Featured Links - October 29, 2025

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

Autumn colours in the park

• Catalog of Dark Patterns. "Discover a variety of dark pattern examples, sorted by category, to better understand deceptive design practices."
• Electronic Eye Implant Restored Vision in Patients With Age-Related Macular Degeneration. '"The device could be a boon for millions with vision loss from advancing age." They still have a long way to go before this technology becomes widely available and effective. 
• I tried using NotebookLM as a personal journal (and it worked better than I expected). If you keep a personal journal, this might be worth looking at. 
• This free video editor replaced everything I used to pay for in Adobe Premiere. "Here’s why Lightworks is a solid Adobe contender…" I don't do enough video editing to need anything more than Clipchamp but I do need to find an alternative to Photoshop. 
• GlassWorm: First Self-Propagating Worm Using Invisible Code Hits OpenVSX Marketplace. " It's using stealth techniques we've never seen before in the wild - invisible Unicode characters that make malicious code literally disappear from code editors. Combine that with blockchain-based C2 infrastructure that can't be taken down, Google Calendar as a backup command server, and a full remote access trojan that turns every infected developer into a criminal proxy node." This is a security nightmare.
• OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws. "In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." 
• The Pivot. "I'm calling this the pivotal year of our times, just as 1968 was the pivotal year of the post-1945 system, for a number of reasons." A thought-provoking article from SF author, Charlie Stross. 
• 5 undeniable, truthful facts about dark matter. "Dark matter has never been directly detected, but the astronomical evidence for its existence is overwhelming. Here’s what to know." This is the most convincing article I've seen yet for the existence of dark matter as opposed to other theories. 

Photo of the Week - October 26, 2025

This week's photo is of one of the lookouts over the hydro marsh along the Lake Ontario shore near the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. It's part of the waterfront infrastructure rebuild after high water levels and storms destroyed the boardwalk and beach infrastructure a few years ago. 

This picture was taken with my Fujifilm X-S10 and edited in the Windows 11 Photos app to straighten it and boost the contrast and saturation a bit to compensate for the cloudy sky. The Photos app has become a decent basic editor and is good enough that I'm considering cancelling my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. 

Marsh lookout, Fujifilm X-S10 with Fujinon 16-80 mm, F5.6, 1/450 second, ISO 400, Velvia film simuation

Saturday Sounds - Nebraska '82: Expanded Edition

Like many Bruce Springsteen fans, I've been waiting a long time for Springsteen to release an expanded edition of Nebraska with outtakes and the rumoured electric version. It's finally out and that's this week's musical treat.

Was it worth the wait? After a first listen, I'd have to say, not really. There's some good stuff here. The first disc has a couple of unreleased tracks and demo versions of some of the songs that eventually ended up on Born to Run, including the title track. But the electric version on the second disk is a bit disappointing and doesn't come close to some of the live tracks I've heard, even including the recent tour. (The version of "Reason to Believe" that he did when I saw him in Toronto last year was absolutely stunning.) The solo perfornance on the third disk is just meh and modern tech can't add much to the remastered version of the original album.

For a review from a more knowledgeable critic, see this from Pitchfork. 

So here it is anyway. It's not a revelation but diehard fans will probably find more nuances in it than I did.

Apple iPad Mini 7 After Six Months

Back in April, I finally gave up on my Amazon 8" tablet and bought an iPad Mini 7. Shortly after that, my sister gifted me with an iPad Air 3rd Generation (2018). At the time, I posted about my first impressions, and this post is an update to that. Most of the comments here will be based on the iPad Mini; I'll get to the iPad Air at the end of this post. 

Yesterday, I published a post about my first impressions of iPad OS 26.

Hardware

I have three main complaints about the iPad Mini hardware. 

• The screen's maximum brightness isn't bright enough. It can be difficult to use outside beause of that. 
• The battery life is not great. It's better than my Pixel phone, but I expected more. It seems to be somewhat worse under iPad OS 26, even with the Liquid Glass interface toned down.
• It doesn't have FaceID. I can unlock my phone by looking at it; that would be a nice capability to have on the iPad. (I think I knew about this going in, but I didn't realize how much it would bother me). 

It's a well-made tablet with a very good screen, especially considering that it's not an OLED panel. I did think about buying a pencil for it, but it seems that Apple changed the way pencils work with the Mini 7 and I can't find one that is compatible with the Mini 7 and my iPad Air 3. 

Reading

My main purpose for buying the iPad Mini was to use it as an ereader, and for that, it works quite well. I use both the Amazon Kindle app and Google Play Books for reading ebooks. 

The Kindle app doesn't get bright enough on the Mini, forcing me to use the system control for brightness. OTOH, the Play Books app doesn't always retain its brighness setting. The Kindle app will sync page count between the iPad and my phone in both directions; the Play Books app will sycn from the tablet to the phone but not the other way around. Given the font size issues I've had with the Kindle app on my phone, I prefer using Play Books, so that is annoying. Both have their strong points but overall, I prefer Play Books.

I also use Libby, primarily for reading magazines from the library that aren't available on News+. (Discover and Astronomy, for example) or that don't support the text mode in News+. 

A suggestion to Apple: Add the ability to adjust the brightness on an app-specific basis. This would work the same way the Font Size control works. It would be handy for apps, like the Kindle app that have their own brightness control but don't get bright enough, or that rely on the system brightness setting. 

News+

I got a three-month trial of News+ with the Mini and it didn't take long for me to realize that I was going to have to pay for it when the trial expired. It's now become my main source for browsing for news articles and reading magazines. I do wish that more magazines had the "read articles in text mode" feature, though I have been able to use Libby for some that don't support it.  (Both Libby and PressReader have a text-mode feature that works on all magazines). Even if something is available from the library, News+ often has content from their websites, which is one of the handiest features. 

When reading magazines, I usually use the iPad Air for News+; it's easier to use on the larger 11" screen. 

iPad Air

I won't be upgrading the iPad Air to iPad OS 26. I've seen too many comments online about performance problems. It's running iPadOS 18 just fine and I don't want to risk messing it up. It is still getting updates to IOS 18 and given my limited usage, it will probably be fine even after updates to that stop. 

Going Forward

I will probably start looking at some of the native iPad OS apps and maybe a few casual games (a chess game would be nice to have). I should also try Safari; so far I've been using Chrome for the little web browsing I do on the tablets. And I need to take a closer look at the accessibility features; my eyes are not getting any better.

First Impressions of iPad OS 26

This is the first of two posts about my Apple  tablets. Tomorrow's post will be about my experience with the iPad Mini. 

I put off upgrading my tablets to iPadOS 26 for a month, but finally decided that the Mini shouldn't have any problems running it. My main concern was the Liquid Glass interface, which looked to me like it could seriously compromise readability. The first thing I did after upgrading was to turn down the transparency and motion effects. Given that, I haven't noticed any readability issues that weren't also present before upgrading.

I did turn on the windowing interface, mainly so I could access app menus. I was worried about readability because they are very small at  the top of the window, but they expand to a reasonable size when triggered. One of my peeves about iPad OS in general is that the top-of-screen menus and icons are too small and there doesn't seem to be any way of making them bigger (unlike Windows). I did run into a problem in Play Books where the bottom controls (go to TOC, move the page slider) wouldn't' respond; I had pulled down the window a bit too far and switching back to the full-screen interface fixed it. (I haven't been able to reproduce that so it may have been a glitch). 

I was excited to hear that Apple had introduced the Accessible Reading feature.  Google's similar Reading Mode app is a lifesaver on my Pixel phone. Sadly, Apple's version is not up to the quality of the Google app. It's fussy to customize, it's not clear how to switch out of it to the standard interface, and sometimes it just hangs up. I'll have to experiment more with it and hope that Apple improves it in later OS updates. 

Battery life, which was not great to start with, seems to be a bit worse under iPad OS 26, even with the Liquid Glass junk turned down or off. 

I'm certainly not the only one who doesn't want to have anything to do with the Liquid Glass interface. N/g, founded by user interface experts Jakob Neilsen and Don Norman, have published an epic takedown of IOS 26 and Liquid Glass.

The interface is restless, needy, less predictable, less legible, and constantly pulling focus rather than supporting seamless access to content. Instead of smoothing the path for everyday tasks, iOS 26 makes users relearn basics while enduring a constant parade of visual stunts.

Apple may call it Liquid Glass. To many users, it feels more like a fogged‑up window: pretty from a distance, but frustrating when you try to see beyond it.

Apple seems to be feeling the heat. The latest IOS beta includes an option to turn off Liquid Glass, or at least reduce the transparency effects. (There are options that will do this under the Accessibility settings, but they are not prominent). 

 

Featured Links - October 21, 2025

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

• Sportsnet gives viewers what they want after Brendon Little’s Game 5 meltdown in ALCS — the unvarnished truth (gift link). Even the broadcasters from the network owned by Rogers (who own the Blue Jays) were criticizing manager John Schneider's controversial eighth-inning call. 
• Not needed, not wanted. "PEC defaces Sir John A's building anyway." A story about a citizen's successful action against small-town bureaucracy.
• Mark Carney Is a Very Demanding Boss. "His elbows-up enthusiasm won him the election. Now he’s governing like a Bay Street exec." A long and detailed profile of Canada's new prime minister. It's not a puff piece but the contrast between him and Trump is stark. 
• The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh. Some economic pessimism from Cory Doctorow.
• A High-Tech Ankle Guard Is Helping NBA Players Stay in the Game. "BetterGuards has teamed up with the NBA Training Association to outfit players with its adaptive ankle brace. The pro ballers are avoiding serious injury while evaluating the stabilizing design."
• The Great Reckoning: What the West Should Learn from China. 'The economic historian Adam Tooze, reflecting on his recent, intense engagement with China, put it to me in July with characteristic directness: “China isn’t just an analytical problem,” he said. It is “the master key to understanding modernity.” Tooze called China “the biggest laboratory of organized modernizations there has ever been or ever will be at this level [of] organization.” It is a place where the industrial histories of the West now read like prefaces to something larger.'
• How we sharpened the James Webb telescope's vision from a million kilometers away. "We would be using Webb's highest-resolution mode, called the aperture masking interferometer or AMI for short. It's a tiny piece of precisely machined metal that slots into one of the telescope's cameras, enhancing its resolution. Our results on painstakingly testing and enhancing AMI are now released on the open-access archive arXiv in a pair of papers. We can finally present its first successful observations of stars, planets, moons and even black hole jets."
• Millions of Us Have Likely Lost Our Smell Without Even Realizing It. "The impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt across the world, but some consequences are more noticeable than others. New research suggests a large proportion of people may have lost their sense of smell after catching COVID-19, without even realizing it."
• ‘What I do with my body is none of your business’: musician Beverly Glenn-Copeland on trans rights, cult stardom and living with dementia. "His music was ignored for decades. Now, at 81, he is collaborating with pop stars. He and his wife talk about his extraordinary life – and facing severe illness."
• Constipated? Here’s What Actually Works, According to Scientists. "New evidence-backed guidelines highlight the things most likely to help you stay regular in the bathroom."
• Beware “Evil Kerning”: How Hackers Trick You with Fake Email Addresses. Someone needs to write a browser plugin that displays URLs in a monospace font that cant be kerned.

Bluesky PSA

If you are on Bluesky, you may want to have a look at this blocklist. On Friday the Trump regime tried to spam Bluesky by setting up a whole bunch of accounts and then posting the usual odious crap. Fortunately, Bluesky makes it easy to block accounts and even easier with blocklists, which require only a couple of clicks to block the whole list. Here's one you can try.

Photo of the Week - October 19, 2025

This week's photo is another of the world's longest pedestrian-only bridge, in Pickering, over Highway 401 and the rail corridor. I edited this with Google's Magic Eraser tool to remove a black box sitting on the floor beside the window. As far as I can tell, it worked perfectly. The original photo is also below.

I took the photo with my Pixel 8 Pro and edited it on the phone. So far, the AI tools haven't made it to the desktop version of Google Photos, perhaps because I'm in Canada. 

The Pickering pedestrian bridge (edited)

The Pickering pedestrian bridge (original)

Saturday Sounds - Chicago Jazz Philharmonic - Havana Blue (Live)

For this week's musical treat, we're back to jazz with a lovely album by a group with the unwieldly name of Orbert Davis' Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble. This is another find from SiriusXM; I was struck by the song "Sabor" and had to find more by the group. There isn't much, two albums: Havana Blue (Live) which contains "Sabor" and The Chicago River, which is a tribute to, you guessed it,  The Chicago River. Of the two, I prefer Havana Blue (Live). 

As you might guess from the group's name and the album's title, this big band orchestral jazz with a Latin flavour. It's quite lovely and is now on my Spotify jazz playlist. 

Featured Links - October 14, 2025

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

A grey Lake Ontario

• Toronto vs Chicago: Transit Moving Masses Through The Metropolises. On the map, it looks like Chicago has a more extensive transit network than Toronto, but the reality on the street is very different. 
• A digital dark age? The people rescuing forgotten knowledge trapped on old floppy disks. "From lectures by Stephen Hawking to the letters of British politician Neil Kinnock – it's a race against time to save the historical treasures locked away on old floppy disks." This was a real eye-opener and really interesting. 
• How can a blind photographer take such great photos? Find out here. As a photographer and a person with low vision, I found this both interesting and  inspiring.  
• The Village and the Stars. "Science Fiction, Greenwich Village, and the American Counterculture." An article by Robert Charles Wilson. 
• Regular Expressions, and AI. Using ChatGPT to help construct useful regex expressions is something that would have been a great timesaver in my last job. 
• Engineers create first artificial neurons that could directly communicate with living cells. "A team of engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced the creation of an artificial neuron with electrical functions that closely mirror those of biological ones."
• The Destruction in Gaza Is What the Future of AI Warfare Looks Like. "American tech companies have given highly consequential support to Israel's campaign."
• Another mid-M7 earthquake in the Drake Passage. "The third large earthquake to strike between South America and Antarctica this year." 
• Have We Reached a Space-Junk Tipping Point? "In some orbits, the Kessler syndrome is already underway." This is rather disquieting. 

Off for t he Thanksgiving Weekend

It's Thanksgiving weekend up here in the (soon to be) Great White North. We celebrate earlier than our US cousins because our growing season is shorter and harvest earlier. So I'm taking the weekend off to do things like getting the garden ready to plant garlic, cooking a big dinner for the family, and watching the Blue Jays in the ALCS. I''ll be back on Tuesday. 

Future home of next year's garlic crop

We're Toast 63

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. 

Our future

• Scientists issue warning after discovering concerning phenomenon in trees: 'Simply not keeping up'. "Increasing temperatures around the globe are threatening habitats and ecosystems. In fact, a study by the United Nations declared that 14% of the world's coral was lost between 2009 and 2018 because of warmer ocean temperatures."
• The Siberian Tundra Is Exploding. New Research Helps Explain Why. (gift link) "Spontaneous gas explosions appear to be increasing in northern Russia because of climate change and some specific local conditions."
• Trump's Crusaders: Christian Nationalists Are Gaining a Solid Foothold in Washington. "U.S. President Donald Trump has opened the doors of power to far-right Christian nationalists." Gilead is rising in the US. 
• Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid. "It’s not just a phase."
• ‘Nightmare bacteria’ cases are increasing in the US. " Infection rates from drug-resistant “nightmare bacteria” rose almost 70% between 2019 and 2023, according to a new report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists."
• COVID-19 infections impair our immune systems for months or even years. "Even mild cases can lead to serious health problems years later."
• European Society of Cardiology: Major Consensus Statement Released on Long-Term Cardiovascular Impact of COVID Infection. 'Professor Vassiliou said: “Covid-19 has a profound and lasting impact on cardiovascular health, with complications emerging during acute illness, recovery, and even after reinfections or vaccination. In the absence of clear evidence-based guidance, patients risk harmful treatments and clinicians face uncertainty.'
• Oxford Historian Offers Dire Warning With Prediction Of How Long Americans Have To Save Their Democracy. "Noted British historian, author, and head of the Oxford University European Studies Center Timothy Garton Ash wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian that the 2026 midterm elections will decide the fate of the United States.. Will it continue as a democratic republic of unified states or continue on its current path to become the Christian nationalist, White supremacist authoritarian regime the Republicans' Project 2025 called for."

Photo of the Week - October 5, 2025

This week's photo is of Highway 401 facing east taken from the Liverpool Road overpass. The bridge in the background to the GO station happens to be the longest pedestrian bridge in the world, according to Guinness. There was very little traffic, even for a mid-week afternoon, on one of the busiest highways in North America. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro. 

Highway 401 and the Pickering pedestrian bridge

Featured Links - October 6, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. I didn't post last week, so here's a baker's dozen for you. 

GO Train tracks out of Pickering

• Chicago and the Horrors of Carte Blanche. "The Trump regime believes it has all the justification it needs to violate our laws and the Constitution. It is mistaken." I am boggled that this is not front-page news and appalled at the silence of the mainstream media. 
• How China is Powering a Clean Energy Revolution. "And bringing cheap electricity and energy security to poor countries."
  
• When Did the New Global War Begin? "So maybe now I can finally pose the question that has been keeping me up at night: At what point will it become evident that we have entered a global conflict? A third world war?"
• CHORD will be a huge leap forward for Canadian radio astronomy. "The next-generation radio telescope will leverage Canadian astronomical leadership to unveil the mysteries of the cosmos."
• Canada Tables A Bill That Can Net You Life In Prison For Hate Propaganda/Hate Speech. IRL And Online. LFG. "You Might Want To Start Scrubbing Your MAGA Timelines..."
• ALS Breakthrough Shows Fatal Disease Is Driven by Immune Attack. "Researchers have uncovered how the body’s own immune system may be driving the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS — a breakthrough that could reshape treatment of the fatal disease."
• Why a massive Russian plane was moved at Toronto Pearson Airport. The AN-124 has been there since the start of the Ukraine war. 
• Anya Pogharian, Montreal teen inventor, takes portable dialysis machine to the world. "18-year-old tests her invention on real blood during internship at Héma-Québec." I hoipe this works and can be put into wide production. It will change peple's lives.
• Declining American Democracy: Trump is a Symptom, Not the Cause. "The modern GOP is inherently authoritarian." This is one of the more insightful essays I've read recently.
• Rise of the Middle Powers. "Who are the adults in the room, in modern politics? And what if those adults want neither a return to American hegemony, nor a multipolar world order?"
• Scientists uncover how to block pain without side effects. "Current painkillers like ibuprofen and aspirin often come with harmful side effects because they shut down both pain and inflammation. But this new research identified a single “pain switch” receptor that can be turned off without interfering with inflammation, which actually helps the body recover."
• Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish? "Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and what we can do about it."
• He Created a Spiritual Jazz Masterpiece. He’s Still a Mystery. "Shamek Farrah’s 1974 debut is a highly sought-after rarity, but even his most ardent admirers know little about him. In a rare interview, he tells his story."

Saturday Sounds - Stevie Ray Vaughn - Live at the Capitol Theatre - October 4, 1985

This week's musical treat features Stevie Ray Vaughn playing at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ on October 4, 1985. I saw Vaughn in the summer of 1985 when he opened for Dire Straits in Toronto. I wasn't a big fan before seeing him play, but I was when I left the concert. There isn't a lot of quality footage of his concerts, so this is a treat. Video and sound quality are first rate.

 

Movie and TV Reviews - September 2025

Movies and TV shows that Nancy and I watched in September. I do these posts mainly so I can keep track of what we've been watching, so the reviews are cursory. Now that it's baseball season, there will probably be fewer items here.

Movies

No movies this month. We were watching too much baseball.

TV Shows

• Countdown: Another slick and expensive-looking thriller from Prime. It would have been better if they simplified the plot a bit and cut it back from thirteen to six or eight episodes. And toned down the American jingoism which really got on my nerves. (Amazon Prime)
• Foundation (season 3): I didn't much enjoy the first two seasons of Foundation, though it had some interesting ideas (not all of which were from Asimov's stories). The third season is quite good though I could have done without silly bits like the speeder chase in the one of the early episodes. Visually, it's absolutely first rate. Coupled with Apple's streaming quality, it's occasionally stunning. (Apple TV+)
• Ballard: A Bosch spinoff about a detective trying to solve cold cases who discovers police corruption. One of the better US police procedurals. (Amazon Prime)
• Alien: Earth. This is probably the best of the Alien stories since the first two movies. They've expanded the story and developed the background elements while maintaining the original 1980s (almost) steampunk aesthetic. It's very dark, both visually and thematically, and the fast-cut action sequences are hard to watch, but overall it's very well done. Like the original movie, it's not for the squeamish. (Disney+)
• Lynley: This is a reboot of Inspector Lynley, a British police procedural about two mismatched detectives that we watched a few years ago. We liked the original and we like the new version. (BritBox)