Featured Links - April 8, 2026

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

A choppy bay

• The Next Coup Attempt. "And How to Stop It." An unsettling post from historian Timothy Snyder. 
• The Artemis Earth photo is incredible – but the one thing that nobody is telling you about it will blow your mind. 'The famous "Hello, World" photo by astronaut Reid Wiseman isn’t quite what you think.' I didn't figure it out until I read the article.
• How to Find Thunderbird Profile Location in Windows 11, 10, 8, 8.1, 7. I needed to figure this out because Thunderbird moved the profile folder on my wife's laptop and my backup program couldn't find it. This is a useful article for anyone using Thunderbird on Windows.
• The Lancet: Long COVID and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease. "A recent study (see PLoS Med.: Association Between COVID-19 Vaccination and Sudden Death in Apparently Healthy Younger Individuals) found no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of sudden cardiac death in young healthy adults, but they did find a strong link between recent COVID infection and an increased risk of sudden cardiac death." 
• Data Centres Are on Track to Wreck the Planet. Can We Stop Them? "They will guzzle more water and power than the world can afford—for an AI video of your cat as an astronaut."
• Any USB drive or cable you plug in might be a silent killer. "As if we didn’t already have enough malware to worry about, malicious hackers and state-sponsored cybercrime teams are turning ordinary-looking USB drives and cables into weapons that can infect or fry — within a single second — any computer or electronic component you plug them into."
• Experiments refute dark matter claim. "The results of her analysis, which have excluded the dark matter explanation with greater confidence, were published in Physics Review Letters ...". 
• Canadian couple shows how a $40 weekly food budget is possible. "Michelle Nijdam, 31, has been gaining a following online after she started sharing how she sticks to a strict $160 monthly budget (or $40 weekly budget) while living in Vancouver — one of the most expensive cities in Canada. On her YouTube channel, @MichellesHomemaking, she talks about the ups and downs of having a tight budget while sharing some handy tips."
• Gambling on War and Death. "Polymarket allows anonymous accounts to bet on everything — but with increasing attention to war. Will a tanker be seized? When will the next drone strike occur? Gamblers can even look at maps of Ukrainian villages and play the odds on which neighbourhood of innocent civilians will be hit. It is literally about making a killing on killing. And it is also about manipulating the market in frightening ways."
• The 51st State Fantasy Is Over: How King Charles and Mark Carney Put An End To Trump's Desire To Invade Canada. "How Trump’s annexation campaign collapsed against 200 years of history, one king, and a prime minister who played the long game."
• Art UK. "Connecting you to art. Art UK is a unique digital experience that connects everyone with the UK's public art collections. We digitally unite one million artworks from 3,500 institutions – museums, libraries, town halls, hospitals – as well as public art in our streets such as sculptures and murals."
• Why U.S. Gatling Guns Are Not Stopping Iran’s Shahed Drones. "In any discussion of drone defense, Gatling-type guns are often presented as a trump card. These rapid-fire weapons, originally developed to defend U.S. warships against sea-skimming missiles, can easily down bigger and faster threats than a 120 mph Shahed drone. On paper they look devastatingly effective, and news reports speak enthusiastically of their “shredding Iranian drones.” But they are not a magic wand to make all drones disappear, and some Shaheds are getting through."
• America forgot how to make a classified nuclear warhead ingredient. "The U.S. government forgot how to make a classified component of its own nuclear warheads, then spent $92 million figuring it out again. The material is called Fogbank, and almost everything about it is classified — its composition, its purpose, and how it's manufactured." Just think of all the money they could have saved if they'd had a documentation library,

Featured Links - February 25, 2026

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

The Ultra-Rich Are Different from You and Me. "Only the little people pay taxes, redux." We need to get back to the 1950s model of progressive taxation. 

11 steps to smarter Google account security. "Give yourself some added peace of mind by giving your Google account a thorough set of security reinforcements."

The state of dark mode. From the AskWoody newsletter, the state of dark mode in Windows 11 and some tips for enabling dark mode on some of the remaining features that don't yet support it. 

Some of the cracks had penetrated through': Chinese astronauts reveal new details about spacecraft that 'stranded' them in space last year. "Crew members of China's Shenzhou-20 mission recently detailed their reactions upon finding cracks in their spacecraft's viewport during the nation's first spaceflight emergency." 

'We almost did have a really terrible day.' NASA now says Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut flight was a 'Type A mishap'. "This was a really challenging event in our recent history."

Lake Erie’s Storm Surges Become More Extreme (gift link). "Officials are designing new ways to protect the shorelines from sudden flooding and longer storm seasons."

The Perfect Storm. "When warnings are everywhere, and still no one moves."

Featured Links - April 22, 2025

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

I am surprised this shed lasted the winter. 

• Just one exo-Earth pixel can reveal continents, oceans, and more. "Even from a single pixel, multiwavelength data taken over time can reveal clouds, icecaps, oceans, continents, and even signs of life."
  
• Association of self-reported and accelerometer-based walking pace with incident cardiac arrhythmias: a prospective cohort study using UK Biobank. "Average and brisk self-reported walking pace and time spent walking at moderate and brisk pace were associated with a decreased risk of cardiac arrhythmias, in part mediated via metabolic and inflammatory pathways. Our findings suggest brisk walking may be a safe and effective exercise to reduce arrhythmias, especially for higher risk groups."
• The iPhone 16 Pro Max helped me see – with a little help from the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. "Specifically, the 5x telephoto cameras on both flagship phones came in very handy, letting me zoom in on details on the Reichstag or the myriad of street art sprayed onto the walls and buildings of the city. But both phones really helped me and my poor eyes when visiting the Berlin Zoo." 
• DOJ's menacing letter to med journals "a chill down the spine of scientists". It will take a generation to repair the damage that the Trump regime has already done to US science and medicine. 
• 5 services I disabled to improve Windows performance. There are certainly many more services that could be disabled but this is a good start. 
• 'Bad Omen': Ancient Pyramid in Mexico Collapsed Into A Pile of Rubble. Extreme weather events and rising seas are putting precious heritage sites around the world in harm's way. "A stunning example of this phenomenon in 2024 was a stone pyramid in Mexico succumbing to an increasingly chaotic global climate."
• A three-storey home built in just three days? Why this Toronto tear down may hold the key to Canada’s house building strategy (archive link). "Construction of a prefabricated home just off the Danforth shows how the building technique can combat climate change." It's about time and I hope we see more of this. 
• 5 takeaways about NPR's reporting on the whistleblower report about DOGE at the NLRB. The security nightmare continues. IT security people must be tearing their hair out.
• Breakthrough gravity discovery challenges the existence of dark matter. "Richard Lieu offers a theory that could challenge one of the biggest assumptions in astrophysics. His idea: gravity can exist without any mass at all." Yet another theory that aims to eliminate the need for dark matter. 
• No, astronomers almost certainly didn’t find biosignatures of life on another planet. "I’m not even convinced they found the molecules they claim to have found." Some skepticism on recent news from astronomer Phil Plait. 
• Aylmer - The Canadian Soup. A commercial that's now showing on Canadian TV. Take that, Trump!

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.'

Using the Windows 11 Magnifier

I just discovered that Windows 11 has a magnifier function that you can enable under Settings > Accessibility. Once enabled, you open it with the Windows Key + Plus Key combination. 

By default, it gives you a 200% magnification of the full screen. I don't usually need that much so I have set it to 150%. You can set it to magnify an area around the mouse cursor if you prefer. I now have it set to turn on when I log in and have pinned it to my taskbar. 

Full details on all of the Magnifier settings are on the Microsoft website.  

Update: As I noted in the comment, the Magnifier interferes with the reverse colour mouse cursor that I prefer to use. It turns out that starting the app manually from the task bar will also cause this to happen, though it may not happen immediately. So I am not going to use the app for now. I may take another look at this in the New Year to see if I can find a permanent solution, because it is a handy tool. 

Featured Links - October 15, 2024

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

The moon over Frenchman's Bay

• Jim’s Toolbox — So many nifty tools in one collection. A simple utility that provides a front-end to many Windows' settings and features in one place Easier and faster to use than digging through the Windows 11 interface. 
• Mossad’s pager operation: Inside Israel’s penetration of Hezbollah (gift link). "New details emerge of Israel’s elaborate plan to sabotage Hezbollah  communications devices to kill or maim thousands of its operatives."
• Conceptual models of space colonization. From SFF author Charlie Stross: "And what I'm nibbling on is, to paraphrase Oliver Cromwell, the big question of what if all our models or paradigms for how to structure a colony effort are wrong?"
• The Wilderness Hidden in the Heart of Toronto (gift link). "A sprawling network of ravines threaded through Canada’s largest city offers urban explorers an oasis of birdsong, burbling creeks and whispering trees." The ravine system really is a natural wonder and extends out of Toronto; see the Rouge River system to the east which is a national urban park.
• One of the busiest emergency departments in Ontario also has some of the shortest wait times. "On a tour this week, Peter Voros, Humber River’s vice-president of clinical programs, showed off how the command centre and its staff keep patients flowing. One of the big-screen TVs displayed how long patients had been sitting in the ER’s “O-zone,” where patients wait if they are expected to be examined and sent home. Experienced nurses known as clinical expediters monitor the screens and intervene if a patient waits longer than the targeted time for their health complaint."
• Missing immune cells may explain why COVID-19 vaccine protection quickly wanes. "New insights on what stimulates long-lived antibody production could spur better vaccines."
• Amazon is filled with garbage ebooks. Here’s how they get made. "It’s partly AI, partly a get-rich-quick scheme, and entirely bad for confused consumers."
• COVID-19 raises the stakes for heart attacks, strokes, and even death long after infection, new study finds. "The study, involving nearly a quarter-million adults, found that those with any type of COVID-19 infection in 2020 had twice the risk of suffering a major cardiac event—a heart attack, stroke, or even death—in the three years after a diagnosis than those who weren’t infected. People whose infections were severe enough to warrant hospitalization faced nearly a four times greater risk of a major cardiac event or death than the uninfected group."
• 'It went horribly wrong': DNA analysis sheds light on lost Arctic expedition's grisly end. "By comparing DNA from the bones with a sample from a living relative, the new research revealed the skeletal remains belonged to James Fitzjames, captain of the HMS Erebus. The Royal Navy vessel and its sister ship, the HMS Terror, had been under the command of Sir John Franklin, who led the voyage to explore unnavigated areas of the Northwest Passage. The treacherous shortcut across the top of North America meanders through the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago."
• The politically incorrect guide to saving NASA’s floundering Artemis Program. "To get somewhere, Artemis must avoid going nowhere."

Featured Links - August 12, 2024

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

Our Rose of Sharon in bloom

• Colorado: CVMA Statement On Influenza A (HPAI H5N1) in Domestic cats. If you have a cat, be aware that cats can catch H5N1 avian flu, especially if that cat goes outdoors.
• Old Crap – Museum of Computer Anatomy. "Best photos and technical documentation of retro computers, TVs and digital watches that are part of my collection. I document them as my time permits."
• Bite-sized Threats of Ticks. "All you need to know, including yes, disinformation."
• Iceland's recent volcanic eruptions driven by pooling magma are set to last centuries into the future. "One of our findings suggests that magma from the first eruption pooled just under the island's surface, where it built up the energy to spectacularly erupt. This initial burst of volcanism made it easier for more eruptions to follow after it."
• A Million Dollar Math Puzzle Just Got A Little Bit Closer To A Solution. "It's a result that's being described as "sensational".'" The tagline is a bit hyperbolic, but it could have implications for cryptography. 
• Support for rehabilitation: self-management after COVID-19-related illness, second edition. "This leaflet provides support and advice for adults who are recovering from COVID-19. It can be used by individuals after hospitalization from the illness and those in the community who did not need hospitalization." This is from the WHO. 
• Please Advise! Is Poilievre Winning the Battle of the Bots? "Of course, says Dr. Steve. Just ask Yesenia from Russia." Canadian politics aren't as ugly as in the US, but we're getting there.
• Design flaw has Microsoft Authenticator overwriting MFA accounts, locking users out. If you use Microsoft Authenticator, you should read this. 

Featured Links - August 6, 2024

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

Cover for Torus 3 by Taral Wayne

• Taral Wayne (1951-2024). A tribute to the late Toronto fanartist from Mike Glyer at File 770. Taral provided several covers to my fanzine, Torus, when I was publishing it in the late 1980s. His cover for Torus 3 is above. 
• The Indomitable Covid Virus. An overview of where we stand with the current COVID wave (it's getting worse) and vaccine development (the research is promising but the development is far too slow). 
• Consensus.app. This is an AI-powered search engine that gets its answers solely from published scientific research. It looks like it will be very useful for certain search topics. Find out more about it in the Cool Tools newsletter.
• More of America’s homeless are clocking into jobs each day. 'Homelessness, already at a record high last year, appears to be worsening among workers." It's happening here in Canada too.
• The missing introduction to A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown. The book will be published later this month. Brown says: "This is the most personal work I have written, a distillation of a lifetime of outdoor exploration, reading, and living into a manifesto for rethinking how we live in the world and care for it—and for each other."
• How I learned to use my PC with a broken wrist. "After fracturing my wrist in a recent fall, I had to figure out how to use the accessibility features built into Windows to work and write."
• Surprising element found in traces of Tycho Brahe’s alchemy lab confounds scientists. "While Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe is best known for his celestial discoveries made in the 16th century — before the invention of the telescope — he was also an alchemist who brewed secret medicines for elite clients. But what exactly Brahe worked on in his alchemical laboratory, located beneath his castle residence and observatory called Uraniborg, has be
  en something of a historical enigma."
• Mad Magazine at the Norman Rockwell Museum. "I visited the fantastic exhibit about Mad Magazine at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Its collection of Mad original art and artifacts is absolutely amazing." I would love to see this exhibition. I wonder if it will be travelling to other galleries?
• Take your dog on a "sniff walk". "I recently learned how important sniffing is for dogs, and it's changed my entire approach to dog walking for the better!" Our dog is a small dog, close to the ground, and spends most of her time outdoors on "walks" sniffing everything she can get close to. It obviously matters to her a lot more than to us.

Featured Links - July 2, 2024

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

Summer flowers

•  How to trim a video on Windows 11 or Windows 10. "Windows has a hidden video editor that will let you trim videos — no Clipchamp necessary." I didn't know the Photos app could edit video. 
• Pollution From Epic Ohio Train Wreck Put 110 Million Americans at Risk. "A new study found traces of hazardous chemicals from the East Palestine disaster in 16 U.S. states." And probably a lot of Ontario, too. 
• Study: Scribes in ancient Egypt had really poor posture as they worked. "There were degenerative joint changes in the spines, shoulders, knees, hips, and ankles."
• New study reveals comet airburst evidence from 12,800 years ago. "Researchers continue to expand the case for the Younger Dryas Impact hypothesis. The idea proposes that a fragmented comet smashed into the Earth's atmosphere 12,800 years ago, causing a widespread climatic shift that, among other things, led to the abrupt reversal of the Earth's warming trend and into an anomalous near-glacial period called the Younger Dryas."
• The Insurance Apocalypse Conversation America Won't Have. "A predictable disaster unfolds apace."
• Last Dangerous Visions Table of Contents. As well as the TOC for the book to be published in October, the article shows which stories were in Ellison's planned version as of 1979. 
• Exploring the WordStar file format. "As an early entry in word processing, WordStar’s file format is quite simple." This article might be useful if you still have some WordStar files tucked away in the dark corners of your hard drive. It was the first word processor I used, but I switched to WordStar 2000 and then Microsoft Word for DOS. 
• What everyone gets wrong about the 2015 Ashley Madison scandal. "Nine years after hackers targeted Ashley Madison, the dating site for wannabe adulterers, many people still don't grasp what was truly chilling about the scandal, says Annalee Newitz." She reported on the original hack in 2015.
• Decades later, John Romero looks back at the birth of the first-person shooter. 'Id Software co-founder talks to Ars about everything from Catacomb 3-D to "boomer shooters."'
• To Ban or Not to Ban? When the Issue is Masks, There’s Really No Question. "Mask bans are ableist, racist, and likely unconstitutional. As enforced, they almost surely will violate the Americans with Disabilities Act on a regular basis; the text of the North Carolina ban bill that says, in effect, “not meaning to violate the ADA,” is ludicrous in the face of how the bill will surely be implemented."

Featured Links - June 10, 2024

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

The hydro marsh from Alex Robertson park

• 10 ways to turn off Windows’ worst ads. "Windows will let you use your PC in relative peace. You just have to flip the right switches." I would say that not using Edge is one of the best ways of beating the ads. Don't try to clean it up; just don't use it.
• High fidelity. "What makes an adaptation work well?" A good discussion of adaptations of both books and games.
• Here comes the sun(screen). "Nuances in effectiveness, safety, and more."
• Excel gets Regular Expression functions. "Excel 365 is getting new functions that bring the power of Regular Expressions (RegEx) into spreadsheets.  It’s HUGE news and a big step forward for Excel." I used regular expressions frequently when I was working in Word and they are indeed useful, especially for complex searches. 
• Scientists map one of Earth’s top hazards in the Pacific Northwest (gift link). "A catastrophic earthquake and tsunami will one day hit the Pacific Northwest as tectonic plates slip at the Cascadia subduction zone."
• Oliver Nelson: The Blues and the Abstract Truth. An appreciation of a jazz classic from a master composer and arranger. As much as I like this album, I think his arranging on the two Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith collaborations is his best work.
• I finally tried the Meta AI in my Ray-Ban smart glasses thanks to an accidental UK launch – and it's by far the best AI wearable. 'Look and Ask' is flawed, but surprisingly useful" If they keep improving these, I might consider it in a couple of years. It could be genuinely useful for people like me with low vision. 
• Colorado’s Bold New Approach to Highways — Not Building Them. "The state has made it harder to widen highways, and transportation officials are turning their eyes to transit." Ontario, and its highway-crazy premier, could learn something from Colorado.
• Smartphone Cameras Owe Their Power to Astronomy. "The next time you snap a selfie, consider thanking an astronomer for your phone’s camera."

Windows 11 Annoyances

There may be people out there who love Windows 11 but I have yet to find one. The prevalent attitude online seems to range from grudging acceptance to outright hate. I fall into the first category but the more I use it, the more I wonder if I should take a closer look at Linux. 

Kyle Barr reviews computers for a living so he has to use Windows 11, but he's not happy about it. On Gizmodo*, he's compiled a list of the eight things he finds most annoying about Windows 11 along with some suggestions about how Microsoft could make it better.

Here are the first three items on his list:

• Microsoft Edge is a Dark Pattern Nightmare
• It’s Way Too Annoying to Change Default Apps
• There’s Constant Popups for Microsoft’s Services by Default

Some of his annoyances relate to his need to constantly install and reinstall Windows, something that most users won't have to do very often. Others, like his complaints about Microsoft Edge, will affect everyone. (Unless you live in the EU where you can uninstall it). 

I'm surprised the list isn't longer. For example, he doesn't mention the turgid mess that is File Explorer, or one of my pet peeves, how difficult it is to get Windows to resize text and apps away from the default settings. And then there's the Start menu, for which there is Start11, thank heavens. 

What's your biggest Windows 11 annoyance? 

* This comment is specific to Gizmodo (and several other sites) who have decided to use a slideshow format for articles like this and don't give users the option to view the article as one long page. Shame on you. 

 

Featured Links - February 26, 2023

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

A winter beach

• Dodge Lodge. "This week, we remember a Cinderella story gone wrong and learn why playing with dynamite is a bad idea." A fascinating bit of Northern Ontario history that I have not heard about before this article.
• ‘Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything. "The term describes the slow decay of online platforms such as Facebook. But what if we’ve entered the ‘enshittocene’?" From Cory Doctorow, who coined the term last year.
• Google is making a map of methane leaks for the whole world to see. "A satellite that measures methane leaks from oil and gas companies is set to start circulating the Earth 15 times a day next month. Google plans to have the data mapped by the end of the year for the whole world to see." This is a very good idea.
• The ultimate guide to using PowerToys. "Windows may not be perfect, but Microsoft gives you the tools to make the experience better with PowerToys. Here's everything you need to know." If you are using Windows, you need PowerToys and this article is the best guide I've seen.
• How to digitize and declutter your CDs and DVDs. "Save the content you still want, sell the discs you don't."
• Google's inconsistent Pixel experience makes its phones impossible to recommend. "Three generations into the Tensor experiment, the time has come to stop making excuses for Google's buggy software." I'm more concerned about Google's penchant for killing off apps and services. I've never forgiven them for sunsetting Google Reader. 
• Long Covid ‘brain fog’ may be due to leaky blood-brain barrier, study finds. "If barrier controlling substances entering and exiting brain is off balance, it can drive changes in neural function."
• Bluesky: An Open Social Web. "Today, we’re excited to announce that the Bluesky network is federating and opening up in a way that allows you to host your own data. What does this mean?" I have not signed up for BlueSky yet though I probably will at some point. But right now I spend too much time on Mastodon and I don't need another time sink in my life. If you use BlueSky, I'd be interested in your experience if you want to leave a comment.

Featured Links – February 12, 2024

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

Ducks in the bay

• Do We Simply Not Care About Old People? In the last week of 2023 and the first two weeks of 2024 alone, 4,810 people 65 and older lost their lives to covid — a group that would fill more than 10 large airliners — according to data provided by the CDC. But the alarm that would attend plane crashes is notably absent. (During the same period, the flu killed an additional 1,201 seniors, and RSV killed 126.)
• 5 dark mode upgrades for your Windows 10 or 11 PC. "Microsoft is slowly making dark mode better on Windows, but these tips will give your dark mode a big upgrade today." I would have a hard time using my computer without dark mode. I second the recommendation in the article for using the Dark Reader extension. 
• Next-Generation Spaceplanes Are the Cutting-Edge Evolution of the Space Shuttle Dream. "Spaceplanes seemed out of favor when the Shuttle was retired in 2011. They now seem to be making a comeback."
• Moderately Advanced Aliens Could Easily Take Over A Milky Way-Like Galaxy, Simulations Show. "A new simulation has looked at how quickly a moderately advanced alien civilization would take to spread itself across a galaxy and the answer is not long at all, at least in relative cosmic terms. Even equipped with spaceships not much faster than our most advanced interplanetary probes, the whole ordeal could happen in just 1 billion years."
• Micromobility: An Urban Transportation Revolution. "E-bikes, E-motorcycles, E-scooters displacing oil use and improving urban living."
• Why physicists are rethinking the route to a theory of everything. "Physicists’ search for a theory that explains all reality in one framework appeared to have stalled. But now they are reinvigorating the hunt by exploring a wild landscape of abstract geometry."
• The Super Bowl will be watched by 100 million people. But not all of them will see the same game. "Two million Canadians and 13 million Americans live with colour blindness, and North American sports are behind on making their products accessible." Fortunately, I have normal colour vision, but I can understand how being colour blind would be a real problem for sports fans. 

Using the Accessibility Features in Windows 11

I've made no secret here of the fact that I'm very nearsighted. I'm sitting in front of a 32" 1440p monitor. I couldn't use a 4K monitor even at this large size. Even then, I scale up the text size to 150 percent. That works for most things I do on the computer.

As well as adjusting the font size, I use a large inverted-colour mouse cursor and a keystroke command to help me find the mouse, which I tend to lose when it's near the edge of the screen. But Windows has many more accessibility features to help users with special needs and not just vision. 

In Make Windows 11 easier to see, hear, and use the Ask Woody newsletter explains Windows 11's vision, hearing, and interaction features to help people with disabilities or limitations. It's a good article with clear explanations and lots of screen captures. I found several things that I didn't know about, despite having looked at the Accessibility settings several times. 

Windows has improved a lot in this area over the years, though there are a few things that still don't work the way that you would expect. Scaling of UI elements is one; I tried increasing the scaling size but had to go back to the default because of inconsistencies and issues with text overlapping fields and the like. Applications, even Microsoft's, need more work. I can zoom an Excel spreadsheet but the entry field below the ribbon doesn't zoom. Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom are horrible, even after using the limited scaling they provide, and lack the ability to control the colour or contrast of UI elements. 

I hope these limitations will be addressed in the future. We've come a long way but there's still much room for improvement. 

Featured Links - November 20, 2023

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

Foraging geese

• Here’s the Proof There’s No Government Alien Conspiracy Around Roswell. "Roswell, New Mexico, remains synonymous with the “discovery” of alien life on Earth—and a US government coverup. But history shows the reality may be far less out of this world—and still fascinating." This pretty much debunks the Roswell incident as far as I'm concerned.
• Starship & Superheavy Become The Biggest Rocket In Space.... Before Exploding. (YouTube link) Excellent analysis of videos showing the failure of both the booster and Starship. 
• How to use the secret software installer on your Windows PC. "Your PC has a big secret: The ultimate upgrade for installing and updating Windows applications." This is a good tip for Windows power users.
• Developers can’t seem to stop exposing credentials in publicly accessible code. "Many transgressions come from "very large companies that have robust security teams." It can happen in documentation projects too. I worked on a project once where a few of the screen shots included the IP addresses of internal servers and it didn't get caught until after the manuals were printed. We had to put stickers over the graphics.
• Welcome to eReaderIQ. Get email alerts when Kindle ebooks you are interested in go on sale.
• Physicists Simulated a Black Hole in The Lab. Then It Started to Glow. "A black hole analog could tell us a thing or two about an elusive radiation theoretically emitted by the real thing."
• "I'm so tired of these psychos": Moms for Liberty is now a toxic brand. "Last month, Salon reported on one town's fight over a right wing school takeover — Tuesday, the resistance won big."
• With the world on fire, a cowardly, timid news media is a threat to U.S. democracy. "News organizations are using cowardly words to describe killing abroad and fascism at home — downplaying the danger to democracy."

Featured Links - September 25, 2023

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

Frenchman's Bay 

• How to use Google News like an RSS reader. There are some useful tips in this article, although I wouldn't do as the article suggests and ditch my RSS feed reader.  
• Best LastPass Alternatives Of 2023. If you are still using LastPass, or not using a password manager at all, you should read this.
• Microsoft Sysinternals: The best Windows troubleshooting tools. "Microsoft Sysinternals provides the best tools you need to troubleshoot Windows systems." 
• 50 programs that fix Windows problems with just a few clicks. "All you need is the right software to quickly fix common Windows headaches. Here are 50 ultra-handy tools."
• The Long Goodbye. A long article about the final Dead and Company tour. Wish I could have seen them.
• When the Breakthrough G-Agonists Exceed Expectations. "The expanding GLP-1 family of drugs and their expanded potential use cases."
• The Summer That Reality Caught Up to Climate Fiction. "Once deemed outlandish and fitting for a dystopian novel, today's unfolding events challenge fiction writers to redefine their narratives."

Featured Links - September 11, 2023

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

Eroded tree by the lakeshore

The Energia-Buran Archive. More than 1000 photos of the Soviet Union's heavy-lift rocket and orbiter. 

The End Will Come For The Cult of MAGA. "The next generation isn’t buying it." Let's hope that's true.

Fish doorbells! Historic sandwiches! "50 of the weirdest, most wonderful corners of the web – picked by an expert." 

If Corporations Bore the True Cost of Their Emissions, They’d Owe Trillions. "And that doesn’t even include “downstream” carbon spewing." Corporations are getting a free ride by not having to include the environmental impact of both the production of their products and their eventual disposal.

Coercion versus Care. "It’s irrational and costly, and spreading everywhere, this 4:1 or 5:1 ratio of coercion to care. Witness the recent decision of a US school district to replace libraries with ‘discipline centers’, or the UK Tory politician Robert Jenrick’s purely sadistic instruction for a child refugee centre to paint over the cartoons on the wall. Or indeed, the appetite of the UK’s Department of Work and Pensions, to target £8 billion in ‘fraud’, when £20-30 billion of welfare that people need and deserve goes unpaid each year because its systems are so user-hostile."

'Rich Men North Of Richmond' Singer Rips GOP Candidates After Song Is Played At Debate. "Oliver Anthony, whose song 'Rich Men North of Richmond' became a conservative rallying cry, clarified that he wrote the hit song 'about the people on that stage' for the GOP presidential debate."

Rufus and ExplorerPatcher: Tools to remove Windows 11 TPM pain and more. "Turn off chip detection, bypass need for a Microsoft account, change how Explorer works."

Featured Links - July 17, 2023

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

Downtown Port Hope

Sorry, Elon: Chinese Company Becomes the World's First to Launch Methane Rocket to Orbit. "The Zhuque-2 rocket beat other methalox-fueled rockets, such as SpaceX's Starship, to orbit."

When Norman Rockwell Got Woke: The Story Behind 'The Problem We All Live With'. "In the 1960s, America's most famous artist defiantly transformed himself from an inadvertent white supremacist into a radical civil rights activist."

‘Heart-stopping’: censored pages of history of Elizabeth I reappear after 400 years. "British Library uses new technique to uncover passages of Camden’s Annals, the first official account of Elizabeth’s reign." 

The Top 14 Android Secret Security Codes You Need to Know. "Looking for the best Android secret codes and hacks? Here are the top USSD codes to sharpen your smartphone's security and privacy." I've had an Android phone for more than a decade, and I didn't know about these codes.

Potential Setback for Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin as Rocket Engine Explodes in Test. "The company's BE-4 engine is meant to power ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket, the inaugural flight of which has already been delayed several times."

Stunning Wet Bulb Temperature Update. "The Danger Zone is Far Lower Than We Thought." This is important to know considering the extreme hot weather that many of us have been experiencing.

Microsoft Announces a New Default Font, Aptos. It's about time; I dislike Calibri.

Windows 11 Field Guide – An Essential Resource

I finally replaced by decade-old HP PC with a new PC, a custom build from our excellent local computer store, United Computers. It is blazing fast, quiet, and has enough horsepower to run current games and do anything else I'm likely to want to do. 

I briefly entertained the idea of switching to a Mac, but I have too much experience with Windows to want to switch, and Nancy and I have no Apple hardware. So I got the new PC with Windows 11 Pro. My feeling, after a week of installing and configuring the most essential software, is that I'd rather have stuck with Windows 10 had that been possible (it wasn't). 

Windows 11 is easier to use that Windows 10, at least in some respects, and harder in others. The harder parts come with increasing complexity. What annoys me the most is that there are often multiple ways of accessing a feature or changing a setting. That's just bad UI design. It may be inevitable, given the history of Windows and the need to support legacy applications, but it's still a pain to deal with.

What has REALLY helped is Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 Field Guide. Thurrott is a tech journalist, host of the long-running Windows Weekly podcast, and has been covering Microsoft and Windows for over 30 years. The Guide is published on his website,  thurrott.com, requires an subscription to access, and is continually updated.

I can't emphasize this enough: it is worth every penny. Already, in just a week, it has more than justified the $55 (US) cost of an annual subscription. Subscribers also get access to more articles and other benefits, but the big one is the Guide.

Even if you don't want to subscribe, there's quite a bit of useful content available on the website, including forums that cover a range of topics, not just Windows. 

With the demise of Twitter, and probably Reddit, thurrott.com is an even more valuable resource. Check it out. 

Featured Links - April 24, 2023

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

Frenchman's Bay

• Sci fi author Lavie Tidhar: Using Midjourney to explore ethics of AI. "AI tools can explore the ethics of AI itself, says Lavie Tidhar.  His new dystopian film uses AI image-generation program Midjourney to tell the story of a well-meaning artificial intelligence trying to help the last surviving human." Do watch the video. It's quite good and very unsettling.
• Nearby Supernovas Pose An Extra Previously Unconsidered Threat To Life. "Having a star in our vicinity go supernova poses three threats to life, not two, and the worst one may be the one we haven’t been thinking about."
• Starship OFT Thoughts. An article about last week's Starship launch from someone who was there. He was overwhelmed by the launch but thinks that SpaceX is going to have major problems with the launch systems. 
• Users Claim the Latest Windows 10 Update Breaks Some Printers. "Microsoft’s most recent update was meant to fix Windows incorrectly labeling printers, but it appears to have introduced new problems." If you are using Windows and suddenly can't print, this may be the source of the problem.
• A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics. "So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of complex quantum systems."
• The Bicycle Is Nothing. "Today the Netherlands has a reputation as a kind of bicycling paradise. Dutch people own more bicycles per capita than any other place in the world. The country has more than 20,000 miles of dedicated cycling paths. International policymakers make pilgrimages to the Netherlands to learn how to create good bike infrastructure. But none of that was inevitable. It wasn’t something that magically emerged from Dutch culture."
• Cracking the Chess Code: A Groundbreaking Study Reveals Hidden Patterns in Openings. "In a study analyzing millions of chess games, researchers identified ten distinct clusters of chess openings, developed a method to determine player skill and opening game difficulty, and found potential applications for their classification system in other strategy games."
• 2023 TV Update. A post from Tim Bray with much useful information about setting up and using a modern TV with a receiver and Google Chromecast (which is similar to my setup).