a Long, Lucrative Trip It’s Been. "Now with the publication of The Economic History of the Grateful Dead: A Look Inside the Financial Records of America’s Biggest 20th Century Touring Act, we can see the numbers behind the music, at least of the Grateful Dead, the great American proto-jam band that has engendered a vast, multigenerational, cultlike following." They're hitting the top of the album charts. 

New Coronavirus Discovered in Chinese Bats Sparks Alarm. "A new bat coronavirus that has the capacity to spread to humans, similar to the one that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, has been discovered."

The Nerd Reich. "Science fiction has long been the literature of nerds. The dudes in lab coats, the chess prodigies, the guys tinkering with computers. At a time when socially awkward science-obsessives were scorned by society, science fiction was sometimes a refuge … and became a haven for nerd-empowerment fables."

The hardest working font in Manhattan. "Last year in New York, I walked over 100 miles and took thousands of photos of one and one font only. The font’s name is Gorton." And it has a fascinating and unusual history. 

Photo of the Week - February 23, 2025

Here's another winter picture from by backyard: water barrels and downspout buried under snow. We've had a lot of it recently. I don't expect it to really start melting until mid-March. I took this with my Pixel 8 Pro and converted it to black and white in Google Photos.

Buried water barrels

 

Saturday Sounds - Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band - 1984/07/26, 2nd Set - CNE Grandstand, Toronto, ON

This week's musical treat is another blast from the past: Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band on July 26th, 1984 filmed at their third show in a run of three at the CNE Grandstand in Toronto, Ontario. 

I was at the first of the three concerts on the 23rd and loved every minute of it. This video is of the second set. Checking the setlist online shows that it was almost identical to the show I saw. 

Video quality is vintage 1984 and has been remastered so it's watchable and the audio is from a soundboard. Comparing it to the show I saw last November, I'd say the performance is more energetic, but the current E-Street Band is better musically and way more powerful. Either way, you can't go wrong. 

The View From Canada

Canadians tend to view US politics with a mixture of disdain and apprehension. Disdain because most of us think our system is better and apprehension because what happens in the US can have a big affect on Canada. Right now, we seem to be in the sights of an unhinged leader with no grasp of economics and no respect for international agreements. It's causing quite a stir up here in the Great White North. 

So this post is a grab bag of some recent Canadian political commentary with some cultural asides.

First, here's Andrew Coyne from an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail (gift link).

The United States that openly threatens to invade Panama or Denmark – or to annex Canada – has not just stepped outside international law, including the basic Westphalian proscription of attempts to alter borders by force. Neither does a country that launches trade wars on a different country every day, including countries with which it has longstanding free trade treaties, reveal a simple lack of commitment to a rules-based approach to international trade. It is engaged in an all-out assault on both. It has become an outlaw state.

And in this regard, too, it is aligning itself with the dictatorships. That is what dictatorships do. It is intrinsic to their nature. Just as they refuse to be bound by law internally – we are counting down the days to when the Trump administration defies its first court order – so they recognize no law in their dealings with other states. (Or rules of any kind: you’ll have noticed they also cheat at sports. As does Mr. Trump.)

It is not just that the democratic world can no longer count on America. It is that America, under Mr. Trump, is no longer necessarily part of the democratic world: neither fully democratic in its own affairs, nor committed to the welfare of other democracies, but hostile to both. If the international order is to be preserved, then, it will have to be preserved, in part, from the United States. Certainly it will have to be rebuilt without it.

 

This article from Emmett Macfarlane looks at Canadian federalism and how it's being affected by Trumps antics and the spillover of the MAGA movement into Canada.

Instead, the problems created by federalism are political in nature, and it does not help that our country suffers from a juvenile culture of intergovernmental relations. In short, and to be blunt, our provinces tend to be run by mewling teenagers, who bitterly complain about the exercise of the federal spending power all while routinely demanding more money from the federal government and engaging in buck passing - constantly attempting to shift blame to the feds for problems within their own jurisdiction.

Worse still, the intersection of partisanship/ideology and federalism is a serious detriment in the context of US economic attacks and Trump’s rhetorical assaults on Canadian sovereignty. In short, while none of the premiers like what Trump is doing, some of them have ideological sympathies with Trump and seem entirely ill-equipped to dealing with him.

The recent misadventure of Canada’s 13 premiers visiting the United States to ‘negotiate’ with the White House is illustrative. The trip was a farce; some of the premiers appeared to genuinely believe that Trump, a total chaos agent, is someone who could be negotiated with. They ended up not meeting with either the President or any senior official but with staffers who promised to pass on the message and then snidely tweeted about Canada becoming a 51st state. And it appears the premiers have foolishly been paying a Trump-connected lobbying firm at its rate of $85,000/month for the privilege.

How Canadians feel about Trump's 51st state idea

From author and NDP Member of Parliament, we have this. 

In Canada, some leaders – the Prime Minister, Premier Furey, and Premier Eby – have been blunt regarding just how deadly and serious the Trump threat is. But despite these unprecedented statements, the political realm keeps dialing itself back to a false normal.

To be fair, there isn't a single political strategist or Comms person with any experience charting our way through these times. Canada hasn't faced a threat this serious since the 1930s. It’s okay to admit that none of us really know what to do now.

But rather than thinking outside the box, political strategists are sticking with the tried and true as if this will get us back to the world that existed before November 5, 2024.

I'm sorry, but the same old won't cut it. 

On Wednesday, the CBC Radio One program, The Current, had a segment about how Trump has changed the Canadian electoral landscape. For those who may not be keeping up with Canadian politics, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his forthcoming resignation, which will likely lead to a federal election after the Liberals choose a new leader in March. Ontario is in the middle of a provincial election campaign with an election coming on Monday with Premier Doug Ford spending a lot of time lobbying US politicians to fight Trump's proposed tariffs. 

You can listen to The Current's segment here or read the show's transcript here. This part is from a discussion about Mark Carney, who may be be our next prime minister. (If only the US had a president with as much economic experience, sigh). 

MG: Susan, Mark Carney won't say what he'll do in response to the Trump's, the tariffs that Donald Trump is proposing. He has not been elected. He has not led a party. Why is it a good idea for Canadians to gamble on him and for the party to gamble on him with all of those big question marks?

SUSAN SMITH: Well, he's not an unknown quantity. I think the rest of the sentence when he was speaking to Rosie was that I haven't been elected the leader yet, so not my place to insert myself in the negotiations. Look, I think when you elect a leader, he will be speaking about the policies. He's addressed some of the dollar for dollar tariffs that he would take on. But what he has said he is is he is an experienced negotiator. He worked at the Bank of Canada under Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty, and he helped us navigate the economic crisis in 2008 as the governor of the Bank of Canada. Then England, Brexit, managing that. Then the private sector. Pierre Poilievre was elected as an MP when he was 26 years old. He hasn't worked in the real world in financial markets, dealing with the kinds of things and the kinds of global leaders and businesspeople that Canada's going to have to deal with. What we need in this turbulent time with Trump is a steady hand, a calm, a calm manager.

Finally, the idea of Canada becoming the 51st US state has united Canada in a way we haven't seen since at least the Vancouver Olympics. Here are a couple of songs that I've seen recently.

  

And here's another for you.

The Republicans and Trump Are in Power Because of Unequal Representation

This  is a guest post by Kevin Davies, a writer (prose & songs [300+]), artist, graphic designer, game creator and  publisher. 

The USA has a population of 333,287,557 in 2022. If the USA is divided in half along the 98th meridian of longitude, we find that 80% of Americans (around 250 million) live in the EASTERN HALF of the USA — especially in the coastal and great lakes cities. Around 64.4% of the U.S. population lives east of the Mississippi River. [1]

The WESTERN HALF of the USA hosts 24% of its population (around 79 million people, 2022). If the west coast, including California and Washington state (around 53 million people) were removed from the western half, the rest of the west (the plains and desert east of the Rockies to the 98th meridian), around 33% of the American landmass, is inhabited by only around 9% of the USA’s population (around 27 million people). 

For reference the New York City metropolitan area contained 23.6 million residents as of 2020.

This relatively lower population in the rural west is due in part to the arid climate caused by the lack of rainfall resulting from the position of the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Range further west. [1]

So, under the principle of one-person-one vote and equality of representation in a democracy, this would suggest that the electors in the eastern half of the USA should have 80% of the total representation in the US government, with the west, minus California and Washington state, having just 9%. Yet that is not the case. 

The USA’s Founding Fathers were not actually believers in democracy and set up the election and governance system to ensure that rural land owners maintained a greater share of power than their numbers would actually provide them in a real democracy. 

This ploy has resulted in a very unjust imbalance of influence between urban and rural electors that today, as ever more people are moving from rural to urban areas with increasing population density, that it’s reached the point where the urban population is vastly under represented in government and national policies. 

Elector inequality (i.e., not having the same number of people per electoral district), skews government representation and policy significantly toward rural interests over urban ones. 

How many Americans realize this or comprehend its significance? 

THE INEQUALITY OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IN THE USA

“[E]ach state is guaranteed a minimum of three electors, regardless of population size. It also means that there is always a total of 538 electors, or equivalently, 538 electoral votes — that’s the sum of 435 voting members of the House, 100 senators, and three electors assigned to Washington, DC.”

“According to 2023 population estimates, one electoral vote in Wyoming accounts for around 194,000 people, while a vote in Texas, Florida or California accounts for over 700,000. For context, if all 538 electoral votes were distributed evenly among the US population, each vote would represent about 623,000 people.” [2]

“Wyoming makes up about 0.18% of the US population but controls 0.56% of all electoral votes. This difference may seem minuscule, but it translates to approximately two additional electoral votes for Wyoming, relative to its population share.”[2]

“California represents 11.6% of the US population and has 10% of all electoral votes. This means California controls roughly nine fewer votes in the Electoral College than it would if votes were allocated based on population alone (because 11.6% of the total 538 votes is about 63 electoral votes, but California currently controls 54).” [2]

THE INEQUALITY OF THE SENATE IN THE USA

“The distorted representation found in the Senate is, of course, due to the historic anachronism of having states be represented in the Senate instead of people. With Democrats more concentrated in larger states they are less represented. California gets just two senators despite having 68 times the population of Wyoming, which also gets two senators. Wyoming Republicans are much more represented in the US Senate than are California Democrats.” [3]

“The distortion of representation in the Senate goes beyond the partisan. A Black American is 16% less represented in the Senate than an American on average; A Latino American 33% less, an Asian American 29% less.” [3] More represented than the average are Rural (38%), Gun Owner (14%), White (13), as of 2023 to 2024. [3]

THE INEQUALITY OF CONGRESSIONAL SEATS IN THE USA

Based on the 2020 US Census Montana had a population of 542,704 per Congressional seat, Wyoming 577,719 per seat, California had 761,091 people per seat, New York 777,529 per seat, and Delaware 990,837 per seat; the US average was 761,169 per seat. [4] Again inequality equals an injustice. 

People who live in states where it takes fewer people to gain a representative’s seat have more influence with their vote.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR ELECTORS TO RECOGNIZE INJUSTICE?

Will the pro-wealthy, ill-conceived, and apparently often illegal actions of the Trump administration push this injustice to the breaking point resulting in a constitutional crisis?

How much longer with the electors of the USA accept that the people who are repeatedly deciding their fate represent a significant minority who are only able to achieve power due to an unjust electoral and governance system?

If the USA had elections and governance based on the actual desires of the electorate based on one-person-one vote with all government electoral districts having the SAME number of people, it is likely that conservatives would never obtain national power. Ever. 

Plus, the wealthy would not be as represented as they have been and so would pay much more in taxes, making the USA a significantly more equitable country.

WHAT ABOUT CANADA?

Canada has a similar divide along the 98th meridian of longitude with its west coast having a higher population density west of the Rocky Mountains than within the plains or the north. 

Like the USA Canada unfortunately allows each rural and especially western and northern electoral ridings (districts) to be populated by fewer electors than urban ridings — thus ensuring that each vote by a person in a rural area has more influence and thus greater representation to determine the government and its policies relative to each urban vote. 

This ultimately gives the Conservatives a greater chance of being elected by their more rural supporters than they would have if the system were equitable. 

However, Canada’s rural-urban elector inequity is not as bad as that of the USA because Canada does not have the undemocratic Electoral College, Senate, and Congressional seat assignments as grossly unrepresentative as in the USA. The Gerrymandering of US district boundaries only makes the lack of true representation worse.  

In a modern age, from the view of people who support democracy and equity, there is no good reason for this injustice. Rural ridings can be made larger and/or urban ones smaller, so that every riding has the SAME NUMBER of ELECTORS +/– 100 people.

If Americans and Canadians want to ensure they reside in a real democracy, and that their representatives legitimately represent electors and the results of an election, it is essential that the practice of granting each rural vote more influence than an urban vote be ended. 

— Kevin Davies, February 18, 2025.

[1] VIDEO - Why 80% of Americans Live East of This Line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwJABxjcvUc

[2] INFO - Representation in the Electoral College: How do states compare?

https://usafacts.org/.../electoral-college-states...

[3] INFO - The 2023–2024 U.S. Senate Is Exceedingly Unrepresentative in Multiple Ways

https://mettlinger.medium.com/the-2023-senate-will-be...

[4] INFO - Apportionment of Seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Average Population Per Seat: 1910 to 2020

https://www2.census.gov/.../apportionment-data-table.pdf

AI on the Future of the United States

Update: As pointed out in the comments here, the original post has been removed from Reddit. There is still a long comment thread on the Reddit post, which includes some posts from Redditors who have ran the prompt on ChatGPT and other AI systems with similar results. I ran the original post through the free version of Microsoft's Copilot with similar projections though not as detailed or pessimistic. Google Gemini refused to provide an answer.

A Redditor asked ChatGPT to forecast the future of the United States if the Republican regime continues its current policies. 

It's exactly as many of us have predicted and it's pretty damn grim.  This is just the first part, and that's bad enough.

2025-2030: The First Five Years

Social Outlook

Civil Unrest and Authoritarian Crackdowns

Mass protests, civil disobedience, and violent clashes will increase, particularly as civil rights protections are rolled back.

The government will likely respond with expanded law enforcement powers, increased surveillance, and a crackdown on dissent, citing national security.

Journalistic freedom will erode, with targeted crackdowns on media outlets that oppose the administration.

2. Re-education Camps and Institutionalization of the Mentally Unwell

The reopening of state-run mental institutions will begin with "voluntary" participation but transition into forced institutionalization, particularly for homeless individuals and those deemed politically or socially disruptive.

These camps will become a tool for ideological enforcement, with dissenters, activists, and marginalized groups facing detainment.

3. Mass Exodus of Professionals and Talent

As freedoms erode, a significant portion of highly educated professionals (academics, scientists, tech workers) will seek to leave the country.

Brain drain will reduce America’s global competitiveness, particularly in scientific research and innovation.

And it gets worse, much worse.  

Featured Links - February 17, 2024

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

Winter water barrels

• Make the most of the snipping tools in Windows. "As usual with Windows, there isn’t just one way to snip, clip, or capture a screenshot of part of your screen. There’s a handful of options in Windows 10 and a more powerful new tool just for Windows 11."
• Canadian residents are racing to save the data in Trump's crosshairs. "Guerilla effort underway to preserve medical, environmental data from deletion."
• Appeasement at Munich by historian Timothy Snyder. The path the world is on is much like the world of 1938, and we know how that ended, though the current US administration apparently doesn't. 
• ‘A Maze the Size of Earth’: New AI Tackles Math Problems That Take Millions of Steps. "A newly developed machine learning algorithm is taking on math problems that have vexed experts for decades."
• Why the COVID Deniers Won (archive link). "Lessons from the pandemic and its aftermath."
• On Having a Maximum Wealth. "A small thought experiment." Interesting but it doesn't go far enough. I would tax all income over $1,000,000 at 90 percent, and 100 percent over $10,000,000. I'd set a minimum corporate tax rate of 25% and graduate that based on revenue as well. It would be higher on income that wasn't based on sales or production. 
• Librarians gain protections in some states as book bans soar. "New Jersey just joined at least five other states that have taken steps against school library censorship."
• A ‘True Crime’ Documentary Series Has Millions of Views. The Murders Are All AI-Generated. 'The creator of a viral "true crime" series where the murders were all invented by AI explains how he did it.'

Photo of the Week - February 16, 2025

This is from a couple of weeks ago but given that winter hasn't let up at all, it's a suitable post. I took this with my Pixel 8 Pro along Highway 28 between Peterborough and Port Hope in the middle of a fairly strong snow squall. 

Trees in the winter

Saturday Sounds - Branford Marsalis Quartet - 2023/10/17 - San Bernardo, Chile

I saw the Branford Marsalis Quarter at Koerner Hall in Toronto a week ago and am still buzzed about the performance. Since then, I've been looking for a recent good-quality set to share here and this is the best I've come across so far. It features Branford with his quartet at the San Bernardo Jazz Festival in Chile on October 17, 2023. Like the Toronto show, it features Branford and the quartet in full flight with brilliant playing and telepathic interplay between the musicians. My favourite piece from the concert is "As Summer Into Autumn Slips". 

I think the only song he played in Toronto was "The Mighty Sword". 

1. The Mighty Sword

2. In A Mellow Tone

3. The Windup

4. As Summer Into Autumn Slips

5. Teo (T. Monk)

6. In The Crease

7. Encore: St. James Infirmary

This is an official production of the festival and both video and audio are first rate. Enjoy.

We're Toast 57

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. 

Birds in the fog

• An Extremely Violent Global Pandemic” – Mysterious Disease Wipes Out Sea Urchins Worldwide. “This is an extremely violent global pandemic. The Caribbean, Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean are critical regions for the world’s coral reefs, and mortality rates for sea urchins in these areas are very high — over 90 percent. As of now, we have no evidence of this pathogen in Pacific Ocean sea urchins (where some of the world’s largest and most vital coral reefs are located), but this is something we are actively investigating.”
• A Second Type of H5N1 Bird Flu Jumped From Cows to Humans. "The latest human case of H5N1 is the first in the state of Nevada."
• Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies. "The new dynamics of this model can also reproduce the irreversible collapses found in history. Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a steady state at maximum carrying capacity if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level and if resources are distributed equitably." And how likely do you think that is?
• Unprecedented Starlink reentries. "What we're observing is a giant uncontrolled experiment in atmospheric chemistry. The demise of just one Gen1 Starlink satellite produces about 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of aluminum oxide, a compound that eats away at the ozone layer. A new study finds these oxides have increased 8-fold between 2016 and 2022, and the recent surge is increasing the pollution even more."
• Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist. "Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree." Typical journalist bothsideism. I expected better from The Guardian. The 2C target might have been sustainable if Harris had won the US presidential election, but now? I think not.
• Scientists brace ‘for the worst’ as Trump purges climate mentions from websites. "Trump administration pulling references online ‘won’t make crisis’ stop affecting Americans’ lives, say experts." See this article for a positive reaction to what's happening. 
• Differences between Influenza H5N1, A/H1N1 2009, and SARS-CoV-2 in a pandemic risk scenario. "Urgent action is required to mitigate the negative impact of H5N1 on the animal and ecosystem health spheres if we are to reduce its ecological impact and the risk to human health." I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, but I am stocking up on KN95 masks. 
• Donald Trump’s Second Term Will Be Bad News for Endangered Ocean and Coastal Animals. "The waters around the United States are home to many threatened species who need science-based conservation policies to save them from extinction. They won’t get that for the next four years." Nor will any other species, including us. 
• Earth's oceans are filled with what scientists are calling "dark vessels". "The findings reveal staggering gaps in public tracking systems, raising urgent concerns about maritime transparency, environmental sustainability, and global security."
• Sand and dust storms: a growing global health threat calls for international health studies to support policy action. "Sand and dust storms increasingly threaten global environmental and public health. To date, 150 countries are directly affected, with more than 100 classified as non-dust source regions."

Finally, an Android App for Apple TV+

So for those of you like me who have only sipped a bit of the Kool Aid, Apple TV+ finally has an Android app. This is good because, although we have a subscription, the only way I could use it until now was through the Rogers TV app. It's a pain to navigate through and even with a large TV, I have trouble using it. 

Unfortunately, Apple have not seen fit to add cast capability, which means I still have to use the TV app to play shows or movies, but at least I can easily browse through Apple TV+ on my phone. I do hope they add it at some point, but Apple being Apple, I'm not holding my breath. 

It would be nice if I could get it to run on my Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet, but it won't accept my correctly typed email and password. My guess is that Amazon's brain-dead forked version of Android is too old for the Apple app. It's not a big deal as I've finally given up on Android tablets and am going to buy an iPad Mini one of these days.

The DOGE Cyberattack on America

I've posted a couple of times about the cybersecurity implications of the DOGE takeover of the US government's computer systems (here and here). Now, cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier has published an article in Foreign Policy (archive link) going into more detail on the attack (for that's exactly what it is) and its implications. I said it was bad and according the Schneier, it's even worse. 

First, system manipulation: External operators can now modify oper cybersecurity Bruce Schneier has published an article in Foreign Policy (archive link) going into more detail on the attack (for that's 2exactly what it is) and its implications. I said it was bad and according the Schneier, it's eve ations while also altering audit trails that would track their changes. Second, data exposure: Beyond accessing personal information and transaction records, these operators can copy entire system architectures and security configurations—in one case, the technical blueprint of the country’s federal payment infrastructure. Third, and most critically, is the issue of system control: These operators can alter core systems and authentication mechanisms while disabling the very tools designed to detect such changes. This is more than modifying operations; it is modifying the infrastructure that those operations use.

To address these vulnerabilities, three immediate steps are essential. First, unauthorized access must be revoked and proper authentication protocols restored. Next, comprehensive system monitoring and change management must be reinstated—which, given the difficulty of cleaning a compromised system, will likely require a complete system reset. Finally, thorough audits must be conducted of all system changes made during this period.

This is beyond politics—this is a matter of national security. Foreign national intelligence organizations will be quick to take advantage of both the chaos and the new insecurities to steal U.S. data and install backdoors to allow for future access.

Each day of continued unrestricted access makes the eventual recovery more difficult and increases the risk of irreversible damage to these critical systems. While the full impact may take time to assess, these steps represent the minimum necessary actions to begin restoring system integrity and security protocols.

Assuming that anyone in the government still cares.

A First in Drone Warfare

The war in Ukraine has led to major advances in the use of drones. By some reports, Ukraine is now producing more than 100,000 drones per month, using them for reconnaissance and attacks on Russian vehicles and positions. Now for the first time, the Ukrainians have staged a successful attack using only drones without any ground troops.

In the early dawn hours, as the sun rose in the first week of December 2024, a symphony of drones began to sound.

But this was no ordinary drone wave.

In fact, this one was the first attack of its kind: a successful, all-drone assault on Russian positions. The assault, deserving of a place in the history books, took place near Lyptsi, in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine.

It was a test – initially expected to fail – of whether multiple units could orchestrate a mission with dozens of FPV, recon, turret-mounted, and kamikaze drones all working in tandem on the ground and in the air.

The photos and videos in the article are particularly interesting, especially the video showing three drones moving over a snowy field, with one of them being a very creepy dog-like drone. 

I should note that the drones weren't autonomous and were being controlled by a team of specialist soldiers and that was roughly three times the number of drones used in the attack. But that may not be the case for long.  

A Newsletter Course in Media Studies

Author Annalee Newitz is using her online newsletter, The Hypothesis, to publish an a series of articles based on an introductory course in media studies that she taught at the University of San Francisco. 

The first article is titled What is "media"? A primer for Americans.   

I owe a lot to my USF colleagues and students, who taught me how to teach media in the twenty-first century. My students asked unexpected questions and spurred me to rethink my approach and the topics I covered. They also introduced me to pop culture and perspectives I never would have discovered on my own, outside the classroom. With these letters, I hope to extend that classroom experience to you, my reader.

Each letter will be loosely based on a lecture from my course. I’ll also include some in-class exercises we did, to suggest ways you might explore media analysis on your own. In today’s letter, I’ll introduce you to the big themes of this series, and give you a fun introductory exercise.

Media studies gives us insights into what media is, and where it comes from. But most importantly, it teaches us how to challenge and change the messages that our media carries.

I'm very much looking forward to this. I've read a several of Newitz's novels and enjoyed them and plan on reading her history book, Four Cities. Her latest book, Stories Are Weapons, is a history of psychological warfare.

Featured Links - February 10, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. After last week's blast of political stories, this week's articles are mostly politics-free. 

A winter farm

• The Batbible. The series bible for DC's Batman comics, written by Dennis O'Neil and updated by Scott Petersen. 
• Why Kodak is ‘Cracking Down’ on Respooled Motion Picture Film. "This week, Reflx Lab announced that it would soon no longer be able to offer some of its respooled 35mm motion picture stock because Kodak is more strictly “crack[ing] down” on respoolers. So, why is Kodak forfeiting the extra money made by selling to brands like Reflx Lab?"
• When Doctors With A.I. Are Outperformed by A.I. Alone. "A series of recent studies compared the performance of doctors with A.I. versus A.I. alone, spanning medical scans, diagnostic accuracy, and management reasoning. Surprisingly, in many cases, A.I. systems working independently performed better than when combined with physician input." 
• The rise of ‘influencer voice’: Why this TikTok creator accent is taking over the internet and maybe the world. "Was that a question? Online platforms have long influenced how we speak. Now a new generation of TikTok creators are fueling the latest variant."
• Video Game History Foundation to release scans of 1,500 vintage gaming magazines. "The VGHF's digital archive will be fully searchable, allowing researchers and enthusiasts to track the first mentions of influential games, developers, and gaming concepts."
• An Exoplanet Menagerie for SciFi Writers. "What would it be like to stand on an alien planet? Here's a quick tour of recent discoveries."
• NASA’s Historic Asteroid Sample Holds Clues to Life’s Origins. "The discovery is a capstone achievement for NASA, which went to great lengths to secure and deliver asteroid samples from asteroid Bennu in 2020."
• In Seattle, a Convergence of 5,444 Mathematical Minds (gift link). "Participants at this year’s Joint Mathematics Meetings explored everything from the role of A.I. to the hyperbolic design of a patchwork denim skirt."
• SpaceX has reshaped the landscape around Boca Chica, Texas. "The Starbase rocket testing facility is permanently changing the landscape of southern Texas."
• Why North England is poor. Some of the reasons discussed in this article would also apply to Northern Ontario.
• American Medical Association YouTube channel. Now that the CDC isn't doing updates about infectious diseases, the AMA has stepped up. 

Photo of the Week - February 9, 2025

I took today's photo on Highway 28 between Peterborough and Port Hope during a rather tense drive on a very snowy afternoon. It turned out rather well for a grab shot through the passenger side car window. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro and tweaked in Google Photos to increase the contrast.

A winter tree

Saturday Sounds - Woody Guthrie All-Star Tribute Concert 1970

This week's musical treat will appeal to lovers of classic folk music. It's an all-star tribute concert in honour of the great Woody Guthrie from 1970. Here's the list of performances. 

1) "This Train Is Bound For Glory" by the Group
2) "Oklahoma Hills" by Arlo Guthrie
3) "Pretty Boy Floyd" by Country Joe McDonald
4) "So Long, It's Been Good To Know Yuh" by Joan Baez & Pete Seeger
5) "Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad" by Country Joe McDonald, Arlo Guthrie, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Pete Seeger
6) "I Ain't Got No Home" by Pete Seeger & Arlo Guthrie
7) "Do Re Mi" by Arlo Guthrie
8) "Plane Wreck At Los Gatos (Deportee)" by Joan Baez
9) "Ramblin' Round" by Odetta
10) "Roll On Columbia" by Pete Seeger & Earl Robinson
11) "900 Miles" by Richie Havens
12) "Woman At Home" by Country Joe McDonald
13) "The Sinking Of The Reuben James" by Pete Seeger
14) "I've Got To Know" by the Group
15) "This Land Is Your Land" by the Group

This extraordinary and vintage historic event, never before seen, brings together an impressive lineup including Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Country Joe McDonald, Odetta, Richie Havens, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and more, showcasing their prime performances. The star-studded concert served as a fundraiser for the California Chapter of The Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease, now known as the Hereditary Disease Foundation, as Woody Guthrie himself succumbed to Huntington's disease in 1967. 

Narrated by acclaimed actors Peter Fonda and Will Geer, this concert was expertly produced by four-time Emmy Award winner Jim Brown.

This appears to be an official upload to YouTube and video and sound quality are excellent. Enjoy.

The Government’s Computing Experts Say They Are Terrified

I posted about this earlier in the week. In this article, The Atlantic interviewed four government computer experts about Musk's incursion into the government's computer systems. They are "terrified". So am I. 

The four experts laid out the implications of giving untrained individuals access to the technological infrastructure that controls the country. Their message is unambiguous: These are not systems you tamper with lightly. Musk and his crew could act deliberately to extract sensitive data, alter fundamental aspects of how these systems operate, or provide further access to unvetted actors. Or they may act with carelessness or incompetence, breaking the systems altogether. Given the scope of what these systems do, key government services might stop working properly, citizens could be harmed, and the damage might be difficult or impossible to undo. As one administrator for a federal agency with deep knowledge about the government’s IT operations told us, “I don’t think the public quite understands the level of danger.”

Here's one specific example.

 In the FAA, even a small systems disruption could cause mass grounding of flights, a halt in global shipping, or worse, downed planes. For instance, the agency oversees the Traffic Flow Management System, which calculates the overall demand for airspace in U.S. airports and which airlines depend on. “Going into these systems without an in-depth understanding of how they work both individually and interconnectedly is a recipe for disaster that will result in death and economic harm to our nation,” one FAA employee who has nearly a decade of experience with its system architecture told us. “‘Upgrading’ a system of which you know nothing about is a good way to break it, and breaking air travel is a worst-case scenario with consequences that will ripple out into all aspects of civilian life. It could easily get to a place where you can’t guarantee the safety of flights taking off and landing.” Nevertheless, on Wednesday Musk posted that “the DOGE team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system.”

I can think of many other possible consequences, none of them good.  

 

 

2024 Locus Recommended Reading List

Locus, the newsmagazine of the science fiction and fantasy field, has published its recommended reading list for 2024. The list includes novels, short fiction, collections, anthologies, non-fiction, and illustrated and art books, and is an unofficial long list for field's major awards. 

In the list of recommended science fiction novels, these are the ones that I've either read (marked with *) or have already purchased or plan to read:

• Echo of Worlds, M.R. Carey
• The Mercy of Gods, James S.A. Corey 
• The Bezzle*, Cory Doctorow
• Machine Vendetta, Alastair Reynolds 
• Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky

As always, the Locus list is a good place to start if you are looking for a good book to read.

Be Prepared for Some Very Bad Things to Happen to the US Government

It's being reported by Wired and other sources that the team of young engineers under Elon Musk's direction now have full administrative-level access to the US Treasury Department's payment system, and have actually made changes to production systems.  

From Talking Points Memo:

Phrases like “freaking out” are, not surprisingly, used to describe the reaction of the engineers who were responsible for maintaining the code base until a week ago. The changes that have been made all seem to relate to creating new paths to block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked. I want to emphasize that the described changes are not being tested in a dev environment (i.e., a not-live environment) but have already been pushed into production. This is code that appears to be mainly the work of Elez, who was first introduced to the system probably roughly a week ago and certainly not before the second Trump inauguration. The most recent information I have is that no payments have as yet been blocked and that the incumbent engineering team was able to convince Elez to push the code live to impact only a subset of the universe of payments the system controls. I have also heard no specific information about this access being used to drill down into the private financial or proprietary information of payment recipients, though it appears that the incumbent staff has only limited visibility into what Elez is doing with the access. They have, however, looked extensively into the categories and identity of payees to see how certain payments can be blocked.

Adding further anxiety about the stability of the system there is, I’m told, a long-scheduled migration scheduled to take place this weekend which could interact in unpredictable ways with the code changes already described.

I cannot stress how dangerously crazy this is. From a security point of view, it's appalling; they could, and may already have, downloaded personal and possibly classified information onto their own computers. But that aside, YOU DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THE PRODUCTION SERVERS OF COMPLEX FINANCIAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT EXTENSIVE PREPARATION AND TESTING.  

Sorry for shouting, but I speak from personal experience here. I worked for more than a decade at the Toronto Stock Exchange documenting their trading systems and saw the kind of testing that was necessary before patching or upgrading the Exchange's production network and servers. Access was tightly controlled and you did not (and in fact, could not) just walk in off the street and access those systems. 

In a same world, Musk and his entire team would be escorted out of the building in handcuffs, charged with multiple federal crimes, and taken straight to jail. And Trmup would be impeached for letting them proceed. 

I've seen very little mention of this in the mainstream press so far. I don't think they understand just how badly the government has been compromised. This is unquestionably the worst security breach in the history of the United States. And that may not be the worst of it.

Movie and TV Reviews - January 2025

Movies and TV shows that Nancy and I watched in January. I do these posts mainly so I can keep track of what we've been watching, so the reviews are cursory.

Movies

• Star Trek: Section 41. This movie has very little to do with Star Trek and wasn't even a good action flick. It was a total waste of time. (Paramount+)

TV Shows

• Antiques Road Trip (season 28): Jumping forward to the latest season. They've changed the format so there's no cumulative total of what the buyers end up with. We prefer the old format, but are still watching it. (PBS)
• Darby and Joan (season 2): This season is getting a bit more interesting than the first. The scenery of Queensland is still the strong point. (Acorn TV)
• Vera (season 14): Vera finally hands in her badge. At least they didn't kill her off. Given that Brenda Blethwyn is 78, I can understand why she wanted to finish the show. (BritBox)
• Silo (season 2):  Season 2 is much like season 1, but with a wider scope. I have a hard time believing in the setting, as I don't see how they could keep the silos going for as long as they have, but ignoring that, it's well made and dramatically compelling. Apple TV+
• Dalgleish (seasons 1-3): Another police procedural/mystery series, this one based on novels by P. D. James (which I have not read). It's well done but didn't really grab me. (Acorn TV)
• The Tower (season 3): Another British cop show. This season continues the themes and character conflicts from the previous seasons. (Acorn TV)
• Skeleton Crew: Another Disney Star Wars series, this one featuring a group of children who stumble on an abandoned space ship. It was reasonably watchable with believable interactions among the kids and first-rate visuals.  (Disney+)
• Saint-Pierre: A Canadian crime drama set on the French island of Saint-Pierre. The lead actress had a supporting role in Death in Paradise. This one is light with an interesting setting but otherwise nothing special. (CBC Gem)

Featured Links - February 3, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. My apologies for the all-politics content this week but these articles are important. Maybe I'll do another post later in the week with some non-political content. 

Speeding towards the bridge

• I am nonbinary. The gender that no longer officially exists in the United States. A BlueSky thread by author Annalee Newitz about what it means to have your gender erased by your government.
• The End of North America. "Trump pulls the trigger on tariffs. .... And to think that many people imagined that Trump would be good for business."
• Did you hear about the Friday coup? "Elon Musk is in control." Where is the mainstream press? This should be being reported with 72-point, front-page headlines. Coup is not too strong a word. Study your history if you don't think so. 
• IT'S A COUP--Trump Moves to Completely Take Over Government. This is a long post and absolutely terrifying. 
• Letters from an American: February 1, 2025. The group that serves President Donald Trump is gutting the government both to get revenge against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law and to make sure he and his cronies will never again have to worry about legality."
• These Clowns are Economic Illiterates. "Trump treats tariffs like a toddler treats a new word, repeating it endlessly without grasping its meaning in his stained, clutching hands."
• The Logic of Destruction. "And how to resist it." An important read from the author of On Tyranny and On Freedom.
• List of products from the United States subject to 25 per cent tariffs effective February 4, 2025. "Effective February 4, 2025, the government is imposing 25 per cent tariffs on $30 billion in goods imported from the United States (U.S.)." It's a long list.
• The Big-Money Right-Wing Push to Upend the Constitution—and Kill Birthright Citizenship. "We’re in totally uncharted territory." But you don't need a flashlight to see where we are going. 

Photo of the Week - February 2, 2025

I continue to be fascinated by the fractal patterns made by the bare branches of trees in the winter. This is a picture of a birch tree not far from our house. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro using the wide angle camera: F1.95, 1/105 second, ISO 44. I wasn't expecting the quality to be this good.

Bare branches in winter

Saturday Sounds - The Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - 1986/07/04 - Orchard Park, NY

This week's Saturday Sounds post is something that is personally special because I was there. The concert was the Grateful Dead (as the opening act) and  Bob Dylan with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at Rich Stadium in Orchard Park, NY, just outside Buffalo on July 4, 1986. The concert was part of Farm Aid and hence there are decent videos circulating. 

I went to the concert with four other people, one of whom was Nancy Vindum, the wonderful woman who is now my wife. We consider it to be our first date. 

This was the fifth time I'd seen the Dead and it wasn't the best of the shows I'd seen. We were far enough back that I couldn't really see the band, there were no video screeens, and the sound was rather distant, though clean. At the time, the Dead's performance felt perfunctory, though listening to it now, it was certainly energetic enough.

This is a video of the second set, upgraded to 1080p from VHS, with soundboard audio. The "Cold Rain and Snow" opener was appropriate as a small shower passed over us right then. Note that there is no sound until the Dead's set starts about 4 minutes in. There is a video of the first set on YouTube, but it's for completists only. 

The second video is of Bob Dylan with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I enjoyed it more than the Dead's set and more than some of my friends who were more into Dylan's folk period. The video doesn't include the last six songs, which is unfortunate, as we left about halfway through the set because we had a two-hour drive back to Toronto. The video and audio quality aren't quite as good as the Dead's video but it is watchable. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did in 1986.