I enjoyed this because it took me a second to think what a not-dried prune is: a plum.

Ask a local to show you some of their winter clothes or to take you winter clothes shopping. Your warmest clothes right now are not warm enough. Capacitive touch gloves will let you use your phone.

If you have a car, get a snow brush and ice scraper (for windshield and windows). There is winter windshield fluid, get and use it when it’s snowing. Get winter tires, it makes a difference. Insurance companies give a discount for having them. If there’s snow on the road, go slower than you think you should, and start braking at least twice as early as when it’s dry. Accelerate and brake slowly. If your car is sliding on ice, resist the temptation to keep pressing your brakes, try your best to steer the slide instead.

If your car gets stuck in snow and you need to run it to keep it warm, make sure the tail pipe is well clear of snow (carbon monoxide). Keep an emergency blanket, hat, gloves in the car in case of breakdown. If the wheels are stuck in a snowbank (just spinning in place), some sand or non-clumping cat litter can give you traction. You can sacrifice your floor mats for this, too.

If you walk instead of drive, consider crampons for your boots for if it gets icy out.

There’s different textures and density to snow. Wet snow is dense and heavy, dry snow is light and fluffy. Shoveling can be very different depending on the snow. Lift/push with your legs, now with your arms or back. Take breaks if needed.

If you wear glasses, they will fog up when you go from outside to inside. Sorry. You could get anti-fog stuff used for snow and ski goggles, but most normal people just wait for them to warm up.

A scarf makes a big difference.

Wool can keep you warm even when wet.

Be prepared for power outages especially if the area does not bury power lines. Heavy snow, or worse, ice, can make tree branches heavy and fall and snap power lines. If this happens, be mindful of carbon monoxide. People, families have died trying to keep warm by running generators, stoves, etc indoors without proper ventilation.

Snow reflects sunlight; wear sunglasses if the sun is out and there’s snow on the ground.

Go outside and listen when the snow is falling. It makes everything quieter and it’s really ice to hear.

Snow that’s warmed slightly then frozen again is crunchy and fun to walk on.

If you’re north enough, the sunlight will not be sufficient for creating vitamin D. (Plus you’ll probably be indoors more, less daylight in general.) Consider a supplement.

Consider a SAD light if lack of daylight affects your moods.

The thing that I can’t understand about this product is why they didn’t cover the function keys. They are literally functional.

BBC series Merlin was a little like this. King Uther hated magic, Prince Arthur was kinda against it because he was told it was dangerous, but didn’t exactly hate it himself. Meanwhile Merlin took a job as a servant, doing magic-y things to protect him. Wasn’t a great series (writing), but it had enjoyable aspects.

I’ve found this to be true in general once I started working. I don’t feel kinda this was a thing when I was and was integrating with other students. I had to readjust my “responsible” self who actually would follow up (to people’s horror) and tell myself it’s a polite saying that people don’t mean. Like when people greet each other with “How are you?”, they generally actually do not want to know how the other person is doing. You’re expected to say “fine” or “good” and deviating from that is violating an unspoken social contract.

This guy reviews all kinds of e-ink devices. https://www.youtube.com/c/MyDeepGuide/videos

I watched his videos before deciding to get a large format BOOX Max Lumi (13") for PDF reading and note taking. I wanted the large one to split screen a PDF textbook on the left and notebook on the right. That was a few years ago, though, and I suggest reviewing some more recent videos to get an idea of what the current devices are like.

Mostly just Discovery and Picard is kind of halfway there.

SNW is a really fun watch once they’ve dealt with Pike’s future (which they kind of really have to). Personally I like that they go for different genres, but I can see why some people might not like that if.

Lower Decks is a riot and a half and I think it’s my favourite Star Trek, but it might be kind of cheating because it stands on the shoulders of all the other shows.

Prodigy is quite a bit different from the other shows, but it’s full of optimism, hope, and friendship. It doesn’t start out that way, they’re all very suspicious of each other at first. They grow into it as they learn more about themselves and each other, and aspire to be part of the Federation and Starfleet.

Netflix literally will not take my money anymore. I had cancelled my subscription during covid because money was tight, but I was willing to temporarily re-subscribe when the next season of select shows came out. I tried to re-enable my original account, but I couldn’t because they wouldn’t accept my credit card. I tried different cards, then tried to make new accounts with different emails and different credit cards, but still couldn’t. Netflix kept rejecting all my cards. I ran out of credit cards.

Look, I was willing to give Netflix my money, it’s not my fault they were unwilling to take it.

One time I had to use a website where the email 2FA expired in 30 seconds! I usually keep my email client open while my computer is on, but, come on, that was ridiculous.

Running Google Ads requires uploading your drivers license or passport. I’m a volunteer at a teeny non-profit. Why should I have to surrender that level of personal information for a business/non-profit account where I’m not even employed (no one is, it’s all volunteers)? I didn’t, and the account was suspended.

Duolingo does have that function. It’s much more obvious on desktop web, but in the phone app, you tap the notebook icons to the right of the headings. I mean, they’re not necessarily excellent explanations, but they’re there.

Refusing to use nail polish remover to clean off permanent marker because that’s “for women”. It’s acetone, my dude, acetone.

You need to check your reading comprehension. I never said there’s any such dichotomy about FOSS as a general concept. I specifically named Gimp, Inkscape, and Scribus before and after that sentence. Just because a FOSS “alternative” exists, doesn’t mean it actually is an alternative, or at least an acceptable one. Each software has to be evaluated individually. In the case of Gimp, Inkscape, and Scribus, they would not be acceptable in a professional creative space.

Gimp, Inkscape, and Scribus were terrible to use after using Adobe for years. Get Affinity suite instead and save yourself the rage and frustration. It’s one-time payment license (not a subscription) and they have deals. I got the license for the three of them for $90. They are way closer to Adobe products and definitely worth the one-time cost.

I love the concept of open source, but you can only make so many compromises in quality and usability, especially if you’re likelihood depends on it. Gimp, etc just aren’t there.

(On the other end of the spectrum, Blender is so amazing I can still hardly believe it.)

The problem is the inconsistency. The new UI has it so that the inbox is way more dense than the folders, no matter which density level you choosem

The newest release is visually awful. It drove me crazy and I had to downgrade back to the last stable (102). The content density was wildly inconsistent and text would be squished in one area and really spaced out in another. The toolbar moved so action buttons were in the title bar area, away from where your mouse would be (compared to before) if you’re interacting with your inbox.

Other than that, the old version works just fine. Multiple email accounts, calendar and contacts. It does the job. Minor nitpicks, like dark mode doesn’t dark evwrything, you still have to manually change your reading window colours. But at least it’s once and done.

You might enjoy “A Christmas Movie Christmas”, where the protagonists wake up and find themselves as the protagonists in a Christmas movie reality. It’s a comedy where you basically laugh at the troops while they call themselves out on it.

I don’t hate Google, I am deeply suspicious of Google.

I never watched Ghomeshi’s program and never had a personal opinion about him one way or the other prior to the allegations, but I think it’s important to be clear and accurate when making these statements (because inaccuracies weaken/discredit the whole). While it came out Ghomeshi is a misogynist who engaged in sexual harassment and enjoys violence against women, it also came out at trial that the women conspired together beforehand when they made the allegations of rape against them. Creep? Yes. Misogynist? Yes. Stay away from him? Definitely. Rapist? Not proven.

I used to provide some user support at a previous job. (It wasn’t exactly my job, but people would ask for help.) And it’d be easy to get frustrated, thinking people were stupid or incompetent, but I’d remind myself that being good at computers isn’t part of their job, it’s part of my job. These people were hired for other areas of expertise. If I had to do take on parts of their jobs, I’d look stupid and incompetent too.

That said… sometimes the level of incomprehension people have really is incomprehensible to me. There’s a level where you’re reaching wilful ignorance. When I point at something on the screen and tell the person to click on that… and they can’t or won’t move the mouse there and click on it…